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That is not quite it. I know it was a long post.
I had CPTSD when I was younger from abuse from my father who is a diagnosed sociopath. I recovered. There were maybe little things I still needed to address in time and still making sure all of those small issues were being worked out, but I was mostly recovered and living a healthy and happy life as an adult. I was not in crisis. I had friends. I got my degree. I was teaching. I was in the last stages of recovery.
As soon as I opened the door to let new friends in, though, at the end of 2018 I met my ex boyfriend who is also definitely a sociopath and his parents are serious enablers. I went through 2 years of traumatic narcissistic abuse from him, and I regressed back into CPTSD symptoms I had long ago recovered from.
Now because of my ex boyfriend, I am suffering from CPTSD again.
Also recently my father (original abuser) has died which is its own terrible thing.
My ex boyfriend met me right after my father was placed into hospice and was dying. This abusive relationship with my ex boyfriend is bracketed by the decline and death of my father who originally narcissistically abused me. My ex boyfriend knew all this was happening. He met me at a vulnerable time in my life.
Dear MKnox,
I am sorry you’ve been through all this. He has hurt you badly and treated you in despicable ways. Your biggest mistake was that you sought closure from him. Instead of leaving as soon as he started abusing you, never to turn back, you went back and sought explanations, and then sometimes he would give you false promises that he would change, but the abuse would continue.
You said you went through at least 7 cycles of being horribly abused and then reconciling with him (I thought this was just another typical discard situation that I had been through with him at least 7 times before.) The last time he discarded you, you went back, followed him in your car, tried to overtake him, he then hit your car on purpose, you then both stopped your cars, you got out, went to him and put your hand on his heart begging him for explanations and closure. And then he grabbed your hand and twisted your fingers, resulting in one of them breaking:
When I went after him and followed him, I passed him on the road, and he sped up and hit my car on purpose though, and when I entered the subdivision I stopped my car and got out and went to his car and begged him to help me understand why he was treating me this way and to give me closure, and I put my hand on his heart and said please have empathy and help me understand and you are hurting me, and he grabbed my hand and bent my fingers all the way back and he broke one of my fingers.
The judge discarded his violent actions, he only took into consideration that it was you who was following him and “harassing” him. His parents confirmed it and testified against you.
I understand your bitterness and the sense of injustice, however you made a mistake of seeking closure and explanation from a sociopath like him. And now, you seek the same from his parents. But they understandably want to protect their son and won’t show any empathy towards you.
That is over now though and please understand I don’t want revenge. Also, I am legally safe now and I want to stay that way. I have no contact with him now. I doubt he will try to make amends or give me closure which is sad but I guess he is not capable of it.
It’s good that you are legally safe now. It’s also critically important that you don’t pursue him any more, trying to “seek closure” because you might get into legal trouble again. You’d need to understand and accept that neither he or his family will make any amends to you. He isn’t capable of it, and his family is protecting him. If they would apologize for their son, they would be admitting that he abused you, and they obviously don’t want that – they don’t want him to get into legal trouble because of his actions. So they will probably never apologize and never admit that he did anything wrong to you.
You need to give yourself closure. And you can do that with the help of therapy. You probably were susceptible to this man due to your childhood trauma with your sociopath father. You sought a similar man and tried to make him love you. Your father didn’t give you closure before he died, and this man cannot give you closure either. You need to heal and give that closure to yourself.
I am a writer, and I have a voice and to have that taken away along with my character and dignity was the most traumatizing experience of my life
Your voice is not taken away from you. You can still write about your experience and help other women who may be in a similar situation. You can claim back your dignity, but not by begging him or his family to give it to you, but by healing your wounds and understanding that you don’t deserve to be treated like that.
He told you you deserved abuse from your father. Well, you’ll claim back your dignity when you no longer believe that you deserved that abuse, but you know and accept that you are worthy of love.
Hi Teak,
Honestly, no. This is about human decency and respect and being able to have a voice. There may be a small part of me that is extra driven to want respect and to have a voice because I didn’t get it as a child from either parent and yes my childhood sucked but i went through recovery for that. This about fighting to heal from a lot of shit already and now having to start all over again because of a sociopath.
