This is my first post on the LoveFraud blog. It’s a great pleasure to be part of this most worthwhile effort to teach people to recognise and avoid sociopaths. (Or psychopaths, as I prefer.)
Over at my blog – the top two inches – I have been thinking and writing about something that psychopaths invariably do to deflect things away from themselves and onto others.
Perhaps you’ve encountered it: the psychopath does something wrong, but the moment attention is drawn to this he (usually it’s he) magically causes you to feel bad.
Here are a few examples:
1. The wifebeater says: “Why are you making me do this!?”
Consequently she may think: “It’s true, I shouldn’t do X [usually something insignificant] because it makes him upset.” Do you see? Suddenly she’s the baddie.
2. “Shut up. At least I’m not as bad as OJ [or someone heinous]”.
In other words, You don’t appreciate me; you should be grateful, but instead you get upset about what I do. You, you, you (not me).
3. She (sometimes psychopaths are women) says: “Why are you so mad with me about this? Of all the things I’ve done before this doesn’t even make the Top 10!”
In other words, Hey, I’m actually improving; you’re the bad one for noticing that I’ve done something bad.
You get the picture. The moving stories by readers of LoveFraud cite many instances of this kind of misdirection.
The best technical term I’ve encountered for this mode of discourse favoured by the psychopath is paramoralism. It was coined by the scholar Andrew M. Lobaczewski
Here’s my definition:
A paramoralism is a psuedo-moral statement. It is stated in moral-like terms but with precisely the opposite intent and effect: to get what he wants and to bamboozle the other person into being unable to use their normal means of knowing right and wrong.
Keep an eye out for paramoralisms. Not because everyone who uses a paramoralism is a psychopath, of course. But I believe that we can develop our abilities to identify when someone is cleverly turning defence into attack in this way, and thus we can resist accepting moral blame that does not belong to us.
Let me know of any that paramoralisms that particularly strike you and I may write about them.
Good to be on board!
Welcome Dr. Steve,
The P (as I prefer to call him — it can have so many interesting connotations beyond psychopath!) once said after having been released from a court ordered Forensic Evaluation at a local hospital: “They diagnosed me as a psychopath which means I wasn’t responsible for the things I did. If you hadn’t gone to the police in the first place, this would never have happened. Do you know some of the world’s greatest leaders were psychopaths. Churchill. Kennedy. They say there’s no cure, but I can beat this. You have to help me. Who knows what will happen if you don’t?”
Is that a paramoralism? Or is it simple stupidity? He did forget to mention leaders such as Hitler, Stalin…
ML
This is very interesting at this level of discussion.
A classic one that I experienced several times, spoken by my psycho who portrays a life of a spiritual councellor and life coach was this (spoken of course with much arrogance and attempted authority in her knowledge)”if you are saying that my behaviour is disappointing you and making you feel bad then those are your thoughts and your feelings. If you’re falling into a pit of depression it’s your fault” …. and these disappointments came from fickle planning, botched arrangements, false promises, etc that would often cost me time, money or great personal effort. Yes, paramoralism is how it is with them.
Oh yes — paramoralism. It’s like you know something is WRONG yet the excuses and reasoning behind it make sense and so it is an attempt at justifying the behavior. I read somewhere:
If you were sitting in a field and suddenly saw a man bring a boy out into the middle of the field, tie him down (without struggle) and lift a knife to stab him, then change his mind, put the knife down, untie the boy and walk away, what would you do?
Most people would freak out, call the police… etc..
But this is the story of Abraham who was told by “God” to sacrifice his son to test him.
As a story in the Bible, it has meaning, it shows faith, it shows obedience to God.
In the modern world, we would lock the guy up either in a mental ward or prison for such a thing. As soon as he said “God” told him to do it… we’d label him schizophrenic or something… right?
But as a Bible story it is a “moral” lesson… or “paramoral” as it were.
Also, my ex stole my roommate’s credit card and banged it out. Totally WRONG. However a few weeks before that, my ex had given me 5,000 and we had a fight and I told him I was not going to give him his money back because he had put me through so much for 3 years.
His rationale was that he gave me everything – his heart and soul and gifts and time and attention and I gave him nothing.
In both instances, paramoralism is in effect. On my part for refusing to give him his money and on his part for taking my roommate’s credit card after I had agreed to give him the money back.
It’s like a wrong action in turn causes a wrong reaction which in turn causes another wrong action…. it’s a cycle.
