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
KD my response was to no one in particular just in general. The priest subject comes up and I make my speech.. That is all ok?:)
p.s KD I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY that converts or re-verts like myself seem to have the no guilt approach to the church and to our faith and we seem to get it at a deeper level sometimes. I know some powerful cradle Caths too! Blessings!
Hmmm, back to the rape issue… there is something that sits not well at all with me at the moment regarding my ex-sleeze.
Late November his father died (a true hero, a kind good man who had an idea of what his youngest son was in a rudimentary way, and he was a firefighter on retirement). His half brother and him inherited the house in the tourist town, each half. The house he inherited has 5 rooms and 1 shower. So, he intended to rent out rooms and make a basic income that way.
In December a foreign girl rented a room from him “supposedly”. And then one day he told me on the phone that she had been raped by someone while she was asleep, and he had been off for a walk, or not there. When I asked how the guy even got in, I got some vague story. Didn’t really make much sense, unless she had let the guy in her room herself. His cousin corroborated the story when I had him on the phone the next day. And the sleeze helped the police to get the rapist into prison.
While the sleeze never did such a thing to me. He made a petty comment once when I didn’t feel like it, but never maltreated me in any sexual manner.
But I’m pretty sure now that he was the one who sent my assault-robberers after me. At the time he came out as the hero for getting some guys into prison for it. But I knew the guys that spent 1-2 nights in jail were not the guys who robbed me, and that those who had were acquaintances of his. Nobody doubted my identification of the real perpatrotors, except sleeze back then.
After what she heard too, gradually the past weeks of occurrences, she has wondered as well about the rape story. I’m starting to consider him a possible suspect of it. And the idea alone that I was with someone for 21 months who may actually have committed such a crime, makes my stomach revolt.
Whatever your faith or your spiritual walk, there are always people who are FAKES who will “hold the same view” (actually they don’t but they pretend to.) or they will try to convince you that their is the RIGHT WAY and yours is the wrong way.
Whatever your faith or spiritual walk, it is YOURS. If you share it with others of the same belief, fine, if you are the ONLY one in the world who has that view, that is okay too.
My egg donor tried to convince me that I couldn’t commune directly with God, only through pleasing her as SHE had a direct pipeline to God himself. LOL NOW I know that is not true and my walk in my faith is mine, not hers. I can communicate and commune with my God by myself without her telling me what is God’s will. I can figure it out for myself. Now how liberating is that! LOL
I think the healing that we do is also a spiritual walk, whatever your spirituality is, that is part of being fully human, and I think that addressing that aspect of ourselves, our healing, helps us to process that healing. Even if you are not “religious” that has nothing to do with the spiritual aspect of being human. Funny thing, most of the people I know who think they have the knowledge of the ONLY way to God and NO ONE else does…those people are usually abusive and dismissive of others and very arrogant…that and the people who believe there is NO GOD and they want to dismiss other’s belief in God, some how it offends them that OTHERS BELIEVE. Interesting. If you don’t believe in Any god, that’s okay with me, so why would it offend you (that is the “universal you”) if I do believe as long as I don’t demand that you do?
Tolerance of the beliefs of others and their spiritual walks I think is part of what makes us whole. Being bigoted and prejudiced and “hell fire and brimstone” right only makes us bitter and angry and I don’t want to think and feel that way.
Oxy-you are totally right about people who think they have the only path to GOD. My N mother is one of those people and she is arrogant in her beliefs. Once again got a text from her last night, which I erased, saying “no strings attached, I love you”. You love controlling me and manipulating me. If she does love me then she has a twisted crazy way of showing it.
