Perhaps the hardest thing to comprehend, and accept, about sociopaths is just how different they are from the rest of us.
I’ve spoken to hundreds of people who have tangled with sociopaths. Even when the mask has not only slipped, but shattered, even when they know the truth about what the sociopath has been doing all along, they still ask,
“But how could he do it?”
“He kept telling me how much he loved me; how could he cheat like that?”
“He said we were soul mates; how can he just up and leave?”
“How can he be so cold and calculating?”
“How can he look me right in the eye and lie?”
(Substitute “she” for “he” as necessary.)
Then, the people I talk to start making statements like the following:
“I would never think of taking someone’s money.”
“I would never intentionally hurt someone.”
“If I said something like that, I couldn’t sleep at night.”
“I would never tell someone that I loved them if I didn’t mean it.”
So here is the most important lesson to learn about sociopaths: You cannot interpret their behavior in the same way you interpret your own behavior.
Sociopaths are fundamentally different from the rest of us. They have a personality disorder, and this disorder reaches to the core of their beings. Here’s what this means:
- Sociopaths cannot feel empathetic connections with other people.
- Sociopaths do not have the ability to love.
- Sociopaths are interested only in power, control and sex.
- Sociopaths’ main motivation is to win.
- Anything that comes out of a sociopath’s mouth could be a lie.
- Sociopaths have no conscience.
You could think of them as aliens. I’m not saying that they literally are aliens (although there are people who believe that). But sociopaths are missing the characteristics, traits and abilities that make us truly human.
For most of us, this realization is a shock to the system. They look just like the rest of us. They appear to be so normal, talented, fun and exciting. They keep proclaiming their love. It’s so hard to believe that they are simply acting. It’s all a charade, a mirage.
What do you do with this information? You accept it. Sociopaths are what they are, and once they are adults, there is nothing you or anyone else can do about it. So far, there is no therapy, no magic pill, that will give them the ability to feel care and concern for others, or internalize a sense of right and wrong.
All we can do is know that they exist, learn the warning signs, and when we see them, run as fast as we can.
Donna, this is terrific and thank you for posting it.
Coming to the point of “acceptance” and “recognition” is where I found the greatest hurdles to leap over.
A while back, I said that I wasn’t interested in knowing “how or why” the exspath accomplished his betrayals – it’s only important for me to know that he did. I still hold fast to this belief: whatever label sticks to him, whatever his assessment might be, however he became the way he is, and how he could perpetrate the things that he did are all 100% unimportant to me, personally.
Once again, I read what I need to precisely when I need to read it.
Brightest blessings
To clarify about why the things that I mentioned are “unimportant” refers to me healing myself. Knowing the answers to those issues will not alter my healing processes. Sure, it would be great to define all of those things, but even the experts can’t come to a reasonable and concise agreement on ANY of them. So, my trying to sort them out is a distraction from what I need to be working on for myself. 🙂
Truthspeak, I totally understand what you’re trying to say. A spath is a spath because he is a spath. When Midas (nicknamed Killing Fields, although his killing fields days seem to be over with his arthritis), the cat of my parents, catches a bird I don’t wonder about the why either. Not that it ever prevented me from scaring a bird away before he could catch it though 😉
When I lived in Norway, I had a tough time initially learning the language. I used to think, “That’s not good English.”
This went on for a while until one day I realized, “So what? It may not be good English, but it’s good Norwegian. It could be good Russian and bad Japanese or vice versa. That isn’t the point. The point is if this is good Norwegian, then this is the way I should be saying it.”
We personalize too much. We need to be objective. Just observers and taking things as they are not as we think they should be or how we would do something.
I’m very fortunate that my profession requires me to do that constantly. Analysis is a huge part of my job. I’ve analyzed analyzing to become better at what I do. I’m still learning how to be better at what I do, that will never end, I don’t think.
I need to be very careful because if I personalize something, i.e., get it wrong by being too subjective, then in some cases, somebody might literally die due to a faulty product or I could be out of a job by sending the bosses down the wrong path and costing them a lot of money.
The company depends on my objectivity. Not in a bad way, they don’t care about me or my personal feelings except to know that I am accurate, reliable, and adhere to their policies and objectives.
I have a function to do. It isn’t about G1S. I even say that nowadays, i.e., this isn’t about me. Nobody cares about me. It’s about what is happening and how it affects the company. That approach has diffused tension many times because people know that I am not challenging them personally. It’s not about them, either.
I’ve come to realize that if I left that job tomorrow, the only thing that would be gone is me, meaning that the job function and its requirements will still be there. Knowing that makes my job much easier because I don’t have to agonize over things. It’s “what does the company want/need?” not, “Oh gee, G1S, would you ever do that? Would you ever think that way?”
If I don’t know what to think, then I ask for clarification from my boss. “Do you need this, are you looking for X, or is there something else that I don’t know about yet?” No, “you/they didn’t tell me” or “why don’t people keep me in the loop?”
I feel like Detective Friday from that TV show (whatever it was called.) “Just the facts, ma’am.”
