Author Archives: Jennifer Smith

Emotional Abuse and Sociopaths

Emotional abuse is a part of life with a narcissistic user.
This is what life is if we’re ensnared by them.

Emotional abuse comes in many flavors. It always comes along with an entanglement with a narcissistic user, the predatory sociopath.

When a normal person and a sociopath mix, the collision of the normal-human brain, and the sociopath’s brain there’s inevitable harm to the normal person while it’s just another regular day to the sociopath.

The focus of the pathological user is to make use of us. They don’t care about what concerns us.

Our feelings are not anything they can feel or understand… Their work is to be sure we’re hooked, and that we don’t comprehend what they are or the reality of their intention in our lives. They don’t care how we feel… They care what we do because of how we feel.

There are answers to all the confusion.

Emotional Abuse and Sociopathic Users are a Package Deal

Once we’re involved and in love, the fallout of the mix of a normal human and a sociopath is trauma, shock, and only harm to us and not at all hurtful for them.

This mind-bending, confusing, collision of a sociopath and a normal person can make us think there’s something wrong with us. There is not. There’s something very very wrong with a sociopath.

Emotional Abuse Signifies This is Not an Ordinary Relationship

As normal, gorgeous humans, we think we’re in a real relationship. Naturally, we do what normal people do in real relationships. The sociopath does not.

Their odd behavior, unresponsiveness, and sometimes outright meanness trips us up – we try, we try to make things better: as anyone would in a relationship.

In the beginning, a sociopath gauges what matters to us. They fulfill that. As the weeks go by, they discern what we won’t tolerate or forgive, what will keep us trusting, even when they become neglectful or mean. They innately know, or simply guess until they get it right and discover which behavior of theirs will bend us to their will most effectively.

Crimes Rather Than Relationships

In reality, we’ve been hijacked and kidnapped without realizing it. We’re not with a normal person, sociopaths have abnormal brains.

As a sociopath goes about their day in the world they present a false self, even the barista or car wash attendant isn’t seeing a real person.

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.

Normal Relationships are Mutual

We try to keep things harmonious, humans need harmony within their lives and relationships. If both people were normal, both people would contribute to harmony within the relationship, this is not the case with a sociopath.

They lead us to feeling convinced we did something to make it happen, or that it didn’t happen, or they ignore us.

While we pitch in and spend a lot of effort self-reflecting, wondering if “it’s our fault,” and trying to make things right, work out the kinks, adjust our perception of what a relationship – this relationship – should be, and continue to relationship-build, it takes a while to notice, we’re doing it alone.

We don’t get anywhere trying to make things good. There’s always a particular moment when it hits us: something is very wrong here, and normal isn’t working to fix it… because they aren’t normal.

Sociopath’s Minds Collide with Ours

Once hooked in, we’re in a kind of hypnosis in a cloud of confusion. As the whirlwind of good stuff begins to wear off the crazy begins we’re twirling on a merry-go-round emotionally.

We discover if we question them about specific unpleasant or odd things they’ve done, the sociopath gets mad. They lead us to feel convinced we did something to make it happen, or that it didn’t happen, or they ignore us.

A sociopath wants us to stay locked in their spell. They know that an emotional reaction from us is a sign we’re “still in”. They truly do not care which of our emotions makes us stay.

Narcissistic users bent on coercive control to attain their personal gains show rage and even violent behavior if he or she thinks they’re losing their grip on getting the things they want. They like to keep what they take. Though not all sociopaths use physical violence within every predator/prey circumstance, some are incredibly violent.

Normal and Chaos or Trouble Make Us Bond More Deeply

Being in love with a sociopath – what you might call a narc, a narcissist, or “your nee”, isn’t a casual connection. – It isn’t a connection at all as much as a parasite embedded in your life.

While we think it’s a real relationship, we’re all the way in. We want the fairy tale to stay perfect. We hang on tenaciously even as we feel it shifting and disintegrating under our feet. Naturally, when things aren’t building or developing in a relationship, you’re worried about connecting on a deeper level, maybe going to counseling together.

Concerns about maintaining a home, paying bills, not wanting to break up a family, or fearing for our own future all keep us “in”. The things that string us along are subtle and hard to grab a hold of; sociopaths trap us in ordinary conversation by activating our normal emotional responses.

As decent, normal human beings when someone talks we feel we’re meant to listen. When someone asks a question we’re socially, culturally, and innately programmed to give an answer. Never diminish the complete wrongness of any abuse. – Sociopaths are naturals at bringing what amounts to abuse into our lives because they don’t value us, or care for us. There’s absolutely no human connection from this alternate-human and ourselves.

