A reader says: “I kept wondering what was going on in his head. I could never follow his thinking. I think he might have been into alcohol and drugs and that in itself messes the brain, and along with his other personality disorders, sure makes for a confusing relationship.”
The thinking patterns of the psychopath are indeed weird. It seems there are biological and intentional reasons for this. In others words, he is unable to think very logically PLUS he intends to mislead. No wonder he is hard to follow!
Below I list several factors which together make the psychopath a most bamboozling character.
The odd speech of psychopaths
The psychopath makes “frequent use of contradictory and logically inconsistent statements”, says Robert Hare in ‘Without conscience.’ E.g. “A man serving time for armed robbery replied to the testimony of an eyewitness, “He’s lying. I wasn’t there. I should have blown his fucking head off.” It is as if, says Hare, they have “difficulty monitoring their own speech”.
Psychopaths may also construct strange words: ‘unconscientious’ for unconscious’, ‘antidotes’ for ‘anecdotes’. Perhaps there is something about the brain of the psychopath that contributes to his odd speech.
Drug and alcohol abuse
With their poor ability to tolerate frustration and their high need for stimulation (same thing?), the psychopath is likely to abuse drugs and alcohol which obviously affects the ability to think. Chronic abuse damages the brain.
But, as M.L. Gallagher recently writes, he speaks in riddles purposely too.
The intention to deceive
This doesn’t need much elaboration here. The psychopath wants to get something. He may simply take it by force. Otherwise he will use his cunning to fool the other person. (Interestingly, the illogicality of his arguments doesn’t stop him successfully conning one person after another.)
Logical fallacies
Most of us use logical fallacies when we argue or try to persuade. Some of these are errors in our own thinking, some are conscious manipulations. Just accentuating a different word can make all the difference: “Mom said that we musn’t throw stones at the windows” (i.e. she didn’t say anything about hitting them with a tennis racket).
We can fully expect that the psychopath, with his flawed thinking plus his intention to deceive, will use every logical fallacy in the book. Bear with me for a couple of paragraphs.
Take the example the logical fallacy, the ‘ad hominem argument’. It has two types, circumstantial and abusive. In the circumstantial ad hominem argument the circumstances of the other are confronted instead of the evidence: “Of course you don’t accept that it’s OK to be a loan-shark. You’re a Christian and Christ drove the money lenders out of the temple.” (But that’s irrelevant; if I was Jewish what would your defense be then?)
In the abusive ad hominem argument the opponent is attacked instead of their argument: “You criticise me for loan-sharking, but three years ago you were arrested for drunk driving.” (What does that have to do with loan-sharking?)
Paramoralism
But the psychopath uses fallacies with an evil twist. Whenever possible he’ll use a logical fallacy as a paramoralism. In other words, he won’t use a fallacy only to win a point but also use it moralistically in order to corrode the other’s moral thinking.
How would a psychopath argue ad hominem? Several readers have mentioned precisely this example: “What kind of Christian are you to accuse me of this?” (Again, the other’s Christianity is irrelevant to the topic at hand.) Can you see the difference? Unlike the examples above where the opponent’s Christianity is used to score a point or bring the argument to an end, here the other is being denounced as a bad Christian. An open-minded person is likely to say to themselves, “Maybe he’s right. Perhaps I’m the bad one here.”
Perhaps you have an example to share of the bewildering speech of a psychopath?
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For glimpse into the wacky thought-processes of the narcissist see this article.
I finally had my dream, right before he left-starting the police academy-after working in a career that I despised for too long. That job was a big paycut for me and he was supposed to be there to help. I was still taking call on the weekends in my othe career to help with the $$$. His wife had gotten an adminstrative job at the same hospital where I worked but I was there first. She threatened to call the PD and make me lose my job if I didn’t quit the hospital one. THen I was relying on him solely to help out and he discarded me. I had to quit my academy class because the rigors of police training is NOT conducive to suddenly being homeless-I lost my apartment as well. My friends went on and graduated without me. I then spent 5 months being unemployed after dropping out. Due to the ecomony, no one was hiring in my prior field so I went those 5 months not paying my bills. Now I am way more behind and have to work full time doing something I despise and working with other sociopaths like my ex-EVERY FREAKIN DAY. Right now, I am not feeling like I won such a prize. I am glad to not be with him but I hate where I am right now-having to postpone my dream until I can downsize. I think all of us are at different stages of dealing with these people and their destruction. I am having a really hard time with it. I have just entered the anger phase but occasionally hurt is still lingering. I wan’t my career and I’m pissed as hell for having to wait this much longer for it because of him!!
erin1972,
You have every right to be angry. And it is important for you to work through this anger. It is an important step towards healing.
