No-contact is outside our comfort zone.
It’s a new skill that our
wellbeing depends on.
No contact is extremely unnatural and feels completely weird. Cutting someone off isn’t our “normal”. Normal people don’t just ghost. As normal limbic-brained humans, our biological wiring compels us to connect and care.
There’s a deep internal connection thing that goes on spontaneously between ourselves and others. It isn’t easy for us to drop someone like a hot potato.
Continue readingOur worth is not in their hands.
They don’t devalue us; they can’t.
These clowns didn’t value us to begin with.
Repeat: our worth is not in their hands.
Devalue us…? There’s a popular lexicon delineating the ride with these jokers. It’s said they: love bomb, idealize, devalue then discard us. It sure feels like we were tossed out as last week’s rotting garbage, but.
What if there’s another way to think about this gut wrenching occurrence? One that helps us heal? What if there’s another angle that sets us free? Or are we going to let them hold all the cards? Do our emotions and feelings really explain what they were doing?
Continue readingWhen we see through the façade
we reach a moment when we want to
breakaway and end it.
Ending it with a narcissist or a sociopath is a very scary hell of its own. They seem so all-powerful and in control. In truth, sociopaths’ lives are shallow and transparent. They fall apart as we begin to glimpse their empty souls. The scary part is what they do to hang on.
They let us think we’re in a relationship and we feel we are. Therefore, naturally, we do what normal people do: We give it our all. And then as time passes we see that things aren’t adding up.
We’ve had enough promises, sob stories, chaos. Enough lies. When the malarkey outweighs the good we thought was there, we come to a point where we’re ready to toss out the trash.
Trash is all they are, but because we’re normal people, the thing is, it takes as long as it takes for us to absorb this. As they take what they want, lives are destroyed for their own survival and it not only doesn’t faze them, they take it as a personal accomplishment.
They spend our money. Want sexual things we don’t. Include us. Exclude us. Entrust us. Suspect us. Play sick. Stay out late. Keep us from our family or friends. Don’t work. Are gone a lot.
They pretend to work very hard. Don’t answer our texts. Don’t pick up our calls. Block us from their Facebook. Keep us from our faith. Cry fake tears. Lie even more. And more. Then lie some more.
We begin to not quite believe them… We have doubts. We then rationalize more, because that is normal. And then, more doubts, more nuttiness…. And then. Snap. No more. Nope. The spell breaks. This is when it’s suddenly more terrifying to stay than to leave.
Making your way out? Find the safest, swiftest way back to yourself.
If you’re not convinced these are scams rather than relationships, read these words from a self-professed sociopath about how we can get how to get rid of them. They want out too.
They know each scam will end, and if we want them out before they fail and bail – which most people think of as being devalued and discarded – but is not in fact what’s happening at all… We can do this:
“The best thing to do is to make the breakup seem like it was his or her choice. Like with ticks or other parasites, you want to “poison the well” so the sociopath willingly leaves. Become a helpless, emotionless, reactionless burden. Start being useless or contrary, without being openly defiant… Pretend you’re tired, sick, depressed, say you forgot your keys, you forgot to feed the goldfish, be incompetent but make everything seem like an accident. If the sociopath gets mad, say sorry, but don’t fight back. Say “I don’t know what’s come over me.” Have long phone conversations with your mother or other people the sociopath hates. In general, let yourself go completely and be as intolerable to live with as possible without being confrontational. After about three months (give or take), the sociopath will be out of your life. You should be in the clear after your sociopath has been gone three to six months. By that time the sociopath will not need you to satisfy any of her basic needs.”
~ Advice on how to make them leave, from a sociopath
Here are guidelines to end it with a sociopath safely and as quickly as can be and with the least fallout. There will be fallout. We will be frightened. It will feel like eons before they go. After they go we’ll go through post-traumatic stress. Doing nothing would be much, much, much, much, much, much, much worse. We can protect ourselves. We can take immediate action. We can end this.
You’re going to become useless. Cut off goods and services. The sociopath will be baffled, taken aback, and pissed….That dinner isn’t on the table so to speak. And leave within weeks. Keep loving. Keep living like a real human. We are awesome. You are awesome.
