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.
Hi all. Just catching up reading all your news. The details of our encounters may be different, but we have all been through a similar nightmare and it doesnt stop even when they have gone, the aftermath just reverberates. My phone he used to phone his women (which I dont use any more, but I fire it up periodically) rang the other day, to message me from the telephone company for an upgrade. It wasnt my telephone company, probably one for his spare phone numbers. Eerie.
I dont know if any of you believe in signs from the universe. But one of the signs I had, and I had a few was standing in the shopping queue and there was a magazine with a huge headline advertising a forthcoming programme. It said ‘XXXX’s (his name) Shocking Secret’!
Thank you for your message Gillian, the more prayers the better! Dear Free thank you for your hug – I felt it! I notice when people have not been here for a while and think about them, hope they are doing well. I am ok at the moment, get days when my energy is low and not feeling well. Just had confirmation of the diagnosis and got to see the surgeon next week to discuss treatment. I was telling my friend that the people on here are just the bravest and best people ever.
Jules N-Injury is Narcissistic Injury, it is a “slap” at their arrogance, it is a put-down, a revolt of some sort that they perceive as “hurting” them.
If they lose control over us it is an “injury” to them. They become angry, rage filled, etc. and that is what motivates them to “seek revenge” for the “terrible thing” that WE did to THEM.
My X-BF who was a P was N-inured by the womanhe was involved with before me (during the time he was pursuing me he was still tring to get her back)
She had asked him, after an 8 year affair while he was married, if he would ever leave his wife and marry her, and he told her no, that if she wanted a full time man to go get one.
Well, she did. In the meantime, his wife had found out about his MANY on-going long time affairs with his “harem” and kicked his butt out.
So he went back tothat GF and said’ “Darliing, I’m ready for a full time relationship now” and she said “Too late sucker, you told me to find someone and I have” He was so Narcissisticly “injured” that he literally burned down her house as he saiid to her “I will destroy your life” and he did.
After I put 2 and 2 together and realized he was a fake, and I kicked him to the curb, I had given him N-injury, cut off his Narcissistic Supply (NS) and he was furious zat me. I figured he would do something like trying to burn my house too, and I literally threatened him that if my house burned, even if it was struck by lightening and I saw the lightening strike I would still BLAME him and he had enough fear of my sons’ retrobution (he knows that they are protective of me) that he decided to use alittle more subtle approach to his revenge at me, and he succeeded in psychological revenge, but what he didn’t know was, that ultimately it turned out to my benefit.
He called me the night of the anniverswary of the last time I saw him, in the middle of the night to gloat about it…not being awake, I answered the phone before I looked atthe caller ID and was so groggy I listened for probably 30 seconds before I realized what he was doing. Then I hung up.
But, like the smirker, he had to GET IN HIS DIG. For several months after I kicked him to the curb, I grieved for the “fantasy” relationship—I felt old,fat, ugly, undesirable, etc. which of course made me very vulnerable to his “hook” and “bait”—but it was because my husband had just tragicly died, and I was still grieving for him, for my lost love and companion etc. and I wanted to think I could have that again.
Now I realize that I am 60 yrs old, and I do have wrinkles, and I don’t have the figure I had when I was 18, but I am a much better person than I was when I was “beautiful on the outside” I am beautiful on the INSIDE and that is much more important. I am OK by myself, and if I ever stumble upon a man I can love that will really love me back, he will NOT be afantasy man. I will NOT ignore the red flags because I am NO LONGER vulnerable and needy.
All the red flags were there, I saw them and still I fell for him, but like the fish that is starving, I would have grabbed at anything that even resembled FOOD for my starving soul.
NO MORE—I am feeding myself. I am taking care of myself, I am growing, learning, and becoming stronger each day.
I am listening to myself, about my o wn needs, wants and desires, and I am taking care of them. There is no one on earth who can do that for us, we have to do it for ourselves. No other person can be our “lives” because people die, people leave, and we must stand on our own. It is wonderful when you can share a relationship with another human being, your parent, your child, your spouse, but in the end, we are here ALONE inside our heads.
I loved my husband passionately he was my best friiend. Not perfect but wonderful. I miss that. I would love to ohave that kind of relationship again. But I will thrive without it. The memories of the fun we had, will always be there. But I don’t just have tohave some “warm body” to be complete. ONE is a WHOLE NUMBER. Not just half of 2.
Oxdrover,
I have to say, you and I reached exactly the same conclusions independently. Our experiences really drove home the same lessons in each of us.
I think relationships are a mirror, they let us see ourselves, who we really are, what makes us tick. I was so lonely and had sooo much trust in the world and people in general before my N. Now I learned the hard way that I have to have boundaries, to be emotionally self-sufficient, that I have to deliberately align myself with things and people and situaions that are good for me, otherwise the bad stuff will have a chance to gain power in my life. I really needed to take responsibility for the quality and purpose of my life, this was my big lesson (or at least one of them).
