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 Gem,
Well, I ihope your SIL is finally getting the idea that he cannot safely leave the P with the kids—DUH???? I don’t really think he is “father of the year” and we know he isn’t “financial planner of the year” (being so deeply in debt that he needs a ladder to stand and see over the edge) but if he is going to keep his kids safe, HE IS GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT, not leave it to a woman he ALREADY KNOWS is not responsible. DUH!!!!!
Glad the kid is alive at least. I guess she might have asked to borrow money for a black dress for the funeral if he hadn’t been….you know one of those slinknly little black numbers so she could look good at the wake. I tell you Gem, I’m not even her mother and I want to biatch slap her! LOL I can only imagine how you feel.
I cant tell you how relieved I am that Finbar is Ok and alive! My SIL is feckless with money but basically a good Dad, I think, he cant be two places a t once and he was at work, and kids will be kids!
He told me he had a tear in his eye at work the next day, and a single Mum he works with gave him a big hug, and he said he felt better. So he is NOT a spath.
He hasa lot on his plate with the 3 kids and no help from the lying biatch daughter from hell.Imageine not even showing up at the Hospital!Most Mothers would have been hysterical with worry! my SIL said he was actually relieved she did not show, as he was comforting his son. He has since told him what a close call he had,-it could have been fatal if hed been knocked out, that beach has very strong rips and undertows. Plus Fin is accident prone, and always hurting himself.
I sent him some comics, footy mags and a crossword book today.
Love,
Mama gemXX
Gem, well maybe SIL needs to spend more time with kids and less with his GF out of town, or take the kids with him when he goes to see the GF.
I was a single mom, worked and went to college full time and I dated, but my kids came along on 99% of my “dates” and camp outs and places we went together as a group, or if I did leave them for a weekend once in a great while I made sure they were with someone who would KEEP THEM SAFE. One time, a friend took them on a risky outing in a small boat on the Arkansas river which is BAD for small boats and I NEVER LET THAT FRIEND KEEP MY KIDS AGAIN—and that was AFTER I verbally skinned ever square inch of his hide off his body and rubbed verbal salt in the wounds! UGH!!!! Thank God nothing happened, it was just a high risk place that could have been a disaster!
Maybe you can encourage your SIL to spend his weekends with the kids AND his GF or she can come up to his house to visit with the kids there. It just sounds like there isn’t anyone he has to watch the kids and keep them out of trouble or danger….so maybe HE should change HIS plans and HIM KEEP THEM SAFE! Maybe PUT his kids before going off for the weekend to get laid?
Will I ever heal? I met a guy we was talking on the phone often I really enjoyed his conversation, we went out for drinks once and I like his personality. Ok a couple of times he would tell I’m going to call you back and never did. I wrote him an email and told him that he should be more considerate and this push him away from me he told me he thought I was being pre-mature with my comment but I was trying to stop the negative action before it went to far. Ok he stop calling and wouldn’t answer my calls, so I left him alone its been a year. A friend of mine ask me what happen to him I told her and so she told me I should try to reach out to him again. I emailed him and explain to him that I had just got of a bad relationship (the spath) hoping he would understand that I was healing when I met him an that I was very leary of people. Well make a long story short he didn’t respond, I left him my phone number no call. I lost a guy that coulda been a alright person because of the sheild that was place over my heart from the spath. There is a change in me I can’t explain it but it is. Yes I wanna be in love and I want a real relationship, but will this baggage always be a part of me.
Luv,
I can’t tell from your description if you were stalking this guy (calling too much) or if he was genuinely inconsiderate. Sounds like you only went out with him once? If a person says they are going to call or return a call, they should do it. Either way, after a year he has probably moved on. I’ve been in both situations, where I drove the guy away with my insecurity and also where the guy was just an immature jerk. Sometimes it’s a little of both. Some guys can handle a woman who is a little insecure. Some run like you have the plague. Either way, once a guy has decided he is not interested in you, it’s best to just move on. As a woman, you should never have to chase a guy. Just continue working on yourself. When you get to a certain level of happiness, you will attract them, and they will come to you. It can be retraumatizing to date before you’re ready (voice of experience). You need to to have the confidence to let them go when they lose interest, knowing someone else will come along.
Dear LUV,
YTou did NOY^ “lose a guy that coulda been an alright person”
Know how I know? Be cause ALL RIGHT PEOPLE do what they say they will do….if they say “I will call” and they don’t call it is because of some UNFORESEEN ACCIDENT OR EVENT—and THEN as soon as the accident is over they DO CALL AND SAY “I AM SO SORRY I DIDN’T CALL YOU AT 7 P.M. LIKE I SAID I WOULD, BUT MY HOUSE BURNED DOWN.”
Oh, and by the way, if 3 of these “accidents” happen in a fairly short time, don’t believe a one of them. LOL
NAH, you did NOT push a good one away, you did right to CALL HIM ON HIS LIES—he turned it around and “made it” YOUR FAULT and you fell for the projection and the gaslighting….i THINK YOU ARE STILL SOMEHOW BELIEVING THAT YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO SET BOUNDARIES….setting a boundary that says “treat me nice or get LOST” will NOT drive away any good guy, only the ones who are testing to see just how badly they can treat you and then still have you put up with them.
YOu need, I think, to work on your own self esteem and setting boundaries for bad guys and for being able to pick out the users from the abusers. Our healing does start out about THEM but ends up with working on ourselves to the point that we will NO LONGER ignore the red flags…or think that they are NOT red flags, just “pink”flags and those are OK….nah, they are just a paler shade of red and still= danger!!!! Hugs Keep on reading Luv and keep on learning about healing. You’ll get there I promise you. God bless.
