How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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The tables were turning – I was not the easy open target anymore (Part 2)

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Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following letter from a reader whom we'll call "Celia." Names have been changed. Read Part 1. His home loan Out of the blue one day, probably two weeks after I had arrived, he had me sit on his lap, and was stroking my arm lovingly. He casually asked if when my home sold, I could put the proceeds into his home loan. I got the strangest twinge of panic inside me, and asked him why I would do that. He immediately threw me off his lap and became tense and argumentative. To calm him down, I suggested we maybe buy a holiday home together along the coastline somewhere. He was not interested at all. Thinking back, he probably had a stinky credit record and …

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The tables were turning – I was not the easy open target anymore (Part 1)

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Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following letter from a reader whom we'll call "Celia." Names have been changed. Hi Donna, I have been reading your blog for a few years now and although I have not made myself visible, I have been active reading all the stories and advice you have shared with everyone. Your blog created an awareness within myself of just what I had encountered, and why I felt so traumatised during and after the relationship. There were times I could not bring myself to read some of the stories, as it brought back so much of the trauma I was wanting to suppress. My relationship was very short, about 6 months in total, but nevertheless, shattered my dreams and faith in …

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Convicted con artist Patrick Giblin again pleads guilty to scamming women

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Patrick Giblin, 52, formerly of Ventnor, New Jersey, yesterday pleaded guilty to scamming more than 10 women out of $15,000 to $40,000. Giblin did this between January 2013 and December 2014 while on parole for previously scamming 132 women out of $320,241. Here's Lovefraud's original coverage of the story: Patrick Giblin trolls phone dating lines, taking money from 132 women, on Lovefraud.com. According to U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, Giblin's most recent adventures in phone scamming went like this: From January 2013 to Dec. 16, 2014, Giblin allegedly posted advertisements and messages on telephone dating services throughout the United States. Giblin cultivated a telephone rapport with …

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Sociopaths Lie Even When The Truth Would Work Just Fine

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Every week, a chapter of my book, "Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned" (available via Amazon.com, just click on the title or book cover) will be published here on Lovefraud. To read prior chapters, please see the links at the bottom of the post. Chapter 38A: I always considered Paul honorable and honest, so it took me an embarrassingly long time for inconsistencies in his version of events to register as what they were—lies. I knew my husband had faults and, in all likelihood, had had an affair with Anne-Marie, but it never occurred to me that he was fundamentally dishonest and a chronic liar. But I could not escape the obs …

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Woman finds the ‘pickup artists’ who raped her – and bragged about it on the Internet

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A San Diego woman passed out in the apartment of some guys she just met in October 2013. She was raped. When she awoke, she went to the police. Many rape cases end up being "he said, she said" situations, where the perpetrator claims that the sex was consensual. But this woman conducted her own Internet investigation. She found that the man who raped her, Alexander Markham Smith, 27, and his friend, Jonas Dick, 28, ran a business called "Efficient Pickup." The idea was to teach men how to have sex with as many women as possible. To prove that their methods worked, Smith and Dick posted stories about their exploits including a detailed account of the San Diego woman's rape. It was enough …

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Radical Acceptance – a path to true emotional healing after the devastation of a sociopath

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Book Review: Radical Acceptance Embracing your life with the heart of a Buddha, by Tara Brach.Review by Donna AndersenYou realize, or at least suspect, that you have a sociopath in your life — that's why you're reading Lovefraud. You may still be in a state of shock — you never really understood that people like this actually existed. But they do; now what do you do?Lovefraud is full of information and advice about escaping a sociopath and dealing with the fallout. Generally, recovery means moving forward along two paths. You can pursue both paths at the same time, and progress on one path helps you with the other one.The first path is solving the practical problems the sociopath has caused, …

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Woman fakes blindness for 15 years, collects nearly $400,000 in veteran’s benefits

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Back in 2001, Veronica Dale Hahn, 60, of Bonifay, Florida, told the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs that she was 100 percent blind in both eyes due to her military service. The VA believed her, and started paying her veteran's disability benefits. In 15 years, she collected $394,800.85. In the meantime, she obtained driver's licenses in New Mexico, Alabama and Florida, with no vision restrictions. She drove her vehicle and worked full-time as a case manager at state correctional facilities. Hahn pleaded guilty last week. When she is sentenced, she faces 10 years in prison. Holmes County woman pleads guilty to fraudulently receiving veterans disability benefits, on Justice.gov. …

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I continued to choose him over everyone and everything that ever mattered to me

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Editor's note: Lovefraud received this story from a reader whom we'll call "Ellie." This is the story of how I allowed myself to become emotionally dismantled by the man to whom I chose to give my heart. I loved him unconditionally. I accepted and forgave him without judgment. I empathized with stories of his childhood, when he felt unseen, unloved and insecure. I nurtured him through times of deep depression, drug abuse and alcoholism. I made excuse after excuse by rationalizing his behavior and convincing myself that I knew he could be more than what he was. I believed he could be the man I saw him to be, the man he wished he could be ”¦ I held on to hope that it would be ok, and that th …

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My Unwitting Relationship With A Sociopath Corroded Who “I” Was

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Every week, a chapter of my book, "Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned" (available via Amazon.com, just click on the title or book cover) will be published here on Lovefraud. To read prior chapters, please see the links at the bottom of the post. Chapter 37B: “It's Like Deja  Vu All Over Again.” (Yogi Berra) Soon after, I required minor surgery. As I had with Jessica's testing, I involved Paul when setting a date for the procedure to ensure he would be available to help the kids and me. I was forced to reschedule my procedure two times, because Paul's work demands kept trumping my health needs. Two days before the surgery, he called …

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‘Sextortion Queen’ tricks men into performing sex acts on Skype, then blackmails them

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Maria Caparas-Regalachuelo of the Philippines, aka the "Sextortion Queen," boasts that it only takes 30 minutes to convince men to get naked and perform sex acts via Skype. Then she posts the videos to YouTube and threatens to send them to the victims' families, unless they pay up. In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, she details exactly how the scam works. She has a crew of "chatters," mostly young girls and transgender men, who troll the Internet looking for targets. When they find a target, they play a pre-recorded video of an Asian woman performing a striptease, and then send a string of racy text messages. The whole process is tightly scripted. Caparas is now in prison in th …

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