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.
kathie2,
I am an atheist, not out of bitterness, but because pretty much for the same reasons Richard Dawkins is an ahteist. But last Easter I had an insight on the story of Jezus. I’m sharing it with you (again, since I posted it here back then) in the hope it may give you comfort in your faith and your belief in God.
Jezus starts out as an adult with helping people on and on, the lepers, the hungry, the dead, the newlyweds and the prositute about to be stoned to death for her sins. He dares those who wish to stone her to throw a stone if they are without sin themselves. This is always something used in Christianity to remind us ‘not to judge’ others. And as an atheist with humanitarian values it was also what I found exemplary about the tale of Jezus. But after the sociopath experience I realized something else… This was the path Jezus THOUGHT he should be on initially: to help and defend the downtrodden and turn the other cheek.
But then he arrived at Jerusalem with passover. And something had changed. He became angry and upset when he saw what the supposed spiritual leaders did and allowed at the temple. He trashed the place in his rightful anger and spoke of being the axe instead of the olive branch. He thought that was to be his true path now.
But he thought wrong again. He learned he was to be sacrificed. And with pain in his heart he let himself willingly be led to the crucifixes without any fight. It’s something all sociopath survivors have done in a way. And that’s when he saw the true ugly face of a large part of humanity. He was betrayed, abused and judged by intimate, religious and political sociopaths (Judas, the Pharisees and Pilate), and saw how so many jumped on the opportunity to hit a beaten dog when he was already down. He witnessed and underwent the most ugly face of society. Worse, even those who had looked up to him, who had followed him, whom he had trusted as his best friends turned away from him out of fear of becoming the next target. It’s no wonder he hung his head down at some point at the cross and even lost his own faith for a moment.
There was nothing else to be done for him than to accept this truth about society. Once he accepted the truth (with his words, ‘Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do’), he was delivered from his ordeal. Now what happened after that? He got the right to be on judging seat, right next to God. He now knew all of the heart in humanity – the good, the loyal, the joyful, but also the abusive, the betrayal, the oportunistic, the sociopathic – and earned himself the right to judge people for it and decide who he tolerates and wants around him and who doesn’t.
Now how much does the end contrast this early teaching of not throwing the first stone? Jezus started out in life as a giving, generous, kind man who did not wish to judge let alone hurt anyone, but learned very painfully how it was abused, scorned and trampled upon by some enough to even infuence his closest friends, and it altered him into becoming a man who has the right to judge people.
I think, that if you believe in God, you can learn to regard the experience as a similar lesson than the one Jezus received, in order to give you the knowledge to discern between the heart of other people, in order to separate the good from the bad, and rely on your own judgement of what is good and what is bad in others.
I am living proof that there is life after the braindeath of a spath…my brain being the one that died from the trauma of the relationship I survived.
I am with a wonderful man who has never done anything that my super-hyper radar has picked up as spath. He is almost too sweet to be real. But he does have some human qualities too so I know he’s real lol.
I am in disbelief that I would pick a man who is REAL, not a spath, not a narcissist or anything. Close to his fairly functional family, very intelligent, adores me and thinks I am his gift. To have joy and not have to live in a makebelieve world to make it through the day of torture with the spath is MY gift. We have a normal relationship of course with all the drama of a normal life, but something as taken for granted as make-up sex after a fight, is still a precious thing to me.
The spath ruined my life, in no uncertain terms. But as the phoenix rises, so has my being, from the ashes of lovefraud. Finally.
Darwinsmom — I like that very much indeed! I also slike your encouragement to be creative and try something new at home — I have been gardening like CRZAY and reorganizing various aspects of my home… it’s both cathartic and metaphorical. very helpful. Thank you again.
Yes, gardening and remodeling or reorganizing is a perfect project in so many ways:
a) you get to decide what and how. So it helps to rediscover, find yourself and recenter. And no choice can ever be really wrong, since taste is indisputable. And if you hate it after a while, you can still alter it, with little consequence.
b) it helps in setting boundaries. If anyone challenges you, you get to tell them… who’s the one living here? You or me? That ends the discussion right there and then.
c) you get to see INSTANT results in physical reality or at the latest over a short-term time. This gives a sense of self-empowerment, because your choices and actions have a positive effect on the reality around you in the present. It helps to ground yourself and well it’s just a great feeling to have some dream of yours and to see it implemented, even if it is just a tiny dream.
