Moving On: Life After the Psychopath

Most of my posts have been about how to identify psychopathic traits and patterns of behavior and about understanding what drew the psychopath to you–and you to him–originally. I have also written several posts emphasizing the importance of no contact of any kind, passive or active, in being able to recover from the toxic relationship. But let’s say you now can recognize the features of psychopathy and narcissism. You are maintaining no contact. Yet you still ruminate obsessively about the relationship and you still feel trapped, somehow, inside of it. What do you do then?

My answer may sound somewhat circular: you’ve got to do everything possible to move on with the rest of your life. Fill your life with interests and activities other than thinking about the psychopathic ex. Focus on the relationships with people in your life who genuinely care about you and support you. Make new, genuine, friends. Find renewed energy in your job or in life goals, even those you might have given up on during the toxic relationship. Coming to terms with the truth about the psychopath and your relationship with him is essential to being able to let go of that person and your past together. But staying trapped in your past and ruminating endlessly about it–at the expense of other relationships or life goals–can become just another prison.

It can also foster negative personality traits that you may not wish to have, like paranoia or extreme distrust of all other human beings. In my last post, the review of Robert Conquest’s book on Stalin, I alluded to the atmosphere of mutual distrust cultivated under by a totalitarian dictatorship, where people started accusing family members and friends of deviationism–or of being traitors to the communist society and principles–and turning against each other. This phenomenon can happen anytime and anywhere, even if it’s more acute in dictatorships led by psychopathic tyrants.

Yes, it’s important to be cautious. Yes, it’s important to be aware of red flags in new relationships, or even older ones. Yes, it’s important to be aware of the signs of personality disorders. Yes, it’s important to cut off pathological individuals from your life. But what you want to avoid is you, yourself becoming pathological and living in an atmosphere of paranoia, pointing fingers at others left and right, and becoming consumed by the underlying hatred and distrust that characterized your relationship with the psychopath.

Moving on means, as Aristotle and other Greek philosophers urged, leading a well-rounded life. It means finding support and information about what you’ve gone through, both here and elsewhere, without neglecting all the other aspects of your life–family, friends, job, goals, exercise, enjoyment–that can free you from your painful past and help you escape the mental prison in order to live again.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

 

Review of Sarah Strudwick’s Dark Souls

If you’ve been involved with someone who seemed to be your dream come true, but turned out to suck all the energy,  financial resources and happiness out of you, then Sarah Strudwick‘s new book, Dark Souls: Healing and Recovering from Toxic  Relationships is worth reading. This book, written by a very well-informed survivor of a toxic relationship with a narcissistic  sociopath, offers a wealth of information about the key symptoms of sociopathy and malignant narcissism; an inspiring tale of the author’s
personal journey of coping with a hellish relationship and her survival; information about other helpful books and resources that can help victims;  and, last but not least, a dab of wry British humor to entertain you.

Dark Souls gets to the essence of what makes personality disordered individuals so predatory, ruthless and dangerous. It exposes  their luring techniques, when such individuals seem to be perfect and adapt to your ideals. It reveals why this is only a mask to hide  these social predators’ real motives, which is to use and abuse others for their personal gain and amusement.  It explains the physiological and psychological manifestations of sociopathy and narcissism, exploring the reasons behind their shallowness of emotions  that leads these predators to con, deceive, beguile, torment and sometimes physically harm others.

The book also examines, in an introspective and highly informative manner, the profile of their chosen targets: whom social predators tend to select  and why. Although nobody is immune from victimization by sociopaths and narcissists, Strudwick indicates that these predators tend to pick  the emphatic, vulnerable and needy out of the herd. She traces the root of this vulnerability to childhood upbringing, using her own life as an example.  This doesn’t mean, however, that their chosen victims are weak. The author also goes on to explain that sociopaths tend to target strong and principled victims.  They prefer individuals whom they initially regard as a challenge, later use as a false front and, when  they are finally unmasked, who won’t behave towards them as unscrupulously as they do (by lying, cheating and/or defrauding others).

