I love my wikipedia. I learn a lot I didn't know and I refine my thinking by finding fault too. (The problem is knowing what is worth learning and what needs unlearning!) Consider the wikipedia definition of evil: Evil is generally defined as any activity which takes advantage of another person for one's own benefit....(In contrast, good is helping others, even sometimes self-sacrificially; see saint, sainthood.) There's something dodgy about the form of this definition and also something very familiar about its implications. For one thing, it fits with the the lable 'anti-social' which refers to behaviour which has ill effects, but good intentions - "well, in his culture that behaviour …
Finding a real relationship after a sociopath
The following story was sent by the Lovefraud reader who comments under the name "LovingAnnie." This woman—we'll call her Annie—spent four years waiting for a relationship to materialize with a policeman who tantalized her with flattery and promises. Here's what Annie wrote: Annie and the cop I called 9-1-1 for the first time in my life (a neighbor problem), and when I answered the door, my first thought on seeing him was, "wow—he is sooo cute." We ended up talking for almost an hour and exchanging phone numbers. He told me he'd been a cop for almost 20 years, was divorced with two kids. That a few years after the divorce was final, he had a girlfriend who was also a police officer, but …
Manage anxiety using understanding and conscious intention
Did you know people actually have two brains? We have a conscious brain that produces thoughts, ideas and intention and we have an automatic, unconscious brain that produces impulses. There are advantages to having two brains. The conscious thinking brain makes us smart and deliberate but the problem is it is slow. On the other hand, the unconscious automatic brain is fast, but the impulses that arise from it are sometimes undesirable. Automatic impulses do not always serve us well. Have you ever been walking in the woods and seen something that looked like a snake out of the corner of your eye? Notice that your heart pounds and you have that alarmed feeling even before you are aware of …
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The verbal attacks of the sociopath
Editor's note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader Aloha Traveler. Who are you calling BLEEP!? I have always been a person that is hard-wired for honesty. If you are into astrology, I am an Aries and my Chinese sign is Rooster. This doesn't mean much to me but a friend once wanted to know my birth sign and the year and then responded “Oh. Now I see.” According to my friend, Aries born in the year of the Rooster have a double scoop of honesty. What does this have to do with a being the victim of a disordered person? I'll tell you. When they are attacking you, they never say anything true about you. The Bad Man was always insisting that I was a very di …
Anxiety: An inevitable outcome of involvement with a sociopath/psychopath
According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, “anxiety is a normal reaction to stress. It helps one deal with a tense situation in the office, study harder for an exam, keep focused on an important speech. In general, it helps one cope. But when anxiety becomes an excessive, irrational dread of everyday situations, it has become a disabling disorder.” Put another way anxiety is supposed to help us. The parts of the brain that produce feelings of anxiety are similar to the parts of the brain that process pain, another negative emotion. Anxiety and its cousin pain help us by signaling danger and causing us to avoid. Their job is to inhibit behavior. The part of the brain that pro …
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There is no drabber place to be
Why is it that in the popular media super-psychopaths like serial killers are portrayed has having such rich inner lives? (Consider the highly cultured Hannibal Lecter.) That's not right at all. Anthony Lane, film reviewer for the New Yorker, makes the point well: There was a time when, as a God-fearing member of the community, you could commit a single murder, drop a couple of clues, and wait to be unmasked. Now it's all serial slayers, stacking up bodies like air miles. Filmgoers are supposed to find this multiplicity enticing, and we are constantly being invited to enter into the “mind” of the serial killer, but in truth there is no drabber place to be, and the idea that there might be a …
10 tactics for child custody battles with sociopaths
Dr. Liane Leedom wrote about the tragic case Dr. Amy Castillo, whose children were murdered by their psychopathic father after several judges issued rulings that failed to protect them. I hope this terrible and extreme case will be a wake-up call for family courts. Lovefraud frequently receives e-mail from men and women involved in child custody disputes with sociopaths, who hopefully, are not murderers. Here is one of them: I am involved in a custody case with a sociopath, however, my case is being fought in Europe where I recently relocated to (I am American, he is European). After being the sole caregiver of my children for five years, I had no choice but to leave them with their …
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Post Traumatic Growth: After the sociopath is gone.
It has been almost five years since the sociopath was arrested and I was given the miracle of getting my life back free from his abuse. It is amazing to me to know that once upon a time, I was abused. I was downtrodden. I was completely broken. The walking, breathing dead. At the time of his arrest, I had given myself up for dead. I dreamt about dying, yearned for my life to end. And then, the police walked in and arrested him and in that moment, everything changed. Life began again. It was not life as I knew it. Life as it was. It was new life, with a whole new perspective and outlook. A whole new appreciation for what it means to live within my human condition, what it means to be …
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Judges allow psychopathic father visitation and children are murdered
Here we go again, another three children murdered after the family courts allowed a psychopathic parent unfettered access them. This is the story of doctor Amy Castillo (a pediatrician) as was told last night on Larry King Live. Dr. Castillo's problems with her husband began in full force about two years ago when he began “staying out all night.” The couple had decided that he would stay home with the children and that she would practice. However, she was unable to go to work because he could not function in the caretaker role. Due to his behavior, she left him. After threatening to kill himself he was hospitalized. According Larry King “court documents say that Mark was diagnosed with a m …
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Heeding the exploiter’s earliest warnings
Editor's note: This article was submitted by Steve Becker, LCSW, CH.T, who has a private psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and clinical consulting practice in New Jersey, USA. For more information, visit his website, powercommunicating.com. In my work with clients involved with exploitative personalities, it's not unusual to learn, together, that detectable, early warning signals went unrecognized, minimized, or both. This isn't to blame the subsequent victims of abusive partners; there are many instances where such clues were lacking (and even when not, blame is inappropriate). But it's to appreciate, undefensively, that the honeymoon phase of a relationship is almost, by definition, one …