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.
New Winter, I tried the space thing, but it doesn’t work for me:(. It’s okay, those happy face smiles look much cuter on you:) Yes, we are going through some of the same anger issues, but we’ll recover once we really break ALL kind of contact with the psychopathic ex’s. That doesn’t mean not writing our books, of course, because that’s a very positive, constructive thing to do. It means ending any kind of active or passive interaction with the psychopaths themselves. If I had stopped reading his spam and googling him three years ago, I wouldn’t be so angry now. You’re at the beginning of this healing process, so you can learn from our mistakes and move on with your life, healthy and happy, much faster than some of us did.
As for true love, my wonderful, trustworthy man came along almost 20 years ago, when I fell in love with him and married him back in college! In case you haven’t read about this on the threads, I almost left my honest, decent, accomplished and loving husband for the phony, shallow and evil psychopath. My kids were also devastated by this. That’s also part of why I carry with me so much anger (and probably guilt too, as Oxy was pointing out). By the way, you mentioned sending me some of your novel chapters. I’d love to read them whenever you wish to send them.
Claudia
I know that he is cyberstalking you and that it makes you feel afraid. I think that is his intent. As long as he thinks he is affecting you he will continue. The question is, what happens if he thinks he stopped affecting you? Will he go away from the boredom or will he ramp it up?
It takes some thought and planning to devise a way to get what you want: for him to go away.
You understand him, you know what he is and how his mind works. They hate being bored, so you could try to bore him.
With my exP, before I even knew what he was, I came to understand that everything he was doing was meant to put me in a state of fear – which it did BTW, but not for the reasons he gave me. I was afraid of him! I didn’t know why he would want me to believe homeland security was after him. I understood though, that he was ultimately going to kill me because I finally saw that his behavior was driven by hatred for me.
So I gave him what he wanted. I acted paranoide and petrified and I made him think that he was my only comfort. I pretended like it was him and me against the world. This kept him from ramping up the drama. I beat him to the punch and ramped it up for him, but at least I was in control of it. Then, I used the drama as an excuse to plan my exit. I began removing things from the house and told him I had to do it because it was “evidence” that I had to hide. So he helped me implement my own plan.
My situation was different from yours but the point is that they are easily manipulated if you know what they are and why they are doing it. They live in a world of stories. Always partly believing the story so that they can feel “real”.
You can take control by not believing the story.
Refusing contact with him is the first step, but if you still feel in danger, take control of the story.
Here is an example of dumb:
My spath texts me today and asks if his GF can pick up our son because he is on medication, on which he cannot operate a vehicle. I tell him to ride with her. (prove he is where he says he is) and he says the drug also makes him car sick.
I told him I did not want our son in the care of someone in that state, and took the day off (he is day care and I don’t need it today).
Blaghh!
FAD,
good response!
Claudia, I lost a reply to your above comment to my comment….then was so frustrated I went and cleaned my living room from ceiling to floor and threw out another bag of books and magazines and “stuff” I don’t want.
Yea, that “back door” contact that we have with them is CONTACT too. The people here who are struggling with trying to CO-parent with a psychopath—can you even imagine how frustrating that would be to the victim parent and what the P does to the kids as a way to GET TO the victim-parent? Years ago I noticed this “using the kids like a baseball bat to hit the other parent.” But I didn’t know what I was seeing was a psychopath using their own kids as a weapon to continue to abuse the other parent. I also saw the DAMAGE it did to the kids as well.
I used to know a woman who was probably VERY high in psychopathic traits, though at the time I didn’t see a lot of evidence of it but years later when I got the rest of the story it all made sense (People high in P traits CAN hide those from others for quite some time especially if you are not romantically involved with them) This woman had a child by her husband, then she got preg by his brother, divorced #1 and married brother #2–both guys were pretty High in P traits ( could you imagine???) LOL then she and #2 husband got a divorce and she started OPENLY SLEEPING around with first one guy then another, and the families and the brothers fought over the kids like dogs over a couple of bones. The girl turned out like her mama (surprise there, huh?) I haven’t seen the boy since he was a kid (he’s 40-ish now) but supposedly he is settled and doing okay, the girl turns up on my radar once in a while as she lives in the same community I do, she is the typical “meth ho” life style, including a couple of little chillens of her own to abuse.
I can’t even imagine being the loving parent of a kid and having to “share” custody of them with a psychopath. My prayers go out to any man or woman who does have to share custody with a psychopath, it has got to be a miserable journey.
I sort of keep an eye out about what is going on in my P son’s life as much as I can through the parole board etc. because he did try to have me killed—and I don’t doubt he will again if he gets a chance…so I try my best to keep him from getting information about me at all…and give him DIS-information as a way to throw him off my scent, but it isn’t because I’m angry at him. I also realized last week when I let egg donor lure me in to GET information about son C, to find out if he is living here still, etc. that I have to BE MORE CAREFUL than I already am.
I have been working on drawing a LINE between the baby boy I loved and the MAN in the prison cell…so that I can remember fondly the little boy I loved and enjoyed, and not let the thoughts of the MAN intrude on my good memories, but I’m finding today as I was cleaning out things that even the things I had saved from his kindergarten years and news paper clippings of my P son–well, they went into the trash, I didn’t need to hold on to them any more.
