Better the Devil I know

There is no question when it comes to attracting Dark Souls, in particular sociopaths and psychopaths that they can target and con anyone. However, it's very difficult for anyone to understand that the psychopathic personality goes out to with the sole purpose of intentially victimisating anyone they come into contact with.

So why would someone who is an empath feel so wounded and hurt when they are exploited by a Dark Soul. After all most people would say “get over it”, “move on” “they could have conned anyone”.

Well this is true. However once the empath or co-dependent, who is often so ignorant about these types of personalities in the first place, starts to realise what they have been dealing with they may also start to realise that their family of origin has the very same traits that the person they have just been conned by and a cognitive dissonance starts to develop partly due to denial.  Most empaths feel that it is all their fault based on their faulty belief system and most of them don't want to believe that the person they are in relationship is a manipulative predator because that would be far to painful for them to accept.

Not only do they start to realise that everything about the relationship was a lie or a façade they may also start to realise that everything else they held dear was a lie too. This has a knock on effect on their healing process.

1. They are grieving the loss of the narcissistic, sociopathic person whom never even existed in the first place.

   
   

2. They are coming to terms with the fact that their own family of origin were a façade too.

   
   

3. They are grieving over the loss of their own identity because they feel that their own childhood was a lie too.

There is an expression, “better the devil you know” and when the victim starts having therapy they may start to look at the reasons why they attracting them in the first place based on their upside down map of their belief systems about themselves.

They may see a number of similarities between their current partner in their own parents and this forms a dichotomy whereby the victim doesn't want to believe that their partner is evil, (just like their own parents) and makes it far more difficult for them to escape them than perhaps other victims would.

In their minds what feels so “real” with the Dark Soul feels unconsciously familiar, just like it did when they were at home.

As a result the healing process takes longer. As a rule of thumb the more childhood abuse the person has had the less likely they are able to be able to leave the Dark Soul as quick as other individuals unless they deal with their own childhood trauma first.

If you would like to read more about the Empath perspective on why Abused empaths feel this way, have a look at this excellent article here: http://empathicperspectives.blogspot.com/2010/11/abused-empath.html