Perhaps the hardest thing for those of us targeted by sociopaths to grasp is the extent of their inhumanity.
Sociopaths have no empathy. They do not feel connections to other human beings. We are mere pawns in their games. They view the world as predators and prey—they are the predators, everyone else is prey.
We ask, “How can this be?”
We object, “He said he loved me!” (“She said she loved me!”)
We argue, “I said I was leaving and he cried! He begged me to stay! He said he couldn’t live without me!” (The female sociopath did too.)
Well, let’s take a look at what their words really mean. A Lovefraud reader visited Sociopathworld.com. “They had a discussion going on things they said but what they actually meant to them,” she wrote.
Here’s what our reader sent:
The Cheat-Sheet for What a Sociopath Really Means
1. I love you: I am fond of your companionship and put you above most, but never above me. Consider it an honor.
2. I’m sorry, forgive me: I really do not enjoy the fact that your mood has altered. Please revert back to normal.
3. I’d do anything for you: I’d do plenty to keep you right where I want you to be.
4. My condolences for your loss: *crickets* … It’s just a body. See you later when you aren’t being an emotional train-wreck.
5. S/he fills my heart with joy: I haven’t had this much fun playing in a long time, and the sex is more than acceptable.
6. I love my family: They’re mine.
7. That’s simply shocking: You’ve touched my morbid bone. No need to stop now…
8. Deep down, I feel I’m a good person: I’m not in prison and I stopped abusing animals, mostly. What more can you possibly demand of me?
9. I’m not a monster, I’m a human too: I’m trying to seem human, give me a break. It’s not like this is particularly natural for me.
10. I have feelings too: I feel frustrated when your feelings get in my way.
11. I wouldn’t lie to you: I lie to you every time I say I wouldn’t lie to you.
12. I understand/respect your feelings: I appreciate your feelings because I use them to manipulate you.
13. I never meant to hurt you: mission accomplished.
14. I want to work things out: I want to work things out for today.
15. I’ll always be there for you: I’ll try to as long as I need something from you
Remember this: Never evaluate the words or actions of a sociopath based on what you mean by your words and actions. For a sociopath, it’s all about manipulation.
Dear Aussiegirl,
Welcome to LF! Your posts make a great deal of sense, sounds like you are well on your way down the healing path! Hope your X gets the fleas of 1000 camels and the body lice of 100 Ho’s.
You are right that STRESS plays havoc with our immune systems and opens us up to all kinds of bad things. A recently released study shows that women who have “high stress jobs” increase their heart attack risk by 80%–wonder what the heart attack risk is for women with former partners who are psychopaths is! 100%?!!
Educating ourselves about them, and about ourselves as well, I think is the “prime directive” in exploring INNER SPACE on the way to healing. It starts out about them, but ends us about us.
Glad you are here, but sorry you “qualify” to join our club. I wish I could tell you that our numbers were dropping but unfortunately they are growing and need to grow more and more. There’s no shortage of psychopaths and most of them impact multiple people, their own families of origin, their spouses and children and the families of those, their bosses, neighbors and “friends”—and many impact the legal system as well. They have the REVERSE Midas touch, everything they touch turns to carp!
Again, welcome, and glad you are here! God bless.
Dear Ox Drover
Thanks for the welcome. I don’t expect to be terribly regular in my visits – too much on the boil right now – but I do appreciate the kindly spirit that seems to operate on this site. I actually did not expect to write quite as much as I have done – just kind of started and then went “Bleahhhhh!” all over the page….hmmmmmm.
Today I have just mailed a complaint about my horrific treatment last month by a Magistrate in my local court, to the Chief Magistrate. My ex was found guilty and was convicted (minor, pathetic, pitiable sentence handed down though…) of breaching a Violence Restraining order that I have held continuously against him these past 3 years.
My complaint was not about the outcome – although I did spend the entire trial worried that justice would not be served. It was the attitude of the Magistrate that appalled me. Totally bought the spath’s story, completely manipulated in some weird, sicko, “boy’s club”-style ritual they appeared to be sharing (to the point that I had to wonder if they knew each other socially? ….until I told myself that I was just being paranoid). Such is the magic of the legal tale-weaving of the spath…..
