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.
I want to put a reading list together. I will write down everything i come across here – but if you have a recommendation please let me know.
thanx.
one step
I am sitting her going over some things in my mind re how she repsonds when she is outed.
thinking, what can she do to me? what is it that i fear, besides the awfulness of nastiness………………..
………………I THINK THE ONLY WAY SHE CAN HURT ME IS THROUGH MY LOVE AND CARE THE BOY WHO NEVER WAS…..
She can only hurt me if i love her/him. i mean really hurt me…she could possibly harm my life, yes, but that can be separated out and looked at.
she could only hurt me through my loving him. i loved him. oh my, tearing up in public. i loved him. loved. him. wanted. him.
so, more work to do on, ‘he’ never existed, ‘he never was real’. he was the character of a sociopath.
(you should see his pictures. whomever’s life she stole is beautiful. so beautiful. i hope i know who that is some day. i would like to give him back his pictures. does he even know his life was stolen? probably not.)
Oxy (and Erin & Witsend), you’re right about the stranger in the store. And in general I’ve always been a pretty strong individual. In the past, I’ve given of myself, but when someone did me wrong I was a quick study and could handle things on my own two feet. Even in my marriage, if my husband made me mad or did something I disagreed with, I wouldn’t budge on where I stood in the matter. And if it comes to defending my kids, I CAN be a downright b**tch!! But I stand back now and look at what this SP has done to me. In the beginning I thought “God, this guy is too good to be true.” The things he says, the things he does, they are awesome. He knew how to turn me into puddy. In the beginning he was doing everything in his power to make me FALL in love with him. Then over time he turned the whole situation around. In the end I was begging for attention and now look at what a fool I was. I was just like your friend Wit, begging for just a little more. Just to prolong the good feeling like you say Erin! I was so out of control in those final days of the relationship….when he disappeared without a word. I couldn’t for the life of me understand how we went from where we started to that. What you guys say makes more sense with every passing day… and you’re right, every time you have contact you go back to square one. How devastating. Some of my friends who have stuck by me (male and female) tell me “Look at yourself in the mirror. You have so much going for you. Why in the world would you want to throw it all away and live a life of pain and agony?” When your in this slump it’s just so hard to see what you have in life….the real you. But I know I want to be that strong and determined woman that I was before. The one that doesn’t take s**t from anyone! I just don’t get what makes it so easy for them to turn us into such sick and weak individuals.
dEAR sARA,
tHE FIND OUT WHAT OUR DEEPEST DESIRE IS—and then they pretend to give it to us. Most of us were “love bombed” which means they pretended to love bomb us with huge amounts of flattery and love and attention like no man had ever done before and we ate it up, it made us feel SOOOOO SPECIAL and sooo beautiful, sooooo sexy, sooooo desirable, and then when we (just like a fish), had swallowed this HOOK all the way into our guts they started yanking on the string, and when they would pull on the string the hook would cause pain and we would do anything rather than have them painfully jerk that feeling of being worshipped out of our guts.
Sure, I’ve been there with the man I dated a few months after my late husband died. I wanted a man to love me so badly to be with me, I fell for the psycholpath wh was SOOO WONDERFUL and sooo caring and soooo sweet, til the hook was firmly set.
But when I realized what was going on, I hanked it out as much as it hurt, but it healed. Do it Sara, save your life, don’t wind up a dead fish on the side of the bank, because when they get you hooked and out of the water, they leave you there to pant away in the air struggling for oxygen that your poor gills can’t take outside of water. SAFE YOURSELF! Only you can do it!
You know, the last time he came back and apologized, it sounded so real. Like the him I used to know. He told me that he realized I was the real deal and wanted to love and be loved. Then two days later it was like a light switch had flicked. The day he saw me, he wanted to have sex with me but there was nothing in his eyes. He was cold, distant and bitter. Then the next day he told me he didn’t want to talk to me or see me. I’ve already posted that part about how he acted as if me wanting to talk to him was comparable to rape. I don’t get how you can pour your heart out to someone and want them physically but then days later act like a zombie when you are near them. It’s so cruel and my rational mind wants to know how but I know there is no rational explanation. Is that typical behavior of a N or SP?? I don’t even know anymore. Part of me just wants him to burn in hell. To pay for how he messes with a person’s mind. It just doesn’t seem rational that you could share such wonderful experiences with someone and then treat them like a piece of dirt.
Oxy, Don’t worry, I can’t be with him bc simply put he doesn’t want me….even if I did want him. And I do want him….but not the him that he really is. I’ve drawn those boundaries and I believe that is what makes him so angry. When I try to set the terms, he pulls away with hate and disgust. But I REFUSE to be in a relationship with someone that simply wants to F**K me! So I have no choice but to move on and heal. It’s just the understanding some time that hurts to the very core.
