Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a reader; we’ll call her Lisa. In one short paragraph, Lisa conveyed the betrayal, rage, pain and hopelessness that we’ve all felt:
If a stranger broke into my house and stole all my valuables and then burned the rest. If I was left homeless and broke. I would be angry. I would be damaged. But I would recover. The person who did this slept in my bed and held me tight and told me he loved me every day. He told me that we were moving overseas and that everything should go. Stop paying the mortgage. Sell your furniture for cheap. Burn the rest. I did it. He disappeared with my jewelry and cash. I feel that I cannot recover. I am devastated. I am bitter. I am obsessed with my hatred and can’t smile or laugh. I need a psychiatrist. I dream of stabbing him. I am a loving and forgiving person that can’t find grace. I try to forgive and recognize my own fault. I fail. I need help with this.
Had an unknown criminal ransacked Lisa’s home, she would be justifiably outraged, and perhaps afraid for her safety. But the man who plotted and schemed to crush her was a man that she trusted, a lover who talked about their exciting future together in a faraway land.
It was cruelty beyond belief. It was the shattering of trust.
A few months back I wrote about a book called Legal Abuse Syndrome. The author, Karin Huffer, writes, “the most profound loss is loss of trust.”
That is what makes these experiences so painful. We trusted someone with our hopes, our dreams, our love. That person probably spoke eloquently about trust to us, in words full of shining promise. And it was all a lie.
Now we don’t know whom we can trust. And we’re pretty sure that we cannot trust ourselves.
So how do we recover?
8 steps for recovery
Huffer provides an outline for recovery in her book. Although the steps are geared to helping people recover from the outrages of the legal system, which has a tendency to make our bad situations even worse, I think the steps are useful for anyone recovering from the betrayal of a sociopath.
1. Debriefing. That means telling someone what happened, and that person listening without judgment. This is what we try to do at Lovefraud. We all listen to your stories, and we know what you’re talking about, because we’ve all been there.
2. Grieving. Grief is usually associated with the death of a loved one. But as Huffer points out, it is legitimate to grieve the loss of possessions, or our lifestyle, or our place in the community. Sometimes well-meaning friends or relatives say, “Oh, it’s only money.” This isn’t true. As Huffer writes, “Possessions are the outward manifestations of our inner identity.” We didn’t just lose things. We lost part of ourselves.
3. Obsession. Lisa is obsessed with her hatred of the guy who violated her. Her feelings are certainly justified. The problem with obsession, however, is that it wears you out, and interferes with your ability to regain control in your life. Huffer suggests coping with obsession by compartmentalizing it—only allowing yourself to dwell in it for specific periods of time. “Schedule your way out of it,” she says.
4. Blaming. This means putting blame where it belongs: on the perpetrator. We often feel guilty for allowing the situation to occur in our lives. But we have nothing to be guilty about. We were normal, caring, loving individuals who were deceived. The guilt, anger and rage needs to directed towards the person who deceived us.
5. Deshaming. Before our encounter with the predator, we had certain beliefs, such as “there’s good in everyone,” or “if someone asks me to marry him, he must really love me.” Unfortunately, the dreadful experience has taught us that some beliefs are false and need to be changed. When we do this, we also change our attitude, from “I was a fool” to “I’ve been wronged.”
6. Reframing. The first five steps of the process must be accomplished, Huffer writes, before a person can move on to reframing. At this stage, you can look at your experience, define it differently, and then articulate the wisdom you’ve gained.
7. Empowerment. At this point, you feel focused energy. You take ownership of your problems, determine how you are going to cope with them, and go into action.
8. Recovery. With recovery, you are able to move forward in your life. Sometimes recovery involves forgiveness, but Huffer says it is not necessary. It if far too early for Lisa, who wrote the e-mail quoted above, to attempt forgiveness.
The long journey
There is no expected timetable for moving through the recovery process. We all have different personal histories and face different circumstances. We’ve all had different levels of violation.
Anyone who has been targeted for destruction by a sociopath must understand that it was a profound assault, and it will take time to recover. You may slide back and forth among the stages. So be gentle on yourself, because the journey may be long. If you keep going, in the end you will find peace, built upon new depths of wisdom and understanding.
