UPDATED FOR 2024. Editor’s note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who posts as “Genevieve79.” She explains the Crazymaking One-Liner.
I’ve reached the age of 30 having been on the receiving end of a number of personality disordered individuals, mostly female but the odd male too. I spent (wasted?!) my twenties ducking and diving these people, even changing career direction several times, because I didn’t know how else to deal with them.
As I approach my 31st birthday I think I have finally begun to crack it! These people are actually very predictable if we know how to spot them early on. An experience with yet another one on a professional forum this weekend gave me the most tremendous Eureka moment.
I want to tell you all about what I call The Crazymaking One-Liner.
The Crazymaking One-Liner
The Crazymaking One-Liner is possibly the biggest warning sign you’ll ever have at the beginning of your dalliance with a sociopath. How you deal with it can determine the rest of your experience with them.
When I look back over my experiences with these personalities, they all have this in common and their primary goal is to antagonise, not communicate. They want a fight — I believe it is excess inward anger that makes them what they are, they hate everybody and everything deep down but at the same time feel a deep need and sense of entitlement to have/own/control everybody and everything they want.
So what is this Crazymaking One-Liner of which I speak? It is the enigmatic sound bite that seemingly comes from nowhere, it is the single sentence that makes those of us who are healthy go “WTF?!” It is the one-line statement that simply has no answer and we are left rummaging around in our heads trying to figure out what they are on about, whilst simultaneously searching for something to say in response.
It is at this moment that, depending on our response, determines the rest of our experience with them. It is usually a criticism, though I’m sure not always.
I am not kidding when I tell you that every single sociopathic individual I have ever encountered (mostly female as I say) has had this trait — this tendency — to come out with sound bites that leave you wondering what they’re getting at and what you’re supposed to say in response.
How do you feel?
A fantastic way to identify if you are being fed a big juicy Crazymaking One-Liner is to focus on how it makes you feel when you hear it. The Crazymaking One Liner will make you feel (usually in order)
STAGE ONE
Completely bewildered “Where did that come from?”
Completely uncertain “How is one supposed to answer that?”
Completely confused “What are they getting at?”
AND THEN…
STAGE TWO
Suddenly motivated before the other party says any more to anticipate where it came from, how one should answer and what they are getting at. At this point most of us who are healthy will automatically react, open up the lines of communication and start over explaining ourselves! At this point the psycho has won. We’ve let them in, we’ve opened the floodgates and very soon after that we’ll find ourselves under attack and usually engaged in a fullscale argument/fight with them. Because that is what they wanted all along.
Asserting ourselves
I’ve found often, that once we briefly but directly assert ourselves and refuse to be attacked, as I eventually did with the person on the forum (see the examples below) calling them out for being personal, they will backpedal pretty quickly. That person wrote a post in response saying how it wasn’t meant to be personal and the tone seemed like they wanted to make amends. Haven’t heard from them since despite posting an ‘Ok’ in reply and sending a nice email privately.
This is not unusual with this type of personality. So, after they backpedal, don’t expect them to want to make amends with you when you tell them you accept their apology and wish to get back to normal. You’ll find yourself sent to Coventry, ignored, possibly even blocked by them. All lines of communication, like at the very beginning of the dalliance, with their use of The Crazymaking One-Liner, are suddenly once again closed down. That’s happened every single time to me with each different psycho. Possibly they do this because you have won and they don’t want you rubbing their nose in it! Besides, they never wanted to be your friend/have a healthy connection with you in the first place. It wasn’t a genuine disagreement between two human beings, leading to a peaceful resolution; it was a weird little game played out by the psycho which tends to come to an abrupt halt when you refuse to play anymore!
So, when we hear The Crazymaking One-Liner, how must we respond? Yep, you guessed it with another one liner!!!
The Blessed Phrase of Salvation
Allow me to introduce you to The Blessed Phrase Of Salvation! It is, quite simply
“What do you mean?” (“..by that?” is optional)
I will illustrate the wise use of The Blessed Phrase of Salvation with examples!
1) On A Discussion Forum to me: “I think you’re way oversimplifying the situation Genevieve” Full Stop!
May not seem too bad at first glance but think about it — most people would explain themselves with “because,” especially on a written forum when, unlike normal conversation, you have full chance to say your piece. Why waste all that comment space? But not your personality disordered individual! Instead of leaving my response at “Why do you say that?” and making them explain themselves, I made the mistake all healthy people do by going into a spiel and explaining why I wasn’t oversimplifying! Every response from them after that was pretty much an attack, and very personal at that. I let them in, you see.
