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.
Really what I wish I could do is just move. Then I would never have to see or deal with this loser again. But until I find a good place to move to, I’m stuck here for a while. I will run into him at the pool and at the gym or around the neighborhood. I guess I’ll just ignore him. I don’t even really need to speak to him. I hate pretenses, but I’ll just pretend I don’t even see him. If he ever cycles around again and acts interested, I will just continue to ignore him. I won’t fall for the bait and hook. He may not be a sociopath, but he’s the next cousin to one. I still have so much work to do. Ugh.
I was hoping the massage would loosen up some emotions yesterday. But instead, I ended up giving massage instruction to the therapist. He is just out of school and very very sweet, but not on the same level as I am so I didn’t feel like it was as nurturing as I would have liked. But it only cost $33 and now he and his partner are going to do trades at my house with me, so it was a good professional situation.
I guess I will just feel depressed for a while until I can figure out a way to get unstuck. I’m so used to it. But I will take the advice given and just ignore the loser neighbor. I truly don’t understand why people play games like this. I will read the book.
Thank you Oxy, kim, and one joy, for being here for me today. You are awesome. The time you took to give me your thoughtful, heartfelt advice is truly appreciated.
One of my neighbors who is addicted to her cell phone works out with me on Mondays and Fridays at 9:15. But usually I have to call her and wake her up or remind her to be on time. I stopped doing it. So then she didn’t show up on Friday. We talked in the evening. She asked me “what happened this morning? We didn’t work out.” I said. “We didn’t work out because you didn’t come over at 9:15.” She said, “I guess I slept in late.” I said, “Oh.” I’m actually happier working out alone than babysitting a 62 year old woman to show up for her appointments. What is fucking wrong with people? *^&)(&*(&&^%
Star,
You’ve gotten some really great advice from OneJoy, Kim and Oxy.
You control your feelings by DECIDING what you will feel. It’s like I was writing about before about integrating all your senses. Don’t just use your heart here, use your head to LEAD your heart.
In this case, you will observe his behavior toward you and write it down. so far he has been HOT and COLD, alternately….hmmm… sounds familiar… WHO do we know that DOES THAT? Anybody, have an answer? I feel like I’ve heard about that kind of behavior — somewhere?
Well, I’m sure it will come to me but, lets continue, what else has he done? Well, he a had sex with you but doesn’t treat you very nicely and hurt your feelings….also sounds familiar…
Well anyway, also look at the way he leads his life. Does he have a job other than music? car? we know he smokes pot.
Star, remember that the reason people can manipulate other people is because they do it sooooo nicely. They don’t manipulate with a stick, they use a carrot. Anyone can seem as nice as pie, it costs nothing to pretend if they get what they want and usually a manipulator just wants to flex his manipulator muscle. For fun.
So, you control your feeling by choosing how you think:
You had your roll in the hay. leave it at that. smile at him when you see him and it will be genuine because you are thinking about the great sex you had. Next, think of what a simpleton, pot-smoker he is, which is a turnoff, so it will dampen the attraction. Then think of how he will look and live in 10 or 20 years: loser, bald, old, pot-smoker. Continue smiling, wave good-bye.
Oxy, I so appreciate your time and wisdom. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, would you mind posting both books or any others you think of all together in one post? I’ll write them down and get them from the library.
Star, remember the other day when I was so emotional, and posted about my sad feelings? I said the only thing I could attribute it to was being triggered by reading about trauma bonds, but something else happened the day before.
the lady from the Historical museum was supposed to come out and talk to me about my volunteering, and she never showed up. (It was a misunderstanding, I will explain in a minute) but I had been a little nervious about it the entire day before. I had trouble falling asleep. I rearrainged my toddlar schedual so they wouldn’t be eating lunch when she got here. I washed my favorite out fit, and picked up ALL the kids toys. I did the dishes early and swept the lunch crumbs up off the floor. I put a pot of coffee on 15 minutes before she was schedualed to arrive, so I could offer her coffee.
I tried to call her, when she was about half an hour late to no avail. I was afraid she had tried to call me for directions, and I had somehow missed the call. (See how fast I blame myself?)
