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.
Sometime we have to be willing to let go of the life we had planned and start living the life that is waiting on us God give’s them the chance to do right, be good ,change. I now know why they are called monster’s, predator’s, BadMan. I have had two monster’s try to destroy me in my life. My Mother and Mike. Today right now I am going to fight to climb up out of the fog. Yeah it happened, shit happen you know. I have climbed out to the fog before this. This isn’t my first dance with monster’s, but it is the last. There were more than 2 monster’s, make that more than I care to dance with again. OK OK so I will admit it, he was the trick that wouldnt go home…….. I went out to my (hiding spot) this evening, right there on the table next to the chair was a perfect blue robin’s egg. I looked up above, no nest in sight, hmmm, I think I will call the egg (Awareness), I really need to be aware of them. And I am not weak
I Am A Bright Light
Dear Sweet Free. Thank you for your support – you are so kind. Im going to get a few days break to clear my system. (((hugs)))
Hello everyone,
I liked Beverly’s comment about when you are feeling negative, negativity sticks to you like glue. Feels that way.
And OxD, I have housecleaned all of the toxic people in my life, my immediate family included. But now it seems like my house is rather empty, and I am hoping I haven’t gone too far.
That’s where I am now, trying to reconcile my new boundaries and judge whether they are too strong. But then I think, can I live with them any other way?
I can’t. They are my boundaries, right or wrong.
But I am so alone. I am one of those people who when I am filling out a form, has no one to list on the IN CASE OF EMERGENCY line.
I am sure there aren’t many people who literally have no one.
I have my son and I am VERY careful not to depend on him for my fulfillment in life. But at the same time, I am trying to teach him about boundaries and to show him ways in which I am sticking up for myself.
I think he respects what I am doing, and while we have had to cut off many people in our lives lately, he is able to talk about and understand why. So as hard as it is, I hope I am helping him instead of hurting him.
“Mom,” he’ll say. “I know what will cheer us up. A good game of CLUE.”
So we play. It’s the Disney version where there are no murders, only ghosts and Goofies.
So tell me everyone, is it necessary to clean house and feel completely alone in the world to pass through this crap and into the other side?
Is this part of it? I feel like I am wearing a porcupine coat and when I feel hurt anymore I just pull it up over my head and protect myself.
Inside, I am still very soft, and I am not used to having such a pointy coat. Sometimes I wish I could go back to wearing my soft cashmere coat, but now I am stuck with this porcupine coat.
But it is the only coat that fits me right now.
Dear Lilygirl,
I can relate to the ways you say you feel now that you have cut off theTOXIC people in your life, even the ones that are blood relations.
Some of us are born into “nests of vipers” it seems with more toxic relatives than others, who were born into more normal families and just MET a psychopath that injured them. Those fortunate people still have supportive family after the P is gone.
I’m kind of in the “middle,” I at least have my two sons, but like you, they can’t be the ONLY life I have, they can’t be crutches to prop mommie up. I have to have my own life, and they have theirs, as well as our relationships with each other, but then my sons are adults.
When we cut off “family” as well as an “outside” psychopath, we lose the “connectedness” to the mutual “friendships” that go with the P-relationship. But when you become a widow as I did (or a divorcee), you also lose many of the “couple” relationships that you and your spouse enjoyed together. That’s just the way the world seems to work.
When your job takes you to a new area, the friendships and connectedness with people you knew and associated with in the previous area drift away. Whatever moves us into a new “area” or “era” of our lives gives us a new opportunity to form a new area of connectedness, a new community of support. I remember when I first had my kids, my childless friends soon drifted away because our paths no longer ran parallel in our interests and activities. Those relationships forever come and go in our lives.
Out of those relationships we pick a few people that become DEEP friends, and those people we hang on to no matter how our paths diverge.
If we find ourselves devoid of the DEEP friendships for a time, and for those of us who have a “nest of vipers” for most of our family or close associates, that may be the case for a while. BUT, it does give us the opportunity to find NEW and BETTER friends, to shore up the relationships with those of the past, though they may now live more distantly.
I made a conscious decision a few years ago (before all this recent chaos) to spend more time with my DEEPER friends and less with those that were just more casual. I pretty much stopped accepting “new applications” for friendship there for a while, because the friends I was close to took up most of my time and energy and I didn’t want to dilute that.
