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.
Mine kept some trophies, too. They are collectors of persons and they keep souvenirs from them.
Thank god they were just objects because he said several times he liked my skin very much.
Eva:
Ooooo, scary. Wasn’t there a movie like that…Silence of the Lambs where that guy skinned his victims??
eb 🙂 I’m joking. I mean they’re absolute collectors of people but they’re also functioning psychopaths, they know they can’t kill anybody no matter how much they could like any part of victims body. That’s why they keep satisfied with trophy objects.
Eva:
Haha! Silly me 😉
eb, but of course who writes that type of scripts: spoorloos, silence of the lambs, unlawful entry, pacific hights, talented mr ripley, etc knows psychopathy.
Just stopping by with my morning coffee – busy day going on with me today, for a good majority of the day. Today is my counseling appointment. I have TWO counselors. Yes, at a time. 🙂 It’s usually an all day ‘ordeal’ and today I have more than A LOT to talk about —-
All of YOU and the direction I have found here will be a HUGE focus for me. After four years of counseling, I found what I needed to ‘settle’ my conscious, right here, on these pages, with all of you. I thank you for steering me in the right direction…every single last one of you…
Has anyone done like me? I have read this entire site and it is dead on. I could have prayed for the rest of my natural life and never have found a blessing as pertinent as this site has been. My counseling appointment usually lasts an hour, today, probably two.
Yes, they keep trophies – most of the time, it’s the relationship. They cling so that have something more to use a leverage on their next victims.
Have a happy, peaceful, intelligent kind of day, folks and remember who you are dealing with when you consider opening that door and letting them near you. Everytime you are ‘nice’ and try ‘working it out’ they see that as an approval for continued mistreatment. That solidifies their horrid treatment because ‘you want it’. That is how their mind works.
I will be back later, after my counseling day and do a little ‘show and tell’. 🙂
mwahhh!! xxoo
The birds weren’t singing this morning as we have an ocean fog…they don’t like to sing when there is that ocean fog! But, yes, the ‘inspiration’ has even grown a little this morning, eb….I wish I could put it in a bottle and send you all a little drop of it!
Happy morning to you all.
Continue this discussion later today.
Peace.
Duped, Hope you have a great session, today!!!!
i agree with you, that I WILL NOT waste one more minute trying to figure out the spath!!! I will not waste one more tear!!!!
So many here are stuck in the rumination stage. It’s crazy making and exhausting….but it does seem to be a natural and necissary part of the process!! But it just goes to show that even after they are gone, It’s still all about them. Our focus is still being hi-jacked by these emotional parasites.
Toward the end of my own rumination stage, I learned to stop it by saying to myself, something like, “What he meant by that is none of my business’ or “why he did that is none of my business,” or what he thinks about me is none of my business. Then I would follow that up by redirecting my attention to myself. I would say, “Why I do what i do, IS my business, or What i think of him, is my business.
There are some things we neither can nor will ever know. Accepting that is freeing. Hope this helps a little.
You know what? I didn’t tell the truth in my post above. i probably will spend more minutes and hours analyzing him (I’m here aren’t I?) but not in the same obsessive way that I used to. Now I do it objectively…I observe….I”m not emotionally attached to it…..Kind of like a scientific study….I will be rational and not emotional and i won’t take it personally, because what they do is all about them. It’s important to let go of the idea that I ever could have had any control over any of it. Today I try to be only responsible for my own stuff, and for what i can control.
Sometimes, I think ruminating is still a search for what i could have done differently, and that is a by-product of denial, and bargaining, and a desire for control.
Just my 2 cents.
Kim, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t fully agree.
We, as survivors, do not just need to get over a bad break-up, not just over a bad relationship either, but over the shock that years of past reality have to be rewritten into the truth.
Finding closure is about putting the past into perspective. You cannot put a detailed, but frauduous, relationship into perspective just by saying, “all what I believed to be real was fake.” That’s just the first step. The second step is putting the detailed events into perspective and a new reality. That’s why I suddenly memories of seeming insignificant events back then pop up… and now they make absolute sense to me. The discovery of that sometimes hurts, sometimes gets me real angry… but it also lifts the FOG. It makes me recognize how I actually felt at the time, and I’m immediately incorporating it as a lesson in my present life.
So, for a big part, the ruminating for me has to do with solving the cognitive dissonance…But I agree that we also should tell ourselves: enough for the moment! I’m gonna shine my sink!
Our ruminations are a symptom which comes from the chemicals in our brains. When we were coming through our abuse, no matter what form or scenario it might be, which is individual to each of us, it releases chemicals in the brain that the body automatically releases as a drug.
Once we end contact with the spath and are completely reassured, within ourselves, that it is OVER and we are NOT going back, and we stand our ground and make progress in eliminating all of that stress and ‘trauma’ we have dealt with, once we find that ‘peaceful’ spot and see US again, and not the spath, those chemicals start to slow down and try to go back to normal within us.
Most of our symptoms are from chemicals being released into our system by the mere DEALING with spath and after it is over, those chemicals try returning to normal levels, which is whatever that level is for you or I, or anyone else.
Once you recognize this, it makes a HUGE difference and we tend to recognize ourselves a little better.
Yes, we never truly ‘get over it’ we just learn how to reprocess it differently, within us.
I hope this helps, kim – I have been in therapy a long time and am starting to feel like a phsycologist and have been actually PROPOSED the idea. hahahahahaha
No thank you, with no offense to the sufferer, I have had enough of this phase of my life. Don’t have much left now, time to hone it in and be selfish. Can I take all you with me? 🙂
Yes, we will rant about this, just like THEY had their own rants. Doesn’t THAT look familiar?!
To those of you who are having a horrid, horrid, horrid, time with PTSD and your life is a daily uphevil, try some meditation exercises. Force yourself to change ONE THING about the duldrum you have your life set in right this moment. Just change ONE thing in your routine. When you are doing this one thing….don’t pay attention to it at first; FORCE YOURSELF TO DO IT. It could be: going out on the porch for sun; making a coffee, sitting and TRULY enjoying it; call up an old friend and renew those ties…JUST ONE THING and everyday until you get comfortable with that…
And your garden will flourish and grow.
But you MUST try…if you don’t, you will be just like them and they win and they know this. Does that help?
I mean, they consciously KNOW that right now you are sitting there, pining over them and they are loving it, even though NC. Get it? They have stepped into your mind. THAT is the mark of a psychopath, My Darlings. Resist it; fight it and you will win. They will never forget you. Trust this.
Kind of like, once you realize it, it helps. 🙂
Okay, so my ruminating spathinators, this is your mission, should you decide to accept it:
CHANGE ONE THING IN YOUR PATTERN TODAY THAT WILL ALLOW THE SUNSHINE TO COME INTO YOUR LIFE AND IT IS OKAY IF YOU ENJOY IT AND IT MAKES YOU CRY….CRY ALL THOSE TEARS OUT UNTIL THERE ARENT ANY AND THEN GO BUY SOME PEPPER SPRAY!
mwahhhhhhhh!
xxoo
Off to my shrink appointment, which actually, SPATH should be paying for. 😉
DUPED