15 typical crises sociopaths create in our lives — and how to start your recovery

Sociopaths can drain us of everything we’ve got. By the time many of us understand that we’re dealing with a human predator, we look around and realize that we are depleted in many areas of our lives.

Here are 15 typical crises caused by sociopaths:

1. Our money is gone.
2. We are heavily in debt and our credit is gone.
3. Our housing situation is perilous — we are homeless, in danger of becoming homeless, or stuck living with the sociopath.
4. We don’t have reliable transportation.
5. We’re not working — the sociopath promised to support us, or we’re working for the sociopath, or we are so stressed that we can’t work.
6. We’ve been isolated from family and friends.
7. The sociopath has been spreading rumors about us, so our reputation is trashed.
8. We are anxious, depressed or traumatized.
9. We are physically ill from the stress. We’ve come down with fibromyalgia or some other autoimmune disease, or even cancer.
10. We’ve contracted a sexually transmitted disease from the sociopath.
11. If we have children with the sociopath, they are also traumatized, or the sociopath is threatening to take them away.
12. The sociopath has gotten us arrested — probably for something we didn’t do.
13. If we’re in court, for a divorce or some other claim, the sociopath is lying and pulling out all the stops in order to win the battle.
14. We’ve lost our faith in God or our higher power.
15. We’ve lost our faith in ourselves. In fact, we don’t recognize ourselves.

Any one of these crises would be bad. But when we’re involved with a sociopath, usually we are facing many of them at once. So what do you do? How do you begin to recover?

Two steps forward to start your recovery

I believe you start with two critical steps:

1 . Recognize what you are dealing with.

The person is a sociopath — educate yourself about what that means. They are exploiters. Human predators. You’ve been confused by the lying, demands and attacks — but that’s what sociopaths do. He or she is disordered and will not change.

2. Begin to disengage emotionally.

The sociopath played on your love, concern and sympathy, in order to control you emotionally. You, as a normal human being, tried to be understanding. But no matter what he or she has told you, it’s not your fault. Nothing you could have done would have made the sociopath treat you any better.

No matter what daunting practical matters you face — like leaving, finding a place to live or getting a job — the initial steps to recovery are internal. You need to see clearly what the sociopath is all about, and internalize the fact that you deserve better.

From this mindset, you can begin to rebuild your life.

To help you, Lovefraud is offering a terrific webinar by Mandy Friedman, LPCC, CCDVC. She is a terrific clinician, who developed a program called Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse and Exploitative/Toxic Personalities (SNAP). She offers the program in person in Ohio, and is now making the information available on Lovefraud.

Start Your Recovery from Emotional and Psychological Abuse
September 19, 2019 • 8-9:30 pm ET

Highlights

• Tools for navigating toxic people
• How Complex PTSD affects recovery
• The importance of self-care
• How shame affects recovery
• Implementing personal boundaries
• Identifying healthy people and healthy relationships

Sign up today!

Start Your Recovery from Emotional and Psychological Abuse