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:
Great way of putting it…seeing it. So true! I am getting there…I am getting there. 🙂
Snow White
My spath husband’s upper canine tooth crumbled (he LOVED his candy). It was a whole day before he could get to the dentist. And suddenly he LOOKED like the person he was towards me, like a thug, a lowlife, a snarling gaptoothed disgusting sob. I kept that image in my mind, when His looks matched his character.
ps It is one of my sayings, That “there is no such thing as Justice”. But, it is also one of my saying that LOVE is the only thing that matters. LOVE is a verb. VERB that starts with YOU.
KatyDid,
lol that’s so funny 🙂
It reminds me of an aunt I had who always treated me bad as a child. I was always afraid of her and I had bitterness in my heart for many years… Then one day I saw her without teeth. Her teeth were so bad that the doctor had to remove most of them for to put fake teeth the next day, and she was only 35!
It was the first time that I saw her for who she really was too, inside out and suddenly all of my bitterness was gone… I felt pity for her.
That’s what I want to happen with the spath too, I want to put him down of his pedestal and see him for who he truly is, just like it happened with your spath. I don’t know why it has to be so hard though!
I’ve been reading all the discussion that took place today and am brought back to a comment that was made by Skylar…
“but the truth is that his brain is as numb as a drugged up junkie, except he has learned to numb it without using drugs.”
my ex spath might have well as been on drugs because I literally felt like I was talking to someone who was at birth a pre-programmed robot and felt nothing for anyone but himself.
Ms Snowhite: I feel exactly as you do and so to reiterate that feeling would be rehashing what has already been said. I agree with Skylar and is something I have learned the past three weeks is that the more angry I feel, the more I dwell on my ex and give him the power I dont think he deserves. Sure, I think of him daily, but the anger is energy that I feel gives him so much more of me, even when he isn’t in my life. When I start to think of him, I am quickly reminded of the bad he has done in my life, but then I am quickly reminded how lucky I am to have him out of my life. 2012 was a downright horrible / unhappy year for me…. I think part of healing may be trying to put some of the anger aside and instead look at the positives of having him out of your life…..
I am by no means saying that this is an easy process and/or I completely put the anger aside because I don’t (not yet anyhow).
In any case, try to think of it this way, if you were with him today, still in the unstable relationship with the ex spath would it really make any difference? Meaning do you think he would actually quit trying to chase those “fake” women? Probably not….No matter what his behavior wouldn’t change so thank your lucky stars you dont have to be front stage and center while he continues to devalue you as a human being! Hang in there — you WILL get through this! 🙂
P.S Has anyone seen the move FLIGHT with DENZEL WASHINGTON? Would you consider him a sociopath? After all in the end he felt something, but was it guilt? Or did he do what he did because he felt more sorry for himself than he did anyone else? Very interesting movie….
No I haven’t seen that movie but I LUVVVVV Denzel Washington! I will see about getting that movie.
I watched an old rerun of Law and Order SVU tonigt where a 12-14 year old kid killed a younger kid and was a perfect liittle psychopath. The program discussed the DSM-IV definitions for diagnosing a psychopath, can’t be done til after age 18 etc. but used the word “sociopath” which of course we know is NOT what the DSM-IV calls them (Antisocial personality disorder) but I thought the program was interesting in any case.
Problem is though that like many TV shows it shows sociopaths/psychopaths as KILLERS which most are NOT. While there was a lot of good information on the show, the primary way it showed them as killers I think is very harmful to thhe public’s perception of socio/psyco-paths.
denbronco,
I think your comments about anger fueling the control they have over our minds post-relationship are pretty right on.
We have a right to feel angry…we have been wounded deliberately and with much malice…but holding on to that anger forever is counter productive as well.
Anger is part of the normal grief process and we should feel it appropriately but holding on to it forever is inappropriate.
Google Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s grief process and you will get an idea of what I am talking about. We will flip flop back and forth into and out of anger, sadness, bargaining, denial and acceptance and eventually if we heal appropriately we will finally get into a level of acceptance and stay there. But it takes TIME, and work. You can’t get a baby in 1 month by getting 9 women preggers…some things just take TIME.
