Tag Archives: escaping a con man

We’re Not In Denial

We’re not in denial.
As my dad would say, that’s a river in Egypt.
But seriously.
No one deliberately stays here.
We don’t remain in the clutches
of a slimy sociopath on purpose.
Our goodness caught their attention,
our goodness sets us free.

Denial is a word that’s tossed around to represent a state of mind we’re supposedly in. And that explains how this nightmare went on for so long, or started in the first place. There are those who would say we were in denial and so the surreal, horror show continued to run through our lives as if we allowed it. These people who say this could not be more wrong.

We’re not in denial. No. In short, what happened is: we were deceived and bamboozled. This means we did not have full information.

There isn’t an even playing field. Firstly, none of us had full information that these creatures even existed. Secondly, we were lied too. Thirdly, normal people aren’t looking for a lie. We automatically trust; that’s one of the beautiful things about us all. And fourth, and most significant of all, we’re under the spell of the pathological predator.

Truth Scarier Than Fiction: We Heal From Truth, Not Lies

We were scammed pure and simple by a serial liar, user, taker, abuser life thief. The chasm between our intention and the pathological narcissistic user’s true intention only becomes clear over time.

It’s revealed by bits-and-pieces. We didn’t deny anything… except them and what they wanted, once we did see through it and take in the full horror of their true black heart.

Knowing the real deal truth is how we recover.

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Denial is Not in the House: a Monster Is

When we’re ensnared by a sociopath, there‘s a clashing of two worlds a great collide of two different brains, the mind of a sociopath (you might be calling them a narcissist) and the mind of a regular, normal, iambic brained person: you or me.

The pathological predator and users do their best to let us believe rather than a clash, that together we’re the best match on the planet. The best fit that any two people could ever be.

This is how they survive. The ability to bring this influence upon others is wired into their DNA. I call it the sociopath effect.

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It Takes as Long as it Takes

Mostly the whole mess is analyzed and judged and pronounced upon by those who have not been through it and interpret the phenomenon as if the sociopath – the perpetrator – has the determining view. This is nothing more than a type of mansplaining, victim blaming and just plain wrong.

We see this match made in heaven situation isn’t quite the case, as soon as is humanly possible. In no way do we leap to the conclusion that this person is a psychopath the first time they don’t call us back or are unreachable.

Not only can people not see something they don’t know is in existence such as users who are pure evil, these exist in the movies, not real life.

Our human body and physiology are amazing. It’s designed to keep us safe. In trauma, our bodies and minds protect us, and so let the truth be seen in bite-sized pieces so that we don’t lose our sanity.

After true love scam our eyes are wider open than most. And we know more than most; certainly more than people who tell us we allowed it and we’re in denial. Let your body do its thing.

The very, very courageous take on recovering, healing, seeing what the real-deal is in pieces. Take it in in bits that you can take… It takes as long as it takes. Tell those blamers and shame-ers to step off.

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PTSD is Normal After a Narcissistic Sociopath

We’re not permanent victims scarred for life. We’re not to blame for being snagged and conned by a lying sociopath who gives us every excuse in the book for why they do this. These are not the only two options. — Though – sometimes — it seems to be as we try to find our way out of the maze.

There are piles of mainstream answers to this hideous crime. Including that we, as targets invited it through our past abuse issues or our relationship issues and that we stayed because we were in denial.

How about we look at it from another direction? From our eyes. Let’s stop letting people outside the experience define what happened. Let’s look at it from the eyes of the prey of a sociopath.

This perspective takes a whole different set of words to define it. – Not for the sake of frivolous semantics, but because of a very real variance in meaning.

We Are Not in Denial: We’re Amazing

You see, definitely more fanciful descriptors – these come from the influence of watching many Johnathan Strange and Dr. Norell episodes on late-night Netflix binges that stopped my anxious brain from thinking in the early days of recovery and rocked me to sleep, and still reflect the real-deal of being in one of these hellish circuses of a true love scam… the day-time-wide-awake, hall-of-mirrors-nightmare of living hijacked by a sociopath.

Unless someone’s been dragged by their heart and soul through this, they have no idea. None. None of us “in it” are in denial, or willfully resisting seeing what they are.

To think that anyone could imagine or imply that we’re willfully and knowingly, in the mess we’re in and choosing to ignore it means they have no clue. We’re each in something we can’t possibly recognize: who knew what a sociopath was before all this?

No One Can See Something We Don’t Know Exists

For anyone who’s not been hijacked by a sociopath, these descriptors might sound absurd. It may be what inspires, ohhhh… hmmm, yes. She’s in denial. – And other wholly off the mark, and utterly compassionless, and just plain rude remarks from onlookers and others, who we might think would know better.

