The New Year brings you a great opportunity to change your life for better health and well-being. In preparation for a better life, consider how recovering from loving a sociopath/psychopath is like recovering from addiction. Since the New Year is an opportunity, let’s take the time to focus on recovery.
A good friend of mine is struggling with substance addiction. This addiction is very similar to what many of you face because my friend was highly functioning before the addiction which started at mid-life. Before the addiction, he functioned well and was very productive. There is no obvious reason for my friend to be now at the verge of death from stimulants.
When we recently discussed his addiction, I asked my friend to consider what goes through his mind at the moment he decides that the best thing for him to do with his time is to use speed. I admitted being baffled about why he would make that choice. There are so many other ways he could spend his time and he knows that. He said, “When I don’t use, I feel great”¦ Then I use”¦I am an addict.”
Although I am generally in favor of people identifying their problems, in this case, “I am an addict” seemed like a quick excuse used to avoid really taking responsibility for his choices. After some reflection he did say to me, “You are right, it feels like a compulsion, but I guess it is a choice.”
Maybe you face a similar struggle. Instead of battling addiction, you are battling the love you feel for a sociopath. Just like my friend, even though you feel a compulsion to call the sociopath, you too have a choice to make. You can either choose to spend your time doing things that will bring you health and wellness or you can choose to spend time with that sociopath/psychopath.
During our talk, my friend reflected that he feels empty and bored at the time he chooses to use. The speed is a quick fix for the emptiness and boredom.
Many of you go about your lives just fine, then you end up home alone one day with nothing to do. Feeling bored, it suddenly occurs to you that your best choice is to call that sociopath. At the moment of boredom and emptiness all the pain the person caused you is not accessible to your consciousness. All you think about is the fun you had together. This fun is a marked contrast to the boredom and emptiness you feel in the moment. Since you feel sentimental, you think it is OK to make that call.
If you are waiting to feel repulsion for the sociopath before you disengage, you may be waiting for a very long time. The pleasant memories may always be tied to the love you feel which will be activated when you slow down and give yourself time to think. You have to make a conscious decision to make better choices for yourself. This decision has to be independent of however you feel in the moment. The decision to break away and remain free is a leap of faith in the belief that your future can be better “sociopath free.”
OK so how did you get to this place where you decide your best option is to choose to be with a sociopath/psychopath?
Just like my friend with speed addiction, during the relationship, you gave up on many of the activities that used to be meaningful to you. Also like my friend, you left friends, family members and hobbies behind. Maybe you also now surround yourself with other very dysfunctional people.
Getting free means choosing to spend your time in healthier ways; it means connecting with the love you feel for the friends and family members you abandoned when you chose the sociopath. You have to reconnect to the “you” that existed before this relationship.
You also have to admit that it is very selfish for you to hold on to your love for the sociopath. You likely have people who are counting on you to be a friend, parent or devoted family member. You can’t be there for others who need you as long as you hold on to the sociopath. Stopping then, means thinking of those other people. You do have a duty to them, much more than you have a duty to the sociopath.
You might benefit from combining all your New Year’s resolutions into one: Resolve to live a life of greater physical, psychological and spiritual well-being.
Make a commitment to fill your boredom and emptiness with activities that will build you up and make you healthy. If you are overweight, the CDC says you need an hour of exercise each day. There is a world out there full of fascinating possibilities, you can find them if you try.
Now I’d like to introduce you to a couple of friends who have brought joy, meaning and healing to my family. Each day when we walk and play with our dogs, the dysfunction brought into our lives by a psychopath feels very far away.
Use the comment section below to make your own lists of things you can do in the New Year, rather than wasting your time and precious life energy with a sociopath.
Other articles on addiction to a sociopath:
Ask Dr. Leedom: I am really sick, aren’t i?
How does one ever get over the heartache of being taken by a con artist?
Why is this so hard for us mentally?
A deeper understanding of love, ourselves and the sociopath
Why you can be addicted to a sociopath
I don’t understand why I still care
Stargazer, my Christmas or New Year’s wish for you is that you dig deep into reality and come up repulsed by players. That you lose your appetite for men who flirt, men who are magnetic, charming. I have. Totally, even on television and in books, even when they are cast as the romantic leads, they just are a HUGE turn off for me. Too S like. Men who react to me first as a woman rather than a person, are a HUGE turnoff, even if I were single.
