As part of my day job—writing scripts for web-based training programs—I came across some information developed by the Institute for Global Ethics. Surveys conducted worldwide have consistently identified a group of values that people of all cultures and nationalities recognize as essential. These universal values are:
- Honesty
- Responsibility
- Respect
- Fairness
- Compassion
Sociopaths violate all of them.
Perhaps that’s why those of us who are ethical, who care about others, who want to live cooperatively among our neighbors, feel so shaken after a collision with a sociopath. These predators take the qualities that people all over the world consider essential to the social contract and stomp on them, run them through a meat grinder and then pulverize them.
But they don’t tell us what they’re going to do. (Or if they do, we think they can’t possibly be serious.) Instead, they mouth eloquent words about their loyalty, trustworthiness and caretaking. We believe the words. Eventually, however, we discover that the words are empty, and their behavior reveals their true attitude: To them, the universal values of humanity mean nothing.
Then we, trying to extricate ourselves from the sociopathic relationship, lose our footing. We suspect that no one really cares about honesty, responsibility, respect, fairness and compassion. We were the only chumps who took these qualities seriously.
The good news is that we were right in the first place—most people in the world do respect the universal values. As we heal from our traumatic experiences, we’ learn how to differentiate those who do from the sociopaths who don’t.
holywatersalt
Odette-
You loved him, it’s normal to have wanted to have been “picked.” My P picked those who he could get something from: money, control.
I doubt anyone on here feels flattered they were proposed to and/or married a psycho. I know you know this, but I understand. My psycho claimed in the end he was being charitable socializing with me. That doing so was a ministry to the lonely you know. So I know how you feel.
They are motivated by power/control and duping delight, not love. You weren’t unloved, he can’t love.
Hope that helps.
Benzthere
You are so correct HWS. Rejection or failure is never easy to accept. But it makes it a little easier once you realize it has nothing to do with reciprocal feelings and everything to do with need and what you had to offer in fulfilling that need. Odette, he just found someone who could provide something more or more easily coveted. And I think that says something positive, not negative about you as you already know.
Wini
OxDrover: Your situation makes my situation look like I was baking cup cakes. I am sorry to hear that some SD (I call them surface dwellers – those that do not venture into the depth of emotional waters) was so whacked out he’d want to take your life. I hope they gave him life behind bars. It saddens my heart (and I’m not trying to sound whimpy by saying it this way), but it does, my heart saddens when people are ice cold that they can harm/kill another precious individual. Clueless, absolutely, clueless. I had my dealings with SDs over the years … thought I learned a lot … stayed away from any one that would be narcissistic to even ask if they looked OK, or their hair look nice, or their makeup was still on alright …. women stuff like that … and I no longer had patience with it after having SDs bombarded my life. As soon as I heard anything ridiculous come out of someone’s mouth … I was history. Learned not to stick around for the rest of the roller coaster ride thank you very much. Then years later … after I thought I did well staying clear from psycho personalities …my ex came into my life … this guy played the good guy, well rounded, down to earth, best buddy, good father, loving son … normal joe blow off the street … and ended up being the Biggest SOB psycho that walked down the pike (reminds me of a Ted Bundy) type … thank God he didn’t kill me … So now I thought I knew more than the average person about #%@Q$# like him … to find out … they can act perfectly normal and have deep conversations too boot now … and still be a psycho. What will they think of next? Don’t answer that question, I want to stick my head in the sand … call me when it’s over …. (just kidding). It’s unnerving though, to say the least. He blew my theory right out of the water. They’re like diseases that were conquered years ago … coming back because they’ve mutated and gotten bigger and better. God should have made them all SLIME GREEN green in coloring. That way we would know just how many they are. Where I worked, I’d estimate 45% of that place were anti-social personalities. I used to tell people that our theme song for work was the cha-hua-hau (spelling???) song (I, I, I, IIIIIIII).
