Love with a sociopath is no bed of roses. It’s not a match made in heaven. It’s from deepest hell. But: we win…
Love with a sociopath (a narcissist) starts out on a road we think is a mutual path, paved with love, where we’ll walk into our own gorgeous land of harmony and possibility like no other.
A land filled with promise like no other relationship that exists, all and only because: we are with them. This one incredible – are-you-kidding-me – amazing person. And it feels like a fairytale, a Disney princess, the Duke of Hastings, Bridgerton come alive and turned real.
When in love with a sociopath we feel that together we’re infinitely more than either of us could be apart. There’s sunshine, birds singing, rainbows – but no rain – pots of gold, blue skies, and hearts dancing and flitting around our heads like butterflies. They feel differently… they’re after your high-octane-goodness.
We Do the Things Normal People Do In Love
When we’re in love with a sociopath, we’re all in. Our new address is cloud nine.
Then naturally, as any normal person in a relationship, we relationship-build. We undertake to give, make, bake, create, fix, and take leaps of faith, and climb mountains to make things happen for us. This is normal and what one does in real relationships.
There is resolution and full restoration. What is recovery for you?
Since we believe and feel it’s real, our body is doing the things it does when real relationships happen. There’s a chemical mix of “love cocktail” that swooshes through us and it’s muddled well with the venom of their coercive control as it is injected into our veins and bones by their very presence and so, we’re locked in.
Hormones and signals that we’re in love. This naturally leads us to do and feel things that only happen when one is bonding and building a relationship.
There’s something extra going on here though…the infusion of coercive control has us seeing this as life-like-in-a-movie. Their invisible sway of influence has us trying harder. And, ultimately, staying longer feeling desperately that we can’t lose them. – There’s nothing inherently wrong with us. We’re super-de-duper normal. really, no matter your past, no matter your parents or childhood. What we are is ensnared by – that is, feeling that we’re in love with a sociopath.
The Podcast: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound
All We Need to Fall In Love
It’s easy-peasy to fall in love. Really our bodies are made for it. The Amazing Brain explains. To find a complete stranger. Reveal to each other intimate details about your lives for half an hour. Then, stare deeply into each other’s eyes without talking for four minutes.
We’re not stupid. We’re being what we are: human. A human in love. Life and love with a sociopath are far from normal. We just don’t know who’s standing next to us yet.
Love with a Sociopath is a Life of Two Parallel Realities
Without realizing it, we’re not making a magnificent masterpiece of a life on a bicycle built for two. We’re digging a gnarled, dark, deep, tangled hole into the center of hell, where we’re headed all by ourselves because the sociopath we love knows there’s no relationship.
Once we see enough, cry enough, try enough, we do end it. Sometimes they end it before we can, because a sociopath always, always knows the end is coming.
If we’re lucky, we see a glimpse of this just as the sociopath trips off into his own disgusting future with all our things on his back in a rotting knapsack we mistook for his beautiful soul.
All Normal Humans Are Emotional: There’s Nothing Wrong with Us
If we look at what went on with our emotional human brain we’ll only continue to suffer. We will never heal. Ever.
There are certain beliefs that destroy us as festering wounds after the sociopath leaves. If we’re misinformed about how amazing humans are, how normal we are, what a sociopath really is, and what that means, we may never, ever recover. Ever. — We can heal.
Here’s what will ruin us after it’s over:
Telling ourselves, or being told by others and believing:
We’re codependent, weak
Have low self-esteem
It’s our fault, we’re crazy
And stupid, and addicted to the narcissist
Blame lies with us, because we ignored red flags
There’s that “work” we need to do on ourselves
We’ve been naive, got hooked because we went through abuse as kids
And There’s More Malarkey We Hear About Our Love with a Sociopath
You’ve likely heard it…
That we pick the wrong guy or gal to fall in love with
Have a pattern of abusive relationships
Always get it wrong
We fell for it because we’re older or because our dog just died, or we’re needy
Not wanting to be alone made it happen
It happened because we wanted marriage and kids
Loving a sociopath happened because they made us feel safe
We fell for it because we don’t have enough money
Our insecurity led us to think they could help us do something or be something
We were blind, and in denial, our friends told us but we didn’t listen
And most of all, don’t we know if something’s too good to be true… it isn’t real
None of these is true. And there are very good things that are very true
How To Heal After Loving a Sociopath
There are no words to describe the feel of the life-shattering shock of realizing all was a lie. Loving a sociopath leaves us with post trauma and the need for self-compassion in order to heal truly and completely.
