Category Archives: PTSD & LOSS

What Am I Supposed to Do With All This Junk?

Junk and garbage and stuff they pretend to love.
They leave a trail of pain and confusion… and their junk.
Here’s what to do with it.

Are they gone…? Wahoo!! Congratulations!!! But does their old guitar and their cowboy boots and a suitcase and a sack of their junk still clutter your back bedroom?

Junk. Piles of junk. If we’ve lived with one of these nut-bags we know that they arrive with very little, take and use, and take and use, and then leave junk behind.

Guitar strings, photos, packs of candy, socks, dusty old hardened leather dress shoes…

Junk from Soup to Nuts

These nutters leave useless piles of coupons, receipts, old shoes, rumpled gum wrappers, a bent-up photo of some kid we’ve never seen or heard of before.

Car parts, bicycles, unopened delivery packages, their so-called beloved violin that they can’t live without, or basketball they used to shoot the game-winning free throw…

Getting their things out and refreshing our own home with compassion for ourselves and love and empathy towards ourselves is essential to healing, getting back to ourselves, and shifting forward to our bright future.

Junk, Toss Them and Toss Their Junk

Junk of every kind. Toasters, cameras, gym shoes, old underwear. Porn collections, bras, an ankle bracelet, stacks of People magazine from the ’80s, cords, and cables, a tennis racket, and a torn backpack. What’s this all about…?!

As sickening as it all is, there’s really nothing going on other than a sociopath being a sociopath. They are – really, really, and truly, all relentlessly identical. They do the same things, think the same way because their brains are specifically limited.

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A Predator Sociopath Is What They Are: Can’t Be Anything Else

That’s what makes someone a “sociopath”, this abnormal and specific type of brain. This brain doesn’t allow real attachment or connection or “care” for other humans, or for things, not even us, not even their own junk.

Junk is left behind because sociopaths have no emotional connection to humans or to things. They have no emotional nostalgia factor.

Objects, like people, only matter moment to moment for what they “offer” to the sociopath – importance or concern is directly in relation to the degree an object or a person improves their image or feeds their survival.

The Podcast: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

Our Thinking and Emotions All Over the Place

With the fear center of our brains deregulated from the trauma we’re in overdrive in the fear department – then combine that with not understanding how a sociopath’s brains work and we might have their stuff for years after they go.

We fear they’ll come back for it and be mad it isn’t there… they’ll accuse us of stealing or take us to court, or worse. – They won’t. The legal fact is: they left it behind. It’s no longer theirs.

We all think about a ritual dance around burning flames, igniting their garbage in celebration of their absence, and exorcising their hideousness from our lives. There’s nothing wrong with doing this: burning their junk and dancing around the flames. I’m all for it!!

We Think the Monster Will Be Mad

Together, I laughed with one of the women he was living with while married to me (yes only one of them, there were three). We laughed and squealed over the digital wires carrying our voices some 3,000 miles to one another.

My dear fellow prey and I painted in the fantasy of a blazing bonfire of the absolute crap that represented his fake and miserable life... The burning pile, an effigy of his rotting, stinking soul.

Imagination Releases Us to Freedom

But then, there it is… We’re normal people. It isn’t that we’re not “too nice”, but do have trouble selling, giving away, or throwing someone else’s things away. At all times we’re responding like normal people in a very abnormal situation.

As normal people, we like to be “constructive” rather than “destructive”. Sometimes they leave valuable, useful stuff: a laptop, audio equipment, a brand new phone still in the box, Ferragamo shoes, a gold ring at the bottom of their moldering duffel bag. What do we do with the physical pile of rubble?

Sociopaths Care About Taking and Using

The things, none of that junky muck, are genuinely important to sociopaths. They have no nostalgia, sentimentality, or emotional connection to anything or anyone beyond the moment. The one tiny moment that they think they need it.to enhance their persona and story in order to bring the people and situations to make use of.

Junk and things and people all need to make them look good, normal. Junk and stuff and people only matter as much as they will bring them access to another person, or a reputation so they can get more. We lose a lot, but there are gains we can claim.

