Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader:
My psychologist referred me to this web site. It’s terrific save one section: How can running away from these people be the only solution? Granted, it’s a stop-gap solution to protect yourself from future abuses; however, it’s not a solution for full/final resolution.
Allowing [them] to perpetuate their endeavors and perpetrate them on others only permits proliferation. Please tell me that there is some constructive, legal way to be proactive and preventative in a more communal fashion. I have visions of: 20 years from now they rule the world. It won’t be survival of the fittest. It will have become survival of the sickest.
To have to swallow this reality would be a further devastating blow to my slowly recovering resiliency.
There simply must be constructive ways to deal with these [people].
We all know this reader’s frustration. It seems like sociopaths are able to lie, cheat, steal, abuse, damage and injure with impunity. How can this be? Isn’t there anything we can do?
Running away
Let’s first address the issue of running away. This is the best thing to do if you are observant enough to see the signs of sociopathic behavior before you become entangled. If you know what to look for and see the red flags, or if your instincts tell you that someone is trouble, get out. You should not knowingly allow a sociopath into your life if it can be at all avoided.
Many of our readers, however, are already caught in the sociopath’s web of deceit. You have fallen in love, married the sociopath, had children with him or her, or given the person money. Or, the sociopath is a family member. Somehow, the predator already has a piece of you.
You may have been emotionally, physically or financially abused for a long time. You’ve been criticized, denigrated and told that you have mental problems. You’ve lost your confidence and your sense of self. You wonder if you are, in fact, going crazy.
At this point, you must break away from the sociopath to begin restoring your mental health. You must take yourself out of the sociopath’s game. Any time you see, talk to or exchange e-mail with a sociopath, you are opening yourself to further manipulation. He or she knows exactly how to pull you in again, and will do it.
You may call it running away; Lovefraud calls it No Contact. It’s the best way to begin healing.
Criminal prosecution
But how can you take action against the sociopath? How can the sociopath be held accountable? How can he or she be prevented from devastating someone else?
Unfortunately, it is not illegal to be a sociopath. Therefore, action can only be taken based on what a sociopath does, and many typical sociopathic behaviors are legal.
- It is legal to cheat on a spouse or intimate partner.
- It is legal to lie, except under oath and on some official documents (which never stopped a sociopath).
- It is legal for a sociopath to talk someone into giving him or her money.
Many sociopaths know exactly where the legal lines are, and manage to stay in the gray area without crossing over them. Their actions are unethical, but not illegal.
Criminal prosecution only becomes possible when a sociopath violates the law—which many of them do. Prisons are full of sociopaths.
So prosecution is possible when a law is violated, but whether it actually happens depends on the seriousness of the crime. Most murder cases get investigated. Most fraud cases don’t, especially if it’s a sweetheart scam.
Lovefraud usually recommends reporting a sociopath’s crime, even if it is not likely to be investigated. If a sociopath is doing something illegal to you, he or she is probably also doing it to someone else. Maybe if a pattern develops, authorities will take action.
Civil lawsuits
The other option is civil court—suing the sociopath. Unfortunately this will cost you money that you may not have if the sociopath has wiped you out. Then, even if you file a lawsuit, win your case and get a judgment, it may be difficult or impossible to actually get your money. Sociopaths are notorious for blowing through money; there may be nothing left for you to collect.
The whole process of taking a sociopath to court will financially and emotionally drain you. The sociopath, however, looks at a court battle as a game—a game that he or she is determined to win. And they’re good at the game. They bend the rules to suit their purposes. They put on a great show for the judge, even as they perjure themselves. They find attorneys who are equally cold-hearted, or who are so dazzled that they believe the sociopath’s lies.
Many judges, in the meantime, are as ignorant about sociopaths as you were. They hear the sociopath say, “I’m only concerned about the welfare of our children,” or, “I never meant any harm,” and believe the hollow words.
Exposing the sociopath
If you can’t take legal action, you may want to at least expose the sociopath to save someone else from being victimized. You may post the sociopath on Don’t Date Him Girl or other websites that name cheaters. You may get away with it. Or, if the sociopath you expose has resources and likes the lawsuit game (see above), you may find yourself in court, accused of libel or invasion of privacy.
Here’s another complication: There are no legal guidelines for when or how it is permissible to say someone is a sociopath. Media lawyers frequently do not allow the publications or TV shows they represent to call someone a sociopath. This may be the case even if the person making the statement is an expert. When his show about Ed Hicks was taped, Dr. Phil referred to Hicks as a sociopath. Dr. Phil certainly knows a sociopath when he sees one, but the show’s lawyers cut the term “sociopath” from the broadcast.