Narcissistic Users, Sociopaths Don’t Care Which Emotion Hooks Us

Our response to their actions is a sign we’re hooked. That’s all they need.

Emotional Distractions:

  • Says or does things that bring up the emotion of humiliation within you
  • Laughs at you
  • Puts you down
  • Calls you names
  • You feel guilty for things they say
  • Diminishes your feelings
  • Their presence and personality leave you thinking maybe you’re crazy
  • The silent treatment ignores you
  • Takes things, money, plans, or privileges away from you
  • Treats you very well in front of other people
  • Accuses and blames you for their plans and “work” going wrong or failing
  • Talks about a past girl/boyfriend who did things “perfectly”…better than you do.

Intimidation and Isolation:

  • Making us afraid by using looks or gestures.
  • Slams doors, breaks things, throws things
  • Yells, scolds, orders you about
  • Hounds you until you decide to not do something you’d planned
  • Talks about killing and violence
  • Shows weapons to you in text messages or in person
  • Tells you who your friends can be
  • Keeps you from or wedges an emotional separation between you and your family
  • Creates an “us” and “them” existence
  • Seems to be jealous of your time and seems to want attention from you
  • Uses his jealousy to justify rules and limits or conditions they put upon you
  • Limits where you can go, when and when you must be home
  • Texting or calling at intervals to make sure where you are
  • Rules about or insinuating when we can or can’t go out
  • Limits or tells you what you can read, watch
  • Has rules about your social media or phone time
  • Blocks you from their social media
  • Avoids meeting or seeing your family
  • Keeps you from their family or their family seems just as bad
  • Has friends they won’t let you meet, places they won’t let you go with them
  • Holds up a “friend” as an authority about your relationship ought to be

Minimizing, Denying, and Blaming:

  • Belittling your ideas, feelings, opinions
  • Denying that things important to us, matter
  • Dismissing or ignoring or making fun of or being angered at what’s important to us
  • Comments and sets of circumstances that cause you to think everything’s your fault
  • Insulting how we take care of the home, kids, or spend our time
  • Telling you things are going wrong because you don’t trust them
  • Using intimidation or belittling to keep us quiet about what concerns us

Coercion and Threats:

  • Threaten to commit suicide, talk about dying
  • Threats to report us to authorities
  • Making us drop charges against them
  • Sociopaths pretend illness to get out of expectations, events, and conversations
  • Making or carrying out threats to harm, hurt or leave us
  • Telling us we get something only if we do something specific
  • Coercing us or charming us to do illegal or reprehensible things

Financial Monitoring:

  • Takes your money
  • Making you ask them for money
  • Puts you on an allowance
  • Comments negatively and criticizes you for what you spend money on
  • Takes credit cards beyond their limit
  • Opens new credit cards; coerces you to open credit accounts or does so in secret
  • Their money and its source are a mystery
  • Borrows money from you and doesn’t pay it back
  • Takes out loans or borrows money without you knowing they’ve done this
  • Keeps secret credit cards or bank accounts
  • Keeps their income or access to family income from you
  • Uses outbursts of rage to keep you from talking about bills
  • Is enraged or dismissive when you try to talk about financial matters or bills

Male Privilege and Cultural Advantage:

  • Treats you like a servant…even in jest
  • Behaves like the King or Master of the castle
  • Makes big decisions, family decisions without you
  • Uses proclaimed beliefs about how women against you
  • Defines men’s and women’s roles or husband and wife roles in a restrictive way

Female Privilege and Cultural Advantage:

  • If you were a real man you would – blank
  • Threatens domestic abuse charges
  • Stages domestic violence
  • I’m a woman, so you need to: financially support me and the baby

Sexual Abuse and Emotional Manipulation:

  • Bargains with sex
  • Forces you to be sexual with them
  • Hides their STD’s
  • Belittles you for wanting intimacy
  • Puts you down or dismisses you for wanting sex
  • Refuses sexual intimacy
  • Has other husbands, wives, secret kids

Pathological Predators Use Our Emotions for Their Gain

They lie about all things, always hiding what they really are. Every moment of their life is a lie. Everyone they know is someone they’re scamming.

They aren’t a real person, not even to the barista or the car wash attendant. The sociopath is constantly putting on a presentation. When we stop believing them, no one is there. No one human that is.

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_03_14 2022_10_12 REPUB: 2023_08_07

Am I A Sociopath Magnet?

Feeling like users, narcs,
and sociopaths gravitate to you?
Is it possible to be a sociopath magnet?
Some would have us think so.
Know the real deal.

