Editor’s note: Steve Becker has a very dry sense of humor, and the following post is written tongue-in-cheek. If you have a humorous story about a sociopath, feel free to add it as a comment.
Well, thanks to the Investigation Discovery Channel, the latest estimates are that 85% of the general population is sociopathic, and likely to commit a horrific, calculated exploitation of another human being within the next three weeks.
Even leading researchers on psychopathy laud this cable channel (which, admittedly, is absolutely riveting) for getting their own estimates properly realigned. Only in the last two months, just on my street alone, two of my neighbors killed a spouse (one for insurance money, the other for the chance to be with someone else); two other neighbors, separately, kidnapped and tortured hitchhikers over a two-day period, during which both missed their kids’ respective travel soccer tournaments; my neighbor across the street, a great friend, is now believed to be a suspect in eight abduction/missing children cases since 2010; and the identical twins of another neighbor, three houses down, are believed to be responsible for the serial mutilation of dozens of dogs in the area since 2011 (they are 19, and my principal babysitters since 2009; and, because it’s so damned hard to find babysitters these days, they will remain my babysitters because apparently, at least as best i know to this point, they just mutilate and savage dogs).
And let me tell you something else–the street I live on is filled with relatively “normal” people. I’m told that what happens in my “neck of the woods” is nothing compared to the psychopathic crimes being perpetrated at a newly estimated rate of every 12 minutes around the corner, on my friends’ streets. They want to move to MY block.
Last month, my best friend learned that his wife of 16 years, a strikingly stable, well-adjusted individual (I still regard her as such), while mixing herself screw-drivers at night, was mixing him vodka-anti-freezes. He lies in critical condition at Overlook Hospital in Summit, NJ, but his wife is still a great neighbor and, admirably, visits him daily in the CCU unit (albeit one assumes she is scoping out chances to slip him some extra poison to finish him off.)  Last week, when I visited my buddy in the hospital I warned him firmly to beware his wife’s visits, but he’s in a coma, so I doubt he heard me.
It’s gotten to the point where I, myself, have become a bit paranoid. Recently I went to my internist, feeling weak and lethargic, just not myself, and asked him, “Could it be antifreeze, doc?,” to which he replied, “Well, how much antifreeze have you been drinking, Steve? More than a glass a night?”
Ha ha. He’s so funny. A real rip.
Anyway, it’s all very sobering. It seems you really can’t trust anyone anymore, not your neighbors, friends, kids, spouses, family, co-workers, not even yourself. Everyone, or almost everyone, it seems, thanks to the disconcerting revelations of ID Discovery, Â is a sociopath.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2013 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
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Frandee
Yes I took it as “tongue in cheek” I am addicted to ID and dateline, I have to turn it off to keep some sort of sanity, But Seriously, we have lived thru some DEEP and HEAVY trauma and we want to be taken serious, Im sure 99.9% were so misunderstood in coming forward with our experiences we do not take jokes lightly, I take very little lightly these days, it comes with the territory, believe me I hate feeling like this! Thank God I am further in my recovery but 50 something years of trauma doesn’t go away quickly!!
Frandee
I thought everyone had “some” good in them, I know its no longer true, I try to pass that along also!
4Light2shine
Steve, the responses being skewed had more to do with the timing that the article came out. Some who use and enjoy a more biting wit felt the need to pull it back so as not to step on sensitive toes. I agree with Imara that we need that here. Besides if Dr Steve can throw down like that, I can’t be lambasted for it. Right ? See how I just made that about me ? Guess I’m learning something from those psychos.
blossom4th
And I worried about you 4light?!Lol! 🙂 Yes Steve,please keep up the fine articles!Gotta admit,this one was a bit different in style,and as 4light said,the timing wasn’t the best,but we’re survivors,doing our best to wade through the stress and streams of change.
