This week I received a letter from a woman asking, ”What is wrong with me, why would I feel bad and believe his twisted stories? I am really sick, aren’t I? I fell for him 2 times! After almost losing everything, including my life with the first one?”
I have answered this question before but the issues raised by these questions are so important that I’ll discuss them again.
The real question here is, what exactly is love? Love is the glue that binds us together as a social species. Without love, we would all live solitary lives, husbands and wives would not stay together, parents would not care for children and none of us would have any friends. Scientists have found that the social glue we call love has at lease four different ingredients.
Attachment is the first ingredient of love. Attachment is defined as a compulsion to seek proximity to a specific special other. Seeking proximity means trying to get near the other person, i.e., calling him/her on the phone, driving by his/her house, sending emails. A compulsion is something a person feels he has to do. It is an unconscious force that drives behavior. Typically, once a compulsion starts, it will produce a great deal of anxiety/fear until it is acted upon. For example, people with obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD, have urges to do things and will feel overwhelmingly anxious until they do what those urges tell them to do.
Having sex with someone, sharing emotional intimacy and time, create attachment. This attachment means a compulsion to be with that person. Typically, people with an underlying tendency to have anxiety have stronger attachments because they experience a compulsion to be near the other that causes anxiety until it is acted upon. People who already have anxiety, have anxiety on top of anxiety, and feel more compelled to give in to the compulsion.
Generally speaking, it is good to be unconsciously compelled to be near loved ones. These compulsions remind me not to get too busy to call my dear parents. They also remind me to keep track of my teenaged daughter, even though she is more independent now. Problems only arise when one has the compulsion to be with a person with sociopathic personality traits. There is nothing worse than a compulsion to be near a psychopath!
Sociopaths and psychopaths are con artists. They entice others to form attachments to them through deception and trickery. The problem is that our unconscious minds do not distinguish between attachments made after deception and those made legitimately. Furthermore, the anxiety psychopaths create in their victims only serves to strengthen attachment!
The woman who wrote me asked, “What is wrong with me, why would I feel bad and believe his twisted stories?” When a person is under the influence of a compulsion, he has to adjust his view of reality to fit that compulsion. For example, people who feel a compulsion to repeatedly wash their hands see germs everywhere. If we feel the compulsion to seek proximity to someone, we automatically believe that person is good. In these instances our beliefs are caused by our actions, not the other way around. We may think we love someone because he/she is beautiful, when in reality he/she is beautiful because we love them. (There is a song from the musical Cinderella, Do I love you because you’re wonderful or are you wonderful because I love you?).
What I have written explains why attachment/love is like addiction. Really, it is addiction that highjacks the attachment pathways in the brain. All this explanation is of little value unless it can help us deal with ourselves better. So the real problem is, what does a person do when he/she discovers a compulsion to be with a sociopath/psychopath?
It is very important to recognize the role that anxiety plays in compulsions. Combat anxiety and you combat compulsions. Start by not drinking alcohol and avoiding excessive caffeine. Alcohol temporarily relieves anxiety, but the anxiety intensifies when the alcohol wears off. Next, get enough sleep. Will power is required to fight a compulsion; lack of sleep impairs will power. Fight anxiety by exercising and cultivating quality friendships. At least, have a dog to take walks with! (Louise Gallagher’s dog has helped her to recover; she wrote about this in Dandelion Spirit.)
Many people who are fighting compulsions to maintain proximity to a sociopath/psychopath become so self-absorbed that they fail to honor important obligations to self, work, friends and family. This reaction only magnifies the attachment compulsion, because guilt only increases anxiety. Furthermore, neglect of children makes genetically predisposed behavior worse, and children who behave badly are a source of stress/anxiety.
