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.
eb92044 – seems like spaths have a lot of things in common! You in the uk eb? No need to answer if you’d rather not say. My spath was in his early 50’s. He tried to contact me the other day, 6 months NC and up he pops like nothing’s ever happened.
candy:
I am not in the UK, I am in the US. But X is from Liverpool and then lived in Manchester. He is here for work.
He tried to contact you after six months?? I heard that is common and mine did that after four months last year. Nothing from him, I mean not even a peep and then when he heard I was leaving my job, he started talking to me. I was so crushed again because I thought it was because we were connecting again, but a few people put the thought in my head that it was only because I was leaving and he thought I was going to report him at work for what he had done. But that really doesn’t make sense to me because we had never fought, had bad words or anything. He just disappeared. It was because he had gone back to his wife, but I didn’t know it.
candy:
I found an article once that talked about how spaths or narcs have a weird sense of time. This article also addressed that is the reason they have such a youthful appearance. It also explains why they pop up after extended periods of time as if nothing happened. Six months to them may seem like six days!! 🙂
eb-thanks. Back to his wife! So yours contacted you too. It’s a big trigger just when we are ‘getting over’ them. They just can’t help themselves.
I think mine tried to contact me because my property is up for sale and he probably thought I was worth a few pounds by now. Either that or his current girlfriend(s) is getting boring.
He left 6 months ago and I know he’s had at LEAST 3 affairs in that time.
Sounds like, if he thought you were leaving, he might lose touch (and they always need a back-burner girl)so he thought he’d pop back up so he could keep tabs on you.
candy:
And by the way, I am American.
Yeah, your X’s current girlfriends are probably boring him by now…needs a new thrill.
I can see that he thought he would lose touch with me. That was my thought…one of his sheep was leaving the flock! He had so many of us at work it was pathetic.
6 months to them may seem like 6 days; right….
great gaps in judging time frames. Right; they always have a reason or a ploy to ‘sneak back’. A person has to trust their judgement…..I say “no thank you”. 🙂 WHEN I was informed beforehand; which was hardly ever the case; he always just ‘stopped by’ like if he ‘owned’ me and my life. I am ‘old news’ now on the relationship list and one who needs to disappear and just not stir the pot. It isn’t going to happen that easy for him now, at least not with me.
He actually told me I have outlived my usefulness to him and that I need to get a life. hahahahahaha It isn’t “ME” who keeps bothering “HIM”. I can see how these people are easily pushed to harming others and turning into serial rapists and killers….
they start believing the stuff they tell bad about you to others, in order to suck THEM into the web and they end up hating you for all the things they have blamed you for when none of it has been your doing in the first place. The only thing that HAS HAPPENED is that you have been taken in by a very sick individual who manipulates and uses people. Uses them until they are all used up and then they get rid of you without conscious nor forethought.
They keep coming back because they are looking for things to be the way they were when they first got that high from you. They LOVE causing upevil and drama in other people’s lives and getting ‘that rise’ out of them and can be very cruel about it.
MY x sp can only go for the most 3-4 months without contacting me. I used to always respond back (being the nice person I am) but that was just opening the door for some more. So, I have established a NC since 1May and he has and is breaking that request left and right. I saw him 1May and he was not a happy person that day and still isn’t. I am not standing for it anymore. His reign of terror, over me, is finished or I will make it legally stop.
Yes: eb, that is the way I have likened it as well:
“one of his sheep leaving the flock”…
They don’t like letting go because they like to think they own you. NOBODY OWNS ME. NOR MY THOUGHTS.
Pathetic, lost, no control people, without conscious.
My x sp is obsessed with me but truly believes that I should accept all of this madness that follows around him…
There is something very wrong with that. No.
He makes women think they are beautiful and tells them everything they want to hear and as long as you don’t make waves, everything is cool but the disregard and abuse only continues to grow. The more you tolerate them and their actions, the more disrespect they have for you and the worse the violence becomes. It goes from ‘thoughts’ into ‘actions’.
I am doing not a thing to him although I could.
