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Breaking No Contact

A True Love Scam Reader’s Guest Post, written by E.R.
Breaking no contact can bring us freedom too.
That peek back into where we were is not all bad.
– Depends on why and then what we do next.

A True Love Scam Reader’s Guest Post

Written by: E.R.

E.R. was a young college student and this entanglement was her very first relationship. Her parents couldn’t understand her trauma. She yearned for closure, for a natural and mutual ending, for explanations, as do we all when the end arrives.

Through a willingness to take in more, and through sessions with me to begin to shed the assumptions we make about them from the point of view of how we look at the world, E. was able to piece her life back together.

That healing and recovery process is an odyssey of disbelief after disbelief giving way to discovery and relief and resolution if we can step into seeing things we never thought possible.

Going Contact for Peace of Mind

I fell in love with a cute, charming, tender, sensual, simple, strong man. We met on a beach holiday that I took abroad. We emailed and talked and sent texts when I was back home. I went back to that beach every six months to visit him, to get to know him better. I was in love.

Instead of the happiness I expected or first felt, after a lot of pain, I ended our relationship. I went no contact, but then I broke no contact.

In defense of breaking no contact: I learned a lot. I learned who he really was by spying on his life on social media. – By breaking no contact I learned that his Facebook is a sort of display of his love-conquests.

He has friends – other guys – who live at that tourist beach too for the same reason: to live as parasites off tourists; women traveling for vacations and a little fun.

I learned that if he was offline for a few days and I couldn’t reach him… it meant he was having an affair with some new tourist. He was busy love-bombing and paying them attention, fake affection in exchange for whatever he could get.

I learned from his Facebook that he randomly ‘friends’ people he does not know, among which I saw: one Brazilian gay man and a too-young girl from Indonesia.

I learned that when he checked into a city on Facebook, it meant that was the city a prey was living in. his full active prey was never pictured on his Facebook. But he did check-in to the cities they were from giving away their existence as part of his catch..

I learned that liking the page of a club or group or a business, or a soccer team was the sign he was engaging in cheating with a woman related to that activity or in that group.

His email taught me a lot too; I learned his email was full of online dating emails.

And that he subscribed to a website to win a U.S. green card from.

I discovered from his email and SMS that he was still missing and loving his ex-girlfriend for the first 8 months I was in his life.

The Sociopath’s Email Account Tells a Story

His email revealed to me that he had another ‘official girlfriend’ for 6 months when he was already ‘official’ with me. And he sent her exactly the same loving messages he used with me. He even re-used a little poem I sent to him, sending it to her.

Now that I broke up and went no contact, and then behind his back spied on his Facebook, I am learning that he is still the same. Despite the (fake) apologies and pathetic attempts to keep me in his crazy life, he never even stopped for a second to enjoy pornographic images, ‘friend’ new lovers, and say what he said to me to anyone else who would listen.

LADY ON PHONE MEME

This is teaching me that all that happened had nothing to do with me; He cheated and lied when I was sweet as much as when I broke up with him.

When I was questioning him as much as when I blindly trusted him; when I was The One and when I am no longer in his life.

Benefits of Looking: When We Turn Pain to Our Advantage

Although I am not fully respecting no contact by spying on his social media, although the first reaction to seeing him with other girls is still painful, I learned something for me. I learned to rationalize for my benefit. I had rationalized giving him the benefit of the doubt for a very long time, in order to put some logic in his nonsense; now I am using what he ‘taught’ me to rationalize in my favor!

Looking at him now helped me look beyond my emotions and repeat to myself like a mantra that he is still the same, will always be the same. A good-looking heartless-cheater.

Thank you, E.R. for sharing the sweet inside the bitter.

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
zoom support group ptsd therapy for coercive control narcissistic abuse coaching 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 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_12_18 2021_07_17

Why Do We Believe the Lies of a Sociopath?

Why do we believe the lies of a sociopath?
Is something wrong with us?
Nope. Not a chance.
You’re gorgeous, and your own saving grace.

First of all, it’s normal to believe other people. It’s hard-wired into our normal human hearts. We’re born this way. We trust so much, as such a regular part of life, it’s something we barely notice.

Why Do We Believe Them?

narcissist sociopath lies

When we’re ensnared by a sociopath we begin to doubt the things they say, and at the same time, we doubt our doubt. We feel weird, yet we still believe them.

When our heart knows something feels wrong we have to decide what to believe or to accept in order to balance our world.

It’s natural to do this, we can’t not do this, because human beings need harmony in thought, word, and action.

Without it, we fall into confusion or cognitive dissonance, until we resolve the disparity.

Decode from their view of life in order to win.
Btw, they aren’t doing anything for their ego,
or because of a narcissistic wound.

How Normal Works: Believing Is Normal

When we meet someone new, we believe every word they say, that’s normal. When we get into feeling more for them, we believe and trust them more. That’s normal too.

Believing the lies of a sociopath we fall in love with, and who we still think is essentially normal, is inspired by an involuntary mechanism. This is a function wired into the human psyche. Our very existence is wired to connect, bond, trust, and unite. We believe others.

And more so, we believe the person we’re sleeping with. Looking for a lie is abnormal and unnatural to us. This is a piece of our normal that is leveraged to the sociopaths’ advantage… because we don’t know they exist and what that means.

Genuine Normal Humans Reconcile Differences

Based on our need for harmony, there are circumstances for all of us in which we adjust our own ideas to fit in. We do this at work within families and well, everywhere. It’s part of relationships of all kinds. We all do it, and it isn’t always a damaging or a negative outcome.

These adjustments and compromises and mutual agreements strengthen us in a normal relationship. The expression of feelings and the dialogue to get to a resolution create an amazing group or organization or a family. When it’s a positive exchange of opinion or idea, and the decision that results is mutual, we all benefit. This is what relationships are for us as normal people.

