Today, July 4th, is Independence Day in the United States of America. On this day 235 years ago, the country’s forefathers declared independence from the tyranny of a distant king. Today, let us all declare independence from the tyranny of sociopaths.
Declaring independence, of course, is only the beginning of the struggle. In 1776, the tyrant did not want to lose a prized possession—the Colonies—and retaliated by sending an army. The Colonists who believed in independence had no choice but to fight, even though most had little experience—they were farmers, tradesmen and laborers. But they learned how to fight. It took five years, many battles and many hardships, but in the end, the United States of America emerged victorious.
What can we learn from those Colonists that we can use in our own battles? The early Americans believed in themselves, believed in their cause, and did not give up. Oh, they suffered defeats, but they retreated, regrouped, and fought again. They learned from their mistakes, found allies and kept going.
If you’re doing battle with a sociopath—and make no mistake, any interaction is a battle—here are some strategies that will help you:
1. Know your enemy. Be brutally honest in evaluating the sociopath in your life. Remember: The sociopath never loved you. All you ever were to him or her was a source of supply. Once you get over the shock of their soullessness, you’ll begin to see the patterns of their actions. This will enable you to predict what they will do, and plan accordingly.
2. Never underestimate the sociopath. Do not anticipate that the sociopath will act as you, a person capable of love and empathy, would act. The sociopath has no concern for your emotions, your feelings and your welfare. Without empathy or a conscience, the sociopath is capable of doing anything, even the unthinkable, to get what he or she wants, which is to win.
3. Conserve your own resources. You can’t fight if you are sick or injured, so do your best to take care of yourself. Eat right; avoid drugs and alcohol; get enough rest. If you are suffering from anxiety or depression, a good way to relieve them is through exercise. Be gentle with yourself as you recover from trauma.
4. Plan strategically. Figure out what you really want and need, and figure out a way to get them. Never let the sociopath know your plans. If you are living with the person and need to escape, prepare a getaway bag and leave when he or she is not around. If you are going to court, keep careful records and document everything that happens. Keep in mind that you may need to use subterfuge and diversion to execute your plans.
5. Pick your battles. Determine what is really important to you, and what you can let go of. Your life and health are important; you may need to give up on recovering your money, saving your reputation or seeing justice done—at least for the time being. Only take on the battles that are vitally important at the moment.
6. Use overwhelming force. If you do have an opportunity to serve justice, go after the sociopath with everything you’ve got. Do not play nice; do not hold back. The harder you hit, the more likely your chances of success.
7. Seek peace. Remember, the only life you absolutely, positively can influence is your own. Your ultimate objective should be your peace of mind and peace of heart. Achieving it may mean letting go of material goods, people and past traumas. You may need to redefine yourself and how you relate to the world. If you can get to a place of tranquility, you are victorious.
Thanks Donna:
Happy Fourth to you and thanks for sharing those very important things.
Yes to them all!
It isn’t important to me right this moment, everything illegal that has been done to me nor seeing it justified, at this point in time. WHAT IS important is my health which is very frail and hanging oh so conspicuously at the moment.
I will deal with all the other issues at a later time. And it so happens that I was able to arrange for it to not consume the rest of what little life I have left. I have a fatal heart condition and could suddenly go, at any time. I try to live moment to moment and keep my life organized.
I refuse to let all this take my life from me. In any way, shape or form. I have more important things to do with my life than to “back door” a spath the rest of what life I have left.
In my case, I was able to make arrangements to by pass all of the legal process until the moment of my death. At that time things will be dealt with. It’s not that I am ‘giving up’; I am just ‘giving up’ wasting my time and life on someone like this.
SHOCK is the perfect word to describe what it is that has happened to all of us. Overwhelming shock because it was so sudden and so overwhelming. Trauma of mother traumas!
But, once you put things into perspective and HONESTLY look at the big picture, there really isn’t any denying it; is there?
