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.
OxD,
I think what you are doing is FABULOUS! I wish I could be part of this effort. Can you use a massage therapist with two cats and two snakes?
StarG
Ox that is great!!!
I just wanted to mention that he cried the whole time during the visit. the whole time sobbing. crocodile tears. And yes when this girl gets discarded its going to be tough on her. But I don’t think he will leave her for a while as he hasn’t had a job in a year and he is living off of her currently. But she was also spreading the rumor that she is pregnant, and I take it that isn’t true unless he forced her to get an abortion. What it comes down to is that I can not trust any news that comes from their camp. Because none of it is true. I am done trying to make sense of any of it because ladies and gentlemen he has left the state again and it doesn’t matter!!! HIP HIP HOORAY
wini: you’re right about the younger women. i didn’t have perspective because i had known my s/p/n since he was very young and there were all sorts of family/friendship ties involved that blinded me to how badly i was getting used. when i heard the messages from the new gf, she was a giggly fool … tee hee hee! i asked him how old she was and he said, ”she’s a WOMAN, that’s for sure.” to me, she sounded 18! i’m 50, his wife is 35, and the new gf is 25, i found out.
how freakin’ UNORIGINAL, right!?
when i asked him what his emotional connection to her was, he first said, ”she’s hot as hell and has mad style!” i said, ”nope, that’s not an emotional connection. so he said, ”she’s just like me. we think the same.” i said, ”that’s not an emotional connection either.” i asked again: “do you have an emotional connection to her like you had with me?
he tried again, “she looks just like my mom when she was young.” holy crap. need i say more?!
Stargazer,
I’d love to have a massage therapist–and animals of all kind are welcome, so pack your bags. You can practice on me until the clients get here! ha ha Actually I told everyone if i get another BF or a husband he has to be a massage (or physical) therapist, not over about 30, rich, good looking and a pilot and aircraft mechanic, and just be madly in love with someone old enough to be his grandmother! ha ha (or at least his mother! LOL)
Son D says I’m “waaaay too picky” ha ha
Dear Bird,
If he cried crocodile tears the hwole time he was there, I have a feeling that “something is up” and he is laying the groundwork to come back to you in case she tosses him out. Of course he hasn’t had a job in a year–you don’t think he wants to WORK do you? LOL I have a feeling though that she is getting tired of supporting his lazy butt and giving him heck about it. If he came to see you and put on the pity party, I can almost guarentee that something is up that he is looking for another berth, at least “just in case”—
I’m glad though that you are doing well and are strong enough not to fall for his crap and pity party. I’m sensing and “hearing” sort of between the lines even that you are becoming an EAGLE, not just a sweet little “Bird” and that you are getting stronger and stronger! And, I am so glad, cause you will always need to protect the Birdie from that BUZZARD.
OxD,
You have no idea how much I want change in my life. I have dreamed for a long time of living in a healing setting that involved a piece of land. So be careful what you ask for! I would be happy to give you a massage if we were to ever meet! Part of the reason I’m depressed right now (just venting here) is that I feel trapped in a part time job (not the massage job) that I don’t like. I need to keep this income to pay a high mortgage on a condo that I’m upside down on and cannot get rid of. I am such a free spirit. I have traveled all around the world and lived in other countries. This is the most tied down I’ve ever been. I keep praying for a way to change my situation right now. I really would like to make a change, but I’m stuck here till the market takes a turn, just like a lot of people I suppose. My life is so solitary. It can get to feeling pretty isolated.
When the S came along and said he wanted to take care of me, I had visions of moving to the country and quitting my office job that I’ve been at for 7 years. I was so looking forward to that. That’s part of the dream that died when he crapped out on me.
Talk about needing a NEW MINDSET:
So this is what I’ve been thinking all day:
It wasn’t HIM, it was ME.
Maybe he wasn’t a sociopath afterall, and I am placing blame on him so I can deal with the rejection better or to convince myself that he was ja erk that i should just get over, or that I never did love him because I couldn’t have if he wasn’t real, and that he was just a regular guy that wanted to be single and didn’t want to be with me (which he DID say plenty of times that he didn’t want a future with me, but I always made it so easy for him to come back, but he would call me after days saying he messed up and he misses me-sure after he had is fun and got bored and knew I would be there!). I’ve alwys heard that x-girlfriends are always good for free and easy sex though! Maybe he did have SOME feelings for me, and I made it easy for him to come and go when he pleased. WHY WOULDN”T HE take advantage of that?!?! But how does that make him a sociopath?
