Sitting with an antisocial or sociopathic client is an interesting experience—for a while, anyway, until it grows tedious”¦almost boring. There is the initial curiosity about, and fascination with, the client’s antisocial behaviors”¦their nature”¦breadth.
Perhaps there’s even a certain rubbernecking interest in the train-wreck of moral turpitude these clients present—with their staggering patterns of ethical and moral debaseness. Admittedly, it can be breathtaking, on certain levels, to behold the magnitude of their abuse of others’ boundaries and dignity, accompanied by missing feelings of accountability and remorse.
And the interest in the experience with such clients persists a bit longer when you are dealing with someone who is “intelligent.” There’s something just inherently more compelling, at least initially, about an “intelligent” sociopath who guiltlessly transgresses others in the gross, chronic way that sociopaths do, versus the less intelligent sociopath, whose intellectual limitations seem to dim, however unfairly, the spectacular nature of his violations.
But after a while, as I say, sitting with the sociopathic client, however intelligent he may even be, grows tedious. It’s not unlike the experience of discovering that someone you expected to find extremely interesting (and perhaps did, initially) is, at bottom, really a boring individual with little to say or offer. There’s something anti-climactically disappointing in the discovery of the individual’s gross limitations.
With most sociopathic personalities, in my experience, this sense of disillusionment—of of having to face the reality, ultimately, of their emotional vacuity—occurs in the work with them. As different in temperament and intelligence as they may be, ultimately sociopaths prove to be highly ungratifying clients to work with. This is because, regardless of their ability to talk the talk, they are, ultimately, unable to make themselves genuinely accountable for their actions, the fact of which, after a while, simply grows tiresome.
The sociopathic client just doesn’t feel, in a heart-felt way, so many of the things he “allegedly” is ready to own, or the reforms he is “allegedly” ready to make; and when this becomes clear—as it always does—a certain tedium, boredom enters the sessions.
This boredom, I think, arises in the recognition of the futility of making a real connection with the sociopath; also in the futility of his making any sort of real connection to the pain he’s caused others, and will continue to cause others, despite his superficial assertions of regret and remorse.
And so this is where the big yawns threaten to emerge with regularity. It’s the feeling of having your time wasted, which is exactly what the sociopath is doing. He is wasting your time, as he wastes everything from which he doesn’t derive a personally, selfishly compelling benefit.
It is that moment of untruth—that moment when it becomes clear that, no matter how verbally interesting and, perhaps, even engaging he may be, the sociopathic individual finally lacks anything substantive to say, feel, or aspire to. Lacking this substance, the possibly initially engaging experience with him yields, ultimately, to the sense of being futilely engaged with an emotional cipher.
That is, for a while his charisma, charm and engaging qualities, if they are present, may compensate for the missing underlying emotional substance. But there is a shelf-life for this compensatory entertainment before the tedium of his barren inner emotional life begins to weigh down the experience of him. There is a limit to hearing the same repetitive pronouncements of intended change, pseudo remorse and responsibility.
There is also a limit, beyond which it becomes increasingly oppressive to sit with the sociopath, who in one breath may claim responsibility for his violations of others, while in the very next withdraw his pseudo-assumption of responsibility and abruptly rationalize the very behavior that, only moments before, he seemingly repudiated?
This is the sociopath at work. Sitting with him can be an interesting experience. But as his particular, underlying emotional disability surfaces, the interest leads, surpisingly quickly, to a feeling of ennui”¦almost oppression.
(This article is copyrighted © 2011 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is for convenience’s sake only and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the behaviors and attitudes discussed.)
Thank you to all who post on here…. I needed reassurance for facing Valentine’s Day, and I knew where to turn. I have laughed with you, cried with you as I read your posts…., and it never ceases to amaze me how our stories are different and yet so much alike.
KatyDid….. I chuckled out loud when I read your Valentine’s plans!! I envy you, and look forward to the day when I would have the strength to do those things for myself.
I wish we could all have a Valentine’s party together tomorrow!! KatyDid can bring the wine!!! What’s the name of it?
VALENTINES: They will use it against us some way: Either try to contact us, or mine will drive the 10 hours to stalk me in hopes the he will “catch me” doing all the things that he accuses me of, OR they won’t even think about us, and will smirk to themselves while they are on their Next “assignment” from Hell…..working the next family to move-in on, and turn from their Mother,and cause the children to adore him like the 3 previous before me!
Yes, It’s hard. I just went to the store and saw all the balloons, flowers, and candies….but I don’t miss him. He destroyed me too much this last time.
