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.
Ox Drover
Here’s another one from the NYTimes…a few more crooked politicos got caught with their finger in the pie!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/nyregion/11kruger.html?_r=1&hp
I love it when I see them being brought to court and outed! I think we ought to take them all to trial and start over with a fresh set of crooks, the ones we have now have waaaay too much power!
YesIt'sMe
Claudia,
I want to applaud your explanation of “What the Psychopath Feels” on your Psychopathy Awareness blog! I read it the other day & was really impressed with your articulation of their emotional traits & behaviors. I’ve fwd’d it to a couple of friends who have sociopathic family members.
Your descriptions of their CONTEMPT, their GLEE, boredom, & the way they express anger were eye-opening in their accuracy.
Thanks!
If anyone here hasn’t read this, I highly recommend it!
http://psychopathyawareness.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/the-psychopaths-emotions-what-does-he-feel/
Claudia
YesIt’sMe, thanks so much. I observed it all first-hand, just as many of you did. The psychopath’s momentary glee at “winning” and his fits of anger/frustration when he didn’t get his way were the emotions that stuck with me. The rest of the time, he had a reptilian tranquility, even when our lives were falling apart and our families were being destroyed (by us).
New Winter, if you’re still online: I also wrote a post on Idealize, Devalue and Discard on the psychopathyawareness blog that talks about what you’ve experienced today. Like you, I was dumbfounded by the big contrast between how much the psychopath praised me in the beginning and how he began to belittle me in our last few weeks together. For me, the devaluation happened the moment I asked my husband for a divorce (because that’s when he thought he had conquered me and lost interest). I wondered, at the time, just as you did this morning: what did I do for his opinion to do a 180 degree switch? After I read Hare’s Snakes in Suits, I realized that’s a pattern that every psychopath engages in with everyone he gets “close to”. The post I wrote is about how the victim feels about being idealized, then devalued, and why psychopaths do this. Your feelings today resonated with me a lot. Like you, initially, I was hurt and baffled by this sudden devaluation, especially when I had (almost) sacrificed my marriage and upset my entire family just to be with the psychopath. The reward for my sacrifice for the sake of “our love” was being suddenly devalued. Here’s the link to the post about this:
http://psychopathyawareness.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/the-psychopaths-relationship-cycle-idealize-devalue-and-discard/
lesson learned
Claudia
I just read the article again, that itsme provided. You are very good at giving an in depth description of what a psychopath does and what a psychopath IS. This is why Steve Becker’s articles here are probably some of my personal favorites because he is insightful, expresses excellently what a psychopath is/does as well as working with these people that, in my opinion, further validates my experiences with mine.
Keep up the good work!
LL
Claudia
LL, I love Steve Becker’s articles too. He nails the psychopaths’ perspectives and gives us a very lucid peek into their minds. It shows that he’s observed closely exploitative people in therapy, as he states himself, and knows how to describe how they think. My articles are more about the victim’s perspective as s/he examines interactions with a psychopath, with some pain and puzzlement. They’re the aftermath of the “writing cure” therapy I underwent. I can relate to so many of the emotions expressed here because I’ve felt them myself, and sometimes still do.
skylar
Great work Claudia,
I also read the boomerang, which is very well written.
(Plus I like the pictures, where did you get the couple in the sand?)
Claudia
Sky, I get these images mostly by looking for free images on the internet:). Some of them have watermarks, and are unusable, but many don’t. If you look hard enough you find some pretty good ones.
Ox Drover
Claudia,
One of the little tricks that many psychopaths seem to do is they are “married” to someone they abuse, use and belittle, but they want to appear “solid” in their community…they will have a “mistress” on the side (or in the case of my X-BF, he had a harem of mistresses) while they are married. They do NOT want a divorce from the wife, though they of course tell (each) mistress that they do. If they think a mistress is going to push them or upset their apple cart by telling the wife then they will immediately dump the mistress.
When my X. BF got caught with a woman, his wife kicked his arse out and divorced him. she had suspected but never been able to prove he was cheating—never did figure out why she waited for such PROOF…actually catching him in the ACT.
But he immediately started hunting for a new wife to replace his lost “respectable wife” so that his many mistresses wouldn’t press him to marry them. He picked me for his “respectable” wife but fortunately I outed him before I married him….I feel sorry for the wife he has now, I know exactly how he is treating her and “it Ain’t good.”
new winter
Claudia,
Is the psychopathyawareness blog yours?? These articles are SO good!!!!!! WOW WOW WOW!! Thank you so much 🙂 Speechless.
Claudia
Oxy, you’re so right. My psychopath is still with his wife in a VERY open marriage (on his side alone), but he told me, and I’m sure many other mistresses, that he wanted to marry me. He put a lot of pressure on me for a year promising marriage, just so that I’d leave my husband. He also told his wife about me though, once I told my husband about him. The big difference was that my husband was about to file for divorce, while his wife clung to him, and probably still does, no matter how much he cheats and mistreats her. That’s something I couldn’t understand until Sky and Kim started to explain it to me last week: trauma bonds. How people can stay, of their own volition, with an emotionally abusive person even when the abuse becomes overt because of trauma bonding.
As for your situation, I’m so glad you outed the psychopath and didn’t play the role of the “respectable” wife for him. My psychopath’s wife is, as far as I know, a decent woman. And though she offers a facade of normalcy and respectability for him, he certainly doesn’t treat her with the respect she deserves.
By the way, I’ve got to confess: the therapist in my novel The Seducer is partly based on my therapist, partly on Steve Becker (he already knows about that and has read it and written the back cover praise for the novel) and partly based on YOU. For instance: your DOORMAT comment, which you made several years ago, made it into one of the therapy sessions. So did your comment about no matter how much you may pet a snake it won’t grow fur and become a puppy. How true! You have pearls of wisdom which seem perfect for a novel and offer a lot of therapy and guidance. I hope you don’t mind that I put a few of them in mine:).