One reason why many of us found ourselves victimized by sociopaths is because we did not know that dangerous personality disorders existed.
We may have heard of crazy people, but we assumed that we could spot them because they looked and talked crazy. We may have heard of psychopaths, but we assumed they were serial killers or some other type of obviously hardened criminal.
We did not know that people existed who could convincingly proclaim their love, cry tears of sadness, and make glowing promises for the future, all simply to exploit us. We did not know that these people were called sociopaths and/or psychopaths.
In my opinion, a big reason for the public’s unawareness of, and confusion about, this dangerous personality disorder is the lack of agreement in the mental health profession about naming and defining it. How can you educate the public about these social predators when you can’t even decide what to call them?
Range of names
Research psychologists in major universities use the term “psychopath.” The main reason is that they run their studies using the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R), developed by Dr. Robert Hare.
The PCL-R is recognized as the gold standard for evaluating the disorder. The instrument includes a list of 20 characteristics. An individual is rated 0, 1 or 2 on each item, and the points are added up for a total score. A person must score 30 to be diagnosed as a “psychopath.” For more on the PCL-R, read Researchers minimize the psychopathy problem.
Psychiatrists and other clinicians follow the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, now in the 4th edition. At the moment, the official term in the manual for this malady is “antisocial personality disorder.” Psychiatrists use the term “sociopath” for short.
Currently, the DSM-IV recognizes 10 personality disorders, divided into three clusters—A, B and C. Cluster B covers dramatic, emotional or erratic disorders. It includes antisocial, borderline, histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders.
All of this, however, is in the process of change—the 5th edition of the manual is now being written. A year ago, a draft of the new manual was posted on the Internet, and the public was invited to comment. For the most part, the diagnostic criteria were much improved, but Dr. Liane Leedom and I had problems with a few of the descriptive statements. Read our views in Lovefraud’s comment about sociopaths for the DSM-5.
My biggest problem with the revision is that it creates yet another name for this condition, “antisocial/psychopathic type.” Personally, I think this term is ridiculous. I don’t even know how it would be used in a sentence. Do we say that someone is an “antisocial slash psychopathic type”?
Selecting “sociopath”
When I was first developing Lovefraud.com back in 2004, I had to decide which term to use. After some informal market research, I selected “sociopath.”
The main reason was that “psychopath” was just too scary. Hollywood and the media portray psychopaths as deranged serial killers. I worried that people would not believe they had a psychopath in their lives, because he or she had never killed anyone, and would therefore dismiss all of the information about this disorder.
My reasoning was supported by last year’s Lovefraud survey. The survey asked the following questions:
Before your involvement with this disordered individual, what did you understand the term “sociopath” to mean?
- Criminal: 19.2%
- Serial killer: 19.4%
- Someone who was delusional: 6.4%
- Person without empathy or a conscience: 19.7%
- I didn’t know what it meant: 35.3%
Before your involvement with this disordered individual, what did you understand the term “psychopath” to mean?
- Criminal: 15.0%
- Serial killer: 51.2%
- Someone who was delusional: 13.4%
- Person without empathy or a conscience: 8.9%
- I didn’t know what it meant: 11.5%
Fully half of the 1,378 survey respondents believed a psychopath was a serial killer. I think it’s safe to assume that this level of misinformation pervades the general public.
Overlap
So the experts argue over terminology. I’ve even had two college psychology professors contact me to tell me that I’m using the wrong name. Although they didn’t seem to be aware of the disagreement in the field, I am, and I summarize the disparate views on the Lovefraud.com page, Psychopath/sociopath.
In practice, the behaviors and traits exhibited by individuals diagnosed with psychopathy, sociopathy narcissism, and even borderline personality disorders overlap, so it’s hard to tell where one ends and another begins. Many Lovefraud readers simply describe the individual they were involved with as P/S/N, for psychopath/sociopath/narcissist. Others say that the individual has a “cluster B” disorder. Of course, no one knows what that means, but it is less prejudicial and more likely to be believed.
