Last week, after publishing ThePsychoExWife.com and the First Amendment, Lovefraud received the following letter:
I want to commend you and thank you for your website. It is a service to all survivors and the people that love them and, if you’ll permit me, I do want to open a dialogue with you about some concerns I have about the site.
I have read everything possible about sociopathy from a graduate student perspective and from my own experience with a violent sociopath and several other moderate paths, as well as other random people and family members that fit various DSM criteria, I am concerned that your site is very black and white and that people will be misled to their detriment. As I am sure you know, sociopathy, like any other DSM diagnosis, is on a continuum and not all sociopaths exhibit or act out all path behavior, meaning each path is an individual and, although, they all have indicators, behaviors and thought processes that are similar they are not all the same and, most importantly, not all are equally dangerous.
I have been intending to email you for many weeks now but the piece on the psychoexwife.com motivated me to proceed. Borderline Personality Disorder is a very complex disorder, as all mental disorders are, and although it is related to sociopathy as the article stated, again, not all people under that diagnosis are equally afflicted and they are not usually physically dangerous to anyone but themselves—cutting, for example. In fact, many BPD people do not self-harm at all. People categorically need to protect themselves at all costs and I absolutely commend you and your site for the diligence in advocating that point but an ex-husband diagnosing an ex-wife without a medical degree is iffy at best and as someone who survived a VIOLENT (serial rapist) path and was labeled the “scorned ex-girlfriend” when I tried to report him, I am extremely wary of anyone or any public information that fosters the belief system that women that speak up against violence in a domestic situation are “psycho.” Isn’t that what your site loudly tries to expose? How we frame our dialogue is crucially important to our goals and success. Buying into the dominant paradigm to make our point hurts us more than we realize by reinforcing the belief that all women are potentially psycho and, therefore, should not be believed when they report domestic and sexual violence. I am very surprised by the position you took on psychoexwife.com. I would need a lot more information before I could take a side there.
My main point other than my comments about PsycoExWife.com is that most everything I read here and everywhere else talks about sociopaths lacking a conscience as an absolute—they just don’t have one period. Lack of conscious is certainly the defining feature, overall, in my experience, with paths but it is very hard to measure and most paths hide that with varying degrees of success so my concern is that most people without experience dealing with paths will not understand that there are degrees to which paths in general have or don’t have a conscious. A conscious is not a tangible thing you can see directly and it’s not that anyone has one 100% or 0%. The literature in general seems to always say you either have one or you don’t. I think that is misleading.
I appreciate the thoughtful concerns of this reader. Let me address the points that she brought up.
First of all, I was very surprised by the reaction of many readers to last week’s story about ThePsychoExWife.com. To me, the website is similar to Lovefraud—the main difference being that it is primarily about disordered women, rather than disordered men.
The email criticized Mister-M, the author of the website, for diagnosing his ex-wife as having borderline personality disorder, because he isn’t a qualified professional. Well, we do this on Lovefraud all the time. My ex-husband, to my knowledge, has never been professionally diagnosed. But I am quite comfortable with my conclusion that he is a sociopath. I am comfortable enough to write an entire book about it—Love Fraud: How marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan.
ThePsychoExWife.com advocates “low contact” with the disordered individuals. That’s “no contact” for people who have no choice but to interact because of children—essentially the same advice Lovefraud offers.
So why the visceral reaction to the article by many Lovefraud readers? Thinking about it, it seemed to me that some of you may have been triggered by the website. Readers commented that the name of the website itself was a red flag. I can understand that—you may have been accused of being the “psycho ex” by, of course, your “psycho ex.” You may have been subject to language similar to that used on the website. The articles are written with a sarcastic, “can-you-believe-she-pulled-this-crap?” tone. I have heard a similar tone in my ex-husband’s statements.
Thankfully, I’ve healed enough that I wasn’t triggered by the website. I will admit that I don’t know for sure who is right or wrong in Mister-M’s situation. But I interpreted the tone of his articles as utter frustration with a woman who he believes is not acting in the best interest of the children, and a court system that allows her to get away with it.
Underserved male audience
I do know that what he writes is perfectly plausible. We don’t get many men telling their stories publicly in the Lovefraud forum—probably because they don’t feel at home amid all the complaints and stories about disordered males. After all, the Lovefraud audience is 80 percent women who have tangled with exploitative men.
