I thick tangle of webs. I don’t know how they keep everything straight.

I specifically wanted to address your dog comment. Without revising the entire post here, here’s the link: country-of-liars.com/3641/whos-not-a-sociopath/

I saw what I thought was the same thing myself, but it was all part of the ruse. The want to appear “normal” so that’s the proverbial house with a picket fence, their place of worship, 2-5 kids and the family dog. But they relate to the dog no more than to their kids.

I also read that SPs are cruel to dogs. My SP seems to adore them. Are there some that love dogs? It seemed he was fascinated by them?

Larry, I know I am so much better without this man in my life, but I miss his intellect, the way he communicated with me and made me feel desirable and happy …the things that were lacking in my marriage. I know it was all fake now, but i do miss the person that he was. It was too good to be true. I still don’t feel that I have closure, but I hope in time, I could accept this. I am moving on but I still think of him and the good times. I still can’t believe it was all a lie and that once I left my husband, he distanced himself from me and was already involved with someone else.

I’m glad I sent him the email letting him know I had discovered that he was a SP and I wished him good luck. I told him that I liked the person he pretended to be, but once his mask came off and I saw him for who he really is, he frightened me. He used to tell me he felt like a “lost soul”. Now I understand. Thanks again Larry for educating me and helping me with your insight.

Thanks for responding to Margaret’s concerns. I wanted to further explain the notion of spyware. There are a lot of issues at play here: does your psychopath have physical access to your computer? If “no” did s/he ever? If s/he had previous access, have the computer scanned (you can do this at home with Norton, Symantec, etc). Make sure there is no future access, and that means don’t insert any disk with pretty pictures.

If there’s ongoing access, get you own computer, or probably best yet, an iPad. Messing with one of them is nearly impossible. Macs aren’t quite as safe as an iPad, but much, much safer than a Windows machine.

Chances are they cannot do anything from a distance, unless they previously set up a remote user application. For that you may need a pro to find, but it would allow the psychopath to record every keystroke.

For the best security: an iPad.

I’m not sure I understand that you are being live-streamed. Why do you believe this? If they are from hidden cameras within your home, you can call the police. If the cameras are visible, then just take them down. If any questions, call the police. Your privacy is yours and yours alone.

Thank you … I’m glad it lends you a new view.

I would suggest to focus on yourself becoming invisible and avoid any further contact. It’s impossible to know his response to your letter. Let’s hope it’s not revenge, but instead, convinces him to distance himself from you. That would be the best ending to this.

i would like others comments on this, have you seen or experienced spaths that are able to hold on to a large amount of money for a sustainable time?

Margeret, i am trying to comprehend your spath live streaming you. are there cameras in your residence?

spaths are very capable of using their “disciples” for some type of gang stalking.

to answer your question, spaths do get bored easily, they are drama people, if you lay low and not let them know they are getting to you, they can get bored and move on. they always have to have an enemy to destroy and it wont take them long to find one. spaths are similar to terrorest, they feed on the psychological harm that they cause.

i hope that you dont get too down on yourself for “allowing” this, it is not your fault, a spath just happened to cross your path and target you, its what they do. concentrate on being as mentally strong as possible so that you can keep making good choices from here on out, this will be your strength.

just a side note, while im thinking about it, it is probably a good idea for all of us victems to reinstall your operating system at least every 4 months, to wipe your drive down just in case there is any personal spyware on it. if you are not adept at computers, just take it to a local computer shop and tell them you are concerned about spyware and you want the drive cleaned and wiped, it should cost around 80 bucks.

I recently had an affair with a sociopath. I realize he is one now after doing some research. He was so charming and flattering initially. I was in an unhappy marriage and i loved the attention and the fact the he found me desirable. After 8 months, I decided to leave my husband. I had not been in love with him for a very long time. As soon as I told my boyfriend that I was leaving my husband, he began to distance himself from me. I had a gut feeling he had met someone else.

I caught him in several lies eg. He wasn’t where he said he was a few evenings. I confronted him and he called me crazy and paranoid. His mask came off and I saw someone I didn’t know. I always knew he had a temper but never realized just how angry and cruel he could be. He made trouble for me at work. I was mortified. Anyway, we stopped seeing one another. I so angry and want revenge. A few weeks ago, I emailed him and told him that I had been reading up on sociopaths and that I figured him out. I never heard back from him.

I’m surprised because knowing how cruel he is, I thought he would email me back something nasty. Perhaps he’s afraid because I know who he really is. I don’t know. Maybe that was enough to get rid of him. I hope he doesn’t contact me again. I’m worried he may be plotting his revenge.

