Finally, you realize what is wrong with your romantic partner: He or she is a sociopath.
Finally, the behavior that was so confusing makes sense. The person you loved, and who you thought loved you, has a personality disorder. Now you realize that anything your partner told you could have been a lie. Now you know why your partner could be so cruel, then tell you how much he or she loved you, practically in the same breath. Now you realize that there never was any love, that your entire relationship was exploitation, and nothing more.
Now what do you do? How do you move forward? How do you recover?
Many of your friends and family tell you, “Just put it behind you. Get over it. Move on.” You are particularly likely to hear this advice if you were “only” dating the person, not married.
The friends and family dispensing this pithy advice probably were never involved with a sociopath. They don’t understand the depth of the betrayal. When you split from a sociopath, it is not a normal breakup. The intensity of these relationships makes the end incredibly painful.
Relationship and addiction
The sociopath initiated this intensity in the beginning of the relationship by showering you with attention, wanting to be with you all the time, claiming that you were soul mates, and painting a glimmering picture of your future together. You, never having experienced such adoration, believed that he or she was head over heels in love with you. Even if you felt misgivings, you suppressed them and focused on the promise of happily ever after.
Then, sooner or later, the sociopath did something to make you feel fear or anxiety. Perhaps you caught your partner lying or cheating. Perhaps he or she suddenly became enraged—you weren’t sure why—and threatened to end your relationship.
Whatever it was, the bliss that you felt in the beginning was shattered, and you wanted it back. You asked what was wrong, tried to work things out, perhaps even apologized for something that you didn’t do. Eventually the sociopath relented, and you kissed and made up.
Then, the whole cycle started again: Intense attraction. An incident causing fear and anxiety. Relief. Around and around it went.
This process has a profound psychological effect—it actually makes you addicted to the relationship. That’s why it’s so hard to break up with a sociopath. You’re not breaking off a relationship—you’re breaking an addiction.
Choose yourself
Addictions don’t just go away. Anyone who has quit smoking, drinking, drugs or any other addiction knows that it’s hard work. You must choose yourself, your health and wellbeing, over the addiction. Then you must work on your recovery, day in and day out.
A relationship with a sociopath is the same. You cannot simply “put it behind you.” You cannot fully recover by locking your internal devastation into a closet, never to be opened, while attempting to go through the motions of living. If you try to do this, you simply end up with an emotional cancer within you, eating away at your life force.
The solution is to choose yourself. Make a commitment to yourself that you will recover, and then work it, day by day.
Steps of recovery
The first step is No Contact. Get the person out of your life. Stop seeing and talking to him or her. Block emails and text messages. Don’t visit his or her Facebook page.
This will be difficult in the beginning, because, remember, you are breaking an addiction. You’ll feel a compulsion to contact your former romantic partner. But if you do, it’s just like an alcoholic falling off the wagon. You’ll be back at square one, and you’ll have to start the recovery process all over again.
The secret to breaking the addiction, as they say in 12-step programs, is to take it one day at a time. So commit to yourself that you will not contact the sociopath today. Then you make the same commitment tomorrow, and then the next day.
The longer you stay away from the sociopath, the stronger you become.
Deeper healing
Getting the sociopath out of your life is only the first part of your recovery. The second, and most important, part, is healing whatever made you vulnerable to the sociopath in the first place.
We all have vulnerabilities—it’s part of being human. We have internal fears, doubts and injuries from our past. Or we have dreams and ambitions—these, too, in the practiced hands of a sociopath, can become vulnerabilities, when he or she promises to make them come true. But generally, the sociopaths target our weaknesses, because that’s the easiest and most effective way to hook us.
Usually the weaknesses boil down to a subconscious belief, deep within us, that we are not good enough.
We rationalize that our mother ignored us, or our father abused us, because we were not good enough. We assume that an earlier romantic involvement failed because we were not good enough. These ideas may have been deeply buried, but they still caused pain, and pain created vulnerability. Sociopaths can sense vulnerability like a shark senses blood in the water.
Releasing the pain
How do you recover from these deep wounds? You acknowledge that they exist. You look at them and allow yourself to feel the associated emotions—pain, disappointment, fear, anger, rage, numbness—and then you let the emotions go.
This is a process, and is best done in private, or with the help of a competent therapist. You’ll find that you have layers and layers of pain, and as you release one, another rises to take its place. You may find yourself crying, wailing or stomping to release anger. You work your way through the layers of emotions, acknowledging, feeling and releasing.
You can’t do this all at once—it’s too draining, and you still have to live your life. In fact, you should intersperse these sessions of releasing with times of treating yourself well, and feeling joy at whatever goodness you experience, no matter how small.
