Lovefraud recently received the following email from a reader in Holland whom we’ll call “Anika”:
Today I registered to your love fraud site. Nice that you created it. It is a great help when you are abused by a socio-psychopath whatever you call it. I’ve been divorced from mine almost 30 years. Only 3 years ago I read a book that explained to me why, after my divorce, my life changed from a drama into a hell.
And this blog and sites are very helpful. Knowledge gives power. So I am together with a cousin (who is also divorced her psychopath), working on creating something like this in Holland. In our country it seems to be an unknown subject.
I want to write especially about the troubles the Nps-ers can cause between the children and their mother or fathers. That’s what happened in my case. My ex trained the children in abusive and cruel behavior towards me.
My son doesn’t know the facts of why I divorced his father. His father (who works as a homeopathic doctor) told my kids, when they were in their puberty, that the great drama in their lives was that their mother caused them a lot off harm by having this (so called) depression after the divorce. I only found out years afterward he what did, because he never told me that he was putting this idea in their heads. (And he forgot to mention his messing around with other women and lies about that, which destroyed our marriage.)
When I asked my children if they please can explain to me what happened and how, they most of the times get very angry, start to scream at me, or walk away but cannot give any example. They avoid contact with me most of the times.
I have had no contact with my daughter for several years. One year ago I gave it another try. First by e-mail and then I paid her 2 visits that were 2 very pleasant occasions. I could feel her love, and the atmosphere was very good.
She wrote me this also in a e-mail. And then she started to create distance between her and me.
My son, luckily, has 2 kids and he likes me to be the grandmother. I am very lucky with them that contact is very good, we love each other big time.
Well that’s my story in a nutshell.
Anika’s story is just like many of the 3,600 stories that have been sent to Lovefraud—and that is exactly why I posted it. This story came from Europe. Sociopaths are everywhere—Lovefraud has received stories from all over the world. Sociopaths are in all demographic groups. They are male, female, rich, poor, all races, all religions and live in all communities.
Anika also said that sociopathy “seems to be an unknown subject” in Holland. Well, it’s an unknown subject all around the world. Yes, we’re talking about social predators here on Lovefraud, which is based in the United States, but that certainly doesn’t mean Americans have any more awareness of this personality disorder than anyone else does.
Because Hollywood and the media typically portray sociopaths as deranged serial killers, our “understanding” of them may do us more harm than good. Why? When people believe sociopaths are all deranged killers, it may blind them to the fact that a lying, manipulative, abusive partner or colleague may be a sociopath. Because the individual hasn’t killed anyone, it may be hard to believe that he or she has a serious personality disorder.
The fact that predators live among us is like a giant skeleton in the closet of the human race. It’s a massive problem that no one wants to talk about.
Defining the problem
One reason why this huge problem remains outside of our awareness is that it is poorly defined. Even though people have been talking about evil since biblical times, there is no widely accepted definition of what it is.
In my book, Red Flags of Love Fraud 10 signs you’re dating a sociopath, I suggest that the word “sociopath” be used as a generic umbrella description for social predators—people who live their lives by exploiting others. Within the framework of “sociopathy,” experts (who disagree on what to call this personality disorder and how it should be diagnosed) can define specific diagnoses, such as antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, narcissism and borderline personality disorder.
Massive numbers
Experts estimate that up to 4% of the population have antisocial personality disorder, up to 6% have narcissistic personality disorder, and up to 2% have borderline personality disorder. Add these figures together, and as many as 12% of the people who live among us are social predators.
As of July 2012, the population of the United States was nearly 314 million. If up to 12% are sociopaths, that means as many as 37 million social predators in America.
The world population is almost 7 billion. If 12% are sociopaths, the total is a staggering 837 million. This is a massive problem.
So why are there 837 million disordered people in the world, exploiting almost everyone they meet, and most people don’t know about it? Perhaps the whole concept is just too scary.
Cultural conspiracy
Human beings are social creatures. We live in groups and depend on each other. How do we cope with the idea that some of our own species are predators? They look like us and act like us, but their objective is not to live in community with us—it is to take advantage of us and perhaps destroy us.
