It is likely you are reading this because a sociopath said “I love you” and you believed him/her. You also probably thought that when the sociopath said “I love you” he/she used these words as you do, to express a sense of intimacy, passion and commitment. However, what a sociopath says and what a sociopath does are so different it can be crazy making.
In the aftermath of a relationship with a sociopath, former romantic partners are left to wonder, “Just what was going on in that person’s mind?” “What was he/she thinking?” Many people have written in asking, “Did he/she really love me?” and “Do you think he/she loves that other person now?” It is the second question many find most disturbing.
In 1943, Dr. Abraham Maslow in his classic paper, A theory of human motivation, declared that psychopaths lack the capacity and motivation for love. “The so-called ‘psychopathic personality’ is another example of permanent loss of the love needs. These are people who, according to the best data available (9), have been starved for love in the earliest months of their lives and have simply lost forever the desire and the ability to give and to receive affection (as animals lose sucking or pecking reflexes that are not exercised soon enough after birth). ”
Contemporaneously with Maslow, Dr. Hervey Cleckley described psychopaths in The Mask of Sanity and developed a set of criteria for their identification. According to Cleckley (criteria #9), psychopathy is associated with “pathological egocentricity and incapacity for love.” He declared “The psychopath seldom shows anything that, if the chief facts were known, would pass even in the eyes of lay observers as object love.”
Cleckley also maintained that an “absolute” incapacity for love is even found in those with an “incomplete manifestation” of psychopathy, who lack the full disorder. Writing in 1956, Drs.McCord and McCord disagreed with Cleckley and Maslow. They described psychopaths as having “a warped capacity for love” stating, “there are indications that the capacity, however under developed, still exists .”
My guess is that the McCords got fooled just like you and I and a recent paper shows us why.
Dr. Barbara Gawda at Maria Curie-Skldowska University Poland studied the “Love Scripts” of sociopaths. Love scripts are simply ideas about love that a person has. These ideas include how people fall in love, and what people in love are supposed to do.
Dr. Gawda showed a picture of a man and a woman hugging to 60 sociopaths in prison, 40 prisoners without disorder and 100 university students. She asked all participants to write a story about the picture and to imagine themselves as one of the characters.
The sociopaths stories were significantly longer, more detailed, and more self-centered than the other two groups. Contrary to expectations then sociopaths do not lack love schemas. They are perfectly adept and perhaps more adept than most in talking about love. The findings of this study jive completely with my own clinical experience. That is, over the years many people I knew to be sociopaths told me about their love experiences. Their stories were impressive and had me believing that they were capable of love.
If clinicians, scientists, lovers and family members rely on verbal reports, they will never come to understand the lack of capacity to love that characterizes sociopaths. Cleckley reached his conclusions about psychopathy and love only after observing their actions over a number of years. He also said this,
“In a sense, it is absurd to maintain that the psychopath’s incapacity for object love is absolute, that is, to say he is (in)capable of affection for another ”¦ He is plainly capable of casual fondness, of likes and dislikes, and of reactions that, one might say, cause others to matter to him. These affective reactions are, however, always strictly limited in degree. In durability they also vary greatly from what is normal in mankind. The term absolute is, I believe, appropriate if we apply it to any affective attitude strong and meaningful enough to be called love, that is, anything that prevails in sufficient degree and over sufficient periods to exert a major influence on behavior.”
References
A theory of human motivation. Maslow, A. H.; Psychological Review, Vol 50(4), Jul, 1943. pp. 370-396
McCord, W and McCord, J (1956) Psychopathy and Delenquency New York: Grune and Stratton, Inc. page 13
Love scripts of persons with antisocial personality.Gawda B.
Psychological Reports 2008, 103, 371-380.
This study compared the scripts of love among 60 prison inmates diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder and those of 40 inmates without an Antisocial Personality Disorder diagnosis but low antisocial tendencies, and a control group of 100 adult students in extramural or evening secondary schools without Antisocial Personality Disorder traits. The study focused on emotional knowledge about love of the group with Antisocial Personality Disorder, as they present lack of capacity for love. The study was done to examine how they perceive love and how much knowledge they have about love. All described their reactions to a photograph of a couple hugging each other. The content of these scripts, analyzed in terms of description of actors, their actions and emotions, and length of description, was compared among the groups. The scripts of love by antisocial inmates contained more actors’ feelings and strong emotions, as well as more descriptions of actors’ traits, their actions, and presumptions. The inmates with Antisocial Personality Disorder showed more focus on themselves when they described love than the other inmates and the controls.
