I received this question from a woman who is divorcing a man she believes has the traits of a psychopath (according to the psychopathy checklist):
“What psychological tactics can you suggest in dealing with a psychopath? There must be some tools and strategies to stay a step ahead. I’ve read books on identifying liars and tried to educate myself on strengthening my position in recognizing The Predator. There has to be some guidelines somewhere on How to Ride That Horse. I have had hundreds of horses throughout my life and pride myself on being able to ride anyone that crosses my path. Although this horse has been the most difficult and I continue to be dragged, trampled and kicked, I continue to get back up, dust myself off and try again. I have learned much and he has been a great teacher…..but in the final stages of our divorce, he is throwing some wild curve balls and I’m desperately trying to stay in the saddle. I ride all my horses softly, gently…..Can you offer tools for the arsenal?”
Before answering this question I want to make some important comments. Many people have reasons for needing and desiring relationships with people who are very sociopathic/psychopathic (sociopaths). In my view, there are only two legitimate reasons for having interactions with someone you believe may be “a sociopath.” The first is that the person is your boss and you haven’t yet found another job, and the second is that there is a court order commanding you to. That the sociopath is charming, attractive, wealthy, your son, daughter, friend, lover, mother, father or some other relation, is not a good enough reason to risk yourself and others.
Whenever you interact with a sociopath, you not only risk yourself, you risk others. Sociopaths weave a web of deception that is supported by the many relationships they have. If people refuse to participate in the sociopath’s life he/she will be very limited in his/her ability to harm anyone. Sociopaths/psychopaths know how to surround themselves with people who give them legitimacy in the minds of others and who serve as “cover.” They will use anyone for this purpose, especially ministers, priests and rabbis, and of course, children.
If you desire to have a relationship with a known sociopath there is something wrong with you. That something can be ignorance of the disorder and its dangerousness. A sense of grandiose invincibility and a love of risk taking can also feed into this desire. If you are an adventurous risk-taker, take up blizzard mountain exploration or sky diving, but keep away from sociopaths. Many people write me with a tone of wonder, awe and admiration for sociopaths. Save your wonder, awe and admiration for the Grand Canyon, the pyramids of Egypt, or the true miracles of life, please. (Here I am referring also to the women who send love letters to known killers and serial killers.)
Those comments out of the way, how can you cope successfully with a sociopath/psychopath? First, remember that these people are Driven to Do Evil. Just like you wake up every day and feel your drives and desires, sociopaths/psychopaths wake up every morning and “It’s show time!” Whereas your goals are intimately related to the love and compassion you feel for others, a sociopath’s goals are intimately related to his/her desire to gain power over others. If you don’t understand this at the core of your being, you will not be able to deal with sociopaths. Second, imagine a moment what your life would be like if guilt, empathy and compassion did not enter into your decision making processes. Imagine that your decisions were based solely on your judgments regarding what would benefit you.
Now imagine both together, a Drive to Do Evil and no guilt, empathy or compassion. A sociopath is a sports car with an accelerator and no braking system. Now you can see why I say only an ignorant, crazy or suicidal person would voluntarily choose to ride this horse, or drive this car!
I have just armed you with the mental picture of the sociopath who you are compelled to deal with. To successfully cope, keep this picture in your mind at all times. Ignore any of the sociopath’s actual appearance or behavior. Keep all conversations brief and to the point. Set firm boundaries and never give an inch. Insist that you get everything due you, and that the sociopath abide by his/her end of any court orders, or job descriptions. Most importantly, STOP expecting that the sociopath will behave like anyone other than who he/she is. A sociopath is a person who is Driven to Do Evil and who lacks, guilt, empathy and compassion.
To make this point further, let us consider our friend’s analogy of the psychopath and our relations with him/her to the horse and horseback riding. Horses are domesticated animals. Domestication means they have been bred to have the capacity for submissive behavior and impulse control. These two (submissive behavior and impulse control) are supported by a very complicated biology that includes hormones and brain structure. The psychopath lacks both the brain structure and hormonal profile to behave submissively or even consistently cooperatively. The best horse analogy to the sociopath is the horse who dies in the process of being ridden because s/he lacks the substrate for domestication. This horse is not a challenge, s/he is a waste of time and energy.
So stick with the horses that have been beautifully trained to compete in the show ring, and who lovingly wait by the fence for you to appear. These horses enjoy cooperation and don’t mind having to submit occasionally. The untrainable horses are a complete waste of time. Surround yourself with people you know to be primarily motivated by love and compassion. To do otherwise, is a complete waste of time and energy.
