The sociopath’s pseudo insightfulness and sensitivity
Sociopaths who posture as insightful and self-aware are some of the most dangerous predators around.
When I use the terms pseudo insightful and pseudo sensitive, I’m referring to the sociopath’s manipulative efforts to seem some combination of vulnerable, self-aware, sensitive and compassionate.
For some sociopaths this deception is conscious, while for others it is so seamlessly woven into their modus operandi as to feel (for them), at least in the moment, almost authentic.
Even the normal individual, low in sociopathic traits, may struggle to distinguish his deception from authenticity when finding himself “performing” in a mode in which he feels masterfully confident and comfortable—for instance, pitching a sale; or making a presentation, or speech.
But what factors make the sociopath’s “insight” and “sensitivity” pseudo versus authentic?
There is, first of all, the manipulative function of the sociopath’s pseudo sensitivity. Authentically insightful individuals use their insight and self-awareness not merely to better protect themselves and their interests, but also to better understand themselves and others.
Sociopaths, however, always wanting something from others, oriented as they are to wanting to take something from others, use their “pseudo” insight and self-awareness for exploitive purposes.
For instance, the sociopath’s interest isn’t to get to know and understand you better for purposes of increasing his depth of connection with you; rather, his interest to establish unobstructed access to you is about positioning himself to take something from you that he wants—whether you’re ready to offer it or not, and whether it’s in your best interest to offer it or not.
In other words, the sociopath is never interested in you; he is always, and only, interested in what he can take from you.
This applies also to the sociopath’s invitation to appreciate his pseudo display of vulnerability. This may take the form of his “startling sensitivity” and self-awareness. If he reads you correctly—as someone, say, who values vulnerability and substance—then he may regale you with “apparent” evidence of his capacity to be wounded; to manifest sensitive emotions; to position himself as someone who’s “in touch” with his feelings.
As always, how much he believes his performance in the moment (versus consciously recognizing it as bogus or manipulative) varies from sociopath to sociopath and from circumstance to circumstance.
Paradoxically, a more “self-aware” sociopath will recognize his fraudulence better than a less self-aware sociopath, who may be more prone to denial, self-delusion, and the belief that, at least temporarily, he really is the role he’s playing.
Regardless, sociopaths play the “self-aware,” “vulnerable” card (consciously or not) ultimately for grooming purposes—specifically, for purposes of softening your defenses and encouraging, coaxing out, your vulnerability.
This is because the less guarded, the more disarmed you are—in a word, the more vulnerable you are—the greater (the sociopath calculates) are his chances of taking from you what he wants.
Now let me apply some of these ideas to a hypothetical, real-life scenario: Let us say you are on a blind date with a very charismatic, charming sociopath. There is seemingly very intense chemistry. He watches you in a very flattering, lusting way, feasting his eyes on you all night. He tells you how attractive he finds you, that he’s mesmerized by you.
Now he isn’t necessarily lying. He could be lying, we know that, in which case his manipulation is that much more blatantly and manifestly sociopathic. But it’s also possible that he isn’t lying—that is, that he feels, in the moment, that what he’s telling you he feels is true; or, that he’s convinced himself that everything he’s telling you is true.
And so his sociopathy can’t necessarily be traced to his lying, because in this instance he may not perceive himself as lying, and, in a certain sense, he may not be lying. His sociopathy, rather, can more accurately be identified in his underlying, preexisting agenda which, in our hypothetical scenario, come hell or high water, is to “nail” you.
He made this his mission the moment he laid eyes on you and found you sexually attractive enough to make this his intention. He feels quite thrilled—perhaps even a little giddy and delighted—that you’ve proven attractive enough (in a sense, cooperative enough) to elicit his lust, which now enables him to pursue his agenda with you.
I don’t mean to suggest that this is the only agenda our hypothetical sociopath could be pursuing with you. It’s possible that he (or another sociopath) might play things differently, by approaching his interests with more or less patience; more or less calculated, disguised subterfuge.
And it’s possible that our sociopath, or a different sociopath, on this same first, blind date, might have an entirely different set of intentions, warranting a very different approach to meeting them. For instance, he or she may be a golddigging sociopath—a financial predator—less than a sexual exploiter.
However, this is what my hypothetical sociopath wants in this particular situation; accordingly, he’s going to pull out all the stops to land you in the “sack” or, one way or another, land himself in your pants.
Because all that matters—and in essence, what it always and only boils down to—is what he wants.
And so our sociopath, on meeting you and establishing his sexual interest, feels glad, elated, even excited that you bring something he wants. He may feel, beyond that, primitive gratitude that you haven’t disappointed him in this respect. Nothing, after all, could be more depresssing, more boring and less tolerable than, on his having met you, his discovering that, alas, you have nothing to give him that he wants.
Incidentally, this experience—his experience—of your uselessness elicits any number of possible reactions, including irritation, resentment, utter contempt, annoyance, and excruciating disappointment and boredom.
It is bad enough (for you) that you are only, and will never be more than, an object to the sociopath. However, for the sociopath, the fact that you are always only an object to him isn’t necessarily a problem; it is when your usefuleness as an object has run its course that the sociopath is most displeased and agitated, and when he is most likely to unmask himself as the cold, heartless person he is.
However, in our hypothetical scenario, as we’ve established, you do indeed have something he wants: he finds you gorgeous. And so in his relief, in his gladness, in his heady gratitude that you have something he wants—something that he can now can set about taking—a psychological transmutation occurs.
The sociopath’s gratitude, on discovering that you have something he wants, becomes primitively transmuted into a form of idealization—of you!
And in his primitive, corrupt idealization, the sociopath is prone to convincing himself, and you, of the sincerity of his ebulliant flattery and appreciation. So much so that when, as previously noted, he tells you he’s mesmerized by you, he may mean it, or think he means it, and he may seem and, indeed, be sincere when he says this.
But what mesmerizes him is you-the-object, not you-the-person. He is mesmerized not by the substantive you, but by his fantasy of what he imagines you will give him, or what he’ll soon coax from you or, if necessary, take from you.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is for convenience’s sake, not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the behaviors discussed.)
written by Steve Becker, LCSW • Permalink •
bird says:
This is right on, and nails my experience on the head. Even today I get offered spiritual and financial help from the S; and it sounds comforting and sincere when it’s offered. It’s all lies, the lies are like a waterfall flowing from his mouth; it looks wonderful and comforting, but on closer examination it just pushes you down to the rocks below to your death.
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 8:22am
ptsd says:
This article sheds some light on why I believed he really loved me at times. HE BELIEVED IT on some lower instinctual level and could display it in very normal appropriate ways.
This primitive transmutation concept makes a lot of sense to me.
His primal self needed creature comforts (sex, food, shelter, alcohol). He saw me as a source at any cost. The cost always being mine–emotionally, financially and the physical toll as a result of continued drainage of my strength and resources.
When he was rejected he would go into hyper survival mode and the mask would come off to show the “wild animal” which I guess is the real deal.
Thank for my morning lesson Dr. Steve.
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 10:59am
OxDrover says:
Dear Steve
GREAT ARTICLE!
After just having read my P-son’s manipulative letters to my egg donor, to my Now-X DIL, these manipulations are fresh in my memory and you described them so well.
TO ME they were obvious, the “philosophy” and the “caring” were so SHALLOW, so sophomoric. The justifications my P-son were giving to my DIL for her having an affair with the Trojan Horse was that “when you light a candle from another lighted candle it doesn’t diminish the light of the first lit candle” LOL How “PROFOUND AND ORIGINAL,” NOT!
Then, one side of his brain not communicaing with the other, as Hare pointed out—knowing the words, but not the music—he advised my DIL that she should “work on her marriage with C.”
My P-son, having spent essentially all of his adult years in prison with others of his ilk, has not learned to refine his cant to be believeable with most adults to much above what he might have done in 10th grade. There are other Ps I have come across, however, who have very refined programs of deception, and would conform to the “Snakes in Suits” picture and do quite well in upper management or society.
I think the “rash of” various Governors of several states who are caught with their morals down around their ankles lately, who have had to leave office,, who have lied, manuvered, and tried to hold on to their office even when caught (isn’t that a P-trait?) show that psychopaths can infiltrate just about any office or level in society. The current Gov. of NY is just an example, I think, of another P caught with his moral “pants” around his IMMORAL and lying ankles.
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 12:09pm
OxDrover says:
Dr. Robert Hare wrote a book called “Without Conscience” it is in the LF book store. He studied them in prison for 25+ years and made some really good observations.
They, in his mind, could say “words” like “love” etc. but they didn’t really know the meanings of them so they WOULD contradict themselves and if you LISTEN closely to them they will sound somehow “off” in their wooing, or justifications.
Hare said that since they don’t really know the meaning of the words that they “know the words, but not the music” and that is one thing we can listen for are those contradictions.
Just like my P son telling my DIL that she should “work on her marriage” just after telling her that her affair wasn’t hurting her husband and that she could “love two people” just like she loved both her parents. I MEAN COMMMMME ON!!! How shallow is that? But it was what SHE wanted to hear so she took that “philosophy” as okay. He wanted her to believe that because his Trojan Horse had more control over her to help him get MONEY from my egg donor.
At the same time the TH-P was having affairs with her he was calling “Russian Bride” sites —I guess they expected to get enough money for the TH-P to buy him a Russan Bride. LOL He even had a passport application in among his papers when he was arrested. LOL
I did notice though, that when the DIL stole the $24,000 from my egg donor, she only gave the TH-P $2500 and put the rest of the money in HER name in the bank.
While they were in jail, the TH-P had given her a Power of Attorney over his money and bank account, and after she got out and he was still in prison, she signed over the title to the truck he had bought with my egg donor’s money, AND she also cleaned out his bank account! Not much in it, but I told her if she would clean it out, she could have 50% and then give my egg donor 50% since it was her money anyway.
After the TH-P got out of prison, even with a NO CONTACT order, he called my egg donor to try to BORROW MONEY LOL and he COMPLAINED that the DIL had cleaned out his bank account and he just couldn’t bellieve she would “DO such a thing” to him—how dishonest! LOL ROTFLMAO Besides the fact, he was talking to the egg donor, and it was HER money that was in that account! LOL ROTFLMAO Talk about guts and GALL! See, they know WORDS but not the “music”
If you haven’t read WITHOUT CONSCIENCE I think every one of us should, it is a great book for non professionals.
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 12:56pm
witsend says:
Steve,
Great article. You really have a way of articulating, what is so very difficult to understand.
You said:
“But it’s also possible that he isn’t lying—that is, that he feels, in the moment, that what he’s telling you he feels is true; or, that he’s convinced himself that everything he’s telling you is true.
And so his sociopathy can’t necessarily be traced to his lying, because in this instance he may not perceive himself as lying”
This is something I have struggled with since day one. When my son hit puberty and I saw some disturbing “traits” in him that were not apperant in his younger years, one of the first things that presented itself in a big way, was the lying.
However even back then, before things progressed, when I was pretty blindsided by all of this, there was something that disturbed me more than the lies themselves.
What disturbed me the MOST was that he believed his lies. And I would swear to this on my mothers grave, that he believed his lies were the truth. And to further complicate, it seemed that my son not only believed his own lies but he became ANGRY at me, (or others) for not believing “his” truth. As things progressed it became more apperant to me that he seemed to live in his own “reality”. That is that his PERCEPTION, however “off” it might be, was his reality. And that his perception was that his reality was real and TRUE. And his perception was that everyone else was “off”. I tried (I think unsucessfuly) to explain this to his counselor. When I first took him to counseling.
Somewhere during this time period alot of projection was also taking place. It was me that was lying, the teachers were lying…..I didn’t even understand much about projection at this time.
He semed delusional, to me in his thinking. Soon there was something else added to the mix. The grandious ideas and sense of self. And I saw my sons mindset, as if he believes that his grandious ideas will happen. JUST because he says they will.
When trying to explain this to someone when talking about an adolescent, it sounds pretty unbelievable. If I am talking to a friend, they can’t necessarily wrap their brain around him “believing” his lies. Just that he lies. They can’t understand that he lives in his own reality so he doesn’t learn the “lessons” that life experience “teaches” when bad choices are made. Even when he looses, because of a choice he has made, his perception is that he has won. And because he is young this just seems to reinforce his delusional thinking over and over and over again.
The more that I saw revealed, as this disorder manifested within him….The more I needed to know how to co-exist with it as a parent. As time progressed I KNEW that I was in fact powerless, that nothing that I tried to do, made any difference. I was ineffective.
At some point, later down the road, I saw my “role” in this as to what NOT to do. I didn’t know what to DO anymore, so I needed to know what not to do, to not create more harm than good. By now his anger and hatred for me, at times, was evident and alarming. The “outside” world seemed to agitate him in general much of the time. My presence in his life seemed to fuel his anger and agitated state….Even if I wasn’t engaging with him at the moment.
This anger and hatred that my son has for me, I believe was first concieved when I was unable to believe in his lies. Or jump into HIS reality with him. Although I am unable to articulate this well, as I see it, from trying to see it from HIS PERSPECTIVE….I let him down. In a BIG way. I am this terrible parent, in his eyes. And other people continue to let him down as he navigates through his young life. (his perspective) Because as soon as they can’t supply him with what he wants, they are ruled out of his life. He is angry with them. Anyone who shows the slightest resistance (including his peers) to his reality, his greater than life itself “importance” of himself….These people are of no use to him anymore.
But the most troubling thing of all (as I see it) is that each “single” incident or encounter, that he has, reinforces his thought process rather than challenging it. It becomes more set in stone. Concrete. Unbreakable. He percieves himself more and more as powerful, and “above” those around him.
Is it possible that you might write an article about this in the form it takes in adolensence. I would be very interested in what you would have to say.
.
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 1:08pm
Elizabeth Conley says:
Great article Steve, as always.
The dis/honesty of a Sociopath or Narcissist is bizarre. They get so indignant when you call them on it. Either they believe they’re being genuine, or they believe you have no right to doubt they’re being genuine. Whichever the case may be, the tantrum that results is something to behold.
You Said:
“As always, how much he believes his performance in the moment (versus consciously recognizing it as bogus or manipulative) varies from sociopath to sociopath and from circumstance to circumstance.
Paradoxically, a more “self-aware” sociopath will recognize his fraudulence better than a less self-aware sociopath, who may be more prone to denial, self-delusion, and the belief that, at least temporarily, he really is the role he’s playing.”
Self defense experts say that you should de-escalate tensions between yourself and a potentially violent person. I think this applies doubly to Sociopaths and Narcissists. Even if you don’t expect physical violence, you should anticipate a vicious attack if you provoke them. Doubting their sincerity is something they will consider an attack, whether you’re correct or not.
Letting an S, P or N know that you know he’s a liar is going to be interpreted by him as an attack.
“1) Don’t Insult Him
2) Don’t Challenge Him
3) Don’t Deny It’s Happening
4) Give Him A Face Saving Exit”
Just break contact as quickly and cleanly as possible.
http://www.nononsenseselfdefen.....tacked.htm
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 1:14pm
silvermoon says:
So, sometimes these ducks look like they are quacking like pigeons?
Well, that explains a lot.
If they look like a duck but quack like a pigeon, they are still enough of a duck to lay duck eggs-no?
Just call them a pigeon when they are looking? Feed them like a pigeon and back away slowly?
Hmm.
I like NO CONTACT – NO KIDDING better at a distance.
This stuff is SCARY!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 2:01pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Silvermoon,
Sometimes some of them are good enough actors that they look like SWANS, but if you watch close enough they will eventually show the DUCK—but no matter how close you are to one that appears to be a “swan” if it goes QUACK, don’t give it a second chance! LIES=run, dishonesty of any kind=run, and don’t look back and second guess your self, RUN!!!! and get gone!
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 2:20pm
neveragain says:
Steve, this is absolutely dead on, spot on, right on, perfect.
I think it is part of what causes some of the cognitive dissonance later. Because some sociopaths and narcissiopaths (I may have the spelling of your term wrong!) DO convince themselves in the moment that they DO mean what they are saying.
You have so clearly and accurately, I think, articulated where, how and why their perception of their “feelings” falls apart and how their words of “love” or “admiration” or “idealization”never were true the way words are true for a normal person, even if gradually those feelings change over time.
But the victim is left with memories of how very, very sincere those expressions seemed at the time….especially if she is paying more attention to the words, than to actions, and more attention to his adoring eyes, than the timeline (is it normal to be hearing these words this soon?) and not noting her own hunger for the words that may tell the little voice inside her saying “honey, you aren’t THAT knock-dead beautiful and you know it” to shut up.
It is rather staggering to me to look back and see all the red flags I ignored, because I was hungry for MY movie moment …you know, where he says “you complete me” …or where we meet as strangers on top of the empire state building and he takes my hand and I know I’ll never be sleepless in Seattle or anywhere else again.
Blah! A man better be a ready to prove himself a good FRIEND before he gets near me!
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 2:58pm
neveragain says:
Elizabeth, I love that website you referenced and I totally agree. A few times I was tempted to really “get even” or “tell off” the s in my life, and then I realized, with a cold shudder, that the last thing you should want to do is “really get through” to one of these guys. The thought of the rage that could release makes me react physically, and I have to run to the bathroom. And then I know my body is telling me in no uncertain terms that my mind has added up all the information that isn’t even part of my consciousness and telling me bodily harm awaits me if I even THINK of going down that path. I listen to my body now.
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 3:06pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Neveragain,
In case you didn’t know it, you are a SMART COOKIE too, YOU DO GET IT!!!! HIGH 5!!!!
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 3:08pm
Rosa says:
I just finished reading this really great book that Nicolaid recommended.
It’s called “Stalking the Soul”, written by Marie-France Hirigoyen.
This is what it says on pages 89-90 about emotionally abusive seduction by a perverse narcissist,
“The seductive process consists not only in overpoweringly winning over the person, but also in corrupting and suborning him. The manipulator bypasses reality, operating secretly and by surprise. He attacks underhandedly, gaining the admiration of another person who is dazzled by him and sends back to him a positive image. The stalking process uses another’s protective instincts. Because it is narcissistic seduction, the abuser seeks to find in another person a favorable self-image and a fascination with his persona without allowing himself to be taken in.
Narcissistic seduction confuses and erodes the boundaries of one’s own identity and that of another individual.
This is not the world of transference-for example, when a lover’s idealization, in order to sustain passion, refuses to acknowledge any short-comings in the beloved-but a world of incorporation where the objective is to destroy. The other’s presence is considered threatening and not complimentary.”
So, for anyone who may be wondering if your S/P/N ever loved you, the answer is probably NO.
Good times, yes…..but true love would be a NO.
Page 130 of the same book, “Their driving force is envy and their objective is taking over. To envy is to covet and to feel spiteful irritation at the sight of happiness and the advantages of other people. From the beginning, we are dealing with an abusive mentality based on a perception of what the other possesses and they lack.”
I hope this helps somebody get closure from their toxic ex.
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 3:13pm
Elizabeth Conley says:
‘ then I know my body is telling me in no uncertain terms that my mind has added up all the information that isn’t even part of my consciousness and telling me bodily harm awaits me if I even THINK of going down that path. I listen to my body now. ”
Good job Never Again. You’re going to be fine. We all are, as long as we listen to our instincts.
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 5:58pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Elizabeth C,
Hey, GF! Glad to see you are around! I miss you when you don’t blog very often. You have a good head on your shoulders!
Spring is here (for this week any way!) and spirits are up!
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 6:34pm
OxDrover says:
Dear EC,
That was a great web link on the no nonsense self defense. I wish they had spoken more about Psychopaths though as a lot of the people they describe as dangerous would fit the “mold.”
I read a great deal on the site and will go back and read some more. I know I have let my “buzzard beak overcome my hummingbird butt” too many times when I was emotionally upset. Did that and shot off my moouth toooooo many times to the P-son. Gvae him too much warning and that is never a good way to defend yourself. thanx
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 7:03pm
ravenlesstower says:
The months of seduction… echoing my emotions, my dream come true – my first and only “true love”… Non-stop email, texting… all proclaiming 22 years of missing me – the way I missed him. Sadness upon learning that I’d miscarried our child years ago – feigned, of course – my sadness reflected back at me. I not only gave him the book, I opened it and turned the pages for him. And when I look back at all the texts, all the emails, I see SO many signs – it was like he was dropping clues he knew I would never put together until he had played his end game.
After 22 years, and months of interaction, I went to him… after all, he’d asked me to. He wanted me. *smile* My friends told me I was crazy, but I had to see for myself. I knew once I looked in his eyes, sat in his company, I would know. And I did.
He talked about himself, and them more about his life. He told me about the different careers he’d had, how he’d shown people to be the lazy insufferables they were and forced them to quit, retire early… his resume is lacking, no real skills other than goverment positions in “management” – and now higher up in the government in our Captiol than should be possible. Still, I sensed his mask was slipping there too as he talked of his next career change – a new one.
As he spoke I saw him – and the disppointment was heartwrenching. I’d waited so long – he was to be my “just reward” for the bad marriage (another sociopath, I now know), the years of single parenting, the child with the brain tumor… his empathy before I travelled to see him enveloped me like a warm embrace.
When I spoke to him, in his presence, he didn’t ask about me – not one word. He didn’t need to know – it was not important. And on the last day, I told him how damaged he was… and he wanted to know more about his damage.
This was four months ago, and I think of him daily. I visit this site. I despise him for not being who I needed him to be. I hate him for hurting me so callously… and I am amazed that he is a “type” of which I’d never really known before.
The zinger, was the Pandora account, which I found a month after I’d returned home. I realized how to look up his stations, and there I found it. The 80’s station – music from our time together 22 years ago – with 27 songs (ONLY 27 songs) – chosen two weeks before my visit – as he planned his end game.
Each and every song about walking away, hurting someone, deceiving…
“Remembering
You fallen into my arms
Crying for the death of your heart
You were stone white
So delicate
Lost in the cold
You were always so lost in the dark”
Each song about hurting me – planning to hurt me.
And he did. And I am. And somehow, I will get past this. But I have never felt so violated – so mind f*cked as I do these days.
Thank you for sharing your stories, your insights, your posts.
I am one of you – and I feel your pain – and I hope in somehow moving past my own hurt I can help to move some of you in that direction as well.
God bless…
Ravenlesstower
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 7:50pm
Elizabeth Conley says:
Thanx Ox Drover,
I’ve missed you too. We finally closed on our new home. I’m up to my derrière in boxes!
Blessings,
Elizabeth
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 8:08pm
style1 says:
This is excellent and describes mine perfectly and why at times, I felt so confused. He appeared so sincere but it didn’t feel like he was. He always felt like he wa acting a role that he believed.. but I questioned. And when he realized that I wasn’t going to give him all that he was after.. he began the cutting me down little by little.. This article describes perfectly his behavior and delusions..
thanks… more clarity …
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 8:14pm
neveragain says:
Revenlesstower…If you have not seen it, go to http://www.lostlovers.com/ You are getting a double whammy, a sociopath/psychopath/narcissist/whatever AND the lost love whammy.
It is actually a blessing that you found those songs, pre-planned. Total confirmation of what and who he is. Those kind of men keep rolling back into your life, like a year later. My advice is to try to make that impossible, with changing your email, phone, not opening mail, etc.
He is a sick, dangerous man….who obviously gets off on hurting women and that is all you need to know to stay away from him forever and forever.
Been there done that, a few more years than you in between contact. Pain is for a reason….to warn us to BACK AWAY and STAY AWAY.
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 8:19pm
neveragain says:
Revenlesstower….and as I’m sure you realize, as I had to realize also, he never was a “love” that was lost and come back into your life. The woman who started that website actually had a bad experience reuniting with her past “love” also.
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 8:34pm
ravenlesstower says:
neveragain… thank you for your thoughts
I DO realize he was never who I thought he was… in fact, he was exactly who I thought he was years ago when I requested a transfer away from the base where we were both stationed.
It’s a bit long, and I apologize to those of you who might be offended by that, but I am posting the letter that I wrote to him here. After I returned home, I asked him not to contact me. About two weeks later, I received a simple text, “Happy Thanksgiving Baybee” – I recognized it to be the equivalent of running someone over with a car and then going back to kick them to see if they’re dead.
A few days later, I initiated no contact – and I called him out on everything – right or wrong. I don’t think he’ll be back… but then, it would be quite a challenge to him to break me down again, wouldn’t it?
“TowerRaven” –
I’ve had time to reflect on all that has happened in the past months since we began corresponding again after so many long years. I realize now that the words that last time I was in your arms were full of lies: “This won’t be the last time we’ll see each other. We will ALWAYS have each other.”
The truth is, it was the last time we will see each other, I’ve NEVER had you, and you no longer have me. My love for the man I thought you were ended the moment I realized that you idealized, exploited, devalued, discarded and abandoned me without a second thought. But you missed one thing… one tiny thing you didn’t count on… in your abuse of my feelings for you, you made me STRONGER.
You read me so well, made it so easy to forget my morals and to believe instead in you. When we began communicating in August, I was surprised and, in a way, enchanted with the scenario you laid out. You were penitent for having hurt me, expressed feelings of remorse for not recognizing that you were ‘in love’ with me all those years ago… you told me that you still had feelings for me – mirroring my own sentiments – and drawing me into your world. I have held you for so long in my memory as this amazing man who I loved, whose child I conceived, and miscarried. How could I forget that I requested a transfer away from you? It was for good reasons that I chose to forget – and to avoid the pain of the loss, I idolized you, buried your faults, and remembered only what I assessed as strength of character.
You asked me so many times, despite my protests, to “come to you.” And I did – how could I not? I’ve been in love with you my entire adult life. I opened my heart up to you fully and in doing so I allowed you to see my every weakness, my every strength, and every piece of my soul. In turn you used that information to ingratiate yourself to me. You appeared to give me unconditional love and acceptance – and honestly, I believe you thought that’s what it was too. For a while, at least, you imagined that I could be that ‘perfect love’ that would make you feel complete. Except you aren’t capable of love, because true love means putting someone else and their needs ahead of you and your own wants and desires. It was just a game to you – one that made you feel powerful, for a time.
I suspect, sadly, that you have never felt or known pure unconditional love. The last day I was with you I told you that you reminded me of a six year old boy – that I saw so much damage. I wonder now if you are aware of how broken you are, and if you are angry with whoever is responsible for crippling you emotionally? I believe you equate love with weakness. You hate being weak and you hate and despise weak people. It only goes to follow that because I made the mistake of loving you, I was weak. Because I made the mistake of sleeping with you – again – I became a whore in your eyes. Either way, in your mind I was not loveable or capable of filling the void you’ve expressed feeling in your soul and saving you from your lonely self. Though in truth, no one is capable – the void is too vast.
When you were done with me there in [city] – realized I was no longer of any value to you and in fact uncomfortable with my presence – you went into action. Managing my departure while securing an alibi for yourself, disposing of me, in a sense, without a second thought. You are not capable of empathy, could not see, understand or care about the pain you caused me. Or, perhaps I misjudge you, it’s entirely possible you do SEE it, and if that’s the case, it probably pleases you. How powerful a man you are to be able to inflict such pain on a foolish, adoring woman! You spent months reading me, giving me verbally everything I wanted to hear – and then you took it away – ostracizing me, breaking off all communication so that I knew just how devalued I was in your eyes… that I had meant nothing to you after all – not “worthy” of your “love.” But your love was a façade… I saw the signs before traveling to see you, but I knew I had to see you to understand what was happening.
The only reason you allowed communication the night I traveled home was because you weren’t entirely certain I wouldn’t rail against you, make a scene or worse a phone call that could ruin your carefully laid disaster recovery plan. Of course, I wouldn’t – I could never intentionally cause you the harm you continue to inflict on yourself and those around you. How relieved you must have been for me to ask you not to contact me! How perfectly off the hook and free of THAT burden you must feel! Still, you contacted me on Thanksgiving and that is something I simply won’t allow – understand me when I tell you there will be no contact going forward.
Now I know all too well what transpired – and who you are…. and have always been… incapable of developing any measure of intimacy save what you emulate in others as a means of controlling their emotions and response to you. Because you lack empathy, you are incapable of offering any emotional sustenance to a partner.
You told me you realized your sexual life with your wife was not fulfilling soon after marriage… that makes sense. She isn’t a whore and became a Madonna to you in her attempts to become pregnant, to bear children, and to build a home. She loved you and took care of you and therefore was no longer attractive to you. You prefer to make love to yourself – the only perfect and acceptable partner you know. In November, even with me, the promise of a passionate reunion never availed itself – you used my body to masturbate your own.
Still, you speak well of your wife, which tells me you fear her – what she could do to bring your make-believe semblance of a world crashing down around you. When I watched you terrified, scrambling, trying to ensure she did not find out about our tryst, I realize what a lonely, sad, and also a very angry man you are. Angry not because you never experienced love and probably never will… Instead, you are angry because you are not as powerful, admired and successful as you had planned to be and as you feel you deserve to be. Your daydreams refuse to come true no matter how you wish them so. If she does divorce you it could mean the loss of your clearances – career suicide.
You are a warrior – a Spartan, as you put it – able to start again with nothing because the attachment you have to your current life is not real… and a shaky foundation on which to base a family or future plans. This is no secret, you know as much. You cannot conceive of a life in one place with one set of people, doing the same thing, in the same field with one goal within a decades-old game plan. To you, this is death. You are most terrified of growing old, of boredom and whenever faced with its haunting prospect, you inject drama into your life (your cat and mouse game with me) or even danger (the job A is offering you.) This is the only way you feel alive.
I don’t know what’s going to happen to you… I can’t care anymore – though I have to tell you, the man I thought you were is an amazing man – someone I wish you could know… had somehow aspired to be. I LOVED that man with all my heart, and much to my detriment. Whoever damaged you as a child should be damned for leaving you this way – crippled with fear of being called an imposter and self-loathing to the extent you display the antithesis in every effort to make yourself feel alive and to fill the void that may never be satisfied because the things you seek to fill it with don’t exist – like you, they are a mirage.
For me, knowing all I know now, the man of my memory is dead to me; he was make-believe anyway, a product of the imagination of a young girl perpetuated by hurt and maternal loss. What remains is truly, poetically, tragically a ‘Beautiful Disaster’. When I asked you why you loved me, you couldn’t tell me, but I know now it was because you were enthralled with the way you saw yourself reflected in my eyes – like Narcissus staring into the pool at his own reflection. Such a pity it took 24 years after meeting you for me to break the cycle – I will no longer be your Echo.
When I met you, I felt as though I’d known you my entire life – because I have – you and people like you who use people up and discard them without a thought. My parents, my ex-husband… as hurtful as letting go of my illusion of the wonderful “TowerRaven” is – the truth is I CAN finally let you go, and for that I am grateful. I told you on the bench that last day that I could see your pain – your damage – but I also know I can’t help you. If I thought I could… if you could be put back together… I’d do my best to try, but all you would do is hurt me – again.
You will not acknowledge and likely deny everything I have written – but even as I know this I know you’ve read every last word – after all, it’s about you. I realize that I can’t even hate you – but I pity you. And now you will blame me for all that has happened, but I have accepted my responsibility and made peace with myself for the faults that are mine. As a woman, regardless of our history, I knew better than to become involved with a married man – no matter what you claimed your status to be.
You said to me, the last time you touched me, that we would “always have each other”… what you meant to say, was that YOU would always have ME – to provide you with the things you need when you are lonely – when no other source exists to feed your emptiness. I can’t be there for you though, because I know in my heart you will never be good for me. This is the last correspondence I will send to you, and I ask you to respect my wishes by not contacting me again.