Sociopath magnets are not specifically or particularly you or me… The thing is: Anyone will do. Think of it like this: A sociopath is a predator. They do need to grasp someone in their clutches, draw a subject into their vortex in order to survive. And because of this, they hunt all the time.

Any rudimentary predator within the animal kingdom on any planet knows where and how to find dinner. This is nothing special. It’s wired into their DNA. They arrived out of the box this way: They are not geniuses.

Normal Fills the Bill Just Right

So, what is it that brings them sniffing around…? Sociopaths need normal people; people who do what normal people do when they’re in love and believe they’re in a relationship with another regular, normal person.

sociopath magnet attract con man users narcissists

The thing is these, users need people who: Love, give, believe in relationships, and make efforts to build a relationship. People who are up for a compromise rather than an argument. People who trust. Gorgeous normal souls who are magnanimous as well as monogamous.

The predator can sense Individuals who are responsible and these other characteristics: A sense of adventure, those who’ve experienced loss, have had disappointments, have successes, are genuine, and real, and who stay when the going gets rough because that’s what normal does. Sociopaths need us. Not the other way around. So are we a sociopath magnet…? Or human…?

What would getting your life back mean to you?

Many Misconceptions Float Around About How This Happens

Here Are Some of The Inaccurate Ideas About How This Happens

  • That we’re plagued by low self esteem
  • We’re codependent
  • We allowed it
  • They’ve been enabled by us
  • We’re stupid

Sociopath Magnet: Do Sociopaths Look for People with Low Self-Esteem?

This is the same principle as in a world where rape victims are blamed for being raped because they’re pretty, or they smile, or they wear a sexy dress, or they breathe while being female.

No, they do not “look for” people with low self-esteem… They need us to hold up their lives. Sociopaths do not look for people with low self-esteem. These weaklings look for strong people, not weak people. It’s an absolute fact that being preyed upon by con men, user sociopath can cause people to end up feeling incredibly weak and low and without a doubt experiencing trauma and a very specific PTSD that requires specific healing.

And, yes, that feeling is part of why people “stay.” And sometimes that feeling remains within someone’s life for a very long time. In no way does feeling low give any monster permission to use, deceive, and defraud us.

Are We Co-Dependent: Is That Why They Use Us?

Nope. That’s not it either. I’ve got one thing to say about that: They are the dependent ones. They are the ones with zero boundaries. There is nothing about us that gives anyone permission or the right to deceive us, lie to us, steal from us, and worse. Nothing about us invites them or allows them to use our lives for their own devious purposes.

Anyone can be duped by these monsters. I’ve done recovery sessions with people who’ve been seduced and sucked into true love scams who are Licensed social workers, police officers, an immigration attorney who got ensnared into marriage for a green card by a sociopath, mental health specialists, pastors, and psychologists. All of them, just like we were ensnared by a sociopath, scammer, narcopath, narcissist, narc – whatever you want to call them, monster. 

That Old Chestnut: Women Blamed For Being Used

Blaming the target of a crime, masquerading as a relationship, is ridiculously common; especially if that target was a woman the blame falls at her feet. This harkens back to the dark ages, which it seems, unfortunately, is apparently still the era we’re in.

The very idea of a “sociopath magnet” implies it’s the targeted prey who are at fault for the predators actions and our subsequent fall down the rabbit hole. So not true.

This is the same principle as in a world where rape victims are blamed for being raped because they’re pretty, or they smile, or they wear a sexy dress, or they breathe while being female.

This thinking echos tales in classic literature like, “Tess of the d’Ubervilles“, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame“, and “The Scarlet Letter” in which the woman is to blame for the nasty things bad men do.

Breaking Up with Evil: Escaping Coercive Control
by Jennifer Smith

On Amazon, Paperback

Or for your Kindle App or Reader

And, Yes, There Are Female Sociopaths

When using the word narcissist, if that person is a user, a conman, a person who lives by deceiving others, a scammer, a scumbag – that’s a sociopath. They are male or female. And still, there’s nothing we do to attract them aside from having a pulse and being normal.

Not only are we misunderstood in this nightmare, but so are the fundamental intent and motivation of the predator. It’s often said what they want is “control”… What is that?

Remember they’re looking for personal gain and survival. They’re looking for a place to sleep, a car, money, a respectability facade, someone to rape maybe. Control? To control what? To get what? Credit cards, addresses, food, a couch, a shower, the internet, access to countries, a place to hide out… They’re motivated to gain immediate and fundamental survival needs.

Are We Enabling the Predatory Sociopath?

