When I think sociopath, I think this: as a pattern, he is willing, with awareness (hence, with intellect intact) to hurt people, or leave them feeling violated, in order to pursue hisĀ gratifications and interests which, for him, are always more important than the pain his pursuit of them inflicts on others.
Malice (as I’ve written about elsewhere) may or may not be a motive or factor. It’s true that for some sociopaths the gratifications they seek are predatory-based; for these sociopaths, the process of exploiting others becomes central in their violating behavior.
But this isn’t true for all sociopaths, many of whom are not driven, primarily, by a malicious or sadistic agenda.Ā
For many, if not all, sociopaths, the core motive driving their behavior is to satisfy a present impulse, desire, or felt need. But the problem with sociopathsāand surely one of their distinguishing, defining qualitiesāis the alarming indifference they bring to the collatoral damage they cause others, about which, at least intellectually, they have awareness.
This speaks, of course, to the sociopath’s deficient empathy and tendency to callousness. But again, the deficient empathy by itself isn’t so telling; more telling are the empathic deficits in connection with the pattern, and the sociopath’s intellectual comprehension, of his grossly violating behaviors.Ā
I stress that it is this confluence of the sociopath’s intellectual awareness of the damageĀ his pattern of violating behaviors causes others, coupled with his striking emotional indifference to his damage-causing behaviors, that seems to announce we are dealing with a peculiar personality called āsociopathic.ā
For the sociopath, interpersonal commitments can be maintained so long as they don’t interfere with the pursuit of his targeted present gratifications, or relief. But just as soon as the sociopath perceives a commitment or agreement to interfere with his present agenda, it becomes, for him, effectively null and void. The previous commitment and agreement are now utterly discardable and meaningless.
Whereas the nonsociopath would feel some shame, some uneasiness, to suddenly, unilaterally blow-off, and render nonbinding, a commitment he made to someone else, the sociopath feels relatively untroubled doing so. Why?
One reason is this: Whatever, in the sociopath’s mind, emerges as interfering with his present, immediate interest(s)ābe it previously accepted obligations, commitments, responsibilities, and, yes, relationshipsāthese become experienced, for the sociopath, as presently obstructive, and thereby antogonistic to his current agenda.
Therefore, he now feels the right, in effect, to protect himself against the assault of intrusions and unwelcome constraints to his agenda, whatever their source. He protects himself (and his interests) by, metaphorically, flipping his middle finger at these unwelcome disturbances to the pursuit of his immediate interests.
The sociopath feels entitled to do this! In his mind, things, or you, have gotten in his way. This makes him, in a sense, the victim, and you, or whatever now obstructs his agenda, his victimizer.
Yes, this is an extremely narcissistic position, and yes, the sociopath embodies narcissism in its most virulent form.
Let’s look at an arbitrary example: If you were to ask a sociopath, āHow could you have just, blatantly, without shame, left your āĖdate’ waiting at that restaurant, where you arranged to meet at 8 pm, and never showed up, and never even called to say you weren’t showing up,?ā here are some things he might say, versus what he might have really been thinking:
He might say, āYou are right. That was inexcusable. I should not have done that.ā (Reflecting his intellectual awareness of the social inappropriateness of his behavior.)
But he might be thinking, āI left her there because I had a chance to go out with that cashier I’d been scouting at the CVS for the last couple weeks; and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna let that opportunity pass. I wasn’t gonna let her (my date) stand in the way of my pursuing a better, more exciting opportunity.ā
Or, he might say, āYeah, I should have at least called. That would have been right.ā. (Reflecting his intact intellect)
But he might be thinking, āCalling her would have taken time out of my life at that moment, when I was concentrating on my present priority, which was to impress and seduce this cashier. I did not want to be hindered in my present agenda. I should never have to be hindered in my agenda, and anything, or anyone, that hinders me by introducing inconvenient expectations of me is obstructing me and antagonizing me. So if she was pissed off and hurt that I blew her off, too bad. She became a nuisance.ā
When the sociopath feels the need to rationalizeāand he is so narcissistic that he may not even feel the need to do soāthis is the kind of rationalizing he does. His present needs are always preeminent, and he feels little, if ever any, conflict about this. He is comfortable making, experiencing, his present needs as preeminent regardless of what this means to the needs, and expectations, of others around him.
