Author Archives: Jennifer Smith

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

True Love Scam on the Internet and Dating Apps

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

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

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

Internet Love Scam: Shopping for Prey Online

internet love scam

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

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

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

Predators Hide Behind a Fake Profile Through a Computer

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

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

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

Love Scam is Love Scam is Love Scam

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

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

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

Triangulation Isn’t As Deliberate As We Think

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

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

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

Our Own Desires and Dreams Are Allowed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Internet or In Person

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

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

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

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

Join the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

SD Voyager interview

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

Dating After Dating a Sociopath

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

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

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

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

What would mean to you to get your life back?

Dating After Dating a Sociopath is Tricky

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

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

Unless You’re Fully Recovered…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Own Well Being

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

Lightbulb moments.
Find your way back to you.

Give Ourselves a Deep Self-Care Break

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

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

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

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

Join the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

SD Voyager interview

True Love Scam Recovery on Medium

True Love Scam Recovery on Facebook

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

Subscribe True Love Scam Recovery Jennifer Smith

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

Visit truelovescam’s profile on Pinterest.

True Love Scam on Tumblr.
.

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

2015_02_06 2022_10_12

Yeast Infections, Candida and Con Men

The stress and trauma do more
than sap our confidence.
It can ravage our health… both in men and women.
Candida fungus grows and grows to make more
exhaustion and “sad” on top of the PTSD.

As annoying as yeast infections are, what brings them on and keeps them roiling does far more than make us itchy. Let’s not get hung up on the very icky word “fungus”. – And don’t think men are exempt! Candida lives within all of our bodies, its home is the intestinal tract.

Candida is indeed a fungus, though we often hear candida referred to as a bacteria. And yes, men and women alike can suffer from too much of this little gem that keeps sour systems running smoothly, in addition, for the ladies… Ooooh my, the thing behind infamous bothersome, seemingly unending “yeast infections” is actually this darling fungus, Candida Albicans or candida, for short. 

Candida is Normal: Too Much Candida Makes Us Sick

Woman sick with candida

We need candida in our system, as with most things, there’s a proper balance for optimum conditions.

It’s the overpopulation of candida that causes problems. Too much of this charming fungus and as women, we’re buying so much Vagisil we wish we’d bought stock.

And to make things more complicated… and yet – more simple, there is a whole bundle of symptoms, discomforts, and diseases that can develop from candida fungi aside from the good old yeast infection. Let’s find out how to manage this mess and get things back in balance.

More lightbulb moments than imaginable.
We win.

,

Candida Overload Feels a Lot Like PTSD

Most of these troubles candida causes play a part in the PTSD orchestra too: depression, fatigue, irritability, inability to concentrate, indecision, foggy brain, I-can’t get-up-off-the-couch syndrome, and UTIs. So that means a double dose of each of those.

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.

Home to The Intestinal Tract

Candida lives in our intestinal tract, we need it in a certain amount for good health. There are good candida levels and bad candida levels. When the candida overpopulation hits a certain high we crash super low.

Why does this matter right now!? We have enough goin’ on! Stressed, too freaked out to eat anything but donuts and Doritos, and we need a drink to fall asleep. — This is exactly why this matters a whole lot right now.

Narcissistic Abuse is a Whole Body Experience

Stress makes candida. Sugar increases candida. Hormones grow candida. Processed foods are a buffet for candida. Caffeine stimulates candida. Alcohol is a party and all the candida shows up and makes more candida. Why does this matter right now!? 

We have enough goin’ on! Stressed, and too freaked out to eat anything but donuts and Doritos, we need a drink to fall asleep. — This is exactly why this matters a whole lot right now. We can fix it. If we don’t, we’re headed for trouble.

Candida and PTSD Have the Same Symptoms

Candida comes with the same things that come with PTSD: sadness, confusion, fatigue, foggy brain, depression, and anxiety. Candida overgrowth causes serious conditions and illness in addition to yeast infections.

Candida Growth Zooms From…

  • Hormone Changes
  • Alcohol
  • Sugar
  • Caffeine
  • Antibiotics
  • Grains and simple carbohydrates, potatoes, pasta, pastries
  • Processed food
  • Prepackaged food
  • Preservatives
  • Non-organic foods grown with Round Up and chemicals
  • Grief
  • Stress
  • Trauma
  • And con men, the trauma and stress of narcissistic abuse

Hormones on the Monthly and Hormones from Trauma

Every monthly cycle as our hormones swing, candida grows. The antibiotics we take for related yeast infections and UTIs cause more candida to grow. Candida levels remain high and continue to escalate month to month, stress to stress.

And good-old candida lives off the things we tend to live off of when under PMS or stress, like sugar, caffeine, and alcohol. Like any proper organism, candida is driven to self-perpetuate. That’s one big reason we crave these goodies. Our body is begging for it.

