The psychopath’s bewildering ways of talking
PDF A reader says: “I kept wondering what was going on in his head. I could never follow his thinking. I think he might have been into alcohol and drugs and that in itself messes the brain, and along with his other personality disorders, sure makes for a confusing relationship.”
The thinking patterns of the psychopath are indeed weird. It seems there are biological and intentional reasons for this. In others words, he is unable to think very logically PLUS he intends to mislead. No wonder he is hard to follow!
Below I list several factors which together make the psychopath a most bamboozling character.
The odd speech of psychopaths
The psychopath makes “frequent use of contradictory and logically inconsistent statements”, says Robert Hare in ‘Without conscience.’ E.g. “A man serving time for armed robbery replied to the testimony of an eyewitness, “He’s lying. I wasn’t there. I should have blown his fucking head off.” It is as if, says Hare, they have “difficulty monitoring their own speech”.
Psychopaths may also construct strange words: ‘unconscientious’ for unconscious’, ‘antidotes’ for ‘anecdotes’. Perhaps there is something about the brain of the psychopath that contributes to his odd speech.
Drug and alcohol abuse
With their poor ability to tolerate frustration and their high need for stimulation (same thing?), the psychopath is likely to abuse drugs and alcohol which obviously affects the ability to think. Chronic abuse damages the brain.
But, as M.L. Gallagher recently writes, he speaks in riddles purposely too.
The intention to deceive
This doesn’t need much elaboration here. The psychopath wants to get something. He may simply take it by force. Otherwise he will use his cunning to fool the other person. (Interestingly, the illogicality of his arguments doesn’t stop him successfully conning one person after another.)
Logical fallacies
Most of us use logical fallacies when we argue or try to persuade. Some of these are errors in our own thinking, some are conscious manipulations. Just accentuating a different word can make all the difference: “Mom said that we musn’t throw stones at the windows” (i.e. she didn’t say anything about hitting them with a tennis racket).
We can fully expect that the psychopath, with his flawed thinking plus his intention to deceive, will use every logical fallacy in the book. Bear with me for a couple of paragraphs.
Take the example the logical fallacy, the ‘ad hominem argument’. It has two types, circumstantial and abusive. In the circumstantial ad hominem argument the circumstances of the other are confronted instead of the evidence: “Of course you don’t accept that it’s OK to be a loan-shark. You’re a Christian and Christ drove the money lenders out of the temple.” (But that’s irrelevant; if I was Jewish what would your defense be then?)
In the abusive ad hominem argument the opponent is attacked instead of their argument: “You criticise me for loan-sharking, but three years ago you were arrested for drunk driving.” (What does that have to do with loan-sharking?)
Paramoralism
But the psychopath uses fallacies with an evil twist. Whenever possible he’ll use a logical fallacy as a paramoralism. In other words, he won’t use a fallacy only to win a point but also use it moralistically in order to corrode the other’s moral thinking.
How would a psychopath argue ad hominem? Several readers have mentioned precisely this example: “What kind of Christian are you to accuse me of this?” (Again, the other’s Christianity is irrelevant to the topic at hand.) Can you see the difference? Unlike the examples above where the opponent’s Christianity is used to score a point or bring the argument to an end, here the other is being denounced as a bad Christian. An open-minded person is likely to say to themselves, “Maybe he’s right. Perhaps I’m the bad one here.”
Perhaps you have an example to share of the bewildering speech of a psychopath?
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For glimpse into the wacky thought-processes of the narcissist see this article.
myboysmattermost says:
My favorite one:
I Know I lied to you. I cant say how sorry I am. I am working at being a better man now. You also have done cruel things to me over the years. We both need to change…
Hello???
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kim frederick says:
Or what my x said, “I know I said some really shitty things to you, I promise I’ll never do that to you again”. Then, ” I’m soooo damn mad at you cause I said I’d never do that again, but YOU MADE me….”
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Aeylah says:
My favorite ones…
“I know I lied to you but the truth really upsets you, so from now on I’m just not going to tell you the truth”!
