Happy Independence Day weekend. It is a lucky coincidence that this is our topic, because emotional freedom is truly about personal revolution. It is an end to collaboration with and submission to abuse. It is an end to the emotional slavery of feeling responsible for other people’s feelings and other things that are beyond our control.
Emotional freedom is something that might be difficult to imagine when we are in the first stages of healing — especially if it’s the first time we’ve ever processed an abuse-related trauma all the way through to the end. At least once, we need to go through all the stages to take a good look at patterns of denial or bargaining that made us vulnerable to abusers or tolerant of their behavior. We need to develop internal strengths — like easy access to anger and confidence in our rights to defend ourselves — that might have been suppressed before. We need to learn for ourselves that we can live through loss and letting go, and actually learn something from it.
But if we get to this point — thinking about the idea of emotional freedom and working on developing it in ourselves — we are close to the end of fully integrating this experience. Turning it into a gift rather than a disaster, and coming out of this long tunnel with our new selves in a new world.
What does respect have to do with it?
In the last article on self-love, the concept of respect was introduced. It is connected to self-love, because as we come to love, trust and believe we are entitled to care for ourselves, we develop a sense of separateness. Of boundaries. We come to realize that we have private interests, concerns and needs. They belong to us. They are our responsibility. They are also the sources of good in our lives. And we are entitled to explore them, define them for ourselves, pursue them, and plan our lives around them.
If anyone reading this finds the last paragraph triggering an emotional reaction, a feeling like you really need to get away from this article, go find something else to read here on LoveFraud, you have clear evidence of something important in yourself. Because that paragraph contradicts all the emotional training of abusive, enmeshed, victim-rescuer environments that demand loyalty, silence and compromises of identity and self-respect in order to be loved or simply survive.
The first time I ever encountered information like that, I read it over and over. The words made sense. But they didn’t compute. I had phrases popping up in my head like “easy for you to say” and “you don’t live with the demands and pressures that I do” and “I would be rejected by everyone I need to support me, if I thought like that.”
If you are having a reaction like that, I understand and respect the reality behind it. This push-back is coming from a normal strategy for survival that works. If we are willing to give up pieces of ourselves — our independence, our individuality, our ethics, our expressiveness — we can get paid for it. One of the real challenges that every person faces in life is to walk a fine line of balancing what we can do, need to do and are willing to do to fulfill our survival needs and our discretionary (but important) wants.
Where this becomes dysfunctional and self-destructive is when our sense of what we can give away — and still survive as whole people — is broken. When we have been “trained” in some excruciating and threatening situation to deny important aspects of our identity or fundamental human needs in order to get through it. When that situation is finally over, we are often left with warped ideas of relationships. But more important, our relationships with ourselves are damaged . Because it felt like a choice, even we perceived it as life or death. Some part of us holds us responsible and simply does not trust us anymore. We may live around it. We may develop all kind of strengths to compensate. But it feels as though some wires have been pulled inside of us. As though the lights have gone out in certain rooms of our mind.
This is why, for so many people, it is necessary to find a good therapist, experienced in trauma or childhood abuse, to help us untangle these situations. The “cure” is to go back and reject the deal we made. Not reject ourselves, but to reject the unfairness and inhumanity of the circumstances that forced us to do this damage to ourselves. Do it in memory, but also in our emotional systems. To identify the causes as abusive and wrong and not respectful of our normal human needs to maintain our own integrity. And to say to ourselves, and possibly the people involved, I no longer agree to this deal. I am taking myself back.
Integrity, like respect, is one of those words that many of us barely understand. We talk about integrity in terms of ethical issues, and that’s part of it. But integrity is much more than that. The world means wholeness, like “integer” means a whole number, rather than a fraction of a number. For our purposes here, we can imagine it as having all the internal “electrical” parts that we are supposed to have — all the natural emotions, open connections among the various parts of our brain, a balanced and high-functioning nervous system, vivid sensory awareness — adding up to keen animal survival instincts and the full range of sentient consciousness we have as human beings.
