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.
Oops, that was a Freudian slip.
He said, he wanted me to know that he loved me.
Yeah, right.
I laughed a couple of months ago when N’s current favorite victim called him one night. We were watching “Hancock”. N had only admitted to the relationship with her an hour before, and decided to take the call in front of me. She had obviously asked him what he was up to.
“Oh, I’m just watching TV, getting something to eat, and then going to bed.” He paused and asked, “What else would I be doing?!”
I almost laughed out loud. I was “what else” he would be doing.
I’m amazed now at how he had shifted things with that one question. He put the onus on her by inviting her to question him; by appearing willing to be questioned, and in doing so managed to look as if he were being honest or had nothing to hide…
By the time she gets to where she questions his questions, she’s going to be so mixed up – poor thing (even if she did yell at me on the phone; I feel sorry for her – sort of).
DEar Kathy,
Yep, they speak their own language. WE are like the early Christians on the day of Pentecost, WE HEAR in OUR OWN LANGUAGE but it is NOT what they are really saying. LOL We do need to learn to “translate” their words into the MEANINGS that they are thinking, not what we are HEARING.
Some people can do it by “turning off the sound” and watching their actions, bt they can even fake those sometimes. But if you put the two things together –the actions and the “translations” of their written words, you can SURE get the message that they are passing, but avoid what they are trying to get us to believe.
I also read a book years and years ago (1971 I think) called Body Language, which discussed how people “speak” with their body language. I reread the book here recently and it was not nearly as good as I remembered it being, but it still is a good primer and will give you insights into a great deal of the body language, space issues, and power trips. I am sure there are better and more current books out there on the same subject.
My mother is EXCELLENT in controlling her body language, and I had noted that years and years ago. She isn’t as good at controlling her expression though if you know her. She gets “that look” just like the Ps do but pretty well controls it in public.
I can apparently do “a look” that will turn people to stone as well, but I can’t purposely get it (my kids say I have it). When I was dating the XBF who was a P we drove up to the farm in separate vehicles once only to find a friend’s P son on the place after he had been specifically BANNED from ever coming here (he is a thief). I was startled and jumped out of my vehicle and went OFF on him, tellinghim to leave NOW. Of course he said “Why?” I replied quite loudly “Because you are a freaking THIEF! Now get back across the cattle guard.” He smarted off to me that he was “waiting for D, not you.” I came back with “D’s name isn’t on the deed to this place, MINE is, now get gone before I shoot your butt and tell God you died.” He left.
Later, the XBF asked D about the way I had “gone off” on the kid (22) and D asked the XBF if I had been shouting, and he said “MY God, yes! I’ve never seen anything like it from her it was totally unexpected!”
D said he laughed and said, “Nah, she was just irritated, if she had been dangerous, she would have been QUIET! She wouldn’t have even raised her voice.” LOL
I think the XBF wasn’t used to assertive women who spoke their minds (at all) much less loudly (going by my knowledge of his last few GFs and his X wife).
Rune, I think your “translation” of your X’s comment is perfectly right on. “Bail me out” LOL And, if he had needed bailing out and you hadn’t, he would have bee i ncensed, “But I told you how much I love you” Waaaah!! Pity me!
Oxy, your reference to a book about body language reminded me of one about “reverse speech.”
The theory is that we hear differently in our left and right ears, which feed different sides of our brains. And one of our ears hears “reverse speech,” which is much more honest about what the speaker really things and feels.
The book talked about recordings of speech played in reverse, and the surprising frequency in which discernible words and phrases could be heard in the reversed recordings. And how this reverse speech tended to be more emotionally expressive.
I never read the whole book, but was impressed with the idea, and started listening more for undertones of what people were really thinking and feeling.
In my relationship with the sociopath, I was constantly struck by a weird awareness of “layers” or harmonics in our communications. Like there was more than one of him in the conversation. And maybe more than one of me.
Now I don’t find that so weird, because I believe that there were two separate layers of him — the controlling robot and the desperately needy child. Maybe two similar layers in me in dealing with him — the responsible adult and a much younger self that was attracted to him because of unfinished business in my past.
That may sound odd, but I was in constant inner conflict during the entire relationship.
My sister once said to me that we were both acting like addicts in the relationship. Viewed from this perspective — that a major part of it was conducted between his needy little kid looking for a replacement mother and my somewhat older child trying to get him to repair the damage my father had done — maybe it makes some sense.
OxDrover:
Thanks for your long post and advice. For years now I have played “lets pretend we’re a normal family” and keep my mouth shut (aka “keeping up appearances”). And it has worked for me.
The situation with the con-man brother was occasion for them (admitting there is a biggggg problem) and me (actually discussing something substantive with them).
