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.
Good for you Melly, that is a wonderful upbeat post! You don’t need to support anyone….take care of yourself and make sure that any man you are involved with is adult enough to support himself…has a job, a vehicle, a place to live and an education…you don’t need a drug using loser.
Good for you getting made up and taking care of YOU! Have fun with your family and those who love you! HOORAY!!!!
I strongly disagree that lying is an inherent part of being a psychopath. I recognize myself as being a genetic psychopath (both parents and four siblings were all psychopaths too) and I can tell you that I compulsively tell the truth. I’m not saying I never lie but I don’t do it very often. And when I do lie, I have to give pause to think if it’s worth it. This has nothing to do with morality. For me, it has more to do with practicality. I want people to believe me when I talk and I want others to tell me the truth (as I do for them).
Is not that what the article is saying, AHunt:
“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.”
darwinsmom:
“What makes them psychopathic is that they use and destroy people…”
I cannot deny that this is what psychopaths might do but it certainly does not define them. Here is my favorite analogy…
There is an art gallery that has a special showing featuring colors. Every tint, hue and contrast is represented. Everyone who see the show raves about it. But not only are you colorblind, you don’t know you are colorblind. You go to the show and all you see are shades of gray. You don’t get it, so you are bored. But because everyone else DOES get it, you are also completely frustrated. Extreme boredom plus extreme frustration equals disaster but it does not necessarily follow that disaster will express itself in the form of destroying other people.
As a psychopath, I’ve done some admittedly devious stuff but I do not think destroying others has ever been my focus.
I find the article quite accurate. The liying is the trait i gave less importance among the other psychopathic horrible traits.
It’s not the lies it is the living LIE they are. It’s the certainty that such a creature is going to “twist your neck “in any moment by means of betrayal. It’s something much more serious and scaring than lies.
“Extreme boredom plus extreme frustration equals disaster….” Think I’ll opt out of that trainwreck.
To Ahunt
Re The focus of a psychopath
Motivations can be different. Perhaps as you say, destroying others is not your focus. But is it the unavoidable outcome of your behavior, just as CO2 is the outcome of breathing.
Here is something to think about…
When I was a kid, I knew that I wasn’t right in the head. I demanded that I start seeing a psychiatrist and I demanded that I be sent to boarding school for “emotionally handicapped children”. Through all that, no one ever told me that I was a severely impaired psychopath… and they had to know that’s exactly what I was. Why didn’t they tell me? Maybe because psychopath is such a damaging label. However, had I known 1) that I was mentally impaired and 2) exactly how I was mentally impaired, I cannot help but believe my life would have been completely different. I cannot help but believe understanding this about myself would have been better for myself and everyone around me.
Why wasn’t I told? My best guess is that I was being protected by other psychopaths that thought it not in THEIR best interests to shed light on a fellow psychopath. My psychopathic father covered most, if not all, of the my psycho behavior as a kid. Still, my father had nothing to do with why I was never told about my the nature of my mental condition.
Ahunt, Why are you here? Are you trying to sell us on the psychopath as innoscent victim routine? Are you trying to EDUCATE us? Are you hoping to sway us in some way? If so, you are being extremely unhelpful, here. Understanding YOU is not our focus. YOU are not our problem.
If you are seeking understanding, why not visit Sociopathic world, or what ever the name of that site, is….they might be able to help you with your issues. I don’t think we can be of much help to you.
Kim, I’m off to a wonderful day in the garden, putting out plants and rearranging my gray rocks….Hope you have a great day as well and that your patio is blooming as spring advances. Love, Oxy