Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader who posts as “lostgirl.”
I fell hopelessly in love with (read as I would have given him my real heart and died for him) a sociopath/psychopath.
Skip the details.
I am four years divorced.
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t grieve the loss of the relationship I thought I had. I cognitively know that the person I married was not who I thought he was and I even believe I know how he came to be. Unfortunately, I have never felt anger, only sadness for what I viewed as the person he could have been that was taken from him long ago. I see him as an addict and myself as having been addicted to him.
Somehow, now, I still cannot move on. I have been through many short relationships, all ended well for me and usually I ended the relationship when I noticed red flags, the ones I kept close at heart. Again, I am in a new relationship and experiencing all the anxiety all over again (each new relationship triggers this). Including nightmares of the ex-sociopath and agonizing over how to know when someone is genuine. Good words are empty and promises of future fall on my deaf ears because I was disheartened so gravely before.
I have become cold and detached. I feel less emotion for every single thing in my life than at any time ever. All things I own, animals, family, I feel as though I am in a stage of suspended life, I cannot bond. I take care of my animals, I take care of my parents, nothing I own feels as if it’s mine, only borrowed, including relationships. I feel fake and alone.
I truly liked the person I met that I am in a relationship with now, but as with all the others after a short time (three months), I begin to feel less and look critically at their words and life as if I am subconsciously talking myself out of taking the risk of succeeding because of the pool of “thought I had’s” that live inside my head.
I know that a good relationship takes time to grow. How can I give myself the time to grow a relationship when I am so busy still flashing back to a relationship that was agony? He compliments me and I toss it aside. He talks about his life and experiences and I’m trying to assemble timeframes in my head to make sure he isn’t lying to me. It’s as if I’m trying to analyze my way in to a sincere relationship by slicing and dicing all the input/information I’m given. In the meantime I’ve dehumanized the relationship in my head and nearly severed any chance at bonding.
I have read post after post from people and articles all over the internet. What I haven’t found is any truly helpful advice for someone like me.
I fear I have lost the ability to connect permanently because I cannot logically define what is not deceitful at the moment it occurs. What is unselfish, I look for selfishness in. All good is lost because I have become obsessed with what is wrong with what is right.
How do I get back to identifying reality and trusting when it is proper? I feel that my mind was raped and I have lost the ability to connect on any level with anyone. I feel like a shell and I can see through everyone in my life, it would be so easy to be just like him (the ex) but I am not driven to “want” like he did. I see the holes in people and it is so easy for me to identify what is exploitable.
I hate this person I’ve become. I want to climb out of the shell and return to who I was before I fell in “love.”
Help I’m lost.
Realm of Numb
A very wise spiritual counselor once said that unresolved anger becomes rage, and unresolved rage becomes numbness. I think that’s what has happened to Lostgirl—she has moved into the Realm of Numb.
She was so in love with the sociopath that she would have died for him. In effect, that is what she did. Her life spark is gone. She no longer finds joy in her family and animals. She looks for deception in new relationships. She no longer trusts herself to know when she can trust another human being.
The Realm of Numb isn’t a place of pain. It’s a place of emptiness, of nothingness, of void. And it’s a place where none of us should be.
But how do we escape? How do we leave behind the feeling of fakeness, and recover the feeling of authenticity?
Search for meaning
One of the books that Lovefraud recommends to everyone who has experienced the trauma of a sociopath is The Betrayal Bond, by Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D. The book explains the circumstances that can cause us to form traumatic bonds with an abuser, and provides exercises to help readers unravel those bonds.
When I read the book, I highlighted only one sentence that Carnes wrote, and this is it:
My experience with survivors of trauma is that every journey of recovery depends on the survivor coming to a point where all that person has gone through means something.
This is the key. This is how we truly recover. There is always meaning in what has happened to us, although it can be difficult to find. In fact, that’s what makes the destructive relationships with sociopaths so excruciatingly painful—we can’t figure out why they happened. We did nothing to deserve the betrayal. Our intentions were honorable. So why did this happen to us?
