Recovery from a sociopath

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 …

Leaving the Sociopath: Gathering Strength and Losing FearRead More

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 …

I Don’t Want to Live That LifeRead More

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 …

Just a dream: the subconscious doesn’t forgetRead More

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 …

Taking the first step towards healing the traumaRead More

Here's more proof that total No Contact is the way to recovery. A new study finds that continuing to follow a former romantic partner on Facebook after breaking up makes it harder to move on. Read: Study: Stalking your ex on Facebook is bad for you, on ZDNet.com. Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader. …

Following the ex on Facebook inhibits emotional recoveryRead More