Like us, Claudia Moscovici had her run-in with a psychopath, one that almost destroyed her marriage. Since then, like many of us, she has thoroughly researched this destructive personality disorder. She started a blog called “Psychopathy Awareness,” and wrote two books: a novel called The Seducer, and an upcoming nonfiction book called Dangerous Liaisons.
In her review of my book, Love Fraud—How marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan, Claudia writes, “I didn’t think I could learn much more about the subject, but Donna’s book proved me wrong.”
Read the entire review on Psychopathy Awareness.
Love Fraud is available in the Lovefraud Store.
Sky – i am a bit better tonight, thanks. The antibiotics make me dizzy, and i have to watch my balance. i am still coughing like a barking seal – but my stomach is settling and coughing doesn’t hurt so much.
you didn’t put your foot in it with me, and i agree with with you assessment of the damage done to our identities through advertising…which may become more sophisticated but could always be used for evil: i went to a ‘history of advertising’ display at a fair several years ago – there were ads for cigarettes from the 1930’s- targeting women – showed a woman smoking, and putting down the pie, with a direct appeal to ‘stay slim’ by smoking. (Claudia, I like you piece about marketing above also – you and sky have presented both sides of the coin – depends on who is holding the money!)
on a different note: Colin Firth has won the oscar for best actor. for playing a stuttering monarch. a good performance, but his 2009 portrayal of a grieving gay man was utterly stunning. hmmm.
and sky – you are consistently talking about how you are not taking care of yourself. what is it that you need to help you make a modest shift in this regard?
I don’t know One Joy,
It is deeply ingrained. I just can’t do it. BF wants me back in shape. He doesn’t like the weight I’ve gained. Even that’s not enough. Usually I perform for others.
$$ doesn’t motivate me. The potential renter, is emailing me and still I don’t clean the cabin.
I miss my cats and want them back living with me. But even that isn’t enough. I’m afraid I’ve gone down a hole and it’s getting worse.
I guess I blog here and ask that question hoping someone has the answer. Hoping someone has been there done that and knows the easy way out.
Hey, maybe that’s it! I need a marketing campaign that will convince me that I need to put me first. It’s not that I’m not easy to program, I’m actually easily susceptible to suggestion. It’s just that no one is programming me correctly. 🙁
Maybe I need a hypnotist.
Sky – forgive me if you have addressed this before and i have missed it – anti-depressants? Anit anxiety meds? i know you have gone into therapy, and i suspect that the anger/ betrayal you are starting to feel at family must make you feel like a very bad kid, and not worthy of love and care. your emotions are talking to you. you have to figure out what they are saying.
can you try finding the right question to ask? what would make me take care of myself, or …..? if you can find the right question, then you can ask and ask and ask, then you have a chance at getting the answer(s).
One,
I have some old SSRI’s, somewhere, they make me sick, but am considering them.
A couple of things have come up that make me think I might now what the problem is.
First thing was that I was taught I wasn’t worthy of any care or attention. Then, around age 12 I decided I was tired of being scared all the time. So I learned not to care what anyone thought about me or what might happen to me if I take risks. I went from introvert to extrovert and from shy to risk-taking, almost overnight. I think I did this by not caring what happens to me. That’s what I thought might be the problem.
Then there is the idea that if anyone sees me taking care of my needs they will sabotage them. That has been my experience for so long. So I fear doing anything that could be sabotaged.
It might be all three things working together, that just makes me apathetic to fixing things in my life. I’ve just lived with selfish people my whole life and it was better for me not to do anything. need to break those thought patterns.
Anyway, I’m not sure, but that’s what I’ve come up with as possible problems.
Thanks for caring. You’re the sweetest.
(((One)))
SKy,….
Apathy?……You’ve talked MUCH about bio fam lately…I wonder if some of this is a the beginning of a deeper mourning and grieving for you…maybe it’s another layer of the onion that is being peeled away now….
“BF wants me back in shape. He doesn’t like the weight I’ve gained. Even that’s not enough. Usually I perform for others. B-I-N-G-O…because it’s not for you, Sky. It’s for others.
