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.
well, I never !!!! Oh my !!!!
Darwinsmom,
there isn’t really a right or wrong answer. You have to be very intuitive. Remember the guy in Canada who was on a greyhound bus listening to his headphones and his seat-mate cut off his head and ate his organs, while the rest of the passengers ran for their lives? And what about the dude in Florida who had his face eaten by a naked man. That man was not high on bath salts, as previously reported, he was just on pot.
This is why I study spaths and try to figure what triggers them. Envy.
Sometimes, showing weakness gets you attacked. Other times, it’s showing bravado, then they think you are a rival and they want to win. So how do you decide? What I do, is be enigmatic. If they are confused, they don’t act. It gives you time to get away. I’ve heard that some prisoner’s, when they are new to a penitentiary, will take off all their clothes and go run out in the rain. They act insane. Nobody messes with a crazy person. These are spaths who know how to manipulate vicious people.
In the past two days, I’ve had two spath encounters.
1st, a craigslist dude advertising some free stuff. I drove past him while calling him. He answered, “you just drove past me.”
When I got out of my truck he approached with a flower. RED FLAG. The area is acreage. He wanted me to walk with him down a long deserted driveway to pick up the stuff. He was so nice and friendly. I said, “let me just drive the truck down and pick it up.” He said, “OK, if you’re sure you want it.”
It was old rusty buckets of asphalt. Still worth using though for fixing roofs. I drove backwards down the driveway to the edge of the field where the woods began. I showed him how I had hurt my pinky. He said, “I have a slipped disk, we can carry them together.” While we were carrying them, he said, “You’re too pretty to be craigslisting out in the woods by yourself.”
I said, “I come from a long line of psychopaths, I’m used to it.”
He said, “my family is crazy too.” Coulda guessed. An interesting thing he said was, “how come you look like a country bumpkin and know so much about DNA, anthropology and physics?” Not sure what that means. It DOES NOT MEAN WHAT IT WOULD MEAN FROM A NORMAL PERSON.
We talked a lot. He is super intelligent, well traveled, owns various properties , well read, spends half the year in the other hemisphere and has piercing blue eyes I can hardly resist. BUT, when I first saw him, I felt revulsion. HE said if I came back the next day, he’d give me another flower.
I knew what I was dealing with, yet the attraction was still there.
This is cogdis. this is our enemy. Our challenge is not only to know the red flags, but know what to do about them.
The second encounter was today. I was at the organic food coop putting oil in the truck cuz it was low. A portly christian man offered help. We started talking. Long story short, he wants a wife. He told me. I told him I had a BF – several times. He insisted we could meet without BF knowing. I explained that I don’t cheat, don’t lie, don’t hurt people’s feelings. We spoke at length about Jesus and scripture. Suddenly, his pastor shows up and asks portly christian for coffee. He includes me in the invitation. I declined but continued to discuss Christianity. I mentioned spaths and Rene Girard. We were quoting scripture for a while.
I asked the Pastor which church he was from. He said, “The church of the world”. duh.
Pastor is what spaths refer to as a “wingman”
I did blow them away a bit, I think. I confused the hell out of them with my stories about spaths and Rene Girard’s Anthropology of the Cross.
I think what it boils down to is that I look really stupid. I’m pretty sure that I do. Then I tell the spaths things that they can’t respond too. They lose their footing. I told the guy, “bill” that I had a BF( SEVERAL times) but he kept suggesting that I use my own phone that BF would never know. Nice Christian, Ay?
jeez.
So I talked to BF about it. He thinks it’s my hair and my country bumpkin look. No make up, wild hair and a huge diesel truck.
I’m gonna try to change my image and report back.
