Is Being Keenly Aware a Blessing or a Curse?

As Fall finally curls her arms around me, I stand and  look down two roads diverging. The first one is paved with hope, the other with knowledge. Which one would you choose? I have walked them both, however seemingly at the same time, in other words, with empirical knowledge that choosing the path of hope will inevitably take me down, I am still compelled to make a choice; stay on this road with hope in my heart, or choose knowledge, and walk away.
My crisis of faith at this moment is in humanity. Let me begin by saying that events I have experienced have led me to be a flame to the moth that is manipulation. Liars, cheaters, users have long been enamoured with my overly empathetic nature; not because they think it's sweet, but because it is obvious to them that I am easily manipulated. So I keep finding myself surrounded by people who continue to disappoint me. And I keep letting them in. And I keep letting them back in.
I recently met a guy in a serious transitional time in my life. My walls were firmly reconstructed and I had no desire to begin taking them down, even one brick at a time. After being completely deconstructed prior to building my wall, I practiced the often difficult task (for me anyway) of taking things slowly in regards to what I believed (there's that hope, again) to be the foundation of friendship. I don't have much to offer in terms of monetary gain, but I am comfortable, I have a home, I'm loyal and smart, and kind. I'm, again, overly empathetic. The guy, however, needed all of these things from me. I gave him my back, my ear, and my advice, the home, however, was a deal breaker. This is my sanctuary and it is a necessary sanctuary at this time in my life. Once I made this declaration, the sweet, early morning "Hi" texts stopped coming. In fact. the texts pretty much stopped coming at all. The great thing about having walked down the path of knowledge before, is that I was only two months invested when I recognized this familiar behavior and put a stop to the so-called friendship once and for all. And this begs my question. Is it better to know that this type of behaviour is detrimental and to be able to recognize it pretty quickly, or is it better to walk down the path of hope, illusion, deception? It almost seems like having this knowledge perpetuates bad behaviour, as if you're looking for trouble. But then, again, in my experience, the trouble has usually already existed for this person long before I came along.
A couple of years ago, I fell in love with a man full of charm, intelligence, and some of the greatest words I've ever read. I came to find later that he was about to be a first time father and that I was not the only one who fell under his spell. His behaviour, the lying, the infidelity, the over-the-top risk taking was extremely perplexing to me, so being the investigator I am, I began the arduous journey of understanding antisocial personality disorder. My lover's behaviour could be explained by almost every hallmark of sociopathy. The advice, everywhere I turned, was to walk away from him, so I tried, but I couldn't. Again, I found myself standing at a fork. I could choose the path of hope and live in the illusion that I could fix him, that he could love me. I could choose to believe his lies, accept his sexual prowess (or pretend it wasn't really happening), listen in ecstasy as the words I wanted to hear flowed from his mouth so eloquently. I could pretend, just like he does, that everything is fine, the way it is supposed to be...or, I could choose the path of knowledge, my knowledge. I could take what I had learned and use it to my advantage. I could take away from him only the good parts of his personality, and live in the knowledge that this man I loved was suffering a plethora of pain from having been abandoned at birth, raised in a family full of abandoned children, adopted by his foster parents, a house full of the sorrow ancillary to being given away by one's own mother. I could stay on this path and know to the very core of my soul that his promises were empty, his words lies, his passion for me shared with many other women, including, but most certainly not limited to the mother of his child, with whom he lived. I could utilize what I had learned when discovering that he had been arrested, with incident, yet again, for shoplifting. Hearing this news from my friends, reading the crime blotter didn't shock me, for I knew that shoplifting, for him, was all about the adrenaline infiltrating his brain as he submerged himself in risk. I could accept that what we had was simply a love affair, that he would never leave her, that he would come to me in the early morning hours of winter, in the dark, slip naked under my covers, kiss me, get what he came for (pun intended), and leave, leaving me unsatisfied, but that's okay, because he's sick, sick from being abandoned, sick from his adolescent environment, and I love him.
The conundrum I contemplate comes from this knowledge. Is it better to know that everything he's saying is for his benefit, not mine? Is it better to know that those words are being spoken because he knows that that is what I want to hear and if he tells me what I want to hear, he will get what he wants from me? Is it better to fully reconcile that I am just a name on a list, that there are several others, just like me? Well, to say the least, this is what I did. About eight months into the relationship, we had a conversation regarding his sociopathy. Now, I have heard that once a sociopath is confronted with his "victim's" knowledge, he will end the affair, but that's not what happened with my lover. He was wounded, albeit temporarily, and we continued our affair for another year and a half. The bad thing about sharing my thoughts with him was that he, too, knew fully that I understood his personality and therefor it was my duty, if you will, to accept his behaviour without question. Perhaps I should have kept my knowledge to myself. And every time he said something to me, I had to take the time to process in my head that it was most likely a lie. He still told me all the things I wanted to hear, but because I understood his behaviour, I was filled with doubt, rather than just believing him and living under his umbrella of illusion. Let me tell you, being in love with an illusion while knowing it is just that, an illusion, is only a little less confusing than believing the illusion all together. 
I have no ill will towards my sociopath. He taught me so much about humanity, people, personality, behaviour. He assisted me in coming to terms with who I am and why I display my own sometimes erratic behaviour. Because of him, I realize that I am who I am because of my father and my own adolescent environment and that has helped me heal some very old wounds. It has, however, led to me to a place of ambivalence. I question everyone I know, and observe their behaviour, to recognize that what they do is who they are, which brings me back to now and my friend who in the beginning was so sweet and kind and messaged me everyday until I told him that I could not allow him to move into my house.
So, here I sit, still believing in hope, standing at the precipice of decisions I don't want to make, with knowledge I don't want to have and a weight in my heart that is often too heavy to bear. After everything I learned from my sociopath, I am still inclined to choose the path of hope, but because of him, I cannot. Knowing him has made me abandon all hope, as if I am traversing deeply into Dante's circles of hell. I can't seem to answer the question of whether or not it is better to pay more attention to behaviour than words, to doubt everyone, to go through life sans hope in humanity, the very same people that inhabit this earth with me. It is hard to live without hope. Hopelessness begets suicidality. Ask any survivor, they will tell you that they felt completely hopeless when they made their attempt.
So, again, I ask...is being keenly aware of the dastardly deeds humans perpetrate upon each other a blessing...or a curse?

-Deannalynn Arzola