Lovefraud.com: Teaching you to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths
Millions of people — approximately 12 percent of the population — spend their lives engaged in the exploitation and emotional manipulation of others. Lovefraud’s mission is to help you, and everyone, spot these everyday sociopaths — they’re not all serial killers — and get them out of your life.
The definition of sociopath on Lovefraud
The definition of a sociopath on Lovefraud is someone who has a personality disorder in which he or she routinely exploits, manipulates and abuses others. Clinically, these people could be diagnosed with antisocial, narcissistic, borderline or histrionic personality disorder, or psychopathy.
Sociopathy is no longer an official clinical diagnosis. Mental health professionals typically use the word as a synonym for antisocial personality disorder. But the original meaning of sociopathy was, “anything deviated or pathological in social relations.”
So that’s the definition of sociopath on Lovefraud — it’s an umbrella term for people who are maladjusted in their relations with others and society, and motivated towards antisocial behavior. In fact, Lovefraud calls them everyday sociopaths, because you may encounter them in your everyday life.
We need to be able to talk about everyday sociopaths, so we can learn to protect ourselves from them.
What you need to know about everyday sociopaths
Lovefraud.com is dedicated to teaching you five important lessons about everyday sociopaths:
- Millions of sociopaths live around us. They are in all communities and every demographic group.
- Sociopaths live their lives by manipulating and exploiting the rest of us. If you tangle with them, you will be damaged.
- Sociopaths have serious personality disorders — antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, histrionic and psychopathic — for which there are no real cures.
- Sociopaths tend to look and act like the rest of us, at least when you first meet them. They are not delusional, and they may not be convicted criminals.
- Sociopaths are easy to spot, once you know what to look for. When you know that they exist and learn the warning signs, you can protect yourself from them.
Donna Andersen, author of Lovefraud.com
Donna Andersen launched Lovefraud.com in 2005 after her disastrous marriage to a sociopath. It was one of the first websites on the Internet to focus on sociopaths.
Donna has written all of the permanent content on Lovefraud and more than 1,100 blog posts. She has also written three books, created videos, conducted multiple online surveys and has presented research to the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy.
Donna also founded Lovefraud Continuing Education, which offers online courses for survivors and mental health professionals on identifying, escaping and recovering from sociopaths.
Donna offers personal consultations, helping you to understand what happened and figure out how to move forward.
Read more: About Donna Andersen
Donna Andersen and her husband, Terry Kelly, own Anderly Corp., the parent company of Lovefraud. Donna’s first books were published by Anderly Publishing.
Information and resources tailored to your experiences with sociopaths
Sociopaths are everywhere, so you may run into them absolutely anywhere. These disordered people use and abuse almost everyone in their lives. Therefore, the sociopath you’re dealing with may be a romantic partner, family member, work colleague, business associate, friend or neighbor.
Lovefraud offers information and resources tailored to your experience:
- Explaining everyday sociopaths
General information about exploitative personality disorders — how many sociopaths are out there, key symptoms, fraud, scientific research.
- Is your partner a sociopath?
Resources to help you determine if you are dating or married to a sociopath, how you were seduced, and how sociopaths typically behave in intimate relationships.
- How to leave or divorce a sociopath
How to escape safely, how to implement No Contact with the individual, and what you need to know about divorce and child custody when your partner is a sociopath.
- Recovery from a sociopath: Overcoming narcissistic abuse
Whether the sociopath was a romantic partner, parent, or some other relationship, information to help you recover from manipulation and abuse.
- What mental health professionals need to know
Most graduate programs do not prepare menta adequately to help clients who have been abused by sociopaths. Here’s the training you never received.
Everyday sociopaths are masters of manipulation who target the rest of us for exploitation and abuse. So before you give away your love, your money or your life, read this website.