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.
Claudia,
Well if I weren’t still making payments on it, I sure would lol!
I’ll be okay. Just takes time.
Thank you for your well wishes!
LL
Claudia,
my spath doesn’t threaten. When he targets you, he becomes your best friend. When you’re dying, you’d never know why. His good friends are the ones dying, not the strangers or enemies.
He does lead a double life though. When he’s not hob nobbing with millionaires, he looks for hookers to torture. I know these things, not because I have proof, but because he would “tell” me. It wasn’t until I saw his final con-job on me, in which I knew he was conning me, that I realized what certain expressions and mannerisms meant. Watching him lie to me that last time was a revelation. I flashed back and remembered all the other times I had seen those expressions. Then I knew what it meant. 25 years of lies flashed before my eyes. Suddenly I knew which were lies and that the “tells” were tells because he uses a certain “mode” when doing his evil. It was then that I knew that he had no limits to his evil and that in fact, EVERYTHING that he does is in service to that evil. He specifially makes the choices he does because they are perverse, not in spite of.
I do believe that most spaths are similar, but they don’t all have the same drive as mine did. He was extremely damaged. At age 12, he ran away and went to live with an 18 year-old prostitute. Can you imagine what SHE did to him? Part of his butt is missing and his mom did not know about it, so it happened after he left home.
Before that, his father and grandfather were abusive to his mom. This guy has baggage big time. His favorite thing to do is to ensnare others to also do evil. That’s the biggest kick he gets. He once told me, “it’s amazing how easy it is to find guys who are willing to rape a girl if they think she is passed out on a date rape drug.”
So he knows that spaths are everywhere, but most of them don’t have his drive and audacity. All he has to do is provide that, and voila! spath city.
Claudia,
Just now back on. Thank you for your kindness. I will repost tomorrow.
Again, you book The Seducer is brave and compelling. And it also helped me a great deal, even though it has been four years for me since I last saw the psychopath. It is somehow reassuring to know, as you portrayed so courageously in the book, that there ARE red flags. Early boundaries crossed…and we let them because of some unmet needs, or some dream we have, or one of many other reasons. The thing is for each of us (as Steve B. said in one of his blogs) to learn what red flags we ignored, and why. I sure ignored a ton of them myself!
and you also did an excellent job of illustrating the thinking of the psychopath, and the games they play with what they say, their manipulations, etc.
And it sounds like you are married to a wonderful man, as I am, who reacted about the same. Only I was entirely out and had went through hell recovering, before I ever told my husband.
It is a brilliant book!
Neveragain, Thank you so much for your comments about The Seducer. We have a similar timeline, since I left the psychopath a little over three years ago. And when the early boundaries were crossed, it was always cajoling and romantic, so that we could cross them as if we were waltzing not jumping over a cliff to our demise. That’s why we crossed them!
But, if you don’t mind telling me, why did you go through hell recovering? I experienced a great sense of relief even a few days after I left the psychopath. No regrets whatsoever. But I had a lot of trouble with the lingering sense of betrayal, resentment and anger, which still flares up from time to time.
LL, you’ll get it done somehow! And you have many online lovefraud friends to encourage you.
Skylar, those are the most dangerous psychopaths: who can fake best being your best friend. Mine did that too. Even the acts that were clearly detrimental to you, he managed to present them as in your best interest. I’m amazed that you kept your dignity and wits about you after 25 years of such a deadly (in your case, literally deadly!) psychopath. How did you finally get the strength–and the opportunity–to escape him?
Skylar
I find it extremely painful, how true that is. hmm
Claudia,
I didn’t actually keep my dignity, but I didn’t need it to survive as it turns out. Who cares what other people think?
My spath had burned through my money pretty fast and we were constantly broke, but I would always pull a rabbit of the hat, usually in the case of more credit card debt. Finally, I said, “Go out and earn a living spath because I’m broke”. He miscalculated by believing me. He thought he had me and he was going to pull his final con by forcing me to sign over our business into his name. To do this, he began a con in which he was supposedly being pursued by homeland security. He showed me a GPS tracking device and later, a warrant to place it on his helicopter. But he told me the GPS was found on his truck, and the dates were for a time period a week after he “found” the GPS. I was suspicious but it wasn’t until he announced his “solution” to the problem, that I KNEW I was being conned. He told me I needed to transfer the business into his name to “protect” myself. I knew he was lying but I was still confused, so I told my parents what was happening and they said, “we knew that he was only with you for your money. Your father overheard spath telling someone within a few months of your meeting spath.” WTF? My parents KNEW and never said anything? That’s when I knew that my parents also hated me. It’s very difficult to process that but it is the truth. They love to control me, just as spath did. That’s why I don’t feel loved unless someone is trying to control me. All the things that my spath made me feel were just like what they did. It’s why I was able to stay with the monster for 25 years. I just didn’t notice.
It’sme,
yes, it is the most painful thing for me too. Knowing that most people are evil and those that aren’t, will still engage in evil or just shrug it off, is very depressing.
Agreed! I find it to be depressing too. I guess in many ways,,, I’ve succombed to trying to shrug it off… in my own life anyway. I still get in fight mode when it’s someone else, I guess I get angry because it’s the evil ‘winning’ idea. Makes me angry and I want to fight for the innocent. I don’t see how it is that we/I can have that for others at the same time I don’t for myself.? I don’t know…
Sorry! I’ll hush now! 🙂
Itsme,
no need to hush. You said something very important: You will shrug off evil aimed at you but not when you see another innocent person being abused.
I’m the same way and I don’t think it’s a good thing. We shouldn’t make scapegoats of ourselves. Spaths will often use this aspect of ourselves to hook us. It’s called the pity ploy and Ted Bundy used it to lure his victims. Often the evil one will pretend to be a victim of evil to steal your money, time, or life. We have to be careful.