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.
i like this hens: ‘situational insanity.’
Hens,
situational insanity.
That’s a good one…
Well, Hens, ALL insanity is SITUATIONAL and it wouldn’t be normal if we were NOT abnormal given the circumstances and the SITUATIONS. LOL 🙂
One, the problems with memory could be from the PTSD as well. Especially Short term memory. The typing….the finger/brain memory is a problem for me too. I transpose letters and leave off the terminal “e”s and put “too” for “to” and “Two” and misspell words as well, and add in extra i’s to words, or use an I when it should be a Y—I never did any of these things before the airplane crash. I could type 100 WPM and have very few errors. I forget the word I’m looking for, and it could be a small word like “tree”—I can see the “tree” picture in my head but not find the word. Usually it will EVENTUALLY come to me, but if I am speaking it makes me STUTTER which I never did before.
I actually “perform” better writing than I do speaking now, and I say things (frequently) I wish I’d never said now, and didn’t so much do that before the plane crash (which started the PTSD ball rolling). I think I’ve had OTHER episodes of PTSD that were more short term than this one after the crash. I think after my son’s arrest for murder I suffered from PTSD, but I had the support of my husband, my Mother-in-law, and friends and it didn’t hit me as hard as this one did. There were some hard years in there with Patrick’s arrest, with my step son’s severe head injury (brain damage) and then his death, my MIL’s strokes and then her deciding I was the “anti-Christ” (it was the brain damage from the strokes, until then we were best friends) So we’d had as a family a lot of Stress including two moves halfway across country.
I think we can recover from some “traumas” more easily than others, but when they are piled up one on top of the other without any breathing space in between, it gets damned hard to even survive.
While My relationship with the egg donor (I realize now) was really pretty superficial and lots of bad feelings were repressed, if she had cooperated with me about letting me take care of some of my own business and not spent ALL of my time catering to her, I could probably have done okay, even with everything else. With the whole fam-damnly conspiring to drive me out of my home, and kill me, and her DISCARDING me in favor of the cyber-bride-from-hell and the Trojan horse psychopath I could have coped. The devaluation and discarding that she did, along with the LYING was just more than I could handle, IN THE SHAPE I WAS IN after the plane crash. I WAS as crazy as a shait house rat. I was BABBLING. LOL
My psychiatrist told me my STMemory would come back, and it has pretty much done so for my age and funny thing is that my IQ test scores have NOT decreased at all. actually with my stuttering and word finding problems I thought it would, and my therapist thought it would too. He was I think very surprised at my score. My THINKING and judgment is pretty solid now, in spite of the STM problems remaining.
Something happened today though that sort of threw me for a loop. A friend’s airplane is stored here at the hangar, he has not flown it in quite a few years though, and just sitting in the hangar not being cared for it has had some minor damage (we call it “hangar rash”) from mud wasps, dust etc. but there was also some vandalizm on it in which someone “wrote” in the dust on the plane’s tail my name, and then The word “airplane” on each wing top—and also BENT one of the wings (About $10K damage) I have NO idea who did this.
Then, today, I decided to do a house cleaning on the RV, wash the outside and dust the inside etc. and as I was cleaning, I discovered that SOMEONE had been in there and had been burning a candle, and wax was dripped all over the cutting board that I cover the double sink with. There were also 2 cigarette burn holes in the seat of the booth/table. I never locked it, and the only “use” it had was when someone would come to stay with me and I didn’t have enough bed space in the house, I’d have the extra people sleep in there. It has been over a year since anyone slept in there and there are lights, so no need of a candle and I did not have any candles out there. SO, the only conclusion we can come to is that SOMEONE was in there, using candles for lights instead of the electric lights. WHO? I have no idea but it was fairly recent. They had also spilled some sort of drink on the inside of the front door and screen that left a stain on the door.
I feel really violated that someone has been in my space. Son D and I went over who it “might have been” but of course we will never know WHO…maybe it was “Grandpa’s” girl friend when she got mad at him and left, which she frequently does, and walks & hitch hikes away. She could have walked up here and bedded down for the night without us knowing…so I feel violated, sort of like I felt once when my house was robbed when I lived in California.
Though I do feel a bit unnerved, I am not crazy out of my head with paranoia like I would have been a year or two ago if such a thing (or things) had happened. It’s more like a “flat tire” or something else that happens and you just have to TAKE CARE OF IT and do whatever it is you have to do to fix the situation. This time it is time to install the high tech security system. Fortunately the price has come down on these things so I can get a better one for a cheaper price than I could have a couple of years ago. I already have an alarm system on the house inside so at least I can already tell when I turn in the drive if the house has been opened while we were gone.