In a split second he is willing, if necessary for his own, latest chance at gratification, to devalue and ignore his obligations to others.Ā And he does this from the sense that this is his most basic privilege; it makes absolute, comfortable sense to him.Ā Ā
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the behaviors and attitudes discussed.)
EB… this is great!!!! You are a model for
“Never Never Never Give Up” !!!!!!!!!!!!!
He must be freaked out! Yay!!!!!!
Heading to the court to get the paperwork and take to the police station.
I AM THRILLED!
He’s burning…..but not what’d he like to be burning…..
EB, congrats & kudos!
You’re following Donna’s tradition of Never Giving Up in the most ardently adamant fashion! You keep going, girl!
I’d love to see the day when J gets his comeuppance, but dangit, I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to personally witness it.
Oxy,
I think you have a skillet handy for me. Oh my.
I broke NC in a big way this week, & it totally bummed me out, & kept me awake all night.
I went to his MySpace page for his novel to see if he still had my pic on it. Just curious. He does. (Wish I knew if he still has the lovely C&J w/ roses tatt that he got in prison on his arm!)
And my curiosity got the better of me: I looked to see if she was one of his “friends”….& of course she is….& her page shows a number of pictures of her from 3-5 yrs ago: very well-taken care of, very well-dressed, well heeled, well traveled, & with perfect hair & make-up & with her spoiled rich kid daughters. Well, I looked that good & better back when I was her age (45-47), but I sure don’t look that way now. Dammmmmittt.
And since that kept me awake all night, I gave in to sending him 3 messages on his page. I essentially gave away that I know all about her now—all the things he didn’t tell me & all the lies he told me about her. (like about how “Godly” she is, & how she “has no money. at all.”) I spose that part was okay, but I also told him numerous times exactly how he’d destroyed me & my life. I told him that I might forgive him some day…..but not her….& that I’ll never be able to live with myself after he demonstrated to me what an inferior, throw-away of a woman I am.
My therapist really hit the roof about that comment. She said, “& you’re basing your self-worth on the word of a man who lied to you for 4-8 yrs? The word of a man who cheated on you? And of course, who whined to her about what a horrible person you are! He had to make you out to be awful in order to gain her sympathy & justify why he was involved with her even tho he had a supposedly committed relationship with you.”
Then she said, basically, that she could see that we have a lot of work to do on my self-worth issues…..issues that pre-date his effect on my life by about 66 yrs. Oh my. I know that. I’m so sick of listening to myself whine about how damaged & pitiful I am. I told her that. She told me that, well, we’d best be starting to talk more about Me & who I am & what I can & will be & will do with my life, than how much he hurt me!
I repeated hen’s little mantra to her again:
“I’m not the same person anymore.
I’ll never be the same ever again.
But I’m working as hard as I can to make that a GOOD Thing!”
Pity, pity, self-pity & laying around in my sadness & grief. And whining about it. arghhhhh.
I don’t know how to make the leap out of here, but I know I have to do it soon! I just saw pics of me, taken while I was visiting w/ my hi school girlfriends this week: what a sad, sad old woman I look like! I never thot I’d look that way EVER! And I know it’s only going to get worse if I don’t SNAP. Maybe my vanity will be able to make me get up & get going & get happy!
Okay. I guess I’m ready for the skillet now.
Dear Whyme,
Darling I couldn’t hit you with the BIG SKILLET and make you feel any worse than you do now! You have boinked yourself in a big way for breaking NC, and darling that is what happens when we BREAK NC, we BOINK OURSELVES! Now you know why it is a NO NO TO BREAK NC!!! So now you have learned and you won’t do it again because you know how much it HURTS!!! (((hug)))))
Darling, sweet Whyme, I know that feeling of looking in the mirror and seeing my grandmother’s face, but you know what—I AM NOT WHAT IS IN THE MIRROR, I AM what is INSIDE OF ME.
I can go dig out the old photos of me and I was a knock out young woman, but you know what—it was on the OUTSIDE. Now what I am is more than skin deep! It is heart deep. Bone deep. It is SOUL DEEP!