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.

To Compromise and Create Harmony is Normal

As a few simplistic examples, if we work for a company that doesn’t treat employees fairly, we might let that go in order to keep a job.

Or we might not be a complete fan of our church that discriminates against certain groups, but we continue going because of other things of value that we gain from attending.

An extreme example is in the induction into cults where group standards are forced on everyone through tactics that tap our emotions; much like how sociopath influences us to adjust to their desires.

Ultimately, rationalizing away our own sense of what is right to get along with someone else can only go so far before it’s unhealthy and eats away at our soul.

We’re The Only One Who Cares

When in an entrapment (that we feel is a relationship at the time) with a sociopath, we’re the only one who cares. The only one doing any compromising.

We make this shift in our own hearts and minds to match the sociopath’s purported beliefs and relationship values. This is no small thing and happens immediately when we’ve encountered a person of coercive control. It’s amplified and embedded with every, good morning beautiful text they send.

Their surreal power of influence leads us to do things we’d never otherwise do. We first feel it’s simply that normal compromise and adjustment until we see they aren’t adjusting or compromising anything at all. We can then begin to feel we’ve lost who we really are.

We Don’t Lose Who We

Thankfully, deep inside us, our real and true core values remain. – When the time is right, this is the golden rope we can grab onto to pull ourselves out of the abyss. We are our own saving grace.

In actuality, who we really are as normal limbic-brained humans, saves us. The human need to balance disparate beliefs and resolve cognitive dissonance, in the beginning, keeps us in, but it’s also what breaks the spell.

We’re Our Own Heroes: Being Fully Human Sets Us Free

Our inner truth and values, and our own strength allow us to pull ourselves out of the cognitive dissonance and shake off the chains of the sociopath. Though we’re ensnared, enough of the “real us” snaps back to the present when the sociopath makes a huge blunder that lets us see something is off.

The day comes along when they tell whopper number 987, a lie so big we can’t swallow it, or when they stay away for three nights, or steal our new iPhone, or make a transgression so glaring we can’t register it as “okay” no matter what. This is the moment the sociopath dreads, pulls tricks, and tactics, and hopes to prolong every single hour of every day.

It’s hard-wired within human nature to trust. We’re equally hard-wired in the deep inner workings of life to no longer feel positively towards the person who breaks our trustSociopaths monitor our bond to them; that “bond” from our side, is what is the source of their survival.

A Sociopath Can Be Nothing But a Sociopath: Forever

These abnormal creatures keep us primed to believe their lies, and their twisted logic by laying on affection, withholding, or being nice, or threatening us, not to forget playing victim, and with dramatic tantrums, they throw.

Narcissistic sociopaths learn by trial and error when to pull back, seem loving, act angry, play sick, or are unreachable for the results they want. Our emotional reaction and entanglement.

Thinking they’re intelligent, is missing the full story. Sociopath con artists are accidental experts from the dark side at manipulation, they discover what to say and do like lab rats learning to push a lever for the cheese. Antisocial psychopaths are identical in their limited, reptilian brains.

Sociopaths Learn as They Go as They Use People

Sociopaths (what many people are calling narcissists) observe us for clues about what works and what doesn’t. They know if they can lead us to adjust what we think of as “right”, or “okay” it buys them the “benefit of the doubt” from us. We keep quiet, we let this one issue or moment go by.

This lets them keep on doing things we wouldn’t ever otherwise accept. It gives them space to play and ruin. As their influence over us goes on we must fall into darkness in order to stay, or rip through the facade to the reality of what’s happening and run for freedom.

Eventually that moment comes when we see clearly and place more meaning and significance once again, in our inner values than in their malarkey. This is a moment they fear and the moment they become more dangerous, and at the same time extremely easy to maneuver out of our lives if we can understand what’s really going on

Sorting Out Two Parallel Realities to See the Truth

Once we leave Mr. or Ms. Monster, once we’ve sent them out of our home, we’ve got more cognitive dissonance to handle. Now we doubt that the absent, mask-wearing devil did and said what they did. Why? Again, it’s the natural human need for harmony.

It’s not possible not to doubt our own disbelief in the person who we believed to be our soul mate. How’s that for irony? We’re going to suffer from this cognitive dissonance, this is a part of the PTSD after the trauma of living with a sociopath. But we will make our way out. We will be whole again. We can do it: escape, discover, decode, reframe because we’re amazing.

There is An Absolute Limit to Their Brains

All sociopaths think alike. They all equally lack compassion, care, kindness, concern, loyalty, commitment, love, devotion, fidelity, monogamy, trustworthiness, honesty, or any genuine positive bonding emotion. We believe the lies of a sociopath because we’re healthy and normal.

Con men – this is what sociopaths are – love who they are, and delight in using and consequently ruining people: family, friends, parents, sisters, brothers, lovers, wives, husbands, and children. They enjoy being monsters.

Grab your golden rope. Hold hard to your values and beliefs. Trust your gut. Have faith in your own life. Embrace your life. Be your own saving grace. We cut all contact between ourselves and the user who hijacked us. Let who we are shine. Be human. Live in the light.

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.

2015_11_01 2023_12_13

Marriage Fraud: The Green Card Scam

Marriage fraud is many a liar’s dream.
Access to the USA
gives them a new place to hide.
Protect yourself legally from their hijinks.
Break free and clear safely.

passport2

Marriage fraud: conning someone into marriage for a green card is no big deal to a life-stealing predator like a sociopath.

Sociopaths (narcissists) have no problem lying, they do it all day long. Telling lies that cross into committing criminal acts to gain what they’re after is a-okay with them. Lies are normal and boundaries don’t exist to them.

