Last Friday Robin Hoffman interviewed me again on her radio show, The Feminine Soul. We discussed recovering from a relationship with a sociopath. She asked two very important questions, “How do we avoid picking another sociopath in the future?” and “How can we ever trust our instincts again?”
Coincidentally, yesterday I received this letter from a reader:
I got involved recently with a man who seemed to be the opposite of my previous psychopath. All the traits I like, strong, dominant, etc but seemed to have a good heart, and importantly a good history. I checked him out, he had a long service in the police force and a voluntary youth organization, was widely respected and successful.
Recognizing my vulnerability, I kept my eyes and ears open, and my heart guarded.
After 3 weeks I started to spot inconsistencies, tested a bit, and noticed the feeling of cognitive dissonance and didn’t ignore it.
After 6 weeks I ended the relationship, even though part of me was screaming inside “no, don’t do it”. Only afterwards did I discover that not only was he cheating on a wife who had cancer, but he was also cheating on a long term girlfriend, who genuinely loved him and is devastated. He was playing with fire by putting us both on the same webpage and we got chatting without having any idea of the relationships involved and it all came out. I’ve given her a link to saferelationships.com and can only hope she learns from the experience.
I SO proud of myself. I got out before getting involved, so it didn’t hurt. The experience was positive in that I made a different choice, for me. My stop light is starting to work and I’m learning I can trust my instincts again.
There are three parts of ourselves that are “taken” by the sociopath. The first part is the conscious mind. The sociopath fools the conscious mind by lies. It can be very difficult to detect these lies because skilled sociopaths use willing and unknowing accomplices to back up their lies. (This is why it is important for family members to distance themselves from the sociopath and his/her relationships.)
Sociopaths know to pick on trusting people. In general trusting people are loyal and trustworthy. These are good qualities so when your conscious mind is taken, you can be left with a lot of self-doubts. The strategy of carefully checking out people’s claims is a good one but it often takes time to uncover a sociopath’s lies.
Our unconscious minds also get “taken” in the sociopath’s con. Sociopaths are dominant and seductive. These traits may be arousing and attractive. I think that this may be in born. We may be attracted to these traits instinctively just like certain body parts are arousing for some.
Even though the attraction to the dominance and seductiveness of sociopaths may be instinctual, I don’t think we are stuck with it. I was able to train myself to be different and I want to share with you how I did it.
I am somewhat ashamed to say it took me too long to understand that I was drawn to sociopaths because of their dominance behavior. Once I understood this, I set out to find a way to feel differently about them. I wanted to like them less. I had always observed that there were some mental health professionals who were instinctively repulsed by sociopaths and I wanted to know what was different about them.
In studying the literature on dominance behavior and personality I discovered that dominance and empathy are opposed to each other. When dominance motives are in play empathy is turned off. The hormones of dominance also turn off empathy. The opposite is also true empathy and affection also suppress dominance motives.
Armed with this knowledge I set out to study men I knew who had long track records of loving empathetic behavior. I spent hours talking with them about their views of love, life and life’s purpose. I did this until the lesson had sunk in emotionally not just intellectually. A fully human person, male or female is loving and devoted. He or she is able to control dominance motives and express them only when appropriate.
Since this emotional lesson sunk in, I have found myself actually repulsed by dominant people. I no longer admire them or find them entertaining. Instead, I emotionally experience them as they are, shallow and lacking in important qualities.
Sociopaths also “take us” on another level. They manipulate us into forming bonds with them. These bonds are unconscious and chemical- whether the sociopath is a family member or lover. Breaking a bond with a sociopath is very painful. We do not have to be enslaved by our human bonds, we can acknowledge them and realize that at times these bonds have to be broken even though doing so is painful and difficult.
To sum it up then your new wiser mindset may have many aspects to it. Wisdom is a practice as well as a state of mind.
Hi everyone, and welcome, Indigoblue.
Gemini, hang in there with the NC. It will get easier. I think if you are in a position to move somewhere to be around family or just away from places with bad memories, I say DO IT! It will definitely help to do things that distract you. Those moments of not thinking about the S do add up. After a few months, I found I was able to go for several days at a time without thinking about him. It comes in waves for me at this point. Anyone who wants to get away is welcome to take a trip to Denver and drop in for a visit. It’s gorgeous here with the leaves all turning colors. I wish I could post some pics.
I am so grateful for this site and all the wonderful people here. I do believe healing does not happen in a vacuum, and the support has meant so much to me.
Backing up a bit, thank you again, OxD for your response. I think the waves if pain I’m going through are related to some very old abandonment issues. When I go through this stuff, it really turns my ground of reality upside down. My attitude is much better today. I was actually very invested in that 3-month relationship. I believed him to be the man I was meant to marry. Boy did I miss the boat on that one! LOL
To say I’ve had bad luck in relationships is like saying the Titanic had bad luck with an iceberg!!!
