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.
skylar:
What an idiot 🙁 Sorry you had to deal with that in your life.
Well, that’s the other thing about sociopathic relationships: even YEARS after you break it off, you keep discovering FURTHER unpleasant and sordid details about them! In my case I found out that she was actually sleeping with TWO other guys (I have 100% definitive proof of this, though it came up two years after the fact. Originally I thought it was just me and the husband whom she lied about not having!) at precisely the same tiime that she was married, pretending she was single, and pledging eternal love to me.
In retrospect, I think that part (i.e., that the “threesome was actually a “fivesome”) hurt the most, if only because of the utter unbridled cynicism of it. I wanted very much to call the husband, but I refrained, knowing that it would probably have had no more effect than the first time I called him!
Ultimately, I think Katy’s points are well-made, and I suppose the “compromise position” here – if one is indeed adamant about alerting the spouse – is to make it a “once and done deal.” In other words, give the person all the details in one fell swoop, and then wash your hands of it forever. If new sordid facts come to light later on, I think we should just let it go at that point (as in the case of myself and Louise) Because at that point, they already know the truth, so it’s technically just a matter of degree rather than kind.
At any rate, I’m glad you had a nice time today, Duped. Good for you!
Constantine: xxoo
Yah, it’s always a good time hanging with “The Big Guy”…
I had the whole place to myself; imagine that. 🙂
I am going to sleep tonight in peace. FINALLY!
Bar anything flying off a shelf or busting down the door. 🙂
I celebrated my 3 months of not speaking to it in a very awesome way and all by myself too.
EW: mine was more like a five-some, from what I know. Probably more than that but I don’t want to know. Me nor the wife wants to know anything more. We just want to be done and over with it. She is doing much better than I am; if you believe that…usually it’s HER picking ME up off the floor. She is a wonderfully NICE lady who deserved NONE of this. Neither one of us have. It’s just evilness and it needs to go away. I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo glad OW has it. Let her just eat it up like she already has. That is IT’s KARMA. Someday I will tell you the whole story. I promise. You won’t believe it.
Sleep well Dear Constantine…
May the Angels Light on your pillow…
Love ~ Duped
Louise,
Yes, Skylar’s spath sounds like a real neanderthal! She says he’s a helicoptor pilot, and it IS funny how we end up hating pretty much everyone who even remotely resembles our own personal spath. With me it’s doctors – I can’t even be in the same room as that TV show “ER” without getting physically sick!
For that matter, I guess the most repulsive combination of all would be a doctor who is ALSO a helicoptor pilot!
PS As I’ve said before I’m not literally against the entire class of “Doctors”, including the ones on this site. But you guys know what I mean!
Good night to you too, sweet Duped!
Constantine:
The same with my X spath. I thought that I and the OW in triangulation were the only two and then I found out there were many more. At least four more…at least. Probably more. Plus he was married.
Very true about finding things out more and more as time goes on. Little by little you find out things. That happened to me also. Some of the time it was him actually revealing things to me. New tidbits every time we would talk. Other times it was other people telling me. I have this strange feeling that I will end up finding out even more as time goes on…
Oh Constantine,
you don’t know how accurate you came with that Neanderthal comment.
He actually LOOKS like one. He has that eyebrow ridge!
He tries to hide it with a hat, but it can’t be hidden. When I first saw him, I knew immediately that he was german. There are certain german people with that look. Well, I did make comments – good naturedly – about the forehead looking like the skulls found in the Neandertal valley etc… he just sort of looked at me. Later, he must have investigated that whole Neandertal issue. I thing this because, my spath KNEW he was a sicko and different from others. but he never said anything outside of “tells”. One of those “tells” was that he said, he probably had some neandertal in him.
Well, now we have scientific evidence that most humans carry Neandertal genes. All except people whose ancestors have always lived in Africa. LOL! But some people have more Neandertal than others, I guess, because you can see it on their foreheads!! NOT KIDDING!! LOL! But I don’t think Neandertals were the source of evil. Really, I don’t. Evil is found everywhere, even in people with “normal” foreheads!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=neandertal-genome-study-r
As far as your comment about certain professions: that was actually quite plausible. It takes a certain kind of person to do work that is dangerous or “bloody”. But keep in mind, that exspath works as a helicopter pilot but HAS NO LICENSE. NOT EVEN A GENERAL AVIATION LICENSE.
I wonder about helicopter pilots and doctors. Are they more likely to be spaths?
Louise,
Yes, they are unquestionably “the gift that keeps on giving!” What I did learn from the “fivesome situation,” however, is that for every thing we catch them for, they are likely involved in ten or more other things even more egregious! Really, these behavior patterns don’t just “shut off” or function in a narrow channel – they are pervasive and endemic to their whole lives.
As I said, what has always stayed with me is the COLOSSAL cynicism of what she did. Hell, it’s bad enough cheating on your husband. But that, at least, is still potentially a HUMAN failing (i.e., Anna Karenina is a flawed, but still sympathetic character, etc.) However, to cheat on your husband AND your supposed “childhood soulmate,” with another guy, and another after him….. Well, that’s where you descend from the sphere of the “immoral” into the realm of the inhumanly nihilistic. No, you can’t talk about such behavior in terms of “character flaws” – it’s rather about not being human at all.
At any rate, it sounds like I’ve been out of this a lot longer than you. That being so, I would continue to encourage you to try to get beyond even the “being in love with the illusion” stage. (Though, again, “loving the illusion” is still a step forward from thinking that you actually love the person himself.)
The reason for this is that who knows what life still has in store for you, Louise? We shouldn’t walk around thinking that we need someone else to be happy, that goes without saying; but at the same time, what if you do meet another guy? Why not purify your heart of this meaningless falsehood, so that you can be 100% open to whatever new experiences (including love) happen to come your way? I know it takes time, but in my case, I did meet another woman, and how unfair it would be to her if I still had some “dark mystical tie” to a worthless whoring socio! Not exactly “infidelity,” but close enough for those of us who live by the dictates of higher standards.
No, I can honestly say that all of that is gone. Really gone. I have absolutely nothing left in my heart for her. So give it another year or two, Louise, and I think you will get to the same point. And when you get there, I think you’ll see just how liberating it is!
All the best, dear Louise,
C.
Skylar,
Haha, that’s very funny – and true! I think they ARE more likely to seek out certain professions like Medicine, Law, Politics, etc. but I’m so biased in this that I’m probably the worst person to ask! However, I still think that the PCL R very much overlooks these types, and I don’t think it’s arrogant on our part to say that we’re “ahead of the curve” as far as suscpecting them to be fairly widespread in these fields.
Anyhow, there actually is a helicoptor at the place where I work, and when I see it flying away it always makes me think of “Sky’s Neanderthal”! Haha – admittedly, I haven’t seen the pilot up close, but perhaps I’ll go out there tomorrow morning and take a closer look at his physiognomy!
Have a nice night.
Constantine:
Good morning.
Your post made me cry. It made me realize once again that I need to let go. It made me realize that the person who I truly loved more than anyone isn’t real and even if he was, he is married. I can’t have him. It wasn’t meant to be. I have to move on. I know it will come eventually, naturally.
Thank you for your enlightening words. You have such a gentle way of telling us on here what we need to hear without being harsh. Thank you for that.