On May 21, 2003 I was given the miracle of my life. The sociopath who had terrorized my existence for almost five years was arrested and I was set free from the web of his deceit. Almost imperceptibly, healing began. Without his sinister presence, the FOG of his lies began to lift. Even though I was scared, and beaten down, I began to think and feel and take action for myself, not based on what he had told me was best or good for me, but based on what was best and healing and supportive of me. Without his insidious words stealing my peace of mind with every breath, I began to unravel the web of his deceit and find myself again. I began to make choices that loved me. Choices based on my …
After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 14 – Discovering What We Are Capable Of
The Buddhists say that we fall in love with our teachers. I know that in my relationship with the man I now belief is a sociopath, I realized early that I was in a sort of classroom. He clearly saw the world differently than I did, and operated on principles that were so foreign to me that I couldn't begin to connect the dots. I was truly in love with this man, had a clear vision of the benefits a good relationship would bring to both of us, and wanted to make it work. So I tried to understand. I kept trying through all the emotional pain that started very early in the relationship. I worked at getting him to appreciate and trust me more than he did. I also experimented with mimicking his …
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Experiencing the impact of grief, Part 2
By Ox Drover In Part I we looked at what grief is and what “stages” we may pass through when we lose something or someone of great importance to us. We saw that grief can be “legitimate,” in which others “support us” by validating that we have a reason to be sad over the loss. Yet, there can be “disenfranchised” grief, grief that others do not view as “legitimate” reasons for grief, or shameful private grief that we cannot share. In their attempts to “help” us, many people make fumbling attempts to “cheer us up” or to trivialize our pain, or attach “reasonable” time limits to how long we are able to grieve, which disenfranchises our pain. Since most people view “grief” as equal to “Sadness …
Experiencing the impact of grief, Part 1
By Ox Drover Many of the people who have been victims of a sociopath have commented here at Lovefraud about how much “different” breaking up with a sociopath is than a “regular” break up, how much more painful. I've read comments from former victims about how intense the feelings are after being conned by a sociopath whatever the relationship has been, whether family member, spouse, lover, or child. I have also felt these same profoundly hurtful feelings as I have worked my way along the difficult and rocky road toward healing. Even though my profession was as a registered nurse practitioner, and I've studied “the grief process” as outlined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, one of the people who ha …
One man’s lies are not my truth
I was at a seminar awhile ago where the speaker quoted from Gavin deBecker's book, The Gift of Fear. deBecker writes that the first time someone hits you, you're a victim. The second time, you knew what he was capable of yet chose to stay. The speaker went on to talk about how in life we always have a choice. We can choose to stay with a man who has proven himself capable of hitting or lying or cheating, or, we can chose to do the thing we fear, leave. Walk out the door and don't look back. It is always our choice. A woman in the audience put up her hand and said, “So, you're blaming the victim. If she chooses to stay, it's her fault.” “No,” the speaker responded. “She is never responsib …
Sometimes “victory” is simply walking away upright
By Ox Drover Donna's great article about Victory, of a sort, over a sociopath the other day got me to thinking. Just what is “victory?” My wonderful stepfather was a young basketball coach when he got his first real job coaching for a very small rural school which had not had a winning game in over a decade. The team was dispirited and had no real expectation of ever winning a game. One of the local coaches bragged that he would beat them “by a hundred points!” at the next game. The team thought there was a good possibility that that coach's team could do just that. However, it is “good sportsmanship” for a coach playing a much weaker team to let their second, third, and fourth strings g …
After the sociopath is gone: Our thoughts become our reality
So, it's over. He's gone and done the dirty D&D (devalue and discard, also affectionately known as ”˜diss and dump') one last time. You've sworn, ”˜that's it!' a thousand times, cried your eyes out through the night, poured your heart out into the soggy pillow and vowed to get over him. You've ripped up all his pictures, thrown out the tokens (what few there are) of his love, including the dollar store ”˜crystal' wine goblets and the fake diamond ring. You've told your friends, (what few you have left), that you will never, ever talk to the lying, cheating, manipulative rat bazturd ever again. Never. Ever. Period. Finito. Not until hell freezes over, or the Dow Jones climbs above twenty gazil …
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Dealing with the root cause of the problem
By Ox Drover One of the first things I learned in nursing school was to correctly diagnose the problem before trying to fix it. I wish I had applied this lesson to my own personal life as well as I applied it to my professional life. We were taught that when there was a perceived need, for example, when the patient was feeling short of breath, to assess why the patient might be feeling short of breath. Was the airway obstructed? If the airway was clear, then what was another likely cause of the problem? Sometimes a patient who is very anxious will feel very short of breath when they are actually getting plenty of oxygen, (as measured by a “pulse ox—”a little gismo that you clip on the pati …
After the sociopath is gone: No Contact begins in my head
He was arrested at 9:14 am on May 21, 2003. It was a sunny, blue sky morning. The birds were fluttering and twittering in the trees. The river flowed lazily by, meandering through the forest, dappled with sunlight, sparkling, clear. We were in hiding. Had been since February 26 when we'd fled the city we lived in 1,000 miles away, heading west, heading to the US, he'd said. “I've got money there,” he insisted. “I'll just leave this mess to my lawyers to fix. No sense hanging around waiting for them to get it cleared up. I'll let you go once I'm out of the country,” he promised. Like all his promises, like everything he'd ever said and done, it was all a lie. On that morning in May, the li …
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Attracting a new relationship after the sociopath
Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader: I have a question for you. I've been divorced for 3 years now from my ex-husband who had a porn addiction. I've tried the Internet dating sites on and off since, and have had nothing but bad experiences. What do you suggest I do/ how do I go about finding someone? I am really lonely and would like to have a man in my life. However, I'm so afraid of attracting the wrong kind still. If you have any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them. If you've had a run-in with a sociopath, before attempting to date again, you must first heal yourself. If you're feeling lonely and afraid, it is an indication that you are not yet …