What’s the relationship, if any, between boredom and sociopathy?
Can we can agree, for starters, that boredom does not cause sociopathy? Otherwise most of us would be sociopaths.
Can we also agree that a low tolerance for boredom, alone, does not cause sociopathy. Otherwise again, many of us with low tolerances for boredom (not that I include myself, but God, am I bored) would be sociopaths; and this isn’t the case, either. That is, even most of us with low tolerances for boredom aren’t sociopaths.
However, research suggests that sociopaths may require higher levels of arousal to escape conditions of boredom. So apart from being prone to boredom and finding it extremely oppressive, it may be the case that sociopaths tend to resort to high arousing, high risk solutions to their boredom.
I think we edge closer to a link between boredom and sociopathy when we note that, if nothing else, boredom seems to be a medium, a highly conductive state or field, for the emergence of sociopathic behaviors.
That is, sociopaths seem to find in states of boredom fertile play for their sociopathy. As noted, they seem at risk of solving their boredom sociopathically. States of boredom tend to elicit, coax into the open the sociopath’s sociopathy.
Why? What it is about boredom that makes it perhaps especially conductive of the sociopath’s acting-out? In point of fact, it is less the properties of boredom than the properties of the sociopath that answer this question.
The sociopath is, foremost, an outrageously self-centered specimen. His exclusive interest in his own comfort, gratification and entertainment (and cold uninterest in others’) compels, along with incredulity, a morbid fascination with his interpersonal perversity.
I’d suggest that among the last things the sociopath wants to face, besides extreme pain, is boredom. The sociopath wants to feel entertained, stimulated and comfortable; boredom provides none of these. Moreover, and consistent with his pathological narcissism, the sociopath feels he shouldn’t have to be bored. He feels absolutely entitled to relief from his boredom.
Now we might still say, big deal?”¦doesn’t this still describe many of us who aren’t sociopaths, yet for whom boredom makes our skin crawl?
What I think distinguishes the sociopath in all this isn’t his entitled claim to relief from states of boredom or even, by itself, his arguable gravitation to higher risk, higher arousing solutions to his boredom. Rather, I think it’s his entitled claim to relief from states of boredom with virtual utter disregard for how he achieves his relief.
In other words, for the sociopath, basically whatever it takes to solve his boredom, at whatever expense to whomever, is a go. Where the nonsociopath itching for escape from his boredom is chastened by a sense of accountability to others—by the implicit social contract to respect others’ boundaries—the sociopath is undeterred by, and abrogates, such social contracts. They are a joke to him.
Intellectally, he is aware of them and, when expedient, may play-act them. But he regards them, truthfully, as utterly controvertible anytime he finds it convenient to controvert them. Furthermore he harbors, secretly when not transparently, contempt for anyone dumb enough to be bound by such contracts. Certainly he isn’t.
And so the bored sociopath is dangerously poised to exploit. Unburdened (if not stimulated) by the prospect of his exploitation, he finds countless opportunities to gratify himself at others’ expense. He can rob someone, or cheat someone, or cheat a hundred people, or get plastered and drive maniacally; he can scare someone, or lie audaciously with convincing sincerity; and in so doing he can ignore the wreckage he wreaks because what matters, what only matters, is the satisfaction in it for him.
The sociopath’s deranged self-centeredeness protects him from the scourge of regret. Where regret may torture the normal person, keep him up at night, awaken him to troubled memories, reflection, and perhaps even a rethinking of his priorities, not so for the sociopath.
At most, regret has a superficial effect on him; he might regret, if anything, the inconvenience of his present situation; but not, it’s safe to say, the dignity, security and trust he robbed from the victims across his life.
(My use of “he” in this post is not meant to suggest that males have a patent on the behaviors and attitudes discussed. This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Today being “Father’s Day” reminded me of my wonderful step-father who was my “daddy” by choice, vs. my “sperm donor” who gave me his DNA, but not his love, because he didn’t have any.
My “daddy” was there for me, when I was ill, when I was participating in rodeos when I was a kid and he hauled me and my horses all over the state to events. He was there to encourage me to ‘be the best that I could be.” He was proud of my accomplishments and the girl/wioman I was.
He was a mentor to his students (He was a high school teacher) and helped students from poor backgrounds go to college and aspire to ‘be someone” besides a gas station attendent or a wood cutter. He was also a basket ball coach and his teams adored him because he motivated them to be the best that they could be. to succeed when others had failed.
I was thinking today as I drove back from dropping off a friend at the airport about how special he was and how blessed I was to have him in my life. My friend that I dropped off had known my daddy and we had talked about him and his funny, dry sense of humor.