Conditions and Illness from Candida Overgrowth

  • Depression
  • Exhaustion
  • Anxiety Allergies
  • Lethargy
  • Confusion
  • Chronic Fatigue
  • Weepiness
  • Hopelessness
  • Lack of vitality
  • Sadness
  • Nail fungus
  • Fibromyalgia
  • Heart Failure

How to Reduce Candida

It’s essential we kill off candida and get healthy. You might lose weight on this cleansing, restorative diet. If you lose too much, eat more! If foods aren’t okay on this list, don’t eat them. Maybe consult a great doctor, especially a classical homeopath or a nutritionist.

  • Eat foods that naturally contain prebiotics and take supplemental probiotics
  • Eat foods containing probiotics and consider supplemental probiotics. This link goes to my favorite
  • Start walking
  • If taking antibiotics as a medical prescription, take prebiotics at alternate hours
  • Seek and use alternate holistic health practices
  • Begin to drink eight glasses to twelve glasses of water a day
  • Lay off sugar
  • Lay off alcohol
  • Lay off the junk fast food and processed food

6-Week Candida Cleanse Diet 

This is a strict all-out-kill-the-candida suggested diet. It is hard to maintain unless we eat close to this already. It isn’t necessary to go this extreme unless we’re really, really sick with candida.

Eat Healthfully for Reduced Candida

You’ll want to add in greens, and more greens… they’re delish even for breakfast! Here’s a list of the amazing greens available and there are plenty more of them I’m missing.

  • Spinach
  • All chards, red and green
  • Kales, baby, Italian and all
  • Turnip greens
  • Beet greens
  • Collard and dandelion greens

And then more of what we call cruciferous veggies:

  • Cabbage, red and green
  • Broccoli
  • Brussels sprouts

And more beautiful natural foods that naturally balance and nourish our bodies!

  • Avocado
  • And all lettuces
  • Vegetables without high sugar: reduce carrots, beets, and peas
  • Grapefruit whole and fresh-squeezed juice
  • Lemons and limes

Cooking and salad and dressing oils:

  • Olive oil
  • Avocado oil
  • Coconut oil
  • Almond oil

Greens are a Prebiotic Signalling Our Immune System to Reset and Strengthen

All these greens are super important. They’re known as prebiotics, trigger our immune system, and keep candida from overgrowing in the first place. Eating plants triggers our immune system to strengthen itself. Another surprising prebiotic is raw sauerkraut. Wheat flour can be substituted for coconut, almond, cassava, and tapioca flour. Crackers that are not candida makers can be found in brands such as. Flackers, and Jilz.

  • As far as meat-eating: if you can swing the price, eat grass-fed, pasture-raised and wild-caught, all-organic
  • Dairy: stick with pasture-raised eggs, goat milk yogurt, imported French butter, as in made in France, and eat only northern European cheeses
  • All or any nuts, aside from peanuts and cashews

Beverages that Support Health and Lower Candida

  • Water, water, water…Fresh lemon juice in water daily
  • Apple Cider Vinegar in a glass of water, one tablespoon to two tablespoons
  • Water: 8 glasses a day (did I say water?)
  • Green juices, especially lower natural sugar so, without apple, carrot or beet
  • Grapefruit juice, freshly squeezed or eat the grapefruit itself
  • Herbal teas

Modify this as you like, and remember killing off Candida – unless we also take Candex – makes us feel sick! Irony. It takes several days to detox, let the candida die off, and the headaches, flu-like symptoms, and fatigue to lift.

Eating Methodology That Naturally Regulates Candida

An excellent diet for great health and minimal candida growth is the Plant Paradox, by Dr. Steven Gundry. For a great current blog written by a Plant Paradox diet devotee, as she makes grocery and shopping finds, and creates recipes and hacks, you might want to follow along! Keep in mind Dr. Gundry’s “plan” isn’t easy to stick to, it takes truly altering your life in a few ways from grocery shopping, to recipes, to cooking methods, to the zooming grocery bills. But: it works.

Another similar and helpful method of eating is referred to as FODMAP. Both Plant Paradox and FODMAP reduce intestinal bloating and acid reflux. FODMAP could be a bit easier to take on and likely has fewer changes to what you might eat now than the Plant Paradox.

Make Things Tastier Than Tasty!

Use calm herbs like parsley, rosemary, tarragon, dill, oregano, thyme caraway, and citrus juices or zest to flavor foods.

Avoid “sweeter” vegetables as you embark on the candida clear-out such as corn, beets, carrots, yams, sweet potatoes, peas. They can be eaten once in a while, once you get things in the candida department sorted.

Eating sugar… added sugars, well, my friend, sugars are not our friends. Avoid table sugar, molasses, honey, agave, maple syrup, jelly, jam. or any sweetener.

