Sociopath is a big word. We shy away from the idea because it sounds like a movie not real life. Taking a second look at this can save us lots of pain.
Dating a sociopath is something I’ve done a lot of. I never knew this until I married one. After the big-whammy experience with the con man sociopath who hijacked me for a green card in marriage fraud, and after really grasping how their little minds operate and their quirks and foibles, I know: I’ve dated a sociopath more than once.
Now I know I’ve dated one of these weirdo-s twice. Briefly. And about eight, all told have tried to get into my life. One of them got me into a legal marriage. Chances are, you might have known some as well. And, maybe like me, you went beyond dating a sociopath and married one.
Read 11 Warning Signs Of A Sociopath in Your Life
They Say One in 25 People is a Sociopath: One in Every Classroom
After the harrowing hideous entanglement and then the restoration of my life after the dirt-bag who hijacked me for a green card, I now know I came across a sociopath for one of the first times in my life in grade school. He was ten years old, and so was I. We were in the 5th grade.
He was super gross. Nobody liked him. He was tough and mean and didn’t fit the profile of that charming sociopath we read about at all. – But maybe crafting that smoothie exterior comes later in life for these creatures.
I was plagued by his attention. What I didn’t yet know was, there’d been a bet or a joint plot or some such heinous thing among complicit classmates that he could grab me and kiss me on the playground. Where the heck were the adults…?
The Moment of Attack Sharpens Small Detail
As it goes down, I suddenly realize I’m all alone, sitting on a swing. There’s nobody else playing, no balls bouncing, no laughing… And no one near me. It dawns on me that the entire 5th and 6th grade are divided into two camps on opposite sides of the blacktop.
The optics of the scenario stretch and pull as they do in moments of impending doom. I see or sense one band of kids far, far away in a corner of the now ghostly playground, hovering in a flock by one of the outbuildings.
A Laser Point of Focus
The more nearby knot of whispering, heaving-with-excitement 10-year-olds backs further away as a lone figure slithers towards me. In this moment, the classical traits of the snake-like qualities of a sociopath shimmer off of this kid who’s now in the way-too-near-me horizon.
The dirty-haired, pale-skinned predator floats up like on a Z-axis camera dolly, sliding into close-up position. His mouth, open in anticipation or in order to breathe.
Emanating from him, some super-human honing device sucked at me, aligning my body with my soul still inside it right into his orbit. That sensation of two magnets coming together on the right side or the wrong side; will they click and snap together, or hurl away in violent refusal?
Read Dealing With A Sociopath Or Narcissist? Here’s How To Know
Primal Defenses Kick In: Trust Your Gut
Brave little me looks the prepubescent beast straight in his eyes. At the millisecond I registered his leer, his curled lip revealing tiny, pointy yellowish teeth, my right arm pulls itself back, my hand in a rock-hard fist ready to smash his face. – Something I’d never done in my life.
In addition to being deceptive about who they are and about their intention in our lives, sociopaths don’t heed the natural and normal boundaries we have and that we expect others to have.
His eyes open wide from the slits of a hunter; shock replaces the cocky, shit-bag expression on his ugly freckled face. He leans back from his waist and comes closer all at once. He hisses through a clenched jaw, threatening: Don’t you hit me. – I didn’t.
I did look straight into his eyes looking for a person. There wasn’t one. But, he did look scared. Of me. Then I said not a word except a telepathic, silent human-to-beast: Don’t you fuck with me.
Those very words weren’t in my head, but surely there were screaming in my five foot two and 98-pound intention. He backed off. The crowds dispersed… And everything after that is a blur. I spent the rest of the 5th grade in the nurse’s office or sitting in the counselor’s room every recess.
Persistence of Predators: They Don’t Heed Boundaries
And then, either before or after that nice day, another fine day this grimy psycho kid shows me a messed up sketch he’d made. Presented it like a gift.
Smeared pencil on a piece of lined notebook paper; so many creases where he’d feverishly folded and unfolded the page in sweaty hands it was almost tattered. It was a crude drawing of an underground fort. Dug from the earth next to a tree, entwined in its roots. He told me this is where he planned to take me and keep me.
