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.
((Melly)) Good for you! My cats helped me survive my experience. All that unconditional love is the best bandage! Hang in there, it hurts but you will heal. My dreams tell me a lot. I kept dreaming that I had remarried my first husband, that it was better but still bad. In many ways that was the truth. Although he was a much better husband/father than X.
X also is Peter Pan and looked much younger than his years. His MO is being the boy next door. Sweet, innocent and charming. Well, he has plenty of charm, but that’s it. I saw a picture of him a year after we split and he’d totally lost it. He did an audition on youtube and as I sat there watching all the mannerisms I once found endearing I wondered how he could possibly not see what an idiot he looked like. He learned what worked for him in high school and never changed. What can pass for charm at 16 looks pretty pathetic on a chubby, greasy man of 50.
Someone who knew how much I loved him asked if I would ever take him back. I said “Take back what? It was all a lie. There’s nothing to take back.” With each year of recovery I realize just how true that is.
romanticfool no more:
Good writings above…thank you 🙂
Romantic fool no more.
One of the girls in Australia who has a baby with his best mate emailed me asking if I thought we would get back together.
I replied no way he’s a pig. I value myself too much to keep putting myself back into that situation again and again and again like I have done. Can we drop him now? I’m trying to heal.
She wrote back, absolutely you deserve so much better than that!! Let’s move on. Big hugs and we are moving to uk Manchester soon. Which is ace because I really like the girl and see her as a friend and I know her partner thinks my ex is a knob.
Well back up to my flat now,more packing!! Going to leave my pup with my mum as he just unpacks everything! Lol I love him xx
eb, I had that feeling when I looked at pics of him before I met him and with his other women, before, during and now. On some he looks plain boyish, and not just because he was younger. On mine he has a much more serious demeanor, and a few where he looks like a little devil who’s out to be pesky to people or pull a prank (often when he was drunk). On those with the OW during and after, he just looks like a sleeze, including the ones he’s alone on the pics.. . It’s like he exhales another demeanor, depending on the woman, which would fit the chameleon abilities
oh and on the couple pic with the new victim he kinda looks like a tarzan… guess he’s playing the strong hero part on her.
darwinsmom:
Creepy. But what I was talking about is not in pictures. I am talking about seeing him in real time. I swear sometimes his face would have one shape and the next time it would have another shape…no kidding! And no, I do not do drugs!! HA, I’m about as clean as the driven snow. It is the weirdest thing I have ever encountered. I have never looked at anyone else and saw two different faces. Makes me really think he is not of this world.
The pictures are the evidence of that changearound. His facial features seemed to changed in front of my eyes when he was thinking up something nasty to do to someone else and then do it. His nose would be sharper, as did the rest of his face. And I was able to read the plan in his eyes. Some of the “little devil” pics show that sharpened face. But I saw it a few times last summer when he was sober.
At his dad’s house lived his half brother and the 3 children of this divorced man. Two are adults now. The third will be turning 11 now I think. He was a good kid, drawing most of the time. I even drew his portrait sketch once, the first summer, and he put it up on the fridge. Anyway, my x had a big dislike for the kid and would blame him for lots of stuff.
In the spring after his return from Belgium last year he met a woman from Sandinavia (older than me I think), and she supposedly was a nurse, and gave him some of the EHBO kit stuff before leaving: gloves, needles, etc. Some of that stuff was in a room in the house (his room). We were staying at a hostel. I had lived by myself for a decade, and was not totally comfortable about living with them for over a month. Plus I knew that he and his family often argued, and I preferred to have some peace. Anyway, x discovered some of the gloves had been taken out of the wraps as were some of the needles and he was very much annoyed about it. It was his stuff, his room, and it was nobody’s business (strange that “my stuff” could be pawned off at will though). And he suspected his youngest cousin of having played with it. First he tried to harrangue the boy about it, but the boy just blew him off. Then he tried to get his half-brother to be harsh about it, but the half-brother just shrugged his shoulders. Eventually, he tried to get his dad to back him, ranting the boy needed to learn not to touch the stuff of other people.
His dad replied, “As if you respect the possessions of other people.” (I knew his dad was right, but I also reasoned that my x’s own faults did not excuse the boy’s attitude… in any case… it was dangerous for the boy to be playing with syringes)
I speak Spanish fluently, though I often talked English with my x. And x knew this. He did have some points and his family, including his dad, were rejecting him. It was embarrassing to say the least.
So, he was upset and mad. Eventually his dad went to lie in the hammock at their garden porch, where x was doing the washing of our clothing in the washing machine (you know those plastic machines that will go walkabout when you don’t hold them down as they tumble everything). And x was piling in the water into the washing machine from the tap with a small bucket.
The argument continued, and his dad gave another comments that dismissed the whole issue. I was sitting near, talking with his dad in the meanwhile.
All of a sudden I saw this “devil face” appear (sparkling, sharp, gleeful), while he was upping the speed of the water hauling, and I just knew he intended to splash the whole bucket of water over his father resting in the hammock. Seconds later that was exactly what he did. His dad was totally taken by surprise, embarrassed right in front of me, wanted to become angry, but then realized I was a witness to all of it. I was ready to sink in the earth of shame for my x.
And then his face became all smooth again, and as glib as an eel he said, “Oh, I’m sorry… I’m so clumsy. I was being too careless with the water hauling.”
It was so outright mean. I remember I came to his dad’s aid, helped him dry, but then walked off. X ran after me and was angry for not defending him. But I told him, “I could see what you were gonna do to your dad. And no matter, even if you had reasons to be upset with him, that was just plain mean. I’m not sure whether I know now who you really are. It certainly was not the man I thought I’m engaged to.”
Different looks – yep I recognise that too. Particularly on photos.
Day to day his face would change. He was either laughing stupidly when there was nothing to laugh about or glowering or ‘intense’ (as in watching something on tv)
The facial expression could change in a flash. I also saw what seemed to be a look of terror sometimes. Abject fear. That may have come about from his time in prison (which I did not know about til much later)
It was like he had a face to ‘fit’ the situation. Is this making sense? He could ‘wear’ different expressions and change in an instant.
No he had no facial lines – what I would call worry lines. His face was smooth as was the skin all over his body.
But the expression I saw the last time he as here I will NEVER forget. It was sooooooo scarey, evil. He had come to my house and was waiting for me, as he came round the corner his look almost knocked me dead.
Darwin – yes they like to ‘get one up’ if they feel they’ve been slighted. In their eyes it’s payback – how childish.
darwinsmom:
Wow, that is really a story. It’s great that you were able to anticipate his actions by the looks on his face!!
candy:
My X also had no facial lines…none and he was 43. The smoothest face I had ever seen on a man; no facial hair, not even stubble…I don’t think he had to shave. He had light hair so I guess he didn’t have any facial hair. Very interesting. It’s because life is only a game to them.
Yes, it makes sense. My X also would change expressions for whatever situation he was in. There was the pout, the kind of twisted up face look when he was acting perplexed, the blank look, and he did this one thing I have never seen anyone else do and I cannot duplicate it, but it’s almost like his head had a spring in it and I only saw this when he was upset about something (I never saw him MAD; only annoyed), but he would make his face jump somehow…I don’t know…I don’t even know how to describe it and certainly can’t duplicate it. I wish you could have seen it. When I saw it, that’s when I knew he was annoyed at something.