Tag Archives: deception in marriage

3 Reasons Narcissistic Sociopaths Tell Stories

Narcissistic sociopaths tell stories upon stories.
We hear them tell the
same story more than once.

Sometimes it’s a little different
the second time around.

Narcissistic sociopaths are notorious talkers. When the mood strikes them they yip and yap away – sometimes for hours at a time. There’s a certain “talk” that can be short or long, but it’s got a different quality. A certain perplexing aspect.

Narcissistic sociopaths tell stories. Tales that are entertaining, and then others that are like a bomb being dropped and leaving us scratching our heads. These stories are a stand-out style from the rest of their talk.

The motivation for opening up with story hour of this kind is ultimately founded in the very same concern they have behind everything they say.

That is, they open their yap to get something they want and need and at the same time to keep us hooked in. Also, they’re quite concerned – and at some times more than others – about hiding how they really feel from their black hearts, about putting a lid on what they really think, on what they really intend, and to cover up what they do or have done.

Take back your life.


We Think They’re One Person: They Know They’re Another

In other words they want to hide who they really are. Because – they do know that who they really are isn’t the guy we think they are. And that guy they really are, isn’t a guy we’d stick around for.

And then – on the other hand – these stories are a dip into who they really are – and this is intentional on the part of the sociopathic nutbag. You see, it gets exhausting hiding the things they’re really up to, and they don’t give a poop about our feelings anyway, so they feel it out. This is a way to monitor their own safety and how hooked we are as well and that is the lynchpin of a sociopathic dumb-dumbs survival: their safety and being able to take and use (us) more.

These stories are a foray into showing us a snip and a bit in case – just in case – we won’t mind who they really are, or a particular habit they have. Afterall, things would be so much easier for them if we didn’t mind who they really are and the grosser and more inhuman things they do. And so, stories serve three purposes that all feed into us staying “in” no matter who they are or who we think they are. The stories are a kind of test to see what we can tolerate.

Narcissistic Sociopaths Gotta Make Sure We Side With Them

Sociopaths Tell Stories of Preempt the Truth

We tuck it away under that rug in that little corner of our mind where many strange bits of their behavior are gathering.

When they launch into a bit of a story, they’re talking with a purpose we might not register. They’re telling a version of some part of their life. It could be a retelling of some hideous things they’ve done with a pretty mist over it so that their story makes us think they didn’t do something hideous.

They do this when a fact about them might be coming to our awareness that they know would blow up the scam, such as something about kids they have or another wife, or an arrest.

This is to preempt the truth… so that when or if we do hear the truth, we’re on their side and won’t believe the truth no matter the source.

Breaking Up With Evil

Breakign Up with Evil, by Jennifer Smith on Amazon and Good Reads

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.

True crime. Told in their own words with nothing unsaid. Find validation, and see new glimpses of truth as these five women share their stories… Stories that could be any of ours.

It’s Everywhere

Real Life Example: The day before I told the sociopath I’d married to leave, a woman in another country sent me a FB message, “Do I know you?” – Nope, sure didn’t. But I’d come to know her very, very well. The man I was married to had been living with her for four years. She and their eight-month-old baby. At the same time she sent that message to me, she tapped one off to him, asking him who I was. Somehow she’d put parts of two and two together and come up with very fishy. She decided to ask her partner – my husband – who the heck I was. That very night the sociopath – my husband who I knew as childless, single and once divorced, told me about his four, 4, four children – for eight hours, until the wee hours of the morning.

Why did he suddenly tell me ten months into our marriage about his four kids…?

Because the woman who messaged me had one of his kids. And because he knew that she also knew about another woman in the same town who had three more of his kids. The loser nut-bag needed to get his version in before the other woman and I talked. But that version was far from the truth. It was only enough truth to preempt the snip of truth the woman in Europe who messaged thought was the truth…but wasn’t.

