The damage done to strangers, lovers and family members by sociopaths includes physical, emotional, psychological, social and financial harm. Over the years I have encountered many people whose lives have been damaged in this way. The victimization alone is very sad, but people suffer not only from the actual damage but from their psychological and emotional reactions to it. It is one thing to lose a large sum of money or time that you can't ever get back. The losses happened and are permanently in the past. It is another thing for a person's present to be occupied by that loss. The Aftermath is often more extensive than the victimization itself It is my observation that for many …
BOOK REVIEW: A Dangerous Fortune
Editor's note: The Lovefraud reader “Usedandabused” recently found A Dangerous Fortune, by Ken Follett, in her garage. Although it's not a new book—published in 1993—she said it was the best portrayal of a psychopath that she'd ever read. In this breathtaking and complex page-turner, master storyteller Ken Follett portrays a psychopath with sharp emotional clarity that cannot be found in a scientific text. Micky Miranda, the son of a brutal psychopathic South American caudillo of the late 19th century, jumped from the pages into my psyche during his twenty-five year scam of a prominent London banking family. Devoid of compassion and remorse but rife with cutting instincts into the psyches …
Believing the unbelievable sets us free
By Ox Drover There are some things in life that we accept as “truths” whether we understand just why they are true or not. We accept that the world is essentially round, that it revolves around the sun, that light is white and the absence of light is dark. We don't have to truly understand exactly how these things work or why they are true, we just accept that they are true, and when we lie down to sleep at night and the sky is dark, we trust that in the morning the sun will be shining again. That is just the truth. That is just the way things are. Sometimes we are told by people we love to believe the unbelievable. We don't want to believe it any more than we want to believe that the sun m …
The sociopath’s irrational optimism
We've discussed many of the sociopath's traits, such as his missing empathy and compassion; his tendency to remorseless interpersonal exploitation; and proclivity to audacious acts of lying, deception and sundry other violating behaviors. Now, I'm tempted to add to the mix what I call the sociopath's tendency to “irrational optimism.” By “irrational optimism,” I mean the sociopath's irrationally optimistic belief, if not conviction, that he'll either evade or, somehow, otherwise prevail over, the real, probable consequences of his actions. Consider this brief, hypothetical interaction between a sociopath and his partner, who learns with certainty that he, the sociopath, has been cheatin …
Evil exists, and it does not want to be discovered
Evil exists. If you need proof, just look at the horrific case of little Charleeni Ferreira. Charleeni, age 10, of Philadelphia, Pa., died on October 21, 2009. Her father, Domingo Ferreira, 53, and stepmother Margarita Garabito, 43, were charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child. So how bad was the abuse? The police called it “torture.” Charleeni actually died from an infection that resulted from broken ribs that were not treated. She had a host of new and old injuries, including a fractured pelvis and a 7-inch gash on her head that had been stuffed with gauze and covered with a hair weave. For more details, read Signs of Charleeni's “torture” were hidden, in the Phila …