Answers in the past
For many of us, the answer lies in our past. If we’ve experienced an abusive relationship, and were not able to recover, we are primed for another abusive relationship. The problem is even more insidious if we were abused as children, because our whole idea of what is “normal” in a relationship is terribly skewed.
But issues of the past need not be as overtly damaging as abuse. Perhaps our childhoods were basically okay, but we’ve always felt somewhat insignificant, or undeserving of love. We may have had “good enough” parenting, but our parents focused on achievement, and we grew up believing that we were loved for what we could do, not for who we are. Beliefs like these, even when they’re unconscious, can create vulnerabilities for sociopaths to exploit.
It’s also possible that there is a deep spiritual reason for becoming involved with a sociopath. This is what happened to me. I believe that we all come into this life with lessons to learn, and sometimes the lessons are painful. I discuss this more thoroughly in another blog article, Why did this happen to me?
Some people may not be comfortable with the idea of searching for the meaning of the entanglement with a sociopath. It may feel easier to think we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and ran into the wrong person. We just want to brush the encounter aside.
I think this attitude is only a band-aid, and sooner or later, if we don’t find the root cause, we’ll repeat experience. There is meaning, and discovering it leads to healing.
Research, therapy, introspection
So how do we do this? How do we find meaning in what may appear to be a random victimization?
Here’s an important point: True healing doesn’t just happen by itself. True healing requires personal effort.
The first step is to be willing to look for the meaning. Sometimes this, in itself, is difficult. We may be afraid of the painful memories. We may have tried to shove the experience into the past. We may be afraid that if we start crying, we’ll never stop. By being willing, we face these fears, and we may discover, to our surprise, that we can overcome them.
The actual process of finding meaning will probably involve some combination of research, therapy and introspection.
Research: This means educating ourselves not only about the sociopathic disorder, but also about the characteristics and attitudes of a whole, healthy person. We need to understand what we’ve been through, and what we want to become.
Therapy: By therapy, I mean seeking support from other human beings. This could mean working with a therapist or counselor. Or, it may simply be seeking the advice of an understanding, trusted friend, or other members of Lovefraud.
Introspection: Somewhere, deep within us, we know the answers. If we can quiet our minds, with meditation or just sitting in stillness, information will bubble up into our awareness. We may become aware of the mistaken, limiting beliefs that we didn’t know we had. We may receive intuitive guidance about what we should do. If we allow ourselves to seek the truth within, we will find it.
Emotional experience
We cannot expect the process of finding meaning to be simply an intellectual exercise. The bottom line is, we are in pain, pain that may be so entrenched that it has become numbness.
Pain is emotional. The release of pain is also emotional. Therefore, the search for meaning is an emotional experience. The meaning may be buried under anger, hatred, disappointment and fear, and we need to plow through all those emotions in order to find it. And this isn’t a one-time event. We may release anger, only to find more rise up to take its place. This may happen again, and again, and again. The truth is, we are all walking around in pools of pain, and draining the pools takes time.
The expression of these emotions is not pretty, and many people may not have the strength to be with us as we do it. I found that I could only do it with my therapist, or alone. So I sat in my spare room, which I call the meditation room, crying, pounding pillows in rage, and recording my rants in my journal.
But once we release the emotions, they’re gone, leaving room within us to fill with other emotions—like hope, love and joy.
To Lostgirl
Lostgirl, here is what I want you to know: You were betrayed by a sociopath. This is an experience that happened to you. It is not who you are. You are you; the experience is the experience. Do not confuse the two.
There is a meaning for the experience, and it will help you to discover it. This will require effort and commitment on your part. Take the steps. Make a commitment to yourself, to your own growth and happiness. What better commitment could you make?
Find the meaning. But don’t go on a self-help expedition to the exclusion of all else. Here’s a secret: When you focus on any joy in your life, no matter how small, and feel gratitude for the joy, you create an internal energy that attracts more joy.
Healing our hearts is always the answer. To heal, unearth the pain, and replace it with joy. The process may take time, but eventually the life spark will return, brighter than it ever was.
tobe,
What you’re doing with your spath scared me lol!
