Editor’s Note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader whom we’ll call “Alexa.”
I’d like to tell you a brief story of something that lasted nearly 3 years ALL ON SOCIAL MEDIA and the telephone. I am a 27-year-old Law Student with a Master’s Degree in Sociology and Criminology of all things and this happened to me. A raging feminist who rarely dated somehow fell helpless prey to a sociopath. This was the hardest thing I have ever dealt with in my life and now I can see him doing it to someone else. I went to law enforcement with no avail because of the Internet and my lack of real knowledge of who he is.
It began with love bombing he friended me on Facebook and liked almost 40 pictures on Day One. Red flag went up immediately and after I told him I don’t trust men and I figured he’s a player from his overzealousness; he told me he was a law student at Emory and an alumni from University of Florida like myself. I began to take the bait ”¦ I was applying to law schools at the time. Within one month of our first interaction we were “a couple” that hadn’t even met. He asked me to be his girlfriend after sending me bouquets everyday for 5 days straight. He also sent one to my mother and chocolate covered strawberries to my younger handicapped brother, whom I had told him was my life ”¦ That action is what made me fall and I’ll never forget my stepfather telling me, “He’s a psycho or con artist.” He acted like his compassion was for battered and disadvantage women and children, which was mine. I believed in it.
Immediate cheating
Within a few weeks of me agreeing to be his girlfriend and feeling like I was on cloud nine for the first time in my life, he began to flirt with others, which I would not tolerate. I told my mother I believed he had been abused because there was no way for a man to need as much validation as he seemed to seek. He would tell me after I broke up with him that he was sexually abused by a male and he always sought validation in the form of love and sex from other females so he didn’t feel “gay,” or to help him cope with the theft of his childhood and manlyhood, as he saw it. AGAIN, I fell for this and decided to show him the love he never had. WHAT AN IDIOT I WAS!
Months would turn to years of him avoiding meeting me he called sometimes 45 times a day and he would belittle me, call me names, and threaten to kill himself if and when I left. I never knew if he was serious, and I am so naive and compassionate I couldn’t let myself feel like I was contributing to someone doing that. I stayed ”¦ through it all. He would want me to sleep on the phone with him and I often wondered how he had time to do anything. Eventually he threatened to kill me when I began making him angry by hanging up on him and ignoring him for periods of time. All the while I still “loved” him and blamed his behavior on his past.
Fake suicide
Long story short, he faked his death and disappearance multiple times, to which I felt the responsibility to help. He faked his death (as far as I know now) in May —which I fell for. I eventually attempted to overdose after his so-called “attorneys” called me during my law finals to say he left me everything. I felt immense guilt, sadness, and hopelessness. I was hospitalized and lost my semester, only to be released from the hospital and find out he was alive.
Everyday I reflect on this experience. I see visible scars from self-inflicting wounds during my overdose. I have medical bills from seeking help during the relationship because I couldn’t handle it. I see how my family was affected and my poor friends who had tried to get me to wake up. It didn’t matter how bad things got ”¦ I always went back. It took me almost dying to really see the light.
But even now I wonder “why me?” and what did he get from ruining my life practically? I know that time heals most wounds, or at least helps us move on, but no one deserves what I went through. I went from a summa cum laude honor student to leaving law to escape a man that never faced me ”¦ I live my life between fear and regret, and trying to be okay and actually make progress. I am so grateful to see clearly now. I just wonder when the anger will leave and when I will no longer feel “crazy.”
Oxy
Meeting people at church isn’t safe either. The first person I went out with turned out to be some sort of conman & was going round all the youth groups, making friends with women and then suing then. Yes, my first experience of someone with some sort of disorder, I was 18ish. Had no idea that ‘paths existed in ‘normal’ life.
I didn’t realise at the time. The weird thing was that years later on a college course I was talking to someone & we were comparing past boyfriends. She said ‘at least yours didn’t….’. this seemed very familiar, and I asked her his name. It turned out that he was the same guy I’d been out with all those years before. I’d totally stitched up up, left her with nothing!
Speaking up, he is supposedly coming to see me and film me the last week of this month. Will see how it turns out, I figure I have nothing to lose and maybe something to gain.
