UPDATED FOR 2023: Lovefraud received this note from a reader; we’ll call her Allison. She offers excellent advice for recovering from your entanglement with a sociopath: Don’t take it personally.
I want to thank everyone involved with the Lovefraud website. It is truly a gift. To the brave survivors, I wish you peace. I am a survivor myself. In fact, I’m divorcing mine as we speak. I will write my story another time because this time I only want to give a piece of advice that has helped me the most. When I was able to do this, the rest was easier to get through. I stopped taking it personally. It was not an easy task. I read everything I could get my hands on and while I learned his actions were mostly textbook, it was easier for me to let go. Once I convinced myself that I was not the first nor will I be the last, I shut my heart off and stopped taking it personally. This was my key to survival. I offered a silent apology to the women of the world for throwing this one back into the dating pool and went on with my life. I stopped taking it personally and I slept better, dreamed better, laughed more and found that I’ll be just fine. If this helps even one person, it will have made it worth it. Take care.
Simple, effective advice
Allison’s advice is very simple, but it goes directly to the core of the sociopath’s manipulation, betrayal and abuse. The sociopath never cared about us one way or the other. We were convenient targets. We had something the sociopath wanted. Or we presented an opportunity for the sociopath’s amusement.
Sociopaths do what they do, because that’s what they do. We just happened to be there.
Of course, that’s not what the sociopath told us. First, he or she proclaimed love and devotion, or a sterling opportunity to succeed together — whatever the promise was. Then, when the promise started falling apart, the sociopath told us it was all our fault.
We, as normal human beings, believed the original promise — how could anyone say those words and not mean them? So, when the blame started flying from the person who made the promise, we believed that as well.
As we say here on Lovefraud, the sociopath is the lie. And the sociopath lied because that’s what they do. They are missing the parts — emotional connections to other people and conscience — that make us human.
Opportunity for healing
Still, there is a reason that we went along with the sociopath’s program, and that is something we do need to take personally, for our own recovery and growth.
Read more: Seduced by a sociopath — It’s not love, it’s love fraud
This does not at all excuse the sociopath’s heartless behavior, nor is it meant to blame the victim. But most of us engaged because we wanted to believe the original promise.
We have to ask ourselves, what was missing within us that allowed us to believe? Did we have experiences in our pasts that made us susceptible to the manipulation? If so, it’s time to look at these issues and heal ourselves.
So as we extricate ourselves from the sociopath, understand that this is how they are, their behavior is not our fault, and don’t take it personally.
But we should take very personally the opportunity to excavate the old, erroneous tapes in our heads, and create wonderful new lives for ourselves.
Learn more: Comprehensive 7-part recovery series presented by Mandy Friedman, LPCC-S
Lovefraud originally posted this article on April 6, 2009.
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Hyper vigilance and PTSD
Hello Skippy: I read your post yesterday, and wanted to catch up with you. Welcome to the site. If you are like most of us, you are compassionate, responsible, capable of taking risks, a team player . . . the kind of person we like to have around, and exactly the kind of person a psychopathic predator would target.
Oh, and you also probably had some little extra vulnerability that made the predator choose you over the next person in line.
You said, “It’s weird, feeling somehow shamed by what happened (why is that??), and apprehensive for others’ risk and about what these predators are saying about us to make us look bad, but realizing that it might be best in certain circumstances to just sit on what we know so we don’t play even more into their hands.”
Because we know the “rules of society,” we feel like we somehow screwed up by being conned by these lunatics. Far from it. Our sense of the rules is intact, as is our sense of reality. THEY, however, are playing far outside of the rules, while demanding that we play inside of their own invented rules.
We believe — as rulle-following nice people — that if we follow the rules, everything will turn out well, and if thiings don’t turn out well, then we should be ashamed of ourselves. OLD lessons, OLD voices in our heads that don’t relate to what happened to us.