And please put these aside for now: white rice, brown rice, white potatoes, pasta, popcorn, pastries, white flour, white rice, caffeine, alcohol, vinegar, hot spices, and fermented drinks, including kombucha and beer.

Making these changes is a challenge! It can be tedious. Do your best day by day. You might feel sick as the candida “dies off”. To avoid feeling so sick you’d rather go eat a box of donuts because you feel so sick as the candida dies off, try Candex.

Candex Kills Off Candida

To support candida reduction and ease feeling sick take Candex. Candex kills the candida, even if you’re finding diet changes difficult. It is fantastic. Follow the bottle dosage directions. It’s at Whole Foods and online.

Some people take activated charcoal to absorb the dying candida and avoid feeling sick. There are kits, and herbal candida cleanse products out there. Look for them and choose as you feel is right for you… My favorite is Candex.

Magical Boric Acid

When I first heard that boric acid kills candida via a vaginal suppositry I was well incredulous… Because of the word “acid”. Turns out it’s legit! Boric acid is inert as an acid in the way we think of battery acid or acid that eats away at something (our skin!) or causes burns.

Boric acid is a remedy for candida and vaginal yeast for a long, long time. Well before the chemical insertable thingys or current M.D. or Gyno is giving out. A quick Google brings boraic acid pusppositories in options galore fomr Amzon to several vendors!

Boric acid vaginal suppositories are available for purchase. They are solid, oval-shaped capsules that a person inserts into the vagina. They become liquid as they warm up to the body’s temperature. To treat a Candida infection, the CDC recommend using caginal suppositories containing 600 mg of boric acid each… 

Boric Acid for Yeast Infections Effectiveness,https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325518#:~:text=Boric acid vaginal suppositories are,mg of boric acid each. MedicalNewsToday

Take Probiotics and Prebiotics

There is a simple candida spit test. This reveals candida overgrowth. In the morning before eating, drinking, or brushing your teeth, spit into a clean, clear glass of about 4 ounces of clean drinking water. Hold up the glass and take a look.

If you’ve got a clump of floating white mucous – you’ve got too much candida. “Legs” will trail from the cloud to the bottom of the glass. If the trails have granules, little white nobs – you have lots of candida overgrowth. There are other candida tests as well.

If you’re really looking to ramp up into a full-on health makeover, there are a lot of options, one example is found in this award-winning, Saveur Best Food Blog. It was a winner in the special diet category. It’s a beautiful blog with innovative plant-based recipes: My New Roots. A votres santé mes petites!

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

Have you heard 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_12_07 2023_08_31

Con After Con: Movies, Books, Television

Con after con, we’ve got novels,
films, plays from comedies to dramas talking about it.
Entertainment replete with stories
of con men and women
out doing and undoing the normal “guy” or “gal”.

When a con man – a sociopath – gets the best of you – your impulse s to tell someone or several someones. You have too… It’s part of recovering. Personally, I told lots of people. Most people were amazed. All people eager to listen – to a point.

Quite a few had been in relationships with sociopaths themselves but didn’t realize it. Most were sympathetic, but empathy (really feeling it) was nowhere in sight. Who can know what this madness is…?

Then there was that just didn’t get it at all. They had questions, like: How did you fall for that!?… Like it was a joke; kinda laughing or incredulous. And Didn’t you know he was a scammer?

And one of my favorites when I’d say we met and married within seven days, OooOOOohhhh, while they nod their heads. As if that makes hijacking my life in deceptive crime, okay, and clearly: My fault. – Wrong. But none the less everyone was interested in the story and that’s why there are so many such stories in our pop culture and media.

Fact or Fiction: Everyone Loves a Good Story as Long as It Isn’t Happening to Them

In addition to stories of cons in the news constantly, our entertainment is swollen with con stories. Many of them based on true stories. And yet at a real-life, personal level the one scammed can come into question and – we ourselves can hold onto doubt. We run thoughts through our minds like, Did I do something to make it happen? Here are the answers to both: Anyone can fall for a con. No one can recognize a con man and fall for the con! We did nothing to “make it happen”.

Tales from Real Life or Pure Non-Fiction: Con After Con

con artists sociopath in movies books

It’s a common thought that writers can only write about what they know, so how come so many writers are very aware of cons and yet life targets and prey have another shock and often find the real betrayal in the face of this horrific trauma at the hands of a conman?

Keep in mind, if a friend you’re confiding in isn’t empathetic they are not “bad” – just unaware – and, at this time, not right for you to tell your story to or look to as a shoulder or a rock.

Please, sweet girl or guy – move on to someone who is empathetic, sympathetic, non-judgmental and loves you, as your support person while discovering the surreal reality and resolving your losses and in restoring your gorgeous self.

Discover lightbulb moments.
Find your way back to you.

