How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Letters to Lovefraud: The coldest man I’ve ever known

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Editor's note: The following story was submitted by a Lovefraud reader whom we'll call “Marsha.” I just wanted to write and share my story. I did some research on all the characteristics of what makes someone a sociopath. My father is a psychologist and knew my situation. He had mentioned the concept that my ex-fiancé was a sociopath after everything that happened to me and I didn't think to ask him more about what that meant. After exploring this site with the symptoms, I realized that my dad was 100 percent right. Here's my story: When I met my ex-fiancé, it was through a mutual friend. He was charming, funny and seemed to be very witty and smart. He displayed himself as a go-getter, …

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Life is different than I wished, but now I accept what is

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By Ox Drover I've been on the “Road to Healing” for a couple of years now, working on getting over the worst of the grief of my losses. According to the author of Overcoming the Devastation of Legal Abuse Syndrome, Karin Huffer, M.S., M.F.T, the greatest loss known to human kind is loss by deception. I have surely suffered PTSD from the extreme losses by deception that I have suffered. Ms. Huffer outlines eight steps to recovery for her LAS (Legal Abuse Syndrome), which she shows as caused by the legal abuse that our unfair judicial system heaps upon the heads of those already abused by others. Her eight steps for recovery are basically the recovery from the grief of our losses that we …

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Psychopaths and predatory memory

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When I was married to James Montgomery, who I believe is a psychopath, we once attended a local trade show together. We ran into a woman whom I didn't know at all and James barely knew. After about one minute of conversation, James started offering to help her with some project that she was working on. “What did you do that for?” I asked James after we continued on our way. “What?” “Offer to help that woman. You hardly know her.” “Do you know who she's married to?” James asked. It was a man that he believed could possibly be useful to his plans. Psychopaths are always on the lookout for people they might be able to manipulate. A study published last year by Canadian …

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SSSP meeting highlights: The psychopath’s inability to love

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This week “Sarah” commenting on Lovefraud wrote: What is the biggest difference between Narcissists/Psychopaths/Sociopaths and us? The ability to love! What is one of the over-riding characteristics of the N/P/S? They are they are extremely jealous & envious and must WIN! We have something they will never have . . i.e., the ability to love. In the Mask of Sanity, the first book to describe psychopathy, Hervey Cleckley wrote: The psychopath seldom shows anything that, if the chief facts were known, would pass even in the eyes of lay observers as object love”¦ In a sense, it is absurd to maintain that the psychopath's incapacity for object love is absolute, that is, to say he is …

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The pathological self-confidence of the sociopath

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Pathologically self-centered individuals, such as sociopaths or narcissists, often project a level of self-confidence that is pathlogically tremendous. This can be a problem for others who, unlike the sociopath, will be prone to empathy and self-reflection, along with which come self-doubt and hence fluctuating, less dependable levels of confidence. But the pathologically self-centered individual is often seemingly immune to self-doubt and can thus seem implacably, impressively confident. Why? The answer is suprisingly simple: When your interest in others is principally, if not entirely, about what you can get, or take, from them; when you lack the capacity for, and/or inclination to, …

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What works when dealing with a sociopath?

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Lovefraud recently received the letter below from a reader; we'll call her Andrea. I was married to a sociopath for 12 years (didn't know it until we divorced). He had 3 affairs and was a minister for a majority of that time. He messed up a lot of lives. Anyway, I am at my wits end right now because I cannot get him out of my life because we had 2 children. I am so tired of dealing with him. My kids are 12 and 10 now and my ex is doing everything in his power to try and convince my son to go live with him when he's 14. I see it happening and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I keep notes about everything that happens, but my lawyer tells me that it would be a very hard case if my …

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After the sociopath is gone: The rapture of being alive

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It has been a long while since I contributed to the Lovefraud blog roll -- I'm excited about being back. Excited to share with you my healing journey. It has been almost six years since I was set free of Conrad, the man who promised to love me 'til death do us part and who then went about taking the 'til death part' way too seriously. In that time, my life has flourished and grown and I've become stronger, more vibrant, more confident and committed to living the life of my dreams. I look forward to being here more often! The greatest discovery of this generation is that a human being can alter their life by altering their attitude. William James Attitude. We've all got it. We all …

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Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy, meeting highlights: At-risk children

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This weekend I am reporting from the 3rd meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy, where I also presented the results of the research Sandra Brown, M.A. and I did. In the next few weeks I will summarize the highlights of the meeting for you. One of the reasons I attended this meeting was to be sure the information we present to you on this website is up-to-date and accurate. Happily, I came away from the meeting confident, having had conversations with all the leaders in the field. The problems of at-risk children were a major focus of the meeting. Many research teams are working on trying to measure problems with emotional processing in antisocial children. Before we …

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LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: Leaning on his family while battling his wife

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Editor's note: The following letter was sent by Lovefraud reader; we'll call him “Bob.” Other names and locations have also been changed. We were living in a midwest city; she moved there for her job transfer several months before the children and I could move. She had one previous affair with a co-worker in our previous city. After I discovered the affair, she sought out the job transfer. I believe the reason being to get out of town and not have to face her co-workers and our friends once the news of the affair and our failing marriage got out. She moved to the new city ahead of me, I stayed back with the children to keep them in school and sell the house. Five months later when we all …

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Psychopaths more likely to get out of jail

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You would think parole boards would know better. After all, they deal with bad guys all day, every day, and they're supposed to decide when criminals are sufficiently rehabilitated to return to society. But a study released in January found that when psychopaths in Canada's prisons were up for parole, they were 2.5 times more likely to win conditional release than non-psychopaths. The study was conducted by Dr. Stephen Porter from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and published in the Journal of Legal and Criminological Psychology. It looked at 310 men who spent at least two years in a Canadian prison between 1995 and 1997. Most had committed violent crimes. Ninety of the men were …

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