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.
I still have his CAT, I want to give her away but everytime i look at her it reminds me that she is a predator,just like he is and If I don’t keep her fed she will prey on a bird or anything alive and devour it, I need to change her name (HE) the (P) caller her sissy, what Is a good name for a female predator? she is part siameze, any suggestion?? and this cat does not purr never has, she just screams for food and attention………
Lilygirl,
I can really relate to your prickly coat and loneliness. I told my Dad once, before I left to Maui where I met the Bad Man, that loneliness had such a presence in my life that it was like having a roommate. Loneliness was very very present. Does that make sense?
That was one thing I had in Maui. I had a real housemate that I miss very much and if it wasn’t for her, I don’t know what would have happened to me with that whacko chasing me around the dang island. SHEESH!
Anyway, I have done some house keeping as well and fired a “friend” or two. The thing is, I think when we have weak boundaries, we are the people that put up with shitty people… so we might have a few more hanging around than say someone with good boundaries. People with good boundaries have already told them to take a hike or have sensed that something was off right from the start and never got sucked into a friendship.
Beverly says we are here for you.. we are. This may not be enough for you but it’s something…it’s a start. There is a community here and there are plenty of us that have reached the point of wanting to get on with life and get out there again…even if we are still limping. There are people at every stage of healing and every stage of getting out there again… and moving on.
Speaking of moving on, didn’t we love Donna’s post about finding love again? Boy do we need to hear that!
Anyway, it’s amazing to me how similiar we all are at times… the questions we have about life… the stages we have gone through.. our weaknesses and our strengths? Sometimes, I think our weakness is our strength.
We are the real lovers.
We loved and were patient and put up with Hell because we loved someone and we gave our word and our word means something to us. But we know now that our integrity is not built only on our word but that it must stand on the integrity of the boundaries we have for ourselves. Love may know no bounds but it better have some boundaries.
That’s what I think anyway. What do I know?
XO Aloha
Lilygirl… what I was trying to say is that I really relate to you. You are so vulnerable. I get that and I love it. It’s what is real.
:o)
I guess we are all singing the same song, only adding our verse. It all says the same though. I could list my husband to call, but I’ve had to compete with him as far as illnesses go. I had knee surgery two years ago and had one of my tenants sign me out. I didn’t even tell him I had the surgery until much later.
But that’s just to say that I, too, thought unconditional love was a given. You gave it, you got it. When we are so taken for granted, we are the ones who end up holding the bag. We gave all of us and all of us got hurt. Like Free, I too, was very lonely in my marriage. I was talked to worse than someone would talk to their animal, but in front of others I was cherished. Honey, dear, etc. But behind closed doors, I didn’t rate, unless sex was the object. I don’t ever want to endure that kind of relationship again. All those years made me so vulnerable for the man I did meet, and he saw what I didn’t. I’m coming out of both of those battles, scarred and not completely healed. And very much alone.
I watched helplessly as my children all left home and it was the same year my husband finally put a name on his incredible anger. Financial ruin. I gave him my all for 30 years and jumped through hoops and the sum total of all those years of my life was a ruination. Had it not been for God and my morals, I would have crashed and burned. I still shake my head when I think of going through that period. I want to rant and rave at the men who took so much from me and gave nothing in return.
The man I met who I thought was my rescuer told me I should be glad he would even stop and see me, when I had commented that he just breezes in and out of my life. He said I just complained and wanted to argue. I see now what I didn’t then, and that he, too, was just using me for a convenience. I was someone to play his games on because I didn’t know any better. Now I do, and, oh, I wish I could get back at him, but the no contact really does work. They don’t really care, but it irks them that they can’t get to us anymore. It’s a win/win, lose/lose situation. Very frustrating to say the least. And loneliness is there, but I’d rather have my own company than that of someone who just tolerates me. That’s not love.
Wow, what wonderful posts this FRiday! From everyone! Yes, I like that, “singing the same song,” just adding different verses.
