There can be different perspectives of the sociopath (and other seriously exploitive personalities). These perspectives can offer different experiences of these disturbed individuals. At the same time each perspective offers, I suggest by definition, both a somewhat advantageous and yet limited view of the sociopath.
Living with a sociopath, or finding oneself involved deeply in a “committed” relationship with a sociopath, will offer an incomparably intimate experience of the horrors that sociopaths can inflict on their partners.
Clearly no one, and that includes the so-called “experts” on sociopathy (clinicians and researchers, for instance) will be able to appreciate the impact of the sociopath, on this level, like the partner who has lived with, or been closely involved with, one.
This close, personal relationship confers upon the partner of the sociopath a certain knowledge of sociopathy and, I stress, a certain intimate experience of the sociopath that no clinician or “expert” can possibly approximate; thus, the sociopath’s partner’s experience is surely a unique one, qualifying him or her, from this particular intimate vantage point, as really the ultimate “expert” on sociopathy.
Now thankfully I’ve never lived with a sociopath, a fact which also happens to limit my experience with sociopathic personalities—specifically, in this case, the experience of having lived with one, and had my life razed by one.
In this sense my, or anyone’s, clinical experience of sociopathic individuals—just like one’s clinical experience of any individual—is limited by the structure of the clinical relationship. It is a relationship with boundaries provided inherently, so that the clinician or researcher (unlike the sociopath’s partner) is for the most part protected emotionally and physically from the sociopath’s most damaging, hurtful, violating behaviors.
On one hand, the protection to which I refer—again, a protection that’s inherent in the clinical setting—clearly limits the clinician’s capacity to fully experience the sociopath; on the other hand, the very structure of the clinical setting may enhance the clinician’s ability to apprehend aspects of sociopaths that may elude the sociopath’s partner, because he or she—the clinician— again unlike the sociopath’s partner, in operating within a structure of safety and protection, can observe and study the sociopath more freely and through a much wider lens.
The clinican is afforded the chance to observe and study sociopaths’ attitudes, their interactions, their styles, their variations, their differences. And, of course, not just one of these individuals, but many.
And so the clinician’s experience with sociopaths, while less rich and informative in some important ways than the partner’s experience of the sociopath, in other ways yields him or her different, additional opportunities to grasp how sociopathically-oriented individuals think and act.
And yet over and over again, I note it when a Lovefraud member points out, “But what do YOU know? Or what does HE know? You (or HE) never lived with a sociopath!”
And my response, whenever I read these comments, is to agree with them wholeheartedly. They are entirely valid comments and speak a truth that all so-called “experts” on sociopathy should heed well: those who have lived with the sociopath possess a certain knowledge and experience of the sociopath that is not only unique (as I’ve suggested), but non-attainable to a clinician in any sort of safe, protective clinical setting.
In this sense, or certainly in many respects, the clinician has much more to learn from the sociopath’s partner than the other way around.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of the male gender pronouns is strictly for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the attitudes and behaviors discussed.)
Hi, Kathy,
I’ve got more empathy for the 4 legged predators than I have for the 2-legged kind but I’m not about to be lunch for any of them.
Sure do miss you, but understand about having to make a living and so on. Retirement leaves you broke, but you have more time, so that’s my situation.
Though I did finally sell an airplane my husband restored before he died six years ago. Lost my arse on it financially but it will go to a good home and make a man very happy. It was outside during a horrible hail storm we had here 4 years ago with stones the size of baseballs so it got some damage from that, which since it wasn’t insured for outside I had to suck up the damage to the value. Oh, well, it is just one more thing I don’t have to worry about.
I posted last nite about my X-SP looking for dresses for his OtherWoman (his new “GodlyWife”) on his computer while I was sitting across from him. I now recognize that as the thrill, the adrenalin rush, he got from knowing that he was doing very RISKY things right in front of me, & daring me to ever figure it out! He did those thru-out our relationship, & it’s so bizarre now to look back & them & see what he was doing!
There were 2 more instances of this involving his computer in the last few months before he left me. I left for the gym one afternoon, & realized a few blocks away that I’d left my headphones at home. I pulled up in front of the house, so I could just dash in, rather than coming in the driveway. When I opened the front door I saw what was on his laptop screen: porn. And he was also talking animatedly on the phone. Naturally he was startled, & immediately hung up his cellphone, but just looked at me, smiling & saying, “Oh, I was talking to P (a biz partner)”. I was so shocked by it all that I didn’t even question that he’d abruptly hung up on a biz partner! I just said, “what are you looking at??!” He said, “It was just one of those things that you get in your email, you know, & I clicked on it.” I said, “I don’t get those in MY email becuz I don’t surf for porn.” I was so blown away that I just grabbed my headphones & walked out! Far, Far, into Denial! Not daring to upset the balance, you know!!
