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.
I didn’t mean to say that there is no euphoria at all in a good relationship. You’re right, it’s there, but it’s a different kind. I felt excited with him, but I felt on-balance the whole time if that makes any sense. I felt like I could trust him after I thought I would never trust anyone again.
I read a quote once, I forget by who, but they said that marriage is about uncovering the “joyful mysteries.” That is another person’s layers of personality, their fears, their good points and every little quirk, to appreciate them and love them as only someone committed to them could. S’s don’t have layers, they are cardboard cutouts of humanity with nothing behind. So I think uncovering those joyful mysteries is as exciting (if not more) as what a sociopath has to offer as a copy, but it’s the real thing.
Oxdrover, it is lovely that you have such good memories of your relationship with your husband. He sounds like a wonderful man.
Hi AloaT, Jules, Greengirl, Ariadne. Good to see you are all still talking to each other, what a joy to get on my laptop and see you all there!! (((Hugs)))
Adriadne,
“joyful mysteries” that is great! And so true. Yea, my husband and I had great times…doesn’t mean we didn’t butt heads, because we did…he was an engineer, and they have twisted ways of looking at the world—not the glass half full, not the glass half empty—just the wrong size glass. He wanted to “improve” on any design, even one that worked fine! LOL and sometimes he “improved” stuff so that it wouldn’t work at all! LOL I am more practical but we worked out these things because we loved each other.
My son D and I were talking yesterday about my husband and my relationship, and laughing about some of his foibles and attitudes (in a good way) and about our differences.
It was only after his death that I found out about the “secret other women” in his life—but in a GOOD way. There was a diner that he frequently drank coffee at, and since it was sort of a family diner, he got to know the cooks and waitresses and the owner. There as one 65 year old waitress there that was very poor, and her car died, she had only about $1000 to replace it with, and since my husband knew cars backwards and forwards, he and son D spent two entire days going from used car lot to used car lot until they found the woman a reliable car for $1000. He never told me about this act of kindness.
Another waitress there, with a small child, had her husband beat the crap out of her and my husband and son D took our truck and trailer and moved her and her children to another place to live away from her abusive husband.
Those secret acts of kindness and I am sure there are probably also others, showed what a great man he was—what a kind and caring person. Where some women discover after their husband’s deaths that he had 3 girlfriends, I instead discovered the secret acts of goodness that mine did. You can only imagine how warm and good that made me feel.
The old saying “you don’t miss the water til the well runs dry” is true too—though I did appreciate him when I had him, I appreciated him even more when he was GONE. That I know made me much more vulnerable to the P BF at the time (8 months after my husband’s death) and I fell hook line and sinker for the bait. Because I had decided early o n that I would never take abuse, even verbal abuse, from a significant man in my life (lover, husband) etc. even though I was STILL in the fog about my P-son (and why that was different I don’t’ know but it was–I could see it in a man, but not in my son) when the P BF started his crap, I only endured a few months of it before I became in enough pain to toss him to the curb—and yes, it HURT to give up the dream of having again what I had with my late husband…and for a while after the P BF and I were broke up I even got on dating sites on the internet (another needy behavior in myself) I now realize that is too dangerous a game to play and fortunately I never got hooked by another P, though I talked to a few on the phone. Their red flags were obvious to me.
Now, I am content to live alone unless the RIGHT guy does come along, but won’t go “shopping” for one on the internet or anywhere else. I’d VERY MUCH like another good relationship, but if I don’t find one, I’m fine just like I am. I don’t feel NEEDY now.
Beverly, glad to see your “face” again, how are things going? Still have you in my prayers. (((hugs))))
I guess this is what I am angry about.. I wanted all those kinds of memories with a nice man. I am almost 40 now. I can never have that back. If I let myself think about it for too long, I get mad at the world.
My heart was broken by a Good Man and then a Bad Man. That sums up my 30’s.
I don’t get to do it over. And of course, I am happy for my sister but I have a little green monster in me sometimes. It’s not so much jealousy as it is pain.
My sister told me she wanted my Dad to escort me down the aisle as a special way to include us since she is not having me in the wedding party and she isn’t having Dad walk her down the aisle. (This I find so sad but Dad is okay with it… parents are divorced.) I thought about it for 5 seconds and then said, “NO WAY.” If I stand a chance of holding it together, I can not start the festivities with my Dad walking me down the aisle at my NOT WEDDING DAY. NO. That will not work for me. I fall apart every time I think about it.
The day is going to a ZEN meditation for me becaause I need to stay focused on the moment of HER happiness and keep my own disappointment in life for after the party when I go home and cry my heart out. Nothing is more pathetic than your 40 year old single sister at your wedding. I can just read people’s minds… “How sad. E never did find someone.”
