Dorothy Hooks is a Christian woman who tries to live by the Bible. When she met Cedric Youngblood, she saw a man who never had a chance. His family life as a child had been abusive. He had been in and out of jail. Dorothy saw someone who just needed to get out of the ghetto and learn the meaning of love and family.
In Dorothy, Cedric saw a giving, caring woman who wants to do the right thing and help people.In other words, Cedric saw a target.
Last week, the Cedric Youngblood story was posted on Lovefraud.com. Dorothy courageously talks about her marriage to the man who she now realizes is a sociopath. But for more than three years, Dorothy focused on Cedric’s potential, hoping he would change his abusive behavior.
Again and again, Dorothy gave Cedric another chance. She kept forgiving his cheating and his violence. She knew he could change.
He didn’t.
“I didn’t realize that for a person to change, he has to want to change,” she says. “If that person doesn’t want to change, he’s not going to change.”
Victimizing nurturing women
In his book, Without Conscience, Dr. Robert Hare points out that psychopaths (the term he uses) are experts at identifying and victimizing nurturing women.
There are many people in the world who want to think the best of everyone.Time and time again, Lovefraud has heard from people who have been deceived and defrauded by sociopaths who say, “I never knew such evil existed.”
It does.
Sociopaths make up 1% of the population. That means in the United States, there are 3 million of these predators looking for victims. These people have no heart, no conscience and no remorse. By the time they are adults, their personalities are set. Any attempt to change them is futile.
Discerning those who want to change
Of course, there are millions of people who get into trouble in their lives and deserve a second chance. So it’s important to be able to differentiate those who can be rehabilitated from those who can’t.
The first step is to accept that sociopaths exist. The second step is to know the symptoms of the disorder.
Then we may be able to discern the people who really want to change from the sociopaths who only mouth the words so they can keep bleeding us.
This is a really sad disease. I am now learning about it. To think that my 16 year old daughter can learn from her mistakes and a 42 year old man cannot just blows me away.
Scary…
I am just learning about sociopaths. I very recently got out of a relationship with a man who I think could be diagnosed with this disorder. He seemed to have good days being happy and funny but other days he was really miserable and depressed.
At the age of 32, I think he knows he has nothing in life…No job, savings, in tremendous debt, and a preety bad drug problem. He seems to acknowledge that he has many problems and ‘issues’ that he has not dealt with from earlier on in life. He says he wants to change and make some out of his life. However I really have not seen him make any effort to do something about it…
When/ do people who suffer from this condition get tired of living in such a way? Is being a low-life for such a long time enough motive to change them and try to make something out of their life?
The more I learn about this the more I understand that you cant change these people no matter what happens.
Common logic doesnt make sense to them. My exwife keeps going when you would think she would stop because of the consequences, but the consequences dont sem to bother sociopaths.
Definitly check out the history of this person before marrying or becoming involved ith these people. I have learned alot going back thru her past all the things she has done.
There is a long paper list of things she has done.
When we divorced I thought it was aon a good note but then she cleaned out the house backed up a truck and took everything even the fridge washer dryer, They were all my parents and my parents house which they allowed us to live in rent free. They destroyed the house writing on walls, punching holes in walls, tearing up gas lines to gas fireplace that wouldve caught the place on fire had we not checked them, and much more. Over 17,000 dollars worth of damage and over 10,000 dollars worth of stolen items and she had gotten credit cards in my name and racked up over 25,000 dollars worth of debt in my name. I of course had to file for chapter 13 bankruptcy.
Guess what shes done this before I found out.
Her last place was trashed and burnt down that she rented from in Florida. And the place she moved into after she left my parents place she lived there a little while and when she left it destroyed and trashed it as well. So thats three houses that I know of that she leaves trashed and destroyed. It took a crew of 4 people over 2 1/2 weeks to clean and fix our house non stop 8 hours a day 5 days a week. We had to evict her to get her out as she refused to leave and when she did she left in a big way. We also found another eviction down in Florida from yet another place.