It takes support and encouragement and someone who can listen without judging. someone who knows what we’ve been through. It takes accurate and true information and understanding of what a sociopath is – and what we are as gorgeous, loving humane, human beings.
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 are identical and predictable. Truly understanding the characteristics of a sociopath changes everything.
It likely sounds dramatic, an impossibility, and maybe a bit like fear-mongering to say with calm confidence, oh that guy? He’s a sociopath. Or, she’s a sociopath. – The breaking news is, it is neither dramatic nor impossible.
It’s practical and sensible. It is scary. However, calmly knowing sociopaths exist and are real and what that means is huge key to how we unwind the damage of the sociopath-effect and unplug their influence.
Aren’t Sociopaths Only In the Movies?
I wish. The fact is, a sociopath is a real thing. A common reality. There are humans all around us who function from sociopathy. …And to confuse things even further, many people call them narcissists.
Though sociopath is a big scary word, the characteristics of a sociopath are really tiny and limited. And distinct.
There’s a good reason for this, a sociopath is a sociopath because they have a brain significantly different from the regular brain, that is from yours or mine.
Their brains under-function, so that they have no sensation or experience or feeling of connection. No sense of caring, genuine consideration, love, or even like for people outside of their own body. This pathology gives them very specific and unbelievable traits and qualities.
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.
Pathological vs Non-pathological
By now you’ve heard the word narcissist and maybe call the person who hauled you through hell a narcissist. The thing is a “narcissist” is most often a sociopath. If you’re thinking of them as a “narcissists” read about and research sociopaths for real answers.
There’s lots of material and many memes and so many Insta accounts that talk about the more mundane narcissistic person who is not pathological and who is not a scammer. If you found yourself in a life where you were working harder than you’ve ever worked to keep your life and their life afloat only to find it constantly sinking, you were ensnared by the pathological narcissist…. that is, a sociopath.
No Conscience, No Concern For You Or Anyone Else
Sociopaths are 100% narcissistic. They’re in your life for a reason that is not normal or genuine in any way. There’s no one more narcissistic on the planet than the sociopath… the antisocial psychopath aka sociopath or psychopath. Read here about why the clinical terminology uses the word “antisocial”.
Look for Narcissistic Abuse Unwound on your favorite podcast platform!
Sociopaths Are Real: And Simplistic in Nature
Though sociopath is a big scary word, the characteristics of a sociopath are really tiny and limited. And distinct. There’s a good reason for this: a sociopath is a sociopath because they have a brain significantly different from the regular brain… yours or mine.
Their brains are structured so that they have no sensation or experience of feeling any bonding, love, care, or consideration for other people — or animals. – They do pretend to.
The attachment or interest they display for others is where we begin to feel horrified because it’s not like ours. And it’s not good.
Other people hold no meaning to them aside from using that person for the sociopath’s personal gain. This means they’re what’s commonly called a con man or con artist, or scammer. And they come in male or female versions.
Brain Scans Reveal the Sociopath, “Narcissist”, Psychopath Brain
There’s hard science to demonstrate the difference in their brains. Brain scans by neuroscientists reveal the portions of the brain attributed to feeling love, and compassion just doesn’t function.
There’s nothing we can recognize as normal once the mask hits the floor. So what is going on inside of them? There’s basically nothing there. Where love would be there’s white noise. The connection between themselves and others isn’t made of concern or care.
There’s Nobody Inside To Connect With
Though they can create what we first feel is intimacy and deep interest in us, calling what they put out towards us a real “connection” isn’t quite the thing. This is because they see us as an object to grab-and-smash; something like a natural resource they hold the rights to.
They truly believe that they have every right to make use of humans as you or I would make use of a vacuum cleaner or a blender to get something done.