If something disrupts or corrupts our integrity in any way, we feel it deeply. We live with the pain of knowing something inside of us is not right. For many of us, that pain is the way we know ourselves best. But as we start to resolve these issues, to go back and reject those deals and repair ourselves, we become more conscious of something we have mutely longed for — the simple but powerful feeling of wholeness. Our integrity.
Even if we get there by incremental resolutions of the sources of pain — which is how most of us do get there — every step forward delivers a breathtaking new awareness of who we really are. It’s not that we are special exactly, although we are. Or good, although we are. But that we are. The word “I” becomes different. It’s no longer associated with any sort of battle for recognition or acceptance or love. It is awareness of some central identity that is the backbone or hub or inner seed of everything about us.
And when we grasp this, this permanent center in us, it is easier to understand the concept of respect. Because as we look around us, we realize that every living thing is also organized around something like this. We could talk about this from all sorts of angles — genes, souls, whatever — but when we find it in ourselves, we recognize it in other lives. In this we are alike, but also separate. We can relate, and we also may find that we have a great deal in common. But our identity, our integrity is our own. As theirs are theirs. Knowing this is the cornerstone of respect. The knowledge that we have boundaries, that something inside of us belongs to only us.
Having grown-up relationships with ourselves
It’s logical that we can’t have adult relationships with anyone else, if we don’t have adult relationships with ourselves. That doesn’t mean that we lose touch with our inner child. Or that we don’t experience the less “practical” states of emotion or awareness that enrich our lives.
What it does mean that is that we take our own needs seriously. That we recognize our needs as needs. Necessary. Not optional.
A whole, healthy human identity has different layers of needs. Some relate to physical survival. Others are about emotional health, intellectual development, social connection, and more. The study of human needs has interested many brilliant people. But for me, the most helpful of them has been Marshall Rosenberg, creator of non-violent communication (NVC) and the man who introduced me to the concept of emotional freedom.
NVC is based on the premise that all people have needs, and ultimately the most effective type of communication is about sharing information about our needs. Rather than going more deeply into that concept, I recommend two brief videos on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dpk5Z7GIFs and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbgxFgAN7_w&NR=1. If you find this article challenging, I guarantee these videos will help you make more sense of it.
Rosenberg points out that a lot of our language is basically about power and control. That is, keeping power and control in the hands of people who have it already. There is a lot of judgment in our language, ways to make people — including ourselves — wrong. And this language serves to separate us from our needs, or minimize the idea that everyone has normal human needs. As a result, compassion becomes subjugated to “rules.” Even though we are aware of our own suffering or the difficulties faced by other people, our responses are not compassionate or questioning of their (or our) circumstances. Instead, we are trained to assume there is something wrong with them, they are bad in some way, or they have some contagious problem we should avoid.
A few examples of this are racism, elitism and ageism — ways that we “name” other people that makes it easy to blames them or judge them, without having to consider their realities and how lack of resources may be contributing to their “lower than” status or behavior. Another example of this is the Magna Carta, the foundation of English law (and U.S law by extension), which is not about human rights at all, but only a concession by the Norman king of England to honor the property rights of Norman nobles who had come from France to claim and rule English land and the “serfs” attached to it. One of the difficulties we face as victims of sociopaths is that common law incorporates very little recognition of human needs, beyond our property rights to our own bodies, and even that is limited in many ways. The rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and free speech and religious choice in the U.S. Constitution were huge advances that shook the world of absolute monarchies.
To get back to needs, here is a partial list of needs from NVC website (www.cnvc.org), which has been developed over the years by people working with this type of communication:
Connection — acceptance, affection, appreciation, consideration, mutuality, support, to understand and be understood, trust
Physical well-being — air, food, movement/exercise, rest/sleep, sexual expression, safety, shelter
Honesty — authenticity, integrity
Play — joy, humor
Peace — harmony, order
Meaning — clarity, competence, contribution, effectiveness, growth, hope, mourning, purpose, self-expression, to matter
Autonomy — choice, independence
The first time I saw this list, I was mind-blown. It never occurred to me that I was entitled to even want most of these things. At the time, I was still struggling with whether I was allowed to feel angry, because the sociopath made me feel bad. The idea that I could unapologetically pursue any of these things in my life was staggering. All of a sudden all those internalized voices with comments like “You’re getting too big for your britches” and “No one likes a crybaby” and “You have to suffer to go to heaven” and (the monster of them all) “You owe us” became more clearly what they were. Coercive “rules” to convince me to forget about my needs.
