How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Pain as motivation for freeing yourself from sociopaths

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On Monday, I posted an article entitled, Healing your addiction to sociopaths. In it, I offered three steps for changing a pattern of falling in love with sociopaths. The steps are:  No Contact with the current sociopath Do not date anyone for the time being Heal the vulnerabilities The real work is in the third step healing your vulnerabilities. What I suggest sounds somewhat like the good advice that we get on many topics, like: Eat your vegetables Make time for regular exercise Cut down on sugar, carbs and alcohol Get enough sleep We all know we should do all these things, but do we do them? How often do we skip going to the gym, or pour ourselves another …

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Communicating with disorder

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Trying to solve problems or make any type of progress with individuals with personality disorders can be very difficult.  Virtually every communication is insulting, repetitive, and circular.  They are seemingly unable to stay on topic and have propensities for driving others off topic.  Covering the same ground to no avail can be exhausting for the non-disordered participants, as they tend to push relentlessly for our participation in their arguments. It is easy to fall into their communication traps and become engaged in their attempts for power.  However, with knowledge and diligence, we can re-train ourselves to successfully stand our ground by controlling our own behaviors. A few simple …

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A mostly accurate portrayal of sociopaths/stalkers

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In Gold Bar, a tiny town in the state of Washington (population 2,075), the local news website posted an article entitled The Mind of the Stalker.  It's unclear who wrote the article, because there is no byline. The author describes the behavior of stalkers, writing that many of them are textbook sociopaths. Most of the article is accurate, and is drawn from the work of experts, such as Dr. Robert D. Hare and Dr. Hervey Cleckley. I disagree with a few statements, such as "they cannot control their behavior." But I'm glad to see that someone in this tiny town outside of Seattle is trying to alert the community to the social predators who live among us. I imagine that this person had a …

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Healing your addiction to sociopaths

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Lovefraud recently received the following email from a woman whom we'll call "Peggy Sue." I feel hopeless. I'm a target for sociopaths, or I'm addicted to them. My ex-fiancé was one. I was with him 7 years and was abused everyway possible. I was so confused with the lies and double life. He said I was crazy and I went on tons of medication and was completely isolated. I finally was able to leave after 7 years with the help of police, only to move back to my dads with nothing and to start all over. A month later fell in love with another sociopath. My friends and family think I'm gonna end up dead by him or killing myself. I have been to therapy they all just say move out and leave. I …

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Keeping sociopaths out of the workplace

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At Lovefraud, most of the discussion is about sociopaths in romantic relationships. But here is a key concept to understand: Sociopaths don't just exploit romantic partners. They exploit everyone who crosses their paths, in all aspects of their lives. That includes everyone they work with or do business with. Forbes.com just posted the following article: How to screen out the sociopath job candidate The author, Rob Asghar, asked  Dr. Matha Stout the warning signs of a sociopath in a job interview. Number One on her list was overwhelming charm. Wow, that sounds familiar.     …

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Everyone is a sociopath

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Editor's note: Steve Becker has a very dry sense of humor, and the following post is written tongue-in-cheek. If you have a humorous story about a sociopath, feel free to add it as a comment. Well, thanks to the Investigation Discovery Channel, the latest estimates are that 85% of the general population is sociopathic, and likely to commit a horrific, calculated exploitation of another human being within the next three weeks. Even leading researchers on psychopathy laud this cable channel (which, admittedly, is absolutely riveting) for getting their own estimates properly realigned. Only in the last two months, just on my street alone, two of my neighbors killed a spouse (one for …

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Report on domestic violence and family courts

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The Wellesley Centers for Women has just released a new report, Family Court Approaches to Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse: Stakeholder Perceptions and Implications for Systemic Change. Researchers have been gathering data about how family courts see domestic violence cases, how the courts handle the cases, how often children are involved, and whether biases exist. It is the first field study of family courts in which judges, probation officers and litigants were surveyed simultaneously. Improving the court approach to domestic violence cases in the Massachusetts family courts, on WCWOnline.org.   …

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Sociopaths and their changing demands

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When you're dealing with sociopaths, figuring out what they really want is nearly impossible. Why? Because they keep changing what they want. When my ex-husband, James Montgomery, moved into my house, I agreed to convert my basement, which I used as a small gym, into an office for him. I put away my gym equipment. I hired builders to install more electric outlets to run his array of computers, televisions and business equipment, which required enclosing the lower part of the walls. Making the improvements, and installing a small bathroom downstairs, cost me $6,000. (He promised to pay me back, but of course he never did. When Montgomery first moved into the office, he was delighted. When …

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LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: Trying to solve the mystery kept me hooked for months, part 2

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Editor's note: A Lovefraud reader whom we'll call "Edna" sent along the following letter. She received it from her then husband's mistress last summer. Edna reached out to the young woman once she located her number on his phone records. They shared their stories to help piece together the mystery of the man they were both dangerously entangled with. Names and some details have been changed for their protection. Read Part 1. The final evening It is so scary to even think back to the evening that led to my leaving Brandon and never looking back. The very last time I saw him I found tons of drugs in his apartment. It was a Friday evening in the middle of the summer. I went to my parents that We …

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LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: Trying to solve the mystery kept me hooked for months, part 1

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Editor's note: A Lovefraud reader whom we'll call "Edna" sent along the following letter. She received it from her then husband's mistress last summer. Edna reached out to the young woman once she located her number on his phone records. They shared their stories to help piece together the mystery of the man they were both dangerously entangled with. Names and some details have been changed for their protection. Part 2 will post tomorrow. Letter from the mistress I met Brandon during the summer, immediately following my college graduation. Brandon approached me at a nightclub at a beach resort area near where I live over Memorial Day weekend. I was at a low point in my life; I was de …

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