Editor’s note: Be sure to read both articles that Ox Drover links to.
By Ox Drover
I ran across two articles in NY Times that sort of got me to thinking about how it sometimes does pay off to act like a psychopath—in business or other ways.
The following (quite long) article tells how an Internet seller terrorized his customer. I think that many people who have been the victims of psychopathic-like stalking can relate to this woman’s story. The fact that it was over such a relatively small amount of money is amazing to me, though. The lengths to which this stalker pursued his victim are also amazing to me.
Read A bully finds a pulpit on the web on NewYorkTimes.com.
This follow up article tells how, eventually, through the persistence of the victim in pursuing justice for the bullying psychopathic-like stalking she got from the abuser, it turned out that the man didn’t get away with his campaign, and now local, state and federal authorities are getting on the band wagon to go after this guy.
Read U.S. arrests online seller who scared customers on NewYorkTimes.com.
The guy even got denied bail. Yea for that judge “getting it.” It will be interesting to me to see how this plays out and just how much real jail/prison time this guy actually gets. While I can’t diagnose someone out of the newspaper, I really do feel that this man fits the criteria for many of the traits of a psychopath and he definitely is a stalker.
Quoting QUEST as posted above:
“The scary part is the shut down. When normal people have been shut down, I think it leaves the door open for all kinds of mind suggestion stuff perhaps the same as the hypnotist is able to do. Funnily enough lying is something that also tends to shut me down if I know the person is lying.”
This statement stuns me b/c it is so profound and so enlightening. IT is a BIG piece to my puzzled.
I had a hard time understanding how I could go from being such a success that cardiologists from all over the world would FIGHT over me to work for them… into being ridiculed for my stupidity and condemned for objecting to my abuse b/c NORMAL people judged that cheating/fraud/abuse was okay to do to ME, the wife who is so hated for who she is that she must deserve it.
This LOGICAL statement explains how I was conditioned, by little lies at first that threw me off balance b/c they just did not make sense, nonsense b/c of the lie and b/c I couldn’t understand WHY the lie! When I asked him, his explanations always made sense, that I must have misunderstood his words, or he misunderstood mine… or he just had a bad day and was inappropriate and sorry for what he said… or someone else lied, etc. etc. I learned to go to him and that HE would make sense of the nonsense. I learned to STOP using my own judgement.
Then came bigger lies, bigger assaults on my dignity, but NOT coming from my husband. They came from HIS supportors. And again, he’d go “Talk and straighten them out”, yet after his talk with them, they still put off hostile vibs and I couldn’t understand why. They were good people and I was innocent and my wonderful husband said he fixed what was wrong.
Things got worse. I had turned into a basketcase. Crying. So so sick. Zero energy. Barely surviving. At one point, I caught myself begging him, “PLEASE lie to me, just one more time. Please tell me the lie. I NEED it.” And he was so solicitious and kind and spoke to me gently and held me and made it all better so that I could stop sobbing, and sleep without the nightmares that kept me in such a state of anxiety that I fought to stay awake and insomnia set in.
Now I understand.
1) The trauma. The shock of trauma. “I can’t believe it.”
2) Brain shut down. NO logic. NO reasoning. NO processing.
3) He sweeps in with an explanation (the lie which would make sense b/c it would have a GRAIN of TRUTH.)
4) The acceptance. ANd my body would relax. I would feel peace and calm.
5) The consequence: Stockholm Syndrome. He put me in a state of high drama trauma. Then he kindly rescued me, with a lie that became my new reality.
The problem: after a while, that new reality didn’t make sense. The logic was off. My world was NOT REAL and that is CRAZY MAKING.
Thus the story of how Katy the successful dynamic problem solving high functioning life saver turned into the crazy pathetic loser wife.
Now THAT is wonderful to discover. B/c from that I can review the lies ( wrote them down b/c I THOUGHT, I FEARED I was getting Alzeimers and I thought I was missing whole conversations or having conversations in my dreams that I thought happened when I was awake. My husband convinced me that I was just dreaming some of the assaults, that they were just part of my nightmares.). NOW I can realize the truths, and strategize to avoid such mindfarking games from being done to me ever again, and even more, I can explain them to someone else so they can see HOW my husband is manipulating them by triggering a protective biological function of their brain.
IQ urrrrrrrrrrm. I too thought my spath had a high IQ but it turns out that it was just a front.
He had knowledge of what I would call trivia questions ie longest river, tallest mountain etc and seemed really bright at first.
But when it came down to it he had no idea about basic things eg he was a chef but did not know how to make pastry.
He said he’d done building work, he built some steps but they fell down the same day!
His driving was very poor yet he claimed he’d driven heavy goods. He literally tried to force other drivers off the road – like they had no right to be there.
His so-ordination was poor, fell over things if they were under foot.
So I have come to the conclusion he did not have a high IQ infact probably the opposite.
There is a famous saying ‘if you look onto glass, on it may stay your eye, but if you care to through it pass you may what’s there espy’.
I think this is true of spaths. When you look at the surface you only see that – the surface. But if you look beyond you get to see the shallow person, the trickster, con man, liar for what they really are.
