How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Con man smiles and winks as he’s sentenced for scamming four women

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Mauricio Palomino, a contractor in New York City, was sentenced to three to nine years in prison for scamming his former girlfriends. Apparently he thought it was funny. He laughed and joked with his lawyer, and then winked at a news photographer as he was led out of the courtroom. Palomino took a total of $80,000 from four women between 2012 and 2014. He racked up charges on their credit cards and accepted loans from them that he never repaid. He was also accused of threatening several of his victims. Con man 'gigolo' was all smiles at sentencing, on NYPost.com. Construction boss accused of moonlighting as gigolo to swindle lovers, on NYPost.com. …

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‘Dark core of personality’ — what antisocials, psychopaths, sadists and other miscreants have in common

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Is the disordered person in your life antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, psychopathic — or perhaps even Machiavellian or a sadist? You may have struggled to figure out which definition applies, perhaps reasoning that a narcissist isn't as bad as a psychopath. In reality, all of these disorders are bad news — people who have them engage in similar destructive behavior. Now, research from Europe shows that all of these disorders share a common denominator. In a paper called The Dark Core of Personality, Ingo Zettler, a psychology professor at the University of Copenhagen, and two German colleagues, define the "D-factor" at the dark core. They write: All dark traits can be traced back …

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How much do psychopaths really cost our society?

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Kaboni Savage was a drug kingpin in Philadelphia. On his orders, his crew firebombed the home of a federal witness in 2004, killing six people, including four children. Savage was sentenced to death in May, 2013. A few months later, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote an article about the cost of prosecuting Kaboni Savage: Bill for Savage trial easily tops $10 million: No one protested when a federal jury recommended in June that Kaboni Savage be put to death. In just a few years, Savage had left a grisly trail in North Philadelphia. He gunned down one man, ordered the killing of five others, and directed the 2004 rowhouse firebombing that killed four children and two women. The …

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Reality TV surgeon and his girlfriend charged with drugging and molesting women

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Grant William Robicheaux, 38, a California orthopedic surgeon, and his girlfriend, Cerissa Laura Riley, 31, have been charged with drugging and sexually assaulting two women. Authorities say there may be more victims. The couple had video taped hundreds, if not thousands, of sexual encounters with women. Four years ago, Robicheaux appeared on the Bravo television show, Online Dating Rituals of the American Male. It sounds like these two should star in a show called, Dating Rituals of Depraved Predators. O.C. surgeon, girlfriend, charged with drugging, sexually assaulting women, on Foxla.com. Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader. …

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One predator priest abused five sisters in the same family — now they tell their stories

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[youtube_sc url="https://youtu.be/82PnomOYJ-E"] One predator priest, Father Augustine Giella, groomed and sexually assaulted five girls from the same family — the Fortneys, of Enhaut, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg. The abuse began in 1982, when Giella was assigned to their parish, but none of the girls talked about what happened until decades later. The family received a settlement from the Diocese of Harrisburg. It was accompanied by a gag order. Only now, after the recently released grand jury on sexual abuse in Pennsylvania's Catholic churches, are they talking. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported their story today. And in the same issue, the newspaper also told the story of Corey …

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Attracting better partners by releasing unhealthy beliefs

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Lovefraud received the following letter from a reader whom we'll call "Emilie": I won't go into the long, boring details of my 7+ year relationship with the sociopath that invaded my life. It's the same basic story as always and plus, I think there's some kind of email size limit. :) Ever since I ended the engagement over 3 years ago, and finally terminated the relationship itself another year after, I've made comments (in a lighthearted, self deprecating fashion) that, "if you're going to treat me like crap, then I'm the girl for you!" Yes, it gets chuckles from the people I'm around, but sadly it's true. I was watching a movie last night and was judging the characters on their level …

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Trust after betrayal by the sociopath

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For everyone here at Lovefraud, there came a time when we could no longer continue in denial. We were forced to admit that someone we trusted had betrayed us. We felt devastation, anger, humiliation, grief and every other negative emotion on a therapy checklist. We also berated ourselves for our naiveté, kicked ourselves for our gullibility, and castigated ourselves for trusting someone who shouldn't have been trusted. Overwhelmed by pain, we may have vowed that we would never trust again. Hold on. As human beings, we need to trust. Human society is built on trust. The key is to determine who is trustworthy, and who is not. Trust and human society I wrote previously about Paul …

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10 typical emotional abuse tactics that the experts don’t even measure

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No wonder mental health professionals don't seem to understand emotional abuse. In trying to conduct research about it, they don't even have a comprehensive list of typical emotionally abusive behaviors. Here are 10 behaviors that Lovefraud readers experience, time and time again, from their sociopathic partners. How many have you seen? You're blamed for everything; it's all your fault. Your partner flirts with others and cheats on you. Your partner disappears — you have no idea where he or she is, and when, or if, he or she will return. Your partner does or says something incredibly hurtful — and then acts like nothing happened. You get the silent treatment. Your par …

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Sociopaths as chameleons — they become whatever they need to be for their latest scam

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My sociopathic ex-husband, James Montgomery, considered himself to be an entrepreneur, the equal of any man who ever built a commercial empire. As he was seducing me, painting a glimmering picture of how successful and rich we would become, he proclaimed that he would be "the next Walt Disney." When Montgomery went to business meetings, he wore a jacket, trousers, and a polo shirt. He refused to wear ties, but he always had a silk square in his jacket pocket. He told me that even when he was young, he always dressed up in jackets and cravats, eschewing the psychedelic fashions of the 60s. (For more about my story, it's all in my book, Love Fraud.) So you can imagine my surprise when I …

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Sociopaths leave us totally disoriented — here’s why

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Most of us grow up believing that all people are created equal, that human beings are basically good, and everybody wants to be loved. These are the messages we learn in school, in church, and in the age of political correctness, from the media. These beliefs are the lenses through which we view the world and the people in it. Our beliefs influence how we perceive and understand the behavior of those we meet. And, for 84 percent of the population, the beliefs work just fine. Bad treatment Then we realize that someone in our life isn't treating us well. We may think this person is reacting to our behavior, that we're doing something to provoke anger or elicit criticism — after all, t …

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