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Here are five reasons why smart women (and men) fall for sociopaths:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n We are socialized to give people the benefit of the doubt, to rationalize abusive behavior, and look for reasons to excuse the toxicity of an individual. Intelligent individuals tend to be more introspective, so they may even try to share in the blame for the mistreatment they endured and \u201clook within\u201d for any and every possible explanation.<\/p>\n This introspectiveness can be used against us by sociopaths. We sympathize with the plight of predators and are prone to pointing to what must be their \u201clow self-esteem\u201d or traumatic childhood that led to them behaving this way. While we\u2019re busy excusing their behavior, they\u2019re busy getting away with it.<\/p>\n As Dr. Stout, author of\u00a0The Sociopath Next Door<\/em>\u00a0notes,\u00a0simply being human\u00a0<\/strong>makes us vulnerable to these types because we have a conscience and a natural inability to recognize when we\u2019re dealing with the conscienceless. We can\u2019t \u201cfathom\u201d that someone might lack empathy or remorse because that\u2019s simply not how\u00a0we<\/em>\u00a0are wired, so we assume everyone else feels similarly. It takes a lot of deprogramming to even begin to recognize that a manipulator may not have our best interests at heart \u2013 and that they do not care about who they hurt in the process of getting what they want.<\/p>\n While this factor doesn\u2019t apply to everyone, there are survivors who have also endured\u00a0childhood abuse\u00a0or bullying in addition to their relationship with an emotional predator. These subconscious wounds can make us more susceptible to tolerating abusive behavior as well as denying or minimizing when it occurs because we have more porous boundaries and have learned to associate love with violence or danger.<\/p>\n This can also work vice versa: a victim who has had a loving childhood can\u00a0also<\/em>\u00a0fall prey to these predatory types because they haven\u2019t encountered a conscienceless individual before and may not know what to look for to identify one.<\/p>\n Think about it: a wealthy, successful, articulate, empathic, and beautiful woman is a \u201cshiny object\u201d to a narcissist or sociopath who wants some eye candy on his arm or an extra source of income. The most sadistic of these predators rejoice in taking down a particularly strong target and making her feel weak.<\/p>\n The more you have, the more likely you\u2019ll be a target, because manipulators want to tap into your internal and external resources. That\u2019s why smart women tend to fall for sociopaths \u2013 not just because they find themselves gravitating towards these predators, but because\u00a0these predators\u00a0<\/em>gravitate towards them.<\/p>\n Sociopaths and narcissists sense the emotional gaps in our lives; they prey on our losses and wherever they think they can temporarily meet avoid. If they know that we\u2019re recently out of a breakup and feeling especially lonely, or that we\u2019re grieving a loss of a loved one, they know how to mirror our deepest desires and fill that empty space.<\/p>\n They learn all of our strengths and weaknesses while\u00a0love-bombing\u00a0us, so they know how to morph into what we\u2019re most desperately looking for. The traumas they inflict on us, through the\u00a0idealization, devaluation, and discard\u00a0cycle, affects the emotional parts of our brain. It affects our subconscious, which can trigger hardwired beliefs and insecurities we may not even be aware of. Even the smartest of individuals may know deep down they\u2019re being duped, but their desire to be loved (a very normal human desire, mind you) may take precedence over what they know to be true.<\/p>\n Even the most discerning of individuals can\u00a0gaslight\u00a0themselves when meeting a\u00a0wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing. Women especially are gaslighted by society to distrust their perceptions and invalidate their own emotions. Narcissists tend to be charming and can fool even judges, psychiatrists, law enforcement officials, and experts. We believe in and invest in the false mask because the abuser\u2019s true self does not come out until later in the relationship. By that time, these emotional con artists are already off gallivanting with their latest victim.<\/p>\n If you were the victim of an emotional con artist, know that it was not your fault. You can own your agency and power in rebuilding your life\u00a0without<\/em>\u00a0blaming yourself. You can attain the knowledge and self-trust to practice being more discerning in the future, to learn the red flags and to work on healing any wounds or vulnerabilities that make you extra susceptible to these types.<\/p>\n Just keep in mind that no one is truly ever\u00a0completely<\/em>\u00a0immune to being the target of a manipulator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here are five reasons why smart women (and men) fall for sociopaths: 1. Our tendency to project our own morality, empathy, and conscience onto people … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":606,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions\/606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. Our tendency to project our own morality, empathy, and conscience onto people makes us vulnerable to manipulators.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
2. Past traumas may have conditioned us into associating love with abuse.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
3. Predators naturally gravitate to those who have the\u00a0qualities\u00a0and resources they need.<\/strong>\u00a0Many survivors are targeted\u00a0because<\/em>\u00a0of their intelligence and success, not in spite of it.<\/h3>\n
4. Our vulnerabilities have very little to do with our intelligence or the rational parts of our brain \u2013 they have more to do with our wounding.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
5. Skilled manipulators have a lifetime\u2019s worth of practice \u2013 and their victims may have a history of doubting themselves.<\/strong><\/h3>\n