Although it has been many years and there is a new relationship, a friend of mine still wishes every day that the sociopath that preyed on her will “drop dead.” Wishing and hoping that some horrible end will come for the sociopath takes up time and energy in my friend’s life; as she searches for evidence that something bad has indeed happened to the sociopath and then is disappointed.
Recently, I discussed the topic of forgiving psychopaths with a psychopathy researcher who is not a clinician. He said he received a letter from someone complaining that friends were pressuring the victim to forgive. It was the psychopathy researcher’s opinion that people should NOT be told they have to forgive a psychopath.
Upon reflecting on this opinion, I believe that this psychopathy researcher may have a special insight that informs his view —that psychopaths should not necessarily be forgiven. Perhaps this insight is: in spite of their brain disorder, psychopaths still have a choice about what they do.
My son is now 7, he and I rough and tumble play every day. It is impossible to wrestle and not have some kind of slight hurt come to one or the both of us. From the time he was very young, perhaps as young as 3, my son has appreciated the idea that mommy didn’t “do it on purpose”. If he pokes me in the eye or lands rough on my stomach he’ll say “Sorry, I didn’t do it on purpose.”
This example illustrates our inborn social contract that says we do not hurt each other on purpose. If hurts happen in the course of life, they are usually unintended side effects of other behaviors and so should be forgiven. Cheating on a spouse could even be forgiven as an unintentional hurt if the person succumbed to temptation in a moment of weakness, realized the wrong committed, then repented. Even murder is not punished as much if it is an accident.
The problem with sociopaths is that their behavior is no accident. They hurt people on purpose, carefully planning, then executing their plans. After 7 years of reading research articles and talking to victims, I believe choice is part of a complete explanation of sociopathy and victimization. If you watch any of the TV shows about sociopaths you too will see that the theme of their choices permeates the media.
Friday night, Gangland on the History Channel told the story of Billy Wadd, a member of the Devil’s Disciples motorcycle gang who gained notoriety when he broke the biker’s code of silence and testified against his nephew who murdered a family during a home invasion. Wadd said he decided to aid the prosecution of his nephew, John Wolfenbarger, instead of “taking care of things the usual way” because “You just don’t kill kids.” It is clear he believed these murders were performed with an intention that not even another sociopath could accept, so even sociopaths believe in their own capacities for choice.
Now let’s reconsider whether victims should be told they have to forgive. It seems there is a natural human instinct that says forgiveness is reserved for accidents, unintended consequences, and perhaps intentional slights that are out of character. How then can you ever forgive a psychopath?
Psychopaths have been compared to predators. I think this analogy is seriously flawed. A predator such as a lion or wolf has to kill in order to survive. Psychopaths don’t hurt for survival. They hurt because they want to, because they like hurting. Their enjoyment of hurting increases the likelihood they will choose to hurt if given the opportunity. They also seek out opportunities to hurt -not for survival but for pleasure.
Since sociopaths, with intention, repeatedly violate our inborn social contract, perhaps they should never be forgiven.
Instead of forgiving, I hope, my friend, you will think about all this and thoroughly digest the reality of the sociopath you shared life with. The reality is terrible— you shared life with a truly evil person, someone who regularly, with malice and forethought, chooses to harm others. Don’t stop hoping to see the day the scourge of this evil person’s existence will be wiped from the Earth, but do not waste any more of your time on him.
* ooh I just used the swanky new edit button to correct a mistake in my post! That wasn’t here before!very useful for dufus’s like me 🙂 yay Donna! *
Wow Mike – thanks for the links – this theory is highly interesting to me although I am not sure I agree with developmental potential being fixed at birth. We have to remember that this theory was developed in 1964, long before brain scans revealed the brain to have the capacity for plasticity and focussed change.
When you wrote about fully submerging oneself in experience, the theory of flow sprang to mind (you must be a mind reader too!) I really agree with the theory of flow – Cziksentmihalya (wrong spelling I know~!) definitely nailed the description of complete absorption and engrossment with his description of flow. Engrossment leads me to another theory – Nell Noddings writes about the experience of love being one of complete engrossment with the other – of wanting to empty out one’s soul in order to contain that of the other for a while to completely understand them.
So where am I going with this? All three theories point mostly to creative, sensitive and generative humans. OEs definitely resonate with the concept of ‘highly sensitive individuals’, the concept of flow as a state is a natural state of being for the sensate among us … and those who experience emotions more profoundly are more likely to want that deep soul experience as described by Noddings.
All three theories also point to extreme natural innate vulnerabilities to psychopath relationships. With the OEs we are naturally more sensitive and more emotionally expressive, therefore more likely to enter into alternate consciousness in flow with another person – this might explain the almost ‘mythical’ experience of these relationships. And due to our emotionality we are more likely to take on the other’s soul, little knowing that the soul we are presented with is false – a reflection of our own soul in fact.
Done … here’s what Sandra Brown says about Women who love psychopaths … The psychopath score is on the left after the descriptor and the women’s score is on the right just next to it.
