Plundered my Soul

I'm finally able to sleep under the covers. For the longest time after my marriage fell apart,  I couldn't. I huddled on top of my comforter, with a throw blanket on top to keep me warm. When I would try to fall asleep between the sheets, I would inevitably have flashbacks of my encounters with the psychopath, and would lie awake re-living my nightmare. If I did finally fall asleep under the covers, I did not sleep well, but instead would have a restless night peppered with nightmares.So I learned not to pull back the covers.On the plus side,it saved time making my bed in the morning.

The psychopath is a consummate thief. Having no soul of his own, he does his utmost to rob others of theirs. But unlike the obvious pillaging of say, a pirate or the Huns, the psychopath uses subtlety, stealth and subterfuge. My own personal psychopath was smooth and insidious. He took little pieces of me without me really realizing that they were missing at first.

And when his mask finally came off, he stole my confidence and part of my sense of self. I feared for my career, my safety, and my sanity. But it turned out he only briefly borrowed those parts of me. Similar to Lord Voldemort feasting on the blood of unicorns as a desperate effort to sustain himself, the psychopath's theft is only a short-term fix. And unless he is stopped, he will continue to suck others dry in his quest for unattainable fulfillment.

Victim or Survivor?

Am I a victim, or a survivor?  A life coach that I consulted briefly during my attempts at recovery from my encounter with a psychopath tried to convince me that there are no victims.  "Even the person killed in a random drive-by shooting? How about all those killed by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center?" 
"They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time" she replied.
This seemed to be an argument based on semantics.  Victim versus wrong place, wrong time; the end result is that a person is wronged, treated unfairly, and undeservedly so. 
I believe the term used to refer to the victim of a psychopath ultimately hinges upon how that person views herself.  Immediately following my own personal encounter with the psychopath, I was a victim.  I was emotionally, physically and financially traumatized.  During the healing process, however,  I became stronger, stronger even than I was before I met "Adrian".  It is the act of reaching within oneself, the response to the devastation that ultimately determines who you become.  I no longer possess the guileless trust of Pollyanna.  My personal motto is now "Trust, yet verify".  I know I am so much more now than I was before I met the man who changed my life forever (and not in a good way).  Do I miss the trusting, innocent person that I was?  Oh, yes.  But given the fact that an estimated four percent of the population is a psychopath with no sense of right or wrong, chances are that I would have eventually run afoul of another man just as evil, because that is what evil does.  It seeks out that which it can initially control and manipulate, and ultimately destroy.

So, I am a survivor.  And I am his worst nightmare.  I am a survivor with intelligence and resources, and a mission:  to put him behind bars using whatever legal means are available to me, and to warn other women of the dangers of psychopathy before they themselves are chosen to be a victim by another as evil as the one who targeted and tried to destroy me.