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.
OxD, I won’t apologize for how I believe I would react in such a situation as Tami’s. I would probably take the approach that you just described and for the reasons that you outlined.
“But, what about the baby?” is (IMHO) one of the most precision-based weapons in the spath arsenal. The emotional connection that we feel for an innocent child is to spaths what I attribute to a huge slice of Chocolate Silk pie. When the welfare of a baby or child is wielded, the visceral reactions of the source targets (adult victims) is “delicious,” for lack of a better term. It is savored and rolled around on the spath’s tongue so that every nuance of drama, trauma, and carnage can be experienced before swallowing it down and preparing for the next savory stab in the neck.
I want to clarify that MY reaction (emphasis, not yelling) pertains only to me, personally, and I am not advocating action in any direction. I’m mired in my own knee-deep bullshit to be of any use to anyone (even myself), right now.
I don’t know why I am compelled to respond to this considering my own issues, at the moment, but I did.
Brightest blessings
Truthy, I totally agree with you it is a GUT (emphasis) response to protect the young….your grandchild or someone else’s, doesn’t matter….and yet, unfortunately the “protection” is of little or short term effect.
There are several posters here, “caring grandmother” I think is one (can’t remember the name for sure, CRS) who have tried to protect their grandchildren from the drug addicted neglect or abuse of the parents and end up making things worse and even lose the chance to SEE the child, much less make a difference.
It is very difficult to not try to rescue these children from the neglect and abuse that they are getting from neglectful parents, but in the end, most of the time the “rescue” is unsuccessful and ends up with, as you pointed out, the psychopath using the child as “bait” in order to get the other victims to respond.
If Tennessee law doesn’t allow the DNA father to have any rights since he is not married to the child, then what “rights” does a grandparent have? I would imagine ZIP. That leaves the leash in the hands of the mother, total control….What a shame for the child’s welfare…however the responsibility for bringing the child into the world falls on the parents, both male and female, and they are the ones responsible for child care. If Tami CHOOSES to assume this responsibility which is THEIRS (caps for emphasis) then she is letting herself be put in a position of victimhood over which she has no control.
It is, for Tami, I think a “lose-lose” situation and over the long haul, with not a great deal of chance that she will be able to protect the child from the mother. It is a Sad-Sad situation too, and for these people to have children to neglect is heart breaking.
I can only send my thoughts and prayers to Tami for the situation she is in. (for you too, Truthy)
OxD, thank you for your thoughts and prayers. They are meaningful to me, along with everyone else’s support and encouragement. Seriously meaningful.
The “gut” reaction is a symptom of empathy. That empathy is what allowed spath entanglements, in the first place. For myself, I wouldn’t trade the empathy for a lack of conscience or remorse for anything in this Universe. It’s for me to learn how to regulate rather than to go off, half-cocked, and throwing myself into a fray to try to “save” someone else.
I only know that I would have to find the resolve (probably through counseling) to sever my feelings from the situation and force the parents to take responsibility for what they produced……or, not. And, I know that it sounds harsh, and even cruel, perhaps. I can’t apologize for how it might sound. I only know that too many people foist off their responsibililties upon well-meaning, empathetic, loving, and generous human beings SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY CAN (caps are for emphasis, only – not shouting). And, somehow, somewhere, I have to draw the line of my own tolerance.
Right now…..I don’t have any tolerance, at all…….tzzzzz….
Hugs, OxD
Tami,
Truth and Oxy have spelled it out and it’s so true. They are doing this to get reactions out of you. Don’t give it to them.
I know it’s so hard to cut off your feelings and not react, but realize it’s for the best. It won’t end EVER, unless you end it. So end it now. Gray rock them.
At the end of the article I wrote on Gray rock, I answered your question. You said, you’ve barely figured out how to respond to one situation when the next one is already out the barrel and zinging toward you.
The answer is don’t respond. Channel a gray rock.
Truth,
I’m sorry about your bad news. it sucks. But there might be good news on the horizon.
You see, your autoimmune disease is very likely made worse, if not actually caused, by proximity to spaths. Once you’ve washed that toxic one out of your life, you might find your health returning. You may have more time to devote to your peace of mind, your diet and spending time with your son. Your health will respond to that. I sure hope so. ((hugs))
Skylar, thank you so much, and I am convinced that a greater percentage of all auto-immune issues are related to toxic relationships.
Bad news? Yeah, it wasn’t what I had remotely anticipated, but it’s not over, yet. And, this article speaks about what I need to boil my experiences down to: incidents in my life. Sure, they’re traumatic and, absolutely, the carnage is seemingly impossible to recover from. But, what I have seen in the long-time readers and contributors on this site is that healing DOES (emphasis caps, not yelling) happen, and when it does, it’s beautiful enough to bring tears. I mean that it is purely beautiful just like a nebula is beautiful.
Some nebulae are nurseries for stars to be birthed and develop, and others are the results of a violent stellar death. In some way, things always are in flux as they live, die, and are reborn.
THIS incident in my life is terrible, to be sure. The emotional damages are far-reaching. But, there has to be some sort of beauty from the death of the illusion – there HAS to be, at some point.
