Not long ago, I heard from a woman whom we’ll call “Rochelle.” When Rochelle was in her 50s, through a high school reunion, she reconnected with the first boy she ever loved. Rochelle had a crush on him when she was 14. They dated for almost five years, although he always seemed to have an eye out for other girls. When they broke up, Rochelle was heartbroken, but she moved on, married, divorced, and life was reasonably good—until that first love came back into her life.
He poured on the charm, and Rochelle felt like finally, after more than 30 years, she had her chance to be with the guy she always wanted. Rochelle left everything to move out of state with him. They eventually married.
Well, he lied, fabricated, manipulated, accused, took her money, ruined her credit, filed for divorce behind her back, and left her with nothing. It was the type of behavior we all know so well—sociopathic behavior.
Rochelle realizes that the guy is disordered; she was exploited; he never loved her. Still, she wants him. Yet she also realizes that she’s in love with a person who does not exist.
She asks, “When does it get to the point where he stops taking up space in my brain?”
Scope of the question
The first thing to understand is the scope of this question. “Getting the sociopath out of my head” is the ultimate goal of everyone who has been betrayed by one of these predators. Once you’ve achieved it, you’ve achieved full recovery.
So cut yourself some slack. This individual probably crashed through your life like a battering ram. Your emotions, finances, home, health and/or psyche may all be in splinters. This is going to take time to repair. If anyone says to you, “Just get over it,” this person has no idea what you’re experiencing.
Understand what happened
You were probably blindsided by this experience, so in order to move forward, you need to understand what happened. We have lots of material here on Lovefraud to help you. Many people have told me that my two books, Love Fraud and Red Flags of Love Fraud, were especially helpful.
Here are some key concepts:
- Sociopaths exist. They are social predators and they live their lives by exploiting people. They do not feel remorse for their actions, and they will never change.
- The sociopath never loved you. You were targeted because you had something he or she wanted. It could have been money, sex, a place to live, business connections or cover for his or her secret life. Or, the sociopath messed with you simply for the fun of it.
- There is nothing you could have done to make the sociopath treat you any better. The involvement was always about exploitation. You were probably targeted because you were good, caring, giving, responsible, and in some way, vulnerable.
- The blame for what happened rests squarely with the sociopath. This person lied to you, manipulated you and betrayed you. You were guilty only of being human.
Acceptance
Recovering from sociopaths is a process. The key to the process is accepting what happened. This does not mean that you excuse what happened, or that you try to forgive and forget. But you must believe that yes, he or she did it, and yes, the sociopath knew what he or she was doing.
You can’t make time go backwards. You can’t take back the things you said or did that enabled the sociopath to become part of your life.
Once you come to terms with the fact that yes, it did happen, you begin the healing process.
Addictive relationship
In the case I described at the beginning of the article, Rochelle said that she still wanted the sociopath. This is not quite accurate. The truth is that she was addicted to him.
Relationships with sociopaths are highly addictive. They actually cause chemical and structural changes in the brain, similar to what substance addictions do. Therefore, you need to treat leaving the sociopath like kicking an addiction.
The way to do this is to have no further contact with this individual—no phone calls, no email, no text messages. Certainly do not meet the person. Don’t even go to the individual’s Facebook page.
If you must have contact with the individual for some reason—like you have a child together—do your best to implement Emotional No Contact. That means you remain absolutely neutral in any interaction. Sociopath love to get emotional reactions from their targets, and will do whatever they can to engage you. Do not take the bait.
Staying away from the sociopath can be really difficult. But the longer you stay away, the stronger you’ll become. If you give in and have contact, you’ll have to start all over again..
Processing the pain
This was not a normal relationship, and it’s not a normal break-up. Even if you weren’t physically or sexually assaulted, you suffered massive emotional and psychic injuries. You have losses that need to be grieved, including your loss of trust.
I believe that you must allow yourself to feel the pain of the experience, although you may not be able to do this right away. In the beginning you may just be numb. This a protective measure taken by your psyche, because the injury is just so massive.
