30 (or more) Ways to Outwit A Psychopath ... and still lose

OPENING

I couldn’t go on. I was drained. I had suffered years of torment being pursued by a psychopath and I still couldn’t see the end. I only knew I couldn’t go on. My brain was in turmoil. I could not think straight.

I had run out of ideas to solve the problems. I had tried so hard. Trying to resolve this was the hardest thing I had ever done. I had put in my all and I had no fight left. Many of my ’friends’ had deserted me. I had spent tens of thousands on solicitors but still had to return to court to waste more money, money that I needed to start my life again.

And …. I could NOT return to court. I had gone there to tell the truth and ask for protection. Instead, I had to sit and hear lies about my character and my conduct with very little right to reply. Each judge admonishing me for being there. Sitting below the coat of arms representing the law of the country while telling me to stop causing problems. This cut right through to the heart of me, my morals and the justice I had always thought prevailed in the UK. I knew I could not survive another time in court.

My now disturbed mind turned to thoughts of suicide. It would finally resolve it. Resolve it in the way I had not been able to. An easy and quick win. No complications, all would be resolved in one move, and I wouldn’t have to suffer this any longer. How truly wonderful that thought was. Freedom from the anxiety and from my mentally deranged pursuer. I felt a calmness come over me at the thought of the end, the end of this pain.

This was the third time this thought had gone through my head. Both times previously was when I had wanted to talk to friends, but I had been unable to contact them at that time. Instead, I would sob and sob, and then when I couldn’t cry anymore, I just tried to take my mind off the subject. Unfortunately, this was getting more difficult to achieve.

This time a plan popped into my head. I looked down through the staircase of my house. The living room was on the 2nd / top floor to take in the fabulous view of the city of Bath. The house had won an award for architecture in 1974 as the design was forward thinking for the 1970’s. The contemporary staircase ran through all three floors through the centre of the house and at the top the staircase was open to the living room. I looked down the staircase and could see two floors below. My plan when I moved there was to reinstate a 1970s drop cascade cluster pendant light fitting. Installed at the top and hanging at different heights through the house lighting up each floor. I had visited one of the nearby houses and seen one still in situe, albeit with 70’s swirly patterned stair carpet and encrusted style orange shades.

Now my idea was different. I could climb over the staircase in the top room and hang myself without fear I would touch the floor as it was way below me. It seemed like a great plan, an easy plan and I felt calmed by it. I had an option. Then I felt frightened. I worried myself; it was easy and would be quick and I wouldn’t even need to leave my house. I stopped looking over the banister and tried to focus my mind back on ‘hope’.

Though many times in the future I used the simplicity of this idea to calm me.

PART 1 BEFORE

OCTOBER 2004

I had lived in the Victorian house in west London for 12 years after my divorce. In that time, I had worked hard to financially keep it all together. I felt I would like to move out of London, but my work was really only there. Then, my mother who was living in Devon got cancer. The journey to there on a Friday evening (after getting the tube back from work) was long and exhausting. I needed to be nearer her.

At that time, I was working in the head office of a retailer with a household name. I was stuck between two directors fighting for control over the finances of an ailing business. They made me redundant but told me I had given in my notice so there was no need to give me a pay-off! I was pretty cheesed off but now my priority was in Devon. I had made lots of good friends in Chiswick but now seemed the right time to say goodbye. So……. I sold my house and moved halfway to Devon to a village near Bath.

I left London with £700,000 from my home. A huge fortune which I thought would definitely be enough to secure my future.

PART 2 MEETING ANDREW

ANDREW 2005 TO 2009

About a year after my move, I met Andrew. I felt comfortable and secure with him. 27 years married (I knew his ex-wife) and 25 years in one job working for Lloyds Bank. At my age this is the reliability I felt I needed in a man.

Andrew lived in an apartment in Bristol but yearned to be in Bath where he used to live, and where his children still lived.

After a while Andrew and I agreed a plan for our future. Well, that’s what I thought it was.

In 2006 we jointly (equally) bought a glamorous penthouse top floor apartment on Bristol Harbourside in Landsport Court to stay near where Mr H worked at Lloyds Bank Bristol Office which was opposite on the other side of the harbourside. Referred to as Landsport Court or LC. My studio/office would be in the apartment too.

And in 2007 we jointly (equally) bought a Grade II listed country house in Bath for our home. Referred to as Sherlock Cottage or SC. It was a beautiful house but had been refurbished in the 1980’s to a poor standard and was now outdated.

