Saturday night, the Lovefraud reader “rriinnaa” posted the following under Heeding the Exploiter’s Earliest Warning:
I cant stop crying .. and I dont know what Im crying over ! Im crying over the happy-go-lucky joyful loving warm Rina.. the woman I once was .. THAT I POSSIBLY won’t be again ”¦. i want to be held and rocked until this pain goes away, but i have to work, i have to pay bills,i have to bring up my children ”¦ all the PROMISES HE MADE TO ME, “when you cry Rina, I will cry with you” ”¦.. “I would die for you Rina—¦. “such simple things make you happy Rina”.. “Rina, you are the light in my life—¦ “Rina, you are strong and I believe in you” .. AND AND AND AND AND AND AND .. oh my god AND I BELIEVED EVERYTHING HE EVER SAID TO ME”¦ I believed him .. he hated me because I was strong and he did everything in his power to crush that.. he didnt have that sense of fun, that wacky sense of humour, that friendliness that everyone fell in love with THAT WAS ME, THAT WAS THE GIRL HE MET”¦. and I have lost that girl i once was.. i want it back, i want to live and laugh and be happy .. he has turned me into his apprentice monster ”¦ oh my god !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TELL ME THERE IS KARMA.. TELL ME HE WILL HURT ONE DAY PLEASE TELL ME THAT HE FEELS .. yeah right ”¦”¦”¦I still can’t get it in my head THAT HE IS A SICK SOCIOPATH.. I STILL CANT BELIEVE I FELL IN LOVE WITH THAT THING ! IM GOING CRAZY .. i cant get my head around it .. i saw a psychologist.. it was the worst thing i could have done last week ..IS THERE A GROUP MEETING WHERE I CAN TALK TO REAL PEOPLE IN MELBOURNE ABOUT THIS MONSTER ????? can someone guide me to somewhere, someone that understands what I am going through ????????????????????
i am sorry”¦ i am ranting”¦. maybe i have finally gone over the edge ? nooooooo NO NO .. i never will. I will find the strength.. .again .. im up and down and my kids are suffering.. as much as I try to hide it ”¦”¦. they feel it, they see it and I HATE HIM FOR DOING THIS TO ME I HATE HIM ..
I remember feeling like this. In fact, when I read Rina’s message, I got that old tightening in my chest, that inability to breathe, that constantly-on-the-verge-of-tears feeling again.
I remember the rage, the hatred, the utter despair.
They’re normal reactions to the betrayal of a sociopath.
Why it’s so bad
We’ve all had romantic relationships end before. Why the end of a relationship with a sociopath so much worse?
First of all, the scale of the deception is beyond what most of us have ever experienced. These people don’t just lie about where they were last night. Their entire lives are lies—everything they ever did, every human relationship they ever had. In my case, as I started to unravel what was really going on, each day brought another fabrication, another betrayal. Recently, nine years after I left my sociopathic ex-husband, I discovered yet another lie. It never ends.
Then, the degree to which we were used is unbelievable. My ex-husband wanted a place to live, reliable sex and someone to finance his dreams of grandeur. All his love notes, his little gifts, and his forever promises, were designed to make me provide those things. It worked. Then, two and a half years later when I was used up, he moved on.
But perhaps the biggest reason why it’s so bad is because sociopaths steal our dreams and use them against us. In those heady early days of the relationship, as the sociopaths listen intently, we’re spilling our guts, telling them what we really want, what is really important to us, what we want out of life. We think they’re listening because they truly want everything that we want. In reality, they’re listening to discover the deepest places within us where they can set their hooks.
Sooner or later, it all collapses.
At that point, we lose our trust—trust in other people, trust in ourselves, trust if life itself. And as Karin Huffer writes in the Legal Abuse Syndrome, “the most profound loss is loss of trust.”
Dealing with the pain
We’re left with the emotional wreckage—along with very real problems like physical illness and injury, financial devastation, caring for children and legal issues. And all of it was caused by someone who supposedly loved us. What do we do?
The only way out of the pain is through it.
People often call and ask me how to cope. I suggest that you hold yourself together while dealing with the practical, financial and legal issues. Somehow, you have to keep your emotions in check so you can think and make decisions.
But after those concerns are handled, and you are alone, let it rip. Allow yourself to cry, yell and curse. Get physical—stomp your feet or twist towels. My personal favorite was envisioning my ex-husband’s face on a pillow, and punching the crap out of it. (For more information, read Releasing the pain inflicted by a sociopath.)