As I went through and cleaned out scrap books of vacations and things the kids and I did together I put the ones that I thought son C might want into a box with other stuff of his that I had found here after he left, he still hasn’t come to get it yet so I’m sending them his way, if he wants them fine, if not, he can toss them, I’m no longer sentimentally attached to all that stuff. There was a time I would have LITERALLY risked my life to get it out of the house if the house was on fire–but not now, it is just STUFF and who will care about it in 50 years? Why am I holding on to it, dusting it etc.? It just doesn’t mean much any more. I guess maybe it is kind of like your wedding photos don’t mean much after you come home and find the guy sleeping with your best friend in your bed.
Having been a t one time a professional photographer, I have TONS of photos and multiple copies of many of them….so split up a bunch of them and tossed a lot more, again, they just aren’t that special to me any more.
I’m getting a box of stuff from my late husband and his family for my step kids to pass on to them if they want it…Just down sizing to the things I use and a few (much fewer) sentimental and decorative things…the rest goes out.
Sky, Oxy and Star, I see what you’re saying. I’m a very emotional person and get riled up easily. The psychopath knows this and pushes my buttons through comments on my blog and spam emails. I’ve got to try the REAL no contact and gray rock thing that Oxy suggested first–not the half-way or, to use her apt phrase, “backdoor” measures I took–and see if it works.
New Winter, I have an idea that may work with your idea. I think that a big advantage of this website is that it’s so well-organized yet SIMPLE TO USE even for people who have a computer skill phobia, like me. If it were more difficult, I wouldn’t like this website as much. Now I’m hooked, both by the friendships I’m establishing here and by the elegance and user-friendliness of the lovefraud website itself. The shortest route between two points is still a straight line:).
However, I was reading two days ago Donna’s thread about her new book and about how she’s starting an educational program in high schools, to inform kids about psychopathy. I think information about psychopathy should be like Health or Sex Ed: it’s certainly just as useful in protecting kids early on.
Just the past year or two I’ve noticed that several schools, including my kids’ school here in Michigan, have invited guest counselors/experts to talk to kids about bullying. Bullying got a lot of media attention recently, because there were cases of suicide as a result of this behavior. And, we all know, many bullies have psychopathic traits and torment kids as a power/control game.
If there are any teachers or school counselors and administrators among you reading lovefraud who have any influence on such informational programs for kids, or New Winter, if you wish to help with this new educational goal/program, that might be a great way to channel our talents, connections and resources. One of the luckiest breaks you got, New Winter, is that you are so young and learned about this personality disorder early on. Many of us here wish we had known about psychopaths at your age too, to avoid them. Or, better yet, known about them BEFORE getting involved. That’s Donna’s new project, from what I’ve learned by reading some of her blog entries. If any of us have the connections or skills to help lovefraud inform kids early on about psychopathy, I say let’s do it!
FAD, makes me wonder if he IS WORKING SOMEWHERE—the “I can’t drive” and “I can’t ride” either makes me think he is going to be somewhere else and wanted the GF to pick up Junior…..hee hee Good for you for suspecting and nipping him in the bud! LOL If he pulls this kind of stuff again you might have someone follow him and see where he goes…does GF not work either?
One/Joy, congrats on your finds! Sounds like it cheered you up too. I’m with you too, Star, great finds at GoodWill—that’s my store! LOL Well, Star, Hens is gonna have to go straight before we hook up and I think I don’t need to hold my breath! Besides, he’s so good looking and charming he could get lots of younger stuff! LOL
Claudia,
That is an awesome idea!! I’d love to get involved, so by all means please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help 🙂
In regards to the techno-phobia, I totally see your point! This site does offer a great, simple layout for reading blog posts and responding. My biggest problem with it was that I didn’t even know people commented on it! If I did, I would have started responding/recovering ages ago! I’d see posts from like 2007 with comments, but think “there’s no way people still post on these”.
So it just took me a long time to figure out this discussion format, whereas I guess what I’d like to implement is something very similar, almost identical to a simple blog like this, but with one key difference — everything is user-generated. Users (like us) create the posts, and then anyone who wants to comment on that specific topic can comment. (Instead of me dumping my story about a cyberpath on a “Dumb Sociopaths” post :P). Because of this, users would KNOW to register and start posting and begin recovering immediately. I found that as soon as I started posting, I got SO much better SO much faster!
It’d also be really nice, because it’d let you see all posts by a user you admire, and really get to know them. This would make it a lot easier to develop friendships and really gain an identity on the site.
let me know if this helps clarify the forum idea!
EDIT: I’ll throw together a little prototype so you all get an idea of what it’d look like!
New Winter, My personal opinion is that this format works better because Donna still has a say about which posts get posted (I would call that “editorial judgment”) and yet we can all comment on any post freely as well as submit to her thoughtful articles for consideration.
I think that having some editorial judgment on a website is very important to its quality. To give you an analogy from the world of fiction, a few years ago this website called wattpad.com started user generated posts. Anyone can log in and post any fictional piece they want on it. But publishers don’t find it very useful because there’s no editorial judgment or standards at all.
I think the best websites in whatever field, be it psychology or fiction, have an optimal combination of democratic input and some editorial discretion. That’s what lovefraud has. It’s just my personal opinion, but I think this website was designed with a structure that is absolutely the best of both worlds. I wish I had thought of it first, or could have done it, for psychopathyawareness:). Just kidding! But, honestly, I really like this website just the way it is and am glad I’m participating on it. As for the informing kids program, maybe we can hatch some good ideas here, putting our minds, connections and talents together.