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.
Hi Stargazer ~
Really off subject here but thanks for the info on travel to Costa Rica. In high school my oldest son was in a foreign exchange language program. He spent six weeks in Costa Rica and fell in love with the country and it’s people. He has returned several times for business and pleasure. The way he describes it, I have always wanted to go. With our current weather, the thought of warmth and sunshine is really captivating.
Thanks for your answer.
Love – MiLo
Thank you, Valleygirl and Aussiegirl!
I do appreciate your input regarding An Education. I had the same reaction, Aussie! And like you, I am glad that I saw it. I am also glad that I was at a point where I was “ready” to see it, however. It may have turned out to be problematic, if not.
Valleygirl, Sorry to hear about your encounter with your neighbor. It is great that you are aware of the issue you are dealing with in terms of your PTSD and your outbursts. Now you can move on to the next step, and find ways that will help you approach things differently. Never stop speaking up for yourself and others, however!!! It is clear that you know just how to approach, but the hard part comes when you must gain control of your emotions so that you are acting in ways more applicable to a particular occurance/situation. You will get there. Use the tools you have been or are being given. Get that pent up anger out in appropriate ways, before it comes out the way it had. Oh, and what also helps is addressing the issue at hand as soon as possible so that it does not build inside you. But you seem to be aware of this as well. You seem to have a grasp on what you need to do, and seem very smart.
Have a great week, ahead!
Eden
dancingnancies,
per “i didn’t get the impression that Leonardo DiCaprio’s character killed his family” I think the reason he dissociated was from the shock/trauma of his wife having killed (drowned) his children (Apparently she was mentally ill. )”
But at the end of the movie, we find out, yes, she WAS mentally ill, but we also find out that HE set the fire that killed his wife BECAUSE she had drowned their children. I got the feeling that he also suffered PTSD from fighting overseas, so her drowning her children could have sent him even further “over the edge”
..sort of like Battered Woman’s Syndrome, only Battered Man’s Syndrome.
Constantine,
You wrote, “Even granting that he WAS abused, what does it matter in terms of your relationship to him NOW?”
It helps me to UNDERSTAND his sickness, if I can pinpoint the “symptoms” of his mental illness/illnesses [or at least what he demonstrated to me..what I saw/interpreted], even if I cannot know exactly which mental illnesses/illnesses he had.
Yes. I know many who have suffered childhood sexual abuse turned out ok. One dear friend of mine was sexually abused by her grandfather at age five; it didn’t make HER a monster.
I found 52 of the 170 “red flag” traits that my ex seemed to fit, from http://www.heartlessbitches.com/rants/manipulator/redflaglist.shtml .. I also thought that maybe he also has “schizophrenia-spectrum psychosis” since alchies have schizophrenia from past alcoholism, and he was an alcoholic for years. I read, also that
a person to have several Cluster B disorders simultaneously, and I suspect that he has/had several.
He, to me, exhibited impulsive loss of control, egoistic exploitation of interpersonal relationships, and a tendency to overestimate his own importance.
The part of one article had in it a section “Ability to Love Impulse Control Moral Reasoning” & had this sentence in it: “I think of sociopaths as individuals who completely lack ability to love and have impaired impulse control and moral reasoning. Given the Inner Triangle, it should come as no surprise that it can be difficult to find people who have only one cluster B personality disorder. For that reason individuals with antisocial personality, narcissistic personality, borderline personality and histrionic personality often have symptoms of the other disorders. If someone gets a diagnosis of only one of these, it doesn”t mean that the person doesn”t also have one or all of the others”
Then I read the FOG Banner article, “Emotional Regulation Disorder” .. in particular, the part about ERD Characteristics & Traits, because I think my ex demonstrated many of those characteristics, including Alienation Blaming Bullying Chaos Manufacture Cheating Cognitive Dissonance Denial Dependency Dissociation Divide and Conquer Domestic Theft Emotional Blackmail Engulfment Entitlement False Accusations Favoritism Fear of Abandonment Gaslighting Harassment High -Functioning [“A High-Functioning Personality-Disordered Individual is one who is able to conceal their dysfunctional behavior in certain public settings and maintain a positive public or professional profile while exposing their negative traits to family members behind closed doors”] Hoovers & Hoovering Identity Disturbance Impulsiveness/Impulsivity Invalidation Lack of Object Constancy Neglect No-Win Scenarios Pathological Lying Projection Proxy Recruitment Push-Pull Raging, Violence and Impulsive Aggression Sabotage Scapegoating Selective Competence Selective Memory/Selective Amnesia Self-Harm Self-Loathing Self-Victimization Shaming Situational EthicsSplitting Thought Policing Threats Triggering & Tunnel Vision. [Source: http://www.outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/Top100Traits.html%5D
Mainly, though, I think he has DID, but I also think he fit the criteria of Kernberg’s Borderline Personality Organization Diagnoses of BPO, as I thought he had that trait of “splitting” [“they don”t have a sense of continuity and consistency about people and things in their lives. They have a hard time experiencing an absent loved one as a loving presence in their minds. They also have difficulty seeing all of the actions taken by a person over a period of time as part of an integrated whole, and tend instead to analyze individual actions in an attempt to divine their individual meanings”] as well as “Other primitive defenses” like “magical thinking {beliefs that thoughts can cause events]” and “projection of unpleasant characteristics in the self onto others and projective identification [“a process where the borderline tries to elicit in others the feelings s/he is having”]
In his last ugly/disgusting e-mail to me, he practically accused me of being a lesbian [I think he was PROJECTING HIMSELF there!] He projected that he wanted a woman to “roll up her sleeves and get dirty” .. If he meant work [insinuating something against my net worth, probably, because he sought his next CASH COW after me!]..well, I had always done that, but I noticed that his rock business failed (he failed at being an entrepreneur), plus he admitting to walking off a couple of jobs, in anger, when living with me, and bounced through many short-term jobs & occupations, while divorcing his 2nd wife.
