Why do psychopaths go after what they want regardless of the negative consequences they may experience? According to the journal Nature Neuroscience, the answer may be chemical—an overactive dopamine reward system.
Read Driven toward reward without regard for consequence on Time.com.
Read the scientific study, Mesolimbic dopamine reward system hypersensitivity in individuals with psychopathic traits, in Nature Neuroscience.
Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader via Facebook.
Our Family Wizard can help you co-parent with a sociopath
Rosie we must have posted over each other! You can edit it now – I have seen 🙂
midlife –
“How lucky are you all to live in the ignorance that evil stalks the earth in human form? How could you live with the knowledge I have? That there are demons amongst us that blend in and look like anyone else?”
well said. it is something, this feeling like i wear a cloak, belong to some secret order. but i am NOT interested in belonging to a secret order. i ficking hate that feeling when it cuts me off from the world.
i met with a job developer yesterday ( a step up from the job counselor, who is truly lovely and highly ineffective) and i told him what my challenges are – the MCS and allergies (didn’t bother mentioning the fibro), and that i have PTSD from being targeted by a sociopath. And that it affects my ability to concentrate and focus. he usually works with people who are not very experienced with people, don’t present well, have had trouble finding and keeping work. i am presenting a diff challenge to him, but i see it the same way – i need help and an understanding employer.
it is a BIG deal to do this – to stand in THAT arena and say, well, i have challenges, AND i am an amazing worker. I just might not be so consistent and may need a day or two off her and there to cope. if it wasn’t so bad, i would wing it, and not say anything and just cope..which means HIDE to me. I CANNOT SPEND SO MUCH ENERGY HIDING MY CIRCUMSTANCES, IT TAKES TOO MUCH ENERGY FROM A LOW WELL.
So, i guess i am doing it: trying to stand in my truth and say i am valuable – not only as a person, but as a worker – damage and all.
of course we had a bit of a discussion about whether or not i am really able to work – that feels like shit, and undermines me. but i do need to look at it – and do it concurrently. there is long term disability insurance. this kind of bureaucracy is hellish, but may be what i need to do.
i went to volunteer at a music fest last night. they use this nasty fucking air fresheners….face numb, eyes sore, and a headache i still can’t shake. tap tap tap … EMFT.
=encountering evil in its raw form= such rage. i have such rage. i have this feeling of wanting it to become lazer sharp and destructive of spaths. but that would be a huge loss (to me), so when the time is right, i will have to stop being so afraid and defensive, and soften my heart again. i see how wild i am in other’s responses to me.
i am meeting with a friend of a fined, a pastor, on Monday. he was a life coach. i connected with him re work seeking stress…but i suspect the spath story will come spewing out. i canna handle the pressure of keeping it in. it IS so big, and to censure it when i am talking about my life, makes me nuts.
if i hadn’t come to lf and the people here, i can’t imagine how i would be right now. don’t think it would be good.
i don’t WANT to be here. 🙁 i want to be out meeting people and getting on with my life. but i am here, and thankful.
xo one step
One Step – those are really practical steps you are taking to make your future better … glad to hear it.
I tend to size up people I am meeting with to ascertain whether I can tell them or not. If we get into talking about our history and I decide they are alright then it does come out. It’s very hard not to include it and I am sick of lying about it. I covered up for him for so many years and now I prefer to stand in the truth of what happened all through those years.
I can so relate to being part of a secret society … that’s a great description -a secret society we never wanted to join and weren’t asked to join but just fell into by default.
I don’t know how your allergies are around animals One Step but for me that was key to getting past the rage and into some empathy and love … I focused on dogs and cats and being loving and kind in actions to them – it brought me to tears at times looking at their beauty and character and the fact they love me no matter how f***ed up I feel I am. They mirror back that I am loving and worthy and haven’t lost that aspect. I wonder if that might help you too … or could you visit elderly people or sick people? Volunteering takes us outside ourselves and when we least feel like it is when we most need it.
You will be out meeting people when you’re ready for it – the allergies seem to be signalling something still needs working on or expressing – either that or you desperately need to move house! Don’t despair – life won’t pass you by. Just take the time your body and mind needs to heal from this – you;re right – it IS huge.
Hugs:)
LOL — OxDrover — It isn’t the snake’s fault it’s a rattlesnake, but you don’t want to take it home and make it your pet.