Why do we need to do this? Because emotions are physical. They are not intellectual concepts that will dissipate upon discussion. They are physical sensations, and must be dealt with physically. The tears, yelling and punching are the means by which the emotional pain is drained from the body.
What you’ll find is that there are layers and layers of pain—you’ll release some, and more will rise to the surface. So you do the exercise again. And again. And again.
Older, deeper pains
Then what you’ll find is that older pains—injuries not inflicted by the sociopath—will also rise to the surface. Perhaps they were injuries from your family of origin, or other relationships, or profound disappointments in your life.
When you find these pains, you have struck gold. These are the pains that made you vulnerable to the sociopath in the first place. They too, must be released. When they are no longer buried within you, you will be able to move into a new life of peace, contentment and happiness.
It’s hard to believe this when you are in the midst of the trauma. But it is true—you can pass through the pain and come out the other side. The process is not pretty. A therapist, if you can find one who gets it, may be able to guide you, but you alone must do the work. And it will take time.
Many of us on Lovefraud have talked about how we’ve become stronger, wiser individuals after our run-ins with the sociopaths. This is how it happens. We persevere through the pain, and then we are set free.
Hey Gang. This is a place i can journal, I can reflect, a place to bleed. I find comfort here so please allow me—Last nite I went for a drive to a far away secluded place. I sat their in my truck for hour’s in despair, ridden with anxiety and pain. Talkin to myself, listening to music and drinking some beers. Alot of beer’s. Was a beautful moonlit nite. I felt like nothing was getting resolved and I should just go home. That’s when it started, thats when I started screaming on top of this hill, screaming and crying, snot and slobbers and all. I screamed at god and asked WHY screamed at my dead father and asked him Why, why did you say that too me? I screamed at my dead sister and asked her for forgiveness that their was nothing I could do for her, I told her I now understand why you took your life at 48 years of age. I screamed at the (P), how could you do that to anyone??WHY WHY I screamed at my mother WHY? why did you always put yourself and your needs first? WHY, my (N) mother would beat my sister when my father molested her, my poor sister, she lived a tormented life and there is no way my pain can compare too her’s. I cryed and screamed for some answers. I dont have any, boundaries? what are boundaries? authentic part’s of my self? what are they? I don’t want to be me, I don’t want to be gay. The only conclusion I could find, is I join my sister, or like humpty dumpty (I) have to pick up the peices of a tormented dysfunctional life and start from scratch and put myself together. I can’t give up, I don’t want too, I want to live why some confidence and courage and happiness. I need to take the time needed to invest in me. I am so tired of analyzing this and that, I just simply will not be (prey) for anybody ever again…..
Dear Henry,
From reading your post I could almost “hear” your pain and anguish as you screamed. YOu’ve had a lot of pain and witnessed a lot of pain and dysfunction. You’ve joined the “right club”—many of us here have had painful childhoods too, with N or P parents, siblings, X husbands/wives, P-children, or all of the above.
But, you know, I think I can say that I know more of the feelings of these bloggers than their closest friends might know, because I am “a screen name” they can be honest with me, and I with them, we don’t have to worry about holding back or being ashamed to talk about it. You “know’ me pretty well too, because I am totally open and honest here.
You’ve had a bad time with the recent Psychopath, but my best guess is that the past relationships with Ns and Ps has made you vulnerable all the way from chldhood. I can testify that was my case at least.
Sometimes as we start to heal from the trauma of the P-experience all these past traumas rear their ugly heads and we have to deal with them too. The GOOD part of that Henry is that they CAN be dealt with, put aside for the new YOU, the new-and-improved and content and happy Henry. Burying all these past traumas doesn’t get rid of them, they just lie there and continue to “stink” until we clean them up.
They are painful to acknowledge and painful to deal with. It is kind of like lancing a boil. It hurts, but until you drain all the nastiness out, it will never get well, it will continue to get worse, and if you dont’ do something about it eventually, it will make you spetic and you die.
This is gross, but one way I look at it is if you had a cat that crapped in the floor and you just covered it up each time and the pile got higher and higer and one day I came over and said, “You know Henry your place would smell a lot better if you cleaned up the cat crap” and you looked at me in wonder and said, “What cat crap? I don’t have a cat”
We have to acknowledge that there is crap in our lives, that stinks to high heaven and we have to clean it up before we can really totally move on. First we have to acknowledge that we have a cat, and throw the nasty thing out the door. (No Contact with the Ps) then, we have to sit down and start to clean up the mess, one layer at a time.