“yeah, I had a little sex with her….it was harmless, your making a big deal out of nothing”!
PUKE!
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kim frederick says:
Yep, I agree, Puke.
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autisticsouls says:
be so hello, Mike be such painting nows. i be so in the computer i tells him to take himself a break. this be so Des.
be so our delvyn be so tells of ourselves
” …there be always pockets for Dark intents to slip in, to interfere, to distort, to convince truth with subtle lies…Dark can’t possess what is not offered, can’t go where not invited, can’t create or take against will…so; but it can manipulate, whisper our fears (that are only false evidence that we haven’t dealt with), and go/ do wherever/ whatever it hasn’t been directed not to. Keep in the Light of G-d; stay on Path of Light. We are sanctioned by the Light of G-d; we need not fear; we need only hold to the truth we know in our hearts. We will not fail, except through our own fears..love, light, peace and hope… that is the promise..”
delvyn be so reminds us of the pretender:
“…although it is truth that all is one, and that unity contains all creation, all realms, all time, it is my perception that Lucifer has made several choices with negative consequences, that he is condescending toward the race of man, and subtly clever in his word. He neither heals nor advances any creation unless there is benefit for himself. Such dark intent lies within us all: that is the truth of free will. We are free to choose or not to choose: dark or light of G-d intent. We are free to look beyond any action to see if it harms another, even in a tangential sense, and accept responsibility for it, or not. Lucifer cannot wash the blood of innocents off his hands, no matter how often he states that he only helped them achieve what they wanted. He is present in all worlds, all realms, all creation…seeking to rationalize behavior that, in the aware heart, one knows has harmed someone else. The only way that he can do this is by believing his own lie….” shared by our Delvyn
Des
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Renewedhope says:
My S woman’s brain pattern is so true to form of a sociopath. She told me of how she was considered into MENSA as a child. (Never said she actually made it). She claimed to be very spiritual and that some people were afraid of her. That she weirded out alot of people. At the time I told her straight out-I had never been afraid of her.. not even while I was half asleep and she whispered under her breath “I hate You!”. She follows the sociopaths cycle of making all these impetuous plans and never following through with any of them. “Let’s go to Florida and get a trailer. Then the next day she wanted to go to Seattle to live. These bright ideas seem to come right out of left field to me. No doubt she had these grandoise ideas about her person and plans she made. They were all reg flags staring me in the face and I ignored them all …or excused them away.
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erin1972 says:
The more I read on here-it’s amazing that all of these men are EXACTLY alike and most of these stories are so identical as well-particularly the cell phone thing and the text messages. Most of our relationship was based on the cell phone and text messages because he had the ugly wife at home. She had been there through his medical training for 25 years and would “take him to the cleaners for everything he had if he left her”.
He went to her at night to have dinner. He would sit in front of the TV and watch all his cop shoes and text me the entire time-telling me how he wanted to be with me instead and how he loved me and missed me so much. He had the choice, he could have done something about that. The fact that he was over there not doing what he wanted, was something that he could have changed at anytime. They weren’t having sex. He would take her over to his friends’ houses to hang with their wives. She shopped with their wives. Her would dress her up in a fancy dress with expensive jewelry on occasion for some event for work. He always told me that he SO wished that he could bring me instead.
When she found out about us and kicked him out and he moved in with me, she told me that this had happened with the other three women prior to me-even though he claimed that I was the first and the only one who mattered. She was surprised to find out about me because he had swore and promised that it would never happen again. He hadn’t done anything,to her knowledge in 10 years and THEY hadn’t been intimate in over 6 years. She had told him after the last affair that if he EVER fellow in love with someone and needed his freedom, she would have given it to him without fighting-just as long as he let her know before he actually cheated. She would have let him go if he would have come home and said-I’m sorry-I met Erin. We are really good friends but I have fallen in love with her and I need to go. He could have done that instead of lying. That’s why I’m so angry. I am angry at him and WAY ANGRY AT ME for allowing someone to disrespect me that way. I can’t have too much anger with him disrespecting HER though-because this crazy woman allowed him to do this multiple do this multiple times before me. She knew what he was and still stayed because he had a lot of money and she enjoyed benefitting from that. She told me that she knew he didn’t really love me because he didn’t buy me expensive jewelry. How messed up is that? He bought me things that were important to me-police equipment for my new job. He’s crazy. She’s crazier. I am SO glad I no longer have any contact with either one. I gave them both an earful before changing my phone # and e-mail address.
