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.
Oh WOW.
I thought we were to have zero contact.
I entered this blog. I saw that “IS he lying to you” box. I wondered if the rules had changed. I thought what the heck? I haven’t had contact with Jim in two years and I still really hate him. I typed in his email addy. Well, his picture popped up. His new name is Jim Strange.
I pat myself on the back. Good for me for leaving that strange man.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn676-fLq7I
Dupey
The sociopath lives in a survival of the fitest state of mind, eat or be eaten, just like lion’s they look really adorable until they eat you. I dont think karma affect’s them one way or the other. To them we are the one with the problem. They justify and rationalyze every bad thing they do. I doubt they know they are lying or care if they do. It’s just normal survival to them.
No contact is your only weapon and ultimate salvation. To attempt to try and make them understand what they have done, what they are is futile. What they are is a life lesson to those of us that needed it.
oh yes hens: you are right, to them WE are the one’s with the problem. They do: they justify and rationalize everything they do but it’s twisted if you listen to it. It doesn’t make sense at all. THEY LIE when telling the truth would serve them better. I don’t think half the time they even KNOW what they say or do. That’s what makes them dangerous and with the violent ones, like the one I have had stalking me: the only way to insure your safety is just to cut it off, nice, clean, crisp and with CONVICTION.
I don’t care anymore as long as it is away from me.
I have seen evil now and I know what it looks like.
I don’t live ‘that way’ and I am not. I am sorry but their ‘sickness’ is not an excuse nor justification to do the horrid and ugly things they do. If any of us acted like that, wouldn’t WE be held accountable?
NO CONTACT “IS” your only weapon and utlimate salvation. No, they are not going to be ‘saved’ until THEY recognize THEY have a problem and deal with it, just like all the rest of us have to do in REAL LIFE. That isn’t something we can ‘wish’ away; ‘pray’ away; we can’t take them by the hand and make them get help or treatment. They are always going to be the way they are. The only thing we CAN do is get it away from us and keep it away from us. OUR HEARTS LIE TO US. We have to look at all this with some logic too. If I hadn’t of been using logic, I really do think he would have gotten away with murdering me, just because HE COULD.
They are a ‘life lesson’ alright and that’s putting it mildly.
I am starting to do real good. Had a great day today, without dramarama. Peaceful and nice. I love it that way.
Have a good night hens…
Dupey
xxoo
As opposed to “alien” or not of this earth, I’ve always thought of the psychopathic individual and/or the narcissistic pd individual as being “pre-human”: being somewhere lower on the evolutionary scale than human beings; perhaps at the shark, monitor lizard, or crocodile level.
All the shark or the crocodile is about is surviving/winning. The crocs that survive to adulthood do so by being good at avoiding being eaten by larger crocs, and by cannibalizing their smaller, slower sibs and cousins. Their adult strategy for obtaining food is to patiently wait for a good opportunity, then attack, drown and devour their prey. The successful croc then perhaps indulges an urge to reproduce. Then the croc settles back in with just their eyes and nostrils showing above the muddy water, and waits patiently for the next antelope to timidly approach the watering hole.
Psychopaths and those with npd are operating at that level, seems to me. Monitor lizards will sometimes even wander back to their own nest and devour their own eggs and hatchlings, if they’re hungry enough. No unconditional love and nurturing for the offspring of the monitor lizard or the npd or the ‘spath; instead the offspring might be an appetizer.
So, for me ‘spaths are like bipedal, human-shaped, intelligent crocodiles. They learn to mimic normal human social behaviors, but its only serves as camouflage for them. They’re just waiting for you to become comfortable with them and develop trust in them, then they’ll get you.
-Babs
Babs: RIGHT ON!
I have been saying the same thing and so far you are the only one who ‘gets this’. They are just basic, general, predatorial ‘beings’ with no sense of remorse. They are ‘survivors’ and I heard that explanation over and over again from x ppath, when I would ask for an explanation of some drastic action on his behalf: “I am only trying to survive.” BINGO!
Thanks for your validation this morning.
You have made my weekend brighter with a concurring explanation. Especially the last line:
“They’re just waiting for you to become comfortable with them and develop trust in them, then they’ll get you.”
How true is that?! They get you all cozy and snuggled up to them JUST BEFORE THEY SHOVE YOU FROM THE CLIFF!
And when they do, they do so with glee.
