Perhaps the hardest thing for those of us targeted by sociopaths to grasp is the extent of their inhumanity.
Sociopaths have no empathy. They do not feel connections to other human beings. We are mere pawns in their games. They view the world as predators and prey—they are the predators, everyone else is prey.
We ask, “How can this be?”
We object, “He said he loved me!” (“She said she loved me!”)
We argue, “I said I was leaving and he cried! He begged me to stay! He said he couldn’t live without me!” (The female sociopath did too.)
Well, let’s take a look at what their words really mean. A Lovefraud reader visited Sociopathworld.com. “They had a discussion going on things they said but what they actually meant to them,” she wrote.
Here’s what our reader sent:
The Cheat-Sheet for What a Sociopath Really Means
1. I love you: I am fond of your companionship and put you above most, but never above me. Consider it an honor.
2. I’m sorry, forgive me: I really do not enjoy the fact that your mood has altered. Please revert back to normal.
3. I’d do anything for you: I’d do plenty to keep you right where I want you to be.
4. My condolences for your loss: *crickets* … It’s just a body. See you later when you aren’t being an emotional train-wreck.
5. S/he fills my heart with joy: I haven’t had this much fun playing in a long time, and the sex is more than acceptable.
6. I love my family: They’re mine.
7. That’s simply shocking: You’ve touched my morbid bone. No need to stop now…
8. Deep down, I feel I’m a good person: I’m not in prison and I stopped abusing animals, mostly. What more can you possibly demand of me?
9. I’m not a monster, I’m a human too: I’m trying to seem human, give me a break. It’s not like this is particularly natural for me.
10. I have feelings too: I feel frustrated when your feelings get in my way.
11. I wouldn’t lie to you: I lie to you every time I say I wouldn’t lie to you.
12. I understand/respect your feelings: I appreciate your feelings because I use them to manipulate you.
13. I never meant to hurt you: mission accomplished.
14. I want to work things out: I want to work things out for today.
15. I’ll always be there for you: I’ll try to as long as I need something from you
Remember this: Never evaluate the words or actions of a sociopath based on what you mean by your words and actions. For a sociopath, it’s all about manipulation.
Search function not working for you?
When I use the search function I get 2 week old posts. This happening to anyone else?
I posted on an old thread this am – a new poster, something ‘gurl’, and I want to check back there, and I can’t.
YEP! Same thing I get.
I wrote Donna about it…although my first explanation didn’t make any sense to her. 😉 I gotta stop writing things when i am not awake.
How are things EB?
LSOSEC – my new acronym for the spath (I’ll leave that up to your imagination ;)) continues to hack away at things over here. it’s okay, it’s actually starting to get quite boring.
My PX’s nephew [cop] told him years ago he was a P. When he was given anything of this sort to read, he called it: cynical and psychotic. LOLOLOLOL~ he blamed it on the writer, BTW.
Oxy,
I understand totally what you are saying. In the past, I wrote letters to him to get a reaction. This time, I stated facts. No emotion..nothing about being hurt. Just things that I wanted to say to him about how I felt all along….basically that I tried to trust him but it wasn’t happenning.
I HAD to get it out this time before No Contact. I just told my sister that he could pull up tonite…give me a ring, cry and beg and swear he loves me and wants to marry me, and I would tell him to get off of my property.
“Round 3” with him was different. I couldn’t have sex with him..didn’t want to. I didn’t trust him. Once someone betrays you, its over. I tried to forgive and forget and tell myself that he really is “done” playing around. But, my body was screaming out “no”.
We planned to go to NYC on Sat. He actually took the day off after I complained last week. We never made it. He wanted to see me on Weds at his house…wouldn’t meet me for a bite to eat halfway…(we live 40 miles away). Yet, he claimed he wanted to “see” me so badly. (I refused sex with him for a month already). He wanted to “get some” as he used to put it…prior to taking me out. When I refused, he lashed out …out of anger..that “HE” couldn’t give me what I wanted.
Twisted, as usual for a socio. The fact was that I wasn’t going to give him what HE wanted. So, he got angry.
I didn’t want to go to NYC with him anyway. I am taking my girls in and meeting my family to see a Broadway show…this Friday night! I don’t need him. I have a better time with my family!
No, this time Oxy..its over. It took 3 strikes for me to come to the conclusion that its not even really a relationship. It was all about him filling his needs. He only filled a need as a “friend” for me…called me every hour! Mostly to make sure he knew where I was in case he was cheating, probably.
I am wiser now. I finally got the strength to stand up for myself and end the misery of being with someone that I never trusted. I have lots to do with my girls…and some really good friends to get together with and laugh and have fun. And, I have lost some weight and I’m looking better now than I have in years.
Its 2bhappy time. I have confidence that I will meet a “normal” man and have a real relationship, in time.
In the meantime,…”its all about me now”. lol!
