“He’s a psychopath, a sociopath, an antisocial psychopath.” That’s what friend of mine told me he was. And she’s a psychotherapist. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew it was true.
Sociopath… Now there’s a big scary word. I remember the first time I heard it in connection to the man I was married to. It was a friend’s attempt to explain the nightmare “relationship” I was escaping. I recall my heightened senses and the hesitance with which I took that word in. Sociopath…psychopath…
The weirdness of the first time I held the idea of a sociopath…whatever that was because I certainly didn’t know, up next to the nut bag I was kicking out of my life is something I haven’t forgotten.
Narcissistic Abuse Unwound is ranked the #1 podcast to follow on Coercive Control.
The podcast Narcissistic Abuse Unwound could also be called Coercive Control Unwound or understood. In this direct, unflinching podcast, I get to the root of these nightmare-like “relationships” steeped in confusion and deception.
I delve into the depths of the motivation of those who perpetrate unethical, immoral, crimes against us for their personal gain.
I call these creatures parasitic predators. They do what they do because of what they are. Not due to anything in particular about us, other than we’re alive and breathing. These pathological users can’t be anything other than what they are. Therefore, knowing what they are and how that affects us as normal humans, is key to our recovery.
Narcissistic Abuse Unwound ranked by Feedspot as the #1 podcast to follow on Coercive Control.
Would you like to share your story anonymously as a guest on the podcast? Let me know in the contact form below!
I’ve made a big move from one state to another so newer podcasts are on hold until my audio booth is up and running in my new home! Stay tuned! Feel free to send in topics or pieces of this madness you’d like to hear my take on!
2025 and 2026 Topics Upcoming!
Decode The Things They Say
What we all have in common in these hijackings
Coercive Control and Predatory Technique in Nature
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.
Co-parenting in even the best of divorce circumstances is a juggling act with some dropped balls. In the ideal co-parenting set-up both parents are amiable and respectful.
No one says anything nasty about the other parent, and exchanges run smoothly and easily in cooperation. Both adults are focused on the well-being of the children whether visitation is court-ordered or voluntary.
Trauma response is real. It’s also normal. There’s nothing wrong with us. In fact, our bodies are protecting us. Go with it.
We’re truly amazing! Trauma response is normal, valid and to be honored. When our eyes are at half-mast, and it’s only 11:00 am. That time in the afternoon when our brain is mush… and by afternoon, I mean 1:04 pm. The wish from deep in our bones to curl up with Netflix or just nothing and do nothing but sleep.
Rewire trauma sustained during the relationship that wasn’t. Bring up stored deep brain patterns of feeling good.
Rewire trauma sustained during what we thought was a real relationship. During these hijackings, trauma is sustained and prolonged. We undergo an overload on our nervous and adrenal systems.
Simple methods bring us from the dark side and into the healing zone. Humans are amazing. We can rewire our emotional experience for both health and well-being.
Leaving is scary. Their hounding and hoovering are traumatic. In a panic, we might think we want a restraining or protection order. In cases of violence – maybe – we need one.
Thinking of filing a protection order? – Or restraining order as they’re called in some parts of the USA? This is often the first thought we have when trying to leave a toxic partner. This is frequently the first advice we hear from others when we tell someone about the fear and trouble we’re having with a breakup from a “narcissist”.
As much as this can seem like the logical thing to do, let’s talk about why filing a protection order is a bad idea.
It’s normal to trust, believe and care. It’s 100% abnormal not to. We can’t understand abnormal by looking at it from normal. So, let’s look at it for their side without our rose-colored glasses.
Narcissistic people who are in the zone of pathological narcissism know that they don’t have relationships. Even though they step up to us with this mesmerizing zinger, I’ve never met anyone like you before. They know they’re not stepping into a real relationship. We think they are; that we are.
The thing is, they aren’t saying what we think they’re saying. We naturally hear one thing, but they mean another. They don’t want a relationship, not even when they say, you’re my soulmate. Want to know why this is…?
Can we smell a narcissist? Does the sociopath have a certain aroma? As their abnormal brain affects their physiology… how does it show up?
