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2015_08_30 2022_11_05

PTSD is a Thing After Life with a Sociopath

20 Replies

PTSD is most definitely a thing.
After narcissistic abuse, we have it.
Our friends don’t understand.
Maybe we don’t, but:
we’re not really broken.

PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD isn’t permanent. It might surprise some of us that the range of swinging emotions, and thoughts we’re going through is PTSD.

It may surprise our family or friends to realize that the pain, the terror, all the weeping is post-traumatic stress. We’re swinging through a jungle of cognitive dissonance, shock, and more shock.

We’re hard at work grabbing at answers, trying to make sense of what happened, though, for all they can see, we’ve been slumped in a corner in tears. Many of us feel broken. Rest assured, you are not.

PTSD is a thing after a sociopath or a narcissistic abuser. What we’re feeling is normal, unavoidable, not permanent and there are hope and healing. It wouldn’t be normal to not feel this way. It’s the residual and the aftermath of being spellbound.

We Can Heal. We Win.

Everything We Feel Is Normal: We Are Not Forever Broken

I remember – after he was gone, at some point early in restoring my life, I looked in the bathroom mirror… the word “broken” floated up to my mind. Broken. I’m broken, is what I said in my head. I’d never been broken before. Never knew that was a way people could feel. It made sense though.

In the aftermath of nearly getting into a head-on collision, our emotions kick in and keep swirling. Now here’s what happens when humans have emotions: As we feel all these emotions, the emotions turn to thoughts.

Here’s the thing, any time spent around a sociopath is traumatic. So, after they leave, we’re going to go through feelings that are more than uncomfortable. These feelings and thoughts are our body attempting to heal, they are not the new us.

These intense and so often conflicting thoughts, emotions, and despair are the beginning of healing – the key is to find the way to use these for healing rather than be seen as a pile of disorders. This is not the end of our life as it used to be before we met them.

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

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We’re Really Going to be Okay: PTSD is Not Permanent

So many people around us tell us to: Move on. Or, Get over it. We try to do that, but somehow instead we can’t sleep, have lost weight, feel like we’ll never trust again and a whole bunch of other not great feelings, worries and fears, and health issues to boot.

There’s high or elevated blood pressure, weight gain, weight loss, headaches, and much more that might visit us in the aftermath, along with coping habits we’d rather not keep.

Memories of this creep won’t stop. We’re so worn out of thinking about this loser, yet we can’t not think about this loser. – That’s normal. And it’s because we need answers to what the heck happened.

PTSD and CPTSD are Part of Healing: The Beginning of Healing

Imagine we just got hit by a freight train, a bus, or a piano just fell on our toes; no one just gets up and walks away from that without needing to recover.

Here’s a tiny example of what PTSD is, think of this: Have you ever almost been in a car accident? Driving along normally and suddenly, there’s almost a smash-up? Then you keep driving but tingles run through your hands, and they shake on the steering wheel, palms sweating, breathing shallow.

“Post-trauma is normal. It’s the normal human reaction to the trauma of this particular sustained influence and entrapment by person of ASP – antisocial personality disorder. We couldn’t be expected to have any other response. In fact, this response is where healing begins. It’s a cluster of simultaneous feelings and physical reactions and responses from the body, mind and heart. If you think of it in the way that the flu is a cluster of symptoms you can see this isn’t the new “us”, but a passing situation. We’re still there. The determination to pull our real self back through this fog, and the time and insight into how to tame these post trauma reactions and emotions, to understand them, to manage them and heal them are all we need. For whatever reason, I did this instinctively and now I help others do it.“ ~ Jennifer Smith

Post Trauma Feels Worse than the Traumatic Event

When you consider it, this was a raid, a home invasion, a breaking and entering through our hearts. This wasn’t a relationship, it was a crime. Please, keep in mind: No one robs an empty house. We are awesome.

Driving along because traffic lights are green, and we have somewhere to be, we try to act normally; we try to have normal control of our body and the car, and our mind. But our heart pounds, our blood rushes, and images of what just happened run on a loop in our minds. Which is only partly there and is off on its own someplace kind of floaty and yet we feel sharply aware at the same time.