I think it was my fault. I should have ended things a year ago when he first said those things, that he “didn’t want me” but then that makes me start thinking again that he IS a sociopath: He would lie to me ALL the time, or go back and forth, always saying one thing and doing another. He “didn’t want me” and he ‘only hung out with me because he was lonely or bored” but then he would miss me after a few days. He only wanted me when he couldn’t have me! After I caught him cheating on me, he begged for me back, and of course I did, and things were ‘good’ again like in the beginning, and I went away for the holidays a few weeks later, only to come back to find out that he had been cheating on me while I was gone , all the while telling me how happy he is with me again. Later he told me that the reason he wanted to make it work was because he “felt guilty,” but “in his eyes we weren’t really a couple since last AUGUST.”
I can’t get things straight in my mind. I go back and forth all day long. My mind is so twisted!!! Was it me or was it him? I can’t stop analyzing, and wondering: what did I do wrong, why couldn’t he ever love me, or was he really a sociopath, or JUST a player that I stupidly fell for? Or maybe I never loved him either??? Did I? I just want to know if it was me or was it him, one way or the other and maybe it would be easier to move on from there.
Here is one story that makes me think it WAS HIM:
I went to Hawaii in January with my whole family. We got in a fight over the phone because I asked why he didn’t act like he missed me, and he said that he realized he didn’t and he wanted to break up. AGAIN. So, I said ok, F.U., and hung up on him. He sent me a text message THAT night, saying “What’s wrong with me, things were good, let’s have dinner when you get back.” (WANTS ME WHEN IM GONE) So I ignored him and the next day he sent another saying, “you always find a way to ruin things. I guess I’m going to cancel the bed and breakfast reservations I made for us at Bodega Bay.” (MANIPULATION AND BLAME). A few months later, I finally got him to admit that he NEVER EVEN MADE THE RESERVATIONS AT ALL! And, being snoopy, I looked at an email from the day before I left for Hawaii to one of his friends saying, “(LETGOLETGOD) is leaving for hawaii tomorrow…” –implying how happy he was that I’d be gone and they could party hard.
So, I replay these memories, and none of them are really good. He really was always a jerk to me.I think I just keep missing the guy that I thought he was in the beinning-charming and fun. He never meant any of the things he said that i thought were good. So does that make him a sociopath, or just a liar and a player (which he admitted he was a player). He does have a lot of the attributes. Gambler, Promiscous, Liar, egotistical sense of self, manipulative and charming,etc. He treated me ‘good’ while with me (CHARM), then terribly when I’m not around (CHEATING AND ACTED LIKE I WAS IN THE WAY), then disappears for days, and then charmingly comes back. But for some reason I am thinking I really lost out on this guy! I’ve found out so many instances that he talked or lied about or made fun of me behind my back and made me look absolutely terrible.
Ox-where is that skillet? I need a good boinking!
I am angry that he is STILL on my mind SO much. I slept half the day today and I dreamt terrible things about him, like usual. The sad thing is, the dreams of him are SO REAL, and i wake up feeling like I just had contact with him although its been 20+days! In today’s dream, he was nasty to me and made me look terrible in front of his friends, and acted like I was a nobody. It felt soo real. I can’t even find peace in sleep right now!
Maybe I should NOT read this site everyday, since I almost feel bad and resentful at him that I am even taking the time to TRY to get over him, so I am consiously acknowledging everyday that he is still affecting me. Maybe I just need to STOP talking about it entirely, because it might be enabling me to obsess over it. I went to the bookstore today and almost bought “The Sociopath Next Door,” but didn’t because I don’t want him to take up more time than he has. Like instead of watching a movie, or reading a good book, or doing something just for ME, I am obsessing about HIM. I feel like a loser that has no life, and I am Pathetic like he said, that I can’t ‘live without him,’ and once again leads me to think it was ME, and he was right.
Wow, what they do to your head, self-esteem and confidence, and strength. He really did a great job of messing me up and leaving me in his dust! Speaking of-wherever we would go together, he would walk five feet in front of me, not beside me, and I always told him I felt like his dog on a leash. Why did he even bother going anywhere with me if he didn’t enjoy my company? If he just used me because he was ‘bored.’ He always made me feel sexy in bed, and when he didn’t see me for a while, he would rip my clothes off and hold me all night long, but then, I was invisible all over again the very next day.
He messed with my emotions so bad, I am still spinning, and it’s almost been a month of NC. I feel so broken, used, abused, worthless, and empty.
Somebody please set me striaght! Did anything I just write make sense? Probably not anymore than it does in my own head. Wow, let’s see how many dreams I can NOT have with him tonight. My guess is 0.
I am going to make an appointment to talk to someone first thing in the morning. I just don’t want to keep feeling so worthless.