Good advice Aloha!
I had not read this thread until this morning. I find myself vasilating back and forth between reframing and obsession. Yesterday morning I was in a good space. I had a horrible day at work, my kids are gone this weekend, I tried to sleep in my king size bed alone, and I miss S terribly. This morning, (afternoon now) I am obsessed. Obsessed with thoughts of S and yes, I spoke to him. I am keeping my focus now by reading. I have sat here for 5 hours now, smiling, occasional giggles, and wiping tears. I felt an especially strong connection to you Henry. Ox, I can visualize your kitchen and have to tell you that your kitchen smells wonderful. Thank you all.
Dear Lib,
You are doing great by being good to YOU! Taking care of you and spending time just with yourself.
I’m glad you like my kitchen, right now it’s sort of empty. I cooked beef ribs last night for my son and his friends, and my son is on his way to visit another friend so I am just “microwaving” me something to eat in this terrible heat we are having in central US. No sign of relief for a couple of weeks and 100+ degrees every day. I’ll whip up something on monday that’s yummy for supper–I’m the queen of crock pots and one-dish meals in the summer time! My son has federal Jury duty on Monday.
Lib, my dear, I know it is lonesome in the bed alone, I’ve been sleeping alone (except for the dog now) for 4 years and it seems so lonely in there, but the dog does help some…but you know, I would rather be in a bed the size of a foot ball field ALONE than have a SNAKE in the bed with me. No matter how the SNAKE cuddled up to me, it wouldn’t make my bed any warmer or better—and neither would a psychopath!
When you start to think about him, take M. L’s advice and scream STOP! There’s a thought of him—then blow it away.
(((hugs)))))
Lib – oxy – bev – Jane – perky – all of you – the universe- you have been with me now four month’s. Listened to my story, given me encouragment, helped educate me. Why why why is this so difficult? Why do I still want to give him the benifit of the doubt? After all that has happened, after all this pain, why am I so obsessed with him? Am I a sociopath? Do I have borderline something? I feel like I have lost my last chance at this. I avoided commitment for so long. OXY I know I was conned. Bev I know I was lonely. I feel like their was no choice but to set him free. No matter how hard the pain I have to go through this. I am building wall’s around me. I don’t trust anyone. I don’t want to be this way. I feel so much pain. Yet I don’t ache for his arm’s, I don’t even want his company, I don’t know why but I feel like he and I had something, and we both lost out on the chance of a life time. Because we both have issue’s. And we didn’t have the skill’s to work it out. I know I am repeating myself. No responce necessary just thinking out loud again….
ox I can see you reaching for that skillit….. I did the no contact – i ran him off three times-without giving him a chance to manipulate me, I changed my number’s, I told him to leave and never come back..now I have to suffer the consequences- maybe if I had tried one more time… go ahead oxy hit me hard..
Henry, dear dear sweet henry,
I’m not gonna hit you when you are already in so much pain! (((Henry)))) All the feelings, all the contradictions, all the “I may have missed out on the love of a life time” is normal to go through. You get to a point you think you are doing well, and then you “back slide” and that is NORMAL.
When we are grieving, and Henry this is GRIEVING. First we are in DENIAL. “Oh, it can’t be true”—then we get to BARGAINING and we pray Oh, God I” go to church every day for the rest of my life if it isn’t true” or “I’ll do anyting to make you happy dear” etc. Then we get SAD and cry, and then we get ANGRY (it doesn’t even matter if you are grieving cause someone died, you get mad at them for dying!) When you have worked through it all you eventually come to ACCEPTENCE. It is what it is.
Now, this all sounds nice and neat, BUT–here;s the BUT—you don’t go through them in order, and you don’t go through each stage only once. SOOOOOO what yo do is go back and forth from denial to anger, to sadness, to denial to bargaining, to anger, to sadness to….you get the idea. EVENTUALLY you come to acceptence and stay there.
