Recovery from a sociopath

The story of Little Red Riding Hood is a great metaphor for a relationship with a sociopath. In the end, victims of sociopaths often feel destroyed or damaged in some profound way. Some are brutalized financially, others physically, and almost all are hurt, compromised, or undone emotionally and psychologically. The experience is often described as identity eroding or soul destroying. Many victims develop chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. For some, recovery is elusive. For others, it is long and hard. Too many of us were taught, "There's good in everyone." To those of us who have been taught that there is good in everyone, these views about sociopaths seem unfathomable. …

Being taught “There’s good in everyone,” blinds us to the true nature of sociopathsRead More

By Eleanor Cowan My throat, arms, and legs felt swollen. Not for the first time, the thought occurred: “Death would be an instant relief.” I could hardly walk. Heavy with grief, a searing acidic ache in my stomach, I arrived at the weekend retreat held by a support group for those affected by the addictions of a loved one. Assigned to a tiny room the size of a storage cupboard in the small community college, I dropped the worn backpack I’d hastily stuffed with an old nightie, soap, and toothbrush. I chose a seminar among those offered on the agenda lying on the desk and stumbled to it. What was going on for me? I’d met someone. It had been five years since I’d left my sex-addict pedophi …

Healing old pain through a new disordered relationshipRead More

By Eleanor Cowan One early evening at the end of the second year in my support group for Parents of Sexually Abused Children, we were invited to participate in a new activity together. Our lead Social Worker, Aidan, also an artist and storyteller, suggested that we complete two unfinished sentences, each in our own words. The first was, “Detaching from the abuser(s) in my life feels like _____. The second was, “Once I let go, I found myself _____. I’d like to share the responses I heard that evening with Lovefraud readers. Aidan, also a former victim of physical predation both in her childhood and in her adult life, began: “Finally detaching from my abuser dissolved tiny sha …

Fill in the blank: ‘Detaching from the abuser in my life feels like _____’Read More

The illusion is vaporized. One way or another, you have discovered that your partner, family member, friend or colleague is a sociopath. Maybe you unearthed one lie too many. Or maybe the mask slipped and the person unceremoniously dumped you. However it happened, you've learned that he or she has been lying to you all along. And now you're obsessed. You want to know the truth. You want to know where the sociopath really was, who the sociopath was really with, what happened to the money. With your new awareness of his or her lying personality, you recall multiple incidents that left you scratching your head, and now look at them in an entirely different light, trying to figure out what …

After the sociopath, consumed by obsessionRead More

By Eleanor Cowan On Tuesday, a young friend from Montreal called with good news. A single mother of four children, proud of her escape from an abusive ex-husband, Kaila is back at school, works part-time to cover the groceries, and, each week it seems, successfully faces yet another challenge to advance her world. On Monday, a problem with the toilet required a plumber. Kaila called the “cheapest in town” ad circled in red ballpoint in an old phone book. In his early 50’s, the uniformed plumber waited for Kaila to return from taking her children to school that morning. As he inspected the toilet in her apartment, he began to talk about the high cost of living. Raising his eyebrows, he w …

After the sociopath, taking back power and standing up to bad behaviorRead More

By Eleanor Cowan One winter’s day, busy preparing to drive to a free art lesson for my children and their young friends, my disagreement with my husband took an unwanted turn. I’d contested Stan’s view of God’s endless compassionate mercy and boundless clemency. “If that’s so true,” I asked, “What’s hell for?” My husband was a covert pedophile, although I didn't know it at the time. Molesting our young daughter and ridiculing our son at every opportunity, while I was at safely at work, Stan never took responsibility for an addiction he knew was morally wrong. Even though he’d molested his own siblings as a teenager, he still felt entitled to become a seminarian as a young man. Aft …

Sociopath exerts control by holding important people and events hostageRead More

[youtube_sc url="https://youtu.be/rJNFeHHGGN4"] Over the weekend Terry, my husband, and I watched The Zookeeper's Wife, a movie is set in Warsaw, Poland, during World War II. It tells the true story of how after animals at the Warsaw Zoo were bombed and shot, the couple that ran the zoo used the property to hide Jews from the Nazis until they could be transported to safety. It's a good movie, but as you can imagine, it is tense and emotional. My reaction to the film, plus the normal stress of daily life, made it difficult for me to sleep. Perhaps the connection I felt to the movie was a distant memory — if you've read my book, Love Fraud, you may remember that I describe how I learned a …

To recover from the sociopath, and protect yourself from another one, work on relieving your emotional tensionRead More

[youtube_sc url="https://youtu.be/DA7mgTBLiv8"] Let’s go party on days that end in Y, drink Russian, drive German, wear Italian and kiss French! Friends, if you are expecting some guidance on this subject, I might not be the right person. The final practice of our 30-Day self-love and healing journey is about rewarding yourself. It’s about rewarding the process, and not the outcome. Following up from the previous session on failing, this brief visualization exercise once again redefines failure, an act that is not about falling, but about getting up. Rewarding yourself is something you can do consistently to help yourself get up and rise up. This exercise also draws parallels bet …

Self-Love and Healing Journey Day 30: CelebrateRead More

[youtube_sc url="https://youtu.be/cTC1oH0HTig"] Another four letter F word you might think, and you are quite right! We learned about FINE and it’s quite fine to fail, since failure is the First Attempt In Learning. If you define it as anything else, it may be a misconception. We have been programmed to perceive failure as a negative experience, however, this practice redefines this word and encouraging us to fail - fail today, fail tomorrow and fail over and over, because every time you fail, you get one step closer to your dream! Open up your dream journal and decide to fail for each dream. If you don’t fail, someone else will hire you to work on their own dreams, fail for them, so …

Self-Love and Healing Journey Day 29: FAILRead More