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
thanks witsend.
i didn’t expect this email at all. i don’t trust this woman so can’t tell her the truth. and i am blown away that she has gone from thinking that two people were the same to saying that now she thinks they are ALL seperate people…..and i know that ‘they’ are all one person. it is this thing about what IS real. and knowing who/ what the spath is has been very positive for me…and her suggestin otherwise and that she has proof is what sent me right f**king off.
I wouldn’t want to hear anything from her about this, EXCEPT i know who and what she is, and her name is, and she lies at.
See, it IS diffe than knowing someone in hard copy – but the end is the same – we know what they are and others don’t. in this case other folks don’t know it is one person and that that person is a spath. when we know them in real life, people don’t beleive they are spath. amounts to the same thing.
BUT for me KNOWING IS MY FREEDOM. And to have the most suspicious one of the bunch question that was like having the soaped up slide beneath my feet YANKED.
this woman – if not one of the manifestaions of the spath, is now unwittingly part of the problem. it just scared the shit out of me. wow.
so i have told her – don’t wanna know about this at all.
I have to check if I can block her email address.
I have blocked her address.
One Step,
Good for you 🙂
Star:
With every step…..we learn.
Our therapists are guides……we can do it further and we can figure it out.
You KNOW….there is so much info to learn from…..and we can be our own teachers!
I so agree with your statemenst about avoidance of confrontations etc….
I think, early on…..I ‘learned’ (from the S) NOT to confront…..as he was very confrontational…..over time, he handled all the confrontational issues…..
He used to say….he was honest……
NO, he was rude and confrontational with his own opinions.
I learned to lean on him to handle all issues with employees, and whatnot’s…..
This was a huge lesson for me, once i separated and life became ONE BIG confrontation……from Dr’s to Lawyers to family to clients etc…..
I took the bull by the horns and bit the bullet.
If I had an issue to address…..I held my breath and dealt with it…..and guess what…..It didn’t kill me! So the more i did it…..the better I got at it….now it doesn’t phase me….
the former EB would bite the bullet and take the brunt….
if someone bounced a check to me…..I was afraid of conftonting them and asking them to make good on the check…..HOW DUMB IS THAT????? I owned thier problems…..
NOW….I get the money AND the bounced check fees…..I didn’t do anything wrong!!!
Just take GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF!!!!
Work it out and remain strong and wise!
MULDOON:
Good to see you posting.
I’ve thought about you after the last ‘crisis’ and you just disappeared.
Just stay true to yourself…..try and live in reality and NEVER BE AFRAID OF BEING ALONE.
You owe it to your children to protect them, and you owe it to yourself to be happy.
1. rule…..be honest with yourself!
Good luck darling.
XXOO
EB
i’ve calmed a bit. sitting here thinking, i need to treat this woman from the site like she IS the spath.
I am so glad I didn’t give any info up to her. didn’t try to out the spath.
the sense of freezing i have been having is clearer to me now, after this experience. freezing wasn’t a repsonse to, ‘I have to get away form the spath to have a life’, but that ‘there was life anywhere.’ that make sense to the feeling of root instability
that should have been, ‘ there was NO life anywhere for me.’
upset one step no the best typist.
I feel terribly alone.
Everyday I work to get the sock puppets into the shoe – to remember that the beautiful boy does not exist. That none of them do; but that the ‘crazy ones’ – the sis and the bf, are the abusive side of the spath, and the ‘beautiful boy’ is the one that lured me in.
And today – with the email from someone who also knew ‘him’ and her saying that ‘they’ are in fact ‘all’ different people, has just shook me.
i have to go over in my head how i know that to be true:
1) the spath faked 4 deaths, – then called me 6 weeks after the ‘beautiful boys death’, as the ‘beautiful boy’. okay – that just means ‘he’ is a death blogger;
2) I used every detail I had to look for traces of ‘his’ existance on the interent. nothing. I enlisted the help of others in towns he said he had lived in. I kept looking.
2) the spath called FROM HER HOME NUMBER ‘resurrection day.’ I googled the area code. It was from the same state that ‘he’ was sometimes visiting;
3) the 411 on the number showed the ‘other people in the household’. I googled them. The wife in the household had an alias. I googled the alias;
4) the alias led me to an article in a nationally known and respected weekly, about a con artist, who duped a woman online and on phone for 2 years as a guy and THEN, when HE died, moved into the greiving gf’s house as ‘his’ sister;
5) which led me to a youtube video of the grieving gf’s friends evicting the spath from the grieving gf’s house, and a voice clip, that although the accent is diff, and she is a big ol’ middle aged woman – is definitely ‘HIM’;
7) and to the psaths blogs under her own name, whcih contained details that are VERY familiar to me;
8) and to the grieving gf’s blog, which also contained details very familiar to me – including WRITING SAMPLES that match some of the ones I have;
9) I contacted the weekly to verify the story as non fiction, which they did;
10) I contacted the greiving gf (ggf) and asked for the court information I would need to verify the fraud case she has against this woman;
11) the ggf sent the info and her attorney’s url
12) I checked the details through the county clerk’s website and the lawyer’s site, and verified the law suit;
13) I googled the lawyer to see if SHE existed, she does;
14) I spoke with the lawyer, who directed me to the AG;
15) I spoke with the AG, (who I also googled).
wow, I may have to do this several times a day.
first line should have been, ”how i know that to NOT be true.”
Wow, a lot of posts while I was gone. One step, you’re doing great–it’s really better not to know what they’re up to. You can assume it’s no good. I am nicknaming your S “Lazarus” because he/she/it seems to keep coming back from the dead! What a tool!!!!
So I went to the Unitarian Universalist Church gathering today and had brunch. I’m not a churchy person, but these people accept all religions and encourage free thinking. I sat next to a couple that I really enjoyed talking to. The woman and I talked for nearly 2 hours and are planning to continue a friendship. I certainly didn’t expect this to happen. Not that it takes away the pain I’m in from the unresolved grief, but it’s the beginning of building a support network. I think I will keep going back to this church and join some of the free groups. I may even get to bring one of my snakes to educate the kids about reptiles this summer.
I can relate to what all of you (witsend, EB, and one-step) are saying. I really needed to hear that I did good by getting away from this latest player after only a few days, not to beat myself up for being so fucked up. The more I read self-help books, the more fucked up I feel. I think I just need to stop reading them.
I got an intuitive reading last week by a woman I had a good reading from in the past. She usually uses tarot cards, but this time she just did an inuitive reading. I was asking her about career change and whether I should pursue more advanced massage. She said she saw me as a healer, but not a massage therapist. Maybe doing counseling. She also saw me working with abused kids and maybe fostering them. It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time but never felt “safe” enough in myself to be a safe person for someone else. I still don’t think it’s appropriate until I deal with more of my own issues.
EB, I’ve also had to do a lot of confrontation, and it’s still hard for me, especially when it comes to work relationships that have crossed the lines into friendships. I got burned pretty badly last year with one of these, and I wish I could just keep these people at a distance without being so friendly and close to them.
Thanks, as always, for all the support.