How To Forget A Sociopath

If you want to know how to forget a sociopath, you have to understand something about what exactly he or she did to you. In effect, if you want to get him or her out of your head, you have to know how they got into your head in the first place.

The bad news is that it takes work and effort on your part. I know, it's not fair that you should have to work and struggle and he or she just carries on with their lives as if nothing happened.

The good news is that it is possible to forget a sociopath.

Many people try to just forget about it, ignore it and move on. Friends and family may tell you to do the same, suggesting that the sociopath is now out of your life and that you can put it behind you, find a new partner and build a new future. But this approach almost never works. It's not possible to ignore it and just act as if the relationship never happened. But if you are searching for information on how to forget a sociopath you already know that. The effects of the sociopath are too profound.

Perhaps you are in a position where you have just recently left and the sociopath may or may not be still bothering you but you are being driven distracted by thoughts of him or her. Or perhaps you have left some time ago because you knew the relationship was bad but you realize that the sociopath is still living rent free in your head and their ideas are still having an effect on you, and/or you are still haunted by memories, good and bad, of your time with them. There may be still floods of emotions of all sorts when thinking of the relationship, or even sometimes without thinking of it. Maybe you are still trying to make sense of what actually happened and you know that it's still affecting your life in all sorts of ways and you want to avoid being caught again.

Each of these situations has unique aspects to it, but first let's look at what sociopaths do to their victims. (Just because you were a victim does not mean you will always be a victim!)

The seduction

It's important to understand the steps in a relationship with a sociopath. These manipulators, when they meet new people, have a way of sizing them up. They assess the person for their utility to them, as well as noting the person's fears, wants, desires, strengths and weaknesses. Often each sociopath has his own particular thing that he (or she!) assesses, such as how someone responds to requests, or how someone is when they are angry, or the individual's beliefs about their social standing.

If the sociopath decides that he or she is going to target this person for the benefits he or she can extract from them, he or she then goes about presenting themselves as the ideal person. There may be compliments, offers of favors, the sociopath does things to make the target feel special and they will typically offer the target what the target is looking for in that particular moment. It may be help doing something, companionship, a friendly shoulder to cry on, whatever.

This is the phase of love bombing. The sociopath is manipulating very strongly the initial impressions of the victim, knowing that first impressions count. The sociopath sends messages that they like the victim, they have lots of things in common, and they would be ideal together. The victim comes to believe, very quickly, that they have met someone who truly understands them. The victim has been led through a process of establishing a relationship very, very quickly indeed and this starts the formation of a strong bond with the sociopath, a bond that is typically stronger than in a normal, healthy relationship.

It's not just bad behavior

After this honeymoon phase, the bad behavior starts to kick in, but the victim justifies it away because, after all, this person they are with is just marvellous and is probably just having a bad day or something. But this bad behavior is actually quite insidious and it has powerful effects on the victim.

The bad behavior takes many forms, verbal abuse, not fulfilling promises, expecting more and more from the victim, criticisms, humiliation, acts of selfishness and so on and so forth. What actually happens is that the personality of the victim is attacked, unfrozen and broken down by the sociopath, the sociopath then forces changes and these changes are then refrozen into place in the new personality.

Basically the sociopath attacks a person at their very core, altering how a person perceives reality, changing their strategies for dealing with the world and preventing them from using their normal decision making strategies. This idea is fundamental to understanding how to forget a sociopath. The target has been changed at such a profound level that it's just not possible to walk away and carry on as if the relationship never happened.

Do sociopaths know right from wrong?

Destructive mind control

The influence techniques used to create these changes are very powerful. They were used against you outside your awareness so that you were unable to resist at the time. The sociopath was attacking you at a very deep level, the level of identity, your character. These things do not reverse on their own simply because you have left the relationship. It takes work and effort to understand what exactly was done to you in order to undo these changes.

The sociopath was using mind control techniques against you to change your personality to one that he or she wanted. This new personality is actually a false personality, or pseudopersonality, and it's a really useful way to think of what happens in a mind control environment with a sociopath.

The sociopath attacks your real personality, changes ideas, behaviors, ways of thinking and so on and creates a new pseudopersonality in you, all without your being aware of the extent of the changes.

The same pattern also occurs in cults where it's often easier to recognize. The pseudopersonality is a clone of the leader, so all the cult members have the same ideas, the same language, the same behaviors and sometimes even the same clothes. In a one to one relationship the sociopath changes your ideas to his, your beliefs to his, your behaviors to those that he wants from you and so on.

You may not notice that you have changed because you were led step by step through a process but your friends and family will have noticed a big change in you and they may even have tried to point this out to you, saying that you don't seem happy, you've lost your sense of humor or that you never spend time with them anymore, and such things.

Pseudopersonality versus real personality

This pseudopersonality is put in place with very strong influence techniques and it basically represses the real personality but never fully destroys it. It does, however, control and dominate the real personality.

This idea or description is a nice way to explain the conflicts cult members or people in a relationship with sociopaths have. One part of them wants one thing, another part disagrees and wants something else. For example, one part of them lies to protect the sociopath but another part hates themselves for doing that. One part of the person wants to leave the relationship but another part cannot imagine not being with the manipulator.

The pseudopersonality is 'programmed' in various ways. It is programmed to believe what the sociopath says. It is programmed to take care of the sociopath. It is programmed to put the wants and needs of the sociopath before it's own. It is very dependent on the sociopath and often needs permission from the sociopath to be able to do things.

The pseudopersonality perceives the world differently than you did before. It makes decisions with the sociopath at the center of it's universe. It thinks and acts with the sociopath as it's purpose in life.

How to forget a sociopath - First understand

If you want to know how to forget a sociopath, it's important to understand how this pseudopersonality was put in place so that it can be dismantled. Not until the beliefs, ideas, thoughts, decisions and actions of the pseudopersonality are undone and changed back or changed to something new can you hope to be free of the mental chains of the sociopath.

And because of the nature of mind control and the profundity of the effects of the sociopath, it's not possible to undo a pseudopersonality alone. A person will often be unable to question the things they need to question if they are working alone. Certainly, over time, some of the aspects of the pseudopersonality may change, but unless a person is actively engaged in learning how the beliefs and behaviors of the pseudopersonality was put in place, many aspects of the pseudopersonality persist.

What techniques were used against you? Why did the sociopath choose those particular one with you? What effect did the technique have on you at that time? On your thinking? On your decision making? On your emotions? How did these things affect you over time? What belief changes did you undergo? At what stage of the relationship? How did the sociopath create the dependency in you? How specifically did he isolate you from family and friends? How did he get information out of you?

How to forget a sociopath - building a new identity

While the pseudopersonality is being dismantled you have to be rebuilding your own identity again. What kind of person do you want to be? What beliefs are you going to choose? Knowing that the old ones got you into trouble, what criteria do you use to build relationships from now on? What kind of work are you going to do? How do you spot sociopaths in the future? How do you know when an influence technique is being used as a tool for destructive mind control as opposed to being used in a normal, healthy influence situation?

All these things and more have to be teased apart, understood and reassembled if you hope to know how to forget a sociopath. Once the pseudopersonality is gone, you no longer have to concern yourself about how to forget a sociopath, they are simply no longer in your head. It's possible to think about the sociopath for whatever reason, without feeling bad, angry, upset, etc., and then you turn around, focus on something else and he or she is gone from your mind in an instant.

Working with an expert in the field to do this will save you a huge amount of time, money, effort and heartache. Contact me to find out more. It's not easy learning how to forget a sociopath, but it's absolutely worth it!

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