MISSING ARTICLE: You guys are right. The article is gone from there because the author “M” was the one referred to as having 2 sons. I posted to him, and to the BGURL poster.
I looked on the “blog” where that thread was posted (and the articles are in order by date posted) and the article is NOT there. So 1) donna took it down or 2) something is wrong with the blog program.
Dear Glittermom
My first post too, although I’ve been reading for a little while.
I’m 3 years out of the marriage, but still being dragged through the Family Court by him (his application, not mine) for a Property Settlement that he has no chance of winning (he already has way more money than me plus we each own our own house and his is worth more than mine is); but of course, it’s more about harrassing me than it is about any legal matter; maintaining control over how I have to spend my life because I refuse to contact him (for 2 years) and have refused to accept or excuse or rationalise the abuse anymore (for 3 years).
I have the pleasure (thanks to him) of suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a breast tumour (doctors say chronic high-level stress = bad hormonal changes = breast problems; don’t know yet whether it’s cancer, so fingers crossed!) and this year, the magical bonus of Fibromyalgia (workaholic, unable to work for the past 7 months…GRRRRRRRRR….) – plus many other health issues in the past (during the 7 years we were together) that I just KNOW he caused (all stress-related)(Quelle surprise!!)
So – been there, done that, writing the book…
My messages to you are:
1) Listen carefully to (or read) the lyrics to Jason Mraz’s “Details in the Fabric”
2) cut all negative people out of your immediate circle because you are going to need good, strong, positive and understanding support from people who are “keepers”; you don’t have time now for the other sort and they only drain you anyhow; how can we line up for more draining when we’ve already been sucked dry to a thin crisp?
3) find a decent counsellor; one who knows how sociopaths tick and who won’t have you examining what is was that YOU did to contribute to your problems; all WE did was function normally but without the knowledge we now have to spot the monsters with
4) learn to breathe deeply to relieve your anxiety
5) listen to uplifting music, drink lots of clean water and eat good food; your body, mind and soul have been through hell; they need all the help they can get to re-group
6) KNOW in your heart that YOU ARE NOT THE CRAZY!
and finally
7) when he said “I give up, You win” following your break up and your refusal to comply and you say you think “he actually might have meant that “I won” in that he could not ’play’ with me anymore”…. just know that that’s EXACTLY what mine said more than 2 years ago….yet he has continued to stalk me, to infiltrate areas of my life that I have now had to vacate in order to avoid him and to force me to have to face him in person through endless court sessions (although I never look directly at him nor do I speak directly to him) – in other words, he is still playing with me.
I am doing my part with a strict non-contact rule; but I have no control over the legal battles he keeps forcing on me and will just need to ride them out.
You WILL get through this and you WILL get stronger.
Just don’t ever turn your back to him, that’s all. Keep looking over your shoulder.
It’s a s*** of a way to have to live, but it beats all merry hell out of living with one of them. xxx
Dear Hens and Survivorlady
By far the most difficult and gut-wrenching bit to all of this, is that we grieve the illusion.
At least with a normal (strange choice of word, I know, but what else to use in its place?) relationship breakdown, there are usually some good times, some happy memories, some lost dreams/plans, and some redeeming features – there is a genuine loss. The same goes for death – there’s usually a body to put in the ground and a place to go to mourn and process what is an ACTUAL loss. These things have a degree of tangibility to them. There are social conventions to cover them.
With sociopaths, everything – every little detail – was a con. None of what you thought was there, was there…
It’s a real double-whammy – not only do we go through the conventional grieving process but on top of that is this vacant, hollow, nebulous black hole filled with…..just the nothing that has replaced everything we thought we had and lost. How to grieve a black hole full of wispy nothing? It’s like staring into a mirror and nobody staring back or yelling in a canyon, only to have the sound disappear immediately – no echo, no vibrations, not even the wind whistling past. Just an enormous, vaccuous non-existent nothingness.
Then how to cope with grieving a non-existent, intangible thing that has no reflection nor any echo? How to stop feeling the pain of losing what you never had?
This is what has taken me the longest to move past. Everything else took the usual path of grief and healing, but this thing is different. This is the killer. The thing we have to overcome, or the rest of getting ourselves better wont last otherwise.
Hopeforjoy and onestepatatime
I’m pretty sure that my father is also a Narcissist.
Both of your comments were spot on as to why, as the daughters of N’s, we are especially susceptible (before we have had the opportunity to arm ourselves with knowledge against them) to the evil machinations of the sociopath.
That well-researched and well-documented, primal and basic craving of little girls to be loved, cherished, well-thought-of and approved by their daddies…..if the natural need has never been met, the natural craving will continue to seek fulfilment.
Not our fault –
a) that we weren’t wired properly by a functional family to not have the craving; and
b) that we didn’t have the knowledge or the skills to spot and avoid those who would prey on that vulnerability.
Remember – spaths are expert at reading things in us that normal people might not even see. It’s their life’s work.