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so if anyone were to speak the truth, they would be the "crazy, paranoid" one.

Yikes! I know this too. I tried to justify the sociopaths weird behaviour but a few people just didn't get it because she would cater to they're needs and vulnerabilities and they would therefore love her. I was also one of those people. I was so attached to her, until I saw the darker side of it all..

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sone of the defenses I've developed through childhood and beyond are necessary for protection against them. Though it is these defense mechanisms that have caused me to become alone, depressed and stuck. T assures me it's possible to work with the subconscious to differentiate between who's safe and trustworthy and them. It will take tine, she says, but I have to. My subconscious now tells me everyone is unsafe, an I don't want to live a life feeling so disconnected.

Ah ditto Raven. How to differentiate. That's my question nowadays. How do I differentiate who is trustworthy and who can be difficult and manipulative.

I'm, as of late, becoming a lot more cautious of people. I'm trying not to be the kind of person who looks for a 'perfect' person as there is none, but because of my experience in blindly trusting a few sociopaths in my time, I'm now particularly cautious.

I have a history of naively trusting in people who help me and who look after me like a parent would. I find the world a scary place because I'm not in tune with myself and what I want, my own needs, because I was not allowed to grow. So now I'm catching up....and I'm realizing, I cannot naively trust people nowadays. It's dangerous.

So..the sociopaths that I've met seem to have one thing in common and thats confidence. They seem to be very consistent in certain emotions such as happiness, energy, confidence. And when a problem arises, they have a capacity to skew over it for a very short time before they interrupt any other emotion with a 'smile be happy' philosophy.

It's a lesson to me about myself though, thats for sure. I have to learn to stand on my own two feet more and not be parented by people who are very caring because my experience is that those who were caring were also rather false as well. I've been seen as a victim of life for too long by these kinds of people, and therefore, I am they're perfect victim.

I feel I have to 'man up'. And until I learn to be more robust (because I'm really not at the moment), I'm remaining sceptical of overtly happy, fun, social chameleon type of people. But not only this, I am NOT going to be impressed by confidence anymore. I am not going to find my happiness in trying to become somebody I am not simply because I have no idea who I am.

I'm going to have to walk around the plain of confusion for a little while, if that means finding my own self-confidence and self-direction. I just don't want to become a hermit at the same time..

I often think now, that the key points in knowing when someone is not a sociopath is that they don't measure a consistent emotion in front of they're peers. A more balanced person is likely to show a whole host of emotions because that is what it means to be human.

But I am generalizing on my own experience here. Sociopaths are brilliant chameleons. Scary, a bit?