Many Lovefraud readers experience the phenomenon of “losing yourself” in the sociopathic relationship. Before meeting the sociopath, you may have been, for the most part, happy, confident, successful and financially stable. You had a network of people who cared about you. Yes, there was some kind of vulnerability—perhaps you were a bit lonely—and the sociopath used the vulnerability to infiltrate your life. But, for the most part, you were okay.
Then, either suddenly or slowly, your life disintegrated, and the problems you face are so immense, and so interconnected, and so overwhelming, that you don’t know where to begin unraveling them. You don’t have the energy to start. Rather than the happy and confident person you once were, you are anxious, depressed and fearful. You don’t know how you are going to survive.
And you don’t know how it all happened. Trying to figure it out, you describe the individual’s behavior to friends or a therapist, and someone mentions the word “sociopath.” Or you do a Google search—perhaps on “pathological lying”—and end up on Lovefraud.
You are in shock. The description fits, and you realize that the individual never cared about you, that you were targeted, and that you allowed yourself to be scammed, either financially or emotionally. You’ve lost money, or your home, or your job, or your support network—or all of it.
Blame game
As you realize the depths of the betrayal, the blame game starts. And whom do you blame? Yourself.
You are furious with yourself for not seeing it sooner. You didn’t listen to people who warned you, or to your own inner voice that was telling you something was amiss. Instead, you believed the silver-tongued liar, the crying and pleading actor, whose real intention was to drain from you everything he or she could.
Besides everything physical and financial that you lost, you are most upset because you no longer have your sense of self. You feel like you lost your soul.
Now what?
The sociopath is responsible
First of all, recognize that you are not responsible for the abuse you experienced.
The sociopath may have blamed you for his or her actions, saying, “You made him (her) do it.” Understand that statements like these were all part of the manipulation. The terrible words were spoken specifically to throw you off-balance and break you down, so that the sociopath could maintain control.
He or she is responsible for the hurtful words—and for all abusive actions.
Commit to recovery
Next, know that you can recover. The key to recovery is recognizing that the fraud and betrayal is NOT WHO YOU ARE. The devastation by the sociopath is something that happened to you. The betrayal was an incident, an experience. Do not allow it to define the rest of your life.
Make a decision, a commitment to yourself, that you are going to heal.
This means you need to allow yourself to experience the deep wells of pain, disappointment and grief that the experience caused. You have to get it out of your system, and the only way to do that is to allow yourself to process the pain, which means feeling it.
Finally, you need to let the experience go. How do you do this? You accept that it happened, and that there is nothing you can do to change the past. This does not mean you excuse what the sociopath did. But you do recognize that the betrayal was an INCIDENT IN YOUR LIFE, and NOT LET IT DEFINE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
It is true that you will never be the same after the experience with the sociopath, and you may have, in fact, lost yourself. But by facing the pain, processing it and letting it go, you can find a new “you,” one with a richer, deeper understanding of the human condition, and more capacity for love and compassion than you ever had before.
You can recover. You can grow. You can acquire wisdom. And you can move on and find happiness—perhaps sharing the wisdom you acquired to help prevent others from going through what you experienced.
tami: the way I see it is that the baby’s safety and well being should come first; right? I mean, the baby can’t take care of itself while everyone else is running around in insanity, chaos and drama. Right?
YOU now have physical, perhaps not legal, but you do have physical (and posession is 9/10th’s, right?) custody of the baby. I would just keep the baby and care for the child, as you are now doing but I would speak to someone at a legal aid office and/or perhaps an attorney and find out what your options and/or rights are as a grandparent.
I would keep track of when the baby goes with her and everything she says and does. Keep a journal and all receipts, etc., that you spend on the baby. Keep track of everything you do.
One day, when you have had enough, you WILL do something about it but that takes time to figure it all out. In the meantime, I would be real hesitant to let the baby go with her, considering the things you have said here. I wouldn’t make it a complete legal issue at this point or else you may lose the child to the sister and who knows what will happen to it THEN?! I would just quietly start consulting an attorney about your rights. YOU DO HAVE RIGHTS. Each state is different.
I had a very dysfunctional ‘egg donor’ who was a heroin addict and myself, I was born addicted to heroin because of it. My ‘egg donor’ abandoned me at the hospital after she stole the pharmacy at the hospital blind. My Grandfather came to the hospital after being called to either come claim me or I would be going to a children’s shelter. Well, Gramps came and claimed me and told me he watched them making me high to bring me down. Imagine that? That isn’t a ‘Mother’; now, is it? My entire childhood was plagued by my ‘egg donors’ addiction and all of those ugly things that come along with it…
I think you know what you need to do; don’t you?
