Editor's note: The following letter was sent by a reader to Lovefraud. It is posted with the permission of the author. After dating Charles for a year (“the four seasons” — a term he used often in our relationship and his simultaneous relationship with Sue, it was the marker of when we would marry), I got the answer I was looking for. I had added “Family Locator Service” to my cell phone, placed my extra phone is his car and waited until 4 a.m. to have the nerve to do the fatal search. There it was in black and white — my worst fears are true. He was living with another woman. Her name is Sue, widow and mother of two children almost the same age as my own. Another family in the making less …
Gambling with a sociopath
Over the last 30 years, the United States has seen an explosion of legalized gambling. Slot machines, blackjack tables and lotteries are a growth industry. Casinos are flourishing not far from me; I could be there every day if I wanted to. But I don't go. I'm not a gambler. Still, I know how gamblers feel because I was with a sociopath. It didn't take long for ex-husband, James Montgomery, to start taking money from me. He called his first suggestion that I give him $5,000 an "investment opportunity." Subsequent requests were described as "building our future together." Then I shouldn't worry about putting expenses on my credit cards because he would "pay everything off when the projects …
ASK DR. LEEDOM: Am I also a sociopath?
Recently, a woman sent me a letter with this question/comment. Her former lover accused her of also being a sociopath, he said, "”¦The truth is that you're just like me. You're in this because you want something for yourself, for your own life”¦You're more dangerous than me, because you give the appearance of being a good person, but you're really untrustworthy and selfish." Then the woman wrote, “So my question is that I sometimes wonder if I'm sociopath too and it's the real reason we gravitated toward each other.” The psychological warfare that sociopaths engage in can leave a lover with many self doubts as this woman expresses. After my encounter with a sociopath, I too looked within my …
Make your truth your reality after the sociopath is gone
A caterpillar spins its cocoon without conscious thought of why or when or how. Nature propels its spinning ways until, possibly out of sheer exhaustion, it falls asleep to dream about flying free of the cloying nature of its weave. When the time is right, its metamorphosis from one state to another is complete and a butterfly is born. We are not the caterpillar, being transformed by forces of nature beyond our control. We are human beings, doing the things that put us in control, or out of control as the case may be, of our transformation. Often, laden with our self-limiting beliefs, we resist change like a cat resists taking a bath. We claw and spit our way into reverse action, spinning …
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Are they just evil people?
An evil person is one who exploits or harms most everyone he/she encounters; the question of the utmost importance is do evil people share certain personality characteristics? Perhaps personality type has nothing to do with evil. We all know that every person has made bad moral choices at one time or another so perhaps people who repeatedly make bad moral choices are no different than anyone else. There are many reasons to consider whether evil people have a special or different personality type. For Lovefraud readers, the best reason is to define and learn to recognize a group of people to avoid. The assertion that evil people share a common personality type has profound philosophical and …
Sociopaths, psychopaths–just call them evil
Medical and mental health professionals have differing views and opinions about the personality disorders that are the topic of Lovefraud—sociopathy, psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. You could also include narcissism and borderline personality disorder. There is disagreement among professionals about how the disorders should be defined, what causes them, and what can be done about them. As an example, take a look at a recent post along with the comments: ASK DR. LEEDOM: Is there a gender bias against men in the diagnosis of sociopathy? No matter what discussions are raging in the professional world, here is what the rest of us need to know: There are evil people among u …
Fred Brito: A con artist profiled by Dateline
Every so often I get down on myself for having believed the lies of a con artist. When I come across stories like The Ultimate Con Artist which recently aired on Dateline, I realize that many who should have known better have been fooled. Before you read the rest of this column, follow the link and watch the video of this man. Before my own encounter with a con artist, I thought I had personally observed most of the human behavioral repertoire. I had good reason for holding that belief, having trained in psychiatry at a large general hospital that served 4 million people. I didn't think much of “con artists” in my mind they were simply people who were "good at sales." The sociopaths I saw …
After the sociopath. Time passes. Love heals.
Time. It waits for no man. Nor woman. I cannot hold it in my arms. I cannot stop its inevitable course. I can only journey with it from this moment to the next. I cannot change time passing. I can change how I pass through time. Time. When in an abusive relationship, tied up in the lies of a sociopath, time was my foe. It passed in relentless pursuit of itself, while I stood still, locked into the macabre dance of his sinuously veiled truths reflected in the contortions of his lies sifting through the hourglass of time, burying me alive. With him, time passed slowly. Heavy. Ponderous. Dark. Angry waves crashing against the once impenetrable fortress of my psyche, eroding my foundation, …
Fake doctor Jeffrey Marsalis acquitted of date rape
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has been transfixed in recent weeks by the trial of Jeffrey Marsalis, 34, who was accused of raping seven women. After five days of deliberations, a jury acquitted Marsalis of 24 counts of rape, and could not reach a verdict on one charge of rape by forcible compulsion. They did convict him of two counts of sexual assault. He could be sentenced to as many as 20 years in prison. Met on Match.com Marsalis met six of the women—all of them professionals—on Match.com. He told them he was a doctor. In fact, he walked the floors of Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia wearing scrubs and a lab coat. He had hospital ID badges and carried a stethoscope. His former fia …
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Poor impulse control: a symptom of sociopathy in men and women
This week, I met a man in his early 20s, who approached me to ask about sociopathy. He is in search of answers regarding his former girl friend and BOTH his mother and his father. He stated he had just ended a relationship with a woman who was physically and psychologically abusive to him. He said it was hard to end the relationship because he still loved her. The man was raised by his father after his alcoholic mother abandoned the family. His father was an abusive character who also drank alcohol and paid little attention to the kids. He asked if I would explain why people are abusive psychologically and physically and why this is related to alcoholism. In answering his question, I …
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