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.
One of the things I did learn at my egg donor’s knee is how to CUT SOMEONE DEAD with a LOOK….very similar I think to the P-look. Just total ICE….I can’t “do it” on command, but if I am really FRIED I can do so….I can also do the “fake nicey-nice” too…if I have to like the time I caught my X-friend trying to sneak back on to the farm when she thought I was gone, after I had told her to CALL before she came, and she found a day she thought i would be gone…and called….just as she drove onto the farm…and since I was here she said “Oh, but I wouldn’t have driven in if you hadn’t been here.” Yea right, she drove 40 miles 1-way on the off chance I was here and did’nt think to call till she turned off the county road? Yea, right!
Boy you could tell she was TIGHT JAWED TOO and I’m not sure what she planned to steal that day, but it was something and I didn’t let her out of my sight either.
I found out yesterday that she and her husband have “used up” another friend of ours’ hospitality and been THROWN OFF his property by the scruff of the neck as well. Son D had warned him, but he had not believed it about his “old friend” being a leach/mooch or her being a thief, but he DOES NOW! So, interestingly enough, I have been “vindicated” again…which is somewhat satisfying (I really shouldn’t gloat) but it is nice to find that vindication from time to time and the validation from others. I had settled on the fact that I likely would never get it from others, but in some cases I have….in others not so much, but I am where all I REQUIRE any more is my own truth, but others validating it is nice I must admit.
The psycho didn’t like to be called Turd. He hasn’t written anything more. Now i won’t be able of trying the new learnt phrase “lying sack of crap”
Eva 🙂 🙂 🙂
Eva, BRAVISIMO!!!! best laugh of the day….hahahaha 🙂
KD pretty smart lady if you ask me! LOL 🙂
I used the same tactic in letting go of both my spaths. Sweet and innocent when all the while I was giving them the heeveho. Right onto the reject pile. Sounds mean but if we come across as crazy we get the raw end of the breakup. If we are calm and sweet as honey, KERPOW! But yes I felt the loss, both times, I really cared for those two SOB’s …
To me it was a survival instinct.
😀 hahaha He definitely didn’t like it being called turd and being asked again for his psychopathic condition neither.
“I don’t consider myself a psychopath” he said the first times i asked, and he also used to add spontaneously “I’m happy and fulfilled” maybe trying to produce envy or unessiness or i don’t know. But as it’s all false and he’s deeply frustrated because i have it so clear he’s an unchangeable rattle snake that he can’t bear i’m laughing at him and that i talk to him like if he were an extraterrestrial creature from whom one feels curiosity but one doen’t and won’t get close ever. He must be very frustrated thinking he’s losing besides youth and beauty, manipulative and gaslighting abilities.
Hi
I’m home now, mixed mood all weekend. Really want to call him, I’m so sad xx
Melly,
You are going through withdrawal. And I literally mean withdrawal. All those good memories from the star by the lovebombing got you hooked on oxytocine, dopamine and serotonine. More, he probably imprinted those memories with kind promises and words into you with a sweet voice and bringing you in some kind of zoned in trance (gazing in your eyes), etc… This is the reason your brain is now craving and hardwired to feel stronger about those memories than the plenty of bad ones (and there are more bad than there are good).
You can detox yourself, rewire your brain. Do you have good memories of other men in your life that at least deserve to have been loved? It doesn’t matter that its over now, but whenever he comes to mind, try to think of the actual good past loves. Try even to sexually fantasise about them (but only if you can be sure you won’t start to actually believe the fantasy). This way, you’ll be releasing dopamine, oxytocine and serotonine within the brain without thinking of him. It makes you feel better, and cuddled by an imaginary friend and lover, but it won’t be him. You will be rewiring your brain and gradually get off the chemical hormonal coctail hooks.
You won’t even need memories or fantasies about other actualy good men you’ve known in your past aside from him. Whenever a good memory of him comes up, force yourself of a great memory you have when you were on your own and nobody of real importance to share it with. This will condition your brain to remember there were times you were actually feeling happy and amazed and enjoyed something and you did not need anyone else to be with you to make you feel happy.
But whatever you do, don’t call him. His hypnotic voice will only reinforce the brainwiring he did with you during the lovebombing stage, and it is exactly that which keeps you in bondage to him.
((((melly))))
Darwinsmom
Wow some very powerful suggestions.
Superkid
hi missmellyuk, i have a tactic that falls within the realm of ‘aversion therapy’.
write down the absolutely worse thing he did to you – the thing that you might not even be able to say aloud because it causes you shame. everytime you miss him, feel sad and loney or get moony eyed for him: read it.