Are we talking about the same guy? Do these men follow a pattern? I wished I had read a book on sociopaths before I met mine, my life would be a lot better now. We are not together now, because one day he just decided not to call me anymore, now I realize that I was probably one of many or at least a few. My dad always told me, this man is lying and using you, he runs around and then goes home on weekend and plays the good family man.
I have no doubt he still thinks he is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I have never been so manipulated, and lied to about the smallest things, he was such a jerk and I believed him, he used me and I let him. I am so angry at myself, has anyone gone through that?
Blackrose, yes, there are patterns, and yes, being angry at yourself for allowing him to use you is ‘normal’ but it will pass.
I suggest you read and learn and learn and read…and the anger at yourself will pass, you will forgive yourself as we all must. They are crafty creatures. God bless.
khatalyst
Can you – or someone else – expound on this experience:
“I’ve done it. Virtually everyone I know who has been involved in these situation has done it, when they get their minds free of the brain cloud the sociopaths create in them. And it leaves all of us feeling icky, like we’ve been corrupted by the experience. It doesn’t leave us liking ourselves. And some of us, myself included, have gone through periods when we feel like we may be becoming sociopaths as a result of exposure to the sociopath.”
I feel very much like that, lately. The first time I made a clean break from him back in 2001 it didn’t involve any weird maneuvers. This time it did, and I cut myself off from feeling. I’ve been numb from being around him even though I was suspicious of him once he returned in 2006 and those suspicions abated only slightly during the “idealization” phase when he was being pretty terrific. They got much worse during the D&D, and rightly so.
At any rate, I felt like one and sometimes still feel this (for lack of a better term) residue from engaing with him. Even when I tell others the truth of his behaviors towards me, I feel like I’m being an S’path, telling tales out of school, abusing him somehow by proxy. Even though the things I’m saying are 100 percent true things he did and said. Plus, there’s so much anger towards him for coming along again when life was bad and attempting to make it worse that I was contemplating things that were, basically, abhorrent: retribution fantasies, continuing in his twisted game, trying to win it.
Until one day I realized it can’t be won, wasn’t worth trying and was a giant waste of talent and energy. But still, the residue feeling…this ickiness and slight emptiness….does it go away?
Orphan,
I’m not Khatalyst, but maybe I can shed some light on your questions.
Quote: “The icky feeling, like we have been corrupted by the experience” I think is a COMMON feeling to many/most/all of us. I know I was ANGRY at myself, downed my self for being “so STUPID”
Quote: “gone through period when we feel like we may be becoming sociopaths as a result to exposure to the sociopath”
The intensity of the stress and pain which they inflict on us, which we suck up and allow them to create within is, I think causes “abnormal” reactions, out of character reactions within us. Frustration, stress, pain—all make for our own crazy or unwise behavior. The “need for revenge” or the desire for it, is also a NATURAL human response to injury. But we control our own impulses to go burn their house down, or shoot them, or do bad things, because we are NOT Ps…even by association.
Telling other people (who have not had experinece with this kind of person in a very painful way) sometimes leaves us feeling bad because they are NOT ABLE TO VALIDATE our feelings,,,,,it is TOTALLY FOREIGN TO THEM. They cannot relate.
I got the sense that I was telling someone about my “abduction by aliens” story and they were looking at me like I was CRAZY—and that the “abduction by aliens” would be more believeable to them than telling them what the Ps had done. Normal people who have not dealt with or know about Ps are not able to validate your feelings—unfortunately. Therefore I gave up trying to “explain” myself to these people or even talk about the Ps with them. No matter what I said I could not convince them that I was not the crazy one. LOL
Your ANGER is also a NORMAL RESPONSE…anger at him, anger at yourself. Yes, he was EVIL. Yes, you let him back into your life.
Forgiving myself I think may be one of the most difficult things that I have faced. I look at how I allowed them to dupe me, and kept trying, expending massive amounts of energy, love, etc trying to “fix” them when they were unfixable. WHY? But I must come to forgiveness of myself and I believe as well, forgiveness of them as well. Not “forgiveness” in the context of saying that what they did was right or justified, but GETTING THE BITTERNESS AND ANGER AND RAGE out of MY HEART, for MY benefit. Letting that go. It is PAST. I can’t change the past, I can only ACCEPT it for what it is/was, and move on from here.
I am changed by the experience. I DO look for red flags in new relationships of ALL kinds. I DO set boundaries with people in my “circle of trust” and in any kind of relationship with me. I no longer feel the “need” to “please everyone” without expecting anything in return—like respect of me and my own boundaries.