As soon as we make that realization, and we flounder in it for a while, then we need to move onto the next step: living our lives. OUR LIVES and not theirs! As long as we keep allowing our attentions to go to that ugly place, we will stay stuck in that ugly place. You know the spot: the rants; the childishness; the waking up in the morning and being completely spacey; not eating…all of the symptoms our association with them has given us….if we don’t consciously change the direction of our thoughts and the focus of our attentions, we will be stuck in that ugly spot.
I am and have chosen to NOT be stuck in that ugly spot.
I have given ENOUGH of my life to this foolishness and this madness. If I wouldn’t tolerate it before in my life, I am not going to tolerate it now. That’s all there is to it. Life is too short to waste it on someone who just doesn’t care. So, why should I?
I mean, it was “IT” that tried to kill me.
Thank you Donna for writing what you did.
*BLESSINGS*
DUPED
Great article Donna and Happy INDEPENDANCE DAY TO ALL MY LF FRIENDS! Take it and run with it!!!!
As ‘Seal’ sings…..
Miracles will happen as we dream”..
But we’re never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy.
Though we’re never gonna survive unless we are a little crazy—.
No, no, never survive, unless we get a little—..
Im off to the lake to be empowered by the fireworks…….
EB:
I love that Seal song. Thanks for that…
Dear newlife,
My heart goes out to you. My spath completely alienated my son from me , who is almost 12. He has alienated my 13 year old daughter as well, although not to the same degree.
My spath is similiar to yours in that he was an absent dad who lived with us. As soon as I left, he began his campaign on my son. I had a court order stating that I had custody but spath continually violated and abused his parenting schedule.
Three days before school was to start my spath filed an emergent motion to have my younger 2 childrens schools changed and for him to have custody. He accused ME of being abusive, when I enforced rules in my house, and had the kids testify to this to the judge. The accusatioms were ludicrous and obviously coached, yet the judge granted the petition. Spath removed all of the childrens belongings from my house, changed their school, sports teams, church, absolutely anything and everything that tied them to me imcluding all their friends.
I have spent thousands just trying to enforce my parenting time, which is very little with no overnights, and get my children therapy. I have 2 court orders stating the children are to be in individual and reunification therapy with me. Yet somehow spath has managed to dodge this and the kids haven’t seen a therapist in over a year. I went nine months without my children speaking to me unless it was to be nasty. This past April 27th I finally started seeing them again. Things are still rocky but getting better.
I am in the middle of a nasty custody battle. We are having a court ordered forensic custody evaluation done, which spath has dragged out over a year
I know how you are feeling. Surely my son misses me? He does. But he can’t let on in front of his dad. Send him texts or voicemails every day, cards in the mail, anything to let him know you still love him, because your spath is surely telling him otherwise. When your son is with you, be the parent you always have been, but document everything. Keep proof of how yoir son misbehaved and how yoi corrected him. I took away sweets for a day and that came back as I never fed him. I required the kids to bring down their dirty laundry to the laundry room. That became I never washed their clothes. I sent my son to his room until he could speak to me with respect. That became I locked my son in his room for 3 weeks with no food. (the door locked from the inside).
There are many many days I have cried so hard I literally couldn’t breath and wondered how this could have happened to my sweet little boy.
Hang in there honey! Document everything, let your son know you love him, keep being a parent. Kids need and want boundaries. Take each day one at a time. If your spath does get custody, make an action plan for yourself now. I pray your judge sees the alienation and that doesn’t happen. God bless you and good luck!
Dear Duped,
Kudos to you!!!!
What an inspiration you are. Thanks for your advice about the “ugly spot”. You have given me a new focus!
Many blessings to you!
Good advice Donna! I learned most that myself:
#4 was kinda hard to do when ordered by the court to attend co-parenting counseling until the counselor felt it was no longer necessary. I had to be cooperative, but keep quiet at the same time
#6 I knew was right, but my previous attorney said stuff like “Now come on, how will you explain to your kid that you put mommy behind bars for 10 years?” Dang was that bad advice!!!
