UPDATED FOR 2023. Editor’s note: A Lovefraud reader sent the following entry from her journal. “About 2 1/2 months since the sociopath revealed himself for what he was, I’m now assessing how I made myself so vulnerable in the first place,” she wrote. “Shockingly I realize I likely still am… still am as vulnerable… until I do my next needed self-work: truly healing my relationship with myself. Deeply.” The following piece represents a step in her healing.
I was thinking about whether I’d ever be able to reclaim my memories, once sweet, once preciously loving, of the past two years — ever since the sociopath revealed himself for the liar and deceiver that he is via his cruel departure.
I am grateful for his departure, don’t get me wrong. But I am still in the midst of my ongoing process to try to make Meaning and sense. (I have kind of surrendered to the hopelessness of “making sense” of it all. But I will ever strive to find, make, imagine Meaning!!)
I have found a volume of meaning so far. No doubt.
However — a few days ago I was thinking about what made me vulnerable in the first place. What was the “hook” that hooked me so completely, so effectively, so surely from the earliest of moments?
(I have found some journal entries from those very early moments. If I ever thought I didn’t inquire, didn’t challenge my experience, didn’t wonder about the rightness of my next steps — Well I found the proof. I DID do all the questioning I’ve come to expect of myself. I DID do all the challenging of the validity of the experience — not presuming it was True just because it was Good.)
Now
The question: What made me vulnerable? What was the hook that got me (so) hooked?
Read more: How long does it take to recover from a sociopath?
It was those aspects about me that I could not / would not accept (and note to self: still have not accepted) as “acceptable.” The things about me that I KNEW eliminated me from the hope of being truly loved, the things that were wholly unacceptable — these were the juiciest of bait. (Shit. Who was catching whom?? Is the metaphor wrong, or Freudianly perfect?)
- I was becoming quite and utterly convinced that I may not have the ability, the capacity to let someone love me, to trust someone when they claimed to love me, to be able to love someone wholeheartedly. Convinced that I may be so unacceptable that there is no one who could love me.
- I knew that I was inherently unlovable — and the outward picture of that was: my (then) smoking; my housekeeping; my weight. But these were the reasons my logical mind needed as proof in order to say “see, not loveable.” Truth is — this belief exists first. Not the other way around. Note to Self: Come back to this point.
- When he loved me IN SPITE OF — amazingly UNDIMISHED BY… these very things that I hated about myself; when he consistently stated, and effectively convinced me that these things had nothing to do with what he loved about me, that these things did NOT DIMINISH his love for me —
- I suddenly see that it was this that allowed the walls of resistance, of fear and of negation to fall from around my heart. This acceptance allowed me to allow Love IN! I could suddenly for the first time let someone all the way in to Who I AM!! I let him in to the most intimate places in me because he proved to me that I WAS worthy!! To self: Who did I need convincing about!?? Who do I need convincing about today?
- I let him in because he jumped over the hurdles of what I hated about myself. No need to mention that all of this “undiminished love” turned out to be merely the tool, not the truth.
My job now
To remove the currently, unfortunately still potent possibility of being hooked by another sociopath.
To remove these hurdles to ME LOVING MYSELF.
To accept every last ornery cranky nasty grimy part of myself as the whole loving loveable being that I am.
To finally learn what it is to LOVE MYSELF UNCONDITIONALLY. Because it is only this act, this change, that will remove the BAIT from the public square. To remove the possibility of being hooked again. To be able to BELIEVE the next person that offers me love, but not have to hand over my soul in the process!
I don’t know intellectually how I will accomplish this — the resistances in me can even now be heard along the fringes of my thoughts. But my desire for my life, my safety, and my desire to know love again, and truly this time, is strong enough that I think THIS will make it possible. THIS will motivate me to do the work I need to do.
Lovefraud originally posted this article on Dec. 15, 2007.
Learn more: Overcoming shame — How to feel worthy of love and respect
Smear campaign set me up as the abusive parent
This is a beautiful entry. Once again, it is more of my story and I suspect OUR STORIES collectively. There is a common thread.
These stories are for all the women whom have been told “you have to love yourself before you can love someone else.” I had been told that many times in my life before my encounter with the Bad Man. Like your Sociopath, the first thing he did was to build me up and speak words to me that I had longed for but never thought I would hear. That is the hook. After that, I would put up with anything.
