As I have talked with people who have been touched by a sociopath one thing has remained consistent. We all have had expectations, expectations that are unrealistic. What we expect from these horribly flawed, very sick people is that they will, at some time, understand their behavior and correct it; make everything right and whole so that our lives can go on as planned. What we crave is our lives before they were invaded and destroyed by these unfortunates who take without remorse. We crave for them to understand the damage they have inflicted on others, the emotional, financial, physical (in the case of violent sociopaths) and social damage they have caused. We crave apologies, restitution, we crave for it to be fixed so that we can then resume life as we knew it!

In reality it will never happen. The sociopath has one goal, it involves none other than the sociopath, it involves the sociopath getting what he or she wants without regard for consequences, lives hurt, damaged or destroyed. It involves the sociopath creating a safety for themselves, usually short lived, but in their minds stability and safety. It involves using others to gain that fleeting sense of safety. For the sociopath achieving this comes about through a complex manipulation of lies and deceit. Consummate actors, the sociopath can be whatever they need to be at the moment, the affable kind hearted groomer conniving and breeding familiarity to separate the intended target from what it is the sociopath needs to meet a goal they have set.

Once familiarity has been established, a false one sided trust (the sociopath never trusts anyone) the door is opened for the process of destruction to begin. At first the sociopath treads lightly, testing the waters gently. Never making to much of a spectacle about what they are trying to accomplish, slowly whittling away at the victims life, abusing the victims kindness and caring. Eventually, as the sociopath progresses and heightens the game the behavior becomes more brazen, more daring. It is now a survival game, a game in which the sociopath tests not only his or her skills in manipulating the victim, but in how well they can manipulate and get their false needs met.

When the victim questions, and they do frequently question, they are gaslighted, told it is their imagination. If the victim still has any power left, they may argue that something is wrong and want explanations. When the sociopath encounters this power they seemingly short circuit, they unleash torrents of violent verbal, physical and emotional behavior. More manipulation, more cunning. They attempt guilt, threaten suicide, blame for their not being loved and cared for, all attempts to manipulate. Playing an end game, a game designed to destroy the person they have targeted and win. Winning to the sociopath is everything, it is the final prize, the coup de gras. Their winning takes many forms and can be deadly for the victim.

When the sociopath senses the end is near they quietly escalate their sickening plan, they may subversively prey harder and harder destroying their victims last shred of sanity while actively grooming another victim. When the sociopath has either met the goal set or realizes the there is no more to be had they make plans to move on. Moving on involves someone to move to however. Sociopaths never function independently, they must have a source, like the ultimate parasite they need something to feed off of, to give them sustenance. I was the victim of what professionals have termed an ¨ëxtreme sociopath.¨ Extreme sociopaths are those individuals who maintain an assault on a victim over a long period. In my case it was twenty-three years.

When I review those years I now see the grooming that took place. The targeted grooming that was subtle at first then escalated over time. The sad lost puppy who was a victim of circumstance was what I was presented with, the lost little boy in need co caring and concern. The act had been played before, it had produced places to live and well meaning friends who cared and hoped for good outcomes. In actuality it was nothing more that Bob's game, his game of seeing how much he could get and how often. It ran the gamut, from needing a place to live, to drinks at Club One or Faces. He gloated over how he never had to pay for a drink because he would flirt and get men to buy his drinks in exchange for dancing and a kiss. I now know that dancing and a kiss was probably the tip of the iceberg. Bob had lived with a series of people before I came along, each arrangement ended but I never really knew why, he always told me it was because of ¨them¨ and I never questioned any of it, at all. I was told story after story of why things never worked out. He was never very concrete though. I heard from others to tread very lightly with Bob, that he should not be trusted, that he was bad news. I paid no attention, I maintained that what I saw and what he presented to me when we were alone was the truth. It never entered my mind that it was all a lie, a fabrication and theatrical performance to get his needs met. In the end that's all it was, a performance. In the end it was nothing, it had always been nothing.