Antisocial Psychopaths: From Killers to Con Artists

Scary stuff and some laughs involving the scariest creatures on earth. They’re here everywhere: Both Sociopaths and Psychopaths are born with the same abnormal brain landing them in the mental health category “antisocial psychopath”, ASP. The psychopath has an extra bit that overrides the rest: They love other’s pain.

And don’t be fooled this Halloween… a covert, overt, or malignant narcissist is a sociopath within our experience of them, just not in that DSM, medical manual – ’cause that thing isn’t written for us. It’s written by researchers who like to categorize things into many splinter descriptions.

It’s constantly changing. It’s for prison sentencing determinations, drug prescriptions and social services allotments. For us, we need to get to the root of their motivation and how they’re alike vs. how they’re each dissimilar for our recovery and freedom.

A Classic Comic Film Example of How a Con Artist Thinks

In the Steve Martin, Michael Caine comedy classic: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the first 13 minutes of the film reveals the utter truth about con artists. At 11 minutes and 52 seconds in, we hear the kernel of a con artist’s functioning affably, nonchalantly voiced by kind, goofy, and lovable funnyman, Steve Martin.

See Steve Martin on The David Letterman Show on YouTube

As the audience we have seen both Michael Caine and Steve Martin set up and pull off mini-scams, The two men are strangers to one another, both passengers on a train to a village in France populated by notoriously wealthy inhabitants.

Michael Caine has observed Steve Martin’s scenario scamming a woman out of an abundant meal in the dining car using a story about his sick grandmother. Finally, they meet in a private passenger car. Michael Caine hiding his own true-scamming-self feels out Steve Martin – con man to con man:

Mr. Martin, a “regular, good-hearted guy”
entering the train compartment where
Mr. Caine, a “dapper nobleman” reads a newspaper:


Mr. Martin:   …Forgot I had a first-class ticket. (Opens blinds.) That bother you?
Mr. Caine:      No.

Mr. Martin:    (Blithely singing) “I love to love you in the night…”

Mr. Caine:      I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation in the dining car.
  My condolences to your grandmother.
Mr. Martin:    Hhuuuh? Oh! (Chuckles.) Oh Ha… Right.

Mr. Caine:      Didn’t you say she was taken ill?

Mr. Martin:    I tell ’em what they wanna hear if it gets me what I want.

Mr. Caine:      Rather a shabby trick isn’t it?

Mr. Martin:    I can tell you’ve got a lot to learn about women.

Mr. Caine:      Yes, I’m afraid I am a bit naive when it comes to the weaker sex.

End Scene. – And Con Man 101 Class.

But what the thing is here… Both of them, both characters in Dirty Rotten Scoundrel’s played by Steve Martin and Michale Caine are con men. And they team up, and con one another and a woman comes into the picture and she’s con artist too… and

For fun: Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman,
Alan Arkin, directed by Zach Braff,
cast members of a bank robber caper movie, “Going In Style”,
interviewed by The Guardian

Films and Novels

Films: Con Artists… People Who Aren’t Who They Say They Are and Can and Do Kill, but Killing Isn’t their Main Jam

  • Paper Moon, Starring Ryan O’Neal and Oscar winner, nine-year-old, Tatum O’Neal
  • The Grifters, starring Annette Bening, John Cusack
  • Academy Award-winning, The Wolf of Wall Street, starring Leonardo DiCaprio
  • The Sting, starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman, 70’s magic
  • For Julia Roberts fans, there’s the 80’s thriller, Sleeping with the Enemy
  • Catch Me if You Can, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks
  • The Talented Mr. Ripley, starring Matt Damon, and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman
  • Big Eyes, starring Amy Adams
  • Black Mass, about Whitey Bulger, played by Johnny Depp
  • Fracture, with the gorgeous Ryan Gosling, in an incredible performance, and the ever-perfect-psychopath, Sir Anthony Hopkins

Episodic Television Chock Full of Sociopaths

  • Dirty John, the first season is based on a real-life situation in Newport California
  • Succession
  • Sneaky Pete, with Giovanni Ribisi
  • Game of Thrones, King Joffrey
  • The character Smurf, played by Ellen Barkin in Animal Kingdom
  • Peaky Blinders, though they tone it down, show them “loving” and you love them all.

Films and TV with the Psychopath Bent

  • Joker, Joaquin Pheonix, playing the most current psychopath
  • American Psycho, starring Christian Bale, on the psychopath end of Antisocial Psychopath
  • The Silence of the Lambs, a classic, of the Chianti and fave beans and Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster
  • Mindhunter
  • Dexter, though in real life Dexter would not genuinely love anyone

Norman Bates, from Bates Motel, is often confused with a psychopath… He isn’t. He’s schizophrenic and psychotic.

