I read pyscopath-free yesterday cover to cover and where as I felt triggered at time I also felt like there will be an end to the way have felt in the last few years.
I am very open-minded and can pretty much empathise with anyone if given time and room to do so. I have been a teacher most of my working life and an artist. I have often taught children with severe behavioural issues or special needs which I think has made me able to appreciate disaffected individuals aside from their actions and withstand a lot of antagonistic behaviour. I have stood strong infront of very violent children and been consistent, tough, fair but also understanding and eventually turned the tables and been able to reach them – then eventually teach them. This was my gift and had schools requesting me for help and writing me fantastic references.
Yet it has made me an advocator of the good in people regardless of what they do, how they seem or what they have done. I have a real fear that if Hitler was still alive and I was stuck in a lift with him for days that after a while I would begin to feel I had gotten to the bottom of why he did what he did – and although there is no part of me that could ever condone the atrocities committed by him- if the man himself sat there crying over his childhood or showed symptoms of mental-health issues I fear I would start to see him as a victim of something that was beyond his control and empathise with him.
I bring up Hitler I guess because one of the adventures in my life that helped me find a great deal of peace over my psychopathic relationship- was when I visited a concentration camp in Berlin- and also when I visited (a week later) the Museum of Terror in Budapest. I realised what humans could do to one another. I also realised how people became conditioned to believe terrible things. There really were (and had been) appalling people in the world who could do things without an ounce of empathy, or humanitarianism. They weren’t necessarily abused themselves or suffering from mental health issues, they were making a conscious, sound and informed choice to destroy, torture and extinguish other humans.
Of course I knew of these things long before I went to visit these places – but it was always beyond my ability to process, like the endlessness of space or the galaxy- it is something so outside of yourself, that you grasp it as a factual thought or comprehension but not as a deep feeling or the full weight of the truth.
When I went around Europe it was UK winter 2013 I was 3 years on from the end of my psychopathic relationship. My divorce had gone through 10 months earlier- but I still felt that my ex husband was just a deeply disturbed and misunderstood man... a victim or circumstance if you like. No-one who was processing normally and healthily could possibly be of the malice that they would purposely have done what he did… and for those few individuals that may, just may be wired this way- surely someone of my sensitivity and heavily analytical mind – would not be duped enough to let one close to me… let alone one into my heart, into my bed, my family, my finances.
Because of this belief system I wasn’t properly moving on or processing. I had been told by my Ex that the abuse did not happen- I was surrounded by people who doubted me and so I doubted myself. I had spent years defending him, even helping him appear to be a loving "normal" person in front of others... it was incredibly difficult to now claim the opposite... to myself aswell as to others...
I had got myself into counselling- but for the first 6 months of counselling I would end most sessions by asking the therapist. “Am I lying?” she would tell me I was not. I would say “But how do you know? How do you know I am telling the truth and not exaggerating or twisting it?” She would ask me why I thought I was lying.
On one occasion I said “Somewhere else, in another counsellors office, probably sits my husband. He is probably telling identical stories about me- and his counsellor is counselling for recovery from his abusive ex-wife.” My counsellor would say “I doubt that very much.” I would ask “How do you know?”
Looking at the historical atrocities of what one human had done to another gave me peace that what had happened to me (which was nothing by comparison to the war crimes I had seen) was real and not in my head- and IT WAS possible for the abuse to be true and the perpetrator to believe it was either justified or simply that he had a right to do what he did- and saying sorry or even confessing to it- was not a necessary part of self redemption for him. Even worse to lie about it and mirror it to the point where I was named the abusive ex …and was still in a world of confusion… well that was okay by him too.
My peace that it was real quickly turned to a hallowing out… Like when you lose your stomach on a fair-ground ride… except this felt like a permanent state of affairs. The injustice felt 10-fold at this point and I had reached a new level of understanding and with it a new level of pain and anger.
I had met XH when I was 18 and he was 30 on a university Literature course. I sometimes think that our relationship worked on a slightly different level to some of the classic examples of narcissitic relationships as I unknowingly had dealt with his personality type before and I ever met him, let alone ever dated him… but perhaps I am wrong and assuming something I know nothing about.
I unfortunately had encountered some very egotistical partners already in my life- and once bitten twice shy...when I recognised similar behaviour traits in another potential mate I was out that door before you could say or do anything to stop me.
My first boyfriend I cannot remember enough about to really put my finger on what exactly the deal was with that relationship- but if I could – I would not be surprised if he fell into a psychopathic category. There were two main parameters that my first love had left me with. One was that I would not compromise my spirituality for anyone ever again… I was Christian when I had got together with him, meaning I was of a “no sex before marriage” mindset – he duped me by saying he was Christian too and had then slowly managed to alter my mind over the course of 8 months, to ultimately sleep with me and then walk out on me- (knowing this would hurt me the most) and then the second very hard lesson he had left me with was that I would never beg for anyone back or bother with a man who said he wasn’t sure about me ever again. He had given me an awful two and half months of limbo/silent treatment at the end of our relationship where I had lost a vast amount of weight, considered suicide and been left in a terrible state.
When I finally crossed his path again at school I begged on my knees infront of him, hanging onto his legs and crying over his shoes for him to come back to love me again, he let me beg then discarded me.
He then told everyone at school he had taken God-squad girl’s virginity. He spent the next year attempting to destroy me. I became extremely gifted in deflecting his slander and creating slander and stitch-ups of my own. I found I had excellent skills in psychological war-fare...I was 17 and the film “Cruel Intentions” was big at the time. It resonated with me because of how psychological and disgraceful the game between us became . By the time I left school I had a new view of myself as someone who had the capacity to be a very nasty piece of work. I was glad this side to me existed- but I didn't like it... I went to church one day and cried over all I had done and said sorry for it all... after that I shyed away from any kind of bitching or name calling at university as I wanted to return to the good hearted girl I had been at 16. Slowly I did. Just a different version of her.. a kinda happy beatnik-dreadlocked-artist-Buddhist-wicca-anything-goes-as-long-as-uou-mean-good-and-are-looking-after-others sort of person.
