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.
alohatraveler -I’ve thought lately about doing what you did. Just moving somewhere “distracting and nice” to maybe begin anew. Living in this city I just seem to be in such a rut. Work, pay bills, mow the yard, sleep, shower, rinse, repeat! lol
I’m not meeting anyone that seems remotely interested in me, nor I them for dating and I just cant imagine what the tomorrows will bring. I really dont know what Im doing anymore.
What is your opinion on your move to Hawaii? Other than the badman of course!
Aloha,
I laughed when you said “don’t want to hear ‘look at the bright side'”—
Believe me it is only NOW after YEARS OF MISERY that I even perceived that there was a “bright” side or even a “bearable” side to life—I have been looking at the GRIM side of life until the last few months—grieving over the multitude of dreams that have as you said “TRAIN WRECKED” most of my 40 years of adult life—by me allowing myself the MALIGNANT HOPE that my Ps would “change” or “repent” or somehow be “saved” and that they would stop sucking me dry of emotional blood. LOL
Even when I was happily married to a wonderful man, I let the P-son “trainwreck” my life, and take away the happiness I should have felt with my marriage. I ignored my own gut.
I’m still somewhat “emotionally anemic” in that I don’t have a great deal of emotional reserve strength–to “blow off” things that just happen like I used to. I let “little things” get to me more than I would like, but am working on that and trying to stay the heck away from situations that increase stress or are likely to create discord. Until I can build up my strength to cope with those things again.
A while back (Last September) a dear friend of mine married a P and I didn’t go to the wedding. I just didn’t think I could handle it seeing her marry this creep. I love her dearly but it was more than I could cope with to go to the wedding, so I stayed home.
Things that take “emotional energy” to “get through” I avoid if I can at all, as I am still short on “emotional energy” from all I expended over the past few years dealing with the Ps. I think this emotional energy is just as much a reality as physical energy. When you have “dug ditches” all day and are physically TIRED you don’t go to a dance that night. The same with emotinal energy, if you have had one emotional crises after another, you Emotionally REST and recover your strength before you put yourself in a spot that requires a great deal of emotional energy; just like staying home from the dance lets your body physically rest.
I know in my case, the crises with the Ps, one after another, coming on top of my husband’s death left me an emotional basket case, and it is only now that I am starting to see the “light at the end of the tunnel.”
Only NC which gave me emotional rest from them all allowed me to start to recover and regroup.
ox drover & free; thank you both and dear ox drover i hope i did not bite your head off too much didnt mean to. its like i know how i feel in my head but sometimes hard to express with writing it to someone else who isnt inside my head. ox drover, i am happy i laugh a lot and i have a wonderful family who are supportive of me and what im going thru, so i am not miserable at all and i am happy with most o fmy life really now no one is hurting me any more thats great in my opinion, i just have other dreams and desires i would like to have come true too. i am a little self righteous since s path attacks , so i am sorry. free; thank you so much your words mean a lot coming from a mother , thanks for understanding my pain. and i understand yours too as i said before i was trying too when i was maried and had misscariages. i hope something wonderful is around the corner too for al of us lovely woman. who knows i might have a few more chances yet. love you all …….
It is sooo exciting to log on this morning and see the love, kindness, respect, understanding and friendship here! Wow. Instead of moving somewhere (at least right now), I think someone should organize a vacation…and all the Lovefraud Ladies can come, commisserate, heal, and HAVE SOME FUN! :>) Have any of you people shared your e-mail addresses with each other?
Yes, Peggy, the love, kindness and friendship here is wonderful and validating.
I wish we could all take a cruise together somewhere. Can you just imagine how much fun and laughter and tears too that we would share and how many “group hugs” we would have! not cuddle parties..LOL ..because we are not strangers though we have never met in person.
We have all shared the devastating loss of the P-dream and DO understand and empathize with each other. We DO CARE.
It is only after we recover from the devastation that we CAN pursue our other dreams, whatever they are. As long as we are in a pile of mental mush, we can’t even function to think about anything else. I think it is BECAUSE we survived the loss of the P-dream/fantasy that we CAN survive the loss of any future dreams.
