Really don't know where to start with this, but I need some advice.

After trying to protect a close family member from The Psychopath, I had to cut the family member loose.

It's not a decision I took lightly. In fact, I had a breakdown over it. I'm still recovering from the breakdown. I tried everything to protect the close family member, but I realized (instinctively at first, then intellectually) that the Psychopath already had his claws stuck in. It was incredible how quickly and easily it happened.

I'm worried about the close family member. They're very vulnerable, and I know only too well how The Psychopath operates and what he will do. The last time I talked to the close family member they knew they were caught. There was a moment of utter lucidity and pain on their part in amongst this weird cotton wool state of being, which was totally excruciating to witness.

My only hope is that when The Psychopath starts painting me as the evil, vindictive bitch, there will be a tiny voice in my close family member's head that says 'but she's not like that. I know her and she's not like that'. I remember such a moment with The Psychopath and it was the tiniest glimmer of me in this bleak, desolate, no man's land which I inhabited.

A very old family friend, who knows something of The Psychopath but doesn't know about his true nature, or the damage he has caused, wrote to me at Christmas. I was happy to hear from this friend, but they said that they hadn't heard from the close family member (not since we argued).

I'm wondering if I should say something to the very old family friend? Ask them to keep an eye out for the close family member? Tell them the danger that the close family member is in? Tell them the truth about The Psychopath? The truth is very shocking, and there are not many people that I know who have been able to deal with it, so I am cautious of what I say to people.

I don't know what to do.

My counsellor has told me time and time again that I must save myself. So I am very reluctant to rock the boat now that I have found this tiny oasis of calm and tranquility where I can start to piece myself and my life back together.

Oh Starry -

I can completely relate to your post. My situation is very similar. About 2 years ago, my then 81 y/o mother was suffering from depression and anxiety so I took her to the doctor. When the doctor asked her about her activities and she said that she couldn't always get out of the house because my brother took her car and she couldn't always get it back, I nearly fell off of my chair. She said, "I let him borrow it a few weeks ago and I can't get it back."

After the appointment the nurse took me aside and asked me, "Who's BLANK? Your mom is always talking about him and how he doesn't have any money."

I talked to my mom about this later and she claimed, "I've got to do what I can to keep him working." When I explained to her that his apartment was about 2 miles from his place of part-time employment and on the bus route, she seemed practically resistant to this suggestion. I also talked to him and explained that it was too much pressure for her to be financially responsible for a grown adult. When I told him that her having access to her own car was vital for her to maintain her independence, he replied: "If she needs it back all she has to do is ask." Confronting him on his arrogant reply did no good. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that he told her that I attacked him.

She is so afraid of him that she yelled at me for upsetting him.

And then last year, my mom fell and fractured a bone in her pelvic area. What did he do? While the rest of us were visiting her daily, he took her car and crashed it. We found out that he had continued to drive her car and furthermore, she was paying for his insurance and probably gas too.

While she was recovering, he visited her only rarely. He did manage to go to her home, eat her food, and leave it a mess until he was confronted by my sister. He's always had a strangle-hold on her emotionally and his recent diagnosis of cancer has kind of sealed the deal.

Over the summer, he got bed bugs. He refused to face it and even refused offers from several family members to pay for extermination. We told him that it would be best that he not come over to visit her until he had the bed bugs under control and his response was, "you can't tell me what to do."

What has been most mind-boggling, dizzy-ing, and devastating is that she defends him and sometimes even attacks us when we don't buy his cons. I know he has his clutches in her already and I am trying to see her as a victim in this, but it is very painful when she attacks me while defending him.

I want to have a relationship with her because in so many ways she has been a loving mother to me. She's loving and he has exploited it. I'm learning through therapy to be able to focus on my visits with her rather than focus on "saving her."

Here is some of the discussion on this earlier.

http://www.psychopath-research.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/9330/1

My brother has not been overtly violent. Instead, he becomes agitated and escalates just to the point of violence. He's also surfed for porn on her computer and seemed ambivalent when he was confronted about it.

Hmm, that does sound like violence to me.

It's the threat of violence. And the fear that he engenders by using that threat. I bet he can gauge exactly how much fear there is on your part, and how much he might need to wratchet up that fear in order to get you where he wants you to be. He is in perfect control of that threat.

