This is going to be a very long post, in celebrating of snake-kicking eve. St Patrick's Day is tomorrow, huzzah. And I've got a studio full of greenware now so I'll finally be posting some art pics soon.
1. Music. This Sex Pistols Song. The new song by Awolnation: Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf), Jumpin' Jive by Cab Calloway, T'aint Whatcha Do by Ella Fitzgerald with the Chick Webb Orchestra
2. Tree Hugging. I hugged a tree for the first time ever earlier this past week. Highly recommend.
3 New raw vegan recipe: take some raw, unrefined coconut oil, a banana, raw cocoa powder, some shredded coconut, vanilla, cinnamon, take a hand blender to it, chill and voila, gluten free, sugar free, raw vegan pudding/mousse. It's nice.
4. Taking Responsibility. Ironically I wrote this blog post back in February 2013: "Revolutionary Ideas Part 8 - Let's All Take Responsibility". It has a couple of good links, but is ironic because at the time I had recently acted as an apathetic ass-hat without even realizing what I had done. It took months before I realized where I'd screwed up but I'll describe that in the last point. Long story.
5. South Park Season 17 episode 10. The Hobbit. In this episode Wendy tries to do something nice for someone else and it sort of blows up in her face
6. These links from the psychopath-free forum: Exposing a Sociopath: Should you warn a sociopath's next victim? and the last two paragraphs of this link: Why does it take so long to get over a relationship with a sociopath?. This page also has a lot of interesting information regarding symptoms of psychopathy.
7. The Truth, part 3 of 3. I've done this every couple of weeks starting a few weeks ago, and this will be the end of the series. So it'll be long, but after this I'll be Moving on!
I've been doing a lot of reading on recovery from psychopathic abuse, so I'm going to come right out and say it. I think that's what's been plaguing me the past 2 years or so!
Apparently it can take about 12 - 24 months to recover and that makes sense because lately I've finally felt my mood lifting. I'm actually interested in sculpting again which has been nice. Hooray!
Now I've read enough forums to realize that it isn't recommended to run around talking about how you were targeted by a psychopath or sociopath, because people will just hear "psychopath" and assume that you are one. Or, the person you're chirping about will catch on and accuse you of being one.
Or it might come off as too 'out there' for people to really understand. Like having parasites, people don't want to hear about it or aren't ready to accept it. For example, ironically, I read The Sociopath Next Door years ago while I was being targeted, and had no idea what was happening at the time!
And I've read that attempting to expose a sociopath can be a dangerous thing to do. Oh well.
But I'm going to blog about this anyways because it makes sense to me, and maybe it's time for more people to look into the issue, and for more people to share their stories. I think this has happened to me a few times in my past. An understanding of sociopathy explains so much, now that I understand what it is.
According to various articles, around 4 - 6% of people lack a conscience, so I think it's a good issue to know about. It sure explains a lot about politics and corporations, as a sociopath is the ultimate social climber. Unable to feel empathy, they have no problem with using people as pawns.
As one of the articles I linked to above mentioned, one benefit of going through something like this is that the behaviours become so much easier to spot in new situations.
Examples of the behaviours? One is mimicry. I remember at the onset of my experience describing my house fire and what I went through. The person started to move their lips, and cry, and I thought, wow, how empathetic. Later as I learned more about mimicry, the memory of that experience now feels down right creepy.
Another example is projection. Sociopathic or psychopathic people will project characteristics they know that they have on to other people. They'll also try to pit their victims against eachother.
As one of the articles linked above mentions, if you suspect you've been duped be careful because the bouts of anger and depression you're bound to feel will end up being used against you in an attempt to convince everyone you know in common that you're the sociopathic one.
Awesome.
Here's an example of an actual reply I had forwarded to me after I woke up to what had happened and started trying to make amends (I'll change the names):
Dear Bubbles and Sweetiepie. My sincere apologies that Susan has drug
you into all of this. I appreciate you not wanting to get involved with
all this drama. Sadly, Susan has chosen to re-write the past in a way
that suits her needs.
All the best,Cupcake
I've chosen to re-write the past in a way to "suit my needs"? At least in this email Bubbles (a previous target) finally got an apology from Cupcake I suppose.
