From time to time, Lovefraud receives email from people who identify themselves as sociopaths. Here’s one that came in recently:
I have read your website, and i am not impressed. You give the impression that all sociopaths are murderers and haters, incapable of loving, and should be thrown away as a tragedy to the human race. You do not mention the difference between a high-functioning sociopath and a low-functioning sociopath. I happen to be a high-functioning sociopath, and your website is all lies and misguided information, and whats worse, you gain money out of creating a stigma of us, and abusing the victims of certain relationships, which although do happen, aren’t generally what high functioning sociopaths are about. Who’s the one with no conscience? I would say you.
I have no emotion, i use logic to understand what is happening. I mimic emotions of others because i know that it is important to my survival that i display emotion or otherwise people become scared. Is that really so bad? Yes, perhaps i play mind games with people because i grow so bored, but that doesn’t really harm them does it? People get over it. I don’t go out murdering puppies and kittens, and laugh like a comic villain. I may have mistreated some animals, but never with the intent of doing so. I may have hurt some people, but they get over it. I’m the one who has to pay for their hurt, they threaten my survival when they retaliate. I flirt with people a lot, but so do a lot of people, not just sociopaths. I do have some emotion, even if it is limited. I can pretend to have an emotion to convince myself. I act simply to feel.
You ’empaths’ only have emotions so that you are scared of us, when all we are are bored, and confused harmless cheeky rascals. And to point out, adult sociopaths usually stop being sociopaths after the age of 30, so its not ‘incurable’ as soon as they become an adult. You try living in a world that is black and white, where any emotion has to be forced, and you have to copy others expression, and you’re always so very bored, because i am, so bored. You can’t blame us for needing some excitement, to survive we must have a way out of our boredom. You know nothing about what you say. We have a soul, we just can’t access it as easily as everyone else.
Born with the genes
The person who wrote this letter, I was able to determine, is an attractive young woman. I’ll ignore her mischaracterizations of Lovefraud—we are obviously well aware that sociopaths are not all murderers, because most of us were involved with sociopaths who didn’t kill anyone. Beyond that, her letter provides a good insight into the reality of sociopaths, with all their rationalizations and excuses.
Even so, I do feel sorry for them.
Sociopathy is highly genetic, and no sociopaths asked to be born they way they are. No sociopaths asked for manipulative parents or uncaring home environments that pushed them further along the path towards disorder. That’s the hand they were dealt, and it’s truly sad.
Even sadder is the fact that they don’t know it’s sad. It’s like someone born blind, who doesn’t comprehend vision. Or someone born deaf, who can’t understand what music may be. They were born with a limited or nonexistent ability to love, and whatever love they did have was probably snuffed out by their own disordered parents. Instead, they have an overactive appetite for power and control.
Like this young woman, sociopaths are aware that they are different. But most of them don’t care. In fact, they take pride in their ability to exercise power, and look down on the rest of us. We are merely marks to be exploited.
Lessen the disorder
This young woman also said that people stop being sociopaths at the age of 30. There is no scientific evidence that sociopathy can be cured. The best we can usually hope for is that sociopaths will decide to comply with the mores of society, if only because it’s in their own self-interest. They do have the power to decide that following the rules is more convenient and causes them less aggravation than violating them.
Can sociopaths actually lessen their disorder? Dr. Liane Leedom is hopeful, although she recognizes that it is extremely difficult. The fact is that many brain characteristics and functions contribute to sociopathy, and the human brain is not static. Beliefs and behaviors can cause chemical and structural changes in the brain. So if sociopaths were really committed to changing their ideas, and engaged in activities that fostered empathy, their brain structures could change. An individual willing to attempt this would probably have a lesser degree of disorder to begin with, so maybe he or she would already have seeds of caring buried within, seeds that could grow into a degree of empathy.
Inaccessible soul
I was struck by the last sentence of the letter:
We have a soul, we just can’t access it as easily as everyone else.
I actually think that the young woman is right about this. The souls of sociopaths are buried under so much negativity—anger, hatred, aggression, coldness, envy and the desire for power—that the souls can’t be felt.
I don’t think those of us who have been damaged by sociopaths should attempt to help them. Our first duty is to ourselves, to our own health and recovery. But I believe that we’re all connected, and maybe in whatever communication we may have with a higher power, we can pray for them. It might take a long time, but maybe it will do some good.
Even if we don’t see any improvement in particular individuals, praying will help ourselves. Bitterness only prolongs our own misery and harms our own health. Perhaps offering prayers, from a safe distance, will make a difference all the way around.
A greenbean,
I don’t believe your spath knew what he felt.