Eventually, you need to let yourself feel it. You cannot bottle the pain up within you. It will either poison your life, or it will make you ill. You must get the pain out of your system.
Cry your eyes out. Stomp you feet in anger. Take up boxing and hit a punching bag. It’s scary at first to face your own anger, embarrassment, rage, humiliation—whatever the sociopath caused. But allow yourself to feel the emotions, honor them, and then let them go.
Let joy into your life
Draining the negative emotions will leave an energetic void within you. How do you fill the empty space? You allow joy into your life.
Any kind of joy will do: Enjoying a sunny day, letting your pets comfort you, having coffee with a friend, letting a waitress be nice to you. Soak up any joy and pleasantness that you encounter.
As you drain the negative emotions, and replace them with instances of joy, you’ll slowly change your perspective. Gradually, you’ll find that the sociopath is no longer renting space in your head. And that’s what you want to achieve.
serenity12:
Yes, each time it gets faster and faster. Good luck and blessings to you.
Serenity,
stay strong. Good choice blocking both incoming and outgoing. Sometimes we have to set restrictions on ourselves!
You know, the thing that helped with me, was that I recorded many of our parting conversations and whenever I felt the need to be SLIMED AGAIN, all I needed to do was listen to them. Plenty of slime there. No need for actual contact.
Remember, he isn’t real, so any emotions you present to him, he will just gobble them up and relish the pain you felt.
I believe DawnG is right about pets. I brought my beautiful cat in Remy into my life when I was out of work and about to lose my home and feeling so desperate after having to go through the process of getting over the N and even realizing that the aftermath of that messed up relationshit probably had something to do with the set up that caused me to lose my job.
I brought my sweet dog Raijin into the mix last February when I was just starting my chapter 13 and getting settled into my new job. These two boys are my whole entire life. They give the most unconditional love I have ever felt in my entire life. I can talk to them and cry to them and they just cuddle with me. I love having two guys so utterly thrilled to see me when I come home from a rough night at work. They have been there with some of the emotional stuff I’ve had to go through with the current person in my life.
It took me from May of 2009 to fall of 2010 to feel like I was over the N. Since then, I’ve learned so much about my sensitive nature and how it has caused me difficulty in my life and in relationships and left me vulnerable to spaths. Even though I am still upset about my weight and how to deal with the old issues that have me using it as a defense mechanism, I feel like I am right where I’m supposed to be and I feel comfortable this way.
I realized that in all my relationshits in my past that not only was I cheated on, but there is something in common with all those. They were way too intense and moved too fast. I always think about the old joke, “What do lesbians bring on a second date?—a UHaul!” Every relationship was way too much intensity too fast and then it was hard to put the brakes on. That would bring out some of the less desirable parts of my character. Due to my fear of abandonment from childhood I would hang on too tight and get too clingy and I think it made things much worse.
I was so conditioned to move fast and was so used to the intensity that turned into drama that it felt completely normal to me and I began to expect it all the time. With my current situation it made me want to rush things to move too fast and have it be like all my prior experiences before. I have people tell me that I need to try to get out and date out lesbians instead of trying to be with someone who’s questioning. But they don’t understand that for the first time, moving really slow seems really normal for me. I keep thinking-this must be how normal relationships are, considering I can’t call any of my prior relationshits normal.
I still have a profile out on match.com but I rarely ever get on there. Suddenly I started getting emails saying that certain people showed interest in me and that feels good but it gives me anxiety. I don’t respond to them and don’t want to. I feel safe right now and normal for the first time. I also found the St. John’s Wort, which makes me feel even more normal. My emotions were out of control due to just being highly sensitive and adding premature menopause to the mix. I’m not crying over the least little thing or having panic attacks anymore. I was overanalyzing her behavior all the time and being afraid that something was wrong, when everything was just fine. First the first time in my whole life I know what it feels like to feel calm and can say that I feel calm.
Elizabeth, I understand the anxiety with trying to date again. I am not planning on doing the online thing when I’m ready to get out there.
