Research has suggested that some sociopaths may experience something like “sociopathic burnout,” characterized by a reduction in their antisocial behavioral output as they move through middle and older age. (This is a type of decline in production to be glad for.)
What this does not mean is that sociopaths “outgrow” their sociopathic orientation, anymore than a career thief outgrows his thief’s mentality.
“Sociopathic burn-out,” let me stress, is not to be mistaken for something as chimerical (and unrealistic) as the sociopath’s “personal growth.” One might be tempted to regard the aging sociopath’s “mellowing” as a signal of his perhaps, finally, “growing up;” of his acquiring perhaps, finally, a more mature grasp of his priorities; of his having learned, perhaps at long last, finally to appreciate and value his blessings (including you).
Don’t be deceived. The aging sociopath’s “mellowing” will have nothing to do with a maturation, genuine repentance or self-discovery process. In the end, it will be about “burnout,” and nothing more.
And “burnout” really isn’t so complicated. We all burn-out. All of us, as we age, lose energy, requiring, over time, that we grow more selective in the allocation of our decreasing energy reserves.
Accordingly, we might find ourselves, gradually, apportioning less of our energy to activities and behaviors that failed to tax us in our younger, indefatigable days.
And let’s not kid ourselves: The life of the exploiter is energy-draining. It may take a sociopath to chronically exploit others unconscionably, but it also takes a considerable toll of energy.
And so the sociopath, whose energy is as finite as yours, tires. As he moves past his prime, he finds that his shenanigans now come with a cost, a price, just as, at 40, or 50, you find that recovering from a bender isn’t as easy, as painless, as when you were 20, or 25.
Like the veteran Hollywood stunt man, the aging sociopath finds he can no longer pull off stunt after stunt without confronting an emerging reality: the satisfaction he gets from his outrageous stunts no longer necessarily (after all these years) supercedes the cost to himself, which grows bit by bit as he “ages” not out of his shallowness and lovelessness, but his energy.
The sociopath, in other words, hasn’t been humanized by age, merely depleted by age of the energy levels necessary to sustain his flagrant, sociopathic machinations.
And so, sadly, the aging sociopath will not, finally, come to love or genuinely respect you; he will not “evolve” a true, belated appreciation of everything you promised him that he foully besmirched in his previous immaturity.
Rather, increasingly fatigued and/or dependent, he will only value, as always and now perhaps more than ever, the convenience (if he’s lucky) that your companionship affords him in his now “mellower,” but really just more tired, incarnation.
(My use of “he” in this post and others is merely a convenience, and not meant to suggest that males have a patent on sociopathy. This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW. Thanks to TC for inspiring it.)
MATT::::::
OH WHAT A GLORIOUS DAY!!!!
It’s a beautiful thing when we can be helpful to others!!!
Your the gift that keeps on giving…..
🙂
I’m glad you had a nice chuckle today, you sure needed it!!!
More to come huh~
matt – if he has no money, no assets what can they do other than garnish his wages? can he do time for not paying his debts?
I would think no, because it was a civil case (?)…..not criminal (crime against society).
Just keep the judgements coming……at least Matt knows the minute the S buys land or real property…..Matt can scoop it up or tip off the creditors……
In the meantime…..make him age with stress…..
LOVE IT!
Tilly –
What is an ex psychopath solicitor? Psychopaths are forever, do you mean ex-solicitor?
Yes, he will work his “Magic” again on the next victim. This was a term given to me by another woman mine defrauded over trying to get some money back that she had loaned another S. I asked her how, and she said, with a flip of the wrist, “Magic.”
I understood. Totally.
There are people out there, most innocent but caught up in the evil of their own S/P’s, who have so many judgments that they cannot work. They are subject to 80% garnishments, so what’s the point?
Reeling. Got the certified mail receipt back today. He got it on Friday. Nothing. No response. No email. No text.
Need to do a report, as fraud, working through that. As bad as he is, I am having trouble with sending him back to prison, but I know it is the only way.
Matt’s S will never buy land or property. Neither will mine. They will just find another “supply source” as per Women Who Love Psychopaths. We’ll never see a dime of it.
But we could, maybe, put them behind bars and render them largely harmless, though they do put ads up and lure women over the net. How. . . ever, you can only load up an inmate’s commissary by a few hundred dollars a month or the prison gets suspicious, so it is some protection for future victims.
HI USED:
I was so grateful to get my settlement prior to losing all assets.
I know what he has left, if I need to go after those too. Not much, but I can do it if the child support stops. AND he knows it!!!
USED, don’t give it a second thought about sending him back ‘home’.
Do what you have to do……take care of business.
You will have plenty of time to sort out your emotions after HE is ‘home’.
Yes, these guys will have plenty of supply to bail them out and feel sorry…….but I do feel strongly that we still need to go for the judgement in (most) cases.
I love what Matt’s doing…..kinda like…..if I can’t have you ($$) I will help my neighbor get ya.
Team work against evil…..Matt’s taking one for the team!