We all can choose to feel or not to. We all have empathy buttons which we can adjust as required. As Oxy has mentioned, in her encounter with a woman spath who needed to get kicked off the property despite her tears. We can’t all run around being mother teresa or saving the world.
What makes a spath “spathy” is their desire to CAUSE suffering. Their malice for the sake of malice is part of what makes them evil. The other part is how they mask it, so that you won’t be afraid of them and that way they can get close to you.
Spaths will try to confuse us by explaining that they are neural atypical, like the Aspies. It isn’t their inability to feel that makes them spaths, it’s their addiction to OUR pain and suffering.
Coping,
thank you.
‘It isn’t their inability to feel that makes them spaths, it’s their addiction to OUR pain and suffering. ‘ that has my spath written all over it. once again.
“Sociopathy is highly genetic, and no sociopaths asked to be born they way they are. No sociopaths asked for manipulative parents or uncaring home environments that pushed them further along the path towards disorder. That’s the hand they were dealt, and it’s truly sad.”
If this statement “No sociopaths asked for manipulative parents or uncaring home environments that pushed them further along the path towards disorder.” means that all spaths have “manipulative parents or uncaring home environments” this is disheartening. My daughter is a high functioning spath and I literally “racked my brain for years” going over and over what I must have done wrong. I finally realized that genetically she was limited and was a predatory parasite and that most likely she is high functioning because she had a relatively positive caring environment to grow up in (not perfect though and we had our stresses.) It took me a long time to breath this in and then let the “what did I do wrong ruminations” go.
My daughter spathy became apparent when she hit her teens. Prior to that she was just an non-emotional, strong-willed kid. She couldn’t seem to get along with other kids — I realize now that without an internal ability to care about others to guide her in her relationships, she was lost in how to genuinely have a relationship with another. She viewed “kindness as weakness” (and today will “Kill people with kindness” when she wants something from them.) In her teens she became increasingly aggressive and parasitic. She is a chameleon and fools people superficially – until they really get to know her. She has learned to hide her true thoughts and behaviors so that she can hold down a job — she loves the people tension and drama in her workplace — which she is usually at the center of. It is entertaining to her (if she were to be honest it breaks her internal chronic boredom.)
I think spaths can become stressed and their true spath- self emerges and develops. Under stress they become more aggressive and predatory – unlike non-spaths who cope with stress differently.
I worked with an EMDR therapist to get through the trauma I experienced around my daughter’s behaviors and yet at the last session–the therapist carefully began introducing that I must have done some in her younger years that caused this. This is a skilled therapist – but old-school –spath is genetic and the degree of severity may be both genetic and environmental –triggered by stressors. It is disheartening to read or hear that the “family did it.” Just to restate — the family may actually be responsible for keeping the spathy severity down and this may be as good as it gets.
Marie1955 – Let me clarify – in many cases, a sociopathic individual is not the family’s “fault.”
Yes, sociopathy is highly genetic. Generally it’s not difficult to figure out where the condition came from, because one of the parents is obviously disordered. But genetics is a crap shoot – the condition may have originated far back on the family tree, skipped many generations, and then show up. There are many, many good, normal families who find themselves in this situation – suddenly, there’s a bad apple.
This is probably an even more difficult situation because there is no forewarning. If a person realizes that his or her partner is a sociopath, and they have a child together, the healthy parent who knows about sociopathy can determine that the child is at risk and then start to try to prevent the disorder from developing.
You may have had no warning at all.
Plus, the whole idea that the environment plays a part in the development of the sociopathy is extremely new – within the last few years. Therefore, this information was not available when you were raising your daughter.
And, parenting in a way to prevent the disorder from developing is extremely difficult. Honestly, the effort required is almost superhuman. It’s best to start when the child is an infant, and requires effort 24/7 – and it still may not work.
Please do not feel like you are being blamed. If your daughter does nothing but game-playing – well – you may have succeeded in preventing worse behavior. I’m sure you deserve a medal.
Dear Marie,
I am also the parent of a psychopathic child….and there are others here who are also in our shoes. My son ended up in prison for murder and many other serious crimes…and he got the crap-shoot genetics from both is father’s family and mine as well. Both is grandfathers are psychopaths, but he never even met one, and the other one was only when he was very young, and not much contact, so it wasn’t directly passed on in the environment. He also didn’t show much in the way of “signs” until puberty when he “blossomed” as a psychopath.
Environment can play a role in the “blossoming” but I agree with you, I think sometimes the GOOD PARENTING may only prevent the worst aspects, but sometimes even good parenting, and while I was not a perfect parent, by any means, I was more than adequate yet didn’t have much if any positive invluence in the outcome of my Psychopathic son’s behaviior. My other biological son, though not a psychopath, is not the kind of man I wish he was and I have very little to do with him now. My adopted son is as fine a man as you could ask for, but I can’t take the blame for the ones who didn’t turn out right, or the accolades for the one who did. They all 3 made their own choices in life within the limits of the DNA they were dealt. Even psychopaths have CHOICES to do good or evil.
marie, I agree with Donna and have some more to add.
