Lovefraud Blog

• I, Psychopath: Watch the documentary online

  Three years ago, on November 30, 2006, I received an e-mail from Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. Perhaps you’ve seen Vaknin’s name on the Internet. He wrote and self-published a book called Malignant Self-Love—Narcissism Revisited. He promotes the book heavily online, so if you Google “narcissism,” his website on narcissistic personality disorder comes [...]
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  Posted: November 30, 2009, 5:34am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• After the sociopath is gone: Your best life yet!

  Number of comments: 10
  There was a time when all I felt grateful for was the absence of his voice, for just an hour or two from the phone. There was a time when what I was most grateful for was knowing he was somewhere else, somewhere where I wasn’t. There was a time when I [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 11:32pm EST
  by M.L. Gallagher

• Thanksgiving—count your blessings

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover I’m sure we have all heard the old saying, “I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.” This “old saying” is true, though I think it is made up to inspire some guilt in us for complaining about the small [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 5:05am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Hyper vigilance and PTSD

  Number of comments: 10
  Editor’s Note: Lovefraud received this story from the member who writes as “Duped.” In hindsight, I remember questioning the little green things on the dinosaur nuggets he prepared for dinner. I was surprised he’d made the effort, in response to much nagging about not pitching in. It was late and I’d [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 11:50am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• BOOK REVIEW: Perfect Prey

  Number of comments: 10
  Lovefraud first heard from Liz Cole, author of Perfect Prey—Surviving a Cyber Shark’s Romantic Fraud, back in 2007, shortly after she realized that the guy she met on the Internet was a sociopath. The guy called himself John Hill, although that wasn’t his real name. Liz wrote: In my case, John presented [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 5:48am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• Healthy Giving

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover Thirty years ago I met a special lady, she was my next-door neighbor’s sister-in-law. She had grown up in Italy during WWII. Her father was a “slave” to the government and worked for them. In exchange, he was given at least a limited amount of food. He loved [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 9:37am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• When nurture becomes nature

  Number of comments: 10
  There comes a time when nurture becomes nature. This is the time when nurture and nature become inextricable, inseparable. I suspect nobody knows precisely when this point arrives in the development of a given individual, but the immediate ramification is this: When you are involved specifically with a sociopath, or any [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 7:00am EST
  by Steve Becker, LCSW

• Your voice. It counts.

  Number of comments: 10
  When I was with the man whose lies no longer hurt me, I believed he held my freedom in his hands. I believed I could only be free with his love. With his words. His voice feeding me the lies I called the truth. The lies I believed were truth [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 11:10pm EST
  by M.L. Gallagher

• Judge Judy hears case about rape and the abuse of the legal system

  Number of comments: 10
  A Lovefraud reader sent a link to a Judge Judy program on YouTube. Judge Judy, Get Unshocked In this case, the plaintiff, Paul Baker, has filed a lawsuit against his ex-wife, Casey Bell. Baker says that Bell falsely accused him of rape, which caused him to spend time in jail, lose [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 12:26pm EST
  by Donna Andersen

• Recovering from a sociopath: acceptance and focusing on now

  Number of comments: 10
  Lovefraud has heard from a woman who we’ll call “Sally.” Sally is dealing with a sociopathic man who threatened to kill her, sabotage her daughter’s career and injure other family members. She says law enforcement either doesn’t believe her or doesn’t care. Sally has been in touch with another of the [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 11:38am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• Ask Dr. Leedom: Is there any new research on sociopaths and parenting?

  Number of comments: 10
  I recently received this note from a reader in Ireland: The reason I’m writing today is I have a friend who is in the same position has just recently had contact from her 2.5yr old son’s sociopathic father, looking for access. She is learning all about what having a sociopathic father actually [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 8:56am EST
  by Liane Leedom, M.D.

• Your reality is what you see

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover My best friend has been visiting me and, as usual, when we get together we re-share “old stories” of “remember the time when so-and-so did such-and-such and how we laughed?” One of those stories was a funny one about a small quarrel I had with my late husband. After [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 11:36am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• Fraud: Federal government wins some, loses some

  Number of comments: 10
  Two executives of Bear Stearns, a global investment bank and brokerage firm, ran hedge funds that bet heavily on the shaky subprime mortgage market. When the company collapsed, the two were accused of criminal fraud in an alleged scheme that cost investors $1.6 billion. On Tuesday, the executives were found not [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 10:17am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• D.C. Sniper killing spree was a plot to win child custody

  Number of comments: 10
  John Allen Muhammad, the D.C. Sniper, will die by lethal injection tomorrow. John Allen Muhammad and his teenaged accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, terrorized the Washington, D.C. area for three weeks in October 2002. In the end, 10 people were dead and three were wounded. The victims, selected at random, were shot [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 5:16am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• When does bitterness become a disorder?

