The Last Ghostly Trick a Sociopath Plays

One of the most under-discussed stages of healing from abuse from an entanglement with someone with Antisocial Personality Disorder is the moment when you’re no longer confused or in active danger — but you’re still processing in a state of hypervigilant alert. 

You see clearly now. You understand the dynamics. You can name the gaslighting, the projection, the identity theft. You survived assault. You endured stalking. You survived the near death experience. 

You extracted yourself from a psychological war that was never mutual.

But you can’t stop looking.

You begin to understand what Nietzche meant when he said, “If you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss stares back.”

There’s a quiet voice that sometimes whispers: Why am I still carrying this? Haven’t I healed enough by now? Don't I have enough clarity?

That voice isn’t wisdom. It’s the final residue of a sociopath's abuse.

This abuse doesn't only aim to dominate you during the relationship. Its deeper aim is to distort your relationship with time — to convince you that ongoing integration of grief is failure, that your continued tenderness means you’re stuck or damaged.

That your love is a damage. 

This belief benefits the abuser long after they’re gone.

Because if you rush yourself, you abandon yourself.

If you judge yourself, you carry their shame for them. 

The four year anniversary of my rapes at the hand of my neighbor, my apartment maintenance man, who stalked me for a year is nearing.