Like something out of the movie ¨Gaslight¨ my life was invaded and manipulated until I had nothing. When it became clear to Bob that there was nothing further for him to gain and more for him to lose, he began his online search for a new target. He had done this in the past. He had left once before but came back when he was denied an insurance license in Tennessee. In hindsight I now know that he also figured his target was not going to be willing, so, with nothing there he returned. He was comfortable again, as long as a sociopath is comfortable they will not move, but if they are uncomfortable and lacking what they need then they move. Bob had the perfect situation, he did whatever he wanted in a double life. A secret life of people I didn't know, nor would I ever have wanted to know. After he left in 2012 all of his life began to open up, the deceit, lies and people he frequented appeared. His active sex life and interactions online became discussion as his acquaintances told me what he did and how he behaved.

Bob had to keep me isolated. He had to keep me friendless and hidden. The risk to Bob was to high, if I ventured away he risked exposure. If he was exposed then he knew I would take action. He exposed himself inadvertently in the summer of 2012, I was asked by him to go into his email, there I found videos of Bob masterbating, he had shot them on his cell phone and was sharing them online and apparently, frequently, on twitter. Of course now I knew why he was spending so much time in the bathroom in the morning!

There were many times in twenty three years that normalcy, or my sense of normalcy was shattered by Bob and his behavior. The final culmination for me was the health problems caused by the stress of living with someone you didn't really know and the frequent realization that you didn't really know them, what they were capable of. Slowly a timeline in my head began to take shape and clarity began to take hold. What I wanted in my relationship with Bob, what I had always perceived and hoped I would have with Bob would never be. There was never a foundation, sociopaths don't build foundations, they live in a house of cards, lies, on a murky, muddy terrain. Nothing maintains for very long, the need for constant movement and disarray is so great that the sociopath cannot and never will have any kind of meaningful stability or relationship.

In the end Bob had taken everything, he tainted what he did not physically take from me. He made sure he lived up to the words he angrily yelled at me one day, ¨when I leave you I will leave you with nothing.¨ I am lucky to have my life, I do know now that it was in great danger. It took me a long while to see that, it took constant reiteration from professionals that I was in grave danger to break the denial I had.

Are the expectations still there? Yes. Does a part of me hope on a daily basis that my expectations will be met? Yes. People who don't understand being in an abusive relationship with a sociopath find it hard to understand the feelings that accompany the loss felt. They have never experienced the complete emptiness you feel when you realize that something you experienced had no meaning, no base, no substance, that there was never love. There was love, but it was one sided love and it always involved being let down by the sociopath always hoping for a better outcome, a change, It always involved wanting what would never be because it was always always failure.

I have heard from Bob many time in the last six months, ¨why can't you just move on.¨ The answer is that I am a human being, I have feelings, I have emotions, I have values, I have morals. When a sociopath says move on it simply means I have a new victim, someone who, for now, can provide me with what I need. The sociopath knows full well that if that stops they will just pick up and head on into another sick parasitic existence with another victim.

What is hard about expectations is that they are real. What is hard about expectations is that when you want to see them come about in the worst way they don't. What is hard for me about my expectations right now is that I know they will never be. I will never experience Bob in any other light. He will remain the same being. I will never see all that I thought he could be and all I so desperately wanted in my partner and lover. Twenty three years of my life is gone, I am dying from End Stage Liver Disease. I falsely spent twenty three years with a man I loved, a man, like any other who had his flaws, just as I do. I did not though ever expect to be dying and alone and still hoping my expectations would be met by the man I lived with and loved for so many years.

My favorite quote is from Maya Angelou, for me it sums up how we live our lives, are we respectful and mindful of our actions and words, are we good companions in the world and do we offer of ourselves selflessly,

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

― Maya Angelou

No one can fully understand what another person has endured during their lifetime. No one can fully understand the pain of someone else's journey. No one can comprehend the ending of almost one quarter of someones life in a fleeting moment because they challenged their lovers behavior and asked why they needed to shoplift. No one can comprehend living for nearly a quarter of ones life with someone who never took responsibility and blamed everyone else for all that was bad in his life. No one can comprehend living with someone who blocked out large periods of their life as though they didn't exist. No one can comprehend living with someone who suffered from psychotic depression and the accompanying rage.

No one, NO one, can understand the terrible feeling of wanting a loved one to see what they have done and how they have made someone they said they loved feel, NO ONE!

Until I die, I will always have that expectation for Bob.