The cross-over between truth and lies is blurred into nonexistence. Yet, be fully aware that they do know that they’re lying. The reality is that the sociopath’s (narcissist’s) entire life is a made-up fabrication with extremely small fumes of truth in whatever they’ve told you about themselves. So, marriage fraud for a green card scam is an incredibly common sociopath-con. 

Get the answers you need.

Marriage Fraud is a Piece of Cake for a Sociopath

The information and experience reflected in the article are based on a marriage fraud that took place in 2013 in the USA. The monetary amounts mentioned for applications and processing may have changed. During the years 2020 and 2021, immigration into the USA is likely at a halt.

In my experience, I observed that green cards are handed out to married couples fairly easily. The application process with USCIS seems intimidating when you’re going through it, but getting the green card isn’t as difficult as urban myth leads us to believe.

The US Government Sides with You

USCIS holds the position that American citizen deserves to have their spouse living alongside them in the United States. They want our application to work out. Getting a green card can be quite simple.

We’ve all heard stories of the couple who fought for years to be together in North America. What we don’t hear about are the hundreds of couples who get a green card in three to four months with no trouble at all.

Conditional Adjusted Status: The Two-Year Green Card

You might need or want to check with an immigration attorney. You might have realized that it’s rare to find an immigration lawyer who is addressing the needs of the U.S. citizen rather than the immigrant. There is one that has been referred to me years after my case. They’re in Texas but work with U.S. citizens anywhere. www.codiaslaw-com

That first “green card” is technically called being given, conditional adjusted status. This allows the qualifying immigrant to live and work in the USA for two years. In order to stay legally in the U.S. beyond that two-year period, another application process is required and is filed six months before the first green card expires.

As a legally married couple within the U.S., the citizen and the immigrant spouse start the two-year conditional adjusted status process by filing USCIS form I-458. If the immigrant fiance is outside of the U.S. and you’re not yet legally married, there’s a different process.

Marriage Fraud is Not Uncommon: USCIS Knows How to Spot It

USCIS officials know that marriage fraud happens. There are specific things that signal that one of the parties didn’t marry the other “in good faith”. They are things like an age difference, marrying quickly, and other rather obvious ideas. Follow this link for a list of several of the red flags that USCIS employees and officials look out for. – And yes, those window clerks are on the alert as well as the interviewers.

USCIS Interview Questions

The USCIS interview is basic and pretty much what one would think. In times past they’d show up at your shared home to see that you did indeed live together. This hasn’t been the case for ages. Now you go together to the immigration office and sit in a room with a stoic officer of USCIS.

The couple is asked things like what are each other’s favorite foods, where they went to college, their favorite pet’s name, how they met, and what they wear to bed. Seemingly random questions that reveal the involvement and indicate a personal life together. – They aren’t only listening to the answers. They read the room, as they say. You are being scrutinized.

If USCIS suspects fraud they alter the interview. They’ll get into more specific and probing questions. They might take each spouse into separate rooms to question.

ICE Has an Online PDF About Marriage Fraud

It states: Marriage fraud is: Neither victimless nor limited in scope, the crime of marriage fraud is anything but a trivial matter. Types of marriage fraud include: A foreign national defrauds a U.S. citizen who believes the marriage is legitimate.

Take back your life.

Breaking Up With Evil

Breaking 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.

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.

Each Word Has Significance

Further consequences: US citizens who enter into fraudulent marriages assume great personal liability. The foreign spouse may gain access to sensitive, personal information including, but not limited to, bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, retirement and investment accounts, personal identity information, and family heirlooms.

Ten Years Permission to Live in the USA

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Before the two-year green card expires another application, form I75-1, and more fees must be filed by our scamming spouse in order to remove conditions from their green card so that they can stay for ten more years and during that time take citizenship.

That’s the big enchilada the con man immigrant is shooting for.

This application cost was $700 in 2012. The is paperwork that the immigrant files on their own. A part of the application process is proving that they married you – the US citizen – in good faith. In some cases even after a divorce from the US spouse, the conditions on their status may be removed and the application approved for their ten-year green card.

Immigration Directors and Officials

USCIS and ICE see tons and tons of marriage fraud and green card scams. Even with this experience, officials aren’t immune to a sociopath’s charms. Additionally, the effect of the sociopath is so all-encompassing that the U.S. spouse under the sociopath effect will defend the sociopath right through the red tape and scrutiny of USCIS, all the while believing their spouse and in their love.

Green card scammers attempting to gain entry into the U.S. are committing a crime. As a target of their fraud, you’re not accountable for the scammer’s crime. – We are responsible for letting USCIS know about the immigration fraud as soon as we realize what has happened.

A Green Card Represents a Golden Ticket

Marriage fraud and green card scams are carried out in choice-target countries. One destination very high on the list is the UK though with Brexit, that may change since access to all of Europe will no longer be included. Here’s support for marriage scammers in the UK. Holland is another country of choice, as is Canada.

The bottom line is a green card scammer wants a passport to a country that takes them to a richer, riper, more free country. Or out of the country where people are after them.

Tame the trauma.
Decode the confusion.

Subscribe to the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

Once Married, They Just Might Own Your Stuff

In several states, once we’re married, what’s theirs is ours and what is ours is theirs by law. When married to a scammer, this is a horrifying reality to see. There’s deep sorrow, grief, and loss as a target of marriage fraud.

Once we realize it was a scam rather than a romance we’re better off knowing their real intention, but it’s a hard experience. The way you end the marriage in a legal sense is important. You’ll want to legally end the marriage choosing between a divorce or an annulment.

Report the Scamming Sociopath to USCIS

USCIS is aware that a U.S. citizen can be conned. But when they call things suspicious: You’re both under suspicion. Therefore… cover your bases. I’ve known of the couple being rejected with a letter that implies they’re both in on it when it was anything but the situation.