Finally, late in the afternoon I got her, and she said that she had tried to call me late in the Afternoon to cancel, and left a msg on my daughters phone. Okay. No problem, we re schedualled, and I didn’t blame her. It was an honest misunderstanding…but, I’d already had hours to experience those feelings of NOT BEING A PRIORITY, and feeling unimportant, and not even knowing why my company didn’t show up.
These feeling are very familiar to me, too, Sky.
This was a constant feeling in my marriage to the N Navy recruiter, and I just lived with it for years. It goes very deep, and is easily triggered. You are not alone with that one.
We have to become conscience enough to recognize who is triggering this in us, and then to decide if they are important enough to approach with our very deep sadness, conflict, fears and vulnerability.
Sometimes they are worth it, and they never intended to hurt us, or maybe they were just ignorant, but wo’t do it again, or maybe it’s an honest mistake….but it’s in your discernment. You have to become aware of yourself enough to know that all these feelings ARE red flags for you. And me.
So think very carefully about these friends and your relationship with the neighbor boy.
Thank you, sky. I will actually try to do this. I smiled at him in the gym and walked by. I will try to just be the friendly neighbor and that’s it.
This has been a lot of information to process, but I am going to think about what you have all said. I completely get the part about choosing what you feel, but sometimes I really just feel stuck and like I need a release. I honestly don’t know how to do this sometimes. I have some energy work planned in a few weeks. I hope I feel safe enough with this person to really do some work. He comes with very high recommendations from someone whose opinion I trust.
Thanks for your post, kim (we’re posting over each other). None of the people in my life are worthy of sharing anything deep with. It’s kind of tough to see it, but good to know that I deserve better. The life I have now is better than any life I’ve ever had before. And I still deserve better. I don’t know where to find this better living situation and better friends. But I’ll just put it out to the universe and see what happens.
I will just work on being “right” for myself and maybe the right friends and boyfriends will be drawn to me.
Dear Star,
Your “friend” had come to depend on YOU to be her wake up alarm, letting YOU take responsibility for her getting up and out to exercise. YOU are responsible for YOU and she is responsible for HERSELF.
When we TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for others that they should take for themselves, we are ENABLING them to foist that responsibility on us and then we RESENT IT.
So, by not continuing to be responsible for her getting up, you are allowing her to be responsible for herself.
When you ASK someone to not spend their time with you on their cell phones and they CONTINUE this, then they are saying in effect “I really don’t care what your feelings are” so you get a very clear MESSAGE BY HOW SOMEONE ACTS.
Look at how people BEHAVE toward you and that is what their feelings are. I realized with my long-time friend that she was having some real issues in her life, but she chose not to address them in a way that I felt was appropriate. I had called her out once about 3 years ago about the SNARKY comments to me and she had apologized and STOPPED them completely. Her behavior was much better and stayed consistent until RECENTLY when I could see by several things that she was clinically depressed, unhappy, and big time in denial. She wanted to play the game of “let’s pretend I didnt’ say anything nasty and hateful to you repeatedly” and I’m not up for that game any more. I’ve played it all my life and now I refuse to play it or to allow someone else to show disrespect and rancor toward me.
My “friend” is NOT a social moron, she knows when she is treating me poorly…but she only treats people she is “close” to that poorly, she is very polite to others. DUH? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
To me, being close to someone doesn’t give you a license to hurt them and expect forgiveness.
Skylar, LOL. Yaeh. Maybe you shouldn’t study Girard so close to bed time.
I am thinking about your dream. Want some help anylizing it? Give me couple of minutes to digest.
“Games People Play” by Eric Berne
“A mind of its own, How your Brain Distorts and Deceives” by Cordelia Fine.
If your local library doesn’t have them it can probably order them inter-library loan. They are actually really cheap used off Amazon dot com or barnes and noble dot com.
I’m making an effort to get out and do more too…going to a meeting tonight of a local genealogy group. They had requested a donation of a book of county history I had published several years ago and I have put the book aside to take to them for months, but I’m going tonight and take it to their meeting. Going out to some of the cultural activities in our area too. We have 3 universities in my neigthbohood and there are LOTS of free events and concerts and plays to go to and I’m going to take advantage of them as long as I can afford the cost of the gas to get there. Beats going to bars and watching the drunks beat each other up! LOL
Kim,
I’d love your take on it.
There are some things that are obvious to me, but you may see stuff that I don’t.