I write you this letter to explain something to you. You have a serious personality disorder whose very symptoms, paradoxically, may leave you unaware that you have it.
Or”¦you may be “aware” of your disorder in an “intellectual” sense but, consequent to your disorder, you lack appropriate alarm and shame over its expression.
People who do not have your disorder, if they were told they had it (and of its nature), would feel extremely unnerved, shamed, to hear this feedback.
You, on the other hand, neither feel, nor react, with expected levels of uneasiness to learn of your disorder. Your reactions, expressing either calm indifference and striking unperturbedness, or, alternatively, possibly rageful defensiveness, merely add credence to the diagnosis.
You were probably not “born” with this disorder, but it’s also probable that you brought a biological tendency to it, whose eventual emergence your upbringing probably encouraged, or elicited.
It seems likely that histories of abuse, neglect and trauma encourage the development of this disorder in individuals who, like yourself, are prone to it.
It is rare, although not impossible, that this disorder would emerge in its fullblown state from childhoods that are genuinely nurturing, secure, and free of emotional and physical abuse.
Your disorder is called a number of different names that can be confusing, among them sociopath, psychopath, antisocial personality disorder, malignant narcissist, and more informal names. Although there may be some useful distinctions between these terms, the confusion they produce probably exceeds the usefulness of these distinctions.
More important are the common elements between them, which describe a similar phenomenon—a human being like yourself who, while intellectually aware of common standards and laws of “right and wrong,” nonetheless grossly, chronically violates the boundaries and integrity of others with deficient remorse, deficient empathy, a deficient sense of accountability and, typically, with an attitude of contempt or indifference towards the experience, and suffering, of those he’s violated.
You might recognize yourself in this description, but you may not. If you do, as I’ve suggested, your recognition of yourself as having this disorder will produce a notably inappropriate response.
But if you don’t recognize yourself from this description, it’s likely to be a function of more than just your denial. Rather, your failure to see yourself, truly, as a sociopath probably reflects, to an extent, an aforementioned feature of your disorder: I refer again to your deficient empathy, as a consequence of which you are actually incapable of feeling more than superficial, transient concern about, and remorse for, your hurtful impact on others.
It is possible that hurting others is a primary goal, but it’s also likely that hurting others is a byproduct of your primary aim (and pattern) of taking something from others that doesn’t belong to you.
In other words you may, or may not, intentionally seek to hurt others, but in either case your condition leaves you depleted of normal, inhibiting levels of compassion, sympathy and empathy towards others.
Your disorder has other essential features. The reason you can take from people, steal from them—their money, their dignity, sometimes their lives—and suffer so neglibly, if at all, from your abuse of them, is that you do not respect them.
Your condition fundamentally leaves you with a characterological disrespect of others.
You view the world as a competition ground for gratification. People around you are thus players in this metaphorical drama”¦.players from whom your principal inclination is to take, cajole, exploit and manipulate whatever it is that will leave you, not them, in a more comfortable, satiated condition.
You feel that your gratification—your present security, status, satisfaction and entertainment—takes precedence over everyone else’s. Your gratification is simply more important than anything else.
In your mind, you are entitled to the gratification you seek—in whatever forms you presently seek it—even when it costs others a great deal of pain towards which, as we’ve established, you bring a disordered lack of empathy and concern.
This is a very twisted notion—specifically, the conviction that your gratification and its pursuit are virtually your inalienable right—a notion that supports the rationalizing of the chronic expression of your abusive, exploitive attitudes and behaviors towards others.
Finally, this make you an unrepentant boundary violator of others’ space.
I am willing to try and help you in some way, if I can, but as you may, or may not, know your disorder is notoriously unamenable to known treatments. But first I ask that you return to me the forty dollars we both know that you took from my desk drawer last week when I left you alone in my office for half a minute.
You did this once before, and because I had no proof, I could not be 100% certain you stole from me. But this time I counted my money before stepping out of my office, admittedly in case you stole from me again, allowing me proof of your theft.
And so I ask you to admit this when I see you next Tuesday, rather than play the foolish games that are often so indicative of your personality type.
Perhaps we can discuss this letter when I see you, or perhaps you took a quick look at it, laughed, and ripped it up. We will see.
Enjoy the rest of your week.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2011 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
unwillingspathclubmember – amen sister!
everyone who types out your screen name looks forward to the day you change it. 🙂 (just kidding)
Hi Sky
You are not putting me down you are helping. There is a star in heaven with your name on it for doing so.
You are all angels in my book.
He did this intentionally It WAS planned. Slimed is a great wprd to describe the residue these men leave behind on their unwitting victims.
I am going to leave the session. But tomorrow I will be back and I am going to find a DV group locally. I didn;t recognize this as DV The hospital told me to call them back in Feb but I felt like this was somehow all my fault. Now I see it was not. I am going to call them.