In my case, USCIS tried to stall the process. They’d given us an interview that is used when they suspect fraud. He did get his green card, and then I’d seen enough as well and I kicked him out just a few months later.

Report, Report, Report

Report to USCIS immediately if you discover that the love isn’t real. Even though it’s your word against anyone else’s be sure to report. Without fail, report the scam to USCIS. – USCIS knows this happens, it’s okay to report you’ve been scammed and it’s for your safety to do so. The lying scumbag will never know that you reported them, that is to say, USCIS doesn’t tell them.

Make your report by writing a letter to the officer who interviewed you and to the director of the immigration center where the interview took place. In your report give them complete information.

You might need or want to check with an immigration attorney. You might have already realized that it’s rare to find an immigration lawyer who is addressing the needs of the U.S. citizen rather than the immigrant. There is one that has been referred to me years after my case. They are in Texas but work with U.S. citizens anywhere.

Changes in Circumstances Must Be Reported

For example, the green card holder is meant to report any address change, they will not do this when they leave your place. You can include this information. Even if you don’t know where they went, be sure to give the date that they left your home.

If things are missing, let them know what was stolen. Be as detailed as you can be in dollar amounts, property, jewelry, and the debt you’ve been left with. You can also report to their country, the one they hold a passport for, the one on their birth certificate. Consider reports to the FBI, CIA, Interpol, the IRS, and tax boards in other countries.

Speak From the Heat: Be Straightforward and Clear

  • State that you were in love when you got married
  • Be open in that this person did not marry you “in good faith” 
  • If they moved out, tell them so and give the date that they left
  • Give any address or contact information we have on our runaway scammer
  • Let them know you no longer agree that this person should have access to or that conditional adjusted status in the United States
  • Tell them anything you feel is pertinent such as indirect and direct evidence of their criminal behavior, fraud, other marriages, children; or anything you’ve discovered.

Their Fraud is Not Our Crime: We Owe the Immigrant Nothing

Contrary to what we’re made to think and to what a sociopathic green card scammer will tell you: you will not be held accountable for them. You’re not going to be in trouble. You don’t have to pay their rent and feed them. You owe them nothing. You’re not responsible for their crime.

Information to Report to USCIS on the Scamming Sociopath

Even if you don’t have all f this, give them what you have. If you can make or have copies of their driver’s license or IDs and information, give those as well (and keep copies for yourself).

  • The con man or woman’s full name
  • Give their “A” Number, the number assigned to them by USCIS
  • Copies of or numbers from any birth certificate, passports from any country, driver’s licenses from any country or state
  • Social Security numbers or other state or country IDs
  • Their car’s license plate number and State
  • VIN number of their a car and the car make and model
  • A recent full-face photo, and a full-body photo
  • Bank account numbers and the bank name or routing number
  • All addresses you’re aware they use or have used
  • And all versions of their name
  • List the telephone numbers you’ve known them to have (or use)
  • Give their Facebook page link, Twitter handle, Insta, or anything you know about
  • List other social media or websites they have
  • Report the names and contact information of friends/girlfriends/boyfriends, finances, or other wives or children

Turn In Every Bit of Documentation You’ve Got

Basically, you’re going to report absolutely everything you’ve got that could possibly lead them to him or her. – If you don’t have much don’t worry, give them what you do have.

Let USCIS know the date that he or she moved out. Be straightforward in declaring that you feel they did not marry you in good faith. Report the filing date and the status of your impending divorce or annulment. Give them the contact information of the attorney handling your divorce or annulment process. Here’s a link to USCIS: www.uscis.gov.

You want to be sure to make your feelings and position clear. There’s nothing more you need to do. You will not be punished. You will not be arrested or be held responsible for the fleeing a conman spouse.

Report For Your Own Well Being

Please know that you’re making these reports out of a sense of what you feel is right and for your own protection. Decide what’s right for you. Keep in mind though that these people – these patholgoical predators – could have been up to things we have no idea about while we were married to them.

Separating ourselves and legally extricating ourselves from culpability, implicit guilt or any legal responsibility to whatever that might be is essential. While USCIS can’t arrest them for theft or for defrauding us, the information you report, and the statement you make leave you free and clear. The attempted fraud and other relevant information are attached to their permanent file following them everywhere they go in the world.

Green Card Fraud is a Crime

Scamming USCIS is no small crime. The more information we give, the clearer we can be, with copies of previous annulments, divorces, or attempts at adjusting immigration status before their green card scam using us, the better.

If they try to get another U.S. green card, or if any country’s authorities have any future reason to look into them and the history will be there. The day will come when our international true love scammers will be criminally caught out.

Loss and More Loss: Recovery Is Resolving Every Loss

Our deepest loss will be our trust in – well – a lot of things for a while. We lose our hearts, a piece of our soul. And things. Things that mattered to us. And we recover. We are renewed.

After making the report – that’s it. USCIS will not tell us if they investigate, apprehend or arrest or deport the marriage-frauding, green-card-scamming fiend. They can’t by law. The good part is this: We know we followed through. We took the steps to protect ourselves.

And hopefully, your reports will weigh down the movements of the monster with facts and a paper trail of their malevolent, diabolical acts. Hopefully, you’ve taken some of the flexibility and range out of their criminal life-stealing, soul-raping madness. And best of all you can recover fully. Each of us extracting ourselves from these creatures is truly a superhero and our own angels.

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.

2015_08_30 2022_11_05

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.
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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

13 Red Flags: In Love with a User

13 Warning signs we’re falling for
Mr. or Ms. Completely Wrong.
Key feelings that signal it’s time to step back.
No matter how perfect it feels.