Documentaries Showing the Effect and Ruin of Sociopaths

  • FYRE, The Biggest Party That Never Happened, Netflix: an amazing non-romance scam that shows us everything we went through objectively
  • Gringo, The Dangerous Life of John McAfee, on Netflix: about security software developer and gazillionaire, John McAfee
  • Leaving Neverland
  • Surviving R Kelly, Netflix: this one is definitely haunting, I thought of it for three days after; view with caution and the stop button handy
  • Holy Hell, on Netflix: still out and bout functioning as a predator, another self-appointed guru, and spiritual leader; only Andreas (or whatever name he’s using today) can show you God
  • Wild, Wild Country, on Netflix: Bhagwan Shri Ragneesh who now days goes by Osha. Yah, I grew up in Oregon, these orange garbed followers were everywhere
  • Bikram, on Netflix: a Beverly Hills-based “hot” yoga instructor and self-appointed guru, prosecuted for sexual harassment and rape

Know any great videos or books?

Books Centered on Sociopath Characters

  • Tess of the D’Ubervilles, written by Thomas Hardy
  • East of Eden, written by John Steinbeck
  • The Lodger, written by Marie Belloc Lowndes – This one’s a psychopath
  • Match Stick Men, written by Eric Garcia also a film with Nick Cage
  • Catch Me if You Can, written by Frank W. Abagnale
  • The Talented Mr. Ripley, written by Patricia Highsmith

Watching These Can Be Upsetting or Informative

As you can and want to, watch anything that helps you sort through the crazy and come to terms that these kinds of people exist. That they’re like this and will be for the foreseeable future. They aren’t here for the same reason we are.

Once we get into accepting and profoundly understanding their quite simplistic motivation that is unrelated to our interpretations most often… We can be free. When we know what they are and recognize them we’ll not fall into their hypnotic vortex. We won’t be lunch. The predator moves on to other things. – We win.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

True Love Scam Recovery on Facebook

Recovery sessions therapy counseling Jennifer Smith PTSD narcissistic abuse recovery
zoom support group ptsd therapy for coercive control narcissistic abuse coaching Jennifer Smith
Subscribe True Love Scam Recovery Jennifer Smith

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

SOS Partners
As a certified coach upholding ICF standards and ethics, I strive to inform, educate, co-plan, co-strategize, advise, consult, refer, recommend, train, teach and coach people in guided recovery and discovery specific to these crimes, and from hell and broken in the aftermath to whole again, and more. We decide what winning is. We win.

 Mental Health News Radio Network
Interview, 2017

Visit truelovescam’s profile on Pinterest.

True Love Scam on Tumblr.
.

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 Privacy Policy and Legal Agreement and Disclaimer here. Thank you.

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

20 Characteristics of a Con Man Sociopath

Sociopaths are identical and predictable.
Truly understanding the characteristics
of a sociopath changes everything.

It likely sounds dramatic, an impossibility, and maybe a bit like fear-mongering to say with calm confidence, oh that guy? He’s a sociopath. Or, she’s a sociopath. – The breaking news is, it is neither dramatic nor impossible.

It’s practical and sensible. It is scary. However, calmly knowing sociopaths exist and are real and what that means is huge key to how we unwind the damage of the sociopath-effect and unplug their influence.

Aren’t Sociopaths Only In the Movies?

I wish. The fact is, a sociopath is a real thing. A common reality. There are humans all around us who function from sociopathy. …And to confuse things even further, many people call them narcissists.

Though sociopath is a big scary word, the characteristics of a sociopath are really tiny and limited. And distinct.

There’s a good reason for this, a sociopath is a sociopath because they have a brain significantly different from the regular brain, that is from yours or mine.

Their brains under-function, so that they have no sensation or experience or feeling of connection. No sense of caring, genuine consideration, love, or even like for people outside of their own body. This pathology gives them very specific and unbelievable traits and qualities.

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.

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.

Pathological vs Non-pathological

By now you’ve heard the word narcissist and maybe call the person who hauled you through hell a narcissist. The thing is a “narcissist” is most often a sociopath. If you’re thinking of them as a “narcissists” read about and research sociopaths for real answers.

There’s lots of material and many memes and so many Insta accounts that talk about the more mundane narcissistic person who is not pathological and who is not a scammer. If you found yourself in a life where you were working harder than you’ve ever worked to keep your life and their life afloat only to find it constantly sinking, you were ensnared by the pathological narcissist…. that is, a sociopath.

No Conscience, No Concern For You Or Anyone Else

Sociopaths are 100% narcissistic. They’re in your life for a reason that is not normal or genuine in any way. There’s no one more narcissistic on the planet than the sociopath… the antisocial psychopath aka sociopath or psychopath. Read here about why the clinical terminology uses the word “antisocial”.

The Podcast: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

Join the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

Narcissistic Abuse Unwound” is on Spotify, Pandora, Audible, AmazonMusic, iHeartRadio, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, RadioPublic, Castbox and more!

Look for
Narcissistic Abuse Unwound
on your favorite podcast platform!