The Real Truth I did talk with that woman in Germany and we became very good friends. a few years later, I visited her and met her (and biologically his) gorgeous little child, whom I love to this day. – What she and I both now know is, these four children have at least 8 other siblings. Two of those 12 are the same age as the one I’ve met. Yes: the woman who messaged me lives in a town with two other kids the same age as hers fathered by this nutbag. Those three children all have different mothers. None of them know they have half-brothers or sisters, yet live in the same city. One of those babes have three older sibs also fathered by this nutbag. Potentially, all six of these kids in the same small town, four girls and two boys, could go to high school together, end up on the same swim team… or date or marry each other. – This is just one of the kinds of things they try to hide, cover-up, and lie about.

Sociopaths Like To Talk About Their Exploits

Sociopaths Tell Stories as a Way to Talk About Themselves

Just like normal humans, sociopathic monsters want to talk about their day or wax poetical about something they did last week, or years ago if it’s especially cool to them. The problem is – they can’t really talk about the truth of the horrible things they did.

They can’t stand around the water cooler when their co-worker asks, “Hey man, did you see American Horror Story last night?” and then answer, chest-puffed and smirk in place, “See it!? I lived that s**t!! I gave some chick a rufie and dragged her over to the back of the…”

There is no normal guy hearing this at the water cooler who’s going to respond to that gruesome reality with, “Wow cool!! Does your girlfriend know?” – That would be another sociopath’s response. And so, in order to rattle on about their exploits, they tell stories about things someone did to them, or that someone else did to someone else… But here’s the decoder key: They’re the “someone” in their story. The “someone” who did the bad thing. They’re talking about what they did to someone else, or to several someone else’s.

There are simple reasons for all of the crazy.
Guided recovery sessions.
There are answers and there is peace.

Narcissistic Abuse Unwound: The Podcast

Like Us, Narcissistic Sociopaths Like to Talk About Their Day

They like to talk about their accomplishments, but a sociopath mixes and matches their stories. They create an amalgamation of the lying and the slightly real parts of their lives.

They do this as they yammer about things they did to someone, and mix in snips of truth and lies from another part of their life, folded in under a new headline. The changes in the story make them sound bigger, better, and more amazing.

The Story That Keeps on Growing

We might hear them tell a story to other people that we’ve heard from them before. But: the story is falling out of their gob in a different version than they told us. This is super-de-duper common. When there’s an embellishment or different twist to the story as they blab away in front of others while we stand by dumbfounded, the last thing we’re going to do is jump in and say he’s telling his story wrong! No, we smile. We put on a smile outside while our head spins inside.

We’re magnanimous by nature as normal humans, admittedly some of us are more magnanimous than others, but all of us tend to be in a social setting. It’s called manners. And while under the influence of a sociopath? We absolutely follow social protocol and tuck the oddness of the enhanced tale away and under some little rug in a corner of our minds where many strange bits of their behavior are gathering. This is beyond our control; it’s the natural effect of a parasitic predator.

Here’s on that happened to me: The nutbag told a part of his past in which he’d started a stunt school. The funding was via a government grant. He said to me he got 4-million dollars to build his stunt school. In front of another person, I heard him say he got 4.5-million. In reality, he got one-million. Filed the application in fraud because he knows nothing about stunts or teaching them. – The program was closed in a matter of months when three 18-year-old young men died playing games and performing hijinks under his tutelage. – No charges were made.

Narcissistic Sociopaths Toss Out Bait with Their Tall Tales

Narcissistic Sociopaths Tell Stories to Discover What They Can Get Away With and What to Hide

Things like, “You know Greg, right…? I found out when he was married to Shelia he got some other chick pregnant…” Then they close their mouth; they stop talking and wait. They’re waiting to see what we think of “Greg”.

Do we judge him and feel for “Sheila”, or do we say something like, “You know stuff happens, that’s life.” — Which makes them think, “Well, maybe she won’t flip out when she finds out about that other ‘ho who just had another kid of mine.” – They need us not to “flip out” and stay “in”, so they can keep taking.

Whatever the Story, It’s About Themselves

Maybe they say, “This guy at work and his wife are swingers! Can you believe people do that…?!” He’s waiting to see if we say, “Yeah, sure! I’ve kind of always wondered about what that’s like.” Or, “Euuwwwhh! That’s so gross!” He’s (or she is) fishing to see if we’d go along and join in, or if we’ll let them do it without us. They need to find out what they can get away with.

