3 Times A Charmer

There are blogs on recovery from a psychopath here that could be helpful. Donna does consulting that could be helpful too.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Sunnygal.

Keyth – I am so sorry for your experience. I’ve heard of may cases like yours, where someone from the distant past shows up again. People like you often feel like you’re connecting with “the one that got away.”

No Contact is critical. These relationships are highly addictive, and you need to get over the addiction. That’s why you can have No Contact with this person. With No Contact, your brain and emotions start to recover. If you have contact, you’ll need to start all over again.

You might want to search the term “addicted to a sociopath” on Lovefraud. use the magnifying glass at the top of the page.

keyth, Donna is 100% correct. If you can, because you do not have kids or property or a business together, you ‘simply’ go completely NO contact. All back and forth stops forever. It is the only way to get rid of these energy vampires.

I love that the light went on for you once you started reading about how they manipulate people. It is really helpful when you can read the descriptions of their behavior and say ‘bingo!’ to yourself. This first aha moment is critical. It doesn’t erase the sadness and feelings of loss, but it does dispel disbelief. And believing the truth about what you have been through is a critical piece of the process for moving forward and leaving the abuse behind.

Slim

I’d like to say hi to everyone and give encouragement and love in your journey of healing. I know mine has been up and down, but just keep going. Light is all around you, you just have to notice it and keep going towards it. There is a very real reason you are going through this.
About 4 or so years ago I encountered a female sociapath. I was at a point of real vulnerability coming out of another toxic relationship. Immediately I knew something was up but I realize now that I didn’t love myself enough or thought I deserved what I deep down know I deserve. I will make this short because I want to ask a question or get some opinions on something that is troubling me. To make a long story short she played on my sympathies, love bombed, had incredible sexual chemistry, and then started playing games. I knew something was off from the beginning but I ignored it and believed her. She is by far the best liar and deceiver I have ever run across. It finally came out pathetically and even then she took away my chance to have feelings over the situation by claiming victimhood as the cheater. She hoovered and I ended up believing that our relationship was special and kept going back as she started therapy to make me believe she was changing. Long story short she cut me off and I spiraled downward. After hitting rock bottom I called her and she came to my rescue, which now makes sense but didn’t at the time. She appeared to have really changed but that was short lived. Things became awkward and I realized how disconnected things really were on every level. I had come to a point where I was the one that mattered and began to see things more clearly. So, I left. She has always known what to say, and has never really been rageful except at first. I believe she is using therapy as a way to hone her deceit and learn about behavior because it seems she gets better at it but it has always felt very contrived and artificial.
I am seeing a good therapist but the same one she was seeing. They aren’t too aware of these traits and I’m concerned about going any further with them because I know they don’t see it as I do. It has taken me this long to finally accept who they really are because I have wanted to always come from a place of love, forgiveness, and understanding, but they have always exploited that and always will. They are just so damn fake and I am going to honor myself every damn day from this point on by accepting this fact.
I am blessed that they have never really run a smear campaign that I know of because I also work near them and see them occasionally. As to there lies and cheating I am not sure how much they have done recently. They had slept with a lot of guys previously. If they were it was at work during lunch or moments they could get away. I’m pretty sure something was going on when I left. I read an article on here about finding out all there stuff but I am unsure how to do that and I honestly am just ready to focus on what I want and put this behind me. I feel indifferent and disconnected at this point, which I know is a huge step in the process. At this point I feel it is a waste of my time to investigate. I hope this made some sense.
Thank you for reading and much love.

rdubeus, I would say if you don’t feel the desire/need/compulsion to dig into her history and find out what she was really up to while you were involved then don’t. It is completely unnecessary if you are feeling like you are moving on and getting a good feeling of distance and disconnection from the experience.

As for seeing her therapist. That is a tricky issue. Not sure what to do about that, if anything. I know I would feel more confident if I saw a therapist who UNDERSTOOD malignant narcissism, and fully supported you in dealing with the aftermath of your involvement with one. And, if the ex can manipulate this therapist, making them believe that you are equally responsible for what ‘went wrong’ between the two of you, you may not be getting the best treatment and support.

Because the truth is this is NOT a 50/50 situation. These types are always WAY more responsible for what has happened than the targets. We may be vulnerable or needy, but we are not lying, conning, and manipulating our way through the relationship.

Slim

rdubeus I would not see the same therapist. I want a therapist who is totally supportive of me.

