Recovery from a sociopath

If there is a single category of memories that still can make me squirm, it is the remembrance of what I did to make my sociopath love me. And what I did simply to keep him from hurting me. And what I did to try to understand the things I must have done wrong, because he didn't love me. And all the ways I pretzel-twisted my brain to excuse him for his lies, deception, disrespect and greed. The topic of this article is the next phase of healing from a sociopathic relationship: bargaining. We are in the process of healing from the moment we sustain any emotional trauma. Relationships with sociopaths typically involve many traumatic events, both large and small. Some of these events are the …

After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 4-BargainingRead More

By AlohaTraveler It took me a long time to clearly define that what the Bad Man was doing to me was... bad. Plain and simple, it was bad for me. Never mind if he was working through pain, never mind if he had suffered many losses or had an unfortunate childhood. Never mind. He's a grown man. He was treating me in a way that I can only define as very bad for me no matter what his issues were. Really, it was unacceptable but at the time, I did not have clear boundaries as to what kind of treatment I would accept for myself before I would draw a line in the sand and say, “No more!” There were lots of excuses he made up and to be honest, there were lots of excuses I made up to try to exp …

Why I say “Bad Man”Read More

By OxDrover I remember when I was a little kid, driving with my parents, sitting in the back seat sans seatbelt (there were no such things in those days) and leaning over the front seat, repeatedly asking my parents, “Are we there yet?” or “How long til we get there?” Of course there had been no reasonable way for my parents to convey to me “how long” since I didn't tell time when I was four, so there was no use saying “one hour” because I wouldn't be able to comprehend what an “hour” was. Time is sort of fluid anyway, relative to what is going on. If you are bored, an hour is forever. If you are interested in something, an hour is very short. To a bored child in the back seat of a car, …

Are We There Yet?Read More

This column is dedicated to my sister, who is my best friend and wise counsel in so much of this learning In Part 2, I wrote about painful shock, our instantaneous reactions to stabilize us until we have time to heal, and the everyday process that we use to resolve trauma. In a relationship with a sociopath, something goes wrong with this process. We don't handle “bad things that happen to us” in an expeditious way. It may be that we do not have skills for fast processing of emotional trauma, because we are burdened by residue of previous trauma. But beyond that, the typical sociopathic technique of recruiting us through seductive love-bombing, followed by withdrawal of positive attention, …

After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 3-DenialRead More

By OxDrover In the book Games People Play, by Dr. Erick Berne, M.D., he explains what he calls “strokes,” or social exchanges. It has long been known that people require social interaction with other people and that this is a biological requirement for life itself in some cases. In orphanages, children whose basic physical needs are met, but who are not held and cuddled, literally die from a condition called “failure to thrive.” The term “stroke” can be used as a general term for any intimate physical contact, but in practice it may take many forms, including conversation and recognition of another's presence. In Dr. Berne's opinion, “any social intercourse (even negative intercourse) …

Another Way of Looking at ThingsRead More

Imagine a book, a novel, that begins with an explosion on the first page. The explosion disintegrates big things into fragments moving away faster than the eye can follow. There is no way to understand what it means, or know what the world is becoming. The people in the book are either immobilized, their stunned brains on autopilot, trying to gather information. Or they are rushing everywhere, trying to find something to save before the dust even settles. In the background, other people may be fainting or crying. But this book is about the people who are alert, struggling to maintain their identities in a falling-apart world. This is where traumatic healing begins. The trajectory of …

After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 2-Painful ShockRead More

By Peggy Whoever Today I had an epiphany, certainly my first, and perhaps the only one I shall receive in this lifetime. I consider myself blessed. I equate this epiphany, an almost supernatural experience, as being akin to what someone on LSD may have experienced, whereby every nerve ending, and the synapses within every cell is felt at a deep sensory level, where there is a oneness and synchronicity within me and outside of me, a oneness with the universe. (No, I have never experimented with drugs!) I equate this feeling with Abraham Maslow's study of “peak experiences”. This is a rare moment, sometimes a once-in-a lifetime vision, comprehension, and/or deep level of spirituality. …

The gift of forgivenessRead More

A relationship with a sociopath is a traumatic experience. The definition of physical trauma is a serious injury or shock to the body, as with a car accident or major surgery. It requires healing. On an emotional level, a trauma is wound or shock that causes lasting damage to the psychological development of a person. It also requires healing. To some degree, we can depend on our natural ability to heal. But just as an untreated broken bone can mend crooked, our emotional systems may become “stuck” in an intermediate stage of healing. For example we may get stuck in anger, bitterness, or even earlier stages of healing, such as fear and confusion. This article is about my personal ideas abo …

After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 1-The PathRead More