After reading about the book, The Psychopath Test, Kayt Sukel, a Psychology Today blogger, wondered if psychopaths were, in fact, everywhere. So she asked Joshua Buckholtz, a neuroscientist. He said that psychopathy needed to have meaningful diagnostic boundaries. Buckholtz told her “a true psychopath is going to show high aggression, low empathy and high narcissism in all contexts.”
I wondered about that description. Here at Lovefraud, we know that psychopaths are capable of faking love and concern, quite convincingly, when it suits their purpose. How does the expert account for that?
Read Psychopaths everywhere? on PsychologyToday.com.
Link supplied by a Lovefraud reader.
Truthspeak, yes, I know EXACTLY what you mean about the process of starting to face some uncomfortable truths about myself, and then changing or becoming a new version of myself that is a stranger…
I do not know how far along this path I am, how far I will go, but I have experienced at different points, different emotional responses to facing the Truth (this can be mundane, worldly truth or deep spiritual truth):
At first, for many years, I had an automatic, unconscious, defensive response: denial. This manifested in different ways. I would sometimes ramp up my frenetic “duty to others” to cover up my pain. I mean, I was unaware of the pain (or shame core, however you want to view it). This defensive response was so automatic it happened in a fraction of a second. I know there was pain lurking underneath, but the pain was SO PAINFUL that my defense system didn’t want me to be consciously aware that the pain even existed. Well, if you are unaware of the pain, how on earth can you possibly know there is a problem to be addressed? Honestly, for years I thought I knew myself and that I was “happy.” I thought that there was nothing wrong. (but there WAS).
I am now at a point where I think I was so covered in layers of denial, that I may have “sought” a spath relationship which was overtly painful, in order to sort of crack that shell of unawareness, and allow me to be conscious of much deeper pain. Mind you, this is a loooooooong process.
But during the long process, I have gone through different stages of “facing down the beast.” (I do not believe I am “done” yet, but I’m in this for the long haul… I’ll keep at it until I am done or die).
One of the stages I passed through was certainly the stage of outrage and intolerance for cruelty of any sort. I became VERY sensitive. I became more and more aware that behaviors i had previously thought of as benign were ANYTHING BUT. I was angry at myself for my previous blindness, angry at others for their tolerance, angry at the slippery snakes wearing the masks — angry at everything and everyone. I transferred my ‘duty” towards others (this previous “duty” was to keep my mouth and eyes and ears shut and pretend — at first unconsciously and then with dawning awareness — pretend that everything was “OK” or “not so bad.” I transferred this previous “duty” into a raging “save the world” duty — zero tolerance, calling it out, etc.
But I am passing through that phase, as well. Into a new one where I realize that it is not my job. This is a new realization for me, and still a bit fragile. It does not mean I do not care about injustice in the world. But it means that I can be at a place where I don’t condone it, don’t participate in it, I can look at it and see it for what it is and not turn away in fear…. I can look through it and see the banality of it. I don’t have to do battle with it. I don’t have to run away and hide. I know that I can just “turn the other cheek” and live my good life without engaging with Evil — and I can see the world through different eyes, if I choose to remove the veils. (this is still somewhat theoretical to me because I am still on the edge of it; i haven’t completely gone through that door OBVIOUSLY and come out on the other side… LOL. it’s just that, before, I never know that this place of Peace existed. That’s where I want to go…)
This is the direction my spiritual search is taking me. it has always been a spiritual search as well as pursuit of mental health. Both. So, I think there are many stages along the way. I have no idea what new stages await for ME. But I do know that I don’t want to remain in any stuck, dark places.
Yes, Truthspeak, those are uncomfortable places… but my experience has been that each time I evolve a little, it is uncomfortable and I need to pause, rest awhile, and get used to the new place before I have energy to go on and do more work to keep growing and healing. It seems to be an open-ended process, if we want it to be.
20years, thank you for sharing your healing process – it’s weird to me to be this different person that I don’t particularly like. Perhaps, it’s because this person won’t be “liked” by everyone else that makes it such an uncomfortable place to be in.
