A sociopath is someone who has a pervasive and persistent disregard for the rights and feelings of others. This disregard is manifested in the antisocial behavior sociopaths show. While we usually think of antisocial behavior as criminal, not all antisocial acts are illegal. A person who slips up once is not a sociopath. Sociopathy is a lifestyle.
Since humans are designed to live in society, a healthy personality has prosocial inclinations. Therefore, people who are pervasively antisocial are disordered in the sense that they are not the norm (thank God). Although antisocial behaviors are observable actions like lying, stealing and assault, there are personality traits that cause antisocial behavior. It should come as no surprise that people who have a sense of entitlement, over-rate their own greatness and have poor self-control are more likely to hurt others and show pervasive antisocial behavior.
The American Psychiatric Association has defined a group of personality disorders it calls “cluster B”. According to a recent paper* by German psychiatrist, Christian Huchzermeier, M.D., “ The cluster includes disturbances of personality that go hand in hand with emotional dysregulation phenomena, a tendency towards aggressive—impulsive loss of control, egoistic exploitation of interpersonal relationships, and a tendency to overestimate one’s own importance.”
The disorders of “cluster B” go together because what underlies them is a disturbance in three developmentally acquired abilities I have called The Inner Triangle. These abilities are:
Ability to Love
Impulse Control
Moral Reasoning
These abilities that a child gains during development are a triangle because the development of each depends on the other two. A child begins to acquire ability to love in the first year of life, impulse control begins in the second year of life. At two years of age there is already a link between ability to love and impulse control. Children with the best impulse control also are the most loving/empathetic. Moral reasoning begins in the third year of life and its development depends on a loving nature and impulse control. Similarly the most moral kids are also the most loving and self-controlled.
I think of the cluster B disorders as different manifestations of damage to the inner triangle. I think of sociopaths as individuals who completely lack ability to love and have impaired impulse control and moral reasoning.
Given the Inner Triangle, it should come as no surprise that it can be difficult to find people who have only one cluster B personality disorder. For that reason individuals with antisocial personality, narcissistic personality, borderline personality and histrionic personality often have symptoms of the other disorders. If someone gets a diagnosis of only one of these, it doesn’t mean that the person doesn’t also have one or all of the others. The person making the diagnosis simply thought that the one chosen best described the person. You should know there is a gender bias in diagnosis such that women are often labeled “borderline.” These women can also be sociopaths who leave a trail of victimized friends, lovers and children in their wakes.
A recent study reported in Behavioral Science and the Law, “The Relationship Between DSM-IV Cluster B Personality Disorders and Psychopathy According to Hare’s Criteria: Clarification and Resolution of Previous Contradictions” examines the relationship between psychopathic personality traits as defined by the screening version of the PCL and Cluster B personality disorders. The authors of this study were careful to examine people who had only one cluster B disorder. They found psychopathy to be associated with all cluster B disorders.
The authors conclude:
“One clinical implication of our results, nevertheless, is that in cases where a cluster B personality disorder is diagnosed a high psychopathy value is to be expected, especially where antisocial, borderline or narcissistic personality disorder is involved. The PCL score is a better predictor of subsequent events, such as problems during (criminal) custody or a relapse into delinquency, than a diagnosis of a DSM-IV personality disorder, especially in forensic populations; therefore, an additional investigation with the PCL should be carried out, if a cluster B personality disorder has been diagnosed.”
It is important for Lovefraud readers to be aware of this study especially if there is a divorce/custody proceeding or a cluster B personality disorder has been diagnosed. Many people might think that if the partner has been “diagnosed borderline” or “diagnosed narcissistic” that means the partner is not a psychopath/sociopath. This study suggests otherwise. IF YOU ARE INVOLVED WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS THESE YOU HAVE TO CONSIDER THEIR HARMFUL BEHAVIOR AS AN INDICATION OF PSYCHOPATHY/SOCIOPATHY. There are some people with cluster B, histrionic, borderline and narcissistic disorders who are not highly antisocial. But if the person is lying, cheating and manipulating, that is antisocial behavior. This behavior in the context of any cluster B means the person is potentially very dangerous. As the authors state:
“Screening for PCL-based psychopathy can also be important for general psychiatric patients with a DSM-IV personality disorder, so that potential difficulties in the course of their treatment can be anticipated and this comorbidity can be targeted in the planning of therapy. Patients with both a DSM-IV personality disorder and PCL-based psychopathy can exhibit behavior that is particularly dangerous to therapy (Stafford & Cornell, 2003).”