But the needs didn’t go away, because I agreed to give them up in order to stay in that family. Unmet needs continue to generate demands and feelings. All of us are familiar with the how it feels to be treated with disrespect. You can find another list of it feels when our need are met or unmet here at the NVC website. If you want good reason to start thinking about getting your needs met, you’ll find it here. In a nutshell, would you rather feel happy, confident and fulfilled, or angry, helpless and despairing? Not a hard choice.
Empathy and self-interest
Structuring our lives to meet our own needs means several things. First it makes us responsible for our own feelings, because we realize that they are generated by our needs. If our needs are not being met, it is our responsibility to take care of ourselves. This is part of survival and also integrity. It is the essence of compassion for ourselves. Thinking about our needs also helps us interpret our experiences in ways that don’t make us wrong, but simply people who trying to get their needs met, often in situations that are not particularly supportive and that force us to look elsewhere in creative ways to keep ourselves healthy and whole.
It also makes us less inclined to take responsibility for other people’s feelings. We may empathize with them. We may see that our mothers are dissatisfied with how their lives turned out or our fathers are suffering because they feel like failures. We can see they are expressing negative emotions at us, because they have unmet needs. Or trying to manipulate us, because they are trying to get their needs met. But we also see that this is their stuff. The language they use of disappointment, anger, regrets and demands is about them — their inner landscape, how they view themselves and the world — and not about us. Even when they are trying to recruit us to their reality by making it about us.
One of the ways we can define sociopathic interactions or N/S/P relationships is that someone wants us to take responsibility for fulfilling his or her needs, in ways that cause us to abandon our needs. All the love-bombing, gaslighting, guilt-tripping and various types of abuse are just strategies to obtain this result.
A reasonable question would be: if we become emotionally independent, does that mean we become just like sociopaths? If we don’t feel responsible for other people’s feelings, does that make us unfeeling monsters?
I think you already know the answer to that. Not feeling responsible is not the same as not caring. (Just as caring doesn’t mean that we are responsible.) If we choose, we can offer support in ways that don’t compromise our integrity or well-being. We may feel sorry for our sociopath’s hard luck story and sympathize, but not agree to help him murder his ex-wife. In less extreme situations, we may give our friend or family member the gift of sympathetic attention. The key is to decide what we can afford to do without compromising our primary responsibility to take care of ourselves.
For practice in emotional independence, here are possible responses to use with people who are pressuring us, complaining about our behavior, judging or naming us (“you’re always so selfish”) or using any confusing or indirect means to get their needs met through us.
“I empathize with you, but I’m not certain what you’re telling me you want from me”
“What do you need to make you feel better?”
“Is there something you want from this relationship that you’re not getting?”
You are looking for more concrete requests, so you can decide whether you can meet their needs without damage to yourself. Often, with non-sociopathic people, these discussions are very fruitful. Both sides come to understand each other better, and often find simple things they can do for each other that un-trigger the feelings of unmet needs. (“I don’t feel like you really respect me” often turns out to be nothing more serious than a request to share the dog-walking responsibilities.)
However when we’re talking to people who are cannot be honest about their feelings, needs or wants, or actually have a control-related reason for hiding these things from us, our questions may be treated like an invasion of privacy or cause an attack of criticism, more emotional acting out, or obvious dissembling.
If we choose, we can do some empathetic probing (“I hear that you’re angry, but I’m not sure what you’re asking for.”) or suggestions about what’s going on with them (“Is this about you feeling lonely?”). But if they still refuse to say anything that sounds like they are talking about their own needs (rather than talking about us) or making specific requests, so that we can make choices about what we want to do for them, we also have the choice to stop participating in their game.
We can choose that because we meeting our own need to participate in things that are meaningful, respectful and effective. (Or whatever needs are “alive” in us at that moment.)
