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
Henry, ROTFLMAO I remember when you first told about that deal at Christmas with the presents! ROTFLMAO I think of all the “best lines by psychopaths” that one has to be THE ABSOLUTE BEST ONE!!! YOU WIN THE PRIZE FOR THAT ONE, HENRY!
I swear that has got to be the funniest one I have ever heard and there have been some darned good ones posted her on Love Fraud.
My egg donor’s two best don’t even compare to that one! The one where she said after the Ps went to jail and I had been telling her that they were after her money (which of course she wouldn’t believe) and after their arrest she said “But they were SO RESPECTFUL!” I wanted to say, “look dumbie, you don’t tell someone to get screwed while you are stealing money from them, you kiss their butt” LOL
The other one that was good (but still not as good as yours) was “I don’t want to talk about it, let’s just pretend that none of this ever happened and start over.” LOL That one was an eye opener for me. Funny in retrospect though.
I still am laughing over yours though, that is sooooo CLASSIC Henry!!!!
You guys, see if you can BEAT THAT LINE! Bett’ya no one can come up with a more arrogant or blame placing one that that! LOL
Ya’ll come’ona my house, I just pulled 6 holiday cakes out of the oven! love oxy
ah – just a wiki note – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany_Murphy
I liked her acting style – Especially in “Don’t Say a Word” with Michael Douglas.
_______
Back to the present: I’m glad, too, that Bird checked in! And Henry, I’m so glad that you held your own, even IF it didn’t feel like it at the time – you ROCK!
Happy Holly-Daze to all here on LF – I’ve been very busy back in school; headed to University next summer, so I’ve been reading here, but not posting much.
~j~
Jewels
Henry:
I think you handled the situation on Sunday brilliantly.
It’s a strong and powerful example of how to make No Contact work for you, even when the predator is getting right in your face.
I had my own situation Sunday at the tennis center when I went to play tennis.
I ran head-on into my ex-boyfriend’s “wingman”. I think you guys call someone like him a “trojan horse” on this site.
Anyway, not only did I run into him for the first time in about 8 years, the tennis pro said, “Rosa, you play doubles with “Wingman”.
Yes, the icing on the cake was that I had to play doubles with that asshole.
This guy knows ALL of the intimate details of my past relationship with my ex.
He did his share of “smearing” me, and carrying out other dirty deeds like vandalizing my property.
I have been a member at the tennis center for 7 months, and have NEVER run into this guy there before.
I don’t know, it’s probably a coincidence that I ran into him the Sunday before Christmas. But, playing doubles with him was a little too much.
I had to turn everything off to get through that tennis game. No emotions, and definitely NO TALKING.
Thank GOD tennis is a sport where it is good not to talk.
No one noticed how unhappy I was.
I just played the game, and got out of there when it was over.
I hope it never happens again, because it brought back a lot of horrible memories.
There is definitely something about the holidays that makes certain people crawl back out of the woodwork, though. There are too many examples to ignore.
Henry, I sort of like what Matt’s New Orleans neighbor said, “Son, if you gotta gun. Well use it!”
Nothing says, “GO AWAY” like bullet holes down the side of a new pick-up truck. 🙂
Just kidding, of course……….sort of.
~(If he shows up again with that truck, shoot from the window so you don’t have to open the door. Whatever you do, DON’T shoot the tires!!! He won’t be able to drive off.) 😉
Oxy: My favourite quote: (though not by a PNS but by my Grandma mother of my P-father, a N I think now, very selfcentered but very sweet towards me always):
“I would not have gone anyway to the party but at least they could have had invited me to it”!
(read: these bastards did not even give me the pleasure to say NO)
I am now thinking very hard of the most brutal scenario of making my resignment in about 5 days (I think I will go to resign to my biggest boss who likes me and who hired me officially 8 years ago, and let him tell my direct boss that I am going).
I have a friend who works close with our department and who attended rounds with my boss and the whole crew preparing the board when we discussed patients. I asked her whether she remarked any misstreatment of me, and she said of course but I just seemed so well composed, and it made the whole situation a little easier for all. And then she also said that it worsened with time, and as I told her that I was planning my exit for 9 months now, that it was of no importance to me what they were doing/saying to me, she laughed and said “Well you had them generate lots of useless energy to try to hurt you! You are SOOO mean 😉 ” We were laughing heartily drinking our usual Latte in her office after the board-preparing Libelle-bashing, and I felt so relieved. (I did not tell anyone besides my two/three very close friends about my plans).
I am very glad all turns out so well now; I am the well composed making another career-step, I am not washing any dirty laundry, and the people important to me GOT it and are telling me so in small phrases through the day, that they appreciate me for what I am, warts and all.
Ha, another wonderful one by my Granny: “Revenge is a very sweet syrup”. I now get a glimpse of the pleasures the NSP in my workplace must have felt by thinking of and putting up yet another humiliating situation specially nasty for.
Rosa, Henry, it seems that we are all just doing brillantly these days, thank you Rosa for your report. I just can imagine that you smashed the ball really hard, and you were very focused! Congratulations!!
