We all know the pull and draw.
We feel ourselves over-reach, jump all-in, and wonder at it.
Then conclude it’s all part of being swept off our feet.
And indeed it is. But… why does it happen?
Let’s find out exactly why.

Power of Influence: We’ve All Got it, We’re All Affected by It

We all have a power of influence; we each and all affect people around us. We’re not usually aware of how we affect other people, but we’ve all been aware at some time or another that others affect or influence us, which results in a particular emotional effect or response within us.

Absolutely anyone can be ensnared by this unseen aspect and quality of a life-stealing pathological predator.

What is recovered for you?

No One Can Truly Be Something They Aren’t

So how can something “intangible”, “invisible” and unseen affect us enough that we walk into this kind of trap? In general terms, I imagine we’ve all had the experience of realizing some people make others feel good when they’re around.

Something about some of us makes other people feel at ease in their presence. While other people aren’t so fun to have around; they might be the last on the party invite list because, well, they’re kind of a downer. – We all have a power of influence.

Everywhere we go all day, there’s a “vibe”, or influence we feel from the places we go and the people around us. When we encounter a new person, or even walk into a new restaurant we have a “feeling”.

It comes to us as a “feeling” that sends us a signal, often in the form of a thought that pops into our mind, like: “Ah, I like this place.” Or maybe, “Hmmm, I’m not wild about this place.”

We Don’t Always Know We’re Being Influenced

Walking into that new restaurant, maybe we can recognize what it is we like or dislike about the space. As an example, I for one, don’t feel comfortable inside restaurants that cover the walls with mirrors.

Don’t know why that is, it just is for me. The feelings we feel about a restaurant, and about people around us in a response to them, are drawn out of our own life

Discomfort in mirrored rooms doesn’t apply to every single person, some might really like the feeling of mirrors while they eat dinner. The discomfort around mirrors while I eat is inside me. It’s a condition in my life, based on me as a person… my own life experiences, beliefs, and thoughts that make “me” be me.

Humans Have Similar Responses to Influences

There are some things we nearly all respond to in the same way. Most of us enjoy a sunset for its beauty. Most of us would respond with feelings of pleasant surprise and some excitement if we were to receive an unexpected and hefty tax refund

Other things affect us each a bit differently and vary depending on our immediate circumstances or inner conditions such as our likes, dislikes, and our dreams, or hopes; even our sense of failures or disappointments in life.

Without getting too complicated, let’s look at a simple scenario describing our responses as they vary depending on us, our life, and our in-the-moment situation.

The Influence of a Predator: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

Our Response To Others Is Rooted In Our Own Life Experiences and Beliefs

Our life at the moment that we encounter something determines the response we have to that person, place, or thing.

Mood and internal “life condition” or life-state in general, and in specific, along with our actual circumstances at the moment all fall into how we respond, or how we feel the power of influence from whatever it is we encounter.

As a way to look at this, let’s say we come across a tiny puppy wandering around the parking lot of the Trader Joe’s we just pulled into. The sweet little-thing is rambling anxiously between and under cars sniffing at the ground; poochie looks lost, and scared, and hungry. We can see that it has no collar on. What happens to us?

We Feel Unease and an Underlying Disturbance

Curiosity awakens. We’re feeling bad. We might worry. Our emotions, these feelings inspired by the lost, little doggy, might form into words in our head, or even out loud we might say, “Oh, my goodness! This dog is lost!”

And unless we’re scared of dogs or super allergic, or just really, really don’t like dogs – and probably even if we don’t, especially like dogs – we instinctively feel emotions that compel us to take action on the doggie’s behalf.

Depending on other factors in our life, and our circumstances, we “do something.” That “something” varies depending on us, and our momentary life situation.

It Goes Like This

For example, if we have our baby in the car, and our three-year-old holding our hand, we probably do not approach the dog or follow it around the parking lot trying to help it.

This doesn’t mean we aren’t concerned deeply about the pooch, but other factors, more critical things, such as the care and safety of our babies take precedence over going after the lost dog.

Breaking Up With Evil

Breaking Up with Evil: Escaping Coercive Control on Amazon

Five women’s true stories of being ensnared hauled through the confusion, lies, fear, and pain, and breaking away.

Told in their own words, they leave nothing unsaid. Find validation and see new glimpses of the truth as they share their stories… Stories that could be any of ours.

Both eBook and Paperback

If We’re Preoccupied

If on the other hand, we see that lost doggie, but we’re in heels and a skirt, and on our way to a business appointment immediately after grabbing a Trader Joe’s ready-made chicken salad sandwich, we might signal the security guard in the parking lot to let him know about the dog, and then trot on in the store

We might take a minute to also tell the store manager about Mr. Puppy once we nab that sanny and before stepping in line to pay and get on out to our meeting.