If I am ever able to break free of this condo, I would so consider moving out there and being part of your community if were up for it. I would willingly give massages to anyone out there who needed them and do whatever work was needed. But please hide the brown recluse spiders. I’m terrified of them!
It just came to me !
*It’s Name is Legions !*
Love Jere
Dear Henry,
I AM GOING TO GIVE YOU A BIG (((HUGS)))) BROTHER!!! For going back to your doctor—“men never listen”—you know why? I invented this (er, ah, “researched” this myself “discovered it if you will.) It is called TESTICULAR HEARING DEFICIT.
See, the way it works is when a male chld hits puberty and the testosterone starts flowing, it makes him DEAF, but ONLY to the frequencies of a woman’s voice. He can hear a man’s voice, or any other sound, but it makes him totally DEAF to what comes out of a woman’s mouth, even one as smart, wise, and HUMBLE as I am. LOL hee hee
But I am not going to tell you “I told you so”—I would never do that! Cause I didn’t realize that this “deafness” would transfer into cyberspace and they would also go BLIND to what a woman typed! Take your meds before I get my SUPER DUPPER SIZE SKILLET, Brother Henry! Don’t make me come through this screen! LOL ROTFLMAO. ((((hugs))))
Stargazer,
I am hoping that at some point we will be able to have live-in paid employees as well as volunteer staff.
Actually, I will be taking in a “friend” of my son C’s. He is a nice enough boy, no drugs, no alcohol, but he grew up in such a “trashy” back woods family (with some Ps in it too) that he has grown up without any idea HOW to get a job or HOW to work. The kid is so terminally shy he has NO idea how to interview for a job.
My step father taught a high school class in our very rural High school where this kind of kid was the majority. This program called DEDO (Distributive Education, Distributive Occupation I think) was designed to let a kid go to school mornings and get “readin’ ritin’ and rithmatic” basics and work after school. These kids would otherwise have had to dropout of high school inorder to help support their families.
I even took this class one year and had an job. Daddy taught them how to dress, how to interview, work ethic, some of them even to brush their teeth.
Some of his students from the most ignorant and back woods families ended up as IRS agents, Managers of Sears stores. etc. These kids were the first ones in their families in many cases who had gone past 8th grade, much less COLLEGE.
Iwill be starting at the “bottom end” with this kid, and working him like a “borrowed mule” (to encourage him to look for paying work) for room and board. Along with lessons on job interviews. The kid is far from stupid, he is actually quite bright, but TOTALLY CLUELESS on how to get along in the real world. My son has been taking him to job interviews day after day after day and the kid can’t get a job at McDonalds. So I think with a combination of a stress free place to live, a place to sleep, and meals (and believe me when he leaves here if he stays very long he will know how to clean house, cook, and wash clothing properly.
As well as I have enough hard manual labor here that needs doing, a job as a ditch digger with a shovel for minimum wage will lookk like a vacation compared to 10 or more hours a day here stacking cord wood or dragging brush. It is amazing how motivated some people can be if you work them hard enough. LOL I’ve got a couple of BIG trees down in the pasture that blew down in the last tornado and they need cutting up (my son D will do that, I’m not going to turn thiskid loose with a chain saw) but there will be brush to pull and chunks of wood to move that takes just raw muscle power.
I will give the young man an OPPORTUNITY for some education, socialization, and physical exercise, but he will not receive ENABLING in any way or form.
Ikept a kid one time when he had been suspended from school for 3 days and his parents didn’t want to leave him home alone, so I sent him out with the hired hand and my son to build fence, and the weather was nice and he actually ENJOYED it out working with the guys.
The second time he came I told him NO TV, NO GAME BOY, to bed at 8 p.m. on the floor with a sleeping bag. Get up at 6 and work til 6 p.m (every hard nasty job I could find) Oh, and I made him give me $20 of his allowance money for a “fine.”
Before he left I told him, if you come back, you will wear an orange jump suit that YOU MUST BUY, and you will sleep in the barn—cold or hot, doesn’t matter, and you will NOT eat at the table with the rest of us in the house. AND, that nice bushy head of hair you love so well, we will take you to the ground and it will be taken off to the skin with the sheep shears, and the fine for the third time is $100. He did not come back for the third trip.
His parents sent me a “thank you card” addressed to the “Blank Airport, farm and PENAL COLONY!” For the next sevearl years he didn’t do well, drugs and the Sheriff’s farm for boys, and got fired from the Boy Scouts as a counselor” but he joined the service and has apparently “straightened up” we hear and I actually hope he did, but I think he really didn’t want to come to our “Penal colony” a third time. LOL He wasn’t ever suspended from school after that though.
I’m hoping that we can meet the needs of some of our clients here when the foundation gets going that lack the “skills” both social and educational, and also need the healing from being abused by a psychopathic x. The kids will be suffering too, and need healing, and encouragement and education. I won’t be nearly as “hard on” (tough love) on most of them as I will be on the “friend” coming here, but this young man is 30+ and has no life skills at all, and essentially is homeless unless he learns those skills. He has NO place to go unless to live with his brother who has a P wife that hates this young man, and so he is going to have to get a “crash course” in survival and motivation. He would be quite happy to live with my son C as an unpaid maid (except for room and board) but that isn’t doing him any good, so now it is time for the “tough love” mama to take in another “foster kid”—I’ll keep you guys posted about how it goes. I’m not sure when he will arrive but before long I think.