If you have been diagnosed with borderline personality and reading this frightens you, I am sorry. You can improve by working on your inner triangle. Talk to your therapist about DBT a treatment that is very effective in improving the state of the Inner Triangle in people who are motivated to do it.
*The reference for the paper discussed is Behav. Sci. Law 25: 901—911 (2007).
thinking further about my family dynamics tonight, mom in particular. she was close to her father – the philandering alcoholic genius who tried to kill her mother.
she has always tried to make me my father’s supply. she did it to both of us sibs, i think. my sib, always had a diff take on my father and discarded him years ago (not enough room in the n nest for both of them perhaps, or maybe she just saw what he was more quickly than i did). and yest i realized at some point that she was also in competition with me over dad. I think this may be explained by her devotion to her father and her devaluing my grandmother’s very real complaints against my grandfather – she was in competition with her also. so her dynamic is to be supply, cultivate supply in others (as it was by her father i her), and take dominance in the triad. you know,
this explains a whole lot about a very serious mess i got myself into at 18 when i was cultivated to be the ‘bitch’ of an older male criminal (who in his 70’s is STILL at it spath spath spath.) plan was foiled by the love relationship that grew between myself and one of the women (okay, i *know*, but given the context…she warned me about what his real plans were, and what the other woman and she were to do. and i got out of that situation. all very dramatic. she was a closet dyke.)
my poor mom – she really didn’t have a clue about how to be close to people. very push and pull and lots of walls and fear, manipulation and dominance.
Ana,
My training sounds very similar to your Barkan. It was brutal, but amazing to see just what my old body could actually do! These folks trained with Bikram Choudhury for many years. They were lovely souls of the “if you can’t say something nice” ilk; needless to say, they never spoke of him… Their series is very close to his, with some modifications that I think make more sense and are kinder to your body. I do miss it sometimes. When I was full-on into it, I really believed it was the answer to all of life’s ills. I wouldn’t have been able to make it through my divorce without yoga, I believe.
We should come up with some sort of “How to Spot a Sociopath” workshop, rounded out with yoga postures and nutritional advice!
Sarah,
That is hysterical: We should come up with some sort of “How to Spot a Sociopath” workshop, rounded out with yoga postures and nutritional advice!
Sounds good to me and we can point people to the GYM!!lololol.
One Joy Step,
It’s good that you are thinking through all that went on and why. I hope it helps you in some way. I think I spent a lot of time on why my mother was like she was. Now I know, but did not then. I think my twin figured things out LONG before I did..very immature I was. She’d tell me things that were eye popping for me, but that she realized long before I did in the family dynamic.
Hope you get some relief from disecting..It does help, I think with compassion and understanding. 🙂
Ana – looking at my family (over generations) through the lens of dsirorederdness instead of just dysfunction is about as disorienting as looking at the spath for what she was, not the sweet ‘fake boy’ she pretended to be.
trying to get it right. what are they? (this guides how / if i deal with them) what do i want from them? is it possible? In my relationship with my mom i choose to focus on the good. we have a bit foa romance. this is the very thing the spath exploited in me – the romance with the fey. we both choose to see the good and affirm the kind in one another. i must keep an eye open for any bullying attempts to throw me to the n sire as supply, but she can’t do much to me now. i won’t let her. she is sneaky though, and i have to be alert or i walk right into it.
all for me, dead tired. i would love to be able to do bikram daily. only one studio here and it’s a full of mold.
One Joy Step,
You are very aware of what you need and why. Do you know that? You may have your suspions about mother, but I think you’ve got her down. I’m sorry your father sounds awful, and yes stay away from him/NC.
EVERY Birkram/Hot Yoga studio is filled with mold/mildew/germs…the rugs are disgusting!! Don’t ever go there…you’ll die! And we don’t want that, no way.
Dear Louise,
Thank you. We are still very hopeful and optimistic that this will be curable. Your good wishes continue to mean a lot…
One Joy, You and I seem to be on the same wavelength: trying to see our family members for what they are rather than what we wish them to be. It’s very very hard.
I sent a few emails to my Good Sister. Not really sure why, I was just talking to her about my thoughts. We’ve never communicated much since she was 18 and went off to college. But she is the only “normal” in my family. (I don’t really consider myself normal)
I told her some things that I have found out about my evil family history. Some of this stuff you wouldn’t believe. my grandmother almost puts my ex-spath to shame, she was so good at psychological torture.
