UPDATED FOR 2020
A Lovefraud reader who posts as “LadyA” sent Lovefraud the following email. At the end, I suggest how she can recover from the sociopath.
I’ve spent a lot time thinking about my experience with my spath, and how it affected me and the people around me. I have read article after article, story after story. I now fully understand what spaths do and how they do it but I didn’t understand why I don’t feel any better about it. What was I missing?
When I left my spath it was a fairly dramatic experience. He had just been sentenced to serve jail time on the weekends for an obstruction of justice charge. My mom flew into town and in one swoop we packed up everything we could get in the car and left the province to go back to my hometown. I had to quit my job over email and send a goodbye text to all my friends.
I am thankful every day for what my mom did for me. I sure wasn’t happy about it at the time but I knew I needed out and this was my chance. What I didn’t know is how much moving back to my hometown would affect me emotionally. I had originally planned on only being back for six months. Just long enough for him to move on and get me out of mind, but it has now been just over three years and I still haven’t moved back. I got settled in a new job, new friends, and a new relationship. Even after all of this I haven’t been able to figure out why I’m not happy. Until three days ago.
Pride. I was proud of myself for the life that I had built. I moved 1200 km’s away from home right after high school to a big city. I was on the fast track to a strong career in a competitive field. I had a brand new car, paid all my bills on time, and was saving to buy a house. I was independent, reliable, strong, caring, and had a really great outlook on the world. Not many people can say that at 22.
All of that was ruined by a six-month “whirlwind romance.” I’m no longer proud of myself. I feel like I have failed because I came back home with my “tail between my legs” to my mommy. I no longer have a new car because it was repossessed as soon as I got back here. I am jaded, I don’t trust people easily, and I am no longer as strong as the face I put on the outside. I’ve gained weight because deep down I just don’t care anymore. My career is now on a plateau due to the location where I live. I don’t have one reason to be proud of myself right now.
How do I get my pride back when I know what happened? I want to feel proud of myself for my life but I just have zero idea where to start. I’ve thought about moving away again, but I don’t really know if that’s the answer. How can I be proud of what has happened in my life? I’m really honestly just so ashamed.
Donna Andersen responds
Dear LadyA,
I am so sorry about your encounter with a sociopath. Although this is not a normal breakup, the good news is that you can recover from the sociopath.
Right now, however, it does not seem that way. Why? I can see two reasons.
The first is that betrayal by a sociopath is a huge emotional injury. In the beginning of your email you said that, after all your reading, you now “fully understand what spaths do and how they do it,” but you don’t feel any better.
Understanding is a critical first step to you to recover from the sociopath. But understanding is an intellectual process, something that you do with your mind. The wound you experienced is also emotional. It needs to be dealt with emotionally.
How do you do that? You allow yourself to feel the pain of the injury.
This means letting yourself cry. Letting yourself scream and wail. Letting yourself experience anger — I’m sure there is anger — perhaps by working it out on a punching bag.
This isn’t pretty, and you probably want to do it privately, because other people often have difficulty being around this. Or, you may have a good therapist who can help you.
One way or another, any bottled up emotion you have within you needs to come out.
Underestimated the injury
Next you wrote that you identified the reason that you’re not happy as “pride.” But it seems like you are regarding pride as something bad, like one of the seven deadly sins.
You had every reason to be proud, because your pride was based on your achievement. And the sociopath took this away from you.
Here is what I think has happened: You have underestimated the scale of the injury, and the severity of the betrayal.
LadyA, you were building a life for yourself. You went out on your own; you started building a career; you were moving forward.
And some manipulative, deceitful parasite, who did something bad enough to end up in jail, ruined it for you.
Not only did he cost you money and hurt your career, he corrupted your outlook on life. You’re jaded; you don’t trust; you don’t care. You are not the young person you once were all because of the sociopath.
Recognize that this was not a normal breakup after all, you had to flee your home, job and friends.
Your life was shattered. Your psyche was deflated. This is a massive shock to your system. It’s no wonder that you are still struggling.
