We know only too well that by far the majority of psychopaths are men. Or at least we think we know that. Could it be that the criteria used to identify psychopaths are biased towards men? After all Hare began his work in male prison.
Think about it. While behaving and being the way the PCL-R without doubt earns one the label psychopath, this is simply a list of symptoms. It says nothing about the underlying dynamics. If psychopathy is life centered on the principle of power (as opposed to love) and if it is therefore characterised by what Liane Leedom nicely calls ‘warped empathy‘, then wouldn’t you expect there to be more or less the same number of woman as men psychopaths? And wouldn’t you expect them to come across differently?
I am beginning to wonder whether there may be two broad types of psychopathy – a ‘male’-type and a ‘female’-type. I place these in quotes because, when I think about it, men with might be thought of as ‘female’ psychopathy come to mind and we all know about women with ‘male’ psychopathy. And yet, at the risk of being un-PC, I want to maintain these descriptors for now so that the difference I think I see doesn’t disappear.
A ‘female’ psychopath would not necessarily commit crimianl/antisocial acts like her male counterpart, but she woud be as power-driven, as toxically narcissistic as a ‘male’ psychopath. The control, the manipulation, the dishonesty, the selfishness, the callousness – all these would be present, but we might not recognise them for what they are because of 1. media portrayal and 2. medical diagnosis of psychopaths. The difference would come in the gendered style of their behaviour.
In my clinical work I have come across this phenomenon. For example, a woman I now consider to be of the ‘female’-type of psychopath didn’t come close to committing a crime and yet the way she mothered her daughter, my patient, came close to destroying the child’s mind. This seems to me to be a perversion of motherhood eqivalent to the perversion of fatherhood we read about on this website.
Do readers have any comments? I’m particularly interested in any examples you might have of how ‘female’ psychopathy – if such a thing does exist – manifests itself?
Skylar
Your story is horrific and I understand where you are coming from. I get that spath need to annhiliate and eliminate.
I pray for your continued survival.
And I say fuck the spath! Just fuck him. *very angry on your behalf*
xxxx
Endeavor
Welcome to love fraud.
When I read your post, you sound like I felt 5 years ago when I finally found this site after googling every imaginable term for months – “lying as a personality disorder” “what personality is lying” – “why does my boyfriend cheat on me” – etc. Enough to make you crazy.
You’ll learn a ton from being here. Welcome.
Athena
Lone Wolf,
thank you. I know your spath is intent on your destruction also, so I read with some satisfaction when you posted that you had a small victory over her. The GL only wants money, so of course he went for it.
I hope you are able to walk away from the drama and never look back at her.
Interestingly, I don’t have much anger at my spath. He invokes pity in me. Such a pathetic existence is pitiful. I want to pity him from a distance though. If he comes near, my wrath IS ignited.
While I was with him, I also lead a pathetic existence, but since then, I’ve learned so much about myself and the world. I don’t know if I would have learned it as well in any other way, so I’m also grateful for those lessons.
Skylar
I identify with your entire post.
There is SO much more to me than what I was when I was around the spath. !
I do still fear WHAT spath may do to me and the consequences of that for my safety etc and wellbeing but not so much her as a person, if that makes any sense.
Apart from the emotional moment in the first few seconds in that room, apart from some good healthy anger, I felt nothing in terms of emotional attachment at all. I wondered how I could ever have cared for such a cold creature? It seemed odd! But that is because I am no longer traumatically bonded. What I found astonishing is that noone else in the room could see the spathery, i am sure because they were not expecting to see it, despite the evidence.
There are loads of great things I want to start doing that I haven’t done for years and I am starting them now even tho it may be some time to get the money, if I get it at all and if she doesn’t find some other way to destroy me. But I am still going to start to live again now!
I have started to write again, am going to start to draw and to sing!
Even if you no longer feel the need to be angry at your spath, I am quite happy to feel some anger towards him! They should have thrown away the bloody key! (Really my anger is more about caring about you, than what happens to him…! Because you shouldn’t have had to suffer because of this irrelevant fuckwit. )
xxxxx
fixerupper,
In my situation, it took about 10+ years to realize that my ex-h was a spath. In the beginning of our marriage, he had a growing, successful business, with another partner (it is quite successful today). Over the years, the spath “decided” to go solo in business (today, I strongly suspect that the first partner wanted to get rid of him for good cause). He controlled the family finances. When things started to go downhill, haywire, having many (too many) alarming things happening, I started to figure things out. In the end, I discovered that he was a liar, a thief, a cheat, etc., finding all the discoveries (about the spath) absolutely disturbing and unsettling. I am literally amazed that I’m still walking. For me, my marriage vows played a part (plus what I thought about people in general, namely, you don’t ditch people when they’re having hard times), caused me to hang on for too long. That’s my story in nutshell.
