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 just read this guy’s profile on another site. He is a handsome guy, he is looking for a realtionship. He goes on to describe himself, his hope’s and dreams in great detail. I sent him a reply. “Your profile is very refreshing. I was invloved with a younger man for three years, he was everything I ever dreamed of, but the mistake I made was telling him those dream’s. He became my dream, he stole those dream’s and mirrored them back to me, he even stole my identity. The past year without him has been a “hard lesson” Please be careful who you tell your dream’s too, they are yours….
I wish I had letters to share but my ex hacked into my email account and deleted every email he ever sent over the period of three years, with the exception of the one to my eldest son’s father that he knew touched me deeply; since he stood up for him like no other man has. It was left to remind me of how “good” he is and also to leave evidence only I could be certain of that the rest were clearly deleted by him. All other emails not from him were left untouched.
He had also used a keylogger to gain access to my banking account information and stole $2k via electronic transfer. Fortunately, I’m an information security specialist and was able to use my professional influence to gain the audience of the district attorney and law enforcement officials to have him arrested and got my money back. Clearly the incident didn’t deter his criminal behavior because this took place almost a year before he hacked into the email account.
I share a child with the S, so I’m consistently battling his fraudulent behavior…but just when I think I might be mistaken, God gets involved and sends me so many messages I’d have to be a deaf not to hear.
I was married to my ex-S-husband for 10 years. To this day, I believe he was “pawned” off on me, by his mother. She and I were good friends and neighbors. She spent our friendship telling me that her son was ADHD. She did not speak bad of him, but explained everything away with his ADHD diagnosis.
My Gramma and I were extremely close. I loved her so much. I loved everything about her. I loved her heart, her fun-loving sense of humor… She taught me how to love, unconditionally.(Which now, in retrospect, also damaged me).
The day my Gramma died, I was out-of-it, to say the least.
This is also the day, my ex-S-husband, made his move. I “thought” he was being a good friend. I accepted his words, his kindness and his deeds. He proclaimed his secret love for me. (Although his mother had already told me, a year prior).
He moved himself into my home, basically within days. My gut instincts were asking me,”What are you doing”? I told myself, “That he was being sent by God to help me deal with the grief and death of my Gramma”. (That was an easy excuse so I wouldn’t have to deal with anything.) He got me pregnant 3 weeks later. I say he got me pregnant…because I made it very clear, this is NOT what I wanted. When I found out what he had done, he laughed and told me “HE” wanted a baby. When I was 8 mo pregnant, a young woman shows up at our door. This is when I find out, she was his girlfriend. He left her, for me. I had no clue. She sat with my ex-S-husband and her other friend, at my kitchen table and they played cards, as I sat in the living room watching them, trying to process what I was seeing and feeling. That is when I asked myself again, “What are you doing”?
One week before the baby was born…his mother, my friend…moved 4 hours away. I didn’t even know she was planning on moving! I was confused. I couldn’t understand, how she would want to miss her son’s daughter’s birth. I know “why” now. (When my Gramma died, THEY thought that I was getting an inheritance. When I didn’t, she packed up and split, with the belief that her S-son was going to start asking “her” to help care for the baby…monetarily or otherwise. Which is laughable, because in our friendship, I never asked her for anything, but I was always providing her with food or whatever she needed or “ran out of”. BUT…she KNEW her son!). After she moved away, our friendship was over. Even though she became my M-I-L. During my marriage, I found out my husband was addicted to cocaine. He had been doing it for 2 years before I even knew. The 3rd yr., I wanted to “help” him…to preserve our family(This is where the unconditional love really screwed me up). I asked my M-I-L, if she would take my husband in for a 3 weeks, so he could get clean. This would take him away from his cocaine source. She refused. But took in her brother that same week, that was addicted to heroin, groped her breasts at every opportunity, and stole from her. (I never understood why she chose this over her son).
Since I couldn’t find any hospital to take my ex-S-husband in, to get clean…I took my one week vacation time and physically locked us in our apartment. Believe it or not, he got clean. But of course, that wasn’t the only nightmare I endured in our marriage. It was always something. Constant and never-ending. Always explained-away with…”it’s because he is ADHD”.
One thing he ALWAYS said to me, or to whoever his audience was, “I am a good man”. When he first started saying this, I said nothing and most likely sat shocked with my mouth open. My response after a while became, “Just because you say it, doesn’t mean it’s true”. I started repeating this, to everything he said that contradicted what the “REALITY” to the situation was. He would say, “I am a good husband. I am a good dad….”
