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.
It will all come out…
I think Maria has known for a while but respected her husband’s governorship. After all, in for a dime, in for a dollar. She gave up her AWSOME CAREER for his, so she was already INVESTED. (Bernie Madoff reference here, they all do this to us, they make us INVEST money or emotions and then we just don’t want to lose so we stay hoping the trend will change.)
Once he lost his office, she was SO OUTA THERE. His only option was to confess publically.
The sickening part is that it is now obvious that he married her to borrow her political clout and credability. It was planned from the start. He could have had any bimbo or floozy he wanted or several of them. But he wanted political power. He was not born here but he often stated that he thought the law against foreign born presidents should change. He really saw himself as a future pres. (can we say narcissist?) He used her for her credibility. This makes him a spath not a narc, at this pointi in my humble (or not) assessment.
This is what they all do. My spath could never have conned so many without a credible woman like myself, With credit and with self-esteem. A beautiful wife lends credibiltiy like nothing else can because you know that she can have any man she wants, but she picked him so he must be good. I feel guilt that he was able to con and kill so many because he showed me off as his wife. And we were never even married.
He took pictures of us together, that he had stashed away, so he could continue to use me even after I left him. They are all EXACTLY THE SAME, THE PATTERN FITS, we must not be blinded by how we feel.
I’ll repeat myself: healthy emotional training must begin in first grade.
The bigger story concerning Arnold is that in his last moments as governor he pardoned a murderer
as a favor to the murderer’s father who happened to be a good friend of Arnold’s.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/09/schwarzenegger-clemency-d_n_820905.html
When a reporter tried to ask Arnold why he did it… Arnold said “you’re boring me”
and made a snoring sound like he was so bored he was falling asleep…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUJp9-18_xs
So, Superchic,
do you think this wedlock child was a distraction thrown out so that the story about the murderer wouldn’t be the big headlines? that would be CLASSIC SPATH! CLASSIC.
skylar,
Arnold Schwarzenegger could have gone to his grave not telling anyone (such as his wife and family) about the child he had with the household staffer – why did he even confess to it? What’s the point? He drove his wife out the door for good – maybe, that’s what he intended to do? I don’t know the answer. For his wife, getting away from him could be the best thing that’s happened to her – now, she can live her life in relative peace, without wondering what he’s up to (his latest shenanigans).
Can anybody post a link to any news articles covering the Schwarzenegger fiasco? This is the first I’ve heard of it> Thanks.
Kimmie, it is all over the place…just google his name and divorce you’lll get plenty.
I think she suspected (one article said she had been noteably unhappy for a while) but when the news was about to BREAK (politicians can’t keep this kind of thing quiet forever) because the woman whom he had “financially supported” (bribed) all these years and given her a job and now a “retirement” might have been ready to tell, or someone else might have known, so he “confessed.” Keeping it hidden in the household for 10 years I think was actually petty good….but don’t you know that when Maria found out that a PERSON SHE CONSIDERED PART OF HER HOME/HOUSEHOLD was sleeping with Arny that she went off the charts! I mean it is bad enough that he had another woman, but a woman INSIDE THE HOUSE….what balls! A woman that his wife knew and trusted!!!!!! What balls! What NERVE!!!!
Yea, Maria gave up a lot for him….but she still has some respect and he doesn’t have any honor or respect left, but with his type of “friends” that doesn’t matter a lot if you still have money and he might be able actually to use his new found “fame” to get a movie deal. PUKE. I will never pay a dime to see anything he’s in.
Okay. I found some articles about SCHWAZ. How f@.......#$ing reprehensible is that? If it was me, in Maria’s place, I think I would be the most enraged about her being in my home everyday around my children and privvy to my private life. How the F does Arny explain that? Now THAT is betrayal.
Yeah, with a hollywood career and a political one as well, This is someone who basks in attention, and adulation. Is that why he kept the house keeper around for 10 years, even after she gave birth to his child. What a DBL joy…to bask in her continuing affection, (I am surmising here.) To have her as his co-conspiritor, and to pull a fast one over his wife and get away with it for so long. To have two women completely at his desposal. What a POS.
Yeah, Ox. We posted over each-other, but we see eye to eye on this one. It is the absolute gall of his having her in the home for years that really stinks.
I imagine Maria is absolutely drowning in the, “how could he?” mind boggling confusion of trying to get it.
I feel for her.
If he’s an absolute spath, he’s getting a nut from telling her and watching her suffer.
If he’s a Narcissist, he might be getting a nut, but he might just be thinking, oh well. I didn’t mean to hurt her, but I needed to keep the house-keeper around. It was important. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles!! Shucks. What’s all the fuss about?