Medical and mental health professionals have differing views and opinions about the personality disorders that are the topic of Lovefraud—sociopathy, psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. You could also include narcissism and borderline personality disorder.
There is disagreement among professionals about how the disorders should be defined, what causes them, and what can be done about them. As an example, take a look at a recent post along with the comments: ASK DR. LEEDOM: Is there a gender bias against men in the diagnosis of sociopathy?
No matter what discussions are raging in the professional world, here is what the rest of us need to know: There are evil people among us.
“I never knew such evil existed”
Lovefraud receives plenty of e-mail from people who have been deceived, manipulated, bankrupted, assaulted and deserted by sociopaths/psychopaths/antisocials. One comment that I frequently hear is, “I never knew such evil existed.”
Yes, it does. This is what evil people look like:
- They are charming and say all the right things
- They are supremely confident in their own greatness
- They are highly sexual
- They crave excitement and are easily bored
- They are impulsive, risk-taking and irresponsible
- They are pathological liars, telling falsehoods large and small
- They feel no guilt or remorse; nothing is their fault
- They use you and then spit you out
- They do not play by the rules
- Once they are adults, they cannot be rehabilitated
M. Scott Peck, M.D., in his book People of the Lie, says: “Evil is that force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness.” In other words, evil people seek to kill the life force of their victims. Sometimes this means turning victims into broken shells of what they used to be. Sometimes it means murder.
Three points for professionals
It is extremely difficult to fight evil. Therefore, the best thing we can do is avoid it. We need to accept that evil exists and learn to recognize the key symptoms so that we can keep evil people out of our lives.
So what does this mean for the professionals? In many cases, these are the people who are making recommendations and decisions that affect the lives of both the evil and the victims.
In my opinion, professionals—and this includes legal professionals, especially court judges—need to learn three things:
- How to distinguish the evil people, who cannot be helped, from those who have succumbed to terrible life circumstances, such as poverty, crime and bad parenting, and may possibly be helped.
- How to save the offspring of evil people from growing up to be evil.
- How to help victims recover.
There are people in the world who feel that everyone has good within them, that with enough love and understanding, anyone can be helped. As much as I would like this to be true, it is not. Evil exists. We’ve experienced it.
Sabrina Singularity:
Am I “evil”? I think I am; my therapist says I’m not.
The view from the OTHER SIDE of this issue: to be the “monster”.
I was diagnosed with ASPD (that means, as a psychopath) in 1992, by a psychologist who gave me a “very poor” prognosis, automatically, due to the diagnosis.
He was a slick, expensively-dressed, very articulate and extremely aggressive young man who was adamant about his diagnosis of me. If I cried in front of him, he sneered and said I needed a better acting coach. When I tried to talk about what was bothering me, he said things like, “Did you rehearse this in front of a mirror?” No, I didn’t, but although I didn’t lie to him or to any other mental health professionals, I’ve been treated like a leper by them — and I know why.
It took me over a decade to find a therapist who would actually treat me! Most took one look at my records and dumped me on the spot, because of the stigma attached to such a definition. “Doesn’t ASK for help”???? HAH!!! How would they KNOW???
I was asking for help, for certain, but no one was listening. One of them actually said “You don’t need a therapist, you need an EXORCIST!” Another threatened to call the cops, and I hadn’t even done anything! Still another called me “scary and dangerous” and instructed security to bar me from re-entering the building where she worked. Later she told a social worker that my EYES had scared her “half to death”. Right, like I was giving her the “evil eye” or something. Give me a break.
So much of it is just because of words: a label. I had a brief inpatient visit this Spring, partly because of this very same issue. I tried to kill myself, but changed my mind mid-attempt, and landed in the ED, bleeding. And then I started shouting sarcastically in the middle of the psych-eval interview, “So, you all agree?!! Oh, WOW, watch OUT!!! I’m a PSYCHOPATH!!! I’m going to destroy the WHOLE WORLD!!!” at the top of my lungs.
