Sociopaths as much as anything exploit your faith in them”¦over and over again.
In many ways this captures the essence of sociopathy in particular, and exploitation in general: The sociopath, or exploiter, seduces your faith, only then to intentionally violate it.
The more seriously you take him, the more you are vulnerable; the more vulnerable you are, the more the exploiter is licking his chops.
And so the sociopath, or any exploiter, wants you to take him seriously! Indeed it’s his modus operandi to accumulate currency and credibility with you—the more the better, as this better ripens you, better fattens you, for the payoff he’s chasing.
Not all exploiters “get off’ on the suffering you’ll incur arising from their exploitation. Sadistic ones will; they’ll derive a portion of their satisfaction, if not their motivation to exploit, from your pain.
But more often the sociopath is flatly uninterested in your “expense.” He neither relishes, nor regrets, it deeply. What interests him, again, is his payoff; his prospective gain, not your loss, concerns him principally.
And so a core aspect of exploitation lies in the exploiter’s purposeful grooming of the faith of his victims, only then to purposely betray that faith.
And in cases of sociopathy there is the additional heartless indifference to the victim’s experience of that betrayal. Indeed, one measure of the depth of his heartlessness and audacity is the sociopath’s tendency to repeat this cycle regularly, abusing old and perhaps fresh victims.
When you think about it, what sociopaths and other exploiters prey upon—our faith—is what most of us are naturally inclined to give. We want to have faith in others. We want to believe that others will have our backs, not stab our backs in order to take something from us and then leave us, heartlessly, to grapple alone in confusion and despair.
We want to believe that, God forbid, were we lying on a deserted roadside, grievously wounded, that that stranger approaching us will have the intention to help us, and not, while issuing kind, reassuring words, to lift our wallets.
And so it’s no big accomplishment to exploit others. Sociopaths and all exploiters are going after something that’s as easily coaxed as it ought to be honored and safeguarded—our faith.
(My use of “he” in this article was strictly for convenience’s sake, not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the attitudes and behaviors described. This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Cat
Henry, at least you got of the house and are conscious of what you need to do to take care of yourself. That’s something I have to work on some days. When I DO get out and do something, I find that I get out of myself. That depression is a sneaky thing.
libelle, I’m going with the garlic! Love that as I call my ex Spath a spiritual vampire. 🙂
I’ve read this several times now, Steve, and each time I come away with something new. Thanks for nailing this one as you did. It is so right on!
one/joy_step_at_a_time
henry,
I HEAR you; how many times have i said that! I don’t know where you have to go to go out, but the town i am in has nothing for gay folk. NADA. I go to the occasional dance at the uni. and more often than not, I am saying the same thing.
One reason I have gone on the internet in the last few years – it is hard to even find people. I am not 20 or 30 or even 40 and I live in a university town.
the women hanging out at the women’s center are all still wearing rat tails and birks (apologies to the birks’ lovers out there), and their politics haven’t evolved for 20 years. I do not like to go dancing to music that beats faster than my heart rate, nor am i interested in pool and sports as avocations. I have just ruled out a large swath of the population.
my general level of starvation for queer company makes me a target. oh, this just sucks.
one step
hens
One Step – I also live close to a university town. I am way out in the stick’s in the country. I love my solitude and tranquility of country life but it does get lonely after spending all my time alone. So like last nite I forced myself to drive to the next biggest city with some queer folks. I was very turned off by the people walking around and sitting at the bars with their cell phones, texting etc. If someone has to text while having a conversation with me, I would just walk away from them. I feel like a dinasour in todays technology. However it was good to get out, and I didnt see him, so that was good.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
slimone,
“I heard the ’I have never felt so seen and heard and safe’ from the sociopath. This meant to me that I was also safe to feel that way”.because his saying it gave the impression that he understood how important it is for all of us.”
BINGO!
i am just starting to look at what ‘he’ / she said to me around seeing and being seen, and safety.
safety: ‘he’ was going to help me financially. THIS i feel stooopid for. I think only this. Everything else that i gave her access to i can own. by this i mean, i thought i was loved, so i gave. and what i gave in terms of revealing myself was given in love. so i won’t feel stoopid about it. I didn’t realize that it was being stolen. but i didn’t lose it either. it is still me, regardless.
what has been deeply affected is how i deal with people in general and the other unsafety in my life. i am highly suspicious now. and questioning people’s motivation. when i see their dubious behavior it is magnified. I have had to bite my tongue (or rather, grind my teeth) on a few occasions with a friend lately, have been less than gracious about a committee member I work with (she is a piece of work, but I can usually handle her) and have really gone into battle mode re my bully landlord and neighbor . fight fight fight. i wish i had a van, cause then i’d flight flight flight.
A friend lent me her car last night. I got a lot done, and early this am, too. resources. sigh. I am THE resourceful girl. I can figure something from almost nothing. right now, ahhhh.
