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.
My experience is that the sociopath in my life had no idea how ridiculous he sounded. I just suspected he was a “sick” but I had no idea HOW sick until I started reading, starting with the Sociopath Next Door, and about the different forms of emotional abuse. I still cannot believe this man was successful at talking me into giving him so much money (I have truly had to have a hard look at who I AM inside to have not stood up for myself sooner). I allowed him to blackmail me, badger me, sweet talk me, etc. into giving him more and more money for NOTHING, he has nothing to show for it…except that he possibly paid his other debtors to help him clear his credit.
The ex was a muddle of words when he spoke, emailed or texted…I am sure he had no idea how he sounded…but, he would try to distract, avoid, and usually brought up my past to avoid facing any responsibility for the pain and harm he had done…he used every kind of ploy and manipulation you can think of…used all my deepest fears against me, mixed in some truth with mostly lies…blackmail, AND he even went so far as to threaten my security clearance with the Feds.
In looking back, the man really walked, talked, and acted like a sociopath/psychopath. But, I had no name for it then. …but, I know not that he lives in a completely different universe than the rest of us do…my girlfriend says it like this: “He has parts missing.” And, I tend to agree.
I posted the sociopath in my life on the Website–DDHG http://dontdatehimgirl.com/cheater_view/83442/ AND in one of HIS RESPONSES he posed as his mother, and then in his own sociopathic style…came out with some real doozies and asks one of the posters to contact him. The distortions of truth, and the outright lies NOW ARE very funny, but disturbing to think I was with this man for 2 years. My own introspection is taking place presently on this matter…of course!
I am no longer AS perplexed by the ways in which he communicated. But, yes, he could be very cruel, manipulative, and now I see the power plays…but, I didn’t at the time…
I am amazed sometimes at how many sociopaths are out there. For a while I had a hard time using that label. But, after receiving a letter from the father of the Ex-Socio in my life, I feel very comfortable using the term. Apparently the socio borrowed his father’s social security number and identity as well, and exploited his own mother out of so much money, she had to foreclose on her house. Somehow hearing this, the term seemed to fit.
I have found DDHG useful in warning others– http://dontdatehimgirl.com/cheater_view/83442/.
Thank you ALL for your postings! Keep on keeping on…Godspeed in your healing!
G63
The psychopath that I was with was intelligent, well read and genuinely possessed several degrees. He lived off people via petty fraud and manipulation. He presented himself as the relaxed, all knowing guru. He used to talk in ambiguities almost non-stop eg “buggar off or I’ll fuck you right up…..isn’t the english language wonderful” is what he once wrote to me in the early courting days. When I was leaving him he used to say “you are as good as it gets” (he rarely used the word “love”) which meant money, sex and status.
He would speak in such a way that encouraged people to assume the positive scenario and then shrug his shoulders when something occurred that hurt someone as if he had warned them.
He would often talk of “women in this world” and those listening would assume the lessor socioeconomic status etc. They thought that he understood and was sympathetic to all those socioeconomically poorer but they were the ones he preyed on. It was women that he mostly took money from (buying into a share house and than having it devalued when they wanted out).
In the end, whilst never aware of what/who I was with, I came to always ask for specificics and clarifications of things. He would then become abusive (psychologically – he was never physically abusive)
This man presented as calm and accepting of most people. He used to say “give me anyone and I can have them”. He would laugh and say “I know quite a few people that would like to see me dead” but he said it in such a way that most people thought he was joking.
Thinking back, he gave alot of warning signs but I was unaware that such personalities could exist except in the movies and jail.
To Grace63,
I just read your post on DDHG and the comments that followed. OH MY GOODNESS! He sounds exactly like my ex. My ex could have written that. I suspect the things he was saying were lies or twisted up half truths. That was painful to read. My ex used every little detail of my life that I shared, the good and the bad, to twist up and attack me with. And I felt overwhelmed by his emails. They were exactly like the comments from your guy. I mean I would have had to sit there and explain and defend myself against all the crap he said out of context or exaggerated. He is doing that thing.. crazy making. He is trying to make you sound crazy. And the way he has to drop in things like..”I have to go shopping now” or “I have to go call someone special now.” TWINS… absolute twins! I have never seen such an exact copy of what I went through.
