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.
P.S.
“I personally don’t want to dirty my hands or my soul in harming him. Or in paying someone else to do that dirty work”
I can’t wait to get to that stage!!!
Yesterday I sent e-mail to Rosa specifically requesting that she refrain from further attacks on MariaLisa. She has not honored my request.
I also sent email to MariaLisa apologizing for the rude treatment that she has received here on Lovefraud. If she did not feel up to posting any further – which I certainly understand – I invited her to e-mail me directly with any questions.
I did receive the “report abusive comment” for Rosa’s post above. I agree that the comment is abusive. However, I have decided to let it stand because of the responses by other Lovefraud members.
My policy at Lovefraud is that I do not want to see bloggers attacking each other. I again ask all members of Lovefraud to honor the policy.
As a side note – I also received “report abusive comment” for the comment by Tom the Domestic Violence advocate on the Dr. Donald G. Dutton thread. I have not removed that comment because, even though some people found his views to be offensive, he did not attack any individual at Lovefraud.
Thank you, Donna, for letting us know about what happens when we push the “abuse” button. Just knowing that you’re there and paying attention is a comforting thing.
Kathy
Donna, I know that you know my position on that Tom guy. I respectfully agree to disagree with you and thats ok.But I do feel although he didnt target a individual person here by name- it was the an altogether attack against women in how he presented his comments with such aggression which was highly abusive from where I sit. BUT worse-
What disappoints me is that such bogus, false statements were made from someone presenting himself as an advocate. My only hope is that if anyone reads his garbage, that they will also read on for “further” statistics from reputable sources- better yet study for themselves rather than bask in “false security” that women fare much better in being LESS likely targets of Domestic violence- when IN FACT women are by a long shot the MAJORITY of the victims with males being the predominate perpetrator in all countries-bar none.
Sigh…oh you sweethearts, don’t you have enough to deal with trying to heal your lovely selves from such awful cruelty, sick and twisted, warped predation from psychopaths without including a clash between two or more injured and hurting members?
LF is what I consider to be a harmonious place of concentrated goodness, kindness, caring and love.
Donna has given all of us the greatest gift in creating this site. She does it because she loves people and doesn’t want them to suffer by offering priceless knowledge, comfort and support.
She could eventually decide she no longer wants to be responsible for maintaining an environment that has become harsh, petty and senseless. I would agree with her. Completely deters from her true purpose in creating it.
Please don’t fight with each other. We have enough on our hands striving to stay the heck away from evil humanoids.
Peace…
To All,
The caotic world that sociopaths created for themselves ended up in a caotic world for those who have crossed their path or being close to them . They instigate rage, hatrated and an umballanced view of life on those who have been in contacted with them. People feel angry, extremely hurt, very vulnerable, with very low self-steem, frustated, extremely vulnerable and with this huge need of airing their pain and grief. Blames roll freely, misinterpretation abounds and if we are not carefull to preserve ourselves we will end up all mad.
This is the world that a sociopath wishes to impose on us, the victms. If we allow this to happen the sociopaths will succeed.
I have been a victm of a S, as well as my 2 children. We lived through it for over 22 years. Finally in despair I managed to break free. Broke free from his physical presence but the hurt continued. Not understanding what I lived through and cultivating all those feelings above described I started my road to recovery. Investigating, reading, researching and thinking a lot and reading all your posts. Through this process I am coming to the conclusion that sociopaths are a result of an unhealth upbringing. To survive they learn how to lie, how to manipulate to overcome the adversities that life brough upon them. They are also the fruits of environments (family) that display traits of sociopaths.
I believe they do not realise what they are doing and do not understand the reasons of their doings, why they are what they are, although they have conciense of what they are doing is not socially acceptable. That is why they have to hide their actions and deceive many people. Somehow deep down they feel ashame of themselfes but they do not have regrets or remorse because they have not learnt what are those feelings. They grow up develeping those skills manipulating, lying, deceiving, robing , using others for their own advantage and survival because they did not learn how to be dignified human beings, and at an adult stage they are very good at what they do.
If happens that the person with all those traits are also a handsome person they also learn how to use their charm and physicall appeal. And that is a lethal combination for someone who falls for them. The S will have a ball…until the day you decide to declare war and jump out from the plane.
Then the S will feel violated and will dishe out his final blow to the victm. And then we all become what we are today. People trying to survive the atrocities of a sociopath. And the sociopath will find greener pastures to start all over again.
Once we develop this awareness I believe we find our cure. The greater our awareness the lesser a chance a sociopath will demage us again, and the S themselves will stay away from us.
And in their pursuit of fame and grandour, once they can not fool us anymore, they start saying bad things about us to make them look good and us the bad ones. But I can assure you they know our values but do not have enough courage to admit to us. (in my case I have proof that the S was the first one to admit and stood up for me saying “she is very intligent, has a lot of power and is uncapable of hurting a fly). This was said by him when he felt ttheathened by a situation far away from me and which I was not supposed to know. (that was also an indication that he was and still have ILLUSION of one day coming back to us).
