Once you become aware of your emotional reactions to the sociopath through mindfulness [see previous article, Leaving the Sociopath: Gathering Strength and Losing Fear], it gives you more detachment from them. Instead of being immersed in a negative state (e.g. a state of panic created by your partner having a hostile behavior toward you, or perhaps your partner not coming home when they're supposed to), you also become -- in however slight a way -- an observer of it. This will help you feel more of a sense of control over your emotion. Trying to get the sociopath to understand your hurt, loneliness, etc, or meet one of your needs, is an exercise in futility. Now that you have more …
Prevent Theft of Your Child’s Identity
By Elaine Walker, Certified Fraud Examiner We're constantly bombarded with advertisements for products to keep us safe from identity theft. Let's separate the facts from scare tactics. According to the Institute for Fraud Prevention, 60% of identity theft is perpetrated by someone the victim knows: a family member, friend, or someone who has access to the victim's home. LoveFraud readers know that the sociopath in their lives would have no problem starting a new financial life using a child's identity. But just how much should you pay for protecting your child's identity (and your own)? According to a Consumer Reports article published in February, 2012 (and revisited in January, …
Love Fraud in the sick and twisted legal system, and the new law that may protect you
By Dr. Karin Huffer, Marriage and Family Therapist Jan and I sat in our first of what was to be many sessions dealing with her victimization from love fraud, followed by a twisted legal path in her pursuit of justice. She sobbed, holding crumpled papers in her hands revealing stabbing deceit. Her husband had blown the money she provided to pay bills and now her credit was damaged, bills were not paid, and the money was gone. She now suffers in isolation. Her friends are weary of the story, and she is tired of “I told you so” and “I thought something was wrong with him.” Shame digs deep into her heart and soul. How could she have been such a fool and now be so hurt and helpless? So famil …
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Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide: Mary Ann Glynn
First in a series of Q&A articles with members of the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide. Mary Ann Glynn is a licensed clinical social worker based in Bernardsville, New Jersey. Q. What experience have you had dealing with sociopaths or other disordered personalities—personally, professionally, or both? A. In my professional experience, sociopaths and disordered personalities are usually brought into therapy by a significant other, or by the court system for domestic violence or other charges. Since they are incapable of insight or empathy, they may engage initially in therapy to get validation or support, blame their partner, and/or show what they are willing to do for the r …
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Exercises for becoming detached from the sociopath
Before explaining the exercises in depth, let me explain what we have to get detachment from with the sociopath, in particular when s/he triggers “our inner victim.” We all have deeply ingrained reactions from childhood that are triggered in any committed intimate relationship. If you, for instance, had a good looking older sibling who did everything right and excelled in school, but you didn't, you might have an issue with not feeling “good enough” that gets triggered in your current relationship. It might come up in jealousy, or you may be waiting for your partner to wake up and realize he or she is with no prize and leave you. Perhaps you grew up in a home in which you were always correct …
What was Adam Lanza’s motive?
By Mary Ann Glynn, LCSW If we have recovered enough from past mass killings and felt safe once more, here we are again. An even more heinous massacre, families and a community destroyed for years, even generations to come. Sweet innocent children shot down in a bloody horror, and the adults who tried to protect them. Families who may never recover fully from the devastation of trauma and loss. Generations in Newtown to come that will resonate with it. A community that will perhaps never experience the magic of Christmas again. The children left who now have gone from a safe secure existence to a reality in which terrifying things are not in a distant fairy tale, they are real in whose …
Mary Ann Glynn, LCSW: How Sociopaths Target Us and How We Bite
By Mary Ann Glynn, LCSW, located in Bernardsville, New Jersey Before I go into explaining in more detail the exercises to help you gather strength and lose fear to leave the sociopath (from my last article) it would be helpful to know how and why we end up reacting to the sociopath and getting attached and controlled in the first place. Predators are extremely astute at quickly assessing and targeting our vulnerabilities, whether consciously or subconsciously. It's very empowering to start becoming aware of what those vulnerabilities are that hook us and keep us hooked. Self-awareness, or “mindfulness,” is the most essential tool in going forward. It means to become conscious of our rea …
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Leaving the Sociopath: Gathering Strength and Losing Fear
By Mary Ann Glynn, LCSW [Masculine pronouns are used for the sake of simplicity. Women, of course, can also be sociopaths.] You are feeling more desperate and miserable in this relationship with this person who you thought loved you. Over time you have experienced feeling less valuable, as you find your needs no longer seem important to him. Your feelings are not important. In fact, when you try to emotionally connect or bring up a hurt, a need, or a concern about something he did, it only seems to threaten him and make them act like a cornered animal. And, in the end, he acts victimized and you feel like the bad guy. There are many things about you or what you say or do that he cannot …
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Mary Ann Glynn, LCSW: Why We Don’t Believe in Badness
By Mary Ann Glynn, LCSW, located in Bernardsville, New Jersey Throughout graduate school for social work, when the professors were teaching us about how to establish a working therapeutic relationship with a client, they repeatedly drove into us to “have unconditional positive regard for the client.” Implied in that phrase is the stance that we cannot accurately help someone we have prejudged. We learned first and foremost to see the valuable human being behind the behavior, to have compassion, and understand the reasons that brought a person to their present circumstance, even if it is criminal behavior. People in the helping profession are there in the first place because they are hopeful …
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