A friend set me up on a date a couple nights ago(I was reluctant) and he was great and there were NO red flags but I found myself comparing him to my ex spath too much….clearly I’m not ready to date as you may read above I made a stupid drunken phone call to the spath the next night…
But for me, I want to be healthy and feel that I love and trust myself enough before I give myself to other people in that way again. I have faith that I will trust again and that I will find qualities such as my date the other night displayed (listened, didn’t talk about himself, good family, came from a reliable source) attractive instead of what I was attracted to in my ex spath…. And I found myself thinking about this new date: “he’s not edgy enough” and “He’s not sexy and smooth like I’m used to”
But I realized that’s what got me into trouble in the first place but I still feel like I AM attracted to my ex spath on some level….I just don’t want to be.
I’m glad you feel calm. It’s ok to take it slow(at least that’s what I’ve learned I am a rookie to this whole thing) Its nice to read into the future on this site a little bit… Thank you.
Serenity-It’s good not to do the online thing. I don’t want to do it either. It’s better for me to be in a situation where I know I have to take it slow to keep from scaring her. I feel like this his how normal people have relationships. It is true what you said about comparing your date to the spath. A non spath is not going to seem “exciting or intense” like the spath did, but is probably what got you in the mess to begin with. After awhile you will realize that your spath isn’t a real person and that attraction will fade. When I was going through it I never thought I would get over him but I did and I am in a situation now that is SO totally opposite of the one before. I can’t even stop saying enough how “normal” things feel. I always thought I could never have a normal relationship. Normal is very calming. Slow is very calming. I’m not saying I don’t feel intensity at all, but it’s different than before. I definitely feel something when we’re snuggled up on the couch under a blanket watching a movie but I just have to deal because she has to make the first move or make it absolutely crystal clear to me that she wants ME to do it. The closeness just feels good and even though I want something more, it’s ok right now just the way it is.
My dog and all the other pets – amazingly enough, brought home by my ex – really helped me through the trauma. My dog especially comforted me, and when I was really upset, tried desperately to lick the tears away.
Here are pictures of the pets that I had at the time, although they’re all gone now.
http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/books/love-fraud-by-donna-andersen/photos/?wppa-album=8&wppa-cover=0&wppa-occur=1
Awww… that’s so cute Donna.
It is ironic that spaths will bring home stray animals. It’s because they use animals and children as part of their mask.
The first time he used an animal, it was in a story. He said that he had stopped to help an injured bird and took it to the vet, that morning on the way to work. Consequently, he was late and got fired. Then he railed about how unfeeling his boss was. HE wasn’t like that! I thought he was the most compassionate man EVER!
Later he would carry pictures of my cats with him.
Once, he explained, “When I walk into a restaurant, I’m just a regular Joe Blow. Then, when I open my computer and the waitress sees the picture of Dillon, EVERYTHING CHANGES!”
Dillon is one of my cats.
I think another reason he made sure that I had lots of animals was so that I couldn’t leave him. When one died, he’d replace it very quickly. I had 5 cats when I left him and I took all 5 with me.
“The sociopath never loved you. You were targeted because you had something he or she wanted. It could have been money, sex, a place to live, business connections or cover for his or her secret life.”
We should all make refrigerator magnets out of this point.
I was simply cover for a secret life. The best way to recover? Lead a full open, honest life, helping others whenever possible, not exploiting them.
Everyday my dog slept in my bed with my spath and I, he(the spath but I’m sure the dog felt the same way) would YELL “GET DOWN” and say “he shouldn’t be on the bed”…(he’s a little cute well behaved cock-a-poo) since he’s been gone, my dog is SO GRATEFUL and wakes me up every morning crawling onto my chest growling/howling so softly and patting me with his paws, digs his nose into my neck and makes me laugh every day before I even open my eyes….how great is that!!
What a much better feeling then the anxiety I woke up beside my ex everyday….
Serenity…My x didnt have a problem with my dog’s sleepin in my bed, because I told him from the get go ”if you have a problem sleepin with dog’s you know were the couch is”..
I am so happy your little friend is back in your bed and that asshole is gone…sleep well…