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.
Louise, I want to address a question that you asked: “So do they feel good temporarily when they are with us? Because they are mirroring our goodness?”
I am not a mental health professional, but even trained and educated professionals cannot answer this question except in vague terms. IMHO, they do not “feel good” at any time. You’re trying to equate what you understand about what may “feel good” to an organism that only shares a visible resemblence to an empathetic human being.
From my personal experiences, sociopaths and psychopaths only “feel” anger, envy, resentment, and hatred. They do not “love” their pets. They do not “love” their parents or relatives. They do not “love” their partners or children. They only disdain.
“Mirroring” is, quite simply, reflecting what they see (verbally and physically) their targets doing. They will see and hear their targets respond to tragedy or a joyous occasion and then re-enact what they’ve observed through physical and verbal responses in similar situations.
As an example, when I learned via telephone that my father had suffered a fatal stroke, the exspath physically grabbed me and (in retrospect) violently gathered me into his arms as a GESTURE of compassion. Holding someone tightly in a swift motion using words in a specific order MIRRORED compassion. Now, the exspath’s actions took me completely off-guard and actually FELT inappropriate. It FELT contrived, and I imagine that the exspath viewed this action in a movie, once, and simply played out the action in an attempt to appear concerned and compassionate. Amazingly, he didn’t squirt a tear from his eyes, at any time, either for my father’s passing OR for my own grief.
So, no…..they do not “feel” the way that you and I do, Louise. They just reflect what they believe to be proper responses in a given scenario – it’s all an ACT of ILLUSION.
Brightest blessings
Spoon, I was hesitant to respond to your gut-wrenching post of your personal history.
I am so horribly sorry for your experiences, and even sorrier to read of your experiences with the professionals.
I’m grateful that you’ve found your own Healing Path and that you’re recovering from such a tragic childhood.
Brightest blessings to you
Louise
As a child that young all are numb in this situation and just reacting to those around them. I started getting a hint of it wasn’t me in my early teens. But the crap had already been planted. All kids see it as it’s about them and that they learn by what they see [how the adults handle things] then what they are told.
Yes it would have been nice to have figured it out sooner.
spoon
Truthspeak:
Thank you for making that so much clearer. I think I finally get it that they really don’t feel anything except negative feelings…anger, envy, disdain. They want everyone to feel the way they do because they are so miserable.
Yeah, from your description, it was clear your ex was only acting out what he THOUGHT he should do. I can’t imagine having no feelings and only mimicking what everyone else does…that’s a robot.
It reminds me of something spath had said. There are so many things that he said that I had forgotten about. He confided in me A LOT. He told me A LOT of things. That was one of his hooks. He was a high executive who was telling me, this Assistant level employee, all of these things that I probably shouldn’t know. That was his way of gaining my trust…the hook. And boy, did it hook me! I remember thinking how much he must like me if he was confiding all these things in me. Anyway, one day he tells me how the HR Rep in our area bought subs for all the late night production shift workers. He said, “Good on ya.” Hmmmm, why would he tell me this out of the blue?? I see it now that he was trying to make me think that he THOUGHT that buying the subs for the group was a great thing to do…it made HIM look like a good guy by THINKING it was a good thing. Mind you…he would have NEVER bought subs for his group. Anyway, you get what I am saying.
So yeah, I get now how they mirror, how they operate, how they trick, how nothing they do is “real.”
Oxy
Your welcome. And thanks.
That’s all it is now just a story. Wouldn’t wish it on any kid. But it’s not me. It’s just something that happened. Others did cause it. Nothing I could have done to alter what they did. Where I do have the choice is what it means to me, what it says about me etc. Only I control that.
Hopefully this isn’t coming across as callous. Many years ago I would be getting pissed right now. Not at you. But retelling it would bring up all the bad emotions. There not there any more.
Never found a therapist. Found out about PTSD from the first one. Right before he fell asleep. I ended up learning about it from books. For a time period I used strategic drunks to maintain balance. It would short out the whirlpool effect. Then found the nlp technique I use. And after sometime of playing with it. I took care of the PTSD.
Yeah these events can change us. But would you really want to be the you back then? For me nice to have the energy levels. But not the problems and those destructive solutions when I thought I was so smart.
Now the son and killing is a tough one. Not something anyone should have to deal with. Wouldn’t want that one. Sorry you’ve had to face it.
Life is always changing. And we are too. So shoot for being great. It does have 3 more letters. But both are just a thought away.
For me the worst day I ever had was wonderful. I did what needed to be done. And I woke up alive the next day.
spoon
Truthspeak
Thanks for your heart felt words.
Do me favor – be happy for me.
I would rather you be happy and smiling then feeling sorry.
There is nothing either one of us can do about what happened. You didn’t cause it nor I.
Tis the best revenge.
spoon
Hi all.
I have been hovering around the place for the last couple of months, reading, reading, reading and first off I would like to thank Donna and all of the wonderful and courageous people that make this place such a worthwhile community for all who eventually stumble across it after being a victim of these truly horrid ‘things’ amongst us.
I fell victim to one of these parasites earlier this year for just under 4 months and though it was a short lived experience (thank God) as we all know, the heinous hole they leave in our lives and psyches lasts much longer. I believe I was ‘lucky’ and unlucky at the same time. Unlucky that I fell for it, but lucky because I got out before it totally destroyed me and that I found this place and the information it contains, so that I can make sure it NEVER happens again.
