I WILLINGLY DATED A PSYCHOPATH AFTER LEAVING A NARCISSIST
Chenise Sinclaire photographed by Celeste Shiels
This is not clickbait.
“What the fuck?” is probably what you’re thinking, and if you’re not, I certainly am and it’s my story I’m sharing.
Before I share this story and the reasons behind why I willingly chose to date a psychopath, I want to say a few things.
Firstly, I know the words ‘Narcissist’ and ‘Psychopath’ get thrown around an absolutely stupid amount these days. But I need to let you know that these descriptive words are not something you call someone when you’re mad at them, hurt by them or they’re just a shitty person doing shitty things.
No.
These are real, and very scary personality disorders and it’s actually extremely irritating seeing people call regular (but shitty behaving) people these terms when there are people like me, who have been real victims at the hands of the absolute torture and abuse of their kind.
It’s irritating because when real survivors of this level of deception, manipulation and psychological warfare speak out and seek justice, we aren’t often taken seriously, and some of us go crazy trying to feel seen and heard.
“Yeah yeah, I’ve been cheated on too. You’ll get over it.”
“Oh yeah, I had an ex that used to call me a bitch too!”
“I dated someone once who thought they were better than everyone else too, it sucks.”
Please.
If you don’t really know what a Narcissist or a Psychopath are, I’m going to quote two brief excerpts from both books, ‘Surrounded by Narcissists’ and ‘Surrounded by Psychopaths’ both written by Thomas Erikson.
On Narcissists, from ‘Surrounded by Narcissists’:
“One thing that you’ll have to bear in mind when it comes to narcissism, is that it isn’t a disease - it’s not really an aspect of mental health as such. You can’t treat it with medication or learn to live with it. Narcissism is a personality disorder. It’s important to realize this, so that you can immediately lay to rest any ideas you have of curing or treating the condition.
Wikipedia says: “Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) or megalomania is a personality disorder characterized by a long-term pattern of exaggerated feelings or self-importance, an excessive craving for admiration, and struggles with empathy.””
And on Psychopaths, from ‘Surrounded by Psychopaths’:
“Psychopaths are without a doubt a danger to everybody else around them and for all of society in general. They are wolves disguised as ponies…
In my opinion, they are guilty of lots of risky business deals, lonely-hearts racketeering, swindles and frauds, robberies and organized crime, and drug selling…
The majority of psychopaths do not commit obvious crimes, but they are in our midst, living like everyone else except behind a mask of normality.”
It’s important for me to note that Psychopathy is a neuropsychiatric disorder marked by deficient emotional responses, lack of empathy, and poor behavioural controls, commonly resulting in persistent antisocial deviance and criminal behaviour.
Now, you’re probably bored of the technicalities and you’re more interested in how and why on earth I went from escaping a narcissist to then willingly dating a psychopath and I will tell you.
But as I am deciding to share something personal and vulnerable, I ask you to keep an open mind and really try to understand and accept the complexities of trauma and addiction.
If you keep finding yourself in toxic relationships or friendships, I’m afraid to tell you my dear friend, but you are an addict. Your body has chemically been addicted to the instability and the forever changing highs and lows that come from being abused. (It’s still not your fault.)
I’m sure a lot of people have seen the recent Netflix show, ‘Baby Reindeer’ and if you haven’t I’ll quickly tell you that this main character ends up being stalked and then the show follows him on a series of other abusers that come into his life as time goes on and you eventually realise that this show isn’t about his stalker. It’s about how trauma manifests itself in ways in survivors and victims that can make us behave in ways that do not make ‘logical’ sense to outsiders.
This show opened my eyes to my own pattern.
When you leave someone of this calibre, a Narcissist or a Psychopath, and you eventually wake up from this heavy fog, and the more you learn about these disorders the more validation you feel but also the more outrage you feel of what they robbed from you.
The level of deception a Narcissist and a Psychopath can put you under is unlike anything I can describe deep enough to make you understand.
But I will try.
They are mind controllers. Cult leaders.
They start with their charm, they seemingly are everything you have ever wanted in a person and they do this because they are predators. They study you long before you even make the connection, like a wolf waiting in the shadows to see how vulnerable you are.
Since they are incapable of any real depth or personality, they mirror you.
If they seem to be empathetic, it’s because they’re mimicking you.
If they seem to be caring, it’s because they’re mimicking you.
If they seem to be polite and understanding, it’s because they’re mimicking you.
They do not genuinely feel like this. And that terrifies me.
They exploit you.
They disguise their deception by pretending to care about you and they will ask you everything about yourself, and if you’re someone who hasn’t always had someone who listens to you or if you have a past of feeling like you’ve never been understood, it can feel very euphoric that someone is finally paying attention. Someone is finally interested in getting to know you.
What they are really doing is quickly gathering information on you to find out how perfect of a victim or ‘supply’ you can be for them. How much ‘value’ you have.
And again, if you haven’t had the best childhood or previous relationships, they will figure this out without you explicitly saying so and become everything you have ever wanted and needed - and they know you will talk about yourself and they are fantastic active listeners (in the beginning).
They will show you a world you haven’t experienced before. They pretend to be the perfect partner; kind, caring, empathetic, understanding, patient, supportive, loyal, funny.
Until they’re tired of maintaining the mask, until you are no longer a good source of supply for them or until they think you are trapped as their main supply and that you are incapable of leaving them.