Think about this: When Larry Nassar was in court for the horrible things he did to those female gymnasts, ALL of those gymnasts were allowed to come forward with letters and statements to Larry in order to speak and have a voice and get closure. I am NOT allowed that and on top of it I was made to look like I was the problem and he was somehow the victim. My whole life has been ruined because of this.
I feel I need to STRONGLY yet respectfully disagree with your stance that what his parents are doing is understandable because they are protecting their son. Some of this stance may be because I have not fully explained, though.
For example, the last time I saw my abuser, he told me to sit and talk to him and said he wanted me to have everything I ever wanted and was sorry and wanted to give me the closure I had been so badly needing. While I was waiting for him to pay his bill and leave with me to talk, he then begged me for sex, said my mom is a cunt, that I am a stupid jew, that he never laid a hand on me, etc, and when I said no I wont have sex with him because he will just be putting all his hatred onto me, he laughed and said I know. You are right. And then leaned his head back and laughed maniacally and said I won I won you lose and pointed at me then he grabbed me by the throat and choked me, and when I finally got his hand off my throat, he shoved me HARD. He was kicked out of the establishment but begged me to follow and said he was sorry and he would just talk from now on. As soon as we got in my car and headed on the interstate, he begged me for sex again saying i’d never have it as good as him and put his hands down my pants and up my shirt while I was driving and saying no. I finally said you don’t have consent really loud and said you promised you’d just talk, and he sulked. Then put his feet on my dashboard and said you know you really have an ugly car, and I said what and he said yeh a really ugly car and then he kicked the windshield and i said stop and he kicked it again really hard and busted the ENTIRE windshield while i was driving 70 down the interstate. I asked him why and he said because I can! We could’ve died! Then he called his mom and said i’ve made a mistake. I grabbed the phone and told her what happened and that I was dropping him off on the side of the road, and she insisted I bring him there. His dad pulled him out of the car when we got there and called him a dumbass and dragged hi into the house, and his mom told me she would make sure he pays to have my windshield replaced. He replaced my windshield the next day. We talked. She KNOWS what her son did. She knows many things her son did to me that was abusive.
The thing is I think they KNOW their son is a sociopath. I think they KNOW he abused me horrifically. I have tried to tell his mom so many times how her son was abusing me. Considering she is a WOMAN and the whole MeToo thing how could she know her son is so abusive and is abusive a woman and STILL lie to further traumatize a victim of abuse!? Its plain disgusting! That is not protecting their son. That is abuse! And that is enabling their sociopathic abusive son! Enabling a sociopath will only make them a better abuser! If they want to protect him, they need to get him into treatment! They say they cannot because he is a grown man and its out of their hands, but yet they come to court to lie for him?! They should protect the victim not the abuser! They know what he is!
To further illustrate, when I first met my ex he told me he wanted me to meet his parents. He said I would love his dad and he is great but beware of his mom. I asked why but he would not elaborate. When I first met them, I felt SERIOUS tension in the house. Looking back, I realize they were probably nervous that he had a girlfriend. I think he has done this before! I think they know!
Later, he told me (and I don’t know if this is true because he lies a lot) that when he was a kid his mom was a “bitch.” He said she was controlling and demanded perfection and nothing was ever good enough for her. He said she gave hi everything he ever wanted but was never there for him emotionally. Overindulgence and emotional neglect is the recipe for narcissism by the way. By his description, she sounds like a narcissist or at least someone with traits, and the way she raised him made him one. It could be but there is also a genetic component. He could have been just born this way and was lying about his childhood. Either way, though, they know! If he was born this way and is a psychopath, there would have been a childhood conduct disorder that they saw early on. If he was made and is a sociopath, surely they recognize how their parenting failed him.
From my interactions with his mother, she DEFINITELY does not have empathy and lies. It is probable she is a narc too. And they both were his flying monkeys to enable him to abuse me. This is not protecting a son! This is making him worse and a woman letting another woman be abused and the further victimizing her legally which is disgusting and in my opinion should not be enabled or diminished by saying they were just protecting their son.