Lily girl, Aloha’s “lonliness” being like a roommate is a very good analogy.
A couple of years ago when my son that lives with and works for me left for 8 months to be on the “road” for his job and I was here by myself I realized it was the FIRST time in 40 years that I had been living on my own, without a kid or a husband or a roommate living with me. AT first it was like I wandered from room to room in the house, just feeling it was “empty”—a strange feeling, but Aloha’s “Lonely roommate” was the spirit that lived there. Before long though, that emptiness was somewhat filled by ME being there for MYSELF. I got to know myself better and I think without that 8 months by myself I might not have.
My son is gone off for his summer job now, and though I miss his help when I go to move something heavy, I just either leave it for later, or figure out some way to move it by myself without endangering myself by the lifting or moving. I’m actually enjoying him being gone and being here by myself.
I know that he is getting a shot in the arm emotionally and other ways doing what he loves doing and is excellent at. I know he is having a good time with his friends on the staff and getting good rewards from the influence he is on the campers.
Apt/Manager being “lonely in a crowd” or being “lonely” when you are with the one you love I think is MUCH WORSE than being lonely “alone”–at least it is for ME.
Thank you all for adding to our “song” of healing!
Oh, Henry, I’m kind of “strange” with many of my animal names, My donkeys’ names are Fat and Hairy, and since Donkeys are ASSES (that is the actual correct name for the animals) you can get the joke. LOL I also had a cat named “Chairman Meow” once, and a spayed female dog named “Sam Spade” (a fictional detective) and one named Phideaux (pronounded Fido in pseudo-French) and a steer named “Hamburger” and a pig named “Pork Chop.”
So maybe you could rename the cat something like a twisted Killer, like name her Charlie Manson (charlie can be a girl’s name) or better yet, why not just find her a home with someone else so you dont’ have to think about HIM every time you see her.
Have a good weekend, BEv and the rest of you too!
I almost wish every single person wrote back and said – no Lilygirl – I am fine, surrounded by SO many people who love me. My biggest problem is deciding whose name to list…
Yuck. I wish we all weren’t going through this. But please know that even though you are suffering with this loneliness, it is helping someone – ME, and my little boy.
When I try to determine how and why this happens – besides getting rid of the toxic people in my life who are there only because of my good, trusting heart (totally TRUE) I am thinking back.
My abuser would constantly tell me – you can’t get over things…you can’t ever move on…you can’t get along with anyone…
and for a LONG time, I listened and believed him.
But somewhere was a tiny voice that used to be a lot stronger. it told me…
you can’t get over things because they are still being done to you (you can’t forgive a crime in progress)…
you can’t move on because the damage still exists…
you can’t get along with people who are preying on you, using you as a scapegoat and hurting you.
I think that is how I started recognizing my boundaries. Somewhere in there I had them, but I didn’t trust them. I almost still don’t. Which is why us coming together to VALIDATE what we know to be our reality reassures us that WE ARE NOT CRAZY.
When I re-read over what Lundy Bancroft says an abused person needs to heal – I so much agree.
We just need someone to say that sucks that it happened to you. But you are not the only one.
I think for the million times I doubted myself and believed my abuser, the thought that pulled me through was the thought that – HE HAS DONE THIS TO OTHERS BEFORE AND THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO HAVE GONE THROUGH THE SAME THING –
Knowing that this was not just me going through it really helps. For years I asked questions. He told me a lot of it himself about how he always does this to women.
I actually wrote letters to his ex’s. I heard back from two of them. Wow. That helped tremendously.
One woman I met for a minute said “You’re dating XX? Run away from him as fast as you can.”
I never even knew her name.
People here and there would tell me things. Small tiny things. But like a puzzle, those tiny pieces fit together to show me the big picture.
Reading about P, S, N’s – wow, he was textbook. CLASSIC. I would think to myself – Now, as much as you DONT want to believe this is him, here it is in black and white.
