By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
How we define words and concepts helps us to see human behavior in a realistic way. When people make bad choices, and do bad things, things they know are wrong, they ARE still CHOICES, not accidents or mistakes, even though the consequences were unforeseen when they are caught and punished.
I’ve frequently heard people refer to what I consider to be deliberate and knowing “choices” as “mistakes.” In the sentence, “he made a mistake and robbed a liquor store,” my inclination is to scream, “NO, he did NOT make a ”˜mistake,’ he made a deliberate choice to rob a liquor store.” The mistake was he didn’t figure he would get caught, and he was wrong. He got caught and went to prison. The mistake, if any, was in thinking he would not get caught.
Wikipedia defines mistake: “A mistake is an error caused by a fault: the fault being misjudgment, carelessness, or forgetfulness. Now, say that I run a stop sign because I was in a hurry, and wasn’t concentrating, that is a mistake.”
Wikipeida also defines choice: “Choice consists of the mental process of judging the merits of multiple options and selecting one of them. While a choice can be made between imagined options (“what would I do if …?”), often a choice is made between real options, and followed by the corresponding action.”
Every living human starts making choices the moment we awaken each day. Do I get up, or do I stay in bed? Do I brush my teeth first or start the coffee? Sometimes our choices lead to unforeseen consequences that we do not want, but the mistake was in figuring out what the consequences of our actions would be, not in the choice we made, unwise though it may have been. The choice was a deliberate one.
Dickey Ray Chance
According to the public records held in the Marion County, Arkansas, Circuit Clerk’s Office concerning the investigation and arrest of Dickey Ray Chance for child pornography and Internet stalking of a child on July 19th, Chance is quoted as saying, “I realize what I have done is wrong and I am really sorry for the wrong I have committed. A terrible mistake on my behalf and (I) wish that it had never happened.”
Chance’s behavior over a one-year period to carry on a sexually explicit Internet conversation with a person identified as a 14-year-old girl was a choice. The mistake was in judging the consequences of his behavior, and finding out that the “girl” was a Marion County sheriff’s deputy. He immediately lost his job, his benefits, his home, his wife and family, as well as his status in the community and his ability to make a living.
The unintended consequence (being arrested) of his behavioral choice was a mistake, but what he did was a choice.
Making excuses
Many times the people we think have a high level of psychopathic traits will excuse their choices as “mistakes” in an effort to shift the blame for those choices off themselves. There is no doubt that Chance knew it was both legally wrong and morally wrong for him to carry on a sexual discussion over the Internet, or any other way, with a 14-year-old girl, yet he chose to do this action multiple times over a one-year period. This was no error in judgment; it was a deliberate choice. His error in judgment was in thinking he could get away with this behavioral choice without having any legal consequences, and without being exposed as a pedophile.
My psychopathic son, Patrick, knew it was “wrong” to steal, he knew it was “wrong” to kill, yet he made the choices to do both. The mistake he made, however, was in thinking that he would not get caught, even without making much, if any, effort to disguise who had committed those crimes. In fact, he actually bragged about his intention to kill his victim before he did so, and afterwards as well. The choice to kill her was just that, a choice, but the biggest mistake in his life was in not realizing that some other people, even among his petty-criminal associates who, while they may have been dishonest, were not full-fledged psychopaths, and would not view his choices as admirable and macho.
People high in psychopathic traits frequently make choices that harm other people, thinking they can get away unscathed by consequences for these choices. The man who decides to cheat on his wife, but when he gets caught, cries about what a “mistake” it was and how “sorry he is for having hurt her.” The person who steals something, then when caught cries about how they “made a mistake,” hoping the victim of their choice will give them unearned trust again and forgiveness for their “mistake.” The criminal bank robber or rapist wants the public to view his/her behavior as a “mistake,” almost an “accident,” that happened rather than as a deliberate evil choice to do wrong.
The word “mistake” even indicates to me an “accidental” nature of an event, rather than a consequence of a deliberate choice. When we choose to give unearned trust to a repeat offender of bad choices, the same way a parole board lets a bank robber out of prison early when he pleads “I’ve learned my lesson, it was just a big mistake,” we are also making a choice, and we will have to deal with those consequences of our choices. In dealing with a psychopath, I can almost guarantee it will be a mistake with consequences we won’t like.