Narcissism has a family dynamic. It is probably they know what he is, she made him, and she has traits too, and yes maybe they thought they were protecting him, but that is not protection nor the right thing to do. These people have blood on their hands. The blood of an innocent girl whose life was destroyed by them. They should know better and what they did was wrong.
I am terrified to reach out to them because i think they would hurt me again in some way. I also think they wont talk to me because they think I want to get revenge and am looking for evidence to use against them, but that is not me at all! I just want to have a voice!!! I just want to be able to say the truth of what happened like all those gymnasts were able to do with their abuser. I just need answers! I want respect! It is highly destructive to my wellbeing to be treated with such disrespect and have my voice taken away and not have any answers. Its like I am being told I deserved the abuse. It makes me feel worthless and like I should just die.
I am not projecting my parental issues on them. I am simply wishing for what I need to heal. Does that make sense?
Dear MKnox,
I hear and understand your pain. And I see you are also very conflicted: a part of you still wants your abuser and his parents to hear you out and show you some empathy, even though another part of you knows it won’t happen. Here is the rational part of you, understanding what happened and that you won’t really get closure from them:
I think it was a big mistake unmasking him in the end and trying to stand up for myself and demand the respect of being able to have a voice and receive closure.
Its all lies and contradictions and manipulation and gaslighting.
How could someone do this to another person and just not even care? Much more i think he WANTS to destroy me and gets pleasure from my pain. Its just so devastating.
And here is another part of you who is confused as to what happened, because she wants to hope that it wasn’t all that bad:
With this relationship I have no picture, I have no understanding.
I can never truly understand the truth and it drives me mad that i cannot.
When I could put my finger on what happened and finally say this is it, You are a narcissist or worse a sociopath or psychopath I at least had some understanding and logically I can know this is the truth but emotionally i just cannot understand.
The emotional part is your inner child – the little girl that was hurt by her parents and cannot understand it because how could they hurt someone they are supposed to love. She is still looking for their apology, she still believes that if she wrote them a letter, they would finally understand and stop abusing her. And maybe even start loving her. Only you aren’t hoping to get it from your own parents, but from your ex and his parents. But the wound fueling your longing and your hope is the same: the wounded little girl who just wants her parents to finally show compassion for her, because it’s unbearable to think that they don’t love her, when she loves them so much and has even forgiven them for their abuse:
And god if your the kind of person that would read all this and hear the victim say they just want to forgive and have a voice and have closure and move on and be done with this and still try to hurt them then youre a truly evil person and i dont think thats true. esp of his father.
You said you’re not projecting your parental issues, but unfortunately, you are, because it’s the little girl who needs that closure. She cannot get it from her parents, so she is desperate to get it from his parents, specially his father. Can you see that?
I know if they did the right thing, it would make healing a lot easier for me.
You make your healing and recovery dependent on the abuser and his enablers. Do you see how it lowers your chances of healing?
Closure not a thing you can give to yourself. Closure involves both parties being on the same page.
Not necessarily. In some cases, e.g. in the case of rape, should the victim wait for the abuser to apologize and only then move on and heal?
Closure is having that full picture of what happened in the relationship and being on the same page together about what happened.
The first part is true: the victim needs to have the full picture of that happened without excusing the abuse. The second part isn’t true: you don’t need the abuser’s apology in order to heal. A rape victim doesn’t. She could wait her whole life and never get the apology she is hoping for.
Apologies and forgiveness are there and both can move forward knowing how to grow from it.
What if the abuser doesn’t want to grow from it? What if he doesn’t even admit that he did anything wrong?
All I can do is give myself understanding and information and learn to heal from this and it will take so much longer and leave more wounds than if they did the right thing.
Again, the first part is true: you can and should give yourself understanding and information and learn to heal.
The second part isn’t true: it won’t take much longer to heal, and it’s because you won’t depend on their apology – an apology you might be waiting for the rest of your life. It will be much quicker and less painful if you stop waiting for their apology and give yourself closure.
I know it’s hard for you, because the little girl inside of you is still waiting to be loved by her abusers… but if you want to heal, you would need to give love to that little girl. You don’t need to do it alone though – a good therapist can give you the compassion and understanding that you long for and deserve.
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 