The second boyfriend - (a fellow dread-locked-soul- a musician...) I had was very spiritual and loving on the surface, but very unfaithful. We meditated together and travelled together and looked like a great couple on the surface but...Triangulation was a constant issue in the relationship. It was before social media, so at least I was spared this issue in this context. A few months in I discovered texts from his ex on his phone meaning they were definitely continuing on some kind of relationship. I never confronted him. I considered myself so unworthy that I actually thought I deserved what was being done to me and I kept my silence and remained with him for a while longer. As said before I had reverted to massively spiritual again, I had rejected my Christian ethos and had become hippyish- so I could almost allow his behaviour through an understanding of “free love” and fate and learning if you will. In the early days when he wouldn’t commit I had tried to date other men at the same time with limited levels of success, once we were committed was (I think) when the cheating started. He would openly flirt with other women infront of me…including one horrible episode where he asked one very beautiful girl to sit down on the floor infront of him, where by which she did and he pulled out this stick that kept her very, very long and beautiful hair piled up on her head. Her hair fell down like a river down her back and he stroked it. I had cut my hair very short recently, where as previously it had been very long also. I felt awful, but never reacted. My lack of a reaction seemed to grate on him and he kept upping the stakes. Still I never reacted. I had learned from my previous relationship that I didn’t want to fight, I didn’t want to play games, so I just held my silence.
When my birthday came around he forgot it. I think he may have done this deliberately as I had reminded and reminded him. He ignored me for the entire week. I knew what he had given his ex for her birthday so forgetting me was such a smack in the face that I could not withstand to be with him any more. He eventually text after a fortnight and I refused to respond. He began to panic, as he was very used to having control of me. Suddenly all phones around me were ringing and he was offering to fly over from where he was to see me. Eventually I just told him I could not continue on with him- I never mentioned the ex of his or what I knew… I just said I loved him and would have liked to carry on but I had nothing left and that I was exhausted. I think he was gobsmacked. Once he accepted it he emailed “I think we both always knew you were never the one for me…” He also commented on the fact he had never realised I was clever or beautiful until the email where I dumped him.
At 20 I fell into the arms of a local boy 6 months later, with a drug and alcohol problem. I think the smell of cannabis that lingered in his car, his bedroom and all over his clothes felt homely at this point due to the hippyish ex that came before him- and even though I myself do not partake... I guess I felt safe around him. Despite his demons once he got himself sorted enough to get into more than a casual relationship with me he was a good soul and took care of me to the best of his ability. Still an addictive personality comes with it’s own set of issues and we had a reasonably amicable breakup a year later . We are still very much good friends.
I worked several jobs in the year that followed, I travelled then came back to the UK to study to be a teacher. I was now 22. I had now known my ex-husband platonically for 5 years. I found him curious- but ultimately a negative and dark force in the world and preferred him in small doses. H
e was a talented writer and a stand-up comedian, he was very politically incorrect and you tended to laugh at his jokes out of fear and shock than real humour. He was idolised by many of the boys we had gone to uni with and was held in high regard by a lot of the girls too, many of which he had slept , or at least played with and confused. He was 12 years our senior. I tried to be friends with him but his friendship was unable to be consistent. During (what I now understand to be) the lovebombing stage of other supplies he would go missing. Not interested in socialising with the rest of our friendship group and not interested in me at all. Next I would receive odd texts or phonecalls and requests for the odd friendly meet up- no doubt to use me for triangulation for whatever girl he was dating. When he was with a long-term girlfriend, he once text me that he loved me. It was out of the blue at about 3am…I was confused, discussed it with my housemates, assumed it was a mistake or joke and forwarded his text back to him. He showed this to numerous friends explaining that I had text it out of the blue to him and my apparent love of him was not requited. His girlfriend must have thought I was real trouble. My housemates and I just thought he was over dramatic, ludicrous but ultimately really funny.
Another time he said to me (with both myself and his girlfriend standing there )“You know, if I could order a girl off the internet to come to my flat, you are exactly what I would order.” His girlfriend rolled her eyes and smacked his arm and told him to stop. I thought he was just being drunk and stupid and left the awkwardness to move onto another conversation somewhere else. Of course he was using me to hurt her aswell as essentially telling me I looked cheap…I did not see or perceive it as such. His weird comments and disappearing and reappearing did not bother me; he didn’t take up enough of my mind to interest me enough for me to analyse him properly; I just thought he was, eccentric, possibly a depressive and a bit of a naff friend. Sometimes he was available and sometimes he wasn’t. When he was around he often attempted to make moves on me and I found it flattering and entertaining. I never thought he was serious and if I had called him on it- I no doubt would have been told I had an ego or a distinct lack of understanding over when someone was joking. Even so…everytime he tried …there was a new approach – a new game – a new “reveal” that had clearly worked on other women- but it did not work on me …or perhaps that’s how he made it seem…well I admit it kept me interested- but it did not work far enough for me to respond at the level he wanted. It wasn’t that I saw through him. It was just that I sensed we were very different creatures and I often felt like it wasn’t a real conversation or situation. It was a playground where you could say anything and be as outrageous you wanted and it didn’t really count. He acted with movie logic, he spoke in his own scripted monologues, he was clever and sexy but he felt disingenuous. He felt dangerous. It was somewhere between a make-believe game you play with a child and cage diving where you watch a great-white shark circle you.
It felt harmless… I have thought about these first exchanges a lot over the past decade. The thing is when you play “lets pretend” games with children, you are teaching the child about your nature and your sense of fair play and the world you want to live in- you might even be expecting them to mimic you, to grow up carrying some piece of this with them. It's more psychologically intimate and revealing than it seems... And likewise when you go cage diving, you are actually watching one of the worlds greatest predators and you are in their domain whilst doing so .You may naively think it’s no big deal, it’s just a tourist activity, but actually, in truth you are teaching the shark that you’re bait.
Five years I was hunted and probably also used for supply or triangulation for various other conquests… but I didn’t really understand my place in his world. He once told me “I woke up every morning after I met you and I thought “How can I get her.”” For years, it did not matter where he had gotten to in another relationship, when I walked into the bar or room- he got up from where-ever he was sitting and was at my side within moments. I do not think I was special or the only one he did this to, nor do I think that he loved me above anyone else. I don’t think he ever loved me at all. I think he moreover saw me as a curiosity or perhaps a learning tool, an unsolved puzzle, the human in the diving cage, still dangling before him, just observing him.