The person who wrote this has never met him, yet can describe him to the smallest detail. Hmmm.
I wish we could all meet and have coffee. Boy, I could use a hug and a good cry with someone who understands.
But I can’t. So I will look at it this way. You guys all out there, telling me about my ex while never having met him is just DOUBLE reassurance that his evil does exist, and I AM NOT CRAZY.
That I am on on a road that is not smooth, but hard – so I don’t sink down in the mud. (That’s from When Bad Things Happen to Good People – I am reading it now.)
Those little wishes you get when you toss a penny into a fountain or blow an eyelash off your fingertip will all go to you guys, that this pain we are in will pass quicker.
Thank you so much. I feel better and we are not alone in the world, you have pulled me off of the floor. I’m on my knees now, working to get back on my feet.
This stinking porcupine coat is heavy!
Just one more thought on this – below is part of a blog by Kathy Krajco, a victim who died last month alone standing up against a nest of pit vipers) here is something she wrote that helped me, maybe it will help you too:
Acting Like it Didn’t Happen
The next day, after taking a crap on you, he is all smiles. And expects you to be, too. In fact, he pulls the projective identification stunt on you to project his cheery mood into you.
Ah, how nice. Your abuser carries no grudge, eh?
If you don’t pretend that the person who attacked you yesterday is a friend . . . . If you don’t pretend that you have no apology coming . . . . If you don’t pretend that nothing has affected your relationship with the narcissist . . . . That is, if you don’t act like it didn’t happen . . . you are a sinner who doesn’t forgive and forget, who doesn’t “put it behind you,” who “dredges things up from the past.” Sound familiar?
This means that, in his home, his whole history of abuse must be washed away by everyone acting as though it didn’t happen.
Washed away. Absolution. Swoosh, gone. As though it didn’t happen. What does that make of it?
If I held a door for you yesterday, today you can act like it didn’t happen. If you thanked me for holding that door yesterday, today I can act like it didn’t happen. But if something important happened, we don’t act like it didn’t happen, do we?
Acting like abuse didn’t happen is a lie.
Acting like it didn’t happen makes nothing of it.
That makes abusing you nothing. And if it’s nothing, it isn’t wrong.
And if abusing you is nothing, you are nothing.
Acting like it didn’t happen is a statement that nothing happened. That him abusing you is okay. For, it puts abusing you in the same category as thanking you or praising you or kidding you in the category of things for which there is no penalty = the category of non-wrong things you can do. Indeed, there is no such thing as a wrong deed that carries no penalty.
He doesn’t have to patch your wounded feelings. He doesn’t have to say he’s sorry. He doesn’t have to promise never to do it again. He doesn’t even have to admit he did it. Let alone that it was wrong.
He has incurred no liability whatsoever. Anyone who says you’re morally obligated to forgive him had better clear the cobwebs out of their brain and start thinking for themselves.
By playing along with him in acting like it didn’t happen, you are consenting in making abusing you okay. You implicitly give permission to do it again the next time he’s constipated.
This is how you brainwash people and break their backs by forcing them to act like it didn’t happen. Especially when you raise them from birth in such an environment.
Imagine having to treat as a friend someone who treats you like dirt. That is acting out a lie.
Imagine having to treat as a true father, mother, spouse, brother, or sister, someone who has a long history of viciously attacking you for no reason. Someone who just needs to take a crap on you every so often. Someone who then feels better and is all smiles the next day, thinking you should be too.
And thus he just flushes his offense away by acting as though it never happened forcing you to act out this charade for him.
Imagine having to relate to such a hostile enemy as to a friend.
Can anything be more perverted, self-destructive and against Nature?
That is the bending-for-it the narcissist imposes on those trapped with him in his home. If you are, or were, a child who grew up in a home with a narcissistic brother or sister and/or a narcissistic parent, you have my deepest sympathy.