Articles, blogs, books, and experts talk about red flags for recognizing a con man, a sociopath, a narcopath, a narcissist. The thing is, that’s really hard to do because it’s normal to trust – and not at all normal to assume someone is lying – let alone to recognize a lie for the lie that it is.

Make a realignment in our thoughts to be sure we don’t put any blame or shame on ourselves for being human in the face of their utter inhumanity.

In our world, we wonder, “Why would someone lie?“, even we see that they are. Knowing the characteristics of a sociopath is need-to-know useful for breaking away from one of these creatures and shutting down their empty hot-air promises.

The truth is, these are criminals we’ve encountered. What we’ve encountered isn’t true love, but someone misrepresenting themselves; that is called fraud.

These entanglements are nothing but a scam, and larceny, intentional deception, abuse. They make for jaw-dropping stories; better than any movie we’ve ever seen; unfortunately it’s our actual real-life. 

The Narcissistic Sociopath Next Door, Down the Street, at Work, in Our Bed.

So, how do we protect ourselves from all the sociopaths out there roaming around in our neighborhoods, or at work, or online… If we don’t really understand the signs and symptoms of meeting one of these creatures, we’d need to be on red alert constantly.

In order to avoid the estimated 12 million sociopaths in the USA, we’d never sleep. It would take extreme scrutiny; it’d be so exhausting maybe we’d maybe never want to venture outside again!

We Can Sidestep the User From The Moment We Spot Them

There aren’t two genuine people in this new exciting love thing; there’s beautiful us… and pathologically narcissistic them.

We’d be armed only with examining every barista for that intense stare; listening at any first date for them to break into an elaborate history of their stellar humanitarian, top-government-secret success.

Looking At People Around Us with Suspicion is No Way to Live

If the only way to detect a pathological user was by their behavior, we’d keep a constant watch for every co-worker’s relentless flirty flattery. We’d be on the lookout for every tale of woe about others who’ve done them wrong.

Throughout a day we’d be on pins and needles waiting for the danger signs, such as that declaration of deep affection within one hour of meeting.

And again 30 minutes later. Then flowers at our doorstep. And another text 20 minutes later… It would go on and on as we rationalized the kind gesture or debated in our heads, are they a love bombing, life invading sociopath…?

How Can We See Beyond and See the Real Clues

It’s one thing to be on guard checking someone else’s behavior, but couldn’t it be simpler than that? Yes indeedy, it can be easier, and far more reliable? How? How can we more certainly avoid getting into that love bombing stage – and get out before we get got?

How to Detect a Con Man

There aren’t two genuine people in this new exciting love thing; there’s beautiful us… And them. How ’bout the next time our cheeks flush and our hearts go pitter-patter at the glance of a man – we pause for a moment.

We’d go nuts sorting through the nuts if we couldn’t nail down the real clues to seeing through them. There’s a more direct route to detecting a pathological user in our midst, one closer to home. It’s us!

There’s one person to monitor for signs of falling in love with a sociopath; only one person to turn a honed hypervigilant eye toward.

Narrow Down the Odds of Being Hooked by a Narcissistic Sociopath

Here’s more good news: it comes down to this… not every Tom, Dick, and Harry sociopath can worm their way into our lives. Pretty nifty. Why is this…? Because to be entangled in a true love scam, we have to feel attraction for them. We have to be interested in them. Otherwise, we won’t notice them.

We Think They’re Normal

We’re not going to fall in love with a sociopath who isn’t a guy we think is a regular guy we’d fall in love with. Make sense? – So, considering how rare it is to meet someone we’re interested in (at least for me) perhaps there aren’t so many sociopaths to skip falling in love with!

Overall, how many men (or women) do we meet per year that we’d like to date? How many per month? Per week? – Maybe not so many. So, when we meet up with a man that makes our hearts flutter, sending dancing butterflies flitting ’round our heads: we stop.

We’ve Got the Clues

Right there we pull the reigns. This is when we examine that one person that can give us all the clues. All the red flags to alert us to danger if this person is one of these bad apples are right there within ourselves.

We can step over the trap of falling in love with a sociopath monster by learning a different set of red flags…

The first signs of being targeted by a pathological user are seen within ourselves and at the time of the very first abduction attempt. We want to extract our gorgeous selves before we’re good-and-truly hooked.

13 Red Flags Shouting: Warning! Falling in Love with a Sociopath

If we’re about to fall in love with Mr. Completely Wrong red flags will wave. If we’ve been in love with a sociopath before, these signs will be familiar.

  1. We are attracted and drawn to this person more powerfully than ever before to anyone. Or: we kinda aren’t interested, but we give them a try anyway for a nebulous reason we can’t even quite define.
  2. We can’t believe how amazing he is! We can’t believe this Prince Charming likes us!
  3. We live for and love every text, email, or phone call he makes to us; If he doesn’t call or text we crash, and plummet in an extraordinary way.
  4. We feel like we might die without him. Really, we think we just might be nothing without him (or her).
  5. He hints we are meant to be, soul mates, and the thrill is out of this world!
  6. He talks about an old girlfriend who was amazing; we feel bound to be better. A female sociopath will flatter her male prey saying that he’s “out of her league”, every normal man is inspired and driven to convince her she isn’t.
  7. We describe him as the kindest, sweetest, most perfect man in the Universe.
  8. We’re a perfect match we’re so alike. We click. We fit. In ways we never imagined.
  9. We think: Wow! It’s true: Kiss enough frogs and not just a prince, but a King has appeared!
  10. He makes every other man we’ve dated seem like a Cracker Jack prize we settled for.
  11. We feel over the moon. We feel we won the lottery. Only better.
  12. We quite adamantly think anyone – a friend or whoever – who says this guy isn’t the greatest thing ever is wrong
  13. Underneath it all, we feel unhinged.