Drain the emotion
So what do you do? In my opinion, you do exactly what I suggested earlier — allow yourself to feel the pain now, knowing that the pain is bigger than you originally thought.
So you cry. You stomp. You imagine him standing in front of you and yell at him. (Do not, however, attempt to confront him in person. This would be counterproductive.)
The idea is to drain off the negative emotion.
As you drain the emotion, a void will be created within you. It’s very important to fill that void with joy.
This may sound preposterous to you, like you have no reason to be joyful. But don’t look at the totality of your life right how.
Do any small thing that makes you happy: Go for a walk. Play with your pets. Have lunch with a friend. Listen to music.
To recover from the sociopath, it may require many rounds of draining off the negative and replacing it with positive. But with time, you’ll find that your entire outlook will change, and you’ll be able to get back on track.
Importantly, with the wisdom you gained through this experience, you’ll never fall for a sociopath again.
Lovefraud originally published this article on May 12, 2014.
High school boyfriend pursues her, then abuses her
jenna23
What you feel (as though you don’t matter) and what is a FACT (you sure as hell DO MATTER, to US here on LF and to your loving family members, and btw, you also matter to anyone with a heart.)
You are traumatized. If you’ve even seen someone walking around dazed after a car accident? You are STUCK in that trauma mode.
I was stuck too. People were annoyed with me and said I needed to “get over it” and “move on”… but I couldn’t. I had lost the ability to make judgements for myself, to protect myself, to trust myself.
In order to reclaim my self trust, I NEEDED to figure out what happened to me, so I learned everything I could about sociopaths. It was quite an education and hard to read but I felt validated that it was NOT ME nor anything I did. My ex has a personality disorder which allows him to be morally abhorrent. He also broke the LAW but as you and I now know, the LAW only works for SOME lucky lottery winners, not for the general population.
I will share with you, it wasn’t until I made the decision that I didn’t want to feel the way I did anymore, that was when I actively sought solutions to get what I did want. I made a list of what I wanted. 1) to not think of him 2) to feel strong 3) to rebuild my self trust 4) to find joy/happiness (I had a much longer list, this list is just the first bit)
You’ve been traumatized. You’ve been assaulted. You’ve been raped. At the very least, do you have a rape counselor?
jenna, sounds about right to me. It’s called a smear campaign to invalidate you to those who know you. TYPICAL of a sociopath.
I learned to not let my abuser define me. If someone commented, I’d restate the implication that I was crazy or deserved to be nearly murdered….I’d say, “NORMAL people are traumatized by rape”. and “It’s emotionally devastating to NORMAL people.”
Jenna23
He’s just being what he was born to be, a sociopath. It’s not like he’s human or has any feelings.
I have insomnia too. But now I have to get ready for work. No sleep for me tonight. Sorry for signing off…
Jenna
You ask “why do they do that ?” I once asked my therapist the same question. Her answer was “because you let him do that to you .” Back then I did not understand but now I do. I let my ex husband abuse, lie , cheat, betray , belittle me, disrespect me for over 20 years. She told me “you cannot change him, you can only change yourself”. In the past 2 years I changed myself to know now that this was unacceptable. I would never let someone treat me this way again. But for me it was the normal. Now that I not in cobtact with him anymore, can I clearly see what he did. The lies, they were so ridiculous but I still believed him. I let him do that to me.
Jenna, one day you will look back and take all this as a blessing. For me , it was my way out. Exposing him made it much easier to file for divorce. Like I said before , seperating a life for over 20 years is exhausting and difficult. It requires settlements and all kinds of legal aspects. But if I had to do it over again, I would still make the same decision. Put all options aside and hire a very good male attorney and treat it as a business deal. For me it was triple bad because of him being a cop. He played that cop card all the time, even his attorney. But it really did not help him at all. In the end he was a loser, a coward and basically nothing.
Kaya and Jenna-
They don’t do it because you let them. And that statement involves the concept of blaming the victim.
Rather- they do it because that is how THEY are wired.