When someone says something mean we take it to heart by way of a natural chemical response in our bodies. In other words: we don’t react the way we do because we’re codependent, enablers. We react the way we do because we’re human.

This is a very common concept and something many of us believe, or the people around us believe. Here’s teething though: they are a sociopath. They will be one with or without us. There’s nothing about us that gives anyone permission or the right to deceive us, lie, steal, and worse.

Nothing about us gives anyone permission, or invites them, or allows or enables them to do this anymore than having a car gives someone permission to steal it or enables them to take it. And if they do take our car, in no way is it our fault.

Taking things from people is universally recognized by anyone, anywhere, in any culture, and in any country on the planet as a crime.

Therapists Can Have it Wrong

You’ll read many articles here and there on Psychology Today, calling them a “narcissist” and stating that this is your fault: that you need to reexamine what you’ll accept in a relationship or your “relationship standards”: THEY ARE WRONG. Wrong. Plain wrong. Here’s why…

Therapists are not trained in what this really is. – This is newly discovered and you are a part of that discovery. Trust that you, as prey of a predator who lived this surreal bizarre nightmare – likely already know far more about what this is than any therapist you could find.

There is no textbook that talks about the reality of this entrapment and the hell we go through under their spell. The therapy paradigm: the job of being a therapist is also off. kilter to support you. It is this: you as the person who entered their office (or Zoom) are ow this patient/client and it is their job to identify what is “wrong” with you and to “fix” it. – One problem with this is: There is nothing wrong with you.

Join the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

Stupid…? The Parasitic Predator: Yes, Us: No

A sociopath does not hijack someone’s life to make use of them because that person is stupid. The predator looks for capable people. After all, they need to make use of us to hold up their life.

The sociopath themselves is quite aware: these are not relationships: they are crimes.

Sociopath Magnet? Phhhhfft

We are not the ones responsible for their inhumane and demon-like behavior. The very idea of a sociopath magnet implies it’s the targeted prey who are at fault for the fall down the rabbit hole. So not true.

Being blamed for trusting a man we later discover deceived us is more trauma. Targets too often are blamed by people we turn to for support: spiritual leaders, family, community leaders, and authorities who say they’re there to “protect and serve”. We’re looked at as if it’s our fault, especially the more emotional we are in the moment of reporting.

Emotions and Reactions to Being Used and Deceived are Legit

A response in the way of “feelings” is normal for normal humans. When someone says something mean we take it to heart by way of a natural chemical response in our bodies. In other words: we don’t react the way we do because we’re codependent, enablers. We react the way we do because we’re human.

Do we still believe the earth is flat? Of course not. All theories, discoveries, and insights evolve. This information about the reality of the human race evolving. Let’s step it up. Have the confidence to declare what we know. We’re grown folk. We can do it. After all, a tiny child pointed out that the Emperor wore no clothes.

Sociopaths, Narcissists, Con Men, Pathological Users, Narcs, Narcopaths Can Only Be What They Are

As hard as that is to take in, it’s true: There are monsters walking among us. These monsters depend on regular people. Being a regular person is all it takes for a sociopath to aim their bait at us, the constant and persistent contact some call love bombing. Sociopaths do this all day long: it’s all they can do.

A sociopath – and maybe you’re using the word narcissist – needs credibility, so normal people trust them for one reason and one reason only: so they can take whatever they need and want.

A defrauding, abnormal-brained con man can’t not be what they are! They need normal, good people to trust them in order to: give them credibility, and seeming normalcy so normal people trust them.

So they can take and use those who trust them and then walk away as it wears thins and falls through. They know this day will arrive and live in fear of it, and more fear of what will occur in the aftermath. – Believe it or not, they fear us.

No One Can Recognize a Red Flag Waving for Something We Don’t Know Exists

No one can know these monsters exist until they know. And yes, those targeted by them trust them, believe them, and feel that they love them. In actuality, this isn’t love that we feel… we believe it is, we call it this, we yearn with it.

In truth, we just don’t have a word for what it is, other than maybe hypnotized or infused with venom that scrambles the soul.

The sociopath isn’t who they say they are – it takes time to discover this. We’ve been seduced and mesmerized – and if you don’t believe this can happen – just tell that to Madison Avenue and the whole basis for the world economy.

We’re seduced daily by advertising, magazines, reality shows into spending thousands of dollars on iPhones, Lexus, and undergoing surgeries for Kardashian-like-lips.

Nobody is Stupid Here

A woman or man trusting, investing emotionally, and believing that the person standing in front of them, who they share meals with, a bed with, a life with, truly loves them… That’s normal. Not stupid. It isn’t enabling.

