Almost three years ago, Lovefraud published the story of a man from the UK whom I called Tom. Tom’s wife left him for another man, took their children, had him arrested on false charges nine times and wiped him out financially. Here is the original story:
UK man says sociopath stole his life
Now, three years later, Tom still hasn’t seen his children. His ex-wife and her new husband, who also sounds like a sociopath, have removed the children from the UK. They live in France, at a small town near the Swiss border. “My heart bleeds every minute for the loss,” he writes. “It is a living bereavement and a nightmare from which I may never awake.”
I asked Tom if he was taking care of himself. Here’s his reply:
I have taken care of myself and for the most part I am okay. Some days are worse than others. I do have my very depressed and painful days ”¦ but I close my eyes, dream of days and memories of long ago, sleep and they pass.
I have to deal with my health and look after my parents. My mother phones me and cries about her grandson all the time. She has post-traumatic difficulties and says she cannot connect with her other grandchildren because of what she feels for my son. She feels a deep loss and is constantly worried about the kids. Every open discussion starts with them [opening the scar] and ends with them.
I am holding my own and my health has deteriorated but I am stable. I hold my family in the balance on many fronts. I am keeping it together but the pain is immense at times.
I am working and seem to have bounced back somewhat to where I used to be”¦ the years have been tearful, painful and costly. I don’t think that I will every really recover.
Releasing the pain
How do you cope when there is no resolution in sight?
I asked Tom about how he is taking care of himself because that may be, for the time being, all he can do. Emotional pain weakens us and makes it difficult to continue the battle. So somehow, Tom needs to alleviate the pain, even though his circumstances have not changed.
This seems counterintuitive—how can he feel better when his children are still kept away from him? The solution is to deal with the pain directly. Pain can be processed and released, even when the source of the pain has not changed.
Pain comes from wanting things to be different. The solution is to accept what is, for the time being, reality. This does not mean giving up hope. It does not mean quitting the legal battle. But it does mean letting go of the internal upset that keeps us trapped, and makes us ill.
How do we do that? We allow ourselves to feel the pain and grief at our loss. This is best done privately, or perhaps with a skilled counselor. We allow ourselves to cry, moan with the anguish, perhaps pound pillows in our anger. We continue until we feel a release, and then we stop.
Tom will probably have to do this many times—the well of his pain and grief is deep. But each time grief is released, it makes room for healing. And from a place of healing, it is possible to find the internal resources to continue the battle.
Dear cutandrun,
I’m glad you are here at LF, this is a healing place. It starts out I think about THEM but ends up being about US—why we were vulnerable. Thank you for having the courage to be so honest. I know that self revelation of things we are not proud of is difficult for me to do, and I can only assume it was for you as well.
I live in a farming community (though I was gone for years but returend a little over 20 years ago) My egg donor (mother) lives on the same farm. she is supportive of my son, a psychopath, incarcerated now for murder, and last year he tried to have me killed.
I have been in and out of relationships with psychopaths many times, inside and outside the family, however, I realize NOW something I never realized before is that the same “religious conformity” to my egg donor’s belief system (actually her deity is a psychopathic controlling angry deity who is just waiting for you to sin so he can punish you). I too wanted away from home after high school at any cost, and I too tried to have the kind of life my egg donor thought was “right” and to “keep the family secrets” about the abusive members of the family. “What the neighbors thought” was THE most important thing in the world to our family and anyone who exposed the dark underbelly of the family would be severely punished.
Only NOW that I see the “reasons” I was tolerant of abusive relationships and behavior have I been able to “fix” myself.
I have depression, for which i am being treated (I am a retired mental health and medical professional myself) and PTSD as well. I hope you will continue to receive appropriate treatment for your condition (I am assuming since you mentioned mania episode that it is bi-polar).
There is a great deal of information here on the medical and scientific research that has been done on both psychopathy and how it sometimes goes along with bi-polar and/or ADHD. Not that I am saying you are paychopathic, not at all, but it would account for your father’s abusive behavior, and is possible that he ALSO has bi-polar and/or psychopathic genetics. I have a son who is a psychopath (my sperm donor iwas a huge psychopathic beast, though he did not raise me) and my egg donor a big time enabler from a LONG LINE OF ENABLING WOMEN, and her brother was a psychopath that I also believe was bi-polar. I have a son who is very ADHD, but is a good man and not psychopathic at all, though I have worked with kids who were very ADHD AND exhibited psychopathic type behavior of gleeflully destroying and or abusing people or things.
