By Joyce Alexander, RNP (Retired)
Psychopaths sometimes don’t know enough about how the rest of the world thinks to tell a “good” lie. I saw the following article about North Korea’s soccer team and how they had been apparently caught in a doping scandal, but were claiming that it was really an herbal medication that made them test positive for steroids.
The excuse given was that the team members had been struck by lightening and they had decided, heroically, to compete anyway. The steroids were accidentally taken with traditional Chinese medicines.
I have recently found other articles about the “stories” of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-II, that made me laugh out loud. In one article, he supposedly played his first round of golf and scored a 38, including five holes-in-one.
One of the things I have noticed about many psychopaths, and others who frequently lie, is that their lies are so “off the wall” that no one over three years old would believe a word of them. They will “lie when the truth will fit better” is a saying I’ve heard all my life. This seems to be especially true with pathological liars and psychopaths.
Dr. Robert Hare, well-known psychopathy researcher, says that psychopaths have difficulty realizing that their lies are unbelievable, even when the evidence that they are untrue is literally in front of them. In some way, the two sides of their brains can’t connect the evidence in front of their eyes.
An example of this are the lies told by Casey Anthony when she led the police to the place she supposedly worked, even going to a cubical, when she knew that she didn’t work for that company. She also lied about leaving her daughter with “Zanny the Nanny,” when such a person didn’t exist. Anthony even led the police to the door of the empty apartment with the police in tow.
Not all liars are psychopaths, but all psychopaths are liars. Liars signal that they are not to be trusted. But if you hear a lie that is so outrageous that it makes you laugh out loud, or have the feeling that the person telling it must be “crazy—”look out! You very well may be dealing with a psychopath.
Hope to heal
Far ~ keep up the no response. Gray Rock him away!!!
Ox Drover
Far, I think indeed he does NOT KNOW WHO YOU ARE….not the NEW YOU, the stronger, wiser survivor who is not a door mat, who will not believe his lies. No, he does NOT know this NEW YOU! I have a feeling he will NOT LIKE this NEW YOU either! Ohhhhh, toooo bad! hee hee
one/joy_step_at_a_time
hey farworonged – he is contacting YOU and asking WHO ARE YOU like you were contacting him – typical!
if it makes you ask WTH? or WTF?, the answer is ‘DYSFUNCTIONAL’. and that leads to, ‘don’t try to figure it out – put it in that box of, if it makes you crazy IT IS crazy. Keep up the grey rock – and a ? for you, how is he contacting you? Can you block this contact from happening at all?
KatyDid
Oxy,
One of my mantras has been “to Thine Own Self Be True”. In other words, don’t lie to myself AND BE LOYAL to my OWN self.
About honesty? It NEVER occurred to me that I was inconsistent with my mantra when I let people lie to me and still associated with them (although I did not TRUST them.). Thanks for being the example. I am setting my standard a little higher by adding an honesty boundry in my mantra.
Ox Drover
Dear KatyDid, (have to put the Did in now since we have Katy_Rock on here now too!)
I never realized really that I was being dishonest as well. I DID lie to egg donor…by omission mostly….just KEEP THE PEACE….and by doing that I was ENABLING her bad behavior, her controlling behavior…I was allowing myself to be dis-honest to keep peace with her. I realize also that son C is doing the same thing I did, he is lying to me when he knows he has broken a boundary that would cause me to become “upset” with him. He would rather be DIS-honest than to be honest and man-up about his behavior, his breaking his agreement.
Funny thing is, he goes NC with egg donor because she lied to him about the agreement she had with him and me not to communicate with P-son or give P-son money. So SHE lied to him and me to KEEP THE PEACE about breaking the agreement she made, yet he does the SAME THING (lies) to me, and he doesn’t GET IT that I won’t tolerate the agreement breaking. LOL
Then, he thinks we will just “pretend none of this happened.” LOL
Nah, it happened, and the results are the boundary—I cannot trust him, and it is not that he is a psychopath, it is just that he is still playing the family game that he learned at MY KNEE, and I learned it at the egg donor’s knee, of playing “let’s pretend we are a nice normal family and pretend none of this happened.”
In order for me to ENFORCE the rules about HONESTY with others, I must QUIT BEING DISHONEST MYSELF. I must be open and honest with those I love above all else.
After the visit by son C the other day when my husband’s grandkids were here, when I invited him to dinner rather than tell them I was NC with him and why (I was being deceptive with them actually) he seemed to think that we were now “back to normal” and that we would “pretend none of that happened” but I sat him down and told him, “Look, I want you to understand WHY I invited you over for dinner, ” and I told him why, and that “it didnt’ change anything between you and me because I CAN NOT EVER TRUST YOU AGAIN” I am sure he did NOT get it either. But I do think he got it that I would not trust him again, just NOT WHY.
