Psychopaths cannot change.

Psychopathy is incurable and untreatable. They do not want help, because they believe themselves to be superior to "regular" human beings. You do not have to worry that they're a changed man or woman, because they're not. They may give off the illusion of "goodness" in order to maintain an image of normalcy, but like anything else with a psychopath, it's all manufactured. They are incapable of seeing other human beings as unique individuals deserving of love & kindness. All they see is pawns on a chess board. Someone who is capable of abusing you (with silence, gas-lighting, cheating, and pathological lying) is not also capable of suddenly being a decent human being because they found a better partner. These qualities & behaviors are indicative of a serious personality disorder, not temporary symptoms a bad relationship.

Oh honey, let's not "fight"...play along like the way I treat you is COMPLETELY NORMAL!

I didn't catch the signs at the beginning of the relationshit (intentional) but they were there in retrospect. One of the biggest was all the testing.

"Can I upset you?
How far can i push an issue?
Will you yell? Will you punish me back?
Will you brood?
How vicious can I take it before you react? Before you leave?
What happens when I do something you love or hate?
Test, test, test.

Oh honey...lets not fight. I simply want to know what I can get away with before I start training you."

Covert Narc Training - Once you're brainwashed:

You are less capable than you ever thought you were. Forget that job in accounting or degree in psychology...your skills in counting or understanding the human mind will slowly be eroded, replaced with their fears, doubts and worry and deferred to the expert with their natural intuitive powers of intelligence and experience. Your JesusMahatmaMotherTheresaGandhi knows more than you and any other twelve thousand people and will be happy to guide and remind you of how much practice you STILL need.

You need to seek therapy, they'll say.
You need to find Jesus, they'll say.
You need to go to rehab, they'll say.
You need serious help, they'll say.
You are hurting this family, they'll say.
You are selfish and blind, they'll say.

I only want you to be a better person. Look at all the people I have convinced of your invalidity! See! It's not ME, it's YOU.

I'm only trying to help you. You can't help it. You just have a problem. You just have a disease. God can help. Counseling can help. I just want to live a long life with you! I am just trying to help you help yourself. Poor baby. It must be hard having that disease. I will be here for you, I just need you to show you care about our family by getting the help you so desperately need!

But be very clear: YOU are the one who needs help. You're an idiot if you think anything else.

They can't bear the mirror, but they can't stop looking into it and projecting onto you.

Control. First a little here and there. Then it is what color toothbrush you should buy and how best to use the toilet, what kind of pants you should be wearing.

When they socialize it is holy...when you do it is never with the right people or for the right reasons. Family will be portrayed as meddling, close friends as interring or bad influences and everyone else either beneath you, poor or lame. Never should you be left alone with others either. If by chance you are allowed they'll want a full briefing of what transpired.

Notice that each of these previous posts have an agenda behind them: control, isolation, unbalance, devaluing, etc.

It took time to slowly drip feed these abuses to you and it took time for you to doubt your perceptions, feel like crap and get lost in a cloud of fog. This is when it's easy to slide into drug or alcohol abuse to start to cope with the confused devastation and cognitive dissonance you are experiencing. It didn't happen overnight and it was likely subtle...it could and does happen to anyone! Do not spend a single moment questioning how this could have happened to you because it happens to people of all stripes, backgrounds and education.

...You know what the creepy thing is? I (Denise) didn't write this...this is copy pasta from another unfortunate soul who fell in the Narc trap. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME: Zombies.

You better be on your best behavior...

How to Recognize the Narc...

Sorting through your experiences and emotions will help you to RECOGNIZE THE NARCISSIST:

Are you often tip-toe-ing around somebody?

