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in her book’Women who love psychopaths’ Sandra Brown says there are 5 types of psychopaths: paranoid, schizoid, aggressive-explosive anger, destructive, swindler, sexual-distortion of impulse, often well educated, good job. In the distant past I was involved with a sexual psychopath- well educated, good job. In the recent past I was involved with an aggressive psychopath-explosive anger, destructive. if you have been involved with a psychopath, which type was he?
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I believe you can’t just put a psychopath or sociopath in a box like that, just as much as you can’t put a neurotypical person into a similar box.
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And those are the only types of ASPD? There’s no ‘regular’ type, or ‘high-functioning’ type? It is just so simple as “you’re a sociopath? What type are you?”
Let me put this to you:
Give me five, and only five, types of humans. All five of them together will have to encompass all humans, but individually must be different. Go ahead and just try to split humanity into five distinct groups. -
I can think of two sociopaths I have come across. I work in a field where there is a high proportion of sociopaths so it is no surprise that I encountered both at work. Both sociopaths were female. They were extreme narcissists and accomplished pathological liars and both were superficially very charming and articulate. Both made my life Hell.
Both exhibited narcissistic rage that was truly scary in how destructive it was. They both broke laws in order to exact revenge, and neither seemed to care about possible repercussions of doing this. In both cases the underlying theme of their rage seemed to be, “you saw through my mask so I will destroy you.” Both cases used triangulation to get other people to side with them (and break the law). During the midst of the ‘destruction’ phase in both cases, I felt that these sociopaths were getting what I would describe as a sexual thrill, even though neither is gay and there was nothing sexual in the content of their reprisals.
These sociopaths were unbelievable devious and spiteful, and any other characteristics or motivations they had were irrelevant to me. My experiences with both of them included paranoid, schizoid, aggressive-explosive anger, destructive, swindler and sexual-distortion characteristics.
I am always wary that sociopaths might be lurking to read postings to get a vicarious thrill from reading about people’s suffering. I don’t like to feed that beast. Therefore, I will gleefully share the happy ending that Sociopath 1 went too far and ended up losing her job. She triangulated too many senior people, who ended up looking like fools, so they had to get rid of her. She lost the thing she loved more than anything else in the world, her corner office. No kidding, all this woman lusted after was her corner office. She ended up getting the organization to give her an office in two different buildings so she could have two corner offices! She lost them both (and a very high paying, prestigious job) because she could not contain her own behavior to a reasonable level.
I suspect the same thing will happen with Sociopath 2. Sooner or later she will go too far. Both these women remind me of the Terminator in the first movie: they are broken and crushed and destroying themselves but even then they can’t bring themselves to stop. Their ‘type’ is, “relentless to the point of self-destruction”.
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“Me” is right. It makes no sense to divide people so simplistically.
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Sunnygal, I WISH that had been my experience. I think part of the problem was that Sociopath 1 was my line manager and I stumbled across some very fraudulent (illegal) things she was doing. Line manager vs employee is no match. Also, this was/is a VERY dysfunctional workplace where you pretty much have to be a sociopath to survive. The reason why my line manager was “made redundant” (aka fired) was not because she committed fraud, but because the media started poking around and the organization needed to distance themselves from her in case the story got out.
The only good that come out of this was that I got to see a sociopath at work and I read up about it to try to understand what was happening to me. It meant that this time it [only] took me 3 months to figure out that Sociopath 2 was a sociopath. It had taken me 2 years to figure out that Sociopath 1 was telling everyone I was an incompetent mental case behind my back.
This time with S2 I’m glad I got out when I did, although I still got the full Sociopath treatment on my way out. The boss on this project was really volatile and he has several guns. One day Sociopath 2 is going to push him too far. I must admit that I turn on the news every night half expecting to hear of a murder-suicide or a Waco siege type thing with those two.
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Like all categories of persons, places, and phenomena, it’s a continuum and no one person/phenomenon fits neatly into a niche. Consider ‘type A’ and ‘type B’ personalities, species of animals and plants, and even how colors are categorized – is ‘pink’ a separate color, or is it just light red like light blue which does not have a special name. Broad categories can help one think about patterns of spath traits, which can help in understanding. I found Sandra Brown’s classification interesting reading and helpful in making sense of some of the behavior patterns of my ex psychopath.
