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 remember that news story quite well. But you know, once you begin from the premise that psychopaths are out to use and abuse others, all of their behavior becomes quite boring, dumb and predictable, as Steve B. points out in his most recent article.
sky, in his book, The Four Agreements, Ruiz says we
believe what we are programed to believe,
by our parents, kids at school, teachers, etc…
and they have all been programed by their parents, etc.
It’s when we wake up from their dream that we are able to
begin dreaming our own dream.
When you talk to your parents, they don’t understand,
because they are in their own dream, their own reality.
Kids told me I was ugly, and I believed them,
until the spell was broken and I awoke from that dream.
A cranky tired mother tells her daughter to stop singing,
that she does not have a good voice, the little girl
never sings again. The mother didn’t really mean it,
but her daughter now lives with the belief that she doesn’t
have a good voice.
Claudia,
Yep, four in the mornin. No, I’m never up that late unless I’m sick. I wound up in the ER last night for this stupid abscess tooth, I was in so much excrutiating pain I couldn’t stand it anymore. All they could do was give me narcotic pain meds, as the Ibuprofen stopped working. I HATE taking narcotic medication. It’s a lot better than being in that much pain, but the side effects from it are irritating.
I’m frustrated. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep and the pain meds combined, but I’m ruminating again. Feeling very sad, missing having a partner. He was no partner, but this is a slippery slope for me and a dangerous place to go in my mind. I realized when I awoke this morning that it’s three months NC yesterday.
My daughter and her bf ran me to the ER last night. I knew they’d probably give me something that meant a narcotic, so driving would be out of the question. While on the way, it was so dead quiet in our town, memories of my ex are everywhere here. I so wish I could move to another town. I keep thinking about it. My sons would be very upset with me though and it’s just not wise right now, wanting to maintain their stability in school until they graduate. So as I was ruminating on the way there, I had to “flip it” as I keep telling Petitie. I went with the thought…what would happen if I were in this much pain and lived with the ex? Well, I’d either be getting a ride to the ER or I’d be driving myself, probably the latter than former. My daughter and bf sat there with me until I was done and drove me home. This was at two in the morning. My ex would have flipped out had I asked him to drive me anywhere at two in the morning. I began to feel grateful for my daughter and her bf and that I can BE THAT SICK and they CARE.
I visualize what it would be like, put myself in a place where he is to care for me. It’s NEVER comfortable.
This morning, the ruminating was happening again. Wondering what he’s doing with gf. Flipped it. And it helps, but it also doesn’t which tells me this is something much deeper trying to come up. I haven’t touched base with it yet, but there is this strong tie in wanting to be CARED for when I’m feeling like this. I feel like this a lot when there is crisis in my life. He was always THERE.
Maybe that’s it, maybe it’s not. But I wonder if I”m taking the correct approach. I wonder if I should be asking myself, when I’m ruminating…….what do I feel I’m missing? What is the CORE relevance to the “missing him” piece….
I’m open to the answers. When I say I miss him, I feel that pain, but I wonder if that’s just surface dirt.
LL
Shabbychic, is this Ruiz book you’re referring to written in the style of magical realism?
Claudia,
I went through hell because 1) I had fallen deeply in love with who I thought he was. That was part of it. It was fake on his side, but real on mine and it took awhile to let go of who I thought he was.
2) I was emotionally raped, as defined in the book The Emotional Rape Syndrome. I literally got diarrhea when I would think about him. It was awful.
3)He was also my first love when I was 15. First loves create a special bond for us (even 40 years later) as written about at http://shrinktalk.net/?p=190 and various other places. Whether it is loathing or love.
4)Finally, I had a betrayal bond with him. Where I was replicating my past LITERALLY with him, trying to make it come out right this time, and also replicating my past relationship with my mom, with whom I also had a betrayal bond.
I thought he had treated me cruelly as a first love because he was only 16 when he dumped me. I didn’t realize it was not the “normal” dump, but one calculated to inflict the most pain and humiliation. And yet it didn’t seem as bad as it would have seemed to most young girls, who had not been treated that way most of their life by their mom. Emotional cruelty had become normalized for me. (Luckily my husband was a very healthy choice for me.)
So he kept coming back over the years, and I kept ignoring him, until after 40 years he hit me at a weak time. As per the Betrayal bond book I believed in the man (he was a doctor and mega millionaire and still as witty as when a teen…though he had a sick 7th grader, at best, sense of humor about anything related to sex), I believed in the “story” (he had always loved me …baloney of course…..and soon I convinced myself I had never really gotten over him), I believed in the “mission” (we were both feeling unloved, and could provide that love to each other without wrecking our marriages…untrue of course) and I believed in the “promise” (that at the very least, we would always be best friends for each other, that the sex didn’t have to be part of it, the main thing was the love). In actuality, he is a psychopath, so you know the rest. I kept flipping in my mind “good guy? or bad guy?” It was hard to change a 40 year perception of him as a good guy. Now, of course, it is crystal clear.
So after I let him sexually and emotionally abuse me through 4 meetings and hundreds and hundreds of email, I finally dumped him…though of course he would say he dumped me…. and did it in a way to guarantee he would never come back (I hope) and so far it has held. But since he basically stalked me for years, I will believe he is gone in about 10 more years! 🙂 But there is absolutely no way I would ever speak one word to him, whether he calls, or shows up or whatever. Not one word.
(PS I used to post under another name, for long time readers, if this sounds familiar. But I switched names for privacy so please don’t identify me. I had put in details i regretted later, as I refer acquaintances to this site! ) I still struggle with the guilt and shame, but am doing much, much better in that, thanks to my husband and the therapy I had, but it is still not something I care to publicize about myself!
SC, I read that book in Costa Rica. It’s very powerful, especially if you actually follow the agreements. Old habits are hard to break though.
His book (abridged from the back cover) is about self-limiting beliefs, he offers
a code of conduct for ourselves than can transform our lives.
He says it is based on ancient Toltec wisdom.
You can read about it on Amazon, there are over 800 comments!
I’ve had the book for about 5 years and have read it at least that many times.
I need to read it again!
Star, Amen to that!!!!!
It took the toxic man to jolt me awake from my dream.
LL, I’m so sorry your tooth has caused you so much pain. Did they pull it out or did they just give you pain medicine? Are you on antibiotics for the infection?
Very true, the psychopath would have never been there for you in any meaningful sense when you really needed him. In fact, he might have even placed dangerous drugs in your medicine. You never know. Every time you see or revisit a place where you were with him, be very grateful that he’s not there with you anymore.
What he’s doing with his girlfriend is probably similar to what he did with you, since these guys often operate from a pattern that works best for them, the way other scam artists do. And I’d be shocked if he were faithful to the new girlfriend or if there weren’t many, many more women in the psychopath’s life when you were with him, other than you and his wife. Usually what you see and discover once you open your eyes is just the tip of the iceberg of manipulation and deceit.
PS I was raped by a stranger when babysitting when 12, and the psychopath was not only my first love, but I thought my “healer” from that negative experience. So there were a lot of reasons It was hard to let go of all the false beliefs I had built up in my mind. Thanks for asking.