That dog stays on our minds for a while. We’re concerned, but our own life and impending appointment are more significant at that moment… so the influence of the wandering Bowzer takes a back seat.

Depending On the Timing Entrapment Works or Doesn’t

Another scenario could be: We’re on our own, and have lots of time on our hands, our car is parked around the corner in a free-parking zone with no limits.

We’re unfettered, unencumbered, and leisurely with time on our hands and our coin purse and phone in our coat pocket. In this case, we might let the concern and feelings about the dog come to full bloom, compelling us to take an hour coaxing that cute, fuzzy-faced woofer into our arms so we can find its home through a process of other personal efforts.

The little guy in our arms lets us know he appreciates us with licks and tail wagging, that doggy connects and bonds equally with us as we do with him.

Everyone and Everything Has an Effect on Us

We don’t notice all the things affecting us in our surroundings. That would be much-too-much, and completely overwhelming.

It’s a matter of personal issues, circumstances, and even our core beliefs, and personal interests that play into what we notice, and how it affects us, and where that takes us in altering or dictating our response at that moment.

Every person or place or thing has a power of influence. Some is seemingly mild, like that shy kid who sits in the back of the room and no one notices. Or the happy guy who always smiles and waves.

We all know of the power of influence of celebrities, who by the way are humans. Some of us are into some of these idealized humans, and some of us aren’t, but I’ll tell you a quick story about a certain famous person that kind of blew my mind. This illustrates the power of influence.

Power of Influence

True story: One day I was shopping at Whole Foods in Beverly Hills. I was in the produce department, on the far end, with my back to the entrance of this corner of the store.

Sorting through rutabagas and carrots I paused, lifted my head, and then as if in slow motion found myself turning away from the root vegetables. My body led me, my head pivoted first, the rest of me following.

The Effect of Things Around Us Just Is

The underwater sensation slowly subsided; my eyes cleared, my vision came into focus and revealed a person. A person on the other side of the room, just walking into produce near the fragrant lemons and limes.

At the same time, I could half-see and sense that every shopper in the room had turned the same direction I had, as collectively we each and all registered who was standing there: The one and only: Mr. Sydney Portier.

One of the most amazing, kind-hearted, and gorgeous humans on the planet. Famous for his legendary and Oscar-winning films and his generosity as a human being. His autobiography, The Measure of a Man, is moving and memorable.

Now in his 90s, for those who don’t know who this is, please click the links above to get a glimpse. There that day, among the potatoes and parsnips, I was in awe; the entire room was.

Influence Exudes on Its Own Effortlessly

The room was filled with pure wonder; I felt warm, and a kind of joy rise up, and in my case, based on me, who I am as a person, and my own life, I went to speak to him. No one else approached him.

As we chatted, his warmth embraced me and we stood as equals in human exchange. This isn’t because I’m an Oscar winner or a renowned anything. I felt like an equal to Mr. Portier because that’s part of the power of his influence on others. He exudes and extends an embracing, calm warmth of humanism. He imparts dignity towards others.

The room gradually shifted back towards a level of normal activity, but it took a bit. Even now, I can feel that moment when I conjure the memory, I bet others there that day can too.

We all have a “vibe” – A power of influence; all people, places, and things have an effect or an influence on us and on others. That’s normal.

The Sociopath Effect

The stun gun of coercive control is the inherent power of influence that ensnares and binds prey in the blink of an eye. Did you know they don’t have to try? It’s a quality they possess inherently, like our eye color: we’re born with it. Some do hone it.

The sociopath has an uncanny, abnormal, and very strong power of influence. They simply do. It may come from their laser focus on gaining prey.

Their cellular level primal need to hook as many people as possible to add to their resources never leaves them. They need us for legitimacy, respectability, and for basics such as food, sex, places to live, laptops, phones, presidencies, and cash.

Their need for us isn’t casual; it’s literally their survival. And it’s the only way their brains are wired. That’s all that’s inside their noggins and hearts.

The need sociopaths have for us is unbelievable. They’re entirely dependent on hooking us. At all waking moments, they’re singularly focused and determined to do this. This makes for a very powerful pull, an incredibly intense power of influence on those they beam in on.

We Naturally Bond: Reach Out Further Towards Reluctant People

For all that intensity of need for us, sociopaths, however, do not connect “back” as a puppy or Mr. Portier would. They need us like a parasite needs a hot-blooded warm body to live off of.

A sociopath wouldn’t have the innate response to a lost puppy that we do or to another person as we do. Their “connecting” is entirely different; there is no genuine human connection or bonding that we expect and know as normal. They don’t give off “connection”.

