Several readers of Lovefraud have mentioned medical problems that arose in their lives with psychopaths. These readers are convinced that the psychological stress and pain of these relationships translated themselves into physical ailments. Some of these symptoms disappeared when the psychopath disappeared, some didn’t. Here are a few recent comments:
When I parted from him, physically I felt so raw and sore, I looked like I had been in a boxing ring. My health was poor and I couldnt even have the osteopath touch me, I said I felt like I had been stabbed all over. All though he never laid a finger on me, he gave me plenty of mental and emotional abuse.
I have a feeling its 2 years of being TIRED and worn to a pulp emotionally by his wordy games.
sleep loss is another big thing ive experienced since this s path during and after i still have trouble sometimes sleeping, like my mind will not shut off. and during being with the s apth i was trying to work out what the hell was going on and trying to work things ou in my head stopped me from sleeping well. which makes your head even more clouded.
Talking about physical consequences of being around bad stuff for seven years in my case, I don’t know if this applies but there is one thing that makes me think is the fact that my blood pressure got so much better. I used to have high blood pressure during the last four years with him. Since I left him for almost six months I don’t even need to take medication and I’m sleeping so much better these days.
Anytime we are trying to fix someone else, we are off track. I just work on me now. If I see someone other than me that needs work”¦ I feel TIRED. No can do!
Dr. Steve: I would so much appreciate a forthcoming post about physical consequences or PTSD of an association with a Sociopath. Nearly 5 months hence, and past the “why” and figuring out the “puzzle” (identifying him as a sociopath and doing intensive investigation/research as to who he really is and what he has done), there is still a lot of emotional pain
Have you noticed anything similar? How do you understand/make sense of this ‘translation’? Have you managed to deal with such an ailment or overcome it? How exactly
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In future posts I will write more on the interaction between experience, the mind, and the body. I will present some ideas of how/why it is that a interpersonal situation can have bad effects not only on one’s mind but on one’s body. Also, I will introduce some exciting research on what you can do to help repair the damage psychological distress mave have contributed to your body.
chANGE 06.it wasnt my birthday the day we got the pizza it was a week later. but i hear you . he did work while he lived with me held down a good job money wasnt his problem he is not like most s paths in this regard . he is still working and living alone paying his way i know this for a fact. when we split he lived with his mum for a while but complained cause he had no privacy but i know he meant i cant bring woman around and do what i want. i know i have to think aobut me, i am trying but its just this torture. one good thing happened to day which lifted my mood a bit. one of the dating sites im on a nice guy has replied to me and we chatted on the phone he seemed nice and he is moving to near where i live this weekend. so even if nothing happens he might be a nice freind to have and get my mind off the s path. i think its the not knowing what hes up to that gets me. so many of the people on here seem to know what there ex is doing but i have no clue, and he makes sure i dont. i just hope he feels empty really thats what i want i know he is hurting from the last girl dumping him, thats making him play up all the more. it does feel good to me to know she hurt him he deserves it.i ts like he is filling up a hole inside him with the sex and the manipulations but when he doesnt get what he wants or things dont go his way he becomes angry and wants to hurt people. does any one else see this in the s paths. i really want to meet someone nice settle down and have a baby thats what i want and what i always wanted, and i want to stick it to him and say see im happy and im loved, and hopefully he wont be. thanks for all advice and i know im not alone we are feeling the same stuff.
I am glad to hear you had your spirits lifted. Stop worried about not knowing what he is doing. No one on this site really knows what their ex’s are doing. They may no about them a bit but they dont know what they are up to….and never did and never will. Liars, Manipulators, Cheaters, Decietful, Coniving….REMEMBER.
And I dont think your guy is hurt at all over the other girl….it is all an act. That too is a lie. They dont feel hurt..ever. If it seems like they are hurt, loving, sweet it is all an ACT!! So, dont think about what he is doing and that he might be hurting or one day will be hurting…cause he wont!
Just think about how you were hurt from this..and still are. Do positive things for yourself and force yourself to do anything that will push anything about him out of your mind. It is torture but we have to build ourselves back up from this. Therefore, you will be truly open and ready for that person in which you will be happy, in love and have a family with.
Jules, I’m so sorry you’re struggling like this. I can certainly relate to all your troubles with the spath. I stupidly picked up my cell phone without looking at the number calling this weekend and spoke with mine very briefly. He asked how I was doing, and I brightly said, “Really great, and I hope you’re doing well, too. I can’t talk right now, but take care of yourself!” and hung up. I wish I hadn’t heard his voice at all because it makes me miss him more, but I seem to have driven him nuts. That extremely brief conversation started a flurry of messages from him by text. “I’m glad you’re doing well without me. It’s good to see I haven’t had a devastating effect on you,” was the first one. I ignored it because I knew he was trying to imply that I didn’t care by saying those things. He was trying to get a reaction. He then sent me another message. “Are you dating someone these days?” and I didn’t reply. A couple of hours later he sent another. “You must be seeing someone and don’t want him to know about me.” I thought to myself, no that would be the sort of thing YOU’D do, you would lie to someone about who you’re seeing. I don’t do that sorta thing. I’m alone. And being all alone beats the hell out of letting him hurt me over and over and over again. Being lonely to begin with made me vulnerable to his machinations, but it ROCKED in comparison to the suffering he put me through. If that’s love (and I know it isn’t), I’d much rather be lonely. He sent another message later saying, “It really hurts me to know that you care so little about what we had.” Still trying to get a reaction. A few hours later, another saying “I was so wrong about the type of caring person I thought you were.”