Here’s a piece of advice. Take the posting down. It is highly unlikely that anyone that needs it will ever see it. You will not be able to resist fighting back against his claims against you. I know this. I have been through it. I have a posting on DDHG but you can bet that if he ever saw it, he would be doing exactly what your ex is doing. He doesn’t know about it and I don’t think he ever will. I am out of contact with my ex, thank God, but I still hear about him because he regularly trolls CL for dates. But, the community on CL is on to him and others post warnings about him. This is VERY SATISFYING for me.
Still, I think it will be hard for you to recover your peace with that ad up and his pretend posts by his mother. You have to stop all contact and change all means by which he can reach you. Change your phone, your email, move if you can. I know it’s not easy. I just feel so bad for you because I know exactly how this is… and I did banter back and forth with mine for a long time before I realized I would never, ever win. It is difficult to fight against someone like that when they are maligning your character. Few people can walk away from that when it is in a public forum like that. You will keep getting sucked in to defend yourself. It’s a black hole with no bottom. God! I am getting an anxiety attack just thinking about this.
In fact, that reminds me… I contacted DDHG and asked how to take down my post because I started to get scared that he would see it. They never responded. Someone on CL found it once and referenced it in her warning post. I asked her to take her ad down for my peace of mind and she did quickly so he never saw it.
My healing did not even begin until I severed the lines of contact and then one day, I found LoveFraud. I wish you luck with your case. I would never want to fight against the Bad Man in court. NEVER.
Aloha… E
Thank you Alohatraveler. His responses were not surprising, typical response of a sociopath I think. I haven’t taken the add down, but, I have been thinking about it. I have passed on to many of my friends and associates that still go to the 12-Step meetings that I attended for awhile, that if they see him with someone to pass it on to them that he’s on DDHG, etc.
Who knows…maybe I will take it down…for right now, I have decided to simply do nothing for the moment. Relish in my healing, and faith that he will take care of his own demise eventually, as I am sure he will.
I pray for all the people that come in contact with him in the mean time.
Thanks everyone for this site, the posts, and for helping in my own healing!
One of the hardest things I found in my relationship was his ability to unnerve me with things he said, or wrote (email and texts again, common method it seems) and yet I could never quite grasp why or how.
I have scoured the internet many times trying to find something that would explain his very own peculiar brand of language til in the end I came to the conclusion it was just him. Now it seems I am finding at last, that it was not just him, it was not just me going crazy, and that this is yet another typical technique of these pathalogical games they play.
I finally found reference to “word salads” and I thought Thats it! That’s what he did! He was highly educated, very intellectual, and clever with words. Even his romantic texts, his flattering words, somehow I would come away uneasy not sure what they meant. His language was quaint. Not the way people actually speak. But I believe now, reading through this, he was particularly clever with paramoralisms.
I have so many examples I am at a loss where to start.
I got so distraught after discovering this man I loved and trusted was a compulsive liar, addicted to internet sex and especially adept at reeling in lonely women with his “words” that I started smoking again having given up 2 years previously.
When I finally confronted him on my discovery (like some of you, I was beginning to recognise something was off wack and had the freak opportunity to get into his email – was a mindblowing moment) I told him I knew that he was emailing other women with “sexual fantasy” stuff, and that he had been since we had first met. I told him I knew he had been seeing other women behind my back. I told him I was devastated and bewildered because I thought our relationship was wonderful and why did he need to do this. I told him I knew that he lied to me all the time and led a secret life.
He folded his arms across his chest – he gave me an icy stare, and he said very chastisingly – “and you aren’t keeping anything from me?”. I was caught off guard by this and totally confused as to what he meant. If I thought he was going to be sorry or ashamed or anything, I was wrong. He stood there waiting calm as a cucumber. I racked my brain trying to think and I said I am not keeping anything from you? He said “Now think again, are you sure?” – Clever this wasn’t it? Suddenly the focus was on me, not him, and I fell for it. I suddenly realised what he meant and I said – do you mean that I am smoking? He said, Yes, now when exactly were you planning to tell me that? I don’t blame you, I assumed it must be for some emotional reason, but you kept it from me.
I stared in disbelief. The crazy thing was, he was right! I hadn’t told him. So now I felt bad and guilty. But I just said, I am not quite sure how my smoking the odd cigarette compares to you lying since we met and cheating behind my back, but if it makes you feel better, I am sorry I didn’t tell you I didn’t realise it mattered to you. It does not compare to your lies.