Valentines Day 2014

February 14th, 2013 was not a very good day for me. At five o'çlock in the afternoon I got in my car and made my way to Columbus, Indiana. There would be no intimate dinner, there would be no wishes for a Happy Valentine's day. There was nothing to be thankful for, their was no husband or partner to spend the evening with. There were memories, haunting memories of a life I was leaving. For the last five years I had lived in the home I was now evicted from. I was homeless. My husband or partner or whatever he was had left in October of 2012, he left having not paid the rent or bills, he left knowing I was in declining health. He left after his lies had become so apparent to others that he had nowhere to turn anymore.


I was with Bob Hunt for 23 years. Most people would consider that a milestone. I did and worked tirelessly to try and preserve that time we had both spent together. But in the end, when he walked out the door in October 2012 I felt very little. I remember calling my therapist the afternoon he left and telling her he was gone, I remember telling her that earlier in the afternoon I had discovered his shoplifting from an artist friend. I remember her response, a gasp, then silence. I remember her earlier warnings about the behavior of a sociopath, ¨they will try to set you up, they will try to take the focus off of themselves by getting their victim into trouble.¨ Sociopaths need someone to blame, they are constitutionally incapable of taking responsibility for themselves or their actions. Their lives, their chaotic life, constructed of intricate lies and deception is always someone elses fault. The sociopath spends hours plotting revenge, plotting their next move, their next retribution for the slights they have received real or perceived.


When, as I experienced many times, the uncovering of a lie, I would endure horrific rage. That rage from Bob would and did take many forms. He would destroy my belongings, he would smash furniture, dishes anything in his way. He would begin the verbal assaults, the taunts, he would tell me how worthless I was, that on one liked me, that I was the reason we had no friends. He would mock the things I did, my family, what few friends I did have that had stuck by me despite their complete disdain for Bob and his behavior and my continually making excuses for him as he ruthlessly continued his assault and deconstruction of me.


Probably the most painful of these was not the repeated beatings I took physically from Bob, but the emotional torture and belittlement he cast on me. When there were indications in early 2012 that I was facing a health crisis Bob did not, as usual, offer any kind of support to me. I had always known, always, many years ago, that if I ever became ill I would not be able to count on Bob. You see in the mind and world of a sociopath if the focus is not on them they become angry. Bob became angry, he treated me like I was burdensome to him. He never asked simple questions like how are you feeling and would become angry if I was tired or not feeling well. I, in turn tried my hardest to compensate by continuing on and making believe nothing was wrong. I did this to the detriment of my health, I did this to maintain calm but I was never successful.


I had been told in the spring of 2012 by my doctor that the stress that I was living in was killing me. I was told that I had to break free of the domestic violence in order to preserve my health. The doctors had told me that the biggest obstacles I faced were in my relationship with Bob, that I lived with an abuser, a violent abuser and it was killing me. All through 2012 there was fear of my having bone cancer. I remember having an appointment with a specialist to discuss course of action, I remember asking Bob to be with me, he told me to go alone. The horrible realization that someone cares so little for you and your wellbeing is sobering and sad. Bob did end up going to that appointment with me but he did not hide his disdain for being there. He had other, more important things to do, he repeatedly made me aware of that, he repeatedly made the specialist aware of that, he attempted to rush the appointment, an appointment that had taken six months to get. In the end, the specialist made specific note of Bob's behavior, he communicated it to my primary physician. The specialist was so appalled at Bob's behavior that he refused to see me again if Bob attended the appointment. All of this further solidified to my doctors that Bob was horribly abusive toward me.


I knew in the summer of 2012 that Bob was planning something. I knew from his behavior that he was building a persona on Twitter, Facebook and various gay sex sites. He had done it before, he did it in 2008. Then he gathered support online by weaving a tale of his being in a bad relationship and having no where to go. I knew the signs and I knew the pattern all too well. You see it is easy to manipulate information when people are not around you on a daily basis, Bob is good at that, he is also a good liar and can make anyone believe him. He comes across with the utmost sincerity and kindliness, but behind that is a mind that is working full throttle to figure you out, your weak spot, what he can use to to groom you and draw you in to ultimately take advantage of you and get what you have that he wants. Bob kept me away from a double life he created. A life of lies and fabrications so he could manipulate others into his false tale. For years he carried on a false life, a hidden fantasy that only others saw, and all those people never thought to seek clarification or verification. Had they, they would have seen the real Bob, a manipulative, lying person who uses people as pawns in his ongoing game of deceit.