I have to wonder what this “mother” did. Are we supposed to judge her on the basis of accusation alone? No me.
Betsy are you speakiing about the quote from the article
“In my clinical work I have come across this phenomenon. For example, a woman I now consider to be of the ’female’-type of psychopath didn’t come close to committing a crime and yet the way she mothered her daughter, my patient, came close to destroying the child’s mind. This seems to me to be a perversion of motherhood eqivalent to the perversion of fatherhood we read about on this website.”
Yes Oxy, I am speaking of the quote in the article.
It just says that and drops it. I kept looking for more. I really would like to know what happened, how the mother treated her daughter and how the child’s mind was damaged. I guess I still wonder if I am a psychopath based on my daughter’s complete rejection of me.
Betsy,
It’s hard to look at ourselves honestly sometimes and even though we have the best intentions, we become enablers –not psychopaths.
For example, my parents are enablers and they created 2 spaths and 2 spath victims. They not only enabled my spath bro and sis but they trained me to enable them too. I was the very BEST enabler. I would do anything that would enable my parasitic brother and sister to continue being evil. BUT I couldn’t see it. To me, it just seemed like I was being kind to them. This is what my parents do and what I was raised to do.
It wasn’t until the spath bro and sister pretty much demanded that I kill myself, that I FINALLY drew the line. I began to read and learn about relationshits, so I figured out where my thinking had been wrong all along.
I have also explained this to my parents but they STILL can’t see. But you know, it wasn’t THEIR lives that were threatened, so they weren’t offended. Just like I was not offended when my spath sister tried to send my spath brother to prison, I thought forgiveness was the right thing to do. It wasn’t.
I’m not saying that any of your problems are anything like mine or that you are an enabler or anything specific, since I don’t know you or your daughter. I’m only suggesting that sometimes we can’t see what we, ourselves, are doing wrong. For me, it took a series of very traumatic events to see that part of myself. Furthermore, it wasn’t completely revealed until I began to really research the complexities between spaths and enablers. Without enablers, spaths wouldn’t even exist. This disease requires other people to feed on.
I’m sure there are more things about myself that I’m blind to. I think that life is a voyage of discovery about ourselves. Hopefully, I’ll continue to be willing to learn.
So keep on being open to learning about yourself, Betsy, but don’t judge yourself too harshly. You’ve done the best you could with what you knew at the time. That’s all we can do.
Betsy, I had a therapist tell me once that when people come to him worried about their “forgetfulness” or other mental problems he knows that they are NOT demented, it is the ones who DENY that they have problems who actually DO have problems.
The very fact that you WONDER IF YOU ARE A P pretty well tells me that you are NOT one. LOL
None of us intended to hurt our children, and the fact that the children reject us does not mean that we abused them. My P son totally rejects me, from the time he was 15 or so he was telling people how I abused him…poor baby. And he was good at convincing people that he has been abused by his mean old mommy and the reason he is in prison today for murder is because his mommy turned him in to the cops for robbery when he was 17. Poor baby.
Was I a perfect parent? Not only no, but HELL NO. I made lots of mistakes in my parenting. His biological father and I had a horrible divorce that I am sure had some effects on him, but he made the CHOICE to rob our friends, and he made the choice after that to jump parole, and he made the choice to rob another family and got caught and went to prison, and when he got out he made the CHOICE to violate his parole, not come home and go to college which he COULD have chosen to do, but then when he got caught again and Jessica turned him in, he murdered her.
Does my “rejection” by him mean I was a bad mother? My other son isn’t the kind of man I wish he was but he isn’t a murderer and he works for a living not steals for a living. He hasn’t killed anyone. And my adopted son is as good a man as I could wish for him to be.
My own egg donor rejects me as well, but I have been a good daughter, and I have no doubt about that.
I have had “friends” reject me…after they stole from me and I called them on it. Do I think I was a poor friend? NO!!!
The fact that we are here trying to learn how to be better people, how to heal means that we have consciences and that we have empathy, and that right there alone means we are not psychopaths. Perfect? No, but good enough.
So do not let your daughter’s rejection of you set your head to spinning.