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Zen says:
hmm some of this sounds like psychosis? Similarities re speech?
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erin1972 says:
what?
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OxDrover says:
Dear Erin1972,
Whatever her relationship with him is or was is really beside theh point in your relationship with him.
Your relationship with him was built on YOUR EXPECTATION that what he was telling you about THEIR RELATIONSHIP was true.
Unfortunately, what he was telling you about their relationship was not the truth.
WHY she stayed with him, knowing he was a seriall cheater and took him back, kicked him out, and took him back again, doesn’t make her any more disordered than we (other victims) have done, many of us have let them lure us back into the web even after we caught them in lies.
In my opinion the wife is just as much his victim as YOU are. She fell for it again. He smoothed over her anger at again being lied to. Sure they don’t have much of a marriage in my opinion, but do you think for ONE MINUTE that if he had cheated on her “because she was ugly” that he wouldn’t have ALSO CHEATED ON YOU? Of course he would have! If he had left her and married you, he would quickly have started cheating on you.
His cheating was not based on the fact that she is “Ugly” or anything else, it is totally based on the fact HE IS A LIAR AND A CHEAT WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE.
If he DOES stay with her for the money ONLY or she stays with him for the MONEY ONLY, what does that make either one of them? They are both robbing themselves of a life. He will cheat again, and she probably figures that, or maybe he has again convinced her that he really loves her or she has decided that the “money” is worth putting up with him and his cheating, but that doesn’t make her a BAD PERSON, if she put him through medical school I think she deserves the finacial rewards his career that she bought and paid for brings.
But the bottom liine, Erin, is whatever their relationship is or isn’t, HE IS A LIAR TO YOU, HE IS A CHEAT TO YOU—and I think you are angry at yourself for believing him as much as you are angry at HER for being “ugly” and still getting what, for a while anywaY, YOU THOUGHT WAS THE PRIZE.
Personally,, I think YOU won the “prize” getting away from a cheater, whether right now it feels like you are a “winner” or not, I think YOU got the best end of that deal. (((((Hugs))))
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erin1972 says:
I finally had my dream, right before he left-starting the police academy-after working in a career that I despised for too long. That job was a big paycut for me and he was supposed to be there to help. I was still taking call on the weekends in my othe career to help with the $$$. His wife had gotten an adminstrative job at the same hospital where I worked but I was there first. She threatened to call the PD and make me lose my job if I didn’t quit the hospital one. THen I was relying on him solely to help out and he discarded me. I had to quit my academy class because the rigors of police training is NOT conducive to suddenly being homeless-I lost my apartment as well. My friends went on and graduated without me. I then spent 5 months being unemployed after dropping out. Due to the ecomony, no one was hiring in my prior field so I went those 5 months not paying my bills. Now I am way more behind and have to work full time doing something I despise and working with other sociopaths like my ex-EVERY FREAKIN DAY. Right now, I am not feeling like I won such a prize. I am glad to not be with him but I hate where I am right now-having to postpone my dream until I can downsize. I think all of us are at different stages of dealing with these people and their destruction. I am having a really hard time with it. I have just entered the anger phase but occasionally hurt is still lingering. I wan’t my career and I’m pissed as hell for having to wait this much longer for it because of him!!
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witsend says:
erin1972,
You have every right to be angry. And it is important for you to work through this anger. It is an important step towards healing.
