I recently had clinical contact with a client who left me with the unusually strong, immediate impression of “schemer,” “slick,” “full of crap.” He was instantly, aggressively ingratiating—less, I felt, from insecurity, as from ulterior motives, as if he were angling, at the outset, for an edge.
I had the uncomfortable feeling I get around intrusive salesmen who leave you feeling like an “object” from whom to extract a sale and commission.
I should mention that he was glib. Glibness is a trait often associated with certain sociopaths. My client was so glib, as a matter of fact, that for the first time in a long while the word “glib” actually popped into my head.
When I say “glib,” I don’t mean just fast-talking, which he was. He was shallow, too. And for me, the combination of smooth, fast talking, underlain by shallowness, really captures “glib.”
He was something of a schemer, and it was fascinating to observe him deny or dismiss rife evidence of his historical deceptiveness, abusiveness and double-standards. And he did so with a striking lack of shame, and with much audacity, along with irritation (arrogantly conveyed) to have to even deign to respond to the history.
Now I’d like to shift gears (abruptly), and say something about the psychopath’s (or sociopath’s) alleged “look,” or “stare,” which has been described anecdotally in the literature. Its most obvious form is characterized by a certain crazed intensity (note some of the existing photos of Ted Bundy, and other serial killers).
There are also, I suggest, other, subtler forms of this look. In any case what this “look” transmits (in any of its forms) is something elementally predatory. It has an evaluatively predatory quality.
I suspect that many of you have had the experience of being watched in this way?
It’s more than a feeling of being scrutinized, because all of us scrutinize each other, and clients should be scrutinizing their therapists.
It is more, I think, the quality, or motive, of the scrutiny—again, a predatory aspect that engenders the experience of feeling invaded, and “sized up,” “measured” for ulterior purposes.
At bottom, this is a type of “look” that leaves one feeling watched, studied as an “object.” One experiences the “watcher” as if he or she is calculating, “How much can I have my way with this person? How susceptible is this person to my present interests in him or her?”
My client had this “look.”
He was a “watcher,” and as he watched me, I often had the disconcerting sense that he was less interested in what I had to say, or what I was saying, than in using the time I was speaking to further his evaluation of my vulnerability.
This feeling with, experience of someone, can be a signal. It can signal that something predatory is brewing, or occurring.
I’ve called this the “feel” of a sociopath, because sociopaths sometimes (not always) can stir-up this sensation in those whose paths they’ve crossed, or lives they’ve entered. To be sure, not all sociopaths evoke this experience; but some do, and it can be an uncomfortable, and not easily articulated experience. Depending on the circumstances, it can even feel flatteringly seductive (if still uncomfortable).
Take, for instance, a blind/first-date scenario, in which the exploitative-minded individual approvingly, hungrily, invasively and audaciously sizes-up his date, leaving her feeling flattered (hungrily desired) while at the same time uneasy?
This “sizing up,” “measuring” process too often belies not a hunger for love, and connection, but of acquisition, possession and/or conquest.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Dear Is opn,
IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THE DIAGNOSIS IS!!!!! GET THAT?
NOT MATTER.
HE IS TOXIC….that is all ALL you need to know.
Schizophrenia is a terrible illness, and can usually be treated so that the person can have a life, IF THEY WILL COOPERATE, but….that mental illness, which can sometimes we treated and controlled….is NOT EVEN CLOSE to a psychopath.
It isn’t impossible that your P has both problems, many of “them” also have bi-polar and ADHD, but it doesn’t mean they are not Ps.
TOXIC—that’s all you need to know. BOINK! That’s the sound of my iron skillet hitting your skull! QUIT FEELING SORRY FOR THE SMUCK! (BTW that iron skillet hitting your skull was “tough love”)
Seriously, though, Ps can be depressed, bi-polar or have a lot of other mental illnesses in addition to their psychopathic bent, but NOTHING is going to fix them. It doesn’t matter if he is a drunk, an alcoholic, a drug addict or seriously mentally ill, he is STILL A PSYCHOPATH and still toxic to you. You have been through the mill at his hands already, and that is what they do to us is try to hook us back with a pity ploy. It isn’t our jobs to “save” them from themselves. There comes a point we have to accept that we can’t save them.
Hun, I tried for nearly 25 years to SAVE MY SON FROM HIMSELF and I ended up almost losing my life trying when he turned on me. I loved my son, that shining little freckle-faced boy that was so bright, but my son is dead and gone and the “man” who inherited his organs is NOT that wonderful little boy, he is a cold blooded killer who is proud of his crimes, and continues to plot more. Prison is the only opition for him and I have a life, a good life, now that I am done with trying to “save” him—it can’t be done. I can ONLY save myself. I have wasted 100 55-gallon oil barrels of tears on that attemmpt and all it got me was more grief and heart ache. Until I recognized that I had to SAVE MYSELF or die! That’s the choice we all have!