To those under the spell, these are quite accurate descriptions that bring about our freedom. With this look at things, we feel less crazy. We might let out a sob of relief, Oh, my god! That’s it! That’s exactly what it is!! – And a little slip of hope eeks through the fog of the sociopath-madness we’re trapped in.

There’s a Mesmerizing that Leads People to Drink the Kool-Aid

I realize what I’m about to say here isn’t popular to say… It’s a contemporary popular belief that humans make choices about well, everything. Here’s a hard fact: none of us are with a sociopath by direct or informed or conscious choice.

We do get away from them by choice. And this’s an important part of this circumstance. Somehow most of the world focuses on wondering how we stumbled into it, why we stayed, ie: How could we have been so stupid?

therapy ptsd narcissistic abuse recovery Jennifer Smith

Decide Your Understanding of This Event

Let’s be real here, let’s not base our understanding of what we’re experiencing – the how’s and why’s of it, in the ideas and perceptions from something else: namely the ideas and perceptions of those who’ve not experienced it.

This is nothing more than a type of mansplaining, victim-blaming and just plain wrong. – And, come one now… Most of our judge-ie acquaintances, coworkers, neighbors, friends or family didn’t know this existed until we walked into it. So, come on now… They aren’t suddenly experts.

The Traits That Attract a Sociopath To Us: Save Us

The very same goodness of heart that makes us attractive to a sociopath is what we then flip – and bring to life exponentially – to get safely and completely away. There, there is the real thing.

It takes a colossal effort. Courage, wisdom, persistence, patience, bravery to break from a kind of bondage; from an entrapment so immense it can’t be understood unless it’s been experienced.

Know This: If someone says it’s your fault, let them know they’re out of step; that evolution of humankind has progressed. Victim blaming is over. No, we’re not in denial. We’re believers in love. We believed that this involved love – until we didn’t. And now that we don’t – watch out. When we see it for the crime it is, there’s no place for the scamming-scum to run.

You Have to Live Through It to Understand It

The break-away from a sociopath is intense and so life-shattering it can never be understood unless you too are an escapee. – And that my friends, does not signify a weak victim, a codependent-door-mat, a denial or any such nonsense.

It signifies some of the hugest power, determination, and strength on the planet. We are awesome. We’re superheroes. We’re our own angels.

You Can’t Deny Something You Don’t Know Exists

Nope. We’re not in denial. If you don’t know this phenomenon exists, you can’t see it. And fortunatley when in it and after, our glorious bodies innately know a human can’t handle the monumental stress that comprehending this entails all one go. So – yes – clarity is meted out in doses only a beatific human of great empathy and love could handle.

Even tiny doses of what we went through would break anyone else. No, denial is nothing more than a river in Africa. A raging, pernicious river that every life stealing, narcissistic con man needs to be thrown into without a life jacket.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

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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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Sociopaths, Users, and No Contact

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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.

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The First Contact is What We Call “Love Bombing”

In the early moments we meet them for the first time, they bombard us, overwhelm us, spin us off the ground, and into “love” with them. This is a quick process. Once they hook us, they need to keep yapping whenever they notice that the hook is slipping.

We take their words at face value. This is normal. Normal and natural for us, as fully functioning limbic-brained humans. In other words, it’s normal for us to believe what people say, to trust, bond, care, and feel connected.

The unfortunate thing we don’t know at this point is that the meaning of the words of this pathological predator is not found in the words themselves. Their words don’t have a normal meaning or a normal subtext. This is because their intention and their goal and purpose for being in our lives are far, far from normal… And love has nothing to do with it.

Their intention in our lives is not represented by the nice things they say… Nor by the mean things they say. Underneath it, all is a desire and purpose we can’t even imagine… And they need it this way.

They don’t want us to understand their actual meaning. In this effort they make sure, as best they can, to fake their intent and meaning. And they do their best to keep others from tipping us off. So, they separate us from family and friends. They keep us away from people who aren’t under their spell and see that they aren’t what they’re pretending to be.

They Separate Us from Others Who See Through Them

Everything they say is in hopes of their very simplistic and unwavering needs and wants. This is instinctive, it’s literally how their brains are wired, while a lot of other normal human things are missing from their brains. One of the qualities of their limited brains is limited language skills.

Even if they learn some big words and can string a long sentence together it’s nonsense. They usually use very short sentences. Even three-word sentences to nail us in place. Understanding the effect of their words on our emotions and thoughts is essential. They can’t have anyone interfering with the effect of their words upon us. This is a reason they separate us from our family, our friends, and others.