One of my favorite says is “the FINEST China has been through the hottest fires” I truly believe that experiencing adversity makes us better people than we would be without the experience—and I intend to prove that within myself, FOR myself. I want to enjoy reality not mope over the loss of my fantasy–THE BEST REVENGE IS A GOOD LIFE–and I intend to GO for the gusto. (How about that for some trite phrases! LOL)
Findingmyselfagain.
I don’t have much time right now but if you are considering a move to Hawaii, please contact me so that I can talk you out of it. iseethebeach@juno.com.
Moving can be wonderful. Moving to Hawaii is just asking for an ass-kicking. That’s the short story.
Hello all……..
I am back. I had fallen back into the mix and wanted so much to believe what was being said to me and still wanting to believe it. He says that he has not been with anyone else since the cheating and says he loves me and only me. “she” says different. He says i am obsessed with her because her and I still talk about what is going on and share notes…but I just want truth!!!!! She says he is calling her all the time from blocked numbers he says no…that he is truely trying to do everything possible to show me that its only me he loves. Tells me that I have a chance here to have a father for my son and to be a family with two incomes rather then just my son and I with one income. Blames me for our issues now because I continue to talk to her and let her suck me into conversations about him. He says that “she” says im so stupid for talking with her that she can get me to talk about anything and she can use it against me to him….”she” says thats not true that he is manipulating the whole thing…..ugh i am SOOOOO confused and I think the confussion itself is what is making me step away. I have written a few posts here and am thankful that i can come here and get advice…but was gone for a couple days because i guess i just didnt want to believe he was one….my heart hurts now because i think i hurt him. he said that i give him happiness and then take it away because i am so back n forth with this mess. so today i sent him an email that i dont want to hurt anyone by going back n forth and that i have to go with my gut and just let this relationship go. man was that hard and hurtful for me…..
just an update on him incase my posts are lost in the mix..
1. met on line
2. had like 3other relationships at the time of meeting
3. lied about other relationships.
4. said i love you within like 3 weeks of talking and talked of marriage to all of us.
5. said is going to transfer here once medical leave is clear…but transfer keeps getting held up…how long will one job wait here while your working for the company in the state u live in…
6. yes he lives in a different then me…hince the transfer…
7. read email of him still talking to other women/saying i love u to them…..ofcouse while i was reading his email he was deleting them as well….i guess he really didnt want me to see them..
i am just so hurt and confused because what if he is really making the change and she is hendering me seeing that by lying…but then again what does she have to gain by lying to me…he says she does lie to me because she wants him to love her….she wants the family that he wants to be with me.
soo what if i am wrong…or by what u have read am i right and i DO NEED TO LET GO AND MOVE ON!!!!
UGH he keeps calling me as if he didnt get my email…did he?? didnt he?? but he is telling me thank you for loving him…and how much he loves me on the voice mail. am i to deep for help here?? said i almost brought him to tears today…said he will tell me later…i think he is going to tell me it was when i texted the other girl an told her that i love him and that regardless of the past things are going to work out……and now i do this and email him that its over….did i do the wrong thing.. should i take it back???
now i feel bad…he got my email and responded it with goodbye forever and is saying that i hurt him and that he hopes me and the other girl are happy now. that he knows he made a mistake bofore christmas (that is when he cheated on me) but hasnt done it since….could she really be lying…or is it him lying….love just shouldnt be this hard should it. he said i hurt him on purpose and now for me to leave him alone……
rBLUE
chant over and over HE IS THE LIE, THE TRUTH IS NOT IN HIM.
Read over your posts about how much he has lied already.
What makes you think there might even be a GRAIN of truth in what he says NOW?
As long as you listen to him, he will SUCK you into the black hole of his lies.
HE CANNOT LOVE YOU. YOU ARE NOT WRONG…LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE.
I also suggest that you quit texting or interacting with her as well. It just keeps the pain stirred up. NO CONTACT means NONE, ZIP, ZERO, NADA–it is the ONLY way you will get far enough away from him emotionally to sort it all out rationally.
Hang tough, come here when you feel yourself falling, post post post, and read read read. Listen to your gut! ((((hugs)))))