Though in many ways I have almost lived like a hermit as far as outside contacts with any but my closest friends, I am now more ready to move out into the larger community again and to make new contacts and friendships.
Because I AM retired, I don’t have to leave the farm unless I WANT to or need some groceries, so I have a CHOICE about how many people I see and when, and whom.
I’m enjoying some new people that I have met, and getting to know some new neighbors better. I’m going out to the local auction on Saturdays and seeing acquaintances that I enjoy talking to, and spending time with my college friend who lives near by. He is divorced from his 2nd psychopath and raising, at nearly 65, his only children ages 13 and 18. Ours isn’t a romantic relationship in any way, but a trusting and close one that goes back to our college days, though we had drifted apart and not seen each other for 23 years before we reconnected by accident a few years ago.
I do NOT want anyone toxic in my “circle of trust” and don’t have the patience to deal with them at any level of contact right now. But I am more confident of the BOUNDARIES that I set about how people will treat me. I am trying to be reasonable with those boundaries, but at the same time be FIRM as well. You just have to look at it in a “businesslike” way–in any relationship is the positive pay off bigger than the cost? If it isn’t, then the relationship is bankrupt.
I have a little terrier dog that is really fun, but you have to take care of a dog, feed it, water it, and spend time doing things for it. If the dog was nice most of the time, but every so often he would bite my hand, or crap in the floor and I couldn’t know from day to day whether it would bite me, or lick me, I can guarantee that I would GET RID OF THE DOG without a backward glance, and be glad it was gone. So why on earth would I let a PERSON treat me badly, and bite my hand, crap in my floor, and make my life miserable?
I like my little dog, in fact, I love him, but if he decides he wants to bite me we will part ways pretty quickly. Now if he were injured and I went to pick him up and he bit me out of fear that is one thing, but to just reach around and bite me because he likes the taste of my blood–NOPE!
Beverly, hope you will have a nice break. I am thinking of you.
lilygirl, I am one of those people who have no one to list in emergency line. All of my family is in Japan. It’s been like this more than 10 years. Like you, I have no contact with them at least for now. I was wondering about the same thing, so I do not know the answer yet. Every morning and evening, I go for a walk with my puppy and we meet many people. I am making lots of friends through my puppy. I met and talked with a lot more people in last two months than the past two years! A puppy power is amazing! You have your son. I think you are a good mother. You can make a new network with good people who respect you and your boundaries. I am working on building my new network.
Have a nice day!
Well thank you Chaos. I too have spent too much time sitting on my own and I have decided to move myself.
Lillygirl. I think what you describe is a kind of void, when we have cleared the negative people out of our lives and then we expect something to happen – anything good will do! What I find though, is that we are left with a blank canvas, so we have to start to think about what we would like, deeper friendships and work towards giving life the opportunity to reward us with those gifts. Any good people in our lives are ‘gifts’. Me, well, I have lots of friends in their 30s and 40s, most of whom have school age children. But I have no friends around my own age, who i can share outings with, that would be one of my goals. My daughter is my n-o-kin, and then my brother and that is it. When someone has very few family members, friends are really important, older friends too can be like surrogate family, I have a friend who is in her 80s and I have a friend who is in her 70s, obviously I dont go clubbing with them, but I enjoy visiting them and they love to see me. You can construct your own family and I have done this on and off during my life.
When I look back I am continually in gratitude for the few people who really championed me, I have two of those and a friend who has stood by me, through the last 2 years. That spikey coat is your protection, wear it until you feel less raw and less tender and when you are done with it ‘hang it up’ – you will. Best wishes to you Lillygirl ((hugs))
Lillygirl. You cant see us, but you know we are here – and we are here to hear you and support you, like a great big loving family. (((hugs)))
Lillygirl. Loneliness is a hard thing for me as well. But I am going to stare loneliness in the face. I can remember when I was content with my own company. I dont want to be content with it I want to at peace with it. Loneliness was my heart wondering if I would ever find my soulmate. Loneliness is the thought’s in your head. I am turning off the thought’s in my head and becomeing aware that predator’s really get (into) lonely people. I do have family, children and close relationship’s with my client’s. They cannot fill that part of me that is lonely. Like OX I have an acerage and the work is never done around here. So I keep busy and wait for time to heal……..
lilly girl the above post is all over the place, yeah loneliness sucks……………..let’s just tuff it out, maybe better thing’s and better people are in our future…I hope so..