By Fannie LeFlore, MS,LPC
Since she founded Lovefraud.com in 2005, Donna Andersen has heard heartbreaking and horrendous stories from people across the globe who’ve been victimized by sociopaths. Her new book does what we’d hope parents and schools do on a routine basis: Better prepare people for the complexities of real-life relationships and social interactions, whether business, romantic, family or friends. This requires, as uneasy as it may make us feel, acknowledging that some human beings simply are not interested in being decent, but actually seek to cause harm to others as a way of life.
Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 Signs You’re Dating a Sociopath, released in Spring 2012 by Andersen’s publishing company in New Jersey, goes where few books go in calling interpersonal abuse the evil it really is, and is backed up by Andersen’s extensive research combined with the depth of personal knowledge from having experienced a sociopathic ex-partner, first-hand. The book’s examples from diverse people who completed Lovefraud.com surveys explore the human degradation, pain, confusion and loss caused by exploitation, deceit and manipulation within personal relationships. The stories of those victimized by sociopaths show just how far people can go in attempting to destroy the lives of others, often on multiple levels, far beyond the norm of what we think when defining dysfunctional relationships.
As hard a pill for many to swallow, Andersen makes it clear that extricating oneself from a relationship with a sociopath is the only path to recovery and healing, despite how tempting it can be to buy into fairy tales that love can help anyone grow and change for the better. As many who’ve suffered severe harm know all too well, this kind of hope may not be based in reality, since not all people are willing to honestly face and work on their issues. Less known is how false hope can also disable those who are victimized, clouding their thinking and preventing them from becoming clear about the need to let go of a damaging relationship and take responsibility for taking care of themselves.
That’s also why, as a mental health professional, I appreciate Andersen venturing into brave new territory by issuing a clear challenge to the mental health establishment to make sociopathy fully known as the serious personality disorder it is. Sociopathy reflects a deep level of moral insanity that is most evident among those who focus primarily on controlling others, beyond reason, without regard for consequences, without regard for reality.
For every sociopath out there, multiple lives are at risk physically, mentally and spiritually in large part because the general public has a Hollywood-sanitized perspective, with misleading stereotypes and sound-bites that provide only surface awareness of sociopaths.
Andersen’s book offers far more than mainstream media provides, in very clear language and terms that demonstrate visceral understanding of the depth of depravity among the human predators who are hard to identify simply because they look like the rest of us.
Fannie LeFlore, MS,LPC, is a psychotherapist who served as editor of “The Road Less Traveled and Beyond,” by the late M. Scott Peck, MD. Contact: fannie@leflorecommunications.com.
Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 signs you’re dating a sociopath is available now exclusively in the Lovefraud Store.
BBE,
I liked your anology… I see a set of waves (that get your surf ass kicked) peaking.
Do want to note that there is evidence that the “men tend to do better in math and women on the verbal level” may be a cultural result. There are tribes where this finding is not true… not coincidentally those are cultures where women are more trained in mathemathical thinking than the men, because of the tasks they are expected to do in those cultures (such as architecture). Hence these women in those cultures have overall the brain of an engineer rather than a linguist.
darwinsmom;
I agree this topic has been well-debated but the strongest evidence of a non-cultural bias is that despite more girls now taking SATs than boys, there are more than 2 times as many boys scoring a perfect 800 in math and when adjusted for numbers, there are nearly three times as many boys.
One would think that cultural bias would be neutral at this extreme end…
I don’t know if this has been suggested elsewhere, but in case it hasn’t, if you can afford it, buy both of Donna’s books and donate them to a library that loans out to other libraries.
In my state, the public libraries are linked together. I can access this catalogue and borrow a book from any library in the system. It will be routed to my town library and I’ll get an email telling me that I can pick it up.
Another benefit of doing this is the search will bring up topics and other books dealing with this subject.
It’s one way to get the word out and help it to spread.
G1S I am not sure if you are aware of it or not, but be careful which library you donate do as many of them will “discard” books or take them and put them directly into the discard pile that they have sales of.