I’m okay this morning. I was better last night once I spoke with my parents and a good long conversation with my son. And a good long cry.
I think your right about some posters feeling attacked. I keep in mind that this IS an online blog and it’s hard to really catch the essence of others pain without assigning a diagnosis to it. I also think that’s very dangerous. I understand that there is great care and concern here for people who post regularly. For me, when the pain comes, it hits me HARD. Yesterday was one of the WORST days since NC. I’ve decided to ask my therapist if I can see him twice a week for awhile. I know my last therapist was able to do this and my insurance covered it. I did much better when that option was available to me.
Tobe, understand that what works/worked for you, may not be the same as to what works for me, regarding meds and self care. Right now, for me it’s pretty basic stuff. Just now starting to think outside of the basics to do a little more. Joining a gym, I think would be tremendously helpful. ExP called me last night and told me he filed his tax returns. This is GREAT news for me because now I can get my son’s some shoes and clothes and there would be enough left over to join the gym. I just hope they get the return pretty quickly, as it will come with my child support. He’s not in jail yet, went to court, but apparently the court lost the paperwork. That’s a big blessing because he intends to keep working to pay the child support until he goes to jail.
Who knows, he may not even go at all as the system is so backed up and he only has two months of probation left.
We shall see. I”ll be praying about that.
Thanks again tobe.
LL
tobe,
We posted over one another. I apologize if I came off to harsh with you last night. I think i expressed my concern accurately, but it didn’t need colorful metaphoric elements. I still feel the same this morning. But it is your life and you’re a big girl, tobe. I’ve read many of your posts about this man from the past here. I’m frightened FOR YOU.
I’ll leave it at at that. 🙂
LL
I am so happy that you were able to get some relief and the twice a week therapy is great!!! It saved me.
I was SO afraid to be alone…when he left me penniless with 3 babies. My mother was sending me 3 thousand a month to keep afloat!!! It was awful. Then she had a stroke and didn’t know who I was. I had to move and it was awful! THAT man is a confirmed diagnosed professionally psychopath.
My b/f, all along, I have asked this board…how do you know? He has a heart. He even moved his xwife and kid into his house…after all the stuff she pulled on him…to help them out years after their divorce. He paid child support and even more. He is not a sociopath. He DOES have issues from his childhood, and from being a cop and seeing so much. He is very private and protective and doesn’t trust people. He hesitates to open up. I have my issues too and was very cold to him and breaking up with him without telling him why…very scared and I ran a few times. A couple of times I assumed things that were wrong.
But, he never called me names, hit me, put me down, abused me, kept me from family and friends. He never drank or did drugs. He was clean and has a good reputation in the town he was a cop in. I just want him in my life. He has helped me through some tough times….He did a chapter 13 for me that saved my house for awhile. I saved 3500 dollars. So, I’m giving him a chance to be my friend. I don’t think it will work out as a love relationship, because I would need to trust him totally and if he doesn’t open up to me, I can’t.
Thats all. Nothing to worry about. I will keep everone posted in case he really screws me up and then everyone can say …”I told you so”. lol. I’m not too proud to admit when I make a mistake.
I’m glad you are feeling better. In time, you will rollercoaster…but eventually you learn to move on with your life. Its sink or swim and you have children that need you…so you need to ride the waves until you get to a calm bay…out of the rough ocean.
HUGS TObe
WOW…..nice to meet you too, twin! w/o going into detail, i still clicked w/almost everything you posted. best advice i can give you is to try Life-Span Integration. this is an exercise my psychologist has been having me do with & w/o her present. the main goal of it is to detach the bulk of emotions intertwined w/past events & bring you up to your present age in respect to the age when you “emotionally” died. for example, my late husband died June ’06. I’m 26 now, but I’m still 22 years old emotionally. this mix does not allow for age-appropriate responses to anything in life for me. I’ve learned SO MUCH from that, i never EVER thought it possible for me to now mainly feel gratitude & joy for have even known an epic man like him – as opposed to before mowing thru all the ways i could kill myself after he left. anyway, look that exersize up, or if you have a councilor mention it to them.
