Editor’s note: This article was submitted by Steve Becker, LCSW, CH.T, who has a private psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and clinical consulting practice in New Jersey, USA. For more information, visit his website, powercommunicating.com.
We can begin by noting something that both narcissists and psychopaths share: a tendency to regard others as objects more than persons. Immediately this raises concerns: you don’t have to empathize with objects; objects don’t have feelings worth recognizing. You can toy with objects; manipulate and exploit them for your own gratification, with a paucity of guilt.
Welcome to the world of the narcissist and psychopath. Theirs is a mindset of immediate, demanded gratification, with a view of others as expected—indeed existing—to serve their agendas. Frustrate their agendas, and you can expect repercussions, ranging from the disruptive to ruinous.
Distinct explanations for their actions
The behaviors of narcissists and psychopaths can look very similar in their staggering disregard and abuse of others. Distinctions arise, however, in the explanation of their actions. The narcissist will crave recognition and validation. He will demand that others notice and appreciate his special qualities; his special qualities make his needs special, which leaves him feeling entitled to their satisfaction. He demands all this as if his inner self is at stake, and it is. Disappointment leaves him feeling unappreciated, neglected. Anger and rage then surface in aggressive and passive-aggressive displays, often in proportion to the hurt and vulnerability he can’t own.
The psychopath is less obsessed than the narcissist with validation. Indeed, his inner world seems to lack much of anything to validate: it is barren, with nothing in it that would even be responsive to validation. An emotional cipher, the psychopath’s exploitation of others is more predatory than the narcissist’s. For the psychopath, who may be paranoid, the world is something like a gigantic hunt, populated by personified-objects to be mined to his advantage.
Example: narcissists and psychopaths as cheaters
As an example, let’s take a hypothetical narcissist and psychopath: Both males (females can be narcissists and psychopaths), both married, with families; and both compulsively conducting extra-marital affairs. Both have managed to avoid exposure principally due to the ease and remarkable skill with which they routinely lie and dissemble. They are equally persuasive in declaiming their fidelity to their wives as they are at contriving their unmarried status to their mistresses. Nevertheless, from time to time, their wives may approach them with uneasy suspicions, to which they’ll respond not with accountability, but as with outrage to have to deign to address their wives’ anxieties. They will impugn their wives for raising doubts about them, leaving the latter feeling defensive, guilty, and perhaps ashamed.
Narcissist is insecure
To this point, there is little on the surface to distinguish them. But going deeper, we discover that our narcissist is actually terribly insecure and needy. For him, having affairs validates his masculinity. His seductive abilities reassure him of his manhood. If he can no longer seduce and sleep with women, he is nothing; he has “lost it.” Feeling his nothingness/worthlessness, he grows depressed, despairing. He might even feel like killing himself. To salvage his collapsing self-image, he needs an infusion of reassurance, sought in a new affair. In the narcissist’s world, the more his psychic welfare is threatened, the more hers is disposable.
The narcissist will rationalize his actions with his greatest defenses—blame and contempt: My wife has been nasty to me for a long time, and doesn’t remotely appreciate me anymore. She’s lucky all I do is cheat; I could leave her instead, with nothing. The fact that I’ve stayed is almost charitable. And these women I cheat with”¦sure, they all think I’m unmarried, and you know what, I basically am.
Our narcissist, as you see, has a dim notion of ethics; but his ethics are corrupted by alarming rationalizations. He is expert at furnishing these rationalizations seamlessly, leaving him as if with the untroubled conscience of the psychopath.
Psychopath plays a game
Our psychopath, meanwhile, has no ethics, and thus no need for rationalizations. He has affairs because he wants to. Life, for him, is a game. The game is about figuring out how to get what he wants now, by whatever stratagems necessary. And it’s a game without rules. Without rules, there is no violation, no exploitation; and even if there is, it’s part of the game. So our psychopath makes up the rules as he goes along, duping this individual and that, lying like a shameless child as he improvises his way in and out of his schemes, sometimes smoothly, sometimes not—but always heedless of, and absolutely indifferent to, the damage he causes.
The psychopath will sit back, reflecting on his infidelities, and laughing, think, “I’ve still got it.” He will mean, “I’ve still got the ability to maneuver these women like a puppeteer.” This will amuse him. The narcissist will sit back, and likewise think, “I’ve still got it.” But he will mean, “I’m still attractive. Women still find me irresistible. I’m okay, for now.”
Commonly, the psychopath is upheld as the incarnation of the murderous bogeyman. While it’s true that many cold-blooded killers are psychopaths, most psychopaths are not killers. The majority of psychopaths would find a messy murder too inconvenient and personally unpleasant a task to assume. This—the personal inconvenience and unpleasantness, not empathy for the slaughtered victim—explains why a great many more psychopaths than not, with chilling non-compunction, are more likely to target your life’s savings than butcher you, and dispose of your remains in several industrial-strength Hefty bags.