If Their Junk is In Your House, They’re In Your House

If their junk is in your house, then things aren’t quite over, yet… This might seem harmless enough… But it’s anything but harmless. Having their things in your home, your garage or attic or storage space means you’re still “in it”.

This means there’s a part of you that’s conscious of and affected by them and their belongings 24/7. They’re vibing in your space even if they’re gone and their junk is out of eyesight. To close to that feeling and effect when they were more deeply in your life.

There’s a part of you feeling responsible for their stuff, and so they’ve still got a grip on you… YUCK. What the heck is happening…? Leaving junk behind is sociopath normal. It’s not normal normal.

In A Normal Human Break Up…

When normal people have a breakup and move out: they take their stuff. You might accidentally leave a DVD or a CD or a pair of earrings or something in the back of a bathroom cabinet.

And so, you pick it up later – and done. That’s the end of it. Or maybe you say to your genuine ex: oh, yah, I forgot that, sorry, go ahead and toss it. Not the sociopath. When they go… be sure to toss their stuff out too. All of it. Make sure they leave nothing behind. Not one hairpin, not one matchbook. Why…? You can’t break truly free or restore your life with their merde in your space.

What’s going on…?! You might think you’re being nice by saving it so carefully. And you’re scared to throw it out. You think they’ll accuse you of stealing it if you toss it. And – drum roll: so you don’t go no contact. They don’t want any of it. That stuff keeps a hold on you. And that’s their point!

Thye Leave Stuff Everywhere: You Aren’t Special

That, and they just don’t care about that stuff. Did you know sociopaths leave things behind everywhere they hide out or nest…? Everywhere. Everyone’s home. In every prey’s condo, townhouse, villa or palace is a pile of junk they leave behind. No matter what it is, a Steinway, a Babolat tennis racquet – it’s junk to them.

I know it’s hard to imagine that their personal belongings aren’t personal. Remember: these are creatures without the ability to have a positive emotional attachment or care for: anything. All people, places, and things hold value for them only as far as that person, place, or thing’s immediate use and benefit to them.

They leave stuff behind not because they care about the stuff… They don’t care about the stuff but like to keep a grip on you. Really. Feel free to toss it.

Every Sociopath Is Alike

Here’s my tiny real-life example: The dirtbag I married left stuff: audio equipment, clothes, people’s business cards, a notebook, receipts from money wire transfers, his dinners, and outings. As he packed to leave he was careless, hasty, in a hurry, and sloppy. (Sound familiar?)

There was one item he was frantic about. Without his realizing I was watching him, I saw him clutch it, almost in a panic, and double-check that it was in his main suitcase three times. What was it? This fabulous item…? Was it diamonds or Krugerrands? Nope: It was a photo of his mother.

Socioapths Have a Kit of the Important Stuff

This photo of mom – this item – was also the first thing that showed me when he moved in, placing it on a shelf in my living room. Along with a story about how much he loved his mother and how sad he is that she has passed away. Which he repeated and embellished over the following months. All the stories about his mom were lies.

How do I know this?: Another of his women knew his mother. She told me the real story. This scumbucket used this photo of his mother as an empathy ploy, as bait to sound normal and amazing. That photo was part of his kit. He needed that photo to gain what he wanted. End of story.

I Get It: Here’s the thing: Did you know you can lie to a sociopath and they believe whatever you say? After you toss their stuff, if somehow they do reach you and say: “Where’s my old pack of bologna…? You can say, “What pack of bolgona? You didn’t leave anything here.” – Click. – Be sure you truly go full zero contact.

What to Do with the Junk a Sociopath Leaves at Our Place?

So, is their junk in your closet in the hallway? Two words: toss it. They already took the junk they wanted. You deserve freedom, joy, and every happiness. And a home without their junk. P.S. merde is French for “shit”. You can’t break truly free or restore your life with their merde in your space.

Option One: Let It Sit There and Make us Sad

As ridiculously painful as this is, it happens. We all know that, for heck’s sake. Hopefully, this isn’t our choice because of sentimental feelings tugging our heartstrings over the life-stealing scum-bucket. – Let the junk go.

These are things they left behind because they hold no meaning to the sociopath… and if it messes with us a little, so be it – they don’t mind that, and it’s a foot back in the door. Remove that wedge into our lives – toss the junk.