This is what a sociopath does. They scope the victim out, they groom the victim well, they mirror whatever the victim needs and once ensnared the sociopath has complete control to do whatever they want. The sociopath's victims can be anyone, anyone who has something they need at any given time. Not all victims are victims for very long. In Bob's case he groomed people for simple needs like sex, sex is something Bob craves, he doesn't care where it comes from as long as he is able to have it, whenever and wherever he wants. He will groom people for it, he will hunt for it in public places, in alleys and restrooms, he has been arrested for doing just that, hunting for sex. It is more of the risk taking, the predatory nature of the sociopath, how much can I get for myself.


On a more grand scale the sociopath will spend a great deal of time plotting to groom a victim. Once inside the victim's life they have free access to everything about them, everything. Things, like in my case, will begin to disappear. At first small things, things that could easily be explained as being lost. Then the more daring behavior emerges, bigger more valuable things begin to disappear. The sociopath craves the risk taking, it is exhilarating to them. When questioned the sociopath will deny there is a problem and gaslight the victim into believing they have lost the item or misplaced the item. Sometimes the sociopath will find the item restoring faith in them so they can continue the assault quietly and uninterrupted.


Sociopaths play games with emotions, they will outwardly strive to make you feel inferior and then use fleeting displays of intimacy to restore themselves. It is intimacy the victim wants but will never really have, it, like everything with the sociopath is an illusion. The sociopath provides just enough intimacy at crucial times to make the victim believe they are needed and wanted, it reinforces the trust that the world is alright. The sad thing is that the victim buys into this, they have been so worn down into believing they are not worthy that these small, fleeting displays of affection are monumental to them. They stay hooked in, they stay believing everything will get better, it never does.


In my case with Bob history repeated itself over and over and over again. In the early years he would go through the motions of having a good relationship. He was never intimate but he played the part. I remained isolated from his family, there were times I did attempt to tell them what was happening but true to form their illusion, like Bob's that they are perfect ended with nothing. As time went on people who were close to me raised their voices and concern for me. I would always come up with excuses for Bob and his behavior. I would always explain it away. I now know how frustrating it was to the people who cared about me, the people who warned me, the people who feared for my safety. I know now that Bob was unfaithful to me early on in our relationship, his insatiable need for anonymous sex was occurring early on, I had been warned, but I chose to view him through rose colored glasses. In those early years Bob was easy to love, he was easy to be around and we had fun, many fun times. Times he chooses to forget.


After Bob left in 2012 and his dark other life began to surface it was as if 22 years of red flags all came together to validate that what I had been through was very real. He really had secret bank accounts to steal my money, he really had use of my private information to impersonate me, he really stole and converted my private property, family treasures. He really stole from other people, he really shoplifted (for a long time,) he really forged signatures of mine and others. He did all those things, he did them without remorse and if you asked him today, if you caught him today and presented him with the clear evidence that he had done all those things he would deny it, first he would just deny it, then if you pressured him you be able to see him becoming nervous and agitated. Then you would experience the rage. Then you would experience the his wrath, his destruction. He might tamper with your car, he might do something to your animal or other property. He might lurk around your home to sabotage something, he will try to get back at you because you found him out.


In 2008 I had dealt with so much of Bob's instability I didn't think it could get worse. We were napping one afternoon and he began sobbing uncontrollably, I was scared for him, when I asked him what was wrong, as I held him, still wanting him t be alright, all he kept repeating was ¨I am a horrible person, I have done such bad things.¨ It was not until Bob was gone in 2012 and into 2013 that I learned just how horrible the things are that Bob did to me and others. Heinous things. I hoped that day that there was a chance, a small chance that Bob would change, that he would get the help he needed. Two weeks later he suffocated and killed our standard poodle, Hermione, in cold blood, he murdered the dog on the living room floor and buried her in the back yard with a shovel he borrowed from a neighbor. Hermione has now been removed from that backyard, she has, what was left, been cremated and properly put to rest, the victim of someone very cruel and sick. I knew that day, as I watched this horrible thing happen that I was not safe, if someone can murder a defenseless animal in need of help, then they can do terrible things, horrible things. I still cannot drive by that address on North Evanston Avenue in Indianapolis.


