There comes a time when nurture becomes nature.
This is the time when nurture and nature become inextricable, inseparable.
I suspect nobody knows precisely when this point arrives in the development of a given individual, but the immediate ramification is this: When you are involved specifically with a sociopath, or any exploitative personality, it is imperative that you stop asking how this person became who he is?
Sure, he likely endured—and was shaped by—some form of neglect or abuse growing up, and if this wasn’t obvious in the history, it was still likely there.
But here’s the point: it doesn’t matter. Not one bit.
Instead, you must relinquish your empathy, compassion and curiosity—in short, every emotion that supports your obsession to understand the genesis and evolution of your exploiter’s pathology—and confront the reality that you are dealing with (as I propose) a case of nurture becoming nature, about which there’s not a damned thing, at this point, to be done.
The damage, in other words, was baked into his character a long time ago. There is no ameliorating it now. Not all the love in the world—nothing that you have, or think you have, or thought you had to give him—will dent the petrification of his psychopathology.
His diseased personality disease is immutable, as good as etched in his DNA. Case closed.
And so what you do is this: You run for the hills, just as you’d run from a rabid dog that perhaps once was innocent and gentle. Now the dog is rabid: it no longer matters how it became rabid. And so you run, fast, and you don’t look back, because every second you allow false hope to delay you increases your risk of grievous harm.
You may have loved that dog; maybe loved it before it became rabid, or maybe it was rabid all along and you just didn’t know it. And maybe you even still love that rabid dog, or the persisting fantasy of it as unrabid.
But the dog is rabid, and a rabid dog doesn’t love you, and it was probably rabid going way back and never really loved you as you once imagined, but again”¦it makes no difference.
There are rabid animals, and there are rabid people, and neither loves you.
And so the time for analysis, of him, is up.
To be clear: I appreciate the need to make sense of trauma. But at some point, the analysis of exploiters can assume an obsessive desperation that subverts, rather than supports, the processing of trauma.
I speak here from the position of having worked with many victims of exploitive personalities who are very much like stunned deer caught, and as if suspended indefinitely, in the headlights.
One of the vital tasks is to unstun them.
And sometimes the dogged determination to “make sense” of, to “analyze” the exploitive traumatizer can be a disguised obsession with discovering something in the history (his or yours) that you insist on imagining would have made a difference”¦would have made him different?
We can search this angle interminably. And unless we call off the search, we will.
And it’s a search we’re wise to call off because it can effectively bring us to a standstill, forever.
(My use of “he” in this article was a convenience, not meant to imply that women aren’t capable of the behaviors and attitudes discussed. This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Tami:
Biddy wants you to play Private Eye for her??
That’s priceless. I think I’ve heard everything now.
Then, if you get caught doing this PI thing, you can be the one who looks like the crazy ex-wife stalking your ex-husband.
These triangle-type of situations can come back and really bite you in the ass, even if you are the innocent one.
Be very careful, Tami.
Rosa:
As I recall it, biddy has already blamed Tami when cornered by her husband. This is after biddy is the one who has reached out to Tami. The statement biddy made way back when of “our marriage would be fine if [Tami] would just stop interfering” makes such sense now. Biddy turns around and blames Tami, the person she reaches out to for help. No good deed goes unpunished in this case.
This whole thing is the “triangle” game right out of “Games People Play” (Dr. Eric Berne) Biddy is a DRAMA queen, not a victim. It is unfortunate but NOT uncommon for a dysfunctional person to pair up with an abuser and it is the PERFECT MATCH because the pseudo-victim gets their “reward” by being able to keep the DRAMA going.
This is NOT “blame the victmi” bit—because there IS NO TRUE VICTIM, only the appearance of one. I know that most of us here went back and went back, were addicted, etc. but there is ALSO another group that are PSEUDO-VICTIMS, and in fact, they are also abusers as well.
To not recognize this fact, leaves us open to being used and abused by those PSEUDO-ABUSERS. I have fallen into that trap myself (once just a few months ago) but I think the KEY TO RECOGNIZING THIS TYPE OF ABUSER, the “Pseudo-victim” that they they keep reaching out for “help” and then REJECT THE HELP offered, or even get MAD at or BLAME the person offering the help.
