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.
Kim- Hi.
Just ran across this.
kim frederick says:
Spoon, my curiosity is peiked. You, assert that, as a man, your style is, “informative” and not “feely”. I would agree. Now that I think about it, it occurs to me, that I don’t know a damn thing about YOUR story, only your advice about how to recover from PTSD symptoms. What brings you here?
And, no. I assumed you were a woman”it never occured to me you were a man.
I’ve posted stuff about me it’s somewhere on here.
Like here’s a little bit: http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2012/05/18/taking-back-our-power/comment-page-2/#comment-161947
Why I’m I here: Spaths.
Short version:
Father was one. Killed my mother. Then himself. I was 4. And it went down hill from there. Forced to live with an Aunt also a spath. Lots of stories. Left there when I was 16. But didn’t go NC until I was 21. Nearly married a spath.
Spent many years dealing with the effects. Saw 3 psychologists First one went to sleep about half way through the first session. And still tried to charge me. Second one had a prescription for antidepressants ready when i walked in the door. Third one didn’t understand the whirlpool effect – when things spin out of control and would just suck you under. But he did at least say it didn’t make sense. Not that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Just he didn’t get it. Then offered to see me anytime without cost. We did spend many hours talking. He was good for a sounding board.
Went to Al-anon till I got tired of hearing everyone say that you can never get over it. And noticed a few other things. So I stopped that.
Then the real learning began. Cleared up PTSD and all the childhood crap, Stopped the whirlpool effect. Got rid of the nightmares and a lot of other stuff.
spoon
Hi spoon. Thanks for responding to my question. I can’t tell you how sorry I am to hear about your mother and father. That must have been devastating to a four year old child.
I’m so glad that you’ve found your way out of the whirlpool effect, and am grateful for the wisdom and knowledge you share here.
Here’s hoping you have a very Merry Christmas!!
spoon:
I am so sorry you had to endure the heartache of what happened to you. Tragic. I am so glad you finally found a way to deal with it all. Sounds like you had terrible luck with therapy. I am not surprised, but glad you found another way. HUGS to you.
skylar:
Great post about anger and switching places!! Wow, it opened my eyes.
When you said the cycle starts long before they introduce themselves…OMG, that is what happened to me!!!! He had already had his eye on me for quite awhile (OW even told me this) all the while plotting and I had NO idea. How weird is that? Almost creepy. SMH here. Hmmmmm. Their minds are so messed up.
I am feeling a bit better just in the past day or so because I am keeping these things in my head…the fact that he could never be me, he was envious, no matter what he has, it will never make him happy because he DID cheat to get it…all of it!!! I really need to keep thinking and believing this to keep on the healing path. 2013 just has to be better!
Spoon,
Your childhood sounds horrible. I’m so sorry, but glad you survived. Your experience with 3 therapists sounds like my experience with 3 priests!
First one told me, “Don’t call anyone evil, we are all children of God.” Then when I explained that I had been celibate for 15 years, he was stunned, “You mean, you lived as brother and sister?” WTF? Why was that so hard for a priest to believe? lol.
The next one, I approached more cautiously, “Father,” I asked, “Do you believe that evil exists?”
“Absolutely!” he replied vehemently, “Evil is in the world!”
So I began to tell him my story and within 10 minutes, he jumps up from his chair and runs out of his office, exclaiming, “I’m just a poor parish priest!”
The third one, just looked at me with no expression or emotion. After I told him my problems, he gave me a card to Catholic Community Services and told me to get therapy. His eyes remained blank.
That’s why we have to do the healing here, at LF. Nobody else gets it.
Louise and Sno,
The idealization stage is the key. They do admire us but that makes them envious and they want US to idealize them. They bend over backwards creating a facade that will make us want to be like them. But it’s all a facade, they are not experiencing the happiness they portray.
What they are really experiencing is the hell that they are putting us through. That’s how they know how to do it, because they are already there. Being filled with envy, they know how to seed envy. Feeling hopeless and isolated, they work on making us feel those things. Everything they leave us feeling is what they ACTUALLY feel.
That’s why I call it being “slimed”. Their actual loathsome selves rub off on us and that was their intent all along.
That’s how they trade places with the victim. It’s the 180 rule. Everything is 180° the opposite of what it appears to be.