Please put aside the common interpretation that this isolation or separation is done out of their jealousy. It’s that they can’t have others alerting us to how full of hot air, and how creepy and weird they are. This is why the sociopath immediately creates an “us and them” existence.

The Subtle Separation

One such example… My sister lives three miles down the road for me. At the root of things, we’re very close. Really tight. We grew up almost as twins, yet we’re very different in relational dynamics. I’m open and smiling and laugh easily and talk to people everywhere I go. She’s more reserved, can seem stern, and isn’t as warm. She also doesn’t reach out the way that I do… So:

The fraudulent lying dirtbag I married used to say, your sister doesn’t love you. She didn’t even call you back. Pinging on the fact that, indeed, it is me who keeps my sister and I connected. It takes me calling or texting her three times or so before she calls me back.

And, he wasn’t exactly wrong… I could count on fewer fingers than I have on one hand the number of times in my life that my sister has called me spontaneously.

Because of their uncanny quality that causes us to have an exaggerated experience of normal emotions, this comment tapped hard at a raw little place inside me. If a normal human had said this, I’d have said, my sister loves me, she’s different than I am in how she shows it, but she’d kill for me... And that would have been the end of it.

Instead – because he’s a sociopath – this sideways comment led me to quickly and inefficiently sort through my mind asking myself: does she love me? doesn‘t she love me…? she doesn’t…or..? In this way, here I was suddenly teetering on the brink of stepping into the mush of bottomless ruinous quicksand of believing him. – this is how our world changes because of what they are.

And for all the hate they have for us, because they need us, the narcissistic-user-sociopath will hold on as long as possible.

The sore spot of truth inside my life that this comment hit metaphorically knocked me to my knees in a deep psyche kind of way. When we’re under their spell, sociopaths can tap our core with a single comment due to their natural malevolent influence. This strike shocks us and leaves us breathless and vulnerable, self-doubting and confused.

In the case of my sister and I, she’s also brutally direct. I imagine he sensed she’d blow him down and break him into pieces. As it turns out she said to me when I kicked him out, I knew it! – She never liked him for one second and saw him as bad news. Naturally, he could read this. – Consequently, he drove in a separation.

Contact with us, and severing contact with our families and friends is how they drive the wedge in. They keep yammering to us at high velocity, they keep in contact via texts, Snapchat, and the like, even when they live with us! That’s as deep as they get. It’s only that. It’s how they keep inside our heads, hearts, and bank accounts; it comes down to one practical material thing: contact.

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No Contact Ends the Game

Throughout our “relationship” (the one we think we’re in together) their attention comes in cycles related to what they perceive as how deeply or loosely we’re bound-in to them. They spike attention to reel us back in from time to time. Routinely they do an all-points-bare-minimum in maintenance.

When they sense we’re seeing through the smokescreen, they either pour on the nice in charm and promises or get mean becoming nasty, grumpy, and mad. Both nice and mean require contact and are bait to hook us in place.

As the sociopath’s weirdness, deception and betrayal come into focus, we want an end. We, as their prey, want out of the nightmare.

If it’s nice they offer something, make a promise…Or even are simply neutral. Our naturally good-hearted nature and the effects of their mesmerizing venom does the work. We interpret and imbue their off-handed glances, and bare-bones contact with deep and positive meaning, full of love and commitment and, so we stay in it. No such thing as genuine nice is happening, but thinking that it is, is normal.

If it’s mean they pick up as the tool, they use anger and scream out, we naturally react in fear and then stay out of this fear. Not to mention our sense of guilt, shame, and our confusion. This is normal. We all give them the benefit of the doubt and stay. Or we stay out of fear. This is the way it goes until that one moment when the spell finally breaks.

Every bit of any contact a sociopath makes is to take and use and keep taking… It’s bait, from the “love bombing”, the common term for the contact, that reels us in, to the lies and devastating gossip in the smear campaign. As well as during hat time in between, in the middle of the arc of the fraud… When they aren’t around, they disappear, they don’t answer or texts and we’re in unbelievable pain trying to make sense of it all through our normal human view of life.

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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.

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No Contact Isn’t Normal or Easy for Normal People

One thing about these predators we can’t forget: they can’t not be like this. And they do what they do 24/7. They’re on the prowl constantly. Out of our being normal humans, we give credit to their scanty presence, oh, he’s been so busy, and he called me finally, he must care! And, he left flowers at the door last night! He really does love me! – This is normal. – We’re under their spell.

And, alternately, fear of them freezes us right where we are, so we “stay in it”. This too is normal. It’s the natural normal effect of this type of predator upon us as normal humans, their prey.

