Surviving a Sociopath (1)

Note: The following is based off true events.

I was married to a sociopath, and I was stupid for it. Even though I made a very unwise choice, I did learn a lot. It’s also incredible that my mind and body are still intact. Being subjected to the whims of my husband’s sexual fantasies, I quickly learned that in order to survive, I was going to have to try to anticipate everything that had to do with him. I got pretty good at predicting him, but there was no way to completely know how he would act, so sometimes I was punished, not knowing what I’d done wrong.

From the beginning, I knew there was a problem. We’d purchased a vehicle with my name, and he was driving when he started calling me the worst names imaginable, out of nowhere. While I was being verbally abused, my fiancé -that’s what he was at the time- sexually touched my breast, almost like he owned me. I looked at him in disgust, triggering more hurtful uncalled for name-calling. At that moment, I had the distinct impression this man was going to rape me. My first thought was to try and escape. After braking at a stoplight, I ran over to some cops who were stopped on the side of the road, telling them I struggled with suicidal ideations, which was no lie.

The cops transported me to a nearby hospital where I’d wait for a bed to free up at the Las Vegas Mental Hospital (LVMH), also called Rawson-Neal, then I’d be transported via ambulance to receive in-patient treatment. My fiancé had found the hospital I was at and left his phone number, which I didn’t know off the top of my head. The members of the staff added the yellow sticky note, with his number scribbled on it in large, red ink in my personal file.

Laying in my bed for hours was mind-numbing. Since I had my fiancé’s number, I could call him, but not before I and a few other patients would be transported to a room that was much quieter than the busy reception area for the Emergency Room (ER).

After we arrived in the new room, one of the other patients acted out, seeking attention heavily. I’d seen her from when we were at LVMH at the same time, in the past.

We didn’t talk much then, and there wasn’t anything to talk about at the moment, either. She was much too busy acting out anyway, the staff trying to figure out how to keep the difficult patient in bed, quiet, and out of trouble. All I could do was lay in my bed while those who looked after us changed shifts. I felt like that’s what we were to them: A shift, and that's it.

I felt like I was in hell. I approached a staff member on duty and was able to retrieve my fiancé’s phone number from my file, and I called him.

There was an automatic difference in how I was treated by the medical personnel once they knew I had a fiancé. Having a support system outside the hospital was vital because it offered the employees the chance to recognize that somebody outside of those walls cared about me. As a result, I was treated more like I existed versus the other patients. Support systems are so important when it comes to dealing with the mental health care system in any state, because you very well stand the chance of losing your mind if you don’t have one.

I have witnessed the breakdown patients can have as a product of these systems, but that doesn’t mean these institutions aren’t well-intentioned, and for a decent number of patients passing through, good things come of it.

At first my fiancé was kind to me on the phone. He let me know he loved me, asked how I was doing, and most important, wanted to know when I would get out. I was thinking to myself how much I hated having to call this man. My feeling about him raping me had not gone away. After he raised some hell (I’d imagine), I was moved fairly quickly through the system, being discharged from LVMH only two days after I was admitted.

The last two times I’d been there, my first stay had been for three weeks, and the second time had been for five weeks. This third time was different than the past because more patients were allowed access to other mental hospitals through Nevada's version of Medicaid, which was Amerigroup.

I took to my bedroom quickly, which I luckily had to myself. The other patients were mostly young men, and I didn’t want to get involved in any games if I didn’t have to, so I stayed in my room as much as I could handle it, even if it meant staying isolated.

When I got out of the mental hospital, my fiancé presented me with flowers and a teddy bear with a big heart that said: “I love you.” I was flattered, until I found out later he’d used my financial backing to make the purchases. Again, at my expense, we rented one of the nicest rooms in one of the hotels in Vegas, where we both were living at the time. The room was huge. (I could only imagine how much it cost!) That night, with the large bouquet of flowers sitting on a table not far from us, my fiancé raped me.

Coming straight out of a psychiatric institution, I was vulnerable, but he didn’t care.

I was subjected to different forms of humiliation, and even torture, doing things that degraded me. This was not done in fun because I didn’t want any pain, and I didn’t want to be tied up just because that’s what he wanted, like I’d been kidnapped. For two or three hours I was treated like I was worth less than an animal, all the while thinking that I couldn’t defend myself because I was a woman, and he was a man. After mumbling a prayer, the cosmos freed me from the excruciating pain, and the psychological trauma, by mysteriously making him stop in the middle of administrating his sadistic tendencies.

I started thinking about the possibility of me being able to defend myself, a mindset I would end up needing later on for no other reason than self-defense. I would find out that I, as a woman, would be able to identify factors, given any fight, that could help me gain an advantage over my opponent and emerge victorious.

After my fiancé had sufficiently indulged himself in his hurtful behaviors, he asked if I still wanted to marry him. I thought about what had happened, and had detached to the point where I felt like my body was existing outside of myself, watching everything that was going on. I felt like I’d been studying the situation, and it felt natural to see where things would go, and with that, I told him that I would. I was also afraid what would happen if I said “no.” The rest of the night was spent with me trying to process all the trauma I’d gone through, but he didn’t care, so it was I that consoled myself.

Sociopaths are similar to psychopaths in that they can’t empathize with others. All my fiancé had thought of was himself, and since he was able to hurt me so badly, then marry me, he figured he could have it all, no matter what I would have to go through to remain resolutely by his side, for better or for worse, until death would we part, or at least until I couldn’t take it anymore, then hopefully would have the luck to successfully get away from his deranged fantasies.