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.
The Trojan Horse-P that my P-son sent to harm our family, went through my personal information as well. He took control of my cell phone account, and ran up the bill to hundreds andhudreds of dollars. He even got online with the on-line account he had set up there with a password that only he knew, so I could not set up my on-line account or access it.
He had my credit card numbers and would order things off late night TV–you know the “send $49.95 and I will tell you how to become a millionaire in realestate”—of course when these things arrived unordered, getting OFF their billing list is like trying to get out of the Mafia–you are n for LIFE. What they don’t tell you is that yea, the $49.95 is only the FIRST payment and they bill your credit cards monthly forever.
When you call to try to cancel, you get someone in Singapore who doesn’t speak English or have the authority to cancel the order. It is a nightmare.
I ended up abandoning my cell phone account and getting another…I had to file individual police reports on each of the things he “ordered” in my name on my card…this was all simple “harassment” that drove me BANANAS for weeks–months.
After I secretly fled my home and went into hiding, he came to my house and did vandalism, pulling phone cables out of the outside of the house, turning on the water and letting it run, locking some of my lifestock up without food or water, etc.
Fortunately I never stayed away long and always came with a companion, and at different times of day to check on things, so no major damage was done to the house or the animals. The terroristic tactics though, left me with night sweats about what might happen…I knew I was not safe in my own home as long as he was loose.
There is no end of their deviousness or their enjoyment of inflicting problems upon us. Even when he was in jail awaiting transfer to prison, he sat there concocting bogus harassments to try to make our lives more “interesting” and miserable.
just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean that someone is not out to “get you”—if they can imagine it, they will find a way to try to do it. Getting “revenge” against you for NS injury is many times their motivation for these things.
I will never again underestimate the depth of the malice in these people when they are frustrated in their desires.
Even after the TH-P was arrested, he sat in the court room smirking at me like he had “won” by making my life miserable for so many months. Well, it may not be much consolation, but he is now in the third worst prison system in the US, and his life time of prison terms so far will not even compare to what he is in for now. While he was in the local county jail awaiting transfer to prison, one of the local crack head/meth smoking pieces of trash heard about what he had done to our family and kindly broke his nose for him for being such a “bad guy” and bragging about what a bad a$$ he was.
I guess I shouldn’t gloat, but sometimes “what goes round comes round” in strange ways.
Aloha and Beverly,
Thanks for writing back. I’m glad you’re going to go for the detox Beverly, I think it can only help, and it might just help a lot.
I’m having a bit of hard time today. I couldn’t sleep last night until about 4am, just fear-based adrenaline was rushing through me because of what I learned about my N and his P, and realizing that my boss is an N too, but in a more veiled way. So when I got up today, I did yoga, and lots of it. I put myself in a great mood, felt so strong, and was just glowing from the inside out. But of course, I ran into my N. He was looking beautiful. So handsome, so well put together, he reminded me so much of the illusion of a man that I fell for. Somehow over the weekend he managed to go from acting like a raving lunatic, climbing the walls desperately searching for NS, to this stunning man I saw this morning. He was wearing the cologne he wore when I fell in love with him. I was stopped dead in my tracks. It was all I could do to keep from melting. I lost that good mood I was in, partly, and have been fighting to get it back by reminding myself that what I love is just a fantasy, a perfectly orchestrated illusion. Reality with him could never live up to it, in fact it shattered me when I tried being with him.
So it’s just an internal struggle in me between wanting the fantasy and accepting the reality.
It’s hard to see him bounce back though, because it means he found a new supply of NS, most likely by running to his friendly P, who has no doubt done all she can to drive a wedge between him and me forever. Last night that is all I wanted, to be safe from his bad behavior, and I knew that if he was getting his NS from someone else, I would no longer be a target.
Why is it that I don’t want that after encountering the same man this morning? I just want the good in him to rise to the surface, and see through that P’s act, and Iwant him to become aware of his own NPD, so that he can become a better man. Why is it that I’m still invested like this? I feel like he’s not all bad, and that I want the good in him to prevail. I know better in my head, but the sight of him in all of his refined, illusory glory really got to my emotions. It was the man I fell in love with. He’s back for the first time in about 6 months. For the last 6 months he’s been a total embarassing wreck, desperately searching out attention, i.e. since I dumped him and he had no back-up NS available.