As he stood there, I would look over his shoulder at my girl-friends who would all be giggling in the corner of the bar at the two of us about to take eachother on. Sometimes his male friends would look over in amusement too. I was young and stupid, high on the attention and my feelings of strength and intelligence. His first lines would roll off his tongue and I would then take great pride in a sexually charged battle of wits him before I would let him know that I thought he was both a shark and chatting bull-shit and that I was immune to him, then I would saunter off and wait for the next round. There was a look he used to get when I’d do this, the same look a mother gets when her child does something naughty that she’s secretly proud of and amused about. Later I mistook that look for his love of me…infact I mistook this whole routine for his love of me.
My friend who was into astrology warned me in jest one time that he was a Scorpio and said that for everytime I took him on and didn’t let him win he would be seething underneath it all. Metaphorically, he would quietly bottle the poison of this anger and keep it in a hidden basement somewhere just for me. “One day” my friend said “It will all blow up and kill you.” Ofcourse I loved this analogy… I was laughing hysterically- and am not proposing for a moment that your starsign has anything to do with psychopathy, of course it doesn't... However the metaphor was unfortunately spot on about the man in question. I was racking up a ,metaphorical bill I am sure.
At 23 I was well into teacher training and drowning. I found the course extremely hard and lonely. I had tried dating someone who had discarded me and aside from that I felt so criticised by the high expectations of the education system and my tutors that I was barely feeding myself when I got home from school out of exhaustion plus total anger and disgust with myself.
Added to this I was working with some children who had been sexually abused to the point of needing their identities changed. This made me feel so sad and shocked that I often cried all the way home. The very real presence of such injustice- confused me on a philosophical level as to how in my spiritual understanding of the world this could have happened to these innocents. It really turned everything upside down for months.
Further to this all three previous boyfriends mentioned above were back on the scene in one way or another. I was sporadically communicating with all of them over email and msn, thinking that forming friendships with them would give me some sort of closure about things that had gone wrong in our relationships previously. I thought sorting it would help me move on to healthier relationships in the future. Two behaved quite respectfully and normally, but the first one from when I was just a teenager became very problematic very quickly. Driving two hours to my uni and looking for me, sending emotionally explosive texts and swinging between complaining that I bored him and complaining that I was being rude by not getting back to him when I had a missed call.
I was so used to men playing games with me, giving me silent treatment and such-like that I now possessed two mobiles. One for family, friends and work- and another for men past and present and future. The phone for men would get turned off for weeks at a time when my latest relationship was upsetting me. I had the assumption that all men were game players and that’s just how it was. I also assumed that something was deeply wrong with myself in that I could not withstand these games and/or that I was attracted to types that behaved like this. I kept dating to find my prince charming, but I also shut down the phone when I was getting hurt or feeling stressed or moreover I needed to concentrate on an assignment – If I hadn’t developed this perverse coping mechanism I expect a lot of the qualifications I have today- I would have actually failed. The phone would be left in my flat when I was on a night out to discourage drunken texts also. When I felt like I just had, to text someone (and this was at a point where everything was falling apart) I actually took out my sim card and posted it myself or to one of my friends, to buy me a few days where I wouldn't be able to contact the man who was making me sad.
I thought it was genius. I knew it was odd behaviour, but that was just me. What was a massive over-sight on my part. Was the fact that XH was on my “friends” phone.
In the middle of all this pain I received one of his random inconsistent phonecalls and I reckon he must have smelt the blood . Shortly, I am quite sure – the hunt was on again and this time amidst the complete chaos that was my life- I didn’t see him coming. Social media was in it’s early stages… I was too busy to return to London to meet with him and so we communicated electronically. He now had the extra invisibility cloak of electronic communication and I think this made a huge difference. –over the internet or text, all I had were his words and not the tonality or mock facial expressions that went with them...it was these added aspects that had always made me weary of how true his words were.
He would phone me “to check I was okay” and we’d talk about everything. The appearance of the men frommy previous relationships, the stresses of school and the course, meant I talked about all my upsets in detail, where by which I was validated by him. I am pretty sure that XH was able to condition me to see how he was different and not like anyone else in my world at that time. He’d always been so condemning of people, he’d always been such a psychological connoisseur, that to get not only his approval but also his support … well …it felt like winning an emotional lottery. It felt like he was able to rebalance my world.
One day he said “Why did you never let me go out with you at Uni?” I said “Because people like you don’t get people like me, “ I meant this as a compliment over his balance and my inbalance. I went on “ I am fragile, really, really fragile. The front I put on is pretence to protect how vulnerable I really am. I am kinda fucked up, both emotionally and medically. You’re the sort of person who would hurt me without even realising because we exist on different planes. I have multiple allergies which means I am high maintenance without even meaning to be, I also have Grade 4 endometriosis, so I have been in hospital a lot and will continue to be in hospital a lot, it also means I really need to date people who are interested in having kids sooner rather than later…and my family… I don’t even know how to get started on my family…plus I am dyslexic and my short-term memory is fucked, I lose car keys regularly and I still haven’t learnt to drive and I can’t map read…blah, blah, blah“ H
e listened,he empathised, he laughed sweetly then he said “You have got me all wrong, so many people tell me that I am amazing in a crisis…” he went on… he talked about his finer qualities and mine... he accepted me when I presented myself as serious damaged goods and I felt myself falling in love. I felt like I finally had a safe place to go.
I had given him the entire formula now. I had told him the code. All along I had seen him as too self-involved and too superficial a character to remain interested in me if he knew the truth of what I was. I had told him my truth assuming that my admission would put him off me, and make him prefer to remain in friendship-mode- I really assumed that he’d think that a relationship with someone so fucked up was probably more work than it was worth. The fact he still valued me, the fact he understood, empathised and was still interested meant I was hooked.
I had told him exactly how to con me- and he took it and he used it.
