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.
I just don’t understand. If personality disordered people don’t believe they have problems why do they project so many of their bad qualities onto us? Crazy was my N spaths favorite word. Still is, and I found out recently I’ve got to cut off an association. I knew they knew each other but he’s been asking questions about me through this person. He didn’t even tell our mutual associate we broke up. They kill me always playing the good guy. I informed our associate that we were no longer together and that I will not answer any questions or discuss him. Now I’m sure he’s going to go back and spath will just smear my name. They get away with it all!!! Ugh!
Sky-Remy is good this morning. I just took him to get his nails clipped and he is not so happy with me right now. I let these strange women take him out of his crate, hold him down and mess with his toes.
As for my neighbor, she told me that she managed fine her whole life with her emotions except that she was getting stepped on a lot in her business world. What really took her out was Katrina in 2005. She lost her home and all her belongings that she didn’t have with her. She said that it was almost too much for her to handle and that she was seeing a shrink for awhile because she couldn’t even handle her job. She told me about one time she was in a board meeting and things got heated and heavy and she was under a ton of stress, and she actually had to stop the meeting. She immediately had to get by herself and call her shrink to tell her that she was seriously about to have a melt down and she felt like she was in trouble. I think that’s what made her try to zap her emotions. She told me that after that is when she became buttoned up and wouldn’t let herself feel. She said that it was all too much for her and she was afraid that she would lose it. So, she hasn’t always been like this. She told me that she still has the urge to cry sometimes in some situations but she pulls up her toughness and forces herself not to do it. She has been very close to tears a few times when we have talked about certain things-especially when I gave her the roses and the card. That was before I told her my feelings. She was also like that on the morning that I left. She hugged me so tight and I thought she was going to cry and I was about to. She told me not to cry because I would make her. She told me it would be ok. That’s why I still can’t figure it out, but at least I don’t have that uncontrollable pull toward her that I had before. It is way more tolerable, and now that I have my Remy, I am not so lonely.
It is very true to my ISFJ profile though, that I crave a long term relationship in my life. I just don’t want to try it until all my ducks are in a row-as far as job/career. I need to be happy with my situation first.
Recovering-they do try to smear your name. My spath did it and I think it actually still figures in with my inability to find stable employment in my field-since we worked together and he was in a more powerful position. He was afraid that I would try to smear him first so he wanted to beat me to the punch, so to speak. They are slimy-YUCK!!
Recovering,
Projection is a defense mechanism. When humans ’employ’ defense mechanisms it is an entirely unconscious thing. It’s more like they ‘kick in’. We don’t KNOW we are, say, in denial. If we did we wouldn’t be in denial.
Projection is a genetically wired defense mechanism, that appears to effect personality disordered individuals to a MUCH greater degree than the normal population. The PD’d people I have known were BLIND to their projections. Even if they were directly pointed out to them they went into this kind of zombie state, or became irate and projected even harder.
It’s weird. Like a short circuit in the brain.
At least this is how I understand defense mechanisms from my psychology classes.
Slimone,
thanks for that information. It’s very hard to believe though.
When spath said, “You’re evil.” or “It’s not good for you to enjoy other people’s pain.” I thought it was a tell in the form of a projection.
I wonder if your psych class information on defense mechanisms applies equally to spaths as well as normal people. Or is it reversed like everything else about them is?
It doesn’t seem like there is anyway we could find out because if you ask them they just lie about everything.
Question for ElizabethBennett –
I’m the victim of an spath who fooled me for years. When I finally saw him for what he is, I freaked out. And I have been pretty much freaked out since then. I still can’t believe he had me so fooled. For the most part I blame myself for being weak.
But I do want him punished in the worst way. A year ago I sent emails to his ex wife, his step mother and father and three of his bosses in an effort to smear him. The emails I sent to his ex wife and step mother/father essentially told them what I knew about all his lies – and there are thousands that I know of. My email to his bosses told them that I think he uses his healthy expense account to woo. He’s in public relations in the travel industry. When we first dated, he expensed our meals from time to time. I know he continues to do the same because the girl he cheated on me with was also in our industry.
How do you work around the intense desire to smear his name?
