Archives for July 2009

Almost three years ago, Lovefraud published the story of a man from the UK whom I called Tom. Tom's wife left him for another man, took their children, had him arrested on false charges nine times and wiped him out financially. Here is the original story: UK man says sociopath stole his life Now, three years later, Tom still hasn't seen his children. His ex-wife and her new husband, who also sounds like a sociopath, have removed the children from the UK. They live in France, at a small town near the Swiss border. “My heart bleeds every minute for the loss,” he writes. “It is a living bereavement and a nightmare from which I may never awake.” I asked Tom if he was taking care of himself. H …

When the pain caused by a sociopath doesn’t stopRead More

This week events in my life have and people I encountered got me thinking about the blaming of victims. Coincidentally, I discovered this quote from Attorney Wendy Murphy. She wrote this in a comment answering others who commented on her blog: It doesn't matter if Sandra Boss was a 'gold-digger' anymore than it matters that the mother of Michael Jackson's latest victim 'consented' to her child being allowed to sleep at Jackson's home. It's equally wrong to rape a child - even if the victim makes it easier on the criminal to commit the crime because she's ill, or dumb, or uneducated, etc. There's no such thing as a criminal being 'partly guilty'. There's only guilty - or not guilty. …

Don’t blame victims, but do hold them accountableRead More

Happy Independence Day weekend. It is a lucky coincidence that this is our topic, because emotional freedom is truly about personal revolution. It is an end to collaboration with and submission to abuse. It is an end to the emotional slavery of feeling responsible for other people's feelings and other things that are beyond our control. Emotional freedom is something that might be difficult to imagine when we are in the first stages of healing — especially if it's the first time we've ever processed an abuse-related trauma all the way through to the end. At least once, we need to go through all the stages to take a good look at patterns of denial or bargaining that made us vulnerable to a …

After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 13 – Happy Emotional Independence DayRead More

When I first was released from the relationship that was killing me, I felt lost, frightened, alone. I needed to focus my attention on something bigger than me, something beyond the despair of having being abused. I needed to connect to people who didn't know me, didn't know my story, didn't know about the man who promised to love me 'til death do us part and took the death part way too seriously, and so, I decided to volunteer. I thought, if I can give while I feel so impoverished, I will be reminding myself that I am not as “useless” as I feel. And it worked. Once a week, I joined a group of women and men at the church down the street from where I was living to make sandwiches for street p …

Stand By MeRead More