Contrary to a prevailing myth, sociopaths are really no smarter than the average individual”¦probably dumber. Sure, a good one can dupe you, but as I’ve written elswhere, this is no great shakes, as most of us can dupe each other if that’s our goal.
That’s because we enter relationships risking trust and faith in each other, which makes the exploitation of our trust and faith really easy. It takes no genius or particularly smart, crafty person to exploit this trust and faith. It’s as easy to do as it’s wrong.
And so, most sociopaths aren’t really that clever, or ingeniously bright. Most make messes not only of others’ lives, but their own too. Many end up in jail, and those who don’t are often finding trouble in other areas, exercising poor judgement all over the map, squandering friendships, family, and all sorts of meaningful opportunities.
By most standards of a successful life, sociopaths live lives of abject failure, accomplishing little more, at the end of the day, than having produced plenty of havoc and pain. None of this indicates that, as a group, sociopaths are smart.
Sometimes the media sensationalizes the sociopath as the dark, brilliantly predatory monster, especially in classic cases of psychopaths like Ted Bundy. But Ted Bundy wasn’t so smart. In the end, he was nothing but a vicious, sadistic murderer who managed to lure young, naïve girls sufficiently into his proximity to then viciously murder them.
How much of an accomplishment was this? To be able to lure naïve girls near enough to his car to then kidnap and kill them? Otherwise, OJ Simpson style, Bundy was ambushing dormitories at night and butchering innocent, sleeping college kids. Not exactly a genius, or courageous guy, at work here. Just a perverse, murderously violent, cowardly man.
Sure, Bundy was reputedly charming and articulate (video of him bears this out). But this didn’t make him “smart.” He was, clearly, adept at “masking” himself. But again, effective maskers aren’t smart; they’re just good maskers. And nonsociopaths routinely are good maskers.
Good masking, good self-disguising is a type of social skill, and not the purview of sociopaths exclusively. Also, many sociopaths are terrible maskers, just as many nonsociopaths are.
My point is that the “mask” is not an indication of “smartness.” It’s merely the case that some sociopaths, and some nonsociopaths, can mask aspects of themselves and their agendas effectively; but bear in mind, just as many do this very poorly.
In the end, sociopaths, as a group, have a poor track record of living effective lives. Rather, they live disruptive, unsatisfying lives”¦fraught with pathological attitudes and empathic deficits that bring misery to others and, correspondingly, much trouble and, at best, empty satisfaction, to themselves.
Sociopaths simply are not successful people. They may (or may not) skate along under the radar for some stretch of time, but this is not a “game” that smart people play, and that smart people get off on.
Only dumb people play this game. Only really dumb people live this way. Only really really dumb people derive satisfaction, for however long they can swing it, from pulling the wool over others’ eyes.
It’s just no great shakes to do this, and it doesn’t make you smart.
To lesson learned:
Per your statements, “The day before my mother died, spath sis and bro had her change the will to EXCLUDE me. They knew they were going to do this and didn’t tell me. They wanted the money all to themselves”
and
“I got nothing. Nothing from the house (sis/bro split it between themselves), I got out with a few pictures and that was it. She had a household of furniture and amazing china and silver that my bitch spath sis got. When I went by myself to the spath lawyers for the reading of the will after spath bro told me I was getting nothing, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing”
I had many similar things happen, after my mother died. She left no written will. I am the only female amongst my siblings, with three brothers, two older, one younger.
My mother (who my father told me was a Narcissist. I always suspected as much. When my best friend’s father died, my own mother borrowed >$1,500 from her, so my mother could take a trip to China & India. It left me feeling not only “one-down” .. like..why couldn’t she borrow money from HER OWN FRIENDS, HER OWN AGE, rather than humiliate me, in front of my best friend, who had been my best friend since I was age 15?), left no written Will.
My brother, the only one left in my region, after my other brothers moved out of state, had let my mother live with him, in the lower level of his large estate (in my opinion, “mansion”.. compared to where I have lived, for decades.)
I know, though, that, when my mother died, killed by a drunk driver, my brother went to her apartment, and scoped out her jewelry, because, when I and my other siblings were invited to help clean out her apartment, after she died, many of her Navajo jewelry pieces were missing. Seems like he “cherry picked” many of those pieces for himself and his wife. One example was a full strand of hollow silver, Navajo beads, imprinted with symbols, that I KNEW my mother had, because I still have a photo of her wearing them.