It’s Lilygirl again now –
She has tons on boundaries, and constantly writes in defense of the victims – I think reading her blog has really supported me in learning again to trust my boundaries. That what I thought was my weakness is really my strength.
You can read tons and tons more at:
http://www.narcissism.operationdoubles.com/actinglikeitdidnthappen.htm
Lilygirl, thank you for posting that from Kathy. I had not seen it, and IT DESCRIBES MY FAMILY TO A TEE—our family crest should be “Let’ just pretend it didn’t happen.”THAT IS A DIRECT QUOTE FROM MY MOTHER.
That was when I decided I HAD TO GO NO CONTACT with her as well. I have dubbed her a “psychopath by proxy” because though I think she really isn’t a psychpath, she does HIS BIDDING in her enabling which is TOXIC. COMPLETELY TOXIC.
My response to that was that “as long as we are pretending, let’s pretend that daddy isn’t dead and M (my husband) isn’t dead and we can set places for them for supper tonight and have a great time.” She just rolled her eyes at me and repliec, “Well, I want to focus on the positive, not the negative. I won’t be negative.”
Yea, RIGHT–we won’t talk about HER BAD ACTS or the P’s bad acts. We’ll just PRETEND IT NEVER HAPPENED.
Thanks, Lilygirl! Hang in there, and keep on reading, and learning and growing STRONGER and reclaiming your POWER for you and your son! If you think you can’t do it for yourself, do it for YOUR SON, he doesn’t deserve to have that man anywhere near him. (((BIG Hugs)))))
OxD –
You are always so helpful to me and everyone here, so I am glad to provide you with a little comfort. I posted more on the subject below (it’s long, so it’s LOTS more.)
When I learned Kathy died, I was shocked. Someone so strong and sure of herself was gone. Someone I thought couldn’t be beaten by this crap ended up getting beaten. It shook me to my core.
She writes and writes about her own experiences, growing up with a sister who would poison her dog, physicially assault her. Of her sister withholding pain medication from their mother in her last hours of life, leaving her in the dark, alone, and crying out in pain. The sister just went to bed.
Horrible stories. They haunt me. I actually tried to contact the police to make sure she wasn’t murdered. Just now as I was looking up more on this subject of acting like it didn’t happen, she has a post “HOW TO KILL YOUR SISTER AND GET AWAY WITH IT.”
She died alone, living just across the street from her horrible sister. It kills me to think that her sister killed her and would get away with it. Even if her sister had nothing to do with it, she killed her every day in covert, horrible, quiet ways.
It just absolutely sucks that she will get away with it. I can’t stand to think of it. Kathy deserved way better, and if this crap could pull down someone so strong, it scares me sometimes to think of what it is doing to me, how it is killing me every day, in such quiet ways.
Anyway, here is more from her. Like I said, she has tons of dead on balls stuff:
Healing and Forgiveness
I have a question for anyone out there who can answer it. I would like to know why therapists – yes, therapists, not just preachers – think that a victimized person must forgive in order to heal.
To keep things from getting all fogged up, we must be clear on what we mean by forgiveness.
The word has a definite meaning: it is forgiving a portion of the debt incurred by the offender as your ante in a mutual act of reconciliation.
But the word is suffering a terrible bout of bastardization these days, having the guts torn out of it by being used as vague codeword for somehow managing to “stop hungering and thirsting for justice,” for somehow “erasing your anger.”
Woops, I forgot. Justice sounds too good in this context, I must call it revenge instead.
But, anyway, please be sure to identify which kind of forgiveness you mean if you explain why therapists instruct their patients to forgive.
A couple related questions, just to make sure we all heal good.
Let’s say that a malignant narcissist tells me today that she is going to ruin my life tomorrow. Must I forgive her today? Or may I at least wait until tomorrow?
Now, hopefully, we can presume that the therapist would cut me a little slack and say that it would be understandable if I wait awhile, simply because it would be very hard to forgive the offense in advance. But I would sure like to know what the preacher’s answer is.