It's very psychologically and emotionally violent. The kind of violence that does not leave a visible mark, but which is very scarring.

And porn...well that's all about metaphotically chopping someone to pieces, so that they're reduced to their individual body parts and stripped of their hopes and dreams and their souls. It's all about reducing someone to an object, which is what psychopaths do.

It makes sense that violence and porn should go together.

I don't know what the answer is here. I'm sorry.

Hi starry, welcome to the forum.

Porn seems to go with every psychopath that I have heard from. Maybe there are a few who aren't but it seems the majority are. Having affairs outside of the relationship is also a common trait which can in some cases wake the victim up, they are smooth talkers so it depends.

The reason for weeding information out of you is simply to provide him with ammunition. Someone once said what they thought was so great was how the psychopath when they first, asked questions and really listened to her, not the same skill pattern of most "regular" men. It is part of the process so later they can use it against the person, for example if you say some relative or ex was an alcoholic, the way it would get flipped would be to accuse the victim of having issues because of it. Ammunition is what it is and only the ugly way that it can be used it will.

Until your relative is ready there isn't much you can do. Has he started the isolation process?

If you are comfortable answering, how did the events unfold that got you in the situation?

Di

I absolutely agree with everything you've said there.

The Psychopath wanted a very specific question answered, relating to me. The Psychopath knew that I was outside his sphere of influence (because I cut off contact with him a while ago, and because I set the boundaries on that occassion). But he obviously really, really needed to find this thing out.

I'm under no illusion that he didn't already know the answer beforehand. I think he was just using my close family relative,a bit like a ventriloquist's dummy, to double check that the conclusion he had got to was right, and ultimately to let me know that he knows.

And that kind of worries me a bit as to what The Psychopath's next move might be. He's someone who can harbor a grudge for many, many years. He's someone who feels wronged by the whole world. You know how it goes.

As regards my close family relative I don't know what's happening. I feel it's too dangerous for me to have The Psychopath so close. I would have to treat the close family member as an extension of The Psychopath and not give my close family relative any information about me at all, as I know The Psychopath would hoover any information straight out of them, if The Psychopath wanted to.

I don't want to give too many details out. I'm sure you understand that

I've thought long and hard about how to answer this without giving too many specific details out.

I think I can say this: to The Psychopath it doesn't make any difference if the person he targets is a partner, wife, family member, or child.

And I think I can say this too: the techniques he uses are always the same, irrespective of who his target is. He has spent his life honing his techniques, and he uses them because they are very effective. I'm sure it's no surprise what they are: deprivation of food and water, deprivation of sleep, isolation, physical violence, sexual violence, death threats.

I hope there's a hell, because he belongs there.

Hi Starry,

There are no rules that anyone has to answer something that makes them uncomfortable. We are here to listen and validate. It is always best to not use names and places.

You are having a tough time so anything we can do to help you through this, please let us know.

Di

Thank you Di.

Most people don't understand how it feels.

Even the psychotherapist I went to see a few months ago, who had absolutely no trouble at all in labelling him a psychopath, couldn't seem to understand how I felt (even though I had absolutely no trouble at all explaining how I felt, and why I felt that way).

There was a point in my session where I was sitting opposite to her and it was like there was a gulf of a million miles separating us. She could understand intellectually what had happened, she understood that perfectly well, but she had no idea of how it felt and how I felt.

So much sadness, so much grief, so much distance separating me from the rest of the world.

Is this the 'new normal' (as my counsellor described it)? This...where I am now, who I am now?

I hate this. I feel estranged from myself, I don't recognize myself. I don't even know who this person is, but I know (intellectually) that it must be me.

Plodding on, every day, one foot in front of the other. Sometimes reduced to living moment by moment, and just hanging in there, waiting for the heaviness to pass.

I do see that now is better than this time last year, or this time two years ago, or this time three years ago. But the feeling of wading through treacle is there most days. And some days I just feel too overwhelmed to do anything.

Is this it? Is this it for the rest of my life? Is this the 'new normal'?

Why does he get away with it all...all? No punishment, no prison, nothing. And I have this to deal with?

Stop