If I were you, (and I would do this to one of my own children/grandchildren, if I had to) I would go for legal guardianship. I would ask for child support from her and your son and I would try keeping the stress, drama and chaos OUT of my house. Start setting down some boundaries.
I would suggest you speak to an attorney and find out what your rights are in the particular state where you live. Some states have “Grandparents Rights” which you may be able to use to protect your new grandchild. Or call DCS if you think it will benefit you. I would do this on the down low with your son and her though. Don’t discuss it with them, just do it and find out what your rights are in protecting your grandchild.
I would cut the dramarama out of my world and before I do, I would have legal guardianship and FORCE HER to sign that medical form. What a witch…sounds like my ‘egg donor’ whom I NEVER saw but maybe twice the whole time I was growing up. I don’t know what a ”mother” and/or “father” is…but I was happy Gramps shielded me as much as he could FROM THE DRAMA of it all.
Speak to an attorney and forsake the dramarama.
Don’t involve DCS until you absolutely have no other choice. But they possibly COULD be able to assist you in keeping control of that child. As long as the child is in your care, you know she is fine, but you need to have guardianship and I would fight for it if I knew that child was in any danger with it’s own mother. Of course, the final choices and decisions are up to you. I can’t tell you, one way or another, “what” to do or not do because I don’t know you and all the circumstances but the one thing that should be upper and foremost in your thoughts is the safety of that little child.
These are just MY OPINIONS and do not represent counsel and/or affirmative advice. Hope it helps.
I think you are WONDERFUL for taking care of that little baby of yours. GOD BLESS YOU. YOU ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THAT CHILD’S LIFE. DEMAND the respect and the guardianship you deserve. It’s called ‘setting boundaries’…I would push her so far out of that child’s life, she would have to call for an appointment and I would do it to one of my own children, if that was the case as well. There is no excuse for ‘giving life’ and then ‘abandoning and/or ignoring it’. What kind of a ‘mother’ is that? Hm? Leave all the nurturing up to others? That is no mother.
I will keep you in my prayers and thank you for taking such good care of one of the future inhabitants of our world. You are exceptional.
Dupey
Tami, I am SO sorry to hear about your surgery, illness, and the horrific drama/trauma with your new grandaughter.
If it were me, I would be filing for full physical custody and child support, immediately. Before taking those steps, however, I would have to take a good, hard look at whether or not I was physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially prepared to raise another child. If I believed that I was, indeed, prepared to do this, then I would file in Court. THEN, I would get myeslf into some sort of support group, because raising someone else’s child (even a blood relation) is an extreme undertaking, and I would want to insure that I wasn’t taking on this enormous responsibility out of a sense of guilt or doing “what’s right.” What WOULD have been “right” was that the biological mother should never have gotten pregnant, to begin with. And, BOTH parents should be financially responsible for seeing to their child’s needs, unless they sign off on all parental rights.
They both sound as if they’re screwed up in a very big way. Whether or not the bio mother has “instincts” or not, she (and, your son) have produced another human being that did NOT have a choice as to whom they would be born to, or how they would fare during their pregnancy.
You have a tough, tough situation, Tami, and I wish that I had better wisdom to offer. I only know what I believe my choices would be, and how I might come to make them.
Understanding yourself better is a huge leap in recovery, Tami – and, with that knowledge comes the materials necessary for a strong, high system of boundaries. HUGS TO YOU….
Tami:
I do remember your story and wanted to ask…did your son get a paternity test? I think I remember that was an issue?
Tami,
Hi again. I’m so sorry things only got worse. I think Dupey gave you excellent advice! Start finding out what your rights as grandparents are, keep evidence logged of how much you are actually taking care of the child, and of the mother’s harmful behaviour. See lawyers or legal advizors about legal guardianship.
Now take a deep breadth Tami for a moment and do something very important for yourself: say to yourself that the mother IS a sociopath who will say and do anything to get money, that nothing is beneath her to get her sociopathic way.
You have tried to expose her to your son and others and you have tried to give her another chance, but she’s ahead of you in her drama game, and now you are in a panic. You’ve bonded with your grandchild and hope to keep the baby safe, while she has all the leverage. You are in fear of what she might do and put the baby in more danger, than you taking care of the baby and trying to cope with her threats.
I think it’s very important that you get to a mental state where YOU can think ahead of her without panic. I know how hard it is, especially since she has leverage. That is why seeing legal advize on legal guardianship might greatly help you. But in order to get out of the drama-stress, anxiety and mental shock state, you need to learn all you can about sociopaths and how they manipulate. Whatever they will try then becomes less of a surprise and will affect you less emotionally, making you more clear-headed to know how to handle the whole situation.
Good luck, Tami, and a lot of strength!
Wow….reading some of the post I know I am not alone in my pain of a sociopathic relationship. Here is my story.