They need to know what is an absolute deal-breaker that cuts through the fog of the DMT of “love”. —  “At my last job this woman told people I embezzled money from the fund. I didn’t do it. She did it. She tried to blame me because she was jealous of my promotion and wanted my job. I was helping her and she used my signature to…” And we’re off the races.

Why Do Sociopaths Change, Mix-Up, and Forget Their Lies?

This flexi-world they live in comes out of their complete lack of emotional connection to anything. They’ve got no emotional nostalgia, memory or value for anything that goes on in their lives aside from how it connects to them getting things, using, getting away with it, looking like the good guy, or getting caught or not; there is no sentimentality, romanticism or wistfulness about anything in their lives.

The narcissistic sociopath feels no remorse or shame for the harm they bring to others. They might wish they’d lied better, taken more, got more, used more. They might think, I wish I coulda screwed them both over instead of just that one idiot. That’s as poignant as their nostalgia gets.

To the Pathological User’s Mind, They Have Done and Do No Wrong

Sociopaths – and every sociopath is a narcissistic sociopath by the way, and narcissists are sociopaths – they don’t want to face what we see as the normal consequences of things they’ve done. The truth is the narcissistic sociopath doesn’t think they’ve done anything wrong.

It’s natural that we don’t see the full scope of what they’re thinking and doing. Based on our nature as normal humans, we hold out for proof of how bad they are. We then ask them what they’ve done or why sometimes we get the truth out of them. If we do get the truth we don’t recognize it because their world is so different than ours. – But mostly we get stories.

Bait and Hook: Bait and Hook

Think of everything a narcissistic sociopath says is bait. Every word out of their mouths is to see how far they can go, to see what they can get away with, to hide how they really feel, what they really are, to use, to take, to get away with taking, using, being what they are… to feel out if we’re seeing through them, to feel out what we’re going to do about it.

What we’re going to do about it is go zero contract and become non-threats. Take in the simplistic mind of a sociopath. Take in a surprising perspective that sets us free. Be sociopath proof, user-proof, and free.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

Join the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

SD Voyager interview

True Love Scam Recovery on Medium

True Love Scam Recovery on Facebook

Add these to your contacts
so you don’t miss a newsletter!
jennifer@truelovescam.com
info@truelovescam.com

Subscribe True Love Scam Recovery Jennifer Smith

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.

Visit truelovescam’s profile on Pinterest.

True Love Scam on Tumblr.
.

Affiliate links are in every True Love Scam Recovery article. Clicks on these links provide minor compensation to keep the site running. www.truelovescam.com and its agents are not licensed as attorneys, medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists. See the entire and full True Love Scam Recovery Privacy Policy and Legal Agreement and Disclaimer here. Thank you.

2018_01_29 2023_11_02

How Do I Know I’m Dating a Sociopath?

If you’re Googling for answers.
…and confused or uneasy
about someone you’re dating,
…if you’ve started wondering what’s wrong
it’s likely you’re dating a sociopath…dating a narcissist.

I’m going to get right into it here. There are very specific traits every sociopath shares. If you call this person a “narcissist” and see these traits, maybe pull back a bit on what you feel you know, and plug in a stricter view of them with parameters that fit a sociopath… I know that’s a big and scary word. Paradoxically, it can make things simpler. So, how do we know if we’re dating a sociopath?

dating a sociopath dating a narcissist

First of all, most of us – let’s admit – begin a new romantic possibility, by looking online for things about this person we just met. That’s good, but not enough to detect a sociopath.

Here’s why: when we’re dating someone who is a pathologically narcissistic person – a sociopath – we see the good things. Believe it or not, the bad things about them don’t show up or aren’t seen as bad.

Tune in to yourself in this search. If there’s a tugging in your gut – that gut feeling that something is wrong – this means there’s something wrong. If you’re looking up things that brought you to this article, yes – that person you’re dating or maybe now not dating is one of these creatures.