There is no reciprocal bond of human connection or interaction with a sociopath. Our brains don’t register this consciously. Our minds and then our bodies respond by being over-concerned and over-solicitous – just as we do with the lost puppy – but for very different reasons.

We’re Normal and Always Doing What’s Normal

It’s natural that we want to draw out the shy person, the reluctant puppy. You can bet when the person not yielding “connection” is a guy we think is our soul mate, and that (not) soul mate happens to be a sociopath, we’re not going to sit back, we’re going to bend over backward. That’s normal. To stay, to give, to try, to build, to fix is normal.

The lack of connection from the “other” causes us to reach further out to connect. This is another natural human element and function that the mere presence of a sociopath makes use of and hijacks for their own benefit.

And, it happens naturally without very much effort or sometimes no effort on their part. Yes. They are not genius manipulators. They’re a particular type of being with its own power of influence.

Like the Children Following the Pied Piper, We Follow

When we meet them we’re immediately all-in. We’re swept up in what we think will be an amazing life. A life that’s more amazing than anything we could ever imagine. A life beyond anything on our own. We feel we need them.

We feel like they are the answer to our dreams and more. There’s an overwhelming feeling that we need them. We kinda feel we’d die without them.

All of this is the sociopath effect. The effect of a narcissist – a sociopath – simply “is”. It emanates from them and infiltrates us like a poison vapor. This is what coercive control is: unseen, not felt in the beginning as anything other than the amazingness of this amazing person you’ve met. This same element is what makes it so hard to break away.

Narcissistic Abuse Unwound: The Podcast

The Sociopath Effect Leads Us to Feel We Need Them

The feeling that we need them is 100% across the board a commonality with every person ensnared by a sociopath. This is a part of what I call: The Sociopath Effect.

The feeling we need them simply is, because of what they are. – When we’re caught up, ensnared, the “click” has happened: we truly think we will not have the life we now, or any kind of life without them, and that we have what our life is now because of them.

Here’s another true story about a friend of mine. He’s a Grammy, Oscar, Platinum, and Gold record album holder. He’s got a 40-plus-year career as a renowned musician.

Under the spell of a nasty little female sociopath, posing as his manager, he now feels that without this (unrecognized) sociopath in his life he will: Stay in bed all day, get fat, be depressed, make no money, lose everything, be a nothing, and have nothing. – In fact, all this is what’s happening under her influence.

Sociopaths Are Shallow in Real-Life Skills

In reality, the sociopath knows nothing about building a musician’s career. She has no connections, or abilities to help anyone aside from herself. Like any sociopath she’s a sub-person pretending to be a whole-person, pretending to do a job.

On these last few coffee shop gigs to somewhere in Indiana, where the seats are $20 each he’s not making enough to cover the flight there. This man, under the grip of a tiny female sociopath, pays for all the travel, hotel rooms, meals, and incidentals out of money he doesn’t have. And the point of a tour – income – is submerged in debt and no funds to pay himself on any single “tour”.

He fired his money manager of 25 years; the man who made his bill payments did his taxes, and kept his finance in the black. The sociopath maneuvered this firing and is now in charge of his money – or more to the reality of the situation, in charge of his mounting pile of debt. This fraudster is spending and stealing his money.

This is a musician who collaborated and hung with every chart-topper, his peers. And now, he’s eating his own future under the power of influence of a sociopath; bound in the spell of the sociopath effect.

Not Every Sociopath Can Hook Every Person

Just like some of us may not be drawn to saving a lost puppy, or affected by the aura and presence of Mr. Portier, not all of us are drawn in by anyone particular sociopath or another unless the timing is there and circumstances line up.

There’s an infinitesimal and specific moment in time when a particular sociopath can hook us. They know that… because of this and the 100% eventual fail-rate of all entrapments, they need to hunt 24/7; and because, they have no capacity to do anything else, or survive any other way.

Being Hooked or Not

In addition to the timing, circumstances, and our life itself, in order to fall into a sociopath’s influence, we need to find them attractive, or interesting, or see them as a potential business partner, or as a dream mate.

Otherwise, we might come across a sociopath in the park, or at the coffee shop, or any-old-where and they wouldn’t hit our radar or land that bulls-eye they need. If they don’t “hit-the-spot”, we find them disarmingly creepy rather than disarmingly charming. We’ve bypassed many a sociopath before the one that brought us here.

If We’re Hooked: We’re Hooked

When one hits the bullseye, it happens instantly. The nut-bag who hijacked me was introduced to me by a friend through a three-way conference call. In the previous months that I’d been dating a few men, wanting a long-term relationship, none of them panning out. I was also in the process of finding a new project to work on, and looking for a new lodger through Airbnb.

