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.
Oxy,
Your post above had such a wonderful theme, it needs to be a thread until itself.
I remember a time, thinking that self interspection seemed so narcissistic. And as a child of a N, I avoided any hint of that. What a self sabotage! Eventually I came to understand the dif, that narcissism is when a person gathers their enablers to validate their good and BAD behavior – versus- true interspection, looking within and not making exuses b/c the purpose is NOT TO BLAME but to understand and re-tool our own dysfunctional messages and behaviors.
I can blame my husband, my spath, for the mess in my life, and yes, he sure mindfarked me. But once I KNEW something was wrong, why did I stay? Lots of reasons. The main one though, is that I tried to FIX my marriage b/c I didn’t want to face the pain I knew waited me if I chose to divorce. I didn’t want to face that I was unlovable. Ironically, the longer I stayed to avoid the pain, the greater that imminent pain grew. My determination to FIX was only a form of avoidance, it was NOT noble! And avoidance of the msg that I was unlovable was IMPOSSIBLE; my whole marriage was about my husband validating that something about me made me unloveable; I just could not identify, among that huge list I made, which was the greatest contributor to my unworthiness of love, and thus the key to changing myself.
You see by this post, as I write, my instinct is to STOP b/c my introspection feels so narcissistic – all about me! But in order to move THROUGH that, NOT STOP, I have to endure the self condemning, and once I did so…I realized the flaw in my thinking. B/c I love, I am lovable. It wasn’t that I was unloveable, it was b/c the hearts of some people are too small to love me back. My husband couldn’t love me, my mother couldn’t, my father the pedophile couldn’t, my damaged siblings couldn’t. BUT I CAN LOVE and even if I have NO talents or beauty or intelligence, a person’s ability to LOVE trumps them all and that alone makes me worthy, means I have meaning and to live that meaning is the core and cornerstone of feeling my humanity.
Please Oxy, write your post as a subject for a thread. It is SO opportune.
I write this post with thanks to Victor Frankl. SELF responsibility is NOT narcissistic, it is VITAL for self empowerment and an emotionally healthy relationship with OURSELVES.
Sky
I’m having trouble integrating that into my head, the symbols thing, how DEVIOUS it all really is. Interesting that you said, WHAT”S WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU? I remember thinking that as a child. I had to bury that though. Sky, I’m staying AWAY from spaths. I have NONE in my life (except possibly my son, but I shall see), so now I’m left with “what do i DO here?” Again, lots of knots to untie.
I’m doing a lot better than I was, more good days, if not peaceful than bad days, but I definitely got triggered by that friend.
I want to be at a level that you’re at (I know it takes time) where I really GET that they were spaths. It’s SO HARD to integrate that within my heart, even if intellectually I understand it. it’s frustrating to me that it’s familiar and I feel like I don’t know what to do, even though I don’t want to go back, does that make sense?
I hope so. Sky, have you read any books that have resonated well with you with regards to being an adult child of N’s Ps?
LL
Great post, Katydid!! You said a mouthful.
(((Claudia)))
You are so sweet to me.
I get so much out of LF. Thanks for validating my thoughts.
Just reading how Oxy, Kim and LL all experienced jumping out of the abusive frying pan of parents and into the P-fire helps me to know that I was not alone in my need to escape.
And they are still trying to reel me back. I’m not supposed to stand on my own feet. I must always be dependant, while simultaneously being the beast of burden. Hey wait, isn’t that the definition of a slave? hmmmm…. controlling people = slave owners.
Have you observed that for once i’ve used the term lowlife properly? 🙂
(((Sky))) Thanks so much. I find you enormously sweet, extremely wise and am so glad I met you here and that we’re becoming friends. And when I read your messages, I feel you’re all introspective, insightful and… right. I hope this temporary tension will soon resolve itself through communication. When my son was eight, he wrote an essay entitled “If you be nice to people, people be nice to you”. That, of course, wouldn’t apply to psychopaths and narcissists (what he’d call “bad people”), but it does apply to all the nice, caring and thoughtful people on this forum.
