When we realize that we’ve been involved with a sociopath, and that person has callously betrayed us, we inevitably ask, “Why? Why did this happen to me?”
To help find the answer, one of the books that Lovefraud recommends is The Betrayal Bond—Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships, by Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D. The book explains the deep psychological wounds caused by trauma, and offers a way for us to identify and overcome abusive relationships that we may have experienced.
When I read the book, I was struck by what Carnes wrote on page 68:
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.
I believe there is meaning in what we have experienced at the hands of sociopaths. Here it is: The object of the exercise is to force us to jettison mistaken beliefs about ourselves.
Promising to fill the void
When sociopaths come into our lives, they snag us by promising to fill some void. For most of us on Lovefraud, the void is our missing soul mate, but sociopaths can also promise career success, monetary rewards, spiritual enlightenment—any number of things. (Please note: This dynamic doesn’t quite apply when sociopaths are family members.)
Sociopaths are experts at identifying our vulnerabilities and exploiting them. So the question becomes, why do we have the vulnerabilities in the first place? Here’s where the mistaken beliefs come in.
We believe we cannot attract a fulfilling romance.
We believe people only want us when we do something for them.
We believe we cannot succeed through our own efforts.
We believe we aren’t good enough.
We believe we are unlovable.
We believe there’s something wrong with us.
We believe we cannot cope with life by ourselves.
We believe other people come before ourselves.
We believe someone will come and make all our troubles disappear.
These just a few of the erroneous beliefs that create voids within us. Where do they come from? Perhaps from abuse in our past, as outlined in The Betrayal Bond.Perhaps they come from simple misperceptions. In any event, the sociopath steps right in to fill them.
Feel free to add your own mistaken beliefs to the list.
Critical juncture
So the sociopaths make promises—and break every one of them. At some point we wake up, come out of the fog, and realize that our lives have crumbled into piles of debris. That’s when we ask why? Why did this happen to me?
This is a critical juncture. We can certainly blame the sociopath—they are evil, and they deserve to be blamed. We can say it was fate, or luck, which is sometimes true—there are sociopaths who randomly assault or kill people. But in most of our cases, we believed the sociopath, went along with the charade, for a period of time. Why did we do this?
If we can find the answer to this question, we can discover the meaning in the betrayal by the sociopath.
As much as I hate to admit it, I did benefit from the destruction wrought by the sociopath I married. I am not the same person that I was before him—I am wiser, healthier and happier.
Why? Because I found and released all those mistaken beliefs.
Yes, it was painful. Yes, it was traumatic. But by looking for the meaning and undertaking the healing journey, my life is now much richer than it ever was.
Dear Donna,
A wonderful topic and one I think we all must confront on our healing path.
Dr. Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning” which he wrote after the ultimate “betrayal” of all the psychopaths in his world, the Nazis, had taken away his entire environment and replaced it with slavery and pain, and yet, he found meaning from this…..I think his book (along with the Betrayal Bond) was a turning point for me in seeing that there CAN be, that there MUST be “meaning” to this experience(s) and that it is finding the meaning in this that we GROW and BLOOM.
Thank you for this wonderful article!
Donna:
Good post.
I think many of us end up controlled by a sociopath because our own conditioning was at the hands of controlling parents. I think “Betrayal Bond” has to be read hand-in-hand with “If You Had Controlling Parents” by Dan Neuharth. While “Betrayal Bond” does a good job of exploring how the bonds are formed, I think a reader needs to go a step further and seek out how the control took place. Neuharth’s book does a wonderful job of exploring how that takes place.
I believed that I needed to have excitement.
Excitement would replace the love I didn’t get and the thrills would cover my fear.
I believed that there was something wrong with me because p’s seemed to spot me and make my life hell. I also spotted them.
I was also lonely in my marriage and was looking to find meaning with my unknown s husband what our 22 years meant together.
Peace and love
Great article, Donna.
I believed I just wasn’t good enough to be loved, if I didn’t acquiesce to other people’s demands.
I think for me it is that I had to give to get love. In the beginning he gave back…but slowly it was just me giving and him taking. By the time that happened I was so twisted up inside that I didn’t know what was right anymore…
My parents didn’t have a “great” marriage by any means. But I don’t blame them. I have never been one to believe in blaming anyone for their ‘issues’ and while I blame my ex for his role in what happened… I’m still at the end of the day the most mad at — MYSELF!! Because I didn’t do what needed to be done and I choose to believe him when I should have known better…. If not at the beginning surely after 6 months… The signs were clear… I just choose to shut my eyes and live in my dreamworld…
The whole thing pretty much sums up what I believed about myself. I’ve let go of a few of them, I guess. Oh, I believed I was ugly.
Shabbychic,
I’ve never thought I was that attractive either. People “say” I’m am, but I have never believed it. Plus, I’m overweight. I’m so not the size ZERO that is worshiped. I’ve come to like myself more than ever; still need to work on things but I accept I’ll never be a size zero; nor would I ever want to be… but I’d like to be more fit than I am now…
I never used to take photos of myself. I do now… All the time and it helps… To see yourself and know you aren’t ugly… Yes, we can all be unattractive after we cry, or haven’t gotten a lot of sleep… But I take pictures all the time… with and without makeup — it’s helped a lot about seeing myself differently.
Great post. There is no meaning until we FIND and create it ourselves.
You wrote: “I did benefit from the destruction wrought by the sociopath I married. I am not the same person that I was before him—I am wiser, healthier and happier.
Why? Because I found and released all those mistaken beliefs.”
I would say that the “why” means you did NOT benefit from the destruction, but rather what YOU did as a result. I think that is very clear to the reader, but something I have to underscore for myself. I did not benefit at ALL from the pain he caused me. All the benefit was because of what I did with that pain. The pain itself cause some irrevocable damage to my health especially. I’ve read that trauma leaves a mark at the cellular level. I wish there was criminal prosecution for causing such a mark. Maybe some day.
What is powerful about this post is getting each of us to focus on our mistaken beliefs about OURSELVES rather than our usual hyperfocus on what we mistakenly believed about about the P/S/N.
Agree, Betrayal Bond is a wonderful, must have book.