I don’t let uncomfortable trespasses of my boundaries “accumulate” until there are enough of them that I explode and act inappropriately myself. I address each trespass of my boundaries on the spot (most of the time) or as soon after the trespass as I am aware of it.
Now that I am not spending so much emotional energy on others and what they think about me, worrying that I might not “please” someone else–I can focus more energy on me, and my own recovery, restoring my own emotional reserves of energy so that in the event a big emotional upset of some kind (unexpected death in the family or whatever happens) that I will have some reserves to deal with that.
I am ELIMINATING what I call the “UNnecessary” crap. There are enough things in life that “just happen”–illness, injury, etc that can’t be prevented—but there is NO NEED for “UN-necessary” nastiness on anyone’s part and I will not tolerate that at all.
I consciously avoid situations where I may be in contact with someone that I know will try to inflict some kind of emotional nonsense on me, etc. Thus avoiding a situation that I know will take away from my PEACE or energy.
I don’t discuss the P-experience with anyone outside my very close “circle of trust” and then not too often unless something comes up that we need or want to talk about it.
I read and learn and reinforce my learning about appropriately setting boundaries, and enforcing them. Since this is not yet a “habit” and I must sort of “work at it” and “work at” not feeling guilty about it, it is still in the learning and working at it stage. I am getting better at it though, and not requiring “validation” (from others) that my boundaries are appropriate–I am making PROGRESS from where I was. Early on I actually would have to ask my son D if my boundaries were appropriate or if I was over reacting. I didn’t trust myself to know what appropriate boundaries were. Now I know and am trusting myself. I set them without having to get validation from him. I have taken off the “training wheels” as it were.
It all takes time, study to see where WE need to adjust our thinking, guilt feelings, emotions, etc. and the old saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and neither were we “built in a day” we have a lifetime behind us of habits, thoughts, etc. that we need to examine to see which are helpful and which detrimental to our well being. Which to keep and which to toss out. I wish I thought I could ever reach “perfection” but I know it isn’t a destination, but a journey in which I will stumble again and again, but as long as I work at it, and put one emotional foot in front of the other, I’ll get closer to what I really want to BE.
LilOrphan,
It has been a while since I was victimized so I definitely went through that stage of being numb. I know how that feels. It is kind of scary, because when I was thinking of how to get back at the S, I started thinking of ways to manipulate the situation that I’m sure she would have thought of if she were in my place. I had dreams about murder and revenge.
But now even though she turns my stomach, I have given up on revenge and I rely on indifference to fight my battles. Now that I have gone through feeling icky and guilty about my responses to her, I feel like I can look at it objectively. I try to dissect what she says and find a motive instead of listening to the craziness she spouts. (I can’t go NC completely because of my father.)
Also, practicing indifference with sociopaths at work has also helped me with that. I obviously have to have some type of contact with them, so I ignore them to the best of my abilities. Now I am to the point where I can see what they are trying to do with each fake laugh and snide comment. It’s kind of pathetic actually.
Having said that, I DO know how difficult it is to distance yourself from the emotional aspect of the interaction or the memories. It is hard not to feel vindictive when you tell such bizarre (but true) stories. They can sound so off-the-wall to other people. That’s why I don’t tell anyone but close friends and people here about it.
It was hard for me to stop taking the crap personally, even about my memories. But really, that’s just what they do. I really think it will go away for you eventually. I think it’s just a matter of time and the icky feeling is a stage in healing that you’ll pass.
I agree with the last post, sometimes I feel, well, all the time, I feel as if I have been emotionally raped. I would love to forgive him, not because I want to, but because it would be better for me. But, right now I’m at the hate him/still love him stage, I hate him for what he did to me, for the lies, the deception, for getting away with it. I even hate him for not thinking of me enough to try to call me and manipulate me again. I keep thinking that if he called and gave him a piece of my mind, tell him how I feel about him now, that I would feel better, I don’t think he would listen though. Months ago he even stopped talking to his niece, who is my friend and the one to give him my number. He started telling me she was a compulsive liar, and I should not believe anything she said. Now I see how he was trying to discredit her, so I would believe only him. What bothers me the most was the way he ended the relationship, he didn’t, he just stopped calling. So I have not had that closure, it’s this door that’s just been left open enough, and as much as I’d like to tell him how I feel, I’m just at that vulnerable state of mind where I could fall for his lies one more time, and the feeling is just as unbearable as it was three months ago. The funny thing is I only saw this man twice in one year, the rest of the time we just talked on the phone, so I don’t know why he still has such a hold on me, maybe I think of all the times I thought of breaking it off and didn’t because I did not want to hurt him, and he ended up hurting me instead with absolutely no regard to how I would feel.