I recieved a message from the owner of Royal Bike Taxi that I needed to stop being bitter! Most people would not see this as being bitter. I am not bitter at all, I am saddened that people like Bob exist in the world. I am saddened for people like Bob. They know no joy, they know no happiness, they have no peace. They never will have any of that, they are incapable of having any of those things and of feeling love. I am struck by the onslaught of social media postings from Bob and Keith, their constant need to prove themselves and their love to the world. In real relationships the only ones needing to prove commitment and love are the two in the relationship, if you have to show the world and seek acceptance then you have nothing, nothing.


This Valentines Day I am making dinner for someone in my life who is very special. He is someone who loves and cares for me. He is someone who unconditionally loves me, allows me to be me and has above all else, understood where I have been and gives me the room and time to begin to trust again. He is someone who knows that he has to show those around me, who also love me, that he truly has my interests at heart. He is someone who has committed to be by my side even though he knows I am terminally ill. He is an pretty incredible man and I am forever blessed he came into my life.


This Valentines Day I find myself able to manage the trauma that I lived with for many years, I find myself around amazing people who have come into my life in the last year. I am loved, I am needed and I am validated for being the kind man I always was. I have traveled a path the last year that no one should ever have to travel, it was the culmination of years of heartache and misery spent with someone who never loved me. I may not have a long life in front of me, but the time I do have will be spent surrounded by people who cherish me and the man I am.

NO CONTACT

I realized this week how important no contact really is when dealing with a sociopath.  Had the need for no contact been clearly explained to me I would have stopped months ago.
No one ever sat me down and explained that is was the sociopaths way of keeping you hooked and actually continuing the attempt to destroy.  Part of me wanted to maintain contact because I still wanted to believe that Bob cared.  I think deep down I knew he didn't and he never did care.  But there was a piece of me that was holding on to something I never had.  One of the big questions I had was, why did he continue contacting me?  In the first month we didn't speak at all, it was all email.  I think he was using that as a way to make me suffer.  Now I know that the sociopath tries to control the contact as a means of exerting control.  In the first month I still had his tweets coming in to my phone. That was how I found out he had bought a car and how he was in Georgia.  He knew what he was doing, he knew full well what he was doing.  He wanted to hurt me, he wished I were dead as he had told me many times.

I now know that all of those pictures coming through on twitter were coldly planned to mess with my head.  I now know the pictures he and his new victim put on face book were meant to mess with me.  He wanted me to see as much of his new life as he could to, or so he thought, whittle away at my sanity,  

I've don a lot of reading in the last couple of weeks.  What I have taken from the reading is the need for the sociopath to destroy as they build their new life with a new victim. Continuing to keep the abandoned victim

I was given an assignment...

The other day I was given an assignment.  I don’t like assignments.  I find assignments tedious and overwhelming.  I dislike assignments because I am being forced to look at something.  If it is something pleasurable then I don’t mind the tediousness of the assignment, it is less burdensome.

If, as in this case, I find the assignment difficult to face it becomes a source of more anxiety and that causes me to block my thought on the subject.  I usually jump into things with vigor and creatively approach what is at hand.  This is something I cannot approach in my traditional way.  It is cut and dry, it is life changing and I cannot hide in a delusional world bright colors and hopefulness. I cannot make it better, I can make tolerable.  I cannot fix it and make it go away.  It has made me be dependent, something I don’t want to be.  It has made me face myself, it has made me look at myself, it has made be honest and it has made me less concerned about other people and more concerned about me. It has taught me to say no and mean no. It has taught me to accept help from those who offer it, to accept my diminishing abilities and try to do it gracefully, smiling along the way and remaining the gentleman I was taught to be.

