When I first was released from the relationship that was killing me, I felt lost, frightened, alone. I needed to focus my attention on something bigger than me, something beyond the despair of having being abused. I needed to connect to people who didn't know me, didn't know my story, didn't know about the man who promised to love me 'til death do us part and took the death part way too seriously, and so, I decided to volunteer. I thought, if I can give while I feel so impoverished, I will be reminding myself that I am not as “useless” as I feel. And it worked. Once a week, I joined a group of women and men at the church down the street from where I was living to make sandwiches for street p …
The Narcissist’s Commandments
You must not disappoint me. You must not inconvenience me. You must recognize all of my expectations as reasonable. You must, at all times, accommodate me. You must recognize my “special needs” (special in an important, not disabled, sense); and must always satisfy them. You must be glad for my good moods, and understand and tolerate my bad, nasty ones. You must see my anger, rage and contempt as always arising for justifiable reasons. You must make tireless efforts to placate me when you've upset me. You must appreciate that my comfort supercedes yours and everyone else's. You must find what interests me, interesting; and you must convey your interest. You willingly assume res …
Feeling guilty about a sociopathic stepson
Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader who we'll call Martha. I have a 33-year old adult stepson who I believe is sociopathic — he fits all the criteria. He has been a problem to the family ever since his mother threw him out to our house at the age of 13. By that time he was so oppositional there was no dealing with him in any reasonable way. We went through all the “standard” teenage issues with him — petty crime, running away, repeating years in school, counseling, adolescent psych facility, military school till we ran out of money, etc. What is different about our situation from everything I read is that my husband has stood by him for so many years, giving him …
After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 12 – Reclaiming Self-Love
Love is huge topic that spans every other issue that we have discussed so far, and ones we have not touched yet. But for our purposes — to talk about our next steps in healing from traumatic relationships — we have to narrow it down. This article will discuss the most basic and important element of love -- how we love ourselves. We will look at how we our relationships with ourselves are changing. And how that is affecting what other people mean to us What we think of ourselves Years ago, when I was involved with a New Age bookstore, I ran into lots of programs that taught positive affirmations. That is, repeating phrases about how lovable we are, how successful we are, how loved we are b …
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New research says sharks hunt like serial killers
A paper recently published in the Journal of Zoology says that great white sharks hunt in a highly focused fashion, just like serial killers. According to a report on ScienceDaily.com, the researchers used geographic profiling—a criminal investigation tool used to find serial killers based on the locations of their crimes—to examine how the hunting patters of great white sharks off the coast of South Africa. Sharks establish well-defined hunting bases in strategic locations. The researchers noticed that smaller sharks searched further, and had less success, than larger sharks. They surmised that great white sharks refined their search patterns with experience, and concentrated their hun …
Two summer books about sociopaths
Two books about sociopaths could be on your reading list this summer. One of them, already out, is by the “Queen of the Best Sellers,” Danielle Steel. In her 108th book, Matters of the Heart, the main character, an accomplished female photographer named Hope Dunne, meets a man who seems to be too good to be true. He is. The guy is a sociopath. Read an excerpt of Matters of the Heart here. The author was interviewed last week on Good Morning America. Although I've never read any of Danielle Steel's books, I did like the fact that when she described sociopathic behavior in the interview, she got it right. “Sociopaths are interesting because one of the things they do is something called mirr …
After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 11 – Trust
I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you. -- Frederic Nietzsche In recovering from a sociopathic relationship, one of our greatest challenges is to rediscover the meaning of trust. Trust is a kind of glue in our lives. If we are going to be vibrant human beings, living with healthy curiosity and developing ourselves through calculated risks and learning from our experiences, we have to be able to depend on some background truths. When our lives are rocked by unexpected disaster, the impact on our ability to trust our perceptions or our world around us can be massive. This issue comes up over and over on LoveFraud. We hear it most clearly from the …
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A society where everyone is a sociopath
This week I want to reach out to all of you who feel that you can no longer trust people. Imagine a world where your worst fears have come true, a world where everyone over the age of 15 is a sociopath. What would it be like to live in that world? If you only read one book this summer, I strongly urge you to read Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes by Frans de Waal. I have said before that I think the social-brain of sociopaths is similar to that of chimps. Now having read that book I am even more convinced. Chimpanzee Politics is the true life story of the relationships between individuals of the Arnhem Chimp Colony. Scientists carefully observed, photographed, filmed and …
Boredom and the sociopath
What's the relationship, if any, between boredom and sociopathy? Can we can agree, for starters, that boredom does not cause sociopathy? Otherwise most of us would be sociopaths. Can we also agree that a low tolerance for boredom, alone, does not cause sociopathy. Otherwise again, many of us with low tolerances for boredom (not that I include myself, but God, am I bored) would be sociopaths; and this isn't the case, either. That is, even most of us with low tolerances for boredom aren't sociopaths. However, research suggests that sociopaths may require higher levels of arousal to escape conditions of boredom. So apart from being prone to boredom and finding it extremely oppressive, it …
BOOK REVIEW: The Socially Skilled Child Molester
By Ox Drover I recently read The Socially Skilled Child Molester: Differentiating the Guilty from the Falsely Accused, by Carla van Dam, Ph.D. Carla van Dam, Ph.D., is a clinical and forensic psychologist who has practiced in the U.S. and Canada, and taught in several universities. She is well known in the community of those who focus on primary prevention strategies to help end child sexual abuse. One of her previous books was Identifying Child Molesters: Preventing Child Sexual Abuse by Recognizing the Patterns of Offenders. Several of the reviews of this book pretty well sum up my opinion of this well-written book. “The Socially Skilled Child Molester provides a thorough d …