Likewise with others I have seen the exact same pattern unfold. It starts with a one-line criticism that has a limited possible response and as soon as we over respond they have got us.
How about an example in the real world?
2) At Work with someone in authority over me. Sitting in silence, alone with her. I was working; she was working. Out of the blue with her back to me, she suddenly says in a threatening voice, “They’re monitoring the amount of work you and your colleagues do, you know” Full Stop!
What is a person supposed to say to that? In the real world we have the benefit of tone of voice but if we’re savvy we can pick up the same snarky tone online as well. I made the mistake of under responding here I stayed quiet because I lacked confidence at the time. She was basically implying I was not working hard enough when the truth was I wasn’t being given enough to do.
What I should have said was, like the previous one, “What do you mean by that?” I should have briefly but directly challenged her statement, her Crazymaking One-Liner. My inadequate response that day helped seal my fate in that employment — the same woman’s behaviour towards me escalated to the point that she had effectively bullied me out of my job by a year later.
3) The Personality Disordered Family Member of a friend, via sms, “Good to know what you truly think of your niece” Full Stop.
How many of us healthy people would instantly start defending ourselves if we received a text like that? Stop! It’s one of those Crazymaking One-Liners again!! You’re dealing with a personality disordered person and they want a fight! Instead, draw them out, remember our Blessed Phrase of Salvation and let them dig their own hole! Because they will. Their Crazymaking One-Liner has no basis in everybody else’s sane reality and The Blessed Phrase of Salvation will very quickly expose that if you put your faith in it!
The family member who received this text message chose to under respond to it (stay quiet!) and the sender then moved on to another family member to have a fight with them. You might think great, but all under responding did was shift the problem close by — it would have been far better for the original recipient to have exorcised the demon straightaway using our trusty Blessed Phrase of Salvation!
Seriously! It works. In fact, to not use it is potentially fatal! Draw them out. Do not over communicate, but do not under communicate either letting them get away with it is also a bad idea. Simply ask them a brief but direct “What do you mean?” and keep asking them questions and drawing them out, don’t go into explaining yourself. Avoid expressing yourself in any big way until they start talking more and even then be very careful. Keep batting the ball back into their court make them explain themselves. Eventually they’ll give up and walk away, finding someone else take their pathological inner anger out on.
Healthy people like us don’t usually make one-liners; we tend to qualify a one-line criticism with some sort of explanation. With personality disordered individuals, they shoot out these weird little sound bites at their targets without any explanation, leaving the listener hanging, wondering what the heck just happened!
Nipping being targeted in the bud
So this is how we spot them, ladies and gentlemen! The Crazymaking One-Liner, in my experience, occurs at the very beginning of the relationship. This can be a platonic, family or romantic relationship it seems to be across the board. The Crazymaking One-Liner is one of the main ways that a sociopath tests us out and draws us in at the start. If we can spot this straightaway, and deal with it as outlined above, the chances of them continuing on to target us further are less.
Don’t worry about any of them reading this and changing their game plan. They have no control over their behaviour — they truly can’t help themselves. They’re all wired pretty much the same way; it’s an impulse. They’re on another planet to the rest of us, and it’s pointless us trying to relate to them like they aren’t. There is now medical evidence to suggest that their brains are actually wired differently to healthy individuals.
Every single one of them I have ever been targeted by in my entire life (going back to age 9 with a school bully!) has been the same way at work, in my family and in education. They even pose in photographs in a similar way! I have noticed that few of them smile, or when they do it is not real somehow; they emanate fakeness, rather like a vampire having no reflection. Watch out for the eyes as well, they can be a real giveaway. You’ll know what I’m getting at when you begin to think about it.
Their predictability is our one consolation. Let us therefore continue to pool our experiences on this site and realise just how much those that have targeted us have in common!
With best wishes,
Genevieve79 xxxx
Learn more: Tools for navigating narcissists and other manipulative people
What if you decide to stay with your sociopathic spouse?
Dear Just_visiting,
Well, thanks for stopping by, neighbor, looks like you’ve met a P or two before! Yea, great comments!
Unfortunately, too many of them don’t respond too well to just a wise crack (no matter how cute!) and sometimes the phrase “we don’t call 911, here. We call SMITH AND WESSON! Now make tracks!” will work when nothing else will. In fact, I actually used that once on a bully who had come to my farm—he was from out of state and didn’t know how the “natives” down here in the rural south thought and he thought he could bully the old “widder woman”…but by the time he got back to NJ he had learned a bit! LOL ROTFLMAO
Glad you stopped by, come again any time!
