Today I received a comment
from a reader named Lovisa. I’m sharing it here so all of you will read it. I’ve said it before in different ways, but it’s a fundamental truth worth repeating a hundred times, and Lovisa has captured and expressed it perfectly. It is the most important pearl of truth and wisdom for us to grasp, one that has the power to bring much peace and healing.
I’m sharing it in the hope that it will give you a light-bulb moment, one that changes your perspective a bit.
“I had a relationship with a psychopath and that’s how I found this site, of course. I’ve read and re-read it and thought about it, and it helped a lot. I’ve gone through a lot of emotions as all of you have. I’ve been thinking about all the bad things he did to me that I couldn’t figure out. It went on and on in my mind and I hated it, ’cause even if we don’t have any contact, I’m scared of meeting him in town and of course I want to tell him off.
I told him everything that was wrong, in a grown up way, but he never agreed of course. When he realised that he was about to lose me he said he knew that things had become that way because of him. He knew that it was the only way to make me want to stay. I asked him, what exactly was his idea of what he had done wrong? His answer was he “made big things of small stuff, like things in the home and stuff.” Conclusion is, he had no idea… And it doesn’t work to say you’re sorry if you don’t know what you’re sorry for! At least not for me.
What I’ve realized now is about the beginning phase… They mirror you, right? They mirror your dreams, your love and your hope. And THAT’s what you fall in love with. You fall in love with yourself, but the psychopath tries to fool you into thinking that it’s them.
Now I’ve been angry with him since I left him, because I couldn’t understand how a person could be that mean and treat me like that. Then I realized that a big piece of that anger was that I was missing him and all that beauty he showed and promised me in the beginning.
Here it is:
He was my mirror, trying to break that self-image of me, and I was about to let him. But I just figured out that all the beauty that he showed me in the beginning was… drum roll…. ME.
So I was actually just falling in love with myself. That other person was him. In the beginning he treated me with love and respect, because that’s how I treat myself. I buy myself flowers, and so did he, in the beginning and when it was time to kiss ass…So what I thought I was actually angry with was the beauty of what he promised me in the beginning. But it was not; I was missing that beautiful love being given to me. So now I think of all the beautiful things he did to me to catch me and realize that I fell in love with myself all along.
The beauty was me all along, and nobody can take that away if I don’t let them.
So it was two people you’ve dated. First it was you, and that was amazing. Then it was the other one, and that was a nightmare. But you are still with you and you are amazing!
So, of course you fell in love with yourself when you met you in someone else. The benefit now is that you can fall in love with yourself all over again, without someone else around.
This is what I’m doing, and I have every intention of making this a life-long commitment.”
We finally met our match — someone who was just as loving, just as affectionate, just as romantic, just as caring, just as open to intimacy, just as ready for love as we were. We met someone truly wonderful, who was worth loving like we’d never loved before — we met ourselves. Now you’ve discovered the pearl of truth contained within the phenomena of a psychopath mirroring you.
Love yourself, for all the love and beauty you possess. It’s enough to sweep you off your feet, and enough to last a lifetime. The best part? This time it’s real and it’s yours to have, always.
In what ways will you show yourself that love today? In what ways will you treat yourself kindly, lovingly, gently, and respectfully?
Marriage counselor Gary Cundiff, MFT, describes his theory of how psychopaths use their ability to create a mask to become what victims believe is a “soul mate” relationship. He says that psychopaths select targets based on their best qualities. Then, the predators morph themselves into copies of their targets, so that they appear to be perfect partners.
Cundiff says, “Using each piece of information, they create the disguise — a mask carefully constructed to look like their prospective target. Flawlessly, they weave a picture of their mark… precisely reflecting the brightest, most honorable aspects of your personality, the most desirable and wanted details, literally stealing your persona, mirroring this image back, without the defects of character, flaws and shortcomings. The pathological relationship is a one-dimensional interaction. You fall in love with yourself as presented by this reflecting object. The attraction is irresistible. People are attracted to those who are similar to themselves. By transforming themselves into a reflection of their prospective prey, the psychopath becomes the most alluring figure imaginable, and the propensity to trust that person becomes compelling.” As a result, Cundiff says, “You experience a sense of oneness like none other. At the emotional center of this connection is intensity never felt before, making the appeal and apprehension addictive.”
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Thank you for bringing that to our attention. The wisdom contained is profound and I can honestly say that, even though I’ve given a LOT of thought to the hows and the whys of the whole relationship and feel I have a pretty good handle on what I allowed into my life and how duped I was – I NEVER looked at it the way this person put it – and it is so true it’s one of those things that is hard to believe you missed once you see it. So thank you and many thanks to the author of the piece.
I’m glad it was meaningful to you. It’s a truth we all overlook, until we finally see it. I hope a lot of people will see it today.
Very insightful and gets me thinking. I have heard ” mirrored” a lot in the psychopathic relationship. Maybe my relationship was different, but mine tried to give me and do for me all the things that he THOUGHT I loved. This was mostly in the idealisation phase, but dosed later on. But sometimes he got it wrong. He thought I liked things that I sometimes didn’t and was shocked when I said I didn’t like it. Maybe he was muddling me up with another woman from one of his previous hundreds of victims!
