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
garfy4321
I too have been guilty of longing for the “love” she showed me before evicerating me financially, emotionally, legally and spiritually. And yes, I have reached out to her in an attempt to “get her back” even though she has done this to countless men. My wounds are deep and do not feel like they are healing. And somehow she has manipulated the legal system to win every court battle and position herself as the victim.
Truthspeak
Denisec900, I would be very, very cautious about using someone’s legal name on ANY internet site that accuses them of crimes and sins. I don’t type this as a reprimand or scolding, so I hope that you don’t interpet it in that way. It is for self-protection against LEGAL actions that I do not use the exspath’s first or last name.
Garfy4321, spaths typically manipulate everything from legal systems to social agencies. They do. And, the more we squawk about what they’ve done and what they continue to do, the easier it is for them to pain their source targets as lunatics. Seriously. And, it’s no easy task to separate the visceral emotional reactions to their manipulations from the whole mess.
If you are really feeling that you’re stuck and not recovering, I would strongly urge you to consider engaging in strong counseling therapy with someone that “gets it.” You can obtain a list of qualified professionals by calling your local domestic violence hotline. Yeah, it may seem “extreme,” but these hotlines have a HOST of resources at their fingertips.
To find resources in your area, you can visit http://www.ndvh.org and explore options that will assist you on your Healing Path.
Brightest blessings
EDIT ADD: Denisec900, I have accumulated voluminous documentation that the exspath allegedly commited what amounts to a Federal Crime. Since he has not been charged with any crime, I cannot legally use his given name without facing serious legal consequences.
lifeisgood2013
Thanks Donna (once again) for this site and the invaluable information you post! I have bookmarked this link so I have easy access to read and re-read over and over again as knowledge truly is the path to healing.
I’d like to add a few “strategies” I use to remove my ex-spath from my brain/thinking which I hope will be beneficial to others recovering from a relationship with a spath:
1) Focus on the FACT that you are incredibly lucky/fortunate/blessed to have this illness REMOVED from you life.
2) Focus on the FACT that you are incredibly lucky/fortunate/blessed to KNOW what/the type of “person” you were in a relationship with for however many of years. Think about the spath relationship survivor who doesn’t gain this knowledge/insight into what really happened and think about how that poor person will be in a constant, most likely never ending cycle of trying to make sense out of the senseless which we all know is impossible.
stronger
Thanks Donna. This is great! No one else can understand the extent of the devastation, and worse, the meaninglessness of it all! You put is so beautifully… More strength to you! I found joy in reconnecting with my sisters, parents, old school friends with whom I exchange lots of fun text messages and emails everyday…and I am so surprised that there is laughter and sunshine in life! Before I knew what I was dealing with (i.e., psychopathy) I was so caught up in his crazymaking for 20 years that there was no room in my life for anyone or anything else except misery, disbelief, shock,dismay etc etc! Just knowing that one word (his diagnosis) changed my life, and I consider it my second birth after 20 years of constant torture…And must mention Donna, you are SUCH an inspiration! You are a blessing to victims worldwide..In fact, I wonder what we could do for you in return for all you do..
Donna Andersen
Thank you all for your kind words. I’m glad you liked the pet photos. And yes, there were sugar gliders.
Truthspeak
Donna, I actually squealed over the uber-cuteness of the sugar-gliders. Out loud, and by myself, I squealed!
Stronger, one thing that we can do is to contact our local colleges and universities and strongly suggest Donna as a seminar speaker and provide her contact information.
The reason that I make this suggestion is that I was never taught that there were predatory human beings, except for those in prison. Criminals were “bad people,” but a pastor, spouse, or sibling was NEVER to be considered predatory.
Getting the facts out about predators is KEY in facilitating changes in our culture and society. If enough noise is made about how our society is tolerating and PROMOTING sociopathy (Jersey Shore & Teen Moms?) as acceptable and entertaining, changes will occur. Not overnight, to be sure, but Donna is an expert at educating people about recognizing “Red Flags” and recovering from spath entanglements.
Without sounding over-the-top, I owe this site my life. And, that’s no exaggeration. Without this site, I wouldn’t have had the knowledge to recognize that my marriage had been a complete fraud when I discovered what the exspath had been doing. I likely would have rolled over, let him continue his behaviors, and either died by actual poisoning, or by proxy. Donna put her story out there and opened up herself for the scrutiny that we’ve all experienced, “How could you NOT have known?” She put it out there and saved herself, first, and me, next.
I’m getting choked up about this, even as I type. So, get the word out in any way that you can. Call universities and colleges. Call Law Enforcement agencies.
Brightest blessings of gratitude and peace
onewomansvoice4change
This is such a great article! Thanks so much for writing it, you have helped me so much in understanding and recovering from my own experience with a sociopath. I have quoted and sited your article in my own story, feel free to check it out http://dangersofcouchsurfing.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-dangers-of-couchsurfing.html#!/2012/11/the-dangers-of-couchsurfing.html
slimone
Life is Good….
Thankyou for the reminder of how FORTUNATE I am to be OUT of harm’s way, and awake to the reality of spaths! I am truly grateful for this. But it did take me some time to ‘connect’ with my awakening in this way.
It is such a painful process….it takes time to feel the sheer happiness of being away from BAD bad people- and the serenity of knowing you have tools for creating the kind of life you really wanted all along.
Slim
sisterseven
Hello Everyone!
This article is very timely for me. I have been boo-hooing the fact of why I am still allowing this woman to rent space in my head. Not all the time. And not when I realize my thoughts. I can and do immediately put a spotlight on what the hell I am doing, and change my thoughts. Nevertheless, she will pop into my mind when I least expect it. I am sick this week with a cold. Defenses down, feeling needy, I wanted to creep around her email, just to see what she is up to. I called my leaning post, my compass North, and I told her what I wanted to do. She sternly said, “Oh no you won’t! Don’t you dare do it!” Then we both laughed, and I talked to her about my feelings. I feel so proud of myself for not taking the low road. Most of the time I don’t think about her. It does get better. I am now at seven months NC.
I too adopted a cat a couple of months ago. He has become such a source of comfort for me. And, I feel safer in my home with him here. How can an 11 lb ball of fluff keep me from feeling the urgent need to do a ‘safe check’ as soon as I enter my home? He is lovely and amazing.
Thank you all for sharing your experience, srength and hope. I want to live happy, joyous and free. I want to show up for myself. I AM my most truthful and loving advocate. I will not ever settle for less than I do know I am worth. And I have a lot to be grateful for. And I am a singer! Music resides in my heart and soul.
Blessings of love and joy to you all,
Elizabeth
kmillercats
It would be interesting to do a survey and find out how many “victims/targets” are animal oriented people. I’m a vet tech. Animals have been a big part of my life forever. Is it because we seem to be very compassionate and caring individuals and help an animal in need? My guess is, yes. The spaths x wife was also a vet tech. He really seemed to like my cats but, my dogs…not so much. Of course, my cats were all over him and sitting on his lap all the time. I think it made him feel like some kind of king holding court. The thing that is helping me the most after 7 months nc with only one minor slip is I keep telling myself that he is technically insane and do I really want an insane person (with no chance of being normal) in my life any longer with all the grief? The answer in a resounding NO.