Research into sociopathy/psychopathy has made a great deal of progress over the last 30 years. Even so, there is much that research does not address. For example, sociopaths are described as callous, lacking in empathy and without remorse for their hurtful actions. These sterile descriptors always fall short of really conveying the evil of the disordered.
A good 6 months before the Madoff story broke, I began a project to connect with the family members of professional con artists. The purpose of this project is to document the within family behavior of con artists and to link that “profession” to psychopathic personality traits. I have had good success connecting with family members and the exchange of information has been healing all around.
One con artist is in prison for affinity fraud- the use of a church, or other social connection to perpetrate fraud. This man was good at pretending to be a great “Christian” and used his church affiliation to swindle people. There is no doubt he is highly psychopathic as this is his second prison term and the descriptions given by his ex-wife are that of a classic sociopath.
Like many con artists, this man also has children. One of his daughters is the same age (within a couple of weeks) as my eldest daughter; she just turned 18. I spoke with this young lady with the permission of her mother and have had an ongoing dialogue with her. She wanted to talk to me because she was taking psychology in high school and had figured out on her own that her father is a sociopath.
This young lady is such a gem, so I’ll call her Gem here. She is smart, lovely and kind-hearted. In her own way she has been coming to grips with the reality that her father is incapable of love. He wasn’t physically violent but he has been callous, lacking in empathy and emotionally abusive toward everyone in the family. There I go with the adjectives that describe a sociopath.
Researchers are puzzled by the phenomenon of empathy in sociopaths. Although sociopaths seem to know all too well what others are thinking and feeling, they don’t respond in a normal way to what they know. Instead, they use their knowledge of others to manipulate. When the manipulation is perpetrated on a child or vulnerable teen/ young adult it is especially evil.
Gem shared with me the birthday communication she received from her imprisoned father. With her permission, I share it with you. She and I both hope this example will help other family members heal and move on. When I read the card, I was outraged and knew immediately the effect it had on my young friend. Without a lengthy explanation, a person ignorant of sociopaths would never “get it” regarding the manipulation I saw as blatant manipulation. Here is what the card said:
” My sweet baby girl, I miss you and love you very much. Happy 18th birthday. It seems like yesterday I held this little tiny baby with the biggest most beautiful eyes. I have so many great memories of you, handfuls of dog food, pretty little dresses. You played soccer but hated it. You danced and laughed your way into everyone’s heart. You are all a father could ever ask for in a daughter. I pray for you every day. May you find the best in life as you begin your adult life. I hope your dreams come true. You’re wonderful, beautiful, and always will be my little girl. God bless you.
Love Dad”
OK an ignorant person reading this would say, “What a sweet, nice card, to get from a father.” This communication might also be cited as an example of how hard it is for the kids of the imprisoned to be separated from their loving parents who made, “mistakes in life.”
A person who really knows sociopaths would react with outrage as I did. I know that just a few short months before this card, the father in question stole money from his ex-wife. Money she was using to take care of Gem, his little girl. Furthermore, all during Gem’s childhood he was conning people including family members out of their money. He never had any real connection to Gem. She never felt he loved or wanted her. This card in my view was pure evil, why? because it preyed upon this beautiful Gem, a young lady who always wished for a real father.
When she sent me what her father had written, I responded, “I am speechless over that card, it must represent everything you wish he would have said to you your whole life. I hope you keep it and believe in your heart, mind and soul that this is what YOU DESERVE always and forever from your parents and your boyfriend/future husband.”
Here is what Gem said in response to my interpretation, “it did just trigger something in me that just made me cry. I couldn’t help but break down and cry after reading that because I HAVE always wanted to hear that from a father-figure but now… it’s too late.”
This con artist, bored in prison is writing cards, hoping for some entertaining responses, while his family is working to heal, make sense of it all, and move on. The words of the card, if left unchecked by reality, delay the moving on that is so important. Gem is off to college next fall and is moving on to a great life that she will make for herself.