  Number of comments: 10
  The damage done to strangers, lovers and family members by sociopaths includes physical, emotional, psychological, social and financial harm. Over the years I have encountered many people whose lives have been damaged in this way. The victimization alone is very sad, but people suffer not only from the actual damage [...]
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  Posted: November 08, 2009, 9:02am EST
  by Liane Leedom, M.D.

• BOOK REVIEW: A Dangerous Fortune

  Number of comments: 1
  Editor’s note: The Lovefraud reader “Usedandabused” recently found A Dangerous Fortune, by Ken Follett, in her garage. Although it’s not a new book—published in 1993—she said it was the best portrayal of a psychopath that she’d ever read. In this breathtaking and complex page-turner, master storyteller Ken Follett portrays a psychopath [...]
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  Posted: November 08, 2009, 5:19am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• Believing the unbelievable sets us free

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover There are some things in life that we accept as “truths” whether we understand just why they are true or not. We accept that the world is essentially round, that it revolves around the sun, that light is white and the absence of light is dark. We don’t [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 10:36am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• The sociopath’s irrational optimism

  Number of comments: 10
  We’ve discussed many of the sociopath’s traits, such as his missing empathy and compassion; his tendency to remorseless interpersonal exploitation; and proclivity to audacious acts of lying, deception and sundry other violating behaviors. Now, I’m tempted to add to the mix what I call the sociopath’s tendency to “irrational optimism.” By [...]
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  Posted: November 05, 2009, 9:00am EST
  by Steve Becker, LCSW

• Evil exists, and it does not want to be discovered

  Number of comments: 10
  Evil exists. If you need proof, just look at the horrific case of little Charleeni Ferreira. Charleeni, age 10, of Philadelphia, Pa., died on October 21, 2009. Her father, Domingo Ferreira, 53, and stepmother Margarita Garabito, 43, were charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child. So how bad [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 6:03am EST
  by Donna Andersen

• Regrets—we all have them

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover “The Road Not Taken” is always out there beckoning to us. I should, I could … Why did I do that? Why didn’t I do that? Regrets! Having been involved with a psychopath, and reeling from the devastation in the wake of the relationship, leads us to ask ourselves [...]
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  Posted: October 30, 2009, 10:21am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Vigorous campaign to portray me as angry and hostile

  Number of comments: 10
  Editor’s note: On April 15, 2009, we posted “Bob’s” story—Leaning on his family while battling his wife. Well, the battle continues. Bob is asking the Lovefraud community for suggestions. I recently received the email below from my P ex-wife and wanted to share it with your readers. I would like someone [...]
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  Posted: October 29, 2009, 10:01am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• He Will Call It Love. (May contain triggers.)

  Number of comments: 10
  I am often asked how I managed to get out of that place of darkness to live with such light and joy in my heart today. The answer is fairly simple — I chose to. The reality is much more complex. The following piece describes where I got to in [...]
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  Posted: October 28, 2009, 9:39am EDT
  by M.L. Gallagher

• Classic psychopath convicted in the UK

  Number of comments: 7
  A Lovefraud reader forwarded a link to a newspaper article about a con artist convicted yesterday in the United Kingdom. The guy was known as “King Con,” and for good reason. Bounder with a barrister’s wig preyed on women from lonely hearts page ads The guy did everything from masquerading as a [...]
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  Posted: October 27, 2009, 11:15am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• Finding meaning in the betrayal by the sociopath

  Number of comments: 10
  When we realize that we’ve been involved with a sociopath, and that person has callously betrayed us, we inevitably ask, “Why? Why did this happen to me?” To help find the answer, one of the books that Lovefraud recommends is The Betrayal Bond—Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships, by Patrick J. Carnes, [...]
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  Posted: October 26, 2009, 7:10am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• ASK DR. LEEDOM: Why has my husband cut our daughters out of his life?

  Number of comments: 10
  This week we received the following letter from a reader of the blog. I wanted to share both the letter and my reaction to it with you: After 30 yrs of marriage and abuse, I have finally left my passive aggressive sociopathic narcissist husband. I have managed the No Contact fairly well, [...]
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  Posted: October 25, 2009, 6:20pm EDT
  by Liane Leedom, M.D.