Quoting Cat: “NOTHING leaves them more frustrated than getting nothing out of us because our emotions are what they play on and operate on. When none is forthcoming from us, they have nothing to work with!”
I am backtracking in my mind to try and come up with the first instance of the one-liner. In hindsight, and thank God for it, there were so many instances of my “should have kicked him out of my life but loved the attention”. I attributed his “insecurities, clinging nature, protestations of knowing what it is like to have loved someone and wanting to find that again” to his being a recent widower. I now see this as the “pity play”. Finding out about his online dalliances and a myriad of crap down the road, left me with so many unanswered questions, that when pressing him for answers left me with even more unanswered questions, that I finally initiated the NC rule. Before doing that though, I was left with a sense of satisfaction as he stood at my door with his Christmas gifts in hand, and in trying to “explain”, he would open his mouth to speak, his lips would start to move, but nothing came out. I said, Is there something you want to say? Again, you could see thoughts seeming to form, and lips opening, but with my unflinching eyes, lacking the compassion and empathy that he had been feasting on for so long, left him with nothing to mirror or feed on.
I am still in recovery and hoping to soon be rid of the haunting that he left in my soul. Sometimes I feel so strong and that I can move on, but as soon as I think I might be ready to start dating again, I am overwhelmed by a profound sense of sadness and the feeling that he stole my innocence, my belief that all is good and right in the world, and I know I am in no way ready to give myself healthily to another. I look for meaning in everything I do and experience and I guess I needed the wake-up call that there is evil in the world and one has to protect oneself. For as emotionally intelligent, self-aware, and confident as I want to appear to be and feel I am, the fact that I am deficient in some way led him into my life. I am constantly reminded by something he said often and with a look of glee, (and just typing this, maybe this is the one liner I was looking for)…”there is a fine line between pain and pleasure”.
Dear Shana, WELCOME! Sorry you qualify for our “club” but it is the best there is I think if you need it! Glad that you found it! Great support here so hang around! God bless.
It never ceases to amaze me how almost daily something on this blog resonates with the experiences I had with Jamie.
Not so much his words, but his actions that left me thinking WTF?
What I have learned is that the WTF actions of a sociopath occur when you hit home on something they are hiding. While sociopaths are very good at mirroring, lying and hiding their true agenda, they are not very good at controlling their visceral reactions. This is because impulse control is a fundamental problem with sociopaths. Thus, relationships with sociopaths are like walking in a minefield. When you inadvertently stumble upon some truth they hiding, they go off.
I experienced this first with Jamie on our third date. We had finished dinner in a very famous restaurant in Manhattan (on me, of course) and I simply asked him back to my place. He got up and walked out! I paid the bill and went outside. “You offended my British reservedness by asking me back to your place.”
I apologized, and reminded him that I was not feeling well and meant no sexual intent. Remember, we are not talking about a teenage virgin here. Jamie is a mid-30s gay man.
Of course, this action put me on the defensive and increased his charm, making me think I found something rare, a gay man not willing to jump into bed at the first opportunity. The reality — Jamie was hiding the fact he was HIV+.
When he finally did come to my place a couple of weeks later, I got another WTF moment. Since Xmas was a week away, we talked about a cozy setting and Jamie seemed to look forward to it. His reaction — anger at my leaving candles burning while I met him at the Subway, sarcasm toward the small Xmas tree I bought, and more anger at a simple pie.
Why the anger and sarcasm? He was faced with honest intimacy and since he was being fundamentally dishonest toward me, he became angry.
Of course, the out of left field “just friends” letter was another WTF moment. However, this coming after my being honest about my own HIV scare, in retrospect is no surprise, since I was being honest about something he was hiding.
Accidentally finding a profile of his on a dating website was a real WTF moment. Not just because of its existence, but person the person depicted there, both in words and in picture, was so different from the person I knew, a charming but quirky 35 year-old vs. a petulant 25 year-old. Online, superficial and sexually driven, in person seemingly the exact opposite.
The WTF moments continued when a simple Googling revealed profiles his on several porn sites. Seems, Mr. “British reservedness” has a penchant for bareback sex…
Even after all this was done, in the oddest way Jamie gave me one last WTF moment. I was on vacation in Quebec with a guy I was seeing at the time. There was this one building we both liked, so before leaving we walked by to learn the building’s name. The “James Pride” building. It was Jamie’s birthday too. WTF!!!!!!!!
