Why are we facing a world financial crisis? Perhaps because psychopaths are running the show. In a post on the website Reality Sandwich, author Jonathan Zap writes: Most psychopaths are not violent criminals; they may be more likely to pursue white-collar crime, where the payoff is so much higher and the odds of detection so much lower. Psychopaths are perfectly designed for success in many fields, especially business, law and politics. They have higher IQs on average than the general population; they are charming, charismatic and manipulative; they can be decisive and take risks without anxiety, and they are ruthless, cunning and coldly rational. Psychopaths often personify many of the …
The consequences of stress
By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired) One of the things I studied in school was the findings of researchers on the effects of stress in our lives. Two researchers who have become the “gold standard” with their attempts to quantify stress and some of the effects on our lives (sickness and accidents) are Holmes and Rahe, who developed the Holmes and Rahe stress scale. According to Wikipedia: In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe examined the medical records of over 5,000 medical patients as a way to determine whether stressful events might cause illnesses. Patients were asked to tally a list of 43 life events based on a relative score. A positive correlation of 0.118 was found b …
Ricki Lake almost marries con man
Yes, it can happen to anyone. Actress Ricki Lake actually went looking for dates online, met a man who she calls a "narcissist," and almost married him. Read Ricki Lake opens up about disastrous online romance on SFGate.com. Link supplied by a Lovefraud reader. …
Psychopaths and neuro-law
The brains of psychopaths are different. What does that mean for laws, crime, sentencing and treatment? Read Psychopaths: Born evil or with a diseased brain? on BBC.co.uk. Link supplied by a Lovefraud reader. …
Sociopaths Can Only Talk The Walk
This week I have been reading Jon Ronson's book The Psychopath Test. It's been on my list of ”˜must reads' since it came out earlier this year, and just a couple of days ago I downloaded it on to my Kindle. I finished it within 24hours. Jon Ronson is a British journalist who, among many other things, wrote the film Men Who Stare At Goats, which was made in to a movie starring George Clooney and Ewan McGregor. Jon interviewed my friend Mary Turner Thomson (author of “The Bigamist” detailing her marriage to the sociopath Will Jordan) and became fascinated with the subject of psychopaths. He subsequently attended Dr Robert Hare's training programme to understand the PCL-R checklist that many …
Lessons from the Penn State scandal
Like most of the United States, all of us at Lovefraud were horrified by the sordid story of child sexual abuse that emerged from Penn State University last week. Unlike most of the United States, we probably weren't surprised. That's because all of us at Lovefraud have learned a very difficult lesson that millions of other people have not learned. This is the lesson: Evil exists. For most of us, however, there was a time before the lesson. At that time we didn't know evil existed—let alone what it looked like or what to do about it. So at that time, we were vulnerable to the sociopaths. The sociopaths came into our lives, showering us with affection and maybe gifts, asking about o …
The manipulative man interview
Lovefraud's friend Ann at WomenExplode.com recently posted an interview with a 49-year-old man who had never been married. The man engaged in serious impression management. But, since Ann had known him for 10 years, she knew when his words were BS—and pointed them out in her story. It's hysterical. Read Interview with a never-married 49-year-old man on WomenExplode.com. …
Stress is contagious
New research finds that stress in the workplace can spread from person to person. Read Work stress as contagious as a cold, says study, on HuffingtonPost.com. Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader. …
Bringing up our children, the hope of the world
Editor's note: Lovefraud honors and respects all spiritual traditions. This article refers to teachings of Christianity. By Joyce Alexander, RNP (Retired) Recently there have been horrible and depressing videos and news stories about parents who are “supposedly” upright citizens but are abusers of their children. Even a professional person like Judge William Adams was seen on video severely beating and cursing his 16-year-old daughter. In addition, there have been in my own acquaintance a minister with children who was caught in a pedophile pornographic sting by the police as he was sending pictures of his “junk” to what he thought was a 14-year-old girl, who thank goodness, was a 40-year …
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Raped-unzel
Editor's note: The following email was sent by a Lovefraud reader, “Pamela.” She was married to a sociopath and subject to domestic violence. She previously submitted a piece called All Alone. Raped-unzel let her hair down and a batterer climbed up. Mr. No-Longer-Charming had seduced her with lying words and false promises, and now she lay married to a man that called her a whore. Oh—and said he loved her, too, usually soon after he called her a whore. Raped-unzel said to Mr. No-Longer-Charming: "Don't confuse me with comatose Sleeping Beauty over there, in that fairy tale. I can see through your lies, straight down to your true colors." So, she is in The Flip Side of the Fairy …