Sky, it’s so funny reading your last post that you walk away from these kinds of situations thinking you just had two spath encounters. I would walk away feeling like a femme fatale because these guys I don’t know are hitting on me. LOL Not that I would give either of them the time of day, but I’d probably at least enjoy the attention. (Also, if I were going to the house of a CL guy, especially a remote place, I’d probably bring someone with me just in case.) Although, I don’t think the salsa club is a great hangout for spaths. In order to know how to dance, you have to take lessons. Lessons cost money. So you would need a job. They also require a certain amount of patience and commitment. I don’t know any spaths who would put in that much effort.
I danced with this one guy at the salsa club on Sunday who is an icon at the salsa clubs in town. “Cowboy John” as he is called because he always wears his tall cowboy hat while he’s dancing is an advanced salsa dancer. It was the second time in about 6 weeks I danced with him. He seemed impressed with my ability to follow his lead and told me I would be a very good dancer. He then offered to give me free lessons at him home studio in his basement to help me along. I don’t need to be going to some strange guy’s basement. But still I was very flattered by the offer. I think the chance that he would lock me up in the basement, torture me, and kill me is probably pretty small, especially since Mark and Jacques know him and say he’s a decent guy. Just on general principles it’s not something I would take a guy up on. But my first inclination is to be flattered, not to think he’s a spath. If you were to shadow me on a typical salsa dancing night, you would probably think from your perspective I had multiple spath encounters. LOL I don’t think that way, so it doesn’t occur to me. I just enjoy the male attention and keep myself safe when I’m walking out to my car. Although I doubt a lot of spaths would be interested in salsa dancing. Those lessons cost money which would require you had a job.
Oxy,
I’ve got two big bumps on my head now. I know you speak reason.
And yet I must say I actually kinda did what Sky posted about. Very interesting encounters, Sky. As he first was about to cross me I first had an instinctive response to ignore him completely. But when I eventually turned around to watch him and would normally have turned away again, I somehow knew that confrontation might be a volatile, but better option. I wasn’t angry, nor upset, nor offended, nor shocked. I gave him the finger without any emotion at all.
I was in a very complaisant mood at the time we crossed paths yesterday. What I was wearing was classy (khaki green and brown). I pretty much looked like a woman returning from her office. The sunglasses probably made him think I was younger than I am, perhaps 20-ish rather than close to 40.
I had the impression that he originally thought he could intimidate me. That’s why he charged on me. But the closer he came, the more he slowed in his tracks. And while I made sure to keep a distance, he made sure to keep a distance too. I’m a tall woman, and I have the ability to make myself look even taller, even on slippers. I can become very intimidating myself in posture and calm attitude when I want to. Throwing question after question at him, pushing the argument back to his behaviour and who he is and questioning his entitlement, repeatedly. It did throw him off.
Another thing that threw him off was the way I observed him at that moment. I had been the intended scapegoat prey, but when I stood my ground, made myself taller, more intimidating myself, and eyed him openly suspiciously it was not clear anymore who was really the hunter. It was like one of those document moments where a young, inexperienced predator charges on prey that doesn’t run at all but aims its horns at it. And all of a sudden you see the wolf realize that the buffalo is not only a meal, but can be pretty dangerous too.
He was crazy, but not psychotic crazy. He was spathic aggressive. He charged towards me in the exact same manner ex-spath would… it was an act. Plust the cellphone thing, which proved he was consciously attempting to intimidate me. He knew very well himself what he was about and doing too, he just had expected to be able to intimidate me with it all. Ex-spath never intimidated me when he charged. Those were the only moments really where I was able to throw him off.
With young Maroccans I know they use the cellphone to call ‘mates’ to make a ruckus. They call them to come to the caller and gang up on someone. Here he made a mistake though. First, he searched it in the wrong trouser pocket, so he frantically had to look for it in the other pocket. That’s when I watched him very intently to see whether I should run instantly around the corner to my building, or hold my ground. Out came the cellphone and to me it looked totally absurd, and made him look weak rather than intimidating (He needed his buddies to teach a woman a lesson?). After that he became a barking dog to me and he knew it.