Goodnight all
One more day down towards healing
SKy,
I’ll give that some thought.
As usual, when you share a post!
Unwilling, I’m glad you feel at least a little more relieved with a place to unload. This is it.
LL
(((((((((((((((( unwilling )))))))))))))))))))))
Let us know how you’re progressing.
And no, it was NOT your fault!
Peace!!
LL
Sky,
I’m thinking about what you said in your post…..
Ohhhhhhh boy, this healing process is going to take a long long time….
The guilt. The shame too. I don’t know which is more pronounced, but I would say it would have to be the shame. I think I was slimed with that too…..
Slimed by both my parents, but for different reasons. I can see it, but I don’t know what to do about it.
When I told Mom that spath stepdaddy was molesting me, I got slapped across the face and called a liar. That happened a lot, the being called a liar. I learned a HUGE life lesson in that situation in particular though.
Shame. Guilt because I hurt my mother. I HURT MY MOTHER. The guilt they felt, both my parents, because of what happened, they slimed on me too…..how funny that you mention this Sky…because my P daddy said he felt “guilty” that he wasn’t there to do anything about it, yet he molested me too when he was drunk. I’ll never forget that night. I pretended to be asleep. I never told a soul about it. But I remember the deep wounding that happened when it was being done. I kept my eyes shut, pretending to be asleep then I went off somewhere else until he was done.
I knew he would never remember it and I remembered what happened when I told my mother about step spath daddy. I wasn’t going to repeat that mistake. Up until I revealed that molestation, I was P daddy’s favorite. I remember, as a little girl, my mom making me up real pretty (i had REEEALLY long blonde hair that she loved to torture me in brushing), and my P daddy wanting to take me to work to show me off. I was so proud to be standing next to him. I felt SO SAFE. He was my protector. He was so proud of me. “Oh P! She is just darling!”….
When I went to live with him after he found out I was molested, it wasn’t he, I found out later that wanted me to move in, it was my stepmother who advocated for it to keep me safe, even as messed up as she was at P daddy’s hands.
I think he was angry at me for being molested and “damaged Goods” as he referred to me. He didn’t know what to do with me. So I took on his guilt too. As well as my mother’s. And I’m taking on spaths too.
NONE of them feel/felt (my mother is dead) a thing about it. Just anger at me. They didn’t recognize my acting out and trying to get their attention. I was pretty creative. They didn’t care. I was just punished worse.
And yet still, I loved them and did everything I could to please them. I never had the opportunity to heal from the pain that it caused. Even today, I wish I had kept my mouth shut. It wouldn’t have made life better necessarily, but much more so than it was.
I also felt the hatred of my mother. Her coddling of my bro and sis spaths. She would pit them against me. The perfect scapegoat.
It is what it is now, it was what it was.
Sky, several years back now, P daddy asked me to come to the beach and meet him for dinner. I did so. He was very drunk. He bought me dinner and told me some of his childhood, (none of which surprised me) and looked me straight in the face and told me he would never be the father I wanted him to be.
Silly, isn’t it? Of course not. He never was. I don’t know why he felt the need to tell me that. At that point, for me, it was over, as far as P daddy was concerned. It hurt. IT really really hurt. But it was also truth. I was suppose to have breakfast with him the next morning and we were staying in the same motel. But there was no point. All that hope, was gone…..
So I got up the next morning, early, and drove home………never looking back with the exception of a brief illness, my taking care of him, then wanting out of his will when bro/sis found out he was sick and swooped in….
But I knew.
And that’s why I NC’d them. I didn’t want to be the scapegoat anymore. My father could have cared less. He didn’t bother calling me to ask why I left and didn’t meet him for breakfast. It was all too obvious.
I”ve carried the burdens of my family’s guilt and shame for years. Now I carry two P’s as well……….and meanwhile, all walk into the sunset, as if I never existed.
It is what it is.
LL
Dear LL,
You have one of the most tragic stories I’ve ever heard and I read it with a heavy heart tonight. But you are recognizing that the shame you feel is not yours – it is theirs. You can give it back to them. Since you were traumatized, you may need some specific trauma work to release the traumas from your body. But this is all workable. You have had a very painful road to travel, but what you have been through is not who you are. Who you are is more beautiful than you can ever imagine. There are myths and stories throughout history of royal princesses who are locked up in towers or forced into a life of misery until they find out their royal heritage and are set free. I believe these stories are about people like us – the wounded healers, who suffered at the hands of horrible people who didn’t realize our beauty or were jealous of it. I personally know of some very great people who had similar childhoods. They have become great teachers, writers, and healers. Have you ever read David Peltzer’s story? Knowledge is power, LL, and that which you now know, you can heal.
