Broken Hearts Can Surrender
It turns out that the members of this club are actually outstanding people who are able to love deeply and connect meaningfully,
Healing
Dark Night of the Soul: A Spiritual and Existential Crisis
Although it resembles depression—nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything—a dark night of the soul is a much different experience.
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A MUST-READ If You Ask Yourself “WHY DID I STAY?” or “WHY CAN’T I LEAVE?”
Why did you stay? If you’re still involved, why can’t you leave? Find out now. In the process, free yourself from needless self-blame and shame.
A MUST-READ If You Ask Yourself “WHY DID I STAY?” or “WHY CAN’T I LEAVE?” Read More »
In the Aftermath: GRIEF
Of course you’re grieving. But wait a minute, you tell yourself. You shouldn’t be grieving because you know this person didn’t really love you.
Fear, Hatred and Superstition VS Empowerment
If a few years have passed since you were traumatized and you still feel fear, hatred, and vulnerability, and if you avoid new relationships, don’t accept it as just the way things are now.
How To Never Get Involved with an Abuser Again
The two traits all abusive people have in common: They lack empathy and they are manipulative.
Defeated? Damaged? Destroyed? TURN, TURN, TURN!
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” ~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“I Should Have Known”
While we’re in the thick of the present moment, we must make decisions based on incomplete information and insufficient personal experience. That means failure can and does happen, to everyone.
The Psychopath: An Empty Boat
Understanding that psychopaths have a brain disorder that makes them act the way they do can help resolve anger, self-blame, doubt, and confusion.
You Are Not Your Thoughts: How METACOGNITION Can Help You Heal
You are not your thoughts, and just because you have a thought does not mean it’s real or true, or that you have to engage with it. Having thoughts–which happens automatically–is different from thinking.
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Tired of being used, invalidated, manipulated and devalued? PRESS THE BUTTON!
Do you want to have relationships with healthy, normal people? Could your self-confidence use a boost? Press the Button!
Tired of being used, invalidated, manipulated and devalued? PRESS THE BUTTON! Read More »
Feeling Crazy? Unstable? Unhinged?
If you’re doubting your own sanity, rest assured that if your symptoms started during the abusive relationship, you are experiencing post-traumatic stress.
First, Do No Harm: Abusive Psychotherapists
How can you tell if your therapist is crossing the line, or is engaging in poor therapy that is harming you or has the potential to do so? This post is not intended to scare anyone away from trying therapy. There are good therapists who are able to make a real difference in people’s lives.
Others Have It Worse Than Me: SELF-INVALIDATION
When others invalidate our feelings, it creates emotional distance. When we invalidate our own feelings, we create alienation from the self. We also create feelings of guilt and shame. Self-invalidation (and invalidation by others) makes recovery from depression and anxiety particularly difficult.
Persistence of Memory: The Phenomenon of Intrusive Thoughts
“It feels like a thorn in my brain.” That’s how one reader described the intrusive thoughts that plague us long after a psychopath is out of our lives. I’m here to reassure you that the intrusive thoughts will eventually fade away.
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Into the Mirror… and Out Again
Psychopaths know they have to hide what they truly are in order to win your heart. A psychopath knows you would not want anything to do with him or her if they didn’t. And when they’re trying to trap you, who do they pretend to be? You. That means… you fell in love with yourself.
EMPATHY: What It Is and Why You Need It
Emotional reciprocity, love and belonging are essential human needs, and if these needs are not being met, then mental and physical health will suffer.
To Trust or Not To Trust… Is That the Question?
What are we to do? Should we trust or not trust? How about neither one? It turns out there’s another choice available to us.
The Transformative Power of Telling Your Story
Over time, your story may become quite different than it was at the outset. The facts don’t change, but your interpretation of them — and the meaning you give to your experience — can change, going from a story of defeat to a story of victory.
The Peace and Healing of Acceptance
Acceptance isn’t the final stage in some neat and orderly process; it helps you move through the process. The first thing you might need to accept is that you’re having periods of strong emotion that often feel unbearable.
Want To Reclaim Your Power? Re-Write Your Story!
The lie is the story of defeat and doubt and failure. That’s the story the psychopath wanted you to create and live with. Don’t fall for it anymore.
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Why You? And How Did You Get Trapped?
If you can’t figure out what made you vulnerable or don’t believe you were, remember that it is our best qualities — our ability to give and receive love, to trust another enough to be intimate and vulnerable, and to believe in the goodness of another — that enable a psychopath to victimize us.
The Healing Power of Awe
Awe expands and heals the soul. When we’ve been in a dark place that has made our spirit wither and grow dim, awe opens it again and fills it with light.
Is He or Isn’t He? Why It Doesn’t Matter
I get many letters from readers who aren’t sure if their partner is a psychopath or not and want help figuring it out. Part of my response is “You’re asking for relationship advice on a website about psychopaths. That, in and of itself, indicates something is seriously wrong.”
Self-Respect: The Key to Everything
Losing our self respect stems from the feeling that we compromised our own values, dignity, and boundaries.
The Self-Compassion Effect
Self-compassion is nothing less than a paradigm shift after involvement with psychopath, narcissist, or any abuser. It can be transformational.
Forgiveness: The Other F-Word
The idea that you have to forgive or you’re a bad person is untrue and detrimental. Instead of moving forward in your recovery, you expend energy trying to forgive and wondering what’s wrong with you since you can’t. There’s nothing wrong with you. You can’t forgive because the perpetrator does not deserve it and because what they did was unforgivable.
