How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Cognitive Dissonance and the Psychopath

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Editor's note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who posts as "Betsybugs." The term cognitive dissonance is used to describe the feeling of discomfort and confusion that results from holding two conflicting beliefs. When there is a discrepancy between beliefs or beliefs and behaviors, something must change in order to eliminate or reduce the mental conflict. Psychopaths use cognitive dissonance to entangle victims, to keep victims confused and docile and to create pain. My story is a story of cognitive dissonance. My cognitive dissonance began in childhood when my father would go into rages, chase one of his daughters into a corner and beat the living daylights …

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Chasing ghosts: psychopathy and the children

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Psychopaths tend to be sexually promiscuous.  They often have numerous short term romantic relationships and indiscriminant sexual encounters throughout their lives.  Further, they commonly engage carelessly and recklessly, without regard for consequences.  This, unfortunately, often leaves trails of children behind in their wakes. Psychopaths do not make good parents.  They may be able to create the children, but do not have the ability to effectively parent.  Frequently, they fail to properly provide for these children in most ways, as they are unusually focused on themselves, their own wants and needs, and often driven to act in anger and revenge.  This is true, independent of whether o …

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Rest In Peace Baby Boy – The Courts Failed Us

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On October 21, 2012 at 8:38pm my baby boy was officially pronounced dead.  I sit here typing and I am still in complete shock.  I wasn't sure I would ever be able to write about, but tonight as I sit here I realize that baby boy needs me to tell his story — our story.  It is a tragic story.  It is a story about a guardian angel and his mama.  It is a story about the day I lost my little angel, my soul, and my reason to keep living. 8:30am Friday October 19th: Baby boy had been running a fever and the night before his fever had spiked again causing another seizure.  I called the ambulance, per usual, and again was told that baby boy was fine and that Febrile Seizure are benign and that I shoul …

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Society Blames the Victim Instead of the Psychopath – I’m Sick of It!

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I am not sure why I am still shocked when people choose to blame the psychopath's victim.  I have heard that this is normal from others who have suffered from an encounter with psychopath, but I still get a bit shocked each time it happens to me.  From friends, to family, to the courts, to complete strangers — people seem to want to find something wrong with me to somehow better explain to themselves how I ended up being fooled by my psychopath ex.  It has been happening so long that sometimes I find myself wondering there is something wrong with me that made me ignore the red flags and believe the completely fantastic story he was telling me. The Judgements: This week alone, I have exp …

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Managing the Chess Game of Court Ordered Visitation with a Psychopath

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I have blogged previously about the nightmare of a court order supervised exchange professional.  In the past two weeks, I have really started to wonder if I am dealing with two psychopaths instead of just one — my spath ex AND this court ordered supervisor.  It has become abundantly clear that this woman chooses to meddle and fuel drama on some occasions and then on others she decides she wants to remain “neutral”.  Today Luc (the spath ex and my sons unfortunately sperm donor) had another court ordered visitation.  (Note:  Luc hasn't had a seven hour visit for a month and the last time my son ended up in the hospital)  The events that occurred at the drop off have me wondering about whether …

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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: A hard fought battle, but no regrets

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Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following from the reader who posts as "RobertInSeattle." I've been running into sociopaths all my life often when I least expected it. And believe me when I tell you the more I learn, the less I know! As I've been delving into all of this more deeply than I ever have in the past (all because of my breakup earlier this year with my most recent sociopath encounter), it's finally gotten me to looking much farther back into my own long history with them. There was so little discussion and certainly few if any online support groups in years past that actually addressed sociopathy when I went through my first divorce which started back in 1989. Many …

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My Psychopath Sperm Donor Used My Child to Trap Me- It Backfired!

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I grew up believing that no matter what happened — a woman's role was to keep her Family together.  I believed that having a mother AND a father in the home together was the best scenario no matter what.  Clearly, this was before I met pure evil - my son's sperm donor “Luc”.  While my family growing up was not perfect, the problems we suffered now seem as if they were “minor league” and life with Luc was like “major league” problems.  While I was in it, however, I remember fighting like hell, turning the other cheek, and making excuses in an attempt to convince myself that it was still possible for me to keep this “family” together so that my son could have two parents. The handcuffs I cre …

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Defining My “Grey Rock” and Recognizing The Insignificance of The Psychopath Sperm Donor

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I have heard a lot of people give advice about how the best way to get rid of a psychopath is to show him/her a “grey rock” of emotions.  While I understand that this means that I cannot let the psychopath see any emotion beyond that of an emotionless grey rock, putting this theory into practice has proved to be one of the hardest things to do.  I still believe I will have my moments, but it took an extreme situation for me to tap into what I needed to understand in order to achieve my own version of “grey rock”. The “Extreme Situation”: Baby boy had another rough 72 hours which landed him two more hospital visits.  We started out in the hospital a few days ago after he spiked another f …

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The “Unsustainable Pseudo Co-Parenting” Phase of Custody with a Psychopath

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In the past couple of weeks, I have come to realize that my Custody War with Luc (my sons sociopathic father) has entered a new phase - I'll call this phase the “unsustainable pseudo co-parenting” phase.  The initial Custody Trial is over and our Family Law case has been closed.  No matter how bad the judge, lawyers, and supervised exchange professional all want us to go away, none of these people are going to be able to cure Luc of his psychopathy so “going away” is not going to happen. In my post last week, I noted that my lawyer had suggested me and Luc get “Family Therapy” in order to learn how to communicate with each other.  I have thought a lot about this suggestion, and its clear a …

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