We don’t understand why we believe their lies, and then we tend to blame ourselves long after for staying so long. Please don’t. There’s nothing about you that made this happen. You ge to be who you are… And you get to establish no contact because even one more millisecond of contact and access to rampage and ransack our lives is a millisecond too many.

Contact Means They Can Get Back In: Contact Is How Any and All of it Happens

When we want out, a sociopath’s drive to keep us in their grasp intensifies. Just as they smell fresh prey, they can sense it when we’re beginning to see through them to the point that things are going to end.

They know when we’ve caught a glimpse behind the veil of lies and they go to work to regain our trust, to keep us locked in place. Mean or nice…everything, all the things they do, is an attempt to keep things going and require: contact. They fear losing prey. They become enraged when we slip free.

Their Concern is Survival and Nothing Else

Out of the simple need for survival, antisocial psychopaths despise losing their bagged targets. And for all the hate they have for us – they need us – and the narcissistic-user-sociopath will hold on as long as possible.

It’s the things, the status, and the opportunities we provide that compel them to hang on with just enough contact. Thye swing back-and-forth, hot-and-cold, nice-and-mean, to keep us in place by our own emotional responses to them combined with our misunderstanding of what is actually happening.

Manipulation, Bait, and Tricks Ramp Up in the Fear of Losing Contact

Eventually, that day comes for us when the “magic” is gone, and so when they whip out their standard bait: make coffee for us or put air in the tires or murmur — again — without eye contact, you’re special to me. — This time, our emotional response is flat or numb. We can see them more clearly as the snake they are.

Stand up and protect our lives, even in this overwhelming disaster, don’t give in to defeat. Instead, only continue to build treasures of the heart.

There’s a moment for each of us when their signature weak and familiar gesture, is measured up against all the odd, the confusion, and just plain sad and it just isn’t enough. Suddenly, we are done.

As the sociopath’s weirdness, deception, and betrayal come into focus, we want an end. We, as their prey, want out of the nightmare. Once we say: I’m leaving or, you have to go, we’re treated to Mr. Hyde and narcissistic rage. — The big-bad-monster will not really leave our lives until we establish no contact.

Sociopaths and Narcissistic Users Fear No Contact

What do sociopaths fear losing when the jig is up? After “the well” has truly run dry, they fear losing their physical freedom and their “good reputation”. This deluded idea that they have a “good reputation” is something they think they need to keep intact so they can continue using others.

So, to keep tabs on what we say to others, they continue to hang on even if they “break-up” with us. As we’re breaking away and after contact is really important to them for three reasons.

We call this after “break-up” contact, Hoovering. It lands as texts, emails, and phone calls; it may be messages or notes on our car or on the door, and it’s scary. There are plenty of reasons that this is scary. It’s normal to be in fear of the narcissistic user after the “break up”. This is all a part of PTSD.

Breaking Away Means to the Sociopath We’ve Gone Rogue

Once we’ve stepped away from the pathologically narcissistic user isn’t sure if they’re safe anymore, We’re an unknown factor. – We’ve gone rogue.

Not only have they lost their entertainment, or your car keys, cell phone bill payments, their arm candy, or entree into a particular social group: they don’t know what we’re going to do about what they’ve done to us.

This is where “hoovering” comes in. For your safety, if they use actual words in person or by phone, at that moment go ahead and verbally apologize. Soothe them by saying one plain sentence like, I know…it’s all my fault…Not because this is true. But because it’s wisdom; it’s for your safety.

This simple utterance stops hoovering in many cases, as the nutter then believes you aren’t a threat. They are enraged that you broke away, but they believe they can now go freely about their gruesome ways.

This isn’t “enabling” them. They are what they are with or without you.

Don’t worry, you’re lying… but they’ll believe you. This isn’t because this is true. It’s because sociopaths aka narcissists believe anything we say and act on it as if it is true.

They only need to feel like they’re getting away with all the lies and scamming. Never give this kind of impression or apology in writing, only in spoken words. Let them think they can go freely. Let them feel at ease in exiting. They don’t want us, or their kids – and we don’t want them.

Be Sociopath or Psychopath and Narcissist Free Forever

Really, get the skinny on what’s happening, in your specific circumstances. There’s more to this than an article can convey.

For a clearer and faster pathway back to restoring your life, step into recognizing how amazing you are. This makes the dust settle faster, and the debris and damage fall at their feet where it belongs rather than at yours.

Stand up and protect your life, even in this overwhelming disaster, don’t give in to defeat. Instead, only continue to build treasures of the heart.