Most of the people who will be bad for us are not sociopaths, and so we want our radar to be sharp, not specifically for sociopaths, but for wrong, bad people of every stripe.
True, sociopaths will be terrible people with whom to enter relationships; in the end, though, they will represent a small fraction of a much greater majority of very wrong people for us.
As I suggested in a prior post, there are two keys to protecting ourselves from Mr. or Mrs. WRONG: The first is developing intelligent radar; the second is acting wisely on that radar.
After all, good radar, no less than good CIA intelligence, is useless if it’s ignored or devalued.
Now, are there cases of sociopaths (and the lot of devious personalities) so slick as to be undetectable until after they’ve wreaked their havoc? Of course there are; to suggest otherwise would insult anyone unlucky enough to have crossed paths with such destructive individuals.
Nevertheless, in most cases, the wrong person—sociopath or not—will and does leave clues much sooner than most of us want to admit (until much later).
WRONG, by the way, for whom? The answer, of course, is, YOU!
It is tempting and, at some point, I suggest, unfruitful to get stuck on the suspected psychopathology of a partner (present, or ex). Because when you get right down to it, there are only two diagnoses that really matter: Is this person, for me, RIGHT, and GOOD? Or WRONG, and BAD?
Only we can make this assessment, and it’s our responsibility, of course, to make it as soundly as possible. By soundly I mean being as honest with ourselves as possible, and keeping our best long-term interests uppermost in mind.
What, then, is the first—and, for that matter, second—telltale sign that someone is wrong, and really bad, for you, sociopath or not? (And speaking honestly, should we really need more than a sign or two?)
The answer is, ANY EXPRESSED BEHAVIOR or ATTITUDE that leaves you feeling disarmed or disoriented by its inappropriateness, selfishness and/or insensitivity.
Take great heed of such an experience, because almost always, it is a sign that more are sure to follow. In other words, preparing to bail at this point is a wise consideration.
Specifically, what behaviors and attitudes am I referring to? For starters, how about the first, surprising flash of rage, contempt, arrogance, selfishness, coldness, presumptuousness, dishonesty, indifference, ungratefulness, even denseness; shocking acts of abuse, verbal or physical; and startling failures of empathy, or compassion.
It is really less the behavior or attitude, per se, that screams ALARMING”¦prepare to BAIL!, than the experience of it as, “Where did that come from?”
I stress: It is our job, first, to register these signs; and then immediately to register them as alarmingly ominous.
The question is, Will you be willing to see what you’ve seen? Will you be willing to acknowledge the sobering portent of the display? Or instead, for any of a hundred conveniences, will you find ways to pretend you didn’t see it, and/or minimize the ramifications of what you’ve seen?
It is perfectly fine to ask, What, in a new relationship, should I be watchful for? What are the signs that my new interest may be someone different than advertised? I hope I’ve addressed these questions.
Then again, such questions tend, I think, to promote a view of the world as waiting to unleash upon us ruinous new bogeymen and predators, instead of encouraging us to examine what can be harder, but perhaps more honest, useful, retrospective questions, like, What did I miss? Why did I miss it? And if I registered it, why did I choose to ignore or minimize it?
Insight into, and resolution of, these latter questions can confer the best insurance against future exploitation.
In most (certainly not all) cases, it may be less important to be wary of the next nightmare disguised as Mr. or Mrs. SENSITIVE, than more careful of our always lurking capacity for defenses like denial, rationalization and minimization to blind us to what we don’t want to see, and do.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2008 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
THANKS LIBELLE, This is one of Steve’s better articles and all his articles are great!
This article expresses I think what BloggerT and Skylar and I (and some others) were discussing the other night. The majority of ASSHOLES are not psychopaths but just plain “selfish jerks” and to label them “psychopaths” CHEAPENS THE TERM PSYCHOPATH, which should I think, be reserved for the worst of the WORST (and some of us here have been involved with those WORST OF THE WORST, and some of us have just been involved with people who are “high in psychopathic traits” but wouldn’t score more than a 5-6 on the PCL-R if they were being professionally diagnosed, and some would score a 38-40 (cut off is 30 for a professionally diagnosed psychopath) but what about the guy who is a 29? or a 28? or a 15? According to one of the researchers on criminal psychopaths the AVERAGE (meaning half score above and half score below this number) PCL-R score for ALL inmates is 22, and you have got to be a PRETTY BAD BOY to score 22 ON A PCL-R.
