By Joyce Alexander, RNP (Retired)
I live in the woods, and what passes for a “yard” (I can’t possibly call it a “lawn” with so little grass!) is pretty much in deep shade most of the summer due to the tall trees. Because of the deeply wooded environment, I’ve had to make a choice to have either trees or grass, but not both. I chose the trees.
Many of the trees are different varieties of oak, some of which tend to shed the lower limbs as they grow taller and the lower limbs receive less sunlight. This self pruning of the trees benefits them by taking the limited resources of nutrients from the ground and moisture from the rains, and using it to grow taller and wider at the top where it receives the most sunlight, rather than maintaining those lower limbs that are not as productive because they don’t get as much light.
In keeping other trees in the yard that don’t “self prune” healthy, I do this pruning for them with a saw. I trim the lower limbs off so that the resources of the tree will go into making it grow taller and straighter. I also trim off any limbs that are broken in storms, so that the amputation will be smooth and not collect rain water or rot and kill the tree.
There is a lesson to be learned, I think, in the analogies of pruning the dead wood of our relationships, so that the healthy parts of our lives can grow taller and straighter. The unhealthy relationships, both major ones and minor ones, use more resources than they contribute to the overall health of our lives, and will deplete the resources available to us to live good lives. They suck the resources we have and give little or nothing in return. The resources we do have are wasted in trying to maintain these sick “limbs.”
Sometimes unhealthy relationships will fall out of our lives of their own accord, just like the self pruning Jack oak trees drop limbs, without any effort on our parts to remove them. Some unhealthy relationships just seem to depart, and drop out of our lives.
Other unhealthy or broken relationships sort of hang on in our lives, like a hanging limb that we call a “widow maker,” because even though it is dead and detached from the tree, it hangs there precariously in the top of the tree ready to fall on someone walking underneath it without any warning. These unhealthy and essentially dead relationships become dangers to our lives, as well as to the lives of those around us.
There are many things that can damage a limb, or even an entire tree, making it necessary to remove all or part of the tree. Lightning strikes have actually taken out five trees over the past few years. The entire trees, though they struggled to remain alive, finally succumbed to the injury and the insects and mold which took root and finished them off. We had to remove them. Sometimes losing these trees seems like I’ve lost an old friend, and their shading of my home in the summer time is greatly missed when they are gone. In their places I have planted new trees, which I have fertilized and watered and pruned to help them grow tall and straight. The relationships that are “lightening struck,” through no fault of their own, are still not healthy ones and no matter what I try to do to heal them, there is little chance that they can recover. Their departure though, leaves a space in the sun for new growth to flourish.
Not every tree, and not every relationship, makes it for the duration of our lives. Some shed parts of themselves, and some die of an injury or of their own accord, or change in some way so that it is not possible to continue to have them in our lives. Sometimes trees reach their natural age span and they, like old friends, depart this mortal plane. Sometimes a tree, just by the position in which it grows, will lean too close to the house. It becomes a danger that during a storm it might fall on the house and crush it, so it must be taken out before that potential danger becomes a reality.
Relationships in our lives, just like the living trees in my yard, are constantly changing. The only thing in this world that is a true constant is change. In order to keep our mutual space healthy, the trees and I must work together. During the dry years, I water them, and they shade my home from the beating heat of the summer. During the cold blustery winters, some of the cedars shield my house from the winds that seem to be directly from the North Pole. They also provide berries for the cardinals that winter in my yard, giving a splash of bright red to an otherwise dreary day. Since cedars require a very acid soil, I don’t try to make grass grow under their roots by spreading lime, because if I did, the cedars would sicken and die. I trim them gently in the fall so that their branches will not be overcome with a wet snow or ice and broken off during the winter leaving them injured and sick.
I moved into the clearing here in September of 1994. During that time here, there have been both major and minor changes to both the trees in my “hole in the woods,” and in the relationships in my life as well. I’ve pruned the trees, removed some entirely, some have died, and I’ve planted new ones, and all of them that are here now have grown. I’ve also pruned some of the relationships, removed some entirely, some have died, and I’ve formed new ones, and the ones that are still here have grown and matured and become stronger.
I have fed and watered, nurtured and defended the ones that were healthy and not poisoned them by trying to make their environment into something that they can’t survive. I haven’t tried to make this “hole in the woods” into something it isn’t. I don’t try to make it like a suburban sodded lawn, with manicured grass and topiary trees. If I wanted that, I would move to town.
I accept my relationships and myself for what we are, enjoying healthy relationships with the people who make my life a better thing and trimming out the dead wood and the “widow makers” from both the trees and the dead wood of unhealthy relationships. This makes for a much safer, healthier and more peaceful life in my little “hole in the woods,” where the fauna and flora and people can have a peaceful environment in which to thrive.
