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.
Great article about the prevalence of sociopathy in the world. I do think the US might have more because of our Hollywood environment that apparently “convinces” many of the “good” and “evil” around us.
Good point about the mothers of sociopaths. Although, we cannot over generalize here both of my disordered husbands had contemptious relationships with their mothers. Strangely, at first they almost “worshipped” their moms and as they have both aged their is contempt for them. Definitely, a red flag should go up for any kind of different relationship especially if it is “worship” or extreme “hate”. RED FLAG. This is the basic human relationship – mother/son, and something is going on here.
Imara, I know….red means stop. It’s green that means go! I looked at the red flagS and said….hmmmmm….I like the color red! LOL!
I understand the vortex and the suicidall feelings. And the why why whys. I seems like I’ve been in that place forever…..like almost the entire time I was with him and now that I’m not. I think I just had a realization about Spaths and chaos and cognitive dissonance. They create the confusion and chaos and once that starts, the person on the receiving end, the victim, me, is in the trap. I think it was Truthspeak that told me to read about cog/ dis yesterday. I was familiar with it but I’m having a lightbulb moment right NOW! Timing!
Radar…..you crack me up. Me to…..I’m emotionally dyslexic. I had it backwards!! LOL!
Hope52. That is the dangerous dynamic with spaths and their mothers….it’s all tied into a love HATE experience. I’m surprised more hasn’t been written about this because I think for a lot of them it IS the crux of the matter but it apparently has to do with the fathers unhealthy roll as well. It’s basically being stuck in the birth canal, the crib, the basement.
I think my soon to be ex, is still stuck in the birth canal! Ohhhh, wait a minute… he is now living with his elderly father…hummm. his father has no birth canal, so that just means he must be stuck up somewhere!! LOL! 🙂
G’mornin D2! 🙂
Donna;
Thanks again for highlighting that all those with a Cluster-B Personality Disorder (antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder) are toxic social predators.
I too agree with using the term “Sociopath” to cover most of these individuals, as great overlap exists among the disorders.
By focusing on those 4% with clinical antisocial personality disorder, mainstream psychiatry misses the effect the rest have on other people’s lives and society in general.
Ohhh, Now I remember where he stuck at… The vas deferens! Lol! Yep, tha’d be it!
Behind blue eyes – yes – and the problem is actually even bigger than I stated. The 837 million is those who would be diagnosed as having a disorder. In addition, there are people who have sociopathic traits but not the full disorder – and they’re nasty dudes and dudettes as well.
dorothy2;
While much of the disorder can be tied to parenting, there are Epigenetic factors that can go back several generations. In addition, there are genetic factors. Interestingly, studies show that the worst psychopaths (murderers, rapists, career criminals) typically come from normal backgrounds.
The other day, on a health website, I read something shocking — a doctor actually wrote that there is no risk to baby of a pregnant woman drinking two glasses of wine per day.
Perhaps not a physical risk, but one has to wonder the potential downstream mental health risks to the child. In addition, the risks above this level are very real and to avoid mentioning such borders on malpractice.
Smoking while pregnant can affect the child, as smoking is known to cause an increase in womb testosterone levels. Drug use is an obvious risk. Studies show that emotional stress while pregnant can also affect the child.
Think of the combinations — a sociopathic grandmother puts emotional stress on her normal daughter. This emotional stress may manifest itself downstream in the child. Now, suppose to self-medicate, the mother smokes, or takes a sleeping pill to get some rest.
abelrising, I especially appreciate all of your posts here.
What struck me the most was your description of the “smell” of The Other.
I appreciate your posting about that so much because I find it so personally validating.
I doubt I have this sense to the heightened extent that you and your family do, but I have always been sensitive to smells that no one else can detect, and I can smell evil. Or, as you put it (I think), the absence of a soul, or a corrupted or polluted soul, and there are different smells. It is not just the sense of the hairs standing up on the back of my neck (I can get that too) but an actual, real smell (that no one else can seem to smell!). Not a “psychic” smell, in other words — this is real.
I also had something very weird (along those lines) happen to me several years ago, with my second ex-husband (not the spath father of my children), shortly before we divorced. I began to be able to smell a hideous odor coming out of him. It was unbearable, it was a real turn-off, it was unlike anything I’d ever smelled. No one else could smell it. I thought maybe I was picking up on a developing health issue (cancer?) and I begged him to go to the doctor to get a thorough check-up, which he eventually did after much nagging. The checkup came back with perfectly healthy results. The smell did NOT go away. Yes, it was HIM. I only smelled it most intensely when he was around. Eventually I couldn’t sleep in the same bed with him. We separated soon after that. I found the smell such a turnoff I couldn’t bear to be physically close to him (and I felt terribly guilty about that).
To this day, I still wonder what that smell was, why I could smell it when no one else could, what it meant. And did it appear suddenly, or did I suddenly develop a more sensitive ability?
All I think I know that was going on with him at the time is that he was very unhappy with a change in job assignment at work, and he wouldn’t tell me what was going on. I don’t know if I was smelling his emotions, some as-yet undiagnosed illness, or some soul pollution. I do have the sense that there is something predatorial about him, not the same sense as “this person will be sadistic” but more like “this person will suck all of my spirit, my creativity, and assimilate/own me” (like the borg)
abelrising, I am sorry that your family and your nurse had that devastating experience, the murder of her only child.
Your posts are very helpful to me.