Saturday, November 19, 2011

Duplicity

A cool crisp autumn afternoon and I'm lounging around the house recovering from a severe cough that has left me too weak to do much else. Doing some channel surfing I come across a movie with Clive Owen and Julie Roberts called Duplicity. While watching it I am reminded of how duplicitous a psychopath is. How duplicitous anything a psychopath says is. As well as how duplicitous a relationship with a psychopath is.

The dictionary definition of duplicity is:

"1.contradictory doubleness of thought, speech, or action; especially: the belying of one's true intentions by deceptive words or action
2: the quality or state of being double or twofold
3: the technically incorrect use of two or more distinct items (as claims, charges, or defenses) in a single legal action"
The first definition "contradictory doubleness of thought, speech or action." This would be the very definition of a psychopath. In the beginning of the relationship when they are in the idealization phase the person they present to you is nothing like the person they truly are. Additionally, the intent of their relationship with you has little if anything to do with the intention they are actualizing before your eyes. If the psychopath is intending a romantic interlude with you, or even a romantic relationship with you their actions, words, speech and thinking is rampant with duplicities. They may present themselves as being smitten with you and wanting to be your everything. If you are a single parent, they'll be the man/woman who loves children and is happy to be there for you to help with watching the children, help with cooking meals, doing homework, or playing catch with the children. At night he/she may be ready to draw you a bubble bath, bring you a glass of wine, pamper and care for you. While in actuality they really couldn't care less about your fatigue, or stress, or feelings of being overwhelmed. In fact they are probably rejoicing in your suffering because it is making the door for them to enter into your life so incredibly easy to walk through. Any gesture, action, or words you hear them speak that appear caring or thoughtful and duplicitous. The only care or thought a psychopath feels is for him/herself. If your psychopath has ever seemed thoughtful, or generous, take a good look at what may have motivated the seemed generosity. For generosity and the psychopath are duplicitous terms. The psychopath is generous to thine own self alone. When I reflect back on some seemingly generous or selfless acts or words my psychopath told me, or did for me I can always trace back a motive. Even if the only motive was to keep me in his life for the next time he needed me for a victim. Had he completely burned our bridges and severed the relationship to a place that would be irreparable he wouldn't have a sure thing lined up in terms of future victim supply. Apparently even the simplest of generosity or thoughtfulness is rampant with duplicity. The entire relationship is wrapped and woven very tightly in a mask of duplicity. The loving relationship I thought I was a part of, the connection I felt with this person and all the moments of intense emotion and passion we shared was duplicitous. I and I alone was experiencing them. What he was experiencing was a series of accomplishments, victories and defeats that were and remain completely about himself. There was never an "us", there never is an "us" with a psychopath.  There's a me against you. There is "I will conquer and destroy you, I will win, I will come out on top, I will have control and power over you." I, I, I, I, I. This is the relationship with a psychopath. There is no "us" in "us". There is "I", victory and defeat for I and I alone in "us" for the psychopath. Very duplicitous. 
The psychopath has been in the practice of living a duplicitous existence since their very first recollection of "self."  As soon as the psychopath is aware of themselves in relationship to a world outside of themselves they are aware of the difference between them and "I." In order to simulate with "them" and fit in with "them" the psychopath has to appear like "them" i.e. us. Hence the beginning of duplicity. They watch, mimic, pretend, learn how to be like the rest of us. Much like the big back wolf learns how to be Grandma in Little Red Riding Hood. Appearing like Grandma is what will get him the meal he so desires. The Big Bad Wolf may be one of the first introductions we as children have of a psychopath. He is extremely duplicitous. He pretends to be Little Red Riding Hoods friend. He pretends to want to help her deliver her basket to Grandma's house. But his real intention isn't to help Little Red Riding Hood at all. His intention is to help himself to whatever it is he wants. 
Another red flag was the self deprecation. A saw this as insecurity and vulnerability. In actuality this too was duplicitous. The focus on his flaws turned out to be more narcissism. It was another way to have his ego fed. When he would ask me if I found him attractive, he'd get to hear exactly what he'd been craving. "Of course you're handsome."  He'd ask me what I liked best about him. What I would rate him on a scale of 1 - 10. He would ask these almost daily for nearly all the 7 1/2 yrs we were together. Duplicity in action. Feigning insecurity when his ego just needed a constant supply of feeding. He never did return the gesture to tell me I was beautiful of course.
When allowing someone to enter into my life I intend to err on the side of duplicity. Not that I'm going to be paranoid and assume everyone is out to victimize me. But, I do intend to make the assumption whenever in question, to error on the side of duplicity until otherwise is proven instead of the other way around. This may mean a person who would have gotten a second chance from me in the past will not in the future. To some this may appear harsh. But when I give it more thought it is not. I have never hurt another person intentionally. I've never done something so thoughtless that it was in complete and total disregard of another's feelings to the degree that it directly hurt them deeply. I've been thoughtless and careless, of course I'm human. I've made attempts to change my behavior and been sincerely sorry when I've hurt someone. But, I never expect them to roll out the red carpet and welcome me back to do it again. I understand I am guilty until I prove myself otherwise. I think if we entered our romantic relationships this way we would avoid, or at least be as safe as we can be from duplicitious people.