Find every answer; resolve each loss.
Take back your life.

Option Two: Save it Carefully for Them.

With our normal limbic brain, we feel obligated to take care of someone’s things if we find them in our possession. We don’t touch or take other people’s things in our normal world. And… we’re scared not to save it. What if they come back for it? Or try to sue us for it..?

What if the sun turns green… It’s never going to happen. Sociopaths are notorious for leaving things behind everywhere they roam. Get some really big heavy-duty garbage bags or old cardboard boxes ready. Let the junk go.

Option Three: Throw it Away Immediately.

It’s really okay to do this. – And it feels fantastic. Burn it. Dance around the flames. Drink champagne. Sing at the top of our lungs, “Free at last…”

Sociopaths Leave Things Behind: Dogs Marking Territory

Option Four: Donate It

We’re good people after all and one man’s junk… There are classic go-to’s for donating clothing, household goods, books, CD’s, DVD’s, even eyeglasses.

Goodwill: An old standard. Search online to find a local drop off location. They employ mentally challenged people, training them in retail skills and life skills. Search their site to find where to take this stuff, give it a fresh start, and renewed life as we do the same for ourselves.

Salvation Army: They make scheduled pick-ups of bulky items or larger amounts of goods. Otherwise, they have drop-off centers at their stores and kiosk locations. Salvation Army houses, counsels, and feeds the homeless and down and out. They shelter and feed kids who’ve aged out of the foster care system at 18 with nowhere to go.

1-800-Got-Junk: They pick up junk with a big truck, but we pay them for the service.

Sociopaths Feel No Emotional Nostalgia for Stuff or People

Option Five: Sell It

The things, none of that junk, is genuinely important to sociopaths. They have no nostalgia, sentimentality or emotional connection to anything or anyone beyond the moment. The one tiny moment that they think they need it in order to enhance their persona or story in order to bring them people and situations to make use of.

I’m a huge fan of this one!! A simultaneous target of the nutter who hijacked me made $600 bucks selling a boom mic and $1200 selling other audio equipment gifted by the manufacturer as a sponsor for an event he was planning (scamming), he shipped the gear to her in another country where he intended to run!

I myself had a gigantic party with 20 cases of Heineken sent to the event venue in Beverly Hills in a sponsorship agreement as well for his upcoming (not) comedy (not) production (it never happened, because the venue dropped him.)

How and Where Can We Sell This Junk…?

eBay – We’ve all heard of eBay. But… it’s so public and we might be more comfortable doing this on the down-low. We can make a new email that doesn’t reflect our name.

Create a user name that isn’t “us,” doesn’t hint at who we are, or how we’re feeling about the dirtbag. List the items with that email address. Dump the junk and line our pocket.

Craig’s List – Probably the easiest and one of the quickest ways to offload their (usually stolen in the first place, or coerced from another target) television, Aeron office chair, bicycle, or trumpet. We need to take decent photos of the thing, describe it, name a price, or go with “Best Offer.”

Your Privacy is Kept On Craigslist

In order to give or sell things on Craigslist, create an account on Craigslist, your name or contact will not be seen in listings, we can have inquiries by prospective buyers sent via the Craiglist server into our email inbox, then we reply to them from our own email address.

Consider making an email address that doesn’t reflect our name. Only give out a location, phone numbers in order for someone to pick up the thing they’re buying and to give us cash. – I’ve done this, it works. Follow your gut.

Give it Away On Craigslist

There’s also a “Free” stuff category on Craig’s List. Here in Los Angeles this is incredibly commonly used. You snap a photo, put stuff on the curb. Announce it on CL as a give-away free item and list an address a few houses down from yours. An intersection will do. Set it out in front of your place or that one a bit down the block. Whatever that is will be gone in 30 minutes.

ETSY: If It’s Vintage or Art or Handmade

ETSY – If you have a collection of say, old records, rare books, or supplies to build crafty things they might find a new home through ETSY. It’s a matter of setting up a “store,” making a bio and a banner and taking photos, and giving product descriptions… a lot of work.

I mention it here because it’s a great and refreshing resource of things to buy that are handmade, vintage, or supplies for jewelry or jam making. Look around… we might get some ideas for a new venture of our own!