Then, in the aftermath of nearly getting into a head-on collision, our emotions kick in and keep swirling. Now here’s what happens when humans have emotions: As we feel all these emotions, the emotions turn to thoughts.

This concept of “our part” in it could only possibly apply if these had been relationships. We owe it to ourselves to give this idea some thought before swallowing it whole.

We start forming ideas and thoughts that make words in our heads. Then those words, those thoughts: become beliefs. Beliefs about what just happened. Why, how, who’s a fault it was… And, significantly, these ideas and thoughts and beliefs in our head are pulled from and formed in conjunction with things we already “know” and “believe” about life and about ourselves.

Healing and Calming the PTSD Takes Time and Discoveries That Are Unsettling

Hearing the word “sociopath” or similar is only the beginning. That’s when recovery can begin. After the trauma of this whole event, one we could think of as a hijacking, our emotions and thoughts are all over the place because the trauma deregulates our nervous system. If we take in the effective methods of re-regulating our nervous system and other specific insights, we can fully recover.

Feelings Become Thoughts Become Beliefs: We Can Decide What We Think and Believe

For example, from the feeling of fear, our brains might make the thought such as, “Wow, what an idiot that driver is!” Or maybe, “I almost hit that guy! What’s wrong with me?!“

The emotional soup in the midst of the post-trauma takes us to a conclusion or belief about what happened and about ourselves. We might likely conclude it was our fault, and we just did something stupid. At the same time in another part of our mind, we wonder what our mom would say about our (bad) driving.

Or what would have happened if our child had been in the car with us? We consider the reactions or judgments of people who aren’t present but matter to us. We automatically think of worse things that could have happened.

We Know Somethings Wrong But We Don’t Know What: This is Normal

In the case of leaving one of these “relationships”, though we aren’t sure exactly what just happened as we walk and run and get away any way we can from a pathological user, for most of us, our natural first thoughts are related to taking responsibility for what happened.

We’re usually really hard on ourselves when things go wrong in life. We worry about what could have happened (but didn’t) and think about what we should have done instead of whatever it was we just did.

All this is going on while we’re aware we need to refocus on driving… so this won’t happen again. Sound familiar…?

This is what post-trauma is. This new emotional soup and confusion aren’t who we are. It’s the body’s natural delay from the traumatic event into healing. It’s a kind of debriefing. We take in and review the trauma so that we can feel safe again, and skip another such close call in the future.

We Decide to Recover: We Chose How Fully We Recover

It’s up to us, in this case with a con man to learn how to manage this natural mental and emotional “debriefing”, that is the post-trauma so that we come out whole, healed, and with every answer to what happened. And, the good news is, the answers are here.

The thing is, any time spent with a con man, a sociopath, is traumatic, we sustain a prolonged traumatic injury. Then we go through post-trauma afterward. This is unavoidable. We decide what winning is for our life in the aftermath, and post-trauma. We decide what’s next. Post-trauma isn’t the new us.

There’s So Much Going On at Once

Post-traumatic feelings and thoughts and the whole schemer is the unavoidable fallout and aftermath of time spent with a sociopath. We aren’t permanently broken. This is temporary. – returning to normal and even better is a deliberate consistent effort that sometimes looks from the outside like nothing other than laying on the couch.

PTSD is the normal result of trauma, and we can recover. There are specific, effective methods and perspectives that heal PTSD after a sociopath, what many may be called a narcissist.

Hearing the word “sociopath” is only the beginning. That’s when recovery can begin. After the trauma of a hijacking by a sociopath, our emotions and thinking are all over the place because the trauma deregulates our nervous system. If we take in the effective methods of re-regulating our nervous system and other specific insights, we can fully recover.

Schedule your freedom filled future here

PTSD is the Beginning of Healing From Trauma

We’ll feel some or all of the following things in PTSD after this ride in hell: profound fear, self-doubt, lowered trust, suspect people and situations, weepiness, physical weakness, apathy, confusion, indecision, depression.

Also an inability to concentrate on daily things like laundry or food, our minds will be flooded with replays of conversations and things that went on. This is all normal. The replays wind down, the confusion abates, the indecision clears as we get real answers. – If the answers you’re finding aren’t helping; keep looking

PTSD is a Cluster, a Package of Feelings and Symptoms

There’s extreme and sudden weight loss or weight gain. Sleep patterns are all over the place. We might sleep in the day, but unable to sleep at night, waking in the early morning and not being able to sleep again, can’t sleep at all or sleep all the time. You might be having nightmares.