It is only my personal knowledge of sociopaths and how they operate that enabled the correct interpretation of the birthday card. Please feel free to share your own examples of a sociopath’s manipulation of your emotions. Particularly useful are examples of a sociopath’s use of words that are superficially appropriate, but very inappropriate given the specific circumstances.
Dear Newlife,
My dear, everything you are feeling is NORMAL AND NATURAL, and we all want VALIDATION, we would NOT be normal if we didn’t. But you know, unfortunately so many people ENABLE the Ps by socially pretending that “we are a nice normal family” when one of the “family” is an OBVIOUS MONSTER. My Uncle Monster was that way, he beat, abused, held at gun point and TERRORIZED his x wife and kids for YEARS AND YEARS AFTER THE DIVORCE and yet, both my egg donor and her parents pretending when he was around that EVERYTHING WAS LOVELY and that he was OK. In fact, if they had done the right thing, they would have CEASED all contact with him and told him to go fly a kite! Instead, they blamed his X wife for not bringing the kids around US. Well, hell, why would she want to bring the kids around the VERY people who ENABLED her abuser?
When her youngest daughter got married in a huge society wedding that was going to be a 3-page spread in the state newspaper, we were not even informed she was engaged until my grandmother received a call, THE MORNING OF THE WEDDING, because they knew and said, they didn’t want us to find out by the Sunday paper, but it was for the purpose of not letting the girl’s father, my Uncle Monster find out in advance of the wedding, getting drunk and showing up at the service. At the time, I was hurt, and so was my GM but you know, in retrospect, they did the RIGHT THING. Because sure as shoot, if he had known in advance he would have TURNED UP to spoil it.
Newlife, you KNOW HE IS A LIAR, you know that he is a MONSTER, and you KNOW he gets off on upsetting you. It may take ALL your strength and resolve, but DON’T LET HIM SEE THAT, DEPRIVE HIM OF HIS SATISFACTION.
Plus, don’t take to heart what he said to you about “just because i wanted to have sex with you….etc.” because they would have sex with a snake if it would stansd still. They are incapable of loving anyone. You, unfortunately, were nothing to him but a MAID AND A HOUSEKEEPER, as far as sex was concerned, you might as well have been a self-animated and heated BLOW UP DOLL for his pleasure. All any of them do is to mastrabate with their paartner’s body–it isn’t making love, it is mastrabation with a living creature and it might as well have been an animal as far as they are concerned. Sorry for getting so graphic, but it is the unfortunate truth.
The horrible part is too, NewLife, is that they LOOK SO MUCH LIKE A HUMAN!!! Do you remember the movie, the Stepford Wives? That is what they want and when we don’t turn out to be that kind of robot, they move on to the next victim.
I hope you can get your financial due and then some, but even if you don’t, just be glad that you are OUT OF HIS CLUTCHES and out of HIS BED.
I know that thimgs must be horrible for you right now, but you are feeling pain because you are a caring and kind person. He feels no pain emotinally because he CAN’T feel anything. He can’t feel even the love for his children. HOW SAD AND PITIFUL IS THAT. Can you even imagine how EMPTY is soul (if he has one) is? I would rather be the victim than the psychopath! (((hugs)))) and all my prayers for your strength! Oxy
Newlife, sorry for not responding sooner. I got caught up in work and another thread here.
There’s so much in your post. But I agree with you. Shame is a great place to start.
From my own experience in sorting out the emotional repercussions of my relationships with my ex, and then looking at the other issues that brought up, shame always seems to be this thing — like a yapping dog down at the center of my being that stands in any doorway I think about walking through. Barking, whining, growling, snapping, howling over its injured paw, rolling over on its back to seduce me with how it really loves me and I’m really the boss. But it keeps me from getting through that door.
If that doesn’t make sense, try this. Why is it more clear to you how much you enjoyed the approval of your ex’s family than the satisfaction you get from running a nice household, having a steady job where you’re appreciated, and bringing up healthy, well-adjusted kids? In other words, why do you have to get your approval second hand?