My "needs"? Justice, expression and clarification? I don't feel a need to re-write the past, I'm just trying to figure out what happened so I can make amends and move forward. However, re-writing the past is a favourite ploy used by sociopaths, and is called 'gaslighting'. I've experienced this too, and it's well described in this article which I've linked before: Empathic people are natural targets for sociopaths: protect yourself
I'll preface this next section with the news that from 1995 - 1997 I was a fish observer on the Pacific trawl fleet. We worked for a consultant company, under contract for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Our motto was "observe, record and report". Coupled with my academic and work experience in biology that spanned 1990 - 2005, I'm trying to write up the next bit as objectively as I can, like a good Behavioural Ecologist.
So basically I loaned out tens of thousands of dollars of my house fire money, volunteered for thousands of hours, and loaned my car for many kilometers because I thought I was working towards a business that would be of great benefit to the art community of Halifax if not Nova Scotia.
I even have a Christmas Card (that I paid for) by a watercolour artist in which was written "you've given new life not just to me but the entire Halifax art community".
Effusive flattery is a technique favoured by sociopaths, known as love-bombing. I gobbled it up.
"It was ego" a friend of mine said later when I was lamenting my involvement in the whole thing. She was right. My ego was puffed right up, I thought I was doing this great thing, and I didn't understand at the time the betrayal the previous target would have felt.
So, near the latter part of 2012 something happened where I realized later I had made the switch from 'empath' to 'apath'. There were small signs that things weren't quite right before this, but I had ignored them. I went to the business one day to see that a ceramic artist and their partner was there, to pick up some things for an auction. This particular artist made Cupcake very stressed out, and being a good minion at that time, I believed that this was with good reason.
As an aside, a couple weeks before Cupcake had handed me a piece he had accidentally broken by this artist to see if I could fix it. I couldn't fix it but figured maybe the artist could.
While I was downstairs chatting with artist and artist partner, and Cupcake was upstairs gathering up items, I heard this loud crash, followed by a loud "OOPS!!"
Cupcake came downstairs, with the same piece that had been slightly damaged before, only now it was in pieces. He apologized for the "accident".
"Oh, don't worry about it" said the artist, who soon after left with their partner.
Shortly after the artist left, Cupcake said to me "I knew she was going to say that". Meaning, Cupcake knew he was going to get away without having to pay for the piece by smashing it on the floor.
What did I do at that moment? Did I yell out "You ass-hat, that's a horrid thing to do, breaking a piece of ceramic art on purpose, you need to apologize to that artist immediately and pay for that piece, and by the way, what is wrong with you?"
No. I did nothing. There's no excuse for my doing nothing. As Winston Churchill (I think) said
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men [or women] to do nothing".
In retrospect I believe I was in denial. I think the cognitive dissonance was too much to take in, that I had spent all this money and time for something I thought would help artists, and the person I chose to back was the type of person who could destroy artwork on purpose.
And at that moment, I let my conscience go dim. The scary part is, that at the time, I didn't realize I had let my conscience go dim. It took me a long time to realize that happened.
It's just a busted piece of pottery, but my silence, my conversion from empath to apath I think serves as a microcosmic example of how bigger atrocities get started. People turn a blind eye. Another example I can think of is the widespread consumption of factory farmed animals. Although we know how much they suffer, everyone is doing it, they're all over the grocery store, cheap and delicious! And so on. There are all sorts of systems in our society that likely have sociopaths at the helm.
There's one other thing that haunts me about this part of the story, and that was the tone of voice with which Cupcake said "I knew she was going to say that". It was almost proud, a bit of a bragging tone.
I've realized recently this was the same tone he used back in 2010 as the business was starting, when he said "It would be so easy for someone to take advantage of you." Implying that he wasn't that type of person.
It was the same tone he used when he said, also in 2010 "[My Last Boss] never counted cash at the end of the day, it would have been so easy for someone to take money from the cash box".
Which in retrospect I now think was an odd thing for someone to say, especially when coupled with the sneaking movements I noticed he'd make when grabbing a 20 dollar bill or two from the business's cash box to spend on drinks at the bar. When I pointed out to him his business was a sole proprietorship, all the money was his, his face lit up like a kid at Christmas.
Anyhow, observe, record, report. Just saying. It was weird.
