Here on EOPC, we have quotes from victims of Cyberpaths and professionals dealing with Cyberpaths' victims as well as thoughts on the long term after-effects of their attacks. You may have read them elsewhere, you may not. We think they're important and powerful enough to include here so you can read them in their entirety - EOPC
FROM VICTIMS: "The potential for damage is overwhelming. Overnight, many lives are turned inside out when it has been revealed that the person that you gave your love and your complete trust to has betrayed you. The emotional and financial scars are deep" --- Target of Julia-Bish-Judah-Hunt-McGovern
"I will gain strength, become a stronger and much wiser person from this devastating experience, but it will never be over. It will be with me for the remainder of my days on Earth. I will forever be changed by this most ultimate & intimate of betrayals... They throw us away like an old pair of shoes; and like the predators they are, they quickly move on to their next victim. The magnitude of the lies cannot be imagined by anyone unless you have lived this nightmare"-- Wife #7 of Ed Hicks
"Everything was a lie. [He] took away my ability to trust, and he ruined me financially"- Wife #6 of Ed Hicks
"I will never trust anyone else after this. My heart is closed now and I think I don't want to get to know ANYONE else... I feel so used! A million showers won't clean my body from this snake's touch!" -- Target#1 of Nathan E.B. Thomas, Jr.
"I prayed I was just overly sensitive because of my years of being in one abusive relationship after another. Even now I find it difficult to fathom how you can give so much of yourself to a person and have them so totally wipe it all away as if it never happened with no remorse & go on their merry way leaving a path of destruction & half-truths behind them.
I'd known him over 25 years. I thought I could trust him. I did what I did from the heart and with genuine, deep emotion - and he knew it! Now he says it was 'all a game' - that's first I have heard it was a GAME!
Realizing someone you have known for so long, spent so much time talking with, did it ALL just to USE you is horrifying. The grief is no ordinary grief. After distancing himself from me, he can now tell stories, all of which are twisted, with the spin to make HIM look the victim. At least I have hard evidence that he's lying. It's nothing less than soul murder." --Target #1 of Jeff Dunetz/ YidwithLid
"...for the first time in our relationship, I began to cry. I realized he was a TOTAL fraud. He said he "was looking for the right girl" in his dating profile. I thought, "how could he say that when he told me I was right for him?" I had changed myself at his direction and was at the point of exhaustion... I was horrified by the fact he used the SAME EXACT language in the profile as he did online! ...he threw me away, all the while BLAMING ME for not being "good enough." How could this person call himself moral ... when he was a complete liar. -- Target of Brad Dorsky
"[He] included EVERYTHING that was missing from my life, as if he could read my thoughts and make my wishes come true. I can see now he really studied me well and became "my perfect mirror." He knew exactly what to say to make me feel good; especially after being in an abusive marriage for so long with no attention from my husband. This man "love bombed" me and I didn't even know what hit me!" -- Target of Keith Clive
"Being lied to is a hurtful thing. Being conned by someone you love is a devastating thing. You find that the facade .... was lies on his part; and how empty & meaningless [you were to him]. It hits below the belt and it scars you emotionally, financially... You become a laughingstock...
Some say I am obsessed with this man, but in reality, I am obsessed with getting justice done. There can be no closure on this until that happens. Even then I will never trust anyone whole heartedly with my love, my life or my money again. ...all I wanted was to be loved, and he turned that into a crime that suited his needs." -- Target of William Michael Barber
"While doubters may still find it dubious that on-line romance could ever take the place of a real relationship, the husbands & wives of Net-addicts are discovering that cybersex can pose a direct threat to their marriages. "...We went through it and a little while later [my cybersex partner]messaged me and said, 'If I message you again & ask you if we had sex, say no, OK?' I said, 'Sure, why?' She said her husband is very jealous and comes on-line when she's on, to make sure she isn't netsexxing."
....Pearl's husband was not as lucky. "My ex-husband, Lee, would vanish into the basement every night for hours, saying he had brought home a lot of paperwork from the office. We missed a lot of parties and family events, but I never questioned it. I felt sorry for the poor guy, working so hard to give me and the kids some extras. Then, one day when I was cleaning out the room, I found a sheet of paper under the desk with a love-letter printed on it." Pearl was even more traumatized when she turned on his PC and found a sub-directory filled with HUNDREDS of love-letters from different women, addressing her husband as "Prince Charming." "The Prince lost his castle," Pearl says sourly. "I changed the locks on him and filed for divorce."
Carl Salisbury, an attorney at Killian & Salisbury in East Hanover, NJ, who specializes in electronic law, notes that cybersex-related suits are showing up increasingly in American courts. "There was a case in Maryland where a MacDonald's franchise had an email system," says Salisbury. "One of their employees was having an email affair with another employee, who was married. The manager screened their email and showed it to the married guy's wife!" When the married man sued his manager and MacDonald's for breach of privacy, the courts ruled that the manager was within his rights to view employee email.
