Wow, last week’s course with Dr Robert Hare was absolutely amazing! A huge eye-opener on how offending psychopaths are measured and dealt with in the criminal justice system — and also an insight in to the astonishing man who has given so much to so many of us. I’m planning to cover more about that in future posts…
This week I’d like to talk about another subject that came up last week. It was also spelled out loud and clear in the Fishead movie that I know many of you have seen. It’s the point that, even though it’s widely acknowledged that a psychopath cannot ”˜get better’ (and therefore it stands to reason that we cannot change the way they behave) it’s also true that the vast majority of the population are inadvertently supporting these types of people as they continue inflicting damage on individuals and on society itself.
I know”¦ that was a pretty strong statement to make. Believe me, it’s not one I make lightly.
The movie, Fishead, made a point that I found absolutely fascinating. Talking about famous psychopathic leaders, it invited us, the audience, to consider whether it is solely the psychopath who is responsible for the bad things that happen. Couldn’t it also be argued that it is the rest of us who are also in part responsible, because we are allowing the destructive behaviour to continue? Albert Einstein said, “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
Stand Up, Speak Out
I had to agree — it made perfect sense to me. In particular, I could identify with this from my years of experience working with teams and individuals in my professional career. Too often people will choose to keep their heads down, say nothing or let things wash over them in order to keep the peace. They’ll smile and say that everything is ”˜fine’”¦ Despite the fact that they may be desperately unhappy with a situation or a person they work with! Everything is far from fine. And no, it’s neither OK nor right that people should be expected (even encouraged!) to carry on regardless. This isn’t what the human race is about! This isn’t how we’ve made so much progress! This isn’t how it’s meant to be! My job, in those instances, is to encourage people to speak out and find a way to openly and honestly address issues in a healthy way that benefits them as an individual as well as the wider team. And it works. Every time.
It was the next part, though, that really made me sit up and take notice. Because just a few moments later, the film explained what percentage of the remaining population would need to do something different in order to have an effect on the rest. Before the answer was given, I had a stab at guessing what the figure would be, and felt confident that they would say around 20 — 30%. But you know what? I was totally wrong. The film said that it would take just 5% of the population to wake up and make a stand against the unacceptable — even just the small things — to make sociopathic behaviours that much harder to stick. Just 5% of us”¦ that’s all. Just that small amount to stand up to actions we know are wrong. To say “no” when we’re not happy. To demand a change when something goes against our values. Because when one of us starts standing up for what is right, then it encourages others to do the same. It wakes people up. It gives people permission to speak out and stop tolerating stuff that is harmful or hurtful to ourselves and to others.
“Having good morals” somebody said in the film “is contagious — just as much if not more so than bad morals!”
The thing is, though, while we block our instincts, shut down our emotions, and glide around in a pretend bubble of “everything’s fine” we are providing the perfect breeding ground for predators. They’re free to fine-tune their approach, hone their skills, and continue with their actions against humankind because we do nothing to stop them or at least ”˜call them’ on what they are doing.
Behaviour Breeds Behaviour
Yes, this is a scary world. It is also a world of opportunities and magic. A world where we can make more of a difference than most of us realize. And, in my opinion, the more people who become aware of how little is necessary to make a massive difference, more will join our growing army of fighters determined to do something to stop the predators, warn others against them and help those of us who have already been hurt by them.
It doesn’t take much you know. It really doesn’t. From my own experience, I know that as I have become stronger at simple things like setting boundaries and saying no, then my perspective of the world and, therefore, my experience of the world continues to change for the better. I feel more confident, and more in control. My heart is more open and I can clearly see with love and kindness. Each day I am more joyful, and each day brings more wonderful surprises. Did anything change on the outside? Does it mean that I have managed to rid the world of people who would do me harm? No, it doesn’t. It simply means that what I am now allowing in to my world is a deliberate and conscious choice — and I no longer stand for any kind of nonsense.
Can you imagine what would happen if more of us took the conscious decision to say no to anything that wasn’t useful or pleasing in our life? Can you imagine how inspiring it would be to others? Can you imagine how wonderful things could eventually become — and how impossible it would be for sociopaths to thrive as they have been”¦?
My friend Rachel pointed out when I was telling her all about last week’s course “Well, we can’t keep all the psychos locked up — so we’ve got to learn how to fight against them!”
So I did some simple sums in my head. Granted we don’t know for sure, but let’s say that 1% of the free population is psychopathic. We all do know for sure that these people will all have many victims — most running in to double figures when you take in to account that they may have hurt colleagues as well as friends and family, let alone the mega-sociopath who may have hatched a scheme that defrauds hundreds or thousands! So, for argument’s sake let’s say that if each has ten victims, then at least 10% of the population has had personal experience of a psychopath — regardless of whether or not they recognize what they were dealing with. That doesn’t necessarily matter. What matters is the fact that they have been hurt. That in some way (or many ways) they have experienced the destruction that these individuals continue to wreak on us, their unsuspecting victims. The original nice guys who naturally choose trust over suspicion.