This is just a brief introduction to emotional independence. It’s not all about self-defense. A lot of it is about being honest with ourselves about our needs, and specific with other people about what we are requesting from them. They are free to turn us down, just as we are free to do the same. But clarity is a wonderful thing.
Imagine how much different our lives would be today if we had said to our ex-S, “You’re a charming person, and I’ve enjoyed our time together. But before we go further, you should know a few things about me. I need fidelity in my sexual relationships, respect for my decisions about myself, appreciation for what I do for you and reciprocity in all financial arrangements. And I need to be able to trust you to be honest. Anything less does not meet my needs.”
Can you imagine saying this? If so, hooray for you. If not, practice in the mirror, with a warm smile on your face as you assume the other person will say, “Wow, excellent list. I’m very comfortable with all of that, and feel the same way myself. Except that I also need fun in my life. Are you down with that?” When you can do this without worrying about what other people think of you or how this makes them feel, you’ll be a lot closer to being able to manage healthy friendships and intimate relationships. The next article is will be about love.
Namaste. The happy independent spirit in me salutes the happy independent spirit in you.
Kathy
Hi,
I’m new to this site I need some help I’m pretty sure a woman that is in my life is a sociopath. Its a long story. I’ve known this woman for 5 years in total now. I started going out with her two years ago. I bought my first house three years ago at the age of 25. It was a good time in my life. I’ve alwys been a firm believer in that if you work hard for what you want in life you will achieve it. So many of my friends and family were happy for me because they knew this was one of the things I had always wanted to achieve in life. Anyway in 2007 we started going out together what happened was she was having some difficulty in here life and lost her home. She asked if she could stay for a while and I agreed as I have a four bedroom house. Anyway at first things were ok no major problems but eventually I noticed that she began to throw little tantrums which I tended to just ignore but then her behaviour began to get more extreme. I helped her out a little in trying to sort her life out but she just seemed to keep wanting more and more from me. She wanted me to get her a contract phone I disagreed as she wasn’t working and she couldn’t afford the bill but that didn’t deter her she kept going on and on promising that she would pay the bill. I let her have the phone against my own better judgement. Anyway by now she was treating me like absolute crap constantly shouting at me that I’m useless and whenever I disagreed with her on something it was because I’m a bad person and I don’t want to seeher get anywhere in life. Also whenever she wanted something clothes, money or whatever her shallow personality desired she would pull out all the stops to try and charm me. Eventually I ended up kicking her out of my house after she woke up me one morning after I’d been on a 12 hour shift at work just to cream and shout at me I was absolutely furious and gave her a pice of my mind . I was happy because I no longer felt like I was under anyone’s control. Needless to say not once did she pay the phone bill she had promised to pay. Anyway over the next few months she’d phone me asking why I hadn’t been in touch and how was I was etc, etc just slowly trying to worm her way back into my life. She came back in 2008 and I told her I didn’t want her as she was a right bitch to me before and all I’d try to do was help her a little bit. She convinced me that she had changed as she now had a job and she hd been staying with friends and relatives all this time. SO our relationship rescued we spoke about a lot of things including marriage and kids. She told me how she couldn’t have kids naturally and she would have to go for ivf. Before long we were engaged but by now she was beginning to play up again always critizing me and always trying to manipulate me she even once tried to use me so she could get her mom hire out a rental car for her because I had refused to help and yes she tried to make me fell guilty for not helping her it was as if I was not entitled to an opinion of my own and I was not allowed to say no. Anyway we decided to go for ivf treatment she told me how she’d been through so much in life and she was trying her hardest to make a go of her life. Anyway at our first appointment at the fertility clinic I had to return for some test of my own. When I went back for my tests I found out that I maynot be able to have kids myself. Back at home she threw into a rage saying that it was all my fault and said its because I don’t look after myself and that I must have known this all along I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Anyway I spoke with the consultant and he said that in ayears time I may not be able to have kids and recommended that I start freezing my sperm. So I began this process. Now during this time my fiancee managed to obtain a flat and she asked if I could help her move some stuff to her flat. I asked why she needed a flat when we were both living together and she said that because I had my own place and she also wanted things of her own as she didn’t always want to have to rely on me. Anyway on the day I hired a van and went to meet her when we met up an argument developed. I drove off and left her but she followed me in her car and swerved her car in front of me I slammed on the breaks and swerved out the way just before she hit me.
