By Ox Drover
What’s the most important thing the sociopath took from you? Money? Love? Your home? Your self-esteem? Sex? Or, is it something else, which in my opinion may be even more important than just about anything?
The most important thing I think I lost from every sociopath I ever dealt with was my own confidence in myself to make assessments about people and then, reasonable choices about those people, based on those accurate assessments.
Many former victims have said that they just have trouble “trusting others” again after being totally hoodwinked and ripped off for so many important things in their lives by the sociopath. Is it others that they don’t trust, though, or are they unable to trust themselves to make accurate assessments of others they may meet in the future? I think it isn’t so much others we don’t trust, as it is ourselves we don’t trust to make good judgments of the intentions and sincerity of others.
Dr. Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” says that the first thing we are concerned with in our lives is out biological needs for oxygen, water, food and relatively constant body temperature. These are the strongest needs we have, about in that order, because if we don’t have these things not much else matters.
The next need we have, according to Maslow, when the physiological needs are satisfied and are no longer controlling out thoughts and behaviors, is the need for safety and security. We (adults) don’t usually think about “safety” until we feel threatened. Of course after we have been injured by a sociopath, we really don’t feel safe at all. Our world of safety is upside down.
The next highest need of mankind, according to Maslow, is the need for love, affection and belongingness. We seek to overcome feelings of alienation and loneliness by both giving and receiving affection.
If our need for “safety” is not satisfied, it is very difficult for us to seek affection, because we feel threatened.
However, because we had difficulty “seeing” from the looks or behaviors of past encounters with sociopaths that these people were “dangerous” to us, we become “paranoid” of others, especially new others. We want the affection of others, but because we have failed in the past to correctly assess the dangerousness of previous people we felt affection for, we are afraid to get too close to others. It is not so much the others that we don’t trust, as we don’t trust ourselves to make good choices.
Not feeling safe makes it very difficult for us to advance on to the “higher needs” such as affection and connectedness with others when we fear that we may make another poor assessment of another’s sincerity and motives with will lead to more pain and injury.
Rather than working on trying to trust others, I suggest we should work on learning to trust ourselves and our ability to make valid and correct assessments of others. This may seem that it is the same thing, but I actually don’t think it is at all.
How do we learn to trust ourselves again? How do we put our past mistakes in assessment of others we have sought to have mutual affection with behind us?
I think we do it slowly by forming new friendships, first of all, rather than looking for a lifetime mate. We meet new people in our environment, or go out and seek to interact with new people. We keep our distance at first from these new people, and we look at them, watching their behavior, and watching for the red flags of deception in their words and actions.
We educate ourselves on what we believe makes a good friend, and we accept nothing less in those that we allow to become closer friends.
We look at people who are already in our “circle” and assess them by what we know about their past and current behavior. Does this person now, or have they in the past, shown less than stellar respect for us? What are the benefits versus the liabilities of having this person in our lives? Maybe we decide that this person doesn’t fit well within our circle of people we think we can trust and we distance ourselves from them.
Just as a child slowly learns whom they can trust by observation, or just as an animal learns that certain people are liable to hurt them, or that certain people will reward them for approaching, we need to reeducate ourselves slowly and carefully, and learn to trust ourselves. If we trust ourselves, it will be much easier to trust ourselves to keep us safe when we venture into “unknown” territory, because we will know that we will keep ourselves safe by our valid and good observations.
We will also know that caution with others is a good thing to have. We will validate that we respect ourselves and love ourselves enough to keep ourselves safe without depriving ourselves of the opportunity to have the love, affection and connectedness that we, as humans, need and want.
Yes, I do need to do those things, I know. changing the locks, especially.
first, I should be finding a lawyer or contacting the media about the sherriff actually helping the P to sabotage me. I have recordings of it. I’m just tired of trying. When I’ve contacted 3 lawyers, they all kind of back away, like they don’t want to touch that with a 10 foot pole. It’s the root of my depression.
I own the house, he has no way to touch it AFAIK, without revealing his drug dealing past. I mean he hasn’t worked in 25 years, what’s he going to tell the courts he did for money. I already know what I’ll say: He paid me rent, I have no idea what he did for money. Nor do I care.
Now he is calling me again. He usually calls during the day but now he’s calling at night because he knows that I have insomnia, so he thinks he will stress me out by being mean at night.
BTW, did you ever see the video for Viva la Vida by Cold Play?
No, should I? Viva la Vida is not one of my favorite songs of theirs. In fact, aside from Violet Hill, I was not impressed with that album.