4Light2shine
Blossom I’m so happy to see you back. Saw something from Tea earlier. You gals really brighten things up around here. Just don’t start singing that Gloria Gaynor song or I’m outta here !
blossom4th
Blimey 4light,
I say,I say you’re a good bloke! What song will you sing for us?! 🙂
Sarah999
Babs94540,
Also consider that “the experts” agree . .
1) that sociopaths typically do NOT come for treatment (It is their victims that seek (and need) help). The sociopaths are quite happy with themselves (thank you very much 🙂
2) The sociopaths are masters of deception, and often seem even MORE normal than a non-sociopathic person.
3) They can maintain their cover for decades.
4) They are also masters of BLAMING others.
5) They come across VERY credible.
6) It is documented that about 30% of wives are physically & emotionally abused by their husbands (and many wives do not even recognize or report their abusive husbands). IMHO physical abusers are on the sociopathic continuum.
7) Certain cultures/ideologies are 100% sociopathic.
For all these reasons (1-7) . . . Any percentage estimate is going to be grossly UNDERESTIMATED (by an order of magnitude).
The “experts” should stop mimicking the prior PC statistics . . (just so they don’t get into trouble).
I am shocked when I hear “so called” experts that I admire spout a statistic about the % of sociopaths, and then go on to say . . sociopath’s hallmark attribute is that they are masters of deception. Experts can’t have it both ways. It diminishes their “expertise”, credibility, and integrity (in my eyes)
lost everything
From my experience, I don’t believe that the overwhelming percentage of the population is sociopathic. If it was, I would not have had to go hell and back to find a law firm willing to take my case. Any firm would have been willing and had the ‘cookie cutter’ briefs, etc. on hand-just fill in the names, dates, amounts. I would have not been put through a 6 1/2 day proceeding. The brokerage, over 80 years old, would have handbooks on ‘how to deal with sociopaths’.
I do believe that the great majority of people have at least one of Dr. Hare’s checklist applicable to them at some point in their/our lives. Impulsiveness, how many of us just had to have that ooey gooey, over the top, extra large, ice cream sundae or bought that great pair of shoes at a wonderful price that didn’t fit quite right when we tried them on. How many of us failed to take responsibility for something we did, the ‘not me’. Cartoonist Bill Keane, creator of ‘Family Circus'(a wholesome, family strip) even had a ‘not me’ creature that followed the children around.
We are human, we are not perfect, even with all of our errors, we are far from sociopaths. We have to be careful to use the word ‘sociopath’ judiciously. If we just bandy it around every time we get hurt, it will lose it’s real meaning.
4Light2shine
Well said Lost. Human foibles and imperfections are part of even the best people. It’s the composite of layers of badness that converge until…. Ok now we have not a weak or imperfect person, but a wicked or evil one.
Steve Becker, LCSW
Imara, Blossom, 4Light….really appreciate your generous responses.
My article, again to be clear, was really just a goof on the notion that if you watch ID all day and night, as one now can, one can come away believing that EVERYONE is a calculating, evil psychopath which, of course, simply isn’t the case. It wasn’t intended to illuminate, yet i really do appreciate that victims of real sociopaths–especially current and/or recent victims–are about the least likely audience (for very good reasons)to appreciate any sort of humorous angle on the subject.
Again, apologies for offending anyone, if I did. I thought my riff on my neighbors was so “over the top” that it would be inconceivable other than as “satire” to anyone reading it. But I wrong. Ouch!!
Not that I don’t have some creepy neighbors. But not quite THAT creepy. 🙂
blossom4th
Steve,
Isn’t it ironic that people will watch ID (or soaps,etc) and get so involved that they talk about the characters and events as though it’s REALITY.But then a person who has dealt with a sociopath tries to explain to these same people what they’ve experienced and they look at you like you’re CRAZY?!
Stargazer
I had this whole post written out about how I haven’t watched TV in 10 years just for this reason, how the media loves to sensationalize negative events, etc. Then I had a crazy, disturbing interaction with my disordered neighbor upstairs and had to rethink that entire line of reasoning…..!!