Ox Dover,
Thanks for providing that info – I read up on the grief process and it couldn’t be more accurate. I feel like I was in the “denial” stage the entire relationship with my exspath, but after the breakup I still felt like it was just a dream – that everything I “fell” for was a horrible nightmare. What is ironic is that I think I faced some of these processes during the relationship w/ my exspath if that makes any sense, but coming at it from a different angle. Although, I was so unhappy and I continued to keep my blinders on, deep down I was in denial, I was angry, I always found myself bargaining with him to keep trying to make the relationship work even though he was the one in the wrong, I even became depressed during the relationship….But the one process that I didn’t ever face was the “Acceptance” part –
So would it be strange for me to say that once I broke it off with him, I accepted the fact that he was more than a 1/2 a sandwich short of a picnic if you know what I mean…..
Now I am still facing those same grieving processes, but now with more insight and knowledge in what or should I say “WHAT” I was dealing with — although I admit I still ponder why — knowing I will never know the answer to that
Merry Xmas to you!
denbroncos007,
Merry Christmas! 🙂
I don’t want to feel this anger, I know that it is self destroying… I’m trying to find a way to deal with it. It’s that I still can’t accept the fact that he laughs after what he did. I did the mistake to visit his online profile before a month and he had happy pics of himself there. He was also continuing flirting with women like if nothing had happened… It is like if I never existed in his life.
I don’t know what I expected… Maybe that he would feel some kind of remorse or he would be unhappy and there would be some kind of justice… It seems that everything goes good for the spath.
I don’t think that he would ever stop chasing those “fake” women, he is addicted to it.
It’s sad but I try to think about the positive side too and I feel relieved for having him out of my life. I feel lucky that I didn’t married him or have children with him…
Unfortunately I haven’t watched the “flight” either but I would like to watch it one of these days.
I’m going to google Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s grief process now too, I hope it helps!
Thank you for everything, I’m so glad that you are doing so well, you are strong and I feel that soon you would get healed 🙂
Much love and huge ((Hugs))!
snowhite, densbronco,
I think the anger is very much related to the way they try to switch places with us.
I’ve been thinking about the cycle of idealize, devalue and discard. I used to think that the idealize stage was the love bombing. But now I think it begins long before they ever even introduce themselves. The moment they see us and envy us, they are idealizing us. Their feelings of envy overwhelm them and they begin plotting on how they are going to trade places with us. They want US to envy THEM. That is the only thing that will give them satisfaction — when we feel what they feel, envy.
So they reel us in, then they begin to devalue us while they climb over us and then discard us. Meanwhile we sit and stare, wondering WTF just happened?
Lastly, we watch them sailing away into the sunset, happy as a clam while we pick up the pieces of our broken souls.
But lets rewind. In the beginning, THEY envied US. The whole thing was a plot and a plan. Nothing they portrayed was real. It’s all about manipulating our emotions.
I guess what I’m trying to say was that, they invested so much time and energy into creating this dramatic production because the reality was not to their liking: we are better off than they are, no matter how it may appear on the surface. The surface is a lie.
The only true thing the spaths have to show us, is that we have much to learn about people. This is sad, admittedly. We’ve learned that humanity is a big sad mess at times. But the biggest, saddest mess is the spath. No matter how he may appear, no matter how self-confident, how many minions or sex-partners he has, or how much money he can con or steal, it is not real because he cheated to win.
Skylar,
you had described it exactly the way it is! They envy us.
I think that they hate us because we have something they could never have. We are capable of love, so they want to steal it from us and destroy us.
I remember that the spath got mad at everyone that did something altruistic, like helping someone without gaining money from it or for loving someone unconditionally. He got mad and full of hatred for those people like how could this be possible, helping someone without gain! What’s wrong with those people?!!!! If he could he would destroy those people, so much angry he was.
Then he pretended that he loved people, children and animals….
Sometimes I don’t know if I should feel angry or sorry for the spaths… It must be exhausting living your life pretending to be someone else…