These are entirely different “humans”. The way they think, speak, and behave is not a “choice”. It’s instinctive. Their fundamental “self” is wired to use and take and get whatever they need and want. This “self” is pathological… meaning they’re driven by their brains which are not normal, yet are quite specific.
I wonder, since the sociopath’s abnormal brain affects their physiology how does this show up in all parts of their being? We know a lot of the things that they each have in common as creatures of this sort. (Or the “narcissist’s” if you’re on that terminology even with all it’s pitfalls and misconceptions.)
They’re fundamentally and pathologically identical monster to monster.
Is love all we need? It might be… if we’re talking about a relationship with a puppy. So many things make our world, but most of all it’s our beliefs that shape our experiences.
We hear a lot of things about relationships, about marriage, and what makes them work; “love” is always the bottom line: “If you love each other.”
We also hear: relationships are hard work. And stories of love at first sight, or being swept off our feet. We’ve all heard the adage that says love conquers all, and have been told that all couples fight.
When things go wrong we’re counseled by well-meaning friends or family with things like boys will be boys. And you still might hear that a woman’s place is in the home. And when things are really rough someone might tell us, you made your bed, now lie in it. – To my way of thinking, “love” somehow got lost in here.
“Unconditional” Loves Makes Room for Bad Behavior
It’s said that true and real love is meant to be unconditional, as well as some who say the legal contract of marriage is phooey and, that it’s only a piece of paper.
There are so many expressions describing the experience of love, let’s look at more of them: we fall into it; we’re crazy in it. Sick with it, and: all’s fair in love and war.
If you think about it, you’ll come up with a barrel full and more of these platitudes floating around. We’ve all heard all of them. We all absorb them unconsciously, or believe them all the way.
I have to say, personally, none of these sentiments cause me to want to be hit by cupid’s arrow. A really important question to ask ourselves is: How do our beliefs about love help us and how do they cause us to suffer?
What Do These Metaphors Mean About Our Expectations in Relationships?
Relationships are Hard Work
Are they? Is this a fact..? I coined a slogan long ago from my own experience in relationships: when it’s right, it’s easy. – Isn’t this just as valid? – What’s “right” has to be factored in. We won’t get “easy” if we want different things when it comes to the big questions in life like where to live, how to live and having kids or not.
Honestly when it comes down to it things won’t last if we have different ideas of what’s funny, or favorite foods or eating styles. Vegan vs. fast food is not going to have many happy meals together. A smoker vs. a runner is going to have a short lap around the track at best.
This is kinda romantic and yes, there can be a primal pull to someone, an attraction that goes deep, but actual l.o.v.e…? Not so much. That would take more time. Guess who wants us to think the real deal happens in one instant?
Swept Off Our Feet
Yes! That adrenaline rush and that floaty feeling like our feet left the floor and our head is full of clouds. That sounds very unstable. Like being out of control…and it is just that. This isn’t the time to jump into a commitment. It’s time to take a step back. It usually signifies something isn’t quite right, or isn’t really for us.
What Truly Conquers All in Life?
If only love conquered all. We love our dolls when we’re little; that doesn’t stop them from getting dirty or lost. Our goldfish captures our hearts; they still stink up the glass bowl and die anyway. Never being defeated by loss or grief, or life’s ups and downs, now thatconquers all.
It’s Noble and Poetic to Stick Around No Matter What
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
Every Couple Fights
Do they…? First of all, what constitutes a fight? Screaming? Throwing things, ignoring us, calling us fat? Wwho would do that…? What the heck is there to fight about? In my experience, when it’s right it’s easy. There’s nothing to fight about.
Boys Will Be Boys
Really…? We know who likes this one. This palliative phrase echos another historical era, like when people thought the earth was flat, and believed if we walked far enough we’d fall off the edge. Boys need to eventually be men. And men and boys will be held accountable. If they are subhuman as a pathological user then, bye-bye.
A Woman’s Place is in the Home
Hey, I love home. Home is where the heart is. And as women we have a place outside the home too. Again, the earth is no longer flat and girdles are not required.