WE on the other hand tend to be “enablers” and trying to “save the world” and “save the poor victim”—well, folks, these people are NOT victims in the normal sense but they alternate between being victim, being abuser and seeking rescue. THAT IS NOT HEALTHY.
BACK AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE, they use the PITY PLOY JUST LIKE THE PSYCHOPATHS DO.
How many of you know Ps who used the “I’m just a poor victim of my (choose one: war experiences, abusive childhood, my x wives, etc etc) and you FELL For it, you felt pity for these people and tried to “help” and “fix” them.
Well, I am seeing that BIDDY is such such a one. That is why she has the GALL to ask Tami to be a PI for her. MORE DRAMA. And there is NO doubt in my mind that if Tami falls for this (I think she won’t) that Biddy would turn on Tami like a striking snake.
Tami, this woman need to be OUT OF YOUR LIFE—TOTAL NC. Just MHO.
Gotta agree with Oxy,
You have a dual P problem, Tami.
Biddy may not be as bad as the xP but she is infantile and only thinking of herself, not considering you or the consequences to you. I’d put her age level at around 13.
You are a kind and compassionate person and Biddy knows it, so she’s working that angle. Start weaning her off of your compassion by responding with a more ascerbic tone.
Tell her that there is some evidence of the xP’s sociopathic behavior and Biddy already has it: HER STD’S!. Then tell her you don’t feel like looking at it. 🙂
Stay consistent about the way you respond and the emotions you give her. Drama queens are emotional vampires too.
Tami,
trying to “wean” an emotional vampire (and that is a great title, there’s a book by that name–check thebook review threads here for a review) is like trying to “wean” a P—I have a drama queen in my life, and I let her stay on the EDGE of it because I dearly love her husband, but I no longer play her games. She is the ONLY exception to my “no drama” rule. I don;’t let her irritate me any more, because I know what she is, and when she starts her “complaining” (usually about her treatment by her husband) I shut her up! with “I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THAT.”
I avoid her phone calls as much as I can (just do not answer or call back) and keep conversations limited in time—“OOPS, gotta go, there’s someone at the door!”—and focused on something besides how someone has mistreated her and other such gossip.
Though my sons and I do dearly love her husband (who is in very poor health and it is difficult to impossible to visit with him wihtout seeing her—either here or at their house) when the irritation of her presence becomes more irritating than the reward of visiting with him is rewarding, it may be time to step out entirely.
The thing I think you need to ask yourself, TAMI, is “what am I getting out of this drama?”
It is obvious you are not able to save Biddy because she does NOT want to be saved (contrary to what she is saying) and the thing is LOOK AT HER ACTIONS, how do they match up with what she SAYS? Not very well I expect.
That to me is the PRIME RED FLAG WAVING BRIGHTLY saying “this woman is a drama queen” because she says one thing and does the opposite. She refuses to listen to good advice, allows herself to stay in a bad situation and seems to want to PROVOKE MORE DRAMA and to hook Tami in as her “rescuer.”
I think most REAL victims (and that includes Tami and myself as well as the others here at LF) may hang on with the addiction and so on, and we tend to BE RESCUERS, to want to help the “downtrodden” but the bottom line is that each victim must RESCUE THEMSELVES.
I can’t rescue you, you can’t rescue me. All the evidence in the world won’t make you (or me) SEE what we don’t want to see, what we are willingly BLIND TO. Biddy is putting on a BIG PITY PARTY and that to me speaks of FAKE VICTIM, just like the psychopaths present themselves as “Victims” in order to work the pity ploy.
So ask yourself, Tami, what is being accomplished here by you having contact with this woman, other than it keeps you “in the loop” on what is happening with your X and vindicates to yoruself that you were and are RIGHT? He is a psychopath! But me thinks that she is definitely DYSFUNCTIONAL and sees no gain in stopping that drama. It keeps her life exciting and “interesting.”
@....... Steve: very well written and so true
Sorry for this late post response to something that was written many posts ago…
But, BABY TALK? Aughhh…. I’d cringe.
His mother still talks to her boys with it. They are 50 years old. It freaked me out.
He’d try to use baby talk to get me “interested.” All it did was TURN ME OFF!!!!!!!
I don’t like it when kids continue to talk like babies past the developmental age when normal speach patterns are expected. (though it is adorable on babies)
Baby talk is blatenly manipulative. Period.