He gave me the Ultimatum at Christmas….leave my State, sell my home, leave my son, quit my job, move to his state, work with him in a business 24/7 and his friends will be my friends ( including a “woman who wants to DO HIM”) He wants me to be HER BBF! He told me if I turned him down I was “living as a victim, but that if I did this I was taking a step towards living as a victor”. He told me this on a Friday night and said I had all weekend to make my decision. That “THIS WAS OUR DEFINING MOMENT…SO WHAT WILL IT BE VICTIM OR VICTORS?”
My RESPONSE: 2 MIN. LATER: ” Sounds to me like the last step of isolation and control to me?!! Yeah…I don’t think so, I will be filing… Good-Bye”
His response: A two page email stating that “HE HAD DECIDED HE NEEDED TO PROTECT HIMSELF AND HIS FAMILY FROM ME, JUST LIKE ALL MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS HAVE HAD TO DO.( HE HAS CONVINCED THEM i AM CRAZY) “That I needed SEVERE emotional and psychological help and that he will “never forget the night he saw me and stood their with tears in his eyes as he looked upon the most beautiful woman he ever laid eyes On!””” ( this is only one little bit of the Gas -lighting that I am breaking free of) ….he had to turn it around and have the CONTROL! HE HAD TO CONVINCE HIS SICK MIND THAT HE MADE THE DECISION! HE CAN’T LOSE, HE HAS TO HAVE POWER OVER!
SOOOOOO…………………………………
Dear Valentine-ASS:
Sorry you have to mansturbate with yourself this Valentine’s…instead of using me…. I won’t be missing it!
However, I will be singing for the freedom that I feel starting to bud in my soul….
After Winter comes SPRING, and after death comes LIFE. Your not greater than God, and you can’t stop it from happening!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
…..oOPS….almost couldn’t say the “WORD”!!
Dear Valentine-ASS:
Sorry you have to mansturbate with yourself this Valentine’s…instead of using me…. I won’t be missing it!
However, I will be singing for the freedom that I feel starting to bud in my soul….
After Winter comes SPRING, and after death comes LIFE. Your not greater than God, and you can’t stop it from happening!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Okay,
I need to vent again. **sigh**
Again, ruminating. Again about his “happiness” with the new victim.
So if I’m going to ruminate, I decided that I would ask myself questions while doing so. WHY does this continue to come up? The same thing over and over again. ALWAYS about the new victim. Always.
ANd with that, comes depression, fear and a HUGE anxiety that accompanies this intrusive rumination.
Ruminating happens as well when I’m out and about, FEARING seeing him somewhere. I become hypervigilant, irritable, quick to get out of wherever I am. I even go to more expensive stores for groceries, rather than inhabit my favorite store for deals that I usually love to get there.
STOP, doesn’t work. So instead, I decided to sit with it. Ruminating means something is trying to come up. Fearing asking those questions to myself, is a result of pain, fear and absolute ensuing rage.
While ruminating about new victim getting what I never got, I implement TRUTH into the thought. It’s a lot like breaking an addiction. When I obsess about her having sex with him or her getting presents, trips, etc, I CHANGE the thought to truth….what last love bomb gave me was an incredible gift for which I am forever grateful. Insights into the lies he tells the new victim. How quickly he went from sex with me, to flying to another state five days later, trying to manipulate HER into bed. Had she agreed to sleep with him, he would have had her by the emotional balls. Thankfully, she A. loved someone else (he knew this but didn’t care which speaks to his entitlement and audacity), B. saw that he was egotistical and DEMANDING. He’d been working her for two months. That didn’t take long did it? All the while he was still “with” me as well as I found out from love bomb he had been dating A LOT of women in between. He professed attraction and “feeling” to her and about her, while emailing with me back and forth. She could not believe it. It was devastating for me. I could no longer blow off what he was doing. I could no longer excuse it. I had been trying to extricate from the relationshit anyway, but this was doubly painful. I SAW the lies. I SAW who he was. Yes, I’d seen lies before, but this was so crazy and insane (the lies he was telling me while three states away with her-didn’t tell me that), there was no way of denying anything about him anymore.
I keep telling myself those things whenever the ruminating happens. Why would I want a sociopath? This leads to other lies, other flashbacks of the things he’s done…truly TRULY evil in nature. ABSOLUTELY evil. When I confronted him on the lies, he LIED ABOUT THE LIES than BLAMED ME FOR RUINING HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH HER. ONce she told him she was not interested in him, he STOPPED IMMEDIATELY calling her. So much for his “professed” feelings for her. He wanted her money. He was able to immedately disconnect and move on. He also didn’t wish to explain about me either. His denial of my existence at all in his life has been the MOST painful, but I hope that inevitably it will be my biggest blessing. His affair with me is not something he wants known to any potential “mate”. I’m sure, with a discrepancy as big as that, that eventually, new victim will find out about it once he starts his torture games involving the children and his ex wife the more he sucks new victim in. The truth eventually comes out. He doesn’t want that truth to be known.