Sociopaths Need Normal People to Survive: They Count on Us Not Knowing What They Are
Turns out, I used to be the kind of person sociopaths really like. Someone they like to date, marry, and maybe even kidnap. A lot of us are this kind of person.. because we’re alive and amazing. – You know, someone these predators sniff out as delicious prey.
And this doesn’t mean we’re stupid, or a doormat, or codependent. — And don’t even go down the road of thinking you, or I are sociopath magnets… The very idea of a sociopath magnet implies it’s the targeted prey who are at fault for the fall down the rabbit hole. So not true.
Wanting a relationship and working for it doesn’t mean we’re codependent. Nice does not equal doormat. Dating a sociopath-con-man does not signify that we’re stupid. It does indicate our natural goodness and view of the world from the heart and eyes of normal.
We’re Not Stupid: We Do Need to Know and Accept That Monsters Exist
Sociopaths don’t get far or get much to support their lives out of stupid. Don’t forget, we unwittingly hold up their world; stupid can’t hold up tier own world and another grown person’s too.
Codependent simply does not apply as the case of this criminal hijacking arrangement they set up. It’s more like instant hypnosis, and unless you’ve been in it: Sit down. – That’s what you can all those people who say: Didn’t you know…? Why didn’t you just leave…?
What the Beasts Need
The more we learn about what a sociopath is and how to recognize them, you may realize you’ve known a few. Bleeping onto a sociopath’s radar screen as a potential target doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with us.
What they do work with, and do a lot with, is our emotions. That’s what they’re after… They don’t care really about which emotion; they just want a normal human one.
Our natural normal response from the world of normal. Our human emotions based on our ordinary and extraordinary kindness. They want open hearts, people who care, and people who don’t know what a predator is and that these revolting creatures exist… Even in 5th grade.
Dating a Sociopath: 8 Reasons to Suspect We’re Dating a Sociopath
Sociopaths don’t respond normally to normal things. For example, when something bad happens… like our pet turtle dies, or our cat gets sick, or we lose a family member, they remain kind of neutral, almost bored, or say something like, such a pity and go on watching Netflix. Or, throw off a blast of ice-cold freeze out.
Narcissistic predators say things like I don’t have feelings. Or I’m going to teach you a lesson, and they aren’t talking about tennis or playing the piano. Or when we’re deep in it, as I heard one day from the nut case who hijacked me in marriage, I can’t make you do what I want you to, but I can make you wish you had.
Things Are Unclear and Foggy or Scary or Too Exciting
- Things feel weird…like they’re lying; what they say doesn’t make sense.
- We spend time coming up with explanations for what they say and defend them to others.
- We’re not sure where they live, or where they are when they’re not with us.
- They talk about doing something for “us” that’s something we’ve always wanted and we’re excited beyond anything.
- The good stuff never happens, but weird stuff does.
- They seem mostly only semi-interested in things you say.
- Certain moments they’re riveted on you, really listening, they answer questions or say things that as “off”.
- Sometimes when you’re trying to talk with them about something important the room goes out of focus and small things come into focus.
Read D.I.Y. Guide to a Sociopath’s Brain and Psyche
Lying is Life: Lies Are Real and Real is Made Up
Lying deceivers aren’t where they say they’ll be: We run into them when they said they couldn’t come out with us or they’d be somewhere else.
The invader parasite sociopath has a whole world we aren’t in: We come across them out at a club when they said they were staying home – and then they ignore us, or tell us we should be at home. They don’t join us but freeze us out of their night on the town.
Signs of Dating a Sociopath Include Lots of Disappointment
Being used by a pathological predator involves being stood up with lame explanations or no explanation. If we’re dating a sociopath they might make a date with us and show up two hours late, or not at all. After that, they’re mad that we’re mad, and madder that we ask about it. And more than one of us has heard the sociopath we’re dating say, don’t question me, or if you’d trust me everything would be okay.
Trust our gut, we’re experts now. We can see a sociopath a mile away. Look them in the eye. They’ll know that we know and it’s so delightful to watch them scurry away like the rats they are.
Sociopaths busy themselves “dating” us and about 800 other people at the same time. They keep things close to their vest. They sleep with their phones. Lock their phone. Take their phone into the bathroom. Block us from their Facebook.
