When sociopaths have problems in their lives, it’s never their own fault. Donna Andersen explains why this is one of the most important Red Flags of Lovefraud.
To watch the entire Lovefraud Lessons series, go the the Lovefraud Videos page.
[youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/kL24yoR2H2M]
Sky, if you look hard enough, you will certainly find the dysfunction in everyone. Geez, that’s a depressing thought……..I like to see the good in people. But then the people I hang out with generally have a good side to see, and many are amazingly good people. At the moment, there are no spaths in any of my social or business circles.
I am also one who always sees the good in people, in fact, it is very difficult for me to think of someone as all abad…it’s not in my nature. I am a sucker for the pity ploy, too. A lousy childhood will get me everytime.
I don’t know if I see spath’s everywhere, but I do see charactaristics in a lot of people that I know I don’t like. Entitlement has got to be one of the most glaring…I have a knee jerk reaction to it. Whether the entitled person is disordered or not doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t want to waste any of my precious time or energy in their presence.
Another trait I will not tolerate without resistance, is the one where someone tries to shame you….make you feel small or unimportant, or he habitually interupts you.
I see this stuff everywhere!!!
Yes, Sky, my brother used to jump out from behind the tree’s in the backyard, in the dark, all the time to scare me. This went on for years.
I have a major problem with entitled people, and sadly, it seems to be a norm in our society, from people talking on their cell phones while standing at the cash register to the constant jaywalking “I dare you to hit me” and lack of use of turn signals. But I don’t hang out with those folks. It’s bad enough I have to see them out and about. I think there are a lot of this type in my neighborhood. But I keep a distance from them. I make it a point to surround myself only with positive, happy, nurturing, and supportive people like myself. I find a lot of these people at my job, at Zumba, at salsa classes, and occasionally in other walks of life – my landlord, my massage clients, and various other places. I have a lot of really inspiring people in my life. When I find people who uplift me, I “collect” them as friends. I invite them to lunch or to other activities. I once met a tarot reader who was reading at an open house I was invited to. I liked her so much, I kept her as a friend. We have been friends now for about 3 years. I made a good friend last year in my Spanish classes. I liked her so much, I kept in touch with her in spite of our busy schedules and different lives. Though we rarely see each other, it’s always positive and uplifting when we do.
On the other hand, I cut out a few narcissistic, entitled friends from my life in the past year, too, who were sucking the life out of me, even though they were interesting in some ways. I just cut them, one more slowly than the other. I didn’t give them any explanation or get into any drama with them. Life is just too short. Since they’re gone, my life is relatively drama free unless I create the drama myself with my own issues.
So it’s not that I just blindly give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I first choose (very selectively) good people to hang out with. And then I see the good in them because often it’s hard to miss. And it works both ways. I tried to be supportive with my narcissistic friends before I was sure they were narcissists. When I gave and gave and felt more and more drained, I jumped ship.
Again, as I’m always saying, the barometer of how caring a person is is how I *feel* around them over time. If I am feeling drained, they are not good for me. If I feel inspired, I hang out with them. This method for choosing good people – using your feelings rather than your analytical mind – only works if you are in touch with your feelings. If you are depressed or blocked around your feelings, you may not be able to tell a good person from a bad person. You will not be able to sense a person’s energy.
One of the reasons I like J so much (from salsa class) is that his energy is so uplifting for me. When I dance with him, I actually go into a state of bliss. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. I think I am just getting to a point in my life where I’m opening up to greater levels of joy and happiness, and I’m finding other people who are somehow facilitating that. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it just doesn’t. I used to have a lot of ups and downs. If I’d be “up”, I’d predictably be “down” later on. However, for the last several months, I’m just mostly happy and excited about things. This is a relatively new experience for me.
kim, I work for alot of wealthy people and I have never seen so many lazy spoiled intitled kids.. it’s not their fault tho, they dont know any different, but all the same it makes me crazy.
I also work for people that Money is their God, that makes me sick…oh well this dysfunctional ole geezer is off to bed…
Star,
I used to only see the good in people –obviously. That didn’t work so well for me. Now I want to see the entire reality.
It ain’t pretty.
I’m not afraid of people, just disgusted. I think you’re more afraid of people than I am. You worry about being rejected. I don’t.
My bf and I used to go dancing at the casino. About a year ago we walked in and sat at a table. The place was crowded and a guy walked up, looked at me and said, “I was sitting there, I went to get a drink.”
I said, “Oh, this is your chair?” He said, “yeah”.
So I got up. He sat down and before he knew it, I plopped down on his lap and smiled at him. lol!
He didn’t tell me to get up. He was honored! hahhahaaha!
I knew he would be. (I weighed ALOT less back then!) My bf gave me a look, so I got up after a bit. Well, I was making a point: what kind of man tells a woman to get out of her seat?
He got the point. I sat nearby and he kept trying to get my attention after that.
My point now, is that I’m not afraid. I’m just being cautious and curious. I don’t fear asking anyone out. or telling anyone anything or sitting on a complete stranger’s lap. or being rejected.
I fear being killed by a psychopath because I didn’t see it coming. I’ve had close calls in my life: my spath and the green river murderer being the worst of them. All because I didn’t see it, they both seemed soooo nice.
I also fear being conned out of money. The last 2 guys I hired did a crappy job on the concrete. ce la vie.
IMO, the difference between you and me is that I don’t think I’m nervous or fearful because of my own insecurity. I was never insecure before. You think your problem is your fear of rejection and you need therapy. What if there is nothing wrong with you? What if you are picking up on the truth, that these people can’t be trusted? Maybe they remind you of your family of origin somehow and that’s what is making your radar go off? What if you need to trust what you are feeling, instead of wondering why you feel so vulnerable?
