Helping someone else in a relationship with a psychopath

Hello: I tried to help my sister with some of the help from Richard. In turn, she now fully refuses to know anything more about the subject, because the psychopath saw it and he has brainwashed her against all this help.

Is there anything I could do to help her, or can I just watch her die in his hands?

PS. I'm her sister.

I guess Richard's channel and website is the most hated ones among psychopaths.

We will eventually win the battle, but I wonder how to help my sister or anyone who is actually still with a psychopath.

Thank you.

I will give this some thought. Sorry to hear about your sister. She hasn't asked for help, right? What does she say? You might question her logical fallacies - when and IF she speaks them. For example, on Richard's youtube site, in viewers comments, someone said, "I just have to be 100% sure" (he's a psychopath). I want to tell that person, "NO, No you DON'T have to 100% sure!" (Some might say, i should shrink-talk instead, and say, "Why do you think that?" - but i don't like that sort of talk, nor having to mince my words like that.....)

It is very unfortunate that her partner saw this. She needs to be very careful. This is something she should only view in total private, not at a friend's house, or on a friend's device, but at a public library - maybe a town away, where the history is cleared every night, and there's no trace. In private - meaning the partner doesn't know she's there, using the computer.

I'll give it more thought.

Your answer was helpful.

Thank you. I forgot about the torture of those moments because it has been a few years ago I said bye bye to my ex husband.

Now I need to find the patience not to argue with my sister, because when she does crazy things she gets on my nerves, and that is definitely not helpful if I want to keep her next to me, so I can help her to see what is really happening to her.

Thanks again.

Just an update here.

I decided that I wanted to help my sister some time ago. I just didn't know how I could accomplish this.

The fact that she moved away from us when she met a covert NPD (very dangerous guy...) made things very difficult. She was isolated from the world. All her friends were under his control. Days went by and she did not have communication with the rest of the family.

I decided that at some point I needed to move over where she was living. This is when things get more difficult. I needed a remote job, since there were not many jobs in that part of Spain. I found myself begging for a job from time to time with little results.

This is all a true story. So here it goes.

I decided to analyse what type of jobs I liked better and were more in line with my current professional experience. After I chose my next professional target, I decided to try to put all my effort in that area.

I found myself quite exhausted at times and not really enjoying the things I started to learn. However, life came to me with a different opportunity to work remotely, but I actually had to quit my professional path. It was a difficult decision, but I thought I could figure out things eventually and come back to my previous position if I ever wanted.

It was very difficult for me to make the decision to move where she lives. First, I loved the city where I lived for several reasons. It took me around a year to sink in the idea that I had to move where she lived. Second, I didn't know how to approach the relationship with my sister. Any time I tried to help her it looked like I made it even worse.

I decided to travel to see in person who I consider the biggest expert in psychopathy in the country. I spent 400 euros in paying the time I spent with him, the flight, and one night in the city. He seems to know quite a lot about psychopathy, but he fails to communicate what he knows in so many ways it is quite disappointing and traumatising.

If you remove the 90% of the conversation which was quite arrogant and traumatising, there is something he said it was really helpful in the remaining 10%. He said I could move with my sister and just go shopping, do things together, etc ..... I was quite shocked about this approach. This was so clever yet never thought about it before because it is contra intuitive. If you want to help someone, what do you do? You tell that person about the dangers, right? Well, with people in a "relationship" with someone with NPD it doesn't work.

I have read later on that this is also the way to get people out of a cult. If you search about Scientology and how people get out of there, when the family wants to help some relative, they need to be very patient and do just the opposite what you feel to do. In the sense, if you want to help, you need to do nothing, just standing by her/him and pretend everything is ok, even if you see some horrible things. You can tell the truth though, but in a way that is not either sugar coated neither direct against the cult, or the narc. This requires some practice. I have devoted quite a lot of my time to practice this, but honestly, it just takes so much effort ..

The secret seems to rely in the fact that the person that is part of a cult, or in a relationship with someone with NPD is not having a good time, but feels isolated and is scared in so many ways. A relative just next to that person without trying to force anything (even if you see things that are really scary!) and you remain calm and next that person, that person will start feeling the confidence to start making new questions, but they need to come from the person involved, not someone else.

Summarising, if you want to help someone to get out from a manipulative relationship, the best thing to do seems to show her/him that you are on their side. Just that. Be there and be ready for the moment when they will ask you for help. They will. My sister lived for 10 years with a covert and very dangerous guy. I was quite pessimistic about her situation. However, just after a couple of weeks of moving to where she lived, she started asking questions by herself. I was so in shocked it worked so quickly.. I wish I knew before this was the way to help others to scape from people in manipulative relationships. It turns out she was really tired about the whole thing too, but she couldn't find the financial and personal support she needed.

I have to work really hard on my patience and the "instinct" to try to tell her what I know about psychopaths, C-PTSD, etc. She entered in my room once and saw all my books about psychopathy and Pia Melody, etc and I could see it caused a feeling of rejection on her.

She still denies that she is mentally ill or that she was with a very dangerous person. I am not quite sure how to move from here. Maybe just waiting a little bit more next to her and see how things work.

She is not now with this guy, but not so much because of her, but because he dumped her. He knows I know about psychopathy. He tried to play on me and her but it didn't work. The trick is that he was looking for some reaction from me, but since I am now 120% alert about his manipulative tricks, he couldn't achieve his purpose. He probably gave up on her because he cannot control the whole situation any more.

My life is like a movie in so many ways. When people tell me, including this psychologist "just get on with your life, find friends, etc" What are they talking about? This is what I am trying to do all the time, unsuccessfully because of so many people with NPD next to me for some reason or another.

tl;dr after my own experience, helping someone to get out from a manipulative relationship can be tricky. The way you communicate with the victim is crucial. Direct messages pointing out to the problem in question will not work. They will instead generate rejection, hence, causing the opposite effect in the victim, generating anger.

I am not a psychologist and I don't know the scientific techniques behind this. I am gathering information from various resources and doing a trial and error. This seems to be working well so far.

It seems like the success of this technique relies on. This is a homemade draft:
- showing the victim you are their side. If you are presented as the "enemy", forget it, the victim will not listen to you. This can be achieved just being there, showing sympathy, willing to help the victim in a respectful way, being humble despite of seeing things that you don't like and remaining calm and under control even if the victim says non sense things or things that seem dangerous
- always telling the truth. This can be very tricky. If you are triggered by something that the victim said because it was obviously something very dangerous or a trick from the manipulative side, this will ruin the whole process. However, remaining silent, like in a freeze response, it won't help either. To be able to help the victim you need to make the victim doubt of their own reality. To do so, it is important not to sugar coat the message, and to express your view in a clean way that question the victim's reality without directly pointing out to the manipulative person, and without addressing anything that the victim may have conflict with.

I find myself a little hopeless sometimes trying to find the best way how to handle this situation and no specific any information anywhere ...  someone with more insights?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: of course, when telling the truth, you have to do it in a non manipulative way. In overall, this is a good practice for me too. Seriously challenging for me, but with amazing results if achieved.