A Sociopath & a Sailor
What the hell? You have to eat, sleep, work, exercise, get some fresh air, laugh, talk, read books and so much more in life. You can’t just practice renunciation and do nothing else. (Well, some nuns and monks do maybe, but I was just not there.) So I liked to sail. And I had a mouth like a sailor. You may have noticed, already.
I’ve water skied, snow skied, played tennis, golf, softball and basketball. Couldn’t run, bad joints, but I loved to ride a bike, swim and dive. Basically, I was athletic all my life. I couldn’t help it. So from the first time I sat on the beach and looked out at the ocean to see beautiful sailboats, I was positive I wanted to sail. I sailed with others on a few whale-watching trips and even took classes at CAL Berkeley in the marina where I learned how to rig a small sailboat and catch the wind. I was a natural. I sailed in Colorado on lakes and flipped the boat once, but managed to get back in and take off again. I wanted to sail, but I also wanted to live on a boat as well. My idea was to buy a houseboat and keep a small sailboat beside it. I’ll roll off my houseboat, jump into my sailboat and take off, I thought. It didn’t work that way. And my houseboat wouldn’t go out in the ocean so at some time I would have to sell my houseboat and buy a sailboat. In the meantime, I began to meet sailors and power boaters as I traveled from Berkeley to Marina Del Rey once a month to stay on my boat. The lifestyle was charming, I must admit. I was in such bliss being out on the water, I could stay there all day reading or chanting, working on the boat or watching sunsets from the deck. I flew from San Francisco to LA once a month and stayed around 5 days. Then I began to wonder why I was living in northern California, so I moved to LA. No escape this time. Just a good move!
I got an apartment close by my boat. Then I took the boat out of the water to re-power it and it ended up being out way too long, sitting in a dry dock as I went there on weekends and poured more money into it than I cared to say. In the meantime, I was hanging out with other boaters I met through my blue-eyed, story-telling mechanic friend, Jerry. The crew of boaters he knew were from different yacht clubs or just lived nearby in the marina. Most owned boats then or in the past. The word was “the first best day of your life is when you buy your boat and the second best day of your life is when you sell it.” Boaters would meet daily at Cafe Escobar for Happy Hour and I also attended a few times a week. Our bartender was friendly and gave us a seriously good pour. We were one happy boating, drinking family.
Then enters the Sociopath. Guess I had another lesson to learn, as if I hadn’t learned enough. No, I had to fuck a sociopath! Well, all I can say is that I must have been desperate. Who would go out with an undoubtedly desperate man but a desperate woman? But he was hot as hell! Six feet tall, broad shoulders and guess what? He was another Latino. I got wet just looking at him!
He was sitting at the corner of the bar drinking his rum and coke. Occasionally he would go outside and smoke a cigarette, then return and order another drink. I wondered if the drinks were really weak or if he was in a hurry cause he was downing them faster than drinking water on a hot day. I was drawn to him instantly like a powerful magnet. He wore a white dress shirt, crisp and bright against his dark hair. He was staring at me as I sat with my mechanic friend, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. At one point I got up to go to the bathroom. When I returned I stopped at his corner of the bar and said, “You’re too cute to be sitting here by yourself. Why don’t you join us?” He stood up faster than basketball player being sent in to shoot the last score of the game and followed me to my seat. There was a vacant seat beside me, a very convenient situation. He sat down, grabbed my attention and started asking me questions as if I were the most interesting person in the world. He was consuming me!
He was a charmer, all right, and I drank it up, not even vaguely thinking he might be conning me. But I did not have much money, so he had nothing to gain from me financially. Therefore, I was just lapping up his attention, enjoying the moment and thought it was just bar conversation. But, as the afternoon went on, he acted like he was sincerely interested in who I was and what I was doing. I was blushing and my heart was throbbing as we talked. Very quickly I discovered he was 20 years younger than me. I knew I was older, but I did not realize it was by that much! What the hell? I thought. I need to get laid and why not by someone younger? It seemed to be the fashion of the day anyway. And I was still doing massage, so basically I couldn’t have a boyfriend. No man would want his girlfriend touching other men. There are many implications to that. So I wasn’t looking for a relationship, but I did want to have an affair, and the longer it would last, the better, I thought.