PS I have looked at cheaterville and all those sites, but I stop shy because it seems like that effort coupled with my already foolish emails would inevitably make me feel worse about myself.
One believer you never work around it. I dream of outing mine, hurting him even having him killed. I’d never go to that extreme but the aftermath is extremely painful. I’ve tried to smear mine to an ex and guess what she thinks I’m a lunatic. He just told her I was psycho and jealous. Funny thing is, he abused her too but he girl back in her head and began seeing her again and cheated on me with her. How they convince people to believe the lies is crazy to me. Mine hit even threatened to kill the ex I contacted yet he got right back in and I’m the craz one. They’re so manipulative. Basically whatever you did Iris say is his worse against yours and they will fabricate the most insane stories and bogus lies to make it look like it’s all your fault. His mother know what he is so no use of telling a parent she just enables him. Yuck
Onebeliever-for me, I am over 2 years out from the end of the relationship-that’s why. He lives in my area with his wife but I have managed to avoid seeing them-other than seeing him in his car several times. He is no longer my concern. Plus, I am actually a lesbian and for awhile I thought I may have been bisexual, but that isn’t the case. He put some kind of spell on me I guess. I conned me competely and I got involved with him. We were friends and coworkers first. He gave me the song and dance about how his marriage was so unhappy, and that the only reason that he didn’t end it was because of finances.
I went through hell knowing that I was with someone who belonged to someone else and the guilt was killing me. His wife did a good enough job smearing him when it all came out. SHE called all his bosses and as many coworkers as she could to smear him. They were separated for awhile and he was living with me. She had filed for divorce. He suddenly knew that she was going to take him to the cleaners so he decided to woo her back-and it worked. He dumped me and went back home. I couldn’t function for months afterwards but now I realized that he did me the BIGGEST favor by leaving.
My personality type craves a long term partnership and it allowed me to stay in a bad situation way longer than I wanted. I was miserable and stuck it out anyway and he let me off the hook. I found out that he is a Narcissist-and I am a magnet for them. Both of my parents are Ns and every relationship I have had since I was 30 was short lived and with Narcissists. He and his life no longer concern me and I think that his wife has done more to smear me than he has. I think that to this day it is keeping me from getting a full time job in my field.
Long story short, there is no point in thinking about him. Now it’s like I never knew him. I may even end up working with him again but I don’t care. I am back with my love for women and battling a crush on my next door neighbor, who may even be an N herself, and it has created TONS of unneeded drama in my life. I am working on me and working on trying to distance myself from her. It is hard though, because I have never felt this way about anyone before. I get the jello knees when I’m with her. I was doing all kinds of things to try and take care of her but it was all one-sided. I kind of made a fool out of myself a little, and then finally got a cat and decided not to look for a relationship til I get my career back and going in the path for the changes I’m trying to make. I have weight to lose that I gained from severe stress and I need to go back to school. I haven’t yet forgiven that spathy man, but the anger is gone from me-he just doesn’t exist to me anymore.
Recovering, his mother isn’t in his life. She abandoned him by leaving with her parents when he was a child. His father fought for him and won. Then he was raised in his drug infested beach bum drug-dealer San Diego life until his father got his world together when he was about nine. The dad burned through a bunch of women until he settled down with the one he is with now when my spath was about 17 or so. The step mom was in her early 20s. The dad would have been in his later 30s. They are big in the narcotics anonymous program where they met. And by all accounts, lovely people as far as I could tell.
My spath, now 43 as of Sept. 8, never knew his mother’s love. So her opinion does not matter.
It’s all about the dad who was pretty abusive when this guy was a child.
The step-mother and her adopted daughter took me to lunch once when he and I first got together. Her biggest question for me that day was whether or not he and I planned to have children together. When I told her we didn’t and never planned to she seemed quite relieved. Apparently she doesn’t know he has a vasectomy – castrated himself long before I came along.
And you are right about fabricating the most insane stories. He would fabricate the most insane stories. And I believed every single one of them. Frequently.
Any advice on how to really move on and into a new life? New relationship. I’ve pushed everyone I know away. At first because I didn’t want them to know I was participating in his lies. Then becasue I didn’t know how to move out. Now because I think people are sick of me talking about it. And I don’t talk about it that much anymore. Really.