By Ox Drover I recently read A Mind of Its Own—How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives, by Cordelia Fine, Ph.D. Dr. Fine was awarded a degree in experimental psychology from Oxford University, an M.Phil. in criminology from Cambridge University, and a Ph.D. in psychology from University College in London. She is currently a research associate at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne in Australia. This book is very entertaining and as the book jacket says, In recent years, we've heard a lot about the extraordinary workings of our hundred-billion-celled brain: its amazing capacities to regulate sensation, perception, thinking, and feeling, its a …
Almost drowning with the con man Andrew J. Harper
Editor's note: Andrew J. Harper, who conned multiple women in Australia, was sentenced yesterday to nine months in jail. Here's what we hear from one of his victims, Rochelle Fisher. "Rebecca Bell was there, she said the magistrate gave him an absolute drilling, and was not falling for any of his crap. She said the fact that the victims had children made him very angry. "Also, his lawyer said that he didn't get any financial gain from his victims, that they were along for the ride and enjoyed it, like staying in hotels etc. And the magistrate said 'Yes, but, they would not have paid it if he had told the truth.' "He has been ordered to pay back 22k to victims and hotels, but there …
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Recovering from the con man
Editor's note: Andrew J. Harper wasn't who he said he was. He wasn't a professional drag racer and he didn't own properties in Europe. But at least 17 women in Australia, New Zealand and the United States believed him—and many lost money because they did. Two of his victims, Diana Mors, who posts on Lovefraud as “AJH_Victim1,” and Rebecca Bell, worked together to find the truth, and the con man was finally arrested in October, 2010. The women told their story in the January 2011 issue of The Australian Woman's Weekly, and then in the North West Star. Read: ”˜How I caught a con man' on NorthWestStar.com.au With the publicity, the women have been contacted by many victim …
BOOK REVIEW: The 48 Laws of Power
By Ox Drover Many times on Lovefraud, bloggers have joked with me that a particular phrase or behavior “came out of the ”˜Psychopath's play book,'“ the kind of book in which a football team would write all their usual plays. I recently bought a book entitled, The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene, because it sounded like an interesting book. But the more I got into it, I realized that the heretofore-thought-mythical “Psychopathic Play book” does exist, and this is it! Robert Greene, by the way, also wrote The Art of Seduction. Here's what the jacket blurb on the back of The 48 Laws of Power says about its content: The best-selling book for those who want POWER, watch P …
Denial is a protective device
By Ox Drover Someone was talking about how she should have seen what her ex-significant other was up to with all of his sweet words. He was in prison, and telling her how he had changed and found the light and how wonderful things would be when he got out. She knew what he had done to get in there, the bad acts he had committed, but she chose to believe his “sincere remorse.” Now she wanted to know why she had been so stupid. She wasn't “stupid—”she was using denial to protect herself from something so painful the thought of it “scared her to death.” Years ago, when I was married the first time, my husband and I were friends with a couple. I felt close friendship with both the man an …
How to clarify your thinking about disordered personalities
Editor's note: The following guest post was written by Bruce Rubenstein, M.D., a psychiatrist based in New York City. Knowing how I know myself, and others ”¦ By Bruce Rubenstein, M.D. Introduction In this piece, when referring to psychopaths, sociopaths, the personality disordered, malignant narcissists, etc, I shall refer to them as pronouns in italics, as I believe they are all one and the same on a continuum. The various widely used terms to designate them (e.g., sociopath, malignant narcissist, etc.), mostly all clinical in derivation, all carry with them associations and assumptions of which I believe much is incorrect and misleading. So rather than evoking those ass …
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1001 Things I Did Wrong In Dealing with a Psychopath
By Ox Drover After reading Steve Becker's article yesterday, I commented that most of the articles here on Lovefraud that could be entitled “1001 Things I Did Wrong in Dealing with a Psychopath” were the ones that applied most to my own dealings with them. That was meant as a joke, but after I left that comment for Steve, I got to thinking about how right-on it was, joke or not, because I have done so much wrong in dealing with these people. I got my self deeper and deeper into trouble, doing the wrong things in interacting with them. Not that I was intentionally doing something mean or “wrong” per se, but I didn't make choices that led to positive outcomes in dealing with the psychop …
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RESOURCE PERSPECTIVES: How sociopaths mess with your head
Editor's note: Resource Perspectives features articles written by members of Lovefraud's Professional Resources Guide. Sarah Strudwick, based in the UK, is author of Dark Souls—Healing and recovering from toxic relationships. She has also created a wonderful animation that describes the antics of a sociopath, called Exposing the Mask of Insanity. View the animation here. Getting your head out of the washing machine By Sarah Strudwick Sarah Strudwick profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide I often receive emails from people asking me to talk about different subjects. One recent subject was the mind-bogglingly creative ways in which a sociopath will literally mess w …
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Traveling the distance
By Ox Drover I got to thinking the other day about how our strength and ability to carry an emotional load of “stress” is sort of like a long-distance walk or ride or race. People who travel in various long distance endurance races, or just for their own purposes, have to limit the amount of weight that they carry. Some people who do long distances on foot even cut the handle off their toothbrushes to reduce the load they have to carry by even a fraction of an ounce. If I had to carry a five pound sack of flour to our local post office, which is about three miles away from my farm, up and down several steep hills, I could do it without a great deal of time involved, but would probably l …
Don’t call it a diet–call it a lifestyle change
By Ox Drover I slipped into an unhealthy lifestyle after my husband died six years ago. Slowly I let things deteriorate until I had gained a significant amount of weight, about 10 pounds a year. I started to feel bad and wasn't really sure just why, but in the back of my mind I knew I had ignored the “red flags” of that needle on my scale creeping up. I had been in “denial” with, “Oh, it's just a couple of pounds.” Many times I have realized that my life has been “out of whack” just a little bit at a time, that I have been doing unhealthy things that didn't immediately impact my life dramatically, but just a “little bit at a time.” Like a bucket filling up one drop at a time, eventually …