Just like Farwronged, he doesn’t KNOW ME ANY MORE, not the NEW ME, not the HONEST ME….not the me that sets boundaries and defends them. Not the ME that doesn’t lie and not the me that doesn’t tolerate lies either.
It has been almost exactly four years since the “summer of chaos” in which I had to flee for my life…during which time son C was duped into sacrificing our relationship for approval from the egg donor and for the approval of his wife and his “friend” (who at the time was farking his wife) and the approval of his P brother.
But that was NOT THE FIRST OR ONLY TIME son C has betrayed me in favor of P-son, but it will be the LAST. At least he got scared enough when he was facing down the barrel of a gun in the hands of his “Friend” and his wife was trying to take the phone out of his hand so he couldn’t call 911, that he is no longer going to be duped by his X-brother or the egg donor either. So for now, our relationship is that we have a MUTUAL ENEMY, so that makes us partners, but NOT FRIENDS.
Recovering
One he’s been texting but it’s from various numbers. I know it’s him so I don’t bother. He hasn’t heard from me in almost 3 months so I guess he’s wondering what happened, he can’t believe I’m not still so in love trying to get his attention. Barf! Then he sent a text saying that this isn’t( his name) it’s his cousins phone and (name) was only using it. It’s so dumb and childish, especially when I could care less. They will do and say senseless things. The first time he texted last week I did reply who is it because I didn’t know the number when no one responded I knew it was him. Now I guess he mocking me, but for what? Insanity…..
one/joy_step_at_a_time
jerk.
can you change your phone number? i seem to remember that night not be possible for you. what i find, is that sooner or later i get hooked by some darn thing if NC is broken. and then i have to spend energy processing it and it sucks at my energy reserves.
Recovering
I actually have a new phone that I now use as primary. A lot of people still have the old number and it would cost to break contract. I’m actually fine, I didn’t think I would be but I am. The more I learn the more I can predict his actions. It is still very bizarre cause I’m like who thinks of or says some of these things. I reflect back on all the bogus lies and noe I just feel disgust. He’s the opposite of all the pretty lies. Totally! I guess in another few months he’ll try to contact me again. And so on… until he can find another as he calls it serious girlfriend when we all know she’ll just be another willing victim to make him look good. He has a thing for pretty educated women, those are the girlfriends. Ha! All other women are just fucks,( his words).
Recovering
Sky:I don’t know if he’s going through a rough time he’s the type that likes to upset people. He’s sadistic. It was looking for a response and maybe not, just another mind f$ #k.. he had the audacity to ask about my pregnancy, when I know he doesn’t care. I think they all test the waters just to see where our heads are.
Back_from_the_edge
farwronged: they just keep coming back until they find another reason not to. But I don’t think they ever leave us alone. At least in my experience. They keep coming back because they expect us to be the same person we were before the ‘explosions’.
They come back in childish, twisted, ways…
having other people contact us; texting and just being a real STALKER and harasser because they don’t want us to forget them. It is up to US to resist the thoughts. We KNOW what we have been dealing with. We KNOW things are not ever going to be right. How can a person ever make some of the things we have been through ‘right’ with a simple, cheap, ‘I am sorry! THERE: does that make it better?!” Well, actually, no. It doesn’t.
The amount of disrespect and disregard for my life and well being and/or anyone elses is purely unacceptable. There are no explanations sufficient to support a forgiveness of any kind. The only regard it deserves is NOTHING. THAT is what it deserves.
IF YOU JUST REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE ANY LONGER IT WILL MOVE ON TO ITS NEXT VICTIM. YOU WILL BECOME BORING TO IT AS WE ALL HAVE BECOME AND THAT IS WHY WE ARE HERE.
We are being punished because we figured it out and it is using our affection and our caring as a tool and a weapon because it doesn’t have anything else at it’s disposal.
“IT” wasn’t the ‘trauma’….”IT” was the ‘trigger’ for the doors to open to myself. To grow and to learn and to jump those hurdles. Change is a very painful process. But change is necessary if we are ever going to survive this.
Stress kills. I have come back from the brink to definitively say: stress does kill. They don’t deserve our lives.
farwronged: I can so completely relate. My “IT” comes back every 3 months whether welcomed or not. Like clock work; I could set my watch or calendar by it. It comes back over and over to see if there is anything it can ‘glean’ from us, yet, still. In my case, my “IT” is hoping I will be swooned or threatened into dropping legal charges and I seriously doubt that is going to happen.
An attempted contact was made the day before yesterday. I still have NOT uttered a peep and don’t intend to. I said every word to “IT” that will ever be said and I meant every one. END OF THAT STORY.
Stay strong. Be true to yourself. Take care of yourself.
Refusing to participate any more has afforded me the much needed, HEALTHY, peace of mind I needed after my heart attack and “IT” STILL persists as much as I don’t want it to.
*HUGS TO ALL*