Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori
Speaker 1: with you. Donna Anderson back with us, author of Love Fraud,
Speaker 1: How our marriage to a sociopath fulfilled My Spiritual Plan,
Speaker 1: also a book she wrote a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: called Senior Sociopaths. Donna is an author website is Lovefraud
Speaker 1: dot com. It's a website that teaches people to recognize
Speaker 1: and recover from sociopaths. She learned about sociopaths the hard
Speaker 1: way she married one. Donna is the author of a
Speaker 1: number of books and the most recent, of course, Senior Sociopaths.
Speaker 1: Co author of a couple of scientific studies, she founded
Speaker 1: Love Fraud Education, which offers webinars for survivors and professionals,
Speaker 1: and has shared her expertise on numerous television, radio and
Speaker 1: online programs. Donna, welcome back. I'm looking forward to this tonight.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to be here. George, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me. And how have you been? I've
Speaker 1: been great, absolutely great. So how long were you married
Speaker 1: to the sociopath? Before were you realized he was one?
Speaker 1: I was actually only married to him for about two
Speaker 1: and a half years. That was the entire time that
Speaker 1: we were together, and I didn't figure out even after
Speaker 1: we left that he was associate. After I left him
Speaker 1: that he was associate path What he did was he
Speaker 1: took a quarter million dollars from me. He was cheating
Speaker 1: with all kinds of women, sixtheme. I found during our
Speaker 1: marriage he had a child with one of those women.
Speaker 1: And then ten days after I left him, I found
Speaker 1: out that he had married somebody else while still married
Speaker 1: to me. Yes, which was the second time he committed bigamy.
Speaker 1: And even though I found all that out, it wasn't
Speaker 1: until I started investigating the other women that I really
Speaker 1: found out what was going on because a letter came
Speaker 1: to my mailbox which was essentially a bill of voicemail
Speaker 1: account that I didn't know that he had. This was
Speaker 1: after I left him, and I found all these phone numbers.
Speaker 1: So I called this woman and I said, I'm Donna
Speaker 1: Anderson and I'm James Montgomery's wife, and I suggest that
Speaker 1: you don't give him any more money, and she said
Speaker 1: it's too late. I already gave him ninety two thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: So that was when I realized that my entire marriage
Speaker 1: was a financial scam. And in the first couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: you didn't know that, didn't you. Well, I knew he
Speaker 1: was taking money from me, but he was really slick
Speaker 1: about it because he never asked for it himself. He
Speaker 1: always said that we were investing in our future. We're
Speaker 1: investing in these in his plans for building a new
Speaker 1: type of entertainment facility or a new TV station or
Speaker 1: something like that, and so it was never a hand
Speaker 1: out to him. But the whole thing was he was
Speaker 1: just using me in order to mill moved for his
Speaker 1: grandiose dreams. And you know, once you get hooked into
Speaker 1: this situation, it becomes very difficult to get out because
Speaker 1: you've got so much invested. And from my line of thought,
Speaker 1: it was like, well, you know, the only way I'm
Speaker 1: going to get my money back is if I keep
Speaker 1: supporting him, and he just kept draining and draining and
Speaker 1: draining until there was nothing left. In your opinion, what
Speaker 1: creates the sociopath in the individual? Experts now understand that
Speaker 1: the condition is highly genetic. It's about fifty percent genetic.
Speaker 1: So what happens is that a child can be born
Speaker 1: with a predisposition, a genetic predisposition to become disordered, and
Speaker 1: then there is the interaction of nature and nurture. So
Speaker 1: typically what happens is that the parents of a sociopath
Speaker 1: are often disordered themselves. I mean, that's how they get
Speaker 1: the genes, and sociopaths make terrible parents. So what happens
Speaker 1: is the child gets this genetic insult, and that's the
Speaker 1: technical term for it, and then they have this terrible
Speaker 1: parenting and then you know, after you know, ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen or seventeen years, you've got another sociopath on your hands.
Speaker 1: Interesting take on all that. In what percent do you think,
Speaker 1: Donna of sociopath that are out there right now? When
Speaker 1: I look at the research, it depends which studies you
Speaker 1: look at, but there is an average of approximately twelve
Speaker 1: percent of the population have some kind of exploitative personality disorder.
Speaker 1: And I should clarify that when I use the term sociopath,
Speaker 1: which essentially is someone who is a manipulator and exploiter
Speaker 1: and takes advantage of other people. Technically that term has
Speaker 1: no clinical meaning. The word is not an actual clinical
Speaker 1: diagnosis anymore. But when it originally coined Essentially, what it
Speaker 1: meant was someone who has pathology in their social relationships.