Yepper….I’m babbling, now.
Brightest blessings….and, thank you so much
It’s all too fresh and the pain is really bad. Just wishing I could die.
Dear Scammed,
Many of us have been there where the pain is so bad we just wish we could go to sleep and never wake up…but that said, there is life after a psychopath….we just have to keep waking up one day at a time, and putting one foot in front of the other until we come out of the FOG that they encompass around our heads and hearts.
Keep on reading and blogging here, you are NOT alone! You have sisters and brothers here who do understand and cam empathize with you. God bless. Hang on.
Truthy and Sky,
I had a therapist tell me once, years and years ago…and I wished I had listened!@....... that “the ONLY legitimate “rescue” is to drag an unconscious man out of a burning building”
I now see just how right she was. I thought I was NOT rescuing my sons, but I really was…and I stopped with Patrick, finally, and even with Son C. It was difficult. I had to let someone I loved take the CONSEQUENCES of their actions.
Many people who are high iin P traits (maybe not even full fledged Ps,, just high in the dysfunctional traits) use their children to hang on to the rescuing of their parents.
It is a visious circle–the “musical chairs” of the triangle of RESCUER-PERSECUTOR-VICTIM…with each person taking a turn in each of the chairs.
From OUTSIDE the triangle you can see what someone else is doing, but when you are INSIDE the circle yourself, taking up one of the “positions” it is not easy to see. There is always a “justification” for the “rescue” in the mind of the rescuer, and there is always resentment on the part of the rescued person for the person who is doing the rescuing.
If I “rescue” you (that is the universal you, not you in particular) by doing something for you that YOU are really obligated to do for yourself but are too lazy or dysfunctional to do, and I assume the consequences of your behavior then I will eventually come to resent you not living up to your responsibility…whether it is picking up your dirty laundry off the living room floor, or taking care of your child because you won’t, I will come to resent you not living up to YOUR responsibilities….and I will want to change your dysfunctional and irresponsible behaivor and when you don’t change it, I will get mad, and you will get mad back because I am trying to “control” you. Rescuing is dysfunctional behavior.
I didn’t see how I was doing anything dysfunctional in the rescuing I did…but it was totally dysfunctional and until I stopped doing it, I was always in the middle of a drama rama…worried about what stupid thing Son C would pull that would cause him to get into a financial tight or whatever…now he is getting the consequences of managing his own life and I no longer have to worry about what happens to him. I love him, even if I am NC with him….but I don’t worry about him, I don’t miss him, I don’t miss the drama rama.
With Patrick I have disconnected even more. He is a STRANGER to me, not someone I even know any more. He is just another convict psychopath who is “out to get me.” I do what I have to do to keep myself safe, but I dont’ worry about him and I don’t grieve over him. My SON Patrick is “dead and buried” to me emotionally, and the convict is a STRANGER to me. A toxic, dangerous stranger, but a stranger none the less.
Finding out what WE have done to contribute to the triangle and making the changes in ourselves is the most difficult thing. We just have to realize that WE allowed them to suck us into the triangle and we have to step out, and STOP the music for good.
I wish I had done it 20+ years ago, but NOW is always the right time to do it. It (Healing) starts out about THEM< but ends up being about US.
Skylar, Oxy, Truthspeak & Others: Oxy! I’ve wondered where you’ve been? Hope you’re doing well.
I am trying to distance myself from the baby especially after learning that my son has no parental rights despite that he signed for his name to be on the baby’s birth certificate. My husband and I have now asked 3 attorney’s and even called the local child support office to inquire about this and we keep getting the same answer. The mother has full custodial rights due to the fact that they are not married and he has NO rights whatsoever and yes, she can even give the baby up for adoption without his consent! Absurd! My husband understands sociopaths but I can NOT get him to cooperate with the detachment process. I feel that I KNOW what is coming down the road. She’s going to take off with the baby, we’re never going to see her again and we will be devastated. The longer we have her, the greater the hurt will be. Or, there is also the slight possibility that they will be forced to step up to the plate and assume responsibility for the child if our caring for her 98% of the time comes to a halt. There’s no way of knowing if we are enabling them to be irresponsible or if they will behave in the same manner when the baby is in their care as they do when she is in our care. I feel there’s a slight chance that they will straighten up if they have the baby more since they SEEM to try to keep her away from their habits by leaving her at our house all the time. It’s a risk but I know that I can’t go on like this. I would feel very guilty if something happened to the baby due to their irresponsibility but have concluded that the laws of this state are preventing me from being able to ensure the baby’s safety. And, foster care? DCS informed me that the baby would most likely be placed in the temporary custody of a “fit” person that the mother chooses because our county doesn’t have enough foster homes and the ones we have are filled. I just want to separate myself from the mess. I CAN do that. I know it may sound cruel but if I could get my husband to go along with my refusing to keep the baby all the time, I’ll throw myself into things to distract myself and pray for the baby’s safety. I spent most of today in bed in a state of depression and my husband cared for the baby. I’ve got my guard up now and can no longer enjoy my time with the baby. I care for her but find myself in tears within seconds of her reaching for me to hold her or attempting to play with her.