Not the best idea. I didn’t exactly get my true point across. And I discovered that some shrinks just don’t have a sense of irony at all; so, of course, I ended up getting committed.
And during my stay, another patient, obviously of superior CONSCIENCE, tried to beat me with her Bible, to “get the devil out” of me! The nurses automatically accused me of lying about everything, no matter what the issue, and they kept yelling at me because they were constantly suspicious that I was “up to something”. And of course, they just HAD to put me in a room alone; fine by me, if somewhat insulting. Did they think I was going to EAT a roommate?? Or maybe just LOOK at them — because I started getting that business again from some of the patients and even staff, about giving them the so-called “evil eye” ”“ right; whatever.
What do they see in my eyes??!! It’s too much. Just everything. I’m sick of being treated like a female version of “Jason” or “Freddie”! People look at my psych records and get all these weird ideas, and they expect a cinematic show.
Oh, and if I cry or show the slightest bit of pain, no way does anyone believe it’s real; I’m automatically attacked for trying to put one over on someone with my “dramatic performance”.
So. I’m giving psychotherapy one last shot, with a therapist who can look me in the eye without suddenly turning into a panicky wreck. I guess that makes her special. That and the fact she sees me as just another human being, not a freak or “monster” or vessel of “pure evil,” as I’ve been called.
But now I finally believe that I’m not “sub-human”. Well, I’m trying to, anyway. I’ve had extensive neurological testing, and I’ve been told by several specialists that parts of my nervous system are messed up. I sustained repeated, substantial trauma to the head as a child. I’ve been through CT scans, MRIs, and two complete courses of those strobe-light EEG tests, plus the regular neurological exams.
The “aura” that comes before a convulsive seizure is one of the scariest things I’ve endured, and just before blacking out, the weird feeling of having a plastic paddle shoved into my mouth by a nurse, to keep me from swallowing my tongue.
Meanwhile, as I’m struggling through all that, plus (and especially) the emotional and cognitive aspects of my illness, it seems to me that the rest of the world is having a party to which I am always uninvited. I feel that way because they share things I will never know. Ever, as long as I live, no matter how much progress I do manage to make. Accepting that is very hard.
Up until very recently, my hatred for the world was formidable. This competent and no-nonsense therapist is actually helping me with that. It’s amazing that she, or anyone at all, is able to help me.
BUT one thing is vital to remember: IT WAS NEVER MY CHOICE to be as I am.
People need to be aware that mental illness is first and foremost a PHYSICAL thing. No one CHOOSES to develop any form of it.
The human brain is still a largely unfathomed territory. Less blame and judgment, more science and intervention, would go a long way toward preventing — or at least much better management of — disastrous illnesses such as mine. Hollywood shouldn’t dictate all that people know about such things.
Well, anyway. I just thought it was a good idea to offer another person’s point of view. And, YES, I am a person, not an “it”. Despite numerous protests to the contrary.
So many people have called me “evil” — if I believed it all, I’d end up going all the way in committing suicide. Although the damage that was done to me so long ago, and what I was born with, cannot ever change, a lot can. I have already changed enough to be able to do something like writing here!
Oh; by the way, I want to mention that the notorious “fake” tears aren’t precisely so: how that works is that one weeps about one thing, but claims it’s about another. It’s what you learn to do when no one around you wants to know what’s really going on. You even convince yourself.
Now all I want is to move as far beyond my staggering limitations as I possibly can do. I want a life. I live in self-imposed exile, isolated and reclusive. And yet, when someone tells me I’m “hopeless,” it only makes me more adamant about breaking free of the mental cage in which I’ve spent my whole life — so far.
Statistically speaking, my expected lifespan might fall twenty years short of the general average. But I intend to defy that, too. I’m in great pain now, psychologically, because I’m facing things that are quite horrifying to remember, and it is necessary. But in spite of that, I am starting to conceive of having something worth living for…and THAT is brand new for me.
One thing I never forget: “When you’re going through hell, KEEP GOING!”