We’re normal whole humans and have every right to be exactly what and who we are. Here’s what’s absurd and not okay in the slightest: Blaming regular people who didn’t know these dirt-bags existed for that monster in disguise not being trustworthy, and for being a criminal and a deceiver and for harming them.

If We’re Alive and Breathing: We’re Prey

If we’re human sociopaths, con artists, users look at us as prey. If we’re breathing we’re a likely target, until we know the truth of what they are.

And more… These great human qualities of trust and kindness, of sticking in with people we love even when times are tough are why humankind still exists on this planet.

They’re innate and remarkable, essentially involuntary traits; they’re so second nature we notice our trust and interconnectedness less than we notice our own heartbeat or breath going in and out. Our beautiful human essence, our humanity is taken for granted.

Read here about real recovery.
Guided recovery sessions filled with lightbulb moments.
Find your way back to you.

therapy for narcissistic abuse counseling ptsd coercive control Jennifer Smith

These are Crimes of Deception: They Commit the Crime: Not Us

In these crimes these awesome, normal, human hard-wired characteristics of trust, believing in love, bonding more in a crisis, even when our loved one is the source of the crisis are branded as a weakness and a fault. The blame for the sociopath’s invasion is laid at our feet. Is this right…? Is this fair…?

No one can help anyone going through this if their beliefs and thoughts about this phenomenon are that it was their fault for being used and hijacked and deceived. That’s so much B.S. That’s the old blame-the-woman-who-got-raped angle rather than the laying responsibility at the feet of the rapist. Please, do not perpetuate or buy into this nonsense. 

“When highly praised by others there’s no hardship one cannot bear. Such is the courage that springs from words of praise… When praised one does not consider one’s personal risk and when criticized one can recklessly cause one’s own ruin. Such is the way of common mortals.” ~ Nichiren Daishonin, The True Aspect of All Phenomena

Take No Responsibility for a Sociopath’s Inhumanity

A sociopath is a sociopath is a sociopath. We didn’t make them. We don’t let them. They’re going to remain sociopaths no matter what we do or don’t do. There is no sociopath on earth that heeds any boundary.

Take responsibility for learning what they are, for realizing by contrast how amazing we are, and for our full recovery. When we know sociopaths exist, and what that really means we can forever sidestep them.

Here’s the truth: We’re all possible prey of these beasts as long as we’re human. Sociopaths – antisocial psychopaths, are responsible for these fake relationships that are truly crimes, not the people they target.

Someday Recognizing a Sociopath Will Be a Skill We All Have

The day will come when enough people gain this skill and discerning wisdom, the destruction and ruin sociopaths make will be lessened. As we get stronger in our humanity, their dark influence diminishes.

This increase in humanity gives their existence the only value I can imagine it to have. There’s nothing more evil in the world than at any time in history. It has simply risen to the surface for all to see.

We want to be sure to remain human and humane. Stand up for goodness, humanity, and kindness. Demand it. Be it. We are awesome.

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.
.

True Love Scam Recovery, Narcissistic Abuse Unwound, Jennifer Smith, 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. Founded 2014 © 2026 All Rights Reserved True Love Scam Recovery www.truelovescam.com

2017_06_06 REPUB 2023_07_31 2024_08_22

Do Sociopaths Know They’re Sociopaths?

Sociopaths know what they are.
The “narcissist” knows they’re a sociopath.
They get annoyed with attempts to “fix” them.
And they don’t want to be fixed even if they could be.

All of us have lots of questions when we’re coming out of this. The questions are rooted in the pain, and disbelief, and for some, it rises – steaming and often with embarrassment or shame – out of the aching yearning they still feel for this monster they escaped.

There are three primary questions I’m asked by clients in guided recovery sessions with me. 1) Do sociopaths know they’re sociopaths?

Along these same lines, I’m asked, Do sociopaths know they’re lying? And the third primary question is, Can they be fixed? These questions are a reflection and the product of what we are as normal gorgeous humans who are wired to give other’s the benefit of the doubt and believe in the goodness of others.

So, Do They Know…?

My answers to the three: 1) Do sociopaths know they’re sociopaths, 2) Do they know they’re lying and 3) Can they be fixed are: yes, yes, and no. And then I explain why this is so and hopefully, I’ll bring home the reality of the impossibility that they can be fixed. Here’s an unbelievable tidbit: they wouldn’t want to be fixed if they could. The fact is, they adore being what they are and all that this means.

