Tag Archives: married to a con man

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.

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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.

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PTSD is a Thing After Life with a Sociopath

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 are PTSD.

ptsd cptsd recover heal

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.

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 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.

Join the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

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.

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

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.

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!

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_22 > 2020_09_22 2022_10_16

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!

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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.

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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

Sociopaths, Users, and No Contact

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

no contact

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.

recovery sessions with Jennifer Smith for recovering after coercive control and ptsd and  narcissistic abuse

True Love Scam Recovery on Medium

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, 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.

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

Subscribe True Love Scam Recovery Jennifer Smith

As a certified coach, upholding industry standards I strive to inform, educate, invite thought and dialogue, to co-plan, co-strategize, advise, consult, refer, recommend, train, teach, guide and coach people in guided recovery and discovery specific to these crimes, and from hell and broken in the aftermath to whole again, and more. You decide what winning is.

Visit truelovescam’s profile on Pinterest.

True Love Scam on Tumblr.
.

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

2015_07_12 2022_11_12

Sociopaths Hate Us: So Does the “Narcissist”

Sociopaths hate us and at the same time
need us so desperately.
As any parasite, they can’t live without a “host”.

Narcissistic users know in their “heart-of-hearts” (so to speak) that we are the ones with the real power. We’re resilient, mentally flexible, and have nuance emotionally.

sociopaths hate us

We have the advantage of being fully-real people who can love and feel, with our souls rooted in compassion. With an unseen bond with one another. This is a potent elixir for the ills and sorrows of life and the stuff human kindness is made of.

This gorgeous human magnificence is exactly the stuff absent from the brain, heart, mind, and soul of the most narcissistic predator of all predators: the sociopath or psychopath, no matter how they got here.

The psychopath’s and the sociopath’s abnormal brain renders them loveless
and without conscience.

Time for answers. Discover the real deal.

The Narcissistic User Knows We Have the Power

Something a bit tough to take in is that sociopaths fear us even as they use us. They know that we can ruin them with exposure. And – they never, ever can understand our world. They’re flying blind. The results of their actions are uncertain and unknown to them.

When they sense that we know what they are, their constant fear – normally tucked away under the obtuse, criminal boldness born of their abnormal brains, turns to rage. It’s then their rage that exposes them further as they operate in frenzied improvisational reaction moment to moment.

Everything about the sociopath is a duality, a contradiction, and plays out in an endless tightening cycle of ruin. Their very own limited brains and closed circuit of self is the very thing that gives them away. So, sociopaths hate us, and sociopaths need us.

Breaking Up with Evil: Escaping Coercive Control
by Jennifer Smith

On Amazon, Paperback

Or for your Kindle App or Reader

Our Great Goodness is Our Saving Grace

The very qualities within us they hijack and make use of for their (temporary) personal gain, are the same qualities about us that lead us to see through them, to leave them, and to heal and recover, stronger, wiser, and more humane than before.

This makes sociopaths hate us even more. They simply have no capacity to comprehend our world or our emotions. We, on the other hand, can understand theirs and so, by understanding how their minds work, render them ineffective in their scams and harm.

Discover what’s really behind gaslighting.

Sociopaths Hate Us from Day One

So, sociopaths hate us. Even the day we met. Once we see through them the hate is let out of the cage. And so, all along and finally more so in the end, sociopaths are their own undoing.

There’s no way under the sun that they don’t give themselves away. The same limitations in their brain biology that makes them want what they want, and do what they do lead to giving themselves away.

Sociopaths Hate Us and Fear Us: The Sociopath’s Weakness

The thing they can’t get around is the constant fear of being unmasked. This and their limited minds make them predictable. They need to appear nice and upstanding to combat their fear of being caught, yet in the heat of discovery unplanned, improvised things they say and do bring them down.

Their predictability, mental limitations, transparent lies, and ranting leave gaps and leverage for our escape from these monsters. Sociopaths hate us for being what we are – human – and paradoxically hijack our humanity for their survival.

There are moments when no matter the
position of the body the soul is on its knees.

~ Victor Hugo

Climbing Up Out of The Abyss of the Sociopath’s Hatred

Ten months after marrying the man of my dreams the winding, hairpin turn, dead-drop roller coaster ride of disengaging my life from his ruination jerked into motion.

I felt every grueling, gut-punch, every head snap. Fear never left me. Grief slept and woke up with me each morning. Grief and loss are part of PTSD after a sociopath. – My grief wasn’t over lost love, but the loss of something I had thought was real. – Yours will be too.

Using our normal human point of view will take us on and on in misery, living in hurt, mistrust, and confusion under a false understanding of what happened and why and of how amazing we are.

Any care or concern for him vanished in one heartbeat. Seeing the truth behind his pretty face, I held no illusions or mistaken feelings that even a tiny breath of my life with him had been real. There had been no mutual moment of anything. He did his best to make me believe a deep vein of true love ran between us even during the ten days it took him to move out.