It wasn't until the latter part of 2013 that I started to REALLY doubt my involvement with business and it wasn't until 2014 I finally confessed how rotten I felt to the artist. I expected her to be super pissed, where she had been cast out of the business following the incident, but to my surprise she was very understanding and happy to hear from me, and had suspected that maybe the piece was already broken.
Clearly the smashed ceramic art wasn't enough to wake me up from the illusion that I was helping the art community, when I was really just helping someone to power trip over artists who were grateful to have such a knowledgeable mentor.
What finally woke me up was when my house in Halifax got trashed. By early 2012 I had burned through so much money that I couldn't afford to stay in Halifax even if I wanted to, so I made preparations to move to the country and rent my place out.
I had written up a blog post about this last year and it had included a lot of blah blah blah about an art business I helped to start, but I deleted those details. Partly because I was still in too much of a depressed victim-feeling headspace to write about it, and partly because it was a long post, I wanted it to be just about the bankruptcy industry. Plus Cupcake's reaction to seeing this post was "I told you I don't know those people".
So here is what happened: in 2012 when I was looking for tenants, a young couple and their friend came to check my place out. I wasn't sure about them, they were young, but they were mad keen about the house and being a soft hearted sucker I felt like giving them a chance. Plus it was winter, I was anxious to find people. I called their reference the next day from the phone at Cupcake's business. Let's call the reference "So and So"
"Oh! I know So and So!" said Cupcake after overhearing the conversation "She's great!"
"Really?" I said "So do you think these people So and So is a reference for would be good tenants?"
The answer was yes, I'm sure they'd be fine. So and So sounded like a responsible person and valid reference, Cupcake knew her, and at the time I thought I knew Cupcake. I felt better about going with this crew and so I rented my house to them. I can't say I wouldn't have rented to them otherwise, but his vouching for their reference did make me feel more comfortable about it.
Fast forward to end of 2013 early 2014, and This is what happened to my house. There are juicy pics of a trashed house if you just scroll down.
After lending him tens of thousands of dollars, years of my life, my car and cell phone, I thought Cupcake could do SOMETHING to help me out.
At least maybe he could help me recover my stolen antique mirror. Not a chance. In fact, after finding So and So on Facebook via Cupcake and sending out a plea for help, mentioning that I had helped fund Cupcake's business as though to imply "hey, I'm not an asshat, help me out here"; I received a terse email from Cupcake, who clearly had been forwarded my message, informing me of how hurt he was that I had made my current financial difficulties all about my decision to help him.
And that, plus a few other emails, was what it took to finally get through my thick skull that I had actually made a Big Mistake. I pulled my work out of the gallery, and my husband and I both got blocked and deleted off of Facebook for "social reasons".
By the time I finally posted my post about my house last fall, Cupcake had gone from saying "Oh I know So and So she's great" to apparently having no idea who So and So was, except to see her, which was odd because she actually showed work at the business during a group show.
I'm actually grateful my house got trashed and I was woken up by Cupcake's lack of empathy, because if it wasn't for this I never would have realized how betrayed his last target must have felt. Houses can be cleaned and repaired, lost money can be remade, but damage to other people like what I was a part of is much more difficult to fix.
The super crappy part though, is now I've unintentionally created a bit of a monster as now Cupcake has this awesomesauce reputation as this all knowing art person. I guess because most people can't see the trail of people he's stepped over and wallets he has emptied to get to where he is. I have no idea what to do about it, but this blog post feels like a good honest effort at trying to right a wrong.
IMO Cupcake's former boss
deserves a round of applause and a billion dollars in sales for enduring
all she has. Cupcake could always find money to have the lawn cut, and for vodka and duck sandwiches, but not to
pay an assistant to deliver consistent, quality customer service. I
find it ironic that his former target understood the importance of hiring assistants and in essence was paying him to badmouth her. I
finally understand why this would be so upsetting and wish I could build a time machine to go back to 2010 and explain this properly to myself.
I think I've finally come to a peaceful place about the whole story. Maybe hugging the tree helped. I'm done with taking Cupcake's actions personally. That would be like a surfer spending the rest of her life pissed off at the shark that bit her. What would be the point? A shark is going to do what a shark is going to do. It was an interesting learning experience. I learned all sorts of things about psychology and business, I made some nice friends I wouldn't have met otherwise, and hopefully I'll eventually be seeing my money again to do something more inline with my preferences. We'll see!
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
