This is an international issue therefore there will be a section in my book for stories from other women around the globe. All names will be changed to protect the victims and their family. My goal for writing this book is to reach out and help as many women as possible.
If you or someone you know has had a similar experience I would be interested in hearing from you. If you would like your story published let me know. Consider this blog and my email an opportunity to speak up and speak out. Please email me at roxanneanauthor@gmail.com with your story.
Keep Looking forward ...
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Dating A Psychopath - The Romance, The Discovery, The Healing
The following is a synopsis of the book I am writing "Dating a Psychopath - The Romance, The Discovery, The Healing" (title subject to change once published)
"The stories he wove were fascinating ..."
My story really starts back in the summer of 2007 when I decide I want to get out and do a little socializing with the opposite gender. This was the summer I began dating a psychopath. I had been very busy for the past 2 ½ years working full time, being a full-time mother and working on completing a Masters degree as well as a leadership program. There was absolutely no time for socializing and having fun. I was much too old for the bar scene and never really liked that anyway. Most of my friends were married or in partnership relationships. I just wanted to get out and do a little dating, nothing serious. Be with someone who would be interested in attending various events with me.
I decided the best place to make this happen would be through an internet dating site, one that one of my friends was using. I signed up and almost immediately I began travelling for both work and pleasure. This of course meant I did not have a lot of time to devote to the dating scene. I did manage to meet a few guys and after eight weeks decided this was not the route for me either. I really did not want a relationship so dating was out. I decided I would concentrate on finding ways to get out and have fun that did not involve dating.
I had been chatting to a few guys on the instant messenger and through email on the site so I decided to let them know that I would be leaving the site. A courtesy contact. One of the guys immediately put it in high gear to meet me. I gave several reasons why I did not want to meet him including the fact that he lived 3hrs north of Calgary; I was not even interested in this guy. Finally I caved and agreed he could accompany me to a public event that I was attending. It was surprisingly a great day and I enjoyed his company. The stories he wove were fascinating and he seemed to know and be interested in many things that I was interested in.
He worked in the legal system but also had other interests in entrepreneurial ventures. He spoke of an elderly man that he knew that was a millionaire and they were in partnership to start up some business. He told me of the different people he had met through this person. He could weave a yarn like no one I knew and without even knowing it I was hanging on every word. By the way this millionaire died of a heart attack a few days later (or so he told me). Said he was dating three women younger than himself and had taken Viagra thus causing the heart attack.
“there was lots of romance along the way ...”
A few days later he sent me a message asking if he could take me out to dinner in Banff. Banff is a 90min drive for me and 4hr drive for him. I thought this was crazy talk but agreed because I loved Banff and if nothing else I would have a lovely drive. I would not agree for him to pick me up, I preferred to drive myself so I could have the freedom to leave when I wanted. It was one of the most beautiful days we had that summer weather wise. It was just perfect. We met up and talked while we walked around the touristy town in the mountains. The air was charged with good energy as everyone about seemed to be in a happy mood – after all most of them would have been on vacation anyway.
We went for dinner and again he continued to talk and weave his tales. By now I was beginning to really enjoy his company. After dinner we walked up into the mountains and gazed at the stars and listened to the quiet. It was a lovely evening and very romantic. I could feel the electricity in the air but I resisted because I was not sure I wanted to get involved with this guy. I wasn`t really attracted to him but boy did he ever captivate me. We ended up talking all night – literally. We sat in a gazebo near the river and just talked all night. I felt like a teenager. I drove home as the sun was beginning to rise asking myself if I really wanted to see this guy again or not. There was something that I could not put my finger on but I thought it was because I was not physically attracted to him.
For the next three weeks he called me every day and we would talk for 1-2 hours. It was always exciting and very upbeat and positive. He would compliment me in a way that did not sound like a line or clich̩. Little did I know at that time that he was doing what he does best Рweave the many lies among a little of the truth so it was totally believable. I thought he was the most positive male that I had encountered in a long time. He was not pushy and around every turn he knew exactly what to say. I was totally blind by what was happening.