Forgive yourself. Dissolve that self-blame like dew evaporating in the morning sun. Grant yourself loving kindness. And save those uninitiated friends for conversations where you want everything to be all lightness and fun and in alignment with what you used to believe about all of humankind. Thank God, for them, that they don’t have to know this dark, evil side of the human condition. Let them hold their naivete as long as they can.
I knew someone who believed in the fundamental good of all people. She had been a supporter of my “relationship” which turned out to be a pure con job. When I told her the truth of the so-called man I had been involved with, she denied that it was possible. A year later she called me to apologize. Another friend of hers, and her own daughter, had also been targeted by sociopaths.
Why do they devlaue and discard? To cover their tracks. Somewhere inside they know they are crazy, and as in chess, the best defense is a good offense. They’ll try to get their attack in first. Don’t buy into it.
Sorry, but glad, that you’re here. At least you’re not out in the netherworld wondering if you’re the only one to go through this!
Dear Nic,
Thanks for the update. So glad to read your positive strong posts! WOW! You are doing it!!! I am sooooo happy you are freeing yourself from him. Stay focused! Keep up the one or two word responses via email. NO VERBAL CONTACT!!! Happy you are seeing the light about the darkness and deceit and drama that surrounds him!! The power to be done with him is all yours!! You go girl!!! Take care!!
blondie, James, et al…why do they come back? LOL…James has it pretty well figured out! A while back, I mentioned that my ex-tox showed up after almost 3 years. The “reasons” were pretty silly. She said an old friend had told her “we should talk”. I didn’t bother to tell her that her “old friend”, married, had made a “pass” at me in the school parking lot a year or two ago (I looked at my watch and said…oops…got to go!).
Anyway, it turned out that, having “farmed out” our daughter to friends for the weekend, and having her married boyfriend leave to “take care of” his sick wife…she found herself alone…and was desperate. Nothing worse than “alone” and “abandoned” for a BPD.
Anyway, it went nowhere for her or me, the boyfriend came back, and her life returned to the normal chaos. I was “out of sorts” for a few days just from the mere contact.
My therapist, after all he’d heard, was quite interested in the story. I guess he learned something new, too.
I was too polite, wasted too much time, and found out her “effect” on me was no longer there. Next time I’ll just say “No, sorry, busy.”
I like Glinda’s line in the concrete idea. I need one on the first step leading to my porch! Continuing education, “they” are!
TOWANDO!
Rune said:
“Dissolve that self-blame like dew evaporating in the morning sun. Grant yourself loving kindness. And save those uninitiated friends for conversations where you want everything to be all lightness and fun and in alignment with what you used to believe about all of humankind. Thank God, for them, that they don’t have to know this dark, evil side of the human condition. Let them hold their naivete as long as they can.”
That’s a really good way to think about it. I have found myself so many times frustrated by the lack of understanding of what it’s like to have the experience of being with the sociopath. IT is now clear that people that never experienced it cannot possibly imagine the extent of the s’s pathology and the immense dysfunction of the relationship with him. From the some of the accounts I have read on this board, it seems that the issues with the s were not visible to “outside” people.
By the time I give a full 360 description of the s and my life with the s; these friends take a step back (if they stick around long enough to hear all of it) and say: WOW, that’s messed up. But then I see in their eyes that they do not want to really hear it or believe the full extent of it. They write it off as “difficult break-up drama” and such. So, I no longer really share my story outside lovefraud very much; maybe my sister sometimes.
Keep thinking: “dew evaporationg…..” I like that!
Guys, some of our “friends” would hang on to the “there is good in everyone” and there are “two sides to every story” like leeches sticking to your leg, because if they admit that YOU were targeted and conned, then they would have to admit that THEY ARE NOT TOTALLY safe. And admitting that is too SCARY a thing for them to even get close to.
Everyone of us has “prejudices”—look at that word; PRE-JUDGE, and Ii am not just talking about being prejudiced against one race or another, I am talking about our ways of thinking about all things. “I live on a safe street, no one would rob this house” or “I live in a safe area, I’m not likely to be robbed/raped/killed. etc.”
A Little Rock, Arkansas, TV anchor was raped and murdered in her “safe” neighborhood, and the people are totally scared to death from that one crime now.
