By Joyce Alexander, RNP (Retired)
I don’t have much use for people who lie ”¦ but sometimes I have resorted to it myself, and today was one of those days.
You know, sometimes psychopaths are sort of like a sexually transmitted disease, they are the “love that keeps on giving in a negative way,” it seems, forever.
What brought me to telling a lie, because it was just more believable than the truth, was a convoluted story about the “Trojan Horse Psychopath” who infiltrated my family. This man is a three-time convicted child molester who had been a former cell mate and friend to my son, Patrick Alexander, who is in prison in Texas for murder. My son had sent him to infiltrate our family as a “friend,” and position himself to be able to kill me and take over our family resources. The Trojan Horse Psychopath had worked on my farm and helped out with my elderly family member, and thus gained access to my home and sneaked into my personal documents.
I’m a meticulous record keeper, and very organized with my record keeping, and pretty well know how to lay hands on any document I need instantly. I have a fire safe in my office that is never locked, because it is small enough to steal and carry off. I have a sign on the front of it that reads, “There is nothing of any value in this safe, the combination is X-Y-Z, it contains only business documents I want to protect from fire.”
Vehicle titles
The titles to my several vehicles and trailers that are used around the farm are, and have been for years, kept in the slot on the inside of the door to the safe. Since I haven’t bought or sold any vehicles or trailers (except for the recreational vehicle I bought to live in when I fled my home in the summer of 2007), I had not had any cause to go through any of these titles, or even count them, until yesterday. I decided to sell a Conestoga wagon, and the flat-bed trailer that I used to transport it, so I went to the safe to get out the title to the trailer and it was gone! Going through the titles there, I realized that four of the titles to various vehicles and trailers were missing!
The Trojan Horse Psychopath had been arrested in August 2007, when he and my son’s wife tried to kill my oldest biological son, after my son discovered they were having an affair, so he hadn’t had access to my documents since several months before his arrest. But prior to then, he had stolen documents and “messed with” my credit card accounts, my cell phone account, and other items that kept me spinning in my insanity. He would order items off “late night television” and have them sent to my house, like those “Send me $49 and I will make you a real estate millionaire,” and those “clubs” for music and videos that are like the Mafia, once in you can never get out! He even signed me up for interest in Scientology, and I still get tons of mail filling up my post office box from that group. He took over my cell phone account and deleted my contact numbers and added and deleted services and turned it on and off.
Nice ladies
So today when I had to go to the department of motor vehicles to request the replacement of four vehicle and trailer titles, there was no way I was going to tell this tale of woe to the nice ladies behind the desk. There was no way they would have believed me if I had told them the truth of why I needed that many titles replaced, so I took the easy way out and I lied. (So shoot me!)
I told them that my grandkids had been playing “office” and had gotten into my important papers and destroyed them. The nice ladies believed my lie and I paid my fees and the titles should come in the mail in just a few days.
I sort of feel guilty about telling the nice ladies the lie, but there was no way they were going to believe that a pedophile ex-convict from Texas got into my documents and randomly destroyed and stole some of them just to mess with my mind. Maybe I should have used this as a “teaching opportunity” to educate these women about psychopaths (I was the only customer in the office with three nice ladies), but I had to be quick in order to get to the court hearing of the ex-minister of our little country church who had been arrested for child pornography and Internet stalking of a child. I didn’t want to explain to them why I was in such a hurry either.
Here’s the news story on HarrisonDaily.com:
Man, 58, arrested after Internet sting: Agri inspector
Predator in court
I didn’t want to miss his court date, and as it turned out, I was the only one from my community there. He was, I believe, very shocked to see me walk into the courtroom in the small country town about a hour and a half drive north of where I live. I was dressed very nicely in my “pillar of the community matron goes to court or funerals” ensemble. Court had not yet convened and people were quietly talking among themselves in the spectator section of the room.
As I walked by where he was seated, waiting for his turn in front of the judge, I slapped him cheerfully on the back and said, “Hi, Dicky, what are you doing here?” I didn’t wait for a response, but kept on purposefully walking and sat down a couple of rows directly behind him, where he couldn’t see me unless he turned around in his seat, which he didn’t do, but sat facing forward, looking neither to the right or the left. None of his family was there, and though most of the defendants in the courtroom seemed to have friends or family with them, no matter what the charges were. He was alone. I don’t doubt that he felt my eyes boring into the back of his neck.