Please, even if you’re calling them a “narcissist”… Please open up your mind to the notion that there’s something more than a wounded human here. The word “narcissist” as a term for these creatures drags with it a pile of misconceptions about what you’re likely facing if this website is where you landed. I’d go so far as to suggest you finally found the real answers. Please shed the terms and ideas of a “narcissist” and step into the reality that sociopaths exist and they know what they are: we need to as well.

Do Sociopaths Know They’re Sociopaths?

The short answer is “yes”. They know what they are. They might not all use or know the word “sociopath”, but yes. Even as children they know they’re “different”, and “not like other people”.

In the words of a socioapth: I was no stranger to manipulating situations and people in order to get what I wanted, and strangely enough, all these extremely educated adults were extremely easy to manipulate circles around.

In my experience resolving the pain of entanglements for people all over the globe, I see it proven over and over and over again that they indeed know what they are and are this from youngest childhood.

I’ve had mothers write to me who have seen the strangeness of a baby who can’t connect in freshest infancy, and in toddlers with cruel behavior. I’ve had siblings of these alternate-children tell me of the fear at night that this brother or sister would creep into their room and kill them.

They do know what they are. And they simply are what they are. While you or I are thrown into a surreal nightmare under the spell of a sociopath and suffer profound trauma at the hands of a sociopath, the very same interaction is mundane to them. It’s even boring for a sociopath. They feel no trauma or harm or upset during the hijackings… The trauma for them is when we break away.

And for those wondering, why the heck is she saying they know this in childhood…? Because scientific research points to sociopaths being what they are due to very specific parts of the brain that don’t function from birth and as a result of what we would call abnormal microgenetic coding. It’s in their genes. There is no research I’ve found saying this is hereditary, but it’s in the genes of that embryo as it forms.

Sociopaths Are All They Can Be

At the same time, the sociopath feels a sense of achievement in these hijackings, deceptions, and misleads. This is because the way they are wired to behave and to survive: is to make use of others rather than connecting or caring. – When they entrap you they’re living out their purpose.

The pathological taker-user has pride in a job well done when they capture prey. They find not only money and places to stay and more, but also find pleasure and entertainment in scamming people. They’re in need of food to eat, and money in their grimy hands, this is so even for those dirtbags who also bring in some kind of paycheck.

A Pathological “Narcissist” is a Sociopath: There is Only One Monster

To get to the root of your situation, if you’re calling him or her a “narcissist”, consider throwing that idea away. The problem is found in the commonly attached beliefs about what a “narcissist” is.

Please keep looking, turning the kaleidoscope for the view that snaps missing puzzle pieces into place so that you can see them clearly and separately from your own great goodness.

If you believe that they’re jealous of us, want to be us, have a narcissistic wound, or have no self-love, toss that out before it takes you further from realizing what you really faced, and what you can truly do to recover and get them out of your bones.

I know this sounds scary to think they’re a sociopath, but I guarantee, it makes things easier, and clearer and allows for restoration of your life.

What is recovery for you?
What is winning in this nightmare?

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.

Therapy is School for a Pathological Narcissist aka Sociopath

For the sociopath, therapy is at best an education in what matters to us and teaches them little tricks. They discover buttons to use us more. Agreeing to go to therapy makes them look normal and look good, or at least vulnerable and willing to get “help” which amounts to normal and good to nice, real people… and that is required in the sociopath’s way of life.

Going to counseling or therapy gets the sociopath (the pathologically narcissistic which some refer to as a narcissist) some pats on the head, dinners, and ice cream. They don’t want to be fixed. A sociopath doesn’t feel that there’s anything about them that needs fixing. They don’t think that the things they do are wrong. Not one bit of it.

Narcissistic Abuse Unwound: The Podcast

A Real-Life 30-Something Sociopath Tells their Story

Let’s see what a real-life 30-something sociopath has to say about therapy and “fixing” them with this pithy snip of reality in their own words complaining about being sent to therapy throughout their lives:

I’ve been through several therapists and in several psychiatric wards multiple times. In my youth one of my therapists would take me out for ice cream if I was good, so I “confessed” issues I was having and he took me to get double chocolate chip, but apparently he fell asleep on me once and so my parents didn’t let me see him anymore.

Then the second one I had seen twice, and I didn’t like how she always sided with my parents and I always got blamed for everything, so I told my parents I didn’t want to see her anymore.

The third one was a really nice guy, but was too nice and optimistic, and not very much of a realist. I genuinely liked the guy. But as a therapist he fed me too much happy bullshit. I ended up asking him more about his life and career. Talking about subjects that were irrelevant, and manipulating him to help me with my homework in his computer because we didn’t have one at home until I got into community college.

