Victims of Psychopaths Community Group
Is he or she a sociopath or psychopath? Think we're only talking about serial killers here? Psychopaths, sociopaths and even narcissists come in every walk of life, every career level, and every socio-economic category.
Did any of you struggle with the brainwashing? I still succumb to it. Think I did him wrong with having the baby. That I'm evil. That I'm a whore. That cheating is ok. That not being in a kids life is perfectly ok - "afterall, someone else can adopt him". That sex has nothing to do with love - " we love kids but don't sleep with them". I could go on and on. He told me that HE had Stockholm syndrome from MY abuse! He made me think I was abusive and the abuser. He would say he didn't have to put up with my abuse anymore. I mean I was convinced I was abusive. I was a bad human. I master manipulator. He actually thinks I forced him to have the kid. Mine always said he could be a cult leader. He could convince me eyes were blue when r they are brown. It's insane the spell I was under. And everyone would tell me- he's brainwashing you...but I actually believed his "logic" - it made sense. They are so convincing.
Instead, he lied about who he was, mirroring my values and my life experiences. He said he was very shy and sexually inexperienced. He was 57 when we met. He said he was too awkward with women to even start a conversation. He didn't have any social skills or seduction skills. (I didn't get out much due to chronic illness and had been celibate 10 years, so my social and flirting skills were minimal.) He said he had not had sex in years and could count on one hand the number of women he had slept with. He alleged to have only ever had longterm mongamous relationships, not even one casual partner.
After we had become involved, he yammered on and on in online chats, for hours, day in and day out, about his extremely high morals, his disgust with any kind of cheating, his total commitment to monogamy, his hatred of bars and clubs. (He's a bar singer/bass player.) I wasn't allowed to go out to clubs with friends which I had not done in 10 years, but as I did with him, I became interested in local bands, and wanted to go out very occasionally. (We lived 2 hours apart).
He attempted to redefine me as a whore. He spent equal hours in online chats, day in and day out, yammering on and on, about how I was a whore with cheating on my mind. I was a bar slut. (I had gone to a local club one time without him.) I was a low-class low-income slag. He spent hours telling me to go out and get f____, like I wanted to, calling me filthy names, suggesting male friends I should call. This line of brainwashing never had one ounce of effect on me because I KNOW I am the opposite of all that. I just thought he was nuts and needed to be on meds. Paranoid ideation or something.
In fact, he was attempting to trade identities with me. He was, in fact, a very promiscuous, porn-addicted, lying, cheating, catfishing Internet predator with one other regular girlfriend and dozens of Internet flirtations going on.
When I caught him cheating, he would yammer on for hours online about how much he loved me, didn't love anyone else, I was the only one, he loved me forever, blah blah blah. He would repeat these words for hours, for days, for weeks.
It was brainwashing. He also often brainwashed with words representing the opposite of the known truth. For example, if he had been caught on a dating site, we'd had a fight, and then resolved to continue, he would then repeat over and over that he had not been on the site. Whatever it was--after being acknowledged and fought over, then he had not done it. He apparently believed that if he repeated a lie enough, it would replace the truth--which is the essence of brainwashing.
One time--I still remember where we were--in my car, on what street, because I was so stunned--he casually popped off, "My daughter is like me. She likes to go to wild rock concerts and do lots of drugs and have lots of wild, casual sex." This was after the year of yammering on about his sexual inexperience and shyness. I was driving. I remember just staring at him as the statement made no sense. I decided he must have meant how he was in his youth, although even that didn't fit his self-description. Things like that, they just fall into outer space because we have no place to put them.
One distortion he did try to pull, repeatedly, early on, was to portray rock and roll and popular music as the meaning of life, the highest principle of life, higher than God, goodness, intergity, love, peace, anything. He also yammered on and on about music, artists, music venues, concerts he'd attended. He had seen every major artist multiple times. He'd been at Woodstock at age 15. He would denigrate me for not being as familiar with music as he was, as if it was a character flaw. I have been a spiritual seeker all of my adult life. I spent 10 years in a spiritual community, have written several books on spirituality, not published. His misguided value system turned my stomach. I admonished him gently many times. Fianlly, one day, we were standing in my living room, getting ready to go somewhere. He mentioned a music venue in my city, and I asked him where was that. He said, "YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE BLAH IS??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I gave him a look that could kill and said, "Music venues aren't that important. In fact, I don't think God gives a shit where Blah is. Don't you ever lord it over me that I dont' know where some fucking music venue is. Your values make me sick." I never heard another word on the subject.
I am not perfect, but I am not a criminal. He on the other hand has crossed boundaries from the first date and had done things that are borderline criminal, but remained just immoral, because he was not caught. Now I know how he tried to drag me into this.
After I was washing machine was done I separated his from mine. There are a lot of things he claims are mine , but are his. And his new girlfriend will see him wearing them at some point.
My cloths are clean , he has stains all over.
So this is an example for somebody who is the life of his child, but only sees her a few months a year.
Your ex has to feel ashamed for coping like this with the situation. Not you. Treating people like objects especially your son is creepy and anti- social. You took responsibilty and you are coping, he isn't.
In his version of things, he was the only strong one and we should all rely on him. Then as soon as he had you under his thumb, the process of tearing you down began. He had my mother so convinced she was hopelessly incompetent that she was terrified of the outside world and rarely left the house.
With the help of her sisters, Mom finally did break free to some extent and she even got a job after we kids grew up and moved away. Dad was furious about that, but eventually he gave in.
He pulled the same thing again when I moved in with him temporarily for a while after Mom died. He tried to convince me that I could never hold down a job, despite the fact that I had three degrees in science and engineering. He said I would have to stay with him and live off his pension because I was too "weak" to cope with the world. Everything I tried to do in life, he always spoke negatively about it all. He was like a malicious spider entangling anyone who ventured too close in all the sticky threads of his web.
He painted himself as this gentle, moral person. But I saw the dark side of him...and eventually I remembered how cruelly he had abused me and the rest of our family when I was very young...how he used to beat the dog half to death for no particular reason.
The only way to deal with people like these is to run for your life. They are seriously dangerous individuals.
In fact I always phoned his parents when I needed jobs doing. Otherwise he'd sit on his computer all day in his room and just light up incense sticks. When I was pregnant and just had my baby I asked him to stop with the incense, it was a strong smell and I felt sick. He was really annoyed he had to give it up so instead closed the door to his room and opened the window there, ignored me most of the time. I felt like a lodger in his house, that's how he treated me not an equal partner.
to be in the Army and was in Falusha and saw a lot of terrible things there and did not get any benefits when he left because he would not take any of the pills they gave him. The point I am making is that I would feel sorry for him and want to take care of him. Then any time I spoke my mind about something he would throw a screaming fit about it and blame blame blame me. I have never in my life seem anything like it. But what he was good at was telling me how much he loved me. Sometimes in bed he would say he loved me more than 10 times in a row. He knew that is what I needed and used it to keep me hooked. It is so slow and calculated how they manage to get us under their spell. Well come to find out after a couple years of being caught in his web he never was even in the military!