Sociopaths and family

By Joanie Bentz, B.S., M. ED, BSC/MT “Do not just slay your demons. Dissect them and find what they’ve been feeding on.”—The Man Frozen in Time Angela was married to a personality disordered husband. She was already traumatized by the threat of danger with each day that she continued a relationship with him. With the prompting and help of her friend, a clergyman,  she filed for divorce. As the divorce was unfolding, her siblings, as was custom throughout the years, continued to demand her presence at all family functions. She had young children, and knew that she should not subject them to the heavy drinking and other activities not appropriate for them. Whenever Angela had …

Avoiding narcissistic abuse and PTSD during the holidaysRead More

Perhaps you're a heartbroken mother or father, worried sick about your adult child, who is entangled with a sociopath and becoming more and more distant. Or perhaps you're an adult child, afraid that the new person in the life of your mother or father is an exploiter, angling for your parent's assets. Whether it's a family member or friend, it's painful to see someone you care about being mind controlled by a human predator. And you wonder, how did this happen? Here are some points to help you understand the process. Essentially, sociopaths —people with antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, histrionic or psychopathic personality disorder — take advantage of the characteristics that …

How did your family member become mind controlled by a sociopath?Read More

By Joanie Bentz, B.S., M.Ed Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud — Sophocles Sociopaths scramble their target’s ability to discern the truth about how a situation or person could potentially be dangerous. Our brains are designed to notice patterns, and make decisions based on the anticipation of these patterns. Because the sociopath confuses the target with lies and alternate kind/cruel behaviors, it becomes nearly impossible for the target to identify that carefully constructed façade that hides the true self, which in reality, is an empty vessel with no identity. Let us consider “Michael,” a tough military guy trained to detect danger. Michael meets Lucy Michael was …

Fraud at first sight — seduced by a sociopathic woman and her parentsRead More

By Eleanor Cowan Bullied incessantly by an older brother, "Emily" got called fat, stupid, and ugly…all projections of her sibling’s own worst fears. From childhood, Em was sexually molested by him so much that she “got used to it.” Her mom screamed viciously at anyone not removing their filthy boots at the door, but remained silent about the muddy molestations tracked by her extremely isolated and overweight son. That’s the backstory. Fast forward fifty years. Emily just left her third partner. The first two also disqualified themselves: The first was a shameless bully. He insisted his slaps and punches were harmless, just as he emphasized that sex on demand was a marital right. …

Sexually abused as a child, she later chose three abusive partnersRead More

Editor's note: Once again, the Lovefraud reader "Maura" analyzes a sociopath's texts to her friend as he tries to hoover her back into a relationship. Read Maura's previous translation of the sociopath's hoovering. Introduction — sociopathic hoovering This is another text that my friend Annie was sent from her sociopathic ex. Four years ago, after a 17-year marriage, he abandoned her and their sons for his new flame from Craig’s list. Once again, on the surface his text seems genuinely caring and that he is truly motivated to mend his ways. However, he is a sociopath and he’s simply toying and baiting her. We’ve analysed all the standard sociopathic ploys he flips through to get a …

Translating a sociopath’s attempts to hoover his ex-wife via text, part 2Read More