Thank you so much! cause when he didnt respond to my email it sort hurt my feelings and disappointed because I reach out to him to say look this is what was going on wit me, and he just shrugged his shoulders like so what! You right I do have to be ok with setting boundaries. At first I thought maybe I was being premature but they only gonna treat you how you allow them too! Things happen for a reason him not calling me back could be a good sign!!!!!
Being alone is so hard, I feel lonely its scary because thats where I was in my life when the spath sneaked into my life.
Dear Luv,
I had to learn to set boundaries from STEP ONE….all my life I had operated within my family and “friendships” that it was MY RESPONSIBILITY IF ANYONE BECAME UPSET. If someone hurt my feelings by not calling for example, and I called them up about it, then they got MAD AT ME…..and it was MY fault they were upset. How DARE I want to know why they didn’t keep their word.
I ever had a “friend” who stole things from me, and I caught her (of course she denied and denied) and I set a boundary that she must not come to my house if I was not home. SHE DID! She went to my terminally ill stepfather (who didn’t even know I was having a problem with her) told him I had been mean to her and that she needed to come to my house while she KNEW I WAS AT WORK AND WOULD HE GIVE HER A KEY AND PERMISSION.
I came so close that night to going to her house and busting her in the mouth with my fist—I have NEVER DONE THAT BEFORE or since! But even later, I “forgave” her and let her and her husband move to my farm and live here—–and then ACTUALLY CAUGHT HER STEALING AGAIN! DUH! At that time I decided she had to go, to leave, and I cried for 3 days before I could quit crying long enough to tell her she had to leave. They lived in a motor home and had no place else to go and I felt so GUILTY like it was MY PROBLEM.
Well, you know what, IT WAS NOT MY PROBLEM. It was their problem. THEY had gotten themselves into such a financial shape that they were living in their motor home, without any assets or enough money to pay for a parking place, it was NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY TO PROVIDE THEM WITH ONE, to store the huge mountain of stuff they hung on to in spite of having no use for it, and no place to keep it in the dry except MY STORAGE SPACE, which pushed MY stuff out into the elements.
What the heck was the matter with me? Why was I assuming responsibility for other people’s support when they were too lazy to support themselves? When they had NO gratitude for the help that I provided or that others provided for them. Why were they ENTITLED TO LIVE RENT FREE, WORK FREE AND USE MY FACILITIES AND HELP THEMSELVES TO ANYTHING OF MINE THEY WANTED? I owed them WHY?
NOT!!!!!
Why did I do it then? the FOG—fear, obligation and guilt—I feared their disapproval—-but why? I felt obligated to them> But why? I felt guilty if I didn’t fulfill my faux-obligation to them. But why?
I’m still not sure of the answers to the “why” questions, but you know, it no longer matters WHY I did those things, or why I felt those things. NOW I am learning to set boundaries….and am willing that if those boundaries of behavior are crossed that I do NOT have to associate with that person. Also, if those boundaries are crossed, I DO NOT WANT TO CONTINUE TO ASSOCIATE WITH THOSE PERSONS.
Being “alone” isn’t all that bad, because I am alone with someone I am really starting to appreciate and Like—ME.
If I am continually with others, without spending any time by myself just with ME, then I won’t get to really know ME.
I think many times I have spent time with others, so much time with others, that I actually FAILED TO GET TO KNOW MYSELF.
We spend time with those we care about and enjoy, and apparently I didn’t care very much about me, and didn’t enjoy myself much, but now that I have spent time with ME and gotten to know ME much better, I am finding that I sure LIKE HER much better than I did before. I am listening to her thoughts, feelings and concerns like never before. I am finding out lots of ways to interact with ME that are really fun and enjoyable.
In fact, I think I like ME better than I like most people. I find that I am kind, considerate, caring, generous, smart, responsible, but also that I am no longer willing to associate with people who are dishonest or unkind, inconsiderate, irresponsible, stingy, or just plain act stupid.
I’m also learning to TRUST myself. “Feeling lonely” may make you afraid because you were “feeling lonely” before when you allowed the psychopath into your life. I allowed a psychopath BF into my life when I was LONELY ALSO. After my husband died, I was SO ALONE I felt, and felt old, fat, ugly and no one would ever love me again like my husband did, so UP POPS THE PSYCHOPATH looking for a respectable wife to use as a cover, and wah la! I volunteer, to fill my loneliness. Well, needless to say Ii was more ALONE WITH HIM than I had been before I met him.
Now, I am ALONE but NO LONGER LONELY, because I have the best companion in the world…myself and I enjoy being with HER, and I like her. I still love to be with friends and my son, and to do things with them or without them, but being alone is no longer LONELY, because I always have a wonderful companion with me. ME!
It took me quite some time to come to this point, Luv, it won’t happen over night. But start doing things for YOURSELF, just for YOU. It will give you pleasure and start to build some happiness.
Luv – It’s sounds like this guy really is not interested so let him go. Sometimes we look so hard for a man we end up with a spath!
How about female friends? The other night I was feeling at a lose end and rang an old girlfriend. Turns out she is about to have her house repossessed (hubby has been poorly for a long time). We had a long chat and as I hung up I thanked my lucky stars that I was not in her position.
I think we can feel alone, spath had us so dependant we feel we cannot function without ‘someone’. But …..we can, it just feels different.
For me evenings are the worst but I come on here and chat and it helps.
Ox is right ……do things for YOU. Today I went out and bought new clothes to give myself a boost. I have just phoned a relative and had a chat with her. Make the effort and do something (anything) to build up your self esteem. Good luck.