How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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TARGETED TEENS AND 20s: How do you handle a high school bully?

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Lovefraud recently received a letter from a 17-year-old high school student--we'll call him Brandon. He wrote that another boy at school was using manipulation to bully him. When Brandon resisted, the bully asked what he had done wrong, and why Brandon was being so mean—I can almost hear the false concern and sincerity dripping from his voice. The bully told Brandon to apologize. What happened next was classic sociopathic behavior. Here's what Brandon wrote: When I moved away from him, he came and found me and was aggressive and wouldn't leave me alone. And kept getting other people involved by asking them to ask me why I wouldn't talk to him. He then punched me and blamed me for p …

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Man’s Best Friend

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By Ox Drover Someone sent me a forwarded e mail the other day that I had seen before, but this time, as I read the sweet story about how to tell the differences between heaven and hell, I started to think about my own life in relationship to this story. You may have heard it before, but here is the story. A man was walking along with his dog one day down a pleasant road and he realized that both he and the dog were dead. The road was nice but he began to be tired, hot and thirsty. He came around a bend and saw the most beautiful golden gates, with a kindly looking person standing there. The gate was surrounded by flowers and he thought how beautiful it looked. He approached the kindly …

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Sex differences in antisocial behavior can teach us about sociopathy (part 1)

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Recently, there has been some discussion on Lovefraud about the relationship between antisocial behavior and sociopathy as a disorder. It has been argued that antisocial behaviors are learned by some people and so not all people who are antisocial are sociopaths. The idea is that behavior that is learned may not reflect a person's underlying personality, and can therefore be unlearned. Many people also believe that personality features such as low empathy indicate sociopathy more than does antisocial behavior. The above issues are important because if pervasive antisocial behavior is reflective of a deeply rooted personality profile as opposed to “social learning” then there are many more …

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Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me

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Hello my friends”¦ It's so nice to be here, to discuss the subjects of narcissism and sociopathy. I'd like to begin by asking each of you, one at a time, to tell us a little about me and what you hope to give me in our short time together? Uh huh”¦hmmm”¦very interesting”¦. As we continue circling the room, if it's alright with you, I'd like to hear a little less about you, and more about me? Okay, now that we're done with the introductions”¦. Let me formally begin by stating something fairly obvious: Narcissists and sociopaths are people you'll want to avoid. Does this make sense? Are we in unanimity about this? By the way, I want you to feel free during this presentation, at any poin …

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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Do not expect the truth in an oral trial

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Editor's Note: The Lovefraud reader who write as "Jofary" relates her experience with a sociopath in Canadian divorce court. I first participated on this site three years ago when I learned that my daughter, then only a toddler, was being sexually molested by her father (my ex). Up until that point, I was dealing with things in the typical way. I had caught my ex cheating on me and, when our son was only three months old, he immediately moved in with his mistress, who herself had extricated herself from her fifteen year stable marriage, believing my ex to be her “best friend and soul mate.” That was extremely distasteful in and of itself but, given my ex's contributions (or lack thereof) …

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BOOK REVIEW: A Dance With the Devil

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Barbara Bentley was 35 years old and divorced back in 1981, when Admiral John Perry swept into her life. She met him at a dinner party hosted by a friend. The admiral dominated the conversation with his stories—he'd lied about his age to get into World War II and became one of the original Navy SEALs. He was a naval aviator during the Korean War, and flew with the Blue Angels. Then, during the Vietnam War, he commanded swift boats fighting on the rivers. He won the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving some of his men when their position was overrun by the enemy. Afterwards, he did clandestine work for the federal government, going places where it would be better if the American p …

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Psychopathy, empathy and moral agency: Lessons from autism

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If there is one thing that gets me argumentative it is statements like this one that appeared in a recent research paper: "non-incarcerated psychopaths have an arguably equal potential to illuminate our understanding of the emotional difficulties, such as lack of empathy and lack of conscience, which underlie psychopathy and which lead to offending behaviour." (emphasis mine) Now I agree that we can learn from non-incarcerated psychopaths, I wrote recently about a well designed study where sociologists conducted interviews of some. But I cannot believe that statements like the one above make it through editorial review for another reason. Researchers in psychology have spent the last 50 …

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Emotional and psychological abusers: Coping with chaos and losing your balance

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By AlohaTraveler I work at a children's shelter. One day last summer, we were playing dodge ball with the children and it made me think about the Bad Man. When we play dodge ball, we divide the teams children against counselors. To play the game, we divide the basketball court in half with the mid line being the divide between territories and we use six balls. When the referee blows the whistle to start the game, balls begin flying in every direction, someone is “OUT!” and the heated arguments ensue (from the children of course, we adults keep our heads) about the rules and who threw what? Was their foot over the line? Was it before or after “TIME OUT” was called? Which player was “out” firs …

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After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 5-Getting Angry

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Healing from an emotional trauma or extended traumatic experience is a like a long, intimate dance with reality. Or perhaps a three-act ballet. We are on the stage of our own minds, surrounded by the props of our lives, dancing to the music of our emotions. Our memories flash on the backdrop or float around like ribbons in the air. Down below the stage, in the orchestra pit, a chorus puts words to the feelings and gives us advice drawn from our parents' rules, our church's rules, all the rules from the movies and books and conversations that have ever colored our thinking. And our job is to dance our way through the acts. The first act is named “Magic Thinking.” We stumble onto the sta …

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Sociopaths and opiate addiction

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Heroin and oxycontin belong to a class of drugs called opiates. Lovefraud recently received a letter from a reader that raised the issue of heroin addiction in sociopaths: For nearly two years after my relationship with him ended, I was on the web researching heroin addiction because I assumed this was where all of his abusive behavior came from, but I stumbled upon information on sociopaths, and realized that he fits every trait”¦I know substance abuse behavior can mimic sociopathic behavior, but it is clear that the man I was in a relationship with is a sociopath, and was able to use his addiction as an explanation and excuse to further manipulate the many people who offered help to him”¦ …

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