We’re not in denial.
As my dad would say, that’s a river in Egypt.
But seriously.
No one deliberately stays here.
We don’t remain in the clutches
of a slimy sociopath on purpose.
Our goodness caught their attention,
our goodness sets us free.
Denial is a word that’s tossed around to represent a state of mind we’re supposedly in. And that explains how this nightmare went on for so long, or started in the first place. There are those who would say we were in denial and so the surreal, horror show continued to run through our lives as if we allowed it. These people who say this could not be more wrong.
We’re not in denial. No. In short, what happened is: we were deceived and bamboozled. This means we did not have full information.
There isn’t an even playing field. Firstly, none of us had full information that these creatures even existed. Secondly, we were lied too. Thirdly, normal people aren’t looking for a lie. We automatically trust; that’s one of the beautiful things about us all. And fourth, and most significant of all, we’re under the spell of the pathological predator.
Truth Scarier Than Fiction: We Heal From Truth, Not Lies
We were scammed pure and simple by a serial liar, user, taker, abuser life thief. The chasm between our intention and the pathological narcissistic user’s true intention only becomes clear over time.
It’s revealed by bits-and-pieces. We didn’t deny anything… except them and what they wanted, once we did see through it and take in the full horror of their true black heart.
Knowing the real deal truth is how we recover.
Denial is Not in the House: a Monster Is
When we’re ensnared by a sociopath, there‘s a clashing of two worlds a great collide of two different brains, the mind of a sociopath (you might be calling them a narcissist) and the mind of a regular, normal, iambic brained person: you or me.
The pathological predator and users do their best to let us believe rather than a clash, that together we’re the best match on the planet. The best fit that any two people could ever be.
This is how they survive. The ability to bring this influence upon others is wired into their DNA. I call it the sociopath effect.
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It Takes as Long as it Takes
We see this match made in heaven situation isn’t quite the case, as soon as is humanly possible. In no way do we leap to the conclusion that this person is a psychopath the first time they don’t call us back or are unreachable.
Not only can people not see something they don’t know is in existence such as users who are pure evil, these exist in the movies, not real life.
Our human body and physiology are amazing. It’s designed to keep us safe. In trauma, our bodies and minds protect us, and so let the truth be seen in bite-sized pieces so that we don’t lose our sanity.
After true love scam our eyes are wider open than most. And we know more than most; certainly more than people who tell us we allowed it and we’re in denial. Let your body do its thing.
The very, very courageous take on recovering, healing, seeing what the real-deal is in pieces. Take it in in bits that you can take… It takes as long as it takes. Tell those blamers and shame-ers to step off.
PTSD is Normal After a Narcissistic Sociopath
We’re not permanent victims scarred for life. We’re not to blame for being snagged and conned by a lying sociopath who gives us every excuse in the book for why they do this. These are not the only two options. — Though – sometimes — it seems to be as we try to find our way out of the maze.
There are piles of mainstream answers to this hideous crime. Including that we, as targets invited it through our past abuse issues or our relationship issues and that we stayed because we were in denial.
How about we look at it from another direction? From our eyes. Let’s stop letting people outside the experience define what happened. Let’s look at it from the eyes of the prey of a sociopath.
This perspective takes a whole different set of words to define it. – Not for the sake of frivolous semantics, but because of a very real variance in meaning.
We Are Not in Denial: We’re Amazing
You see, definitely more fanciful descriptors – these come from the influence of watching many Johnathan Strange and Dr. Norell episodes on late-night Netflix binges that stopped my anxious brain from thinking in the early days of recovery and rocked me to sleep, and still reflect the real-deal of being in one of these hellish circuses of a true love scam… the day-time-wide-awake, hall-of-mirrors-nightmare of living hijacked by a sociopath.
Unless someone’s been dragged by their heart and soul through this, they have no idea. None. None of us “in it” are in denial, or willfully resisting seeing what they are.
To think that anyone could imagine or imply that we’re willfully and knowingly, in the mess we’re in and choosing to ignore it means they have no clue. We’re each in something we can’t possibly recognize: who knew what a sociopath was before all this?
No One Can See Something We Don’t Know Exists
For anyone who’s not been hijacked by a sociopath, these descriptors might sound absurd. It may be what inspires, ohhhh… hmmm, yes. She’s in denial. – And other wholly off the mark, and utterly compassionless, and just plain rude remarks from onlookers and others, who we might think would know better.
To those under the spell, these are quite accurate descriptions that bring about our freedom. With this look at things, we feel less crazy. We might let out a sob of relief, Oh, my god! That’s it! That’s exactly what it is!! – And a little slip of hope eeks through the fog of the sociopath-madness we’re trapped in.