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When my relationship with the sociopath ended, I did not know at the time that he was a sociopath. I was telling my friend about the games he was playing, and she told me to google “seductive sociopath.” That description fit him to a tee. I think that description fits most of the sociopaths LF people have been romantically involved with. I don’t know about the other categories – I have not experienced enough sociopaths to look for the differences.
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Sunnygal and anyone who reads this comment…. it might be triggering to some people. If talking about sexual predators will trigger you, please don’t read this post.
I think the sexual thrill we are picking up is related to a deep predatory instinct. Without getting too graphic, I think setting up victims for the “kill” is like sexual “foreplay” (with the goal of seducing or coercing an unwilling person into being a sexual object to meet the predator’s sexual needs).
In both scenarios there is planning. In an unwanted sexual encounter, this could be the candlelight dinner where the victim is seduced, it could be making the victim feel guilty so she “consents”, it could be simply nagging so it is easier to say “ok” than to keep saying “no”. All of these strategies are designed to get the sexual predator what he/she wants. There is anticipation and excitement in this planning… like being a kid on Christmas eve, knowing that tomorrow there will be wonderful presents to open.
IMO, with sociopaths like your manager guy, there is a similar anticipation of knowing that the victim will be in his power. You will show up on a particular day and NEED his help. This gives him a lot of power. The anticipation he feels in toying with you is the same type of anticipation of the kid on Christmas eve or the sexual predator. Eventually there will be a payoff. The anticipation is half of the the thrill.
In a sexual encounter there is what I will call the “mechanics” of the act, followed by an explosive release. For the sociopath the mechanics are being in the right place at the right time, having enablers all properly gas-lit, and ensuring that he is the only one around at the time when the target (you) need someone to help you. This planning takes skill, and being able to organize the mechanics of the set-up like a chess master is a source of great pride for the sociopath. He/she is SO good, so smart, so cunning, so superior.
Then, in sex, there is the orgasm of release. For the sociopath, this is the raw power he/she feels when they see the target realize that they in a humiliating position of being used, and are powerless to prevent it or to stop it.
In both sociopathic victimization and sexual harassment, the following elements occur:
-Planning by the aggressor
-Anticipation of the event
-Unwilling participant
-Often public, so there is an audience to increase the humiliation of the target
-The public nature of the victimization places pressure on the target to act “normally” and not make a scene.
-The audience seems largely unaware of anything going on because the incident is ambiguous from their point of view.
-Both sociopathic victimization and sexual misconduct objectify the target so that the target is simply an object by which the victimizer gets their thrills.So this FEELS sexual to the victim because the same feelings are elicited as when we are being used for someone’s sexual thrills. We feel powerless, dirty, used and humiliated. My line manager used to breathe heavily, her neck would get blotchy and her pupils would dilate when I was forced to meet with her in her office for my annual appraisal, or to be demoted or whatever humiliation she had planned for me. Physiologically she looked like she was sexually aroused. That really creeped me out.
I handled the situation like I handled creepy guys when I was younger. I would make sure I don’t get into an elevator alone with the gropy guy at work. With my line manager I made sure that when I was in her office I was closest to the door to escape if I had to, and I just went Gray Rock.
Perhaps you could consider having a quiet word with the boss that “Manager” makes you uncomfortable and please find an alternative. Feeling creeped out by a person is reason enough to request a change of staff or ‘support’ employee around. You don’t need to justify yourself any more than “that guy’s manner makes me very uncomfortable”.
Your creeped out feelings are all the reason needed to request (demand) that another staff member deal with you. This is something that most women would understand without you having to go into details. If you can put it in letter, this is even better. Even if they think YOU are the nut job, they won’t risk leaving you into a situation which you have identified as making you feel unsafe.
Sociopaths are emotional perverts.
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Sunnygal, this sounds like a toxic workplace. It’s like all the sociopathic types have supported each other in their bullying and gaslighting of other employees. Then all the “good” employees leave and go to less toxic workplaces.
So this ends up where managers, HR and the senior executives all engage in a “dance” of toxicity. I experienced this at my last job (an elite university). My line manager was a pathological liar. She was supported by pathological liars. So when she told HR to demote me, they did. Even though this was illegal they did it. This was because they could. They knew they would be supported by the head of the university (they were). So everybody in this toxic dance felt safe to do whatever forgeries and falsifications were necessary to support one of their own kind (my sociopathic line manager).