It makes life so much easier for everyone, and I get to leave my job at the office when I go home at night.
G15 i agree.
I sort of got an idea about how people “see” (and think) differently a few years before my husband died. He had a partial plate that was loose and because there was no tooth in the back to attach it to it flooped, so he used some of that pink “goop” to hold it in place and every night when he cleaned his teeth the took it out and brushed it off, and the pink goop stuck to the sink like concrete when it dried
I nagged and nagged at him to clean out the goop when it was wet so I didn’t have to chissel it off the sink when it was hard and dry.
Finally, he said “Honey,, I can’t SEE it, I am COLOR BLIND….” and I realized that what was plain as day to ME was invisible to him. (boy,, did I feel bad)
But I think that just as my husband was blind to color that I icould SEE, the psychopaths are “blind” to emotions that we can feel, yet we tend to think that like us they can ‘see” because we can “see” but it is not true.
They may not be aliens, but their brains and emotions don’t work like ours and we need to realize that they don’t.
While a wolf cub that has been raised among people may be somewhat “tame” it is STILL a wild animal and is NOT a dog, it may look like a dog, but it isn’t a dog. The same with a psychopath, just like the “pet” wolf may appear to be a dog, the psychopath may appear to be bonded, but it isn’t. A psychopath can’t be trusted any more than the pet wolf or pet cougar can be.
Years before I knew what a spath was, I said to my spath-Sister, “Spath-sis, You are so much more selfish than I am. I need to learn to be more selfish. How do you do it?”
I wasn’t joking, I was serious. I was asking her how she thinks.
She said, “I don’t know Skylar, I’ve always been selfish, that’s just the way I am.”
Recently, I was contemplating that I am still treating bad people with kindness — even though I’m very aware of spaths. It’s not that I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It’s just what I want to do. And the words “It’s just the way I am,” popped into my head.
I’m the exact opposite of my spath-sis. It’s just the way I am.
I could change my behavior. Maybe I should, but I don’t really want to.
It’s the same with spaths, it just “feels” right for them to be selfish. Seems alien to me.
I don’t know if they’re aliens, but I don’t think they qualify as human.
I am almost finished Donna’s book and usually look here a couple of times each week to read posts and keep my strength up!
I have been brought up as a Catholic although after the traumas I have been through, I am questioning this. The other day I had a very good discussion with a Jewish friend of mine about our spathy parents, family members and work colleagues etc. We both came to the conclusion that these ‘people-aliens spaths’ and their presence in the world-make it very hard for us to believe that there is a God.
Donna
Very good article, they may not be alien’s from outer space but they are alien, different, they lack the 6 thing’s you stated. So I would say they are alien to us. Not everyone can see this however, it’s only because we were encountered by an alien that we recognize what they are lacking. It is eery. I so remember the way my x spath slept, it looked unnatural, almost distorted..when I first noticed this, chills ran up and down my spine and I thought to myself “what is he”.
So recently I went out to the clubs, I do that about twice a year to remind myself why I dont go out. But I did run into the “victim” he left for me AND the “victim he left me for”..and so me make’s three. Hmmm, I am not happy to be in that group of three, makes one wonder just actually how many people this alien has abducted in his life time so far.
No magic pill but perhaps a bitter pill?
Thanks Donna for sharing your thoughts. You always have a way of making us feel better, somehow.
Personally, “I” think they ARE aliens.
I haven’t figured out, yet, though, if they are alien beings or demonic, evil beings. I guess it doesn’t really matter which they are, what they ARE is toxic. They rape the body and the soul and mind and take whatever they want from people who are good and kind and trusting and walk away laughing in mockery.
There isn’t a magic pill to help them.
No amount of praying; no begging; no pleading.
They don’t make logic like we do. They are all about themselves.
All we CAN do is accept the way it is and say:
“You know what? I am not going to spend the rest of my life living like this. I just am not. I am taking MY LIFE back.” And, then doing it.
Lock, stock and barrel.
It’s a difficult and long journey, filled with much pain and suffering that is unimaginable, but at least we are still alive and breathing and still have the ability to build something out of what’s left.
This PPATH felt VERY alien to me. Still does. So much so it sends shivers up my spine to this very moment.
I have never met evilness which is that ugly, so up close, live and in person and I have met a lot of ugly and evil in my life.
Sorry hens about your realization.
Somehow I know what you are feeling.
I felt the same way when I found out there were EIGHT and all of them older and very wealthy.
He is a phisher, online and shops and trolls for where the spoils are the greatest and then plunges right in.
I just don’t want to hear anymore.
I gave up uncovering seedy truths the past couple of years and finding out everything I needed to know. I just want it away from me and over with. I refuse to participate in the drama any longer. NC 1,000%, from me, and eternally.
With that being said, I received my daily stalking today.
Which always goes to ::block:: and never responded to.
Some day, “IT” will go away…hopefully, under it’s own power and won’t need any help. hehehehe
Thanks again, Donna, excellent article.
Like a ‘band-aid’ on my soul.
Dupey