Proposed name
I propose a solution to the name problem. I propose that “sociopath” become the general term for a social predator, someone who exploits others.
In the general category of “sociopath,” there can be subcategories that reflect the different types of exploiters. “Psychopath” can be defined as someone who scores 30 or more on the PCL-R. “Narcissist” can be someone who uses others, but doesn’t necessarily set out to cause them harm. “Antisocial personality disorder” could describe the people who are worse than a narcissist, but not as bad as a psychopath. Other subcategories can be defined as the experts see fit.
“Sociopath” has the advantage that it is already in the lexicon, but does not carry the cultural baggage of “psychopath.” People are generally aware that the word has something to do with bad behavior. But, as our survey pointed out, the largest number of respondents didn’t really know what “sociopath” meant, so they could be educated.
“Sociopath” could be analogous to the term “cancer.” There are many types of cancer—lung cancer, skin cancer, colon cancer—but we all know that cancer is bad and we take precautions to avoid it. We don’t smoke. We use sunscreen. We eat fiber.
Here’s a key point: For many people, the harm caused by sociopaths is completely avoidable, if we take precautions.
Some of us were unlucky in that we were born to a sociopathic parent, or into a family that contained sociopaths. We were stuck in those situations until we could find a way to get out.
But the rest of us invited the sociopaths into our lives. If we knew that these predators existed, if we knew the warning signs, we never would have done it. We could have avoided the trauma that they caused.
In my view, settling on a clear name and diagnostic criteria for this disorder is a public health issue. People have learned how to protect themselves from cancer. With education, we can learn how to protect ourselves from sociopaths as well.
witsend,
I didn’t see any of Charlie Sheen’s interviews. A friend of mine saw him being interviewed and told me about it. I told her that from all that I’ve read about him and heard about him (via news sources), he seems to lack a moral compass, not caring about right or wrong. I suggested to her that he could be a sociopath (just from all of his outlandish behaviors that media sources have reported on), but unfortunately I don’t think that she will bother to look up what a sociopath is, exploring the subject further. There is definitely something “off” about him, thinking that he is mentally unstable.
Dear Witsend,
Nah, not gonna boink you for that one, it is COMMON for people with bi-polar individuals to “self medicate” with drugs and booze and it does NOT MEAN that their only problem is drugs/booze.
In fact, I think that too many times people who have bi-polar problems AND/or psychopathic traits get “sober” the AA and NA groups too often equate ALL their behavior and symptoms as part of the ALCOHOLIC/DRUGGIE “disease” and dont’ consider that these people may ALSO have mental health issues and/or personality disorders that will NOT go away with 12-steps alone.
I just posted essentially this same thought on another thread, my Trojan Horse Psychcopath was ADHD, BI-POLAR, AND PROFESSIONALLY DIAGNOSED ASPD as well as DRUG ADDICTED….the “quad-fecta” of the dysfunctional! He got them ALL. To say that he was a 3X convicted pedophile as well and an ex convict who would have scored well over 30 on the PCL-R (probably closer to 38 out of a possible 40)
I didn’t see the Charlie Sheen interview, but he very well (from what I’ve heard about it) BE bi-polar, or it is also possible that he has DAMAGED his brain enough with the “partying” that essentially what is being seen is brain damage from years of drug and alcohol abuse. There is that part too. Drugs and booze kill brain cells and damage message transmissions. DUH! Life and trauma and stress all damage brain cells and change the way they transmit messages. We might as well face it, we are to one extent or another products of our biology and our INTERNAL chemistry which is influenced by genetics and environment.
Even “identical twins” who start out with the SAME DNA are “different” because of micro different environments, even because the placentas are placed in different areas of the womb and get differing amounts of nutrients. If the egg that they are formed from separates after the 13th day of fertility, the “identical twins” will be “mirror” twins, with one being left handed and one right handed yet the DNA is the same.
Just as my skin has been damaged by the sun I baked myself in and I have more wrinkles and “age spots” than I would have had had I not baked myself like saddle leather in the African sun. My egg donor at over 80 has baby-butt smooth skin because she shielded hers from the sun, even as a kid working in the cotton fields…I didn’t listen to my grandmother and baked mine brown. Environment changes lots of things. My chances of dying of melanoma are higher than my egg donor’s.