like you, w/my psychoface psycho (not my hubby), i’ve tried: therapy, addiction, suicide, self-help stuff, rehab (TWICE), time, music, geography, exercizing, documentaries, abnormal psychology/philosophy classes, whatever harm that ended up in hospitalization, other dudes (which, not personal to them, made me sick & wanting to run), distractions, jobs, more education, talking to friends/my mom, outpatient therapy, therapy, booksbooksbooks, websites, throwing rocks, writting, talking to a wall………..yadayadayada. you name it i’ve done it. i know exactly what it feels like to be @....... your wits end for seeking help, how exhausted & scary it feels, fearing now there’s nothing you can do.
for me, ALL THIS + the Life-Span Integration has helped immensely. i still have crystal clear memories, i remember the devastating emotions involved, just now they’re more muffled & when i think of them (which is all the damn time!) it’s mainly just an event that happened. yeah you’ll still relate the accompanied emotions, they’ll just get separated.
also as of late too my psychologist has me every now & then put myself mentally in a state of what it WILL feel like when i’m practically all relieved from this….how relaxed i’ll feel, what my goals are going to be, what imminence gratitude for everything i’ll feel, how much more energy i’ll have, how open i’ll be to new things & how much i’ll enjoy them, how things will smell, what books i’ll read, what kind of job i’d be happy doing, how well i’ll be sleeping, how much more i’ll be able to stay in the present, how i wont compare every person i meet to him or only look for bad things coated w/lie-frosting, type of friends i’d have…………..yeah down to every detail. trick is you act like you’ve already gotten to this state instead of sitting daydreaming about it. to be, if only for minutes, in this state as if you’ve already gotten there. sounds cheesy maybe, but it works. do this as many times a day as comfortable, then after a while things that make you feel like this will turn into a preference rather than a dream, & then you’re there! this will take a very long time. @....... 1st you wont be able to fully get in this state for even a chunk of seconds, but THAT’S OK, it takes diligence, it feels really weird, completely opposite of how you feel rite now.
anyway, that’s the best i’ve found so far for me. yes it is flat out a psudo-brainwashing technique. & it took all my above said efforts to come to it. yeah @....... 1st i thought, “wow, i’m so down that i’ve resorted to brainwashing…” but this has a positive effect.
also, for me, other things i’ve done alone. 1) dropping all my emotions, all my patterns of thinking, & went thru our entire association together thru his eyes. yeah there’s a good amount of emotion left b/c i’m thankfully not a sociopath. it took practice, an incredible amount of discipline to view it from this angle. but the more i’d do it the more i could imagine what it was all like for him. by purposly injecting the sensations he’d get from every catastropy, attaching a sickenly satiating feel to it. THEN i added the fact that whatever anyone does is always for themselves, even charity, giving, recieving, taking a bullet for someone else, suicide, & selfish stuff too. i then realized that everything that happened made him feel great, he recieved a lot of trophies in his head the closer to death i’d get. i’m serious. then i cried, wailed, made sounds i’ve never made before while falling to the floor in realization. it was horrible. BUT it gave me way more reasurence that it will never. ever. change. it is physiologically impossible for him to understand any way i’d convey my suffering to him, how horrible he’s made me feel, how terrible his actions were/are. it is neurologically impossible for him to learn from this or see it as bad. for example, after miscarrying our son due to stress induced by him trying to kill himself, when i told him over the phone, @....... the end of this conversation he was able to laugh @....... something little that was said. i asked, “how are you able to laugh @......./about anything rite now?” in shock. his response was “well, ya gotta laugh @....... things sometimes to feel better”. & he never brought it up again, never cried, felt/did nothing. no notion of what this did to me, how devastating it was, nothing. that’s when i started to try to look @....... things thru his eyes b/c i COULD NOT understand how anyone could respond to something like this that way. it took me months of doing this to accept the idea that our brains are wired differently, forever. i started to see patterns in things he did. it was then that i landed on realizing he is a sociopath. i educated myself on them, & it fits him to a T! all the lies, apathy, unresponsive to anything. now i’m scared of him which is WAY more being devistated by him. & now he hasn’t talked to me in 3 months b/c i didn’t call him before i came over to say hi. his phone was off, so i knocked on the door…..yeah, over that. he cancelled his email, phone, facebook, shaved his head & dyed his beard black, MOVED. maintained distance give clarity. last time he did this was over a misinterpreted sentence in a dark room w/the loud t.v. on while he was drunk. yep. he truely believes this action warrents leaving me for dead, making me homeless, not even responding when i conveyed thru a friend that i was pregnant & no regard for my existence PERIOD. then he calls months later to say he was sorry, but that i started it, blahblah. back then i was just so glad to talk to him i let it go, but now i feel confident in saying i absolutly 200% will not again……….