What I found disturbing was that the sociopathic dance was so well practised that the different dancers didn’t need to strategize or plan what they would do. My line manager would make up an outrageous lie. She didn’t have to check with HR if this lie would be able to be supported or what documents would have to be falsified. She KNEW that HR would do whatever it took to support the lie. Similarly, HR KNEW that the Vice Chancellor and CEO would support them, no matter what they did. The whole process of the toxic dance was automatic and seamless throughout the whole system.
This toxic workplace evolved over decades. Toxic people stayed and flourished and good people left. Now it is simply a toxic workplace of sociopaths and their victims who are too terrified to say boo or who are being “arranged” out of their jobs as I write this. A huge amount of money is spent by this university on marketing, public relations and the ‘brand’ so the reputation of this university is excellent to the outside world.
These toxic workplaces are so rotten (and good at gaslighting regulators and the public) that they cannot be fixed. It is a self perpetuating sociopathic machine. In these systems, and your transit center sounds like one, IMO there is nothing for you to do but go somewhere else (No Contact) if possible.
It is highly likely that the Board of people has been gas-lit. They would only get reports that make the place look excellent. Complaints such as yours would be dismissed as by a nutcase. So even if there are a couple of good people on the board who would try to fix the system, they are gas-lit so that they will not believe how bad this workplace is. It is too unbelievable that the sexual harasser would be the sexual harassment officer (though I believe it because I’ve seen it and lived it. Other LoveFraud readers would believe it too).
If some poor fool does believe you and tries to fix it, he/she will be targeted and forced to leave. I was the fool in my toxic university who found fraud and tried to fix it for the honest students who worked hard, sat exams and paid their fees to get their qualifications. I was shocked when my union rep, the Dean of the Faculty, the Vice chancellor and HR all signed off on the pathological lies of my line manager (who was doing the fraud).
At that time I simply could not believe that there was no one in this whole system who was able to do their job (like HR ensuring employment laws were followed, instead of breaking the law to do my line manager’s bidding). However, the whole system was simply a massive sociopath. Once the mask was uncovered, like any sociopath, all the toxic people in this toxic system reacted swiftly and violently with smear campaigns.
I agree with you that you will probably not find any support or response to any letter you write to the Board. However, I do believe in paper trails. At some point, the weight of the all the letters of complaints from dozens of victims might get out when the sexual harasser goes too far and there is a public scandal (like that guy who was pulled from the United Airlines flight and the video was put on Facebook). If people write letters, the toxic, lying organization can’t use the excuse of “we didn’t know there was a problem”.
So I encourage you to write a letter that might help contextualize and give credibility to the next victim’s letter and if possible go No Contact with this toxic organization.
Also, I am outraged that you have had to go through this. It is wrong on so many levels. YOU HAVE A RIGHT to live your life without being harassed or treated disrespectfully.
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Sunnygal,
I only come onto this website about once a week on a Friday (Friday because it is the start of the weekend), so I apologize if it seems I am not responding in a timely manner.Thank you for your hugs, I need them and value them. I’m doing more or less fine. I had a bit of a rough patch….. the sociopath I was working with has done a huge smear campaign on me so it is harder to get new project work. I can’t ask for a reference because my old boss believed the psychopath. It isn’t a big deal as I have enough money coming in to pay my bills, but it is the unfairness that still niggles me. I’m quite shocked at how readily people are gaslit about me AFTER they have known me and worked with me for years.
I don’t think people really think about things. I’m big on letting actions speak louder than words (which is how I figured out that my colleague was a sociopath). I think most people just believe what other people tell them. This intellectual laziness is what sociopaths rely on.
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Madelaine, My ex psychopath effected a brutal smear campaign. It was incredibly painful, and the injustice of it was particularly difficult for me to deal with, as you describe. I am 5 years out now, and there are still folks who believe the psychopath’s lies. However, I did find that over time people who had a chance to observe the ex spath and to observe my conduct, tended to see the light about him. I hope this will be the case in your situation, especially since it affects you professionally. I found that the people who really mattered to me and who really knew me did not believe his lies about me, although he tried to turn everyone against me.