I SURVIVED THE BASTARD….yes, they are EVERYWHERE and churches are a place that they do like to hide out….that is why we must be CAUTIOUS with new relationships and watch for the RED FLAGS and at the FIRST sign of one, RUN LIKE THE DEVIL IS AFTER YOU, BECAUSE HE IS!
I read your story and was shocked!!it was similar to mine.i am a chemistry student and i have sth similar going on for 5 months.i met a guy online on fb who was lovebombing me too, sending me poems,songs and pretending he was a musician and i was his muse.we were talking all day and many times night, i failed the semester too,but didnt care at all back then.The difference is that guy is japanese.i was so captivated feeling like i had found my soulmate.he also told me he was sexually abused by a male relative and had problems since then to love and bond with women but i was different.not even once he agreed to show me who he really is.as soon as he made sure i am head over heels for him became abusive,flirting with others provocatively,broke up with me and when i ignored him got even more angry and abusive.i struggle so much to go back to school,but when i stand in frony of a pc all i want is talk to him.i did great research on why this happens i come from a very abusive family all addicts,especially my mother hitting me and calling me fat,idiot and unlovable.it feels i am 2 people one who knows the truth and fights to get away and another who just is trapped.i hope i will manage to end this.your site is great help opened my eyes.he told me he had a fb girl for years before but he got cancer and she was cruel and left him.later i realised he had around 10 fb profiles all my friends boys and girls all day talking to me to find out about me and praise him to me.he never admitted it but i am sure they r his.he makes new ones all time now i know he has over 20 i report them but makes different ones.he said once when he was careless that he has no job,never had one and is online all day.i feel like trash i am addicted to him when he is clearly psychopath.i am sure he has many others like me.i am looking forward for help any advice and guidance would be invaluable
Alexa, Are you sure this person was actually male? This story stinks of a spath I know who is a woman.
Spaths are fucking evil. tha’ts why this person did this – they are evil.
I am 3 years out, no longer crazy – but defo not healed. Starting to feel a bit normal, and making great progress with it all. I now have a serious life threatening illness, if first test results are accurate. But I will fight, in the same way i fought through the spath damage. It’s what we CAN do – we CAN keep going. It DOES change. F*** them.
Dear Fallen one,
Knowledge is power and by educating yourself first about psychopaths and then more about yourself and why you became vulnerable to the attack, you will heal.
There is much information here…and much support and understanding. You are Not Alone. God bless and Welcome to Love Fraud.
Dear Ox Drover,
thank you for your kind words and your welcoming.I spend all night yesterday reading here and i one phrase spoke to me:the longer you will be away from the psychopath the stronger you will become.so today i erased my profile and left facebook for good.i feel bad already but this time i will succeed.he wont hurt me again i am the shadow of my former self.all my world ended to be one person who is a cheater and a liar.i want my self back.you were right i was vulnerable i was in a place away from my hometown no friends and i am in worst terms with my abusive family.i think he was my way of recreating the family trauma trying to make him non-abuser i went to therapy and the dr told me to cut ties with my family so i think it was loneliness and sadness who made me easy target,you think he can actually be awoman??
fallen one – um, yup. but there are many spaths out there, and they can be an un-original lot. mine was known for stealing the photos of others, using voice altering hardware, calling after the fake person died and getting other ‘sock puppets’ involved. And depending on what she knew you wanted, that’s what she would do. it’s surprising that *I* didn’t get the lawyer call, as i was broke and she knew that. But we can use the spaths actions to see what we really needed – because they hone in on that stuff and fake fulfill it: she sent me another family member (because i wanted and needed companionship), she gave me drama because i needed a bigger life, she faked suicide attempts and illness as the fake character, because I needed someone to nurture and give to (i had bad boundaries about when to stop said behaviour), she gave me a sense of community, because i craved it, she was creative as the fake character because i was missing creative friends and activity in my life. I am sure that I could list many many more things she faked that I needed. But you get the drift.
one/joy you are absolutely right i needed all those things you mentioned too. they can be so creative i am amazed of what you say.i mean of course i believe you and appreciate you answer me and help me it is just seems so weird how can they analyse so much what we need.do they have so high iq?how they do it?
