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.)
Libelle
Awsome!
Star Do they make a cast IRON Snake Hook!!? :)~ LOVE JJ
Healing Heart:
That’s the problem — therapists who just do not get it. I saw mine the other day and told him I had posted on this site. I told him how helpful the bloggers on this site had been. He started the “if you would come in more often, our therepeutic relationship would allow you to yada yada yada.”
I finally stopped him cold and told him bluntly “Have you ever been victimized by a sociopath? Have you ever had your life turned upside down by one? Because if you haven’t you don’t have a clue what it’s about. You can read all the medical texts you want and you will still never get it.”
He sat quietly and then finally said “Your the third patient I’ve got who has said exactly the same thing. What is the name of that site you posted on? Maybe I can start to understand.”
Maybe he’s just placating me by saying what he did. After all, when times are tough, people don’t go to their dermatologists, they sit around and scratch, and they don’t go to their shrinks, they order a drink and talk to te bartender. But, I like to think that maybe he’s finally realized that if you haven’t been there you cannot relate.
Hey Everybody….I’m a little sheepish at admitting this, but I am a therapist. And we are NOT trained about what its like to be in a relationship with a sociopath, or the nature and extent of the horrible aftermath. I was totally fooled by my S, and totally unprepared and flabberghasted by the trauma and wreckage left behind after the break up. I was going to say “after the experience,” but clearly, it ain’t over. Even though I haven’t seen him since early August, I’m still in the muck. And I am a trained clinician. One of my specialties is diagnosis. What we are not trained in – is that the “Antisocial Personality Disordered” individual comes off as anything BUT that. They come off as unusually kind, perceptive, compassionate. I only had an eye out for sinister characters with dark hats and crooked smiles.
My therapist – who is a highly experienced and well-esteemed clinician in the area (I had to pull some strings to get an appointment with her), does not get it. It’s clear. She thinks I’m “thinking in black and white” and “pathologizing” him by saying things like he’s “a sociopath” and “he’s evil.” She thinks that with treatment, he might get better. He’s been in treatment for years – and its made him a better sociopath. He now can use psycho-babble to explain his behavior, and repeatedly refers to the trauma in his childhood as what “makes” him to what he does. It gives him a great excuse which he uses, expertly, in his pity plays. He does have trauma. Bad trauma. But most pleople have some trauma, and most with bad trauma are not Sociopaths. They may be troubled, but there’s a big difference between troubled and sociopathic behavior.
I think it is dangerous that therapists don’t get it. It doesn’t help us. And I’m a therapist who DIDN’T GET IT until it happened to me. It truly is so horrendous, what these monsters do, and how the victims “let it happen” that it is unbelievable. I think you simply can’t get it unless you have experienced it.
My therapist bristled, too, when I told her I had started blogging. She used to worry when I brought up how much I was reading the sight. She said it was “obsessive” and “akin to addiction.” I know that it saved my life.
She is an excellent therapist, really. I’m not bashing her as a therapist. In fact, its scary to me that she can be so experienced and skilled, and held in such regard, and doesn’t understand what a sociopath does to his/her victims. I’m glad, for her as a human, that she hasn’t experienced it. Maybe I should open a speciality practice in helping people like us. I have more healing to do, however. I’m not there yet. Thank you, folks, for being here with me.
Hello Healing Heart:
I’m sorry for your pain, but I am GLAD that you can admit this because, more than most, you can appreciate how they can fool ANYONE!
In my own recovery process, first of all I had to forgive myself for being fooled so badly for so long. I still struggle with my own betrayal of myself — how could I not have known?!! I flinch when I start to trust someone, wondering if I’m fooling myself again, and trusting someone who doesn’t deserve my trust.
About your experience with your own therapist, I think one BIG factor is that the therapist is trained to look at the person in the room as the person with the problem. They aren’t trained to consider that the person in the room for therapy is there because they are the mutilated result of the behavior of of truly disordered personality who is not only not in the room, but somewhere out there merrily violating new victims.
I believe that you understand, better than most, the need for education about this issue not only among the general public, but among the mental health professionals. Part of my pain is that I was further harmed by one trained counselor — at a battered women’s shelter, no less — who said to me, “Well, have you tried to talk to him?”
If a person doesn’t “get it,” they really, really don’t “get it!”
