By Ox Drover Going through my family photos I came across one of my two oldest sons. We had gone on vacation to Montana to visit a friend for the summer in 1981. They were about 10 and 11 years old. My friend took us around to all the local sights and showed us some old gold mines dug back into the solid rock. In the photo made that summer, I saw my sons, both kneeling on a huge rock about five feet from the edge of a stream of rapidly flowing water, with a gold pan in their hands. My friend had put a handful of sand from the edge of the creek into the wok-shaped pan and showed them how to swirl the sand in the bottom and let the rushing water wash away the lighter sand, and told them that …
Normal behavior and the sociopath
Last week I did something that I really didn't want to do. Thursday evening, I went out in the cold and rain to sit through a “customer appreciation” dinner at the dealership where we leased our car. My husband, Terry, wanted to go, but he couldn't, because he just had knee surgery and was supposed to stay off his feet. So he put on his best smile and cajoled me into going. The event included a drawing for a big, flat-screen TV, and to win, all we had to do was show up. There wouldn't be many people there, so our chances were good. I knew I wouldn't win the TV. I'm not the lucky one—he is. Plus, we don't need a TV. The one we have is fine. But Terry, like most men, is a gadget guy. He reall …
What’s the most important thing the sociopath took from you?
By Ox Drover What's the most important thing the sociopath took from you? Money? Love? Your home? Your self-esteem? Sex? Or, is it something else, which in my opinion may be even more important than just about anything? The most important thing I think I lost from every sociopath I ever dealt with was my own confidence in myself to make assessments about people and then, reasonable choices about those people, based on those accurate assessments. Many former victims have said that they just have trouble “trusting others” again after being totally hoodwinked and ripped off for so many important things in their lives by the sociopath. Is it others that they don't trust, though, or are the …
What’s the most important thing the sociopath took from you?Read More
Running your life like a business
By Ox Drover Most victims and former victims of sociopaths are extremely capable and smart people, so why exactly did these really smart people go “bankrupt” in their personal lives by letting a sociopath take over? That's a question that has plagued me since I started on the road to healing. I've always been a pretty astute businessperson and an excellent manager of both personnel and resources in my professional life. Why did I do so well in my professional life and go so wrong in my personal life? I finally came to the conclusion that I ran my business like a business and I let my personal life be run in a very ”un-businesslike” manner. I'll use my farm as an example. I had a herd of c …
Exposing the sociopath
Last week Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a reader: I would like to expose the person who bilked me for thousands of dollars. I am going to file a claim in small claims court so there will be some public record, but I thought about having a web site that would be linked when someone Googled his name. Is this legal? If I tell only the truth about him, is that legal? I want to protect other women from this sociopath; I don't know how. I thought if people were able to Google his name and know about his lies and deceit, they could have the knowledge I never did and could make better choices than me. Any and all information would be helpful. Many people have asked the same …
Experiencing the impact of grief, Part 2
By Ox Drover In Part I we looked at what grief is and what “stages” we may pass through when we lose something or someone of great importance to us. We saw that grief can be “legitimate,” in which others “support us” by validating that we have a reason to be sad over the loss. Yet, there can be “disenfranchised” grief, grief that others do not view as “legitimate” reasons for grief, or shameful private grief that we cannot share. In their attempts to “help” us, many people make fumbling attempts to “cheer us up” or to trivialize our pain, or attach “reasonable” time limits to how long we are able to grieve, which disenfranchises our pain. Since most people view “grief” as equal to “Sadness …
Experiencing the impact of grief, Part 1
By Ox Drover Many of the people who have been victims of a sociopath have commented here at Lovefraud about how much “different” breaking up with a sociopath is than a “regular” break up, how much more painful. I've read comments from former victims about how intense the feelings are after being conned by a sociopath whatever the relationship has been, whether family member, spouse, lover, or child. I have also felt these same profoundly hurtful feelings as I have worked my way along the difficult and rocky road toward healing. Even though my profession was as a registered nurse practitioner, and I've studied “the grief process” as outlined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, one of the people who ha …
Disturbing cases of atypical abusers
Last week, Lovefraud readers brought two disturbing cases of abuse to my attention. The cases were disturbing because of the depraved actions of the perpetrators, and because most people would not suspect that they were predators at all. The Lovefraud reader BloggerT7165 sent me a link to the case of Jessica Banks, a 65-year old woman from Moreno Valley, California, who was convicted in July of 13 counts of child abuse and two counts of sexual penetration by force and fear. Two weeks ago she was sentenced to two consecutive life terms. The Lovefraud reader Ox Drover alerted me to a recent program on ABC's 20/20 called Handsome Devil: The man who spread HIV. It recounts the case of …
Sometimes “victory” is simply walking away upright
By Ox Drover Donna's great article about Victory, of a sort, over a sociopath the other day got me to thinking. Just what is “victory?” My wonderful stepfather was a young basketball coach when he got his first real job coaching for a very small rural school which had not had a winning game in over a decade. The team was dispirited and had no real expectation of ever winning a game. One of the local coaches bragged that he would beat them “by a hundred points!” at the next game. The team thought there was a good possibility that that coach's team could do just that. However, it is “good sportsmanship” for a coach playing a much weaker team to let their second, third, and fourth strings g …
Victory, of sorts, against the sociopath
Dennis SanSeverino is in jail. Trish Rynn, from whom he scammed more than $350,000, put him there. How did she do it? Legwork and persistence. Lovefraud initially posted this case on our True Lovefraud Stories page in February 2008. The headline is, First he flashes wads of cash, then he steals her home and inheritance. That pretty much sums up what happened to Trish Rynn. Unfortunately, Lovefraud has heard from plenty of people with similar experiences. They fell in love with the sociopath, trusted him or her, and lost everything. The difference with this case, however, is that Trish Rynn fought back. She reported him to New Jersey law enforcement authorities and actually got him …