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
Star,
I’m still not sure “what” diagnosis I should hang on my mother. I am obviously too close to the situation to be totally objective. So I sort of “made one up” and I call it “psychopath-by-proxy.” She does the bidding of the psychopath as his victim, yet she is abusing others because he is unable to do so.
She lies to protect him, gives him money even though she KNOWS FOR A FACT that he tried to have me killed, she still won’t give up the “malignant hope” that he is “reformed” and she falls for his “pity play”—“Oh, poor me, I am in prison and I am all alone without any one to love me and SEND ME MONEY to make my life easier.”
Though my son C and I have done things for mom, taken care of her needs when she and my step dad were ill, and the only thing my P-son has done for her is to steal from her, lie to her and weasle money out of her, yet she has devalued and discarded my son C and me in favor of the “Golden child” who can DO NO WRONG, just as we can do no RIGHT in her eyes. He lies and says “I’m sorry” and she instantly forgives him and trusts him again. I lied to her when I was 15 (47 years ago) and she has never forgiven me. LOL
Is she victim or is she abuser? I think she is both, which makes her an enabler and co-dependent in my mind. He has “triangulated” the situation into she is the “savior” for him, and my son C and I are the Evil ones out to get him, so therefore she must protect him at all costs, provide for his needs and despise us and do whatever is necessary to discard us, defame us in the community, etc. Yet, during all this she pretends she is such a “good Christian woman” and convinces herself she is “being Christian” to justify her evil deeds. If only C and I would see how repentent son P is and enable him then she would be happy and be “nice to” us. But since we objected to him trying to get us killed, and “won’t forgive him” (read: won’t trust him again) then we are obviously the UN-Christian bad guys and must be punished.
I had a bad day yesterday after I read the letter he wrote her in response to her sending money and planning on how to get significant amounts of money to him in a CD, I became so angry I could have chewed rail road rails and spit out thumb tacks. Now, the anger is subsiding and I am getting my head back on straight. It does tell me though that I have more work to do—becoming angry at their antics is a good sign you need more work—and so I am getting back on the “horse that threw me” and working on my own healing. I can’t do a thing about either of them.
But they JUST NEVER QUIT! They keep on as long as they can find someone to con, to use and abuse. Same old Chit, different day.
OxD,
What a frustrating situation. I don’t know what label would apply to your mother, but at very least, she is in serious denial and using her warped sense of religion to justify her “compassion”. A lot of people are like this. In her twisted thinking, the P son is a victim, and therefore she needs to defend him from the rest of you. Her thinking is quite delusional, but her behaviors make sense given the faulty premise of her thinking. It seems all you can do is accept this and maintain NC with both of them. The truth sucks sometimes but it is what it is. If you hadn’t read the letter, you would never know, and you’d be better off. And now you have to accept this new knowledge and let go of the anger. You got a toxic dose of the P in your system, and now you have to exorcise it. Ugh.
If this triggered any old issues with your mom, then this is a gift because you get to heal those issues (abandonment, sibling rivalry, not being valued, etc. or something else?) My heart goes out to you, OxD. The work is so hard sometimes, and for you, it is harder because your safety hangs in the balance. You have come such a long way and you are an inspiration to all of us.
This is the main reason I do not want to follow the progress of my P. I think it would be very aggravating to find out he conned the army or another woman. To me, no news is the best news.
Due to the violent nature and the attempt on my life which failed, and then the Trojan Horse sent to kill me, changed to taking my son C’s wife, and killing him and stealing money from mother, I think it behooves us to keep some knowledge of what is going on and what resources my P-son has to use against us. Without money he would be almost powerless, but wth my mom sending him significant amounts of money, he is in a position to “buy” someone to hurt or kill us. She either doesn’t believe it, (denial) or she doesn’t care (or both). I am sure she “justifies” it with her twisted religious thinking.
I am smart enough now to NOT let her know we know, which is an advantage to us that we do know. So the few hours of being pissed off are probably in the long run worth the information obtained.
I know it would have given me some “short term” satisfaction to go over there and confront her, just to see her caught in her lie (she has such a lookk on her face when she is caught in a lie–a look of utter frustration and rage) but having the information and her NOT knowing it is more of a benefit to us than otherwise. In the past, I tried to “reason” with him, and he used that information against me, I also tried to “reason” with her and she also used that information against me. Once burned, twice shy, so I won’t make that mistake again. I at least know what I am dealing with now, there IS NO DOUBT, so knowing that, I will keep my caution up. I am no longer living in terror, but I will continue to be VERY CAUTIOUS. To not be so would be very foolish. I don’t want to have to leave my home again, but if I have to, I know I can. The RV is fully loaded and ready to pull out at a moment’s notice if that is what we have to do to keep safe, and after my mother’s death, we can sell the farm and move to “parts unknown” if that is what it takes to keep us safe. Thinking about having to do that before was almost impossible, but now I know that though this place is “home’ to me (my family has lived here since 1833) this piece of dirt is NOT SACRED in any way. My life is though. The lives of my sons are also sacred to me. So we will protect our lives over property. Property isn’t that important.