…no it didnt, I’m just tired.:Dxxx
Oxy: you are a Godsend for me! I cannot thank you enough for your posts, for taking the time to listen to me, just having someone understand after so long with nobody/no support and no understanding-means so much to me!! Thank you for taking the time from your life to help me and be kind to me. I know I repeat myself sometimes and I am sorry for this….but my heart is just so broken over my kids….I may never get over this part.. The PX’s yes….I am moved on. Much hugs to you (((((((hugs!))))) [I have shut down everything but she is calling/emailing my friend now constantly to try and break that bond.]
Erin & Oxy,
It is a hard thing…..Living under the same roof on a daily basis, and watching these disturbing traits & behaviors, manifest within your child. And the feeling of not being able to do ANYTHING about it other than just watch it progress just goes completely against my nature……I feel basically like my kid is sick. VERY, very, sick. Just like if he had cancer, eating away at him and it wasn’t diagnosed by the doctor.
Mental illness is a total different story. Without good health insurance you are at the mercy of your public health department and your “luck” of the draw of who you get for therapy. Your choice in the matter is very limited. You get who you get or “wait” in line for the next available “new patient” opening.
I can remember when my mother was in the hospital with colin cancer. She was dying but I didn’t really know this upfront. Well, on some level my gut knew that she wasn’t going to make it, BUT the doctors weren’t telling me this. As a matter of fact they were preparing her for surgery by giving her this drink on a daily basis that looked like a milk shake but according to my mother tasted awful. About 3 days before the surgery I looked at my mom and how weak she really was and thought that this “preperation” they were giving her didn’t seem to be doing much good. She seemed even weaker than when she first arrived at the hospital. In my humble nonprofessional opinion I didn’t see how she could survive a major surgery? I asked my favorite nurse (a WONDERFUL nurse) if I might speak with the surgeon as I had only met him once and was never able to “catch up” with him again. When I spoke with him I was immediately not happy with his arrogant attitude. I felt pretty helpless…after all he was the doctor.
Again I asked my favorite nurse alot of questions. How they determine what surgeon operates on whom? And other questions as well. Including my concern of my moms weakened state. Finally I asked her if I could possibly “fire” this surgeon and get another opinion. I voiced my concerns of him and asked her an opinion of the other surgeons on staff. Naturally the nurse couldn’t come out and say OUTLOUD her opinions of the other doctors but she DID lead me in other ways to choose the right one. He was a good choice. HONEST and forthcoming. He told me he didn’t believe that my mother would survive the surgery. And that she would not ever leave the hospital. He told me the end was soon and arranged for Hospice. She went directly to the Hospice Care Facility and died two days later. The end result of course was one of the worst days of my life. I lost my mother. However instead of loosing her in a cool and impersonal sugery room, I was able to be with her when she passed.
My favorite nurse from the hospital had come to visit my mom at the Hospice facility and she actually was there with me and told me it was “time”.
I actually crawled into the bed with my mom and laid right next to her when she passed away. It was a very spiritual moment in my life. As I was able to let my mother go in a way that I never thought possible.
I would have never imagined MYSELF before this experience to EVER stand up to any doctor and disagree with their professional opinions. I find many doctors to be rather intimidating and their “time” always seems to be put forth as more valuable than your own. Besides for that, I do respect the fact that doctors know more than I do….HOWEVER in this case my internal gut feeling, my instinct, was so poweful, that it lead me to question the doctors “authority” in this matter. When I questioned the nurse and SAW that she “heard” me, I knew I wasn’t so off base. She gave me the courage to go further.
My instinct with my son, that gut feeling……It’s all there. But my “voice” hasn’t been heard this time. The intervention system that is out there isn’t good enough. Kids do FALL between the cracks up until they break the law. By that time it is generally to late. BUT that is when someone starts paying attention when they are up in front of a judge.
Like you Erin I have accepted that I have no control over this situation. And as much as he is looking forward to his 18th BD and wanting out of this house, I am starting to hold my breath until that day as well. But as long as this summer has been I don’t believe that I can hold my breath for that long and watch the progression of his sickness take hold.