I sure don’t want a “relationSHIT” with a guy with a score of 22 on the PCL-R, do you? I don’t ‘think so! He may not “qualify” as a “psychopath” but he is NOT a “Mr. Nice guy” that I want to date my daughter or bring into my home as a potential mate for me.
What difference does a label make? “Well, what if I’m wrong and what if my guy isn’t really a psychopath and he can change? what if I am losing the LOOOOOVE OF MY LIFE?” New bloggers frequently post those questions here on LF and it is IMPORTANT TO THEM that their “bad man” as Aloha Traveler always called them BE A PSYCHOPATH, not just an ASSHOLE JERK, because if he is ONLY an Asshole jerk, then there MIGHT JUST BE HOPE FOR HIM. DUH? HOPE FOR HIM???? Come on folks, you know better than that! It is an EMOTIONAL response not a logical one to think that ONLY A PSYCHOPATH can’t change. That if he isn’t a COMPLETE PSYCHOPATH ON THE LEVEL OF TED BUNDY the relationshit can be saved and salvaged if you just try hard enough. It might be your fault after all. NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
S/HE IS TOXIC just like rat poison is TOXIC. Rat poison is 98% PURE CORN MEAL but it will kill you. It is only 2% toxic but it will kill you if you eat it. A person can be “the NICEST GUY” WHEN HE IS NOT RAPING AND KILLING, just like Ted Bundy was a GREAT friend when he was not raping and killing women. BUT you have to realize that the times someone is doing BAD acts are not 100% of the time in order for them to be TOXIC or to be PSYCHOPATHIC either.
We must accept that the person we were with, qualified psychopath or not, is TOXIC to us, and that they are NOT GOOD FOR US. We don’t have to prove that they are psychopaths or anything else, just that they are toxic, they fit the behavior profiles of a chronic abuser and we do not want that person in our lives.
Thanks again, for bringing this back up Libelle!!!
Dear Oxy:
Get your biggest skillet out HOLd it up and I’ll “boink” myself twice. Thanks for the post—-a reminder and a timely piece to keep me safe. I’m proceeding forward. NO CONTACT NO CONTACT. What a mess. Love never felt so bad!!!!!!! LOL
Dear Oxy, you are very welcome!
This article helped me at a time when I was fairly new to the subject and desperately trying to figure out not what had happened with the X but what the hell was wrong with ALL my family who slowly turned out to be a freak show consisting of N/S/P/X/Y/Z???!!! And after I had read about the infamous “inverted narcissist” I thought I was one too! This article helped me sort out those problems fairly well.
I got quite frustrated with the other blog today, mainly because my computer refused to show me all the 800 or so entries, so I could not follow the proceedings of your friend, but then I thought maybe the computer is wise as it is too much for me (not only entrywise).
Triggering, getting too much involved having too little distance (being also petite regarding clothes, being an MD too, although completely in another league, not in the highly competitive testosterone infested surgery department but in internal medicine in a small county hospital, knowing the showmen of the conferences all too well from a frog eye perspective, being too uninteresting for them, and seeing the disaster unfolding at the horizon).
But I have to let it be, it is not my obligation to save the world according to my taste/abilities.
And sometimes we have to do stupid things to wise up better.
According to my favorite quote from Samuel Beckett: “Try, fail, no matter, try again, fail again. Fail better.”
I think the term psychopath does help those who have suffered though- because the gap between psychopaths and normal people is so large.. i think it is a very validating thing when one realizes the person one was involved with had NO CONSCIENCE whatsoever.