Ms Snowhite:
Merry Xmas to you! Please don’t let my posts “fool” you ( ha! ha!). I’m not as strong as I sound..I do all the pondering you do – how could he just move on like I was nothing? How could he not care? How could he be so cruel? How could he “laugh” and not go through the emotions that “normal” people go through during a breakup? Thinking about all that hurts so bad, but then I remind myself the man can’t do or act the way I would assume normal people act because I wasn’t dealing with a normal person….
This man I was with has a mental disorder and in a nutshell is a “sick” individual…. Let him be someone else’s problem. I was never really “happy” when I was with him. I was more in a WTF mode the entire time….
Hang in there– keep posting!! It helps to write it out and get feedback from others!
skylar:
So do they feel good temporarily when they are with us? Because they are mirroring our goodness? Just wondering…
louise
I think they feel good whenever they get what they want. sex. money. thrills. when they are successful in pulling a con.
athena
Louise
I am reading your posts and wanted to offer a different perspective.
It seems to me that spaths manifest their dysfunction in as many ways as there are spaths. Therefore, it’s important that we don’t get caught up in others declarative statements about what spaths do/don’t.
My spath NEVER admired anyone. HIS thing was that he was SUPERIOR, dominate, above all others. So, he Might pretend, or set a trap to imply he admired someone. Then my spath would give them the rope to hang themselves, or in another way, give them permission to show that they are flawed. ZAP! My spath snapped that trap! WINNER! What my spath ENVIED was the goodwill others might have for another. So for every friend that thought well of me, he went out of his way to attach to my friend, and then sabotaged me so that friend would betray me. ZAP! WINNER! Whatever was envied was now destroyed. Nothing to envy! My spath took pride in destroying classmates wedding nights. Shortsheeting the bed was for kids. Drugging the groom and sending him with a long haul trucker to Chicago was a fav, as was supergluing their dicks, and painting blue/green/red epoxy all over their sex organs.
My spath did not FEEL good in the way I experienced feeling good. He might PRETEND to but I came to observe that he felt a form of anger, whether annoyed, irritated, contempt, angry or out and out rage. Mirroring me was one way to figure out how to sabotage me, mirroring to put me off guard and easier to uncover my many flaws. It was NOT him wanting to vicariously feel good.
HOWEVER specific these choices were…. Much of the behaviors of my spath were NOT conscious. It was just how he was made. He did not consciously set out to think about how to destroy my well being, it’s just how he behaved with everyone. Just as it’s natural for me to pet a friendly dog without thinking, it was natural for him to kick a dog in the face to see if he could make it bleed with one kick. Not personal. It was more of an oppportunistic thing, Just something to do serendipitously.
My spath also did not want me to idealize HIM. It only appeared that way. But wanting me to think well of him would mean that I had power. And NO WAY did he allow others to have power. Rather, that was a set up.
If someone would want me/you to idealize them, then that means me/you have a kind of value, that in a way, we MATTER. Making me/you think gosh You will MISS ME if I don’t idealize you is not only naive, but the reality…. for the great reveal…. NO. Not only did my spath NOT MISS ME, I didn’t exist for him at alll except as a knat to pull the legs off.
I say this to you b/c I think it gets confusing here on LF. The character of different spaths are different and some people try to define spaths as having this trait or that trait or this motivation or that. I’ve described some examples of how my spath manifested his dysfunction but that’s not how someone elses might behave. Be careful that when someone says “this is how spaths are”, what they are saying is their opinon based on their perspective, it’s not how ALL spaths are.
My spath’s core behaviors was b/c he was driven to put people “in their place”, and he defined what their “place” was. Again, not personal. He didn’t PICK someone, he just chose whoever “volunteered”. For the women who he seduced, well they Volunteered too, b/c he always made it a point to tell them he wasn’t available, he was married. SO in his mind, knowing they couldn’t have him? Meant they volunteered for what was left, to be used.
At the core, the basic traits that all spaths have in common is the disregard of the humanity of others, in other words, NO conscience. Idealization may/not happen. Still would be an spath. Envy may/not happen. Still an spath. I wish we could come up with a recipe to ID an spath, but we can’t. Our best defense is emotionally healthy BOUNDRIES. Decide what behaviors you will not accept. ANd then DON’T accept them. Then we can be saved from spaths, and from other types of jerks as well.