I wrote an article not long ago about settling on a name for the personality disorder that we spend our time here talking about. I suggested using “sociopath” as a general term for exploitative people. Many of us have taken to shortening this term to “spath.”
Well, a Lovefraud reader “Justdreamin” informs us that “spath” is taken. She saw it on a flower pot, and sent us the photos.
It turns out that “spath” is a shortened version of “spathiphyllum,” which is the botanical name for the peace lilly, a common houseplant.
We might have to come up with a new name. If I were a beautiful peace lily, I wouldn’t want to share a name with the nasty predators.
Claudia
Eva, yes, in hard times it’s difficult not to be embittered. Humor is a kind of antidote to bitterness. That’s why one of my favorite authors is Shalom Aleichem. He describes life for Jews in the Pale of Settlement, which was no picnic. But he does it with so much irony and humor, that it makes it seem more bearable.
Eva
Yes, Claudia that must be a bit like being with a spath long time. Surely one ends up without sense of humour.
Could be to endure too much in order to keep the facade of everything is perfect when we all know many marriages are a farse, some have children just because is fashionable and is almost a social obligation, the huge morgages in order to buy houses above their possibilities, etc, make non psychopathic people more unhappy every decade. I think “normal” people are adquiring more and more psychopathic traits. Non authentic people, like psychopaths.
Claudia, you can see as i can be pessimistic sometimes 😀
Claudia
Eva, it’s okay to be pessimistic in the case of psychopaths. Every insult one can think about them is a huge understatement. I noticed that my psychopath used very well the weapon of sarcasm and humor (which actually added to his charm). But if I or anyone else was sarcastic about him, he sure didn’t find it funny! Sarcasm and humor can be a self-defense against the spaths or the hardships in life in general.
Eva
Claudia, mine was sarcastic too and had certain sense of humour, but i finally noticed even the humour was a hook and that the sarcasm was sinister sarcasm. Everything is so superfitial in them except the traits of their true nature.
I left relatively soon and even so i got shocked at his ability of portraying so well, at least for some time, a character that had nothing to do with his real self.
Claudia
Eva, that’s what I noticed too: the humor was strong and ever-present in the honeymoon phase. We laughed a lot together. But it transformed into a mean-spirited sarcasm towards the end. And the light-hearted humor was completely gone by the time I left him. It’s as if the time for love and laughter, as they say, was completely over. As you say, it had been just a hook, like the charm itself.
Eva
Yes, Claudia. And those are facts that can be analysed, but earlier they transmit a strange discomfort. Something one can not identify well in the moment, but it’s there. It’s some primitive instint. I didn’t listen so i had to see the facts. Then i realized one feels a strange, different discomfort when a predator is close. And it is not magnetism is an alarm that rings for one to listen.
Claudia
Eva, I didn’t feel the instinctive discomfort like you did. But I did feel stalked even before he actually started cyberstalking me. We’d go clothes shopping and he’d like to watch me from afar, like in that movie, Nine and a Half Weeks: which, incidentally, is about a voyeuristic psychopath. Have you seen that movie? It was one of my psychopath’s favorite movies! But he was so affectionate and attentive that the stalking behavior seemed flattering to me. Only when I didn’t want him anymore it became very uncomfortable and a big warning sign.
lesson learned
Eva,
I felt that instinctive discomfort. As the relationshit went on, it became a full blown anxiety around him. To the point where I could no longer shake that feeling, even while out of his presence.
LL
Eva
Claudia, not discomfort exactly but they transmit something different. Maybe that feeling is exciting at the beginning because it’s so sudden but that’s precisely what make it unsafe. Healthy people fall in love slowly, but they go too fast. And they live the moment, are irresponsable and a long etc. People who love use their head too. It’s a myth love has not also rational component. And these creatures gaslight in order to avoid you to think so someway your intuition tells you you’re not controlling anything at all and that is not safe for you.
Eva
Yes, LL, at the beginning is exciting but soon a strange insecurity, instability, an instinctive distrust starts to settle. They transmit insecurity somehow, and that’s not normal and it creates discomfort. I kept a bit longer and i sadly tested that discomfort was not arbitrary, he produced it from the beginning in order to keep me confussed.
Something in them don’t fit from the beginning and somehow our guts knows it.