It’s probably a blessing that I’m deleted, rather than smeared.
So as long as I insert what he really is, what he has done, the ruminating switches to ANGER!!! That is the underlying layer. As well as feeling so stupid for having been involved and believing lie after lie. It’s also being so enraged with him that if I were to see him somewhere, my anger is just at the surface that I’d want to beat the shit out of him!!!! THAT is scary!!!!
But it’s also a feeling that I’ve been “had”. I”m beginning to understand that no matter the excuses and reasons that I had for allowing myself to be so wounded, when it was clear he was the biggest asshole on the planet, he EXPLOITED my FEAR….fear of being alone. Fear of not making it. Wanting HIS approval of me. He had a position of authority over me, from the very beginning. Feeling used and conned to the nth degree. Whatever he says about anything is a lie. If his LIPS are moving, he’s lying. He exploited his ex wife and her faith. Her belief in wanting to keep her family together. Her fear of being alone. Her fear of what the church would think if they divorced. He lied and lied to her too. He misrepresented himself to her. And she has to deal with the bastard as long as he lives and he does everything to trip her up. I use to love it when she showed complete indifference to him. Use to really piss him off and of course, he’s always the “victim” I hated that shit and I”m so GLAD I don’t have to see it or hear about it anymore. But you can bet, new victim does. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh lawdy!
I saw ex wife and her boyfriend yesterday. He lives in my town. I wanted to say something to her SO badly, but I didn’t (Katie please don’t get mad at me, I WON”T contact her, promise). Today I’ve been having imaginary conversations about what I would say to her. It’s amazing how “Healing” in some ways that really is. She looks very happy and her bf is far better lookin than exPOS 🙂 I’m happy for her. I wouldn’t want to contact her and screw up her life or bring back painful memories for her. But I wish I could talk to her sometimes. I realized that there is little validation in my life for this experience, part of what makes this all so very difficult to deal with. I don’t have the support system that his ex does in that everyone they knew, knows about him and me and what happened and they HATE Him with a passion. He kept me compartmentalized enough that I don’t know what anyone else really thought of me. Even though I have an idea.
I’m faced with having to reprogram my mind now in that I have to replace my fantasy of what I had hoped he was, with what he really is. When I think about the way he REALLY IS, I get disgusted, repulsed and extremely angry. I feel very sorry for any future victims. Whomever he is with, he’s lying. The same way he lied to love bomb, to me, to his ex wives. To everyone he knows.
He fits the spath profile perfectly. He has very odd behaviors that have increased in frequency with age. it’s not hard to see his behaviors, or rather it’s not hard for him to hide them for long, as a lot of them are incredibly infantile and apart of his total being. The endless migraines, whining, victim pity parties, rages, entitlement, DEMANDS, neediness, frivolity, compulsive spending, alcoholism….and increasing need for deviant sex, to the point that it was scaring me, was too much anymore.
I hated his gutts, but was still in love with the fantasy. I’m mourning the times that I knew I should have bailed but stayed. I’m MOURNING those things. Kicking myself. ANd it’s always the same. Three CRITICAL times early on in the relationshit that it was SO CLEAR what was going on……..and my fear of being alone, of wanting a life so bad with a man, outweighed my logic…and he used that against me. He used my sexuality. And it nearly destroyed me. I don’ tknwo what it was that got me to wake up and want out other than that my alcohol intake had increased so much that I was frightened by it. Slowly but surely, my mind was working to get out.
So now the gripping fear is there still. I don’t know what the hell to do. I don’t know how. I”m afraid. I’m ten years older now. The world is NOT going to wait for me to “get well” again. I have a family to support. I’m truly scared. And very angry. My fear prevented me from doing what was necessary SOONER to get free of this man and to continue to build skills for life. He knew that too. He said he supported my independence, but the truth is that he didn’t. He also exploited the reality that he knew I had no beneficial income, FOR HIM. That I was a loser because of it. His needs have changed alright. For even a woman with a good job. The more she makes, the better for HIM. Seeing his obvious extreme limitations, his soul murdering intentions that are nothing less than sadistic and all about him, seeing how easily he moves from one situation to another without another thought…..reviewing things that come up for me that tell me he could care less about any of the women he was with or those who are to be, allows me to integrate the reality that is now so frightening.