You are a caring and a compassionate person, and all of us here are, that’s what got us into the fixes we are/were in. WE CARED! WE LOVED! They are incapable of caring or love and as hard as it is, as much as it hurts, we have to give up the pity and concern for them, and CARE FOR OURSELVES. ((((BIG Hugs)))))) and a my prayers for you.
This poor dog has a S/P hypnotic trance stare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUbsc_a-e3g
DEar Henry,
Hey, guy, you go on and on a bout your progress ALL YOU WANT! You’ve been here long enough that I KNOW how much progress you have made—-we’ve been in the abyss together, remember? It has been a rocky journey and you kept me busy with the skillet and the love taps until your head was almost flat—and you have also been an inspiration to many people here, including ME!
We’ve cried may a tear together—maybe that’s what LF is all about. I noticed many years ago that the people you feel the closest to are the people who have been there in hard times, or you have been there for them in the hard times. Is that a kind of “trauma bond?” But a GOOD KIND! I am so proud of how so many of the people here have made real progress in their healing. I notice so many people who come here and I honestly think that they think they are “healed” at some point when they start to get over the grief of THAT P, but they don’t seem to stay around long enough to get to the point that the acute grief over the P is “done” but I don’t think that is the “complete” healing, the REAL improvement, it seems to me (IMHO) is after the acute grief over the P is “processed” and we start to work and focus on US and what made us vulnerable in the first place. I’d been in “acute grief” for so long over and over that I never had time or energy before to focus on ME. This time it is different, and now the focus is on improving me, not just surviving THEM! Without the knowledge that I am gaining now, I always seemed to slip back into some relationship with them again or another one just like’em. I intend to STAY P-FREE this time! Doing that depends on making ME a better person for the experience(s).
OxDrover: Thanks Oxy. I thought I may be getting the skillet for this post. I knew it was coming, but I had to get this out. It has been getting me all evening. One more question without getting the skillet please. So in other words I will sum it up, an S/P can have Schizophrenia, Bipolar, and many other things too, along with using alcohol, or other addictions?
If so, ok I definitely know how sick and twisted and scary this has all been, it was more than I would of thought it was. I am not making excuses. This is all part of closure. Closure of, now after 3 weeks I know he is an S. Ok, that helps knowing this. For months I have been looking up other things trying to realte it as Bi polar, Scizophrenia, Scizoaffective etc. etc…
I don’t want to save him, he cannot be saved. my strength is for healing, not saving the world now. Which is good after everything.
From another parent to another parent Oxy, I know how it is to try to save your child from themselves. I tried too with my own. It was Methadone, not theirs, given by someone, to them 1 time. Flatlined at the hospital 8 times. We were told they would survive but probably were braindead, passed away 1 hour later, after they were moving them to another room out of the ER because they were considered stable.
As another Mother to another Mother, my prayers and blessings for you Oxy. Thank you.
That skillet really hurt but I had it coming…LOL
Lots of brain food again!
Henry: concerning the asteroid: I think we all had OUR asteroid come already. I know mine hit the 23rd of September 07 when I did my first post on the dating site to contact the X. The impact seemed a good one in the beginning, but THEN my rivers started to reverse, all my own dinosaurs started to be extinct, the sky darkened, and it was a LONG time to getting back to normal. I am far from the real life yet. But the cleaning up was very helpful so far.
Is opn: The X in my life was also ill, and I am a MD and trained to sustain all sorts of ordeal. But at some point one has to draw the line if it gets too toxic, and even being sick does not allow anybody to trespass the boundaries of the other unless he is REALLY mentally ill and then this person has to be treated by expert therapists what we ARE NOT!
In my supervision group we had this week a hard time talking to a colleague who was dealing 4 years with an obvious P/N/S-patient, and we came to the conclusion that it is OK to say that she has to find another doctor. He had LOTS of remorse about it, but felt VERY relieved with our validation! And this was NOT a LOVE RELATIONSHIP! I just can imagine how difficult it is for you, but obviously you have to choose between your own sanity and the continuing of the horror. In German there is a saying: better an ending with terror than terror without ending.
Oxy. Thank you so much for your skillet, and your always very sound remarks and brain food! Concerning the party you do not attend because of the egg donor, a remark of my grandmother’s came into my mind: ” I would not have gone to the party anyway, but they at least could have had invited me to it!”
I do not think that there is a God who makes up tests like this and sees from a cloud whether I pass or fail the test he has made (it would be the image of THE ULTIMATE N/P/S!!!). I rather like the Buddhist concept of Samsara (I looked it up in Wikipedia) where you have the constant wheel of misery you have to ride until you have learned it all, gotten all the required Tee-shirts. Then you have overcome all the misery and go into the Nirvana, the heavenly “nothing” where there is no pain, no misery. You leave the rollercoaster, so to say. I am NOT a buddhist, I stick with my Catholic candles and saints and all, although I see the weaknesses in this too.
And Christ himself ranted about hanging on the cross!!! (“My God why have you left me!”) And when HE is doing it, what can be said about us “wee vermins”? I always thought of having permission to rant issued by the highest powers.