I also am addicted to nicotine as my drug of choice. Am I any “better” or “worse” than the guy whose addiction is alcohol or cocaine? Different, but not better or worse, maybe, except my drug of choice is legal and you can smoke and drive legally because it doesn’t IMMEDIATELY IMPAIR your judgment, but I think it probably does contribute over the years to poor brain function just by the chemical changes it makes in the brain. It does SOMETHING or we wouldn’t crave it.
Thinking about quitting smoking makes me remember something funny about a cigarettes-Anon group I went to once years ago when I thought I wanted to quit smoking and the people there were talking about they were taking XANAX (a tranqualizer) instead of smoking! LOL ROTFLMAO talk about substituting one bad thing for another! I never went back to that “support” group.
Oxy,
I think the problem lies with how murky things can get.
Sometimes alcoholism or drug addiction “veils” the other issues that lie beneath. Does that make any sense?
For some people drinking and drugs begins as a way to self medicate. Thats how it starts and at some point in time the line is crossed from self medication into addiction.
In other words my husband was an alcoholic. That much there is no debate about. However after a few years in sobriety, and after the healing of sobriety began it became apparent that there could have been some bigger issues than what was just on the surface….The alcoholism.
When the drinking and drugging stops that is when the truths of the issues that lie beneath start to surface.
For most alcoholics this is the time when they come face to face with the feelings and emotions that haven’t been felt in a “sober” sense for a very long time. It is a difficult journey, recovery in sobriety, but it is much the same as the journey that we face here. Lots of layers to peel back, lots of fear, lots of lessons to be learned on a day to day basis.
But for others that might be bipolar, or a P/S/N, once the self medicating stops there are many troubling things that seem to surface. There would be that illness that was veiled by the addiction.
I never gave my husbands alcoholism “credit” for behaving the way he did when he was using. BUT I do understand it as the “reason” he behaved the way he did. Not an excuse but knowing the reason allows me to understand it better.
And after he suicided I have much reason to believe that there were many things that were veiled by the alcoholism for so many years. Because after a suicide you do alot of reflection and you disect your entire relationship with a person.
When he was sober for that period of time there was definately some other stuff going on. Things surfacing that could no longer be reasoned away by the drinking.
That’s where things can get very murky. There is a definate overlapping of both behaviors and symptoms for many mental illnesses, disorders and addictions.
Because I had “labeled” him for so long as an alcoholic and when it became a possibility that there might be more to it than that….It was hard to clearly define the murky lines that existed.
But also impossible to ignore what the drinking had masked for many years.
Charlie Sheens interview reminded me of Tom Cruise film showing him claiming to be a kind of superior human b/c of Scientology. BOTH just eyepopping disconnection with reality, mask off self proclaimed gods. Another thing about Charlie Sheen… in Texas they are showing before and after pictures of drug users. Charlie LOOKS like the after picture. I enjoyed Charlie’s rantings about us normal nothing boring people and all the favors he did for us. Sounded so like my spath and his attitude about the people he ridiculed and had contempt for (my husband only talked that way and revealed his true nature to me, no one else among the community members ever saw him mask off.). I enjoy Charlie validating/revealing by spouting the true mindset of these spaths.
Oxy,
I’m telling you if you saw this particular interview it would make you shake your head in WONDER and amazement.
Because after all the news media about the way Charlie treats his women he now has TWO twenty-something blonds that both are live in girlfriends. Yep, they all live in the same house and share Charlie.
One of the reasons that I watched this 20/20 interview is that I had hoped that his co-stars might have been interviewed for this program. I would have been interested to hear what they might have had to say.
Witty,
I don’t doubt for a minute that there are a couple of blond bimbos who would “fall for” Charlie Sheen or any other “rich and famous” personality. LOL I’ve seen the headlines for a couple of articles about the mother of his twins trying to get custody away from him and the multiple live in bimbos. Of course he deserves to have more than one woman at a time, because ONLY ONE woman couldn’t satisfy such a SPECIAL GUY you know. LOL Excuse me while I puke.