My point is, I am feeling really strong and at 95% at peace knowing what I know today and I have no bad feelings towards the S which one day tried to destroy me, my life and the life of his own 2 children. I feel nothing, not even sorry for him..and this is a good place to be in.. So the more awareness we develop, the stronger we become.
Brilhancy, beautiful and inspiring! Thank you!
Can’t remember who said it on here (LF) but someone called it the “nirvana of indifference.”
I’m not sure where this idea came from either but someone told me once that “the opposite of love is not hate, it is INDIFFERENCE.” If you hate someone, you are thinking about them constantly, giving them “free rental” in your miind and your soul. Even Anger at someone is notice, it is thinking about them, letting them in your head.
Sure, we feel anger, and maybe even hatred, against the Ps when they injure us, but hopefully we will progress on to the “nirvana of indifference” as we heal, as we use the anger to spur us into action (to get away from them, and to heal ourselves) but at some point (hopefully) I think that we reach that stage of INDIFFERENCE. We know it happened, we do not absolve them of it, but we have taken their lemons and made lermonaid out of it, we are better, wiser and stronger people.
I would like to think I am 100% indifferent, but I know I am not, but at the same time, I am no longer eaten alive by the cancer of wrath, hatred, desire for vengence, etc. and my soul is not continually bathed in the caustic chemicals our body releases when we are under the stress of those hostile feelings for long periods of time.
We can’t change what happened, we can’t change the past, we can only change our REACTIONS to it and how it can effect the rest of our lives. We can ACCEPT what IS, and learn to live in the NOW. Good job, Brihancy!
about writing and letters.
as my spath was via the web, I have a LOT of writing in emails and blogs, and a few pieces she sent me as my boy and his bf.
i really appreciate all that i have learned here in the last bit. i am a quick study and take to languages. 😉
there was always a bit of manipulation in the emails of the ‘boy’, oddities that i would read differently now, given what i have learned. as i have said before ‘weird hides odd’, and he was plenty weird and so was ‘his’ life in the ‘story’. thing is i LIKE weird. a lot. and so, was attracted. but it was a smoke screen. to hide the terrible odd that is this sociopath woman.
a lot of the e’s i got from the bf were angry and manipulative. after the ‘boy died’ the anger and manipulation got ramped up.
At first ‘he’ was MORE forthcoming. I remember one of the first ones saying that he found it odd how comforting it was to find me there (in e), that he waited for me. THIS sounded odd to me. but now, i realize there were bits of not character – at least in as much the spath was ALL of the characters – so, she was used to relating to me, and i a msure it was comforting to see that she had more time to swat me around a bit.
as i got into writing that last paragraph i realize that i was thinking and almost said, (maybe I did?) that the spath cared about my attention in an honourable way. sigh.
i want to writ a lot about this writing and decihering thing and i don’t have time to this am, so will come back to it.
I did get another email back this am from the spath’s public dupe. i will contact her lawyer and the court and get photos of the hand written stuff and send it to them. the spath has been charged with fraud, and this is from 2 years ago. i was wondering it fi could become a class action suit. and she addressed that today.
i am still trying to figure out how much i want to be revealed. i am in a very bad way right now re housing and work and money…and can’t bare the extra stress. but it if can go more slowly and i have time to regroup a bit, then it is a larger possibility.
this other dupe said it took her a year before she could even connect with a lawyer- her situaion WAS way more extreme than mine, this lying sack of crap had actually moved nto her house as the loving sister of the ‘dead boy’ SHE loved, and THAT had been going on for almost 2 YEARS via phone.
and the thing is re revealed – don’t know how much it is about shame or embarassment and how muchit is about HURT. having my HURT revealed. the hurt is so large. i am devastated that ‘he’ is gone. ‘he’ isn’t. ‘he’ didn’t exist. but that is the pain – he is gone and i loved him and enjoyed him so much. i spoke to him at night before sleep. and now i eat and obsess and worry.
and i still hurt. for the mess of my life, but even more for the loss of ‘him’ and the loss of the companionship and the laughter. him and the laughter.
….and one of the sock puppets remarked on a blog how it hurt me (after resurrecton day when she called as him, not dead) tobe without him. I have been wondering what HER pay off is. so, maybe there is some sadism there.
i gotta go. i wish i had more time. I feel clearer today and it would be good to keep writing. but obligations beckon.
one step
As greenfern said: “Sometimes it takes years for the person who lives with the sociopath to clearly see. S are more confusing than other types of damaged people because they make you feel good and important, good mixed with the ugly, so you cannot see straight. They go for the confusion. It’s never black and white, their techniques are subtle and deliberate.”
The late M. Scott Peck wrote in his book, “People of the Lie,” that a common gut response to people who are evil is confusion — and that we often feel a sense of unease when we know someone is trying to confuse us.