The thing is, we care more about the well-being of our vacuum cleaner than a sociopath does about us or any other human. They make use of others in absolutely any way they like. The word, “exploitation” comes to mind.
This is really hard for us to believe. It’s humanly impossible to absorb in one single moment the reality that there are people who look human, just like us, but are missing the “humanity chip”. Taking this in is a process.
We Are Not Responsible for The Predator’s Inhumanity
People without a conscious are bereft of good as if they’ve scorched the very roots of goodness within their own lives. They aren’t “choosing” to not care; this in itself would come from a place of caring. They have no place of caring within them. These are people who embed themselves into people’s lives to take, to use, and to do whatever they want. This is their real “work” whether they have an actual paycheck or not.
Jennifer Smith, True Love Scam Recovery
How Do Sociopaths (aka Narcissists aka Psychopaths) Do What They Do?
When individuals operate without a conscience they are able to do horrible things we would never dream of doing, and there is no moral compass or guilt feelings to stop them.
In order to hook, use and take from targets, (that would be you or I, just regular people) every sociopath uses the same little tricks and misleads and lies. This takes effect in one-on-one relationships, in romantic or work situations, towards religious leaders or politicians; anywhere you find and admire or like someone who is a sociopath this hook will take hold.
Where ever there’s a sociopath in a group, a family, or an organization. The predator gets busy in a true love faux-lationship or superior-acolyte in any setting. The arc of hell and the crazy plays out in five stages. Always, and also in every one of these set-ups.
This Is The Only Way It Goes
There’s no deviation from this pattern of hook and use and break-away. It might be carried out over five days or 50 years with any particular morsel of prey — but there’s no variation in the way a sociopath functions or affects prey.
Everything they do and say is in an effort to make use of those around them is for their survival. We are their livelihood. This survival is dependent upon us believing they’re normal. This is not easy for us to see. It takes time and taking in a new perspective to see this thing we never imagined existed.
Our experience with them is traumatic and so is coming to terms with what they are. Not all trauma is bad!
Sociopaths are Identical, Predictable and Severely Limited
So many give credit to the sociopath as a master manipulator, a genius liar. I beg to differ. It’s time to look again from another angle, so we can stop giving them the power. They claim to be amazing and talented geniuses — and we do at first see them as masterly wizards of manipulation and at the antics that they pull.
Sociopaths are the antithesis of loving and giving; they only take and as the fallout of their taking, destruction is all they bring to the table.
In reality, sociopaths have very limited thinking. They are severely limited, have specific thinking and feelings, and have no other way to think or feel.
What they feel as raw emotions is desire or need, and then glee when they get what they want, anger when it’s threatened or taken away, rage when their scam is being seen through or put to an end, and fear. They have a great fear of being exposed which fuels endless rage at being caught or exposed.
How Would the One You’re Wondering About Do On This Test?
Answer these very basic questions that lead to an estimation of whether someone is a sociopath aka a psychopath… or that person you’re calling a “narcissist”. I
After all, never forget, understanding what you’re facing isn’t about diagnosing them… this discovery serves the purpose of finding your safety, keeping your sanity, and restoring your well-being.
They Lose it When They Lose
If they’re at risk of exposure they lose it; when exposed they risk not getting what they want or getting away with it they become wild-cornered animals.
They frantically and erratically hop from one tactic to another trying to get their house of cards back in place. They come up with elaborate stories, fake illnesses, disappear, kill, cry spontaneous sheets of tears… rage and threaten and blackmail (like, if I lose, I’ll leave the United States…). The nearer they are to losing it all, the more they lose it.
The profound fear they live with is one of the things they don’t want us to realize about them. If their fear was not incredibly deep, why would they rage so when we get close to the truth?
Confusion is The Vibe
The reason we feel so confused is that this is nothing like anything we’ve known before. And… It isn’t anything we can see by using the way we normally think to look at it.
The whole mess is a fake-lationship. A faux-lationship. We think we’re in a real relationship; the sociopath knows it’s not a real mutual human relationship.
Sociopaths do their best to embed themselves into people’s lives in order to take, use, make use of us, and do whatever they want in that person’s life. Making these attempts and making this effort is how they spend every single day; this is their “work”. It’s how they survive.
