Lovefraud invites you to complete a survey about your experience with a sociopath/psychopath/narcissist in order to help professionals diagnose this disorder properly.
Two days ago, the American Psychiatric Association released a draft of the fifth edition its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5). This book is the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health and other professionals. The revision has been underway for a decade.
A work group of 11 doctors and psychologists focused on the section about personality and personality disorders. They have recommended significant changes to the description of antisocial personality disorder, which is also referred to as sociopathy and psychopathy. In fact, one of the suggestions is to change the name of the personality disorder to “antisocial/psychopathic type.”
The new description of the disorder is much closer to what most of us at Lovefraud have experienced. You can read the description here:
Antisocial/Psychopathic Type
The American Psychiatric Association has invited public comment on the draft of DSM 5, and Lovefraud is taking the doctors up on their invitation. We thought the best way to do it would be to survey our readers, asking you how well the proposed description of antisocial/psychopathic type matches your experience with one (or more) of these individuals.
Please take the survey. This is serious, so be thoughtful and accurate in your responses. It will probably take you about 15 minutes, so please start it when you are sure you have time to complete it.
The survey will be open until March 3, 2010. After that, we will tabulate and analyze the data. We will prepare a report of the findings for the American Psychiatric Association. The results will also be published on Lovefraud.
Go to the survey:
Myboys:
Can you get the assets from your business transferred into a new corporation that your S-ex doesn’t have an interest in? That way he would own an interest in your old company which for all intents and purposes would be an empty shell worth nothing.
this is one of the things i love most about this blog – people KNOW things, and are willing to share their personal and professional knowledge and experience to help one another.
I’ll see questions and know i know nothing that can help in a practical way, but i know sooner or later that one of the ‘court warriors’ or the ‘custody warriors’ will show up and offer suggestions.
lf is a REAL, USEFUL resource base. this is so healing.
it freakin’ makes me happy.
🙂
myboys:
hold on, get back up and hold on. I know it’s dark as hell, but it’s not over yet. you are still breathing.
in the last three years i have lost my health, my car, my business, and i may just lose my housing in the next 2 months…but i am still fucking breathing. I go down some days – and some days there is little up, just endurance. i will keep trying. you too. he hasn’t broken you. he has done everything to break, but he hasn’t. f*ck him. you are still here.
and every day and every moment we are still here there is potential for endurance to change to moments of ease, then days of ease. there is merit in struggle – when all there is left to do is to struggle.
if this is irritating in any way just delete 😉
know that so many of us have had such dark times, and may again…maybe in a few moments…but we survive and we are here rooting for you, whispering, ‘you can do it, keep going’.
best
one step
Oxy: Thanks…I am looking into Medicaid and have applied for various social programs, but they are very backed up and taking up to 45 days to process apps right now…the furnace is blown and needs to be repaired/replaced, this is not an expense I can handle right now and wish to handle really as he is “getting” the house. I have been able to get creative and keep us warm with borrowed space heaters and electric blankets and I have become an expert “fire starter”.
Legal aid could not help me, it is an interstate case and they do not have the resources. I do have a lawyer, a very “green” lawyer but he is helping me at a discounted rate (to gain experience and boy is he!!) and he is actually filing the papers for divorce and the TRO as we speak. I am grateful I found him.
Things are looking up and not as bleak as earlier…his previous employer was expecting payment from me but did not alert me that the s2bx was canceling the policy through them and I called them on it…they are now willing to add him back when the judge signs the order, may cost me a bit more $$ in legal docs but I will have 5 more months of coverage for my son and hopefully have Medicaid set up by then, his condition occurred one month after his 18th birthday.
My business has been able to provide the basics, keeping the lights on, food on the table, the COBRA premiums, and the internet on, which is the lifeblood of my business and I may be able to keep it as it is our only means of support. I had to file with the AG for child support and the last time I heard from the spath was the day I received my notice, so I am sure he got his too. How convenient. He canceled the insurance the following day, in writing no less!
Thanks Matt…I will look into this if nothing else breaks for me. I am in a community property state but my lawyer feels that this malicious act may put an unequal division of property in my favor. This is just the latest trick the spath has pulled…it is a sole proprietorship, I only worked part time until the spath was committed and then fled in early December.
Things are looking up – his doctor has samples of his injections and is providing them to us the month and next month if necessary…I want to cry from sheer relief and the fact that sometimes there are people as good as there are bad.
I am also grateful to have somewhere to vent like LF where people understand what I am going through…
Thanks one_step…irritating? No way!! I can hear those whispers:)
myboys- yay to things being brighter!!!!
I contacted merck frost and they themselves are paying for a med. i can’t afford any longer. Perhaps the pharmaceutical company would be willing to cover your son’s meds.
I have a friend who takes a 1500. med for her arthritis and it is now partially covered by the company now that she is no longer covered by insurance.
sometimes there are foundations that are interested in specific diseases and they will cover meds.
i know – it’s all a lot of freaking work. but just some ideas. getting the pharma to cover my mends was an extremely esy process.
best,
one step
Lumping narcissists with sociopaths would be appropriate in my experience. I consider the sociopathic behavior that I have lived with a deliberately predatory extension of narcissism.
I’d like to see this study develop not only diagnostic criteria and terminology, but also (1) increased awareness in society about what narcissists and sociopaths really are, and (2) criteria for rehabilitating the victims. I think focusing on helping potential victims (developing warning systems) wouldn’t work well, because victims can’t ever see their blind spots/vulnerabilities until they’ve been devastated.
That said, if you think that narcissists and sociopaths embody the very definition of evil, as I do, then you know they’ll always be around, seeking to harm and corrupt, and inventing new ways to disguise themselves that keep them one step ahead of anyone’s ability to diagnose and expose them individually. . . no matter what.
I prefer the term sociopath because, as anti-social as their behavior is,
they do have a positive social function, in the long-view. They are the counterbalance to all that’s good in the world. It’s their darkness that eventually compels truly good and innocent people to find the light, and to transform themselves into wonderful people they were meant to be, for everyone’s sake.
Psyche – love your post!
best of all…I stayed NC:)
Amen Psyche!!
myboys 🙂