The Magistrate all but apologised for “having to convict him, on a point of law”, althought he “understood that he had meant no harm and had done something that sounded perfectly reasonable to him” (ie: to the Magistrate). Why don’t they receive training about spaths??????? It should be mandatory. (On second thoughts – perhaps the Magistrate was one as well?)
Anyhow – we’ll see how it all turns out when my complaint lands on the desk of the big boss.
In court next week again with the spath. Family Court this time – and I have organised a lovely surprise for him! He is expecting me alone. In actual fact his previous ex-wife is coming with me. We have finally gotten together and compared notes after 10 years of each being fed vicious lies about one another and avoiding each other like the plague. I know that you know what’s coming next – exactly the same stories, to one another, about both of us – especially the ones about us being mentally unstable! I’m bringing one of my friends that he tried to hit on and she’s bringing one of hers, so there’ll be 4 of us walking in to face him together when my name is called.
Our hope is that it will slow him down and force him to change tack. We don’t expect to stop him – we both know that he will never let go. But now we also know that if anything ever happened to either of us, we’ll have back-up. Fingers crossed that he will think twice about messing with a united front.
Have a great day everyone. It’s night time over here on the other side of the world, so I’m off to make dinner. xx
Good Morning, Gem. I sent you an e-mail this morning, (my first ever!) and am hoping I did it right. If for some reason you don’t get it, please let me know. Also, Gem, just as a precaution, don’t you think you should delete your e-mail address from this thread? You never know who could be reading. I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave it. Just my two-cents.
Again, I think it’s such a sweet gesture you are making in sending me a house-warming gift. Thanks so much, and God bless.
Hi, Kim! No, I did not receive your email. Can you send it again? Its 11.49 pm here in Oz, so maybe your in bed or asleep!
Ive just checked my emails and none from you.
Maybe your right re deleting my email address but I dont know how to do it!
Love,
Gem.XX
Yes, Gem, I will re send it when my daughter gets home, and she can show me how. I wrote down your e-mail so you can delete. All you have to do is go to that post and click on the icon at the bottom that says request deletion…It will wipe out the whole post. It’s 8:03 am here, so you will probably not get my e-mail til tomorrow morning (for you). Hope you get a peacefull nights sleep filled with wonderfull dreams. 🙂
aussiegirl,
I relate to what you said about how girls (in a functional family-of-origin) should feel loved, cherished, etc. by their father. My father didn’t say a whole lot, not expressing (or verbalizing) his emotions at all. He was not a mean-spirited man, actually quite nice, but unable to convey his true feelings toward his children. All of us have been affected by the homes we were raised in, positively and negatively. A show that I like to watch here in the States is a reality show starring Gene Simmons (of KISS) and his love, Shannon, and their children (son, Nick and daughter, Sophie) – his children have a great father, having been raised to KNOW that he treasures them both – his actions and his words convey to them that they are his Family Jewels (name of his show, by the way). It would have been nice to feel much loved and treasured growing up, but that didn’t happen. I wish you well, hoping your health concerns clear up over time.
aussiegirl – i had times in my life when it looked like my dad was fulfilling some of his role. sad really; looking back i think that he did it when i was SUPPLY TO HIM in some way. I could be in his house and he wouldn’t say a word to me; but if i went half way across the world on some adventure he was all over THAT – wanting to send me things, wishing me well, etc. It took a while to see that pattern (a few good trips over a couple of decades), but see it I do. I think he was just jonesing on my experiences – gave him stories to crow about to his cronies – made him the big man – the center of attention. he’s pretty good when he’s on the narc. throne. then i’d come home and he’d drop me again. #$%^&*()
one_step_at_a_time,
I feel badly for all of us who weren’t raised in healthier environments – our personalities would possibly have been so much different, containing the “necessary ingredients” needed to fare better in life. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong about this. Take care.
I did not feel loved or cherished by my father. I don’t think he was an N, just a very negative person who did not show his emotions to us, unless it was to get mad when we were talking back to our mom (the teen years). Then he moved out. Who knows, maybe he was a mild N, he did seem to always be thinking about his problems. He was sort of detatched.
I remember looking at my X and thinking he was a pod person. You know, the classic movie where aliens look exactly like a person you knew, but are really nasty goopy aliens inside. Later, after I’d been here for a while I could see he’d never been human.
At the beginning when we were telling each other things we wouldn’t tolerate in a relationship, he mentioned he couldn’t stand a girl friend bringing up his past mistakes over and over again, for years. At the time, I thought from the description of his last fiance that he meant your garden variety b*tchy nag, or like my mom, who never forgot an imagined wrong, and made sure no one around here ever did either. Something about it struck me as a bit weird, even then, but of course I was madly in love and ignored it.
What it really meant was: I’m going to do what I feel like, and if you get upset, I’ll say I’m sorry and then I never want to hear about it again, even when I repeat the behavior.
He used “I’m sorry” as a Get Out of Jail Free card. He would apologize at the drop of a hat, something that took me completely by surprise, no one had ever done that before. Which says oodles about my romantic track record. He would even tear up, hold me and tremble with emotion (HA!) if he thought I was reaching my tolerance level. And he always had an excuse, which grew wilder and wilder as time went on.
Here’s some more translations:
Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it: 1. I’ll ignore it and hope it goes away. 2. I’ll hide the evidence.
Of course I paid the bill: You won’t find out until the electricity gets cut off…again.
No, of course I’m not having an affair, I love you and you fulfill me completely: You are such a dumb, trusting broad that you believe anything I say and always will. I own you, therefore you have ceased to interest me or stroke my ego properly.
(In tears while I writhed in agony)I feel so bad for you, if I could take your pain away by feeling it myself, I would.: This is so entertaining. I wonder how much longer before it kills her.
(on my finding my pain pills missing) Oh, I’m sorry sweetie, I took them when I had that really bad tooth and forgot to refill.: Oops! She noticed. Well, from now on I’ll make sure I leave some in an old bottle so she doesn’t catch on I’ve been stealing them for years.
(On my asking if the relationship was ok, did we need to talk about something) No, no, you are fine, I’m just going through some stuff, I don’t really understand it myself: I’m online crabbing about you to my new girlfriend, but I won’t tell you a thing. I’m getting ready to leave and I don’t want any unpleasant scenes like last time. This is all your fault for still being alive.
You’ll never change: Of course, you have changed a lot, I own you now, but hopefully that will get you so defensive you won’t notice that I haven’t really improved, I’ve gotten worse.
We’re out of money, the electric bill was high, the car needed repairs (which I paid for) I had to buy (insert any excuse here): Boy, the cost of drugs has gone up! Thank goodness I have you to steal from.
(In the beginning) I love you: You are cute and smart and funny and look good with me. We like the same things. You are totally vulnerable to a kind word. You are willing to support me and tell me multiple times a day how wonderful I am. You’ll do. For now.
(At the end) I love you, you will always be my soul mate, we just need to separate for six months while I get myself together: I own you. How dare you get in my way. You even brought someone to the house to show them how bad it is. You are breaking my cover, one way or another, you have to go. I can’t stand the sight of you. Just don’t make a fuss or tell the truth about me or you won’t get me back. (at this point, I was “don’t let the screen door hit your behind on the way out” but he would never accept that I wouldn’t adore him forever, or believe the truth about him)
I will never be able to trust anyone who tells me they are my soul mate. I absolutely, categorically refuse to believe anyone who tortures me actually “loves” me.
If you are having problems in your relationship, I suggest you write them down, date them, and put them someplace he will never find them. I thought I was happily married for life, reading back, I realize there had been problems from the beginning that puzzled me, or that I refused to see. I hadn’t been happy for a very long time. I record my dreams, which get really wacko sometimes, they clearly show that while I could stuff down my misgivings while conscious, my sub conscious was screaming “DANGER! YOU CAN NOT FIX THIS! RUN!”