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.
skylar,
I watched it some time ago. Don’t remember if it was said psychopaths had low or high levels of that substance. But I also heard somewhere none chemical alterations or damages were found in psychopath brains. And the truth is that they seem to be healthy, they have much energy, physical and mental. It is as if they were a joke of nature played exclusively on us, not a problem that they suffer in themselves as happens with other desorders in which there is chemical alterations.
In relation with levels of empathy there are degrees but when the degree is somewhere between more or less normal standards, and I think this is the case most of the times, education plays an important role. I think most people have their levels diminished due to the competitive education we have received. Rivalry, ambition of money, of status, of power, etc., has to reduce the levels of empathy. But that’s the education we’ve received.
Louise!
I became accepting when I got tired of feeling like shit. I learned that I felt bad b/c my VALUES and my ACTIONS were no longer in alignment, they had become DISconnected.
So I DETERMINED to REconnect my behavior to my values. NO MORE COG DIS. I went to bed each night and prayed to God to show me the truth and to give me the strength to BEAR it. By reFUSIng to disassociate from the truth anymore, by default, I accepted the truth. I stopped trying to find ways I MUST be wrong and stopped making excuses. I took FACTS, which are NOT subjective, and STOPPED changing the definition of a fact.
FACT: My husband would be very sweet to people’s faces and FACT: would spend the dinner hour saying how he fooled that person. FACT: My husband gained other peoples assets. THE TRUTH: My husband defrauded people. NO Misunderstanding. NO excuses. NO blaming them.
A Little Detail of some exact processing:
I do think I had an extra gift. I read his emails as he wrote to others. He’d INSIST I was crazy for even THINKING he’d misalign me. He was SO convincing. But HIS OWN WORDS proved he was twofaced. As hurtful as those emails were, I had proof that he was smearing me. I posted those emails all over my apartment and anytime I missed him, I read those emails and that ended the pangs…. From that I accepted that every conversation with him meant He was “clowning” me. SO then I hung photos of clowns with a big line through them (No clowns allowed). That’s when I ended all phone calls b/c what’s the point if every call is just him clowning me…
I hope this helps give you examples of how to phrase things to yourself? Think of him clowning you? Aversion therapy? Truth therapy? Having BETTER things in your life so you don’t have time to think of him b/c you need your energy for GOOODDD FUN!
Ox,
I know he is extremely dangerous and that his place is in prison forever. Not because of revenge but because he is dangerous, not just to you but also for everybody. I’m sure he is going, if released, sooner or later, to kill somebody again.
I said unfair meaning sad because after all they’re living creatures and they must suffer the lack of freedom.
But i don’t think they know very well what they do, not completely, not like us, not morally, and that’s what it is dangerous.
Eva, I think he knows what he does is wrong in the eyes of others, but he does not CARE what others think is right or wrong. He wants what he Wants and to hell with everyone else. It is sad that any human being chooses to be evil….that any living creature can not bond to others…but just like a poison snake, the are dangerous, but at least a poison snake will care for its own eggs and offspring. That’s more than a psychopath will do.
Oxy, yes, it is obvious it is exactly like that. But just they don’t perceive their action are wicked, they just want their needs satisfied.
Yes, they’re very strange, they’re different, it’s useless to expect coherence or human reason from them, not even animal one. They’re something in between incomprehensible for us.
Eva,
Spaths KNOW they are wicked, but it feels right to them. It makes them feel good.
My spath knows he is evil. He believes he is possessed. In one of his projections he accused me, “It’s not GOOD for you to get so much pleasure from other people’s pain.”
My spath sister said, “Skylar, it’s ok to be evil.”
They do know, Eva. They are perfectly clear about everything. They are as lucid as you or I.
For example, I KNOW I will get fat when I eat cheese. But I do it anyway (sometimes) because it feels good. Really, they are so shallow that this is an apt comparison.