Good night, hopefully tomorrow will be better.
Dear Stargazer,
Many times we “trap” ourselves with long term commitments like the condo. I’ve been there and have some idea how you feel.
I realize that I was fortunate enough to be born into a family that had worked like slaves to acquire a piece of ground in 1833, stuck it out through the various depressions and my grandparents barely survived the dust bowl and the depression of 1929–it went on here until the early 1960s, my family living hand to mouth until then, working from dawn to dusk, my grandfather didn’t really retire from making a living until he was 80. He was killed in a car crash 3yrs later.
In a way, I became a slave to the land I loved, land has to be maintained, loved, worked, cared for or it just goes back to scrub and brush for 50 years until the forest renews itself.
But I loved the land and when I finally came back here after so many years away traveling the world myself, making a living and raising my kids, my husband and I worked full time jobs and also worked on the land, cleaning up 20+ years of neglect since my grandfather’s death. Now it looks like a park over half the land and the other half is restored forest.
I love the land but won’t be a slave to it any more, I’m not physically able any more to give it the care it really needs, so I have rented the pastures to some other people and I see that they take care of it. I was fortunate to find good people, a young couple both working full time and farming their own large operation and taking care of my lands as well. So I no longer have to mow the weeds, etc. because they or their hired hand take care of that.
Since I no longer have a “full time” or even a “part time” job and am retired from nursing, and I no longer have a full time or even part time job with the farm, other than just making sure that it IS TAKEN CARE OF, I have sort of been trying to think of what I want to do with my “retirement”—one of the things was to persue some of my hobbies, thus getting the offices turned into a “studio” and after healing to the point I am now, I am not sure I will ever say “I AM HEALED” because I think it is an ongoing process, a journey rather than a destination. Anyway I have been thinking about this for over a year, and talking to my sons, etc. We had thought about soe kind of a non profit educational foundation in my husband’s memory, but with the “attack of the Ps” we have focused a bit different, it will still be educational, but also a healing place, where people who need solice can find it, but also learn to be self sufficient and to go back out into the world on a healing path.
I realized that if I had been in the state I was in, and had had a couple of kids, had to leave home and go to a shelter after being married to a P for years, little or no family support, no job skills, HOW ON EARTH WOULD I HAVE MADE IT. As it was, it was horrible, but it COULD have been worse.
Thinking back all the years that I treated patients in the family medical clinic I was brought in touch with patients who were trapped in marriages with abusive me, cowed down, Stockholm syndrome, fear, anxiety and NO WAY could they have stayed at a shelter 30 days and then been self sufficient. Some of these women didn’t even know how to drive a car because their husband’s wouldn’t let them, it would have been letting go of some of his total control.
I saw so many of the women who did go to the shelter (I did pro bono medical care for the women and children at the shelter) eventually went back to the pervert they had fled from. In that county there is a good judge there in family court who makes any abusive man go to anger management classes (I used to work at the community psych clinic that did them) There are resources, but not enough shelter beds, and so the women can only stay a max of 30 days no matter how wounded they are.
I didn’t understand then why these women went back and back and back. I even felt superior to them because I would never have let a man hit me—but I let my P-son abuse me, hit me and lie to me and went back and back and back…so you know, I wasn’t superior to them, I was just arrogant and hypocritical. Now, I know something about it, I have seen it through the eyes of the LF bloggers. I have seen my own “feet of clay” and I am making every effort to correct my ways, my behavior and my thinking, and learn to set proper boundaries.
It takes a lot of mental work and planning and consultation with other experts and I am doing that now so that when we do take in a client, that we will be prepared to meet her and her children’s needs, but not to “rescue” her, but to give her the understanding and support that she needs to lift herself up out of the abyss. To be strong and independent.
I have always tried to help others, to share the blessings that I have been given because I believe that is what we are on this earth to do, and I think if I have been given these blessings, and no not share them with others who desperately need support and encouragement and healing, then I am letting down both myself and my God.
Every person needs some sort of “purpose” to get up in the morning and to go throughlife. A life without purpose of some kind is empty. If your only purpose is your own pleasure and greed (like the Ps) that’s what you do. Maybe your purpose is dogs and breeding them, or being a doctor or a dentist, or a fireman, and when you retire from your career–what are you going to do? You have to find another purpose–maybe it is just playing golf and relaxing or fishing.
I like to accomplish things, to build things, repair things, restore things, I like teaching and love theliving history programs we do for schools parks and the public (though I haven’t done many since the P-attack, but will be doing a middle school program on Nov. 7th) I have a lot of “interests” and enjoy doing things, but I want MORE OF A PURPOSE than just my own amusement. I want to do “good deeds” as it were, to help improve the lives of others.