I suggerst that you read and read and read here, all the old articles that are archived, they are a wonderful education in both psychopathy, science, and healing. We cannot change the psychopaths, but we can change our reaction to them. We can shore ujp our own strengths and KNOWLEDGE=POWER. We can take back our power for our lives, for our destenies.
While your husband’s behavior doesn’t sound abusvie in the commonly held manner, none the less, it does not sound very supportive and fulfilling to your either. I hope that he is as good a man as you state he is and that maybe with some counseling you two can craft a much better marriage for you as a couple, rather than just “room mates.
We all learn ways to cope with painful situations, like you learned to cope by ‘staying out of the way” of your raging abusive father, and by marrying someone that they “approved of” from your church, then settling into the “family compound” and keeping up the pretense that your was a “nice normal family” in spite of the major abuse adn alcoholism, using, of course, the “church” for a mask to cover up what was really going on. I can SO RELATE to this.
Sitting in a church doesn’t make someone a Christian any more than sitting in a chicken house makes you a chicken, or allows you to lay eggs. I have been raised with this FALSE religiosity of people going to church 3 X a week, but living like SATAN behind closed doors—as long as the neighbors don’t know the truth, everything is “lovely.” NOT!!! It is only now that I have confronted the problem within myself, my tendency to KEEP the peace, (by HHIDING THE TRUTH) rather than MAKE peace by TELLING THE TRUTH, that I am now able to not only heal, but to have a TRUE SPIRITUALITY and relationship with a loving God vs the “religiosity” I had previously with the psychopathic “deity” who was sitting up there in the skies ready to zap me with a lightening bolt and send me to hell if I didn’t continue to keep my mouth shut about the abuse within our family. To send me to hell if I didn’t “pretend the abuse didn’t happen.”
It turned my whole world upside down, and I am now no contact with my egg donor though we live on the same farm, I no longer attend that “church” and I no longer pretend all is well, and I AM working on my own healing. I did what the Bible commands us about “if thou have ault against a brother” and confronted the psychopaths and their enablers, then I went back with witnesses, and then I went to the “church”—or tried to at least, but no one would listen….I am in the process of going to the church again in one more attempt, because if my egg donor keeps sending my P-off spring money, it is endangering my life. He has tried to kill me once, and will try again if he has the resources (money).
I’m glad you are here, this is a healing site with tons of great information for educating you about them and about ourselves. good luck and GOD BLESS YOU in your healing walk. He has blessed me by a wonderful and loving care and I am so grateful! (Hugs))))
Thanks OxDrover, My psych has suspected bi-polar in me, but I haven’t had any further manic episodes. In fact, now I haven’t seen my psych in about 5 years, I have been quite stable on my regular meds.
Yes, it is more about US than them. I appreciated someone’s comment or article about how we cannot blame the S’s for existing any more than we can blame the sun for giving us a sunburn. I like that analogy. That’s why I want to sort this all out to make sure I can spot them in the future.
I had to get over bucket loads of personal guilt over both these situations being adulterous on my end, giving myself the big fat Scarlett Letter. but even GH says it was NOT my fault. There was no other reaction I could have had in the state I was in as so extremely vulnerable.
Yes with my folks it has always been about image. Nobody could find out about my mother drinking as my dad was an elder in the church (cough) and they’d make him step down.
And yes I am very skeptical of church people now. We are in a “new”church, but still with my folks and brother’s family. I do not hate my folks, I know they were only doing the best they could with what they had, emotionally, emotional constipation, handed down by their folks etc.. Most of the time we get along quite well.
Before this I always felt solely responsible for holding down the fort. I handled everything – housework, cooking, shopping, family finances, kid’s schedules, family relationships i.e. dealing with parents and inlaws, and my own job outside the home. Hubby was only responsible for working, eating, sleeping, and whatever else he had time for (which wasn’t much) so then he would fit in fishing and firewood. So it was me against the world. S#2 finally broke this camel’s back.
Now I have GH on my team, and it is such a relief. I have told him all my childhood memories, and am amazed that he has never heard them from me before. (what I can remember, some stuff is fuzzy and I deliberately forget I think) And now he sees how I was what I was and can stand by me and help me to become who I really am.
I am not angry with God. So much of everything that happened was a God thing that helped me to get out of both messes. If we don’t listen when we read the Bible, He is going to find a way to tell you outright. We are finally taking the old giant band-aid off and cleaning out the whole infection. Whatever part of this can be attributed to my sin, or the sin of others, He is using as a tool for redemption.