An S/P/N creates an illusion. They have the ability to become exactly what you want them to be in the begining of a relationship. They seem to present themselves as the answer to your dreams WHATEVER your dreams might be. That is what you fell in love with, the illusion of himself that he created.
Its all smoke and mirrors. He is the lie he created. Make no mistake about it, his intention was to decieve. And he was also decieving his wife at the same time.
And it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, (because there is NO goodness in his heart) that he stayed with her out of obligation because she put him through medical school. An S/P/N has an agenda. And she was still a part of that agenda.
She is just another of his casualties. Another victim.
You are free from him. You made the right choice. He has no love to give. Not to you, not to her, not to anyone. Just empty promises and lies. Try to forget what he
“told” you and what he promised you in your past realationship and focus on what his actions were. His actions are what “gave him away”. Look at him for what he really is, not what he portrayed himself to be.
Sometimes that really helps when you are going through this. Not just a mental list but maybe write it down on paper. Look at it in black and white. At some point this will not be so much about him anymore and it will be more about you.
You are still experiencing alot of pain. Your emotions are still very raw. This will get better. Just hang in there. Intellectually you know what you know and your heart hasn’t caught up yet. But it will.
Have you read any of the suggested books yet?
xxxx
Mirrors….interestingly enough the ex-S had them all over his house….all hard surfaces and mirrors everywere you looked!
My best friend told me that the man that I fell in love with never existed and I believe her. I am just angry as hell that my life is still so messed up because of him. I should be in my dream career right now and he is the reason that I’m not. I can’t stand that. If I had to re-live the day he discarded and the day I had to withdraw from the police academy, losing the police academy is WAY WAY more painful than losing him.
erin1972,
The man you fell in love with never did exist. Your best friend is very accurate making that call.
You can still work towards your goal of your dream career. That can be the silver linning in the end. Your achievement. This is the real world and he doesn’t live in the real world.
Achieving ones dreams consist of hard work and alot of focus, and sacrifice. You can still do this.
He used your dream as “bait”. To hook you in. But it was never real. What he promised.
Your dream can still be real.
witsend: good one. they have an ‘agenda!’ exactly!
i often wondered why spath-hole stayed with his wife (whom he treated like crap and verbally trashed all the time). in the end, i thought she had ‘won’ (except he had gotten a third female pregnant!).
anyway, it does boil down to the cold-hard fact that spaths have an agenda with everyone they keep in their lives. an agenda which NEVER takes into consideration the needs of those they claim as theirs.
gross.
Lostingrief: you are so right and witsend, so are you. He did use my dream to snare me and bring me in. He did stay with the wife who stood by him through his medical training. He made sure to give me the list of all her negative qualities but as soon as I MADE A comment, I was told NOT to talk bad about her. He needed her for his reputation-he dressed her up just right the way he needed her for events and such. He would say how I was the ONE-the one he truly wanted. He really didn’t know what he wanted. He wanted her-the masters degreed nurse in a high position but also wanted the cop girlfriend. Plus I don’t get how they manage to juggle their schedules like that-it baffles me completely. That’s why they can’t be normal. THere is NO way that I could function on such a dysfunctional level.
After he used and discarded me after pulling the wool over my eyes for a year, he told HER that I wasn’t his intellectual equal. All I know is that my I Q is 125 and HE is not my psychological equal-he is FAR FAR FAR below that in every way and he is not my emotionally equal either-because he HAS NO EMOTIONS-he just fakes them!!
erin: EXACTLY! used her to look normal and told me not to talk bad about her either. oh puh-leeze! i wondered about how he scheduled his THREE women, too! he seemed to be with me ALL the time, and home with the wife and kids on weekends. how did he manage an entire OTHER relationship!? easy. every minute he had he was just with the new gf. he had no friends. he just had women to take care of him and his EVERY need; morning, noon and night. didn’t matter which one, as long as SHE wasn’t calling him on his shit and giving him any grief.
what a bastard demon from hell … all of ’em!
but we’re free now … thank god and the goddess …!
towanda!
I can’t remember the link, I know it is posted here somewhere, but it is a site called “romeo bleeding” and is about getting involved with cheating men/women.
The fact is, IF THEY WILL CHEAT ON HER, (HIM) THEY WILL CHEAT ON YOU.