My mother had half a set of Danish Royal Copenhagen china, that she had inherited from her mother, passed down from female to female (my female cousin inherited her half, her brother didn’t inherit it.) My brother had had this set of China of my mother’s stored in his house, when my mother lived with he and his wife. After my mother died, my brothers all joined (it seems) on the same wavelength, to exclude me, in parts, from inheriting from my mother.
Suddenly, I got, from my three brothers, that my mother did not want me to have the Royal Copenhagen china. It was a “done deal” .. It sucked.
I also noticed pieces missing from her estate, after everything was divvied.., like the antique gold garnet earrings that my Danish female ancestor had owned, and many other things. I noticed that my brother’s wife kept the black onyx earrings, stone in bezels [she wore them in public, after my mother had died], that I had given as a present, to my mother. It was sickening. I know how you feel. Honestly, I do. Seriously, I still do not know who all is a “spath” among my male siblings, or whether any of them is just your “average” greedy narcissist.
Frankie, sociopath are dumb, only they believe they are superior to any of as, the Sociopath that come in to my live [ thank goodness is no longer in my live] never achieved anything in his live, all he has done hurt other people.When I did some research.
This website that Donna Anderson has put up has been real great
and helped me a great deal, her book also makes a great read and has lots of information.
Never try and change any one that is not able to see how poisonous they are to people they come in touch with, just as a leopard never changes it’s spots neither will they, as long as they find a victim for there needs and satisfaction.
I have also found that I have a built in warning mechanism and if I don’t listen to my inner warnings I always get hurt. So this warning signal has become my best self protection as it never lets me down.
Adding to what I confided above .. when I was distraught over this situation, I confided what I felt to a trusted female in the jewelry business. She was either Hispanic or Asian. She commiserated with me, understood, with me being the only female of my siblings, how could brothers treat a sister this way. She seemed to understand the “tradition” handed down, from woman to woman, that if the only thing a woman had to leave her daughter was jewelry (and no property or land), then that would, naturally, go to her daughter. If the woman had more than jewelry, then she would divide it amongst her children, but, if she had only one daughter, her jewelry would go to that only daughter, as her inheritance. What wonders, that, miraculously, this female, almost a stranger, would understand my circumstances. Anyone else understand this situation?
One/Joy—weellllll, what a surprise! HUH? What I want to know is isn’t there some kind of law that if you are in prison you dont’ get your PENSION THAT YOU “EARNED” WHILE YOU WERE COMMITTING CRIMES? HUH? WTF?
Yea, I think they should confiscate his property and make him pay for his room and board and jailers…so he doesn’t cost the tax payers anything.
Several states work their prisoners on cotton and other farms, hoeing the crops, make them grow a lot of their own food, etc. I think ones like Williams ought to have to break rocks with a sledge hammer! That man is EVIL!
Hens,
Well, I have to take care of myself, as I’m in pain most of the time. hard to eat. Looks like I have a golf ball on the side of my face!
I did something today for myself that I was proud of though!
I fear dentists BIG TIME! I had a REEEEEALLY bad experience with a dentist when I was a child. My mother loved it that she tortured me, so she kept taking me back. I believe dentist was spath too. oh who knows….anywho, so it set up a major future fear and anxiety with dental related procedures.
I decided that since I have an abscess under THREE teeth and that they have to come out, and I know I suffer this anxiety, I wasn’t going to allow myself to be subjected to something that would be anxiety provoking, thus also increasing my hypertension. Self care…..so i called my insurance company and asked what exactly my benefits were and what it all entailed and the criteria expected in referral to an oral surgeon. Well LL got the job DONE! I get my referral so I can go to an oral surgeon for sedation. I”m glad I stood up for what would be comfortable for me. Hens, the dentist refused to extract with as infected as my mouth is right now. The lidocaine would not have worked. The oral surgeon, however, CAN remove it, because I will be ASLEEP during the procedure. No pain worries. I’ve had oral surgery before. Good experiences with both.
