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
Kathleen,
What you write makes perfect sense to me. Due to family circumstances I learnt to take on the carer’s role early in my life. I got well used to walking on eggshells, to tolerate and understand “tantrums”. That’s my own weakness/strength – it is something a nice person might appreciate and value; but it is also something a sociopath will use to manipulate me and to use me.
Luckyzb, the mistake we both made perhaps, because of our respective experiences with GOOD people suffering from a mental illness, was to think that Dr Jekyll was our sociopath’s real self – while the Mr Hyde we sometimes saw wasn’t. With sociopaths it is the opposite…they are Mr Hyde, while Jekyll is only an illusion…
Well, reading the book, I learned that I have been an “unsafe” person myself for different reasons. I tend to avoid confrontation and isolate myself, which makes me not a safe person for others, even though I have functioned as a support and good friend to many. The intense loneliness and isolation set me up to linger over a sociopath, even though I know it is a hopeless situation. He made me aware of my needs, which I’d just shut down, and now that longing is attached to him (don’t worry, not a chance I will ever contact him again).
I think part of the avoidance of confrontation, however, has to do with the fact that the people I need to confront are mostly at my job and are, themselves, not safe people for me to open up with. That puts me in a catch 22. I really think with a better support system, I could handle these stresses and harmful people at work more easily. Or maybe it would give me the strength and resources to look for another work environment. I will attempt to go to the Unitarian Universalist Church this morning to see what the group energy is like over there. Sometimes in my quest to make contact with others, I end up feeling even lonelier and more isolated in a group. I know I have a lot of hurt inside from the abandonment of my entire family and multiple men I’ve gotten close to. I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever be able to open up again. My therapist is unavailable for a few weeks over the holidays. It really sucks because I really need more support than what I have.
After two sessions, the 10 free sessions with her will end. The discounted rates she has offered me are still out of my budget, and I will have to say good bye to her as well. I honestly wonder if I will ever get better. I just feel so isolated. Sorry for the vent. Not doing good today.
i just got an email from someone who knew the boy on the website.
I don’t know that SHE isn’t one of the manifestations of the spath, I hadn’t thought so before, but who knows. he assertion of her profession doens’t seem right to me.
Seems that all the dead people (the boy and all) are now ALL active again. i am sure the story is that he NEEDED to DIE to get away from me, or another woman on the site.
i have to send her an email now, saying NO MORE email about these people. I haven’t told her what i know, cause i don’t trust her. and i am not going to tell her.
oh, i wanna barf. wow, i can feel the sucking sound of my sould being f**ked with. wow, this is an intense feeling. i have to stay calm and not do or say anything that i might regret.
the whole story or him having to ‘get away’ makes me want to barf – I had what were real feelings and a real relationship with this person – even though ‘he’ wasn’t real. I haven’t suffered the slander that most of you have. i have been attacked personally by the sock puppets – and some online slime, but this whole, ‘everybody else still oves me, and although I am a death blogger, lofe goes on.’ HITS ME ON A VISCERAL LEVEL – AND GETS PERSONAL, IN THE WAY THAT I KNOW SLAYS ME.
Oh, GFC!
Stargazer,
I also have recently started to see a counselor. And she to is on vacation for a few weeks for the holidays. And like you I am thinking I need her more now that ever before….Yikes.
I also live a pretty isolated life. My friends are all married and although we talk semi regularly on the phone, we live in different worlds.
I am not good with meeting new people. I am quiet and rather reserved when I don’t know someone, especially in a group setting. If out of my “element” I am uncomfortable with strangers. I worked in retail in some form or another pretty much all of my life. And I can relate to others just fine in that element. But in a unfamilar setting or a social function where I don’t know anyone, I suck.
Now that my son moved out, more than ever I need to do something different. I have been thinking about donating some time to a “good cause” and maybe bringing this up to my counselor. I live in a very small town. And alot of things are going on further from home such as habit for humanity, shelters, etc. But I know for myself it would be better for me if at first I commit to something closer to home, because driving a distance is not something I will be able to commit to early on. I am hoping she might be able to come up with something in my own community. Something I haven’t thought of.
I want to shift my thinking process…..And I think helping others might be the way to do this. I often wake up feeling emotionally depleted. And very stuck in the process of my healing journey….On the surface it doesn’t seem like I would have anything to offer anyone else. But I think that if I can get out of my own funk, even for a little while and do something constructive for someone else, I will gain a new perspective. At least that is what I am hoping.
I don’t know if this is something you have ever thought about or not? But like you I have a hard time opening up and meeting people. My reason for doing this is not for meeting different people but I will have to learn to deal with “new” people anyways in the long run. And that will be a good thing.
One Step – log out from that site – it’s toxic!!!
eilleen
i am not on the site – she emailed me.
i don’t look at twitter either – whcih is where she said that ALL the dead ones are now acitve – means the spath is rolling agian full bore.
said also anothe rwoman has been ‘chatting’ (what the hell does that mean i this cyber world?) with all of them….girl SO WAS I. I tlaked dot 2 of them. TALKED. one person – different accent. SHE IS WAY TALENTED.
I can’t tell this woman this onfo. i am protecting myself. i told her i don’t want to know about any of this. SHE was one of the first people who suggested that two of them might be the same person…….
wow, my adrenaline is BIGGGG.
but yping here is good. it will ground me in REALITY. oh, that’s funny. web real. ha.
wow, this is how they steal your life. just like this. i didn’t even have contact with the spath – just one of the duped people around her. and this one isn’t even that duped.
this is painful.
gonna go take me some adrenal support.
One Step,
Breath, Exhale…..
This is why it is difficult if not impossible to deal with this if you don’t go full N/C. Everytime you hear even through a third party something about the S/P/N it will continue to trigger you in a downward spiral.
It isn’t WORTH it. It puts you in a position where you have to start from ground zero again.
It is an addiction. Your brain is treating this as such and you have to as well.
Reading a simple email with referance to your S/P is the same as having a beer for a recovering alcoholic……Or shooting up for a junkie.
We are POWERLESS over this and N/C is the only way to detox.
There is no easier, softer way. I wish there was.