Temperament Traits of the Psychopath and His Women
Temperament Traits Typical
Psychopath Women Who Love Psychopaths
Excitement Seeking High Moderately High
NS1-Exploratory Excitability High High
NS2-Impulsiveness High Average
NS3-Extravagance High Moderately High
NS4-Disorderliness High Moderately High
Relationship Investment Total Low High
RD1-Sentamentality Low High
RD3-Attachment Low High
RD4-Dependence Low High
Harm Avoidance Total Low Mixed
HA1-Anticipatory Worry Low Moderately High
HA2-Fear of Uncertainty Low Average
HA3-Shyness Very Low Very Low
HA4-Fatigability Low Low
And here are the character traits of the two – again psychopath first then the woman partner – we can see here high emotionality that counterbalances the psychopath’s lack.
Figure 8.2
Character Traits of the Psychopath and His Women
Character Traits Typical
Psychopath Women Who Love Psychopaths
Cooperativeness Low High
C1-Social Acceptance Low High
C2-Empathy Low High
C3-Helpfulness Low High
C4-Compassion Low High
C5-Integrated Conscience Low Moderately High
Self-Directedness (SD) Total Low High
SD1-Responsibility No Data High
SD2-Purposefulness No Data High
SD3-Resourcefulness No Data High
SD-4 Self-Acceptance No Data High
SD-5 Congruent Habits No Data High
Self-Transcendence Low Average
ST-1 Self-Forgetfulness Low Low Average
ST-2 Transpersonal Identification Low Low Average
ST-3 Spiritual Acceptance Low Moderately High
This comes from page 148 of Women who love psychopaths by Sandra Brown. Liane Leedom is mentioned as devising the measurement tool for the research. Hopefully this makes clear to people that you were balancing his negative traits with your own ‘super traits’. Although the book specifically names women – it is probably also applicable to men in these relationships with psychopathic women.
SO…in my opinion and personal experience, this forgiveness edict is another way for society and disordered individuals to quell the righteous anger and inner spiritual rebellion against injustice of the highest order. It is a way to continue to induce guilt and self-doubt in the target/victim and leave him/her open to more self torture for NOT forgiving and this part of the process, I believe will come on its own and in its own time…what is MOST important in my belief is your own healing and developing one’s own ability to be aware of predation and the red flags. Self love…healthy self love and self healing will hopefully be the antidote to further betrayals. Let forgiveness go for now and get the scent of the target off of you…don’t worry about them…I have learned they will find some other supply…BUT NOT ME ANYMORE!
Blessings
G
Bingo Glinderella – we don’t have to forgive them – we don’t have to dwell in bitterness either – there is a middle ground – remembering what they did and not liking it and saving it as a debt if they ever come back 🙂 And we are best to focus on ourselves rather than them – you are right – they get new disciples quickly!
Autisticsouls: –
Mike – so, if everything is joy (no particles existent), and held together with love (the vajraya buddhist theory), and everything that we perceive is as it is (a table looks like something with 4 legs or so, and a top) because we collectively believe it into this form………….tell us what this world that you can taste looks like. tell it detail by detail – so that we can begin to imagine it, also.
one step
midlifecrisis – i diggin’ the ‘life after crisis’ name …maybe in a few months,eh?!
your above long posts are awesome. x
one step
Dear Midlifecrisis–
Thank you for your welcoming acknowledgement to my beginner postings here on this very powerful forum….there is so much wisdom here and I appreciate you all!
G
last couple of days i am feeling kinda odd. I see anger on a big scale – but not at the spath, but definitely related to the the trauma and reverb from her work.
i connected with someone new, not a love interest, and didn’t hear back over a few days after sending a few emails. there was a mounting sense of betrayal, and then the anger came. and grew. and grew. i sent another email asking if my original email had gotten through. they hadn’t.
i recognized that i have no skin on me, and that i dind’t know how to deal with the potential that i had been betrayed. I have taken SO much shit from people.
I am doing pretty good with people i know, ‘cept for wanting to x out my two closest friends – those relationships are damaged by my time with the spath and i am just tired to death with tha t ‘look’ fi i even talk about this stuff for 10 minutes. they are good people but i am not happy with how they are treating me. i am giving it time, till i am further out of the fog, and they, who have significant challenges right now also, have some time to get more stable. it’s good that they are still in my life, but they are no so much in my life.
i don’t know how i will meet new people. I network a lot looking for work. and through my work. i like it. i am tired the last few days – and have gone 5 days now !!! without taking something to put me to sleep. i am just staying up late and letting myself fall asleep – i am much more mentally awake during the day, but am way more tired at the end of the day – i’d like to understand that dynamic. any ideas appreciated. i think my system is changing, maybe there is some healing happening. i just wanna sleep and i am willing to lay in bed, and just relax a bit. i couldn’t do that for months – i have been knocking myself out at night for a year now. for lots of reasons.
