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.)
Sky,
This is the major mindfuck they produce in all of us. I DO believe they have MICROSCOPIC moments of clarity about themselves. I DO believe they know something is wrong, but not WHAT. The differences between they and us is that we ARE human in heart, we have a conscience. Their lack of it, prevents a serious introspection that we are capable of, to feel pain and to CHANGE behaviors. It takes a LONG time to change a behavior, but there is a MARKED difference between those empaths who can and those pathologicals that can’t.
I remember, specifically, a moment that is SO clear and causes me so much grief and pain that I sometimes cannot think about it, I try not too………but it overwhelms me, particularly when I see these kinds of posts…….
The last few weeks POS and I were together, I was in demanding mode (seeking the truth of what our relationshit was-knowing but hoping for a different answer, hanging onto any pseudo reality that he was with conscience), and wanted to see him one Friday night when I suspected that he was with and dating other women. I went out to his house. demanded to be there. I’ll never ever forget that night. This was when I discovered he was on a dating site. He let me see it….my mind was in spin out mode. I loved him. I ignored this. He had a laptop in his lap, typing emails to his dating site wanna be’s in front of me. Telling me I could leave now, blah blah……..being cruel…….I got up, took the computer from his hands and just put my head into his lap. OH GOD how I remember that moment. I KNEW it was over between us. I held on. I just put my head into his lap. He wouldn’t touch me. I didn’t care. I wanted to will his pathology away…..
It hurt like nothing I ever experienced. That moment was for ME. For all the years he hurt me……..I wanted to love his pathology away, feel my loving energy…just for that moment…
But it wasn’t there, Sky. It was gone from him. Onto greener pastures. Whatever he said, that meant he felt love before, was totally gone. I remember another time….about halfway into the relationshit, he was sitting on the side of my bed, ruminating about his life………the pity play…..I was standing beside him, while he sat at the edge of my bed, and he dropped his head into my tummy….like a lost child. I rubbed his back, and said nothing. It was a very profound moment for me…..I wanted to take his pain away……it was just after we had had sex and he had said to me, “I will never feel joy. I don’t know what that means. I’ve never felt joy”. A truth so profound and utterly heartbreaking for me….did he say it for effect? Perhaps, but I also think there was truth to it……….
But with all of those moments, Sky, it never stopped the train wreck that he was and is. It never will. I FELT those moments……..because I loved him genuinely. I believed the bullshit, Sky. I wondered, after the relationship was over, how many things he said to his wife that were the same, before he rejected her permanently in the marriage………..how many times he did this with her……..or with his first wife………or what he’s doing now with new gf……….little bits of himself, told to us all………….while he pathology took over.
All of us had one thing in common. We loved this man. We all got bits and pieces of truth, to which his pathology prevented from ever becoming real.
Katy……..in this we are so much the same. You’re right, I don’t take back what I said, and I don’t expect you to do the same.
We loved these men, I believe. I know I loved my spath. I truly did. But his pathology prevented love shown to any of us. All lies. Except for snippets of truth that never lasted. Was it something that they said for effect? knowing it was manipulative, or did they really believe it when they said it? It’s an interesting question. Because if they meant it, that makes them human and each of us could be validated in thinking that we were all essentially loved……….but really, it isn’t so, is it? Because the pathology prevented any “truth” they spoke as a means of action.
Katy, thank you for what you said. It means more to me than you will ever know.
LL
LL,
The weirdest thing is his asking God to forgive other people whom he dragged down the evil slope with him. That is so unlike a narcissist to think of others. Even so, it proves to me that he is very aware of what he is doing when he does it. I’d even say it is something that he focuses on, that’s why when asking forgiveness that is what comes to his mind.
Katy,
you noticed the “Thy”, that’s how my exP talks when he is trying to be sincere in prayer. It’s common for spath to use an affectation because they like how something sounds. To him, a prayer has to use the old language. As Dr. Hare says, “He knows the words but he can’t hear the music – but he’s TRYING.”
You’ve both really helped me to get some focus back. The spath can be sincere for 2 minutes and forget about it in the 3rd minute. It’s because he’s an infant.
The letter helped make it crystal clear that he KNOWS what he is and does. He also suffers because of it, but not enough to overcome the addiction to evil. That is so sad. I feel like I’ll never get over this sadness. Everyone I’ve ever loved is a spath.
Skylar.
It is very sad if eveyone you have ever loved is a spath.
My family was awful. All I ever wanted was to escape them. And all I’ve had in my head since I left home was to be with people “NOT LIKE THEM”. With that goal, I was successful. Until my husband. But not all my fault. I told him what I didn’t want. And with that info, he hid what he was. It was my first enounter with “The PRETENDER” who carried on the pretense even though it cost him a LOT of money. BUt I will say, his contempt of me was so enormous. HE thought I’d give him something. And I COULD HAVE, but he sabotaged me so I couldn’t. In the end, I stopped giving what he wanted b/c the cost was too high. In the end, all I wanted, all that I needed to redeem myself was to be “NOT LIKE HIM”.
