How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Michael Vick, dog-killing quarterback, to receive Courage Award

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Some people are just clueless, and that includes the entire Philadelphia Eagles football team. It was bad enough that Eagles management signed Michael Vick to the team after he got out of prison for running a dog fighting ring. As I posted on August 24, 2009, in Can Michael Vick change his behavior?, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), sent a letter to the NFL stating that Vick fit the profile of antisocial personality disorder, aka a sociopath. I mean, the guy rewarded the animals that lost by personally electrocuting, hanging or drowning them—shoving their heads into five-gallon buckets of water. So now, after sitting on the bench for most of the season, the Eagles …

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Claiming Peace: After the sociopath is gone

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At 9:12 am on May 21, 2003, the only peace I knew was the unsettling desire to die, the constant throbbing of the voice screaming at me to let go, give in, give up, give over my life to the darkness that consumed me. I wanted to end it all. To have the turmoil and pain and fear of living with an abuser die with me. At 9:13 am on May 21, 2003, everything changed. Everything shifted and my world as I knew it ended. A police car drove up and I stood watching as two officers stepped from the car. At 9:14 am I followed the officers into the room where my abuser lay sleeping and watched them arrest him. They took him away and I sat in a chair in a room I did not recognize, captive in a …

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Thank you Donna!

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Thank you Donna for your support of The Dandelion Spirit -- and of me and my journey and everyone else here who comes to find hope and encouragement and ends up finding themselves free of an abuser because of the light you cast upon the path leading them away from abuse. I am often surprised when memories of 'he who shall not be named' percolate to the top and provide me insight and understanding of where I am today. For me today, 'those times' are just a reminder of a time when I was very very sick. Very very overwhelmed by fear and self-loathing. They remind me to love myself, as I was then, and as I am now. To love myself for all I'm worth -- as a woman who was abused. As a woman who …

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Game theory and the sociopath

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Shock. Total disbelief. Utter incomprehension. That's what we feel upon finally realizing that when the sociopath cheated on us, blew through our money, twisted our emotions and messed with our minds, to him or her it was all just a sick, depraved game. Sociopaths do not form emotional connections with other human beings. They do not experience love. They do not feel honor, altruism or concern for others. The words they speak and the actions they take have only one objective: getting what they want. To them, life is a game, and they want to win. Game theory is a field of study that, according to Wikipedia, “attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, in which an …

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Forgiveness, sociopathy and choice

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Although it has been many years and there is a new relationship, a friend of mine still wishes every day that the sociopath that preyed on her will “drop dead.” Wishing and hoping that some horrible end will come for the sociopath takes up time and energy in my friend's life; as she searches for evidence that something bad has indeed happened to the sociopath and then is disappointed. Recently, I discussed the topic of forgiving psychopaths with a psychopathy researcher who is not a clinician. He said he received a letter from someone complaining that friends were pressuring the victim to forgive. It was the psychopathy researcher's opinion that people should NOT be told they have to for …

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The Story of David Pecard

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Recently, I watched an old 48-Hours segment on the conman David Michael Pecard, which proved to be a most fascinating, educational case study of a textbook sociopath. Pecard is the kind of sociopath (or psychopath) psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley, MD, so brilliantly grappled with in his classic, “The Mask of Sanity—”that is, he was glib, persuasive (could sell you the Brooklyn Bridge today and tender a convincing deed of sale); charmingly disarming, imperturbable, thrill-seeking, audacious, deceptive, emotionally superficial and indifferent to the suffering he caused others. Peter Van Zandt investigates, and offers compelling interview footage with Pecard, who was free as the segment aired …

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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: The private investigator’s double life

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Lovefraud received the following story from a woman who wanted to be referred to as "PI's ex-wife." I am a well-educated, professional, hard-working person. I moved to Utah, a divorcee with four children twenty years ago. All four of my children are college graduates, two of them are masters level, and are productive members of society. At a church function, I met an investigator with the police department and we became friends. He had all the props: his parents were active members of our church, salt of the earth, well-educated and community contributors. A few weeks after we met, HE told me that the police department was giving him a choice to resign or be fired because HE had been …

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The psychopathic personality and human evolution

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Dr. Robert Hare, who did seminal work in identifying psychopaths, refers to them as “intraspecies predators.” This prompted questions from a Lovefraud reader who asked, If psychopaths are indeed natural predators (by implication, their design is part of nature's plan to maintain some balance) then would we ever be able to weed them out of society? Do they have a purpose in the natural order of things? In this article, I'm going to address the second question. Then, next week, I'll suggest an answer to the first question. I don't know about a purpose, but there are researchers who believe psychopaths are around us today because they survived the natural selection process of human e …

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French to introduce law banning psychological abuse

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Those of us who have been psychologically abused by sociopaths—whether we're male or female, and whether the abuser is male or female—know that the abuse should be criminal. It appears that in France, it just may happen. A Lovefraud reader sent me a link to an interesting story in Time Magazine. Legislators from France's ruling party are expected to introduce a bill that would outlaw “conjugal abuse of a psychological nature” in both married and unmarried relationships. According to Time, The legislation seeks to target the verbal and mental denigration, humiliation and manipulation that typically lead to physical abuse. The hope is that the bill will help prevent the emotional wounds …

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Why we don’t know about sociopaths

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I've spoken to many people who have had their lives shredded by sociopaths. They are traumatized about their physical, emotional and financial injuries. They can't understand how someone can cause them so much pain, and be so callous about it. A statement I hear frequently is, “I didn't know such evil existed.” Why don't we know about sociopaths? I think there are several reasons: 1. Mental health professionals can't agree on terminology and diagnostic criteria. These disordered individuals are referred to as sociopaths, psychopaths or people with antisocial personality disorder. Which is the right term? It depends on whom you ask. Dr. Robert Hare, the guru of the disorder, use …

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