Post-trauma can include fear of going places that hold memories related to them. Terrorizing recall of scenarios with them. Confusion, indecision, and doubt. Emphatic desire to leave, move, change jobs, or make a drastic change… it affects our body and mind. We might miss them so much or feel like we could die. We feel broken. – As heavy and numb and broken as you feel, none of this is permanent.

There’s nothing about us that makes this happen.

Trauma is… “Anything less than nurturing. An event or experience that changes your vision of yourself and your place in the world.”
Judy Crane

Healing Comes in Stages: Time is On Our Side

In PTSD we’re in shock, scared to death, sad, confused, wanting to die, crying all the time. We feel alone, or want to isolate ourselves. There’s a heavy feeling in our bones and hearts; it’s overwhelming and the word “stress” doesn’t begin to describe it.

We’re grief-stricken and wondering why this happened. Feelings that it’s our fault haunt us as we also wonder if we’ll ever smile again, or ever love again.

We wonder how to get from broken to normal. There’s no other way a person can feel after a collision and entanglement with a sociopath. This is the only possibility when we’re ensnared by one of these people – a conman, a sociopath – and experience the inevitable and profound clash with our emotional way of life.

Patience and self-love are necessary. Spending time only with those who truly love us is a part of the cure. Establishing and keeping no contact with the con artist who hijacked our lives is essential. There is without a doubt hope after a sociopath doubt or a narcissist.

There’s Nothing Wrong with Us: There’s Everything Right with Us

The inevitable and unavoidable post trauma has set up camp in our lives. The good news is: this is not the new us. How we’re feeling is normal; normal and not permanent.

This is because trauma deregulates our nervous system. So that we’re basically thinking and feeling scary things most of the day. If we take in the effective methods of re-regulating our nervous system and other specific insights, we can fully recover.

We can recover, we do heal when we find answers. One of the most important things we can do is find a way to gradually realize that, though this happened in our lives, to us, this wasn’t personal. Love, affection, and then betrayal had nothing to do with it. It looked like love, but it wasn’t.

It Really Isn’t Us: It Really Is Them

Many definitions of this phenomenon out there will try to tell us it happened because we’re codependent or we need to look at our “part in it”. This concept of “our part” in it could only possibly apply if these had been relationships.

We owe it to ourselves to give this idea some thought before swallowing it whole. It’s time to trust our gut and to give the benefit of the doubt to ourselves.

When you consider it, this was a raid, a home invasion, a breaking and entering through our hearts. This wasn’t a relationship, if anything it was a crime. Please, keep in mind: No one robs an empty house. You are awesome.

It is not how you compare to others that is important, but rather how you compare to who you were yesterday. If you’ve advanced even one step, then you’ve achieved something great. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

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2015_08_22 > 2020_09_22 2025_03_31

Sociopaths, Users, and No Contact

31 Replies

No contact is the pathological users’ Achilles heel.
When we don’t respond it scares them to pieces.
That’s why they rage.

In a sociopath’s perfect world, there would be no such thing as no contact. Without contact, they have nothing. The thing is, for a narcissistic predator, their agenda is only possible with contact. The more consistent and deep the contact, the more harm we’re in for.

Pathological predators, that is a sociopath, or what you might be calling a narcissist, depend on keeping contact for their success. Their success is measured, by them in what they get, what they can take and what they can do and how little we oppose them.

Contact Keeps the Hunt Going

They must keep contact in order to get what they want and when we’re in contact, we’re balls of emotions. We’re in confusion and off balance which means there’s an open door for them straight into our lives. The success of their mind-bending effect on us is only possible through contact.

No contact is our freedom. Safety and freedom from a narcissistic user, a sociopath depends on establishing and keeping no contact. – Let’s look at the effect of contact from the first hello, to the day we go no contact.

How far will you take your recovery?

