A Cambridge professor, Simon Baron-Cohen, has written Zero Degrees of Empathy: A new theory of human cruelty. In this review, the author explains the professor’s ideas.
Read Why a lack of empathy is the root of all evil, on Independent.co.uk.
Link supplied by a Lovefraud reader.
Well, I was dxed a long time ago, when I was in a major crisis, and depression, after finding out my hub was boffing a 17 year old reqruite…he was a nvy reqruiter for 5 years and during that time he worked all the time and pretty much abandoned me emotionally.
That was when I chose to get therapy and get sober. It worked for a long time. I got my BA and started a graduate program. I left my hub…my dad died of lung cancer (he chose not to tell anyone til he was very sick, and I only knew for 13 days before he died. I lived all the way across the US and hadn’t seen much of either of my parents in years. I hung in there, but then I found out I was pregnant, schedualled an abortion, and that same week my brother called and said my mom had died in her sleep. She was buried on her 73 Birthday a few days after Christmas. That all happened within 13 months. I still hung in for another 11 months, but 2 of my best friends left the state, and I experienced a lot of lonliness, and I’m sure now the whole abandonment thing, and I picked up a drink and everything has been down the toilet since.
Then the spath introduced me to crack…(I’m sure that was calculated, so I would get supply for him) and the train wreck was on it’s way.
I fit the profile for bpd, but who knows. It could be alcoholism and pts…..I have been through trauma after trauma….I think that anyone who had been through what I have would probably fit the profile. LOL.
But I don’t want to be in denial, because, while I was sober and functioned pretty well, I didn’t reaally think I was bpd, and look what happened.
Oh, Sky, I wanted to post this link:
http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/
I’m still looking for the other one.
Kim Your honesty speaks loud and clear, and your willingness to accept and admit you have problems yourself is a huge step. Once, you told me that my X prolly really loved me and that is why it is so hard for me to let go. I will never know for sure, but I am sure of several things, he was using me, for sex, for a place to stay, for access to my computer so he could screw around behind my back, he was a big lier, on and on I can think of reasons he was BAD for me, he tried to isolate me from friends and family, he threatened me, he attempted suicide…he was a sicko, but I loved the bean soup out of him…Yes I have issue’s and he used those to manipulate me, make me feel not as good, not worthy..etc etc…So I finally had to draw a line who was sickest me or him, well he did nothing to nourish me or the relationship, just use use use, and lie lie lie…..So I mite be borderline crazee, but I am working on my issues and I can tell I am better than ever before…wont ever be perfect, I will always be borderline something…..but I am a GOOD person, I tryed my hardest to make it work with him…but it’s better to have loved and lost than to live with a physco…
I admire the bean soup out of your efforts to get off the hard drugs, I mean really I do…. I am addicted to cigs, cant stop, dont want to stop, I know it’s killing me….I dont have a problem with alcohol, but i like my beers occasionally….
I am sure you know all about alanon – I have heard so many success stories with alanon, people that dont even drink go there for what ever… peace Kim – your a good person and dont ever think your not…we are not sociopaths, when we got involved with one we just got crazy/crazier BECAUSE of them, and that is what they want, it is easier to manipulate and control a sleep deprived emotional wreck than a solid grounded person…we are working on it toots ~! It’s not about who was better than the other, or who was at fault – it’s all about getting toxic people out of our lives so we can live at peace……
Hens,
That was a really beautiful and well written post.
I related to a lot of it.
You’ve really done a lot of work. I think your honesty is just as admirable. I’m a smoker too, don’t want to give it up. I’d like to think that I would WANT too, but in reality, I don’t. It will probably kill me too.
Kim, your honesty is not only admirable but also shows your willingness to be open to whatever may or may not help you and in the right ways for you.
I’m learning A LOT from you.
LL
(((((((((Hens)))))))) Thank-you.
Yeah, I loved the bean-soup out of all my psycho’s too!!!
Hen’s, I’m sorry if my telling you that your x spath probably loved you has hindered your progress!!!
The reason I said that to you was because that was an important step for me to get to in my recovery from my marriage to my bean-soup N husband.
