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.
eb:
They target all. Some targets last nothing, others a short period, and the ones with psychological problems can last their whole life. Nobody is free from falling. I’ve realized i’ve met in my life several psychopaths and i fell just with one. Why with one and not with others? Because that one was my type of man.
That message you’re refering to i must have deleted it..Sorry 🙂 But it just said in short that his collection of facebook “friends” was rather disgusting, not because they’re cheap people but because most of them were unstable people: non young women dreaming with charming prince, kind of extremistic men with aggressive symbols. Not all bad people i’m sure but unstable and with no much criterium or personality.
eb, everybody can fall. I had a bad time because i really got to like that man, but people with some dignity or self-steem or flexible of mind recognizes has made a mistake, and more we will make, but we leave the psychopath because to stay there would be a waste of life, and it’s a pity to waste a life next to a psychopath.
92044,
The latest from Maria and Ahnold is that the maid would jump into bed with A, as soon as M had gone to work. Furthermore, she would “borrow” M’s jewelry and clothes without permission and she would ask for advice on love and pregnancy from M. According to the article, she was obsessed with M’s style and wanted to be like her.
all this screams PSYCHOPATH to me. The woman wanted to “wear M’s skin”. She didn’t want her own man, she wanted M’s man.
My neighbor was EXACTLY like this. She told me she only dated married men. A person like this is pathologically envious. My spath, could spot envy a mile away and when he saw that ugly toad of a neighbor down the street, he thought he would triangulate her with me. I don’t even know how many years it went on nor do I care, because I was oblivious to it and because I wasn’t having sex with him for the last 15 years. In fact, when she told me that she only dated married men, I said, “you can have my piece of shit anytime you want.” LOL! I had no idea that she already had!
Must’ve been quite a downer for her though, to find out that she came in to steal the treasure and only took out the garbage. bwaahahaahahaha!
But I digressed down memory lane…
I meant to say, that P’s will often find ONE source of supply from which they borrow respectability. This is the person who has high self-esteem and who holds them in high regard. They like to triangulate that person with the OW or several OW’s, who is often a psychopath herself. This is their way of sliming the “good wife” and bringing her down in their own eyes.
It’s as if they can’t stand to be held in high regard, even though they search for it and demand it. So they have to behave shamelessly and denigrate THEMSELVES, over and over again to maintain their pathetic view of how evil they are. The more we clean them up, the more they have to foul themselves. It’s almost like a physics law of equal and opposite reactions.
Ox Drover:
You are so right when you say they are predators of opportunity. Without giving too much info away as I never know who might be reading these posts, I saw written proof that he tried to pounce on an “opportunity” at work with this tramp. Yes, at work! He even said…it would be a “fun, opportunistic thing to do.” Unbelievable. You are so insightful. He knows now that I am too much work. He doesn’t have time for that.
Eva:
Yep, I am realizing now that they DO target all. And when you said some last longer and some shorter, that made a lot of sense also as the other woman lasted much longer than I did. But I have discovered that she is also a psychopath, so wow, this all makes sense.
Mine would have pursued ANYone and quite likely did by the sound of things. All he wanted was power over a woman – ANY woman from 14 to 50. I wish I’d known at the start what I knew by the time I got out.
skylar:
I had not heard this latest news about A & M so thanks for the update. Crazy!! I am not sure how that woman borrowed M’s clothes as she looked much bigger than M. This all had to be a huge ego boost to A! She was definitely obssessed!!!
So sorry to hear about the experience with your neighbor. She sounds like a real piece of work. It’s amazing the things we can be oblivious to until our eyes are opened and then NEVER again. I know I will never be duped again…way too smart now. I am glad you finally got out of that mess!
When I read your words about the spath triangulating with another psychopath, I could hardly believe what I was reading. I think that is exactly what happened to me!!! I was the respectable one and the OW was the psychopath…she is just like him, believe me. Lies, lies, lies. You ask either one of them anything and all you get is lies and I was in the middle like a punching bag.
Wow, so true…I guess he had even mentioned to the OW that his family would be better off without him…very low self esteem yet comes across as super charming and having it all together. That makes so much sense now what you said about them having to denigrate themselves even though he searched for reinforcement…it seems as soon as I would pour on all the compliments, etc., he would back away. Thanks so much for your insight…keep it coming. You, too, Ox Drover!
Sky, I have seen lots of folks who are impressed with celebs or people in high position….look at Hugh Hefner and all the young women who throw themselves into bed with a man 80+ years old. Do you think it is because he is such a hot stud at 80? Hardly! It is because he has a “persona” that these shallow young women crave the money and the glamor that they think goes with being around him.
Have you ever seen an 80+ year old man without money or fame who had a 20-something woman falling all over him? I haven’t for sure.
Back in the days when my husband was the personal pilot for a great many “stars” of finance and movie and music fame all these guys had women crawling out of the woodwork to jump into bed with them no matter how old and broken down they were as long as they had “fame” and or money….it is a shame that women will hold themselves in such low regard that they think that somehow having sex with these “dirty old men” (most of the time married dirty old men) that they will lower themselves….but that is the way it works. There are women who chose to be “sex workers” and to sell their bodies to guys for money and risky sex…doesn’t make sense to me, but they make those choices.
Different things about others attract us to them and things about us attract others to us. Look at the guy from France who might have been the next president of France…attacking a maid in his hotel (allegedly anyway) and then all these women come out of the woodwork to say “Yea, he paid me $2500 for sex” etc. and it turns out he has been a “dirty old man” for decades….and his wife tries to bail him out of all this….and the same with Arny, all these women come out of the woodwork after the first one is outed.
