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.
Aussie,
someone (I forget who, please remind me if you can) said that we are like soldiers returning home from war. Our friends have to watch TV to get their fill of drama, but we’ve had ours. So when I talk to my good sister, she spends half the time telling me about the characters/drama on the TV shows that she watches.
“Normal” people, people who are unaware of the spaths that surround us, have other priorities. You stopped going to work, so it’s unlikely that you will be useful in the inter-office politics or as a lunch companion. You have to understand what is important TO THEM. When you collapsed at work – it was at WORK. You were one of them, a comrade. Now you have left the team. They still care about you but the bonds are broken. Don’t be upset by them, they are just “normal”.
We here on LF love you dearly ((Aussie)). Thank God for Donna’s inspiration to bring us together.
Skylar –
Thank you (with tears and a choked up throat…) xx
Claudia?
I just read that. I need to get that book 🙂
It is UNCANNY!!! AND SO GOOD!
Thanks for sharing that link. I was just on your site a short time before I came here again and saw your link, learning to navigate it…
LL
Skylar, I don’t know the details of Aussie’s situation, but what you say is so compassionate and makes so much sense! I think in “normal” circumstances people don’t make much time to listen to and support one another, except in contexts with a given structure, like the workplace.
LL, The Seducer isn’t in print yet. My publisher is first publishing Dangerous Liaisons, which is the nonfiction book about psychopathy. I’ve posted The Seducer on a new serialized novel website, called Bitlit, which publishers are using to promote new fiction.
Aussie,
I’m sorry you feel so betrayed by your co-workers whom you considered as real friends. 🙁 I have worked with the same group of people for 9 years, and I only consider one as a real friend. She is the director of the department and is a very fine person. I almost died three years ago. She spent the night at my home and saved my life (she is a nurse). She is the only one I consider as a real friend. After so many betrayals and back-stabbings by co-workers I *thought* were friends, I just decided to keep a professional distance from most of them. I actually enjoy it better that way.
LL,
I guess we were crying together last night. 🙁
What you said about doing anything to please your family, is so much like myself. I think yours was a sexual thing because your family molested you. Mine was self-sacrificing, my family wanted me to kill myself for them. Then the spath took over WITH THE SAME AGENDA. TOUGH FUCKING SHIT CUZ IT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN. I’m done. This realization has really put it into perspective. Being able to reflect on your dysfunction, has made it easier to see the parallels of mine. The only difference LL, is that yours wanted your body and mine wanted my life. Not really much difference.
It’s a wonderful revalation because I’ve been trying to find a way to “see” or “perceive” this problem I have in which I put every one else before me. Each revelation gives me a little more anger. And that anger is power.
I’m not going to explode. I’m going to cuss a little bit here and there, but mostly I’m going to channel that anger towards not caring so much about others and caring more about me.
LL, I’m glad that you were able to post abit about what you felt last night. I know you said you were reading the article about trauma bonding that Kim Frederick posted yesterday. Here’s a quote:
Women in abusive relationships were believed to be masochistic and children who had been sexually abused were viewed as somehow enticing the parent to commit the sexual abuse [Dutton & Painter, 1993; deYoung & Lowry, 1992, Graham, et al, 1988].
Of course it might seem that a child entices a parent, but how does the child learn to entice? It is a natural reaction for a child to want to please and quite quickly learns what is pleasing, without actually knowing why.
As women/girls, we are in that same boat. We are taught by social constructs, to be pleasing to others. Our faces and bodies should please. Our mannerisms and opinions, the same.
Excuse me WHILE I GO PUKE.
LL, nothing you did as a child was by choice. It’s time to give that perspective up. Children run on programming and as adults we have very little choice unless we WORK HARD to undo our programming.
I will not be held responsible for the methods I used to survive as a child. Period. I wanted to live. Period. I was afraid of being not loved/abandoned or killed. It happens every day, to children. All you have to do is read a few of the posts Donna put up, to know that child abuse is RAMAPANT IN HUMAN HISTORY. There are degrees of it, but the child cannot judge when an adult is going to kill her or just spank her. She can’t know, she has to hedge her bets toward survival. Those that don’t end up dead or worse.
I’m painting a horrid picture of childhood history here. LL
I didn’t come up with this on my own. There is an author named Lloyed DeMuse. He has written on this. With time, I’m understanding him more.
Sky,
WOW!! I would like to ponder on your post here. In reflection, while a large part of wanting approval or pleasing in a sexual way, using the body, there was also the flip side of that coin too. The expectations that were had of me to be “perfect” in anything THEY designated they wanted me to do, mainly my mother, my spathy sis and my spath daddy, while they sabotaged every single effort and let me know I would NEVER have their approval there either. Sky, I was suicidal as a teenager and into early adulthood. They may not have planned to “kill” me in the literal sense, but they wanted to drive me to kill myself and they did everything they could to destroy me.
You’ve given me so much to think about. Your childhood sounds horrendous.
You’re right, child abuse IS rampant. I see it every single day and have been guilty of it myself with the emotional neglect my children experienced because I was so immersed in spathdom.
I want to make this RIGHT with my children. My parents never bothered. Sky, have you ever thought that if they had apologized, genuinely and sincerely to you for what they did, that things would be different? I think about this sometimes, reflectively…
I really want to give this some more thought. Thanks for posting.
LL
LL,
remember Babe’s first post here recently?
Her spath had her trained LIKE A DOG! It was really obvious from the very first post and I told her so. He told her, she had to learn to be “nice”.
God help me I want to kick her spath. I wish I could get his address…..just so I could kick his ass.
anywho…
lots of anger here tonight. trying to maintain.
LL, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m in awe of your ability to confront the past and your part in it. When it comes to the exPOS, yes, you made bad decisions. But don’t take on more than your share of guilt. The parenal units were ulitmately responsible. You are making God proud, I’m sure, with your efforts to become a better person.
BTW, confronting the past is not something that spaths can do. My exP said, “the past does not exist”. My spath-bro says, “that’s in the past..”
There is a great book for teenagers called “that was then, this is now,” by SE Hinton. It’s a classic, you’ve prob heard of it or read it. read it again, it only take about an hour and it’s at your local library. Mark, The Lion, is the spath. He can’t grow up. He is stuck. It’s a coming of age story.
Star –
Thankyou. I don’t so much feel betrayed as confused. I know that many people go to work and when the day is done, work – and everything and everyone associated with it – stops there.
I, too, have worked at jobs like that in the past. Personal lives are separate from private lives. That’s okay by me.
BUT my current job has never been that way. I live in a small town, where the people who work together also play together and look out for one another.
Add to that the dimension of most of my time being spent in early childhood classes (3 – 6 years of age) where strong relationships are built with many of the parents, and especially in abuse intervention (several awful cases that some of my colleagues and I have cried oceans over, together) – well, it just made for what I thought was a close-knit circle of friends.
Two other staff members and myself were all involved with one particular little family of three neglected and abused children, where we all put our names down to foster those children. If I didn’t get them (because I somehow didn’t qualify), J___ was going to be my back-up and so on. THAT’S how close we all were. It was MORE than the usual “working relationship”.
Also, with my being the union delegate on site, many of staff – whether their jobs fell into my area of coverage or not – would come to me for advice on industrial and legal matters. I know so many confidential things that certain members of staff have not shared with anyone else except me. So many people there have cried on my shoulder.
I guess it’s the lack of reciprocity that has me sad. I don’t ever do things hoping that I’ll get something back – I just passionately care about stuff and about people. I guess that when I go back to work, I might just reign in my compassion a little, in favour of looking after ME a bit more!