True recovery isn’t easy, fun or instant—it takes work and a commitment to yourself. But the rewards are so wonderful: Release from old traumas. Life lived with peace and lightness. The opportunity for true love and happiness.
It all begins with making a decision to recover.
Star – it IS a choice to be angry. But under some circumstances we do not have the ability to actively choose how we act. We need lots of skill in watering the seeds of compassion to be able to make the choice for compassion when we are dealing with extreme situations.
spoon, quite loved all of this:
‘Sometimes in life all we have is, it happened. The spath is as the spath is and you where as you where and the two collided. But in the end the real you has always been there the same before it happened as is afterwards. The one who decides what to think, how to feel, what to believe, what actions to take.
Sometimes there is no justice in life. The lighting bolt doesn’t strike. Can be a good thing. Many of us might not be here if it worked like that. Plus there is no closure ”“ except what we give it.
I do get what you feel. I was angry, pissed off”etc and wanted to take a baseball bat to a whole bunch of people. Problem I finial realized is even if I had done that. I’d still be angry, pissed off and now no one to take a baseball bat too. Relieved a little stress. But won’t fix the problem.’
seems emotionally pragmatic to me, full of acceptance. and thanks for the chuckle about the lightening bolt. 😉
One joy, without knowing exactly what you mean I can make the blanket statement that when we are acting out of unconsciousness, we are not at choice. However, your question (if I’m on the right thread) was about letting go of anger and whether it is possible. The answer is yes. When I had this question about my mother – the last person I had still to forgive – I thought I would never get past my anger toward her. But I knew I needed to. So I prayed to a god that I didn’t even believe in and asked what it would take to get the anger out of my system. The answer was that I had to write her one more letter saying everything I needed to say. I did. I sent it in the form of an email. When I received the predictable narcissistic reply, it didn’t even matter at that point. I’d let go of the anger when I hit “send”. I said everything I needed to say.
Sometimes getting anger out involved hitting and screaming, beating my fists on the bed, and throwing rocks at trees. The trick is to just find a way to release the anger. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Then you will have some peace and (heaven forbid) happiness. 🙂
I’ve been so happy lately that I actually have to keep it under wraps because a few of my co-workers are unhappy and I don’t want any cattiness. But it is definitely possible to just live in a state of grace and peace and to walk around with a smile for everyone. This is in spite of the pool noise, of my poverty, and of the fact that my wallet was stolen last week, my car broke a few weeks ago and cost $1000 to fix…..things things seem to just put a temporary dent in my peace of mind but that’s all. It seems when you get to a certain point in the healing process, the positive momentum just kind of takes over. At least this has been my experience.
I was in Zumba tonight, and the teacher pulled me up on the stage to do one of the routines with her. It was pretty cool.
stargazer, your last post about being pulled up on stage in your Zumba class, reminded me of a very special moment in my life that happened when I was all of sixteen years old. I had been taking Kung-Fu lessons for six months, and my Sihing (teacher, or big brother) had invited his teacher, a Choy-lai fut master to visit his studio, from San Fransisco. Each of we students took our turn performing for the Master, but, (blush) I apparantly stood out, because the Master told my sihing, that I was his star student!!!
Unfortunately, I met my first husband shortly after that, quit Kunf-Fu, was pregnant and got married. Your post, however, prompted me to google “Choy-lai-fut” kung Fu, and “Doc Fai Wong”, the name of the Master. I watched several videos. Maybe I will look into finding a school of martial arts. Thanks.
The reason, I think, (and Sihing was the one who brought it to my attention)that I stood out, was because I had had six years of Ballet, Tap and Jazz lessons, thanks to my wonderful Mom, who, at one time taught Ball-room dancing. She told me the reason she fell in love with my Dad was because of the way they danced together. 🙂
Hmmm, interesting exchange star and kim.
I had a very interesting dream last night about letting go. It was pretty much a dirty dream, where I had to go to the bathroom at public stalls above a restaurant. I was a guest of some party, kinda like a family or large friend gathering in the restaurant, except nobody there is in reality a friend or family… but I accept that it represented some gathering where people are supposed to be PC and amical, though you rarely care about these people. Anyway, I had to go to the bathroom and these were the craziest stalls ever… They weren’t really stalls, but some tiny, ingenious urinoir system you had to sit on and yet kept standing, and there was nothing private about it. Anyway, I basically made a muck of it.
The strange thing was that I didn’t care at all! One of the other guests had brought their two boys along (so friends with children celebration of somesorts) and they witnessed it all and were gonna ‘tell’ everybody downstairs. But I made them think on purpose that I was this crazy lady who’s so crazy that she didn’t care about not going to the bathroom as you are supposed to go. As a result they didn’t tell anyone about it. I had become someone crazy but powerful in their eyes it seemed. I dared to go against what they were recently conditioned into.