A few weeks later, I’d come from the kitchen back to my computer & glanced over his shoulder at his laptop…..I can’t even remember what it said, but I knew it wasn’t the *report* I’d thot he was typing. I said, “WHAT are you writing?” He looked up & smiled & said, “porn short stories”. I said, “WHY?” He said, “to sell….they sell really easily.” I said, “You haven’t even finished re-editing the screenwriter’s draft of ‘T_P____’ yet.(the novel he wrote in prison) Why aren’t you doing that?” He said something about that being a long project & that he could write one of these in an hour. INCREDIBLE DENIAL on my part! I just said, “Well, that’s disgusting”, & went on with my day!
Only after he abandoned me for her, did I realize that he’d been having phone sex with her & writing pornographic stories to share with her!
Of course, I thot that both instances were odd, but certainly not out of character for him, so I let it go…after all, the horror novel he’d written was filled with lurid sex scenes & ghastly violence….but the story was so well-crafted, & I’d added all the mystical, magical, & mythological parts that we agreed balanced out the wicked horror. Most people who’d read excerpts of the novel had said, “OMG, I can’t believe you’re living with someone who would write this kind of stuff!” I said, “well, you know, he is brilliant & creative & highly imaginative….”
I feel so sucked in now—both my the lies he told me, & my denial of all I should’ve been seeing, but refused to because I wanted so badly to be part of his life. And, as it’s turned out, I was a part of his life…..a footnote, a footstool, & a brief chapter of convenience, easily forgotten.
Dear Whyme,
Sounds more like a toilet than a foot stool, sounds like he crapped on your head. My late husband used to ahve a saying that summed it up, he would say “It’s bad enough when someone craps on my head but when they slide down my nose to wipe their butt, that’s way too much!”
Sounds like your porno-creep did just that! And yes, we do stay in denial and believe them because we love them and don’t want them to have betrayed us.
The betrayal part hurts more than the rest of the stuff they do. Being BETRAYED by someone you loved and trusted, STABBED IN THE BACK is the most hurtful part.
Sure, you can go back over your lives together and find 10,.000 things he was unfaithful about, lied about, tricked you, but once you have recognized what he is—don’t go back and just re-hurt yourself remembering these things, or bash yourself for not “seeing better”—at the time you did the best you could with what you knew—NOW YOU KNOW BETTER, YOU WILL DO BETTER!!!
The thing you must realize is that YOU DESERVE BETTER! He deserves himself and that is what he has. No matter how many women he sleeps with or how many he takes for money or a place to live—all he really has is HIMSELF because he cannot bond with anyone else. He can’t love anyone. He can’t feel their love for him. ACTUALLY HE SECRETLY DESPISES THEM!
WHYME? Because he could, but you name now should be NOT ME!@....... or something along that line. You have got it intellectually now and you’re gaining knowledge and strength!!!! I’m glad you are here! (((Hugs))))
WhyMe,
I know, as we go along the road, signs pop up here-and- there, getting our attention, usually nothing that seems too alarming. At the end of the road, when we’ve been burned, we remember the signs that we saw, putting them together, completing the picture – our partner was a no-good person. It’s almost like God is saying okay, you’ve ignored your gut (for whatever reason) – I’ll let you see things along the road, trying to alert you that your “loved one” is not the “real deal”. What just about crushed me was the pathological lying, conning me to believe lies, also realizing that my h-spath is a thief. Signs abounded along the road, but it was too horrible a reality to accept, about a spouse. It’s still awful.
dear whyme, i feel the pain you are experiencing coming to terms with what has happpened and i identify with the intellectual distancing you did because you wanted so badly to be part of his life. i am drawn to other creative people…i have done the same thing myself in refusing to see and believe. our stories are completely different…but the ‘feel’ of them is the same.
it will get better. I am almost one year nc, and it is still tough most of the time, but I have moved through a few lawyers of the very difficult shock and awe you are experiencing. i turned so far inward at first…just stunned and needing to be in the corner and lay there with my wounds bleeding. now, i am more like the dog who looks at its wounds and is shocked and irritated that there is still a leg trap on my paw. But, i am getting further away from it. I find that i am a bit shut down emotionally now, not quite willing to connect with new people, and fast to let people go if they cause me stress. i have a big ol barrier around me. and for this moment i can live with that. there is so much healing to be done. right now i am trying to just survive illness and poverty. when there is more space and less fear….there will be more healing.
i wish you the very best on this journey.
one step
Steve, your writing is always well-communicated in presenting issues from a balanced perspective. As a fellow psychotherapist, I agree with you — we can learn much from those on the front lines. Sometimes, as in my case, we have both the clinical and personal perspectives.