But I have communicated with many men privately. Through email and phone conversations, they’ve told me about the hell their ex-wives, the mothers of their children, put them through. They tell me of children neglected, emotionally abused, and yes, fed so much junk food that they are obese, and suffering ridicule in school because of it.
I’ve always felt that Lovefraud underserved the male victims of disordered women. So I was glad to see that there was a website for them. And, reading the letters and comments that ThePsychoExWife.com received from its readers, they appreciated, and learned from, the forum.
I frequently receive letters from people thanking Lovefraud for saving their lives. ThePsychoExWife.com receives those letters too.
Range of behaviors
Now, about the other concern raised in the letter at the beginning of this article: The author is absolutely correct. Sociopathy is continuum. Sociopaths—and people with borderline personality disorder—are not all the same. Some are definitely worse than others.
Lovefraud makes this point in several places. In fact, here’s what I write on the What’s a Sociopath? page of Lovefraud.com:
Sociopaths exhibit a range of behaviors. In fact, Dr. Hare diagnoses them according to their score on a scale. So just as you could describe someone’s intelligence as ranging from smart to genius, you could describe a sociopath as somewhere between sleazy and serial killer. If you see sleazy, he or she may be on the low end of the scale, but they’re still bad news.
Our other Lovefraud authors have also addressed this point in blog articles. In Experienced clinician says psychopathy is a spectrum, Dr. Liane Leedom wrote:
The idea that psychopathy is a spectrum and that “sociopaths/psychopaths” vary in severity means that there is no real point at which “normal” stops and “sociopath/psychopath” starts. Any decision about where to draw this line (after gathering information on a large group of people) is in a sense arbitrary.
The idea that “psychopathic disturbance” (as Dr. Meloy calls it) is a spectrum can be very confusing. Many people feel a sense of relief when they finally figure out that the person who has harmed them is “a sociopath.” By “sociopath” they mean categorically different from everyone else, a different type of human. Now I am saying there is really no category, just an extreme on a continuum.
Then, a few weeks ago, Steve Becker, LCSW, wrote an article that really gets to the heart of the problem, called, The special problem of the “sort of” sociopath. He wrote:
There are individuals with whom I work, not infrequently, whom I’d describe as, in some sense, “fall between the crack” personalities. These individuals have sociopathic tendencies. They are almost always chronically abusive one way or another.
Although they may not precisely meet every criterion of the textbook sociopath, still they exhibit, often (and historically) enough, the kinds of sociopathic abuses (and rationalizations of their abuses) that make them sociopathic enough to be avoided as assiduously as the full-blown sociopath.
Interestingly, these individuals can pose worse dangers than pure, unequivocal sociopaths for the very reason that it’s possible to find features of their personality that do not conform exactly to the textbook sociopath’s, leaving one dangerously more optimistic that her partner may be capable of the change and personal growth worth the wait, and suffering.
I’ve put that last paragraph in bold text, and I’ve never put an entire paragraph in bold text on the Lovefraud Blog.
Yes, our email writer is correct. Sociopathy is not a black-and-white issue; there are degrees of disorder. But it doesn’t matter. Partially disordered people are still damaging, and you do not want to have them in your life.
This is Lovefraud’s main message: Sociopaths exist, here’s what they look like, and they are bad for you.
The shades of gray may be important for researchers or therapists. But the objective for the rest of us is simply to keep these people out of our lives. We certainly want to avoid the seriously disordered. But the partially disordered still have the capacity to make us partially miserable. I’d rather not be miserable at all.
Thank you for posting this letter, Donna. I had some of the same concerns as the writer of the letter you recieved, so thank you for responding.
I think what I identify with the most and what you mentioned as well, is the idea of the psycho ex. Yes, this did trigger me and brought back all kinds of defensive feelings on my part. I was and still am considered the psycho ex. The feelings of humilations and degredation to be referred to in this manner have been so hard for me to overcome. This was such an easy avenue to go down for my ex because he knew that everyone knew I had a dysfunctional family life. It was easy to pin that label on me. It was very believable for those who did not know me well. What this ultimately did, unfortuantely, was damage my reputation so severely that it is still difficult for me to go to my hometown with my head held high.
Most of the people from my hometown whom he was able to convince did not and/or do not know about his extremely dysfuntional upbringing. He has the outward appearance of a stellar citizen. His word, quite frankly, holds more weight than mine. I didn’t have a stong voice to defend myself and he played it for all it was worth.
I was left feeling defeated and foolish.
I do agree that men suffer from these damaging, disordered people as well. I just think in the case of the site, “The psycho ex-wife”, there is reason to question the authenticity of the author.