Dupey
There is something so sickeningly sad about this. I look at the SP in my life as he tells me how much he loves me (I am currently arranging my escape) and it is gut wrenching to see this tormented, empty being who I do now believe is actually incapable of experiencing real love. This facade I lost my heart (and home, savings career and health) to who is so weak and out of control of his own life. Everything he touches turns to dust. He leaves a trail of devastation and broken lives and it just seems so unnecessary. 10 days ago I was on the brink of ending my life, isolated, on the other side of the world from family and close friends and totally dependent financially on this man who had shattered my life and who was acting more and more erratically as he (obvious now) prepared to discard me and focus on his next victim. And yet I feel luckier than him, through the kindness of the universe I have discovered that I am not alone, I have many people who love and care for me and will help and support me through this (even though it is so, so hard to admit to have been so gullible and stupid). I will survive and somehow be strong and happy again. He has nothing that is real and never will have. Are they alien or defective humans? Who knows, but what a sorry, pitiful waste of a life
Hello lookingforhope,
I hope you find yourself in a better place than ten days ago? To reach the depths of despair when one considers ending the pain and suffering for good is not a place I want to ever find myself in again. My heart goes out to you.
Really glad you found this wonderful site, keep reading, keep learning and you keep hoping my dear. Are they defective human beings? I don’t know but I totally agree with the waste of life. All my ex has done is wreak misery and destruction. Not just to me I hasten to add. Yeh a waste of life…….someone else could have had that life. Someone with a terminal illness or a child that lost it’s life because no organ donor could be found.
Babs…you have a gifted ability for definition! Your description would create a powerful image on a warning poster. I feel tempted to create an artwork that includes your monster…just might have to follow thru.
Tinker, you’re right about pets. “Real” people need to express love. My affection is shared with the dog. Without the dog, I’d be very lonely.
Most descriptive lists of warning signs seem to include at least one or two statements that don’t apply to my slag…leaving me to think that maybe there’s hope…perhaps he’s actually a “real” person who merely has a couple of faults…maybe I just need to state things differently for him to “get” where I’m coming from…maybe I need to change what I’m doing so that he will understand…maybe it’s my fault that he ignores my pain…yada, yada.
This article’s list describes my slag…everything without exception! The first step to sanity is to understand that there is nothing that I can do to change a slag. He’s like a scorpion…make any move that threatens his fake veneer and he’ll swiftly sting you.
Wow! This “alien” article and its descriptive list is well worth the read for anyone questioning the dynamics of their relationships.
Hi there. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted. I thought I was clear of the sociopaths in my life. Not that I have found another one, but I just keep moving into these horrible relationships with horrible people when I thought they were something they weren’t. I was fooled, again. I just got “dumped” again, as he so eloquently stated; “Don’t forget I dumped YOU, so-n-so!”
Anyway, he moved out in June, but we kept trying to make it work. Ive been telling him for the past two years of our relationship that I think he has a drinking problem”he drank every single day, and would cause fights to leave, (instead of working on anything with me), and would then sometimes go find drugs. So after he moved out, he said he was going to get sober. I thought he figured out that he had a problem and that is why our relationship was falling apart. For 2 months, he didn’t drink, and neither did I. I would stay home with him every night and we’d make dinner, go to the gym, watch movies…I thought we were on the road to finally making it work. Then one day, out of nowhere, he said he was just not happy anymore and didn’t want to see me anymore. Said he had to ’do this on his own if things could ever be good for us again.” I asked if he wanted to see other people, but he said he just wanted to be alone, and he was “not out to do what I obviously wanted to do.” And he ’didn’t care what I did anymore.’ I kept texting and calling and trying. I couldn’t understand why he would push someone that loves him out of his life. How he could just walk away from our wonderful life together?? He would tell me he still loved me, but then tell me to go away? It was crazymaking, in the least. So I started to see a therapist. She said “you can’t win and you can’t compete against an alcoholic/drug addict.” But I still tried. I couldn’t let go of the life I thought was so amazing and everything I wanted.
So about a week ago he said he wouldn’t respond to me anymore. And he didn’t. Until last Friday when I saw him and his new gf walking hand-in-hand down the street. (He parks his car one block from my apartment which is downtown where I live, and he also works”small town). UGH. He was taking her home with him. I mean, they were holding hands! Already???? We just talked about a week ago and he said perhaps we could go to ! We started fighting and he said-“you psycho! I dumped you two months ago!!” Was this just to smooth things over with her?? So how long have they been dating?? Ummmm, it was definitely not 2 months ago! We were trying to be sober two months ago and works things out! Then he said he wanted to be alone! But he said he still loved me! How can this be?? I should have known”
As time went on in our relationship, I began to realize how much of an alcoholic, drug addict he was”and I often turned my head. But I didn’t realize how much of a liar he was until now. He has been cheating on me since before he moved out. He is a liar and a cheat. He doesn’t care or regret what life he just walked away from, or how he just devastated me. He obviously wasn’t working on this relationship or trying to make anything better like I was. Yes, I understand that this is an issue for Al-anon, but the point is that I have gone from one horrible sociopath to the next and now onto a lying-cheating drug addict & alcoholic. Is there something wrong with me? I obviously have issues with trusting my own self and paying attention to red flags and keeping my boundaries, but that shouldn’t be such a problem if these horrible people weren’t just so”horrible! I thought I finally found someone I was going to spend my life with. How could I have been so wrong, AGAIN???