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.
Brokenheart,
Everything Skylar, Truthspeak, Louise and even I say to you is absolutely the truth. Trust me, from someone who is dealing with the exact same thing and it’s still very fresh in my mind. I am proud to say that tomorrow will be two weeks of No contact with my ex-spath, neither of us have tried to reach out to one another – a part of me does sit here and wonder, why hasn’t he reached out to me – after all, he did tell me he cared and loved me – does he not miss me? I think about his every single day almost non-stop – does he not think of me like this? I sit and ponder these things w/ sadness and I look at my phone several times on the hour, looking for his text or some communication. It still hurts…
Then I come onto this website and re-read what Skylar, Louise, Truthspeak, BBE have said and I’m instantly brought back to realization – Why would I want him to contact me, why would I want to get back involved with a man who cheated on me continually for a year 1/2 and played me out to be a fool. Who not only disrespected me, but devalued me as a human being. If he cheated before and is now cheating again, he will do it again. The best predictor of current behavior is past behavior…..
The first time I caught my ex was “harmless” – some girl sending him “sexy” pictures on his phone – He “claimed” it was nothing and was just a old friend – that right there should have been seen by me as a “red flag” and to get out – but i stayed to ensure so much more pain over the next year. Each time I caught him, the lies became so “good” that I believed him — if you continue to accept his behavior, which you are by staying with him, he is going to continue to do this to you — After all, why wouldn’t he – He doesnt care about you, he doesnt respect you, he devalues you, your feelings do not matter to him at all – sorry, but that’s the truth. If they mattered and he actually had empathy towards you, he certainly wouldn’t be planting himself in someone else’s bed/arms.
The sooner you get out the better you will start to feel – but trust me it will take time and it’s a long road to recovery…..I am actually now in therapy because I want to and need to begin healing myself…..
Hang in there…..
Kim the “drama triangle” concept was a mind altering concept for me. Unfortunately I continued to play the games for decades after I first heard about it. Not having solid boundaries kept me locked into the psycho drama of my family.
Family role theory” about how different members of the family are assigned various “roles” that they must play to keep the drama triangle fully staffed and if one person leaves, quits playing or dies, someone else in the family is assigned their role and actually may do a 180 degree turn in order to do it. Like if the family bad boy dies or sobers up, another member of the family will take to drink or drugs or crime, a previously sober non criminal.
My maternal GM was the Family enabler “PEACE AT ANY PRICE, AND **YOU**PAY THE PRICE” and when she died, my egg donor did a 180 degree turn and became the family enabler, enabling Patrick who had assumed the role of family bad boy since Uncle Monster was so old and decrepit that he could really no longer fill that role.
As my egg donor’s health started to fail and my step father and my husband were dead, my egg donor started grooming me to take over the family ENABLER ROLE but I rebelled and refused, and boy did she ever get angry that I would not play any more. So she recruited my DIL and we know how that turned out, so after the arrest of my DIL and the Trojan Horse my egg donor said to me (REALLY!) “Let’s just pretend none of this happened and start over”
NOPE I did NOT accept that offer to just “start over” and pretend none of that happened.
So if you put the drama triangle into the family role theory you have a pretty good picture of how these Greek Tragedies play out in our families. But in order to put on a play you must have ACTORS and we can refuse to play an assigned role. It usually means going NC with the main producer, and sometimes the entire family if they are all actors in the drama.
Many bloggers here though have tried to continue contact because they want to have relationships with the grandkids and the drama producers use those children as LURES to keep the person engaged in the DRAMA. Disconnecting from the family drama rama is painful for these grandparents but sometimes is the only way to cope with the continued pain produced by seeing the damage done to the children by this drama.
OxD, thank you for continuing the discussion on triangulation. I understand that it requires actors, yes.
So, in essence, the way to extracate myself out of a situation of triangulation is to simply walk away? Stop playing, right? Okie dokie……….yes, yes.
And, your mentioning the use of children in this nasty, ugly game is particularly heinous to me because children do NOT have advocates, even well-meaning family members that try to “save” them. Their “good intentions” only damage themselves, and give whomever the spath is fuel to burn all bridges and paint the well intended as fruitcakes and bitter losers.
Okay……more discussion on this, please. Thank you!
I still dont think I understand the triangulation theory or concept. Does this mean that I “invited” my ex-spath since I was at the time “playing the victim?” I was recently separated so was feeling low – and he came along and “rescued” me – but then as the relationship progressed I feel I became the “rescuer” because I kept on giving and giving and wanting to give him everything that he never had – I felt I needed to “save” him, but from what I don’t know – I felt the more I gave he would come to realize what a “great catch” I was — but then I also played victim because the more I gave the more he took –
I can see how in certain situations how this works but can you apply this to the overall relationship I may have had during the year 1/2 — although it changed frequently?
