I once heard from a woman whom we’ll call “Rochelle.” She related her story of reconnecting with a long lost love, which turned out to be a fake love. As it is for many Lovefraud readers, the hardest part of breaking away was getting the sociopath out of her head.
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 your 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 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.
FREE! Your first step towards real recovery from narcissistic abuse and trauma
behind_blue_eyes
He really is a jackass isn’t he…
behind_blue_eyes
Louise;
The discussion last night was about outward signs of HIV. These were very common with early drugs causing lipodystrophy, but far less common now. These signs include premature nasolabial folds, wasting of the arms and legs but fat deposits around the stomach. My x-spath show signs of both.
However, such is also seen in alcoholics and drug users, then the discussion turned to a higher prevalence of HIV in meth users. It was noted that while meth can cause hyper-sexuality, it also causes erectile dysfunction. However, many meth users combat this with Viagra or Cialis. The combination can lead to many, many sexual contacts in a weekend, with the same person or others, greatly increasing HIV risk.
I asked about circumcision because at least in straight men, it offers a significant HIV risk reduction from sexual contact (vaginal intercourse). Thus, if somebody has a concern for a friend, some of it can be lessened if the guy circumcised. This does not mean there is no risk and that condoms can be dispensed.
Poppers also present a big risk. Since some gay men use poppers+meth — a term exits for such: PnP or Party and Play. There is a very high probably these guys are or will become HIV+ as both drugs greatly reduce inhibitions…
BTW, my x-spath was uncut and had a somewhat small willy. On the gay dating sites he describes his sexual role as “versatile” but I think, judging from his willy, he is more of a bottom.
While he lied to me about drug use, on at least two sites he said he was a “recreational” drug user. On one, he answered several matching questions about drugs that implied something more than pot, most likely poppers but something harder.
Thus, my x-spath’s sexual role, drug use and uncut willy would put him in a high HIV risk category.
My guess is that he became HIV+ just after moving to London when he was around 23-24. His mother had just died. I know he drinks a lot. A dozen years ago this was a big uptick of HIV infections in London. In fact, he lives in LSL (Lambeth-Southwark-Lewisham) the area with the highest HIV rate in the UK.
A cute little “twink” boy from Liverpool who drinks, does drugs and bottoms would most likely not remain HIV- for long…
lifeisgood2013
It’s fascinating reading about the spath experiences of a fellow gay male (BBE) in NYC nonetheless. It hadn’t occurred to me until now, but my guess is there’s a huge population of spaths in the gay community – especially in NYC which is probably the world’s strongest spath magnet. Would be interesting to know how many other gays and lesbians are on this board….
behind_blue_eyes
lifeisgood;
London is worse in terms of sociopathic behavior in the gay community, and I am not saying this just because of my experience with one person. National health care (while I strongly support it) seems to reduce personal responsibility; drinking culture; widespread public housing…
One I learned about sociopathy and began to study it, a high incidence of sociopathy among gay men became very apparent to me. In fact, take the Hare checklist and apply it to the gay male community — as a whole it scores very high. While some of that is due to discrimination much of it seems more innate.
There are several interesting correlations to sociopathy, including left-handedness and autism/ADHD. These are also more common among gay males. In addition, womb testosterone levels is linked to sociopathy as well as homosexuality. Therefore, one would expect gay males to also be more prone to sociopath. I see it all the time when out on the gay scene: hyper-sexuality, rampant alcohol and drug use, narcissism…
Not to say all are or most are — just a lot more than in the straight community.
Side note: I have a paper somewhere that among those HIV+, 20-30% are sociopaths…
MoonDancer
Lifeisgood,
I am raising my hand – gay male in Boonieville Oklahomaphobia. Never been to NYC, never had any desire to either.
Not sure Louise needed an education about gay sex but oh well she got it…
Ox Drover
Boy, I missed a great conversation about sex and condoms….
You know what they call people who use condoms for birth control?
PARENTS!!!! ROTFLMAO Yep, condoms may decrease preg and decrease disease transmission but they are FAR from fool proof.
Know the difference between Herpes and “true love?”
HERPES IS FOREVER!!! LOL ROTFLMAO
Those are some of the one liners I used to use with my college kids when I would do an STD class for them.
MoonDancer
a tisket a tasket a condom or a casket.
Eva
Aha..Talking about sex…
I lost much sex apetite since the psychopathic experience. Since then sometime has already gone by but seems I don’t recover it. In reality what I’ve lost is interest, not that i had became frigid, It’s just that I lost interest.
skylar
Ok everyone,
this was NOT a conversation about sex. It was about physique. BBE and I were noticing that both his exspath and my trojan horse BIL spath, had similar and unusual physiques. They were both very thin with protruding bellies.
In BIL spath it appeared almost like he was pregnant. BBE and I were discussing the different things that could cause this and we concluded that HIV+ and alcoholism are 2 things that can cause this. So that’s why the conversation turned to sex as an aside.
I think it’s sort of a red flag when you meet someone with that physique. Although the condition can be caused by gluten intolerance or other food allergies, it’s still worth keeping a watchful eye if you meet a “suitor” who looks like this.
Not saying that all spaths will have that physique. My exspath was built like a Greek god when I met him. His physique was magnificent and he used it to troll for sex partners.
MoonDancer
well I am going thru ”men on pause” I have lost interest also..
but to be honest I am kinda glad to be older and over that part of my life..
If I knew then what I know now..
sky and bbe I am sure there are alot of good men and women with HIV that are not spaths. and I know alot of skinny men with big bellys and I doubt they all have HIV..