I believe psychopaths look at us and they mirror ‘us’ in the beginning. Deep down, they hate themselves and they want to reflect back all the good in us. They can only keep up the act for so long until their true colors show. It’s their self-hate that is their demise.
Sky, it does make sense, but I have issues with the first two spaths that don’t go along with that. It is confusing for me.
The first 1 (stalker), was nothing like anyone in my family. He was so different, that it always seemed kind of tense when he was around them. They didn’t care for him, and he didn’t like any of them (well except for the 2 spaths that helped him stalk me, but that wasn’t until after I left him.) . I didn’t know how scary he was until after I left. Before, he just seemed to be turning into a complete jerk, and I left pretty quick. I did not let him treat me like crap (like I did the last one). He was the most dangerous, as he did plot to kill me and my kids.
Also, I was never madly in love with him. It just wasn’t there, and probably because I hadn’t gotten over the man I loved before him. I loved my bf before stalker so very much. In the end, my family ran him off, and I was young and dumb (we both were). We had been good friends before we were bf/gf, and we did at least stay that way after. I think a part of me will always love him.
My ex-husband was also nothing like my family. He came from Ireland, was an engineer, happy, bouncy, fun to be around. He seemed so innocent and everyone trusted him. Too bad I did. He ripped about $30K off of me and $20K from my mom. He also informed me (after we were divorced) that he tried to get his ma to refinance her house so she could give him money to buy a new truck. He had asked me for money during this same convo, in which I laughed so hard.
Neither one of those two were familiar to me in any way. Still even now, I cannot figure out how they could be.
Now, my last ex was a lot like my family. He fit right in with them. They liked him except a couple of the spaths found an excuse of racism (my ex is 1/2 sioux indidan), but still they were nice to him. He was a strange mix of my brother, my dad, and mostly my mother. Talk about a nightmare of a person! LMAO! His family is even a lot like my dad’s family. I did not know this information at first, and after I slowly found out I knew what I was in for. I had a plan to carefully get away so I didn’t get hurt (physically) from him. My gut feeling didn’t like him from the beginning, and I knew better than to not listen. I thought I was being paranoid, and I should be more understanding. I was in a bad situation, so why shouldn’t I be more understanding of someone else’s? STUPID ME! LOL! Always listen to the gut!
Skylar, to follow up on your post, you said this:
I’ve had 3 german shepards in my life and I noticed a funny thing about them. When they encountered another german shepard, they get very excited. Much more than when they encounter any other type of dog. I wondered why. It’s not like they look in the mirror and know what they look like, so why would they get excited to see a dog that looks like themselves? Well they are just dogs and I’m sure that they don’t even realize that they are extra excited, but it is obvious to me. I finally figured out that they are reacting that way because they are remembering their siblings from their litter and their mother. The look was imprinted in their memories and that’s what is familiar to them.
I believe this is very true, and you see it in human beings too. How many people pick dogs who look like themselves?
How many married couples do you see who look like they could be brother and sister?
Superkid
Jen,
my family never liked my spath, but they were nice to him and treated him well. He impressed them by fixing things that nobody else could. He was very handy, which nobody in my family (except me) is.
The similarities that our subconscious is picking up on, are not on the surface. I think it is more about the way they interact emotionally with us. Actually, I believe it is their manipulativeness that we find “attractive”. My spath was very protective of me, it appeared. My parents were also very protective, of me, or so they made it seem. They even commented that spath would always take care of me. This was the big lie. Both my parents and the spath wanted only to control me. They also wanted me to suffer. Spath was poisoning me, literally and my parents were emotionally toxic. All this stuff went under the radar, so often times, we don’t see but we feel what is happening. Controlling behavior was presented as protective and concerned. That made it seem like love. So that is what was familiar and attractive to me.
Hi guys
I have really missed LF! I have been away for over a month with only occasional net access…am back to London in a couple of days and hope to be participating more. Still not quite up to telling my story but this list of psycho quotes is a great idea i think..helps us to see how our psychos are not unique which helps in feeling less isolated..
A couple of mine from evil sis..
You always exagerrate!
You have always been so theatrical..
Don’t be so melodramatic!
You were always a sensitive child..
