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
Found this and thought of you Nolarn. It’s a ‘thought for today’. It’s called…….
Streak of bad luck
If you’re having a bad day, or a bad week or year, it’s nothing personal. In fact, it’s nothing at all.
The fates are not malevolently aligned against you. You’ve just chosen to see it that way.
Your streak of bad luck will end at precisely the moment you decide it is over. The only thing that can make the future look bleak is your agonizing over the past, and that can end right now.
Misfortune is difficult when you’re living through it. Yet as you do live through it, you build strength, experience, determination, and a solid connection to authentic purpose.
Instead of seeing yourself as a victim of your troubles, realize that as of now, you are very much a beneficiary of them. Though the pain may be deep, the power is even more profound.
With a renewed sense of purpose, look forward and move forward. Your future is yours to choose.
Hens, thank you dahling. I know I’ve turned a corner with all of this. I don’t want him NEAR me or to be in a relationshit with him at all. That I’m happy and relieved about.
ox, thanks for your input. i had not thought about the intermittent reward system, like duh!
To me he’s like a very annoying nat. I just want him to leave me alone, forever, kapeesh, your outta here and you ain’t getting triangulated again. EVER. Even though I responded and told him not to contact me again, it is consistent. Just as I did a couple of months ago when the turd refused to flush.
Apparently, we had a little back up here, so I needed to plunge.
Ox, mine isn’t overly energetic and given the energies it’s taking him to honeymoon new gf now that’s living with him, I think I’m too much work to try to triangulate back into the situation. I look at it as bait to see if I would only to be clear that I will not. I’m seriously a waste of his time. He’ll hunt elsewhere now and good riddance! I even wished him MUCH HAPPINESS in his new relationshit **chortle**, **snort**
i’m good now it is time to move on. i’m ready to move ahead some more now. I’m glad this happened. It showed me just how much i DON”T want the bastard back. 🙂
LL
8
I didnt want mine when he was here, he was like a nat that wouldnt go away. Dont know why I went into such a tail spin when he did finally leave, well yes I do but ya’ll know how that goes down..
Dear Trimama,
I AM SO GLAD THAT YOU ARE AWAY FROM HIM!!!!! SAFELY AWAY!!!! Yes, my dear, I do get frustrated with you, but you DID IT and I am so happy for you, now I can breathe knowing you are safe!!!! (((hugs)))))
Sigh! What a relief, please keep us posted on how you are doing! We really DO CARE!!!!! I hope you know that.
You are right it is like an addiction to a drug….and even now I sometimes want a cigarette and I have been off them nearly 2 years now….but I wont’ let myself get back on them because I KNOW they will kill me. Hey, girlfriend, if I can quit the cigs you can quit that jack ass! LOL ((((Hugs)))) and TOWANDA!!!!!!
Trimama, when you said this: “But the lure, the seduction of it makes me forget the dangers.” I immediately knew YES THAT”S IT!!
I am going through the detox of “heroin” too. The exS is a MASTER at the seduction game as he has been doing it since the civil war! 🙂
He was prolly one the the best looking men ever produced in this part of the country. He really could have gone to Hollyweird and been something. Soooo beautiful to look at (in his prime). I remember him from my youth and that is the draw 🙁 That type of man stays in the psyche of a fifteen year old girl. Now here I am at 53 and the “gorgeous young teacher” is still in there!! SHIT!!
Now that he is older (aging) he still gives a zing to the ladies but really he has lost his mojo. My sister (the one that reminds me of Oxy) says we should write a country song and call it “I Lost My Mojo At the Mall.” Referring to how he forgot he was with one GF at the mall when I came along and he forgot she was in the store and he was making our next date and she shows up OMG the look on his stooopid face. What did the coward do? He ducked into the men’s room (that happened to be conveniently close by) of course! He no longer can keep all the balls in the air.
Haha I can only laugh about in now. BUT my point is the subject of seduction. I went out and bought the book “The Art of Seduction” by Robert Green to get into the mind of these people and I was FLOORED at how much the xS has this down TO A SCIENCE!! And I don’t believe he ever takes the time to read, he’s too busy boning all his harem and filling all the vacancies created as one wises up.
Yes, seduction is a game and the masters of that game are the ones causing all the trauma. I studied it because I want to know how to avoid it. I don’t have the heart to follow those practices at tall at tall but it is good to know what they are thinking.
See ya!
Thank you, Ox and Adamsrib!
Feels good to be back among the sane here on LF!
Yes, I am safely away. And trying to build a life.
I admit that sometimes I miss him and wonder what he’s doing.
But when the thought comes in my head of missing him, I try to ask myself why. And each reason I come up with gets countered with something harmful he did.
So: “I miss him because we had fun together” becomes: “The fun was something he created to get what he wanted. I was being manipulated”.
Or: “He was my best friend” becomes: “Best friends don’t lie to you, cheat on you, speak poorly of you to others and hurt you”.
That kind of thing.
From a change in thinking is coming a change in feeling. There are even times when I see glimpses of the joy that used to be so much a part of my life.
I am re-reading The Betrayal Bond and doing the exercises in earnest. Patrick Carney is right: either we use the situation with our s/path to heal the trauma bond, or we continue to repeat the pattern and the pain from here on out.
I don’t want to feel like this again!
Tri, that really works. When I have the thought “I miss___” I have taught myself to ask “WHY”. Is it his cheating you miss? How about the sick mind games?” Maybe it’s his indifference?” etc. etc. Works like a charm. For that day. Next day I have to do it again! SHIT!! 🙂
Adam
ROFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is so true!!! LOL!!!!!
Haha LL the list is endless so everyday I have new material!!
Hens says:
“I didnt want mine when he was here, he was like a nat that wouldnt go away. Dont know why I went into such a tail spin when he did finally leave…”
I would not call my x-spath a gnat, but I did have some doubts about him. Also, there was much bad going on in my life and he became the last straw.
Now that everything else is quite well, I wonder why I still go thru these periods when I think about him. My best answer to that is the left-right combination of mirroring and pity play.
I have dated several people since the x-spath and met many more. All were better people and available. While I sometimes wonder if I am fataly attracted to emotional unavailble men, I feel the major reason behind my still thinking about the x-spath is mostly due to his mirroring made me believe he was somebody he is not.
Certainly, if I go by what I learned about him online, I would pass right over him without a second thought: too immature, profile pics very outdated (implying dishonesty), seems to target younger guys, smokes, recreational drug user. But I was privy to none of this when I dated him.
Thus, while the other guys I dated were in many ways better than him, the *image* he presented to me essentially “matched” exactly what I was looking for.
Add the pity play. Not direct or overt, but enough not only for me to have a great deal of empathy for him, but it allowed me to explain away some of his treatment of me.