Well, I am being pathetic and stupid now so I better go and have my pity party alone. I hate when I do this. I do have a lunch date today so I don’t want to show up with puffy eyes. HIT THE SHOWERS!
Me, too, aloha! Got divorced at 28 from an abusive guy and then met the N….spent the next ten-twelve years madly in love with HIM. Hahahaha. Now I’m 41. And alone still.
As I type, I’m laughing. It’s so absurd!!
You are always so strong. I really think maybe we should stop strolling down even quasi-good memory lane if it’s upsetting either you or anyone else.
But you know, do you believe in the motto: “Wherever you are is where you’re meant to be, no matter if it feels otherwise?”
I really do believe the way things are is the way they are meant to be…for now. And we never know why until it’s hindsight.
We’re 40…we’ve earned the right not to give a damn what other people think about our choices, or justifying our lives to anyone other than ourselves.
Stay strong. Envision all those guests at the wedding dressed in french maid costumes! Especially the men!
Looking at things with ‘new eyes’ as it were – I realise that many of us women and a few men have a tremendous capacity to put up with, be patient with, etc etc and these are all tremendous qualities. Problems come when we struggle with choices we have made and exercise these qualities which kind of temporarily cements us into a situation. Sometimes we just dont realise what the deeper implications are of choices we have made, jobs we took, people we met, places we lived. In a sense we may be lied to in different ways, why the last owner of our dwelling left, or our predecessor left the job etc etc.
I have learnt to ask questions and more questions to discover the past before I put myself into some elses tracks. I asked many questions with the exN, but didnt get satisfactory answers. If we are to learn to really value ourselves and value where we place ourselves, we have learnt off the back of these terrible encounters a really life changing lesson.
I am finishing a beautiful book called “A Year by the Sea” by Joan Anderson. A woman who left her ‘regular” life for awhile and went to live in their summer home, alone by the sea. She rediscovers herself through her past, her hopes, fears, mistakes etc and expresses all the same thoughts we all have – sometimes laughing at oneself and sometimes crying.
One quote I related to during this time of “aloneness” that some of us are trying to tiptoe through:
“To arrive where you are, to get there from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy”.
Its hard to be alone after the HIGH the S made me feel. Its hard to imagine how and when another relationship could even come along. Or how to scrape myself up, and dust myself off and lose the poor self-esteem he left me with. But I guess these days of “lacking in ecstasy” are a time for healing, refocusing, learning to place boundries, rediscovering who I am after so much of “me” was stolen by the S.
It is hard to realize that a new, healthier relationship might not be the ecstasy he created, the fake highs that you thought were real but now I’d treasure the solitude of mind with a man you could trust, someone who actually had your best interest at heart and gave of himself as you give to him. I’m just not sure anymore how to recognize that when I see it?
Beverly,
What you said was so true. I made so many decisions that led me to this spot in which I am sitting… or should I say, this hole I am slowly climbing out of… now I constantly plan and think to myself… if I do “this” or “that” will it lead me to where I said I wanted to go? I can’t say that I made the wrong choices but I did make choices. Sometimes in choosing one thing, were are eliminating another.
Anyway, I hope you are feeling well and kicking the C-word. Let us know how you are doing. You are one of my ladies at LoveFraud. :o)
Aloha…
I just kind of flashed on something Findingmyselfagain said.
The “healthier relationship might not be the Ecstasy he created.”
Do you think maybe the “ecstasy” might be the DRUG HIGN and right now we are in WITHDRAWL, like a heroin addict during the “cold turkey”?
After we go through the “cold turkey” withdrawal, we still crave that “drug induced HIGH” that “Real life” can’t duplicate. That craving still “speaks” to us the way it does to the heroin addict.
I think that for me at least, I have stumbled upon the fact that the TRUE analogy of it all is that for me at least, it is just like an addiction and the Heroin addict. I was “hooked”—
I had “seen” the analogy before and thought about it, but not realized the TOTAL depth of it–at least for me. The “cold turkey” period, and then listening to the “siren song” and being drawn back into wanting him. (Nods head, gets this profound look on face, purses lips, then sighs) LOL
OxDrover – you are so right! And the heroin addict probably knows at some level that what they are doing makes them sick, is unhealthy, a risk, a high price to pay for a little “high” and somehow yet cant stop. They are always looking for the next fix and sacrifice much to just have a little more (of him). Once they go thru rehab – its still a battle but at least they have their eyes fixed on their goal of abstaining from that which they think they wanted. Its all such a parable for what leaving an S is like. You could go on and on with the similarities. I guess this blog is our Narcotics Anonymous group… or rather Narcissist Anonymous.. NA works for both! LOL