Although some see sociopaths as too emotionally deficient to experience the despair necessary to suicide, I see suicide as offering a viable option for some sociopaths, and I’m going to explain why.
Let me start with a bit of crude, brutal logic: for many sociopaths, as we know, life is very much a game; hence, when game over, life over. No more game, what’s left? The answer may be, nothing.
And yet it may be less “despair” and “depression” with which the sociopath is left when his act has been shut-down than his preferring no longer to deal with an existence he knows will cease supplying the gratifications to which he’s grown accustomed, perhaps addicted and certainly privileged.
In the face, then, of this massive problem, the sociopath, with his notorious penchant for escaping inconvenient situations, may consider “checking-out” out of life—suiciding—when it, too, becomes insolubly inconvenient.
Some sociopaths, recognizing that their run of exploitation has ended, may use suicide as a final act of rebellion and contempt, as if to express, “See! You may have apprehended me, but watch! I’ll kill myself, and so I’ll escape again! Nobody gets me. Nobody makes me account! I am accountable to myself only, and now I choose to disappear, permanently. Ha!”
Of course, we’re all acquainted with the incarcerated sociopath who seeks his death, and may even generate publicity around his quest to be capitally executed. His is the case of the imprisoned sociopath asking the state, in effect, by proxy, to assist him in his suicide. What are we to make of this?
For some, the specter of the prisoner seeking execution arouses a certain sympathy; the prisoner may be seen as pursuing a form of ennobled self-justice, which may be interpreted (or rather, misinterpreted) as reflecting his belated humanity.
But what is the incarcerated, suicide-seeking sociopath really doing? Where is he really coming from? The answer is that he’s doing what he’s always done—exploiting for an edge, an advantage.
In such cases his spirited self-advocacy for death-by-state reflects some very basic sociopathic tendencies, among them his audacious grandiosity and arrogance. For even in his wretched, no-status state, here he is making noise and refusing to recognize limits—that is, he’s still attempting to exercise omnipotent control; he’s determined to determine even the way he dies!
But the incarcerated sociopath’s pursuit of assisted suicide-by-state is also, and probably principally, about his desire to escape a life intolerably devoid of gratifications.
Remember that, for many sociopaths, life without an ongoing infusion of gratification is like living in prison. For some of these sociopaths, this just is not a life worth living.
It is possible that despair, finally, is a driving factor when sociopaths attempt or commit suicide. However, it is the source of his despair that’s probably most noteworthy and distinguishing: the sociopath often feels his despair as an existence intolerably devoid of sufficient gratifications, and the promise of future gratifications. And so his despair derives, ultimately, from the frustration of his greedy, insatiable demands.
Adding to his despair is the probable sense of his shattered omnipotence—that is, the sense that he can no longer exercise the kind of control over others, and control over (and satisfaction of) his gratification-habit to which he developed a deep, arrogant sense of entitlement.
The sociopath’s belief in his omnipotence, a belief deployed in the service of producing continual gratifications, gives him his superficial, if not only, purpose in life. Deprive him of it, and all bets are off.
(This article is copyrighted © 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns was for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the attitudes and behaviors discussed.)
woundlicker
Blue eyes- the ex spath I endured was obsessed with youth as well. He tried very hard to be around people half his age (I found the most disturbing stuff on his computer!) And yet at the same time he would easily take a much older sugar daddy or sugar mama. And ‘suicide’ was as common a word in his vocabulary as ‘I’, but he would never go through with it. He even admitted he’s too big a coward to do it.
The utter contradiction in everything about him that I witnessed was mind-boggling. I was so confused I believed him when he tried to convince me I was crazy. I’m on prozac now, over 3 years later, and probably will be on it for life.
behind_blue_eyes
woundlicker;
Yup, sexually, mine seems to target younger guys but also has some older male friends as well. I do not think these are “sugar daddies” to him but simply people to boost his ego….
woundlicker
Oh yes, ego and self were the only important things to the ex spath, but he also got his supply of drugs, cash, and petty favors- I remember he couldn’t stop going on about the mani/pedi one sexual partner paid for. I heard about that damn manicure for 3 years and I had foolishly given him gobs and gobs more than that.
Honest to God, I could never bear to step into a nail salon as long as I live, or listen to Guns N Roses, or eat peanutbutter cookies, or watch Steve Martin movies. That bastard ruined everything!!
Ya know what? One day I’m going to get a mani and come home, crank up Guns N Roses, eat a BOX of peanutbutter cookies and watch The Jerk all at the same time. F’ him.
behind_blue_eyes
woundlicker;
When I met my x-spath, he was 35. Still a bit “boyishly” cute but rough around the edges and very much starting to show his age. He was very, very surprised to learn I was older than him by three years and thought I was younger than him.
Interestingly, I was glad he was 35 and tired of all the much younger guys I was meeting. The x-spath seemed mature, and in some ways more mature than myself.
Only when I found his trail online was I able to better understand him. First, only through this trail was I able in time to understand that he is a sociopath. But I also learned something about him that at first caused great empathy. A subtle, after the fact pity-play.
Online, he uses pictures not representative of his current appearance. In one case, he looked 10 years younger. At first this appalled me that somebody could be so vain, but then I thought that perhaps maybe he just aged very rapidly, consistent with HIV medication, plus his continued smoking and drinking. In effect, he aged 10 years in 5. At 32, he looked 27, at 37 he looked 37…
For him, this must be crushing…
woundlicker
Blue eyes, I think they do age rapidly starting in their 30’s. I was 35 and he was 30 but we looked the same age because he smoked and drank heavily plus drug use. He worked out furiously and took testosterone and steroids and had to keep a thousand lies straight. His lifestyle aged him quickly. He also had a very large head, oddly enough, but I digress.
I googled him last month (it was my 3 year ‘freedom’ anniversary) and I noticed the age progression in his mugshots online. He got old looking quick. Yay! I didn’t notice it when I was with him but it being gradual I wouldn’t notice anyway. I just hope he looks like Ernest Borgnine by the time he’s 40. Is that so much to ask?
behind_blue_eyes
“He also had a very large head”
That is not digressing. There is a study we talked about here that sociopaths have a large or round face.
My spath has, for his body, a large, round face.
behind_blue_eyes
Steroids, drink and cigarettes did yours in, HIV meds, drink and cigarettes did mine in….
woundlicker
Lot’s and lot’s of drugs, too. Meth, coke, heroin, crack, pain killers, even diet pills- he literally did every drug known to man.
And BTW, I looked like a toddler next to his gigantic head. I had a theory that he worked out so much in order to make his body more proportionate to his huge head. I also ignorantly thought steroids increased the size of a persons head but I think he was born that way. I remember only seeing one baby pic of him ever and he looked like a hobbit.
Geez! What the hell did I see in this douche?!
skylar
Large head! yep! Alexander Lowen describes this character as having small feet and large head. Fits my spath to a T.
Also that other thing that goes with small feet… ahem.
It was pity, woundlicker. just pity. deep down we knew they needed rescuing. We were just wrong in thinking we could do it.
woundlicker
Does the ahem have a mole and point to the left? Just wondering.