Anyone can hurt another person. But not everyone will. There isn’t a single solitary human being on the planet that’s unable to go over to the next person and punch them in the nose….. but we don’t. We inhibit our impulses.
People don’t go through life expecting that the others around us will come over to us and throw their fist in our face, so we don’t wear helmets as we walk around the world.
Everyone on earth, unless they have a serious character disorder, wants to be loved. And we expect others will want the same. Only once we learn about the harmful intent of psychopaths, can we establish in our brain that we need to not take everyone at face value.
People who are harmed by psychopaths go through a period of denial, which is the NORMAL forgiveness that lovers are chemically inspired to produce for our loved ones. Without the ability to forgive, no couple would remain a couple for very long. The problem is that psychopaths misuse our forgiving nature to carry out their harm toward us. And we remain because of the combination of brain chemistry and our code of moral conduct that compels us to forgive our loved ones.
Every victim needs to overpower their natural instinct to forgive their loved one in order to walk away. Once the problem rises to a level that can no longer be mistaken for love, it is imperative that they do so.
The true heinousness of fraud is that it takes the cooperation of the victim in order to conduct it. If the person is walking down the street and gets mugged, the only blame they could heap on them self would be, “I guess I should not have walked down that street.” And any therapist that agreed with that thinking should not be conducting therapy.
A person who is duped, feels like a fool and blames them self. The actor misused their very nature to hoodwink them, and they feel compliant. Why they complied was an act of love on their part and no one should be made to shoulder blame for being “loving.”
Yes, one must make a conscious decision to put one’s foot down and walk away from an emotional predator. But the reason they were embroiled and remained is not something they should feel as “fault.”
You were defrauded of love and sex, and when you figured it out, you left, or were discarded. But they, not you, are the culprits in their deceit. Mother nature created very powerful chemistry in your brain to keep you in that relationship. It worked. Now you need to understand who they are and walk away.
Read about “Betrayal Bonds.” Stop heaping blame on yourself.
Joyce
Joyce, bless you for clarifying the misconception that they did it because we let them. My therapist made it clear to me from day one that it wasn’t my fault, and there was nothing wrong with me. We didn’t “let” them do this to us. We were just being normal.
It broke my heart to distance myself from “friends” who insisted on counseling me on needing to take responsibility for allowing this to happen to me, but this whole experience has been one big house cleaning”for the better.
HM-
Your friends were lucky enough to have never encountered a psychopath! 😉
Joyce
JOYCE I need you, please send me your BEST ENERGIES RIGHT NOW.
I know my spath is a murderer, he is about to get away. Tomorrow is the anniversary, the survivors are FRANTIC and so am I.
PLEASE PRAY JOYCE!!!!! your PRESENCE on this site is ENORMOUS, please know I can feel your Energy and NEED YOU, please!!!! for a dead child and his grandmother, PLEASE PRAY NOW!!!! and accept my thanks, and love.
I will. And if I can be any further help, you can reach me through my blog #RapeByFraud. Have you brought your concerns to the prosecutor in your area?
THANK YOU I can feel your added POWER.
I have told ALL and you are only one of them, from media to governor I am screaming LOUD in search of JUSTICE!!!
This poor family (not mine) has had ENOUGH!!
Their suffering is public, it’s extreme and it is DEMENTED that it is continuing for them today, my heart is ACHING FOR THEM!!!
and all the unknown Victims who never found this site or YOU!!!!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SHEDDING LIGHT!!!! Donna and Joyce, kaya and Not, Aint and Jenna, THANK YOU FOR LOVE TODAY!!! for all the UNKNOWN victims of what is obviously a social DISEASE.
I am certainly sending out good vibes and sending up prayer. I am infuriated at slime right now, getting away with their terrible actions or lack of proper action or inappropriate action. I am dealing with some serious slimeballs myself, with my precious children and myself being put in danger of dismemberment or death due to the slime.
I am having a hard time getting help with justice also. Not to mention taking away their power to hurt others.
But slime will sleaze away in the end.