It’s sad looking back at myself. I had no idea I was that lost and that empty on the inside that I would let someone else fill me up with their garbage. But that is exactly what I did. After he finished telling me how great I was for 2 weeks, he terrorized me for most of the next 13 months. With the last bit of self preservation I had in me, I finally got on an airplane and left the island.
The more I read other people’s stories, the more I understand moment by moment what happened to me and the more I feel the healing inside of me. I think the new challenge is to balance the wisdom with the mistrust. In other words, take what I know now and find a way for that knowledge to serve me without being fearful or suspicious of everyone new I meet. I have noticed that even one word can set me off. Anytime a man says he doesn’t want “drama” in his life, I feel triggered. Labeling everyone elses actions with the word “DRAMA” was the Bad Man’s way of deflecting blame for what was happening around him due to his actions and terrorizing of women and employers. If someone kicks you in the shin and you start to cry and they call it “drama”… well, I think we know now that that is not a good sign.
Anyway, thanks to the author of this essay. Another healing moment traveling around the world via LoveFraud readers and contributors. I don’t know where I would be now if I didn’t find this site. I might still be circling in my head endlessly.
Aloha… E.R.
I
thank you for posting this. i am just one week out from learning the truth about my so-called partner, and this whole site has been very helpful to me. however, for 20 months, my predator was never anything but apparently loving toward me, right up until the end. i truly thought i had found the healthiest, most loving relationship of my life.
i can honestly say that he never degraded me verbally or physically, and though i now believe much, if not all, of the “good stuff” was feigned, it makes it harder for me to let go of what i thought was my love for him. today’s blog entry really speaks to me, because it seems as though this woman also had one of the “beneficent sociopaths” – the ones who, on the surface, do nothing but build you up.
d.
alohatraveler,
How odd. My psycho used the expression “no drama” prolifically in the beginning. (And I have not known anyone else to do so.)
I also had no idea that I was that empty before either. I really believed I was happy. Maybe lacking a relationship, but otherwise happy. I too was lavished with praise and adoration for about two weeks, then more or less terrorised for the rest (only about a further 4 or 5 months or so in my case, not counting the “stalking” that followed).
And I must say I read Lovefraud most days but don’t often post. I do very much like your writing aloha, and agree with you wholeheartedly that this website is an amazing resource.
After over 18 months I think I am just about at a critical turning point where the “endless circling” has substantially diminished to a point where it no longer dominates daily life.
I am so pleased to know that my experience above resonates with others.
This is my ‘journal entry’, and actually it ended up on my blog. My blog started off in September to be my way of railing loudly as I tried to make any sense of what had happened. I am now trying to continue on with the focus of just how we, as human beings, heal. How we make meaning and wholeness… from the very holes that were once ripped open in the souls of our being.
@aloha – I too have appreciated your postings here!! And I so agree with your challenge regarding “balanc(ing) the wisdom with the mistrust.” Its kind of like new training wheels on our heart.. the new boundaries we’ve learned. I do like to think of the new experience as adding to our DISCERNMENT not so much as mistrust.
I have to tell you all that I had to change my login name here before posting again… because it was originally “2yearburn”. That is what I had just come out of and was scorched from… but that scorched self it isn’t who I am now.
If I’m allowed to mention it here, I would love to have anyone visit my blog (terraflora.wordpress.com). I am SO very grateful for the SANITY that Lovefraud.com has brought into my life, and I hope to continue the ripples of hope and healing!!
This is such an important question, but, since I am in the depths of grieving my sense of growing safety and security in this world, its difficult to truly look at myself and this question, but, I will”because I know how important it is.
What made me vulnerable? What was the hook that got me (so) hooked?
Well I was incested and raped several times as a child, and several times as an adult. Although I had completed some great healing of my past, I still have great issues with shame, trust, and self-esteem. When I met the ex, the sociopath that WAS in my life, he was sweet, kind, and poured on the attention. The relationship moved from a friendship into a romance fairly quickly. But, within six months, the man had moved into my home, had stolen one of my credit cards and my social security number. By the time I’d discovered anything, there was quite a bit of damage done, and he played on my sympathies, saying how sick he was and would get help if I did not press charges on him, etc. I actually went a long with him, as I could not believe HOW BAD he was, was unwilling to see the truth in him. I’d contacted the police on a number of occasions. But, I was unwilling to press charges. He’d convinced me that he had money anyway coming to him from a personal injury case (he does in fact have personal injury case filed in Maryland against a couple corporations) and from his father who had some of his money in investments. So, he successfully distracted me from how evil he was; and, I went along with him as I said.
