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.
Dupey, perhaps, it’s time to relocate? I mean, even though there may be strong ties where you are, that the stalking knows where you are and can engage minions to continue his torture might be cause enough to say, “I love you all, forever, but this is to save my life and my sanity.”
I may be heading BACK to toxic territory, at some point, and I am NOT liking this option, one iota. More on that, at a later date. But, whatever happens, I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. I want out of this current situation, I want out of the vile name that I share with the exspath, I want the marriage dissolved, I want to get the fark on with my life! And, I know that I won’t be able to rebuild my life where I am, right now – or, in the general vicinity.
Hugs, and hugs
Oh, and as a COMPLETE aside – I know I don’t really need to announce that my caps aren’t to be interpreted as online yelling, right?
Complete aside….everyone’s in a terrible mood in this house that we’re living in, today. I honestly don’t care, anymore. I do not care whether it’s some imagined slight, a deliberate thing, or whatever….I just know that I don’t have to engage in the stupidity. And, yesterday, the passive/aggressive g/f made a complete ass of herself in front of my colleague’s friends. What was so sad was that she was the butt of all of their humor, and my colleague kept saying that she just needed to die. Literally. “Why don’t you just die?”
I was shocked, horrified, and alarmed, because my colleague has always been such a caring, feeling person. This is probably the third time I’ve heard him say this to her, and it just makes my blood run cold.
Right….so…..I have a good understanding with my colleague’s mother, and I wonder if I should mention my concerns to her, just to let someone (ANYONE) know how horribly abusive this relationship really is. Any thoughts on this one? I know it goes back to the “should I warn?” article, but I honestly think that someone needs to say something to someone. These are factual:
* they were raised in completely opposite socio-economic family environments
* she supported her mother by working from age 15
* she will be bringing almost 40K in debt into the marriage
* she is manipulative and abusive, on every level
* he is changed as a result of this relationship
* he is losing his friends and interests in lieu of making her stop nagging him
* she is inserting herself into his professional environment by being present every night that he works at the studio facility
* he cannot get away from her for love or money
* she makes constant sexual reference about him in front of his friends and crows about how “embarassed” it makes him
* she spends money as if it’s endless
There. I’ve put it all down.
😀
You know Truthy, you are a good sort. You’re kind, you always want to help others here. Despite your own considerable suffering you write with such empathy and so eloquently. Do I think you should say something? Maybe indirectly. She probably knows what is what anyway. Those red flags that basic gut instinct will hopefully have warned her already. I do hope so.
Back to you anyway. Don’t you think you’ve got enough on your plate at the moment? Lol.
Heres hoping life improves for you my friend.
Hugs
Strongawoman, you’re absolutely right. I have enough to tend to without putting my nose into this mess. I think that my concerns are valid, but “saying something” probably won’t be of any help, anyway.
Yeah…..I have PLENTY on my proverbial plate, and it’s all mushy stuff that I don’t really like!
Hugs back atcha…
Dear dupey, you are already healed and whole in spirit. Your physical and emotional body just hasn’t caught up with that fact yet.
Any chance you would ever consider doing Zumba? Since I started doing it 5 or 6 times a week, I have so much more joy in my life.
(((Thanks Star)))
I wish I was healed and whole in spirit.
I don’t feel very healed and very whole right now.
I understand what you are saying but I sure wish
it would all catch up with itself.
I am taking medication and it IS helping and I am still in counseling.
I just am not doing so hot and these intrusions sure aren’t helping.
Zumba: it rocks…hope you enjoy it.
I am happy to hear you have more joy in your life.
Hard for me to find anything really ‘motivating’ anymore…
mwah! xxoo
Dupey
Stargazer, it is my son who isn’t violent…his father was extremely violent when he was drinking. My son told me a few weeks after his father passed that he was really starting to look forward to going to school now. I had no idea that he didn’t like school…he was an excellent student and well liked. So, his statement took me a little by surprise but it was his answer to my question of what he meant about looking forward to school now that REALLY blew my mind. He made the statement just as I was dropping him off for school one morning. He answered, “Because I don’t worry about Dad killing you while I’m at school anymore” and got out of the car to begin his day. I had NO idea that he worried about such a thing!