And I will live forever /
Thank you so much. My heart is still hurting. I just discovered that he cheated on me the whole time we were together. He moved 3 hrs away shortly after we met because of a job. Every two weeks, I made the long 3 hr drive and spent 2 weeks with him, then 2 weeks at home. I am disabled so this was hard for me to do. Then he became distant. He wasa talking to other women on the phone in front of me…one was supposedly the mother of his “big brother/Big sisters” program. He left me sitting alone in a restaurant for 30 minutes while he was outside on the phone with her (later I found out it was his ex). Then another time he was on the phone almost an hour, and he claimed it was the anniversary of the death of his prior wife, and it was her friend who was calling to check on him. That was the night I lost it. Th next month he told me not to come down, that he had cancer and he couldn’t bear for me to see him the way he was going through chemotherapy. I gave up everything in my life to go down there to be with him but before I left he told me no, not to come. suddenly he didn’t even care what I had given up. That was my first clue that something was really wrong. Eventually he stopped texting and after two weeks, I thought he was dead. I called his boss, only to find out that he wasn’t even sick. Within a month he has moved on to a new relationship and he tells her that he loves her all the time. I found this out when I discovered the password to his email and discovered all his lies and his double life. That’s when I realized he was truly sick and everything he said was a lie. And he just threw me away like a piece of trash.
Tonight I am really hurting, because they are off on a trip together. Like I said, I am disabled due to a car accident and what he said to me at the end was, you choose to live your life in bed and I choose to live for life. In the beginning, it was always, no matter what we are doing, if you are in pain we will leave and go home. Seemed like his caring attitude went out the window fast. My head knows that he only said this because he knew it was what I needed to hear, but I just don’t understand how a person can be so void of feelings and just not care who they hurt. The worst part is that he is online on many dating sites, and he is going to hurt so many women. I wish there was a way to stop him.
I don’t know why I am so sad tonight. Perhaps I’m just finally at the stage of grief where I can let it out. I can’t stop crying though. And all of this was happening when my grandmother was dying. I feel so used, so betrayed. He knew I was a very deep feeling person, and he preyed on this. He knew I was emotionally abused by my ex, so he swore that he would never hurt me, and he has done more damage in 6 months than my ex did in 20 years. When does the heartache end? I know all about our thoughts create our emotions and that creates our feelings, I have a minor in psych, but for some reason I can’t seem to apply what I know right now. My grandmmother died 2 days before Christmas, so maybe I just need to let myself cry and get the emotions out of my system.
I’m so sorry you’re feeling so sad, Jodi. I’m sending you healing vibes, my hopes and wishes for solace and comfort, to help you through the terrible pain of betrayal and heartache and out the other side, to new days without any influence of that evil person. Imagine loving arms around you, comforting you, feeling for you and all you have endured, hoping and praying for your highest good.
Thank you so much. I am learning so much from this site. My father has offered to go with me to get my things, which I have repeatedly asked him to just send to me by fed ex. I’m only one state away. I think I will go when he is at work, contact his landlord and the police (since I still have a key), and go when he is at work and get my things so I won’t have to encounter him. Thank God I did one thing right. When he asked about my assets, when my grandmother was dying, I told him I had none. He has no idea i have a trust, which at one time i almost confessed to him. If he had known this, I doubt he would have left me, and I would be stuck in this hell a lot longer than I already have.
Thank you JM
As always you are very accurate. Yes, I still blame myself for the part that I fid not walk away earlier , that I took this abuse for almost a century. I wish I would have walked away. But that’s in the past. The no contact had helped to realize none of it is my fault. And to this day some people tell me “it always takes 2 to destroy a marriage “. That’s not true but I walk away when I hear stupid comments like that.
Even my counselor thought that I was to blame for a part. She is not my counselor anymore. When I hear comments like “he would have not looked for affairs if you made him happy “. Yuck.
kaya, easily the most damaging things were done to me by my own older (bigger) sister.
She continued to maintain, and still would if I contacted her, that he loves me and I should be more diplomatic.
Kaya-
OMG! I’m so glad she’s not your therapist anymore!
