In the year 2000 I had a near deadly experience with a Sociopath/Narcissist who turned out to be a batterer, a rapist and an attempted murderer.
He did not appear to be any of those things.
He wore neatly pressed attractive suits and ties nearly every day. Unbeknownst to me, they were mostly Armani suits - which it turned out he procured at consignment stores and Goodwill's in wealthier suburbs, where high end designer castaways were more plentiful.
He drove a BMW sedan - with what later turned out to be a stolen license plate, ie he did not have the title to the vehicle, undoubtedly having procured it illegally.
The man never worked a day in his life, unless one counted a very short stint at a photo developing shop where he was fired for stealing expensive equipment.
This, again, I discovered after the crimes.
He operated out of his elderly parents home in Fairfield Connecticut, they, having long transplanted to Georgia for the warmer climate. This left their forty year old divorced son to "watch over their house" unwittingly giving a dangerous predator a perfect cover, naturally claiming his parents residence as his own.
A basic colonial n the Fairfield lakes area purchased in the early seventies for 40,000, in the late nineties, now lent the appearance of middle class respectability in a town that had grown leaps and bounds in popularity. In fact Fairfield would be enjoying its highest Real Estate surge throughout the eighties and nineties.
Commuters from NYC and Stamford could not afford the obscenely rising real estate prices in Westport New Canaan Wilton, and certainly Greenwich. In droves they now purchased 20 miles up the coast in Fairfield. a smallish town rife with much more affordable homes minus the soulless snobbery that had begun to swallow the region
This snobbery was the very reason my parents ultimately left Westport moving to the Branford Guilford area where small town quaintness and charm could be had without the insufferable snootiness that had consumed my childhood town.
I mention these seemingly innocuous facts because the sociopath that almost killed me was obsessed with money affluence and the appearance of success.
I soon began to see a chronic restlessness in this man; Charming at first, he now seemed bitterly unhappy with his lot in life. There was a good deal of soap boxing about the many people who had wronged him and were somehow responsible for what his life Lacked.
He spoke of an abusive mother who "destroyed any chance of happiness he had.He regaled me with emotional stories of corrupt businessmen who ruined him financially..
Being a naive kind and compassionate person I stupidly took him at his word often giving him latitude due to an abusive childhood that again I later discovered was completely false. He invented his abused childhood with a precise purpose. He knew it would buy him sympathy from me.
He would dress meticulously each day in a freshly dry cleaned suit, with literally no where to go;
He would troll at local coffee shops, restaurants bagel stores and small businesses looking for victims, typically of the female persuasion. He was however an equal opportunity sociopath, gender only mattered insofar as what he was looking to procure for himself.at that moment or that day.
As this excellent set of linked articles so aptly describes Narcissists Sociopaths view all people as objects to fulfill a need or desire, or as was often the case with this textbook Sociopath, he often used people as bridges; the appearance albeit erroneous of credibility which in turn helped him to use and or abuse other people in a perverse cyclic mode of operandi that in the short term worked well, until he was found out and had to move to another geographic area. I later discovered he was working the Greenwich Wilton area simultaneous with disastrous results on many other women - and men's lives.
For example he would earnestly pursue a "friendship" with woman related to a prominent family in the area; At the time that I first met him I was told he was having lunch with the sister of the Mayor of Bridgeport. This was at an obscure coffee shop called Art Greens on Black Rock Turnpike ( The shop is no longer there)
I later found out that this man was merely having an impromptu cup of coffee with the mayors younger sister and indeed she had simply run into him at the coffee shop and he'd foisted himself upon her insisting she stay for a cup of coffee and a chat. She like me at the time was too polite for her own good and this is the exact type of person that sociopaths and narcissists have their antennas honed for, as we make perfect victims.
Unfortunately this man led the owner of the coffee shop and a gaggle of regulars to believe that he was dating this woman and that they were in fact and item.
Note; It should be mentioned that I am the antithesis of an elitist, despite, or perhaps because of my Upper middle class roots. Growing up in huge lonely homes in Westport Connecticut a sprawling estate directly on the Long Island Sound only served to convince me as a child and young adult that money did not buy a happy loving family.
This is directly related to the role of the so called relationship between the Sociopath and the mayors sister. I down played important instincts that right off the bat were telling me that despite this mans seeming charm, there was something wrong with him something dangerous even.
And then I would think to myself..."but he dated the mayor"s sister for almost a year/ I know this for a fact, so how could he be a psycho?"
I knew the Mayor second hand as he had attended UConn with my eldest sister. I was also aware that his family was rife with lawyers who were all well known and respected in the Bridgeport/ fairfield area. This wasn't simply the sister of the mayor, this was the sister of a well known and at the time very respected family.
