SexFraud survivors have a tough time securing validation.

Often, the emotional support needed for recovery is difficult to come by. Family and friends may not grasp the horrific sense of defilement they feel.

When someone manipulates their way into your assets, they’re stealing. When someone manipulates their way into your sexual organs, they are sexually assaulting you. It isn’t seduction. It’s an insidious form of rape.

……But not everyone recognizes it as such.

Having to justify depression and defilement adds more sorrow and re-traumatizes the victim 

Not only were they defiled, but the very people they would count on for support are often dismissive of their pain. People who lack the empathy needed to sympathize can be downright unkind. Others may be unreceptive because they’ve been taken-in by the offender themselves and labor under their own set of delusions.

SexFraud survivors frequently hear, “You’re wrong, you just misunderstood,” “It’s done, get over it.,” or “I told you not to get involved. Next time you’ll listen to me.”

They meet with impatience over their ruminating thoughts. They can’t let go of the horror they feel, and have difficulty finding others who’ll listen. Watching someone struggle out of a relationship with a sociopath can seem like “obsession” to the uniformed.

A sexual hoax can take considerable time and be extremely painful to unravel.

When you’re the victim of an elaborate hoax, your natural ability to trust and to love was shredded, layer by agonizing layer. The impact of what transpired can throw your brain into shock, similar to the condition of your body when you deal with extreme physical pain. The person you love is ripped away. Your grief is immense, and all the more confusing because while you suffer the death of the relationship and the loss of your loved one, the person your brain chemistry partners you with simply turns the page and skips along to a new chapter.

While you, and everyone around you, wish you could just let go and walk away, the chemical concoction stirred up in your brain, that causes you to experience the emotion of love, still holds you fast. You’re forced to come to grips with the fact that the relationship never really existed at all. You were conned. It was a farce. You were the only person who was truly emotionally connected. Your partner has no such brain chemistry.

Victims not only encounter the pain of a breakup, they experience the agony of defilement. 

In a normal break-up, we determine that there is something wrong and that the relationship simply doesn’t work as we thought it would. We feel disappointment, and loss, but not a sense of defilement.

But when we awaken to the reality of a sexual hoax, we are crushed that we could have been so terribly misused by someone we trusted. It decimates our entire value system. We recognize that we let someone into our body who was unworthy, and we are not capable of protecting our personal, private, intimate core. Recovering our sense of dignity and power is a long and very painful journey.

Wearing out our supports

If we’re lucky enough to have loved ones in our lives, our constant rumination can put them off. People expect us to get better, but we’re stuck in the pain and bewilderment of the experience. Pulling ourselves out of the grips of deep depression can be even more difficult when people expect us to change and criticize our inability to do so on their expected timetable.

How blogs can help

Blogs provide a platform to find others who comprehend how we feel. They enable readers to understand the mindset of sociopaths and heal from their insidious forms of domestic abuse. Only through awareness and knowledge can people shake off devastation and come to grips with the reality of what they faced. The broken record of “Why me?” “What did I do?” and “How could I have done it differently?” will gradually morph into the awareness that generates acceptance and healing.

Some of the blogs that are particularly good at helping victims heal from SexFraud are:

• Psychopaths and Love
• Love-Life-Om
• LoveFraud
• PsychopathFree
• BetterNotBroken
• Let Me Reach with Kim Saeed
• Rape Abuse & Incest National Network

And, of course, if you want the facts on the crime you faced, want to understand why SexFraud truly is a crime, want to do something to prevent others from falling prey, and create penal code to end the behavior, you’ve come to the right place!

More recovery tools

When we’re deeply depressed, the last thing we want to do is exercise, eat right and sleep according to a schedule. But your cycle of depression can be helped immensely by doing so.

You need to become your best friend, insisting you do what’s in your best interest. Activity and aerobic exercise will pump up your endofins and make you feel better about yourself. You need the vitamins, antioxidants and nutrients that can fuel your healing.

Depression’s impact on sleep patterns can differ from person to person. If you tend to remain in bed all day, force yourself up. Set your alarm. Make a plan for each day and execute it. You’ll need to force the will power to get yourself to do what makes you uncomfortable. The more you do it, the easier it will get.

If going to bed is like lying in a torture chamber of misery, where you’re stuck rehashing the sorrows of your past, fool your brain. Turn on music that distracts your attention. Pick a number, any number larger than 500. Count backwards by sevens. It’s difficult to think about anything else while your focus is distracted this way. Getting restful sleep promotes healing, not only for your body, but also for your mind.

If you struggle to motivate yourself, seek help. Find a therapist who is up on the latest techniques to deal with PTSD and has experience working with patients in sociopathic relationships.

Live the reality of what is, not what was

The person you thought existed was nothing but smoke and mirrors. They might look the same, sound the same, and smell the same, but they are not the person you thought you knew. Letting go takes deliberate efforts toward detachment and absence from the person who stirs your brain chemistry through the addiction of romantic love. Having absolutely NO CONTACT is essential in ridding yourself of those feelings.

Only people who have established business connections or children with SexFraud offenders should retain any communication with them. They are manipulative, character disordered miscreants who have no respect for others. A person who will lie to seduce you is capable of lying about anything to anyone.

Find more coping tools and useful information for survivors and supporters in Carnal Abuse by Deceit, How a Predator’s Lies Became Rape. 

Please note, if you’re a blogger and believe you contribute to this area of healing, please contact me to be included on this page’s list of blogs.