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
exactly!!!!!!!!!!!!
🙂
I had a really massive cry this morning. So much pain came out from the past that I had buried there and never really talked about or allowed myself to feel. I was cleaning out the bedroom, part of my deep spring cleaning to get everything and order and organized. I wasn’t expecting this to happen at all. I was thinking about the past and how messed up my life has been since my early twenties, and how I am still paying for things that happened back then. I kept thinking back to dating my first sociopath and that’s when my life changed for the worse. I realized that all of my relationships that I have had were me trying to get some guy, or girl to rescue me from my parents and my dysfunctional upbringing.
This guy was 11 years older than me-a widow with two young boys whose wife had died young from a congenital heart condition. It really strikes me now because I know so much about spaths, how much he wanted “to be an actor” and he did all the plays in school. I know now that he was pretending emotions and personalities-like spaths do. It’s all so pathetic too-his dad was the music minister of the Southern Baptist church that I attended. He used those two little motherless boys to get to me. The oldest one was in my kindergarten choir that I worked with and he saw how that little cute boy gravitated to me and found the perfect victim. He was a parasitic sociopath-couldn’t hold down a job, had something like 30 jobs in a year. His father even warned me about getting involved with him saying “there is just something wrong with him and we don’t know what. We raised him in a loving home and I can’t explain it but he will completely take advantage of you.” He had me snared already by then and I missed that red flag. I was trying to go to college and I was maxing out credit cards spending money on him and those boys. They were so poor and he was a terrible provider for them. He had even been visited by family services to make sure that they were being cared for. I can’t believe he snowed me like that, but at the time I was the queen of naivete due to my mother never allowing me to be a person-just some clone of herself.
Something happened during the end of this relationship that has kept me in a sort of prison ever since then, and was the beginning of my problems with my weight. Since he was so Baptist they weren’t allowed alcohol. When he finally moved out of his parents house, in his late THIRTIES, he decided to have a big party on NYE-I was 21 at the time. What happened that night was what changed my life forever. I was a virgin at 21 and I had planned on waiting until I was ready to have sex-he always said he would wait, until he had enough alcohol in his system. He invited all his Baptist Sunday School friends to this party. I wasn’t drinking that much cuz I was playing hostess. This is where my memory gets fuzzy. I wonder if maybe he slipped something in my drink cuz I could always drink big time along with the guys and it a lot to get me drunk. I remember telling him that I needed to go lay down in his room since I didn’t feel well and he would have to take over as the host. I was out as soon as I hit the pillow and must have been out for a long time. I woke suddenly cuz I was in pain and I couldn’t breathe. He was on top of me crushing me and he was having sex with me. It hurt so bad and all I could think of was getting up and getting away, but it seemed like I couldn’t move and he was big and had me pinned down so much. I did scream because I remember him telling me that I was going to wake up the boys, WHO WERE SLEEPING IN THE NEXT ROOM. I don’t remember if I fought him or tried to or what but I remembered him saying “we’re almost done”. When it was over I was too scared to leave because the cops were out on a sobriety checkpoint between his house and mine and I knew I was NOT capable of driving. I was crying and crying and I remember him asking me “if it was good for me”. I ended up crying myself to sleep in the corner of his room on the floor-because I refused to get back in the bed with him.
The most pathetic thing was that I took him back the next Friday. He spent the whole week lovebombing me and bringing me gifts and talking about it like we just had sex-it was no big deal. He gave me a tiny diamond ring that Friday night and told me he wanted to marry me. On Saturday he asked me to please take him to pick up this car from the shop. When we got there and it was time to pay for it, he said he left his wallet at home. The place was about to close and he didn’t have time to go back and get it. He asked me to write a check for him and that he would give me the money as soon as we got home to his house. I told him to promise that I would get the money, as I only had enough in my account for half the bill. We got back to his apartment and he told me that he didn’t have any money-so I had just written a BAD CHECK. I threw the ring at him and broke up with him and told him that I never wanted to see him again. I went to his father and told him what happened. He called me to his office at the church and gave me a check to cover the bill. He told me ” I really wish that you had listened to me when I warned you about him-he has done this several times before and has a history of writing bad checks. That’s why he can’t get a checking account. He stalked me for awhile afterward too. He would show up at me job and watch me outside with the kids. He was again out of a job, so he would follow me around town-til I turned into the police station. He would show up at my parents home when I was there alone-with the boys in the car and sit at the top of my driveway and even called and tried to disguise his voice and threaten to kill my parents. The only reason that he finally stopped was when my dad threatened to kill him.