It Only Takes 5%
So, what do you think might happen if just half of those people could learn how to re-set boundaries? How to speak out? How to stand up? How to reclaim who they are? How to consciously choose a life that’s filled with happiness and positive experiences”¦ ? We’d have the 5% that the film talked about and, as I’ve already said, it’s just as simple to copy the happy stuff — if not easier in fact! The good stuff, the positive results, can be hugely contagious. What chance would the baddies have in such a positive environment where people would no longer stand for negative behaviour? Of course I can’t prove it”¦ but I’m pretty sure that they couldn’t survive.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again because I feel it’s important. It’s up to all of us now. We all have the power to heal and to make a difference – no matter how impossible it may seem at times. Yes, I know from experience that it isn’t easy. I also know that we are all at different stages of our journey and I also acknowledge that not everyone will be interested in reaching out any further. It doesn’t matter. Because either way, all of us here have first hand experience of “the dark side” — we know what it means and we understand the dangers. And our numbers are growing.
I believe that we are the ones who can band together and make a real difference. From where I am standing, it is our painful experiences that make us authentic, giving us the hard-earned power to understand and empathise at the deepest level. We’ve been there, seen it and got the T-shirt, and perhaps have more reason than others to make sure that we find a way to stop these people continuing to hurt us and others.
What do you reckon”¦? 😉
Skylar
Too bad you are not my therapist. You already know how my spath thinks and works. 🙂
Yes, he LOVES getting people to do bad things and then incriminate themselves. But also, many times HE won’t participate, he loves setting people up and watching the drama when he exposes them to the community, the more moral and ethical they are, the more he loves it. B/c NORMAL people will cross a line, they are NOT perfect… but they will also self regulate and return to a high moral standard. My spath thinks once they cross to the dark side, they are there forever b/c that’s what he did. No. They learn they don’t like it there and they STOP their bad behavior.
that’s eric to a t!
Darwin,
no big. most people don’t get what giving them rope is.
Basically, you can continue to support the spath and make sure they DON’T feel consequences. That will make them bolder and bolder and BOLDER. Then, when they’ve taken as much rope as it takes to hang themselves, pull the rope taut. Pull the support out.
Katy, I could see that he loved to entice others to do evil, once I knew what he was. His character is nothing short of that described in the bible: the snake in the garden, lucifer in his envy and all the other evil characters rolled up into HIM.
Then, I discovered his letter to God, in his bible. I typed it up and posted in on LF. Feb6 of this year. He ADMITS that he is guilty of making people do evil. He KNOWS that he is evil and that what he does is wrong. The root causes of his evil, envy and shame, create a compulsion in him: to harm others and to cause others to harm themselves.
If you can find his letter to God that I posted, you can print it out and take it to your therapist. It’s fascinating. The other thing I found is what appears to be old decaying, chopped off bloody fingers. But they are just ceramic pieces. God that freak is creepy! Really morbidly creepy.
I don’t think you should discuss morality or your morals, architect. Certainly not with him. It’s enough to just opine to the people he’s affecting that you think such a thing is wrong. I don’t ever discuss my morality with my pupils or tourists either. I just say what I think and expect others to at least listen to it. What they do with it is their choice, but they all know how they will appear to me if they don’t. The teens pick up the soda can and carry it to the bin at the corner of the street; the sex tourist exited my group voluntarily for a couple of days and got his own lodgings; the namecallers called each other names, but nobody else anymore; no sea turtle was eaten; people buy stuff at a stall and then ask for a picture, instead of paying money for a picture; people carry their trash in a bag in their backpack until the point where no guide will dump it back into the national park; etc…
It might not have an apparent effect on them at first. But they are seeds and reminders on people’s conscious. They know very well that it’s wrong. The spath tries to cloud their moral compass with these debates about morality. He gives them a safe feeling, shush their conscious. By reminding them though, they’ll feel icky.
I completely disagree with Skylar on this…”baiting them” or interacting with them, manipulating them with purpose only puts us I think down to their levels.
There is an old saying about “you can’t stir shiat without splashing some on yourself” and I agree with that. If the person is high in Psychopathic traits and is harming someone and getting them to do things that are morally reprehensible (like say getting a married woman to have an affair with him) then you might WARN that woman that “Eric is a player, and having an affair with him is going to wreck your life” (or words to that effect) but if she thinks it is okay to have an affair with him, you are not going to change her mind…probably won’t anyway.
