Hi Guys,

I discovered this forum this morning and reading about all of your experiences has been both upsetting and eye-opening. I woke in the small hours after having a really disturbing dream, which somehow made me think about a man I've been having a relationship with and I had a real moment of clarity about his behaviour and frankly, it frightened me. I'm not even sure what caused me to make the Psychopath connection, other than perhaps because my father was a diagnosed Psychopath and I know a thing or two about their modus operandi? I thought I would post to see if anyone thought his behaviour was typical of a Psychopath and also how I might give him the brush off as I'm really quite scared to keep him in my life. Apologies, I think this may be a bit of an essay so please don't feel obliged to read!

I started seeing him about a year ago and we've been more off than on during that time. He's younger than me and very good looking and I was quite surprised by his interest and I definitely encouraged it. I only ever see/saw him on his terms, he drops out of contact for days or weeks at a time then contacts me out of the blue as if nothing happened. We communicate mainly by text, he seems to prefer text contact rather than face-to-face, particularly when it comes to sexual relations. He is transfixed with breasts and likes to send me pictures of himself posing naked. His text messages tend not to make any sense if I ask him a direct question that he might prefer not to answer. I know he has a temper and I try not to invoke it, especially as I know texts are often misconstrued, but even when I try to be nice, he will turn every exchange into a competition/point-scoring opportunity. He is very quick to make very personal insults, even with no provocation. He invited me out one night then completely ignored me and ended up really insulting me and basically calling me easy in front of his friends when I spoke to them instead of him (naturally I did this as he was ignoring me and I didn't want to spend the night in the pub in silence, I'm normally quite outgoing and like chatting to people).

Sex was really perfunctory, I got nothing from it emotionally. He wanted me to touch him but didn't want to reciprocate. He wouldn't dream of touching me outside the bedroom (where the lights were always off and he got naked and into bed before I even reached the room) in an affectionate way. I said to a couple of my friends that for reasons I couldn't put my finger on, I wondered if he may be homosexual. He sent me a couple of texts recently in a sexual context where he said that I didn't know what he was capable of and also one describing in graphic detail what he would do to me and let's just say it wasn't something that I would be particularly keen on doing, it was fairly aggressive.

He has jokingly made reference to stalking me and looking through my windows previously although now it doesn't seem so funny. What seems different to other people's experiences is that I never went through a honeymoon period, he was always difficult to pin down and get an emotional response from but I put it down to him being a little emotionally dysfunctional - haha. He lives with his mother who seems very normal, his father is absent, he has been rejected by some of his family and he hates his brother with a frightening intensity. He has a great many tattoos and is really into shooting. As far as I can tell, he likes animals though! He's bad at managing money and constantly blames other people for things that go wrong in his life. A lot of people around him have suffered misfortune, including good friends he's lost through accidents, and when I jokingly mentioned he may be jinxed he flew off the handle.

In the past when I've ignored him, he always contacts me again and I relent and strike up a relationship because I think he may have changed. This time I'm adamant that I won't put up with him because I'm really quite scared, I live on my own. I think my best option is just to keep any text responses to him neutral and non-committal, gradually phasing them out as I don't want him to think I'm dumping him. I'm hoping he'll just get bored eventually. I'm also hoping that he's not dangerous, I'm sure he's not I guess it would be nice to get some input.

God, I really hope he doesn't read this.

Thank you if you do manage to read this, I feel better for sharing x

basil, welcome

I'm sorry for what you're going through. It sounds very empty and unfulfilling. I think you are right to be wary, your gut instinct is always right. I would keep any texts and make a note of any threats he makes.

You mention that you live alone. Do you have friends that you could reach out to? Perhaps a female friend who could come and stay with you for a couple of days. Or a friend that you could arrange to check in with every evening at the same time by phone? Or family?

I don't have much advice, except maybe to remember that you don't owe him anything.

Hello, I'm new here.

I already knew something was wrong about my mother-in-law, but the lightbulb moment came last Thursday when I was watching "The Mentalist" on tv. At the end of the show the character who was playing the new supervisor told Patrick Jane he was a psychopath, and listed all the main symptoms. And I said, "Wow! That sure sounds familiar."

After doing online searches and reading half the night about psychopaths, I was amazed. If Mother-in-law is not a psychopath, I sure don't know what else she is. She fits the whole list.