This was something I finally figured out about myself. If I was very, very nice and good and generous to someone, they were supposed to give me positive attention so I would feel good about myself. It was very, very expensive feedback. (I mean, I could have just hired people to call me every few hours and tell me what a good job I was doing. Or given my clients a discounts if they’d agree to get their underlings to do this. It would have been a lot less expensive and certainly less embarrassing than trying to get strokes from my ex.)
I think about this now, and I just want to bang my head against the wall. What was wrong with me?
But this is not your story, exactly. Because you were being a good wife. Fulfilling all the requirements that were laid out in Good Housekeeping, Family Circle and (before we were married) Cosmo. So that you earned your gold stars from whoever gives wives gold stars. And you deserved even more than the usual gold stars, because you were married to the iconic useless, selfish husband. And you figured that someday, someone, maybe God when you got to heaven, would give you credit for all this.
Am I being to flip here? I hope this makes you laugh a little. Or if not, just figure I’m talking about myself. Because that was me too. Except for one very brief relationship, there has never been a man in my life that I didn’t basically support, while I was being the perfect sex bunny, and also responsible for everything else. And wringing my proverbial hands, because I couldn’t figure out what I had to do to make them “really” love me.
And why didn’t I just put my demands for the relationship on the table and tell them to ante up or get out of my life? Because that wasn’t in my internal catalog of Kathy-Barbie dolls. There was no Barbie doll that told Ken to straighten up or get lost. If I did that I would be an outcast from Ken-and-Barbie land.
Of course, it wasn’t that simple, but no one in my life ever taught me that what I wanted and what I saw around me and the two-and-two that I put together was more real than anything anyone else could tell me. The closest they ever came was telling me that I was selfish or thoughtless or ambitious or was going to get beaten or taken to the orphanage, etc. for even beginning to think like that.
So where does that leave us? Oh, yeah, you feeling ashamed and wondering if you forgot to do something. Or weren’t the total Perfect Barbie. And feeling bad because, gosh, no one seems to remember how hard you tried, because they’re getting bought off or because they’re his family and are going to have to live with him.
Here’s the brutal truth. People take care of themselves. Everyone that is, except you. And the rest of us who became convinced that someone else’s opinion or wellbeing was more important than ours. They make alliances that work for them, they make the compromises they have to make to get what they want, but ultimately they are committed to themselves.
Does this sound like a sociopathic perspective? It is and it isn’t. Sociopaths think like this, but they are also emotional cripples who don’t experience the pleasures of collaborative building — friendships, marriages, businesses, communities. So they’re not long-sighted at all. Everything is gimme, gimme.
Healthy people think like this, but they also recognize that their lives are better with connections based on trust and affection. So they balance their me-ness with us-ness.
Where does shame fit into this? Shame is an us-ness feeling that is largely associated — especially in chronic, non-productive shame — with a weak me. If you’re not feeling insecure about your relationship with the world, you’re feeling insecure about your relationship with yourself. Your self-approval generator is broken, along with your ability to feel secure in your self-interest.
So what to do? If I were you, I’d start practicing saying “f**k him if he can’t take a joke” in the mirror. I’d look over at your husband’s house and start laughing at what an absolute moron he is. If you doubt that, think about the fact that he gave up you, the kids and any semblance of financial stability to be with this poor misguided woman (the latest in the chain of fools) who is going to be penniless with him. I realize that this may not sound sane or helpful. But you need to rediscover that woman who laughs at other people’s idiocy and your own. It’s okay to laugh. And unbelievably empowering. And shameless.
Sadness is easy. Shame is also easy. Pride in ourselves is tough. It means taking a chance that we’re wrong. Even if we are wrong, it’s a lot easier to find out, when we’re capable of going “oops” and stepping over the mess, than when we’re inclined to lie down and stare at the ceiling for two weeks. It also means standing up to other people’s opinions, recognizing that people just project whatever junk is in their heads. It has nothing to do with you.
