Trying to solve problems or make any type of progress with individuals with personality disorders can be very difficult. Virtually every communication is insulting, repetitive, and circular. They are seemingly unable to stay on topic and have propensities for driving others off topic. Covering the same ground to no avail can be exhausting for the non-disordered participants, as they tend to push relentlessly for our participation in their arguments. It is easy to fall into their communication traps and become engaged in their attempts for power. However, with knowledge and diligence, we can re-train ourselves to successfully stand our ground by controlling our own behaviors. A few simple …
Healing your addiction to sociopaths
Lovefraud recently received the following email from a woman whom we'll call "Peggy Sue." I feel hopeless. I'm a target for sociopaths, or I'm addicted to them. My ex-fiancé was one. I was with him 7 years and was abused everyway possible. I was so confused with the lies and double life. He said I was crazy and I went on tons of medication and was completely isolated. I finally was able to leave after 7 years with the help of police, only to move back to my dads with nothing and to start all over. A month later fell in love with another sociopath. My friends and family think I'm gonna end up dead by him or killing myself. I have been to therapy they all just say move out and leave. I …
Intermittent reinforcement: conditioning helps explain why we stay with abusive individuals
An overview of conditioning from a behavior specialist's perspective I will not get too specific regarding behavior reinforcement schedules, but I will ask you to follow me through a brief overview of some of the basics. While I cannot do the explanation justice in a few paragraphs, I can present enough background to facilitate an understanding of why this matters to us. When studying behavior analysis, most programs, at least at some point, look to the work of B.F. Skinner, the 20th century developer of operant conditioning. Very simply, operant conditioning subscribes to the belief that learning is modified by consequences.  The learner is motivated by reinforcement and punishment al …
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Love addiction with a sociopath
[youtube_sc url="https://youtu.be/OYfoGTIG7pY"] According to Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist, romantic love is an addiction. The drive to find a romantic partner is buried deep in the brain, and biologically intertwined with the brain's reward system, which is linked to wanting, motivation, focus and craving. To hear Dr. Fisher explain this, watch the video. Dr. Fisher points out that when you love someone and are rejected, the addiction is worse. Not only do you continue to feel the intense romantic love, but you love your beau even more. Your love becomes an obsession. It turns out that the brain system associated with rewards becomes even more active when you can't get …
LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: Survival tips when the ex is a sociopath
Editor's note: The Lovefraud reader "Winifred" contributed the following article. She also wrote The Other Prey — loving someone previously married to a sociopath. My husband's ex wife is a sociopath with borderline personality disorder. Here are tips on how, over the past 9 years, I have learned to stay one step ahead of her and survive with my sanity and our marriage! 1. Do your homework Remember even though you are nothing like them, you must learn to think like them so that you can anticipate their mindset and next deviant move. What they are going thru in their life at the present time will greatly affect how much hell they plan to rain on you, your children involved, or anyone close to …
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LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: Escaping my mother, the sociopath
Editor's note: The following letter was written by the Lovefraud reader who posts as "NomorePTSD." It refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud's statement on Spiritual Recovery. This letter comes after 3 years of realizing who my mother really is: a sociopath. The first few decades of my life I struggled with what felt like a 5,000 piece puzzle without the picture of how it was suppose to go together. I had every piece memorized— as a way to maintain sanity. I lived in a state of being numb and invalidated. My parents divorced when I was young. A first memory was my mother attempting to kill my siblings and I. It seemed like I was the only one capable of accepting the truth, until …
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What we should do when sociopaths experience no consequences
Lovefraud recently received the following email from a reader who posts as "Salvation2012." Thank you for helping me decide when I needed to cut my losses during my divorce. I did cut my "losses," yet the total I received tallied up to a number similar, just not in all cash. Because I settled in his eyes, he told everyone I was just proving how I was the guilty one and didn't want to risk being exposed. To the end he will deny permanently injuring me and bleeding me of money, and cheating on me (which I only later found out about the extent). My recent concern is watching him seemingly have no consequences. I'm not a vengeful person, so this is a distressing area for me, but I just …
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LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: He kept saying God brought us together
Editor's note: A Lovefraud reader whom we'll call "Linette" sent the following email. This article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud's statement on Spiritual Recovery. I had been out of a different type of abusive marriage for about a year when a friend of mine sent me an ad from one of those local singles sites that she thought I should look at. I was at work and not busy at the time so I went over to the link "just for fun." At the top of the list of "ads" in big bold letters was the title, "JESUS IS LORD." "How bold!" I thought, "to be able to not be ashamed of Jesus!" In my mind I thought it was not a good idea to meet a man online, but well, I kept thinking about that …
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Recovery – parallel courses for moving forward
What sociopaths do to us is unfair, coercive, exploitative and evil. In a just world, they would be held accountable. They would be forced to return what they took from us, and compensate us for the pain and suffering they have caused. They might even be prosecuted and imprisoned. But we do not live in a just world. We live in a world that is oblivious to the human predators among us. We live in a world where clueless people believe a convincing liar; the best performer wins and courts have neither the time nor the inclination to sort out the truth from the lies. For all of us who have been targeted, this adds insult to injury. We've been abused and exploited. We are damaged. Then because …
Why are some people scared of us?
While in the height of conflict with psychopaths or those with psychopathic features, sometimes, we scare people. I don't mean Halloween "scary costume" scary. I don't mean "things that go bump in the night" scary. No, I mean "take a look at yourself" scary. There are those around us who will see us go through what we do, and back away, simply because they realize that what we are experiencing or have experienced is just too strange and horrible to handle. Maybe they don't understand. Maybe they don't know what to say to us, as this is a special type of trauma. Often, some of us give others a "pass" for those reasons.  That is perfectly understandable. However, I believe that there are …