This concept seems like something that all relationships would go through at some point in time? Right? Or am I completely missing the boat on this one?
Truthy, it’s important to remember that this triangle is a system. It functions as a play or game. It’s like there are three chairs set up, with three players, and the music starts, the players circle the chairs….when the music stops each player takes the nearest chair. Interestingly, these can be internal chairs, too, with a victim self always being battered by a perpetrator self, and so on.
We move about these chairs from role to role.
We can be acting out one role, and truly believe we are being cast in another. Each participant is in collusion with the system….each is bonded in the trauma…..and the drama. For the game to continue all must play the game.
The one who stops playing is cast by the others as the perpetrator. He becomes the bad guy, because he is abandoning the system. It’s the only door out. He becomes the scape-goat….By the way, the word, “tragedy” comes from the greek and means, “goats song”.
The person with the most power in the system is the victim. The whole thing is set in motion by the victim. Another interesting note on the side is this: In therapuetic circles it is often suggested that the presenting patient is the sanest of the entire family…now aint that a hoot.
So, to escape the system you must be willing to be smeared, and adament enough to handle it.
Kim
Would you agree that the best way to escape the game of triangulation would be to not play it at all — because ultimately you can’t win?
broncos, this model is desgned to look at dysfunctional relationships. Since dysfuctional is an understatement concerning our relationships with spaths, I’m sure we can apply it. I don’t like to say that any of us was playing victim, because I believe we were living victim, but, yes…if we stayed in the system, we were a part of it’s dysfunction. And, YES, absolutely you changed roles, and he changed roles…this is what Dr. Carnes says intensifies the trauma bond, and Skylar, this is whatgirard calls recipricol violence…the back and forth wounding and the power shifts that fuel the sacrificial crisis.
Carnes says that eventually we find ourselves in crisis, when we can no longer sustain the system, and collusion collapses. I know I was in crisis.
We are seduced and re-seduced to keep on playing the game…sometimes, as in denial and disociation, we seduce ourselves….this could be likened to Freud’s compullsion to repeat, where we continually find ourselves in similar situations, being re-traumatized….we are compelled, unconsciously to repeat so that we can finally master the trauma. So very interesting to me.
broncos, Yes. But, remember that there is a pay-off to all participants playing the game. It’s only when the pay-off is smaller than the pay-off of getting out, that anyone player will stop, and leave the game. And that means the sanest player will eventually begin to see what is going on, and become stong enough to begin to form exit strategies.
Is it in fact “winning,” when we make the break? Well, yes and no. It is winning, because we’ve won our freedom from a trauma bond, and we’ve won our power back, but, at the same time, asking if it’s winning the game is akin to still being in the game. The truth is, when we leave, we lose. We lose a lot. Our dreams, our illusions, our faith, our loves, our lives as we knew them. We may feel we failed…all that. It’s a mixed bag, and it feels both exhilerating and very very sad. We will greive and feel low for a time.
But, again, yes it’s a win, because we win ourselves back.
Sorry Bronco’s I misread your post. I thought you asked if leaving was winning. I just re-read, and what you implied was that it was a no win situation. Sorry about that. Yes, I agree that staying in the game is a no win, but, as I said above there are pay-offs.
Leaving my ex was in no means a feeling of me winning, I still lost more than I won. I may feel differently as I start to get over it but right now I feel more or less a “loser” than a winner
I did play the game, but I feel i played the game unknowingly though. I thought the more I played eventually my ex would realize that it needed to stop and that I was the “one” for him- the one he claimed I was when we first met. It’s still difficult for me to understand how he can feel so strongly, or claim to feel but then flip a switch and act the complete opposite. I used to tell him all the time that playing with people’s emotions is down right cruel and no one deserves that… I can still see him just looking at me with a blanket face.. Never replying to that statement and never saying a word.
I can count one one hand how many times he says sorry to me- I caught him in a zillion lies and I think he said sorry maybe twice and those apologies meant nothing to me really. But after he would say sorry I was to drop the subject and move on… Yeah right, completely an irrational request on his part!
How can these people act as if their actions and game playing is ok and no big deal? I was stuck in that triangulation game but I think this last incident of his indiscretion pushed me over the top… I tried once again for two weeks after finding out to stay in this game but in the end I couldn’t.. I loathed, hated, resented and was repulsed by him… So I left…
But on the flip side… I miss him terribly but remind myself I miss the illusion not the spath that he is