How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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After the sociopath is gone: No Contact begins in my head

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He was arrested at 9:14 am on May 21, 2003. It was a sunny, blue sky morning. The birds were fluttering and twittering in the trees. The river flowed lazily by, meandering through the forest, dappled with sunlight, sparkling, clear. We were in hiding. Had been since February 26 when we'd fled the city we lived in 1,000 miles away, heading west, heading to the US, he'd said. “I've got money there,” he insisted. “I'll just leave this mess to my lawyers to fix. No sense hanging around waiting for them to get it cleared up. I'll let you go once I'm out of the country,” he promised. Like all his promises, like everything he'd ever said and done, it was all a lie. On that morning in May, the li …

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Attracting a new relationship after the sociopath

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Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader: I have a question for you. I've been divorced for 3 years now from my ex-husband who had a porn addiction. I've tried the Internet dating sites on and off since, and have had nothing but bad experiences. What do you suggest I do/ how do I go about finding someone? I am really lonely and would like to have a man in my life. However, I'm so afraid of attracting the wrong kind still. If you have any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them. If you've had a run-in with a sociopath, before attempting to date again, you must first heal yourself. If you're feeling lonely and afraid, it is an indication that you are not yet …

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Nancy Garrido: alleged kidnapper and rapist

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Last week I discussed Philip Garrido, a psychotic and psychopathic individual who allegedly with the help of his wife kidnapped Jaycee Dugard at age 11 and held her 18 years. This week I would like to discuss the some of the details of Nancy Garrido's life that have been reported by reliable news sources. The Details Nancy Garrido is 54, her maiden name is Bocanegra. She was born born in Texas, the second child of a family of five or six children. She has been married to Phillip 28 years. According to the New York Times, “Gail Powell, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Department of Public Safety, said Nancy Bocanegra was visiting an incarcerated uncle when she met Mr. Garrido, a tall, lanky …

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BOOK REVIEW: The Disease to Please

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By Ox Drover When I picked up and started reading The Disease to Please—Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome, by Harriet B. Braiker, Ph.D., not everything resonated with me, though I have always tried to “please people,” especially those close to me. There was a great deal of the book, though, that did resonate and validate the similarities between “women who love psychopaths,” as described in the book by that name by Dr. Liane Leedom and Sandra Brown, and “people-pleasers.” Dr. Braiker is a practicing clinical psychologist with 25 years experience and is author of several books. This one defines “people-pleasers” as: not just nice people who go overboard trying to make everyone happy. …

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It Wasn’t You

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(This post is meant for her, who knows who she is, and the rest of you, who know who you are. My use of “he” is for purposes of convenience; women, too, are capable of the behaviors and attitudes described. Copyright © 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW) It wasn't you. It was him. I know you're not a black and white person (like he was). But sometimes it is black and white. And so this is the deal: It wasn't you. He wanted you to think it was you, when all along it was him. And you didn't fully want to believe it was him, either. Even now, perhaps in a corner of your heart, although it may conflict with your rational healing self, you may still not be entirely ready to believe that it wasn't you. …

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After the sociopath is gone: You’re worth it!

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In the world of healing from an encounter of the P(sychopath) kind, it is easy to forget that there is a world without fear, without lies, without terror, without uncertainty, out there, just around the corner from the insanity of his abuse. It's easy to forget that people don't always manipulate, deceive, devalue and destroy you. And, it's easy to forget — you never deserved their lies and manipulation in the first place. It's one of the things that makes healing from these encounters so difficult. We forget who we are as we fall into believing we are who they say... Whatever it is they tell us we are -- from beautiful to ugly, impossible to live without, impossible to live with. The most …

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Psychopaths thrive amid confusion, inexperience and denial

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Bernie Madoff swindled an estimated $50 billion from investors in his hedge fund, and in March 2009, pleaded guilty to securities fraud. He was sentenced to 150 years in jail. But if the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is charged with regulating the securities business, had been doing its job, Madoff could have been stopped years earlier. In a scathing report issued last week, the SEC's inspector general, H. David Kotz, summarized six substantial complaints that the agency received about Madoff dating back as far as 1992. The SEC conducted two investigations and three examinations into the complaints, and never identified Madoff's Ponzi scheme. The good news is that Kotz …

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Garrido and Mitchell: two sociopaths who are also delusional

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“Suddenly, everything made sense, I was not crazy, I had been dealing with a psychopath!” explained a woman this week as she told the story of how she discovered “psychopathy” and Dr. Hare's diagnostic symptoms. With this discovery, she learned that a personality disorder is behind the behavior of people who manipulate and harm others without guilt or remorse. Prior to learning about psychopathy, the woman said she held the view that all people were basically good and needed the same things. Understanding psychopathy/sociopathy gave her the ability to make sense of a world where a small fraction of individuals do a tremendous amount of harm- AND YET THESE INDIVIDUALS ON THE SURFACE SEEM PERF …

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TARGETED TEENS AND 20s: I didn’t want to be alone and believed that he loved me

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Editor's note: The following story was submitted by a reader who we'll call Mandy. Mandy is 15 years old and dated a sociopathic guy, who was two years older, for over a year. Notice how similar the sociopath's behaviors are to what many of us adults experienced—an indication that this manipulative behavior is instinctual in sociopaths. A person cannot be diagnosed a sociopath until the age of 18, but can start showing symptoms at a young age. He was 15 and I was only 13. We lived in two separate towns. We met on the computer off of an Internet website called Facebook and then started talking all the time on phone. I was a perfect victim. I had no self-esteem when I was younger b …

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After the sociopath is gone: Loving another. That was then. This is now.

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It is perhaps one of the most difficult things to do after having loved, The Lie. To love again without fear of the past repeating itself. To love without fear of making a mistake. Without fear of being hurt. And yet, we yearn for love. For connection. For that special someone to spend away the hours, sharing in good times and bad. To whisper sweet nothings in the night, to hold and to be held, to laugh with, cry with and even have sex with. But no, our tender hearts cry out, I can't do it. I won't. I'll never love again. Too risky. Too intimate. Too much. Or, before our broken hearts even have a chance to stop bleeding, we race out and find another, searching for that special someone to …

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