I never did particularly like this man, even when he was preaching at our little community church. His messages always seemed to me to be shouted and angry, rather than uplifting and loving. He presented an angry God, not a loving father. In fact, several months after my husband’s accidental and very sudden death, I was very sensitive to shouts or loud talking, and I actually went to this man privately and asked him very nicely (I thought) to “tone it down,” and to shout less, and maybe the attendance at our little church might stop dropping. My request was not received well, needless to say.
He did, however, embrace the Trojan Horse Psychopath and my (now ex) daughter-in-law, both before and after their arrests for trying to kill my oldest son. My requests (before their arrests and afterwards) went unheeded, and I was basically told not to bother him, he was “too busy” to get involved in my problems.
Sixth sense
It really isn’t all that noble of me to glory in the downfall of those that I don’t like, but at the same time, it is validation of my “sixth sense” about people. Almost every time I have ignored my dislike of someone there has been something, somewhere down the line, that has validated my “spidey sense” about that person. Several times that “something” has been child molestation or murder, or all of the above, though at the time I felt the intuitive dislike for that person, I never dreamed that they would molest children or be responsible for someone’s death. I just thought, “I don’t like that person,” or, “there’s something about them I don’t trust.”
It is important, I think, that we listen to our intuition about predators, and believe me, psychopaths are predators on two legs. They camouflage themselves and try to blend into the landscape just like a lion does, but there is something within us that, if we listen to it, will many times protect us. If we “turn it off” or “tune it out,” however, it can’t protect us from the predators. Just like the antelope must be alert for the lion, we must be alert for the psychopaths that prowl the savannas of our lives. When we get a whiff of “there’s a predator about,” we must honor that intuition in order to survive. Even if no one else would believe it!
Ox,
That’s an interesting story, about the woman you tried to help. I have had that happen, in the reverse… I’ve had people who wanted to “help” me and my daughter, who’s motives for that were less than sterling. They were looking for adoring minions they could control, or had some other hidden emotional agenda. I feel wherever there’s a power imbalance, and a dependency of any kind, there’s a HUGE potential for abuse of some type or another.
There are certain friends of mine that know, they could show up at my door, (when I HAD a door LOL!), anytime night or day, and stay, no question. These are life long friends of mine, who I know are of good character. The friend who is helping us now is one example. We have been there for him in the past, and we will be friends for life no doubt.
I shy away from accepting/offering help to people I haven’t walked through fire with…
Speaking of Hell-fire…I talked to a DV advocate, (yeah, took a chance again), talked to a couple of people actually, and they feel that I should go try again, to get a restraining order on my ex… I admit I am scared to try it… they think I have enough to make it stick, yet they couldn’t believe some of the things the court let side before.
I really feel up against the wall with this. When you take any control away from a spath they tend to go ballistic.
I am going to go to the court house on Monday, and get the temp order anyway. I don’t see much point in waiting him out. 🙁
Dear Hope4,
Well, you have come a LONG WAY BABY!!!! I remember back when I literally GAVE UP on you ever getting it or kicking him out. I was so frustrated (that was MY problem however) that you just couldn’t seem to “get it”—LOL I am so glad that you DID get it though, and I know you understand how hard it is to get someone else to “see” what we see, or understand what we understand….they are EVIL.
Each of us has to do it in our own time….I knew those little ladies in the DMV would never get it even if I took HOURS or days to tell them the tale…I would just be a “nut job” old woman who came in there with some crazy tale…
I am like EB though I am careful where I START a conversation with the S (or P) word because most people do think a socio or psychopath is a serial killer. I don’t even use the word pedophile most of the time but rather the simpler word of “child molester” or “child rapist.”
People seem to understand more CONCEPTs of a “bad guy” if you use the words that they are familiar with—“crook” or “con-man” or “criminal” or “bully” or “abuser” or something along that line to START WITH, then as you educate them you can say “bullies are really a kind of psychological disorder called psychopath….” and build from there describing how they have no conscience, and thus no remorse and thus, no ability to actually IMPROVE or get better, only to fake it. “I’m soooo sorrry” etc.