You own the house free and clear from the P, and yet he is holding you hostage over your own house. You need to take your power back somehow.
Oh I love that song. It’s about a P that lost his N-supply and his illusions of grandeur have turned into paranoid delusions. It has incredible imagery and symbolism. The lyrics are awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE
It’s ingenious. It’s a pity ploy, even the violins are part of it. You know, when you have a sad story to tell, there HAS to be violins.
The house is paid for but selling it is a bitch in this market, so I was hoping to find income until the market was better. God will see me through, He always has, I’m just scared because I always am.
Baby steps, Sky.
I’m listening to Viva la Vida now. You’re right. It really is a great song. I love Cold Play.
yeah, I do too. I didn’t even know about them til you told me about them. thanks.
For some reason I can’t explain
I know Saint Peter won’t call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world
I’m so envious of you owning a home free and clear. I have struggled with money issues all my life. The only time I ever had 2 nickels to rub together is when I was a stripper in my 30’s. I saved the money and bought my first condo (which turned out to be in the ghetto) and bought a modest car and paid it off. Somehow all of this translated into my current condo which was to be my retirement (ha ha). I am now back at square one, either with no money or no credit. I don’t know which is worse. I would give anything to have a home that is paid for.
Yeah, Star, but without income I will lose it all to the CCard debt! Yes, THAT MUCH!
I guess we need to focus on what we have, and work on making something out of that. I’m just so tired all the time.
I’m glad you at least have a job and so much optimism about your abilities. That’s the most important thing to have. I know because I used to have it when I was 17, before I met the P. The P sabotaged everything I did since then. I’ve had few successes – only those which he allowed or I fooled him into allowing.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll have chocolate again and get something done.
skylar,
Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. In many ways you sound so much like me when you talk about fears.
There is so much of life that scares me to death. I have been on my own for 13 years. However, you would think I was “new” at this judging by the fears I have.
For ONE thing, when my husband died I was so overwhelmed that I lived ONE day at a time. I NEVER ever projected or planned for the future. I have lived one day at a time, for 13 years.
There is nothing wrong with taking one day at a time when you are overwhelmed, BUT I used this as a crutch for way to long.
And now I tell myself, its time to wake up “Alice” because the “future” is here. And of course I find myself unprepared for it.
I have a house but it was willed to me by my mother. My kids each own 1/8th of it. I sold my house to keep this one. Not my best decision I ever made. My house that I sold needed repairs to. HOWEVER if I had sold this one, I would have had some money to repair it. This house needs alot of repairs and I have no money to fix it. Not having a man in my life there are even simple things that need to be done that I have to pay for. Like you, I couldn’t sell it for what its worth EVEN if the economy didn’t suck because I would need to sink some money into it.
I allow my fears of the future to keep me paralized.
Since my sons issues have presented themselves to me over the past two years, I am again overwhelmed much of the time. And every ounce of energy I have is exhausted on dealing with this.
I KNOW exactly what you mean when you say that you went to a couple of lawyers and after being turned away you are tired of trying. You have a house that needs a ton of repairs. You are trying to find an outlet to be able to make some money. You are trying to do all these things and nothing is working out.
The thing is…..Sometimes we are spinning our wheels. Doing all these “draining” things and not really accomplishing anything. I am trying to break things down here lately. Focusing on what NEEDS to get done first and foremost rather than taking on more than I can handle and in the end, not finishing the task at hand. I make a list of what I am going to accomplish and try to be realistic about what I really CAN do in a day. I used to be unrealistic about it. I know my limits and some fears I am not ready to face yet.
Right now you are draining much of your energy by talking to your X and giving him so much free space in your head.
Reality might be fearful to you…..Because your entire adult life you were with him. BUT think about it. What can you possibly gain by talking to him again? Or even listening to what he has to say? He, is what you should really fear. You deserve so much better.
I totally relate about being exhausted. I was so exhausted for so many years (before the P even) that I thought I had chronic fatigue. This mortgage stuff is exhausting and making all the calls every day trying to resolve it. At a certain point I will do everything I can. Then I will just have to make a decision and then release it. I am feeling remarkably calm and energized under the circumstances. I am sleeping well and just cannot even will myself to freak out like I did over the summer. But there is definitely a heavy feeling–all the fear–of losing all of my security. This is constantly weighing down on me and eclipsing the other issues I need to be working on.
I think both of you pretty brave for continuing to fight. Sometimes when life seems overwhelming, just getting up in the morning seems like a fight. Doesn’t it help to know we’re not alone in this? It helps me so much.