You are in counseling with your wife now, and I’m sure you’ve made me the scapegoat in all of this. I wonder how much of what you told me was actually truth. But it doesn’t matter anymore than the truths or lies you are sharing in counseling, because I doubt you’ll take advantage of it. It would be too much for you – scared little boy of a man that you are – to let the walls down and to be seen – to see yourself – as you are. I’m not sure you could stand it – for your sake, I hope your advancing age will lead you to seek solace and to heal – eventually you will burnout and I hope someone is left who you haven’t damaged so much they too leave you. The choices you make going forward are none of my business. I sincerely hope that somehow you – and at the very least the people you’ve hurt and continue to hurt – find peace. I know I intend to – again.
Ravenlesstower
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 9:25pm
jelltogether says:
This really hit home. His whole seduction was focused on me from the beginning. The longing looks, feeling hurt if I talked to another man, the concern that I didn’t love him as much as he loved me right away. I found it weird (should have listened to my gut) but then endearing finally because he seemed so in love with me. But I realize that it was always a means to an end. There was always a seduction that gave him the results he desired. I remember someone telling me that he did mean what he said “at that moment” but that it didn’t last past the moment. I guess what kept me hooked in so long was that I couldn’t connect with the fact that there was no real feeling behind the words and gestures. I just couldn’t compute that someone could say the things he said and show so much affection and caring but not mean it. That is what is so devasting and confusing. The thing that drives me crazy is the thought that he just goes to the next person and does the same seduction process. That hurts, confuses and makes me feel so worthless for some reason. It sickens me to think that he is saying the same things, making the same gestures, saying the same things in bed to someone else. I have such a hard time integrating that into my own feelings–the fact that is just that easy for him. I think that is what does such damage to the victim. That is the legacy they leave behind — confusion, pain and humiliation. Moving beyond that is slow moving for the victim and a fast track for for the sociopath. There is no real feeling there that they connect with, while we connect with all our feelings. We are left naked in emotion while they walk away.
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 10:01pm
style1 says:
And yes Raven they paint this dream.. they figure you out and create the kind of dream that you want.. and they may want also.. but have no way to create or make happen .. it’s all games, illusions and delusions… we buy into it for awhlte becasue we want it and because we think..wow..maybe this is the man that can make it happen…. but he can’t … he wants to take and control and use for his benefit… nothing is for you.. it’s for his ego, his use, his manipulation… and lines get so blurred at times.. because of exactly what is written in this article..
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Thursday, 4 March 2010 @ 10:05pm
geminigirl says:
Witty,
the things you described about your teenage sons behaviour, brought back so many memories[none of them good ones!] of the way my teeenage daughter,{now almost 46,} used to behave and carry on. The nicer I was to her, the more kind, helpful and understanding, the more she seemed to loathe and detest me.It culminated in her leaving school without our permission, and running away from home, disappearing for 6 months I was beside myself with worry, and the police would do NOTHING to help me find her. At that stage she had her own little flat under the house, with her own toilet and shower, and even a mini kitchenette. My ex and I furnished it for her with mainly second hand stuff, witha square of green carpet, which we picke d up cheap. My ex even made a wooden bed for her, and we bought a mattress and bedding, and a new wardrobe.She was talking about quitting school at this stage, and we were desperate for her to stay on as she was a straight A student before she fell in with her new F–wit Punk mates.One day, I came home from my full time teaching job to finda note on her pillow, “Have left home, sorry, Love, Debbie.” Six months later this lady rang me up and said,”I think I have your daughter here.” Apparently D had turned up one evening, in the pouring rain, with a garbage bag of clothes, and told the lady she was”Destitute and Homeless.” She had her own flat!! We managed to persuade her to come home, but she was resentful, used to look at me all the time with hate filled eyes,she was always in black, black dyed hair, black eye liner, smoked, drank,swore at me like a troupersexually active,, was totally out of control. To make matters worse, my ex had started drinking again.,{he is an alcoholic} after nearly 10 years of sobriety, brought on by the worry of his beloved daughter throwing her life away. So, I had 2 drunks to deal with from then on, and was beaten up by both of them before I fled in terror from that awful house.My younger girl emotionally left home then too, at age 17,and was never home, always with friends, but she seldom got drunk and her friends were more upmarket than Ds. She also now despises me, and I havent seen her in 17 years, despite me pleading to be allowed to see her 3 kids.Now D ,46, almost, with no paper qualifications of any kind,in and out of jobs, has now apparently embezzled A$62,000 from a former company and they have “forgiven ‘ her A$50,000 of this. The remaining $12,000 they have yet to be paid back. What is to become of her? I have baled her out financially over and over, to the tune of thousands of dollars,_no more! I was only a source of supply to her. Im sure she still loathes a nd despises me, but used to say,”I love you” to try to con more cash out of me.
I used to feel sorry for her, no longer, she has done all this to herself. God knows where she will end up when she has run out of suckersto con.What a waste, se was so bright, good at Art,A’s in every subject,but since Puberty Im sure she turned overnight into a Spath.Sh is grandiose, haughty, entitled, selfish, uses everyone,lies constantly, no remorse, no guilt, no empathy, no conscience, despises people who love her.
Ive had to give up and go totally NC, it will be one year in June, since I rang her, and I last saw her 8th Dec.,2008.She and her sister used to put me down every chance they got, less after I married David, as they knew they couldnt get away with it any more, but they treated him with disdain, and again, the more he was kind to them and loving, the more they seemed to despise him. Whats the answer? They are SICKOS!! Love, GemXX
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 1:52am
silvermoon says:
Raven,
Your comment about wanting to heal the damage touched me. I think that these people come as innocent souls into the world and find themselves betrayed by their genetics.
I can understand how enraged that could make you over a lifetime. How it could create a vampire who must only feed on other people but may never break out of the boredom and isolation.
Yes, I am sorry for it. I may forgive it even, but I may not nor can you ignore it.
I think that mine was a professional womanizer. I saw in his emails how he was using about 20 online sites and how he did the same things over and over. The same words, the same approach.
I saw how he did it to another woman he was married to as well. He might still be married to her.
It seems who he said those things to did not matter. And that included me.
Nuthin’ from nuthin is nuthin and there was really nuthin there to feel for.
Unless you pity the vampire at the moment he sinks his teeth into the soft flesh of your neck and begins to feed. ….
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 2:26am
shabbychic says:
gem, … just wanted to let you know I am thinking of you!!!
we don’t have to believe we’re the crazy ones anymore!
here are some hearts and flowers for you…
♥•*¨*•.¸¸¸.•*¨*•♥♥•*¨*•.¸¸¸.•*¨*•♥♥•*¨*•.¸¸¸.•*¨*•♥
♥•*¨*•.¸¸¸.•*¨*•♥♥•*¨*•.¸¸¸.•*¨*•♥
♥•*¨*•.¸¸¸.•*¨*•♥
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 3:18am
geminigirl says:
Thanks so much Shabby! how did you DO that? with the hearts and flowers? Very clever!
I know all of the stuff I described happened a very long time ago, but Ive never ever trusted her since then, and I never will.I gues I DO still feel some love for her as a Mum, but as a person, I cant stand her!!I often wonder, what will become of her, when she runs out of suckers?
Our loving new “kids’ are coming over for lunch tomorrow, so that will be fantastic!
From noe on I intend to give my love to people who appreciate me, and love me back !! Much Love,and look after yourself!!{{HUGS}}}< Mama Gem.XXXXXX
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 4:13am
ravenlesstower says:
silvermoon –
The best I can manage is a two-fold process… 1. Telling myself the man I was in love with DID exist – for me – and that it was REAL love – for me – and that the man is dead. Grieve him like a dead man and move on. 2. Harder – Acknowledging that it was not my fault, but that I do need to look inside myself to understand what business in my life is unfinished that leaves me so vulnerable.
I have always been attracted to “intensity” which I now understand does not equate to “intimacy.” The more I read, the more I learn about him – but more importantly, about myself. I have always mistaken the “intensity” for strength and character – but it is seldom that at all. It’s power and control and is familiar because of my upbringing, but not healthy for me.
I have always said I need a man stronger than me – but I need to rethink that, because I do not wish to be controlled. I have been a divorced single mom for nearly 10 years… the more that time passes, the more I doubt it will happen, but one day I hope to find a partner – and a true capacity for empathy is high on my list of desired traits.
At the same time, the loneliness is exactly what he knew he could exploit – and because of my history with him, he is probably the only man who could get away with “earning” my trust so quickly. It was misplaced.
The only solace I have in this is that I did send that damned letter, I said my peace… now I need to find a way to heal.
BTW – he added a song to his Pandora account about a week ago – look at the lyrics – sung like a true P/S/N:
“Dream About Me”
Babe
Oh, dream about me
Lie… on the phone to me
Tell me no truth
If it is bad
There’s enough in my life
To make me so sad
Just dream about
Color fills our lives
Just dream about
Someone else tonight
Babe
Oh, dream about me
On the phone
Talking quietly
I wanna be yours
Oh, won’t you be mine
Against red skies
For all time
So dream about… us
When we’re old
Just dream about
How I will let go
I shudder thinking “how is it possible for someone to be so sick? so heartless?”
As a logical woman, I will never find the answer to this – so why can’t I just move on and quick THINKING ABOUT IT!?
Thanks for listening!
Ravenlesstower
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 8:57am
swallow says:
This article is so accurate. Mine was never angry or abusive and always softly spoken, ‘vulnerable’, ‘misunderstood’, ’sensitive’ etc etc. He was a true chameleon and of course I didn’t see the monster underneath until all the lies had been revealed. The non- violent ones are the most dangerous I think.
Swallow
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 9:59am
silvermoon says:
I think this article clarifies the thing to me.
I think its the mistake of not seeing the acting for what it was through the blindness of the seduction and the set up and all that.
Jeez, Idon’t know what I would have to have been to be ahead of all that?
I can see from looking into his world that he is what he and I would not have found out so soon if not for the unplanned event of his arrest.
So I got lucky.
He was a professional womanizer and he was using me. I get that.
He helped me to overcome the part of me that wanted someone like him in my life.
That was a gracious gift. I am thankful for it.
Now I can just let go.
Well easier said than done, but let go is what it about.
Release.
Relax
Let go
Its over for this go round. Its over.
It takes time to let go. And you just have to keep on refocusing on it.
I think its because time as it passes lets you remember the good stuff better than the bad.
The bad stuff I experienced with this guy was better than any other relationship- we got a long really well, seemed to be able to handle anything that came up for discussion and then poof he was gone and I found out the rest of the story….
That makes it hard because I miss the good stuff, I fell mule kicked by the bad stuff and the invitation to jump back in is persistent still.
I do a lot of meditative things now to quiet that concious place in my brain that wants to yammer about it all the time.
I put those thoughts in a bubble when they come and let them float away.
Its about letting go.
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 10:18am
Zen says:
I wonder if the sociopath (female) is self aware? I’m thinking yes she is. Some background, she was the former girlfriend of my significant other (male). They had not been romantically involved for many years but she kept him on a string exploiting him for money and advice and occasionally a place to stay when all her options were gone. When she found out about me she was not not happy. But when she realized she couldn’t get my partner to drop me, she then changed her tactics and totally supported our relationship. Why? Well now he would no longer ask ANYTHING of her, he didn’t need her at all for any assistance, I would fulfill that role, her time would totally be hers, no need for reciprocation. PLUS she would have a new person to victimize. All she had to do was convince me that I was ‘the sister she never had’.
When she’d be in our presence she would try to find some way to cause problems between him and me. Seemed she actually enjoyed disharmony. I began to observe her behavior and I became more and more suspicious of what seemed on the surface as innocent but as I grew to know her better, it was very obvious that it was purposeful. She is out of my life for now, thankfully I became aware. But she is still ‘friends’ with my partner, she says they’re like brother and sister!
She is IMO self aware and knows exactly what she’s doing. I have considered doing a background check on her for myself. If something did show up that was troublesome, should I tell my partner? I wonder if even that would make him realize what she is? Or should I just file the information away? Or should I not even bother to have this done? One reason I was considering it is that she is constantly trying to get business partners, me included! I had considered it before I came to know her better.
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 12:48pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Zen,
I can’t imagine having an S.O. Partner that did not “get it” about a “mutual” friend. There was a time when one of my late husband’s and my “friends” (she was a “sister” to me) turned out to be a THIEF, and upon discovering it, I was TRAUMATIZED, especially by that discovery of someone I loved and trusted and would have trusted with my life! Ofr course she denied the theft. This couple was also very very close to my adopted son too. He was stunned.
It hurt my husband as well, because she was married to a man that was one of his CLOSEST FRIENDS….so it was give up contact with HIS close friend as well if we both went NC with the couple.
Not long after this, my husband was terminally injured in a plane crash.
I eventually let these people back into my life after a period of years, and “walked on egg shells” around them, while they got pushier and pushier and realized it wasn’t just HER, that he was as much a user as she was, and felt ENTITLED for me to take care of their needs, support them, let them take over my property as if it was theirs.
Crying buckets of tears, I started to set boundaries, they crossed them, I set firmer boundaries and they crossed those, and finally in the end, when they started trying the “oh, pity me” plays I set the final boundary of NC—and of course they started the SMEAR campaign of how we had “‘deserted them” in their HOUR OF DARKEST NEED—that didn’t fly either with our REAL FRIENDS who are now also seeing them for what they are—USERS who expect others to take care of their needs, rather than taking care of their own needs like adults should, who feel envy of others who have made better life decisions and who have more assets because of hard work and good financial decisions. Some how they feel entitled that those “friends” should not only SHARE with them, but give them CONTROL as well.
Both of these X-friends have quite a few psychopathic traits. These traits coupled with good educations, a high intelligence and some charm, give them the opportunity to pull the wool over people’s eyes, but as their life situation deteriorates to the point it has lately, they are able to suck in fewer and fewer marks to con. Fewer and fewer people who have the resources for them to parasitize, and at this point, they are actually mooching off of his retarted brother who owns a home and gets a “government check.”
Their sense of entitlement and superiority to others vs. their actual circumstances frustrates them quite a bit I am sure, but they do not see that they are responsible for where they are financally….it is some one else’s fault. You don’t learn from mistakes if you always attribute them to some one else.
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 1:18pm
sotired says:
This is EXACTLY hitting the nail on the head.
Everything I needed today as I face an expected ‘Show up to Not Show up” from the EX.
He contacted me on my BD one month ago and twice since. I haven’t slammed the door again but I’m sure it’s coming.
It’s sad I have compassion for him that could only end up hurting me.
Every interaction is a GAME with him. I always consider my self losing but truly it has made me stronger too.
I don’t regret letting him in a little a month ago. It’s a level of healing I need to go through.
I haven’t been to Lovefraud since he showed up. Trying to sort through things as I know them so well. However, today I came and needed this blog to help me through the rest of the journey ahead.
It will go as it should for I believe I am aware enough to protect myself.
I’ve had a supportive therapist and very aware of my surroundings now.
Have a good weekend, as I will check in sometime Sunday.
All of you are strong men and women. Stronger than you realize and deserving of better than crumbs we’ve been left.
I also have read many many many books and have one left that has been suggested here. “The Betrayel Bond”.
I picked it up at the bookstore and sat for about an hour reading over it. I say one book left because I know that this is the final truth, the betrayel bond and the trauma bond.
My therapist and I have worked at length on why my ex and I formed a trauma bond. Now I’m healing but it is work.
I know how much work it is and I know he is damaged. He told me he’s damaged. I cannot fix him. He’s not ready to work on himself.
The first call was he was humble and the last two were to make sure I was still here. I’m not really here for the game again.
My response was cold and short. I listened to his lies. I went on with my life and so be it.
Yes, I may answer the phone or I may not. That will be a decision I make at the last minute but I know what I will accept and won’t accept.
Anyway, needed to blog this and maybe it makes no sense to anyone but this is a great place, a safe place, to let all this garbage out.
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 1:22pm
OxDrover says:
ps, I got side tracked there zen, the thing is that I would not have anything to do with ANYONE who “trivalized” the pain caused by a psychopath to me…especially an SO—there was a time I would have said “well, if you want to be friends with her, that’s fine, but I don’t.” NOW that I know more about psychopaths, I couldn’t stay with someone who wasn’t loyal to ME—it’s me or her baby, make up your mind! One or the other, not both!
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 1:25pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Sotired,
Glad you came here today. I am sending you prayers, thoughts and a big ((((hug)))))
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 1:27pm
Rosa says:
Zen:
“When she’d be in our presence she would try to find some way to cause problems between him and me. Seemed she actually enjoyed disharmony.”
Abusers are excellent at pitting people against each other and provoking jealousies and rivalries.
So, I would be careful if your friend is still socializing with her.
Is it possible that she is trying to provoke jealousy in you by saying that your friend and her are like “brother & sister”?
If your friend cannot see what she really is, I don’t think I would tell him if you find anything damaging on her.
I would definitely keep it for future use, though.
What might happen if you try to “enlighten” your friend is that your friend will become annoyed/angry with you.
It becomes a “kill the messenger” type of situation, and YOU will be the messenger.
The result will be you and your friend arguing about this girl. And you both will be weakened from this, by the way.
And, guess who will be sitting back and enjoying every minute of it????
She will be able to stay above it all while the 2 of you fight, and it will reinforce her omnipotence.
Be careful.
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 1:55pm
Zen says:
OxDrover
It’s not easy to be honest. He and I have been seeing each other off and on for about 5 years and we’ve been living together for about 10 months. He has known her for about 15 years and they’ve not been romantically involved for many many years. She is a master at manipulation. I fell for it at first for several reasons, I am living now in another city with not a lot of contacts plus my partner’s children have a relationship with her as she was around when they were small. He does see that she is manipulative but his problem is this #1 he is very empathetic and very sentimental (which she uses big time to her advantage) #2 he sees her as incapable- she plays on the the pity factor and his sense of responsibility since she has been basically homeless for some time.
Also, if he admits what she is, he is in a sense admitting to his own failings. With him being extremely sentimental, all the things that he has held dear, family gatherings, holidays etc were a fraud and for him to admit that would be difficult. Also I think a man has problems admitting they have been used or being played for a fool. Difficult thing for anyone to admit but I think worse for a male.
What will happen in the near future I am not sure. I do know that she will never be welcome in my home again. She cannot be trusted. She eavesdrops, she lies, she exploits, she is totally cavalier about others time and money, she is a user. One day he may realize this I dunno. What do you think about a background check? Would that be a good idea?
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 2:05pm
Zen says:
Rosa:
Thanks Rosa, I don’t think she actually was trying to evoke jealousy I think she was trying to suck me into her web. Her real brother and family have cut her totally off, why I have no idea but I can imagine.
I did try to enlighten him when I knew something was wrong but not sure what, I thought maybe she was borderline (not truly knowing what this was ) and he was quite upset that I believed such a thing although he does admit she manipulates him that she ‘embellishes’, he acknowledges the behavior not a label. I’ve not told him I think she’s a sociopath.
I am afraid of what she’ll do as she knows him very very well, she’s had many years to study him. So the worse case senario is that she turns him against me. Well if that happens, so be it. I’ll have to move on, I’m not going to fret about it there is little I can do at this point honestly.
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 2:13pm
ErinBrock says:
Sotired:
You know what you have to do…..for you.
Your just not ‘there’ yet.
I still hear a ray….albeit small…..ray of ‘hope’ in your post…..as if he will come to you one day….and announce…..he’s ready to work on him.
IT WON’T happen….it’ll only be lip service…..
Believe in yourself and your value and know…..just know…..your worth more than the constant crap they feed.
It’s your choice…..keep YOU at the forefront.
HE WON”T CHANGE!!!
Keep reading girl….keep educating yourself….keep strength and keep HOPE…..BUT IN YOURSELF…..not anyone else!
XXOO
EB
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 2:24pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Zen,
Unless she has a CRIMINAL CONVICTION a background check won’t show up a lot of stuff. You can get a PI to run a background check and what it should show up is:
1. Criminal convictions, parole violations etc. It will NOT show up anything about ARRESTS that didn’t result in convictions.
2. It will show the addresses she had rented, owned, or where utilities and land line phone service was in HER NAME, if she couch surfed it will NOT5 show up where she was living.
3. It should show up addresses on her driver’s licenses and any bankruptsy but may not come out.
Cost is about $250 the last time I had one run. The ON LINE ones for “$79.99″ etc., I also had run were a WASTE of time.
So unless she has a criminal conviction history it would be worthless, but you never know, you might BINGO and get a nasty criminal history but if you have known her this long she probably wasn’t in trouble with the law enough to be in jail or prison for it.
A bigger, actually hands on, INVESTIGATIVE BACKGROUND CHECK is pretty expensive if the PI has to go out and interview people etc. Might not turn up anything either.
I understand about your Friend and his feelings of ADMITTING HE HAD BEEN CONNED as well, and his “empathy” for her, but at the same time, I also realize that people who are always EXCUSING bad behavior in others is not always really looking at the world through a HEALTHY PRISIM EITHER—I know I sure wasn’t when I was excusing everything under the sun in the Ps I was associated with.
My late husband had a difficult time as well acknowledging that “friends” could be so DISORDERED and at the same time so “sweet”—and when the partner of your friend screws your partner it causes all kinds of “fall out.” It turns out my husband was wrong about BOTH of that couple, and so Was I for a LONG TIME. My adopted son D loved these people from the time he was a kid and involved in Boy Scouts at an early age, the man of the couple was his MENTOR, his idol. The woman was like “another mother” and so when he finally realized that I was right about these people and that they were ABUSERS and USERS it was a horrible LOSS for him. He now sees them for what they are, thank God, but it HURT HIM SO BADLY to see that he had been DUPED.
When my egg donor started lying to me and my sons, and sending money to my P-son and comfort etc. and “disbelieving” what we KNEW (and she knew too) to be the truth, he tried to kill us—we cut off contact with HER. I was actually suprised that both my sons are NC with her now. One actually stormed out the door and said, “I won’t be around you and your lies” the other one, D, just sort of “faded out of sight” but HAS NO WISH TO BE AROUND HER, is NC. He is not one for big loud confrontations, he just fades away.
I am finally able to SET BOUNDARIES and enforce them, but not let my my excitement or emotional pain make it into a “big loud” confrontation any more. I am sticking to my guns and NC no matter what the provocations are, and except for being in COURT, if they have anything to say to me they can say it through my attorney. That’s what he is paid for. Or they can write me a letter or an e mail, but except for necessary BUSINESS about our farm, there is no “chat”—
There is no love left, no respect, no trust, and without those things, there is NO RELATIONSHIP, who why have “contact”? I’m sure not going to get anything beneficial out of contact with them, that’s for sure, and I might give them something to use against me in a fight…so NC FOREVER!
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 3:12pm
Zen says:
Thanks OxDrover,
I had wondered if a background check would be of benefit. I know for a fact she’s screwed over a LOT of people in so-called business deals. She was very worried that I would run into one of the people she had conned. I wish I knew the truth re her but I probably never will.
She forwarded a text message that she thought would cause sympathy for her showing how ‘crazy’ the person is who sent the msg, uh well to me it showed she was exactly what I suspected! It does really bother me that he refuses to even consider my thoughts on this, I guess he thinks I’m jealous I don’t know. I’ve told him that she lies and I don’t trust her. It is upsetting truthfully to think he trusts her and not my observations. I’ve thought at the end of our lease that I should just go back to my home and not look back. He doesn’t try to force her on me or anything like that it’s just bothersome to me that there is this wedge that I will never accept again.
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 6:09pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Zen,
Even after being “involved” with the criminal justice system and courts and prisons (via my P-son) since 1988-9 I am just now learning what would have saved me a LOT of grief and pain as well as a huge amount of money.
I had some experience in doing drug and other testing at the clinic in which I worked for several years, but other than small claims court, nothing much. Now I am learning all about probate courts, criminal courts, prison systems, parole and so on. I had a PI back ground check done on one of my Ps, and it showed up 15 pages of CONVICTIONS including sexual offender x 3 with children, however, I got the SAME back ground check run on my DIL at the same time (and boy is she ever a P) but up until she went to jail/court for furnishing a hand-gun to her BF who was a convicted felon, she had a clean record. All I got was her SS# and every place she had lived for the last 20 years. She had also been in the Air Force for a while, I was never able to find out the circumstances of her leaving the AF, I imagine it was because she was preg, but don’t know for sure. It did sort of shoot a hole in her claims that she “didn’t know anything about guns” cause she sure finished BASIC training. But nothing about her service record.
The new privacy acts also make it almost IMPOSSIBLE to get someone’s credit report legally unless they give permission.
The IRS won’t even investigate them unless there is a minimun of $250K in possible back taxes, I understand that amount at least is what you have to claim. If you do turn them in and the IRS collects though, you get 10% as a bonus!
Well, this guy sure doesn’t sound like he is much of a “winner” any way, he is at the very least an easy mark or a dupe. But dupes can be a bad deal as they forward on information to the Ps that can bite you in the arse eventually. I can tell you that for SURE! Happened to me.
I am just glad that I have eliminated these people out of my life, physically, and/or emotionally. TRUST is very important to me now, and at the FIRST sign of someone being untrustworthy they are GONE. Sometimes it hurts like heck. I am also not going to be around someone who ENABLES these people either. That’s the thing as well, there is so much collateral damage from people you would like to be around, but they make such poor choices out of excess empathy it just isn’t worth it.
I’ve only got one friend that I really care for who is married to a P, but the situation isn’t going to change, he is in very poor health, and an older guy, and he is embarassed by her behavior, depressed and a lot of other problems, but My son D and I do like this man and spend as much time with him as we can, and as little with her as we can. She doesn’t bother me much now emotionally as I just really no longer give a big rat’s behind about her or what she says, and I do set boundaries with her, so that helps. Sometimes that is the choice we have to make about who we associate with if they bring on Ps as “baggage.” But I am prepared to cut loose if it starts to become a big problem for me. I am putting MYSELF FIRST now.
This past week, I went to a probate attorney for some advice BEFORE I need it, and will follow up on the things he suggested. It was worth the small amount it cost me, so I figure it was a GOOD INVESTMENT. Trying to figure out what to do when your butt is on fire is a bad time to be searching Lowe’s for a fire extinguisher. Better to be prepared before hand.
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 6:26pm
anitasee says:
Dear all, Always astounded at the level of good writing and thinking on this site, all of us duped by the lies of a P. And as the article so rightly points out (Dr. Steve, always bang on) they are very good. (the P;s, at faking whatever they choose to fake),
I will always remember during my early days in the investment business (17 yrs old) one of the top honcho sales people jumping up after making a sale on the phone and shouting ” I am so damn good, sometimes I even believe my own bullshit! “.. and the trading room cheering him on.
I think the article also speaks to the compartmentalizing of the P…when he/she is in the “moment” they are on, and their truth is their truth. They see no condradiction in a completley opposing behavior hours, days or months later. They are predators, so they navigate between opportunities and dangers on a constant fight or flight survival mode , “how can I get out of this, or get that which I desire” , kind of gut level, with devasting results to their victims when they are good at their game.
The open declarations my x made about how his family comes first above all else were very convincing to everyone, not just me, he played the act to a tee…doting, generous, always present, whatever you want sky is the limit, I love you and only you, you are everything to me kind of stuff.
All the time.
It actually became uncomfortable. Because I heard his words, but there was no longer any music. I could not reciprocate. But I believed he believed. I believed he “loved” me. And it was my own stupid GUILT at the idea of abandoning, essentially a good man that loved me, (not to mention kids, high shcool $$ etc) that kept me with him.
While he lied, stole, cheated, abused, and humiliated me, deliberately, over and over and over, 85% of it without my knowledge. The point being, as Oxy and others have so rightly pointed out- “lies=leave”. It was that fifteen percent that I knew about that I shouldn’t have let slide. I am standing her enow on priciples, (other thread) that I should have protected and nourished ALWAYS…not said oh..he loves me…he tries….he means well….give him another chance.
I felt at a gut level that the nicely wrapped package was rank, but good manners forced me to take it and say thank you.
So, I pity the fool who ever tries to capture me with words again. Besides, Oxy would boink me really bad with her e-skillet.
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 7:54pm
neveragain says:
Dear Ravenlesstower,
You are a very good writer, and I think with a relationship that spans that many years, you have to send that final note. I did too. So much of what you wrote was true for me too.
1. “and because of my history with him, he is probably the only man who could get away with “earning” my trust so quickly. It was misplaced.” TRUE for me too.
2. “You told me you realized your sexual life with your wife was not fulfilling soon after marriage… that makes sense. She isn’t a whore and became a Madonna to you in her attempts to become pregnant, to bear children, and to build a home. She loved you and took care of you and therefore was no longer attractive to you. You prefer to make love to yourself – the only perfect and acceptable partner you know. In November, even with me, the promise of a passionate reunion never availed itself – you used my body to masturbate your own.”—BINGO…even the month!
3. “And I did – how could I not? I’ve been in love with you my entire adult life. I opened my heart up to you fully and in doing so I allowed you to see my every weakness, my every strength, and every piece of my soul. In turn you used that information to ingratiate yourself to me. You appeared to give me unconditional love and acceptance – and honestly, I believe you thought that’s what it was too. For a while, at least, you imagined that I could be that ‘perfect love’ that would make you feel complete. Except you aren’t capable of love, because true love means putting someone else and their needs ahead of you and your own wants and desires. It was just a game to you – one that made you feel powerful, for a time”….Ditto!
4. “It was for good reasons that I chose to forget – and to avoid the pain of the loss, I idolized you, buried your faults, and remembered only what I assessed as strength of character.”…Same.
5. “I’ve had time to reflect on all that has happened in the past months since we began corresponding again after so many long years. I realize now that the words that last time I was in your arms were full of lies: ‘This won’t be the last time we’ll see each other. We will ALWAYS have each other.’ The truth is, it was the last time we will see each other, I’ve NEVER had you, and you no longer have me. My love for the man I thought you were ended the moment I realized that you idealized, exploited, devalued, discarded and abandoned me without a second thought. But you missed one thing… one tiny thing you didn’t count on… in your abuse of my feelings for you, you made me STRONGER.”….
Well, here we part ways, because I let him build me up and dump me a total of four times in my life. It only took ONCE for you, or maybe twice if you count 22 years ago. I am impressed, and you go girl!
And yes…the lyrics are very telling are they not?
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 8:40pm
muld00n says:
He knew I hated deceitfullnes particularly in a relationship, he knew I didnt hold with people who have casual sexual encounters..He told me he hated deceit and casual sex and had only had two lovers before me…turns out he was the most deceitful creature I ever met and he had had many one night stands…I dont think I would listen to any man again…I think sociopathy is being a man.
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 9:42pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Muldoon,
Sweetie, it isn’t JUST men, there are plenty of females who are Psychopaths as well.
Yours, like all of them, will NEVER change….as long as you stay with him he will lie to YOU, cheat on you, and so on. When he moves on to the next one, he will lie to her, cheat on her….he will never change. He IS the lie.
You can’t heal him, you can only heal and change your self. I pray that you can do that. ((((hugs))))) and my prayers.
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 10:27pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Henry,
Well, said, brother! I think I am probably on that same path, doing well by myself for myself, and I always get along with myself, like what I cook, and never tell myself off! LOL ROTFLMAO
Today has been another wonderful day spent with ME, MYSELF AND I! That stinking cow is still holding that calf for RANSOM, but she is “walkin’ funny” so I think by morning there will be a new one on the ground!
Got an e mail from a friend today, her houselburned so I gotta get out in the storage and rummage around and get the things out that might help her out. Gosh, a burn out is a bad thing! So many things that can’t be replaced—I’ve got two little fire safes for very important papers, but there’s a lot of other stuff that I could’t cram in an 18 wheeler that I’d sure hate to lose. Money couldn’t replace them.
That’s another thing I’ll add to my list of blessings, my house didn’t burn today!
Spring looks like it is here!
The sun shone beautifully!
I’m healthy!
gosh, I could go on and on! LOTS of blessings, Henry, and one of the biggest ones is my cyber-friends here at LF! (((hugs)))) to you all!
