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.
never_again:
Two spaths do tend to get along great! (at least temporarily). I think they really identify with each other and connect…they feed off of each other I think.
I think my sister kind of got off on the fact that I was being tortured by him as well as her as I was living with her at the time. If my defences were always totally down wherever I was, I was easier to manipulate at all times by both of them.
Back on thread subject…..another thing I find that helps a lot with ‘getting them outta your head’ is the moment a thought of them crosses your mind, simply repeat over and over again…
‘It doesn’t matter’
Simple but very effective, because it doesn’t matter anymore, IT IS OVER!
What we did and said doesn’t matter as we did and said those things because they made us. What they did doesn’t matter because they are animals. What they said doesn’t matter because it was all lies and was said to manipulate us. NOTHING about this person MATTERS, because NOTHING about this person was real.
THEY ARE NOTHING so ‘it doesn’t matter’.
You are right, Never_again, they don’t matter.
Hi all. I was with my family for Christmas. While this site is about sociopaths, much of the advice and wisdom here is applicable to general dysfunction, especially regarding those who have another Cluster-B disordered or are otherwise “toxic” or controlling.
What I learned here has helped me deal with my family more than any counseling. My mother is not too bad. She is hardworking, generous and values-based, which a long record of service in her church and to others. However, she can be controlling. For example, we are planing a big family trip to Ireland this summer. Then, several weeks back, a good friend of mine offered our circle of bicycling friends his home in Yorkshire, England, as the Tour de France will be staring there.
This is a great opportunity as I can fly to Ireland with the family, spend a week with them then head over to England when they go back to the USA. When I mentioned this to my mother here comment was “we are all traveling together.” This is typical. When we are together as a family, she likes to control everything. Even my local travel. On Xmas day, we went to my cousin’s house on the east end of Long Island. It is easier for me to take the train from her town back to the city, but my mother insisted I ride back to her town and take the train from there. Thankfully, my brother was sick and she saw the wisdom of being able to drop him home without detours to train stations.
Sadly, any time I seem to be enjoying myself with any of my cousins, their children or other extended family members, my mother suddenly wants to leave. I am not certain what she is trying to control there. As a single gay male who most likely will never have any children, building relationships with these family members is important for my future well-being.
I was a bit triggered at first but taking advice here, I let it slide and did not feel guilty nor feel too sad about my mother’s issues that I cannot change.
My brother is a different case. He is a Narcissist and a Hypochondriac. He is also passive-aggressive and arrogant. Sadly, he is one of the most miserable persons I know, despite his education as a social worker and counselor. That he is an adjunct professor adds to my frustration with him, in that he apparently has no ability to see any of his own defects and to deal with them.
His hypochondria is particularly triggering to me as I have had open-heart surgery and other real health issue, yet I am very quiet about them. He has some “illness” at almost every family function now — fever, “heart palpitations,” dizzy spells… He even has a walk and talk like some miserable old man twice his age.
Given that his “respiratory infection” was somewhat real, albeit more of a slight cold, he was not too baiting. Other times, I really feel like he needs to create some sort of drama just to be the center of attention. While he needs to have somebody pointedly tell him about his issues in a stark, no-holds barred fashion, I doubt he would listen. Lastly, he is virtually 100% negative and never has anything positive to say about anyone or anything, unless they are some left-wing revolutionary.
I basically deal with him by limiting contact. I used to feel guilty about this but what I learned about Narcissists, their ability to change is on par with that of a sociopath. Thankfully, I am actually happier than I have ever been and recognize that there are probably more dysfunctional families than functional ones and I should not feel too much remorse because I also realize there are worse, far worse.
BBE
Narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths are all the same thing under different names from what I have read. It sounds like he uses his hypochondria to make people sympathise with him so he can manipulate them, but its the same old thing really, they will always find some way to control people.
“Two spaths do tend to get along great! (at least temporarily). I think they really identify with each other and connect”they feed off of each other I think.”
Louise;
One of my x-spath’s FB friends is a German flight attendant. This person is also my x-spath’s only X-tube “friend” and his only “friend” on a gay dating/sex site.
This “friend” has vile tastes in porn, even worse than the x-spath but perhaps his friend is simply more willing to acknowledge his perversions.
They are remarkably similar:
Flight attendants.
Same age.
Same height, weight and build, right down to private parts…
Both have steely blue-gray eyes.
Similar tastes for bareback and degrading porn.
The only difference is that the friend is German while the x-spath is British…
Definite “soulless” mates…
Never Again;
I second Ox’s comment. I will also be honest and say that I knew my x-spath for even a shorter time than you, although when we were together is was very intense — movie worthy intense.
Yes, they do see something in us that they want. Then, they create a persona to lure and trap us. The person they create is not real; rather, it is a mirror image of our “soulmate”, which is why they are so hard to forget. Even in the moment, they use this mirroring to make us tolerate the Mr. Hyde part of their Jekyll/Hyde personality.
Mine could be totally charming then flip on a dime. Never, violent or overly aggressive, just “c*nty.” One minute he is flattering me, the next minute picking on me…
I simple never met anyone like him before or since. Thank God.
Hi BBE
Fellow ‘woofter’ here 😉
Yes all 3 of mine were all ‘movie intense’ (aren’t they all), the first lasted 3 years on and off (he was partnered to a multimillionaire) but was only intense for the first 3 months until the affair was exposed, but he still chased me until finally I left the country. Spath 2 was 3 months, spath 3 (also partnered to a multimillionaire) was 4 months, but VERY on and off as it took him a while to ‘drag me in’ as I was much warier after spath 2 & I was in a relationship & didn’t want to have an affair as I love my partner.
I DO NOT! however deem it as an affair because that is not what happened. I was stalked by a predator for months until he finally manipulated his way into my life and seduced me while I was extremely drunk. From there he pulled me into his game with the sole intention of destroying my perfect, loving, very happy relationship of 11 years with the most wonderful man I have ever met. Once I realised what he was doing I knew I had to get out of it. So I took a chance and lied and told him I was in love with him and was going to leave my partner. BINGO the mask came off and it was devalue and discard mode for 3 weeks of horrendously, cruel treatment before I finally ‘pushed’ him into ending it.
He was by far the most evil of the 3 of them even though it was much shorter. Thank GOD I paid attention and realised what he was doing. His big slip up was that he was going to use me in his discard routine with his previous ‘useful idiot’ and it backfired on him because his previous ‘useful idiot’ was a good friend of mine that I had no idea was also ‘seeing him’. Still didn’t stop him doing it right in front of me and then driving a wedge between us to ‘shut us up’ and hate each other, divide and conquer….It still didn’t stop me falling for him, but it made me more aware of things and how he worked.
Never Again,
Welcome to LF, sorry you experienced all those spaths but you are gathering knowledge and on the road to healing.
It sounds like your last spath attack resulted in a trauma bond. What I’ve discovered is that you can actually be aware that someone is a spath and STILL “fall in love”. This isn’t true love, I don’t think, it’s a protective reaction to being around a dangerous person. It’s probably learned from being raised by people you are afraid of. Or it might be a genetic survival mechanism. Trauma bond is another word for stockholm syndrome.
That was very wise of you to use the L-word to spark his devalue and discard agenda. Sometimes, that’s the only way to get rid of a predator: reverse psychology or selective gray rock.
I hope you and your friend can mend your relationship. Spaths love nothing more than to isolate us from our support networks.
Yes, tell them you love them and they will RUN or treat you like crap.