This week the Connecticut Medical Examining Board restored me to the full practice of medicine. Due to the fact that my ex-husband Barry Lichtenthal impersonated a physician and examined female patients in a clinic that I directed, my license was restricted. I am not going to retell the full story today but I am going to comment on some things I have kept silent about. For more details of the story you can read Barry Lichtenthal: Sexual predator ruins the career of Dr. Liane Leedom. Donna Andersen is an excellent journalist and did her own investigation in order to report the story. She uncovered details even I was unaware of. I want to address the question of whether or not I was Barry's …
Cutting Ourselves Some Slack
Forgiving oneself for making bad choices is never easy, and I know there are authors and posters on LF who are true experts in the area of self-forgiveness. But let me come at this from an angle slightly different than my usual Lovefraud fare. It's often just plain hard to bust a flat-out liar and deceiver. And it's often suprisingly easy to effectively flat-out lie and deceive. Let me say this again: it's pretty easy to live a life of deception, making it no big accomplishment to deceive the brightest, most astute, most sensitive people. Lying and deceiving, and doing them well, even over long, extended periods of time, duping anyone and everyone in the process—again, my point is th …
Police seek con man Dwayne Keith Gardner
Police in Alpharetta, Georgia, have asked the public for assistance in tracking down Dwayne Keith Gardner, who has a history of conning women. Here's a report from Fox TV in Atlanta: Police say Dwayne Keith Gardner travels the southeast claiming to be an attorney for an NFL team, a former navy seal or a retired naval officer. He targets single older women by conning the women into lending him large sums of money. Gardner also steals physical items from his victims. After committing the theft, he flees the area, say police. Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for felony theft against Gardner. Gardner is believed to be in the Metro Atlanta region. Police believe there are other …
Donna Andersen’s victory is our victory too
By Thomas Donna Andersen's ”˜Love Fraud, How Marriage to a Sociopath Fulfilled My Spiritual Plan' is the third book in the last year I have read on sociopaths. Compared to the previous two it is not written by an academic, but rather by a victim of a sociopath. The book is very well written for a first book, and the fictional style of writing, coupled with the matter-of-fact narrative makes it highly readable. Many of the people who would of have bought this book in the immediate aftermath of publication would have been refugees from Planet Sociopath themselves and much of the antics and personality traits of James Montgomery will strike a powerful resonance within them in regards to their …
Jobs for Hard Times: Becoming a Dysfunctional Blogger for Fun and Profit!
By The Front Porch Talker From my newest series, “Jobs for Hard Times,” which is yet another of my unfinished series in my unending series of Front Porch Talker items. HOME PAGE: Welcome to my blog, “NE'ER-DO-WELLS” (WWW.NEERDOWELLS.COM) MOTTO: “Let the Mocking Begin!” ABOUT US: Here, we celebrate a ”˜DIVERSE CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE”˜ with a POLITICALLY- CORRECT HANDLE ON THINGS: For ”˜folks with Personality Disorders': Narcissists, Sociopaths, and other Psychopaths, Shape-Shifters and Flexible Identities Among Us! Dear fans and devotees, and other undecided Libertarians of faiths and fan clubs, and “Dexter,” I feel like saying it, so I will: “Let the mocking begin! It's a …
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How to implement No Contact
When people realize that that they are involved with a sociopath, the standard advice from Lovefraud is that they should, as quickly as possible, cut the predator out of their lives. That means no phone calls, no e-mails, no texts, and certainly no in-person meetings. It means No Contact. Of course, there are times when this is difficult, as when our reader works with the sociopath, or they have children together. In these cases, they need to implement No Contact as best they can. But let's now talk about situations where it is possible to get rid of the person, such as in a dating relationship. What is the best way to establish No Contact? Clearly, firmly and permanently. The rules …
The Law of Attraction and sociopaths
In 2007, The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, was the best-selling book in America. The book was featured on two episodes of Oprah, which significantly boosted sales. At one point the book was selling 150,000 copies per week. Total sales: 19 million books. The Secret has many proponents—and many detractors. It's described as a self-help book on the power of positive thinking. Some critics say that the book offers nothing but false hope to people who try to solve their problems by wishing them away, when they need more conventional solutions. The premise of The Secret is the Law of Attraction. Here is how it is defined in the book: Everything that's coming into your life you are attracting into y …
Psychopaths as “snake oil salesmen”
By Ox Drover The other night my son and I went to a rodeo with a a couple who are our friends to watch another friend ride in the rodeo roping contest. My friend is currently somewhat “down in her back” and will be going to a neurosurgeon for treatment this coming week. When we got up to go to the concession stand she asked me to go over and talk to this man who was selling some “pain relief patches.” She wondered if they would help. We walked toward the man's stand, where he had a sophisticated electronic display up and pamphlets to hand out. He immediately started his spiel and he started with the bouncing four-month old border collie pup I was holding on the end of a leash. “Do y …
Reconsidering the Essence of Sociopathy
When I think sociopath, I think this: as a pattern, he is willing, with awareness (hence, with intellect intact) to hurt people, or leave them feeling violated, in order to pursue his gratifications and interests which, for him, are always more important than the pain his pursuit of them inflicts on others. Malice (as I've written about elsewhere) may or may not be a motive or factor. It's true that for some sociopaths the gratifications they seek are predatory-based; for these sociopaths, the process of exploiting others becomes central in their violating behavior. But this isn't true for all sociopaths, many of whom are not driven, primarily, by a malicious or sadistic …
Living the Lie: the Truth Revisited
By The Front Porch Talker “Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity”¦the soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.” From Billy Budd (Herman Melville). We all live the lie sometimes: everybody lies. Lying is part of the American social contract; a matter of civility and manners, in some circles. Culturally, we even eschew the truth sometimes, equating it with rudeness. Who wants to hear that they are looking old or that their appearance is less-than-stellar? While our American cultur …