It’s difficult for someone who never dealt with an evil mind to comprehend that it exists. From an early age we’re taught that people are inherently good and we should turn the other cheek, everyone deserves a second chance, blah, blah, blah. And even when we come face to face with a person who defies the odds, it’s hard for us to wrap our minds around it.
Once we do, it’s crystal clear, but we are not to fault ourselves for what we went through to get to that painful recognition. And anyone who tells you differently is simply not enlightened. They didn’t walk in your shoes.
All the best-
Joyce
Joyce and all, please catch my earlier frantic message just sent.
Kaya48
Your old counselor was not your advocate. What planet does she live on? NO ONE is responsible for the behaviors of a liar and a cheat. Something wrong with a counselor who thinks a person has that kind of control over others. Yuck is right.
People can cause others misery and pain, but there’s not enough love in the world to overcome a miserable lowlife turn into a loving faithful person.
Some people do not have the capacity to FEEL “happy”, i.e., sociopaths can feel “pleasure” or “duping delight” but they are unable to feel “happy” or “love”.
I actually used to believe that ‘it takes two,’ etc., until I had the spath experience. Now I sometimes say to folks who say ‘it takes two..’ “I used to believe that, too, until I learned that there are people who really don’t want their marriage to succeed,” or something along those lines beginning with “I used to believe that too, until….”
That’s good advice, Annette!
I just replied to another post on a different blog that covered the same issue. It dealt with co-dependent and dominant relationships and it defined the victim as passive and “allowing.” Here was my response:
Co-dependent and Dominant is one way to look at a toxic relationship. But I think there’s more going on when your mate is a psychopath.
Psychopaths mislead and misuse the brain chemistry by which couples bond. Their initial behavior is pretense. Once their truer inner-self is revealed, their partner is unknowingly stuck with the neurobiology that acts like toxic glue in binding people together.
I believe that if more folks understood the science of relationships, they would have an easier time breaking free from a toxic match. Romantic love is a form of addiction. Since the chemical components are all internal, we don’t consciously recognize what motivates our actions. If we did, we could step back more objectively and undertake the necessary steps to “sober up.”
Joyce
So true. Thanks for sharing!
Jm
You are so right. It is like an addiction. Very difficult to break free from. I remember the first few months after the discard how painful it was. Like a withdrawal. I never knew how addictive “love” can be. Until the day I was told it’s over. Only then when I took my power and control back could I see the evilness and viciousness of my ex. It was not enough for him to leave and live with the other woman. He wanted me destroyed and licked away, reduced to nothing. After 20 plus years of marriage it is difficult to know that he truly hated me. Aan who vowed to love me , protect me and cherish me.
I will never understand their thinking but the most important thing is that he is completely out of my life and I will never let him have access again. I now know that any contact with him will set me months or years back. And I will not allow that.
John 8:44 “….and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
kaya48
I am similar in that I was blown away by the knowledge of the enormous contempt that my ex showed for me. I found out that I was living a very very naïve life.
When I married my ex, I believed in treating others as I would like to be treated. I lived trying to considerate of others, being of service whenever I could, and never passing up an opportunity to be kind. When I gave my word, it was my bond, you could rely on me to do as I said. And… I thought others were the same. I now know, most people say these things but then make excuses why they don’t live these values.
My ex was twofaced. He repeated my values to my face with sweet and sincere words, and then sabotaged me behind my back. And like your ex, my husband did just want me out of the way or a divorce; he wanted me destroyed, ground into the dirt, his vengeance had no limits.
I wasn’t completely naïve. I grew up in a sociopathic family. When I left them, I thought I’d left all that behind. It was my husband and his family/friends that taught me about COVERT sociopaths, the ones who pretend the values of decent people in order to fool others and rob them of their assets and their senses.
Now I have regained myself and once again, I live with certain values. But I no longer expect to be treated decent by others. I watch out for my safety. If someone is decent, I am glad for it but I no longer put myself in a vulnerable position where I need their word to be their bond. If it really matters, I am more legalistic.
