How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Choose to break your addiction to a sociopath in 2010!

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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 …

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Watch out for this defense mechanism

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You are involved, say, with a pathologically self-centered personality, perhaps a narcissist or sociopath? That is, he wants what he wants when he wants it, and he'll do whatever's necessary (his entitlement) to get it, or take it. Key diagnostic trait: he reserves the right to punish you when you obstruct his agenda. Now here's the thing: in the heat of the moment, you may actually be pretty good at confronting his abuse. Maybe you stand up for yourself pretty effectively? Maybe, in the moment, you're even pretty good at setting limits and challenging his nonsense? So then what's the problem? The problem occurs when you step away from these incidents. In stepping away from them, …

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100-year-old molester still considered a threat

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Sociopaths do not change. As living proof, consider the case of Theodore Sypnier. Sypnier is a convicted child molester. He is 100 years old. He is about to be paroled, and the city of Buffalo, New York, is on edge. According to an article by the Associated Press: "Whether he's 100 or 101 or 105, the same person that was committing these crimes 10, 25, 30 years ago still exists today and has an unrepentant heart," said the Rev. Terry King, director of Grace House, which has twice taken Sypnier in from prison. "He is someone that we as parents, as members of the community, any community, really need to fear." The incident that landed him in jail took place in 1999, when Sypnier was 90 …

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BOOK REVIEW: The Gentle Art of Verbal Self–Defense

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By Ox Drover The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense was written by Suzette Haden Elgin, an applied psycholinguist and an associate professor of linguistics at San Diego State University. Though first published in 1980, I think it is a nice, easily read and understood book detailing the “hidden” motives in some conversations with just about anyone, whether they are a psychopath or not. It teaches us easily understood ways of deciphering the unspoken messages in language and easy to remember “come backs” that are appropriate for just about any situation where there are “hidden messages” in conversation. Ms. Elgin wrote: For every person in this society who is suffering physical abuse, the …

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A holiday story for the 20-40 crowd

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This week we received a letter from a concerned mother of a young adult. In anticipation of the winter holidays I put it up (with some editing) and ask all of you who are struggling with leaving a sociopath to leave now out of respect for your parents and other family members who love you. If you are thinking of going back consider this story and your own family. A mother's story It was whirlwind intense romance, she dropped out of (school) to be with him. There is a huge physical attraction. He has had a very dysfunctional childhood, from a very successful family, has been on the streets since (his teens) (in and out of foster care), has been in prison for assault with a knife, …

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The Golden Rule – and the Silver Rule

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Editor's note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud's statement on Spiritual Recovery. By Ox Drover Jesus said to “treat others as you would have them to treat you.” I have tried to live more or less by this rule most of my life. I have tried to treat others as I would have them treat me. I have shown compassion, pity, love, consideration, caring and kindness to those who I hoped would also treat me with compassion, pity, love, consideration, caring, respect and kindness. Unfortunately not everyone that I treated as “I would that they treat me” reciprocated my treatment of them. I always paid back any money that I ever borrowed, but I loaned money …

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After the sociopath is gone: From grief to falling in love.

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Every other week I participate in a 'one word' blog carnival. This week's word was 'grief'. Grief. A tiny word. Five letters. 'i' before 'e'. A story of precedence. What comes before grief? Love. Friendship. Familiarity. Hope. A belief in tomorrow. A belief in another day. A better day. A different time. A time for endless hello's to fill our day with promise. A time to love. And then death sweeps in and robs us of that time. That moment. Those endless hellos punctuated by good-byes that do not mean, never more, but rather, until later, until we meet again, until the next time. In death's embrace we fall and grieve for the one who was lost, for what was lost, for time lost and …

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Sociopaths exploiting your faith

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Sociopaths as much as anything exploit your faith in them”¦over and over again. In many ways this captures the essence of sociopathy in particular, and exploitation in general: The sociopath, or exploiter, seduces your faith, only then to intentionally violate it. The more seriously you take him, the more you are vulnerable; the more vulnerable you are, the more the exploiter is licking his chops. And so the sociopath, or any exploiter, wants you to take him seriously! Indeed it's his modus operandi to accumulate currency and credibility with you—the more the better, as this better ripens you, better fattens you, for the payoff he's chasing. Not all exploiters “get off' on the suffer …

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After the sociopath is gone: Your best life yet!

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There was a time when all I felt grateful for was the absence of his voice, for just an hour or two from the phone. There was a time when what I was most grateful for was knowing he was somewhere else, somewhere where I wasn't. There was a time when I was grateful not to think of him, for just a moment, or an hour, maybe even, if I was really strong, for half a day. There was a time. And now, the times have changed. The times have shifted, the sands have fallen differently, ever changing, in the hour glass of the passing of the time when he was all I thought of, all I saw, all I believed I would ever live with in my life. The times they have changed. Today I gave a presentation to a …

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Thanksgiving–count your blessings

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By Ox Drover I'm sure we have all heard the old saying, “I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.” This “old saying” is true, though I think it is made up to inspire some guilt in us for complaining about the small things we lack and make us aware that we are fortunate to have the many blessings that we do have, which many others are not fortunate enough to have. Another one I remember is, “Eat your vegetables; there are children starving in China.” I always wondered why I couldn't just send the hated vegetables there instead of eating them. It would solve two problems: I wouldn't have to eat them, and the kids in China would be grateful for them. My son D has turne …

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