Last week I asked whether there might be physical consequences to life with a psychopath. Judging from the many and fascinating reader responses it seems that many people suspect that these relationships have indeed affected their health. Boldily pains, chronic anxiety, eating disorders, weight fluctuations, difficulties with sleep, headaches - all these and more either started or worsened at the time of the relationships. Some ailments straight away resolved themselves when the relationship ended, others linger. Before I give a brief conceptualisation of a linkage between life events and physical health I must clarify terms. I am not talking here about hypochondria, imagining and and …
Retired racers, PTSD and depression
In the beginning of January, our family took in a foster child. This boy is a 3-year-old retired racing greyhound. His behavior over the last 6 weeks has reminded me of my own journey of healing and teaches us about the biologic nature of psychological symptoms. There is no doubt that this poor boy suffers from PTSD. Furthermore, the PTSD has caused depression and has prevented him from being able to enjoy his life. As part of a conscious program to teach empathy and caretaking to the children, we've fostered many dogs over the last 4 years. Although each dog had a sad story to tell, none came with the combination of symptoms Mr. Goodstuff suffered. I have never seen a dog as fearful …
Might there be physical consequences to life with a psychopath?
Several readers of Lovefraud have mentioned medical problems that arose in their lives with psychopaths. These readers are convinced that the psychological stress and pain of these relationships translated themselves into physical ailments. Some of these symptoms disappeared when the psychopath disappeared, some didn't. Here are a few recent comments: When I parted from him, physically I felt so raw and sore, I looked like I had been in a boxing ring. My health was poor and I couldnt even have the osteopath touch me, I said I felt like I had been stabbed all over. All though he never laid a finger on me, he gave me plenty of mental and emotional abuse. I have a feeling its 2 years of being …
Might there be physical consequences to life with a psychopath?Read More
When the sociopath is gone: Pain is temporary
Lance Armstrong said, “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” When I was in an abusive relationship with a sociopath, the pain was overwhelming. I quit trying to get through it and gave into it. I quit and felt like it would last forever. "Nothing lasts forever - not even your troubles" so said psychologist, Arnold H. Glasgow. Trouble is, when I'm in trouble I 'always' think in absolutes, like never and forever. When I'm in never and forever land, I tell myself tomorrow is too far away to even bother caring about what happens today. I tell myself …
After he’s gone: Looking at the sociopath through open eyes.
My 100% responsibility. I had a glass of wine last night with a girlfriend who is leaving for a three month holiday at the beginning of February. Where she's going is not important -- except when put in the context of who is at the place she's going to. A man. A man she once loved who could not, would not commit. A man who hid behind silence. Who never told her where he was, what he was doing or who he was with. She spent the first year after leaving him healing her broken heart. And then she started dating. A few months ago she decided to phone the man far away. "We were such good friends. Friends stay in touch and I just wanted to see how he was," she told me. With that phone call, the …
After he’s gone: Looking at the sociopath through open eyes.Read More
Undoing the riddle of the sociopath
A while ago, I heard a riddle on the radio I hadn't heard since I was a young girl. Three men go to a hotel and book a room together. The room costs $30, so they each pay $10. After they've gone upstairs the desk clerk realizes the room only cost $25. He gives the bellhop $5 and tells him to return the money to the men. The bellhop figures he can't split $5 evenly, so he pockets $2 and gives them each $1 back. That means they each paid $9 for the room. Which means they paid, $27 total. But, if you add the bellhops $2, it means there's only $29 -- Where did the extra $1 go? Ultimately, the answer is, it's not a math question -- it's a case of misdirection. The riddle asks us to follow the …
(Given what you’ve learned the hard way) what’s your attitude like?
It could be argued that the sociopath is cynical: contemptuous; mocking; concerned only with his own interests and typically disregarding accepted or appropriate standards in order to achieve them - the opposite of idealistic. And there is a danger that one who has learned the hard way about sociopaths becomes jaded: dulled, blunted, deadened, inured; tired, weary, wearied; unmoved, blasé, apathetic - the opposite of fresh. The online version of the Guardian newspaper runs a series in which readers provide their responses to 'Ethical conundrums'. Given the nature of our interests on this blog, this one caught my eye: Is it worse to be cynical or jaded? …
(Given what you’ve learned the hard way) what’s your attitude like?Read More
What the sociopath experience has taught me
Recently, I had a run-in with someone who displays traits of a bully. Because of my experience with the sociopath, the abuser no longer in my life, I didn't get bullied by his assertions that he was in the right and I was wrong, wrong, wrong -- not to mention stupid. Now, it is disconcerting to have an encounter of this sort. It is never pleasant to have someone yelling at me, or telling me I'd better do what they say, or else. In the case of this individual, the 'or else' was connected to his assertion he had the power to ruin my life in this city because, 'he knows people'. He and his dad are connected and all it would take is one phone call, and wham! I wouldn't know what hit me. Once …
The gift of fear: After the sociopath is gone.
When I first got my life back after the sociopath was arrested, I was terrified of becoming angry. Anger to me was my father raging. Anger was the sociopath standing before me with fist raised, eyes blazing, teeth bared. Anger never stopped. Anger was forever. And so, I feared my anger. I had to learn that anger does end -- when I let it out -- safely and with feeling. One hot sunny day a couple of months after his arrest, a girlfriend, who had also come out of an abusive relationship, and I took 4 dozen eggs to the top of a cliff and threw them with all our might onto the rocks below. Before we hurled them we sat and drew pictures and words onto each egg -- pictures and words I had always …
Truth and lies: After the sociopath is gone.
Someone asked me the other day if there was anything anyone could have done that would have made a difference in what eventually happened when I was with the sociopath who is no longer in my life. Interesting question. Had I been forced into a program that made me aware of what was happening within me while I was with him, would you have gone down so far, they asked? Don't know. I do remember the craziness in my head while I was trying to justify his actions to myself, and pulling away from my friends as they tried to pull me into reality. We've talked a lot about how they felt so helpless watching me disappear before their eyes in my attempt to become invisible. They wanted …