And BTW, I have been doing mindfulness meditation for many many years. It’s is very powerful and it works. There is no such thing as not being able to do it. You just keep practicing. If you have one nanosecond of mindfulness in a day, you are doing it. Everyone’s mind is busy. That’s the point of doing it. It defeats the purpose to say, “sorry, my mind is too busy to be mindful.”
This became an interesting read.
I remember having read an attack on a regular whom I totally did not regard as a spath, but didn’t remember anymore who was involved. A few times I witnessed something vicious to someone else (only remember the one who attacked) and was shocked with a WTF moment. I didn’t feel like jumping in and adding drama, but internalized it, and kinda ignored the person who caused it. And the reason is because I came to distrust them.
It is the same reason why I don’t like to talk to you Michael in depth. I don’t trust you, not just because of your self-proclamation as spath, but some of the behaviour you have displayed here.
I used to be a trusting person. I am not so anymore. I am not necessarily distrusting now, but I’m now more aware for myself when I don’t like some boundary crossing behaviour and I lose trust. I also have lost any motivation to defend why I even lost the trust. I just know for myself that when there is no trust no rational reasoning can make it pop into existence again.
Star, I don’t see how one can regard you as a spath. You come across as real and genuine, both calm and positive. I applaud your efforts to date and have fun. I’m sorry you were attacked.
“Until a few months ago, I thought most of the words for emotions meant, more or less, the same thing. Ex: Happy, joyful, ecstatic, elated, gleeful, lively, pleased, overjoyed, up beat = content. I’m just grouping a wide variety of emotions into one basic emotion which I can feel. And it’d be very helpful for me to understand the finer details of emotions. ”
This is AMAZING to read. That someone would have a hard time feeling and telling the difference between these emotions.
This was a very interesting insight.
I could use all of those words in an accurate paragraph to describe the feelings of all…
Sociopaths/psychopaths must be so devoid of self, so devoid of insight, they’re not even able to FEEL. There is freedom and expression in feeling. How strange, that as impulsive and lawless sociopaths can be, that they’re so inhibited.
Purewaters,
yes, I think it’s like the difference between skating on the surface of a pond and swimming in the depths of it. There is a lot less friction when you live in 2-dimensions, that 3rd dimension doesn’t slow you down. But you miss out on everything going on below the surface.
It’s not just spaths that are this way. Lots of people are. For some reason, in psychopaths it adds to their evil.
On another subject, I just remembered something my ex-spath said, “God never answers my prayers, so I’ve stopped praying. You’re going to have to pray.” This was many years after his letter to God, where he admitted how he had made others do evil things and asked God to heal him. What a strange situation to be in, to be compelled to be evil.
Skylar,
Do you really think that lots of people are “emotionally blind”? Off topic a bit, do you think that normal people lack a lot of empathy? And, if so, to what degree makes one a sociopath?
I think Dr. Robert Hare summed up the discussion about the emotions felt or not felt by psychopaths with his very insightful comment that they could “learn the words, but not the music to the song” Anyone with enough IQ to tie their shoe laces can learn to mimic words…my Parrot even uses words fairly accurately, in that he knows the difference between an “angry word” and a “sweet” word and if he is angry at you he will call you a particular ugly name (in fact, I heard my husband call the bird that name on many occasions when the bird would wake him up in the mornings!) and the bird not only learned to say the word, but to say the word to designate that he was angry!! Fortunately, the bird doesn’t say it often, I think I’ve heard him say it 5-6 times in 10+ years, but it is ALWAYS appropriately used to express his anger. Yet, the bird really doesn’t know the full meaning of the range of HUMAN emotions and the words that go with them.
When he wants attention he will speak sweetly and say “I lovvvve you” but the bird has no way of knowing that “love” is really a VERB, a way that you treat people you care about, not just a sound that you make if you want attention.
Psychopaths have learned to “speak sweetly” when they want attention or to put a person off their guard. Dr. Hare said something along the line of that inpatients were frequently trying to get money from him, and the best way to tell which one was the psychopath was the patient that GOT him to give him money.
When we fall for the psychopath’s “pity play” or the “i’m just wanting you to teach me to feel and understand emotions” it is as absurd as if my color blind husband had tried to get me to EXPLAIN COLORS to him. A color blind person may be able to say the word “red” but there is no way that they can fully understand the concept of that color, even if they know how many vibrations that color causes in the reflection of light versus how many vibrations green causes…they can still not experience the difference.
