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 is not unusual for two dysfunctional or even disordered people to hook up together….they battle it out in what I call a “gasoline and fire” relationship using and abusing each other…first one if the abuser and the other the victim, then they trade places in the “victim, rescuer, persecutor” roles like musical chairs…and when one beats the carp out of the ohter one the “loser’ presents themselves as a POOR VICTIM TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF BY THE MEAN OLD BAD GUY.
How many of us have had the psychopaths in our lives present themselves ad VICTIMS when in fact, they just lost out to a more successful abusive personality disordered person?
Many of the Ps I have known have presented at first as the poor victim (the pity play) I need you to save me from the abuse I have suffered….then they turn and just like a snake strike at you. That is why it is UNwise for us to take on the role of “rescuer” for these people. The drug addict that just needs love, the ex convict that just needs someone to believe in them, and so on….they hook into our altruistic and compassionate selves (actually our brains respond with pleasure hormones when we do good deeds) and we are so arrogant and narcissistic and STOOPID that we think we can “save them”—trying to save someone is kind of like thinking that if you pet a snake long enough and are good enough to it it will grow fur and love you back like a puppy dog. AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN FOLKS. These abusive people will NOT change, these DISHONEST PEOPLE will not suddenly become honest, these IRRESPONSIBLE PEOPLE will not suddenly become responsible, and these people who feel ENTITLED are not going to think that they have to work for what they have, they would rather steal or con a dollar than work for an honest $5.
They see our good natures, our good intentions, as making us vulnerable to their con job…and all they have to do is to convince us that they love us and we are special. Well, we ARE special, but not in the way they try to convince us we are. We do NOT HAVE THE POWER TO FIX THEM so we need to learn to spot them, the predators, and to protect ourselves, and put ourselves first.
Just like I am not likely to buy a house that is a “fixer upper” I am not going to “buy” a person in my life that needs a lot of “fixing” either….don’t want that job. The cost is way too high and the success rate is about zero.
Skylar,
But how can they stand each other long time being both so arrogant? Yes, that they team if they share a goal i read it.
You could be right they could maintain a “friendship” as far as they both gain something. These two women i’ve have to stand lately are two narcissistics, one of them is specially wicked and manipulates the other, but the other is not good either.
It’s so new this of narcissism for me. I mean pathological narcissim. I didn’t know there was pathological narcissists till recenly. I used to called them other names and i didn’t know their problem was an excess of narcissim and superficiality. I suppose it’s me who has changed the way of sight.
eb,
Yeah, whether narcissistics or psychopaths they’re wicked bugs. I haven’t met the partner of this witch but she says it’s more than 3 years they want to separate, but she’s still with him! I don’t understand anything but i know she’s bad people. I’ve received from her spam that says “Facebook of sex” that i haven’t opened but i learned is spam. So you see what she does, to look for new sources using sex as hook in who knows how many sites when she has even tried in a false one! LOL
Ox Drover:
Mine definitely portrayed himself as a victim. Imagine this scenario: This man was five levels above me at a very large corporate company here in the US. He is from the UK, but came here for work. Starts pursuing me and from the very first conversation starts telling me that he got a DUI about six months prior so he can’t drive; only to and from work….pity play #1. Then tells me he is separated. He’s living in an apartment he hates while the wife is still in the house of luxury. Then starts to tell me that he also has bad credit because his Administrative Assistant wasn’t paying his bills. All the while this is happening in his most lovely, charming soft spoken English accent he is wearing his $700 Bally shoes and driving his Mercedes Benz. Ugghhhh. I had never, ever in my life felt pity for someone the way I did him…boy he was good at manipulation. He knew exactly what he was doing and I was clueless. I thought he was just telling me what was going on in his life. But little by little, I started feeling sorry for him. I have never, ever in my life before felt like I wanted to “fix” a man until I met him. Just makes me so mad looking back. I became so addicted to him. So yes, he definitely portrayed himself as the victim. I will never fall for that again…sorry….fix your own problems!!! Because anyway, when I did try to be there for him, he pushed me away!!!!!
