Editor’s note: Resource Perspectives features articles written by members of Lovefraud’s Professional Resources Guide.
Gary Cundiff is a marriage and family therapist based in San Diego, California
Through deception and mirroring, the sociopath exerts control
By Gary Cundiff, MFT
Gary Cundiff profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide
Having fallen victim to the very thing I had dedicated my life to protecting others from is my reason for writing. To warn others and feasibly aid some. The inevitable harm from interacting with a sociopath is definitive. For some, years have been spent recovering.
I am a mental health professional with years of experience and education, and yet I still was deceived. This encounter came close to ending my career, my life, my friendships and my marriage. However, God has been faithful in his grace, love and protection. The duration of the encounter was less than a year, from first attack to conclusion. Yet even very limited exposure to the pathological can cause serious damage. I hope to relate what I have learned regarding the sociopath’s and Satan’s schemes and to expose their mode of operation.
Why do some and not others fall prey to these predatory beings? My study of psychology led to a belief that sociopathy and other character disorders were developed primarily from childhood abuse and maltreatment. I do not intend to prove or disprove this theory. My intent is to describe my experience with evil, and how it functioned and found access to my life, the damage it did, and the effort it takes to repair.
Five phases
The sociopathic relationship involves five phases: Deception, dread, dependency, degradation, and discard. These steps might not encompass all the complex dynamics in the pathological encounter, but they serve as a basis for the victim.
The sociopath selects a target based on the victim’s best and most admirable qualities, with an explicit intent to exploit. Understanding that it was my best attributes that left me vulnerable helped enormously in the healing process.
If someone should judge you, you will know it. If someone tempts, criticizes or verbally attacks you, you will know it. But if someone deceives you, you will not know it, because the very nature of deception is to conceal. Many myths and stigmas are attached to being victimized, such as weakness, naïvete, mental dullness, or rebellion. These axioms are not, however, consistent with the census.
Targeting the best qualities
My personal experience in client/therapist relationships with hundreds of victims of the pathological encounters, over a course of 25 years, has shown me that the very qualities that made them vulnerable are the very qualities commonly held with the highest regard. The common characteristics of the victims I have known include: trust, compassion, forgiveness and generosity—the very attributes that Satan hates—making them natural targets for the sociopathic predator. People fall victim to the deceiver not because of weakness, but as a result of their strengths. Compassion is not a weakness; it is strength. The desire to love and to be loved is a natural human drive.
Whatever the precursors of victimization, the damage inflicted is the fault and responsibility of the one doing the deceiving and plundering.
Everyone becomes vulnerable at some moment in life, possibly as a result of sustained losses, or some crisis. There are many scenarios that may lead to vulnerability. Sociopaths do not discriminate regarding their prey: young, old, race, gender, rich or poor, with one possible exception—the hard-hearted, who are much less likely to show compassion or trust. There is no universal profile of a typical victim. There is only one distinction: the more sensitive and conscientious the victim is, the higher the probability of success. The abuser is always at fault; no one chooses to be harmed.
Exerting control
Sociopaths know if they can get you to accept a single lie, they then can exert some measure of control over you. No one lies better than the sociopaths. There was nothing about Satan’s approach that caused Eve to be suspicious or be seriously alarmed. His approach seemed innocuous, “Let’s have a conversation. I am spiritual too. I am like you.” Satan seldom comes as a dark angel. He doesn’t show up as a coiled snake. Temptation is never ugly, painful or bloody. He may very well come and say, “Let’s have a religious discussion, let’s talk theology. I know God too.”
Everything about the sociopath invites us in, says join me—the voice tone, smile, hypnotic stare—making them the most dangerous predator of all. All the posturing is done to create a false belief of interest and concern. The more pathological, the more rapid and intense the bonding.
Building the disguise
The disguise begins with studying you: your values, interests, beliefs, vision, goals, concerns, and any other information they can glean. From the trivial to the most significant, all is stored away for future use—testing and noting what pushes your buttons, what moves or excites you. Sociopaths are ardent students of human behavior, having spent much of their lives investigating the difference between themselves and the rest of the population.