Unfortunately and foolishly I was trusting a sociopaths claims that he had dated the mayors youngest sister for a year, especially when it seemed corroborated by the people at the coffee shop. But again the owner of the coffee shop as well as the regular patrons had only seen the two together a handful of times and they also took his word that the two were an "Item"
This is where I wince at my own naivete and how easy it must have been for this man to bamboozle me.
I think he thought Id be impressed that he'd dated this women, when in fact I was not the sort of person to be awed by such a thing at all! However it served instead as a misleading counter to my growing gut feeling that this man was not who nor what he professed to be and indeed that there was much amiss with many of his claims about his life, including his so called career and a constant stream of casual lies and secretiveness regarding his own life paralleled by an irrational growing demand to know where I was at al times.
I was begging to see signs of extreme jealousy and my sister who didn't like him from the moment she met him kept claiming that he was driving by my cottage in Fairfield during the wee hours of the morning. Then there was his growing propensity to attempt push my family and friends out of my life, particularly my sister who lived up the street and my little nephew whom I adored. None of this seemed normal and I began to pull away and all hell broke loose.
In retrospect it is not a coincidence at all that this is in fact the same mayor that a few years later was convicted for bribery, racketeering, extortion and a gaggle of other federal charges.
You see, the man that nearly killed me had an antenna for people who had moral weaknesses be it outright criminal involvement or simply chronic adult, drug use fellow scam artists on larger and smaller scales and his cohorts ran the gamut from a very casual acquaintanceship with the mayors brothers to involvement with small time con men who he would use and extricate services from, with promises of future business with his myriad of prominent local connections.
After breaking off the relationship this man as diplomatically as possible he walked into my home through a back door and spent several hours assaulting me and very nearly killing me with multiple blows to my head against a plaster wall, and the wood floor where he had dragged my lifeless body. He continued to smash and pummel my head as he alternately stood over me and railed at me for such things as "not introducing him to my parents" He punctuated each bizarre accusation with either a smash of the back of side of my head into the floor or a karate type blow to my temples and boxing of my ears . I was choked alternately until I became unconscious which is when he would stop shake me by my concussed damaged head only to start choking me once again.
Soon thereafter he began pulling off his tied to finish me off or so I believed, and when I finally mustered some small strength to move away on my back he changed his mind and began to undo my belt instead. I believe he realized that his DNA would be on his tie and that this could be present possible evidence pointing to him. When I saw that, my Adrenalin kicked in and I began to yell and plead, my voice box had been damaged from the severe choking screaming was impossible; Photos of my neck taken the following day clearly showed his fingerprints on my THROAT in deep purple furrows.
To this day, I will never forget the empty dead look in this mans eyes that resembled an animal just before the first terrible blow of the back of head into my living room wall. Plaster with wooden lathes behind it somehow miraculously despite his using all of his strength it did not knock me completely out or kill me as he clearly expected it would. I slumped down the walls tilted hideously my legs buckled and a sound came from my mouth that I didn't recognize as myself or even human. But I fought to stay conscious, believing I would surely be killed and my body disposed of if I gave in to the lure of the unconscious. As He peered into my face it was with disbelief that I was conscious and the disbelief seemed to turn into rage that I was still breathing.
This man convinced a fair amount of educated women and men that he was alternately an "investment banker' a real estate developer, and volunteered with orphans in Sarajevo
After the criminal court proceedings we discovered he assaulted at least four other women each one too terrified to report the incidents to Police. He had told me in no uncertain terms that he would kill me if I ever told the police. He held me all night as I was in and out of consciousness refusing to let me call an ambulance, unable to see out of one eye temples swollen purple eyes whites and bruised ears something I later discovered was called Battle sign. I was certain I would never wake up with bleeding in my brain from over 40 blows to my temple region an area that has the thinnest bone covering the brain.
I was not alone. This man ingratiated himself into the lives of some fairly prominent people in Fairfield New Haven Counties, including Attorneys, Politicians and a myriad of small local businesses, almost always using other faux connections to make the new connections. He pored over newspapers to absorb every new real estate project and local political happenings in order to present a believable version of a successful investor and man about town.
As I was awarded a standing criminal restraining order, ( lifetime) the Police inform me of this man's whereabouts from time to time. They recently warned me he is currently living with a much older wealthy woman in Southport Connecticut.
He uses various misspelled versions of his last name in order to avoid detection of his criminal history (both the felonious charges for the crimes against me, as well other less serious charges such as check forgery) the four violent felonies committed against me were plead down and this man was given a 3 year suspended sentence: Criminal Restraint first degree Assault second degree terroristic threatening and Stalking all magically became misdemeanors in a plea deal that is standard fare at GA2 superior Court.
I pray for the woman that he lives with and is supported by: I am certain that this man has committed violence against her and likely is abusing her considering his track record with women. I fear for her life. Partner and domestic violence is statistically rarely reported by the wealthy; There is a huge emphasis on appearances and despite how far we think we've come, the stigma associated with interpersonal violence is alive and well.
