Getting It Through
My Thick Skull
Why I Stayed,
What I Learned,
and What Millions
of People Involved with Sociopaths
Need to Know
MARY JO BUTTAFUOCO
with julie mcCarron
Health Communications, Inc.
Deerfield Beach, Florida
www.hcibooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Buttafuoco, Mary Jo.
Getting it through my thick skull : why I stayed, what I learned, and what millions of people involved with sociopaths need to know / Mary Jo Buttafuoco with Julie McCarron.
p. cm.
eISBN-13: 978-0-7573-9600-7 eISBN-10: 0-7573-9600-3
1. Buttafuoco, Mary Jo. 2. Buttafuoco, Mary Jo—Marriage.
3. Buttafuoco, Mary Jo—Family. 4. Buttafuoco, Joey. 5. Antisocial personality disorders—United States—Case studies. 6. Attempted murder—New York (State)—Long Island—Case studies. I. McCarron,
Julie. II. Title.
CT275.B83765A3 2009
362.196’858200922—dc22
2009019951
©2009 Mary Jo Buttafuoco
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
HCI, its logos, and marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.
Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
3201 S.W. 15th Street
Deerfield Beach, FL 33442–8190
Cover art and photography by StuArt Digital Inc., Chatsworth, CA, www.stuartdigital.net
Mary Jo’s makeup by Martine Tendler
Interior design and formatting by Dawn Von Strolley Grove
For Paul and Jessica
“I did then what I knew then,
but when I knew better
I did better.”
—Maya Angelou
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter 1: April Showers Bring May Prowlers
Chapter 2: Wheels of Justice
Chapter 3: A Match Made in Massapequa
Chapter 4: Going Bonkers in Baldwin
Chapter 5: The Narcissist Next Door
Chapter 6: Notorious J.O.E
Chapter 7: Good-Bye L.I., Hello L.A
Chapter 8: Rehabilitation
Chapter 9: Gumption Junction
Chapter 10: Flying Solo
Chapter 11: Love Redux
Chapter 12: Stu to the Rescue
Chapter 13:The Life Lift
Afterword
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
Joey Buttafuoco is a sociopath. There, I said it. Sad but true. The man who stole my heart in high school—whose large, hardworking Italian family embraced me, who constantly professed undying love and devotion, with whom I shared a million happy, fun times—is a sociopath. I loved my husband with all my heart, raised two great children with him, and fully expected that we would grow old together in our beautiful waterfront home on Long Island, surrounded by family and close friends. I stood steadfast next to this man, ferociously defending him for years after the infamous shooting by Amy Fisher turned our last name into a worldwide punch line. This same man is also the walking, talking dictionary definition of a clinical sociopath. This was a recent, life-changing realization for me—and goes a long way toward answering the one question that seems to fascinate the public more than any other: Why did she stay for so long? It’s clear to me now: I was in thrall for almost thirty years to a sociopath.
Ironically enough, it was our son, Paul, who brought this inescapable truth to my attention. Two years ago, on Father’s Day 2007, my son and I were discussing Joey’s latest embarrassing stunt—a highly publicized, entirely fake “reunion” between him and Amy Fisher, in which they held hands, kissed for the cameras, and claimed they were “getting back together.” Joey and I were no longer married, but his actions continued to affect us all. I could only shake my head and wonder, as I had countless times over the years, When is he going to grow up? Why is he making such a fool of himself? When will he ever get it?
“Never,” Paul said flatly. “He’s never going to get it. He’s a sociopath.”
My first reaction was denial. “Sociopath” is a scary-sounding word. I thought a sociopath was a crazy person, a nut job, someone who couldn’t function in society, or a charming but cold-blooded killer. The word has been used so often to casually describe extreme cases—like O. J. Simpson, Scott Peterson, and Ted Bundy—that the true nature and scope of its meaning eluded me. But Paul’s calm certainty and the discussion that followed nagged at me long after we moved on to other topics. The word reverberated in the back of my mind for the rest of the day. Late that night, when all our company had gone home, I went to my computer and Googled the words “sociopath traits.” In less than a second, up popped a huge list of articles. I clicked on the very first link: “The Sociopathic Style: A Checklist,” developed by Dr. Robert Hare, coauthor of Snakes in Suits, and read this list of traits:
Glibness and superficial charm
Grandiose self-worth
Need for stimulation/prone to boredom
Pathological lying
Conning and manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Shallow affect
Callousness and lack of empathy
Parasitic lifestyle
Poor behavioral controls
Promiscuous sexual behavior
Early behavioral problems
Lack of realistic, long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Failure to accept responsibility for actions
Many short-term marital relationships
Juvenile delinquency
Revocation of condition release
Criminal versatility
There he was: Joey Buttafuoco described to a T. And just like that, the lights went on. This information was the missing piece to an infuriating puzzle I’d been trying to solve for decades: What was wrong with Joey? Why couldn’t I fix it? Why was our marriage in such constant turmoil? Why was I continually off-balance and bewildered? Suddenly, I saw my whole life through an entirely new prism. This knowledge was one of the most earthshaking revelations of my life—and, believe me, I’ve had quite a few surprises along the way.