Then drove of and left her there. I drove the van to my moms and told her waht had just happened and my mom was shocked to hear what had she had done. Anyway I switched of my phone and visited a few more friends by the time I got home she had moved most of her stuff out to her place now. I told her I didn’t think a relationship netween me and her would work because of her anger as he was lways angry about something and had the impression that everybody owed her something beacuse she’s had such a bad life (which I seriuosly doubt after speaking to her parents they both told me that she is a spolit brat). Anyway earlier on while we were arguing she decided to throw her away the engagement ring but managed to find it again. A few days earlier she threw her engagement ring down on the floor while we were in the house because she was so upset that she had no weed when she had woken up that morning and launched into a verbal attack on me. ( I don’t condone drugs and she was mean’t to be giving up before her treatment started). Now we were meant to go for the ivf treatment in September however I suddenly noticed no money in my bank account when I checked to see what was going on I found out that I was spending money at an alarming rate mostly beacuse of my fiancee who was conatsantly breaking things in anger and causing loads of problems. I chose to persever with her sat her down and told her that we had to slow down on things if we were to go for a baby. In August I found out that I may not have a job in 6 months tome due to the credit crunch. I told her that we would have to put the ivf teratment back a month or two while I tied to figure out the best way forward she was not happy. She went berserk and started calling me all sort of names and told me that she would have a baby with her ex instead. For a whole week I got nothing but abusive texts I chose to ignore her phone calls it was simply too much. She started phoning me telling me how The doctor, her friends, her mom and her family couldn’t believe what I had done. I wasn’t certain so I asked ny family for some advice on this matter and they agreed with what I had done as I wasn’t certain what my situation would be. My cousin was with me the whole week that she sent me the abusive text messages and he ws shocked at her behaviour. I honestly believe her true intenetions were jsust to try to get to pay for her ivf. Anyway once again she threw her enegagement ring away. About a week later she turns up on my doorstep wanting to work things out and acted like absolutely nothing had happended and all the things she had said and done were absolutely nothing she didn’t fell guilty or anything. of course by now I just wasn’t interested I’d had enough of her and wanted her gone from my life. The next few months she was in and out of my life as we constantly broke up and then she would leave me alone but then come back when she wanted sonmething. She constantly tried to say that I have denied her the opportunity to be a mom. Which is a bit harsh as she had quit her job and was never going to contribute towards the treatment. By January 2009 she was back this time trying to convince me that I should marry her I said I still cared about her but neither of us were ready for marriage yet she kept chasing me. At the end of January we had an argument over her enagagement ring she wanted me to claim on my house insurance so could have it back. I of course refused maybe I am selfish but she disrespected me in a big way and if I did put a ring back on her hand guess what she would throw it away again ( she’s already done it three times). Anyway she came back in May telling me that she would be going away on holiday. She asked me for a favor which was to book a hotel for her and she would give me back the money. I booked the hotel for her and never received the money despite me telling her that I would need the money as it was for a bill that I neede to pay. She flew out on my birthday and didn’y even phone to say happy birthday or goodbye. She phoned a few days later to say that she had no money because her benefits hadn’t cleared in her account. I told her I couldn’t help her and asked how could she go on holiday without any spending money? Anyway a week into her holiday she phones me saying she has no money and wants to come home and asks me to book her a flight home. I sent her £100. She swore that I would get it back plus the money fromm the hotel i still haven’t received a penny because as soon as she came back she said that she was going to lose her flat beacuse she owed them money from before. Once again I stepped in to help. She’s now on at me to get her rings back. She keeps insisting that I treat her bad and that I am quiet and don’t speak much. I agreed that I am quiet because of her anger and that maybe now I have got a bit of an attitude towards her bacause form my eyes she