Editor’s note: This article was submitted by Steve Becker, LCSW, CH.T, who has a private psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and clinical consulting practice in New Jersey, USA. For more information, visit his website, powercommunicating.com.
Have you ever seen a cat toy with a stunned, cornered mouse? How it will capture the mouse, dangle it in its mouth for a while, release it momentarily, allowing the mouse the pretense of an escape, only to recapture it, dangle it some more from its mouth, perhaps release it again briefly, now to watch the mouse, increasingly frantic, make another escape bid, only to recapture it, now letting the terrorized mouse (and, as if it’s fate) dangle yet some more, in dreadful uncertainty?
If the mouse could think, it might have thoughts like these: “What will this cat do with me? How long will it continue to toy with me? Will it kill me, or let me go? Strangely, this cat seems to be deriving a perverse pleasure in my predicament. My helplessness and suffering seem to be entertaining and amusing this cat. There is something cold and sadistic about this—that this cat could be using, and exploiting, my vulnerability in this way for its personal, shallow gratification?”
The mouse would think, “there is something wrong with this cat.”
In this analogy, the mouse’s imagined experience of the cat captures, I believe, the victim’s experience of the psychopath. Cats, of course, are not psychopaths, and mice, although traumatizable, are unlikely to experience their victimization in quite so thoughtful a way.
But to elaborate the analogy, let us imagine what’s taking place in the cat’s mind. The cat may be thinking, “This is fun. The mouse I’m terrorizing is pathetic. Look how scared and confused it is. It has no idea what’s in store for it. Even I haven’t decided what’s in store for it. I’m enjoying its helplessness, and my total control over it, too much to worry about my plans for this mouse. I find it amusing that its playing dead. Does this mouse think it can fool me? I, and only I, will determine whether the mouse lives or dies. Presently I’m going to release and taunt it again, with the illusion of escape. When I recapture it immediately, it will be trembling with fear, a prisoner to my designs. This is pretty funny. It’s not that I have anything personal against mice. As a matter of fact, they provide me with a great source of recreation.”
The cat in this analogy (and let me stress that I like cats, who don’t really think like this), captures with a chilling fidelity the perspective of psychopaths towards their victims. It is all there: the cat’s utter lack of empathy for the mouse; its view of the mouse as an “object” that exists to be exploited for its benefit; its amusement at having created the mouse’s predicament, now to watch and enjoy the mouse’s futile bids at escape; its contempt for the mouse’s helplessness and desperation, which the cat, of course, has opportunistically established for its own entertainment; its relish in its omnipotence to decide the mouse’s fate, but only when it is good and ready, and no sooner than the cat has mined the mouse’s helplessness for its full recreational value.
In sum, this is the essence of the psychopath: his joy of the hunt, his contempt for his prey, and his intention to take everything he can, and wants, from his victim.
When the psychopath takes you for a ride—that is, when he is victimizing people—it’s really not personal: You’re simply not enough of a person for it to be personal. In the psychopath’s eyes, you are an expedient, nothing more. When he crosses your path, the psychopath is assessing your expediency. He is asking himself, “Is there something this impending-sucker has for me? Is there something I can take from this fool that I want? Something I can take that will make me feel good?”
As part of his assessment, he is evaluating the kind of target you’ll be. If he decides to pass, it won’t be because he likes you, or feels something charitable; it will be because he’s decided that, either you have nothing, after all, worth taking, or that you’ll pose inconveniences and/or risks to his present self-interests that he prefers to avoid.
For the psychopath, you are like a sealed, vulnerable envelope he is constantly espying, with suspected money inside. He isn’t sure how much money, but he’s pretty sure there’s something in it. It might be a little, it might be a lot; it’s possible there’s too little (or nothing) of value worth his bothering with. Surely, though, he is scheming how best to glimpse what’s in the envelope, and how best to lift anything worth taking.