I just wanted to have fun. Yes, I wanted to fuck him, not marry him! He asked me to go with him to his sailboat, but I was moving the next day, so I refused. He did everything he could to persuade me, a bad sign within itself at that point. If you knew someone was moving the next day with tons of things to clean and pack, would you try to get them to change their mind and go out with you? Only if you are a person with no empathy, a person who was selfish. But I was flattered, so you can know for sure that the very next Friday I was at happy hour again and ready to go! And he was there waiting for me.
That very first night I should have walked away. I followed him in my car to his marina where we walked to his boat. Along the path I saw a Mexican guy who did some work for me on my boat. I should have left at that exact moment because my gorgeous Latino started accusing me of looking at another man, maybe even flirting with someone else and we barely new each other, never even kissed. When we finally did, the kiss was poor to mediocre and the sex was, well, it was fair, just a little awkward. Sex for me the first time with someone new is always awkward. I have to be really attracted to someone to sleep with them and that hadn’t happened to me in years. (Oh yeah, I said that already.) So I should have left, but I stayed! He was 6 feet tall, 190 pounds and very good looking to my eyes. When he spread my legs, he was in for a real treat. I was dripping wet and ready. We fucked three times that night, and once again the next morning. He didn’t want me to leave. It was Saturday and he just wanted to lay around all day and do nothing. (or something) I thought he was nuts, but I was extremely curious about how many times he could actually do it. I was not used to just laying around, however, doing nothing all day, so I needed to move. I was very active and could not sit still. My heart was still racing when I left to get a manicure/pedicure and pick up some groceries to take home saying I would return later and I did.
His sailboat was nice, but the engine barely worked. Typical problem for many boats. Salt water takes its toll on engines and when they are not used on a regular basis, they seem to freeze up. The first time we went out sailing it was with someone else’s outboard he borrowed. One night soon after we first met, we were talking about going out sailing very soon as we sat drinking and talking on his boat. All of a sudden he began to get shifty, standing up, looking outside, moving here and there. Finally, he said, “Lets go out.” I tried to dissuade him because he was definitely drunk, having consumed at least a half bottle of rum. But once he made up his mind, that was it. His reasoning was, I discovered, he wanted to go out at night so no one would see him if he screwed up his departure. He was new to sailing and his ego wouldn’t stand for others to see him make mistakes. I thought to myself, Ok, I hope I don’t regret this, but I can swim and we have life jackets. Frankly, I was unable to come up with a good reason to get out of there, as he was extremely controlling right from the start.
What happened? We beached! He was drunk as shit as he headed out to the main channel. I said I would take the helm as we raised the main sail and I was confident enough in my own ability to take charge of the boat. As we rounded the corner of the breakwater he shut off the engine and said, “Let’s just hang here for a while.” What he didn’t know was - you don’t just hang out in the entrance to the breakwater and there is usually not enough wind at night to actually sail. Without a motor we started to drift into shore. He panicked as he tried to start the motor again, to get us out of the tight situation, but the motor wouldn’t start. Freaking out, he called in a ‘may-day’ and then jumped out of the boat as we got closer to the shore and it was evident we would be on the beach within five minutes or less.
For those of you who don’t know, beaching is serious shit! It can cost you a thousand dollars or more to pull the boat off the shore and sometimes the boat may even have to be destroyed in order to remove it. If that happened, the city would charge you a fine of up to $25,000. But this guy was lucky. Not sure what was up in his karma like that, but he seemed to get away with all kinds of stuff. The Sea Tow Rescue vehicle arrived shortly and Mr. Right managed to hold the boat back so the keel didn’t get totally buried in the sand. The young man who pulled us off the ground and towed us back to the dock was very aware of the drunken sailor in his presence. Drunken sailors are everywhere in the marina. I was not drunk, just totally embarrassed. The only damage his boat suffered was a bent rudder. Unbelievable luck! And more luck, the $1000 towing bill was covered by his insurance because a boat on the beach is a hazard to the public! He made up some lie to his neighbors about how the rudder was bent and one kind young man agreed to fix it for him. He worked in a welding shop near the marina. My Latino, Aric or number seven or my Latin lover said thank you to the young man and promised to buy the guy a case of beer. He never did. That was number seven, selfish to the core.
