Chapter Two — DARK SOUL
Your intuition
is your window
into another’s soul…
When I first met Marvin I was drawn into his web by his level of intelligence and charismatic charm. His aptitude to articulate was well executed and skillful, nearly flawless, and superior to most 26 year olds. Regardless of the circumstances or the timing, he appeared to never be caught off-guard or at a loss for just the right set of discriminating words to bestow upon the listener; illustrating his gifted 'silver tongue' and razor sharp mind.
Without fail, he seemed to be able to charm others to obtain his desired outcome; the ability to mold both people and situations as if they were putty in his hands. It was unusual for someone of his then young age to not only possess these special qualities, but to have mastered them in such a way, that in combination, they orchestrated compliance from his intended target and struck a sense of awe in any observer.
Marvin portrayed the uncanny ability to weave the qualities of impeccable articulation and disarming charm into a carefully woven trap, much like the network of webs spun by a spider, designed for the entanglement of his prey. He was a smiling, gracious, danger.
At the time, it seemed harmless enough as I was totally unaware of his hidden personality traits or sinister, self-serving, agenda. He was a sales representative, and seemed to have the uncanny ability to sell ice to Eskimos. Unfortunately he became part of my inner circle for the next eighteen years, a then budding sociopath. For most of those eighteen years, I didn’t recognize the sociopath beside me. The daily routine seemed for the most part, right. I saw nothing out of the ordinary early in our life together. I suspected nothing.
Then the truth was revealed to me, and his elaborate charade exposed. For three years I spent nearly every waking moment and many sleepless nights dissecting and microscopically analyzing every questionable detail of the past.
With the knowledge that I now had, I painfully tried to recall and vividly reconstructed every “red flag” moment that had occurred during the past eighteen years. Hundreds of random thoughts and questions ran through my mind like gingerbread men, crying “catch me. Catch me if you can.” Some I caught and some I didn’t, and some just flew away.
All these fragments flew through my consciousness.
I did not know this person at all!
Who was this person, really?
Why didn’t I see and recognize the signs?
How could he commit such heinous acts toward others with total disregard and even contempt, and why didn’t I know sooner?
Why had I been so ignorant of his actions?
How come I did not know?
How could he have duped me? How did he pull the wool over my eyes?
Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t I know?
How could I protect myself and those I love from him and 'his kind' now and in the future?
Again and always the question raced through my mind. Why didn’t I know? I prayed daily for the wisdom and courage to find the truth, but still was filled with dread.
To begin to find the truth, I used what I had learned from him, from being in his presence, from living with him beside me. I began to get information from others. I began the laborious process of connecting the dots. The road to truth was painful. The truth was more often than not buried in his closet of dirty secrets. I dreaded the pain of entering that closet. I feared what I would find. Each discovery was foreign to my nature, nearly impossible to comprehend. My mind and my senses were assaulted by another world, the world of a sociopath. I was nauseated by what I found. I sobbed with sorrow for the pain he caused his victims. But in spite of the personal pain, I persisted. His secrets, his plan of operation unfolded. I was unable to comprehend his motives. I could not rationalize them. They were devoid of reason and outside of ordered, rational thought. They were outside my experience.
I was faced with a daunting task. How could I understand his reasoning and rationale when no boundaries existed, when there were no guidelines in my reasoning and reasonable mind trained to examine the unreasonable? I had to crawl inside his mind, inside his heart, and enter his soul. In effect, I had to become him in order to understand this emerging monster that had lived beside me. How could I do that and maintain my own sanity? How dangerous was the road to discovery? Would I be destroyed by trying to think as he did?
To maintain my sanity, to reinforce to myself that I was rational and clear thinking and not drifting down his monstrous path, I pretended it was all a bad dream. I tried to do that, but there were times I could not. Even on the best of days, I was aware that the insanity was real, and coming from a real mind, albeit the mind of a sick and irrational sociopath. Think about that for a moment. How do you enter insanity with a sane mind and not fall over the edge? I kept thinking of his many victims and the terrible things they must have endured. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. So many times I had to stop and weep. But I began with little steps, starting with a re- examination of the past behaviors that I could remember. The small steps got larger. More and more of his past behavior did not survive strict study of the facts. I had let my rational self-protective self, override my emotions too long. I had to learn to let my emotional self loose, to follow where it led me, then see if what I thought was simply an emotional quirk was really something more. I began my journey into the sociopathic mind. I looked evil in the face and tried to stare it down.
I began to question all his past behaviors. There were many red-flag moments that stood out. There were many moments that were not flagged, but seemed within the realm of normal at the time they happened. But in retrospect, they didn’t seem to fit the actions of their time. I had to revert to my training as a psychiatric nurse and use great force of will so I could start to put the pieces of this terrible puzzle in perspective. I searched for hidden pieces of the puzzle, clues that I had overlooked, or looked away from in order to protect myself.
When they occurred, the fraud and deceptions were so perfectly orchestrated that they effectively disguised the truth. I realized I had been deceived. I was always an unwilling victim. But there were times I must have knowingly turned away. I described earlier the hairs standing on the nape of my neck. At those times, did I turn from the truth in order to protect myself? What he did was so perfectly orchestrated that the truth was effectively disguised. Still, there had to have been times I closed my eyes because the truth was so despicable. I refused to look evil in the eye at times, because the pain was far too great. How could I not have known? That question recurs. It haunts me still. I live with that pain today. But I know that I was sane then. I know I am sane now. I was an unknowing victim then. I refuse to be one now, and I continue to work on my personal healing process.
I questioned myself then as I do today. Who was this person who appeared to comfort me and care for me? Was I just an oblivious pawn in his plan to deceive, or was it my fault? Was it even partly my fault? Over and over, again and still, I look for things I could have seen or done differently. But that’s part of the sociopath’s plan. He defers guilt to those around him. He manipulates and twists so others feel the pain while he smiles and continues his macabre game.
I had to learn to think like him. In order to find the truth, I had to go inside his mind. If I did not muster up the courage for that frightful step, I could never learn how all this happened. I could never understand its meaning. I had to take that step. I had to understand his thinking. I had to see inside his soul. If I were ever to help myself and others, I had to see inside the twisted labyrinth within his head; I had to understand why he did the things he did. What I discovered on this agonizing journey took my breath away. At times my blood ran cold. I stared directly in the face of cold, calculating, evil. Perhaps most frightening of all, I found no motivation for the evil acts that he committed. He committed his unnatural crimes against nature simply because he could. It seemed his actions came from another world. Nothing on the surface of his life was at it seemed. He was terribly adept at covering up his real intentions. His family and his friends never realized that he was a fraud. There was an ulterior motive and hidden agenda to everything he did. All his actions were camouflaged so he could continue undetected, unnoticed, and uninterrupted; so he could continue his steady stream of preying on others for his own twisted