As unbelievable as it might seem, sociopaths are each and all alike. Identical tactics and the same limited thinking. We can use their weaknesses to get them gone. – You might be thinking of them as a narcissist and reading up on narcissists – that’s okay, but if you’ve been lied to or used for your money, they won’t lift a finger, and they have stopped being physically intimate with you… That’s a sociopath laying up there on your couch.
Keep our plan to ourselves. Protect ourselves and our belongings immediately – secretly. Don’t hesitate. Do this now. Why…? – Because sociopaths steal and destroy at the end. They’re thieves. And liars. Psychopaths like to take things like a dog pissing on a fire hydrant – just to say: I was here. They want last-minute funding, a car, a credit card – and to leave us holding the bag.
They steal or sell identities. Do they all steal? Every time? If they feel like it – yes. They have no conscience. No guilt. No love. They’re criminals. And they’re mean. Better to protect ourselves than be tragically sorry.
Remove all of the following from your home to a safe location such as a friend’s house, your workplace, or a safe deposit box. Use this checklist:
You don’t believe they’d steal…? Think again before it’s too late. Protect yourself.
If we’re married to them, in eight states within the United States, all of our belongings – belong to them. They can take them and do anything with them if we’re married. Really. They call it community property. — This works both ways, what’s theirs is ours.
There’s another thing called common property. Look up your state. If he or she steals while you’re married chances are nothing is a police matter or considered a crime. – Take care of ourselves.
Take your property. Whether married or not, transfer your personal savings and checking to another account. You can open a new account in a new bank or whatever feels most secure. Sociopaths steal. Consider getting a Post Office Box and redirecting all your mail there.
There’s nothing wrong or lacking in you that made this happen.
Here’s what I did: Hands shaking I took his credit cards out of his wallet. – MY credit accounts that I’d made him an “authorized user” on – while he was in the shower. My heart was pounding out of my chest. Then – I lied. I said: The credit cards (three cards altogether) had been canceled by the card companies for going over the limit. –
He’d taken them over the limit – but I made no accusation, I gave no detail, no other explanation – I said it apologetically, but with conviction. I said I did it to protect him – I said if he used them in public they’d be confiscated by the retailer and, with a pathetic fake concern for him I passively whined, I wouldn’t want you to be embarrassed like that.
It absolutely worked: they believe anything you say. Was it scary…? Yes. Terrifying. I was saving my life.
Then a few days later I lied again. I said I’d lost my wallet so the checking account debit card had been canceled. I stopped putting my paycheck in our joint bank account – then I closed it. – Guess what? He knew how to reopen it.
I had to have the bank keep an eye out for 24 hours to make sure it stayed closed. I watched him stay in the game no matter what lie I told. The surreal mounts, but now we’re in control. Ride it out. The way will open.
Here’s the thing: sociopaths make all kinds of preposterous claims as they lie their way through life. – Amazingly I found I could say anything and he played along as if it were true, though I was sure he knew it wasn’t.
I’d stumbled on sociopath-magic-rules-of-engagement: any lie is true. It was almost a high to fly so near the fringes and outsmart this being I now called in my head: The Monster. It was pure improvisation – life-saving improvisation on my part… it was normal live-by-the-seat-of-his-pants-all-is-a-lie for him.
Underneath it, we both knew our dynamics were shifting like silently colliding tectonic plates deep within the foundations bringing inescapable unpredictable and life-threatening upheaval that I determined – no matter what – would settle as a forced departure for him – and freedom for me.
Passwords and PINS and logins. Change them. All. If we can – block him or her on social media. As in using the actual “block” function on Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, and all the rest. They won’t be notified, but they’ll also no longer see any of our Facebook, or other social media activity. – We also will not be able to see theirs. It’s called going no contact.
Become absolutely useless to them. If we usually make dinner. Stop. If we normally take out the garbage and make the bed. Don’t. Forget his dry cleaning. Stop doing his laundry or leave it lumpy and half-damp in the laundry basket. Passively, quietly, humbly, meekly, say, “Oh, my gosh. I’m so sorry, hon.” And nothing else. Period You just gave a lifesaving Academy Award-winning performance. Keep it up.
