Sociopaths, even though you
might be calling them “narcissists”,
must hook prey.
They’re constantly baiting…
Casting a “line” in order to hook prey.
Hooking prey is a user’s full-time job, no matter if you call them a sociopath or a narcissist. They hook prey with bait. Every time they open their mouth they’re tossing bait. Pretty much everything single thing they say or do is bait.
Continue readingEvery one of these hijackings is identical.
It seems impossible because we each think “our relationship” is unique.
How can we be sure to see the signs before it starts?
I was out the other day with my niece. She’s, you know, in that first blush of time when she and her friends are dating and the dating is shifting into forming relationships that, for some of them, might turn into lasting partnerships…
This particular day, as we wandered around window shopping, my niece was invested and passionate as she described a bad breakup her friend Olivia just went through.
As soon as she started talking about this “break up”… I knew. She described her friend’s heartache and confusion with confusion of her own. My niece was affected by the trauma and madness that her friend was under as a piece of a sociopathic entrapment. No question in my mind.
She said this break up of her friend’s – from her first real boyfriend, “doesn’t make sense“, that months later her friend “can’t get over it“, and how “it started great” And, here’s how she told me about it:
“So Olivia has this friend in New York she knows from school, so she went to see her and that’s where she met *him* – cause he’s her friend’s friend – and they were vibin’ and playing music all day together for two days, and after she left they’d Face Time each other and they were really just like a total match. He even looked like her! And… yah...”
Continue readingMonsters know they’re monsters.
Narcs know they’re sociopaths.
Sociopaths know they’re sociopaths.
We don’t need to act as if they don’t and aren’t.
That’s how we win.
Monsters know what they are. Monsters like who and what they are. And yet, we’re spinning here, seeing our world turn in circles and go nowhere but backward. Because that’s the natural effect they have on normal.
It’s the rest of us – the non-monsters – who have a hard time knowing they exist. The facts are, that monsters in “relationships” don’t want what we want. They aren’t there for the reason we are. Not for one tiny moment, not even one millisecond. Nothing is shamed mutual moment.
As any normal person would, when things first went wrong we defined what was happening through our normal ideas about relationships and our normal human point of view.
We’re normal and normal has its own special “lens” we use to look at the world. We might not think much about that, but it’s true.
We assume people are “good” like we are that all people share, for the most part, a core value system that is inspired by, “do unto others…”
Even if we disagree about big things like gun rights, abortion, immigration, or our favorite color. Even if we’re different in other ways we do feel there’s a shared baseline of “good” and rules we all follow about social behavior.
Unexpected answers and resolution.
We decide what winning is.
For this reason, as we fell down the rabbit hole, we naturally and blamelessly endowed the love of our life – the sociopath with a quality of humanity that unfortunately, does not exist inside their bodies, hearts, minds, or souls. (Even if you’re calling them a narc, narcopath, narcissist, psychopath, or any word.)
Innocently and with pure-hearted hope, we explained away their odd habits and missteps. We found and still find after they’re gone in many cases, reasons, or explanations for those bizarre reveals-from-behind-the-mask.
As normal humans with fully limbic “feeling-based” brains have room to think, maybe, that’s just the way they are. We might decide to give them space based on an “issue” we’d work on as a couple. We give them more time… That’s normal. Because we assumed that the “monster” was a manageable version of “normal”. That assumption is 100% normal and something we do as regular, normal people who bond and care, and connect.
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.
Antisocial personality disorder is the formal mental health diagnosis for what’s commonly referred to as “sociopathy.” People living with the condition are often labeled “sociopaths.” ~ Hope Gillette, Kendra Kubala, PsyD Psychology
Our natural understanding and compromising give them a hall pass to keep on stomping through our lives. We believed them when they told us about their childhood trauma that left them with PTSD or left them unable to be intimate. We believed their last girlfriend was crazy. This is because we’re good, not because of any special skill or intelligence they have.
When we love, we give. Monsters make use of, and take advantage of our goodness and our lack of really knowing and understanding that monsters exist. This is truly the psychopath’s only real intelligence.
When we fall in love involuntary changes go on in our bodies in we fall in that further mask the intentions and lies of the sociopath. Our zinging, swirling chemicals and altered state of excitement in a new relationship buy the sociopath time.
So, monsters, as in all they do, take advantage of what we are as fully limbic-brained humans. We don’t know about the parallel destructive existence shoving our lives in the wrong direction. They use the fact we don’t know the kind of creature that they really truly exist, let alone that it could be sleeping in our bed.
Our “not knowing” about these monsters, is the entirety of their power and “currency.” Since there’s a limited supply of “not knowing” on our part, their dominance and influence falter and they topple.
