This is a story close to my heart. I live at the Jersey Shore. Every June and July, female turtles creep from the bay and go in search of high ground to lay their eggs. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them never make it. Their journey takes them across paved roadways, where many are squished. I’ve seen them.
Research by two young men show that a certain percentage of the turtle killings are intentional.
Nathan Weaver, a student at Clemson University placed a plastic turtle in the road near his campus. In the course of one hour, seven out of 267 vehicles, 2.62 percent, swerved in order to hit the turtle. Read:
Clemson student’s turtle project takes a dark twist, on CharlotteObserver.com.
A psychology professor quoted in the story explained the intentional killings as “the dark side of human nature.” He said,
“They aren’t thinking, really. It is not something people think about. It just seems fun at the time.”
I think the good professor is wrong. I think Weaver was observing sociopathic behavior. Experts estimate that 1 percent to 4 percent of the population are sociopaths. Well, the 2.62 percent of drivers who swerved in order to kill the turtles fit right into that range.
Mark Rober, a NASA engineer, conducted a similar experiment using a rubber turtle, snake and tarantula. He observed 1,000 cars, and 6 percent of of drivers intentionally ran over the animals.
Turtles were hit 1 percent of the time and snakes 1.8 percent—again tracking with the estimated number of sociopaths in society. Tarantulas, however, were hit the most, by far. If I were to interpret this, I’d guess that the tarantula-killers perceived them as dangerous.
Here’s a video of Mark Rober’s Roadkill Experiment.
[youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/k-Fp7flAWMA]
Thank You, MoonDancer…(love your name..). My Xhusb
is a real Sociopath…and the abuse continued even after our divorce ten years ago. His neglect to contact the girls for ten years…and not paying child support…and then to text them that they have a brother!!!! OMG…it really threw me off and ruined my holidays…which is what he wanted.
I am glad that I texted him back to let him know that THEY want me to tell him to stop texting them on holidays only and now to zap them with this!!! Satan lives on….poor kid. I foresee the wife leaving to go to Brazil with the child…when he begins to abuse her as he did my girls and me!!!!
ToBeHappy, it’s good to “see” you, again and I’m sorry about what your daughters experienced – and, don’t let it be ignored that he chose the time to “gift” the girls with the news of their “brother.” What a sick and vicious thing for anyone to do, especially after he’s been such an absentee parent, on every level. Ugh….
How old are your daughters? Are they old enough to choose whether they will have contact with their father, or not? I know that some States allow for a child 12+ to determine the level of contact they’ll have with a non-custodial parent. This may be an option.
Brightest comforting blessings
skylar:
I just saw your post late last night.
Yeah, I would NEVER do that to someone…seriously. I would never even think of ignoring someone like that; it’s just not in my nature.
She is not a spath. I knew her for five years at work. Actually quite the opposite so that is why it has been puzzling. I will say though that she may be a fence sitter and I thought exactly as you said….I am SURE he has been talking trash about me and she would have heard it since she was somewhat in his circles. My take was that she initially wanted to meet, but then she thought better of it…perhaps she didn’t want to engage in talking about him. But that truly is not why I was meeting with her. I know it would have only hurt me to talk about him anyway. Whatever the reason I guess doesn’t matter. In the end she blew me off and to not even thank me for the gift was extremely rude sooooo…that is it as far as I am concerned.
Very interesting story about your brother. Believe it or not, I have seen that happen before in my life. Not to me, but to other people. You are so right about people preying on weak prey…like kick them when they are down…it is EVIL!
I ‘inherited’ my beloved chihuahua because my spath/husband who wanted her soooooo badly,couldn’t/wouldn’t take care of her,and it used to make me so mad when he found so many reasons to keep her caged in her carrier.And he didn’t want her outside at all “until she has had her shots and been protected from heartworms”—-now that was nothing but CONTROLLING and CRUEL!