Have you all a very merry happy Christmas! ((((Hugs))))
Dear Libelle,
Glad things are going well for you! Sometimes the best revenge we can have is to exit standing tall and with our dignity intact!
You have always been such a good example for us all! Your compassion and strength is remarkable! You know I wish you nothing but the BEST in the new year and in all that you do! (((hugs))) Oxy
ps Your grandmother must have been a “hoot!!”
Rosa I bet that was difficult. I applaud you for going ahead and playing tho. It will get back to your s-ex that you are doing great. Hope you pretended the wingman was the ball you were hitting… Oxy dont laugh but I remember feeling really bad for making him feel so small – I mean really I did…_LIbelle when one door closes another will open and we are much wiser these days, so I am sure you are making a good move….
Dear LoveFraud I remember asking how long will it take too let go, get over this? Two years. Now any glimer of hope that I might be wrong is gone. I have no feelings of love for him. About time don’t ya think? No hate, no hurt, no nothing. Thank you Evil One for setting me free when you knocked on my door sunday morning.
Der Henry, you terrible ruthless mean thingie you, buying all those gifts JUST TO MAKE HIM FEEL BAD because he didn’t get you any gifts! I ought to hit you with the RUBBER SKILLET! ha ah ha ha ah snort, laugh, choke, squeek,…breathe girl,…breathe…oh, that’ better. I swear henry you are going to give this old woman a choking fit one of these days, that is TOOOOO FUNNY (in retrospect) YOU feeling bad cause HE didn’t get you any gifts! But I know you are serious, that’s the WORST PART OF IT, we were SERIOUSLY pained for them when we “made them look bad” by being NICE! Well, you know the Bible says that by returning good for evil we “heap coals of fire on their heads”—-and normally that works with NORMAL PEOPLE, but I’ve never seen it work before with a psycholpath since they usually feel so entitled to people lbeing nice to them when they have acted like jerks, they don’t even notice,
But, Yours, Henry, actually noticed and then TURNED IT AROUND and made YOU FEEL BAD. Gosh, I think he needs some kind of AWAARD for being one of THEY Slimiest Ps. What kind of award can we give him> Hummmm, let me think of that—-I got it!!!
The TADPOLE AWARD, all they do is wiggle their tails and bottom feed in shallow water, and 99 times out of 100 some little fish comes along and eats them. If they do survive, they turn into a FROG but all the kisses in the world from all the princeses and princes won’t make their warts go away, and they are STILL FROGS living off insects and making big noises.
Yep, from now on the TADPOLE AWARD will belong to Mikey boy! He sure deserves it!!!!! ROTFLMAO Snort, choke, wheeze, okay, Oxy, Breathe…breathe, that’s a girl!
Great Crhistmas present too, Henry, maybe Santa was a little early this year for you. It is amazing the GIFTS we get, maybe not what we think we want but God puts what we NRRD, really really REALLY NEED in Santa’s sack (even Santa is using alternative delivery services this year! (ROTFLMAO, snort…stop it Oxy, you’ll swallow yer tongue laughing)
You NEEDED to come to indifference with that jerk and you got that for a Chistmas present, delivered to your door. Wasn’t what you expected, but sure what you NEEDED and didn’t even know it.
I NEEDED to know that I couldn’t personally speak to the Parole board (but OK HOW I WANTED TO!!!) and I got the knowledge that I can’t do that, it will be more effective if I let the attorney do the speaking for me….I finally got the Lessono, Lord! Thanks!!!….
But I do believe that these have been great Christmas presents for both of us Henry!!!! Lessons we needed to learn, even if we didn’t know we did need them, but I am GRATEFUL for mine and I know you are grateful for yours! So let’s the two of us CELEBRATE the BEST TWO GIFTS since the Gold, frankensense and Murhh (how ever you spell it)!
MERRY CHRISTMAS HENRY!!! HUGS–DANCING AROUND–JUMPING AROUND, PLAYING HAPPY MUSIC, NOW TAKE ME UNDER THE MISLTOE AND PLANT ONE ON MY WRINKLED OLD CHEEK!!!!
Well, Oxdrover, you think Henry is bad but I’m worse. I used to clean the apartment I was sharing with my sociopath for the sole purpose of making him feel guilty. And sometimes, I was saying things that appeared to be nice but really had “sarcastic undertones” to them – the perfect example being “good morning”. Said with a smile, which really was a “grin”. Suggesting he closed the door was really my way of “denying his right to have an opinion” (about whether the door should be open or closed, if you’re following me). And I must confess also that one time I said “let’s keep the champagne for the party”, which was a way of claiming ownership of the bottle of champagne in question by hypocritically saying “the champagne” when I really meant “my champagne”.
So do I get the prize??
Mmmh shouldn’t have started to think about the sociopath…well, it’s always ok to remember he’s an a**hole.
Henry: it’s nice to be nice, keep being the nice, caring person you are – I’m sure you will soon meet someone who will be grateful for your presents – and even better, who will get you some!