You are a brave, beautiful, awake, positive, far-sighted woman who realizes the value of herself and is willing to share relationships with people who are interesting, but not necessary. Can you imagine that? Well, I’m imagining it for you. And I’m planting the idea in your brain, so it can suck up all the swampy stuff in there and grow into a beautiful flowering tree of that stands solidly in its knowledge of itself.
Actually, that’s not even the real truth of it. That woman actually exists in there in another level of your psyche. She’s looking around right now, laughing at this whole thing, thinking about how much fun all this drama is, and wondering when you’re going to find her.
I wouldn’t tell you that, if I didn’t think you were going to find her soon. If I didn’t think that maybe today or tomorrow you were going to be surprised when you look in the mirror, maybe while you’re brushing your teeth, and just crack up laughing. You can’t hang out with her all the time. You’ve got to come back and slog through this mess, getting this jerk out of your life and stripping him of every cent you can get. But just knowing she’s there is going to change things for you, make you a lot more shameless.
And if you can’t think of any other way to find her, just start laughing. You can do this. Just laugh at nothing at all. It may bring you to tears, but they’ll be good tears. The right tears for the young woman you were and her hopeful dreams. She was a baby, and you love her. But you’re a grown-up now. And you’re going to find the fun in this.
I don’t know why I’m so sure, but I just am. I’ve been reading you since you came to LoveFraud. And I have a really strong feeling about you.
Kathy
Dear, dear KAthy and OXY,
Even though I am 52 and you are probably younger than me or maybe close to my age, I feel you are giving me the wisdom and courage that should come from my own mother -but she is unable and always has been. I am so very lucky to have found this site, and my wise counselor – I can’t imagine not coming here to get my head straight when it starts to spin.
I do believe you – I have to become repsonsible for my own emotional well being. I have always deferred to others and gained my strength from loving and nurturing others. I felt as you said so eloquently – they would very simply love me back.
But it has never been so – and I guess I will now go through the pains of learning from my mistakes.
I did laugh -smile, KAthy – at the jerk he is and what he has lost. It is when I think of her and him that I lose it.
When I think of the financial slippery slope I am on after working hard all my life -two jobs years ago to get ahead of his child support – and think how he is so willing to destroy me before he gives me what is fair – I really hate him.
To think he would rather see our kids NOT enjoy their NJ shore house most likely for the last season by not paying the gas bill – he is just beyond description.
If I can think of a way to bathe in hot water – we are going anyway!!! I can cook here and use the microwave or electric fry pan – I DO NOT want to let him stop our vacation.
But I just can’t take a cold shower for a week straight.
If anyone camps and has a remedy – I’m listening!!!!
By the way, I am coming to understand the great respect Steve has for the bloggers and writers here – it is a sanctuary of comfort.
Oh let’s see. I lived in Spain without hot water for years.
What people do in the rest of the world is heat water on the stove, put in the sink to wash their hair. Wash the necessary areas and use deodorant. You going to be going swimming anyway.
Isn’t there an outdoor shower for the salt rinse-off? You could get a camp shower to hang from it. This is basically a big can with a flap you pull with a rope to let the water sprinkle out. You fill it with warm water, and you can heat that on the stove. Or leave the can out in the sun while you go out to swim.
You can do a lot with a crock pot, rice cooker or an electric pressure cooker. My gas ran out last year, when the snow was too deep for a propane delivery. I used my electric pressure cooker without the lid for a sauce pan, and did everything in it that I didn’t do in my toaster oven. It heated water faster than the stove did. If you don’t have a grill down there, you can also buy one of those cheap mini-Weber style grills and do all your meat and most of your vegetables on that. Wet the vegetables, wrap them flat in foil with some butter and lemon juice and let them steam beside the burgers.
And if you can possibly help it, enjoy what you have. If you think you’re going to lose it, enjoy it all the more. What would you do if you knew you were going to die next week? Waste your time moping? I doubt it. Have a good time. Do things you never would have dreamed of doing with that millstone around your neck.
