Sociopaths, even though you
might be calling them “narcissists”,
must hook prey.
They’re constantly baiting…
Casting a “line” in order to hook prey.
Hooking prey is a user’s full-time job, no matter if you call them a sociopath or a narcissist. They hook prey with bait. Every time they open their mouth they’re tossing bait. Pretty much everything single thing they say or do is bait.
Continue readingWe’re encouraged and pushed to “move on”.
People give us a look and say,
“Omg, you’re still talking about that guy?”
Don’t let others shove us into thinking
we’re better before we really are.
People ask me, how long will it take before I feel normal again… And my answer is: it takes as long as it takes. And: it’s up to you.
I want to tell you, what you feel is perfect. Whatever you think about them and about what the “relationship” was – is okay. Checking up to see where they live now, or if they moved is cool… If they still take up space in your head, that’s okay.
The scenarios of what you should-have-said-instead-of-what-you-did-say and the replays of what they said… Those are okay as well. They do indicate healing is still in progress. You need all of that because it’s the material that you can combine, mix, and reposition with other key ingredients to reach full recovery.
Continue readingIf you’re Googling for answers.
…and confused or uneasy
about someone you’re dating,
…if you’ve started wondering what’s wrong
it’s likely you’re dating a sociopath…dating a narcissist.
I’m going to get right into it here. There are very specific traits every sociopath shares. If you call this person a “narcissist” and see these traits, maybe pull back a bit on what you feel you know, and plug in a stricter view of them with parameters that fit a sociopath… I know that’s a big and scary word. Paradoxically, it can make things simpler. So, how do we know if we’re dating a sociopath?
First of all, most of us – let’s admit – begin a new romantic possibility, by looking online for things about this person we just met. That’s good, but not enough to detect a sociopath.
Here’s why: when we’re dating someone who is a pathologically narcissistic person – a sociopath – we see the good things. Believe it or not, the bad things about them don’t show up or aren’t seen as bad.
Tune in to yourself in this search. If there’s a tugging in your gut – that gut feeling that something is wrong – this means there’s something wrong. If you’re looking up things that brought you to this article, yes – that person you’re dating or maybe now not dating is one of these creatures.
But most of us won’t end a romance at this point. We usually want to know more, that’s just human. It’s not necessarily a bad human quality, it is after all, born of the same human inquisitiveness that got us to the moon and discovered penicillin. And at the end of this dating fest – if it goes badly enough, it’s the same natural human quality that will eventually activate our escape from this person.
In the beginning it seems magic. There’s an unexpected, unhinged kind of compatibility.
The reality is, most times when someone is talking about dating a “narcissist”, the person they’re facing is a sociopath. That’s fine. However, the information out there about a “narcissist” mixes together accurate ideas about a non-pathologically narcissistic person, and extremely inaccurate ideas about this very scary pathological one. This leads to problems when that person is actually pathologically narcissistic…a sociopath.
When dating a sociopath or when wanting to know if you’re dating a person who’s much more than “just a narcissist”, the best way to make this determination is to think of them as a being a sociopath…to look at them through this lens in order to see them clearly.
Dating a sociopath… dating a narcissist. You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to. Why does it matter? Why do I talk about this much? Because being unclear in this can prolong the “relationship”, which prolongs the pain, and inhibits recovery. It can interfere with safety of you and any children that are part of the picture.
Here’s one example: If you think of them as a “narcissist’ and read all about that, then you might believe they have a narcissistic wound. – This will lead you down a garden path of empathy for the “narcissist” who is in fact a sociopath, who has no wound, but has an abnormal brain – and would sooner watch you bleed out on the floor while they eat their lunch than give you money to take care of your child.
People have fallen into calling them “narcissists” for lots of reasons. One reason is that the word “antisocial” as in “antisocial psychopath” the technical name for a sociopath, trips them up. So, read here to find the answer to why sociopaths are called antisocial.
And of course, the other reason for shying away from the much bigger words sociopath or psychopath is because it’s hard to believe this infinite evil exits. I’m so sorry for this. This is the hardest part to take in. The first moment this reality came to me, is one I’ll never forget.
As things progress:
By the way, did you know that it’s against mental health professional guidelines to diagnose someone underage – someone 18 or younger – as a sociopath aka a psychopath? That’s how serious it is. It’s the last thing a therapist or psychiatrist wants to officially diagnose anyone with.
This diagnosis, this condition of this abnormal and under-functioning brain of the sociopath is permanent. It’s a very strong statement for a therapist or psyche professional to make. This diagnosis is one that many licensed mental health professionals are not willing to make.
I’ve known of cases where they feel the person in question is a sociopath, but not be willing to give testimony to this in court in abuse cases that could save a child from visitations or a spouse from sharing custody. – There are of reasons for this. The point is you need to know.
Sociopaths are very different than we are. They actually have a different brain – they process human relations completely differently than we do. They look at other people as objects. People are merely utility devices to use and to take things from or to use to get their kicks from…in a really bad way.
Sociopaths don’t ever change. They cannot. And they wouldn’t want to if they could, they like being sociopaths and know what they are.
Sometimes they’ll tell us they’re a sociopath. They don’t mind if you know this. They care what you do because fo this knowledge. And most times this sickening intimate uttering does not send people running away, its isn’t usually what snaps the spell, but becomes a part of the coagulating weirdness.
Know the truth. Know how amazing you are.
Things can only go from bad to worse to much, much worse. They’re nice, then harsh then not as nice, then harsher. Call you names and some pull out the violence. They take anyone they can get their hooks into through five stages of true love scam…always and only.
Why? Why can’t they just be normal? – Connectors between segments in their brains are missing so that they can’t feel or process emotions as we do. Sociopaths – psychopaths – don’t feel the emotions we feel. They have a very limited set of emotions, none of which are comparable to ours. They don’t understand our emotions and never will.
There are lots of differences in our brains and in how they see the world compared to hoe we see the world because of this missing but. They’re missing care and connection, and so they’re missing a conscience. We have a conscience because we care. They have other differences, for example, in dating a sociopath or dating a what you’ve been calling a narcissist, you might notice that they don’t process the meanings of words the way we do. They even lie when they don’t need to.
Here’s a very detailed YouTube video with Dr. Hare, a leader
in research and studies on the antisocial psychopath.
If you’re on this website wondering if you’re dating a sociopath, please don’t wait looking for proof from them…you’re here because you already know. Trust your gut.
Your suspicion, your fear, confusion, and self-doubt is proof. We already know. Please, embrace your own life. Protect yourself. Find out how to leave them. Go no contact.
Join the podcast!
Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound
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jennifer@truelovescam.com
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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.
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.
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.
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: 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 trust. Sociopaths monitor our bond to them; that “bond” from our side, is what is the source of their survival.
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 (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.
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.
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.
Join the podcast!
Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound
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
Visit truelovescam’s profile on Pinterest.
True Love Scam on Tumblr.
Tweet to @truelovescam.
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