My son’s disclosure started me down a new and fascinating path. Since that night, I’ve done a great deal of reading, conducted lots of research, and talked to several experts on the subject. This type of personality disorder can manifest itself in a number of ways. Many sociopaths wreak so much havoc that their true underlying condition remains hidden for a very long time, if not a lifetime. Of course, people have affairs and cheat on their spouses every day. Lots of men and women struggle with drug or alcohol addiction. All kinds of adults are irresponsible, or liars, or manipulative, or charming enough to talk their way out of anything. None of these characteristics on their own mean anything other than what’s there on the surface for all to see.
But twenty-two years of all of these behaviors in tandem established a pretty convincing pattern. There were plenty of warning signs along the way, if only I’d known what I was looking for. Living with a sociopath disrupts every part of normal life—sex, money, parenting, employment—and I scrambled around for twenty years trying to patch up all of those areas, never once realizing that there was a bigger problem. “Why can’t you get it through that thick Irish skull of yours
?” was my mother’s constant refrain when I was defiant teenager. She bemoaned my thick Irish skull so often that it became a running family joke. My grandfather used to commiserate with my mother when she was at the end of her rope with me: “What’s the sense of being Irish if you can’t be thick?”
After years of grief and worry, not to mention a bullet to the head, I finally did get it through my thick skull. I’m quite clear about what was really going on with my ex-husband and former marriage. But I might have been saved all those years of doubting myself and hoping against all hope that things would change if I’d just been in possession of the knowledge and information I have now!
This knowledge was so life-changing for me that I decided to write this book to try to help educate others about sociopathic behavior, using my own painful past as a prime illustration of a long marriage to one specific type. The list of sociopathic traits given above is an accurate description of what I lived with for years, and through my recounting of the Amy Fisher circus, plus other, more private moments between Joey and me, I will show you just how insidiously they were put into practice and how well they can be masked—especially when there’s a willing victim. This is a key element in the life of any sociopath: a willing partner. Whether that partnership is a long-term relationship or only the passing illusion of partnership projected by the sociopath to further his or her goals, a sociopath is never completely alone. Like the first part of the word (socio, from the Latin socius, or companion) says, the sociopath only comes to power out in society, and their greatest skill in life, beyond any other talent they may have, is the skill to manipulate. For much of my life, I possessed neither the insight nor the strength to break that spell.
Apparently, I’m far from alone. I was amazed to learn just how widespread this condition is. Just as there was very little public awareness about autism thirty years ago, or understanding of what attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) meant twenty years ago, the general public doesn’t realize how common this untreatable condition really is. Millions of women and men find themselves stuck in relationships they can’t fix; heartbroken parents struggle with adult children who suck them dry emotionally and financially; long-suffering friends and coworkers are continually exploited by those who put them into no-win situations and abuse their kindness. I want everyone to understand what sociopathic behavior is and to bring it to the forefront of America’s conscience.
In doing the research for this book, I have had to go back, dig deep, and relive many episodes of my life that, quite honestly, I would much prefer to bury forever. As the months passed and I worked on this project—recalling many painful and humiliating incidents, some buried so deeply that only old headlines jolted them back into my consciousness—my family and friends grew concerned. “Why now?” they asked. “Why rehash all of this seventeen years later?” The answer is simple: by sharing my story, I hope that my experiences will save others from similar heartache. I wouldn’t wish marriage or an intimate relationship to a sociopath of any kind onto anyone; my hope is that this book will inspire others to “get it” and get out far sooner than I did. I promise, there is a great new life on the other side!
CHAPTER 1
APRIL SHOWERS
BRING MAY
PROWLERS
Abright, white light shone directly on my face, hurting my eyes as I opened them and struggled to focus. I could barely see; the light was blinding. Suddenly, a female figure dressed all in white appeared over me. She put her face near mine and immediately started calling my name: “Mary Jo, Mary Jo!”
Who is this, and how does she know my name? I wondered groggily.
“You are at the Nassau County Medical Center, Mary Jo. You’ve been shot. But you’re going to be okay. You’re in the hospital; we’re taking good care of you,” the woman said, enunciating very loudly and clearly.
Shot? I’d been shot? How very strange. I pondered this for a couple of seconds, and then the lights went out again.