You’re still thinking too much about what he thinks. Or what he’s doing. This is your life. Not his. And if you want to stop feeling miserable, you have to take your life back. He was a chapter, that’s all. You’re not in that chapter anymore. That one started well and ended badly. You’re in the next chapter where you finish with him. It’s starts rocky, but ends well. And you’re halfway through it.
And no, we’re not younger than you. I’m 60, and Oxy’s around my age. And we’re both mothers, and we both did a lot of it by ourselves.
No question, we’ve been getting over this longer than you. So a lot of what I’m saying to you is from a place you haven’t gotten to yet. But you will look back at this as the days when you became the woman that you’re going to be for the rest of your life.
Namaste, honey. It’s going to get a lot better.
Kathy
Thanks, KAthy . I am going to round up the electric appliances !!!!!
Good nite and what more can I say than a heartfelt thanks for today .
I got a chance to hear him speak today. he was referring to me as one would to one of many dinners. “yeah, I’ve dined there, the fish was too salty”. It was absolutely crazy and terrifying to hear him speak of others: “they come after me, I am the super-guy, can’t help it”. Every problem we’ve had, every argument we’ve had was obviously my fault (sorry, Lukes, but “Luke-spoken”). It is surreal to still feel victimized by something so obviously sick and pathetic. But, I miss him terribly still… and I cry, knowing that I will never feel that symbiosis Matt was referring to. I second your thought, Oxy. Will you give it a try with my flowery letters? I’d love to get a laugh at my P’s expense. May I post one?
newlife08:
At our place in Greece the hotwater heater is so small it may as well be nonexistent. We all shower outdoors ala camp showers. Remember those? Grit your teeth, get wet. Turn off the water. Lather up. Rinse. Hell, the walter is so saline anyhow I may as well bathe in the ocean. As for cooking, God invented barbeques for a reason. Enjoy the vacation.
My sociopath said “I love you with all my heart and we are going to have a wonderful life together, nothing will ever get in our way…”about an hour before he left me penniless and ill in a motel room 9 hours from home. Never to be seen or heard from again, and now I realize that his leaving was his gift to me. Not a gift given in love, to be sure, but a gift nonetheless. It would irk him to know that his efforts to hurt me by leaving have saved me. Of course there is the part of me that still wishes she could believe that in every human lies the capacity to love and that even he knew the only way to show me that he was at least part human was to set me free. Right or wrong, thinking of it this way has helped me save my faith in mankind. He took a lot from me but dammit he can’t have that…..
Here is a copy of a letter from my STBXP sent in response to copying a communication concerning him taking MY premarital property to my attorney.
PS he was sleeping around on me and got a girl pregnant just months before our wedding!!!!!!
