Imagine suspecting your gf has been seduced by your high-functioning sociopath of a stepfather. Cue the dismantling of all self-esteem and sense of truth/reality.

Throwaway for obvious reasons, and warning: this is a lengthy post.

In order to get the best help I can, I'll be brutally honest (because I could just be psychotic). You can skip the next paragraph but I believe it is pertinent to determining my situation. It is also important to mention that prior to the events of this particular situation I had no history of psychosis, and while I had trust issues, I was still a rational person. For example, it was only until I discovered actual text messages that I began legitimately suspecting a previous partner of cheating.

I suffer from cPTSD. I was consistently sexually abused as a child and thrown into pit fights as sport for my father. After my mother got custody of us, that household wasn't nearly as abusive but she was pretty neglectful and ironically sometimes paid older kids to "toughen me up". I've always been a pretty smart person, excelling at logic and having quite the imagination. My IQ is minimally 120 (it's a nuance subject as stress can cause me to freeze up/disassociate which lowers it). I even attended a school for the gifted for a short period despite always getting into trouble and fights. Growing up in an abusive household and with the mother I had, I developed a very keen sense of emotional intelligence. I was overweight most of my youth which contributed to a low self esteem and didn't have a proper gf until I was 18. My most recent relationship, before dating the girl in this post, I believe I was cheated on which lead me to TRP (I found explicit text messages between her and a guy that she ended up visiting while on a birthday vacation).

Now fast forward to early last year. I started working hard on myself and was beginning to get in shape. I met this girl (let's call her Stephanie) on Tinder who immediately upon arriving at my place I felt like she was way out of my league but, hey, I still smashed. The Sex God Method must've gotten her hooked because she down to hang out wherever, whenever - in her words," That was the most sexually free I've felt ever..." - but there was always this vibe like she wasn't actually that physically attracted to me. You guys know what I mean, not too into kissing, etc. But I didn't blame her because I was still pretty overweight. We started seeing each other more frequently. Stephanie was the most attractive girl I had ever been with and also the biggest freak - we would fuck in public places, she was down to do whatever, and I can't stress how much this girl seemed to LOVE making me cum. She would get aggressively excited whenever I'd bust a nut.

However as time went on perhaps I exhibited more beta qualities and my insecurities showed through my questioning. I don't have much to be proud of other than surviving the shitty life I've had, so it's easy to be insecure (still living with parents, had a shitty car, no college degree, ok paying job). I believe because of this her flirty side started to come out more and more. There was a post on askTRP that pretty much describes her to a tee. 12 out of 14 slutty qualities. The fucked up thing is I believe what started out as light flirting, got pushed to actual sex at some point due to my insecurities.

The Red Flags (or Psychosis?)

-My stepdad (lets call him Ace) exchanges emails with her after hearing her voice as they are both are aspiring musicians.

-When she would come over she seemed more interested/excited to see my stepdad than me.

-I catch her taking selfies and then checking her phone for replies. After questioning her, she says," What? You think I'm over here sending dirty pics to your daddy?" She later denies ever saying this.

-Once I was convinced she was lying and tried to break it off, she got physically abusive punching me in the head.

-We broke up once and after getting back together, I literally caught her in the act of deleting text messages and gaslighting me about them. I think this act hurt my trust in her more than anything which was the beginning of the end.

-She would call me names like "little dick" and then say she was saying something else like," little daddy." Which wouldn't make sense as I'm above average. However, according to my mother, Ace is the biggest she's ever been with.

-She would openly flirt and display her body in overtly sexual ways and then tell me it was all in my head. For example bending completely over a counter while in leggings, and there's a line full of men behind her, to 'point something out to the cashier'.

-Any questioning usually lead to her impulsively breaking up with me and stonewalling me.

-She told me she used to sleep with her track coach in highschool. When I asked about her boyfriend (who was also overweight) at the time, she said she would break up so she can cheat on him. She later denies saying this. I think it was a stress induced slip up.

-She told me that she learned at a young age how to navigate men, in particular after she caught her aunt blowing her dad. She also says her mother was abusive and paranoid, accusing her of sleeping with her mother's bfs.

-When I'd invite her to a retreat at an Airbnb, she was always paranoid my stepdad would be waiting for her there. (Perhaps due to fear of being outed?)