He got angry then and told me “You have just F****d everything up” and went into the “Do you know how busy I am at work? Do you realise I took time off this morning to help you out and it is probably the busiest time of the year? I don’t need this”.
I am ashamed now to admit this worked. I felt bad. I felt inconsiderate. He was contemptuous. For a week after that, he just completely ignored me. But the subject of his lies was never discussed.
He would use language like this:
“Be careful what you say in anger – words once spoken take wing and can not be undone..you should never speak in anger…its the one thing I am grateful my mother taught me..”
Once, I told him how distressing I found his silences. They could go on for days. I asked him why he was being like that because I couldn’t take it and I didn’t even know why..
He replied (he always started a sentence using my name 3 times in a row when he was patronising me) ….”I think to myself, why does this woman (this woman???) worry about stupid and trivial things? I don’t have time to spare on this…”
When I left he said –
“I am shocked you made such a decision without involving me. You have made a decision that you will regret. I don’t blame you..but you have taken away our future together..”
Then
“If this is what you friends put you up to, then they will be sorry they ever heard of me. I will make their lives misery. No one messes with my life..”
Then
“I understand..the bridges collapsed…”
Then
“I am emotionally drained by this. You just left. I think you have made a big mistake in making this decision..”
He never acknowledged his lies, or the women. They seemed to him to be irrelevant.
He also had a thing for kinky sex…and he had wanted me to (as he put it) “explore” with him “safe in the knowledge of our true love and commitment” ….when I told him I couldn’t do this, and that I couldn’t understand why he wanted me to, it didn’t feel to me that a man who loved me would want these things…he would come back with “It will only make me love you more…I only want us to explore because of our love and commitment”.
I could go on for ever. After I left, I left a few things there. He promised countless times through texts that he would ..
“return the few things I have left, please know I am taking very good care of them”
He told me 6 times – but never sent them. When I vented to him that he was a complete liar he sent me an email:-
“Please let me have your home address so I can return your things – no further communication will be required.”
But on another occasion wrote to me saying:-
By not contacting me when you were here visiting, you showed me you have moved on, and that you have no connection with me on any level. It would have been the only opportunity for us to see each other again. You never know in life if there will be a next time. We must sieze the moment and take every opportunity as it comes.
I left this man because I discovered everything about him was based on lies. He cheated, he was sinister with his continued deceptions..he was emotionally very cold refusing to discuss anything and on two occasions a”ccidentally” locked me out of our home. On one occasion he told me over the phone, when I caught him in a lie, I had just started World War 3. I fled with everything in bin bags. I told him repeatedly why I had gone, that I couldn’t live with the lies, I was devastated, that I loved him but he obviously didn’t care a jot about me to do the things he did. None of that was ever mentioned. He just would say “but you left – you just left – that action told me you no longer needed or wanted me in your life. I don’t blame you, but you ruined our chance of a happy future together.”
Oh God…so familiar…I was developing a drink problem to try and blank out his erratic behaviour and he’d use that against me. (He made a big point of giving up drinking himself at that point – he was REALLY unpleasant when he drank). Before that, I went back on Prozac without telling him and he used that against me (when confronted about his behaviour with women).
When I was seeing my ‘first’ sociopath I had never drunk alcohol in my life, and I wasn’t on anti-depressants and he tried to use my need for tea and cornflakes against me, when he was challenged about his drug abuse!
Shameless, the lot of em. Never again!
EnnLondon,
Tea and cornflakes?! What could be more scandalous?! You know, I totally relate to this. How do they know how to do this? I mean it’s like a formula that they are following. It’s so weird and upsetting, honestly.
Ellejay,
You said, “One of the hardest things I found in my relationship was his ability to unnerve me with things he said.” Wow. Yes. I srongly believe it is the word games that keep us circling and cirling back to these people until we finally break free. I have said before, you will NEVER win with these guys. And it is so painful because they such disparaging things about us. They say things that make us want to defend our character. Many times when I was fed up and literally or figuratively “walking away” he would get me to come back with one of those weird twisted up comments like the ones you wrote. Those words sound exactly like the Bad Man.