President Kennedy was just as bad as Arny though I don’t know of any claims that he fathered any children with any of them, but as soon as Jackie was out of the white house through the front door, he was bringing in Marilyn Monroe and other women in the back door of the white house and even the press who knew it protected his “image” as this hero and family man when he was just another narcissistic sex addict with the morals of an alley cat. And poor Marilyn a very beautiful but very troubled woman. Teddy Kennedy and the drowning of that young woman when they drove off the bridge while he tried to save his political career instead of trying to save her…and yet he kept getting reelected over and over and no one ever held it against him politically. Doesn’t make sense to me. Tiger woods and all his sleezy affairs…these guys have fame and/or money and it goes to their heads.
There have been some studies that show if you take a “normal person” and give them a lot of fame, power and money, they start behaving in psychopathic and narcissistic ways—it goes to their heads. Or maybe it is they really are NOT “normal” nice guys, (Tiger’s dad was a Player) but it is only when they get the power and money that they start to act like they would have liked to act before the power, fame and money. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Some people seem to be the same when they get the power and the money, and they don’t become high in N or P traits, they are just the same person they were before all the money and the glory. They don’t cheat on their wives, they don’t treat the hired help like dirt (or like a mistress) and those people, though rare, are refreshing to know. I have known a few, but most of the “stars” either I knew or my husband knew were more on the line of Tiger woods and the head of the IMF than they were “Mr. Nice guy.”
“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” An old saying but one that seems to be born out in real life.
Even people with a conscience sometimes behave like psychopaths, read the story of King David and Bathsheba in the books of Samuel…yet, David did really repent when his sins were pointed out to him, unlike King Saul who just got worse when his sins were pointed out to him.
We all “sin” (do things that we know we should not) but how we handle them as far as trying to quit doing those things, and to repent and make amends when we can…that is the difference between “Us” and “them” (the psychopaths who have no conscience). I know I have done some things I would be ashamed to post on this board….but I have genuinely repented of those things, done my best to stop doing that kind of thing, and made amends when I could, and to try my best to be a better person today and in the future. I can’t go back and undo what I did in the past, I can only work toward doing what is right today and in the future.
I think it was Benjamin Franklin who siad “that sin is not bad because it is labeled sin, it is labeled sin because it is BAD FOR YOU.”
The things the Bible tells us to do to be “good people” and to follow “God’s will”—every one of those things is something that benefits us in the long run. From the 10 commandments of “thou shalt not kill” and “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife…” etc. all those things make US BETTER PEOPLE….and make our lives better and happier and more peaceful and more content.
Even for someone who doesn’t believe the Bible is the inspired word of God could gain a lot of good psychological information on how to live a good, happy and healthy life with other people and how to treat others and how to interact with others. It never tells us to be a door mat to anyone either. The Bible in fact gives many examples of psychopaths in the stories in the old and the new Testaments…and shows how these people come to grief because of their bad behavior and attitudes.
If you look at people who have no moral compass and think that “whatever I do is okay” most of them live chaotic and ultimately unhappy lives. Look at old Bernie Madoff….he came down in the world in public, but even if he had never been outed as the shark that he was, I do not believe he was happy even with all his wealth that he stole. I used to think that plenty of money would make a person happy, but I have come to see as I have grown up past the teenage years that is NOT so…look at all the Mel Gibsons in this world who are rich beyond rich and are still MISERABLE AND UNHAPPY.
eb:
Are you sure she is a spath? Seems so strange two exploitative, predatory inflated egos toguether.
Some experts say the neurotic is the personality who has more chance to couple with a psychopath. And here sometimes i’ve read that the narcissist is the perfect couple.
Could be a combination of both traits? Both make sense to me. The narcissist trait it could play an important role when one has already invested in the relationship. Sometimes egos can be so strong…
Don’t know in reality. I dealt with two very narcissistic women lately, one above all is so horribly manipulative, false, hipocritical, damaging, extremely narcissistic despite she tries to hide it, that i’ve thought she could be psychopathic. But really i’m so tired of these type of creatures that i don’t want to psychoanalyse more turds LOL
My ~ what a tiresome people these narcissistics, always comparing themselves and wanting to be superior. They’re very tiring.
Eva,
I think the psychopath is trying to maintain a type of homeostasis, and that is why, when he gets a good innocent person as his wife, he also likes to find an indecent relationshit to balance it out. If there is a psychopathic woman around, he will find her and she will serve the function. My spath and the spath neighbor were plotting to “suicide” me. They both talked about suicide constantly, perhaps hoping I would take the hint and commit it.
Since I didn’t, they had plan B. He told everyone that I was an unstable alcoholic who took sleeping pills. It’s true, that I took a 1/2 a lunesta each night with a glass of wine, but he was stealing the pills, 1 at a time out of my Rx for months. I’m sure he planned to find a way to spike my wine with a load of it once he had accumulated enough. Then he could be the poor sad widower… with my house and the helicopter he took from the guy he “accidented”.
So I do KNOW for a fact that P’s will have another P as the OW. He had all kinds of other sex partners though, men and women, goats, sheep, horses….
Eva:
I don’t know for sure if she is an spath, but pretty darn close. Or maybe a neurotic narcissist!!! She is f&^cking something, let me tell you!! Extremely manipulative. We talk about the spath man being manipulative? I saw her manipulate HIM!! Of course, he was manipulating her, too. So yes, I think they fed off of each other. I think she was as exciting to him as he was to her. She became absolutely obssessed with him. I did, too, but I didn’t stalk him or bother him the way she did. She was relentless. I had too much pride and self control to do that. And she is married with a small daughter…sad.