Prey Are Ensnared by Our Normal Human Emotions

And now we’re in love with a sociopath. He waits with his claws pulled in and his fangs out of sight while we prepare to serve the ever-hungry sociopath our beautiful selves on a silver platter.

This is all the effect of the hypnosis and snake-charming power of a sociopath; this isn’t actually love. After winning our trust, they’re ready to slurp us up and take us on a ride in hell along the five stages of true love scam. Genuine love or concern for us or caring will never be part of the deal. This isn’t love; this is an attack.

What is real love? It takes two to be in love. It takes two to build a relationship. It takes time to build a relationship. – As in months and years. Not days and weeks. Real love with a real person is complex enough; a sociopath is stealing our life. There is no love.

Love is a complex matter that is
a reflection of each person’s attitude
and philosophy toward life.

~ Daisaku Ikeda

We’re Brainwashed, Hypnotized, Injected with Venom

A relationship with a sociopath is made up of a monster-demon, life-sucking parasite, and a person (us) spellbound by the learned tricks of the con man or con woman sociopath. It’s a true love scam. We’re in love with someone who doesn’t really exist at all. Even for themselves, they are nothing unless we believe their lies.

There aren’t two genuine people in this new exciting love thing; there’s beautiful us… and pathologically narcissistic them.

How ’bout the next time our cheeks flush and our hearts go pitter-patter at the glance of a man – we pause for a moment. Whether this is a first, or we’ve been in love with a sociopath before: stop. Slow it down. Watch. Listen. To ourselves.

Take Dinner Off the Table

Return that silver platter carrying that super awesome, valuable hot dish of ourselves back to the kitchen. – And take the time for a brush-up lesson, a check-in on real love before we take one more phone call or return one more text.

Make a realignment in our thoughts to be sure we don’t put any blame or shame on ourselves for being human in the face of their utter inhumanity.

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.

2015_06_20 2022_11_09

True Love Scam on the Internet and Dating Apps

True love scam on the internet is like
true love scam in person.
Except it’s laughably easier for the
life-hijacking monsters hidden by a computer screen.

True love scam on the internet happens a lot. Predators live on dating apps. – We’ve all been warned. We might think the warnings would be enough. They aren’t – and there’s a good reason for it: we’re human. It’s human nature to trust. It’s human nature to dream. It’s human nature to hope. – We’re allowed to be what we are.

Everyone hopes and dreams of a great and beautiful relationship with one true love. – And true love scams on the internet are all about using that from dating sites and chat rooms to good old Facebook.

Internet Love Scam: Shopping for Prey Online

internet love scam

Internet dating sites and apps of all kinds are big box stores to a predator of every kind. Video game and chat room chats are full of trolling sociopaths, narcissistic users, psychopaths, narcopaths, narcs, and predators (that’s pretty much all the same kind of creature). Instead, maybe go outside, take a walk. Get some fresh air.

The con man or con woman is using our beautiful human nature against us. Diabolical. The true love scammer on the internet is using our goodness, our hopes, or trust. These online scammers piggy-back onto our dreams to invade and rage through our lives as fast and far as they can, taking as much as they can. – Even if it’s just our soul.

Find the way to heal and to be user-proof forever.

Predators Hide Behind a Fake Profile Through a Computer

It’s much easier for them because we can’t see their face. We invest meaning in what they say from our perception of life; from trust, decency, and our beliefs, our desires for the future, for a family, for a partner, and for love. – These predators lie in person and lie online.

Who are these schemers? We’re talking about people with no empathy, with criminal minds who are on a wholesale hunt for goods: pawns, prey, victims – meaning you and me – or your sister or mom or neighbor – or brother. 

Like a kind of fishing trip from a Barco-lounger they throw out a net and come up with vulnerable subjects in their catch. Online predators can cast out to a few hundred or a few thousand tries at one time. And yet, they make each of us feel so special. I call that bizarre hand that they can reach into our should and twist them the sociopath effect.

Love Scam is Love Scam is Love Scam

Though on the love scammer’s end it’s an easier game than an in-person scam – which by comparison is intimate and very messy –  it still plays out in five stages of love scam. And just like when it happens face-to-face when it’s over we wonder if it even really happened.

The creep on the other side of the screen can be anywhere in the world. There’re no love scenes, no love-making, no mixing of lives, no screaming, and no tears. Far fewer questions and any questions are much more easily side-stepped. No nightly curfew. No expected Saturday night date.

Looking for real answers?
Find your way back to you.

Triangulation Isn’t As Deliberate As We Think

There’s much less chance of being busted by their other girlfriends, boyfriends or fiancees or wives, or husbands. That makes things messy when that happens and it’s not as intentional in person as some of us think. In person, it’s really just their lack of emotional concern or connection that leads them to leave that other lady’s number out in plain sight.

On the Internet, it’s even easier. The monster only has to type out a buncha of hooey. We don’t truly know their name, we don’t know where they live. – We have no idea who they are. Really.

Why do we believe the lies of a liar? Because we are awesome, gorgeous, glorious humans. Their brain is different than yours or mine. Let’s get on the other side of the equation. What does a true love scam on the internet entail?

Our Own Desires and Dreams Are Allowed

A true love scammer on the internet takes all those sweet desires and traits and tangles them around our hearts and throat strangling our lives. They’re playing our dreams all in digital messages. The breadth of the damage varies: it could be solely emotional; it could reach into our bank accounts. The depth of the damage is always, always soul-searing.

Do something good for ourselves; anything but fall for the monster on the other side of a computer screen, no matter how upstanding and honest he looks, cause more than likely that photo they sent you isn’t who’s tapping away on the other side.