So I should be really happy right? Sigh— I wish it were that easy…….but I am getting stronger day by day.
Dear Cutandrun,
It sounds to me like you are starting to clean out this festering sore, but I found that the infection and corruption was so DEEPLY in my egg donor and her FAKE religiosity and in the fact that so many people believed her, invalidated me, had NO “Christian” empathy for me, didn’t believe a word I said, and believed every lie out of her mouth….it made it hard. But I DID FIND GOOD OUT OF IT, I quit being “religious” and became SPIRITUAL and not FAKE, I no longer HID THE “SHAME” of my Psychopathic son’s evil, or of my egg donor’s EVIL enabling eit6her. I found that unless you towed the family line of “we are all wonderful people” that you would be severely punished. I have a feeling if you told the good people of your church that your father was/is an abuser and your mother a drunk that you would be SEVERELY PUNISHED by your family for “airing the dirty linen” in public and causing the family “shame.” The SHAME is and should not be OURS, but the evil-doers’ shame. Yet, we, the victims are the ones “shamed” with TOXIC SHAME (google that one) and we are REQUIRED to cover up the evil deeds of our abusers. the fact that your dad has “toned it down” now is beside the point. Has he ever repented, TRULY repented by ACKNOWLEDGING his prior bad behavior, saying and ACTING repentent for it, trying to make up for it—my guess is NOT.
Has he ever stood up and acknowledged his sins to others in the church, or has he continued to hide them under his cloak as an “elder”? If you read the Biblical “requirements” of an “elder” you will see I think that your father does NOT fit that portrait painted of a caring and wise man, who has compassion and love in his heart. So, he was FAKING his “position”—wearing the MASK of a good man, while doing evil. HIPOCRIT just like the pharisees that Jesus dealt with who ultimately had Him crucified for telling the TRUTH about their evil actions which they hid under a cloak of OUTWARD “holyness.” He described them as “whited tombs, beautiful on the outside and inside filled with rotten corpses” (paraphrased)
Your father and my egg donor sound like siblings—so I can relate to your situation, living in a “family compound” and the church and the MASKS of goodness while actually being evil.
I too hated to “confront” this, and turned down my egg donor’s last plea of “let’s just pretend none of this ever happened” after he devaluation and discarding of me for my psychopathic son and my psychopathic DIL and my egg donor’s psychopathic caregive almost cost me AND my other sons their lives when the caregiver, who was having an affair with the DIL who was stealing money from the egg donor got caught by her husband and then she switched to try to kill him so she could get away with the money. You know, there is NO WAY I am going to “let by gones be by gones,” without TRUE ACKNOWLEDGMENT of the lies told, the malicious smear campaign my egg donor launched in the community and the larger family, and the nearly FATAL results. I can’t let her stand there and tell me “it was all a mistake, I was fooled by these people” she was fooled all right, but she gladly went along with their persecution of me, spread lies about me being after her money (I'[ve never taken money from her or tried to, I am and have been self sufficient since I left home)
All adults are responsible for their own behavior, and I too was fooled by some of the Ps for some time, but when I found out how I had contributed to their success by enabling them, I CONFESSED MY BAD DECISIONS, and CHANGED my behavior. My egg donor has NOT even acknowledged her lies except by a viscious look and saying “well, don’t tell me you never told me a lie!” My answer was “Sure, when I was 15, 48 years ago!”
What I realize now, too, is that you cannot appease these emotional DEMANDS that they make on you and still RETAIN your own soul. In another blog here there was a saying “The truth will set you free, but first it will pith you off!”
I have paid a large and heavy price for freedom from the FOG (FEAR, OBLIGATION & GUILT) that was thrust on me from the cradle. I no longer fear her, I no longer feel obligated to her and I no longer have guilt or shame for HER BEHAVIOR or for my refusal to keep the family secrets hidden. We are NOT and never have been a “nice normal family” unless you take into consideration as “compared to the Manson “family.”
It is painful, cut and run, and I am so glad that your dear husband is in your corner. God bless you both.
PS you might want to go back to your psych doc and be reevaluated. sometimes there are long lulls between manic episodes and a manic episode (or hypo-manaic) can lead you into a bad spot with bad decisions based on taht mania. I have a close friend who is a VERY bi-polar woman who before her successful diagnosis and treatment just about messed up her life completely, now for years she has been very stable on medication and when she starts toward a manic episode or deep depression she recognizes the signs before it gets out of control and goes fo rmedication readjustment. Her life is calm now even with fairly wide springs in her moods from time to time.
c
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Oxy says -sitting in a church dosent no more make you a christian than sitting in a chicken house makes you a chicken…. ROTFLMAO!!!
