If your new romantic interest exhibits all or most of the following behaviors, be careful. He or she might be a sociopath.
1. Charisma and charm. They’re smooth talkers, always have an answer, never miss a beat. They seem to be very exciting.
2. Enormous ego. They act like the smartest, richest or most successful people around. They may actually come out and tell you that.
3. Overly attentive. They call, text and e-mail constantly. They want to be with you every moment. They resent time you spend with your family and friends.
4. Jekyll and Hyde personality. One minute they love you; the next minute they hate you. Their personality changes like flipping a switch.
5. Blame others. Nothing is ever their fault. They always have an excuse. Someone else causes their problems.
6. Lies and gaps in the story. You ask questions, and the answers are vague. They tell stupid lies. They tell outrageous lies. They lie when they’d make out better telling the truth.
7. Intense eye contact. Call it the predatory stare. If you get a chill down your spine when they look at you, pay attention.
8. Move fast. They quickly proclaim that you’re their true love and soul mate. They want to move in together or get married quickly.
9. Pity play. They appeal to your sympathy. They want you to feel sorry for their abusive childhood, psychotic ex, incurable disease or financial setbacks.
10. Sexual magnetism. If you feel intense attraction, if your physical relationship is unbelievable, it may be their excess testosterone.
For more on this topic, see Donna Andersen’s book, Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 signs you’re dating a sociopath.
It’s completely normal to feel foolish and embarrassed. Some things were such blatant signs. It’s important to read up on what abuse does to you. It’s important to read about the victim’s profile (read Women who love psychopaths). Read stories from people here. Read interviews by Robert Hare who admits he can still be taken in by a spath. The more you learn, the less you’ll feel like a total fool. It takes a while, but eventually you’ll be able to forgive yourself and see your own mistakes in the proper perspective as well. 🙂
As for the pain. Yes, in order to unravel the pile, you have to re-live the trauma. You have to re-live it because you probably didn’t acknowledge or allow the full pain of the event back in the past. That’s why it’s still on the pile: because the pain of it was sidestepped, sideswept and ignored.
Healing is not a happy-clappy cumbaya process. It’s VERY painful. But you may notice it’ll be some type of a healthy pain. Have you ever had something being wrong with your body that needed to be operated? It probably was a nagging, dulling pain before the operation. After the operation the pain may feel much more acute (you’ve been cut into after all), and yet somehow it feels right? That’s what healing pain is like: it’s cautorizing.
Going through this process will make you very strong also. I know it sounds like a cheap saying: what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. But it’s true. It’s like a war of combat with yourself, but in the end you come out as a victor.
Life isn’t fair and life can at times be very painful. There is no guarantee for any of us that we will never go through something traumatic again. Actually it’s guaranteed that at some point or another in our future life we will be hurting once more. But if you’ve already learned hwo to heal from previous hurtful times, you will be able to get strength out of that past.
I was totally devestated by a loss 11 years ago. I ended up being pre-suicidal over it. And yet I conquered it, healed and knew myself better, loved myself better, accepted myself better, discovered myself better out of it. I knew then that whatever would come next could never truly beat me. 8 years later came the spath. And 2 years later came the discard. And the aftermath of the discard was very ugly: financial trouble, job loss, failed missions and projects… My life came to a complete standstill. Of all that I had worked on in those 8 years barely anythign was left, just small tiny strings. And yet, despite all that, I knew that this time I already knew how to heal myself, how to heal my life. I already had the tools. And I knew that the loss of the spath was but a little blip on the radar in comparison to the loss of 11 years ago.
This may be the toughest healing process you may ever have, but if you allow yourself to relive the pain and heal fully from it, you will gain a knowledge and confidence about yourself that nothing can keep you down. You will be able to rely upon yourself to save, heal and rebuild yourself whatever life may throw on your path again.
Have fun!
KarmaChameleon
Yes, you’ll hear from him again when he needs to feed his ego.
They are not normal. You did the right thing by blocking him.
I’ve been trying to ditch my spath for years, every time I get close, he starts contacting me again. And then I end up replying, and get sucked back in.
So, good job, and thanks for being an inspiration.
Athena
Serenity, I just read more of your posts. I do not hate my spath. I love him. But I know he hates me.
I do everything I can to stay NO CONTACT.