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Friday, 5 March 2010 @ 11:59pm
OxDrover says:
Henry, what happened to your post? It went away, did you delete it? Boy, that is disconcerting! LOL
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 12:00am
hens says:
lol hey oxy I deleted it. but thanks for your response .. i think being terminly single is fine, at my age I dont care anymore if’n my soulmate is out there lookin for me, I am gonna stay hid….
I woud walk funny also if I was gettin ready to have a cow..
Yes nice weather but windy and a big chance for heavy rain sunday and monday so get your ung yuns and tater s planted tomorrow..sorry i deleted that – sometimes i feel like the blog pest with my brain fart one liners….
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 12:11am
OxDrover says:
Henry,
Man, you think you are a pest? Well, when I started posting that short answer and then when I posted, DANG you were gone and I was wondering if I’d lost my mind.
Someone sent me the cutest video of a guy singing to an “old folks” convention about losing his memory and everyone that got it (well almost everyone) sent back an e mail that said they’ld about split their guts laughing! I WASN’T LAUGHING when you post was gone, I thought I’d lost my mind! LOL
Oh, well, it’s time for me to go beddie bye any way, Don’t know where EB is tonight she’s usually here late. D’s got company and is out roaming the farm some where with his buddies—they were plotting on how to build affordable “climbing holds” for practicing their rock climbing–guy things! I ain’t a gonna get up on no stinking mountain and hold on by my fingernails! But at least they use those climbing harnesses and ropes, do it safely, but still not my game. Good nite!
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 12:35am
ErinBrock says:
EB’s in the house…….
Eldest had a memorial today to go to today……a good friend….tragic story…..but beautiful….he was 26 and died in a skiing accident…he was a pro skier….had another terrible accident 5 years ago….coma for over a month….severe brain injury….and rehabbed himself…….and got back to pro level again….and was getting ready to compete…..again….and died.
He was a beautiful, happy, positive person who gave my son so much positive energy…..
He learned how to live life to the fullest and died doing what he LOVED! But wayyyyy to soon!
When I think of all these guys….they are really awesome kids…..another of the ‘crew’ won a silver the day after CR passed last week at the olympics…..they were a tight bunch….
and to be able to compete in the olympics and WIN a silver was priceless for the whole bunch…..send their bud out in style…..
I look at the influence these kids have had on my boys and at such a young age…..and it’s too bad their father couldn’t be in their position (influence wise)….
They’ve had trouble, they’ve struggled…..but they have overcome…..and made it to their passions…..and live it daily….
The good die too soon! I looked at his picture on the memory book….it was a baby pic….3 years old….such a cute curly haired little boy….and grew into the same cute curly haired man.
Anyhow…..I got the gang over….It’s friday night movie night at EB’s……pizza’s in the oven and I can hear the giggles of the teens coming from their ’space’…..
It’s so nice to hear the laughter…..
I’m thankful the S is gone…..I can assure you…..there would be no way the kids would be here every fri for movie night with him around…..
Such a blessing!!!
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 12:50am
hens says:
Hi Miss B I think we are sounding very good tonite. Remember what miserable used to feel like? I remember it less and less, but enuff not to go there again..
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 1:03am
ErinBrock says:
Hi hens….
YEP!!! Never forget…….
And I LOVE the resident LF pest….
Your deeellleeeted post, once again….made me laugh!!!
Heard ya got a new cow?
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 1:09am
hens says:
no oxy has the cow – she should be droppin anyday..
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 1:17am
Rosa says:
There was a herd of cattle all standing on a hill when an earthquake struck. All of the cows fell down, but the bull remained standing. The farmer noticing this went out and asked the bull, “Why didn’t you fall down like the rest of the herd. The bull replied, “We bulls wobble, but we don’t fall down.”
That’s my cow joke.
I love cows….they are so cute.
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 1:23am
ErinBrock says:
You better keep your eyes open hens….the calf sounds like a dowry to me!
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 1:24am
ErinBrock says:
Rooosssaaa!
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 1:30am
Rosa says:
Hi Erin:
Well, I didn’t see any other nominees for Queen of LF Late Night.
So, I am going to take the liberty and crown you right NOW!
Picture a bedazzled tiara being placed upon your head by your favorite male celebrity with your favorite song playing in the background…..
Done!!!
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 1:54am
ErinBrock says:
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 2:47am
ErinBrock says:
The late night crowd roars…..
EB takes a bow and a curtsy…
Thank you, Thank you, as she accepts her Tiara from Rosa, late on this Friday night……..
She dances off the stage to the catchy tune of Lily Allens F**Ck You…..her favorite motivational song….on the shoulders of mamma Gems Haram of men…..with hens pushing the crowd back….on their way to the hot tub to celebrate with champagne and grapes and Godivas……
OH….what a night…..
EB thanks the fellow LF poster Rosa for the award …..ALTHOUGH…. she is wondering if no other nominees came forward because EB get’s a bit crazy on her late night postings, posting to herself and ranting….and SCARES everyone else off the board!!!!
Could that be????
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 3:00am
ErinBrock says:
The crowd thins…..
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 3:33am
ErinBrock says:
EB is alone…..once again……
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 3:34am
ErinBrock says:
Steve…..
I just read the above article….
Thanks for your posting of this…..it’s so very true…
doesn’t make it any easier to avoid….that’s the scary thing….
there are very little tell tale signs….until it’s too late….your sucked in and invested…….
Thank you for all your insightful, experienced information you provide us here….I really do appreciate your work!
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 4:05am
shabbychic says:
Congratulations Queen EB HRH!!!
Use your special “queen” wave to the crowds of people
screaming to catch a glimpse of you
as you drive by in your Rolls Royce!
We are but your humble servants!!!
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 4:17am
geminigirl says:
EB, I LOVE IT!!! WHAT HAVE I STARTED!!
Auditions are soon to be held for suitable young eunuchs,altho men with balls intact may apply.However, they may lose them due to the following reasons
F___D to death,
Castrated by angry hordes,
Captured and led away by gays and straights alike,
Driven mad by passion,
tortured by sex crazed women,
Drowned in a hot tub of champagne,
If you are ready and still willing to audition for this select post at the LF harem, please sign on the dotted line.
Love, Mama Gem, Head Madame of said establishment, and EB her chief floozie.
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 4:57am
HeightofConfusion says:
Hi Everyone,
OMG – amazing how true that article is. Just like everyone else I am shocked by how accuratly it applies to my own life. The guy tells so many lies that he convinces himself and makes me feel like I’m going crazy.
I find it really hard to grasp someone being able to have that level of power and control over another person – scary.
xx
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 6:07am
OxDrover says:
DEar HOC,
The only power they have is what we give them, we are perfectly able to TAKE IT BACK!!!! That is the only saving grace. We have to see what they have done with the power to hurt us from the love wwe gave them, and then, TAKE IT BACK. KNOWLEDGE=POWER and we need to learn enough that we can take our power back! Kick them to the curb, and renew our lives! Safer and better!
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 11:09am
midlifecrisis says:
Hi everyone – I have been having technology problems so haven’t been visiting for a while and am having lots of catch up reading to do! I so agree with this article. My P ex is one of the pseudo insightful and pseudo feeling types and I definitely agree with Steve that these are among the worst in what they are capable of manipulating you to do and among the hardest to get away from.
It took me several attempts over a few yrs to get away from mine – every time I tried he would manipulate in any way he saw fit – tears, depression, loneliness, pain – all faked of course. And of course all the blame was mine for being such a heartless person when he was obviously so sensitive and feeling – how could I say he had no empathy when it was ‘obvious’ how much pain he was capable of suffering?? Of course once he got his way and things were back to normal, nothing changed – he would slide back into the same ole selfish routines that had made me want to leave him in the first place. He is the only person I have ever met who used words as weapons – they were designed to lull me into a sense of security (“Yes of course he loves me – why would he say so if he didn’t?”) while he used me in the most awful ways imaginable.
Eventually I began to articulate what he was doing and I pointed out that his words and actions didn’t match up – if you love someone you don’t lie to them all the time, give them no support or encouragement and use them. You don’t kick them when they’;re down and do things that you know will hurt and worry them – I realised his words were just words with no substance, but he had put on such a good act for so many yrs that it took me lots of repeated incidents to build enough evidence for that viewpoint in my mind.
He cries crocodile tears and can turn them off in a heartbeat. He always makes himself out to be the hard done by party rather than the perpetrator of so many ills. It’s hard to just let it go, but I realise that if I spoke about my experience I would be labeled the bitter bitchy ex partner. It’s so unfair.
The only thing that has saved my sanity is getting away from him – I really think I would have ended up dead had I stayed.
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 11:11am
Zen says:
OxDrover:
Thanks for your insight. I was married for about 30 years to a man who was a very serious alcoholic. He had serious personality issues long before his alcoholism was evident. What to label him I have no clue but suffice to say he caused me a lot of emotional problems as well as my children. My husband died about 3 years about, he and I had been separated for sometime prior to his death. I met my SO about 6 years ago and we began seeing each other off and on about 5 years ago.
The socio in question, knew of me but I was not aware that she existed for awhile. He was concerned I would bolt I think I dunno. We didn’t have a commitment at that time. He did finally tell me re her and I will say I was crushed. But I forgave him and we moved forward. He encouraged a relationship between the socio and me (guess it made his life far easier). At first I did welcome her with open arms and she and I did spend time together often. But as time went on, there was something that was very very bothersome to me about her. My SO and I had a bit of an argument and I told him I was sick of her constant presence etc. So she was ousted from our lives. I began to feel a bit guilty and welcomed her back in. WELL it became MORE evident that she had serious serious problems.
I don’t want to ramble on but I wanted to give you a basic overview of my past with my SO and this person.
I do know she has had several court judgments against her. She has lived in several US cities and in Japan. I just have this odd feeling there is something lurking re her what I don’t know for sure. She’s very reserved about personal information that is about herself not others.
What does worry me is that he will in fact share info about me and my family with her. I was too trusting with her at first, gave her too much info. As I said wonder if I should just toss in the towel and chuck it up to a learning experience.?
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 12:17pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Zen,,
For whatever reason she has, I think she sees this guy as some sort of “safety net” OR “SUPPLY” and if he gets too close to you, then she might lose him. I think this is about “control” over HIM. Her trying to make trouble between you two is her way of gaining back that control she thinks or thought she was losing. If however, she can get him as her “friend” when you want NC with her, in a way, she has “won”—-and I think she will pump him for more information about you, and your relationship with him, and give him advice about how you are abusing him. I know guys fall for this crap and so do women sometimes, and it is frustrating.
Many alcoholics in my estimation are psychopaths who self medicate with alcohol (or drugs) to lower their inhibitions so they can have the courage to be the RE#AL ASSHOLES they are and use the booze/drugs as an excuse. In AA they call them DRY DRUNKS when they are sober cause they are still ASSHOLES! even sober, but now because they are sober they feel even more entitled to be an A-hole.
I have the opinion that a person drunk is the REAL person inside the body. Someone who is a “mean drunk” would LIKE to be mean sober but just doesn’t have the guts to do so, but give’m some booze and the REAL PERSON INSIDE COMES OUT.
I haven’t been drunk but a few times, but during those times (many years ago) I became sloppy sentimental, sleepy, and happy, loved everyone.
My egg donor’s brother, Uncle MONSTER became CHARLIE MANSON + the BTK guy, a real life MONSTER that hated women and loved to torture them physically and psychologically and his children too when they were younger.
Sober he was “mr. Nice guy”—PUKE! I knew what was under the surface once I got the family to let me know what had gone on before I was allowed to know those types of “family secrets”—but once I knew them, I just never wanted to be around him at all. Egg donor insisted I be around him or she would cry and punish me. Most times I didn’t give in. A few I did. “let’s pretend Uncle Monster is not a perverted viscious abuser”—-never did like that game.
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 1:55pm
silvermoon says:
For all the gentle care and companionship I thought was real, it turns out to be inarguable fact that right in front of me, he made dates with other women for sex, they were sending him photos of themselves over the cell phone and the internet and these are not the kinds of pictures any one of these women would be happy to see published alongside their identity! Jeez!
Makes me wonder if to a large extent, these guys aren’t baited by the gals who will behave this way. Its really pretty disgusting. They sure made it easy for him to express himself!
In two cases, I can see where he was baiting these women into relationships using the promise of love and sex to draw them closer and closer to something, I don’t know what.
The other ones? Who knows if they were really what they appear or not, but those girls were undeniably naked.
I don’t know how to make sense out of it.
I’d like to think there are some law enforcement folks who’d be interested in it, but I feel pretty discouraged about that.
It appears that what is true is that one of these gals is likely to be next and there isn’t much I can do about it.
Its not just the family that wants to pretend its all ok, its our society and legal system that protects these monsters by making what these girls are doing ok – because they are stupid or worse- and they are making it super easy for the SPATH. These guys have to work a lot less than ever before thanks to the internet.
There are so many sites where women advertise and hunt for partners its a smorgasbord for these guys! And from what I can see, the targets are a lot easier than I was, a lot more agressive in their pursuit of men and a lot more willing to put up with so little from this guy.
I see many dates broken because we did something on that day or night – like travelling or going to the movies or something that would have been a normal life by any other comparison and then there would be email and text messages from women begging him to help resolve their disapointment and come to them again.
Its gross.
But, on the Internet Dating sites, it is common and ok. And there are many, many of these places and many women who will settle for what service he would provide.
The abuse is perpertuated by the ignorant and self abused and it appears, there are a lot of them out there too.
Can I imagine what evil might be embedded in it all? Hardly but it doesn’t take much imagination to guess at it.
The problem is a lot bigger than just us. A lot bigger than any one family. A lot bigger than any single society.
I can see why gentle cows are much preferable to this company! It makes perfect sense to me!
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 2:28pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Silvermoon,,
There are and always have been people in society who have no moral compass, or whose moral compass doesn’t work really well.
I saw a thing on TV last night about these priviledged kids in Hollywood who were robbing the homes of “stars” and stealing fancy expensive clothes, and jewelry, and these kids are being made into MEDIA STARS. If they came from poor families, or were black and poor, or hispanic and poor, they would be in PRISON NOW, instead one of the girls had people videoing her arrest like it was some big joke. They will get off most likely with some “poor little rich kiid” sentence of probation, and it makes me FURIOUS.
Yes, there are people and always have been who do things like sleep with other people’s spouses, who sell their sex for money, who abuse children, abuse spouses, rob, steal, beat and kill others. The Old Testament if filled with stories of these people and corrupt political “holy men” who framed Christ and crucified him because He was “on to” their evil hearts!
I just finished reading a really good novel that was placed in the space of the end of WWI to the end of WWII about a woman born a dwarf and treated as an outsider by her community, but she observed how the others in her town hated the Jews and jjumped on the Nazi band wagon. She and her father helped some of the town’s Jewish people escape, even the town’s priest was Pro-Nazi and persecuted the Jews. After the Americans came into town, and were sorting out the “war criminals” from the innocent poipulation, several people came to her and her father to get them to “write letters” vouching for them not being Nazis. One of the women who came to beg the small woman for a letter for her son, she told “No, I can’t do that.” The woman’s son was one of four teenaged boys who had raped the dwarf when she was about 13, he had also tortured cats. The mother said “My son wouldn’t hurt anyone” but the raped woman said to her, choosiing her words carefully, “I know your son IS the kind of man who WOULD hurt someone.”
I’ve been in that mother’s shoes, wanting to think the best about my P son, and trying to “help” him—but I am glad the younger woman stood up and did not write the letters for the ones who participated in the holocoust, and then tried to pretend that they kept silent out of fear. Keeping silent out of fear is bad enough, and I can sort of understand it, if not condone it, but I am no longer willing to play “let’s pretend everything is lovely.” That “game” is what got me in the biggest trouble of my life, not recognizing a P and not speaking openly and honestly against everything he stood or stands for.
I am like the dwarf woman and her father, I love my country, but I am not proud of what some of its people DO. I’m not proud of the fact that 10% of the governors of the 50 states have been prosecuted or are about to be and/or thrown out of office for CRIMINAL and/or IMMORAL behavior.
You are right Silvermoon, it is not only a person here or there that is corrupt, there is a GREAT DEAL of corruption in this world and this country. I’ve been in lots of other countries, though and for the most part, this is one of the better places to be. Would you like to be a citizen of Somolia right now? Or how about Mexico or Colombia? Or Haiti?
There was a time (I was 18 I think) when I thought I knew the answers, ALL the answers to the world’s problems, but now I realize I don’t even know all the QUESTIONS!!! But I do know that what is wrong with the world can best be started fixing by fixing what is in my life, and my environment to the best of my ability! So, that’s what I am doing, working on me, my relationships, my behavior, and so on. Being the best I could be. I will no longer be a bystander if I can HELP (NOT ENABLE) someone, and I will speak up, but I will do it in such a way to do the most benefit for myself and my country.
(((hugs))))
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 4:20pm
Zen says:
OxDrover
You are 100% correct when you say she sees him as a safety net! She still uses him for $ occasionally and often for moral support (supposedly) What she IS doing is keeping him close enough to keep him emotionally supportive and keeps him believing she is incapable AND evokes pity in him. When she needs him again for transportation, money & whatever else he’ll be there gladly. (hes being an idiot IMHO) She has zero interest in him truthfully, she only did the very least she could get by with for paybacks to him so to speak.
All this will again come to a head I am afraid. It probably needs to honestly.
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 8:38pm
ravenlesstower says:
silvermoon:
“I’d like to think there are some law enforcement folks who’d be interested in it, but I feel pretty discouraged about that.”
MY P/S/N/? IS IN law enforcement – at the highest level in our nations Capitol. I know when I look back that that tidbit, along with our history, is what allowed me to trust him so completely. (Not unlike a pedophile is trusted when they are a policeman or a coach or a pastor…)
I have learned these soulless men/women gravitate to those types of fields… power, authority over others… the theme is recurrent.
I have often thought, if I TOLD anyone… who would believe me? He is charming and insinuates himself into any situation where DEPTH of knowledge is not important… only the ability to glean, to coerce, trust and confidence.
Tonight I went to the bookstore and browsed through one of Sandra Brown’s books. Is there NOTHING new on this subject? Have the rest of you read the same info over and over with no new insight – nothing new, nothing that makes it make SENSE?
One of the things he kept texting me when he was “grooming” me to take him in again was:
“I want you… Gonna get you too…”
Can you believe I found this endearing at the time? Now it sends chills up my spine!
Ravenlesstower
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 8:52pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Ravenlesstower,
Look at the 5 Governors of states that have recently resigned, b een tossed out, or are faciing it and/or criminal charges. Governor of a STATE is fairly high up there folks! And the Reps etc that have been censured for ETHICS violations, come on…..!!!!
What about that woman that Johnson (NY Gov’s “aide”) that was accused of beating her—who would believe her when she said the STATE POLICE and the GOVERNOR called her to drop the charges? Well, SOMEONE DID!!! Several of the women who accused BILL CLINTON of rape were NOT believed by law enforcement, but I BELIEVE THEM. Several also did not come forth publicly.
Sometimes people are believed and sometimes what happens is trivalized or swept under the rug–that is just the fact. But you are right I think, that too many times “powerless” people are preyed on by those in CONTROL in Law enforcement or politics or whatever their “power is”—or bought off with money to keep their mouths shut! NOTHING NEW there though, that’s gone on since recorded history.
We want to think in this country that people are EQUAL before the law, but look at OJ’s case, so we know it isn’t true, the guy with the fame and biggest bucks and smarmiest lawyer wins regardless of the truth.
We can’t fix it all and I use’ta think I could (I was a teenager, what do they know?!!!) and sometimes I still grind the caps off my teeth thinking about the injustices in this world. Life just AIN’T FAIR, but we have to play the cards we are dealt the best we can I think.
Ravenlesstower, Your question about “is there nothing that makes it make SENSE?” Yea, I think the answer is, why do snakes bite–cause they do. Why is the sky blue, Mama? Just cause it is. I don’t mean to be smart alec here, there are just somethings that ARE. I think the “reasons” are both genetic and environmental, but I do believe that once it is set in their minds/emotions, scientists have pretty well agreed there is no “cure” and that’s frustrating.
I think we can some it up as “some people ARE EVIL,” and we just have to accept that coyotes howl at the moon, snakes bite and the sky is usually blue and some people are EVIL. It may not make sense in the way we would like to understand it, but I think it is the TRUTH. (((hugs))))
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 9:34pm
silvermoon says:
Raven,
Sounds a lot like something I was told.
Only two things make sense. No Contact and let go.
Trying to make sense of the rest might be the subject of a novel or a life of analysis.
I get the chills part too.
Brrr….
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 9:39pm
Sarah999 says:
Dear Witsend,
I have a very similar situation with my X-son. We have been NC for many years . . and although it’s awful, contact with him . . his hatred, anger, lies and manipulations is FAR worse.
But I discovered (I think) something about their “lies”, that has helped me understand their thinking.
To them, lying has nothing to do with reality. It has nothing to do with what really happened, or what actually IS. In their mind . . the TRUTH . . is what they WANT (or NEED) it to be at that moment. It is what serves their purpose. That, in fact, is the definition of TRUTH for them.
So (for example) if they say they “returned the money”, (but they didn’t). The truth for them is that “they returned it”! They KNOW intellectually they didn’t return the money, but that is NOT THEIR TRUTH . . because that does not serve their purpose, at that moment. If you disagree with them, they get angry, because you don’t understand, agree with, or support “their purpose” . . . which is THEIR TRUTH.
I also think sometimes they create a statement that is an outrageous lie, and you MUST agree with them, to prove to them that they have POWER & CONTROL. Anything less than your agreement would mean, they do not have POWER over you, and that is unacceptable to them.
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Saturday, 6 March 2010 @ 10:56pm
Sarah999 says:
Another thought . . . the P/N/S/A is all about POWER & CONTROL . . so when you don’t buy into (i.e. believe or contradict) his lies . . . you are taking away his POWER & CONTROL . . He/she won’t stand for this . . so he/she has a rage attack, leaves you, hates you, or smears you, punishes you, etc.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 12:17am
OxDrover says:
Dear Sarah999,
Well said.!
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 12:25am
bulletproof says:
Steve
Great post. Yes makes me happy to be no contact 6 months
evil free and educated!
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 5:33am
BlackDeer says:
What a great article Steve, thank you so much. This really helps me understand what a hall of mirrors I lived in.
I too have a highly pseudo-sensitive/pseudo-insightful ex. For the most part he was cheerful, bought me gifts, told everyone how wonderful I was, etc. He was also very persuasive (is a certified hypnotherapist) so when it came to his sexual creepiness he had logical-sounding reasons why that was somehow a more “advanced” way of living than the monogamy practiced by all the average people below him. I was young and naive about men and I bought it hook, line and sinker. Saw later that he used the same schtick with every woman he tried to seduce, even used the same words.
After I left I got a lot of bs like “I am so clear about myself, I know myself so well, I’m so emotionally in tune and spiritually aligned, what the hell is your problem you emotional midget?” That was mixed in with ping-pong between sappy, often drunken sentimentality–forwarding old emails I sent with his comments added in, sending “meaningful” songs or song lyrics from 15 years ago, telling me how he’ll always love me and that I’m the greatest thing to walk the planet–and sneering contempt, rage and blame. The flip could happen within the same email.
How could I have left such a sensitive man??
I’m as NC as I can be, still in the extrication process but no personal or phone contact and I don’t see email until it’s laundered by a friend (he cannot shut up, and gawd is he tedious and repetitive). All I see are business-related questions. He has no idea that I don’t read all his drivel. Seriously, how does he find time for all this writing/song lyric searching/reviewing 10+ years of old emails?
My friend and I marvel at the fact that he’s still able to maintain a relationship with me, completely without my participation! A nice reminder that it was never about me anyway.
I’m only a couple months away from being free and clear and I can’t wait for that beautiful day.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 9:57am
witsend says:
Sarah999,
I think you and I might have some very interesting conversation about this if we knew each other in real life. And could sit down and have an open discussion and throw some of our thoughts back and forth.
I am not in complete N/C with my son. But since he is no longer living under my roof, there is definately less daily stress in my life. So although it is “awful” as you say to not have them in you life, it is by FAR the less of the two evils.
I do think there is alot to be learned of this disorder though by seeing it from the ground up. And how it “grows” or progresses from adolescence through adulthood.
And I believe that at the adolescence stage the “reality” that they live in really is what they believe to be the TRUTH.
At this stage the “hard wiring” of the disorder has really preceeded their level of intelligence.
So they really DO believe their own lies and perception of the truth. And much of the normal development that would normally take place is arrested.
And this disorder just continues to progress as they enter into adulthood. They begin to learn how to live in their own skin. And that power and control and “winning” and all of these things that you see initially, these just get grander on the scale. As do the lies.
Learning to live in their own skin is to an S/P/N all about self serving lifestyle. As that is how they are wired.
I see more often recently my son learning to tell “regular” lies, when it serves his purpose. He is learning of course that lies do serve his purpose well.
But those lies are much different to deal with than his living in his lack of reality. The lies that ARE his truth. There is a definate difference. Between the lies he uses to “work” people and the lies that create his fantasy he lives in. It was the lies he percieved as truth, though that showed first at 15. It was that lack of living in reality, and the strong MINDSET that the rules don’t apply to him. Just like this complete stranger that turned up here one day, in place of the young boy he was.
There is a progression. I can’t articulate it well. But I see it.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 11:42am
OxDrover says:
Dear Witsend,
I think you articulate it VERY WELL! Those fantasies that they dream will come true, they BELIEVE they can do it, against all evidence or reason that it CAN’T be accomplisshed they are so egocentric they think, honestly think it can be done.
Because they THINK and BELIEVE that their fantasy of being a “rock star” AND ” rich and famous” is going to come true, they don’t need to work in school or make a “plan B” because they KNOW that “Plan A” is a SURE THING.
An adult brain would consider some of the “negative” evidence that only 1 out of 30 million kids who wants to be a rock star and the odds are against them, but the morphing-teenaged psychopath knows those odds (rules) don’t apply to HIM. He is SPECIAL, the world centers around him. This is sort of like a “normal teenager” on STEROIDS and SPEED. That was what made it so difficult for me to believe he wouldn’t “grow out” of this and all I had to do was keep him from screwing up his life with crime until he “wised up” and then he would be okay.
Well, here I am, he will turn 40 in 2011, and he is still 15 years old emotionally, but on “steroids and speed and roid-rage” and hate and vengence, entitlement, grandiosity, lack of impulse control, and poor judgment, consideriing himself a SUCCESS, no less, because he can sometimes put one over on the guards and the wardens and convince his grandmother to send him money and “provide for his needs” after she is dead.
“My Child is an Honor Student in the State Penal System”
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 2:26pm
witsend says:
Oxy,
Morphing…A good word to somewhat describe what I was trying to describe.
Sometimes I am at a loss for words….I see this “vision” of my son growing into this disorder. Becoming ONE with it. I can’t seperate him (the wonderful boy he was) and the disorder (the evil disorder) as much as I used to be able to do. It seems as it progresses this becomes harder and harder to do. (the seperation)
I hate this. Because it does make it seem more and more hopless as time goes on.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 2:46pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Witsend,
Unfortunately, it IS HOPELESS—and giving up that hope is definitely difficult because we have been trained to NOT give up “hope” on our children. To keep on TRYING with them. To keep on HOPING with them.
The bottom line though, with any other person in the world is that we CANNOT MAKE THEM DO ANYTHING—you can point a gun at my head and say, get on your knees or I will shoot your brains out, and if I decide the punhment is not enough to make me comply with your demands, you can do it. You can kill me, but only I DECIDE IF I WANT TO GET ON MY KNEES or DIE.
Or you can say, If you get on your knees, I will give you ONE MILLION DOLLARS—but if I decide and remember I DECIDE that the reward is not enough to motivate me, I will just stand there and you can keep your million dollars.
The psychopaths and enablers and would be enablers use both punishment and rewards to get what they want from others, every parent does with every child, but the psychopaths are not afraid of the punishment and don’t care squat about the rewards offered.
Soi there is no reward big enough to motivate them and no punishment sccary enough to motivate them, so they are UNMOVED by either fear or desire to please.
The scariest time I ever felt with my P son was when he was 11 and had run away from hoome after being spanked for lying about stealing and was being taken back home and he looked me in the eye and said, with the P look (which I didn’t know what was then) and said “You can’t watch me 24 hours a day, I will DO IT AGAIN”
I knew he was RIGHT, I couldn’t watch him 24/7, but I did find a THREAT of punishment that would anchor him down and keep him from running and I used it. I had never been a parent who threatened a consequence and not carried through, so I knew he would beleive me without question and he did for years believe me, and it bought me time. I was able to trump his ace on that one. Not that in the long run it did any good, because as he morphed into a psychopath 4 years later at puberty, he knew and I knew that I could NOT CONTROL him, and he used that to do what he wanted to.
At 17 when I coludn’t control him and I called the COPS who COULD control him (to some extent) i.e. TRUMPED HIS ACE again, it threw him into such a rage that he still wants to kill me for doing it. I honestly think he was KILLING ME BY PROXY when he shot that 17 year old girl for RATTING him out to the cops.
I guess maybe it is a dog-fight between the two of us about who is or was “top dog” and he is so turned toward dominance behavior that he still won’t give up the fight after all these years. I’d actually be glad to walk away and let him get out on parole and live his life (for a while) out of porison however he wants to, if he didn’t have the desire to “get even” with me for “trumping his aces” so long ago in an attempt to keep him safe. He is like a BULL DOG though, he has his jaws clamped around the nose of this bull and no matter how the bull bashes him to the ground or what happens, he is NOT GOING TO LET GO!
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 3:17pm
Rosie says:
Midlife crisis
Mine did the crocodile tears too. You know how someone cries so hard that their shoulders bounce? Well he did that, but I’m sure he was forcing his shoulders to bounce, and there were no actual tears coming out. LOL
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 3:57pm
witsend says:
Oxy,
It is that inability to find when they are young that there is NOTHING as a parent that you might have as “currency”.
There is nothing positive that you might do as “reward” system that they don’t think they are entitled to.
And there is no consequence that if it is a negative one for bad behavior, that will work on a consistant basis. Because consequences for bad behavior just make them ANGRY. And because they don’t see any of THEIR behavior as unacceptable, they have their own PERCEPTION of unacceptable behavior (it is always others behaviors and not their own) it really is just a VICIOUS circle.
I believe that part of this, is their total “lack of investment” in the parental/child relationship that contributes to this. And the biggest contributor is their distorted perceptions of EVERYTHING.
Even never meeting your son…..I would bet on it, that to this day that your son sits in jail BELIEVING he was wrongly convicted. That he doesn’t DESERVE to be there. Makes no difference that a girls life was taken. His perception IS what it IS. And a dead body isn’t EVEN GOING TO CHANGE THAT perception.
I know that is how my son would percieve it, if he were in jail for a crime.
And that is ALSO that unwavering perception, THEIR BELIEF in their distorted reality when they are younger and this is BLOOMING and escalating inside of them, that makes this an impossible situation as a parent. Their perception is unwavering. Nothing you can give or say to them “soaks” in.
Its like taking the hose to concrete. The water just trickles off. Nothing soaks in.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 3:58pm
Rosie says:
Oh and another thing, his ex gf of 5 years who I spoke to, told me she’d never known a man to cry so much!
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 4:01pm
one_step_at_a_time says:
Witty – in your post to sarah you said: ‘I see more often recently my son learning to tell “regular” lies, when it serves his purpose. He is learning of course that lies do serve his purpose well.
But those lies are much different to deal with than his living in his lack of reality. The lies that ARE his truth. There is a definate difference. Between the lies he uses to “work” people and the lies that create his fantasy he lives in.’
beautifully articulate and amazingly heart wrenching. i am so sorry.
love,
one step
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 4:03pm
Rosie says:
Silvermoon, that is why I will no longer use dating sites, no matter how ‘reputable’ they seem and no matter how lonely I am. If I ever meet someone in the romantic sense again, it will have to be through some shared mutual interest.
