Pathologically self-centered individuals, such as sociopaths or narcissists, often project a level of self-confidence that is pathlogically tremendous. This can be a problem for others who, unlike the sociopath, will be prone to empathy and self-reflection, along with which come self-doubt and hence fluctuating, less dependable levels of confidence.
But the pathologically self-centered individual is often seemingly immune to self-doubt and can thus seem implacably, impressively confident. Why?
The answer is suprisingly simple: When your interest in others is principally, if not entirely, about what you can get, or take, from them; when you lack the capacity for, and/or inclination to, genuine, thoughtful self-reflection; and when the meaning, or purpose, of life is fundamentally reduced to the expectation, and pursuit, of continual gratification, you have a prescription not only for pathological self-centeredness, but its frequent concomitant—pathological self-confidence.
Think about it: for such an individual, it is mostly, and sometimes only, about what he wants. And if he knows what he wants, such an individual will feel entitled to it. And his sense of entitlement becomes self-validating—self-validating, that is, of whatever argument, rationalization, or manipulation brings him closer to his demand.
In other words, the pathologically self-centered individual has something very powerful in his favor—conviction. His is the conviction of his entitlement, of his right to have what he wants—whether it’s agreement, an apology, special attention, cooperation, sex, a favor, forgiveness, you name it.
And he wields his sense of conviction powerfully and persuasively—all the moreso if he’s also articulate and glib.
This explains how a sociopath can look you in the eye and blame you for something—even his victimization of you—and yet you struggle to fully disbelieve him. As I just noted, if he is intelligent and glib, he is in an even better position to erode your sense of reality. He can construct positions, however absurd and even confirming of his sociopathic orientation, that nevertheless have just enough superficial plausability to arrest your attention.
Once you’ve been disarmed, even slightly, his impregnably confident assertions, stemming from his pathological self-centeredness, can have a brainwashing influence.
You wonder if you’re not crazy? The “gaslighting effect” is in full throttle. It is disorienting, literally, to have someone present even a ridiculous proposition, demand, or accusation with unwavering confidence and certitude. And the disorienting effect is magnified exponentially when the assertion is simultaneously packaged in superficially intelligent, coherent, “rational”-sounding language. Confidence in one’s sense of reality can wane, and fail, under this combination assault.
This can explain why sometimes extremely intelligent, thoughtful and self-respecting individuals can actually be at greater risk of accepting and tolerating abuse. It can be a case of the exploiter’s pathologically inflated confidence overwhelming the more self-questioning, self-doubting individual’s reality.
(My use of “he” in this article was for convenience’s sake, and not to suggest that females are not capable of the behaviors described. This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Edit: ABSURD, not upsurd. Oh goodness, now I can’t even seem to spell. How embarrassing. I seriously have been noticing lately how my spelling is going downhill very quickly. I used to be a great speller. See? I am becoming an idiot!
Greenfern and Aloha Traveller,
I can totally relate. I often find myself wondering if it was real. I swear that if I didn’t have our son as proof that this happened, I would swear it was a dream, or a nightmare. It just seems too impossible, horrific and crazy to be real.
Apex,
I think it sounds like you’re being gaslighted. How you describe your feelings is how I felt while I was with the P. I was also far from family and friends when I was with him and had just moved across the country for him. I felt as you describe how you feel, exactly. This is how I felt before the S in my life started abusing me. It all happened so fast, as I was only with him for 8 weeks. It was a very short marriage. I of course had to drag it on for years by going back to him somewhat recently. Anyway, the way you are feeling is just how I felt before he became physically abusive. I think these feelings were my gut’s way of saying, “RUN!!!”. Do you think your gut is telling you to run? If so, please run fast and hard.
I was reading some posts from May on this thread. People asked if the P’s ever brag about the evil they do.
Yes, mine did. But first he will explain how he was wronged or how evil his victim is and how they deserve what he did to them. THEN he will go into detail about his ingenious plan to serve up justice. Guess, what? I RECORDED IT. He was telling me how he was going to punish the cops for “spiking him” when my neighbor (his girlfriend) called me in as a missing person. So she calls the cops and tells them that he admitted to killing me and having my body in garbage bags. They all show up, they call my phone, leave various messages, the shit hits the fan, Seattle police goes to my parents house they make a big deal about it and then, abruptly, the cops decide that it was a joke, so they leave. I gave the recording to the sherrif 2 months ago and he has not bothered to call me back. The cops were in on the whole “joke”.
Jillsmith,
PTSD causes “injuries” (for lack of a better word) in the language parts of the brain…I got where I could not READ (no joke) not even a sentence, short term memory problems, etc. so a great deal of what you may be experiencing in feeling “dull” or “dumb” (for lack of better words) may be simply the symptoms of PTSD.