An S/P/N creates an illusion. They have the ability to become exactly what you want them to be in the begining of a relationship. They seem to present themselves as the answer to your dreams WHATEVER your dreams might be. That is what you fell in love with, the illusion of himself that he created.
Its all smoke and mirrors. He is the lie he created. Make no mistake about it, his intention was to decieve. And he was also decieving his wife at the same time.
And it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, (because there is NO goodness in his heart) that he stayed with her out of obligation because she put him through medical school. An S/P/N has an agenda. And she was still a part of that agenda.
She is just another of his casualties. Another victim.
You are free from him. You made the right choice. He has no love to give. Not to you, not to her, not to anyone. Just empty promises and lies. Try to forget what he
“told” you and what he promised you in your past realationship and focus on what his actions were. His actions are what “gave him away”. Look at him for what he really is, not what he portrayed himself to be.
Sometimes that really helps when you are going through this. Not just a mental list but maybe write it down on paper. Look at it in black and white. At some point this will not be so much about him anymore and it will be more about you.
You are still experiencing alot of pain. Your emotions are still very raw. This will get better. Just hang in there. Intellectually you know what you know and your heart hasn’t caught up yet. But it will.
Have you read any of the suggested books yet?
xxxx
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Aeylah says:
Mirrors….interestingly enough the ex-S had them all over his house….all hard surfaces and mirrors everywere you looked!
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erin1972 says:
My best friend told me that the man that I fell in love with never existed and I believe her. I am just angry as hell that my life is still so messed up because of him. I should be in my dream career right now and he is the reason that I’m not. I can’t stand that. If I had to re-live the day he discarded and the day I had to withdraw from the police academy, losing the police academy is WAY WAY more painful than losing him.
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witsend says:
erin1972,
The man you fell in love with never did exist. Your best friend is very accurate making that call.
You can still work towards your goal of your dream career. That can be the silver linning in the end. Your achievement. This is the real world and he doesn’t live in the real world.
Achieving ones dreams consist of hard work and alot of focus, and sacrifice. You can still do this.
He used your dream as “bait”. To hook you in. But it was never real. What he promised.
Your dream can still be real.
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lostingrief says:
witsend: good one. they have an ‘agenda!’ exactly!
i often wondered why spath-hole stayed with his wife (whom he treated like crap and verbally trashed all the time). in the end, i thought she had ‘won’ (except he had gotten a third female pregnant!).
anyway, it does boil down to the cold-hard fact that spaths have an agenda with everyone they keep in their lives. an agenda which NEVER takes into consideration the needs of those they claim as theirs.
gross.
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erin1972 says:
Lostingrief: you are so right and witsend, so are you. He did use my dream to snare me and bring me in. He did stay with the wife who stood by him through his medical training. He made sure to give me the list of all her negative qualities but as soon as I MADE A comment, I was told NOT to talk bad about her. He needed her for his reputation-he dressed her up just right the way he needed her for events and such. He would say how I was the ONE-the one he truly wanted. He really didn’t know what he wanted. He wanted her-the masters degreed nurse in a high position but also wanted the cop girlfriend. Plus I don’t get how they manage to juggle their schedules like that-it baffles me completely. That’s why they can’t be normal. THere is NO way that I could function on such a dysfunctional level.
After he used and discarded me after pulling the wool over my eyes for a year, he told HER that I wasn’t his intellectual equal. All I know is that my I Q is 125 and HE is not my psychological equal-he is FAR FAR FAR below that in every way and he is not my emotionally equal either-because he HAS NO EMOTIONS-he just fakes them!!
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lostingrief says:
erin: EXACTLY! used her to look normal and told me not to talk bad about her either. oh puh-leeze! i wondered about how he scheduled his THREE women, too! he seemed to be with me ALL the time, and home with the wife and kids on weekends. how did he manage an entire OTHER relationship!? easy. every minute he had he was just with the new gf. he had no friends. he just had women to take care of him and his EVERY need; morning, noon and night. didn’t matter which one, as long as SHE wasn’t calling him on his shit and giving him any grief.
what a bastard demon from hell … all of ‘em!
but we’re free now … thank god and the goddess …!
towanda!
