“How did he really feel?” and “What did he want from me?” are two questions that often haunt victims of sociopaths. The reason we are haunted by these questions varies but often stems from the habit of over-focusing on the sociopath instead of ourselves. That being said, victims also have a healthy ”˜need to know’ that can help with recovery and healing.
I struggled with these questions in my own healing. I remain baffled by my observations of enjoyment of affection on the part of sociopaths. Early on, I told my own therapist that I had come to the conclusion that sociopaths exploit those close to them to the point of death, then, cry at the funeral. At the moment the tears are shed, I believe they do represent a grief of sorts. The feelings of loss experienced by sociopaths are however, short lived. Victims also have to beware because, although sociopaths are said to be incapable of feelings for those in their lives, they do become obsessed with them. Psychologists have not yet explained this obsession. If they don’t attach, why are they obsessed? Those who have read my other entries know that I believe that sociopaths do attach. It is what they do with attachments that is disordered.
How did he really feel?
In response to the picture of a sociopath crying at his victim’s funeral, my therapist said, “He feels what he tells himself he feels.” To help you understand what my therapist meant, I will explain what is known about how people usually experience feelings.
There are two components to feelings. The first is a physical sensation. When we experience a feeling we feel something in our bodies in relationship to that feeling. Think about loving someone close to you and sense how your body feels. Is it warmth in your heart? That is usually what people report.
There is much evidence that these physical sensations are disordered in sociopaths. Sociopaths do not generally experience the physical and hormonal changes that go along with feeling emotion. If they do experience them, it is to a lesser degree. Physical responses are blunted.
The second component of feelings is called attribution. Attribution is a cognitive process. When I feel that warmth in my heart as I see my children, I attribute the sensation to my love for them. Thus the physical sensation alone does not make emotion. Emotion is physical sensations and our interpretations of these sensations. There is also evidence that the parts of the brain responsible for attribution do not function properly in sociopaths.
There is one emotion that many sociopaths experience in a not so disordered way. This emotion is anger. Sociopaths do have blunted physical responses to anger. Despite this blunted responsiveness, they seem aware of angry feelings and make correct attributions about what makes them angry. Again, science has not even addressed, much less explained this observation.
Since the physical sensations and attributions that allow for the experience of emotion are disordered in sociopaths, their inner world is very different. They are left to make sense of themselves and others without the tools most of us use. Other parts of the brain fill in the missing processes. The person who is credited with first describing sociopathy in depth is Hervey Cleckley. He proposed that sociopaths are at least of average if not above average verbal intelligence. This makes sense because they have to use their verbal intelligence to make up for their lack of emotions. They do indeed feel what they tell themselves they feel. Scientists say they mimic other people’s emotions, yet again there is no real proof of this.
What did he want from me?
This question is easy to answer intellectually, but very hard for victims to accept emotionally. There are three pleasures we get from our love relationships. The first is pleasure in affection. The second is sexual pleasure. The third is pleasure associated with dominance and control. Sociopaths experience sex and dominance as enormously more pleasurable than affection. Therefore, they are in relationships to get sex and power, pure and simple.
If you love deeply and feel affection for others, you cannot fathom the inner world of an emotionally disordered person whose primary pleasures are sex and power. To understand another’s world you have to imagine yourself experiencing what the other experiences. You can’t do this with a sociopath.
Louise Gallagher said in her post The six steps of healing from a psychopath that the first step is acceptance. We have to accept that we can only know in part how sociopaths really feel and what they want from us. We can understand intellectually, but never emotionally.
still reeling:
It’s OK. I had never heard that song despite how much I love John Lennon. Sigh.
Thanks so much for sharing more of your story. Mine would also come to my cube and just stare at me with that blank stare; wouldn’t say a word. Who does that? Only a spath and he was five levels above me…unbelievable. What man of that position does that shit? Nuts. Totally nuts.
Louise, you might want to try “the power of NOW” audio book. I have tried it over the last month and it made a big difference for me.