Blackrose, all your feelings about this man are so common to us all I think. Especially in the early stages.
AFter I realized what my P-son was, and how EVIL he was, I wanted SO BADLY to “tell him off” to “give him a piece of my mind” to say something that would make him know or care how much he had hurt me—OH HOW I WANTED TO LET HIM KNOW—but I restrained myself (finally) and now at this point, I really don’t care if he understood (though I know he can’t really, or if he does, he doesn’t care).
Your pain will pass as your healing progresses….that I can guarentee you…but it will take time. I think the most healing words in the world are “and this, too, shall pass.”
I guess my sense of loss comes from remembering what he was like on the “phone” before we met, but he mirrored my wants, desires, his good qualities were my good qualities. THAT man left such an in print in my life, and to realize that he was a lie it’s devastating. Any explanation would have been fine, we were talking about it with his niece, and she stated that the last argument we had gave him an easy way out, he could just use it as an excuse to end the relationship, and maybe he just doesn’t care to know how much I hate him now, and I agree with feeling “icky”.
I keep thinking, how could I have made love to this man? How could I have loved him at all, knowing I deserved better. We were talking about the relationship with a friend of mine, and I made the comment that if I had made the effort to go see him more often, he never had the time to come and see me, that the relationship perhaps would have worked out, and her response was,”no, you would have seen the real him sooner, and you would have ended it.”
Blackrose,
Your friend is sooooooo RIGHT—there is NOTHING you could have done that would have made this relationship “work out” for anything in a healthy manner—giving up the belief that we could have done something different to have changed the outcome is I think one of the first steps to healing ourselves, to forgiving ourselves for pouring so much energy and love into a BLACK HOLE of humanity.
I sought for years for the elusive “right words” to convince my P-son that he shouldn’t destroy his life, that he shouldn’t do the things he did–I just kept feeling that there was some “magic phrase” that would make him see how much I loved him and how I was concerned for his welfare, not trying to hurt him, etc etc. I wanted to somehow open up his skull and pour in my life to make him “see” that he was ruining his life, and ruining my hopes for my much beloved son—
Well, Black rose, there is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy and NO MAGIC PHRASE that can make them CARE. The only place any of these things existed was in my hopeful imagination—it didn’t really hurt me to give up the Santa Claus myth, or the Easter Bunny, or even the Tooth Fairy, but it tore out my GUTS to give up the myth that there was a thing in this world I could have done to have changed the outcome of my son’s life.
He was determined to be his “own man” and do whatever he wanted, no matter who he destroyed, even himself. He is in prison now for murder, where he deserves to be, and where he needs to stay. He has never repented, only gloried in how bad he is. It is a shame, this is a man who had it all, looks, intelligence, charisma, and a full-ride scholarship to any school he had wanted to go to including the Ivy Leagues. He blew it all off, threw it all away in order to be a THUG and a “badA$$”—well he succeeded in his efforts.
Giving up the “fantasy son” that I wanted was as painful or maybe more so than anything I have ever done, but though TRUTH is painful, in the end, it sets us FREE if we accept it.
The “fantasy ADULT son” is no longer there, and the real child son that I loved is no more, he i s essentially “dead” and the coffin closed and buried, and the grief for his loss turned to acceptance and peace—and just as I can remember the pleasant times with that long-lost child, and I can remember the good times with my late husband, without undue pain or grief, I have come full circle to where life is good again.
I still have issues to deal with, like setting appropriate boundaries, and some other things, that will keep me from being a victim of another P that I might meet, but the worst of all is over, and I am on the upswing. Still healing my wounds, but they are no longer bleeding profusely and are knitting closed.
There are many people here who can validate your feelings as “normal” and your “pain” as transitory in spite of how intense it is. There IS LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL, and it is NOT an ON-COMING TRAIN! lol
Thanks for all the comments, I am really sorry about your son, it must be painful for you to have gone through that. Sometimes, I think maybe I am making this man to be worse than he really is, then I look back at our so called relationship, he was never there for me. He did tell some of his family members about me, (I should have told you, he’s married, on his third wife). He said he had told his brother about me, basically that I was good in bed. At the time, I thought what an odd thing to say about the woman he loves, but when I would ask him what he liked about me, he would respond the same way, “you’re pretty and good in bed.” He always blamed his wives for all the problems in their marriages, that should have been a clue, actually it was, just chose to ignore it. The red flags were always there. He did love his son, but it took him ten months to tell me he had indeed fathered another son, did not remember how old the child was, and he said it as casually as talking about a puppy he gave away.