This sequence kinda repeated itself; this time I ended up squatting down in the middle of the stalls in something like a shower drain. The urine was going every way except straight down the drain. It even gave me a feeling of freedom and empowerment. It was almost as if I was symbolically pissing on everyone the floor below me at the restaurant table. There was only one boy who witnessed it, and it was as if I was proving my point to him that I really did not care what he thought of it.
When I woke up I badly needed to go to the bathroom.. LOL!
Anyway, I see it as letting go of emotional waste and old bonds that even may go back to early childhood (hence the peeping boys, and how to properly go to the bathroom is one of the first things we are conditioned into) without shame or guilt over it.
Kim, I LOVE your Kung Fu story! I especially love it because I think that remembering these times gives us a glimpse into who we are and our potential. Also, a positive happy memory to build more upon! Are you doing anything like that in your current life? If not, maybe something to think about!
You have now reminded me of a 6th grade class I had one day. I was very bright but quiet and shy. We were playing a strategic game in class where we took turns being the leader and had to solve problems about land and resources or something like that. When I was selected as leader, I became very dynamic and the game took on a new dimension. It was amazing. Of course that was the day my mother chose to take me out of school early to run an errand. The entire class begged for me to stay. That never happened before and has never happened since, but my great leadership ability shined that day, and remember it now, I realize it is part of me too.
Darwinsmom, I LOVED your dream. I do think that releasing emotion without worry about what others will think relates well to the bathroom analogy. In fact, often when I’ve just gone through an emotional healing/cleansing, I often have the runs. But the best part about your dream is the empowered feeling you had at the end. I’m so glad you are feeling empowered in your life! One of the things that held me back from becoming empowered to release feelings was the huge fear of how I would come off to others, and more importantly, the fear of rejection and not being liked. This has been a big motivating fear for me. Ironically, the more I speak my mind, the more people respect me, even if they disagree. Even though some people don’t like me and don’t like what I stand for, there are many people who really do like me, and they like the REAL me who is not afraid to say the tough and unpopular things.
I have salsa class tonight. I will see Jacques and Mark, all my friends, and J, the guy I really really like. I will get to dance with him and be transported into a different dimension as we alway do together. And he will invite me out to the club afterward as he usually does. Maybe this time I will go so I can dance with him under the romantic lighting. I’m so excited I could almost pee myself! 🙂 What J is drawn to the most about me is my attitude. I am usually so happy when I’m dancing with him that my smile “lights up a room” as he calls it. I know when I was depressed, I would not have drawn the attention of an incredible man like him. Granted, I’m equally happy and smiley when dancing with the other men, too, but J really seems to appreciate my energy more than the other guys do. I feel truly seen by him. It’s really a gift that the universe has sent me – a kindred spirit.
Darwins,
You had a pee dream, I have had those..Hope I dont have to get some Depends~!
I am always having ‘moving dreams’ and always moving to horrible place’s, has something to do with making bad choices..and sometimes the X is in the dream stressing me out..
Stargazer – Oh my…i need some of your energy.
Hens, come out to my Zumba/salsa dancing birthday party on October 13. That will give you some energy. Seriously, just come out!
I got a picture of Jacques and Mark dancing together in class tonight. I made sure Jacques dipped Mark and I got a great picture. I am blowing it up and putting it on my wall! It’s pretty hilarious. So we were down one teacher in our class tonight and most of the advance class didn’t show up. So poor J had to be the woman for Mark when he was demonstrating moves. LOL And when our class was done, Jacques did the advanced class with J. So I had to wait and wait and wait to dance with J. But wait I did. I needed my fix. I invited them all to my zumba/salsa party, and J told me about this huge free zumba/salsa event in the park on Sunday, presumably because he’s going. So I will try to go. I don’t know if this guy will ever ask me out. It will be disappointing if he doesn’t. But I have learned my lesson from leaning forward too much chasing men.
Jacques asked me if I was turning 35 (lol). He is pretty smooth. I told him I was turning 52 and he looked at me in disbelief. Hard to tell if he was just putting on or not. But it seems as if he and Mark want to come to my party. I am really excited. I can’t wait. I will have some work friends and my boss there – maybe both my bosses – salsa friends, zumba friends, and other friends. Seems like different factions of people from my life will be coming together. It’s been many years since I’ve thrown myself a party. Any LF friends who want to come – you are all welcome. I live in Denver, CO.
Oh, and I don’t have pee dreams these days…..I’m starting to lose control of my bladder in my waking life. lol I can hardly cough or laugh these days without peeing myself a little. It’s lovely getting old. 🙂
all i do is the 2step star…i mite look funny in my boots ///but have lots of fun and tell us all about it. gnite. ps and i can still disco – dis go there and dis go here