Many people have asked Lovefraud to suggest a treatment program to help them overcome the personal devastation of a relationship with a sociopath. A friend of Lovefraud, Sandra L. Brown, M.A., offers a program for women who are recovering from such debilitating encounters.
Sandra Brown is the author of How to Spot a Dangerous Man, which was reviewed in a previous blog post. The book describes eight types of dangerous men—most of them are sociopaths, or partial sociopaths. Brown then explains how women override their internal warning signals and get involved with these men, even when their instincts are shouting, “Run away!”
If you’ve been in a relationship with a sociopath, at some point, of course, you found yourself devalued and discarded. He merrily moved on to a fresh new supply. You’re in a crumpled heap, a shell of the person you once were.
Many of you have asked Lovefraud: How can I heal? Will I ever be able to love again?
The answer is yes, you can recover, and yes, you can love again. Sandra Brown’s program may help you.
Healing retreats
Sandra Brown offers four-day retreats at her facility in the hills of North Carolina. The program is called Healing the Aftermath of Pathological Love Relationships.
First, Brown explains pathology 101—adults with personality disorders are hardwired to behave the way they do. They are not going to change.
Then Brown looks at the dynamics of a relationship with a disordered person. The lies, the manipulation, the crazy-making—this is nothing like a relationship like a normal man. The point is to help you understand that you were not imagining things. Yes, the guy really did lie to you. And no, he never loved you.
But then Brown helps you look at your own life to figure out why you were vulnerable to the sociopath. What did you learn in your family as a young girl? How do you view men? What was going on for you internally throughout your life?
Many women come out of the sociopathic relationship with post-traumatic stress disorder, which can be reactivated by future traumatic events. If this happened to you, Brown teaches self-care techniques and symptom management to help you in the future.
When to participate
The most beneficial time to participate in Brown’s retreat is after you’ve been out of the relationship for four to six months or more. “We are a good program for women who have figured out what he is, have left, and need some psycho-education that they did, in fact, make the right decision,” Brown says. The program then helps you identify internal traits that made you vulnerable, and issues from your family of origin.
The program is not appropriate in some cases:
- Women in crisis. If you’re recently out of the relationship, or if you’re still trying to decide whether you should leave, it’s too soon to gain benefit from this program.
- Women using online dating sites. After a relationship with a sociopath, Brown believes you should stop dating for a year or two, until you’re closer to being healed. “If you’re on Match.com, don’t call me,” she says.
Adult children of sociopaths
Some Lovefraud readers have realized that their parents were sociopaths. For you, Brown offers another program called Adult Children of a Pathological Parent.
Space in all retreats is limited—only six participants are accepted for each session. For more information, visit SafeRelationships.com.
I recently blogged on how bibliotherapy has helped me.
I read,read, read and reread when I feel weak.
I have a page of free links to articles on psychopaths, narcissist- it’s off of my blog on the right-hand-side.
Reading literally set me free- I just was relieved over and over when I finally figured out what the hell happened.
Me too, holy. Once I had stumbled upon info on sociopaths, a lightbulb lit up over my head and my healing began. I never knew what I was dealing with- but now I know what I escaped from. It’s liberating/empowering/peaceful going through life with just your own voice in your head. The crazy-making bad man has been silenced.
I have to laugh at the comment about match.com… the xs is on a ton of dating sites, I cannot think of a better testimonial for NOT joining singles sites! If all normal folk boycott the dating sites, maybe all the disordered ones can hassle each other instead of us!
I have said here before that many things helped me recover drastically in two months, including this website, after 16 months of an abusive relationship.
One book that really helped me was “Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert.
After two months of a nightmare, ruminating all the time about my own disgrace, feeling sorry for myself and believing my life had been destroyed, I decided to live and I spent the best moments in my life since then.
But the truth is that sometimes that feeling of humiliation and indignation of being cheated, deluded for so long comes back.
I believe the major difficulty in recovering from an evil person such as a sociopath is the fact that people who have feelings can never understand completely what is like not to have feelings for others. I think that is why it still hurts, to find this abysm in other’s minds.
I am not the same person I was before, but now I feel not as lonely as when I loved the sociopath, believing he was a normal and decent person. I just feel sorry for the fact that these people really exist.