Sarah McGlaughlin's Building A Mystery. All about the duplicity in a relationship.
http://youtu.be/Od587LPzOJ4

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Life In a Bottle

Life in a Bottle is akin to life w/a sociopath. Here is how I relate that...

Life in a Bottle by Linda Perry.  This song was clearly written from the perspective of a person struggling with an addiction to alcohol. However, I can easily apply it being in a relationship with a sociopath. "Fake what you want. Selective Memory." The sociopath fakes every emotion he/she is having. They selectively remember and forget whichever is most beneficial to them. Leaving you bewildered and wondering if you are imagining things.

"Wrap me up and set me free." This is the montra you should be telling yourself.

"Meet my friend, held tightly in my hand..." Your sociopath will HOLD you very tightly!!! You in turn will begin to hold on just as tightly. Something in your psychie begins to convince you that you need this person for your survival.

 "Forgetting what I meant to say..." The merry-go-round verbal sparring will leave you forgetting everything you meant to say.

"Love but to hate, that's just the way it goes. Inch by inch I sink below." The sociopath will love you and hate you. Most importantly they'll hate you for loving them. They'll see your love as weakness.

"Inch by inch I sink below.." little by little they lock you into their world and you won't even recognize yourself after a while.

"And I love I love I love...all my bad company..." Even though you may discover this person is a sociopath and had no real feeling for you. Your love for him/her will be slow to die. You'll know they are bad for you. But you'll find you can't help yourself but want to be with them.

"Stoned and demented. Walking through walls. When I banged my head I slowly fell"
You will begin to feel stoned and demented for the relationship you find yourself in and for the things you've become and the abuse you've learned to tolerate. You'll feel like you've been banging your head against the wall and slowly falling to the ground. But, he/she doesn't seem to notice or care. You can't seem to figure out how to pick yourself up again.

"Sad but delighted. Swimming in my well.

You will feel desperately sad on one hand and so lucky to have this person in your life on the other hand. That is the crazy making. You want so badly to believe the goodness in this person. You'll continue trying to find ways to behave differently so the relationship will find normalcy. They'll give you just enough of what you want to keep your hope and love alive. You'll soon realizing, or at least feel like you are sinking, drowning and you can't seem to find the life preserver.

"I guess I'm going straight to Hell."  You feel damned if you do, damned if you don't. The relationship leaves you feeling lost. Unable to make a move. Every move you make will have a counter affect by your sociopath and you'll be fighting a losing battle. You will actually feel as if you are in the presence of evil. Literally. But, not be able to explain to yourself why.

"And I love, I love, I love All my bad company"  Just as you feel this person is pure evil, he/she will do something so loving and kind. You'll feel guilty for ever having negative thoughts toward him/her. At the same time you will at your core realize this person is very bad for you and it is only a matter of time before your love for him/her completely destroys you.

"So there's nothing left for me to say....no there's nothing left for me to say."

You'll feel at a loss for what to say to this person, to yourself, to your friends for why you are still in the relationship.

So you can see why I feel a connection to this song even though I've never struggled with addiction to chemicals of substances. Nonetheless being in a relationship with a disordered person is addictive. It has the same addictive properties in the wiring of your brain as a chemical dependency does. Hence the difficulty in breaking free. Enjoy this song!! :D

Linda Perry is a brilliant songwriter.



http://youtu.be/ppcHLyZoWl4


Lyrics are:

Title: Life In A Bottle
Artist: Linda Perry
Album: In Flight (1996)

Life in a bottle
It feels so comforting
Seems like that's my destiny

Fake what you want
Selective memory
Wrap me up, and set me free
Meet my friend
Held tightly in my hand
Forgetting what I meant to say

Love but to hate
That's just the way it goes
Inch by Inch I sink below

And I love, I love, I love
All my bad company
And I know, I know, I know
that's what's meant to be
And I love, I love, I love
All my bad company
So there's nothing let for me to say.
So there's nothing let for me to say.

Stoned and demented
Walking through the walls
When I banged my head I slowly fell
Sad but delighted
Swimming in my well
I guess I'm going straight to Hell
And I love, I love, I love
All my bad company
And I know, I know, I know
That's what's meant to be
And I love, I love, I love
All my bad company
So there's nothing let for me to say
No there's nothing let for me to say

And I love, I love, I love
All my bad company
And I know, I know, I know
That's what's meant to be
And I love, I love, I love
All my bad company

So there's nothing let for me to say
No there's nothing let for me to say

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The Intentions of a Psychopath

Within any relationship with a psychopath it is inevitable that you will eventually begin to notice the relationship has very little of you in it. You likely begin feeling as if everything you do is about your partner the narcissist. You'll discover that where and what you eat is about his needs. When you go to sleep, when you wake up, how you sleep, where you sleep will be the decision of the narcissist. When you watch television, if you watch television, what you watch on television will not be your decision. It'll be his. Whether you stop for a latte on the way to wherever it is you're going is dependent on if he wants to stop for coffee. If you're getting along, it'll be because he has decided for whatever reason he wants you to. If you are fighting, it'll be because he wants to fight. If you're crying it'll be because he wants to see you cry. If you are suffering it's because he wants to see you suffer. It is my belief the the intent of the psychopath IS to watch you suffer. Some contend that the suffering that we as victims experience is a result of the narcissistic personality being unaware of our needs. It isn't because they are intending us to suffer. Rather our suffering is a direct result of whatever needs he needed met regardless of the effect it had on us. I venture to say that may be the case some of the time. But, overall it is evident to me that he enjoys your suffering. He is getting some sense of excitement. He doesn't necessarily feel happiness or joy. But, there is a sense of glee that he can experience. By watching us suffering at his hand he is getting a gleeful rush from that.

Friday, November 4, 2011

What Do Psychopaths Get Out of their Victims?

All psychopaths NEED a victim. However, what a psychopath needs from a particular victim is varied. Their reasons for acquiring victims aren't the same, nor are they the same from victim to victim with the same psychopath. Some just need a victim to keep from feeling the desperate lonely emptiness that is their existence. Some want money, status, power, a trophy, or it may be as simple as just needing a victim. Period. Someone to toy with and keep the mind busy with destroying it.


I know my psychopath thoroughly enjoyed my suffering. He wasn't satisfied until I was adequately, angry, frustrated, sad and depleted of all emotion. Then, he'd feel pretty good and want some attention from me. The challenge of finding new ways to manipulate, destroy, annoy, and batter my emotions was great amusement and entertainment for him. Over time, it escalated, as all abuse does. He needed a stronger and stronger reaction from me. This need forced him to resort to more and more cruel statements and actions. He also would push me further until he'd see me break down with tears and exhaustion. Then he'd let up and back down a little bit and be sweet and loving. This too escalated over time. Before long tears weren't even enough. He had to maintain the misery for longer periods of time. So, once I was crying, he'd still find it necessary to keep emotionally battering me to ensure I was good and destroyed so he could then be my rescuer again. It is a vicious cycle that keeps the victim and abuser in an addictive symbiotic relationship.
 