He is one of the MOST destructive human beings I”ve ever met. I can say WORSE than my own father. WORSE. I have never met such an evil human soul in my entire life. My father was bad for sure, this one was the worst EVER. I feel sickened that I was truly touched by evil for so long. VERY troubled that something so frightening was in me, through me, over me. It is FRIGHTENING.
And I still fear him. I FEAR him. ONe of the things that comes to mind that is so scary, other than the gun incident, was when we were having sex the last couple of months. During sex he would rub his hand up from my abdomen to my neck. TWICE< but once in particular, he SQUEEZED so hard, I ALMOST told him to stop, but wiggled my way out of it. What had he seen that said near asphyxiation was at all a high during sex? I think perhaps that also had something to do with being so frightened. What he MIGHT have been capable of had I allowed this to go on. I'm trying very hard to come to terms with what happened to me and that my GUT was telling me something, no wait, SCREAMING something and that what I thought was the truth.
He's gotten increasingly more awful with age. More dangerous. I thought they mellowed with age? Not mine.
Is that even possible? I was open to new sexual experiences, but I realized that doing so with him was something I could not bring myself to do anymore because its intent was EVIL. It FELT evil.
Trying to wrap my brain around how truly evil this man was, is just excrutiating and frightening. So I work to plant my feel into the NOW and keep telling myself that i"m safe. If that is so why do not FEEL safe?
Thanks for reading.
LL
LL – you are gettin’ it gettin’ it getttin’ it!!!!! GOOD WORK!!!
you made it 7/8 of the way through that post staying in the present! hehee…empaths:1. spaths: 0
don’t force wrapping your brain around it – let it come. the thing is, to let everything come, and then do your best to BE THERE when it does.
your post made my night!
LL One of the side effects of recovering from a sociopath encounter is an over active imagination – simmer down.
LL,
It’s so hard to answer. some of your questions.
But I want to be there for you and try. I know that you’re looking for answers and looking for new perspectives. You are like me, you know the answers are right in front of you but it’s too hard to see. So I’ll try to see for you. Feel free to tell me if I’m wrong, I’m just ruminated WITH you.
You ask, “WHY does this continue to come up? ALWAYS about the new victim. Always. ANd with that, comes depression, fear and a HUGE anxiety that accompanies this intrusive rumination.”
I think most of what we do is an attempt to survive. We learned all the mechanisms for survival as children and your mechanisms had sexual connotations. You survived your abuse by learning to trauma bond. So each time you have a relationshit, it has to do with your sexuality. Your value is based on that. But in this case, you feel like you failed to achieve your goal (to bond with the spath) and you’re trying to figure out what went wrong. Intellectually you accept that he is a spath and can’t bond, but the fact that he APPEARS to be bonding, is messing up your cognition. The second problem is that you never got to stage 2 of your goal, which was to have an “official” relationship with him, the way that the new gf is having. So you are beginning to question your methods of bonding with people. I think that’s a good thing. When you’ve only had traumatic relationshits you really don’t have the skills to have a normal relationshit.
Why do you think I chose the bf that I chose? I know his relationshit with his evil mom have created issues for him too. I know alot about his past. So for me, it is helpful at times to observe him and see how his thinking is messed up and I try to talk to him about it. Just as it is helpful to me to come here and talk to people here. And besides, like you, I really wouldn’t know what to do with a normal relationship. So here I am, I’m doing the best I can, and it’s painful. I learn from you guys and I try to teach him and put it all into practice. Sometimes, he teaches me what he’s learned. I make sure to be as gray rock as possible. But I’m not going to tell you that I’m happy or that everything is hunky dory, it’s not. Every day is a struggle.
The anxiety you feel is fear that you won’t ever “win” because you don’t know how. Neither do I but I’m determined to learn. We need to remove all the false ideas from our heads and let new, healthy ones in.
I’m not sure I’m making sense. I think what I’m trying to say is that you were told to keep your eye on the prize while growing up and you missed out on a lot of stuff going on around you. The other good stuff. The spaths do this to distract us. Our society is based around material gain at the expense of learning to love. it sucks.
Sky,
I appreciate you taking the time to “ruminate” with me. This was brought up in therapy last week, the sexual identity crisis. My therapist said, “You DON”T have an ‘identity’ crisis….your sexuality is not the WHOLE of who you ARE’.