Trust is a funny thing. When you have expereinced what we have with disordered persons, we are automatically hypervigilant. And victims of these people who suffer from CPTSD can and do take on “crazy” traits as a defense against them. CPTSD can look very much like BDP, but it is important to note that it is most definitely not the same.
I took great comfort in this knowledge when I was first diagnosed with CPTSD. For all those years, I bought into the hype that I was the one who “wasn’t right” in the head. I was the one with the issues. What I was finally able to come away with was a true gift on the path to healing. CPTSD is not my fault. I do not have to feel deep shame for having it. And I most certainly don’t deserve and did not earn the title, “Psycho Ex”.
I cannot express enough my extreme gratitude for this site. It has helped me in numerous moments of self-doubt and sadness. I think that this is a site for human beings who are looking for outlets and reassurance in their healing process. It’s not a gender thing. I realize that what happened to me was perpetrated by another human being who happened to be a male.
I wish all who visit this site the healing they desire.
Namaste and Peace be with you.
I have to agree, Donna, the PsychoExWife site was an immediate trigger for me. Not only did I immediately feel that the author of the website fit the criteria of someone with a ASPD, I was in a relationship with a sociopath who did exactly the same thing to his ex-wife. I did not realize until after I became his victim that this was all part of the pity ploy as a person with ASPD. It was a webpage designed to make her look crazy and for him to look like the victim and he involved his children in the webpage as well.
It had nothing to do with the fact that it was a man using the “psycho ex-wife” term, it was the idea of “projection” that immediately came to my mind. Now I am the one who is being blamed and is the enemy, just as the ex-wife of my ex-sociopath has been for the last few years. I know better than to respond to his antics. I was lucky enough to figure it our early but still suffered PSTD. If I had endured 19 years of marriage and children with my ex, I would definitely not only be PSTD but sufficiently damaged for life and who knows how I would choose to try to defend myself.
I understand that you can see it from both sides, but I am glad to know that I was not the only one who saw the immediate red flags when “the psycho ex wife” website was discussed on Love Fraud. I agree with sisterhood and do not in any way think that it makes a difference whether it was a male or female who was the pyscho. The delivery disturbs me deeply.
Thank you for this site.
Donna, Great article.
While I agree with the letter writer that LM’s way of dis-ing his ex wife as the PEW in this vituperative manner is not a positive thing for his children, (she is, after all, the mother of his children) I do understand the frustration that people who must Co-parent with someone who is personality disordered (whether or not they are BPD, NPD, PPD or whatever label you want to use). I think his site over all (and I have been back to the cloud and read some of his posts) leaves me some doubt whether BOTH he and his ex wife may not be personality disordered.
As Liane Leedom and I have discussed, many times BOTH people in this kind of dysfunctional relationship has high levels of personality disorders. I have observed it myself in several relationships where the kids were fought over by both parents like a bone between two dogs…each parent accusing the other of being “crazy” or “mean.”
I have no doubt that the “PEW” has not been “mother of the year,” but at the same time, it seems to me that the rancor and pure rage shown by the father doesn’t make him “father of the year” either.
The “tit for tat” attitude displayed by them both seems to be counterproductive for good parenting and I cannot see any benefit to the children from this behavior.
One of the things brought to my attention recently from the book that I reviewed here on LoveFraud “The Science of Evil, on Empathy and the Origin of Cruelty” by Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen is that empathy (which is necessary for a normal human being, and also necessary to form a conscience) is not an either-or concept of you either have it, or you have none, is not the actual fact, and that in fact, research done by Dr. Baron-Cohen and his group of researchers, shows that empathy or lack of it, falls like most things, on a Bell Curve of from “almost zero” to “very very high” but that those people who have what he terms “Zero EMPATHY” can still fall into more categories which he calls Zero Positive, and Zero Negtative. The people with zero negative are those we call “psychopaths or sociopaths” and those people because of their FUNCTIONAL lack of empathy do seem to view others as objects to be manipulated, or even tortured, resulting in “evil” behavior. Again, autistic people may have almost zero empathy but not seemingly enjoy hurting others. While most of us will fall in the middle of the Bell Curve of empathy, some having more some less, but still within the “average” range, even we can turn that empathy on and off at times.