• All that glitters is not gold

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover Going through my family photos I came across one of my two oldest sons. We had gone on vacation to Montana to visit a friend for the summer in 1981. They were about 10 and 11 years old. My friend took us around to all the local sights [...]
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  Posted: October 23, 2009, 11:01am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• What All Sociopaths Have In Common

  Number of comments: 10
  As we think about sociopaths, let’s remember that they can make diverse presentations, which can make it hard to know if (and when) you’re dealing with one. Although sociopathy is a personality disorder, it’s complicated by the fact that sociopaths have widely diverse personalities. There are smart sociopaths and dumb [...]
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  Posted: October 22, 2009, 11:00am EDT
  by Steve Becker, LCSW

• After the sociopath is gone: Good-bye lie. Welcome truth.

  Number of comments: 10
  I wrote the following nine months after the p formerly in my life was arrested. I was asked on another thread, was there a moment you ‘knew’? Knew that you would be okay. Knew it was okay to let him go. Yes and no. In those first heady days of freedom, [...]
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  Posted: October 21, 2009, 11:38pm EDT
  by M.L. Gallagher

• Normal behavior and the sociopath

  Number of comments: 10
  Last week I did something that I really didn’t want to do. Thursday evening, I went out in the cold and rain to sit through a “customer appreciation” dinner at the dealership where we leased our car. My husband, Terry, wanted to go, but he couldn’t, because he just had [...]
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  Posted: October 19, 2009, 7:17am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• How can I control my thoughts?

  Number of comments: 10
  We recently received the following letter that expresses very well what many victims tell us they feel. Although I have written on this subject before, this week I would like to share new insights on healing and recovery. I spent two years in a relationship with an antisocial psychopath. In the [...]
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  Posted: October 17, 2009, 10:16am EDT
  by Liane Leedom, M.D.

• What’s the most important thing the sociopath took from you?

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover What’s the most important thing the sociopath took from you? Money? Love? Your home? Your self-esteem? Sex? Or, is it something else, which in my opinion may be even more important than just about anything? The most important thing I think I lost from every sociopath I ever dealt [...]
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  Posted: October 16, 2009, 10:31am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: I loved the person he was pretending to be.

  Number of comments: 10
  Editor’s note: This story was received from a reader who goes by the name of “Elegy.” I married a sociopath. Like most of them, he came off charming and wonderful at first. We met at church. Looking back, I realize there were many red flags … but what I told myself [...]
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  Posted: October 15, 2009, 6:39am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• After the sociopath is gone: Leap before you look.

  Number of comments: 10
  I work in a homeless shelter. It is a place where people are worn down by their stories, day in, day out. They carry the load like a weight upon their shoulders, sitting at tables with hunched shoulders, rounded backs. They walk with shuffling footsteps, backs curled into their chests, [...]
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  Posted: October 14, 2009, 11:11pm EDT
  by M.L. Gallagher

• LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: She wanted complete power and control over my dad and all his affairs

  Number of comments: 10
  Editor’s note: Even in old age, sociopaths do not give up their predatory game. I’ve heard several stories of sociopathic senior citizens, still looking for targets. Following is one of them, submitted by a reader who we’ll call “Edith.” After 40-plus years of marriage my mother died, leaving my Dad, in [...]
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  Posted: October 12, 2009, 7:06am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• Running your life like a business

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover Most victims and former victims of sociopaths are extremely capable and smart people, so why exactly did these really smart people go “bankrupt” in their personal lives by letting a sociopath take over? That’s a question that has plagued me since I started on the road to healing. I’ve [...]
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  Posted: October 09, 2009, 6:55am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• After the sociopath is gone: Changing our language

  Number of comments: 10
  On May 21, 2003 I was given the miracle of my life. The sociopath who had terrorized my existence for almost five years was arrested and I was set free from the web of his deceit. Almost imperceptibly, healing began. Without his sinister presence, the FOG of his lies began to [...]
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  Posted: October 08, 2009, 8:20am EDT
  by M.L. Gallagher

• Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m Not a Sociopath

  Number of comments: 10
  Ladies and gentlemen, hello…and thanks for inviting me to speak to you about sociopathy. As an audience, you come highly recommended by my good friend Phil, who visited with you last winter as a narcissism expert, and who, I understand, you basically booed off the lectern. By way of personal disclosure, [...]
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  Posted: October 08, 2009, 8:00am EDT
  by Steve Becker, LCSW

• Exposing the sociopath

  Number of comments: 10
  Last week Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a reader: I would like to expose the person who bilked me for thousands of dollars. I am going to file a claim in small claims court so there will be some public record, but I thought about having a web site that [...]
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  Posted: October 05, 2009, 12:14pm EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 14 - Discovering What We Are Capable Of