 "...in many instances, such as love relationships or faked friendships, it is not so easy to see what the psychopath is after... we can only say that it seems to be that the psychopath ENJOYS making others suffer. Just as normal humans enjoy seeing other people happy, or doing things that make other people smile, the psychopath enjoys the exact opposite." (The Mask of Insanity)

It stands to reason that at least in part, a psychopath is feeding off of the suffering of their victim. It would seem that suffering is what they get out of their victims. Could this be because they'd "rather feel pain than nothing at all?" Or, could it be because they have generally shallow emotions with the little emotions they do experience that they are desperate for that deeper "feeling" of excitement, or adrenal rush at our expense? A psychopath is literally feeding off of their victims sorrow and anguish the way we relish in the infectious joy or laughter filling a room. They have no reaction to such pleasant feelings. Therefor they are seeking to experience as much of the opposite as they can. Given they need a victim at their side because being alone isn't an option for them, it makes sense to me that having a victim to join them in their downfall of misery at least gives an intense feeling of something, which again is better than nothing to the psychopath.


 One thing we do know is this: many people who experience interactions with psychopaths and narcissists report feeling "drained" and confused and often subsequently experience deteriorating health. Does this mean that part of the dynamic, part of the explanation for why psychopaths will pursue "love relationships" and "friendships" that ostensibly can result in no observable material gain, is because there is an actual energy consumption?

So very true. I often was grateful, along with my misery, when I had been discarded because during the discarding phase the psychopath literally sucks you dry of all emotions. The only way I could see a way of getting replenished again was if I had him out of my life. However, because of the addictive cycle of the relationship, I would then feel a huge sense of emptiness. All that chaos, all that disorder in my life, though I hated it, I had become accustomed to it. My brain had literally become addicted to the rush, deficit, rush, deficit cycle of the relationship. That type of cycling does alter the chemistry of a person's brain. So biochemically your brain is changing, hence your way of thinking begins to change and become disordered in a sense as well.



Manipulation is the key to the psychopath's conquests. Initially, the psychopath will feign false emotions to create empathy, and many of them study the tricks that can be employed by the empathy technique. Psychopaths are often able to incite pity from people because they seem like "lost souls" as Guggenbuhl-Craig writes. So the pity factor is one reason why victims often fall for these "poor" people.

I can't count the number of times I mentioned that I thought my ex was a lost soul, or a broken man. He often seemed like a broken disordered human being. I saw this before I knew anything about personality disorders or psychopathy. It was evident to me early on that something was very wrong with how he saw things. At the same time he had a sort of brilliance to him that I admired. I frequently wished the "man" that I could see he almost was, would just take over. I see that that "man" was the mirage he was creating for me.
It is my belief that psychopaths want to take from their victims what they lack themselves. The are lacking, joy, empathy, love, and conscience. Perhaps it is those very traits they are looking to hijack from a victim. Perhaps the psychopath actually wants these traits to hold onto, in some twisted manner always hoping they will be able to feel that which they can't understand. Maybe it's even simpler than that. They psychopath just wants to destroy what it's envious of and wants to spread their misery because misery does love company so they say.

Here is the link to the entire article:
http://www.cassiopaeacassiopaea/psychopath.htm

Thursday, November 3, 2011

On the lighter side Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me.

I don't know. Mac Davis seems to have the makings of a psychopath..  "Baby, baby don't get hooked on me, cuz I''ll just use you and I'll set you free. So, baby baby don't get hooked on me."

"Don't start clinging to me girl cuz I can't breath!"

"Girl I see that look in your eye, I think you're seeing way too much in me.....I'll just use you and I"ll set you free."

"Girl you're a hot blooded woman child and it's warm where you're touching me."  Oh Mac get a grip baby. Well.......in other words....grow up.  lol. 