The First Contact is What We Call “Love Bombing”

In the early moments we meet them for the first time, they bombard us, overwhelm us, spin us off the ground, and into “love” with them. This is a quick process. Once they hook us, they need to keep yapping whenever they notice that the hook is slipping.

We take their words at face value. This is normal. Normal and natural for us, as fully functioning limbic-brained humans. In other words, it’s normal for us to believe what people say, to trust, bond, care, and feel connected.

The unfortunate thing we don’t know at this point is that the meaning of the words of this pathological predator is not found in the words themselves. Their words don’t have a normal meaning or a normal subtext. This is because their intention and their goal and purpose for being in our lives are far, far from normal… And love has nothing to do with it.

Their intention in our lives is not represented by the nice things they say… Nor by the mean things they say. Underneath it, all is a desire and purpose we can’t even imagine… And they need it this way.

They don’t want us to understand their actual meaning. In this effort they make sure, as best they can, to fake their intent and meaning. And they do their best to keep others from tipping us off. So, they separate us from family and friends. They keep us away from people who aren’t under their spell and see that they aren’t what they’re pretending to be.

They Separate Us from Others Who See Through Them

Everything they say is in hopes of their very simplistic and unwavering needs and wants. This is instinctive, it’s literally how their brains are wired, while a lot of other normal human things are missing from their brains. One of the qualities of their limited brains is limited language skills.

Even if they learn some big words and can string a long sentence together it’s nonsense. They usually use very short sentences. Even three-word sentences to nail us in place. Understanding the effect of their words on our emotions and thoughts is essential. They can’t have anyone interfering with the effect of their words upon us. This is a reason they separate us from our family, our friends, and others.

Please put aside the common interpretation that this isolation or separation is done out of their jealousy. It’s that they can’t have others alerting us to how full of hot air, and how creepy and weird they are. This is why the sociopath immediately creates an “us and them” existence.

The Subtle Separation

One such example… My sister lives three miles down the road for me. At the root of things, we’re very close. Really tight. We grew up almost as twins, yet we’re very different in relational dynamics. I’m open and smiling and laugh easily and talk to people everywhere I go. She’s more reserved, can seem stern, and isn’t as warm. She also doesn’t reach out the way that I do… So:

The fraudulent lying dirtbag I married used to say, your sister doesn’t love you. She didn’t even call you back. Pinging on the fact that, indeed, it is me who keeps my sister and I connected. It takes me calling or texting her three times or so before she calls me back.

And, he wasn’t exactly wrong… I could count on fewer fingers than I have on one hand the number of times in my life that my sister has called me spontaneously.

Because of their uncanny quality that causes us to have an exaggerated experience of normal emotions, this comment tapped hard at a raw little place inside me. If a normal human had said this, I’d have said, my sister loves me, she’s different than I am in how she shows it, but she’d kill for me... And that would have been the end of it.

Instead – because he’s a sociopath – this sideways comment led me to quickly and inefficiently sort through my mind asking myself: does she love me? doesn‘t she love me…? she doesn’t…or..? In this way, here I was suddenly teetering on the brink of stepping into the mush of bottomless ruinous quicksand of believing him. – this is how our world changes because of what they are.

And for all the hate they have for us, because they need us, the narcissistic-user-sociopath will hold on as long as possible.

The sore spot of truth inside my life that this comment hit metaphorically knocked me to my knees in a deep psyche kind of way. When we’re under their spell, sociopaths can tap our core with a single comment due to their natural malevolent influence. This strike shocks us and leaves us breathless and vulnerable, self-doubting and confused.

In the case of my sister and I, she’s also brutally direct. I imagine he sensed she’d blow him down and break him into pieces. As it turns out she said to me when I kicked him out, I knew it! – She never liked him for one second and saw him as bad news. Naturally, he could read this. – Consequently, he drove in a separation.

Contact with us, and severing contact with our families and friends is how they drive the wedge in. They keep yammering to us at high velocity, they keep in contact via texts, Snapchat, and the like, even when they live with us! That’s as deep as they get. It’s only that. It’s how they keep inside our heads, hearts, and bank accounts; it comes down to one practical material thing: contact.

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No Contact Ends the Game

Throughout our “relationship” (the one we think we’re in together) their attention comes in cycles related to what they perceive as how deeply or loosely we’re bound-in to them. They spike attention to reel us back in from time to time. Routinely they do an all-points-bare-minimum in maintenance.