I am dying.  I am terminal. I thought I would react to this in a very different way. We have all thought about what we would do “if.” I know when I thought about dying I imagined overwhelming depression, a feeling of powerlessness, my chest got heavy and I imagined I would be overcome with anxiety. This has not been the case at all.  When I had the “talk” with my doctor two weeks ago I asked questions, a lot of questions.  I wanted to know when! I got the same response I have gotten from all of the doctors.  “Everyone is different.” I asked what to expect, “Everyone is different.” You see my wanting to know when and what to expect is really nothing more that my wanting to control something well beyond my control. I am naturally a very inquisitive person. I want to know the nitty gritty of everything, I research it and dissect it to understand it and the implications.  I know, to a degree what to expect.  I know, to a degree what to look for and I know that there are aspects which I will not recognize that require diligence on the part of those close to me.

End Stage Liver Disease, ESLD has many causes. It manifests differently, it can be complicated by other illness. It is fatal if not treated by transplantation. When I was given this assignment it was on the heals of my doctors telling me that I needed to be prepared to not undergo a transplant.  I was told that given my age and other illness I needed to understand that “the livers go to younger healthier people.” I was then catapulted into that class of patient who classified as terminal. I have a doctor who deals only with the chronically ill, the critically ill.  His approach is direct which I admire. He has also respected my wishes not to sugar coat any aspect of what is happening to me.  I admire him because he understands my need to know the details and causes and he takes the time to tell me and explain to me the intricacies.

Of the many possible effects of ESLD there is one particularly awful side effect. Hepatic Encephalopathy, HE.  HE is a bi product of toxins building up in the brain.  It affects memory, motor skills, mood, behavior causes fatigue and slurred speech.  It is a neuropsychiatric disorder and while treatable with medication it can rear its ugly head in a heartbeat and go from mild to full blown quickly without warning. It can lead to coma and death in it’s most severe form.  I have HE. For me it has led to extreme fatigue, something I am told will persist and worsen, I have good days and I have bad days.  I become very tired, it’s a tired that I don’t think is easily explained unless you have ever experienced it firsthand.  It is a feeling of intense exhaustion that comes on without warning and the brain tells the body to stop. I fall asleep now in an instant. Unfortunately, I fell asleep while driving, I woke, but had difficulty staying awake and making it home.  So, now I am faced with the reality that at some point I will be unable to drive.  HE is particularly scary because if you are not around someone who recognizes what is happening the signs can be mistaken.  Of course knowing all of this changes the way I approach things.  I know that I have roughly five hours during the day to function before I must stop. The simple tasks of everyday life are tiring.  I plan appointments and my driving so as not to be caught in the onset of debilitating fatigue.  I plan the important things so that my head is clear and I can cognitively process what I need to process.  What makes it difficult is noticing the subtle changes in the way I do things I used to do without difficulty.  At times I have problems with motor functions, I leave words out when I’m writing, I forget easily and can find myself at a complete loss for what I was doing.  I hate it that my speech slurs and I get unbalanced on my feet.

Despite all of this, I get up every morning, I take the medications needed to help me function as best I can. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.  No matter how good I feel in the morning, no matter how good the medication works I know that it won’t get better, it will get worse.  

I think one of the hardest things about dying is really learning who is with you along the way.  I have always been the kind of person who stands by someone in need.  I have done that to a fault in my life, not going when I should have, but feeling obligated to be there for one in trouble.  I was raised that way, I was raised to put yourself second and do for others before yourself.  What I have experienced with illness is that people fall away.  I have learned they don’t do it gradually, they don’t do it by saying anything.  They just stop. Whether it’s not knowing what to say or do, or just a preoccupation with self, they stop.  People I thought would be there are no longer there.  I was told by a psychologist friend who does pre-transplant screening, someone admire,  when I was first presented with all of this, to know that people were going to fall away, that when that happened a new group of people would appear to support and stand by me.  That has happened and it has happened in such a way that has amazed me.  The people surrounding me now expect nothing from me, they understand the daily struggles I have.  They don’t expect me to function as if I am well, the don’t expect me to take charge.  They do expect me to do what I can for myself but understand there are times I need help.  They are there. They brighten my life, we talk about what is going on and what I need and how I feel.  They support me.  Most of all they make me feel safe. That’s important, the feeling of safety, the feeling that no matter what I will be cared for, not alone, not abandon,

My liver disease began many years ago and I was unaware until very recently that there is a genetic component to my liver disease and we now know the problems began in my twenties and have progressed.  That does not change the outcome however.  It does not change the truth that without a transplant I will die.  It does not change the reality that I am older and not a prime candidate for transplant.  It does not change the statistics that seventeen people die daily in the United States waiting for a liver.

