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.
Fixer-upper, getting a box of stuff from the spathy x gf, was, in my opinion, strictly tactical. It is both a toe-in the water, and a trigger to your emotions. Even if she gets no reaction from you, she can gloat over knowing that she caught you unaware, and reminded you of her. This also lets her play the good guy….she is going out of her way to return your belongings. I think, given what the items were, it also functions as a subtle put-down….ie. your value is reflected in your possessions….a half a can of shaving cream, and an old magazine, and a couple of shirts…wow.
It left you feeling confused. Confusion sets us off balance….she slimed you with an unexpected WTF? moment. That’s what they do.
I tried to get closure, too. It doesn’t work. Don’t do it. I have found it’s better to just go No Contact…bow out and let it be. Trying to get closure only hurt me more because I said something that apparently made him mad and he turned it around on me and then he would never talk to me after that; made it seem like it was my fault. It was his way of getting off the hook I believe. It’s all crazy making. The only thing that stops it is to STOP IT yourself. It’s the only way. It hurts like hell and it will for a long time if you are anything like me. But there is no alternative. I heard something about him just today at lunch in a very inadvertent way and I just came home and got teary…mind you, I didn’t “cry”…just got teary so that in itself is a huge step forward in healing. It’s a very, very long process and one I am not sure will ever cease, but it does get better, but you MUST remove yourself from the situation. It’s the ONLY thing that works.
Louise,
You gave VERY good advice. People want closure but with an spath, there is NO closure. That was part of what I had to accept. Seeking closure just kept me trapped. Letting go of that expectation allowed me to heal.
Louise
I agree 100%. I am sure I will never find out the extent of the lies and all the other women and he will never admit it. I can only surmise. There is never closure. You will drive yourself crazy trying to get it. He enjoyed telling me about the girlfriend that he now had (of which he never wanted me to be) that I could literally see the glee on his face. That was the last contact for me. They’re insane. If you contact them they only plot a different way to hurt you. I already know he didn’t care one little bit. I don’t want to rub my own face in it. No contact is working for me. Slowly.
KatyDid:
Thank you. It is all about acceptance, isn’t it? Acceptance…it’s the end of the line. It’s the last thing we can do. It’s all we can do. Seeking closure does keep us trapped…excellent way of putting it. It gets a bit harder during this holiday season and also for me, this is the exact time of the year almost down to the day that he initially ever contacted me and started the relentless pursuit. So it’s hard right now. I went from being relentlessly pursued to nothing. HUGS to you today on this much needed day of comfort for us all.
kmillercats:
Thank you. You are right…he will never admit it. They don’t like to admit anything…it’s just lies on top of lies. If they do admit something, it’s just to cover up another lie or it’s a game to let you THINK you are in control. It’s nuts. I know mine didn’t care either and just like you, I became tired of rubbing my own face in it…it’s so humiliating. I always question what this other lady had, who he supposedly fell in love with, that I didn’t have. She has even moved here now after four years and I don’t know if he is with her or not or still with his wife. All I do know is he apparently wants nothing to do with me and it’s hurtful after being fed so many wonderful words and kept on the line for so long and then nothing. HUGS to you today.
honestkindgiver & skylar,
you both are absolutely right – but one thing that does confuse me is that each author’s approach is different and I do tend to get confused. My exspath has all the characteristics of a spath but then when i start reading about the “criminal” aspects of a spath, I think mine wasn’t even like that, so could he just be “part spath” — as strange as that sounds, is it possible for someone to have 1/2 spath characteristics or is this an all or nothing disorder?
Also, when i saw my therapist yesterday she did tell me that everything I have told her about my ex clearly shows he has a personality disorder that is incurable — how sad for these spaths (although I am not really sad for them),that they will never feel real love, real emotions and/or a real connection with anyone but themselves.
I am thinking though…we say they don’t care about anyone or anything and the next woman will be just supply and they will never really love them, etc., etc. Then why is mine still apparently in contact with the woman he “fell in love” with five years ago? I think she just moved here this year and he is still in contact with her even after five years! He’s obviously not tired of her. She must have something he likes. I hate this. Makes me wonder if she does everything right. I felt like everything I did was wrong.
Yeah Louise,
I must’ve done everything right, he stayed with me for 25 years.
NOT
The only thing that a woman does right, for a spath, is to BE EXTRA STUPID.
No offense to all the other women who stayed as long as I did, but lets face it, they only leave when they aren’t getting what they want.
Mine decided he was done with me when there was no more money. The other thing, was that I told the crazy husband stealing neighbor bitch that she could, “have my piece of shit whenever you want.” Since she was already screwing him, she relayed that information.
Sheesh, talk about a narcissistic injury.
Louise
He probably got bored with her and moved on to the next. You? Mine thought the last few women he had…xwife, x fiance, xgirlfriend (whom he duped), other brief girlfriend were all still in love with him. He had told me his fantasy was that I would tell his x fiance (with him standing there) what great sex she was missing. If she became available again he would probably go back to her. He claimed he loved her. He got bored with me. She has nothing more than you and try to remember that spaths value systems are very skewed. What he values in a woman is probably very shallow. Like how she dresses, how well she presents in public, what kind of job she has, how well she keeps her fingernails, (lol) etc. None of the important things. Like what kind of heart she has.