Oxy sweetie- You never fail to “bring it” when it comes to good sense and hilarious analogies!!! This should be in the “farmers almanac” of LF!!
I am trying to work thru my upset from the thread last nite as MAJOR triggers were happening for me as I JUST HAD LEFT the courtroom with my x N/P for Domestic abuse case- 4th one, with 3 past convictions.
AND excuse me for saying- but on the new DViolence thread- a “Professed chicken” sitting in a chicken house amongst us was squawking and MORE than ruffled my feathers with all the chicken $hit he was talking!
I admit, I bounced- bounced off the wall, onto the ceiling and then back down again. I think my head spun around a few times too.. lol
All from what I expected and am used to coming “home” here with beautiful people and I felt I needed the comfort of you guys., then this random blogger- never heard from him before said very untrue things about DV- anyways- I AM talking myself off the ledge as I speak now- Mind you- I was on the ledge to knock down a few P’s! Nevertheless, I will be reading thru out the day and probally posting more later. For now, to self- medicate , my little girl and I are baking a red velvet cake and listening to Elton John (I so love that man!)
Any advice from anyone here? During court, ridiculous , offensive stabs were made toward me by the opposing female atty. AND the DA -it was- WHY I WAS PUNISHING THIS MAN FURTHER by coming back to court due to his breaking protection order over and over again. REGARDLESS that- the x n/p has MULTIPLE abuse CONVICTIONS with irrefutable evidence against him- hence the CONVICTIONS/GUILTY CHARGES.
DA asks me “so what do you want me to do about it???? (hell- let me get my LAW books from MY PURSE here and SEE what the law allows YOU TO DO MR. full of animosity DA! It was much more than these comments –
for example DA was pissed as he pulled me outside of the courtroom before trial to NOT even ask what my situation WAS or had been- BUT WHY is this charge so OLD? THis happened several months ago he practically glared at me. I explained CALMLY, respectfully- as good Southern girls should-( GRR!!!) that THE OPPOSING ATTY- (I didnt have one THIS TIME) had cancelled court dates SEVERAL times and that was not in my control.
He says (DA) WELL (yawn, yawn, look away in obvious dont give a **** attitude)- the MOST he will get is a small fine of $200 or less.
(oh, is that all it costs to beat the hell out of someone and keep coming back for more? Thats cheap, I would gladly pay $200 to beat some ^ss right now!)
The female atty on the P’s side admitted she knew NOTHING about this case- was only chosen as a stand in for the original atty for him, and berated me on the stand about WHY, WHY, WHY DID I FEEL THREATENED BY HIS (P;s) WELL MEANING LETTERS TO ME- AS she had the letters in hand, – mind you he PLED NOT GUILTY TO WRITING THESE LETTERS UNDER OATH!!!! WHy did I feel threatened she screamed 3 TIMES SAME QUESTION!
he ONLy said he was demon possesed, had a split personality, made references to the damage on my car he had gotten away with, and that HE WAS KILLINg himself.
Lets see Ms. ATTY- lets have someone with a 2 by 4 board HIT you in the head as you walk around a building- Ok. Now, NEXT day- You walk around a building and see SAME man with board again, raised at YOUR head- WOULD YOU FEEL THREATENED?? WHY?? HE WAS PUNISHED YESTERDAY FOR Hitting YOU WITH A BOARD- he paid his $200., !
My family- thank God were there for me and were APPALLED at what I endured for this shut and dried case. The DA was as bad as the atty. EVEN trying to say I was lying about some things that had little to do with the case, and I was 150% honest and backed up everything with hard core evidence. It was argued that these letters (forget previous stalking, threatening calls, strangling, etc etcetc. ) were not really harassment to me so the “trial” was NOT decided on- I am suppose to receive the “verdict” today! After hearing the P and his female atty talking in hallway- evident she was “hot” after the “OVER THE HILL” Chippendale dancer she was defending! Explains alot on her inhumane treatment of the victim here- BUt the DA only defense was their whines of having been stuck in court from 9 am to 7 pm at nite. SO My case was just an aggravation for them and their dinner time schedule!!
I hear what you’re saying, OxDrover!
Yes there would definitely be consequences if I ever confronted my parents. But I see it as something that is over and done and don’t need to go back there, at least with THEM. I go back to fix myself. Then I know how to deal if any future “incidents” happen. I was never beaten, at least now how I would define that. Just the occasional smack. The yelling was the worst part, things that were said. Certainly nothing like you have gone through, which is – WOW, a lot. And I hope you will stay safe!