She spent time in jail for stealing from a local place she was working for over 2500 dollars she was a manager at McDonalds.
She has been arrested and has a case against her with Home Depot for over 5000 dollars for stealing from them.
She has a case against her for account fraud for paying rent to one person. Credit card fraud and internet fraud in another county. Bad checks and credit companies call my house everyday looking for her. She has had petit theft guilty charges against her in Florida. A Grand Theft charge that hasnt gone to case yet in Florida. the list goes on I have plenty more I could add.
My point is it doesnt effect these people and they get away with alot of it. They pay a fine and get out the small time she hhas spent in jail doenst bother her. She laughs and is back out doing more.
We have 4 different counties in my local area that have had charges and guilty and jail time for her and nothing seems to effect her or stop her.
You CAN NOT SAVE these people.
They do not “learn from their mistakes”, because to the spath, they are NOT mistakes, but just a little bit of “collateral damage” that they can easily (and DO) walk away from. They still got the result that they were after – their “supply”, whatever form/s it took.
Spaths do not think that anything is wrong with them and they do not accept any viewpoints or opinions that don’t match with theirs; however, they are more than happy to USE those differing viewpoints and opinions of others to study them, to assess their vulnerability and to execute a scam over the unwitting victim/s.
AMEN Aussie!
If you want to hear the opposing point of view… talk to my xspath!!!
Sociopaths don’t want to change their ways (that is so true) being set in their ways, unwilling to learn to do differently. I discovered (the hard way as usual) that my husband could not manage a bank account, nor did he seem inclined to learn how to do so. He would write checks, not having sufficient funds to cover the checks that he’d written. I would try and explain to him that you don’t write checks if you don’t have the money to cover the checks. I would bang my head against the wall, wondering why a grown man could not manage a bank account, deliberately writing checks that he knew would bounce. At the time, I figured he needed training, but then as time passed and he didn’t change his ways (he would typically have some stupid explanation about why he wrote a bad check), I had to conclude that he didn’t intend to EVER learn how to manage a bank account. What floors me is that he isn’t embarrassed by bouncing checks. Repeatedly writing bad checks was a sign to me that there was something very wrong with this man, in time, other behaviors becoming more evident, leading me to figure out that he is a sociopath. The man seems to have a mental block when it comes to money (and other things), how to operate in the world-at-large.
bluejay –
They do SEEM to have “mental blocks” about things, but I’m sure that it’s just that they don’t agree with the opinions of others or society’s “norms” so they don’t bother to accomodate or conform to them.
Anything or anyone in their way is simply a blip on their radar – an inconvenience to be circumnavigated and then they continue on their own merry way.
Oh the stories on this topic that I could tell! The myriad of things that just didn’t make any sense until I knew that they had been deliberate. He hadn’t SEEMED that stupid, ignorant or anti-social, so I excused his odd behaviours. I now know that they were either part of his “crazy-making” or else they were “blips” to be gotten around, without concern or remorse over their effect on anyone else.
Not all sociopaths are damaged people with childhood trauma’s that need rescued. They dont think there is anything wrong with exploiting good people who have had a hard life. Many of us are the damaged one’s that keep being damaged over and over by these predator’s. It’s the goodness we have that they want, they may be better off financially than we are but they still want to steal our goodness and destroy us and then walk away with a sense of accomplishment. It’s power they are after – seek and destroy and enjoy every minute of it.
aussiegirl,
My husband has done so many stupid, unbelievable things. Yes, all of us could tell a story or two about the nutty stuff that these creatures are capable of doing. Some times when I would confront him about some misdeed, he’d get the blank look on his face (he faded out), thus the thought that he has a mental block.
hens, I’m so glad you got a new computer!
You are right, not all need to be rescued.
I was the one that thought I had to help everyone.
After being here on LF for a while I learned I
am not responsible for other people’s problems
(spath or no spath!) I think even empaths
can take advantage of our goodness, they just
don’t destroy us in the process.
xoxoxoxo to you hens!