The psychopath is a high, and often imprudent, risk-taker; he’s in it for the catch, not to be caught. You, and all human beings, are mere commodities to him: maybe useful, maybe not. Certainly, once he’s expended your use, to the psychopath you’ll be as useless as a nagging headache.
Oxdrover. I refer to them as a sub culture. A culture amongst us, but not acting for the good of the collective, but rather exploiting and creating chaos and pain. Secretly wanting to be part of the collective but hating it like any angry disaffected teenager. And in the process thinking because they use tricks and illusions to suck us in, that that makes them superior because of that calculated exploitation – their power trip?.
In reading the ‘Art of Seduction’ so, much in that book reflects their behaviour. The distancing, the pain and pleasure technique, the short sharp shock. My ex N was bonded to his cat which looked like a tiger and he would often tell with pride when his male cat had bought in dead prey.
Lillygirl. I too am still bound up in disbelief and anger, and what compounds that anger for me, is anger at myself briefly for allowing it go on, when I just knew he was wrong from the start, but I kept overriding my intuitions and listening to his plausible excuses. I remember making a conscious decision that I had to go along with it – whether that is part of the mind control, I dont know.
I so agree with your comments and i can see how they careful craft their responses and that this is not a conscious intention to get at us in the normal convention. It is more a way to play out their omnipotence and the rush it gives them which kicks in when one of their voices is giving them grief. The voice of false self which starts directing them and gives them the kind of tension they know they must break before they get relief. In a sense they are setting up their own pain and pleasure cycle and we happened to get caught up in it. We also need to look within to find out why we have engaged with such a person. Does this make sense?
I now understand more, but he had every opportunity to tell me about his feelings but he lied to me at the beginning, knowing that he had a defect and hinting at it sometimes, but not openly telling me, so that I was putting everything into a relationship that was doomed to fail and I feel angry at him and myself for that.
you know something funny my ex s path loves cats he has a big panther tatooed on his back and his fav football teams are panthers and tigers. that is soo funny i never thought of this before till i read this .also i reallylike cats too i grew up always having cats, but i never thought about comparing his behaviour that way till i read here. . they really are like cats on the prowl for woman feeding their apetite for sex and what ever else and playing around looking for excitement. mine loves excitement he gets bored alone so always seeks female company. he was also vain as hell and i think cats are always grooming them selfs and strutting around like hey look at me. so similar really and i think cats even have many mates not just one either. but i like cats so now i dont want to think about the similar ways to s paths.
OxDriver,
Your observations about the victim giving in and the P having a hold on them really struck a cord. That is exactly the way I felt, almost zombie like and completely resigned to his control. I was very isolated from my friends at the time as I was having an affair but I know if they had seen me with him, they would not have recognised me. Normally I am an outoing person and not shy ay all but when I was with him I was a quiet little mouse. There were times when I was hardly able to speak at all.
Two years on I feel almost like myself again and I look back and wonder who was that person? and how could I have let this happen? I do understand all the ploys and manipulation coupled with my vulnerablilities but it still shocks me. It’s like I am talking about someone else.
Swallow
This made me laugh – I never liked cats but got one recently (and she’s marvellous – much better than that idiot); partly as my ex-S won me round to them!
Anyway: When shortly after we first met and he messed me around and all the women in the office were discussing how he’d wronged them, I discovered he’d proclaimed that he was in love to this other woman (one of many) in the office and she’d said to a friend that he was like a cat ‘interested in you but the minute you’re not there and someone else’s fridge door is open…’
She was very astute that woman! When we got back together I told him of this (didn’t reveal source…could have been anyone!) and actually joked that he was a cat…
I think what’s amazing to us all is that their behaviour doesn’t change even when they’re told we can see through it and even when they seem to acknowledge it a bit.
i am getting a lot from this thread – i am glad i am here….
beverly, i find myself resistant to the idea that there is somehow something inside me that made me engage with such a person. i don’t think there is anything about me, except for my goodness, my empathy and caring that kept me here, and as far as i am concerned, i am keeping those qualities.
