Perhaps you suspect that someone in your life has a serious personality disorder. You’ve been reading everything you can find on narcissists, sociopaths and maybe even psychopaths. You keep coming across the term, narcissistic supply. What is it? Here’s how Tiffany Kettermann, LPC, CADCI, MPA, described it in her Lovefraud webinar, Understanding and Recognizing Narcissistic Abuse: Narcissistic supply is anything or anyone that feeds the narcissistic person’s ego and keeps the person artificially pumped up, protecting their fragile view of themselves. “Think of narcissism, the ego, as a HUGE tank that needs constant filling,” Tiffany says. “It’s an addiction, a need, for someone to pr …
Early warning sign that a baby could grow up to be a psychopath
UPDATED FOR 2023. Research suggests that a baby who prefers to look at a red ball, rather than a human face, may be at risk for developing callous-unemotional personality traits and could grow up to be a psychopath. Callous-unemotional traits, when seen in children, can precede the development of full-blown psychopathy. Researchers at King's College in London studied five-week old babies. They hypothesized that babies who paid more attention to an inanimate object, rather than a human face, would show higher callous-unemotional traits when they were two and a half years old. The researchers were right. Callous-unemotional Psychologists who study the origins of antisocial behavior …
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Understanding why the sociopath is just like your parent
Most people who call me for personal consultations want to talk about an abusive romantic partner. They want to know if their partner is a sociopath, and usually, based on their story of lies, manipulation, cheating, stonewalling, gaslighting and sometimes violence, the answer is yes. Then, as we talk about how they were vulnerable to this person, they say that the sociopath is just like their parent. For example, here's a letter that I received from a Lovefraud reader: I was involved with a narcissist in 2013 and after a year of being with a complete nut case went no contact. (Can write a short story about it.) It's taken a few years but free now in my mind. My father is a narcissist …
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Her husband was engaged in theft, embezzlement and laundering money
Editor’s note: Here’s a story submitted by a Lovefraud reader. Not only was the man she married cheating on her, but he was engaged in theft, embezzlement and laundering money. We met in an AOL IM chatroom in 2005, for people in their 40's. He lived more than 600 miles away from me. Two months after meeting online, we met in a public setting. He told me he was getting divorced when I first met him online: lie #1. He was still married; however, his wife at about that same time had found out about other affairs he had had locally, and left him the weekend he drove out here to meet me in person. Prostate cancer He found out he had prostate cancer 6 months after meeting me, had his prostate …
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The cheating golf pro
Editor’s note: A Lovefraud reader relates her devastating experience with a cheating golf pro. I was unhappily married. Took golf lessons from a golf instructor, was completely enamored by him. He was married, his wife lived in another state and he only went to see her for 3-4 days once a month otherwise was with me. He was an alcoholic, 58, I’m 47, spent from June 2020 when I met him to Oct 2020 here with me and then he left for the winter to live in Fla with her. We talked almost every day. He completely changes Then a month before he came back started acting weird, super mean, things didn’t add up, mind games… When he gets back here April 2021 played mind games all summer, started go …
Sociopathy is not illegal, so how do we deal with wrongdoing?
All sociopaths lie. Their objective in just about every social interaction is to exploit and manipulate whoever is in front of them. Yet even though their behavior is atrocious, unethical and immoral, sociopathy is not illegal. People aren’t arrested because they have a personality disorder. So when we’ve been wronged by someone whom we believe is disordered, how do we deal with it? Sociopaths definitely cause harm, but some harm is “actionable,” to use a legal term, and some isn’t. What that means is some behavior can be subjected to legal consequences, and other behavior cannot. When we’ve been wronged by a sociopath, we need to evaluate what response is possible, and what is in our own be …
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The ulterior motives in good times with the sociopath
Yes, it is possible to have good times with a sociopath. They can be the life of the party, exciting and entertaining. They can enjoy sports, movies, museums, exotic cars, fine dining and all kinds of music. They can love to travel, from local road trips to round-the-world voyages. And through all these adventures, they can create special, unforgettable moments. Correction: The moments seem special and unforgettable at the time. But once you come to the painful realization that the person you shared them with is a sociopath, you’re faced with another shock: All those good times with the sociopath were fake. Traveling with my sociopathic ex-husband I shared multiple memorable experiences …
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Note to self: Do not break the No Contact rule
Editor’s note: The Lovefraud authorEleanor Cowan, who wrote "A History of a Pedophile’s Wife," describes what happened when she thought she could break the No Contact rule. By Eleanor Cowan Wow! What just happened? Whammo! I was abused this week, completely out of the blue, entirely unexpected, and yet, oh so familiar. I feel black and blue, and I make no mistake, verbal lashings leave me bruised too. I invited my younger brother, a fellow with whom I’ve never achieved a mutual relationship, for a nice fish ‘n chip supper at a local restaurant. We’re both living in the same city now, and I wanted to reach out. My bro, one of the youngest in our alcoholic family, has a history of alcohol …