You know how they trot out that statistic that sociopaths are only 1-2% of the population? (I think it’s inaccurate, that sociopathic behaviors are MUCH MUCH higher and that people don’t regulate themselves, they will turn OFF the sociopathic behavior when they are caught doing it.) In this age of cell phones and competitiveness and self-entitlement, I find most people to be mostly inconsiderate and sometimes kind (NOT mostly kind and sometimes inconsiderate).
I found the reality is the converse statistic. I found that the really really decent people are only 1-2% of the population. And that they live in very small social circles because of all the inconsiderate predatory “gotcha” people out there.
Am I being cynical? Maybe a little. But I am open to decent people and I’m no longer so vulnerable to the evil in this world. As you said, it’s difficult to come to grips with how very much the evil ones hate us, not because we were terrible to them but for irrational reasons of their own.
NWHSOM, I have to say I pretty much agree with your assessment of society. I’m pretty sad about this.
I came across this article this morning: http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/01/13/new-normal-ten-things-ive-learned-about-trauma
It really got to me, since I (and many of us) suffered through the trauma alone. What I would have given to have one friend treat me with kindness and check in with me regularly in the early days. I reached out, and my hand was slapped, again and again.
I am a people person by nature, and I make sure I spend time in places where I am around people, but I’m ready for something more – a friend to meet for a movie or coffee, a gym partner on occasion, someone to point out a pretty sky to. Someone who doesn’t have an agenda. From where I stand, the small social circles the good people are in seem impossible to break into.
I’m fine as is, but truly, it’s not enough to thrive.
HM-
What a fabulous article! Everyone should read it!
Joyce
I thought the notion of recovery being like a wobbly figure 8 was brilliant!
HanaleiMoon
Thanks for sharing that very good, very concise article.
“There will be days when you feel like a quivering, cowardly shell of yourself, when despair yawns as a terrible chasm, when fear paralyzes any chance for pleasure. This is just a fight that has to be won, over and over and over again.”
This is, weirdly, very comforting to me…because it is the TRUTH, and I can handle the truth. It’s the unknown, the unimaginable that throws me into true paralysis.
In my long recovery, I was re-wounded many times by the lies. Some were lies by I am sure, well-meaning people who were clueless and self centered on their rescue mentality, that if I’d just do as they said, all would be resolved. Some were incredibly calloused jerks, like a certain therapist who yelled at me for being “negative, negative, negative” and told my husband in front of me that “some people just needed to be told the truth”, that if I’d stop being negative, then my problem would go away. She SHOUTED this at me…after I disclosed in a therapy session that I felt hopeless, that I had no future, that I cried all the time and wished I could stop crying, that no one liked me and I didn’t know why, that I felt there was no reason to live anymore, nothing to get up for, nothing to give to the world. AFTER her stunning dismissal of my pain, I was able to stand and tell her what she said was WRONG, and I walked out sobbing hysterically and drove, intending to commit suicide and didn’t because I hadn’t planned it and I worried that I would only be injured and not dead. I then went home and planned my suicide which I obviously did not carry through ONLY because my daughter made me promise not to do that to her. The thought that my suicide would harm her was the ONLY reason I did not kill myself. It certainly did not occur to me at ALL that suicide would harm ME.
It took a LONG time for me to get myself back together and a lot of it was because when I went looking for help, there were so many lies. 1) That I was responsible for what he did to me. 2) That abuse meant I was “co-dependent” (a BIG lie, but had a popular following in the 80-90’s but valid ONLY for a narrow group of victims) 3) That my responses were abnormal. 4) That I would NEVER recover. 5) That all I needed was to get back at him/teach him a lesson (justice) BIG LIE.
Some TRUTHS I learned:
1) I lost trust in myself. When I learned how my self trust was hijacked, I recovered it, and when I was able to trust myself, I regained my feeling of being able to rely on myself. That was my biggest loss; my self trust was severed from me a paper cut at a time, with some really big, deep moments of brutal butchery.
2) EVIL people CAN Fool SOME of the (decent) people ALLLLLLLL of the time.
