Lovefraud recently received a letter from a woman who we’ll call Valerie. She met her husband, who we’ll call Dylan, at age 18, and has been with him for seven years. She thought they were happy together in their wonderful home with their family of pets.
Suddenly Dylan started acting erratically. He said he didn’t want to be with Valerie any more. He picked fights. She asked Dylan to leave, but made it clear that she was willing to do whatever was necessary to help him. So he left, and wouldn’t tell her where he was. Eventually, Valerie’s intuition told her to check her husband’s Facebook page, where she found Dylan’s love letters to another woman.
Then Valerie found how Dylan described himself on another website. Here’s what he wrote:
My name is Dylan and I believe in Chaos, destruction and murder. I will contradict myself but I don’t think that should make me a hypocrite. I hone my strengths and hide my weaknesses because only the strong will survive. I lie, cheat and steal. But only if it’s the most intelligent plan of action; & only the stupid get caught. I’m fighting a personal rebellion I can’t justify. I’m losing my mind, my friends and my morals with each passing day, but each day I pass leads me closer to finding myself. I would rather live my life in surrender to temptation than to deny my natural instincts. I never hurt those who do not hurt me first, I don’t believe in physical confrontation but as in eastern philosophy I am trained to engage in it, if for nothing more than the practice of strengthening the bond between mind and body.
I know who I am, but not where I am, or why I am here. I find Art to be the only voice of reason in a place otherwise inhabited by counter-production. I promote sex, but lack emotion, I hate addicts but I believe in drugs, I make music but I destroy everything else. I bore easily but I am doomed to repeat myself.
My name is Dylan and this is only the beginning.
Whoa! Did this guy just write the sociopath manifesto?
I don’t know if Dylan is truly describing himself—apparently he’s got some kind of hardcore band and perhaps he wrote the above statement for its shock value. Still, is it possible to even come up with these ideas if he didn’t experience the state of mind that they imply?
Fundamentally different
The truly scary thing about sociopaths is that they are fundamentally different from the rest of us. They do not want what we want. They do not value what we value.
Normal human beings want affection, cooperation and achievement. We want to care about others and contribute to life. Sociopaths want power, control and sex, and they’ll destroy anyone and anything to get what they want.
But sociopaths look like us and appear to act like us. That’s why they are so hard to identify. It’s also why people who have not experienced their manipulation up close and personal find it so difficult to believe us. The uninitiated—those lucky souls who have not been devastated by a sociopath—have yet to learn that there are people in the world for whom proclamations of love, truth and promises are nothing but tactics in a power game.
Everything changes
This is the bottom line: Dealing with a sociopath changes everything. Normal human courtesies do not apply. Social protocols do not apply. Rules do not apply. Contracts do not apply. Laws do not apply.
If we find that we are interacting with a sociopath, the best thing we can do is get the person out of our lives. When that is not possible, we need to be on mental red alert at all times and understand that anything the person says may be a lie. We need to know that for the sociopath, we are not a friend, or a lover, or a relative, or a co-worker. For a sociopath, all we are is a target.
Kinidheart,
These people are NOT going to change, no matter who is dying. PERIOD. END OF LESSON.
Therefore, if you go to see them, no matter what your intentions are, you will get nothing but GRIEF. I am sorry that your family is psychopathic/dysfunctional, but YOU CANNOT change that, and they WILL NOT change, so you have two, and ONLY TWO choices.
1) continue to go see them, and they will treat you like chit
2) Quit trying to go see them, accept the fact that they ARE chit, and will never change, and be happy with yourself in spite of what trash your family is.
I decided to take CHOICE #2 because as long as I kept thinking that things were going to change with choice #1, I stayed injured and in pain.
NO CONTACT—I will not even go to my mother’s bedside if she is dying or to her funeral afterwards. I made the decision. It is FINAL, I don’t want toxic people in my life.
AS LONG AS YOU HANG AROUND TRASH (NO MATTER WHAT THE RELATIONSHIP IS BY BLOOD OR OTHERWISE) YOU WILL GET NOTHING BUT PAIN FROM THEM.
It is like hitting youself in the thumb with a hammer repeatedly, when are you going to “get it” that the only way to stop your thumb hurting is to QUIT IT?