Blue eyes,
Jamie didn’t make sense because he’s one of the disordered. They like to wear a mask of sanity, but when they let nonsense comments slip out (about the xmas tree and pie), you’re left with your mouth agape, going WTF? How does that make ANY sense? Britain would probably not want to claim him. Goes back to one of my thoughts about putting them all on a deserted island and letting them duke it out. Spathy island.
You deserve better than that weirdo.
Blue_eyes, that litte quirk and risk taking is how come he is HIV+ the consequence of his risky behavior.
It is also interesting that those with NOTHING of their own will snear at what we have…actually Jamie’s job is not one of the best paying in the universe. It has lots of perks but not a great deal of pay! So whatever you had ordidn’t have, he had to look down his “British” nose at because it, of course, wasn’t up to his “lofty British standards.” LOL Henry’s X had all his clothes in a plastic sack when he showed up at Henry’s home, but he had to put Henry’s place down as “sub standard”—the only thing henry had that was sub-standard was MIKE!
Hopeforjoy:
Since I know that at least one of Jamie’s x-boyfriends was not British, the thought did occur to me that his “charm” works better on the non-British…
Not to keep trashing the poor guy, but he may be getting a bit of his own too. His best friend was in a LTR with another of Jamie’s x-boyfriends. Of course Jamie was not on speaking terms with the x-boyfriend, making for an interesting triangle.
Since Jamie’s best friend as a lawyer and by Jamie’s description a “c&nt” (sorry, his words), I wonder if all three of them are sociopaths. It would be fitting.
PS – this triangle is another red flag I ignored…
OxDrover;
Again, you are correct. If you saw is profile on the dating website, you would see it confirms much of what you say.
The thing is that regardless of income level they are “trash” because of how they behave…and his profiles on the dating site I would suspect he was trolling for more TRASHY guys because he liked that RISKY behavior.
I think he thought you might be a “level above” his usual trashy companions and therefore was keeping his behavior sort of subdued compared to how he would have acted if you had been a “trashy bad boy”—so he might have been trying out “upgrading” to a better class of folks, but I think his perverted ways of sex kept him hanging with the trashy crowd rather than upgrading. Too many times they LIKE that risk taking and drama that goes along with associating with “trashy” folks and a “normal” person really doesn’t turn them on. Not enough RISK or EXCITEMENT involved with a “normal” nice person.
Risk taking and excitement and drama are apparently big turn ons for the psychopaths.
Sometimes I think the reason we are attracted to them is that we ourselves sort of have a hankering for risk and excitement (but not to the extent that they do). It also seems that people who are in the military, police work, pilots, doctors and lawyers (exciting careers) would be careers in which there is a “higher than average” level of Psychopaths in that career., Ditto with risky hobbies!
How is your therapy going with your heart? I hope well.
I had 2 girlfriends who I ran around with when I was in my 20’s.
Looking back with what I know now, I believe that they were both psychopaths.
The main thing that attracted me to these 2 girls was their shameless risk-taking capers.
I mean, there was NOTHING they would not attempt.
They did things that I would never even THINK of doing.
At the time, I was in awe of the things they were able to pull off.
I was envious not only of their brazen “moxy”, but also of the confidence in which they carried it out.
I remember one time, I was on a road trip with one of the girls.
I was the passenger, and my friend was driving.
We got pulled over for speeding on the way home.
As soon as we got pulled over, my friend immediately jumped out of the car and ran back to the police officer’s vehicle….before he could get out of his own car!
My friend stood along the highway at the cop’s car, talking to the police officer for several minutes.
The police officer never even had a chance to get out of his car.
He never asked for her driver’s license or registration….nothing.
After a few minutes of talking, my friend came back to the car and got in.
All she said (with a grin on her face) was, “That was close.”
And we drove off…..SCOTT FREE!
I was in AWE of her ability to get out of that ticket without even a warning.
I asked her as we were driving away , “What did you say to him?!?!”
My friend replied, “I know how to handle cops.”
She was vague about what she told the cop.
But, from what I was able to get out of her, she told the cop that she was married to a very abusive man, and he would beat the shit out of her if she came home with a speeding ticket.
The fact of the matter is that she is married to one of the nicest and most tolerant men I’ve ever met.
He would NEVER hit a woman, and he’s never cheated on her (that I know of).
She has cheated on him multiple times, though.
In fact, she cheated on him with some very famous athletes that you would all know, if I said their names.
She made this comment about her husband several times during our “friendship”:
“For some reason, that man loves me.”
She never said she loved him, though.
Anyway, they are still married today.