Well, let me say it outright: Donna Andersen’s latest book, Red Flags of Love Fraud, is hands-down the best book I’ve ever read on the subject of who sociopaths are, everything you need to know about them, and everything you need to know to reduce your risk of being violated by them.
What a riveting book this is. I had a seriously hard putting it down, and never did for long. Andersen intermixes comprehensive information about every aspect of the sociopath’s tendencies and modus operandi, with countless fascinating, concise case examples of sociopaths exhibiting their behaviors—that is, showing exactly what they look like—and how their victims experience their transgressions.
At the heart of this fantastic book are Andersen’s ten “red flag” signs that you are involved with a sociopath. The signs she identifies are spot-on, and explained and developed with her usual unmatched clarity and captivating narrative skills.
It’s no exaggeration, nor is it grandiose, to say that reading this book will make of you an “expert” about sociopaths—it’s really that comprehensively informative. But again, the book’s greater accomplishment is to arm you with every applicable tool and insight available to identify the sociopath and jettison him or her from your life, before he or she upends yours.
By now we know that Donna Andersen knows sociopaths as intimately and completely as anyone out there; my personal view is that she writes about them, and educates about them, as she does in this, her newest, spellbinding book, like no one out there.
Skylar,
I too read Peck’s book long ago. However, I only read it because I had read The Road Less Traveled and liked that book. People of the Lie was a totally different book. I think I was fascinated by the information, but it did not speak to me clearly on a deep level. I found the chapter on exorcism to be a bit off-putting and far-fetched — and scary. Hard to believe. I was a little too young to be very aware of Vietnam, so the chapter about My Lai also didn’t really speak to me in a terribly enlightening way. I’m not saying I didn’t believe it, but it came to me at a safe distance, kind of like learning about the Holocaust, which seems believable and real but at a safe distance. Not a here and now thing, in other words. (more denial) I found the descriptions of his therapeutic clients to be chilling but I didn’t really “get” the part about the “nice mask” of evil. Maybe I would have, if it had been made into a movie. (??)
But I kept the book on my shelf all these years, and dusted it off recently, and I found that I get completely different things out of it now. I think it is a really insightful book, spot on. But I couldn’t comprehend it 25 years or so ago, when I read it.
I, too, had the experience of believing I would RECOGNIZE evil, that it would have horns and a tail, a forked tongue and carrying a pitchfork — if ever I should run across it. But I thought for many years that evil was a rare thing and that I hadn’t encountered it. I didn’t know that I should be looking at the smiling, nice boyfriends with suspicion.
(I know there is more to it than that — the next book must be something about how some of the red flags of lovefraud can also be a sign that you have met someone wonderful and trustworthy — and how to tell the difference. I haven’t figured that one out yet! How to discern between the wolf in sheep’s clothing and the fluffy, sweet little sheep.)
I’m not sure how that message could have been put across to me, so that I could have heard it. I was buried under very many layers of denial about what evil is, does and looks like.
I’m beginning to think that life itself is a sort of set-up, you know?
20 years, I am the QUEEN OF DENIAL! Actually, I think my egg donor is the QUEEN, and I was just the PRINCESS of denial for most of my 65 years. I read People of the Lie, and I read Without Conscience and The Sociopath Next door and I STILL was in denial about a LOT OF THINGS. I was still the perfect volunteer victim. Anytime someone wanted or needed a victim, I VOLUNTEERED!
When I started to get healthy the “sheet hit the fan” and me setting boundaries threw the entire social and emotional system off kilter and the other members of the “circle” started to ramp up to keep the STATUS QUO of denial going. Eventually devaluing and discarding me when I refused to go back to being what I had been.
Denial keeps everything on an even keel and people know what to expect. It may not be nice, but it is what we KNOW and the devil that we know is better than the devil we don’t know. Well, in toxic relationships and circles it is, but not in healthy ones. So when we start to get healthy they get worse. Only NO contact with them works. It keeps us from getting slimed and sucked back into the toxic relationships and ways of living.
I hope that Donna’s book does raise awareness with people in denial, but it may not be something they would read, or get if they read. Denial is like ROSE COLORED GLASSES.
I had a therapist tell me once I had the thickest rose colored glasses she had ever seen and I remember her telling me that, but I DIDN’T GET IT. She was right though. I wish I could find her and tell her she was SO RIGHT.
20years,
yeah life is a set up and our parents are the ones who set us up.
😥
Oxy,
Yeah, maybe we need another book called:
Denial: The red flags of love fraud and why you’re too stupid to see them!
LOL! MAYBE that’s the book what would have spoken volumes to me. who knows? I really LIKED my thick rose colored glasses.
20 years I think that idea that we can recognize the predator (evil) by what it looks like is what keeps us thinking the world is safe. Actually the predators do not have forked tails and horns but FORKED TONGUES like the serpent in the Garden of Eden…they are slick and convince you that bad is good, and white is black, and up is down….and when we fall for it, WE fall. And they LAUGH! And walk away while we lie on the ground sobbing with broken hearts.
Sky we posted over each other, but yea, you are right, the world looked pretty safe and nice in those days….like even Patrick was going to be fine. LOL ROTFLMAO Yea, just like my sperm donor was gonna find Jesus. NOT!
Oxy,
yep, and my parents loved me. right…!
And my brother is misunderstood, so he kills kittens.
*sigh*
Oh! Oh! Oh! I just remembered something. This is probably not foolproof, but looking back I remember I asked this question of many of my wicked (evil) boyfriends, and they responded with a very clear “tell” but I was TOO DUMB TO GET IT!!!
Here’s the question I asked them (early in our dating — while in the getting-to-know-you, “what kind of music do you like?” phase):
“what’s the worst thing you ever did?”
And by golly, ALL of them came up with a Very Bad Story and told it with relish (a gleam in their eye). Not with remorse. Not with any sign of working through it. But as a Definitely Bad-Ass, Bad Boy story. Horrible wickedness, debauchery, trickery. (YESSSS, and I mean in the midst of their otherwise love-bombing, mask of niceness, they TOLD the TRUTH and I just let it pass! Jeez….)
So…. hmmm…. maybe this is a spath test that would be useful to people?
(no charge for that LOL)
20years,
mine had tons of those stories. one was how he stole a speedboat from the dock on a lake, then he rigged it up to go full throttle into another dock across the lake and explode!
He said the owner deserved it… for having the boat in the first place. gosh. I wish I’d had a brain.
But the way he tells it, you would swear he’s a hero. It’s weird.
I think denial and awareness are the 2 main keys to it all. But, becoming and remaining aware of our denial is very hard. Yet, gotta do it.