Wishing There Wasn't a Mask

Most people can hardly comprehend how devastating it can be to lose your best friend. Trust me: it's even more devastating when that "best friend" is a sociopath.

In the months following my abandonment by my sociopath and my subsequent discovery that he was never who I thought he was, I fell into a deeper depression than I have ever felt in my life. Most friends couldn't understand it and even became frustrated with me. All I ever wanted to do was talk about him, analyze his behaviors, cry and grieve over losing the person I thought I'd known. Many of them couldn't understand why I couldn't just snap out of it. It was sad, sure. But he was just a friend. Friends came and went all the time, right? My behavior was over the top.

What those friends couldn't understand though, was that while yes, we were "just friends," we weren't "just friends"...one of us was a sociopath, and the other was the sociopath's target. In plain English, what this means is that while I was his friend aka target, he was actively doing everything I needed him to do in order for me to be emotionally bonded to him so he could use me and abuse me without me ever asking questions. He, like all Sociopaths, read people. They assess their targets, They learn their targets deepest desires, fears, needs. And then whatever the most desperate need of their target's heart is, they FILL that need. During this manipulation phase, they say everything you need to hear. They flatter you and build you up, make you feel so good about yourself you might as well be flying. They are there anytime you need them, because they "love" you.

Then, one day, that is gone, and you find out that person who loved you didn't. You learn that person you loved wasn't even real. You find out these real feelings you had remain real while for them, they've moved on to the next, not even giving you a second thought. Suddenly, someone who was a part of every single day of your life is simply gone. He used to be the first person I'd call if I had a bad day or the first person I'd call if I had good news. Now, I could no longer pick up the phone and reach him, because he wasn't on the other end. I saw him almost every day. We'd have lunch, see movies, just talk. Without warning, he was gone.

There's nothing in my life that wasn't touched by him. My guest room I hardly want to go into because he slept there a lot of nights. I remember him in the kitchen cooking for me the day I had surgery. A lot of my favorite movies I don't want to watch because I have good memories of watching them with him. He was such an integral part of my everyday life, like family. Then there was a hole in my life, and no matter how betrayed I felt by him or how angry I was, I still felt so empty...so lonely.

It was like someone had died, only they hadn't, because they'd never even been real in the first place. The Clark I knew was a Clark wearing a mask, a mask that made him what I needed him to be in order for him to con me. And knowing he never really existed hurts most of all. Sometimes I have trouble remembering that the Clark I knew, loved and the Clark that is an unfeeling, selfish sociopath are the same person. I still think about the Clark I knew, and I miss him. I miss things we did together, times we shared, the laughs. Then, that yields to me just being pissed off, because I remember how he used to talk to me, and I get so angry thinking how could he do this to me, after everything? But then I remember, it's because he never really was.

And it hurts. It hurts because there is this gaping hole in my life that I grieve as though someone had died. Only I wish I didn't grieve him, because he doesn't deserve to be grieved. But I do, because I knew this wonderful feeling of someone who was aware of me and what I needed, who always thought to check on me or be there. And now he's not there, because he never was. I hate that I still feel empty and still feel loss when he doesn't have to feel this hole I feel.

I guess what I'm saying is, I wish he had been real. The person I knew and trusted, the person I thought was my best friend in the world...I wish he had been real.