You’ve already done the hard part, you threw the P out, and you are NO contact, you didn’t let him back in. You recognized that he is BAD for you, does not care about you.
Henry, please don’t ever consider taking your sister’s way out. It doesn’t solve the problem. Even from reading your posts several of us have commented about what a caring person you seem to be. Henry, you are worthy, you can love. You have loved. You have children and grandchildren.
Heck, Henry, I’m 61 years old–75% of my life is over, and I am just NOW learning to live and love myself, to really set boundaries, to throw the Ps all out the door, to quit enabling people to quit allowing people to use me, to disrespect me. If I can do it at my age, surely you can! You would not believe some of my early posts, the ranting, the screaming, the crying. It seems eons ago but was only a few months.
Henry I am finally putting into practice what I’ve known a long time. I was in INFORMED DENIAL as Aloha says. I knew but didn’t do what I knew to do.
Also, Henry, when you drink, please don’t drive, that’s the last thing you need right now is to go to jail or hurt yourself or someone else. TAke care of yourself, be good to yourself, and I promise you the work is worth it when you start to let go of the pain. Hang on! ((hugs)))
ps Don’t give up on God, either. He loves you Henry!
Henry,
Congratulations. The yelling and crying are the type of release that I talked about in the original post – you’re getting at the pain of your past that was under the pain of the psychopath.
You may need to do it again. And again. To drain away the negative energy trapped within you. If you feel it coming on, allow yourself to express the pain, as long as you can do it safely. (Please heed OxDrover’s advice about not drinking and driving.)
The process may take some time. But when the pain is gone, you’ll feel so much lighter, and you’ll be able to move forward.
And so it is.
Henry-
You are coming through a huge life lesson. Don’t fail it. I hear in what you wrote a lot of realizations. That’s HOPE, you have EYES that SEE now.
Hang on Henry. Please. I think the best act you take now is to go help someone who really needs it. No one needs you to hurt yourself or others.
NO MORE DRINKING AND DRIVING. Stop wasting your money. life and time on numbing. I am not saying this will be easy–but first steps. Get a counselor, pray ( I am praying for you) and do good things for you and others. Be happy for your sister- live life for her.
Henry you are a survivor like the rest of us, don’t let us down.
Oh Henry,
I do hear you.I know where you are. How much evil exists with these vampires ? I wish I could sit with you and hold your hand and cry with you. I wish we could all be together, what a beautiful bunch of people are here for us. FOR YOU.
When I read the posts on here I feel a sense of calm and warmth. NOBODY else can understand us. We are alone and lonely in our real worlds.. but we are all here for you, for each other.
I find so much peace, guidance and understanding. Its sometimes hard to click on the close button and get off this page… I just want to keep reading and keep reading.
Thats what you have to do, like me.. constantly remind ourselves ITS NOT US. WE DID THE BEST WE COULD . WE CAN’T TEACH THEM ANYTHING. They are the lost souls and we are healing. Slowly second by second, minute by minute, day by day.
Why isnt there more awareness of these vampires??? Why isnt there more on the media ?? WE HEAR about schizophrenia? psychotics ? SOMETHING SHOULD BE DONE with these sick people. They are worse than murderers!! at least we acknowledge these people.
Sociopaths, Psychopaths…. the only ones we hear about are those that do the worst possible thing – like kill someone in cold blood, yet we are almost destroyed in the worst possible ways without public acknowledgement.
Henry – PLEASE – do not give in to this cruel monster – DO NOT – you are nothing to them I KNOW THAT. But to us, we ARE EVERYTHING. I am sending all my love and warmth and hugs and anything else to you that will soothe you.
Oh my god……………..lets get ourselves back .. lets laugh and take life by the horns and get back to our beautiful REAL selves that we were before meeting the “monster”..
thinking of you ……ironically I have to thank you for occupying my head instead of the other shit that has invaded me over the last how many years. To hell with them.
LIVE HENRY… LIVE IT… one chance…
((((((hugs))))))))
RINA X
Dear Rina and others,
I am really feeling for you and your positiveness is so encouraging.