Sociopaths Are Real: And Simplistic in Nature

Though sociopath is a big scary word, the characteristics of a sociopath are really tiny and limited. And distinct. There’s a good reason for this: a sociopath is a sociopath because they have a brain significantly different from the regular brain… yours or mine.

Their brains are structured so that they have no sensation or experience of feeling any bondinglovecare, or consideration for other people — or animals. – They do pretend to.

The attachment or interest they display for others is where we begin to feel horrified because it’s not like ours. And it’s not good.

Other people hold no meaning to them aside from using that person for the sociopath’s personal gain. This means they’re what’s commonly called a con man or con artist, or scammer. And they come in male or female versions.

What depth of recovery do you want?

Brain Scans Reveal the Sociopath, “Narcissist”, Psychopath Brain

There’s hard science to demonstrate the difference in their brains. Brain scans by neuroscientists reveal the portions of the brain attributed to feeling love, and compassion just doesn’t function.

There’s nothing we can recognize as normal once the mask hits the floor. So what is going on inside of them? There’s basically nothing there. Where love would be there’s white noise. The connection between themselves and others isn’t made of concern or care.

There’s Nobody Inside To Connect With

Though they can create what we first feel is intimacy and deep interest in us, calling what they put out towards us a real “connection” isn’t quite the thing. This is because they see us as an object to grab-and-smash; something like a natural resource they hold the rights to.

They truly believe that they have every right to make use of humans as you or I would make use of a vacuum cleaner or a blender to get something done.

The thing is, we care more about the well-being of our vacuum cleaner than a sociopath does about us or any other human. They make use of others in absolutely any way they like. The word, “exploitation” comes to mind.

This is really hard for us to believe. It’s humanly impossible to absorb in one single moment the reality that there are people who look human, just like us, but are missing the “humanity chip”. Taking this in is a process.

Getting to the Reality of These Creatures

Find out here: The Podcast: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

We Are Not Responsible for The Predator’s Inhumanity

People without a conscious are bereft of good as if they’ve scorched the very roots of goodness within their own lives. They aren’t “choosing” to not care; this in itself would come from a place of caring. They have no place of caring within them. These are people who embed themselves into people’s lives to take, to use, and to do whatever they want. This is their real “work” whether they have an actual paycheck or not.

Jennifer Smith, True Love Scam Recovery

How Do Sociopaths (aka Narcissists aka Psychopaths) Do What They Do?

When individuals operate without a conscience they are able to do horrible things we would never dream of doing, and there is no moral compass or guilt feelings to stop them.

Dr. Deborah Ettel, PhD Psychology

The Sociopath Effect Is Inevitable

In order to hook, use and take from targets, (that would be you or I, just regular people) every sociopath uses the same little tricks and misleads and lies. This takes effect in one-on-one relationships, in romantic or work situations, towards religious leaders or politicians; anywhere you find and admire or like someone who is a sociopath this hook will take hold.

Where ever there’s a sociopath in a group, a family, or an organization. The predator gets busy in a true love faux-lationship or superior-acolyte in any setting. The arc of hell and the crazy plays out in five stages. Always, and also in every one of these set-ups.

This Is The Only Way It Goes

There’s no deviation from this pattern of hook and use and break-away. It might be carried out over five days or 50 years with any particular morsel of prey — but there’s no variation in the way a sociopath functions or affects prey.

Everything they do and say is in an effort to make use of those around them is for their survival. We are their livelihood. This survival is dependent upon us believing they’re normal. This is not easy for us to see. It takes time and taking in a new perspective to see this thing we never imagined existed.

Our experience with them is traumatic and so is coming to terms with what they are. Not all trauma is bad!

Sociopaths are Identical, Predictable and Severely Limited

So many give credit to the sociopath as a master manipulator, a genius liar. I beg to differ. It’s time to look again from another angle, so we can stop giving them the power. They claim to be amazing and talented geniuses — and we do at first see them as masterly wizards of manipulation and at the antics that they pull.

Sociopaths are the antithesis of loving and giving; they only take and as the fallout of their taking, destruction is all they bring to the table.

In reality, sociopaths have very limited thinking. They are severely limited, have specific thinking and feelings, and have no other way to think or feel.

What they feel as raw emotions is desire or need, and then glee when they get what they want, anger when it’s threatened or taken away, rage when their scam is being seen through or put to an end, and fear. They have a great fear of being exposed which fuels endless rage at being caught or exposed.

How Would the One You’re Wondering About Do On This Test?

Answer these very basic questions that lead to an estimation of whether someone is a sociopath aka a psychopath… or that person you’re calling a “narcissist”. I

After all, never forget, understanding what you’re facing isn’t about diagnosing them… this discovery serves the purpose of finding your safety, keeping your sanity, and restoring your well-being.

They Lose it When They Lose

If they’re at risk of exposure they lose it; when exposed they risk not getting what they want or getting away with it they become wild-cornered animals.