While there are quite a few informative books on narcissism and sociopathy, Dark Souls still manages to bring a lot to the literature on the subject  through its wit and spiritual perspective. This book uses the metaphor of the “dark soul” and the concept of spiritual energy to explain how psychopaths and  narcissists drain our emotional energy as well as to point to a road of recovery and personal flourishing once we end these toxic relationships.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Why Go NO CONTACT With The Psychopath

Nearly every expert on psychopathy advises former victims, if at all possible, to break all contact with the psychopath. What does NO CONTACT mean? It means:

1. NO DIRECT, or active, communication with the psychopath: be it in the form of emails, letters, phone calls, texting, Facebook posts, or seeing him in person.

2. It also means NO INDIRECT, or passive, communication either: don’t read his emails, don’t look at his Facebook, don’t read his texts, don’t seek or listen to information about him through any intermediaries, don’t google him to find out what he’s up to lately.

Why go NO CONTACT? There are plenty of great reasons for that. Here are some of them:

1. Any contact with a psychopath can make you prone to his manipulation and control over you.

2. Any contact with a psychopath can put your well-being, and even safety, in danger.

3. Any contact with a psychopath will keep the wounds from the relationship raw and the pain still fresh and intense.

4. Any contact with a psychopath will keep you obsessing about him and your past together.

5. Any contact with a psychopath will introduce doubts in your mind, so that you’re second-guessing yourself and your past behavior.

6. Any contact with a psychopath will, therefore, entrap you in a dangerous relationship with a fundamentally bad human being.

The difference between taking three months or three years to heal from the psychopathic bond–and, sometimes, the difference between life and death–depends in large part upon implementing this NO CONTACT rule. The only way to heal from the harm inflicted by the psychopath is to go NO CONTACT with him or her for life: particularly if you don’t share custody of kids or have any legal reason to see, hear or read about that toxic person ever again.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

Getting Over the Psychopath: Cultivating Indifference

Today I’ll keep my post short and sweet: the best antidote for the pain a psychopath has caused you is indifference. This attitude takes awhile to cultivate, but believe me, it does come. It comes after you accept the fact that a psychopath’s virtues are an illusion and that at core he’s an utterly insignificant and trivial human being.

Since all psychopaths are extreme narcissists–even though they may sometimes feign modesty–they consider themselves to be brilliant, gorgeous, clever, accomplished, superior to others and, overall, extremely important. In fact, they latch on to others and victimize them only to assert their false sense of superiority. If you’ve been involved with a psychopath for any substantial period of time, you probably first shared the illusion that the psychopath had all the qualities he claimed to have: by lying, piggy-backing on the accomplishments and hard work of others and greatly exaggerating his own accomplishments and virtues.

Then, once his mask of sanity shattered and you realized that you’ve been conned–be it emotionally, physically, financially or all of the above–you’ve probably experienced a deep sense of betrayal and anger. These negative emotions are perfectly normal under the circumstances. In fact, to overcome the psychopathic bond, you must allow yourself to feel them. During this middle stage, you probably oscillated between negative emotions and positive (but illusory) memories, which were created during the “romantic,” luring phase of the psychopathic bond, when he deluged you with compliments and gifts.

Most of the pain experienced by victims of psychopathic seduction comes precisely from the contrast–or vast difference–between the fake image (the luring phase) and the dismal true reality (after the psychopath reveals himself to be an evil human being). You may feel used, betrayed, extremely hurt, yet still, sometimes, in spite of yourself, wish to cling to some of those positive memories as “real.” Unfortunately, even the good times you shared with the psychopath weren’t real in any meaningful sense of the term. They weren’t created with a person who was genuine or who is capable of loving you or anybody else. They were simply part of the ruse.

But once you accept this reality and stop clinging to any part of your past with the psychopath, you begin to experience a genuine indifference. You don’t forgive, since psychopaths don’t deserve–nor ask for–anyone’s forgiveness. You don’t forget, because this negative experience taught you how to be a stronger and better human being. But you don’t care anymore if the psychopath who plagued your life lives or dies, fails or thrives.

A psychopath is only the center of his own world. He wants to get others to believe that he has qualities he lacks; that he’s talented and important. But the truth of the matter is that he’s not any of these things. Psychopaths, at core, are frauds and empty shells. They don’t have any talents except for very superficial ones. They aren’t capable of emotional or intellectual depth. They lack real social skills because they attach to others only in order to use and victimize them. Their life accomplishments are also parasitic.