Using each piece of information, they create the disguise—a mask carefully constructed to look like their prospective target. Flawlessly, they weave a canvas picture of their mark, a tapestry precisely reflecting the brightest, most honorable aspects of your personality, sewing in the most desirable and wanted details, literally stealing your persona, mirroring this image back, without the defects of character, flaws and shortcomings.
The pathological relationship is a one-dimensional interaction. You fall in love with yourself as presented by this reflecting object. The attraction is irresistible. People are attracted to those who are similar to themselves. By transforming themselves into a reflection of their prospective prey, the sociopath becomes the most alluring figure imaginable, and the propensity to trust that person becomes compelling, promising to meet whatever need or want may exist: friend, advisor, mentor, brother, mother, father. This personification is deception at its most radical level. It is interesting to remember that Eve was deceived before she ever sinned.
Empty shells
Sociopathy is one of the most extreme of the pathological disorders. They are empty shells, possessing nothing of value, no guiding principles, no shame, and no righteous principles. Therefore, this emulation of others for sustained periods of time is effortless: no conflict with their own beliefs or interests. They haven’t any, apart from their ruthless, selfish desire for domination.
This one-dimensional mirroring blurs and confuses the boundaries. You lose touch with where you end and where they should begin, creating an enmeshment that quickly suppresses any sign of personal autonomy. However, it is nothing more than an illusion. You experience a sense of oneness like none other. At the emotional center of this connection is intensity never felt before, making the appeal and apprehension addictive. My sociopath bragged of the capacity to leave people feeling extremely loved, describing her energy as a warm blanket of water flowing around them embracing and holding, while locating deep wounds and hurts for future reference, having a clear awareness of what she was doing.
Behind the mirage
The sociopath uses deliberate and premeditated deception. Since Satan himself appears as an angel of light, is it any less imaginable that his emissaries who serve him would be capable of resembling their master? Imitation is the purest form of flattery and the sociopath is an expert. The effects are intoxicating, like finding an oasis in a dry land—the nurturing and understanding you have longed for. You wish to believe, you succumb, and you give in. What could be more seductive than having all of your best attributes reflected back and praised?
But what exists behind this illusion is a savage, a brute beast, the incubus. They hide behind the mirage, assessing and evaluating your every weakness and strength. The sociopath who possesses the blackest heart may appear to be a person of eminent goodness, but one never bothered by shame, full of greed and deceit.
Jeremiah 6:15 refers to God’s punishment of such people. “They dress the wounds of people as though it were not serious. Peace, peace they say when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all: they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen. They will be brought down when I punish them, says the Lord.” This passage is self-explanatory.
@bluejay,Louise,and Dancingnancies: Thank you all for your responses to my blog. I truely appreciate your guidance and support. As a new survivor from a spath relationshit your words of wisdom mean the world to me. Although, I have no contact with my ex-spath, and have no reason to believe that he will ever again try and contact me because he has his new younger supply, I still have moments wondering could he change for the right girl? Sadly, I have already learned from my past about NC. We broke up after 4 1/2 years together because of his sick behavior, lies and deceit, and then 4 months later he kept calling and texting me until finally after a few weeks I took his call. Of course he begged and pleaded to me that he had changed and I was the best woman ever to him. That he learned that by losing me that he needed to change. I still stayed distance, then he went out and spent almost $7000 dollars on an engagement ring and proposed to me telling me he never wants to lose me again, and if its takes the rest of his life to prove it to me he would do it. That he will