A Great Place to Dump Their Junk.

Never Liked It Anyway – This is a super-smart trendy, current, hip site for selling your “exes” stuff! List items for sale and rake in the dough. Buy stuff, sell stuff, they have a fresh blog of breakup articles, and more. Make a profile, list the item, someone buys it, NeverLikedIt gets a small fee from the sale price and gives 10% of that to The American Heart Association.

They also ship the item to the buyer and send freshly minted freedom in dollars and cents straight to you. No risk of getting a payment for the buyer. Never Liked it Anyway – too bad we can’t sell the socio-freak off along with their trash to a life sentence in Hades. – By the way, Never Liked It is on IG: @neverlikedit

Where to Offload Bigger Things and House Hold Items

EBTH – The Premier Estate Sale Market Place – This is for those left with a LOT. Like some big things, maybe a house full of furniture you want to unload. Not sure which states they operate in. Investigate… There are surely similar companies in most cities.

Habitat for Humanity – A long-established and much-loved organization that makes a home a reality for many lower-income people, or survivors of natural and life disasters and tragedy.

Habitat stores sell donated goods, they also use donations for home construction and for their home renovation grant projects. Perfect if the nut-job left a toilet seat in the garage or a tool kit, or drill.

Give That Stuff New Life: Furnish Someone’s Home

Humble Designs – This incredible organization fills the new apartments of those coming out of shelters and homelessness with beds, bedding, kitchenware, tables, chairs, lamps, desks, night lights, art, and love. They make a haven for those who’ve survived violence or loss.

Get Them Out of Our Home: Out of Our Bones

Free ourselves of their scent, their aura, their junk, their grip… let every last piece fly out the door. Turn their trash into someone else’s treasure and a new beginning. Create value from their malevolence and absence of care for humanity. We’ve got enough love to go around!

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Your unique guided recovery coaching

Time to Thrive!

Join the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

SD Voyager interview

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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.

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

© 2014 – 2024 All Rights Reserved True Love Scam Recovery www.truelovescam.com

2018_01_21 2023_01_27

What Am I Supposed to Do With All This Loss?

4 Replies

We lose things, money, cars, kids,
friends, time, innocence.
We lose our sense of place in the world.
Nothing is where we left it.
Nothing is what we thought it was.
Or is it maybe better…?

Loss is a normal part of the experience of living a life we think is real, then seeing enough to know it’s not what we thought it was. We feel loss discovering that it’s not as we’ve been perceiving and living it and that instead, it’s deception an illusion filled; that it’s something dark, and mean, and from a world we know nothing about is hard, hard, hard.

It takes our breath away. Stops our hearts and brings up last night’s dinner. Suddenly there’s a lump in our throats. Pooling tears blur our vision and separate us from wherever we’re standing. There’s nothing but numbness and pain as we fall from the waist and our bodies tilt to the floor.

We’re Knocked to the Floor When we Discover we’ve Been Living a Lie

Dispair rolls over us all day, for days and days as each new lying bit of our lives flutters through our minds. When will it end? When will we feel normal?

When will we be okay again? A scream of horror as the reality of the surreal madness we’ve been living could rise to awareness can rail it’s way from solar plexus to our neighbor’s living rooms and down the street to the donut shop if our lungs hadn’t collapsed at the smack of the punch to our being.

How would it feel to resolve the losses?

There is Much Loss Inside the Spiral Into Hell

Here it is: I borrowed the title of this post from something that happened years ago on a camping trip in Italy. I was with my sister walking back from the shower rooms. Our brother was on his way back from the men’s shower. As our trails converged we heard a young boy’s voice shout in a heavy English accent, confused frustration: What I’d like to know is: what am I supposed to do with this piece of soap?!? – He had no idea, no clue, though it seemed so obvious: put it in a wash cloth or a baggie and pack it up in your toiletry kit. This kid was without an answer, left hanging, feeling all alone out there handling something he’d never faced before. But he had the answer in his own hand. I wanted to tell him: you’re not alone, there is a place for everything, clean it up, put it where it belongs.

