Donna Anderson’s important latest post reminds me that one topic which will never be worn out is that of the psychopath’s lies and their impact on others.
This week I want to very briefly introduce yet another take on this inexhaustible topic. Everyone lies, but there’s something else at stake in the case of the psychopath’s lies.
To illustrate: you might say about any regular (non-psychopathic) person, “Things would be better if s/he was to lie less often. Her/his soul or psyche would be healthier as would her relationships.” That’s true. Now try this on for size and notice how wrong it seems: “Things would be better if the psychopath was to lie less often. His soul or psyche would be healthier as would his relationships.”
Weirdly, this is patently not the case. The psychopath will be just as sick/evil no matter how many or how few lies he tells. It’s not a quantitative but a qualitative matter.
It is commonly said that a defining characteristic of psychopaths is that they are pathological liars. This is right if you mean that they are profoundly dishonest and not to be trusted. It does not mean, though, that psychopaths lie a lot. They do lie a lot and those lies cause havoc. But as I hope my illustration above shows, lying less will not make them better people.
So, how does this work? The thing about psychopaths is that even their truths are lies! Or rather, whether or not they happen to be telling the truth or a lie at any particular moment is not what makes them psychopathic. What makes them psychopathic is that they use and destroy people; truth or lies are for them just so many weapons for pursuing their prey.
M.L. Gallagher said a lot when she wrote this:
He is the lie….
From hello to good-bye. I love you to I hate you. You’re beautiful to you’re ugly.
It was all a lie….When friends or my family ask, but what about this, or what about that, I tell them. It was all a lie. There was no truth in him.
If I spend my time trying to figure out fact from fiction, all I am doing is trying to prove I wasn’t so stupid. See, this was true. That’s why I fell in love with him.
Truth is. I fell in love with him because I believed his lie.
When I discovered the truth, I was so enmeshed in his lie, I couldn’t find the truth in me. And so I sank.
hehe…
Hens:
That message was awesome!! I guess it worked, huh?
DUPED:
That’s what I do…love from afar. And I am good to myself. I exercise a lot, got a massage yesterday (rare for me), eat well, go out when I want. All these things I do to get him off my mind. It’s all I can do.
God did give you one more chance and I thank Him that he gave you that chance! You still have living to do and you are here for a reason!! Hugs to you.
Duped! Right on! Great post.
Hens!! What an awesome recording! I don’t cuss at all, but I don’t think you could have said what you said any other way. You rock!
Louise
I have to say, YES, texting is contact! If my “watching from afar” is contact, then texting certainly is! It is interactive.
Months and months ago I was looking through all the pictures I’ve taken over the last 3 years. In my head at my time I was a “couple” with my spath. We were an item. He was in my heart. Yet he was NOWHERE IN MY PICTURES! WHy? Because our relationship was 90% texting and 10% sex. He was in my life every day all day with text messages, influencing my emotions and my thoughts, and when we DID get together it was for sex.
So I’m thinking he’s this HUGE part of my life, and the reality was HE WAS NOT! It was all in my head. Where was he the rest of the time? Texting me while he was with somebody else, or while he was alone, or while he did something that was more important to him than spending time with somebody who loved him deeply (me).
TEXTING COUNTS! CHANGE YOUR NUMBER!
SK
Superkid;
Texting was a big part of my “relationship” too. In fact, my x-spath was the first person I ever dated where I had any significant texting since I never did much texting until I bought a smart phone with a full keyboard.
Thus, when I started getting hundreds of texts from him in the first week I new him, I thought this was something unique and special.
Only after the fact did I realize that its quite normal to have that volume with non-dating friends if not a lot else is going on in your life.
I was just keeping him from being bored…
Blue Eyes
Yes – keeping him from being bored, and enabling him to “be” with more than one person at the same time.
SK
Cellphones are a spaths BEST friend! Mine had more of a relatiionship with his cellphone than he probably did with any of his girlfriends LOL!
It just allows them to multi task their gf’s better 🙂
LL
“…and enabling him to “be” with more than one person at the same time…
Oh yes. Listen to the excuse I fell for. My x-spath is a flight attendant and was on a trip to what considered to be a dangerous third-world city. I did not try to contact him while he was on the flight nor did I try to contact him as soon as he returned, thinking he would be jet-lagged.
I started to worry when he was back over a day and I did not hear anything from him. Finally, I sent him an email asking if everything was OK.
His excuse? He had many emails when he returned from his trip and he did not want to just send me something quick, he wanted to take time to “write something special.”
Can you believe I fell for that excuse?
“Cellphones are a spaths BEST friend…”
That and long-distance “relationships”…