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My psychopath soon to be ex was written up for sexual harassmenta at work, has a thing for petite women, specially Asian and younger girls. He was never physically or verbally abusive with me but he was pathological liar, narcissist and gaslightinb jerk with no remorse whatsoever. They do come in different shapes and sizes, but it appears to me that abnormal sexual behavior is a common trait. I could BCE wrong…
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AnnettePK,
I think you are right. The saddest bit is the injustice of being blamed by flying monkeys who choose to believe a pathologically lying psychopath.She teamed up with the other (male) colleague at the work-site. I worked in a 3 person site-office, (me and the two of them) so there were no witnesses. The woman told the male colleague some lie about me, which enraged him. So he comes in and assaults me while she steals my laptop and backup drive, with all my work files.
I reported the incident to the police and my employer. However, the s’path emailed my manager who works at a different site, and told him I had had a “mental health episode”, which he believed.
My manager accused me of being “in denial” about my mental health issues and hasn’t put me on any other projects since. Other colleagues have blocked my emails. One told me I should apologize to these two, and then he blocked me. I still don’t know the details of what I am supposed to have done, or what my alleged mental health episode was about. No one sent me a get-well card with good wishes.
This female colleague pretended to be super-qualified in all sorts of fields (at least three different professions). However, no one asked themselves why a such a highly qualified and experienced emergency medical professional would be so shaken by a mental health “episode” of a senior citizen twice her age and half her size. Like, why didn’t she call for an ambulance if she was so worried about me, instead of emailing my boss????
I predict she will continue to gaslight her male friend/co-worker until it ends violently. If my former boss sends a replacement for me, this person is at risk, and I included that warning in my workplace incident report. I think these two losers will end up with her pushing him too far. Then he will beat her up in a rage, or kill her. He has a lot of guns and keeps them loaded. Otherwise, she will devalue and discard him and he will kill himself. I don’t give a f%^&*.
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I am interested in this thread… I shared my story here… https://lovefraud.com/forums/topic/escaping-the-clutches-of-a-psychopath/#post-40996
My question is this: Do you think that a psychopath can graduate or convert from one type to another? Like, can he start as a sexual-distorted and move onto something more dangerous? Let me also add that this guy works as a Pathologist Assistant as his career… he used to send me these horrible pictures from work, of these cancerous organs that he had to process for the hospital, and I asked him to stop sending them because they were horribly disturbing to me… he told me that he actually thought they were beautiful, with all of the different colors… but he never sent me any more after I asked him to stop…
I just wonder if anyone has any information on a psychopath transitioning into a more dangerous type during his life. He is a 48 year old white male.
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Adriana,
My ex psychopath was a cross dresser, and porn addict including child porn. I suspect he also did gay porn. These are just the things I happened to find out about – I recognize it’s likely he did other things I just didn’t happen to become aware of. Abnormal sexual behavior arises from abnormal attitude about relationships, about other people, and about the meaning of life in general. A person so disordered at the core of their existence is abnormal in all areas of life. Serial killers always have a sexual motivation in their torturing and murdering activities.
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Mikederek,
From your accounts, it sounds like your ex is dangerous, and potentially dangerous to you. His fascination with the organs from the cadavers and his murder fantasy involving you are frightening. It is possible he sent you those photos of organs from his work (probably illegal for him to have done so) to test your reaction. If you showed fascination perhaps he would have encouraged you to join him in doing some very dark things. Keep in mind that he may already have done horrible things that you don’t happen to know about.
Psychopaths are capable of anything because they do not have the normal restrictions of conscience and of not wanting to hurt others, which prevent normal folks from doing things solely for their own gain. Spaths do not bond. My ex psychopath told me he didn’t think he bonded with his mother.
When I told that bizarre statement to a friend of mine, friend said, ‘well if he didn’t bond with his mom, he isn’t going to bond with anyone.’Spaths have preferences for specific things they want – money, power, prestige, to act out sexual fantasies, whatever. They will use whatever tactics that they believe will get them what they want if they believe they won’t get caught – lie, steal, cheat, murder, whatever. There is no limit, other than fear of being caught. Many have done terrible things and never got caught.
Their specific preferences may change, like a normal person may decide to give up tennis and take up kayaking; but spaths’ disordered motivations don’t change, like a normal person’s caring about the well being of others and personal values of right and wrong don’t generally change.
You might find the book, The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker helpful. The author also provides a free threat assessment https://www.mosaicmethod.com/ It helps to organize one’s thoughts to determine how dangerous a disordered person is.
