It is three years ago. Yesterday my father died after a long illness, but unexpectedly. It is a Friday, and I have taken the day off work. The psychopath will come to my parents’ house and one of his kids will say he heard my dad died and the ask what we’re going to do with dad’s chair. I will spend the evening working on halloween costumes for the psychopath and the other kid. Tomorrow or the next day I will become frustrated with the psychopath’s costume. I will announce that I can’t deal with it. I will shove everything into bags and tell him to get rid of it. He will look at me as though I’m crazy. He will take his kids and go home, thinking that I’m being unreasonable. I will be tired of holding myself together. He hasn’t offered any sympathy or said he’s sorry, and if I cry I will get the silent treatment. He doesn’t like to be around me when I’m upset or angry. I’ve known this for a long time. He will ignore me if I need or expect emotional support. I learned that at the beginning of the year.
Tomorrow the psychopath will go shopping for dress pants so he can be presentable for the funeral service, but he’ll wear my father’s dress socks because he won’t buy those. Monday will be halloween and Dad’s funeral. The psychopath will come to the funeral mass, and he will put his arm around my shoulders when his parents come into the church. His father will hug me but the psychopath won’t. He will visit with people in the hall after mass and eat the food. Later he will pick up his kids for trick-or-treating. One of them will mope because his costume wasn’t done. The attitude will irritate the psychopath and I will be a little happy about that.
The next day the psychopath will ignore the fact that Dad ever existed. He will expect everything to go back to normal. He will not understand grief or mourning, and I will have to to deal with mine when he’s not around. My brothers will be far enough away to not be able to help Mom with the autumn yard work. Mom and I will figure out how to get the lawn tractor set to pick up and bag the leaves and we will work very hard in the evenings before it gets dark. The psychopath will not show up until after dark, and he will act as though I’m neglecting him by helping Mom. He and his kids will come over one Saturday and they will grumble because they are expected to help. The psychopath will get tired of loading and unloading the pickup and will say he’ll have someone come and take the rest of the bagged leaves to the compost facility. The leaves will still be there in the spring. The psychopath and his kids will be fed a nice meal in exchange for their efforts, but the psychopath will believe the meal should be given whether he helps or not. He will only show up after the work is done from then on.
The next month Thanksgiving will fall on Dad’s birthday. The psychopath will spend the day sulking because he didn’t have his own food. This will be my fault even though I tell him the day before that he will need to bring the ingredients if he wants it. He will complain about having to eat turkey, about having to wait for pie, and about what we choose to have on TV. He will continue to mope because nobody feels sorry for him, and he will be offended when I tell him he can go to his family’s without me. This will be the day my family begins to despise him.
In another month the psychopath will be upset that I won’t charge all the Christmas presents, and it will not matter to him that I have been struggling to pay my bills. I will make sure his siblings’ children get gifts and I will put both our names on them so they won’t think he’s a jerk, just like I did last year when he only helped pick out one thing for one nephew and didn’t pay for anything. I will do the same thing next year when he will contribute two whole dollars. Next year he will have to buy his kids’ presents himself and he will be disappointed.
The psychopath will start moving his things out and he will leave my last text unanswered a year and a half from now. He won’t quit the job I got him for another nine months, which will be a couple months after he starts bragging about his new girl friend. Around the time he starts bragging about her I will figure out what he is. I will spend several months researching, and eventually I will understand exactly what happened. I will accept that he is a psychopath and all that that entails. I will recognise the covert abuse and I will see myself first as a victim and then as a survivor.
The psychopath, meanwhile will continue the smear campaign he began even before Dad died. He will spend at least what he owes me for his car getting the locks changed so I can’t take ‘his’ car. He will be angry that my name is on the title with his. He will quit the job I got him while bragging about the one he’ll be taking, but that won’t be real and he’ll be unemployed and still living in his parents basement. I won’t find out what he does with his 401K money. He will buy his new girlfriend a car, but that relationship will end and I will laugh about it when I hear about it. He will be mostly broke and unemployed. He will get another another girlfriend, who will buy him things and finish the halloween costume I started in time for “midevil fair”, and she’ll have my deepest sympathies because I’ll know what she’ll really be getting.
It’s October 28, 2011 and my future is a year and a half of silent treatments and emotional abuse, followed by seven months of limbo, four months of researching, reliving, and processing, and a lot of recovery. I will finish projects, reduce my debt, and make a new life without the psychopath. I will learn to count my blessings and listen to my intuition. I will take care of myself, I will heal, and I will spread awareness. I don’t know it yet, but I will.