I began to look forward to his phone calls and in my head started to see him as more attractive than I had thought in the beginning. I guess it is true the more you like a person the better looking they become. By the end of August we were dating and had decided to take a long weekend trip to San Francisco. Oh yes, there was lots of romance along the way.
"Baby it will be all ours when we build it ...”
The stories and money making plans were becoming the main topics of our discussions. I was thrilled to be around someone that was such a go-getter, someone a lot like me. His level of energy seemed to parallel mine. His positive outlook was a mirror of mine. Wow, how could I have been so lucky to have met him, and to think I almost did not?
His plans were to convert his house to an old age care home and buy himself another home. Then as the money came in from that we would buy a property that had lots of land and a large house. He took me for a drive one day to show me the property. This too would be converted to a senior`s residence resort. We would build three apartment style buildings on this land, some that were assisted living and some that were independent living. We talked about the vision of the place. He was always talking about investors he was lining up. We need to think like Trump, he said, always use someone else`s money when investing.
All the while he was going to continue to grow his business of landscaping and snow removal and office cleaning to the point where he would have lots of employees. This extra money was going to help fund this big project we were going to do. Have you noticed that his language has changed from “I” to “we” and ”our”. I did not ask to be included but he always said “Baby it will be all ours when we build it. I will finance the project but you have the brains to run it.” Yes I guess the flattery went to my head for I was thinking in terms of we and our most of the time. I learned later he could not finance his way out of a wet paper bag. He had ZERO credit.
Then the schemes got bigger and faster. He hooked up with a geologist, whom he met through me, who had discovered a gold and silver mine in Mexico. Bam! We are now going to be a part of a venture capital company that will raise money for this mining exploration project. This mine had the potential for billions of dollars. With this came the idea of buying a condo in Mexico that we could lease to the mining company to offset the mortgage payments. Then came the scheme of dinner & dance functions that we could put on to help pay off the condo faster.
All of these schemes or ideas that he had were totally researched and worked on by me. I had lots of energy and time since I had finished my Masters. He took full advantage of that. Looking back I also see it as a way to keep me extremely busy and preoccupied so I would not be checking on his whereabouts or questioning when things were not always falling into place – he was beginning to mix up his lies and being very astute and logical I was picking them up and questioning him. If I questioned anything, I noticed more being asked of me for research and gathering information and following through on the information. Keep me busy with the excitement and planning and I would not have time to think about any misgivings. Sometimes he would even say “you ask way too many questions, concentrate on what you are doing and leave the rest to me."
His scheme was working pretty well and he was beginning to be a little too sure of himself. The biggest mistake that he made was thinking that I was in love with him. I never was. I liked him lots and enjoyed being with him but I was being cautious in the affairs of the heart. I definitely wanted to take it slow in that area. He began to ask me if I had ever had a problem with depression. I thought this was weird but later would find out why. There was something that kept nagging at me and I knew there was something that was not right. Something I could not put my finger on. My gut was telling me to run, get away from him because he was not good for me and my head was asking the question why. I could not reconcile my gut instincts with my logical head. I am seriously beginning to think that I was not so lucky after all for meeting him. He is not so much like me as I thought. His morals and values were certainly not in sync with mine. But my head wanted proof. Before long proof is what I would get.
“You have such a tiny neck it would be so easy to break ...”
He tested so many of my core qualities as a person. He tested my moral beliefs, my values beliefs, my ethics beliefs and even my legal beliefs. He failed on all levels. But he kept trying and the more he tried the more suspicious and unsettled I became.
Oh, on several different occasions he would work into the conversations how easy it is for tourists to go missing in Mexico and never be found. How he had driven around in February and saw many places where a person would have no hope of ever been found. How easy it was to pay people in Mexico to do whatever you wanted them to do because it was so corrupt. How tiny my neck was and how easy it would be to break.