I can tell you that if I was in any kind of relationship with the exact same criteria that is going on here with anyone other than my own son…..I would leave. It is just to painful to witness.
blueskies,
It truly is terrible to see so many without a clue. Even worse you’ll see a lot of others there speaking up defending “not everyone is like this – quit calling them a [sociopath/psychopath!] you’re not a doctor!”
I can’t even begin to break down that game of denial.
(Disclosure: my wife left abruptly after hooking up with a P/S/N who charmed the pants off her one night. he’s now back in jail – she waits hopefully for (and on) him. Personally, met a number of P/S/Ns in life but thankfully for sanity veered away)
Dear Notyourdaddy,
If you figure that there are at least a million people incarcerated in the US righ tnow, and that 20% of them (at least are psychopaths) that is 200,000 psychopaths. Each one has 2 parents and probably an average of 2 sibs, and at least one romantic relationship, so you can see that at least 5 people are effected by EACH psychopath so we are back to at least 1 million people who are related to or dealing with a CRIMINAL PSYCHOPATH, probably violent as well. If you then figure that 4% of the US population NOT in prison is psychopathic, and let’s say that 25% of them (I think that number is low) are VIOLENT and/or criminal, etc.
Well…..you get the idea how many people are devestated by these monsters…..and I don’t know a psychopath that doesn’t have several “romantic” relationships that have been horror stories and unfortunately, many of them have reproduced as well, so since many of the males spawn and then move on and spawn again and move on, there are more than the average 1.8 children born to these people. so while my figures are not exact, (they couldn’t be) you get the idea that there are millions of people in the US alone that have been PERSONALLY DAMAGED BY THESE MONSTERS.
Not many web sites on psychopaths are even close to what LF offers in the way of intelligent information and support from a “higher than average” group of people in terms of smarts and education.
Though the effects of psychopathy are all the way from the “lower levels” of society all the way to the “top”—many people because of the social problems caused by psychopathy end up being in the “poor” end of the spectrum, therefore with less education and resources to recover. Women are left to raise children alone, a high rate of teenaged pregancies, drug use and criminal activity that tends to keep one living in poverty.
Even the non psychopathic children born into these families infested with high psychopathic traits in many members don’t have much of a chance to escape the effects of the psychopathic “taint.” Some do wind up being adopted, or in foster care where they may or may not get help to rise above it all, but it is a sad state of affairs, really.
My own opinion is that a HUGE PROPORTION OF SOCIAL ILLS are caused by psychopaths—from the crack houses to the halls of the state houses, and frankly, I think the “elite” psychopaths do more damage than the meth heads, and to more people. Look at Madoff.
Okay, I’m off my soap box—it may not be any better when I am elected dictator but it will be DIFFERENT! round em up and ship them to anartica! That will be the world’s new penal colony.
Dear Witsend,
I hear your pain, watching the “progression” of the problem get worse and worse and realizing that HE doesn’t care, all is well with him if he has no one to tell him what to do, as long as he can ‘control’ (he thinks) his life—even as it slides down hill. I have been there, Witsend, I saw my BRIGHT promising son turn into a convict, a thug, a thief, and ultimately a murderer—but boy did HE SHOW ME HE COULDN’T BE CONTROLED BY ME! He “won” that round! He was right, I could NOT control him.
Unfortunately, if you had the BEST therapy in the world, it would NOT do any good for him, because he CAN RESIST it, he can do what he wants to do and no one can stop him. HE does NOT want your help or anyone else’s—there is no medication, NOTHING that can “rescue” him FROM HIMSELF.
It is difficult to accept that there is NOTHING YOU CAN DO, nothing anyone can do….it isn’t a matter of insurance or anything else.
I’m glad lyou were successful in your mother’s care and her passing, and I am like you, I do NOT want an arrogant doctor taking care of my loved ones or me. They tend I think to continue prcedures and treatments well beyond what is humane and reasonable, rather than just making the patient comfortable and allowing them time to process their grief and have a peaceful and pain-free death without false hope that the painful treatments will “work.”
I know it was more painful for me to see my son destroy himself than it was when my dear step father passed, or when my husband died even. That “living death” that you can see coming is to me like seeing an oncoming train and you shout as loud as you can to warn them, and they keep on playing on the railroad tracks, jumping for glee as the train approaches to end their lives. to dash your hopes, and you are powerless to make a difference. it was almost for me like it moved in slow motion, like a “frustration” dream.