To all of you who are parents, your relationships with your children can either hurt you or help you when it comes to recovery. If you focus on loving your child and spending quality time with him/her, your anxiety will go down for three reasons. First, if you are emotionally distant from your child, your own unconscious mind knows this and makes you anxious. Second, quality time with your child will make your child easier to live with over time. Third, real intimacy with your child will relieve your anxiety. This is healthy, not unhealthy, you and your child need each other, especially during times of stress. Intimacy is what family is all about.
I bring up this issue of our children because what I find is that many parents, especially mothers, become preoccupied with their relationship anxiety and withdraw from their kids. This response only makes them more anxious. It only serves to create a more dysfunctional family for the children.
We are challenged in life to do the right thing for ourselves and our families in spite of anxiety and compulsions. Start today to get well by seeking your own true well-being.
For more information, see:
Holehearted,
You know that he is bad for you. You know that you should have no contact with him. Yet you admit you will probably give him a ride.
I say this sympathetically – you have been psychologically damaged by him. You have to get rid of him – but it might require assistance. Please get some therapy. However, make sure the counselor understands psychopaths and how they manipulate their victims.
Seek support from your friends and family who know you and believe in you. You have to get the infection out of your brain, and it’s very difficult to do alone.
We are all pulling for your healing.
I am too far gone now I think. I don’t think I will ever be well again.
I picked him up of course… took him whereever he wanted to go. Left him at a motel.
He says he wants to take me to the movies — start over type of thing.
He is playing mind games with me I know this and probably has his girlfriend reading this board and feeding him information.
I think he has gotten an apartment with her in NYC or somewhere near here, but he claims he is going to a rehab on Thursday.
Could this all be an elaborate hoax just to mess with my mind?
Why can’t he just tell me the truth it would be so much easier? Why can’t he just say… this is the way it is and I don’t want to be with you so I can move on. Why does he still want me to believe he loves me?
Is he moving toward murder by suicide? I can’t believe this is the same person who played with my hair and looked into my eyes and told me he loved me.
I was the mean and angry one, I was the one who always thought he would get into trouble.
Why can’t I just be happy and move on like none of this ever happened? Why do all my hopes and dreams have to get shattered over and over again? I just can’t take it anymore.
Holehearted,
Donna is right – get a therapist, go to a hospital, get yourself some help. Although it seems you are all alone in dealing with this (I feel that way too sometimes) the situation you are in is shared by every man and woman on this board. Be strong for yourself and your family, and stay away from that piece of SH**. Change your number if you must. My lawyer is changing all of my personal info for me over the next few months. It stinks in that I have worked so hard to maintain my good credit, and now I have to start over, but that is better than not having the chance to start at all.
Your life is a precious thing-his life is a parasite.
Sociopaths use truth to weave their lies and keep you questioning your own experiences. The solution, as I have broken free from mine in terms of my attachment (we have a child together so ‘free’ is relative), is to hold to your own truth, take care of yourself and find hope and love within side YOU! A sociopath only has the power YOU give THEM, at least as far as your attachment is concerned. ‘Living well is the best revenge’ and strengthens you in dealings with others that may question you based on his twisted truths.
Start by loving yourself, reach out to those who truly love you and make new friends (not lovers). Until you can stand on your own, the only lover you will attract is someone who is lost themselves or looking to exploit your weakness!
Don’t use your sociopath as an excuse to not be accountable for your life. If you are unhappy, make change. Get professional help if you are disabled in making positive change. Own your life from this point forward!
Live TRUTH!
Am I the only person here who is SO suspicious and SO traumatized and SO damaged by what happened to me with my sociopath, that I think that “holehearted” is ACTUALLY the lying sociopath trying to put one over on all of us? Her stories sound outrageous frankly.
I am sorry to offend, but I am concerned (for myself) that I still can’t distinguish the truth from lies, even “holehearted’s” postings make me wonder if “she” isn’t a fraud.
gettingoverthetrauma,
NO-You’re not the only one. I think there are predators on all the web sites. If these stories are true though, I think the point has been made clear here that he, or she needs professional help. I went for help as soon as I found out what was happening to me, but this site is a great sounding board and source of information.