While NC would make my life extremely easier, the kids are far too young to be left in the lurch. I don’t have enough evidence to get them away from him= and his ex is completely out of the picture.
My only way to throw them a lifeline is to make myself available and keep myself inserted in the picture and try to do for them what I can. Those kids are desperate for some semblance of stability and normalcy. They’re desperately trying to make sense of the conman’s nonsense and thinking they did something wrong. If I bail on them they’re going to feel completely abandonned. I can’t do that to them.
So, once again, I’m going back to “giving a performance.” I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to let those kids know they are loved and that there are some sane, loving people in their lives who actually give a damn about them.
OxDrover:
Loved your sociobabble translation. I used to work as a writer. And it always boils down to subtext — what’s the meaning underlying the words — in the case of a S — ME, MYSELF and I.
DEar Kathy,
I can see the analogy very much. They cannot supply their own “needs” for adoration and excitement, (NS) they MUST HAVE SOMEONE ELSE TO FEED OFF OF. Just like we cannot manufacture our own vitamin C, so we must find a source for it.
We (victims) apparently have some unsatisfied NEED from childhood (or earlier life) that we didn’t develop a way to manufacture some thing that we need. Let’s call it “Factor X”
Maybe in you Factor X is the need to be cared for, or nurtured and in Me factor X is some other need like self esteem that I can’t supply myself, so I must have someone else that meets that NEED in me. So in a way the P and the victim form a symbiotic relationship. Each is unable to survive and prosper without the other half.
I think that accounts for the fact many victims get out of one relationship and jump into another P relationship. Whatever Factor X is for them, they miss the supply of it and MUST find another supply as fast as possible.
Ditto the P, in fact, they have such a fear of losing NS that they will keep multiple women/men on the hook at the same time so there is NO chance they could be without NS for a single day.
I think as we heal, if we do, we find out what Factor X is for each of us (self esteem or whatever) and we learn how to supply it for ourselves and NOT depend on others or external sources of supply for this critical component to our happiness and well being.
Because the P has little real insight into anything except learning external ways of supplyng their NS they never even try to learn to supply this for themselves. So they are ALWAYS dependent on outside sources for supply. WE on the other hand, if we heal completely and well, will develop ways to identify and supply FActor X so that we are no longer afraid or terrorized at becoming deficient in that factor.
I hope that makes some sense.
Ox, it would also make sense to me that the S/P will not learn to supply themselves with whatever they need EVER because it may stem from the need to control or need to feel power and you need people for that right? It’s not just about attention from a woman. It seems to be a need to control and get her to believe the lies.
The x S/P would be on the phone within hours with the x stripper girlfriend…..and he had no problem telling me that she constantly contacted him. It’s also funny that most of his accusations towar d me had to do woth me cheating, men having contact with me, sleeping with every guy I worked with ….but he had no problem telling me he was being hit on constantly. I think he liked generating negative feelings with this information. But when I would respond to him telling me he was being hit on with: “well I don’t blame her you are an attractive guy.” He didn’t get off on it so he learned that blaming me when it was unjustified was a better way to get me to react. thereby giving him a reason to d&d me and feel the power. When the stripper girlfriend wasn’t available he would use his daughter and call her with the pity ploy. Which I thought was also inappropriate.
You can’t get all that alone. The source is some unsuspecting person to give him the “drug” whether it’s positive or negative.
Am I making any sense?
He clearly knew my weaknesses……UNRELIABILITY. He constantly made plans and cancelled if he was mad. That was my punishment. He would promise something and not follow through.
It has taken me this whole year that I HAVE always been the most reliable person in my life and I don’t really need a man for that !!! But I will not hesitate to make sure it is there in the next relationship. We DO have a right to ask for the good things we offer.
keeping_faith:
“The x S/P … had no problem telling me that she constantly contacted him. It’s also funny that most of his accusations toward me had to do woth me cheating, men having contact with me, sleeping with every guy I worked with ”.but he had no problem telling me he was being hit on constantly.”
For some reason I never realized that about S. He constantly accused me of cheating, etc. He hated it when anybody would compliment me. If I even met a friend (whom I had made a point of introducing him to) for drinks, I’d be bombarded with text messages.
But, for some reason I never picked up on it when he threw his exes in my face. The one “who would do whatever it took to win S back” and the other, now a priest, whom he sandbagged on the altar.
Lost in the Brain-Fog. Coming soon to a theatre near you.
Matt, I hear you WE DON’T THINK THAT WAY. That’s why this shit lingers for us because we aren’t naturally able to blame and place responsibility on others….. it comes easliy to them that’s why they see the fault of others so clearly. AND they project because they trust no one. We trusted. They can get conscientious people to react as we did…… as my therapist says it’s called the untimate mind f*&^.
I didn’t see most of it until I decided I had enough.