i did a couple of things last weekend. went to dinner with a boy i crushed on at 17 – who i hadn’t seen since then. he is emotionally vacant. he said something to me about the time when we were 17 and i didn’t understand…so i said, ‘what do you mean by that?’ Snort. a spath-seeking behemoth has been unleashed on the world with my having that line in my arsenal! He still didn’t make any sense…and i watched myself paraphrase…still didn’t make sense. but the important thing was, i paraphrase; i do other’s work. i did it NON stop with the spath. i do it all the fucking time. i have to stop. and this scared me a bit too.
i feel vulnerable.
then i went to this thing Sunday night. a local queer film fest and a local cafe teamed together to do a speed dating thing for dates for the film fest. given my marketing background, i though this was brilliant. and i want to meet people. so i went. i treated it quite casually, ans a way to meet more folk in the queer community (you know, REAL people, aka, not on screen queer people – which is WHY i was on line where the bitch spath caught me). I was, not surprisingly the oldest person there. expected that. just under 20 folks there. 2 minutes of talking with each. would go to a film with about half of them. i used it to watch how i react to people and what they bring forward. there was one guy who was obviously whacky brilliant – the sort i would be really attracted to talking to. but given my spth experience i recoiled. i dunna wanna deal with whacky – even non spath whacky. toooo much work, tooo much attention needed from me. there was one woman, 2nd oldest to me, who talke daobut loving nature, and BOOM, my walls came down – man, I’m easy…Talked to a lovely young man named dharma, which means buddhist teachings. and to a few other folk who i would hang out with. being a uni town, these were almost all students, and most of them were pretty burnt out. one girl was about 20, and sooooo young. (no offence to our new 20 yr old here!) it was all interesting. i am having some issues around my esteem – the age thing. erghhh.
i am also about to not have a job. and the fear has risen up again like crazy. i am looking and applying, but it isn’t good in this town and the fright is coming up.
ahhh, i am dealing wiht a lot of rejection. and i am angry at some and deflated by some.
i have managed to have some very good ‘stop it’ momnets with negative htinking. I found out about a job less than a day before the app. was due. i took the day off work and did the app. i wasn’t happy with my cover letter – but i only had so much time. i started in on myself, w’ell, i did the best i could given the time..’ And i just stopped in my tracks, stood still breathed deep – and said, ‘when is it going to be enough, when will it/i be enough?’ and htat stopped all that bullshit in my head. completely.
i think maybe my chemistry is changing right now. changing drug regimes for my allergies. my face is so swollen. i need help with my lymphatic and adrenal systems. someone suggested an old Ayurvedic remedy for a thousand aliments, which i am trying. have to give it a few weeks to see what happens.
i am tired. i’ll stop now.
i see that i have to find my esteem, and protect it, from the internal negativity and from the wearing nature of trying to find work in this depressed town. those 2 weeks when i didn’t worry about getting work and money – that was sooo nice. i have to try to get back to that even though the challenges that slept for a couple of weeks have awoken.
One step = that’s an excellent phrase “I have no skin” – that is so evocative for me. I am still pretty raw from all this.I have self esteem issues too – it’s very normal after effectively losing years of our lives … and for what>? To be a pawn in a game for someone’s amusement? That is just such a waste.
Like you I am older now and for really the first time, I am super aware of it. And I resent him for taking those beautiful years away from me and wasting them at his own disposal. I could have worked such magic with them and instead they are gone and nothing good happened.
One step you will get another job … you know that deep down. You always break the odds – anyone else struggling with health issues probably would have given up by now, but you keep going. When you get the new job, a new worry will emerge to fill your mind and occupy your focus – this is the nature of life. And we get through it by just putting one foot in front of the other – one step at a time 😛
The ups and downs you are describing are NORMAL = I know that probably is little consolation … but you are going through a major restructuring right now so some grief for the discarded parts and beliefs is normal … as is tiredness. It is an exhausting process.
Have you thought about a juice fast? I’ve been thinking of doing one for a while and we could support each other through it from across the world. Maybe that;s not quite right for your current circumstances … I see it as purging out the old to make way for the new. I would probably do about 3-4 days and then gradually come back to fruits and vegies.
Like you I am staying away from ‘wacky’ and ‘unique’ people – I just want stable and responsible adults in my life from this point on. I don’t want to be anyone’s mother or advisor. I would rather interact with equals all the way. But look at you going out and socialising – that’s great! They’re not going to all work out to be soulmates, but interacting with new people is great fun 🙂
I chose the name crisis because there is a dual meaning of both danger and opportunity in Chinese – that’s a good description of this time at the moment!
Hope you sleep well and look after yourself – you’re an awesome person and someday soon somebody close to you is going to recognise that.
ONE:
‘i am much more mentally awake during the day, but am way more tired at the end of the day ”“ i’d like to understand that dynamic. any ideas appreciated.’
It’s called LIVING!!!
Good going girl….you are really aware…
I also use the test dating thing….not speed dating, more like testing myslef in public with anyone….
I have learned so much about myself from this process…..I know what triggers me in others, I learned how I respond to backing up or letting go….etc…..
It’s a pretty cool process especially when your totally aware of yourself!
It makes me wonder wht the hell I’ve missed all these years by not knowing myself!
I’m really happy your moving along and sharing the process with us!
THANKS and Kudos to you darlen!
XXOO
EB