Katiep's Story

I'm wide Awake

MY JOURNEY AND A CHANCE ENCOUNTER WITH A VICTIM

Almost one year has passed since I ended my relationship with a man I learned is a psychopath. It has been a year of learning and self discovery to say the least. For those of you who don't know my story, I am a married woman who became entangled with a man I knew for a few years from my fitness center. The journey through the recovery process is somewhat natural. I simply started to seek answers, educating myself and all the pieces came together.

Once the veiled lifted and I began to establish boundaries for myself, the true character of this man shined through. In the psychological whirlwind that spun around my head, I found the strength to contact his ex for answers. She told me about "anti-social personality disorder telling me it was the new term for psychopathy. At this point, I had no idea what a personality disorder was. I became schooled in the terminology and behaviors I had never even heard of before. Sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissistic personality disorder, gas lighting, hoovering, triangulation, "the mask", pathology, empathy or the lack thereof, silent treatment, lies, lies, lies, control, emotional predator, idealize, devalue, discard, cognitive dissonance, no contact......I now know through firsthand experience.

Reading about these disorders became imperative. However, reading alone is not enough. I started to see a local counselor individually and with my husband. She was helpful but was not experienced in working with those involved with psychopaths. I searched high and low for the right help. I found it through a phone counselor who specialized in pathological love relationships. She could label all that I was thinking and feeling. It was then that my journey into healing got kick started.

I'm not going to lie--it has been a lot of back and forth in my head contemplating the "love" I felt and whether it was real. Did I make the right decision? Is it my fate that this happened and I am meant to be with him. I still struggle with the whole love bombing or idealization phase. It was so powerful. And yes, I know he is not capable of love. He has no ability to truly love other than to have power over the chosen one or ones! How does one wrap their brain around this? It 's so sick and unnatural that I will never fully grasp it.

Through the struggle, I worked to find myself, that is the person I was before him, and to work on my weaknesses which allowed me to dance his disordered dance. I also worked to deal with the issues in my marriage and to rebuild and create a new relationship with my husband. Mainly, I did what the experts told me to do. I maintained no contact until he started blatantly toying with me again.

It is truly amazing how accurate the experts are in the behavior patterns of these individuals and our reactions to them. Yes some covert stalking occurred. When the messages became aggressive, I made contact asking him to stop and to delete everything. Bad move on my part. This opened the door to communication. With everything I know, how could I have any feelings for him at all. The pain, heartache, sadness, and boundary violations are stored somewhere deep in my mind--not easily retrievable. Some part of me still wants to believe it was real. I recently had a coincidental run-in with him--he seemed so normal. He wants to see me, hold me. He seems so normal? I start keeping a calendar. Everyday of no contact I triumphantly place an X. I am stronger now. I no longer look emaciated. I have muscle tone. My eyes are bright. I have color in my cheeks. I refused to see him.

The other day, my oldest friend wanted me to see a house on a beautiful lake in our area that she was thinking of renting. She and I have known each other since we were 11. Through my experience, she is now schooled in psychopathy. About twenty minutes out of town, we pull down a private road that winds through the woods to a private lake. At the end of the road are three houses beautifully situated on the lake. As we got out of the car, an eerie feeling came over me. I grabbed my cell phone just in case.

As we approached the house my friend was interested in, a woman came out of the neighboring house. She was frail and emaciated. It was clear that this woman was broken. Yet underneath the tattered robe she was wearing and the bruise on her forehead, I could see that she was a stunningly beautiful woman. She asked us what we were doing. When we told her we were interested in seeing the house, she reluctantly agreed to show it to us. As she lead us to the house, she started to tell us her story. She had recently had a hysterectomy and beat ovarian cancer. She showed us the tiny incision, which revealed her skeletal body. Heart wrenching.

As we made our way through the house, she warned my friend not to rent from the owner. I asked if he was her husband? She told me he was her boyfriend. She said that he cannot be trusted. He lies. She said that she is no longer "with" him but lives in his lake house. She and her son live on this secluded lake in his house. He is married but he and his wife are not together. He is a millionaire. He left her in this gorgeous home in the woods all alone after surgery. That day, she was waiting for his wife, who is now her friend, to take her to the food store. She has no money until friday and needs food. She no longer has any friends. She is isolated.

He shows up at this house and demands sex. He physically abused his wife, breaking her ankle in ten places. He tells her his wife is the crazy one. She tells us how he is beautiful and wealthy. He swept her off her feet. Is so charming. He chased her for months when she was not interested. Then she falls for him and the bait and switch happens. She matter-of-factly tells us he is a sociopath, narcissist. She does not know that I already know. My friend looks at me with horror. After listening to me share my story, she now knows the red flags. I immediately recognized all the signs. We give her our phone numbers, and I suggest some books for her to read.

I know she is still under his spell. She has parents she could live with but chooses to stay in his house. She wonders why he doesn't bring her food, why he has abandoned her, why he asked for sex hours after returning from the hospital after her hysterectomy.

My friend is horrified of the thought that she may have moved into this sinister compound. You see, her brother met this man while bidding a job. He told the man that his sister was interested in renting one of his lake houses. He asked him to "tell me about your sister". Her brother fell under his spell and started revealing things about his sister he wouldn't normally tell a stranger. He said that when she saw the beauty of the house, she cried. Amazingly, he said he had the same feeling and cried too! That's why he bought it. He said that he had a lot in common with his sister!

I am haunted the woman at the lake house. She has been decimated. What really frightens me is that I was starting to look like her. What I so deeply thought was love was something really sinister. I am not proud to be part of the exclusive psychopath magnet club, but I cannot erase history. I am an optimist. I can use the experience to create a better life and to help others. I'm wide awake!

The biggest coward is the man who awakens a woman's love with no intention of loving her--Bob Marley