You were always crying…you were pathetic..useless…
But also she has said..
You were a knife criminal..people feared for their life…!!
Err so i was both a cry baby incapable of anything AND a dangerous criminal…truly i had a much more interesting childhood than i have memories of….
A lot of what they say contradicts itself but they seem so convinced of each thing they say..i guess what they are truly convinced of is their total overarching sense of entitlement…
I have had enough of them..which is no bad thing. 🙂
JEN!
I am laughing hysterically over here! You are so funny! Your ex is such a moron! Which one? All of them. The “I don’t know” guy was just priceless. I cannot stop laughing at that. And then, “That was yesterday. Quit bringing up the past.” That just floored me. HILARIOUS! And I thought mine was ridiculous when he said he’d been good for TWO WEEKS (that part said really dramatically) so why am I still hung up on stuff he did for the past year? He has CHANGED (dramatic again) Look at his track record! He actually said, “It’s been two weeks and I haven’t done anything wrong! Admit it that I am a perfect angel and you just don’t have enough empathy and compassion to forgive me!” Priceless.
Yes, they all read the same retard book.
Sky,my experience is much like yours. I was always attracted to controlling men. They seemed so strong and self-possessed and I believed they would take care of me. This taking care of me wasvery, very important, because I had an underlying belief that I could not take care of myself. That came directly from child-hood and a very contollingmother. She sheilded me so much that I never was allowed to experience the things that people experience when they are growing up that lead to a feeling of mastery. She was also a real obsessive/compulsive typ, so she was a real perfectionist, and believed that only she knew the best way to do something, so she usually did it, and I never learned how, or if I did, I didn’t think I’d done it very well.
So I marry who I used to refer to (in my own mind) as, Mr. Clean, the OCD miltary macho guy who was going to take careof me….ahhhh no…not so much.
He rearrainged my cabinets, told me how to cook, stood behind me as I hung clothes on the line and crtisized how I was doing it…decided what brand of everything we’d buy…dictated EVERYTHING.
I felt wiped out and erased.
What I didn’t know was that all those control issues were coming from a place of very little control, and a lot of insecurity. It must have been a tornado inside his psyche. Ha.
So, for me, it comes down to growing up, and learning how to take care of myself.
The funny thing is, I went from super macho x control freak, to super irresponsible drug freak who thought I would take care of him!!! I was still trying to figure out how to take care of myself. But it’s not at all unusual to go from extreme to extreme…It’s just one way of trying not to repeat the same mistake a second time….but it’s still a reflection of the issue at hand. LOL. And through both of these relationships ran my trauma bonding that probably started in childhood.
I did not come from an abusive home. That’s part of the reason it’s so hard to accept. It was incredably disfunctional though.
My Dad had a one-room little house built in the back yard for my Grandfather who lived with us til I was about 5. When he went to a nursing home, my Dad usedit as his man cave. He would spend his time out there drinking by himself, until it was time for dinner.
My mom stayed up all night, reading, and went to bed aboutm an hour before my dad got up. He’d head for work and I’d get up and get myself off to school. My mom would get out of bed at about noon or 1:00, and she’d leave the house andgo shopping or whatever, about an hour before I’d get home from school. She wouldn’t return again til around 7:30 in the evening. We never ate dinner till 10:00 at night. By this time my brother, who was 12 years older than me had been drafted and was overseas. So, I was home alone, alot. I don’t remember feeling much about it at the time, but after I married firstspath, and he would sit in the bar up until bedtime, when he’d come home, looking for sex, I remember a certain feeling comingover me at about the time the sun went down, and it was time to cook dinner. It was a sadness. I had that reaction for many years, and only recently have connected this family of origen dynamic to the fact that all my significant others left me alone justlike that while they ran around and played. And I just stayed put, waiting for them to come home, and love me. It still makes me very sad, just to think about it.
It’s obvious that we didn’t have a family….we had two parents avioding any contact with eachother, and both of them avoiding contact with me.
I think I was looking for a family my entire life and never really found one.
Wow Kim…what a story. And I don’t even want to go there at this moment, but you’ve nailed some of my own issues as well.
By the way, your ex hubby sounds extremely annoying. Sounds like you needed a GIANT fly swatter for him.