yesterday i posted this below under ruminations, but i also believe it applies to why we found ourselves stuck with a S. it has to do with our reasonable expectations of how someone will behave who says they love us, and the ways a S’s manipulations turn us away from our own needs in favor of theirs –
i copied and pasted it below, let me know what you think —-
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i find myself here a lot lately. i guess i am in the acute stage of no contact and i need an outlet for my anxiety,
anyway, i am thinking about ruminations last night i wrote a little about why i think we begin ruminating.
i read an out of print book called stop! you’re making me crazy! and while much of the book didn’t apply to me, it did explain one crucial aspect of why i ruminated on my S’s behavior.
it begins with expectations. i have a close friend who constantly tries to get me to deny my expectations, who says i set myself up by having them. that they are too high.
i don’t believe that. i believe our expectations in life are what we have come to know as our reality. it is our security in trusting our perceptions. it is the way we are able to go out in the world and trust that we won’t be harmed.
the book talks about a waitress, who comes to your table and says ‘i’ll be your server tonight, whatever you need, i’ll take care of you.’
but then she proceeds to ignore you for the next two hours.
are you wrong to expect her to serve you? i don’t think so.
and if you complain and she responds with ‘screw you’ your expectations clash with her response.
you just can’t figure it out. was it something you did? did you not hear her right? don’t waitresses usually take your dinner order? isn’t that your experience?
you get angry and try to get her to change her attitude so you can feel more comfortable, knowing your experience of reality is sound. you are safe in your perception of the world.
but if you complain and she responds with ‘i am so sorry, but i just got a call that my father had a heart attack and was taken by ambulance to the hospital’ your anger, confusion and rumination ends immediately.
you end up caring for the waitress, forgetting your own immediate need for dinner, and realize that yes, she was supposed to take your order, but there was a good reason she didn’t. you are safe.
i think in our relationships with S’s, like i said last night in my post, is that our S’s tell us they love us, make us feel loved, and our expectation is that if they love us, they are on our side, they want us to be happy.
that expectation is not wrong at all. our expectation is reasonable.
but what happens is while they tell us they love us, they treat us like the enemy.
immediately, like in the restaurant, we try to figure it out. was it something we did? did we hear right?
and then throw in a friend who innocently says, ‘your expectations are too high,’ and it is easy to understand why we start to ruminate.
when we express our distress to the S, he/she seizes on the opportunity to garner our caring and pushes us to forget our own needs, just as we forget about ordering our dinner when we hear of the waitress’ misfortune.
The S’s are masters at this, i truly believe it is at the core of all of this insanity.
i think one of the ways to stop ruminating is to try to understand why it begins, at least that helped me. i no longer go over and over and over things in my head. just understanding that simple, logical idea has helped me a lot.
my expectations when i entered this relationship were reasonable and sound. when someone loves me, they want the best for me. that is reasonable. i didn’t expect too much when i believed he wouldn’t crush me.
that is why i think we have such trouble letting these relationships go.
the waitress never comes back to the table and gives us a reasonable explanation. she just says ‘screw you.’
our sense of a secure reality is shaken to its core, and is replaced with a fear of the dangerously unknown. nothing is as we believed.
but then i remember that when i go out in the world, police have guns, but they don’t open fire on innocent people. other drivers don’t purposely crash their cars into me. my son’s teacher doesn’t let him out of the building on his own.
so except for this small number of S’s, i think we can be pretty secure in our perception of reality. our expectations are reasonable.
so, despite what my friend says, i will continue to keep my expectations
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take care everyone, i appreciate you all being there. this is the hardest thing i’ve ever endured in my life. and only by writing and reading am i fighting off the pull back to him. i still ache inside for him and that is scary.
lilygirl
i am getting a lot from this thread – i am glad i am here….
beverly, i find myself extremely resistant to the idea that there is somehow something inside me that made me engage with such a person.
i don’t think there is anything about me, except for my goodness, my empathy and caring that kept me here, and as far as i am concerned, i am keeping those qualities.