Speaker 1: So I used the word sociopath as an umbrella term
Speaker 1: for people who could be diagnosed with antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, histrionic,
Speaker 1: or psychopathic personality disorders. And the reason that I do
Speaker 1: that is because I want to warn people about all
Speaker 1: of them, you know, I mean, there are differences among
Speaker 1: these disorders, but what they have in common is that
Speaker 1: these folks do not have the ability to authentically love
Speaker 1: like the rest of us. Still, how come you didn't
Speaker 1: see this early? Well, my ex husband was slick, you know.
Speaker 1: As I said, he presented everything as investing in our future.
Speaker 1: But besides that, he was magnetic, he was charismatic, and
Speaker 1: I certainly wasn't the only one that he was manipulating.
Speaker 1: He actually one of the things that he did in
Speaker 1: order to establish his credibility was that he claimed that
Speaker 1: he had been in the Australian military because he was
Speaker 1: originally from Australia. Although it certainly wasn't along distance relationship.
Speaker 1: He lived right down the street for me. But he
Speaker 1: claimed that he was in the Australian military and he
Speaker 1: had served three tours of Vietnam. And while he was there,
Speaker 1: he had won the Victoria Cross, which is like the
Speaker 1: equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor. It's Australia's highest
Speaker 1: military honor. So he didn't just tell it to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, he told everybody around here. And he became
Speaker 1: active in the Vietnam's Veterans Association. He actually did presentations
Speaker 1: to school children on Veterans Day. Oh yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: and and he talked a good game, and they thought
Speaker 1: that he was the real deal and he was good
Speaker 1: to come up with all these businesses that were going
Speaker 1: to make all kinds of money. He had other people
Speaker 1: investing with him, you know, besides me, and so he
Speaker 1: was just really slit and plus at the same time,
Speaker 1: he was telling me how much he loved me the
Speaker 1: whole time. And this is what they do, is that
Speaker 1: they love bomb you. They shower you with attention, they
Speaker 1: tell you how wonderful you are. How he claimed I
Speaker 1: was the woman he was waiting for all his life.
Speaker 1: And essentially it was just to keep me hooked so
Speaker 1: that my ATM machine was still operating for him. Is
Speaker 1: that his motivation? Is it the money in this case? Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean that's not always the case. Many sociopaths go
Speaker 1: after people for things besides money. A big thing is
Speaker 1: a sex. Of course, you know, a lot of them
Speaker 1: are just looking for a sexual fling. But also people
Speaker 1: who are sociopathic aren't looking for maybe a place to live,
Speaker 1: maybe they're looking for somebody who take care of their kids,
Speaker 1: maybe they're looking for business connections. So it's not always money.
Speaker 1: In fact, I get calls from people who are like, well,
Speaker 1: this person is you know, doing this, this and this,
Speaker 1: but he's not asking me for money, so I guess
Speaker 1: he's not a sociopath. And that's not necessarily the truth,
Speaker 1: because essentially a sociopath, when they meet you, they figure
Speaker 1: out if you have anything that they want, and then
Speaker 1: if you do, they figure out what your vulnerabilities are,
Speaker 1: and then they use your vulnerabilities to take from you
Speaker 1: what it is that they want. Do you eventually see
Speaker 1: a change in personality from going from a nice person
Speaker 1: to a mean person for example, Well yes, although it
Speaker 1: can also go back and forth, so that makes it
Speaker 1: even more confusing. So what typically happens almost like their
Speaker 1: bipolar I'm sorry, almost like their bipolar you know, And
Speaker 1: actually about twelve percent of people who are psychopathic or
Speaker 1: probably bipolar also because you can have both disorders, which
Speaker 1: gets really interesting, you know. But what they do is
Speaker 1: that essentially, when you meet somebody like this and they're
Speaker 1: being wonderful and they're telling you how wonderful you are, well,
Speaker 1: essentially it's a charade. It's a mask. It's an an
Speaker 1: act that they put on in order to reel you in.
Speaker 1: And what will happen is that at some point you'll
Speaker 1: see something where the mask slips. I mean all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you know. There there you have this flash
Speaker 1: of anger or rage or something like that, and you're like, whoa,
Speaker 1: you know, what was that? And it goes away. So
Speaker 1: you say, well, I guess he was just having a
Speaker 1: bad day or she was having a bad day, because
Speaker 1: there are both male and female sociopaths. But then eventually,
Speaker 1: when once they get their hooks into you, they dropped
Speaker 1: the act and there they treat you like dirt. But
Speaker 1: if they're out in public in front of other people,
Speaker 1: then they put the act on again. So that's where
Speaker 1: you have the situation where somebody is, you know, wonderful
Speaker 1: in public, but behind closed doors they could actually be
Speaker 1: physically assaulting you, But they're certainly emotionally, in psychologically tormenting you.
