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.
Oxy, i think you’re right i should ask Donna if she doesn’t mind if i print a piece of conversation of the forum. Because maybe a piece of conversation could be i needed it printed.
Superkid10:
I also try to figure out why my former spath’s wife stays, but it MUST be the trauma bonding and they also have two children. But he told me (which I will never know if it was the truth or not) that she abuses him mentally. Well, yeah, she probably does because she needs to to try to keep him in line…haha! But if that is true…it goes both ways. He may also be trauma bonded to her in some ways. It’s all a mess. I hate that I ever fell for him. I am at a place now where I have not heard from him in two months and of course it hurts. I wonder what he is doing, etc. and I am feeling better, but can you all relate to having the feeling of “not wanting to let go?” You know you have to, but I hate that “slipping away” feeling. But then I ask myself what am I letting go of…nothing! There was really nothing there, but he made it feel like it was something. It’s hard.
92044,
that “slipping away” feeling is your hopes for the future and your memories of the past. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that nothing you remember was real and that all your hopes for the future were a lie as well.
I had to come to terms with 25 years of “false memories”. An entire lifetime of having lived a lie. It was very traumatizing. But the good part is that, by the time I left him, I was so broken down, that I had NO HOPE for the future already. So leaving him actually opened me up to hope. Before that I had resigned myself to a horrible life and was just existing, waiting for the end to come.
skylar:
Wow, 25 years…I cannot imagine how hard that would be…that is the ultimate of trauma. I thank God you were able to finally get away and open your life up to a new hope.
Help!
Someone (I think it was Eva) posted something on here about what type of women the spaths like and now I can’t find it. Eva…was it you? It was something about them liking the cheap, easy women because they are just like them! Can anyone help me find that comment? Thank you!
Actually 92044,
In the book “women who love psychopaths” the authors found out that it is NOT the “cheap easy women” that psychopaths target but strong, independent, smart women—so if someone said they like “cheap easy women” in general, then that person is really most likely wrong.
Some psychopaths do seem to go for “cheap and easy” women/men, but not iin general I think. So don’t think that you are or were cheap or easy because you were targeted. You were vulnerable for some reason but that doesn’t make you cheap or easy. (((hugs)))
eb,
You mean the post in which i mentioned his Facebook collection of freaks. Spaths want to be center of attention and as they are who use cheap tricks, these tricks work better in the long run if the audience is simplistic or is psychologically unstable. Of this i have no doubt. The less stable the victim is, psychologically, the longer time s/he will take to realize s/he’s dealing with an abnormal phychology.
Ox Drover:
Haha! It’s not me that I was thinking as cheap and easy because I am NOT (and he knows it), but the other woman he was triangulating with me. The office tramp. Married and sleeping with more than one and he knew it…he knew she was an easy target. But, I am the very strong, independent type and he definitely saw that. Thanks for replying 🙂
Eva:
Under which category did you post that comment? I still want to read your words and I can’t find it.
I am kind of torn. I don’t know what I think about that. I agree with Ox Drover in that they target strong, independent women, but then it also makes sense that they would target stupid bimbos because they won’t catch on or that they will put up with their tricks. Hmmmmm…
Yea eb92044,
They target whatever is available and they need at the time….the bimbo is a good example of someone to make you jealous and to keep the triangle going….and an easy piece of ass…doesn’t have to work hard for it….they are predators of opportunity as well as hunters. So if they stumble across some easy prey they will take that then and there as well, just like a lion would.