Several Lovefraud readers have written to me recently—annoyed, angry, horrified. These readers had finally realized what they were dealing with—a sociopath. They extricated themselves from the relationships and had no further contact with the disordered individuals. And what happened? Another sociopath came into their lives.
The readers asked: What is going on? Why can’t they leave me alone? Am I a sociopath magnet?
The answer is, not necessarily. Following are some observations to add perspective to the situation.
Millions of sociopaths
These disordered individuals are everywhere. As long as we’re living on this planet, we face the possibility of running into them.
Experts estimate that 1 percent to 4 percent of the population meet the criteria for psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder. But if you add in the narcissists and those with borderline personality disorder, as many as 12 percent of the population are social predators. In the United States, that’s 37 million people. With so many of them out there, we shouldn’t be surprised to come across them.
Faster recognition
The bad news is that these readers found themselves dealing with another sociopath. The good news is that they figured it out much more quickly this time around.
I think these readers should interpret their most recent experience as signs of growth. Yes, another sociopath came into their lives, but they spotted the predator! They know the warning signs and listened to their instincts! This is progress! This is good!
More healing
The fact that another sociopath appeared could also indicate that these readers still have more healing to do. Sociopaths sense vulnerabilities, like sharks sense blood in the water. Perhaps the readers need to look for more injuries within themselves that need to be addressed.
Remember, sociopaths come into our lives by exploiting vulnerabilities. Afterwards, we need to recover from the nasty encounter with the sociopath. But we also need to heal the earlier, deeper injury that enabled the sociopath to target us in the first place. Perhaps we were neglected as a child or abused in an earlier relationship. Or perhaps we had negative beliefs about ourselves—that we were unwanted or unlovable. By addressing and healing our vulnerabilities, we protect ourselves from further pain.
How to stay safe
The bottom line is that millions of sociopaths live among us, so chances are good that at some point, we’ll come across them. So here are the three steps to protecting ourselves:
- Know that sociopaths exist.
- Know the warning signs of sociopathic behavior.
- Listen to our instincts.
Our intuition is designed to protect us from predators. It will almost always tell us, early in the involvement, that something is wrong with an individual. The trick is to pay attention and take action.
All of these readers did that. So yes, it is annoying to find another predator. But at least they got rid of them quickly, before too much damage was done. These Lovefraud readers should be proud of themselves.
So glad to find this post; after a TBI, a sociopath cleaned me and my then young daughter out, abused and threatened us. When he reappeared as another victim’s daughter “found me”, law enforcement refused to help the victim’s family.
Not too long after that, I was targeted by a female coven of sociopaths who joined up to “set me up” to lie, cheat and steal my home; I found other victims of these “women” who were robbed and threatened. It is clear perjury, theft and slander/libel with motive (witnessed) to obtain falsely my property. These victims knew I had been a “past” victim and “would be easy pickings”; they nearly got away with it… Their “pathology” was tsk-tsk’d.
There are now witnesses and other victims who want justice. They have conned so many people stealing their money, reputations and property. Open to constructive advice.
So glad to find this post; after a TBI, a sociopath cleaned me and my then young daughter out, abused and threatened us. When he reappeared as another victim’s daughter “found me”, law enforcement refused to help the victim’s family.
Thank you for having a site to help victim’s identify these “cons”.
Not too long after that, I was targeted by a female coven of sociopaths who joined up to “set me up” to lie, cheat and steal my home; I found other victims of these “women” who were robbed and threatened. It is clear perjury, theft and slander/libel with motive (witnessed) to obtain falsely my property. These victims knew I had been a “past” victim and “would be easy pickings”; they nearly got away with it… Their “pathology” was tsk-tsk’d.
There are now witnesses and other victims who want justice. They have conned so many people stealing their money, reputations and property. Open to constructive advice.
I think this is an excellent topic. From the words of Sociopathic expert, Thomas Sheridan (you can see all of his excellent videos on Youtube), he states that sociopaths know from a very young ageb (usually when they reach adolescent age) they are aware of their pathology. Sheridan states: “Every psychopath knows they are psychopaths and they choose to act as they do”.
Is that the man who wrote Puzzling people? That’s a very good book.
Hi Sunflower. Yes, that man wrote “Puzzling People”. He has some disfunctional traits of his own, I was disappointed to find, when it was reccommended to me that I visit his website/blog. He expressed some very unfortunate, hurtful, direspectful and crude things toward one of the blog participants, there. He seemed quite narcissistic in his approach, when I visited there, several months ago. If you are one who still becomes triggered easily, or at all, in fact, I would be very careful with regard to visiting his blog. Not that you expressed interest in doing so, but just in case. Thought I would mention it.
Thanks for the “heads up” Shane.
I’ve found that many people who warn us about spaths are, unfortunately, spaths themselves. It’s the 180 rule.