Anyway, I'm glad this group is here, even as small as it may be at this time.

blue heron

Hi, this is my first time here... you guys have helped me so much already, I thank you all beyond belief. The light bulb moment... good question. When the horror had been with me a few days, after the lightning bolt, I was talking with a close friend about the whole situation. I referred to "him" as a psychopath. The word just came out. My friend said, "You mean socio-path, not psychopath." I thought I said a word that didn’t exist, some mix of psycho and socio-path. Well, that night to check my vocabulary, I went online and goggled psychopath. OMG. The article I found, What Is a Psychopath, described him to the hilt... a CHARISMATIC PSYCHOPATH. A light bulb, well not really, more like a glaring flood light. I was so amazed to see that he is labeled, that I am not the only one to have experienced this type of devil. I actually felt relieved. It wasn’t me, my reactions, my inadequacies, it was him… he brilliantly orchestrated the collapse of my life. In this article the following is what lead me to search for a support group, thank God... I found you guys. “I believe that some individuals are strong enough to stand up to the psychopath; unfortunately, not all people are, and most psychopaths succeed in permanently damaging their victims. This is why we clearly need more support groups for people who have been in relationships with psychopaths.”

Welcome, Miss Treated. It really is empowering to finally start understanding what is going on with those infuriating people in our lives. There is some good information here and some nice people who can relate.

blue heron

Hi blue heron, You are the first to talk to me. Thank you. This is new to me. I just hope it keeps me moving forward.

Miss Treated, welcome!

Psychopath and Psychopath are both being used to describe basically the same type. I think Psychopath has more power, but also, if you say it, people usually think of serial killers.

So I usually say psychopath-Psychopath to denote that these words mean the same.


I hope you will find as much comfort here as you can, you sure are in the right place!

Welcome, Miss Treated. I have read some of your story in your other post.

I hope you continue to find the answers your are looking for.

Some months after I broke up, this foggy haze in my head was starting to clear up more and more each day.

I had always thought of her as a very emotionally damaged person from the childhood abuse she had described to me..
That anyone experiencing something like that would be desensitized and different. So I had sympathy for her hard life and lots of empathy for her, and forgave her for mistreating and disrespecting me rather easily..

Then I started realizing...her sisters are all well off and most of them married (6 sisters in fact). They seem nice and are in happy relationships.

Something didn't make sense. I started wondering "What kind of person behaves like this?" and "Why would someone lie about the smallest most meaningless things?", "How could someone do something so serious and seemingly not be affected by it?". I always thought that when she didn't show or express remorse, guilt or that she was sorry; she was feeling it on the inside but holding it back. So I never confronted her with it, just expected she felt terrible enough as it was. I was wrong.

I started searching online for "compulsive liars", "manipulative people", "people with no regret" and after a while ended up in a wikipedia article reading about psychopathy and Hare's checklist. I was shocked when I started trying to put the total points together and realized she nailed a 2 pointer on almost every one...

Shortly after, I ended up finding this forum.

Since becoming more mature, I've always tried to think of the world as a good place and that bad people simply didn't exist. I would delude myself that even serial killers were simply misguided, abused, people with a shattered soul who were good deep down somehow. This line of thinking blocked me from seeing what was going on.

Thanks for the help on this forum. Lots of good people here. I think there are tons of victims who will never realize that they were once with a psychopath...I wanted answers at first and to know "why"...I don't need to know why anymore. They are just not like other people, and to fully understand one, we would have to become one. And there is no way anyone would want that. So I just accept what ever happened because Psychopath was just like that and Psychopath didn't choose to be who she was.

-James

That's kind of funny because I in a way sort of thought something kind of similar. I mean, I always believed that light couldn't exist without dark, so of course there would be such a thing as good and evil. I figured if there was no bad in the world, there would be no good either.

But you see, the thing with me was that when I saw/met someone who seemed troubled, I thought the same. I thought they
were just troubled, misguided. Probably had a troubled childhood. Which is true, for everyone else excluding psychos.

So, even though I had the thought in the back of my head that bad has to exist for good to exist, I never 'viscerally' understood it. I was happily deluded in my own world, a complete sitting duck with my fantastical wishful thinking. And then I was taught a lesson, and now I learn to apply what I believe rather than just let it float in the back of my mind as an after thought.

So, what I've noticed is a lot of people who get into these types of relationships are people who tend to have this same sort of wishful thinking. It's what makes us sitting ducks. Our lack of awareness makes us easy prey. In a way, I guess when people think like this - they're begging for a wake up call from reality. And reality can hit hard!
~~

As for my lightbulb moment, it happened when he told me that he thinks about raping women. I was shocked when he said that, but he explained to me that it is normal for men to think about rape. He said that all men think about this even if they don't admit it. The way he said it to me was so casual, like talking about the weather. Then he explained to me that he couldn't help the way he thinks, that I should accept him, and saying it's women's fault for being sexy.

A few months after he said that, little red flags just kept piling up until I decided I wasn't going to take anymore of this. I felt like I was constantly under a spell, being manipulated and I couldn't see anything. The very fact that I couldn't see or understand anything was also my red flag, which helped me get out.

In the past, before him, I had a fairly ok/healthy relationship. What I know is that my first relationship did not make me feel like utter crud, and did not make me so emotionally confused to the point of wanting kill myself.

So, what I knew was that what was happening between us was not normal or healthy by any stretch of the imagination. That helped get me out.