“I only did this because you did that and you only did that because I did this or that…. you see?”
“It’s two wrongs don’t make a right”… but paramoralism… flips that and says you wronged me and so I wronged you…. or something like that…
My ex lied a lot to me… and his excuse was “If you made it easier to communicate with you instead of blowing up in anger all the time, I would not have had to lie.”
Makes perfect sense right? But my reply is… “If the truths you were telling didn’t involve lost jobs, crashed cars, being accused of stealing, I would not have gotten so angry.”
I did have a right to be angry about those things; however, I
did not have a right to be cruel and degrading and make him feel worse about himself.
Nothing can justify the insane behaviors — the stealing gets justified in some people’s minds because they feel … well I was working hard for that person and he wasn’t paying me what my time was worth… so he was stealing my time… so I stole some extra cash to make up for it…
It gets so tangles and crazy… you can’t see any morals in any of it anymore.
I looked upon my ex’s paramoralism as MASSIVE rationalization. There was a believable reason and excuse for every lie and for every single truth as well. He didn’t distinguish any difference. At one point during the winddown of our relationship, I asked him why he lied to all these women. His sincere answer was that people shouldn’t ask him questions if they didn’t want him to lie to them. He said that people should just accept what he said at face value because it wasn’t really a lie until they figured out it was. My mind is still boggling over that one.
I always just considered it blame shifting. No matter his trouble, it would always be my fault. I have many examples, but here’s one. I refused to pay him for hours of work he submitted. His stance, “Woe unto him . . . that useth his neighbor’s service without wages . . .” I had asked him to recalculate his hours because he’d verifiably padded his hours and also charged me for time he worked on his own equipment, which he would not address or admit.
Notquitebroken : hahahahahahaha … that has to be the winning statement … “people shouldn’t ask questions if they didn’t want him to lie…” and to have the blatant audacity to even say it !!
The comments here all have a common thread … self-justification, massive rationalisation and the infuriating thing is that every one of them has the ability to construct their words in such a way that WE stop and and think, “well, maybe he/she does have a point” and THAT off-balance mental state keeps us wondering, questioning, self-doubting .. and that is the intention … to purposely keep us off balance lest we see and reveal the truth .. which all of us here on Lovefraud have now done … finally seen the truth.
In addition to this “paramoral” explanation, there is an excellent piece in the blog archives titled Optical Illusions: Autostereograms and Sociopaths
http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2007/05/20/optical-illusions-autostereograms-and-sociopaths/
These two explanations of the sociopathic mind demonstrate clearly how they weave a web of lies and deceit as they play the game. The amazing thing is that they really do have the ability to construct, rebuild and alter their stories with more lies yet remain believable in what they say … and that leaves US scratching our heads saying “huh?? Was I so wrong ?because he/she sounds so right” …
And so, their intentional undermining of our ‘self’ eats away at our psyche and our emotions like a cancer. We doubt ourselves, our heritage, our education, OUR MORALS and our own common sense!!
The most infuriating thing is that once we have had the courage to walk away we see them continuing their lives, duping everyone in sight, conning the world with their falsities and we OFTEN ask ourselves, “Is it really him/her that is crazy, or is it ME????” Have each and every one of us not questioned ourselves and even since joining this site have we not ALL looked at ourselves and thought that maybe WE are the psycho’s? I know I have.
Sociopaths live in the twilight zone and drag us into it. Then leave us questioning our own perceptions of “normality”. Reaching a level of understanding and acceptance that THEY are the abnormal ones is the hardest part for us mentally because they are so damn good at the con, or mind-f*#k, if you’ll pardon the phrase.
I’ve read where if you question your own sanity, that you are sane. The ones who don’t should. The con man in my life did such a number on my mind that he would walk away and I would wonder what he just said and I would ask him later and he would deny it all. He would say and do things to totally undermine my thinking to make it look like he’s an innocent.
I was behind him at a stop sign. The next day I mentioned it to him. He, very vehemently denied it and said it wasn’t him. I just looked at him and said it was. It was his vehicle, it was him driving. He kept denying it. That’s just one of many, but it caused me to question everything he says. What a waste of precious time to go through life lying about the simplest of things. I’ve found when they hesitate before answering they are usually formulating an answer and it will probably be a good one. They do it in such a way, that it could or couldn’t be true. If they will lie about something very simple, there’s every reason to believe they will lie about anything and everything. The sad part in my case, is that he is very likable. He comes in a nice package, but that’s where it stops. I think the real him, though is the mean, nasty man. The man I saw the most was the conniving one, who sets out to seduce. Once you peel away the layers, it ends up being fluff and stuff, with very little substance. I have to wonder what they draw on when they really need strength or do they just keep looking for another sucker.
