By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
I was eagerly awaiting the release of this book, Red Flags of Love Fraud 10 signs you’re dating a sociopath, and I was not disappointed at all. Donna Andersen, the owner of the LoveFraud.com website, received her “credentials” in dealing with sociopaths (psychopaths) when she married James Montgomery, a full-fledged con man. At the time Donna “enrolled” in this course in the University of Hard Knocks, she was totally unaware that this charming and charismatic man she had married was indeed a sociopath. He conned her out of more than $200,000 during the short course of their marriage, had numerous affairs, and actually fathered a child with another woman during their marriage.
Wanting very much to help others avoid enrolling in this course in the University of Hard Knocks, Donna has written her second book about the experience.
While I was up all night reading her first book, not being able to put it down, this book I read more slowly and carefully.
Red Flags is laid out almost in an “outline form,” so that it is easily understood. Donna has arranged each chapter and each section so that it is easily comprehended. She has also used excerpts from many of the thousands of people who have sent their stories to Lovefraud and completed Lovefraud surveys (of course changing the names).
Donna explains the confusion with the terms sociopath, psychopath and antisocial personality disorder, not only the professional differences about what to call it, but also the exact diagnostic criteria for any one of them. She also makes it plain that it doesn’t matter what you call them, they are toxic and there is no cure for what they have.
She debunks the myths about sociopaths/psychopaths all being serial killers and deranged criminals. In addition, she points out the old fallacy of “there is good in everyone” as being one of the things that keeps victims hanging on.
The Red Flags that are covered in the book are:
- Charisma and charm
- Sudden soul mates
- Sexual magnetism
- Love bombing
- Blames others for everything
- Lies and gaps in the story
- Intense eye contact
- Moves fast to hook up
- Pity play
- Jekyll and Hyde personality
Each of these actually correspond to symptoms on the Psychopath Check List developed by Dr. Robert Hare, but in more informal terms.
This book is not stiff or clinical in any way, but infinitely readable and packed with information to help people spot the “red flags” that sociopaths/psychopaths display in how they try to hook vulnerable people in order to fleece them, before they get fleeced.
Every high school kid should be required to read this book in order to educate themselves to the predators among us. People who have already had the “course” in dealing with a sociopath/psychopath will also profit as well. I recommend that everyone buy two copies, one to keep and one to give to a friend who is in a bad dating situation.
Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 signs you’re dating a sociopath is now available exclusively in the Lovefraud Store.
I took psychology courses in college (in the mid 80’s) and I don’t remember learning about sociopaths (of course, we were reading from text books, just getting a basic understanding of some of the mental illnesses people can be afflicted with). If you can teach college students about these predators (because they’re young, still “starting out in life”, that’s a plus, having long-term positive effects) (at least for those who pay attention to what’s being taught). In my opinion, the mental-health field should be teaching the public about these people – namely, that these individuals are TOXIC to your mental, emotional, financial, etc. health. Keeping them out of your lives is critical (for your own well-being’s sake).
and that’s much harder to do if they are your family members and have really good masks. I mean “benign” masks. It takes a lot of guts to go NC with someone who is “nice.” And it takes a lot of discernment to figure out that’s what’s going on if the spath is always smiling and calm while the drama of others swirls around them.
I agree — get this stuff in the textbooks — lots of undergrads take Psych 101 without majoring in anything psychology-related.
FWIW, high school health class is a great place to talk about this stuff. But not every high school is open to it — a lot of the curriculums are set. Also, the spath curriculum would go against the current bullying curriculum, which, while focused on trying to engage the bystanders and “empower the victim,” falls short by explaining that bullies come from families where they are abused or witness abuse (i.e., we need to pity them and excuse them sort of), OR they have low self esteem and bullying helps them feel powerful…. LOL
… but those two reasons focus on the bully’s feelings and our empathy for the bully. This misguided focus distracts from the mechanism of bullying and fact that bullies are missing empathy themselves. In my view, the current anti-bullying curricula fall short because encouraging empathy for the bully will only give the bully more power to keep on bullying. Because there is no reciprocal empathy. This fact is simply omitted!
I think Donna is doing a wonderful, trailblazing job of spreading the word. It will take a long time, though — hard to get this information through to people before they have encountered spaths, and also hard to talk against the conventional wisdom about bullies and sociopaths in relationships.
20years, I agree it is very difficult to do if it is your family member, because they cause collateral damage to the rest of the family who “don’t get it” about the family psychopath.
I have had to NC both my sperm donor and my egg donor, and two sons….and since I come from a small family that’s about it. My only 3 first cousins have essentially NC’d me though they are “distantly polite” if I contact them, there is no warmth, no family connection. They are of course very warm and family to my egg donor.
But you know, PEACE is a wonderful thing to have in my home and now that I have gotten used to it, I really miss it when it is gone for even a moment.