Where I live there is VERY little crime, but there IS crime and with the introduction to our very sparsely populated area with many new “outsiders” in the form of oil-rig workers by the hundreds, I don’t feel quite as safe as I did, so I take more precautions in general, not just about my Ps striking out at me. I don’t live in terror, but I DO live cautiously.
Greenfern, your friends are too threatened, I think, by your story—the same way some people actually “shun” cancer patients because the thought of someone young or “healthy” getting cancer scares them to death.
Hi OxDrover-
Agreed!
It always surprises me when I see people on TV after some crime commited in their neighborhood, saying ” I will not feel safe again”. It’s weird, I never assume being safe ever. Maybe it’s because I live in Chicago, or was raised in a communist regime, coming to the US as an immigrant there is no such thing as safety really. But if I think about it, even if I was an average person, anything could happen. There are freak accidents, mothers killing their kids in post-natal frenzy, partners stabbing loved ones. It’s rather unpredictable. The only thing I can do is to be fully aware of my surrounding and be mindful as to what I can to minimize the risks (spotting the looney) without obsessing too much or living in constant fear. It’s a delicate balance. Like the other day, this guy sits next to me on the subway, he’s got “weird” written on him. He was carrying a bag of balloon animals. He smelled like balloons. Yuck. He had this nervous energy. Then he whipped out a deck of cards and started doing card tricks, obviously to get other peoples attention. He started engaging this woman and she was totally sucked in. Yeah, one might say I am jaded or unfriendly and this guy is harmless, eccentric magician, but I thought why even give him that benefit of the doubt. After all John Wayne Gacy was a clown for kids birthday parties.
To add to the freaky guy on the subway in my previous post….
It is much easier to spot the freakish weirdos that have instant red flags. It is much harder to spot the ones that are normal looking, acting and upstanding members of their communities. Those are much more a threat. They are protected by their invisibility and their investment in their community. They get around much easier and get away with much more.
But fortunately these camouflaged predators will slip up and send up the “red flag”.
Rune, thanks so much for the warm welcome, kind words, and beautiful post. Very insightful and helpful. Yes, I think one of the hardest things to really accept is that we were abused because of our good qualities, not because of something we did that was screwed up. Like you say, for people who don’t think like sociopaths do, it’s just so illogical and bewildering. I think that basic cognitive dissonance is one of the most disabling aspects of the whole experience. It really is such a relief to find this lovely and compassionate group of people to heal with and to help me realize that I’m not crazy or alone; another disabling aspect is, as lots of people here have mentioned, the Cassandra complex. A terrible thing has happened, other people are at risk, and no one wants to believe you or hear it–until they personally experience it.
I will take your kind and poetic advice, and work on letting the self-blame evaporate like dew (I liked that, too, greenfern 🙂 I’m really glad I found this oasis.
I had to look up the Cassandra complex. I had the basic idea what it meant, but it was interesting to read more about it.
According to wikipedia, Melanie Klein, a psychologist described peoples reaction to the person with Cassandra complex as:
“a refusal to believe what at the same time they know to be true, and expresses the universal tendency toward denial, [with] denial being a potent defence against persecutory anxiety and guilt.”
I also came across the term the “Martha Mitchell” effect on the same wikipedia page. It’s an interesting term too.
So very true, greenfern, about the seemingly “normal” sociopaths. The guy who targeted me has a degree in psychology and is extremely smart, very very successful, and has this creepy (in retrospect) cult following in his social circles. This alone I’ve decided is a red flag. Normal people don’t need “followers.” And now that I’m looking back on everything, I realize that there were very subtle red flags that I did write off, wanting to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, as has been my tendency (until he swooped in for the amazingly sadistic “kill”). But now, I can tell you, my radar is very finely attuned, and I doubt that I will be giving anyone more than a second chance any longer. And thanks to the information on this site, characteristic red flags have been clearly defined and pointed out, so that I can recognize them for what they are. Whew. Good tools to have.