Another big help was to realize that the Ns and the S/Ps own the evil they’ve committed, not me. Whenever I have that black empty feeling inside, the feeling that only the victim of one of these monsters can know, I make myself send their evil back to them. I simply refuse to own it, tell myself it belongs to them, and that’s that.
And as soon as I really do that, with my heart and head, I feel a lot better. Just focusing on strengthening my own weaknesses and building a better life for myself is my priority. He will have to pay his own dues. But I do fear his retribution. The good thing is that he has an image to protect here and he knows it. I wonder how far his illness will take him tho. It’s disturbing to the core.
Jules, I agree, they fear being dumped more than anything. It’s all about their ego. That’s it, so it seems.
Beverly, I do believe that the universe shows us things that we need to know, especially when we have our eyes open for it. Hope you’re doing all right, hold on tight and do everything you can to release the poison from your system that this nightmare brought to you. I can see how much my health declined during the abuse. It’s not a mystery why. This is how the body reacts to corrosive emotional forces. The more light you bring into your life, the more healing I believe you’ll do. Maybe I sound like a nut, but that’s what I believe.
xoxo, STN
thanks to you all for your input i agree with it all and feel you all too. i believe in signs too and and i had a few this week they were funny but pretty easy to see actually relating directly to what is happening in my life right now. so i am being positive about it all and i will see what happens. havnt heard from the s path hes got a new lover so i wont be hearing from him and i wont be contacting him either. i just hope the new girl is switching on her radar to what is happening for her sake i bet hes wondering why i havent called or contacted him i know hed be dying to gloat at me, well that is bad luck isnt it its funny how when they find a new person they act like they dont need any of the old ones but i bet inside he is itching to know what we a re all doing now. his curiosity will be up. love to you all. free; i looked up the link you sent it was a good read and explained it to me so thanks. and i think we are taught not to judge someone and i think this is wrong i think we need to read people better and not be afraid of calling a spade a spade in life espec if it saves us from being hurt. my mother had a saying she said if it looks like a pig and it acts like a pig its a pig, mine was a pig for sure.
Jules, I think that “judging someone” is trying to “mind read” and the Bible tells us “Judge not lest you be judged” and that by the “same measure ye meet out, you will be measured” which essentially is that the rules you apply to others will also be applied to you.
However, even the Bible tells us to be “wise” and to “know a tree by its fruit.” We can never truly know what is in a persons mind, BUT that said, we can sure SEE how they behave. We can “guess” at motive and intentions by observing BEHAVIOR, and the “best indicator of future behavior is past behavior.”
Most Ns and Ps are not so consistent over a long period of time that they do not “drop rotten apples” (in other words, RED FLAGS), it is that we chose to not examine these “rotten apples” and don’t see that the rotten “crop” gets worse and worse, until that is all it is. We keep hoping that there is something we can do to “improve the crop” all the while we are standing knee deep in “rotten apples.”
We stay in DENIAL because the “taste” of that one or two wonderful apples we ate off that “tree” was so good, and we keep hoping that we will get more.
In training animals by giving them rewards, INTERMITTENT reward is much more effective than continual rewards.
If a rat gets a grain of corn EV ERY time he pushes a lever and you stop giving him corn, he will pound on the lever for a little while but then he will give up. If you INTERMITTENTLY give him a grain of corn, he will NEVER STOP POUNDING on the lever, because he is SURE that the next time he will get one. The slot machine which gives intermittent “rewards” to people putting money into it works on the same principle and that is why it is so successful and if you walk into a casino and see hundreds of people sitting there “hoping to get lucky” and thinking that the VERY NEXT PULL will reward them.
The Ns and Ps giving us “intermittent” rewards in the form of a sweet tasting apple once in a while, but mostly giving us rotten to the core fruit, keeps us hoping that the very next apple will not be rotten and keeps us in denial.
It is only when we overcome our instincts to fall for the intermittent reward, just like the rat pushing the lever, and to use our LOGIC and INTELLIGENCE that we can overcome the Ns and Ps.
Believe me I have callouses on both hands from pounding on the “lever” hoping that my Ps will give me an apple that isn’t rotten. NO MORE.
Hi OxDrover. I am five years younger than you and you are so right when you say that self love and beauty from the inside are the most important, together with wisdom and truth. I have to say that I related to your comments about the rotten apples. Very very good point about the intermittent reward and pain strategy they use – maximum long term effect for minimal effort – and the response carries on after they have gone – clever huh! IT IS an illusion, a very real, technicolour, all singing and dancing ILLUSION!!
Oxdrover, I have to say again that that is EXACTLY how I see things too. And the nastiest part is that they know exactly what they’re doing. They lure us in with the good apples, and only when we give them what they want do they throw a morsel or two at us, just to keep us addicted to our malignant hopes. That is exactly it. I’m amazed how much we see eye to eye on this.