So I don’t think I fell in love with myself. I fell in love with a fake who tried everything to please me. He enquired about my previous failed relationship and tried to inject what I said was missing there. But he failed to even succeed there. He may have paid me more attention, but in return he disrespected and distrusted me, destroying my independence and autonomy.
I have come to the conclusion that he has no idea of what he does to empaths. He wanted to chase the emotions out of me, so he could “be himself”, the ugly, disgusting being that he is without questioning or recourse.
He was born that way, he has no understanding of how I felt or what he did to me. He doesn’t understand emotions, he thinks they are contemptuous and his words in love and relationships are empty and meaningless. I actually feel sorry for him. What kind of a life is that?
Yours had hundreds of victims, too? He sounds more and more like the twin of the psycho I knew.
Mine kept up his mirroring charade just long enough to hook me into trying to get back to that ‘perfect’ time (trying to get HIM to act like ME again, although I had no clue at that time). But he pulled the old switcheroo and just became his rotten self instead. Even though he could mirror me, he only had the most superficial understanding of emotions. It’s just an intellectual understanding, a cold empathy they can use against us. While they might feel contemptuous delight at what they do to us, they don’t really understand that, either. Under the surface is an empty void. That’s why it gives them no real satisfaction. Kind of like Chinese food — you’re hungry again a half hour later.
I like that analogy about the chinese food! I really think that they have no clue as to what they do to us. Mine said he would change, do anything to fix us, we could work it out. Whether that was a lie or not, who knows? But he had no capability in fixing anything, seriously. So sad. A lost soul with no idea at all, making the same mistakes over and over.
I think this is what you’re describing:
Semantic aphasia — A term used by H. Cleckley, the author of “The Mask of Sanity.” Semanitics refers to meaning, and aphasia refers to speech. But Cleckley only used this term as an analogy to explain the kind of distinction he was drawing between an ability to appear superficially normal despite a core deficit in meaning. He made an analogy to a neurological language disorder known as semantic aphasia, but the meaning is different in this context.
The psychopath can generate a façade of normalcy, but behind that facade there is no real understanding of the meaning of life. Cleckley’s use of the word ‘semantic’ went beyond words and speech — he was referring to the ability to emotionally experience or understand “the meaning of life as lived by ordinary people,” which the psychopath is unable to do. When you get to know the psychopath, you will sense this lack of understanding at his core.
What a beautiful comment and an amazing way to reframe abuse and exploitation! Thank you my fellow travelers- for sharing my burden and giving me encouragement!
Re-framing can have amazing results, April. To find out more ways to re-frame this experience, see the following:
The Real Reason You Were Victimized By a Psychopath
Your Journey is the Hero’s Journey
Beautifully written, and such wise comments.
My take,
These beings mirror our personal strengths/vulnerability and use the two of them against us, as so well stated here,
They use shared vulnerabilities, that they have learned to get to where they meet us, ( they hone their abusive skills on each and everyone of us) and
They use societal biases against us.
In their parlance, nobody is equal to them, but especially
Not a woman, and all that entails or over time what that means.
They seek to destroy all that is good in society, because this is what they covet most.
And for humans that have been in any contact with these beings, we become contaminated, make wrong choices, wrong decisions and so their evilness is spread. Because all is based on a lie, and it is so much ‘easier’ to buy into this lie, even though it makes us sick, the truth of what he is,
is just
Unbelievable
Until we know.
Thank you Admin and all these that share xxx
Until we know.
All those wonderful qualities they first mirrored back to us, they went on a campaign to destroy. Good try, but some things are far stronger than a psychopath.
SO VERY PERFECT !
Bless you, admin for the gentle reminder!
SO VERY TRUE !! SOME THINGS ARE STRONGER THAN THE PSYCHOPATH!!
Love your new book! Lots of great stuff!
Finished it in a day! Writing a review for Amazon!
Big hug to one AMAZING LADY! YOU!
And a big hug for you, Carolyn! Thank you so very much, your words mean the world to me xxx
Thank you very much for this article. Here I am in Latvia with 3 little kids (living separately but still married to a psychopath). Can’t sleep at all – and here I see that article: very logical and calming answer. This perfectly explains the reason of getting into this mess. Thank you again! Now I can sleep happily with myself!(;
I’m glad to hear you can sleep again, and happily.
Lovisa, author of the comment in the blog post, responded on the home page:
“I had to go pretty far down to get the idea, but I wouldn’t have done it without your page and information. So thank you!
It feels really great that you’re going to blog about my thoughts. It’s giving me even more confidence and makes me proud of myself and my brain! :)
Positive spiral, that’s what we’ve looking for! Mirror, mirror on the wall… Well, it was never the evil queen that was the most beautiful of them all in the end, right?”
You have every reason to feel confident and proud, Lovisa!
This is so beautifully written! She really brings forth the feelings in her writing. Sharing what I wrote when I stumbled upon this idea after years of painful introspection: He’s Not Your Soul Mate, He’s Your Soul Mirror
Thank you, Tina.
“Destructive personality traits should be a topic presented in Kindergarten…” I couldn’t agree more. Better late than never, though.