Monsters 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.
Normal is, as Normal Does: Normal Does as Normal Is
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.
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.)
Sociopaths know they’re sociopaths. Narcs know they’re sociopaths. Most of the creatures we’re calling narcissists are sociopaths. These monsters know they’re monsters. It’s the rest of us who have a hard time knowing they exist. We don’t need to act as if they don’t and aren’t what they are.
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
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.
What’s Love Got to Do with It?
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.
Narcissistic Abuse Unwound
Their Power Is An Illusion: It’s the Effect Of What They Are
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.
Monsters Have a Mean/Nice Switch: Only Two Options
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
Monsters Need Us for Their Survival: We’re Unwitting Hosts to a Parasite
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.
Seeing What They Are Illuminates Our Great Goodness
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
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.
Sociopaths, narcissists as in the pathologically narcissistic, the pathological users and liars, predators don’t think as we do. Their hearts are colder than ice; harder than stone. The trouble lies within their brains.
Sociopaths are known for their charm if you like that particular sociopath. Then, along the way, there’s that hairpin turn to nightmare behavior. This D.I.Y. Guide to a sociopath’s brain and psyche cracks the code. So… what’s going on in those heads of theirs?
Sociopaths – the pathologically narcissistic, the predatory parasitic user – don’t think as we do because they can’t. The vast chasm of difference between “normal” and “sociopath” is found in the brain.
Sociopaths Have a Brain That Works Very Differently than Ours
These pathological users can act in ways we’d never imagine. Making use of others is their normal.
Sociopaths’ and psychopaths’ brains don’t work a bit like ours. It’s confusing and frustrating to try to build relationships with them because they’re missing the building blocks of bonding.
We get caught up in our own emotional reactions to what’s happening between us and them. We go to emotions and to talking things out to correct conflict and confusion and to bond. We “feel” our way through life.
We Are Normal Through and Through
And that’s normal… and really great, except these narcissistic pathological users aren’t normal and don’t care what we feel, so it doesn’t help us at all.
Sociopaths and psychopaths do not have the brain capacity to feel any social or personal positive connection or bond. We can look into their eyes searching for a connection and find nothing but empty, or worse. – This is also likely that person you might be calling a ‘narcissist”.
Though in human skin and bones, they’re empty and hollow aside from destructive forces and utterly devoid of humanity. This is really difficult to realize, to see, to take in, to accept, and to understand.
Whether we call them sociopaths, malignant narcissists, con artists, scammers, covert narcissists, liars, or users – they’re all alike. It’s incredibly hard for us to imagine the vast emptiness inside their heads.
Without any human connection, they have only one thing going on in their upstairs hamster wheel of a brain: survival.
The way a predator, a parasite such as a sociopath survives is like any parasite, they live through the efforts of others and off of others. They know this about themselves. They count on us not knowing this.
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.
True crime. Told in their own words with nothing unsaid. Find validation, and see new glimpses of truth as these five women share their stories… Stories that could be any of ours.
We, as normal humans who do bond and care, have limbic brains. This is the brain of a mammal. A mammal is an animal – including us humans – that gives vaginal birth. Yah! I know, right! This includes in part cows, bunnies, dogs, cats, monkeys, elephants, dolphins, and whales. Each of these, including humans, bonds, loves, nurtures, creates family groups, and can even bond with one another.
Antisocial psychopaths are referred to as a sociopath, sometimes a narcissist or a psychopath. The sociopath has what’s called a “reptilian brain”. Think of creatures with a reptilian brain, such as snakes, lizards, and crocodiles.
They lay eggs, do not create a family, and even eat their young both before or after the eggs hatch. – There are a few exceptions here, but this is to give an idea of the fundamental difference that matters: no nurturing, no parenting, no bonding, no pairs, or family group.
Sociopaths Can Only Be Sociopaths
What the sociopath is wired by their brain to do in order to live, to survive, to exist has the effect of destroying others. They know this. It doesn’t faze them. This sounds farfetched unless you’ve been in it.
There’s Really No One Home: Aside From Evil
Sociopaths are without any bonding capability, therefore they’re without genuine concern or care for any human or for any animal though they pretend to have either or both.
They have no moral, ethical, or spiritual concern for others or for the effect on others as fall out and as deliberate effect. imagine if you can: they have no conscience. – They do however make use of our conscience and our emotions and normal bonding impulses to prolong their parasitic stay in any person’s life.
With this primal urge to survive, which we all share, when the brain doesn’t bond or care then what’s left in these simple creatures is spartan. It’s purely and the only motivation to make use of other people, to take whatever they want, and get away with it. – There is nothing else there.