That’s all you need too. F. M. if they can’t take a joke. You only need to be NOT LIKE THEM. and then go look for others NOT LIKE THEM. And if a spath sneaks in, well it’s not hard to walk away knowing the end game is it?
YES, sad sad sad. So find what makes the sad less sad. And then take that and the next day find what makes the sad less sad. repeat until sad is not sad anymore.
LL,
we posted over each other.
Thank you so much for pulling me out of this quicksand, I was going down fast. You had all the tools and the strength to react fast and yank me out. I think I’m on solid ground again. I hope I am. OMG. Sometimes I think it’s too much and I’m not going to make it.
It’s exactly like you say, LL, they are wounded children giving us snippets to see. I do feel so sorry for them. Right now I’m feeling this about my mom, dad, bro, sis and exP. I want to save them all. But I’m not God. Only He can do that. I can’t even save myself. But it’s killing me to see this pathology everywhere and especially in the people I love.
When I see how hard you have tried LL, to grow up and face your demons, it amazes me. You are a perfect example of how NOT TO BE A SPATH. To be honest, I have seen other posters here, (who no longer post), whose own blindness really prevented them from moving forward. You started way further back than most because of your family history and all the burdens you deal with from that. Then the cancer scare. Frankly, you are one of the bravest people I’ve “met”. You haven’t let any issue be too sensitive or too shameful to meet head on. You blow me away. (((((hugs)))))
Ll They do know they are different. I will never forget onetime my Xbf broke down in tears, real tears i think – he said he knew he was fucked up and he said he has always been fucked up – which just made me want to rescue him that much more and forgive him for what he had just done. But as soon as he knew or thot I was over it he was back to his usual self – lying.
I sent the post to my sister (the good one) and she noticed that one line is from Psalms 55:4
“My heart is in anguish within me,
And the terrors of death have fallen upon me”
Ironically, Psalm 55 is titled: Prayer for the Destruction of the Treacherous.
And the paper was inserted at 1Thessalonians 3,4 where Paul tells them to “abstain from sexual immorality” and “that no man transgress and defraud his brother…”
Sky,
I have lived the life of nothing but pathologicals. Swallowing that reality has been more than just a little bit painful. It is overwhelming when you see it for what it is.
I let go of my bio fam about two years ago now. I had too. Ex POS was so much like my father. I was trying to fix what never was with my spathdaddy. God I loved him so dearly. He was my Knight in Shining Armour. When I came to him after it was revealed that I was molested for four years straight from my mother’s husband, (I later found that my stepmother, an empath, encouraged my father for rescue of me), he realized the role I had him in. I loved my father so very much. I always had empathy for him and his life. HIs mother, my grandmother was as spathy a female as any woman I have EVER seen…and she wreaked chaos and drama onto her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. What complicated this was that my paternal family was wealthy and she used that to control them all. And it worked. But it did not with me. Black sheep further….so anyway.once my spath daddy realized how “damaged” I was and that he could no longer take a complicated child and turn her golden, he turned on me. Big time. He hated me. He worked to destroy me. Worked to sabotage me. And he molested me too one night, in a drunken stupor. It was the EXACT same pain I felt when my mother disbelieved my accusations against my stepfather….I posted that story no need to rinse and repeat….no one was safe thereafter. No one.
It got worse the more aware I became. I stayed involved with my bio spathy fam because I believed the things they were saying about me were true. Until one day, I decided they weren’t.
I let them ALL go. What I had left was exPOS. And I hung onto him tightly. I felt the same kind of love for him that I felt for my father……..I wanted to save him.
I remember one night, about half way into my relationshit with exPOS, my father wanted to meet me at the coast, about ninety miles from where I lived. I went to the hotel that he usually stayed in…a different room. We went out to dinner together. Spathydaddy was drunk as usual…but I will NEVER forget that night. He sat at dinner and told me that he was a shitty father and would NEVER be the father I wanted him to be…….ever. We bullshitted about all kinds of things after that….but he talked about how spathy gma ruined him, the abuses she did to him, as well as my grandfather………I know those stories are true…..
It was a moment of clarity with my father. He was correct. He would never be the father I wanted him to be. Funny thing about that……..we were suppose to meet for breakfast the next day. I didn’t want too. I got up early the next morning and left. He never called to inquire why I did. It didn’t matter. Whatever he said in that moment, was over after he said it. His abuse continued after that when I saw him for a week after surgery to take care of him before spathy brother and sister swooped in knowing he was ill and wanting their inheritance and take over of the will…………I just gave it to them…
My father was abusive and mean the last time I saw him. He asked me to come and pick up stuff he had given me for my home, furnishings he no longer wanted. Some of those things wre heavy and I asked my foster dad to come along….he did. My father, from the get go, was abusive….”LL, you look so goddamned skinny, do you EAT? For Christ’s sake if you’d stop smoking, you’d feel and look a lot better, your arms are heavy though, looks GREAT on you”……..