SG

Hi Keyth,
It sounds like she was feeling bored and thought, ” hmmm, let’s see, whose life can I totally destroy now? I know! … Keyth ” She counted on your history together to get her ” foot in the door “; she already knew you and got the chance to know you better and then added to that was her accomplished use of her abuser’s bag of tricks. It is amazing how abusers so often demonstrate the exact same patterns as each other. These predators have been around for a long long time wrecking havoc with people’s lives, and the wonderful thing is that finally this type of abuse is coming to light and now that we can see it, we therefore don’t have to be victims because of the whole not knowing about personality disordered people. That knowledge brings tremendous self empowerment. Just go step by step into more light and clarity about the issue, and your heart will heal more and more. Please don’t blame yourself or anything like that – because it seems that is one of the aftermaths of being abused that we tend to do even though it was their cruelty and not ours at all. It is so good that she is finally out of your life – for good.
Blessings to you

Hi rdubeus,
I’m going to share with you an understanding that I have come to and which I think you may find useful as well : I like you had given forgiveness to the situation, and I think that is good. What I realized was that even if I have forgiven someone, that doesn’t mean that I need to keep that person in my consciousness. They are just too toxic and I believe that No Contact is the way to stop the poison from getting in. But No Contact does not mean only to keep away from them physically or phone etc. It means No Contact within yourself, like your own inner dialogue or any inner attention to the abuser. Trying to determine what they are up to just keeps one focused on them, when what we want is to have them out of our lives completely – physically, mentally and spiritually. I don’t know if you stopped seeing the same therapist that the abuser was seeing, but the problem with having the same therapist is that your mind will be aware that the person who you are talking to also has the toxic one in their mind and this would further establish the psychological enmeshment you are trying to free yourself from. It’s great though that you have gone to get help. Find a your own therapist who has an understanding of hidden psychological abuse, as other participants have also mentioned to do. Also, feel welcome to post anything that you feel the need to ” discuss “. There is alot of understanding here.
Blessings to you.

Hi rdubeus,
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. There is a very delicate balance in recovery, I have found and it seems that from what you have described, that you are going through trying to navigate this as well. The way I see it, is that on the one hand, we need to respect our psyche’s need to process what happened so we aren’t forcing thoughts and feelings down so they fester like a disease – and on the other hand dealing with the issue that you described so aptly : ” sucking your life force ” – very well said – because that is exactly what these psychotic one’s are up to, I believe. They not only want to feed off of our energy, but the specific energy that they want is negative energy. Thus they do everything possible to put us in a negative state, whether it being by devaluing us so that we either retaliate with anger or accept their version of us being worthless. Either way, they are happy to feed off of it. There are innumerable examples of the many and varied ways that they behave to create situations which elicit negativity from us – you mentioned some very valid examples. But the point that I am trying to put across, is that from my experience, when I try to understand what happened and review some of the scenarios, that sometimes I feel that I have gained in understanding, but then it seems that if I go beyond a certain point – wham ! I find my self back into that negative energy zone. So we need to heal and to more and more get back to how we were before their entry into our lives, when we were happy and positive and loving. I even sometimes wonder if even if we are in No Contact, and have slipped into negativity, that somehow on a psychic level, that they can somehow imbibe it. So that is why I mentioned the fine line between not squelching your thoughts and feelings, but then to keep going more and more towards the positive. Lately though, I am trying mainly to simply ” let it go “, when a thought pops up about the whole abusive episode. But it really sounds like you are making great progress. It shows your strength of character that you were able to successfully get two of them out of your life !
Blessings to you

Polestar,
I enjoy your responses and just wanted to say thank you so much! I had to tell you that this person is working on there master’s for family and couples therapy. They are also in therapy. How ironic. These reasons have really made me question my own sanity thinking I am the one who is messed up. I do have many things to work on but I am honest and loyal unlike them.
I actually want to give my best effort to be vulnerable, share, communicate in order to grow together with someone. They were so clever and subtle in there ways.
I very much relate to what you said with going to far in thought and finding yourself feeling more negative. I have thought the same thing before with how our energy can work but I feel once we hit that point of really wanting and taking our autonomy back we become more empowered over these types of people. I have found the journey between accepting the reality of there behavior and giving unconditional love has been so challenging. Opening your heart and letting go has been for me saying yes! Thank you life for sending me this so I can gain incredible wisdom, strength, and love. For reminding who I am and what I really want. For loving everything that shows up because it is an opportunity to learn more about myself and life. Yes! I accept this and I am grateful for it because this will undoubtedly make us so much stronger and more loving. So I would say, be still polestar. Say yes, shut your mind up and surrender and ask what you can learn from this all. This has reverenced and humbled me while at the same time brought great strength. There are still days that throw me off but it has taught me to control my mind more and that I only have control over that. I realize I needed a lot of these lessons and so many more. So I am so grateful. I am grateful for meeting you as well and know you have the intelligence, self love, and strength to see this through and help others as you have helped me.

rdubeus,
Your direction is so very helpful and I will definitely integrate what you have said. But most of all, your kindness really touched my heart.
Blessings to you.