By Fannie LeFlore, MS,LPC
Since she founded Lovefraud.com in 2005, Donna Andersen has heard heartbreaking and horrendous stories from people across the globe who’ve been victimized by sociopaths. Her new book does what we’d hope parents and schools do on a routine basis: Better prepare people for the complexities of real-life relationships and social interactions, whether business, romantic, family or friends. This requires, as uneasy as it may make us feel, acknowledging that some human beings simply are not interested in being decent, but actually seek to cause harm to others as a way of life.
Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 Signs You’re Dating a Sociopath, released in Spring 2012 by Andersen’s publishing company in New Jersey, goes where few books go in calling interpersonal abuse the evil it really is, and is backed up by Andersen’s extensive research combined with the depth of personal knowledge from having experienced a sociopathic ex-partner, first-hand. The book’s examples from diverse people who completed Lovefraud.com surveys explore the human degradation, pain, confusion and loss caused by exploitation, deceit and manipulation within personal relationships. The stories of those victimized by sociopaths show just how far people can go in attempting to destroy the lives of others, often on multiple levels, far beyond the norm of what we think when defining dysfunctional relationships.
As hard a pill for many to swallow, Andersen makes it clear that extricating oneself from a relationship with a sociopath is the only path to recovery and healing, despite how tempting it can be to buy into fairy tales that love can help anyone grow and change for the better. As many who’ve suffered severe harm know all too well, this kind of hope may not be based in reality, since not all people are willing to honestly face and work on their issues. Less known is how false hope can also disable those who are victimized, clouding their thinking and preventing them from becoming clear about the need to let go of a damaging relationship and take responsibility for taking care of themselves.
That’s also why, as a mental health professional, I appreciate Andersen venturing into brave new territory by issuing a clear challenge to the mental health establishment to make sociopathy fully known as the serious personality disorder it is. Sociopathy reflects a deep level of moral insanity that is most evident among those who focus primarily on controlling others, beyond reason, without regard for consequences, without regard for reality.
For every sociopath out there, multiple lives are at risk physically, mentally and spiritually in large part because the general public has a Hollywood-sanitized perspective, with misleading stereotypes and sound-bites that provide only surface awareness of sociopaths.
Andersen’s book offers far more than mainstream media provides, in very clear language and terms that demonstrate visceral understanding of the depth of depravity among the human predators who are hard to identify simply because they look like the rest of us.
Fannie LeFlore, MS,LPC, is a psychotherapist who served as editor of “The Road Less Traveled and Beyond,” by the late M. Scott Peck, MD. Contact: fannie@leflorecommunications.com.
Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 signs you’re dating a sociopath is available now exclusively in the Lovefraud Store.
Truthspeak,
For what it is worth, I see psychopathy like alcoholism…there is a genetic PREDISPOSITION but there is a CHOICE to be or not to be.
An alcoholic has a genetic predisposition to be more tempted by alcohol than people without that gene set, but they have a CHOICE to drink or not to drink.
A psychopath, we know, has some genetic predisposition toward psychopathy, but they have choices. To do what they know is wrong, or not to. Some kids are not taught “right or wrong” so their choices are made more or less for them, but those that are “raised right” as Fannie Flagg would say know what is right, but CHOOSE to do wrong. Enjoy doing wrong even.
I have never had any doubt that personality disorders had some genetic basis, my son Patrick is so much like my P sperm donor that it is unbelievable, and the two never met….but my son made CHOICES to do wrong, to steal and murder. He knew both were wrong, yet he did them, with glee afterward, just like my P sperm donor.
I think that eventually, just like the alcoholic who continues to drink, that they get to a point that they can’t or won’t stop. With alcoholics the alcohol damages the brain to the point that they no longer can think or make reasonable choices about anything….I think the psychopath’s choices do the same thing to them, they get to a point they can no longer make a positive choice. The Bible calls this a “reprobate mind.” Their conscience is seared to the point that even God can’t reach them. They have given themselves to the forces of darkness. They are spiritually bankrupt. They have a soul, it is just one of evil.
Truthspeak, that is a very interesting idea, that spaths are attracted to “shining” people who exhibit a soul, because they are so lacking, themselves.
I know I can only guess at this — so my views come from spiritual reading I’ve done, experience and meditating on these things.
So these are my spiritual views, which are always subject to changing…
as far as choices to DO right or DO wrong, yes I think we all (spaths included) have that freedom of choice, at every moment. But for spaths, I think it is a mask. They are only pretending. I think the motivation is different. Like putting on a beautiful dress over a filthy body and then spraying on a bunch of perfume to cover up the stench. And a lot of us are too blind to notice the difference.
But to go a step further… rather than wash their body clean, they’d prefer to just cover it up and fool people.
I do think they are fooling themselves — I think they believe that they are that filthy body and are comfortable being that way, or it is a habit, it is lazy, and they also do not realize that what they perceive as their vast riches are actually tin and plastic. They are totally, completely blind to what they have become and what they are doing. At a very fundamental level. At a slightly more surface level — yes, they have “choices” in how they behave and some of them can train themselves very well to not let that mask slip.
I hear you, Skylar, calling that “shame.” I think it looks like shame but is something different. And I think that is part of why I call this thing “slippery” because it is very hard to grasp.
Oxy,
Yeah — it’s the glee that is the tell.
The various views on “what” and “why” spaths are each are valid, IMHO. MY personal cahllenge has been to abandon the tolerance in the false hope of redemption. To this day, I have never witnessed the true healing redemption of any spath – not ever.