I ain’t never going to look like I did then, but you know what, I would NOT trade what I know now for how I looked then. It would not be worth it!
The people who might have said “Oh, wow, what a beautiful girl, I think I’d like to get to know her” weren’t any bargains, I can tell you that.
Now, when people are around me and find me interesting and like me, I know it is not because of my dazzling good looks or my money, it is because they like ME FOR WHAT AND WHO I AM.
So, get out of your pity party, and get healthy and take care of yourself. Remember “CRones don’t whine!” And a Crone is a WISE WOMAN! So get wiser, wisen up, stand tall, quit being so vain, you have more than just a pretty face! He didn’t leave you because you were ugly, and he didn’t go to her because she is beautiful, he left you because he had rung out what he could and was looking for new supply.
Oh, BTW–you are whining about this EX CONVICT, WHY? He is so desirable WHY? Maybe it is his jail house tat? Yea, that’s really a turn on. NOT!!! You need an ex-con like you need another hole in your head! You’re better than that!
Now shape up!!! ((((Big Hugs))))))
Oh, Oxy,
You just made me cry. I know I know all those things. And I am constantly beating myself up for not Acting Like I know those things!
It’s not the “oldness” of my face that makes me unhappy: it’s the terrible sadness. I don’t have one wrinkle on my 66yo face. It’s just that my face has fallen, & my mouth all turned down, & my eyes the size of little tiny mouse eyes. And that’s just plain Sadness! And there’s nothing you can do to make a sad old woman’s face look better—except for the woman to grab her silly self up & start smiling & start living & start living enJOY!
I hate it that I’ve let this depression destroy the face I present to the world. Crones are beautiful in their wisdom….it doesn’t matter how many wrinkles or sags they have. They have wisdom & serene, twinkling JOY in their eyes & their smiles. I’ve let that part of me sink into the darkness. That’s what makes me even Sadder! It’s one thing to be the “Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands” when you’re young…..when you get to this age, it’s just ugly & unappealing on every level. Beauty isn’t just skin deep: no matter what you “look like”, beauty does come from what’s within. Even if you’re not “pretty”, you can be beautiful when your inner joy shines thru. That’s what makes me feel so bad about how I look: my sadness has made me unbeautiful. That’s an awful thing.
I am trying. I am trying. I know that trying isn’t the same as Doing & Being. I told my therapist yesterday that it’s just that same bad child inside of me who’s tripped me up so many times in my life: she doesn’t want to let go of her grief & self-pity. I argue with her constantly every day.
She says, “my life is over. it’s f***ed. i’m f***ed. i’ll never have happiness again.” And I immediately say, “My life is good. I’m blessed in many, many ways, & I’m thankful for my home & my dog & my family & my friends & my health & my potential future. I’m grateful for all the blessings I have now & have FAITH my Father does & will always provide all that’s needed to make me happy & my life complete.” And she says, “oh hell, i just don’t care anymore. there is no future. you’re screwed.”
When I’m on the elliptical at the gym, she says, “why am i having to do this? it doesn’t even matter.” I immediately say, “Keep striding. With every step I’m moving forward into a beautiful future. With every step I’m healing & becoming what the Mother wants me to be.”
And she says, “who the hell are you kidding.”
I want to cut down on smoking again. (I am down to a pack & a half a day, after the 3 packs a day I got up to after J left…..a far cry from the 3 cigarettes a day I was smoking for a yr before he left in May.) She says, “who the hell cares. light another.” I want to cut back down to the 3oz a day I was drinking before he left. (3 oz of gin w/ 15 oz of unsweetened cranberry juice) She says, “i’m bored & sad. i can have 8oz a day if i want.” Thankfully, the bad child has always wanted to be anorexic, so I don’t have food or weight as an issue. I’ve lost from a 10 back to a 6 since he left, but I’ll never be anorexic no matter what she says!