Make sure that there is little likelyhood they will discard it. I donated a large library of reference books to a library that discards heavily. I won’t make that mistake again. (and yes, I realize that they can’t keep every book in the world, but some discard more heavily than others.)
I forgot, the guy I dated after the x-spath is borderline. He is a cutter. Thus, in the span of 6 months I dated a borderline, a sociopath and another borderline. I do know how to pick them, don’t I? All three share one similar trait that would have made me ordinarily dismiss them — heayy drinkers and smokers.
That combination should be a red flag to anyone dating, as 40% of those who are heavy drinkers and smoke have a diagnosable mental health condition. It is particularly true for those with Bipolar Disorder.
Regarding that, my x-spath may have shown some Bipolar traits. One of his best friends is Bipolar and my x-spath did allude to battles with depression.
BBE, I can’t remember where I read it, I think in some of Dr. Leedom’s articles but MANY PSYCHOPATHS are ALSO bi-polar and ADHD as well. So you get the “double or triple whammy” with them.
People who are bi-polar and not medicated have some manic episodes that totally mirror psychopathic behavior and I wouldn’t give you 5 cents for the difference between mania and psychopathic lack of empathy, impulsive behavior and narcissistic behavior. The Trojan Horse psychopath had all 3 plus he was left handed as well and there is a tendency for them to be left handed more than the norm in the general population. My son Patrick is left handed, but I never saw any indication of ADHD in him, but I can’t say about the bi-polar as he has not lived in my home since he was 17 (he just turned 41) and bi-polar doesn’t always show up until the early 20s.
So I really haven’t been around him enough to know if he is bi-polar or even depressive. I know he is totally narcissistic and delusional at times….never crosses his mind that he might get caught in his schemes.
Ox;
I am going to keep an eye out for the left-handed connection. The other night I was talking to somebody who had a very similar situation to myself: meets charming gay man, no rush to sex, but feels he has met a soulmate. This person was honest about once being married and having a child. There was also a pity play regarding some health issues. Unlike with my x-spath, this guy was honest about being HIV+, but implied it was an accident and that he was relatively inexperienced.
The guy I was talking to is studying to be a doctor. For his own reasons, he could not see himself in a relationship with and HIV+ man but wanted to remain friends. Then, online he found out that this guy was not quite so inexperienced as he said. In fact, much like my x-spath, had an online trail full of bareback porn.
In mentioned to this did he ever think this person was a sociopath and he said yes. Then, I upped the ante and told him to objectively take the Hare Checklist and apply it to the gay community as a whole. He was floored.
BBE,
my spath told me he was “a one woman man”. Those were the words he lured me with. NOTHING could be further from the truth.
Once I left him, his friends were quite eager to tell me that he was screwing women all over the place. I had already ascertained that but it was nice to get a confirmation. The thing is though, he was regaling them with stories of his conquests, he wasn’t introducing them to the “women” he was screwing. Why would he WANT everyone of his friends to think he was screwing women?
Because he was screwing children and men. But none of his “friends” knew that.
Only one other person knew he had pedophile tendencies.
And looking back, I realize that my gay friend, K, was constantly dropping hints that my spath was gay.
So, in essence, he only tells people PART of the truth. Whichever mask it suits him to wear at the time.
They all think they’ve been let into “a little secret”, so that it appears he is being forthcoming to them about who he REALLY is. The truth (that he is a psychopath and would screw a toad if it was available) is the one thing he’ll never tell anyone.
My point is, that the “gay community” is not necessarily all “gay”. Just because they’ll screw same sex, doesn’t mean they won’t screw everything else. So that could screw (no pun intended) the numbers.
It seems, also, that gay people who are narcissistic get much more attention than your average quiet gay man or woman living in the country or city. Maybe perceptions of gay people are being skewed by which gay people are making the most noise? These are the ones representing the entire community.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, just saying to have hope.
Skylar;
It does some to be a sociopathic trait to reveal just a bit, like the tip of the iceberg. My x-spath told me that when he first moved to London he was “like a kid in a candy shop.” I joked with him saying “I’m like that in every new city…” and did not think about what he said further. I played no such games with him, going as far as to say that I would expect an attractive, 30-somehting gay male to have some sort of a sexual past.