It might help you to watch some spath movies.
The talented Mr. Ripley
Rebecca (alfred hitchcock)
There are a number of them mentioned on this site and you can google more. When you see the movies, you can see your spath in there, and it’s so much easier to make sense of the whole thing.
Remember, if you were with a normal guy, you would not have ended up on this site. PERIOD.
Athena
Thanks everyone, I had a great night with normal couples and it made me feel GOOD to see healthy relationships and learn from them. I woke up this morning feeling better then yesterday and am off to a football game with more normal friends…glitch: Got an instant message on Skype(which he never uses) telling me that “I know you had a good night and have a great rest of the weekend” I’m thinking implying jealousy “assuming” im out moving on with other men (lol not ready for that that’s for sure) I’m thinking he wants me to reply saying I stayed home and was sad over him…didn’t answer and blocked him from skype (I forgot about skype dammit!! lol. ) I think I’m starting to get this now….thanks again to all that are opening my eyes….good idea about the movies Athena I’ll give it a go tonight….
Serenity12, TOWANDA for you!!!!
The most valuable thing that “No Contact” does is to take the control and power OUT of the hands of the spath(s) over our own reactions, and places them firmly back into OUR hands so that we can be PROactive instead of REactive.
Good for you, girl! 😀
You’ll never look at movies in the same light again, serenity!
TOWANDA on you for refraining from responding over Skype and blocking him there too. It says a lot doesn’t it? You blocked him frm your cell, and he must have realized this. You can’t create a clearer silent boundary that speaks, “I don’t want to hear from you,” and what does he do? Seek a door you forgot to lock. It’s a blatant action of not respecting the boundaries you are putting up, no matter “how generous” his message seems to be by content.
I had a set back the last couple of days….I had found out some details regarding another woman he was dating while we were together telling her I am crazy and that I wouldn’t ALLOW them to date and that’s why he can’t see her anymore…the whole time he’s apologizing to me and saying different. I broke down and confronted him and then instead of admitting he’s wrong (I saw the texts) he calls me crazy and says “never contact me again” then I lose the power….
I know contacting him was stupid but I feel like I couldn’t control myself. I for some reason felt that this was PROOF to his face that he was LYING and he STILL couldn’t see it!!
I’m low today, and I feel stupid and powerless. How do I stop caring about this? Obsessing about this? Wanting to contact him to PROVE that I’m right here… Why do I keep wanting to do that? And then I end up feeling powerless….
It’s only been a few weeks since this happened, but I feel I’m having trouble making progress. He was out of my life for 5 whole days and I felt good then I was confronted with these texts from the “other woman” who had no idea about me and we were actually friends on FB and she saw old photo’s of us.
So basically he’s been emailing, calling from other numbers leaving messages about how much he messed up so for some reason I thought confronting him with these lies would cause some remorse…instead it did the opposite. Now I’m the fool.
How do I get through this set back… I want to keep moving forward. I want to go NC but its SO hard and I’m feeling like I have no self control. I want to hear his messages. I’m just being totally honest here….How do you convince yourself not to confront them with yet ANOTHER lie you found out…
I feel stupid and foolish today…
Serenity,
you have to understand the concept of the narcissistic injury. They like to create narcissistic injuries in us, because they are the walking wounded of narcissistic injuries. They want us to feel what they are. We have to refuse. We are not them. We aren’t.
They are not important. Though they’d like us to think that they are because then we feel more pain. It was never anything other than the intent to make us feel that pain by pretending to be someone who MATTERED. They DON’T MATTER. They are fakes, phonies. There is nothing there.
Thanks Skylar, soooo how do you have faith in any mankind? I’ve been questioning everyone…my friends, my father, everyone…is everyone lying? How do you know…and trust?
Serenity,
You did confront him with his lie’s and he turned it around on you and called you crazy. That’s what you will always get from him, lie’s and more lie’s, crazy making lie’s that make you go crazy. He enjoy’s making you feel crazy, that give’s him power. Take back your power and cut him out of your life. No Contact is not a game. It’s all about never ever seeing or talking to him again, zilch, it’s over..Yes it’s hard to do but in time, week’s, months even years from now you will see how crazy this relationship was making you.. This is a life lesson so learn from it..And yes it hurts, but you will be ok..