If you’re Googling for answers, If you’ve begun to think of your date as a “narcissist”, you’re dating a sociopath.
How do you know you’re dating a sociopath…? First of all, sociopath is a big scary word. But, the thing is, if we’re Googling for answers about the new beau who we’ve begun to think might be a “narcissist” and gathering information on that, we’re absolutely going to come up against some misleading (and just plain wrong) information.
Saying this is not to dismiss the colossal efforts put in by everyone trying to figure this out on socials and websites and in books, and YouTube, and TikTok, and podcasts who coined the term “narcissist” and shaded their definitions with hope.
Yes, out of normal and natural human hope that the monster that sent them searching for answers was at least partially human, collectively we’ve put out some faulty information for truly saving our lives. Let’s talk about it…
Why are sociopaths called antisocial? These freaks love to party and hang. They chat, charm, dance, and joke. Why do we call them “antisocial” when in fact, they can’t survive without using other people.
Why Are Sociopaths Called Antisocial?
So… why are sociopaths medically called “antisocial psychopaths” or persons of “antisocial personality disorder” and “sociopaths” as a more colloquial term? This is an important question because rejecting this term “antisocial” places a roadblock to understanding what happened to us.
Dismissing the intricacies and hideous truth of what an antisocial psychopath is takes us away from recovering our lives after a hijacking by one of these deceivers. When looking for answers, misinterpreting the meaning of “antisocial” can take us down a long, wrong turn.
Do parasitic predators know that they’re parasitic predators? In the aftermath, our pain is colossal. Spinning in among all that pain is a question that, if answered, carries much of our recovery with it.
While talking with people in guided recovery sessions, often- when a level of awakening to what happened and why reaches a certain place, I’m asked a major question. That question is: Do they know…do they know what they are?
It’s gratifying and a relief to hear this question, because this question is a sign that the person I’m supporting in taking back their life has made a massive breakthrough. Here in this article, I’m going to give my two-cents, but more importantly, I’m going to let one of these nut bags answer that for you.
Sociopaths’ sex lives are rumored as “great”. In real life, they’re a hotbed of lies and cognitive dissonance.
Sociopaths’ sex lives are integral to their survival. Really. After all, sex renders prey usable. In other words, sex is a major tool in the parasitic predators snag-and-use-tool-kit. Not to mention what a tool every sociopath is if you’ll pardon the pun.
Whatever you might call them, think of their behavior, the way they treat you, and consider them as parasitic predators without a heart, a conscience, or a caring bone in their body.
Why do we believe the lies the narcissist or sociopath tells? Because we’re normal. It’s normal to believe what people say.
Here’s the thing, it’s normal to believe other people. Believing others is hard-wired into our normal human hearts. We’re born this way. We trust and believe others as such a regular part of life, it’s something we barely notice.
Narcissist or sociopath? Sociopath or narcissist..? Whatever you call them… Please… know what you’re truly facing.
Narcissist or sociopath…? How do we determine “what” that person who is making our life a living hell “is”? I’ve noticed a strong inclination to believe that a “narcissist” isn’t a sociopath. Or that there’s a “difference” between a “narcissist” and a sociopath. The idea of a “narcissist” is thought by lots of people to be different and “better”…Or not as “bad” as a sociopath.
Holiday hoovering is painful and a lie. The importance of no contact becomes crystal clear as the temperature drops, leaves fall and the seasonal decorations and eggnog lattes come on the scene.
Holiday hoovering is happening! Read all about it: Here we are again in the thick of the holiday season. It arrives in songs about sleighbells in the grocery store, decorations, and television commercials, nowadays sadly, well before the last Halloween ghost has faded away and the last lone foil-wrapped chocolate witch is eaten.
Emotional abuse is a part of life with a narcissistic user. This is what life is if we’re ensnared by them.
Emotional abuse comes in many flavors. It always comes along with an entanglement with a narcissistic user, the predatory sociopath.
When a normal person and a sociopath mix, the collision of the normal-human brain, and the sociopath’s brain there’s inevitable harm to the normal person while it’s just another regular day to the sociopath.
The focus of the pathological user is to make use of us. They don’t care about what concerns us.
Our feelings are not anything they can feel or understand… Their work is to be sure we’re hooked, and that we don’t comprehend what they are or the reality of their intention in our lives. They don’t care how we feel… They care what we do because of how we feel.
Emotional Abuse and Sociopathic Users are a Package Deal
Once we’re involved and in love, the fallout of the mix of a normal human and a sociopath is trauma, shock, and only harm to us and not at all hurtful for them.