Thus, we became insulted when I asked him back to my place after a date, I put aside the “kid in the candy shop” comment and thought that maybe this days were long over. Little did I know he had moved on to the buffet serving all you can eat bareback ribs…
BBE, I worked with a pretty large population of gay guys in nursing when i was in Dallas as the night supervisor in a large specialty hospital. I’m not sure that they were “typical” or not, but they were very openly gay and very open about the risky sexual contacts they had, stranger sex in parks etc. This was in the days when hep C was called “non A, non B” hep, and before HIV was widely known. They were frequently getting one STD or another so they knew they were putting their health at risk, but this was their “thing” I don’t know that they were “typical” of gays in general though, they were just the ones that “stuck out.” They were simply I think the “tip of the ice berg” and there are plenty of NON gays who have frequent “unsafe” sex or sex with relative strangers as well.
The easy ability now to have contact with people who are relative strangers for “risky” sex may just be a thing that because the people I knew were gay they were labeled as “how gays act.”
Years ago when I was in my early 20s I lived in Hollywood CA and worked in the production end of motion pictures and the young crowd was pretty much party-hardy type…both gays and straights, and the ones who swung both ways, I also knew a lot of fairly “normal” folks who were married but “swingers” and out for “exciting” sex and “strange.” I knew these people from the apartment buildings where I lived and from my job bringing me into contact with them. People were very open about what they did for the most part. Drugs flowed freely as well. Plus alcohol. It was the 60s so there was a “lot of that” going on. I was a WIDE EYED little girl from Arkansas and I had never been exposed to that kind of life style. I walked the streets of Hollywood and Vine with my mouth hanging open at the sights I saw. LOL ROTFLMAO
Fortunately, I was too much of a prude to engage in the life style but I saw a lot…and got an “education” in pretty much anything you want to imagine. Later after I went into nursing, I knew the gal who was head of the young adult outpatient clinic at Parkland Memorial in Dallas and believe me the stories she told of various and sundry STDs and sexual practices made me shake my head in wonder. Many of the patients she described were gays.
I know other people who are gay, my husband’s granddaughter for one, and she is not at all “wild” or engaging in risky or crazy or random sex, but has a partner that she’s been with for years and they have a normal middle class lifestyle and I have a cousin who is a gay man who was married and had kids, divorced and lived a pretty normal life style as a gay man.
Even though lots of gays seem to me to not be too open about their sexuality, even in these days and times where it isn’t such a “shame” to be gay or lesbian, they are just QUIET about their sexuality. I mean their focus is no more on “being gay” than mine is on “being hetro” I never did get the “gay pride” thing. I don’t feel “hetro pride” so I don’t get the marching and so on. LOL
But the gays who do “stick out” are the ones who seem to me to be “perverted” but I don’t think that they are the ones who are “real” as it were. If that makes any sense to you.
I think the dysfunctional gays may “show up” more because of their behavior but I think that the FUNCTIONAL gays just go on quietly about their lives just like the FUNCTIONAL straights just go on about their lives. those people who are into “kinky sex” or are leading risky and dysfunctional life styles with alcohol and drugs are just the ones who “show up” and stick out of the crowd.
A gal I know who has a family that is more dysfunctional than mine and just as filled with psychopaths has a daughter that just had her first baby at age 40. She had no idea who the father was because she farked everything that had pants on. The gal’s ex husband was what I think is a psychopath and all her kids are pretty much the same way. This woman is not a psychopath but she is a delux version of a victim/enabler. Now she is 65 years old, broke and destitute, living on the kindness of her relatives with NO idea what became of her life. She and her family are what give a bad name to the term “trailer trash.” She has lived, and her kids live, the JERRY SPRINGER LIFE STYLE.
This is the kind of situation that no amount of “education” is going to help. You could read them Donna’s book every night for the rest of their lives and they would NOT get it.
I hope your friend the medical student can “get it” and help himself and his patients to not become victims. It takes a certain amount of smarts and willingness to work hard at learning and changing your own life style if you are involved in dangerous practices. Hare’s check list is an eye opener for sure.