This Kind of Con Brings Post Traumatic Stress
As a confused and hurt person trying to find answers, to decipher what’s going on, understanding the characteristics of a sociopath lets us see from an angle that supports our understanding. This also saves our mental and emotional – as well as physical – health and allows for healing.
It’s not easy to fully comprehend and takes time to see it, but the fact is, we’re nothing more than a piece of equipment or an object to the sociopath. Beyond that, we’re despised and held in contempt.
This is so hard to grasp because we’re fully human. We love and support those we love; we don’t view them as expendable resources. Sociopaths are the antithesis of loving and giving; they only take and as the fallout of their taking, destruction is all they bring to the table.
A Sociopath Can Be Anywhere: The Park, A Party, at Work
Because pathological users are anywhere we might be, we need to learn how to recognize them. Their real power when you think about it is that we can’t recognize them and so not be affected by them.
Sociopaths exist in every social, regional, and economic realm. Most crave riches with insatiable desire. Paradoxically they can handle living in a box on the side of the road until the next target with a nice warm nest comes along. Why…? It’s the result of having no emotional connection to things, people, or places.
Without any emotional connection aside from holding someone up to measure if that person – seen as an object – fits into their needs – and every one of us has something they need – sociopaths are isolated and isolating in their effect.
Pathological Parasites Are Anywhere We Might Be
Predatory parasites dwell in trailer parks in Wyoming, on ski slopes in the Alps, in board rooms across the world, within the profiles of online dating sites, at church, in bars and clubs, in the grocery store, at the dog park.
Sociopaths hunt prey in the workplace, on Facebook, in chat forums, at a party. We can meet them at the grocery store, in line at the post office, getting gas or through friends.
It’s said one-in-25 people are sociopaths and are either male or female. We’ve all heard the phrase: hiding in plain sight. We’ve got to change how we “see” – our “sight” – they’re plain as day.
20 Characteristics of a Sociopath
Fun, charming, and entertaining. Super polite when meeting new people
Display impressive knowledge or skill at something. This proves to be limited or fake
Have a primal perception as far as what concerns us, what we need, and depend upon; this is used to make false promises, to make deals, and to blackmail
Are easily offended. They fluster and bluster when offended and lash out
Lie about all things – except those odd moments they tell the truth
Believe they’re better than everyone. Express misogynistic, racist, homophobic, or other prejudice and hatred
Crave a good reputation
Crave status, power, possessions, money, yet exist at any level of society
Have delusions of fame and importance, though they might live in the Metro station
Mimic our authentic emotions and social mannerisms as best they can
Have no capacity for care, concern, or love, though it sometimes seems they do
Think of themselves as victims and can cry fake tears at the drop of a hat
Are sexually promiscuous and often simultaneously avoid sex with a primary prey; someone they’ve put in place as a primary “partner”
Do any horrible, illegal, or immoral thing they want to do and to absolutely anyone.
Think their prey (partners, spouses, girlfriends, etc.) should be grateful
Take pride in their scams and run several scams simultaneously
Believe everyone deserves whatever it is that they do to them
Smear their targets and prey; loudly, publicly, online in court
Have outbursts of rage, that can be physically violent.
Since their state of mind is based on the limited and abnormal brain that makes someone a sociopath, there are more characteristics that are identical sociopath to sociopath.
You wouldn’t be the only one to discover porn, beyond porn – and their participation in shocking sexual practices. They avoid paying taxes, skip paying child maintenance altogether in cases of divorce, and cheat at absolutely everything. Even if they seem successful career-wise, you’ll find they don’t do their own work if you scratch the surface. Even with seemingly legit employment they ultimately live off of others’ lives, others’ efforts, finances, respectability, and magnanimity.
Discovering the Reality of a Sociopath is Trauma in Itself
In the world of psychology, they’re called antisocial psychopaths, or sociopaths. And lately as having an antisocial personality disorder. This newer contemporary term diminishes the damage they do and casts them in the light of hapless wrong-doer.
They’re not innocents suffering from a disorder. They know they cause harm. With pleasure and pride, they do terrible things to people. – Another delay in finding what we’re really facing is getting hung up on terminology and ideas of “narcissists”.
