I subscribe to a service through which reporters who are looking for information for their stories can find sources. Not long ago, a reporter posted the following query:
A reporter at a national publication is writing about the hell of heartbreak and is looking for people to interview who have experienced a romantic breakup or divorce and who have creative/unusual advice on how to get through the day-to-day emotional turmoil of it. If you’ve been through a breakup (as an adult), how did you deal with the emotional pain, especially in the very beginning? How did you distract yourself from your heartache? How did you keep yourself from calling or texting your former beloved? What advice would you give to someone else in the middle of a heartbreak?
Most of us are here on Lovefraud because we experienced the most devastating, heartrending breakups of all—those involving sociopaths.
Ours were not run-of-the-mill relationships where the ending was, “he’s just not into you.” Ours were not situations in which two people “just grew apart.” Ours were false relationships from the very beginning, in which we were targeted, exploited and betrayed.
Advice? Yes, I have advice.
First of all, if you were involved with a sociopath, NORMAL ADVICE DOESN’T WORK. Even though self-help gurus have sold millions of books, and even if your friends have been through many, many relationships, unless they, too, have been targeted by sociopaths, THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT.
So, the first bit of advice is DON’T LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T GET IT.
Back to positive advice. What is the one thing you need to understand if you’ve been involved with a sociopath? IT’S NOT YOU!
Oh, the sociopath certainly told you that you were the problem, told you that you had problems, and even blamed you for his or her atrocious behavior. But that was all part of the manipulation. Sociopaths intentionally make you doubt yourself. Sometimes it’s to make you malleable so they can take advantage of you, sometimes it’s just for their own entertainment. If you’re feeling nuts, you are having a rational reaction to an insane situation, and your ex is the one causing the insanity.
Next you need to know that the relationship NEVER WOULD HAVE WORKED. Although sociopaths lavishly proclaim their love, they’re lying. Sociopaths are incapable of love. But they have learned that if they mouth the words “I love you,” they can get what they want. And what they want is to exploit you.
If you’ve been involved with someone like this, there is nothing you could have done differently. Nothing would have made the situation better. The sociopath cannot be satisfied, and cannot change.
So how should you view your experience? DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY. Yes, really. The fact that you were mistreated had nothing to do with you or your behavior. It had everything to do with the fact that you were involved with a cruel, heartless sociopath.
If your ex didn’t do it to you, he or she would have done it to someone else. Why? Because that’s what they do.
Finally, YOU CAN RECOVER, BUT IT WILL TAKE TIME. This is not a normal breakup. It wasn’t only your heart that was broken. It was also your view of the world.
Give yourself time and permission to heal. Surround yourself with people who truly care about you, and embark on a program of NO CONTACT with the sociopath. Even though you pine for the individual, understand that you fell in love with a mirage, and what you’re feeling is residual addiction to the relationship.
Do not call. Do not text. Do not send email. The stronger your commitment to NO CONTACT, the faster you will mend.
Take positive steps. Find joy and happiness anywhere you can, and let them seep into the empty hole that was your heart. Eventually, your heart will fill up and you can try again—with much more wisdom than you had before.
Oxy,
Thanks so much – what a nice thing for you to say!
Yes, I have no doubt at all that you’d make a great step-mom – so maybe I can “adopt” you first! (haha)
At any rate, I’m sure your step-son is very lucky to have you in his life! However, since I’m a “straight” guy, I will definitely keep my eyes out for a suitable match for our friend Hens (oh my!)
Thanks again, Oxy.
Louise, Coping,
Glad you guys enjoyed the poem as well. And see, I was on to something, Louise, in calling you a “hopeless romantic”!
Thanks, Coping! 🙂
Constantine:
I hate to say it, but I never did think I was a hopeless romantic; quite the opposite really, but who knows. Maybe I am and I am just in denial? 🙂
Conatantine, I think many of us are “hopeless romantics” and that was part of what got us hooked into the mess with the psychopaths in the first place.
I think too many people seem to think that “finding the right person” will “make them happy.” In fact, I think that we must be HAPPY FIRST in order to be happy WITH someone. Then we can SHARE happiness with another happy person.
At the time I married my late husband, I had been divorced from my “soul mate” for almost 7 years and had become actually HAPPY in my life. My kids were doing well, I was employed in a job I liked…things were going well for me and I had about “recovered” from the devestation of my divorce. I had known my husband for most of my adult life and we were FRIENDS first of all, plus we had a lot of history together.
He wasn’t perfect, and neither was I, but we had a great relationship over all,, even though we had plenty of “problems” in our lives via his kids and mine (one of his was brain injured and ultimately died as a result and my son Patrick was in trouble with the law almost from the time we married) but over time, I allowed myself to become way too dependent on my husband’s support for my “happiness” and too dependent on my psychopathic son Patrick’s “reform”–when I lost my husband (and thus his support) and all the other problems in life that “just happened” (my step father’s illness and death, my own inability to continue in my profession) and recognizing the REALITY that my son Patrick wanted me dead—I “folded up” under the pressure, and when I was in that position I looked for someone else to “make me happy”–and opened up to the entrance of a psychopath into my life in the guise of my now X-BF.