It’s a constant battle. It’s an all-out war. I read all the daily devotionals that come in my email. I listen to the Working with Your Enneagrams talks. I meditate on & affirm all the positive messages that come in my email every day. I re-post them on my FB page, “faking it til I make it”, working to convince mySelf of the good—working to truly FEEL the gratitude & positivity I affirm as I try to instill it the bad child. And all the support & bitching out & caring & understanding that I get from you all here & from my friends & family are helping me to make that bad kid act right! She’s a really really head-strong & willful little bitch, tho, so it’s gonna be the fight of my life to make her sit her silly ass down & STFU! Her toughness & moxie helped me get thru a lot of bad times in my life, but damitall, she created a lot of them!
Dear Whyme,
I wrote an article aw hile back about learning to love myself one piece at a time. These “I’m doing wonderful” self affirmations seem so hollow, so I cut it down to “I love my toe nails, I have GREAT toe nails, and I love them” and so on…a bit of a hyperbole there but you get the idea. There ARE so many good things about me that I DO love. Things that are BETTER than they were when I was a hot mama striding through a Las Vegas casino and turning heads! But you know…I’ve got a really head strong little witch inside too, and taming her down has been a one step at a time process as well.
I quit the cigs, used the nicotine replacement for a while and that helped cut it down, never have been much of a drinker, so that wasn’t a big problem for me, but FOOD has been since my husband died, gained 10 pounds a year since he died, and that’s a lot of lard! So with everything else, I’ve had to worry about getting the fat off and watching the blood sugar etc. but I can do it, IT IS SETTING MY MIND TO IT. All the other times I had “tried” to quit smoking I didn’t REALLY want to, and I KNEW up front I would “fail” at quitting.
I tried the cutting down and so on, but knew I would FAIL, once I really MADE UP MY MIND TO QUIT, I DID.
You know the 10 commandments, well there is an ELEVENTH one and it is THOU SHALT NOT FOOL THY SELF.
That is the one we violate more than all the other 10 commandments put together! We fool ourselves that we are trying to quit. and we moan “Oh, I’m TRRRRYING to quit” but we are just BS-ing ourselves and others, we are not DOING it and when we really want to WE WILL.
I laugh at Lyndsay Lohan’s “I’m trying to quit”–sheesh she is anything except TRYING to quit, she has NO INTENTION OF QUITTING, she is just trying to get others to feel sorry for her stupid arse. When she gets ready to quit, she will stop giving the judge her middle finger. I heard Paris Hilton has decided to give up partying too….after her what is it, her 3rd arrest lately for drugs, the last one cocaine.
So I am going to stick with my intentions to take care of myself. I don’t WANT to stick to this diet either, but I know I have to to keep healthy. So I will control the little wench inside me that wants to go get ice cream, because in spite of everything, I am the adult and I am in control if I know I should be and I have to take care of her, not let her rule the roost!
If necessary, I’ll put a sock in her mouth! LOL (((Hugs)))) smile, don’t cry!
Hens
I was looking at the person inside, or tried to focus on the person, not the weight. I have never put much value in looks.
I began to look hard at his weight, and his lack of looks, after he nit picked at me and endlessly complained at me.
I accepted him. But, he is using that acceptance to rip me down and make me feel inferior.
That was the pisser and the deal breaker. Not his weight.
Dear Jeannie,
It was interesting to me how QUICKLY he started to try to pick you apart and see if you would “stand for” it. It is amazing to me just what gall he had…blue toenail of death! REALLY!!!!
My X-BF P started to pick me apart too but it was not quite so petty and not nearly that quick–it would have been pretty bad though.
I’m glad you got out much quicker than I did. I should have run more quickly, but by the time I saw the flags I was hooked more solidly. You did GREAT!
Oxy,
Thanks for the “iron skillet in a velvet glove” wisdom, sweetheart. I need to hear alla them things all day every day!
Here’s a quote from UnityBerkeley’s “Finding Peace” series that my cousin sent me today. This really spoke to me:
Day 18 – Blessing – Be an Instrument of Peace
Blessing is easiest when it’s simply the overflow from a joyous heart.
But it’s when we are able to make the choice to bless even though everything in us wants to curse and strike out that we demonstrate the power of the human soul to choose what builds life and creates.
I need to learn to demonstrate that power, rather than wanting to curse my fate!