Monster-predators (sociopaths, psychopaths, and what people refer to as a narcissist) expect this shift from the first, “hello“. Sociopath-monsters do try to override it by getting angry or making more promises… this is so they can hang on as long as possible. It all only lasts so long. Because we’re not dumb. Sociopaths are dumb.
In between these roller-coaster ups and downs, they’re bored and fishing for a new target. – Their full emotional range is solely in reaction to their own perceived success at taking and using, keeping what they take, and going free.
Monsters have been here since the beginning of time. They’re even mentioned in classic American literature. The author and Nobel Prize winner, John Steinbeck contemplates the existence of sociopaths in his stunningly comprehensive and beautiful award-winning novel, East of Eden, published in 1952, and later made into a film starring James Dean.
A female sociopath comes into the lives of two unmarried brothers by chance. East of Eden tells the odyssey of the brothers’ lives and their children’s lives affected by this sociopath, who plays a minor character but drives their fate. Chapter eight begins:
“Just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?”
~ John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Narcissistic sociopaths need their emotional response or connection to survive or succeed. To put an end to our vulnerability to sociopaths understand how sociopaths think. Assess and judge what they do, based on their true intentions; use the thinking of a sociopath to evaluate what happened rather than our emotional brain and we set ourselves free.
As more and more of us individually and collectively comprehend what these humans without humanity are they will diminish, and their effect will be neutralized. Monsters know they’re different. They know that if we knew what they really were and are really up to, we would not accept them, this is why they hide.
As we see what they are, by contrast, we see how gorgeous a fully human person is. The human being as intended, not perfect, but filled with innate trust, goodness, and kindness, living a life interconnected and interdependent with one another.
This is surely the only way to give the existence of the monster-humans meaning or purpose and the way to transform our grief, loss, and pain into something good and to find ourselves more deeply appreciating life itself.
A single word can scar another.
A single word can also give comfort and relief or fill one’s spirit with courage.
The care with which we use words
reflects the depth of our humanity. ~ Daisaku Ikeda
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Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound
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2017_08_29 2023_02_17
Hoovering nut bags want to “stay in touch.”
But we hesitate, stuck in yet more cognitive dissonance.
We have decisions to make.
Hoovering narcissistic sociopaths (you might be calling them a narcissist without using the sociopath word, but whatever we call them they) keep up the masquerade up and the facade place as long as possible.
They do this even in the face of pure ridiculousness and obvious lying. They don’t care or mind if we know what they are…! Not one jot. They do care what we do once we know.
They mind very much if we “stay in” or bolt. If we kick them to the curb or leave the cookie jar open. If we tell others, or if we’re going to keep our mouths shut.
Any and all of this can only happen through contact. Hoovering is contact… and has the same motivation as any contact they’ve made since day one and the first hello. Isn’t this how the whole thing happened…? Them reaching out?
The real-deal answers and real information
changes the whole scary schemer.
Our stomach churns. They’re in our heads. They stay present at the surface and underneath every moment of the day. This is the antithesis of “over.” And if it isn’t over and zero contact, we’ve not yet put a solid step onto the long road of healing.
At this point in the sham, letting our phone ring with their reaching grasp is all-in from their point of view. If they can reach us, they consider us active prey. This is all it takes: buuzzzz-buuzzzz-buuzzzz. (That’s your phone buzzing.)
Do you feel that? Even the idea of that phone vibrating and jumping on the table is nauseating. Listen to your gut. Trust yourself. What they care about is that we’re still “all-in.” As long as we leave a portal open, the narcissistic user has a chance to seep their way back in. Or step on in. And stay in.
All it takes is one more buzz of a text, one more late-night call. Another email. Facebook messaging. WhatsApp…another call. – Give ourselves every advantage in healing. Peace of mind, a truly fresh start can’t begin when any portal from them to us is open. We block them, we change our number, and also begin again with a new email address.
Oh, I get it. We feel like our life has been turned upside down and, it has. What we want to do is take all our reasoning, and all our decisions and turn them into moments of self-care, embracing our own life and building our lives the way we want them to be.
This is separate from basing our decisions on “fear” or “love” for the sociopath or because of not yet accepting what they really are.
Take no responsibility or blame for the presence of these kinds of pathological predatory humans in your life. You’re not responsible for the inhumanity of a sociopath. Do take your healing and the restoration of your life into your own hands. Take 100% responsibility for healing, recovering, and becoming sociopath (narcissist) user free forever. Let’s look at each of these seemingly reasonable reasons for not getting a new number.
I get how this can seem logical. But. Really….?! Isn’t this the very reason to change your number…? You need your phone. You need your phone. We need to conduct business. To continue building our lives. We need the freedom to create our business without fear, without hoovering, stalking, and mental and emotional torture.
Make this about ourselves. Use this time to change your number so that you can build a business and connect with clients freely; know that none of those incoming calls will be from bozo-the-user.
Have a client email list…? Write a cheery newsletter and send out your new number; maybe with a special offer for your product or service. Most business people strain to find reasons to reach out to clients…! Use this to our advantage. Make it a good thing. Let your phone ring freely.
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.
Fell strong by not answering while the loon rings through…? I do get that. Okay. But, you always were strong, that’s part of why and what about you held their fake life up so well.
Let’s look at this a little. Are you feeling a little flattered that they call? That’s natural, but, does it serve you? Does the experience of the phone buzzing make us feel truly and genuinely good? Or does it leave you feeling pretty rotten over the next few days?
Are you still – somewhere inside yourself still feeling a connection to them that you aren’t ready to disrupt? Are we still in a surreal comfort zone? Are we wanting to see if they call out of fear of them?
We can’t compromise our safety, well-being, and happiness for the benefit of the dark side. It’s a natural, second-nature skill we’ve honed during our time with the sociopath. Painting less-than-good circumstances into reasonable logic is the body’s beautiful, innate ability to make it through hard times.
This is how we survive and adapt to the confusion – technically this is managing cognitive dissonance. We all do this, usually daily. It’s decision-making. Let our decision land on our side.
We weigh and balance, and sort through options as a part of life; We regularly feel cognitive dissonance, in many ways, even throughout the day. It’s essentially decision-making.
We need to make decisions in order to maintain working for a boss whose ethics we don’t fully support, for example. We may swallow what we prefer as a good or safe way to spend time when negotiating how late our teen can stay out on Saturday night. It’s simply resolving a conflict between one thought and another.
We settle cognitive dissonance when we’re weighing whether to eat potato chips and cream cheese for dinner or salad with some healthy protein. – We need this life-saving and species-preserving trait. It’s a great and gorgeous thing — it’s time to turn our natural protective instincts truly back onto ourselves in a pure way. Trust our own lives.
Uhmmm. Yes, and no. Not exactly, I know it seems like a relationship. In this circumstance, however, you were absconded heart and soul within a crime. Know what they were up to. Accepting that these beasts exist and what that means and what truly happened is the foundation of truly recovering.
They’re recycled. Yes. That means we get a number someone else didn’t want. Who knows why they needed or wanted a new number?
Maybe the number belonged to someone in shoes similar to yours. This means our phone might ring with strange numbers in calls that are not for us. Anything from debt collectors to who knows who or what. Be prepared… but guess who it won’t be…?
Know that anytime your phone vibrates or chimes that the caller it will not be is the con man you’re dumping out of your life. The relief in this alone is unimaginable you get that new number. Feeling your heart rate stay settled and your blood pressure stay normal when the phone bleeps is incredible!
Follow these guidelines and you’ll fall off the pathological user, nutbag narcissistic sociopath’s radar.
Know those bill-collecting, robo-calls for Javier, Janet, or Dave will stop after a few months. And, P.S. Consider a brand new phone. And leave the old contacts on that old phone. – Start fresh.
Comfort and confidence in decision-making are some of the first things that go out the window in the confusion and chaos of life entangled by a sociopath. (And these people you’re calling some kind of narcissist.) Harmony in what’s around us and in what we believe to be normal or right and the far distant shore of what we experience with them becomes a chasm we straddle.
What we first experience as profound compatibility with these creatures changes drastically. One foot on one side, one on the other as the divide grows wider. As we can’t resolve the things they say into cognitive harmony, holes, and gaps of oddities show up one by one by one.
We end up stepping into those gapping oddities and nearly tottering to the bottom of that canyon. Fortunately, there’s also a ladder there for us to use to climb out. It’s our beautiful need for harmony that takes us into that dark abyss and lends us the way out.
The confusion escalates in post-trauma. I know the place you landed; I was once there too. It’s a hellish quagmire of quicksand and jello that is PTSD. Knowing what to do comes back slowly. It falls into place in great huge, encouraging chunks with each decision we bravely make.
Please make any and each decision rooted in a wish to rebuild your life for your own sake. Focus on and look toward your well-being as a Drishti point. This leeches the terror out of our bones; the terror wrought by the sociopath’s venomous deceit. You will free your bones and heart and soul and life of the maniac.
Join the podcast!
Have a listen: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound
True Love Scam Recovery on Medium
True Love Scam Recovery on Facebook
Add these to your contacts
so you don’t miss a newsletter!
jennifer@truelovescam.com
info@truelovescam.com
Visit truelovescam’s profile on Pinterest.
True Love Scam on Tumblr.
Tweet to @truelovescam.
2017_06_19 2023_07_21
