Why Do We Stay For All That Abuse?

"For sociopaths, control is like a drug; it's what drives them; it's like cocaine to their system. They need a victim. They need to have someone to control. So they create that victim through charm. Just knowing that they can always get back this person, even when they heap hurt upon hurt on them somehow boosts whatever's missing for them, whether it's a self-esteem issue or not. They thrive on having their behaviour go unpunished." http://www.outlish.com/loving-a-sociopath/

For a sociopath/psychopath the need to have a victim to control is insatiable. They are master con artist. They appear to be the "boy next door", the suave business man, the romantic artist, they put on a show to become the person they know you're longing for. How do they know who you're longing for? Some say psychopaths have a 6th sense.Ted Bunday for example said he could spot a victim in 6 seconds by the tilt of her head when she walked. I don't think a psychopath has to be a violent killer to master this technique. They all have it.  Amazingly how they are emotionally immature and shallow, yet they can read our deepest desire and thoughts like Kreskin. They've been doing it since birth. By the time a psychopath reaches adulthood he/she has a a lot of practice pretending to be something he/she is not. It's a matter of survival for them. A fresh live victim is their life's blood. Therefor it's primeval and instinctual to read you like a book and become what it is you want. Be vigilant in reading the subtle signs in the beginning. Some things simply can't be pretended away. If you know what to look for. I'll tell you what a few of those things are later in this post.


Mine would use sympathy. He would pretend to be so sad and lonely w/out me. He would flatter me and hold both my hands all night long while we slept. He'd tell me he doesn't hold other woman at all. He doesn't like to cuddle, except with me of course. I'm the exception because I'm special. At the same time he would rarely kiss me and tell me it's because he didn't love me enough. Kissing was just too special and saved for the woman he would marry. I would get incredible mixed msgs. In one breath, "I love you." The next breath I'd get, "I can't kiss you."  Then the next breath "I only hold you this way. You are different than every other girl I've been with. There is something special about you." followed by "you're not special enough to marry, though I do love you."  Can you see how confused a person can be?

Perhaps his best ploy though was to play on my empathy, which is the very reason he chose me in the first place. The more empathetic, moral and virtuous the woman, the more intense the challenge to conquer her and destroy her. She'll fall harder than someone whose already low.

Hope is eternal. Let's face it, we all want love. We all want that special person to spend the rest of our lives with.  The psychopath is aware of this. The person he/she pretended to be, the illusion he/she created is what becomes that person you're longing for. So, when the bait and switch happens and you realize this person next to you is not who you initially began dating, you fool yourself with your own memories. You see this person through those eyes of the intitial courtship. You are sure at some point that person will return. He/ she won't. He/she never existed in the first place.

The sympathy and build me up ploy. I was asked several times each day, what do you like about me? Do you like my eyes? Do you like  my lips? What's your favorite thing about me? What would you rate me on a scale of 1 - 10? I at first thought this was insecurity talking. In hindsight I see this was his way of feeding his ego. Tell me, tell me, tell me all the things that are wonderful about me!!

He spent a great deal of time telling me how he lacked confidence as well. How he didn't think he was attractive enough, smart enough, or charming enough to lure women. Of course I would always reply with compliments. Ego "Feed me, feed me feed me!!! Yet that is exactly what he did, continually. Lure women.

No woman likes to see her man cry. Now if you accuse your man of horning you or behaving inappropriately, and he doesn't want you to leave, he does several things, the top one being... cry. Now if he starts to boohoo like a big baby, with snatty nose and the whole works, you're more likely to dismiss his show. But when a man puts down a Denzel Washington tear a la John Q, something in your heart breaks, and you forgive him. In the back of your mind, you know something's wrong... very wrong, but how can you say no to such tightly wound up, deep emotion?

http://www.outlish.com/loving-a-sociopath/

So how do you spot them early on if they are so good and charming? Remember, they are pretending to be someone they are not.  They are pretending their emotions by mimicking and mirroring yours. You can cut to the chase by delving into deep emotional self reflective topics early on. Like date 1 or 2!
Ask him/her to reflect on past relationships.Sociopaths hate to talk about their emotions, because they have none. They aren't incredibly deep thinkers or largely self reflective. They don't have the capacity for it. If your psychopath is in the idealization phase and is pretending to idealize you and he intends to keep you his victim for a period of time, he may attempt to play along and discuss feelings and emotions of prior relationships. If he's already conquered you and he's in the devalue stage, good luck getting him to talk about anything that isn't his agenda. Let's say for arguements sake, he/she's agreed to delve into prior relationships with you. Here are some good questions to start with.

Where did he/she go wrong? How did he contribute to the relationship not working? 
Did he feel the same in the beginning of the relatioship as he did in the end?
If he says yes, that's a red flag. If he knew from the start the relationship would go nowhere why drag it out and string the poor girl along building her hopes and letting her love grow only to leave her in the end? That act alone shows a man who is not empathetic to the needs of those he claims to care about. He was feeding his own need by keeping her around until she was no longer useful, then discard. Classic psychopathic behavior.
Did he lead her to believe otherwise?
Did he actually marry her?
If so, how are you to know his intentions with you are sincere?

Does he have a string of prior short term, or toxic relationships? If so, red flag.

How does he talk about prior relationship's? Does he show much emotion? Does he conjure up plenty of "ummm's"  If so, another red flag. Psychopaths have difficulty talking about or recalling emotions for several reasons. First they don't have any. If they do have some, they are limited and shallow. Second, their memories aren't based on emotion like ours are. Their memories are based on strategic goals, and neutral win/fail occurrences. Psychopaths operate purely on a cause and effect basis. Every action they take, every word they say is for a specific purpose designed to create an effect of some kind. Most often the effect of creating an illusion to you of who they are. If you are in the devalue stage, you are already sure you're dealing with someone who clearly is "off" in some way. A psychopaths entire existence at that point is cruelty and pain dished out at your expense. They are working on getting you to eventually leave them because of the cruelty they inflict. By your leaving them they are completely absolved of any responsibility for the break-up. At least as far as they see it.
Is your man/women a blame gamer? Does he/she have to assign blame to someone for something that went wrong. If so, who is to blame? Why assign blame?

If you're lucky enough to get "references" from prior relationships. Talk with them. Ask them about their experiences in the relationship. Would they set that person up with their best friend? Why? Why not? After all who better to know what this person is like the another who was in your shoes at some point and time.  Granted you may not know these people well either. You may not trust their integrity. But, if you talk to more than one and you get similar stories. That's a red flag that is waving high, loud, and long!

You can also bring up topics of politics, religions, introspection, these are all difficult topics for the psychopath to relate to. Depending on what phase relationship is in, he'll either humor you (idealize phase) yet if you probe for deeper thinking you'll see him/her become flustered. If you're in the devalue phase you'll get resistance to even discuss the topics. Most likely you be verbally abused for how inept you are in these areas therefor not worth your psychopaths time to even attempt discussing such matters.

Breaking Up With a Sociopath

I'm going to add a few links of what experts and others who have experience with sociopaths and then I'll give my personal experience. My personal experience by the way makes Neil Sadaca's Breaking Up is Hard to Do song seem like child's play. It makes Paul Simon's 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover  a hysterical joke to a sociopath. They are all about control. They'll control when/how often you see them. They control whether you are breaking up, making up, on the verge of breaking up/making up and all other ways in between. They are always in complete control. Don't think you can beat them at their own game. They've had a lifetime of practice dealing with sociopath's behavior.  You're experience and your brains "normal" way of seeing human behavior and emotions are quite comical to your sociopath.

Alright...links and then my story. This first link is a blog managed a self professed sociopath. I'm not sure I agree with much of what he states on his blog. I have no idea if he is a true sociopath or not. But, I do know that much of what he says about breaking up with a sociopath is correct. Proceed with caution.

