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
Hollowaters, what brings you to LF, if they’ve never “bothered to stick around with you” ? What was your experience with sociopaths that piqued your curiousity?
Sociopaths don’t have emotions, by the way ( as you said in a different post, about their having diluted emotions ) See : The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout.
I’m also curious as to why you picked that point out about sociopaths. You will find a lot of that kind of “belittling” (in your words ), around here, because a lot of people have been taken advantage of by sociopaths here, and I think they have a right to express how they feel about people who, act without conscience and have inflicted intentional pain on them. Some people here have endured a lot than just emotional pain, they’ve been misled by these sociopaths to result in losing their jobs, homes, children, property, you name it.
That’s predatorial, that ain’t human. LF isn’t the first place to come up with that either- for example, I don’t think it is “belittling” of me to say, Ted Bundy isn’t human… and I don’t think anyone would argue that either, considering what he did. In fact, saying that he isn’t human is an understatement, one might say. Sociopaths seem to have an issue with people pointing out the truth of their behavior. They will say, “I’m not a bad person”, when they willingly and deliberately scam someone out of money, or as with cyberpaths, lead an innocent person into the guise of a “whirlwind romance” by faking a persona— often with other ulterior motives besides simply the entertainment they get from “playing mouse” with this individual– often to trick the individual into giving them large sums of money.
I certainly don’t see the hypocrisy?
You twisted the comment around into including animals and taking it in another direction. of which the end result was what you percieved to be a belittling comment?
WTF?
Oh, I think my tomatoes are ready to be picked…..I’m gonna make a large TOSSED salad and tomato sauce.
today has been an oddly salady day.
Why are we talking about tomatoes and salad?
Been trying to move these rocks all by myself all day. Got no help from no one. When did the rules change? Or did they only apply to me?
These rocks are heavy
What the hell?
I had a conversation with a therapist friend of mine today who is also a former therapist in a prison system, very bright educated guy,, BTW, and it was about how people “belittle” other groups, like the Nazis belittled and devalued the Jews and other groups, therefore it was okay to persecute them.
He was talking about another blog for survivors of psychopaths (and BTW this guy, my friend is also a survivor) anyway, he was talking about how he thought it was a mistake to try to DE-HUMANIZE and belittle psychopaths,, even though he understood that we would and should feel angry, feel vengeful, want them punished etc and he sited an example where on another blog someone had said they felt empathy for the psychopaths because they don’t have any connections or bonds. He said the group as a whole, just ran this poster off the blog.
I asked him (before he told me it wasn’t LF) if it had been ME that had done that (I didn’t remember doing it, but you know my CRS) and he said no it wasn’t here. Actually I too do DE-humanize them sometimes at least in my mind, because it makes it easier to think of them as a sub-human species. They are “human” though most of the finer points of humanity, like a conscience they lack.
We really shouldn’t I guess “label” people in groups—I’m a “red neck” and a “hill billy” but that really doesn’t express WHO I am. Other people here are from various groups and Ii think they would not like to be catagorised by that “label.” So maybe we might look at our own prejudices when we label them as “sub human.”
I sure have a good reason to be angry at my P-son, the SOB tried to have me killed, I have a reason to be angry at my egg donor, she supports him financially. But however lacking they are in conscience or caring and compassion, they are still human. So boink me!
Oh nolonger You’re so naive!
🙂
Xxoo
(((Hugs)))