This doesn’t make the non-murderous psychopath “less psychopathic,” or “more sensitive” than the murderous psychopath; it merely reflects the calculus psychopaths apply in their decision-making: how can I get, or take what I want, for maximum instant gain, at minimum personal inconvenience?
Sorrow-
You are wasting your time. Do you want someone like that?
You need to get through this. Start with one activity for YOU.
Please go No Contact. I say this straight:life is short, he’s using you and feeding on your pain. You will NEVER get closure from him, ever.
It’s up to you to make it stop.
“James”be VERY careful. That’s all I’m going to say. No matter how wonderfully discerning you think you are, how much you trust your judgement to be sound, even if your a superb psychic able to actually see the auras of people”..The predators are masters at their game. It’s taken many of them YEARS to perfect different strategies and tactics designed exclusively for each unsuspecting victim. I know this because I’ve found evidence all over the internet pertaining to their “Skills at deception”.
Words to live by! Thanks..
But I also know that if I don’t take the chance on meeting new people, then I will never meet anyone. My ex P took many things from me.
Self-respect
Self-esteem
The ability to trust others
The ability to trust my self.
Well, there is more of course!
Anyway. I know I need to reclaim these. I will not allow her to take anything else from me. I will be strong. Have set and define boundaries. Making know what my personal boundaries
are in each person I will meet. One thing that each of our ex-P’s wants more then anything is to see us alone and single for the rest of our lives. I feel it’s our duty to make sure this doesn’t happen. We know we all have the ability to love other. We loved a dysfunctional, toxic person. We try over and over again to make this dysfunctional, toxic relationship work against all odds. But of course we failed. But our failure lays in the fact these type of relationship never really work anyway. We all gain something from this toxic experience! We gain the knowledge of the why and what’s concerning not only them, but ourselves as well. Anything that is learned but never put to use is it’s self-wasted. Let’s not waste this. Instead put it to use and learn to love again! I know this is what I must do. What I will do.
James,
After a lifetime failing to set boundaries, letting myself be used and feeling bad because I didn’t want to hurt the user’s feelings by setting a strict boundary, I am LEARNING, but it is still difficult. Especially if you have enabled them very much or for very long, as they come to EXPECT your enabling and feel ENTITLED to your enabling.
It would be like (small example) you pass by aj bum on the street and you give him a dollar every day as you go to work, then one day you see him coming out of the liquor store with a bottle and so you decide that he is spending his money, the money you gave him, on booze which you think is bad for him and that he should have spent the money on food instead. So the next day you pass by him and don’t give him any money. He says “Hey, buddy, where’s my buck”? and you say “Well, I saw you coming out of the liquor store yesterday and I wasn’t giving you money to buy booze with so I won’t give you any more money again.”
He looks at you and says “Who the heck are YOU to tell ME how to spend MY money? Now, where’s my buck?”
Sometimes, in our genuine efforts to “help” someone we become enablers –giving them money to buy booze—so our attempt at helping them only enables them to do things that hurt them, but they expect us to continue since they have counted on and expected us to continue to give to them, they see no reason we should stop. Most of us are compassionate people and caring and genuinely like to help others, and that is USED AGAINST US by the users and abusers. However, we must have the courage to set boundaries. To tell the person who expects and demands us to continue to enable them to behave inappropriatedly and for us to “pick up the slack” for the consequences of their poor behavior, and poor choices.
When you start to see that enabling is a toxic behavior on your part and that your attempt and well meaning “help” is making the situation worse because the person is not learning from the consequences of his/her behavior as YOU are covering the consequences, you must be prepared for the relationship to end when you set SOLID BOUNDARIES. They will be angry at you for setting these boundaries because they feel “entitled.” And they don’t have to be a full blown psychopath or narcist to feel this way. Just dysfunctional people who would rather take than give, who become “entitled” to have someone else take care of their needs. Sometimes they have just been “spoiled” as children by their parents into this mind set.
My mother programmed me to be the next family “enabler” when she passed on, letting the persons who were “bad actors” push the responsibility and consequences of their behavior off on to my shoulders. It has been a struggle but I am learning to SET boundaries. NO Contact is the first boundary. It was difficult at first. Now it is easy.
Now I have had another situation come up in which I am going to have to set what will amount to a “no contact” situation with some people whose friendship I have valued for a long time and that my son has valued their friendship most of his life, and my husband loved the man of the couple like a son, but my “attempt to help” them became ENABLEMENT and when I set a FIRM boundary, they will I am sure become so enraged at my “cold heartedness” that the relationship will end. I hate that, because that is not what I want, but it is what I MUST DO.