How to Break Up with a Sociopath


This next link comment about "you can't do anything right" is correct. To your sociopath you won't even be able to break up correctly. He'll hound you, try to get you to pity him, he'll be mean, he'll be kind, he'll be charming, he'll be pathetic. He'll be whatever he feels you need him to be in order to keep him in your life. He won't respect your boundaries. He will break you down. You'll have to threaten and/or phone the police because that is the only way to stop him. Authority is the only thing he hates more than your petty emotions.

Q & A from those who've experience breaking up with a sociopath.


When using this next link be sure to scroll to the bottom and follow other links it offers regarding how to recognize and deal with a sociopath.

Recognizing, dealing with and breaking up with pychopath/sociopath


I am now calling my sociopath, a psychopath because after much research and investigation he fits the profile more closely. Although experts still don't have an agreement on what the distinction between a sociopath and psychopath is if there is indeed any.  For my purpose and the belief that I lean toward is that they both are the same with the exception that the psychopath's only intent is to hurt, harm and destroy. A sociopath does that as well, but their main objection is narcissism, to feed their ego at all cost. If you get hurt along the way, so be it. But, they are too busy taking care of their own needs to spend time plotting and schemings the best way to cut you the deepest. This is just my personal opinion. There is no scientific basis for it. Now on we have some breaking up to do.

Breakups with my psychoopath became as common as tieing your shoes before walking around in them. Most times, it got done. Sometimes we'd be in a hurry and forget to get that taken care of. Either way, our shoes wouldn't remain tied for long. Before much time has passed, we'd be retieing, untying and double knoting. Our first breakup was early on. I don't recall the exact time frame.  Likely, the first breakup came somewhere between the 3 - 6 month mark. I hadn't yet figured out he was a psychopath, nor had any inclination of what that meant. I do know he would give me double msgs. I would often be confused about his intentions. He was "jumpy" at the idea of being called a "boyfriend" and had numerous reasons why he wasn't comfortable with that title. A variety of reasons that changed along with the weather. Sometime between 3 - 6 months I decided I'd had enough of the mixed signals and broke it off. To my surprise he was phoning me w/in hrs telling me how much he missed me, and how he didn't want to be w/out me. I don't remember how many days these phone calls went on before we began seeing one another again. Perhaps a week to 10 days. Things were relatively calm for a brief period of time perhaps for several weeks. Then he began talking about other women and his interest in them. Simultaneously making me feel as if I was his salvation. As if I was the only person on earth he cared to spend time with. Being with me was like air to him. (big red flag I know realize). From that first break up, to these mixed signals, to him talking about other women just continued and escalated. Within about a year I realized I was in a toxic relationship, but by then the victim/perpetrator bond had been established and he knew exactly how to work me to get everything he wanted. As well as how to cause me the most pain and turmoil. 

The bottom line is, a psychopath needs constant stimulation. They get bored very easily. One way to entertain themselves is by playing with your emotions and keeping you off balance and in constant turmoil. This roller coaster lifestyle becomes normal for you over time. As much as you dislike it. When the breakups occur and they'll occur often the lack of the chaos leaves the victim feeling empty and lost. An emptiness unlike one you've ever felt before. It's during that time of weakness and vulnerability that the psychopath begins to work his way back into your life. Each time the two of you go through a break-up/make-up experience the perpetrator sees you the victim as becoming weaker and weaker in one respect. But, also the victim is becoming unresponsive to the abuse. The psychopath needs that emotional reaction and rush from the victims heartbreak. To keep the momentum going the psychopath will continue to increase his demands and abuse. It's also during this time, which is called the "devalue" stage of the relationship, the psychopath is working on attaining the next victim. During the break up phases he has more time to work on securing the next women w/the idealization phase. This may also be the time when he ups what is called triangulation. This is where he tells the new woman how different she is from the old one. How he appreciates this/that about her. At the same time  he's telling the current victim whom he is devaluing all the things that are wrong with her. He'll briefly mention this other woman, the new one in line and how patient she is in this regard or that regard. He hasn't let on he is dating this other woman yet. But, makes it known he COULD if he wanted, In this way he is setting up a competition between the two women. Thinking that they each will do more and more for him in order to be the "winner".

My psychopath used this term with me often. When he'd been pursuing another person and dangling the 'threat' of her over me. He'd often say, "you won."  I'm not going be her "friend" anymore because it makes you uncomfortable. Of course this was also a lie. In all likelihood she had refused to keep seeing him because he hadn't yet given me up. And on and on it goes. Like a merry-go-round. Before you know it this relationship has become sick, tainted, destruction and you feel as if you are dying. But, getting away from the psychopath at this time is incredibly difficult. Unless and until the psychopath is ready to let you go, the relationship and abuse could go on indefinitely.

If you suspect your partner is a psychopath I 'd recommend getting out quickly.  You should cut off all contact. Change your phone number, email address, if you have to your residence. Tell your employer he isn't allowed to come to your workplace. Block him from all social networks. It's the time when you decide to get out when the psychopath feels the biggest challenge and will work exstremely hard telling you everything you want to hear, promising you anything to get you to take him back. It is all words though. Whether your partner is a psychopath, or you just suspect he is a psychopath is plenty of reason to make that break immediately and cleanly. Best of luck!  Check out the break-up resources on this blog for more help in breaking up with your psychopath. Feel free to comment or msg me if you have any question or what further information.

So What Now?

I'm starting this blog as part of the healing process from having been in love with and been in a relationship with a sociopath for the last 8 years. It has been 8 years of utter hell; A roller coaster, a flood of tears, anger, confusion, misunderstanding, and questioning of everything I know to be true about myself and of human nature in general. Today, I'm just going to blog random thoughts as I process the events of the last 8 years. In the coming weeks I'll outline the timeline of the relationship, going over details of how it began, significant events, why I remained loyal to this man for so long (as best I can understand myself) and what has led me to believe I have been sleeping with and loving a sociopath for the better part of 8 years. 

Today's "Ah hah!" moment. There are many such moments flooding my mind the past 24 hours as I've just discovered this about the man I've been loving for 8 years. I'll most be posting "Ah hah!" moments randomly throughout the day. These moments will hit me at the most inopportune times. Sometimes they bring me to my knees in a heap of weeping. Sometimes, they bring me healing and calm knowing IT WASN'T ME! Sometimes to pure devastation for the bleakness of this man's future and the misery I know he lives in day to day. I am no longer angry at him for all the misery he bestowed upon me, for all the hurtful, mean, spiteful, calculating words and actions hurled at me for the sheer pleasure of watching me suffer - The same way a lion anticipates the killing of his next meal, mouth watering, hunger burning, heart beating faster, breathing becoming quicker and the anticipation of what's to come is literally settling on his taste buds before he even take his first bit. The lion sees the prey. Wants to capture it, own it, covet it and devour it. First it enjoys the beauty of the gazelle it's about it begin torturing. Just wathing it's every move. Studying it. Observing and taking in it's stride, the length, the speed, the direction it's heading, watching with a gaze that almost seems statuesque. When the lion is sure it's calcuted the speed of the gazelle apporpriately, the length of it's stride accurately and is sure of the direction it's heading, the lion begins the cat & mouse chase it'll take with this creature that's blissfully unaware it's being watched and hunted down. The hunt is now underway. The lion gaining on the gazelle who is suddenly keenly aware that something bad is about to happen but still not seeing the lion it's oblivious to it's coming fate. All the gazelle's senses are heightened, as are those of the lion. They each share in the sudden crispening of the scents in the air, the sharpness of every echoe in the forest, the fast beating hearts, blood pumping energetically through each of their veins. Now is about the time the gazelle is aware there is a predator close at hand. It's never been in a fight for it's life before. It has no idea the lion has done this a million times and knows exactly what he is doing. He's had years to sharpen his skills and learn every technique to outrun and outsmart it's prey. The gazelle only knows when it senses danger it needs to run. So, this is what the gazelle begins to do. But, before she's able to pick up any speed at all the lion has her under his paw and is pouncing. The lion first knocks her unsteady so she's unable to run swiftly. She tries to gain her composure and escape the danger she now knows she's in. The lion finds her struggling almost humurous. He knows it's futile. She's seconds away from her demise and he is enjoying the power he now holds over her as he is able to knock her to the ground and take her in his strong jaws. At this point she is dazed and trying to alert her mind to what just happened and what is happening to her. All she's fully aware of is the fear overtaking her.
Then the lion drops the prey to the ground bleeding and injured and blames if for bleeding all over his clean beard and ground. Telling it is all the prey's fault. Had the prey not let him catch it he wouldn't have wrapped his mouth arounds it's neck. Had the prey not struggled, he never would have had to bite down and cut it with his sharp teeth or hold it down with his sharp claws. The lion then apologizes and sweetly smiles at the prey telling it to get up and run and play. "But, run faster next time because if I catch you again you'll just bleed all over me again. If you would't do that I wouldn't have to eat you alive." The lion tells it's prey. As the prey bewilderly looks at the lion, then toward the direction of freedom and back at the lion. Not sure whether to run for it's life, or stay put in the lions good graces while he's in a good mood, or maybe escape while the lion is sleeping? How can it out run the lion next time? How can it not struggle if it is captured? How can it keep the blood from dripping from the open wounds so as not to upset the lion anymore?
This is how my lover would become each time he was moving in for the kill of hurtful, harmful, utterly mean and cruel words and actions. Only to sit back and blame the prey for making him work too hard for the meal. This predator/prey scenerio is a good depiction of what it's like to live with and love a sociopath.
Me on the other hand being the victim see this "win" in an entirely different vantage point.I never would have struggled in the lions jaws had he never captured me in them in the first place I would have gladly out run him had I been warned he was coming ahead of time. I didn't want to be caught and devoured alive. I am in the fight for my life when I see this beast coming for me, when he does catch me and hold me in his grip I am momentarily stunned, unable to move, unsure whether to fight a battle I am sure to loose, or give in to his control. I choose to put forth the struggle of my life in hopes the lion will eventually tire of toying with me and let me go. When he does release me from his mighty jowles - and I drop to the ground at that moment I am unaware of where I am. I'm not clear if I'm dead or alive. Just as I'm beginning to come to my senses and realize I am in fact alive and out of the trenches of this lions sharp teeth he begins to roar at me for bleeding in his mouth and getting blood on his beard and ground. I want to apologize at first. I AM sorry for the lion does look an awful mess. I am hurting. But the lion did say it would have let me go had I not struggled so much. He also is giving me a chance now. He must have some compassion for me and empathy for my suffering. I am grateful to the lion for letting me go. I'm a bit stunned and confused, I do apologize for getting his beard messing with my blood. I'm somehow instinctually think it really is the lions fault for chopping on my flesh in the first place. But, I am confused. He didn't eat me and he could have. He didn't rip me to shreds and he could have. He's telling me I can get away next time. He must really be a kind lion after all. After briefly hesitating I start to run slowly at first thinking the lion might be playing a trick on me. When I see he has aquiest and is relaxing in the sun I pick up the pace and begin running as quickly as I can. Only to discover the lion is hot on my heels about ready to devour me again. All the while the lion isn't really going to kill me anytime soon. He's plenty full of himself and doesn't need a meal. He is utterly enjoying the chase though. Knowing full well he'll win every time. He wants more of a challenge. He hates me for "letting" myself get caught. He loves me for continuing to play his game. I am feeling dizzy like I'm running in circles getting nowhere.

Okay, in a nut shell. That has been me and my sociopathic lovers relationship over the past 8 years.

Next entry I'll hunt for (no pun intended) and post some clinical defintions of what a sociopath is. I'll follow that with the start of my life living with and loving the lion, aka sociopath