This mind-bending, confusing, collision of a sociopath and a normal person can make us think there’s something wrong with us. There is not. There’s something very very wrong with a sociopath.
Emotional Abuse Signifies This is Not an Ordinary Relationship
As normal, gorgeous humans, we think we’re in a real relationship. Naturally, we do what normal people do in real relationships. The sociopath does not.
Their odd behavior, unresponsiveness, and sometimes outright meanness trips us up – we try, we try to make things better: as anyone would in a relationship.
In the beginning, a sociopath gauges what matters to us. They fulfill that. As the weeks go by, they discern what we won’t tolerate or forgive, what will keep us trusting, even when they become neglectful or mean. They innately know, or simply guess until they get it right and discover which behavior of theirs will bend us to their will most effectively.
In reality, we’ve been hijacked and kidnapped without realizing it. We’re not with a normal person, sociopaths have abnormal brains.
As a sociopath goes about their day in the world they present a false self, even the barista or car wash attendant isn’t seeing a real person.
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.
We try to keep things harmonious, humans need harmony within their lives and relationships. If both people were normal, both people would contribute to harmony within the relationship, this is not the case with a sociopath.
They lead us to feeling convinced we did something to make it happen, or that it didn’t happen, or they ignore us.
While we pitch in and spend a lot of effort self-reflecting, wondering if “it’s our fault,” and trying to make things right, work out the kinks, adjust our perception of what a relationship – this relationship – should be, and continue to relationship-build, it takes a while to notice, we’re doing it alone.
We don’t get anywhere trying to make things good. There’s always a particular moment when it hits us: something is very wrong here, and normal isn’t working to fix it… because they aren’t normal.
Sociopath’s Minds Collide with Ours
Once hooked in, we’re in a kind of hypnosis in a cloud of confusion. As the whirlwind of good stuff begins to wear off the crazy begins we’re twirling on a merry-go-round emotionally.
We discover if we question them about specific unpleasant or odd things they’ve done, the sociopath gets mad. They lead us to feel convinced we did something to make it happen, or that it didn’t happen, or they ignore us.
A sociopath wants us to stay locked in their spell. They know that an emotional reaction from us is a sign we’re “still in”. They truly do not care which of our emotions makes us stay.
Narcissistic users bent on coercive control to attain their personal gains show rage and even violent behavior if he or she thinks they’re losing their grip on getting the things they want. They like to keep what they take. Though not all sociopaths use physical violence within every predator/prey circumstance, some are incredibly violent.
Normal and Chaos or Trouble Make Us Bond More Deeply
Being in love with a sociopath – what you might call a narc, a narcissist, or “your nee”, isn’t a casual connection. – It isn’t a connection at all as much as a parasite embedded in your life.
While we think it’s a real relationship, we’re all the way in. We want the fairy tale to stay perfect. We hang on tenaciously even as we feel it shifting and disintegrating under our feet. Naturally, when things aren’t building or developing in a relationship, you’re worried about connecting on a deeper level, maybe going to counseling together.
Concerns about maintaining a home, paying bills, not wanting to break up a family, or fearing for our own future all keep us “in”. The things that string us along are subtle and hard to grab a hold of; sociopaths trap us in ordinary conversation by activating our normal emotional responses.
As decent, normal human beings when someone talks we feel we’re meant to listen. When someone asks a question we’re socially, culturally, and innately programmed to give an answer. Never diminish the complete wrongness of any abuse. – Sociopaths are naturals at bringing what amounts to abuse into our lives because they don’t value us, or care for us. There’s absolutely no human connection from this alternate-human and ourselves.
Narcissistic Users, Sociopaths Don’t Care Which Emotion Hooks Us
Our response to their actions is a sign we’re hooked. That’s all they need.
Emotional Distractions:
Says or does things that bring up the emotion of humiliation within you
Laughs at you
Puts you down
Calls you names
You feel guilty for things they say
Diminishes your feelings
Their presence and personality leave you thinking maybe you’re crazy
Takes things, money, plans, or privileges away from you
Treats you very well in front of other people
Accuses and blames you for their plans and “work” going wrong or failing
Talks about a past girl/boyfriend who did things “perfectly”…better than you do.
Intimidation and Isolation:
Making us afraid by using looks or gestures.
Slams doors, breaks things, throws things
Yells, scolds, orders you about
Hounds you until you decide to not do something you’d planned
Talks about killing and violence
Shows weapons to you in text messages or in person
Tells you who your friends can be
Keeps you from or wedges an emotional separation between you and your family
Creates an “us” and “them” existence
Seems to be jealous of your time and seems to want attention from you
Uses his jealousy to justify rules and limits or conditions they put upon you
Limits where you can go, when and when you must be home
Texting or calling at intervals to make sure where you are
Rules about or insinuating when we can or can’t go out
Limits or tells you what you can read, watch
Has rules about your social media or phone time
Blocks you from their social media
Avoids meeting or seeing your family
Keeps you from their family or their family seems just as bad
Has friends they won’t let you meet, places they won’t let you go with them
Holds up a “friend” as an authority about your relationship ought to be
Minimizing, Denying, and Blaming:
Belittling your ideas, feelings, opinions
Denying that things important to us, matter
Dismissing or ignoring or making fun of or being angered at what’s important to us
Comments and sets of circumstances that cause you to think everything’s your fault
Insulting how we take care of the home, kids, or spend our time
Telling you things are going wrong because you don’t trust them
Using intimidation or belittling to keep us quiet about what concerns us
Coercion and Threats:
Threaten to commit suicide, talk about dying
Threats to report us to authorities
Making us drop charges against them
Sociopaths pretend illness to get out of expectations, events, and conversations
Making or carrying out threats to harm, hurt or leave us
Telling us we get something only if we do something specific
Coercing us or charming us to do illegal or reprehensible things
Financial Monitoring:
Takes your money
Making you ask them for money
Puts you on an allowance
Comments negatively and criticizes you for what you spend money on
Takes credit cards beyond their limit
Opens new credit cards; coerces you to open credit accounts or does so in secret
Their money and its source are a mystery
Borrows money from you and doesn’t pay it back
Takes out loans or borrows money without you knowing they’ve done this
Keeps secret credit cards or bank accounts
Keeps their income or access to family income from you
Uses outbursts of rage to keep you from talking about bills
Is enraged or dismissive when you try to talk about financial matters or bills
Male Privilege and Cultural Advantage:
Treats you like a servant…even in jest
Behaves like the King or Master of the castle
Makes big decisions, family decisions without you
Uses proclaimed beliefs about how women against you
Defines men’s and women’s roles or husband and wife roles in a restrictive way
Female Privilege and Cultural Advantage:
If you were a real man you would – blank
Threatens domestic abuse charges
Stages domestic violence
I’m a woman, so you need to: financially support me and the baby
Sexual Abuse and Emotional Manipulation:
Bargains with sex
Forces you to be sexual with them
Hides their STD’s
Belittles you for wanting intimacy
Puts you down or dismisses you for wanting sex
Refuses sexual intimacy
Has other husbands, wives, secret kids
Pathological Predators Use Our Emotions for Their Gain
They lie about all things, always hiding what they really are. Every moment of their life is a lie. Everyone they know is someone they’re scamming.
They aren’t a real person, not even to the barista or the car wash attendant. The sociopath is constantly putting on a presentation. When we stop believing them, no one is there. No one human that is.
As a certified coach, upholding industry standards I strive to inform, educate, invite thought and dialogue, to co-plan, co-strategize, advise, consult, refer, recommend, train, teach, guide and coach people in guided recovery and discovery specific to these crimes, and from hell and broken in the aftermath to whole again, and more. You decide what winning is.
The sociopath test is simple. So are sociopaths. What they are is limited, specific, and predictable. We can easily determine if we’ve met one. We can spot them a zillion miles away once we become fully aware of the sociopath test.
Is there an accurate sociopath test? You bet there is. The sociopath test is done at home, so to speak. The signs of a sociopath are clear and distinct. Sociopaths – even though you might be calling them “narcissists” – are limited, simplistic, predictable creatures.
Holiday hoovering is about the sociopath’s need to restock. They replenish their stores using our sentimentality of the season as a trap. For us, it’s annoying, disturbing, and dangerous. It can land as back to square one. Let’s side-step that malarkey.
Holiday hoovering puts a bitter twist and a gut-wrenching anxiety into our holiday season. For us, holiday hoovering is torture. The sociopath – or the “narcissist” if that’s the word you use for them invests in holiday hoovering. It’s necessary; it’s to assure their future.
…And then there’s the boomerang. That “old friend” who pops back up…The Holiday hoover or boomerang can land as back to square one. Straight in the figgy pudding. Let’s side-step that malarkey.