There’s a Mesmerizing that Leads People to Drink the Kool-Aid
I realize what I’m about to say here isn’t popular to say… It’s a contemporary popular belief that humans make choices about well, everything. Here’s a hard fact: none of us are with a sociopath by direct or informed or conscious choice.
We do get away from them by choice. And this’s an important part of this circumstance. Somehow most of the world focuses on wondering how we stumbled into it, why we stayed, ie: How could we have been so stupid?
Decide Your Understanding of This Event
Let’s be real here, let’s not base our understanding of what we’re experiencing – the how’s and why’s of it, in the ideas and perceptions from something else: namely the ideas and perceptions of those who’ve not experienced it.
Mostly the whole mess is analyzed and judged and pronounced upon by those who have not been through it and interpret the phenomenon as if the sociopath – the perpetrator – has the determining view.
This is nothing more than a type of mansplaining, victim-blaming and just plain wrong. – And, come one now… Most of our judge-ie acquaintances, coworkers, neighbors, friends or family didn’t know this existed until we walked into it. So, come on now… They aren’t suddenly experts.
The Traits That Attract a Sociopath To Us: Save Us
The very same goodness of heart that makes us attractive to a sociopath is what we then flip – and bring to life exponentially – to get safely and completely away. There, there is the real thing.
It takes a colossal effort. Courage, wisdom, persistence, patience, bravery to break from a kind of bondage; from an entrapment so immense it can’t be understood unless it’s been experienced.
You Have to Live Through It to Understand It
The break-away from a sociopath is intense and so life-shattering it can never be understood unless you too are an escapee. – And that my friends, does not signify a weak victim, a codependent-door-mat, a denial or any such nonsense.
It signifies some of the hugest power, determination, and strength on the planet. We are awesome. We’re superheroes. We’re our own angels.
You Can’t Deny Something You Don’t Know Exists
Nope. We’re not in denial. If you don’t know this phenomenon exists, you can’t see it. And fortunatley when in it and after, our glorious bodies innately know a human can’t handle the monumental stress that comprehending this entails all one go. So – yes – clarity is meted out in doses only a beatific human of great empathy and love could handle.
Even tiny doses of what we went through would break anyone else. No, denial is nothing more than a river in Africa. A raging, pernicious river that every life stealing, narcissistic con man needs to be thrown into without a life jacket.
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2016_09_16 2022_10_12
oh yes!!! im out of the pit for ayear and 2 months…..seeing a new therapist doing EMDR & i am hopeful it will clear my mind & i can put this nightmare behind me & not repeat it….i have NC for a week now…..every month or two he would hoover & i would respond…..it made me sicker each time….last contact i was ready for rubber room…..but God sent me an angel….i saw OW he discarded me for fb page & same thing is happening to her…..funny the day of her post was the day he contacted me imagine that?! ….therapy NO CONTACT & yoga saving my life….blessings to everyone in this ghastly club xxooxx
Thank you Joanne!! One week is a good start. — This is definitely the hardest thing any of us will ever do in life. The Great Escape. I’ve heard good things about EMDR. Yoga is always fantastic. And have you looked into homeopathy? Read about it in a general sense for trauma and grief and loss and shock here. And then there’s Reframing. Read here: Reframe the Nightmare with a Sociopath — It will take a while to be absolutely normal. Please hold off on dating or even thinking about dating for — sorry to say, but about a year. Sociopaths can smell us in this vulnerability. — And yes the monster contacted you – in fact stayed in contact – to be, as you suspected a jumping off place whenever another one of his Big Ticket scams fell through. – They have many, many small side-dish scams all at the same time — always, the Big Tickets that are their Bed-n-Breakfast and shelter or cars, and phones and internet are something they never let go unless forced to.
I find Buddhist cosmology to be a good way of understanding sociopaths. I would place them in the animal realm of mentality, but unlike the majority of animal-based behavior, I would put them mostly in the Predatory range. If you look in nature, creatures never go up to a predator knowingly with an embrace begging to be chased and pounced upon.
Most of the animal based behavior (not focusing on the predatory ones necessarily at the moment) seems to be based on allegiances. I found so many of these types of people bound by an alliance to him (sociopath, and his family). No matter how immoral and disgusting his/their actions were, he/they could do no wrong in their eyes because they are all in the same tribe. I don’t know if I would call that “denial” either, but none of them make evaluations the way I do ….which would be criteria based on character, trust, loyalty, truth.
Interesting. I’m unfamiliar with a Buddhism that encompasses an animal cosmology… I do though interestingly enough think of sociopaths as animals. More like science fiction or other world fantasy animals with winged and broken backs and dripping teeth. Laughing jackals with blood in their claws.
We’re Not In Denial https://t.co/T75CISs8WA via @truelovescam
We’re Not In Denial – We see what we can as we can. https://t.co/0xgWVVx4Tc via @truelovescam