Because you know what I’m going to ask next then, right? If I am morally obligated to forgive, I’m as morally obligated to forgive today as tomorrow.
Which could be problematic.
Like what about a crime in progress? I’m morally obligated to forgive it, right?
What does that mean? Like, I am under assault by someone committing assault-and-battery against me, and I must sign off on the debt he will owe me when he finishes damaging me? I must “give away my anger”? I must therefore put down that baseball bat and stop defending myself, right?
Well, let’s say the malignant narcissist has already ruined my life. She destroyed a $50,000 professional career (the cost of a college education), calumniating me so badly that I can’t get a job anywhere but at the checkout in a convenience store.
She did it 10 years ago. Which means that the malignant narcissist has by now racked up a debt of $500,000 ($50,000 a year). Plus interest. Plus punitive damages.
But I’m a bad person who fails to “heal” if I haven’t forgiven her by now, right?
But let’s say I do forgive her now. Am I not forgiving a crime in progress? The ruining of my life? Yes, the crime is in progress until she restores my good name, and she never will. So, am I not forgiving the $50,000 she will be stealing from me next year, and the next, and the next, until I die?
Am I not then forgiving her in advance? And I’m a bad person if I don’t do so? We must forgive without restitution of stolen property?
I think I’m beginning to get it. This “forgiveness” business is just “letting her get away with it.”
Now, it’s one thing to be unable to do anything about it, and quite another thing to be required to do nothing about it.
I feel like Huck Finn. I say, “All right, I’ll go to Hell.” I am going to be a bad person and keep biding my time, hungering and thirsting for justice, reminding myself like Hamlet did that there is justice to be done, a wrong to set right, waiting for an opportunity to get my money and put her behind bars. It’s bad enough to be unable to do so, but don’t try to tell me that I have no right to want to do so.
And I just noticed that “healing” rhymes with “feeling,” so it’s easy to see why fogheads get the two confused. Healing is just not feeling that hunger and thirst and anger anymore, right?
Because the therapist says that my feelings are what’s hurting me, my feelings are what make me feel bad – not the punches or the poverty.
Aye, laddies, THERE’s the pathology! It’s those pathological feelings of mine! I must numb them.
So, I get it now: forgiveness is like a drug, a pain-killer.
A mental one. It amounts to “acting like it didn’t happen.”
Yes, let’s play Pretend.
All gone. I feel fine now.
That’s all you have to do to make a $500,000 crime go away. Just make nothing of it.
Ruining my life was nothing.
But what if she has just taken a sledge-hammer to my car instead? Would the therapist and the preacher say doing that was nothing, too?
I don’t think so. I think they’d say I should get an estimate of the damages for her to pay. Because a car is a thing of value. So, destroying it is not nothing.
You know what I am going to ask them now, don’t you? I’m going to ask them why they are dehumanizing me, devaluing me all the way to absolute zero, by saying that destroying my car is destroying a thing of value but destroying me is nothing.
Though I must forgive her, she need not ask for my forgiveness. She need not give me back my good name or pay even a portion of the damages. She need not even say she’s sorry. She need not even admit that it was wrong for her to do that. She need not even admit that she did it!
How come I am the only one who incurs a debt through her deed? I owe her forgiveness, and she owes me nothing.
Indeed, she need not even promise never to do it again.
Like that guy committing assault and battery against me. He does that about once a week. But I must forgive him 70 times 70 times without him ever even promising to stop doing it?
Well then, let’s add this up. If it was nothing when she or he did it yesterday, it would be nothing if she or he does it tomorrow too. No penalty = no damages. Or, as we say in sports “No harm/no foul” = carte blanche = I am letting them do that to me.
YES I AM!
The reason I yelled that is because someone with total contempt for logic, who thinks you negate a truth by simply flatly denying it, is sure to say that I am not letting them do that, as if that is a valid argument in answer. Which is exactly as valid as thinking that you prove the sky is purple simply by saying that it is.