"Girl don't let your life get tangled up with mine, cuz I'll just use you I can't take no clinging vine!"  Oh I think this is a psychopaths anthem. ;)

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Emotional Rape

This article explains the cycle of abuse of the psychopath very well!! Down to the minut detail of the psychopath saying something and then denying it was ever said. This used to drive me mad! I'd often say "what do I need to record our conversations to remind you, or prove to you what you said." He would so emphatically deny having said it that I would doubt I heard it while at the same time be 100% sure I heard it. It is truly crazymaking.

They'll deny saying certain things the victim knows for certain they said; they woo seductively and then turn cold and angry causing the source to come running to apologize for some supposed transgression. They are covertly condescending to the source while continuing to rely on their advice. They play with the source like a deep-sea fisherman reels in a sailfish and then lets the line go slack, back and forth until the fish exhausts itself.


The following definition of "rape" seems to accurately describe what it is a psychopath does to his/her victims on an emotional realm. The victim isn't consenting to the relationship with an imposter. They are consenting so physical, or sexual intimacy with the psychopath. They are consenting to be with the facade that is being presented to them of a kind, caring, sensitive, thoughtful human being.

 The definition of "rape" according Rawanda's jurisdictional law is "a physical invasion of a sexual nature committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive".


There is a term for what a narcissist/sociopath does to his victims. It is called emotional rape. It's the systematic and deliberate abuse of a person’s higher emotions without their consent. The victim fully trusts the alluring false self that is presented to them and is made to feel emotions and bonding for the express purpose of being used and discarded. When they give the narcissist the privilege of looking into their soul they never dreamed that intimacy would be abused.

http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/victims-of-psychopaths-sociopaths/discussions/messages/12503838


Another great resource to look into if you think you're in a situation with a man/woman who is emotionally manipulating and/or abusing you is this site regarding trauma bonding. I'll be back in the next day or two to write  more about this issue.

http://www.abuseandrelationships.org/Content/Survivors/trauma_bonding.html

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Excuses and Empty Promises

This is the hallmark of most psychopaths. They will tell you exactly what you want to hear. They know what it is you are wanting from them and they will deliver. Auditorily speaking that is. They'll tell you all the pretty lies you want to hear to keep you baited for as long as they are satiated toying with you. You're a great source of supply for their narcissistic appetite's as long as you're eating up every word, phrase, syllable, noun and verb uttered from their lips. 

This was certainly my error for many years. I'd believe my psychopath when he'd tell me he was sorry. After all  he seemed so sincere. I believed my psychopath when he'd promise to not hurt me again with lies and deceit. I believed him when he promised me a rose garden. Yes, here I am 8 years later and the garden hasn't been tilled nor a seed planted. I can see dead promises laying all around. Yet, not one promise every took root. Now he's off promising another would be garden tender a beautiful rose garden sure to yield a bounty. She's patiently tilling the soil while he looks on with amusement. The lesson. ACTION!!!! Judge actions, actions, actions. Words are cheap. Words are easy. Words are pretty. Words are full of promise. The thing about promise is that is means something is almost.....about.....to.....maybe.....happen. To often the road of Promise Land is a dead end. Judge it when you arrive. Not when you're promised to one day, maybe get a ride, to maybe, something that might, at some point and time, look like paradise. In that case. It never existed in the first place.


Excuses and Empty Promises
A psychopath does not keep his commitments or obligations. He breaks his word, stands people up, abandons those who care about him at critical times in their lives, cheats with impunity, and makes promises he has no intention of delivering on to get what he wants. Psychopaths may disappear and reappear in the lives of friends and family, causing worry and heartbreak, without ever adequately explaining what they’ve been up to. However, they always have excuses, and it is always someone else’s fault.


Read more at Suite101: How Psychopaths Exploit Others: Modes of Sociopathic Deception and Manipulation | Suite101.com http://jennifercopley.suite101.com/how-psychopaths-exploit-others-a62418#ixzz1cWBJ51qJ