Athena:
Thank you. I should try it 🙂
I will check it out now online.
skylar, skylar, yes another name I forgot to add to the group of outstanding women on this blog….I’m kind of speechless re: your effortless and completely logical explanation/anaylsis of the dream. After reading it, I could not for the life of me, even recall what mine was! You are exactly right. In my gut, I knew he was a pig but didn’t want to believe it. I had no idea about sociopathy; I just knew he was out of his mind. As you say Louise, anyone in a high level position who acts like these two is nuts. I realized it right away but it all happened anyway. I just did not want to believe how toxic he was. But it came out in my dream.
I think I interpreted the dirt gift to mean that I knew he thought little of me and didn’t care about me at all. I never thought it was a representation of the way I saw his essence, but I do believe you are correct. Too hard to take at the time of the dream, esp as I said, before I realized what he was/is.
Of course, I thought the “presumptuous” comment meant that he thought I was being presump. to believe the gift was for me, but I see now that you are correct. I was expecting him to be a stand-up guy and eventually, even though his behavior was inexplicably bizarre and intrinsically punishing and hateful, that was all going to change on some magical day. Instead, yes, I knew full well he did not respect or hold me in esteem at all and that yes, with that knowledge, it would be presumtuous to believe he would give me a “nice gift” (treat me well).
He was a huge insult to me….that is absolutely true and I have felt completely ashamed to have thrown myself at his feet and allowed him to repeatedly kick me in the head, throw me a band-aid and kick me again.
Actually he directly insulted me many times, two that really smarted.
On the Friday before surgery last summer, I had to leave early for pre-op exam and just coincidentally ran into him in a random part of the huge bldg we worked in. I told him where I was going and he said, “Have fun with that.” Oh and why don’t you go ahead and take Monday off (surgery was Tues).
That was going to be it….no hug, no best of luck, no nothing.
I was in shock.
Also a wk or so before that, he told me that his wife had stopped cooking for him so he had been going out to nice restaurants for dinner every night. Again, I was in shock. Why would he not have asked me to dinner?????? Someone he supposedly was so attracted to? Someone who was having cancer surgery???? Someone he told to *only* come to him with any issues or problems, not to go to my direct management or anyone else, just him….the bastard was out to dinner at nice restaurants and didn’t ask me to dinner??
How I could not see that he was a bag of maggot pus when he pulled sh*t like that, I will never know. It’s my problem though. I could easily have said something right on the spot. But chose not to!
I came in on Monday before Tues surgery anyway because I wanted to give him one last chance to say, “Good luck,” at the very least. Instead, he said once again, “Hey have fun with that.” When I got home there was a email that said, “You do know you’re going to fully recover, don’t you?”
After surgery, when I got home, I email’d him immediately and he came right back at me with something like, “That’s my girl! I can’t wait to see you!!” He was playing with me because now I was at a distance for weeks of recovery and it was safe to say something nice.
These are the kind of elements that played into that dream and made me feel like an unworthy bag of maggots myself.
Thank you so much for the incredible insight, Skylar. Amazing.
Athena, you are so right on…it was almost impossible for me to realize what a butt this guy was when I was sitting there in the midst of it…now that I realize he is an animal (with huge apology to the animal world), I am slowly beginning to see that I don’t have to carry this shame and embarrasment for accepting his bag of dirt and rocks.
Louise, you rock as always…I didn’t want to bring up any sadness by posting a Beatles song since you said your monster has that whole English Bealtes-esque charm going on, but it is a beautiful song, isn’t it??? The words, if you listen to them, are a little different than most love songs. He was a genius…I just love the lyrics and the tune as well.
Still Reeling
Wow, your story is a good one. It is totally manipulation and control. He knew exactly what he was doing. I’m sorry. My spath did the same thing, more or less. He’d tell me about movies he went to see (BY HIMSELF) or long drives he want on (BY HIMSELF) and I’m like WTF, if you love me, why wouldn’t you invite me along?
I threw myself at his feet repeatedly, and then kept crying, trying to understand why he didn’t love me back.
I didn’t realize he was incapable of it.
Thank you for being there for me today, Still Reeling. It is helpful to me to read your story.
Athena
Still Reeling, your post made me wonder. Do you still work with him? You do realize that he’s doing the same shit to other women at work, right???? Does the company have a code of ethics? Does your spath have a boss????