fallen, I think it’s instinctual in them. they vary in intelligence. it’s like dogs. we used to have border collies. one was ‘not so bright’, but his instinct to herd was very much in evidence. he would run so hard he would end up rolling like a tumble weed, but he didn’t KNOW when to stop, or which animal to chase – all instinct, not much innate intelligence.
i think spaths look at us dispassionately – the way a predator views prey. they don’t worry if they hurt us, or that may negatively affect someone, unless it helps them achieve their game plan. from what i understand, many have ridiculously poor impulse control (something I’d say that is shared by narcissists, as well). So, it doesn’t matter if they even shoot themselves in the foot in the long term, if they have that short term ‘win’ they will hurt someone for the pleasure of it. Some are smarter and better at strategy than others.
And the wearing of a mask is essential…if people don’t recognize what they are, we will attribute ordinary qualities to them: like loyalty (keeping supply/ prey bound to them through trauma), kindness (ditto), conscience (bwahaha), great intelligence (instinct with a mask where spaths are concerned), adventurousness (actually impulsiveness and compulsiveness), etc.
if *I* went through my life without conscience i could figure out people’s weaknesses and exploit those weaknesses for my own gain, too. We are only pawns to them. Keeping in mind the model of ‘the dispassionate predator’ will serve you well.
Fallenone, the more intelligent the spath is, the better game they play. And, online dating is the worst possible “place” to try to meet a potential partner, bar none.
Online, there are words, only. The emotions that are evoked FROM the words are generated by our own desperate interpretations. In my case, I was preparing to exit an abusive marriage and met the second exspath in a chat room that discussed writing, arts, and other creative pursuits. We “knew” one another for nearly a year before we ever met, in person. During this time, I disclosed my situation, my hopes, my dreams, my fears, my terrors, and the extensive nature of the abuses that I endured. I didn’t do this, immediately. The second exspath is a very patient individual and can wait out the Second Coming if there’s something in it for him. Well, he waited and trolled and baited and romanced, and I fell for it.
Without the benefit of visual communication, online dating provides the absolute PERFECT trolling ground for the most vile of the vile. There are no visual CLUES – no body language, vocal inflections, spontaneous reactions, or anything REAL to observe. There are only WORDS that we, in our vulnerable and desperate states, interpret as “meaningful.” And, this works for these predators because WE – the targets – are being as honest about ourselves as we can be, and we expect and believe that others out there will be the same. We have a FLAWED system of beliefs to begin with which makes us favorable targets. Online Life only allows those beliefs and illusions to merge into our own undoing.
Even this site has had its share of trolls – people who are simply trolling for a way to cause “virtual” controversy and discomfort among readers.
Online Life is not “real life.” And, I don’t know any way to convince the general public that online dating sites and “meeting” people in online venues are dangerous, dangerous pursuits. Yes, even in churches, there will be predators, but the difference is that there is face-to-face interaction that, combined with our amassed knowledge about predators, can identify “Red Flags” that will alert us to potential harm.
Online Life is a culmination of words that we interpret in any way that makes us feel validated, good about ourselves, and valuable. Had I known these facts about 15 years ago, I would have been far more cautious and put more effort and energy into healing myself and recovering from my first spath marriage before jumping into a second one.
Fallenone, we TELL them what we have that they can exploit. If we’re childless and want children. If we survived an abusive relationship. If we were abandoned during our childhoods. If we were raised in a dysfunctional environment. If we are afraid of dentists. If we’re in the middle of a divorce. If we’re grieving the loss of a spouse. If we have a passion for bagels and cream cheese. ANYTHING that we disclose can be used to bait, lure, and snag the target. They take each piece of our personal experiences and work them together to present what they think that WE NEED and what WE WANT. Then, they develop that illusion with assurances, promises, and outright fabrications so that we believe that they are, indeed, what we need and want.
Online dating. BAD, BAD, BAD, and I don’t care how many people have found “success” through these dating sites. For every “success,” there are probably hundreds of horrible FAILS, like my own.
Brightest blessings