HE doesn’t like the weight you’ve gained or YOU don’t like the weight you’ve gained. Personally, Sky, I guess if I was your bf (and I know I’m not) I’d be concerned with any weight gain if only for your health, depending upon how much you weighed prior to gaining it. I see some unhealthy junk here in this relationship…just what I see. Lots of ties still left to bio fam and ex P.
Kinda like a big rock tied around your neck.
Maybe, just MAYBE that rock is a bit too heavy for you to carry by yourself anymore, Sky. It’s time for Sky to love Sky…
I come from a bio full of shit too, Sky. They are ALL out of my life. Spath was the last link to the dysfunction THEY created for me. Now I have to figure it out on my own and deal with the grief and that’s as lonely and as difficult as hell…….
It’s easy to feel unloved when dealing with all of that lack of love and care, especially when you’re overwhelmed in other areas of your life.
How can Sky love Sky……without any shame or guilt in that what you leave behind is JUST for you and no one else.
I’d have to query and ask, what is the burden that you’re feeling most right now, IN YOUR HEART?
I agree with One/joy, Sky. Your emotions are talking to you and to US here too….but it really is up to you what they are saying. Sometimes to hear the answers is something that is the most difficult to do. It usually requires more changes. Something I think we all fear at one time or another…..
Lots coming up for you now, Sky. But it’s a good thing. I wonder if there is not a bit of helplessness and hopelessness given that your bio fam cannot be salvaged? That you can’t fix it or them? Maybe it IS grieving…..
Dunno. I’m not saying I’m right. Just some stuff I’ve observed.
I think big things are coming up around the bend for you Sky.
This may well be your “resurrection” from the old to the new 🙂
Always thinkin good thoughts for you….
One/joy sooooo sorry about your pneumonia. I’ve had it before too and it is NO FUN. I hope you get to feelin 100% soon.
LL
((((((((( sky )))))))))))
I think you nailed it. And in doing so, you may well have pinpointed something for me too. 🙂
Will be thinkin about that.
LL
Big rock around my neck, LL.
That’s what it feels like. Not as big as the one I had before with the ExP. I was drowning with that one. This one is just tripping me up.
I know if I can surmount this one, I will be moving along. need to figure this out AND act on it.
Even as I type this out, I feel like a fake, because right this minute, I just don’t care and don’t want to care. I just want to sleep all the time.
Gaining this weight is really unhealthy. I gain only abdominal fat. That’s the kind of fat that people with stress, gain. Not only that, but the fat actually HURTS. It’s hard to explain but my lower back hurts and the area around my waist actually hurts. My blood sugar is starting to go up and down. I can tell it’s a problem because I get sleepy after eating anything. Starting to take chromium and I think it’s helping balance the blood sugar.
Yeah LL, I know we have similar problems in our thinking/feeling. We’re all in this together.
well here i am, just coughed myself awake again. damn.
Sky sweetie, you don’t know how much i needed that hug!
#1 ‘some old ssri’s.’ uh, no. if you are going to approach anti -d’s you deserve something new, and possible.
#2 off-book advice – sleeping after eating and blood sugar out of whack? how many carbs are you eating sky? (i am the ‘queen’ or carb weight, but if you insist you can be a princess). Depending on what other conditions exist you need protein and complex carbs, and you have to junk the rest.
#1 + #2 + hurting fat – doctor or alt health care professional for a check up missy – this is part of self care.
self care is a long road sky – very much a journey. i am so much better at it than i used to be, even though the damn challenges get harder and harder. i can’t get through a day without having a physical/ allergic reaction to something. it requires my time and energy. it’s tricky, ’cause sometimes the only way i get through emotionally is with blind hope, and other’s blind hope would kill me.
