Is she a sadist or a sociopath?

I believe a sadist enjoys experiencing the pain of others, while a sociopath doesn't really care one way or the other.

 

Let's use this as a working definition of the mindset of my ex-life partner.

 

Her main psychological response to threat is to withhold.

 

Withhold everything.  Money.  Sex.  Conversation.  Information.  Health.  She ghosts disagreeable people in the belief that if there's no contact those people don't despise her.

 

My ex believes that if she puts her head in the sand, perpetrators aren't there. 

 

This is sadistic.  This is sociopathic.  This hurts people, in some cases lethally.  In my case, my marriage has now directly caused a relatively complete mental breakdown.  I'm 69 and just barely taking care of myself.  I miss my old life, I'm afraid of my current life, and I can't get off the couch to start a new life.

 

I can't read, and I can't watch streaming TV shows.  I binge eat and while I don't drink or do drugs, it's only because it's too much trouble and the depression that shows up the next day worries me.  I think avoidance of alcohol or psychedelic medicines is saving me from self-damage, but I can't prevent what the trauma from betrayal by my dysfunctional family is doing to my functional health.  I have a bipolar brother and I thank the gods that I knew enough to not have children in this sick family structure…any child of that marriage would have been irreparably injured by my wife's family narcissism and my own sibling-level and trauma-induced mental illness. 

 

Trans-generational damage would have descended on our damned offspring like the locusts in New Jersey this summer.  Carcasses on the hot tar road. I could not survive knowing I had exposed another human to our sickness.

 

That's the good thing about my ex' multiple affairs.  She chose those people…I don't have any responsibility for their damage or their pain.  I don't even know who they are!  I wonder if they're still functioning in the world or if they too have had to withdraw to save themselves from the venom.  Have you ever been in bed with someone and suddenly noted they have fangs?

 

I think my ex is a sociopath.  She believes her shit does not stink.  She doesn't notice the blood she drains from the souls of those she discards. A sadist would be filled with joy at the carnage.  My ex doesn't do joy, except as web marketing copy. 

 

(That copy is old, and so are your pictures.  Maybe an update is in order.)

 

She doesn't fist pump on stage like bloody Trump. She waits until the door closes as you run for your last breath, destroys your network of friends, and then feeds on your torso.

 

Once you're unconscious or destroyed…then the fist pumps begin.  Then she shifts into a higher gear on her bike and splatters your brain as she rides back and forth, back and forth.

 

Share her passion! She'll hold space for you.  And while you're tripping, the scorpion will ascend and the viper will attack.  You'll be dead before the laughing stops, and long before the non-existent love ever appears. Holding space for our coffins.

 

Warning to my ex' current community—she resents your success, and she's scheming how to bring you down (she won't act on this until the minute someone else says "you're sexy.").  That hissing you hear behind you is the accelerating guillotine as she jogs (mostly in Lululemon) toward the next bedroom where she's not expected or desired.