It’s so hard not to respond. It’s hard not to reassure him that he meant the entire world to me because I’m a good, caring person and he knows that I’ve always needed to do the right thing, to care, to see the best in everyone. It’s hard not to respond with an angry reaction that I am indeed VERY caring, but HE’S the one who failed. The thing is, he’s NOT going to get the response he wants so badly. If I say something back to him, the only thing he’ll understand is that he hooked me again. The only thing he’ll get is that he’s still got power over me. Well, he doesn’t. He has no more power over me. I keep saying it over and over to myself. I have power over myself. I have power over myself.
You know what dawned on me this weekend? A big part of the reason I fell for him wasn’t that I was so terribly in love, even. It was that I just plain didn’t want to be this spectacularly WRONG about someone. I stayed and was determined to make this thing work because I didn’t want to admit failure, and he preyed on that. I didn’t want to have to admit to friends and family who had warned me that I was as wrong as I could possibly have been about him. I felt stupid enough on my own, so I kept the whole show running in an effort to prove I was right. I tried to get him to prove I was right, too. A decent guy would have gone out of his way to prove that he was good and kind, but I let him put that burden of proof ON ME. I was the one who had to prove he was great instead of letting him fail in due time and just walking away. It was my own damned pride that tripped me up in the first place! So I’m trying to admit that I hosed this one up BADLY. I’m trying to deal with the notion that I was utterly and completely WRONG and learn from that mistake. Pride goeth before a fall, and hooboy did I fall on my ass with this one! HE FAILS. He fails at being a good person. I did my best, and if he were a decent human being, we could have had something beautiful, but he’s not. I made every effort, and I can take pride in being a love, caring person, but I can also admit when I am wrong, and I certainly was.
Don’t they say that the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem? Well, here I am. I’m admitting I have a problem with being wrong. I don’t like to be wrong. I’m a smart woman who is accustomed to being right most of the time. I had to let go of being RIGHT about this guy and deal with the fact that I’m human, too. I made some big mistakes. But you know what? I’d sure as hell rather be human than a monster like him.
Inspiration to all bloggers – and especially Jules last post:
“The best revenge is living well…”
notquitebroken: how right you are. Every fiber of my being wants to keep sending e-mails telling this jerk where to get off–that I understand his game and now I’m stronger and wiser. I won’t because, you’re right, that just gives them what they want. That gives them satisfaction. I am thinking back over the months and months of wasted words and emotions. I wanted to understand him, I wanted to believe all his lies, I wanted confirmation that I wasn’t wrong about him. How could a smart, wise woman be so wrong? How could I fall for his lies? I thought I was better than that. This has been humbling more than anything for me. Pride does goeth before a fall! Huge lesson learned! Thanks for your post.
WOW! notquitebroken so well said indeed! You hit the nail on the head and by the simple words of admitting you were wrong on this one!-GREAT I feel the same, it has been hard to except that I messed up, (well he did) but I couldn’t see the forest from the trees. And when you say HE FAILS at being a good person-Love it! You have captured such tremendous strength with not responding to his emails. I am not there yet, I think if he did send all the emails I would be hooked thinking he was trying to do right. It would be so easy for him! I can’t wait till I am were you are in healing. BRAVO
Oh notquitebroken: God they use these phrases like keyboard shortcuts don’t they? ‘you care so little about what we had.’ ACTOR! Who, who isn’t in a crap soap, uses language like that? (Oh I know – a sociopath!)
Good on you though for bringing out that sort of panicky obsessive irritation that seems for them to be the nearest they get to being hurt. Too bad you had to speak to him – but your response was perfect!
Gillian,
Thanks sweetheart – you made me feel like a million bucks..I read your post and it was like I wrote it..I have made all the same attempts to make him see reason, and it was a waste of my time too. My son feels the same apathy towards his father. As I read your post, I got three back to back calls from him…Answer them? I don’t even care what he has to say. He is no better than a telemarketer..trying to convince me to buy something I don’t want.
I think we have comparable stories – same amount of time invested, hoping for the best for our children’s’ sake, and this was the man I loved with all my heart at one time. I gave him Chance after chance….
I am moving out of state and FINALLY buying a home after my son graduates high-school and to be near my best friend and her family. My son will go to the local university and I will have a house to fix up, a new business, and all of the things to keep me busy that my current local culture can’t offer me…(cost of living is a killer here). When I leave the state, there will be no contact – AT ALL. Back Child support will be ‘either he pays or doesn’t pay’ The DAs office will be monitoring that. I will be done on any level – trying to prove he is a liar under any circumstance. He will have the same value to me as the boy I dated before him. No interest, no concern.