Maybe we just don’t want to go there. We are, after all, capable of massive conspiracy. Take Santa Claus. I’ve always been amazed that every adult in every country where Christmas is celebrated knows, in the presence of children, to keep the Santa Claus story going. So maybe we’re living with another massive cultural conspiracy that goes something like this: All people are basically good and want the same thing is life—to love and be loved.
It’s a cultural message that we hear time and time again. Unfortunately, it is not totally true. There are exceptions to this general belief in the goodness and sameness of people. The exceptions are the sociopaths.
We need to open the closet and shed light on the fact that 837 million social predators live among us. They look like us, but they do not live like us. These people do not love. They care only about power, control and dominance.
The first step towards protecting ourselves from sociopaths is knowing that they exist.
AMEN Oxy!!!
and you’re also right about taking our own responsibility for making the choice to ignore the red flags that we did see….In Texas they say ( when you get dumped as cruelly and as callously as my ex dumped me) we need to “put our big girl panties on” and then deal with the aftermath!!!!
Its not an easy journey, but I have found many helpers along the way…..and at the end we are fortunate if we can say we got by with a little help from our friends!!!
loving lady….I believe we get blinded by our own vulnerabilities….the same ones that let us become targets to begin with…. those are life lessons that we must learn!!!!
To heal those vulnerabilities is our choice and our journey….
lovingthem,
Part of my isolation was due to the fact that friends did not feel comfortable around my husband for several reasons.For one thing,although he can have a sense of charisma when first meeting people,once he has come to know you,he becomes ‘hard to deal with’.He’s critical and won’t follow helpful suggestions.Then there’s the ‘odor thing’.And long ago he scared people from wanting to get into the car if he was driving!
Easp, it’s so very, very good to “see” you and I am sorry that you had breast cancer. Wonderful to read that you are in remission!!!
Yes, sociopathy is NOT gender-specific, and it’s vital that education includes the understanding that female victims are more prone to speak out about their experiences than male victims are. There’s a stigma that is difficult for males to get beyond. I’ve even heard police officers at the scene make snide and humiliating remarks to some man who was being beaten up by their female partners. So, when we compare the disbelief in response to female victims, we have to imagine how male victims are treated. “Whassamatta? Can’t you handle the little woman?”
I’m so sorry that your son had the experiences that he did and that innocent children are involved. Perhaps, he’ll find this site, at some point, and get some more information.
Again, congratulations on your remission and I’m glad that you’re back.
Brightest blessings
Easp, so glad to read that you are in remission. My friend has now recovered from breast cancer after a double mastectomy and many months of punishing treatments; always great to hear of another cancer survivor. Best to you.
The discussion of soul scent begun by abelrising has been both comforting and quite unnerving for me. I met the man who abused me in my home town, but he does not live here, he lives in another country. We communicated by email and phone for a few months before I agreed to fly to his country to meet him. In his lovebombing of me during the distance ‘romance’ phase of the relationship he sent me a parcel, in it was a ‘love letter’ – now to my eyes nauseatingly obvious pity play and manipulation to encourage me to meet him so he could sexually and psychologically abuse me – and a t shirt.
He told me he had worn this t shirt for the whole day – in mid summer – so that it would have his scent on it, he wanted me to wear it to bed and ..well. Fill in the blanks, he was deviant and sexually exploitative.
Anyway. I have been in love twice, and each time the smell of the man I loved was very powerful for me, gave me a primal sense of intimately being bonded with them, as well as ( err well at least in the honeymoon phases lol) being exciting. I would respond strongly to their pheremones, cologne, the smell of their body mixed with detergents on their clothes, the whole combination that made them smell of ‘them’.
With the abuser… NOTHING. The t shirt did not smell…of anything. Just cotton, and air. It was not clean, off the line, he had worn it, in fact he’d worn it more than once the neckline was slightly marked. There was just no damn odour on it of a human being. I remember pressing the thing to my face thinking, this is odd, did he shower and just wear it for 5 minutes? But when I met him, it was the same. Even after sex, I could not smell ”him”.