It could have been any number of people that we know…from our X-friendemies that we threw off the place, to their son who is a known thief, (I threw both him and his mother off this place for stealing) to some of the creeps that hang out over at the red-neck trash’s house that live across the road, to the former hired hand of my pasture renters That is very HIGH IN P-traits and knows his way around this place. SO…now I am going to have to spring for a fairly expensive DVD security system instead of some other things I’d rather have. Could be the grandson of a wonderful friend of mine –the grandson is recently in prison (got a 10 year sentence) for stealing—and he robbed the “Crazy bob” neighbor’s house, to the point of taking the copper wire out of the walls while the guy was gone.
But I guess there are always things like this going on. I’ve had my house robbed before, and I’ve had things (mostly tools) stolen off the place in the past—mostly by people we knew–but I guess that’s “life.” Even going NC with the psychopaths we know, there are always those that will still sneak around to steal what they can. So–lock the doors, set the alarm and lock the gate when we are gone. But I can’t let it drive me insane again.
I’m kind of getting to like sanity…it’s a new experience for me. LOL
Oxy – that really sucks. the plane writing is just cruel, and someone wants you to know they know you. that one was deliberate and worth a phone call to the cops. will the insurance cover the damage to the plane?
i know it’s hard to keep an eye on the property all the time, it’s just too big. we couldn’t do it on the farm either – even with animals restless at the intrusion of others and dogs on the land. we even had a group of escaped convicts roam through out milkhouse – not 200 yards from the house.
And tools – yep, always the first thing to go. the work shed nor the barn nor the equipment shed were ever locked – the house doors were only locked at night, and probably only because of the prison being so close.
i am glad it didn’t send you for a loop. these things do happen all the time in the country, but it is time for the security system for sure. and some beware of dogs signs plastered all over the place. this plane writing was personal, and needs some extra care.
thank you for the info re your typing. i do want to see a nuerologist, and i will talk to the PTSD doc about it – i will see if we can target it with the nuerfeedback. the woman i work with (who i told about the spath last week, she was great about it. got it immediately.) was the one who told me i often invert letters. it’s embarrassing, but i have told her awhile ago that i have some cognitive damage – i had to explain my typing. almost 80% of what i do is typing, so it mattered. I get her to proof a lot of what i write. i think i am better in corp. communications than i am here, because here i am writing about emo. things…and it probably tirggers the PTSD to some extent. i also cocentrate and revise a lot when i am putting together documents and email for work. wish i didn’t have to spend so much time on it though. i am off to see the PTSD shrink on Monday, so will ask her about it straight away.
(((again, sorry here about the vandalism and intrusion. )))
Oxy,
That feeling of being violated is awful. Do you think you will get the police involved? It’s creepy that someone would write your name on the plane.
I hope you feel better and when you get the camera equipment up and running you’ll probably see just who it is.
I bet it was bigfoot.
Oxy,
Lord, you have some nut jobs in your neck of the woods. The list of suspects is long. Glad you are getting the security system installed, you are very treasured and we want you to be safe.
Personally, I think you could kick bigfoot’s butt!
Hens and Louise:
Thanks for asking about me. First, regarding the new guy, he turned out to be not a very nice person. Thankfully, I saw the red flags and although I should not have become involved, I quickly ended it without any emotional or financial loss. I also thank those here for helping me see the light…
At that time, I thought perhaps that maybe this forum was a “double-edge” sword. It provided great support in coming to terms with a sociopathic relationship, but also allowed an avenue to further ruminate about this relationship. Thus, I decided to take a break.
Also been slowly putting my life back together, but I have to admit it has been two steps forward, one step backwards. The other night, I ran into a guy I dated bout 10 years ago. I was happy to see him and just looking to be friends. On the surface he is a quality person. Attractive, late 30s, paralegal and not a player. We went to a quite place to talk and after an hour, I could remember why it did not go very far back then. This guy is very, very needy and was first almost begging me to give him “a chance.” When I explained to him the spark just is not there for me, he became very angry at me. It was weird.
Then I did something very stupid, I looked at the x-spath’s Facebook profile and his pictures are now open. I have to admit I am jealous of his little flight attendant getaways to wherever. Just when I think I am getting past him too. I guess I have learned my lesson the hard way again 🙁
BBE – It’s good to see ya..yep we can ruminate till the cows come home and still not understand why we are so preoccupied with the xspaths. You seem to have a busy social life, your bound to meet a good man because you can smell a bad one thanks to your life lesson. Just focus on taking care of yourself first.
I dont ramble much about my x bf anymore, he is what he is, life goes on.
Hens;
Thanks. Get busy living or get busy dying! I am not busy enough, but getting there.
There was a mixed blessing in looking at his FB pics. While he is attractive (facially, he has no body) that sociopath “evilness” is obvious in pictures — he always looks like the cat who swallowed a canary, not the type of person I would think twice about.
My mistake is also a warning for everyone here — no contact, real and virtual, is essential. They were never who we thought they were and they do not want us anymore. As much as it pains me to admit this, he moved on without blinking an eye…