How to Leave Your Psychopath by Maddy Anholt

 

Maddy Anholt has been a victim and, ultimately, a survivor of psychological abuse. She has written this book in the hope of reaching people who are caught in a toxic relationship, helping them to identify the symptoms and encouraging them to break free, as she did. It was a long, tortuous road for her but she finally took it and she wants to show that it can be done.

The book is written in plain, easy to read chapters, interspersed with Maddy’s heartbreaking words of her own experiences. The part that saddened me most was the sub-chapter titled, The Art of Normalising.  This is the victim gradually coming to accept as normal lines like:

…’Calm down! I wasn’t angry, just upset! What, I’m not allowed to show my emotions?’

‘You need to rein in your paranoia about me and other women, it’s all in your head.’

‘Yes, I shouted and swore, but you drove me to it. It’s only because I care.’

Under the heading Nature or nurture: Psychopath edition Maddy says researchers at King’s College London Institute of Psychiatry found that MRI scans which cannot tell ‘…the gender, sexuality, geographic origin or race’ of a brain can easily spot the brains of psychopaths. I can remember a discussion with a reading group of the book, Let’s Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, where the general consensus was Kevin was ‘born bad’ and some of us suggested that Kevin’s brain must have looked different to other brains. I hope I’m right in remembering that Kevin’s mother was anti-social and had some unusual impulses which she kept under control as well. Please forgive me if I’ve got that wrong, it was a long time ago.

I hope this book reaches Maddy Anholt’s intended audience. She says: ‘There is no way I would have gulped down some of the abusive behaviour from my Controlls if they had displayed it when we initially met.

This a 5 star read, full of honesty and truth.

I wish for brave Maddy Anholt a long, happy, self-confident and acceptably  normal life.