Forget his favorite food. Sleep late, Stop cleaning. Disappear after work without calling him. Leave the car without gas. Forget to pay the internet bill – tell him it’s being shut off. Tell him your savings account is empty. Don’t talk at home. Keep to yourself. Sleep. Go into your room. Leave unexpectedly. Talk to your sister even though they hate it when we do.
Do whatever truly lifts you up and leads to breakthroughs. Go back to church if that was your thing pre-nutbag. Or step into meditation, wok out, make art, attend your book club meetings, or whatever faith or strength-giving endeavor they tried to stop you from practicing. When they talk look away, bored. Walk out of the room.
Think about replacing, swapping out the time you spent with them for an activity that you love… Something else. When they ask: Have something else to do at the times you used to spend with them. Add to that, zero cash to hand out. Pay no more of their bills. Simply say: Oh, gosh. Sorry, hon, implying vapid, passive stupidity on your part. Say nothing else. That tiny line will do it all. Delivering that kind of deflecting new reality for your safety and to maneuver them out of your life means you just graduated to “expert in deceiving a sociopath.” Be proud.
Consider carrying a change of clothes and overnight things or having spares at work. Just a precaution. – Again this is without their knowledge. – If the sociopath invading your life is already violent with you – all the more so take this precaution.
Make extra house keys. Give some to a really trusted good friend who had no connection to the sociopath. If you’re leaving the clutches of an actively violent sociopath please check with professional advisers on domestic violence.
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2016_02_13 2023_08_05
Recovery from a con man.
We’re gob-smacked by the discovery our significant other is
a human-soul-ransacking, life-sucking,
parasitic-destroyer.
Recover from a con man…? Wow. I mean…how did this become something we need to know about? This discovery that these shape-shifting beasts of evil exist is nothing we’d ever have imagined for our lives.
For many, the idea that someone would lie to them has not crossed their mind. And then to discover that potentially an entire relationship is a lie…? This is the hardest thing we’ll ever do, no doubt about it.
I had so many questions about this phenomenon and found, realized, and discovered answers to every one of them. The recovery and reassembling your life isn’t easy. It takes courage. You will discover how incredibly amazing you are as a fully normal human. – And that all the things you did, said, hoped for, and were confused by are absolutely normal.
We can, you can recover from a con man or the female version of these creatures. Though it’s a winding and challenging and unknown road, have no doubts, after the traumatic fake-lationship, PTSD, and healing we rise.
What is recovered enough for you?
There are four phases we pass through
going from hell to normal again.
You can come away from this joyful again. You will smile and you will laugh for that genuine place once again. By being thrown into the fire we can forge ourselves to reveal our greater selves.
The most common term used to talk about these life thieves is “narcissist”. This is unfortunately another confusion within the confusion. The reason I say this is because there are people who are narcissistic in this pathological sense in which this person is driven by the way their brain is designed to live as a parasite – to use others rather than connect and care.
Then, there are also people who are narcissistic but not of this pathological, evil mind. When both are called “narcissists” there are some truly unfortunate misunderstandings in the way that prolong or prohibit recovery. I will say, that by taking in the full and whole scope of what a sociopath is, the people who are merely dysfunctionally narcissistic also come into clearer light.
If you’ve resonated with the experiences described on my website, you’ve been embroiled and entangled by the pathological kind. The merely dysfunctionally narcissistic person, though sometimes mean or confounding and frustrating, is not motivated by this pathology of sociopathy.
As targets of a person of this pathology – the pathologically narcissistic, we’ve been targeted by an ASPD, antisocial personality disorder, or what is called an antisocial psychopath in colloquial terms, a sociopath.
As you unwind this and heal grieve, heal, and restore your life, you’re going to be amazed at the depths of emotion and power your life has. And the same applies if you’ve been dragged through hades by a person you’re calling a narcissist. Same thing.
The prime traumatic event is recognizing the person we love is a monster. This is really a jolt to every bit of our being. We take a physical, mental, and emotional hit. To take in the idea that our life has been a total and complete lie for the length of time we have been married or to living with and in love with or even simply dating this malevolent being is beyond imagining for those who haven’t been here.