Those woman who are offering themselves on a plate, they are clearly in a very desperate place.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 4:07pm
one_step_at_a_time says:
The spaths and their layers of lies and self awareness. Understanding that there are both lies they use and lies they are (their delusions) is important to me. i feel that we spend a lot of time here making them into 2 d beings to get a handle on the pathology – and to release ourselves from trying to understand the whys and wherefores and the endless ifs. this ‘flattening out’ serves a purpose.
but i am at a different place right now – not sure what is is – but I am wondering:
how could she be so SO much this sweet kind sensitve boy in most of her scams – and have it be the one character that rings true to most. Because she believes that one most? Because she targets and catches those who believe in those principles and therefore that character?
The rest of the characters she ‘writes’, especially the nasty ones DON’T hand together well – she veres off there character and story lines and gets muddled. Does she create these folks just to have an outlet for mean, and therefore their stories are not as important to her?
Steve’s post and witty’s writing about her son, made me think of how sick my spath is – she’s not just a bunch of behaviors and ugliness I label ‘spath’. She is a severely disordered PERSON.
Compassion in this instance felt a big dangerous, but as I sit with it, I see that it is freeing; she is so un-free, so fucked up so beneath my time and life energy. A sad fucked up woman who made up someone I loved wildly and to distraction.
I have felt that she gave him to me and then she killed him. She didn’t ‘kill’ him. (although she did in the story she made up) I was wildly in love with a story character.
Compassion is rising. I still want to kill her, but it looks like that may have the grace to fade.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 4:17pm
silvermoon says:
Well, I don’t think it makes sense knowing what I know now about it.
It seemed plausible to me at the time. But, I realize now that the reasons it made sense to me were exactly why it made me a target. Rcently divorced, new in town etc.
It just put a neon sign over my head.
Well, too soon old too late schmart the Amish say….
I think never is a day short of how long it will be for me. That is for sure!
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 4:17pm
silvermoon says:
One step-
What you described as ” A character I loved wildy and to distraction” seems to be the essence of the whole thing.
And then turned out to be a really disordered person.
Well, there we have it.
No matter what the embellishments are, that is the story, over and over again.
And aside the embellishments, it is always they lie about who they are, what they are and what their feelings for us are in such as way as to convince us its real, its really that love we always wanted and if we act now, it can be ours forever.
Can I get a big YEAH RIGHT from the crowd?
The good news is that we are here now. Now we know more and now, we can heal.
But they can’t.
Living well the best revenge.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 4:39pm
one_step_at_a_time says:
silvermoon – i misread your line: ‘Living well the best revenge’ as ‘living well, past the revenge.’ that’s a guiding line for where i am at.
putting my self care first, and it is an ongoing pealing back of layesr to understand what that means, and how i can focus on it – i will do whatever i can anonymously do in my life to harass her spathy ass.
she doesn’t get away with it this time. period.
i love your 6th line – makes the offer of their collapsing love sound like its being sold on a late night shopping network.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 5:22pm
OxDrover says:
When we see a great actor playing a role, we may cry, and empathize with that role they are playing. I think in a way it is the same with the psychopath, they are playing a ROLE and some are extremely good at it.
They learn to imitate the gestures and tone of voice of the role they are playing, but there is never 100% there, there is always a bit of “off” in them that if we look at we can tell is a bit “off” but because we fell for the OVERALL PERFORMANCE we excuse it, trivalize it, and we join in the emotional moments and feelings of the “Play”—-when we actually think this act is REAL LIFE and then we find out they were only acting, we are shattered.
John Wayne always seemed to play only “John Wayne” in different circumsatances and we knew the part was JOHN WAYNE, but with our psychopath’s performance we are more pulled into the script they are playing. When RADIO had “dramas” we listened to them and imagined in our heads the scenery and the faces of the voices we heard saying the lines. Actually those people were standing at a microphone and were NOT who they pretended to be, much easier than in a moving picture, and I think the cyber relationships we form on some dating site are kind of like the “radio dramas” we fill in all the pictures in our own minds of what this person is like.
I agree, stay the heck away from the DRAMA of on-line dating, our imaginations are too vivid to risk it! And there are too many predators out there to risk it.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 6:05pm
silvermoon says:
Ox,
The false security of online communication is pretty heady and the opportunity to read in what you want to hear is abundant -especially if the person on the other end is a player.
I saw it with my own eyes. All the things said to me were repeated line for almost line with others countless others and it was a technique perfected over years.
So no, way too high risk for anyone here I think because the likelihood is if we were taken once and most of us have been around the block more than, we could be again.
Kind of like the wisdom of if you burn your hand on a hot stove burner, don’t touch’em any more!
The antithesis of collapsing love is unconditional love which we owe to ourselves and may grant on earnings to others.
Living well includes so much more than we were doing even if like I did, we thought we had chit together and woke up to a great unraveling of our identity and our heart’s desire.
I guess for me I find such wisdom in writings like this one from Ayn Rand:
“The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath: I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine”.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 6:25pm
witsend says:
One Step,
You said: “Compassion is rising. I still want to kill her, but it looks like that may have the grace to fade.”
That really says alot of how far you have come in this process. In your quest to simplify your life and take care of first things first….Something else also very significant has resulted from this. A possible different thought process. Even just the idea of toying with a different thought process. Either way it is all good. All progress. Growth.
I am in a very compassionate state of mind today. Crying lots of tears but also connecting alot of dots today. I could shed tears today for every single one of us here on LF. For going through what we are all going through. Muddling through this pain.
All this after a very short visit with my son yesterday. (both my sons actually) Nothing even significant happened during this visit. However I don’t think I will ever be the same again.
I just keep feeling like now “I know what I know” and can never go back to thinking how I used to think. Some of this “dot conecting” is just bits and pieces of stuff that I have known all along, but was unable to see it as a whole.
Now to process it…..
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 7:14pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Witty,
Yea, those Life and thinking changing moments of “ah ha” that we start to SEE with different eyes.
Jesus said “they have eyes and see not, ears and hear not” and I think I have been so BLIND AND DEAF to what was right before my eyes. I have been reading some pretty “deep” novels, and one lately really resonated with me. The main character was growing up “different” in post WWI Germany (she was a dwarf and her mother, dead when she was 4 had been the town lunitic) and the girl watched the town and saw threw her own eyes “I’m different, No one likes me” and it made a difference in how she saw EVERYTHING, and she was sometimes nasty to people because she felt angry for being different, and resented others for having things she didn’t because she was short.
During the Start of WWII, she and her father hid and helped hide their neighbors who were Jews while other neigthbors joined the Nazi party, or just kept their mouths shut out of fear of the Nazis. Her thoughts through all of this made me see how our own PERSPECTIVE gives different “tints” to what we see and how we perceive it.
We look at something, having eyes, but do not SEE the truth or falsehood of what is happening, we form a different REALITY because we are emotionally blind in some ways, or have an agenda based on believing something we want to BE TRU. Just as our sons have an AGENDA in believing that they can make something real if they believe it hard enough and if they can get others to agree with them.
It isn’t just the psychopaths that distort reality, I have done it too. I wanted so bad for my son to be a good man, that I saw a good man even though his behavior was monsterous!
In my own way, now I can SEE what I thinkk now is the real truth, that he is a monster, but I have a powerful imagination, and I know I am as capable of being BLIND as anyone can be.
That’s why I have to keep guard on my own thinking, check and see if it meets with reality.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 7:25pm
one_step_at_a_time says:
witty – BIG holding hugs dear one.
thank you for drawing the line for me between the points of ’simplify’ and the lessening of my compulsive thinking and the rising of compassion.
so, what happens to us when denial cracks wide open…
you are in my thoughts – held lightly with great gentleness.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 8:39pm
Sarah999 says:
Dear Witsend,
We do have a lot in common. Do you live in NYC?
Sarah999
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 9:30pm
OxDrover says:
Dear One step,
“So what happens to us when denials cracks wide open?”
WE CRY, then we HEAL.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 10:54pm
one_step_at_a_time says:
oxy – i think we change big time when we crack wide open.
thank god.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 11:07pm
silvermoon says:
Over and over again there are writings which describe the experience of Divine prescence which comes as a profound sense of peace and comfort after moments of extreme distress or fear etc. You know- cracking wide open….
I think that we have to allow those feelings and cracking wide open with faith that the change will come and the prescence will be there when finally, we are willing to let go.
But cracking wide open is a lot like throwing up – its something we will go to lengths to avoid and truth be told, they are the most direct routes to feeling better.
Funny how that works, huh?
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 11:19pm
one_step_at_a_time says:
NICE analogy silvermoon – it is like puking – with the attendant fear and cleansing…and the worry about what is WRONG with us.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 11:24pm
GettingIt says:
Oxy said “So what happens to us when denials cracks wide open?”
WE CRY, then we HEAL. ”
G-d! I wish this addiction could go away just like that. I am really sick now, with a flu all of a sudden. Who do you think I am craving the most? His touch, the way he took care of me. He did! He did. Not always, not for long, but when he did it, it was better than my own mother. I miss that touch of his so much. I cry. I don’t heal. I cry more. I’ve been asked how many tears I have left…. Seems, a lot. Crying again.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010 @ 11:38pm
geminigirl says:
Leonard Cohen, in “Anthem’, sings, ‘there is a crack, where the light comes in,’
Beautiful analogy!
Love, Gem XX
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 12:45am
silvermoon says:
This would be a lot easier if hugging something as tangible as porcelin would make it all better!
But, what body of knowledge and understanding there is and what support we find here and in places like it is there for the after the reality of cracking wide open.
Once, an old mexican cowboy told me about how if a horse doesn’t want to cross a river, you have to turn him and make him run till he doesn’t want to anymore and then go back to the river.
Well, we all want to run alongside the reality that what we loved wildly wasn’t real because that is one heck of a river to cross.
And when we’re done cracking wide open, letting the light in and being too exhausted to fight the crossing over anymore, then the healing can begin.
Its about begining with the end in mind. If I choose to be and to find real happiness, then I have to choose not to cling to this falsehood. I have to choose to feel my way through it and I have to choose to let it pass.
That’s a choice that is as hard for people to make as it is for a horse to step into deep water where they can’t see their footing.
Wanting to run from it is no surprise.
Cowgirls don’t cry
Ride baby ride
Lessons in life are gonna show you in time
Soon enough you’re gonna know why
Its gonna hurt every now and then
If you fall get back on again
Brooks & Dunn
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 9:30am
angelforyou says:
To Everyone who commented, and Steve,
All of this is ringing so familiar to me. Many parts of your posts are right on from MY experience.
I was at a point in my life where I was feeling GOOD about myself. After many years of being single, getting over a relationship from many years ago (about 10!) I was ready to explore and take a chance on someone. Big Mistake!
That was part of my vulnerability, I think was making a conscious choice to accept the LOVE and COMPANIONSHIP of a man. I let my mind go there. Well, now, I have experienced marriage (well, A marriage) and
I really don’t need to go there again, or be feeling sorry for myself for not being “partnered up” with someone. I am so much stronger now.
I ignored red flags, like crazy.
I think when he first saw me he decided “this can work”, how excited he must have gotten, and his troubles went flying away.
I now realize, his job, was me.
There were several times he would comment, as if to convince one of us “this can’t be faked.”
Hmmm…what a good article
Right now I am feeling very nervous, as all this is soaking in once again. So I am taking some deep breathes and going to let my dog in for some distraction and real love.
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 11:19am
OxDrover says:
Silvermoon,
GREAT Analogy about the horse and the water!!!!!, but keep in mind that I am the QUEEN of Analogies and Steve is the King—I think you are about to TOP US–but guess what? On this blog, that is applauded, not punished! BIG Laugh!
We do have to run and avoid and deny until we are too tired to go anymore and then we must step off in that river of pain, and swim for all we are worth! No one can help us make that decision to “get in” we have to do it for ourselves!
Problem is, every time I got in that river of pain it seems, I grabbed at a floating “log” and it turned out to be a psychopathic CROCODILE!!!!! LOL
We need to be sure while we are not in that river we don’t get desperate and grab on to another one! It seems they wait in the river or on the banks to find some poor soul swimming for their life and pounce!
I saw a great YOUTUBE video the other day of a herd of africian buffalo, and a pride of lions grabbed a calf, in doing so the lions And the calf fell into the river, a croc came up and grabbed the back end of the calf and tried to take it away from the lions (as if it didn’t have enough troubles already) and the lions pulled together and got it out of the river and layed down panting, holding the calf—but the buffalo herd returned and hooked at the lions and ran them off and believe it or not, the calf got up and ran back to its mother and the buffalo hooked and chases the lions all away.
Now, I realize lions and crocs have to eat too—but just keep in mind, that there is a whole HERD OF BUFFALO with big sharp horns and they are all BEHIND you to protect you even if you feel like you are in the clutches of the MONSTER!!!
Like that cell phone ad, you’ve got the “net work” behind you, the LOVE FRAUD NETWORK! Ain’t it GREAT!!!!!! LOL
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 11:24am
Zen says:
Angelforyou:
I don’t think taking a chance is a ‘big mistake’. I do know this though, after a divorce or death of a spouse (I’ve experienced both!) we are very vulnerable and confused. Human companionship is a human need so nothing wrong with wanting or needing that or even enjoying it for that matter! And being taken in is hurtful and can be very very costly monetarily and emotionally but most of us are taken in because we were ignorant of what sociopaths are and what evil people can do. We typically judge people by what we would do how we would act by our own sincerity.. but as we all know there ARE evil people lurking. So now we do know what lurks and what dangers there are so we can move on to have good relationships with others but we must be on guard and not be as trusting as we once were and we must warn others so they are not ignorant of the sociopath and what can happen. That is why this site is so beneficial and important. I hope you can heal your past hurts and learn from what happened and find someone who deserves you and find happiness.
cheers!
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 11:28am
witsend says:
One Step,
I think when we crack wide open that we change big time, too. Maybe that is the purpose of cracking…It kind of brings us to our knees, and pushes us beyond where we possibly might have even been “stuck” in our healing process.
I think that so much of this pushes us to our limits, that occasionally we stay stuck in a particular phase, not because we choose so much to “stay” there but, the fear of moving beyond. The fear of the pain yet to come.
Denial, even denial in small doses, is what has protected us thus far. Like a little sheild, that we hold up, to block the “real hard stuff” from filtering in.
Once we let it go, really let it go, it actually gives us the freedom to move forward.
Like wearing a different pair of glasses. A pair where we can really see. Things aren’t so fuzzy anymore. More clarity.
This is my experience right now. Where I am at. Trying to let it go. Those false beliefs.
xxxxx
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 11:31am
witsend says:
Sarah999,
No I don’t live in NYC. I would love to meet you if I did….
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 11:34am
silvermoon says:
Yeah OX, I’ve seen that video. It is inspiring!
We out to make bumper stickers about Running with the herd-No?
Thought you might appreciate the equine wisdom. We do learn constantly from them – simple creatures they are, they do have a lot to teach….
LOL! Good to be here…
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 11:49am
witsend says:
Geminigirl,
I am sorry I didn’t see your post to me a few days ago on this thread.
Although I check on here often, sometimes I miss a post or two.
Yesterday I had a bad day. I was crying all day and I couldn’t stop. The tears just kept flowing. I had to go to the grocery store and I couldn’t even get it together, to enter the store.
I am in a “place” that is somewhat unfamiliar. It feels kinda like to much to soon. I am by nature a thinker and I tend to process things slowly.
Now it is as if the floodgates have opened. Its alot to deal with. All at once. I want to slow it down, but that doesn’t seem possible.
I am drawn back to a place and time in my life when I KNEW what I was suposed to be doing. And I was comfortable in my own skin.
I think the hardest part of this for a mother is the conflict.
Conflicted feelings, conflicted emotions. I don’t know how to DO THIS. I don’t know how to detach, emotionally from my son. And I wonder if I ever will….
I am so sorry for your situation Gem. That you have grandchildren, that you can’t have much contact with. This is just yet another extension of the pain….That never ends, when you have a child with this disorder. I can’t even imagine it.
xoxoxox
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 12:35pm
angelforyou says:
Some of you are “up” and that is inspiring. Thank you for your efforts and positiveness.
My soon to be x was very good and I thought he was a feeling empathic compassionate gentle soul. I knew though, I always knew from my gut that he was not REAL. But I wanted to believe him and trust him.
Ox, the video description, (you are a beautifully descriptive impactful writer by the way) is so hopeful . Wow. Thanks.
Silvermoon, your experience is hitting home. I hate to come on here and be a downer. When I first posted I was having so much anxiety that I needed to let out, but I was afraid to bring people down or trigger. So I was careful… I will be careful. There might be a time when I can truely express my feelings here or my experience, although much is similar. I am guarded anyways. And I am a big old introvert.
And those of you who are able to freely express, Please keep doing so, it is healing for you and me. I don’t feel so alone.
This morning, I have been crying alot, sad with memories, still can’t believe this, anxious.
I’ve also been reading these posts and taking in all the feelings, which are all over the place.
On a positive note, I have been on the deck in the sun, crying, breathing fresh air, watching the chickadees, and listening to the beautiful sounds they make, and cuddling with my dog. I don’t have to work until Thursday, so I am going to meditate for 3 days.
Thank you everyone.
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 1:14pm
OxDrover says:
Dear angel4you,
Sugar, don’t worry, there is ALWAYS someone DOWN and usually several lpeople UP and that is the beauty of love fraud.
Most of my postsw ARE up, but there are times I HIT THE SKIDS like I did in January and late December and I thought ab out NOT posting that, but you know I realized too that evenn the MOST POSITIVE UPBEAT PERSON can have those down days, the IN THE FREAKING PITS DAYS, and it wouldn’t be honest of me to keep up a FRONT of always being positive if Im not feeling positive.
I get on a mad rant once in a while too, there are so many things that make me GRIND MY TEETH, like crooked politicians and what they do. Right now my rant is the CROOKED gov. of NY (the second one in a row) trying to get an abused woman to DROP THE CHARGES against his buddy, then he gets CAUGHT LYING and I hope he gets tossed out of office and I hope “Bloggo” gets sent to PRISON for trying to sell Obama’s senate seat!
Feel FREE to come here and rant, to cry to be angry! That’s one of the nice things about LF is if I am having a bad day there is someone to hold me up, if I am having a good day, there is someone who NEEDS holding up.
And if you look around here, even the “newbies” are helping hold up others within a week or so of coming here. THAT;s the BEAUTY of LF.
READ AND READ AND READ, go back through all those old articles and read them, print them out an dput them in a notebook you carry around, keep learning about them. Sooner or later it will no longer be about THEM but about YOURSELF and getting in touch with yourself and your own vulnerabilities. WHAT MADE YOU of all the people vulnerable to his lies? LLearn to trust yourself by knowing what the RED FLAGS are and how to SEE them in new people you meet. Learn to NOT give awayy your trust, but to havej people earn it.
Learn how to LET go of ANY one who violates your boundaries. Learn to keep yourself SAFE from predators.
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 1:30pm
witsend says:
Sarah999,
I have copied your email address if you would like to delete your post. I think you should delete it to be safe.
I am off to the school for a meeting. And I will email you when I return.
Thanks
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 1:39pm
angelforyou says:
Thanks Ox.((((hugs)))))
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 2:02pm
silvermoon says:
Angel,
Its a hard struggle to believe it. I don’t know how many days I’ve spent howling over the heartbreak, the betrayal and the hurt.
I’ve tried bargaining for the return of my love – if I could find anything that was true, I could redeem him and myself but all I found was more that was not true.
And the harder I worked, the more the whole thing ripped me wide open until I became exhausted. And then, only then was I ready and able to start facing what is real which is that he was not and is not able to be.
And it started with breaking off contact.
Even now, I catch myself wondering if there is any crack in the Universe that would bring the love I believed in back to me. I was happy. I was wildly in love.
Who doesn’t wish they could live their fantasy? Well I was and he was playing it out for me very well. But that’s all it was to him. His interest lay in what he thought he could get or take. beyond it, there was no bond.
That was when I didn’t know. Now that I do, I have to respect the wisdom of: If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, its a duck.
The only way I am going to get through feeling the pain that accompanies accepting what happened in all its faded glory, is to allow myself to feel it. No, it aint a great feeling but there is, I believe a real mitigation for it.
And for me it is a spiritual issue. My best days are the ones when I embrace that somebody else went through this and he took my pain with him as an advocate to a Higher Authority.
That is working for me because it is so hard not to blame myself for letting happen, having bad judgement, making a stupid mistake in the blindness of love. I take comfort in knowing I have been forgiven and that it sets a precedent for forgiving myself.
Its ok for me to do that.
Its ok to have enjoyed the good times and what was good, because parts of it were pretty fun outside the heavier elements of sex and bonding and trust. If I remember the times he made me laugh REALLY hard and the ones where he could have been anybody, I’m ok with that.
The situation he created is intolerable. There is no answer but no.
I’m no great expert on this- Its all happening now. These are my days. If I can get through it, I believe you can too. And if we are in this together, we are by far wiser and better off than on man here or there who eventually will be involuntarily retired and beyond the ability to keep up with their own lies.
We are not they. If you feel, celebrate it. Of this is woven the rich fabric of life.
Some days, we just have to blow our noses on that tapestry and its ok.
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 3:16pm
silvermoon says:
Its an oldie, but a goodie:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
The reason why,
Oh, I can say,
I have to let you go, babe.
And right away.
After what you did
I can’t stay on.
And I’ll probably feel a whole lot better
When you’re gone.
Baby, for a long time
You had me believe
That your love was all mine
And that’s the way it would be.
But I didn’t know
That you were putting me on.
And I’ll probably feel a whole lot better
When you’re gone.
Now, I’ve got to say
That it’s not like before,
And I’m not gonna play
Your games any more.
After what you did
I can’t stay on.
And I’ll probably feel a whole lot better
When you’re gone.
Oh, when you’re gone.
Oh, when you’re gone.
Oh, when you’re gone.
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 4:07pm
blueskies says:
Angel:)x Welcome to lF ( I am sorry if you have already been here for a bit, and I haven’t seen your story forgive me:)xx I am glad you have found your way here but sorry you have had reason to find us.xx You seem in a ‘good’ place (relatively!) in that you have your dog and your deck and are able to meditate. Go you:) hold on to that.x
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 4:33pm
CAmom says:
Silvermoon:
The horse and creek analogy reminds me of my early cowgirl days…my uncle was an old cowboy & cattle rancher (born 1916) brought up in the californio/vaquero tradition, who brought me along that way also…he taught me a lot through the ranch horses, or the horses taught me through him…
horses are such herd/prey animals they don’t want to be left behind when the others are moving ahead…but sometimes the fear of water is too great…i rode horses that “creek-jumped” rather than go into the water, often falling a bit short of the opposite bank and scrambling up out of the water as fast as they could–others cleared it ok…found footing on the other side, but both the creek jumpers and the ones who fell short were still afraid of the water…
i’ve ridden horses so panicked they ran up and down the creek bank (at lower elevations and if there was a real creek/river bank) or just sorta jumped around back and forth, wanting to catch up to the others and go into the water but being too afraid to even put a hoof into the water for more than a few seconds…
running them and coming back to try again can work, but wasn’t always an option because of the terrain…in the high country or john muir wilderness there’s no place to run, no creek bank–just dense mix of ponderosa pines, cedar trees, redwoods, boulders, granite slabs etc…no open spaces at all except for the occasional meadow…
manhandling horses into the water by brute force (spurs and crops or yanking on the bit, etc, etc) is not an option in the vaquero tradition…so i’d step off and lead my horse into the creek…gently, very gently, step by step, murmuring to them, quietly singing to them. soothing voice, encouraging them…
first one hoof, then another, then suddenly they back up again, then over and over until the horse was comfortable enough, & sometimes just barely, to have all 4 hooves in the water…and sometimes i stayed in the creek and led them all the way across (not fun–the water was freezing cold snow pack run-off), sometimes they’d calm down enough to accept a rider once in the creek or river for a bit…
and once or twice a panicked, too eager and frightened young horse rushed into the water (usually if their mom/herdmate went first) and slipped, fell, and broke their leg; they had to be put down on the spot…so there are real dangers if you can’t find your footing, or try and rush through the fear…
with young horses it was always a process, with some “taking” to stepping into the river fairly quickly and calmly, and others needing to be walked all the way across,”emotionally” held together by the cowboy/cowgirl…
all the ranch horses, over time, were able to be ridden into muddy, murky ponds and lakes and swim…the last stage of trust in themselves and in us…
this is a good analogy, Silvermoon, for us as well…we all have our own temperments and psychological barriers to work through what we can and can’t accept (what does and doesn’t overwhelm us) and how fast we process our fears and work through our traumas. and again, how we’re all different
when confronted with that which scares us.
i tend to want to be a “creek-jumper” at times, just get it over with and hope for the best, but learn very little…and repeat this pattern over and over.
sometimes i’m overwhelmed and frozen and need the gentle encouragement, the patient hand-holding and soft voices of encouragement….(which are here on LF in abundance–thank god)
and sometimes i’m the back and forth panicked person who doesn’t know what to do, full of anxiety, not focused and feel vulnerable as hell…wanting/not wanting to go through the pain. or i’m the runner, trying to put as much distance as possible between me and the fear/pain…
but in the end, the only way out is through…just as the horses *had* to get across the water, whether walking through it or jumping it or a combination…we have to walk into that pain ourselves, step by step. and jumping across by using sheer will power, or pure adrenaline, accomplishes little.
i own a young mare now who’s a creek jumper…just bolts across out of pure fear, and who’d rush the creek before i had time to dismount and walk her through…so we’re working on that…i dismount long before we reach the creek and lead her through, even though she’s scared and wants to get across as fast as possible…and at 1,300 lbs, it’s hard to hold her back ; )
little by little she’s beginning to slow down, watch her footing, focus, and i can see the fear slowly leaving her, watch her head lower, her muscles relax a little more each time…
just as i have, over many, many years of living with a sadistic P father, learned there are no short-cuts, and am recovering from a P ex-husband as well–so am very traumatized and slowly working through it and learning to trust.
in my experience, people who work with animals are usually good at working with people/ helping people as well…especially when they are farther along in their own healing and can look back and extend a hand. which kinda fits with LF and the help we can get here…
am sure i could carry this horse/people analogy even farther, but enough! and agree–we can learn a lot from both our equine teachers and our old cowboys.
thanks Silvermoon—putting this into horse language, my native tounge, helped me understand myself and my recovery process better…
Cowgirls do cry!
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 4:54pm
CAmom says:
Geminigirl:
I love leonard cohen~~last i heard he’s living as a monk & still composing and performing…thanks for reminding me of “Anthem.”
xx CAmom
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 4:57pm
angelforyou says:
Zen,
I am sorry for your losses.
Human compainionship IS a basic need.
Thanks for helping put it into perspective. Perspective is huge, I know that. At least, i do like the men I know, and I treasure their friendship. No one can get close to me in any other way for the time being. And I have forever (for NOW forever) changed the need in me to HAVE to have a partner. For now, I will be lonely. Soon I will be STRONGER and less needy.
Yes, Silvermoon we are going through this together. I am hoping for some sort of redemption or Karma for them and for us. He had the world on a silver platter. I think I put a monkey wrench in his plans though, and I am sure I am seen as the “crazy ex.” I am pretty sure he is pretty upset with me, for putting a twist on things, but he “carries on”. I hunted him down, he was trying to dissappear. He is dissappeared now, but at first I found him pretty easily…stupid @$$. Credit card, phones, fed X, everyone was helping me. So I have NC now. But I did at first via email and he called a couple times. I am sure he has great “evidence” in the emails that I “am the crazy one”. Unfortunately I couldn’t help, if on the offchance he was getting the emails, I needed to tell him off for the past 3 years of what he had done to me. OOPS! I really didn’t know that I shouldn’t do that. I know now I was feeding in to him. And I did take away some of his control and integrity, by contacting someone.
The good times were just that. Giddy and blissful. Hopeful and full of dreams.
My friends liked him, if only for my happiness, but were quick to jump on the evil bandwagon with me. The young men and older men I know( and women) want to get a posse up and go meet up with him in a dark alley. And of course, I have had ” hit man” offers from my supporters. I didn’t take them up on it due to I would be found out. My motivation factor is pretty high. Do not get me wrong, I would not profit monetarily from his death. He would from mine! He just needs to be truly groveling somewhere as far as I am concerned. No…I could not do him in, and I am sure for the most part it was all talk and support for me, that I was getting these offers. There. Don’t anyone worry. I don’t know those kind of people, but, people were quick to bring it up. So, maybe I DO know those kind of people. I only heard of the offers second hand after the word had spread that he was gone.
The first to offer was my nephew. My nephew who is like a brother was always the most wary of him, from the moment they met. And he asked questions of this man who liked to give vague answers and change the subject. And boy did my soon to be xS not like him!
I am pretty sure he is a sociopath. My diagnosis of him. My xS could not stand that men were my friends. He would tell me I was naive and that men THINK differently than women. Well, I agree they do, but on the other hand, these men were my friends and family long before I met mr Soc p. He isolated me from most everyone using control. If I did something with a friend, i would pay for it when I got home. He would be angry, accuse them of talking about him to me. He made me talk on speaker phone to my sisters, who were kind of “on to him.” But I was so in his bond.
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 5:03pm
one_step_at_a_time says:
CAmom – ¡la vaquera comienza a hablar!
I located a priest.
Tonight i start using the fitness center membership!
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 5:11pm
CAmom says:
Onestep;
Yes! I spoke! Easier to do in horse language/vaquera-speak (or spanish–there are studies about how people in therapy using a learned language, not their native tongue, do in their therapy—I’ve always had an easier time talking about my dad or ex in spanish–doesn’t have that same deeply traumatic impact—sorta like how i use horrible slang/swear words i can’t say in english! like, uh, cago en tus muertos
Good on the priest…and very good too on the fitness center. Andale chica~~you’re on your way!
xxx CAmom
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 5:22pm
angelforyou says:
Hello Blueskies! love your name,
I am up and I am down. For the most part though…
Yes I am in a good place. I am rid of him! And the shenanigans! Might actually get divorced next week, as I talked to my lawyer this AM.
Thank God for my dog, she is a major cuddler! Her poor golden retreiver boyfriend got all beat up yesterday…poor thing! I got the bad pictures just now.He wouldn’t hurt a fly.If dogs were men…
Thank goodness for LF and all the good information. I have been reading articles and stories, and still have way more to go. The wonderful array of nonjudgemental support here is just well kind of overwhelming. It is absolutely amazing and fresh and sooooo helpful. I have never seen so many helpful meaningful words, than on these LF pages. What talented articulate people.
I love the song, Silvermoon. And believe me for the last week I have been singing that song “here comes the sun” whenever I seem to be rambling around the house and singing is therapeutic for me.
CAmom, what a story, experience , and great analogy all in one. How beautiful. You really took us there. You guys are awesome!!! I got a huge spiritual feeling or awakening of sorts while reading your words. We do all need gentle encouragement and handholding at times, and we need to give it too.
Bless You!
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 5:50pm
blueskies says:
Atichoo!
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 6:06pm
silvermoon says:
CAmom,
The vaquero traditions of horsemanship are awesome. I loved reading your stories.
I have studied under many traditions and all of the ones that work are based on bonding and trust, patience and clear communications. That’s a lesson, huh?
My guy was a good horseman. Really good. He integrated a lot of the lessons of that tradition into what he did and said.
Made him believeable.
My male friends take the position that he wasn’t worthy of being trusted with a nailclipper!
But women are not horses. While people may learn from their four footed partners, we have to understand that we are predators by nature and these represent the keenest hunters in our specie.
For him, it was about the hunt, not the capture and he would go on hunting and looking for conquest after conquest as though that alone could fulfill. He certainly found willing partners and its my observation that they were as eager to be found as he was to take advantage.