He and I have talked a lot about his dependency on me, too. And, ever since I started the weaning process, he’s been pretty good about making sure that money is repaid or that he works it off. He openly admits that he’s a mama’s boy but doesn’t seem to blame me for it as much I blame myself. He says that we had to hang together…my stepson says the same thing about the situation that we were in with their father. Now that the boys have gotten older, they’ve both told me how they felt the need to protect me while they were scared to death at the same time. Somehow, it never crossed my mind that they felt this way…maybe because I was too busy trying to protect them as well as myself. I remember how terrified I was when I awoke in the middle of the night to hear my mother screaming and cursing my father. I’d hear him try to quieten her by telling her that she was going to wake me up and that I had school the next day but she only got louder and kept on and on until she pushed him to the point of either shouting back at her or leaving to blow off steam. I would jump out of bed in a panic because I thought he was not going to come back. And, then my mother would release the rest of whatever she was feeling by beating me. I never knew or understood what emotion, if any, was behind her behavior but grew up believing that she hated me and still believe that she does. There’s definitely something very wrong with her. She’s for sure a narcissist and I strongly suspect a full blown sociopath. My dad caught on to that after a few times and started taking me with him when he’d leave. There were SO many times when I wanted to run out the door when my son’s father was beating me but I knew that I couldn’t get the boys out the door with me because he’d order them to stay and they didn’t dare move. I just took the beatings because I knew that they would fear that I wasn’t ever coming back and that their father might possibly take the rest of his anger out on them. I grew up believing that I was bad and deserved to be beat by my mother and married a man who treated me the same way…it was all I knew at the time and believed that it was “normal”. That was all so many years and therapists ago! However, my greatest regret (to date) is that I did not divorce my son’s father years before I did. I stayed with him for 2 reasons: I couldn’t leave my stepson and my ex told me if I ever left that he would kill me and I believed it. Years after my ex passed, his younger brother DID kill a girlfriend and then he was killed by the police later that night in a shoot out.
I know I’m rambling and understand if no one even reads this but I just need to get it out. I’ve felt that I had healed from the hurt that was inflicted by my mother and my ex-husband until the grandchild was born. All of you are helping me put some things into perspective that I haven’t been able to. I’ve wondered WHY all of a sudden I started to think about how my mother and son’s father treated me and even recall things that I had totally forgotten about. I thought I’d talked out every single bizarre thing that my mother ever did to me but things have been resurfacing the past few months that I’d never talked about because I’d honestly forgotten about them. There’s been several things but for instance, I was doing laundry the other day and not really thinking about anything in particular when it suddenly crossed my mind how my mother used to grab my wrists and use my own hands to hit me in the face with. She’d tell me that she wasn’t hitting me and that I was hitting myself. Sick. And, that’s just one example. Another is that she used to fly into these nervous rages prompted by God only knows what, grab me up, stick her shaking hand out and scream at me to look what I was doing to her. She did this as far back as I can remember…possibly as early as when I was 3 or 4 years old.
