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
Matt-
Thanks from a fellow new yorker who has been through the system in this state. The Judge in our case wanted to order him out of the house but said he felt he was on thin legal ground and was concerned that his order would be overturned. He then looked hubby in the eyes and proceeded to strongly urge him to voluntarily move out. That was August 14th 2008 and the jerk is still camped out here. He is a very wealthy man so its not an issue of economics, just control…….over me! He has an apartment that one of his partners owns but I can’t get documentation of that because all the utilities are in someone elses name. I have spent all I can afford on a P.I to follow him. Got close, but his partner lies for him.
I have an excellent lawyer. I hauled every financial document I could get my hands on, out of our house right after “Poopsie” wigged out. His huge ego caused him to underestimate me, so I actually got the jump on him. I locked up all the high net-worth matrim. lawyers in this city which really pissed him off. He had to go to another city for his lawyer. Him living in the same house is hell. The Whitehouse wouldn’t be big enough!
As for the smear stuff you are all talking about, my situation is that we never had any friends. Just family. My Psycho never had any close friends. He has told unbelieavable lies to his kids about me but then, they have seen him do this twice before and aren’t going to be fooled again. At this point, they are just glad to be back in the Will so they’ll play whatever game he wants them to. The only people who seem to be followers are the ones he buys.
Thanks Matt for your advice. I will make sure to have everything signed, sealed and delivered before hand.
Spanky
When EVIL points a finger at you, it has already done it’s deed in darkness.
All the things that a “malignant” accuses others of, he/she has already done the victim.
“The SP in my life expected to have enough time go by and just start being “friendly” again to me and that of course, I was going to be so GRATEFUL that he wanted me back in his life. I’m really glad I didn’t fall for it.” Damn, Skippy, my ex-S was working from the same playbook. I dumped him, he tried guilt trips, anger, begging, none of it worked, a couple months later he did the whole “I’m over it, can we just be friends?” routine then got upset when I actually expected it to be just friends. lol.
“The woman that the s has lured in, seduced and controlled, put-down and discarded was not really me. No it was his idea of a woman. The woman he wanted me to be. He made tremendous effort to groom me into this “perfect woman mate” …” Greenfern, that realization is what allowed me to finally break free of the S. I didn’t like the woman he was trying to convince me I was, but at the same time I wasn’t really sure who I was, I just knew it wasn’t who he was trying to tell me I was. I told him I needed to figure out who I am and he told me, “I already know who you are.” He had a very similar penchant to your S, he wanted a woman who was brooding, anorexically skinny, he loved those models who looked like they were on heroin. I was too cute, not concerned enough with looking cool like he was, I smiled too much. I did wear the black leather and goth clothes, but that had nothing to do with him it’s what I liked to wear, and he would criticize me for not being suave enough to match the clothes. He actually criticized me for not drinking and doing drugs. He wanted a Bonnie to go with his imagined Clyde personna and he would punish me when I wouldn’t follow.
Sabine….
“Jim – thanks for the smear campaign explanation. Wow. What an awful situation for you. I would love to create a smear campaign of my own for her! maybe we should start settting these folks up together -eh? Give them a taste of their own medicine!”
Not worth it….she creates her own sideshow…better him than me…I get some updates second-hand…they both hate me…I like that. Works for me.
LOL…it was bad at the time…but now…ROTFLMAO! I could write a book….threats, car vandalized…it was surreal…but then, what else do you get from them?
I’m off that roller-coaster, and I’m free! But, I’m like Oxy…I’m permitted and “carry” except at the school, courthouse, and Post Office. I know evil exists, and if it shows up I’ll recognize it. I know the local police and they know me…they’ve helped in games with the “boyfriend”.
Ain’t life grand when it’s chaos free! I’ve been blessed!
Fleeced Ewe…you got it…”projection”…seen that!
Midnight_Reflection said
” I didn’t like the woman he was trying to convince me I was, but at the same time I wasn’t really sure who I was, I just knew it wasn’t who he was trying to tell me I was. I told him I needed to figure out who I am and he told me, “I already know who you are.”
Yes, can relate to that. Not being sure who I was was my weak point to him. That’s where he would stab me. I knew what I did not want, but was not sure who I was and what I needed. The few times I have vocalized my frustrations with his behavior, his comeback was perfect. It was the perfect disarming, head spinning answer he would give me “you just don’t even know what you want” . Nothing about his behavior, my objection to it. It was like instant table turning.
Right now I am learning what I want and how to be able to focus my own energies on myself vs. wasting it on some sadistic ***hole.
I wonder when they claim to know us better then ourselves, they are talking about this fictitious fantasy person they have made up in their head OR they need to say that in order to keep their grand illusion and not admit even to themselves that they are actually rather incompetent relating to average, non-s human beings.
These grand illusions include fictitious persons, romantic, fetish fantasies, idolizing writers, artists etc, that are out of reach. Once they get to know them, they will be discarded too; they have failed to live up to the idol.