Some girls give women a bad name.
Some men don’t think alike and that isn’t ALL there is.
I fell hard for the cowboy part. It just wasn’t real although he may have had some experience with horses. That seemed to be clear.
The whole thing is confusing until I give up the fight to cross the river – slowly, trusting encouragement and support.
Its about learning neither to fight nor to bargain but to wade into the waters of greiving and letting go so that we CAN cross over and go on with life.
The horses are right about one thing here for sure, the grass will be greener on the other side!
Vio con Dios Senora!
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Monday, 8 March 2010 @ 6:22pm
CAmom says:
Silvermoon,
Yes, that is a lesson: “bonding and trust, patience and clear communications.”
I think that as humans we are both predators and prey…with women more often than not the prey.
My ex was a serial predator also, a serial hunter. He over-valued me in the beginning, then switched to criticizing and expressing disgust with everything he “liked/loved” about me later.
I have a great deal of respect for “real” cowboys and horsepersons…and can tell a lot about a person by how they treat their horses or any animal…
My cousin’s husband was a good rider and roper. When my uncle saw him kick a horse in the stomach after saddling her (the bloat thing) he was banned forever from the ranch. And he turned out to be a lying, womanizing manipulative jerk.
Wish the horse had kicked him where it would hurt the most
My ex told me, years into the marriage, that when he was studying for his doctorate in clinical psychology (talk about an arsenal of knowledge to manipulate women with) he got into strict behaviorism…he said he had a little kitten, and would step on it if it got underfoot.
He said he stepped on the kitten once with boots on and killed it. He blamed the kitten for that…as well as his professors.
I didn’t have a horse during the marriage, and he knew nothing about them…but have a horrible idea of what he would have done if there had been a horse or any animal around…even a f’en goldfish wouldn’t have stood a chance!
Why is it horses do think the grass is always greener on the other side anyway? Optimists!
Gracias, silver!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 5:24am
ErinBrock says:
I guess it boils down to…..
It doesn’t matter what/who you are or what/who you like…..
Actions over words!
EVERY TIME!!!!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 5:34am
lorettab says:
My X pretended to be a Christian and he was a counselor and started off by telling me that I could have him be my counselor for free. I had been through a rough marriage before meeting him and I was very vulnerable and he used what I told him to his advantage. I ended up having severe mood swings and depression and even had to go to the mental hospital once because he used behavioral modification techniques on me to get me to behave the way he wanted and to strip me of any sort of sense of self. He took everything I owned from me, even signed my house over to himself, which I have not been able to get back into my name and spent all my money and put me in lots of debt and then after I left him for the last time wrote a letter to my daughter saying I was not worthy of life and he knew where to find me. It has taken me a long time to get over his abuse and gain some self confidence and I still shake and tremble when I have to deal with the situation he has left me in.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 7:03am
Dani S says:
I started seeing a guy 3 weeks ago, seemed nice even dropped a CD at my front door after our first date with “our song” he had burnt on it. But guess what Oxi ” HE QUACKED” after 3 weeks he tells me with some pathetic tale of woe and sorrow that he lives at the back of his ex wives house, has no job and has no licence as he has lost it for 2 years for drink driving, 2nd conviction. And quess what I did Oxi “ran” thank god the rador is up and truly listening as I most certainly never ever want another relationship with another S ever again. 5 years with one has certainly taught me a lot about people I would have ordinarally listened too. Not any more! Great article as even today there were times when I truly believed my ex S loved me. He couldn’t show me thou! and not even his daughter that he abandoned, the child he said he desperatley wanted as the other 2 women only got pregnant to him to trap him and he wanted a child that he could be involved in there life and show the child the love those other women made him miss out on and deprive him of with his other kids. blah blah lol the only thing that worked well with that guy was his mouth!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 7:06am
Mike says:
I am a single guy whose career and social ineptitude has made my personal life a disaster. If you need to hear it, some people like to hold court by taking opportunities to create a panic among their social circle, and a single guy whose personal life is a disaster is a good candidate to create panics over, from the low-risk to the court-holder.
Something I took from LoveFraud is that while not everyone who has been baffled is a victim of bullying, all bullies baffle someone. By social ineptitude, I mean I can’t tell from looking at anyone how to frame what I have to say so that they can comprehend it. To use as an example, there’s a comic book about how comics work called “Understanding Comics.” There’s an early scene in which the narrator is portrayed on a stage trying to establish his terms. There’s a heckler calling out insisting that if the comic doesn’t have Batman, it isn’t really a comic. REAL LIFE IS NOT THIS GENEROUS. By socially inept, I mean in real life, people hide their detached “it isn’t comics if it doesn’t have Batman”-like preconceptions, so when I overlook these invisible agendas, others make their own bafflement at my disregard the basis for creating a panic that I’m a predator.
Having taken LoveFraud’s lesson of all-bullies-baffle-someone but everyone-baffled-isn’t-a-victim, I’ve made peace with my own account of my misfortunes in that I have yet to have any incident pointed out where I refused to clarify anything anyone else found baffling. If I haven’t baffled anyone, if I’m resolved to allow others a good-faith access to my agendas, I can say in good-faith I’m fulfilling my resolve to be a decent person.
I’ve purged and divested myself of all conscious inconsistencies and reconciled as close to everything I’ve ever said as anyone I know of. It takes a form of insight to do this, and only someone who’s done this can know how high a price I’ve paid to do this. It’s the only thing I really have. Without this, all I have to hold is air.
Now I’ve read an article here titled “The sociopath’s pseudo insightfulness and sensitivity” and from it I’m wondering if Steve even believes there can be such a thing as insightfulness that can be both authentic and purposeful. Someone please let me know if all I’m holding is air.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 8:55am
autisticsouls says:
Hello Mike, I’m another Mike here who is married and also socially inept, I’m on break but will post more later. i read your post but for now it’s like a movie i’ll have to watch several times to understand what the director is saying.. when i figure it out i’ll bounce back around. Anyhow welcome aboard.
(TOM) The Other Mike
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 9:15am
mjlyness says:
I am new to this site. I am pretty sure I married (now divorcing) a sociopath. If he is not a sociopath, he is definitely a con-artist.
This psuedo-insightfullness on the part of the S in my life just happened! I had filed for Divorce and kicked him out in November 2009. I was recovering very well by January. Then, early in February, he delcared his undying love, said he would wait for me to heal because he knew how badly he hurt me and told me all kinds of things about himself – his faults – that I had never heard him say before. And I thought he was actually gaining some insight into his selfishness and could change!! He said he was going to take the time to work on himself too so he didn’t repeat all those hurtful things he did. I told a few friends that he seemed to have some “insights” into himself and that maybe he can change. What a fool I was! Again! I know what he is. I just can’t seem to fathom it. I don’t want to believe I was taken – and then taken again. I did not let him back into my life, but I did let him back into my head and heart – until he turned around a month later and said “I’ve been thinking and I think there has just been too much…”. I cut him off and didn’t let him finish. I knew what was coming. And I knew what I had just let happen over the last month.
I believed his lies again – or maybe not even lies – I believe his “sales ptich”, his con again. I let him build me up again and this time with his pseudo-sensitivity just so he could end it on his terms. It is uncanny how he knows what will work to hook me on any given day! I just don’t get it. How does he know?
Even though he “dumpled” me in a way this time – which is hurting my pride, but I’ll deal with it – I keep remembering that it was I who filed for divorce and kicked him out of the house back in November 2009. And even though he sweet-talked me into thinking we could work on working things out, I still went ahead with filing the final papers for divorce and told him to get the rest of his stuff out of my shed by April 1. I did those things before he tried to tell me it wouldn’t work. I trusted my instincts this time and took the right action even though I didn’t want to. I know in my heart I can never trust him.
Never again. No Contact. I have blocked his number from both my cell phone and home phone. Email only and it must be business only (divorce, property settlement) and nothing personal. I know there’s a slim chance he’ll actually respect that for any length of time, but I can stick to it. It is amazing how much less anxiety I have now that I know I won’t see his number come up on my cell or my home phone!! I wish I had done this back in November. But, here is my “sickness” – I look for his car in my driveway and look for emails from him. Why is it so hard to disconnect? Why is it so hard to let go? Is there something speical or harder about letting go of a Sociopath? It should easier!! He wrecked my life emotionally, mentally and financially. He devasted my self-esteem. I got to the point where whenever we talked, I’d want to run for cover first. He was never physically abusive, but his words felt physical to me.
What more can I do to move on? I want to move out of state. I want to go away for at least a month – but I can’t. My kids need me and I wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway. He lives in the same town. I don’t go places I know he goes, but I have anxiety everytime I go out. I know I can’t handle him face to face. I can’t even handle a phone call – hearing is voice. It sucks me in. I lose my sanity. What is that? It is so frustrating! Will I ever be able to handle that? Or will I always be susceptible to a con from him?
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 10:02am
No.7 says:
This is all so overwhelming. I read the accounts and experiences of so many people here, who’s lives have been shattered by these monsters. I know this is a place I need to be, yet the thought of sharing my own experiences seems akin to chiseling Mt. Everest into rubble. 50 years of this bullshit. My life spent trying to understand why my oldest sister does the things she does, questioning my own sanity, my own memories, my own perspective of reality. The cruelty she inflicted during childhood…my depression, thoughts of suicide, anger, frustration. As I learn more about this sickness, and at last an explanation for a lifetime of the pain she’s inflicted on my family. It’s as though a Dam has broken. How do I deal with this? Where do I begin sharing, in hopes that it might help me to heal? How can I “rescue” my 5 other siblings and my elderly mother from her grasp? How does anyone recover from so many years of this?
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 10:28am
ravenlesstower says:
I get the “pseudo insight/awareness/sensitivity” too… When he “reflected” over our past he said things like
“I was such an arrogant bastard.”
“I was such an ass – I toyed with your heart.”
He even told me how he’d contacted people he’d hurt in the past to “make amends”…
I told HIM, in my compliant, nurturing, caretaking-at-the-expense-of-my-own-self-worth way: “We were both young, you didn’t mean to hurt me… blah blah blah”
I suspect he’s going through his list of old conquests and stirring up the same kind of trouble he did with me…though I hope for their sake they see him for what he is quickly – and retreat far and fast!
He even made a point of telling me when we met those four telltale days that he had told his wife he had “no idea how many women would show up saying they’d been pregnant or had his child.”
Has anyone put together times where they basically “confessed” to you as if you were a co-conspirator in their schemes and past “accomplishments”… it’s the strangest thing, because in those moments you see right inside – the mask is gone – and he’s almost looking for your approval – for you to “congratulate” him on his deceptions.
Ravenlesstower
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 10:33am
FindingMyWay says:
This article is brilliant. It so precisely encapsulates the sweet vulnerable sociopath I work with,before I understood through Love Fraud, what his modem operandi was with regards to women. I have observed this snake for the past 4 years in relationship to multiple female targets and full blown affairs. I met this “sweet”, “kind”, “christian” man at work. He has everyone fooled. I have only shared my insights with other targets who he was in the grooming process with. They confirmed my insights. He has a very predictable pattern of behavior, but because he works to keep things on the downlow, it’s hard for someone who is not intimately involved to see the pattern. Once the mask cracks, falls to the floor and shatters, one is treated to seeing the cold, abusive, and shockingly emotionally cruel human he is. It was very disorienting. That’s when I started googling what I thought was the issue…that this guy is a sociopath, an emotional predator, and the information, particularly from Steven Becker, succinctily supported my intuition. This S plays at vulnerable very convincingly, has fantastic social skills, manners, is supposably from a well-to-do family. He flits around like a vampire butterfly, grooming every attractive female at work. He told me one time he is “calculating” in relation to how he does this. He is an emotional predator who uses his position and a pool of 350 employees (the majority of which are female), to establish an “in” with women who are vulnerable to his charms because of their need for his technological expertise. He offers them carte blance to contact him for help, and this is how he establishes his “in” while complimenting them profusely, and acting very enchanted. He touches slightly to see the reaction. Tells them (with dripping sincerity) they are “Beautiful” and “smart.” He discusses “spiritual” matters. He drops a story or two about his “family” to establish his place in the community. Begins to insinuate he is less then captivated with his wife. He gets the hooks in. He asks a thousand questions (so he can better construct his personality to fit what YOU need from him). He is a smooth operator, impeccable dresser, with the intense interest and lustful eyes, his specialty is women of a certain age (50+) because they are must susceptible to his charms as they are divorced, or their husbands no longer are captivated by them. These women are, for him, easy prey, or the ones who’ll give him the most play. He has serial affairs, romantic relationships and potential personal relationships going at the same time. Sometime taking months (even years) to groom them. When he loses (or dumps) one of his primaries, he gets beomes desperate and starts pursuing in earnest one of the lesser ranking females to move tham up in the new vacated position. He will practically fall on his knees and beg. I’ve had him in my office doing that now 3 times. It’s quite entertaining, as much as it is bewildering, now that I understand what is behind it. Later on he acts like nothing happened. i’ve spoken to one other female who has experienced it. The last time he was in my office salivating, begging, posturing, going through his whole litany of fake emotions and lies, all that was going through my head was “sociopath, sociopath, sociopath.” Had I succumb, it would have been only days (maybe even hours) before I’d get to go through the inevitable devalue and discard again. The initial time I went through that, I was devestated, and blamed myself. How could I have disappointed this “perfect” man? I was heartbroken. Then, I had a ringside seat at work and was able to observe him in another relationship with another female co-worker. That one ended up in court. I’d be seeing him on the phone in the hallways at work, talking to a target. He’s just so slimey. He always has to flaunt his prowess. As he told me once “people find me mysterious.” Vomit. I am truly grateful to Steven Becker’s articles and insights. They are life savers. If not for these articles, I am sure I would be very ensnared. Currently, I still find myself terribly terribly disgusted and angry. Better that than a victim, but forgive my caustic tone here. I was emotionally battered by him.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 10:48am
mjlyness says:
After reading the part about Self-Defense, I am wondering whether I should enforce our property settlement agreement by having him held in contempt (and put in jail) if he doesn’t pay according to the agreement. So far, he has paid, but I don’t think he’ll be able to keep it up. Also, his car reverts to me if he doesn’t re-finance it in his name only by 90 days after the final divorce decree. I would love to take the car from him. He would get enraged, and I don’t know if he would come after me in anger. He has never been physical with me before when angry. If anyone has any advice, I’d welcome it. Thanks.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 11:19am
Allure says:
I’ve run across two of these in my time- one I married. The other one fortunately didn’t get nearly that far. But it upset me enough to not want to try for another relationship. They seem so normal at the beginning. It’s so hard to spot the good ones. Once you relax into it and start trusting them they turn into demons! I told my ex all my innermost secrets and vulnerabilities for two years and then he started using them all against me to make me wonder if I was stupid and crazy. The other one I worked with. Fortunately, after only three months of extreme flattery and seduction on his part, I said something that pissed him off and was from then on, the enemy. He tried to accuse me of sexual harassment to get me fired. It was a complete lie and everyone knew it. It made me feel filthy.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 11:22am
sistersister says:
His “invitation to appreciate his pseudo display of vulnerability.” Love that.
Two themes again: the victimhood ploy, and lack of skill. I always fall for the amateurs! They’re so bad, so cheesy at this act, even I can see through them.
Saturday night I was invited out for a drink by a friend of some 13 years, the one who “helped” me rebound after another “friend” had lied to me to get sex back then. He was feeling down, he said. The divorce. The loss he was probably going to take on selling the house. Would I meet? Of course! I’m such a good friend. Even though he’s unemployed, he bought me a drink before he launched into that whole thing about how he was certainly going to have a heart attack and die if he didn’t get health insurance soon.
And then I kicked his ass all over town, to the point where he had to flee the scene or actually have that heart attack NOW. Seriously. He pretty much ran screaming from me. LOL!
Two observations:
(1) He’s had every advantage in life, including luring an unsuspecting woman into a bad marriage so she’d take care of his aging mother, and enough money from the sale of his parents’ house to buy a two-family home for himself, his mom and his wife. Now it’s all falling apart. Poor him.
A REAL sociopath would have come out ahead on the deal, but not Victim-Boy.
(2) He’s always trying to impress on me what a spiritual guru he is. Kung fu instructor, esoteric expert, astrology buff currently getting “insight” into his current “phase” of “rage” — that’s why he ran the red light on the way to my place! Because some planet is traversing Mars.
So I said, “Why hasn’t all this high spiritual awareness brought you any kind of positive outlook or coping tools?” Then I tried to differentiate justifiable bummed-out feelings and positive action. It was something he couldn’t see at all. In fact, it brought out the most angry defenses I’ve yet seen in this man. I was a “fascist,” he said. I had no sympathy for him at all, was less than human.
In other words, his “spiritual awareness” has nothing to do with responsibility or personal power, but everything to do with a right to assert power over other people.
It reminds me of a Holocaust scholar’s observation that all Jew-killing Nazis could see was their own victimhood.
I like this: “Because all that matters—and in essence, what it always and only boils down to—is what he wants.”
He’s never shown any understanding of MY points of view. When I express them, he does that wounded-manhood act, like, what a ball breaker I am to assert any kind of gentle, positive seeking of justice for the oppressed against his macho judgment that some people deserve to go down.
So here it is, asshole: MY POINT OF VIEW. Grow the fuck up! Take some responsibility! Understand the difference between (a) your “feelings” and “sensitivity” about the fact that sometimes life hands you crap, and (b) your power, however limited, to do something about it. I won’t waste any more time on mind-fucking pseudo-intellectual muggers. That’ll be $250 an hour for my “therapy sessions” with you — you know, the ones where you diagnose ME as fucked-up — minus the $5 for the drink you just bought me, of course.
No kidding, my “usefulness as an object has run its course.” Now that the bill has come due, it’s time to exit, stage right, with feeling!
I felt great after he walked out. In fact, I walked right over to another friend and told her all about it. High five! You go girl!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 12:05pm
BlackDeer says:
LOL…you GO sistersister!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 12:25pm
sistersister says:
Dear FindingMyWay:
I find your emotional battering real and tragic. These people are true predators, when they’re good at it.
Would it be out of place to laugh a little, though? Your story reminded of “Shirley Valentine,” a movie from the ’80s. There’s a scene I love. A bored British housewife goes to the Greek Islands and falls for a simple Greek fisherman who speaks in awkward broken English, “I want to make fuck with you.” So she sleeps with him and has a great time. He loses interest, and she gets over it. Later, though, she needs his help with something, and she approaches him in a bar where he is looking into another woman’s eyes and saying, shyly, “I want to make fuck with you.” He looks startled at having been exposed, but she says something like, “Don’t worry about it,” and moves on to her request. In other words, she chooses her response, takes control. She finally gets in touch with her power, regardless of what the men in her life do. She just laughs at this guy, is grateful for the lesson learned, like: Here’s 50 cents for your entertainment value!
I saw the film with my mom when I was in my 20s. We both got quite a kick out of it.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 12:34pm
sistersister says:
Something got scrambled. I was saying, “regardless of what the men in her life do.”
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 12:35pm
sistersister says:
Thanks for the encouragement, folks.
Hey, any time you want a sociopath’s ass kicked to Kingdom Come, just call me up. My fee is reasonable!
Decoy for hire!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 12:38pm
Hestian says:
The original article, “The sociopath’s pseudo insightfulness and sensitivity,” is so good, I had to share it on Facebook and I have never done that before. Thanks
The sociopath/psychopath I got involved with is verbose, extremely verbose and he can set minds spinning, especially those of his target demographic, intelligent, lonely, mentally/emotionally troubled women of middle age or older (he is 41). He has gotten away with committing many crimes of violence and fraud against women! Now I recently found out that he was incarcerated by the USAirforce over 20 years ago and was facing a dishonorable discharge, but his parents, highly respected people in the community who had taken him to get help repeatedly, wrote to their Congressman who advocated for a General discharge. He had already hurt a young woman who lived near the airforce base and was, according to the first young wife he tried to kill later, was diagnosed anti-social peronality disorder! He was only 19 and she was 17 when he begged her to marry her while incarcerated and suicidal and she felt compassion confused for love and agreed. That and his parents please gave empowered him to hurt many more women over the years. Many more. After the first young wife fled (there are police reports) back to her home state, she never pursued charges and he did go on an approximately 10 year hobo period throughout his 20s, working and moving from state to state. He even writes about it on a blog he still has up from 05 and 06 and brags about living at the library in Boston where he tried to blend in so he could carry on intellectual discussions with Harvard students. He claims he sat in on classes at the University! His parents, who have been contacted over the years by different victims who found their number, and who helped the second wife get away from his abuse, pray for me and tell me that he can’t talk them into anything with his self-proclaimed “silver tongue.” And so he has nothing to do with them, claiming they hurt him so badly by siding with the second wife in around 04, 05. They don’t enable him anymore. He is white, intelligent and looks good in a suit and when he is clean shaven can be impressive. If he were African American I am sure that he would have been treated differently. And that is sad. Also, his victims are in a demographic group that the authorities don’t seem to give much of a damn about. I am not kidding. The most helpful victims groups I have found have been the general crime victims groups, especially Illinoiosvictims dot org, who have info about my situation on their site. The battered women’s groups vary, and frankly the one where he lives is in the hip pocket of the prosecutor there. I have been in touch with the state organization and the national and found out that there are many money funneling groups that don’t give direct help to victims. It has become an industry and a bureaucracy and so it is no wonder that the problem of DV is on the increase! My ex tried to kill me, once physically and once by trying to provoke my suicide by tricking me that that silver tongue into giving up everything and moving to another state for him! No kidding. I went to the hospital there and said to the caregiver, are you going to call the police? The person said to me, “For what?” Recovery is just beginning for me, really, and I have been away from him physically since January 09! But recovering I am, and the better I get, the more I realize just how sick I was, and just how I have been treated by law enforcement and prosecutors. He is the second nutcase I have been victimized by, but this man was far worse than the other….and I married this one. Oh, I wish I had listened to people who tried to warn me, a couple of his other victims on the net. But his story and their shortcomings, and my own desire to believe that he had just been with the wrong women, foolishly, led to me rationalizing it. I read another piece on this site which mentioned how normal people rationalize and how the sociopath knows we will…and uses it against us. Great article here!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 12:41pm
mjlyness says:
To ravenlesstower:
My S did the same thing – almost the exact same words – he told me how he “made amends” to first ex-wife (little does he know that i have spoken with her and she says he never made amendss – we are good friend today), and to ex-lovers and ex-girlfiends. He made a point to do two of the amends in the first year of our dating explaining to me that he wanted to get beyond those relationships so that he would not make the same mistakes with me and so we could “grow old together”. Then he would tell me all about how well it went and that he felt so much better having done and that it will make him the man of integrity he wants to be. He always talking about how he valued integrity and honesty. OMG!!!
He also used almost the exact same words “I was such an ass” last momth when he wanted to try to work on it. Then within the month he started the process of discarding me by trying to convince me that we were equally at fault – both using each other. I didn’t agree with him, but I didn’t argue with him either. I felt that old confusion coming on again. One of my friends calls him “The Great Confuser”.. I think that is what I will call him here on LF.
I have experienced these confessions from The Great Confuser many times. And it worked on me at first because I would take it as a sign that he was being honest with himself and being humble – just like the “I was such an ass” comment. It’s just another hook, though. I know I am susceptible to people admitting their faults and then apologizing and it worked for a long time on me. It worked 6 weeks ago when he poured the psuedo insightful stuff Steve wrote about on top of the confessions. Apparantly these people are just masters at “hooking”. They will SAY anything. How they figure out what works on certain people, I don’t know. It helped me a lot when I read here that he is the lie. He is the lie. So even when he is not actually telling a lie he is still being dishonest because he must execute his underlying agenda. He most likely has agenda’s within agendas. Everything that comes out of their mouths is false is some way shape or form. I started thinking of The Great Confuser as plastic and as a cartoon character. He is just an act. But, if I listen to him for more than a second I can get sucked in. NO CONTACT. That’s why NC is so important.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 1:01pm
FindingMyWay says:
SisterSister,
Thanks for reading what I wrote and commenting. I appreciate the insight and push to “laugh a little.” I have laughed, however briefly. Because I did not want to reveal too much, my story was not just about meeting a simple womanizer, having a fling, and being dumped. Far more serious than that. In it’s convoluted way (as a sociopath’s web will be) this situation, directly and indirectly, ended up with people in therapy, arrests and a court case (i was an onlooker, not directly involved), and other such unsavory things as to leave one’s jaw on the floor. I am no emotional lightweight and can easily self deprecate and laugh. Unfortunately, this person is a true emotional predator. Not just a situation where someone exploited me and I am left a little bruised, but wiser. I got away relatively unscathed. One of the other targets did not.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 1:08pm
FindingMyWay says:
SisterSister,
Thanks for reading what I wrote and commenting. I appreciate the insight and push to “laugh a little.” I have laughed, however briefly. Because I did not want to reveal too much, my story was not just about meeting a simple womanizer, having a fling, and being dumped. Far more serious than that. In it’s convoluted way (as a sociopath’s web will be) this situation, directly and indirectly, ended up with people in therapy, arrests and a court case (i was an onlooker, not directly involved), and other such unsavory things as to leave one’s jaw on the floor. Fortunately for me, I am no emotional lightweight and can easily self deprecate and laugh. I have keen survivor skills. Unfortunately, this was not just a situation where someone exploited me and I am left a little bruised, but wiser. I got away relatively unscathed. One of the other targets did not.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 1:11pm
ravenlesstower says:
mjlyness -
I understand your post completely… the very ACT of “humbly” admitting to his faults and “saying” that he felt badly made me feel for him. Then the stories of his first wife – how she abused him… he told me that the first person she was with after they divorced ended up committing suicide. I strongly suspect that the things he said SHE did to HIM were actually reversed… and it would not surprise me if a weaker woman may have taken her life after the end game was played on her. He’s very good. He’s very evil… I remain perplexed, confounded, and grateful to be done with him.
Ravenlesstower
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 1:12pm
BlackDeer says:
mjlyness, I think in part they figure it out simply because they keep trying everything including the kitchen sink to see what works! I’ve been watching the ex dig around in his bag of tricks for the last year–by this point I can laugh about it because I’ve finally got emotional distance and it’s so pathetic, but at the beginning it confused me horribly (as it did all the years we were together). And, he always talks about how much he detests dishonesty because he is so “REAL”. Uh huh.
My friend who edits email and I make bets about what his next angle will be. That helped me realize just how predictable (if bizarre) he actually is.
sistersister, Shirley Valentine is one of my favorite movies and right when I left the ex I watched it many times.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 1:18pm
greenfern says:
The sensitivity and political corrected-ness is what confused me for so long with the S. in my life. I always said “how can he be a bad person if he can reflect so deeply on such-and-such”
I remember when I first met him he was telling me about a girl he knew who’s boyfriend was beating her up. He was so enraged and he wanted to protect her and was offering to help her or tell the bf to stop. I thought to myself “whoa what a great guy”
Then later he had all this pro-feminist rhetoric going on, also he always said that it was so silly for society to pressure women into looking a certain way and how he preferred natural looking and though women. Oh god , thinking back he said all the right things I wanted to hear!
Once I had a visit with my father and it did not go well (my father is mentally ill) and the S. said that if my father would have tried anything funny, he would have kicked the shit out of him. At that time I thought “he really cares about me”
Meanwhile, silently he did everything in his power to render me helpless and vulnerable, doubting my sanity. He took away all household chores, which I was capable of doing just fine in the past, and started doing everything “better” than I could. Teh song he should have been singing “Everything you can do, I can do better!”
And I feel like the more people he preys on in his lifetime, the more “empathy skills” he will get. He will get better and better at acting like someone who truly feels these things.
So twisted!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 1:38pm
FindingMyWay says:
PS Will have to see Shirley Valentine!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 1:38pm
Mike says:
[response to deleted post withdrawn]
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 1:48pm
BlackDeer says:
Greenfern…ah yes…the pro-feminist rhetoric! So much of that. Really his “equality” formula just boiled down to supporting his agenda, and it was very effective for getting attention from women and supporting his posturing that he’s so different, unique, etc.
His motto: all women should be empowered…to pay attention to me.
In his case though the pressure was definitely on to be the trophy. The closer to vintage Pamela Anderson or a porn star the better, outrageously sized aftermarket parts welcome! His angle though was that women should be FREE to be that HOT!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 2:34pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Hestian,
WELCOME, and glad you are here, and welcome also to the NEW “Mike” as well and Mjlyness and anyone else I missed welcoming.
Glad you guys are here and sorry that you “qualify” for membership in our group. But if you do qualify for “membership” here I think this is the BEST PLACE To be. God bless us all.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 2:41pm
robxsykobabe says:
I dont know if its the weather or my PMS thats got me all screwy these past two days. I had a dream of him last night and want to share…
I was waiting at the train station for him to arrive (he often would take the train to my house) but he didnt show up…he just blew me off…which was unlike him. I asked some people if they had seen him and they said, ‘yeah, last night late he was getting on the train to go home’. That hurt me.
The dream took place at my parents home, but in the dream it was HIS home (where his parents live). The dream had minimal words, and I remember him having his back turned to me, but I could see the side of his face. He looked different and the ‘feel’ of the dream was like I was trying to get him to see all the wrongs that happened…and he was just totally non-chalant about it all. Like he had ‘things to do’ and I was kinda holding him back…sorta. His parents had come home and he tried rushing me out of his home and I got the sense that he would be criticized for having me over…but HE asked me to come over…and didnt watn his family to know.
I jusst kept looking at him with a glare and tears in my eyes…so angry at him but wanting so badly for him to act like he cared about how I was affected.
Real life now…I listened to his last phone message he left for me the day our NC began. This was after I had found he stole from me, he denied it, we went on vacation and 5 days later he said to me “it JUST dawed on me that you accused me of stealing from you”…he had called me this day and badgered and demanded that I give him an apology…I didnt…and this was the result…
“Hey, it’s me. Im gonna assume-I hate to assume, but Im gonna assume by your silence and not calling me back and not feeling like, I dont know, like you owe me an explaination for what yousaid, or apolgy for what you said…that we’re not talking right now.
Ill further assume that because you removed my mom as a friend from facebook, on her birthday (he was looking at my profile through his moms…although he told me he DIDNT have an account of his own–he lied, just blocked me), so, ummmmm, I dont know, I guess if you decide tht you want to talk, um, well…actually, what you said, what you did was, it really hurt my feelings. It was incredibly rude and inconsiderate and I feel you owe me an apology and maybe you should think about that cause if you dont then maybe we shouldnt talk and if you do, then maybe you should call and tell me…that your sorry—alright? Goodnight, bye”
And we’ve been NC ever since…kinda sounds like manipulation, doesnt it?
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 3:13pm
sistersister says:
FindingMyWay . . . yes, far more serious. I think it bears mentioning that a lot of people out there tell us we’re making mountains out of molehills, and that guy appears OK to them. (In my case, how could I let a simple case of sibling rivalry derail my relationship with my poor, suffering sister?) But they’re potentially very dangerous people.
So I’m kind of shocked that you said this person was still working at your office, preying on other women there. Maybe I got that wrong. Still working there might be risky, huh?
I guess I was reminded of “Shirley Valentine” by your having to keep watch this guy on-the-make with other women. Pulling the same cheeseball act, like, “I want to make fuck with you.”