You Made Your Bed
Life is about creating what ever we want. We’re never stuck in any one place. This is from those flat-earth and earlier beliefs. When women were property and even as near to now as the 1980’s when women had to fight to get a bank loan to by a house on their own.
Our Beliefs About Love Create Our Experience
It’s Only a Piece of Paper
As if marriage is unimportant and the legalities and life changing effects therein are “only a piece of paper”. Nope. A marriage certificate is not “only a piece of paper.” In legalities alone there are many, many binding alterations to our life. Those are in place until we divorce them. That nightmare-ish process is another can of legal worms, and includes myriad little pieces of paper I’m sure most of us hold in high esteem.
And then in real life terms being a wife or husband is entirely another realm than boyfriend territory even if you live together. Anyone who’s been married knows the experience of that something that kicks in that makes everything different. This is a life bond.
Marriage, from an emotional or spiritual and legal stand point is far beyond a piece of paper, even if we don’t know that until we experience it.
This sentiment is a bizarre notion. To me it signifies a free hall pass to any and all (bad) behavior within a relationship. Nope. Not a good idea.
Unconditional acceptance is for babies, actual infants, not grown men and women. Pathological predators depend heavily on our concept of this kind of love in order to use us. To me unconditional love is reserved for babies and puppies, so to speak.
We’re “Crazy In Love”
The pathological predator, a sociopath is incapable of feeling love. Love is nothing to a sociopath. We are their prey. They are dependent upon us. There’s no love going on here.
This expression about how it feels to love is natural. It can seem whirlwind and so exciting and we’re crazy about them! What we’re discovering is that there are situations that are full of chaos, trauma and legitimate fear. This is not “crazy in love” this is the trauma of being involved in anyway with a pathological user.
In the aftermath of this mess, when we talk about our feelings to others, they’re cool at first – maybe. Typically at a certain point things flip and we get a sense hat they think we’re crazy.Being entangled into a fake-latioinship by a sociopath feels like crazy and we start to think we’re crazy. We aren’t crazy. Recovery from crazy is possible.
We “Fall Into” Love
Fall…? Remember falling…? Like from childhood. Falling, was bad. It hurt. It was a loss of control, an absence of safety. A lack of choice. An accident. Traumatic. Falling happened to us, we didn’t decide to do it. How is this related to love…? Does this concept need to be a part of our ideas about how we love?
I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to be sickwith anything. I get it, that longing that aches and is the pain of wanting someone. Especially if they go out of town, or already have a girlfriend or boyfriend, or they don’t seem to notice us. But – uhh – that was high school.
All’s Fair in Love …and War
Where the heck did that come from? Come on. No. It isn’t. Personally, I think there’s nothing fair whatsoever in war. And I firmly believe that all is meant to be fair in love unless you’re meaning it’s fair to lie. Nope: that’s not fair at all. That’s criminal.
Why Isn’t Love Enough?
The nasty pathological predator counts on our surrender to love, our complete trust in love combined with our lack of understanding that this kind of predator exists and what that means.
They depend on us buying into the idea that we’re blinded by it; that it’s enough, that love doesn’t question, that it never dies, that if it’s “true”, it lasts forever and until death do us part. In reality with a pathological predator, such as a narcopath (a sociopath), it was never there and we typically only know that after they’ve parted us from our health, money, property, sanity and dignity.
Are There Other Ways to Conceptualize and Live Out Love?
How many concepts of love can you think of? There’s a fool for it, and that other person is our better half. We’ve all heard what’s his name from that movie say:you complete me. – Sorry Tom, but that’s just not our job.
Make a list of as many ideas stuffed into little idioms or platitudes that you can think of. Then think baout how they contribute to confusion or maybe pain. Then check out the TED talk below for some great ones and alternatives for new ways to think about and experience love.
What If We Think About Matters of the Heart a New Way?
What if we thought of love differently? For example, as something we partnered in? Or stepped or walked into rather than fell into? If we turned the popular concepts we live from into new thinking, such as: we collaborate in love? That we create it, build it. Grow into it and within it. Choose it and harmonize in it. Imagine if those feelings of love could be enough if we thought of them in a new way.
