I Need Help, No Really About a year after I had my daughter, I finally had to find someone to help me with all my data entry and paper shuffle to keep up with the work load for the business the spath and I ran, but mostly I ran. I still had my office out of my home to try and save on overhead, but also so I could work when my baby was sleeping. After making an extension on the office, I had a separate entrance created to the office off of the house so I could have employees enter the office without entering the house. I finally ended up hiring a younger girl, 18, that was in college. It worked out well because she only needed part time and that's all I had in the budget for the moment. …
LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: Abused by mother, father and stepfather
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following story from a reader whom we'll call “Margo.” My abusers were my mother and father. It began when I was about fifteen. My mother and father never really got on, would hardly speak to each other. Father went to work, came home and stared at the television all of the time. The only interest he had was making his own beer and wine, he was often drunk. He had no friends and lost his temper often. He never spoke to my sister or myself as if we were humans. He would either ignore us or tell us off. When I was fifteen he found out my mother was seeing another man on the side. She had not been seeing him long and he meant nothing to her. I think she was …
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Why you weren’t thinking clearly when you fell for the sociopath
Romantic love really does wreak havoc on your brain chemistry. In fact, love has pretty much the same effect on your brain as cocaine. Berit Brogaard has written a book called On Romantic Love: Simple Truths about a Complex Emotion. Brogaard writes: When you fall in love with someone, norepinephrine fills you with raucous energy, serotonin boosts your self-confidence, and dopamine generates a feeling of pleasure. New love is a kind of love addiction but not yet a kind of pathological love addiction. In falling in love, however, the brain is on crack—a dangerous state of mind. An excerpt from the book was published on Salon.com. It explains, in detail, how parts of the brain are affected by …
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Q&A with Tiffany Kettermann, an expert in narcissistic abuse
What experience have you had dealing with sociopaths or other disordered personalities—personally, professionally, or both? I am a counselor in Portland, Oregon with both personal and professional experience in healing from personality disordered and exploitative relationships. Having had my own experience with toxic relationships and healing, I am able to provide empathy, support and insight for survivors in ways that many therapists cannot. I have worked with domestic violence survivors and on community crisis teams to help survivors of trauma and abuse, and I train other professionals in understanding and supporting survivor experiences. I currently offer a women's open support …
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Why sociopaths succeed: Style matters more than substance
Charismatic, glib, grandiose, magnetic, energetic sociopaths are typically described in these terms. No matter what they actually do and say, these men and women have style. And, according to a classic experiment in education research, style is all that is needed to be respected and believed. Back in 1970, Dr. Donald H. Naftulin, director of Continuing Education in Psychiatry at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, and colleagues, conducted an experiment to test the hypothesis that student ratings of educators depend largely on personality variables and not on educational content. The experiment was ingenious, and in my opinion, the results go a long way towards …
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My father the sociopath: ‘I should just kill you’
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following story from a reader whom we'll call “Judith-Ann.” Many of us grow up in homes of loud abuses. As children, constant new realities wail on our fledgling emotions, all too often beating them into submission. Some of us give up. Our sensitive natures can't bear the hate of our own creators and we crash into ourselves in a thousand ways, catching fire until we burn out like stars, until there is nothing of ourselves but a black hole of self-hatred. Others of us continue to rail against the injustices committed against us. The Unwanted, we bash our brains out against the bars of an invisible cage from which we honestly believe we can never be freed. …
Drugs, Santeria and Girlfriend Change – Sociopath Stories
Drug Past One of the many shockers of being with a sociopath is their ability to coerce you into their criminal activity. When I was dating the spath, at first, he seemed so innocent and shy. As time went on he began to leak to me his stories. So he would lock me in with his intrigue, then feed me a portion of his past. The first shocker story came from his participation in the drug business in the country he grew up in. Not until after I was married, did I find out that was one of the main reasons he came to the United States; he was running from the authorities. There was a time his family members had to hide him in a basement for long periods of time to escape going to …
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LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: What Did He Do To My Daughter?!
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following email from “Starmom.” Many people have had opinions, but no one's been able to address the origin: Something caused my daughter to change, virtually overnight what could the guy have done to her? Ten years ago, I made a mistake. Relatively new to an area where I didn't know anyone very well, I accepted “a ride home” from someone I didn't know. Refusing to take me home, and keeping me out, I was forcibly kept awake for what came to be at least two and a half days and nights straight after which my mind blacked out from exhaustion and I don't know what happened. During this period of time, I informed this guy (47 years old) that I “have no …
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My new heroes: Ashley Madison cheating site hackers
AshleyMadison.com, a dating website for married cheaters, has been hacked. The website's slogan is, “Life is short. Have an affair.” Now, the personal details of 37 million members, including nude photos and sexual fantasies, have been compromised. This is a moral dilemma for me. Of course, hacking a website is criminal. But as far as I'm concerned, all of those cheaters are getting what they deserve. The hackers, a person or group calling itself the “Impact Team,” has demanded that the website owner, a company called Avid Life Media, take down Ashley Madison (AM), and another hookup site that it owns called Established Men (EM) and Cougar Life. Here's the statement from the Impact …
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Canadian court rules that child welfare authorities gave kids to abusive father
A mother in British Columbia, Canada, said her ex-husband sexually abused their children. Child welfare authorities believed the father's story that she was mentally unstable and gave him the kids. After three years, and millions of dollars in legal fees, the court finally vindicated the mother. Ian Mulgrew: Children's ministry sided with sexually abusive father, court finds,on VancouverSun.com. Actual supreme court ruling in J.P. vs. B.G., on Canlii.org. Links supplied by a Lovefraud reader. …
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