3) The most reliable way to uncover whether someone is evil is to live with them 24/7. It may take a while but they can’t maintain a mask, their real selves pop out, but once you discover what parts of them is their mask, they are never hidden ever again.
4) There are 1-2% OVERT psychopaths/sociopaths. But there is a MUCH larger percentage of COVERT psychopaths/sociopaths and these are the ones who do the most damage. That’s why I think the statistics are off.
I did find adult classes at my community college to find others to do stuff with, such as a gym partner, and a PBS discussion group over coffee, and 5K walks, and SkyParty (I Love star parties, I have a very good telescope), and I play in the community concert band. But NONE of these people know of my trauma and I will not tell them. I learned it changes how they perceive me as damaged and they distance themselves.
These truths and reality are why this site is so very valuable. Donna may never realize how many people she has saved from the edge of despair and helplessless. But I know what she has done for me and there are not enough words to express my unending gratitude. Maybe she should have an anniversary date for LF! What do you think of that idea?! A date to say ThankYou and so that others can see some of the numbers of people saved.
u are so rite about ppl not wanting to be around damaged ppl. its like being raped, the stigma is more theyre going to bring that horror on themselves if they get too near u.
its that Thank GOD its u n not me that that catastrophe happened to.
ive always loved damaged ppl, but then, i was damaged so young. n the horror just kept on happening in my life.
NWHSOM, I am envious of the social interaction you’ve found for yourself! I wish I had half that. I feel like people already have enough going on and don’t have room in their lives for new people, and are rushing on their own schedules. To be honest, before this happened to me, I was the same way – busy with work, my relationship (ha!), gym, my one or two closest friends.
I don’t begrudge these people their busy, full seeming lives, but I am irritated that I have to start from scratch and can’t seem to find an entrance point.
I am hoping when I get settled in a permanent place I can turn this around.
HanalieMoon?
No adult ed at your local community college or library? I don’t claim close friends there, just people to share my hobbies with.
Four walls and a TV was okay for a while but eventually not enough. The lonliness was killing me and I needed people to see I existed.
At first, taking an adult ed class was an act of defiance, asserting my existence. Then I realized other people in the class were in the same relative boat, (not the sociopath titanic), they were lonely too and wanted to do their hobbies with others who enjoyed the same.
NWHSOM, classes were a bomb for me. People show up alone, leave alone, no interaction in between. Kind of like going to a movie – you’re around people but still alone.
Part of it is the part of the country I live in, I think. People travel 20, 30 or more miles to get where they’re going and have to drive that to get home when they’re done. Work was always a good source of acquaintances for me, but I haven’t been successful in finding a job yet.
I do volunteer once or twice a week at a nearby (make that 80 miles one way) museum and it has been a lifesaver for me. I keep the same schedule so I see the same people and walking in and having someone say “hi Hanalei” with a smile just about makes my week. I did a little more over the holidays so I purposefully put myself in the mix of the holiday hubbub and decorations. Kind of pitiful, but still”baby steps. I’d sure like to have a nice restaurant meal with someone other than just myself to keep me company.
HM-
How ’bout cooking classes? Do you have a culinary school nearby? Also, classes like Yoga, Pilates, etc get people together.
Try your local YMCA or Parks Dept. for classes on topics you’l enjoy.
Joyce
im both 😉
i am THE one u want in a crisis. i can disengage emotionally n do wat is necessary when the world is goin up in flames.
but i am the one, usually the only one, who will keep calling daily n coming over, keep washing ur dishes, keep sitting with u wen u cry, keep remembering anniversaries of things important to YOU, not me… like a motherinlaw calling on ur deceased spouses birthday but not the myriad other days–valentines day to say hey, thinking of u today, come over for dinner and i ll pay for a sitter and then u n i will go to a movie and a sundae.
and ive ways been this way, it comes naturally to me. i didnt cultivate it so i dont feel bad sounding like im bragging. its my nature. and its a rare, rare thing in ppl.