always wants things and is not prepared to work anything and I’m always feeling the full brunt of her anger anyway when I do feel her anger I ignore her for days on end which makes her even angrier then ther real her comes out and I see her true personailty. Its now July , In June she tried to pressurise me into marrying her again I didn’t agree but told her I’ve made so many efforts to try and make things work that if she really wants to marry me then she would have to find a job and contribute in some way to the wedding. She agreed and in the first week of july she found herself a job but as ever her true intentions have become clear. She has a car and has taken out a loan against her car the loan car company are now trying to take her car back from her as she hasn’t paid them any money, now she needs her car for work so she asked me to swap my car with her car for a week I refused to do it. So she text me saying that she couldn’t marry me right now and wanted to put it back a bit then phoned me later I told her it was petty for her to break up with me because I wouldn’t swap my car with her. She chose to take that loan out against her car I never had a car for two years because she wrecked my car and she never once offered me a lift while she was driving. Anyway she kept trying to confuse my head and forcing me to stay on the phone but I refused to say anything because If I did she would just twist my words and use it against me and sh doesn’t understand thats why I’m quiet around her because of all the abuse I suffer I had sent a text earlier quoting 1 Corinthians 13:4. Anyway she got fed up of my silence and decided to hang up the phone. I was so happy but I knew she would be back. She phoned me back that night and her true intentions were revealed. She turned around and said you have ruined my life so you should pay for my IVF. I was furious at first then I said you know what forget my mortgage, forget all my bills, forget the debts you’ve ran up in my name when I get paid I will give you every last penny I ‘ve got. She said that she wanted for me to be a part of the childs life she’ll be using a donor not my own a s I am unsure if I can still have kids and never really got the chance to sort out my financial prroblems and freeze my own spem. She said that she would drop the baby of to me on a Saturday. I said no cause that is not what been family is about. She’s finally cracked me. I went out bought myself a bottle of whisky drank the whole bottle this woman is trying to destroy my life. When I got paid I gave it all to her and just left her there in disgust. Last Friday she was at Her friends and beat one of them up because she didn’t like the way she spoke to her. The woman then went downstairs and kicked her car causing damge to the car door. So she tried to run her over. The woman has reported her to the police for attempted murder. She has to got tthe police station tomorrow. Am I a horrible person for wanting the police to lock her up. This week I’ve been drinking heavily and I sent her a few text messages tellling her exactly what I think of her. Why I am sinking to her level? Or am I the sociopath? please help me need answers. She’s now fuming from all the texts I sent her I told her she’s a leech shge doesn’t know how to speak to people which is why she gets treated the way she does by people and she feels like she’s always entitled to something they were just a few of the thing I sent to her. I know she won’t last long in her job and as soon as she wants something I think she’ll be back. The good thing for me is that I am renting out my house some of my family are already aware of the situation between me and her. I know I shouldn’t have given her the money but it was the fear of what would happen if I didn’t to my house she ‘s taken things from my house before she took a brand new laptop from y house before. When I changed the locks she kicked off the door needless to say I don’t keep anything of significant worth in my house but now its been renetd out. I hjave a few options my mate has a room for me and my mother has said to come and saty with her for a few months so I’m not short of options. I’m not sure how things are going to turn out. What should I do ?
Dear francis. think you already know the answer, you have to FINISH with this sick.anipulative Narc /Sociopath right away!
Like you I was suckered in to giving and giving to someone like this. You have to get her out of your life, permanently! you have been suckered long enough! You owe her nothing! Im surprised yu ahve got this far with her, but then, I know how devious, manipulative and heartless they are, they have no conscience, no empathy, are never sorry for what they have done. You have been a classic “enabler’, and allowed her to wipe her feet all over you.This has gone on long enough, WAY too long! You need her out of your life PRONTO!