Here’s a great TED Talk discussing how we think of love and how this shapes our experience of love, Just like with all things in life: from our perspective, our expectations, our beliefs that determine and give us the fortitude and wisdom to conquer all.
Ms. Catron works with words and language and talks about how we think of love as a form of madness, and metal illness, and it’s full of violence and we fall into it, and are smitten by it as a vengeance from an angry God. What if instead, love were a collaborative work of art?
Love Is How and What We Make It
The pathological predator, a sociopath is incapable of feeling love. Love is nothing to a sociopath. We are their prey. They are dependent upon us. There’s no love going on here.
Add these to your contacts so you don’t miss a newsletter! jennifer@truelovescam.com info@truelovescam.com
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.
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.
We’re not in denial. As my dad would say, that’s a river in Egypt. But seriously. No one deliberately stays here.
We don’t remain in the clutches of a slimy sociopath on purpose. Our goodness caught their attention,
our goodness sets us free.
Denial is a word that’s tossed around to represent a state of mind we’re supposedly in. And that explains how this nightmare went on for so long, or started in the first place. There are those who would say we were in denial and so the surreal, horror show continued to run through our lives as if we allowed it. These people who say this could not be more wrong.
We’re not in denial. No. In short, what happened is: we were deceived and bamboozled. This means we did not have full information.
There isn’t an even playing field. Firstly, none of us had full information that these creatures even existed. Secondly, we were lied too. Thirdly, normal people aren’t looking for a lie. We automatically trust; that’s one of the beautiful things about us all. And fourth, and most significant of all, we’re under the spell of the pathological predator.
Truth Scarier Than Fiction: We Heal From Truth, Not Lies
We were scammed pure and simple by a serial liar, user, taker, abuser life thief. The chasm between our intention and the pathological narcissistic user’s true intention only becomes clear over time.
It’s revealed by bits-and-pieces. We didn’t deny anything… except them and what they wanted, once we did see through it and take in the full horror of their true black heart.
When we’re ensnared by a sociopath, there‘s a clashing of two worlds a great collide of two different brains, themind of a sociopath (you might be calling them a narcissist) and the mind of a regular, normal, iambic brained person: you or me.
The pathological predator and users do their best to let us believe rather than a clash, that together we’re the best match on the planet. The best fit that any two people could ever be.
This is how they survive. The ability to bring this influence upon others is wired into their DNA. I call it the sociopath effect.
Mostly the whole mess is analyzed and judged and pronounced upon by those who have not been through it and interpret the phenomenon as if the sociopath – the perpetrator – has the determining view. This is nothing more than a type of mansplaining, victim blaming and just plain wrong.
We see this match made in heaven situation isn’t quite the case, as soon as is humanly possible. In no way do we leap to the conclusion that this person is a psychopath the first time they don’t call us back or are unreachable.
Not only can people not see something they don’t know is in existence such as users who are pure evil, these exist in the movies, not real life.
Our human body and physiology are amazing. It’s designed to keep us safe. In trauma, our bodies and minds protect us, and so let the truth be seen in bite-sized pieces so that we don’t lose our sanity.
After true love scam our eyes are wider open than most. And we know more than most; certainly more than people who tell us we allowed it and we’re in denial. Let your body do its thing.
The very, very courageous take on recovering, healing, seeing what the real-deal is in pieces. Take it in in bits that you can take… It takes as long as it takes. Tell those blamers and shame-ers to step off.
We’re not permanent victims scarred for life. We’re not to blame for being snagged and conned by a lying sociopath who gives us every excuse in the book for why they do this. These are not the only two options. — Though – sometimes — it seems to be as we try to find our way out of the maze.
There are piles of mainstream answers to this hideous crime. Including that we, as targets invited it through our past abuse issues or our relationship issues and that we stayed because we were in denial.
How about we look at it from another direction? From our eyes. Let’s stop letting people outside the experience define what happened. Let’s look at it from the eyes of the prey of a sociopath.
This perspective takes a whole different set of words to define it. – Not for the sake of frivolous semantics, but because of a very real variance in meaning.
