Recovery from a sociopath

Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader: How do I process a relationship that had so many lies in it that I don't know really with whom I was involved? I miss the person I thought I knew so much, but at the same time, he was involved with someone else, and others, since at least last June. I thought he had had one affair—but not anything to the extent that it looks like now. How do I process a relationship I never had? Was he lying the whole time acting out the "I love you's", the romantic comments, and the idea that we should be together? Is it all an act? Most of us are reading and posting on Lovefraud because we were intensely, callously, brutally deceived in …

Getting over the relationship that didn’t existRead More

Editor's note: Resource Perspectives features articles written by members of Lovefraud's Professional Resources Guide. Sarah Strudwick, based in the UK, is author of Dark Souls—Healing and recovering from toxic relationships. Re-traumatising and PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) By Sarah Strudwick Sarah Strudwick profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide Everyone always writes about the positive aspects of coming out of a relationship with a psychopathic personality. You read things about how as a result of being in such a toxic relationship, it empowers you and teaches you how to recognise and spot predators. If you have never learnt how to h …

RESOURCE PERSPECTIVES: Psychopaths, victims and therapyRead More

By Ox Drover Sometimes former victims of psychopaths have voiced to me that they just want others to know that the psychopath was not the victim, but the abuser. Former victims are frustrated that others don't recognize someone is an abuser. Many times the actual victim has instead been painted by the real abuser as the “bad guy.” I remember reading a letter from my psychopathic son from his prison cell who told me in the letter he knew that I had to be the one who was “wrong” because he got along with everyone in the family circle and I got along with no one, so therefore I had to be the one “in the wrong.” Well, democratically voting on something does not make something “right,” it …

Might does not make rightRead More

By Ox Drover One of the themes that seems to run throughout the stories of many of, if not most of, the people who have had experiences with psychopaths is that we have either had repeated episodes of being abused by the same psychopath, even after we saw their dishonesty, or had episodes of being sucked into the webs of multiple psychopaths. Or, we have both of these—multiple episodes with multiple psychopaths. Most of the people I have known who were formerly victims of psychopaths are not stupid. In fact, some of the smartest, most accomplished people I know are former victims, and have been repeatedly victimized by one psychopath after finding out that this person was dishonest and …

Once we know what they are–we must maintain No ContactRead More

By Ox Drover Many people think of the term “judging others” in a negative way. I think a lot of this comes from the Biblical admonition found in which Jesus said,  “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matthew 7:1). Matthew 7:2-5 says, "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” What Jesus was condemning here was hypocritical, self-righteous judgments of others. I frequently hear others say, “Well, I'm not judging him ”¦” when they talk about how someone they know has done something that is less than morally upright. When I was a young person in this community of mostly Scots-Irish Protestants, people were fr …

Being a “judgmental person” is more than okay–it is wiseRead More

Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a woman whose daughter is caught in the web of a sociopath. The woman and her husband are not enabling the relationship—the sociopath, of course, wants money. They are hoping and praying that their daughter will escape. Here is her question to other Lovefaud readers: What was the "turning point," "awakening moment," "realization point," that woke them up OUT of the fog, the gaslighting, etc., and what made them realize they needed to RUN, to get away from their sociopaths?  What finally "did it," what finally "broke the camel's back?"  Where they realized what was happening to them, had been done to them, when they finally realized things were …

What was your turning point?Read More

By Ox Drover If I told you that you had to eat an entire cow, do you think you could do it? How about if I told you that you had to eat an entire cow in only ten minutes? Do you think you could do it? “Holy cow! I can't do that!” you might say. Well, I think we all have our personal “cows” that we try to eat. Big jobs or big projects that we look at and say “Noooooo way, I can't eat all of that!” So having seen this particular “cow” as too big to swallow in one bite, we never even attempt to eat it. We just let it sit there in the middle of our lives, using up our resources, taking up space, and growing bigger by the day! Every time we look at this “pet cow,” it is bigger and bigger and …

How to Eat an Entire Cow in Ten MinutesRead More