Star,
I would have Sky’s take on it. I understand why you would regard it as flattery. For over a decade I would have regarded it as you did and would feel flattered byt it. But flattery is something I take only note off nowadays, but not take in anymore. Flattery just means someone wants something of you and often one of the first red flags you get to see. It isn’t a compliment. I don’t FEEL negative about it, but it doesn’t do anything positive to me either anymore. I FEEL completely neutral about flattery. Flatterers notice it evokes no response within nor from me, and what happens then is that they then try to impact me by being obnoxious. That doesn’t impact me either anymore. It’s not because someone behaves offensive that I should feel offended. But basically the flatterer just unmasked himself to me then.
That doesn’t mean that male attention is necessarily bad. I don’t regard male attention as necessarily bad at all. But over the past year it has become very very clear to me that flattery can switch into obnoxiousness in an instant, which proves how false it is and not something I let y self-esteem rely on.
For example… the bf of my friend who I think is either a spath or rather high in spathic traits was trying to be pals by flattering me (regarding my master of industrial design, my physics studies, but also my breasts, and my breasts, and my breasts, well you get the point). I played along though that night, because it’s better for my friend that he doesn’t regard me as a threat at all.
He noticed that at least one of two guys standing in front of us was noticing me. He tried to mimp me off, and the two guys were not savvy enough to realize how obnoxious he really was to me. They kinda went along with the joke, thinking it was only in jest. I actually had a good vibe from the younger man who had noticed me. At that moment though I basically blew the whole situation off, declarng I was not casual nor interested in casual and wandered inside again to remove myself from the situation. I didn’t do that for the two guys, but for the spathic bf of my friend. Later that evening, at one of the few moments spathic bf of my friend wasn’t around, I stood outside talking with someone actual mates and the younger man who had been interested lingered around with another man to talk with while hoping to catch my eye. I gave him one of my friendliest and most genuine smiles. His jaw nearly dropped by then and his eyes got all starry. Now that interaction as well as his interest was a compliment imo, but he never tried to flatter me.
Dear Darwin’s mom,
I just finished reading a book written by a minister, in which she talks about “irregular” people….who are anywhere from mentally ill or simply irritating up to and including sociiopaths (she uses that word) and how we should deal with them.
One of the things she mentions about “irregular people” like the guy you met on the street, is that they are not EMOTIONALLY important to us in our lives, we will probably never see them again.
Confronting these people who are already “irregular” really doesn’t usually have a big positive pay off and can have very negative one. If someone is seriously mentally ill confronting them can actually push them over the edge into violence, and when we really don’t know these people we don’t have a way to judge if they are just being rude or if they are on the edge of violence.
You talked about the Maroccans using a cell phone to call in others to “gang up” on someone…that can lead to a violent confrontation.
The other day I was with a friend at a local home repair supply store and we were looking for some electrical components to fix a problem at her house. The clerk was busy but we waited our turn and asked him to show us where the things we wanted were located on the shelf as we couldn’t find them. He then waved his hand in a vague direction where the entire electrical supply stock was locate and said “they’re over there” and with his voice indicating that we were troubling to him.
I then said to him, “Would you please get the manager, or someone else who would be interested in waiting on us” He replied “well I am the manager of this department” and I repeated, “well then in that case, would you please get YOUR boss?”
He then showed us where the parts we needed were located. After we had picked out the parts, he apologized and I think sincerely, for the attitude he had displayed, and I accepted his apology.
While confronting this man I didn’t think there was any real “risk” in the confrontation, but with someone random stranger on the street passing me by who just “out of the blue” called me a “whore” I think I would just have kept walking and Ignored him rather than taking a chance that he was seriously mentally ill and maybe violent.
While standing tall and confronting rudeness does give us a certain feeling of power, it can also lead to unexpected and unhappy results if we aren’t right in assessing the potential for violence in the person we confront.
Maybe I am excessively cautious, especially with strangers, but at the same time, I really don’t want to provoke a violent one.
