Fighting a Sociopath has got to be one of the loneliest struggles there is. Your friends will not realize what you are dealing with because the Sociopath turns on their false charm when around them. You yourself, if you do not realize what you are dealing with, are being manipulated by the Sociopath and they are likely keeping you under a cloud of self-doubt and playing on your own insecurities and honesty.
It's easy for an honest person to be taken in. Honest people tend to believe the best of others and are not on the lookout for someone manipulating them. They will make excuses to themselves for the Sociopaths behavior and even go out of their way to be even nicer to the Sociopath, thinking they are deserving of sympathy for some unknown personal crisis they may be experiencing. Little do they know, they are playing into the Sociopaths hands.
If one does not have any idea of what a Sociopath is, one might think they simply have peculiar personality quirks and not realize they are manipulating the people around them. After educating myelf, I've come to realize I've met several in the past, many of them in the military. I remember the charm they could turn on or off at will, depending on if they wanted something or not. In hind site, their charm appeared forced and unnatural. The smiles they displayed and their laughs were an act and not spontaneous reactions. They were simply putting on an act for the benefit of others and to further their own agendas.
Most people may even refuse to believe there are such things as Sociopaths. It's such a foreign concept to a person with empathy that another person can be totally lacking in empathy. But, if we look around us in the media stories about horrific acts being perpetrated on others around the world and in the United States, we can ask ourselves how another person could do such a thing? If we think about it, someone that has absolutely no empathy for others would be the answer. And these are only the stories that make the media. There are many that will never be known about. A spouse that is manipulating his partner and children but does not commit an actual crime will never make the news. In many third world countries around the world, if a husband beats his wife or is totally controlling of her it is accepted as his right. It could be happening in the house next to us and we would be totally oblivious to it. It's something that will and should bother us to think about.