Bragadocious: Sociopaths Talk a Lot, a Super-de-Duper Lot
Sociopaths can’t help themselves from bragging. They like to chatter about the things they do. . These elaborate boasts represent their made-up life. It’s all lies. The traits and tricks of a sociopath never waver.
They’re consistent with all their prey whether in pursuit for ten days or we’re captive for ten years or 30 years. It’s the same for each of us from the first “hello”, to the way they break up with us.
In popular culture, movies, and books sociopaths are referred to as con artists or con men. In real life, they are strictly Mr. Hyde with a very shallow cover of Dr. Jekyll.
Lies Are Real, And Real Made Up
Sociopaths lie easily. Lying is normal for them. They feel no guilt or shame about lying. If one lie doesn’t work they whip out another one. They know they lie. For the pathological, lies make up what’s real, and real is made up. How’s that for mind-bending?
Since they are not connected to the world, to their own life to anything through emotions in the way that we are, sociopaths forget what they say one moment to another moment, and can only manage the moment in front of them.
Consequently, we can lie to them, they can know that we’re probably lying, and yet, they act on the lie as if it’s the truth.
Lying is Due to Their Pathology
The sociopath (or that person you might be calling a narcissist) lies in a way that’s called “pathological”. This means that lying comes as a result of their brain. In other words, they can’t not lie.They do not get better or change.
They make off-handed comments that reveal their inner workings. Knowing the characteristics of a sociopath exposes them for what they are and includes eventually, being able to see them as boring and even laughable.
At this point in time in the history of humankind, there is no known “cure.” They wouldn’t want to “get better” or “be better” if they could. They enjoy every minute of what they are. They adore themselves while knowing full well that they’re monsters.
The sociopath’s ruse is deception upon deception. Since people are seen as objects, they are disposable to the sociopath. It’s hard to say, but not all allow their prey to live to tell the tale.
The characteristics of a sociopath include pride in the things they do. They consider nabbing prey an achievement. They’re boastful and feel great, and an exaggerated gleeful accomplishment in scamming, lying, taking, stealing, using, and worse.
Remember the exciting, exhilarating start to all the mess? Recall when they have that grin…and are sparked and energized? – It’s an exhibit of the glee and sense of pride they feel for capturing you.
They make off-handed comments that reveal their inner workings. Knowing the characteristics of a sociopath exposes them for what they are and includes eventually, being able to see them as boring and even laughable. Only when we don’t recognize them or we believe them do we find ourselves ensnared.
Power of Influence: Truth and Lies
In these flashing moments of truth our heads spin. The truth always stands out. But in the confusing, bizarre world of the con, actual truth only cuts a fleeting crack in the lunacy and looks like lunacy itself.
A sociopath’s influence has us doubt the truth, and be soothed by their lie. Sociopaths influence us in such a way, that it’s natural for us to defend and protect their lies.
It’s All Traumatic
All in all, anytime we spent in the presence of a sociopath, wasn’t what we thought it was. There’s never any mutual moment aside from maybe sitting down to eat because both of us want a good dinner.
Any limbic-brained person in the presence of a sociopath in any dynamic such as a personal relationship of love, of family members, of neighbor and neighbor or boss and employee or coworker… they all involve sustained trauma and harm and a period of PTSD in the aftermath.
Why they’re at dinner with us, is not the same reason we’re at dinner with them. We were targeted and hijacked for the sociopath’s own use.
We Can Recover After Breaking Up with a Narcissistic Sociopath
The most devastating thing a sociopath creates is disunity. Disunity from self and from others we love…from others in general. Even a sense of separation from others we don’t know shrouds us as our life shuts down and closes into a very small thing centered on them and appeasing them. We end up in a spinning place of off-kilter confusion, more than walking on eggshells.
Like any normal human would without positive connection and unity, in isolation and separation we get lost. We can bring ourselves back. We reunite with ourselves, with all and everyone around us. Recovering from this trauma takes non-judgemental support and encouragement.
With accurate and true information and understanding of what a sociopath is – and what we are as gorgeous, loving humane, human beings, we can heal and get our lives back. We can trust again, laugh again, and love again.
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.
