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.
Yes Louise,
Like Skylar, I had what I determined was truly an spath. MOre than self absorbed. More than a jerk. More than a narcissist. More than a spoiled brat. More than an abuser. I had someone who stepped over the line and once over, is not stepping back.
You’ll find lots of people on here calling their ex’s spaths and they’re not. BUT as Oxy so brilliantly pointed out in her article, and affirmed in her posts, they don’t have to be spath to be dangerous and TOXIC. They are NO less redemptuous.
Ana:
Ooooh, SCARY!!!!
Ana
My neighbor looks like that. Sorry to say, she’s bipolar and a drug addict.
KatyDid:
Yeah, I know what you mean. I have questioned over and over whether I think my X spath is truly an X spath, but let me tell you…when I really THINK about everything he did and HOW he did it…I have no doubt. Just because he doesn’t beat anyone, isn’t physically violent, hasn’t killed anybody, etc., does NOT mean he is not one. I really have no doubt he is one. The woman in triangulation is not a spath, BUT…she is most definitely very narcissistic, pathological liar and uses her Christianity to make people believe she is trustworthy…she is poison.
So yes, even if they are not truly spath, it’s still good to stay way…FAR AWAY.
There’s that Christianity carp again. It’s so insideous.
People have the spleel down pat. My husband’s mother uses God the same way. That since she is Christian, then whatever she says equal to the word of God. She uses her religion as a stick to beat people with. I was born/raised southern baptist but I’d be damned if I was gonna raise my daughter that way. SO I think my church when I was wee thing must have been like my MIL.
BTW I have a strong abiding Christian faith. It’s not GOD who is wrong. It’s those who claim to speak for GOD that I think are committing the worst sin of all, putting themselves BEFORE GOD.
KatyDid:
Yep, people who use Christianity really know how to use it…they have it down pat as you say. I can go on and on about the things the OW said to me. Now that I know what she was doing, it just makes me sick. I could never look at her in the same light again.
As you probably have read from my posts, I am also Christian. And I TOTALLY agree with you about Christians who use God…they ARE committing the worst sin of all. Isn’t this somewhere in the Bible? I think it talks about people who know God and use their authority or use their knowledge of God to dupe people. Oooooh, that is not good. That makes God really mad!!
Yes Louise
Somewhere in my bible study classes, I remember learning the ultimate sin was not murder or robbery or rape or some such. The worst was getting into God’s business. I was to do all I chose in MY business b/c God give us free choice (what I like to call the school of hard knocks) but NEVER be so arrogant to step into God’s business. Oxy has a great metaphor in her boinking skillet. Who are we to put ourselves down? We are children on God, NOT less than.
When ya think about it, it makes sense. Who else is the ONLY entity to claim to be equal to GOD? A: Satan. The number one sin is to be as SATAN.
I’d say the deeds of my MIL are as Satan, claiming that since she is Christian, then she is auto forgiven (not accountable like the rest of us lesser people) even if/when she does evil b/c God is using her to teach the rest of us. So do ya love my MIL’s logic??
QUOTE KATY DID:
BTW I have a strong abiding Christian faith. It’s not GOD who is wrong. It’s those who claim to speak for GOD that I think are committing the worst sin of all, putting themselves BEFORE GOD.
RIGHT ON, KatyDid….
I remember from a VERY early age, 4-5-6 being TERRIFIED of God who could read my mind (just like my egg donor could “read my mind”) and would zap me to hell to burn forever if I displeased him (didn’t do what egg donor said) But funny thing, I now realize that God isn’t the problem…it was my perception of him that was “edited” and pictured through my egg donor’s eyes.
Now I have NO relationshit with HER but I have a great relationship with God.
This is off topic, but in looking at red flags or similarities among Spaths; I am wondering if any of your Spaths were fans of Chuck Palahniuk.
This was something that I had forgotten about until I recently met a guy who reminded me of my spath, so I looked through his facebook profile and saw that he was a fan of Chuck.
Chuck Palahniuk is most known for writing Fight Club, which I have to admit, is a favorite movie of mine.
Chuck’s is described by some as a nihilist, and he describes his writing style is transgressive fiction.
Transgressive Fiction, in turn, is defined as a genre of literature that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual and/or illicit ways.
To give you an idea, here is an excerpt from a book review: “Chuck Palahniuk does it again with Choke. He turns an utterly pathetic character with very few redeeming qualities into a character that everyone can sympathize with and that everyone eventually learns to love.”
Sounds creepy to me.
I apologize if any of you are fans, but it just seems to me that this is the stuff Spaths would drool over. I still can’t figure out what book it was that my Spath was reading (PS: he read very little. period.) but I recall him also having a book called Bad for Us: The Lure of Self-Harm, this is by John Portmann. Another creepy read.
I may just be babbling, but maybe we can get to know our predator by the books he/she reads, since they seem so damn hard to get to know by any other means, as they are always “mirroring” and playing chameleons.
Thoughts welcome : )
FAD
Louise,
yes it’s all over the new testament. Jesus was constantly reminding people to not be HYPOCRITES, like the Pharasees.
The definition of hypocrite is the same as what a spath is, in that they both refer to wearing a mask that is 180 degrees the opposite of the truth:
a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion. 2. : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
I know that it gets confusing as to who is a spath and who isn’t because there are many toxic jerks out there. My criteria for calling someone a spath as opposed to a narcissist or toxic jerk, is if they wear a mask. Do they do their abuse under the cover of love and goodness?
Even still this can be a little confusing because you will run into a narcissist who can be nice for a while but then you see him/her do very selfish things. And you have to wonder if that person was being nice because they felt like it, or if it was all a ploy to get their hooks into you so they could be abusive and you would tolerate it?
With my spath, I know that there is nothing nice in him and there never was. His very first words out of his mouth were lies meant to entice me so he could feed on me and then destroy me. He hates humanity. He said so. He is nothing but a predator.
In the case of a narcissist, they don’t actually believe they are doing anything wrong by being selfish. That’s just they way they are and they are proud of it. They might try to hide it sometimes but they aren’t any good at it and it usually shows. Sure they do evil as much as a spath does, but you can protect yourself from them more easily, because you can see it coming. They have shallow values and beliefs. They are less likely to poison your food, because their selfishness is more about not caring rather than being drawn to do evil for the sake of evil.
In the end it is a spectrum and I believe that any of us can move up and down that spectrum if we don’t watch for the slippery slope. Being selfish can ultimately morph into being a spath – as it has for my little spath sister.