For all you guys here who are fathers, and Henry and James, especially, I salute you!!!! The loving care you give to your children will be passed down in the generations yet unborn!
Daddy I miss you.
Thanks OxDrover! Well to bed me go…lol, later all!
James, Henry, et al…Thanks. Father’s Day weekend was good. My youngest daughter and I helped another daughter move Saturday. By the end of the day Sunday I had heard from all four daughters again.
Life is good. Life is peaceful. Life is funny.
I have much power. It pretty much comes from doing nothing. Over three years out and the smear campaign continues…LOL. My second youngest daughter (24) and her boyfriend are visiting the end of June/beginning of July from 4000 miles away. They are the ones who invited me on their Ireland/Scotland trip in March. My 24-year-old asked to spend one or two nights at my boring place and will “visit” with her mother, the ex-tox…refuses to stay there. Over a week ago, my oldest (37) called, concerned because the youngest (13) told her friends on Facebook she was having “family problems”. A night later, I picked up the youngest, we had dinner, and the “I shouldn’t tell you, but” story rolled out. I am an evil, manipulating, lying genius who has turned my daughters against their mother and instilled them with “hate” for her married boyfriend. My ex-tox wants my 13-year old to talk by phone with an old high-school friend of the ex’s who will explain to my daughter how “persuasive” and bad I am. I haven’t seen or talked to this “old friend” since 2003 and maybe saw her a dozen times over a 25 year marriage to the ex-tox…but I guess she “has my number”. I guess the chaos and drama generator is on overdrive at the ex-tox’s, fueled by my evil machinations….ROTFLMAO!
A belated HAPPY FATHERS DAY…to all the LoveFraud Dads, and to the LF mothers “standing in the gap” for the P fathers who are missing on their day.
Jim (bored and enjoying it)
Hi Jim,
So glad to hear about the first part of your entry. The second part well you have my condolence. Interesting how it take a third party to explain to you daughter something I believe belongs to both your ex tot and you. To me having a third party involve is at best questionable. One thing I learn over the 3 years learning and researching is how they mirror us word for word. What I mean is if you tell someone you “believe” my ex suffer from a PD, they will in turn mirror that and state that you are the one who is a PD. If you state how our ex s/p stole from us they again mirror this and will tell others how we stole from them. Oh well, “mirror mirror on the wall tell me tell me who is the fairest of them all”
James…thanks. Well, as they say, the Truth set me free, and it doesn’t even piss me off anymore. I can laugh…blessed that the “crazy” stuff no longer resides with me. I am off the playing field, just a spectator who gets unsolicited “score reports” once in a while. As far as I can tell, my daughters are OK…sorry they have to deal with it, but there’s nothing I can do about what happens over there on the Dark Side…out of my control. The ex-tox has a new “mirror”…better him than me…LOL. I’m home, living in peace…a safe haven for those I choose to let visit. TOWANDO!
Confused
Re the PI. I know exactly where you’re at on this and I gave this some consideration when the full extent of the Ss activities first emerged. The reason being was because I was suspending ‘disbelief’. How could he have done those things? Surely I am creating this out of flimsy evidence? It’s all about wanting it to be irrefutable isn’t it? Because you’ve been lied to and cheated on – gaslighted – without even knowing it – it’s that ‘But he looked me in the eye when said all those loving things, I must be imagining or blowing this out of all proportion’. Part of my disbelief was ‘where did he get the time and energy?’ – but, of course, what you’re overlooking is that they are lying about EVERYTHING – so all those extras hours at work, all those fishing trips – or whatever – the excuses in your particular case – were smokescreens for what was really going on.
Personally, I wouldn’t waste any more time or money in establishing what you already know (your guts told you) – knowing more just increases the pain and adds another wound to somehow be healed. It all takes up so much energy that could be better expended on looking after yourself.
I also think that it feeds the obsessive state that you find yourself in once you’ve been gaslighted by an S/N/P type. It gains even more momentum and makes it even harder to get them out of your head.
Good luck to you in whatever decision you come to and keep sharing here on LF to get clarity – especially when you’ve ‘slipped back’.
Escapee
Thank you for your imput. I have decided to hold off on the PI thing. I believe I’m obessing about S and the PI is just a perverted way to maintain contact. I’m starting to trust my intuition now. And being able to discuss my feelings on LF has helped enormously. I am now coming to realize EVERYTHING he said was a lie or a manipulation of some sort. I have read previous posts here and have heard the same thing from my S, regarding the length of my hair, the style of jeans I should wear, also “your to nice”. I feel a great sense of relief that he is out of my life and yet I still think about him constantly and that bothers me to no end. Any suggestions on getting him out of my head?? All ideas or thoughts are welcome.