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Madelaine, What you describe sounds like a painful and stressful situation. Made me angry to read it. Have the police charged the perpetrator with assault? Have you considered a civil lawsuit? I understand the no witness problem. Sounds like the spath planned the attack carefully. Are you away from these horrible dangerous people and safe now? Take care.
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AnnettePK and Sunnygal,
Thanks for your validation. It is so good to have people who actually understand the dynamics. Annette, I could have pressed charges, but it would have been a he-said-she-said type situation and these two are pretty good liars. I think pursuing this would have just given them fodder to say, “see, we told you Madelaine was crazy”.I think they expected me to just go away and tell my boss a narrative that confirmed their story that I left in tears after some paranoid rantings about having my stuff stolen. That is actually the grain of truth. I DID leave in tears etc etc. What was obviously left out of the story for my boss was that I was ambushed and my possessions were stolen. I’m pretty sure they expected me to tell him what happened in a teary way that would confirm their account. That’s exactly why I didn’t go into details about the assault with my boss. Even so, when I simply denied that I had had a ‘mental health episode’, my boss called me a liar.
I used to work in mental health, and before the attack I had just figured out that the woman was a sociopath. After weeks of listening to her stories (in every story she was either a wonderful hero or a terrible victim) and being confused about why her words and actions were not congruent, I figured out what was going on. I mentally ran the psychopathy checklist on her, and she ticked almost all of the diagnostic criteria. I knew I was in a precarious situation (in an isolated rural site). That is when I wrote the email to my boss that stated I did not want to work with her any more. That was the email she hacked.
The next day I was attacked.
Afterwards, I don’t think either of them realized I knew what I was up against and could predict their next move (the triangulation and smear campaign). So I deliberately played it as unemotionally as I could to undermine the “crazy” reputation I predicted they would dump on me. I wrote a detailed description of what happened immediately. I attached this as part of the police report. My police statement indicated that I was very concerned that they had stolen my personal and professional files, many of which were confidential.
I put in a 5 sentence workplace incident report, and also emailed my boss that I strongly advised him NOT to send anyone else to work with these two.
So the situation now is that these two people were claiming I had a “mental health episode”, but I have been rational, sane and professional since the attack. Had I not been involved with a sociopath prior to all this, I would not have been prepared for the flying monkeys and character assassination.
Despite my unemotional reporting of the situation, I was badly traumatized by the whole deal. I got PTSD from it and had a pretty bad flashback when I saw on tv that clip of the man being dragged from the United Airways airplane a few months ago. That was similar to what happened to me. It was shocking, brutal and unbelievable.
The whole point of what those two did to me was planned in advance and organized so that I would be totally shocked and humiliated, and would provoke a “mental health episode”. It was a close call: I was terrified and crying uncontrollably, much like the man in the plane video. However, I think I had a fairly normal reaction to being ambushed, rather than a random “mental health episode” they described to my boss.
If these two do this again to someone else, and the target goes to the police, there will be a prior incident on record. By putting a workplace incident report in, it would get back to them that I had gone to the police. Now they know there is police report, which gives me safety without me having to break “no contact” with them. I hope my boss is smart enough not to send anyone to replace me even if he does think I am a crazy liar.
As I said earlier, they are so volatile, and the woman is so manipulative that I expect some variation of a murder-suicide scenario within the next few years. She has been lying to this man that she has qualifications she simply doesn’t have, and has been claiming she has done work she actually doesn’t know how to do. When he finally figures out that he has been gas-lit by her FOR YEARS, he will be violently angry.
I have enough work to pay my bills, but I miss that job. I had worked for the company for 3 years and it is unfair that I lost work I enjoyed because of those two. I try not to dwell on this aspect of the experience too much. It could have been much, much worse.
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Madelaine, Sounds like you are very mentally healthy, and strong. It sounds like you did a great job of setting aside your natural emotions and stress to respond logically in the optimum way to protect yourself and future victims. The way you handled the abuse and assault is inspiring to me.
I relate to the PTSD you’re experiencing. Over 5 years out and I am still dealing with physical and emotional symptoms of PTSD. It is deeply entrenched and impossible to reverse. Empirical studies have shown that the harmful effects of emotional abuse last longer and cause more damage than physical abuse. -
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Sunnygal, I am not working there any more. I have a contract with the company, but I worked on various projects. As one project finished, I would be sent to another one. This project was in an isolated location 1000 miles from my home. I would fly up every couple of weeks and stay there for a couple of weeks. That’s why I was so isolated and terrified. I was far away from any support. All my other project work has been in an office or working from home.
