Donna Andersen has been a great friend to me and has done so much for victims of sociopaths. She deserves an award. The latest thing she did for me personally was to lend me her copy of The Psychopathic Mind by J. Reid Meloy. When I initially thought about reading the book it was more expensive than it is now; the price has come down quite a bit. That is good because I am going to have to buy Donna a new copy since I've marked up the entire book with notes about material to discuss here. My overall reaction to the book was negative to lukewarm until I got to page 318 (that I'll discuss next week). After that page, I came to believe that on the whole this book is a great contribution to the …
TARGETED TEENS AND 20s: Teenager shares wisdom about life’s hidden truth
Editor's note: Almost a year ago, Lovefraud received a letter from Mandy, a 15-year-old who told her distressing story about a “relationship” with a sociopathic guy. Read it here: I didn't want to be alone and believed that he loved me. Well, it's a year later, and Mandy has written to Lovefraud again. She's grown. She's matured. Her letter contains so much wisdom that I'm astounded it came from a 16-year-old. I invite you to read—and learn. Life is hard; I think everyone can agree on that. It's true when people say life is like a roller coaster. People have their ups and downs, twists and turns and every day is a new adventure. It's important to slow down in life and to n …
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Bureaucrats say victim is too upset for counseling
A woman in England is brutally raped. She is diagnosed with PTSD. When she goes for counseling, she cries. And amazingly, because she cried, she is denied further counseling. Read Rape victim is denied NHS counseling after officials rule 'it might make her upset' in DailyMail.co.uk. Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader. …
Representing children in custody and visitation proceedings: Do children’s lawyers really protect them?
Many people who write us have children who have their own attorneys because in difficult cases the court assigns and pays for them. We have heard many stories now and sadly it seems unusual that parents say these attorneys have helped protect their children. It's nice to know that the legal profession is also concerned that children receive ethical and competent representation. There is actually an American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) that developed in 1995 Standards for Attorneys and Guardians ad Litem in Custody or Visitation Proceedings. These standards have recently been revised and there is considerable debate about just what the role of children's attorneys should …
Who is the sociopath?
What a difficult question this is—exactly what defines the sociopath? Joseph Neuman Ph.D, psychopathy researcher, in an extensive interview (see link to this interview previously provided by Donna Anderson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmZgnCHweLM) addresses this and other questions about psychopaths. Neuman's research, if I understand him correctly (and I did not find him to be particularly clear in his explanations) yields a picture of the psychopath, surprisingly, not as primarily emotionally defective, but rather as emotionally defective secondary to certain forms of attentional problems. Neuman makes some interesting and, to my mind, somewhat puzzling observations. For in …
Love Fraud books mail today!
To everyone who ordered my new book, Love Fraud—How marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan: Your books are mailing out today! You should receive them soon! I am so excited to see my book finally in print. It is gorgeous. The hardback cover is deep red, with the title embossed on the spine in gold foil. The dust jacket design is striking, with the bold and powerful words, “LOVE FRAUD,” above our heart-in-a-target logo. Waiting for the shipment to arrive, I was actually nervous. But when I saw the book, encapsulating the story that took me four years to write, I was thrilled. I have to admit that this process of publishing a book has taken longer than I thought it would, but …
On Being Someone Other
By Ox Drover Yet Being Someone Other is the title of one of my favorite books and sometimes I think that title applies to me as well, at least since I recognized the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that has become such a part of my life these last six years. Now I'm “someone other” than who I used to be. I'm not the same person at all. I no longer think like that other person did, that FIRST ME as it were. The NOW ME is different. This was a very disturbing thing for quite some time as I had to get used to things being gone that I had depended on previously. I had to make adjustments to the changes in myself, sort of like a teenager has to make adjustments to larger feet and lon …
Facebook, bigamy and kidnapping
Lynn France typed the name of the woman she suspected was having an affair with her husband into Facebook. Not only did she find her, but she found that the woman and her husband had gotten married at Walt Disney World—a wedding photo album was posted right there on Facebook. John France—the husband—doesn't deny that he is remarried. But he insists that he was never married to Lynn in the first place, even though they had a wedding ceremony in Italy, lived together and had two children. Then three months ago, John France kidnapped the couple's two children and took them to Florida, where he lives with his new wife. Read On Facebook, wife learns of husband's second wedding on Yahoo Ne …
Mind Your Own Business: Etiquette for Entertaining Sociopaths and Other Bad Eggs Your Mother SHOULD HAVE Warned You About
By The Front Porch Talker “Hurt people hurt.” (“Greenberg”) Don't expect a sociopath to steal the silverware, or anything untoward in that regard. No, they will be too busy stealing your whole life out from under you! But, as I like to say: That's no excuse for bad manners! Luckily for us all, I am writing my own as-yet unfinished etiquette book called, Mind Your Own Business: Etiquette for the Clueless! It is written in that easy-to-read style, with bullets and cute reminders and hints, just like those ”˜Dummies' books that presently insult your bookcase, along with your eight-track tapes and picture frames you got at Goodwill—the ones that still have somebody's family pictures in t …
Fake profile fools security pros
In less than a month, an attractive, somewhat flirty cybergeek named "Robin Sage" accumulated hundreds of connections through social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Her friends included people at military intelligence groups, the Department of Defense, and Global 500 companies. Robin, however, was a fake. Read The Robin Sage Experiment: Fake profile fooled military intelligence, IT security pros. Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader. …