Takes one to know one doesn’t it?
I’m not meaning you, I mean him.
I’d call Sheridan’s forum dogmatic. He insists on the use of the word psychopath (not just advocates it), and claims that narcissists and borderliners are also psychopaths too. And the word ‘sociopath’ is a no-no, too soft. And there’s also a rejective attitude about professionals, as well as citing them.
If you do not 100% agree with that take then you can expect a lashing and rejection by Sheridan and some of his moderators, and you are told to go to another blog and nearly accused of being non-validating, hurtful, probably a psychopath yourself.
So, basically they are dividing the victim community up by the way you refer a cluster B disorder, feeling themselves the righteous ones.
Donna advocates the umbrella word ‘sociopath’ for malignant narcissists, psychopaths and borderliner, but if anyone here chooses to use the other disorder names, it wouldn’t spark some dogmatic response from either Donna or other long time posters here. We all know the survivor is talking about a destructive cluster B disorder within a spectrum from having some traits and being toxic to full blown. Whatever label one uses doesn’t stop us from validating that person and their experiences. The label is practically a non-issue in order to reach out and help the person.
It’s also recognized here that some professionals and therapists haven’t got a clue and aren’t helpful at all (they don’t “get it”), neither in therapeutic sense as well as labeling sense. But the whole of the medical professional world and their research isn’t rejected because of it.
Sheridan and his moderators have solidified this attitude in a ‘must read before posting’ thread, where they basically say “this is how we see it, if you don’t there are other blogs and forums and books out there”. They then give the links to all type of resources, included with their recommendation whether to go there or not based on the labeling view.
Does he show narcistic behaviour? I wouldn’t rule it out. His ‘scientific’ opinion is basically law there, and some of the moderators are like his prophets, and these moderators are rather vicious about not agreeing 100% to the dogmatic statements, and if the unsuspecting visitor keeps thinking it’s just an innocent sharing of opinions with all opinions having merit, Sherrigan himself will step in and reject the visitor personally and harshly, to then turn around at a later post by saying you’re very welcome. There is a bit of a guru attitude with followerlike minions, which they all deny of course, projecting blame on the visitor who has some questions about the dogma, which they bring up themselves.
For myself, I don’t find that attitude a healing one. I consider the ex a psychopath, because in all likelihood he’d score above 30 on Hare’s scale. But it’s exactly because of Hare’s scale it would be wrong imo to use the term as an umbrella for all cluster B disorders. I agree that the different labels and medical disagreements about it causes a lot of confusion with non-professionals, and it would be better if the professionals solve that. I also am of the opinion that when it comes to destructiveness for relatives and partners any of the cluster B disorders is destructive, and since these disorders share similar behaviours the “red flags” are similar too.
However, I recognize there’s a difference between the need of a victim and the need of the professional world. For potential victims and actual victims it’s important to recognize toxic behaviour, irregardless of the disorder, in order to protect themselves and their lives from abuse and ruin. For the professional researcher though those tiny differences and variations on the spectrum might very well be of major importance to understand the cause and perhaps find some workable therapy for it.
An anology: people in general use the word ‘weight’ instead of the scientific accurate ‘mass’. People will think of the same concept when either word is used. But for a physicist ‘weight’ and ‘mass’ is very distinct from each other: mass is an attribute of an object in kilograms (or pounds), whereas weight is a force in newton.
There is a reason why there are so many spaths warning us about other spaths. They all want to be the only one with power.
Spaths resent authority or control. Their issue of shame is an issue of feeling powerless, so they rage at anyone trying to control them. There are actually many people in authority who are spaths too and those spaths who are not in authoritative positions can see the dysfunction. They see the hypocrisy and they want to overturn it. They also resent the “sheep” who blindly follow, just as much as we resent minions who enable spaths.
The difference between us and spaths is that we want something better for everyone, whereas spaths who can’t be in power would rather have chaos, fear and anarchy, so that everyone can feel the way they do all the time. Basically, it’s the old adage, “They’d rather rule in hell, than serve in heaven.”
Ok, I am having a whole lot of ah hah moments and a coming together of a number of thoughts on a number of threads this morning….don’t even know the best place to post my thoughts.
First I read spoon’s view on how to divorce a memory from a negative emotion by “exploding the smurf”.
This is what came to mind, and should be sung to the tune of, King of Pain” by Sting and The Police:
There’s a little blue Smurf on my path, today.
It’s the same old Smurf/spath as yesterday…….
Then, I read this thread about cultish followeres of narcissistic leaders, and what comes to mind? The 60’s or was it 70’s book, “If you meet the Budah on the road, Kill Him”…..
My Budah is a a little blue smurf that needs to be exploded….I need, finally to believe in myself, find my own way, and be my own teacher…..