Dorothy Hooks is a Christian woman who tries to live by the Bible. When she met Cedric Youngblood, she saw a man who never had a chance. His family life as a child had been abusive. He had been in and out of jail. Dorothy saw someone who just needed to get out of the ghetto and learn the meaning of love and family.
In Dorothy, Cedric saw a giving, caring woman who wants to do the right thing and help people.In other words, Cedric saw a target.
Last week, the Cedric Youngblood story was posted on Lovefraud.com. Dorothy courageously talks about her marriage to the man who she now realizes is a sociopath. But for more than three years, Dorothy focused on Cedric’s potential, hoping he would change his abusive behavior.
Again and again, Dorothy gave Cedric another chance. She kept forgiving his cheating and his violence. She knew he could change.
He didn’t.
“I didn’t realize that for a person to change, he has to want to change,” she says. “If that person doesn’t want to change, he’s not going to change.”
Victimizing nurturing women
In his book, Without Conscience, Dr. Robert Hare points out that psychopaths (the term he uses) are experts at identifying and victimizing nurturing women.
There are many people in the world who want to think the best of everyone.Time and time again, Lovefraud has heard from people who have been deceived and defrauded by sociopaths who say, “I never knew such evil existed.”
It does.
Sociopaths make up 1% of the population. That means in the United States, there are 3 million of these predators looking for victims. These people have no heart, no conscience and no remorse. By the time they are adults, their personalities are set. Any attempt to change them is futile.
Discerning those who want to change
Of course, there are millions of people who get into trouble in their lives and deserve a second chance. So it’s important to be able to differentiate those who can be rehabilitated from those who can’t.
The first step is to accept that sociopaths exist. The second step is to know the symptoms of the disorder.
Then we may be able to discern the people who really want to change from the sociopaths who only mouth the words so they can keep bleeding us.
well, I don’t think a true died in the wool spath will ever change. They might pretend for a while, but they can’t keep it up forever. On the other hand, there are a lot of disorders, and many of them are treatable. So, again it all comes back to empathy and remorse…but they can be faked, too.
The fact that you ask this question makes me think you are still hoping you can somehow have a relationship with your X.
Of course, that is up to you, and it’s possible he isn’t a spath, but You might want to take a look at Kathleen Hawks aticalls on denial and bargaining. It might be helpfull to you.
Oxy, great advice, I believe you pointed that out to me a while back
and it is true, whatever they are, they are bad for us.
LL….I appreciate your gratitude towards me. I am on here because it is healing for me to help others.
My experience with the soicios in my life…have prompted me out of desparation, to look at myself ….to understand why I was a socio magnet.
I learned that we really function by default programming…our subconscious…all of the things we were “programmed” to believe…in our brain…from birth!
The reason I got so into studying this, is because I knew that “I” needed to reprogram my neurons to NOT be attracted to abuse. I love Bruce Lipton, because he talks all about this. I am reading his book…The Biology of Belief …and I listen to him on youtube.com.
At my age…53, I am blessed to look young…(people think I am 40)…and I still feel young inside..and after this last experience…I knew that I HAD to do something to change myself so that I don’t ever tolerate lies and abuse from anyone in my life.
Back in February, I was screaming and sobbing …(and THIS site saved my life!), at my sister’s house…that I wanted to take out my brain and smash it!! “I” was in so much pain…because I felt that I would NEVER feel worthwhile because of all of the programming from my socio mom’s abuse. I felt HELPLESS…but I didn’t want to die. I love my children too much….and I love myself…but I HATED my subconscious brain! lol!!!
I logged onto here…and Erin Brock, Oxy, Kathleen….and others …helped me to tuck myself into my bed on a cold icy night…instead of going out for a ride in my car…which could have been disasterous…crying and driving on ice!
I didn’t want my girls to see me breaking down. So, the wonderful people here SAVED my life. I will never leave this board…(wouldn’t a get together in the future be awesome! lol)
Anyway, I made a COMMITMENT to myself…to do whatever it takes to reroute my neurons…I googled it and got a bunch of information.