Speaker 1: And and you can't convince anybody that they're doing this
Speaker 1: because when they're out in public, they're wonderful exactly. That
Speaker 1: happens a lot, yes, you know, people find themselves trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, defend what's happening to them, and they just
Speaker 1: get no support because of how the sociopath is with others.
Speaker 1: How often did they fight with the sociopath? How often
Speaker 1: did you? Oh, gosh, we argued about money all the time,
Speaker 1: you know, because I knew that things weren't working. I
Speaker 1: knew that I was paying for all the bills, I
Speaker 1: was paying all or living expenses. Did he not work, No, No,
Speaker 1: he was. He was an entrepreneur, you know. He claimed
Speaker 1: that he was working to get his businesses going. I mean,
Speaker 1: some entrepreneurs make money, this is true. Yes, And there
Speaker 1: are certainly people who are sociopathic or psychopathic who ran
Speaker 1: big corporations. I mean, for examples, the people who ran
Speaker 1: Enron or World Colm. I mean I read those stories
Speaker 1: and the guys at the top was like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: that person's disordered. And so yeah, I mean, it's certainly
Speaker 1: possible for people to be successful and still be psychopathic,
Speaker 1: how do they get along with people of their own sex?
Speaker 1: Two guys for example, Well, they have friends relationships with
Speaker 1: each other, you know, because that's one of the things
Speaker 1: about sex with sociopaths. Essentially, sociopaths, especially psychopaths, want three things.
Speaker 1: They want power, control, and sex. And of the three
Speaker 1: of them, the mostly what they want is the power,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they use the sex as a means to
Speaker 1: control people. Well, mean, do they have friends, Well, they
Speaker 1: not real friends. I mean essentially everybody that's involved in
Speaker 1: their life as someone who is useful to them. So
Speaker 1: they don't have people that they're loyal to, you know,
Speaker 1: on a friendly basis, because they simply don't have the
Speaker 1: ability to make an honest connection with people. Interesting take
Speaker 1: on all of this, and I wouldn't guess that number
Speaker 1: could be even higher. I actually think it is because
Speaker 1: the twelve percent figure is those who could be clinically
Speaker 1: diagnosed as being disordered, whereas there are also people who
Speaker 1: have some of the traits but not all of them,
Speaker 1: and you don't want to mess with them either. And
Speaker 1: there's absolutely no estimate on how many of them there are.
Speaker 1: But maybe there's the same amount, So we could be
Speaker 1: talking about twelve percent of the people who could be
Speaker 1: clinically diagnosed as disordered, plus maybe another twelve percent who
Speaker 1: are partially disordered, so you might be talking about a
Speaker 1: quarter of the population have some level of disorder. How
Speaker 1: can you figure out if somebody's a sociopath before you
Speaker 1: get involved with them, Well, the key is three things.
Speaker 1: First of all, to know that they exist. And that's
Speaker 1: actually the hardest part because you know, we don't talk
Speaker 1: about this in our society, and people end up in
Speaker 1: all kinds of situations because it's not just in romance
Speaker 1: that they take advantage of you. It could be in business,
Speaker 1: it could be family members, but anyway, the first thing
Speaker 1: is to know that they exist, and then the second
Speaker 1: thing is to start to learn what the warning signs are.
Speaker 1: And then the third is to trust your intuition, because
Speaker 1: we all have an intuition, and our intuition developed over
Speaker 1: millennia specifically to protect us from predators and from danger.
Speaker 1: So typically your intuition will tell you that something is
Speaker 1: off about somebody, but we don't listen to it because
Speaker 1: we don't know to look out for it. Are there
Speaker 1: some sociopaths that people like, well, people often like them
Speaker 1: at least for a while. You know, if you just
Speaker 1: encounter this person at a party, I mean they're the
Speaker 1: life of the party. You know, they're telling jokes, they're energetic.
Speaker 1: But not every sociopath is the life of the party.
