How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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RESOURCE PERSPECTIVES: Why sociopaths sometimes kill themselves

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Editor's note: Resource Perspectives features articles written by members of Lovefraud's Professional Resources Guide. Sarah Strudwick, based in the UK, is author of Dark Souls—Healing and recovering from toxic relationships. She has also created a wonderful animation that describes the antics of a sociopath, called Exposing the Mask of Insanity. View the animation here. The sociopath's unconscious death wish By Sarah Strudwick Sarah Strudwick profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide I recently received an email from one of my readers saying that her husband and mother, who are both sociopaths, had suicide clauses in their wills, so I decided to write a …

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A spath behind every bush

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I wrote an article not long ago about settling on a name for the personality disorder that we spend our time here talking about. I suggested using "sociopath" as a general term for exploitative people. Many of us have taken to shortening this term to "spath." Well, a Lovefraud reader "Justdreamin" informs us that "spath" is taken. She saw it on a flower pot, and sent us the photos. It turns out that "spath" is a shortened version of "spathiphyllum," which is the botanical name for the peace lilly, a common houseplant. We might have to come up with a new name. If I were a beautiful peace lily, I wouldn't want to share a name with the nasty predators. …

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Mark Ledden – a story of psychopathic violence

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Lovefraud has just posted a new case study on Lovefraud.com. It's probably the most frightening article in True Lovefraud Stories: Mark Ledden stabs his wife 11 times, then accuses her of attacking him This is the story of a man who would probably score at the top of the PCL-R, the tool that measures psychopathic traits. He was charming, scamming and over sexed. He coldly threatened violence. Then, when he was crossed, he brutally acted on his threats. It is also the story of a woman caught in a no-win situation. He seemed like a good guy, a responsible guy, when they became involved. Three months later they were engaged, and three months after that she was pregnant. After the …

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TARGETED TEENS AND 20s: It was all for ‘our’ business, ‘our’ future

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Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader in Belgium who posts as “Nicola0903.” English is not her first language. Four years with a Sociopath. He was my best friend, my family, my soul mate, my lover, my business partner. I was 29, a foreigner in Belgium, with already some life experiences. Because my ex-business partner and ex-boyfriend that time decided suddenly to leave our brand new company, I stood there ”¦ Alone ”¦ with new clean sheet with “BVBA with marketing activities” on it — my job and hobby. I started “to swim between the sharks” and with success till I met HIM. “HE” was one of my first big clients. A charming, a good looking guy, around 40, an …

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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: I do not know my stepdaughter anymore

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Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a reader in Australia who we'll call “Lana.” All of the names below are pseudonyms. Everything had been quite on the Spath front for a while. But I have worked out over the past 3 years there is always something lurking, ready to rear its ugly head especially when there are children involved. Two weeks ago I received a call from Gary, a man that my ex-husband (Steve, the spath) worked for a year ago and ripped off. Gary knew where I was working, and being in the same industry, knew my boss. He asked my boss if I could call him a few months ago and we have been in touch since.  Gary told me Steve had constantly made threats on m …

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Young woman jailed after falsely accusing father of rape

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It's not a sensational case, but it says so much about sociopaths. In June, 2009, Emma Marrill, a young woman from Camberley, in the United Kingdom, accused her father Phillip Marrill, of raping her. Her father was arrested and held in jail for 22 hours, protesting his innocence. For six months, Emma told the police a “litany of lies” about the rape. Finally, she admitted that she made the entire story up. Her father was cleared, and Emma was charged with perverting the course of justice and ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Last week, the 21-year-old woman was sentenced to a year in jail. Interestingly, her defense lawyer told the court that Emma Marrill had antisocial pe …

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How to Eat an Entire Cow in Ten Minutes

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By Ox Drover If I told you that you had to eat an entire cow, do you think you could do it? How about if I told you that you had to eat an entire cow in only ten minutes? Do you think you could do it? “Holy cow! I can't do that!” you might say. Well, I think we all have our personal “cows” that we try to eat. Big jobs or big projects that we look at and say “Noooooo way, I can't eat all of that!” So having seen this particular “cow” as too big to swallow in one bite, we never even attempt to eat it. We just let it sit there in the middle of our lives, using up our resources, taking up space, and growing bigger by the day! Every time we look at this “pet cow,” it is bigger and bigger and …

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Dumb Sociopaths

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Contrary to a prevailing myth, sociopaths are really no smarter than the average individual”¦probably dumber. Sure, a good one can dupe you, but as I've written elswhere, this is no great shakes, as most of us can dupe each other if that's our goal. That's because we enter relationships risking trust and faith in each other, which makes the exploitation of our trust and faith really easy. It takes no genius or particularly smart, crafty person to exploit this trust and faith. It's as easy to do as it's wrong. And so, most sociopaths aren't really that clever, or ingeniously bright. Most make messes not only of others' lives, but their own too. Many end up in jail, and those who don't ar …

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Sociopath, psychopath – Lovefraud’s proposal for naming the disorder

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One reason why many of us found ourselves victimized by sociopaths is because we did not know that dangerous personality disorders existed. We may have heard of crazy people, but we assumed that we could spot them because they looked and talked crazy. We may have heard of psychopaths, but we assumed they were serial killers or some other type of obviously hardened criminal. We did not know that people existed who could convincingly proclaim their love, cry tears of sadness, and make glowing promises for the future, all simply to exploit us. We did not know that these people were called sociopaths and/or psychopaths. In my opinion, a big reason for the public's unawareness of, and …

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