What wonderful insight you all have, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! I did manage to get through today without contacting him. Tomorrow will take care of itself as I don’t know what tomorrow holds, I never gave a thought to “blocking” him from contacting me, thank you for the advice, I will do that. I am grateful that I found this site as it is giving me hope that I can survive this ordeal that I have gotten myself into. I do have “projects” around my home that I can focus my attention on so that I am not at the computer all the time, I believe that this too will pass, as tomorrow is another day. Thank you also for the story about Jesus, I never looked at the crucifiction in that manner, I was raised a catholic, struggled with “religion” for many years and have come to the conclusion that I do believe that there is a “higher power” I choose to call God, (my own preference) and that nothing in life happens by chance. Whatever, the reason this person really has for doing what he did to me, I know in my heart of hearts in order for me to go on I “must forgive myself, and him” I have had many “bad experiences” in life, lived through hurricane HUGO in South Carolina, lost every thing then, my daugther was just 4 at the time and not even having our personal records to prove who we were should have given me enough insight to “see” through this man sooner, but I can question my self till the “cows come home” and I may never find the reasons for not seeing through the lies. So, I am going to work on forgiving me for “helping another” and not let this ruin my ability to look to the future with hope and joy, I will survive this as I have survived other traumas in the past, its a harder pill to swallow when “reality” sets in and the blissfulness of the act doesn’t settle so well. Thank you all again, I will continue to come to this site and share what I learn for myself with all of you as time goes on. I hope that all of us can continue to hold on to our ability to truly love genuinely with compassion even though we have all had really bad experiences with SP’s. Sending hope and love to all of you. Good night and thank you all again for helping me and caring about me!
Darsmom, Congrats on your new home. I couldn’t agree more about making a space your own. It is truly, rehabilitative. No pun intended. In fact, that’s probably what that word really MEANS.
I am happily rehabilitated myself. I have found great joy in decorating my own very humble space…..but it’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine, and I am really good at taking very little and putting it together in such a way that it looks good. Yep. I would agree, that it’s good therapy. Again, congrats on your space.
Aintgonnatakeitnomore, brightest blessings to you and congratulations on the momentum on your Healing Path. Phoenix does, according to legend, rise from the ashes, and I’m working on that, myself.
Darwinsmom, WONDERFUL!!!! Kim is absolutely spot-on about the positive energy in making a space one’s own – ANY space. Will you be making a traditional English Garden?
Brightest blessings to you!!!
Beenscammed2, good for you. However we manage to do it, another day passes and takes us further from the spath entanglements. I’m glad that you found this site, too – for me, it’s literally (and, I mean that) been a lifesaver.
Brightest blessings
Kim, I love that ‘rehabilitate’ find of yours!!!! Thanks for the both of you 🙂 Unfortunately at the 4th floor I won’t be having a garden, just a tiny but intimate terrace at my bedroom… perfect for creating the bedroom with terrace into a bit of a hotel room. Never had a plant, except cactusses I gave TOO MUCH water, and a rose of jericho which is perfectly fine if it doen’t get water for months at all. So it will be my first attempt at growing some herbs. I’m a total nitwith for the moment when it comes to creating something gardenage.
Beenscammed, Good on you for surviving another day. It will get easier!
Good morning again! I was up at 5 and posted earlier… now it’s 6 hours later and have I been a busy bee!! I cleaned all my windows!! I crack myself up — because I am such a nerd…. While I was cleaning, I could FINALLY see out of the upstairs windows again, and I started to sing the song “I can see clearly now….” Then I caught myself saying those words… “I can see clearly now, the pain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. GOne are the dark clouds that had me blind. It’s gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day ( which – coincidentally it is!)” and I thought how appropriate it was for today. I am cleaning house spiritually and emotionally while I clean literally — and I CAN see clearly. THe pain is not gone, and there are still obstacles — but I CAN see clearly — at least in this moment, and it IS a sunny day, in spite of the fact that we had a horrible experience with a horrible human being.
So take THAT demon spawn. I will NOT be a victim!
Just a few silly words – hope they are an encouragement. We CAN get through this. I am doing it a minute at a time, and sometimes it’s easier than others — but it is happening.
Thank you all. BLessings…
kathie2