I used to take in Foster kids (11 over the years) and that was something that I felt helped some of those kids though I didn’t usually have them but a few months at most, one kid I had a full school year. He was the one who later committed suicide a couple of years ago. His father was a P if ever there was one, and his mother a toxic enabler of his father’s bad behavior. In fact, his father didn’t even drink, so he couldn’t even blame his abuse on booze.
I’ve always been good at organizing things and adminstration so I have that background to draw on as well, so I think God has put an opportunity for me to use the skills I have, the infrastructure I have, to benefit others and to give me a purpose–a reason to get up in the morning besides “just hanging out.” If any of that makes any sense.
I’m sorry you have sort of painted yourself into a corner where you are not satisfied with it. Be creative and look for ways out of the situation, but I suggest that you don’t make ANY big changes until you are at least a year or so into the healing road. Accumulated stress is something that we need to let TIME HEAL somewhat before we plunge into new waters.
Even “good” change is stressful. I knew better than to get involved romanticly with someone 8 months after my husband died, I knew it was too soon, but I did it anyway. So what did I pick a P of course! LOL
So I know that I am still somewhat fragile in my healing, but I am gaining strength every day. Ikeep a little calendar of my moods and I have several months behind me of “all gold stars” sort oflike a first grader getting them for not peeing their pants or sucking their thumbs. LOL
I know that dealing with other’s problems is a stress and will take strength and stamina, but I won’t be dealing with them alone. I will have an army of other people, professional people, to lean on, so a lot of it will be just cordinating the volunteers, social services from the county, etc. using resources. Oh, and I also have a social worker who is really up on all the avilable resources through social services here who is a good friend and will donate her expertice on where to go for what. She is a gold mine! The network I have built up professionally over theyears is sort of like the TV add where the phone company “network” of hundreds of people is standing behind the guy with the phone. My network is great! My son’s network through the Boy Scouts is also great and is different from mine so we have two networks behind us. Various state political leaders are acquainted with my son through scouts for 13 or 14 years and are more than willing to lend their names and advice to our enterprise. So, I will take advantage of every thing I can to help me accomplish this.
Stargazer, many people have a “dream” about a little place in the country, like Henry and I have, but it is also a lot of hard physical work, even for a small place. My son puts in at least 40 hours a week on this place doing maintenance work (which has been neglected due to all the chaos) and sometimes more hours than that. I put in at least that many hours and usually more and we don’t even have a “working” farm any more. We sold off the big herd of cattle and just kept some “pet cows” and our donkeys. We couldn’t take care of it all by ourselves and not work ourselves into the ground. That’s besides cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, sweeping etc.
Because I know that healing takes time, and it has only been a year ago in august that the Ps were arrested, and several months after that that things finally “settled down” so I know that I have only a little over a YEAR under my belt, so I think another year at least before we get “the doors open” is a reasonable period of time for us to get the prelimaries together and actually take in a client. I am not going to RUSH myself. When my little calendar is two years along and still doing well, I think by then I can consider myself “safe” on the healing road. We must take care of ourselves before we start trying to use our strengths for others. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we can’t share what we don’t have with anyone else.
Think outside the box about your job and housing situation. Maybe you could rent the condo for the payments plus a little, or take in a room mate to help with the bills so you could pay a bit extra on your mortgage and get ahead of the game. Maybe some night school or doing therapy clients evenings.
But the main thing is that you TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF and dont’ feel like you are boxed in, because you are only boxed in if you feel like you are. Good luck.
Dear LetGo:
Okay, since OxD is not here, I’m borrowing her skillet. BOINK!!!! You are NOT a pathetic loser. You have been through a major trauma and you are still coming out of shock. Your ex sound like a major sociopath, and it is like an emotional rape being with someone like that. It’s the emotional equivalent of getting shot in the head! What you are feeling is very normal. I suggest you do get that book (I’m about to order it from the library as well) and read it, so there won’t be any doubt as to what he is. It sounds like he totally exploited you, then discarded you, over and over again. Sounds like a sociopath to me. Even if he’s “just a player and a liar” as you say, does that make any of this your fault? It is not your fault that you were victimized. There is nothing wrong with you. I have been where you’re at, and I think we’ve all been there too. The one thing we all have in common is not being very clear about our boundaries, and we let someone overstep them. This is something we all need to work on in ourselves. But you loved and trusted someone who sounds to me totally destructive and incapable of returning your love.
Be nice to yourself, dear. You deserve so much better than this, and I believe you will get through it.
I lied. OxD IS here!!!