For example, if you walk by a homeless man, you may notice him, but you are in a hurry to get to work so you turn off your empathy in observing this man lying there, obviously cold, hungry, etc. and walk on by without giving it another thought. Yet, that doesn’t mean you have turned off your basic capacity for empathy, it simply means you are selective in your actions motivated by your empathy. Actually, sometimes in order to be effective in our lives, we must control our empathy to what we can actually handle.
Research has shown that we humans (most of us anyway) get a shot of “feel good hormones” when we do something good for another person in response to our empathetic urges. Yet if we were 100% “empathetic” all the time, we would never accomplish anything for ourselves, not even to eat. So while empathy is noble and good, there must be some “brakes” on it as well.
This morning I had to put the “brakes” on my empathy and sympathy and desire to “help” an elderly man who lives down the road from me. He is only “half a bubble off of plumb” so he isn’t to the point he can be declared “incompetent” yet he is being abused by a woman he picked up off the street, who shows up at his house the first of the month like clock work when he gets his “check” and disappears in about two weeks when the money is gone, leaving him alone, lonely, and without food, transportation or utilities or phone.
I knew this man when he was a kind and smart neighbor who would help others out, and I know this woman, a drug addict and alcoholic is playing him for what little he has left, but can’t convince him of this.
I start checking on him about the middle of the month when I know she will be gone, and found him very unwell yesterday, and got him to promise to go to the doctor today and offered to drive him. I no longer give him gas or gas money for his vehicle which is out of gas, but I will offer to drive him if he needs to go somewhere like a doctor’s appointment.
This morning when my son went to get him and bring him to my house so I could take him to the doctor’s appointment this afternoon, he made up excuses why he wouldn’t/couldn’t go (several of which my son saw were lies, like he had no phone minutes, but he got a call while my son was there).
I empathize with his daughter who is distraught at the condition of her father, and worried about his physical health….he has obviously lost 50-75 pounds in the last couple of months, and has open sores on his legs that are getting worse, and he will not allow her to help him. I empathize with him, because I know he is very very lonely since his wife died, but at the same time, I have to control that empathy in a situation where there is nothing I can accomplish because of the situation.
He keeps telling me how he is “helping” this woman, and how he has gotten her to ONLY drinking a fifth of booze a day, and he can’t quit “helping” her because she needs him. He also was sending money to Nigeria to get the big check that was waiting for him there…..and wouldn’t listen to his family or friends, or even the sheriff that it was a scam. We were all just conspiring to keep him from “getting rich.”
Research has shown that with the elderly the FIRST sign of dementia and senility is the inability to “get” sarcasm or to distinguish a “lie” that most people would “get”—-which is why the elderly are frequently scammed by cons.
I’m not sure that my neighbor wouldn’t have been scammed by this woman even if he wasn’t going slightly senile, because she is offering him something that he desperately needs, and that is companionship and attention and a feeling that he is “helping” someone.
My egg donor is in the same shape, only difference is that she is being scammed by her grandson and my neighbor is being scammed by a Nigerian con man and a down and out alcoholic and drug addict he met in a parking lot.
I was also scammed and hoodwinked by psychopaths and cons, and most of us here were too….and while I am very empathetic to my neighbor and his self made situation, I do understand why he is conned. I also just know that I can’t help him if he won’t allow it, and so at this point, I have to contain my own empathetic desire to help him. I can only do what I can do. In the end, each of us must make our own decisions on how we will expend our efforts to help others, as well as warn them. Sometimes, we just have to realize that we aren’t able to “save” anyone against their will.
I know that the PD’s are a sliding scale, BUT, anyone who is driven by envy and has shallow or no values, is dangerous.
The only difference is how big are their balls? My spath had, metaphorically, large ones. He is convinced he can get away with anything so he’ll do anything. His love of scheming and plotting just gives him more patience.
I think just because someone lays around and does nothing all day, or is addicted to alcohol and gets drunk all day, doesn’t make them less of a spath. It only makes them less likely to employ their spathness in the pursuit of destruction of others.
If my spath were to walk up to them and entice them to murder and do all the planning for them, assuring them that they wouldn’t get caught, then they would do it. No reason not to. No empathy, no conscience.
My spath brother who lives in my parents’ basement and watches tv or porn or plays online poker all day, is no less a spath than my murdering exspath.
He used to burglarize homes when he was 16. He told me that he once entered a home and saw 2 old people sleeping and considered killing them. Just to kill them. But he says he’s glad he didn’t. The reason he’s glad is because he got caught later, burglarizing another building and his prints matched the ones he left in all the other homes. If he had killed them, he’d have gotten the death penalty. That’s the only reason, I’m sure, that he’s glad.
