One thing that’s certain about sociopaths and exploitive personalities generally: when it comes to relationships, they are the worst historians.
They are chronic historical revisionists—that is, they are constantly revising history.
And their revisions are headed in predictable directions—to make them look good, unguilty, unresponsible for the damage they’ve caused and, of course, whenever possible, to position themselves as the true victims of the circumstances.
And that’s, of course, when history interests them. And history will interest them, but only when they can use it against you. If it suits their need, say, to punish you for a decision you made in the past, even before you met them, abusers may use this knowledge of your history as a weapon of attack or control in perpetuity.
The issue on which they fixate, for instance, may pertain to a sexual relationship that predated your knowing them; they may have coaxed, if not coerced, this information from you, perhaps in the honeymoon phase of your relationship, on the pretext of their wanting to know, preciously, everything about you.
They will not have hinted at their truer, underlying motive: to stumble upon eternally damning evidence of your corruption for future, endless punitive purposes.
On the other hand, when history obstructs, rather than enables, the exploiter’s self-centered agenda, then surprise surprise, he will have no use for, or interest in, it whatsoever.
History (accurate history, that is) will instead loom as a great annoyance to be ignored, if not aggressively suppressed. In such cases, the exploiter is likely to frame your interest in the history of his exploitation of you as off-limits.
How ironic—suddenly the self-centered, chronic boundary violator invokes the sanctitude of his boundaries, fingering you as lacking respect for his space. This would be funny, if it wasn’t so not-funny.
The problem of the exploiter’s manipulation or censorship of relationship history is grave inasmuch as healthy relationships depend on partners processing their history together with integrity; and also with the aim of deepening their intimate connection through joint efforts to understand, and make mutual meaning, of their shared history.
When this process is corrupted, there is no chance for a healthy relationship.
The exploiter, by virtue of his underlying disdain of your integrity, boundaries and individuality, makes this vital collaborative process impossible. This is not a process he will ever feel motivated to engage; and it’s a process, in any case, that will overwhelm his deficient capacity for true intimacy.
(My use of “he” in this post was for convenience’s sake. This article is
copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Ox Drover
PS LIly,
Psychopaths frequently are PSEUDO-victims, and use the pity play to get someone else to support them and take care of them. they “can’t get a job” so want you to support them and provide them room and board and transportation etc.
Henry’s X is a perfect example of a pseudo-victim, telling Henry how the man he was with before used and abused him. Well, the man may have, but it doesn’t matter because Henry’s X was ALSO a user and an abuser who was looking for another “sugar daddy” to take care of him and provide for him because he was too disordered and lazy and shiftless to provide for himself.
Psychopaths are good at providing a convincing picture of being “victims” but they are PSEUDO-VICTIMS. Once we see that a person who appears to be a “victim” is NOT willing to take any responsibility, who uses the opportunities we may give them to help themselves simply as another opportunity to use someone and victimize their “helper” then we need to cut ties with this person.
MANY dysfunctional relationships are TWO psychopaths victimizing each other–and when o ne gets the upper hand and the pseudo-victiom is forced to go out looking for a weaker victim, they pretend to be “victimized” by the other person. It is a great pity play and I bet a lot of people here have taken in Ps who were posing as victims. I have, but I won’t keep them around very lonog in the future because I am doing as Jesus suggested and “inspecting the fruit” of the “tree” i.e. looking at their behavior. The person who will not utilize opportunities to HELP THEMSELVES are not people I will waste much time “trying to help.”
JaneSmith
Awesome article again, Steve.
I have a gazillion examples of the sinister “history revision” from many people (friends(?) and lovers) in my past which led to me becoming more confused, frustrated, and depressed.
When you continue to allow these liars in your life, reality most definitely takes a nose-dive and leaves you bewildered. Now, the best recourse is to jump ship the very first time this situation arises.
If they will do it once they will certainly do it again.
JaneSmith
Oh, and also, if you’re not totally aware, accepting and strong in the knowledge, reality of who you are as a woman/man you will be very vulnerable to these types of attacks.
And being a persistent people pleaser, overly concerned with the feelings and comfort of others, putting them before fulfilling your most basic needs and wants, caving to the false society perception I refer to as the “cult of nice” will also cause you to be vulnerable.