Star,
I agree. and this is where massage will be so helpful.
I think what i’ve been through, Star, is very much apart of who I am right now. I really do. How could it not be? Whatever outcome is to be, what has happened to me, has helped to destroy and then perhaps, create something more and build an inner strength…
I’ve read David Peltzer’s stories. They were very triggering for me.
I felt so much pain as I read them.
Star, ya know, until you said something I never though the possibility of jealousy was a factor. Now I’m not so sure…I wonder if that was true and the reasons for the scapegoating and sabotage. They truly wanted to destroy me. I was SUCH a sensitive child. They didn’t like that. My very presence and if I were to dare speak and see it as it was, created more hatred of me.
I still cannot understand that element.
I carry those burdens from childhood in my heart. I carry burdens of those who are in pain.
Sometimes, it feels as if it’s just too damned much. I don’ tknow if I want anymore “knowledge” star.
I can’t stop my heart from caring, but right now, I’m a bit numbed to it all.
I’m afraid to feel more.
LL
LL – When my sister would tell my mother that my Dad was doing thing’s to her, my mother would beat my sister half to death. There are no incest survivor’s only victim’s. My sister lived a tormented chaotic life. Two bad marriages…anyway she took her life at age 45. I am so happy you’re seeking help and doing the hard difficult work to overcome the horrible childhood you endured. I wish I had known what I know now and maybe I could of helped my sister, but at the time we were both living a life of shame and guilt that was never ours to begin with. Both of my parent’s should of died in prison…but dad died of cancer a few months after my sister died, my mom is in a rest home. I have not seen her in ten years and I will not attend her funeral should she die before me – and I am sure I will be seen as the bad son because I didnt attend…..anyway was reading your above post and just had to comment…
((((((((((( Hens ))))))))))))))))
I have felt, many times, that I wanted to take my life. I’m so so so so sorry about your sister. This is a pain that is incredibly difficult to deal with. With what you shared, I understand about your sister……..although I wouldn’t advocate for ANYONES suicide, the pain that is felt when you’re called a liar…….when the living shit is kicked out of you…….it’s a pain like none other….I’m so very, very sorry that you’re left to deal with that grief and pain….
I’m trying Hens. That’s all i can say. I’ve not given up hope yet. Not yet….
Everytime I see your posts, I think about my wiener…….well, okay, I think about him a lot anyway……but right now, he’s sitting across the room cuddled in his warm blankie…and I’m reminded of when he was paralyzed and I thought we might lose him. I guess I was irresponsible then….I spent my rent money on vet bills…………he means so much to me……
truthfully, he’s the house bitch. We all call him that, the house bitch. He is the MASTER……….of love. 🙂
This will sound so stupid ,I know, but on many nights of feeling totally hopeless and alone and in deep grief and pain, there he is and he knows when Grandma is not doin so good…..
He has a debilitating back disease. The vet was clear that his time is limited. We recently have gone through a couple of scares………..again, I took money out of the food budget to have his vet bill paid for………..
HIs little soul means that much to us all. ALL of us.
He’s my healing little heater.
I want to keep him alive as long as possible, even if for selfish reasons. I love him SO MUCH, I don’t know what I would do without him…..this is where pets are so critical for our OWN survival….
Hens……..I wish I had had a brother like you. A brother who had cared like you did about your sister. My spathy sis/bro don’t care at all. Not at all, hens.
I wish they did. This is something I have to do on my own. My family isn’t within the realms of the biological. Sad as that is. It’s in the form of the friends I’ve met here, near and dear to my heart. It’s in the form of articles like Steven’s, Donna’s, Sandra’s, Claudia’s….it’s books like Robert’s, Hervey, Lundy….
It’s the posters here who come and post each day with lives torn to shreds. It’s the women that I will see now every week, who have survived a personality disordered partner……….
It’s my children who deserve better if they can have it.
For all the miracles that God gives, perhaps one is most evident to me, even with all of my flaws and tragedies….
They are loved. My children are loved and they know it. I don’t know how that happened, other than just by a miracle…but they are loved. They mean the world to me.
I may yet have to give another up to psychopathy. My life is riddled with pain.
But I still have hope that the outcome is good, yes?
It has to be. It just does.
((((((((((((( hens )))))))))))) thank you for sharing that with me.
Gonna go grab my wiener and hug him 🙂
LL
LL, Darling, what can I say? Your story is tragic. I am crying for you as I read it,
How do you EVER get over all of this? But look how strong you are, you WILL make it, one step one day at a time.
Im not sureif I can be your Momma now as I read you are also a Grandma!Maybe we can be soul sisters instead!!
Anyway, dear, I love you and you are going to be OK.
Love, and {{HUGS!!}}
Mama gemXX