Athena
Survivor again, GREAT advice….and you know, I would NOT wait until I suspected I was married to a psychopath, but think it is a good idea for ANY person who co-mingles their finances with another partner to have evidence and important papers in case they ever need them. and in cases where you marry and you have kids and he has kids, to have a prenup signed before the marriage.
Athena:
I am going to answer for “still reeling” and I really hope she doesn’t mind!
I followed her story because her spath sounded soooo much like mine as we both encountered them in the workplace and some of the things they did were identical.
So to answer your question, no, she no longer works with him…he was fired.
And yes, mine was doing the same thing to MANY other women at work and my company has a huge code of ethics. It’s a huge company and they even have a hotline where you can report inappropriate conduct anonymously.
Oh gosh, Athena, ” It is totally manipulation and control. He knew exactly what he was doing. I’m sorry. My spath did the same thing, more or less. He’d tell me about movies he went to see (BY HIMSELF) or long drives he want on (BY HIMSELF) and I’m like WTF, if you love me, why wouldn’t you invite me along?”
I’m beginning to wonder if these monsters should have “sadism” added to their gruesome list of personality traits. It’s just gotta be one of the characteristics embedded into their chip or whatever drives them to be so covertly and consistently devious, deceitful and downright dangerous.
I feel certain he was gleeful when he saw how miserable he made you….I am so sorry, Athena.
Honestly, honestly now, I still wonder if Godzilla really knew that he was being deceitful and abusive with me. My feeling throughout all this was that he was so involved with being in trouble at home and at work, that he just didn’t have time to have a decent friendship with me. He used to say he was “in a fog.” I would critique his notes to the dept sometimes and he would tell me that getting 2 sentences written were so difficult, it took all his will and strength, and then they still contained errors.
I forced things out of him because it’s my nature to ask questions, like was he really flirting with me (said this is in a previous post). After say no in a completely convincing way, and I was both disappointed and relieved, he said yes. I asked him if he thought he was going to get fired and he said, “Yes, I can’t do the job, I think about my disintegrating personal life at work, then think about work at home.” I’d push for more info, and sometimes he would talk, sometimes he wouldn’t.
That is just my nature with anyone, I don’t like to be around people who hold everything close to the chest. I’m an open person and I like to share real feelings and thoughts with people. I don’t want anything to do with covert, reserved, cryptic people. I’d much rather my own company. They make me feel like I’m not trusted. Screw that. Life is really way too short for that, for me anyway. So at least I know I made the bastard uncomfortable from time to time. But he won most of the “games,” because I was in, you know, the river in Egypt.
Athena, you aren’t alone. In fact, it’s weird because Godzilla never really asked me out (just to visit him once) altho he did ask when he got back from vaca, would I like to have dinner? It never happened of course. Not even close. We were on the phone that night (very rare occurrence) and he sounded depressed and miserable. We had been emailing all day and it was so much fun. He couldn’t wait to go to vaca and his wife wasn’t going. I thought he was depressed over that. So when he said something about going to dinner, it was like he was asking me to take him for a root canal. I couldn’t wait to get off the phone. I sent him an email and said that I hoped this vaca would be what he needed to sort through some of his issues and renew his spirit. I told him I cared for him very much and hoped that the end result would be that he and his wife were able to work through some things and put their fam back together again. Guess what kind of response I got. NADA. And not one word while he was on vaca. He had kind of told me he would be unhooked for 2 weeks.
Towards the end, when things were coming down around him, he sent me a weird msg on a Sat saying he would ask me to a movie, but he knew I only liked a very specific genre (it was a joke we had). I responded that Wow, even his invitations were cryptic and if I could get out of something my husband and I were thinking about doing the next day (it was an outdoor thing and rain was predicted), I would like that, but only a safe distance from home. Meanwhile just the thought of it made me sick to my stomach. Not sure why!!! His response was quick and to the pt.
He said he was glad I felt well enough to enjoy an outdoor activity. He was just going to stay home.