Next came stories of his abusive childhood, long stories of his failed relationships and the more he opened up, the more I opened up about my child-hood backstories… and basically he was in. One foot in the door and I didn’t know it at the time but I was done for. }
I phoned my best girl-friend from uni and said I was in love with him. She was shocked… “but he’s (enter his full name here…)” I roared with laughter. It reminded me of a Bill Hicks skit where Bill says of women who propose to serial killers “But he’s satan, he’s the prince of darkness…”
“We are not that dissimilar,” I told her “We just deal with it and express it in totally different ways. Seriously he’s the one, my soulmate was right infront of me all this time and I never even noticed.” The most unforgivable con of all- was the baby con. My fertility was limited, my biological clock was going faster than other womens' due to my health. I knew I would need to have children in my twenties to be sure of having them at all. He raised the subject of children often. I ignored the fact he didn’t seem to be interested in or even like actual real children when we were around him. I was too desperate to keep the dream alive. He talked about how he was older and had “done it all” was ready to settle down unlike guys my age. He wanted to have children within 2-3 years. I couldn’t believe my luck. He talked about things he wanted to teach his children. When he saw me with a baby he’d say “I looked at you today and thought how magic you were with that baby – you ought to have your own little girl.”
I moved in with him 6 months later. I threw away my copy of “The Rules” I threw away my second mobile. I threw out all my adolescent journals of heart-break and previous learning. I ignored the shock of everyone that knew both him and myself, not least my mother- when they discovered that the aura-reading happy-hippy chick had moved in the the dark-lord of comedy and cynicsm. I ignored all my anxieties and sparking inner warning bells- I even told him about them- and he agreed he had them too but it was probably anxieties left over from our child-hoods. Blah, blah, blah…. One of our old uni lecturers exclaimed “You’ve moved in with him, what the hell have you gone and done that for?” to me it was funny and on par with a rom-com. They didn’t know him like I did. They didn’t see the diamond in the rock. My friends who had always seen me as the quintessential artistic type that went from one heart-wrenching dysfunctional relationship to another were amazed at my sudden settling down into domestic bliss and want for kids a dog and a happy ever after.
Basically, what I have learned from this… if it looks to good to be true it probably is. If it doesn’t quite make sense there is probably a hidden equation somewhere that reveals a completely different absolute truth. I look back at those days and I feel like the Emperor in the story of “The Emperor’s new clothes.” I feel ridiculous, stupid a victim of my own ego and need for self-importance.
I qualified to teach and I began teaching in a catchment area. By day I dealt with aggressive, argumentative, violent and unpredictable children. Children that I felt just needed some consistency and some love and they would improve and get better. I drove home and would deal with much of the same from a grown man. I also believed the same, that love and consistency would fix this.
I would race around like a headless chicken for the hour between when I got home from work and before he would come home. Turning the heating up high (as he would not allow me to have it on most days, because it was electric and he said our electricity bill was too high- even though he was allowed to burn it up with both laptop and tv running) to warm the flat up, so I could turn it off again before he got home and saw. Buying groceries with my own money, because when I bought them on the joint account an argument would ensue- even though both of us paid into it equally.
We had moved to a flat between our two jobs which left both of us with a longer commute… I was constantly punished for his usual; less than pleasant experience of the London underground. I would feed him the minute he got in, ensure I looked my best and that everything was in order to minimise the excess of his anger.
In my mind I was caring for him, even “controlling” him in a sense- I felt somewhat devious to be honest, trying to ensure I would be shielded from whatever rage he would come home in that night. Really all I was doing was his bidding without realising.
When I read literature such as psychopath-free, sometimes my old confusion about whether I really was abused comes back. There are a few elements that are more or less amiss from a classic case of a psychopathic relationship. One is the cheating and two is the part where they leave and you beg for them back. Third is my own mind-games... I know I am capable of them myself. I have been praised for my prowess in conflict resolution in my job... I like to think I only use them for good, but the fact I have them at all always bothers me. I think my ex's pathology was always about a quarter on show and I was aware of and able to read it, I just read it as something else....
I guess that is why I have sat here today and typed this all up. I am trying to work out if and why I missed out on these things. Was I simply unaware of them, like I was of so much of the abuse before I got out and got help? Was he not a psychopath? Or did he work out when testing the waters that I had the strength of resolve to walk out at the first sign of either of these, due to previous relationships?
In the early days some triangulation did occur. I don’t think cheating did, though after the relationship ended- I did go for a full work-up with every test available at the sexual health clinic to check I was free of any STD’s still… just incase!
Some signs of triangulation probably occurred about 3 months in… I had a poetry reading I was featuring in- he was late home that night- he missed the reading and called to say he was going straight to his flat. I caught the train across town to meet him there… as I stepped out of the station entrance to walk up his road a taxi swerved up to the curb and out he jumped in his work-suit. “What happened?” I asked concerned… (he had a history of panic attacks when it came to dealing with groups of people- so I was concerned) We walked up his road together as he began to explain that he was out for work drinks and everyone had suddenly left to move on- he was apparently at the bar when they decided to do this and thus when returned to the table he discovered it was just him and the new secretary left. He said he had to finish his drink with her so as not to be rude and then he tried to leave explaining his girlfriend had a poetry reading- and she grabbed hold of is laptop bag and refused to let him leave. I recognised this type of crap from the stuff I had seen him pull with previous girlfriends…
“You did nothing, she just held onto your laptop bag.”
“Yeh” he puffed “I think she is either a bit mental or really fancies me.”
“You weren’t charming at all or turning your usual verbal tricks then?”
He couldn’t help but smile at the flattery “Well…” he said “Well, of course I was my usual self…”
“Of course you were…” I said cooly whilst swiftly changing direction and marching back towards the station to catch a train home.
“Where are you going? Are you angry?”