Adamsrib-my good friend and mentor is a deep practicing Catholic since birth and is in her 50’s and is a lesbian. She and her partner have been together longer than a lot of married couples. She is like me, that she doesn’t wear her sexuality like a badge on her shirt and it isn’t a priority to out and tell everyone about it and be vocal and loud about it. I think it’s easier to maintain your faith like that. I am tossed up about what I’m going to do. I have been wanting to go into Catholicscomehome for quite awhile and I think I probably will. I will be more like a convert-like Katy and it will mean more to me. I know the Episcopal is openly accepting but in some places it seems that you get to many people of the lifestyle in there and it feels like people go to church to meet dates or something. That is not why I want to be there. I strongly believe that I can have a relationship with GOD and still be gay.
darwinsmom-that is a really sick feeling that you are describing-the idea of being with someone that could have raped someone. I’m sorry you’re going through that. That’s no fault though if he did and you definitely have nothing to do with his behavior.
I really think it best for me to seek out a rape counselor for the best help. I need to deal with this BEFORE trying to go back to the police academy. I can’t go for my psych eval and here them say, why do you want to work sex crimes so much and have me crack up and melt into a puddle on the floor. I need to be able to give an appropriate calm answer to that question that let’s them know that I’ve dealt with it, and to be able to tell them how I feel like I can be a benefit to victims, being a police officer who has been there.
Then I come back to my neighbor lady and how she told me that I needed to be like her and “not let myself feel anything”. That’s exactly what I have done with this incident for the past 18 years and it has NEGATIVELY affected me ever since and was directly a reason why I fell prey to so many disordered people in relationships. I felt like that’s all I deserved. I guess that her idea works out real well doesn’t it? That’s why I am 100lbs overweight, have had stomach ulcers, have been eaten alive by stress and had severe financial issues and the stress from all those things is perpetuated by them and it’s a vicious circle. I also don’t understand her telling me to see a priest. She was born in raised in NOLA, so Catholic since birth and she doesn’t appear to be practicing at all or observing it. Can spaths even practice truely because of their spathiness and their no conscience, no empathy, no compassion thing. She doesn’t even attend church on holidays. She never goes. Part of me wants to tell her how ridiculous she is for telling me not to feel, but there’s no point in antagonizing her, since she could mess with my career later.
darwinsmom, Not sure from your post whether you think your ex raped the girl, or whether he ‘arranged’ her rape. But, if I read your post correctly, it sounds like he arranged an attack on you – is that right?
If so, you might want to read up a bit on “Muchausen by Proxy”. It doesn’t directly relate to your situation (it is a criminal type of activity perpetrated on children by their disordered caretakers – usually their mothers). But the key here is that they *arrange* harm to the child SO THAT THEY CAN BE THE RESCUER AND LOOK LIKE HEROES – just like you said about your ex. I think that that kind of mindset (hands clean torturing/harming of others that is enjoyed vicariously and gets the real perpetrator social benefit) is far more common than is ever discussed. Furthermore, I think it is an approach used fairly commonly by the more successful sophisticated psychopath (again it requires more impulse control) that leaves them unprosecuted and often unsuspected. And the victim entirely without recourse and justice.
I’m sorry that you’re having to go through these mental and emotional gyrations to winnow out what happened and get to the truth.
Dear Nolarn,
Sugar part of the healing process is getting to where we don’t care so much what other people think, and it isn’t so important to us to “tell them” off….or “make them see”—because truly, they CAN’T SEE or they can’t understand.
Their “spirituality” is faked…so they only use it as a club to hit others with and to control others.
Yea, no strings, except the noose she wants to put around your neck. LOL
@nolarn,
I hear you about the ‘stuffing down your reactions’. One of the most harmful things you can do to yourself because of the stress it puts on your body. I struggle with chronic health problems, and I think that’s the cause of a good deal of it.
There is no animal on this green earth that evolved to just ‘ignore’ danger.
Annie ~ you are exactly right about this: “There is no animal on this green earth that evolved to just ’ignore’ danger.”
We were given instinctive reactions for a very good reason, SELF PRESERVATION!
We need to listen to our ‘gut instinct’. It will not EVER fail us. It’s just too bad that these predators are so very good at disguising themselves as harmless, even friendly creatures.
Annie that is Nola I believe not me that had that experience. At my age CRS gets the best of me and if I don’t go back and review the posts I can’t always remember what I read!