Just think about it: why waste an ounce of your energy and life on such a trivial human being? He’s not worth it. Yes, you were fooled. But it was by a fool who shouldn’t matter to you or anybody else. Getting over a psychopath entails accepting how uninteresting and insignificant such a pathological person truly is. It means, in other words, cultivating indifference. That is the only emotion–or lack thereof–that any psychopath deserves from other human beings.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

Oscillating Between Victim and Survivor

It’s not simple being involved with a psychopath because you never know where you stand. It’s never on firm ground since the foundation of the entire relationship rests upon lies and illusion. The process of getting over a psychopath, however, is every bit as disorienting and unstable as being with him. Some victims move on with their lives without ever looking back. But most don’t. Most oscillate between being a victim and being a survivor.

These dichotomies mirror the dichotomies of the psychopath himself: between his loving false façade and his true evil self. The memories of the false persona–the romantic dinners, the trips, the gifts, his loving words and the aura of passion–can linger. They’re not always immediately effaced by the revelation of his bad actions and the realization of who the psychopath really is, at core. The women involved with psychopaths often cling to the illusion of the psychopath’s good façade because the sad reality can be shattering.

Below, I sketch some of the oscillations between the victim and the survivor within each person involved with a psychopath. The victim always finds excuses and makes rationalizations for why the psychopath needs to stay in her life. She clings to him and to their good memories together. The survivor accepts reality and finds the strength to move on.

1. The Survivor: He cheated and  lied to me. I deserve better than that. I’m over him.

The Victim: It’s not his fault. Besides, many men do that. Those women tempted him. They seduced him, not the other way around. It’s their fault.

2. The Survivor. But ultimately, he’s my partner, not them. I don’t care how those women acted or what they are. He’s responsible for how he acts towards me. I will move on and find a man who loves me and whom I can trust.

The Victim: I hate the other women for doing this to me, to us. If they hadn’t been around, he would be faithful.

3. The Survivor: I can’t love a man who is so unethical. That’s not real love, honest and healthy. It’s my own neediness. I’m clinging to what I wanted him to be. I’m clinging to my own dreams, not to reality. I need to open my eyes and see how much more there is to life than my relationship with him.

The Victim: How can I move on when every place in this town reminds me of our memories together? When I have spent so many years with him? To move on means to erase my past and everything I have invested in our love. I can’t move on. I need to do whatever it takes to make our relationship work. Giving up on him means failing. I can’t fail at what matters to me most: our love.

4. The Survivor: We’ve been through this over and over again. I’ve given him dozens of chances. We started from scratch more times than I can remember only to end up in the same spot. He lies to me. He cheats on me. He humiliates me. He takes me for granted. He trivializes our relationship. I don’t know when we’re together and when he’ll leave me again for a new temporary partner. How many times will I be cast aside and wait for his return?

The Victim: Yes, but you must admit: he always comes back. He gets tired of the other women or they leave him. It doesn’t really matter. The bottom line is that he always returns to me, to us. We’re stronger than all the other relationships. They don’t matter. He loves me so much more than he loves the other women. This gives me the strength to hold on.

5. The Survivor: Holding on is my weakness. And what am I holding on to? A dream? If he loved me more, he would show it by treating me with the respect I deserve. Consistently, not just when he gets bored with his newest flings. He wouldn’t toss me aside like an old sock. He wouldn’t play with my feelings and hopes like a yo-yo, back and forth, leaving and returning, as if I were his loyal servant. I deserve better. I must move on.

The Victim: Move on where? And for what? How many decent men are out there? At least he’s a known evil. The unknown ones are scarier. And what about our past? Our house? Our families? Their expectations of our marriage? Our children together? I can run anywhere I want on Earth, but he defines who I was, who I am and who I will be. I’m stuck with him.

6. The Survivor: I have a choice in this matter. I don’t have to remain enslaved to this hollow relationship, which will never fulfill me.  I used to be so independent. Other people considered me a pillar of strength. They used to ask me for advice. Now they see the way he treats me and feel sorry for me. They may say encouraging things, but I can tell from how they look at me their real feelings. They see me as weak and dependent on him. I can do better. I can be better. This year I can prove to myself and to all those I love that I can make it on my own. I will become again the person I used to be before meeting him.

I hope that this imaginary internal monologue can help you make the transition from victim to survivor.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1