I won’t go into my story, it’d be pointless as it is written down here a thousand times by many different hands. After reading through all the info on this site along with a number of books on the subject, I now realise I have had 2 previous romantic relationships with these horrendous creatures and one of my siblings is also one. I think the fact I had had previous dealings with them in a relationship situation did help me to realise what was going on with the last one much sooner than I would’ve otherwise, but I was still taken in and then destroyed, just over a much shorter time frame.
I will say that I think Skylar REALLY hit the nail on the head with her comment on the last page. I do believe the reason they latch onto us is because they spot something in us that they ‘want’ and that they DO envy us to an alarming degree! THAT is the attraction I believe, they WANT to be us, the rest is just their horrible nature doing what it does once they realise they could NEVER be us, they change us into what they are by destroying us.
I think that we should all take some sort of weird solace in that fact. We are wonderful, loving, attractive, sane, caring people and THAT is what they want from us and why they are attracted to us. That is also I believe the first thing we have to learn and believe on the road to our own recovery. If we weren’t so wonderful in the first place, they wouldn’t have ever bothered with us, now all we have to do is find our way back to being what we were before they destroyed that in us. It’s a long hard road, but I believe that by facing that fact along with the fact of what these parasites are, we take the first step in our recovery.
In Thomas Sheridans book he brings up the subject of energy. We are ALL energy sources. I believe that is what attracts them to certain people, our strong love of life and our positive lifeforce and they latch onto us to steal our ‘good’ energy because quite frankly, they don’t have any. They then fill us with their bad energy as they drag us in, steal our good energy and leave us with what they ALWAYS feel inside ie absolutely NOTHING! Then they move onto the next life force and start the process all over again. I don’t think it is about money or sex or any of these things, I think those things are just used by them to rope us in or are just advantages that they can enjoy while playing the game. I think it is ALL about power and control and draining that power from us and then controlling us for as long as we let them get away with it.
Though everyone’s story is totally different as we do not know at the time what is going on, I think what is most important is once you’ve recognised what is going on that you GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE and move on as best we can at our pace and in our own way. NOTHING is harder than being WITH one of these people NOTHING and anyone suffering at the hands of these people must just get away from them as their first priority and deal with the aftermath once you are out of it.
As far as the titles of this thread goes, I have found 2 VERY useful exercises that help ‘get them outta my head’. The first is from the Thomas Sheridan book where you focus visually on the parasites DNA structure (you dont have to put their vile faces on it, but if it helps go for it) containing your energy. I usually make their energy red (the devil) and myself blue (the sky, the ocean) and you simply ‘suck’ your energy back out of them and back into yourself. It is very empowering!
The second thing I do is similar to the ‘grey rock’ theory of power. I imagine I am in the place where I met them and as I see them approaching me I say to myself over and over again in my mind ‘I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SO YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE’ and but the time they get close enough to me they walk right on by. Essentially you are erasing their whole existence from your life, because you are educated now and will not accept them in your life ever again. I know it sounds silly, but it works.
Lastly I have noticed some discussion on the last page here of people trying to ‘change’ the title of what they are. I personally think this is dangerous. They are psychopaths pure and simple. Lets not lessen the fact of what they are or the disgusting impact they have on society. If people think psychopaths are all like Hannibal Lector THEY are the ones who need an education, not us. What should be discussed with those not in the know, is that like everything else on our planet EVERY psychopath is different, but what they do as evidenced on these pages, is not. Some may not be violent but lets face it that is only out of laziness or that they may get caught out sooner. These ‘things’ are vile disgusting abominations of nature. They do worse than murder (though most of them would probably do that without battering an eyelid if they could get away with it) they kill your soul and leave you wandering the planet like they are and that is a far worse crime.
We should NEVER candycoat or make excuses for what they do and once they are out of your life they should be trout of as dead, because really they are. They never existed, they just created a version of themselves with one thing in their crooked little minds, TO DESTROY US!
Welcome, Never_again, you said some powerful things and I am glad that you are on your way to learning and growing as well as recovering.
Having one in your family also I think makes it easier for them to prey on us. The dysfunction of having one inside your family of origin makes them seem more “normal” than they are. You are right they are evil critters.
Thanks Ox!
Yes I agree. Weirdly when I was with spath #2, my spath sister was the only person to EVER stick up for his actions. They got along famously, while everyone else felt very wary when around him, when he wasn’t charming the pants off them of course……
Spoon,
Yea, I have lived in the abyss of the whirlpool (spin cycle) of trying to figure out what is going on, and what to do to fix it, and most of that time I have not done it very well…the fixing.
I too had to learn the fix was FIX SELF and let the rest go. It has been a difficult journey and one with lots of twists and turns, and self education. Therapy didn’t help much until I GOT IT, much less the therapist getting it. Even the therapists I had who got it, they couldn’t convey IT to ME until I was ready to accept it.
Now, Ii can look back and see where their good advice went unheeded by me, but I can still draw on that good advice NOW.
My own idea that I knew more than I did was partly what sunk my growth. My lack of boundaries, my desire to PLEASE EVERYONE and my feelings that if someone else was unhappy it was my fault and I had to fix it. DUH?!
Sometimes the most violent assaults are what it takes to get us to see what really needs to be done to grow and fix ourselves.
Like you, I realize I can’t fix the past,, or fix what others did, or will do…but I can have a good day today because I want it to be a good day. I have many many blessings and I need to count those blessings—starting as simply as having clean water to drink, a roof over my head, an education, clothing and food. Instead unless I work hard on counting these blessings I will fall back into a sense of being victimized. I dont’ want that, so I work hard on feeling blessed.
Again, glad you are here.