I have to come to the understanding that I don’t NEED everyone to “like” me in order to survive. 😀
Truthspeak and 20years,
great topic this morning. It just happens to be what I’ve been thinking about too: responsibility.
Where does it begin and where does it end?
To deny responsibility is to be like a spath. To take on more than our share, is to enable the spaths.
You’ve both described so many of the processes that I’ve been through as well. The denial, the intolerance.
One of the things that I’ve been reading lately, about shame, is that it comes from a threat to the social bonds. It isn’t an emotion you can have without the context of other people. And I think that is true of psychopathy, as well. You can’t be a parasite or a predator when you’re by yourself. It requires other people. So in this context, the word “anti-social” is actually a very good description of psychopaths because everything they do is 180 degrees against society and the social bonds.
Rene Girard, whose Mimetic Theory states that we are all imitative people and we imitate each other’s desires, coined a word: intervidual. The word conveys the idea that we are each much more interconnected than we are aware of. We are constantly modeling for each other and creating each other’s emotions, which color our perspectives of the world.
So in that way, we do have to take responsibility for each other, because we affect each other so much.
I think the problem we have when we try to take on too much responsibility, is that we are trying to CONTROL others. Especially the spaths. It’s hard not to want to control them. But that just make it worse, in so many ways, that I won’t list them here. They key is to control ourselves as we become aware of how we affect others.
I’ve read that when a child does something bad, it is ok to shame him so that he internalizes what “bad” is. But then within a few minutes, it’s important to help him handle his shame so that he learns to do this himself and not deny it.
What I used to do with all the spaths, was that when I saw them doing something shameful, I was so embarrassed for them, that I pretended it wasn’t there. I JOINED them in the denial of the shame. Well, I can’t say I’ve stopped doing it, because shame is an uncomfortable feeling even if it’s not your own. But at least I can now SEE the pink elephant in the room.
Skylar,
The last paragraph in your post is particularly powerful and insightful for me. That’s exactly what I learned to do in my family growing up, pretend the embarrassing/shameful thing wasn’t even happening. What is the appropriate, “normal” way to respond to the shameful things? When someone makes a scene in a restaurant, how should their companions respond “appropriately”? I have no idea!!
That’s a great question, Sparklehorse.
I’d like to say, we should address the shameful behavior right then and there but at the same time, how do we then offer compassion? I’m pretty sure ignoring it is the wrong thing to do, I just don’t know what the right thing is.
The best way is to tell someone, in a calm, decisive way that they should stop that particular behaviour. It’s something I’ve heard worked succesfully with bullies who pester kids at school. And it’s a tactic I’ve been using the past few months as a teacher. And it does seem to have the best effect.
I don’t “ask” them to stop, I don’t tell them I “want” them to stop. I don’t even tell them what the consequences will be if they don’t stop. I just say, “From now on, you will stop [fill in wrong, negative or annoying behaviour].” It’s a kind of authority voice that is never or rarely used anymore, and I guess that’s why it works.
The very notion of tenure could be argued as being highly narcissistic.
darwinsmom, YES, if you are the teacher/authority. But what if you are in the subordinate position?
More risky. For example… if the rude-to-service-people-in-restaurants person is your parent, and you are a child. (this happens frequently to my children when they are taken to restaurants by my ex-husband).
Good conversation guys. That mantra of “let’s pretend none of this happened” is the mantra I grew up with. Ignoring the bad behavior is enabling it.
When I caught my “friend” stealing from me, caught her in the ACT…I was ASHAMED for her…afraid I had embarrassed her. I felt bad that I had caught her in the act and cried for 3 days because I had made her uncomfortable by catching her stealing.
She had stolen from me before and I had known it, confronted it, of course she denied it…but I had gone on then and PLAYED PRETEND IT NEVER HAPPENED….and let her back into my life like it never happened.
With Uncle Monster’s drinking and abusing his wife or girlfriends we pretended it didn’t happen…when he held my grandmother hostage at gun point for 3 days when my grandfather was in the hospital I quit pretending and I went to rescue her with a gun, and he knew I was coming so split before I got there. I stopped off at the county sheriff’s office to tell him waht was going on and ask if he wanted to send a deputy with me, and I told him I had a gun and was going in to get her…the sheriff said “No there was no need to send a deputy and if I shot Uncle Monster, HE WAS PAID FOR.”
