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?
I totally agree with Brihancy.
And – to put it into the context of this thread, I feel that BPDs are very different at the core. My parent is BPD – can be abusive, can be manipulative, can be the sweetest in the world, yet, has own character and tastes and even when acting to seek positive attention from others, does so knowingly and not with intent to hurt. APDs on the other hand will create the total illusion of truth, mimic your very nature, and then destroy it at the core. It is also the reason why the victims stay and not find the strength to terminate the relationship. We keep looking back at the dichotomies, and are not sure if we believe what we see (observe) or what we hear. With my BPD parent, its really straight forward for the most part, and we all learned to deal with it. The behaviors are not malignant, only attention seeking. It’s easy to get “sucked in” but in reality, there is no emotional abuse such as the one I encountered, when the castle (created for my benefit by the P) in the sky fell apart before my own eyes. “I promised? – So what? I changed my mind”. does this sound familiar to anyone?
yes very familiar but it was “Look I am sorry I f–ked up your life” hmm did he have a conscience maybe?
akalpita, you asked, “Why do we continue to love the sociopath?
I’ve thought about this for a couple of hours and realize that I don’t have an answer. I just do — but it wasn’t because I had been loving an illusion. I “saw” him quite clearly after the first 3 months.
I think I could describe my love for him (even throughout the “marriage”) was a member of the human race, a male person who had been created by God, worthy of being treated well regardless of how he treated me.
I wish him no ill (and that puzzles me sometimes for what horrible things he did) but I SURE AM GLAD THAT HE IS 1800 MILES AWAY.
Henry, it is past midnight but I wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your words and encouragement — especially the acres of lilies blooming — last Friday.
I think I already mentioned that but your story of how horribly your mother mistreated you has haunted me. You are a strong person to have survived that. You didn’t deserve it.
I didn’t have a mother like that — nor was I that kind of mother. I put the “plan” that God had given me last Friday into action this afternoon — and one result was that Daughter #2 firmly reunited with me. JOY She admitted that it was her father behind all the “junk” and that she had only good and kind memories of me. Another JOY.
Lily – That is wonderful news. I picked a bouquet of Naked Lady Lillies this morning and thought of you!!!! Dont take that out of context please…….
I have been able to easily put both N/S/Ps (that were) in my life squarely in the N/S/P category. They both met all “qualifications” perfectly.
I have a much harder time, though, trying to fit my abusive dad into the category. Abusive, but not 100% of the time. Non-apolgetic, (if that’s a word), but no cycles, just the apparent inability to process any emotion other than anger when under stress or perceived stress. Vents anger, places blame, cools off then all is well. No head games involved, no stringing along, no toying. No physical abuse. Hates to be inconvenienced, stressed if required to vary his daily routine. Deep seated need to keep certain image to outside world, but interacts with outside world as little as possible.
Those are the negatives, but he also is very generous with regards to money, and can always be counted on to help with a problem or emergency. Helps us fix our cars and with household repairs. Makes deliveries for my brother’s business for no salary, just for having something to do (he’s in his 60’s and retired). This sometimes creates problems with abusive outbursts toward my brother. He says it’s only about once a month this happens. Somehow he is able to shake it off and is still willing to continue with this arrangement. It would leave me shaking in my boots and cringing for the rest of the day.
So I’m not sure what label would fit him. Generally he seems like a normal, respectable sort of person. I’ve not had to experience one of his outbursts for a few years now. But as a child they were just about daily.
After the discussion with my brother the other day (there are just the two of us in the family), I’ve come to realize that I was the one that internalized everything. He got more of the physical “punishments”. I was constantly analyzing and trying to figure out how to make it “better”, wishing my brother would stop doing the things that set him off, wishing my mother would quit saying things that set him off, and then saying things to coddle him. And of course, trying to be “perfect” so the anger was not directed at me. Which at times antagonized my mother because it was always my brother that received the abuse, therefore she felt I never got mine.
Then she started drinking when I was in high school, so then I ended up playing “counselor” and mediator between the two of them, and maintaining the household chores. For the life of me I have no memory of my brother even being in the family at that time. She went to AA and stopped drinking after a couple years (I think, I can’t remember the time frame).
Anyways, long story the point of which being, I don’t know what to call my father, lol.
Sometimes some of the “cluster B” (personality disorders of various kinds) people have anxiety that will be alievated by an “ourtburst” of anger/rage/tantrum and then they will be “okay” for a while until the anxiety builds up and is again released by another tantrum/rage/anger outburst.
These people are sometimes called “borderline personality disorder” or “histrionic” but can be any number of different labels BUT THE BOTTOM LINE IS they do not experience emotions like the rest of humanity—-once their outburst of anger or rage (no matter how hateful or hurtful it is to someone else) they want to go back to “pretending nothing happened” and if you try to talk about, or work out the hurt that they have done to you, they become even more enraged. You must tip-toe around them to keep from “setting them off”—
Which exact disorder your father has, it really doesn’t matter because he is NOT going to “get better” and will continue to throw tantrums off and on.
My egg donor is very much that way, very controlling and I am No cotnact with her—can’t take the outbursts, won’t tolerate her control, and there is no compromise.
Just keep reading, researching and learning—first we learn about them, then we learn about ourselves, then we heal ourselves, then we live a good life. God bless.
“they want to go back to “pretending nothing happened” and if you try to talk about, or work out the hurt that they have done to you, they become even more enraged. You must tip-toe around them to keep from “setting them off—””
That is exactly my experience. Things only go along reasonably smoothly as long as you don’t step out of line. It doesn’t matter what you do – a wrong expression on your face, the wrong tone in your voice, anything can trigger them. Its like walking around with a live grenade.
Thats the only thing that I don’t get a sense of when reading alot of the comments on this forum —– how totally terrifying these people are.
There is plenty of discussion about the ‘walking on eggshells’, the ‘gaslighting’, the lack of love and all that but, to me that murderous fury which is always simmering just on the surface of these people which is the most terrifying aspect of them.
Every day as a kid I would dread the walk back home from school, my heart sinking and my throat getting drier with every step I got closer to home. I would be a shaking leaf walking in the door right up until I was 19, the feelings of terror, violation and injustice are as strong today (30 years later) as ever.
Just thinking about cycles. About mirroring, and WHY they can’t stand a mask longer than few months. Maybe because they cant make us NOT to see real face. We saw it, and they know it is a matter of time we will start digesting new picture we saw, and mask will slip.
When mask slips, they can see in our eyes how do we see them, they see THEMSELVES, the evil, and i believe it terrifies them. So we are both in denial phase. After the victim saw who they really are, game is over and no need to pretend – now they can hate openly. And they DO.
I dont believe they have no feelings, hate is feeling too, and they do hate us for knowing who they really are.
Dear Bunny,
I think most of us have had that feeling, and I know I talk about “walking on egg shells” to keep from setting them off, is the way I describe it. The terror of doing something to “provoke” them and have them turn on me.
I am sorry you dreaded going home, that is not the way a child should feel coming home from school. And even worse, the child has no way to relate at all to those feelings of not being “safe” and “protected” at home. Home is where a child should WANT to go FOR safety and peace, not stay away from. Every child deserves a protection from that feeling. I’m sorry you didn’t get that either.
Many times growing up in that kind of environment makes us later think that is “normal” behavior and that we can expect that from others, I think it is part of what “sets us up” to be victims of later psychopaths.
I’m glad you are here at LF, this is a great place not only to learn about them, but about ourselves.