As those who have, now know evil. We’re on a first-name basis with a demon that looks like a human. And here’s the good news. This really can become a benefit to your life. And this is meant on a profound level, not mere superficial optimism.
Right here, at this moment, we determine the outcome of this life-altering event. We can stand up. We take back ourselves and our lives. It’s up to us to find the pathway to resolving each loss, to grieving the loss of what we thought was real but wasn’t … and discovering how amazing we are and how our great human gorgeousness was never lost.
They need us, we do not need them – though that feeling we’ll die without them is elicited from the depths of our souls moments after being hooked in. This is another bizarre effect of the sociopathic-zap.
We have this moment – here, right now – to vow to be victorious in our lives in a way we never would have been without this crisis. This is a bit of a new idea, I’d imagine. This doesn’t mean, “this had to happen for me to be a success in life”. This is: Since this did happen, I’m taking it on and creating value out of it. Winning is our decision to make. It is in our hands.
What happens when we realize: The calls are coming from inside the house, as in every scary babysitter there’s-someone-in-the-house movie? What happens when the person we knock boots with is actually the monster? What happens is hell, but I don’t have to tell you that… What we do is decide to restor our lives
The first three words refer to stress after trauma. That “D” on the end, stands for “disorder.” Please don’t imagine that “disorder” is more than a clumsy word for meaning anything other than the normal and expected need to heal.
Think about it like this, if we break a leg are we “disordered”? Do we need psych drugs? Do we need antidepressants to be ourselves again?
Usually, we just need healing. Usually, family and friends, even neighbors rally around us with hot meals, pillows, and good books. It’s similar in the PTSD after a sociopath. But different.
We weren’t in relationships, these are scams, and that’s why there’s trauma. Don’t believe me… Read what these nasty creatures say about things like the death of a family member, or maybe their mom.
In true love scam recovery, it’s common that victims blame themselves. Self-blame is a trait of all post-traumatic stress. Survivors of plane crashes, fires, earthquakes, wars, and certainly wars and genocide suffer from this. In these instances, it’s called survivors guilt.
They beat themselves up with: Why did I live?! Why am I the one? Why did they die?! – Plagued with feelings of guilt that they could have done something differently to save others. Depression, weight loss, suicidal thoughts, despair, lethargy, exhaustion, physical illness, and grief become daily companions. Sound familiar?
We must actively participate, create, sculpt, define, demand, and find our recovery and restoration. Be aware of what you believe this all was… Sometimes it’s basic beliefs we’ve taken on about this that get in the way of restoring our lives.
For example, if you feel you need to “do the work“ on yourself and become a better person in order to recover, consider that you may be adopting and accepting ideas that place the blame for this happening at your feet.
This represents a skewed and inaccurate recovery model that will take you not to recovered but to more disappointment and despair, and bad feelings about yourself.
While self-improvement is fine, self-improvement or an improved self wasn’t lacking or needed as the cause or the preventative for this life-jacking you were dragged through.
Remember everything they did was about and for themselves. It has nothing to do with you.
Yes. Because post-traumatic stress is post-traumatic stress. We think we see him around the corner. These moments we weep, tremble and have nausea anticipating his next move or a court date. In turns we feel stupid, foolish, maybe even think it’s our fault – we aren’t and it isn’t.
One of the hallmarks of PTSD is having thoughts that have no place in the realness of life. This is a reason to not take our thoughts seriously during this time. To be patient. To embrace ourselves with compassion. We are beautiful.
Just like accident victims see the airline or car crashing all over again. Veterans hear the screams of battle we think we see them around the corner or across the street or turning left at the light ahead in traffic. Our survivor’s guilt is sometimes: Why did I let him do that to me? – Why? Because we’re human. Because we’re trusting, loving people – who believed a monster in disguise.
There’s no shame in being good. There’s no blame for not being clairvoyant. And news flash – real inside surreal: they didn’t do it to us. We could have been anyone. It wasn’t personal. There’s really nothing about us that made us attract or bring the conning scammer to us – nothing other than being a great person.
True love scam recovery takes specific care, just as with any other PTSD, healing takes time. We are not “disordered”, as in having a mental condition, in any other sense than in the need to heal.