Expect them to paint themselves as a victim or in need of something. They will ask you for help. When it comes time to meet they may or may not be available. If not they’ll be so, so, so sorry. Depending on their type of scamming method you may never meet them.

Left spinning in a could of confusion, we wonder if we dreamed it. While they take off with our trust, our hearts, and sometimes lots of our money. There’s no way around it: every one of us goes through PTSD just the same as if it all happened in person.

No One Needs Our Money: There is No Payroll Crisis or Ransom Note

Avoid conversations in chat rooms or video game rooms that go beyond talking about and being in the game itself – never give out our real email or number. And please – don’t open emails from people we don’t know.

There is no Nigerian Prince that needs money from a random woman in the US. There is no guy or gal who lives somewhere and wants a long-distance relationship with someone they never meet.

Or really, really wants to meet, but they’re just too busy. And is so gonna meet you one day, but they’ve been banned from our country. For sure, they’re gonna send you a ticket to come to meet them… HmmmHm.

Internet or In Person

There is something we can monitor easily. The person right in front of us. Us. Watch for the signs we’re falling for a sociopath. It is a tell-tale over-the-top emotion and a drastic throwing of caution to the wind when we are under their influence.

Let’s stay away from internet dating. Keep loving ourselves. Get out. Take classes (online). How about a walk? Reconnect with family. Stay in touch with good old friends even if they live far away.

There’s so much you could do! Start a book club. Finger paint. Do something good for ourselves…anything but fall for the monster on the other side of a computer screen, or that swiped right. No matter how upstanding and honest he or she looks because more than likely that photo they sent you isn’t who’s tapping away on the other side.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

Join the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

SD Voyager interview

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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.

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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_02_15 2022_10_12

Dating After Dating a Sociopath

Dating after dating a sociopath…?
Dating after a socio-freak is best delayed.
Normal dating and normal break-ups are tricky.
But that mess wasn’t even a relationship,
it was an invasion, a robbery, a hijacking.

Dating after dating a sociopath – or that person you’re thinking is a “narcissist” – is a serious undertaking. I’m going to jump right in and you may not like it, but here’s the thing: don’t even think about dating for a year after an entanglement with a sociopath.

And, I’d recommend only then if the way you spent that year recovering has entirely leeched them from your bones and you have a very stable and accurate understanding of what you were dragged through.

Sociopaths, users, and narcissists alike can smell the scent of vulnerability a zillion miles away. After dating a narcissist/sociopath, if there’s any residua; mistaken or misconstrued idea of what occurred, other sociopaths will notice. Give yourself a break. Take time to heal. Restore and recover and thrive again before dating.

What would mean to you to get your life back?

Dating After Dating a Sociopath is Tricky

Until we’re healed after time with a sociopath other bandits: sociopaths, malignant narcissists, who by my estimation are truly sociopaths, other narcissists and users of all sorts sniff us out… they’re vultures, scavengers, hunters prey.

We certainly don’t want to end up back “in love” with a sociopath. Please work your way to understanding: we were hijacked. These are not real… Not real relationships.

Unless You’re Fully Recovered…

We need time and the accurate perspective and healing methods to successfully go through the unavoidable PTSD follow the “break up”.

We can’t fall out of our tree-house and just get up and walk away. Falling represents “trauma”, and unfortunately, being entangled by a sociopath is trauma. After the trauma comes inescapable, unavoidable, mandatory time to heal.

Healing, the accurate methods of healing, the gradual intake and realization of what really happened and time are called for. It takes 100% recovery before dating. Dating abstinence is 100% the way to go until we’re fully well and truly recovered.

For a good long time after a sociopath or narcissistic pathological user, it’s as if we’re wearing a neon sign: Take a bite and pass me around. Seconds available. All night diner. Cookies served warm. Candy store open. Fresh meat on a silver platter. Okay. So, I’m getting carried away, but I’m spot on. And this is not because there’s anything wrong with where ever you are in your life. it’s because there are people on this planet who as a way of life hunt for people to deceive so that they can make use of them in any way that they please.

We’ve Got a Neon Sign: Take a Bite and Pass me Around

Dating after dating a sociopath is best deferred… really. – After marriage or long-time entanglements,  or a severe experience with a sociopath we need even more time.

If a divorce or annulment drags out or other complications kept the saga alive, think about a dating break of one to two years from the time the annulment or divorce papers are finalized and the legal connection is ended or that last drama is over.

Reframe that dark chapter for true healing. Take care of our spirit. Take care of our health. Build a great future!

Once we have divorce papers celebrate a job well done! Celebrate with friends and family you know and trust. You might find men or women coming out of nowhere all of a sudden who express a romantic interest in you… If you can, put those aside for now, if they’re real and have value, they’ll be there in some months down the road when you’re more recovered… and please, I’m begging you: stay away from dating websites.

Ideally, you can take a dating hiatus and focus on yourself for a good solid year. Sorry to say it, but – dating after dating a sociopath is best put on hold. Dating earlier than a year after dating a sociopath or ending a marriage with one pretty much stumbles into disaster.

I know that’s a bummer to hear, but it’s been proven by so many of us. Please, wait to date. A good rule of thumb is to hold off on the dating scene until you have zero thoughts of the nightmare that ended, the loser you dumped or escaped floating in your head.

Our Own Well Being

Look into developing relationship skills so that you’re more grounded and clear about what’s good for you and what you don’t want. Take some time to explore functional relationship language. There are studies such as neurolinguistic programming, books, and research on healthy language or limiting and expanding langue. This is related to the words others use as well as the words we use that best support communication and connection – or don’t.

Lightbulb moments.
Find your way back to you.