Is it common for them to push you away when you try to help them?
eb
I suppose so. If they don’t want that help they’ll send you to hell.
Eva,
they don’t act arrogant around each other all the time. Mostly, they like collaborate on how they will hurt an innocent victim and they gleefully laugh about it.
Even if they hate each other, they will put that aside to do the greater evil of hurting an innocent, at least temporarily.
My spath manipulated the spath neighbor because he is the UBER Spath and she’s just a stupid spath filled with envy. He manipulated her into hating me more and envying me more. (not hard to do) But she was a spath too. She TOLD me that her entire family had cut her off because they don’t approve of her “lifestyle”. I asked, “what lifestyle?” She said, “oh, because I date married men.” BS, she’s a spath and probably has spathed everyone in her life. She is not a parasite spath though, she is a bank manager in town.
Anyway, UberSpath tried to use her to triangulate and make her hate me, perhaps he thought about manipulating her into killing me the way Joey Buttafuco did with Amy and his wife?
The truth is, though, he despised her too. He told my BF, later, that he wanted to gut her with a knife and rip her open from her neck to her navel. Yes, in those words. Who says that? A spath.
92044,
my spath never pushed my help away. He just kept letting me waste my time and energy then he would sabotage any possible success. He loved seeing me bend over backward for him. He lived for it.
Skylar,
How disgusting people. And i know what you’re saying is right. But why do they bother so much in order to hurt an innocent victim? What do they envy, i wonder. Or is it that agressivity due to their inability to con or to exploit the victim?
The push-pull thing is common, push you away when you come close then when you back up they pull you back…typical. I suggest that you keep on reading the articles in the archives…and hey, I also suggest that you never say you are P-PROOF, because there is always one out there with a new twist on the hook…just learn all you can but don’t get too cocky and think that you can never EVER be fooled again….been there and done that….in fact, many of us have been fooled more than once even after we knew what a P was.
That is why I set my standards so high…I may screen out a few more or less normal people, but I will most likely get 99.9% of the Ps early on because if there is any sign of dishonesty ANY sign of it, ZAP, any sign of pity play, ZAP, any sign of irresponsibility, ZAP, any sign of past criminal or drug problems ZAP, any lack of compassion, ZAP, any sign of rudeness, ZAP, and so on….The last guy I dated a couple of times showed that he was not responsible and would violate good sense in order to do something foolish and I Zapped him out of my life for Behaving irresponsably—didn’t see him for a year and then guess what, he shows up at my door with a sad story about how he had gotten married 4 months previously and it was soooo hard to adjust….well duh, if I wasn’t sleeping with him when he was single what made him think I might when he was married? DUH? but it did validate for me my opinion that this guy was a no go because of the irresponsible part….and sure enough, I was right. So the thing is that if someone isn’t honest, responsible, compassionate and kind….what else is going to make him “attractive?” NOTHING I CAN THINK OF.
Separated but not divorced? call me when you are free legally to date?
Got a DUI and can’t drive? Call me when hell freezes over!
X-wife a bitch, so you aren’t going to pay the child support? See Directions for DUI.
Can’t keep a job, see directions for DUI.
Haven’t got any money because of X, Y or Z….too bad, see directions for DUI.
Have a drinking or drug problem, but been sober for 2 weeks and need me to help you stay sober….call me in 20 years.
On probation or parole? have an STD, have cheated on your previous wife? Been married more than once? Don’t even bother calling in 20 years, I have to wash my hair that night.
Yea, whatever their problem is I don’t need it. That eliminates 99.9% of the “available” guys in my age range (60+) and the 0.01% of the guys that are left that aren’t in one of those categories can have their choice of women 45 to 60 so aren’t generally interested in someone my age (65) so there is no line forming at the door to my house, but I have figured that is okay too. I’d rather have NO relationship than a bad one.