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.
Okay, help needed. Here’s where I’m stuck.
I’m not sure if all of you read the story about the neighbor boy, but in brief, we were spending some time together over the summer and again this winter. He is a rock musician and very very weird but high energy and a lot of fun to be around. I had to jump start things with him because he is not one who likes to pursue women. But once they got jumpstarted, he was calling me often and we were going to the gym together. He was asking me out to lunch and movies (we never had a chance to go) and just being a good friend. It was really out of character for him, because he usually just lets women call him. During this time, we slept together a total of only 3 times, but I made sure he was the one in pursuit. All of a sudden in January, I called to take him up on his lunch offer after we’d played phone tag 3 times that week. I was planning to have a casual “talk” with him about where I stood. He never returned the call. This is now the second time he’s just apparently blown me off.
I just decided he wasn’t worth my time, and I decided to let it go. Several weeks ago, I ran into him at the gym a month later and he seemed to be trying to get my attention, but I just said hello and then blew him off.
Here’s the problem. I’m having a hard time letting go of it with no closure. I guess he affected me more than I wanted to admit. I really want to tell him he hurt me, but I don’t want to risk more hurt and humiliation. But I don’t seem to be able to get past it on my own. I can only have so many imaginary conversations, you know? I know he’s not a sociopath, and will at least listen and apologize to me. He’s done this in the past. But the rejection and blow-offs are just so painful.
I’m really tired of living in my little bubble and not telling people how I feel. Is there a way to get unstuck without talking to him? I haven’t met any other guys who get my attention.
Dear Star,
Okay, you had a CASUAL relationship and it obviously meant more to you than it did to him. Maybe he found another woman he’s seeing and didn’t have the guts to tell you and so put “paid” to your relationship. People don’t always realize the effects they have on others socially.
My guess is that he is basically SHY and A SOCIAL MORON so I suggest that YOU put closed to it —and you can do so without telling him off.
First off what good would it accomplish to tell him he’s a social moron? Probably not a bit of good in the world.
YOU are the one obsessing over this thing. Ask yourself WHY? Why was this relationship with was I think more just a “friends with benefits” than anything else SO IMPORTANT TO YOU? WHY can’t you let it go as just “one of those thins?” He has made it obvious that he doesn’t want any more relationship with you by essentially going NC with you, but then trying to catch your eye again at the guy. Why not just LET IT GO?
I think, honestly the problem is on your end this time, not his. I think you are holding on to this “grudge” against him not answering your calls, but he has a RIGHT not to answer your calls just like you have a right to go NC with someone you don’t want to see. Maybe it WAS socially moronic and rude, but so what? What’s the big deal? He’s rude, so snub him right back and let it go. (((hugs))))
I agree, Oxy. I just feel stuck in the feelings. It seems if I could just tell him he hurt me, I would release the feelings and I would feel better. I keep trying to do this on my own, but it’s not working very well. I just keep getting depressed. I know it’s about me, and I hate it! I just threw away a longterm therapist so I don’t know how to deal with this on my own.
Okay, Star.
I went to the Library the other day to return movies, and browsed through the “Self Help” section, looking for something about trauma bonds…should have known better, it’s a small community library, very limited in scope. I found an older book entitled, “MEN Who Can’t Love” It’s about commitment phobics who run away from smart, attractive, strong, independant women, because these are exactly the women they could love, but won’t.
It’s kind of agrivating, cause spaths and Narcopaths do this too, but He never says that. At least not yet, I haven’t finished the book, yet.
Star, I have always identified with you. I think that you, (like me) are a sucker for the ones who do the whole, “come here/go away thing. I think it’s a hook to women like us, because it is so confusing, and ambivalent. It provokes our insecurity, but I think, also offers a challenge.
Can I share something a therapist said to me many years ago, when I was telling her that I was often hooked into this kind of dynamic. (I found it hard to believe at the time, and you may, too). She said that I was afraid of intimacy and commitment, too, and being attracted to that kkind of man insured that I couldn’t have the relatioship I said I wanted. I don’t know if that could be true of you, but it iss of me, and it’s because Of my trauma bonds.
I am so in agreement with you about being honest about your feelings. That is honest and healthy…but in this case, I suggest you let the neighbor boy go. If he cares that he hurt you at all, he will only run furthar and faster by feeling some kind of responsibilty for your feelings. He doesn’t want intimacy…he can’t handle it…so anytime you get to a certaain level, he will retreat, and this will trigger you, and you will pursue. If you retreat, he pursues, and yeah, it feels great until you respond and hit that maximum level he can tolerate and he will retreat again. This is a frustrating dance becuase you never get to any real intimacy, and it becomes a game.
I’m not sure this is what is happening to you, but it’s only food for thought.
I would forget him and focus on you and what you want.
I’m also getting triggered into hurt and abandonment by a lot of my friends’ rude and inconsiderate behaviors. I have stopped going out to lunches with many of my friends because they cannot keep their cell phones off long enough to get through a one-hour lunch. But it seems EVERYONE does this. Is the whole world just rude and inconsiderate? Or am I just picking the wrong people? So I don’t say anything – I just stop inviting them to lunch. All of this leaves me feeling isolated because no one knows how I feel, and it seems pointless to tell them. The cell phone thing just seems like a sign of the times. Although I did make a new friend in my Spanish class who seems to “get” it about how rude the cell phone thing is.