I don’t know which one of you made a comment or even what the comment was that made me realize what I am REALLY doing by being so determined to protect my granddaughter. I see a lot of my mother’s traits in the gf. The day that I had listened to the girlfriend’s lies all I could stand and finally went off on her, she stuck her trembling hand out to show me what I had done to her. And, her fake “mother of the year” talk that doesn’t fool me nor my husband for a second? My own mother put on the same show in in public. As a small child, I would witness her do this and believe that she was going to be just as nice once we got home but she turned right back into the monster that I feared with everything in me. The gf also bitches at my son from the time she gets up until they go to bed and criticizes him in front of other people…even ME! He sits with his head down and never utters a word. My mother does the same thing to my stepfather in public and he sits with his head down and never says a word. My son takes her constant bitching as long as he can stand it and then he goes right back at her and even slapped her one morning. And, yes, the baby was there. That is the first time that my son has ever hit ANYONE in his life…he never even had a childhood fight with another boy. So, I guess the little girl in me has resurfaced because I fear that my granddaughter will be treated in the same manner by her mother and will live her childhood in constant fear of her mother and be laying in bed scared to death when she awakes to my gf and son screaming at each other. For anyone who has hung with me and read this, you’re probably wondering WHY I hadn’t managed to put all of this together before NOW. I have NO idea. I noticed the gf behaves a lot like my mother, the constant bitching and arguing, the mother’s lack of interest in her own child and the show that she puts on in front of other people leading them to believe that her daughter is the most important thing in the world BUT my observations and thoughts have been fragmented. I don’t know what was said or who posted the information or advice that helped me piece it all together but I’ll just thank all of you. It might have been the result of everyone’s cumulative words…dunno. Here’s where I can expect some resistance from those of you who have managed to hang with me. I was afforded the opportunity to go NC with my son’s father due to his death (sounds bad but simply the truth), I have worked up to 98% NC with my mother over the last several years and I certainly went NC with the ex spath that led me to a therapist who explained to me what a sociopath was and recommended that I join LF. And, I agree, NC is the ONLY way to remove yourself from the wrath of these people. Everyone keeps saying that I have to remove myself from the drama of the gf and my son, basically NC. I CAN do that but I’ve finally realized that NC is what I want for a 6 month old baby. I don’t want this precious child to have to endure a second of what I and all of you have endured. I know the pain these people have caused me. My son doesn’t “get it” just like I didn’t get it. I don’t know what your experiences have been but when I attempt to tell people that my ex husband was a sociopath, they look at me like I’m totally off my rocker! I’ve been a member of this group for several years now, spent nearly a year seeing the therapist who led me to this sight, and read everything I could access about sociopaths and have to admit that I STILL don’t have a FULL understanding of their behavior and doubt that I ever will. I spent time seeing a therapist after my father died, after my son’s father’s suicide and sooner or later, they got around to asking me to tell them about my childhood and of course, my mother’s abuse came out. Not ONE time did I hear the words narcissist or sociopath…not until I saw the last therapist and I was 46 years old! I CAN’T just march into DCS or a courtroom and declare that the gf is a sociopath and what I know she will do to my granddaughter. And, I certainly can’t explain it to a 6 month old baby! I feel stuck. All I want to do is save sweet baby Ava…that’s her name. I apologize if you all have found my posts annoying or felt that I’m stubborn, disagreeable, or in denial. I’ve just had too much going on in my head at the same time to make any sense of any of it but it makes sense now. I realize now that I could have spared everyone a lot of reading by just simply saying that I am heartbroken that my only grand child and most likely the only one that I’ll ever have…my son says one child is all he wants even if he ends up with someone else someday and the gf says absolutely no more…was given birth by what I truly believe to be a sociopath and there’s absolutely NOTHING I can do to protect her. I’d rather deal with the pain caused by the three that have been a part of my life 10 times over than to have her have to deal with one.
Tami, I read your entire post. It makes total sense that your son’s gf is triggering memories of your mother and your ex. I’m so sorry that you had to live through that. It’s tough to read some of it as it hits close to home. Some of it is very similar to what my mother used to do to me. I completely understand your desire to protect baby Ava. But I also find myself wondering if you have done any inner child work, either on your own or with a therapist? The inner child work can be very powerful, and this may be what the baby is triggering for you – your own inner child who needs the love and attention she never got. I bring this up because you may never be in a position where you can have any say over the fate of little Ava. But the situation can be a mirror for more healing work for yourself. It can be a very powerful healing for you, tami.