Yes I have often wondered about the state of my dad’s heart. But I think it’s something that just is between him and the Lord now. All he could say if he repented now would be, I’m sorry I have an awful temper and blamed everyone else for my problems and anger. And controlled my kids lives so that we’d look good as a family. He’s not an elder any more, and my mom hasn’t had a drinking problem for over 25 years. As they age they are becoming more and more irrelevant.
Yes I’m sure I have to get over the FOG. I’m reading some good books right now and learning.
Unless a long lull between manic episodes can be as much as 8 years, I think I’ll be OK. I do know the first signs of going into a deep depression and believe me, I go running to the Dr. quick like a bunny. Before I learned what a Sociopath was, I saw my regular Dr. for a change in meds. But after I learned, I didn’t need them anymore.
I don’t really see my dad as being evil and hiding behind a mask. He has lots of good in him, but just that side of him that will sometimes come out under the right pressure. He works driving for my brother and I just don’t understand how they work that out. I couldn’t do it. But now, I think if he ever did have a temper tantrum around me, I think I would just walk away and say you can talk to me when you can be reasonable. There may be consequences for that reaction, but I can deal with that. Cause I’m a different person now.
Thanks for allowing me to vent here guys on my prev posts here and EVERYWHERE! As I said on another blog here, regardless of my venting so hard today- I AM seeing this entire courtdate as a WIN for all of us in speaking out against domestic violence. I am totally humbled and more than willing to do my part-whatever that is ,to speak out for the silenced victims of this herific epedimic. Now the X perp should have 4 guilty charges of abuse, along with ones from his previous marriage. Court is nerve racking, discouraging, and defeating at times due to the ignorance of those dealing with victims and lack of understanding them. BUt I would do IT ALL AGAIN to let our voices be heard. ok ok, cume ba yah.. BUT I sincerely mean that!.
Dear Cut and run,
I was seldom “beaten” in the terms of a brutal beating, only once, when I was 15 and totally enraged my egg donor, usually I was spanked, but much more of the GUILT trips, the SHAME and the OBLIGATION and continual disapproval. The spectre of the deity sitting there reading my mind and condemning me for even my thoughts, much less my actions.
The posting the egg donor as “all righteous” and her rages as “justified” because i was not “perfect” and of course, she was JUSTIFIED in anything she said or did. HOLY even. She still is generous with her financial giving, etc. but she is MALICIOUS more toward me, some toward my son C whose life she almost cost, but her main vengence and rages are reserved for me, the daughter who refused to assume the role of “family enabler” as she sees the end of her life approaching (she’s 80). I am determined that I will stop the DYSFUNCTION in our family with my generation.
I have a minister who she has been friends with 36+ yrs who is in the “loop” now and I am going to try one more time to get her to quit financially enabling my P-offspring, but I leave it in God’s hands what the outcome is. I try to work like it all depended on me, and pray like it all depends on God and TRUST in the outcome to be the best result. “All things work together fo rGOOD to those that love the Lord.” I have too many times trusted in my own ability to fix things, when i should have been trusting in my God and prayer.
If you can “live with” the past problems with your parents and not be repeatedly traumatized today, I am glad fo ryou. I was unable to do so, without continuing to lie to myself and open myself up for VERBAL and EMOTIONAL ABUSE. Emotional abuse is far worse than bone breaking physical abuse in my opinion, because it RAPES THE SOUL, not just the body alone. Believe me if my home and most of my assets were not tied up in a family land trust, I would have moved to Hong Kong and left no forwarding address.
I appreciate what you have been through and are going through now. And I’ll keep you in my prayers!
Perhaps I am just in a place in my journey where I am not ready to face the prospect of certain things. I am sure there is more I need to learn yet. Or more ways I need to grow to be strong enough.
Still in process of getting my feet back under me after Mr. Sociopathetic #2.
Still curious – re: his comments at our last meeting – would you see “you can be kind of sassy with me” as a veiled threat? I know the implications of “I will always be RIGHT HERE”, he meant, in my mind….
Dear New Lily – Thanks for the tap on the head with your magic wand, it worked, today has been a good day. My pity partys are fewer and further between. Thanks…….
Great, Henry. Between Oxy’s skillet (laden with love and caring) and my magic wand (laden with love and encouragement) you are a lucky man. LOL
I’m SO glad you are feeling better today. Feeling bad is so TERRIBLE!