Sorry, but I have to disagree on this one. IMO, deep down, where it counts, they are all exactly the same. That’s why the red flags work – because they are the same.
Toxic is as Toxic does….that’s all I need to know.
Amen Skylar. And I don’t even go to church.
I had another exchange with my spath today (don’t worry, I have already been boinked by Oxy and coached by Skylar, thank you both I love you both) and I just have to say,
I remember two years ago bawling every night, in a fit of depression, because my boyfriend didn’t love me back
and now I’m like, holy SHIAT, he is one f’ed up SPATH.
I thought it was ME.
Ha!
Please forgive me, but I found neither the name of the site, nor the language used therein, to be, one iota, as triggering as Mr M’s obvious disorder, (narcissistic, controlling, vengeful and that’s his PUBLIC persona. ~shudder~),
Yes it’s an “Arm-Chair” diagnosis, I have no problem calling rose a rose, even though I am not a Botanist…I am, frankly puzzled by the endorsement… Does a site orientated to serve a majority male audience, necessarily need, to be hostile toward women in general?
I know LF has a majority female membership, but I still do not pick up any hostility toward ANY respondent here… I see no gender bashing, at all here.
If TPEW was as intelligent, informative and, (despite the gravity of the topics), with at least a NOD toward healing, as LF is, I wouldn’t care if it was called “Pass The Prozac, All Women Are Psycho’s”. I’d pick up the on the good will anyway, if there WAS SOME. 😉
Yup they advocate Low Contact, But Mr M can seldom resist pontificating in his communications with Uhhhh…his ex.
Since he has,(seemingly) tirelessly, posted their every communication, phone, email and text, frankly I see more troubling red flags from him. (He even disparages his kids, but of course that’s PEW’s fault, that the kid’s are messed up…what’s a guy to do? ) I mean he moved 500 miles away from them, and PEW doesn’t even have the decency to drive them half-way for visits! What a Bitc@.......!)
If reading their endless bs wasn’t depressing enough for ya, you can go to the “Fantasy Emails”, section and read IMAGINARY emails his ex might write, and his imaginary reply’s, about how pew should kill herself, (and informative, spiritual, cool stuff like that).
Yup… Good Times! lol!
There is more quality education, and fellowship to be had.
Fortunately I CAN go, “No Contact”, with this guy. 🙂
Safe,
I agree with your assessment.
The thing that makes LF so different from any other site is the emphasis on healing. That means we need to take responsibility for ourselves and our behavior. Our mantra of NC and gray rock is a peaceful solution to the problem of spaths. We don’t attack, we deflect. Our solution is not harmful to anyone who is not disordered, but it IS extremely painful to those who are addicted to drama.
In the case of Mr. M, he seems ABSOLUTELY addicted to drama. That’s the red flag. correction: red BANNER.
((Skylar)), Thanks.
Been reading about you 🙂 Jeeze! You are amazing! Can’t even imagine what the heck I’d do if ex Nspath hobnobbed with COPS!! I find the idea just a little… TERRIFYING!
You’re story was beyond what even I could imagine. (And that’s saying something). But as the saying goes, The Truth Has A Sound Like The Ring Of A Bell”…
And YES! I love the TOWANDA here! LOL! Good humor, hope and LOVE (The real deal, not love’s understudy, or a case of identity theft lol!).
Speaking of “deflecting”.. I used to study Ki-Aikido, (The Art Of Peace), which teaches “Flow” as opposed to “Force”… One principle the masters teach: “To injure one’s opponent, was to ultimately injure one’s self”.
Negative emotions have their role in our lives, but frankly, they should have as short a life-span as necessary. mho.
Safe,
Ki-Aikido, I like that. I need to learn more about it.
Yeah, my story was beyond what I could imagine too, that’s why I didn’t figure it out for 25 freaking years! But my spath pretended to hate cops. Well, he didn’t have to pretend because he hates everyone, but I didn’t KNOW that he was spending all his time at the cop shop. He told me he was afraid of cops because he’s a drug dealer and he didn’t want to get caught so he pretends to keep a low profile. But it’s just the opposite. He audaciously move right into the spot light and makes friends with the enemy. That is his MO. That way if he ever does get caught, he will have them all bending over backwards to protect him, probably because he’s got dirt on all of them.
Now I realize that all spaths do stuff like that. they all are obsessed with ingratiating themselves with authorities. Reminds me of Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver.