Many who have been hurt by sociopaths develop a general distrust of others. This distrust is understandable given how difficult it often is to tell if another person is a sociopath. However, going through life with distrust is not a pleasant way to live. Victims naturally then want to know in detail what sociopaths are about so they can identify the untrustables, and go back to trusting everyone else.
One of the purposes of this website is to describe sociopaths and teach people to identify them. Sociopaths are pathological liars who like to talk as experts on many topics. They manipulate others and generally have a high opinion of themselves. They also lack remorse for their actions and don’t seem to care about the pain they cause others. In fact they seem to enjoy inflicting all types pain (harm) on others.
The enjoyment of hurting another person is called sadism. Sadism usually refers to enjoying another’s physical pain. However, sociopaths enjoy inflicting all manner of pain on others including financial, emotional, psychological and social.
To sum it up sociopaths are in the business of reducing people to nothing and then taking glory in their accomplishment.
I have just described the most important “traits” of sociopaths. Many of you are saying, “Yes right on, that described mine exactly.” But are you satisfied?
You probably do not feel satisfied because you are left with wondering why. Why would someone do that? If you discover the answer to the “why question” you can go back to trusting everyone else again because you would understand the sick motives of sociopaths.
Normal people don’t enjoy watching other people suffer do they?
Here is where some get stuck, because many people secretly and not so secretly hope they live long enough to see the sociopath finally suffer. Well, if you can enjoy another’s suffering what makes you different from the sociopath?
If we examine the reasons why we would take pleasure in a sociopath’s suffering, we see there are two basic reasons. One is revenge and the other is our ability to consider the sociopath as “inhuman.” If a sociopath is not really human, then it is OK to enjoy that private moment of our imagined revenge.
There are therefore two basic routes to sadism. The first is through the power motive. Revenge is about reasserting power over someone who has robbed us of power. The power motive is also called the social dominance drive.
I am grateful to Caesar Milan the dog whisperer, for educating the public about dominance. We all know that a dominant dog has no problem inflicting pain on underlings to assert his dominance.
The second route to sadism is called “compartmentalization” by psychologists. A person who compartmentalizes has a motive (drive) to inflict pain on someone and so rationalizes it by saying that the other person is inhuman or “deserves it.”
Interestingly, both routes to sadism operate in sociopaths. Jack Levin and others have written a great deal about compartmentalization in sociopaths. Sociopaths are also ruled by the power motive and so enjoy hurting because it is confirmation they are achieving power.
That gets me to warped empathy. Many, including Jack Levin, have pointed to the faulty logic behind the idea that sociopaths lack empathy. If sociopaths lack empathy then how can they enjoy another’s suffering? If they can’t identify other’s emotions how can they know they are inflicting pain and so get enjoyment? Is there any question that the sociopath that hurt you knew you were suffering?
Most of us have seen clearly the sadism of sociopaths, so we know they must have some kind of warped empathy. Empathy should lead to sympathy with another’s suffering not pleasure in another’s suffering.
In 1982, while reporting the results of a very well done study in which he found that violent sociopaths of normal to high intelligence actually have increased empathy, Heilburn* made the following statement:
“One way to interpret these results would be in terms of a sadistic, effective-processing psychopathic model of violence in which inflicting pain or distress upon another is arousing and reinforcing (pleasurable). Such a model would assume that acts inflicting pain are more intentional than impulsive and that empathic skills promote arousal and sadistic reinforcement (pleasure) by enhancing the psychopath’s awareness of the pain and distress being experienced by the victim.”
Now in 2008 researchers have obtained results that confirm Heilburn’s theory.
Researcher Jean Decety from the University of Chicago found that young sociopath’s brains light up with pleasure when they experience another’s suffering. In this study, the pleasure was especially present when the suffering was being inflicted by another person. How did the researchers demonstrate this? They showed violent movie clips to sociopaths and non-sociopaths then used fMRI to scan their brains.
Most importantly, the study showed no abnormality of the brain pathways involved in empathy. Sociopath’s empathy centers appeared to function just fine.
So how can I help you feel comfortable trusting the 90% of the rest of humanity who are not significantly sociopathic when I have already said that that most people can be sadistic under certain circumstances?
The answer is found again with motives, specifically the power motive. Learn to recognize the signs of excessive power orientation. It is OK to want a certain amount of power, but the pursuit of interpersonal power should not occupy a person’s every waking moment.
Well balanced people enjoy love and affection more than they enjoy power and control. I encourage you to learn to tune into love motives in others. I have found that consciously choosing to notice loving behavior in others has also helped me better recognize the power motive.
Avoid people who dehumanize others because whether or not one who dehumanizes is a sociopath, this compartmentalization is an important contributor to man’s inhumanity to man.
Lastly, I encourage you to stop supporting violent entertainment with your consumer dollar. Such “entertainment” fosters the development of sociopathy in at-risk youth. It also brings out the worst in everyone else.
*Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1982, Vol. 50, No. 4, 546-557
Dear Nic,
If you must deal with them, any kind of arguments or trying to point out their lies, or anything along that line will simply piss them off, it won’t get you anywhere. What they are recommending I THINK is to just make some neutral or “aggreable sound” to whatever comment they make. I have a friend who is GREAT at that. When someone says “Well, I know for a fact the moon is made out of greencheese” he just replies, “Oh? Well!” Another one that I personally like is “Well, isn’t that interesting?” or the oldl stand by “You don’t say!”
Anything that confronts them is a NO WIN SITUATION as they will argue that the moon IS MADE OF GREEN CHEESE AND YOU ARE STUPID FOR NOT SEEING THAT until the “cows come home.”
So by being “non confrontational” usually they will not even realize you are being “tongue in cheek” and don’t believe a word you say and will just go on about their business, but if you argue with them, or they perceive you as not believing them, they will go into a rage and then have to PROVE you wrong, or make you suffer for not beliveing them.
My step father would have called it a bit of “reverse psychology” LOL
This is not as good as NC by any means but if you have any forced contact with them that you cannot for whatever reason go NC many times this will work. Play to their ego.
presseject – are we co-dependent when we love the wrong people? Or do we feel like we are unlovable? And at what point do we let go of blaming them and look deep inside ourselves? I am so tired of analyzing what did I do wrong – what could I have done differently? I think with a spath it doesn’t matter if we are co-dependent or not – we were still victimized and emotionally raped. And maybe God is thumping us on the head and saying WAKE UP there are predator’s out there – BEWARE –
Thanks OxDrover.
Dear Henry,
Being “co-dependent doesn’t mean you are “bad” and they are “good” it simply means that you try to fix them, and/or that you put up with their crap because for some reason you don’t think you deserve any better. (or you think that what the relationship is (dysfunctional) is “normal.”
You end up feeling “bad about yourself” though when you have tried to “fix” (“help”) them and you fail to do so, and you become angry at them for victimizing you when you were only “trying to help.”
You feel bad about yourself, they feel bad about themselves, you are angry at them AND yourself, and they are angry at you and trying to justify themselves. RING AROUND THE ROSEY, POCKET FULL OF POSEY, EVERYONE LOSES.
What we have to do is not “beat ourselves up” for our “part” in the abuse (by allowing it to continue) but see what we have done, acknowledge it and QUIT THAT CRAP.
When we have had a life time of this kind of behavior modeled for us by our families, or have accepted this sort of dysfunctional chit as “life” or “normal” or “everyone does it” or that it is “justified, after what he did” etc. we have to make new habits and to change our old ones, let them go, and in order to let them go, we have to realize what they are.
I have found plenty of things I did wrong—I have looked at WHY I did these things, forgiven myself for what I did wrong, and made a sincere effort to change my ways. To realize that I deserve respectful treatment and insist on it (by setting appropriate boundaries for those in my life) and in some cases, when people have demonstrated that they will not respect those boundaries, then I have gone NC with those people.
I’ve also worked on getting a new attitude, and to forgiving them for what they did to me. “Forgiving them” by getting the bitterness toward them out of my heart, but not pitying them or trying to force myself to “trust” them again.
Accepting my own culpibility for the continuing abuse was difficult for me, because I wanted to believe I was “blameless”–not that I deserved the abuse, but that I wanted to believe that the continuation was not my “fault.” That part of it was, because I allowed it to continue.
Now I can ACCEPT my part in it all, forgive myself for doing that (I am human after all, and I do make mistakes, and I do make bad choices and to allow the Ps to abuse me over and over was a BAD CHOICE. But now, like Bird says, “I am making GOOD choices.”
And so are you, Henry, you are making good choices like you did when the jerk showed up at your house. YoU DID THE RIGHT THING. That’s a good choice. Bravery is making a good choice even when you don’t want to, or when you are afraid. So we are brave and strong when we do what we know is right! We are making the choice to be brave and strong. (((hugs))))
Thanks Oxy – I have noticed alot ot TV show’s having phycopathic character’s lately. Just watched CSI – it was chilling… It took alot of bravery to shut the door on him – it’s so confusing when part of you want’s to grab and hold on – but the injured part of you know’s that this person standing at my door is not who he say’s he is. And as much as I wish he could/would be he never will. And I know he is evil – but he doesn’t know that – I am not a whimp – I think I could kick his ass – maybe not – but I know he is capable of causing me so much more grief – so no contact is the only choice. I guess I can think of my self as Brave – but it doesnt feel that way……
Henry
When I have to ! I will KILL him ! I am not going to risk the rage and Blind Fury of his madness! If I can and I always have managed to escape. The Sherifs officer said he aint a big guy ! I said I told you that ! what you don’t know is what I do know He is not controlable! A tazer was used at a strip club to get him to wake up from the rage!
Henry: Not only is it the fact of what they proved to us after the relationship ended and how they turned into the nasty people that they truly are … that was just the tip of the iceberg and none of us need to know the rest of the story with them … that’s why the NO CONTACT. Enough is enough with them.
With my bosses… no matter how low they went that day, there was always tomorrow and next week, the following month, the following year … and true to form, they always got lower and more disgusting each time they took their shots at me.
Hey, if this wasn’t political … they’d be in prison for what they did … but, being political, they got a slap on the wrist and told to go away. Which I know was the worst thing to do for anti-social personalities … at least they should have gotten psychiatric evaluations along with court ordered therapies. I know that the next people that work with them are getting the same thing I got … because they never stop their bad behavior. The only thing they learned from my lawsuit … was DON’T GET CAUGHT NEXT TIME.
Peace.
Dear Blogger,
The fault does not lie with the person who “loves to much”, the fault lies squarely with the “psychopath” who “DEMANDS TOO MUCH”. The psychopath is SICK & DEMENTED . . . the women other person is just trying to please (or get along ,or keep the peace) and the psychopath is exploiting that opportunity.
If a child has a $10.00 bill, and an adult steals it away…It is NOT the fault of the child for having $10.00. It is the fault of the thief who stole it.
If a women is wearing a short dress and a man rapes her. . . It is the fault of the male rapist, not the women for wearing a short skirt.
EXPLOITATION, LYING, etc IS WRONG.
Wini,
I love your idea of buying an island for all the psychopaths to con and manipulate each other! That’s been my secret fantasy for some time now! It kind of ties into the beginning paragraphs of this article. People who’ve been duped by sadists wanting to know why and how, then following that track to wanting the sadist to somehow be punished for their crimes. For that sadist to experience just how it feels to be treated that way. Sadly, I think they can easily pick each other out and avoid others of their kind. My mother is a classic N. Because of the way she raised me I’m succeptible to all types of P’s, S’s and N’s. The majority of the significant Ex’s in my life (husbands, significant long-term relationships, even close girlfriends) have been some form of P, S or N. Whenever any of them has interacted with each other (mom with friend, mom with husband or lover, friend with husband or lover, etc) they have ALL HATED EACH OTHER! Not just in the “I really don’t like hanging around that person” way, but with a deep, visceral and powerful hatred. My theory is that they are all some form of “vampire”. Constantly on the lookout for a patsy (me) to play their game on. Once they came in contact with one another, it was too many predators, too little prey. They all went to great lengths to try to keep me away from the others. I used to think it was “protective”, nice and caring, but misguided. Now I see it was protective all right, protecting their own pathological self-interest! I really don’t think any of them COULD be manipulated or conned. They know the game too well to put themselves in that position. So in that sense, it WOULD be the worst form of hell for a psychopath to be alone on an island with only other psychopaths for company. There’d be no “prey”!!
stillsortingitout: Yes, I was thinking having a man made island made for them in Dubai. After all, these islands are man made … and like anything man made, they will eventually sink back into the sea … a good start.
Peace.