Thanks Hens, I’m ON IT! and will be taking good care of my teeth (self care) from now on. God, I cannot believe how much I neglected my health and dental health for that man…my head was way up his ass……
LL
LL-girl I am SO sorry about your pain. I understand about your fear of dentists cuz I have the same thing. Make sure you take ALL of your antibiotics and eat yogurt because antibiotics can mess with your system. Do what Oxy says about the ice and I am SO glad that you’re going to the oral surgeon. It is the best thing-like getting wisdom teeth out. I hope you start feeling better soon.
LL!!! TOWANDA GIRL FRIEND!!! That was great thinking! Part of the reason for not extracting the teeth when the infection is rampant though is the spreading of the infection into the blood stream, so don’t expect him to take them out immediately and be disappointed if he doesn’t….wait to see him before you decide what he is going to do, but in the meantime, at least you will know in advance you aren’t going to suffer during the procedure.
Good for you for taking care of YOURSELF! BIG HUGS!!!!!
Why is it that so many of us have multiple sociopaths plaguing our lives??? NM. That was more of a comment than a question—-one that we’ve discussed here many times. Yep, being raised by an emotionally erratic & abusive highly narcissistic mother, along with a pathologically greedy, profound N/SP brother, & a distant, uncommunicative father….well, makes ya ripe for the SP’s pickin’s, doesn’t it!
I just wanted to add my inheritance woes to those of
KindHeart, LL, & zoomit.
I’ve been waiting for nearly 9 yrs for my mother’s estate to be settled. It’s a MF Bitch, is what it is! My case is just the opposite of the others’…..instead of having to deal with it as executor, I’m the one with NO power, with my hideous brother having it all. And he has no intention of settling the estate because he’s a very wealthy man who doesn’t need the money, who’ll leave all of his wealth to his kids……& if he never gets the estate settled, that means he gets to deny me & my son & grandson what’s ours. WHO WOULD DO THAT???? A SOCIOPATH, THAT’S WHO!!!
Oh & besides my N/SP brother, there’s my criminally psychopathic cousin who had Mother’s will changed leaving everything to HER shortly before Mother died. It cost us $450k to get the estate back from her 7 yrs ago.
The least of it is that my mother’s personal possessions were to be divided between the 2 of us within 90 days of her death…..I haven’t gotten any of that YET. There’s also her $500k house which has been left vacant & untended for all this time. AND the 1300 acre ranch on prime GulfCoast land, bordered by 2 major highways, just south of rapidly-expanding Houston. There’s very little $ left in the estate after battling my cousin, so we’re basically land poor…..& dear brother has yet to list the ranch or make any serious attempt to sell it.
And, oh yeah, there’s my home which my mother paid cash for me in 1998. But it was put in her name because she wanted to pay the taxes, insurance, utilities & upkeep. Then she died very unexpectedly. And my brother now insists that if I ever want to have the deed in my name, I have to pay him (the estate) current FMV for it (2x what was paid for it in 98). And he reserves the “right” to evict me any time he wants!
On a completely different subject: if I ever had any doubt that J’s a SP, Charlie Sheen has eliminated that doubt for me! His whole syntax, his grandiosity & contempt for “the trolls”…..oh my…..I never heard J go into rants with that ferocity, but there’s a lot of similarity in the attitude. The word “Period” that Sheen often repeats in his rants…..that was a common, oft-repeated habit of J’s…..both speaking & writing. I commented to him, back when we were still communicating, that it was “an affectation of arrogant infantile entitlement.” Watching Sheen say it…..”Period! End of story!” after his pronouncements makes me see exactly how close I was in analyzing J’s use of it! 🙂
LL – When my Xspathtoid moved in with me his teeth were rotten and falling out. So me being the sweet guy i am paid to have them pulled out and fit with dentures. I made monthly pymt’s, including about twelve months after I kicked his butt out. I hope all his new bf’s appreciate that……………………………..!!!!
Hens?
Holy SHIAT!!! Dentures are expensive!! I have uppers and I’ll tell ya, if it weren’t for insurance I would have been so screwed!! That’s amazing!
Hey Hens, quick question, my wiener is acting really wierd. Have you noticed when you don’t feel well that the wieners want to be near you like ALL the time? Mine has been all over me! Last night, he was on my lap and kept nudging his nose into my face and then when I faced him, he was trying to lick inside my mouth lol! You think he knows it’s infected? I wondered….