How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Early warning sign that a baby could grow up to be a psychopath

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UPDATED FOR 2023. Research suggests that a baby who prefers to look at a red ball, rather than a human face, may be at risk for developing callous-unemotional personality traits and could grow up to be a psychopath. Callous-unemotional traits, when seen in children, can precede the development of full-blown psychopathy. Researchers at King's College in London studied five-week old babies. They hypothesized that babies who paid more attention to an inanimate object, rather than a human face, would show higher callous-unemotional traits when they were two and a half years old. The researchers were right. Callous-unemotional Psychologists who study the origins of antisocial behavior …

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Understanding why the sociopath is just like your parent

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Most people who call me for personal consultations want to talk about an abusive romantic partner. They want to know if their partner is a sociopath, and usually, based on their story of lies, manipulation, cheating, stonewalling, gaslighting and sometimes violence, the answer is yes. Then, as we talk about how they were vulnerable to this person, they say that the sociopath is just like their parent. For example, here's a letter that I received from a Lovefraud reader: I was involved with a narcissist in 2013 and after a year of being with a complete nut case went no contact. (Can write a short story about it.) It's taken a few years but free now in my mind. My father is a narcissist …

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Her husband was engaged in theft, embezzlement and laundering money

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Editor’s note: Here’s a story submitted by a Lovefraud reader. Not only was the man she married cheating on her, but he was engaged in theft, embezzlement and laundering money. We met in an AOL IM chatroom in 2005, for people in their 40's. He lived more than 600 miles away from me. Two months after meeting online, we met in a public setting. He told me he was getting divorced when I first met him online: lie #1. He was still married; however, his wife at about that same time had found out about other affairs he had had locally, and left him the weekend he drove out here to meet me in person. Prostate cancer He found out he had prostate cancer 6 months after meeting me, had his prostate …

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Sociopathy is not illegal, so how do we deal with wrongdoing?

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All sociopaths lie. Their objective in just about every social interaction is to exploit and manipulate whoever is in front of them. Yet even though their behavior is atrocious, unethical and immoral, sociopathy is not illegal. People aren’t arrested because they have a personality disorder. So when we’ve been wronged by someone whom we believe is disordered, how do we deal with it? Sociopaths definitely cause harm, but some harm is “actionable,” to use a legal term, and some isn’t. What that means is some behavior can be subjected to legal consequences, and other behavior cannot. When we’ve been wronged by a sociopath, we need to evaluate what response is possible, and what is in our own be …

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The ulterior motives in good times with the sociopath

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Yes, it is possible to have good times with a sociopath. They can be the life of the party, exciting and entertaining. They can enjoy sports, movies, museums, exotic cars, fine dining and all kinds of music. They can love to travel, from local road trips to round-the-world voyages. And through all these adventures, they can create special, unforgettable moments. Correction: The moments seem special and unforgettable at the time. But once you come to the painful realization that the person you shared them with is a sociopath, you’re faced with another shock: All those good times with the sociopath were fake. Traveling with my sociopathic ex-husband I shared multiple memorable experiences …

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Is Byran Kohberger a psychopath?

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Two months ago, Bryan Kohberger was arrested and charged with the murder of four college students in Idaho. I wrote an article about him on Lovefraud, in which I compared what was known about his actions to the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R). Is Bryan Kohberger a psychopath? The PCL-R is the gold standard for evaluating an individual’s level of psychopathy, especially in criminal situations. Surprisingly, Kohberger did not seem to score very high on the PCL-R. Since then, more has been learned about Kohberger’s actions. Stunning details were released in the police probable cause affidavit, which laid out the evidence for his arrest. According to the affidavit: DNA was det …

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6 behavior modifications that psychopaths will never internalize

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Many of us may be dealing with a psychopath and not realize it. The person’s behavior is so inconsistent — one minute he’s calm, and the next minute he’s raging. She can seem so warm, and then she’s cold and uncaring. So we wonder, sometimes they’re just fine — do they just need therapy to help them stabilize? The answer is no. I’ll explain six behavior modifications that psychopaths will never internalize. Training with Dr. Robert Hare Back in 2004, I traveled to Great Falls, Montana, to attend a workshop with Dr. Robert Hare, a top psychopathy researcher and author of Without Conscience — the disturbing world of psychopaths among us. The book perfectly describes my ex-husband, and it’s …

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To help or not to help — ask yourself these 7 questions

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Many of us are inclined to help people when we are asked. But if the person doing the asking is a sociopath, the request for assistance may lead to outright exploitation. If you’re debating whether to help or not to help, pause and ask yourself these seven questions. The questions come from hard experience. For those of us who have been exploited by a sociopath, here’s a true but frustrating observation: They couldn’t have done it without our own cooperation. Yes, some sociopaths are complete criminals who rob people at gunpoint. But usually, sociopaths use manipulation. They love bomb, flatter and plead that we’re the only one who can help them. Unfortunately, they’re really good at convin …

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Love Fraud Book Excerpt: A diamond commitment from my true love

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My first book, Love Fraud — how marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan, tells the outrageous true story of my sociopathic ex-husband’s betrayal. But it is also a story of healing. This is the final installment of my Valentine’s Day series of excerpts from my book about finding my true love. To catch up, I invite you to read: Excerpts describing my ex-husband’s lies and cheating. Excerpts describing my healing journey. By Donna Andersen Terry retained his job, but a few years later his employer closed his office and wanted him to work from home. We were happy, he no longer needed to live near the office, so we decided that he would move in with me. We planned a big m …

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Name a cockroach after your ex and feed it to a wild animal

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For Valentine’s Day, get revenge against your ex with help from the San Antonio Zoo! With their Cry Me a Cockroach Fundraiser, you can name a cockroach, veggie or rodent after your ex, and it will be fed to a wild animal. All it takes is a donation to the zoo — $5 for a veggie, $10 for a cockroach and $25 for a rodent. You’ll receive a downloadable Valentine. You also have the option of sending your ex a downloadable Valentine, informing them that they’ve been fed to an animal. For an extra $150, the San Antonio Zoo will create a video of the animal chomping, symbolically, on your ex, with your own special message. Video of bird eating a cockroach For more information, go to Cry Me a Cockr …

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