Anyway, did you read any of what I’ve written on this blog about Tolle’s book? If so… a must read. Anyone who feels this pain needs to read the book to show you how to heal and, heal quickly.
apt/mgr
I lived with my husband for 31 years before I finally found out the truth behind his anger. It was about money and we never had any. That told me so many love money but don’t want to work for it, and love isn’t a commodity they can live without. Love is a means to an end. Sex and money are the driving forces, from my experience. May the one with the most money win! What’s a relationship without real love? But if what all the experts say, these people don’t feel love, they don’t know how to receive it, so they can’t give it back. To them love is about the external things. That goes right back to sex and money. I wish someone could explain the why. Why do they want to do what they do and what do they hope to achieve, or is it just about winning at all costs? Sometimes I drive myself crazy seeing these kinds of actions and just wanting to know why. My children would ask me at times why their dad did some of the things he did, and all I could do was shake my head and say, I haven’t a clue.
If I were sick, he was sicker. I fell and tore up my shoulder. Rotator cuff, tendons, etc. Suddenly a week later, he “must have torn something in his shoulder throwing something in the truck”. He had himself so convinced it was like mine, that he went to the dr., they sent him to therapy, etc. Meanwhile, I’m walking around for a year, having to have surgery, using one arm to work with, taking therapy 3x a week. I want to ask why, but do they even know? I just didn’t bother. I just shook my head and walked away. It was like this the most of our married life. I don’t know if I ever felt married. I think it should be as much a state of mind as fact.
I’m just amazed though that someone has finally been able to put a label on it. I’m not one to label people, but I’ve been around some whom society considers mentally unstable, and they make more sense to me than these men I’ve been around. These men have been consistent in their inconsistencies, that they become predictable, but yet they are unnerving. The gaslighting, half truths, mocking, scoffing and they call it love. Because I’m too stupid to know how to do life and I need to be taught. Give me a break!
Ox Drover
DearWini,
I’ve said this before, it is an idea from Dr. Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning”–he wrote it after he was released from years in a Nazi prison camp. He described pain as acting like a gas, whether it is a little pain or a lot of pain, it ENTIRELY fills the space you put it in.
That made so much sense to me. It doesn’t matter if my Psychopath was “badder” than yours I felt 100% pain and so did you. We BOTH felt 100% filled with pain for our losses. Just like there is more or less an “upward limit” to the pain the brain can process in the human body, there is also an upward limit to the amount of pain we can experience emotionally I think. It may go on longer or shorter, but there is for me, anyway, an UPPER limit of which even more injury can’t make me emotionally hurt any worse. I reached it, several times, but I think most of the people here reached their own upper limits too, so just because my Ps tried to kill me, dones’t make my situation any worse or any more painful than others’ if that makes any sense.
Apt/Mgr, go back and read some of the essays in the archives if you haven’t already, or reread them and I think you can answer your qusestion of “why” as well as it will ever be answered, or read Robert Hare’s book “Without Conscience”–it’s just the way their brain works to “reward” them with a thrill. Part of it is the “hardwiring” (genetic part) and part is “learned response.”…..push button, get food. The thing we have to grasp though is that they do NOT want to change, see no need for it. Don’t learn from punishment or negative reinforcement. Never accept responsibility that the consequences (punishment) is the result of THEIR behavior, can always blame it on external forces, never themselves.