Those hideous moments flipped on a dime to his blatant contempt for me. As harsh as the hatred for me was – it was the truth. His fake sugar-candy sweetness, softness, and humility no longer soothed me; his false kindness was evil in disguise and held more danger than his open plots and insults.

A turn of the lens and the answers fall into place.

Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

We Decide What Winning Is

We can find value in this hell. Scrape this burning trip through pain for all the wisdom we can. Promise yourself you’ll win rather than be pulled under or scarred. Sociopaths need us to hold up their house-of-cards lives. We don’t need them.

Our brain has a center that lights up like a Christmas tree when we feel love or concern. Sociopaths’ brains do not register these feelings. They ain’t got no Christmas tree. We genuinely light up in love, joy, kindness as well as sorrow and grief. They think our emotions are ridiculous, a waste of time. Useless. They use our emotions to get what they need – so they falsely think they are in charge.

They don’t care what we think, how we feel, what we want, or need – unless it places them in a position of being exposed or loosing things they’ve taken.

Sociopaths are classified as “antisocial psychopaths”, and the last thing we want to be doing is dating one, or marrying one. They’re sometimes now referred to as having an “antisocial personality disorder,” which is not a fixable disorder. Some people call them narcissists, as borrowed from another medical, mental health classification: a malignant narcissist.

The description of a malignant, covert, or overt narcissist is, in essence, describing a sociopath. For our purposes, consider a malignant narcissist a sociopath. We aren’t doctors, insurance companies, and social services; that’s who those definitions in the DSM were written for. Base your escape and recovery on your experience, not a medical manual.

Puzzle pieces fall from the sky.

Antisocial Psychopaths Do Their Best to Seem Normal

Sociopaths mimic our emotions as best they can – which is truly not very well or we wouldn’t be reading these pages. They steal the contents of our hearts and our wallets, they borrow and hijack our lives and remain bereft of compassion and love as a desert is of water.

When it comes down to it – their only power is that we didn’t know what they were. When we see them behind the mask, they know it’s time to go. And they know when we’re seeing through long before we could imagine they do.

Pathological predators want (need) to look like the good and respectable “victim,” take our money and anything else they can, have a kid here or there, feel like they are King or Queen… and move on before being caught. Or before their boredom overwhelms them.

We Win When We Accept That They Exist

By understanding their primal, reptilian brain we can make that “going” cleaner and easier for ourselves, there are “break-up musts” when it comes to escaping a sociopath – even if you call them a narcissist.

That said: do not tempt a sociopath’s rage. It’s easy to ignite their erratic defense mechanisms. Do not underestimate the danger that a sociopath is. Without internal, self-inspired stops or controls of any kind on what they do, or say.

Entanglements of Darkness

The dark places they can take their rage is a places we never want to see. Their rage is born of the fear that they’ll be caught or have things they’ve taken, taken away. They never want to lose prey or the things they take.

It’s really important that we not argue with them, challenge them, or threaten them. This leads only to more pain and risk for ourselves.

They don’t care what we think, how we feel, what we want, or need – unless it places them in a position of being exposed or losing things they’ve taken. When you see what they are, do this: zip it. Stay silent. Get them out. Or go yourself. Hold onto what we are as gorgeous, glorious humane humans.

We Are Awesome and Our Own Angels

Use the sociopaths’ weaknesses to leverage them out of our lives and minimize the damage. Find real freedom, heal from the crime it was – there was no relationship. All the incredible innate and natural traits we possess as normal humans that render us their prey are also our saving grace.

Without our emotions we can’t build a life, love our children, or care for the real people in our lives: husbands, wives, moms and dads, our kids, or even see the beauty of a sunset. Since we’re full of complex emotional capacity, we can use intense difficulties or suffering to create depth and value.

Stand up! See the sociopath for what he or she is! The way to heal from what really went on is to reframe the entire debacle from the viewpoint of a sociopath’s mind.

Using our normal human point of view will take us on and on in misery, living in hurt, mistrust, and confusion under a false understanding of what happened and why and how amazing we are.

Find real answers… Let’s talk.

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.
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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_05 2023_01_18

My Friend is Dating a Sociopath

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 woman a sociopath hunts: magnanimous, loyal, determined, strong, smart, loving. She’d recently been through other 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. Sociopaths, predators are attracted to the upswing in our lives – so they can suck the life out of it and get all the goodies. 

Sociopaths Target Strong Achievers Not Doormats

Sociopaths go for targets who are loyal, trusting, forgiving. They victimize those who invest in relationships above having casual relationships. They look for empathy. 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; 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!

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.

2013_04_23 2022_10_12

Loving a Sociopath: Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

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.

Loving a sociopath

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!

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_15 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