I am not sure if I will continue to post each week. Many of the stories carry the same theme and I think most of you on this site know what a sociopath is capable of, how much destruction they leave in their path and how we all felt once we discovered the truth.
For me, it’s really about the road to recovery. The first and most helpful tool I was given was Martha Stout’s book The Sociopath Next Door. It helped so much to see it in writing, the same behaviors, manipulation and the different types of sociopaths. Lovefraud provides the best resource I have found to date (thank you Donna). Then it was all about acceptance. I needed to accept that my father never loved me. That one took a while, but I began to understand that “he couldn’t give me something he didn’t have”, which was love. Once I accepted this it was easy to forgive him, another key for me.
I have had other sociopaths in my life; in fact I think I was attracted to it as a result of being raised by one. Only now I recognize that uneasy feeling I get from being around someone I cannot trust. It’s like background noise, almost unnoticeable, but it’s there. Today I trust those feelings and do what I have learned from others and books. I cut my losses and move on. It has been my experience that the only option is to remove yourself from any and all unnecessary contact with a sociopath.
Someone once told me that the past is for inspiration, not limitation”¦and I believe that today. I started to focus on the things in life I was grateful for, not where I thought I was “cheated”. Experience in this life is the thing of supreme value if we are willing to learn from it and then use it to help others. It then becomes a gift. That’s how I see it today. As odd as it may sound I would not change my experience for anything. I wouldn’t want to do it again I assure you, but today I am grateful for it.
Ugh..new life after destruction. Went out on a date tonight. He seems like a nice guy but now I’m so jaded. I guess I’ll take this one day at a time. But it’s so difficult.
Congrats Iwonder
It’s a step ya gots to crawl before ya walk LOVE JJ
Hey Iwonder: What happened to meeting people and becoming friends?
Or, is that out dated today?
Piece of cake, piece of pie.
StarG: Why can’t we teach abuse in school? Any kind of abuse? Then explain to kids that they can build on their own self esteem … don’t take your selfish parents so seriously.
I endured mental abuse in childhood, but it wasn’t my parents … it was control freak peers.
I learned how to be mellow and not take fools so seriously.
Peace.
Iwonder – I understand your comment about feeling jaded, over the past few month’s I have dated a narcissist who live’s with his mother and has a history of heavy drug abuse that ended his 15 year relationhip with his wealthy partner. After our first few date’s I told him he was a narcissist and he agreed. So I decided to remain ‘friend’s with benifit’s’ and not let myself get attached. He told me a few week’s ago he had met a man and we couldn’t be friend’s anymore because the new guy wouldn’t understand. So I escaped this one with out a scratch – when he was telling me about the new man – he seemed to be most impressed with the guy’s position and wealth. There was another nice guy I talked to at a club that really impressed me and I felt comfortable so I exchanged phone number’s. As it turn’s out this guy also live’s with momma and doesn’t have a job and said he didn’t know what he was going to do when his elderly momma died. He continued to call me until I told him ‘politely’ don’t call me anymore…I have decided to remain single as evidently that sign on my forehead “Loser’s apply here” is not completley washed off – so I have more work to do. I like the comment ‘I need to reboot’ beside’s I have my weeny man to sleep with every nite, he has four legs and snore’s and I will never kick ‘Harley’ out of my bed for a two legged user. Oh my ya’ll didn’t need to here this. Anyway despite all – I feel damn comfy with myself here lately…..and satan is not here to ruin this Xmas for me. And for the first time is several years my kid’s want to spend xmas day at dad’s house. Hmm wonder if M being gone has anything to do with that? I was so blind……
Dear Henry,
I am sooooo happy for you. You have been to hell and back. Isn’t being back wonderful! Hell makes you REALLY appreciate the REAL happiness in life….the OH-SO MEANINGFUL “little things” and being “damn comfy with oneself”.
I love that phrase!
Peace, Healing and Hugs to you!
Dear Henry,
I am so glad that your kids want to come to your house for Christmas! Wonderful! My sons and their friends were filling the house again tonight and it was so much fun to have to move to the back room to hear myself think for the sound of their laughter filling the house. They’ve been throgh a bit pot of stew and half the huge pot of turkey noodle soup I made today! It feels good to cook for a “crowd” again.
Today they all pitched in and picked up and hauled brush where my sons cut limbs out of the trees around the yard, and then they hauled shale to fill in a trench we had dug for the french drain around the barn. It is fun to have a house full of laughter again. When they were kids our house was always the one where the “guys hung out”—there’s always a pot of something simmering on the stove and a pan or cornbread or two when I’m not BOINKING someone with the skillet (I do hate to use it when it is full of half cooked corn bread, so you guys be good, okay? LOL)
You are right, Escaped, it does make us appreciate the “finer things of life”—friendship and love!
Hi Henry,
I think the experiences we had with the exes is making us choose better about who we now let into our lives. I ask God now to let only the right people into my space. I’m guarded but maybe that is a good thing. Now, I will take my time before I get involved.
Wini,
Yes. Let’s be friends is perfect. I am going to date someone a long time before taking things further. At least this guy has a car, his own place, a great job…which is a good start. We chatted on the phone for 2 weeks before we went out last night so I am just getting to know him. I’m not going to cut my friends or family out of my life this time…nor God. I am going out with a friend to a Christmas party this week so I’m trying to keep the balance …church, friends, family, boyfriend. My ex trapped me and isolated me. When he left me shattered, I realized what I did to myself and my support group. 2009 is going to be much difference.
Peace
“The past is for inspiration, not limitation.” Thank you so much for that!! I will mull over that for a long time now because I never saw it that way…I still see my limitations so much and I can see that I need to learn more, grow, and use what I’ve learned to be of help to other people.
One of the reasons I am learning so much about S’s is I have a friend who is trying to get out of a relationship w/ one who is truly scarey, dangerous, and potentially a killer. He routinely threatens her and her children with killing them. My experences have been with a N, but since I’ve had experience w/ him, I’ve been able to validate her feelings of intense failure when she allows him to “get back into her head”. So few people understand why, “we go back for more”. I keep telling her her feelings are normal with what she has to endure now. Unfortuneately, she has a child w/ him and has to share her so it’s hard for her to go NC. She has another court-ordered restraint on him, but he just messes w/ her mind by not sticking the the order visitation. Eventually, hopefully soon, he will lose all visitation because he WILL NOT allow her to win by letting her (or the court) tell HIM when “he can see HIS daughter”. This guy is EVIL. I cannot believe the verbal abuse he has spewn at her…, and my heart goes out to her. I keep telling her SHE WILL MAKE IT!!! Always, with God’s help.
Travis, thank you for letting me see my “gift”. And please keep posting because I am learning from all your experiences. You are a lovely person. I can tell.
May God totally cover you with All of His Blessings!!
Daisy
Iwonder
A car! A Place! A JOB! Next you will be telling me He is tall dark and Handsom to Boot !
HOT DAM! TOWANDA!
Where did you meet him???? does he have a Gay Brother?? LOVE JJ