Star,
That’s how it’s been for me lately which is why I have been here. I was good for awhile. Maybe about a month. Didn’t think anything of the fact that I hadn’t spoken to him but now that we’re headed into month 3 it’s a bit difficult. It’s bad enough for me this time of year. It’s my favorite season but yet I’m usually always down this time of year as well. and now on top of everything I’m thinking about him constantly. I’ve probably repeated myself numerous times about this but I want him to call just so I can cuss him out. I’ve had a letter I’ve written to him for the same amount of time since I’ve talked to him – 2 (now almost 3) months and I want to send it so badly.
I may take you up on the Denver thing. I’ve been before when the old company I worked for held their annual conference there – it was my first time. It’s absolutely beautiful there. So I’ll keep you posted if do. I’m broke but I’m also spontaneous and I love traveling.
Oh btw – I mentioned my love of music awhile ago. If you guys haven’t heard it you should def check out Britney Spears’ new song Womanizer. Not a fan of the teeny bopper music for the most part but the lyrics are great! Her and Pink’s new one So What. Just in case anyone needs a pick me up. Oh and I realize it’s not all men who are sociopaths – for any of the men just switch the lyrics up to pertain to you. On that music note I’ll write the lyrics of something that can in a way relate to some of us – my personal feelings. And in terms of the reference of free I mean free from the P/S. Here goes:
Hang onto the world as it spins, around.
Just don’t let the spin get you down.
Things are moving fast.
Hold on tight and you will last.
Keep your self-respect your very bright.
Get yourself in gear,
Keep your stride.
Never mind your fears.
Brighter days will soon be here.
Chorus
Take it from me someday we’ll all be free
Verse
Keep on walking tall, hold you head up high.
Lay your dreams right up to the sky.
Sing your greatest song.
And you’ll keep, going, going on.
Oh take it from me someday we’ll all be free
Gemini
NC NO CONTACT
I know what you feel! But He don’t feel ! Thats His game your pain ! If it was me you where cussing out I could feel ashamed ! It Don’t Use this don’t call it by name other than Legions !
Love Jere
hi all: i haven’t been around much lately, but hope all of you are doing well. henry, you said something above that really struck me. there is no closure. that was important for me to hear, as i cried and cried tonight with the nagging question of ”HOW could he do this to me … to us?”
you’re right. we will never have closure because there IS no answer to this question. there is no closure. there are no apologies, no explanations, no discussion. they don’t offer a normal end to anything. they use, abuse and move on — we all stand there with our jaws on the ground.
overall, i’m doing really well considering how long i was with this a-hole. but sometimes i still have a really hard time with the lack of closure. he’s just gone, i’m still sitting here wondering what the hell happened.
i got SO used. it’s still impossible to wrap my brain around any of it. NO CONTACT for 13 weeks now, and my home is again a zen-like, calm, loving space. no drama, no anxiety.
most of the time i am incredibly grateful he found his next victim and dumped me. but, like today, i am sometimes just gob-smacked by the callousness of his actions. it is still the most incredibly unbelievable thing i have ever — or will ever –experience. thanks for putting a word to it … closure. we can forget about it.
To Donna and LF PEEPS – I have had a light bulb moment or day. Went to see my phys. today for probably the last time. It is sinking in finally. All the thing’s I loved about him are the thing’s I love about me. Everything I liked about him I like about me. All the thing’s I love he loved. He has no sense of self. So he became like me. He lived my reality and my dream. And the sense of loss I have are for the shadow I cast upon him. I didn’t lose (him) like I feel like I did. I lost the mirror. He (M) lives on survival mode. He really can’t feel life, so he feel’s it through someone else. But he could no longer pretend and I could no longer believe. I think he did feel a sense of connection with me. He is a lost empty soul. And for awhile I gave him security and love. For awhile he liked being me. But I realized he was a different form of human – unlike me – I do have a sense of self and I do like who I am. He doesn’t like himself at all. And one day something bad may happen too him. I can’t fix that for him. I can’t save him from himself. Shadow’s dont have a heart or soul, they just survive instinctually. Not understanding at all what they do is wrong – never knowing they had a chance of a good life with someone. So I can’t take this personally, I can’t hate him, I feel sorry for him still. I can’t continue a life in hell loveing something that is familiar. The scary thing is I have to change my behavior or I will continue this pattern. I spent my life trying to fix my mother and it can’t be done. She raised me to fix her – rescue her. It just can’t be done. They have to live in the hell they created but I don’t – not anymore. Peep’s this is still a life lesson for me – I continue to learn about myself – thanks for listening…..