How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Claudia Paradise, LCSW: How to talk to kids about an absent daddy

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Lovefraud received the following question: Can you address absent sociopathic fathers and how to respond to a young child who has begun asking about him? My 4-year-old has started talking about her “daddy,” who she could not possibly remember. The last time she saw him was when she was 2 and the total time spent with him in her lifetime has probably been 12 hours total. I have cut things off with him entirely since his last visit. Anyways, lately she pretends to call him on her toy phone, or tells me that her daddy is going to pick her up from school. I think all this talk has stemmed from her best friend at school, whose dad comes to pick her up every day. Not surprisingly, none of th …

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8 ways your body warns you about sociopaths

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It took millions of years for our species to evolve from apes to modern humans, and during those years we spent a lot of time fleeing for our lives. Our very survival depended upon being able to sense danger from predators. We still have the ability to sense danger, although today it comes not from saber-toothed tigers, but from human predators, aka sociopaths. This protective sense is our intuition, which is part instinctive knowing, and part physical reaction. Our bodies tell us when someone or a situation poses a threat. Here are eight ways that our bodies warn us of danger: 1 . Fear. This is the ultimate warning sign. If you are ever suddenly gripped by fear when someone is in your …

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Dangerous Liaisons: Is his goal to break me?

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Editor's Note: This Letter to Lovefraud is from a Lovefraud Reader whom we'll call  “Aubree.” Names have been changed. I recently got out of a two year relationship with a person who I believe is a sociopath, or at the very least an extremely vengeful borderline. When we first got together, he told me that he used to have a habit of going to bars, finding the prettiest and most confident-looking woman there, and proceeding to go up to her and start picking on her and making fun of her for something that he suspected she might be insecure about. For example, if he saw a girl who was beautiful but wasn't stick-thin, he'd go up to her and start making snide remarks about her weight. He said h …

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Emotional abuse is a crime in Ireland

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Emotional and psychological abuse in an intimate relationship is now a crime in Ireland. The Domestic Violence Act of 2018, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2019, created a new criminal offense of "coercive control." Coercive control is defined as: "Psychological abuse in intimate relationships that causes fear of violence or serious alarm or distress that has a substantial adverse impact on a person's day-to-day life, manifesting as a pattern of intimidation or humiliation involving psychological or emotional abuse." Coercive control is already illegal in England and Scotland. Psychological violence is illegal in France. In a radio interview, Margaret Martin, director of Women's …

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