“Nope, just can’t really be fucked with this…it’s boring and predictable and cliché .If I was interested in playing these games I would just go back to (insert cheating ex’s name here)”
He charged down the street after me, weirdly grinning like an over-excited child. His behaviour was triggering nothing in me except an off-switch. There was no rise to be had out of me. I had a father that had affairs I had had a cheating boyfriend previously. This area of myself was dead…jealousy wasn’t possible, because I didn’t want a man who couldn’t keep it in his pants or was so weak that he had to try it with everything in a skirt. What’s more the fact he had to wave it in my face made me cringe and slightly sickened me. I was attracted to him for his mystique, uniqueness, darkness and strength. This was school yard crap and below the man I thought he was. I was so turned off that if the secretary was into something so eeky and transparent than she was more than welcome to him.
I don’t recall how he altered the situation and convinced me to give him another chance, but of course he did. Later that week we discussed cheating in depth. I said I understood cheating from an anthropological perspective; I completely got why it happened and why people did it. I said that if a long term partner cheated on me I might still try and make it work, but basically I knew the romantic in me would die a slow death- and eventually I would most likely fall out of love with him and leave anyways. I said “I reckon it would also leave me open for some other guy to get his claws into me...and that really scares me"
I was telling the truth through all this, but also warning him of what my truth was. I wanted him to know I was open-minded and accepting- but believed in true-love and would die off without it.
We discussed the infidelity of previous lovers. I remember he became angry and frustrated with me when he discovered I had never told my other ex that I knew he was cheating. It was illogical to him. He very quickly turned on me that I was weak and sly. I didn’t like being made to feel this way by his comments, I knew he wanted me to become flustered in response and promise I would never lie to him- I also knew he wanted me to feel exposed- I was used to these games from other people, instead of giving him what he wanted instead I just smiled in response.
“What are you smiling about?” he said. I shrugged.
He considered my reaction for a moment then he said: “Did you cheat on him to get revenge?”
“Erm, no, well not exactly. At one point he wouldn’t be my boyfriend, he kept saying we were casual and so.”
“And so…?” he said his eyes narrowing
“And so we were casual.”
“You slept with other people?”
“No, not slept with, but…”
Suddenly XH was towering over me and shouting. I asked him what his problem was he said “Well it’s a bit of a shock that you’d behave like that, I had no idea you were like that!”
I said “What- that when someone I loved made it perfectly clear they didn’t want me the way I wanted them, that I allowed other men to take me out and occasionally I let one kiss me? Just incase I could find someone else better?. That I didn’t waste my time by the phone waiting for texts from someone who wasn’t that sure? No I am not built that way as it happens I was half way between angry with him and thinking that he understood something that I didn’t when I dated other people... I thought...hey..Maybe this hippy-dippy open crap was cool. Truth is…you put the girlfriend label on me and I am your baby- I am loyal to my detriment. Until someone does that I do “The Rules” which means no one owns me until they own me. “
“What the fuck is that? The fucking rules? What if the guy was upset or confused or something.”
I looked at him… “Then he should communicate, it’s not that hard you know. This is very, very, very rich coming from you! Didn’t you cheat on your last girlfriend with not one but several women? What about all that crap you pulled on girls when we were at Uni?”
“I have only cheated when there’s been good reason and I’ve been honest about it.”
“Not to the girls you were doing it to… and anyways the amount of times you called me and text me and flirted with me when you were with someone else. It was ridiculous.”
I thought I was being really clever. I was not a chess piece but his chess opponent now. To my horror he outright denied it. He said it was all in my head.
Suddenly, it was my turn to shout- I rose to his level and I shouted example after example. He denied them at first and then as I went to get my phone to pull up his old texts he backed down and gave a back story to each incident that made it apparently okay that he was hitting on me. Before we could discuss this behaviour …he turned it back on me again. He said he reckoned I was someone who kept “back-ups” and I was a lot slyer than I let on.
I said “I don’t keep back-ups and I treat people how they treat me. I am loyal and loving and willing to work hard at a relationship until you’re not. I don’t agree with the way you used to text me when we weren’t together and you were meant to be someone else’s boyfriend. I get that you need the attention and that you are insecure, but I think it’s a massive sign of weakness and disrespect and you can do it to me if you like… But really what you should be doing is coming to me when you feel needy or like our relationship isn’t working. If you go your usual route and I find out about it, remember you won’t necessarily know that I know. If you pull your usual shit, well I can do an incredible disappearing act so fast that it will make your head spin and if I decide to stick it out with you well then please be aware that I am younger, smarter and perkier than you- and it might just be that whatever you can do, I can do better.”
The same look he used to have when we battled in the bar at uni came over his face. He’d made me angry and to the average onlooker I had won the argument. To the average onlooker the argument was also six of one, half a dozen of the other... even though it had stemmed from a recent betrayal. I too thought I had won the argument and I felt strong and sexy – and completely unique. I felt the catharsis of putting him in place regarding all present and future secretaries.
But ofcourse you can’t win when you have a heart that can be wounded and the other person has no heart. I hadn’t won, not really, I had just let him know that it would be easy to put me in the role of abuser later. He would be also able to cause an argument in public that would fire me up or make me cry and leave me reeling whilst he would calmly stand by and shrug at my apparent "anger issues" I had made myself a great supply as he had a few more hurdles to jump before getting bored of me. I had also told him that promises of loyalty would hold me faster to him than hints of him straying.
I thought I was so clever, I thought I had the formula for keeping impossible love alight. I actually didn’t think I was smarter than the man himself… like I had told him, not at all. I just knew on some level he would enjoy me saying that I was. I was speaking to him the way he spoke to me with excess drama and subtext. I thought I understood exactly what I was doing, laying down boundaries that previous people had disrespected. With a different sort of man I would have told him straight, with XH it had to be in his language. I was a guest star on his show and on some level I knew this- I had to use a script that appealed to him to stay in for an entire series.
Once I had done it, he looked at me with a certain amount of pride. That look again...He knew he had a psychological play-mate, he knew that the usual methods might not work as I had seen his routines and observed the way he worked when it had come to previous girlfriends. More perverse still, he knew it didn't matter, he knew that I sensed his darkness and was addicted to it. Subconsciously he was every man that had ever hurt me rolled into one in my head- and then on the other foot he was the best thing that had ever happened to me at the same time. I wanted to win this time. I wanted the fairy-tale. I was going to kiss the beast and he was going to be human.