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OxDrover says:
I can’t remember the link, I know it is posted here somewhere, but it is a site called “romeo bleeding” and is about getting involved with cheating men/women.
The fact is, IF THEY WILL CHEAT ON HER, (HIM) THEY WILL CHEAT ON YOU.
I have a sweet friend who is being courted long distance by a married man she met at a professional convention. She is a sweet person, but she keeps falling for the he “has an unhappy marriage,” line, like THIS one is going to be different.
She corresponds with me about this man and keeps asking me “is he sincere”? I KEEP TELLING HER “NO, he is like all the rest”—if you are just looking for a “fling” then go for it, but if you want an honest relationship DON’T FALL FOR A DISHONEST MAN. I don’t care what he says his relationship with his wife is, or if she is the BEAST OF BAGDAD, it doesn’t make any difference, if he really wanted out, HE WOULD BE OUT. It isn’t like divorce is impossible any more, or that a person must stay with a spouse they despise in order to be a parent. THERE ARE OPTIONS. Serial cheaters are not people you want to get involved with because they are DISHONEST TO THE CORE.
Anyone can make a bad decision and have an affair, but people who have multiple affairs or multiple affairs at the same time are DISHONEST TO THE CORE. Not all may be psychopaths, but they are sure high in traits of one at the very least.
Does any of us want a “relationship” with someone who is DISHONEST? I don’t think so. Unless we also TRULY believe that dishonesty is okay or that a spouse being “ugly or mean” is a VALID “reason” that makes an affair okay then, we have made a bad choice. It doesn’t mean we are dishonest to the core (like a psychopath) because I will stand up right here and say I HAVE DONE THINGS I KNEW WERE DISHONEST AND WRONG, but I am doing my best to never do something I think is dishonest again, as long as I live. I am also not associating with ANYONE that Thinks DISHONESTY is okay.
Having admitted to myself that I have done dishonest things, and admitted to the people I did those things to, as much as possible, and having made amends as much as possible, I have REPENTED of those things. I am truly sorry that I chose to do those dishonest things. I WAS WRONG, I feel guilt because I did those things. I have resolved to never be dishonest again. I have changed my way of doing things and am following my moral compass.
The problem with the psychopaths is that they HAVE NO MORAL COMPASS, they have no shame or guilt. They may be “sorry” they got CAUGHT doing things they KNEW WERE WRONG, or lying about it, but they are NOT sorry, they do NOT feel guilt or shame, they would do it again given half a chance. Right or wrong in their minds doesn’t apply to them, it is what THEY WANT that matters, and whatever they must to to get what THEY want is okay for THEM to do. Rules don’t apply to them, they only apply to others in their minds.
Sometimes in our desire for the “bait” they hold out to us, we let go of our own moral compass and choose to do things that we know or knew were dishonest. So in the end, it isn’t only them being dishonest to us, but us being DISHONEST WITH OURSELVES that snares us. Whether that is thinking “he will cheat on her, but he LOVES me” or whether it is ALLOWING them to abuse us, catch them in lies, and then restore unearned trust to them because if we call them on the fantasy we will lose the FANTASY relationship and we don’t have the strength right then to face the fact that the whole thing is one BIG SHAM.
The most difficult part of every relationship I ever had with a psychopath (no matter what kind of relationship it was) is that I let them devert my moral compass and I did things I knew were wrong in order to stay with them and not face the prospect of losing that relationship.
Accepting that responsibility on myself rather than focusing on the nasty dishonest, abusive ,and just plain mean, things they did to me or others, or trivalizing those things, is what got me into the point I could start making some progress toward healing,, and toward fixing my own self. It was the hardest part of the process. Looking in the mirror and seeing myself, my own part in the failures of my relationships was difficult and painful.