give me everything I deserve, and he promises to be the man who will love me like I deserve. Will guess what, I accepted his proposal believing he HAD changed. Will that was short lived, because within 4-5 months the pattern started to appear again, and I of course tried to believe his empty promises….denial! Finally, my horse blinders (race horses wear these so that they don’t get distracted by what is happening around them) started to come off and I could not pretend it was not happening again. When I started to wake up again and defend myself he would attack me and tell me I AM CRAZY, that he is a great man and I will regret it. When I finally got the strength to put my foot forward he attacked with verbal, mental, emotional, and then physical abuse. Then he tried to get me to do the dance of anger with him and I would not join in on his dance so he physical attacked me. Then I called the police and he ran and when the police came he was not there so the police said, since I was not bleeding, or had any broken bones that they could not do anything about it. But, apparently they took his number from me and said they will call him and get his side of the story and let me know. I tried to explain who he is (Spath), and that he will lie and deceive them, and the officier’s response was, “Oh we are trained in this area so we know how to identify someone who is lying”, RIGHT! Never got a call back from the officier, and I found out later that he told people I was an alcoholic and bi-polar and he needed to get away for his own safety..RIGHT! This coming from a man who told me he would spend the rest of his life proving his love for me. He has smeared so many bad things about me to so many people that I find myself exhausted trying to explain to people who he is a SPATH! Thankfully, some of the people who he has lied about me too already know his sick behavior and support me. But, it still does not help with my emotional recovery knowing that he has lied and slandered me to people that I care about and worry that they just might believe him and I have to fight emotional to defend myself against this monster. I struggled to keep my faith in God sometimes, wondering do you really reap what you sow? Because I am a very kind and wonderful person and try to do good things, but it seems I am reaping the bad he deserves, while he destroys people’s life and he reaps the goodness of life. He makes great money, has a new supply, and his life seems to prosper. While I struggle daily just to manage putting food on the table for my disabled brother, son, and my dogs. Never knowing if I will beable to make the rent month by month, or keep the lights on. If anyone on this site does not know my story it is published here on this site. Its titled “I would rather be homeless then spend another day souless with you”, if you are interested read my story and you will know how much I lost being with this monster. Funny, when I revealed him again and said I will not let him hurt me anymore, his response was “your loss and now he has a nice new younger girl who appreciates him”, and he made a huge mistake taking me back….. funny cause he is the one who beg me back, but now he says he took me back. So, I do understand why NC is important for our healing. Had I not let my guard down the first time we broke up I could of avoided further damage to MY soul. Its been 5 months now since my release from hell (ex-spath), and although there has been no contact between us, and as he say the last word we spoke with each other was I said “Lose my number this time”, and he said ” He had a moment of weakness the first break-up, but now he knows what a huge mistake he made, and that he WILL NEVER call me again. Plus he does not need to cause he already has a new WONDERFUL new YOUNGER woman who adores him. Granted he is 47, and I am 42 so in a sense I am a younger woman to him too, but the new one is 20 years younger then him. So not sure why he has to specify a nice new YOUNGER woman but god bless her. I do believe that he will never try and contact me again since he has already slandered me to the world and how would he explain why he would contact me if I am supposely this CRAZY woman. So I do feel safe in knowning that NC from him will never knock on my door again! I just get up everyday trying to believe that there is Karma in this world and even though I have not seen this monster get his Karma, I have to believe in myself enough to know the truth has set me free! God bless my LF friends!