Be user-proof forever.

Humans Want Proof

But most of us won’t end a romance at this point. We usually want to know more, that’s just human. It’s not necessarily a bad human quality, it is after all, born of the same human inquisitiveness that got us to the moon and discovered penicillin. And at the end of this dating fest – if it goes badly enough, it’s the same natural human quality that will eventually activate our escape from this person.

What Do Sociopaths Do in Relationships?

In the beginning it seems magic. There’s an unexpected, unhinged kind of compatibility.

  • They want to see us often or text or talk once a day or more
  • We find them interesting and are impressed with what they do or talk about
  • It seems they have a good job, are respected, maybe have a-lotta money
  • Or they drop things that lead us to assume they do
  • They make a lot of promises
  • Make a sense of “us” and “we” almost immediately
  • They offer us something we want: a job, love, a new life – from day one, or three
  • Start sexual activity

Call It Like It Is: Truth is Where the Freedom Is

The reality is, most times when someone is talking about dating a “narcissist”, the person they’re facing is a sociopath. That’s fine. However, the information out there about a “narcissist” mixes together accurate ideas about a non-pathologically narcissistic person, and extremely inaccurate ideas about this very scary pathological one. This leads to problems when that person is actually pathologically narcissistic…a sociopath.

When dating a sociopath or when wanting to know if you’re dating a person who’s much more than “just a narcissist”, the best way to make this determination is to think of them as a being a sociopath…to look at them through this lens in order to see them clearly.

Dating a Sociopath (a Pathological Narcissist) Goes…

  • The person who promised so much breaks those promises
  • They say something really strange like, you only think you love me, or I’m not average
  • Super confusing and heartbreaking… they’re strange or get weird about sex
  • They tell us we can’t be a part of some part of their life
  • They have days they’re grumpy for no reason
  • Their mood changes up to down, nice to mean, or active to flat on the couch
  • And something feels off, uneasy, unsettled and unsettling
  • Somewhere in your mind, you wonder if they’re lying

Sociopath / Narcissist, Po-tay-to / Po-tah-to

Dating a sociopath… dating a narcissist. You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to. Why does it matter? Why do I talk about this much? Because being unclear in this can prolong the “relationship”, which prolongs the pain, and inhibits recovery. It can interfere with safety of you and any children that are part of the picture.

Here’s one example: If you think of them as a “narcissist’ and read all about that, then you might believe they have a narcissistic wound. – This will lead you down a garden path of empathy for the “narcissist” who is in fact a sociopath, who has no wound, but has an abnormal brain – and would sooner watch you bleed out on the floor while they eat their lunch than give you money to take care of your child.

People have fallen into calling them “narcissists” for lots of reasons. One reason is that the word “antisocial” as in “antisocial psychopath” the technical name for a sociopath, trips them up. So, read here to find the answer to why sociopaths are called antisocial.

And of course, the other reason for shying away from the much bigger words sociopath or psychopath is because it’s hard to believe this infinite evil exits. I’m so sorry for this. This is the hardest part to take in. The first moment this reality came to me, is one I’ll never forget.

Sociopaths Think Differently: They Have a Different Brian

As things progress:

  • They don’t talk to you, they ignore your texts, or get mad at you for contacting them
  • They disappear for days
  • The pathological user will tell us everything is our fault
  • To shut up your questions, they tell you to just trust them or call you fat
  • We feel they’re mad at us and try to explain ourselves
  • We find out they’re seeing other people
  • Dating a sociopath or narcissist can turn violent
  • And now, you feel deceived though you still might have no “proof”
  • If questioned, they act as if nothing happened and like we’re still chill
  • You feel fear
  • You think maybe they’re mentally unstable
  • Something very wrong is going on, but you can’t put our finger on it

Dating a Sociopath (a Pathologically Narcissistic Person) is Fixable: They Are Not

By the way, did you know that it’s against mental health professional guidelines to diagnose someone underage – someone 18 or younger – as a sociopath aka a psychopath? That’s how serious it is. It’s the last thing a therapist or psychiatrist wants to officially diagnose anyone with.