I think that having some “paradigms” to live helps, for example, now, when that bad feeling comes back, I substitute it by the certainty that justice will be done and that I don’t have to think about it anymore.
It’s better to take good care of our own lives than feeling sorry for things that had already happened.
All the best for those who have been abused and are still struggling to get rid of the pain.
To all above, yes read. That’s why I am here today, more than a year later. I am sick and feel sorry for myself so I am vulnerable to romanticising the good days with the bad man to coin a phrase. Recently I made the analogy of feeling like a fish thrown back in the water after I was hooked. Now I swim all alone.
Donna always says here that it is the fantasy we mourn not the man. It has taken me a long time to realize this truth and also reading Sandra Brown’s work which says outgoing, personable women who value relationships are prime targets. Funny. But that is who I was and he slowly separated me from all my relationships and now I have very few close friends. It’s too late to go back and try to explain to them who I was in the relationship and what happened. They are gone. But he took my dreams, soul and those close relationships and I spend time trying to get them all back…while yes, he is reinacting with another woman in my place. I want to worry for her but I am envious, how can that be. This is a tough road and thank God for all of you.
There are days when I feel all used up and tell myself I have given up on life. It’s very hard to have your spirit extracted. I hope it returns. Thanks for listening.
SMTP,
You have been through a devastating experience and it takes a long time to recover. After I commenced NC it took me months for the lies and manipulation to actually sink in and then I was in shock at the degree of deceit and at my own behaviour. I felt, as you say, that my spirit had been sucked out of me and reality turned on it’s head.
As an outgoing person and someone who finds it difficult to keep secrets, I did confide in friends. I think they were quite shocked at how candid I was as my encounter with a P was an affair and they all knew me and my husband well. I live in a small place and so I had to weather the storm of gossip but I allowed myself not to worry about it and instead I concentrated on healing my marriage and myself.
My genuine friends have been very supportive even though they find it hard to comprehend. A few have stabbed me in the back and still to this day (2 years on) believe all the lies the P and the other woman put around. That is very painful BUT I do not need to listen to them.
I think you need to find a few trusted friends or a councillor to talk to. You cannot keep all this pain inside of yourself. You may think that as I am back with my husband it is easier to heal. That is true to some extent but a very good lesson that I have learnt is that the only person who can heal me – is me. It’s a long process and I am still dealing with the aftermath but it is possible to come out of this and put it behind you. I wish you all the very best.
Swallow
Hey Swallow, thanks for writing to me. Yes, get help. I find it even hard, most therapists tell you to stop thinking about him and concentrate on yourself. I do. But then I don’t. Good days bad days I am going to try hypnotherapy as well. Why not. Glad you are back with your husband and sound like you are doing well. Thanks for saying it takes a long time to recover because you can’t really tell anyone it still brings you down over a year later. I tried to tell a good friend and she said “Are you still thinking about him?” So I feel ashamed, that is why I come here and other places because we all understand that after a relationship like this, regular time does not apply. I liked what you said about reality turning on its head! That’s what I kept saying. That nothing feels real. I still, get that way…it’s sunny, it’s a beautiful place, I have a new expensive car…but I can’t feel it anymore. Not as much anyway as I did before I was with him. Just blogging, it sure feels nice to have someone give you their time and advice. I wish you the best too!