OK ~ Darwinsmom – Sky & Star (not so much but you can listen in for future reference)
From: Grandma Milo
If you play with fire – you’re going to get burned. Some people are just not meant to be fooled with or studied. THE END.
There is a case here in Ohio where people were answering an ad, on Craig’s List, for a job, out in the country, taking care of some animals and land in exchange for a small salary and a place to live. Turns out the man and a teenage boy who placed the ad did not own the property, but lured people out in the country – then killed them – I believe the body count is up to 4. BEWARE
PS. Hi Sky – I haven’t “talked” to you for a long time. I’ve had to drop gray rock and go to NC. She has crossed the line, I’m done – done – done
Love and care – MiLo
Darwins’mom and Star,
Darwin’smom and I have the exact same understanding of human behaviors I think. We no longer see flattery, we see manipulation. Because that’s what it is. I used to think like you Star. But NORMAL human beings don’t cross boundaries. For a total stranger to ask for my number is one thing, but when he says he’s a christian and insisted twice that I cheat on my BF…that’s a clue.
I know Star, that you think I’m paranoid, but men actually use “wingmen” to create “frame control”. He wanted me to perceive him as Christian and kept bringing it up. I matched his knowledge of biblical verses but didn’t give him what he wanted, and that’s when the wingman showed up. As evidence.
There are websites for PUA’s (pick up artists) and you can read all about it.
Actually, I told the asphalt encounter backwards a bit : First he told me I was too pretty to be craigslisting alone and then he told me he had a herniated disk. The order matters for a reason. It was done to create a trauma bond.
I told my BF about both encounters and he said, “The guy with the asphalt trauma bonded you.”
“What? How?” I asked.
BF explained, “When he said you were too pretty to be out craigslisting alone in the woods, that was meant to scare you. You felt fear. Then, when he said, “we’ll carry these buckets together” you were cooperating and feeling safe again. So first he made you feel afraid, then he made you feel safe. It was stockholm syndrome. He set you up just to mess with your head.”
Dang. He was absolutely right. Stockholm syndrome is so easy to do and people are all susceptible to it.
Oh and BTW, I might have mentioned the young stud who was helping me with my house last November and came on to me. I perceived that the love bombing was about domination, not attraction. Well, yesterday, I met a friend of his and he told me that lovebomber has a 9month pregnant wife and 3 kids. He told me that lovebomber ALWAYS acts that way. SPATH.
Here is an interesting essay about men and women. This guy Erik Buys, is one of my favorite bloggers. BTW, Darwinsmom, he is Belgian, maybe you live near him.
http://erikbuys.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/temptresses/
It includes a video depicting exactly what you describe happening to a young woman walking in Belgium.
Oxy,
I totally understand your point, and don’t even disagree with it.
However, at the same time a documentary was made about these things happening regularly in a neighbourhood in Brussels. Women living there (all women, including middle eastern or northern african ones who are unmarried) are bothered by men all the time: they usually first ask their number, follow them, and when the woman tells them no she’s called a whore. It is a constant daily harrassment. Women either move out of the neighbourhood, try to avoid the streets and corners where it is most likely to happen, or they don’t dare to wear a skirt or shirt with bare arms anymore. The documentary is called “Femme de la Rue.” (Sky we crossposted, the documentary was made by a woman living and undergoing the same treatment over and over. She interviewed other women, and men with “why?” and “what can I do?”)
In my instance I was instantly called a whore. I wasn’t even touted. This is not Brussels, but where I live now does border to a neighbourhood which is a bit of a melting pot. But it does happen in Antwerp, and it’s the fourth time I’ve been harrassed on the streets in my experience since I’ve been living here for 13 years.