Oxy and KatyDid, I’ve never read Victor Frankl, but based on what you say about him, Katy, his writing sounds really interesting. From your description, he combines philosophy and psychology (two of my favorite fields). I’ll look him up and read him.
Katy you said: SELF responsibility is NOT narcissistic, it is VITAL for self empowerment and an emotionally healthy relationship with OURSELVES.
I love that because Love = responsibility. This is what I have to work on. Thank you.
LL, there is a book, that I have but have not read. It’s called “growing up again, parenting ourselves, parenting our children”. It comes recommended by a psychologist I spoke with.
The thing that interests me about spaths and symbols is that spaths don’t really understand that the symbol is a substitute for the real thing. They believe that a symbol is the same as the real thing. Like they wear badges and because it is a symbol of authority, they believe that they really are authority. They believe they are magically transformed as long as you believe in their symbols.
There is lots to learn about symbols. Language is a system of symbols we use to convey ideas without having to be even present. (like us right now) Girard writes about our language capacity being part of what makes us able to scapegoat: we are able to easily substitute one thing for another and believe that it is the same thing. Weird huh? but you can see that this is exactly what humans do when we speak. We use words to represent something that isn’t present. As children, all we could do is point to objects.
The other interesting thing is that spaths have problems with the meanings of words. They know words have meaning to us, but they don’t understand the music. All spaths will tell you that a word means what they wish it to mean. SERIOUSLY, from bill clinton to my spath to a troll here on LF, they have all said this. Talk about substitution!
It’s a very funny thing. I enjoy seeing these connections.
Dear Katy, your addition to my post above is very very good and right on I think….that INTROSPECTION that we must do in order to get our thinking straight. We accept certain “truths” as part of our culture and our growing up…but some of those “truths” are NOT TRUE….like for example, I’ve used this before, “it takes two to fight” which we were told in the school yard when we were involved in a brawl, that maybe we had NOTHING TO DO WITH EXCEPT STOPPING THE PUNCH WITH OUR NOSE….it does NOT take two to fight…only one abuser and a victim. Another one that is take as a “truth” what is FALSE is “there are two (implying the word valid) sides to every story” and that is NOT true at all. There are opinions, like you llike chocolate I like vanilla, but the world is ROUND no matter how many people think it is flat.
VOTING on a “truth” doesn’t change the FACTS, yet we seek validation in other people’s opinions while discounting our own VISION. Our own reality. That is why the psychopaths can gas light us and get away with it. Back at the start of the summer of Chaos I got a letter from my P son saying he got along with everyone in the family and they got along with him and that since I was the one no one could get along with, therefore the PROBLEM MUST BE ME! LOL In a letter to the Trojan Horse about that same time, he was giving the “gang” a pep talk about how they were going to WIN because there are “more of us than there is of Mom, and we are smarter and more determined. and we are RIGHT.” LOL
Well, yep, they “won” all right! Two of them went to jail/prison, ended up homeless and penniless after coming out of prison/jail and one stayed in prison at least another three years because of their “WIN!”
It is a scary thing to be an adult. It is a scary thing to accept that you are 100% responsible for your own welfare and taking care of yourself. That’s one reason that being a teenager under the best of circumstances is difficult. The child has to move through the stage into independence from the hopefully nurturing parents that have brought them through from total dependence to a hopefully functional independence, ready to function in society and the work place and move on to the next stage of their lives.
Teenagers both want and fear independence from the parents. That is a normal part of the letting go and reaching out into the world. Just as a two year old tests the boundaries and then runs back to mommy’s arms, so does the normal teenager. Somehow I missed that stage in a healthy way I think. I didn’t have the proper nurturing to prepare me for independence, but I did have the short leash to rebel against and to escape from. Unfortunately sometimes, like if a dog is kept on a chain to keep it out of the street, but not taught to come when called, if the dog gets off the chain it is going to be in danger of getting into the street because it doesn’t respond to being called back from the danger it cannot perceive.
