It may be that you are no longer with the psychopath, but that sense of being a victim to him or her is still with you. And it may well be with you for sometime – even to the point of remaining scarred. You may consider that you’ve learned your lesson, and not trust so easily, anyone who comes along with a glib tongue, a shallow manner and a charismatic ability to get under your skin, while ripping you off emotionally and/or financially.
But the thing is, for everyone who thinks that their intelligence, and even experience, will leave them immune, well, they just could be wrong. For it is my long-considered opinion that regardless of who you are, there will be someone who has the uncanny ability to ‘psyche you out’ and fool you. Naturally there are great lessons learned from any association with a psychopath – the greatest lesson is looking at your own self in a greater self-awareness – in the assessing of your own weak points and the renewing or reviving of your self-esteem – in fact your overall sense of good self.
What you first need to do is stop all self-recriminations. So you had the experience with the psychopath in your life and you got burned and it was a seriously life-altering experience! But you cannot dwell on your own failings and how seriously you betrayed yourself by succumbing to the wily cons of this perpetrator.
In the book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, Robert D. Hare PhD writes:
“Some people are simply too trusting and gullible for their own good – ready targets or any smooth talker who comes along. But what about the rest of us? The sad fact is that we are all vulnerable. Few people are such sophisticated and perceptive judges of human nature that they cannot be taken in by the machinations of a skilled and determined psychopath. Even those who study them are not immune…” P.124 (Guilford Press 1999 ed.).
So, no rear-vision mirrors. And you can have hope that your experience can result in ways of redemption. The thing is now you can GET BACK YOUR LIFE from this predator that has so messed with you.
For those who are still actively involved with a psychopath, I can recommend that you secure a knowledge base. Do your reading: books like the one by Hare, Martha Stout’s The Sociopath Next Door. And there is so much online from which to learn. If you are still living with this person in some way, then you might have to practice some cunning of your own by learning on your own time. For there is no point, once you have come to the conclusion that the person who has made your life a living hell is
1. going to be helped by you or
2. going to be changed by your revealing to them that you have diagnosed them psychopath [narcissist or sociopath]. In fact, if you do this – ‘out them’ – then you are probably going to make it for yourself because you’d be effectively redefining the battle lines. Remember the psychopath likes the game and doesn’t like to lose. So keep your business to yourself. You don’t even need to ‘out’ them – at least not to them. But what you’ll need to do is discuss them with others who are capable of listening.
VALIDATION
This is the one thing, above all others for a while, that you’ll be craving. You could look back over your experiences with him/her and shake your head: how could it have become all so crazy? How could I have not seen? How could I have stopped this (ie., in the situation of say, an offspring that is clearly displaying the traits of the psychopath)?. Yes, you could consider this, but you may well struggle getting that self-validation.
I suggest that the past be dealt with via therapy with a trained counselor is a step in the right direction. I also highly recommend writing down the account of all that took place, even some main points (ie. where the toxic one’s inconsistencies manifested in some living proofs).
I suggest writing and getting accounts down in black and white, for the psychopath can so confuse and addle as to make his/her victim doubt their own sanity and actions. What is more, they can even make out that is is YOU that is the ‘crazy’ one. Never underestimate the cunning of this reptilian! For if the relationship dynamic has changed, they will seek to regroup. Some might even attempt to turn the situation around and make out they are the victim and you are the liar! Some will attempt to defile your reputation, making people to doubt what you say. But, because the psychopath has had so much control and influence for so long, their inflated egos (compensatory for their incredibly lost and in all truth miniscule self-esteem) won’t let you get away without some sort of a fight.
So
1. don’t redefine battle lines
2. don’t leave yourself in any position where the fight can continue – the fight including all further mind-games and having other people drawn into your situation. You will need to extricate yourself in a resolute manner that is as unmessy as possible.
Don’t even consider going to therapy sessions like couple-counseling. You’d be trying to fix what cannot be fixed, for the psychopath is corrupt at the core. A counseling session in which he/she is involved is merely anther ‘game’ they must win.
One incidence I can cite is where a woman was struggling with her malignantly no-conscience narcissist husband. She acted on a suggestion to couple’s therapy. While she struggled to put across her husband’s lies and all his other neglectful and abusive ways, he sat there looking like he’d never done a wrong thing in his life, with a very angelic and highly ‘believable’ demeanor. This made her look like she was the only one with the ‘issues’.
