A Lovefraud reader posted the following comment awhile back:
I just have one question for everyone here. Does anyone trust people after these sick people did what they did to us? Unfortunately for me, I have run across a few of these sickos but NONE like my ex. Whoever I meet now I’m thinking to myself, who is this person really? Do they have a secret life like the Scott Petersons and Ted Bundys of this world? I don’t let my children out of my sight and I’m already training my kids and they all know the signs of a sociopath especially my girls. I feel like I’m in a prison sometimes in my mind as I try so hard but just can’t trust anyone.
Yes, it is possible to trust again. Remember, sociopaths account for 1% to 4% of the population, depending on how the personality disorder is defined. Let’s bump the number of disordered people up to 10% to account for those who have sociopathic traits, but maybe not the full disorder.
That still means that 90% of the population are not sociopaths, and may be deserving of our trust.
So how can we feel trust again? How do we determine whom to trust? I think there are four components to being able to feel trust, and deciding who deserves to be trusted.
1. Educate ourselves
One of the statements I’ve heard over and over again, through emails and phone calls from victims, is this: “I didn’t know such evil existed.” Well, now we know.
We’ve all learned, mostly the hard way, about sociopaths. Now that we know they exist, we need to educate ourselves about the warning signs, the patterns of behavior that may indicate someone is disordered. Lies, irresponsibility, vague answers to questions, no long-term friends, new in town, magnetic charm, lavish flattery, statements that don’t add up, flashes of violence—if we start seeing the signs, we need to put up our guard.
2. Believe our own instincts
Just about everyone who was victimized by a sociopath had early warning signs—a gut feeling that something wasn’t right, an instinctive revulsion, questions about what was seen or heard. Unfortunately, we ignored the signals.
We didn’t believe the signals for three reasons:
- We didn’t have the empirical knowledge that evil exists (see above), so we didn’t know how interpret them.
- We viewed ourselves as open-minded individuals, and believed that everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt.
- We allowed the sociopath to explain away our questions and doubts.
Never again. We should never doubt our instincts. In fact, we should train ourselves to pay attention to our instincts. Our intuition is absolutely the best tool we have for steering clear of sociopaths.
3. Make people earn our trust
I had a blind spot. I am a forthright, trustworthy person. I would never think of lying to someone. Unfortunately, I thought everyone else was like me. Big mistake. My younger brother’s life philosophy is probably more useful. His rule of thumb: “Everyone is an a**hole until proven otherwise.”
The point is that we should not give our trust away indiscriminately. People must earn our trust by consistent, reliable and truthful behavior.
Important caveat: Sociopaths often appear to be trustworthy, dependable and honest in the beginning, while they’re trying to hook us. So if the good behavior slips, and bad behavior starts to appear, we must recognize the change as a big red flag.
4. Process our pain
I think the biggest roadblock to being able to trust again is our own pain. After an encounter with a sociopath, we’ve been deceived, betrayed, injured, emotionally crushed. We are angry and bitter, and rightfully so. But if we want to move on, we can’t keep carrying the pain around.
To get rid of the pain, we must allow ourselves to feel it.
I recommend that, either privately or with the guidance of a good therapist, we let the tears and curses flow. Expressing the pain physically, without hurting yourself or others, also helps. My favorite technique was pounding pillows with my fists. You may want to stomp your feet, twist towels or chop wood.
For more on this, read Releasing the pain inflicted by a sociopath.
Trust and love
It is important to be able to trust again. Doubting and disbelieving everyone we meet is a dismal way to live. If we cannot recover our trust in humanity, the sociopath who plagued us will have truly won.
The difference is that after the sociopath, we must practice informed trust. We know the red flags of a sociopath, and in evaluating a person, we don’t see them. Our intuition is giving us the green light. The person has proven, and continues to prove, to be trustworthy. These are the intellectual aspects of trust.
By doing the work of exorcising our pain, we clear away the roadblocks to feeling trust emotionally. It’s crucial to be able to feel trust, because that’s what paves the way for love.
Dear Matt,
You are so RIGHT, we are “less lonely” ALONE than we are with them. Yet, some of us (victims) will bounce from “relationship” (with Ps) to relationship and just wind up with another P because we don’t realize that NO ONE can fill our “closeness” need, we have to become WHOLE within ourselves before we can be part of a healthy relationship with anyone.
My late husband and I had a great relationship, but yet I did depend too much on that relationship for my happiness. AFter he died (accident) I was so “lonely” that I opened myself right up to a P who wanted another “repectable wife to cheat on.” (having been caught by his wife of 32 years and cast out).