By now we had bought the condo which was going to go 100% in my name once it was built because I was going to take out the loan. I had done all the research on the development company and the realtors. However there was a small glitch, the original documents were signed only in his name. I was assured by the realtors and the development company that when I went down to sign the final papers it could easily be transferred over to me. The plan was that he would go in February and I would go in June for the closing. In the meantime I had sent nearly $14,000, my 50% share for the down payment, to Mexico.
Once my money had gone to Mexico his behaviour begins to change. He becomes more violent in his language. He is easy to anger. He begins to trip up with the lies. I discover he had taken another woman with him to Mexico in February. I confront him and he denies it. I tell him I have proof and then he just replies with “so”. “So”. Since I am thinking we are in a monogamous relationship I tell him I need more than a “so”. Then he gets angry and says he did not want to tell me because I would have been jealous and she was just a friend that he owed a favour. Wow that is some favour to be repaid – staying in a 5* resort in Mexico for a week.
I am keeping my voice very even and he is getting angrier by the minute. I let him believe that I totally believe what he is telling me. I had to keep myself safe. I needed to find out more information for I knew I would never set foot in his house again. I had to play the part of the understanding girlfriend for the next couple of days while inside I was dying minute by minute. He had betrayed me, cheated on me and I knew I would never get my money back ever again – I had lost nearly $14,000 – almost everything I had in my bank account. Now every time I looked at him he was looking more like a monster by the minute. Not the person I was enthralled with and enjoyed being with and planning with. That weekend without his knowledge I put all the pieces of the puzzle together. It was not a pretty picture and I had to figure out how to deal with the situation I had found myself in as well as facing all the betrayal and why I turned a blind eye to my instincts.
I drove off his property with a guardian angel watching over me. A guardian angel is the only explanation how I managed to arrive home safely. It was freezing rain and I was crying non-stop for the first two hours. I could barely see the road through my tears.
“for someone with a couple of degrees I sure was stupid, stupid, stupid ...”
I wasn’t crying because he did what he did but rather because I believed that he would never do those things to me. Because I knew I would never see my money again. Because I had trusted him more than my instincts were telling me to trust him. Because I felt very stupid. Because I felt embarrassed. How could I have been so stupid?
I spent the next six weeks just barely going through the motions of living and constantly reprimanding myself on how stupid I was. For someone with a couple of degrees I sure was stupid, stupid, stupid. More tears, a river of tears. I am convinced that it is easier to fight back and go beyond something when someone else is beating you up. Could I have been any stupider? At least once I got to that question I was able to answer yes.
In those first six weeks I really was like a zombie and yet I knew I had to keep going or I would have just stayed in bed forever. As it was it would take me at least an hour to get out of bed. I just did not want to face another day of re-living the last nine months. I wanted to crawl in a hole and never have human contact again. Eventually I would just die. I felt totally devastated. I was physically ill and shaking with cold on a regular basis. I had pretty much given up drinking water and eating. This was not deliberate but rather a reflection of how unequipped I was to handle such a stress and trauma. There was no one to ensure I drank or ate. No one to help me with the baby steps of basic survival. The simplest of tasks, getting up and getting dressed were overwhelming. I felt totally alone.
I was dealing with the emotional loss of being with someone that was fun, financial loss of my money, loss of a condo in Mexico, loss of the possibility of being involved in a business venture, the possibility of the loss of my health because of him screwing around on me, and the loss of the happy go lucky positive person that I was.
I had a job that depended on me being there and I did not want to let my students down. I had four weeks until the end of the term. I did my job but now there was no passion inside of me. I just wanted to get through the next four weeks so then I would burrow away and suffer in silence and solitude. But how was I ever going to come out of this nightmare? I did not have any answers for the ‘why’ or ‘how’ questions I kept torturing myself with. I knew I could not let him destroy every aspect of me. To do this I would be letting him have more than just the money. The money over time would be replaced but I knew it would not be so easy to replace the person that I was. I basically went about each day faking it and trying to convince myself that one day I would wake up from this nightmare and come out the other side.