Hi Rune – yes, I that’s right “they are trained to look at the person in the room as the person with the problem.” Absolutely. That was a challenge for me with both my friends and my therapist while I was still in the relationship. I’d be trying to get support, and people would ask me “What’s your part in this? How can you communicate better?” and even say things like “you need to worry less about his behavior and be more concerned with your part of the dynamic.” Normally that’s useful advice. But when someone is in a relationship with a sociopath, its the worst advice! We need to see them for what they are, STOP doubting, judging, ourselves, and get the hell out.
What your counselor said to you at the battered women’s shelter is awful. She’s probably a kind person if she’s working in a shelter (at least I hope), but honestly, that was a dumbass thing for her to say.
Also – I like what you said about overcoming the betrayal of yourself – I think that’s what really matters. That’s the problem. Not everybody gets sucked in and held onto by these guys, its only those of us who are kind, generous, and willing to betray ourselves.
Rune:
Question: “Well, have you tried to talk to him?”
Answer: Only until I was blue in the face you dumb ass!
My therapist helped me tremendously picking up the pieces after 9/11 and with other big issues. However, when I think of the hours and weeks and months and money ($225 a pop) I wasted — yes wasted with my therapist discussing S, it makes me sick. Yes, it was a pittance compared to what I shelled on S, but I am still angry.
When things were reaching their nadir with S and I knew I was going down, I told him that I didn’t think his approach was working and suggested cognitive therapy — go in, define the problem, be told these are your choices, and in 25 sessions or less get to where you’re going.
I know that’s a little simplistic, but by the time we’re in a therapist’s office because of our relationship with a sociopath, we are way past the point of discussing our feelings. To be perfectly blunt, we know something is extremely wrong, but we can’t describe it, because we have no frame of reference.
Hell, anybody who doesn’t have experience dealing with sociopaths would think we’re making it up. In my case I literally needed somebody to grab me by the collar and tell me exactly what they saw I was in the middle of.
My S kept giving lip service to the idea of going into therapy. I got him the names of clinics, doctors, residency programs, etc and all I got was “it’s on my list.” The week I managed to get his eviction stayed he even played the “you’re right, I need to see someone” card just to make sure I didn’t yank the trip off the table.
The night of our last encounter when he was cataloging my list of sins, transgressions, failures, etc he brought up the fact that I had been trying to get him into therapy. In particular he said “And when you handed me the name of the person handling the resident’s program at X Hospital? Well, one of my exes made me go there. And it was worthless!”
When I told my therapist that he said “Oh, so he’s persona non grata at our place.” That starts to clear up the picture. He was right, although not for the reason he thought. It cleared up the picture because until that moment I could never understand how good he was at using psycho-babble and playing the “childhood trauma card”. It was then that I finally saw that he used the psychology/psychiatry profession to his own advantage.
So, I am in complete agreement with any mental health professional who says that their profession needs to be educated.
Hmmmm…I wonder if there are therapists who specialize in working with people like us. Your story, Matt, with your therapist (and you’ve written about this a couple times) is so much like mine. It’s alarming to me as a client and a therapist. My own therapy worked against me, at times, where the relationship with the S was concerned. And Rund, like you aptly put it, the problem was that my therapist kept looking at what was wrong with me in this situation – how my thoughts/behaviors/attitudes were flawed. The only way they were flawed was that they weren’t stronger, sooner. She eventually agreed that I should have NC, but not until he started stalking me, and it was clear, from a legal perspective, that he was a bad guy. But I really don’t think she believed that what I was reporting was true.
I can’t blame her – it was absolutely absurd and outrageous.
The profession does need to get in gear with this, absolutely. It sounds like therapists may be doing more damage than help. Maybe I can help do something about this – maybe that’s one way I can make sense of the “whys” of this experience. Maybe I can help my profession help people like us.
Oh – Matt, therapy was a decidely negative thing for my ex S. It did not help him, and it definitely, absolutely, made him a more skilled sociopath. He could throw around psycho-babble like there’s no tomorrow, and seemed to use it to better rationalize his behaviors to himself and others. I don’t know how we treat these guys – but I don’t think therapy is the way to go.
Healing Heart:
No, therapy isn’t the way to go. Drawing and quartering is.
To any therapist on board:
I am curious as to what kind of training a therapist actually “does” receive in school or continuing ed courses about sociopaths and psychopaths? From reading posts it really sounds as if a layperson who has taken the time to read several books on socios or psychopaths, even if they haven’t been involved personally with one, might actually have more knowledge than a therapist in this area. And for those people who have actually been involved with a socio or psycho and then read up on them, it sounds like they would have mega knowledge as compared to a therapist……And my second questions is, why aren’t therapist receiving more training in this area?