Give Ourselves a Deep Self-Care Break

Stick close to those we know, and hang near those who love and support us. The way to go in the next months is with family and long-time friends. It might be good to spend time with others who’ve dated a sociopath in support of one another. Or… This may not be a good idea. Others still in trauma can have the effect of keeping our trauma vibrating large.

Surround yourself with people you love and trust. It’s time to regain trust in ourselves and feel good about trusting others. Anyone who judges us is someone to avoid.

You’ve been through acres and gallons of confusion and loss and have been living in a surreal house of mirrors and mazes. Take care of your spirit, and your health, and restore. If you have any unresolved questions about what went on or why…delay dating after dating a narcissistic user.

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.

2015_02_06 2022_10_12

What a Conman Wants More Than Anything on Earth

More than anything on earth, they want us to shut up.
They need us but they don’t want us.
They need things like citizenship or all our money.

To survive they need us to believe they’re normal.

These creatures need everything we’ve got. And to get all that we’ve got what they need above all else is for us to just shut up. Sound too simplistic because of how bad you feel when they lie, gaslight, and turn hot and cold?

Well, there is more to it… They first – and for as long as possible – need us to believe them. And to “trust them”. Along with that bit of malarkey, then they get to take from us and use us… for food, a place to sleep, and permission to walk the earth.

Sociopaths Want Us to Shut Up

It’s when we start to see the odd things, the weird stuff, the lies that they want us to shut up. Meaning they don’t want us to challenge them, ask them any questions like, where are you going? Why didn’t you come home last night?

This is so that they can get all the things they need and want while they keep doing whatever they want to do. Like us, they need shelter. They need money, cars, and someone who will defend them to others when the p**p hits the fan at various points in time.

For this, they need to get us to believe they’re normal. They cling to their goal to keep what they are hidden and keep on taking so tenaciously it’s almost awe-inspiring – until it’s frightening … and eventually, laughable.

You Might be Calling A Sociopath a “Narcissist”

Sociopaths are con men, con women, con artists, scammers…criminals. Beyond getting us to like them and be quiet, a scammer’s main need from any specific prey varies. It depends on the circumstances and situations they have going on in their lives that we likely won’t know about, and others they tell us a huge story about.

Paradoxically these pathological users can happily live in a box on the side of the road while they wait for something cozy to jump onto.

Some need a place to stay more than others. Some want political recognition, and they all need a respectability facade, we serve as hall passes and entreé to groups of our friends, maybe to what they see as big-money, or property, or just super good drugs, or just hard-core and depraved sex.

They do whatever they think they need to do to get whatever it is they want.

A con man wants what a con man wants because a con man is a sociopath. Even if we call them a “narc”, “narcopath”, “narcissist”, or a malignant narcissist. It’s amazing to think this is real. We can hardly believe it, and sadly many others won’t believe us when we talk about it.

Take back your life

Sociopaths Need Normal, Strong, Amazing People

Each target or prey holds a key to an aspect of what the con man wants including a good breakfast once in a while. We each fit nicely into their needs like candy in a row on a vending machine. Our presence is a piece of their survival, otherwise, they wouldn’t give us – or any of their other prey – the time of day.

Sometimes the function of a target is to lend the sociopath credibility. The façade of a family and children is popular with sociopaths – so popular, that most have more than one all at the same time. Some targets are a main-line money supply. Others are access to a country or a group of people.

Breaking Up With Evil

Breaking 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.

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.

A Sociopath, a “Narcissist” Tries It On With Everyone

A sociopath juggles targets, all of whom are part of the supply chain for food and shelter, an internet connection, a shower, a bed, and a gym membership.

They need all the mundane basics, as well as any material possession they need, laptops, phones, watches, cars, entrée to private nightclubs and VIP social settings, fundraisers, wine tastings at the German consulate, or the best meth around.

More Than One At a Time: Scamming By the Dozens

These heinous rapscallions covet anything they think fits their persona of “cool” or “good guy”. They covet any person who can get them inside the velvet ropes of any realm.

Paradoxically these pathological users can happily live in a box on the side of the road while they wait for something cozy to jump onto. – The reality of what they are is hard to take in and difficult to fully comprehend in a deeper way than with our “intellect”.

Sociopaths, Narcs, Narcopaths Want Anything and Everything

You name it, they scam it. An address is a number one priority, even if the address they use is not where they live… in fact all the better. You might have experienced that scamming an address for IDs and mail delivery for things such as Passports and for other faux business purposes, is Con Man 101.

Maybe you’ve witnessed how much they like to be untraceable. There’s often more than one phone, email, or social media account. You’ll find variations of their name – or brand new ones they’re using all at once with different prey.

We might not see all these bits of their reality. They sure hope not, because when we do we don’t do what they need most which are for us: to shut up. Con men, narcs, narcopaths, covert narcissists aka sociopaths have delusions of their own importance and glamour.

Know this: all and any gender of sociopath is no different. All here applies to all of them.. There are some special features to female sociopaths. Read here: 3 Dangers of Female Sociopaths.

They Promise Many Things: And “Real” is Never on the List

They’ll promise us the moon to get what they want. The fact is, promises a narcopath – meaning a sociopath – or narc (if you’ll them that) are bait and remain unfulfilled.

They hang like popped balloons on a limp, dirty string. Yet they keep us hanging on for so much longer than we want to as a part of the inexplicable influence of a sociopath.

Their driving force never falters. Their ambitions never wane. Memorize and keep in mind always the real inner workings of a con man or con woman – or con person – when faced with getting away from them.

While there’s pretty much no such thing as a “narcissist”…It doesn’t matter what you call them – what matters is that we understand what we’re truly facing. This is a difficult discovery. What matters is that we know what truly motivates them – and what that means – and how to break away safely and recover fully.

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.

2014_11_05 2023_08_03