The idea was, I could work on this guy’s project and he could be my new temporary lodger because he was visiting LA, he wasn’t a resident of the USA. These were my circumstances.

While my friend dialed in the nut-bag, I Googled him and up sprang images. One image went straight to the heart of my undoing. As I looked at his luminescent, pulsating-with-goodness-image, I was overcome with emotions.

They were the effect and influence of him clicking into my life, which immediately caused my brain to form the thought, ”I can’t work with him, he…. he… he’s my husband!” Bingo. Hook, line and sunk. His work was done. More to the point: He had no work to do. It happened for him. This is the way it works for most scams. They really aren’t sure what will work or when.

People Who Have Not Had This Experience Have No Clue

Unless someone has had this experience they can’t understand this. The best many people around us can do is conclude that this happened because we’re 1) codependent, 2) stupid, 3) missed red flags, 4) were in denial, 5) have low self-esteem, 6) don’t know how to pick boyfriends, 6) are attracted to losers, 7) like bad-boys, 8) are idiots, 9) need help, 10) toxic people magnets, 11) like drama, 12) should have known better.

And now that it’s ended and we’re a mess, that we’re: 13) crazy, 14) depressed, 15) suicidal, 16) were the problem, 17) are stalking them, 18) can’t move on, 19) need to let it go, 20) are ruminating, 21) are obsessed, 22) need Xanax or anti-depressants, 23) should start dating someone else to forget them, 24) are nuts, 25) have changed, 26) are no fun anymore.

We’ve been put through changes, and at the moment we might not be much fun, but none of the rest of those things are true. Not one of them. Nothing from numbers 1 through 24 is why this happened, or what we now are.

Be Sure There is None of the Above Malarkey is Put On Upon Us by Ourselves

We cannot take responsibility for the inhumanity of a sociopath or narcissistic user. There’s nothing about us that gives them permission to use us, deceive, lie, steal, take from us, smear us, or destroy us. Nothing about us made them what they are.

We can’t do could not have said or done anything that would change what they are. Our right to be who we are is unalienable; we have every right to be just as we are; normal, perfectly imperfect, gorgeous humans.

We are not “co-dependent”: This is accusatory and “blame the victim” language.

• They are 100% dependent. Sociopaths need us for legitimacy and all elements of their survival.

We aren’t lacking boundaries: We’re engaged in normal human relationship building.

• They have zero boundaries. Zero limits. They have no – none – zero “stops” on anything they will do, or try in their continued pursuit of survival as defrauding parasites.

Our Own Normal Human Feelings Lead Away Us From the Truth

Often while we’re caught up in being normal humans (imagine that) and having “feelings” in response to what they’re doing in a certain moment, we’re off track.

As our feelings then naturally turn to a thought, and then a belief, and then these thoughts and beliefs lead us to other conclusions about this moment, and about other scenarios with them, we are way, way, way off track. And the sociopath profoundly benefits from our not finding the correct track or the accurate way to view what’s truly going on.

While we’re busy feeling bad about something they’ve done or not done or said or not said to us, a hot-mix of feeling ashamed, embarrassed, sad, vulnerable, self-conscious, discarded, treated badly, abused rushes through us.

All mistaken as far as understanding what’s really going on. All inaccurate because he’s not – or she’s not – what we think they are or motivated by our specific feelings. He’s a sociopath deliberately using and taking advantage. He knows what he is.

Feelings Turn to Thoughts Which Become Beliefs

Our feelings are inspired by the narcissistic users’ callous and careless behavior; their neglect or broken promises and lies turn to thoughts and then beliefs about ourselves, our life, our value, and about the “relationship”

This can feed into feelings of low self-esteem, or a belief we aren’t “good enough”; all from misinterpreting the dynamic between “normal” and “sociopath”.

And low self-esteem or not, in no way, does any amount of “low self-esteem”, depression, or anything else about us gives anyone permission to defraud, con, assault, use, coerce, steal, or take from us, or any one-drop of the rest of the sickening things they do to others.

Our Normal is Bent to the Agent of Their Evil

With the combined sociopath effect phenomenon, and our normal-human characteristics, and beliefs we already carry they slide into a position of power and influence above ourselves. All normal under the sociopath effect.

There’s a day the sociopath expects from the first “hello”. The day when enough “weird”, enough lying, enough confusion, and glimpses of their lack of care is revealed so that we pull back, and roll up the red carpet of normal relationship-building. The day they fail and bail.

We were not loved and then betrayed, but ensnared, deceived, and used. We were never devalued and discarded. Discovering how to see the real truth is essential for healing. A voyage of crossfading misinformation, pain, self-doubt, and all the other soup of trauma and PTSD for the truth. Decode. Reframe the nightmare. Be free.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

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