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.
Ox – I KNOW you are right and it’s what I have said to others also. It just HURTS. I didn’t expect hundreds to turn up, but there are perhaps 4 or 5 whose lack of contact has me bamboozled.
They are people who WERE there for the dreadful first year of drama, when I was a gibbering idiot. I will always be grateful for their support then, but I am NOT a gibbering idiot anymore – I’m back to being ME again (only physically sick now). My demands upon their time and energy would be nothing compared to what they have already helped to carry me through.
That’s the bit I just don’t get.
Dear Aussie,
Darling, I wish I knew the answer to that. Some people come into our lives for a season or a time, but ultimately we are on this planet ALONE…we are born and die inside our own skins. I’m reading the second of two books written about a sinking in 1819 of a whale ship out of New England and the 93 days the survivors spent on 3 whale boats trying to reach land…what they did and had to do in order to survive, and their own words about how they felt and how the trauma affected them is very interesting.
Many of my “friends” were actually people who were using me, other friends were in far flung parts of the globe and our country so I couldn’t see them often, just talk on the phone etc. it makes it hard to keep up contacts. My “best friend” for 30+ years and I just “split the blanket” this past couple of months—and I realized she is depressed because her husband is a verbally abusive drunk and she is NOT handling things well at all. She is pushing me away in her own pain, but there’s no way I can help her because she is afraid of what she might have to do if she gets out of denial. I am watching a relationship I treasured go away. It hurts, but at the same time, I am much better able to cope with it because I DO UNDERSTAND it is not about me, it is about HER inability to handle her problems in a healthy way. It is easier for her to lose my friendship than to face her own problems. NOT my fault, not anything I can DO about it.
I down to one out of three of my sons now…and have no sibs, the neighbors and most of my community and my church family are all in my egg donor’s camp of “oxy is crazy”—but they haven’t really tried to find out the truth. It is easier to stay out of it and not make a decision. So in lots of ways I am more isolated than I’ve ever been. That happens to widows, too, as the “friends” you had as a couple evaporate when one dies.
Sure it hurts when people we love let us down, but at the same time…I treasure more the people who do love me and that helps. Even my cyber friends here at LF are very precious to me. Love is where you find it, where you cultivate it.
Aussie-I have learned so much through my experiences with my ex spath and now the spaths from work that so many people want you to think that they’re your friends, but they’re really not. There was one gal that I worked with who was always all trying to be my buddy and saying yeah we’re friends. She helped me move and always acted like it was us against the spaths. In the end, she was hanging with them but still trying to buddy with me. She was one of them all along.
I have spent so much time like you crying wondering where my friends went. I never made them easily anyway due to my low self esteem. I know how it feels to feel so alone.
Aussie,
Ya know….I think there is a point to what Ox is saying….and thinking about that some, reminds me that a lot of the “friends” I have would probably be more those that fall more in the acquaintance department lol!
It’s like we were close for a time, but not AS close or NOT AT ALL once I dumped spath and decided I needed to get rid of MORE drama from my life. I realize that’s not the case with you here, but in the past I’ve also had friends that I thought would last forever, but they now are in the acquaintance category….
There’s a cliche that says, “You’re lucky if you get out of your life with just ONE good friend!” I think that’s true. In my case, that includes you’re lucky if you get out of this life with ONE family member left that you can have a relationship with lol!!
Anyway….