One thing I can say is that my view of life has changed considerably.  I am more sensitive to others stress and their manufacturing unnecessary events in their lives.  I can say I remove myself from people creating havoc for themselves.  I also know when to say no and don’t fear doing so.  I also do the things I enjoy doing, I may do them more slowly and less obsessively but I have learned to enjoy it more and not feel guilty for making myself happy.

I have learned to count my blessings and be thankful for the very small group of people who, on a daily basis, surround me with unconditional love and allow me, without recrimination, to be me.

THE WEDDING PLANNER

What do you get when you cross a sociopathic gay guy, whose broke, steals from people, has committed forgery, evaded taxes, is a pathological liar, is abusive and psychotic?

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!

A GAY WEDDING PLANNER NAMED BOB HUNT!

Boy there is FRAUD written all over this one!

GAY WEDDING PLANNER, HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA

UPDATE: Apparently Big Daddy Bob Hunt is now an ORDAINED MINISTER providing Pedi Weddings in Savannah Gerogia!  WOO HOO, a wedding performed by a psycho riding a tricycle who looks like a pedophile and felon (oops, he is one of those, sorry)  http://www.savannahpediwedding.com/ What a joke!

My Responsibility to Others. The Moral and Ethical Question

Last night I finished "The Sociopath Beside Me" it was a great little book.  It left me with a burning question.

For years I protected the sociopath in my life, I supported him in a delusional way, my delusional way.  I stood by as time and time again Bob repeated the same behaviors, created the same hurts, created the same mistrust, created the same chaos in mine and other peoples lives.  I never divulged the pain I was in, If I did it was fleeting and I would close up again, believing in my state of denial that everything would be alright.  22 years of believing everything would be alright.  As we know, "alright" never came.  "Alright"
 never existed, it didn't exist the night I met Bob.  It didn't exist during the first phase of our relationship and it most certainly didn't exist through the many years we were together.

I was asked while still living in Savannah by a friend who worked for the health department who had told me her fears about Bob's manipulation, if he was pedophile.    Of course I told her I didn't think he was although the thought had crossed my mind having seen instances of deviance.  I think I did not honestly believe he was that sick, that coupled with my horror of the word and the actions the word conjures made me sick and feeling unclean.  In my world pedophilia is among the most heinous of crimes.

Several years ago Bob and I were visiting a friend, her sister was in town from San Diego with her two small sons.  The boys were, I believe five and nine at the time.  The boys were dealing with severe family dysfunction and hated their father for his abuse of them and their mother.

That day I saw something that scared me, that made me stop wondering, the situation led me to think that if Bob was not now actively seeking out children that natural progression might lead him there.

Bob sat on the sofa next to the oldest boy.  He sat close to him, his arm stretched around the boy but on the back of the sofa. I think in retrospect I felt chills.  Bob talked to the boy with caring and concern, I don't even remember what they talked about, all I remember is that feeling of being very uncomfortable with seeing the interaction.

When we left and were driving home, Bob made a statement, a statement that gave me great concern. He said, "that boy is gay, I know he is and someone needs to help him."  For the remainder of their visit I would be busy if asked to stop by, I would make up excuses to not be around those boys.  I didn't want Bob around those boys.

A large portion of "The Sociopath Beside Me" deals with the shock, horror and melting away of the denial state, the state that tells us our perception are wrong, that we are imagining things, that it is us not them.  I read in horror as the author described her husbands pedophilia, the progression of it and his descent into the worsening of his behavior.

I have looked the other way for so long.  I believed it was me, for so long.  I believed it was an illusion for so long.  I made the conscious decision to disbelieve.

My question is, to what degree am I responsible for protecting others from the evil I have experienced?  Am I responsible to be the oracle, the warning system to alert those of the dangers they face by interaction with the evil I experienced?  Am I responsible for outing the sociopath?

The ethical and moral me says that I must not hide the truth any longer, that I, me must stop the insidious madness so that others are not hurt.

My 22nd Anniversary would have been today...

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