Many people commenting on this blog have expressed the hope that sociopaths/psychopaths will pay in this lifetime for their evil deeds. Well, I am writing to tell you that if this is your wish, statistics are in your favor. You likely just need to wait it out because psychopathy is associated with life failure, as I will explain.
In a recent study, Psychopathic personality traits and life-success, Dr. Simone Ullrich and colleagues examined relationship success and life success in more than 300 men, they have followed for many years, these men are now 48 years old. In their study, psychopathy was not associated with success in any of life’s domains. When they examined symptoms of psychopathy the interpersonal domain (being charming and manipulative) was not related to ”˜”˜status and wealth” or ”˜”˜successful intimate relationships”. Impulsiveness and antisocial behavior reduced ”˜”˜status and wealth.” The authors state “ It is concluded that psychopathic traits do not contribute to a successful life and that the findings cast doubt on the existence of the successful psychopath.”
You may be asking, What about all the “successful psychopaths” we hear about? First of all, I believe that these are a very tiny minority. Remember that the disorder sociopathy or psychopathy is a group of impairments that I relate to an inability to love, poor impulse control and deficient moral reasoning. Confusion arises because some narcissistic individuals have impaired ability to love accompanied by grandiosity, but their impulse control and moral reasoning are not as impaired. These individuals may achieve some life success (Journal of Personality Disorders, Vol 21(6), Dec 2007. pp. 657-663). So if a person is unable to love and grandiose but not excessively impulsive or immoral, that individual may achieve some career success. But still an inability to love prevents any real relationship success.
So now you can move on. Fate and Karma will get that psychopath/sociopath. You can go about your life working as I do, on trying to love more and live better.
get ready for the flashbacks where you relive the crap she did to you but in a healthier state of mind –
sounds to me like she discounted anyone who was good and had a good heart because she didn’t – projective identification – (i sound like a broken record, but take a look at it on Kathy’s site).
Kathy had a dad like your mom. and a sister. and her mom didn’t seem too great either.
all she had was her little toto dog, and her sister poisoned it.
i truly believe her sister killed her, and i am heartsick about it.
but even in death, if she continues to help people protect themselves, she is now an angel with a blog. that gives some value to the pain so many of us felt when we heard she was dead.
you have a little guardian angel now OxD, who is sitting on your shoulder. Her name is Kathy and she has had some puffy eyes herself.
okay- gotta get to bed – it’s after midnight here…i’ll pray for some extra strength for you and us all.
Thanks so much FRee and Lilygirl,
You know some days I feel so strong, and other days I feel so like I do today. The strong days have been getting better and I have felt so good lately, doing things, accomplishing things, really proud of the energy I have had and the peace I have actually been feeling.
It was ONLy when I saw mom on Friday that things kind of went down the toilet and I started to see the anger come back. Even that trashy piece of fuff that was my X-DIL didn’t upset me being with her for a couple of hours, even seeing her the next night at the auction I go to some saturdays didn’t really bum me out. But seeing my mother’s mask off, seeing her coniving look on her face, the MASK SLIPPING, just got to me later that night.
If she would just look at me and say “Oxy I hate you” I could handle that, but her MORAL SUPERIORITY PLAY is just tooooooo much. It is the sliding down my nose to wipe her butt part. Oh, Lilygirl, don’t worry about the “flashbacks” I’ve been over them 1000 times arleady and believe me there is “nothing new under the sun” on that front. The only thing I have to worry about is that I might start to pity her again since she is in such declining health and 79 years old.
I won’t delude myself that she EVER loved me again. I don’t even have that trouble now. What I am feeling is the SADNESS the SORROW over I think EMOTIONALLY admitting (not just logically or rationally admitting) that I have ALWAYS been an ORPHAN.
My step dad was a grand man, and I miss the heck out of him.
Last night I dreamed about my mother and my grandmother, and we were in some kind of college dorm. I think it was the college where I used to work as director of health services, and we were going from room to room for some reason. I kept trying to talk to my frail little grandmother (an enabler, keeper of the family secrets) and my mother was there and frail as well. I don’t remember much about the dream except that and that the college was ending the season, closing the dorms and I saw some of the kids I knew when I worked there.
I figure it had something to do with the unresolved issues emotionally about my mother and grandmother. Sometimes I have dreamed about her before trying to “reason” with her in the dreams. Sometimes My stepfather comes in between us and tries to help me reason with her, but he too is frustrated. I haven’t had any dreams about her in months and months until last night.
Both my therapist and my psychiatrist after I told them the dreams that seemed to have a “theme” to them of me taking care of someone/something else and letting my own life “crash” as a result of neglect, agreed that I was trying to work out my own tendency to “enable” others at my own expense. In real life (not dream life) I am making a conscious effort to NOT be an enabler, to set boundaries and enforce them, and it is getting easier and easier to do so, and I am feeling good about it. Good about taking care of MYSELF and the things I NEED TO DO FOR ME.
I took today off from manual labor (I had been working physically hard this past week in the heat) and just took a day to “rest” and then later when it was cool, mowed grass on the riding mower which was kind of Zen as you don’t have to think about what you are doing. My friend I visited today is a massage therapist and invited me for a free massage next week–I’M GOING!!!!
Thank you guys so much for the tissues the hugs and the support. I WILL get through this pity party, and come out the other side stronger and with my POWER back that I had given her.
Love is giving someone the power to break your heart, and trusting them not to.
I don’t trust her any more. I can’t. I won’t let her have the power that is mine. I will take it back. I will keep it safe. I will keep myself safe from her wickedness.
Thanks Free,
Your interpretation sounds as good as any I could think of. It was so odd that the “theme” dreams kept going on over and over, not the same dream, bt the same “theme” of me stopping what I was doing to help some helpless kittens or baby chickens, or something little and helpless, and while I was doing that, my horse drawn wagon would be left un attended and the horses would wander off and the wagon would over turn. After I “interpreted” it and my therapist and my psych doc agreed, it stopped completely and I never had another theme dream.
Yea, I think dreams show us what we are trying to “figure out” and some of them we remember and help us “see” what is going on.
Yes, Free, I am a fighter, I am just TIRED of fighting though, I want peace and calm. But I know I have to get it all RESOLVEd before the peace and calm can happen. Smothering it or covering it up, or pretending it isn’t there isn’t the answer either. I also know it comes in fits and spirts and two steps forward and one back–and God knows I’ve had a big series of losses in the last four years. Plus, the 4th anniversary of my husband’s death is coming up July 14th, and in some ways it seems like 20 years ago and in others only last week.
Lately though I have felt so close to him, like he was here with me almost–he was such an understanding guy about so much and so supportive–ALWAYS ON MY SIDE. My step dad, too, I have felt so close to him lately, like he too is “here” to comfort me, and those feelings, though I miss them, are really comforting feelings, not sadness or pain at all.
And I do COUNT MY BLESSINGS so very much. I have two great men for sons still, and GOOD friends who DO GET IT, and a roof over my head and enough to eat, and my dogs and my jack asses and my few pet cows, and a lovely area to live in (even if the gas companies are raping the land in the area as they drill for natural gas) and good neighbors and a helpful network of people who DO care about me.
I AM learning to set good and solid bounaries (and boy am I proud of myself for that!) so this has not been ALL about losses there are some GOOD gains too. And, it WAS VERY SATISFYING last Friday to take the last of the cash he stole out of the TH-Ps bank account even though it was only $300, it is money HE WON’T HAVE, and the truck title is signed over so he will be AFOOT when he gets out of prison in 2010…so I did get JUSTICE for him at least!
They are closing the camp for July 4th week, so my son D will be home Tomorrow some time for a week, bringing some of his staff friends to spend the week here so I will have lots of smart and fun young men to interact with.
Thanks, Free. I think I am going to bed now and get some rest for tomorrow.
Oxy I have been reading your post about your mother, you are describing my mother. I don’t have the right word’s to describe her. She hated women even her own daughter. She had to be the center of attention alway’s. She is the most vain person in the world, she was beautiful on the outside but knowing what was or wasn’t on the inside made her look like a demented demon. She has had so much plastic surgery she looks like a manican. She is 75 and the most beautiful woman in the rest home. HA HA Even 3 years ago when she could hardly walk she had a major face lift. She has literally spent most of her life in front of a mirror. She has caused so much anguish and pain for so many people all her life. And I know THAT LOOK your talking about, the one she give’s you as she tosses her fake nose up in the air and looks down at you like you are a total stranger. My older brother called 3 weeks ago and said she had had a bad fall and broke her neck, I said if there is anything I can do for you I will, but I do not want to see her. I won’t attend her funeral because her negative energy will linger about looking for prey……….
good morning all –
OxD, I was thinking more about this pretending it didn’t happen…
that was my experience too – so that’s why kathy’s writing hit home.
i was wondering if maybe you also had this experience with “pretending.”
My N would make promises and talk of the future – whether it be an hour or year from that moment – in a beautiful fantasy where he would care for me blah blah blah.
He would say and do all that but it would NEVER EVER happen. Withholding 101.
I think that he actually believed it happened just by him saying it. That like a child, he would claim “I’m Superman,” and tie a towel around his neck and he would ACTUALLY be Superman.
The rage – that look that kills – would come when I would actually stop pretending he WAS Superman.
But the thing that took me so long to understand that he didn’t really want me to believe he was superman, or his promises, or visions of the future – he just wanted me to ACT like I did.
If I believed them, I would count on them. He knew he had no intention of coming through.
But if I just ACTED like I believed them, I would have no expectations, and he will still get credit for being a good guy without having to come through and actually fulfill the promises – or even fly like Superman.
That’s how this game of Pretend works – We aren’s supposed to BELIEVE these people are good, and that they love us, we are just supposed to ACT like they are good and that they love us.
That absolves them from actually having to be good or loving, but they still get the credit for it.
If we don’t play along, we get a temper tantrum.
Wow, what happened in just a few short hours?! I felt a couple of my scabs come off and started bleeding again. This soul cleansing is good, but it sure does take one back. I feel for you, OxD, to have a mother and know she has no love for you. I don’t know what it’s like to have a mother as my few memories are clouded by my age at that time. But after her death, and my dad sending me and my other sister to live with our older sister, I always felt from that time on that I was tolerated and not loved. I think love is an emotion we can feel, just like hate.
I, too, have been the recipient of “that look”. Many times from my husband, and from members of his family. I don’t know how they perceived me, but there was something about me that made them very uncomfortable. I’ve since, met some very special people, who after they were with me, almost from the moment of meeting, said they can see Christ in my demeanor. Maybe that is what others see and we make them uncomfortable, because they know they don’t have that peace that passeth all understanding. My husband cast up to me one time that I thought I was perfect. I never thought that. If anything I thought I wasn’t good enough,due to his treatment of me, and through that I developed some obsessive compulsive behavior, because I figured he thought he was perfect and I didn’t measure up.
It’s been a very confusing journey so far. I think these emotions are character building tools, but why don’t the rest want to work on theirs? Why do they push us to the extreme just to get a reaction? And just when I think I have it right and am ready to get back in the water, JAWS appears, and I’m dry docked. I get to the place where I don’t want to open my mouth because I know anything I say is going to be wrong. I want to say to those concerned, tell me what you want to hear and I’ll tell you that. It’s like they want our love, but what they give us is the best they can do, and as in my case, my husband could give so willingly to his family. That is where his loyalty was focused. I came last. But because I pulled away, then I’m the evil one. Spiritual blindness is very difficult to deal with. Only God can help us find our true identity and keep us in the light. Maybe we have been subject to this treatment because we have found the true light and choose to walk in it, and that makes those around us, resentful. I don’t know. I just keep speculating. I always said, I’d rather have someone hate me and really mean it, than to hate me, but pretend they love me. That seems to be what I got. But because I didn’t get the love I thought I should have, it didn’t make me go out and rob a bank or commit a crime. I just kept digging deeper in God’s love.
Thank you, too, eyesopened, for your response. I have pondered all that for so long. I have wondered too about the vows we make even being scriptural. I found this one site that sheds some light on that. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/january7/37.63.html. This whole bonding issue between a man and woman, and family itself, just doesn’t make sense to me. I think it should be the easiest thing in the world to do. Loving God, loving each other. But if others don’t love God and we do, and we love them, then the equation is lopsided. I drive myself crazy, only because I’ve been confronted with these issues. It wasn’t all cut and dried, like some I know. I’ve been handed a dilemma that is like a maze and can’t seem to find the light of day at times.
I hope you feel better OxDrover. I’ve found you don’t have to be blood to be family and to be loved. You have neighbors you haven’t met who really care about you. Take care.
aptmgr –
my husband gave so willingly to his family…
i had that experience too. i often wonder if he did that to prove to me that he COULD GIVE to others, just not to me.
seeing it again and again made me feel worthless. it is what he wanted me to feel.
he would give to a stranger just to prove to me that he could – and to himself…
see? i am not that bad of a guy. i can give, even to strangers. it is YOUR fault Lilygirl that i don’t give to you…if you weren’t so unworthy, you would get it too.
it is pure evil manipulation.
Dear Lilygirl, Free, Henry and Apt/Mgr,
Yea, I think all of us had some scabs come off, but you know, sometimes scabs MUST COME OFF before the wound can heal. Sometimes what looks like a healing scab really covers over puss and infection left behind that we can’t see is there. I kind of think that is what happened to me. I realize this is a nasty medical analogy but I DO think it fits.
I thought my wounds about my mother were healing when in fact, there was nastiness hiding there, and when the scab got pulled off by seeing her a week ago, seeing that TOXIC LOOK, then the nastiness drained out. It HURT, but now if I keep the wound clean and let it heal from the INSIDE OUT rather than just “scab over” infection, it should heal completely.
When we bury our angers and our hatreds and our bitterness against them, or try to play their game and “pretend none of this happened” and worse, ACT like none of this happened, talk about INVALIDATING OURSELVES, our feelings, even OUR BEING ITSELF.
I DO feel better today. I had trouble getting to sleep last night, couldn’t shut my head off, but finally did and got a good long sleep, not getting up until well into the morning, but it is raining outside, cool, and nice so I am just sitting here listening to the rain on the roof and windows and musing some more. But the feelings are not painful today, just sort of empty and sad, disappointed that mom is what she is, is who she is, but realizing also that I can’t “fix” that and make her into the woman she “portrays” in the family script!
My whole life it seems is to play my part in the family SCRIPT, the family STAGE PRODUCTION of “See, we’re a nice normal family” to convince the neighbors that we are “upstanding Christian people” and it has been fairly successful in the community at large with a few exceptions.
Even if an actor missed their lines or if one publicly embarassed the family, like uncle monster publicly beating his latest girlfriend in a drunken rage, we, like GOOD TROOPERS that we were, pretended it didnt happen and just went on with the show–THE SHOW MUST GO ON, above all else!
Even when it was apparent that the production was a farce, and that there was no way the greater audience would buy the “story line”–if you just keep up the pretences, just keep FAKING it, and even if it means you have to kill someone who won’t go along with the script AS WRITTEN, so be it.
Well, my mother is the only ACTOR on stage right now. There is no one willing to take over the vacated parts or say their lines. She is completely frustrated and tries desperately to get her “production” back on the stage. But the audience has left now, the community knows that we are “ANYTHING” but the nice normal family we tried to portray. The ONLY thing she can hope to salvage from the wreck of the production and the jeers of the audience as we tripped and fell on our faces, revealing that we were not who we pretended to be, is that maybe, just maybe she can keep up her mask and the community won’t know WHO AND WHAT SHE REALLY IS.
Her mantra of “but what would the neighbors think?” is totally a moot point now. The neighbors KNOW the wider truth, even if they don’t know the truth about HER. The production is done. The lights on the stage are out, the company of actors widely disbursed working in new venues, and she is alone with her script in her hand, her only regrets that she couldn’t make the others read their lines. How frustrating.
But for ME, for my sons C and D, we are free to LIVE LIFE now, and to write our own lines and make it up as we go, we don’t have to follow the roles that were previously written by generatons of dysfunctional people whose ONLY CONCERN was “what would the neighbors think?”
One of the BEST parts for me too, is that my relationship with God is no longer FILTERED through my mother’s definitions of God’s commands and desires. I can talk directly to God and read His word with new insight. That is very comforting to me.
Thank you all for your support last night in REAL TIME, you can’t know how much it meant me and how much it really helped.
Love, hugs and prayers!
oxy,oxy,oxy…………i dont post here often as in the throes of the dismantling of my relationship with the creature, i have been thrown so off balance, its al i can do to muster the energy to survive day to day as a nurse practitioner solving everyone elses crises all day long and acting as if im all together……i must say this sight has probably contributed to my survival and recovery……..i have always read your postings as a search for one last piece to this puzzling nightmare that just didnt fit right…i saw your mom in your postings as a sociopath with a capital s, but you needed to reconcile that with yourself…noo ne could point. it out…your brain though kept tumblinb with thoughts like a dryer and finally thanks to lily girl and kathy and apt mgr and sooooooo many others, it finally fell into place as i knew it would…sorry i didnt have the strength to contribute, but it takes all my energy to eat and work…NOW your are totally on the path……….and henry, i am so worried for you…everyone is so right on about the new guy with NO FRIENDS AND A sketchy past….i would prefer he doesnt even GO to a movie with you……i see me all over in you and we are not anywhere near ready to even have a new friend that could be a potential date!!!!! sorry even thought ive oly spoken to you once long ago and i made a promise to you that all would be ok, i have followed everyones tales here and wish you would just go on the virtual date with aloha or free or eyes..sorry i forget who it was…………..this is so weird writing, i feel like a stalker in everyones life…lol to be continued
Dear OxDrover,
I think once we face the awful that seems to fill our being, drag it out to air, we face reality. I think, had my husband done this with whatever is deep within him, we could have had a normal life.
I heard him through your mother. Prior to his retirement, he was asked many times what he was going to do once he retired. He told many that he was going to get a part time job to supplement his soc.sec., and finish the house. When he retired from the factory, he was offered a part time job.He turned them down flat. That’s what started the beginning of the end for us and the new beginning for me. Even though he’s older, he still had responsibilities. He informed me several months before he retired, that he didn’t care what bills we had, he was retiring. Our financial state was a mess, because of trying to get the kids through college and he, as the main earner, worked only what he had to. If he had a choice between a lay off and working, he’d take the lay off, not caring that that put us way behind again and again. So I told him that I would get a part time job along with my main job.
I don’t think he believed me. But someone had to do something and it was left to me. So he retired, didn’t do what he said he would do, and I got a part time job working as a janitor at night. I didn’t tell him until I got it, and his response was, “what will the neighbors say with you working two jobs and I’m at home?” I just looked at him. I couldn’t believe those words came out of his mouth.
But he didn’t care about anything but his agenda. I’ve been working both jobs since 97 and will continue to do so for another 12 years, as long as God gives me health and strength to do so. I choose to live life and he seems to just live his age. There is no agreement or understanding. Now that I know what he harbored in his heart for all those years, I can better understand. It hurt so badly for so long, that money meant so much to him, but he didn’t want to work for it. Such a messed up scenario. That’s just some of it, and my sister has the audacity to say that maybe I created my own hell. No I didn’t create it. I, at that time, contributed to it, as I didn’t know that people could harbor such awful thoughts of the person they said they loved. I’ve gotten to the place where I wonder if true love really does exist.
I know I love my children. I know I love God and Christ has been my first love. I can love other people. But knowing there are three different kinds of love, Agapao, Phileo, and Eros, they seem to get all mixed up. I think, too, that Eros, lust, clouds the judgment of the other kinds of love. Real love doesn’t need lust to fulfill. That should be a by product of our love for our mate, but shouldn’t be the deciding factor. We don’t have sex with our friends or shouldn’t, in order to love them.
I did a cross reference on love vs lust and I think that was my life. Lust was wanting all the time. That seemed to be the driving force for my husband. But he loved his family. He wanted to help them all with their homes, but our home sat. He really didn’t care if it got done. And it’s not and I no longer care. I pray that someone will buy it, and we’ve had offers, from people who want a house to finish. It sits in a beautiful setting, but when I go there, the ghosts talk to me. What should have been a beautiful time in our life, became a nightmare. All those “looks” came when he was working on the house. He hated all that pertained to it. He didn’t secure his future with me, so he, too is alone. But it was his choice and not mine. I had none. I had to build a life for me. We never finished what we started. And here I’ve found a lot who didn’t get to either. So I’m not alone. I didn’t help to create the change, so I had to learn to cope and accept.
I was hoping for thunderstorms here in southwestern Pa., today, like you OxDrover. I was going to stay in bed all day!! But duty always calls. I love the sound of rain on the roof and the sky bright with lightening. It always reminds me of the power of God. It’s all still about Him. And your mother, my husband, and all the rest who choose to push real love away, have missed out on the sweetest gift that life can offer. But life sometimes takes back that gift, too.