Dear gettingoverthetrauma:
Trust me I don’t even know the truth from the lies anymore! I don’t blame you for thinking I might be sociopath. I am questioning it myself.
However, I can assure you my posts are true in terms of the situation and how it has played out to me.
He is in a rehab now supposedly. He is back with this other girl and she is “so happy.”
He has ME so twisted I am thinking the post by “gettingoverthetrauma” wasn’t posted by his “girlfriend.”
How’s that for paranoia?
Trust me I could not make this stuff up if I tried.
I hate him and I love him. He is two different people. I can’t tell which one is real anymore.
So I have no choice but to forgive myself for anything I have done or said and just let it go. No more accepting his phone calls. Frankly I can’t care what happens to him.
He could die tomorrow or get married and have a baby next week and it should not matter to me.
My first concern should be myself and therein lies the problem. The probem isn’t what he is or isn’t doing – it is what I am doing to myself trying to maintain his love for me which never existed in the first place.
I think when you know someone is lying to you but you don’t “know” it in your head, you sense it but don’t know what it is.. it makes you angry at everything and you don’t know what you’re really angry about.
I have to remind myself that he’s the one who has been in and out of hospitals at least 15 times in his life, that he was at all the schools for problem children, that he was in prison, that he did all these things.
I had it rough and have done thing that I am not proud of, but have not been stealing from all my employers and conning people into getting me a car so I could crash it and collect on the insurance money and then NOT pay for the car that got repossessed.
Anyway, it all doesn’t matter to me anymore. I have to give up… I have to let it all go before it kills me which is what he is hoping for I am sure.
I have outlived my usefulness to him at this moment. I am devalued and discarded.
Now I have to pick up the pieces and find myself all over again.
Last night, I had a conversation with someone I was in love with 20 years ago.
He told me so many things, you can’t imagine.
My sister told me he was cheating on me and that’s why we broke up so long ago… but he swears to this day, he never did.
I believe him. Anyway he is out in CA and I am in NY and he has been going through somewhat of the same thing I have for the past 4 months too. Strange.
He made me feel better – made remember who I am and not what I have temporarily become.
So, I don’t know if I have sociopath tendencies. I wasn’t like that 20 years ago really. And this other person confirmed that for me.
I think they sociopath projects so well that you don’t know who you are anymore. It’s such a psychological twisting, that you can’t tell if you’re the sick sick sick abusive one or just confused, deceived, conned, and then trashed.
Is it abusive to fight for yourself? Is it abusive to use words to defend yourself when you are being lied to and manipulated and you know it one one level – but not consciously?
I think it is a lot like self defense… the psyche feels the attack, but the consciousness doesn’t… so it fights back and it looks like abuse.
It’s like if someone is trying to kill you and you fight back, but they make it look like you were the one trying to kill them. You don’t even know yourself anymore.
It’s horrible.
I don’t even know what I like anymore.
I used to love Yoga and teaching it.
I used to love Indian Movies and Indian Food and loved going to the bookstore and spending time home reading and going to little towns on the weekends.
I don’t even know what I love anymore.
I have lost myself and that is the most tragic part.
You know how I know it’s not me? Because he went into a psyche ward.. claimed he was suicidal, then said he was just sayind that so his friend would not have him arrested (for no reason), then said he was going to get this staff girl’s number just to piss me off, then hooked up with some crazy bitch and has been scheming me ever since.
he is happy in his pictures with her (with a little evil smile), he is like I win you bitch!
So that’s how I know… if he was really suicidal – he would not have done half the things he’s done…
But who knows anymore? I just want my life back.
Correcton:
I meant I was thinking that gettingoverit’s posts might have been posted by his girlfriend just to mess with my head.
Thanks
Thank you so much for your honesty to all.
This site helps so much when I am feeling the past traumas.
Since he lives two miles away, I do see him passing my house, etc.
What I think I am experiencing are flashbacks, not visual, but emotional. They are in my muscle memory. Yes, I am a physician.