Stay safe! And stay sane. You’re not nuts — this world is.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 3:57pm
Dani S says:
Dear No 7 welcome. Apart from visits to a criminal pychologist (whom understand Sociopath’s) and reading LF for over 2 years I am well and truly on the way to recovery and more importantly understanding! I didn’t blog on LF for nearly 2 years because I was still was an emotional cripple but the blogs I read help me so much along the way. Unfortunatley it takes time but there is light at the end of the tunnel. In the end I didn’t want to own anymore what my S did to me. I had to be brave and fight back my confidence and battered heart and soul. I didnt want him to control me anymore by still controlling my every thoughts and emotionals and keeping me in a very dark place where I didn’t reconise or know myself anymore. As soon as I took ownership over myself and my life again the clouds parted. It is my life and although he devestated my life, I am the only one that can heal my life and I will in spite of him:-)
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 3:58pm
sistersister says:
Found it. The simple, vulnerable, sincere Greek fisherman makes a sweet little request Shirley can’t refuse! Isn’t he just adorable? Does he remind you of anyone you know?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQZZAPp1HhU
Luckily, he turns out to be a sociopath just for purposes of getting laid. Harmless. As we know, not all of them are.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 4:06pm
autisticsouls says:
Mike, hello, i work full time and have a family so it’s hard to post as often or read through all the new posters or old posters i have not met yet. seems like i’m off for a few days and then so many new people (or people i haven’t met yet) emerge. it shows how much of a need is out there for this sort of support and education and how much of a crisis we are in when such a mass of new victims come forward. this is the only very active support group where there are new articles posted routinely. there really is nothing else out there like this that i know of.
it’s hard for me to lend support for each one as i’m busy too most of the day, although i recieved so much support at a very critical time for me from many people here that i feel i must pay it forward and be supportive to others as others have been to me… we’re all in this walk together aren’t we? we have to be because we can’t recover from this on our own. at least i don’t feel we can.
for whatever reasons we are here, either from being involved with a psycho, or work with them, have been cheated by them, bullied by them in varied areas or have family members that are them… Whatever the reason we’re basically all moving through the trenches through the aftermath or worse still are still caught up in their grips as some still are unfortunately…
I responded to your post while many have posted their stories, because i’m afraid that maybe in the rush i wasn’t exactly sure what you were talking about. I have a Theory of Mind impairment so unless folks are absoluteley clear i just get sort of really lost and confused. i hate being confused so my autistic mind brakes when presented with new puzzles…
Anyhow as for the comment by ISEECRAZYPEOPLE i’m not sure about that one either, he/she didn’t offer up any explanations as to why they were here beyond their post that seemed to be sort of an attack by grouping folks together into some sort of group. Mr. Tom S as the reference we were grouped into-i think we we can break it down and play detective. Mr. Tom S seems to be a perjerative term evolved maybe from perhaps the Uncle Tom perjerative. S is in this forum a common shorthand for sociopath here so basically we can guess that the poster was referring us all to that sort of negative grouping.
now there are many diversity of people who think and behave and express themselves differently. and it should not be an automatic to group them all into one group even if in some ways they may have some similar workings. My sociopath ex friend always crowed about how similar we were, except that no matter how similar we were, or looked or behaved, there was a substantial fundamental difference that made him who he was and made me something completely different.
autistics have many similarities with sociopaths without being a sociopath unless there is some genetic working that makes the unfortunate soul a mix of both. i always try to give a person a benefit of the doubt though.
now most folks do state, (even if they are wary) some issue as to why they found themselves here. You did mention something happened to you but the other icanseecrazypeople poster did not so that in itself made me really wary about him/her and their agenda. Many Socios/psychos ASPDer’s feel a need to be hurtful to people or a need to cause confliction everywhere or anywhere they go. Although there is always the possibility that a person after some sort of trauma (and beleive me after a run in with a psycho/socio/ASPD whatever anyone wants to call it… there is trauma) and with trauma- trust issues surface and as someone once said here innocence is lost, and one doesn’t trust oneself or others because once taken for a ride one is left feeling that ‘anybody’ can be one, one can be left almost in a state of waiting for the next shoe to drop, so to speak… One can then belong to a new world of ‘who is pretending? and who isn’t? , who is out to just play with you? or who are authentic people? it can get frustrating because one’s world is never the same afterwards. there is the possibility that a traumatized person may react to something they have seen somewhere else before and thus attack which can be the case here too. but then again in spite of everything i’ve seen in the world i’ve always been a ‘half full’ glass sort of person.
it will take time to know and trust new situations and people but this is the safest place even though there will be pretender’s coming through here but luckily we can sort of figure them out soon enough and others will jump in to defend folks so it’s as safe as it can be.
i wouldn’t take the remark personally. if it’s a traumatized person they are just reacting to something that triggered them, if it was a S, who cares what they think or say?, they are just here to cause trouble and the best thing to do is to ignore it and they’ll move on soon enough.
Mike
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 7:23pm
ErinBrock says:
Autisticsouls:
Very well said…..
If we can remain objective…..and not take anything personally…..until we can develope the trust in WHO we are…..and things don’t creep in so easily that maybe should just run off our backs.
When something doesn’t make sense……just ignore……
good to see you around…..I hope your keeping your head up!!!!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 8:04pm
silvermoon says:
CAMom,
I have long believed in the wisdom of the old saying:
“Show me your horse and I will tell you who you are”
My SPath was actually wonderful with animals and he had a prescence and touch the horses were very accepting of.
I think that is why horses are so fascinating- they read people. But I guess my guy must have been in a different part of the gradient.
There’s no gettiing away from what is true. But I think the horses saw the same thing I did. He wasn’t physically malicious and his way was quiet, gentle and patient while he lied his fool head off and made dates on the internet. Well, that’s no big deal to a horse!
But had he been agressive, I know I’d have seen the animals react to it. They do see it and they don’t waste time saying so by the way they act.
I can’t describe the way I miss the last one I had. Raised him from three to ten. Broke and started him. Big old warmblood gelding with the most perfect temperment and sweetest personality. He wsa such an athlete! Thing about horses is, if all you do is stand in the sun with them, its all good.
So many words, so many feelings, so many questions. I’m weary and missing the barn with its textures and smells and the friendship built on trust.
Thanks for the thoughts that take me back there.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 8:51pm
Aeylah says:
INSIDIOUS…..Intent to entrap. Stealthy, treacherous or decitful. Appearing to be harmless but operating with bad intent. This defenition is what comes to mind with “ensightfull and pseudo sensitive”….
This excellent post by Steve really hit a raw nerve with me as it seems to have with so many of us. “insightful and pseudo sensitive” was exactly what sucked me in. I thought I found my soul mate…..my “Robin Hood” !
He seemed sooo level headed, so gentle and earthy, sooo sensitive to other peoples plight of pain and suffering he would boast about how he “helped those in need” by feeding them, giving them $$ even though he was incredibly cheap with his family and with me. ….he used his “ensightfull and sensitive guy” persona as the excuse for being a friend, an ear and a shoulder to cry on for all those women whom he continuously kept contact with! and cheated on me with…litlle did I know that it was all done for the purpose of exploiting what he could out of everyone he “helped” with me being the biggest of all!
This is the veil that kepts me sucked in and under the spell for so long! It allways amazes me to see how everyone else sees him as such a nice guy, and yet they dont even realize that they are being used and exploited……the mask is so clever, the look so sincere the intentions so evil.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 9:19pm
autisticsouls says:
CaMom How are you? we got your email. let us know how things go. We’re crossing our fingers that your daughter gets the help she needs.
we’re going to visit some places in Florida about intentional communities for autistics and others if your daughter ever wants to relocate into a supportive community. But wherever you’re at sounds amazing. cowboys and stuff. i love animals but i’m no cowboy.
http://promiseinbrevard.com/
http://www.noahsarkflorida.org/
http://www.noahsarkflorida.org.....0Album.htm
Education for asperger syndrome individuals, autistics and other learning differences:
http://www.brevardcenter.org/
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 9:20pm
Aeylah says:
Rosa:
Thanks for the “Stalking the Soul” book quote and recommendation…..it is helping me get closure from the TOXIC EX…I’m off to the book store to order a coppy.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 9:22pm
Mike says:
Thanks, Mike.
Let me rephrase the issue that drove me from lurking to posting with a question: a recent post recommended allowing sociopaths to reveal themselves by asking them “what do you mean by such-and-such-baffling-issue?” But if Steve’s model of the pseudo-insightful sociopath won’t refuse to answer, does simply disliking someone’s answer to that question then not qualify them as a sociopath, or what?
Is asking “what do you mean by such-and-such-baffling-issue?” no longer the test to flush out the sociopath it was presented as?
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 9:32pm
mjlyness says:
Ravenlesstower and BlackDeer – thanks for replying. I too have found myself wondering whether he was in fact the doer in his stories and not the person he was talking about. He told me that he befriended the 20 year old Japanese ballet dancer he ended up having his affiar with because she was “afraid” of another fellow ballet dancer (a guy) who had been looking in her apartment window. I bet he was the one looking in her window and blamed the other guy when she said said something. BTW he went back to his “dream” of being a ballet dancer last May and it quickly became an obsession, etc. I guess my use to him was waning and he was moving on to another mark – the dancer.
BlackjDeer – your wrote – “he always talks about how much he detests dishonesty because he is so “REAL”. Mine said the EXACT same words. It’s like we have all met the SAME guy!!!
I think I am in the right place on this forum. I just wonder what he might do next. I am afraid, but at the same time I am curious to see what BS he is going to come up with next!!
I have maintained NC for a week now. But, I had to contact with him about taxes – I need to sign the joint return. Just emailed him asking him to send tax return for me to sign. May need to get my lawyer involved if he doesn’t reply. He’ll do that. He ignores me for important stuff, but will contact me about a stupid sled for his son. Go buy a sled!!! Or he’ll want to meet so he can give me a check. Put it in the mail!!! AHHH!!
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 9:36pm
Rosa says:
Aeylah:
That is so great that you are getting the book!
You won’t regret it.
There’s some really great info. in that book.
I put it up there on the same level as “Without Conscience” & “Sociopath Next Door.”
It’s a great book because it is written for the VICTIMS of emotional abuse.
You are so right, Aeylah.
A Sincere Lie is very convincing and often believed….even when it flies in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
People see what they want to see.
~By the way, INSIDIOUS is the perfect adjective to describe these varmints & their lies, when educating the unsuspecting citizens around us.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 9:47pm
mjlyness says:
robxsykobabe – definitely manipulation. You don’t owe him ANYTHING and especially an explanation. I look back on my time with him and I was always explaining myself. And he would use it against me eventually. Don’t, explain yourself to him EVER. He will use it against you at some point, or he will use it to confuse you. He’s trying to make you feel guilty. He is trying to control you. If you contact him he’ll know he has power over you – that’s all he wants. They know people like us feel guilt if we hurt someone – they know what guilt is, they just don’t feel it. So, he is trying to make you feel bad. Ignorre him. They say and do anything without guile.
I could also relate to greenfern’s comment about “how can he be a bad person if he can reflect so deeply on such-and-such”. I said similar things to myself. I now know I was trying to excuse his bad behavior, his lies, his cavalier morals and callous attitude. These people apparantly have brains like computers – they store all this appropriate sounding stuff in there and pull it out without any seeming effort at the right time to hook you. It’s truly amazing. I think these people must be some of the most intelligent people on earth. It’s just such a shame that all that intellect gets wasted on using, abusing and manipulating others for their own benefit and enjoyment.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 9:56pm
Aeylah says:
Rosa;
We must have the biggest collection of Spath books….I oftern wonder what someone would think of me if they saw my library…LOL….I’ve become a voracious reader on the subject.
I feel like one of my favorite quotes I read here on LF, not sure whor wrote it but so true….”The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off”….and knowledge is empowering.
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 9:58pm
autisticsouls says:
CaMom, how are you? we got your email and are crossing our fingers that your daughter gets the help she needs.
we are looking into some autistic/disabled communities around here for our dolphin and to support others if your daughter ever wants to relocate into a supportive community although where you’re at sounds great. i love animals but i’m no cowboy. anyhow the links are:
http://promiseinbrevard.com/
http://www.noahsarkflorida.org/
Education support geared for those with Asperger Syndrome, Autism and other learning differences:
http://www.brevardcenter.org/
Witsend and Oxydrover and Gem: as a father hearing your stories are so heartbreaking. it’s horrific enough imagining being romantically involved with one but to parent a child i don’t know how you have the strength to deal with what you have to deal with. i can’t even fathom how i would even survive if my child were to turn out that way. women are sure stronger than men in this respect because i don’t think i could survive my child becoming that. i would probably live in denial or -i don’t know what- because i couldn’t see my child become something so dangerous and survive it, i don’t think i can, tonight after reading some posts i tucked my non verbal daughter in and kissed her non responsive forhead which she flinched from and she averted her autistic eyes away and i was so grateful. so grateful that all she has is just autism. i can live with that… being the parent of an autistic child is hard but a parent to a sociopath/psychopath i can’t even bear the thought without flinching. i am so sorry that you had to go through this. being a parent myself i can imagine how painful something like that had to have been to live through. it’s just horrific and so very sad.
Mike
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010 @ 11:07pm
FindingMyWay says:
SisterSister
thank you for the support. I admit, you really threw me off with the comparison to Shirley Valentine, and I felt like I hadn’t explained in enough detail what I’ve been dealing with. I heard someone comparing a sociopath’s path of destruction like watching a “train wreck.” It is so disorienting, a major unheaval. Another of the women he was involved with emotionally fell apart after he coldly devalued and discarded her, she was sobbing at work, had to get into therapy, lost her job, and a couple months later her daughter died of a drug overdose. Then I found out that she had been arrested for stalking, threats of violence and harrassing phone calls. I assume he brought the charges against her, but I don’t know for sure. I don’t even know if it’s related to her involvement with him, but in my mind it is all soldered together, as one big event that he is at the center of it all. I have seen how he is. I have very carefully warned new women at my office. But your comment threw me, maybe it’s because this is my first time posting on this website, and I was not expecting to have my story compared to a romantic comedy. I have been dealing with him at work for four years. The thing is, his behavior is/was such a mind fuck, that I question whether what I experienced and observed is real! I have friends who assure me that they agree, he is disordered. In addition, yes, this is all taking place under the radar of management. And he has not really broken any laws! And yes he still comes around, and I just play along. He obviously wants something from me still. I am just acting like no big deal. And yet I have told him I do not trust him, but I do work with him, and I do see him every day at the office. I allowed him to help me when my car malfunctioned. There’s only so many months of “no contact” one can pull off in our smallish workplace. How I have dealt with this is by informing a small select group of trustworthy people about his behavior, my experiences with him, and what I have observed. I document our interactions. I am convinced this guy is dangerous. I am convinced he is a coldhearted emotional predator. I can’t live in a state of fear, however, so I just go along and pretend like all is well, but I watch my back around him at all times.
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 2:38am
autisticsouls says:
CaMom how are you? we got your email and are crossing our fingers that your daughter gets the help she needs. we are going to some Florida intentional communities that will be specifically for those with developmental disabilities including autism if your daughter ever wants to relocate to a supportive community, although wherever you are at sounds amazing. i love animals but i’m no cowboy.
http://promiseinbrevard.com/
http://www.noahsarkflorida.org/
Educational support for individuals with Asperger Syndrome, autism and other learning differences:
http://www.brevardcenter.org/
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 7:42am
autisticsouls says:
Hello there CaMom for some reason i’m not being able to post this up to you. it doesn’t seem to want to go through. It’s been like since yesterday i’ve been losing posts. if i lose it again i’ll email it to you.
I’ve been posting but i’m not sure what is going on..I tried to post and I keep losing the post here goes again.
we got your email and are praying that your daughter gets the help she needs and keep us posted. we’re visiting some intentional communities geared towards individuals with developmental disabilities if your daughter ever wants to relocate into a supportive community although wherever you are at sounds great.
http://www.noahsarkflorida.org/
http://promiseinbrevard.com/
Educational support for individuals with Asperger Syndrome, autism, and other learning differences:
http://www.brevardcenter.org/
Mike
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 7:43am
autisticsouls says:
CaMom been posting but i’m not sure what is going on tried to post and keep losing the post here goes again.
we got your email and are praying that your daughter gets the help she needs and keep us posted. we’re visiting some intentional communities geared towards individuals with developmental disabilities if your daughter ever wants to relocate into a supportive community although wherever you are at sounds great.
http://www.noahsarkflorida.org/
http://promiseinbrevard.com/
Educational support for individuals with Asperger Syndrome, autism, and other learning differences:
http://www.brevardcenter.org/
Mike
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 7:48am
autisticsouls says:
hey i’m posting but it doesn’t seem to go through.
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 7:51am
autisticsouls says:
CaMom
I’ve been posting but i’m not sure what is going on..I tried to post and I keep losing the post here goes again.
we got your email and are praying that your daughter gets the help she needs and keep us posted. we’re visiting some intentional communities geared towards individuals with developmental disabilities if your daughter ever wants to relocate into a supportive community although wherever you are at sounds great.
http://www.noahsarkflorida.org/
http://promiseinbrevard.com/
Educational support for individuals with Asperger Syndrome, autism, and other learning differences:
http://www.brevardcenter.org/
Mike
(Report abusive comment)
Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 7:51am
autisticsouls says:
Hello there CaMom for some reason i’m not being able to post this up to you. it doesn’t seem to want to go through. It’s been like since yesterday i’ve been losing posts. if i lose it again i’ll email it to you.
I’ve been posting but i’m not sure what is going on..I tried to post and I keep losing the post here goes again.
we got your email and are praying that your daughter gets the help she needs and keep us posted. we’re visiting some intentional communities geared towards individuals with developmental disabilities if your daughter ever wants to relocate into a supportive community although wherever you are at sounds great.
http://www.noahsarkflorida.org/
http://promiseinbrevard.com/
Educational support for individuals with Asperger Syndrome, autism, and other learning differences:
http://www.brevardcenter.org/
Mike
(Report abusive comment)
Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 7:55am
greenfern says:
I saw a dream (nightmare) by robxsykobabe….I would like to share one also.
Maybe about a year ago I had a dream about the S-ex. It was an important dream, it made me understand something fundamental: My body and mind knew on a subconscious level that I was in danger.
So the dream goes as such: I am visiting the S-ex at his current house and he is all sad because his wife (his wife in waking life too) has just left him. He is crying and all sentimental and remorseful. He is telling me how much he loves me and I was meant to be the love of his life and he sees it now so clearly. He had my face in his hands and I felt really loved. I also felt relieved that all that horrible feelings from the past is gone now and that maybe I was wrong about things and he really is my soul-mate. Briefly a doubt goes through my mind, thinking “what am I doing” but then a sense of love and relief comes over me and I submit myself to the feeling.
Then he tells me that we will meet again, he just needs to take care of some things right now and he escorts me out of the house and up a external staircase, as we are walking up the stairs become longer and create these planks and bridges and overpasses or balconies(?) and then he send me in front of him “just go ahead” and then I realize that he just sent me into a plank that’s not fixed and it flips over and he gives me a push and I fall. As I fall I see his face looking at me without an emotion and with complete calculation. I zoom in into his eyes, but there is NOTHING in his eyes and I realized it’s a trap and he just killed me. And I wake up.
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 11:30am
autisticsouls says:
Sorry folks but many of my posts are getting lost. but first:
Mike says:
“….I am a single guy whose career and social ineptitude has made my personal life a disaster…”
—–I can relate to that. before I met my wife though, now my personal life is a sanctuary.—-
“…If you need to hear it, some people like to hold court by taking opportunities to create a panic among their social circle, and a single guy whose personal life is a disaster is a good candidate to create panics over, from the low-risk to the court-holder…”
—-Maybe it’s not just your personal life but maybe folks don’t readily understand where you are coming from. Like from my experience if I come off too weird to folks there’s confusion. I learned to talk in their language as best as I’m able to, so that then-we’re talking the same language and I tamper down the weirdness factor. We can be speaking the same actual language but if folks are left thinking “Huh?” than I’m losing them and I cause problems for myself, alienation for one…—-
“…Something I took from LoveFraud is that while not everyone who has been baffled is a victim of bullying, all bullies baffle someone…”
—That’s right. Many here that have been baffled have been more victims of romantic relations but there are some that are a victim of bullying, I’m one.—
“…By social ineptitude, I mean I can’t tell from looking at anyone how to frame what I have to say so that they can comprehend it…”
—Well, you aren’t kidding there.—
“…To use as an example, there’s a comic book about how comics work called “Understanding Comics.” There’s an early scene in which the narrator is portrayed on a stage trying to establish his terms. There’s a heckler calling out insisting that if the comic doesn’t have Batman, it isn’t really a comic. REAL LIFE IS NOT THIS GENEROUS. By socially inept, I mean in real life, people hide their detached “it isn’t comics if it doesn’t have Batman”-like preconceptions,…”
—That sounds like impairment in Theory of Mind or Mind-Blindness http://puterakembara.org/aspie.shtml#theory of mind —
“….so when I overlook these invisible agendas, others make their own bafflement at my disregard the basis for creating a panic that I’m a predator…”
—Are you overlooking the invisible intuitive communication or you simply can’t access it?—
“…Having taken LoveFraud’s lesson of all-bullies-baffle-someone but everyone-baffled-isn’t-a-victim, I’ve made peace with my own account of my misfortunes in that I have yet to have any incident pointed out where I refused to clarify anything anyone else found baffling. If I haven’t baffled anyone, if I’m resolved to allow others a good-faith access to my agendas, I can say in good-faith I’m fulfilling my resolve to be a decent person…”
—So basically all a person needs to do is ask you outright and you’ll tell them what you are all about if your behavior confuses them?—
“…I’ve purged and divested myself of all conscious inconsistencies and reconciled as close to everything I’ve ever said as anyone I know of. It takes a form of insight to do this, and only someone who’s done this can know how high a price I’ve paid to do this. It’s the only thing I really have. Without this, all I have to hold is air…”
—So you’ve anaylyzed yourself and feel you are more self aware and realized your frialities and faced them?—
“…Now I’ve read an article here titled “The sociopath’s pseudo insightfulness and sensitivity” and from it I’m wondering if Steve even believes there can be such a thing as insightfulness that can be both authentic and purposeful. Someone please let me know if all I’m holding is air…”
—I’m sure that there is insightfulness that is authentic and purposeful. In his article this is based on a ‘Sociopath’s’ pseudo insightfulness and sensitivity meaning ‘false’ sensitivity although they may have full insight into the other person they intend to victimize.
Now you have to ask yourself that if others feel you are a sociopath simply perhaps because the label of sociopathy may in some way, to some people, fit and it may explain things… For example Temple Grandin isn’t a sociopath simply because she is unable to conjure up romantic emotions or depth of feelings towards other people. But if she goes after and pursues a person knowing full well that she can not give them what they want she’s just moved from the threshold of autism into sociopathy…
The defining characteristic of sociopaths are mainly predatory in nature and predatory and deceitful behaviors so even while they may have similar issues to other conditions, to actually ‘be’ a sociopath the defining aspect is that they prey on others and are very deceitful in nature. There are other empathy challenged conditions that do not prey on others nor is deceitful in nature while looking similar in behaviors and issues…—
“….Let me rephrase the issue that drove me from lurking to posting with a question: a recent post recommended allowing sociopaths to reveal themselves by asking them “what do you mean by such-and-such-baffling-issue?”…”
—I don’t think this will work in every sociopathic interation as there are so many different kinds of sociopaths and while most will be dodgey with the answer, many will just outright lie with ease. But your question is still somewhat confusing… as you asked: “Steve’s model of the pseudo-insightful sociopath won’t refuse to answer, does simply disliking someone’s answer to that question then not qualify them as a sociopath, or what?…”
—I’m guessing here because I’m still not so sure what you are asking,—
“… Is asking “what do you mean by such-and-such-baffling-issue?” no longer the test to flush out the sociopath it was presented as? …”
—-not really it’s just a way of collecting a red flag…there are red flags and we need more than one to sort it all out. especially in light of how many can maneuver their way into and out of things. just asking something outright would seem to me insufficient as most lie, or only dish out half truths anyway… but there are numerous red flags and if one can collect enough of them one can eventually weed out a sociopath, but it isn’t easy as most are impeccable actors…—
Mike
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 10:16pm
OxDrover says:
Dear Autisticsouls (Mike)
Your above post is very analytical!!!!! I was somewhat confused about what the poster (“Mike”) [you quoted and tried to clarify his posts,] was saying and I kind of sort of scratched my head and said WTF? Then assumed that , Yes, he did have trouble expressing himself so others could understand, cause I sure didn’t…Thanks! I think I do
understand a bit better now. Sometimes I am pretty dense and have difficulty seeing the obvious! ((((Hugs))))
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 10:38pm
kim frederick says:
autisticsouls, yeah Mike. Wow, what an elucidating, articulate well thought out post. I applaud the time and effort you put into answering. When I first read his post, I must admit my first thought was….”what?”…..I’m so confused…..
Kudo’s to you for careing!!!
I think the key word in Steve’s post is Pseido. That word means fake. Real, authentic insight and sensitivity is way cool, but anything that is fabricated for the sake of pulling the wool over someones eyes, and then benefitting by it, in what ever way, could be considered psychopathic.
“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull shit”….the motto of the consumat P.
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 10:56pm
kim frederick says:
Wow, just watched the movie, “Precious”. If there ever was a movie about a P mom, this is it. The word “P” never enters into it, but its all there. Has anybody else seen it? If you do, let’s talk about it….
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 11:07pm
witsend says:
Kim
OMG, I saw it yesterday….
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 11:14pm
kim frederick says:
Don’t you think the healing starts when she get’s mad, and says, “nobody ever loved me…”
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 11:20pm
geminigirl says:
Wow, greenfern, re your dream! It sounds just like one of these black and white etchings by the german artist, Escher. I dont know if you know his work? he was a surrealist. they are mostly of staircases, leading into thin air, or crossing andpassing over and thru each other,a bit likea Mobius strip, you know, the eternity symbol? Was your subconscious mind ever giving you wake up call there!
They lull you into believing their lies, and then, WHAM! the rug gets pulled from under you, time after time.!! Ive had it happen to me over and over by my spath daughter. No more!
I am ON TO HER NOW and she knows it!keep on keeping on!
Well done! Love, MamaGem.XX
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 11:24pm
witsend says:
kim,
I almost would like to watch the movie again….I am not sure about that question. In some ways I think the healing might have begun when for the first time she was a part of something, the school, the girls. She seemed sooooo isolated before that at her regular school. Remember how she day dreamed all the time?
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 11:25pm
witsend says:
That movie was heart wrenching. Her mother was a monster.
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 11:30pm
autisticsouls says:
Oxy
you are far from dense.
i was reading through so many heartbreaking posts and it’s amazing how many stories are pouring in. i even got into it with someone about how Awareness and education is vital and made the error of saying that i feel sociopathy is costing society A LOT more than autism is.
Which i really feel it is, if you break it down, because if one takes into account how much billions are cheated from the people, how much are in power abusing their authority, how many families are being destroyed, how our prisons are full to the rim, how many lives have been destroyed as well as how many lives TAKEN, how many children molested, it just goes on and on and tell me that that isn’t costing society more than autism ever can.
i’m not saying autism research and awareness isn’t important but driving today along with my autism ribbon magneted to my car there were three other vehicles with autism awareness ribbons.. so even though there’s a lot we still need to do in that aspect we’re halfway there already. the awareness aspect is at least there unless somone’s lived in a closet the past several decades..
i think the costs to society are too great that we continue to ignore a situation destroying the entire fabric of society.
autism is traumatic and difficult to live with but i don’t know how you or Witsend do it. i’de rather parent 20 autistic children than parent one sociopath.
the emotional devastation of sociopathy is just so extreme.
my child is non verbal, mostly unresponsive, will probably need assistance all her life, but she doesn’t break my heart. most folks are worried about their autistic child surviving in this world because it’s too cruel and unsafe for them… WHY? because the world is full of sociopaths… the average everyday person will shelter a disabled individual more and are mostly very protective towards them… it’s the animals out there that will hurt our kids, and everyone else.. why is it taboo to talk about it as if it isn’t a problem that is affecting everyone?
autism isn’t striking everyone or making as much of an impact to society on all levels as sociopathy is. i’ve come to feel- reading headlines, and listening to the news and clipping out information that there is not such a thing as a person who isn’t in some way or form either directly or indirectly a victim of sociopathy.
and just catching up to posts and reading stories it just seems like more needs to be done and people need to talk about it, not just here. so why would it seem inappropriate to have a sociopath awareness booth in a autism conference? like aren’t autistics affected by sociopaths? bullied by them, robbed by them, abused by them? isn’t that what folks mean when they say things like “i can accept that my child is autistic and will be for life, it’s my autistic child in the world with cruel people that i’m worried about..” and the concern is not so much of the care they would need but many times how they would be abused by folks ‘out there’. anyhow maybe it was a stupid idea to have informational flyers about.. even though the numbers are that disabled individuals are 90% being abused or will be abused. so who is doing the abusing? let’s just ask who would single out the most vulnerbale and start talking about “it” sociopathy and all it’s variations is all i’m asking other folks okay so it was an autistic forum, it just affects everyone ‘including’ the autistic community. now i’m digressing from what i was originally talking about and just venting a bit.
is there a ASPD awareness ribbon out there yet? if not we need to desisgn one.
oh yeah so i was reading posts (even if i didn’t have time to post). but Mike’s post was a bit of a speed bump to me as I was like Huh? and i guess folks didn’t know what he was saying either so i felt a need to get back to it.
Mike
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 11:33pm
kim frederick says:
Witty, I posted a comment and lost it! I wanted to say that, yes, I remeber her saying, to her teacher,”I feel like I’M HERE” that is no mistake…Alice Walker inthe color pourple did the same thing….That was Ceely’s great awakening
…she was able to tell Mr., I”M here. In Blues music, the only music that has its roots in Amirica, it’s considered a homagr to the one who went before to quote them, but not quite, to use it, but twist it, and I’m sure that is what happened. You are so right on, yes, her healing started then…but it continued, too, ….
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 11:50pm
OxDrover says:
Thanks, Autistic souls,
You make a VERY VALID POINT. Autistic children/adults don’t go out and get elected to public office so they can abuse the public trust now do they? They don’t wind up in prison for murder or robbery or beating up little old ladies. You are RIGHT ON, and the “awareness” part is SURE a big ROAD BUMP because the professionals who diagnose and “treat” (that’s a joke) this problem with psychopaths can’t AGREE on what the symptoms are. Or the NAME FOR IT! That is one big reason this new DSM V is such a BIG DEAL! Hopefully the AWARENESS at least among professionals will increase.
Last night on LAW AND ORDER, CRIMINAL INTENT, I saw a show where a guy was “diagnosed” by the PCL-R score and was LABELED a psychopath on the show. He was a murderer but he was a “nice guy” and his GF was DUPED into lying to give him an alibi. Even after he was proven a P in court and proven a murderer she still clung to him as he was taken off to prison for life, crying.
There was a time I would have been that way with my P-son, convinced he was not a monster that the law KNEW HE WAS. It is hard to accept that your own flesh and blood is not only incapable of “living a normal life” (whatever that is!) but is incapable of ANYTHING RESEMBLING HUMANITY except looks.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, I would trade kids with you in a heart beat. There was a time when I would gladly have traded places with the woman whose child was murdered by mine. It was for SELFISH REASONS though because she (the mother of the murdered girl) had community support and so on, and I had nothing but my own grief and no community support. Only scorn and blame and shame, I felt, if others had known.
Now, I would still gladly trade places with her, but for a different set of reasons, I think. I hope that poor woman has been able to move on in her life after she lost her child to murder, and I hope she has come to some peace. I wish there was some way I could comfort her, and maybe if she hears that I have protested his parole that will give her some peace, to know that someone does care. I heard that she drove by the house where my son lived with his cousin before the murder, and screamed out the window of her car. I can’t even imagine how much pain she must have been in. Or how much she must have hated my son and/or his family.