When I explain to my sister that these behaviors and those of my bro, sis, and uncle, do not stand alone. They don’t occur in a vaccuum. They occur in the realm of the disordered. The redflags are flying, a disordered family is a source of pain as each member contributes to the ultimate demise of the ones who are not disordered. You don’t have to witness the spath occurance in order to know that it happened. Once you know what they are, you know what they will do.
My sister, just can’t seem to grasp it. She says, “(spath bro) kept trying to prove he was smarter than me and when he thought he did, he began making every stupid choice in the book…drugs, dropping out, stealing…..and if his mental problems were true, that just compounded the problem.”
She doesn’t get it. the spathbro could not care less about her, or how smart she is. She is the only one who cares about her high grade point average and everything must be about that. Sad… but informative!
Spath bro would have done the same things he did whether she was born or not. His evil comes from my parents not from competing with her. Spaths don’t have the same kinds of reasons for doing what they do, that we have. They simply WANT TO DO EVIL AND WATCH THE SUFFERING ON YOUR FACE. PERIOD.
You know, I’ve read a few people here posting that my stories are “unbelievable” or commenting that they do believe it despite how bizarre they are.
I know that they are bizarre, but it strikes me that people who have encountered the disordered spaths, would have reservations about what I post. Initially, I thought my spath was really a unique creature that was so diabolical. But not anymore. He’s just a typical spath. He does all the same things that anybody else’s spath does: charm, pity, rage, sabotage, lie, target what you value, cheat, madonna whore syndrome, pedophile, screws anything, sex addict, con. Nothing new here folks.
I submit that a lot of people’s spaths are equally evil, but most people don’t want to believe how evil they are and how close they came to being murdered. One reason I know the truth about these “truth is stranger than fiction” stories, is because I suspended my disbelief and simply acknowledged that it was true. Consequently, I knew that the spath cheated on me before I had any evidence or anyone told me. When people began to tell me he was cheating on me, I was just like: “so? what’s new?”
Knowing the spath profile can help us not have to question what is really going on. Because spaths just do what spaths do.
Example: I met an older lady, “P” in her 80’s, who cried on my shoulder and told me that her parents never raised her. Instead, her mom would take her to various acquaintances and have them raise her. She lived in some 14 different homes as a child. Her mom was a nurse and her dad was in the military. After about a year, of hearing this, I said, “your mother was protecting you from your father because he was a pedophile.” Her response was, “oh, no, I barely knew my father, but he was in the military and he wasn’t like that.” So she denied what I had told her. Then I met her daughter and said the same thing. “S” said, “oh no, grandpa wasn’t like that at all, you are wrong. But he did molest me once when I was a teen and I stopped associating with him.” WTF?
How could “S” think that the gramps was not a pervert/ped though she admits that he molested her? Cog/Dis. I didn’t reply to “S”, who has been with various spaths who beat her up and now has CFS/FMS and her nurse daughter weighs maybe 300 lbs. And the 80 year old mother, is a narcissist, manipulater, BIG TIME. (She had me fooled for a year, with her victim stories)
This crap just contaminates and contaminates each generation. It doesn’t stop. But at least, once you see and can interpret the signs, you can figure out what happened without having to witness it. Spaths are all the same, mine was not that “special”.
Dear ErinBrok,
And thank you so much as well. It is a bit eerie to think that even though this should be “curable,” there is still technically something inside her that, if untreated, will end up killing her. I don’t like that thought at all! However, when I think of all the people in the world who get the “untreatable” diagnoses, it makes me realize how much worse this could be.
It’s too bad that on top of the cancer diagnosis, you also have the ambivalent relationship with your mother to deal with. Perhaps you can compromise a bit by simply “sending her good thoughts and prayers,” without actually getting reinvolved in the “drama-rama”? At any rate, that might help to mitigate any (unjustified) feelings of guilt on your part; and after all, there is no harm in wishing her all the best–especially from a safe distance!
Thanks again, ErinBrok. You sound like a good and strong woman, and I always enjoy reading your posts.
Best wishes,
C.
Constantine,
as much as I like your sentiment about EB’s mom, I think you missed the mark. N’s, S’s and P’s are all about your emotions. We must have complete psychological hygiene or NC in body and mind.
Any emotional investment we make, even thoughts and prayers, can and will be used against us.
When it comes to them, we MUST detach emotionally. It’s very very difficult to do this from our parental units, but they are more toxic than spouse spaths, if allowed.
No emotion, don’t feed the spath, not even in our own minds. It’s a slippery slope.