We have more than a piece of soap to manage. But we do have the resolution in our own hands. And we aren’t alone. There are many of us here. People around us won’t understand. But then, they aren’t in our shoes.

The loss comes in two waves. Discovering the person we thought loved us and that we love is a liar. We see betrayal, cheating, abuse, stealing, using.

If we stay right here we’ll be hurt pretty much forever and stay very, very confused, sad, angry and vulnerable to the next sociopath.

The other wave of loss is seeing that something we thought was real isn’t. Wasn’t. Ever. This is where we need to be to really recover. This isn’t break up. It’s recovery from the trauma of a crime of deception, defrauding, and worse.

These Are Crimes of Fraud Rather Than Betrayal

How do we get from betrayal by someone we loved, who we thought loved us to recovering from an impersonal crime? Carefully. Deliberately. And with time. And patience for ourselves, and huge love for ourselves.

And learning how to look at it from their twisted minds in a very specific way. They made this, we didn’t. Seeing it from their eyes knocks the love right out of our hearts and shifts us to recover from the crimes. This also takes us off their radar. This is the magic.

Unwind the loss, the pain, and the questions.

Schedule recovery coaching sessions here

We Decide What Winning Is

“You must be firmly resolved… You must simply make up your mind. … This is what is meant when it is said that it is difficult to be born a human being.” ~ Nichiren Daishonin, Reply to Yasaburo

This sickening reality that there are people who walk among us who only use and ruin other people isn’t what we want to hear or know. It isn’t cold to say, find a way to accept it. The thing is, since their existence is a reality, we’re able to live more freely than ever when we understand it.

There’s discoveries and vantage points which can bring a way to resolve the loss that sits inside our bodies. You can find the way back to yourselves. Make this your daily determination and allow it to take the time it takes while actively seeking the real answers.

As gorgeous humans we’re resilient, we’re flexible, we have emotional intelligence. There are unfathomable springs of courage, and pools, even oceans of untapped wisdom. Seek the ways to take back your life. Settle for no answer that houses pain or loss.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Your unique guided recovery coaching

Time to Thrive!

Join the podcast!

Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

SD Voyager interview

True Love Scam Recovery on Medium

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

© 2014 – 2025 All Rights Reserved True Love Scam Recovery www.truelovescam.com

2017_08_06 2023_07_21

8 Reasons to Suspect We’re Dating a Sociopath

Dating a Sociopath: The More We Know

After really grasping how their little minds operate and their quirks and foibles, I know that I’ve dated a sociopath more than once. Each of them floated to my memory over the months spent restoring my life in a flash of realization. – I understand you might be wondering what it is about me that “attracted” them, or what could be wrong with me…

There’s nothing wrong with me, There’s everything right with me. I’m a normal gorgeous inside and out living breathing fully limbic-brained human. In other words, this means that I’m normal. Many, many, many of us discover as we take in a real comprehension of what a sociopath is that more than one has knocked at our door.

Is It Raining Sociopaths?

Now I know I’ve briefly dated one of these weirdos twice. And that about eight of them, all told have tried to get into my life. This one particular one got me into a legal marriage. Maybe like me, you went beyond dating a sociopath and married one.

Chances are, you’ve known more than one as well, and certainly at least one, or you wouldn’t be here. I’m glad that you are here…I’m glad you’re seeking answers that truly fit into place. Keep going so that you can solidify a user-proof life since as strange as it is, it’s true – these human predators are out there. – I’ve heard it said that one in 25 people is a sociopath… That makes about one in every classroom.

The Truth Found in The Experience

After the harrowing hideous entanglement and then the restoration of my life after the dirtbag who hijacked me for an address in the U.S. along with the legal right to be in the country, I now know one of the first times in my life I came across a sociopath was in elementary school. He was ten years old, and so was I. We were in the 5th grade.

He was super gross. Nobody liked him. He was tough and mean and didn’t fit the profile of that charming sociopath we read about at all. – But maybe crafting that smoothie exterior comes later in life for these creatures.

I was plagued by his attention. What I didn’t yet know was, that there’d been a bet or a joint plot or some such heinous thing among complicit classmates that he could grab me and kiss me on the playground. – Where the heck were the adults…?