They frantically and erratically hop from one tactic to another trying to get their house of cards back in place. They come up with elaborate stories, fake illnesses, disappear, kill, cry spontaneous sheets of tears… rage and threaten and blackmail (like, if I lose, I’ll leave the United States…). The nearer they are to losing it all, the more they lose it.

The profound fear they live with is one of the things they don’t want us to realize about them. If their fear was not incredibly deep, why would they rage so when we get close to the truth?

Confusion is The Vibe

The reason we feel so confused is that this is nothing like anything we’ve known before. And… It isn’t anything we can see by using the way we normally think to look at it.

The whole mess is a fake-lationship. A faux-lationship. We think we’re in a real relationship; the sociopath knows it’s not a real mutual human relationship.

Sociopaths do their best to embed themselves into people’s lives in order to take, use, make use of us, and do whatever they want in that person’s life. Making these attempts and making this effort is how they spend every single day; this is their “work”. It’s how they survive.

This Kind of Con Brings Post Traumatic Stress

As a confused and hurt person trying to find answers, to decipher what’s going on, understanding the characteristics of a sociopath lets us see from an angle that supports our understanding. This also saves our mental and emotional – as well as physical – health and allows for healing.

It’s not easy to fully comprehend and takes time to see it, but the fact is, we’re nothing more than a piece of equipment or an object to the sociopath. Beyond that, we’re despised and held in contempt.

This is so hard to grasp because we’re fully human. We love and support those we love; we don’t view them as expendable resources. Sociopaths are the antithesis of loving and giving; they only take and as the fallout of their taking, destruction is all they bring to the table.

A Sociopath Can Be Anywhere: The Park, A Party, at Work

Because pathological users are anywhere we might be, we need to learn how to recognize them. Their real power when you think about it is that we can’t recognize them and so not be affected by them.

Sociopaths exist in every social, regional, and economic realm. Most crave riches with insatiable desire. Paradoxically they can handle living in a box on the side of the road until the next target with a nice warm nest comes along. Why…? It’s the result of having no emotional connection to things, people, or places.

Without any emotional connection aside from holding someone up to measure if that person – seen as an object – fits into their needs – and every one of us has something they need – sociopaths are isolated and isolating in their effect.

Pathological Parasites Are Anywhere We Might Be

Predatory parasites dwell in trailer parks in Wyoming, on ski slopes in the Alps, in board rooms across the world, within the profiles of online dating sites, at church, in bars and clubs, in the grocery store, at the dog park.

Sociopaths hunt prey in the workplace, on Facebook, in chat forums, at a party. We can meet them at the grocery store, in line at the post office, getting gas or through friends.

It’s said one-in-25 people are sociopaths and are either male or female. We’ve all heard the phrase: hiding in plain sight. We’ve got to change how we “see” – our “sight” – they’re plain as day.

20 Characteristics of a Sociopath

  1. Fun, charming, and entertaining. Super polite when meeting new people
  2. Display impressive knowledge or skill at something. This proves to be limited or fake
  3. Have a primal perception as far as what concerns us, what we need, and depend upon; this is used to make false promises, to make deals, and to blackmail
  4. Are easily offended. They fluster and bluster when offended and lash out
  5. Lie about all things – except those odd moments they tell the truth
  6. Believe they’re better than everyone. Express misogynistic, racist, homophobic, or other prejudice and hatred
  7. Crave a good reputation
  8. Crave status, power, possessions, money, yet exist at any level of society
  9. Have delusions of fame and importance, though they might live in the Metro station
  10. Mimic our authentic emotions and social mannerisms as best they can
  11. Have no capacity for care, concern, or love, though it sometimes seems they do
  12. Think of themselves as victims and can cry fake tears at the drop of a hat
  13. Are sexually promiscuous and often simultaneously avoid sex with a primary prey; someone they’ve put in place as a primary “partner”
  14. Do any horrible, illegal, or immoral thing they want to do and to absolutely anyone.
  15. Think their prey (partners, spouses, girlfriends, etc.) should be grateful
  16. Take pride in their scams and run several scams simultaneously
  17. Believe everyone deserves whatever it is that they do to them
  18. Smear their targets and prey; loudly, publicly, online in court
  19. Have outbursts of rage, that can be physically violent.
  20. All of them know they are monsters; they are proud of it and enjoy it.

There’s Much More

Since their state of mind is based on the limited and abnormal brain that makes someone a sociopath, there are more characteristics that are identical sociopath to sociopath.

You wouldn’t be the only one to discover porn, beyond porn – and their participation in shocking sexual practices. They avoid paying taxes, skip paying child maintenance altogether in cases of divorce, and cheat at absolutely everything. Even if they seem successful career-wise, you’ll find they don’t do their own work if you scratch the surface. Even with seemingly legit employment they ultimately live off of others’ lives, others’ efforts, finances, respectability, and magnanimity.