Somewhere in these last 2 years i have learned to advocate for myself, and TAKE power in hard situations – not all, but many. these usually revolve around someone trying to scapegoat me. Given that i have had three work-sites in succession, where i have been exposed to toxins, there has been a lot of potential scapegoating, in addition to the normal ratio of that BS that goes on. I heard a quote yesterday (while watching hours of bad internet tv while laying about coughing) – something like: ‘ if you live with disadvantage, you live on courage.’ and that’s me now.
i am a workaholic.i learned to balance much better, and for many years, but since i moved back here and had to work so hard to stay afloat, i have lost the luxury of ‘balance’. and in these last few weeks, getting sick 2 times, (this time it has literally winded me), i see that i have no choice but to find balance within this crazy busy time too.
(sigh it’s 4 am and it must be racoons out there in the park trying to off one another. i hate the sound of animals beating on one another.)
there is so much relearning to be done.. talk about these three areas you have mentioned sky – examine it the way you do everything, but examine what self care looks like, and work towards it. you have to things going for you – your analytical skills (which have to be used in service to your heart) and YOUR HONESTY, oh fake one.
i know that if you are depressed, it is a big struggle and you need some help with caring to care. i know this not caring to care paradigm well. How is your therapist?
your shift at age 12 – that is pretty dramatic, and sounds a lot like (not saying it is) kids acting out so that people WILL notice and WILL care. I think i was about 13 when i staked out some similar ground. i had been adventurous in my own way always, but it certainly shifted, and became more self destructive – the change was re-active for me too – i wasn’t getting what i needed from the family, so i went off on my own. it’s like i created a new internal culture for myself at that point. and maybe I wasn’t good at any of the adult stuff – but i liked my new mind set as it set me up as my family – and those losers i lived with lost a certain degree of control over me. young ones are wise, just being so young they sometimes just don’t know how things will impact them over the years.
i guess in a way for me, these last 2 years about about setting me up as my family again. i worked so hard for so long – living in intentional communities and working hard to have a sense of community in my life – and i have gone back to re actively cutting people off, in the challenge of the spathisode, and toxin exposures. not surprising.
You do need a list for self care – i know that doing really simple things are helpful. the list is your default actions. you need to care for yourself (verb) to begin to feel that you are worthy. actions before understanding. sometimes we understand why we do something when we stop doing it.
A little anger and rebellion might help – sounds like you may be turning inward that anger you have been feeling.
I hope I have made some sense ”“ so much more to write on this subject ”“ I need to be doing my own excavating on this issue, too. When the conference is over”
xo one joy.
Don’t you think your blog is a little cruel? I mean discuss in your blog sociopath’s inability to empathize with others; but aren’t you failing to empathize with them. I realize that many of these people have done terrible things; but not all of them have. Also, personality disorders tend to form in childhood and adolescence so the reason these people are like this may have to do with trauma suffered when young. Trauma when the someone is young can physically alter the brain, and some experts think this may cause certain personality disorders such as Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD). If the brain is physically altered it is not people with APDs fault that they can not empathize. This doesn’t justify committing bad deeds but it certainly makes it much more understandable. I mean most of us learned not to commit hurtful deeds because when we saw someone we love hurt it upset us, and even if we didn’t know the person well at a very basic human level we had some very slight love for others just because we were human like them; and most of us also feel guilt. These feelings most of the time are what prevent us from committing acts that may get us ahead, but we feel deep down are wrong. If we didn’t have these feelings not because we didn’t want to but because we were incapable it we may also commit many terrible deeds we normally wouldn’t have.
But worst of all can you imagine a life without ever feeling love. As someone who isn’t a sociopath you have felt love. Love is what gives most people’s lives purpose, without it we lose what we were meant to live for. As much as sociopaths hurt others I don’t believe any of the people whom they hurt fates can be worse than their own. They don’t even have the ability to comprehend what they’re missing either.
Because you aren’t a sociopath you can empathize so try to empathize with them. They are people who may not be considered legally insane and they may not be physically sick, but they are suffering. Maybe in order to help both sociopaths and everyone else; instead of shunning them and avoiding them like the plague; we should try to find a way to coexist with them and help them. I realize there is not currently any medication or therapy that has shown to be effective for APD, but maybe if we stopped looking as sociopaths as monsters and instead as people who are suffering in ways they don’t even have the ability to comprehend, and instead tried to help them we could find a solution.
grey rock kiddies!