#love fraud

[shadowoffandoms]

You’re the star of the show now baby!

alts under cut, click pictures for higher quality

[unillustratedadventures]

Short PSA re: the Semantics of the L-word

If a person refuses on principle to take your feelings or wellbeing into account, or resents the very prospect of doing so, then he or she does not love you (despite what he or she might otherwise be saying). More specifically, he or she has attitudes towards you that are straightforwardly incompatible with loving you, according to what the word 'love' means.

So many of us seem to be deeply confused about the meanings of ordinary words for normal emotions. Or at least so many of us act as though we are confused about the meanings of such words.

[unillustratedadventures]

Psychopathic Eye Contact: The Love-bombing Glare

Just a quick post, about one of the smaller red flags that you might want to stick in your survival kit.

Psychopaths in particular are said to frequently share this quirk, which they exhibit during the love-bombing idealisation phase of the abuse cycle. During this stage, the abuser is doing whatever it takes to facilitate a one-way emotional attachment, as quickly as possible. Either it is a cruel way to boost his ego, or he intends to exploit the unreciprocated attachment during the devaluation phase. An abuser will do all sorts of things to try to get the attachment going (e.g., to get the other person to fall in love with him). However, broadly-speaking, he must convincingly act as though the attachment is reciprocated. He will shower the target with intense attention, affection, intimacy, praise, promises, reassurances, and so on, in order to get the attachment to form as quickly and strongly as possible. Intensity is the part of genuinely falling in love that is the easiest for an abuser to emulate.

Anyway, this is just a comparatively small red flag, which is supposed to be characteristic of psychopaths during the love-bombing stage. Specifically, psychopaths characteristically use intense eye contact. During the idealisation stage of the abuse cycle, a psychopath will fix the target with unblinking, intense eye contact, as a way of suggesting a deep connection, sincerity of feeling, and a sensation of singular focus and specialness. Psychopaths deploy this tactic intermittently during the idealisation phase, even when the occurrence of the eye contact would not have occurred naturally. In other words, intermittently, the psychopath will noticeably decide to do the eye contact thing, and then simply make it happen. E.g. he might even physically grab the person's head and turn it towards him, just so that he can fix her with the intense eye contact (sound familiar?). Psychopaths also tend to use this technique during sex, which is something else that they are renowned for using in order to facilitate a bond quickly.

Lastly, a psychopath might even use the intense eye contact for the purpose of distracting or deflecting, during a perceived conflict or upset that occurs during the idealisation phase. In such a case, the eye contact achieves two things. It interrupts the emotion that the other person is expressing or the assertion that she is making, and abruptly changes the direction of the conversation away from the abuser's unwanted destination. Moreover, it does this in a way that at least suggests a deep understanding of the other person, or a sincerity of feeling, or a genuine connection, without (and this is the point) actually consisting in any tangible evidence of these things. In other words, by establishing intense eye contact with the other person, the abuser gives the strong impression that he is listening, and that he deeply cares, and that everything will be okay because of the special connection that he shares with the other person, without actually having to do anything. He doesn't have to think of something appropriate to say, or exert any effort at all. He doesn't have to genuinely listen, or genuinely care.

I know that this is a comparatively minor thing to mention. But these sorts of red flags are only helpful indicators en masse. So it's worth being on the look out for this particular quirk. Keep your eyes peeled for that intense we have a connection glare.

[unillustratedadventures]

Shifting Ground, Cartoon Quicksand, and Other Strange and Unscrupulous Topologies

‪For the unwary, it takes devaluation to recognise idealisation. If you’re unprepared, false love might only start to look odd once you’re degraded. Typically, you’ll not be willing and able to fully process the truth until well after you’ve already been discarded. But there does come a time when you’re thoroughly devalued, and viciously attacked, because of a perceived criticism or challenge or interference. If all of this is new to you, then only once this happens can it begin to gradually dawn on you. You can start to see what really lay behind all of the intense affection, praise, and apparent devotion in the beginning, because suddenly it is possible that none of this had anything to do with you either; that it, too, was just a verdict on your most recent hoop-jumping performance; a reflection of your immediate usefulness or lack thereof. It merely looked like a genuine appreciation of you as a whole person. It merely had the look of a deep connection.

All of that pointing was enough for you; you never thought to search out the targets of the gestures. But there was never anything there. And it can take so much pain and so much time to finally accept this. You were shown the lively outer shell. You had no reason to suspect that there was nothing inside. But it was hollow. It was just a carapace on strings. You were shown the impact crater. You naturally assumed that there was a likely cause, and that it fell for you, and fell hard. But there wasn’t. And it didn’t. And you fell for it instead. You were dazzled by impressions, without any reason to doubt the substance.

Even if this realisation is gradual or painful (and it will be painful), eventually you’ll have to accept that all of it was only ever about how useful you were, and never about who you were. And so, however gradual the realisation might be, eventually you’ll have to face up to feeling used.

Until the ground shifts, you can’t see that the other person is willing to treat you as though you’re worthless or reprehensible, at a moment’s notice. Before this starts to happen, how can you possibly know that all of the ‘love’ and ‘intimacy’ between you is as fickle and self-serving as the fury and character assassinations to come? How can you know that they’re as manipulative as the omissions, confabulations, half-truths, and outright lies that are yet to accumulate, indigestible, in your head? How are you to know? If this is the first time you’ve been narcissistically abused, what reason can you have to look for red flags, during the euphoria that hooks you in? How can you know that you’re being drugged and led blindly to the slaughter?

When the ground does shift, it shifts so extremely and so thoroughly that you can’t help but feel violated and betrayed. You feel like an object. You feel humiliated. And yet, despite this, you’ll find it almost impossible to raise the issue or do anything about it. When everything shifts for you in this way, how can you be expected to fully comprehend your situation? How can you be expected to think clearly? How can you be expected to resolve these two painfully incompatible truths? How can you have already erected defences, against the countless ways that this treatment fucks with your head, and freezes you in place, and bleeds you of your autonomy and your self-worth?

You can’t.

And since you can't—since you can’t have seen the early signs, and can’t have glimpsed the manipulations while they were happening—you’ll have been shamefully easy prey. You’ll be stuck.

This isn’t normal quicksand. It’s the kind you only see in cartoons. It’s the kind that sinks you deeper the more you struggle, and holds you forever in place if you don’t.

[mostly-potato]

Last night I dreamt Lucille was married to a gross middle-aged man. He secretly had three other relationships and was stealing her money. She figured it out and was planning to run away. He was going to hurt her. 

[greasypuddleofprocessedcheese]

HEAR ME OUT: THE GUY FROM LOVE FRAUD IS WORKING AT A TACO BELL IN TULSA OKLAHOMA

[bettercalljean]

Me watching the end of Love Fraud on Showtime 💕 Oh, HE’S THE VICTIM?!?! He didn’t realize he was married to two women at the same time?! AND he can’t remember how many times he’s been married?! Fuckin moron 🙄

[nflwblz]

Love Fraud Season 1 Live Stream: Watch Ep 3 Online

Love Fraud Season 1 Live Stream: Watch Ep 3 Online #LoveFraud

Welcome back fans of Love Fraud. It’s Sunday and that means Showtime airs another episode of the favorite show. A synopsis of this week’s Love Fraud episode is listed below for your reference.

The search for Richard Scott Smith continues. The “revenge squad” in Kansas City receives a disturbing tip that one of his exes in the south is hiding him at her place. The clue takes the story to…

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