Since the incident, my boss has not given me any more work. So technically I am still under contract, but effectively I am not employed. I can pick up bits and pieces of work here and there, but it is not as regular as they contracted job I had. I guess I should stop calling my boss “my boss” and call him my “former boss” (although I am still under contract should he decide to give me more work).
I think one dynamic in this is that he called me a liar and told me to contact those two and make them feel better because they were so (fake) concerned about me. So now he knows there is a police report he’s probably worried that he did not act appropriately and wants to avoid me to protect himself. He also probably needs to justify his actions by getting all my colleagues to block me. He’s got strong narcissistic tendencies, which is probably how those two con artists got him to believe them in the first place. He is easily flattered and very quick to make judgements without thinking things through.
Annette, my view of how dangerous “normal” people can be is what triggers my ptsd. How could airport police drag a paying customer off a plane in what is a normal everyday situation?
So far I’ve only had one flashback, and that was because the trigger was so close to what I experienced. With any luck I won’t see any more instances of normal people abusing their power just because they want to “win” a game they are playing in their heads.
Also, thanks for the validation re how I handled it. As I said, I had been involved with a sociopath before and I knew what was coming so was able to act in the opposite way that they intended. The down side is that the police report does not reflect the emotional trauma, so the consequences are under-reported in terms of the damage they actually did. However, my main aim was to protect my professional reputation.
I didn’t realize at the time I would suffer ptsd as a result. It was the planned part of the ambush that shook me to my core. The woman and I had a normal morning until the man came in and attacked me. THEN she moved in to take my laptop and back up copies and destroy my paperwork. It was well planned and executed like a military operation. I had done nothing to the male to provoke an attack. He just walked in the front door and went for me.
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Hello all,
I’m really curious as to what “type” my narc-ex would fall into. I’ve never read the book, but I do plan to get it soon. I’m not sure how indepth I’m ready to go the may story. But I will say that once wasn’t enough. It took him 2 times to finally break me to the point of hating him, and still down deep loving him at that same time. The second time I let him into my life he helped drain my bank account of nearly $50,000.00 on top trying to lord over me when my money was gone, he change bank accounts, and proceeded to tell me if I needed more money for the monthly bills, I could tell himwhat it was foe and if he thought it was a valid expense he would give me the money.But when he accused me of taking money out of his account without his permission, that’s when I started packing his belongings up. It really depresses me to think about all the crap he has done to me, and accused me of…and I countinued to try to love him anyway, I’m sorry, that’s all I can do for now. thank you all!! -
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Was Crushed,
He sounds like a classic spath and classic controlling abuser from the horrible behaviors you describe. Congratulations to you for using your strength to get rid of him. You’re a good person and you naturally feel and practice loving a man you’re bonded to in a relationship. It’s difficult to break that bond. It’s natural to feel hate, anger, and yet still have the capacity to love. It sounds like you recognize that he doesn’t care about your well being (or anyone else’s besides himself), and he doesn’t bond with others, and he does not change. You did the best thing for yourself to end that relationship and keep yourself safe from him.
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Hi Sunnygal,
Thanks for your concern. I’m kind of down. I had applied for a couple jobs but didn’t get them. Not having a recent reference doesn’t help and I don’t want my sociopath ex-colleagues to get an idea about what I am doing. I’m basically fine, just no energy and trying to find “fun” things to do. I loved my work… it was a source of pride and creativity for me. I’m getting my “productivity” fix by baking cookies. I wish I could share them with you (chocolate chip). -
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Sunnygal,
No more work yet, but I am in a better mood. It is just one of those things that takes a week or so to pass. When I was with my first sociopath (boss at a university) I stayed being bullied by enablers for five years. That gave me a really distorted view of reality that feeling like crap would last forever. It took me about 2 years to get over that. Then, of course I met the latest pair. I think I still have flashbacks to the “institutional” sociopath.I think this is another “type” of sociopath in keeping with your original post. I think I used to work at a sociopath organization. The people there routinely falsified legal documents, forged documents and pathologically lied. I have a tape of a meeting. The official minutes of the meeting are the opposite of what was discussed and concluded at the meeting. Yet the doctored minutes are the official record of what went on. I call this “institutional gaslighting”. It sounds like your transit center might be an institutional sociopath. This means sociopaths thrive and are never pulled into line. Therefore, good people leave and only the scum are left.
