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.
BBE,
wow. well… that confirms what I had suspected: we bring into our lives that which we dwell on.
It seems that our power to do that is even greater than it would seem at first glance. Your story epitomizes that.
To dwell on something is more than just to sit and meditate on it, I think. Dwelling on something incorporates it into our value system (the things we want and value). Our values form our identities and affect our choices.
Be careful what you let into your mind.
I wonder what I dwelt on that made my spath come into my world?
BBE:
That’s so weird that you found his video six months before actually meeting him!!
Skylar,
I’m somewhat a “newbie” to this site so don’t know your story and/or if you have shared it somewhere on this site – But could it be that you dwelled on wanting to be taken care of — not in a sense of someone ‘physically” having to take care of you, but someone who makes you feel like you are the more important person in the world? Someone who when you’re with them, you really feel “safe” – or they make you feel “safe” and “secure” — for the time being.
This is how I felt when I first got w/ my ex. I felt I could depend on him, I felt he was loyal to ME, no one else, that he really was going to “take care of me” and he would always be there — He and I were meant to be! That isn’t necessarily what I was looking for or needing, but I must have been vulnerable enough to feel that I “needed” someone like this.
Funny, when I used to tell my friends all the stuff my ex said to me and all the gifts he bought for me, how he listened to everything I said and really cared; they all would look at me and tell me he is so fake / phony – they knew right off the bat that he was not genuine, yet I fell for it — Whereas my friends “knew better” and would never fall for all of this charm…..
Could it be that we don’t have high enough self-esteem, so when a spath comes along and gives us all this attention it makes us feel “worthy” and we instantly fall into the “trap.” I need to value myself more and have more confidence i myself; plus I have co-dependency issues, so in order for me not to bring a spath into my life I feel I need to work on myself because right now, w/o working on myself, I could see myself easily bringing another “spath” into my life…..Right now, I admit, I’m gullible.
Rochelle,
I agree being “addicted”– My exspath was literally my “drug” of choice. I can still remember, I had many clear ways to get out of the relationship, a free and clear path, and yet I didn’t take it, no matter how miserable and unhappy I was. I was not happy at all – I would leave his house after spending the weekend with him and never left with ease or a sense of happiness. I was always thinking about how miserable I was, but couldn’t find the “courage” to leave. After I would catch him cheating, it was odd- he would get mad at me for snooping and tell me that “I deserved better” and that “our relationship was toxic” and how “maybe his cheating is just a part of his character” – when he would say all that it made me even more upset and I would find myself crying and begging him to let’s try to make this work — how twisted is that?? It’s like he manipulated me in some way, right? He didn’t act like a violent lunatic or cuss at me – Instead he would act like I mentioned and would be so stoic showing not one ounce of remorse and was as cold as ice.
It was almost as if he were telling me, too bad you feel that way, you deserve better so go find it……But then he would turn around and say that if I went back to any of my ex’s they would just cheat on me — is was a mind boggling experience.
He also knew by saying all of this, I wasn’t going anywhere, I would end up staying — he played me.
denbroncos,
I was 17 and engaged to a 22 year old guy. He was sweet but not very smart or ambitious. He played frisbee on the beach and worked at pizza joints. I started to get really tired of trying to have conversations with him and all he could reply was, “Gnarly”. He was stoned on pot all the time.
One day, I heard the word gnarly just one too many times. I knew I couldn’t marry him. I needed intellectual stimulation.
The spath actually stalked me and sabotaged my car in order to meet me. Then he fixed my car and was “my hero”. He seemed to know everything. He seemed so smart. He never said, “Gnarly.” In fact, one day I was talking to him about something and he responded, “oh, a philosopher.” So I thought, “here’s a guy who gets me. Cool.”
More like, here’s a guy who stalked me and mirrored me.
After everything was done, I actually had lunch a few times with the spath. I did not want to live with him or be married to him, but I thought we could be friends and do things together, much like I did with my first husband. The spath was in a relationship with a former girlfriend (who tried to kill herself when she found out we were getting married) but was, in his words ‘not happy’. Then I started to read Love Fraud and realized how dangerous that situation could be for me. I found he was dictating my moods and feelings through lunches and text messages. The more I read (Donna’s books) the more I realized what I was dealing with. There was NO QUESTION that he is an spath. These people are powerful, which is why the NO CONTACT rule is so essential.
Skylar,
So in the beginning of your relationship did he converse more with you? Did he actually hold any “intellectual” conversations with you?
In my case, my exspath actually captivated me by listening and “actively” participating in conversations with me – but once I was hooked, he could barely remember what I had said because he would ask me questions about things I had already mentioned in a conversation we had previously – so I knew he wasn’t even really “listening” to me –
it’s a good thing you got away from your exspath – and you didn’t marry him. Can you imagine the disastrous marriage you would have had w/ this kid (I call him a kid because he doesn’t sound like a “man”). These spaths are like chameleons always changing their “cover”
Denbronco,
I AM glad that I didn’t marry him because I didn’t have to divorce him or give him my house. I’m SOOOO glad we didn’t have kids. But I did live with him for 25 years and believe me, it WAS disastrous. He poisoned me with strychnine for most of those years so that I was in agony and couldn’t work. Nobody knew what was wrong with me. I went to so many doctors and none could help me.
It was all part of his plan to destroy all my wealth so I’d be completely dependent on him and then he could make me commit suicide more easily.
Skylar,
25 years of enduring all that chaos is unbelievable; makes what I went through look like a piece of cake. How scary! Hope this guy is locked away and/or you’re far, far, far, far, far away from him where he can’t find you.
Do you think that there are spaths who are worse spaths than others? For example, my exspath is clearly a spath, but he isn’t at least not with me, physically abusive and really wasn’t verbally abusive, but the things that did come out of his mouth, such as calling me “stupid” or allowing his best friend to call me a “bitch” I tend to think as verbal abuse. In any case, being that spaths could be “extreme” or not, do you think it’s possible for a spath who isn’t “extreme” to change and/or be closer to possibly having or feeling empathy?
How are some spaths behaviors worse than others?
Denbroncos,
my spath actually sabotaged peoples’ aircraft so they would die. And he drove his ex gf to suicide and was planning on making my death look like suicide since I wasn’t cooperating by killing myself.
That said, I think that all spaths kill. My uncle killed his wife with cancer. The way they treat us, drives us into severe stress and kills us by making our immune systems fail.
In my case, I think that the strychnine saved me because it forced me to work really hard at my health. I ate only organic food, gluten free, sugar free and took boatloads of anti-oxidants, amino acids and herbs. So despite the stress, my body didn’t fail me.
My spath never hit me. He was doing all his sabotage covertly. I never doubted that he loved me, even when he was cruel, because people don’t just stop loving someone, right? And if they did, wouldn’t they just tell you and break up with you? The kind of deception that spaths do, is just unimaginable to most of us normal people.
Your spath threw his affairs in your face because he had already figured out that you would accept it. My spath KNEW that I wouldn’t. It’s not that I would be jealous, it’s that I would not want to be with a man who prefers to be with someone else. I had told him that from the beginning. I said, “no man is worth fighting over.”