Henry/Oxy — I woke up at 6am and ALMOST went looking for a frying pan to wallop my head! I couldnt believe I said to Henry “Try to not ask the question why? and turn it into How can I do things differently next time?” Nio.no.no. WRONG ADViCE. We MUST ask ourselves and find out WHY WE ALLOWED THIS DYSFUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIP TO CONTINUE AFTER THE FIRST RED FLAG, so that we can LEARN whats broken inside us and fix it. It seems to me, it has something to do with our past (dysfunctional past) prior to meeting the S/P….something about the way we love or are afraid to “hurt” “disconnect” “need to fix”…. something about me is challenged or lacking when it came to MY BEST INTEREST, I didnt KNOW or HAVE the boundaries with him. Every rule I ever had or thought I had didnt exist. WHY? WHY? WHY? Is a fabulous question Henry and I suspect the answer one day will be even more wonderful even if it pisses us off first!!!!
ok. Im just gonna say it… They have a strength that we lack. And we have a strength that they lack. Granted they have much more deep seeded twisted darkness to them, but they have ability/traits to do what we are learning to do in relationships that comes very naturally to them. Just as loving, caring, giving, comes quite naturally to us. In the beginning (for me) the playing field seemed so even keeled/well matched… respectfulness, friendliness, lots of time spent together, laughter, love feelings, etc.. for about 4 months. And then things changed. He needed a loan, with the promise to pay it back in 30 days once his new job was underway. Then my gf saw him with someone. I confronted him, it was an old friend from college “whats the big deal, I can have lunch with girls” – I should have up and left and stomached him with a skillet!!! Instead I STAYED. For several years. Through several loans, even from family members, endless different jobs, women, verbal abuse, and all the standard charm and wit to win me back. And each time I went back. WHY? I have no idea, but you bet Im going to find out! But I did make the correlation between the things we struggle with (focusing on ourselves, making sure our needs are met, not letting certain people in etc., turning away) comes naturally for them. While loving, caring, giving, comes naturally for us. Is that how we end up drawn to them? or addicted to them?
Opn: A really good book for you to read is: How to Spot a Dangerous Man (Before You Date Him). It talks about how often dangerous men have several different conditions–you can have one who is mentally ill and also a predator, etc. Any ONE of the conditions listed in the book makes the person dangerous. I found this book on Amazon for $10, and I think it’s worth reading.
Oxy, great post (as usual) about what REAL healing is. I second that wholeheartedly, though I’m not sure how much progress I’ve made in that regard.
BTW, I believe sales of cast iron skillets have probably increased dramatically since this site started!
learnthelesson: You are right on about them having traits we lack (lack of fear, etc) and we having traits they lack. One of the first compliments my S paid me when we met was to tell me I was a very genuine, authentic person, and he was very attracted to that. I remember thinking at the time “And you are used to hanging out with phonies?” I never occurred to me that HE was the phony!
Then I took him with me one day when I was painting a friend’s property (interior painting is one of the things I do). The friend went to the store, and the S couldn’t believe I was still working while my friend wasn’t there to see me working. I said, “Of course I’m working; that’s what he’s paying me to do!” He commented that most people would slack off and wouldn’t work so hard. Apparently he meant that HE would be slacking off.
He was drawn to all these good qualities of mine. And I was drawn to his supreme self confidence and laid back demeanor.
Learn I would respectfully disagree with your statement of “so that we can LEARN whats broken inside us and fix it.”
In many, maybe even most, cases there is not anything “broken” inside a person that allowed or caused them to enter into a relationship with a psychopath and then stay in it. Now do not get me wrong as I am not saying there is not harm done after meeting them.
Consider the term cognitive dissonance and this from a post I made last year:
the more you invest (income, job, home, time, effort, etc.) the stronger your need to justify your position. If we invest $5.00 in a raffle ticket, we justify losing with “I’ll get them next time”. If you invest everything you have, it requires an almost unreasoning belief and unusual attitude to support and justify that investment.
Studies tell us we are more loyal and committed to something that is difficult, uncomfortable, and even humiliating. The initiation rituals of college fraternities, Marine boot camp, and graduate school all produce loyal and committed individuals. Almost any ordeal creates a bonding experience. Every couple, no matter how mismatched, falls in love in the movies after going through a terrorist takeover, being stalked by a killer, being stranded on an island, or being involved in an alien abduction. Investment and an ordeal are ingredients for a strong bonding ”“ even if the bonding is unhealthy. No one bonds or falls in love by being a member of the Automobile Club or a music CD club. Struggling to survive on a deserted island ”“ you bet!
I would also disagree on the whole strengths thing. Consider this. If the tables were turned and it was your abuser now in your shoes do you honestly think they could have gone through it and handled it at all or as well as most of the people they abuse? My answer is no.
You can read the whole (quite long post) here http://whataboutwhenmomistheabuser.blogspot.com/2008/07/people-see-what-they-want-to-see.html