I need some help my friends…I want advice….and I know I can get the truth here..the cold war still rages between my husband regarding my 15 months NC with my Spath step daughter. It is a silent war..my thoughts are that he is severely passive aggressive…tell me what you all think….since I told her not to come back here when I was home, he punishes me. He will tell me he loves me, but he might as well be saying “it’s raining”. He quit having sex with me….he sleeps on the couch every night…he goes for extended rides on the weekends in his nice sports car…he NEVER asks me to go with him..he never talks to me, only if I ask a question or need to know something.. he is not loud and he never acts outwardly angry…when I text him, he ignores it, unless it’s something urgent. He “fake” yawns when I’m talking..rarely looks at me when I’m talking…really acts as if I’m a piece of furniture..I’m just here, that’s all….I think he has been trying to make me leave him without him making any moves. He would never want to look like the bad guy..he is a total puppet to the Spath daughter…he thinks I should just let her do or say whatever she wants to and I should just overlook it…I have refused to do that and he is so furious I know he hates me for dissing his little baby girl….I have always felt like he has turned her into the “other” woman. He will NEVER cross her because he absolutely cannot deal with any kind of conflict. She is sociopathic in every sense of the word and deep down I feel like he is scared of her too so that’s one reason he will never come against her…I need some of you really smart people to tell me what they would do in this situation…I walk around clenching my jaw most of the time because of the stress and not knowing what the outcome will be..is he just classic passive aggressive or does it sound like something else….? We have been married 32 years and he had custody of her because her bio mother was a Spath as well and took off when she was a baby…so by him being her primary care taker they developed some kind of weird attachment to each other. It’s almost like I’ve always been an intruder in their relationship…32 years is a long time….there were good years, but when I went NC with her….he cannot deal with ANYONE that he perceives as standing up to her…I feel like maybe since I’m in the situation I cannot see it clearly….HELP…..I love you guys……you are always here for me!!!
Creampuff,
your boundaries have to be more than just physical. They have to be emotional too. He is punishing you by withholding love and attention. He is trying to control you by using your emotions. A normal person doesn’t do that. Only a controlling narcissist or spath would do that.
You’ve stayed 15 months too long. I’m sorry for your 32 years that you invested in him. I can relate with my 25.5 years of wasted life with spath. But I try not to think of it that way. I try to realize that I gained knowledge and wisdom that I most certainly wouldn’t have gained any other way.
In fact, these days, when I meet more evil people, I chalk it up to experience. By allowing myself to see people as they REALLY ARE, I grow in wisdom.
It seems to me that if he is behaving this way now, there were probably other things he has done to control you in the past 32 years. Maybe you just didnt’ notice? Or, like me, you thought it was okay because you thought men are just that way?
time to look out for YOU and what you want. Your happiness is waiting for you. Go get it.
skylar:
I thought of you when I read this. 🙁
http://kstp.com/news/stories/S2887617.shtml?cat=11848
Creampuff, it will NOT GET BETTER…THIS IS CLASSIC “PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE” and remember “passive-aggressive” is AGGRESSIVE…
You have two choices. AND ONLY TWO choices
1) live life the way it is being lived now
2) leave
I think you are right, I think he is trying to force you to leave and be the “bad guy” by leaving him…but what other choice do you have? #1–live life the way it is now…with him treating you worse than dirt.
Leaving is a big decision…it will require splitting assets and all that, as well as “what do you tell the neighbors?” The thing is that YOU have to make the decision of #1 or #2. You cannot control how he behaves, you can only decide if you want to put up with by living in the same house with him for the next 30 years with him acting this way?
I know this is a tough decision, Creampuff…you made the BIG hard choice when you went NC with her and with your P daughter…and this is the natural consequence when you are dealing with a HARD CORE ENABLER…your husband and my egg donor are a pair of a kind…both punishers if you don’t do what they want you to which is allow the psychopath to abuse you.
NC is my only option with ANYONE who enables the psychopath who abuses me. But YOU must decide for your self…what is behind DOOR #1 OR DOOR #2.
Louise,
argh! horrible, just horrible. You can’t even win the lottery without looking over your shoulder.
I think whomever cashed the check is the guilty party. Probably the evil wife?
You know, it behooves us to keep our personal and financial situation private. I wasn’t that way at first, but the last 10 years or so, I had begun to hide my financial situation from the spath. I really had no reason, it was just a feeling that I needed to keep things to myself.
He raged and demanded that I do a financial spreadsheet so he could know our exact status. I made up a fake one.
skylar:
I know! This really broke my heart! I couldn’t believe when I read it and thought the same thing you did…whoever cashed the check much later must be the culprit. I have a feeling now that they know it was a murder that they will find out who it was. Thank God for the relative that pushed for a further investigation!
I agree about our financial situations. You just can’t trust anyone!