As long as you believe in “magical” thinking that there is ANYTHING that will “bring out the best in them” you will continue to hit yourself with the hammer, over and over and over —just SAY NO to pain!@.......
Thanks Rosa and Ox, i know im the black sheep of the family as i have been made to be it not by my choice i know. They are getting exactly what they prob want and that is for me to stay away like i usually have done but then they are getting to keep me from my Dad ( he is a very caring person just selfish and self centred) . Im not sure that my Father is as toxic as my brother and my sister in law thinks not the case with him even though she’s disappointed in him with her children(his little grandchildren). I just don’t want them controlling and getting what they want at such a crutial time but i have to admit i will prob just keep getting hurt if i go anywhere near them. So sad as my two boys are good kids and they have to sit and watch me get as my youngest (who sadly just left for Banff an hour ago) says, i’m “a softy trying to rub against callouses” is his term for this. Sad but true. I am going to try and just concentrate on getting back to work and my own sons as they unfortunately have their own issues with their dad as well. I just feel like they are going to make me the bad person when i’ve taken so much already and i know i’ve done nothing to deserve it other than be here.
i should mention as well that i’ve not gotten a dime from anyone and that’s just fine by me and my brother on the other hand has never stopped taking, to this day he is holed up in my dad’s shop in a lientu of sorts and has blown at least half a million of my moms, (deceased and penniless due to him, my dad, my grandmother etc.) and has nothing to show for it. Familiy responsibility is involved for his child support and he spends like a dozen drunken sailors but my Dad doens’t want to see himi that way so he just has kept inabling him. I on the other hand have not asked for a single dime and have survived on my own. I have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about and this is prob what burns my brother but the jerk should be grateful for all he has been given. I would seriously be retired on what he’s pissed away (sorry for the words). Detaching is so hard when this is the only family i have sans my own sons but i know i’ve been doing it all along really up until my dad getting sick . love kindheart
Kindheart:
I can relate to a lot of what you are saying.
If I had a loved laying in the hospital bed, and MY sister-in-law told me to stay away, or even insinuated it, I would go for her throat.
But, then again, she is a psychopath, and I am just looking for a reason to get my hands around her neck.
I give you a lot of credit for putting up with soooo much.
Kindheart:
And if you want privacy when you go visit your Dad, ASK FOR PRIVACY.
You are his daughter. You are next-of-kin.
You are entitled to that.
Tell the step-mother to go get a cup of coffee or something to eat. Or, maybe the nurses could clear the room for you?
First of all, Morgan, loved your post. I do feel that when I am looking outside of myself for something or someone in order to be happy, I have set myself up in the most defeating way. I was just doing it yesterday with my therapist, when I was mad that he could only be a therapist and not the family I need (I guess they call this transference).
Kindheart, this is a good seque (sp?) into my response to your struggles with your narcissistic family (that I can totally relate to). I just want to say that at the very core of the pain and darkness in my life is constant realizing over and over again that my family was/is not capable of loving me. Not only that, but they used me to try and fill their needs.
My biological father died about 6 years ago. I never had much relationship with him. When my mother and stepfather moved us out of state, my father basically just disappeared. I always longed for him and wondered when he would come and “save” me. Then I had a very telling dream about him a week or so ago. I dreamt that he was teaching at my old junior high school and was getting along well with all the students, except me. He wasn’t speaking to me. I was hurting that he had abandoned me. AND HE WAS ANGRY AT ME FOR PULLING AWAY FROM HIM. This is the narcissistic dilemma. Though I was the child, he expected me to comfort him during the divorce with my mother. I was 5 years old at the time!! I woke up from the dream in a rage. I am just really seeing the narcissism. This continues to be very painful for me. I try my best to just feel the pain, you guys. I can’t say I have gotten to the bottom of it. But I have started having goals and making plans for my life that I’m excited about. This is new for me. I’ve been in a rut for many years.
I just think that realizing our parents didn’t/couldn’t love us is one of the hardest things to face. It’s easy to get into bargaining with this and try to change them. I have worked on my mother for many years to no avail. Narcissists do not change. I’m sorry your family is like this too.
