By Sarah Strudwick Sarah Strudwick, based in the UK, is author of Dark Souls—Healing and recovering from toxic relationships. First of all I want to thank everyone who commented on the posts that I've written over the last couple of years. Recently I did a post on How to speed date a sociopath. Whilst I make every effort to move on with my life after the psychopath, occasionally something will come up that causes me to think “Why do they do that?” So the topic of this post is whether or not any of you have experienced the following: In my book Dark Souls, I wrote about an occasion where my ex moved my cash card. A week later I found it hidden behind a bottle of sauce on the top of …
How to speed date a sociopath
By Sarah Strudwick Sarah Strudwick, based in the UK, is author of Dark Souls—Healing and recovering from toxic relationships. For the three years since I broke up with the psychopathic ex I have remained single. I've met a few wannabe boyfriends, but unfortunately they have turned out to be disordered, so I never took it past the going for a coffee stage. Like many other victims, I've focused on my own recovery and have even written a couple of books on it to help other women. During the time I was dating this man, whom I call "Oliver" in the book, I was also friends with another man. We had met long before on a dating site but never consummated the relationship (i.e. had sex), and h …
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Are cats sociopaths?
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following from the Lovefraud reader who posts as NewLife43. I not only read Lovefraud to help me with the backlash from my 8-year relationship with my spath. I also read an interesting blog written by and for sociopaths, answering some of their questions, presenting criteria about what makes a sociopath what s/he is. It's very enlightening, particularly when I am sorely missing my ex-spath and need to remind myself why we are no longer together. Since it's on the Internet, the spaths are surprisingly honest. Sometimes, the posts can be very chilling, when they are honestly posting about the way they think, causing a shiver to run down my spine that I e …
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: I guess something good came out of this story
Editor's note: The following essay was written by the Lovefraud reader who posts as "Ms_Snowhite." I want to share with the readers at Lovefraud something that happened to me tonight, when I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn't fall back to sleep. You know, it was one of those moments when you suddenly wake up, your mind is clear of everything and you start thinking. So I was lying on the bed thinking about the spath again and how there would probably never be justice for the things he has done to me, and then, I had started to think about other people that had hurt me a lot by intention in the past too. You know, friends that had betrayed me, co-workers that were …
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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Whole relationships documented in phones is not proof of authenticity
Editor's note: The following article was written by a Lovefraud reader who uses the name "Transcendence." I had not received so much confirmation or documentation of being in a “relationship” before. The biggest problem was that he managed to rarely see me in person and he had a habit of cancelling and sometimes even “FORGETTING” dates. My first intoxicating Romantic Narcissist occurred 4 years ago and I had never experienced a suitor so sexy, seductive, intelligent, well written with poetic prose and boyishly handsome with seeming innocence. I remember waiting desperately for a return txt ”¦ or phone call ”¦ obsessively ”¦ this man could send me to heaven or throw me into the black abyss. …
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Religion, spirituality and sociopaths
Editor's note: This article was written by the Lovefraud reader "Adelade." It refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud's statement on Spiritual Recovery. Religious and spiritual beliefs are of extreme importance to people. More than their beliefs of themselves, people adhere to religious and spiritual doctrines because they give them a strong sense of continuity, comfort, and meaning. Teachings and rituals often fill in the gaps of what we cannot provide to ourselves or process as a result of living, dying, and the random events in Life that cause us to question, "Why did this happen?" The first thing that an invading culture or nation does is to take away or abolish the re …
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Cognitive Dissonance and the Psychopath
Editor's note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who posts as "Betsybugs." The term cognitive dissonance is used to describe the feeling of discomfort and confusion that results from holding two conflicting beliefs. When there is a discrepancy between beliefs or beliefs and behaviors, something must change in order to eliminate or reduce the mental conflict. Psychopaths use cognitive dissonance to entangle victims, to keep victims confused and docile and to create pain. My story is a story of cognitive dissonance. My cognitive dissonance began in childhood when my father would go into rages, chase one of his daughters into a corner and beat the living daylights …
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Why do they always come bouncing back like bad pennies
By Sarah Strudwick It's just coming up for three years now since I wrote Dark Souls, in the hope it would help other women who have been though the same as me. In January 2010 I kicked out my psychopathic ex after uncovering a string of lies which included working for a job that never existed, feigning cancer, multiple sexploits on the internet, and advertising his services as a sperm donor. The list goes on. Over the last three years I have worked tirelessly to get myself out of debt, educate others and, more important, heal from the abuse. Yet up until a couple of months ago, this person continued to stalk me. I've had to change my phone number three times as a result, and I lost a …
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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: I lost myself in the relationship with a sociopath
Editor's note: The following article was submitted by a reader who writes as "Buffalo Girl." The boy across the street. I remember him back in the late 70's. My family had moved into the new neighborhood. I was 12. He was the popular 13-year-old who always hung out with the cool boys who were years older than him. And they seemed to idolize him. I remember the second day in my new catholic grammar school ”¦”¦ me, the new girl, and him already there for years. But the teachers were fed up with him. Second day of school. The head nun and a few teachers surrounded him in the hall. They were already frustrated and ganged up on him. Saying they've had enough and were not going to take anoth …
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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: The sociopath didn’t take it all from us
Editor's note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who posts as "Adelade." I've experienced so much personal loss as a result of my second marriage that I don't know if I'll ever recover. I lost my belongings, all of my inheritance, and I nearly lost my will to live. When I returned home and the hot water wasn't coming out of the spigot, I took my little flashlight down to the basement - dirt and gravel floor, unheated, and housing a dead furnace. I opened the door to the basement and was met with a wall of warm, moist air and the sound of running water. It was 27 degrees, outside, and 37 degrees inside the shell of the dwelling where I'm currently liv …
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