Hi Cosmic Wonder!

Don't feel bad about it, everyone is responsible for their own actions. Could be those on top don't have the same pressure as the bosses crowded in the middle with pressure coming from the top and under causing them more stress, and you know how we all get under stress, not very nice.

There are lots of psychopaths and narcissists who seek and get jobs with power as someone else who is more kind find it difficult to make those tough decisions, don't even seek it. However, it could be just those others who would be perfect for the job.

In the end you know you acted out of ignorance, not knowing what that person or people would do once they were in a position of power, you only thought the best would come out of it. It would be different if you knew and still did it - gave them power. So give yourself a break, LOL.

I'm glad you have some distance to it now, and that you feel better about yourself.

As for me I have this ridiculous fear of social media and having my names on things. It is the result after coming out of a failed relationship with a psychopath- a very long time ago, I might add (embarrasing...). I'm gonna save this forum from all the stuff he did while and after coming out of the relationship, haven't written half of it. I know if he would have wanted contact with me he would find me, but still - it is just that with me - social media and other people, especially his or our people back then that he filled up with stories, lies, to contact me. He knew I did not want any contact with him and so he did it through them instead.

He was someone born into power and wanted power.

This guy could only function on the surface, so "love" for him was attraction, he only had then attraction for me, on the surface and it was over superficial reasons. He could not go deeper like normal minded people naturally do sooner or later, he wasn't real like that. Attraction is as close as I could describe the word even if I don't think that is attraction how a normal person sees, feels it. He would copy cat beautiful words spoken by real men but it was as if lines from a movie, they weren't real. There are those who like to live life and have relationships superficial and it is better then they find each other and stop taken advantage of others for their own sick gains.

I ended up with panic attacks when coming out of the relationship, never had those before. All that fear bottled up from the mental abuse that came to surface once I was able to get away, if only just a little bit, before I had arranged for a better plan.

I would not have known he was a psychopath if I had not seen a psychiatrist, I was worried of my state of mind, of what was happening to me. Turns out it wasn't me, I was only a victim of mental abuse. It's important to get help in these kind of situations.

I also went "no contact"- technique regarding him and his/our/what I thought were mine, LOL-people. This to not trigger, feed what he was up to.

My one and only mistake was years after the break up after having gone no contact that I met someone for only few hours from our old group and even if I had specifically asked that he would not be around and he was not - still after that - the whole circus began again, as if it had just been yesterday. I could not believe it. So I think that is too where my fear originates from. So that plus with the no-contact I never got it out of my system what I really thought about him and what he had done. But it was better that way, I know. Just to be free from him and his allies.

Once I began to listen to the voice within I again found my strenght and clarity, focus. The others were still caught in the fog. But I was out. And it was a great feeling.

I am sure those attracted to power for the wrong reasons, if let's say a woman who held on tight to those material things would have stayed longer with someone like him. Could too be she would not be into materialism but simply be in a vulnerable financial situation or worst part ever - be connected through a child or children. But those material and "power" things did nothing for me. Had not worked before. Was not working under. And definitely not after. And I set myself free.

Just know it is not your fault that this has happened.I'm happy you feel you have grown from it. Maybe that is what the lesson is about, that you are there to help those in need from being badly treated? And as soon as you figured it out you started doing that?