People will wonder, ‘why don’t you just leave?’ If somebody is that bad, they wonder, why are you ‘still in love?’.

It really makes no sense to them.

The truth is that you have been emotionally abused. Sociopathic control is unlike anything I have ever experienced. It has taken me a long time to heal and recover.

I was reading emails sent through the site, and realised a common thread from emails sent by many of you.

• I feel like I am losing my mind
• I am experiencing so much anxiety
• I have almost been pushed to suicide
• Why do I still yearn for this person?
• Why and how could he/she treat me this way, when all I was to them was kind?
• I don’t know who I am anymore?
• I have been ruined, destroyed,

The majority, if not all emails, are written by people who have been left absolutely broken and shattered by your experiences.

This was me too

• I questioned my own mental health
• I thought I was losing my mind
• I experienced panic attacks that were almost daily
• I felt ‘frozen’ what if he came back?
• The way that I was treated left me with low self esteem. So much so that I struggled to even write this blog.  I stopped writing.

Confusion for the victim, and duality of nature of the psycho

Your friends and family will not understand. As likely you would have talked to them when things were bad for you. Not being a ‘normal’ person, the psycho enjoys the game. They enjoy the push and pull. Because they are CONTROLLING. They love to be in control. Being controlling, they love to also control your relationships with others. If they can isolate you from others, well, all the better. This would mean that they could wield even more control over you.

Unlike the narcissist, who thrives on attention, and likes to put you down to make themselves feel better. The sociopath is all about control. Control can come in many guises, it can be ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

You don’t expect someone who is very bad for you, or controlling you, to focus on making you happy. But the sociopath can do exactly this. They  groom their victims. We quite often talk about the negative side of emotional abuse, but Socio/Psychopathy goes one further. It is all about the control. They can

• Make you laugh
• Be your best friend
• Be helpful and useful
• Be a listening ear
• Go on exciting adventures with you
• Be smart, intelligent and seem worldly wise
• Moralistic, and appearing to have similar values to you

I know, the above does not sound like abusive behaviour. This is what you want and need from a ‘good’ and ‘healthy’ relationship. Mix this behaviour up with –

• Pathological lying
• Manipulative behaviour
• Lack of empathy, guilt, remorse or shame
• Being demanding
• Creator of drama
• Isolation techniques
• Crazy making behaviour/gaslighting
• Threats, harassment, stalking, hacking and snooping
• Sometimes theft, infidelity, any kind of behaviour that displays zero remorse, guilt or shame
• UNBELIEVABLE things that happen, that make you question your sanity, or feel like you are living in a film. This can’t be real, to explain it to others who have not experienced the same, can make YOU appear to be a liar. After all, surely this could not have happened. You can’t be THAT stupid. You can almost feel stupid trying to explain what has happened.

Do you recognise this? This is what is called duality of nature. One side ‘the good’ is manipulative behaviour to groom and keep you under their control (so you will not run off with anybody else, or detect their true nature/intentions), the other side ‘the bad’ is who they really are under the surface.

Yearning for the person who has been abusing you

Reading the above, can you see how, until you have broken free and regained yourself, fully healed and recovered, how and why you continue to yearn for the person who abused you?

You are not yearning for the bad. You are yearning for the lie. It can be difficult for the brain to accept that you have been duped and conned. Likely you have not experienced anything like this in your life. Even your own conscious struggles to take it all in.

It is therefore far easier for your brain to process and accept what you DO KNOW.  As human beings, we are ‘mostly’ if we are decent people, empathetic.  We look for people who appear to be ‘just like us’. We look for the decent, moral people. We look for those who have similar life goals. We try to learn from our past mistakes, and ensure that we do not repeat those mistakes in the future.

The sociopath plays on the behaviour of normal people, and actually thinks you are fairly stupid not to see through them. In their heads, you actually deserve it, for being so stupid. You are of course, NOT stupid. You are normal. Normal people do not go around hurting, duping and conning others. Normal people do not use others as a game, or a toy. Normal people do not use others as their career option (not all do this, see  the book by Robert Hare Snakes in Suits, When Psychopaths go to work).