They live double lives, (often more), and will fabricate your entire reality while they’re actually outside being someone you would not even recognise. They often call themselves ‘chameleons’ because they think their ability to shape-shift into whoever they need to be is an admirable trait to have - this is actually a red flag.
After my whole life became discovered as nothing but a complete lie, I had to learn how.
How the FUCK did I miss the signs? How did I not ever once question who this person really was? How did he fool me like this?
Simple.
I am an authentic person who (naively) expects everyone else to show up as their true selves too.
They are incredibly good at manipulation, gaslighting and deception that no matter what I had learned, seen, read, exposed, confronted, there was always an ‘explanation’. They will do anything and say anything to keep the wool over your eyes.
I needed to know as an outsider, how this person was fooling me for so long and like the universe always promises, “Ask and you shall receive.”
About two months after my escape, a man slid into my dm’s.
I know, typical.
He watched my stories of me sharing my very emotional experiences and opinions and he waited. And I was paying attention.
When he finally did message me, I ignored him at first. But then he worked out ways to get me to respond - as Psychopaths do.
He sent me a photo of myself, asking me if I had visited a place recently because he believed he had seen me there.
I knew this was bait, but I bit anyway because I was curious.
What is his MO?
He knows I’m fresh out of a long term marriage. He knows I’d typically be ‘vulnerable’. An easy target. So I let him think I had no idea what his game was.
Hypervigilance. Something I’ve come to accept as both a blessing and a curse now.
He would then offer to take me to the beach, which I knew was another tactic because if you scrolled down far enough on my instagram, I was the happiest at the beach and it was before my marriage. I confronted this tactic to him - and he even admitted it.
Social media is a gold mine for people like this, depending on how much information you put out there of yourself, you never know how much someone can research about you before they ever even make contact. (Always be wary.)
We got to talking. He took me out a few times one on one. And just like the textbooks, it was exactly like the beginning with my Narcissist.
Euphoric, dreamy, charming.
Asking me a million and one questions about myself. My history, my family, my friends and my beliefs. He was my escape without going back to my original ‘drug’.
I came to learn a side of these men that I had never experienced before. I’ve also come to learn what sex addiction looks like to people that have no empathy.
The girls. My god, the girls.
The amount of women, primarily young women in their very early twenties seem to be their preferred prey. He would admit this to me, “They're just so easy.”
I was one of his girls.
It didn’t bother me how high his rotation of women was. He wasn’t my ‘person’. He didn’t promise to love, care and be loyal to me like my narcissist did. He owed me nothing and because of this, I was able to fully observe him and his behavior without absorbing it personally.
Even when he did eventually try to devalue me, it didn’t work. I knew what he was trying to do.
I came to learn how sneaky their kind are. How easily they could live and hide all of the women they cheat with.
Often I would ask questions, “Don’t you get tired of this?”, “Aren’t you exhausted?”, “How do you keep up with all of the lies?”, “Why do you do this?”.
The self-aware Psychopath always answered truthfully. To which no, they don’t ever get tired, it is actually their fuel.
Our ‘relationship’, (whatever the fuck it was) seemed to benefit the both of us in it’s own twisted way. I wasn’t annoying him by being jealous or insecure about the other women and I would jump any time he’d say so - becoming a low effort source of supply.
And he answered all of my questions. He would share things with me to help me understand my narcissists behaviour too, often helping me predict next patterns.
I got to see the darkest, most ugly and cruel side of the person who had been cheating on and lying to me for many, many years. So for this, I am still thankful. It took away a lot of my, “but HOW? I was always with him! But HOW? I always had access to his phone! But HOW? I always checked!”
He showed me the double life, but my perspective was different now.
I had gotten my clarity and I also know that Narcissists and Psychopaths never change and I was done playing the game.
The thing with them is, their fuel is the supply they get from people who aren’t aware of the mind games they are involved in.
They get off on being deceptive, sneaky, liars and love making the people around them look like complete and utter fools because they need to feel better than everyone else and they thrive on pushing you to your limits to see how far you’re going to let them exploit your boundaries.
They need constant external validation and they are physically incapable of self-reflection and especially being alone. Hence, the heavy rotation of young women who are easily impressed by material possessions and the illusion of a lot of money.
Empathy? Guilt? Remorse?
They do not know what those emotions feel like.
When you’re standing there blue in the face, crying your soul out to them about how much they have hurt you and they have zero facial expressions or fail to give you any sort of physical comfort, you have a very scary and dangerous person on your hands.
It took me 27 years to know that these sorts of people exist. It took me 7 years to win my mind back from the control of one too. I was under a dark and cruel spell. I was completely controlled in every way you could control a living human being and I completely lost my mind.
When you discover you’ve been in a relationship with a person like this, with these disorders, you come to realize that who you thought they were never existed.
Never.
It was all an entire lie.
You have been robbed of years of your life thinking and believing so many untrue things that they controlled.
They were strangers the entire time.
So no, healing from a relationship like this isn’t just any ordinary break up. It is accepting that you have been living an illusion, like you’ve been living on The Truman Show. As more time goes on, your brain connects more dots. More truths unearth. More people come forward and tell you information.
The only way you can move on is to learn. I happen to buy every book I can source that talks about these personality disorders and I took it as far as willingly dating a self-aware psychopath.
Not many people talk about the burning desire you develop to learn everything you can about them after being this traumatised.
But here I am, the student and the teacher.
Most ardently,
Chenise Sinclaire.