Eventually he would give me sob story after sob story–Mom’s cancer came back, he got hurt on the job, etc.–how he needed money for this, money for that, and of course he would pay me back every bit of it and more! The man helped me with my daughter as I was in the Air Force at the time, and a single mother. Thus he always played on this as well, how much he helped me with my daughter, and would eventually help in my retirement , send me to school, let me stay home and not work. Gosh, I would have believed anything I suppose.
I tried to break it off dozens of times, but, eventually he would slither his way back in, and, I would let him back in. Also, I often felt trapped somewhat, unable to move on”In looking back, I don’t completely understand why I CHOSE to stay in the relationship”except for the fact that I was so used to be treated so abusively, with such disrespect ”that I hadn’t completely dealt with the earlier abuses in my life. A part of me could not SEE the truth, the complete truth. As a child I had to be able to turn off the truth of what sick, horrible, evil things my father did to my sister and me. And, this is what I did the sociopath.
I had trained myself not to see the truth. And, in another sense, I felt immobile, unable to do anything about the ex-sociopath. Because inside, I was very very afraid of him”like I was of my father. And, he knew this. He knew how much shame and pain I carried inside, and he used this to his advantage. I had several ’bottoms” at the end—before I finally kicked him out of my life.
The first one was when I went to an attorney to find out how to pursuit obtaining the money I loaned him, and that he had stole. The attorney pulled his rap sheet; he had 5 OPEN WARRANTS, and 24 prior arrests for fraud, bad checks, theft, drugs, drunk driving and others. It became apparent to me, he was a FRAUD, and a con man. I COULD NO LONGER LIE TO MYSELF.
Also, prior to going to the police, he’d made a comment about me and my father, and alluded to how I must have enjoyed it. In final communications with us, he blamed me for being unfaithful, giving him herpes, being “sick” and “crazy,” a liar, a meth girl, enjoying sex with my father. He was so cruel, he even mentioned the abortion I had at 13 (I was raped by a childhood friend at age 12), and how it was probably my father’s. Oh my Lord, in one sense, I AM SO GLAD he said these things, because I FINALLY HAD HAD ENOUGH!!!! And, this was partially the reason for my bottom!
So, I say, it had to be unresolved shame, unresolved trauma. Confusion, lack of love for myself, loneliness”and, RETRAUMATIZATION. Also, part of the hook was the money, and wanting to get at least some of it back. The man constantly used this as a way to get back in…
TODAY I am relatively FREE from the web of lies, deceit, humiliation, crazy making, cruelty! I filed a lawsuit against him, and truly only believe I will force him into bankruptcy, but, that IS OK BY ME!
I sometimes get angry at myself for “allowing this to happen” but, my therapist continues to encourage me to have love and compassion for the little girl that was abused and traumatized. That indeed, the Sociopath retraumatized me. The thing is, I am in training to be a therapist, and I somehow believe in the long run, this may actually help me to help others…because this was not the kind of education I COULD EVER GET IN A BOOK! An expensive education, yes, but, helll it is OVER!!!
Eventually I will learn to forgive myself, love myself more fully and more wholesomely, hell I have great strides in the last 6 months already! I failed to tell you that once I found out that about his 5 warrants, and realized he was a complete fraud…I went to my local 12-Step meeting house THAT SAME DAY and ran into him there…I left, and within minutes I drove down the road, and called the police and told them where they could find him!
I didn’t make any friends because of the anonymity aspect of the Anonymous groups but, I did what I thought was right! The cops showed up and dragged him out the meeting, in front of God and everyone!
That was a good feeling!
Ok, enough of me…good question!
GUYS…I am so sorry for the length of the previous post! I am so grateful for this place! Very few people understand what we have been through as you all know…
Thanks again!