As with the judgine versus being smart, I think there’s a difference. When I saw someone is a monster, I’m judging him, condeming him. That’s prob. not the most elevated thing I could do. If I said that his actions are monstrous and that I need to protect myself (without descending into hatred or utter depression), then I’m just using my head. I think that’s the difference, and you are right, we are here to use our heads in life, to guide ourselves to good situations by figuring out what people’s motives are. Motive tells it all, because an N or a s-p can do things that an angel could do, but the *reason* they do it would be so utterly different. Motive. That’s really it.
xoxo, STN
The “funny” (odd and laughable) is that I am so logical, so smart, and YET I let my emotional malignant hope keep me in denial for sooooo long….or if I got out, to whip me right back into it.
a combination of being “programmed” as a child that “forgiveness” meant “pretending it didn’t happen” and that if you didn’t do that THAT WAY that you would burn in hell forever.
Here I am 60 yrs old and only having learned that the Bible does not say that, and that forgiveness is not for THEM it is for you, and it does NOT mean that you have to turst them again, only that you ROOT OUT THE BITTERNESS IN YOUR OWN HEART (which is toxic to YOU not them) but it does not mean that you “pretend that none of their bad behavior happened.”
Changing the entire way you think and relate to people, learning how to set reasonable boundaries when you have been trained to let people walk on you, let people crap on you and that no matter what if they give you a “fake apology” even though your gut knows it is fake, you have to “pretend it didn’t happen” is so difficult.
Each day is another day stronger and on the road to recovery, but it is hard to recover when you are lying wounded on the ground, suckiing your thumb, wondering what the heck the license number of the train that ran over your life was. You didn’t see it coming because like a horse in harness, you had the blinders on.
Once you take off those blinders and start to SEE, really see, the evil that lurks in the minds of people without consciences, you start to get strong, to learn that you don’t HAVE to be a victim, that it is OK if not everyone in the world like you, and that as long as you stay within your own NEW moral construct you can, the world will not end if you stand up for yourself.
I realize that there are people in the world who will not even admit that there are “evil” people in the world. I have a friend like that and she “excuses” everything (she was by the way, married to an abuser) and after 11 years of being single, she just married another one—one that is not even a good faker in my mind…he “put the hit on” me before he moved over to her, but I wasn’t falling for his line, so after a few weeks of trying, he moved on down the line. I’m sorry to see her marry this man, I didn’t go to the wedding because I couldn’t make myself even appear to be joyful at their ceremony, because I knew what was in store for her. But, I KEPT MY MOUTH SHUT, because she did NOT want to hear the truth either from me or her best friend (who also saw the truth in this man–or lack of it as the case may be).
Learning to NOT give unsolicited advise is another thing I am having to learn to do. I cannot save others who do not want to listen. So zip it!
If people want my opinion I give it, but not to those who do not want it. And, I do not play the “games” (as in Eric Berne’s book Games People Play) of “oh, ain’t it awful” either.
I just had to share a call I received from my son C, whose X-wife (the divorce IS final!) tried to kill him when he discovered the affair she was having with a DIAGNOSED P.
Like many of us, he was in the FOG and refused to “see” what was obvious in her character or in her behavior. He was absolutely committed to the marriage, and even after finding out about the affair, he offered to “work it out.”
It ended up that both her and her P-BF went to jail when my son managed to get through to 911 before her BF broke down the door (gun in hand)…she is out on probation now with a no contact order, and the BF is still in prison.
My son has had a difficult time getting his head around all this, even though he knows that his P-brother, who is in prison, had sent this “Trojan horse-P” ex-convict friend of his to infiltrate our family by renting a house from me. I know he has been doing well, and yet that he was hurting so deeply too. Wanting closure (don’t we all) wanting to know, from her own lips what her motivation was (all she did is lie–surprise!).
I have given him Robert Hare’s book, Without Conscience, and also sent him the URL for this group as well, and he has lurked here I know, and read some of the articles etc. I’m not sure if he has read my postings or this blog but he may have. In any case, today we really talked about his feelings and his relationship with her. He is on the road to healing, taking good forward strides toward closure with all this mess. It came to a “head” in early August when they were arrested, though the entire “episode” which included his wife stealing money from my mom and her BF establishing himself as my elderly mom’s live-in caregiver—which had been going on for 7 months prior to that arrest, but my son in these few months is so much further along in the healing process than I ever even hoped that he would be. I personally know how long it can take to accept that they will withhold closure, almost like a “parting shot” at you—
But I just wanted to share some happy news with this group! And to thank everyone here. I know that this group has not only helped me, and others, but my son as well and I am so proud of him, so relieved that the worst of his pain appears to be receding like the tides and he is on his way to a newer and better life.
OxDrover: first to say, I always enjoy your posts, you have such a great way of explaining things. Thank you.
So happy for your son – what a grand accomplishment – for him to see himself healing. For you, what a relief to know he is going to be okay. My son is 22 and in the Navy – I have to worry from afar ~ so I know how your kids, no matter how old are always your kids and you celebrate their every success.