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The Moment of Attack Sharpens Small Detail

As it goes down, I suddenly realize I’m all alone, sitting on a swing. There’s nobody else playing, no balls bouncing, no laughing… And no one near me. It dawns on me that the entire 5th and 6th grades are divided into two camps on opposite sides of the blacktop.

The optics of the scenario stretch and pull as they do in moments of impending doom. I see or sense one band of kids far, far away in a corner of the now ghostly playground, hovering in a flock by one of the outbuildings.

A Laser Point of Focus

The more nearby knot of whispering, heaving-with-excitement 10-year-olds backs further away as a lone figure slithers towards me. In this moment, the classical traits of the snake-like qualities of a sociopath shimmer off of this kid who’s now floating into the way-too-near-me horizon.

The dirty-haired, pale-skinned predator floats up like on a Z-axis camera dolly, sliding into a close-up position. His mouth is open in anticipation.

Emanating from him was some internal honing device that sucked at me, aligning my body, overriding my resistant mind and soul, right into his orbit. Something like polar opposite magnets that click and snap together when what I wanted to do was hurl away in refusal. I didn’t have control of my body… I was locked in place.

Primal Defenses Kick In: Trust Your Gut

A part of me actively resisted and fought to get away. Brave little me looked the prepubescent beast straight in his eyes. At the millisecond I registered his leer, his curled lip revealing tiny, pointy yellowish teeth, my right arm pulled itself back, my hand in a rock-hard fist ready to smash his face. – Something I’d never done in my life.

In addition to being deceptive about who they are and about their intention in our lives sociopaths don’t heed the natural and normal boundaries we have and that we expect others to have.

His eyes open wide from the slits of a hunter; shock replaces the cocky, shit-bag expression on his ugly freckled face. He leans back from his waist and comes closer all at once. He hisses through a clenched jaw, threatening: Don’t you hit me.

I didn’t hit him. I couldn’t really. I did look straight into his eyes scanning for a person. As in a human to connect with. There wasn’t one. But, he did look scared. Of me. Then I sent out no words, no sounds, but what must have been a telepathic, silent human-to-beast warning, in essence: Don’t you fuck with me.

Those very words weren’t in my head, but surely there were screaming from my less than five-foot 70-pound frame. He backed off. The crowds dispersed… And everything after that is a blur. I was then allowed to spend every recess for the rest of the 5th grade in the nurse’s office or sitting in the school counselor’s room. I was terrified of the playground. I had post-traumatic stress at 10 years old induced by the traumatic events of a sociopath invading my life.

How Does This Happen?

Likely, by now, you’ve heard someone say or read somewhere that you played a part in the “relationship”. That you don’t know how to pick good men or women or partners but are attracted to “bad boys”. That you’re codependent or don’t have boundaries and this is why this happened to you.

This reasoning, though a natural place for people to go with this for a few reasons, is absurd. As a ten-year-old, I guarantee I wasn’t looking for a bad boy, was not codependent, and was not in a relationship with this goober-headed ten-year-old monster. It happened because he was a monster – and I was – and am – normal.

Breaking Up With Evil

Breaking Up with Evil: Escaping Coercive Control on Amazon

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

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

Recovery coaching unique to you

Persistence of Predators: They Don’t Heed Boundaries

And then, either before or after that nice day, another fine day this grimy psycho kid shows me a messed up sketch he’d made. Presented it like a gift.

Smeared pencil on a piece of lined notebook paper; so many creases where he’d feverishly folded and unfolded the page in sweaty hands it was almost tattered. It was a crude drawing of an underground fort. Dug into the earth next to a tree, in and around its roots. He told me this is where he planned to take me…And so by implication keep me.

Sociopaths Need Normal People to Survive: They Count on Us Not Knowing What They Are

Turns out, I used to be the kind of person sociopaths really like. Someone they like to date, marry, and maybe even kidnap. A lot of us are this kind of person because we’re alive and amazing humans, this makes us someone these predators sniff out as delicious prey.

The thing is: somewhere in my body I was already afraid of this stranger I’d married. He too wanted things to seem okay, so he came into the market next door with me. It felt a lot like that encounter with a sociopath child while I was a child, that day on the playground in 5th grade.