Constantine..continued..
Plus, he was seeing a therapist before dating me, and in the first two months of dating me. A therapist who highly promoted “Imago therapy”. Funny, how he stopped going after our relationship was well underway, plus stopped attending AA meetings. Had he been honest, I think he would have TOLD me WHY exactly he saw that therapist & for what reasons. I’m guessing he knew he had a sex addiction that interfered with his relationships, and had in his two first marriages that failed, before me. In fact, I think he’s been a sex addict since his teens. I don’t think it unusual for me to want to try to figure things out. Not sure when that “phase” will me will end, but reading the sources helped me to recognize his many faces.
One of the main traits of ERD, was more present with him, at the end..the Push-Pull trait (“chronic pattern of sabotaging and re-establishing closeness a relationship without appropriate cause or reason”) But more sickening was that day, after he’d left, he came back with this “art” book by Calvin Klein’s wife..one of those coffee table books, about Transvestites or cross-dressers voguing, which he thought was a “cool find” .. was almost like he was tormenting me after I’d ripped off his mask, finally. Definitely, many “pink” flags were there, the whole 8.5 years with him. I still shake my head at why his next Ms. Next would not believe me or the warnings from his first wife.
One thing that continues me thinking he’s a SPATH was how he’d used that Co-dependency jargon that he’d either learned in those therapy sessions or possibly in AA, to “flip the terms” back onto his exes, including me & his 2nd wife..using terms like “enmeshed” & “over-reacting” whenever it suited his needs. He also flipped the script on his first wife..said SHE was the cheater, when it was HIM. Said, in the end that I had “abandonment issues” (think it was HIM, from his childhood!)
So..if any of you have any thoughts about the different reasons for why one might be getting “Imago Therapy”.. I’d like to hear them.
Thanks for your ears..
~zim
It wasn’t my first experience with a boyfriend who saw a therapist, either. 10 years before my ex, & before I married a verbal abuser, I had dated one guy, fairly bright, multi talented, who admitted that he saw a therapist for some reason, & admitted that his girlfriend before me had left him. He never told me why he saw that therapist, the relationship with him only lasted about a year, but it took me a year to see his abusive side..almost stranding me on a road when we had an argument..and I noticed that he seemed to have multiple personalities. His face would even change, I noticed, from one personality to the next. I broke it off with him when he got sexually abusive. But honestly, I wished I had seen those signs of abuse before a year flew by. I had hoped I would NEVER again meet anyone with those kinds of problems. He seemed all good at first, wining/dining me in some fine restaurants, seemed highly sociable, had hobbies that aligned with my own, had a good high-paying job, and was “gentrifying” his large home that needed many repairs. All looked good at first glance, but at the first instance of sexual abuse, I was out of there. I think we just get tired when we reach age 40. We just want some peace in our August years, and it sucks when that doesn’t happen. I think we reach a point when our defenses might be lower because we are tired, just want to “come home to pasture” or “from pasture”, set down roots, and hope the “bad guys” are all behind us. Were I superstitious, I would’ve thought I’d broken 3 mirrors that reaped 21 years of bad luck. I know better.
zimzoomit– that multiple personalities thing is a BIG sign! Glad you caught onto it.
Keep in mind, they really only have ONE personality– psychopath. It’s manipulative, cunning, and mean. Those other personalities are just faces, to see what made you smile and what pushed your buttons. In that order.