Your comments are welcome!!
"The stories he wove were fascinating ..."
My story really starts back in the summer of 2007 when I decide I want to get out and do a little socializing with the opposite gender. This was the summer I began dating a psychopath. I had been very busy for the past 2 ½ years working full time, being a full-time mother and working on completing a Masters degree as well as a leadership program. There was absolutely no time for socializing and having fun. I was much too old for the bar scene and never really liked that anyway. Most of my friends were married or in partnership relationships. I just wanted to get out and do a little dating, nothing serious. Be with someone who would be interested in attending various events with me.
I decided the best place to make this happen would be through an internet dating site, one that one of my friends was using. I signed up and almost immediately I began travelling for both work and pleasure. This of course meant I did not have a lot of time to devote to the dating scene. I did manage to meet a few guys and after eight weeks decided this was not the route for me either. I really did not want a relationship so dating was out. I decided I would concentrate on finding ways to get out and have fun that did not involve dating.
I had been chatting to a few guys on the instant messenger and through email on the site so I decided to let them know that I would be leaving the site. A courtesy contact. One of the guys immediately put it in high gear to meet me. I gave several reasons why I did not want to meet him including the fact that he lived 3hrs north of Calgary; I was not even interested in this guy. Finally I caved and agreed he could accompany me to a public event that I was attending. It was surprisingly a great day and I enjoyed his company. The stories he wove were fascinating and he seemed to know and be interested in many things that I was interested in.
He worked in the legal system but also had other interests in entrepreneurial ventures. He spoke of an elderly man that he knew that was a millionaire and they were in partnership to start up some business. He told me of the different people he had met through this person. He could weave a yarn like no one I knew and without even knowing it I was hanging on every word. By the way this millionaire died of a heart attack a few days later (or so he told me). Said he was dating three women younger than himself and had taken Viagra thus causing the heart attack.
“there was lots of romance along the way ...”
A few days later he sent me a message asking if he could take me out to dinner in Banff. Banff is a 90min drive for me and 4hr drive for him. I thought this was crazy talk but agreed because I loved Banff and if nothing else I would have a lovely drive. I would not agree for him to pick me up, I preferred to drive myself so I could have the freedom to leave when I wanted. It was one of the most beautiful days we had that summer weather wise. It was just perfect. We met up and talked while we walked around the touristy town in the mountains. The air was charged with good energy as everyone about seemed to be in a happy mood – after all most of them would have been on vacation anyway.
We went for dinner and again he continued to talk and weave his tales. By now I was beginning to really enjoy his company. After dinner we walked up into the mountains and gazed at the stars and listened to the quiet. It was a lovely evening and very romantic. I could feel the electricity in the air but I resisted because I was not sure I wanted to get involved with this guy. I wasn`t really attracted to him but boy did he ever captivate me. We ended up talking all night – literally. We sat in a gazebo near the river and just talked all night. I felt like a teenager. I drove home as the sun was beginning to rise asking myself if I really wanted to see this guy again or not. There was something that I could not put my finger on but I thought it was because I was not physically attracted to him.
For the next three weeks he called me every day and we would talk for 1-2 hours. It was always exciting and very upbeat and positive. He would compliment me in a way that did not sound like a line or clich̩. Little did I know at that time that he was doing what he does best Рweave the many lies among a little of the truth so it was totally believable. I thought he was the most positive male that I had encountered in a long time. He was not pushy and around every turn he knew exactly what to say. I was totally blind by what was happening.
I began to look forward to his phone calls and in my head started to see him as more attractive than I had thought in the beginning. I guess it is true the more you like a person the better looking they become. By the end of August we were dating and had decided to take a long weekend trip to San Francisco. Oh yes, there was lots of romance along the way.