You are saying that your picker is broken. That is phrase from some book or some program, I forget which one. But the book Women Who Love too Much, (which is not one of my favorites) says the man how is offering real love will never feel as COMPELLING as one who is hooking into our unfinished traumas, etc.
Yet, I truly believe that even when it feels COMPELLING there are still red flags that we are picking up on. We CAN trust our gut, but just have to know that it is often bad stuff like addictions that COMPELL us. I think your picker may be off, but your red alert system is still working, when you pick the wrong one, so you are able to get out fast.
I wonder what would happen if you gave a boring guy a real chance with you. Hmmmmm…..
Sorry, I meant the man WHO is offering real love
Jah:
‘dig deep into reality and come up repulsed by players’
wow.
of all stripes: friends, families, business contacts, lovers.
JAH It was my physciatrist who said I need to fix my picker.
eileen: your SupersociopathII idea is hilarious!
one_step_at_a_time: Nice touch of humor for a game with TWO VERSIONS including dictionary of spath speak, and book of moves. Definitely would have educational component.
Not making light of how they can victimize others, but the fact that they often get caught at the games they play also speaks to their limited power and ultimately the good instincts of those targeted.
Level 8: got two GFs preg, one with twins, due a month apart. (I know a P that did this, the next births would bring his total at age 35 to 9 kids by 6 women.)
Level 9: skip out on child support even though the court ordered DNA tests are +
Level 10: get your mom to bail you out of jail for non support and keep on paying (she loses job and you go back to jail, move two spaces backwards)
Level 11: get one of the mothers of one of your children to put up bail to pay the support to the others (get a pass to easy street & Get out of jail free.)
Level 12: get picked up in your friends car you “borrowed” without telling him for DWI and the cops find an ounce of coke in the trunk and you get a felony rap for your friend’s drugs.
Level Unlucky 13: you beg your mom to hire you a lawyer cause it’s a bumb rap. She tells you to go to hell.
Level 14: your free attorney doesn’t speak English good enough for you to understand him and he makes a pass at you, which after you have rebuffed it, he gets across to you that he’ll see that you get 10 years for pithing him off.
level 15: you spend Christmas Eve in jail and Santa cant find you. Your cell mate is Bubba, who is 6’8″ tall, has an IQ equal to his shoe size and thinks you’re cute. He is lonely on Christmas eve and thinks the two of you should have some fun!
To be continued:
Oxy — I am so laughing out loud — you and Eileen have injected such great comic relief during this season to be jolly. And I am so enjoying a nonsense-free life away from toxic persons, and time off from working (with guilt-free permission granted by this self-employed woman)…
Oxy, there is an old poem that goes like this,–
“That stinking goat, on yonder hill,
feeds all day on Chloryphill!”
Love,
Gem.XX
I heard another funny one the other day!
“If Id wanted to listen to a real ass-hole,Id have farted myself!” LOL!!
Love, GemX
Dear recovering,
We sometimes get SILLY around here and I guess Christmas Eve is the night to do it when there is NO WHERE TO GO IN THIS NASTY WEATHER! Henry was right “the weather outside is FRIGHTFUL” I just checked the weather for kansas and looks like my son D can’t get on the road til Tuesday at the earliest cause of the Blizzard and my GF from Dallas just sent a photo of THEIR WHITE CHRISTMAS (thin, but white) so of all the miserable times for there to be horrible weather this is it.
At least ours will only be maybe an inch or so of snow late tonight or early morning, but will melt off before the day is over as will be above freezing. Hope we keep power though, so what else can you do EXCEPT LAUGH and be SILLY. I do have a TWISTED sense of humor sometimes, Henry calls me his “twisted sister” LOL and I guess I deserve it! LOL ROTFLMAO
I know that in REAL LIFE these creeps are NOT funny! And they do leave people with lives filed with pain and misery but sometimes just imagining them getting it back is fun for us “twisted sisters” and my little darling P son is sitting in prison tonight with no one but his cell mate adn will have a Christmas dinner tomorrow of VULCANIZED prepared turkey slices, and the dressing from the “lowest bidder’ on the supply chain for the Texas Department of Corrections. He used to work in the prison kitchen knows what the inmates do to the food (I won’t give you TMI on that) so hates to eat it. LOL
Bon appetite!