That’s why I repressed and bottled up and hid what happened when I lost my virginity. I thought it was my fault cuz I drank too much and I didn’t fight him off hard enough. I couldn’t even remember if I fought at all. I didn’t know if I could really call it rape since I had been drinking, and the biggest thing I knew was that if I told anyone, my dad would kill him-since he threatened to for the stalking. I knew that no one would believe me if I said anything-especially since his dad was the well respected minister in town. I didn’t want my dad to go to jail for killing him. I never told anyone for about 8 years-when I met my best friend Kathie. I told her and then later told the girl that I dated and my ex spath. I didn’t give them any details-just that I was raped. But I always felt that horrible horrible guilt-that maybe it wasn’t rape-cuz I was drunk and it must have been my fault. After that, I couldn’t deal with it and I ate my pain and was so stressed out that I gained 60 lbs that year-and I had never really had a weight problem-other than gaining a few pounds here and there and losing them. I also spent money thinking that it would helped. I further maxed out credit cards and had to take time off school to work three jobs to make payments and it took me 4 YEARS to pay off the debt. I wished I would have just declared bankruptcy.
I have carried all this guilt and pain bottled up since I was 21 and now I am going on 39. It just came out this morning when I was cleaning out the bedroom and I started crying and couldn’t stop. There is still more in there though that needs to come out. All the socio/narc relationships that I had after him were all because I hated myself so much and allowed myself to be treated some kinda way cuz I hated myself so much. That is what allowed me to abandon my morals and go with ex spath, who was married-another source of extreme guilt. I never understood until today why I allowed myself to do it-it’s because I didn’t think that I deserved anything better than that kind of relationship. That’s why I allowed him to put me second. I think I am going to go talk to a priest or something cuz I feel like I need to go to confession-somewhere where I will feel safe and it will be completely confidential.
Dear Super chic,
Good for you! Getting out is good for you. I do think though if you are not having much interest in things that you might really want to get a professional mental health evaluation and see if you need medication for PTSD or depression. Lack of interest in things is a BIG SIGN of depression. Medication doesn’t make your problems go away but it can help you have more energy to deal with them and more interest in things.
((((((((((((((nola)))))))))) – i think you just did unburden yourself at the house of lovefraud.
good . for . you. girl, good for you. you found it and you let it out.
any sex without consent is abusive and assault. period. he’s sounds like a rotten piece of shit. in fact, i think the rest of the turds jump out of the bowl when they see him coming.
there is so much manufactured shame that caused you to bury this – ideas of who will be believed because of social status, the self blame manufactured out of the lie that victims ask for it or are responsible for it because of the circumstances, the responsibility that you would carry if your n father got retribution for someone messing with his possession…all this responsibility for something that you were the victim of and the ongoing punishment.
WELL HALLELUJAH, YOU OPENED A BIG OL DOOR AND LET THE SUN IN. GOOD FOR YOU!!!!!!
onestep-I don’t feel like I let the sun in but I do feel like it was a huge deal because I actually let myself feel it, even though neighbor lady has been telling me all about not letting yourself feel. I kinda really wanted to flip her the bird after all this. All this repressed pain is why I am 100 lbs overweight and maybe why it is NOT coming off and I am discouraged. I found out that my police department is hiring this year, and it was hard that I can’t be in it because of my weight. I am hoping that if I deal with this head on that the weight will start coming off. I need to go to confession but I’m afraid-afraid of the pain and losing control if I actually verbalize it to someone other than myself. I’m afraid that the priest will want me to tell my parents. At this point, I would be afraid for my dad’s physical health if I told him.
Dear NoLARN,
Peeling back those layers of the “onion” to get to the middle, to find out what is making you cry….seems sometimes like an endless task, but sounds like you peeled a bunch of stuff back and examined it. Good for you.
Everyone of us I think has some regrets, some things we look back on and wish we hadn’t done, or thought that, or felt that…but we’re in a different place now and learning to take care of ourselves first. To value and validate ourselves and not depend on others’ opinions of us to set the bar.
I’m glad for you that you started to see these things, to feel these things instead of pushing them down….to face and deal with them. Good for you. TOWANDA!!!! No one can rescue us we must rescue ourselves. I think seeking someone else to rescue us is “natural” but learning to do it for ourselves is important and it is what gives us true independence and security.
You are growing in strength and insight. Keep on learning! (((hugs)))
Thanks Oxy. It was shocking to me that it just came spilling out while I was cleaning the bedroom out. I felt like I was cleaning my heart and my soul. This was the first time I cried about it since the night that it happened. I instantly felt some relief but my heart has still been really heavy all day.
xoxoxo nolarn2bcop xoxoxo
nola – any priest that would tell a grown woman to tell her father something is not doing a very good job. you have to stop thinking like a 16 year old in relation to your folks. it’s none of theri damn business and they don’t get to direct your punishment OR healing. it’s a YOU, not them…same as the spath, right? it’s about us, not them.
telling your parents would probably be a re victimization and ANOTHER punishment. don’t go there. and don’t listen to anyone who suggests it. and don’t fear it – because YOU are in charge and you are not responsible for your n’s health.
and nola, you really did let the sun in. truly.
i’d go to the sexual assault centre and talk to someone about it. i go to the sac here every so often, and talk about stuff from decades ago. i never received help for it back then, and it does help now.
good for you. this is a big and important step!