I know exactly what you mean about your X husband and his alcoholism and the other problems he had besides the alcoholism and drinking. Unfortunately though, I think that too many people seem to think that if you “cure” one problem, i.e. the drinking or the drugs, that anything else is “cured” as well and they are a great person after they are sober and dry. NOT SO. Unfortunately, too, I think there are more people with DUAL DIAGNOSES than those with only one problem.
I think, looking back now, that my Uncle Monster who was the alcoholic was also probably bi-polar and a lot of his acting out was mania as well as being drunk. Of course Mania by itself can be bad but if you ADD booze/drugs AND MANIA together you MULTIPLY THE PROBLEMS…and the abuse….and the damage.
It is sad to see the damage done in families like ours…you grew up in a home with a masked alcoholic/abuser—you married an alcoholic/abuser, gave birth to a child who started showing high psychopathic traits at puberty—and are having to peel your own “onion” of dysfunctional acceptance of dysfunction, one layer at a time.
Looking back at my own and my sons’ biological families and the family CURSE being passed from one generation to another through the DNA alone…as well as the learned family dysfunctions of “let’s pretend none of this ever happened” and the “kick’em into line with the family enabling of the male offspring” that is my family “heritage.” Sheesh, talk about peeling an ONION, I am peeling a TOXIC, radioactive ONION!
I do shake my head in WONDER Witty, wonder at how I have survived this mess, how I didn’t turn out to be just like my sperm donor or my egg donor—I came so close where she was concerned, I picked up a bunch of the family enabling and dysfunctional behaviors as “natural” and “the way it is.” So not sure why I finally “saw the light” and decided to reverse course. It is still not “natural” to me to be different than what I was raised to see as “natural’ and the “way things are.” I have to stop and question myself, I have to stop and regroup, and think about things before I do them…to continually question my own motives in doing things, and if something is really my responsibility or am I enabling someone. It takes WORK and I have to stay on that road and keep on learning as I work toward being the kind of person I want to be.
WITSEND:
Did you know that Charlie’s two “goddesses” are porn stars? When you are a god, you must have goddesses to serve you.
Did you see the Tom Cruise Scientology rant? Where he claimed godlike powers and that he was chosen by Scientology precisely b/c he had god powers?
We who must submit to their superiority do NOT have any godpowers. Therefore what they do/decide is for our charity, for our good. Aren’t we lucky?! That’s what my spath thought about me and our marriage. No need to consult us little people, submit or BE DESTROYED!! Yep, that was for MY benefit.
KatyDid,
Yes I did note that they were porn stars! I think Charlie is well known for prostitutes and porn stars.
I feel for his exwife after seeing those darling twins sandwiched between him & his women.
With any luck these two women although they have made bad choices in their relationships and bad choices as far as their careers, hopefully they are nurturing with children.
Because their father if nothing else is delusional at the moment and those little children need someone in the household that is stable.
I didn’t see that rant with Tom Cruise. However it seems like I have heard of other movie stars that are followers of this scientology?
Maybe I am wrong, I am like Oxy sometimes I have CRS.
Well, you know, all great sci-fi writers are gods and should have their own church! Tom Cruise and all the other earthly gods that want to follow a sci-fi writer to nirvana are welcome to it! LOL
To Hopeforjoy:
I just read the book “When Your Lover is a Lair” and it had a chapter about sociopaths. (of course it said to get away from them asap) It talked about the tight bond formed due to the excitement and distress you are subjected to.
Isn’t this similiar to Stockholm Symdrome? I sure felt like I was Jim’s prisoner. I found myself making the best of it and hiding that I was still seeing him, or even defending him.
I have been thinking about the good things that Jim did. It’s not that I like giving him credit for anything cause he took more than he ever gave. And, he only did something good for me if it would give him glory in front of town board, or others of importance. I find it healing to find something good that came out of it for me. It takes some of that anger out of me, and I feel more at peace.