When they sense we’re seeing through the smokescreen, they either pour on the nice in charm and promises or get mean becoming nasty, grumpy, and mad. Both nice and mean require contact and are bait to hook us in place.

As the sociopath’s weirdness, deception and betrayal come into focus, we want an end. We, as their prey, want out of the nightmare.

If it’s nice they offer something, make a promise…Or even are simply neutral. Our naturally good-hearted nature and the effects of their mesmerizing venom does the work. We interpret and imbue their off-handed glances, and bare-bones contact with deep and positive meaning, full of love and commitment and, so we stay in it. No such thing as genuine nice is happening, but thinking that it is, is normal.

If it’s mean they pick up as the tool, they use anger and scream out, we naturally react in fear and then stay out of this fear. Not to mention our sense of guilt, shame, and our confusion. This is normal. We all give them the benefit of the doubt and stay. Or we stay out of fear. This is the way it goes until that one moment when the spell finally breaks.

Every bit of any contact a sociopath makes is to take and use and keep taking… It’s bait, from the “love bombing”, the common term for the contact, that reels us in, to the lies and devastating gossip in the smear campaign. As well as during hat time in between, in the middle of the arc of the fraud… When they aren’t around, they disappear, they don’t answer or texts and we’re in unbelievable pain trying to make sense of it all through our normal human view of life.

Breaking Up With Evil

Breaking Up with Evil: Escaping Coercive Control on Amazon

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

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

FInd your unique guided recovery coaching

No Contact Isn’t Normal or Easy for Normal People

One thing about these predators we can’t forget: they can’t not be like this. And they do what they do 24/7. They’re on the prowl constantly. Out of our being normal humans, we give credit to their scanty presence, oh, he’s been so busy, and he called me finally, he must care! And, he left flowers at the door last night! He really does love me! – This is normal. – We’re under their spell.

And, alternately, fear of them freezes us right where we are, so we “stay in it”. This too is normal. It’s the natural normal effect of this type of predator upon us as normal humans, their prey.

We don’t understand why we believe their lies, and then we tend to blame ourselves long after for staying so long. Please don’t. There’s nothing about you that made this happen. You ge to be who you are… And you get to establish no contact because even one more millisecond of contact and access to rampage and ransack our lives is a millisecond too many.

Contact Means They Can Get Back In: Contact Is How Any and All of it Happens

When we want out, a sociopath’s drive to keep us in their grasp intensifies. Just as they smell fresh prey, they can sense it when we’re beginning to see through them to the point that things are going to end.

They know when we’ve caught a glimpse behind the veil of lies and they go to work to regain our trust, to keep us locked in place. Mean or nice…everything, all the things they do, is an attempt to keep things going and require: contact. They fear losing prey. They become enraged when we slip free.

Their Concern is Survival and Nothing Else

Out of the simple need for survival, antisocial psychopaths despise losing their bagged targets. And for all the hate they have for us – they need us – and the narcissistic-user-sociopath will hold on as long as possible.

It’s the things, the status, and the opportunities we provide that compel them to hang on with just enough contact. Thye swing back-and-forth, hot-and-cold, nice-and-mean, to keep us in place by our own emotional responses to them combined with our misunderstanding of what is actually happening.

Manipulation, Bait, and Tricks Ramp Up in the Fear of Losing Contact

Eventually, that day comes for us when the “magic” is gone, and so when they whip out their standard bait: make coffee for us or put air in the tires or murmur — again — without eye contact, you’re special to me. — This time, our emotional response is flat or numb. We can see them more clearly as the snake they are.

Stand up and protect our lives, even in this overwhelming disaster, don’t give in to defeat. Instead, only continue to build treasures of the heart.

There’s a moment for each of us when their signature weak and familiar gesture, is measured up against all the odd, the confusion, and just plain sad and it just isn’t enough. Suddenly, we are done.

As the sociopath’s weirdness, deception, and betrayal come into focus, we want an end. We, as their prey, want out of the nightmare. Once we say: I’m leaving or, you have to go, we’re treated to Mr. Hyde and narcissistic rage. — The big-bad-monster will not really leave our lives until we establish no contact.