When we recognize the red flags, no matter who is waving them, and we honor those red flags, then we can have peace, but as long as we allow people to wave the red flags of psychopathy in our lives we will have no peace or tranquility.
Yep, that’s kind of where I am with it (but I have not had the murderous experiences you have had!).
For 25 years my sister lived in a distant city and would only swoop in once or twice a year for a few days of chaos… for the past 12 years I have lived in the same city as our parents, and have interacted with them quite pleasantly though these relationships can have some complications, it has been a peaceful, adult relationship… but for the past year since my sister moved back in with my parents, they are deteriorating psychologically AND physically (coincidence?) and she has created so much havoc in our lives… for example taking it upon herself to go to my son’s school, march herself to the office and declare to them that he is not actually sick — oh no, he is TRUANT!!! (to the school’s credit, they would not talk to her). She told me this herself, with great glee at her cleverness at exposing him. (he really was sick). And this was before CPS came after me. Geez…. that’s the last thing I need… more ammunition going to CPS about my “truant” son.
So… I know that my parents have finally “gotten” that my ex-husband is a spath — but I don’t know if they can grasp this about their own daughter.
You are right. It is the red flags. Big, fat, bright, flapping red flags. Impossible to ignore. Impossible to explain away, once you know them and how they are part of a long-standing pattern — not an occasional isolated incident.
I’d love to go NC with my sister (sort of have done so for the past 25 years) but with her living with my folks, that may mean NC with them…. and I feel they need some protection… I don’t want to abandon them to her. It is tough.
Both high school and college students should be taught about sociopaths. The problem is that much of what is being taught now is incorrect.
That’s not just my opinion – it is the view of Dr. Liane Leedom, a psychiatrist who studied at some of the best universities in the nation. After her own marriage to a psychopath, she came to the conclusion that her own training was deficient. What she experienced is not what she was taught.
I’ve had at least two university psychology professors contact me to tell me that my explanation of sociopaths/psychopaths is wrong, that these are two distinct disorders.
My answer is, says who?
The fact is that the research psychologists, who use the term “psychopath,” have one view. The psychiatrists, who are medical doctors, are still using the term “antisocial personality disorder” in the new DSM-5. According to the psychiatrists, “psychopathy” is not even a diagnosis.
So who do we listen to? I don’t know. Here’s the bottom line – the mental health professionals, both clinicians and researchers, simply do not agree. So there is no “right” and “wrong,” there are only different opinions.
All of this makes things complicated when we’re trying to teach people about the disorder in order to save their lives.
The strongest message for anyone reading Donna’s book is that disordered people cannot be FIXED or will ever CHANGE.
In my opinion that is the simplest message that will resonate with
teens as well as us “nurturing” people who think if we love them enough they will change……………BULL!
And I meant to add…..the fact that THEY KNOW what they are and just don’t CARE. That was a tough one for me to wrap my head around. Thinking if they are soul less; how sad that must be.
They are callous, calculating manipulators that ENJOY what they do.
Donna, you are right on, the professionals do not agree on a definition of a “diagnosis” or the symptoms of the disorder, or what to call it, or what the cause is.
It makes me think back to the days when “doctors” believed in spontaneous generation of worms….if you put down a piece of meat in a short while it would spontaneously generate maggots. It never dawned on them that the flies on the meat were laying eggs which hatched into maggots and that the maggots then became flies.
While there is no known “causative agent” such as a virus or bacteria or a fly egg to cause psychopathy, there has been found to be some GENETIC indicators, and in identical twins who are raised apart, there is a 50-80% chance if one is disordered, so is the other one. So while genetics can’t be totally blamed for the disorder, it definitely is connected.
With professionals unable to agree on what psychopathy IS or what it should be CALLED there is nothing but confusion and chaos and different opinions and theories on the SYNDROME of behaviors.
Some important judge once said “it is difficult to define pornography, but you know it when you see it.”
I think that psychopathy is the same thing, it is very difficult to define, but you know it when you see it….when you live it.
We having lived it know what it looks and feels like, but to describe it to others who have never lived or seen it, Donna’s book does a damned good job I think!
They don’t care because they can’t care. That would take empathy, and that is missing. Yes, it is a spiritual question, too. Are they soul-less? or what, exactly? (some of the way we view this has to do with our particular spiritual framework).
I agree that they cannot be fixed. But practitioners of dialectical behavior therapy seem to think that borderline personality disordered folks can be treated. How does that fit into all this?
20 Years,
How long has you sister been there?
How “with it” are your parents?
What is the reason she is there?
You may have trouble protecting them from her, especially if she is “guardian” of them.
I would first of all, see an attorney who is an ELDER CARE SPECIALIST or who is PROBATE SPECIALIST and get some advice from him. It might be that when your parents get to the point that they qualify as “demented” you can bust her chops and get yourself declared their guardians and toss her sorry ass out of their house. Of course in the meantime she is plucking them like a chicken for Sunday dinner. Good luck.