My two kids could have very well been s/p/n due to genetics. I know just a luck of the draw sometimes. I only recently found out about sociopathy, but I knew that their dad was screwed up. I knew that genetics had a lot to do with personality, so I worked hard to keep them from becoming like the sperm donor, but still my knowledge was limited.
I naturally did attached parenting (I have no clue what it was or that their was a name for it as it did it). I followed my instincts with my kids, and I was given a very hard time about it from family. I wore my kids in slings, slept with them, and never let them cry. It was a lot of work, but I think it had something to do with how they turned out. I also worked very hard making sure they developed empathy. I always try (even now) to get them to put themselves in the shoes of others. Little kids are very selfish in nature, and it is just how their brains work. Teenagers are very selfish, too. It is a constant thing with teaching them to understand other people have feelings.
Children with certain genes need different parenting styles, and most people have no clue of this. It does not mean it is the parents’ fault, but in a ton of the cases it is. Sometimes, there really isn’t much you can do, but there are also other factors to consider.
It is not always the parent or caregiver that helps influence such a fragile thing into s/p/n. Other family members and friends can really do a lot of damage. My very scary cousin had a huge impact on my brother as well as some of his friends. So, even if I had great parents, it seems he might have still turned out the way he did. In fact, I am unsure as to what is really going on with him, and I am unsure if he may actually even be s/p/n. Something is wrong though, and he has gotten very bad after being married to a spath for so many years.
We live in a very selfish society. Everything seems like me and mine, so sometimes society in itself can be enough of a trigger as well. Look at the way people drive or act in the stores for examples.
One last thing, I would might not have parented the way I did if I had no gone through what I did or have the memory I do. I am abnormal with my memory. I can remember certain things from just before I turned one, and my memory is very clear from the age of 3 on. I remember how I felt back then, and that is what impacted my decsions with my kids. This is not normal, and I do not expect others to be like me just because I did something. Gosh, I hope this makes sense.
There is still not enough education out there for parents, and it is a whole different ballgame parenting these kids.
Also, it does seem the majority of these kids who grow into spaths had major enviromental factors. That is something that should not be dismissed just because sometimes it is not the parents. If we dismiss that, then we might as well give up on all children with a possible genetic link to these disorders.
Opps, I hit post before I fixed my spelling, typing errors. durr. I usually just type fast and then go back and fix mistakes. So, if it is hard to read sorry, and the edit does not want to load on this crappy computer.
Marie,
I read a very old book, called, “the art of selfishness”
it was written in 1933. It’s premise is that you have to learn to take care of yourself BEFORE you can take care of others. It offers various examples and situations to consider.
In regards to raising children, it said that we can only raise children right if we don’t shield them from reality. It says that when a mother bends over backwards, working her fingers to the bone so that the child doesn’t have to suffer or miss out, it creates an entitled and spoiled child. This child will not be able to deal with reality, because he is accustomed to having the mother shield him.
The word entitled translates to narcissist, in my mind. The selfless mother, may have the very best intentions, but as we are learning here every day, being self-sacrificing equals enabling, even when it comes to your own kids.
Most of us, who have been victims of spaths were chosen for our OVER developed sense of responsibility. We have been enablers. It’s possible that good parents played a part in the development of the spath personalities of their children, by being too subservient to a child who already had the genetic tendencies.
Or maybe that’s just my own over developed sense of responsibility talking…
TRuthBTold,
Statistically most children who are abused do not grow up to be abusers, so environment is not the ONLY thing that influences how a child turns out.
In studies of identical twins (identical DNA) raised in different homes, it shows that more than half of the time if one child is a psychopath, so is the other one.
In studies of siblings or non-identical twins raised in different environments, there is less likelyhood than in identical twins of both being psychopaths if one is.
These studies show that genetics play a BIG part in personality disorders, but that the genetics is NOT the ONLY factor in personality disorders.
It is known that alcoholism has a big genetic component, but no one FORCES the person with this genetic tendency to drink. The person has choices. Also, if the person never takes the first drink then he is unlikely to become an alcoholic, so environment plays a part as well as genetics playing a part.
The community as well as the individual parenting also have roles in the environment in which a child grows up, and influence him/her.
I think that parents, even good parents, are only part of the composition of “environment” and DNA and the ENTIRE environment pretty well determine the outcome of what people become…but we ALL have choices in what we do and how we act unless we are so brain damaged that we have little awareness or control.