Aint-
It’s a good thing! It’s called “compassionate empathy.” You can read more abut it here: http://bit.ly/16YoxNH
Joyce
ain’t
I would do nurturing things for people too. I enjoyed it. I felt competent at it. My thinking was, “what a horrible thing to happen, they shouldn’t feel as if they have to go through this alone” (kinda part of my personal philosophy to do to others as I’d want to be treated myself). So I could do the dishes/laundry/just listen and be there.. I thought I could do the little things so they’d be relieved of that burden and more able to do the things I couldn’t do (chose the funeral service, etc.) And I’d call them on “those” days, as you said, not just holidays but also the anniversary days, so they’d know their loved one and them were remembered… the day of the accident, the day of their death, and call if the weather was bad, or if the weather was very good. Other peoples sad days are sad to me too, but I have a philosophy, my faith, and strangely my faith makes me feel good that souls are not gone but abide by us with love, so if I help someone honor those departed souls, they/we all feel more connected to the goodness of God’s grace. I don’t preach to people, but if they ask, I do tell them that I believe their loved one responds to the love in their heart.
Aint, you sound a lot like me, and a person I would want in my life.
I always remember to follow up about someone’s son’s scouting activities, how did their husband’s business trip to China work out, how did their roses bloom this year, how did the follow up visit to the doctor go.
You are right, this is very, very rare thing in people. Most people don’t even pay attention to what you’re saying, let alone remember/care enough to follow up.
2% of the population is decent, ur rite. but spath and not-decent are two different things. not everyone is a deviant. most are not right, but theyre not evil.
like u, i travelled in circles where ppl were decent so as cynical as i was, due to early trauma, i was ill-equipped to deal with such evil. and becuz of said trauma, i was easy-pickins for the spath.
but i seriously have always thot ppl were, at core, bad, not good. life has simply borne that out. how very sad for us all.
Mental health professionals pin the number around 4%. But keep in mind, they act in a serial fashion. So they harm far more than 4% of the world.
My personal take is that this number is a woeful underestimate. I believe it accounts for only those who would be thought to achieve the highest scores on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. But a person who is socially savvy, not a ghoul, but still lacking in empathy and conscience, should be included in the calculation.
Joyce
Hanalei
How true what you said. I too was labeledv”co dependent “. My therapist did suggest divorce though. That’s the only good advice she gave me. And of course that my ex was and will always be liar. She got to know my ex when we were in marriage counseling. It still baffles me that he volunteered to get marriage counseling. I think to throw on my face at a later time “see I did everything I could, I had to leave because you are so crazy”. He went for 6 sessions while still carrying on the affair with the co worker. Of course he stopped going because the counselor was a dumb idiot.
I personally think the best way to “fight” evil is giving it all to a very good criminal/divorce attorney. I was lucky to find one that was 100 percent on my side. Then of course the no contact. That combination and faithin God will give you a good advantage.
Kaya-
I’m convinced co-dependent is the term therapists use when they don’t understand psychopathy!;-)
Joyce
Really? I’m convinced it is an approved Mode of Torture.
i am, HM. i am a rly nice person. i am a good friend. i love my children to pieces. i am a sincere lover/mate. i am a hardworker. i am a woman of worth.
And i was born into n raised by one of the most dysfunctional families, on both sides, that our sick nation has ever produced.
What could I have attained, could have given the world, if i had been allowed to be me?
i have always thot how similar we seemed too, hanalei 🙂
Jenna
They are all the same. I did everything for my ex for over 20 years. Made his lunch to take to his nightshift. Yeah right, the lunch he took to get house. Bought a Christmas gift gif his cop friend,that was for her. Had to be done expensive wodka. (She posted a pic on facebook with the wrapping paper I picked out ). I could go on and on what i did for him. Always was there to raise our son while he was deployed. It never mattered. Because it was all in illusion. I was thrown away like garbage. But Jenna , please take it as a blessing. I am still grateful I was replaced. Who would want a loser like that ?
Kaya – OMG – I can only imagine how you felt when you saw the pic on FB with the wrapping paper you picked out. UGH!