Wini
I remember when I found out. It was slowly creeping up on me from the fender bender I had on November 8th, until right before Thanksgiving (yeah, me as the turkey) … having my best friend and my sister knocking on my front door … like well oiled machines … hugs/kisses at the greeting of opening up the door … and then we were down in the basement grabbing every piece of paper he left behind in his boxes that were stored. Boxes in the spare BR, boxes in the utility room, paperwork in his office. All the paperwork was brought upstairs and piled on top of my dinning room table. That’s when I was seeing FACTS versus all his fiction. This man lied to me from the day he met me. Incredible. Even though I met SDs before, worked with them, went to school with them, knew some of them in my earlier years … I ended up going numb. Numb from November until the middle of March. Thank God for this small miracle. I needed to be coherent while contacting police, FBI, attorney etc. Even when my emotions flowed back in … I didn’t give two tiddlies about “us” as a couple, knowing “what couple – ha” … I was down this road before in my life. I did feel awful that I knew he couldn’t love. That broke my heart. Actually, that breaks my heart for all of them with this condition (listen to me, sounds like we’re discussing a pregnancy. That’s why I’m praying what Tolle wrote is true … and if folks in the psych profession can sample it out with a few of them … (the breathing techniques, being silent, stopping your ego from controlling your existence …. it’s getting them to stop long enough to get them to try Tolle’s therapy. You’d have to play them at their own game … telling them that they are now incarcerated for 20 years … but if they go to this session and pass with flying colors … then maybe you’ll be out in 5. Who knows. We can all pray to God that Tolle’s theory works for them too. I’m so sick of knowing that human’s like them exist living this way. This is so aweful… A life devoid of emotions is beyond imagination. A “N” is telling it like it is. Day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out … it’s ALL the SAME. Nothing changes for them. No wonder so many of them do dare devil stunts and jump off cliffs and canyons, skyscrappers.
Wini
There is no set blue print of what they are and how they will act. The masks they wear are as diverse as we are. I guess they study us … any one of us … figure out what works, throws out what doesn’t … as the years blandly creep by them. I now believe the older they get, the more refined the act is. Younger psychos are easier to spot … something trips them up … usually it’s one of us SCREAMING at the top of our lungs and being all glassy eyed (if it’s the first go around), as we salivate while trying to talk. Now I’m laughing. I’m logging off now because I just thought that they’re wearing off on me.
hummingbird1418
I think that the sociopath does get more refined with age. Mine was 52 and has wonderful people skills (or so it appears). He is a wonderful conversationalist and a good listener as well. He is great at explaining his view on about any subject.
He will tell you in a heartbeat what is wrong about something that you did, but doesn’t see wrong in anything he does. He loves to tell others how to act morally or otherwise, but doesn’t seem to follow the rules himself.
He also has a unique way of turning a situation around and putting the other person on the defensive.
Beverly
Reading many of the posts here, personally I think that there are traits that they have in common. As Hummingbird put it, they have very good verbal skills, are extremely perceptive, manipulative in knowing how to use gaslighting and denial in order to guilt trip their victims. Mine said he was an excellent listener (when he wanted to) and he was, BUT he was NOT an excellent speaker when it came to revealing parts of his inner self, his thoughts, dreams, moods etc – he kept that world very much to himself. If you really analyse and look closely at their behaviour there are soooooo many holes and inconsistencies!!
Ox Drover
My P-son did get more refined with age. As a teenager he was openly rebellious and “teenaged stupid” with his rebellions and acting out, but as he got older he started to put 2 and 2 together to get 4. He knew our values inside and out, he knew how to manipulate my mother, as evidenced from a letter he wrote to the Trojan HOrse P “Don’t worry about pissiing my mother off, just don’t piss off grandma. Grandma ALWAYS takes my side against mom.”
The letters he wrote to my mother sounded like they were written by a psychologist who was a very caring and Christian person. The ones he wrote to the TH-P sounded like some gang member and were filled with profanity, bragging about doing crimes, etc.
Yes, he had learned as he got older to delay gratification somewhat until he had all his “ducks in a row” and to pretend to have a moral compass. He knew what OUR moral compass was so could mimic it most of the time. Especially in LETTERS.
I think he got as much pleasure in his plots and plans as he did in the potential outcome of “success”–it was like a big chess game against his Nemesis, me. He has a big push to punish ME especially, that probably goes back to when I turned him in to the police when he was 17, and he has never forgotten that “insult” to him. His drive to “get even” with me for that injury has never left him. I doubt that it ever will since I added more injury to the former one by overcoming his latest plot.
He has NONE of the “human values” that any of us cherish. Absolutely ZIP, ZERO, NADA, NONE–yet, he is demanding of others that they all display ALL these VALUES FOR HIM. He feels that he has a BASIC RIGHT to receive all these, but NO responsibility to practice them. That’s for suckers. He’s above that, he’s better than that.