How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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3 Signs You Should Stop Hurting the Sociopath in Your Life

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So you're wondering if you're with someone who has a character disorder? Maybe a narcissist? Or a sociopath? If you are, you might often be accused of hurting that poor person. Here are three things you might be blamed for, otherwise known as red flags: 1. A person with a character disorder is not responsible for his or her life. You are. And if you don't step up to the plate with a full wallet, lots of energy, and a constant smile, then you're going to hear about it. About how mean you are. Uncaring. Unloving. Unwilling. Even if you've been stepping up to the plate with all of the above for years and are simply worn out by your partner's inability to invest alongside you. Even when you're …

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LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: Addicted to my relationship with a sociopath

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Editor's Note: The letter to Lovefraud was submitted by a Lovefraud reader whom we'll call "Gwenda." My name is Gwenda and I am 27 years old. I'd like to share my story with you in hopes of getting some advice, help, or possibly sharing my story with someone going through this that could possible help them and they can relate to. Last year I started dating a guy who I believed to be the man of my dreams to discover I was dating a demon sociopath. When I met him he seemed like the most normal guy, told me he was in construction, going back to school to become a helicopter pilot, had lived in so many parts of the world, was so cultured, and extremely good looking and charming. He really made …

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Helping Children Heal While Co-parenting with a Sociopath

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by Quinn Pierce I sat on the now familiar, well worn bench outside the courtroom, and I watched the strained faces of the people around me as I waited for our name to be called.  It was our fourth appearance in the family court due to my son's unexcused absences resulting from an illness the school has yet to acknowledge. The whole process has been exhausting, to say the least, but it's been made even worse by the carnival-like antics being performed by my ex-husband and his lawyer. As usual, a situation that should solely be about supporting our child has been turned into another  Look At Me, I'm the Victim one-act play.  It seems that any captive audience lately has become an op …

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Holidays with a Sociopath

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There's no exact formula for spending life's special events with a sociopath, but one thing's for sure. It won't be good for you. With the 4th of July coming tomorrow, I decided to spend some time talking about life's biggest events and sweetest moments. Weddings. Birthdays. Funerals. Births. Christmas. Hanukah. Anniversaries. And any other special time or ritual that gives our humanity a chance to feel the deeper meaning of life. To watch the fireworks. To celebrate our bonds to each other. To remember our heritage. To take a breath and step away from the daily grind so we can look around and appreciate what's most important to us. And feel the joy that comes with it. And because our …

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Why I Wrote ‘Discarded: One Mother’s Journey with a Psychopath’

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By Indie Mom I never started out to write a book, let alone a personal memoir, laying bare the most intimate and personal details between my husband and me and our children. Looking back four years since he left our family home, I can barely believe the repressed stories that have surfaced, and even more, stories that make complete sense to someone other than me. Because I had endured years of gas lighting, projection, triangulation and manipulation at the hands of my husband and father of my children, I looked and felt like a very unwell person when I tried to share anything with our closest friends and family members. Eventually, when our house of cards came tumbling down, there …

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LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: My sociopathic ex left me with only a bare grasp on reality

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Editor's Note: This letter was submitted to Lovefraud by a reader whom we'll call “Dolina.” The best way to deal with a sociopath is to avoid them altogether but that isn't always possible and of course, you have to realise that is what he is before he takes your brain and turns it into a bouncy-ball. And that they're not really as fun as the TV makes them look. It might be you. It could be even now, you realise something is horribly wrong with your relationship but you can't exactly think what it is. That even though he never outright says anything concrete, he has a way of showing you how useless, helpless, stupid and ugly you are. You're lucky to have him, he knows that and makes sure th …

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Devaluation and the Inability to Form Emotional Attachments

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I'd like to start this post with a passage from the author Jesmyn Ward in Men We Reaped. Here, she talks about how she learned to undervalue herself when her dad left their family: "I looked at myself and saw a walking embodiment of everything the world around me seemed to despise: an unattractive, poor, Black woman. Undervalued by her family, a perpetual workhouse. Undervalued by society regarding her labor and her beauty. This seed buried itself in my stomach and bore fruit. I hated myself. That seed bloomed in the way I walked, slumped over, eyes on the floor, in the way I didn't even attempt to dress well, in the way I avoided the world, when I could, through reading, and in the way I …

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Restorative images and recovery from betrayal

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"When we focus on something repeatedly, the brain forms a habit," says Steven Stosny, Ph.D., author of Living and Loving After Betrayal. "We have to be careful on what we focus on." When we discover that we've been betrayed by a sociopath, for a long time that's all we can think about. Although this is a typical response to the betrayal, it also has the effect of keeping us mired in our pain. Stosny suggest replacing the memories of the deception with restorative images, which he defines as "any emotionally laden bit of your imagination that eases pain by shifting mental focus from loss to growth." He explains this approach in an article on the Psychology Today blog: Healing from …

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Online threats: Crimes or free speech?

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The Supreme Court of the United States may soon decide whether or not to hear appeals of two cases in with people were convicted and sent to jail for making online threats, even though they later said they didn't mean any harm. In one case, Anthony Elonis of Pennsylvania, wrote on Facebook about killing his estranged wife. According to the Associated Press, he said: “There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.” The woman testified in court that she feared for her life. Elonis was sentenced to almost four years, and was released on February 14, 2014, according to The Exp …

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Why Do I Feel So Guilty? How Sociopaths Shame Us Into Submission

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If I had to pick the most powerful tool in a sociopath's arsenal, it would be shame.   I've experienced a myriad of emotions during my life with sociopathic parents:  sadness, anger, confusion, jealousy (from observing "healthy" families), fear, loneliness, compassion, forgiveness.  During the healing process, it is very normal to have waves of these emotions come and go.  But for me, the one emotion that hasn't come and gone, the one that has blanketed my entire life history, is shame. Why shame?  I didn't ask to be abused as a child.    As an adult, I certainly had the choice to sever ties with my parents, but I didn't because I thought a good daughter wouldn't do that.   If I hang in the …

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