I was confused. I didn’t know if he was trying to convince himself of this, trying to make others believe this, or if he really believed this. But the way in which he always said it, was boastful and proud.
My response…and the words that always ring in my head to anyone anymore that boast self-affirmations about themselves….”Just because you say it, doesn’t mean it’s TRUE.”
The baby…my daughter…because I tried for so many years to “help” her and now realize I can’t….
This explains to me why my M-I-L chose not to help her son. Because she KNEW she couldn’t.
KH,
You seem to be extremely perceptive and intuitive. Most people are not and so this is why most people are very “reactive” in their approach to communication, facilitation and management. The word preference IS used during the facilitation of the certification of MBTI so that the participants uderstand that you can live in a 16 room home (representing the 16 types) but you may prefer the room where you paint or work out and have less of a preference for the office where you do accounting or pay the bills. It’s like the left had/right hand exercise. You ask someone to sign their name with their preferred hand. Then you ask them to sign with their other hand….. it feel uncomfotable, odd, takes longer, looks bad, but you could do it if you broke your preferred hand, with practice. It’s not right or wrong it’s just different.
It is used in that sense so that stereotyping does NOT occur and we don’t put people in “boxes” in terms of performance and career and life in general. And people understand that although we have preferences, we CAN change those preferences and be good at doing things in the office, even though it may not be the most comfortable place to be.
26.3 % of all Americans are ISFJ or ESFJ. I did a session once with 35 business lenders (banking) and 24 of them were ESTJ….. that was eye opening. I think they saw some of the disadvantages of lacking that diversity in personality or in trying to surround yourself with “like” individuals.
I use it to coach executives, do team building and also to help them understand relationships in doing business based on other people’s preferences…..or you can call it “ways of being.”
There is a 35% chance that any one of your letters may change at some point. but after that there is only a 6% chance that a second letter will change but it has in some people I have worked with. There are very few, like you KH who think so thoroughly before they react or facilitate a group.
Trla,
Wow! The “I am a good man” sounds soooo familiar. It was like a constant mantra by the S. He also used to say over and over “you made me into a better man”. Grrr, CRINGE!
Dear Tria,
It sounds like you have been through the mill. Learning about the Ps (and BTW many of them ARE ADHD as well as P) and that you CAN’T help them is what makes us able to take back our own power.
My youngest biological son is a P, and in prison for all of his adult life (for murder now). My oldest biiological son is ADHD but a very wonderful person. He too was a victim of his P brother. It was only when I finally gave up the TOXIC hope that I could help my P son that I broke free from the PATTERNs that had ruined my life, that I had ALLOWED to ruin my life.
There is so much good information here and so much support, read read read!!!! is my advice and learn. Knowledge=power and will help us to take back the power we gave to them along with our unconditional love.
The only person I give UNconditional love to now is ME.
Trla,
Your comment reminds me of the time my ex-husband (the P) and I were skiing, we were in the base area actually, and could hear this song–by Eric Burdon I think–being piped in over the loudspeakers. I might not have the lyrics right, but they went something like this:
“I’m just a soul whose intentions are good,
Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.”
That morning (which now that I think about it was the winter before he left), my ex and I had gotten into an argument over something he said, something I suspected–and upon further reflection had no doubt–was a lie. Of course, he had changed his story and said either, no, that wasn’t what he said or, no, that wasn’t what he meant.
And, later, when this song could be heard over the loudspeakers, my P started singing along, like he could so relate, as if the song were written just for him.
And I sometimes wonder how much of his own bull-crap he believes.
Trla and greenfern:
My S gave me a card last Valentine’s Day.
The message? “Thank you for making me the man I am today.”
Suffice it to say, I now claim no responsiblity for that.
Ha-ha, that’s just amazing…the S used to say the same in anniversary, b-day etc cards…
It’s strange to me how he perceived the relationship. The “better” he become, the “worse” I become. At the end I was the hysterical, dumpy, needy (all his words) and he walked away unfazed and clean hands.
It’s almost as if the mask they wear becomes them; the S starts believing in their own constructed personality. He feeds this mask by the admiration of others, and he gets better and better constructing a new “persona” after each time he gets de-masked by someone close to him.
His contstruction becomes smoother and more flawless becasue he learns how to avoid having others see beyond his mask. The mask does not cover a true identity; it covers and empty shell. He becomes the pro on this pseudo identity.
Oh, I just had an idea. As Matt said
“Thank you for making me the man I am today.” = thank you for giving me the opportunity to practice and perfect the art on deception on you.