By Ox Drover As an advanced practice nurse, one of the things I did here in the rural area where parasites are common was warn people about the many diseases, several of them potentially fatal, caused by a common parasite, the tick. Here on LoveFraud we often refer to psychopaths as “parasites” because, like a common blood-sucking tick, they feed off of a host, without giving any benefit to the host, or giving any more thought to the damage they do to the host than a common tick does as he burrows into your flesh. In the warmer months of the year, the tick searches for anything that is warm and moves and can actually leap small distances to latch on to the host. They like to burrow i …
Marriage to a sociopath ends in murder
The beautiful young woman in the photo above is dead. On October 7, 2008, in Odessa, Texas, Kelsi Miller was murdered by her husband, Jarrett Weaver, a young man who fit the profile of a sociopath. He, too, is dead. Lovefraud just published their tragic story: Jarrett Weaver shoots his wife, then he shoots himself. It's heart-wrenching, worst-case scenario of what happens when people don't understand the evil of a sociopath. Kelsi Miller had everything going for her. Besides her obvious beauty, she was accomplished and caring. She was studying to be a nurse. Jarrett Weaver, however, was a manipulative drug addict who couldn't hold a job. He was violent on the eve of their wedding, and the …
Sociopathic priests and abuse of the spirit
The Reverend Charles Newman, former president of Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia, was sentenced on Friday to three to six years in prison for stealing almost $1 million from the school, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. As if that isn't bad enough, prosecutors say that Newman gave about $54,000 to Arthur Baselice III, once a student at the school, as “hush money” so he would keep quiet about their sexual relationship. Authorities contend that the abuse began when Baselice III was 16-year-old junior at the school. He graduated in 1996. Ten years later, on November 30, 2006, Baselice III died of an overdose in a drug house. During Newman's sentencing, the young man's mot …
The “immunity mindset” and the sociopath
Imagine you can make yourself invisible (at will) and, thereby, effectively innoculate yourself against the consequences of your violating behaviors. This playful scenario posits a power bordering on omnipotent. You can do what you want, when you want, to whom you want, secure in the knowledge that you can get away with it. Your invisibility effectively liberates you from the normal rules and boundaries that regulate interpersonal conduct. Now let's be honest”¦with this power, how many of us would use it for our own amusement, and to our own advantage? The true answer: most of us? Remember, I said “let's be honest.” None of us, of course, so far as I know, possesses this power, thank …
The Fantasy of Unconditional Love
By Ox Drover I was led to believe as a child that we should “love unconditionally” and that we should “forgive unconditionally.” This was the rule around our house. I did start to notice, though, that while I was to apply this “unconditional forgiveness and love” to others, those same people did not always apply it to me. When my children were born, I felt the first real and true “unconditional” love I had ever felt for anyone. I would gaze into the crib and watch my child sleep, little fists curled up, ten perfect little fingers with ten perfect little finger nails. The warmth of this truly “unconditional” love swept through my heart and made my eyes tear up with joy. Even when my …
BOOK REVIEW: The Gift of Betrayal
Dr. Eve Wood is a practicing psychiatrist and an author of motivational books such as There's Always Help; There's Always Hope and 10 Steps to Take Charge of Your Emotional Life. Her motto is, “Where there's a will, there's a way.” Now she's written a new book that she wished was available when her own life fell apart: The Gift of Betrayal—How to Heal Your Life When Your World Explodes, available in the Lovefraud Store. Dr. Wood's husband of 27 years betrayed her. For legal reasons, she doesn't tell exactly what he did, except to say the magnitude of the betrayal was truly shocking and she could have died. Reading through the lines, it sounds like she was involved with a sociopath, and we …
PTSD: That was then, this is now
According to the National Institutes of Health website “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat.” Signs and Symptoms of PTSD are grouped into three categories: 1. Re-experiencing symptoms: • Flashbacks—reliving the trauma over and over, including physical symptoms like a racing heart or sweating • Bad dreams • Frightening thoughts. Re-experiencing symptoms may cause problems in a person's eve …
LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: How can I help my children not suffer?
Editor's note: Lovefraud has received another question from Andrea, who wrote in a month ago. If you have any suggestions for her, please share them. I am looking for some strong advice on how to help my children deal with their father ”¦ my ex ”¦ who is a sociopath. We have been divorced for 4 years and I have been terrified of this man. Not so much physically, but more just afraid of his bullying and threats. Even though people have told me that his threats are just words and he cannot follow through on them, it is still hard when he is so confident that he is so right and I am so wrong. I have tried very hard to take the high road through all of this and he falls in this gray area bet …
LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: How can I help my children not suffer?Read More
More and less judgmental after the sociopath
Before my run-in with a sociopath, my philosophy was pretty simple: Do what you're supposed to do, and you'll stay out of trouble. It worked when I was younger. I studied hard in school, did my chores around the house and earned lots of Girl Scout merit badges. As a teenager and young adult, I never ran with a fast crowd. My cousin did, and I saw what happened to her. She should have known better, I thought. Those kids were nothing but trouble. They were hanging out and smoking dope. What did she expect? Fast forward 20 years. I'm a single professional with a profitable small business. My philosophy seemed to be working out—I'd never been in any serious trouble. Then the sociopath swept i …
The silent (but deadly) treatment
The silent treatment is not only silent, but can be deadly. Deadly, that is, to relationships. Deadly, more specifically, to the trust, love, safety, communication and intimacy that preserve and nourish relationships. The silent treatment (also known as stonewalling) entails a partner's (the silencer) passive-aggressively refusing to communicate with the other (the silenced). Unlike avoidance (a conflict-aversion defense), the silencer deploys the silent treatment with toxic purposes in mind. The silencer's aim is, above all, to silence communication. More specifically, it is to render the other invisible and, in so doing, induce in the “other” feelings of powerlessness and shame. (Note th …