And this doesn’t mean we’re stupid, or a doormat, or codependent. — And don’t even go down the road of thinking you’re a sociopath magnet… 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.

Wanting a relationship and working for it doesn’t mean we’re codependent. Nice does not equal doormat. Dating a sociopath-con-man does not signify that we’re stupid. It does indicate our natural goodness and view of the world from the heart and eyes of normal. From our normally-wired human brain that bonds as survival.

We’re Not Stupid: We Do Need to Know and Accept That Monsters Exist

Sociopaths don’t get far or get much to support their lives out of stupid. Don’t forget, we unwittingly hold up their world; stupid can’t hold up tier own world and another grown person’s too.

Codependent simply does not apply as the case of this criminal hijacking arrangement they set up. It’s more like instant hypnosis, and unless you’ve been in it: Sit down. – That’s what you can all those people who say: Didn’t you know…? Why didn’t you just leave…?

What the Beasts Need

The more we learn about what a sociopath is and how to recognize them, you may realize you’ve known a few. Bleeping onto a sociopath’s radar screen as a potential target doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with us.

What they do work with, and do a lot with, is our emotions. That’s what they’re after… They don’t care really about which emotion; they just want a normal human one.

Our natural normal response from the world of normal. Our human emotions are based on our ordinary and extraordinary kindness. They want open hearts, people who care, and people who don’t know what a predator is and that these revolting creatures exist… Even in 5th grade.

Dating a Sociopath: 8 Reasons to Suspect We’re Dating a Sociopath

Sociopaths don’t respond normally to normal things. For example, when something bad happens… like our pet turtle dies, or our cat gets sick, or we lose a family member they remain kind of neutral, almost bored, or say something like, such a pity and go on watching Netflix. Or, throw off a blast of ice-cold freeze out.

Narcissistic predators say things like I don’t have feelings. Or I’m going to teach you a lesson, and they aren’t talking about tennis or playing the piano. Or when we’re deep in it, as I heard one day from the nut case who hijacked me in marriage, I can’t make you do what I want you to, but I can make you wish you had.

Things Are Unclear and Foggy or Scary or Too Exciting

Things feel weird…like they’re lying; what they say doesn’t make sense
We spend time coming up with explanations for what they say and defend them to others
We’re not sure where they live, or where they are when they’re not with us
They talk about doing something for “us” that’s something we’ve always wanted and we’re excited beyond anything
The good stuff never happens, but weird stuff does
They seem mostly only semi-interested in things you say
Certain moments they’re riveted on you, really listening, they answer questions or say things that as “off”
Sometimes when you’re trying to talk with them about something important the room goes out of focus and small things come into focus

Lying is Life: Lies Are Real and Real is Made Up

Lying deceivers aren’t where they say they’ll be: We run into them when they said they couldn’t come out with us or they’d be somewhere else.

The invader parasite sociopath has a whole world going on that we aren’t in: We come across them out at a club when they said they were staying home – and then they ignore us, or tell us we should be at home. They don’t join us but freeze us out of their night on the town.

Signs of Dating a Sociopath Include Lots of Disappointment

Being used by a pathological predator involves being stood up with lame explanations or no explanation. If we’re dating a sociopath they might make a date with us and show up two hours late, or not at all. After that, they’re mad that we’re mad, and madder that we ask about it. And more than one of us has heard the sociopath we’re dating say, don’t question me or if you’d trust me everything would be okay.

Trust our gut, we’re experts now. We can see a sociopath a mile away. Look them in the eye. They’ll know that we know and it’s so delightful to watch them scurry away like the rats they are.

Sociopaths busy themselves “dating” us and and about 800 other people at the same time. They keep things close to their vest. They sleep with their phones. Lock their phone. Take their phone into the bathroom. Block us from their Facebook.

Sociopaths who are “dating” often, as in within every single moment of any encounter with a normal human being, overstep the normal social and personal boundaries we all have.

In addition to being deceptive about who they are and about their intention in our lives, sociopaths don’t heed the natural and normal boundaries we have and that we expect others to have.

They Inspire a Sense Of Unease

It’s not uncommon to have a creepy feeling like they’ve been looking through our drawers or catch them looking over our shoulder as we punch in our PIN. There always the quickly shifting and closing of the laptop when we walk into the room.

And, maybe you’ve noticed, predator sociopaths take things. Mysteriously, there’s money missing from our sock drawer, or from that envelope in between the dusty-never-used dictionary and “East of Eden” on the bookshelf. – Especially when they’re gearing up to exit our lives.

Normal Puts Things In Order

When confronted by the impossible the rational mind will grope for the logical.
~ Outlander S1:E1 Sessenach

They Come into Focus for What They Are

One day while my new husband was at a meeting, I went out to buy something delicious for his dinner. Surprisingly, I ran into him at my bank’s ATM just around the corner.

We just didn’t know such beasts existed, there’s no way to conceive of something so beyond normal; sociopaths hide behind this perfectly normal human phenomenon. We can’t know what we don’t know until we know it.

He was stunned and trying not to show it. – Caught red-handed more like. – Wary, surprised, and leering, like a cat that thinks it saw something move, but isn’t sure and so waits and watches for it to happen again, ready to pounce; he asked, Are you following me??

Feeling ungrounded, my brain spun and grasped for something that made sense of finding him, of his words, and to make things right because normal humans need that.

My mind sorted the circumstances: He had no personal bank account here, there was only my account recently-turned-joint-account. He was supposed to be in another area of town at a meeting… since an hour ago.

Their Oddness Leaves Us Without Words

Out of my mouth came a tiny, no. – This was the best answer I could come up with to his very odd question… The most normal response that made me seem not freaked out. I didn’t want him to know that I knew this was very, very weird.

The thing is: Somewhere in my body I was already afraid of this stranger I’d married. He too wanted things to seem okay, so he came into the market next door with me. It felt a lot like that encounter with the sociopath child while I was a child, that day on the playground in 5th grade.

I don’t remember grabbing the grocery items, but I do recall being at the checkout… Where I paid for our groceries while he fiddled with his phone and pretended to reach for his wallet.

Continuing the charade, he came home with me and then left eight minutes later. Truth gathering, observing as if I were a player in a scene revealed him for what he was.

Dating a Sociopath Doesn’t Mean There’s Anything Wrong with Us: Sociopaths Need Good People

Dating a sociopath was a recurring theme in my life. Emphasis on was. Previously, intermingled with great relationships with real people, I found myself dating a sociopath or about three very briefly; I only married one. — Recovery tip: Find humor wherever you can.

It means there’s everything right with us. It means we’re good, kind people who trust and love as natural, gorgeous humans innately do. We have every right to be exactly what and who we are.

Knowing is Key

We just plain, flat-out didn’t know such beasts existed, there’s no way to conceive of something so beyond normal; sociopaths hide behind this perfectly normal human characteristic of not knowing that evil exists and what it looks like. We can’t know what we don’t know until we know it.

Trust our gut, we’re experts now. We can see a sociopath a mile away. Look them in the eye. They’ll know that we know and it’s so delightful to watch them scurry away like the rats they are.

Really… I did it just yesterday in the mall. Now, we can add knowledge, wisdom, and courage to the mix of our gorgeous selves!

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

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PTSD is a Thing After Life with a Sociopath

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

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

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

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

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

We Can Heal. We Win.

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Everything We Feel Is Normal: We Are Not Forever Broken

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

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

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

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

Breaking Up With Evil

Breakign Up with Evil, by Jennifer Smith on Amazon and Good Reads

Breaking Up with Evil: Escaping Coercive Control on Amazon

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

True crime. Told in their own words with nothing unsaid. Find validation, and see new glimpses of truth as these five women share their stories… Stories that could be any of ours.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Post Trauma Feels Worse than the Traumatic Event

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We Decide to Recover: We Chose How Fully We Recover

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

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

There’s So Much Going On at Once

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

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

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

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PTSD is the Beginning of Healing From Trauma

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

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

PTSD is a Cluster, a Package of Feelings and Symptoms

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

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

There’s nothing about us that makes this happen.

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

Healing Comes in Stages: Time is On Our Side

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It Really Isn’t Us: It Really Is Them

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

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

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

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