After that I didn’t want anything to do with Uncle monster but that was when egg donor started her carp about I was ruining HER christmas because I wouldn’t have christmas or
thanksgiving dinner with him….well, I took my kids and went somewhere else rather than eat a meal with him. I couldn’t stand to be in his presence.
Since uncle monster died, the family bad boy is my son Patrick, so now she is enabling him. Protecting him from his mean old mommie just like she tried to protect uncle monster in the name of “forgiveness” which to her was “pretend it didn’t happen” Funny thing though she didn’t seem to “forgive” my P DIL who stole from her and tried to kill my son C and when the Trojan horse P got out of prison and asked to borrow some money she didn’t seem very forgiving of him.
We do have to realize that we cannot and should not try to “rescue” the world in general or psychopaths in particular and people who are in thrall to the psychopaths we cannot “rescue” them because they don’t want to be rescued.
I tried hard to “rescue” my egg donor when she was being abused by them and all it got me was to be devalued and discarded.
We do have a duty to take care of our children until they reach adulthood at which time they should be on their own.
Those friends and relatives we love we want to “help” them if we can, if something bad happens to them, but we don’t have a duty to pull someone out of the river when they keep jumping back in. We don’t have a duty to allow someone to abuse us over and over and keep giving them trust again.
We DO have a duty to ourselves to set boundaries about how we will allow others to treat us.
It might be nice to have this “namby-pamby there is good in everyone” outlook, but the TRUTH is that there is NOT “good in everyone” and that as adults we have to recognize that there is no Santa, no Easter Bunny, no tooth fairy and that some people are just plain evil. I dont’ think that makes us jaded or cynical but honest and looking at the world the way it really is, not in this magical thinking way that life is a bowl of cherries.
I’m sitting here in the house today because it is stormy outside, I’m taking another round of antibotics for tick fever, and my ankle is either badly sprained or broken and my dog is missing…it has been a CRAPPY week, but none of this was a betrayal by anyone, it is just “shiat happens” so you go on and do what you have to do. I spent a couple of days crying for my dog and I still miss him, but “shiat happens” and you deal with it.
But when you have betrayal in your life, people doing shiaty things to you, that is a different kind of hurt, different kind of problem and it is more difficult emotionally to deal with it.
I don’t think I will ever completely get over the “knee jerk impulse” to “help” people (read: enable) but I am learning to set boundaries better and to “control myself” better. to cut those people out of my life who are high in P traits. Doesn’t matter if they would score 30+ or not, if they are dishonest, or irresponsible I don’t need them in my life because I can’t trust them.
That allows me more energy and strength to contend with the sprained ankles, missing dogs, and medical problems….in other words LIFE.
darwinsmom… additional thoughts…
I think when the offending person is “your equal” as in your spouse, then of course be assertive. HOWEVER… when the offending person is your spouse, most likely you think of them as your equal, but THEY think of themselves as your SUPERIOR, so you would be insubordinate in their view, and you might be punished for that.
This goes back to the paradigm of do we view the world through a lens of mutuality, while the spaths view it as a power-over, or win-lose type of thing? Yep, they do.
So…. in the case of bullies…. where they are your equals (peers, as in school or sometimes co-workers)… I think that is when it can work that you are assertive and call them out on it — but ONLY if you do this at the beginning, before they get to view you as prey or a victim. Once they have sized you up as weaker than they, then they will view you as INSUBORDINATE as opposed to their equal (like two lionesses that respect that you can each rip each other’s heads off, so maybe you just keep your own territories and don’t mess with one another).
I have done this, from time to time, when I have successfully recognized a (workplace) bully: I kind of give them a knowing look (not a wary one — but one that says, I see that you are “like me” and I get you — don’t mess with me, and i won’t mess with you). And then I smile and maybe laugh at our “shared joke” (yes, I am putting on a mask — but it fools them and keeps me safe). phrases like, “oh, PLEASE” and “don’t even THINK about it” have worked in these cases.
Sigh. It has been self protective.