Heroin and oxycontin belong to a class of drugs called opiates. Lovefraud recently received a letter from a reader that raised the issue of heroin addiction in sociopaths: For nearly two years after my relationship with him ended, I was on the web researching heroin addiction because I assumed this was where all of his abusive behavior came from, but I stumbled upon information on sociopaths, and realized that he fits every trait”¦I know substance abuse behavior can mimic sociopathic behavior, but it is clear that the man I was in a relationship with is a sociopath, and was able to use his addiction as an explanation and excuse to further manipulate the many people who offered help to him”¦ …
The Borderland of Narcissism and Sociopathy
In a prior post, I discussed some differences between the narcissist and sociopath, a focus I'd like to continue in this post. For convenience's sake, I'm going to use “he” and “him” throughout, although we can agree that “she” and “her” could easily be substituted. The narcissist, if I were to boil his style down to one sentence, is someone who demands that his sense of self (and self-importance) be propped-up on a continual basis. Without this support—in the form of validation, recognition, and experiences of idealization—the narcissist feels depleted, empty, depressed. The narcissist struggles to define himself independently and sustainedly as significant and worthwhile. The fragilit …
Love, sex, your brain and sociopaths
Ever since the beginning of recorded history, humans have been trying to understand and explain the mysteries of love and sex. Over the past few decades, scientists started using specialized equipment to measure physical arousal by attaching devices to private parts. More recently, they've been observing the most important romantic organ in the human body—the brain. Forbes wrote about the research of Andreas Bartels, Ph.D., at the Imperial College of London. Bartels used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, which can capture images of brain activity, to pinpoint the areas of the brain that are activated by love. Bartles did a study of 17 people who were madly in l …
RESOURCE PERSPECTIVES: Online predators aren’t who they say they are
Editor's Note: Lovefraud's Resource Perspectives features articles written by members of Lovefraud's Professional Resources Guide. They Aren't Who They Say They Are By Skipp Porteous, Sherlock Investigations Skipp Porteus profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide People contact Sherlock Investigations every week that have been taken by someone they met online. To make matters worse, the perpetrators die off before the benefactors even realize that they've been had. We've all heard of the Nigerian scams. (It's amazing how many people still fall for them.) They contact you by email claiming to be the wife, husband, son, or daughter of someone who had control of a lot …
RESOURCE PERSPECTIVES: Online predators aren’t who they say they areRead More
A guidebook for recovering from the devastation of a sociopath
I clearly remember the shock of realizing that everything my ex-husband, James Montgomery, had ever told me was a lie. I remember the devastation of discovering the truth: His entire purpose in marrying me was to get a free place to live, take advantage of my good reputation and defraud me of my assets. All the promises, all the assurances, were literally sweet nothings. They sounded good, and meant absolutely nothing. I remember being paralyzed by my new truth. How could I possibly plan a recovery for my life, when every day I was falling apart? Worse, no one seemed to have an explanation for what happened, or advice on how to handle it. It's been 10 years since I left my ex-husband. …
A guidebook for recovering from the devastation of a sociopathRead More
After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 4-Bargaining
If there is a single category of memories that still can make me squirm, it is the remembrance of what I did to make my sociopath love me. And what I did simply to keep him from hurting me. And what I did to try to understand the things I must have done wrong, because he didn't love me. And all the ways I pretzel-twisted my brain to excuse him for his lies, deception, disrespect and greed. The topic of this article is the next phase of healing from a sociopathic relationship: bargaining. We are in the process of healing from the moment we sustain any emotional trauma. Relationships with sociopaths typically involve many traumatic events, both large and small. Some of these events are the …
After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 4-BargainingRead More
Why I say “Bad Man”
By AlohaTraveler It took me a long time to clearly define that what the Bad Man was doing to me was... bad. Plain and simple, it was bad for me. Never mind if he was working through pain, never mind if he had suffered many losses or had an unfortunate childhood. Never mind. He's a grown man. He was treating me in a way that I can only define as very bad for me no matter what his issues were. Really, it was unacceptable but at the time, I did not have clear boundaries as to what kind of treatment I would accept for myself before I would draw a line in the sand and say, “No more!” There were lots of excuses he made up and to be honest, there were lots of excuses I made up to try to exp …
The “feel” of a sociopath
I recently had clinical contact with a client who left me with the unusually strong, immediate impression of “schemer,” “slick,” “full of crap.” He was instantly, aggressively ingratiating—less, I felt, from insecurity, as from ulterior motives, as if he were angling, at the outset, for an edge. I had the uncomfortable feeling I get around intrusive salesmen who leave you feeling like an “object” from whom to extract a sale and commission. I should mention that he was glib. Glibness is a trait often associated with certain sociopaths. My client was so glib, as a matter of fact, that for the first time in a long while the word “glib” actually popped into my head. When I say “glib,” I d …
Update from Gem, daughter of imprisoned con artist
I just received this from Gem (see Realities only family members know) so I thought I would pass it along. You can see how wise a resilient young lady can be and what it takes to cope with a sociopath father. I just received a new letter from my dad, I thought I would share it with you... and you are welcome to use anything from this letter for blogging purposes or anything else. " Dear _______(My sweetheart), How are you G- Boy do I miss you! How is your big senior year going. Hang in there you are almost there. I want to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day. You are, and always will be my sweetheart. I love you. I pray for you daily, never missed a day since September 5th. Hang in there, …
Are We There Yet?
By OxDrover I remember when I was a little kid, driving with my parents, sitting in the back seat sans seatbelt (there were no such things in those days) and leaning over the front seat, repeatedly asking my parents, “Are we there yet?” or “How long til we get there?” Of course there had been no reasonable way for my parents to convey to me “how long” since I didn't tell time when I was four, so there was no use saying “one hour” because I wouldn't be able to comprehend what an “hour” was. Time is sort of fluid anyway, relative to what is going on. If you are bored, an hour is forever. If you are interested in something, an hour is very short. To a bored child in the back seat of a car, …