More shades of Chrissy, my teenage “mentee.” What a sweetie-pie, and it’s just not her fault she was born into what I’ve come to call the “P– crime family.” For those of you who missed the background on this, Chrissy’s father went to prison for five years after holding hostage the man he thought was having an affair with his wife, and it later came to light that this man had been molesting Chrissy, age 5 — and that’s only the beginning.
The latest is that Chrissy apologized to me last week, but this week she’s up to her old tricks again. She she wanted to work for me, and how about Monday? Uh, what about school, I asked her? Didn’t I remember? Last week she told me she was graduating already, because her counselor told her she had enough credits. (Actually, she told me her counselor told her she had enough credits to graduate in May. Not “already.”)
OK, good enough. I KNOW you’re not lying to me, I said. (Yeah, right.) Just show me your diploma or other proof. She tried to wiggle out of that one.
Getting the picture?
It’s not her fault she’s getting crime tips from her family. It’s not her fault I gave her every possible advantage and she could have “manipulated” me into everything from college trips on up. I would have gladly been manipulated for that!
But this is funny when it’s not just sad. She instead manipulates people into helping her ruin her life. She forces them to drop plans to take her out of town, to the theater, and help her move out and be independent, and then posts pathetic, angry tirades on Facebook about how her life is ruined, she could have been a contender, and so on.
Quite the operator. Poor thing.
What are the chances of manipulating her back — into leaving this family behind? That’s her only chance of changing before she gets too old. If she’s not too old already, at 19.
Come on, folks, think like a psychopath, like Macchiavelli on steroids. Let’s get Chrissy out of there and back into school. I’m open to ideas. “Don’t bother” has been offered already. Anything else?
Dear Sister, sister,
You are still thinking that if you take the baby rattle snake and pet it enough, and love it enough,, and give it enough chancesj that it will GROW FUR AND BECOME A PUPPY!
MAGICAL THINKING DOESN’T WORK!
You did say in one post that victims come to resemble the psychopaths who are controlling them. In addition, many people on this site have escaped the clutches of their psychopaths and moved to supportive environments.
I’m not thinking I can pet the baby rattlesnake . . . she’s not even allowed in my home any more. But perhaps experienced trainers can re-train the animal, if she’s removed from the zoo. After all, she was fine about a year ago — until her family perceived the positive change in her, slapped her around a bit for being responsible, and moved in to destroy any ambition except the criminal kind.
I have known her since she was 12, given her access to my apartment without incident over the years, and seen her blossom during trips to colleges and theatrical shows. Then, last spring, she reversed course during a time when she shared with me that she was under threat of violence. What she described from her father and brother — and didn’t understand as such — was psychopathic behavior, sexually, psychologically and violently. I insisted that she move out, and she did — only to go back there part-time recently (and I again cut her off).
Perhaps a 19-year-old is not too old to change — but I am far from naive in this respect; lots of kids are armed and dangerous long before that. It would take a complete “No Contact” with her family, and making her realize the necessity of that would be a job for a pro.
I do NOT think that “love” and “petting the baby snake” will turn it into a puppy, and though I am a little insulted that anyone would think me so deluded, I can understand how the line here is thin, emotionally. I say again, this is probably a job for the pros. What resources are available for over-18 kids to move into supportive and protected environments?
Let’s assume, because she’s over 18, that we’re not talking about kidnapping or manipulating a child. Though I do think manipulation is not out of the question here, given the tactics on the other side.
So far: I tell her my help is always available, the “door is always open” to help her find happier things in life, etc. But it’s not unconditional. She has to act responsibly and reciprocate the trust — VERIFIABLY at this point. Nothing in the world is going to change that conditionality. Nothing. Not even for her puppy-suit character.
Speaking of baby rattlesnakes. Oh, ick. Check this out.
http://www.costumeexpress.com/Psychopath-Child-Costume/38492/ProductDetail.aspx
Dear Sistersister,
Didn’t mean to insult you, mostly just trying to be “funny”—sorry! Her lying to you though about having “graduated” and then when you called her out on that lie by demanding to see her certificate of graduation etc. made me think you were dealing with a P here.
Sure, she is lying, and I REACT very negatively to lying, so I guess I jumped to a conclusion on her being a “full fledged” psychopath and I shouldn’t have done so. Not all liars are psychopaths.
I’m also a bit “cranky” today—with is MY problem, not yours! So I should be aware of that and BOINK my fingers before I “speak” LOL
Sometimes (in fact many times, I think) people who have been around psychopaths in their family of origin will NOT have FUNCTIONAL WAYS of coping, because functional ways of coping are LEARNED BEHAVIORS and they have not had these modeled for them very often.