I’m not responsible for what they did, I am not blaming myself for what they did, I am accepting responsibility for MY own short comings that made me forget my moral compass and engage in a relationship that was DAMAGING TO ME.
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lostingrief says:
i hear ya’ oxy.
i was with him before he was married; then we split and he got his ‘wife’ pregnant while i was away. then we got back together, but i left him again, at which point he got another female pregnant, but stayed with the ‘wife.’ then he begged me to come back to him because he couldn’t find ‘happiness’ with me away. took him 2 years to convince me, but i knew he was unhappy in his relationship and he used the fact that he never ‘cheated’ while we were together (as far as i knew — a lie, of course) as proof that i was the one he loved.
i never went out with anyone who was already in a relationship or ‘married’ in my life, but because i had been there first, it somehow justified it in my mind.
but you are right. he had kids with two other women, neither of whom he cared about. if we didn’t have a 20 year history, if i wasn’t friends with his mom and his whole family, i probably would have never gone back. that would have been a GOOD thing!
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erin1972 says:
I did allow him and his lies and flattery steer me off my moral compass as well. Before he came along if you asked me if I would willing be with someone who was already married, I would have told you-NO WAY IN HELL. That’s how sick all of this is. I have repented for my role in the whole thing but I STILL feel horrible. I am not happy to have contributed to HER misery. I would have continued to feel bad for her except she pretending to be by buddy and then turning on me. I am pissed at myself for letting me get snowed by him-I always knew good and well that if he cheated on her, he would cheat on me as well. I feel almost like I was possessed by Satan for a year. That is the only thing that I can name that could possibly be that sick. That is the only way I can figure out that I did something that went against my morality and everything intellectually that I knew was wrong.
Five months after he discarded me, he called me to “get closure”-for him that meant saying the following: “I’m sorry for what I did. I am going to therapy now and you have to understand that I had a really horrible childhood and that’s what made me to it”. He also stated that the only reason he was going to therapy was that SHE required it, because she had taken back the divorce papers and was moving back home. I found out that he was calling her 24/7 even at work, begging,pleading, crying, and buying her things to get her back-including sending flowers to her at work everyday.
Let’s see how long he waits before he does it again. I feel so disgusted and grossed out and used because I’m sure that when he went out of town on business, he was f****** other women and coming home to my bed and telling me that I was the love of his life and that we would be together forever. I read somewhere about how spaths are impulsive and don’t plan ahead. THis is what happened when his wife found out: I had sent him a text saying I miss you and I love you. She picked up his phone while he was in the shower and then she confronted him. She started calling me and I wouldn’t pick up the phone. THen he called me on his cell and left the following voicemail-Please go along with this story-I told her that you worked with me and that you are a lesbian and that your girlfriend’s phone number was on # off from mine and that you sent me a text that was meant for her. HELL TO THE NO- 1) how could he think that after his past and her staying with him, that she would believe something so freakin stupid 2) I am not calling myself lesbian to get any man out of trouble-no offense to any gay girls, because I have some friends who are gay. My point is-if our relationship was so serious and important to him, I would think that he would have a better more planned out answer on what he would do if he was found out. THey don’t plan ahead-then they have to tell more and more outrageous lies. I finally did tell her after he discarded me and moved out that the whole “gay excuse” was bull and by then she already knew it. It is sick and gross and I am appalled at my participation in my own pain and suffering by letting my self get fooled so bad-NEVER AGAIN. I just ordered about 4 books on the subject and I can’t wait until they get here!
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OxDrover says:
Yea, LIG, they can persuade us to do lots of things that normally we would not do. Well, I am glad you are away from him (at a painful cost I am sure) so there is some “silver lining” to this cloud in there somewhere. LOL
I think I never would have gotten FREE of the FOG (Fear, Obligation and Guilt) If I had not gotten past the stage of blaming them for everything that happened to me as a result of my relationship with THEM. Sure, they ARE nasty pieces of work, but if I had not been DISHONEST withh myself, I would never have “gone for” the entire crap.
