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A guidebook for recovering from the devastation of a sociopath

You are here: Home / Laws and courts / A guidebook for recovering from the devastation of a sociopath

February 16, 2009 //  by Donna Andersen

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Legal Abuse SyndromeI clearly remember the shock of realizing that everything my ex-husband, James Montgomery, had ever told me was a lie. I remember the devastation of discovering the truth: His entire purpose in marrying me was to get a free place to live, take advantage of my good reputation and defraud me of my assets. All the promises, all the assurances, were literally sweet nothings. They sounded good, and meant absolutely nothing.

I remember being paralyzed by my new truth. How could I possibly plan a recovery for my life, when every day I was falling apart? Worse, no one seemed to have an explanation for what happened, or advice on how to handle it.

It’s been 10 years since I left my ex-husband. I’ve now identified what I was dealing with—a sociopath. I read books that explained the disorder, such as Without Conscience by Dr. Robert Hare. But books with practical advice on how to cope with the trauma? They’re hard to come by. One of the best I’ve found, surprisingly, is Legal Abuse Syndrome, by Karin Huffer, M.S., M.F.T., which is now available in the Lovefraud Store.


Eight steps to recovery

The book was written to help victims cope with the betrayals and inefficiencies of the “justice system” after a violent or deceptive assault. Huffer contends that continuous assault by the legal establishment creates post traumatic stress disorder in the victim.

Well, the egregious assault of a sociopath created post traumatic stress disorder in many of us, whether we got involved with the legal system or not. So in the course of laying out a plan for overcoming legal abuse, Huffer also lays out a plan for overcoming sociopathic abuse.

Huffer identifies eight steps to recovery:

1. Debriefing. That means telling someone what happened, and that person listening without judgment.

2. Grieving. It is legitimate to grieve the loss of possessions, or our lifestyle, or our place in the community.We didn’t just lose things. We lost part of ourselves.

3. Obsession. Huffer suggests coping with obsession by compartmentalizing it—only allowing yourself to dwell in it for specific periods of time.

4. Blaming. This means putting blame where it belongs: on the perpetrator. The guilt, anger and rage needs to directed towards the person who deceived us.

5. Deshaming. The dreadful experience has taught us that some of our prior beliefs are false and need to be changed. When we do this, we change our attitude from “I was a fool” to “I’ve been wronged.”

6. Reframing. At this stage, you can look at your experience, define it differently, and then articulate the wisdom you’ve gained.

7. Empowerment. 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.

Protocol works

I spoke to the author, Karin Huffer, at the Battered Mothers Conference in January. It was the first time I’d seen her since finishing the book. I told her that, in my opinion, the eight steps she defined for recovering from legal abuse would also work in recovering from a sociopath.

Huffer agreed. In fact, she said that her program has now been out long enough to have proven itself. “The protocol works,” she said.

When we decided to add the Lovefraud Store to our website, one of the books that I really wanted to offer was Legal Abuse Syndrome. It explains why other people—even those who care about you—can’t listen to what you’re saying. It tells you how to place blame where it should be—on the predator. It tells you how to handle your obsessions. Oh, yes, and it tells you how to cope with legal shenanigans.

Legal Abuse Syndrome is now available, and I strongly recommend it—even if you aren’t in court with the predator who assaulted you.

Legal Abuse Syndrome in the Lovefraud Store.

Category: Laws and courts, Recovery from a sociopath

Previous Post: « After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 4-Bargaining
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kindheart48
16 years ago

ok guys, i know i’m a pretty new member but you wil have to fill me in on both ROTFLMAO and TOWWANDA sorry i haven’t clued in yet. kindheart

kindheart48
16 years ago

hi guys, wonderingif any of you ladies have had the same experience with your s. Mine seems to have a deeper connection to his male friends as oppossed to females in fact im sure deep down he’s a mysogonist but i can’t help but notice how all his males friends or at least a handful are extremely loyal to him and they back each other . It’s strange as i can’t help but wonder if he has the same hold over them as he did me. He certainly trusts these males friends over any women i think that have entered his life. Bonds with them more than a woman i guess im trying to say. I also suspect he could be a latent homosexual but not convinced. I am convivnced he has no respect for women though. Not for the human race in general but a lot less respect where women are concerned.

learnthelesson
16 years ago

rotflmao – rolling on the floor laughing my ass off

towanda= from movie Fried Green Tomatoes where actress Kathy Bates rams her car into another and declares “Towanda” – one for the women!!!!

OXY – you once wrote GFUAH or something like that…(think you were talking about running into your xDIL, meant to ask you what it meant… but if it was actually GFUAH — I JUST NOW GOT IT! LOL

pb
16 years ago

Jim sez:
“You know, that gravity thing, I always wondered”could it work FOR us? Say, after fifty or so years”could you hang up-side down, stand on your head, or get one of those stainless steel spinning traction things”8-10 hours a day for the next 15-20 years””

You know what they yell in the Seniors strip bar:

PUT IT ON! PUT IT ON! PUT IT ON!