You are right, Mike, that the damage, and I would say 99.9% of all the “bad things” in the world are done by psychopaths. All the pain and suffering from crime and emotional and physical abuse is from people who are either outright psychopaths or high in the traits. Without them crime would almost vanish, child abuse, sexual abuse, you name the pain, and without psychopaths it would be GONE. It would be HEAVEN ON EARTH! All we would have to cope with would be cancer, broken legs and flat tires. No wars, no starvation, no stealing, Gosh! Wouldn’t that be wonderful! Everyone would be kind to each other and helpful and caring! And the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus would all throw us a party! Thanks, Mike, ((((Big hugs)))))
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 @ 11:53pm
witsend says:
what part of the movie moved you the most? I had several.
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 12:01am
kim frederick says:
well, I think when she finally realized how fucked -up her life was, when she realized that not only had she been raped by her father, abandned by her mother, but infected by HIV, and she asked, “why me?’….but then went on to say, “nobody has ever loved me”….
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 12:13am
BlackDeer says:
I saw Precious a few months ago so my details may be a little fuzzy, but thought the same thing about the mother: classic spath. The scene in Mariah Carey’s office was so intense and I felt my spine stiffen as the mother essentially blamed her daughter when she said “who was gonna love me?” If I didn’t have the experience I’ve had with a n/s I might have viewed that with more compassion…maybe seen it as a breakthrough for the mother…but as is all I could think was, RUN!!! I’ve seen those crocodile tears too many times.
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 12:21am
witsend says:
yeah, that was for sure a moment….another one that was disturbing to me was when the grandmother came over with her child so her mother could do her “performance” in front of the welfare woman….It really bothered me that her grandmother had enough awareness to take care of Precious’s child but LEAVE Precious there with her mother to fend for herself. Probably knowing who the FATHER of the child was as well.
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 12:23am
kim frederick says:
Yes, BlackDeer…the sceen wa so well done, I started to empathize with the mother…but, that is why everyone should see this movie….
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 12:25am
witsend says:
Oh I was soooooo angry at the mother when she said that….
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 12:27am
ptsd says:
Lol…Oxy even in your pain I can laugh with you!
The Tooth Fairy et al….wouldn’t it be nice to have gone through those phases so innocently. I gave my best efforts to preserve those “illusions” of goodness in the world with my kids.
I think, I know exactly what you mean by trading places with the Mom. HOWEVER, and I may be overstepping here, you said you wanted her to know someone cares. You already know she had people to care. I think more importantly, it will help her to know that YOU CARE!…
I apologize if you have already tried. It just sounded like you haven’t actually tried to do this directly.
It may be the catalyst you need even if she doesn’t respond in kind. It may be just what she needs to truly let go of a most horrific tragedy.
Again, Oxy, my apologies if I speak out of turn.
I have a great deal of respect for you!!! even though we have never met!!!
(((hugs))) and Prayers to YOU!!!
I have said more than a few times(and I don’t wish my children dead)that it would be easier to come to terms with their death than live this living hell.
You are an encouragement to ALL and I’m sorry you have this burden to bare!
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 12:45am
ptsd says:
Old computer and dial up here…very frustrating wanting to post while at home. I just tried to copy/send, what I thought was such an appropriately funny email I received a week ago.
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 1:16am
ptsd says:
Authentic and purposeful are easy peasy. In my opinion. But what does that mean??? Anyone can be both,easily, can’t they???
The core of the matter is : is it real??–in the sense that authentic means a real heart and soul(to me)…or better yet conscience.
That is hard to determine from a Non P way of assessing a situation…BUYER BEWARE is ALWAYS a good way to chose our course.
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 2:08am
Mike says:
[Me] “…To use as an example, there’s a comic book about how comics work called “Understanding Comics.” There’s an early scene in which the narrator is portrayed on a stage trying to establish his terms. There’s a heckler calling out insisting that if the comic doesn’t have Batman, it isn’t really a comic. REAL LIFE IS NOT THIS GENEROUS. By socially inept, I mean in real life, people hide their detached “it isn’t comics if it doesn’t have Batman”-like preconceptions,…”
[The Other Mike] “That sounds like impairment in Theory of Mind or Mind-Blindness…”
You seemed to have taken my example easy enough: why should I consider I’m the impaired one, just because I have no notion of the other person’s inaccurate misconceptions? Isn’t this kind of self-second-guessing how the sociopaths win?
[ptsd] “Authentic and purposeful are easy peasy. In my opinion. But what does that mean??? Anyone can be both,easily, can’t they???”
…I should hope so.
But Steve literally allows for the sincerity of the pseudo-insightful sociopath. Literally:
“Now he isn’t necessarily lying. He could be lying, we know that, in which case his manipulation is that much more blatantly and manifestly sociopathic. But it’s also possible that he isn’t lying—that is, that he feels, in the moment, that what he’s telling you he feels is true; or, that he’s convinced himself that everything he’s telling you is true.
“And so his sociopathy can’t necessarily be traced to his lying, because in this instance he may not perceive himself as lying, and, in a certain sense, he may not be lying.”
Now look at Steve’s qualifier:
“His sociopathy, rather, can more accurately be identified in his underlying, preexisting agenda which, in our hypothetical scenario, come hell or high water, is to “nail” you.”
Going by what Steve is literally saying, how does the garden-variety need for affection [in fact, how does wanting anything from anyone] not qualify? [Where is the threshold?]
I’m not autistic. I can knowingly and reliably break-up a company meeting into laughter. That’s when I can surf what everyone knows [is] true.
But common sense is like eating. The food you eat doesn’t nourish anyone but you, the eater. And if we’ve both had the experience of eating chicken, I can talk about eating chicken, and be reasonably sure you know what I’m talking about. But when people live their lives like hearing someone had chicken last night almost feels like they themselves ate the chicken — consider the severe terror of the person trying to have his work evaluated fairly, who has lived his life in good faith, and has never had chicken before.
Only it isn’t chicken. It’s something crazy that [...] isn’t even true — like if it doesn’t have Batman, it can’t be a comic book — and [your evaluation] all hangs on one person who thinks “everyone” has had it for dinner. Except for you [when you reveal yourself the exception].
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 9:34am
OxDrover says:
Dear PTSD,
You are right, I have NOT contacted this woman or her family. I have discussed possibly contacting them via my attorney for the parole. AT the time of the murder, there were several reasons I didn’t, one was that the woman was absolutely “insane” with grief and I thought it would make it worse for her, and secondly, I was also INSANE WITH GRIEF myself at what my son had probably done. I was in a way in DENIAL that it was real, so had my own problems to deal with.
I thinkk your stance of just keeping up some kernel of hope that someday they may see the “light” but without letting your happiness and your own life DEPEND of that happening is a good one.
Keeping up a “front” is a lot of work and takes a lot of energy, I have quit keeping up the “front” so much these last few years. I had learned at my egg donor’s knee that NO MATTER WHAT WAS GOING ON you had to KEEPUP THAT FRONT that ALL WAS LOVELY, even when your life was falling apart. My gosh, how much energy that takes when you could be using that energy for your own healing. I used to be VERY GOOD at keeping up that front, and when I melted down last Late december and this January, I even thought about Not blogging about it on LF (with holding my grief and pain) because I didn’t want to show that I was “weak” or had had a lot of DENIAL about son C that I had just REALIZED and was melting down over.
Then, I asked myself, “Oxy, are you trying to keep up a FRONT?” and the answer was YES, I wanted to, so I blogged about my pain here, because I wanted to admit (mostly to myself) that no matter how much yuou “get it” about enabling, you can still do it and rationalize it, but in the end, you have to face it. You have to set BOUNDARIES that are good for you, and ENFORCE them no matter what. No matter WHO! No matter how it hurts. You cannot save someone else by enabling them or PRETENDING NONE OF THIS HAPPENED.
I am the queen of enablers, even though I try to tell myself I’m not. So facing up to my tendency to enable others HURTS when I admit it to myself, and it hurts to admit it to others, but only by being HONEST WITH MYSELF and HONEST with others can I have a clean conscience in the end.
Our family has a “funny” that I “invented” years ago, it is called the “11th COMMANDMENT”–you know the first TEN COMMANDMENTS in the Bible, well this is the one that is violated 100 x more often thanm ALL the other 10.
it is “THOU SHALT NOT FOOL THYSELF”
I have violated enough of the ten commandsments in the past that I am surely no saint, but I have violated the 11th COMMANDMENT many more times than the others all put together. I’m not having much trouble with temptation any more to violate the first ten, but I am still having tempations to violate the 11th one,, so that is the one I am working on with myself. ((((hugs)))) and God bless.
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 2:03pm
Donna Andersen says:
This entire conversation has been deleted. We have one rule on Lovefraud – don’t attack each other. Please observe it.
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 4:50pm
Mike says:
[withdrawn. thank you.]
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 4:53pm
kim frederick says:
Yes Maam.
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 4:53pm
ptsd says:
Ya Oxy,
Keeping up a front has been very hard while going through this chaos. Ironic, I’m in the business of helping others heal. When a customer comes through the door I’ve had to slap on a front and hold back the tears many times over the last 10 years. Sometimes, if it’s a very dear soul the tears have slipped and I get hugs from them. And sometimes it’s so timely that the right person walks in at the right time, I think they are God sent.
I understand the timing and place would have to be right to approach the wounded Mom with your empathy and share your course of action with her. I hope that goes well for all concerned if you do go down that path.
I love how you identify, articulate and work on your own shortcomings AND share it with us.
I’ve always viewed some of my shortcomings as blessings and curses. Caring too much. Being too forthright. Supporting the “underdogs”.
I hope as I keep reading and learning and sharing I will be better equipped to work on these and other weaknesses and faults with more clarity. (((Hugs))) and Blessings!!!
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 6:26pm
OxDrover says:
Dear PTSD,
It starts off I think (the healiing process) with being about THEM, but in the end, ends up being about US.
After my P-son was arrested for murder I MELTED DOWN in the worst way for 3 months, not eating, crying, not sleeping, complete “shell shock.”
A friend of mine I went to school with (I am a retired advanced practice nurse) kept calling and trying to recruit me to go to work for her in a psych hospital (at that time I had no psych experience) and I took on the job of “intake interviewer” and I realized that there were people with KIDS WORSE THAN MINE! I was not alone.
After an intake interview I would go in the bathroom and CRY and CRY and over the next year and a half I did a lot of different jobs and got a real lPSYCH EDUCATION. I think that job was my SALVATION and I have always said that God prepared me for life with my jobs.
I had worked in head injury, and my step son had a major head injury that cut his functional IQ in half. If I had not had prior experience in head injury I have NO IDEA how I would have coped.
I worked in home care, and out-patient clinics as an APN and when my stepfather got ill with cancer, I had the skills and knowleedge to help him through those last 18 months. I wouldn’t have had those if I had not had the varied background and experiences I had.
So, looking BACKWARDS we can see that even out of some of the most DIFFICULT times in our lives, we have learned something that later on helped us through the next “difficult” time. Sure, some of the stuff we “learn” the hard way cause we didn’t “get it” when the lesson was presented the first time, or in my case sometimes, the 10th or 100th time, but I am GETTING IT NOW. It isn’t about THEM, it is about ME, and how I respond to what life throws at me.
Even in the Garden of Eden, there was a psychopath came on the scene and gave Eve a CHOICE and she made the wrong one. We all have choices and we all have to face the temptations of life to make the wrong choices. But even my P-son (as much as I believe a lot of psychopathy is genetic) he had a CHOICE, just like my alcoholic Uncle Monster, with his genetic pre-disposition to alcoholism had a choice to DRINK OR NOT!
Our genetics may increase our temptations in one or more areas, but it doens’t make us make bad choices. We still have choices, and so do they!
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 6:52pm
robxsykobabe says:
Im having an increasingly difficult time as this month goes on dealing with feelings about the ex sociopath. It seems like Im missing him alot, and maybe its because this is the month he will either get his license back fully or conditionally, and I know he will be ‘out there’ again.
Im trying to be rational and intellectual about this, and I will NOT contact him, as it’s been 4 months NC so far. It seems, though, like Ive reminisced about all the fun, good times lately, creating anxst, and have ‘forgotten’ about the bad.
Im freaking out.
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 10:41pm
OxDrover says:
Dear R-babe!
Congratulations on 4 FOUR Months of NC! That’s an accomplishment! TOWANDA!!!
Now, sit your sweet self right down and I want pencil and paper and MAKE A LIST OF EVERY NASTY THING HE EVER DID OR SAID TO YOU.
Then read it aloud. If you start to think any positive thought about him repeat after me: I REMEMBER WHEN THE SPATHOLE DID #1________________ and then repeat the “I remember when….” and read number 2 and so on all down the list.
RINSE AND REPEAT! That should help you get a great mad on and all your feeling sorry for the s-path-hole will be gone!
See, I have an answer for everything! ((((Hugs))))) and hang on, sweetie, It will pass!
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 10:44pm
robxsykobabe says:
Doing this right after I tell you thank you. Im wondering though…is it normal for me to feel so strong and then soooooo off balance…even after not having ANY contact for so long? Its as if we HAVE had contact and that has created this anxst…but there hasnt been any!
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 10:49pm
silvermoon says:
Isn’t it true that over time, hurtful memories diminish as a natural part of the recovery from a relationship which has ended?
Heard the old saying TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS?
Why wouldn’t it apply here?
There were good times. There had to have been!
Innocently good on this side of the fence, anyway.
Why would it not be normal?
I can remember having fun at my 5th birthday party so why after a few months NC would I NOT remember the parts of the relationship I thought I had at the time not be memorable?
There were times when I thought it was the one to END all OTHERS. My mistake. I got fooled. Oops.
I like the techniques that Shatki Gawain used in meditation excercises- put the memory in a bubble and let it float away.
You don’t have to fight to not remember it. You can remember it and let it go peacefully.
Eckhart Tolle might say that the angst over the memories is your old identity as a victim of that person trying to come back to life and spoil your freedom by making you in pain again.
But that is in the past. And this is now. And NOW, you are NC.
And NC has been feeling pretty good.
So the old part of you which might choose to be in angst wants to come back. You don’t have to let it.
Maybe its enough to just simply acknowledge that you remember something good. And that’s ok and off it floats in a big pink bubble into the ether.
And then your old self says I want to come back and feel twisted and anxious and fearful again because I was used to the way I used to be and this memory reminds me of who I used to be. And off it goes in a big pink bubble. Gently, you wave bye bye. Interesting thought, but off it goes.
And then, you are still free. Still strong and still in control of YOUR balance.
It works for me. If it helps you its good and if it doesn’t, at least you know what not to do again? No?
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 11:14pm
one_step_at_a_time says:
robxsykobabe – this up and down is normal i think – it’s layers to the onion – you’re dealing with knowing he is about to become more ‘active’ again, and are not sure what this will mean in terms of his behavior.
you know, we were with these disordered f*cktards for reasons. there were things about them that captivated us…..but we do have to remind ourselves that they ARE false creatures, and captivated is CAPTURED.
and i suspect that your angst would be WAY bigger if you had contact.
break it down and figure out the pieces/ messages floating around in your head right now.
can yo create some ‘fun and good times’ some other way? maybe that’s what you need….’cause i am certain you don’t need him.
best, one step
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 11:32pm
ErinBrock says:
RBabe:
YES…..VERY NORMAL !!!!
Sometimes I think I’m trying to reach a ‘plateu’……and then all will be fine….but….
LIFE AIN”T LIKE THAT!!!
Sometimes we get knocked down a few notches…..and things affect us differently at different times.
Just keep this in mind…..
When our ‘immunity’ is down…..we get a bug….
Don’t be hard on yourself…..you’ll be okay…..you’ll get through this little bump too…..just like the rest…..and it’ll prepare you for the next bump……
it’s important though…..for us to take a snapshot of ‘how we feel’ at every stage in the journey…remember the rest stops, remember the stormy roads, and remember the downhill coastal areas too! It’ll help us with the next part when we get there.
XXOO
EB
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 11:44pm
geminigirl says:
Silvermoon, The American wit and funny girl,Dorothy Parker said,
“Time wounds all heels!”
Love, Gem.XX
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 11:48pm
silvermoon says:
Good one gem! LOL! I love Dorothy Parker.
here’s another good American Quote which might even be the best applicable come to look at it…..
The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!
George S. Patton
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 11:55pm
autisticsouls says:
Mike, I didn’t mean to imply you were autistic, but i work with many children who have many varied issues and problems with language and communication problems. i see all kinds of communication issues everyday. i have also been there myself. And I can recognize literal thinking and communication impairments and the problems and misunderstanding that surfaces from it. Just hear me out because i genuinely want to help you.
The problem that you seem to be having is you have a problem with ‘literal’ or ‘concrete thinking’ and it really IS an impairment.
Literal thinking is taking a very literal interpretation of what others are saying and having trouble accessing the untold meaning behind what is said…. Seeing or interpreting the world and what is being said in a black and white only sort of way that you are completely missing all the greys in between that make up the WHOLE picture of what is being said.
It’s trouble understanding hidden meanings, possibly prompting others to say “You know what I mean!”—when you obviously don’t.
Here is a very simplified example of “literal thinking” with say, a young child.
Mom: Go break a leg!
Son: Why would I break my leg?
Eventually as speech and communication evolves the child gets more confused as he/she gets older because he/she is not learning this innately but has to nearly relearn, memorize and update information and new interpretations in a almost cumbersome sort of way with nearly every new social contextual cue to reach the ‘meaning’ behind things as they come up. Once they get one concept down a new one will always surface.
Now while autistics exhibit pragmatic language impairment, this type of communication disorder can also be found in individuals with other types of issues outside of autism. While nearly every autistic has had some form or semantic pragmatic disorder or pragmatic language impairment or other literal thinking or interpretation communication issue, not everyone with these deficits have autism.
I do work with kids with PLI and other communication problems that have particular trouble understanding the meaning of what others are saying in speech or in text.
There is an inefficiency or inability in processing ‘the idea’ behind what is said and these individuals often work much harder to interpret the idea BEHIND what is actually said while everyone else has got this down innately.
They have difficulty or inability in making the necessary associations in order to understand what is ‘being conveyed’, they just don’t GET the ‘implied’ meaning behind what is actually being said.
They have difficulty recognizing in contextual (conversational) or text (print) situations that certain statements may have alternative meanings or a broader interpretation beyond the mere words looped together to form a particular sentence. They seem to always respond to information in a very literal and rigid manner and need to be taught how to interpret what is ‘being conveyed’ or ‘implied’ beneath what is being said…
They have some difficulty grasping the main idea, the ‘gestault’ of things, often drawing conclusions and making other inferences from conversation, text, and other social interactions, many times somewhat incorrectly or just completely way off the mark, because they can’t access the ‘idea’ behind what was actually being said in their literal and limited grasp of interpreting what is being said, text or spoken.
In their focus on the words ‘in their literal only meaning’ of what is said, that very concrete and limited way they are seeing or interpreting what is being said they often lose the implied conveyed FULL message that everyone else is getting except for them.
So everyone GETS what is being conveyed except the PLI or communication impaired individual which is only getting what is literally just being said. Everyone else is getting both the ’said message’ and the ‘implied message’ behind it so they are getting ALL of what was intended to be conveyed while you are only getting HALF of what is being conveyed.
And not being able to get BOTH is an impairment in language communication skills when everyone else is innately communicating in both forums.
Sometimes one might as well be speaking two totally different languages.
Now i’ve prided myself in overcoming such issues but one can’t get too cocky as i’ll explain in this story.
Not long ago i looked at the calendar from the autism classes we take and the title of one class we were going to was titled: “Toilet Training for Children with Autism”
Well my daughter is a child with autism and was having a particular problem in this area. So i pack her up collecting her toilet seat and i figured i can go to Barnes and Noble while she is getting toilet trained.
Well, when we get there I notice that there aren’t any autistic children around. Instead there are a bunch of mothers and a handful of dads sitting classroom style looking at a power point presentation. They stare at me with my kid and her toilet seat confused at to why i was there with my kid and a toilet seat.
Now I figure that we’re in the wrong classroom. but i wasn’t. i was in the right place.
The class was actually for teaching parents how to toilet train their children with autism.
I looked at the flyer at the actual words and it literally only said “Toilet Training for Children with Autism”,
Nothing there did it say that it was a parent workshop, and no one else there got a phone call stating that it was a parent workshop and i maybe somehow I just missed the call.
Nope.
Everyone there knew and understood from the title and somehow they ALL got the conveyed ‘implied’ message behind the title of the class what was meant that i simply didn’t get.
I was the only one there who brought my autistic child there thinking i was going to drop her off with her Sesame Street toilet seat and come back later from Barnes and Noble after she had been instructed and toilet trained.
Now I could argue that the title of the class literally said one thing, but it would be pointless to do so. because EVERYONE there read the same thing i read and out of all 25 parents there, including a handful of dads, (so i couldn’t even blame this on male ignorance) I was the only one there that didn’t get the ‘meaning’ of the ‘message’ of what the instructor of the class was conveying in his class title.
If everyone there got it except myself than the problem lied in me. How else did everyone else there understand what was meant in the title with just what was stated?
Somehow, no matter how adept i get i will still blunder, and misinterpret, and ‘miss’ the meaning of what is being said here and there, because I do not have an innate understanding of such things but have come about this as a skill i had to consciously work on and develop over the years.
Mike, communication is a social act and unless one is conducting a monologue with one’s self, it involves at least one other person. Communication within a social situation can be more challenging than just understanding the words of others. There are unwritten rules that govern stated and spoken interactions and these may change depending on the circumstances and whom one is talking to.
To not be able to do this effectively is an impairment in communication and a speech and language communication pathologist is recommended so that you can overcome this issue.
Or you can continue to believe that you are not impaired in this area and expect the world to change their ways for you, which i would state, don’t hold your breath, because they are all understanding each other and communicating effectively with each other. you’re the one out of the loop and it’s a skill you need to start working on or developing now, i don’t know how old you are but it will make life in general very dificult in all areas if you chose to ignore this deficit.
Yes, everyone has eaten and tasted chicken and they all know what they are talking about, you and i have not, but i ‘learned’ to eat something else and ‘imagine’ it to be the same chicken they are referring to, so that i can somehow be able to understand what they are talking about. and if I can learn this than you can too.
Mike
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 12:14am
Mike says:
Mike,
Thank you.
But if you tell me that words aren’t the things they represent I know exactly what you mean. It’s the people who need to be reminded words are not the things they represent who are closed to the lesson. I can’t get at their meanings, because they are fixed on their words. They can’t get at what I mean either, but I’m not refusing to clarify what I say.
Sometimes, no, I often can’t clarify what I say because if what I said opens with something as simple as “The cat sat on the mat,” and continues like that for a while, asking them why they don’t understand that opening sentence isn’t an option. Asking them if they know what a cat is isn’t an option. And they refuse to say at what sentence of mine — like heaven forbid any complexity should be built on what I say — they can’t reconcile the meaning of.
As far as I can tell, everything I’ve said completely reconciles with what you say. I think I can speak of the lesson you refer to as well. But as valuable as your insights are, they aren’t actionable for me, for what I described here.
***
Again, thank you.
My metaphor for how the universe may enforce morality is a judgment after the end of our lives. Will I have lived a life where I can be confronted with my actions while I lived and still look the dead vikings and the dead samurai and the dead wild things in the eye, so to speak. This site is helpful to me in preparing for that metaphorical judgment. The predominant theme of this site seems to be that although everyone baffled isn’t a victim, all bullies baffle someone. As far as I can say I haven’t refused to clarify myself when asked “what do you mean by such-and-such,” I can address this metaphorical judgment in good faith that I only have reason to believe I fulfilled my resolve to be a decent person.
Steve’s post seemed to imply I might not be able to do this, so I asked what I asked, and can say so if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, so to speak. Now I can only stand by in the meantime for someone to give me something else to think, if that’s what’s going to happen.
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 9:14am
autisticsouls says:
To add on to the earlier post
Mike says:
“…To use as an example, there’s a comic book about how comics work called “Understanding Comics.” There’s an early scene in which the narrator is portrayed on a stage trying to establish his terms. There’s a heckler calling out insisting that if the comic doesn’t have Batman, it isn’t really a comic. REAL LIFE IS NOT THIS GENEROUS. By socially inept, I mean in real life, people hide their detached “it isn’t comics if it doesn’t have Batman”-like preconceptions,…”
[The Other Mike] “That sounds like impairment in Theory of Mind or Mind-Blindness…”
You seemed to have taken my example easy enough: why should I consider I’m the impaired one, just because I have no notion of the other person’s inaccurate misconceptions?
(ME) It’s not an inaccurate misconception, but you seeing and taking it literally and you are missing the whole point of what he was trying to say. Sure there can be a comic book without a Batman or any other superhero in ‘that realm’ which although he only STATED “Batman” he was also including without saying so, other superheros in that same realm, such as Superman, Spiderman, Ironman, and any other costumed, usually caped sort of action Superhero which is the “typical’ in the comic book experience.
A person with only access to say “Archie” comic books or “Casper the Friendly Ghost” comic books, which while technically they are still a comic book it isn’t equable to the FULL comic book experience where people can understand running into a burning building to save their comic book collection, or fork over a small fortune in thousands of dollars for a single comic book edition, which will usually be done for say a “Batman” collection or any other in THAT SAME realm.
Although Archie is also “a” comic book, it isn’t viewed or regarded as being in the same comic book realm of the Batman’s (or Spidermans, or Supermans… which WAS included in that same category even if it wasn’t stated, for it was ‘implied’ by stating a TYPE of comic book)
Archie isn’t even sold in the comic book stores around here along with ‘real’ comic books sold by any self respecting comic book store owner, instead it’s usually found in supermarkets tucked along with astrology pamphlets and gossip magazines. Because to include it with other comic books would be insulting to those Batman comics and minimizing the comic book experience.
No one will run into a burning building to save some Archies, because it isn’t a comic book like “Batman” is a comic book. If my nephew asked for comic books for his birthday, I would get him the typical understood comic books found in comic book stores with a caped action superhero on the cover sort of like a “Batman” or any other action hero in that realm, but if I showed up with a bunch of Archies, and Jughead’ than I would be disappointing my nephew because he was expecting what he considers ‘comic books’ but instead he received something that is basically just might as well be just lining for his hamster’s cage.
Most folks would understand the unsaid inference of what the heckler ‘meant’ when he said it’s only a comic book unless it has Batman in it. In his eyes, (and in the eyes of the majority of people fully understanding the full scale of the comic book experience only a comic book with Batman (or other equal superhero) is fit to be worthy enough to bear the name “Comic Book”, the rest is just hamster cage lining.
You completely missed the point of what he was saying because you were only taking in the literal and very limited meaning of what was said.
But the reality is that just because say maybe Danielle Steele writes a book where her characters are Martians and they drive spaceships instead of cars won’t make her book a sci fi, if it is still her typical drama than it’s her typical danielle Steele drama that just happens to be in a sci fi setting.
If I say that there is nothing new in the sci fi channel you may argue that since Caprica is on then my assessment is incorrect, but just because there are robots in it and it’s based on another planet or planets the reality is that it is basically still a soap opera type drama and it is no way near the same category of sci fi the way Battlestar Galactica, or Star Trek is understood to be.
Just as one can not generalize that simply because ‘technically’ an Archie comic book is ‘a’ comic book that it is as much of comic book in the same way that a Batman comic book is. You would be incorrect and not seeing that an Archie comic book is so far removed and separate as to how a ‘comic book with Batman in it’ is interpreted and understood by others that the Archie type comic book is so far removed from the typical understood comic book experience that it is often not even sold in the same place as a Batman comic, a comic book store.
Now consider that people are walking on two legs, one leg can be described as the actual stated text or spoken statement, and the other leg is the inferred invisible meaning behind it. So folks are walking about using language and communicating with each other using these two legs..
But if you are taking in only the literal stated text or spoken statement you are basically just hoping on one foot.
And you can not expect the rest of the world to follow you along simply because you don’t have the other leg accessible to you.
No one is going to cripple themselves just because you have a crippled perception to the meaning behind what is said… And no one can expect them too. Just because some people were born blind doesn’t mean that the rest of the world is going to gauge their eyes out just to see and experience and express the world the same as the blind person. No. The blind person must adapt and relate to a seeing world that the others are seeing.
Take another example of what is happening here. Everyone else was born with sight, but say for example you and me were born blind. Now a question is asked: “Is this particular table square or round?’
The seeing folks look at the table and reply that it is round, now you being blind touch JUST the surface of the table and feel that it is flat, since it is not round like a ball, but it’s surface is flat like a square you incorrectly assume that because it’s surface was flat like the surfaces of a square block is also flat that the table is square…
Unfortunately you are basing this assessment by only half of the information which is what is available to you within your perceptual limitations.
I, understanding that I’m blind but wanting to visualize what everyone else is seeing so I do not stop at the surface but move my hands over the edges of the table to feel my way around into ‘seeing’ what the others are seeing. I realize that although the surface is flat, (which makes sense because we can’t eat at a table that is completely circular like a ball), that the edges are circular not linear. Thus using other senses and other compensatory skills I was able to visualize what others were automatically already seeing. And I could respond like the others that the table is indeed round.
To take thing in a literal sense is to assess things many times incorrectly. You can visually see that the literal ground you stand on is flat but if you assess that because of this limited view of what you are able to see, that the Earth is actually as flat as you see it than you would be incorrect. For it is round.
Native Americans and others understood seeing the roundness of the sun, and the moon, (even it its’ crescent shape) that the earth must also be round as well even if they didn’t perceive the roundness of it.
One can believe in the idea that they are blonde and even tell others and convince others to this ‘false’ information that they in that moment believe to be true but they can not escape ‘the reality’ that the individual is actually in fact a brunette…
No matter how much they believe otherwise, they are not only lying to others but also to themselves. And no matter how much the person authentically proclaims and in that moment also believes that he is blonde there is no escaping the fact that his hair is actually black as ink.
Believing in the idea of love is not the reality of love. Not lying because one believes in a lie does not change reality. The falsehood is still there even though at the moment the truth of the situation isn’t accessible to ‘him/her’ at that moment.
Which everyone, except you, understood that in Steve’s article. Because as you mentioned you are basing what Steve is saying on your ‘literal only’ interpretation of what he is saying. But Steve like most everyone else, is walking on two legs, the literal world and the inferred world using both the one leg of what is actually stated and the other, the implied meaning behind it, which he can convey effectively because everyone else also have these two legs to stand on as well.
You are having a problem understanding the article because you want it all in the same form accessible to you in the way that you can understand it in your literal one leg only sort of way, but you missed the rest of what was communicated in this manner and it is an impairment and you can not force people to see or experience or use language in the limited literal way that you do.
Like a blind man you have to adapt and build up compensatory skills to be able to ‘visualize’ what everyone else is already automatically seeing and understanding. I was born with that one leg only literal perception of the world but I understood early on that I had to adapt, to be able to navigate and understand the world in ways others do. That invisible inferred meaning that was the second leg that everyone else had I did not have. But I developed compensatory skills to access that reality even if it is by having a metaphorical manufactured prosthetic limb, so that I can converse and communicate effectively so that I can now understand others and be understood by others…
I hope this gets to you okay and you can understand what i’m trying to say and what is happening in your comprehension of what is said. if you like you can email me offlist at autisticsouls@gmail.com and i can try to find resources for you in your area if you are interested.
Mike
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 9:23am
Mike says:
[The Other Mike] “Most folks would understand the unsaid inference of what the heckler ‘meant’ when he said it’s only a comic book unless it has Batman in it. In his eyes, (and in the eyes of the majority of people fully understanding the full scale of the comic book experience only a comic book with Batman (or other equal superhero) is fit to be worthy enough to bear the name “Comic Book”, the rest is just hamster cage lining.
“You completely missed the point of what he was saying because you were only taking in the literal and very limited meaning of what was said.”
Mike, I explicitly said real life is not as generous as the heckler in my example revealing himself. In caps. Please, I’ll take the world where people make points like you say I missed anyday.
(Report abusive comment)
Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 9:35am
autisticsouls says:
Mike says:
Mike, I explicitly said real life is not as generous as the heckler in my example revealing himself. In caps. Please, I’ll take the world where people make points like you say I missed anyday.