For this reason, Lovefraud is extremely careful with naming names. According to our terms of service, readers may not post the names of the sociopaths they have experienced in comments to this blog. And when Lovefraud does a case study in which we do identify a con artist, every single statement made about the subject of the story is documented with evidence.
Lovefraud does believe, however, that exposing sociopaths is the only thing that really works. In the future, we hope to offer a Con Artist Database to help our readers. But this is a project with many technical and legal challenges (see above). We look forward to the day when we can tackle them.
What should you do?
So what’s the bottom line? If you’ve been victimized by a sociopath, what should you do?
First, take care of yourself. Extricate yourself from the predator’s grip. That’s what No Contact is all about—escape and recovery.
Then you have to evaluate your situation to determine if further action is possible and worth the trouble. Every case is different. What did the sociopath do? Was it illegal? Do you have evidence or documentation? Do you have the money to pursue action? Do you have the emotional stamina?
If you have a good case, and the resources, by all means take action. Or, if you can’t do it now, maybe you can do it later, after you are healed.
As the saying goes, “revenge is a dish best served cold.” It took me five years, but I finally exposed my ex-husband, James Montgomery. He was fired from his job and forced into bankruptcy.
I will admit—it was satisfying.
I read some where
They do not process thoughts the same way as we do! Their brain is wired , Miswired , they do not store information the same way as we do ! They do not even use the ( normal ) storage space we do ! Disfunctional is a kind way of putting it! Mentally deranged is the Proper term! Deranged as in mis-arranged TOTALLY! LOVE JJ
This is evident in their Brain Scans! Hince the survey! I gota bigger brain than you do Ha haha! LOST in space!
The thing that gets me is that the lies are so out there. He could have just pretended he has ongoing migraine headaches. No one could dispute that. Instead he told them he can’t walk and slurs his speech. He put himself in a position where every person he meets, he has to fake a limp and slurred speech. What a lot of work to do!!!! And he didn’t do that stuff around me, but he never took into consideration that after he discarded me, I might turn him in. They just don’t think about this stuff. It’s like they just lie. Lying is second nature to them.
I’ve read that they are good liars in that they lie without missing a beat, and aren’t the least bit nervous about it. But they are “dumb” liars. Us “normal” folk feel anxious when we lie – we can do it, but it feels uncomfortable – you know, like when you call in fake sick to work you feel bad, and can’t wait to get off the phone. It makes normal people uncomfortable to lie. Sociopath’s have no discomfort whatsoever with lying. so they do it easily, and we don’t question because they don’t show any of the nonverbal cues that normal people show when they are lying. So it doesn’t look like the sociopath is lying – it looking like they are telling the truth.
However, because they really don’t care much about their lies, they don’t keep track of them. They just lie automatically, and don’t tell the smartest lies. And their lies very often catch up to them because they don’t make sense, they’re not thought out. Usually their believable because they are so outrageous. But they are very often not “smart’ lies.
Like your Ex’s lies, SG. What a dumbass story your Ex told. Serves him right to have to fake a limp and slur his speech. I hope he gets what’s coming to him.
You are exactly right, HH. Right after the break up, I didn’t totally understand what was happening. So I set him up. I had a friend call him and 3-way me in by phone. He didn’t know I was listening. I heard him lie to her 3 times without skipping a beat. She hung up the phone with him and actually believed him! I had to tell her he was lying. This is the first time I really knew what I was dealing with. My heart sank. I thought I was in love with a sincere and sweet military “boy next door”. Instead, I had been duped by a pathological liar. And it’s true. They don’t plan their lies out ahead of time. They just say whatever lie pops into their head, and it comes out like the most sincere truth you’ve ever heard. It’s actually quite fascinating, in some morbid way.
I think Casey Anthony is a good example of the difference between a person who just occasionally tells a lie and a pathological liar. She is an incredibly “excellent and confident”, yet incredibly stupid pathological liar. When I first heard about the case and started following it, her lying just sooooooo reminded me of my ex. and his techniques and also the frequency with which he lied, even about stupid unimportant or easily disputed things, or things that it would have made more sense to NOT lie about.