-One night while on molly, she let it slip that she was "Tired of fucking Ace." I could potentially be taking this out of context.

-She always suspected me of cheating even after I opened up the relationship.

-Once I picked her up from a friend's and she smelled like sex. This was after we argued and she needed to 'cool off'.

And finally the BIG ONE...

One day the three of us (ex, stepdad, and I) are hanging out at the house while my mother's out running errands. Him and I are playing video games together online in separate, but connected rooms in the house. For starters, she gets a text and kind of endearingly shouts," Awwwww...." and I hear him from the other room say," That's you. (?)" Following that, Stephanie begins singing songs out loud which over 90% of the lyrics are about being 'the other woman' and infidelity. Lyrics such as," I know you got a wife but you really love me..." "We only see each other once a week but I think about it all the time" and one in particular that always stuck with me that had a repeated chorus like," You got your ho, I got my bitch..." I look at her during that song and she excitedly goes," Hi baby!" in a tone like I just caught her and she is trying to cover it up - similar to that one Key and Peele skit where he is telling a story about calling his wife a bitch but their wives keep interrupting. After she's done singing (and I keep catching her glancing in his direction while doing so) she says to me," Why have you been ignoring me, I've been serenading you this whole time Ace." My heart sank and I started to disassociate. She then freaks out and says she said his name on accident she'll break up with me if I start accusing her again.

Things ended permanent between us a couple of days before her first big performance (on let's just says Oct 22nd, this is important later). It's obvious that my ex was at the least AWALT and a little manipulative, it's just to what extent my paranoia was just being fueled and to what extent she's actually fucking around. You may ask yourself ok what evidence do you have to support your stepfather being involved?

This is where I start to seem crazy, and it's where I genuinely can't decide for myself what's real or imagined. I don't trust my stepfather. He's closer in age to me than my mother. They met online and he quickly moved in, and in general she's always been the breadwinner. He's the aspiring artist type and she makes six figures a year. He's worked basically a minimum wage job since the beginning of time - however apparently he's genius and used to travel the world as a photography prodigy, going to school in Greece and shit. (I learned that last bit from a phone conversation he had to have on speaker phone while my ex was over) The dude has an impeccable memory and an uncanny stare. I truly believe he is a high-functioning sociopath and literally no one suspects a thing but me. He first met my ex when my dumbass took her to a musical performance of his. A big thing I struggle with is whether or not everything is coincidence or if he is intelligently fucking with me through innuendo.

Red Flags (or Psychosis?)

-He's always seemed a little 'off' to me, told me stories of how he would get paid to carry out burglary/rape fantasies and shit

-He admitted to getting off to dumb fuckery, like fucking with his old roommates toothbrush

-He comes off as sort of introverted, almost meek...but the thing is he never, and I mean never displays any weakness and I've never seen him cry in the 10 or so years he's been with my mom

-He never loses his cool, you never see him angry or anything which is astonishing as my mother is often an emotional typhoon

-He abandoned my mom's ass at an airport for 4 days, after convincing her to move out of state with him, and them struggling to make ends meet. She moved back in state and lived with me for a little while, suicidal. It took my grandparents to lift her back up. They later got back together when she landed a decent paying gig

-He works security despite being 120lbs soaking wet and having no martial training. Despite this he has no fear for physical encounters.

-He was already caught 'emotionally cheating' on my mom when she discovered that he had gone to a concert with a female friend of theirs behind her back. Having a RP education, I suspect it was more than that for a few reasons:

a) They are two attractive adults

b) The friend clearly idolized him as a person and musician

c) She is promiscuous as I made out with her and had her exclaiming how much she wanted to fuck me, despite her being married

d) They hung out in secret behind my mother's back

e) My mom would've never found out had she not done some NSA level spy shit

-After being caught he still managed to convince my mom she was in the wrong

-His lyrical content talks about charming people while essentially being Machiavellian

-My mom 'used to think his lyrics were about another woman'

-I think he intentionally gives bad advice and wallows in you coming back to him with your problems

-I also think he gets off on seeing people uncomfortable for example...

a) I sometimes get anxious from smoking weed and he seemed to enjoy making wide eyed faces at me immediately after smoking (similar to fucking with people who are tripping)

b) One time I was having an extremely anxious comedown from cocaine. I had just got done hanging out all night with a friend who had a role of leadership in the nearby gang. My dumbass (fresh out of reading RP and thinking I'm holding frame) is convincing the guy that I'm in another gang as well. The following morning I'm extremely anxious, haven't slept yet, and telling Ace about it. Next thing I know he's on the phone in earshot talking about how," People get shot all the time for pretending to be in gangs."