It IS DIFFICULT for people to believe that there are people who have NO GOOD DEEP DOWN IN THEM, and that they cannot and will not change no matter what you do. It isn’t the drugs or the drink that is the problem, it is that they are without conscience or empathy and they don’t care what effects their behaviors have on others. People have had it fed to them that “there is good in everyone” and that is just NOT true. There are some people who walk and talk and sound pretty much like everyone else on the street who DO NOT have good in them. Who have no conscience. That’s a scary thought for most people, though. They resist believing it.
When that person is someone they love, someone that gave birth to them, or to whom they gave birth, or married or had children with….it is even more difficult to accept that they are “evil” and there is nothing you can do except get away from them.
I know it was difficult for me to accept it…over and over and over with the different psychopaths in my life, the different dysfunctional people, but I couldn’t heal until I did. It is like lancing a boil, and getting the infection out, it must be done before it can heal.
EB:
Good to *see* you again…Thanks for the “Cliff Notes” you wrote for me back a ways. It was a while before I could get my jaw up off the floor. I still hurt inside when I think of your mom hiding your babies and (OMG!), you ARE her baby! And you were so sick and all!! When I read your story, I felt really hurt, then really PISSED off, than MASSIVELY INSPIRED to get OFF my ASS and become more proactive. 🙂 So I Did, and I THANK YOU, so much! You’re my Super-Hero!! <3
Dear Safeguard,
You are very astute about the “power imbalance” and yes it is taken advantage of on both sides of the aisle…people who offer to help then want to control you, or people who want too mooch.
I have been an enabler in my life, I was trained from birth to be, it is part of the family legacy….but I am learning to be responsible for myself, and expect others to be responsible for themselves, and to offer help, in some cases, but as a “gift” not as a down payment on control, which is how my family used “help.”
The woman I took in I took in to give her an OPPORTUNITY to have a SAFE place (she had a small RV truck she lived in) to park so she could get a job and get back on her feet…however, she did NOT want a job, she wanted to mooch here while she scoped out her next con job. (Possibly with me) She did try a few attempts to get me to “volunteer” to give her some money to pay some storage fees she had for a place her Stuff was, but I declined and told her, “What would you do with the stuff if you had it? You live in your car and the stuff is 1500 miles away you couldn’t afford a truck to go get it, or a place to put it if you went and got it, so sorry.” She had tried that “suggestion” to a couple of other people who knew her too…didn’t work with them either.
I allowed her to use one of the bathrooms in my home as her own personal bathroom, but I did tell her she was responsible for cleaning it, she never did clean it the entire time she was here (several weeks) and she made no effort to do anything around here except show up at meal times and expect to eat what I had bought and fixed. So she wasn’t even a polite guest, but more just an entitled mooch. After someone has been here 2-3 days I would expect them to at least pick their plate up and put it in the sink, not sit and wait to be waited on like I was the maid around here. LOL
Ewww! Oxy,
Sadly my brother and his wife were just like that,( not so much now, as that gets OLD!), One time they stayed with my niece and her young family, up in Hardwick Vermont…My niece’s husband worked at Cabot Cheese, and after over staying their welcome by a month and a half, (mooching and behaving like slobs the whole “visit”,), my niece finally asked them, “WHEN are you leaving?!!” To which they replied, ” When we get our FREE CHEESE”!
True story. They were awful, but hilarious though! 🙂
Safeguard,
My home has always been an “open house” with lots of people coming and going, and my kids’ friends staying for several days etc. but at the same time, I expect people to “pitch in” and help out with meals and take out the trash if necessary, not be mooches. If someone who is a stranger comes to my house, I may offer to wait on them, but NOT FOR WEEKS….LOL
FREE CHEESE!!!!???? LOL That’s PRICELESS!!!
Oxy,
I was so occupied with my own journey that despite being here for the last few+years, and reading so many stories, I had no idea WHO the Trojan horse jackass was, and how he fit into the picture. OMG! It is unbelievable, unless one has personal experience with a spath. Those nice ladies might have called elder services on you if you had told them.
You do inspire Joyce.
Thank you for this awesome article. But especially your analogy (that you gleaned from the internment book), about gas expanding to fill a container, and each of our pain being total.