There is always another victim……but it doesn’t negate the fact that we can ‘make right’, if we have the means.
Hi Erin!
Thanks for getting back to me. Most of us are back east, so I don’t expect my posts to get answered that night, appreciate it, a lot.
Know what I need to do, just coming to grips with it. We always promised each other that even if we were separated and could not even talk, we would not burn each other. But he burned me, he played sick to swindle me out of “just” another $3000 without having to get close. For Jane’s sake. Texted her laughing about it.
If somebody is crazy about you, and you don’t feel it back, saying you’re sick is a lie but a kind lie. But when you use it to convince them you really love her, you’re a team, and your $3000 debt is her problem, it’s fraud.
Your support means more than I can say. I don’t feel good about what I have to do, and I may not do it this week. May write one more letter, getting meaner as Matt suggested.
Worried that he’ll send someone after me physically. Spent an hour thinking of people I never spoke about whom I trust, that I can send the gist of this to, in envelopes addressed to a few good folks I know in law enforcement, and I’m going to tell him that. Anything happens to me . . .
Not paranoid. He offered more than once to have his friends “take care of” people who were harming me, so it only makes sense that now that I’ve “gone adverse” I could be the target.
I’ll get these out first thing tomorrow, so that it’s gone and done should he require a response.
God Bless You, Erin. I really needed a friend tonight.
I’m a Freedom Fighter. Going to the feds is so against everything I believe in. I’m going to have nightmares.
Used:
In your profession, I would imagine that mustering up mean would be imperative?!
I CAN HELP YOU WITH MEAN!!!!! I can write a mean letter!!! 🙂 🙂 Every time I received a letter through my attorney, I RESPONDED and supplied it to the attorney. Oh…..it’s not about mean…..It’s about direct, to the point, factual, in your face, planting seeds, no way out, here’s my point, HA! letters.
It’s about covering your ass. It’s about following the law and proceeding through the channels to present your case.
YOU KNOW THIS!!!!
I don’t know if you should let him on that you are alerting your LE friends…..that should go without saying……The least amount of info you give him ‘personally’ or emotionally the better.
He has made the ‘offers’ of taking care of people…..you are quite aware of this…..this is WHY he did it…..to scare you via offering you ‘help’. THANKS…..But no thanks. I think those kinds of words are tests of us……But on the flip side…..we need to be aware of it….not freaked out (they win if we freak). It’s the balance.
Send the gist or better yet…..catch up with your ‘old’ friends over coffee in town and let them in on your situation. Word gets around when these S’s are prowling….use them as protection and let them ‘radiate’ out to their contacts……
About your last comment…..being a Freedom Fighter…….this too is part of your evolution……sometimes the feds CAN be our friends……Nothing in life is ALL black or ALL white. Your working in the grey now girl! Grey is down in the trench/cracks where these S’s dwell. Allow yourself to use the resources we all have open to us and RUN WITH IT!
Those promises you made to each other……One thing I learned through all this is when someone has character it doesn’t require promises…..
It’s like saying….’I love you’…..I PROMISE. Or I will take you to dinner tonight….I PROMISE…….I will be home by 7 pm…..I PROMISE…..
I see a promise as only being made as an excuse to convince someone that this is NOT what I am going to do……
Then you add ‘pinky promise’ ……this means….I have no intention of following through…..but I will convince you with a ‘pinky promise’.
Or I ‘ really, really promise…..this time’ type of promise……
GET MY POINT?????
I’m here…..I’m a latebird…..We all need a nudge sometimes…..I’m pushing you out the chair girl!!!
🙂
Erase this from your mind, release your worry……I believe your doing the right thing……I think it will be a cathartic move for you.
REST WELL!!!
Steve, I’m glad you brought up this topic. Several psychologists friends of mine were under the impression that sociopaths ‘mellowed’ with age, and when they heard that mine was in his seventies, they all appeared somewhat surprised.
I don’t know from personal experience what mine was like when he was younger, but at seventy +, he was as much a con man as any I’ve read about. Wine may mellow with age, but it’s my feeling that older sociopaths have honed and sharpened their abilities and although they may have slowed down physically, they are still capable of lots of damage.
Incidentally, I recently heard that mine (Bill Strunk – see under Stories) had a massive stroke several months ago. He survived but is paralyzed, can not speak, eat, or take care of himself in any way. He is in a nursing home under 24-hour care.
My thoughts about his condition… he is a prisoner in his own body.
LouiseRosen:
The situation your S finds himself in was the one my S expects to find himself in. S’s mother was left brain dead after a third incapacitating stroke. But for a dozen years leading up to that she was paralyzed, rendered speechless, etc. S, like his mother has high blood pressure and does nothing to take care of himself, so no doubt he will follow in her footsteps.
Of course, my fantasy is to go to nursing school, become his nurse and jam the needle in as hard as I can 6 times a day — to say nothing of keeping his food out of arm’s length, etc.
I won! Towanda! Full story on Philosophy of the sociopath thread in moments.