We Are Not in Denial: We’re Amazing
You see, definitely more fanciful descriptors – these come from the influence of watching many Johnathan Strange and Dr. Norell episodes on late-night Netflix binges that stopped my anxious brain from thinking in the early days of recovery and rocked me to sleep, and still reflect the real-deal of being in one of these hellish circuses of a true love scam… the day-time-wide-awake, hall-of-mirrors-nightmare of living hijacked by a sociopath.
Unless someone’s been dragged by their heart and soul through this, they have no idea. None. None of us “in it” are in denial, or willfully resisting seeing what they are.
To think that anyone could imagine or imply that we’re willfully and knowingly, in the mess we’re in and choosing to ignore it means they have no clue. We’re each in something we can’t possibly recognize: who knew what a sociopath was before all this?
No One Can See Something We Don’t Know Exists
For anyone who’s not been hijacked by a sociopath, these descriptors might sound absurd. It may be what inspires, ohhhh… hmmm, yes. She’s in denial. – And other wholly off the mark, and utterly compassionless, and just plain rude remarks from onlookers and others, who we might think would know better.
To those under the spell, these are quite accurate descriptions that bring about our freedom. With this look at things, we feel less crazy. We might let out a sob of relief, Oh, my god! That’s it! That’s exactly what it is!! – And a little slip of hope eeks through the fog of the sociopath-madness we’re trapped in.
There’s a Mesmerizing that Leads People to Drink the Kool-Aid
I realize what I’m about to say here isn’t popular to say… It’s a contemporary popular belief that humans make choices about well, everything. Here’s a hard fact: none of us are with a sociopath by direct or informed or conscious choice.
We do get away from them by choice. And this’s an important part of this circumstance. Somehow most of the world focuses on wondering how we stumbled into it, why we stayed, ie: How could we have been so stupid?
Decide Your Understanding of This Event
Let’s be real here, let’s not base our understanding of what we’re experiencing – the how’s and why’s of it, in the ideas and perceptions from something else: namely the ideas and perceptions of those who’ve not experienced it.
Mostly the whole mess is analyzed and judged and pronounced upon by those who have not been through it and interpret the phenomenon as if the sociopath – the perpetrator – has the determining view.
This is nothing more than a type of mansplaining, victim-blaming and just plain wrong. – And, come one now… Most of our judge-ie acquaintances, coworkers, neighbors, friends or family didn’t know this existed until we walked into it. So, come on now… They aren’t suddenly experts.
The Traits That Attract a Sociopath To Us: Save Us
The very same goodness of heart that makes us attractive to a sociopath is what we then flip – and bring to life exponentially – to get safely and completely away. There, there is the real thing.
It takes a colossal effort. Courage, wisdom, persistence, patience, bravery to break from a kind of bondage; from an entrapment so immense it can’t be understood unless it’s been experienced.
Know This: If someone says it’s your fault, let them know they’re out of step; that evolution of humankind has progressed. Victim blaming is over. No, we’re not in denial. We’re believers in love. We believed that this involved love – until we didn’t. And now that we don’t – watch out. When we see it for the crime it is, there’s no place for the scamming-scum to run.
You Have to Live Through It to Understand It
The break-away from a sociopath is intense and so life-shattering it can never be understood unless you too are an escapee. – And that my friends, does not signify a weak victim, a codependent-door-mat, a denial or any such nonsense.
It signifies some of the hugest power, determination, and strength on the planet. We are awesome. We’re superheroes. We’re our own angels.
You Can’t Deny Something You Don’t Know Exists
Nope. We’re not in denial. If you don’t know this phenomenon exists, you can’t see it. And fortunatley when in it and after, our glorious bodies innately know a human can’t handle the monumental stress that comprehending this entails all one go. So – yes – clarity is meted out in doses only a beatific human of great empathy and love could handle.
Even tiny doses of what we went through would break anyone else. No, denial is nothing more than a river in Africa. A raging, pernicious river that every life stealing, narcissistic con man needs to be thrown into without a life jacket.
Add these to your contacts so you don’t miss a newsletter! jennifer@truelovescam.com info@truelovescam.com
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.
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.