(ME) I understood the REAL LIFE IS NOT SO GENEROUS part, it was my first interpretation of what he said that i internally first argued in my mind before i got it right and explained to myself again to reenforce it unto myself the defiance of reality in his explanation.
Because a part of me would argue internally that of course a comic book can be a comic book without Batman in it. it’s the first thought that comes to mind before I reevaluate and reassess my thinkings on things.
i can only realize how my own mind works and assume many times that that is how it’s coming in to other people.
The heckler explained himself but in real life most people ARE not so generous. they expect that you know what they mean and as such don’t explain themselves and it’s all a detective work from there.
When i say ‘you’ now as I just did above, i mean me. and i know i should have clarified myself but when i analyze my inner workings it’s always as a separate entity like i’m talking outloud to someone else.
it does not help that in autism many of us often collaborate things as a single entity and as a single unit so that many times we sometimes do not know where we begin or end with each other. i was treating you as an autistic even though you are not and you were unable to interpret what i was saying because you didn’t have that autistic access many of us often have with each other.
Mike
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 10:25am
ErinBrock says:
Mike (the other Mike),
Blessings, love and joy in your heart always…..
I’m sorry your feeling such pain and confliction.
Remain strong……
XXOO
EB
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 10:57am
Rosa says:
Good memories…..picture me on the tamborine.
http://www.bing.com/videos/wat.....0911070692
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:01am
autisticsouls says:
to explain further, we (many autistics) have a way of sharing information and linking towards each other so that when one of us can learn something many more of us can access and perceive the same information and many of us sort it out and explain that same information out to others.
Whatever i receive and digest and internaize i can send out to others like me and they can in turn receive it and file it away, or comment on it or debate on it further. i tried to include you because in some way you have this part of you open but not exactly though. so things are sort of bouncing back in a way.
in autism we can often connect in a way where many of us become like one person almost but expressed in different forms in different places, but with some others the individualized persons remain separate. one mind and another mind, still separate, even though the door is somewhat ajar.
in many of us like with my wife and i we become one mind, she learning in her experiences, me learning in mine but both connecting and sharing the information with each other like a download. we have many others that we do this with in all parts of the world. Jaime in Syracuse is coming in now as well as some others. two are in california area and another in England and two others i do not know where they are physically at that are also ‘online’ so to speak but in a more advanced form of internet connection…and we do argue and compromise and debate what we are experiencing with each other and through each other.
It is like being in several places at once through each other. it’s hard to explain when you are not with us in this way but somehow i thought you had that part of you open.
so you are not with us arguing and debating things even though i thought you were aware of me and the others here assessing things and absorbing things and debating points.
This is a topic that many of us are having issues with and coming to a compromise is often difficult. because right now there is an unresolved matter of how language and communication should be addressed with us as in do we conform or do we reman in one pattern thinking with our other other senses intact, mostly our non verbal communication and access to each other… someone else is saying that the more advanced and dependant we get in primitive communication it is felt that it will be to risk that many of our non verbal communications and connections will eventually get weaker, the concern being expressed now is that “Will we still be able to access each other if we become over-reliate in spoken traditional everyday forms of communicating?
i’ve no idea, so i’m just listening to what the others are saying, in my case it does get weaker the less reliant i am on it. but for those that wish to remain non verbal will my access to them get weaker and eventually break altogether?
now there is the issue being disscussed that many non verbals are not reaching verbal autistics as they once have been able to. it is something we have to seriusly consider in communication issues.
Mike
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:09am
ptsd says:
Thanks Rosa.
Big smiles. I used to sing this to my kids when they were very little..substituting “candy boy” for my son or sometimes their given names.
Very happy memory. Thanks Again!!!
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:11am
Rosa says:
The Archies are SO MUCH MORE than hamster cage lining.
The Archies were one of my favorite childhood cartoons, so please show some respect for the Archies.
Besides, I thought we were talking about chicken.
Sorry for the rant…..
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:13am
ErinBrock says:
Rosa:
No,No……
It ONLY tastes like chicken….
Sugar….aaaahhhhh honey honey….da da da da daa da…..
You are myyyyy candy girllllllll………….
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:19am
kim frederick says:
We have daygoos’, (Chilian squarrels) but they don’t eat chicken.
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:25am
ErinBrock says:
Did they escape the Earthquakes……
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:26am
kim frederick says:
My goodness those little Archie boys are cute. Ah, that I were young and living in the seventys…..hummmm.
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:27am
kim frederick says:
They are exotic pets, and live here in the US with us. Kind of like a big gerbal…very sweet.
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:30am
ErinBrock says:
I was bit by a hamster (show and tell -2nd grade, last kid to get to ‘pet’ the hamster….he was DONE!)…..never bought into the cuteness of rodents after that…..
funny enough….I still have the scar on my finger….that sucker really got me!
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:33am
kim frederick says:
I don’t think hamsters are as social….I’m sorry you got bit, though.
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:38am
autisticsouls says:
Rosa says:
The Archies are SO MUCH MORE than hamster cage lining.
(Me)but they aren’t Batman, there’s no comparison. there’s two comic book stores around here that won’t disgrace their stores with carrying them.
I actually bought my nephew the Archies and they were actually used as hamster cage lining so it was revisting another of my blunders. My gift sucked! Only my nephew hates to hurt my feelings so i didn’t even know that Archie does not qualify as an actual comic book. i just get that really weird smile and pause from people whenever i give them gifts. i so hate it when i ask them what can i get them and they say “oh anything. it doesn’t matter..” so i have to explain unless you want a pair of live rats and you’ll pretend you love that too, please elaborate.”
Mike
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 11:45am
autisticsouls says:
Oh Erin
I’m here because i had a sociopath ex best friend that i felt was like a brother to me. things went from bad to worse when he was not what i thought he was and i was being bullied and made fun of by others there.
also some other teachers were being mobbed for simply doing their jobs and he led in the mobbing, bringing others around to join in, i stepped in to defend her because that was just not happening on my watch. i’m not just going to watch such misbehavior and abuse happen and not do anything about it.
i was then next. eventually I had a complete shut down in front of everyone. i took off and was very depressed feeling like i’ve come so far but that scared bullied school boy i thought i left behind years ago was still pretty much there.
the good news is that now whenever someone is getting mobbed it just takes a few of us to call on it and confront the bullies on their behavior.
the fact that now 64 of our 67 school districts are under federal investigation sure helps. along with having a school board member taken away in handcuffs was another victory.
Teachers and parents are fighting back. now how dumb could it have been to force a teacher to quit a year after making her teacher of the year?
a psychopath killed my nurses daughter. she was just 23 years old. and sometimes i wish i can deal with that like others seem to. but i think as a guy i want to be able to do something, and there’s that male need to try to fix things and not really talk as much about it. i sometimes feel i don’t know what to say when i read thing’s like what happened to PTSD and her ex, because i don’t really know what to say to her to comfort her when i just wish i could just punch that guy out. alienating children from their mother? and not being able to fix things gives me that impotent feeling.
i’ve always enjoyed the company of women and i do not mean in a sexual way. i mean i find them more assesable and always felt safer with them and felt pretective towards them. i was never bullied by them growing up and while i always felt alieanated by my male peers and made to feel like a sissy or called a p*ssy or been called a f*gg*t because unlike other males i could not tolerate cruelity or was that picture of what a guy was supposed to behave like. these days i help out with the father’s of autistic children group, and feel comfortable that i can be with men that like me one day we all wore our t-shirts that stated ‘Real Men Change Diapers’, “Real Men don’t Hit Women,” and other such proclamation printed on them so that others start to see other options in behaviors that just because we behave differently we are not any less of a man than others are. Society has this conditioning that we have to retrain ourselves and our sons in how to behave because while not every guy is a psychopath many guys have that example shoved down their throats that this is the ‘model’ we’re supposed to follow and if we don’t follow it we’re ebing a p*ssy or a “Mary” or soft or weak. and it’s a godawful pressure we have where such things like how many women we have slept with is something that is used to determine our manliness. ?!?!
Anyhow it’s retraining men that being respectful and considerate doesn’t = weakness. because sometimes i feel that while maybe a young man may not even have the sociopathic inclinations that it’s almost forced or pressured upon him in the movies, tv shows we see and in society in general. so that society is essentially creatng more negative issues by how our boys and young men are raised by the examples in society gives them to model themselves to that it molds them negative.
i know that have to do something. and i want to design a ribbon for Odalina’s sake. because she was somebody and what happened should never have happened to her.
and i’m here because i can’t forget what happened to her and I will figure out a way to honor her memory and not ever forget how she died. i don’t want her to just be another statistic, or just some story on the news that folks will forget about eventually. and i feel awareness is very important and vital and we must somehow come together to bring this about.
i’ve come to realize i’ve always been faced with these predators down to back when i was in school and forced to have my head pushed down a toilet. and that they have always been around everywhere and no one seems to want to take much notice or address the issue.
i’ve got a wall looking like something from a movie where i cut out newspaper clippings from reports and or headlines of things that happen all around us that is i feel caused by some form of socio/psycho/ASPD whatever it’s called commiting various crimes all over against us all. And i must do my part even if it’s not always to just sit here and hold hands with you all. but smehow to realize that knwing what i now know that i must now do my part or else we will all continue to be victims. and i think fighting back is making society aware and not allowing society to ignore the issue and finally face the fact and start talkning about these predators like AIDS awareness, Breast Cancer Awareness, Autism Awareness. it all starts somewhere.
Mike
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 12:52pm
CAmom says:
autisticsouls (mike)
I so agree with you…as a parent with a special needs child, i know how traumatic bullying is…and girls can bully just as much as boys at certain ages. i felt like fighting back, wished some of my daughter’s high school bullies would dare to take on a mom (and i’m barely over 5′ tall—but bring ‘em on!).
My friend’s with sons are trying to bring them up in responsible ways and eliminate the faux-identity of the *masculine* male…i’ve always enjoyed men who were people first, then men, if that makes sense?
Designing a ribbon is a good idea…and making society aware of sociopaths *is* a great first step.
I was never much of a fighter until it came to having to advocate for her in the school system and beyond. Some people are so marginalized for being “different” and we have to be their voices.
You’re right..it all starts somewhere.
Back to work now–have a good day Mike. You’re fighting the ggod fight!
CAmom
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 1:20pm
ptsd says:
Please copy and paste this to your status if you know someone, or have been affected by someone, who needs a punch in the face. People who need a punch in the face affect the lives of many. There is still no known cure for someone who deserves a punch in the face, except a punch in the face, but we can start to raise awareness.
I just became friends on fb with someone I went to high school with. This is her status line!
I responded by saying I would give one in her defense if she would give one in mine.
AFter a bit of back and forth, I say “unfortunately 4 – 10% of the population qualifies”
She said it’s higher in B town…someone else chimed in it’s higher in T town.
Just thought I would share that with you Mike. The timing and sentiment was uncanny.
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 1:25pm
blueskies says:
Mike:)x Just got up the gumption to say that, even though I never feel clever enough to comment directly on your posts… I am so glad you joined LF:)x I think your “influence” ( I feel that you have no influence “angle”… which is so ace…:) has been so beneficial… in lots of ways to all of us:)x
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 3:15pm
kim frederick says:
I agree with Blue, Mike, I’m glad you’re here. You have a lot of REAL insight and sensitivity.
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 3:26pm
OxDrover says:
Mike, we have a pretty “diverse” group here, and that’s an understatement! LOL You add a wonderful pallet of colors to that rainbow! Thanks Mike for being here with your great insight and wonderful compassion. ((((hugs)))))
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 4:20pm
Mike says:
And Mike, thank you for trusting me enough to intervene here on my behalf.
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 4:32pm
blueskies says:
(autisticsouls says: x) as for the above..PUH!!
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 4:50pm
autisticsouls says:
Mike, i have been always been a glass is half full kind of guy, it’s really in my nature to think the best of people until proven otherwise. too often i’ve been told I am too trusting in general and i’ve been told i’m way too naive. And yes that has caused me great trauma and has left me open to betrayal which was why i found myself here… But i can’t change who i am. It’s my nature and perhaps i have not been traumatized enough that i still want to see the good in people and hope that maybe i’m not proven wrong later…
So it’s not really that i trust you as much as in general i trust people. because I WANT to trust them, and I want to beleive that they are who they say they are. And I know that i’m a big boy surrounded by people who love me and if i’m ever wrong about anyone i know I can survive it.
Now if you ever met my wife, that’s a complete other story… But we balance each other out.
PTSD, CaMom, Blueskies, Kim, Oxy you women all make me blush. you are great gals, i’m not even half as supportive as you all are to each other.
MIke
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 5:32pm
witsend says:
autisticsouls,
Mike to many of us, you are like a breath of fresh air. Please don’t underestimate yourself here on lf. Your thoughts and input are appreciated by many.
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 5:40pm
autisticsouls says:
Des is taking the computer…
be so i be so proud you ladies know mine Mike be sweet as honey.
be so this makes me much proud.
hello Mike this be the wife of other Mike.
be so i ask you
be you a pretender or or be you not?
it be what some be thinking. they be so apply themselves to the security of the rule of “better safe than sorry.” in this forum you naught should take such concerns personalike for pretenders like amalek strike from the back, hitting the weak and broken. it is much sport for themselves.
if it speaks like a pretender, and moves like a pretender be so causing confusion like a pretender chance be so higher that they be likely a pretender. not saying this be so. just saying it be a feasable possibility.
if you not in the knowing that you have much mannerisms of a pretender be so i tell it to you now. So you can have understandings whys the everyday peoples here in LF have wariness of you.
be so i have no need to dwell into speculations on such matters or into the collecting of red flags and i just ask you outright.
a simple yes or no would suffice.
no need to go into a dialogue as you must be in awareness that your communication skills are a bit pisspoor. And i be having naught patience in the dissecting through the confusion. life is just too short. i be also have a healthy disinterest in people.
This be not meant to be insulting just simply stating a fact. Your original post be so more resulting in responses of ..Huh?.. What? and WTF?
so being a grown man it be much likely that by now you must have long realized that there be issues in your communication skills. be so it is not very likely that it is a newsflash to you. maybe in child people as of yet unaware. but you are no child. it not likely that you have grown into adulthood and just now have as such an “Aha” moment that peoples are not getting you.
Be so i be naught telling you anything that you don’t already know.
it be naught to be insulting that i address your communication as I be so complete non verbal until aged nine and naught have full use of language until years after then. and so it be with mine limited grip of language and communication skills i be so knowing that i be so more skilled in getting mine point across than you have been at getting yours.
be naught insulted by mine direct approach of asking you outright if you be pretender or not. be so i am not accusing or speculating. i being no pretender will not come in from the back door or from the side. mine code is to face peoples with mine concerns and ask outright.
As you must know there be many pretender’s come along here. be so many be weeded out quickly.
be so others make a more challenging sport of trojan horse activities. it be what they do.
Mine Mike be much predictable. be so he coming before to the aid of Nicolaid naught long ago which can readily be seen publicly in the archives.
be so if I be a pretender knowing that Mike being autistic it may be much sport to a pretender to feign autistic symptoms and or common communication issues knowing that it would be likely recognized by an autistic educator who will attempt to do what he seems to have exhibited a pattern of doing which is to behave in protective and rescuer type form.
it be his nature. he be an open book in this regard. If not you, some other pretender would like to make sport of himself and such issues.
if you naught think that pretenders make such sport of things, i tell to you now that they do so.
be so a pretender woman playing damsel in distress it will be so mine Mike naught have a fighting chance. be so he be a gentleman, be so he be a righteous man, be so he be a chivarous, and be so he love fairness.
be it also so true that he might as well be walking about with a “kick me” sign on his back. be so lucky for himself he has got mineself. because pretenders will be so have a field day with himself if they be so given a chance. i be the bitch at his side that will ensure that naught happen.
be it not so that i be in a state of paranoia. i am not given to such hysteria. i move in logic. I do not move in faith in people. life is no fairy book. i be honest and realist. and i will express mine wariness openly and question openly and outright. be it so that i know you not from Adam. mine Mike be so wanting to help yourself like he be so wanting to help people because that be what he does. he be so to live his life in the service of people. i be not in the pratice of ignoring human frialties and vices, and weaknesses. i am aware that i be not a people person.
be so i be his wife that ensures naught no one take advantage of himself. or cause conflict for himself. be so mine Mike has much respect and care for these women here and be so i will ensure that no one cause conflict between himself and these peoples that be so his friends. pretender breeds and everyday peoples alike.
be so i tell of you where i be so coming from.
all i ask that you respond yes or no.
Are you a pretender?
Des
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Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 9:08pm
Mike says:
[posted under the other Mike's LF account]
“hello Mike this be the wife of other Mike.
“be so i ask you
“be you a pretender or or be you not?
“it be what some be thinking.”
[/cite]
I’m taking this as a message from the other Mike’s wife, who Mike himself described as suspicious.
“[noun] be [verb]?”
G, is that you? It doesn’t have to be, but encountering 2 people acquainted with this practice seems unlikely enough that it’s plausible it’s you. Or maybe I’m out of touch. You’ll have to let me know.
If it is you, is there something I’m leaving out that changes the context of what I’ve been saying? What misrepresentation of the truth have I tried to pass here?
But to answer your request, no. Everything I’ve posted has been presented according to what I’m experiencing. I mean what I said about looking my judgment in the eye. If it is you, G, I can’t think of anything I’ve done that would make you doubt that, that you’d have to ask.
If our exchanges as they’re documented here — which has all there’s been — make your Mike more vulnerable than anyone else here, you or anyone else here can always post an explanation why that is. It will be news to me. You can let me know if not knowing has made me privileged or disadvantaged.
[posted under the other Mike's LF account] “be so if I be a pretender knowing that Mike being autistic it may be much sport to a pretender to feign autistic symptoms…”
I don’t know how this concern applies to me, because if your Mike thinks I’m autistic, it goes against what he’s explicitly said. I certainly can’t go by arbitrarily denying what anyone says.
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 5:09pm
ErinBrock says:
MIKE….(NOT autisticsouls)…..but the ‘new’ MIKE….
I would be greatly appreciative if you could ’share’ your story and how we could be of support to you.
Most of what youv’e questioned, thus far should be directed at the author of the article, of which you seem to be seriously doubting ‘who’ you are, or how you are percieved, judging by ‘how’ this article was written……
I’m sure the author could direct you more productively as to ‘what he meant’ and why he chose the terminology that he did which seemed to hit a nerve in you, than debating and being confrontational with other posters…..asking for something they can’t offer you.
I see circles….where no one can say the right thing to you. Please go direct to the aurthor.
I have read your posts, and I see the obvious aggressive nature, and unable to tell you the ‘right words’.
How can we support you??? Is this what your looking for?
I am suspect of WHY you have accused other posters of being someone other than who they claim…this has been a repeated strand in your writings………This is a projection, and it’s not productive OR healthy….for YOU suffering from low esteem OR other posters here healing.
This behavior also makes me question your motives. I am ‘calling you to the mat’…..
How can we help you? Can we? Is this what your looking for….If so….Let the community know HOW. Please.
If I am wrong…..please accept my applogy….
I look forward to hearing your story…..
and how we can give you a hand up and support your journey.
If we can’t be of support to you……Well….best to you.
XXOO
EB
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 5:43pm
kim frederick says:
Sugar, ba ba ba ba ba baaaah, ahh, honey honey, ba ba ba ba ba baaaah…..
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 5:59pm
Mike says:
While I try to reframe what I’ve already said to your expressed concerns, I do have some immediately responses and questions to your post:
[EB] “Most of what youv’e questioned, thus far should be directed at the author of the article…”
Erin, if the author is blind to the discussion-thread of his own article, you’re just letting me know that this is the case. [I SEE NO CONTACT INFORMATION FOR STEVE.] If the LF authors are blind to the discussions they generate, this is very telling to what new posters can expect from this website. Will you please confirm if this is so?
[EB] “I have read your posts, and I see the obvious aggressive nature…”
I’m glad my aggression is obvious because — by definition of the word obvious — it’s almost no imposition on my part to ask you to cite what I said you find aggressive. I have no reservation against making a correction.
[Me]
““[noun] be [verb]?”
“G, is that you? It doesn’t have to be, but encountering 2 people acquainted with this practice seems unlikely enough that it’s plausible it’s you. Or maybe I’m out of touch. You’ll have to let me know.”
[EB]
“I am suspect of WHY you have accused other posters of being someone other than who they claim…this has been a repeated strand in your writings………”
[/cite]
I asked a question, for which I allowed a negative answer. As far as I know, pretty much by definition, I haven’t made an accusation.
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 6:14pm
learnthelesson says:
Just logged on to find uncomfortableness here at LF…
All of us, including both Mikes, remember to follow your instincts and trust yourself, work toward learning and growing from others, and steer clear of ones who make you feel uncomfortable. You (we) have A CHOICE to engage or not.
Des, Mike could say yes (and it not be true)… Mike could say no (and it not be true). Would either answer make you feel more comfortable with Mike? If Mikes contribution and conversations are insightful to you and helping you to learn and grow – then thats one way to view it. If Mikes contribution and conversations arent insightful to you or arent causing you to grow and learn than thats another way to view it.
Autistic Souls — I read your post about trusting others. I relate…very much… I still struggle with believing there is good in everyone. I have enforced a new way to alter my view — I trust people who earn my trust. Their actions, their ways, the way they treat me, the way they handle themselves, are they evolving or stuck in a toxic place they are ok with but I cant relate to… so many new ways to learn to trust others – simply by believing there is good in everyone – but some of them dont want to tap into it, or have chosen to live in a toxic manner. It allows me to see that I cannot trust everyone – but the ones who earn my trust – I am absolutely going to, until they give me a redflag reason not to trust them.
Know your red flags. Stick to the boundaries you wish to have in place. When they are crossed it is a sign to choose to move on or choose to get involved with a toxic situation.
EB – your advice to direct questions directly to the author was a great suggestion!
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 6:16pm
kim frederick says:
Eb, One step, Oxy and all,
It was a beautiful Spring day here, and I being a beginning knitter, I decided to go yarn shopping…I’m planning to make SOCK PUPPETS for my GK this Easter…I’ve got some really cute patterns of bunnies and chicks and ducklings….I’m soooo enjoying my new hobbie. I was always too emotionally envolved with one P or another to have a hobby. But, like I said last night…It’s meO’clock…….:)
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 6:21pm
Mike says:
[EB] “I would be greatly appreciative if you could ’share’ your story and how we could be of support to you.”
Erin, I don’t know you from Adam or Eve, and the attack posts Donna A felt the need to purge — the first post of which wasn’t even mine — had more posts from you than me.
Only 3 of my posts were sacrificed from that purged series — having given up after 3 — and they were all direct replies to posts directed at me [-- all of which were also deleted].
Considering the principle of Occam’s Razor, I’ve decided to not take your offer of help as sincere. You’re welcome to offer me something else to think instead. Otherwise, I’m not going to think about your offer anymore, and you’re welcome to not think more of any of my posts.
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 6:40pm
learnthelesson says:
Kim – It was a washout where I live…but i know those showers will eventually bring beautiful flowers!! We should all start a new hobby! Im leaning toward photography! When the sun shines again, I am going to go to the park and take random pictures of nature and the changes that occur during Spring! Thanks for sharing your post! Good luck with the SOCK PUPPETS!
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 6:56pm
learnthelesson says:
EB – did you once mention skin product or products you used ? My teenage daughter is looking for something as nothing seems to be working – I think you mentioned some combination of products… I have CRS though – so I might be wrong. LOL
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 6:58pm
learnthelesson says:
Blueskies – I hope you are enjoying the peace and comfort of your home again and that there was no fallout from encouraging your niece to become more independent! xo
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 6:59pm
OxDrover says:
Kim, as a “retired” knitter Ii share your enthusiasm, I love to knit, but my hands are worn out and it is difficult for me to do it any more (bi-lateral carpal tunnel syndrome & surgery) I let me tell you a great way to get nearly FREE yarn! It takes a bit of learning but you can get great sweaters at good will and ravel them out, you will need a ball-winder (available on the internet) and it is great for the larger weight WOOL yarns that are so expensive.
While you are learning, the store bought, or cheaper, yarns are fine, but when you get where your stitches are even, you will want to use more natural fibers that last longer.
I used to like to just sit down and ZONE out like a POTTED PLANT and knit off in my other little world JUST PRETENDING THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE IN THE WORLD, especially toxic people. It is THERAPY! Sometimes I would SING along with something on the radio.
La la laaaaa la laaaa! See we are SINGING THE SAME SONG!
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:04pm
kim frederick says:
Thanks, LTL. I wish I’d been knitting for the last 30 years, some of the things I want to make are sooo beautiful, but my skill set just isn’t there yet.
We have buds on the tree here, daffodills blooming and, I think they’re plum blossems on the trees. Just lovely. I think photography sounds like a great new endeavor.
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:06pm
witsend says:
LTL- I hope that your son is doing better.
I think this is one of those times to busy oneself like Kim and knit some sock puppets or if your like me and don’t have a current project going maybe time to water the potted plants.
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:07pm
erin1972 says:
You make me think I should start getting the yarn out again. I used to enjoy that myself.
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:08pm
kim frederick says:
Oxy, ROTFLMAO. Yes, I can name that tune in…2 notes.
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:10pm
autisticsouls says:
be so thankful notmyMike, i be Des, myMike be designing t-shirts and black ribbons.
i be so inclined that ALL be pretenders until thoughts move otherwise.
need naught take offense, to mineself, ALL be suspect. myMike trusts everyone. be so i trust but a few.
Be so your communication skills strangely like ours but they be also like them others. be so i ask. i like naught being in wonderment.
so i ask.
so you answer.
That’s it.
I know of three other autistics that write as i do.
I am Desdemona Julianne. I am naught G.
Lovefraud authors are on the front page of the blog:
http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/authors/
Des
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:18pm
ErinBrock says:
LTL:
)
Yes, It’s Dr. Bronners Peppermint castile soap….liquid….mix a few drops of Tea tree oil with it….and it’s WONDERFUL!
I’ve used it since I was a kid….(only about 4years
And I’ve had my kids using it too….
It’s great for a nice complexion!
I’m glad your baby’s doing better….it’s been a tough go for you all!!!
Here’s to better days ahead!!
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:23pm
learnthelesson says:
Dear Witsend,
Thank you. It was quite the journey. Over-the-top kindda stuff happened in the hospital – but it all was necessary to get his health back on track.
I have a question for you and any parents here. My son asked me about death last night. I have 3 children. I had brief conversations about death in the past with his sisters. But I think because of his journey – he has had reason to wonder about it moreso than his sisters. I couldnt take his fear and confusion away. No matter what I said, I just couldnt reach him last night like I usually can.
He asked “will it be all darkness” will I be able to see things like I do now” “will there be furniture” . I shared about our bodies and our spirits and souls and that he is just like every other person in the world – full of questions and wonderment about death – and many of us choose to believe what feels right about death or what happens after we leave this life…and I shared some believe this or that or reincarnation or a following a bright light…but that its nothing to fear but its hard not to fear. We will always have ourselves when we are here in this life and when we die so we wont be alone…..
But I can tell I have not settled his fear…if anybody has had experience with a circumstance like this and can share some words of comfort or advice for him, I would greatly appreciate it. I was not prepared. I just wasnt, not for this one question. Thanks
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:24pm
autisticsouls says:
be so hello there LTL,
much distraught many be
be so now pretenders being and going to autism and Asperger groups because professional peoples naught want of themselves to name themselves psychopaths or sociopaths or ASPD and so give themselves asperger labels instead!
they be so naming pretenders autistic and asperger syndrome be so because they naught want to say S-word or P-word and they be themselves to give them A-word instead.
be so i want myMike off online groups safely away where i can sniff peoples. as i can adeptly smell pretenders. be so i see online i can naught use this skill. be so i say myMike to keep safe. be so he does what he wants and has friends here.
I know naught myMike’s interest in being in online groups nows when i think somewhat this be dangerous, but so he needed help once. i think he be all better now. time to move on to other things i say.
be so he naught. now be be making ribbons and t-shirts, which be like raging war on pretenders. be so he be wanting to save the world. be so i say let it go to hell. i be having no need to save sodom or gomorrah. Take the few home, burn the rest.
the answer to the question never mattered, LTL. it be simply the reaction to the question that i be looking for.
Des
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:29pm
ErinBrock says:
I play offensive….
I don’t ‘dance’, especially with someone who doesn’t know the steps….
I’d rather sing…..
I remember a childhood song…..that reminds me of being in company with a toxic person…..
It goes like this……
“And when your only half way up…..your neither up nor down”
They can either claim to be UP or DOWN……depending on how they choose to do the twist…..at the moment….
Sorry…..can’t be both…..
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:34pm
kim frederick says:
LTL, Your last post moved me so much. I think you did a better job explaining to him than I would have….I wonder what does happen to us and I’m 51, I wonder how a kid “understands”.
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:36pm
OxDrover says:
Dear LTL,
I don’t know what your spiritual or religious beliefs are, but I can imagine that a kid would be afraid of separation from those he loves.
I remember a story about a little girl whose dog died, and she had been taught that dogs don’t have souls and she asked her mother “will Fluffy go to heaven” and her mother said “I don’t know, but if it takes fluffy being there to make you happy, then she will be.”
I think your answer to your son may have been as good as any I can think of, but you might want to reinforce for him that he will never be alone or unprotected and that we live in each other’s hearts and minds. Just like when he is at school and you are not physically there, you both still ARE—and that no matter what you will always love him.
It’s a tough question, and especially when it is SPRUNG on you and you are not expecting it. I don’t believe in lying to a child that is dying or to an adult for that matter, but at the same time, TRUTH still must be framed in a way that they can understand it and grasp it.
God bless, glad he is okay now! ((((hugs)))))
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:47pm
learnthelesson says:
Des — I like your post. I totally like your last two sentences. I should have known. Im learning and growing everyday here. Thank you for sharing your last post. I cant imagine no longer learning and growing here at LF, but I guess if ever I stopped learning and growing here, that perhaps I would consider finding more for myself. But I cherish my journey here. Sharing is what I like to do and receive in return from my on-line friends and people who pass through. I hope both you and your husband find you would like to continue on here, but I do understand your words you express and respect your choices.
Thank you for sharing something I learned more about tonight…the reaction to the question is something to look for as well.
Kim – Thank you – he made me wonder last night too. It was moving to me to be part of the experience, I just felt at a loss. But youre right I did do my best — i just wanted to help him be at peaceful place again.
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:47pm
Mike says:
[Des] “be so he be wanting to save the world. be so i say let it go to hell.”
Des, I like my crackpots Ishmael, not Ahab. Thanks, and take care.
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:48pm
ErinBrock says:
Okay…..
I’m sitting here LMAO…..the belly gut laugh…..
I just got a call from a ‘relative’…..
Informing me the S has a FB page…
SO……..yes….where I go…..kaboom….there it is….
OMG…..
BI, loves children, THE BIBLE….hisfavoritebook?
But…..what really, really,really made me PROUD…..
Favorite quote…..
“lifes a bitch, then you marry one”
“Someone please help me change that….”
I thought this was HILARIOUS….reads like…..I need help…..someone rescue this bi dude…..
His quote was like an ‘award’ to me!!! Showing just how idiodic he is……..
He also states….Honesty is the best policy……
Spath speak….(for others).
His profile read like a predators……and it is just another good confirmation…….
I love it when I can get a good laugh……at the expense of an S!!!!
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 7:57pm
autisticsouls says:
LTL,
i be so wrong many times now.
I be to have lost favor with the Almighty. bitterness has seeped into mine bones.
Mine time in this world broke me.
I thought not it be possible.
Don’t hold too much faith in mineself. for i am lost now. i so lost faith in the world and lost faith in humanity with Odalina’s murder. Why would i be allowed to so see that and not be so able to stop it?