They love physicians, because we need stuff too. In fact, he said his first girlfriend after his wife’s death, was a physician and a ballroom dancer like me.
When we initially spoke he told me his wife died of ovarian cancer and left him with two children in high school. On an internet dating site, he mentioned that he was a former CIA person, that he could find out anything about anyone so don’t lie he wrote in CAPS, that it was SO important to live in the present. Yet, he called his deceased wife who did not have a PAP FOR TEN YEARS and died of cervical, not ovarian, cancer — “his wife” for the first two years of our togetherness. Do you think this physician feels foolish? It is called — CODEPENDENCE.
Yes he has HPV, the bad kind, that is secondary to the fact that he is uncircumsized (higher chance of contracting sexually transmitted diseases), and was a Greek God when he was young, and slept with countless women, sheep, whatever. Yes, my sense of humor has returned.
While we were together I tried to contact his ex physician girlfriend, he would not give me her last name, I found it, called her, and he yelled AT ME for harassment. She was calling him, sending sexual cards, etc. Oh, she is not a physician.
But I digress.
If I were to list the incongruities that occurred over the last four and one half years with The Greek as I now call him, my blood boils. I am ashamed. This is not productive for my healing.
BEFORE THIS SITE, I would e-mail him and tell him how rude, emotionally detached, consistently inconsistent, etc. he was. Now — I am quiet. I am detached. I don’t expect him to understand how he hurt me, and I understand that he is incapable of loving me — “the only other woman he could love besides his wife.”
Most of the time, this detachment helps me heal. There are moments, and that is when I pop on this site which soothes me.
Optimisticpd is a new disorder I created which means Optimistic Personality Disorder. I thought with enough love and understanding of HIS situation I could help him. NOW I have COPD which stands for Cautious Optimistic Personality Disorder.
The person I need to save is myself, not some man with issues.
I am falling in love with myself. That was the missing ingredient. For the first time in my life, I am alone, but not lonely. Yes, I obtained a little dog.
What I am discovering is that I really like myself. I allow quality people in my life, both men and women.
I only have dinner dates with men to test my listening skills and to test if I will believe what they say and what I attract. I am honest and tell them I am not available for a relationship now. No explanation required. I do not know them, I know what they are telling me. We attract who we are.
I need time to emotionally reboot. I am emotionally exhausted. Yet, I feel stronger and more beautiful than ever.
I am rewriting my book with incredible clarity. During the writing of my first book I was living in a snake pit of consistent inconsistency.
Making new friends. Expunging old friends who are needy, histrionic, who are unable to do the volley a healthy friendship requires. I am ballroom dancing many nights a week, and riding my bike on the boardwalk. I am studying a lot. My mind is quiet, and I am sleeping well now.
So, thank you to all of you for your earnestness. You have helped me.
And, of course, I still have moments. Hope this emotional diarrhea helped someone.
Dear Optimist,
Your post is really helpful to me… it gives me hope that one day I will be able to get over all this.
I go to sleep missing him and wake up missing him still… wondering how it all happened so quickly.
I have no joy in anything. My roommate is having a party tomorrow and I can’t bring myself to even clean my room.
I certainly don’t want to be here for the party and don’t want to go anywhere either.. so I am stuck.
My life is a mess, my room is a mess, my finances are a mess, my head and heart are a mess.
He left me with this great big mess and is going to go and have a happy life with his 21 year old girlfriend and I am left here with the mess he left behind and his cats.
It sickens me to no end. I sicken myself and don’t know if I can ever recover from the hurt I caused and the hurt he caused.
None of my friends really want to talk to me because of all that has happened.
I can’t face my roommates friends and family since he took his credit card number and banged it out.
My next door neighbor has the cops watching her house every now and then because she is afraid he will come back and try to steal from her or something.
When I see a picture of him, I cry missing him. I am doomed.. or at least I feel doomed.
Does it ever end?