Keep going…
SS
Dear SS,
Psychotherapy is of limited value for most issues regarding personality. Please consider joining a DBT group. The worst aspect of ASPD is impulsivity or poor impulse control. The main reason why those with ASPD do not benefit from treatment is that they are unwilling to work on their impulse control.
DBT could very much help you improve your impulse control. If substances have been in your life, complete abstinence is also part of recovery.
Let us know about your progress. Write me if you would like a copy of my book, it will help you understand why you developed this disorder.
Dear SS,
Your case is further evidence of my point that professionals need to be able to distinguish those who are evil from those who are not. My guess is that your original diagnosis was flawed. Although you may have serious issues, someone who is truly a psychopath does not experience distress about their personality and does not seek treatment. That is one of the problems with the DSM-IV categories they are too broad. You were given a label that you may not have deserved.
* They are charming and say all the right things
* They are supremely confident in their own greatness
* They are highly sexual
* They crave excitement and are easily bored
* They are impulsive, risk-taking and irresponsible
* They are pathological liars, telling falsehoods large and small
* They feel no guilt or remorse; nothing is their fault
* They use you and then spit you out
* They do not play by the rules
* Once they are adults, they cannot be rehabilitated
Wow you just described my ex to a T.
I wish I had known of this site before marrying.
SS,
I found what you had to say facinating! My little sister is 18 and if we could get her to sit down with a professional and our family (to show other facts and history) I have no doubt whatsoever that she would be given the lable “sociopath” as well. I am the only one in my family that can seem to accept that it is the truth. And even from the time she was little a few family friends would make comments about her eyes looking evil (they sometimes did and still do). Every last detail fits her perfect. I think the difference between someone like her and someone like you is that you want to know what you are missing and you care enough about it to at least strive for what you CAN experience. My little sister will never admit that she has a permanent condition; I am sure a brain scan would show it (her natural father was a confirmed socio/phcopathic preditor of the worst kind); -all of this and even brain imagry would do nothing for her. Her denial and ability to lie to everyone (and herself) is so ingrained she isn’t even capable (at this point anyway), to wrap her mind around the concept that a very fundimental part of what makes people human is missing from her. I think she knows she’s different but I think she confuses it for some weird specialness or some grandious thing. I also don’t necissarily believe sociopaths have no emotion at all, I think they do experience it in short weird little spurts (so no, not ALL the tears they cry are fake). I also think that for a person who has not had a regular emotional faculty that it scares them when they do really feel something because they are not sure what to do about it so it just gets pushed away. Even in bad cases such as my sister it is as if it is safer in the strange void world her mind inhabits; it’s the only place she knows. I think for someone like you there is a lot of hope, you want to be part of the world, you want people to be able to trust you and I am sure with behavior modification and time you will go far. I wish my little sister had the same honest confrontation with herself that you have painfully put yourself through. I think she takes extacy and lives in the rave sceen because it is the only place she can feel normal and when she’s high maybe she gets an idea of what it is like to feel something real. . .too bad none of it is real. Kudos to you for comming here:)
I have started reading M. Scott Peck’s book, People of the Lie, having it confirmed that there are evil people in our world. This morning, I watched the Today Show and learned about a case in Connecticut where a psychopath is being tried for crimes that he committed in connection to a home invasion (in July 2007) – this deranged, wicked man (and his equally sick psychopath partner) beat the husband, Dr. Petit, and committed horrible acts with the wife and the two daughters. The husband managed to escape, tried to seek help for his family, but unfortunately, the psychopaths “won,” killing the wife and two daughters, burning the house down. Do I believe in the death penalty – in this case, YES. This doctor and his family had a close encounter with EVIL, two home intruders who proved that evil exists in human beings, some people not having an ounce of good in them. It infuriates me that these two monsters were on the loose, preying on an innocent, unsuspecting family. The husband will never be the same again, altering his world view of good and evil (where humans are concerned).
bluejay, i saw that too. my first thought was people “like that need not walk the earth”, but perhaps my knee jerk reaction is wrong. perhaps this is all a matter or the natural order, the yin and yang of life. i hate what they did and the way so many here have been preyed upon, SS included, but this is our lot, our learning and our gift to help us learn that we have not found a paradise on earth and to help us to grow and perhaps reach for it in our own ways and in the lives we lead. Sounds like a good book though–I still need to keep learning the lesson that “people lie.”