Oh well, I’ve got to believe that this is somehow for the best, in the long run – because the short term sucks. Thank you for reading and caring, I appreciate it so much. I do believe that what they do will harm them the most, in the end. But it is hell clearing out the garbage that I allowed them to bring into my life. It has a way of sticking to you like glue. And everything they ever did that was bad somehow gets pinned on the victim (so I get what you’re saying about being characterized as the ‘stalker’). It’s insane how the longer you’re around them, the more their diseases are identified in you. I don’t get how they do that!
Anyway, one thing I do get is that the only way to prevail is to remain absolutely squeaky clean, and 100% committed to clearing sh*t out of your life and building only on good, healthy things. These kind of people only see the world only in terms of games, they don’t understand truth and decency and ethics. I feel like as long as I have truth, courage, wisdom and a clean heart on my side, they can’t win in the long run. And if I don’t give their garbage a harbor in my life, it will have to float right back to them, eventually.
But I tell you, it hurts to see the illusion of the good man, b/c that illusion represents all I ever wanted in a man. Ugh.
Hope you’re all doing okay today.
STN
STN. I think I have been down that route too. Knowing what a cruel manipulator he was, but also grieving for the loss of company. It is painful to think, that I will never have the opportunity to have him back, because he destroyed all possibilities of reconciliation and he crossed my red line. I think having a good clearing session in one’s life and bringing only healthy things is good advice. Some of us are working towards making the experience a turning point, lessons learnt, but of course the old painful feelings still arise.
Hi Beverly,
Thanks. I hit a bit of rough spot these last couple of days, and talking with you is helping. And I’m remembering what I learned and somehow forgot over the last few days. The best defense against these types is to be strong, and emotionally self-sufficient, because they turn any weakness in us into a strength for them. They use our weaknesses against us. So if I find myself longing for the fantasy man again, I’m going to be tough as hell on myself and remember that that’s all he is, a fantasy. The real man was a nightmare, like you said, he crossed the red line. I let mine cross it about 1000 times too many.
Anyway, I wish I could help you more with your situation. I did have a thought that might bring you something good. I know that lauging can dispel my bad feelings, so sometimes I rent my favorite comedies and watch them back to back. I like stupid stuff, like Austin Powers and the old Pink Panthers, and I make myself laugh at every lame joke, until I end up cracking myself up. It’s great, and it brings some much needed light into dark times. Maybe a movie marathon of your favorite comedies could help you too. It’s just a thought, but there it is for whatever it’s worth.
Hope you’re doing okay today.
STN
Hi STN. As I am writing this, I have just been watching comedy! I am attempting to cut all the negativity out of my life. Im ok thanks. I had some nettle tea, oh its bitter! Put myself on an ultra healthy diet and building myself up. Ive decided to quit my job and I will be going sick after this week and taking time for myself, but Im going to try and stay occupied. Thanks for your support STN
Hi Beverly,
You sound great, actually. While I’ve been healing, I’ve been fortunate in that I get to make my own schedule. So I’ve been able to rest when I need it, relax, read, learn, rebuild relationships and remake myself during the last year. Even after a full year, I can’t say I’ve gotten rid of all the crap in my life, but I have gotten rid of soo much of it. And it’s liberating…at least on the good days when I’m not freaking out about something. I hope your next year will be full of liberation and strengthening.
Adding a little honey to nettle tea might make it a bit better, and letting it steep for a long time helps with the bitterness. But you’re right about it, it’s not exactly delicious. Still, it’s super healthy, a tonic for all sorts of things… the Arabs believe nettles treat 75 illnesses, and if you ever meet a bedouin, they’ll be able to list all 75 of them for you:). People who saw me as I was last year, and how I am this year after all of this rebuilding I’ve been doing (including the drinking of nettles tea) keep commenting on how the light has returned to my eyes, my skin, etc., and they think I’m in love, because on good days I glow from the inside out. Ha. If they only knew it was about dumping the ‘love of my life’…. Still, learning to love yourself after betraying yourself completely is a big task, constructing healthy boundaries is too, and I think I’m doing better with it all the time. Progress seems cumulative, overall. It sounds like you’re on a similar track. I’m really impressed by your plan to quit the job and do the overhaul. Not working will give the space and time to do it right. I’m happy you have the chance to go for it.
