I am neither a writer nor a psychiatrist, but have had the personal misfortune of intimately knowing one of society’s hidden predators — a sociopath — and am relating the events of living that terrible misfortune to you in my own laymen terms.
I spent the good part — the bad part, if you will — of eighteen years with a sociopath beside me. On many occasions, I found myself wondering, “Whatever was he thinking?” I experienced numerous “red flag” moments. I didn’t see them as other than just plain odd. I didn’t put the pieces together at the time strange things happened. I shrugged the vague unrest away, unwilling to think the unthinkable, unable to visualize the unexpected. I couldn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together until long after the incidents occurred.
When I could not make sense of these instances in my own mind, I would probe for an explanation. In retrospect, my probing was too gentle. Each explanation led me to more confusion. I received no satisfactory answers. I ended each episode with more unanswered questions, and a deeper sense that something wasn’t right.
My rational mind prodded me to investigate and not to turn a blind eye to his inconsistencies. My emotional self would not allow me to do that. I had physical symptoms including stomach pain, warnings such as the bristling of the hairs on the nape of my neck. My intuition prodded me not to turn a blind eye, but for the longest time, I did just that. It was as if I suspected a monster lived in the closet, but if I never opened the closet door, no one else would know. I cannot point to a specific moment in time when suspicion piled up past believing. But such a time did arrive, and I couldn’t rationalize his strange behavior, could no longer give him the benefit of the doubt. I reached that point where my rational and emotional selves merged in protest to his lies. I would no longer allow him to make me feel guilty for questioning him. I could no longer live on trust. From that point forward, I walked a fragile line, aware that if I probed too openly he would become suspicious and stop communicating entirely. I did not want to kill the messenger until the message became clear.
During this time we lived together in several different towns. An uncomfortable knowledge was building in my mind. My heart told me that to ignore these continuing red flag moments would have devastating effects down the line. But it was always “somewhere down the line.” We continued our own fragile personal dance. There were little dots of information from things he said or comments from those around him. I tried to connect the dots but wouldn’t let my mind see purpose in the results.
Then came the phone call — the one that none of us could ever be prepared for, the one that, in an instant, propels you into a living nightmare. The phone call opened the closet door of the sociopath beside me, and his hidden dirty little secrets tumbled into the daylight. Secrets that weren't even supposed to see the light of day. It took all my courage to hear these secrets. It frightened me that I had missed the signs. How could I have missed them? How could I have been so blind? And most frightening of all was the idea that I had allowed his reign of psychological terror by refusing to see the signs.
I began my quest to know the painful truth of each occurrence and how each incident began. I continue this so you might recognize the sociopath beside you.