The fourth one I saw while I was homeless. I actually didn’t originally want to see, but she was very useful for things other than therapy, and she was extremely nice, so I consistently saw her. When I started seeing her in the transitional home I was in she was less attentive. And was on her phone most of the time. I had less use for her as time progressed, so I stopped seeing her. I completely forgot about her until just now.

Therapy never got me to address any issues, for me, it was always about blowing off steam, and then maybe my parents taking me out to eat afterward, my parents never actually gave a shit about working on anything, so I didn’t either.

Medications didn’t work either. It seemed like they would for one or two weeks then I’d stop feeling their effects all together, like I was actually controlling myself, but the medications made my thoughts hazy and made me moody and irritable. I’m actually much worse on meds than off.

In psychiatric wards, by the time I was 13 years old, I’d been to three psychiatric wards, two of them multiple times, so I had been to them enough to know the system and subconsciously that allowed me to be released because I hated it there. They were all about control and just suppressing your issues, not actually getting you to change for the better. And there was tons of violence and bullshit in there as well, and they were so filthy.

So, I just acted normal and complied to get what I wanted while in there, then I would get released in like a week or two every time. It was just going through the motions, as they say. I was always an exceptionally intelligent kid, and since I was constantly in these situations, I was no stranger to manipulating situations and people in order to get what I wanted, and strangely enough, all these extremely educated adults were extremely easy to manipulate circles around.

So in summation, the answer to your question is, yes, we don’t like having to devote our free time to therapy. It’s all purely a damn waste of our time and we don’t want to be there, so we will act normal to get out. ~ E.B., Self-Proclaimed Sociopath and Diagnosed Personality Disorder

Sociopaths Learn Tricks Like Lab Rats Learning Which Lever Gets the Cheese

Please notice the Subject above refers to the following situations that are indicative and an aspect of all sociopaths: “one of my therapists would take me out for ice cream when I was good so I “confessed” to issues I was having”, making up things he thinks the therapist wants to hear. And casually as if it’s unimportant: “when I was homeless”. And conscious deliberately “manipulated him to help me with my homework” and “…in order to get what I wanted…all these extremely educated adults were extremely easy to manipulate circles around”. These reflect the traits I mention frequently. That sociopaths don’t mind where they live, they don’t do their own work at school or on a job, and that they learn to use “buzz words” they pick up from us to sound “real” or normal. And that anyone can be drawn in by them, not understand what they are or not recognize them: even by those considered experts in the psych professions.

We’re Humans: The Sociopath Is Without Humanity

These abnormal-brained and therefore, pathological users aka pathological predators – sociopaths – know they think differently. This is not because they have any mental disability. – The sociopath – that life-stealing “narcissist” has a biologically different body and brain.

The “malignant narcissist”, the “overt” and the “covert”, and all the endlessly misleading NPD categories, are meant for clinical observations and medical prescriptions and prison sentencings rather than for your recovery… These entities function as sociopaths. Someone you think of as “having NPD” is a sociopath.

We’re much better off when we get to this reality and don’t expect them to be something they aren’t. They aren’t wounded souls. They don’t suffer from childhood abuse no matter the stories they tell you. If they were abused it didn’t make them what they are.

They Aren’t Who We Thought They Were

Here’s the surreal but freeing good news: there was no one who loved us and then treated us badly. There was a pathological parasitic predator who stunned us under their spell, invaded and used our lives in a deliberate, intentional fraud.

They truly live in a different universe than ours, while standing right next to us. They need you to not know what they are so that they can live and thrive.

Please, don’t give them that. Please keep looking, turning the kaleidoscope for the view that snaps missing puzzle pieces into place so that you can see them clearly and separately from your own great goodness.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

The Podcast: 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.
.

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. © 2026 All Rights Reserved True Love Scam Recovery www.truelovescam.com

OG: 2018_09_20 REPUB 2023_07_26 UPDATE:11_09_2024

The Sociopath Test

The sociopath test is simple.
So are sociopaths.
What they are is limited, specific, and predictable.
We can easily determine if we’ve met one.
We can spot them a zillion miles away
once we become fully aware of the sociopath test.

Is there an accurate sociopath test? You bet there is. The sociopath test is done at home, so to speak. The signs of a sociopath are clear and distinct. Sociopaths – even though you might be calling them “narcissists” – are limited, simplistic, predictable creatures.

Continue reading

Holiday Hoovering: Prime Hunting Season

Holiday hoovering is about
the sociopath’s need to restock.
They replenish their stores using our sentimentality
of the season as a trap.
For us, it’s annoying, disturbing, and dangerous.
It can land as back to square one.
Let’s side-step that malarkey.