thank you donna for welcoming me to the site. i haven’t had contact for a month and a half now. each day that goes by i feel a tiny bit better than the day before. he won’t come here where i live he won’t waste his gas to drive the distance. i look at the caller i.d. everytime before i answer. i’m leary about numbers with the area code that is the same as his but i have made myself not answer it if i don’t know the number and say to myself that if it’s someone who needs to talk to us here they will leave a message if not then not very important anyway, right? but you telling me that he is going to be mad for pressing charges, well i think he is because my son called me night before last and asked me if i was going to go to court because of my ex. i think he called and told my son that i was doing this and probably made himself sound like the poor,poor him.and i think his reason for the call is because he is pissed off at me pressing charges. i said yes i am. i’m going through with it this time and i’m not going to have him talk me out of not showing up so he can get away with it anymore. my son started bitching at me and got mad at me and asked why, mom, why don’t you just let it go and just don’t go over there anymore? i couldn’t believe i was hearing him say these things to me. i am very, very hurt. he says you know he does things on my car for me. i’m thinking omg. i say to him oh so it’s ok for him to beat your mother up because you can get your car fixed. i didn’t raise my kids to be that kind of people. i just don’t know what is wrong with my sons head, did he forget who i am? i don’t know. anyway i told him how long i have had nothing to do with him and for some reason he thought i was lying to him. i hope as time goes by that my son will come back to his normal senses. ox drover thank you for your advise to me. you don’t know how much you make me feel like i matter. you wrote that i am trauma bonded. i’ve never heard of that before. it sounds horrible though. funny, ive never thought of myself as being through trauma. i guess i see now that you have said it it makes sense. i used to tell my ex when he was beating me up that he was just like a prisoner of war concentration camp soldier and i was the prisoner of war and that i had learned that us women that have survived through being with them is equivalent to being a prisoner of war in a torture camp. he would get mad when i would say that and then laugh and say your nuts. i will definitely make it a point to get that book your suggesting to me. oh and about the tires, i did give up on them with him. i took each tire off my car and popped each stud out one by one. it took me a while and i went too deep on one tire and snagged a wire inside and had to drive from tacoma to past seattle with my tire going flat. that was a nightmare, let me tell you, but my car loves me and got me all the way home. my dad bought me a new tire. i am finding i am doing things just fine by myself without him doing anything i used to depend on him for and every day i feel prouder and prouder of myself for doing it. as for my daughter she is on my side and shows that she cares about what happens to me, but she does still have him do work on her car. i told her to please be very careful with him and please don’t give him any info about me to him not even if he asks how’s your mom been doing. i told her she could tell him i asked her not to talk about me to him. and she has agreed. thank you all of you for listening to my story i have to tell. and thank you for your hugs and prayers. i will say since i have gone through this hell i have turned to god and i would start talking to him out loud when he would be mentally torturing me to erase his words from me hearing him. and god did help me get through that. and i know i’m going to heaven because i am a good person and have a humungous heart. that makes me the enemy of him because he is a satan demon and satan hates god who is good because satan is evil. i would tell him that he could take my life from me but he could never take my soul from me. that is the one and only thing he could never get.
Chelsea
I wanted to respond to your post a bit up the thread.
In answer to your question, I will share an experience I was blessed to have that blew my relationshit with my ex completely apart and set me free permanently.
He was love bombing women all over the place as he was on a dating site. One of the women he was love bombing he caught up with at a high school reunion. I found out about her and suspected he was interested in her (she had lots of money and he was hugely in debt), so I contacted her after I found out he was lying to me as he had flown to another state for three nights of dates with her. She willingly spoke with me after being surprised to hear from me.
Here’s the blessing of that conversation: He didn’t tell her about me and our ten year affair, or that he was currently dating me AT ALL. That wouldn’t be kosher to tell some chick you’re trolling that you were a cheater, thus a liar. He also lied about his marriage, same MO he used on me, almost word for word, he was using on her. He used the pity play to the hilt and guess what? EVERY single thing out of his mouth, other than shallow detail, WAS A LIE!!
So, having said that, whatever “performance” (which is all it is), he is giving is nothing but a weaved web of lies and deceit. If he didn’t change with you, or anyone else in his past, he’s not going to change with her either. Pathological people cannot turn off their pathologies. He will do to her and IS doing to her, what he did to you and any other women he’s been with.
She is in for the rollercoaster ride of her life from hell.
thank your lucky stars that it ISN”T you anymore
LL
Chelsea, thanks for your story. Wow, you’ve come through so much. I’m glad you’re on the other side of it! Even with all you’re dealing with now, you have your bubble of peace that isn’t possible while with the spath.