i hope this helps hon. sometimes the biggest challenge in a day is breathing, focus on that.
Oh, yeah, isabelita, I hear you.
The last straw for my exP was because I didn’t answer the phone.
Well it was coming for a long, long, long time and he had ramped up the crazy-making for the last few months by making up a story about homeland security coming to get him. He thought that would stress me, all it made me do was fantasize about it being true (I knew it wasn’t but I could still wish!) Anyway, so there he was pretending to be stressed and I didn’t answer the phone so when I finally did answer he said, “This is it for you, I’m going to teach you a lesson” or something like that.
It was late and I knew I had to sleep or I would self-destruct. I also knew that when he got home he would rage all night so, I grabbed my 5 cats and 3 computers and got the hell out of there at midnite.
Isabelita
This post of yours above is amazing!!!!
It is JUST amazing!!!
LL
Thank you for this blog. It gives me hope as I continue trying to heal, but have been having a really hard last couple days. I saw him, my ex and the sociopath that I am still in love with…yet I don’t know if I’ve ever really been in love with him. It’s so confusing. He fed me lies, knowing my profession as a health and wellness coach, knowing that I’m a compassionate person. I fell in love, with his coercing and manipulation and lies and cheating. I wanted to be the one woman he needed, the one who could do what others couldn’t. I knew I wasn’t the only one but all I wanted was to be the only one. He gave me hope that I could be the only one…of course with a list of things that I would have to change or improve in order to do that. I fell for it. He fed me lies about his childhood, creating horrible stories that are all lies. He told me his parents died over 15 years ago and I have recently discovered that his parents are most likely alive. I’m 95% sure that his parents are actually alive and living in this city. Here’s what has thrown me lately: A few days ago was the nicest day in months and I had the day off. A friend and I went to a local happy hour to sit out on the patio. We walked out to the patio, and he was sitting at the very first table I saw with another man and another woman. The three of them…all looking very casual. As soon as he and i made eye contact he immediately put his hand on the woman’s leg but she had no reaction. she continued to sit there, stiff as a board. I was in shock and controlled panic…I turned to start walking back in while my friend talked to the hostess to get on the waiting list for the patio. Still in shock, I walked in with my friend and a server who immediately asked us what we wanted to drink. We ordered a drink and sat at a table inside. As soon as we sat down I told my friend that he was outside. A couple minutes later he walked in, walked past us toward the bathroom and gave me the “look you up and down” eyes. I remained calm and told my friend that was him. A couple minutes later he walked back outside but not a word was spoken. I’m glad of that. I wish I could have escaped there without him knowing for sure that it was me…but the good thing is that he didn’t contact me afterward. No phone call, no text, so I take that as a good sign. Before this incident, the last time he tried to get in touch with me was on valentine’s day with a lousy text message. And he probably text multiple women that day, just to see who would bite. My friend and I declined our open table outside once it was ready, finished our drink quickly and moved on to a better environment. It’s been 3 days now and I can still see those eyes. He looked so predictable. Just as I would have imagined him to look. Dressed exactly how I would expect him to be dressed. Sitting with exactlly the type of woman I would expect. Using notions of power concealed as notions of comfort and emotion. But it has been driving me crazy since. I haven’t felt like myself since. I feel numb. I feel sad. I’m crying again. I’m questioning myself again. I am a very spiritual person, I meditate a lot, I read a lot, I look for the meaning in my experiences and I think I do a pretty good job of seeing my life as a whole, as part of the universe, as a learning journey. I know that as long as I continue to live with good intention, do good deeds, speak kind words, project lovingkindness and live with intention that things will unfold in my life as they are meant to. But I’m just getting really tired of the pain and the loneliness. Seeing him the other day makes me want to leave this city. I almost left this city last May…most of the reason I stayed was because of