This diagnosis, this condition of this abnormal and under-functioning brain of the sociopath is permanent. It’s a very strong statement for a therapist or psyche professional to make. This diagnosis is one that many licensed mental health professionals are not willing to make.

I’ve known of cases where they feel the person in question is a sociopath, but not be willing to give testimony to this in court in abuse cases that could save a child from visitations or a spouse from sharing custody. – There are of reasons for this. The point is you need to know.

Dating a Sociopath, Dating a “Narcissist” is a Life of Hell

Sociopaths are very different than we are. They actually have a different brain – they process human relations completely differently than we do. They look at other people as objects. People are merely utility devices to use and to take things from or to use to get their kicks from…in a really bad way.

Sociopaths don’t ever change. They cannot. And they wouldn’t want to if they could, they like being sociopaths and know what they are.

Sometimes they’ll tell us they’re a sociopath. They don’t mind if you know this. They care what you do because fo this knowledge. And most times this sickening intimate uttering does not send people running away, its isn’t usually what snaps the spell, but becomes a part of the coagulating weirdness.

Know the truth. Know how amazing you are.

Dating a Sociopath Only Has One Outcome

Things can only go from bad to worse to much, much worse. They’re nice, then harsh then not as nice, then harsher. Call you names and some pull out the violence. They take anyone they can get their hooks into through five stages of true love scam…always and only.

Why? Why can’t they just be normal? – Connectors between segments in their brains are missing so that they can’t feel or process emotions as we do. Sociopaths – psychopaths – don’t feel the emotions we feel. They have a very limited set of emotions, none of which are comparable to ours. They don’t understand our emotions and never will.

There are lots of differences in our brains and in how they see the world compared to hoe we see the world because of this missing but. They’re missing care and connection, and so they’re missing a conscience. We have a conscience because we care. They have other differences, for example, in dating a sociopath or dating a what you’ve been calling a narcissist, you might notice that they don’t process the meanings of words the way we do. They even lie when they don’t need to.

Here’s a very detailed YouTube video with Dr. Hare, a leader
in research and studies on the antisocial psychopath.

We End the Damage They Can Bring to Our Lives

If you’re on this website wondering if you’re dating a sociopath, please don’t wait looking for proof from them…you’re here because you already know. Trust your gut.

Your suspicion, your fear, confusion, and self-doubt is proof. We already know. Please, embrace your own life. Protect yourself. Find out how to leave them. Go no contact.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

Join the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

SD Voyager interview

True Love Scam Recovery on Medium

True Love Scam Recovery on Facebook

Add these to your contacts
so you don’t miss a newsletter!
jennifer@truelovescam.com
info@truelovescam.com

Subscribe True Love Scam Recovery Jennifer Smith

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.

Visit truelovescam’s profile on Pinterest.

True Love Scam on Tumblr.
.

Affiliate links are in every True Love Scam Recovery article. Clicks on these links provide minor compensation to keep the site running. www.truelovescam.com and its agents are not licensed as attorneys, medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists. See the entire and full True Love Scam Recovery Privacy Policy and Legal Agreement and Disclaimer here. Thank you.

2016_10_10 2022_10_12

4 Stages of True Love Scam Recovery

Recovery from a con man.
We’re gob-smacked by the discovery our significant other is
a human-soul-ransacking, life-sucking,
parasitic-destroyer.

Recover from a con man…? Wow. I mean…how did this become something we need to know about? This discovery that these shape-shifting beasts of evil exist is nothing we’d ever have imagined for our lives.

For many, the idea that someone would lie to them has not crossed their mind. And then to discover that potentially an entire relationship is a lie…? This is the hardest thing we’ll ever do, no doubt about it.

con man recover

I had so many questions about this phenomenon and found, realized, and discovered answers to every one of them. The recovery and reassembling your life isn’t easy. It takes courage. You will discover how incredibly amazing you are as a fully normal human. – And that all the things you did, said, hoped for, and were confused by are absolutely normal.