Same old Chit, different day. But the difference is now, that I am stronger, more determined, and am absolutely sure what I am dealing with. I no longer grieve over my “lost son” and my “lost mother”—I also am supported by my two sons that do know what their X-brother and their X-grandmother are capable of.
Thanks for your support Star.
The ongoing safety issue is what makes your story so horrible, OxD. You always have to look over your shoulder. And you are forced to maintain some contact. Do you think your mother would send the P son enough money to hire another Trojan horse to try and kill you? This is terrifying. I don’t understand why the prison/court system allows this. What good is a stockpile of money to someone serving a life sentence? These gifts should not be allowed. If you have been convicted of murder, you shouldn’t be allowed the right to receive gifts.
All prisoners have a right to have family or others send in money to their commissary account. The amount that they can spend is limited to so much a month depending on the level of security they are housed in. The higher level, the less money they are allowed to spend.
Many inmates have no one on the outside to send them money so favors can be bought from these people for a stamp to mail a letter, paper and pencil, or any number of things that we take for granted that the inmates have to buy. If they want an asprin the have to buy it.
If an inmate has the maximum amount that Texas allows them to spend the can buy a fan to keep him cool in the summer, a hot plate to warm his coffee, a radio, better food, etc. and snacks. My P son even bought a typewriter. He has been receiving the maximum a month most of his time behind bars so he was on the “high end” of the scale for prisoners. He was able to buy into the craft shop and buy tools, bribe guards and smuggle in things for sale that are contraband like tobacco and cell phones. He had him a little ring going there and was “in business”—he got fired from a job once programming computers for the warden because he got caught smuggling in hard core porno. He lost his job and got transferred to another prison as far down in texas as you can get and not be in Mexico where the unairconditoned cells are 120 degrees in the summer and 30 in the winter. He was also on maximum security for a year after that one.
When he got caught with the cell phone he got busted down again and transferred to another “hell hole” prison (not that any of them are nice) He’s had 19 serious infractions over the years like that. Just before all this mess he wanted me to have copies of his medical records and so I paid to have copies made and each time he ws sent to solitary they had to do a physical exam on him so I found out how many times he had gone to solitary and with the letters he wrote to the Trojan Horse I also found out what the REAL reasons he went to solitary were not just what he told us. So in spite of his lies to me about this or that, I have seen enough documentation from his records etc and the letters to have a pretty good picture of his behavior in prison, which wasn’t a “model prisoner” by any means. His arrogance about it really pisses off the staff there as well.
What is even funnier is that my mother saw the letters to the TH-P and the nasty things he said about her in them and how stupid she was to believe him, etc. and she is totally aware of his lies, manipulation etc. and yet she is back in the FOG of denial. Of course, I guess I shouldn’t be too upset with her, I was in there enough times myself, therefore shouldn’t throw stones at her ignorance and “stupidity”—LOL It is frustrating though that her denial and refusal to stop sending him money puts not only HER BUT THE TWO OTHER SONS AND ME AT RISK.
I am just going to have to get my head together about this and the limited amount of “back door” contact I have can’t be allowed to to ruin the rest of my life. I have got to grow the strength and back bone to deal with what has to be dealt with and some back door informational “contact” I think is going to be necessary to ensure our safety. So I will just have to deal with it. But I think after what went on a couple of years ago I should be able to deal with ANYTHING! LOL
OxD, this story makes me sad. You’re right, your mother doesn’t know any better. Did you ever see Under the Tuscan Sun? (about a woman who takes a trip to Italy and never comes back?) That’s probably what I’d be thinking right about now if I were in your place.
Oxdrover,
” …and “won’t forgive him” (read: won’t trust him again) then we are obviously the UN-Christian bad guys and must be punished.”
You go girl. Nice Christians have pulled that one on me before. I call ’em nice, cause nice isn’t the same as good, but it does seem to be a component of self-righteousness.
They think victims should extend forgiveness to the unrepentent. Worse, their idea of forgiveness is ignorant. True forgiveness is divine, but giving an unrepentant person an opportunity to reoffend is terminally stupid.
I’m sorry it’s your mother who’s the problem here. That’s got to be very painful. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like for the boys. Wow.
PS- I’ve seen otherwise ethical people do really bad things while under the influence of a Narcissist, Sociopath or Psychopath. I’ve also seen them “snap out of it”, although only rarely. Sometimes they simply see the light. I hope and pray that this happens with your mom.
Dear Elizbeth,
I doubt that Mom is going to snap out of it. She is a toxic enabler, was abused by her brother as a child when he regularly “smothered” her unconscious (he was 7 yrs older) fro her birth until she was 7, and their father found out and put a stop to it. Her mother knew all along, but would not either stop it or inform her husband so he could stop it. My GM’s “reason” was that she was “afraid that (her husband) would spank him (her son) and he would run away from home.” If you look at that one, it is pretty sick to risk your infant’s life and health for such a reason when you KNOW your older child is harming them every chance they get. My mom’s brother grew up to be the man I refer to as Uncle Monster, a horrible alcoholic and abusive man who hated women.