In terms of begging for him… well…One of his previous girlfriends he had left in limbo for a year whilst he travelled. His version of events to explain this is incredibly convincing- but used to people like him- I could read between the lines, ask the right questions and he would confess some of his sins- whilst putting it down to his difficult childhood. When I had been a teenager and someone had done this to me for just a few months I had nearly died. I could not imagine holding on for a year, but on the other hand I could see how it would happen.
He said to me once.
“If I told you I didn’t want to be with you anymore, what would you do?”
I shrugged “What do you think I’d do?”
“You’d let me go wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t fight for me would you?”
“What’s the point in fighting for something that’s not yours anyways? If you don’t want to be with me, it’s a no brainer. “
“I might need you to come after me one day.”
“Yeh, well I am sorry you feel like that because I just wouldn’t. “
I could see he was getting angry again. In the early days I used to placate him by quoting a movie. I don’t know why this worked, but it did.
I said “You know in “Closer” when she says that the only way to leave is to say “I don’t love you anymore” then go…. And he says – what if you still love them- and she says “then you don’t leave.” Well that’s how it is for me. If you don’t love me, you don’t love me, If I don’t love you, I don’t love you. Anything that tries to change or argue that isn’t respecting the other persons wishes. If you decide you either don’t love me anymore or you don’t love me enough to stay with me, I think it’s pointless to go running after you begging you to come back.”
“But what if I left you because you did something wrong.”
“Then either I deserve it or if I don’t deserve it then you are too hurt or you don’t love me enough, or aren’t interested enough to talk about it with me or to try counselling with me- so again… what’s the point? At best you need space anyways… I am not going to run after you like a lap-dog”
He fell silent.
In the final throws four years later, it didn’t stop him trying it. But as broken and as destroyed as I was by then. I still didn’t beg- I told him “Go off, do whatever you want- if you want a baby and a life with me you will come back, if you don’t you won’t. I can’t listen to your words anymore as something is wrong with you, you are having some kind of reaction and so they don’t make any sense, I can only read what you want through your actions. Either way I can’t come home every night to the same argument with you. So take a break and do what you want.”
I stuck myself in limbo for 4 months whilst he travelled the stages of London competing in “Stand Up Comedian of the year.” His routines were the ultimate smear campaign… and also a place where he ridiculed himself just enough for an audience to feel sorry for him but not so much that they would lose all respect for him. An article came out stating that his better material was based on the break-down of his marriage. I cried, I cried a lot but I never begged.
I can only honestly say I have been NC for a month. The last I contacted him was over a year ago when I had to email him photographs in accordance with our divorce agreement. Imagine someone demanding photos of themselves in a divorce. Its quite something!!! I used the opportunity to tell him how much he had hurt me in detail. I sent it from an email address that contained my married name so is no longer relevant plus it is blocked- it cannot receive any mail and sends an automatic messages saying it is out of action when people try to email it. He has none of my up-to-date contact details. That said I was still naïve enough to want to contact him and still daft enough to think he would care how much he hurt me a year ago!
As you know from the story of my two phones, I learnt very early on, even before him how to block and segregate myself from others on modern technology . I am not saying it’s good or healthy, I am just saying that’s how I knew. I was off his facebook and the rest of it the minute the abuse escalated and he attempted silent treatment. This was without any literature such as psychopath free, this was just from previous experience.
Once we were clearly headed for divorce I employed a solicitor so that he had no need to contact me directly any more. Each time he tried I referred him to the solicitor. Unfortunately in the initial stages my solicitor clearly thought the lovely silver tongued man at the end of her phone was the victim and that the blotchy-faced, crying and angry infertile woman in her office was the nutter. With help from my counsellor I was able to rebook to see the solicitor and bring in emails and other literature from him that proved his abusiveness and skills of manipulation. Only then did my solicitor stop advising against the statement I wanted to give- and also that I needed him to sign to say he understood that he had no rights to use me and my family in his screenwriting and comedy as part of our divorce settlement. I had to essentially prove my case which really upset me.
The last thing I took from previous relationships was my need for spirituality. XH realised in the early stages that lots of things did not get a rise out of me- finally one day he decided to tell me I could not raise children with him if I was going to tell them that there was a god or any other such nonsense. This was possibly the biggest most reoccurring argument of our whole relationship. The first time we argued I was able to throw so much theology study, footnotes and direct quotes into the mix he didn’t stand a chance in winning whilst playing by the rules. I even went as far to tell him that I felt as though all his arguments were unfounded, unstudied and probably just things he’d heard in a couple of stand-ups.
This was early days- outright threats or physical attacks were not on our radar at this point, so I dared to argue with him as openly and outlandishly as I wanted.
After this arguement he threw himself into atheist literature, he raised debates with me and his family (as they are all atheist) and anyone else he knew would have a different view to mine. He began trolling forums online and producing scripts where spiritual characters were either liars, abusers or insane. This was the most deliberate and direct destruction of my personality that ever took place. Endless screaming matches where he demanded I read “The God Delusion” as it would “help” me. Me crying- locking myself in the bathroom with him shouting through the door. Even reverences to a very close friend of mine who had died suddenly and I was grieving for saying "He was just in the ground... me beliving he was in the after-world was like someone beliving in sanat caluse still)
One day 3 years in I said to him “I have to leave you.”
“Why?” he asked
“I don’t believe in anything anymore. I feel scared all the time and like there is no higher good in the world. Without God, without guardian or angels or ancestors I have no one to talk to when I am afraid and I find no small miracles in my life any more. I feel empty. I want my soul back and I want my spirituality back- and I feel like you have bled it out of me.”
I was crying.
I continued: “I can’t live like this. Some people are built to believe, whether that makes them stupid or crazy – I don’t know and I don’t care. If you succeed in killing my spirituality you are going to kill me in the process- you must see that. It is the core of my being.”
“The thing I don’t like about your spirituality…” he said “Is that is has more say over you than I do… like if some stupid tarot-reading told me to leave you – you would.”
“That’s why I don’t do tarot readings anymore…” I said… “I am pretty sure that all the hidden and good forces in the universe would tell me to do just that. I don’t feel like you are my path. But I have free-will and I chose to be with you anyways. But now I feel like I am dying slowly and I have to go. I am sorry, but I need to believe in something – otherwise nothing makes sense to me. I feel numb, I cant feel so many things I used to be able to feel.”