Like, for example, WHO on God’s green earth could want a relationship with a COLD BLOODED KILLER? Someone who could put a gun to someone’s head and pull the trigger twice, then dump their body in a ditch? I stood up and WAVED MY HAND, ME! ME! ME! Cause he is my “baby boy”! So because I gave birth to him, that made a relationship with a cold blooded killer a GOOD THING, WHY?
That story Donna posted with the link to the video of the thug bragging about killing COULD BE MY SON, sans the tattoos. My P-son might not be quite stoooopid enough to brag on camera about doing his killing, but he sure bragged to his buddies about it. I have that in my own hands in his handwriting. So, go back and view that video and picture me there on my hands and knees clinging to him wanting a parole for him in Jan of 2007.
Now, picture my attorney standing up before the parole commission in Texas in January 2011 and saying for me, “My son is a psychopath, he is a danger to society and to me,, do not EVER LET HIM OUT!”
That is about a l80 degree turn around if there ever was one. I am glad I made that turn around and I do not regret turning around and facing reality. Sure, it was terribly painful, but if I hadn’t, I would still be in la-la land, in pain from seeing my “baby” suffer in prison. In the end, TRUTH is better than the FICTION that we want to believe. More painful at first, but hey, you know, “there ain’t no santa claus, Virginia, and if you expect someone else to make you happy, you are going to find your stocking filled with switches and coal.”
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OxDrover says:
Dear Erin 1972,
I’m sorry you are hurting, but I think you are on the way toward healing yourself, and frankly that is ALL we can do. But it is soooo important to grasp that we have allowed it, not that we are responsible for HIS abuse of her or us, but we are responsible for allowing ourselves to get pulled into that fantasy.
I used to blame it all on THEM, and I would get right back into another dysfunctional situation with another one, either a love interest, a boss, a friend, whatever….and I wasn’t learning that the problem was ME associating with dishonest people and excusing their dishonesty, even though it impacted on me.
I’m glad you have ordered some books, andn there is so much really good information here in the articles on LF. Keep on reading and learning.
Workk on FORGIVING YOURSELF, and by that I mean quit beating yourself up over the past, just make sure in the future that you FOLLOW THE MORAL COMPASS and stay away from people who either don’t have a moral compass or have a faulty one. If you follow your moral compass you will stay on the road toward healing YOU, and unfortunately, we can’t rescue some one else, and no one can rescue us, it is always a ‘DO-IT-YOURSELF project.
I’m glad for you that you are working on your own healing, and there will be roller coaster days and down days, but as you get closer and closer you will start to feel better and to be STRONGER and wiser and more at Peace!!!! Hang in there sweetie! You ARE on your way ((((Hugs))))
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erin1972 says:
He had such blame for what happened to me but I know that I had a fault in it too. It disgusts me to think that I could permit someone to make me disregard my moral compass. I keep trying to figure out what is wrong with me to make me such a target. My relationship before him had a lot of similarities and then I was alone for several years before him. I started thinking that I can’t date-I’m not genetically set up for it. I can’t figure it out. What is wrong with me?
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lostingrief says:
erin: read ‘women who love sociopaths.’ it explains why certain women are targets more than others, and it’s not all bad.
oxy is right; we have to take some responsibility for the situation we were in and more importantly, why we stayed in it when we KNEW the truth in our hearts.
spaths are formidable opponents, but why play that game at all, right?
oxy: ya, he was my ‘baby boy’ too. with a 12 year difference between us, i felt that i had to love him unconditionally. but all that allows us to do — i now understand — it to participate in our own oppression.
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erin1972 says:
How do I get that book? I have heard others talk about it. Why was is so important for me to meet the needs that SHE couldn’t or wouldn’t for him. When I was in the relationship, I could never understand why he went home to HER everynight. He said that she met his needs socially and that was it. Why was that so important to me? I took such good care of him and I got nothing back but getting discarded.