I’m wishing you lots of good luck and energy for the road ahead. I think taking really good care of yourself and the people who truly love you is the most powerful, purifying, healing thing you can do.
xo, STN
Beverly, I think taking off “sick time” is a very good and healthy thing for you to do at this time in your life, I applaud you for doing that good thing for yourself.
I retired about 6 months after my husband was killed. I had “always” worked, long hours and stressful job because I thought that is just “what you do”–but I realized finally, that I had to take care of myself first, and that I actually wasn’t able to continue to do the things that I had been doing, much less doing them “well”—I realized that the “Type A” race I was running was totally unhealthy for me—and that the amount of decrease in my income wasn’t going to put me behind a shopping cart on the street.
I am fortunate that I had that choice, but I am also glad that I MADE THAT CHOICE. Why I hadn’t made it before I don’t know. LOL In any case, good for you!
It is odd to me that sometimes the very thing we need to do to help ourselves is OBVIOUS and right there “before our noses” and we don’t even see it, at least in my case it was. I am now trying to make myself MORE AWARE of the things I need to do for myself, as well as the things I do do that are not healthy. Each day is a bit more progress in the right direction for me, and I think for you as well. God bless.
Free,Somewhere I have a list of “19 things to look for a lie” or something on that order, I read and reread each of them and they all made sense. One of the things was that if you asked someone a question and they “skirted around the issue” it was a deception.
When the Trojan Horse-P showed up with a new vehicle (he had tried to borrow money to buy one from me and I had told him “no, you don’t have the income to repay it.”) I asked him outright if my mother had loaned him the money to buy it. His answer was neither yes nor no, but “I have friends in Texas.”
I knew right then he was lying. My mother denied loaning him the money as well…but later she forgot and “let the cat out of the bag”—he was taking advantage of my elderly mother. He had also, unbeknown to me started to drug her, and her mental and physical condition rapidly decreased to where her words were slurred, and she was completely unstable on her feet. He used the “loan” for the truck to convince her that I was “after her money” and “trying to control” her. Which, as many elderly people trying to hold tightly to independence was frightening to her, he even threatned to withdraw from her and “leave her alone and undefended” and of course my DIL, who was having an affair with him reinforced this plan until my mother had put most of her assets into bank accounts with my DIL’s name on them, revoked my power of attorney, without telling me, and put considerable amounts of money into CDs in my P-son’s name. She even put all her important papers, including the “loan agreement” with theTH-P and her will (of which there was no copy filed at the court house) into a safety deposit box in my DIL’s name.
Yes, I was upset that he had conned her into “loaning” him the money for the vehicle, and there was no lien on the title, only the “loan agreement” which in effect, legally gave him the vehicle “free and clear”–especially after my DIL tore up the loan agreement.
Elderly people are especially succeptible to being conned, and my mother in particular. These people had no intention of anything but greed and malice. There is no doubt in my mind, after their attempt to kill my son C (DIL’s husband) and their taking the money out of the account, tearing up the “loan” agreement, and trying to run, that if my son had not discovered the affair, that they would have at some point arranged an “accident” for my mother, which would not have been difficult since she had frequently fallen and broken bones in the past, and they would have had a nice “grubstake” for a “new life.”
After he was arrested, along with my DIL, among the TH-Ps personal effects we found passport applications, and information from “Russian Bride” agencies, as well as the incriminating letters that my P-son had written him from prison instructing him how to “manage” my mother and me for best effect.
Looking back on the “first point I went wrong” with the situation was that after I discovered the first LIE, I sat down with him and DISCUSSED how “inappropriate” it was for him to take money from my mother, and “gave him another chance” —I WILL NEVER AGAIN OVER LOOK A LIE. ANY lie, the FIRST lie, the first deception.
Interesting too, was that he kept “excusing” himself that it wasn’t “really a lie”—he DID have “friends in Texas.” He just didn’t answer the question I asked. DECEPTION is a lie, either by omission or co-mission—A LIE IS A LIE, no matter if it is 99% truth or 1% truth, or 0% truth, it is a LIE, people who lie are not all Ps, but ALL Ps lie.
I WILL NEVER AGAIN TRUST ANYONE WHO LIES. I will NEVER AGAIN “forgive” a lie and let that person back into my circle of trust. NO exceptions. I may still have to deal with that person in my life one way or another, but I will never take my eyes off them, never trust them. Never give that person the opportunity to stab me.