Sociopaths and Narcissistic Users Fear No Contact

What do sociopaths fear losing when the jig is up? After “the well” has truly run dry, they fear losing their physical freedom and their “good reputation”. This deluded idea that they have a “good reputation” is something they think they need to keep intact so they can continue using others.

So, to keep tabs on what we say to others, they continue to hang on even if they “break-up” with us. As we’re breaking away and after contact is really important to them for three reasons.

We call this after “break-up” contact, Hoovering. It lands as texts, emails, and phone calls; it may be messages or notes on our car or on the door, and it’s scary. There are plenty of reasons that this is scary. It’s normal to be in fear of the narcissistic user after the “break up”. This is all a part of PTSD.

Breaking Away Means to the Sociopath We’ve Gone Rogue

Once we’ve stepped away from the pathologically narcissistic user isn’t sure if they’re safe anymore, We’re an unknown factor. – We’ve gone rogue.

Not only have they lost their entertainment, or your car keys, cell phone bill payments, their arm candy, or entree into a particular social group: they don’t know what we’re going to do about what they’ve done to us.

This is where “hoovering” comes in. For your safety, if they use actual words in person or by phone, at that moment go ahead and verbally apologize. Soothe them by saying one plain sentence like, I know…it’s all my fault…Not because this is true. But because it’s wisdom; it’s for your safety.

This simple utterance stops hoovering in many cases, as the nutter then believes you aren’t a threat. They are enraged that you broke away, but they believe they can now go freely about their gruesome ways.

This isn’t “enabling” them. They are what they are with or without you.

Don’t worry, you’re lying… but they’ll believe you. This isn’t because this is true. It’s because sociopaths aka narcissists believe anything we say and act on it as if it is true.

They only need to feel like they’re getting away with all the lies and scamming. Never give this kind of impression or apology in writing, only in spoken words. Let them think they can go freely. Let them feel at ease in exiting. They don’t want us, or their kids – and we don’t want them.

Be Sociopath or Psychopath and Narcissist Free Forever

Really, get the skinny on what’s happening, in your specific circumstances. There’s more to this than an article can convey.

For a clearer and faster pathway back to restoring your life, step into recognizing how amazing you are. This makes the dust settle faster, and the debris and damage fall at their feet where it belongs rather than at yours.

Stand up and protect your life, even in this overwhelming disaster, don’t give in to defeat. Instead, only continue to build treasures of the heart.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

Join the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

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2015_07_12 2022_11_12

My Friend is Dating a Sociopath

2 Replies

What can I do?
My friend thinks she’s engaged to her dream man.
They moved in together. He cheated, she kicked him out.
He got arrested. She ran back to him. Classic.

Sociopaths suck us back in with their needs and trouble. They come up with fake illnesses or bogus victim stories – or create major and very real drama. They are more important than us.

Sociopaths, or narcissists are a whirlwind of chaos when they’re in our lives. The deception has no limits, they know no boundaries. They steal and lie and assault and abuse. They ruin lives.

I can’t believe my friend has fallen into the clutches of a freak-sociopath! – And, then again, I can.

She’s exactly the kind of normal human a sociopath hunts: magnanimous, loyal, determined, strong, smart, loving. And to leave an entry way for his deception, she’d recently been through prfound loss and grief. Paradoxically she was at a peak in the game of life.

She’s at a pivotal point in making a career and finishing huge accomplishments. Being the lazy incapable creatures they are, sociopaths, predators are interested in riding on the upswing in our lives so they can suck the life out of it and get all the goodies.

Sociopaths Target Normal Humans

For obvious reason parasitic predators prefer unwitting hosts who are by nature and character loyal, trusting, forgiving people. They focus in when they com across those who invest in relationships above having casual relationships if they need longer term security in housing or getting bills paid. They look for our natural empahty – the characteristic we thrive within as normal humans.

In other words, they’re looking for regular normal humans who are wired as such. Empathy is one of the first things they need to tap. In the early moments there’s a “test” for empathy; they tell a story about their own victimization, such as abuse as a child. It’s usually a lie, and certainly not a piece of what makes them what they are.

