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
Goodnite onestep!
Hey One joy,
I always sign on after you leave it seems. 🙁
I love talking with you too.
I think that we drift in our values because we were trained to please others. That means our values shift depending on who we are pleasing. We are perfect spath food.
As long as we are aware of this we can “avoid” some of it, but that doesn’t fill the hole. if we aren’t pleasing someone, then what are we doing? Ummmmmmmm…. not really sure. The only time I’m not into people pleasing is when I’m angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…..! I’m a spath when I’m angry. But it doesn’t feel good, I’ve learned to bury the anger. Now it’s hard to reach. my anger is not energizing anymore, its just furious rage. Like when I got shafted at the gas station and the attendant dissed me. Both BF and the attendant looked very afraid. I need to focus the anger again, like I used to when I was a teenager and told the GR murderer how dumb he was. I used to have an attitude, now Im just tired.
((Tobecop))
so sorry about your past abuses. it’s good that you let it out here. I tried going to a priest, 3 of them actually. Not a good idea. After the first one, I felt abused, after the second one, I felt abandoned, after the third, i felt hopeless.
I think idiots and pedophiles gravitate to that job.
I don’t think it was that way when i was young… or maybe i was just dumb.
I think OneJoy had the right idea. a rape crisis center may be the one place where they know how to help.
But PLEASE try to understand that none of this was your fault. He is the rapist and he SLIMED you. He was a very obvious spath if his parents even warned you about him. It might be that you are dealing with slime from a spath. I can’t explain it very well. It’s a psychological thing that they do to us, but planting seeds. Just like the neighbor spath did recently. They can plant suggestions in the most innocuous way, you won’t even notice that they did it. Find those suggestions and dig them out and put something else in there because it’s like nettles, everytime you brush up against them you get burned again and again. they sting!
SKy-I thought about you today when I was driving home because you talked to me that day about her planting seeds in my head about the ammo thing by talking about suicide. I remembered today when I was driving, something else that she said regarding death. That day after I gaver her the ammo, when she was babysitting me and making me feel small, we were in her car and that’s when she told me that she didn’t let herself feel. She also drove past this big bush of pink flowers and named the plant. She told me that they were dangerous flowers because they are poison. Evidently some guy she knew had cut down some of them and burned them, not knowing that they were toxic and they shut down his nervous system and he died. I find it really weird that she told me about that-considering she was babysitting me cuz I gave her the ammo. It was almost like hinting that it was a way to do yourself in. I drove past a big bush of those flowers that are growing by the fence on the way to my house. WEIRD. She suggested that I talk to a priest on the night that I gave her the ammo.
What an evil bitch. my spath was always talking about ways that a person could die – describing possible accidents with gases or fire, or mechanical failures. Diseases were a favorite thing to talk about too and of course, POISON.
She might have made up the story about the plant, do you remember the name? Or it could have been a tell: she plants toxic ideas and they cause death.
Since she is the one who suggested a priest, i would be wary of that suggestion for any other reason.
Try to avoid her as much as possible. they are dangerous just to be around, because they are so slimey.
That’s why I am scared about going to see the priest. You should have seen her the other day when her 80 something yr old mother was in town. I saw them walking up the sidewalk in my direction and tried to run into the house. She saw me and stopped me and was all about introducing me to her mother, who was very nice. She was all smiles like she was so glad to see me and being friendly. I kept wanting to ask her mother if she was aware that her daughter was a cold, frigid, hermit bitch with ice water in her veins. She put on a whole other persona in front of her mom. They were all dressed nice too and informed me that they had been to tea at the Windsor Court. It was like she thought she was above me and then came off a little snotty. I am now going to make sure that I avoid her as much as possible. It is obvious that we have nothing in common other than our intelligence and I don’t know what I ever saw in her in the first place.
((((((((((((((((( 2 cop ))))))))))))))))))))))))
Oh my sweetheart………….you’re going through a growing stage….it’s painful, but it’s good. So proud of you!
Keep it up. Extra hugs. I know how hard that is. Stay focused and take good care of you while all of this stuff barfs itself up in your life. I had a feeling that something deeper was about to barf up.
It hurts, but in the end, it will be VERY healing for you!
BIG BIG HUGS!
ONe J- I hope you’re doing okay.
Petitie. I hope you are too. Lots goign on right now, sorry I’m not able to be here as much as I’d like to be.
Let me know if I can reach either of you, seems I’m doing more email these days than blogging.
LL
LL-thanks for all the big hugs-I’m gonna have to take myself to bed so I will have the energy to go big workouts tomorrow. I decided that I am going to throw extra into it on the days that I’m not working. Peace out ya’ll and goodnite.
nolarn, as I read your story, I felt close to you in your bedroom cleaning. I know it must have been incredibly hurtful to relive that. But that you cried your heart out about it is such a good thing. It feels heavy, but it works like a catharsis. The way you described it, you’ve already been to confession: a confession to yourself, and whatever or whomever you believe in. You poured out your soul in the bedroom, and if you believe in God, he was there as a witness for you. It’s even a most symbolic place, because our bedrooms are our symbolic places of our most intimate feelings. So, I don’t think you need a priest. I would advize you only to see a priest if you already have someone in mind whom you know can be supportive in counceling.
I do support the fact it would be good to seek counceling on this. One/joy’s suggestions seems appropriate.
You were RAPED by that man. Being drunk, or going to bed has nothing to do with it. It was his day and he decided that he would have you whether you wanted or not, and deceive you so that you wouldn’t be able to put up a fight. Pure evil! And then to pour the salt in the wound by asking you how it had been for you, when he knew very well you were hurting and crying and he had violated you. What an ASS!
I’m so sorry this happened to you, but I’m so proud of your strength now to have faced it! You rock!
Darwinsmom-thanks. I never looked at it that way about not needing confession because GOD was there. Part of me just thought about writing a letter to GOD and reading it out loud. That still may help me feel better, and I think I’m going to do it. Plus, if I went to a priest then I would have to worry about how to deal with the whole gay issue too, and I would be judged for that. I could think of the Episcopal church in my neighborhood, if I really feel that need because they are accepting of gay people and non-judgemental. I do feel better that I went on my law enforcement website and found out that if I do get counseling by a mental health professional for the sexual assault, it won’t have a issue with my passing me psych or eval or background check to go back to the academy. I need to get right with this soon though so that when it’s time to go back, it will be dealt with and I’m hoping that since I am not repressing it anymore that the weight will start coming off faster-since most of it I gained way back in that first year of the assault. Thanks for the positive words.