The following story was sent by the Lovefraud reader who comments under the name "LovingAnnie." This woman—we'll call her Annie—spent four years waiting for a relationship to materialize with a policeman who tantalized her with flattery and promises. Here's what Annie wrote: Annie and the cop I called 9-1-1 for the first time in my life (a neighbor problem), and when I answered the door, my first thought on seeing him was, "wow—he is sooo cute." We ended up talking for almost an hour and exchanging phone numbers. He told me he'd been a cop for almost 20 years, was divorced with two kids. That a few years after the divorce was final, he had a girlfriend who was also a police officer, but …
Manage anxiety using understanding and conscious intention
Did you know people actually have two brains? We have a conscious brain that produces thoughts, ideas and intention and we have an automatic, unconscious brain that produces impulses. There are advantages to having two brains. The conscious thinking brain makes us smart and deliberate but the problem is it is slow. On the other hand, the unconscious automatic brain is fast, but the impulses that arise from it are sometimes undesirable. Automatic impulses do not always serve us well. Have you ever been walking in the woods and seen something that looked like a snake out of the corner of your eye? Notice that your heart pounds and you have that alarmed feeling even before you are aware of …
Manage anxiety using understanding and conscious intentionRead More
The verbal attacks of the sociopath
Editor's note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader Aloha Traveler. Who are you calling BLEEP!? I have always been a person that is hard-wired for honesty. If you are into astrology, I am an Aries and my Chinese sign is Rooster. This doesn't mean much to me but a friend once wanted to know my birth sign and the year and then responded “Oh. Now I see.” According to my friend, Aries born in the year of the Rooster have a double scoop of honesty. What does this have to do with a being the victim of a disordered person? I'll tell you. When they are attacking you, they never say anything true about you. The Bad Man was always insisting that I was a very di …
Anxiety: An inevitable outcome of involvement with a sociopath/psychopath
According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, “anxiety is a normal reaction to stress. It helps one deal with a tense situation in the office, study harder for an exam, keep focused on an important speech. In general, it helps one cope. But when anxiety becomes an excessive, irrational dread of everyday situations, it has become a disabling disorder.” Put another way anxiety is supposed to help us. The parts of the brain that produce feelings of anxiety are similar to the parts of the brain that process pain, another negative emotion. Anxiety and its cousin pain help us by signaling danger and causing us to avoid. Their job is to inhibit behavior. The part of the brain that pro …
Anxiety: An inevitable outcome of involvement with a sociopath/psychopathRead More
Post Traumatic Growth: After the sociopath is gone.
It has been almost five years since the sociopath was arrested and I was given the miracle of getting my life back free from his abuse. It is amazing to me to know that once upon a time, I was abused. I was downtrodden. I was completely broken. The walking, breathing dead. At the time of his arrest, I had given myself up for dead. I dreamt about dying, yearned for my life to end. And then, the police walked in and arrested him and in that moment, everything changed. Life began again. It was not life as I knew it. Life as it was. It was new life, with a whole new perspective and outlook. A whole new appreciation for what it means to live within my human condition, what it means to be …
Post Traumatic Growth: After the sociopath is gone.Read More
ASK DR. LEEDOM: How can I move on?
This week we received the following email. I am sharing it with you because what she reports is very common on a number of levels that I will discuss. I was married to a sociopath for 25 years. They were horrible years because most of that time I had no idea I was married to a sociopath. I was deeply in love when we met. He told me everything I wanted to hear. Knowing all my weaknesses and fears he fed them, made me totally emotionally dependent on him. He helped me get great jobs, pumped me up so I would keep making more money, while of course he lived off me. But at the same time kept telling me I was ugly, fat, sickly. He had affairs. All of this and I still kept hoping he would change …
The sociopath leaves, and her OCD symptoms disappear
Editor's note: The following story was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who comments as "Free." I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for 13 years. Two years after we started living together, I slowly developed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It first started off with a safety issue, where I was going around the house checking to see if everything was locked and turned off, until it escalated that I couldn't have knives anywhere near me because I was too afraid that I might lash out and hurt someone. I lived in absolute terror because of this. Some instinct told me to hide all of this as much as I could from my husband. But he did find out and he didn't offer any help, or seek help …
The sociopath leaves, and her OCD symptoms disappearRead More
The miracle of freedom after the sociopath is gone
I believe in miracles. Not the rock your world, holy saints and rising apparitions kind of miracles. But rather, the light shifting, change your life, in this moment kind of miracle that takes you by the hand and guides you home. The kind of miracle that awakens you to the truth that this moment is all you've got. The kind of miracle that says, grab me and run with me or lose the miracle of your life forever. I know about miracles like that. I got one on a sunny May morning five years ago when I had given myself up for dead. Well, not dead-dead, but rather, the walking breathing dead kind of living that leeches all energy from your body and leaves you without hope of ever finding a …
ASK DR. LEEDOM: How can I make my friends understand?
Recently a man wrote me saying that his best friend has been more hurtful than helpful when it comes to helping him recover from his relationship with a sociopathic woman. He had the following comment and question. I am sure many of you will relate to this one, especially you guys out there. I have a best friend who I talked to (of course I desperately needed to get my self-identity back). He instantly tried to help me by seeing my own flaws in the relationship and what I could do better, and stated that I overreacted. Of course, his "help" only contributed to her brainwashing and manipulation because it further fueled my questioning about myself, and further made me believe that I was at …
ASK DR. LEEDOM: How can I make my friends understand?Read More
Why did I stay with the sociopath?
I have wrestled with this question for a long time. While with him, I sometimes wondered, ”˜what on earth am I doing here'? Since gaining my freedom, I have looked back on those 4 years 9 months and wondered, ”˜what on earth was wrong with me that I stayed so long'? I know there are the physiological/psychological factors that compounded my convoluted thinking causing me to believe that I was incapable of leaving him. I know these factors attributed to my inertia and the resultant trauma bonding that held me pinioned in his unholy embrace. But none of these factors explain why an intelligent, well-educated, articulate woman did what I did — before the trauma bonding, the Stockholm Syndrome, …