I think it IS important also to make the distinction between psychopaths and just plain “assholes” ( which no doubt we should stay away from as well ! ) but i think knowing whether one is dealing with a psychopath or just a plain asshole is important. EITHER WAY one should get out of the situation, of course… but I can’t in all honesty say I feel someone can be a “little” bit psychopathic.. i say you are a psychopath or you’re not. No Question.
I think what we can do is be lenient with the terms Sociopath/ Narcissist/ Psychopath because they’re rather interchangeable- anyway you look at it really, same result : No Empathy.
Some people have described psychopaths as having empathy but NO COMPASSION. From my time here at LoveFraud seeing that all Psychopaths have the “same tricks up their sleeves” it’s not difficult to make the differentiation- although those unexperienced with psychopaths may think they’re dealing with a psychopath just because they have ” a few ” traits which is erroneous.
Lessonlearned mentioned feeling triggered by the lack of distinction. To be honest, I think the distinction is there for a reason. PSYCHOPATHS ARE INHUMAN- normal people have humanity.
Nevertheless our BOUNDARIES should let us know whether we should involve ourselves with a person or not, not “is this person a psychopath or not” because a psychopath will DEFINETELY tread on your boundaries but normal people who aren’t psychopaths but just jerks or don’t practice equality in their relationships will tread on your boundaries well and you should not involve them in your life either… “just because they are not a psychopath”
It’s acknowledgement of the PROFOUND DISCONNECT that is so very validating. As we’ve repeatedly witnessed, they just don’t COME from the same place normal people do… period. They’re like aliens pretending to be human! While the behavior of psychopaths MAY lie on a spectrum ( outwardly manifested.. or manifested within the context of society’s rules )- that spectrum does not include normal people i believe. Your so called “low level” psychopath is JUST as dangerous as your so called “high level” psychopath… just different IQ’s perhaps.. or maybe some are just more successful in keeping under the radar.
Again I just want to stress that psychopath or not, getting them out of your life is crucial if you feel your boundaries are being tread on.. that’s the lesson. However I do think there’s significance in the distinction, as i mentioned before, BECAUSE it is so very profound.
Dear Libelle,
I love that! FAIL BETTER!
Yes, I get frustrated with Petite too sometimes, but she is a big girl and can make her own decisions and take her own lumps. She really is an outstanding and humble woman for all her beauty and accomplishments.
I used to have a joking “debate” with a physician friend of mine whether ONLY PSYCHOPATHS became Neurosurgeons or whether becoming a neurosurgeon made one become a psychopath! I only know one neurosurgeon that I do not think is a complete asshole, if not a psychopath.
My physician friend was the head of the large famous hospital’s ethics board and also the medical director of my unit that I managed. I was constantly complaining to the ethics boards of some HORRIBLE and UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR to patients and staff from the neurosurgeons and my physician friend was having to continually, it seemed, defend me for being an advocate for the staff and patients. I was very pleased that he was a very honest young man and diplomatic as well, and very assertive, and this was decades ago when Physicians were “gods” in large hospitals, especially neurosurgeons, and nurses had to bow and scrape and “suck it up” when they were abused by the surgeons. LOL
Things have changed somewhat but not entirely as I am sure you know. LOL Petite is not only a respected surgeon in her field world wide, but humble about it as well which is quite rare I think.
Dear Dancy,
I agree with some of what you are saying and respectfully disagree with you as well. BloggerT and I have had a debate going for some time now about the “inhumanity” of psychopaths and how we style “them” as NOT human.
I was in your “corner” in my opinion for quite some time, but he has convinced me that I am, in de-humanizing them am acting like Hitler did to the Jews by de-humanizing them, therefore it is “okay” to persecute them or treat them badly because “they are not humans”
When we de-humanize them, we are objectifying them in the same way they do us, which is what WE CRITICIZE ABOUT THEM.
So I have changed my tune on this, and I think BloggerT is right, and that my self-righteous stance that they are “not human” is wrong.