I discovered this site almost a year ago… at that point, I was 9 months out of a year long relationship with a woman that turned my world upside down….. I posted my story here back last January, so I’ll spare everyone here the details…. As a continuous reader here, I have seen myself in many of these blogs, at the various stages of recovery…… starting with denial, extreme pain… a pain that is almost indescribable… I am a widower, lost my wife some 2 1/2 years before my relationship with my socio… I can honestly say that the pain from the socio was so much worse… much, much worse……can you imagine????….. some of the other adjectives that could describe me during this process would include …..confusion, anger, bitterness, self hate, self pity, mistrust of myself and others, fear of letting anyone get close to me in a emotional way, and the biggest and the worst was hopelessness……….. spending almost every waking hour thinking about it, obsessed, consumed……broken…… I have written here before about the transformation of my spirit, from brokenness to light and love…… I see that in many who regularly write here…… and I love it when someone writes something here and it just “clicks” with how I felt, or feel…..This site has been instrumental in my recovery…. the insights, the stories, the feelings of those here who are brave enough to share….. I thank all of you for being transparent… The journey we all have traveled sure is a hard one, but look how far we have come, and there is still so much further we can go….. I believe that coming here, reading, writing, sharing is part of the healing process, and we all here are lucky to have this forum…. But… I know that one day, I will move completely on from this healing chapter of my life…..I am still amazed at the transformation from the dark, to the light and healing….. I guess the best part of it all is that in the end, we get to have the last word….. we are the ones who were tossed aside like yesterday’s garbage… left for dead….. at first, we laid in our fetal positions, broken…… but slowly… yes.. slowly we sat up… then got to our knees… then took those first steps towards healing….. figuring out the how’s and the why’s of our experience……. working on those things we can change.. letting go of the ones we cannot change…..becoming wiser, stronger, and yes.. capable of giving and receiving love once again…..We are better then before our experience with darkness….. never under estimate the human spirit…..Our socio’s intent was to slowly destroy our spirit for fun and for kicks….. today… many of us have risen above it all, and others are still working on it….. I for one, would never wish such a experience on anyone… but it happened to me, I suffered for it, I learned, I grew, and now I have peace with it… gone is the bitterness…..I learned to forgive her and yes,,,,me… that was the harder of the two….. Wishing peace to all here for this holiday season, and may 2008 be a year of growth, self discovery, hope, joy and most importantly of all……Peace
Agape,
~Rick
Southernman429
As I read the suffering of those here, I re-feel my own pain. I kept waiting for it to end. I believe God’s words and the ones that kept coming to me was Psalm 30:5 that says weeping endures for a night but joy comes in the morning. I didn’t think the sun would ever shine for me.
What amazes me still is how they can do what they do and not feel bad for the hurt they cause? I guess they don’t have consciences and it doesn’t bother them to cause the havoc. There was a part of me that kept feeling like the ones in my life were secretly giving themselves high fives each time they did a number on me.
They do what they do under the guise of love. Love doesn’t cause pain. I had so many “duh” moments after the fact and just wish that I would have followed my gut instinct at the time. But I didn’t want to think that I could be so shallow as to think this person had no feeling for me and it was all about them. Surely I had some place for me. It saddens me for all who write here and to know we gave our love so freely thinking it would be returned, only to have it torn to shreds. They walk away unscathed, because they knew what they were doing and their heart was locked away. We gave of ourselves freely and I realize now, that was my biggest mistake. We don’t have to give all of us away. It’s okay to guard our hearts. If we don’t, no one will and that just lets us wide open for them to do what they do. I just didn’t know. I thought I was wanted for me. Now I’m too old to try again. I’ve lost the part of me that trusts. Maybe that’s a good defense mechanism. No more surprises. If I would want to try again, I will definitely look behind the scenes and if someone casts some doubt on the one in question, I will follow it up. When I mentioned to this friend of mine who got money out of me, that someone had told me to watch out for him. I asked him what they might have meant. He said, don’t you think they are just jealous that I’m your friend and not theirs? I couldn’t see that he was flattering himself and not me. He’s so full of himself there wasn’t any room for me. I didn’t know that at the time. Now I do, and I, too, am so much wiser and now that I’m on the other side, I’m glad for the experience. It gave me strength and showed me my weaknesses.