I was describing my own emotional murder at his hands and I still felt responsible for it, like it was a weakness that I needed some kind of hope in my life. XH’s next response was both beautiful and eloquent. He told me that on his quest for atheist literature he had read something that changed his mind and he now believed in god. I asked him to tell me about it, he told me it was a private and personal experience. (in other words a performance he did not know how to fake) he said we could raise our children believing in God and that I could believe what I liked. I felt so happy and grateful that I of course looked to stay with him, believing we’d eventually grow in faith together. It was one last game though.
The rest of what I want to say I already wrote in a letter. This is why even though I have not seen the guy since 2010, my NC has only been a month….. I took off to Australia 2012 for a year to try and live once things had settled. When I came home oct 2013 I managed to cut all links back to him-bar one. My best-friend’s brother has since begun living with him. Not as a couple but as housemates. The link is pretty tidy and predictable. XH was work-shy and parasitic- he stopped working 9 months into the relationship. After we split he had to return to his parents as he no longer had anyone to live off. He is obsessed with needing to become a famous screen-writer, unfortunately my best friend's brother has had some success in this world recently, and who should rear their head after this success but XH. Not only has he worked his way into writing the next script for him, he worked his way into my best-friend’s brother providing him with a place to live and hence he returned to London. I knew none of this- as everyone is under strict instructions to tell me nothing. Unfortunately my best friend collided with XH at a party. Towards the end of the party she overheard XH exclaiming to her brother how sad it was that she no longer wanted to be friends with him due my lies and manipulation- and my bestfriend apparently lost it with him and ended up screaming “I know what you did to her.” Repeatedly …in his face until her husband dragged her off and home.
The brother and her have since agreed to never speak of either myself or XH. Both of them feel emotionally involved in our story and protective of either one of us. After I heard this story- I went under. The fact someone could be convinced by him I was so abusive… just finished me…. The fact he had managed to creep back into the outskirts of my life upon my arrival home was horrible.
I ceased to cope all over again. The nightmares returned and I felt in a state of panic for weeks. I called to start back up with my counsellor. I also went to the GP who referred me for post-traumatic stress. It had been 3.7 years since the split how could I be worse than I had been initially. I wrote to my best friends brother a letter to both warn him and explain why his sister had done what she did. Around the same time started searching for a fb group that might deal directly with NPD survivors. When I found this I read about NC and knew that me sending the brother the letter would have played right into XH’s hands and proven I was crazy. I tried not to send it... but in the end I felt like it was the only way to make the madness in my mind stop. Of course I wish I hadn't now...N
ever the less… it saves me explaining the last leg of what occurred: the letter I sent 3 months ago- but I saw on the brothers fb recently- the two of them at some film awards… and as I removed the brother off my fb- I felt myself go back under for another week…hi ho… here we go again… another go at NC...here's the letter:
“I have always been grateful that when I see you, you are gracious to me and easy to be around and even though you are now officially my last link back to the ex-husband – you never put me in a position where I feel I have to confront this or explain myself. I am sad to say that I have found this not to be the case with certain remaining mutual friends. I am often forced to hear XH’s sides of events, even now… and feel pressurised to explain my position which is not only painful, it seems to fuel the situation and only make it worse. It certainly leaves me exasperated and confused each time… then the PTSD after effects occur and I am in a world of pain for a week to a month.
When I had to leave Australia due to Visa constraints I was in crisis… I felt I really, really could not go back to the UK…On the advice of a random mental health professional who caught me crying in the Auckland hostel 2 days before returning to England…(as you do!) I severed all ties back to XH upon returning to England which lessened the stress greatly. In some cases people were forced to choose between myself and XH because of this. When you do not understand my side of events- this could seem merciless and manipulative-which is no doubt what XH will not only see it as- but also describe it as. For me… it was the only way I felt I could survive.
How to start??….There was a time when you seemed to have a thing about vampire movies. Do you like the ones where the vampires are seen as a “species” sometimes as more advanced form of humans or different altogether? And they are often seen as superior as their consciences are quite often lacking or switched off… they are pure hunters “top of the food chain” even above humans. But then you get the vampires that wish to return to being human as they feel this is actually the higher option for various reasons… Often they miss feeling alive or feeling happy?!
Where am I going with this? I like the extended vampire myth because I think it is a great metaphor of how the human hierarchy functions. I work with special needs kids now. And the deeper I go into my field the more I feel that “special needs” ie people with autism, or dyslexia etc… do not walk among us due to an unfortunate genetic mishap - but because they are part of genetic variation that has to occur in order for the human race as a whole to function, evolve and survive. I love my work for lots of reasons… but one of the main driving forces is the fact I am completely amazed by some of the incredible abilities that my children possess. Abilities that would be unlikely to evolve or exist in people without their diagnosed condition. They are beautiful creatures and I see the magic and wonder of all of them. At the moment I have a child who possibly has PDA which is so, so interesting (and stressful!) I cannot tell you
People are inherently different. This has completely fascinated me for as long as I can remember. I think I have a deep love of people, but also a deep fear of them. I grew up in circumstances where I did not ever really know what would happen next (in a bad way) and it made me heavily analytical as a person- I suppose as a defence mechanism. If I could work out the hazardous individuals in my life- I would be more likely to be able to predict when they would become dangerous and either please them to keep them placated or keep out of their way accordingly. W
hen I was a teen I was looking for ways to explain the vast, some-times predetermined differences in peoples personalities, intelligences, abilities, and overall actions. I went through an astrological signs and pop-psychology stage, now I am older I have slightly less fickle ways of looking at it ( I still enjoy the latter though…it’s like my intellectual junk food). But people are deeply, deeply different and it doesn’t seem to be by accident. Einstein was possibly dyslexic and autistic. So was Leonardo Di Vinci apparently. They could think outside the box, they had unusual capabilities...
