Explaining the sociopath

“Suddenly, everything made sense, I was not crazy, I had been dealing with a psychopath!” explained a woman this week as she told the story of how she discovered “psychopathy” and Dr. Hare's diagnostic symptoms. With this discovery, she learned that a personality disorder is behind the behavior of people who manipulate and harm others without guilt or remorse. Prior to learning about psychopathy, the woman said she held the view that all people were basically good and needed the same things. Understanding psychopathy/sociopathy gave her the ability to make sense of a world where a small fraction of individuals do a tremendous amount of harm- AND YET THESE INDIVIDUALS ON THE SURFACE SEEM PERF …

Garrido and Mitchell: two sociopaths who are also delusionalRead More

One thing that's certain about sociopaths and exploitive personalities generally: when it comes to relationships, they are the worst historians. They are chronic historical revisionists—that is, they are constantly revising history. And their revisions are headed in predictable directions—to make them look good, unguilty, unresponsible for the damage they've caused and, of course, whenever possible, to position themselves as the true victims of the circumstances. And that's, of course, when history interests them. And history will interest them, but only when they can use it against you. If it suits their need, say, to punish you for a decision you made in the past, even before you met t …

The Worst HistoriansRead More

Editor's Note: Laughs in the e-mail today sent by a Lovefraud reader. Enjoy! Narcissist sayings about themselves: "A lie is as good as the truth if you can get someone to believe it.'" "I'm really easy to get along with once you learn to worship me." About Narcissists: "He was the only man I ever knew that could strut while sitting down." "Every narcissist woman wants a man she can look down on." "There's nothing wrong with narcissists that reasoning with them won't aggravate." "She was truly a legend in her own mind" Things it is better NOT to say to a Narcissist: "I'd love to stay and listen to you talk about yourself, but I gotta run." "Before you begin, may I adjust your …

True and pithy observations about narcissistsRead More

After all these years, I remain struck and fascinated by how readily, abruptly, selfishly and destructively my more narcissistic clients use blame as an interpersonal weapon. This isn't a surprising observation: Don't like what you're hearing (because it's inconvenient)? Blame the messenger. Find an expectation oppressive (because it's inconvenient)? Blame your partner as a nag, a bitch, or as insatiable. Find it inconvenient to admit your deviousness or treachery? Blame the victim of your treachery for driving you into a corner and leaving you no choice (in other words, you betrayed me, before I betrayed you!). For such individuals, blame becomes a reflex. It is often staggering to …

The “Blame” CardRead More

Recently Lovefraud heard from a woman whom we'll call Trina. Trina was involved with a sociopath for five years, who abandoned her eight months ago, after wrecking her financially and emotionally. Still, she continued to be in shock, denial and disbelief—until the guy sent her the following poem: Catch and Release Before I pull your hair and leave you for dead I will ravish you not physically, but with words sensuous and firm with sibilance rolling off my chameleon tongue and metaphors byzantine and allusive pitched to that intimate space between your ears. I will watch you wriggle with denial, claw with anger, bargain for release, splash like a drowning animal in h …

Catch and releaseRead More

Unfortunately clinicians and researchers often tend to interact with a specific segment of our society and to develop their own ways of describing the problems of the people they work with. For example, there are professionals who work with clients who have “personality disorders”, there are professionals who work with criminals in the justice system and there are professionals who work with perpetrators of domestic abuse/violence. Each of these three groups of professionals has their own lingo for describing very similar people with very similar patterns of behavior. Each group also has a different “theoretical orientation” or view of the problems of humanity. Because those who work with …

The nature of the “abusive personality”Read More