To whomever wrote:
:::When he loved me IN SPITE OF” amazingly UNDIMISHED BY” these very things that I hated about myself; when he consistently stated, and effectively convinced me that these things had nothing to do with what he loved about me, that these things did NOT DIMINISH his love for me”
I suddenly see that it was this that allowed the walls of resistance, of fear and of negation to fall from around my heart. This acceptance allowed me to allow Love IN! I could suddenly for the first time let someone all the way in to Who I AM!! I let him in to the most intimate places in me because he proved to me that I WAS worthy!! To self: Who did I need convincing about!?? Who do I need convincing about today? ::::
This is what I have been grappling with over the past few months. When I look at myself I say… “It had to be a lie… look at me, I am old, hanging, mean, miserable, my eyes droop down, I am not loveable in anyway shape or form…” It had to be a fruad, a con a lie…
He could not possibly have truly loved me… because I am not loveable and I am hideous. His “love” made me believe I was pretty, cute, sexy funny, loveable. When he looked at me I felt loved and pretty. Now that he is gone and looking at some younger cuter person, I am saying to myself I truly am ugly. It was all a lie.
Although I was mean to him because he kept being irresponsible, getting fired from jobs for accusations of stealing, crashing all his cars…generally not being a “man.” I still needed him to love me although I found it harder and harder to show my love for him in the midst of all of that.
I too lost jobs due to my anger, my ego, my belief that I was better, prettier, smarter than everyone else.
It was all a LIE. On my part too. I lied to myself that someone so good looking could love me even though he was not all “together.” He seemed to be trying, thinking of ways to make my life “easier.” Always there when I needed something, giving me gifts, playing with my hair… generally showing me what I thought was love. Or was it? I can’t tell anymore.
When I was younger and had boyfriends and broke up — it was never like this. Never questioned their love or mine. It was what it was and then it was over and on to the next great love. Always searching for “true love.” I thought I found it in him. Love takes work. Love is a challange. How do you love someone who is self-destructive? And why do we help them self-destruct in the name of love with cruel words, actions and generally ignoring the issues?
As I get older, I wonder what’s the point? Where am I going? Why am I working? What am I heading toward but old age, sickness and death? All the things I have tried to avoid by looking at him and his deeds and doings.
I used to love getting up every morning, knowing he would be around to love me no matter what I did. I would do my work, work my studio, teach, promote my studio with great emails and fliers, I generally loved life even though it was hard and I was always worrying about his next car accident, next job fiasco.
I still love him though. Still wish he were here. Still want him to look at me the way he used to.
I saw him the other day. Says he still loves me and to not give up the faith of being together. Still I think he is just stringing me along to hurt me more in the end.
My ex too had a “rap sheet.” But I knew about it before I hooked up with him. Said he wanted to change, lead a normal life, that he made mistakes when he was younger and spent 4 years in prison. To look at him… you would never think he was in prison though he walks tough and talks the tough talk. He can also be sweet and childlike.
It’s so strange. Can’t tell who is the real him and who is the con. I have to believe that the sweet person is the real him and the other guy is a product of his upbringing, his life in the streets. I was there. I am from the streets of the Bronx, but I thought I brough myself out of it. Got an education, made something of myself. Truth is… it’s still with me too. I hate that part of myself.
I look in the mirror and I see the face of my father made haggard by drugs and sickness. Though my face it a bit prettier, his features are there and I made sick looking by stress and anger and fatigue and the drug that is my ex.
I want to rip my face off I hate my father so much. I don’t think he ever abused me though there was emotional incest there. He was a dissappointment and embarrassment. I was happy when he died so I didn’t have to deal with him anymore.
He wasn’t a bad person, just a junkie who nodded out and drooled on himself and lost his teeth at like 42. That is my worst fear to lose my teeth.
Anyway, I look in the mirror and I am starting to see his face and I want to throw up. No matter how much makeup I put on or how I do my hair.
This is where the ex has brought me to. Or maybe it was always there – because when I looked at HIM I saw my father too. In his crooked teeth – his lack of taking care of himself, in his irresponsibility and never having any money. His nose looks like my fathers. I had a nose job so I wouldn’t look too much like him anymore, but I still have his high forehead.
Does this ever end? Say I should forgive my father and maybe my eyes will change and I won’t see him in my face or anyone else’s anymore? Is it that simple?