I have healed so much – but still feel the wound. “phantom pain” But it gets easier every time I don’t get sucked into his games. I feel more powerful everyday, like I am coming out of the fog.
not quiet brkn: thank you and i have the same experience. sometimes i feel stronger than others. he used to contact me like that too panicking mostly if something went wrong for him like he got dumped or something. but not so much now he rarely calls. yeh it s the lonlines that makes me feel vulnerable. and i was like you too i thought i had picked this great guy and it s hard to accept we were wrong but i know i was. i was talking to a girl at work today and she has trouble with her ex hubby he sounds like a s path and hes playing games using her kids to manipulate and hurt her. his new wife is also in on it i felt so sorry and thought thank god i have no kids with s path ex. i actually found it helpful listening to her and i gave her advice . its helping me too though. i am learning about the nature of these beasts and i think that is why mine ex leaves me alone more now cause i know what hes like and what its all about the chalenge of fooling me isnt there so hes doing this to other girls he can hoodwink. what you said in that phone call was great i love it. i should b e more like you instead of giving in on a weak moment of lonliness. one good thing when he sent the message saying we ll get to gether another time, i did not send a reply i just left it . so now i hope that gets him going a bit nuts too. i ts like i think now hes got me on stand by for when the other girls dont take his bait or figure out somethings not right. then he calls me and puts on the charm. once he rang me at work after not hearing from him for ages and hes like hi baby, as if we were still together. but i was seeing someone else. i was like who is this, he didnt like that i acted like i didnt know who it was. and yes mine too lies about seeing people. i feel like we are all connected having this stuff go on in our life, you guys help me so much. righteous woman: i totally relate to your living situation where i live is very expensive area and i would like to take time to heal and have a bit more balance in my life but i have to work so hard to live here i cant i just have to keep going to work even when i feel so bad some days. my parents live in this area too so i want to be near them but its getting hard financially. also the s path lives not far away too .good on you for moving away. every day is a struggle in more than one way for me at the moment. but the people i work with are nice and we have a laugh it takes my mind off things.which is good i guess. not quiet broken; i think your s path is very like my ex he even says the. same things. when mine calls out of the blue he says that all innocent, hey how are you doing. like he really cares., not. …………. feel free to coment and thanks for what you wrote .
It wasn’t too long ago that I finally figured out that my physical ailments and mental breakdown has been caused by my sociopathic sister and her daughter.
For that last 2 years I have been trying to find my way back to my life and it has been so painful to realize all that I have lost because of them. I lost my friends, my job, my self respect, my dignity as my niece campaigned against me in such vicous ways that without a full on Supreme court declaration that everything she says is a lie on top of a lie it will be nearly impossible for me to regain any respect from anyone.
They are so good at what they do that it is a fruitless if not dangerous endeavor to even attempt to defend yourself.
I think that if I had been married with someone who could point all this out to me they wouldn’t have been able to take over my life and destroy me as they have. I was defenseless against them, I had no one to support me and still don’t. I have to rely on me and me alone.
Within 2 years of moving my niece, her brother and my mother (a possible sociopath herself) into my home and doing what I thought was the right thing to do, my physical well being went down the tubes. It first started in my neck and then found it’s way to my lower back, I was literally having my life sucked right out from under me. It got to the point of barely being able to move, the pain was so severe that I could no longer work, I couldn’t do anything except sleep or lay down.
Depression and pain replaced my joy and happiness, isolation replaced activity. I have barely left my house in 7 years I have become the physical representation of their craziness.
The mind games never stop, I have had to force myself to say NO, to stop them from coming to my home (where my nephew still lives with me) to not see them. There is a new life now and my sister has moved onto this little fella…she will ruin every birthday,every Christmas, every holiday no matter what. OH that’s right he just had his 1 year birthday and she ruined it right on cue.
I am planning on moving as soon as possible as distance is the only answer, I can’t wait till my nephew graduates from high school, I will be packed and ready to go. He has his mother’s tendancies, only he is so bright and truly wants to change…don’t know if he will succeed, I sure hope so as he has so much to offer this world.
My life has been irreparably damaged, how I allowed my sister to ruin my life is beyond me. I am an educated woman who had so much going for her and now all I can do is pick up the pieces of my broken life and find some peace somewhere far far away from her. I stopped loving her years ago, I suppose there was some sympathy masquerading as Love due to our horrible unbringing. But I suddenly realized one day that I too was brought up in the same lousy house with the same lousy parent’s she was and I manged to make something of myself and there was no reason she couldn’t as well.
I hate them all, my whole family for expecting so much of me for allowing my niece to bad mouth me and doing nothing to stop it. For not seeing that asking me to take them all in and solve their problems as if I was their mother and father or as if I was responsible for them was TOO MUCH to ask. I hate them for taking advantage of my good nature, for jading me against Love in general, for stealing my joy, my happiness, my diginty, my respect, my job, my friends.
I am making plans to remove each and everyone of them from my life, they won’t know what hit them. I fantasize everyday about how my life will be and right now I’m pretty darn sure it’s going to be great.