My insecurity comes from examining these people and seeing red flags of a disorder. So far, all the people whom I’ve met that showed lots of red flags, HAVE been selfish liars. The red flags haven’t been wrong.
I think it’s statistically impossible that we don’t meet any spath at all when we lead an active social life: work + everyday + hobby’s + going out, and it’s totally impossible to avoid the ‘showing signs, but not full blown probably’. Most of the time you wouldn’t know, and may not even know for a long time. Take that vicious colleague of mine… I’ve taught at that HS since 2003, and the man has been a colleague for all that time. He wasn’t a befriended colleague or ever someone I had to work closely with, but still someone you know and once in a while talk to in the teacher’s lounge. While I was replacing him and had to work with him or communicate with him, there didn’t seem any problem either. It’s only with the recent events of the past 2-3 weeks that I experienced the guy displays red flag, especially regarding boundaries.
In the past I would have called such people and occurrences with them ‘jerks’ and think no more of it. Now it gets stored away as taking notes in ‘spaths and toxics’ file. For me the difference is that where I previously believed everybody to have a good and darker side, I now think that good people just don’t act like jerks. So if someone is acting like a jerk, then they have a disproportional larger darker side than other people imo.
I would say the occurrences are frequent, and yet fall within statistical proportions. If you happen to interact and meet plenty of people you are bound to come across them.
And yet one cannot say I have a negative outlook these days. Actually, just a couple of weeks ago I left a store and some minor incident occurred (don’t even remember what) and the man standing next to me referred to it, and I kinda waved it off as someone having a bad day. The man appraised me and then said, “Wow, you like to regard things and humans from the positive side!” I smiled at him and replied, “Yup” and walked off.
Meanwhile, even though these toxic events occur once in a while, it’s never with someone who’s already close to me; hardly even acquaintances anymore. So, I’m surrounded by good people.
Guys, statistically, there are 1-4 spaths per 100 people. However, keep in mind that you will tend to attract on the outside a reflection of where you are on the inside. If you are obsessed with spaths or dysfunctional people, you will find them everywhere. Also, if there are areas where you need to heal, you will attract people with complementary issues, so you can have those mirrors. The universe continues to send lessons. You may run across spaths (I’m sure there are some in my neighborhood – at least the sex offenders), but you don’t necessarily need to attract them. We tend to attract people who will teach us the lessons we need to learn. Once we learn the lesson, we no longer need to attract those kinds of people.
When I was younger, I was constantly doing battle with toxic people. I felt like I was often in a fight for my sanity just trying to survive. Roommate after roommate, co-worker after co-worker…. Things are really different for me now. Life doesn’t have to be about constantly guarding yourself from bad people, because there are really a lot of good people, and you can attract them if you are healthy enough on the inside. Sometimes healthy people push your buttons too, especially if you have “deservingness” issues like me. But you can work through that, too.
I don’t think I neither deserve nor learn much from these freaks and jerks that hurl themselves onto my merry path once a month or so. And it never ceases to surprise me, because I’m not thinking about spaths as I live real lfe, nor is because I’m attracting on the outside where I am on the inside.
I do know that I have a neutral response to flattery and that the guys who first try to flatter me often instantly become 180° opposite and obnoxious. And then there’s the rest of my personal attitude: innocent, positive, social, confident and no drama. They’re envious of that and assume it make me an easy target. I don’t intend to alter my temperament nor my personality in order to avoid spaths hurling themselves at my path once a month. I’ll just deal with them the moment they land on my path.
I have this analogy: imagine yourself to be a planet circling around on your life path. But space ain’t empty. There are areas where broken meteorites circle about. Once in a while you’re bound to end up with a situation where a meteorite enters the atmosphere. I cannot prevent them from doing that, nor is it my responsibility. But I can detect them and make my athmosphere thick enough that they burn to pebbles or basically sidestep them.
Spaths ARE everywhere and as opportunists TRY EVERONE. I don’t think it says anything about me, nor is it my fault. I’m not fooled by them anymore though, and I will deal with them appropriately with boundaries when they try me.
Just thought of something I’m learning specifically because of the colleague. That so far his attempts at making me look back with the principal seem to backfire: first time he attempted to make me look bad to our principal (the map thing and phonecall to the principal) I ended up getting hired for more hours and partially his replacement (which he prevented from happening himself the sole way he could, by not needing to be replaced), and the second time about the calculator I ended up getting 2 more teaching hours. Seems to me that he’s actually helping me, and at the very least I’m learning that the principal does not have an issue with me at all anymore.
Star and Dar, It is a Jungian concept; that of the shadow, that we draw into our lives, that which we deny within our selves. Then, when we are face to face with our shadow, we are in constant conflict with it.
To some extent, I believe this. With normals, that is people who have the ability to self assess.
Not so, with spaths. If this held true with spaths, they would not attract empaths.
Spaths are predators. They look for vulnerability, and go for the throat. They are masters at projection….they project their evil intent and we suck it up.
So, this Jungian theory only works to aid and abett them.
I only ascribe to it when talking about normals.
I agree, kim. The shadow concept of Jung applies to normals. But there’s no need to seek work or even fault within when spaths, jerks, creeps and freaks interject themselves so. There would be work and fault within though if I let them get close to me and hook me. Actually I even think that blaming yourself for a spath’s attempts at either putting you down or hook you does not fit with the boundary of responsibility. None of us are responsible for the choices and actions of another human being, certainly not those of a spath who have no respect for boundaries to begin with. All we are responsible for is allowing them around us when they do cross our boundaries.