A narcissist is the same thing as a sociopath, and a sociopath is in reality a psychopath. Sociopaths are all alike. I settled on the term “sociopath” because it’s more palatable than “psychopath” and has much more meaning as to their real nature than “narcissist”.
If you’re thinking of them as a covert, overt or malignant narcissist or borderline, please shift how you think of them through the concept of a sociopath and things will make more sense. – These DSM categories are irrelevant at best to those solving the crimes of a life invasion.
Collectively, these vast wastelands of humanity do not “feel” or experience any of the normal emotions that we do. Not at all, no matter how hard they pretend to. And definitely no matter how much we project our experience of human emotions onto them. – In fact, it’s this assumption that they feel like we do that causes us further harm and pain.
Sociopaths Do Not Feel The Way We Do
All the very normal human emotions we experience aren’t felt by them. We assume these emotions are felt by them. This is from our world. They do not feel any of these feelings in the way we do.
Limbic Brained Normal: Trust, Bonding, and Connection
We, on the other hand, have limbic brains; the brain of a mammal that bonds, cares, and makes connected family groups.
Their reptilian brain is a primal self-survival brain. We walk into what we think is a friendship or relationship with our limbic brain. Essentially, we’re jumping like little puppies expecting things to be good. This then is where the real trauma lives when ensnared by a sociopath. We can heal our traumatized brains.
Sociopaths aka psychopaths and some of the ones you might still be referring to as a narcissist, genuinely do not like others or feel part of a group, they have no love for their parents, no love for their children, no love at all. These parasites can be disarmed before they start.
D.I.Y. Guide to the Inside of the Dark-Dark Noggin
A Sociopath’s or a Pathological Predator’s Behaviors are Identical and Predictable
They don’t really tell much about their lives other than highlights of being used or heroic things they’ve done
They try to show themselves as humanitarians, fighters for justice, or do-gooders
Surprisingly, they are naive
They get restless and bored
Predators give the impression of being sincere and humble
When meeting someone new they want to hear about the other person
Agree with us to inspire our trust and feelings of intimacy
They create a forced “we”; create an “us and them”
Go through periods of hyperactivity contrasted with heavy downtime. There’s a significant reason for this and it’s not because they have PTSD or are bi-polar or other malarkey
When threatened personally that their toys will be taken, they experience trauma and lash out
There’s Still More
Say one thing then another
Tell tall tales of being used by others
Some “play dead” like a kid; talk about death, dying, or suicide
Say odd things that are in reality when they’re telling the truth of how they feel
Hesitate before responding, looking at us in a paused mode
Give inappropriate or disjointed, off the mark response in emotional situations that call for empathy, sympathy, or compassion such as someone’s death, accident, or illness
Have hidden sexual activity; hedonistic, BDSM, sex industry, pedophilia, porn
Employment is sparse, shortlived, or a long-term professional setting or claim they have their own business; under the surface, all is fraud
Though sociopaths – because of the inherent sociopath power of influence – can have a huge scope of influence in politics, law, criminal justice, and religious settings
Careless with material possessions yet seem attached to some items to obsession
Can be very entertaining and hold sway with a crowd, paradoxically quite hermit-like
They can sound and seem like two different people in different situations
Have the ability to morph age-wise, genderwise
A sociopath can cross over, shift in what they seem to be in terms of where they’re from, their economic status, and more
Sociopaths Have Different Brains Than Normal People
National Geographic made an informative video about antisocial psychopaths aka sociopaths in our midst.
Antisocial in this context is Latin medical terminology referring to their abnormal brains. it means they behaveoutside of the expected or the accepted social behaviors and norms. It’s got nothing to do with being uncomfortable or shy socially.
Sociopaths aka psychopaths are within this category, but the full-blown psychopath is more focused on the entertainment they feel at other’s pain than on scamming a place to sleep. Watch it here.
We might not all experience all of the kinds of horrific things a sociopath can potentially do, say, their darkest thinking may not be seen by all of us, in many cases, they are not shown to all of us. Some of you have the “relationship” crumble and end without a harsh word between you. – This is great you were spared and yet this also becomes a stumbling block to seeing what they are.
Easy-Peasy: Criminal is Their Normal
A sociopath will claim to be a great parent, especially on FB. Steal money or possessions from a spouse, friend, or stranger. Have affairs with married people. Impregnate and abandon. Hide money from a partner. Lie to authorities. “Cheat” while in a “relationship”. For a sociopath aka narcissist, immigration and marriage fraud are as ordinary as it is for them to have us do the laundry and pay their phone bill.