I was being mobbed at work by a group of shady guys and the boss (who I’d helped get promoted) was doing little about it. So I Googled, a lot.
At first I studied mob mentality, then mobbing at the workplace. Then I wound up at Tim Field’s http://www.bullyonline.org/ website and (re)learned the concepts of sociopathy and psychopathy. Then I figured out that my mobbers were being manipulated by a puppetmaster, who looked like a psychopath. I read Hare, Cleckley, and Babiak, and confirmed that the puppetmaster was a sub-clinical psychopath. I also reread Dale Carnegie, Michael Korda, Robert Ringer, Albert J. Bernstein, C.S. Hyatt, etc. pop-psych stuff to get clues as to how these puppetmasters are so able to influence and control groups of otherwise normal decent people.
I remembered that on a high school aptitude test I’d scored very high in “abstract reasoning” and decided to go with that strength to try and see patterns in all this. I took various personality tests: http://similarminds.com/personality_tests.html
Then took the tests ’as my sociopaths’ might – from their perspective. I learned to correlate or translate results between MBTI, TCI, Enneagram, Big 5 and others. (I most often use MBTI terminology because it’s so commonplace and easily understood, and not because I entirely believe in it ”“ it’s too simplistic and homogenized for me personally).
I started tossing stuff out there on various blogs, mostly political, work politics, and psychological related to see what came back. I learned that people really do prefer to vote in their own best perceived interests, and not because of some magical brainwashing conspiracy ”“ a huge clue as to how S’s and P’s operate – they go with the flow of the targeted personality. I learned that things don’t change uniformly across a society, but that various cultural bubbles will form.
Most of all, I learned the importance, and extreme difficulties of loving the truth. I personally dislike my little 3D bell curve theory. I found it as unsettling as when I was taught that interstellar travel is virtually impossible (I loved Star Trek). But there it is. I’d love for anybody to shoot it down, but it’s a structure that I built from many angles of perception based on all the stuff I’ve read.
But most important, in every severely dysfunctional environment I’ve ever been involved in, anywhere, there’s always been a sociopath nearby.
When not taking it personally, I keep thinking about his drama and damage done to him as a child.
I read about characteristics of sociopaths, psychopaths, cult leaders and killers and the checklist fits the s I was with.
Sometimes I like to think of his life in time lapse, it’s the same drama re-hatched over and over. Him trying to hide behind the mask, every time his hollow core revealed, he has to reinvent himself. He has perfection in mind at each transformation, yet he knows that he is impotent in his soul. He thinks that only if he could find the perfect woman, friend, whatever he could become omnipotent and eternal. Yet, he is the lowest of the low.
Wow, that’s really interesting S O S.
What a lot of people don’t get is that ANY of them can be dangerous to life and limb if they are enraged enough and/or if you have “injured” them by keeping away something that they feel entitled to—and that “something” might be your adoration….it is amazing what they feel “entitled” to.
My X-BF-P was a “pillar of the community” and his “self image” was very important to him, yet he burned the home of the GF previous to me for dumping him. I wouldn’t put it past him to kill someone even if he thought he could get away with it.
Until my P-son murdered that girl in 1991 I would never have thought he would have gone to that extreme…didn’t even occur to me he would kill. Rob, etc, but KILL? Nope, didn’t even occur to me.
My X-DIL; “bitch?” Yep, “user”? Yep, “cheater”? Yep, in spades, attempted murder of her husband, my son C? NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS! Just “shows to go you” that you can never be SURE what they will do if they are enraged or that is the only way they can get whatever it is that they want.
Look at that “Clark Rockefeller” guy that kidnapped his daughter, it is a wonder his wife is still alive…there seems to be pretty good evidence that he most likely killed that couple iin California 20-25 years ago—what for? A vehicle? A bit of money? An insult to his ego? Who knows?
OJ Simpson, Scot Peterson, Ted Bundy….and I could go on and on and on. The ones that will kill may only be a small percentage of the Ps, but you know, if it is YOUR life,….so I am with Jim, “BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY.” Actually, the reason I carry a gun is that a COP IS TOO HEAVY, and the other reason is that WHEN SECONDS COUNT, THE POLICE ARE ONLY MINUTES AWAY—in my case, about 30-45 minutes usually.
Hey guys–
went on two job interviews today. One was at STarbucks for Godsakes, but it is something. Another was a t a beautiful Assisted Living– doing what I did before, but the money is so low–
when someone interviewing me said, “Oh I love Charleston” (The town I have had to leave behind b/c of the S.– I felt like– “Wow– I even lost living in a gorgeous place.
I am sad. They loved me at the Asst. Living job. Interviewed 13 women for the job and have offered it to me already.
It is social. It is loving the elderly– the forgotten–
maybe I should do it. Okay– mmoney stinks, but I need to start somewhere, right?
Yeah- feeling down. Just reminded of how much I lost you guys– or did I? If my S was not genuine the whole time– than I really did not lose anything but lies.
thanks–