In 2007, The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, was the best-selling book in America. The book was featured on two episodes of Oprah, which significantly boosted sales. At one point the book was selling 150,000 copies per week. Total sales: 19 million books. The Secret has many proponents—and many detractors. It's described as a self-help book on the power of positive thinking. Some critics say that the book offers nothing but false hope to people who try to solve their problems by wishing them away, when they need more conventional solutions. The premise of The Secret is the Law of Attraction. Here is how it is defined in the book: Everything that's coming into your life you are attracting into y …
Living the Lie: the Truth Revisited
By The Front Porch Talker “Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity”¦the soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.” From Billy Budd (Herman Melville). We all live the lie sometimes: everybody lies. Lying is part of the American social contract; a matter of civility and manners, in some circles. Culturally, we even eschew the truth sometimes, equating it with rudeness. Who wants to hear that they are looking old or that their appearance is less-than-stellar? While our American cultur …
The sociopath’s isolation campaign: Keeping you from the people you love
A sociopath looks deep into your eyes. “I never loved anyone like I love you,” he says. “We are so special together. People will never understand why we're so attracted to each other. They say we shouldn't be together, but they're just jealous about the intensity of our love. Love can overcome anything, you know. It's you and me against the world, kid!” With words like these, sociopaths launch one of their most important strategies: Isolating you from friends and family. It doesn't seem that way at first. In the beginning, sociopaths want to be with you all the time. They proclaim that they are so wrapped up in you that they can't bear to be apart, and it feels flattering to be so de …
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Finding our ADAMANT– unearthing our most valuable gem
By ErinBrock One thing we see over and over from the fallout of a sociopathic relationship is destroyed self-esteem and a lack of confidence. Lacking self-esteem and confidence leads to overlooking behaviors and having a hard time making firm decisions for ourselves. Destroyed self-esteem makes it difficult some days to even get out of bed, let alone get out of the house and participate in life. It's hard to plan for meals, school lunches, kid activities, legal angles, financial support and moving forward. We want to hide under the covers and make it all go away. Okay yes, and justifiably so. BUT ”¦ if we want to get “somewhere,” we must first find our adamant. Adamant descri …
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Intuition, purpose and sociopaths
In my previous two articles on this blog, I wrote that our awful entanglements with sociopaths often have a larger purpose—our personal spiritual growth. This is an extremely difficult concept, especially when we believe in a benevolent God, universe, or higher power—whatever term you want to use—who only wants the best for us. Why, if God loves us, would he/she want us to experience the deceit, betrayal and destruction of a sociopath? In my case, the terrible experience allowed me to unearth internal pain and disappointment that was blocking me from feeling love and peace. My sociopathic ex sensed the negative feelings within me, and promised to be the answer to my prayers and the fulfi …
I wasn’t that stupid
Editor's note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud's statement on Spiritual Recovery. A Lovefraud reader recently sent me the following link from Wikipedia: Psychological manipulation The author of the article on psychological manipulation based most of its information on three books: Who's Pulling Your Strings?, by Harriet B. Braiker; In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People, by George K. Simon; and The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, by Martin Kantor. The first two sections of the article are excellent. First, the author discusses the requirements of successful manipulation: According to Simon, successful …
Somewhere Inbetween Time: Between Past-Perfect and Future-Perfect
By the Front Porch Talker Somewhere along the time-space continuum we have space-time. Space is three-dimensional and time is in the fourth-dimension, with different spatial dimensions. According to perceptions, the universe has three dimensions of space and one of time. By combining space and time, we have the freedom to describe life more accurately—from the quantum level to the super galactical levels; thus, expanding our entire perceptions of time and space, and life ultimately. Everything is relative, of course, even our own experiences and perceptions of life. Depending upon where we are observing an event, how close and how distant, and depending on the gravitational forces, we s …
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Letters Home: Letter to a Sociopath
Editor's Note: Here's another essay by the Front Porch Talker. For background about her experience, read her initial post, called “My life with a sociopath.” By The Front Porch Talker From “Letters Home,” my series of unsent letters to fictional people about fictional topics—for real. Dear DOC #...., Well, I bet you never thought that I would find you, but here we are sitting across an imaginary bolted-down table in the visiting room of your new home. Do they still call it prison, or do you prefer the term penitentiary? I like the sound of Correctional Institution. It has an optimistic tone to it: a college for “change” or “correction,” as though either option were ever possible w …
All I wanted was a date
Back in the summer of 1996, when I logged onto the America Online Love section, I had no idea that it would be the beginning of a journey that would change my life. I was single, had never been married and was about to turn 40—yes, I heard that biological clock ticking very loudly. I ran my own copywriting business and finally, after 13 years of struggle, I was making good money. Maybe, I hoped, it was finally time for me. When I logged on to AOL and looked at the personal ads, all I wanted was a date. Enter the sociopath What I found was James Montgomery, who turned out to be a con artist—a sociopath. Like many Lovefraud readers, when this man crossed my path, I had no idea what a soci …
When He’s Just A Bad Dude
It's easy to get obsessed with, fixated on, “labels” and diagnostic categories like sociopath, psychopath, malignant narcissist, narcissist, etc. To be sure, labels and diagnoses can be important and informative. In the case of “sociopathic” individuals, for instance, we know that there's no changing them; we know that there's no real hope for their redemption; and so, if you've correctly identified a sociopathic type, you can know that it's pointless, self-destructive to invest another minute of your time in him. And this is a good thing to know. But it's also the case, I'd suggest, that an overfocus on labels and diagnoses can sometimes be a distraction, a form of avoidance, sometim …