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Catch and release

You are here: Home / Explaining the sociopath / Catch and release

August 3, 2009 //  by Donna Andersen//  264 Comments

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Recently Lovefraud heard from a woman whom we’ll call Trina. Trina was involved with a sociopath for five years, who abandoned her eight months ago, after wrecking her financially and emotionally. Still, she continued to be in shock, denial and disbelief—until the guy sent her the following poem:

Catch and Release

Before I pull your hair and leave you for dead
I will ravish you
not physically, but with words sensuous and firm
with sibilance rolling off my chameleon tongue
and metaphors byzantine and allusive pitched
to that intimate space between your ears.
I will watch you wriggle with denial,
claw with anger, bargain for release,
splash like a drowning animal in hopelessness.
And when I observe the contour of your acceptance,
the precise moment your will bends pliantly to mine
I will release you.
Game over.

Trina was horrified, and when she communicated this to the guy, he denied that the poem was at all autobiographical. He said she needed to “lighten up;” she was too “up tight;” he’d just taken a line from a TV show and embellished it. Here’s how he explained it to Trina:

“I thought that was a great opening line and I twisted it a bit, threw in Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief as I played on the word ‘dead’ and created a poem, role playing the braggart and using a line that fishermen do when they fish for fun and not food.”

“This man knows he drove me to the point of near suicide,” Trina says, “and rather than feeling badly for it, he actually taunts me, to this day.”

When there is no reason

Many sociopaths are parasites, manipulating people into giving them money, food, sex, a place to live—whatever. But some sociopaths, who may actually hold down a job and have their own resources, manipulate people, even torment them, just for the fun of it.

There are sociopaths who break women’s hearts just to watch them fall apart. There are sociopaths who commit crimes just to prove they can get away with it. There are sociopaths who disrupt workplaces for their own amusement. These people simply want to be puppet masters, pulling strings and watching everyone else jump.

This is probably the most difficult type of sociopathic behavior to comprehend. Many of us have spent hours, days, weeks, even years trying to figure out why a sociopath acted the way he or she did. Sometimes there is no reason other than the sociopath found the situation he or she created to be entertaining.

So how do we come to grips with this? How do normal people, who try to be considerate and cooperative, understand this behavior?

We can’t. These sociopaths are totally twisted. It’s just the way they are.

Category: Explaining the sociopath

Previous Post: « The nature of the “abusive personality”
Next Post: Empty, bored chameleons »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ox Drover

    August 9, 2009 at 7:02 pm

    Tilly,

    I knew that England used australia for a penal colony and dumping ground for “human trash” but I thought that was STOPPED decades ago. Well, goes to show you, things just continue the same.

    I am with you, those boys are psychopaths who bloomed early! They should have been locked up on Devil’s Island, a shame they weren’t French.

    Erin,

    Thank you for your good wishes and high spirits, as the day has worn on, the stress in my muscles of my back, neck and body are increasingly tight and painful, but your words made me more determined than ever to stick with this opportunity that the Good Lord has placed in my path. Some battles are very painful and we must give of our own strength to fight them, and trust unto a higher power to bring us through.

    I can only imagine what Gideon must have felt when he went into battle against thousands with only 300 men, but he bucked up his courage and went and won with God’s help. That is all that I can do. If I “fail” in this, I really haven’t lost much, things can’t get “worse” as it were—what do I have to lose? My mommie will be mad at me? LOL I just have to do some meditation and prayer and bring up my courage and not get my expectations up too much. I know that I have come so very far in the last couple of years, freed myself from so much, and I’m stronger than I have ever been. I notice though, and commented to a friend today, that I USED TO LIVE UNDER THIS KIND OF STRESS 24/7-365 and I no longer have to do that, so I can FEEL the stress effects now, when before no matter how bad it got, I had just reached a pininacle of STRESS as bad as it could get. At least I know THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS. It isn’t like I am going to be under this much stress forever, I know there is a better way to live now, back then, I thought THAT LEVEL was “baseline” now I know it isn’t.

    TOWANDA!!!! And God bless us all!

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  2. ANewLily

    August 9, 2009 at 7:35 pm

    Oxy, my prayers for a successful encounter all the way around are with you, too!

    I believe what you are doing is Scriptural. Confront an enemy and if he (she) doesn’t listen, take it to the pastor and with still no results, take it to the church community. You know the rest.

    I can only hope that your “plan” (with God’s help) is as productive as mine was — what just two weeks ago today?
    My idea came from Divorce Poison (re Parental Alienation) and it felt like God had sent me a personal letter.

    I got back all four of my adult children!! We’re all still 1800+ miles away from each other but the dam has broken and the waters flooding ro revive starved soil.