"Baby it will be all ours when we build it ...”
The stories and money making plans were becoming the main topics of our discussions. I was thrilled to be around someone that was such a go-getter, someone a lot like me. His level of energy seemed to parallel mine. His positive outlook was a mirror of mine. Wow, how could I have been so lucky to have met him, and to think I almost did not?
His plans were to convert his house to an old age care home and buy himself another home. Then as the money came in from that we would buy a property that had lots of land and a large house. He took me for a drive one day to show me the property. This too would be converted to a senior`s residence resort. We would build three apartment style buildings on this land, some that were assisted living and some that were independent living. We talked about the vision of the place. He was always talking about investors he was lining up. We need to think like Trump, he said, always use someone else`s money when investing.
All the while he was going to continue to grow his business of landscaping and snow removal and office cleaning to the point where he would have lots of employees. This extra money was going to help fund this big project we were going to do. Have you noticed that his language has changed from “I” to “we” and ”our”. I did not ask to be included but he always said “Baby it will be all ours when we build it. I will finance the project but you have the brains to run it.” Yes I guess the flattery went to my head for I was thinking in terms of we and our most of the time. I learned later he could not finance his way out of a wet paper bag. He had ZERO credit.
Then the schemes got bigger and faster. He hooked up with a geologist, whom he met through me, who had discovered a gold and silver mine in Mexico. Bam! We are now going to be a part of a venture capital company that will raise money for this mining exploration project. This mine had the potential for billions of dollars. With this came the idea of buying a condo in Mexico that we could lease to the mining company to offset the mortgage payments. Then came the scheme of dinner & dance functions that we could put on to help pay off the condo faster.
All of these schemes or ideas that he had were totally researched and worked on by me. I had lots of energy and time since I had finished my Masters. He took full advantage of that. Looking back I also see it as a way to keep me extremely busy and preoccupied so I would not be checking on his whereabouts or questioning when things were not always falling into place – he was beginning to mix up his lies and being very astute and logical I was picking them up and questioning him. If I questioned anything, I noticed more being asked of me for research and gathering information and following through on the information. Keep me busy with the excitement and planning and I would not have time to think about any misgivings. Sometimes he would even say “you ask way too many questions, concentrate on what you are doing and leave the rest to me."
His scheme was working pretty well and he was beginning to be a little too sure of himself. The biggest mistake that he made was thinking that I was in love with him. I never was. I liked him lots and enjoyed being with him but I was being cautious in the affairs of the heart. I definitely wanted to take it slow in that area. He began to ask me if I had ever had a problem with depression. I thought this was weird but later would find out why. There was something that kept nagging at me and I knew there was something that was not right. Something I could not put my finger on. My gut was telling me to run, get away from him because he was not good for me and my head was asking the question why. I could not reconcile my gut instincts with my logical head. I am seriously beginning to think that I was not so lucky after all for meeting him. He is not so much like me as I thought. His morals and values were certainly not in sync with mine. But my head wanted proof. Before long proof is what I would get.
“You have such a tiny neck it would be so easy to break ...”
He tested so many of my core qualities as a person. He tested my moral beliefs, my values beliefs, my ethics beliefs and even my legal beliefs. He failed on all levels. But he kept trying and the more he tried the more suspicious and unsettled I became.
Oh, on several different occasions he would work into the conversations how easy it is for tourists to go missing in Mexico and never be found. How he had driven around in February and saw many places where a person would have no hope of ever been found. How easy it was to pay people in Mexico to do whatever you wanted them to do because it was so corrupt. How tiny my neck was and how easy it would be to break.
