Earlier in the year, Lovefraud submitted a comment giving our views on the draft of the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, DSM 5. We commented on the proposed new term for antisocial personality disorder, "antisocial/psychopathic type," and the diagnostic criteria. One of the changes that the DSM 5 committee proposed was eliminating the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. According to an article in the New York Times, not everyone is happy about it. Read A fate that narcissists will hate: being ignored on NYTimes.com. …
Sociopaths target our dreams
Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail. In it, I felt like I was reading a rerun of my experience. I was involved with one of those 1 to 4% sociopaths/scammers you've outlined in your website. I lost everything — Long story — you already know it — he was so charming — the love of my life — kind generous, giving, very sexy in and out of bed — Anyways, it's been just over 3 yrs (I was only with him 2 + yrs with a 3-month breakup period. Yep I took him back — Call me a LOSER now and hit the delete button — Wait, please don't.) and I'm living in a mobile home park. Not any of the three properties I had on a golf course. Sold two of them and the third is heading for foreclosure. …
RESOURCE PERSPECTIVES: How sociopaths mess with your head
Editor's note: Resource Perspectives features articles written by members of Lovefraud's Professional Resources Guide. Sarah Strudwick, based in the UK, is author of Dark Souls—Healing and recovering from toxic relationships. She has also created a wonderful animation that describes the antics of a sociopath, called Exposing the Mask of Insanity. View the animation here. Getting your head out of the washing machine By Sarah Strudwick Sarah Strudwick profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide I often receive emails from people asking me to talk about different subjects. One recent subject was the mind-bogglingly creative ways in which a sociopath will literally mess w …
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Researchers minimize the psychopathy problem
Here's the headline for the cover story in the September/October issue of Scientific American Mind magazine: Inside the mind of a psychopath Neuroscientists are discovering that some of the most cold-blooded killers aren't bad. They suffer from a brain abnormality that sets them adrift in an emotionless world. The authors of the article are Kent A. Kiehl and Joshua W. Buckholtz. Dr. Kiehl is the researcher who examines the brains of psychopaths in prison using fMRI technology. Lovefraud wrote about him before in Psychopaths, crime and choice. This latest article, Inside the mind of a psychopath, is an excellent overview of the personality disorder. It summarizes the characteristics …
Sociopaths explain their own words
Perhaps the hardest thing for those of us targeted by sociopaths to grasp is the extent of their inhumanity. Sociopaths have no empathy. They do not feel connections to other human beings. We are mere pawns in their games. They view the world as predators and prey—they are the predators, everyone else is prey. We ask, “How can this be?” We object, “He said he loved me!” (“She said she loved me!”) We argue, “I said I was leaving and he cried! He begged me to stay! He said he couldn't live without me!” (The female sociopath did too.) Well, let's take a look at what their words really mean. A Lovefraud reader visited Sociopathworld.com. “They had a discussion going on things they …
When Bad People Do Good Things
Even bad people can sometimes behave well. That seems a strange twist on the idea of “good people behaving badly.” But it's true. Even the skeeviest personality isn't usually spending all day long exploiting everyone who enters his path. Now this doesn't mitigate his skeeviness one wit. But it's also true that sociopaths aren't always exploiting and mistreating others, all day long. They will be taking some time off, in different contexts, from their more unseemly behaviors. And so sometimes, sociopaths can be nice, even very nice; sometimes they may extend themselves to others. Now we can question what motivates them when they are behaving well; probably, very often, their prosocial be …
Donna Andersen to appear in Princeton, NJ
If you live near Princeton, New Jersey (USA), please come by Borders Bookstore this Saturday, October 30, from 1 to 3 p.m. I'll be discussing my new book Love Fraud: How marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan. Several Lovefraud readers were in the audience this past Friday at the Borders Bookstore in Philadelphia. We had a wide-ranging, freewheeling discussion about sociopaths, and how to heal after sociopathic manipulation. I answered a lot of questions. Borders in Princeton is located at 601 Nassau Park Boulevard. Here's a link to the store's website. …
Cyberlife and the sociopathic experience
Two recent news items about life in today's digital age caught my attention: News item #1 The evolution of dating: Match.com and Chadwick Martin Bailey Behavioral Studies uncover a fundamental shift Recent studies of more than 11,000 people revealed that one in six marriages are now between people who met through an online dating site — more than twice the number of people meeting at bars, at clubs and other social events combined Additionally, the studies show that one in five new committed relationships, including marriages, are between people who met on an online dating site. News item #2 Facbook fueling divorce, research claims Divorce lawyers claim the explosion in the p …
Cutting Ourselves Some Slack
Forgiving oneself for making bad choices is never easy, and I know there are authors and posters on LF who are true experts in the area of self-forgiveness. But let me come at this from an angle slightly different than my usual Lovefraud fare. It's often just plain hard to bust a flat-out liar and deceiver. And it's often suprisingly easy to effectively flat-out lie and deceive. Let me say this again: it's pretty easy to live a life of deception, making it no big accomplishment to deceive the brightest, most astute, most sensitive people. Lying and deceiving, and doing them well, even over long, extended periods of time, duping anyone and everyone in the process—again, my point is th …
Jobs for Hard Times: Becoming a Dysfunctional Blogger for Fun and Profit!
By The Front Porch Talker From my newest series, “Jobs for Hard Times,” which is yet another of my unfinished series in my unending series of Front Porch Talker items. HOME PAGE: Welcome to my blog, “NE'ER-DO-WELLS” (WWW.NEERDOWELLS.COM) MOTTO: “Let the Mocking Begin!” ABOUT US: Here, we celebrate a ”˜DIVERSE CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE”˜ with a POLITICALLY- CORRECT HANDLE ON THINGS: For ”˜folks with Personality Disorders': Narcissists, Sociopaths, and other Psychopaths, Shape-Shifters and Flexible Identities Among Us! Dear fans and devotees, and other undecided Libertarians of faiths and fan clubs, and “Dexter,” I feel like saying it, so I will: “Let the mocking begin! It's a …
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