We can, you can recover from a con man or the female version of these creatures. Though it’s a winding and challenging and unknown road, have no doubts, after the traumatic fake-lationship, PTSD, and healing we rise.

What is recovered enough for you?
There are four phases we pass through
going from hell to normal again.

Recovery Means Restored Joy

You can come away from this joyful again. You will smile and you will laugh for that genuine place once again. By being thrown into the fire we can forge ourselves to reveal our greater selves.

The most common term used to talk about these life thieves is “narcissist”. This is unfortunately another confusion within the confusion. The reason I say this is because there are people who are narcissistic in this pathological sense in which this person is driven by the way their brain is designed to live as a parasite – to use others rather than connect and care.

Seeing the Sociopath Reveals All Who Are and Those Who Are Not

Then, there are also people who are narcissistic but not of this pathological, evil mind. When both are called “narcissists” there are some truly unfortunate misunderstandings in the way that prolong or prohibit recovery. I will say, that by taking in the full and whole scope of what a sociopath is, the people who are merely dysfunctionally narcissistic also come into clearer light.

If you’ve resonated with the experiences described on my website, you’ve been embroiled and entangled by the pathological kind. The merely dysfunctionally narcissistic person, though sometimes mean or confounding and frustrating, is not motivated by this pathology of sociopathy.

Prey and Parasitic Predator

As targets of a person of this pathology – the pathologically narcissistic, we’ve been targeted by an ASPD, antisocial personality disorder, or what is called an antisocial psychopath in colloquial terms, a sociopath.

As you unwind this and heal grieve, heal, and restore your life, you’re going to be amazed at the depths of emotion and power your life has. And the same applies if you’ve been dragged through hades by a person you’re calling a narcissist. Same thing.

You’re In Trauma Due To a Narcissistic Sociopath

1. Traumatic Event

The prime traumatic event is recognizing the person we love is a monster. This is really a jolt to every bit of our being. We take a physical, mental, and emotional hit. To take in the idea that our life has been a total and complete lie for the length of time we have been married or to living with and in love with or even simply dating this malevolent being is beyond imagining for those who haven’t been here.

As those who have, now know evil. We’re on a first-name basis with a demon that looks like a human. And here’s the good news. This really can become a benefit to your life. And this is meant on a profound level, not mere superficial optimism.

We Decide to Win and We Decide What Winning Is

Right here, at this moment, we determine the outcome of this life-altering event. We can stand up. We take back ourselves and our lives. It’s up to us to find the pathway to resolving each loss, to grieving the loss of what we thought was real but wasn’t … and discovering how amazing we are and how our great human gorgeousness was never lost.

They need us, we do not need them – though that feeling we’ll die without them is elicited from the depths of our souls moments after being hooked in. This is another bizarre effect of the sociopathic-zap.

We have this moment – here, right now – to vow to be victorious in our lives in a way we never would have been without this crisis. This is a bit of a new idea, I’d imagine. This doesn’t mean, “this had to happen for me to be a success in life”. This is: Since this did happen, I’m taking it on and creating value out of it. Winning is our decision to make. It is in our hands.

The Aftermath is PTSD and CPTSD: This is Normal

2. The Unavoidable Fallout of the Traumatic Event

What happens when we realize: The calls are coming from inside the house, as in every scary babysitter there’s-someone-in-the-house movie? What happens when the person we knock boots with is actually the monster? What happens is hell, but I don’t have to tell you that… What we do is decide to restor our lives

Turns out a sociopath and their target are constantly living in two different realities in the same moment. – We’re never in the room for the same reason.

The first three words refer to stress after trauma. That “D” on the end, stands for “disorder.” Please don’t imagine that “disorder” is more than a clumsy word for meaning anything other than the normal and expected need to heal.

Think about it like this, if we break a leg are we “disordered”? Do we need psych drugs? Do we need antidepressants to be ourselves again?

Usually, we just need healing. Usually, family and friends, even neighbors rally around us with hot meals, pillows, and good books. It’s similar in the PTSD after a sociopath. But different.