Is this latest woman sociopath of yours someone you can avoid? I am sorry to hear your chronic condition is flaring up. I think a lot of the stress of a current situation is probably a “flashback” accumulation of previous harassment experiences. Abuse by sociopaths never really get resolved (ie there is no answer to “why???”) and we get away from the abuse by leaving. However, leaving an abusive situation doesn’t ‘resolve’ the confusion, turmoil, hurt and anger. I think it is this unresolved stuff that contributes to the experience of stress related to a new encounter with the latest sociopath.
It is very unfair. I don’t know if I will ever totally heal from the damage to my trust caused by the many, many enablers of abuse. These were the people who changed dates on documents, and falsified minutes of meetings and approved demotions based on nothing more than the request of my abuser (who was lying). I don’t have physical flaring up of physical ailments, but when I am in similar situations where I feel things are unfair, or I am not being told the truth, I end up being sad and grieving because I think these are my chronic flare up of the psychological damage that was done.
I think you are resilient and I am very glad you are concerned about me. There are very few (none, actually) people in the ‘real world’ who understand what it is like to be the victim of a sociopath. Unless they have been through it themselves, it is too unbelievable.
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Sunnygal,
so sorry to hear about toxic organizations. I am a woman working in a typically male (tech) field that has more than its fair share of malignant narcissists. It’s hyper-competitive so this attracts a lot of people who want to win at all costs. Ironically, it also attracts “bimbo” type women who attach themselves to the boss (or boss’s son) to get ahead. Once these patterns get established, they are toxic and there is very little that can be done. That’s why I prefer project work where I can do something else with another team every few months.Your transit center sounds incompetent at best and toxic at work. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. I’ve been doing reading around “corporate gaslighting” in which the organization “looses” documents or has “guidelines” (which can be ignored) instead of “policies and procedures” (which have to be followed. The whole point is to gaslight victims for some reason or the other by playing the “stupid” card (called plausible deniability).
I’ve gotten so used to the games that are played that I am pretty quick to disengage. I don’t see this as a good thing. I think it is incredibly sad that people and organizations are so endemically toxic that the best choice is to walk away. What does that say about society? I worry about young people who actually need jobs to pay the rent and get food. I work because I love the work, so I have a bit more flexibility about being able to avoid s’paths. Even then, walking away is emotionally hard, but it is not economically catastrophic. Is it my imagination, or are there more and more cluster B people? I don’t remember dealing with so many toxic people 30 years ago. Maybe I just gaslight and gaslightable more than I am now 🙂
Thanks for the heads up about Dr. Ault’s article. I’m going to read it now.
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Isn’t it unnerving how many s’paths end up in supervisory positions? It’s quite scary that they have all the skills to get ahead (lying, cheating, superficial charm, using people) and there doesn’t seem to be any checks and balances. Sunnygal, I hope your talk with the toxic supervisor went well, but I suspect you will have an experience similar to O.N. Ward’s chapter which was posted this week (just very glib lying). Once these people are in supervisory positions their word has more import than clients or subordinates because they ARE the supervisor.
Back in the 1970s I enrolled in a psychology degree to become a psychologist. The people in my class included s’paths, although the term didn’t exist for this type of person. They were into manipulating other students and bullying them. I changed courses because these people and their lust for power scared me. Years later I met up with the people I had been concerned about at a conference. Both were psychologists. One worked in a locked mental health hospital for involuntary patients. The other worked in the prison. They both ended up in positions of a lot of power and where the clients were powerless.
The need to control people had been evident when they were 18. Knowing how creepy they were in college, and where they ended up as psychologists made me promise myself that I would never do anything that would end me up in involuntary hospitalization or prison. There is no way I would ever let myself end up with them in a position of power over me.
I “choose” my s’paths who use less overt control methods, like bosses in fields where there is a lot of ruthless competition 🙁 I’m sad that there are many fields in which s’paths end up in power over relatively powerless clients. Disability services is another area in which a s’path will rise to a supervisory position with ease.
Sunnygal, should this be a new topic? We seem to be getting away from the original post.
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