Isabell:
I’m with ya….
OH, let mamma get you a babba wit some warm milky for my baaaabbyyyyyy.
EESshhh!
The S used to have this ‘language’ he referred to a SHLADDLES. It was like an ‘alter ego’…..he OUT OF THE BLUE started speaking in shladdles talk when I was a teen…..at the time I laughed and laughed….it caught me off guard…..You had to hear it…..and mostly SEE him do it.
I laughed because he looked like a retard, with his mouth wide oopen, tongue stuck out like a KISS band dude and talking or squelching loudly whatever he would say….barely understandable……
The most ironic thing was…..when we had kids….something triggered me to ask him to do ‘scladdles’ for the kids……HE REFUSED! Our children NEVER got to see their father do schladdles……
That spoke volumes of his maturity level…..and manipulations of me
Yes, Biddy has the maturity level of a middle schooler. However, I don’t really think she’s into drama so much. I DO think that she likes attention but not necessarily from me. I’ve concluded that she has never really listened to me because I honestly don’t think that she cares. I don’t think she plans on being with him for the rest of her life so she’s not concerned with him. Is she, too, a sociopath? The thought has crossed my mind several times. She basks in receiving attention from men. Tells me all the time how this one or that tells her how beautiful she is and how they’ve openly offered to take her off my ex-S’s hands if he doesn’t treat her better. Yeah, right! She openly flirts with other men in an attempt to make him jealous and then accepts his jealous reaction as love. Maybe this IS drama…to me…it’s immaturity, attention seeking and a downright dangerous game! I’m sick of it…she’s probably doing the same things he is and spreading STDs all along the way!
This baby talk discussion is really interesting. I brought this up in a thread over two years ago when I first joined LF. I didn’t get much of a response back then but of course, we’ve gained a lot of new members since then. My ex S and his mother used to baby talk each other on the phone! I was appauled the first time I witnessed this. I have a son and a stepson that I raised so this REALLY seemed strange to me. My son was spoiled rotten but gave up baby talk when he was no longer a baby. My ex S also used to baby talk me all the time. It was a total turn off. I think most women want their men to be a bit macho in a positive sense. Sweet talk is nice sometimes but baby talk is a whole other story entirely! I certainly didn’t want a goo-goo-ga-ga man! It was like he would revert back to a small child!
This leads me to another language thing that stands out in my mind: Anytime my ex s would answer the phone or place a call, I could immediately tell by his tone whether there was a man or a woman on the other end of the line. If it was a woman (maybe even my own mother), his tone would be somewhere in between normal and baby talk–like honey pouring from his lips. If it was a man, he would literally deepen his natural voice! Anyone ever witness that kind of behavior?
Oh yeah, now I’m responding to my own posts! Yes, the triangle thing is enough to drive one nuts! Yes, at first my man mission was to expose this man for the sociopath that he is. Yes, I have done that. EVERTHING I predicted that he would do, he has done. And, the STDs popped up later and that would have certainly been enough proof to send any normal person on their merry way. I’ve honestly concluded that they are using each other.
And, the spying thing? I have a strong gut feeling about that one, too. She now has a facebook page that he knows nothing about. She befriended me and stupid me accepted her request. This has been several months back. On myspace, where he also has a page…she makes all kinds of lovey dovey “going home to snuggle with my baby” status remarks. On Facebook, she is a totally different person. I also noticed that she and her ex husband are friends on FB but NOT on Myspace although he is an active member there, too. I think she has her own thing going on with her ex or possibly even another man. I suspect that she wants to leave the S. He’s told her that he’d kill her or himself if she ever does. I’m thinking that she wants ME to catch him and provide her with an excuse to leave him. She missed her opportunity to leave him when she caught him cheating and promised to stand by him NO MATTER WHAT and then married the idiot! I think she now wants out and wants to make sure she can blame him for her leaving. That’s the way her mind works. I’ll have no part in it. She thought she had stolen my prize possession and I now have concluded that she deserved the “prize” she got! I served my time with him for 8 years and she deserves to do even more time with him due to her own stubborn ignorance! She has realized that she has a very sick man on her hands but she’s too insecure to leave the marriage without having a back-up MAN instead of a back-up PLAN! Sounds very familiar…doesn’t it?