Kathleen Hawk: You expressed so well what I believe based on my personal and professional experience, when you wrote”…unless we’re locked into Rapunzel’s tower, I don’t think any of us can get through life without being at the mercy of sociopaths occasionally. Or being caught in a sociopathic interaction. It’s just that sometimes they are fleeting, and we are just wounded or a little ripped off or piercingly disappointed, but it doesn’t go on and on, because the predator moves on or we haven’t been hooked into believing that the relationship offers some long-term good for us.”
I have always said that sociopaths are not the only inhumane human beings. When otherwise generally “good” people refuse to acknowledge their own Shadow, they deny their own capacity for doing harm to others.
According to Dr. John McCormick, what is known as the “Sociopathic Styleâ„¢” of relating to others is fairly rampant in our society for many reasons. Many normal people with a “Sociopathic Style” are not fully exploitive, but occasionally relate to others from manipulative or narcissistic-oriented positions, which involve abuse to some extent but is not ongoing.
Dr. McCormick wrote that if individuals are committed to the “Sociopathic Styleâ„¢” — as is the case with the full-blown sociopath who has a personality disorder — they will not change. That is because the true sociopathic person is walled off from their core. What they present to the world is an image ”“ a façade of who they really are ”“ not a “real” self. Their way of operating is control and power at all costs, which inherently involves abuse to others ”“ whether intimate partner, children, relatives, co-workers or friends.
The more severe the “Sociopathic Styleâ„¢” in an individual, the less “self” and “other” exists, according to Dr. McCormick, who has developed a way to test a person’s pathological rigidity ”“ or their commitment to The Sociopathic Styleâ„¢ — through the use of the Language of Integrity©. Dr. McCormick first developed this tool for use with couples in therapy to work through conflicts and deepen intimacy. It has been adapted as a way to eliminate The Sociopathic Styleâ„¢ in relationships.
People who truly want positive, supportive and mutually-beneficial relationships with others will modify their “Sociopathic Styleâ„¢” and make changes in their behaviors: http://www.sociopathicstyle.com/tools/integrity.htm
Steve – you would be the exception rather than the rule when it comes to therapists – you really get it. Unfortunately most therapists just don’t understand about the sociopathic dynamic so fall into vaccuum style therapy that puts accountability with the victim without acknowledging the profound effects of context and interactions with others on their pain.
You are spot on though that victims have a different kind of knowledge about sociopaths – we know the subtleties in their behaviour – the unspoken glances and expressions sociopaths invoke that are pregnant with ominous meaning. Much of the academic research on sociopathy has been focussed on incarcerated sociopaths and unfortunately this can tend to skew the perception of personality disorder amongst the general public. Some sociopaths are remarkably well disguised – so well that it takes their victims many years to realise what all the disparate symptoms add up to. It is my hope that the world of acadaemia can combine with the lived experience of those who have been targetted for the benefit of everyone. Dr Hare has a group called Aftermath, but not many people use the site – I think it’s great though that researchers and clinicians are actually starting to pay some attention to the lived experience of those who have been in very close proximity to psychopaths and sociopaths.
Thank you, Kathleen.
That’s exactly what I’ve been doing lately is becoming more vocal about the situation with my family, so it’s good to know that I’m on the right track.
One more thing that I’ve found to be extremely beneficial is NETWORKING.
You can uncover a lot of lies by networking, because socios are pathological liars and they tell everyone a different story.
If a sociopath does not want you talking to or associating with someone, THEN GO TALK TO THAT PERSON!!
You will probably find a wealth of information, if the person is in a talking mood.
Through networking, I have found an ally in my city, someone who also had a “run-in” with my brother’s wife and calls her “unstable”.
She says she will “back me up” if I need her to.
I am going to take her up on that offer, and get her on the record before I do anything else.
So, the good news is that I’m not empty-handed here.
I’ve got lots of documentation & photographs, and some other things that will come out during an investigation.
That’s what I want….an investigation.
But, I want the child removed from the danger first.
Because this mother is the type who will hurt the child to spite everyone so that she can say “I win”.
That’s my biggest fear…is that she will hurt the child worse than she already is.
Thanks Flannie Laflore. We will continue working on “gettingi it” You have been another invaluable lesson, Thanks.
Hello Kathleen and thank you for the looong post. I was telling Katydid that I am better than I was before the involment with the XBF.. I have been pondering on that all day and was going to try to explain what I meant by better. But you have explained it for me and for all of us. It doesnt mean we are skipping with joy and overflowing with happiness. I think we change and look at life totally different than before the relationship. It’s like being dealt a new hand of cards with no wild’s, we have to play life differently than before. And differnt isnt bad or good sometimes but at least we know more about those wild cards.