We would spend the weekdays in the Landsport Court apartment and weekends in Sherlock Cottage in Bath which had enough space for his children to stay. The agreement was that he would fund the mortgage as this arrangement benefitted him as he would not need to daily commute every day. Subsequently when he retired, we would sell the apartment and pay off the mortgage of Sherlock Cottage, the house in the country. All documents were put into both names legally and additionally a Trust Deed was compiled by our solicitor for Sherlock Cottage, our main home.

Sherlock Cottage was a 4-bedroom, 4 reception room house of 2343 sq. ft. I noticed when we went to view that there was a window in the attic that was not on view and it looked like the property was more than one building which had been combined and decorated in a bland 1980’s style with no consideration for the history and the character of the building. The ceilings had been lowered; the doors and windows had been changed etc…

I designed and oversaw renovations totalling more than £100,000 (paid for equally). Along with three brilliant builders, I got to work. It was revealed to be an ancient cottage and two separate stone barns. The original fireplace in the cottage was revealed, including ancient graffiti! The listing description was changed to suit the new building.

The refurbishment of Sherlock Cottage had cost a lot, and I contributed an extra £40,000 to complete the project as Andrew said he had no money left. I also did quite a lot of the work myself i.e., painting where I could save money. We were considering putting it on the market and got a valuation and brochure made by Hamptons who valued it at £875,000 to sell at £850,000. A big increase in value so my efforts had been rewarded

TROUBLE IN PARADISE… but what? SEPT 2009

The beginning of confusing my brain …. adding doubt and confusion

This middle aged, middle class white man that I shared my life with had recently said he was unhappy. He said he didn’t feel loved. I replied but “I love you”. He repeated that he doesn’t ‘feel loved’, so he was unhappy.

These murmurings had been coming from him for a couple of weeks and we had arranged to talk with a counsellor. We had had a couple of appointments but as anyone knows who has gone down this route it takes several sessions for the counsellor to understand enough of the story to serve any purpose.

Mr H was the sort of man that got on with his everyday life without complication and passion and ‘feelings’ weren’t top of his list of thoughts. He had simple pleasures and his children were very important to him.

He now said that I should not cook a meal for him in the evenings from now on. He continued “I can get a very good meal in Lloyds Bank canteen at lunchtime, so there was no need”. Dear reader this may seem to be a straightforward even practical statement, and so of little concern. At the time I suppose I hadn’t been alarmed, just confused. Though I did think even for him, simplifying arrangements this much seemed peculiar. He added that he was putting on weight. Hmm.. I thought to myself, the portion size he takes for himself and his waste not want not system of scooping up the leftovers would surely be the first place to start. Meanwhile how was this going to work? Was I meant to cook a meal for myself and sit and ignore him?

Then wax crayons appeared left around! I didn’t think either of us used wax crayons.

A few evenings later he said he had a plan. He was not generally known for forward thinking ideas, but I thought under what was beginning to be difficult circumstances – ‘crisis’ hadn’t entered my mind yet, I thought I’d better hear him out.

I felt a halo of fear descending over me. The title of the song “Trouble in Paradise” was trying to force its way through from the back of my mind. We were lucky. We had a good life. We were ‘second time-arounders’ so over the past five years we had sold our properties and bought two places to suit our new life and future together - so I thought. An apartment in the city – opposite where he worked. A house in the country near his children and their mother, so he could conveniently see them at weekends. I had spent six months gaining planning permissions and re-designing our house and another nine months supervising builders to create the perfect situation and now…………he is unhappy.

Back to his plan. The plan that would solve his dilemma and resolve our situation. I was waiting to hear it. He said “He would live in the house in the country in the week and the apartment in the city at the weekends. Four days in one and three days in the other”. I should do visa-versa. So, this was it, this was the plan. I remember my head being in my hands at this point, the weight of my overburdened mind becoming difficult to continue to hold it upright. I had expected little and was not surprised with what I got. He was a practical man; he had a part of the brain that allowed him to excel at ‘practical’ type things lifting, fast reversing, anything involving rawl plugs, but this. Undoubtedly this was a practical solution so to him this was the answer. Sorted - we would avoid each other.

I made no reply. His plan was an instantaneous remedy, but where was our future? How was I to explain that his plan didn’t allow for non-practical issues like emotions? By his demeanour and outward posture I doubted that he understood his own emotions at the time, so now didn’t seem the right time to try and convince him otherwise.