The first case was some older Maroccan man drinking in a bar where I was who asked me directly from the get go whether I wanted to go to bed with him, to which I said “No,” of course. He even threatened one my male friends there with a knife behind my back (I learned about this only after my own incident). Anyway, when I left and told people goodbye I noticed him leaving before me with a glass of beer in his hands. Luckily he walked off to the right, whereas my car was parked to the left. I left for my car (it was close to 4am at that point) and as he understood I had walked off to the other directen he turned and started to walk in my direction. Unfortunately I was driving a rented car, and the exact same car with the same colour stood parked beside my rented one. I picked the wrong car to try and open the door. By the time I was at the correct car he was way too close. If I had opened the door and tried to get in, he was close enough to either grab me while I entered or prevented me from closing the door… if he was quick enough. There was no other option than to confront him then. I made a loud scene, which stalled him from approaching any further. He asked me, “Why are you mad? I only want to go to bed with you!”. But he had the empty glass in his hands and stood near a pole where he could break it and use it as a weapon. However, my verbal onslaught threw him off long enough for me to shuffle aside, until he was not in my pathway back the bar with my friends. The moment I could run, I ran and asked a friend to guide me back to my car. Off course he ran off by then shouting names at me. A male friend accompanied me to the car, and I drove off with lights out for 500 m until I was home.
The second time was in an alley. They were two young Maroccans, walking ahead of me. I passed them by and one of them slapped my ass. Because I could not see their further intentions as they were behind me, again it was safer to confront them. I altered into a whirling banshee and actually tried to kick and punch them and hit them with my bag. They stood frozen in panic first, then apologized before making a quick exit.
The third time I was followed/stalked on my way home by a young Maroccan from the same bar of the first incident. He wasn’t rude there, but insistent on trying to ‘get to know me’. It wasn’t until I was halfway home (on foot) that I noticed he had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and was walking behind me. He tried to get me to agree to a date then. I was able to calmly convince him to let me walk home by myself, to not follow me for the promise that we would talk about agreeing to a date next time I was there. However, I made sure to walk passed my own front door, further around the corner, and then hunched down beside the parked cars to sneak back to my front door and get in. I walked the stairs and went to bed without ever putting a light on. I never saw the guy again afterwards.
When the guy yesterday kept making noise and loud insulting mumbling and I walked on and I couldn’t see him, I could not be sure that he was walking away from me. This was the reason I decided to turn around eventually. When I saw he was continuously turning around to watch me time and time again, I in a way felt it was a bigger risk to turn my back on him than to give him the confrontation. In some cases I feel there is more danger in having crazy behind me than crazy in front of me.
Hi Milo,
I missed you. NC is the ultimate goal anyway. Gray rock is only meant to make the transition easier and without drama. I’m glad you’re ok. Just because your spath is your daughter doesn’t mean she isn’t dangerous too.
A friend of mine turned me on to a book she wants to read. So I investigated the author and found this.
http://thautcast.com/drupal5/content/meeting-john-elder-robison-also-imfar-video-sainthood-and-more
This man has aspergers and his story is fascinating. I showed it to my bf, whom I think is a bit aspergers. He really really liked it. It is my opinion that people with aspergers, once they get past a certain hurdle, end up having more insight into humanity than your regular joe. The path is difficult but the rewards are many.
Hi Oxy,
nice to see you back. I think for the most part, we can tell who is violent. But the ones with the mask, the “charming” ones, those are the most dangerous and you can’t always tell. Only your gut knows. It always knows. That’s why they use flattery. Flattery is like the anesthetic that the mosquito injects into his victim BEFORE he starts draining the blood. That way you can’t even feel it. Lots of insects do that, they inject a bit of anesthetic and some anti-coagulant into the host. Those are analogous to flattery and drama. By the time they’ve injected those, you are already ignoring your gut.
Darwinsmom,
I’m so sorry that happened to you. I wish I could give you advice on that but it seems like this particular problem has a unique cultural derivation. It is something that is happening within the Moroccan community. I think that it is a sign that something is sick in that community and getting ready to explode. Perhaps it’s time that someone approach the leaders in the Moroccan community. These young men are feeling dis-empowered and taking it out on women in the streets. The whole thing is a power play.