For several years after my husband’s death, I was NEEDY for someone to fill the VOID within me, but I have now realized that ONE IS A WHOLE NUMBER, not just part of two.
I can be very WHOLE and very COMPLETE without a partner, and I sure don’t want a bad relationship. If we LOWER OUR STANDARDS ENOUGH, any of us could be “married” by nightfall by just going to our local wino shelter, and picking us out a partner and taking them home. While it is easy to see this analogy and laugh and say “I would never do that!” Yet, in a way, some of us do just that thing. We lower our standards of morality, responsibility, etc. in the partners we would “consider.”
We pick up on someone who is “beneath” us in every way, who is not responsible, doesn’t want to work, pay their bills, provide a living for themselves, uses drugs/alcohol, is sexually promiscous and say to them “Hey, if you will come home with me and pretend you love me, I will meet your needs, provide you a house, a car, money, clothes and heck, I will even let you abuse me.” WHAT A DEAL!
Then when we “do all these things for them” and they quit pretending to “love” us, we feel like we have been ripped off! Yep, they didn’t keep their part of the bargain. When the psychopaths that were ripping my mom off for money were arrested, she was FLABBERGASTED and said “But they were always so RESPECTFUL of me!” She just didn’t get it that because they had been so “sweet” to her while they were ripping her off that they could possibly have had bad motives.
I, on the other hand, in trying to warn her about them, was “disrespectful” because I raised my voice to her! LOL ROTFLMAO
We don’t deserve some “bum” who wants to use us, abuse us, and betray us, we deserve to be treated with respect and care, so it is up to us to demand the treatment we deserve and not “settle” for the “wino” because we are needy.
We are capable of being WHOLE people within ourselves and then, when we meet another WHOLE HUMAN BEING, not the hollow shell of a psychopath, we will be ready for a REAL RELATIONSHIP between TWO WHOLE PEOPLE.
Hello Matt – thank you for writing about your relationship. What you said, how you described your relationship, resonated with me on so many levels. You are a criminal lawyer, and “shouldn’t” have been fooled. I am a psychologist – how the hell did he dupe me? I’m a shrink!!!! Good God. And living your life waiting to be thrown a bone of affection….and thinking you might get back the man you fell in love with and the relationship you once had….so, so, so, painfully familiar.
matt: great post.
yup, crumbs. a crumb here and a crumb there, and for some reason everyone who is associated with the s/p/n — all of whom are getting crumbs — think it’s a wedding cake!
he was so built up in my mind; the mayor, the man about town, the hot street brutha, the upright professional, the doting father, the sexual god, the charismatic do-gooder. he was everything to everyone, and he was all mine. (yea, right.) i felt like a queen. and so did every other girl he had at his beck and call.
i miss everything i thought he was. nothing in my life ever felt more real … or more intense. now, with a little objectivity, he is just another man-whore with too many kids by too many women — a dime a dozen. he’s not gorgeous; he’s a little too short, his head is really small, and he’s losing his hair. his personality is reprehensible; a user, a taker who is nothing but a phoney, smooth-talkin’ fake smilin’ loser. nothing about him was real, but he deserves a friggin’ academy award, that’s for sure. i got scammed and played for 25 years by the master of the underworld. and that makes me one powerful, strong woman. any one less would be long dead.
their kind of sick is beyond the comprehension of those of us who possess a soul. therefore, the only way i have found to heal is to remember in every lonely, sad moment, that what he wrote on our brick wall was the only truth he ever shared: thug for life. in the moment he wrote that, he knew somewhere in that empty being that he was that alone — a no-good thug without one bit of concern for anyone but himself. and so they go …
as we heal, we MUST remember that in order for each of us to move forward in to the new year, we must leave behind this old year, and with it the anger and resentment and grief. let’s remember our new promise to ourselves: to be a bit more careful to notice red flags in those we meet and let into our lives, and to love ourselves fully, knowing we simply loved.
we are all strong, amazing spirits … with conscience. let’s forgive ourselves in every corner of our being for whatever we think we did wrong, and know that we only blame ourselves because our s/p/n’s didn’t let go of us until they were sure that every ounce of our being believed the lies.
we hold the trump card. NC.
in truth, we are free.