Witsend, I know the pain I felt when I finally accepted that I was helpless, but now that I have accepted the reality of it, and that I AM helpless, I feel better….having him out of my sight does help though. NC does help. ((((hugs)))) and my prayers for you and your son.
Dear Ox,
Thank you! Yes, let alone someone who loves me, but someone who is mentally healthy would not kick me out TWICE, this is the bad part.
This is the *mean* part because I believed him and thought of him as someone who could protect me if possible. I don’t depend on him ”“he has issues with women not working because his Ex wife left him with bankruptcy (her Ex wife is a sociopath I believe, adultery, etc), but I do believe that if he were healthy he would at least lend me some money so that I could go away sooner, but he doesn’t and he wont, even after I sold/gave away everything, from my microwave, furniture, bed, printer, desk, chairs, everything. This man has about 30 000 in the bank, if not more- and he wasn’t able to lend me a few to help me get on track again.
But he does *care* for his children and is always looking for them and buying things for them, he is cruel and mean.
Oh and when you mentioned that ‘even if they are rich and famous”, you are so right! He said a few days ago that he wants to be rich and he is addicted to work, he doesn’t sleep that much (his mother used to wake them up at 6 am and didn’t care, so there we have a pattern). On Saturdays and Sundays he can not enjoy a few minutes/hours more, he *has* to wake up and go to the computer and work. He doesn’t enjoy his life, there is NO difference between a Monday and a Sunday, practically and this is making me feel exhausted. As I see it, he uses work and his children as a barrier to be with a woman, emotionally speaking.
So true, he can not bond, he does bond apparently to his children but I suspect they are his narcissistic supply, they make him appear *better*. He doesn’t have friends and he only cares about work and having more clients. You know I don’t really care about money, I think that love, companionship and socializing with other people are more important, specially these days, but he doesn’t get it, nor will.
Sex- yup, it’s the way he wants it and NO closeness, no tenderness, no hugging, its mechanical, it’s sad.
Also, another thing that I have noticed is that N/SP don’t like to see their woman dressed casually/modest; have you noticed it? Fiancé guy wanted me to dress up most of the time, he had this fetish about certain pair of jeans and skirts, I explained to him over and over again that I don’t like to dress up during week days, its exhausting besides I don’t like to wear make up ALL the time, but he doesn’t really care. I dress up when I go to work or to go out, absolutely, but the idea of being dressed up at home just because he wants to, is so narcissistic under my view, but oh well, I am learning.
Awn, thank you so much for reading and sharing 🙂
Dear Oxy,
Thanks for the note! I am a long time fan of your writings here.
You are so right, many many are affected by Psychopaths outside of their direct sphere of control. I’ve learned a lot reading LF and anything else I could get my hands on in the past month.
I mentioned this site to my wife in an email, along with a couple snippets of wisdom from articles/posts here. I know she won’t accept the truth yet, but when she’s tired of playing doormat, maybe she’ll take a look.
Over the weekend I was at a party – my friend introduced me to someone he knew, and (this was strange because I’d never heard it in conversation before) tells me “she just got out of a relationship with a sociopath”. She didn’t talk about it, but she seemed pretty depressed. I tried to mention this site to her (for support) but was stopped from bringing up anything by this friend of mine.
Antarctica? I’m all for it, but only if we can fence them off to keep the penguins safe!
This is the best site on the net for intelligent conversation about the mindset and recovery from these so called people, and I’m happy I found it.
Someone, I don’t know if it was you, said on another thread that if they could cure only one disease, it would be Pyschopathy. That’s been mulling around in my head for days, and I agree.
But it’s like putting Humpty-Dumpty together again… Science seems pretty certain it’s mostly genetic, and caused by a missing/damaged part of the limbic system — how could that be repaired?
What a shining day that will be – the first emotion transplant!
“Also, another thing that I have noticed is that N/SP don’t like to see their woman dressed casually/modest; have you noticed it?”
Yes, I have noticed this. And not just in the NPs I married. [I never dressed/acted this way….but they sure liked women who did.] I’ve seen other NP males enjoy this type of behavior also. Makes you think/wonder, doesn’t it?
I am not sure about genetic’s – I am gay but as far as I know my parent’s weren’t, my brother isn’t..but they all contributed to me being who I am, I am just glad I am not like them..I think most s/p’s had a traumatic childhood experience that affected them in a negative way. Circumstance’s and inviroment play a huge role. We just have to accept that some people are broken.