I was shocked at his response. I wondered if he was jealous of my husband and I going out. I didn’t know what to think. I know my gut was kicking in (nausea) telling me that this invite was not credible. When my husband went out for a few, I called him (rare) and asked if he was ok and how he could go from what sounded like an invite to a flat out reversal. I can’t even remember what he said…he wasn’t really feeling well or whatever. I think in his case, he never thought I’d bite and was just trying to once again, trying to keep me a an ally.
I truly feel your pain Athena and have been in the past with guys like you describe, esp one, who took such great pleasure in basically letting me know how stupid I was (in front of his friends no less), once allowing me to make dinner for him, then leaving right after instead of our plans of staying together. then going to a fund-raiser together the next day with amazing local bands. We were going to pick up some really nice kids and take them with us….I was so excited for that weekend, got a special t-shirt made for it, etc. He scarfed up the food, then said, “Nah, I need to sleep well for the jaunt tomorrow so “bye!” I tore myself up over that guy…should have thrown the plate at him and kicked him where the sun don’t shine. Hindsight!!
Godzilla, if given the chance, would probably have turned out the same way. I feel fortunate on one hand to have been spared such a fate, as I saw some glints of his anger and easy frust and irritation behind that provincial, phony crap.
He once picked up a Netflix envelope I had on my desk and asked me what movie it ws (we loved discussing movies), I told him it was a TV series and he threw it down disgustedly…..he didn’t like TV so it was of no interest to him. Often I would tell him things and he was totally oblivious. He’d repeat the last couple of words I said, ostensibly to show he *had* been listening, then just start talking about what he wanted to. I told myself, “He’s so busy and so into his own issues right now…who wouldn’t be? He just can’t focus.” What a stupid fool I was…hey, that other path was right! I am dumb.
Louise is right Athena. He did get fired. I don’t know the particulars, but I got to see him crumble, “I’ll lose everything, I’ll lose everything.” He couldn’t do the job anyway, but I think his brain (located in his pants) finally won out and someone turned him in for harrassment. Not at all sure. My firm is small and I guess they don’t tolerate that. We got an email from them a few months later listing behaviors that would result in immediate termination and I think sex. harrass. was on it, also bizarre behaviors…I really laughed at that one. I was unable to get any info from anyone as to what finally made it happen. He was of course, very cryptic.
He did try to call me a few times on his last day but I didn’t pick up. He was reticent about everything….never could spit anything out unless he was in a certain mood. That was the mood I both enjoyed and feared because I wasn’t sure what he might say. I was very weirded out by him at *all* times because he was so covert and bizarre. Had he really come after me, I probably would have been turned off….so wish that had happened.
I did email him a few months ago and told him that he was not at all the person I thought he was, that I had slapped some fantasy charcteristics onto him and created what I wanted him to be, etc. Then I found myself trying to be what he wanted me to be…and I wish I had listened to my gut from the start. I told him I knew he found me an irritant during the last few months and that he was only cajoling me into being an ally.
He did respond in about 5 words basically saying I would be healed and comforted.
I blew up and sent him back a note congratulating him on becoming a minister, but that I almost lost my breakfast onto the table. I said I needed/wanted none of his comfort or healing but hoped he could find it for himself. I still had not discovered that he was a socio…had not researched quite enough, but if I had known what I know now, I would had sent him quite a diff note. I can tell he doesn’t want any part of me, and though I’d like to rip his throat out with a nice little email exposing what I know about him sorry a**, I’m not going to. After all who knows what he might do. I *was* interested in him and showed it and I don’t want any of that out there.
So sorry to go on so long.
PS, he didn’t really become a minister….I used to tell him he sounded like one at times…with his religious references and morally-based commets (paramoralism, right?). So when I got that ridiculous phony response about “comfort” and “healing” instead of something like, “Hey, I get where you’re coming from. I can’t make contact with anyone right now, but I want to talk to you and make things right. I’m really glad you got in touch. I am a total f-up and really not well. When I said I was “complicated,” well, it goes a lot further than that. Let’s meet for lunch on Sat, a safe dist from here where I can fill you in if you really want to hear it. There is no one in the world I world I would want to hurt less than you.”
HAHA…right.