Discovering the Reality of a Sociopath is Trauma in Itself

In the world of psychology, they’re called antisocial psychopaths, or sociopaths. And lately as having an antisocial personality disorder. This newer contemporary term diminishes the damage they do and casts them in the light of hapless wrong-doer.

They’re not innocents suffering from a disorder. They know they cause harm. With pleasure and pride, they do terrible things to people. – Another delay in finding what we’re really facing is getting hung up on terminology and ideas of “narcissists”.

Bragadocious: Sociopaths Talk a Lot, a Super-de-Duper Lot

Sociopaths can’t help themselves from bragging. They like to chatter about the things they do. . These elaborate boasts represent their made-up life. It’s all lies. The traits and tricks of a sociopath never waver.

They’re consistent with all their prey whether in pursuit for ten days or we’re captive for ten years or 30 years. It’s the same for each of us from the first “hello”, to the way they break up with us.

In popular culture, movies, and books sociopaths are referred to as con artists or con men. In real life, they are strictly Mr. Hyde with a very shallow cover of Dr. Jekyll.

Lies Are Real, And Real Made Up

Sociopaths lie easily. Lying is normal for them. They feel no guilt or shame about lying. If one lie doesn’t work they whip out another one. They know they lie. For the pathological, lies make up what’s real, and real is made up. How’s that for mind-bending?

Since they are not connected to the world, to their own life to anything through emotions in the way that we are, sociopaths forget what they say one moment to another moment, and can only manage the moment in front of them.

Consequently, we can lie to them, they can know that we’re probably lying, and yet, they act on the lie as if it’s the truth.

Lying is Due to Their Pathology

The sociopath (or that person you might be calling a narcissist) lies in a way that’s called “pathological”. This means that lying comes as a result of their brain. In other words, they can’t not lie. They do not get better or change.

They make off-handed comments that reveal their inner workings. Knowing the characteristics of a sociopath exposes them for what they are and includes eventually, being able to see them as boring and even laughable.

At this point in time in the history of humankind, there is no known “cure.” They wouldn’t want to “get better” or “be better” if they could. They enjoy every minute of what they are. They adore themselves while knowing full well that they’re monsters.

The sociopath’s ruse is deception upon deception. Since people are seen as objects, they are disposable to the sociopath. It’s hard to say, but not all allow their prey to live to tell the tale.

Dr. Deborah Ettel, Phd Psychology

There’s Nothing a Sociopath Won’t Do

The characteristics of a sociopath include pride in the things they do. They consider nabbing prey an achievement. They’re boastful and feel great, and an exaggerated gleeful accomplishment in scamming, lying, taking, stealing, using, and worse.

Remember the exciting, exhilarating start to all the mess? Recall when they have that grin…and are sparked and energized? – It’s an exhibit of the glee and sense of pride they feel for capturing you.

They make off-handed comments that reveal their inner workings. Knowing the characteristics of a sociopath exposes them for what they are and includes eventually, being able to see them as boring and even laughable. Only when we don’t recognize them or we believe them do we find ourselves ensnared.

Power of Influence: Truth and Lies

In these flashing moments of truth our heads spin. The truth always stands out. But in the confusing, bizarre world of the con, actual truth only cuts a fleeting crack in the lunacy and looks like lunacy itself.

A sociopath’s influence has us doubt the truth, and be soothed by their lie. Sociopaths influence us in such a way, that it’s natural for us to defend and protect their lies.

It’s All Traumatic

All in all, anytime we spent in the presence of a sociopath, wasn’t what we thought it was. There’s never any mutual moment aside from maybe sitting down to eat because both of us want a good dinner.

Any limbic-brained person in the presence of a sociopath in any dynamic such as a personal relationship of love, of family members, of neighbor and neighbor or boss and employee or coworker… they all involve sustained trauma and harm and a period of PTSD in the aftermath.

Why they’re at dinner with us, is not the same reason we’re at dinner with them. We were targeted and hijacked for the sociopath’s own use.

We Can Recover After Breaking Up with a Narcissistic Sociopath

The most devastating thing a sociopath creates is disunity. Disunity from self and from others we love…from others in general. Even a sense of separation from others we don’t know shrouds us as our life shuts down and closes into a very small thing centered on them and appeasing them. We end up in a spinning place of off-kilter confusion, more than walking on eggshells.

Like any normal human would without positive connection and unity, in isolation and separation we get lost. We can bring ourselves back. We reunite with ourselves, with all and everyone around us. Recovering from this trauma takes non-judgemental support and encouragement.

With accurate and true information and understanding of what a sociopath is – and what we are as gorgeous, loving humane, human beings, we can heal and get our lives back. We can trust again, laugh again, and love again.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

Answers to every question, and then some!

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_07_22