I know what I’m about to say is kind of a stretch, but I believe that everyone comes into this world with their own karma to work out, and that on some level we choose our lessons. I haven’t quite figured out how that works, because it’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I would have chosen abusive parents. However, I believe that little Ava has her own life lessons to work out. Even if she has the most idyllic childhood, there will still be life lessons for her, and they may not be easy. She will not only have a sick mom, but she will inherit some of the dysfunctions of your side of the family as well. There may be nothing you can do short of letting Ava’s parents raise her as they see fit, and if you see signs of abuse or neglect, you can make an anonymous call to Social Services. We really don’t know what your son will be capable of if you are not overfunctioning for him. He may rise to the occasion and become the dad he needs to be. And if the spathetic gf wants to give the baby to her sister to raise, there may not be anything you can do about it. Just because this is your only grandchild does not give you special rights over the parents, unless you can prove they are both unfit and that you would like to foster the child. Again, much of what happens with the child comes back to your son and what he decides on his own as an adult and a father. I urge you to lay low and let your son make his own decision about his life and his child. If his decision means you won’t see the baby as much as you want or not at all, it is still his decision to make. I understand you much better after reading your posts. But I still feel that the best thing you can do to heal the family dynamic is to pull back and let your son and gf live their own lives. Healing the co-dependent part of yourself will help your son and it will help Ava, too. It will release Ava from having to have that family dynamic to heal.
If son’s gf is truly a sociopath, and you know she is a sociopath, then you know for a fact that her marrying into your family is pretty much a death sentence for all of you in some way or other.
Stargazer, thank you for reading my post. Bless your heart…
Well, I THOUGHT I had dealt with the inner child thing years ago but since the inner child will always live within me, I guess it wasn’t as buried or healed as I believed. Yes, little Ava had to be what triggered some of my long forgotten memories. It’s really strange how the inner child and subconscious mind work. I honestly had NO idea why these memories were resurfacing and they seemed to come from out of the blue. I certainly wasn’t TRYING to recall them. Believe it or not, I didn’t ASK to be in the position that I’m in. I wanted to spend time with my grandchild and even offered to take care of her while my son and the gf worked but I assumed that she would be dropped off before work and picked up after work. Well, that was a little over 5 months ago and she MIGHT have spent a total of 5 nights with them since then. My husband and I went away for 3 nights in mid May to celebrate our anniversary. Ava was picked up from our house and taken straight to my mother’s house and ended up spending the 3 nights that we were away there + 4 more nights. Then, she was brought straight from my mother’s house to my house. And, no, I don’t worry about my mother mistreating her. I am the ONLY child that my mother has ever mistreated. The gf got upset with my mother during that time for reasons unknown and hasn’t allowed her to see Ava since. I’m not sure if you caught that Ava pretty much lives with my husband and me? They won’t keep her for more than 2-3 hours maybe once a week. There’s always some excuse to bring her back. And, my husband and I feel that if she isn’t wanted there, then she doesn’t need to be there. And, the last couple of times they’ve kept her overnight, they ended up in a huge fight and now my husband and I have to be careful about raising our voices around her if we are excited or happy about something. She becomes terrified and that only started after the last time they had her overnight. All I know to do is pray about it and TRY to lay it in the hands of God. This is too big for me.
Tami, I had written earlier that I was going to back out of these discussions, and I’m going to take that back for this moment.
Everything that you unloaded in your posts would be far better served in counseling therapy with someone who “gets it.” We can read, empathize, suggest, urge, and become triggered, ourselves, until the cows come home. But, your history suggests (IMHO) and responses reflect that the help of a professional is clearly what would get you started onto your own Healing Path.
The baby is definitely a catalyst for re-opening old wounds that never healed and simply festered……like an emotional abcess. The skin has closed up over the wound, but the infection runs deep.
Your son has experienced traumas beyond his own comprehension. He is not a “boy” any longer, Tami – stop refering to him as such. He is a grown man with is own horribly damaged “inner child” that only he has the power to comfort and console.
To find an excellent counselor that “gets it,” you only need to call your local domestic violence hotline. http://www.ndvh.org Whether the abuse happened decades ago, or last week, has no bearing on the carnage. In fact, the longer we live in denial of our own abilities to “handle” our traumas, the more damages we inflict upon ourselves, and others, and become entrenched in a cycle of abuse and co-dependency that cannot be interrupted.
It’s no longer a matter of who the spath is, or isn’t. It’s a matter of whether or not you’re ready to put an end to generational abuse and co-dependency. It’s solely your own choice, and none of us has the ability to do this for you. We can only walk beside you and catch you if you stumble.
Brightest blessings