Speaker 1: Or let me rephrase that, not everybody who's the life
Speaker 1: of the party is a sociopath. Correct, correct, And that
Speaker 1: that's why it's important to understand that what these disorders
Speaker 1: are is a collection of traits. And you know, not
Speaker 1: everybody who's sexy and charismatic is disordered. So it's important
Speaker 1: to understand that there is this whole matrix of traits
Speaker 1: that they can have, and in order for somebody to
Speaker 1: be disordered, you really need to have most or all
Speaker 1: of them in order to qualify what a sociopath. To
Speaker 1: give a homeless person money or would they try to
Speaker 1: take the pot away from it? Well, probably it would
Speaker 1: depend on whether or not they had an audience. You know,
Speaker 1: if they're walking down the street with somebody they wanted
Speaker 1: to impress, they would give the money. If not, they
Speaker 1: might try to take it away. Interesting, would just ignore
Speaker 1: the person. Interesting And if you say it starts at
Speaker 1: an early age. Yeah, And you know, that's one of
Speaker 1: the things is that in some cases you can see
Speaker 1: it in young children. I mean, I've had parents contact
Speaker 1: me who realized that they've that their partner is disordered
Speaker 1: and they have children with this person, and they start
Speaker 1: to see that even at three and four and five
Speaker 1: years old, this person, the kid is lying or doesn't
Speaker 1: have any empathy, you know, maybe with hurting animals or
Speaker 1: something like that. So it can sometimes manifest at a
Speaker 1: very young age, although typically it really chicks in with puberty.
Speaker 1: So you see a lot of kids, you know, once
Speaker 1: they're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old, you really do start
Speaker 1: to see the symptoms. And then in some cases it
Speaker 1: doesn't you know, show up until seventeen or eighteen, but
Speaker 1: certainly you know, by the time they're a teenager, you
Speaker 1: usually start to see it. Well. With Dona Anderson, a
Speaker 1: couple of her books include Love Fraud, Senior Sociopaths, as
Speaker 1: well serial Killers abuse animals when they're kids. Now, not
Speaker 1: every just abuser of an animal is a serial killer exactly,
Speaker 1: and there is some theory that some of the early
Speaker 1: signs are killing animals and bedwetting and setting fires. I
Speaker 1: mean that was discovered many many years ago that these
Speaker 1: kind of behaviors tend to show that a young person
Speaker 1: could be disordered. But there's plenty of people who are
Speaker 1: a disordered who don't do that. Like my ex husband
Speaker 1: actually was reasonably good with animals. I mean he used
Speaker 1: to walk my dog every morning. Of course he was
Speaker 1: wearing his Special Forces beret, which was a lie, but
Speaker 1: he did that, and he would bring all these pets home,
Speaker 1: So he was good to animals. So they're not all
Speaker 1: the same. And that's the thing to understand what our
Speaker 1: really mentioning who he is. Is he still out there somewhere. No.
Speaker 1: Luckily my ex husband has passed on and I found
Speaker 1: that out over a year ago. Died. I'm sorry. How
Speaker 1: old was he He was seventy eight, seventy nine. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're still doing the same thing before he died. Well,
Speaker 1: I know that he was fifty five when I left him,
Speaker 1: and I did hear from other people that he tried
Speaker 1: to hook up with them, so he was still, you know,
Speaker 1: going after women, and as far as what else was
Speaker 1: going on, I don't know. He went back to Australia,
Speaker 1: so I hadn't had any contact with him for like
Speaker 1: you know, almost twenty years. But I imagine he was
Speaker 1: doing the same because as my research in the Senior
Speaker 1: socio Bok Book Senior Sociopath Book pointed out, they don't
Speaker 1: change and typically they get worse with age. Is there
Speaker 1: any good trait about a sociopath. Well, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: when they're on their best behavior, I mean, they can
Speaker 1: be helpful, and usually they do that when they're trying
Speaker 1: to reel you in. They can sometimes show some courage.
Speaker 1: So I mean there is this concept called successful sociopath
Speaker 1: or accessful psychopaths, and these typically are psychopaths who, as
Speaker 1: you know we mentioned before, could be business people or
Speaker 1: who you know, essentially don't get arrested is the criteria,
Speaker 1: so they can engage in it's called pro social behavior,
Speaker 1: where they do good things. But the thing to understand
Speaker 1: about a sociopath is if they're doing it, it's because
Speaker 1: they have an agenda, and you know, they're either trying
Speaker 1: to butter you up to take advantage of you later on,
Speaker 1: or they're trying to create a reputation for themselves. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've heard of plenty who were you know, terribly being
Speaker 1: and brutal to their kids. But we're philanthropists, and we're
Speaker 1: given all their money away because they wanted to have
Speaker 1: this standing in the community. Listen to more Coast to
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