Are you being told there's something wrong with you?
Is your reality denied?
Is someone undermining your self-esteem?
Is someone controlling your life or manipulating you?
Do you feel you can't be yourself?
Do you exist through the other's desires and not your own?
Are you always giving up on your needs to please the other?
Are you overwhelmed by guilt?
Do you feel you need to prop somebody up?
Are you often confused, do you have difficulty sorting out what is real or not, are you living in some sort of twilight zone?
Is someone sapping your resolve?
Is whatever happens always your fault?
Are you blamed for someone else's bad moods?
Are you met with criticism, the silent treatment or other punishment when you assert needs or express feelings?
Does the other want your exclusive and unconditional attention and does he or she insist to get what they want when they want it?
Are things being shoved down your throat?
Do you always come second?
Are you dealing with someone who does not take "no" for an answer?
Do you feel you always have to surrender?
Are you never getting an "I'm sorry"?
Are you the one who worries?
Are you the designated driver of someone else's life?
Are you doing the work, while the other has fun and avoids anything that is difficult?
Is someone sucking the lifeblood out of you?
Are you often on the defense?
Are you overlooking the reality of what is happening because you are so ready and willing to try to understand?
Do you feel compelled to defend and excuse your partner or your parent?
Do you overlook behavior that hurts?
Do you feel sorry for your partner or your parent?

Narc Game Play

I'd hate to admit how long it took me to learn to trust my instincts. If you sense that someone is playing games with you, they are.

In some settings, of course, game-playing is appropriate. For example, in tennis, to pressure an opposing server, I will sometimes step up to play the return of serve from well inside the baseline. I am playing a mind game. I am telling the server that I eat power serves for lunch.

Of course, in a tennis match, I am competing with that other party. But I don't compete with the other party in every daily interaction I have with other people. That would be inappropriate, especially with the members of my immediate familiy and my friends and teammates and co-workers.

But narcissists do.

I think this is because they are never being themselves. Since they don't identify with their true inner selves, how could they ever just be themselves?

Instead, they are Narcissus, transfixed by their reflected image in the mirror of your face. Just posing before that mirror. Their reflection in it is what they identify with. And they pose so as to make it as grandiose as possible.

That's all that's really going on in your interactions with a narcissist.

For example, if you say "hello" to a normal person under normal circumstances, he will say "hello" back. What will a narcissist do? How will he play this interaction to aggrandize his image?

Often, in certain settings, such as the workplace, the narcissist has the gall to refuse to even look at or answer you, treating you as beneath his notice, even as contemptible.

You wonder what you did to make him mad at you, because a normal person would do that only if you did something awful to insult him. Or if he THOUGHT you had done some such thing. So, you wonder what terrible lie someone has told him about you.

If this is happening to you, consider another possibility - that he is not a normal person, but rather a narcissist.

A narcissist isn't a normal person acting on normal human premises. He refuses to say "hello" back just to make you out as unworthy of that consideration from him, to make you out as dirt beneath his feet. He's taking advantage of this opportunity to pose in a mirror, pretending grandeur with respect to you. He acts out the part of a god who feels insulted by an unworthy bug like you expecting his majesty's attention.

It's all part of the play going on in his childish mind, a work of fiction about himself in which he is the star of a show all about him. (Little children do the same thing in their fantasies.) He IDENTIFIES with the fictional character he creates in that mirror.

You have but a bit part in this show. You exist to reflect his greatness in your interactions with him, period.

Notice that the narcissist is essentially an author of fiction in which the hero is always some idealized version of himself. He edits reality on the fly to compose this work of fiction. It's how he supports his delusions of grandeur.

For example, take any everyday human interaction, even such a simple one as when you say, "Excuse me, may I borrow your pen for a moment?"

The damned narcissist will not just let it be about that pen. She's gotta exploit this interraction to play games with you. Quick, imagine that you're her: how do you play this to aggrandize yourself?

A normal person will weigh several considerations. She'll consider whether she can spare the pen for a moment. She'll consider the fact that you'll think she's a jerk if she doesn't hand it over. And she'll consider the future trouble an unfriendly relationship with you could cause her. She may consider why you never have a pen with you and why you never return one you borrow. Or she may be delighted to do you this favor because you have done her favors and she likes you. In any case, the last thing on a normal person's mind is the opportunity to play this interaction as a power play.