HAHA!

kindheart48
16 years ago

yes i remember Towanda now. I can hear Kathy Bates voice right now. going through a little more anger thinking how the s was so cheap with me but as my shrink said he’s cheap with everyone but it hurts. Don’t know why, but it makes me feel less than when the truth is he should have been grateful to have me in his life. I think it’s called withholding, he once said”if i give you what you want you won’t come back” and that went right over m head, yes hit me with frying pan please as that one was so obv.

Matt
16 years ago

kindheart48:

I am so there with you, sister. That S made only a fraction of what I made was never an issue for me. I freely shared my love, life and resources with him. There was no such reciprocation.

His generosity to himself was staggering. His generosity to others on my dime was astonishing. His financial, emotional and sexual withholding toward me was one of the most painful things I have ever encountered.

kindheart48
16 years ago

Matt, mine has been cheap with everyone but then out of the blue he will treat someone he barely knows but withhold from those he should cherish. I swear if i asked for something (very insignificant things) he would never give it to me. No flower , no cards nothing but all his THINGS he buys himself are sickening , selfishness i’ve never encoutered ever, it took my breath away. I am always happy for people when they get things they love but with him i found it so hard at times as he was so self centred with everything. His bleeping things are just things, and people he treated like garbage. But i am worth so much more.

kindheart48
16 years ago

Matt i feel for the withholding in all areas as it’s the emotional that hurts , well dam it all hurts, withholding deliberately is just mean and hurtful. A very bad quality to have and it does terrible damage to those they inflict but they don’t know what sharing is and never will understand it.

Matt
16 years ago

kindheart48:

The withholding a one-two punch. The S gets to control his victim. Then the victim is demolished by S denying them something important to them.

I still remember the vacation from hell, when I took S to Mykonos to my family’s home last summer. Every day on the beach, and every night in the clubs I”d look at all these couples, so obviously in love. Every once in awhile, like clockwork, he’d take my hand Do you think I didn’t want that?”

Short answer — yes. I think he was determined to wreck the trip by refusing to give in one inch on something that was important to me. It could have been the trip of a lifetime for him, and a true honeymoon for us.

This coming summer, I am going bacck. I will perform an exorcism on or villa to drive out his spirit. And hopefully I”ll have somebody there with me who will appreciate both the island and me.

Savannah
16 years ago

Oh my goodness! I’ve just spent the last 5 1/2 hours reading all of the posts here and my back and eyes are killing me!

Oxy, you are so welcoming and I truly appreciate it. Fried Green Tomatoes is one of my favorite movies so the first time I saw it stated here, I was ROTFLMAO!! (I think it may have been one of your posts.)

Jim in Indiana: I think “TOWANDO” is priceless. Thanks for making me laugh.

All of you are so wonderful, even when in so much pain, we will come through. We will survive.

On 3/2/09, I got new phone number for my lan line. I’m working on NC with the ex BF that started me on the quest of learning about p/s/n’s. I used to think, “What is wrong with him”. Why am I having such a hard time getting him to understand common concepts of curtiousy? That is now one of my “red flags”. I’ve only seen him three times in three years but there was a lot of phone conversations and lots of mind games. I would call him every now and again to see if there was any change in his thinking or mindset and there wasn’t. Maybe it was some missplaced pride or ego on my part but I also engaged in conversations with him to learn more about his narcissism. (There was another blogger on another post that said someting similar: SurReal, not sure of the name) I now see that this contact has done some damage to me but I have seen enough to be more than a little frightend of him now. Also, watch out for boredom!!! I have called him at least 10 times out of the past 3 yrs, just because I was bored and wondered what kind of game he would play this time. NO CONTACT is really the only thing to do and it took me years to get to that point.

This past November, I went to a club he was at and I went home with him. (I hadn’t laid eyes on him for 1 1/2 yrs) He does work in the telecom industry and was trying to get a job/contact with AT & T and they had him take a personality test. He told me this when we got to his apartment. He said that they told him that he failed the test and sent it to him again to take. I read the two tests and almost fell off the sofa when I was reading his answers to the questions. I was able to hide my horror. It was a number rating test. You put 1-18, 1 being that something is important to you, 18, not important at all. He put “conflict” at a 2, and “torture a body” at 8. He couldn’t grasp the concept or instructions of the test. I tried to tell him that he is saying that by putting a “2”, he is saying that he likes “conflict” and that it’s important to him. He replied to me that it is important to him to not have conflict. So we played “ring around the rosie” on that for a few minutes but I saw it was pointless. I left the “torture a body” alone.

Then my ever efficient “cognative dissonance” kicked in and I slept with him and went home the next day. BARF!! UGH, OXY WHERE IS THE SKILLET WHEN I NEED IT.

I have to say: When he started telling me about the test, and he said, “I have it right here”, I couldn’t believe it!!! I wanted that peek into his mind so bad!! There I was, on his sofa, with PROOF of his disorder in my HAND. It was better than the sex.

I have been playing with fire. I’m getting out while I still can. BEFORE I BURN.

Much love to you all.

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