It is rude. It feels like a slap in the face…and it hurts.
If you value these friendships, this might be a time to speak up and practise being honest about your feelings.
If not, just let them go by the wayside.
Kim, your words ring very true, too. I know this is exactly what is happening. And yes, I’m very afraid of intimacy. But I took some big risks with that other guy. I never took a risk with this one. I never really opened up emotionally to him at all. I was hoping to do it once to see how he responds. I know several successful relationships where the woman did the pursuing. I don’t really have that kind of confidence, and I’m a little too much of a woman to chase a guy. The problem is that I feel so stuck. It’s really good advice to stay away from emotionally unavailable men. But then how do I get unstuck if I cannot express myself?
Dear Star,
I agree with Kim’s assessment of this. BTW I don’t think that telling him he hurt you is going to give you any SIGNIFICANT “closure”—because he will I guess not respond to your telling him he hurt you in a way that will “satisfy” your need for some remorse in him.
YOUR feelings are YOURS. He did NOT “make” you feel this way by what he did, you choose to feel this way.
I will share what a therapist told me once and it makes sense. WE ARE IN CONTROL OF OUR FEELINGS.
Here’s the example he used. You are driving along a 2 lane road where there is NO place to pass, and you come up on an old man driving really slowly and YOU are in a hurry. You CAN NOT get around him and you are STUCK behind him. What do you do? Get mad, frustrated, angry? Sit there and say “this old fart is such a pain in the ass and he is going to make me late for my appointment and there’s nothing I can do about it, the old fart should pull over and let me pass, he is such an idiot, I’d like to slap him silly he doens’t need to be driving at his age any way. Can’t he see what he is doing to me?” etc etc.
OR
You can say to yourself when you start to feel the anger mount. “You know, there is nothing I can do about this old man’s speed and I AM going to be late, but I might as well sit back and enjoy the scenery and relax instead of getting worked up with anger at something I cant change.”
WE CAN CONTROL our feelings and thoughts. Or we can GIVE IN to them and feel POWERLESS.
I have found that MAKING MYSELF Do what I know is the right thing, and making myself THINK the right kind of thoughts (we all have this internal dialog going on in our heads and we can listen to it, argue with it, believe it, or tell it it’s full of cheet! and our FEELINGS will go along with the dialog and what we believe.)
So take charge of your FEELINGS and talk to yourself that “feels’ bad about this and wants to TELL THIS ASSHOLE HE HURT YOU!
Star the guy was RUDE, that’s the bottom line on it, and you got your feelings hurt because you expected him to not be what YOU considered rude. So now you want to justify your feelings and tell him off and make him feel bad like he made you feel bad.
There is a book I think you might profit from called “Games People Play” by Dr. Eric Berne and it describes our social rules and how we project feelings on to them in what he calls “games.” The book makes a lot of sense in terms of how we interact with each other and our feelings and our self justifications for what we say and do. It is called “transactional analysis” and includes some pretty serious games like “alcoholic” and other “games.” It is based on the trianglation of RESCUER-PERSECUTOR-VICTIM.
According to Dr. Berne’s TA You are posing yourself in this picture as the WOUNDED VICTIM and the neighbor boy as the PERSECUTOR, so you are trying to justify turning around and wounding him back by telling him how he hurt you (making you the persecutor then). If we engage in “games” we are continually changing “chairs” from rescuer to persecutor to victim like kids in a game of musical chairs. Each of us taking a turn in each chair in a dance of dysfunction to meet the needs of our emotional and internal children. Games preclude intimacy and by engaging in “games” we avoid intimacy and justify our avoidance.
Get the book, I think you might get some good information out of it. I know I have and I’ve used some of it to good advantage in being truly intimate with people and with avoiding those who are more into gamey behavior than intimacy.
Thanks, Oxy, I will get the book. I’m looking for any help here. I recently read something about how to deal with an “imaginary relationship” when the guy is at your job, church, gym, etc. You have all these hurt and angry feelings whenever you see him, but you don’t want him to know. You’ve had a “casual” relationship with him that meant more to you. The thing you are supposed to do is to just say to him “I don’t feel comfortable around you, and I’d prefer if we kept our relationship just business. Please honor my request.” So I’m trying to construct something like this to say the next time I run into loverboy at the pool or at the gym or on his patio. If I just ignore him, it will give my angry feelings away. But if I smile and say hi, it will be a pretense, and I don’t want to pretend either.
I also think I’m missing the part about exactly HOW to be in control of your feelings. Does this mean you can never share them with anyone? How do you control them? How do you handle them? I would think there is a way you can share them without making the other person to be responsible for them? Isn’t this what intimacy is? Seems like all I ever do is control my feelings. The one time I shared them (last September) I actually got close to someone. It’s so confusing for me.
Star, maybe pursue was too strong a word. Maybe I should have said approach, because that is what you are doing if you tell him how you feel. It is an approach.