The true love scam recovery cycle has ups and downs. Like any endeavor, there are steps forward and a tiny step back, move forward, back, further forward, and a bit back until we are fully healed.
Our physical, mental, and emotional health require restorative and rejuvenating care. Sleep, good nutrition, supplements like B and C, and adrenal support. Walking when we can. Yoga. Hiking. Swimming. Low-impact movement that gets oxygen flowing and our hearts stronger. Spend time only with family and those who love us. Friends who love us. Cuddle kittens and puppies. Don’t listen to love songs.
Blossoming from PTSD is possible! In complete healing, we rise up like the Phoenix from the ashes; creating a beautiful life because of having gone through the despair.
The word crisis in Chinese translates to opportunity. We can, in fact, rewire the synapses in our brains to erase and heal the trauma. There is nothing we could have done differently. What we do now, that’s the thing that matters.
A sociopath aka monster knows quite well that by being themselves, the lives of people they make use of and deceive are shattered into shards. They don’t understand what you’re going through. They don’t care about what you’re going through.
Find every answer.
They are precisely what they are and are severely limited in this. It’s their brain, wired with the inability to feel positive bonding emotions. Like a slithery reptile, they may take pleasure from lying in the sun, but also like a reptile they take pleasure in eating their prey, even their own children.
At times, I thought the malevolent being I married and I were sharing a laugh, a joyful moment, or a sense of accomplishment over a goal we reached together. None of this is true. Turns out, a sociopath and their target are constantly living in two different realities within the same moment. – We’re never in the room for the same reason.
I’d find myself laughing genuinely, joyful and happy when we accomplished something that was part of what we were trying to achieve. I was the only one.
He was laughing at the ease with which he was scamming me, sickeningly gleeful at his betrayal (not a betrayal in a sociopath’s mind – simply their right), and feeling exaggerated elation at a win behind my back, using me without my awareness. A story you know well if you’re on these pages.
They’re all the same. – There is no woman, man, or child on the planet they will ever treat genuinely well, they’re incapable. There is no living person on the planet – no other woman who will ever be loved, or loved more, or loved better by them. They do not love… anyone.
There is no woman better for them. There’s no man more suited to them. A narcissistic sociopath’s world – their entire existence – is hell for anyone near them. Learn to reframe the nightmare or you’ll not be free. you can recover from a con man.
Welcome to the club; you’re not alone! There are so many (too many) men and women in the aftermath of a hijacking. Each gorgeous one of you “replaced” even before they met you in essence. There are always several, maybe dozens of simultaneous true love scams going on. The parasitic, predatory sociopath aka narcissist juggles women and men like oranges or tennis balls.
You’re a source: of money, food, shelter, sex, respectability, connections, whatever it is they scammed us for. The sociopath who hijacked me, while we were married and living together as it turns out had at least the following.
Two other wives, 18 kids, three fiances, three other women he lived with, two women sending him money every month, one man sending him money every month, another man sending him $2,000 at a time randomly here and there, nine girlfriends – all who thought he loved them and only them – and ten to fifteen satellite women – and men – at any given time. This is what they are. Even if we don’t discover it all, the rate of shocking information is higher than the sky.
You were, as I was, an ATM. And the thing about ATMs is that there’s always another one around the corner. Sociopaths and what you might think of as a narcissist live every day of their lives needing us. Or someone like us. Some human who thinks they’re normal. — That monster needs you for survival… not the other way around.
There’s a healing bright side to all this: It wasn’t personal. They didn’t do it “to us”. Bizarrely we could have been anyone. We are replaceable and interchangeable. So, cut him or her off in our hearts and we are free.
When I saw precisely how cruel, cold, calculated, and hideous this thing standing before me was, all care for him evaporated. 100% gone. Does this mean I was immediately okay? no. Not by a million miles. But I made myself okay. It took intuition, information, time, support, friends, and family, and won back in all ways what winning was in this nightmare for me. You can too.
Kick ’em in the behind and get them gone. Go no contact, be a non-threat. Then repair, rejuvenate and thrive! Embrace our lives. Beam the compassion and empathy, loyalty, and caring they targeted us for on ourselves.
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jennifer@truelovescam.com
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