I am glad that she has you for a mentor and that your “help” is conditional on her behaving in a FUNCTIONAL way. That she is TRUTHFUL with you. I think making her know that you care for her, but that you expect her to respect HERSELF AND YOU by being truthful with you is a good step in the direction of modeling for her functional ways of coping and accomplishing goals.
The magical thinking that I held on to for sooooo freaking long with my own son(s) that if I just loved them enough and forgave and (forgot) enough that they would morph in to functional men got me into a lot, and I mean a LOT of problems.
Most recently when my NON-psychopathic but dysfunctional son C LIED TO ME, I confroonted the lie, and implemented the CONSEQUENCES for him. I also realized that I HAD been enabling him and giving him my help ALMOST unconditionally, and “letting by-gones” be completely gone. Which was a mistake on MY part. He hadn’t changed his behavior, he hadn’t learned functional coping skills, but REVERTED back to the dysfunctional ones of LYING and covering up bad choices, rather than MANNING UP and speaking the TRUTH even though it was not what I wanted to hear and he knew I would be upset by the truth, so he chose to LIE.
Well, I could have RESPECTED a man who would tell me the truth when it was not what I wanted to hear, but I cannot respect a person who disrespects me by lying. He knew that, and CHOSE to lie anyway.
I have been putting “puppy costumes” on SNAKES for far too long, and though this son is not a psychopath, he is still not the HONEST MAN I would wish him to be, and I do NOT want to associate with someone who is dishonest—or anyone I cannot trust.
Yesterday my son D hurt my feelings rather badly, I actually got up and left the house for several hours and did not create a “scene” especially since we had company at the time. I did not confront the situation immediately as I would have if we had been alone,, but this morning the first thing I said after we got coffee, was “Hey, we need to talk.”
I explained how I felt, and explained how what he had said had been part of WHY I had felt that way, why I felt that he had not been respectful of me, and how his words had cut at me, I thoughth unfairly.
We sat and talked for quite some time, each one of us saying the things we felt, and WHY. We worked it out, we came to a better understanding of each other and of ourselves because we were HONEST WITH EACH OTHER. I respect him as a man because I know that no matter what he does—right or wrong in my opinion, a good choice or a poor one—I know in my heart that I can TRUST he is telling me the truth, and he knows that I will always tell him the TRUTH. We may even disagree about the “rightness or wrongness” of a word or an act, but we will NOT lie about it or how we feel about it.
I can “deal with” any problem that arises between us, any difference of opinion or whatever happens, because I TRUST him to tell me the truth. To NOT HAVE TO WALK ON EGG SHELLS around each other. To not spend our time and efforts “not offending” each other, to not have to “take offense” and keep it SECRET from each other.
We do not treat each other with “tit for tat” or passive aggressive behavior. I’m just at a point in my life that maybe I throw the baby out with the bathwater because I lived for so long with DISHONESTY–both dishonesty from others, and being dishonest with MYSELF.
Thanks for the LINK, Sistersister,
THAT IS disgusting at least! YUK!
No apology necessary! As I said, there’s that thin emotional line between unrealistic rescue fantasies and . . . what? We don’t even have a word for it. Because we’ve been taught by the codependence literature that it’s always right to just walk away. Maybe not — but as you say, don’t let the rattlesnake live in your house.
Interesting:
“. . . people who have been around psychopaths in their family of origin will NOT have FUNCTIONAL WAYS of coping, because functional ways of coping are LEARNED BEHAVIORS and they have not had these modeled for them very often.”
Because when I get close to bringing out the truth in her, or speaking the truth, Chrissy looks sideways. It’s like she doesn’t have any authentic way of being when things get too deep. In her family, it’s probably dangerous to be that. I have a feeling that’s what happened at home: Not so much specific concerns about her new ambitions, but just noticing that she wasn’t following the family emotional programming anymore. She was “getting real,” and it really bugged them. As a survival tactic, she knows how to switch that off pretty quick, and she uses it to “survive” me, too.
Yes, true honesty is the litmus test.
But what’s next for Chrissy? Who knows how to show someone the true cost of their acts? I’m talking here in terms of a young woman who is playing both parts: psychopath and victim. She identifies more as victim, oh boy, does she ever! But she never moves on to responsibility for leaving that way of life. A person like that needs to experience the alternative in safety, at a distance from her tormenters. Where in the world can that happen for young adults these days? Where is it safe to dream?
Or does she follow her dream of living on a park bench somewhere?