Sociopaths have been described in many ways that, at least, from time to time, might describe some of the rest of us: As glib, manipulative, exploitative, superficial; as seeing and relating to others as objects rather than persons. Sociopaths, in other words, don't have a patent on these qualities. You can be a nonsociopath and be glib and superficial. You can be a nonsociopath and be a constitutional bullshitter and sometimes manipulator: Just go visit the used-car salesmen at your local dealership, and see for yourself (sure, some of them may be sociopaths, but not most). Naturally, when you begin to combine these qualities—especially adding “exploitative” to the mix—and identify them as …
Forgiving Yourself for Being Human
By Ox Drover In my journey toward healing from life's pains, and from the PTSD and the pains caused by the trauma from the psychopaths, I think one of the hardest things has been to forgive myself. I was raised in an abusive Christian atmosphere with a terrible, impossible definition of “forgiving others,” no matter what they did, no matter if they weren't sorry, or how likely they were to repeat the abuse to me. I was programmed to try to meet my obligation to “forgive” when there was NO WAY I was going to trust them again. How could I? While this previous “definition” of forgiveness of others who are unrepentant has changed post-trauma to a definition of getting the bitterness out …
How to talk to friends and family about sociopaths
Last Sunday, the Asbury Park Press, a New Jersey newspaper, published a front-page article about the career of Edward J. Devine. On August 1, 2008, Devine was sentenced to five years in prison for bouncing checks and deceiving nonprofit and educational institutions. The bulk of the story was not about those crimes, but what Devine did to the women in his life. Claiming to be the heir to a Sonoma wine company and a trucking mogul, he left one wife, Donna Devine, and her mother $400,000 in debt. He wiped out the inheritance of another wife, Deborah Weiss. He forced his first wife, Carol Ceralli, into bankruptcy. It's a story that many of us know, and some of us have experienced. But …
Reflections on antisocial behavior (part 1): When women are sociopaths
This semester I am teaching a course on personality and psychopathology to graduate students in counseling. I am very excited about this course and am considering making it available online to everyone. I sat down with a colleague this week and explained the content of the course. During that conversation the topic of gender differences in personality came up. My colleague said something like, “Yeh, we expect men to compete, sometimes act aggressively and to spread their seed, women are biologically preprogrammed to stay put and to nurture.” I countered by saying , “While that formulation has some truth, we often fail to appreciate that females also have aggressive tendencies rooted in the …
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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Finding sanity after the sociopath (part 2)
Editor's note: The following essay was submitted by Lovefraud reader “Presseject.” This is part two of his story. Part one was posted yesterday. By Presseject About two weeks after I confronted my S, there was a very dark day in which I was cut to pieces. I am okay now recalling it, but at that time, and for many weeks afterwards, it was like a knife in the heart. I would like to share a bit further with you the silver lining to this part of the story and how that relates to the good work you have done with the site. You see, it went like this: I had my S visit and stay with me for my birthday weekend. He presented me with fun gifts and a card that included the words signed with "tons of l …
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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Finding sanity after the sociopath (part 1)
Editor's note: The following essay was submitted by Lovefraud reader "Presseject." This is part one of his story. Part two will be posted tomorrow. By Presseject A little over three months ago I had my heart ripped out from me. It happened suddenly and there are few words I can use to describe the pain I felt as dreams, hopes and even what I thought was my own sanity seemed to disappear quickly in a crushing instant that reverberated with off-the-scale emotional aftershocks for weeks into months afterwards. I suffered nearly two months of an awful nerve-wracking traumatic stress reaction, a hypervigilence that has finally recently lessened its grip on me. The Internet, along with my own …
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It looks like Sarah Palin is under Troopergate investigation because of a sociopath
John McCain, candidate for United States president, surprised everyone by naming Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his running mate. Regardless of what you think about her political views, Palin had a reputation as a squeaky clean reformer—at least until "Troopergate" broke in July. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska legislators voted on July 28, 2008, to hire an independent investigator to explore whether Governor Palin, her family, or members of her administration pressured the former Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, to fire a state trooper. The trooper in question, Michael G. Wooten, is the ex-husband of Molly McCann. McCann and Wooten are locked in a bitter c …
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Crimes of Persuasion: Schemes, Scams, Frauds
Yesterday I had a conversation with a woman who was married to a con artist for over 5 years and she didn't know it. The man she met online, had married her representing himself as a “hedge fund manager.” She helped him entertain clients who invested in his company. He also had a business partner, someone who had known him for over 10 years. That business partner was also conned and lost a great deal of money. It turned out that everything about the man other than these two very real people was a sham. Every word out of his mouth was spoken as part of some pathological lie. The man is without doubt a sociopath/psychopath and con artist. In the aftermath of being taken both personally and fi …
Chilling portraits of sociopaths in film
There have been countless depictions of sociopaths and other predatory personalities in film. Most are pretty bad, incomplete and/or inaccurate. But some have been dead-on. And so I've canvassed my memory for what I regard as several notably excellent portraits of sociopaths in film. I'd be curious what you think of these performances (if you've seen them), and eager to discover, through you, new film/television portraits of sociopaths that ring disturbingly true. In no special order, I'll start with the original foreign film, The Vanishing, 1986 (not the subsequent and lame Hollywood remake). The Vanishing delivers-up one of the most sinister depictions of a sociopath I've ever seen. The …
A list for leaving the sociopath behind
by AlohaTraveler How many of us have a list, or know someone who does, of the ideal qualities we are looking for in THE ONE? I think these lists can sometimes cause us to miss out on someone quite wonderful because we get so attached to a check list. But that's another topic. I have a different kind of list. It could be called the list of EXACTLY what I DO NOT want in a life partner! This list has helped me to heal and come to terms with the reality of the Bad Man. While going through my things this morning, I found a piece of binder paper with a list I had written about the Bad Man in the early stages of my healing. It was written sometime within the first year after I had left him. …