I am disabled and don’t get out much, most of my contact with the outside world is through the internet. About 4 months ago, I met a man on line, he was perfect, wrote beautiful emails to me, soon claimed lasting undying love. First mistake I made, was sending him money (he says he is in the military) overseas to set up a phone account so we could talk to each other. I should have realized when I never got a phone call that this was a scam, wanting so much for this to be the real deal I blindly took his reasons for not calling me as the truth, the next month, he asked for more money to set up an account so that I would be able to receive his paychecks, he was so convincing and telling me how much he loved me and wanted to take care of me so I sent him money but the account was never set up. (You would think at this point that I would have realized that it was a scam) no……not me, still blindly believing in everything that he says to me, I just sent him more money to get his plane ticket to come home, we were finally going to be together! ha!! I sent the money only to have him contact me and tell me he needs more money so that he can come home. Well finally I am starting to see the light of day with this charming man who is just taking my money and lying to me. Yesterday he IM’d me and wanted me to help his “cousin” set up a profile on a website for singles, now I am beyond being upset. He sent me pictures of “his cousin” last month to send to another friend of mine to see if he would be interested in her. The pictures he sent me yesterday are of a totally different woman! I can not believe how foolish I have been. I have to ask myself, am I getting that lonely and desperate for human contact that I could let this happen to me? yes, I see that today, I am devasted by the realization that I have been taken, I don’t want to talk to this man again, I don’t know how to keep myself from doing that though, I have “fallen” for this man even though I know that nothing good will ever come from the contact that I have with him.
I contacted the FBI just yesterday to report the scam of this man. I hope that others out there will recognize this online dating scam from “military personnel” and not fall for it like I have.
I came across this website today and wanted to put this information out there so that other women and men do not have to feel the financial and emotional devastation that I am going through right now. My sending money to this person….has cost me alot. I am behind on my bills because of it, I am blaming myself and if I could possibly stick my foot up my A@.......@ I would for being so niave and believing in this person.
I woke up this morning to another IM from him asking how I am doing?? I haven’t responded to him, I hope and pray that I can stay strong and not contact him again! knowing now that this was all a mistake on my part for trusting and believing that I would ever meet someone that would be for real…..I don’t want to give up on the possiblities of meeting someone but at this point….well, I think I need some real help in how to relate to and see the people that I come in contact with for who they really are.
Thank you all for taking the time to read my story, I hope that someone else sees this and doesn’t have to experience the pain that I am going through right now. If any one has any words of wisdom that they would like to share with me I would appreciate the feedback.
I’m sorry beescammed that you had this experience and are now in financial troubles yourself because of it.
I have a suggestion for you with regards making sure you are not tempted to contact him: BLOCK his email, his facebook, his phone number… BLOCK him on skype and MSN too. That way he CAN NEVER contact you again, and YOU won’t even know he tried, and you won’t have to have this willpower fight in your mind over whether responding or not.
Darwinsmom, good suggestion to implement No Contact.
I had a pretty good day today — doing healthy things…. then I got home and had time to just think — DANGEROUS… I read some other blog entries, and this is what I found, and how I responded to it…
This was very helpful to me:
“Someone once told me that the past is for inspiration, not limitation”and I believe that today. I started to focus on the things in life I was grateful for, not where I thought I was “cheated”. Experience in this life is the thing of supreme value if we are willing to learn from it and then use it to help others. It then becomes a gift”
RIght now, though, I am stuck on trying to make sense of this and it really is impossible to do that. My faith is very important to me and it is in large part what made me accept this man into our lives. He had had so he said such an awful life yet he seemed initially to NOT be marred by bitterness. As we got to know him better, and as he began to try to control my daughter the bitterness began to come out though who knows what was true and what he fabricated. He used stories of past tragedies and fabricated new tragedies to manipulate my daughter into staying with him ”“ to make her feel guilty for things that were not guilt-worthy”. and I felt bad for him. My church is very important to me, and we asked him to go with us to church. He told us that he did not like church and that he had met too many hypocrites to believe in God anymore. My hope was that as he spent time with us and saw our faith that he would come to have faith again too. I told him countless times that God does not bring people into our lives for no reason. Nothing is a coincidence. THen when he told us he had cancer, we my family my church, my friends’ churches, my friends, my students all prayed for him . I wept for this man”. and how we rejoiced when he was told he was cancer free after surgery and treatment and again when he recovered his voice ( which I believe he never lost, now) and through it all he told me that from being with us and seeing us pray him through this, he was starting to believe in God again” and then we found out that it was all lies. So I am left feeling that GOd has played a very bad trick on me I feel cheated and defrauded not only by this man ”“ who I expected to marry my daughter but also by God. If what I said is true if nothing happens for naught then WHAT IN THE WORLD was the purpose in this? I am so confused and heartbroken and just” broken
I dont know WHAT to learn from this experience.
