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.
kmillercats:
But he hasn’t moved on to the next. He’s still with her even after all these years. She is back in his life again.
Their value systems are skewed…I know his are. It’s a lot about money, but he tries to act like it’s not. It’s funny you say what he values in a woman is probably very shallow. The OW in my office who he triangulated me with said exactly this, “He’s not shallow, he wants and needs substance.” Haha, really? That’s where my cog/diss comes in because he DID seem to be that way; seemed to not respect a woman if he knew she was a tramp; he wanted more than that, but then if that was presented, he didn’t want it.
“Like what kind of heart she has”…yeah, a heart like mine that would have given him the world. I think this one he is in contact with again who moved here is extremely showy! She is of a different culture and very showy and smiley. I guess that is what he likes!
skylar:
Yeah, I could see that. They only like a person as long as you are doing what they want (or have something they want), but that’s the question…what DO they want?? And…what they want changes every day! They are always moving the target; I never knew what he really wanted. He was always elusive to that fact.
Louise
What they want is to feel the adrenaline they need in order to avoid a feeling of vacuum. They don’t want anything but to avoid that vacuum. And they change goals because being so superficial they learn everything they’re able to from people very quicky. They can’t not go deeper into people, they can’t, they don’t do it on purpose, they’re as simplistic as that.
I heart recently an audio, which i found interesting, by an argentinian psychiatrist who is specialized in psychopathy. It’s in Spanish but i know some of you can understand a bit of Spanish. In it he explains this question about the vacuum and also speaks about another one that, being not very significant, intrigues me specially: the terrible eyes, in fact almost that whole transformation in their face, they get when they’re frustrated. Surely you all must know what i’m refering to. http://www.marietan.com.ar/material_psicopatia/radiopalermo_30ago12.html I’d like to know more about this emptiness of them from people who has lived with any of them longer time than i did. And also why i got fixed in that detail that is not so frequently mentioned: the eyes, not the predatory stare but the other glance, that ugly and scary one.
Eva I didn’t listen to the Spanish as my Spanish is poor but what you said about the TRANSFORMATION in their face when they are frustrated is SO LIKE MY SON….IT IS LIKE LOOKING INTO SATAN’S EYES. The same in my P sperm donor’s face, and I have actually seen that same look of total TOTAL RAGE on the face of my egg donor. She isn’t a full fledged psychopath but she can sure show the RAGE when she is thwarted.
It is a scary look for sure. Like that famous photo of Charlie Manson right after he was arrested.
Ox, I saw it with that intensity just a moment. He didn’t exteriorize any rage bodily, but the face was something horrible. I thought i had seen a monster.
We were eating, I raised my eyes and saw that. I went to the plate again and thought “have i seen this or has it been my imagination?” And then he said “it’s ok if you dont like it” because i didn’t like the dinner he had cooked.
I looked again and his face had already turned to almost normal. The horrible eyes were not any more, there was just some remainder of annoyance in his face.
And yes, Charly Manson’s eyes are the most similar i can also think of, though i don’t know if i have watched any picture of that exact moment you’re refering to. Though he seemed to have permanently something very disturbing in his eyes. I haven’t seem any psychopath with that perturbing quality permanently in his eyes except in my ex teacher.
That’s another interesting subject, seems some of them have daily more disturbing eyes than other psychopaths have and that go unnnoticed as far as they don’t get frustrated and show that dark look.
So your egg donor is a moderate psychopath after all…That’s another interesting subject i have some suspicions about: seems there’s some kind of moderate degree of the condition usually in women, though i suppose the same must happen with men, or maybe it is a virulent narcissism. Doesn’t matter the name, the question is that seems there’re exist a “moderate” degree of the condition.
Well, I have to go. Nice to meet you again, Oxy. I’ve read about the problem with your “nice” son. Don’t worry, there will be one or another answer to the problem.
Eva, yes, I am firmly convinced there are “degrees” of the condition, some worse than others, some more violent than others.
After reading Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen’s book about the degrees of empathy and the conditions under which is expressed or not, as the case may be, I realized a lot of things about the “bell curve” of what is normal and what is not. There are folks on each end and most folks in the middle…folks without empathy and folks with too much. I think more victims are in the “too much” end of the curve and psychopaths are at the “too little” end of the curve.
WE must learn to control the oVER expression of our excess empathy by not giving others carte blanch to walk on us, and we CAN learn that but they have a hard time learning empathy after a certain point in their development, which is why adult psychopaths (after puberty) have almost NO chance of learning what they need to FEEL in order to be “completely human.”
My non psychopathic biological son isn’t the kind of man I wish he was, and I don’t need him in my life, but I am not afraid of him. He does have empathy, just not much of a moral compass, especially where it comes to interactions with me. Oh, well, I am where I can cope with it.
With my psychopathic son, Patrick, I am fighting his parole release with every bone in my body. I can only hope the parole board doesn’t let him out this time.
Eva,
Nice to see you again.