If he is getting others to pay for his drinks or support his cocaine habit you might say to them “You know, Eric has some problems with alcohol and drugs and buying him more isn’t good for him in my opinion, or your pocket book either”
If he is abusing children, stealing, etc then it is I think your duty to notify the proper authorities. As for hanging around this man, I strongly suggest that you find new friends and put this man behind you in your rear view mirror. The more we associate with them the more stink will rub off on US is my opinion. I don’t think I gain a thing by interacting with them. I would much rather spend my time with people who are caring, compassionate and uplifting. These people just cause DRAMA and I don’t need any drama for entertainment.
Oxy, Darwin, Sky
I have to say, I appreciate the mindset – or the idea that there is a possibility of me being far enough removed that I could actually be in control enough such that I could imply that I value something I don’t.
Like – ” here is my 15 year old piece of crap car, I love it more than anything, it’s like a baby blanket to me” – so the spath thinks I love my car, and trashes it on purpose.
But I can’t do that.
He already knows who I am and what I value.
And I think it’s safer to get the hell away.
I like the IDEA of being so aware and so cautious and so intentional. I can’t imagine how I would execute it.
Althea, I think NC is the only way to handle them unless the LAW makes you have contact because of children or some other reason. I have to have some limited contact with my egg donor because we are both co-trustees on a family land trust….but I do it through e mails and VERY short business-only phone calls. She called me yesterday and I said “What can I do for you?” She told me a guy from the gas company that is putting in a pipeline across our property was there at her house and needed to talk to me. I said “Thanks for calling, send him over.” and hung up.
People who have kids with them have to in many cases co-parent with them and interact with them, and the psychopaths will use the children as weapons, will hurt the children just to get the nurturing parent to scream….but a friend of mine is getting her AS LITTLE CONTACT as possible down with her P X husband. He brings the kids up and says something to them that makes them cry and not want out of the car, so in the past my friend would go out and drag the children kicking and screaming out of daddy’s car. (Mom doesn’t know what he is telling them to get them to act this way) but now, she doesn’t go out, but WAITS in the house until HE BRINGS THE KIDS to the door or sends them to the door. She is no longer the one who drags them out of the car. So she has cut down the DRAMA in the kid exchange, therefore depriving him of the satisfaction of having her to drag the kids out of his car. So she is learning how to cope with his behavior even though she can’t go NO contact at this point. Her youngest child is 4. The three oldest kids already are NC with daddy-dearest and it frustrates the heck out of him because he cannot control those young adults. This is a man who is a CONTROL FREAK too.
I have recently seen too just how MUCH it frustrates a psychopath when you refuse to rise to their taunts and remain NC with them in spite of how they try to get your attention. NC is the ULTIMATE punishment for them. In prison they put the worst of the worst prisoners in solitary confinement and they get almost NO attention from the guards or other inmates, NO matter WHAT they do. It deprives them of an audience to appreciate just how special they are. LOL They love attention more than anything. Even negative attention is better than NO attention in their minds any way.
Oxy
I know you are right about this. I was reading somewhere else – on something else entirely – and the author said that to ignore somebody is to DENY THEIR HUMANITY. The profoundness of that statement struck me. This is why no contact works. It’s the ultimate “injury”.
On occasion, I have wondered how to turn my spath’s “community” against him. How do you warn the neighbors, the colleagues?
Before this ridiculous experience, if somebody came up to me and said, “Hey, John Smith, your neighbor, is a sociopath”, I would have said, “what?”. And then I would have said, “what’s that?”. And then I probably would have forgotten about it. It wouldn’t really register.
I think Skylar had a good idea about leaving stuff lying around – making information available – but that’s sort of hard to do and things don’t “register” with a general population, until you have a WTF moment you’re oblivious. When there is a WTF moment, you’re suddenly searching for answers.
It’s a funny thing, isn’t it?
Athena
Oxy and Athena,
I’ll give you an example of how I gave rope to several spaths in my neighborhood before I even knew what a spath was.
We have a neighborhood association and Alice was on the board for 12 years. During this time, it was like having a troll living in the neighborhood. She would rile up the board to file a suit or some monetary fine, against someone each year. Everyone knew that a sacrificial victim would be required each year, so we all sighed with relief when it wasn’t us.