(Psst, if your genetic instincts for survival are so anesthetized that they haven’t informed you yet, I have news: some folks are amoral, like precisely the folks who attack you for no reason, so hitting back is the only way to make them stop attacking you. Yes, I’m afraid ’tis so. Sorry, their amorality doesn’t take away my right to protect myself from them: it gives me the right to whack them.)
By serially forgiving the serial offender I am letting them offend me, because I am doing nothing to put a stop to it. I am doing nothing to discourage them from doing it more or again. I am not protecting myself. I am not defending myself. This conduct flies in the face of the instinct for self-preservation and therefore violates the Laws of Nature as a perversion of human nature.
That’s of all things “healing”? I’d say it sounds more like self-masochism.
Yeah for forgiveness! A great idea invented and loved by all the bad guys in Hell.
By forgiving every offense ”“ for no reason other than that it was committed and hurts me – I am letting them hurt me! Pardon my incredulity at such craziness. That allows me no more rights than his punching bag has. I mean, to be a good girl, I must thus serve myself up on a platter (the literal meaning of be-tray) and deliver myself up to continued victimization = I must bend over it.
Yes, that will make me like myself a lot. I’m being sarcastic, of course. I see that I must thus make me hate myself instead of my abuser. Because I will for sure hate myself for being such an abject worm who just lays down like a doormat to be trampled like that.
And any HUMAN being, any therapist or preacher with one drop of empathy/humanity in them, knows that. How callous of these “caring” people to tell us we’re bad if we don’t prostrate ourselves to abuse this way – something that makes any man, woman, or child feel so self-degraded that they hate themselves ever after.
How faithful of me to me. But what happens to your relationship with anyone who betrays you to harm or abuse? Then what happens to your relationship with yourself when you betray yourself?
I’d like to know how any therapist thinks that would be good for a person.
Now for some sanity.
The problem with feelings, like hunger and thirst for justice, anger, and sorrow is NOT that they hurt. They are emotional pain. If you repress them to the subconscious, they drive your behavior from there, without your awareness of what’s driving your behavior. You have done nothing but slam the lid down tight on a pressure cooker.
That’s when they can explode so you that do do something wrong.
If you accept, own, go through your feelings, like any pain they pass.
In fact, THAT’S the problem as Hamlet discovered. As time passes, so does the pain. THAT’S healing.
And when the pain of the emotion of anger passes, so does the motivation to right that wrong. So, like Hamlet, you must give yourself a pep talk every now and then to remind yourself that there is justice to be done, a better life to reclaim, and that you should never give up, never surrender, never resign yourself to defeat. Never, never, never. That you must never quit waiting for an opportunity to set the world right-side-up again.
Anyone who thinks that’s bad should try thinking right-side-up.
Because forgiveness is for the repentant. To hand it out to the unrepentant is like going up to your neighbor on trash-collection day and saying, “Here, I’ll trade you this 12-carrot diamond ring for that little baggie of doggie-do.”
It makes a mockery of something sacred and precious.
Update: A related link
Individual and Civic Notions of Forgiveness by Sharon Lamb, Ed.D. author of The Trouble with Blame: Victims, Perpetrators and Responsibility
Hi Henry
Maybe instead of seeing “him” when you see the cat, you could see a fellow victim. She doesn’t sound very lonesome, not happy or loved and he obviously abandoned her without a second thought.
I think any of us who have gone through our rejection by an N/S/P or whatever are notable for our empathy and compassion.
If you can’t find it in yourself to comfort her, maybe you should find another home for her if you’re covered legally.
Calling her bad names or treating her badly in lieu of him isn’t fair to her. She didn’t do anything and it wasn’t her fault she was part of his life or left behind. She’s as much a victim of her circumstances as you were and it sounds like she’s as unhappy as you were.
Maybe you could relent and comfort her and, in the process, do something nice for another of his victims.
I’m praying for a happy ending here