I personally enjoy connections with people. I’ve made new friends at school over the past year. They have STAYED my friends. I even have one “toxic” friend left (no skillets please), who is suffering now from cancer. I made a decision that I’m not going to overwhelm myself by getting INTO her drama associated with it, but I will still BE THERE for her as much as I am ABLE to be. But that’s what’s right for me. Might not be for someone else. Another thing I’m learning which helps to clear a way for myself. What’s right FOR ME and making MY OWN decision and suffering MY OWN consequences. Feels good to own it. That includes my choices of friends. Who I give my time too. If someone doesn’t want to hang with me, eh, it would hurt and it has (one of my best friends since Jr. High and I had a falling out recently because I was very upset with her for how abusive she was to her dog and TO ME), and I don’t need that in my life. She can’t change her abusive behavior, so I can’t have her as a friend. IT’s sad and it HURTS because I DO love her and she has LOTS of good things about her, but….it’s simply too triggering and toxic for me. My other “toxic” friend is not abusive to me, per se, but she LIES about things in her life that i KNOW are lies. I don’t think she’s N or P or S, but I DO think she is troubled and has had a TON of trauma in her life, particularly recently. I feel bad she has cancer and I want to be there for her emotionally. So you see, not everyone can or will be there…for a variety of reasons….even people who DO love you can only handle so much, or have lives that need attention. Kinda like mine. I can’t GIVE the way I use to give. It’s funny how when you STOP giving people just disappear. THAT was really painful. But it also gives me an opportunity to check my own motives at the door as to why I was busting my ass off to give to them so much in the first place at the expense of me.
Aussie, you already KNOW how to take care of YOU. and YOU are the most important person in your life. CHERISH those friends that love you and stay. Cry when they go. Both are okay. But you DO have friends here! And I know there are people here who really care for you. 🙂
LL
Aussie-we do care about you here.
Thanks guys. xx
I really am okay now. Just finding it odd – I especially mean friends I have worked with these past 6 years. They all live (and work) within walking distance (or a 5-minute drive) of me. They held me and called the ambulance when I collapsed at work 4 years ago (dark, dark days back then). They made sure that I ate and they held my hand while I gave interviews at the police station. They forced their help upon me even when I was too sad and shocked and embarrassed to ask for it. I thought all of that had “friended” us for life. Some of these people I worked very closely with every day.
I did stuff for them too – babysat their kids (once I was in one piece again), found homes for their unwanted animals, collected resources for their classrooms (I work at a school), printed out research for them when they were ill or buying a house or facing legal troubles…….but now…..
I know I have been missing in action this past year due to being away from work/school sick, but they all know where I am and when I do go to work to drop off my medical certificates (from the doctor) I always pop my head in and say “hi” to them. They must surely realise that my being off work for so long means that I am REALLY ill – yet not so much as a card from any one of them. I couldn’t do that to someone. I would MISS someone as nice as me and I would WANT to check up on them.
That’s all. xx
Claudia,
I LOVED The Seducer….though it brought back my relationship too vividly. You certainly nailed it!
There is a recent post on your website associated with a hushmail.com address. Can you remove the last name from the post?????I didn’t realize it would show up. thank you. Or if you remove it, I will repost without the last name! THANK YOU!
Claudia,
You’re right about spath. He’s a weird one though. He likes the drama of the triangulation much better than several woman. Two is better than one? LOL he likes the idea that two women FIGHT over him and that’s enough drama to last any spath a lifetime lol!
Yes, I’d like to go to the school and the meeting with an open mind. I think the educational pursuit could be a very healing thing as well. They do a lot of community work. I’d be interested in that too.
I’m curious about your books. Reading a lot of self help and educational books about psychopaths and their victims is very interesting, but I am curious about what that would look like from the perspective of fiction written by an author who has experienced it. I imagine the characters will be very interesting, as would the wording!
LL
Neveragain, I’m so glad you liked my novel. I erased your comment about The Seducer and the Thomas Crown affair, but I didn’t see your email on it from the outside. I saw it only when I logged on. Feel free to post your comment again, if you wish, without using your name if you prefer anonymity.
LL, Speaking about The Seducer, which neveragain just mentioned, it’s a novel about the triangulation of desire, which the psychopath I was with is very much into just like yours is. Psychopaths want a good match between wife and mistress fighting over them. They remain calm themselves, but sadistically enjoy causing pain and drama for others. Of course, for them, such triangulation doesn’t exclude promiscuity on the side: flings, friends with benefits and lots of casual lovers.
Today we were writing to one another about your painful and confusing experience of the moment of ambivalence: when the false idealized image of the psychopath being a romantic and caring lover vanished and the realization that he’s really a total fraud was sinking in, deeper and deeper. This is what I describe in The Seducer, in the chapter I posted today:
http://www.neatorama.com/bitlit/2011/03/03/the-seducer-part-iii-chapter-20/