Trying to “teach” a psychopath about emotions, connectedness and so on is like trying to teach a pig to sing, it will only frustrate you and pithes off the pig! (don’t know who first said that but it is true!) As some of the “higher level” psychopaths have shown, by climbing into the corner offices in big companies, or into the governor’s offices of states, or even the White House upon occasion, putting lip stick on a pig doesn’t change the fact it is just a pig with lip stick, it is still a pig.
We, who have been in CLOSE encounters with psychopaths, should know most of all that any encounter with a psychopath is not going to be something that we are going to profit from except in a negative way, like hitting yourself in the thumb with a hammer, it is only going to teach you not to associate with them.
Psychopaths are, first of all, almost by definition, pathological liars, they are lacking in functional empathy, compassion, and ability to bond with others in a meaningful way, their emotions are shallow as a cake pan, and they are manipulative. What is to be gained by interacting with such a person by choice once you have these basic concepts learned?
Purewaters,
I’m reading, “the science of evil” which Oxy reviewed here.
The author has studied people with asperger’s and autism as well as the spaths. And they all are lacking in emotional depth. Then there are the myriads of people whom we would describe as shallow, such as some celebrities and my sister. They express an inordinate preoccupation with possessions and image. They need lots of attention.
It’s frightening to think that these people might be just as capable of evil as a psychopath, given the right circumstances. They might not be predatory the way my spath is. They might not spend every minute of every day of their lives looking for ways to create pain and suffering, the way my spath does. But like my sister, when approached with an opportunity to destroy her sibling so that she can inherit all of her parents’ assets, and when assured that she won’t get “caught”, she will delve in with glee towards that goal. Other than that, she just lives a pathetic and envy-filled life, accumulating and hoarding possessions.
Shallow, is a red flag.
Purewater, Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, who is a very highly respected researcher on Autism did a book on the “Science of Evil” which is about the lack of empathy. He measures empathy on a “bell curve” (named for the shape like a big bell, tall in the middle and extending out on each side.l) Average is in the middle where it is tall and most people will have an “average” amount of empathy, but on the left hand curve, there will be a small percentage of people with almost no empathy, and on the other side, there will be a small percentage of people with a LOT of empathy.
Psychopaths and autistic people are in the “low or no” empathy range, but the difference, according to dr. Baron-Cohen is that the psychopaths have GLEE at doing bad that autistic people don’t have.
Dr. Temple Grandin is a highly functioning autistic woman who designed the cattle handling facilities used over much of the world. I just watched a movie about her life, it is an excellent movie I think to demonstrate what her life must be like, not being able to have a normal amount of empathy or connect normally emotionally with others. I think after watching that movie I have a better understanding of what it must be like to be very low in empathy. I also recommend Dr. Baron-Cohen’s book as well.
Actually, Engish is one of the languages (of the languages that I know) richest in vocabulary to express varying degrees of emotion. In English one word can create the whole context, whereas in my mother language you create the context, and the context will make clear what the word specifies (the other way around). Spanish uses a minimal of words to express different things. French uses a lot of words for context to explain its meaning. When I want to express an emotion to a precise degree, English is the best of those four languages I know.
Let’s say “you feel a need” for something… or you “crave” for something. Craving is having a severe need, like water after crawling for hours in the sand dunes of a desert under the harsh sun and no oasis in sight.
Michael,
my ex-spath wasn’t compelled to do little evil things in a moment or even a short span of time. He used the long con. He poisoned me for over 20 years. Every day, just a little bit.
He befriended a man and conned him into signing over his helicopter to him, promised to pay him $60,000 but had the bill of sale read that it was sold for $15000, then killed him in an “accident”. This took several years of planning and execution. (pardon the pun) Another millionaire, he conned into giving him another $60,000 with no paper trail and he is now planning to con him into getting him to sign over another helicopter (last I heard) and then he will “accident” him the same way he did the other. This con has been ongoing for over 25 years now.
Although I do understand the “hyper-focus” you are talking about, my ex-spath’s behavior is not impulsive in that sense. But what I have gleaned from him is that he believes that the people he hurts, “deserve it”. There is always a reason that they “deserve it”. Sometimes the deserve it for “being sheep”. Other times, it’s for “being arrogant”, other times it’s because “she’s a bitch”.
It’s always about taking someone down whom he perceives as being at a higher level than he is. I think it’s because he feels that they view themselves as such and he feels disrespected. This all stems from his envy of what he considers their high self-esteem.
Ironically, he approaches all these people with an air of “poor me, pity me” and then when they do, he considers them arrogant and despises them for it. It’s spathalogical.
That’s why I was asking you those questions last night.