    I still will keep DD#1 at arm’s length until I can truly trust her (or not) but the other three are firmly back in the folds of my arms.

    Now it seems like this past 7 years of grief didn’t even happen. It has faded into nothingness — leaving good lessons in its wake.

    I pray the same good result for you, dear sister!!!!!!!!!

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  3. Betty

    August 9, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    Stay strong, Oxy!

    I had to confront my brother yesterday — nothing as challenging as what you are facing — and I couldn’t believe how clearly my body was shouting out in response to the stress!

    I used deep breathing and meditation to calm down, and found it very beneficial. I was able to say my piece, not cry, and not back down. A small but significant victory.

    I’ll be holding good thoughts for you, and that’s really easy because you have already won! Your heart, mind, and spirit are in the right place, so whatever the outcome, I know you will put it to the best possible use.

    BIGhugs,
    Betty

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  4. ErinBrock

    August 9, 2009 at 7:55 pm

    OXY:
    REMEMBER……it will all work out the way it should……..
    We don’t always win the battles…..it’s the war we are after!
    You may not see results from your ‘encounter’…….but the seeds are planted, you may need to bask in that sunshine and watch the seeds grow and grow……it’s your time.
    Try and allow yourself to breathe and let that stress your feeling go! Think about your approach and then let it go until it’s time.
    Cover your bases, do your due dilegence and it will all flow in the right direction.
    You have faith! You have strength, self control and patience…..now don’t forget your own lessons.
    Give it time baby, give it time!
    GOOD LUCK!
    XXOO

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  5. Rosa

    August 9, 2009 at 8:13 pm

    Phoenix (AKA “Trina”)

    Ever since I read this article, I have wondered if the composer of this poem was a clean, sober, psychopath, or if he had a drug/alchohol problem.
    Which category would this man fall into?

    From my own experience with psychopaths, the ones that are clean, sober, calm, cool and collected are the most brilliant. They are the “creme de la creme” when it comes to these “catch and release” tactics, composition of poems and letters, as well as mirroring, gaslighting, and other forms of manipulation/abuse.

    Since there are no drugs or alchohol to cloud their mind, they are much more effective when it comes to the con. Or maybe this is how they prefer to get their kicks, as opposed to the drugs and alchohol. I have no idea. These are just my own theories based on my own observations.

    P.S. The psychopaths on drugs/alchohol are just as dangerous and destructive. It just seems like their “addiction” serves as a huge distraction, which takes the attention away from their psychopathy. Psychopaths with an “addiction” can blame it on drugs/alchohol.
    Again, just my own theories and observations.
    I could be way off on this.

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  6. Rosa

    August 9, 2009 at 9:04 pm

    Ox Drover:

    I just read through the above comments.
    As I understand it, you have a big confrontation tonight?

    My money is on YOU.

    P.S. Try to think pleasant thoughts to relieve the stress, like our cross-country ass ride.

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  7. Ox Drover

    August 9, 2009 at 9:30 pm

    Dear Rosa,

    Thank you for your vote of confidence.

    No the confrontation is not tonight itself, today my sons and I had a stratagy meeting to decide how we are going to proceed. The big meeting and confrontation may not take place for a week or two. I have to get the schedule and time to meet with the Reverend, then plan a date to confront the egg donor.

    Son C is just not able to break absolute NC and I do understand how he feels, but he is going to contribute to the effort with a letter to the Reverend (freind of my egg donor that I am triangling in to see if he can stop her from sending money to the P-offspring–literally buying him a gun!)

    Thanks for your kind words and thought, Yea, I would like to ride cross country on the ass. Last night I went to the auction and they sold a big box of “sunday-go-to-meeting” HATS. I bought one that is sort of like a black felt bowler and the crown is covered with feathers, and down the back hangs a HUGE PHEASANT TAIL. It is a SCREAM and I think that I have to wear that hat on the next trail ride!!!! maybe I will go for a ride tomorrow if the weather is nice…supposed to rain though.

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  8. neveragain

    August 9, 2009 at 9:48 pm

    Going back to the “poem” at the first of this blog, it wreaks of course of contempt for women in general, which I think is another trait of male sociopaths.

    At any rate, here is a great article about how women are still treated today.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/opinion/08herbert.html?_r=1

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  9. ErinBrock

    August 9, 2009 at 10:25 pm

    OXY:
    I vote you wear the new hat to the ‘intervention’!
    🙂

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  10. ANewLily

    August 10, 2009 at 1:11 am

    JAH, thanks for the link to the NY Times article. I didn’t get through all the following comments (too many) but I was astonished how varied the responses were, even from foreign countries.

    We are, as a human race, very diverse, aren’t we?

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