He never gave me any problem even when he was drunk because he understood that I would not tolerate this and that I would kill him if he layed a hand on me. He physically abused his mother until she was in her early 80s. He physically and emotionally abused his x-wife until after 20+ years and 3 kids she left him for good. He abused the kids and threatened them at gun point and while holding a gun on their mother until they were in their teens.
My mother’s “definition” of “forgiveness” was to “pretend it didn’t happen” even with no sign of repentence. However, this definition of forgiveness was only applied to me, she was a grudge holder of great magnitude for any thing I ever did “wrong” in my entire life. She can recite it like a mantra. LOL
I wish I thought she was “sincere” in her beliefs, but unfortunately I think she only applies the rules of “thou shalt not bear false witness” to others, it is OK apparently for her to lie like a rug!
It was extremely painful when I finally got out of denial and realized that her motives were less than honorable and that she was capable of great evil herself. She is both victim AND abuser and I think is capable of as much denial as any person who ever lived, justifying her bad behavior, to herself and keeping up a mask of “piety” for the community. However, my son C and I have seen the “real face” behind that mask. The pain is much less now that I have finally accepted what is the truth, but the frustration and anger that she is STILL giving my P son the resources he needs (money and information) with which to harm me is still “sticking in my craw”
I have decided to turn the letter over to the TExas Attorney General. Right now Texas prisons are on “lock down status” because of finding several cell phones, even some on Death Row. My son’s letter refers to “calling” my mother and there is NO way he could call her (inmates are not allowed phone calls from texas except in cases of death of parents or other close relatives and there is a monitor on the phone at that time and it is limited to 5 minutes.) My son has already been caught once with a cell phone in his possession, and my best guess is he has access to another one or would not have mentioned calling her. So I will be contacting the Attorney General’s office tomorrow and faxing them a copy of his letter.
If this gets him prosecuted for another crime because he is involved with another cell phone, and he has been calling her she may also be in some serious legal trouble, that is too bad. It may also mean that he is in a tighter custody status (maximum custody in stead of minimum) so that he will have less access to contraband. With access to a cell phone, he will have more resources to harm me than if he has no access to a phone. I will do what I have to do to protect myself.
My mother’s self-righteousness knows no bounds, any more than my P-son’s arrogance does. They may have pulled the wool over my eyes for quite some time, but the scales have fallen from my eyes at this point in time. I’m not quite so gullible any more, and quite frankly, I no longer have a need to please them or have them approve of me in any way.
Dear Wini,
” I no longer have a need to please them or have them approve of me in any way.”
I really admire you for adopting this survival strategy. Ps, Ns and Ss are hamstrung once their target truly doesn’t give a shi# any more. This is the mindset that makes manipulation virtually impossible.
Please don’t delay for a second in turning the letter over to the Texas Attorney General. God Bless Texas. They don’t play!
In most of our human interactions we deal with people who have no clue what a P, S or N is and what they and their devotees are capable of. Not so with prison guards. They may not be the brightest bulbs in the box, but they know Ps, Ss and Ns intimately. If the prison administration learns what your mom has been up to, they may not prosecute, but they will crack down. She won’t fool them any more.
It seems pretty clear that your family has been dealing with Ps for multiple generations. The seven year old kid who smothered an infant repeatedly sounds crazier than a bed bug. I really don’t know if I could have a normal attachment for a child who did that. I’m pretty sure I’d need therapy for me as well as the kids if anything like that ever happened. Normal 7 year old boys adore their baby sisters, even when they find them annoying.
My husband and I have always felt that our children should be absolutely safe in their own home. We banned a very needy pair of young nephews from our home because they wouldn’t obey my instructions against pawing at and brushing against very young girls in the neighborhood. We figured that the inappropriate contact along with the contempt for legitimate authority meant that they were too much for me to handle. How could I ever leave them alone in the room with either of my two kids? We concluded that was no way to live.
Their mother never seemed to comprehend our concerns. She was heavily involved in a wacky cult called The Way Intl, and could justify the craziest stuff imaginable. She is one of the reasons I can totally understand why your Mom’s “Christian” justifications and self-righteousness are simultaneously so perverse and unassailable. Sadly, I know delusional pretty intimately.
You’re probably correct to conclude she’ll never change. I certainly wouldn’t hold my breath over it. You shouldn’t trust her for some time if she starts acting nice toward you. In fact, that should terrify the stuffing out of you. Mom sounds very dangerous.
I’ll keep you in my prayers. This has got to hurt very bad.
Oh, by the way, think about your mother’s “disapproval” of you in a new light. Was this a form of manipulation of the type a ASPDed person would use? It sounds like it to me. One of the things I’ve noticed about Ns, Ss and Ps is that they court people who they can’t manipulate and destroy the self images of those under their sway, usually with harsh criticism and impossible to meet standards. She may have used her harsh criticism of you to tear down your self-image and make you easier for her to manipulate. That’s what a ASPDed person would do.
ASPDed mothers often do more harm than ASPDed fathers. I think they’re harder to recognize too. They use the images of womanhood and motherhood to disguise their evil. I don’t buy the statistics about there being 3 times as many male ASPDed people as female. I think the women simply have a slicker MO.