Change the locks, change your phone no., change your email,
get legal advice,STOP ending her any more money! Stop giving in re the in vitro. Why would you want a child from an evil socio/psychopath? Imagine if it took after her? Write off any money you have given her, you will never see it again, but give her NO MORE! for your sanitys sake, you must go NC {no contact.}She is a cruel, vindictive, horrible person, you need her in your life like a hole in the head.Please be strong, and get her OUT of your life, for good. You deserve so much better than her. Her evil actions will catch up with her very soon.She feels NOTHING for you, she only uses you. These people have no deep emotions, and are incapable of remorse.
get out while you still have some sanity left. You owe her nothing.Remember, she will discard you like a used piece of toilet tissue when she is sick of you.FINISH IT NOW
geminigirl
Thanks for the response I figured as much but they really get into your head and then you get confused to the point where you think is it you or them.
Francis,
I think that you have suffered enough. What better opportunity to cut off contact than her being arrested for attempted murder? This site is big on NO CONTACT because it allows you to take the control away from the sociopath/narcissist. If you don’t speak/text/phone etc her, she will not be able to manipulate you into paying her bills and whatever else it is she is after. I’m so sorry for what you are going through, everyone here has gone through something similar. Just be glad that you didn’t have a kid with this woman, then she would NEVER be out of your life.
You sound like a very decent guy. Don’t let this monster ruin your life. I really relate to the question you asked, “Am I the sociopath?” It sure doesn’t sound like it. You are perfectly normal and just reacting to her insanity. They have this crazy ability to twist things around, blame and make us question whether or not we are the crazy ones.
Welcome, and sorry you have to be here!
Francis – You must read everything you can about personality disorders. Sociopaths/Physcopaths/Narcissist..I recomend a book called Meaning from Madness by Richard Skerritt.. read about the way they turn your reality into insanity….like you I kept taking my X back time after time….I thought I was the crazy one…..you need to run like your ass is on fire and go no contact with this person…you are not thinking right – just as she has planned – to make you crazy, because when you are confused and in that fog you are easier to manipulate…..no contact –ever again — I have been no contact one and half year now and still feel this big sense of loss – but it was the loss of my identity that I felt – you/we all want to be in love – but this is not love – you are under the spell of the most evil vampire alive – run – run – run and work hard, very hard on yourself, to understand why you are a target for these kind of parasites, that is what I had to do was work on me and I am OK – this is a life Lesson dont fail it – The Truth Will Set you Free but First it will Piss you off – read read read – knowledge equals power – hang in there and post when ever you need to – someone will be here to listen –
I don’t know what lead me to this site but I honestly believe its God looking out for me I saw a description of what a sociopath is yesterday and instantly I thought of her ever since I’ve been reading up on sociopaths. I intened to start educating myself on thes kind of people. They aren’t human
Done,
Thanks I don’t mind been here because now I am in no doubt as to what I am dealing with. I need to tie up the tenants for my house then I will be running as fast as I can.
Hi Francis:
First of all, welcome to LoveFraud. You have come to a great place.
Now, I would like to get right to the point.
Get this crazy bitch out of your life as soon as possible!!!
Thank God, you did not marry this psychopath (in my opinion).
Look, Francis. My brother is MARRIED to a psychopath. He and the psycho. wife have a beautiful daughter together. The child has been abused since birth by my psychopath sister-in-law, which is what brought me to this site in the first place. I am very concerned about what this child will turn out to be when she gets into her teenage years. I am always watching for a genetic component in her behavior. I don’t know if you were aware of this, but there is a genetic component to psychopathy.
And, of course, one child was not enough for my sister-in-law. She wanted more, and like your girlfriend, had to go through IVF.
My brother and the psycho went through 5 failed IVF attempts, and they would STILL be trying for a 2nd child if it was up to her. IVF costs approximately $10,000 per attempt in the U.S. Five failed attempts @....... $10,000, you can do the math. And she wanted to keep going!!!
Anyway, the staggering sense of entitlement, the way she blows through YOUR money, the reckless behavior, the rages, it is all classic psychopath, as far as I am concerned.
Get rid of her ASAP! Cut your losses and get out!
Consider yourself lucky that the wedding/baby plan did not work out.
Its hard to take that people can be this twisted I’ve learned a very valuable lesson in life
Rosa,
I wasn’t aware that there was a genetic component to psychopathy. Do psycho/sociopaths know exactly what they are doing and deep down enjot it?