Unfortunately clinicians and researchers often tend to interact with a specific segment of our society and to develop their own ways of describing the problems of the people they work with. For example, there are professionals who work with clients who have “personality disorders”, there are professionals who work with criminals in the justice system and there are professionals who work with perpetrators of domestic abuse/violence.
Each of these three groups of professionals has their own lingo for describing very similar people with very similar patterns of behavior. Each group also has a different “theoretical orientation” or view of the problems of humanity.
Because those who work with family abusers often lack experience with sociopaths in other settings they do not know that family abusers are sociopaths.
Where does that leave you, a victim or family member of a disordered, abusive individual?
To spare you the task of sorting through these three distinct ways of looking at the person who created havoc in your life, with the help of The Abusive Personality, I will present here more on the work of Dr. Dutton a psychologist who understand the personality profile of abusers.
First of all, I can say with confidence that individuals who abuse and victimize lovers, friends and family members are personality disordered. As Dr. Dutton points out on page 8 of The Abusive Personality, “Because IPV (intimate partner violence) occurs in a minority of relationships it cannot be explained by social norms. In fact, normative acceptance of IPV is low in North American populations. .. When people act in a chronically dysfunctional manner that violates the norms of their culture, their behavior is attributable to a personality disorder.”
Dr. Dutton makes a compelling argument that the “abusive personality” stems from what is known as borderline personality organization. According to psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg, adult and adolescent patients with antisocial personality possess an underlying borderline personality organization. Attachment theorists also suggests an association between borderline personality disorder and antisocial behavior or even antisocial personality disorder. Dr. Dutton acknowledges that many perpetrators are violent and antisocial outside the family and many appear to completely lack empathy and remorse. All chronic perpetrators have an extreme inability to empathize with their victims and seem to only express remorse as a means of maintaining the relationship. These emotional deficits are considered to be diagnostic of sociopathy.
According to Dr. Dutton, both male and female abusers experience cyclical changes in personality that relate to abuse perpetration. These cycles, have interfered with understanding the personality of abusers. The cycles happen because abusers experience a great deal of negative emotion and they blame this negative emotion on those closest to them. After they “blow off steam” by abusing loved ones, they experience a temporary relief from these negative emotions. During the time they “feel better” they may seem like model spouses and parents.
In my opinion, there are four other characteristics of men and women who perpetrate partner/family abuse that have interfered with our understanding that these abusers are psychopathic and are truly sociopaths. These are:
1. The degree to which they cling to those whom they abuse.
2. Their high level of anxiety and other negative emotions.
3. Lack of abuse of strangers and non-family members.
4. Lack of criminal arrest for other offenses.
I want to address each of these characteristics by asking then answering the related questions people have asked me over the years.
Question #1 Does the fact that my ______________ keeps calling and doesn’t want to lose me mean that deep down he/she really loves me?
Answer#1 NO! Although sociopaths are not capable of love they are very social and most often want to count themselves in as part of a family, extended family and friendship network. If they are alone how will they be able to do what they do best which is abuse and control people? Also if they are alone, how can they use people to get the other things they want. Especially as sociopaths get older and their ability to charm others declines they tend to want to stick with those they have taken advantage of in the past.
Question #2 My poor _________ is just depressed/anxious/angry about being mistreated and abused as a child. Won’t my love and reassurance help him/her get over it?
Answer #2 NO! If your______ has a long standing pattern of abusing you and/or other family members it means something very important so listen. It means he or she equates abuse with being in a relationship, just like you equate love and caring with being in a relationship. Since that is true, your love will only make the person more abusive.
Question#3 My ___________ only abuses me and no one else so it must be my fault. Right?
Answer #3 NO! Your __________ would abuse others if he/she thought he/she could get away with it and will abuse anyone else he/she feels close ties with. An intimate relationship brings out abusive behavior in people who have a borderline personality organization.
Question#4 My _____________ has never been arrested can he/she still be a sociopath?
Answer #4 YES! Antisocial behavior is behavior that hurts other people. When this hurtful behavior is perpetrated by someone who lacks empathy or remorse it reflects psychopathy/sociopathy.
In summary, I recommend that all mental health professionals who work with the victims and family members of sociopaths read Dr. Dutton’s book The Abusive Personality. I also recommend another of Dr. Dutton’s books, The Batterer a Psychological Profile for victims of domestic violence. Order it through Amazon today with these links:
The Abusive Personality
The Batterer a Psychological Profile
Does anyone want me to try to explain what “borderline personality organization” is?
Is there anyone who still has trouble accepting that partner abusers are sociopaths?
This was a very scary article for me. I have to say that I identified with the traits of the abuser. Shudder. I still DO NOT believe I am one of THEM. I believe that I have some BPD features, but that I have been in a relationship with a full-blown P. I am not justifying my behavior, as I certainly don’t want to repeat it. I know I have my own issues and they need work, however I continue to need support and healing from other survivors. I know it isn’t the job of this forum to lend support to BPD sufferers, but I would like to say that I think there is a tendency to lump BPD’s in with P/S/N’s. I can understand why, there are some over lapping issues, but I want to stress that, at least in my case, I am not intentionally cruel, am not a pathological liar, am not a cheat, I do experience guilt and remorse, and feel empathy, sometimes to a fault. Just had to add my two cents. I’m grateful that LF is here. Hope everybody’s doing OK today.