For some reason I must have missed this article and comments as I went through the archives, or back when I was first starting to read here at LF. While I totally agree with the article itself and think it is a good way to look at the acts of some people.
In reading the first response though, the only response of Sabrina S. and the responses to her comment, I find something disquieting in first her response 3 years ago (and apparently never coming back again in the time since then). I don’t normally comment on the “validity” of another poster’s life story (and Donna can remove this with my blessing if she thinks it is in appropriate) but since Sabrina S seems to have been long gone after her one post, I will take the chance.
Her entire post seems very “contrived” and almost a “pity play” of “pity me the poor psychopath who wants to change and I am labeled “unhelpable.” Oh, Woe is me!
Her description of the therapist who “diagnosed her” as “slick, expensively dressed…etc”
The story of the inpatient stay where the nurses “yelled at me” “called me a liar” etc. doesn’t sound at all like any of the in patient facilities I ever worked in.
The “i’m in great pain psychologically” (sounds like a pity play to me) and her feelings of “having a plastic paddle shoved into her mouth” during a seizure (which is sometimes done to patients who are receiving electro-convulsive therapy for severe depression, but it is not forcible. Also the mentions of head injuries as a child.
Anyway, the whole post to me has elements about it that make my “P-dar” go off, but not with empathy so much as there’s a very savy person in the “house” who is well experienced in the mental health field as a “patient” and actually may have some legitimate diagnoses but I think the most important once may be the concept of her own self importance and brilliance.
I haven’t read Peck in a long time and I’m not sure if this list (listed above and below) is attributed to his work, but plucked out of context and assumed as gospel, it is incorrect. I also confess to have jumped into this discussion too late and am unfamiliar with the original article. However, it states of evil people, above:
1. They are charming and say all the right things
2. They are supremely confident in their own greatness
3. They are highly sexual
4. They crave excitement and are easily bored
5. They are impulsive, risk-taking and irresponsible
6. They are pathological liars, telling falsehoods large and small
7. They feel no guilt or remorse; nothing is their fault
8. They use you and then spit you out
9. They do not play by the rules
10. Once they are adults, they cannot be rehabilitated
Numbers 1-5, 5 up to the point of being irresponsible, have nothing to do with evil by themselves. Being irresponsible is a maturation issue, not a state for condemnation by those appearing to be more self righteous.
Number 6, 7, and 8 are a given, although number 8 sounds more like a victim’s personal subjective venom. Talk about being ‘irresponsible’, had they ever asked themselves why they had chosen themselves for the victim role?
Number 9 does not necessarily imply that a person is evil. A visitor to Thailand who touches someone else’s head, while it may appear offensive to a Thai, does not imply evil intent by the person doing the touching; ignorance of customs, maybe. Th “evil” would come if that visitor was actually AWARE that actions would be perceived as offensive and then chose to do it anyway. Number 9 should have read “Does not play by the rules BY CHOICE.”
Number 10 is flat out false. Talk about a pessimistic view of life. Number 10 assumes that by age 18, 21 or whatever, a person is set in their ways and that there is no hope left for them. What of those countless people who “allow” themselves to be led through their corrective midlife crises or to have embraced God in their life? Is that not indicative enough of the intention to surrender one’s ego?
It is that ego thing, that ‘survival benefit for the mind’ that finds itself in a dangerous world and not able to make peace with the world around it. It is that ego that would throw a baby carriage under a bus if it thought it could survive only two minutes longer.
Dear BR549,
(is your Screen name a telephone number by chance?)
I’d like to go over your list or arguments against this perspective, but right now I actually have to go and work in my garden and pot some plants.