So this discussion is very very strange and quite unnerving for me. I’m glad abelrising that you can testify to disordered people not having a ‘soul scent’.
On the other hand, his breath stank. Body, nothing. But when he opened his mouth, and that mouth was always open, always yapping, always demanding and boring me half to death, phew. Terrible halitosis.
Tea light there is a lack of soul scent. its the best way we can describe it. there are bodies of energies around people that’s hard to expalin. sometimes some of us can see these bodies of energies. sometimes some of us can smell them. sometimes some of us feel them. these emissions change with how the person is feeling. now regardless of a lack of soulscent there is a scent that goes off when a predator is on the hunt or prowl. this is a different smell than the ’emptiness’ that is usually present.
i am a scientific man and i dont think that science disproves such awareness. if you watch An Elegant Universe http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/elegant-universe.html
much more enlightening and uplifting than what passes for entertainment on tv.
But it goes beneath in laymans term the theory behind the quantum physics approach that goes on in a world so small it’s not physically seen. but it doesnt mean that it does not exist.
Tea Light,
Very Interesting!When I think back,before the MUSTY smell appeared,I don’t remember my husband’s clothes having any scent,other than the laundry detergent!
Something I’ve never forgotten is what my mother confided in me long ago.She said she’d had a dream that my husband was chasing her and that he was able to jump over trees in order to keep chasing her!
there are many theories as to why our population and their population are so similar and yet so different. how many autistics are there in our prisons? think of that.
we have an intricate inner world that no matter what we are dealing with living in the discomforts of this world this inner world sustains us.
They don’t they have that and i don’t think they ever will. The Others are forbidden in these worlds. they can’t visit or have ever experienced this place. this place that autistics know and sometimes everyday peoples know it too. you have always known this place. even if something in you has forgotten the way. it’s there for you too.
But They are forbidden. they live wandering to fill that void inside of themselves. to feed and yet no matter how much they take they are always hungry. they are always thirsty. they are never sated.
and biologically and dna wise we may have been cut from the same cloth but something is terribly missing in them. no matter what they have done to me and mine and many others. i pity them. not so much that i’m trying to save them. i don’t do that. they are what they are and i don’t waste my time to change what is. How many other worlds do they need to be discarded from? when they are isolated away from society completely what then? but i, like They don’t see that happening anytime soon. while there are ribbons to beacon the awareness of my population, walks and a search for a cure. looking for genes and markers so that me and mine can be aborted because we cost society so much…
you can see that there are no ribbons of awareness of Them. no walks. No real search for the cure. victims and costs to society downplayed and ignored. they are glorified and romantized with Dexter series..
So for now they continue to do what they will do untill society has the will to step up and say “ENOUGH!”
Blossom…brrrr! Now you’ve really creeped me out with your mum’s dream! I had a book as a child, called the Readers Digest book of Strange Stories and Amazing Facts. Packed full of myths and legends and true stories, but the one that really scared me was the sotry of ‘Spring Heel Jack’ . From wiki:
Spring-heeled Jack is a character in English folklore of the Victorian era who was known for his startling hops. The first claimed sighting of Spring-heeled Jack was in 1837.[1] Later sightings were reported all over Great Britain and were especially prevalent in suburban London, the Midlands and Scotland.[2]
There are many theories about the nature and identity of Spring-heeled Jack. This urban legend was very popular in its time, due to the tales of his bizarre appearance and ability to make extraordinary leaps, to the point that he became the topic of several works of fiction.
Spring-heeled Jack was described by people who claimed to have seen him as having a terrifying and frightful appearance, with diabolical physiognomy, clawed hands, and eyes that “resembled red balls of fire”. One report claimed that, beneath a black cloak, he wore a helmet and a tight-fitting white garment like an oilskin. Many stories also mention a “Devil-like” aspect. Others said he was tall and thin, with the appearance of a gentleman. Several reports mention that he could breathe out blue and white flames and that he wore sharp metallic claws at his fingertips. At least two people claimed that he was able to speak comprehensible English.