We weren’t in relationships, these are scams, and that’s why there’s trauma. Don’t believe me… Read what these nasty creatures say about things like the death of a family member, or maybe their mom.

Recover From a Con Man: You Can Heal, Restore, Renew

3. Healing

In true love scam recovery, it’s common that victims blame themselves. Self-blame is a trait of all post-traumatic stress. Survivors of plane crashes, fires, earthquakes, wars, and certainly wars and genocide suffer from this. In these instances, it’s called survivors guilt. 

They beat themselves up with: Why did I live?! Why am I the one? Why did they die?! – Plagued with feelings of guilt that they could have done something differently to save others. Depression, weight loss, suicidal thoughts, despair, lethargy, exhaustion, physical illness, and grief become daily companions. Sound familiar?

We must actively participate, create, sculpt, define, demand, and find our recovery and restoration. Be aware of what you believe this all was… Sometimes it’s basic beliefs we’ve taken on about this that get in the way of restoring our lives.

For example, if you feel you need to “do the work“ on yourself and become a better person in order to recover, consider that you may be adopting and accepting ideas that place the blame for this happening at your feet.

This represents a skewed and inaccurate recovery model that will take you not to recovered but to more disappointment and despair, and bad feelings about yourself.

While self-improvement is fine, self-improvement or an improved self wasn’t lacking or needed as the cause or the preventative for this life-jacking you were dragged through.

Remember everything they did was about and for themselves. It has nothing to do with you.

Post-Traumatic Stress Is Normal

Yes. Because post-traumatic stress is post-traumatic stress. We think we see him around the corner. These moments we weep, tremble and have nausea anticipating his next move or a court date. In turns we feel stupid, foolish, maybe even think it’s our fault – we aren’t and it isn’t. 

One of the hallmarks of PTSD is having thoughts that have no place in the realness of life. This is a reason to not take our thoughts seriously during this time. To be patient. To embrace ourselves with compassion. We are beautiful.

There Is No Side-Stepping the Post Trauma

Just like accident victims see the airline or car crashing all over again. Veterans hear the screams of battle we think we see them around the corner or across the street or turning left at the light ahead in traffic. Our survivor’s guilt is sometimes: Why did I let him do that to me? – Why? Because we’re human. Because we’re trusting, loving people – who believed a monster in disguise.

There’s no shame in being good. There’s no blame for not being clairvoyant. And news flash – real inside surreal: they didn’t do it to us. We could have been anyone. It wasn’t personal. There’s really nothing about us that made us attract or bring the conning scammer to us – nothing other than being a great person.

True love scam recovery takes specific care, just as with any other PTSD, healing takes time. We are not “disordered”, as in having a mental condition, in any other sense than in the need to heal.

Healing PTSD Takes Time, Patience, and Effective Healing Methods

The Confusion, Sadness, Sleeping… It’s all Part of Healing

The true love scam recovery cycle has ups and downs. Like any endeavor, there are steps forward and a tiny step back, move forward, back, further forward, and a bit back until we are fully healed.

Our physical, mental, and emotional health require restorative and rejuvenating care. Sleep, good nutrition, supplements like B and C, and adrenal support. Walking when we can. Yoga. Hiking. Swimming. Low-impact movement that gets oxygen flowing and our hearts stronger. Spend time only with family and those who love us. Friends who love us. Cuddle kittens and puppies. Don’t listen to love songs.

4. Recover From a Con Man: Rise Up

We Are Everything We Need

Blossoming from PTSD is possible! In complete healing, we rise up like the Phoenix from the ashes; creating a beautiful life because of having gone through the despair.

The word crisis in Chinese translates to opportunity. We can, in fact, rewire the synapses in our brains to erase and heal the trauma. There is nothing we could have done differently. What we do now, that’s the thing that matters.

A sociopath aka monster knows quite well that by being themselves, the lives of people they make use of and deceive are shattered into shards. They don’t understand what you’re going through. They don’t care about what you’re going through.

Find every answer.

These Beasts Know What They Are

They are precisely what they are and are severely limited in this. It’s their brain, wired with the inability to feel positive bonding emotions. Like a slithery reptile, they may take pleasure from lying in the sun, but also like a reptile they take pleasure in eating their prey, even their own children.