I posted for the first time a week ago after finding about this site months ago nd have been so very interested in the various posts as I have been pretty well dealing with my nightmare on my own after she was sent to prison three months ago. The last fews posts have really hit home, hence this post.
I am now starting to learn so much – I am not guilty, it was not my fault, I dont deserve to be abused, I have a right to be happy and so much more.
This site and particular this post has been so enlightening and encouraging to deal with the hurt, anger, distress and emotional damage that she has deliberately caused me.
Yes thats right it was a her…most posts relate to “him” being the monster but in my case it was “her” which I understand is rather rare but I got one!! My counseller was very smart and picked it up very quickly and said – go online and type in Sociopath and learn. What a wonderful piece if advice and wisdom and I have learned so much as I has starting to lose it big time with the emotional and financial damage that has so nearly destroyed me.
Yet unlike most cases posted here I have been a bit lucky – she is in jail and I now have the ultimate control – contact ot not and she cant run away from her deeds. I have been in contact through visits with her in jail – to try and truly understand what happened, how could she do all these terrible things to me, or maybe it was just me etc. As these visits have evolved I have learned more each day about myself which has been both postive but also frightening to me in learning about her behavioral destruction and the irrationality of her thinking.
My counseller said to me “one thing is for sure..you are certainly not a sociopath as you shouldnt be feeling guilty for leaving her after what she has done to you and if you take her back she will destroy you” Good simple advice even though hard to accept.
In regards no contact – I totally agree with several wise posts here. My case is so unusual in that I am a male victim and that she is in jail so I can chose to have contact or not. Two weekend ago I got so angry, upset and distressed about all the events that I refused to visit her. She totally changed into being sorry, expressed sincere remorse and pretty well begged me to visit – I refused and I feel so much better for it too. This happened a few weeks ago an since then I have been backing off what was regular visits and my my what a change – I now get some answers to my questions as to her previous crimes that lead to her being jailed (I pretty well only found out about the cases the night before she was jailed – so how gullible am I??) but moreso I dont believe her explanations – she is an expert liar and has been for years. Even two days ago on the last visit when I told her the we are finished and it was closure, she was talking about coming back home, being together again and making love etc which she has denied me for years. Why? She felt bad about stealing money from my company while she made love so she rejected my advances!! I would have much rather enjoyed the sex, intimacy an loving affection rather than cruelly being denied it, even if I was being screwed!!
How cold and calculating!! How dumb am I? How can anybody then say “I love you” Its absolutely mind boggling as her thought processes are.
I am now moving on with my life and never want to be hurt again, ever. I honestly dont think I will ever find out the answers as to why she did this and I can now handle that reality.Can I love again? I think so and do so want to after such devastation but I now know that I have to pass through the pain, let the wound heal and forever know that I will have a scar. To deny that is too simplistic. A scar for life but like all scars they fade and dont hurt anymore after a while. A friend calls it a “personal discovery tour”…what do I want, who am I, where do I want my life to lead, what can I do to help others and so much more. I do not havea single day when the pain and hurt comes back to me but the scar is fading slowly although the anger is still there. Its all ok but just tough sometimes especially on my own.
Sorry for the outpouring but I feel better now.
One more point made by Rina – why isnt society more aware of sociopathic people – they are more common that everybody is even aware and are much more dangerous that anybody can imagine. The absence on concience is frightening and so destructive that its scary. I have learned, maybe too late but I thank my counseller so much for the wonderful advice and introduction to a very dark side of human mentality. May I never have to experience it again.
Thank you all, your wisdom is appreciated more than you can imagine.
Dear Rev08,
I am so sorry about your “initiation” into our “club”–but glad that you found a counselor who “gets it” and “got it!”
I’m also glad that you got some legal justice out of the situation. I love her excuse of why she wouldn’t have sex with you–because she felt guilty about stealing money from your company! Hey, that’s a GOOD ONE!!!! LOL
My son C’s wife DID have sex with him the night before she planned to kill him—so he wouldn’t suspect that she wasn’t really going to “go to counseling and work out the marriage” after he discovered her affair with a Hep C-positive pedophile ex-con. Yea, they can use ANYTHING as an “excuse” for what they do.
She wrote letters of “sincere apology” to the church, her husband, etc from her jail cell, but at the same time she wrote a letter to her daughter (which I saw) blaming her actions on others, justifying her behavior (theft, adultry, atempted murder) and reminding her daughter what a “nasty piece of work” I was–yep, that’s me! Because I had the woman pegged from the get-go as deceptive—I just didn’t realize HOW deceptive or to what lengths she would go.