SMTP,
I too, was involved in an affair. He was my ‘best friend’ and I was going through abuse at home. My head was ‘turned’ by this beautiful, charming man who had portrayed himself quite brilliantly as a victim in his current relationship. I was a Christian and a good person with a huge heart I don’t know how to explain my behavior except to say that I was – well, the best word that I can find would be intoxicated by this man. Intoxicated. Physically and emotionally, I was drawn to this man like nothing I had ever experienced in my life. Learning about sociopaths has helped me a great deal in understanding what happened to me. I cannot stand before God and make excuses for myself – I am simply saying that it helps to know what I was up against and it was truly evil. He was my best friend for 3 years and oh, the promises and in the end, the shattered dreams. My marriage is over. He went back to his wife, who happens to be worth millions. I am the lucky one. I have been stretched beyond words, regarding my faith. I, also, had had to deal with gossip in a small community and with lies told by he and his wife that he returned to after claiming that I had seduced him, was stalking him (NEVER!), would hurt her, maybe kill her (this after she was doubting him at one point and it got back to him that I would consider talking to her). I am still astonished at how blessed I have been. Almost a year later, most of the people in this small community see him for who he is – I have wonderful friends who have stuck with me the entire time and made many new friends. I have also had many old, mutual friends of ours come around with much support and kind words. I can honestly say that I only have true friends now – the superficial have been weeded out and I would have it no other way. All of those profound words being said… it still hurts like hell. I have come so far. My skin is thicker. My faith is stronger. What I am still struggling most with is the pain of my ‘best friend’ discarding me with no remorse. Vilifying me. Oh, what a professional victim he is. Our wolds are still completely intertwined – location wise, professionally, friends, and yes, even family. I get WAY too much news in regards to his present situation – he’s working the ‘changed man’ card. Most don’t buy it – but some do 🙁 Ah, well… I need to stay focused on what I know to be the truth and not listen to the rest. SMTP – I know your pain. I’m guessing you have already learned as I have that time does heal all wounds, as cliche’ as it is. I am gaining on a year and I have grown like I could never have imagined – last April I was looking for the nearest bridge. Today, I am walking around full of gratitude and I am working towards peace. It will come.
Oops – last post was for SWALLOW – sorry, SMPT 🙂
Dear SMTP901, I wish I can help you somehow. It’s been 4 months I’m free from the sociopath and I learned a lot about how life can be so much better without an abuser to make me feel unimportant.
I believe we get addicted to some feelings and we tend to want more of those feelings even if they are not so good.
If you recognize that you have a problem and you want to find a solution for that, I just want to tell you that there is a way and that life is not that anxiety in which sociopaths put us in, making us believe, with endless lies, that that is love.
You may think you were happy with the sociopath, but that is the poorest happiness one person can get, always waiting for any manifestation of affection (at least with me it was like this) and always believing that one day, when we would get married, everything would be fixed and that he would give me the love I expected so badly.
I think the first step to get out of that cycle of self pity is to look ahead, think of what you want for your future and make this effort of thinking in other things. Your life is much more important than his. Firstly because it’s the only one you have and secondly because you’re worrying about a person who worries only about itself and has no empathy at all for others.
Maybe this is the first thing to accept in the healing process, accept that we cannot understand how can a person lack in feelings for others and leave it aside, substitute those thoughts and feelings for anything else that interests you.
It worked with me, I didn’t think I was going to survive the pain in the first 2 months, but then, I decided to think of myself and not of people who now I consider very destructive.
You must draw a plan and put it in action. It’s your life you are leaving aside, not his. He will never feel sorry for you and come back to fix you up. It’s crazy, literally, but they lack in these feelings, it’s no use trying to achieve any mercy from them.
I’m sorry for my poor English.
All the best.
Enlightened,
It is so nice to hear from someone who has been in the same position as me! I have had a great deal of great advice on this site and the MSN site but at times some peole’s attitudes have been a little less sympathetic because I was a maried woman.
Like you, I find it very difficult to explain how this could have happened to me. My marriage was good and even when we had disagreements, I never ever had the idea of looking for someone else. The only way I have been able to describe it was I felt as if I was under a spell. I believed 100% that this man was the ‘one’ and I felt high one minute, despair the next. I knew it was an insane situation but I felt I had no control over it.
Learning all I can about psychopathy has made it easier to solve all the puzzles. My P targeted me for years, very slowly gaining my trust. His OW protected him all that time as he worked for her. When I found out about her I was devastated as she was a friend and a few weeks later devastated again by realising that she was part of the scam. She was not another ‘victim’ as she pretended to be and was happy to profit from my affair. Together they conned me out of $50,000 and nearly destroyed my family.
Luckily for me they did not succeed but I will always regret the fact that I did not see through them and that I hurt my husband and children. I am so sorry to hear what you have been through and that your marriage did not survive. P’s seem to be able to inflict wounds that we could not have imagined before we met them. I’m glad that you have good friends who have supported you. In the end I believe that honesty is the best policy and genuine friendships will survive and the toxic ones become clear.
I still have days when I get terrible panic attacks, especially when I have to hear about the two of them and know that they have got away with it scot free but those horrendous feelings of anger and fear are subsiding.
I wish you peace and happiness in your life. We are all much stonger and wiser now even if we don’t always feel that way.
Swallow