How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: The sociopath didn’t take it all from us

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Editor's note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who posts as "Adelade." I've experienced so much personal loss as a result of my second marriage that I don't know if I'll ever recover.  I lost my belongings, all of my inheritance, and I nearly lost my will to live.  When I returned home and the hot water wasn't coming out of the spigot, I took my little flashlight down to the basement - dirt and gravel floor, unheated, and housing a dead furnace.  I opened the door to the basement and was met with a wall of warm, moist air and the sound of running water.  It was 27 degrees, outside, and 37 degrees inside the shell of the dwelling where I'm currently liv …

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Sowing the seed of knowledge

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Editor's note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud's statement on Spiritual Recovery. By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired) You know sometimes we tell others about the things that we have gone through, and hope that they see by our example what has happened to us because of our associations with psychopaths or with people who are high in dysfunctional traits common to psychopaths. Sometimes people “get it,” and sometimes they don't get it. A passage of the Bible refers to this: And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying Behold a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured the …

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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Trail of Water, Tears and Betrayal

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Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a reader who writes as "Esther." I am watching with horror as I see the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. The water and photos of devastation bring back memories for me of my experiences in South Florida—three hurricanes back to back destroyed my home. I was married to the sociopath at that time. He enjoyed the attention and the chaos. I was devastated and overwhelmed. The insurance adjusters, claims, trying to get tarps to protect the home from further rain and damage, the ceiling collapsing and the black mold that began to appear on the walls after the power was restored. Contractors could not be found, and the predators looking f …

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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: This year, holidays without the sociopath

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Editor's note: The following article was written by the Lovefraud reader who posts as "Adelade." Holiday seasons are looming on the horizon. For those of us who are in recovery, this time of year can be very depressing, or very liberating. For those who are still embedded in the World of Spath, the holiday season can be more desperate than any other time of the year. Before escaping sociopathic entanglements, the Holiday Season is a time of withhold/reward, predictable outcomes, and ruined expectations. "Perhaps, this year will be better. Perhaps, he/she will make the changes and save the relationship." Well, if the spath isn't engaging in withhold/reward, they're engaging in …

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Leaving the Sociopath: Gathering Strength and Losing Fear

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By Mary Ann Glynn, LCSW [Masculine pronouns are used for the sake of simplicity. Women, of course, can also be sociopaths.] You are feeling more desperate and miserable in this relationship with this person who you thought loved you. Over time you have experienced feeling less valuable, as you find your needs no longer seem important to him. Your feelings are not important. In fact, when you try to emotionally connect or bring up a hurt, a need, or a concern about something he did, it only seems to threaten him and make them act like a cornered animal. And, in the end, he acts victimized and you feel like the bad guy. There are many things about you or what you say or do that he cannot …

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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: One-year anniversary of the SNAP that was my sanity speaking

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Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader who uses the name "DamselflyNOTdistressed." OCTOBER 24, 2012 - Today is the one-year anniversary of my breakup from a SPath and the "nervous breakdown" that followed. My body and life at that moment felt viscerally like the total collapse of everything I thought I knew about myself. It was undoubtedly one of the worst moments of my life. And I am grateful. It had only been five months, and what a grand rollercoaster ride! We were fellow bohemians, and we met as nude models in a grand tableau vivant performance by an emerging and prolifically talented artist. Though my third time participating in such an exquisite …

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I Don’t Want to Live That Life

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By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired) Recently I found a book in a “junk book store” that caught my eye. Its title was I Don't Want to Live This Life, and it was written by Deborah Spungen. The book is about her family trying to raise a “difficult child,” her first daughter, Nancy. Nancy was murdered by her boyfriend, a “rock star” named Sid Vicious, in the 1970s. Nancy's birth was problematic with the cord around her neck, and a rare blood disorder caused her to need a total blood exchange transfusion immediately after birth. From the day that she was brought home from the hospital, she screamed and fought her caregivers. By the time she was 14 she was out of control. By the time she was 1 …

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Just a dream: the subconscious doesn’t forget

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One night last week, I awoke from a very real dream.  It was not horrible or frightening.  In fact, it was quite ordinary.  It was a very accurate depiction of the everyday exchanges that commonly occurred in what was once my life.  As dreams go, things were slightly out of place and somewhat strange, but I understood. In the dream, it was a crisp October evening.  I was dressed in jeans and a sweater.  He was dressed in navy blue dress pants and a white shirt.  The accoutrements were missing from the shirt, as they often were in reality.  Why we were together, as he came from work, I have no idea. I was younger in the dream, the age I was the day we met, but he was his current age.  We …

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Taking the first step towards healing the trauma

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The young woman buried her head into my shoulder and sobbed, right in the middle of the exhibit hall. Last weekend, my husband, Terry Kelly, and I attended a conference for the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities. We're reaching out to colleges, hoping to bring Love Fraud and How to Avoid It to students. It's such an important message, as the reaction of the young lady proved. At the age of 23, she had already suffered greatly because of a sociopath. She met the guy when she was 17, and later they lived together. The young lady had an opportunity to work at a well-paying job—earning $60,000 a year—except that the guy didn't want her to work. He didn't want her to be in …

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Managing the Chess Game of Court Ordered Visitation with a Psychopath

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I have blogged previously about the nightmare of a court order supervised exchange professional.  In the past two weeks, I have really started to wonder if I am dealing with two psychopaths instead of just one — my spath ex AND this court ordered supervisor.  It has become abundantly clear that this woman chooses to meddle and fuel drama on some occasions and then on others she decides she wants to remain “neutral”.  Today Luc (the spath ex and my sons unfortunately sperm donor) had another court ordered visitation.  (Note:  Luc hasn't had a seven hour visit for a month and the last time my son ended up in the hospital)  The events that occurred at the drop off have me wondering about whether …

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