I have not done anything to him that I probably should have…
not yet, anyways. He needs to learn that when I say “don’t bother me anymore” that I MEAN IT.
When they contact you, don’t think it’s because they are concerned about you. You have something they want.
Sever that tie at the hip before you can’t. Mine is having a difficult time ‘letting go’ even though it is imperative to his well being at this point in time.
There has never not one time been any consideration from him over the fact that I almost died from my heart attack, in fact, I was told that it’s too bad I didn’t die. I think the words were: “Die you bitch.” All the while having his new girlfriend, who is a worse spath than him, harassing me. Him, threatening me.
The stalking continues: I am not stirring the pot and I am the one who has all the evidence on him and he knows it. You would think if he were a truly intelligent being, he would not be stirring the pot; wouldn’t you? But he can’t help it: he is bored; he has nobody playing along with his adrenaline rush games: trying to revive old ghosts and see what we can stir up over there….the flock is being heavily thinned out these days…
Yah, the worlds greatest mindf–k. It isn’t worth the time nor energy to try to figure out or understand why. You can search and search and search and you will never figure it out…it doesn’t take long to figure it out – the hardest part is “WHAT DO YOU DO ABOUT IT?” I refuse the disrespect in my life.
WHY our love and unconditional caring has been turned against us will always be a mystery….like the poison it truly is. There are no answers sometimes. Only resolutions.
The resolutions WE MAKE and STAND FIRM upon.
Peace to all…
DUPED
DUPED:
Thank you. I really enjoyed reading your post (not your pain though). They definitely do have a twisted sense of time; I am not sure why. I truly think mine has forgotten about me, but who knows if he will pop up sometime, but I highly doubt it and that’s OK with me. I know it would NOT be good for me and it would just stir everything up again so I hope he does not.
I agree with Louise, Duped – you write some brilliant posts. I sometimes feel you and I are writing about the same man! Weird how they are all so ‘similar’
‘judging time frames’ – interesting. Mine had no sense of time in terms of things that happened.
Here’s a funny thing which came to me this week (not really funny – but you know what I mean)
Spath claimed his marriage not working was because he was ‘away so much’. He said he’s been working on the continent.
Well, then it came to me (knowing what I know now)he WAS away but not abroad, he was in prison! So in a sense he was ‘away’ but not as he had me believe.
You are right about the sheep thing, they want to round us up from time to time, keep us in their fold so to speak.
Nope. No answers, it’s an unsolvable puzzle/riddle. No matter how we try there will always be pieces missing.
I would like to wake up JUST ONE FRICKING MORNING and not think about him – my SPATH – first thing. He had me SO conditioned.
Every morning he’d text me right away. Every evening he’d text me “good night”. I feel like pavlov’s dog.
Some days, I just want revenge. I just want to start doing all those things to HIM like he did to me (intentional outreach, intentional stringing along, intentional malice). Some days I want that. But I can’t because I am not that kind of a person. Even if I had malice one day, I wouldn’t have it the next day. I am compassionate. Then I would get sucked in all over again.
All days, I want to get this guy erased from my head and my heart.
Yes, I loved him, I did all the right things, I bent over backwards, and I couldn’t “fix” the relationship, I couldn’t FIX him. I lost what I hoped for.
I am making a new committment to NO CONTACT. I will not read his emails should they arrive. I will NOT check on him online. I’m going to keep moving forward with filling my already busy life up with other good things – sports, work, volunteering, my children. I think most of us on LF need excitement in our lives – it’s part of our DNA – I’m not sure how I’m going to accomplish THAT in a safe way.
I honestly think that I’m hurting myself more than he is hurting me by my OWN ACTIONS of checking up on him. He’s probably out there just doing nothing and not thinking of me and me? I’m sitting here obsessing. This is just so F’ed up. I’m the normal person and *I* am obsessing??? What is wrong with me???
I don’t think I ever want sex again. Thinking about THIS element of the relationship just rips my heart out.
Sorry, I guess I am having a sucky morning and I need to vent a little.
SK
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