In the three years since Lovefraud launched, it’s grown from a website to a community. I am always amazed and appreciative that so many people are contributing. New readers arrive distraught and asking for help; other readers respond with caring and heartfelt support. People start to recover. It is beautiful to watch.
Thank you all.
As we post, there is an important fact that we must all keep in mind. Here it is: Linguists estimate that 65 percent to 90 percent of the meaning in human communication is transmitted via nonverbal cues—tone of voice, facial expression, body language. None of these cues, of course, are available over a computer. That means when we post written comments on the Lovefraud blog, 65 percent to 90 percent of our meaning may be missing.
So what happens? Without the benefit of those nonverbal cues, people interpret a post to mean what they want it to mean.
Sociopaths take advantage of this phenomenon all the time. When sociopaths are sending flowery e-mails that are full of lies, we interpret the e-mails as truth, because we want them to be true. We believe what we want to believe.
Assume honorable intentions
Here on Lovefraud, this can go either way, depending on the reader’s frame of mind. If a reader is looking for consolation, he or she may interpret another poster’s advice as supportive. If a reader is on edge—a common occurrence with victims of sociopaths—he or she may interpret another poster’s advice as being critical.
I believe this has led to some problems over the last few weeks. Some bloggers have described their situations, other bloggers have offered advice, and the original bloggers have taken offense, when none was ever intended. Reading words on the screen, the offended party could not hear the caring in the Lovefraud blogger’s voice.
Everyone who posts on this website does so to seek information and support for healing, or to help someone else who is going through the trauma. Since Lovefraud launched, I can barely remember a troublemaker. Even the two self-proclaimed sociopaths who posted were respectful, and most readers found what they said to be enlightening.
Therefore, I ask everyone to assume that all of us are posting with the best, most honorable intentions, and that we are here to support each other. If at any time you feel that a blogger is not posting with honorable intentions, please let me know.
We are a group of opinionated people, and there are going to be times when we disagree. That’s fine. I think an animated discussion of different points of view is healthy. However, all discussions should be respectful, and no one should be personally attacked.
Posting guidelines for the Lovefraud Blog
Lovefraud has gotten so big that I guess it’s time for formalize some posting guidelines. So here they are:
1. The goal of the Lovefraud Blog is to provide information about sociopaths and their effects on victims, and to help victims recover from entanglements with sociopaths. Please post all comments with the intention of promoting healing, and read comments with the intention of finding the healing message.
2. Keep in mind that Lovefraud readers are extremely diverse. Our readers are men and women from all over the world, representing different races, ethnicities, religious and spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof), education levels, economic circumstances, political views and sexual orientations. Please be respectful and tolerant of all.
3. If you find a comment objectionable, please do not respond to it. Notify the blog owner, Donna Andersen. If you suspect that someone is a predator, alert me immediately. Send e-mail to donna@lovefraud.com.
4. Please refrain from using offensive language—such George Carlin’s seven dirty words. However, feel free to imply your feelings with those wonderful characters **#$$#!!!!
5. Each article posted by the Lovefraud Blog authors starts a conversation. Please post comments related to the conversation, unless, of course, another reader has posted a comment asking for support. Then, feel free to offer it.
6. We cannot name people believed to be sociopaths without documentation. If you want to describe your personal story, please do not include names or other identifying information. If your story is already in the media, however, you may post links to it.
7. Please do not post copyrighted material such as articles from other websites, book excerpts, song lyrics or poems. This is a violation of copyright law, even if you cite the original author. To draw attention to information outside of Lovefraud, you may summarize it in your own words and post a link.
8. Please do not copy any article from Lovefraud or the Lovefraud Blog and post it on another website. This is a violation of Lovefraud’s copyright. But feel free to post links to Lovefraud content.
Once again, I thank all Lovefraud readers. Your contributions and insights about the terrible problem of sociopaths in our society, and your willingness to help others, makes the effort of maintaining Lovefraud worthwhile.
Dear Aloha,
You have progressed so much my friend! You are your own self again, independent of what is happening with others, and baking for your sister’s shower, etc. That is great! It is amazing when we start to VALUE OURSELVES and not compare ourselves to others and FEEL DEFICIENT.
I used to actually be jealous when I would see an older man and woman holding hands or being together and obviously enjoying their company together. I WANTED THAT SO BADLY! Now, I am content to be WITH MYSELF and if the other relationship does come again (I’m not holding my breath but am still hopeful) then I will savor it, but IN THE MEANTIME, I am OKAY and seeing other’s happiness doesn’t make me feel less of a person or less okay. That was a BIG GIANT HUGE (and any other adjective you can think of) step for me!
It does help too when we realize that we had been trained to “accept too much” abusive behavior from others in the name of “being nice”—“now, play nice children, even if Johnny doesn’t, you still have to play nice.” BAULDERDASH!
Dear Everyone,
I was victimized by a sociopath 38 years ago. I had low self-esteem and felt I was totally powerless. Nobody wanted to understand why I did it. I was berated by everyone and threatened retaliation by my parents and others. They threw it in my face at every opportunity. I was hurting in more ways than one could believe.