Teens can’t perceive the dangers they can get in, any more than the two year old can understand why you don’t want him to play in the street. A teen who doesn’t have a sense of independence that is based on teaching, self confidence and reality is going to seek some kind of safety net I think, and that sort of safety net may be “some one to love me and take care of me” and without the experience to know really who is safe and who is not, will fall for the love bomb and assurances of love and safety from a psychopath or other abuser or dysfunctional relationship.
Sometimes that escaped teenager who broke the chain that tied them to the tree and ran away from the abusive or neglectful parental units gets tied to another tree with another chain, maybe the chain is children or poverty or a trauma bond, but they stay chained and beaten down, not realizing they can escape. Sometimes these scripts have added themes of drugs, alcohol, crime, physical trauma and fear all rolled into one.
Breaking out of the cycle of abuse, escape, abuse, escape without finding out what is causing the PATTERN doesn’t benefit the victim in avoiding the pattern and the cycle. It is only by inspection and introspection that we can see the pattern, and then find a way to STOP the pattern from reoccurring.
Sometimes by the time we realize what is going on, our own children, sired by a psychopath and raised in dysfunctional environments have fallen prey to the pattern as well. Sometimes even in retrospection we cannot save them from themselves and have to let go, and also to forgive ourselves because we didn’t learn and do better sooner so maybe our children wouldn’t be so dysfunctional as well.
Learning to forgive myself for my own flaws, real and imagined, and to love myself where I am today, as I am today…with all my faults and all my assets…has been a difficult and long journey, but I’m glad I’ve made and continue to make the effort to do so. It’s not about them any more, or even what they did to me, or what I allowed them to do, or what I did wrong, but what I am doing today, NOW and what I will work on tomorrow.
Today is a good day because I want it to be a good day. I’m going to make it a good day because I am going to be in CONTROL of myself.
Yes, Skylar, and language develops as a result of trauma. The original trauma, of being violently forced out of the only envirnment we’ve ever known…a heaven of sorts, where every one of our needs are automatically met…our mother’s wombs.
This language we use is a booby-prize because it seems to bridge the gap between ourselves and others, but each and every time we use it, we have to deny that it is just a representation of something else.
This birth trauma is prelinguistic, and they say that it resists language. That there are no words for that trauma.
I really agree with that and have never felt that necessary introspection=narcissism. In fact, quite the opposite!
Sky, your observations are so fascinating to me. Have those helped you in your healing process? I’m amazed by the insight you have. The symbols is equally as fascinating. Admittedly, while I can say I think I understand the workings of a psychopath, you show me that I still have much to learn about HOW they did it. Part of healing, I think through all of this, is being able to fully ACCEPT them as the nasty beings that they are. you’re right about them looking for reactions and what you said about that makes perfect sense to me. I saw this with ex spath constantly. I did not however, see it within my own fam. Either that or I just couldn’t identify it? What is so confusing and so hard to accept, particularly when it comes to bio fam is this need spaths have to HARM YOU ON PURPOSE. I Don’t GET That. I CAN”T understand that! WHat it God’s name would make ANYONE happy to sadistically harm another human being just for fun? This soooooooo confuses me. I’m having a great deal of trouble with it.
I can tell you that I EXPERIENCED that, but WHY? It also makes me angry. How could anyone want to purposely harm another in such a calculating way. I was scapegoated constantly by all of them. I’m curious Sky, did they see something in me that they hated? Wanted to destroy? Did they seem me as empathetic or somehow “onto” them in some way? I wonder about that…whenever I tried to fight back when they sabotaged and hurt me, I’d be immediately SILENCED with accusations and blame. BUt why?
All of this is so painful. It really is.
I was reading in “Women Who Love Psychopaths” (reading it again for the third time now) that what really helps women heal is to accept someone’s pathology for what it IS. I have such a hard time with this! It is so frustrating for me!
What helped you get it, Sky? Your insights are invaluable to me.
Secondly, whenever you were triggered or began obsessing, what was it that you did that put you into analyzing or observance mode about it? I hope that doesn’t sound like a stupid question.
LL