That is so true. Spath tapped into the deeper parts of my trauma bonds. And that was my sexuality. I allowed that, I ENCOURAGED that. Sex=bonding, even though logically I know that’s not true. Spath used that. He used my need/want/love of sex to get what he wanted from me. And I used it as a tool for him to love me. I figured the better I was in bed (mind you, his MO was “I’m inexperienced, teach me”), the more he’d love me. Narcissistic, wouldn’t you say? I would. I could not have told you that at the time. This is perhaps what I’m projecting into his relationshit with his new victim too. It was also very devastating because during the relationshit, I more than once heard, “you’re the bomb babe, the BEST I’ve ever had”, actually I heard that almost everytime we had sex until the very end when I would not give him what he wanted anymore.
I think the things I think are really sick. Love is NOT sex. I’m so pissed that I think this way. Logically, I know that too, right? Sex is great, but it’s not the ENTIRETY of a relationshit. When all the lies were revealed, I realized that it didn’t matter how great in bed I was at all. It didn’t phase him one bit. All the years to satisfy his stupid ass. Then he would pull the withholding game too and lots of other fun stuff that was not only exploiting my sexuality, but my emotions too. That someone could exploit or hurt you on purpose with something so intimate and personal, is just well………evil.
I miss sex with him. ANd I do because it was how I BONDED to him. The rest I could have done without for sure. It was important for me to make sure he was pleased and happy and looking back on it, it was rare that I ever was, other than the just the basic mechanics, most of the time, it was about him. But I knew this was on the only way to keep him involved too.
Yea….the greatest grief comes to as the competition was set up. I wanted to “win”. I see how he set it up too. And he did it on purpose to hurt me. To “win”. I didn’t see that until the end, but it ripped me a new asshole. I remember HATING His poor wife and thinking she was getting something fantastic that i was not. HE was always showing me I wasn’t worth the hassle. He would always be doing things for her that he would not for me, even while he promised, either subtly or directly that it would happen.
So how to integrate, or rather separate his behaviors from my own, I’m not clear. But not “winning” I think is the most devastating thing. It’s a horrible thing to say and feel, but it’s the truth. I believed and bought into his miseries about his marriage. ALL of it. I wanted to make him happy out of bed, just as much as in. For years I felt horrible for him, then he’d turn around and show me I wasn’t worth it. Then I’d break up with him and he’d love bomb me back.
This part of it confuses me. My role. How could I have been so heartless in thinking that way? How could I have such CONVICTION in thinking that way, Sky? It’s sickening to me.
I feel “infested” by this evil. I did things to “win” that I would never have otherwise done. I was evil too.
And a lot of that was believing his sad sad SAD stories of abuse. Believing when he said he loved me and that I was the best he ever had. A great cook, a great mother, a great student.
And he could have cared less. While he married his ex’s and will probably marry this new one, it wasn’t going to be me. There is apart of me that says there was something so wrong about me that I was not “chosen”. That’s evil thinking too. And I hate myself for that and I hate him for not having chosen me. Because I was left to think that it was me. And that wasn’t entirely off base to think now is it?
LL
Hi LL,
I am at work now, it is lunch time and I saw your post.
I simply want to come and meet you and sit and cry with you.
Your feelings to a large extent resonate with what I have been feeling, why, why, why.
Katy, Oxy, Aussieg, Candy and others have all been telling us that the new one has signed in for a nightmare, he will be the same with her, there was no dream, he is a jerk, a liar and a cheater and still you and me let our imagination cross all limits and are grieving our hearts out.
I do feel a certain sense of calmness and safety within me, that at least I will not have to think anymore, when he talks to me – is this the truth, is this the lie, where is he now, today, tomorrow, keep doubting him 24/7. I do feel the relief that my brain does not have to indulge in the doubting exercise anymore.
I think we have to consider it a blessing, this site, the LF friends, that the pain of being with him maybe much more than the pain we are enduring now, so we should rejoice to some extent.
petite
Hey Petitie!
I can’t wait to see you someday!
I think all of this obsessing is important. It’s bringing up some ugly stuff about myself, my entanglement with him, that is about my past, my twisted thoughts and desires and where the HOOKS ARE. That is VERY important for me to recognize right now, no matter how excrutiating it is. And it IS excrutiating.
It’s more than just what he’s doing with his new victim, it’s now shifting to what he did to me, how the hooks were in, how I fell for it. How to deal with that and come to terms with that. In essence, it’s facing my own demons too, as well as his.
It’s not fun. It HURTS, but it’s necessary, petite.
So that this never happens again.
LL
I agree LL.
we have to fight this battle for ourselves.
There is an article by Steve Becker- Cutting Ourselves some slack.
It is in the Archives. Please read it.
lets share with each other what helps us to come out of this madness and rumination.
petite