Why didn’t I leave?
He was highly intelligent as far as ability to learn goes, but he had no common sense. He usually watched documentaries instead of bullshit tv and was always learning something new, but he had no sense of right behavior. He said the wrong things to the wrong people at the wrong time. I was thinking to myself, he was probably one of the most egotistical men I ever met, with no compassion at all. So why did I stay? I knew why I stayed! He looked at me like he was undressing me with his eyes and his desire for me was making me melt. I needed sex in a big way and this man was the man who could deliver! I didn’t think his bad behavior would affect me because I didn’t intend to stay with him for long.
And then there was sailing. Sailing was like one step away from heaven in my mind. Moving along across the blue ocean with white caps splashing in your face, your hand dragging overboard feeling the cool, rushing energy of the water run through your fingers and the sun shining brightly on your head was pure paradise. The feel of the wind and the sun and the water combined with the beautiful white sails full to their brim was romancing me along with his eyes. We would go out sailing often in the beginning, sometimes three or four times a week. Sometimes we would pull sail and sometimes we would just motor out around the breakwater to watch the sunset. We anchored out just beyond the entrance to the marina on several occasions, went swimming and spent the night anchored just to experience the adventure of it. We sailed to Redondo Beach and anchored out as well as Paradise Cove in Malibu. Each adventure manifested its own special magic and special tragedy. We’d been stopped and searched by the Harbor Patrol, chastised for not having our registration numbers displayed on the boat and as stated above, beached. Lover boy seemed to invite trouble or problems wherever we went and in spite of my doting on him, he would accuse me of being attracted to other men, all the while threatening me by flirting with other women. It was confusing and messed up and just wrong from the beginning, but as I said, I needed to get laid in a bad way, so I put up with it. Also, I think I was feeling like I would never find love again, so why not have some fun. After six men, I was pretty convinced I did not believe in love anymore. So the adventure continued.
While heading to Malibu, we got stuck in kelp. That is not so unusual. It’s happened to many people. But in the first two years of sailing together, we gained ten years worth of boating experience. We anchored at Catalina and woke up to screaming neighbors as our anchor came loose and we were drifting into a $300,000 yacht while we were taking a nap. He lost his atomizer after a drunken night in Catalina. He went on the emergency channel for boaters with his vhf and asked for help and lucky him, someone brought a new atomizer straight to our boat. We thought we would have to go to another port to the hospital and were freaking out because he couldn’t breathe. This guy wasn’t even Irish, so where the hell did he get his luck?
We went out sailing one Sunday afternoon and our lust took us down to the main cabin to have sex. We were surprised by someone screaming “get out of the way, we’re racing!” We were actually in the path of a sailboat race. On one trip to Catalina we were fucking in the cockpit as we sailed around the island and a sheriff’s helicopter few closely over our heads. Sailing and fucking was a frequent activity. One neighbor pointed out we were now members of the ‘Sea Level Club’ versus the Mile High Club and we definitely were! He was always horny and I loved his constant desire. We would have sex while we were sailing, while he was driving and I even met him during his lunch breaks from work and did it again.
When we weren’t sailing or having sex, we drank and played cards. I have to admit, we had so much fun playing poker, black jack and crazy eights. He taught me how to play chess. He played often since his childhood and was actually pretty patient with me. I think that is because he held a drink in his hand. One night we played strip poker when he undressed me and dressed me and undressed me again. We played like kids, me sitting across from him in lingerie while he drank me in with his eyes. “Shouldn’t I get dressed in case someone drops by,” I said because crazy boaters would definitely drop in on a Friday night? But he would say, “No, I just want to look at you while we play cards. I’ll get rid of anyone who may come by.” So he kept me in lingerie and high heels on a 27 foot sailboat and I was loving it!
