It might feel a bit ‘bizarre’ at first reaching out to a group of strangers on the internet. After all you are not used to writing down all of your problems, or telling your story to a bunch of strangers who you have never met. Finding that release, to write to get it out and get it down on paper, can be a liberating experience. If scary at first, as you do not know how it will be received.

If you have been reading this site and trying to find the courage to reach out for help. I want you to bear in mind the following:

• Once we ALL reached out and made our first ever comment asking for help (and it was scary to do so) – or it was for me)
• It might be difficult to trust, or you might wonder (after an emotionally abusive relationship) whether your story will sound ‘dramatic’ ‘over the top’ or whether anybody will ‘believe you’

It was a long time ago (or seems that way to me now) when I did this too. Reached out for support. I recall writing the first comment on another site, with fear and apprehension. So many questions raced through my mind…. when I pressed ‘send’….

• Would anybody reply?
• Would someone be kind? (I wasn’t at that time strong enough for another onslaught)
• Would there be sociopath’s and psycho’s on the site and would they  laugh at me?
• Would anybody understand? I just wanted to talk to ONE person who understood. I needed to talk to another victim,  someone who just ‘got me’ and would most importantly would believe me.
• I was feeling in a crazy world the sociopath was in full swing of lies and smear campaigns. I needed ONE person to listen. ONE person to hear me. To believe me. Although I appreciated it sounded crazy. How can you explain crazy without sounding crazy yourself?
• I felt a fool and ashamed – as well as heartbroken

I sent my message and logged out. It was the following day when I returned, and there under my comments of my story (not on this blog) – there were responses. …. wow….

I will never forget the warmth that I felt in my heart that there were other people who truly understood. Just those simple replies meant the world to me – (and one person is still a good friend of mine today 18  months later – you know who you are in the USA – love you). I can’t explain how just having the warmth of those replies. People who heard me. Who understood, and not only did this they poured love, warmth, empathy and understanding. Finally I felt heard and understood.

For the first 6 months I stayed on the healing and recovery site, and I supported other victims/survivors and they supported me. If I was tempted to make contact with him, I posted instead, it gave me strength.

It was from this that I was able to  move out of the fog of confusion. But also from this experience, and seeing everyone else’s experiences that I was able to write from a victims perspective with confidence.

My work had always been with homeless people. So I was quite experienced at working with others, to empower to give a voice and to work to a plan to heal and recover. I decided that I wanted to create a website, that provided a comprehensive resource of psychological understanding. I wanted to break down the behaviour so that it was easier to understand. So that people could move faster through the healing and grieving process to move out of the fog of confusion.

I wanted a website that was EASY to find on the internet((I struggled during my journey to find a place for victims).

Why I believe that group support works after dating a sociopath

• Other victims will believe and understand your story. No matter how complicated and complex your story may be. Just write!!! We will hear you. I expect that there is probably nothing at all that we haven’t heard. Understanding your story helps us to make sense of our own.
• You won’t have to worry about sounding too dramatic or that you won’t be heard – we will hear you – we will understand you!
• You don’t need to have fear that you will be thought stupid no matter how stupid your story sounds to you. We understand the mask of deception and know that intelligent people can be lured  in and deceived. This is no reflection on you
• You can reach out and ask questions and if we can, we will help you. It is likely that whatever you have experienced, one of us who writes here would have experienced the same thing too (no matter how crazy or bizarre it sounds), many of us have became experienced at making sense of the nonesensical. Of rationalising crazy….
• Being in a place where there are people who understand can help you to ‘normalise’ your experience. This can remove fear. It can be very frightening when you realise the truth of the person that you were dating. It IS frightening when you realise that the person you were involved with was a sociopath. The more you read, the more you know that you cannot deny the truth. Normalising the experience takes away the fear – and will help to empower you.
• It should help you to see that you are NOT ALONE. There are so many victims worldwide. I started writing this blog in February 2013. Eight months ago. In 8 months there have been almost 655,000  hits to the site. Thousands of people visit every single day. You might not see thousands of visitors commenting. But many read and do not comment. Perhaps some people have fear of commenting – particularly if they have been in a very abusive relationship, are shy – or if their first language is not English. It can be difficult to reach out – especially if you are unsure. Or even if you are being stalked and you fear that your movements on the internet are monitored.
• Whilst I am located in the UK, this site has visitors throughout the world, people on various time zones – who comment day or night (dependent on where you are). This is from blog stats to give you  some idea of where everybody is from (and it never ceases to amaze me)