But that's all that's ever on a narcissist's mind. She doesn't like anyone. She doesn't care about being liked (just admired, feared, favored). She doesn't care about getting along with people. She is no more capable of considering the future consequences of her actions than any other three-year-old. Even the business at hand is no consideration to her. A thing is never about whatever it's about. It's always all about her ego instead, period.

So, she plays everything you say or do in a game to gratify her ego at your ego's expense.

Therefore, in one way or another, her answer to your request to borrow her pen is going to make you feel like two cents waiting for change. Count on it. Every single time.

Suck, suck, suck ... like a parasite. Like a hookworm infection, constantly bleeding you drop by drop. It adds up.

"How do you like the turkey and dressing?"
Quick, narc, how do you play this to aggrandize yourself?

"Which of these two business models do you think is best?"
Quick, narc, how do you play this to aggrandize yourself?

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."
Quick, narc, how do you play this to aggrandize yourself (some more)?

There's no end it. It's exasperting because it IS experating. You never get through that brick wall a narcissist throws up to bounce back everything you say or do as a flattering reflection on him- or her-self. One that denies you one bit of gratification and sucks every bit of gratification in the transaction to herself. (See the book The Games People Play by Eric Berne.)

No communication ever gets through that wall. There is never any human connection. No meeting of the minds. Just this constant play off everything you say or do in a narcissist's infernal, eternal, infantile game-playing.

Normal people have self-respect. So, from an early age on, your first thought is to rise above this childishness. You couldn't bear to stoop to such silly competeing for vanities.

Right. But the mistake we often make is to think that "rising above it" means "taking it."

When you do that, you are allowing yourself to be used.

That's enabling. Does that do the narcissist any good?

Does that do yourself any good?

The ego is not an evil thing. Nature has instilled us with this aspect of our personality because it is highly adaptive. It houses the healthy narcissism responsible for our self-love and instinct for self-preservation. If we allow it to be turned traitor against ourselves though, it becomes our own worst enemy, the Enemy Within.

You can't let a parasite like a narcissist constantly bleed it without that happening. This is a narcissist's way of dumping his or her own ego problems on YOU. The narc is transfering his or her own shame and self-hatred to you, like as in a bad-blood transfusion.

Don't allow it. I'd hate to have to admit how long it took me to realize that I can't expect myself to be unharmed by it. Note the narcissism in THAT!!!

I am just a human being. I am not invincible. I can and will eventually be harmed by this constant bloodletting. No shame in acknowledging that, just appropriate modesty.

We all need a world in which "I'm okay, and you're okay." But narcissists deny you that. They impose a world in which they're perfect and you're hopelessly defective.

So, now, when I sense that someone is using me - using me as a mirror for that - I take that mirror away. They don't get to interract with me at all.

In theory, it's simple to deny your presence to a narcissist who abuses it. In practice, however, it sometimes gets complicated, because the situation doesn't always allow you to physically remove yourself from a narcissist's Pathological Space. Then you must analyze the situation and find working ways to deny them interaction.

But be sure to deny them inappropriate interaction with you. Don't allow it and then just IGNORE the put-down you get.

Doing that just gives them permission to use you. And giving others permission to use you will destroy your self-respect.

Source.

Poisonous parasite.

Psychopaths poison minds—that is their greatest skill. After they sink their claws into you, they begin to twist your words and manipulate your mind. You will never again experience someone who so carefully manufactures your every thought. Once you are free from their calculated games, you will be horrified to discover how deeply you were triangulated against perfectly good people, and led into a constant state of negativity & anxiety. And when the parasite is gone from your life for good, your free-will slowly returns as the false reality finally comes crashing down. You realize it was not you and the psychopath against the world—it was only the psychopath against you.

