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
NOLaRn2bcop,
I saw this sign somewhere and wrote this down..
“you can’t fix stupid”
Just call her stuff what it is… it is as you rightly said “stupid” …deep sigh and shake your head and roll your eyes and that’s the end of whatever she did to bother you.
Nola, when you say this :
“When I am where I want to be then I will bring somebody great home and she will she it”
You have someone nice already…YOU. KD told me today that the love of my life is ME so I am passing it on to you.
She is not your gf or ex. You owe her nothing! Make her shit without having to “bring someone home” OWN YOUR POWER!! Turn her off like an annoying radio. Change the CD something to get her off your throne!! You have her sitting IN YOUR SPOT!!
skylar,
once again, thank you so much for putting this all in such familiar perspective. every time i read what you write, i feel stronger and better and know how lucky i am to have gotten out this early. i can’t believe your ex, he sounds like an absolute nightmare!
i absolutely LOVE that you drove him nuts simply by being happy — you’re right, they really don’t understand that. because of that, they really are the ultimate losers. getting happiness from others is the best thing in the world 🙂
Night! thanks again
Skylar the Spathinator, I did some backspathing when HE was here. I regret it. I just regret the whole f..ing thing. I should of never went where I went with him. I dunno how to explain it, but I feel like I failed him when all the evidence proves otherwise. it’s like he won, he just used me up and its taking so long to recover from him,
Hens-what the heck is goin on man?
hey erin – just catching up on the blog, nothing exciting going on with me same ole same ole. Hows the job search going?
Hens-I got a temp position and had an orientation day. I’m waiting to start and waiting on another orientation at another place. Still waiting to finish testing for the Sheriffs office job.
Hens,
I wasn’t backspathing him I was just doing what I felt was right at the time. I didn’t know his motivation. I did love him and felt bad that he was so fucked up and I couldn’t help him.
Hens, I think I know what you mean about feeling like you failed. It goes deeper than just winning or losing. Recently I’ve realized that they latch onto us because they see our self-esteem is so high and theirs is so low. They want some of what we have and we give it to them. We, subconsciously, perceive that they need rescuing/redemption and we want to be the ones who buff up that diamond in the rough. Because of their lies, we think we’ve found a prize that everyone else overlooked and we’re gonna make it shine, because we are special and we have a special power to do this, just with our love. (that’s OUR narcissism, which is our weakness). We lend them our self-esteem by loving them, they take it and bask in it. After all, we wouldn’t love someone who isn’t worthy, right? When we believe that they are good, they know they have us. They don’t return the high-esteem. They break it and stomp on it. No matter how much love and regard we have for them, they can’t feel it. So they don’t want us to feel it either. Now that they have our self-esteem, they won’t give it back. They deem us unworthy, trash us, slander us. It’s BECAUSE we gave them credibility that they can do this to us.
Without having presented myself to society as married to this slime, people would have seen him as the slime that he is. Anyone can see he was unbathed and unworthy. But in my company, he becomes someone. My money, my credit, my house, my beauty and youth, my GOODNESS, enhanced him in the eyes of others. My admiration for him enhanced him in his own eyes. I gave him the mirror and the power.
Break the mirror, break the power. but not before he had slandered me.
Hens, you feel like you failed because you attempted the impossible. You tried to redeem the irredeemable. You aren’t Christ, you aren’t the redeemer, you aren’t a failure. You won when you saw the truth, because the truth is their Kryptonite, now go spread it around.
thanks skylar – I know all that you say is correct. I know what he was all about. It’s just more to do with me then him to be honest.
Hens, I think we all try to do the IMPOSSIBLE as Sky pointed out. We are narcissistic enough to think we are 1) responsible for helping/redeeming/fixing everyone else (you got that thinking as a child, remember? So did I!) 2) We are OBLIGATED to fix others and if we don’t then we fail. WRONG we are NOT obligated to fix others and we can’t Fail when the job we take on is impossible!
No matter how we try we cannot move the Rocky mountains…but we are convinced that it is our duty and obligation and we have a tea spoon and so if we fail to move the Rocky Mountains we are a failure? OF COURSE WE CAN SEE THIS IS CRAZY THINKING…but we have to also see the CRAZY THINKING in the “obligation” we have to fix others, to make them happy, and that if we “fail” to do the impossible that WE ARE THE FAILURE —-NO! NO! NO! When the job is first of all NOT OURS, and is IMPOSSIBLE AS WELL…even if we do try to do it, and can’t do it WE ARE NOT THE FAILURES.
It is simply a way of looking at things, Hens, and we can’t change them, but we can INTERNALIZE THE TRUTH, and the TRUTH is 1) it is not our job 2) we are not obligated to do it AND 3) EVEN IF WE TRIED IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE.
So WE ARE NOT FAILURES.
I did not FAIL to raise my son Patrick (P-son) right. I did NOT fail to teach my son C about morality and responsibility. I taught them, but THEY FAILED THE CLASSES. Even if I had been the PERFECT PARENT, the PERFECT TEACHER….the student has the responsibility to LEARN AND PROCESS THE LESSON….
and you can’t fix STUPID and you can’t FIX “DOESN’T WANT TO LEARN THE LESSON” and you can’t fix “REJECTS the lesson.”
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make the SOB drink. I lead my sons to water, but they didn’t like the water I provided and they didn’t drink much if any of it and they sure didn’t and don’t practice the lessons I taught. They rejected those lessons.
My egg donor and yours taught us some pretty HORRIBLE LESSONS and we drank their stinking water and internalized some of the bad lessons they taught, but we are ADULTS NOW, and we are able to LOOK AT THE LESSONS THEY TAUGHT and realize that those lessons were self serving for them and WRONG. We can VALIDATE OUR OWN TRUTHS NOW AS ADULTS.
That is what we must do…and our feelings will follow those validations. We don’t have to go on “feeling badly” for failing, we can look at the TRUTH and VALIDATE IT OURSELVES.
So get out there and VALIDATE yourself my friend before I get the BIG skillet out and boink your flat head again. Love Oxy