As much fun as we experienced and as much adventurous sex as we enjoyed, the four-year relationship was both heaven and hell. We sailed around 3 times a week. We fucked around 3 times a day. It was tumultuous but exciting. But as time went on, we began to fight like crazy. Both of us were jealous. I had plenty of reason to be as he would do other women when I was unavailable. That drove me crazy! If I got pissed and left his boat, he would go out to the bars and try to pick up another woman. Sometimes he succeeded, but some women would turn their heads when he entered the room and when he opened his mouth, they would walk away. His ego was so out of control! But there were many desperate women out there who, like myself, needed any attention they could get and as I said, he was hot! When he couldn’t pick up another woman, he came to find me.
Mr. Latino was simply mean! He was mean to his parents. He was mean and rude to his employers (got fired from every job he ever worked in, admittedly). He was mean to people on the docks, rude to people at the yacht clubs, mean to other drivers as he drove his car and mean to anyone who did something he didn’t like. On the other hand, he could be amazingly kind. He would look me in the eyes for hours and ask if I was comfortable or happy. How the hell was that possible? This became more confusing as time went on. He was mean to me and yet showered me with more affection than I ever experienced in my life. I was in ecstasy when he showed that amazing display of love and I was in agony when he tortured me by flirting with other women in front of me. I wandered how this could be possible. He would ask me, “Do you love me, Amy?” And I would respond, “I love a part of you.” “Why are you with me,” he asked? “Sex, sailing and sleeping together,” I would say, “the three s’s.” I knew I didn’t really love him, but as I found out much later, I was certainly addicted to him. Amy’s Addiction - should be another book!
As we fought, the violence reared it’s ugly head as time went on. He struck me across the face and red, sore handprints appeared. I had never been hit by a man before and swore I never would be. He cornered me on my boat and talked to me for hours, while my back was up against the wall, until I gave in and forgave him. But it happened again and again. I left him. I went back. I got a restraining order. He made me relinquish it. I left again. He drug me back to his boat. I left again. He broke into my boat and hit me again, until I finally put him in prison. The last time we were together was one June when we went to Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles. We went to both Two Harbors and Avalon. Then we sailed to Newport Beach and got a mooring there for a few days. We explored new places and watched seals swirl through the water as a red sea produced fluorescent streaks lighting up the marina that weekend. We shopped for groceries and cooked dinner as well as watched movies via his solar panel electricity. We sailed back through Long Beach in rough waters and reached Marina Del Rey around 3:00 in the morning. It was fun, but weird. The whole trip he was guarded and controlling as if he was planing to do something when we returned. I don’t think he was planning violence, just a clean break from me, with all the cash he could squeeze from my pocket.
But the day after we returned he started checking his bank account. His balance showed only $35 and he was somehow shocked. He kept me up against the wall of his boat talking to me and drinking into the night, pissed off at me, his parents, his previous employer and basically the whole world until he got the courage to do what he wanted. He slapped me, punched me, choked me, threw me against the wall and finally cut me. I dared not try to leave his boat as I knew that would make things worse. After choking me with no results for some time, he finally gave up and passed out. I am quite sure he wanted to kill me and I know the only reason he didn’t was because he was afraid of the consequences. I was ready to die and prayed to Krishna to go ahead and take me, but Krishna had other plans.
I woke up the next morning and poked my head out through the hatch over the forward. I was aware that a lady on his dock ran every morning, so I waited for her to pass by and very shortly, she did. I showed her my cheek which was red and blue and the size of a baseball and used the hand sign for a phone, mouthing for her to call the sheriff. Within 20 minutes, I poked my head out again to find a sheriff with his gun pointed towards the boat. He mouthed the words and motioned for me to come out of the hatch. It was too high up and I could not maneuver my way out without number seven hearing me. I ducked back in and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment until lover boy jumped up. He pulled back the hatch in the companionway and took off two door panels to find two sheriffs pointing their guns at him. That was the end of that. I was hauled off in an ambulance while he sat handcuffed in the back seat of the sheriff’s car. He got a three year sentence but only served a year and a half. I, once again, escaped! But this time I escaped with my life.
Here is the important part of this insane sexual, sailing experience. This may have been the final lesson I needed in this lifetime to make me stop and think (for real) about what the hell I was doing with my life and would I ever fulfill my promise made to the Lord in the womb. I was getting myself mixed up with all sorts of crazy men, trying to find happiness, trying to get some satisfaction, trying to be at peace, but at that time, all I could get was therapy and boy did I need it!