him…because in his words, “he loved me and although he would never want to hold me back from what I want, he just wanted me to know that there was someone here who truly loved me.” He said back then that he wanted me to go if that was what I wanted to do, but I honestly think that it was all part of his plot. He wanted to see if he was powerful enough to keep a girl longing for the coast in the midwest rather than moving to the west coast as she had been planning on doing since before she even met him. He succeeded. Again, I do know that my life is my journey and that he is only part of my entire experience. I also think that I’m in the right place right now. Despite him, I’ve been able to be here for my younger siblings as they’ve needed me. But what I’ve been feeling lately is that I don’t have anyone here for me. And I need someone. I’ve always been the one for others to lean on. My mom and my dad are both alcoholics and unreliable. I have strong supportive aunts but they all live different lives than me (I’m 30 with no kids and have never been married and they all started families in their 20s) I’ve lived in different parts of the world, met lots of different people, and I feel that I have a lot of experience and interaction to make me a very well rounded person. But I don’t feel like I have anyone here. I have a couple good friends, but nobody that I feel that bond with that I have in the past. I’ve moved alot so have had to leave good friends in the past, but I know what it’s like when i have that bond with someone. I don’t feel that here. I’m out of my career field right now. I just started training to volunteer at a women’s shelter and am really looking forward to that. I go to Alanon to cope with growing up with alcoholic parents who continue to drink heaviliy. I see a counselor once or twice a month to try to stay balanced. I take walks. I meditate. I listen to good music. I dance. I laugh. But I always seem to return to this place..and more often than I wish I did. More often than I should. I’m lonely. I’m unable to trust. I want to be loved, to feel loved and appreciated but I’m losing faith in romance and intimacy. I know there are good men out there but can they keep me interested? Will anyone ever be able to light that passion as he did? Even if it was lit by lies, there was that excitement and anticipation that is so hard to let go of. Will I ever feel that again? How can I heal and begin to feel better now? tomorrow? next week? Two moments of eye contact with him and I’m thrown into a tailspin. I feel like I’m doing the right things, I’m doing good things…but I’m tired of feeling lonely and desperate and yearning for real love. I feel like I”m just a huge mess
Thanks you Isabelita. Your post above is excellent and provides me with hope when hope seems to be lost.
Thanks again
healingnow:
Wow, your post sounds so very much like me. Not that I am glad you are in pain, but it helps to know there is SOMEONE out there who feels like I do! I was really beginnng to think I was a total loon…still feeling so much for this guy. And getting thrown into an absolute tailspin from seeing him for only a minute at a bar. That was me. It’s been almost a year since that happened, but I still can’t forget. I feel exactly like you do and have stated it before here on this blog…will another man ever excite me again? Will anyone hold my interest? All other men seem so boring. I just don’t know where my life is headed. I did start therapy and we will see how that goes.
My heart goes out to you! Please come back and let us know how you are doing!
Healingnow,
It is difficult when we run into them unexpectedly. I’ve done that a few times and it is always a SHOCK! The old adrenaline rush! It hurts, it opens up everything emotionally and crushes us!
That is why No Contact is so important and even then the ACCIDENTAL encounter.
One of the things you can do though in case you ever run into him again is to plan in advance your exit strategy. Like instead of going inside the bar, just tell your friend, “I need to leave NOW” If the person you are with is not someone you can tell the complete truth to just say “I really need to go home NOW” or simply “I saw someone there that I want to avoid” and if they want you to talk and you don’t want to say “I’d really rather not discuss it now, but thank you”
Plan and practice these things BEFORE you run into him by accident so that you will be able to “play the role” you have planed out. That way you can at least avoid him walking by and “looking.”
Keep on reading here and learning more, it will help you grow stronger. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.