Throughout my life, I have ignored, dismissed, and even rationalized the clear and WAVING “red flags” based upon the spiritual beliefs that I was raised with: everyone deserves a second chance and everyone can be redeemed. KNOWING that spaths exist and that they all display their “red flags” is imperative knowledge – it’s like a coral snake and their beautiful vibrant markings being a “red flag” of Nature to AVOID this species because their poison is LETHAL. Well, educating the general public about the markings of a spath is a much more difficult challenge because human beings WANT to understand and render healing. Other species are much more interested in setting their place in the pack and surviving through the next season.
Excellent discussion – hugs all around!
Donna,
I agree that they don’t FEEL shame. But they have it. It is called “bypassed shame” and was first written about in 1971 by Helen B. Lewis, a psychology researcher. It is shame that is unacknowledged, unfelt. It presents as narcissism.
Dr. Leedom says:
The key words here are “cannot…admit…not even to themselves.” This indicates a state of denial.
Dr. Leedom says,
Attacking others is a response to shame. Psychopathy is specifically associated with attacking others in response to shame. In other words, rather than feel shame, they attack. So the feelings of shame ARE there but then they are expelled/projected onto others in anger, blaming and scapegoating. That’s why we feel slimed in their presence, they project their shame onto us. In their minds, it’s always our fault. Then WE feel anger at being humiliated and shamed.
Even normal people will sometime react by blaming others when we are shamed. Psychopaths are different in that their whole lives revolve around this behavior. They are big wads of walking narcissism in denial of any feelings that threaten their facade. They choose to deny any feelings which would make them vulnerable, like normal humans are. The pathological, non-stop lying attests to the state of denying reality, including the reality of being ashamed.
Once they’ve implemented a mechanism for bypassing shame, (blaming others for everything) they are free to act shamelessly.
I can see why there is confusion on this subject. It leaves the question: if it’s not felt (shame) then is it really there?
The answer is in the evidence of their behavior: if it wasn’t really there, they wouldn’t have to project it onto others.
Truthspeak,
Some venomous things have bright colors to warn us off, but others, have camo so they can hide in plain sight. The other day my son killed a cotton mouthed snake, almost invisible where it lay. Totally toxic. some psychopaths are like the coral snake but others are like the cotton mouth. How much easier it would be for us if they were all brightly colored so we could see them and know them for what they are, but unfortunately, they don’t all wave visual RED FLAGS, and we must observe their BEHAVIOR for those indicators of poison.
Donna’s new book gives some great indicators of those RED FLAGS, but I would add a couple more. One is ANY sign of DISHONESTY is a deal breaker for me. Any sign of IRRESPONSIBILITY is also a deal breaker.
Sure, we are going to encounter people every day who are dishonest and irresponsible, but we don’t have to allow those people into our circle of INTIMACY. We don’t have to allow those people to gain our trust.
Ox Drover;
“Any sign of dishonesty” is particularly true regarding internet dating. There is no reason for a person not to be honest regarding their age, location, height, weight and current appearance.
Skylar, thank you, that is a really good explanation.
I do know that my ex-husband has always become very angry at exposure of his pathology (or threats to expose). The appearance of sanity and normalcy is all-important to him.
And I think this is multilayered, and that’s why it can be confusing. On the surface, for many spaths, they appear completely unconcerned about their behavior — and that presents as not having any shame. Or we connect “shame” in our minds with remorse — if you cannot feel remorse, you cannot feel shame.
I do recall reading a bit about borderline personality disorder and the blame-shifting — which can be so lightning-rapid that it happens unconsciously; the spath or disordered person is in partial or complete denial of this mechanism of shifting blame — in many cases, they TRULY BELIEVE that the blame lies outside themselves (and in another person). That is their delusion. The explanation is that the defense mechanism is covering something so deeply embedded that it is buried very deeply beneath their conscious minds… that means it is very hard to get to. Slippery.
I think for some others, it is not buried so deeply, and occasionally may surface into their conscious minds the horror of what they are doing — for a glimpse of a split second; then the defense mechanism kicks in. Which is a much more comforting feeling than to try to grasp that slippery, horrifying thought which just threatened to become exposed above the surface.
This might be another case (?) where the terminology has different connotations for different people (like the word “forgiveness” which has brought about so many interesting discussions here).
Thank you all for taking the time to write to eloquently on this topic. It is so helpful.
I was starting to feel healed and this week I decided finally to de-friend my spath on Facebook. I had him blocked so I couldn’t see his postings but I reached a point where I want to post things and I don’t want him to know anything about me any more. It was so simple to do and then I fell back into the abyss. It’s as if I hit the spot where a thin layer of scar tissue had developed and scraped it all off.
Meditation, making contact with real love in my world, and reading here all have me feeling better. I am shocked by how much this still hurts though.
20years;
Since sociopathy and borderline personality disorder are both Cluster B personality disorders, there are some over-lapping traits. Even to professionals, they can he hard to distinguish. My counselor thought the x-spath was borderline, perhaps because he is one of those “academic” types who only recognizes anti-social personality disorder.
Since most borderlines are women and most sociopaths are men, a strong case can be made that the underlying “disease” is similar except for the high testosterone component that makes sociopaths non-empathetic.
I have some evidence to suggest that the person I dated before the x-spath was borderline. I remained friends with one of his friends and certainly from some conversations we have had about him, I got that impression.
Other than the male-femaie difference, the other big difference is the empathy factor. Borderlines feel their own pain. Thus, when they are confronted with a difficult relationship situation, for example needing to terminate a relationship, it will be very difficult for the borderline to do such and in the process will be very emotional.
Sociopaths have no empathy and can end a relationship like turning off a light switch.
In addition borderlines tend to not engage in relationships purely for sex. Thus, while the borderline may be promiscuous, they tend to be serially so and won’t “waste” time with anyone they don’t consider a true romantic partner. Sociopaths will juggle multiple partners and have no problem dating just for sex.