During his time in jail, I was provided with free therapy by several organizations set up in California after the OJ Simpson case. Group therapy was available weekly as well as individual therapy. I was fortunate to meet a wonderful therapist who worked in prisons for years and he turned my head around in as little as four months. I learned a life lesson that was both useful in my material life as well as my spiritual life. That lesson was about Sociopaths.
My doctor explained, “Sociopaths, more commonly known as Psychopaths, have a Limbic System that is not fully developed and therefore it is not attached to the frontal lobe. This usually happens in infancy when an infant experiences rejection from a parent or inconsistent acceptance. Sometimes it causes the child to hate authority and manipulate other people to get the love and attention they desperately need to be complete. They are in constant need of attention and acceptance and therefore are not able to empathize with others.” OK, I was not a doctor, so I may have some of that wrong, but my therapist explained this to me over and over again. I researched the subject online and tried to understand and think I got a pretty good grasp of why a person becomes a sociopath. I could understand there was a physical reason for this lack of empathy. Because it is physical, sociopaths cannot be helped or changed. My therapist said, “I’ve worked with prison inmates for years and I know nothing can be done to help them because the limbic system in their brain is not developed. Nothing can be done!” Now because I believed in Karma and Evolution of the Consciousness, I also believed that a person could be born with this defect in their brain for some reason, some karmic reaction from previous actions or maybe even mercy if a person could ever learn a lesson from such a physical malady. God would be very cruel if He simply randomly handed out bad brains causing criminal behavior. There has to be some kind of karma involved.
Everyone should know exactly what is a sociopath for their own protection, so I am going to provide you with some research information from “The Sociopath Next Door, Who is the Devil You know?” by Martha Stout. This was one of the books recommended to me while I was in group therapy. A few of the quotes were taken by unknown authors online.
HOW TO RECOGNIZE A SOCIOPATH
1 - What makes the sociopath dangerous is they have no conscience whatsoever, no remorse, no empathy, no emotion to constrain any of their acts even if the act causes great harm to their closest family members.
2 - How do we recognize the remorseless? One of their chief characteristics is a kind of glow or charisma that makes sociopaths more charming or interesting than the other people around them. They're more spontaneous, more intense, more complex, or even sexier than everyone else, making them tricky to identify and leaving us easily seduced. They may seem too good to be true.
3 - Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others' suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win.
4 - They are controlling, selfish and even cowardly, often hiding when others confront them about their behavior.
5 - Because these people do not feel any empathy, they think no one feels empathy. They believe when others show empathy they are just faking it. Therefore you will hear the sociopath say that only he or she is ‘genuine.’ They will even admit to not feeling guilt and say that because they admit the truth they are ‘genuine’ whereas other people are ‘fake’. And, they truly believe it.
6 - Psychologists refer to these individuals as having reptilian brains. This is because reptiles will eat their young. The sociopath has no conscience and no empathy. Reptilian brain? I get it!
7 - Be Careful! They will put you in danger, destroy your property and do whatever it takes to meet their needs. It does not matter if they are your boyfriend, son, or father. It does not matter if they are your girlfriend, mother or daughter. They will hook you and draw you in. You will have what is known as the Stockholm Syndrome. You will be addicted to your abuser.
8 - Sociopaths will sometimes try to isolate you. They will be overly demanding of your time and must be the center of your attention. They usually control finances, the car and the activities you partake in. They may become angry if you show signs of independence or strength. They are always ‘right’ and have to be in charge. Their mood switches from aggressive to abusive to apologetic and then loving. They may punish you by withholding sex or emotional intimacy or play the ‘silent game’ as punishment when they don’t get their way.
9 - Psychopaths/sociopaths are diagnosed by their purposeless and irrational antisocial behavior, lack of conscience, and emotional vacuity. They are thrill seekers, literally fearless. Punishment rarely works, because they are impulsive by nature and fearless of the consequences of their actions. Incapable of having meaningful relationships, they view others as fodder for manipulation and exploitation.