I got tired of being afraid, so I volunteered for the board. I became the secretary and she was the treasurer. She wielded the most power because she knew the most. The rest of us were just newbie volunteers. For a year, I sat quietly and learned. She thought I was a real push over and a loyal puppy she could use. It’s true that I’m a hard worker and extremely diligent, so it wasn’t an act. She thought she had me under her spell and that she could mentor me. I uncovered all of her misfeasance , it was all in the records. Still I did nothing. Then I gave her rope to continue and she did. Then I got some other people (whom I didn’t know were my spath’s minions) on the board. They were quite excited to attend to the drama and unbeknownst to me, they wanted to pretend to side with me, but actually throw me “under the bus” (to quote another spath) and they were telling Alice all my plans. Also, unbeknownst to me, my spath was also telling them all my plans. Everyone was against me but I was on the side of the law. I only wanted our association to meet the requirements set by our state and federal laws for a non-profit cooperative. In the end, I had so much written evidence that the spath minions HAD to get on my side and they threw Alice under the bus.
I didn’t really have to pretend anything. I just had to sit there like a gray rock and watch and collect evidence. They expect people to show their colors and speak up. That’s how they do their testing. They will do some small illicit thing and see who pipes up. That person will become their next victim. I think it’s best to sit and watch. Give them rope. Collect evidence. Let them show their audacity. Video tape it on your cell phone. In my case it was recorded in our meeting minutes, which I as secretary, was in charge of.
That was round 1. Round 2 was when Alice got booted off and now I was surrounded by my spath’s minions on the board. They were so ready to mess with my head. What they liked was my overwhelming sense of responsibility. They would pretend like they just couldn’t meet their responsibilities, so they would make me shoulder EVERYTHING. They were laughing behind my back. I knew this. So in this case I did pretend like it was really hard work, but it wasn’t. I enjoyed every minute of it. The best part was that I was in control and they could no longer mess with the legal requirements. I made them toe the line while they laughed at me for doing all the work.
Unfortunately, my spath knew everything and that’s when he decided to kill me and I had to run. So I disappeared and never got to finish cleaning up the neighborhood association.
Ironically, if I hadn’t joined the board (because of Alice) I never would have figured out that my spath had minions in the neighborhood. God works in mysterious ways.
Athena, years ago when I lived in Dallas I had a girlfriend who had been married to what I believe is a psychopath, he beat her, etc. she had 2 kids and she got a divorce and rebuilt her life with her kids. She had a GOOOD job owned her own home and had everything going for her when she met Dave…he was handsome and didn’t have much besides his car but the next thing you know he had moved in with her. Then one night she came over, Dave was in jail for beating her and she had called the cops, and she at in my apartment and went onb about ALL the abuse Dave had done to her, the kids, etc….then the next day, she went down and BAILED HIM OUT…he moved back in, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat…finally after several times of this beating, jail and bail drama, I said “Marilyn you are my friend and I love you and your kids, but this game you are playing with Dave where he hits you, you call the cops, then he goes to jail and then YOU go bail him out and take him back into your house, and while he’s in jail you come over here and talk about what a prick he is, how no good he is, and I agree with you and say “wow, ain’t it awful” and then you go back and BAIL HIM OUT doesn’t work for me, Marilyn. So why don’t we talk about something else because I will no longer talk about DAve because tomorrow you will bail him out and I won’t see you again until he hits you and you come over here while he is in jail.
Well, Marilyn quit her good job in dallas after 25 years, sold her house and went to Michigan where Dave’s family lives and married him. I never heard from Marilyn again.
Actually, I felt superior to Marilyn, because I would NEVER have bailed out a man who hit me…but I let my SON get away with WORSE and still kept loving him and trying to fix him. True, my boundary was the hitting…and I would never have bailed out a man/BF/husband who hit me, but my son hit me once and broke 3 ribs, he stole my car to rob my friends, he killed a girl for revenge, and still I tried to save him. So who is “superior” to whom here? NOT ME, I SEE NOW. But at the time I hadn’t learned some of the lessons in life, in Psychopath 101, that I know now….so I hope Marilyn got her life straight and dumped that piece of carp in the ditch…but each of us must learn what we need to learn at our own pace and our own time. All the advice I gave Marilyn about dumping that guy was no good because she was NOT ready to hear it and ACT on it.
I wasn’t ready to ACT on NC with my P son until he looked me in the eye and essentially told me he was PROUD of his crime and that it was WORSE than even the cops knew. He was frustrated with me at the time he said this because I wouldn’t do what he wanted me to do, and it was sort of a “:tell” as Sky would say, but the EVIL look in his eyes when he said those words to me was the TIP OFF that I was READY TO ACT ON and I went NC with him.
I think trying to “study” them in the wild by interacting with them is like taunting a venomous snake with a stick to see it strike…I think the RISK if you slip and get bitten versus the “benefit” of studying poison snakes is NOT WORTH THE RISK.
Those people in research that study them for a living are able to publish the research that they do and it benefits society as a whole and psychological studies in particular, but our own individual “playing around with” them to see what they’ll do is taking a chance I don’t want to do, and keeping more drama in my life than I care to have. I will read books and read on here, and get my learning from that, rather than any more direct involvement than I have to have.