Healing heart,
it is amazing to me how many MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS and other “social” professionals, lawyers etc. are here on this site. I am a nurse practitioner AND a mental health professional. You would think that our education and experience would help us be more immune to this hype, but it seems that we, of all people, seem to be more vulnerable! LOL
Being on the “wrong side” of the clipboard was very difficult for me, believe me!!!! When I went to a new therapist for my PTSD, he spent 2 hours on intake interview and then at the end, very KINDLY asked me if I would bring in some PROOF or a WITNESS that what I was telling him was TRUE! LOL The poor guy was suprised when I LAUGHED and told him “NO PROBLEM, I’m NOT a paranoid delusional nut case, this is all TRUE!” LOL So the next week I took in my son and court documents and we had a good laugh about it all, but my “story” is about that bizzare, and most of us can relate to that part of it all.
And you know, when I was on the “right” side of the clip board I had heard some pretty bizzare stories from my patients/clients. I think, too, that I was so arrogant that I thought I was not likely to be “taken” like these patients had been. I realize now, that I didn’t let my husband beat the crap out of me and go back and go back, but I DID let my SON, so what’s the difference? Of course, nothing! I am no longer arrogant about it. I realize I am just as vulnerable and human as anyone else in the world, and so now I am using my hard won “humility” to help me build up my defenses.
I am putting all my “larnin’ ” to good use on MYSELF and not concentrating of fixing others when my own world is falling down around my ears. I have a Ph.D from the University of HARD KNOCKS now, and I think that is the most and best education I ever got. I’m just sorry I had to take “remedial” classes in Psychopath 101 MULTIPLE TIMES.
At least I can laugh about it a bit now!
Oxdrover – wow – you too? 🙂 My God! You are right, I think we are more vulnerable types – probably because we are attracted to the “caring” field for the same reason we are attracted to sociopaths.
You know what? When I started dating the ex and heard the story of his childhood, I said to him “You should be a sociopath, but you’re not, I can tell.” My God, my god, my god. Such foolish arrogance!!!
I remember saying to him early on (this was my TRUE, wise, self speaking) something like “I know I should be afraid of you, but I am feeling no fear at all.” I thought that meant he was okay…..that my gut was telling me he was okay. In truth, what was happening was that I was going into a trance- his trance. I let him put the morphine drip into my arm and I didn’t want to look at the truth until I absolutely had to. I WANTED to believe his lies. I chose to believe them – until I simply could not any more – they were so outrageous, and there was no way any moderately conscious individual could pretend they didn’t realize they were getting their ass kicked. I can’t believe what I allowed myself to believe…..
Wow……I hope I don’t need to take psychopath 101 again! I’m hoping I passed this time! I recognize that I’ve failed the class a few times already……at least I know now that I was enrolled as a student in a class.
Crumbs
I Can Relate . More like dust !
HAHumMM , Beer , Cigaretts ?:)~ LOVE JJ
Nic,
I hope you do something nice for yourself tomorrow–go to a movie, have lunch with a friend, make a little voodoo doll that looks like him and stick pins in it…….anything to distract yourself.
Lostingrief:
Not only do those of us getting the crumbs think its a wedding cake, I was so deslusional I was ready to take the S out to California and do the whole 9 yards including the wedding cake. A friend of mine who is a matrimonial lawyer told me point blank “If you’re determined to marry this clown, I am going to put the mother of all pre-nups in front of him and force him to sign it.” Obviously he saw the S’s true character way before I did.
Guess I dodged that bullet — because prenup or no prenup I know it would have cost me a fortune to get rid of that parasite.
When you are starving, a tiny little crumb tastes amazing…but you’re still starving, and its just a tease, it makes you hungrier and crazier. Well, at least it did that to me. In the end I would be so happy if he just smiled at me, or laughed at one of my jokes. So sad. In the beginning he put me on such pedestal (I enjoyed this unhealthy dynamic greatly and allowed it to go on), and lavished me with love and attention, that I was shocked that he could end up being so hateful of me. I was the same person he adored! First I was a goddess and then I became this straggly, hungry, filthy, stray dog who would wag her tail with glee when given just the smallest pat on the head. And I let it happen to me. But I’m out now. I need to put myself on that pedestal and adore myself – and not seek this affirmation from a sociopath
I will be honest – I miss the companionship, the comradere, it was and is difficult to let go of that, but my lonliness was my downfall – I am so much better now – to those of you who think you will never heal, you will. I am starting to recognize myself again, funny that they can do such deep mind games that we lose sight of who we are or were..GOD I am so happy he is gone – I can deal with the rest, just getting him out of my home was an ordeal.