If you listen to those police interrogation tapes Casey lies like she breathes about anything and everything, yet some of her lies are so outrageous, and also easily disputed lies, that were so easily found out by police to be lies, that it is mind boggling that she would have been dumb enough to tell the lies to begin with. I mean HELLO she even lied about where she worked, going so far as to stick to the lie and take the police to her supposed place of employment, and she also even gave the name of one friend who supposedly had hooked her up with the imaginary nanny (his statement to police proved otherwise), and Casey seemed to believe her lies would be sufficient and the police would just blindly accept her tales and not actually check out these “facts”. Yet if one did not know the actual “facts” she sounds quite convincing and confident in these tapes and as if she is telling the truth even though she tells lie upon lie upon lie, and stupid lies at that.
I figure she has been lying and having people believe her for most of her life, or at least not challenge her, so in her grandiosity and ego driven mind she just assumed she could pull off all these lies too. She said it, so it must be true and people would just automatically not dig too deep for the actual truth.
Jen,
Yes, I was dumbfounded by that too! The taking the cops to her “place of employment”—-DUH!!!??? But if you read Robert Hare’s “Without Conscience” he supposes that somehow their left brains and right brains don’t communicate about these OBVIOUS (to US) lies being unbelieveable.
My own P-son’s FIRST episode of this kind of lying (at the time I didn’t realize what it signified) when he was age 11 when CONFRONTED with proof (and witnesses) to his theft of money and a check from my purse, KEPT ON DENYING AND DENYING it even with proof positive in front of him, just like Casey Anthony.
Someone posted an article about them (some where on here I think) about how their “lies” are like a 5 year olds, that you HEAR opening a cookie jar and you ask (already knowing the answer) “Are you in the cookie jar?” and they say “NO” not knowing that you could hear it open. They somehow don’t go beyond that age of the 5 year old lying, and if you confront them with their hand in the cookie jar, they will come up with a “reason” like “Oh, no, I wasn’t going to take a cookie for me, I was getting one for YOU.”
I think Casey’s stroy NOW is that all the lies were to try to cover up and “protect” her child and her parents from the “Bad guys” who kidnapped her child. I’m not sure what her story will be after the body is positively identified and the death is attributed to the chloroform found in the back of the car, and probably in the child’s lungs, or the fact that someone googled chloroform on the mother’s computer. What will her “lie be then?”
Her parents are obviously in denial, and in a way I feel desperately sorry for them, because to acknowledge that their dauhter is a monster who would kill the child must be the most painful thing in the world. I went through the same horrible pain when my own son was arrested for murder, but at the same time, I think that the entire family is the POSTER FAMILY FOR DYSFUNCTION, and that the reason that mother is the way she is is that the grandmother has continually enabled her to live at home, drive a car and not have a job, to tell lies that one way or another are accepted or excused.
My own mother is enabling my P-son by sending him money, even though she KNEW (though I am sure she now denies it) my P-son was involved in a plot of his own making to KILL ME (and my mother no doubt) for an inheritence. She WANTS to believe he is either “sorry” for doing it, or that it never happened. I’m at a loss to stop her, or to get her out of the denial, so I can only go NC with my mother over this.
PROOF will not disuade a psychopath, or someone so deeply iin denial about it that they REFUSE to see REALITY. Look at Susan Smith.
I’m at the beginning of the process… I only just uncovered the deception and lies. I am devastated. Just trying to unravel the financial damage has been overwhelming. The police were no help. My credit cards are all maxed out with his charges. Yesterday I even realized I paid his wifes property taxes for the next 2 years and brought the house out of foreclosure! Since he was posing as an attorney (not true) he does have a good grasp of the law and my belief is that he does everything with the idea that even though, it’s unethical, lying and cheating is legal! And if you can hose someone for 60 or 70 grand, then well all the better. I am incredibly angry and everyone wants me to sue. My fear is that he is so good at hiding his money, using aliases, opening and closing bogus companys that I would just be wasting my time and money.
Welcome, blew me away. It’s truly mind-blowing, isn’t it? Welcome….so sorry you had to go through what brought you here…… but you are safe and cared for with us. We all heal together.
Blew me away,
I don’t have an answer for you but I wish you luck with this. I know another reader that has carefully exposed her S to the IRS and he’s going to be in big trouble. It takes time though.
I believe that these guys get too cocky and their games do eventually close in on them.
Compile all the information you can, document, make notes.
Welcome…. find healing here.
Man! I am so glad I bumped into an “Altruistic Narcissist”!
For once in my life, I’m so glad to have nothing, especially nothing to lose.
Things can only get better for all of us.