10 - Can psychopaths be successfully treated? According to psychiatrists, they cannot. Shock treatment doesn't work; drugs have not proven successful in treatment; and psychotherapy, involving trust and a relationship with the therapist is out of the question, because psychopaths are incapable of opening up to others. They don't want to change.
Aric said he wanted to go to therapy with me, but when we tried, I found he slanted things in his favor to the therapists and I felt ridiculous. So, a sociopath may say they want to work things out, but believe me, they only want to work things in their own favor. They want you to change.
The word ‘antisocial’ was confusing to me as I studied the characteristics of a sociopath (#9 above). I thought that actually he was very social because he was constantly looking for some kind of excitement to do with other people. I found out, that is not what antisocial meant at all. The term simply referred to the fact that the sociopath doesn’t care if they hurt you. They have no ability to care about anyone. Therefore, they are called ‘antisocial.’
My poor Latino, (and I use the word poor realistically because I feel bad for people like that), was definitely a sociopath. It is amazing he is not dead yet. (It was amazing I was not dead at that point either.) I first noticed lack of empathy when he was talking on the phone to his parents. I couldn’t believe how he yelled at them and belittled them when he didn’t get something he wanted. “I want you to get my old tapes out of storage and bring them to me next weekend,” he’d say. “Why should I go scrounging through the storage shed for those? Why don’t you do it?” his mother would say? But then, guess what? She’d do exactly what he said, thinking her actions might win his affection, but it never did. How many years did his parents go through that? When he wanted something from them, he would be very nice. I would sit and watch him in disbelief. Then their birthday or a holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving would come around and he would never even give them a call. He demanded they cater to his every need and they did, yet he did nothing in return for them. For a non-sociopath or someone who has never been associated with one, what happens is the victim remains stuck in a pattern of catering to the needs of the sociopath. They have no clue what is happening to them and they suffer time and time again. I saw it with his mother, oops, who was younger than me, poor woman. You love your children no matter what they do and I saw her relentlessly try to help him.
His history of violence with both his girlfriends and other males was lengthy. A long record of arrests, or rap sheet, as it was called. As I sat with him, night after night, I listened to stories of how he hung one woman over a balcony until the neighbors called police. He pushed another out of a car at the speed of 25 miles per hour and fought with one woman so violently, he punched out the window of her car as she was trying to drive away from him. He told me how he fought with friends and how he was in a gang, and fired a gun into a dormitory for his initiation. He cheated on every woman he was ever with and put his young daughter in harms way. By the time he was revealing all this to me, I was already stuck in the Stockholm Syndrome, addicted to my abuser, and if I tried to leave, he would stalk me or come to my boat and drag me back with him to his boat.
He used to tell me he was different and genuine. Now I understand how it is he thought he was so different, because he truly didn’t care about how others felt. “Nobody really cares,” he said, “everyone is faking it so they will look good in the eyes of other people.” He truly believed he was the only honest and genuine person he knew when he was the one faking emotion.
He always tried to isolate me and control my actions. I could not go to the grocery store without him. He wanted to do laundry together. He didn’t want me to run errands on a Saturday but to stay with him all day. No matter how many times he was arrested, he never seemed to learn his lesson. He continually speeded, ran traffic lights, drove drunk, stole others property and would never change when punished by authorities. One night, after having gotten a ticket for running a red light and he was about to lose his license, he decided to take his four-wheel drive through the middle of a park after a rain storm, thus leaving huge grooved tracks in the grass. What if he were caught? He never seemed to think of that!
I always liked the TV show, Criminal Minds, but after my relationship with number seven, working with my therapist and reading two books on the subject of sociopaths, I began to pay a lot more attention to the stories told on the weekly series. Stories of sociopaths were told about both adults and children. One story struck me as proof solid the sociopath is somehow damaged and cannot change. That story was of a young boy around 10 years old who killed his younger brother by stuffing broken model airplane parts down his mouth. The mother and father were torn apart and frantic because if found out, they would lose that son as well as the son they already lost. But the child, unconsciously, was able to function normally and killed his brother without any remorse whatsoever. And in addition to that, he allowed his parents to take the blame. Funny, we don’t think of children as being sociopaths, but if the lack of maturity of the limbic system ha