I will never again overlook any sign of malice or rage in someone.
Trust is something EARNED. I will never again so easily trust someone to be what they say they are. Betrayal of that trust or lies will forever put someone out of a circle of trust—no matter who they are. Or what their relationship to me is.
In the 40 years I knew him, and the 20 years my husband and I were married, he never lied to me or deceived me, and I never lied to him or deceived him. We had lots of disagreements over the years, but we NEVER LIED. You can have differences of opiinon without having a difference of principles. If a person violates someone else’s rights or lies to them, I can BELIEVE they will LIE TO ME when the time is convenient for them to do so. Therefore, if a man will cheat on his wife while still living with and married to her, he will cheat on me. If a person steals from others, he will steal from me. If he disrespects others and treats them poorly, but treats me well, He will eventually come to treat me poorly as well.
The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. People do change for the better, people do go to prison and reform, and people are addicts and go into recovery, but the vast majority of addicts and ex-convicts do NOT reform or go into recovery.
EVen the ex-convicts that do not return to prison do not necessarily live “successful” lives after returning to society, they just don’t want to go back to prison again, so they alter their behavior somewhat but that doesn’t mean they start singing in the church choir.
My DIL is out of jail now and on probation. She is scared to death of going to prison after 7 months in a jail facility, yet she is still trying her manipulations etc. JUST ON THE EDGE of the legal line, but she is still crossing the MORAL LINE, and even trying to get possession of the Trojan Horse’s vehicle which is still parked at my mother’s house, even though she KNOWS she is the one who tore up the loan agreement, and even though she KNOWS morally the vehicle does not “belong” to him or to her. Fortunately, my mother was able to file a lien against the vehicle for “storage” and will eventually get the title to it so she can sell it and recover some of her funds.
My DIL’s stint in jail did not “reform” her or make her see the “error” of her ways—it is still in her mind “someone else’s fault” and she is still trying to gain by deception. In a way it is good that she is doing this, because it is helping my son C heal from this P-encounter, from the 8 years he was married to her, and to SEE that there is nothing he could have done to have prevented all this, that it is NOT his “fault.”
He had committed to the marriage “for better or worse” and would have hung in there even though he was very unhappy and she had emotionally and financially abused him the entire time they were married. But her behavior, her lack of any demonstrated “repentence” (though she wrote such a beautiful letter of repentence to the church) her continued LIES and manipulations, have “freed” him from any obligation to the marriage or the relationship. So now he can heal.
Setting boundaries that are logical and reasonable is important in our healing process and I have consciously set my boundaries, and there will not be a “second chance” to those that cross that red line. Every time I have given someone a “second” chance for lies and/or malice, it has blown up in my face like a land mine. Never again!
The only lie I will ever forget is the one when I ask you if these “pants make my butt look big?” Then you BETTER lie! LOL
Beverly,
I am so sorry to hear your news and am sending prayers and good thoughts your way.
STN,
As I read some of your posts I kept saying, “Oh my, oh my,” because I can totally relate to what you are going through. It is so crazy-making to remember so vividly the “reality” of the man we were in love with, to mourn the loss, to wish somehow we could have that back, to wonder if he’s thinking about us, how can we get through to him; who is he with (we know who he is with), what is he doing–is he holding her, loving her, kissing her, caressing her–and it is such torment because we can’t help but envy the way we know the new woman is feeling. It’s the highest high, the most sublime state, to feel so cherished, so special, so adored.
We want that back.
But we can’t have that back. We never really had it to begin with. And yet, coming to that realization can only do so much to ease the pain. Having been thoroughly duped for so long–in my case 18 years–I think it’s impossible to immediately let go of all we’ve been brainwashed to believe. It takes time for reality to seep in, for the translucent real image of evil to be superimposed and to ultimately replace the opaque false image of goodness.
It is such a, I don’t know if schizophrenic would be the right word, but for lack of a better one I’ll say a schizophrenic experience.
For me, still living in the same smallish town I’ve lived for all those years, I cannot escape the memories. Practically everywhere I go I’m faced with having to superimpose an ugly reality over a beautiful dream.
This was a favorite restaurant. That was our favorite booth. This was the mountain we’d hike up every summer. That’s the hospital where he and I met, and where our daughter was born. I can still see him lying on his belly, gazing at our baby in her isolette. I can see his striped brown shirt, his corduroy pants, his chin on his hands, the look of amazement on his face.