This man in question is always hinting about money. I think he figured it worked before so maybe it will work again. Once I got the most of my money back, I’ve vowed that was it. Before he paid me back, he went so far as to suggest we could exchange the money for sex. That told me he most likely conducts the rest of his life that way and if he does there’s no reason for me to stick around. He kept talking about me questioning his integrity. I said he must not have had any to do to me what he did.
It amazes me that they just don’t get it. They hit rock bottom and just look for someone to stand on to climb back out. It’s very frustrating dealing with these kinds of people who think the world revolves around them. They make their own messes, but think someone should rush to their aid. I’ll never get it. I’ve found they mimic the ones they are around. Like chameleons. They can be whomever, and whatever the occasion calls for. Phonies. Playacting their way through life, preying on unsuspecting ones. Now that I know the difference, it’s easy to pick them out in the news. And just because a man is refined and sophisticated, doesn’t mean he has morals and integrity. We really have to read the whole book before we buy it. I’m so cautious anymore, I’ll probably go it alone the rest of my life, just to avoid having my head messed with again. I would just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I keep saying how glad I am for this site. I wonder if I would have had this info years ago, could I have recognized what was happening or do we have to go through it to understand. I just know that I’m much older and so much wiser. I intend to guard what is mine. If I give any of me away again, it will be at my discretion and not through manipulation of my resources. At least we here have lived to tell our story. The sad part is about the ones who didn’t live to tell theirs.
One of the hardest things about finding any examples of paramoralism in my experience is that I always seemed to be compromised. Not just the “how could I have been so stupid?” kind of thing. More that I somehow was right in the middle of it.
Like the time that I told him, when he came back from sleeping at his ex-girlfriend’s house because he “didn’t have anywhere else to stay” when he was doing business in New York, that I don’t sleep with people who are sleeping with other people. He made an impatient face, told me not to be ridiculous and he couldn’t tolerate people who whine and that “modern” women weren’t possessive, and then walked into my bedroom, took his clothes off, and told me to come to bed.
What did I do? I got into bed. I’d been crying about this for days, and feeling hopeless and terrible. Looking back at it, I can’t believe I was so broken down — and this was in the first few months of a five-year “relationship.” I just wanted to stop feeling so awful, and after all, he was home.
Five years later, as I was throwing him out because he’d developed a full-blown relationship with a woman in the next town, he told me that I didn’t understand how much prestige he’d given up by being with me. (I’m considerably older than him.) And how much he resented the professional help I’d given him, because it made him look like an idiot. And how cruel I was being to him because he didn’t have any money or place to go (both untrue). And how I’d never really cared what he wanted. The last thing he said to me, as he walked out the door, in a plaintive little-boy voice was “But you said you loved me.”
That last bit was so discombobulating that it took me months to work it out. Why would he have said that? Not, thanks for all the money and sorry for the grief I’ve caused you. Not, good-bye and have a good life. Not even, I’m glad to get dump you, you old bag, and move on to a fresh victim who still thinks I’m a nice guy.
When I told him I loved him, he used to sigh or make fun of me. As though it were a sign of weakness. In fact, in the beginning when I cried about something he’d done, he would say in a haughty voice, “Weakness is unattractive.”
I finally, sometime in my recovery process, started saying “But you said you loved me” in different foreign accents. Stiff-upper-lip BBC-style British. Musical and passionate Spanish. Tough and disciplined German. The best one was French. I used to walk around my house, talking like Pepe Le Peu, pouting and fluttering my eyelashes, and then draping myself over the furniture like a heroine in a romantic novel waiting to be delivered from her corsets and the cruel bank manager who was foreclosing on the house.
It cracked me up, but it also helped me grasp finally what a passive-aggressive guilt-mongerer he was. Not that much different than my own worst behaviors as a raving codependent. I was a bad, bad girl for not rescuing him, not taking care of his feelings, not thinking about his needs.
The thing that was different about him is that he’d taken the gloves off. As a raving codependent, I at least wanted a win-win solution. I’d take care of him if he’d take care of me. In his world, he’d take care of him and I’d take care of him. And anything short of that was cause for him to start character-assassinating me.