And, as the cyber-population booms ...we can expect to see more irate spouses filing for divorce with on-line infidelity as grounds. "It's inevitable that we're going to be seeing more & more divorce cases as a result of cybersex," says Salisbury. "There's such an enormous amount--and variety--of activity going on the Net and the Web, and the variety increases literally every day." -- HOW TO HAVE CYBERSEX - Gloria G. Brame
"It's a trap. Your imagination fills in the blanks with exactly what you want. You don't learn more with more rounds of writing. All you do is invest more emotional energy, for which there is no payoff." -- Joe Teig, New York, NY
FROM PROFESSIONALS:
"We now understand that women & men are not "crazy" or "defective" when, in response to trauma, they develop PTSD symptoms, including insomnia, flashbacks, phobias, panic attacks, anxiety, depression, dissociation, a numbed toughness, amnesia, shame, guilt, self-loathing, self-mutilation and social withdrawal. - Phyllis Chesler, MD
"We hear about Internet predators for children, I don't think we're hearing very much about Internet predators for middle age women at all. And that bothers me," -- SANDRA PHIPPS, FightBigamy
"When [] predators are found using the Internet a common response of the Internet industry and government officials is to blame someone else, or say that nothing can be done to stop it." -- Donna M. Hughes, PhD; Univ. of Rhode Island
"We must do whatever it takes to minimize or eliminate [the predator's] access to vulnerable prey as targets of opportunity. Period. For ever. Indeed, these people will thank us for it. Consider how many [cyberpaths] deliberately get themselves caught just to stop themselves." - What Makes Narcissists Tick
"[APOLOGIES] are not some pious, phoney-baloney, half-hearted rendition of what you think they want to hear. Nor is it a watered-down, politically correct 'confession' that you think will buy you closure at the expense of truth... [admit] what you are doing to screw up your life. This also means admitting that you are getting payoffs for what you're doing, however sick or subtle those payoffs are. - Dr. Phil McGraw"
"[Online Predators] count on our shame to keep their secrets. They know that exposing them means exposing our own failings. That's what makes them so powerful. They manipulate us into these situations then sit back & watch us squirm between protecting ourselves or blowing the whistle. The [victim often] is still emotionally connected to the [Cyberpath], thus protecting them and accusing them alternatively. Many [victim]s will not name their [cyberpath]s to counsellors or other helpers, thus protecting their identity. The hook, which the [Cyberpath] has implanted in their heart, is hard to remove. If you want something to cry about, cry for the [Cyberpath]'s new victim(s), the innocent, unmarked, un-inoculated prey. These victims are carefully chosen..." - Mary Ann Borg Cunen
"Internet dating is populated, to a large degree, by criminals and married people. Estimates have gone up to 30% that online daters are married. That represents an emotional risk to our membership base. I want to eliminate those people [from] the site." - Herb Vest, CEO of True.com
"How do we go from fantasy to reality? Lots of people have private fantasies that give them some sort of pleasure and maybe even trouble them, but they don't act on them. I think one of the contributory facts-- it's not the only one-- is the insidious nature of the internet itself. I think there are three things that are problematic about the Internet, or at least three things. One is the easy accessibility. You don't, in the beginning at least, have to go anywhere. You just push a button that's sitting there next to you.
Secondly, there's this illusion of anonymity, which can be very disinhibiting. You feel as though you're there in the privacy of your bedroom. It's not that private, but you don't sense that at the time. And thirdly, there is a distortion of reality and fantasy to some extent. That people feel as though they're playing a game. They're making up who they are. They wonder if someone else is giving a false persona. They begin to do things that in the light of day they might never have done and then, ultimately and sadly, sometimes cross a line that they might not otherwise have crossed. Where do they get the message [the internet] is where you can go? We've created a "we versus they" mentality. And I understand that what they do is offensive. It's aggravating. It makes me angry. But we're not going to solve the problem by pushing it further underground." - Dr. Fred Berlin, Psychiatrist, Johns Hopkins University on "DATELINE NBC"
"I love words. I believe in the power of words. I believe that if truthful words are spoken, written, shared, they will be heard, and they will be answered. Not with a [cyberpath]. You get sucker-punched in trying to explain something. There is no response to what is said. Words are deflected, twisted, questions answered with questions, non sequitors abound." - NarcissisticAbuse.com
"This is the classic emotional rape scenario: the use of a higher emotion (such as love) to fulfill a hidden agenda... There can be no hidden agendas in real love. These features, even if identified in retrospect, can help victims understand what has happened to them, giving them a chance of real recovery. - Dr. Mike Fox, The Emotional Rape Syndrome
"Powerful and sneaky people use apologies as end runs around repentance. They betray a trust; and, when they have been found out, they say they are sorry for "mistakes in judgement"... They get by only because we have lost our sense of the difference between repentance for wrong and apologies for bungling... We should not let each other get away with it. A deep and unfair hurt is not a mere faux pas. We cannot put up with everything from everyone; some things are intolerable. When someone hurts us deeply and unfairly an apology will not do the job; it only trivializes a wrong that should not be trifled with." -- - Lewis B. Smedes, "Forgive and Forget"
"The [exposed Cyberpath] on the other hand, cannot rest until they have blotted out a vaguely experienced [target] who dared to oppose them, [expose them], to disagree with them or to outshine them. [The Cyberpath] can never find rest because they can NEVER FULLY wipe out the evidence that has contradicted their conviction they are unique and perfect and handled things appropriately. This archaic rage goes on and on and on." - Dr. Ernest Wolf "
"Text-based relationships are very deceptive. People know only the good stuff, and none of the bad. The missing pieces are filled in based on hope, not on reality."- Dr. S. King; Pacific Graduate School of Psychology in Palo Alto, CA
"When there is a question of WHO is telling the truth? See who has to GAIN by lying or bending history. Usually the real truth teller has to expose a vulnerable part of themselves, which takes courage and honesty." - Law Professor, Fordham University
FINAL THOUGHTS
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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