So what to do?
You get out.
You have NO CONTACT
If there was any rule that applied to getting free of the psychopath in your life it is this: No Contact.
They will try anything to get back the power they had. Guilt you, shame you, extort, threaten and yes, be ultra nice, try to romance (regardless of what kind of relationship, they know how to turn on fake ‘love’), flatter and say things like “Things will be better from now on, I’ll never lie to you again.”
Don’t you believe it. They would get you back in their control because of purely selfish reasons, and nothing to do with you or what you need from the relationship. Once you leave that relationship, you stay gone. As I said – no rear-vision mirrors. You need to get your life back. Your leaving affects their egos very badly, especially in the case of the malignant narcissist. In this particular situation, upon leaving and making the decision for “no contact”, you’ll have to imagine your ears are now shut to their lies, the things you might well imagine that they will say to other people about you. You will have to be careful not to entertain wrong self impressions, no wrong self-determinisms. Remember that you have been dealing with a person who does not have a warm beating heart as anyone does with any normal human empathy. You have been dealing with a cold-blooded predator, whose intent was to get all they wanted. You owe them nothing. But you owe yourself, and those who might have been affected along with you, everything.
And so, to recap:
No Contact. When you leave that relationship you stay gone. You do not continue even dialogue with them if you can avoid it ie. using legal channels or a non-combatant third party.
Get Validation. Talk to the right people about what happened. Go see a therapist. If that counselor is not familiar or will not provide apt validation, then you are not seeing the right therapist. Also, talk to as many people about what happened, as are mature and able enough to hear you. The more you ‘out’ the perpetrator to others, the more you get validation for yourself. But don’t harp, don’t be a train wreck. For in the time you are escaping and have entered into recovery, you are going to have to be smart even though you may be emotionally shattered. You are going to have to remain strong.
Read. The more you learn about this personality disorder, the more you are going to be settled into a knowledge base. If knowledge is power then knowledge of psychopathy: narcissism/sociopat
hy is going to empower you.
Get Yourself Back. There is much good in this. In fact, take a minute to think about it. You escape the psychopath’s clutches, you have made the firm decision for no-contact. Now it’s time to rediscover you. It can be a very good time and ultimately liberating. You will need to be pro-active about it. Think of all the physical ways you can change your life, a home make-over within your budget? New linen and towels for sure if the psychopath has been a partner (yes, even this will help you ‘clean house’). Maybe you could look at how you used to be before the toxic one took such a hold? How were you then and could you be that person again? One victim I knew said, “the narcissist made me fade to grey. But when I got my own place, I put the key in the door for the first time and in that moment, I felt hope returning to get the real me back…” So, what you do is going to help greatly.
Make Every Practical Provision. Look to securing your finances, assets and everything else that you will have to consolidate to yourself. Remember, do not threaten the psychopath with the “I’m going to[s]…”. Make your decision to leave the relationship permenately and do what you need to do. Entering into any dialogue in your distress will only make your grounds (unfortunately) weaker to the psychopath who vultures on weakness. Even if you need to bluff strength for the while you get yourself free, for a show of strength on your behalf will set them back apace. Do not whatever you do give into fear, as in ‘fear of being alone’ – this is one of the cards they could potentially pull out of their decks in order to trump you, to make you doubt yourself. Listen to their words and assess every one of them as a strategy to repossess you again. Suffer not to be flattered also by any sweet-talking: the psychopath will often resort to this, one of their original strategic ruses. Do not react either, for any volitile emotional reaction on your behalf may uncork their capacity for rage. Get yourself, in every way, efficiently to a secure and safe place.
Of course there is much more I could write, for the psychopath, their influence, the type of relationship and the number of given people involved, including children, will make for variables considerably. But, I hope in the above article, I have given you some definite clues to get back on track again.
You could even look at it this way. The relationship put you in a prison. Now you are out and you are “not guilty”, you were sentenced to a term of punishment for a crime you didn’t commit. No, someone else committed that crime and you have No Right to take any guilt upon yourself. It’s up to you what you do with your life from hence forth.
Be strong. You can survive the psychopath. You can not only go on to know your authentic self again – outside of all the toxic one’s possession of you and his/her manipulations – and you can go on to thrive by the re-creation of your life.
You only have one life to live. You’ve escaped. Now, go be free. Eyes only ahead.
“You don’t really know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have” Anonymous
This has been part 7 in Series Psychopath
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