JaneSmith, I was one of those cute girls, too! We could have been twins…!!
Stargazer, I realize that pleasure is what I find when I look outside myself. Happiness truly does come from within. Truth may hurt my feelings but deception, lies, trickery all cause suffering. I am choosing not to suffer. It is up to me. People who I have encountered that were evil certainly caused suffering. But I have learned to work through that agony…because on the other side of it I find treasures. While in the middle of it, I have felt overwhelmed and absolutely crushed. There’s truth to “time heals all wounds.” I also believe “time wounds all heels.” People just can’t go through life destroying others without having severe consequences. There is justice–seen or unseen.
What I want is to learn lessons without experiencing such suffering. So, I’m taking an adventure of a new kind. I’ve decided to have a love affair with life (something from “Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self). It’s a different sort of path. But I’m determined to increase my happiness. Happiness can be a permanent state of being.
I saw the Dalai Lama in Atlanta in 2007. He was the most joyful person I’ve ever seen in my life. I think he must be onto something…!
I’ve enjoyed these posts today. Thank you, everyone, for your kindness. There are loving people in the world.
And Kindheart–I hope you find your world filled with more loving people. You have a right to happiness. And…you have a right to talk to your father. Maybe you could get a nurse to help you. If Hospice is involved those social workers are incredible. If you tell them that you need to speak to your father alone I believe that could make that happen.
Namaste.
Kind heart,
Look at what you said, “He is a very caring person, just selfish and self centered”
That is like saying “he is a NICE person, except when he is robbing banks”
KH, your father is NOT a caring person AND Selfish and self centered. He is one OR the other, but cannot be BOTH.
Your obviously MIXED and contradictory feelings about and for him I think are what is keeping you in the stew and pain and chaos.
I think it is fairly normal for us (humans) to want our parents to love us, but at the same time, when they are incapable of doing so (selfish and self centered) like mine are & were, the best thing is to ACCEPT that they are like they are and either decide to see them knowing that, or to go NC and keep away from them. Stop the mmixed messages to yourself, and decide how YOU feel about HIM. (((hugs))))
Akitameg – I was on welbutrin for 6 months – I think it helped with the depression, it did not make me happy, but helped with anxiety more than anything. The only side affect’s I had was a state of numbness, it also affected my erections, but living with the emotional and physical effects of being with a socipath I figured ‘hey I dont need or care about sex anyhow, so I continued taking them until recently. I got off the welbutrin and started taking Sam-E – a vitamin supplement someone mentioned on this blog. So now I am past that awful anxiety and severe depression and yep, the other side effect improved but – oh well – …Take the welbuterin for 6 months and then wean your self off is my suggestion.. And about that letter that Dylan wrote? why would a sociopath expose himself like that? I tend to lean torward the mentally ill concept instead of the s/p/n. the letter is frightening and the guy should be avoided. But doesnt a sociopath lie and hide who they really are when trying to snare another victim? Can I spot one a mile away? nope – about 3 feet and 3 words is all it takes for me – now adays anyhow. Yes I am one those dumb chits that always thot everybody was good deep down in side and my whole life these good people have been circleling around like a herd of sharks ready to eat me when I run out of treats and favors…….have I become jaded?
Akitameg,
I was once on Wellbutrin for a year. It helped for a few days, then leveled off. I took greater and greater dosages until I had toxic levels built up in my system, but after the initial mood shift, it never really helped me again. I found this to be true for other antidepressants as well. None of them ever caused me to lose any hair; I don’t believe this is a side effect. I actually felt better when I went off the Wellbutrin. I am taking a natural supplement now called 5 HTP, which does help, but without the side effects. Plus it’s way cheaper. But I wouldn’t recommend to anyone to stop taking meds without talking to their doctor. Anti-depressants do mess with your liver, so it’s helpful to take something like milk thistle or dandelion root for your liver if you can.
Kindheart, I have to agree with Oxy on her insights about narcissistic parents. It took me years and years to finally realize my mother is not good for me. I went back and forth my whole life trying to have a relationship with her and having it constantly be on her terms–on the terms of someone who was selfish her entire life toward me and continues to be. No thanks. Sometimes it’s not obvious until I look at it through the eyes of a therapist.