They may lack a conscience, or they may lack compassion, or they may fail to bond to other humans, but they are still HUMAN. A child born without a brain inside its skull is still HUMAN. (ancephalic) It can’t think above the level of a snake’s “thinking” (it has a brain stem like a snake) but it is HUMAN. We don’t kill it and harvest the organs for transplant, we don’t smother it and make it die so we don’t have to care for it, because it is human, though it is incapable of bonding to others, it is incapable of even really reacting much.
PSYCHOPATHS are also human I think, and have the same rights as any “human” has, HOWEVER, that does not mean that they should not be held accountable for their bad behavior, for their criminal behavior and locked away forever. I hope my psychopathic son is kept in prison until he takes his last breath.
I don’t relate to him as my “son” any more, I can’t say I love him, and there have been times when I too HATED HIM with a passion, would have killed him myself if I could have, wished him dead, but he is human, he deserves to be treated as a human, even if a flawed and dangerous one. Doesn’t mean that I would not kill him if I was forced to by self defense, I would. But it would not be because he is NOT HUMAN. It is because I have a right and an obligation to defend myself from any threat, human or non-human.
It took BloggerT a long time to cut through my resistance on the “us” vs. “them” beliefs and opinions that I held dear. Just like I have changed my mind on capitol punishment, not because I think it is wrong to put a murderer to death, in fact, I DO think it is right to do so,, however, I don’t trust our “system” of justice enough to get the RIGHT person in the electric chair or on the gurney. Too many times innocent people have been convicted and are beinG released as INNOCENT by good DNA evidence that proves they did NOT DO what they were convicted of.
I’ve been reading lately about Ken McElroy, a man who I believe was a psychopath of the worst sort of bully, who was murdered by an entire town in 1981 (google this interesting case) and the town clammed up and Not even the FBI could find out which two or more citizens pulled the triggers that killed Ken who had terrorized the town for over a decade. McElroy had driven the people to dehumanize him because he kept getting off and the law wouldn’t/couldn’t stop him, and even the state cops were afraid of him. While I understand WHY these people did what they did, in order to do it, they had to de-humanize this man and to take the law into their own hands, and without THE RULE OF LAW we are nothing.
I have also been frustrated as heck when the “law” didn’t help me with my son in the beginning…and he went on to kill. I know Witsend was frustrated that the law didn’t help her either with her son, or the school.
But de-humanizing them, regardless of their bad/horrible behaviors I don’t think does US any good, and that is 180 degree reversal from my previous stance on it. They DO need to be restrained and controlled though, and that is NOT a reversal!
Oxy,
can we experiment on them, you know, for the good of humanity?
🙂
Dear Sky,
I think unfortunately there is a LARGE social experiment going on with the “politically correct” treatment of “offenders’ as it is, by giving them repeat chances and not locking them up long term.
I support Reform of our IN-“justice” system, but I don’t expect it. I support reform of our drug laws in this country too, but I don’t expect that either.
As things are I guess I’ll just have to wait until I am dictator, and things may not be better, but they will be DIFFERENT! Vote for Oxy for DICTATOR!!!! LOLROTFLMAO
YES! OXY FOR DICTATOR! QUEEN OXY!
HER ROYAL MAJESTY, OXY, HEREBY DECREES A BAN ON SOCIOPATHS!
oh well, one can dream…
Hello,
I was disussing this with my husband today. It makes me feel bad to feel such hatred of this woman! She uses and abuses, gets on state health care (for free of course), gets on social security disability, and goes on her merry way wreaking havoc and lying. She never has to pay for the pain she causes nor does she care. I was thinking of turning her in for social security fraud.
Anyway, These people have a human body but don’t share the emotions of humans, wth? They are operating at the level of “caveman” emotionally which makes them dangerous. That makes me laugh cause after she robbed us, I put up a video camera outside and she said I was violating her civil rights… It’s ok for her to violate us, but god forbid you go after her…Ugh Also, many people may not be psychopaths, but alot of them are “assholes” I’ve totally lost trust in people. I’m all over the place today as you can see. I’m still reading and learning and I feel so TIRED! Why can’t I let this go?