Banana,
I would like to first thank you for sending me that e-mail on 06/07/09. I was a little taken back at first. One because you got your attorney involved, and two you always stated that you were not a materialistic person. So therefore I didn’t give a response till now. I woke up at 3am out of a dead sleep saying to myself “what do I say— (Too your e-mail) and saying to myself “I got it—
Where to start”. Well Banana’s attorney nice too meet you, and congrats on being a Lawyer. I would like to share a little of my side of the story. Take it as you please” Banana and I met and it was love at first sight. I met her parents and it wasn’t so “love at first sight”. The 3rd visit I do believe her mother stated “Banana what are you doing with this guy” “what are you doing” what a great start that was. Anyway despite what they thought I was not going to stop feeling for her because the way her mother was. So in short from that day forward things were awkward for all parties. Banana’s Attorney mind you my childhood was far from great” My parents always put me down told me that “I will never be what I wanna be”. So now I have her parents thinking like my parents did and still do” Not a great feeling. So I stayed headstrong and said to myself “I’ll show them”. So I’m thinking I can do this, mind you this is not the first time parents have done this to me. But the last time it did happen, I let her go. Once again I was not good enough for their daughter. Sounds like a pity party doesn’t it” Well banana’s attorney just trying to give you some insight of what has happened to me in the past to give you some idea on why things went south. Then Banana and I got married on 07/07/07 what a perfect day for a great occasion. Then banana became pregnant approximately 3 months after our wedding (H KNEW HE WAS DOING THIS>>>I DID NOT). Carried our son for those long 10 months and then gave birth to Son on 06/12/08” (WRONG DATE) What a day that was. I was so proud of her, and what she did.. Banana is one tough woman and I really look up to her for that. Anyway” During our relationship and our marriage Banana would do the things that would make me feel “not good enough” like her parents my parents and other parents did. Like constantly saying to me “go to college” but I kind of knew that was her mom in her ear” Or telling me to find another job. I was feeling like wow what about me! I’m me P hello” I just wanted to be loved for me. Not money or for what I did for a career, or for not speaking right. Banana hated that my English is not always proper. When I spoke slang our I didn’t pronounce words correctly she always reminded me of that. Have you ever been in a room and you’re talking and no one is listening, well that’s how it was. I would talk and it would be like “ya right” blah blah blah” I felt so distant and alone. It didn’t help Banana never really stood up for me either with my mom or her own. Say hay look you need to stop he is my husband.
Well I completely agree with what you’re thinking “Banana doesn’t deserve to be cheated on”. I agree 100 %. What I did was wrong, very wrong. But I can say I was honest and came forward. As far as me going back and forth 4 times, like we all haven’t been in a situation where no matter what you did was wrong. I wanted so much for Banana but didn’t know how to give it after I did what I did. I came Back and forth for her and my son. banana’s attorney I don’t know if you have children but, I love my son very much. By me being hurt and confused for my wife has nothing to do with me loving my child. Why is it that when parents are in this situation the “HURT” or “VICTIM” will put the kid in the middle like this situation. My son does not deserve to be away from me because of my decisions. I have never and would never hurt my child. I have ruined my marriage yes, but not my relationship with my son. So Banana all I’m asking is keep our son out of this. He is the innocent one in this. Remember people act out when they are hurting and don’t know what to do or say. I have never and would never put son in the middle never. He deserves a Mom and a Dad. Just because we didn’t get along or stay together doesn’t mean one should suffer more than the other. Banana also threatens me with I’m being “manipulative”. How about that I’m confused, hurt, scared, ect. I can’t be a Dad because I’m manipulative! So I take it that she would be a good Mom for taping my conversations, and when she hears something she doesn’t like she can walk in a bedroom punch me about the head and face. (WHEN I HEARD P AND OW HAVING SEX IN MY HOUSE) Is that safe for my child to around. So when Banana does something wrong does that mean banana has the right too hit son in the face several times. NO ONE deserves to be puched about the face for any reason other then to defend thereselves. Anyway the whole matter of this is, Banana you can have all of your belongings. I see how much energy and time you have put into getting them back. Copied receipts, e-mailing everyone. But you have our son, and you put him in the middle”. How fair is that. Your too consumed by your anger to think about what you’re doing to Our innocent child!! banana while you’re at it Can you put a price tag on our son? Son is our son, He is my first thought, and your worried about a lamp, a bike, and a buggy.. Anything else you would like! I don’t want this to continue. I would like to be adults and work this out for our sons sake. So please stop and think. Once again for the record I am very sorry for what I have done to you. I can’t change it, but one thing I will do Is take care of myself and our son. I hope you can get past this too..
PS: HE LATER TOLD THE COURTS THAT I THREATENED HE”D NEVER SEE HIS SON AGAIN AND TAHT WAS WHY HE CAME BACK 4 TIMES.
Banana: I am so sorry for what you are going through.
As for this e-mail… someone pass me the sick bucket!! I am always so astounded at the similarities in the way they talk… their twisting everything round to try and make THEM seem the victim… yet they CANNOT hide their sense of entitlement!.