He has surely convinced her via force or contrition not to report him to Police or he will go to prison for a long long time( presumably as a repeat offender).The battered women's syndrome has a tight hold over even the most intelligent successful and independent women. Lenore Walker defines this complex and frustrating relationship and the victim's shame that helps perpetuate the cycle of violence and the ensuing honeymoon
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This post began with my eyes trained upon the murder trial of Jodi Arias. The now thirty two year old woman who " confessed" to killing ex boyfriend Travis Alexander in 2008. After watching her on the stand for days it's become clear that Arias is a Sociopath and has Narcissist Personality disorder,. the former statistically a much rarer occurrence in women.
Arias's "confession" is obviously a complete farce. And as is so often the case she maligned her victim's character whilst trying to absolve herself of pre-meditated murder. It is obvious to me that this murder was 99 percent premeditated, meaning Arias went with a plan that is she got what she considered the typical booty-call dismissive demeanor from Travis Alexander after their love-making, she was prepared to murder him.
The Gun matched the caliber of her grandmother's stolen gun. She had just changed her hair color prior to that particular visit to Travis's. The pair were no longer in a genuine relationship which
Much is being written about Arias lately,she has been n the stand for several days, and the media is having a field day with the paradoxical baby faced looks and soft spoken voice and the level of violent carnage that she committed. I have yet to hear anyone utter a word about her psychological profile which is strange considering it literally reeks of Sociopath but again in my opinion Ms Arias has more than one disorder including borderline PD and POSSIBLY Dependent PD. I suspect we will hear more about Arias's Psychiatric evaluations a bit further down the line within the trial, but again where are these Psychologists now, because I for one am having a field day with assessing the relationship of This victim and Jodi Arias and the role that Mr Alexander's attitudes towards women, and Arias in particular, might have set off a ticking time bomb.
In other words after reading many of Travis Alexanders blog entries online dating service profiles, watching video clips of his " motivational speaking" events, a picture of this man is emerging that is somewhat less than flattering when it comes to his views and treatment of certain women. In one of Alexanders emails to a friend he even states I am a bit of a sociopath after all" indicating that he is aware of a certain disconnect and or lack of empathy or compassion for women in the context of this particular email.
This comment from Alexander speaks volumes and I am surprised that more attention hasn't been forthcoming. Likely the press may be reluctant to write anything that appears critical of a man who was so violently victimized , yet we need to look at details like thee in order to learn from "intimate violence".
In the end I believe that this was a case of two disordered young people whose lives intersected and violence of some kind was almost guaranteed by the nature of both of their personalities. This is in no way placing blame upon the victim Travis Alexander. It is simply necessary food for thought.
In any event, p lease read the linked website thoroughly : It is very comprehensive yet uses layman's terms and thus easier to understand and apply to either your or your loved ones life. Learn about Sociopaths, Narcissists Borderline PD's - for they are all among us. Statistics bear out huge percentages that would stagger most people.
As such this information may save your life. Not all Sociopaths are killers, the very best and brightest some might manage to use their aggressiveness and ability to manipulate to rise to successful positions..... but one can be sure of this just about every person with a serious personality disorder will run roughshod through every single life that they intersect with, leaving emotional, psychological and spiritual damage from which many many people never recover.
Awareness is the first step for those who have been damaged by Personality disordered people,be it a casual dating situation a child a parent a sibling a spouse or a so called "friend"
Most of the victims of these people are not aware of what exactly the problem is within their relationship with such a person and as one can imagine this often leads to a good deal of self blaming and a mind and soul quandary of sorts, whereupon a well meaning kind healthy person simply cannot fathom why their relationship is so filled with tumult and discord with the sociopath or narcissist persona.
These reasons are why I am so tenacious about bringing the realm of character and personality disorders to the general public. This information needs to be understood and even prerequisite for every single boy and girl at an age whereby they can understand process and apply it to their lives. This applies to adults as well for many are parents who owe it to their children in this violent society to arm them with as much knowledge about how to spot the behaviors of what usually turn out to be chaotic and or violent people.
We cannot afford to live in the dark about these " unpleasant and complex seeming subject any longer. Violence among teens is on the rise and too often the warning signs are ignored by others including adults who either don't understand don't know or do not think it would ever happen their teenager or young adult child.
The following link and other sites like it on the Internet can save lives preventatively as well as begin the healing process for people who are either entrenched in or survived relationships with narcissists and sociopaths. This is not limited to romantic relationships their are siblings and friends co workers or even acquaintances whose relatively small involvement with the Personality disordered person has literally left their life in total chaos, and them questioning why did this person act like this and or they may blame themselves as Socio's are experts at playing the persecuted or victimized role to better ensnare potential victims. Victims need only be anyone who has something that the narcicist or sociopath want's or need or simply wants ti control.
Arm yourself Narcissistic Sociopaths | The Narcissist In Your Life