You described it very well:The emptiness that they can only fill with adrenalin.
You said you want to hear more about that from someone who has lived with one for a longer period.
Near the end of our relationshit, spath said that he was getting tired of flying his helicopter. It was getting boring.
I just about slugged him. The whole time I’d known him, he was all about flying. I indulged him because he said he couldn’t be happy if he didn’t get to fly. I poured tons of money into avgas so he could fly. Then he thought it was boring.
And yes, I’ve seen that look on his face. The one that looks like a demon is about to pop from his forehead.
Louise,
I don’t think your exspath cares about anyone but himself – Like Skylar (think he said this), it could be that this woman was and is just stupid. He is getting something from her – you were smart enough so he knew he was losing power over you, therefore let you go.
My exspath was married for 26 years and while I was with him, i just felt he had commitment issues, but he would always throw in my face that he doesnt have commitment issues, afterall he was married for 26 years. Now I see it as his ex wife was just very tolerant and put up with all his crap. Trust me, he was still getting his “supplies” on the side – after all what a perfect set up. He had that “companionship” or that image of a husband with a perfect family and 4 adorable kids; that is the image he wanted all his “friends” to see, but on the side he was getting his unmet needs met by other supplies.
So I dont think it’s necessarily something that this woman has that keeps your ex involved with her,instead it could be more than likely she is more tolerant than you were.
I know for a FACT my exspath was probably bored with me which is why he continued to cheat, but he would NEVER let me go, meaning dump me. He would have “allowed” me to stay with him in the relationship as long as I wanted – he was getting certain needs of his met that others weren’t giving to him….I was dumb to stay except recently when I found out he cheated (again!) I had enough and I got out — he was perfectly fine with not being remorseful, and letting me know that we could work things out so long as we let what happened stay in the past. We never really even talked about it – I found out about it, I cried, like a baby, begged him to let’s get through this and he said “Ok, if you think you can move past what happened.” After all, why wouldnt he think I could, I had already moved past the previous 3 incidents…
How backwards is that?? So you see, I didn’t have anything that maybe his ex wife of 26 years didnt have, I just continued to tolerate unacceptable behavior! He wouldn’t have “left” our relationship – why would he? he had power/control and sex with me — But he had excitement, challenge spontaneity with all his other supplies. He literally had the best of both words….
Hi, kim frederick!
Yeah, I have come to the same conclusions about the ‘X-mas package’ that I received.
I see now that she has always been excessive about claiming the ‘good-girl’ image – no matter how vicious or sleazy her actions and activities could be perceived. (“I only sleep with someone when I feel an emotional connection to them.”)
So, she is trying to appear be the good, honest one – again.
And the stuff had a strong fragrance to it – the one I associate with her. Oh – and her hairs all over the stuff, too.
And the put-down angle also is plausible. Earlier she had two living room chairs that she had no room for. I told her I was looking to replace some furniture. I suggested I take her two items – and that she could have them back anytime – and joked that she could always ‘visit’ them in the meantime. Well, when she broke off with me one of her put-downs was that I took hand-me-down items.
It’s nice that here we are allowed to put out one piece of furniture per week with the regular trash.
Oh, man it is painful to now remember what happened and what was said and have everything replay and reverberate in one’s mind. But, that’s what being separated helps one to do.
Point to be made—not all spaths have criminal tendencies. Mine did not. He was so concerned about others perceiving him as being above us mere mortals, he would never want to break that image. They only care about themselves, and everyone else in their life supplies their “high”. Mine prayed for someone to love. He doesn’t realize he CAN’T love. Essentially, I did what he intended me to do”I got his daughter off the sofa, got her enrolled in school, helped her get a job, and even took her for her driver’s license. She told me at the beginning—my dad promises things then doesn’t do it.” I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard conversation between them with her saying “I’m not stupid, Dad.” Of course, he would tell her she’s not stupid, but he TREATED her like she was. As a result, she is totally dependent on him. I’ve heard her say many times—daddy is my oxygen.” Not a good sign for a 21 year old woman. She is doomed to fail. In two years time, I can’t tell you how many boyfriends she has gone through. She was exposed to all her father’s ’relationships’ and that is all she knows. He had custody of her because he badgered her mother into signing her over to him. Made him look like the poor single dad”’I was both mother and father to her”’ He did a terrible job, but spaths are terrible parents so there is no surprise there. I met this guy when I was 14 years old and dated him for 5 years, then we were reunited 38 years later. Ugly break up back then too. He knew it and promised me this time that he was going to make it up to me for that. He had no intention of doing that. Remember, when they say ’I’m sorry’ or ’I feel bad about that’. it’s NOT true. They don’t know how to be sorry. And I do agree it runs in families. His mother buried 3 husbands and had no girlfriends because ‘everyone is jealous of me’. I knew his dad, who was a very sweet man. His mother idolizes him. His sisters resent him, but blood is thicker than water. It amazes me that all this was there and I was too blind to see it.