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
Henry!
We are off to see the WIZARD OF OZ
My Skillet is not going to be fit to cook with !:)~
DUDE WHY? INJUNCTION! PERIOD!
am I going to have to come to Oklahoma ? WHY?
uno dous treas This is a no brainer! MISERY breeds MISERY! WHY? Do you just want to be miserable?
I know that you are capable of so much more than you your self even IMAGIN! ALL that is in you are GOOd Qualities. LOVE , compasion , carring , devotion , SEX , What is there not to LOVE? You are also a HANDSOME MAN!
IF you sleep with a dog don’t expect not to wake up with FLEAS , TIXS , LICE ,scabies ,mange , and dirt!
YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU HENRY! JJ
Dear Henry,
Yep, it does make the purpose of NC more clear doesn’t it? It is amazing how long it is necessary to stay NC before we get the strength back to face them. I’m not sure that I will ever get to the point that I can ever see my mom or my P-son without it pushing my buttons. Ideally I could of course, but at this point I am not willing to ever take that chance. Even hearing what my mom said about me third hand a few weeks ago sent me into a rage for a few hours. AT least it wasn’t a few WEEKS of rage! LOL So that at least is an improvement.
I’m so sorry Henry that you’ve had a down turn, but like you said, it did give you some emotional CLOSURE that you didn’t have before, so that’s a positive out of the negative experience.
You know the more I think about it Henry, the more I realize that these “small” positives that we get out of the very “bad” things, are really NOT “small” things, they are VERY important things.
Tonight I am celebrating the most important thing tht my “bad things” led to—my son is moving home! He arrived today. If I had not “lost” that case in court, my son would probably still be married to that P-witch that tried to kill him.
Tonight after everyone else went to bed (his friend and my other son D) he and I sprawled out on top of my bed and just yacked and yacked! and Laughed and laughed. Finished each other’s sentences and just did those bonding things that mothers and kids of all ages do.
I’m starting to see the “down turns” and the “challenges” as OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH! You wanted some kind of “closure” and you got it! Maybe the package wasn’t the color you liked, but the PRIZE is inside the box! TOWANDA!!!! (((HUGS))))
yes it did give some closure – but once again was blindsided by the impact.
Dear Henry,
Yep, that’s what it does to us sometimes, “Blind-sides” us when we least expect it. I remember the night that my X-BF walked into the local auction here near me, and he lives a long way away so it wasn’t a thing I would have expected to have seen him in my “stomping grounds.”
I saw him at a living history event only 5 months after our break up, but I knew he would be there so I wasn’t suprised. That suprise is part of the “blind-siding” I think because it isn’t what we expect to happen. I would never in a million years have expected to see my X BF waltz into the local auction where I have gone many saturday nights (in fact, I took him there once or twice). It was so totally unexpected. I imagine you were probably about as suprised as I was. Then the SOB sat in a seat right in front of me when he spoke to me and I didn’t respond.
Yet, it too gave me some kind of “closure” because I was able to let him know that I was NOT HIS “FRIEND” and had no intention of being “sociable” or “nice” even in public. I was at least proud of myself for not responding, and for giving him a “go to hell” look. (this is the same P that burned the house down of the GF previous to me).
So looking back on the even though it did throw me for a loop and I was “looped” and pi$$ed off for a few days, in the end, I don’t think I would have as much of a response now as I did then and I think that experience helped me grow. Hang in there Henry, these uncomfortable experiences are opportunities for us to move along further toward healing! Put a positive slant on it OR ELSE! Love and Hugs–your friend, the skillet weilding old bat! Oxy
Henry-
I am sorry to hear about your run-in…it must be very disconcerting. It is good to be able to get some closure at least in reaffirming the type of person they really are. And I do understand about being blindsided…
About 5 days ago mine contacted me for the first time in three 1/2 months by email. I have felt sick since then realizing how cold and heartless he is (the message was clearly something his lawyer wrote up and was totally impersonal- he even signed it Sincerely, with his full name). I realized after that that he would never be part of his daughter’s life and realized that I had to move on and it is for the best. I decided that he didn’t even merit a response (I have told myself that I will not contact him). I think we will never get anything in the way of human decency out of them so that is why the absence of interaction through NC is essential; I really see that now…
Question Folks:
Has anyone ever been part of a group of people who refused to call you by your name, but instead called you by a nickname, regardless of how many times you asked them to stop?
Maybe this is coming from left field. I’ve only heard of one other person dealing with this issue, and in his case it was an abuse in the workplace situation.
Anyone?
maniatissa: mine did the same thing! he wrote me a very ‘professional’ email asking me to send him his files that were in my computer.
”As requested, you were to send me my files at your earliest convenience. To date, I have not yet received … blah blah”
LOL!!! what a jerk. after 20 years, he thought that was gonna work?
then he tried a new tack. threats. that didn’t work either.
now, 3 months after NC, he called last week and was all sweet and coy. another tack; didn’t work.
NC NC NC — now THAT works!
TOWANDA!!!!!
I am currently reading “Without Conscience” and what an eye opener. There are many accounts of conversations with psychopaths where their warped sense of empathy (so to speak) comes out. They will kill someone and then say “they’re better off. They were about to file bankruptcy anyway” or if a person they stabbed took 3 months to recover in the hospital, they’d say “Well she’s the lucky one! She recovered in 3 months. Look at me. I’m in prison!!” They have their very own delusional thought patterns that have some sort of logic in a psychopath’s world. They don’t understand why lying and cheating is a big deal. Or why people get scared. It’s very creepy.
Dear Stargazer,
Since you have found “without Conscience” so eye-opening . . and it is !!! .There’s another book . . . that is also a must read. It’s “The Emptied Soul” by Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig. It’s a gem!!!! I’d be interested in hearing from you after you’ve read it.
I was wondering (I remember that OxDrover has direct experience with this) how many of you have feared that the S or P in your life was capable of going to extremes (like homicide) and if so, what did you do to protect yourself.
I was also wondering if anyone knows about the MacDonald triad (bedwetting, setting fires and cruelty to animals) and its relationship to antisocial behavior. My ex had evidence of all of these in his past that I only became aware of once we were married. Has anyone else’s ex had this group of traits?