By now we had bought the condo which was going to go 100% in my name once it was built because I was going to take out the loan. I had done all the research on the development company and the realtors. However there was a small glitch, the original documents were signed only in his name. I was assured by the realtors and the development company that when I went down to sign the final papers it could easily be transferred over to me. The plan was that he would go in February and I would go in June for the closing. In the meantime I had sent nearly $14,000, my 50% share for the down payment, to Mexico.
Once my money had gone to Mexico his behaviour begins to change. He becomes more violent in his language. He is easy to anger. He begins to trip up with the lies. I discover he had taken another woman with him to Mexico in February. I confront him and he denies it. I tell him I have proof and then he just replies with “so”. “So”. Since I am thinking we are in a monogamous relationship I tell him I need more than a “so”. Then he gets angry and says he did not want to tell me because I would have been jealous and she was just a friend that he owed a favour. Wow that is some favour to be repaid – staying in a 5* resort in Mexico for a week.
I am keeping my voice very even and he is getting angrier by the minute. I let him believe that I totally believe what he is telling me. I had to keep myself safe. I needed to find out more information for I knew I would never set foot in his house again. I had to play the part of the understanding girlfriend for the next couple of days while inside I was dying minute by minute. He had betrayed me, cheated on me and I knew I would never get my money back ever again – I had lost nearly $14,000 – almost everything I had in my bank account. Now every time I looked at him he was looking more like a monster by the minute. Not the person I was enthralled with and enjoyed being with and planning with. That weekend without his knowledge I put all the pieces of the puzzle together. It was not a pretty picture and I had to figure out how to deal with the situation I had found myself in as well as facing all the betrayal and why I turned a blind eye to my instincts.
I drove off his property with a guardian angel watching over me. A guardian angel is the only explanation how I managed to arrive home safely. It was freezing rain and I was crying non-stop for the first two hours. I could barely see the road through my tears.
“for someone with a couple of degrees I sure was stupid, stupid, stupid ...”
I wasn’t crying because he did what he did but rather because I believed that he would never do those things to me. Because I knew I would never see my money again. Because I had trusted him more than my instincts were telling me to trust him. Because I felt very stupid. Because I felt embarrassed. How could I have been so stupid?
I spent the next six weeks just barely going through the motions of living and constantly reprimanding myself on how stupid I was. For someone with a couple of degrees I sure was stupid, stupid, stupid. More tears, a river of tears. I am convinced that it is easier to fight back and go beyond something when someone else is beating you up. Could I have been any stupider? At least once I got to that question I was able to answer yes.
In those first six weeks I really was like a zombie and yet I knew I had to keep going or I would have just stayed in bed forever. As it was it would take me at least an hour to get out of bed. I just did not want to face another day of re-living the last nine months. I wanted to crawl in a hole and never have human contact again. Eventually I would just die. I felt totally devastated. I was physically ill and shaking with cold on a regular basis. I had pretty much given up drinking water and eating. This was not deliberate but rather a reflection of how unequipped I was to handle such a stress and trauma. There was no one to ensure I drank or ate. No one to help me with the baby steps of basic survival. The simplest of tasks, getting up and getting dressed were overwhelming. I felt totally alone.
I was dealing with the emotional loss of being with someone that was fun, financial loss of my money, loss of a condo in Mexico, loss of the possibility of being involved in a business venture, the possibility of the loss of my health because of him screwing around on me, and the loss of the happy go lucky positive person that I was.
I had a job that depended on me being there and I did not want to let my students down. I had four weeks until the end of the term. I did my job but now there was no passion inside of me. I just wanted to get through the next four weeks so then I would burrow away and suffer in silence and solitude. But how was I ever going to come out of this nightmare? I did not have any answers for the ‘why’ or ‘how’ questions I kept torturing myself with. I knew I could not let him destroy every aspect of me. To do this I would be letting him have more than just the money. The money over time would be replaced but I knew it would not be so easy to replace the person that I was. I basically went about each day faking it and trying to convince myself that one day I would wake up from this nightmare and come out the other side.
Your comments are welcome!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