I killed a poison snake the other day by pinning its head down to the ground and crushing it with a garden hoe. While I was doing that, the tail was writhing, literally tied itself in a knot. To me it is a GOOD EXAMPLE of what happens when you pin a Psychopath’s head to the “ground” with justice…they writhe and twist and tie themselves in knots trying to get free of the constriction so they can get ONE MORE CHANCE to bite you, to poison you.
I didn’t hate that snake any more than I hate the king snake that I know lives in my barn, which I don’t harm because Iknow it won’t bite me if I do’t pick it up, and even if it did, it would be a minor pain and no injury. The poison snake also eats rats and mice, but the difference is that it has the potential to injure me living this close to my habitat, it will hide and strike at me when I least expect it. It will strike at my little dog which is afraid of nothing and thinks himself “bullet proof” and most likely kill the dog if it bites it.
I don’t hate the poison snake, I am not even angry at it for being a poison snake, I just KNOW WHAT IT IS, and the POTENTIAL FOR HARM it has for me. The same with the psychopaths, I want them out of my habitat.
Good luck to you Rev08, and peace and healing. I’m glad that you got some legal justice, many of us here never get that on this earth. Just keep in mind that she just IS a psychopath and she behaved like one, just like the poison snake is a poison snake and it will behave like one. I know that’s not a lot of consolation when you’ve “been bitten” but at least you were able to cut its head off before it got away after the bite. You don’t have to worry that it is “still out there” by your door step.
Dear Henry, Follow your instincts to express and let go of all that emotion from your past and your family – that possibily laid down the foundation of meeting a partner with personality disorder. It is a double whammy though, I remember wondering why I was feeling such intense emotional pain from the well of my being, and then I made the connection to my Narcissistic father who abandoned me, my ex partner did that too – so I was experiencing the same pain but intensely magnified. These experiences are sent to cleanse us, if and when we transmute the anger to see them for what they are. As everyone is telling you, hang in there, it is difficult but it is for your better self. Your sister’s path is not your path and hence probably why you have come here in order to NOT bear your pain alone, like she may have done. Perhaps not trying to sort out everything in one go is less draining.
I can testify to that, this time last year, I looked like I was on my ‘last legs’, I had been bled dry, my whole body was in psychic torture. Today I am radiant and look a picture of health – thanks to all the support I have received and this has really strengthened my connection to humanity. (((hugs)))
PS to REV08,
I have a P-son in prison, and even from his prison cell, he tried to have me killed and sent his “Trojan Horse Psychopathic friend to infiltrate our family to find the opportunity to kill me. So, just because they are behind bars doesn’t mean that they aren’t still dangerous.
After the entire “scheme” blew up in the face of the Trojan Horse and My DAughter-in-law, that he had recruited and was having an affair with—when they tried to kill my other son C, her husband, when he discovered the affiar, stole money from my elderly mother ($24,000)–but the attempted murder got them arrested. DIL is out now, on five years probation and TH-P is still in prison—but I have NO doubt that he is scheming and my P-son is scheming to do me dirt if they can as “revenge” for me not allowing them to kill me. DUH!
I suggest that the worst punishment your P can have is NO contact, and the best DEFENSE you have is NO CONTACT. After our family quit writing to and sending money to my P-son in prison, I wish you could have read the pitiful letters he wrote pleading with my mother to write him, to let him explain, to forgive him, PUKE. We also read the letters he wrote to his “friend” directing him how to infiltrate our family and carry out the plot. So it is ALL a LIE, THEY ARE THE LIE.
Good luck.
Dear OxDrover,
Thank you for your welcome but I wish I wasnt part of the club! lol
Your support and advice is appreciated and the PS re no contact even if she is behind bars in jail is so true as she is still very dangerous like the trapped poison snake, with its tail twisting and writing as it is caught and pinned down. I really got that one.
Like your P-son in prison, I too have the “pity” “poor me” “please forgive me” “I love you” letters – they are so convincing and manipluative that you really have to take a reality check when you read them. Its also interesting how the letters now with you analogy resembles the snakes tail, twists and turns, quiet then whipping around trying to escape, promises not to bite again etc – I love it, well done. 🙂
After months of reading posts on this site and finally posting myself, I have learnt that you are a truly wonderful caring person and you have my greatest respect. Thank you