I received a phone call from a woman last week whom my boyfriend was court ordered to pay her back $3600 that he borrowed from her while they were roomates. My bf told me about the court order and I knew this when we started to live together about 20 months ago. I accepted his debt to her and he paid her off monthly for the first year of us living together. The stipulations of their court order was no contact with each other while this debt was being paid back. Within a month of moving in together I discovered an email to him from a woman a few Counties North of us asking for money. Turns out he borrowed money from her for over $4000 and when I asked him about it he shrugged it off to me as “just another bill”.
I explained to him that since our rental situation was such a great deal, it would allow both of us to save a great deal of money so that we could plan a future together. I accepted the fact that he has a small child support obligation to make every month. He brings his child to our home every other weekend and spends what I believe is too much money on frivolous toys, video games and fast food like he is trying to make himself look like Disney Dad and pretty much giving him whatever he asks for.
I was very straightforward with him stating that I think it is wrong for a woman to give a man ANY money and I told him if that is what he wants from me, that he had the wrong female. He is constantly running out of money between paychecks, wanting me to front him gas money, cigarettes, even a child support payment recently, which he reimbursed me immediately upon getting paid. This is happening every 2 weeks.
My bf knows of my “hybernation” for 2 years before meeting him, when I had just escaped a 15 month marriage to a Sociopath. He was very sympathetic with my stories and swore to me that he was not the same as my past “weak” men as he put it. He would not cheat, would treat me well and share his life with me and things would be great.
While I have accepted the fact that men cheat and there are no guarantees in any relationship….it seems that I keep finding the snakes and dishonest ones who do. Each and every one of my 3 ex husbands and more boyfriends than I care to count, swore up and down they would never cheat, all saying they are different from other men. After several marriage counseling sessions over the years with 2 ex’s, the explanation from 2 counselors was…. men want sex; women want security.
My current live in boyfriend cheated on me within 2 months of our moving in and several times thereafter….alll the while swearing he would never do that to me. He is turning into the “user” that his ex roomate warned me about. I so want to believe what he tells me, but the bottom line is that I no longer trust men to do as they say.
It seems the nicer I am, he sees that as a weakness, and “tries” me. Whenever I have that “false” sense of security going on and am happy, he cheats. He is not the 1st man that I have been in a realtionship with that operates in this manner. He is the nicest guy I’ve know in awhile, does not treat me poorly, but has not really nutured our relationship in any way. His lack of providing me with any security in our relationship is getting old. I am not looking to get married any time soon, so that pressure is not put upon him. He has never married and just turned 40.
My question remains unanswered since my divorce from a Sociopath….are all men who cheat and lie continuously and frequently considered Sociopaths?
Backatya,
All men who lie continuously and frequenly are considered pathological liars, that is ONE symptom of psychopathy, but even if that is the ONLY symptom they have, it is enough to make them NOT RELATIONSHIP MATERIAL. They are TOXIC. Not someone you want to deal with.
Kick him out to the curb….and stay here and learn more about psychopaths, it is obvious your “picker is broke” so fix it so that you can pick a better specimine in the future.
Not all men cheat, just some, so learn how to spot the red flags!
Did any one see DR. PHIL this weekend? He had a show about the most selfish people in the world and it really hit home. The mother was clearly a (P) yet Dr. Phil could not explain this woman true self to her daughter who were disperatly seeking understanding to there mothers actions. I wrote on the blog page to further educate themselves on how to heal from this damaging situation. But you sould check out he show at….
http://community.drphil.com/boards/?EntryID=22183&View=New
(Original Air Date: 03/03/11) Tiffany and Mindy describe their mother, Phyllis, as “the most selfish person on the face of the earth.” They say their entire childhoods were affected by her self-absorbed behavior, ultimately fracturing their relationship. Tiffany says she worries she won’t even be able to speak kindly about her mother at her funeral. Phyllis insists she was a great mother, and her daughters have it all wrong. Dr. Phil examines a few of the incidents her daughters report as manipulative and self-centered. Will Phyllis own up to her parenting mistakes and apologize? Then, Chanell says her friend, Shauna, suffers from “Pretty Girl Selfish Syndrome” and needs an intervention. Shauna says she’s open to a minor tweak in her behavior but a major overhaul is out of the question. And, see the remarkable progress of two women whom Dr. Phil says should be selfish and put themselves first: