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.
Break up? More like an escape. And then how to get them off our tail?! Why don’t they go away?
Break up. Yikes. When we’re in a relationship and the words – I think I need to break up – the first flash in our mind, we cringe. Breaking up is tough. It takes ages to think about, let alone to actually do. Even under the best of circumstances, breaking up is hard. Really hard.
In the kind of situation, you’re likely experiencing since you found this article in your quest for answers… Know you’re in the right place. Landing here after much confusion, sadness, and maybe some huge unresolved or inexplicable fights is the usual way.
And if you’re here because you’re thinking: Wtf is going on…?! Well then, I imagine you’ve been feeling blamed, ignored, frustrated, dissatisfied, mystified, and have even felt used. With all this stuff going on, getting to the place where we really and finally-for-good break up is extra hard to do.
When we arrive here looking for answers and feel an urgent need to break up we’re pretty far down a twisted corridor of hell. You’ve known things were crazy. You know something’s wrong, and that you’re a long way from happy. And likely have been, and are in a maze of pain. A confusing place where nothing really changes for the better or resolves.
We finally muster the courage to bring up the break up and here they are sticking to us like chewed gum on the bottom of our flipflop. Where was all this togetherness months ago?
My hugest hope for you is that you’ll find yourself a deeper and maybe new way to think about your circumstances; that answers might begin to fill the gaps of wondering what’s wrong. That the thoughts and emotions can begin to make a different kind of sense and shift to benefit you.
In this tiny moment, I hope you can discover more about what it is you’re breaking up from, and how to go about it. – Let’s get to it and talk about the two difficulties in getting rid of crazy.
Break up From Crazy: A Break Up That Goes On For Ages
At the very mention of breaking up from crazy, they suddenly come back around and turn into Mr. Nice. or yes – Ms. Nice. She’s out there too!
Because of this, many of us try to end things many times before the final time and that’s perfectly okay. It really is. It takes as long as it takes.
Hopefully, we truly discover what this all was so that our cognitive dissonance and confusion can resolve. We all want to resolve each loss and heal the very specific trauma from this relationship that isn’t.
Let’s say you manage to tell them it’s over. The first issue is that they seem to not want to let go. They fight the break-up with an energy that’s light-years more intense than anything they applied to make things work.
We finally muster the courage to bring up the break-up and here they are sticking to us like chewed gum on the bottom of our flipflop. Where was all this togetherness months ago?
Breaking Up: Reaction Number One: Nice
Suddenly we find this self-focused person we’re trying to break up with is not ignoring us and is no longer ambivalent, nor emotionless. They’ve brought up the heat intensely, ramping up to keep us from our break-up goal.
They’re gonna whip out: Nice. Nice will be promises and slogans about how good we are together. This will be familiar. If they’re desperate enough they’ll throw in some begging. They might toss in something extra, tears.
When a pathological user is crying, take that as a guarantee that they’re in a tight position. In this scenario take this to mean that you’re very valuable to them as a resource.
Looking for support and answers? Recovery is filled with lightbulb moments. You’re not alone.
From their point of view hanging on and the histrionics make sense. Why would the person who’s using us – making use of us – for their own entertainment or other things easily let us go? Their interest in hanging on to us is primal and fundamental.
Now that you’ve mustered up the courage to leave or tell them to hit the road dig deep to understand the truth of their intense reaction.
The way they react to us breaking up with them is in direct relation to what they gain from us. As always the spot we fulfill in their “needs” determines how they behave towards us. It stands to reason that if they could they’d keep us all in a cupboard forever to pull out whenever they need something.
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.
On the other side of nice is mean. Once it seems we’re sticking to our guns about breaking up, the user brings on the second tool in their arsenal: Mean.
This is where they insult us and criticize us, and for some, this is when the violence comes in. They like to tell us we’re imagining things and that all the malarkey is our fault. This is what many people refer to as gaslighting.
Everything They Do Serves One Basic Purpose
Whatever we call it, this opposition, this word salad, nonsensical, crazy-making, gaslighting soup is extremely simplistic in purpose. Hold on to your hats for this one: insulting and telling us we’re imagining things has the same purpose as being nice. So, what’s it about? It’s to get us to shut up. This is all hot air and their own fear packaged into mean so that we don’t break up – in this case.
Here’s what’s going on: They respond with nice or mean depending on our importance to them in that particular moment. Just imagine for a split-second that love’s got nothing to do with it, even if they say it does.
Hold your own hand now, and just for a sliver of time imagine that even though we think they love us… Breathe into the idea that maybe their love isn’t what we think it is. Let that marinate for a flash of a sliver of time.
Questions open up the door to another world of answers: For example, what if we feel and see what’s between ourselves and them as love – because we’re made of love – rather than because they can genuinely express love or feel love?
Questions Bring Answers: But Which Question?
Ask yourselves, rather than, Why doesn’t he do this-instead-of-that? Or, Why does he say these things? For one millisecond ask, What if he doesn’t actually love me? Yep. Try that on. Think about it, What if he doesn’t…? Not even if he brings on the waterworks and cries like a baby. What do things look like then? Is there more room for an answer to their actions?
If you’re the gateway to a group of people they want to use, they’ll hold on hard.
There are answers; there are logical reasons it’s hard to break up with them: We may come to a place where we realize that within their minds we each fill a spot that answers their varying needs and nothing more.
Users Use Others For Everything They Need
What they respond to in a break up is in accordance with their needs. If you’re key to them for a cozy place to sleep, or as a resource for money, access to a car, the internet, or a place to shower: They’re gonna balk at parting ways. When you’re the one thing that makes them seem respectable to others, they’re going to hang on.
We can learn to do what needs to be done, and say what needs to be said so that they can hear and understand, and so that they respond in the way that we need things to be for a change. Flip the tables.
For example, if it’s their parents who give them money or give them a stamp of approval that keeps them looking normal to the world, the pathological user (aka sociopath, aka narcissist) will hold on hard. If you’re the gateway to a group of people they want to use, they’ll hold on hard.
When we’re the place they eat, shower, hang out, get high, surf the internet, watch porn, jack off, sleep, brood, get their laundry done, are the address on their driver’s license, and serve as their home front to the world. Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you hang on too?
Holding on for Goods and Services, Access to Others, or Respectability
They hold on hard if you’re the roof over their heads. When they have no one else ready on the side that they can quickly move in with, it’s us or the streets. Additionally, they hold on to us hard if this break up will make them look bad to someone else who provides something important.
A break up awakens the natural (for them) instinct to hold on to and continue to monitor their prey. Monitoring us is what hoovering is all about. In their minds it’s for their own safety.
Their point will be to get us to stop trying to break up. They want to get us to back off the break-up. to achieve this they’re going to use one or both of the only two tools a user has: Nice and mean. That’s all they got. – News flash: They aren’t geniuses or master manipulators.
The goal behind using these two tools is very simple. Because they need a place to stay, and along with that, likely a shower and that food in your fridge. To keep from being tossed out, they’ll be either nice or mean or more likely, a combination of both or a flip-flop between both.
Break-Up Avoidance on Their Part
So, it’ll be more promises; they hope the promises hit the spot in us emotionally leading us to soften and let them stay. Or they whip out accusations. They hurl insults. If this sparks guilt or shame or confusion or fear that it might lead us to cave. Either “nice” or “mean” can lead us to acquiesce and let them stay.
In Days of Plenty, We May Be of Little Value
On the other end of things, if they have plenty already, a breakup could potentially go more easily. If they have another place to hang out and play video games, they might easily walk away. If they have a “fiancé” eager to move them in… Well hells-bells, as my grandmother used to say, they’ll be gone before we can blink. – They can walk away so easily that we’re stunned.
Even so, their reaction to us ending the roller coaster with a breakup awakens the natural (for them) instinct to hold on to and continues to monitor their prey. Monitoring us is what hoovering is all about. In their minds, it’s for their own safety.
Looking for support and answers? Lightbulb moments.
Breaking Up is Gut-Wrenching
The truth is, breaking up with a pathological predator, a sociopath (quite likely that one you’re thinking of as a narcissist) is gut-wrenching and horrifying.
Here’s the thing: Just as “normal” behavior and thinking didn’t make anything better while we were “together”. Nothing normal is going to work in the breakup. Learn how to be, and do, and say what maneuvers them from our lives. Behaving and thinking from our point of view of “normal” will not work out well for us.
We can learn to do what needs to be done, and say what needs to be said so that they can hear and understand, and so that they respond in the way that we need things to be for a change. Flip the tables.
Break Up 101: Leaving and Lying: Break Up With Crazy
Here’s a bit of a start to what we can do… Leave ’em: Act as if everything is peachy. Have that (last) pizza together and then without them knowing it’s over, makes this pizza night your last contact.
Kiss ’em goodbye and then block them. Silence… Not a word to them. The effect of no contact is the hugest message we can send. This is not a message they haven’t “heard” before. Zillions of people have gone no contact with them before you.
Lie: Another option is one where we outright lie. Have that “break-up” talk and scenario. And tell them: You’re so great. I know it’s all my fault. – We’re lying.
When we say this line, we don’t really feel this way about all the malarkey that’s gone down. But say this or your version of this so that we aren’t seen as a threat to them. Their perception is that when we break up, then we’re a threat. When we end it they think we just might tell everyone how horrible they are.
“Normal” takes responsibility, and many times even when there is no responsibility to be taken. This is the true place for boundaries. We are not responsible for their inhumanity.
Users don’t want us to tell others how horrible they are. Not wanting us to blow up their house of cards existence… They know their life is glued together with our “normal”; with our great goodness and true-blue realness. They do get it that they and their life is BS. – This is exactly what they ensnared us for: To hold their life together.
If we go around talkin’ – this would keep them possibly from grabbing onto other souls to make use of. And they really think that all the things they’ve done – even all that stuff we don’t know about – is going to come tumbling out of the closet. This fear of what we’ll do and say is part of why they hang on. And this fear is what the hoovering and all the smearing is all about.
We’re letting them think they’re amazing. This is deliberate. – this makes us a non-threat and leaves it easier for us to walk away without them hanging on or hoovering.
We know in our gut that we did nothing to make this person do the things they’re doing. We just didn’t. If sometimes you wonder if it was your fault. That simply proves that you’re normal and that you’re doing what “normal” does. We give second chances, and third chances.
“Normal” takes responsibility, and many times even when there is no responsibility to be taken. This is the true place for boundaries. We are not responsible for their inhumanity.
Break Up Bravery Takes Us Through It
Now that you’ve mustered up the courage to leave or tell them to hit the road dig deep to understand the truth of their intense reaction.
Hopefully, we truly discover what this all was so that our cognitive dissonance and confusion can resolve. We all want to resolve each loss and heal the very specific trauma from this relationship that isn’t. ‘Cause you are real. You are normal, and you get to be exactly what you are, which is beautiful inside and out.
Add these to your contacts so you don’t miss a newsletter! jennifer@truelovescam.com info@truelovescam.com
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.
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.
Closure with a sociopath isn’t something to hold our breath over. So many of us crave closure; an apology. An explanation. An end to the ending.
This is a guest post by a true love scam recovery reader. she decided to write the apology she wanted from him. She shares that letter here… Here’s what she wrote for herself, to free herself with her own apology — the one that will never come from a sociopath – and if it does– they’re lying.
By E.R.
The Imaginary Apology from the Lying Sociopath
From E.R. to us: This is the apology letter I wrote to him, right after my break down. I sent it to him, asking him to read it to me. He never did. Instead, I gave him another 6 months to hurt me. It’s hard to accept that I still have loving feelings for someone who only hurt me. I think I just need some time.
Dear E,
I’m so sorry for the pain I caused you. I did not think of the consequences to you from my actions and my choices.
I couldn’t lose your help, so I kept hiding secrets to keep you around. I’m sorry. I thought you’d never know certain things and that it would be enough for you to be happy. I’m sorry I pushed this too far.
I apologize for everything I did and still do to you…
I apologize for hiding that I had a FB account, the first lie you found out and forgave…
I apologize for:
Rejecting you many times as a friend on my FB after you found out
Hitting on Sandra in front of your eyes and for not admitting it
Asking you for money
Promising I would pay you back when I knew I would never do that
Forgetting your birthday
Switching off my phone without caring about you
Cheating on you with Pauline
Telling her exactly the same things I said to you
Making plans for the future with her while I was with you
Putting pressure on you to bring me to Europe – and then…
Canceling after you planned the trip so I could be with Brie
Cheating on you with Ava
Cheating on you with all the womenI never told you about
Making you beg me for answers I should have begged you to listen to
For making you look like a fool with everyone who saw me with other girls
Not using condoms and giving you two diseases
Teasing you about your body shape
Promising you many times that I would change
What I did with Kate
Bringing her to your home
Contacting Rosanna and hiding it from you
Not giving you the attention and love you deserve
Wasting two years of your life waiting for love I do not feel and cannot give
Blaming you for my troubled life
Sucking up your savings
Not celebrating your birthday
Never buying you a present, flower to show appreciation for you
Searching for Ava again as soon as you left
Saying that I am single
Chatting and for texting with girls in an intimate way
I apologize for Marilyn
Letting you live my lie
Not being the man I told you I was
Leaving you behind with such pain in your heart
Contacting Pauline again yesterday
Manipulating you and playing with your vulnerability
Blaming your pain on you and telling you that you enjoy feeling like a victim
Moving on so fast and so easy
Telling you that I loved you
Making you fall in love in with me
Not being able to change for you
Not writing this letter myself
I apologize, Sheldon
Thank you E.R. for sharing the rough steps along the way of healing.
We End It: They Don’t
Sociopaths offer no closure. They are unable to love and have no feelings of remorse. An apology is something they will never make. They feel no regret, shame, or guilt. There’s only one thing they’re sorry for: that they didn’t get more from us. Closure is ours to find.
Add these to your contacts so you don’t miss a newsletter! jennifer@truelovescam.com info@truelovescam.com
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.
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.
No contact is the pathological users’ Achilles heel. When we don’t respond it scares them to pieces. That’s why they rage.
In a sociopath’s perfect world, there would be no such thing as no contact. Without contact, they have nothing. The thing is, for a narcissistic predator, their agenda is only possible with contact. The more consistent and deep the contact, the more harm we’re in for.
Pathological predators, that is a sociopath, or what you might be calling a narcissist, depend on keeping contact for their success. Their success is measured, by them in what they get, what they can take and what they can do and how little we oppose them.
Contact Keeps the Hunt Going
They must keep contact in order to get what they want and when we’re in contact, we’re balls of emotions. We’re in confusion and off balance which means there’s an open door for them straight into our lives. The success of their mind-bending effect on us is only possible through contact.
No contact is our freedom. Safety and freedom from a narcissistic user, a sociopath depends on establishing and keeping no contact. – Let’s look at the effect of contact from the first hello, to the day we go no contact.
In the early moments we meet them for the first time, they bombard us, overwhelm us, spin us off the ground, and into “love” with them. This is a quick process. Once they hook us, they need to keep yapping whenever they notice that the hook is slipping.
We take their words at face value. This is normal. Normal and natural for us, as fully functioning limbic-brained humans. In other words, it’s normal for us to believe what people say, to trust, bond, care, and feel connected.
The unfortunate thing we don’t know at this point is that the meaning of the words of this pathological predator is not found in the words themselves. Their words don’t have a normal meaning or a normal subtext. This is because their intention and their goal and purpose for being in our lives are far, far from normal… And love has nothing to do with it.
Their intention in our lives is not represented by the nice things they say… Nor by the mean things they say. Underneath it, all is a desire and purpose we can’t even imagine… And they need it this way.
They don’t want us to understand their actual meaning. In this effort they make sure, as best they can, to fake their intent and meaning. And they do their best to keep others from tipping us off. So, they separate us from family and friends. They keep us away from people who aren’t under their spell and see that they aren’t what they’re pretending to be.
They Separate Us from Others Who See Through Them
Everything they say is in hopes of their very simplistic and unwavering needs and wants. This is instinctive, it’s literally how their brains are wired, while a lot of other normal human things are missing from their brains. One of the qualities of their limited brains is limited language skills.
Even if they learn some big words and can string a long sentence together it’s nonsense. They usually use very short sentences. Even three-word sentences to nail us in place. Understanding the effect of their words on our emotions and thoughts is essential. They can’t have anyone interfering with the effect of their words upon us. This is a reason they separate us from our family, our friends, and others.
Please put aside the common interpretation that this isolation or separation is done out of their jealousy. It’s that they can’t have others alerting us to how full of hot air, and how creepy and weird they are. This is why the sociopath immediately creates an “us and them” existence.
The Subtle Separation
One such example… My sister lives three miles down the road for me. At the root of things, we’re very close. Really tight. We grew up almost as twins, yet we’re very different in relational dynamics. I’m open and smiling and laugh easily and talk to people everywhere I go. She’s more reserved, can seem stern, and isn’t as warm. She also doesn’t reach out the way that I do… So:
The fraudulent lying dirtbag I married used to say, your sister doesn’t love you. She didn’t even call you back. Pinging on the fact that, indeed, it is me who keeps my sister and I connected. It takes me calling or texting her three times or so before she calls me back.
And, he wasn’t exactly wrong… I could count on fewer fingers than I have on one hand the number of times in my life that my sister has called me spontaneously.
Because of their uncanny quality that causes us to have an exaggerated experience of normal emotions, this comment tapped hard at a raw little place inside me. If a normal human had said this, I’d have said, my sister loves me, she’s different than I am in how she shows it, but she’d kill for me... And that would have been the end of it.
Instead – because he’s a sociopath – this sideways comment led me to quickly and inefficiently sort through my mind asking myself: does she love me? doesn‘t she love me…? she doesn’t…or..? In this way, here I was suddenly teetering on the brink of stepping into the mush of bottomless ruinous quicksand of believing him. – this is how our world changes because of what they are.
And for all the hate they have for us, because they need us, the narcissistic-user-sociopath will hold on as long as possible.
The sore spot of truth inside my life that this comment hit metaphorically knocked me to my knees in a deep psyche kind of way. When we’re under their spell, sociopaths can tap our core with a single comment due to their natural malevolent influence. This strike shocks us and leaves us breathless and vulnerable, self-doubting and confused.
In the case of my sister and I, she’s also brutally direct. I imagine he sensed she’d blow him down and break him into pieces. As it turns out she said to me when I kicked him out, I knew it! – She never liked him for one second and saw him as bad news. Naturally, he could read this. – Consequently, he drove in a separation.
Contact with us, and severing contact with our families and friends is how they drive the wedge in. They keep yammering to us at high velocity, they keep in contact via texts, Snapchat, and the like, even when they live with us! That’s as deep as they get. It’s only that. It’s how they keep inside our heads, hearts, and bank accounts; it comes down to one practical material thing: contact.
Throughout our “relationship” (the one we think we’re in together) their attention comes in cycles related to what they perceive as how deeply or loosely we’re bound-in to them. They spike attention to reel us back in from time to time. Routinely they do an all-points-bare-minimum in maintenance.
When they sense we’re seeing through the smokescreen, they either pour on the nice in charm and promises or get mean becoming nasty, grumpy, and mad. Both nice and mean require contact and are bait to hook us in place.
As the sociopath’s weirdness, deception and betrayal come into focus, we want an end. We, as their prey, want out of the nightmare.
If it’s nice they offer something, make a promise…Or even are simply neutral. Our naturally good-hearted nature and the effects of their mesmerizing venom does the work. We interpret and imbue their off-handed glances, and bare-bones contact with deep and positive meaning, full of love and commitment and, so we stay in it. No such thing as genuine nice is happening, but thinking that it is, is normal.
If it’s mean they pick up as the tool, they use anger andscream out, we naturally react in fear and then stay out of this fear. Not to mention our sense of guilt, shame, and our confusion. This is normal. We all give them the benefit of the doubt and stay. Or we stay out of fear. This is the way it goes until that one moment when the spell finally breaks.
Every bit of any contact a sociopath makes is to take and use and keep taking… It’s bait, from the “love bombing”, the common term for the contact, that reels us in, to the lies and devastating gossip in the smear campaign. As well as during hat time in between, in the middle of the arc of the fraud… When they aren’t around, they disappear, they don’t answer or texts and we’re in unbelievable pain trying to make sense of it all through our normal human view of life.
Breaking Up With Evil
Breaking Up with Evil: 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.
One thing about these predators we can’t forget: they can’t not be like this. And they do what they do 24/7. They’re on the prowl constantly. Out of our being normal humans, we give credit to their scanty presence, oh, he’s been so busy, and he called me finally, he must care! And, he left flowers at the door last night! He really does love me! – This is normal. – We’re under their spell.
And, alternately, fear of them freezes us right where we are, so we “stay in it”. This too is normal. It’s the natural normal effect of this type of predator upon us as normal humans, their prey.
We don’t understand why we believe their lies, and then we tend to blame ourselves long after for staying so long. Please don’t. There’s nothing about you that made this happen. You ge to be who you are… And you get to establish no contact because even one more millisecond of contact and access to rampage and ransack our lives is a millisecond too many.
Contact Means They Can Get Back In: Contact Is How Any and All of it Happens
When we want out, a sociopath’s drive to keep us in their grasp intensifies. Just as they smell fresh prey, they can sense it when we’re beginning to see through them to the point that things are going to end.
They know when we’ve caught a glimpse behind the veil of lies and they go to work to regain our trust, to keep us locked in place. Mean or nice…everything, all the things they do, is an attempt to keep things going and require: contact. They fear losing prey. They become enraged when we slip free.
Their Concern is Survival and Nothing Else
Out of the simple need for survival, antisocial psychopaths despise losing their bagged targets. And for all the hate they have for us – they need us – and the narcissistic-user-sociopath will hold on as long as possible.
It’s the things, the status, and the opportunities we provide that compel them to hang on with just enough contact. Thye swing back-and-forth, hot-and-cold, nice-and-mean, to keep us in place by our own emotional responses to them combined with our misunderstanding of what is actually happening.
Manipulation, Bait, and Tricks Ramp Up in the Fear of Losing Contact
Eventually, that day comes for us when the “magic” is gone, and so when they whip out their standard bait: make coffee for us or put air in the tires or murmur — again — without eye contact, you’re special to me. — This time, our emotional response is flat or numb. We can see them more clearly as the snake they are.
Stand up and protect our lives, even in this overwhelming disaster, don’t give in to defeat. Instead, only continue to build treasures of the heart.
There’s a moment for each of us when their signature weak and familiar gesture, is measured up against all the odd, the confusion, and just plain sad and it just isn’t enough. Suddenly, we are done.
As the sociopath’s weirdness, deception, and betrayal come into focus, we want an end. We, as their prey, want out of the nightmare. Once we say: I’m leaving or, you have to go, we’re treated to Mr. Hyde and narcissistic rage. — The big-bad-monster will not really leave our lives until we establish no contact.
Sociopaths and Narcissistic Users Fear No Contact
What do sociopaths fear losing when the jig is up? After “the well” has truly run dry, they fear losing their physical freedom and their “good reputation”. This deluded idea that they have a “good reputation” is something they think they need to keep intact so they can continue using others.
So, to keep tabs on what we say to others, they continue to hang on even if they “break-up” with us. As we’re breaking away and after contact is really important to them for three reasons.
We call this after “break-up” contact, Hoovering.It lands as texts, emails, and phone calls; it may be messages or notes on our car or on the door, and it’s scary. There are plenty of reasons that this is scary. It’s normal to be in fear of the narcissistic user after the “break up”. This is all a part of PTSD.
Breaking Away Means to the Sociopath We’ve Gone Rogue
Once we’ve stepped away from the pathologically narcissistic user isn’t sure if they’re safe anymore, We’re an unknown factor. – We’ve gone rogue.
Not only have they lost their entertainment, or your car keys, cell phone bill payments, their arm candy, or entree into a particular social group: they don’t know what we’re going to do about what they’ve done to us.
This is where “hoovering” comes in. For your safety, if they use actual words in person or by phone, at that moment go ahead and verbally apologize. Soothe them by saying one plain sentence like, I know…it’s all my fault…Not because this is true. But because it’s wisdom; it’s for your safety.
This simple utterance stops hoovering in many cases, as the nutter then believes you aren’t a threat. They are enraged that you broke away, but they believe they can now go freely about their gruesome ways.
This isn’t “enabling” them. They are what they are with or without you.
Don’t worry, you’re lying… but they’ll believe you. This isn’t because this is true. It’s because sociopaths aka narcissists believe anything we say and act on it as if it is true.
They only need to feel like they’re getting away with all the lies and scamming. Never give this kind of impression or apology in writing, only in spoken words. Let them think they can go freely. Let them feel at ease in exiting. They don’t want us, or their kids – and we don’t want them.
Be Sociopath or Psychopath and Narcissist Free Forever
Really, get the skinny on what’s happening, in your specific circumstances. There’s more to this than an article can convey.
For a clearer and faster pathway back to restoring your life, step into recognizing how amazing you are. This makes the dust settle faster, and the debris and damage fall at their feet where it belongs rather than at yours.
Stand up and protect your life, even in this overwhelming disaster, don’t give in to defeat. Instead, only continue to build treasures of the heart.
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