I have a sweet friend who is being courted long distance by a married man she met at a professional convention. She is a sweet person, but she keeps falling for the he “has an unhappy marriage,” line, like THIS one is going to be different.
She corresponds with me about this man and keeps asking me “is he sincere”? I KEEP TELLING HER “NO, he is like all the rest”—if you are just looking for a “fling” then go for it, but if you want an honest relationship DON’T FALL FOR A DISHONEST MAN. I don’t care what he says his relationship with his wife is, or if she is the BEAST OF BAGDAD, it doesn’t make any difference, if he really wanted out, HE WOULD BE OUT. It isn’t like divorce is impossible any more, or that a person must stay with a spouse they despise in order to be a parent. THERE ARE OPTIONS. Serial cheaters are not people you want to get involved with because they are DISHONEST TO THE CORE.
Anyone can make a bad decision and have an affair, but people who have multiple affairs or multiple affairs at the same time are DISHONEST TO THE CORE. Not all may be psychopaths, but they are sure high in traits of one at the very least.
Does any of us want a “relationship” with someone who is DISHONEST? I don’t think so. Unless we also TRULY believe that dishonesty is okay or that a spouse being “ugly or mean” is a VALID “reason” that makes an affair okay then, we have made a bad choice. It doesn’t mean we are dishonest to the core (like a psychopath) because I will stand up right here and say I HAVE DONE THINGS I KNEW WERE DISHONEST AND WRONG, but I am doing my best to never do something I think is dishonest again, as long as I live. I am also not associating with ANYONE that Thinks DISHONESTY is okay.
Having admitted to myself that I have done dishonest things, and admitted to the people I did those things to, as much as possible, and having made amends as much as possible, I have REPENTED of those things. I am truly sorry that I chose to do those dishonest things. I WAS WRONG, I feel guilt because I did those things. I have resolved to never be dishonest again. I have changed my way of doing things and am following my moral compass.
The problem with the psychopaths is that they HAVE NO MORAL COMPASS, they have no shame or guilt. They may be “sorry” they got CAUGHT doing things they KNEW WERE WRONG, or lying about it, but they are NOT sorry, they do NOT feel guilt or shame, they would do it again given half a chance. Right or wrong in their minds doesn’t apply to them, it is what THEY WANT that matters, and whatever they must to to get what THEY want is okay for THEM to do. Rules don’t apply to them, they only apply to others in their minds.
Sometimes in our desire for the “bait” they hold out to us, we let go of our own moral compass and choose to do things that we know or knew were dishonest. So in the end, it isn’t only them being dishonest to us, but us being DISHONEST WITH OURSELVES that snares us. Whether that is thinking “he will cheat on her, but he LOVES me” or whether it is ALLOWING them to abuse us, catch them in lies, and then restore unearned trust to them because if we call them on the fantasy we will lose the FANTASY relationship and we don’t have the strength right then to face the fact that the whole thing is one BIG SHAM.
The most difficult part of every relationship I ever had with a psychopath (no matter what kind of relationship it was) is that I let them devert my moral compass and I did things I knew were wrong in order to stay with them and not face the prospect of losing that relationship.
Accepting that responsibility on myself rather than focusing on the nasty dishonest, abusive ,and just plain mean, things they did to me or others, or trivalizing those things, is what got me into the point I could start making some progress toward healing,, and toward fixing my own self. It was the hardest part of the process. Looking in the mirror and seeing myself, my own part in the failures of my relationships was difficult and painful.
I’m not responsible for what they did, I am not blaming myself for what they did, I am accepting responsibility for MY own short comings that made me forget my moral compass and engage in a relationship that was DAMAGING TO ME.
i hear ya’ oxy.
i was with him before he was married; then we split and he got his ‘wife’ pregnant while i was away. then we got back together, but i left him again, at which point he got another female pregnant, but stayed with the ‘wife.’ then he begged me to come back to him because he couldn’t find ‘happiness’ with me away. took him 2 years to convince me, but i knew he was unhappy in his relationship and he used the fact that he never ‘cheated’ while we were together (as far as i knew — a lie, of course) as proof that i was the one he loved.
i never went out with anyone who was already in a relationship or ‘married’ in my life, but because i had been there first, it somehow justified it in my mind.
but you are right. he had kids with two other women, neither of whom he cared about. if we didn’t have a 20 year history, if i wasn’t friends with his mom and his whole family, i probably would have never gone back. that would have been a GOOD thing!