This particular lie is an to probe for and to test our reaction. If we’re sympathetic to the correct degree they know they can leach us dry. Sociopaths – and the ones you might be calling a narcissist who are actually pathological – are attracted to strong, loving, responsible, hard workers who strive as achievers. Very often the nab us when we’re at a good place in their lives. They are drawn to the smell of our success… it equals pay-day and jack-pot to them.

“Often very smart, successful people fall for their scams — and then the sociopath has more to gain. What is socially seen as more respect, more money, entree to broader circles of a caliber they might not reach on their own; the associates and colleagues of the person they’re scamming.”
~ Dr. Deborah Ettel, PhD Psychology

My Friend is Dating a Sociopath: Now What?

Sociopaths scramble the brains of their prey. It’s a brainwashing. A hostage set-up. What do we do when people we love, love sociopaths? What do we do when we have the horrible realization: my friend is dating a sociopath. Would a friend dating a sociopath believe us if we bring out the truth behind the sociopath’s lies?

It seems to me if my friend is dating a sociopath and I make negative reports of her beloved – she’s going to ignore me or feel betrayed by me and in both cases hold tighter to the sociopath.

Damage All-Around

It breaks my heart to know first hand the damage being done and the grief to come. Should we just tell our friends: Hey, by the way, he’s a sociopath. – And then point out all the obvious things like sociopaths are liars and bad actors. Sociopaths have a zillion women at once.

And the difference between just supporting our friend, hinting he’s not good enough for her, or straight out breaking the: your man is a sociopath, significant news. Do we say something?

Here’s What I Watched Happen: My friend hung onto him, she got fired from her job. She was evicted from the house they were renting. Her phone was cancelled for non-payment. Some of her belongings were “stolen.” She lost friends. She got pregnant by him, then had a miscarriage. She ignored her own life in favor of doing his bidding – without being asked. She spent all her energy on him. Chaos and drama were on the menu night and day.

Friends Dating a Sociopath Need True Friends

Stand by. Listen. Be there. Never judge. Study what a sociopath is. Study up on what normal humans do in normal relationships and realize our friend believed this was normal and while participating in “normal” the road became more and more twisted because – without them knowing it – nothing was normal.

With a sociopath we start out on a road we think is a mutual path paved with love into our own gorgeous land of harmony and possibility that exists because that’s what the two of us are “together.” There’s sunshine, birds singing, rainbows – but no rain – pots of gold, blue skies, and hearts dancing and flitting around our heads like butterflies.

We Feel Like Heaven

Our world feels like nirvana, heaven – the jackpot – the perfect life. We’re all in. Our new address is cloud nine. We relationship build, give, make, bake, create, fix, move forward, climb mountains to make things happen for us – because that’s what one does in fantastic relationships.

Without realizing it, we’re not making a magnificent masterpiece of a life on a bicycle built for two – we’re digging a gnarled, dark, deep, tangled hole into the center of hell – where we’re headed all by ourselves.

A View From the Rear

We see this just as the sociopath trips off into his own disgusting future with all our things on his back in a rotting knapsack we mistook for his beautiful soul. The life-shattering shock of realizing all was a lie has no words to tell it.

Maintain confidence in our friends and their life. Give them the benefit of the doubt. – Have hope that is unshakable – a hope that is utter confidence that the very traits of goodness and loyalty he chose her for will save her escape from him. And I remember: There is always possibility in the morning.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

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True Love Scam Recovery, Narcissistic Abuse Unwound, Jennifer Smith, truelovescam.com, and narcissisticabuseunwound.com, and its agents are not professionally licensed as attorneys, medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists. All social media, presentations, publications, podcasts, public speaking, audio appearances, writings, and coaching are carried out under the pseudonym “Jennifer Smith”. See the entire and full True Love Scam Recovery et al Privacy Policy and Legal Agreement and Disclaimer here. Thank you. Founded 2014 © All Rights Reserved.

2015_04_23 2025_04_21

Loving a Sociopath: Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

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Loving a sociopath is
a surreal world of confusion.
A fall down the rabbit hole into hell.
There’s the Mad Hatter, the Red Queen,
and seemingly, no way out.