Sarasims,
The thing is Sara he ALWAYS was what you saw him to be towards the end of the relationship.
That is who he is. What you fell in love with was the ILLUSION of the image he created of himself. He NEVER was that person you loved. It would be much like falling in love with a fictional character in a romance novel. Or a movie star playing a role in a romance film. That perfect “guy”….He just never really existed. It was a role he took on and projected to you so that you WOULD fall in love with him.
That is the difference of how the addiction comes into play in a relationship with an S/P/N. The fantasy/illusion part is the KEY to the addiction part of the “after” effects it has on you.
Where as if you fell in love with a “normal” man and things didn’t work out between you……Then you would have the capacity to just move on and past this in the normal processing one does when a relationship ends.
A drug addict (in recovery) will always tell you that they ALWAYS chased that FIRST HIGH they had with their drug of choice. “First” being the key word here. The first high was the “illusion” the drug PROMISED them. The high WAS NEVER the same after the first time. However that is what they forever try to get back….The illusion the drug created for them the first time.
Addiction is cunning & mind boggling. But the worst and hardest addictions to get over create an illusion. You are always chasing something that doesn’t EXIST in reality.
A drug addict might get high with his drug of choice HUNDREDS of times in the course of his addiction. The addict might have lost his home, his family, his friends, his job and most important of all his integity. He has LOST himself in this whole process.
Hundreds of times using the drug and yet the high he is chasing is the FIRST HIGH. Because the first high was what he wanted. (it was the only good one) The illusion that drug created for him. The urge (addiction) is so strong, so powerful that he can’t see the forest for the trees. He can’t see the devistation the drug has created in his life, only how much he needs to achieve that first high once again.
That is how mind boggling having addictive responses programming the brain can be…..
You have to reprogram yourself. You have to know that what you want doesn’t really exist.
Sara,
Literally, they CANNOT LOVE, they lack the mixture of brain chemicals (hormones) and RECEPTORS (places those hormones lodge to make the chemical bonding work in our brain) It is like a lock and key system and they have plenty of keys, but NO LOCKS, it is chemically and physically impossible for them to FEEL LOVE. They may feel desire for sex, but that is NOT love, they may feel a desire for CONTROL, but that is not love, they may feel Anger or rage or lots of things, but NOT LOVE, because they can’t feel love, they learn to substitute control and sex for intimacy, but honey it isn’t about love. HE DOESN’T, ISN’T ABLE TO LOVE YOU. THAT’S WHY HE CAN TREAT YOU LIKE DIRT. HE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOU. HE JUST FAKES IT TO GET SEX.
And yes, it is cruel to you, but he doesn’t care.
Oxy & Wit, I believe what you say just bc his actions become more and more evil and more and more obvious. It is easy to see what a mean person he truly is. And actually when I think back over the time we were together, I see now how he was mean to other important people in his life (even his own DYING mother)!!!! He was so hateful to her when he knew she was dying and I could never understand what could have been so bad. Then he was there for her only in the end when she was in and out of consciousness (when he knew she was really dying!) and after her death made it look as if he was such a good guy bc he was there for her for a whole 2 wks.
The other side of me says “it’s so sad bc he could be such a good guy….if he would try”. Why do I do that when I know it’s simply NOT possible? Why is it so hard to believe I was actually just another notch in his headboard? That I was “literally” screwed? Tell me, once you go NC how long does it take to start to feel normal again? To not be reminded of whom you THOUGHT he was? When do these horrible nagging feelings die?
Dear Sara,
They don’t “die” you must KILL THEM, and it is hard work. I can’t tell you how much “time” because it is different with each of us, but you must start work on HEALING YOURSELF and when you start to heal he will NO LONGER BE IMPORTANT.
We can’t fix them, but we must fix ourselves, whatever VOID is in us that allowed us to be hoodwinked, pulled into their fantasy. Make yourself WHOLE and there will be no room for him.
There was a time when I couldn’t even imagine life without my Ps (one or all) and now I am so happy without them, so whole, so complete. By making myself whole, I left them out.
Start to go back through the archives and read all the articles, get a therapist and work on YOU. Recover your own soul, whatever your spiritual or philisophical thinking or beliefe is, turn to that, get real, get whole, get healthy, act healthy even if you don’t feel it, and eventually you will one day wake up and FEEL healthy and BE healthy.
Don’t let anything pull you off teh road to healing, to becoming who you want to be. (((hugs))) nd my prayers for you.