How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Dr. Donald G. Dutton explains that personality disorder is the cause of domestic violence

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For the past several years Donna and I have attended the Battered Mothers Custody Conference and so we have been able to interact with domestic violence experts. Both of us were surprised to discover that although most of the worst spousal assault perpetrators have personality profiles indicative of sociopathy/psychopathy this fact is not recognized by many experts. I have worked to become well acquainted with the scientific literature regarding intimate partner violence because I teach psychology of gender and because I very much want to understand why people who should know better often fail to diagnose sociopathy in perpetrators. This failure to diagnose has lead to intimate partner …

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The Lovefraud Version of the “Emperor’s New Clothes”

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By Ox Drover When we were kids most of us have heard the story of the Emperor's new clothes, in which a very narcissistic emperor who wanted the most beautiful and wonderful clothes in his kingdom. Here is just a little bit of a different version. Once upon a time there was a very narcissistic emperor who was very dumpy, unattractive, and had a very large nose, but he thought that if he had the most beautiful clothes in the kingdom that he would be very attractive to the ladies of the court. Even though he was a married man, he loved to have the ladies of the court admire his new clothes and tell him how handsome he was. One day a couple of psychopathic con men were in a tavern …

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Please do not engage abusers

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Yesterday, Lovefraud had an intruder. I saw this guy's first couple of posts, which struck me as odd, but not necessarily offensive. I decided to keep an eye on him. Before long, however, several longtime Lovefraud contributors began attacking this individual. I thought the attacks were unwarranted. We have had occasions in the past when people started accusing newcomers of being sociopaths. I think this is a very dangerous thing to do based on a few posts that may sound different from what we generally see here. Meaning is missing Experts have found that 65 percent to 90 percent of the meaning in human communication comes from nonverbal cues—tone of voice, gestures, posture. That means …

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BOOK REVIEW: Trading Places, a true story of overcoming abuse

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People who have not been entangled in abusive relationships often ask, “Why doesn't she just leave?” By reading Trading Places, by Natalie Hutchison and Mary Turner Thomson, you begin to understand. Natalie Hutchison was reproached as a child, ignored by her first husband, then physically abused by her second husband. Finally, she decided enough was enough. Natalie escaped the abuse, went back to work, started a business, and in 2006 won the Barclays Bank Trading Places award, given to individuals who overcome tremendous personal adversity to turn their lives around. Natalie had health problems as an adolescent, and she tells how her parents reacted to her medical issues.You see the see …

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Mandatory sociopathy/psychopathy education for judges and DAs

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I am late getting my blog done this week partly because I have been helping a crime victim get justice. I hope at some point to be able to share the entire story with you but for today I want to share part of it and not yet name the offender. The offender is in prison for kidnapping and physically assaulting (torturing) a child. The victim's mother provided me an official copy of the sentencing transcript where the defendant plead guilty to those crimes. He was sentenced to 3-12 years in prison. It is unclear to all of us exactly how it is determined if the defendant serves 3 years or 12 years or something in between. The sentence of 3-12 years was handed down after the defendant and his …

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The Narcissiopath

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What do you call someone you've been describing alternately as a narcissist and sociopath? Someone for whom neither diagnosis alone quite suffices as a complete description of the individual, but rather in whom both disorders seem as if wrapped up in one menacing individual? Pardoning my grandiosity for daring to expand the already crowded psychiatric nomeclature, I propose to call these hybrid personalities“narcissiopaths.” While I don't expect the DSM folks to take me very seriously (or anyone else for that matter), I'm thinking (unfacetiously) that there's a case to be made here. The narcissiopath, as I envision him (using “him” for convenience's sake) will meet many of the essenti …

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Outrageous: Judge gives ex-Senator Vincent J. Fumo light sentence

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Vincent J. Fumo, a former Pennsylvania senator found guilty by a jury of all 137 counts against him, could have been sentenced to 21 to 27 years. Yesterday, the federal judge in the case, Ronald L. Buckwalter, gave him four years and seven months. Fumo defrauded the Pennsylvania State Senate of more than $1 million. He defrauded the charity he founded, Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, of more than $1 million. He defrauded the Independent Seaport Museum of more than $100,000. He used Senate employees to clean his house and manage home improvements in his 33-room mansion. Then, when the authorities started sniffing around, he obstructed justice by destroying records and e-mail. I …

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When the pain caused by a sociopath doesn’t stop

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Almost three years ago, Lovefraud published the story of a man from the UK whom I called Tom. Tom's wife left him for another man, took their children, had him arrested on false charges nine times and wiped him out financially. Here is the original story: UK man says sociopath stole his life Now, three years later, Tom still hasn't seen his children. His ex-wife and her new husband, who also sounds like a sociopath, have removed the children from the UK. They live in France, at a small town near the Swiss border. “My heart bleeds every minute for the loss,” he writes. “It is a living bereavement and a nightmare from which I may never awake.” I asked Tom if he was taking care of himself. H …

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Spotting the Covert Psychopath “In the Wild”

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By Ox Drover Something occurred recently that set my mind to thinking. My best friend who lives another state came to visit me for a couple of weeks. This friend has known me about 30 years, so has known both of my biological sons, including the psychopathic one, since they were kids. She has “been there” for me through all the trauma, the disappointments and the pain. She was there for me when my husband died in the aircraft crash and my adopted son was burned. She was there for me and for my oldest son when his wife tried to kill him. So she has seen many of the psychopaths I have dealt with “up close and personal” and she has seen the toxic enabling my mother has done and is doing with …

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Don’t blame victims, but do hold them accountable

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This week events in my life have and people I encountered got me thinking about the blaming of victims. Coincidentally, I discovered this quote from Attorney Wendy Murphy. She wrote this in a comment answering others who commented on her blog: It doesn't matter if Sandra Boss was a 'gold-digger' anymore than it matters that the mother of Michael Jackson's latest victim 'consented' to her child being allowed to sleep at Jackson's home. It's equally wrong to rape a child - even if the victim makes it easier on the criminal to commit the crime because she's ill, or dumb, or uneducated, etc. There's no such thing as a criminal being 'partly guilty'. There's only guilty - or not guilty. …

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