I’ve struggled with the guilt of reaping what you sow. But I’ve come to realize that, although anytime we make a choice, we deal the consequences, the decision to have a relationship with a sociopath isn’t based on truth. We don’t have the facts to make a true determination of what we’re getting ourselves into. Therefore, we are not reaping what we sow in a guilt sense. I believe that we are dealing with the fallout of another person exercising their free will against us. People can use their free will for good or bad, and, unfortunately, the results of the bad affect others. As far as him enjoying his new life with his new woman, that’s not really true. He may have the temporary satisfaction that he has entered into manipulation of a new person that has the added benefit of hurting you. But he isn’t actually enjoying it in the way that a normal person would enjoy it. He isn’t actually happy. He isn’t actually experiencing love. And sadly, his new woman isn’t actually experiencing it either. She just thinks she is. In fact, you are better off than she is, because you have already come out on the other side and begun your healing, where she is only at the beginning and has no idea of the heartache she is getting ready to experience. Your ex does experience negative feelings from the fact that you have disengaged from him, so you should feel good about that! Stay NC, keep your peace, these are the ways to stick it to him. God bless!
Dear Marcy,
When the psychopaths offer to “do things for” us or “give us thingS” IT IS NOT A GIFT, it is a “down payment on control” it is what allows them to say “See I did this for you, now you have to do that for me. YOU OWE ME!”
That is why I am SOOOOOO careful to never take a favor from someone I do not know very well, who I know is not just doing a “down payment” on control.
In the past I have had various control freaks who did “favors” for me or “gave me” things just like your Psychopathic guy….and Then later they would THROW THESE THINGS UP IN MY FACE and somehow I knew it was wrong, but couldn’t figure out why, but eventually I realized what it was…they were NOT doing “favors” or giving me “gifts” because favors and gifts do NOT HAVE STRINGS ATTACHED…..but PAYMENTS do have strings attached.
If I give you a GIFT of $10 you do not owe me $10, and you do not owe me a hour’s work or a favor, you do not owe me anything. That is what a GIFT is, it is FREE. NO STRINGS.
BUT if I PAY YOU $10 for an Hour’s work, you OWE ME an hour’s work or to return the $10.
So the ADVANCE PAY the psychopaths “give” us disguised as a GIFT is really NOT A GIFT at all….
The work this Psychopath does to your son’s car is PAYMENT FOR YOUR SON ALLOWING THIS MAN TO ABUSE YOU, HIS MOTHER. Yep, and your son takes it and tries to persuade you to allow the man to abuse you and skate.
What does that say about your son?
When People SHOW US WHAT THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY THINK, BELIEVE THEM.
I am sorry to say, but it seems to me like your son is like my son C who ALLOWED the psychopaths to abuse me, KNOWING they were abusing me, and the “pay” he got was their “friendship”—–a pretty cheap pay check if you ask me for betraying your mother. Your son having his car worked on is a pretty sorry pay check I think for allowing this man to abuse you as well. I suggest you tell your son, to either hire someone else to work on his car, or tell the guy that you wouldn’t listen to him.
I know it hurts when your own child KNOWINGLY prefers the “pay” of someone else to allow them to abuse you, but accepting the truth will set you free, but it will pith you off first!
Do whatever it is to keep yourself SAFE. Go to a shelter if you must. Whatever you do, if it means that you have to live on the street or a shelter, do not contact this man again….paying for the tires (or anything else) with your blood and bruises isn’t worth the price. God bless you, you are in my prayers. (((Hugs))))
Chelsea
We must have posted over each other.
About his contacting you. He may well do it again.
When this relationshit starts to go to hell too.
Mine tries every couple of months. It’s really rather irritating and instead of secretly hoping he does, I know he’s so dangerous that if he attempts it I feel VIOLATED and ANGRY. This is much different than it was a few months ago when hope still abounded in my heart. This is why NC is so important because once the ruminating and questions about whether or not his new victim got the real prize that you didn’t, stops, you’ll see even more clearly how evil he is.
It’s a process and it takes time.
LL
Thank you, Ox Drover, for responding to my post!
I do believe you are correct that he was always a sociopath ~ just let his mask “slip”. He was a great actor! I must give him credit for that!! Looking back I can now see the manipulations and recall some of the comments that stuck me odd at the time but couldn’t process. At times he would refer to himself as “sick” and he had a “hole” in him. I never could get him to elaborate. I just thought it was the gambling.