Dating-sociopaths often, as in within every single moment, overstep the normal social and personal boundaries we all have.
In addition to being deceptive about who they are and about their intention in our lives, sociopaths don’t heed the natural and normal boundaries we have and that we expect others to have.
They Inspire a Sense Of Unease
It’s not uncommon to have a creepy feeling like they’ve been looking through our drawers or catch them looking over our shoulder as we punch in our PIN. There always the quickly shifting and closing of the laptop when we walk into the room.
And, maybe you’ve noticed, predator sociopaths take things. Mysteriously, there’s money missing from our sock drawer, or from that envelope in between the dusty-never-used dictionary and “East of Eden” on the bookshelf. – Especially when they’re gearing up to exit our lives.
Normal Puts Things In Order
“When confronted by the impossible the rational mind will grope for the logical.” ~ Outlander S1:E1 Sessenach
They Come into Focus for What They Are
One day while my new husband was at a meeting, I went out to buy something delicious for his dinner. Surprisingly, I ran into him at my bank’s ATM just around the corner.
He was stunned and trying not to show it. – Caught red-handed more like. – Wary, surprised and leering, like a cat that thinks they saw something move, but aren’t sure and so waits and watches for it to happen again, ready to pounce; he asked, are you following me??
Feeling ungrounded, my brain spun and grasped for something that made sense of finding him, of his words, and to make things right because normal humans need that.
My mind sorted the circumstances: He had no personal bank account here, there was only my account recently-turned-joint-account. He was supposed to be in another area of town at a meeting… since an hour ago.
Read An Educated Empath Is a Sociopath’s Worst Nightmare
Their Oddness Leaves us Without Words
Out of my mouth came a tiny, no. – This was the best answer I could come up with to his very odd question.
The most normal response that made me seem not freaked out, because I did know enough to somehow know that I didn’t want him to know that I knew this was very, very weird.
The thing is: Somewhere in my body I was already afraid of this stranger I’d married. He too wanted things to seem okay, so he came into the market next door with me. It felt a lot like that encounter with the sociopath child while I was a child, that day on the playground in 5th grade.
I don’t remember grabbing the grocery items, but I do recall being at the checkout… Where I paid for our groceries while he fiddled with his phone and pretended to reach for his wallet.
Continuing the charade, he came home with me and then left eight minutes later. Truth gathering, observing as if I were a player in a scene revealed him for what he was.
Dating a Sociopath Doesn’t Mean There’s Anything Wrong with Us: Sociopaths Need Good People
Dating a sociopath was a recurring theme in my life. Emphasis on was. Previously, intermingled with great relationships with real people, I found myself dating a sociopath or about three very briefly; I only married one. — Recovery tip: Find humor where ever you can.
The more we learn about what a sociopath is and how to recognize them, you may realize you’ve known a few. Bleeping onto a sociopath’s radar screen as a potential target doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with us.
It means there’s everything right with us. It means we’re good, kind people who trust and love as natural, gorgeous humans innately do. We have every right to be exactly what and who we are.
Knowing is Key
We just plain, flat-out didn’t know such beasts existed, there’s no way to conceive of something so beyond normal; sociopaths hide behind this perfectly normal human characteristic of not knowing that evil exists and what it looks like. We can’t know what we don’t know until we know it.
Trust our gut, we’re experts now. We can see a sociopath a mile away. Look them in the eye. They’ll know that we know and it’s so delightful to watch them scurry away like the rats they are.
Read 20 Characteristics Of A Con Man Sociopath
Really… I did it just yesterday in the mall. Now, we can add knowledge, wisdom, and courage to the mix of our gorgeous selves!
Jennifer Smith, founder of True Love Scam Recovery is an author, public speaker, and international private recovery coach and holds support groups in Los Angeles for those coming out of narcissistic abuse and fraud relationships. Guest contributor to Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare. Hear Jennifer interviewed on Mental Health News Radio. Find Jennifer on Instagram @truelovescamrecovery, @truelovescamrecovery_health, and @jennifer_smith_tlsr On Facebook and Pinterest Reach Jennifer at, [email protected] – Jennifer Smith is a pen name.
Written By Jennifer Smith Originally Appeared On True Love Scam
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