HOW I SURVIVED A PHYSCOPATH

I left my home last year in August and went to live with a host family for what I thought would be a fresh start. I only had money for a one-way ticket, and I didn’t have any resources to get back home if things went wrong, but I trusted them. They were people who had known me since I was a child, people who called me “family.” The woman I was staying with — I even called her my grandma. She was someone my mom knew well. She wasn’t related to me, but I considered her family.

It didn’t take long for things to feel off. Within my first month at their house, she began confiding in me about her marriage troubles, seeking sympathy in ways that didn’t feel right. Everyone already knew about her marriage issues; it wasn’t new. But I started to realize that she wasn’t just venting — she was pulling me into her conflicts, trying to make me her pawn. I fell for it. She wanted me to confront her husband, and being the naïve 16-year-old I was, I insulted him, thinking I was defending her. I thought I was being helpful, but I soon realized it was part of her game. She wasn’t a victim. She was calculating.

She stirred up tension between me and her daughter, the one person in that household I felt close to. She would come to me and say horrible things about her daughter, then go to her daughter and tell her equally bad things about me. She even went around the neighborhood spreading rumors, telling everyone I was mentally ill and to ignore me. Kids I’d never met would point and laugh, calling me “crazy.” I’d never felt more isolated, more powerless.

One day, I confronted her. I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her how much it hurt, how much it stung to be shamed by someone I had called my grandma. I cried, hoping she’d see my pain. But she only seemed embarrassed that I was making a scene. After that, I stopped calling her “grandma” and addressed her with distance. She didn’t like that either. She knew people thought it was rude, and she probably relished in how it made me look disrespectful. But I couldn’t pretend anymore.

I’d realized what I was dealing with: someone who was not just toxic but dangerous. I’ve since learned that when you’re dealing with a psychopath, the last thing you should do is call them out or confront them. They feed on that. They’ll do everything to make you look irrational so that people believe their version of you — the “crazy” version they’ve been carefully crafting all along.

She forced me to watch her grandchildren, hid groceries from me, and even demanded I give her $200 out of my tiny paycheck. I only made $600, and she still expected me to hand over a third of it. She didn’t want me to just pitch in on groceries; she wanted me to hand over cash, to be dependent on her, to keep me under her thumb. That same day, I lost my job. The constant stress from living in that house had drained me to the point where I couldn’t keep it together.

But the worst was yet to come. This woman, who I had once called my grandma, accused me of the unthinkable. She told her family I was “dirty,” a “prostitute.” She spread lies that I’d been inappropriate with the children she had forced me to babysit. She told the kids not to touch me, that I was filthy. I was only 16, yet she took everything from me — my dignity, my sense of self, my hope.

Food was scarce, too. She’d tell me I had to eat last, after everyone else. She’d say it in front of guests, making sure they knew I wasn’t worth as much as her real family. She would even invite me out only to embarrass me. Every small humiliation seemed to thrill her, each degradation another way to make me feel worthless.

At one point, she set a knife in the couch and told me to sit down. She wanted me to hurt myself, to harm me in a way that would make me more vulnerable to her husband’s advances. I felt like I was going crazy, seeing the sinister motives behind every smile, every gesture. She was relentless. She wanted me broken.

After a year, I finally found a cheap way back home. But the damage was done. I still wake up trying to process the torment I endured in that house, struggling to let myself trust anyone again. My fear of people runs deep, rooted in that year of betrayal and manipulation. I learned hard lessons about how evil can hide behind a smile, how cruelty can wear a friendly mask, and how sometimes the people who claim to be family can do the most harm.

3

It didn’t take long for things to feel off. Within my first month at their house, she began confiding in me about her marriage troubles, seeking sympathy in ways that didn’t feel right. Everyone already knew about her marriage issues; it wasn’t new. But I started to realize that she wasn’t just venting — she was pulling me into her conflicts, trying to make me her pawn. I fell for it. She wanted me to confront her husband, and being the naïve 16-year-old I was, I insulted him, thinking I was defending her. I thought I was being helpful, but I soon realized it was part of her game. She wasn’t a victim. She was calculating.

She stirred up tension between me and her daughter, the one person in that household I felt close to. She would come to me and say horrible things about her daughter, then go to her daughter and tell her equally bad things about me. She even went around the neighborhood spreading rumors, telling everyone I was mentally ill and to ignore me. Kids I’d never met would point and laugh, calling me “crazy.” I’d never felt more isolated, more powerless.

One day, I confronted her. I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her how much it hurt, how much it stung to be shamed by someone I had called my grandma. I cried, hoping she’d see my pain. But she only seemed embarrassed that I was making a scene. After that, I stopped calling her “grandma” and addressed her with distance. She didn’t like that either. She knew people thought it was rude, and she probably relished in how it made me look disrespectful. But I couldn’t pretend anymore.

I’d realized what I was dealing with: someone who was not just toxic but dangerous. I’ve since learned that when you’re dealing with a psychopath, the last thing you should do is call them out or confront them. They feed on that. They’ll do everything to make you look irrational so that people believe their version of you — the “crazy” version they’ve been carefully crafting all along.

She forced me to watch her grandchildren, hid groceries from me, and even demanded I give her $200 out of my tiny paycheck. I only made $600, and she still expected me to hand over a third of it. She didn’t want me to just pitch in on groceries; she wanted me to hand over cash, to be dependent on her, to keep me under her thumb. That same day, I lost my job. The constant stress from living in that house had drained me to the point where I couldn’t keep it together.

But the worst was yet to come. This woman, who I had once called my grandma, accused me of the unthinkable. She told her family I was “dirty,” a “prostitute.” She spread lies that I’d been inappropriate with the children she had forced me to babysit. She told the kids not to touch me, that I was filthy. I was only 16, yet she took everything from me — my dignity, my sense of self, my hope.

Food was scarce, too. She’d tell me I had to eat last, after everyone else. She’d say it in front of guests, making sure they knew I wasn’t worth as much as her real family. She would even invite me out only to embarrass me. Every small humiliation seemed to thrill her, each degradation another way to make me feel worthless.

At one point, she set a knife in the couch and told me to sit down. She wanted me to hurt myself, to harm me in a way that would make me more vulnerable to her husband’s advances. I felt like I was going crazy, seeing the sinister motives behind every smile, every gesture. She was relentless. She wanted me broken.

After a year, I finally found a cheap way back home. But the damage was done. I still wake up trying to process the torment I endured in that house, struggling to let myself trust anyone again. My fear of people runs deep, rooted in that year of betrayal and manipulation. I learned hard lessons about how evil can hide behind a smile, how cruelty can wear a friendly mask, and how sometimes the people who claim to be family can do the most harm.