Sociopaths and what you might think of as a narcissist live every day of their lives needing us. Or someone like us. Some human who thinks they re normal. — That monster needs you for survival… not the other way around.

At times, I thought the malevolent being I married and I were sharing a laugh, a  joyful moment, or a sense of accomplishment over a goal we reached together. None of this is true. Turns out, a sociopath and their target are constantly living in two different realities within the same moment. – We’re never in the room for the same reason.

I’d find myself laughing genuinely, joyful and happy when we accomplished something that was part of what we were trying to achieve. I was the only one.

He was laughing at the ease with which he was scamming me, sickeningly gleeful at his betrayal (not a betrayal in a sociopath’s mind – simply their right), and feeling exaggerated elation at a win behind my back, using me without my awareness. A story you know well if you’re on these pages.

Sociopaths Love No One: Not Even Us, Or Her, Or Him

They’re all the same. – There is no woman, man, or child on the planet they will ever treat genuinely well, they’re incapable. There is no living person on the planet – no other woman who will ever be loved, or loved more, or loved better by them. They do not love… anyone.

There is no woman better for them. There’s no man more suited to them. A narcissistic sociopath’s world – their entire existence – is hell for anyone near them. Learn to reframe the nightmare or you’ll not be free. you can recover from a con man.

Welcome to the club; you’re not alone! There are so many (too many) men and women in the aftermath of a hijacking. Each gorgeous one of you “replaced” even before they met you in essence. There are always several, maybe dozens of simultaneous true love scams going on. The parasitic, predatory sociopath aka narcissist juggles women and men like oranges or tennis balls.

Resources Without Consent

You’re a source: of money, food, shelter, sex, respectability, connections, whatever it is they scammed us for. The sociopath who hijacked me, while we were married and living together as it turns out had at least the following.

Two other wives, 18 kids, three fiances, three other women he lived with, two women sending him money every month, one man sending him money every month, another man sending him $2,000 at a time randomly here and there, nine girlfriends – all who thought he loved them and only them – and ten to fifteen satellite women – and men – at any given time. This is what they are. Even if we don’t discover it all, the rate of shocking information is higher than the sky.

You were, as I was, an ATM. And the thing about ATMs is that there’s always another one around the corner. Sociopaths and what you might think of as a narcissist live every day of their lives needing us. Or someone like us. Some human who thinks they’re normal. — That monster needs you for survival… not the other way around.

You, We as Normal Humans Are Awesome

There’s a healing bright side to all this: It wasn’t personal. They didn’t do it “to us”. Bizarrely we could have been anyone. We are replaceable and interchangeable. So, cut him or her off in our hearts and we are free.

When I saw precisely how cruel, cold, calculated, and hideous this thing standing before me was, all care for him evaporated. 100% gone. Does this mean I was immediately okay? no. Not by a million miles. But I made myself okay. It took intuition, information, time, support, friends, and family, and won back in all ways what winning was in this nightmare for me. You can too.

Kick ’em in the behind and get them gone. Go no contact, be a non-threat. Then repair, rejuvenate and thrive! Embrace our lives. Beam the compassion and empathy, loyalty, and caring they targeted us for on ourselves.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Feel free to email me for coaching at personalized rates, jennifer@truelovescam.com

Time to Thrive!

True Love Scam Recovery on Medium

True Love Scam Recovery on Facebook

Add these to your contacts
so you don’t miss a newsletter!
jennifer@truelovescam.com
info@truelovescam.com

Subscribe True Love Scam Recovery Jennifer Smith

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.

Visit truelovescam’s profile on Pinterest.

True Love Scam on Tumblr.
.

Affiliate links are in every True Love Scam Recovery article. Clicks on these links provide minor compensation to keep the site running. www.truelovescam.com and its agents are not licensed as attorneys, medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists. See the entire and full True Love Scam Recovery Privacy Policy and Legal Agreement and Disclaimer here. Thank you.

2015_07_25 2023_10_08