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.
Dear Erin1972.
Hey kid, you can borrow the cyber cast iron skillet, but you aren’t allowed to BOINK yourself more than once with it! LOL
Honey, I think every last blasted one of us here has done the same thing! We saw that red flag waving and didn’t pay a bit of attention to it! LOL ROTFLMAO
So just “get over it already!” LOL there is not a thing in the world you can do about it now except LEARN FROM IT. Oh, yea, you can ARE ALLOWED TO LAUGH ABOUT IT!!!! (((hugs))))
Ox-I was laughing so hard when I posted that-I almost peed in my pants!
oxy – i was like a bull to the flag!
ya’ll I hit a boy once in school for humiliating me in the classroom. What happened to that girl? I think I found her again-almost anyway!
erin – i did the same at 10 and 30 (20 years ago) i would LOVE to re-aquaint myself with THAT girl.
Erin, I was in 7th grade, and a new boy came to our school. I thought he was cute, and i guess I was flirting with him in the hall, and he reached out and grabbed my breast and twisted it to the point it really hurt….I was 12. I slapped the shit out of that boy, and left the school…I ran out the door and into an ally. He must have had some other previous stuff going on, cause he never came back to my school. What the hell? Why do 12 year old girls have to deal with this?
i hear yo on this one kim – your story gave me flashbacks
Kim, I had a full on woman’s body in 5th grade at age 10-my period and everything. I was the new girl. There was a boy in class that people said was crazy. The teacher was having problems with kids passing notes. She made a rule that any caught doing it would be reading the note in front of the class. This crazy ass boy sent me a note saying-“Will you have sex with me-check yes or no”. The teacher saw me reading the note and told me to stand and read it. I said NO. She said it again and I said HELL NO! I crunched up the paper, walked to his desk, grabbed him by the collar, pulled him out of his seat and punched him in the nose. There was blood everywhere. He ran away and didn’t come back for a week!
Okay…..are ya’ll provoking me to let loose of my tomboy stories of days gone by?
When I was about 15, with the spath….we were leaving the beach and he wouldn’t walk with me…???? Yeah, yeah….
There were 5 dudes following me….and they got mouthy with me…..hey baby, kinda shit….they wouldn’t stop…..so I stopped and got in one of the dudes faces and screamed at him…..
The S couldn’t ignore it…..I was taking on 5 guys…..he didn’t do anything….so I did……
I walked away and left him to deal with it…..he NEVER forgot this……I wish he would have got his ass beat ……..
I didn’t take shit much as a kid…..so….why did I take shit from the S?
Even now…..I don’t like confrontation…..but it sure doesn;t scare me like it used to…..
I’ve been practicing thepast few years…huh!
I love when little girls don’t take shit from a boy……
I decked the neighbor boy for teasing me when I was 5……knocked him right in the gutter in front ofmy house…..
This is a story my mother used to remind me of…..
Unfortunately, he was the cutest boy around…..
He definately stood back in the perifrial from me growing up….
Those were the days…..GIRLY POWER!!!
🙂
TOWANDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!