I have been “mulling this over” for several days now in deep thought and grief about ending this relationship, because I have NO doubt that it will END. Today I sat down with my son D and explained to him what I intended to do and WHY. I know it hurt him, but at the same time, he is in agreement that it is the RIGHT thing to do, I had the same talk with son C over the phone yesterday and he is also in agreement with me. It is very unpleasant to me to have to do this, but they have NOT respected other boundaries I have set and aren’t likely to change their behaviors. It, like much using and abusing, isn’t ONE big incident, but a continual drip drip drip of small and tiny incidents that are like fingernails on a black board, just a continual irritant and source of stress that I do not NEED OR WANT. I dread the confrontation because I know in my heart that they will not SEE anything except malice in my boundary….but that can’t be helped, it isn’t my responsibility to “take them to raise.” So, I’ve just got to bow my back, put on my “big girl panties” and do what has to be done. It still hurts, because it is ALL SO UNNECESSARY.
great. the idiot i was with was both narcissist AND a sociopath. he told me he ‘didn’t know’ why he didn’t want me sexually after he met his new conquest. i guess — in his narcissist view — i was expendable. and in his sociopath view, he could always manipulate me again if he chose … “you’ll always be there no matter what i do.”
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
LostIGrief. Some people say that they are VERY conscious of what they do, because they have worked it out and done it before and they know the likely consequences. Alot of them play mind games with sex, I had it played on me, he used sex to manipulate me big time, telling me I really did it for him, then me finding out he was flirting with women under my nose. Yes he could have had what he wanted and more, but he didnt stick round long enough to benefit. His Loss.
Dear Lost,
All Ps are Ns, but not all Ns are Ps.
The psychopath thinks that they “own” you, you are their property and therefore you cannot truly “escape” them.
I remember the old saying “If you love something, set it free, if it comes back to you, it is yours, if it does’t come back, it never was” and that saying was changed around to TH EPSYCHOPATHIC VERSION, “if you love (OWN) something set it free if it doesn’t come back, HUNT IT DOWN AND KILL IT”
Lost, you are right in your assessment of his thinking, I think. He could “always get you back if he wanted” so he hadn’t “lost” you at all, you were still his puppet.
Six-plus years, thousands of dollars, untold infidelities … and he would always tell me that ”no one wants you!” i guess he didn’t either. He called me yesterday and I asked him why he thought he could get away with the affair forever (she’s pregnant remember), and he told me, “because i know you’d take me back no matter what i did.” well, those days are over.
god, i’m so furious … at him for being such a dog-pig, at me for being so stupid.
To Sorrow,
I read most of your story but I need to go back and finish it. I think your guy was a Sociopath and not a Borderline. I am sure my ex was a Borderline. Borderlines are very vicous. I can’t imagine being with a Borderline and not having an arguement.
Your guys “kindness” is very smooth and manipulative. It was sickeningly sweet and I can see why you are so confused. But like another reader said, there were too many red flags to note. But if he was a Borderline, you would have been under constant attack. This is the trademark of a Borderline.
Dear Lostingrief,
I know tha tyou would like to “tell that jerk off” and make h im understand that you will NOT TAKE HIM BACK, but the ONLY WAY to accomplish that and make it stick is to go NO CONTACT with him. Believe it or not, he enjoys you telling him off because you are at least noticing him, giving him attention, and that is what he wants more than anything is to BE NOTICED, to realize he has “zinged” you good. Hee hee
But, if you REFUSE TO COMMUNICATE WITH HIM AT ALL, he will be frustrated, angry, upset that you are NOT NOTICING HIM. You will have TAKEN CONTROL of the situation AWAY FROM HIM. It sends them through the roof, it is the ONLY WAY we can actually “punish” them. They just cannot stand to be IGNORED.
Take back YOUR CONTROL of YOU, and that will “punish” him the ONLY way they can feel “pain.” It is all about CONTROL and he really does think you are so “needy” that you will take him back no matter what—but he is in for a RUDE SUPRISE when you “cut him off at the knees” by even refusing to talk to him or listen to him. I think most if not all of the veterans here will back me up on this NO CONTACT thing.
I KNOW how hard it is not to want to tell them off one last time, and then anotehr last time, etc. BELIEVE ME I know it is HARD, but it is the only way to go. Every time you talk to them, they get “supply” and you get “another wound.” ((((hugs))))
thanks oxdrover… i’m new to this insanity. well, actually, i guess i’m not! his stuff is here, his books, CDs, toothbrush, clothes in the closet. i WANT to cut him off, but how do i? since his new girlfriend is ”gorgeous and rich” i suppose i can throw everything in the garbage and she can just buy him new crap. ignoring him is an interesting twist since his m.o. when he wanted control was to simply ignore me. made me crazy crazy crazy! i don’t know if there is anyplace left to wound, but every time i thought he couldn’t do something worse, he managed. so, thanks for the advice.
you are all wonderful. i just can’t believe we’ve all experienced this madness. i still feel that somehow, i’m the bad one here. is that common too? i wasn’t good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, helpful enough, loving enough and of course, that’s why he went off with someone ”with style … just like me.”