Holiday hoovering puts a bitter twist and a gut-wrenching anxiety into our holiday season. For us, holiday hoovering is torture. The sociopath – or the “narcissist” if that’s the word you use for them invests in holiday hoovering. It’s necessary; it’s to assure their future.

…And then there’s the boomerang. That “old friend” who pops back up…The Holiday hoover or boomerang can land as back to square one. Straight in the figgy pudding. Let’s side-step that malarkey.

Continue reading

Sociopaths Secretly Love the Holidays

That thing you’re calling a “narcissist”
… the sociopath secretly loves the Holidays.
Storming out because you didn’t make their favorite dish is a cover.
It’s how they get out of the house to hunt…
in the most wonderful time of year.

During the holidays, normal people want things merry and bright. We have family visiting, kids to make memories for, traditions to uphold, trees to decorate, cookies to bake, and presents to wrap.

It’s never easy to grasp the real-deal stark reality of what’s going on in these hijackings. There’re the secrets, the subtext, and the hidden motivations of these creatures that are elusive to us. When we’re in the initial throes of the struggle to clear the fog to confirm the person we love is a monster, the holiday season is the bitterest time of all for decoding what’s up.

Continue reading

What Is a Sociopath?

Oh. He’s a psychopath, a sociopath, an antisocial psychopath.
That’s what A psychotherapist friend of mine told me he was
while she casually munched her salad.
I didn’t know what that meant,
but I knew it was true
.

Sociopath… Now there’s a big scary word. I remember the first time I heard it in connection to the man I was married to. It was a friend’s attempt to explain the nightmare “relationship” I was escaping. I recall my heightened senses and the hesitance with which I took that word in. Sociopath…psychopath…

The weirdness of the first time I held the idea of a sociopath…whatever that was because I certainly didn’t know, up next to the nutbag I was kicking out of my life is something I haven’t forgotten.

Continue reading

Divorce: Legal Advice for Leaving a Narcissist

Caught under their spell, married in hell.
There’s only one ending.
Divorce or annulment are inevitable.
We need legal advice..

Divorce from a narcissist or sociopath is required for millions of us. So why isn’t there a “Quick Guide” to divorce one of these monsters? I know I could’ve used one when filing – and thankfully winning – the annulment I got!

Divorce is an unavoidable legal procedure if we married a “narcissist”. That is to say, if we’re married to a sociopath, we’ll most likely be getting a divorce. This dreaded and costly legal process is another one of the frightening inexplicably hellish necessities if we’ve married a conman (or conwoman), a psychopath.

Continue reading

Narcissistic Abuse Unwound: The Podcast

The podcast Narcissistic Abuse Unwound is the one
place where you can be sure to hear
about the reality of these life-jackings.

I get to the root of these nightmare-like “relationships” steeped in confusion where we’re deceived and used. And into the depths of the motivation of those who perpetrate ethical, moral, and often legal crimes against us for their personal gain.

They do what they do because of what they are. They can’t be anything other than what they are. Therefore, knowing what they are and how that affects us as normal humans, is key to our recovery.

Listen to the podcast:
Narcissistic Abuse Unwound
by Jennifer Smith
of True Love Scam Recovery!

2024 includes podcast guests!

Would you like to share your story anonymously?
Send me an email!
jennifer@truelovescam.com

2024 Episodes

  • Lift Up Out of the Confusion
  • Jennifer with Phoebe
  • UP COMING: Jennifer with Anna
  • UP NEXT: Jennifer With Christina
  • In the wings: Jennifer with… you?

If you’d like to be a podcast guest send me an email! jennifer@truelovescam.com

2023 Episodes

2022 Episodes

And more!

Spotify, YouTube, PodChaser, SpotifyforPodcasters,
Pandora, Amazon Music, Audible, iHeartRadio

For the latest updates on podcast releases: subscribe to TLSR

Have a podcast idea?
Something you want to hear more about?
Want to be a podcast guest? Email me:
jennifer@truelovescam.com

Send me a voice message here,
on SpeakPipe

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Time to Thrive!

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.
.

True Love Scam Recovery, Narcissistic Abuse Unwound, www.truelovescam.com, and its agents and official representations 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.

2022_10_27 2024_07_06

Co-Parenting with a “Narcissist”, the Sociopath

Co-parenting in even the best of divorce circumstances is a juggling act with some dropped balls. In the ideal co-parenting set-up both parents are amiable and respectful.

No one says anything nasty about the other parent, and exchanges run smoothly and easily in cooperation. Both adults are focused on the well-being of the children whether visitation is court-ordered or voluntary.

Continue reading