  Number of comments: 10
  The Buddhists say that we fall in love with our teachers. I know that in my relationship with the man I now belief is a sociopath, I realized early that I was in a sort of classroom. He clearly saw the world differently than I did, and operated on principles [...]
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  Posted: October 04, 2009, 3:51pm EDT
  by Kathleen Hawk

• Experiencing the impact of grief, Part 2

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover In Part I we looked at what grief is and what “stages” we may pass through when we lose something or someone of great importance to us. We saw that grief can be “legitimate,” in which others “support us” by validating that we have a reason to be [...]
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  Posted: October 02, 2009, 9:32am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• Experiencing the impact of grief, Part 1

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover Many of the people who have been victims of a sociopath have commented here at Lovefraud about how much “different” breaking up with a sociopath is than a “regular” break up, how much more painful. I’ve read comments from former victims about how intense the feelings are after [...]
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  Posted: October 01, 2009, 11:09am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• One man’s lies are not my truth

  Number of comments: 10
  I was at a seminar awhile ago where the speaker quoted from Gavin deBecker’s book, The Gift of Fear. deBecker writes that the first time someone hits you, you’re a victim. The second time, you knew what he was capable of yet chose to stay. The speaker went on to [...]
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  Posted: September 30, 2009, 5:59pm EDT
  by M.L. Gallagher

• Disturbing cases of atypical abusers

  Number of comments: 10
  Last week, Lovefraud readers brought two disturbing cases of abuse to my attention. The cases were disturbing because of the depraved actions of the perpetrators, and because most people would not suspect that they were predators at all. The Lovefraud reader BloggerT7165 sent me a link to the case of Jessica [...]
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  Posted: September 28, 2009, 6:21am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• Sometimes “victory” is simply walking away upright

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover Donna’s great article about Victory, of a sort, over a sociopath the other day got me to thinking. Just what is “victory?” My wonderful stepfather was a young basketball coach when he got his first real job coaching for a very small rural school which had not had a winning [...]
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  Posted: September 25, 2009, 7:01am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• If he walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, he’s a quack

  Number of comments: 10
  I address this post mainly to my female audience because, in my experience, the pathology I’ll be discussing, while not exclusively male, is more often than not expressed by men against women. I revisit here what I regard as an important relationship red flag: When you meet a man who seems [...]
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  Posted: September 24, 2009, 11:22am EDT
  by Steve Becker, LCSW

• After the sociopath is gone: Our thoughts become our reality

  Number of comments: 10
  So, it’s over. He’s gone and done the dirty D&D (devalue and discard, also affectionately known as ‘diss and dump’) one last time. You’ve sworn, ‘that’s it!’ a thousand times, cried your eyes out through the night, poured your heart out into the soggy pillow and vowed to get over [...]
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  Posted: September 23, 2009, 3:52pm EDT
  by M.L. Gallagher

• LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Taking the red flags seriously

  Number of comments: 10
  Editor’s note: Lovefraud received this e-mail from a reader who we’ll call “Edna.” I just had a two-month experience with a guy who, I am convinced, was grooming me for “the big scam.” I had been vigilant after a financial scourge from an ex who was an alcoholic/addict. Recently, however, grieving [...]
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  Posted: September 22, 2009, 6:38pm EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• Victory, of sorts, against the sociopath

  Number of comments: 10
  Dennis SanSeverino is in jail. Trish Rynn, from whom he scammed more than $350,000, put him there. How did she do it? Legwork and persistence. Lovefraud initially posted this case on our True Lovefraud Stories page in February 2008. The headline is, First he flashes wads of cash, then he steals [...]
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  Posted: September 21, 2009, 6:37am EDT
  by Donna Andersen

• Phillip Garrido: Father?

  Number of comments: 10
  Phillip Garrido is technically “a father.” He allegedly kidnapped Jaycee Dugard when she was 11, sexually assaulted her, so that she subsequently gave birth to two children. Some have had difficulty attaching the term “father” to Garrido. One news report I saw said, “He allegedly “sired” two children.” These children [...]
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  Posted: September 19, 2009, 8:19am EDT
  by Liane Leedom, M.D.

• Dealing with the root cause of the problem

  Number of comments: 10
  By Ox Drover One of the first things I learned in nursing school was to correctly diagnose the problem before trying to fix it. I wish I had applied this lesson to my own personal life as well as I applied it to my professional life. We were taught that when there [...]
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  Posted: September 18, 2009, 6:05am EDT
  by Donna Andersen