Skylar, Eva,
They TOTALLY know,, BUT they also ride roller coaster waves of denial. I found a book in exspath’s possession titled “Why Good People Do Bad Things, Understanding Our Darker Selves” and thought WTF? He basically sees himself as a good person that just slips up a little bit – which is actually quite true. He is an actor often doing nice things to impress others (not himself), have an image of a good guy – wearing the mask we talk about and then does something bad – like have sex with some horny teenager and somebody at work. He thinks nothing more of it other than oops I did something bad (the mask slipped) but if I lie, get home to my wife and kids and try my best to pretend “the status quo” it will all be fine.
NOT
He couldn’t do it. It ATE at his heart, his soul, his very being.
This “bad energy” has to go somewhere. Often projected onto me,,,, is also where it went. Here, you wear this shit because it’s too heavy of a load for me.
He also had another book by the same author James Hollis. The title, “Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, How to Finally, Really Grow up”
Silly me, I thought oh he’s finally getting some personal growth, might talk more openly, want to be more social (Mine was not), etc. When our son who was 13 at the time saw that book, he was in stitches literally laughing at his father. Like really dad, you’re kidding, aren’t you, right? How to grow up?
It was a telling moment for me that my 13 y/o son was more mature in many ways than his father.
I had had enough of his meanness, bullying ways, verbal and emotional abuse – and had almost called it quits many times, but just could’t stand the loss of my intact family. I kept telling myself it’s not THAT bad. When I finally figured out there was a mistress, that was it. I filed for divorce.
Did he know what he was doing? YES, all along.
Could he help it? No actually I think his rage surprised even himself at times.
He did say, “I’m ok the way I am” – thus he was ok with it. When only change when the PAIN is too great. He was never in enough pain – and likely never will be. He hides and runs from reality so the pain never keeps up or sits too long in his lap. That is how I see it.
honest kind giver,
you see it pretty accurately.
They’ve perfected the arts of denial and projection. It’s never their fault or their responsibility. Someone else has to take the blame.
So, Eva, when Rene Girard talks about scapegoating, that is what he is talking about: spaths.
That’s why I study Girardian theory. It’s the only theory that distills spaths to the core of their shame and envy. The scapegoat process describes what they do. What is amazing is that it’s a process that is built into all human cultures. We control other human beings by shaming them. Spaths just do it to an extreme.
Eva:
This paragraph you wrote is so spot on!:
“By the way, I’m not so sure they choose people high in empathy, they do it of course because people low in empathy would not tolerate their psychopathic stupidities. But there’s something more in the average victim. I think we all knew from the beginning, though this can not be apllied to you because you didn’t choose your p’s in your life, but as far as romantic partners is concerned, the prototipycal victim is somebody who is looking for strong emotions, somebody who is also, at that moment, feeling some kind of boredom and emptiness, and then the p appears with his ideas, his projects, etc, Because not everything is a priori negative in them; they can be enthusiastic at the beginning, enthusiasm they pass on their victims.
When they loss that enthusiasm towards the victim, the victim keeps on searching for more but that enthusiasm the psychopath is already applying it to another goal because he already learnt from the previous one everything he was able to.
The fault of the victim is usually the slowness acepting the reality of this fact, assimilate it and move on.”
You said there what I always had in my head, but wasn’t able to verbalize.
Yes, I am still obsessing about the yuppie from work…haha. Not as much as I used to, thank God, but he’s still in my head. Again, what you said is so true…I think that is why I was attracted to him…his freedom, his free spirit…perhaps I wanted what he had? I am quiet and not so out there. He is quiet, too believe it or not…not loud at all, but just extremely playful and charming. I guess I would like to be like that so I was attracted to it.
KatyDid:
Good stuff! I loved your detail of exact processing. I am so glad it worked for you!! I have tried all that…praying, almost everything you mentioned. It all helps temporarily, but nothing has been a permanent fix yet. I don’t think that will happen until I fall in love with someone else. It will take away whatever feelings I still have for this one. I am not sure why I still have ANY feelings when I KNOW what he is, but we have all been there so I am trying to not be so hard on myself at this point. I am with you on the reason for ending the phone calls. Yep, why engage with them if you KNOW it’s only lies??? I also did the same thing when I finally realized it was getting me nowhere. Futile…pointless.