I used to give myself a hard time for being so willing to absorb his comments, to believe the worst about myself. But since then, I’ve read a bit about emotional abuse, and how it can progressively break down a person’s sense of self. I hope that this topic comes up for discussion here, if it hasn’t already. So much of this healing process, for me at least, has been discovering a deep center in myself that is permanent, not vulnerable, and that I can trust to know what is right for me.
Paramoralism, as it’s defined here, is a kind a rhetorical device. I can imagine it being used by an unscrupulous salesperson, a college debater, or a clever PR person (my profession). But the purpose of the device is something very similar to “poisoning the well,” which is to neutralize another person’s words by discrediting him personally. (The old saw about “when did you stop beating your wife?” is a example of that. “You don’t really believe that” is another.) Except the person who is being discredited is you. And you’re being discredited with yourself.
Creepy, huh? Which is why the first time anyone makes me feel bad about myself or even question myself, I say, “I’ll need to think about that,” and then go think about it in private. Sometimes negative feedback is useful, and sometimes it’s not. But people who offer their opinions about me, without my permission, are people who don’t respect boundaries. Or people who think they’re better than me. Or people who really don’t care how I feel, as long as they can make themselves feel good.
Not my kind of people. Not anymore.
The above examples are very real to me.
After 15 years of “paramoralism”, (good word!) my husband informed me that everything bad he ever did was my fault. I was the reason he did the things he did, and if there was any ill effect it was because I caused it. I actually questioned him where such thoughts came from? He told me I shouldn’t think and should not talk and didn’t know anything! That about covers it, doesn’t it.
When we divorced he told me he was going to prove me unfit in court! Based upon nothing. So, he turned the courtroom into his personal circus performance and enjoyed the effects he created using our children as “proof”.
It all backfired on him, and he blamed me for causing his pain of loss but never once admitted to anything. My attorney’s comment; “this one is spooky”.
M.L. – Holy cow, this is one of the most complex combination of tactics I’ve seen! Paramoralism by a (stupid) master. They say that a very quick boxer makes you feel surrounded – same for you, I imagine.
buzzibee – This a bugbear of mine too. On Oprah, etc. we will be told that others can’t make us feel anything – we choose to feel it. That’s a helpful thought in that it tells us to take responsibility for ourselves. But it’s not completely true. There are psychological mechanisms (projective identification) whereby one person ‘puts something’ into another. (E.g. A talk with a depressed friend leaves you feeling down and them feeling a bit lighter – they’ve ‘given’ you some of the depression.) Psychopaths are very powerful projectors precisely because they refuse to take any of the ‘bad stuff’ in themselves.
holehearted – Paramoralisms are catching! An important part of the definition: ” bamboozle the other person into being unable to use their normal means of knowing right and wrong.”
notquitebroken – A beaut! “People shouldn’t ask him questions if they didn’t want him to lie to them. He said that people should just accept what he said at face value because it wasn’t really a lie until they figured out it was.” In other words, ‘people’ are at fault, not him!
Benzthere – That’s paramoralism’s goal in a nutshell – blameshifting.
buzzibee – Reasonableness – asking, Mm, does that person have a point? – is a great human virtue. The psychopath understands it as a wekness to be exploited. Good faith can’t compete with bad faith.
The autostereogram is a great metaphor.
apt/mgr – On sanity: Thomas S Szasz says: “Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis….The neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions.” (Neurotic here means sane.)
On picking out lies, see eyesforlies.com
You ask: “I have to wonder what they draw on when they really need strength or do they just keep looking for another sucker.” It’s the latter.
On over-caution: I’m going to have a post on thetoptwoinches next week on dating. There are some quotes on it from a female criminal profiler. They’re very chastening, but even she hasn’t given up hope!
khatalyst – Yep, that’s the crucial part of paramoralisms – they undermine the other’s ability to think well about right and wrong.
I’ve written about how even the truths of the posychopath are psychopathic – they’re brutally honest, with the empahsis on the brutal!
Also the sob-story; it’s not the story that works, it’s the sob.
You’ve hit the nail on the head here: “When I told him I loved him, he used to sigh or make fun of me. As though it were a sign of weakness.” Precisely. Regular folks operate according to love, the psychopath according to power. For them love is weak.
Espressogirl – Geez. Fortunately their arrogance and stupidity helps others to see that they’re full of it. Eventually, unfortunately.