Make sense now Henry? You are doing what we all do when we grieve. If you don’t go through the stages enough times, etc. you’ll never get to acceptance. The anger stage is one in which lots of people get hung up in. They blame the doctors cause mama died, or they blame the other party for the divorce, that is why we have to RESOLVE each of these stages eventually before we can fully come to peace and acceptence.
You didn’t miss out on anything with Mike except more years of pain. HE COULD NOT LOVE. HE IS A PSYCHOPATH. HE IS TWISTED. HE IS WITHOUT CONSCIENCE. HE USED AND ABUSED YOU, HE WOULD HAVE KEPT ON USING AND ABUSING YOU.
In a healthy person in a healthy relationship it takes from 1 to 1 1/2 years to resolve grief. (at least) I jumped into another relationship in 8 months (bad move on my part) and for the net 8 months was not working on my grief issues with my late husband but with the pain of the relationship–so then I was back to square one, grieving over the loss of the P-relationship and still having to deal with the loss of my husband grief—wah la! Enter the trojan HOrse P and all that crap! So I had 4 straight years of chaos, loss and emotional pain. Now, I have had exactly 1 year of “respite” from the worst of it all. I’m doing BETTER but I still have a long way to go in completing the grieving process over MULTIPLE LOSSES.
The latest and last beiing my relationship with my mother which is now NC. And, you know, I’m getting there. I no longer wonder about my P-son, my X-BF, my late Bio-father, my X-boss, my X-DIL, etc I am focusing on ME and my two sons and our relationship, on setting goals—goals for today, tomorrow, next week, next year, five years from now–things I want to accomplish if this darned heat ever remits–yea it will and I will complain of the cold in January! LOL
Henry, the FACT that you are in pain over Mike PROVES BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT that you are NOT A SOCIOPATH. Now you can believe that or I will get the skillet back out. LOL (((Henry)))
I know that right now you don’t trust anyone, and that too is normal and natural. Trust will return when you are more toward the healed end of the spectrum. These bounces back are just part of the process my dear friend! Hang on, this too shall pass. xooxoxox Oxy
yes, we dont go through them in order – that does make sense – I know this may sound even sicker but I think to myself-if I could just replace him with someone new – at least it would take my mind off him….but when I go looking for someone new I am looking for Mike—jeez–
Henry, the “find someone new” aspect is what a LOT OF PEOPLE do and they wind up with ANOTHER FREEKING P!
That’s why it is soooooooooo verrrrrry important to get your head out of your…lake….or what ever, before you go off looking for another person…Henry I DID THAT, I jumped at the first P that showed interest, anything to take my mind off my losses. And it did that all right! It gave me NEW PAIN TO THINK ABOUT! UGHHHHH!!!!!
That’s why I’ve been beating on your head with the cast iron skillet to get some sense pounded in there, dear dear Henry. (sorry about the skull fracture, I got a little too proactive there! LOL) because it doesn’t take a crystal ball to be able to “predict” that you will hook up with another psychopath. That’s just the way it works and they come on soooo strong as your “prince charming”—-so yea, don’t trust anyone right now, that is your MIND PROTECTING YOU. LISTEN TO IT!!!!
When you’ve been bitten by a dog, you avoid dogs for a while, you don’t trust them so much for a while, and you don’t stick you hand out to strange dogs so often any more. GOOD insitinct!
What we will eventually do, when we are more toward the healing end of the spectrum is to BE MORE CAUTIOUS but not distrusting. We’ll use good sense and when we see a red flag waving or someone coming on too strong we will STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN…and make a rational decision.
Don’t beat yourself up my friend, Henry, that’s my job! Have skillet, will travel! LOL You are doing great, Henry, just have patience with yourself. Be gentle and don’t get into a big hurry, “the finest china has been though the hottest fires.”
There are some things that can’t be rushed, you can’t get a baby in one month getting 9 women pregnant, so healing takes some TIME too. Don’t rush it! (((hugs))))
and henry , its not because you didnt have the skills to work it out…….he DIDNT want what you want…he didnt and NEVER
Henry-Yeah, what Oxy said. I agree.
Please believe that you are normal, and what you are going through is also very normal.