Angry? There’s a Reason for That
It’s normal to feel anger and even rage in reaction to being thoroughly violated by someone without a conscience and is a walking moral wasteland. Fierce anger and indignation — outrage — is an appropriate response. It means is that you know you deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and that you recognize that you weren’t.
DOUBT: Friend or Foe?
Your doubts exist for a reason. In a healthy relationship, it’s not usual to be consumed by uncertainty or to be left doubting yourself.
Moral Injury: The Hidden Wound to the Soul
After being victimized by a psychopath, the rage we feel is moral outrage. The experience violated our deeply held moral values and defied our expectations of how others might behave.
At the Intersection of Truth and Lies: Self-Blame
Doubt and confusion don’t spontaneously resolve after the manipulation ends — they are ongoing, lasting until we can finally see the truth of what happened.
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Emergency: Self-Blame
It makes no sense to say we were manipulated and lied to by a predator, and then claim that we were responsible. Both cannot be true at the same time.
Your Own Personal Apocalypse
Many things that were buried under the rubble have been revealed. You see things you didn’t see before. Your rose-colored glasses are off, smashed somewhere amidst the ruins, and your eyes are opened to a clearer version of reality.
A Pearl of Truth and Wisdom
Love yourself. In what ways will you show yourself that love today? In what ways will you treat yourself kindly, lovingly, gently, and respectfully?
You Had the Power All Along
You held The Grail. The psychopath pursued you, for a reason. You were the one who had the power, and it never left you.
The Holy Grail of the Psychopath
We have the capacity to heal and live fully again. Psychopaths are stuck in their empty void forever.
After the Psychopath: Moving From Fear to Confidence
Fear is part of the aftermath of trauma. The fear expands beyond the traumatic event that caused it, and we wonder, “what else might happen?” We are between places of safety, out in the open, seemingly without protection or defense.
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From Adversity, Forge Meaning
How can we forge meaning and build identity from our biggest struggles?
From the Darkness, a Small Light Shines… A Holiday Wish
Even if the holidays are a sad time for you this year, I hope you will find a small light that burns within you that illuminates hope, peace, and self-compassion. May that light — and all it shines upon — grow bigger and brighter with each day of the New Year.
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The Real Reason You Were Victimized By a Psychopath
Shame is not your burden to carry. Neither is blame, from others or from yourself. What is there to feel shame for? Being a decent, loving and trusting human being?
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Resilience — You’ve Got It
From adversity comes strength. Just as the hardest steel is forged in the hottest fires, we too are forged and strengthened by our own struggles and triumphs.
Can We Ever Trust Again?
It’s hard to trust others after what happened. And it’s hard to trust ourselves. After all, we didn’t see the truth of what was going on right before our eyes. But we have learned a lot since then.
Freedom: The Ultimate Relationship Litmus Test
Ask yourself: Am I free from fear? Free from shame? Free from uncertainty? Free from feelings of inadequacy that I didn’t have before? Free to express my emotions? Free to share my thoughts and opinions? Am I free to be myself?
Shame: A Festering Wound of the Soul
What heals shame? “Empathy is the antidote to shame,” Brene’ Brown writes. “The two most powerful words when we’re in struggle: Me Too.”
Fox in the Hen House: The Dangers of Forums
Traumatized people are at their most vulnerable when they turn to online forums in search of support. Unfortunately, I’ve heard from people who were re-victimized, and I experienced it myself. It was the last thing I needed and it set me back.
BOUNDARIES: Protect Yourself After a Pathological Relationship
It gets to the heart of the matter of boundaries for survivors of pathological relationships.
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Should You Forgive the Psychopath?
There are many arguments in favor of forgiveness, but are they valid? I don’t mean valid to your mother or your pastor or your best friend, but to you.
Liminality, the Unsettling Space of In-Between
After our experience in a psychopathic bond, we are shaken to our core. The firm foundation we believed we stood on crumbled beneath us. We find ourselves in a liminal place — a place of ‘in-between.’
Falling Into a Parallel Universe
Psychopathy is the best-kept secret. Yet it’s also a wildly popular subject that intrigues a lot of people. Psychopathic characters pop up everywhere in movies, books, and TV — yet we hear close to nothing about psychopaths in personal, one-on-one relationships.
Do You Make This Simple (But Dangerous) Mistake About the Psychopathic Mind?
We automatically assume that others are just like we are when it comes to the fundamental aspects of our characters, such as having a conscience. That can be a dangerous mistake.
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Got Boundaries? Part Five: Important Points and a Wrap-Up
When dealing with covert manipulators, it won’t always be obvious that our boundaries are being tested, pushed, and violated. What better way is there, after all, to obliterate a boundary than to use subtle influence to make someone think it was their own decision?
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Got Boundaries? Part Four: Can Boundaries Protect You?
Can boundaries protect you from a manipulator? Only if you defend them. If you don’t, they’re useless.
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Got Boundaries? Part Three: You Did NOT ‘Participate’ in Your Own Exploitation
The problem isn’t your beliefs or your cognitive biases or your vulnerabilities — the problem is that there are predators who are skilled manipulators.
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Psychopaths are Not Supernatural Beings With Superpowers
It seemed at the time that I had been involved with a magician, or the devil himself. How else could he have done what he did?
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