There’s the high school cafeteria where we attended many an awards banquet. There’s the middle school field where the cross-country team ran. There’s the movie theatre, the coffee house, the boat dock, the post office, the front yard, the back yard, the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom. All these places we inhabited together; and all of it no more than a dream.
I want that back, oh, how I want that back. I go there in my mind. I think of him happy in his new life, and me left behind, mourning my loss, and I ache.
Many say: Good riddance to him, and now what are you doing for yourself? I know they mean well but they just don’t get it. They can’t. Why, they can barely believe he’s guilty of the terrible things he’s done.
“Really?” they say. “Do you think he wants to kill you? Really? You think he did all that? Really? I think he wants to come home.” They won’t believe, they can’t believe, a story that sounds so utterly preposterous. It makes more sense to believe the lies coming out of the S’s mouth. That stuff is believable. That’s in their realm of experience, not the astounding things I’m telling them.
Why at times I can barely believe it myself. The horrors of what he’s done hit me anew and I think, that’s impossible! I never saw him do that, I only know it because of the evidence, his admissions, my imagination, but I never saw it.
It was one gigantic magic trick, which my mind hasn’t quite grasped.
He really sawed the woman in half. He made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Didn’t he? Well, didn’t he? I saw it. I know I saw it. Loads of other people did too. Could we all have been wrong?
Well yes we could have. As hard as it is to believe, we most certainly could have, we most certainly were.
My God, I made enormous decisions based on this Fraud, decisions that profoundly impacted my children when all along I thought I was acting in their best interests.
After 17 years, I divorced my first husband because he was abusive to our children. I soon got involved with my S, we married, he became Dad to my kids. They loved him, trusted him, turned to him, laughed with him, talked to him, leaned on him.
The duplicity is staggering and it makes me so angry to know that my children, who once felt safe and secure in this man’s “love,” are feeling bereft too, wanting to tell him off, but they’ll never get the chance because he–the S–doesn’t care.
Hi Gillian,
Thanks for writing. It’s true, the fantasy was the best love I’ve ever experienced in my life, I’m sorry to say. I mean, it was the highest high while it lasted. I thank heaven that the sociopathic woman I mentioned intervened and ‘stole’ the N away from me. At the time I felt utterly betrayed by them both, and of course, I was, but I now know that I’m the lucky one. I only invested about a year in the relationship itself, and started pulling out after that. I can’t imagine 18 years, with children involved. I mourn the loss of 12 months of the relationship, the desolated aftermath, and the 12 months of recovery I’ve been going through, but I am so glad for the gains, the insight it all gave me.
And yet I feel so wounded still, sometimes. It does take a long time to reconcile the parts into an integrated whole, to deconstruct the fantasies, see them as the lies they were, and to learn to focus only on what I can control about the situation. It is so hard, I fight a battle inside myself almost every minute of every day, and even when I sleep I know I’m fighting because of the kinds of dreams I have.
I don’t know your story, but really, having 18 years of lies, an entire life built upon lies, I cannot imagine the depth of the horrors that that must bring. I’m so sorry. How could he make it last with you as long as he did, if there wasn’t something more to it than the usual using, abusing and leaving without a care pattern? It boggles my mind.
BTW, something I read tonight really helped me feel better. If you feel like it, look up anmol mehta’s yoga/kundalini page on the net and read his take on the meaning of relationships. I had spent the entire day today losing my fight against the blues, but once I read that, I felt better immediately. Even if you’re not into yoga and that sort of thing, what he wrote about relationships hits home, and it at least helped me see the real value in all the pain I’ve gone through.
Okay, as you can see, I write a lot sometimes, so I’m stopping myself. But thank you for writing and understanding. It feels so good to be understood and validated, after so many people have been trying for so long to get me to pretend that nothing is wrong, or worse, thinking that I’m the one making problems. What an unspeakably horrible nightmare it’s been!! Best thing is that on good days I know the value and strength of my own opinion and intuition now. I didn’t used to before I had my encounters with the N and is S/P. But yes, in sum, it does hurt like hell to lose the fantasy, because the fantasy was designed just for us, they made it according to our idea of perfection and they played upon our most vulnerable needs. Can I ask you, do you think yours really adored your daughter as he stared at her with wonder and amazement after she was born? Can they love their own children?
Good night, STN