In the same way we know and accept that Presidents can send thousands of soldiers to their deaths and sleep soundly through the night void of conscience (have you see House of Cards?) and that war heros can commit acts that a sane person would never be capable of. Just as at the other end of the scale the Empath can tolerate and empathise with some of the neediest or nastiest of humans. Human beings that would appaul, exhaust or frustrate the average person. For example…One of my friends goes into prisons and counsels sex offenders. Imagine that.
Back when I was an adolescent…XH…in my eyes- was the embodiment of the vampire myth…the ultimate “scorpio” always darkly different. Off the scale for “normal” in a variety of ways- meaning that on one hand his extremes somehow altogether added up to create some kind of “superhuman” … but then in other respects he was crippled and tormented by such demons- that some days he was too exasperated to function. He said to me once when we were courting “We are the perfect psychology for eachother, I have thought about it and I just know it.”
I saw the duality in him and loved it evenly; To me XH was in part just another complex needy child with a heart-breaking back-story for me to love unconditionally. On the other hand he was an alpha-wolf, or as I said in the early days “a Steppen wolf” he was Dorien Gray, Mr Gray and Dracular …an ageless personality full of immovable dark qualities that would make up the Mr.Darcy’s and Harry Haller’s of this world. He was Edward Scissor Hands, Bill Hicks and Dickie Greenleaf from the Talented Mr. Ripley. He was the boy from The Butterfly Effect and James Bond and Voldemort and Patrick Batemen ….all rolled into one. And like how the Great white shark is such a perfect machine that it has barely had to evolve at all over thousands of years… so it seemed to me that XH’s kind had been around forever. Flawless for whatever it was they were designed for. I was addicted.
To begin with I didn’t mind the hefty emotional price I paid for being with him- because in my simple 23 year old mind… that was what you got for the privilege of being associated with someone like him. I also just thought I was over sensitive and most of what occurred was my fault… aside from that …in the early stages; the joy, curiosity, intellectual stimulation and security he brought me… outweighed the pain he inflicted…. But there is a high price to pay for being in close proximity to such a person for more than a short while. It never goes away… the bill just gets bigger… And I paid it…and am still paying it…
But then what was XH…? I asked myself this for years… To begin with his lack of empathy and disassociation, the fact a lot of his emotions are, by his own admission, faked… made me think he was on the autistic spectrum. He had always had a fascination with the film “Rain Man” and had wondered himself if he was perhaps somewhere on the spectrum. But in my experience, an autistic could not write the screen plays that XH writes and an autistic would be incapable of creating the depth of characters and subtext XH is capable of creating for screen. Not only for screen but for the parts he plays himself, throughout life and in and out of lust and love and his tireless hate. He once said to me “In my head, it is always the XH show… I am just watching myself from the outisde looking in.” He was a good reader of people, a good judge of character and highly manipulative. No Aspergers about him… He remained an unsolved mystery. Unique, exotic but completely poisonous when administered in the wrong dose.
Sometimes when XH would have a “bad day” he would google his condition for answers- soon I caught the bug and was googling and reading into things also; we knew he was depressed but it never appeared to be straight forward depression. It was as if something else drove XH… his depression could be precariously linked back to certain events and thought patterns, his lows…rarely came out of nowhere. It was like living with an addict but not knowing what he was addicted to… all these highs and lows! He was like a vampire with blood-lust… withdrawn, hungry and dangerous when cutt-off… exhilarating, exciting and the life of the party when he had whatever his fix was…his moods appeared determined by some kind of unknown source or supply. I examined everything from his sugar intake to his exposure to daylight in order to try and help him. Then one day I stumbled across ‘Narcissitc Personality Disorder’ on the internet. And forwarded it to XH. It was only a brief paragraph but it rang a bell with both of us… and so much so with XH that he forwarded it to his mother telling her he thought he had it.
As time goes on…XH is …I am 100% sure a narcissist, probably combined with BDD. And he is addicted to what the forums call; Narcissistic supply. Supply is even more important than food or drink or cigarettes to XH. XH can only function when he is getting the right amount of appreciation and attention. When he is not he will sabotage, walk out, rage, sulk, vie for sympathy, play victim, threaten suicide, bully, go to bed and refuse to get up, make controversial jokes and if confronted …blame his inability to cope on social anxiety, neediness or the people he was with misunderstanding him.
I remember a boss of his once commented that XH was only okay with events when they were all about him. XH had sullenly walked out of the office Christmas party that year. When confronted by his boss about his actions; XH claimed that he had just ‘ceased to cope’ due to social anxiety or something similar- The kicker was that at same time as XH explaining to his boss ‘that he really could not cope in any kind of social gathering’- XH was also busy gathering up a large crowd from his office to attend one of his stand-up gigs. To the casual observer it just did not seem to add up.
To anyone who knows anything about NPD- they would not be surprised by the above story or any of the other contradictions in XH’s character… the above situation is pretty normal going for a Narc. The Christmas party did not give XH the Narcissistic Supply he needs, whereas the stand-up gig did.
As XH made his way into my life and began to turn parts of It upside down; NPD and BDD were beginning to be hinted towards by the counsellors that worked with us. Years later; in the final throws of the marital breakdown I was becoming convinced enough that he had NPD… to be researching treatment for it and crying upon discovering it was untreatable.
To this day…I am uncertain as to whether XH is a conscious Narcissist or an unconscious one…yet I am certain of his pathology. It has come up over and over again that XH appeared to have a personality disorder. However XH has never stuck with any one expert long enough to get anything beyond his depression diagnosed…and this is unfortunately, very typical of the personality disordered.
Have you seen “Dexter”? In series 8 I was fascinated by the quote; “Psychopaths are not a mistake of nature,” Dr. Evelyn Vogel says to Dex. “They’re a gift; they’re alpha wolves, who help the human race survive long enough to become civilized.” I don't know about this, but XH, I am sure… is exactly what he is supposed to be… whether he embraces it or not. As time goes on his reality may alter but his basic make-up never will. There is part of me that remains in awe, there is the rest of me that recoils in disgust and pain from what living with a “Narc” for so long did to me.
Why would I tell you this? Well because I feel I have to… that and you have never heard my side of events and without them it is not possible to gain a clear understanding of the situation we are all ignoring. I also wonder if e