ON the other hand — I am thankful that we are OUT of that – that there is no contact, and that we found out about him before he guilted my daughter into rejecting her internship and staying home to “start a family” with a man who already has one – 5 minutes away. GEEZ — We really did dodge a bullet. And so when I read of the devastation of others, I am ashamed almost that this 11 months has devastated us as much as it has. It has not been physical or financial damage — things never went that way. For us it has been emotional trauma — and I suppose spiritual trauma as well. But Hopefully we got out soon enough to recover more quickly?? How quick is quickly? I still have moments of “rage” against my ex-husband, and it’s been 20 years — thankful years of PEACE — but I still feel the hurt sometimes — and I am not sure that will ever go away completely. I am to some degree healed — and actually very functional — and I did not EVER think of myself as a victim — until THIS happened…. and it’s as though it is all happening all over again. I couldn’t protect us (self and daughter) from my husband — and I failed in protecting us from this man. I know that HE/THEY did this to us — but I can;t help feeling a little responsible for my daughter’s hurt
Past two weeks I’ve been working daily at the new apartment.
As you all know it was an investment/loan by my parents, that I’ll be repaying through renting it from them. And it has been an excellent healing aid from start to end.
Luckily my parents and I have a good boundary relationship. They respect my privacy on every level, always have, including financial privacy. The only boundary issue existing between my mom and myself is that she forgets that I decide where to put my stuff in my own home. But this is an issue that’s independent from the place I live. At least my dad always supports me whenever I tell her to let me organized my own stuff at my home my own way.
Anyway, back to the healing part… Last summer I was depressed and still in shock and suffering from symptoms of disfunctioning. Meanwhile my parents went apartment hunting. They would do the 1st prospecting; search for apartments on sale and visit those that might be a good long term investment. The sole restrictions I gave were the areas to look for one. And when they saw something they thought might be a good buy they took me along for me to give a veto. Early October we nearly bought an apartment, but it did not go through because it soon turned out to be too much of a compromise on anyone’s interests. But for two weeks this near bought place was what I thought I’d be living in and planned to decorate… And just making mood boards of colours and style and such and trying to see what I could do with the available spaces for two weeks helped me out of the dark tunnel… It helped me get the feeling again that I had a future that I would welcome. By half October I started to have a more positive mindset again and landed myself a temp teaching job. Of course this was because of some insights I had, but the feeling of a future helped to gain those insights.
Anyway, we opted out of the buy eventually (both the sellers and us) and kept on looking. And in December my parents were very excited about an apartment, and the moment I stepped inside of that apartment, I knew it was perfect! Though not in my favourite neighbourhood of my city, it didn’t even feel like a compromise on location at all. And as for floorplan and style… it’s unique and has personality and well ‘a match’. Ididn’t need to imagine myself living there, I could actually see it.
The apartment came with renters who got a 6 month notice, which gave me time to plan, dream, conceptualize, design. It was the perfect creative project I needed. It didn’t need much restructuring, so I solely needed to concentrate on taste, style, colours, wallpaper or paint, etc. Of course within a buget, and I’m still way below the limit. But basically I could go all out on how I want it to be like I never could before, because it’s gonna be MY place, MY home. Of course the rental apartment the past 13 years was my home too, but the extra you do in another person’s possession remains veru limited.
In a way it was both treating myself, be creative, expressing myself and just basically constantly wondering “What do I think? What do I want?” How often do you get the freedom to do something exactly how you want it. Of course we must ask ourselves that question all the time, but us ‘givers’ rarely gave ourselves that freedom. And it’s exactly what we need to learn to do. So, in a way the apartment was a “What do I want?” schooling that helped me center again.
Sure, my parents sometimes raised their eyebrows at some of my coloured feature wall ideas, and sometimes tried to reason with me, but I never gave in on something that I was sure of that was esthetically totally right to me. I have NOT compromised on anything when it came to taste.
What’s more this is a project that I can realize within a short time. Not only did I design my dream apartment in my head and on a interior design program. I am creating it myself. The past two weeks I’ve been painting and painting. Actually I need to use an ice pack on my hand each evening, since those painting rollers have the worst ergonomic handles ever. My father feared it would still take over a month for my part of the physical work to be ready when I started to paint on 30th of June, but the last room is almost finished (will be ready by early next week). After that solely the walls of the hallway need painting, but we’ll wait with that until after the move, to avoid having to redo it if movers or the plumber or tiler damage the hallway.
Of course, not everyone can buy a new home, or even need to. But I can advize a remodeling or redecorating project as a tool to get back in touch with your own will, needs and wants. At the very least it’s an exercise in boundaries, because you cannot set up boundaries if you don’t constantly ask yourself: hmmm, is this something I want to do, that I like, etc…