I asked a friend if she would take my boot to get it fixed (the only cobbler is outside the town and i have no wheels) the cobbler is right beside the store she works in. I only have those boots. No shoes. I took them to her early in the week and today when i had the car i drove out there to pick it up – not there. um dude, you know my situation.
she had a long story. she left it in her dad’s car. she said she’d go to the second hand and buy me boots? WTF.? “NO, you have your dad bring the boot to the store today.”
she wrote me back and said she was going to go get it and be late for work and….blah blah. I said ‘thanks.’ she is studying to be a social worker. god help us.
one step
LouiseGolem
Aaaaah, I met my ex- on the internet. An internet dating site.
Yeah, I am very cautious about those things these days. He wrote to me yesterday and told me he paid the site again so he could go back on line and read our early exchanges. Yeah, right — I think he’s trolling for prey again. I know exactly what he’s looking for now too – relatively well off women in their late 40’s, early 50’s, blonde, either with kids or without. I think he likes the “milfs” because he likes to flirt with their daughters. If they’re of a legal age, he’ll do more than flirt with ’em.
I didn’t have a daughter, so he was constantly asking me to invite my girlfriends to go places with us. The younger, the better.
Beware the internet (she says as she writes on a blog.) You never really know who you’re writing to. Hell, I even am cautious about what I write here — maybe he’s reading this.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
louisegolem: I am careful here, also.
LOL re the blog – I shut mine down so that only my ‘friends’ could read it after ‘he’died’ (didn’t die, didn’t exist. scammed). Then I got scared that since he had been a ‘friend’, maybe he could still access it somehow.
So, I ended up closing it to everyone but me, AND I STILL DON’T FEEL SAFE TO BLOG THERE! There was a group of us (me, 2? real people and a bunch of sock puppets) who used to blog together and write comments on each other’s blogs. I REALLY like it. I like the play and interaction, words and pictures (They WERE terribly humorous socks).
AND i would never have found out who my spath really was unless one of her former dupees wasn’t keeping a blog. So, I have to say, I am blog positive. And I see that so much has been cut off for me, through this mess. erghhh, isolation sucks.
that said, a friend offered to take me to see another friend’s band tonight. VERY happy about that. real peeps.
but ya know i also really like peeps on the net, through words. i love words and writing and reading other’s writing. and that is another way that i was targeted. hmmm.
ty for the blog comment – got me off on a riff and helped me see a loss from another angle.
best,
one step
LouiseGolem
yeah, I understand, One Step.
As you can see, I love doing those words, too, and you should see my computer set up. I do find the internet to be quite addictive!
I guess I’m so close to the break-up still, and very very cautious. I just can’t imagine myself going out with the hopes of meeting someone right now — my paranoia and fear would probably make me utterly unattractive, anyway.
Let’s just say I’m mending. My cats are great company. And my family and dear friends. . . .
one/joy_step_at_a_time
When I first saw the title of this blog enrty I thought it refered to spaths exploiting religious or spiritual faith. I will speak to THAT, because it is part of my experience.
my spath had a line about ‘his’/her spirituality that ended up being one of the ways I identified her for real. ha!
one of the sock puppets came at me very pious and trying to mess me about vis a vis relgion and spirituality. what i think she failed to realize is that me ex N gf did SUCH a good job messing me about in that way that i am now innoculated. ha, again!
and the spath spit re spirit-uality was VERY EASY for me to read as WHACKO and is one of the things that made it VERY clear that I was dealing with CRAZY.
now, that said, N ex gf DID mess with my practiced religion. She set herself up as the ‘one who knew’. And it did effect me, and i am not over that. I have much to do around that. I basically dumped my practice in response. I had always had doubts and questions that were not being adequately answered, and was very upfront about that – so I was vulnerable to being twisted up about it.
One time we were rushing to get to a service and she was bullying the cab driver to get there faster. OH, SOOO WRONG.
one step
one/joy_step_at_a_time
from spath and sock puppets, ‘his’ list of characteristics that were repeated OVER and OVER that were repeated to engender trust and a non threatening character:
kind
guileless
couldn’t lie to save his life
submissive
empathetic
victimized: abused, used
prey
stalked
unable to protect himself
physically weak
physically small
unable to say no
dying (riiiight!)
(his prognosis was 5 years max…so the idea is that you can be kept on the line for 5 years? or left and come back to? urgency, for sure – do it now, cause he is gonna DIIIIIE)
noble
rises above it all
want soooo muchto to spend time with you, but i just keep dyyyying/ others make it difficult
‘others’ say it’s only a fantasy, but this thing with you and me, it’s REAL
I will write a list of manipulations sometime too.
fk
Cat
one step, love this list. heard them all as well. over and over and over. i especially like the last one…it really WAS a fantasy, but in my ex Spath’s eyes, this was his reality. Ick.