HORROR MOVIES CAN HELP YOU AVOID SOCIOPATHS
I tend to try to save victims in a horror movie from behind the safety of a blanket that’s pulled up to my eyes. I tell them not to open that door, to make sure the batteries in their flashlight work, to stop playing with a Ouija board on Halloween night, etc. Eerily, some of my sage advice for these hapless ingénues (and yes, I know they can’t really hear me) is the same that I would offer to someone who’s about to be sucked in by a sociopath/con artist/all-around a**hole.
If something seems too good to be true, it is. He knows how to get what he wants and boy, did he see me coming. He was so attentive and so affectionate – I thought I had won the love lottery. Our courtship was completely intoxicating. He charmed the pants off me (quite literally), he left me love notes everywhere and became my ‘plus-one’ at dozens of weddings and events. We took weekends away and met each other’s families. I was absolutely smitten. He was the most intelligent, sweetest, kindest, most loving man. He swept me off my feet. It was at times overwhelming and almost suffocating, but he made me feel safe and saved. I would have walked on hot coals for him. I was in for a world of pain, alright - just not singed feet.
Listen to your gut. While on a beach holiday, I walked through our hotel room wrapped in a towel after a shower. He freaked. Didn’t I know that people had telescopic lenses and could take illicit pictures of me in my towel? This came after an already-tense afternoon of being berated for bending down to tie my shoe on the boardwalk while wearing a beach cover-up. I was clearly showing my ass to every man in Florida. Was I a whore, or what? I had ruined the vacation. It was all my fault.
I apologized. This was the first confused apology of about a thousand to come. I said that he was right. I was wrong. My gut knew that I wasn’t being honest, but my heart was singing a different tune. Full disclosure – I actually begged for forgiveness. On my hands and knees. (Wow – this visual still brings tears to my eyes.) He will never show remorse or empathy but he will expect you to make up for his deficit, three-times over. Don’t separate from your group. I protected him. I lied for him. I became a person that I used to pity. I turned my back on my family, my friends, God, my morals – pieces of my life that I had once cherished were relinquished to him without question. He set the table to feed my self-doubt and I gobbled it up without hesitation. He convinced me that he was the only who ever really loved me – everyone else was ‘against us’. He was simply trying to isolate me from people who might see him for what he was and jeopardize his cushy set-up. Don’t allow yourself to be lead into a dark, foul-smelling basement. He said I was the only person he could trust, then would wake me in the middle of the night demanding to know why I speak to my male co-workers… at work. He said he couldn’t wait to be a father, then shoved me around in the hospital parking lot as we went to our first ultrasound. He said he loved me then called me a whore in front of our son. He told me he would keep me safe, then had me so terrified that I locked myself and my kids in my room every night. He swore he would never hurt me, then I was compelled to keep a file called, “If I die/disappear suddenly… Mr. X did it” on my computer (and sent it to a trusted friend). It was a pattern that broke me down – so much so that I believed that I belonged shackled in that basement.
If you see his mask begin to slip off, don’t wait for the sound of the chainsaw. This man lied to me from the jump. So why, oh why, didn’t I run away after the 100th time he showed me his true colors? Why did I allow this to go on for so long? Well… duh… I was convinced that I could save him/change him if I just loved him enough, worked harder, earned more money, and avoided eye contact with men in public… He was just a wounded bird – I was going to heal him even if it meant breaking myself into pieces in the process. Pssst… he’s never going to change. Get your running shoes on, sister.
Above all else, stay alert, stay on a well-lit path, and identify your emergency exits at all times.