It didn’t take long before I was paying all thhe bills and the rent without her help. Then she started stealing money from me and hiding it from me. I know what your thinking how can you still be “friends” with someone like that. Because at the time I. Could not even fathom someone being capable of doing things like this to someone much less a friend that I trusted.

When I would confront her about fetting a job(she was fired from every job she ever got) and paying her half of the bills she would tell me the sad story of her life and how sorry she was and the she doesn’t know what she would do without me and that she loved and she would pay me back. The weird thing was I also was left feeling sorry for her. Anyway we moved out of the apartment. I moved back to my home town when my job transfered me and got my own place. I noticed how much better emotionally and even phisically I felt once she was out of my everyday life. She went on to jump into another bad relationship with a guy with money and she moved in with hiim righ away.

Through the next few years we would talk and keep in touch but I felt she really only called or drove the three hours w lived apart now when another bad relationship would end or she would need an escape. Fast foward we would up living in the same town again but in the recent years I felt she finally got her life together I was really impressed. She got married to a wonderful man she had. A little boy and she even found God and was working for her church. So when I got transfered through work. Again back to the same area I thought it would be so good for our friendship because she was in such a good place now. Well needless to say less then a month after I was back. Her and her 4 year old son showed up on the door step of my new apartment. She said she was in. A un healthy marriage and she was scared for her son could they stay with me until she gets on her feet. She knew I would not turn her a away with a little by and no where to go.

So they moved in. But it didn’t take long for her to be living off me again. She would go out party sometime with other time alone and I would stay home with her son. The weird thing was I felt dorry for her son the same way I use to feel sorry for her. I felt like she hadn’t changed at all she just got better at playing me. This is the real problem fast forward another year. I started to. Distance myself and look for my own place I just didn’t wan any of it in my life anymore. This is my problem I started dating her brother we fell in love and were happy and we just. Had a baby nine months ago. That was it for her I guess she stopped talking to me wants me out of the apartment and has stopped at nothing to destroy my relationship with her brother and even the rest of my life that has nothing to do with her or her brother. So when I was pregnant I packed my things and left the house, her and her little boy, and even her brother.

And I told none of them were I was going. I moved out of state with family and had my son in a safe loving enviorment. Tthis whole time her brother has tryed to reach out to me to be there for me and now he wants to know his son. I feel terriable about that part and I do love him. But she has such a hold on her brother andhe listens to her and I can’t have a sociopath around my son. The weird thing is she’s calling me now so nice and sweet like nothing ever happened want me and my son to be apart od their family for her brother and her. Please help me I feel like I made the right decsion. Please tell me I’m not wrong?

I want to first thank you for having the courage and vision to create this website. In my late forties, I am relieved to now finally have an idea of what I am dealing with: A family of sociopaths. While this is validating, it is also extremely shattering. A recent event helped me to turn the corner, and identify what I have been experiencing for so many years. My husband, thank goodness has witnessd other events, as well as the most recent one.

There are generations of alcoholics and I suspect sociopaths and other personality disorders, emotinal abuse, trauma and clinical depression on both sides of my family; and one of my four siblings who has suspected moderate sociopathology, is I suspect married to a sociopath. My youngest brother I feel is a disciple of these other sociopaths in my family and is also an alcoholic; my father is blatantly in denial, and may be a disciple too (he is an adult child of two alcoholics as is my mom). It is daunting. I will digest your related reading here over time on this topic of disciples.

I first started researching family scapegoating mid May 2012, and within one week of doing this, I found your website. I have been scapegoated by my family numerous times since my 20′s. My husband, one of my only supporters has suggested for ten years that I have little or no contact with my family. Moving away is not an option, as we have caregiving responsibilities with his parents, who I am happy to report are peaches.

My world finally came to a complete stop one week ago when my maternal aunt died. That event is what started the end for me. She was one of, if not the truest sociopaths in my family – however, she NEVER pulled anything on me…for reasons I am sure readers will want to know – mainly I had a corresponding (letter writing only, I would never give her my telephone number or email) relationship with her since my youth, and I represented the daughter she lost two days after she was born, strangely, I never posed a threat to this aunt – she did not mention my mother in her letters ever, and I NEVER wrote personal information about my mother to her. My mother described her sister as “bossy,” and more recently, my father told me someone he confided in mentioned to him that my aunt was being emotionalyl abusive towards my mom for her entire life, which makes sense; something I have experienced w/o explanation or obvious reasons from 3 of my 4 siblings. I now see it as extreme sibling rivalry. My aunt and mother both have histories of alcohol dependency, and undiagnosed mental illness.

