How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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A chilling short film portraying sociopathic domestic violence

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I did not experience violence at the hands of my sociopathic husband, and for that I am eternally grateful. But 36 percent of the people who completed the Lovefraud Romantic Partner Survey said they were physically abused, and 34 percent said their lives were threatened. A short film by Sharon Wright, called Tell Me That You Love Me, provides a chillingly accurate depiction of violence in an intimate relationship. It's chilling and accurate because she experienced it. Sharon explains why she made the film in a separate YouTube video. I cannot add anything to her words, except to thank her for making the film. It captures, in a little over five minutes, the horror of domestic violence, …

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Sociopaths victimize using human institutions like the courts

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This summer I read a fabulous book, Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life by Evan Stark. It is a well written academic discussion of the topic of coercive control that also provides a history of domestic violence awareness in America. Although I highly recommend the book to anyone who advocates for victims, I do not agree with the premise that coercive control is about female victimization. I have known too may male victims to believe that this is a male —female issue. The challenge then is to come up with a theory about intimate partner victimization that accounts for, rather than rejects the very cogent arguments put forward by clinician-researchers like Dr. Stark. A …

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The cracks of a family’s hidden dysfunction

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By Joyce Alexander, RNP (Retired) I often go to auctions and flea markets looking for “hidden treasures” to add to my collection of pottery and handmade baskets of split oak. One of the things I have learned to do is to look for subtle or hidden flaws in the things that I like to collect. It isn't uncommon to find pottery items that have been chipped or broken and then carefully mended. Sometimes the cracks are very subtle and difficult to detect. It isn't unusual for me to see an item and get all “excited” about it, then upon closer inspection, find that there are some hidden cracks. I got to thinking about the “hidden cracks” that are found in dysfunctional families as well. In my own …

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Contracts, Property, Civil Procedure, and Lawyering Skills

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Today, I am piggy-backing on Cappuccinoqueen's post from yesterday regarding Family Court.  I was accepted to law school for the Fall 2012 school year. The title contains a sampling of a "first year's" classes.  As you can imagine, there's a lot to accomplish prior to taking Family Law.  Although a remarkable opportunity, I plan to table this option for now.  However, I have not completely eliminated the possibility for the future.   Justice is something worth fighting for.  Whether I do it as an attorney or not, I will continue to do it. What on earth possessed me to apply to law school?  I cannot credit (or blame) one single person or event.  Rather, my desire to make Family Court sl …

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Family Court: A Psychopath’s Playground for Legally Sanctioned Abuse

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As a young child, my parents always called me the "party police".  I was the good girl who never liked to see people breaking the rules.  I never smoked, never drank underage, never did drugs, and never stole anything.  I grew up believing in justice and always believed that the courts and the police would protect me if and when I needed them.  That belief ended when I entered a custody war with Luc (my psychopath ex). Going through a custody war with a sociopath will change the way you view the justice system.  In fact, most of my time in court with Luc felt more like an "injustice" system than anything that resembled justice.  The painful lessons I learned about how our system works rock …

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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: My personal encounter with sociopaths within the system

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Editor's note: The following article was written by the Lovefraud reader who posts as "Robert in Seattle." It happened to me over a period of several years while my first wife and I were divorcing and fighting over custody of our two kids. She managed to game her lawyer, the child advocates office, the judge and most other people along the way. The only thing she couldn't game was the MMPI test that my psychologist conducted under court order (at my request and that I had to pay for on my own). While short of actually just coming right out and declaring it, the psychologist conducting our tests identified her scores as strong traits of borderline personality disorder …

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How to get revenge against the sociopath

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You've finally figured out what is wrong with an individual who has taken advantage of you, abused you, perhaps even assaulted you. Reading Lovefraud, you realize that he or she is a sociopath. Now, you're an emotional wreck.  You've been profoundly betrayed. You're justifiably angry. Plus, the sociopath has caused you real problems. Perhaps all your money is gone. Or you're in a vicious child custody battle. You've lost your job, your savings or your home. You suffer from anxiety, depression or PTSD.  You feel so far down that you don't even know which direction is up. You are outraged by the sociopath's actions. You are further outraged that after this individual bulldozed through y …

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Sentencing and Psychopathy

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There is increasing evidence that psychopathy results from an interaction between genes and environment. In fact the genes responsible and their interactions with early life experiences have already begun to be elucidated. (See Bad Nature Bad Nurture). Eventually individuals we call sociopaths will be shown to have extremes of physiology that contribute to the disorder. Note that I say extremes of physiology; there will always be people who have various physiological findings in common with individuals with psychopathy who do not manifest the disorder. I spend many hours a week talking with people who have been victimized by psychopathic individuals. This past week, a severely affected …

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