Kim,
anyone who is in a relationship with a P can end up with most of those triats.
1. The degree to which they cling to those whom they abuse.
2. Their high level of anxiety and other negative emotions.
3. Lack of abuse of strangers and non-family members.
4. Lack of criminal arrest for other offenses.
Empathy to a fault is the key.
I think that is what our N parents/family create in us to make us perfect N-supply. If you don’t turn into an N, you become N-supply.
Thank you so much, Skylar. Those four points REALLY scared me.
“she mixes christianity in with some really sick ideas, and when I challenged her that what she was doing wasn’t christian she said I wasn’t a christian to judge her and only God could and that I now had stressed her and that I should feel bad for having done that!”
How funny….She tells you only God can judge, then she immediately judges you and tells you how you should feel.
Well, that makes sense…they think they ARE God!
Dear Kim,
Everyone in the world with a conscience has done things we feel remorse for, and that doesn’t make us BPD, and keep in mind there are BPD TRAITS and the full blown BPD (which on a high leven is very close to the behavior or a PPD) so keep in mind that there probably isn’t a one of us here who has not done something that taken in ISOLATION would sound like we might have the traits.
It is very difficult for anyone to “diagnose” themselves with any mental disorder or illness. So I wish you would just quit worrying about the diagnosis which was “hung” on you by someone else who might have been mistaken—who might have mistaken the “crazy making” behavior that we many of us go through when we are in HORRIBLE PAIN from the psychopaths attacks on our very souls and sanity.
Sugar, I have behaved like a “raving nut cake” and even my last therapist thought I was a paranoid schizopherenic because my tale was so “crazy” and I had to take him court documents and a witness. It didn’t even insult me that he asked for “proof”—I KNOW HOW CRAZY IT SOUNDS AND AT TIMES HOW CRAZY I ACTED! LOL
I too have had “too much empathy” and have given too much, have panic’d when I felt like I was losing my grip on those that I loved—my P son, my enabling toxic mother! I felt totally wiped out when my P X-BF and I were breaking up.
Now you quit worrying about the BPD “label” and don’t make me get the SKILLET after you! LOL (((hugs))))
skylar,
Your last statement is the sums everything up.
You stay in the game of Predator/Prey if you stay true to stereotypical behaviors.
The “game-changing” behaviors (too many to cover), painful as they may be to implement once the hurt is acknowledged, work!
Learned so many terms here recently, thanks LF. How can I explain “N-dipping” any place but here?
to kim frederick,
I don’t think BPD is anything close to what a P/S/N is like.
Those with Borderline disorder feel too strongly, there’s the love/hate splitting that develops as relationships come and go/wax and wane. It’s been said here before that the attraction to P/S/N types is that they can never get close enough to them. The constant struggle, caused because the P/S/N lacks human emotions besides hate and greed, but will mostly try not to let that show, makes this closeness impossible, but keeps the relationship going.
Holding out hope, servicing Fear Obligation and Guilt.
Not a good way to live, but it takes admission and willpower to break out.
A could good message boards for BPD:
http://www.mdjunction.com/borderline-personality
http://www.borderlinepersonality.ca/board/
Notyourdaddy,
You can’t tease me with terms like “game changing behaviors” and “N-dipping” and then leave me hanging.
That’s what the P used to do! Tease and leave!
LOL!
Seriously, explain, cuz I want to learn.
lol! okay okay skylar.
I should have been more clear.
“N-dipping” is narcissistic dipping. Means when someone has broken off a relationship with a (P?)/S/N and they miss the fake love…. and so reestablish contact with the PSN.
“game changing behaviors” — No Contact is a game changing behavior, as is not responding to the P/S/N (going ‘dull’). So is Narcissistic injury (but you don’t want to do that….fragile soulless (and now wounded) egos will lash out double!)
ooooh!
I like the N-dipping word
also like game changing behaviors.
Words have sooooooo much power. when you give something a name, it gives it cohesion in your mind. It creates a category and you can put things into it, like a drawer or a file cabinet. Without words we would be in a fog.
When I didn’t know the definition of a sociopath, I didn’t realize I was living with one. Now that I have a comprehensive definition, I can spot one a mile away.
N-dipping (verb): to miss fake love. the occasional foray into the arms of a psychopath in order to be lied to. The attraction to dangerous sociopaths. Engaging in life risking behavior in order to experience false love or excitement. Getting an attention fix from your xP because you are lonely.
Game-changing (adjective): the quality of a behavior or move which creates a shift in the opponent’s strategy or thinking process. A quality of a behavior or move which plants the seed of change in your own strategy or thinking process.