The “old saw” about they will “kick you when you are down” is absolutely right on. The psychopaths pick us when we are “down” or when we have a vulnerability to a fantasy that anyone else CAN MAKE US HAPPY.
I think that is the BEST THING I learned in the last few years is that I have to make MYSELF HAPPY and depend on myself for my validation and my contentment. I finally realized that there is NOTHING ON EARTH, and NO ONE who can promise me happiness and contentment. Not any amount of money, and not any number of people “loving me”—happiness must come from INSIDE. Even my husband, that I have no doubt loved me as much as any man could love his wife, couldn’t guarentee me that he would be with me forever. He didn’t want to die and leave me, he had no choice. Sure, I would normally have felt sadness and grief at his death, that is normal human nature, but I depended way too much on HIM, and when he wasn’t there, I lost ALL my happiness, all my confidence that I could make it through the day.
Being sad or grieving a loss of someone important to us doesn’t have to be the total loss of our happiness though. We can be “secure and happy,” even when we suffer loss and feel sad.
Sort of like I used to thinnk that “hate” was the opposite of “love” but it really isn’t, the opposite of love is INDIFFERENCE. As long as we “hate” someone they still have a hold over our thinking. It is when we are INDIFFERENT to someone that we are truly FREE of them.
The same with “sadness”—I used to think it was the opposite of “happiness” but it isn’t. Happiness is a state of BEING but “sadness” is only a passing emotion that doesn’t change what we ARE. Happiness is much more than just a momentary emotion.
Constantine- yes it was beautiful. A keeper!
On a sidenote: I have a question actually for anyone willing to discuss or share. I have read so many posts by people who seem to have a sincere and direct interest in psychology and self discovery. I never have… With the exception of now trying to understand the sociopath and my mother. I am wondering if this is a result of your past experiences or interest in general. I can’t get into my reasoning now… So I know there might be some reluctance by some….that’s ok as well.
Jr. Is home and we are going to the park. No more spath talk or job hunting until he goes to bed.
I really hope some of you will share. I can elaborate more later. :).
coping:
No, I have always had an interest in psychology long before I ever met the X spath.
coping,
I took psychology courses in college (plenty of them too), but did not major in the subject (I took more than I needed to because I had a crush on the professor). Smile. Part of me is curious to know why people do what they do, what motivates them to behave the way they do. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember (long before I ever met the spath). Since the spath experience, I’ve learned SO MUCH MORE about human nature, figuring things out as I go along, realizing things that I didn’t know before now, due to having plenty of “hands- on-experiences” (if you will).
Coping,
I worked some in psychology settings inpatient and also as I realized that many people in medical care settings also have psychological issuies that have to do with their medical care. I also wanted to understand about why people (including myself) do what we do….and then the interest grew as I learned more and wanted to know even more.
I’ve also always been somewhat spiritual—and read a great deal about philosophy. In fact, I’m just a “read-a-holic” I guess. LOL
The more I learn about people–both the medical, genetic and molecular aspects of us as well as the philosophy of humans, the more I want to learn, because I realize more and more that I actually KNOW SO LITTLE about the subject. When I was a teenager I thought I knew everything (don’t we all!) but now as I am approaching old age (pretty rapidly in fact!) I realize I not only dont’ know all the answers, I don’t even know all the questions!
Knowledge is power though, and the more I do learn, the more I realize that I have to meld all I do know about biology, science, environment etc. into my over view of my own humanity. We are our DNA and our environment, and we can influence that environment which effects our DNA’s expression.
I just found a study today that I thought was interesting, it showed that people who were religious OR spiritual (either one) actually were more physically healthy than people who were not either spiritual or religious.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/749486?src=mp&spon=24
I have long thought that our healing from the traumas of the psychopaths should include a spiritual aspect–regardless of what our belief systems are, they don’t have to be “religious” to be “spiritual” and even a person who does not believe in “god” can be spiritual.
What exactly is the mechanisim that makes “spiritual” people more healthy? I dont’ have a clue, but I don’t doubt it at all.
“The unexamined life is not worth living” not my thought of course, but I agree that examining ourselves and improving ourselves pays dividends.
Oxy, Louise,
I suppose for me, being a “romantic” means never feeling altogether “at home” in the world. Not in a bad or painful way, just a vague, always-present sense of nostalgia and homesickness – and for nothing in particular!
Perhaps it was all those Sunday School lessons where they taught that ours is a hopelessly “fallen” and “broken” world? – I don’t know…. That idea, at any rate, has always stuck with me, and maybe it can account for all the “poetic idealizing” of relationships in my younger days: i.e., it was just my misguided attempt at finding a short-cut “back home.”
The only difference is that now I realize there really IS no way back home. (Not to THAT home, at least.) And that’s OK: one can still find much happiness and contentment living in a foreign country!
(And perhaps that’s also as close as I can get to answering your own question, Coping.)