Loving a sociopath says a lot about what great people we are because, sociopaths, con artists target amazing people. They have to because after all, they need us to survive. They need our high-octane goodness to hold up their lives. Loving a sociopath or a narcissist is an illusion in hell.

Antisocial psychopaths, narcissistic users, and predators are parasites. Parasites, in general, are living things, that live off of others. In order to do this, they do need a strong host. An amazing human, like you.

Sociopath, Psychopath and Call Them a Narcissist

Call them narcissists if you want to, or call them dirt-bags, that’s even better.

Whatever you call them, they’re still jackals, snake-like predators who hunt, seek, and ensnare beautiful-normal commitment-minded men and women who bring a lot to the table.

“Narcs” or “narcissists” are in fact – sociopaths behaviorally and as we experience them within these entrapments.

If you feel confused, sense that you’re being lied to, feel like you aren’t sure what’s happening, and sometimes wonder where they are…Think of them as sociopaths, pathological parasitic predator.

Go beyond the idea
that they want to control you…
There’s more to it than this – and surprisingly, much less.
Be free.

Leeches, Roaches, Jackals, and Rats

Predators are roaches, flies, mosquitoes, ticks, lice, rats, jackals, vulture, scavengers and bloodsuckers who hide and sneak and who can’t function, exist or survive without us to eat off of. We’re the strong ones. There’s nothing wrong with us. There’s everything right with you. And, everything wrong with them.

A sociopath needs us to prop up and propel their fake and sickening, weak lives forward. They need good people who will stand by them and defend them when their past hits the fan, as it always, always does.

Congratulations!! Be proud of yourself! – Not everyone comes out the other side. When our hearts, our minds, our souls entangle with a sociopath and survive, coming out of the fire, we’re warriors of life who deserve gold medals, accolades, ticker tape parades in our honor, marching bands and choirs of angels. – We’re the best of the best. The cream of the crop. And now we know so much more about life – not another monster can exist in our presence.

How Do Sociopaths Choose Their Prey?

We’re our own heroes. We’re our own angels. Loving a sociopath or what you might call a narcissist is a crash-and-burn expedition into hell. Only if we’re brave enough it’s a rise-again course in human nature and the nature of evil.

After recovery life can be a bowl of cherries again. Really. It takes time. The same thing that ensnares us sets us free: our great goodness.

We’ve been scouted by a ruthless-being-of-deception-and-cruelty. We’ve been scooped up in a net-of-many. We’re used for our stellar human qualities.

We’re absolutely amazing women and men. The thing is we’re wired to be trusting, kind, generous, faithful, and to feel and to care.

There’s little difference between a narcissist, a sociopath, and a psychopath. And if we think we love one, we’re in for trauma, loss, grief, and worse.

Loving a Sociopath Means We’re Awesome Humans: Sociopaths Need Strong People to Survive

The very nature of our Super-Hero-Awesome is aligned with what a sociopath needs. He wants us because we’re so together, loving, and loyal. Sociopaths look for prey who have hyper-empathy, invest in relationships, and have high levels of trust and loyalty.

Remember, when we come in contact with a predatory person and find them appealing, or are attracted to them – the trajectory of harm is set. That’s why it’s our job to know what a sociopath is. To side-step them, to disarm their love-bombing ways, stay who we are, and spread the word.

The bottom line is, these gorgeous aspects within us are what sociopath needs to survive, and they’re the very same traits that we use to recover. We are our own Super Heroes. We truly are our own Angels. Be sure to take our own empathy and compassion and turn these towards ourselves. Embrace our own amazing lives just as we are!

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Recovery coaching with Jennifer changes everything

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True Love Scam Recovery, Narcissistic Abuse Unwound, Jennifer Smith, truelovescam.com, and narcissisticabuseunwound.com, and its agents are not professionally licensed as attorneys, medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists. All social media, presentations, publications, podcasts, public speaking, audio appearances, writings, and coaching are carried out under the pseudonym “Jennifer Smith”. See the entire and full True Love Scam Recovery et al Privacy Policy and Legal Agreement and Disclaimer here. Thank you. Founded 2014 © All Rights Reserved.

2015_02_15 2025_04_12

What a Conman Wants More Than Anything on 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.

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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: 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.

Unique to you, guided recovery coaching

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!

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