Confused
Wish I cold wave a magic wand for you (and myself) – I think that just accepting there’ll be good days and bad ones for a while but it does become so there are more good than bad. Be kind to yourself and stick around your ‘genuine’ friends is probably pretty good advice, from my experience.
Good wishes and keep posting when you need to vent /offer insights – I’ve got a lot from other people on this site in the short time I’ve been here – makes you realise you’re not insane but having ‘normal’ responses to a very abnormal experience – I don’t think any of us are experts but there’s much empathy and wisdom to be found – especially for me when I’m feeling outraged and hurt by the sheer injustice of the on-going consequences of having had the horror of an N/S/P in my life.
Katya,
That makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. I don’t know that my ex-husband is a better person because he happens to have a PhD. The whole time he was getting his PhD, he was sleeping with child prostitutes in Cambodia and was doing a lot of horrible things in this “lawless” country. I think it made things worse. I think each individual situation is different. As for rock climbing, that’s an interest we shared. However, I did it for fun every few weeks. For him, it was an obsession. He had to do it every day and he had to do huge climbs (called big walls) or climb without a rope or with very poor safety precautions. When climbing, you have to be very safe, with very good communication and safety between belayer and climber. He was very unsafe and had no regard for my safety when climbing. That’s what I was trying to explain. I wasn’t saying that being an outdoors person or a hiker is a bad thing. I’m a very avid outdoors enthusiast, but I don’t take big risks with my life when rock climbing. The climbing community has many people who live like my ex-husband, with a lot of risks, in many different countries and just kind of “floating” around. My ex just happened to go to graduate school (it took him 10 years) while he was bumming around climbing in Cambodia. I’m not belittling people with graduate degress. I’m actually starting a graduate program myself. I guess it’s just a trigger of sorts for me because my family wanted me to stay with him when he was abusive. My ex was actually diagnosed by a psychiatrist with Antisocial Personality Disorder. I read his psych file and asked him about it and he admitted it to me, before I even knew what it meant. I tried to tell my family about him, but he had already begun isolating me from them and had already been working with them on his lies. My family has a high tolerance for abuse and pushing things under the rug, so my dad just kept saying, “He can’t be that bad. He had a PhD,” over and over again, like a PhD is a certificate for being a good person who is mentally healthy. Everyone thought he was so great because he had a PhD. He was 35 and was just working for the very first time in his life when we got married, in his post-doc position. He only lasted with a contract there for 1 year, then it’s off to a new place and so on. I don’t think his PhD or anyone’s should hold the kind of weight it does. He just used this and his job as “proof” that he is a good person in court. It’s a sore topic for me. I will encourage my son to get as much education as possible, but graduate degrees no longer hold the same level of intrigue and automatic respect for me that they used to. Someone’s professional life and hobbies can many times say nothing about the person. He likes being professor because he likes to be important and to be an authority figure. He also likes to have all of the girls to choose from and to flirt and date them on the side. He used to get so enraged that not all of his students called him “Dr.______” in his lab because he looked young. He would come home and have temper tantrums about it and throw things around the house and become abusive. He started demanding that I call him “Dr._________”. I feel that his career choice was for no other reason that for power. He used to say how much better he was than everybody because of his career and felt like he was literally “saving the world” with his job. All the time he thought he was helping people in a third world country, he was having sex with their children, who, by the way are forced into prostitution and sold like slaves in Cambodia. I view it as more like a rape than visiting a prostitute when people visit brothels in that country and Thailand. His rock climbing is just one more thing he can do to live life on the edge and have risks and adventures, with little regard to his safety or others. Believe me, I know the intrigue of being in love with a talented rock climber who has a PhD. He seemed perfect. He was extremely good looking and charming too. I thought I was marrying the perfect person that I had been holding out for. So, I understand your logic, but must caution you to not be deceived by someone’s status, education, career or hobbies. They do not define a person and don’t keep someone from being a Sociopath. I don’t think you can get much worse than raping and trying to kill your pregnant wife and then continue to cause her terror for years. I don’t know how you think that he could be worse. I just don’t. I respect your right to disagree, but I think if you knew the whole situation and how incredibly dangerous he is, you might reconsider your views.
Jillsmith
My god – how did you survive this one? Hadn’t had prior knowledge your story and horrified by the posting above. How did you come out the other side of that one?
My S was well off, well connected and had a superficial veneer of sophistication (enough to get him introduction to key people in his field) – the mask slipped easily enough once he was out of their company though.
As for all the gung ho action man stuff………… ugh! Know just what you mean. Having fun and challenging yourself was never enough – it was always pushing the boundaries – that ‘winning’ thing and ‘having to be superior’ to everyone else – know what I mean?