Invariably, once we realize we’ve been conned by a psychopath, this person has lied to us from the very beginning, and we fell for all of it, we ask why? Why did we believe? Why did we trust?
The short answer is that we did what we, as social animals, are biologically designed to do. Human beings have evolved over millennia to live in community, and trust is the glue that holds us together.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) releases a report stating that about 20 percent of children between the ages of 3 and 17 are living with mental health disorders.
CDC finds mental health woes in one in five U.S. kids, on CBSNews.com.
Mental health surveillance among children — United States, 2005 – 2011, on CDC.gov.
This morning the front page of my local newspaper, the Press of Atlantic City, told a story worthy of an outrageous TV crime show. Loretta Doyle Burroghs, 61, was charged with stabbing her husband, Daniel Burroughs, to death back in 2007. She then packed his body into containers — I assume dismembered, although the story isn’t clear on that — and dragged the containers around with her as she moved to two different homes.
A neighbor, Bob Valiante, said he told the police that he believed Lorretta Burroughs had killed her husband, but the police didn’t listen. “I think she’s a sociopath,” Valiante said. “She’d bake you cookies then slice your throat while you were eating them.
On Thursday I talked to Rick Limpert and Steven Lee of NetCast studio in a wide-ranging interview about sociopaths. I explained the personality disorder, how the disorder develops, and the warning signs that you may be dating a sociopath. Steve and Rick also asked whether some people currently in the news are sociopaths, which led to an interesting conversation.
Donna Andersen — Red Flags of Love Fraud
The bigwigs of mental health research have slammed the bigwigs of psychiatry, which will probably mean more confusion for the rest of us.
In 10 days, on May 27, 2013, the American Psychiatric Association’s new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th Edition, or DSM-5, will be published. This is the massive reference book that psychiatrists and therapists use in order to diagnose mental illness.
But a few weeks ago, the head of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which is the world’s largest funding agency for research into mental health, trashed the DSM-5. More precisely, Thomas R. Insel, M.D., director of NIMH, said the government agency would no longer fund research based on DSM-5 categories. Read:
Many of us here have had experiences in court where we were less than satisfied with the outcomes. I feel mainly fortunate in that respect. For the most part, those I dealt with understood enough about personality disorders to act accordingly.
However, in one case I am familiar with, that clarity was somewhat lacking. In the end, things worked out fine because the judge followed the laws of the land explicitly. Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning because, in my opinion, his attitude and belief system could have been of serious concern had different issues (in the same court) been at stake. As long as there are those who believe as he does, and he is not unique in this way, justice may not be served in some instances.
Editor’s note: The following letter was written by a Lovefraud reader whom we’ll call “Gwendolyn.”
I was married to a sociopath and addict for four years. He did the love bombing thing with me and pushed for moving in and marriage very early, within the first few months. I was afraid of the consequences of refusing him, so I foolishly went along and moved into his house then married him. I only lived with him for two and a half years. It was a twisted game of lies, addiction and emotional abuse. It was a long and damaging period of time.
Today a new book went on sale called, Confessions of a Sociopath: A life spent hiding in plain sight. The author is a woman writing under the pseudonym of M.E. Thomas. Although she doesn’t want people to know her real name — gee, I wonder why? — Thomas claims that she is a successful lawyer and a Mormon Sunday school teacher. Oh, and she enjoys ruining people’s lives.
No Way Out But One from Garland Waller on Vimeo.
An extraordinary documentary by Garland Waller, called No Way Out But One, told the story of Holly Collins, an American woman who fled the United States due to domestic violence and sought asylum in the Netherlands. The video above is a shortened version — 13 minutes. The full film was screened at the Battered Mothers Custody Conference which took place last weekend in Washington, D.C.
Holly and her two oldest children were beaten by Collins’ ex-husband. A court in Minnesota acknowledged that they were abused. But the judge said that Holly Collins was crazy because of the abuse and the children were safer with their father. Holly was granted only supervised visitation. The children were afraid of their father, so eventually they ran away. They met up with Holly, and the family went on the run—pursued by the FBI.
Damon Moelter made the above video back in 2010, when he was 13. Last Friday, at age 16, Damon stood at the lectern and stated that he escaped abuse not because he was protected by the family court system, nor because he beat the system. He escaped because he found a way around it.
How? Two weeks ago, Damon got married. Once he was married, he was emancipated, and his father could no longer demand custody.
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