They would like us to think that they are smarter than us, but hey, we have wised up and see them for what they are – hollow.
candy you make a good point. 99.9% of P’s will claim they’re the “smartest person in the world” hell, they’ll even have the “FAKE credentials” to “PROVE” it! How do we know whether their supposed “intelligence” is a fragile facade not unlike a stack of cards, quick to fall over if you just give it a little “tap”. Intelligent or not, all they’ll ever do is apply their thoughts to tearing someone down, a business down, a family down, a community down- and fulfilling their selfish desires… need I continue? Maybe some are just better at bullshitting and word salad that they’ll cruise through life less often detected than their fellow P’s who’ll just attack their targets on whim, without time to conjure up a believable story or alibi.
Watch out for the ones like my exP. Claimed he could barely read and write. Well, in truth, it wasn’t his forte, but he exaggerated it.
It was an interesting ploy he came up with. His genious mechanical skills and guitar playing and his ability to design with CAD and helicopter pilotingskills were used to impress people, but he made sure they knew that he had hard luck because of his poor reading and writing skills and lack of education. So no one expected him to get his pilots license or AP mechanics license or anything else that would make his work legal.
This creates a dichotomy, where you want to help him because he’s so worthy of being helped but he can’t possibly be expected to do things legally, so breaking the law, just a little bit – this one time – is justified.
blah, blah, blah… you see where this is going.
Dancingnamcies – The hard luck story is true. He gave me all the stuff about not being loved by his mother, not doing well at school, sexual abuse, you name it. So yes I felt sorry for him, wanted to make it ‘right’.
The ‘feel sorry for him plea’ is a way to get into good decent peoples hearts and minds. Like I said before it’s just a con, a trick to get us hooked.
Skylar – breaking the law. Yep that too. If he couldn’t do it legally, he did it illegally! But he hasn’t been that clever, cos he’s been caught in the past.
This seems like a good place to post a curious story (if anyone wants to play sociopathic whack-a-mole) http://gawker.com/5712623/julian-assange-boasted-about-asian-teengirl-stalkers-in-online-dating-profile
Take a look at the language used in the screen prints of the profile.
Thoughts? Am I seeing them everywhere or did this raise anyones elses hackles?
No Harold……they seem to BE everywhere!
I’d rather see em and run, than give the benefit of doubt and get screwed!
This guy is repulsive!
Sad thing is……there are women reading his profile giggling at what they percieve to be his ‘humor’……not thinking for a minute he’s REALLY like that!
“O for umbrella”.
quest, in that little phrase you’ve given me a way to understand SO many things that my XSP did to me.
On the IQ point brot up earlier, I KNOW that J has an incredibly high IQ. The man is an actual genius. He had the correct answer for everything from “why is there air” to “what happened in the Crimean war” to “why did you make a separate hotel res for 2 when the company always makes the travel arrangements.”
So, no matter what kind of “O for umbrella” thing he said to me, I’d immediately stop whatever questioning/puzzling that was going thru my mind. I was just like, “oh. okay. now i understand.” ……like it doesn’t make sense to me that you can’t fly home from Oaxaca tomorrow becuz the open-date fixed-fare return ticket you have has suddenly leaped in price to $1000, but if you go thru Pto Vallarta, you can fly home 3 days later for $100 (including the fare from Oax to PV.) “Oh. Okay. Now I understand. Well, I hate it cuz I miss you & thot you’d be home tomorrow, but, of course you don’t want to have to pay $900 extra, even if it takes a few more days. Oh. Okay.”
Looking back on it all now, I’ve wondered how I could’ve been so stupid. After all, he did finally tell me “if you’d been paying attention, you’d’ve noticed what’s been going on for 4 yrs.”
It wasn’t inattention or stupidity. It wasn’t that I didn’t question things. It was BRAIN FREEZE. What a skill to be able to completely flummox someone that way.
Simply amazing. “When are you coming home?” I asked. And he answered, “O for umbrella.”
HAROLD!!!! Great!!! And yes, it is a PERFECT PSYCHOPATHIC PROFILE~! Look at all the “risky” stuff he talks about and how “EXCITING” all that would be to someone who was also a risk taker or enjoyed “high adventure” but was naive…
While 1-4% of the general population may be psychopathic, there are definitely MANY MORE % that are HIGH IN THE TRAITS that make up psychopathy, narcissism, and other personality disorder, addictions, and just general crazy and disordered. Doesn’t mean the other 99 to 96% are ALL NICE FOLKS, just that there is a percentage of people who are VERY DANGEROUS.
Assange might well be a textbook narcissist, but what about Anna Ardin (or Benardin?) I think she’s about as tweaky as he is!
I liked this tongue-in-cheek letter to Interpol from Naomi Wolf.
“Dear Interpol:
As a longtime feminist activist, I have been overjoyed to discover your new commitment to engaging in global manhunts to arrest and prosecute men who behave like narcissistic jerks to women they are dating.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/interpol-the-worlds-datin_b_793033.html