You know all about the love bombing and then the devalue/disgard thing….well, I couldn’t reconcile it, and I couldn’t stop the pain….I was in AA and I couldn’t afford a resentment and I knew I had to forgive him. (He hurt me horribly, but he did a lot of good things, too…he raised my girls from my first marriage, and was good to them.)
What I came to was this. We attracted eachother because of our issues and we thought we had found our soul-mates.
I believe he was sincere, and loved me to the best of his ability. I know I was sincere and loved him to the best of mine….but our different and mutual issues caused us so much distress.
We are f@.......#$ed- up and F@.......#$ed- upper, so to speak.
When I got to that point, when I could see that he had tried and that he was in a lot of pain, and didn’t know what to do, either….I could forgive him and have some peace.
I know a lot of folks here would not approve of that approach, but it really worked for me. Also, he’s not a full-blown spath. He does experience empathy and remorse.
The alcoholic/addict that I was last involved with has many more spathy qualities, and I haven’t forgiven him, but I’m working toward that goal.
Does that make any sense. I hope it does.
OH Yes it makes sense – maybe my X did love me ‘best he could’, I can list a whole page of the good things about Mike that I loved and miss. But I was not his romantic interest ever, I rescued him from the street’s and then fell bean soup over hills in love with him, because he could read me like the open book I was and he knew exactly what to say and do. I always knew that underneath his act ,but continued with the charade, so I need my ass kicked for doin that. We didnt have anything in common, he is a party boy, I am a homebody, we were mismatched from the beginning.. I think he did grow fond of me and enjoyed me waiting on him hand and foot. He did tell me I had been better to him than anybody in his whole life – prolly another lie..but yes I cared deeply for the twirp – my bad….So life goes on – hope he is content or happy or what ever…I can not analyze it anymore than I have – I want to move on and live in the present, cant change anything that happened, only learn from it….I am sure I was not the easiest person to live with either….He told me he wished we had met under other circumstance’s and maybe things would of been better, well he is right about that – but under different circumstances he would of never been interested in me—!
Thank you LL….I can spill the bean soup sometimes myself…where did this bean soup thing come from? I must be hungry…~! oh my – me and the wieners are going to sonic right now…
I’m sorry, Hen’s. That is pretty much the way I see the x spath in my life, too.
I know he used me for sex, and a roof over his head. He used me for booze and cigarettes. He played me like a fiddle. He’d leave me, whenever he weanted to party, and he’d return when he got tired or ran out of booze. He WOULD NOT leave me alone, then. He’d climb in a window when I was at work and would be in my house when I got home. He ALWAYS WON. He was a bad dog. I couldn’t keep him in the yard and I couldn’t keep him out. He made me crazy.
But ya know, even now I have trouble believing he deliberately targeted me. Even with his crazy ass, I believe He cared, at least in the beginning, and thought we might make it together.
Some disordered people do have good intentions, even if they
are hurting you. Probably not a full- fledge spath, though.
And here I am again at that dillemna. Was he or wasn’t he?
Oh well. Doesn’t matter much, now.
My being able to forgive him is somehow related to the answer to that question.
Kim – Well what does it matter if he is a full blooded sociopath or just a half a pint of sociopath? The person you desribe sound’s like a nitemare to me. Bad dog? couldnt keep him in the yard or out of the yard? He could not be tamed, not by you or anybody…maybe that was the attraction? Bad dog? Bad Boy? Once they get a foot in the door we are hooked and pickin up their shit while our whole lives fall apart and they just suck us dry like the tick’s they are. YOUR X and mine are SURVIVORS they always land on their feet…they do what they do because thats what they do to survive…but during all this chaos they can be wittle puppy dogs that we just love to rescue…I think we need to stop with the sociopath or not thing and just look at them as user’s and abuser’s, I dont want to live like that, no matter how much I miss him I dont want that kind of life – so I would rather learn from it than yearn from it – ya know what I mean?
KIM – Yep it is hard to believe someone could do that, but guess what, they are busy doin it to somebuddy else right now, and then another and another.
What is it going to take to make us believe it? We have all the evidence we need, but still we want to believe otherwise…so you go figure out whats wrong with us and get back to me on that..ok?