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.
MissMelly
So you NEED him to humiliate you? I mean, it’s not enough to humiliate you on FB, with your family?
Don’t you get it? He was NICE to you while gramps was alive, it got him something he wanted from gramps (or he was thinking it would.)
He’s a plaaayyyerrr. Don’t give him the satisfaction of BEGGING him!
My guess is You looked at FB b/c you wanted to find proof you were wrong (part of the bargaining/denial phase)… but instead you found proof that he is behaving mask off.
Sorry I don’t know about your disorder but clearly he knows how to abuse you.
NC is a blessing. Think of it as war. You are stopping the emotional bombs. You can’t heal if you are still getting wounded by the bombs. STOP giving him access to target you for the bombs!
Katy, the no contact It’s very hard at the beginning. I searched his FB too, which gave me more proof of his disorder. I saw the narcissistic trait (this one he had hidden it quite well to me) in its full splendor. And i also discovered his “bisexual” or “spathexual” tendencies.
I blocked him and removed his friends the day he dumped me. I wrote to two of the wides of his friends explaining that it was nothing personal and they both wrote back really upset saying I was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Then I removed my account, but logged in as my mate who was friends with him. He had removed her and added this horrid looking thing. Not classy understated stylish like me.
I am gutted he never used facebook, obviously only to get women. Ie he got me of there.
I am beside myself now. Thank you thank you girls xx
Eva (missmellyuk)
Sweetie. It’s ALL hard. I didn’t know about this site or I would have had much needed guidance to prevent so much abuse done to me…. and thus I am listening and trying to help MissMellyuk
Katy, i know this blog helps a lot but it takes a bit of time to understand completely and accept the fact that such demons exist and that they are different to anything. That they have different needs because they’re different despite of having human appearance.
Eva
I’m kinda not following you. Did you think I didn’t know about time being a part of the healing?
I am there for her for THIS moment, there will be many times of hurt when she will need someone to help be therre for her.
Thank you. I feel so worthless and ugly and. Failure
Katy, help her as much as you can. It’s going to take some time to say goodbye to the baby, etc. he promised to her two weeks ago.
missmellyuk
sorry you feel that way. i understand it. it’s not true that you are worthless and ugly and failure but I understand FEELING that way.
(esp b/c that was one of my husband’s mantras, that I was worth less than nothing, and he felt so sorry for himself married to someone like me and he looked to ME to make HIM feel better about trapped in a marriage to me. And another mantra, was that he felt bad b/c he always wanted to be married to someone pretty and young and again, he looked to me to give him pity for being married to and old ugly woman. See how my husband’s mantras fed my opinion of myself? Only by writing the TRUTH did I escape his poison.)
As a suggestion for healing….
i had someone tell me how to be in the moment b/c i can get myself locked up in hurt and not see the way out. do you know how to be in the moment? how to sit and feel all the physical feelings in your body? b/c when you hurt emotionally, lots of times your body hurts physically. Once you identify all the physical feelings your body may be feeling, you can self soothe whatever is hurting. touch is very powerful, even your own. I knead lotion into my joints. And I drink camomille tea right before bed.