Priceless.
It is interesting to read the discussion about fakers that have come to Lovefraud, or other sites, and duped the bloggers. I myself felt some worry that I was giving off ‘red flags’ when I first arrived here, and it made me ‘quieter’. I felt so self-absorbed and needy, and that I gave off a narcissistic impression. I guess we all come here so wounded we are often ‘stuck’ in our own experience, and it is hard to reach out to others’. We are sometimes reactive and quick to feel hurt or insecurity.
Even so, over time I have literally been healed with the help of LF. Because, in general, this is a very real place of expanding awareness. I think ALIVE is the perfect way to describe the feeling here.
Slim
Oxy – when i went to pick up my antibiotic prescription i also asked the pharmacist what they had to rebalance electrolytes. this is not my reg pharmacy, but it was close enough to get to, so I went. He was having a talk with me about my antibiotics, (good), and i explained that i had had an allergic reaction to the the first antibiotic they had given me.
he said, you don’t need anything to re-balance your electrolytes unless you have been vomiting of had severe diarrhea. I know better. after the bs with the doctor giving me that antibiotic to begin with, i just looked the pharmacist level in the eye and said, ‘i had severe diarrhea’, and he showed me where the product was on the shelf.
and i would do it again in a flash.
these lies are done to protect ourselves and care for ourselves. no harm, no foul.
Hi Slim!!!
given the proclivities of the spath i knew, i think about it all the time on LF – she always shows up as a gang of people on sites and tells very specific sob stories. unfortunately a lot of them look like the same stuff some of us have experienced in our lives, esp. our childhoods. i don’t know if i could catch her quickly, but I use the report abuse comment thang A LOT and I warn Donna about stuff and ask her to check certain things. She might think i am a bit off, but i am going to protect myself and this blog.
Dear Slim,
Well “crazy as an out house rat” is what shape I was in when I came to LF…I had been on an MSN web site owned by Sam Vaknin the self described Narcissist….and gotten TRASHED by flamers there, the managers actually of that site.
I found LF and came here and felt really nervous, and only a few days or weeks after I came here, I got FLAMED by some P that was here…she flamed both me and another blogger named Aloha. Aloha and I BOTH were devastated that we had “hurt that woman’s feelings”—but Donna kicked that woman off the blog and wrote both me and Aloha and asked us not to leave. It took me quite a while to realize that this is a PRETTY SAFE PLACE but not 100% guaranteed to be flame proof or P proof, they do come around once in a while, but Donna runs a tight ship and so it isn’t often that someone at least flames out on the blog.
There are a few sneaky ones that slip under the radar but for the most part, after a while you can pick them out.
Yes, we are pretty intense on our own pain when we come here, but as the pain diminishes we start to reach out to others and to just “be ourselves.”
The thing that was a TURNING point to me was the book “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Dr. Frankl, who wrote it about the different responses to the trauma he experienced in the Nazi camps and the trauma he witnessed in others. I thought the Pain versus gas analogy was BRILLIANT and after reading that I no longer felt guilty for feeling such intense pain because my problems were NOTHING COMPARED TO HIS experiences in the camp watching thousands of people beaten to death, starved, etc. But it VALIDATED that my intense pain was REAL and that I had a RIGHT TO FEEL THAT PAIN and not be ashamed of feeling my pain. EVERYONE has a right to feel pain for whatever loss they have suffered.
One of the things that we learned in nursing school was that “pain is whatever the patient says it is”—and with physical pain they have discovered now that how we feel and experience physical pain is partly controlled by GENETICS as well as CULTURE…who would’a thunk it? LOL So some people may have a lot of pain from a paper cut and some people have little pain from a broken leg.
So I validate the pain of others, and I validate my own pain, it is all TOTAL PAIN…but we can recover and move on past that pain, and heal.
One/Joy, yep, sometimes you just have to do what you gotta do. I did think afterward though that it was ironic that I told a lie when I feel so adamant about liars and lies. LOL
But I know it was a “harmless” “social” lie like saying “I’m sorry I can’t come to your birthday party” INSTEAD OF saying “I”m NOT sorry I won’t come to your birthday party, I wouldn’t go anywhere with you even to a dog fight if you were one of the ones fighting” LOL