You, therefore, will look for what YOU know and understand to be normal. While at the same time, looking out for what you have learned in past lessons. I do not believe that there are any past lessons that could fully prepare you for a sociopath.

Please do not blame yourself.

How can I ever bring this to an end? 

As you will see from the front cover of this site. I placed a survey to ask who you are? Why are you visiting this site? Over 4,000 of you have responded so far. The biggest group over a thousand of you, were from people who had gotten out of the relationship, and the sociopath is still lurking around. The next biggest group, of over a thousand, was of people who had recently been abandoned and are just learning the truth. Likely the sociopath will turn back up (Not always but often), placing you into the top category. So, if this is you. You are in good company.

This was also me, when I began writing this website, and continued to write this website, for many years. If I hadn’t had the self esteem kicked out of me. I would have continued to write, as I knew, that I was writing to people ‘just like me’.

You can bring it to an end. It takes time. Sociopaths end relationships on their terms, when they are ready. Even courts, and police struggle to stop it. And involving legal services, can see you in further trouble, they are the liars remember? And they WILL lie about you, to portray you in a bad light. Even when you have done nothing at all wrong.

This behaviour, can lead to victim ‘freezing’, living in a constant state of fear and anxiety.

When you continue to live in a constant state of fear and anxiety, the sociopath still has full control of both you, and your life. Even if they are  not in it.

It takes time. Seriously for me, in desperation, one day I prayed to whoever runs this universe. PLEASE remove him from my life. Within 2 weeks he had left my city. We no longer have contact, and he does not know where I live to show up at my home shouting, hollering or yelling. He no longer has control over me, or my life.

No contact did not work. No contact made the threats, harassment, stalking, snooping, everything else much much worse. When he could no longer control me, he controlled what others thought about me. By going no contact, if the sociopath still has access to your social network or anything else, they will do all that they can to control what others think about you.

So how do you do it?

• Be dull and boring
• Let yourself go
• If you give no response, they will eventually become bored, but give just enough so that they do not go full blown into controlling what other people think about you.
• Remember that they enjoy the ‘cat and mouse’ so refuse to play the game. Eventually they will need someone else who will and can play the game. An innocent victim. Essentially, like a cat playing with a mouse, play dead….. I think this is what ‘freezing’ is. We are playing dead, but continuing to live in fear in case, if and when they return.
• Do not believe the ‘sorry’ and ‘I have changed’ etc etc… to lure you back in. The outcome will ALWAYS be the same.
• I don’t think you can just ignore a sociopath, if they do not want to be ignored. Unless you live somewhere they do not know where you are, do not know where you live, and have no access to anything in your world to damage/harm. You have to manage – and eventually slowly, very slowly they do vanish…..

No longer living in fear/anxiety – self esteem

For me, as I read your emails. I see the comments come in. As I realise that this blog is still thriving, many years after I wrote any decent content. People who ask for my help. Those who share their stories with me. It still means a lot to me. That my own experiences have helped you.  I realise, that this work is important. It was not only important to you, it was important to me too.

I am reading through your emails (datingasociopath@hotmail.co.uk). I will reply to as many as I can. I know a lot of you have asked to work with me. I will prioritise those most in need. I will not be working alone in the future. I have some people who are going to work with me. People that I trust. One has published a book about being involved with a psychopath. Her story is so similar to mine. We could have almost been with the same person. Both of us believe that we met for a reason. She lives not too far from me. We have forged a good friendship. I guess she is smart, as she just graduated from her degree with a first class honours degree. She enjoys writing, just like me.  Other people who are going to help, work in IT and have great ideas for the evolvement of this site, this is unique, and as far as I know, has not been done previously, it should help to provide an improved and professional service to you. I also trust these people. But, I will not say further about this yet. I read recently ‘never disclose your next step’.

After all, we know …. after all that you have been through, you need people around you that you can trust. First of all. You need to learn to trust yourself. If you are really struggling, ask, shout out to the universe, for help. The right people will come towards you, when you are ready for that next step. Even if it is people online. Just one step at a time. One day at a time. Focus on now. Right now. For this is all that we have in this crazy world. Is right now. If we focus on making right now, today great, we can focus on making the rest of our lives happy.

One step. One day – at a time.

Nikki