When you come out of a relationship with a sociopath. You are left feeling confused. Bewildered. You are trapped by the illusion of the perfect person you first met. The kind caring man, the one who swept you off your feet. The one who appeared to be your soul mate. Who had so much to offer. But in reality, gave so little. You are instead left with a stack of false promises, and empty dreams that came to nothing.

And now you are left feeling drained. Perhaps you have a longing to go back to the honeymoon period? How the sociopath was in the early stages. You need to realise that this will never happen. It can’t happen. Why? Because he wasn’t being true, he wasn’t being honest. He was simply being a mirror image of you.

If you were to take him back, he would only repeat the same behaviour again. This time gaining more glee from duping you twice.  So, going back is not an option. No matter how rose coloured those early days were, and no matter how many empty promises he gave you, that things would one day improve.

He has walked right into your life, taken what he wanted and needed for himself, and then when the source of supply was running out, when you are left absolutely drained and he knows that there is no more to gain from you. He disappears.

You are left feeling stunned, bewildered and confused. You try to reach out to him, to talk to him, beg him to speak to you. But you are treated even worse, and feeling even worse. He blanks your calls, switches off his phone, rants at you on the phone, talks over you, has no interests in your needs or wishes, and when he has finished ranting, he puts the phone down on you, and cuts you dead.

You are stunned. Confused. How did this happen? In the blink of an eye, the mask slipped and you saw a different man. What you actually witnessed, was the real man. He couldn’t keep up pretence any more. And now he has moved on. I know that this sounds harsh. But it is the harsh reality of being in a relationship with a sociopath.

He moves in cycles, and if you returned, he would have less respect for you, and the cycle would complete even sooner than the original time.

Remember the cycle

• Assessment
• Seducing
• Gaming
• Ruining

The reason for this is

• The victim is no longer blind, and won’t believe the lies
• The sociopath will have less respect for the victim
• So therefore, the sociopath won’t be able to seduce, and the victim will never again see him as the man of her dreams

The only outcome would be further loss.

Once the relationship has ended, the sociopath almost always moves on to another source for supply. A new target, a new victim. A sociopath finds it difficult to be on his own. He will always find someone else to scam, someone to freeload from, someone to live off. If it’s not you, it will be someone else.

The reason that you feel so confused, is because you have been manipulated, deceived and lied to.

What you saw, was not reality. You only saw the front end screen. Think of the wizard of oz, and the disappointment of Dorothy  as she pulls back the curtain and sees the real true wizard. This is what it is like discovering the truth, that the man of your dreams was in fact a liar, a con man, and hiding behind a big curtain of lies.

Confusion is never a permanent state of mind. Confusion will force you to seek understanding, to gain answers and the truth will set you free. You will still doubt, and tell yourself, that ‘he cant be’. The truth is so hard to accept. You were ripped off and conned.

Its also embarrassing. The sociopath banks on this. How you will not want to talk to your friends about how you were treated. Find an online support forum for victims of sociopaths, the people there will help you, and you can be open and honest about what you are going through.

It is likely that the sociopath called you crazy, gaslighting you (which I will write about later). You are not.  But it is hard to reach out for help, when you have been effectively emotionally abused.

It is not because you are stupid. It is because you have been conned by a magician, a con artist. The truth is that you are not experienced at assessing con artists, and they are expert liars. A sociopath is such an effective liar, that they could pass lie detector tests.

You are left feeling confused and bewildered, because your mind has been played with.  You have been manipulated and deceived. He did this by effectively mirroring you, by telling outrageous lies, and going to extraordinary lengths to cover those lies. The longer that you are in this relationship, and the longer that you are deceived, the worse the confusion and bewilderment is. You are left wondering what is real.

Of course, he doesn’t just leave. You are very lucky if he does a vanishing act and you never hear from him again, because the final part of the journey with the sociopath is ruining. If he hasn’t ruined you enough already, he will do so when he has left, and he is really done with you, by conducting a smear campaign against you to discredit you.

Coming out of confusion

• Remember nobody stays in a confused state forever
• Learn all that you can to understand what has happened to you
• Re-connect with things in your life that you can TRUST and that is real (old friends, family, people from your past before you met the sociopath)
• Talk to others who have been through the same thing, it will help you to make sense of the nonsensical, that people in your real world might struggle to understand
• Realise that this is a mental disorder, that cannot change
• It is no reflection of you
• Allow yourself time to heal, and be realistic with your recovery. You will experience the five stages of grief, as you were not in  the relationship with the person that you thought you were
• Focus your energy on what you CAN change!! YOU
• The more that you learn, the more that you understand, the less confused you will feel
• The fog of confusion will not last forever, its natural to want answers, realise that you won’t get those answers from the sociopath, but you can get answers elsewhere, like on this blog and other resources online

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