I awoke sometime later gasping for air, panicking because I couldn’t breathe and didn’t know why. I vaguely recalled being told I’d gotten shot, though it seemed like a dream. I cast my mind back to the last thing I remembered: the girl I’d just seen. That girl who’d been at my house, some teenager, just a kid.
“Mary Jo! Mary Jo! Do you know who did this to you?” the nurse asked. I nodded my head “yes.” It was that girl. I tried desperately to speak, but I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk; it felt like a hundred-pound weight lay squarely on my chest, sucking all the air out of me. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe! I made a motion of scribbling in the air, and a yellow legal pad and pen were produced and put into my hands.
I’m suffocating, I wrote. The word trailed off at the end, all over the paper, but the nurse was elated. Not only was I going to live, but clearly I wasn’t paralyzed—I was still able to write. And I couldn’t have much brain damage, since I’d spelled suffocating correctly. The machine that had been steadily breathing for me for the past few days was too slow now that I had awakened with anxiety flooding my system. The nurse took the breathing apparatus out of me and off of my chest. The relief was immediate; I could breathe again. I wrote, Was I shot?
“Yes,” the nurse replied simply.
“Why?” I wrote. She had no answer. I drifted off again, waking to see my husband, Joey, at my bedside examining the words on the pad. He handed it to me.
“Mary Jo, do you know who did this to you?” he asked.
“Nineteen-year-old girl,” I scribbled.
A girl? The police had been operating on the assumption that I had been attacked by a man in my backyard. This really threw Joey and the nurse. In fact, now they worried that I really did have brain damage, because what kind of girl would do this?
“Anne Marie,” I wrote down. “T-shirt.” Little flashes were coming back to me. “She said she . . . ” I was trying to explain to them what she told me—that her little sister was having an affair with Joey. But the effort exhausted me, and out I went again.
When I woke up again, my whole head was pounding, and there was a maddening ringing in my ears. I raised my hand to gingerly examine where the excruciating pain was centered, on the right side of my head, just in front of my ear. My fingers traced over a thick bandage, but I couldn’t feel anything as I carefully examined my head. The entire right side of my head was completely numb, as if it had been shot full of Novocain. It felt like my face was hanging off of my skull. A couple of inches behind the bandage, I felt my hair—or what was left of it. The tracheotomy tube had been removed, and I could finally speak. My voice emerged for the first time in days.
“What happened to my hair?” I croaked. The right side of my head had been completely shaved for surgery; I had been given a radical buzz cut. Two uniformed police officers were in the room, along with Joe, his brother Bobby, and my parents. They all raced to my bedside, and even in my condition I was alarmed at how tired and haggard their familiar faces were. It hit me then. This is really bad. What a commotion I’ve caused! I tried my best to reassure my family that I was all right by making light of the situation, like I always did. I grabbed my mother’s hand. “You see, Ma? This thick skull really came in handy!”
“Do you remember what happened? Who did this to you?” That was all they wanted to know. Amazingly enough, I remembered everything.
I was outside on our backyard deck, painting the built-in wooden bench white to match my wicker furniture, which I’d recently removed from the garage, shaken off, hosed down, and covered in bright flowered cushions. It was a sunny morning in May, my favorite time of year. Prior to that, we muddled through the snow, ice, and endless gray days, knowing that with each passing day of gloom, spring and summer would be one day closer.
I felt lucky and grateful to be a stay-at-home mother in the most wonderful community I could imagine. Paul was in sixth grade, and Jessica was in third. My days were full with homework, after-school activities, volunteering at their grammar school
, and serving on the board of the Biltmore Shores Beach Club. There was a constant round of birthday parties, bar and bat mitzvahs, holidays, communions, confirmations, and christenings throughout the year, but the social calendar really kicked in to high gear in the summertime—living as we did just a stone’s throw from the water.
It was truly my dream house, and I lavished it with care and attention. Nothing too big or fancy, but perfect for our family of four. The front door opened into a small foyer, with stairs leading up to the second-floor bedrooms. To the left was the living room, which was light and airy. I had decorated in blues and whites. The walls were painted and wallpapered in pastels, and I had hand-stenciled the doorways. Large area rugs were scattered on top of light hardwood floors. Dried flowers and framed family pictures softened the room. The house was warm and cozy—a real home; it was a place I envisioned growing old in and someday having our grandkids visit. My fifteenth wedding anniversary was just around the corner. The plane tickets for our getaway celebration to Jamaica were upstairs on my dresser. I had a long list of projects I wanted to accomplish before we left.
I left the front door to the house wide open to let the fresh air circulate through the house while I painted. This also made it easy to see which friend was dropping by today. Massapequa was a small, close-knit community. I’d gone to high school and even grade school with many of my neighbors. We routinely ran over to one another’s houses to borrow ingredients, have a quick cup of coffee, or plan upcoming club events.
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