I do have a question; while I am trying to break all contact with him I continue to be “Nice” when he initiates any contact with me. It is easier than dealing with his “wrath” when things don’t go HIS way. Even though he has never been physically violent I am always leary of what he “might” do. Any thoughts??
imustacheyouaquestion reading what you have said,i’m sitting here in tears. you have described exactly what he put me through what you did too. the mental mindfucking he would do to me for hour after hour after hour until my mind eventually would just shut down and i would literally not be able to speak. and you saying that he would manipulate you with the trade he knew, and cause problems so he would have to come and see you to always be fixing something with it. yes, yes, he would sabatage my car so i was always having to ask him to fix something. so, you know exactly what i’m describing and have experienced down to the tee. they sound like the same man. also, like you i told him that i told my family members that if i were to become dead to know that it wasn’t any accident or anything else but him that killed me. i let him know that too. it kept me from being murdered i think. i told him i gave my family written notes saying that and to keep them in case. they had no notes but they did know i was in danger while with him and i did truly warn them if something happened. a favorite of his to do to me is unscrew the screws inside my car like what holds the console together, my cieling light hangs down to about the top of my seat, he took the screws out of my door handle so now i have to open the door from the outside, he has pulled a bunch of fuses out of the fusebox i don’t know what isn’t working except my horn but who knows what all else. and i have came to some close calls cars pulling into my lane on the freeway one time a semi truck and i had no horn to alert them i was there. thank god the people driving in the next lane saw the semi truck forcing me into their lane and moved over for me so i was able to use half my lane and half theirs until i was able to speed up past the truck .the look in their eyes you mention, it is not human eyes looking at you. the physical abuse was all the things you list except add the favorite of pulling as much hair out of my head as he could. my defense i found myself using against him is each time he would punch me i would yell that he punched me as loud as i could thinking a neighbor or someone outside by chance might here me screaming the things he was doing to me. i couldn’t help doing that it came automatic. and that is the one thing that would flip him out and would be when i thought i was going to die. he would cut my breathing completely off to shut me up so i would start to suffocate. and then he would let me breathe again just before i felt i was passing out. i did go to the hospital in an ambulance once because he had me down on the floor and then pounced with all his weight on my leg so it ripped all the muscles in the back of my leg. i couldn’t walk for weeks. the police came to the hospital to take a report but he talked me out of going to court so he wouldn’t go to jail on that one. and also like you i was where i wanted to die too. i got to where i was suicidal but what prevented me from going through with it is thinking of my kids.i couldn’t do that to them. i found out from people telling me themselves the people that i also knew, that he would badmouth me horribly to them. they told me the things he said and everything he badmouths me about is the things that HE DOES to me. now he knows the only people that will believe him are people who have never met me. but i told him people who i don’t even know friends of his i could care less about. being they don’t know me personally and vice a versa. it’s like its an addiction fix when he talks to other people about me like that.anyway that’s how i think of it so i can try to comprehend doing that. the feeling i’m feeling inside of me right now finding out you have gone through things that i did i just don’t know how to describe. i’ve never talked to anyone before who even really has a clue. and god bless you too.
I must,
Your post above is great!
I’ve struggled with the guilt of reaping what you sow. But I’ve come to realize that, although anytime we make a choice, we deal the consequences, the decision to have a relationship with a sociopath isn’t based on truth. We don’t have the facts to make a true determination of what we’re getting ourselves into. Therefore, we are not reaping what we sow in a guilt sense. I believe that we are dealing with the fallout of another person exercising their free will against us.”
That is such an excellent point and so helpful to me in the way you described the guilt and reeping what you sow.
Thanks for posting that!
LL
Marcy,
Your story is so overwhelming. I have to take it all in and process it, I can’t imagine how you must be feeling, although I kind of can because my ex P hubby was very physically abusive.
Stay NC and keep posting!
LL