yesterday under the ruminations post, i posted a story about our expectations when a waitress comes to our table in a restaurant, but i believe it also applies to why we found ourselves stuck with a S.
it has to do with our reasonable expectations of how someone will behave who says they love us, and the ways a S’s manipulations turn us away from our own needs in favor of theirs – it is a simple psychological process that hooks us again and again into thinking of their needs and forgetting our own.
of doubting ourselves in favor of their views. of carrying around the feeling like we are off balance, because our reasonable expectation – our very life experience – is shaken to the core and makes us doubt our perceptions.
we easily get sucked down into doubting everything we believed was true about life.
i think it could happen to anyone. we are not to blame in any way whatsoever. i know that for sure.
if another counselor said the word ‘codependent’ to me i think i would have screamed! i was not joining him in this sickness, i was not enabling him.
abused people are not codependent, they are victims of a crime…i think the very idea of codependency is utter nonsense.
take care everyone, i appreciate you all being there. this is the hardest thing i’ve ever endured in my life. and only by writing and reading am i fighting off the pull back to him. i still ache inside for him and that is scary.
lilygirl
lilygirl
You said:
“but maybe i am naive, and he really has sat and calculated how he could use me for his own pleasure. someone told me yesterday, ’he was just using you.’ right now, i don’t think that way.”
I used to not think that way about The Wolf, too. Thought him just confused, scared, maybe quirky…but this time around, I realized that he deliberately set out to damage people. Some of the details change because of the way you interact with them, like maybe if you do x, y, or z it can momentarily change the outcome of a discussion, or an evening, or even extend the length of time the cat toys with the mouse before moving in for the kill….but those are just minor adjustments.
Overall, the plan (atleast with this particular S/P) is to maximize damage and take away from you everything good he can get his hands on – your words, thoughts, heart, soul.
When I realized this, I could lie to myself no longer: the malicious intent was there. If the intent was there, the knowledge of what he was doing was also there.
As to Swallow’s comment about being shy, quiet around him – I am just coming out of this, and finding it hard not to be that way around other people, particularly men. It’s so not me to be this retiring wallflower – but after every put-down, every argument and question he gave me, saying I was nutty or — get this — calling ME a psychopath out of nowhere….I became afraid to even speak.
Thankfully, it passes.
lilorphan –
i appreciate your insight. i am not saying my S is confused or scared or quirky – i know he is an S and is dangerous to me.
but i don’t believe after my five years of putting this jigsaw puzzle together, that he is intentionally setting out to hurt me.
i am not saying he does not “enjoy” hurting me, he does. he gets a power trip from it, he gets off on it. he feels omnipotent.
but he doesn’t have to set out to hurt me, this is what he does, how he is. it isn’t intentional, it is who he is.
i used to think this was intentional, i don’t anymore. i think he is not human, as i know a human to be.
i think of him as a vampire.
he feeds off me to sustain himself.
he has no reflection because he is an empty soul.
he operates under the cover of darkness.
the symbol of a cross, representing goodness, keeps him away.
but i don’t think the vampire intentionally sets out to do this, it is how he lives – without giving it a second thought.
In my case, I believe his behavior was hardwired into him and then reinforced with success. He knows he’s broken and can even express frustration with it at time — or maybe pretend to? But by and large, he knows he’s a predator and acknowledges that he loves being one. Asking him to be a regular, normal, ordinary husband would like asking my cat to stop chasing the fuzzy little mouse toys that substitute for real prey in a housecat’s life. It’s in his nature and it entertains him. He sees no harm in it because these things aren’t even real, for goodness sake. Just as we aren’t real to the sociopaths we’ve loved. We’re here for their entertainment.
I loaned the sociopath over 60k during my relationship with him. I contacted him this morning about repayment of the loan; and he went ballistic on me. Even though, he promised to pay the loan on 2/15/08.
I’m trying to move on with my life. However, it is very difficult to overlook the loan.
Please, I need guidance in this matter.