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.
I read a really good article about the lying, but can’t remember where. I think it might have been on Claudia’s web-site, Psychopathy Awareness.
It reminds us that, while we want communication, as a means toward emotional intimacy, Spaths DO NOT. We can be an open book, because we are real and accept ourselves as we are…we are genuine. Spaths are walking in a perpetual disguise. They DO NOT WANT you to “get them” they want you to “get the disguised them. So, You are fed word salad as a staple and it only serves to confuse. It throws you off the track, and obfuscates the truth. If and when they throw you a nugget of reality, it only adds to the confusion. And it works very well. That’s why you are asking the question. It’s just another variation on the gas-lighting technique. We are left shaking our heads and asking, WTF?
Thanks for all the comments. This all makes sense to me. Thank you all so much for all this wonderful insight. The question I would always ask myself is…do they really figure all this stuff out or does it come natural to them?? What I mean is are they consciously always thinking that well, I have to tell these half truths and I have to do this and I have to do that so I can dupe all these women?? Or does it just happen “naturally” for them because they are brain damaged?? Another thing…a few of you mentioned that they were in love, but from everything I have read, they are not capable. I don’t know what to think about that subject. Confuses me.
Dear eb92044,
They are not “in love” in the way that normal people are “in love” because the lack the critical component of being able to “bond” chemically in the brain…Dr. Leedom wrote an article about research done with oxytocin, the hormone responsible for bonding in mammals, and apparently the psychopaths lack the ability to one degree or another to use this hormone by lack of having RECEPTORS for it. Many are very very hyper-sexual though, and will literally fark anything that will hold still long enough, where as normal people are more bonded/attached to the person they are sleeping with because sex releases oxytocin (the bonding hormone).
So, no, they can’t “love” in the normal way, but they have learned to FAKE it by saying words and acting like they are in love because they realize that these WORDS make the “mark” (victim) more likely to give them sex than if they just said “Hi, my name is P, wanna fark?” LOL
They learn many things, among them how to behave because they want to survive. And they want to live well like any living creature, the problem is that they’re a threatening for others because of their lack of empathy and therefore lack of remorse for their actions. And that will never change because they lack part of the human brain equipment.
Ox Drover:
Thanks for that. My former spath told me though that he did fall in love with someone. This was after our “relationship” was over and I was leaving my job. So he had no reason at that point to fool me…at least not in that way. We were no longer being intimate. That is always going to drive me crazy…why did her love her? What did she have that I didn’t have or any of the other women for that matter. Then I think…did he lie to me about being in love with her??? But why? There wasn’t any reason at that point. Even told me that he had sent her flowers, etc. I can’t imagine him ever sending anyone flowers! Oh, dear talk about hyper-sexual…that was him!!! Wow, he was something. I often wonder what other secret sexual things he was doing to satisfy his urges. I know he masturbated a lot.
eb9, He told you because he wanted to F with your head. He didn’t have anything to lose except control of your emotions. He wanted it to smart. He wanted you to feel jealous and to ask all those questions…remember, they want power above everything else. He wanted to hold on to his power to make you suffer.
Ox Drover:
Hahaha, that comment is so funny…“Hi, my name is P, wanna fark?” LOL
The reason it is even more funny to me is because mine said very early on…”want to make love?” This was in an instant message! He is crazy. And you are right…he pulled that “I love you” crap on me, but I was too smart for that. Yeah, I was stupid because I fell for him, but when he told me he loved me, I knew it wasn’t true! Come on! He looked right in my eyes and said “I fu&%ing love you!” I said, “No, you don’t.” Then when I wrote him a letter in January, I told him that I knew he was lying and that he was only saying it so that I would sleep with him. I told him that is what 16 year old boys say to girls when they want them to sleep with them…haha!
eb, they know people have different acceptances of what’s love, and they know many people have no a deep idea of what it is love. The victim who has it less clear is the best victim. Of course he has been very capable of buying flowers to a potential victim. My spath gave me flowers, and chocolates, and perfumes, and brought me to holidays twice. And what? He just considered it was necessary in order to lure me. But after a while the psychopath appeared and he became lazy, confussing, cruel, demanding, controlling, etc.
A psycho unable to bond with flowers or without them is the same psycho! 😀
kim frederick:
OK, that makes sense! It’s all about the power…
Thanks!
Eva:
I totally understand what you are saying, but according to him, he did not send her flowers during the luring stage. She was way past a potential victim at this point. He had moved away and said he wanted her to come with him, but she wouldn’t because he wouldn’t get a divorce (smart girl!). So then he moved away and I guess she changed jobs and he sent her flowers congratulationg her on her new job. Who knows! I will never know and I am tired of thinking about it when in the end, none of it matters. I only obssess about it for so long and then I snap back to reality and realize there are way more important things to focus on.