I was so afraid that those close to me would take drastic action that I went abroad for two years. For lst year I did not even tell anyone where I was. I used Amexco as my mailing address. Even today, my family doesn’t understand.
I don’t understand why it bothers me terribly after 38 years.
It was only about 10 years ago that my mother finally believed there was no love but fear and intimidation. One of my friends went through same thing. She does understand.
Trouble is she lives in MI and I live in CA. We mainly get together when I visit family there. I’m afraid to see a counselor because I’m sure they won’t understand. Why would they? Nobody else does or cares.
I have a hard time coping with it. If someone wants to answer me here, I’ll give them my personal e-mail plus more
details.
HELEN R. GEAN
For those of you who send long single-spaced letters: I’d love to read them but it can be difficult and time consuming,especially with such small print. For those of us with vision problems, could you please either double space or
use larger print?
THANK YOU!
Dear Helen,
I am so sorry that you have had so many problems being validated and that people didn’t understand. So many years ago our society wasn’t as open as it is becoming and there wasn’t an internet, or people to talk to who would “get it.”
The pain lingers until we deal with it, and not being validated by others “getting it” makes it much more difficult to deal with.
I am so glad you came here to Love FRaud, this is a very healing community of understanding and caring people who DO GET IT. We have all been victimized as well, so we understand the depth of the pain that these human predators can leave in their wake.
I suggest that you read the articles in the archives, there are some wonderful ones there to help you start to get more information about how these predators work, and also how we can work toward healing ourselves.
Some therapists DO get it, we have several here on this blog, as well as other people who are educated in mental health and therapy. While we don’t “do therapy” here it is theraputic to be able to tell your story and have people believe you and empathize with your pain. Welcome to this healing place, I and many others, all believe it has saved our lives, and at least our sanity. Welcome.
Helen, Please take heart that others DO understand your pain. I have been a victim and a reader of the blog for sometime now.
I was “found” by other victims of the same serial predator and recently he married another victim. Her family has contacted me, too. Right now we are attempting every legal means to have his exploitations stopped before he hurts and robs her.
It has been therapeutic to help and support the family who cannot believe how the deceptions have turned their mother into, as of now, and unknowing victim.
It will be wonderful when this man is exposed for the fraud he is….
I went through courts, police; all who “could not” help because “it is civil; you married him” routine. Now, after several years, and many files of documents, his fraud may be exposed with the hopes of many that he will face the charges he has earned (and that is about all he has earned),
The articles will help all of us understand how we became victims; the LoveFraud community helps us to be survivors!
Wishing you the very best support and healing,
jan
I remember my first forays into standing up for myself. I went to this one counselor who was very professional and almost cold, but she validated my feelings about the abuse my mom had put me through. I would tell one of my childhood memories, and my counselor would just say something like “That must have been terrible for you.” Then I would cry all the way home. I cried out all those tears for that little girl that was still hurting inside.
Pretty soon I started to change the way I dealt with my family. One day I was asked for some honest advice about some crafts my sister was making to sell. My heart started pounding, because in my family it wasn’t really “safe” for me to give my honest opinion.
But since she was hoping to make money on these crafts I gave my sister some tips and very gentle constructive criticism. Evidently I wasn’t gentle enough, because immediately my mom and my sister began to berate me and harshly criticize me. I was insensitive, hyper-critical, a negative person, on and on. I started to crumble inside as usual. For as long as I could remember there had been an unspoken rule in my family: It is OK to blame and criticize Kat.
Well, no more. That day, with my heart pounding like a hammer, instead of crying and getting all dramatic or angry, I just very calmly said, “It’s not OK for you to talk to me like that, just because you don’t agree with me.”
Well, the silence was deafening, and both their jaws seemed to hit the floor. Then after a second or two of silence, they started in again harder than before. I held up my hand and said, “You don’t understand. It’s not OK for you to criticize me like that.” And I walked away. What a victory it was. That was about 12 years ago, and by now my relationship with both my mom and my sister has improved immensely.
Stick up for yourselves, be kind to yourselves, and Helen, don’t worry if you have to seek validation from others at first.
It makes me angry that some of us can be driven to suicide because of the value judgements of someone else who really isn’t worth it.
Years ago, someone said something to me that really sunk in: Don’t give anyone unworthy the power to judge you. It’s true, we GIVE the people in our lives power to hurt us, they don’t steal it from us. When we give our love to an S/P, because they are pretending to be our perfect soulmate, that is one thing. But after that mask comes off, we should never give them an ounce of power to judge us ever again.
Dear Kat,
You are very right:
“Don’t give anyone unworthy the power to judge you.”
“we give people …the power to hurt us, they don’t steal it from us”
I think with the situation with your mom and sister, you also realized that when people ask your “honest opinion” they don’t always want what they ask for. “Do these pants make my butt look big?” LOL ROTFLMAO
When I get asked these kinds of questions about someone’s “art” or “crafts,” I usually respond with “Wow, those are really INTERESTING. How long did it take you to make them?”
Hi to all!
I am a new one to this site.It is really very nice.Thanks for sharing the details.
——————
bhuvi
dating
Do These Stretchpants make my ass LOOK BIGGer :)~
Welcome to LF bhuvana and hope to hear from you soon..