And finally the BIG ONE...

Remember I said it seemed like he would use innuendo to fuck with me? The first time my ex and I broke up, it was a whole fiasco. I thought she was at the very least exchanging nudes with my stepfather and at worst had already slept with him. It got brought out into the open with my family and she's going off with fake tears and everything. We broke up the next day. I'm talking to my mom and Ace about it and he makes comments like," That's what she gets for showing her ass." (Double meaning, could mean acting up, could be innuendo about her sending him nudes.) And he says to me," I'll only fuck with her as long as you do." Maybe a few days after my stepdad is telling me about a show he was working security for, exclaiming how he hates rap nowadays. The lyrics he used were," I fucked your bitch she sucked my dick. I fucked your bitch she sucked my dick." There's other coincidences as well, such as him always being called into work or running errands at times I know her brother is at church (thus she can sneak someone over for a couple of hours). There's also him suddenly deciding to take a single class at the nearby college. My ex was always busy on the same days he had class and she used to be very attentive to her phone, but I stopped getting responses when he wasn't home. We spoke for the last time a couple of days before her Oct 22nd performance. Guess who was looking fly as fuck that night and apparently had 'an event' to go to? Wasn't me. Things got so bad that I ended up having to move out and get my own place (which I planned on anyways but this process was expedited). Then the first night I spend in over two weeks, the following morning is met with him blasting a song on repeat who's chorus goes," She think I'm famous so she sucking on my anus."

After the breakup - I was an emotional wreck. I felt suicidal. I was consistently questioning my reality. Shit gets pretty bad when you feel like you can't trust yourself. Depression is like you're literally mentally dying similar to how a dying animal just wants to crawl into a dark space and fall into permanent slumber. I'm not looking for pity, this was just my reality.

So where are we present day? That was over half a year ago. In this moment, right now I'm fine. This is the first time I've put this much energy into this whole scenario in months (I believe it's healthy for me to get it out into text, at least I'll have something to look back on and realize how crazy I sound or something). I'm working three jobs, still working out, and I meditate every morning (which has helped tremendously with my emotional regulation and negative thoughts). I spend a great deal of time with my siblings and practice gaming women nearly every day. I even was going to therapy for a few months until it got too expensive. Things are starting to look hopeful. I'm slowly climbing out of debt and am going to work on a savings and getting back into school to work towards a future.

It's just that I can't help sometimes but think about my stepdad and wonder if here I am treating a man, who tries so much to connect with me, like shit. I can't help but feel guilty about it. What if he doesn't deserve any of this? He cooks for the family all the time. He's emotionally supportive of my mother, and he tries to relate to me. He tries talking about movies, comics, and games with me. He tries to joke around with me - but I can't trust him. I stonewall every attempt. My therapist told me it sounds like I don't trust who he is as an individual to his core, so I should avoid being around him, but I can't stand being away from my family and I CAN'T STAND TREATING SOMEONE LIKE THIS WHO DOESN'T DESERVE IT. It's like I want to support him and I want us to be a happy family but whenever I start to feel vulnerable my mind just goes back to what I perceive as manipulation and I feel unsafe. If I'm wrong, it's not fair to him. It's not fair to my mom or my family. Maybe it's the meditation so I'm able to regulate my thoughts and feelings better. Maybe it's him trying to earn my trust again, but I haven't felt like he's done any innuendo bullshit for months now.

I bring this to you guys because I desperately need help moving forward. You guys understand the true nature of women and sexual dynamics. You guys also can maybe tell me if this manipulation through innuendo actually sounds like something high-functioning people do. As mentioned earlier I'm already lifting, working my ass off, and meditating every morning. I can't afford more therapy so that's out of the question for now. I just need your guys' opinions. What would you do in my situation? Sometimes I feel like I'm beyond help like I'm too damaged.

EDIT: Just found a blank sheet music notebook Ace got me for Christmas. It took me until just now to notice he scribbled "It's all moving in symphony" on the very last page. We aren't on talking terms. He knows I don't trust him and he writes that - what could it mean?