Cockroaches

Keep in mind, that whatever you do know about the psychopath, it is only the very tip of the iceberg. There are many more things below the surface that they have done and are capable of that you will never know about. You will never discover or understand the complete depths of their depravity. The memories that already make you sick are nothing compared to what you don't know. Their lies and schemes are like cockroaches. Where you see one or two, there are thousands more you can't see.

Even your lies are...credible. Amazing logic.

Narcissists can't BELIEVE when others find their victims 'CREDIBLE'. They spent so much of the abusive relationship trying to ENSURE that they'd NEVER be seen as credible.

Power - So hungry for it.

Narcissists often put certain people on high pedestals, some on the same "level" as themselves, and some in the gutter. There are no grey areas; other people aren't just PEOPLE, they're either elevated to ICON status (Guru, Great, Genius, Leader) or they're a "peer", which is not really EQUAL but more like a sidekick (apprentice, follower, sycophant, servant, object) or they get labeled "Loser" and completely devalued.

For a Narcissist to "promote" a person into a higher status is almost non-existent, but not completely impossible. However, the usual direction they will "move" others is DOWN their imaginary ladder, not UP. People aren't PEOPLE, they're characters and caricatures in the Narcissist's great theater production, where they are always the star. 

They are the ones who create the pedestals and the gutters, they are the ones who create the imaginary hierarchies we seem to end up living in and around. It all actually IS an illusion. The worship and fawning of other human beings, elevating them to some kind of god-like status, and the kicking others to the gutter like they're some kind of lower creature, are simply products of a culture filled with adults with Narcissism. 

Tricky, tricky...

Bow or Pay.

After the breakup & triangulation, psychopaths feel an immense amount of superiority. This is when they’re at their best—glowing with energy as they watch you fall from grace. It’s what they live for. She puts her newest target on display because she wants you to know about him. She’s waiting for your reaction. And if you don’t react, she will invent a reason to talk to you. Often times, psychopaths will use pointless requests as an excuse to get your attention. For example, returning an article of clothing or a DVD; something that any normal person would just forget about.

Once she has your attention, she will adopt a calm, patronizing demeanor. Talking down to you as if she’s somehow the relationship guru because she’s happy and you’re single. The whole conversation will take on a very arrogant, “I’m-in-charge” sort of attitude. After the breakup, she’s obsessed with being the calm & superior person: The winner.

She will minimize everything that happened, warning you not to create any drama. Instead of apologizing for her abusive behavior and now-obvious cheating, she makes sweeping statements explaining that breakups are just difficult. She depersonalizes the experience and speaks down to you as if she pities you. She uses this pseudo-pleasantry to come across as the bigger person. She will wish you all the best, playing it all off casually. She will make it seem as if this was just an everyday breakup.

If you don’t allow her the post-breakup superiority routine, she will become extremely unpleasant. She does not want to talk about her infidelity or lies. She wants you to idolize her in your memory. And remember how she gave you the silent treatment for days at the end of your relationship? Well, she still expects prompt responses from you—otherwise you’re bitter & jealous.

If you feel like punching a wall by this point, you’re in good company.

Source. 

I read these to my husband, and ask if this sounds familiar to him or if it's not an accurate description. I have yet to find an excerpt that isn't fitting for this sick woman. Not to mention, I remember this time period in his life. So does his family. So did his other best girlfriend at the time. 

It boggles the mind how some people can be so grotesque and have no clue. They think they can hide endlessly, get away with this sick shit if they can treat enough of their lemmings good enough to keep them convinced that they aren't the crazy ones. You can, for a time, psychopath - but the unfortunate thing about how much vile karma you put out is that it's a guarantee that this will come back to haunt you multiplied several times over. Sleep well, and hold your kiddies tight - because one day, they are going to get the full picture, and so is everyone else you have fooled. That must be an awful way to live - no wonder you work so hard to perfect your mask...you need to have it so good that you even fool yourself or you'd walk around knowing the impending doom that will come to you one day, and Lord have mercy!