True, I was susceptible to predation and exploitation until I figured out the above. Not anymore, my dearest and lovely LF friends.
I am confidence personified when mingling with the masses. I no longer need a male in my life to validate my desirability, to feel whole and complete so, yeah, I’m intolerant to bad behavior.
And I consider loneliness to be an illusion because if you really want to share conversation, a good time with people, it’s possible simply by walking out the door and greeting said people. Yes, this is an easy concept for me to embrace considering I totally dig and flourish in solitude. But, hey, that’s just me, your pal Jane…haha.
8)
ANewLily
Oxy, thanks for clarifying your interpretation of a “psuedo-victims.” I didn’t read your dialogue that way.
I think it may because I have only had experience with one narcissiopath and have had much different life experiences than you have. Our filters do affect interpretations of the written word, I think.
At the airport coming from the funeral, I did encounter another “true” victim. I was in the airport restroom with my niece thinking we were all alone and trying to answer her questions about my life with “empty suit.” This lovely woman spoke up and said, “You are telling my story!” I hugged her and told her about LoveFraud — and was grateful that my niece had heard the whole thing. If she didn’t know before, she did “get” that my story isn’t unique. The woman described her sociopath very well.
kim frederick
Hey everybody. I’m so glad you’re all here. When I ended my last psycho-pathic relationship, I didn’t have the luxery of LF. Didn’t have a compter andwas preatty much computer illiterate. I stayedin my psycho relationship for seven years, even though my P wouldn’t work, let me support us on a waitress’salery,that is tips. I worked doubles and graveyards etc just to pay the rent. He broke my rib, blackened my eye, stole the electric bill money out of my purse. Cheated on me and abandoned me on three seperate occations, when the bottom was falling out and I was being evicted. The last time I ended up in a shelter.(He went to a buddies house and partied, also started chatting up his new victim) Anyway, going to the shelter was a real blessing even though I had been so afraid of losing my place. At least there I was safe.
kim frederick
But my point is, I knew there was somthing wrong with me, but I didn’t know what to do. I had told some friends and family members and yes they got tired of hearing it. I did not want to be in that relationship, but I was quite literally incapable of getting out. That was why I needed help. Oxy, I understand what you mean by enabling, but I hope you, along with all the otherwiseand inspiring people don’t lose patience with the one’s who are struggling to leave. Pleasehave patience with my spelling and grammar. Thanks to all for being here.
bunny
i was always very guarded about what I said to the phycho/narc and on one occasion they were so desperate to attack me with something (but they didn’t have anything at all to go on) they took some vague recollection that I’d had some overseas relationship when I was very young and unattached and spun it into a fantastic story.
Aparently the person I had fallen madly in love with was an arab muslim and that his rejection made me develop some totally irrational negative attitude to that whole group. Also the fact that I didn’t particularly like that bunch (the only accurate part of her accusation) meant that I couldn’t be having a satisfying sexual relationship with my current partner, because if I had been able to experience orgasmic pleasure, I wouldn’t be so negative about muslims.
Wow, suddenly blonde blue eyed athiest Niels has turned into a arab muslim, and as for my sex life – well aparently – not as good as it could be. And of course because I’m so “deeply” disturbed I should seek phyciatric help immediately. Go figure!
bunny
In short if they don’t have any real history they will invent or embellish something and try and flog you with that.
bunny
the psycho/narc in my life is not an intimate.
neveragain
I have to confess…I ALSO rewrote history in my mind…found excuses for what he did. Read a lot more love into what he was saying than he meant. Thought he was “just kidding” when he said some things.
The nice thing about having all the emails is that NOW I can go back, when I’m not in the my own fog of wanting so much to believe his story, to believe in him, to believe in my dreams, to believe in the mission I thought we held together….and I can clearly say “WHOA….he really meant what he said there, he wasn’t kidding when he said “why shouldn’t I want to intimidate you?” “WHOA …..he MEANT that rape talk, he was not kidding.” “WHOA….I clung to that one statement of love and held on for dear life for HOW long???”
And when I tried to process our history with him….I never noticed he wasn’t affirming what I was saying. I just kept on holding on for dear life to my dream.
We rewrite history to make them look good. (“That really isn’t who he is, I just know it!”) They rewrite history to make us look bad. (“You are a selfish, demanding b*tch and have been since day one.”)