I learned that all of the pain I survived, was because I was functioning from the subconscious. The “trauma” from childhood never left me. I was determined to learn to live in the HERE AND NOW and not let my OLD beliefs control my life.
The “old beliefs” that I deserve abuse…I’m not worthwhile…people who abuse you love you ….were the reason that everyone in work disliked the xbf, yet I felt sorry for him and trusted him, and believed his act..and let him lie his way into my life. Anyone to fill my void…that I’m not worthy of someone real.
I didn’t go after him…he zoomed into me…knowing that I was insecure with myself…and I could be taken advantage of easily…and used…which he did…he used me.
I stopped blaming myself …and I blame my “childhood programming”…which my socio mom had NO idea what she was doing…She was abused and the cycle repeated. I realized that it was Programming by Default…and that it could be fixed. I could learn to control my thoughts and be happier. And this is the stage that I am at right now.
It is working…I am getting better everyday. I am more peaceful…I broke my addiction to abuse…I don’t want my x in my life ever again…I KNOW that I deserve people in my life that care….nothing less.
So, u are very welcome. I enjoy paying it forward on here.
tobehappy,
thanks for sharing your steps for deprogramming.
For me, it wasn’t hard to deprogram from the spaths bs, but my parental programming is my problem. I can’t get past the idea that my mom is a perfect saint, then I see little slips of the mask…how she seeds envy between the kids, how she has no respect for boundaries and how controlling she is. But I know she spends almost an hour every night praying. She doesn’t do this for show, she goes into her bedroom and closes the door, but if you walk in she is on her knees with the rosary. Both my parents know that my spath-sister is truly evil but they just keep letting her get away with attempts to destroy her siblings, so she can inherit everything.
I thought, that because I understood my exP, I understood all the disordered minds, but I don’t. I don’t get my parents.
Plain and simple…Your Mom, sorry to say, may be a sociopath….which could be why you attracted one??? I don’t know…I totally analyzed my childhood. All of my siblings as well as myself, have anxiety disorders and issues from our childhood. My youngest brother is in denial and so he is married to my “mother”…his wife is a selfish abusive controlling narcissist.
Dear ToBehappy,
Darling, THANK YOU for sharing the above. You are a great addition to LF.
Skylar, just because you know how a single breed of dog behaves doesn’t make you an expert in ALL “Canines,”–wolves are a bit different. Still CANINES but have different behavioral norms.
I think that is what gets us trapped into thinking we know more than we do, and feeling safer than we really are. I’ve been there and done that, and who knows may STILL Be doing it to some extent or other. But I am recognizing now that “canines” takes in not only tiny and non aggressive dogs, but also wolves and aggressive pit bull dogs, they are ALL CANINES but very different, and different degrees of DANGER from them.
Psychopaths are kind of the same way—all are “canines” but some are apparently more friendly “beagles” and some are “wolves” and yet, they all LOOK IDENTICAL, only the actions are a bit different, but nothing we can dress them up in (manners or money or status) keeps them from being psychopaths or gives them a conscience or empathy for their victims. Some of them enjoy hunting and killing, and the thrill of the chase, and others seem to like to lie by the fire and calmly gnaw a bone that they don’t have to work for, but they are all still canines. They are what they are, but just a bit different breeds of the same species.
Dear Tobehappy – Your above post @12:48pm could of been written by me, word for word. The f–ked up mother, old beliefs from a disturbing childhood full of abuse.