It’s a possibility they have two phones – or more – and keep those hidden. Or pretend one or the other phone is for work because they’re so big and important. If you noticed they don’t genuinely pay their own way financially, even if they work, the work is fraud. They use a different name. Hide where they go, and the things they buy.
Their World Is Nothing Like Ours
What we think we know about the sociopath who hijacked us is usually not nearly the tip of the iceberg. Don’t wait to find out more. Go no contact.
Sociopaths separate groups of people and their “second” family, along with their second or third or fourth alias, alternate versions of their names or completely different identities.
These pathological users will fake illness. Leave for days. Stop talking, or talk so much our eyes cross. They marry only for houses, cars, property, and borrowed respectability. Sociopaths aka narcissists use online social media and dating sites to fish for prey. Primary prey suffers pain and confusion when the sociopath-predator withholds sex. Change phone numbers frequently.
They make bold claims about glorious accomplishments. Promise many things. Place their prey in the position of being liable for their crimes. These are criminals: read more about that in this NY Times story on one of the latest sociopaths put behind bars.
Let’s Withdraw the Magnanimous, Generous Credit we Give these Beasts
We tend to give the sociopath’s machinations and ability to lie more flattering significance than it’s worth. We imagine their ploys require “intelligence”.
We think what they do requires some kind of genius because they’re doing things we’d never think of doing in a million years or ever dare to do if we could think of it.
In reality, they can do what they do because they don’t care. I don’t mean they decide not to care. Deciding not to care would require the ability to care and then to weigh and discern caring more about one thing than another. They don’t have “care” for others in their lexicon of emotion.
When there’s no concern or consideration for other people, no sense of responsibility, no obligation to society, family, friends, humanity, or any living being other than self allowing one to carry out any action to gain a desire – is this intelligence or genius? Or is it simply a kind of diabolical freedom? When caring is absent, what’s left?
~ Jennifer Smith
Sociopaths Fake Next to Everything
Sociopaths avoid work. Pass STDs. Demand a partner to stop practicing a religious faith. Ruin others with lies. Lie in court. Lie to immigration. Block wives, and girlfriends from their social media.
Abandon their children. Scam and lie to their children. Obtain fake passports. Use fake IDs. Never have a real address.
Use two or more Facebook accounts with different identities. Control and abuse children just as they do adults. Claim fame that doesn’t exist.
Use someone else’s social security number. Fake their educations. Cheat through school. Leave others holding the bag for their debts.
What Sociopaths Don’t Want Us to Know About Them
Sociopaths don’t like us to know their vulnerabilities and darker secret behaviors. and Their genderless sexuality and promiscuous nature. In reality, for these omnisexual, asexual creatures, anyone will do as a sexual “partner” since there is no love or emotional connection.
There is a concerted effort to hide their alcohol use, porn, prostitution, and gambling or drug use. It’s important for the pathological predator to hide their deep fear of being discovered as what they are because the fear is connected to what it is we’ll do when we see what they are. They huge fear of losing their prey, though they know every false connection will eventually end from the moment they’ve said “hello”. namazon
Violence, Secrets, and Things We Can’t Imagine
They try to keep their violent behavior under wraps – at least in the beginning. Their bar fights might become stories you hear about how someone attacked them. They’ll do their best to hide their stealing and criminal records. Sociopaths separate their “second” and “third” families and any social groups associated with each as best they can. They hide their assorted aliases, identities, and alternate versions of their names.
These pathological users can act in ways we’d never imagine. Making use of others is their “normal”. This can be hard to see even when we feel they’re lying, not completely honest, and we feel suspicious of them.
Things we might be missing are that they act out in impulsive violence. and have uncontrollable rage. They defraud governments and agencies. Embezzle funds or property. Blackmail. Commit forgery. Sell drugs. Pimp. And, really and truly couldn’t care less.
Sociopaths try to cover up that they know what they’re doing. These creatures know that by being what they are, others are hurt.
Sociopaths, Even if you Call them Narcissists, Narcopaths or Narcs, Need Others to Believe Them
Here’s the best part: they need us. And they know they do. Their success is dependent upon us not knowing any of this. And they don’t have a chance of using others or surviving unless we believe them and believe they’re at least within some range of normal. Maybe normal but troubled.
Recognize them for what they are. Put aside our emotional investment and connection.Shut down the sociopath’s ability to use and abuse. Exit stage left or get them gone. Go no contact, trust our gut! We are our own angels! We are Super Heroes!
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.