I am sick right now-stomach flu and just starting to be able to eat crackers. I remember that when I had this last year that he came over with medicine, fluids, stomach friendly foods that would last for a week and one of his shirts to sleep in and he offered to move the tv into the bedroom. He sat down in my bed with me until I fell asleep and then let himself out. I remember being so grateful for that-like he was SO wonderful. Truthfully, if he deserved me and was any kind of a real man, he would have stayed with me and not left. He is not a real man. He is a fake, an illusion. He doesn’t deserve someone like me. I don’t deserve someone like him-he is SO beneath me but it is hard to be sick all alone. My best friend was so right when she said that the man that I fell in love with never really existed.
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OxDrover says:
Dear ERin1972
“what is wrong with me?” That is a question we all have to ask ourselves, WHY did we get tied up in this (and or other bad or dysfunctional relationships) it starts out about THEM and then becomes about US.
Our own thinking and ideas about ourselves and others, our self esteem, or “dreams” and how we have learned to cope with stress are all part of it.
I realized that I had a big case of “hyper-responsibility” for others, it was MY job to make everyone else happy, no matter what it cost ME. A lot of it went back to my child hood and the fact that there was a LONG (generations!!) history of the men being abusers and the women cleaning up the messes, in the name of “being a good Christian and FORGIVING”—but I found out that I didn’t like this arrangement any more. I realized I had emotionally “bought into” this CRAP. Not that I can BLAME it on my egg donor for trying to feed me this stuff but I didn’t really 100% buy into it, but it was just “easier” to go with the flow than to stand up and take the punishment for trying to rebel against the family mottos:
“let’s just pretend none of this happened” or “let’s pretend we are a nice normal family”
It never felt right, not from my earliest memories, but any time I would “rebel” against the “party line” I would be beaten into submission.
I just read a story today in the NYTimes that there is mass murder going on in Mexico, even one branch of the US embassy was closed for over a week, but the reporters are NOT PUTTING anything about this on the news or papers, because the fighting going on by the narcos and the police is something the narcos don’t want publicized so they have threatened the reporeters, killed several and five have “disappeared,” so though you might hear gunfire in your neighborhood, or see murders, when you turn on the news or pick up the paper there is NOTHING ABOUT IT REPORTED.
Just as the bad eggs of a society will punish anyone in the society that tries to bring a spot light on to the bad deeds of some of the society, the dysfunctional toxic family group will do the same thing. Punish anyone who is bold enough to buck the “system.”
Sure, if you want to be a reporter in Mexico, you are RISKING your very life, and the lives of your kids, but look what happened in Nazi Germany when people were afraid to speak up about what they knew. I don’t know if I would be brave enough to stick my head up and “report” the truth in Mexico, sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut to live to fight another day, but when everyone does that, you know what the outcome is.
Confronting any psychopath inside a group will get you “smeared” or “hurt” in one way or another. It is painful. I waited though until my own life was literally at stake before I had the courage or good sense, and stood up and “reported” what was going on, but I had been too “go along” to “get along” for wayyyyyy tooooo long!
I just finished a novel about a family in WWII Germany and it followed the family from aftger WWI to after WWII and how they knew what was going on, and how they hid Jews in their cellars, but how many people in their town kept their mouths shut, or worse, participated in the Nazi control, but then after the war tried to pretend that they had not.
Life is not always fair, not always safe if you do what you know is right, and soometimes we have some tough questions to ask ourselves about how we make our choices. Some of those choices are tough.
You are right Erin1972, he is NOT a “real man” or even a “real” human being with emotions that are real or any kind of altruism.
When I was 18 I thought I knew the answers to all the world’s problems, now that I am 63 I know I not only don’t now the answers, I don’t even know all the questions, but I do know that an honest and just society starts with ME. I must be honest with others, and honest with myself, and just with others and just to myself. So I CAN do those things and if more people did those things, we would have a better society. Even if I can’t change the whole world, if I can change my CHOICES to be the kind of choices that are honest and good, then I will have influenced the world itself as well. ((((Hugs)))))
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