As we got into foster dad’s truck, I’ll never forget it because foster dad and two other guys that came to help lift, were speechless. Finally, foster dad said, “honey, it was hard to believe he was doing and saying those things to you when you said he said them….but I saw it. I have five children, four are my daughters……..I will never understand how a father can speak like that to his own daughter”……….
It was silence all the way home.
Sky, that’s what I lived with all of my life. ALL of it. To understand that I’ve dealt with nothing but pathologicals all of my life, …………….I consider a miracle that I know there is something different out there…….that there are people who are genuinely kind and don’t act that way……..
To toss these people out of my life was painful, but at the same time, I was also indifferent….but I took all of that pain, all of that authority and power over me and transferred it all onto spath. He was almost a duplicate replica of my father. Right down to the way he dressed and how he dressed. Right down to his contemptuousness towards me and hatred for my very presence.
I couldn’t be that bad, right?
Well, sweetheart, you are not either, Sky. You’re a precious, loving, smart, capable, wonderful in heart, human being. I’m so glad I “met” you too. The voices you hear, that say you are bad, or set you back are those who are the echoes of years of your abusers.
It’s all a lie, Skylar. Everything they say about you, what you hear in your head, is nothing but a lie.
YOU are the consistent story of your own life. They are the inconsistencies and pathologies that want to drown out your beautiful, soulful loud voice that wants to speak and be filled with the confidence that was your right from the very beginning 🙂
You are a VERY special human being. Your posts speak of clarity and have walked me through many times of absolute desperation, anger and depression, to find joy in the little things…….
Even though we have never officially met.
A spath can’t do what we can, Sky. And if you come from the background and you’re still posting here, recognize the gift for what it is. You were given a special gift, Skylar.
The ability to see through the bullshit and have the ability, STILL, to love and care and have compassion.
These are your gifts. Even more that you know yourself better than you think you do. You know these gifts exist despite your experiences of a shitty, abusive past.
Because you are here. You are simply here. ANd touching so many other lives who are affected each and every day from spaths who have tried to drain the life blood of those who come here. Some barely alive.
You are the voice of reason amongst a world of pain.
ANd that is something to be VERY proud of.
I love you Sky. You’re a wonderful, special, caring woman. As most of us are here.
Hang onto that, if can hang onto nothing else. Your willingness to see the truth of the wonderful you are, versus what you were told was not, is a testament to your courageousness and bravity.
LL
Just found a bunch more came from Psalm 51, A contrite sinner’s prayer for Pardon.
“Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.”
There is more from that Psalm. And Katy, the one you caught ,”restore to me the joy of thy salvation” is from that Psalm too.
Of course my sister recognized it she really is saintly. And Katy, my good sister is the one good person that I’ve loved in my life, and it makes all the difference. Unfortunately she is far away.
Hens
You bring forth a very important point………….was it REAL, or was it another deeper, more profound and evil manipulation to win our sympathies……….
It’s hard to say given that whatever they SAID never matched what they DID.
I think this is a very significant exchange we are having here. Perhaps it was part and parcel of the manipulative evil that they were/are Hens. Another ploy to get our sympathies.
How is it that we know this? Because the PATHOLOGY prevents a REAL and GENUINE change……….
So significant this is and one I will ponder…….
Sure wish Questy were around with this one. I think it’s an extension of the O for Umbrella…….
A major gaslight technique. When we feel they are genuinely giving us an open window into what their souls really are…
A major gaslight? Or a semblence of truth? Gaslight makes it easier to understand how fake what they said was….when you add truth, it’s kinda like an extreme form of manipulation……..nine tenths of it is true. But it’s the one percent that changes the nine tenths that render the rest false.
Pathologies. Making sense of nonsense, Hens.
Even if what they shared in their “sorrow” and “confessions” was true…………their PATHOLOGY prevented action.
Actions, truly speak louder than words.
He will be the same wherever he goes, hens. Maybe even say the same things to the next victim. It’s the script and the next victim is just another observer of an actor who will get glimpses of the same “snippets” we all did.
LL
Aww sweet LL,
I love you too. it’s miraculous to be able to love someone you’ve never met and know that it’s real – more real than what we thought we had with fake men for decades. It’s hard to believe isn’t it? It’s even painful. We are finally living the lives we were meant to. Or at least getting closer to it. It’s a strange walk for me. It’s so new to me. Your eyes have been open longer than mine because you could see what your parents were.
Thank you for being so kind and supportive to me. You really did pull me out of the mire tonight.