Whenever people want me to explain what happened and how he got under my skin, I find it hard to make up an example of this kind of language. My brain just doesn’t think this way. I can’t make up a pretend example. But those quotes, I understand them completely. Also, I can’t remember very much of what he said exactly. I think I may hove blocked it out but I felt that tingling anxiety when I read those quotes in your post.
Anyway, I say that just about anything a Sociopath says you “are” you can bet, you are not.
Aloha………E.R.
ellejay: I so relate to all those twisted sentences too! And I agree with alohtraveler.. its so hard for me to recall exact statements he’d make, I remember when I would hear him going on and on with all his words – I would be jumping all over in my mind trying to link his statements to the past, what really happened and what he was trying to make things sounds like now and nothing would ever tie together right. Everything always was turned backwards on me – and I heard so many times when I caught him in a lie, “you have never been completely honest with me”.. and then we would start going over events where he made me look into a liar but I was not and I knew I was not.. I would have to re-explain myself and re-tell him the truth of the matter and then he would drop the whole conversation. I would realize later we ended up talking completely about me and his big lie never even got fully discussed. What I have noticed on this site, is that everyone seems to be very well educated, has good word usage and seems to be very “thinking” people. How on earth do they pull these fast ones over on us over and over? I think my subconscious knew, till I felt sick inside, but there were discussions that went on that left me lost and reeling inside trying to figure out what to think when he was done.
to findingmyselfagain…
I just told a friend, any time you are constantly defending your character to someone else, that is not a good sign. That means you are under attack!
These Sociopaths are very good at circular talk and word games and yes, the contributers here sound very smart and articulate.. that makes me feel better honestly… because I am not genius but I am also not stupid… and I felt stupid after this happened to me. I think if we made it out alive, we are strong. We might be limping but just think what we had to endure. No doubt it was alot.
Aloha……….E.R.
I found this topic very interesting. My ex, who I believe is a sociopath, used to use words that weren’t real words, or use more complex words totally out of context. Another thing that I noticed about him is that I could recognize immediately from his voice if he was speaking to a man or a woman on the telephone. I’m not talking about women that he cheated on me with–I’m talking about every woman from my own mother to his boss’ elderly wife. He used a totally different “I-Am-So-Sweet” tone with a women no matter who it was. His mother lived out of state and would call from time to time. I was REALLY alarmed to hear him using “baby talk” with her! His tone of voice would turn especially sweet to the point of sounding like a little boy! His family is strange at any rate. His mother left his father as well as him and his brother when he was around 14. He said they came home from school and she was just gone–they thought they’d done something wrong, and their father had no idea where she was. Then, shortly afterwards, his father molested him. By this time, he’d found his mother and went to live with her and her drunken abusive boyfriend. His mother told him that he had to forgive his father. The first 15 minutes of conversation I ever had with his mother, I realized that she was a path liar! She tells big ellaborate stories about herself and her family’s importance. They are dirt poor mountain folks from the poorest county in the state in which they originate. She also interacted with my ex by treating him like a very young child when she came to visit. However, he nearly died during the first year of our marriage–was in a coma for 13 days–I never left the hospital. She visited during the day but returned to her motel room to be with her drunken husband each night. She complained constantly about how much it was costing them to stay in the motel and how much work they were missing! The day that he awoke from the coma, they flew back out. He hadn’t even fully regained consciousness! It was after he was moved from ICU to a regular room that I could have really used some help–he had to be watched 24/7 as he still wasn’t completely out of the woods. It was my family who was there the whole time! After he recovered, he’d often tell me that I was his angel and had saved his life. However, he was having sex with any woman he could and using me for every dime he could squeeze out of me! How grateful was that? And, no, I don’t really believe that I saved his life but I do believe that God used me as a key instrument in His doing so and I feel very humbled by that. And, yes, when I would confront him about red flags that came up in regard to other women, he would turn the tables on me. At first, he always try to lie and sometimes it worked. Times that his lies didn’t work, he wouldn’t necessarily put me in defense mode by accusing me of things, but he’d immediately start to cry and say “I’m only human…I made a mistake…please forgve me, please don’t divorce me” or “see, I’m not as perfect as you think I am”. Then, he NEVER wanted the issue mentioned again or he would get really angry and ask me why I couldn’t just let it go or move past it. I now know why there were some things that I just couldn’t let go of. It was because in my gut I knew that his explanations didn’t make any sense.