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Grieving For A Perpetrator

  • Post starter Post starter Deleted member 35429
  • Start date Start date
Wow. These are not the responses I was expecting, all very thought provoking. Thank you.

Gaping holes in the story is true. The truth is so crazy I doubt anyone will believe it. I'll try and sum it up.

At age 15 I was lured in by a psychopath(my parents had recently divorced but no other significant trauma history). I was so enamored with the attention from him and what felt like love that within days I was completely devoted to him. He became violent physically and sexually almost immediately. I developed some version of Stockholm syndrome for him and protected him and was devoted to him with almost a mindless brainwashed type of obsession. He hurt me routinely and was nothing short of the craziest person you can imagine. He was so callous that I was convinced until just recently that he wasn't actually human.

When I got out of this situation, I was still 16. I had left school and lost all my friends while in this relationship. I went home and tried to rebuild my life. But the trauma was horrendous. I had lost 20lb and was rail thin, couldn't sleep or do anything without indescribable flashbacks. I was traumatized out of my mind.

No joke, within weeks of finally getting to a safe place, I met the 25 yr old and his friend. I was terribly lonely and depressed and was looking for human connection and they "wanted to hang out"...I quickly learned they wanted a threesome. The end result was that the 25yr old became aggressive and it ended up in anal rape. The 21yr old was very traumatized from this, he begged me for forgiveness. The wife left the 25yr old. She actually committed suicide shortly after all this.

It's all quick horrendous. I am in therapy for the 18months with the psychopath. The rape by the 25 yr old seemed trivial by comparison. Clearly it was all predatory but I wasn't actually traumatized from it. The violence from the psycho was much much much worse.

I was just struck when mentioning this story to my therapist that I still feel nothing about it other than depression and sadness for him. I definitely had some "Stockholmy" symptoms toward the psychopath so maybe that's why I have so much empathy for another predator? I must be more messed up than I realize.

I was very frightened and upset by him not using a condom and it was painful, no lube just force. I mean, I know that's rape. But I was soooo traumatized already. I was just shell shocked from what had already happened.

Funny, writing this I have no emotions but I have full body trembling. Trauma is some weird shit.

I'm really shocked people think his story is BS. That had never occurred to me. I will cogitate on that.

I love all the feedback. Thanks so much everyone!
 
There is so much I could say in response. Firstly I am just really really sorry that all this happened. Secondly before I say more do you think you had good boundaries before any of this happened? In other words did your family teach you to value yourself, connect with how you were feeling, teach you to look after yourself, say no if something didn't feel right etc?

You talk about feeling loved. Did you feel loved at home and connected to your family?

I'm not at all sure about the 21 year olds role in what happened. What he did and didn't do and how he was involved at the start.

Well done for discussing it all. Be sure to do some grounding and take care of yourself.
 
Can you see how the 25 year olds story is beyond ridiculous in context of the order of things? Someone who had a moment of dissociation and triggeredness would not have behaved like this over what sounds like an extended period of time. He wanted a threesome with a 16 year old girl and then became aggressive ending up in this type of rape. It shows calculation, determination, aggression and awareness.
 
I see that, I just think he wanted normal consensual sex with me and maybe my saying no and resisting triggered him to reenact his trauma on me. I was especially weak and pathetic at that time, I can imagine hearing a weak person pleading "no" would trigger a traumatized person.

That his wife committed suicide after this does make me wonder if he had been hurting her and maybe this was exposing her own suffering as well. I don't know. I always assume the most innocent possible reasoning in people. It's so hard for me to believe people actually want to do harm.
 
At a certain point in my life I realised that not only do I have an over developed ability/tendency to empathise but some of that empathising was projection. I've read someone else posting that on here recently and relate. I'm not saying this is happening for you as you get to decide what is and at your pace. Just saying that it is a possibility. Sometimes accepting that others brains don't work in the same way as ours do and they do genuinely have different and often bad motivations can be a hard thing to do. I think this type of identification can serve many roles. It usually starts early and thats why I asked you all the other stuff (no pressure to answer).

Early on I think it can be self protective as seeing the person for who they are can mean one is either going to need to fight or leave and both these can cause harm to come our way.

It has taken a lot of work for me to stop sanitising others motives and behaviour. I have been working on it for around 10 years now and it becomes more and more automatic. I find I am very decided and a little obsessive about checking in in all areas of my life though. I don't trust myself to let my guard down. I pedantically try to notice who someone shows me they are and hear it. I still blank things that are harmful to me in other ways at times. I hope this doesn't feel off topic.

Resisting means there was aggression. And before there was resisting. Aggression shows intent. Its not at all a normal way to interact with a girl and the very fact of your age is way more than a big red flag. If he was abused then at that age he is likely rather acting out his rage rather than his triggeredness.

Totally with Zoogal on what happened here.
 
Abstract said:
He wanted a threesome with a 16 year old girl and then became aggressive ending up in this type of rape. It shows calculation, determination, aggression and awareness.
Click to expand...

This is so true. He SO wasn't triggered. Just look at what you told us, Orion:

(1) He was cheating on his wife
(2) He wanted sex with a 16 year old - a 16 year old who he saw as "weak", as you say yourself Orion
(3) He wanted three-way sex
(4) He was manipulating a 21 year old to help him
(5) He was angered by you exercising your right to say no
(6) He violently assaulted you


It sounds like your mother was not there for you at all. She allowed you to see the psychopath. Even if she didn't know exactly what you were going through, she sure wasn't checking up on you, and I have little doubt that there were signs of abuse to which she turned a blind eye. She let you drop out of school. She let you be rail thin. At 16, she gave you the freedom to spend time with a 25 year old.

I actually can understand how you don't feel anger at the 25 year old. Your emotional response system was hijacked by the psycho. By the time the 25 year old came around, you were already defeated so you felt "meh, who cares". After all, what's one humiliation compared to living with abuse day in and day out.

The real damage was done by your mother and by the psycho. If you find your rage against them and work through it, then you can decide at that time whether you want to look at the anal rape differently. For now, I think that analyzing the rape is not going to get you anywhere. Even if you are seeing it more clearly now than you were before, you are not in the right frame of mind to work through it. First things first.
 

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