I couldn’t understand the purpose, but there was no time to despair. He packed his bag and left. Apparently, it was starting right away.

FRIDAY EVENING – HOME?

So, there we were living this weirdy life bobbing between one town and another. Travelling between the two and coming up for air at each end. Everything the same, but, in fact totally different. His choice. His system. Let everything on the exterior, to the outside world, to relatives, friends, work colleagues be the same. Though in my world things were wrong. In my world if something is wrong, I want to talk about it. Ask the world their view. What should I do now? How shall I handle this for the best? But – isn’t everything the same? What is there to talk about? I still have my two lovely homes.

I’ll carry on as normal. In the weekdays in the apartment in the city, I sit at my computer as normal. Everything normal. The phone rings, I laugh and chat to my customers – “yes the summer isn’t as ‘barbecue’ as was forecast”, I fulfil my orders, I watch as a barge chug chugs past the window. Life is good.

Its Friday – hoorah – time for the weekend, time for a well-earned break. Pack the car. The excitement builds inside of me. Its Friday – hoorah!! Life is great. I arrive at the house in the country. Things look the same. I get out the key and carefully put it in the lock. My stomach is squirming. What will I find? This is my house, well half mine, what is there to be scared of? Inside things seem okay, the things I can see by peering around the back door still with my feet outside and holding onto the key as if for reassurance. What was I expecting to see? What could be as frightening as my stomach clearly thought there could be? From entering the back door, you can see the kitchen. Everything looked nearly the same, but slightly not quite the same.

The kitchen was tidy. Very tidy. Too tidy? Where are the crumbs he leaves near the toaster when he’s been cutting bread for toast? He must have cleaned them up – that’s not the same. The washing up brush with the sucker bottom is standing erect on the draining board. Too tidy – he usually slings it into the sink. I thought he would never change. I put it down to thirty years of washing up before someone in Sweden invented a washing up brush with a sucker bottom. Though, circumstances are now totally different.

There were the usual scum and food splatterings sprinkled around the sides of my lovely new bright white porcelain sink. He does the washing up and then walks away without rinsing the bowl. Usually I came along afterwards to do it but as I haven’t been there, they are stuck hard. I will have to scrape them off with my nail. But later……………. let’s have a look around.

I hesitantly walk around checking each room not knowing what I may find. All seems normal. Tidier than I am used to, but still within the bounds of what I would class as normal.

My shoulders relax and I sigh quietly. I am home.

MONDAY MORNING - BACK TO THE CITY

Monday morning the start of the working week. I arrive back at the apartment in the city. I will go into the apartment first, have a look around before I unpack the car. Downstairs I check the post. Only junk mail. I go up in the lift. The lift with three walls of mirror which you can’t escape. I sneak a quick glance knowing that at the moment how I look on this Monday morning is not what I want to see. I have enough of a crisis to get through. I don’t want to add another worry to my concern that I am aging even faster than I thought humanly possible. The glance proved it was true. The woman that glanced back at me added up to the way my stomach was churning. Frightened, disparate, but why? After all isn’t everything normal?

I put in the key, and gingerly open the door. My feet on the internal landing as my head cranes around to see inside. From the front door of the apartment in the city, I can see the hall with its mock-wood panel floor and the alley style kitchen where we took the fire door off because it folded back restricting too many of the cupboards. All looks okay. The washing up brush erect beside the sink the food clumps still soft – he would have left to go to work only an hour or so ago. I can rinse those off I won’t need to scrape. I take a quick look around. Everything as it should be. His bathroom toilet bowl looking beige instead of its usual pristine white. That’s normal then, his ineffective bowel system is as it was and white middle-class men don’t necessarily clean toilets. Last room the bedroom – yes bed made, he’s started making beds now! Anyway, all is as it should be. I am here alone; there are no surprises. Everything must be the same then?

I heave a deep sigh. That was a surprise where did that come from. I think I forgot to breathe like an eighties aerobics session “Don’t forget to breathe” says the curvaceous instructor with thigh muscles as hard as truncheons. “Don’t forget to breathe”. I just did but I’m alright now. The familiarity of the place takes over, and I walk into my office, turn on my computer and hear the comforting buzz of it starting up and the noise of the irritating Windows logo appear. I imagine there is some way of turning that noxious advertising off, but I have bigger concerns at the moment. I need to start my week.