This site also changed my life. I doubt I will ever have all the answer’s but I have found more peace with-in myself than ever and I am 56. I also have rearranged my neuron’s the best I can. I used to call that subconscience noise in my head Kfuck 102. It never stops it seem’s but at least I have been able to turn down the volume and tune out some guilt and shame that never was mine to begin with…As for the Xspath BF, well he may have been the straw that almost broke the camel’s back and forced me to look at myself and make some changes or die….I wont thank the POS for it tho….thanks so much for your wisdom and humor, honest people like you are what makes LF so great…
You are so welcome, Hens…
I just feel that life is too short to waste on repeating my old patterns. I knew that if “I” didn’t change ….then I was doomed to repeat the same experience again. I even told my attorney on the way out of court …after the divorce from my xhusb…”Put me in a room full of men, and I will be drawn right to Scott Peterson.” That was nine years ago. I didn’t date for 5 yrs after the divorce…afraid that I would only be attracted to a “bad boy” again. I was addicted to the charmers, conartists, liars. I have had relationships with more than just two. I was 22 yrs old and involved with a true sociopath….never knew what he was…I called him a “conartist” back then. He was textbook…now also in Florida hiding from paying child support as my xhusb is!!!
I was sobbing so hard when I hit rock bottom on Feb. 27, last year …I still remember the date! Funny, but I conceived my first child on that day, in 1994! Ironic.
It was actually the day that I was REBORN. I say that because I hit rock bottom and from that day on…I worked on changing myself….to be who I really am..not who I was programmed to be.
I was told that I was “no good, slob, ugly, stupid, worthless”…exact words from my socio mom…over and over. Even after I had my 3 children, right before she passed away, she told me how incompetent I was as a mother…and ignorant, and she told my xhusb that he needed to find a new wife and mother for our children! She was mentally ill.
So, I remained single ….took care of my girls…enjoyed raising them…and I thought I was “healed” when the xbf targetted me. He called me an “angel”….but he was “afraid” of me…and often told me that I was “too good for him”.
Yes, I am an angel. I am good to everyone. I feel sorry for everyone and try to help anyone that needs it. And,” the closer you get to “God”…(or being “godlike”), the more the “devil” tries to steal your soul” …(my aunts favorite quote). Makes sense to me.
I never wanted to believe that there were “evil” people roaming our earth. But, clearly, there are many “sick” people and I am now training my girls how to identify them and how to be strong and stick with people who treat you right.
Aussie, you’re the first person I’ve come across like me, thinking that ex was BPD. But he didn’t have addiction to substances. I too thought that he felt abandoned easily but now I think that he just felt entitled to have me all the time. And yes he was addicted to power over us and didn’t like the withdrawal of narcissistic supply. So he has been in depression for the past year or so. And that black and white thinking is not just a symptom of BPD, but of the disturbed character as well (see Dr George Simon’s pages on thinking errors in counsellingresources.com).
In any case, personality disorders just compound the domestic violence. Hard enough to change justified thinking, but add to it personality disorders and you have such a complex thing to deal with. No thanks!
No, LL, I have no intention of going back! Property settled, now just have to settle kids issues. Then I have to force the issue of him taking his things out so the place can actually start to look and feel different.
Ive ben reading and re-reading ll your comments about leaving the sick Psychos in your lives. In my case it was my adult children. My grown daughters, now 45 and almost 47. I put up with almost 30 years of mental, and emotional abuse, gaslighting, physical violence from one of them, destruction of my home and art studio and paintings,conning me out of huge sums of money,lies,stealing,incredibly hurttful things like never once being allowe d to see my 2nd daughters 3 kids,being spoken to with patronage, sneering,sarcasm,swearing, lies,shouting,in othe r words, emotional torture and abuse. And thru all this I believer the lie that you “Forgive everything, do everything for your kids, never give up on them, love them both unconditionally.” Well, Ive changed. havent seen the 2nd one in 18 years,{her wish} havent seen the other one for 2 years.Total NC with both of them. I no longer believe there is good in everyone. I no longer believe in unconditional love.
I dont believe their problems are my fault.I have forgiven them, but will never forget the torture they have made me endure, me whose only desire was to love and help them. Do I still love them? I fel very little love for them now, they have killed most of it. Getting free of these sick biatches has indeed been like a coyote gnawing its leg off to get out ofa cruel trap. They dont deserve a Mum like me.Im a good person. I did the best I could.I am free from them, but I still have to work daily to stop thinking about them.They are on their own now.
Love, mama gemXX