I have witnessed my mother’s alcoholism, biphasic, psychotic and pathological lying, and suicide ideation; and even her teaming up with my sociopath SIL, as well as other family members during family gatherings, where I was always the target.

My mother I realized began acting out the emotional abuse she experienced from my aunt, on me around this SIL and at times with my siblings and father present during family and holiday gatherings, and via the telephone; the holidays do not represent happy times for me. It took on a shocking new form the day of my aunt’s death, but this phase if you will began one week prior. Needless to say, I was in shock…that my mother would blame me for “not being there for her,” when I actually was, but this SIL swooped in to “lock me out.” I know, people reading this will feel, hey, maybe I am the jealous one…no…and I am sincere when I say this. SIL married into a family of means…and uses my mother and father as she can…I was called stupid by 3 of my 4 siblings for paying for 2 degrees on my own, “when I should have let dad do it,” and been put down by this SIL for going into clinical social work, and expert witnessing in crimes against children and youth. Why, I have no idea. A form of bullying in its own way. I also have witnessed the bad mouthing of one sociopathic person by another, and vice versa, followed by the teaming up…truly sickening to witness, and then I am the target of these individuals. The dynamics are varied and numerous.

Today I am experiencing social withdrawal from the event that happened one week ago; peppered with flashbacks of PTSD from a verbal and physical assault done on me in 2000 by one of my brothers and sociopath SIL. This same brother & SIL will talk on and on about my other undiagnosed narcisistic sibling, who wants to form a cult…and has burned more bridges than anyone I know. It is his way or the highway…

In short, since that violent assault 12 years ago, (that my entire family blamed me for, and alienated me for 3 years), and moreso since one week ago, I have begun to isolate myself socially, withdrawing almost completely, gained a lot of weight, have very low self-esteem, have been suicidal…serious insomnia, and currently fighting ideation thoughts…anger, resentment…you name it.

I do know that a sign of trauma is repeating the details of the traumatic event…what I have been doing also with my husband who is patient and kind…it is like a horrible rollercoaster between the extreme of being withdrawn, to needing to talk to a trusted individual who does not think me crazy…oh, and THEY, the sociopaths, et al in my family are experts at blaming me, labeling me abusive if I crack or lose my composure. The manipulation is ugly.

Your work here has given me hope for a better life without them. 3 out of my 4 siblings have most if not all of the symptoms for sociopathology on the checklists posted here. It is sickening how these like-minded individuals find one another, and with the genetics being a factor, all of this makes me truly nauseated. Even my mother who targets me, as a form of acting out all the pain inflicted on her by her sister, has told me these 3 siblings are jealous of me, as is this one SIL…why, I have no idea, as all of my siblings have had ALL if not more of the same opportunities than I. Then I read the symptomolgy of a victim, and saw myself there clear as day…giving, nurturing…This SIL is another case, a clearer obvious one of sociopathology that even some of my friends have wondered about, without me saying anything to them. So I know I am not crazy, though I have been called, crazy, evil, abusive, a bitch…you name it by my family and SIL, if I dare to stand up for myself or call them on their crap. The denial and amnesia about events is also no fun to deal with…so it is a losing battle, as you clearly stated.

The section on how to deal when children are involved is greatly appreciated, and I will take that in over time. To mention school bullying is just another arena to find this growing issue in…and I have a child who has been in more than one school since kindergarten, as this problem is extremely prevalent; budding little sociopaths abound, though conduct disorder is the term often used, for kids under 18 when taken seriously…I was even blamed for the bullying by two of my siblings my child experienced; any way to put me or keep me down…it cuts deeply. I know about and understand the situations these children bring to school and try to find a release through bullying, but it seems “a country of liars” is spot on when the magnitude of this problem is exposed and the child, youth and adult populations are considered in entirety. NOT all young bullies become sociopaths, I want to make that clear.

In addition, I have said to my mother, “my brothers hate me,” not knowing WHO I was talking to; a sociopath who refuses all addiction treatment, therapy for possible bipolar / borline personality, etc…the addiction alone even if treated will not erase or touch the sociopathic tendencies she has…it is truly an insidious combination, but even alone, without drug addiction a sociopath is a walking functioning disease, an addiction if you will all in its own category.

I am sorry this is so long, I needed to get some of this out, and will be seeking a support group / therapy. I too, like another poster have worked within the mental health arena for years…and did not see this coming…I am overwhelmed and need to sign off…but wish for you continued Peace & Grace with your beloveds. THANK YOU, for what you do.

-Kate