Having been a member here for 5 years, I’ve noticed there are many people here – or have been in the past – who DO see sociopaths everywhere and think they make up a large percentage of the population. It is probably normal for someone who has been badly traumatized over a period of years to think like this. This line of thinking – that there is a sociopath under every bush – does not resonate with how I think or live my life. I do not worry about sociopaths or other disordered people, and I don’t attract too many of them these days. However, I know one when I see one now, and I know enough not to get involved with them.
As far as my neighbor, since I sold my condo a year and a half ago and I’m renting it back from the new landlord, I can just say to the neighbor, “Take it up with my landlord.” Such a blessing to be able to say that. We HAVE had some crazy neighbors around here. We had a sex offender unit for a while and a few ex-felons living upstairs in my building. But I still think they were more the exception than the rule. The other neighbors banded together and confronted the landlords of these units until the offending parties were removed or left on their own. Though there certainly ARE disordered people out there, I strongly believe that we attract people into our lives based on our own energetic patterning. Changing those patterns inwardly will change the types of people we attract.
Katzu
Hi everyone. I have been following Lovefraud for more than three years now and this post made me register so I could send you my comments and questions. Please excuse my english as I am not american.
I do believe that our weaknesses can work as a big outdoor sign for spaths. We as victims dont realise that we left our naivety and emotional weaknesses in the opening for everyone to see and of all people spaths are the ones who can best spot us even from a long distance and this is why so many people get framed more than once by these vampires.
It took me five years to realise my wife was a spath. And only after two years of therapy medication books and a lot of searching that I finaly realised that the key people in my life had sociopathic traits. Even more scary to find out that I still interact with many people that have these traits today and that as much as I try to get away from them I still cant find a “spath free” enviroment.
This made me wonder if I was going insane or taking this “spath syndrome” too seriously or too far. Could it be that I was sudenly labeling almost everyone around me a spath?
Unfortunately I believe that the answer is no. There are a lot more sociopaths than the 4% informed by researchers and there is an even bigger percentage of the population that may not be sociopaths but can sure behave like one given the oportunity.
But 85% is a lot. I am sad but also glad someone said something about this. It feels lonly out here and I do not feel I will ever have confidence enough to trust someone again. The monstruous spath are not the ones I fear. I fear the most the ones that can live for years unoticed. Those who seem to be so nice good decent people but are in fact spaths in disguise.
Can someone comment on this please?
PS.: Thank you! You all have given me a lot of help for the past three years. I hope I can be of help too. Maybe I tell my story one day.
Donna Andersen
Katzu – Welcome to Lovefraud. I am so glad that Lovefraud has helped you.
The author of this post is making a joke. He is making fun of a television channel here in the United States called Investigation Discovery. This channel has dozens of reality TV shows about people who marry con artists, commit murder, go to jail, escape going to jail, cheat on their husbands or wives, etc. etc. If anyone were to watch only this channel, they would believe that everyone in the world was a sociopath.
The author of the post is not really saying that 85% of people are sociopaths. He is exaggerating because a lot of what is on TV, and a lot of what people talk about, are these cases.
On the one hand, it is important to know about sociopaths. ON the other hand, putting them on TV just feeds their egos.
Babs94540
Maybe it would help to create a “Humor Section” for light-hearted posts meant to poke fun at “spathiness”? I think more than just a couple of us didn’t realize that that particular article was tongue-in-cheek, took it as a sincere post, and were either upset or took the information seriously. Just an idea to consider. Such a distinct and separate humor section might generate very interesting submissions and dialogue, sort of like those “World’s Dumbest Criminals” or “To Catch A Predator” shows.
Barb
I agree. The spath who infected my life is (and has always been) a source of humor for my family. One of my brothers in particular used to caricaturize her in our living room, much to our glee. He called her
‘pin head’ whenever she drove by our home in her small Japanese car (her pinhead look was at its most prominent at those times). It was hilarious. No sympathy for her at all. Not after the hell she put me through.