Rapid eye movement therapy is the BEST therapy I have found for PTSD symptoms—not a total fix, but a BIG help and fairly rapidly compared to just talk therapy (which can I think make PTSD worse at times.) I am also reading a book on relaxation and imaging by a Phd who seems like she knows what she is talkign about both scientifically and emotionally so don’t feel so “dumb” (or whatever the feeling is) I know it made me feel ‘better” to realize that people as bright and smart and educated as Dr. Liane Leedom and donna and others here were also “duped” by these creatures and “fooled” as badly as I was—so we are in good company. I bet you have noticed how “smarter than the average bear” the bloggers are here on LF.
Oxy: I did NOT know PTSD causes ‘injuries’ to the language part of the brain!!! Thanks for posting this!!!..as I am a writer. On an assignment for a national magazine once -I was talking with the editor…I looked at the word extrapolate and did not even recognize it for a second or so!!! Later I sat and thought- what is happening to me. I had other times I did this with other words. I no longer have this problem since I am out of the hell and pretty far along in healing, thank God!
As far as us feeling dumb because we got conned or duped>I read in Dr. Robert Hare’s book: Without Conscience that even he got fooled and he wrote the psychopathy checklist widely used to diagnose psychopathy! And…some of his staff got fooled too and they were interviewing the p’s to begin with. One female got conned by one of the male p’s she was interviewing…and started flirting back with him! So…hey, if they can get conned what chance do the rest of us stand? No need for us to feel ‘stupid’. I did…but not anymore. I feel RELIEF to be out of it!
I don’t know if it was on this thread or not….
But lot’s of us have been in the position of worrying about ‘her’….the new supply.
Thinking the S’s are now in a wonderfully fullfiling relationship…Think again….
This article is a good one…..
You think YOU are so special!
http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/manipulator/special.shtml
Erin that’s a great link, I have read it before and it REALLY helped, I dont know whether I found it through here… but oh, its good to go back and read it again, just to ‘top up’:)
People on the whole dont change their basic behaviour a whole bunch and S+Ps definately do not, its worth reminding ourselves.x
Erin,
Thankis for posting that link again. It IS a great one.
One of the things that GRIEF DOES is to MAKE US VULNERABLE. It does this in several ways.
Even if you are not in PTSD, just “ordinary grief” puts you in a vulnerable spot, plus the STRESS of grief does a number on you too, so many of us, and THAT INCLUDES ME, look for a “painless” way out—-and another relationship will APPEAR to be one. Sometimes a person will “luck out” and find another good relationship, BUT it is a “well known FACT” (notice I put that in quotes) that a “widow” (and that also incluses anyone who has lost a relationship) is VULNERABLE for quite some time.
Boy O Boy! Was I EVER vulnerable! Grabbed up by ther first passing Psychopath! He was (I thought) going to rescue me from my loneliness, my sadness and make me feel like a princess the rest of my life!
Twice, in my case and in my son Ds (he was IN the crashh and was burned) the language problem and short term memory problems were SO PROFOUND and so IMMEDIATE that it didn’t take us long to realize WHAT the problem was. Literally couldn’t read even a sentence, and we are both big readers.This inability to read was almost total for several months, then slowly got better. We both read and read a lot now, but I do find that there are parts I have trouble remembering but can remember the over all concepts (I think) on most of what I read.
My word finding ability has not totally come back however, my spelling is still not back, and I find myself using “smaller words” when I write. I still have a LOT of trouble with remembering names and frequently can’t remember them at all for actors etc.
I am no longer any “good” at all in playing word games like “Wheel of fortune” and I was very good at that, and I watched Jeapordy last night for the first time in years and I would not have answered 1 out of 10 questions, where I used to be able to answer 99% of them. I still can’t do my “series of 100 numbers” repetition, and that was never a problem at all. so there are definitely some difficulties that were SUDDEN and very PROFOUND and noticeable in my use of language and retrieval of language.
There has been great improvement in the five years since my husband’s sudden, traumatic, and accidental death, but I realize there are still remnents of these injuries/changes in my way of processing language.
The major chaos and stress I was under during the year preceeding my husband’s death (my father was very ill) and after my husband’s death with the chaos of the P-attacks etc. I realize that truly I have only been working hard to recover for a couple of years and that’s a lot of trauma and stress and fear to over come in only a couple of years, so (pat-pat—–that’s the sound of me patting myself on the back! LOL) over all I ithink I have done well.
The NC is so important to our recovery I think because it keeps us from having NEW INJURIES.
If you will read back through a lot of the posts here EVERYTIME someone breaks NC they come back here in PAIN because of breaking NC and getting a NEW EMOTIONAL INJURY. It is like tearing the scab off the wound. It can’t heal like that!
Understanding “what is happening” emotionally, with the grief, the new injuries, etc. does help me some in putting it together and knowing what happened about my lost language skills and memory also reassures me somewhat, just that I’m not becoming brain dead.
Oxy, Its really interesting what you say about PTSD effecting the brain like that.
Since the D&D and within the devastation that resulted,I have found it really difficult to concentrate generally, but I noticed that I had began to stutter when speaking to others,quite makedly, and my concentration was shot. I am still finding reading slow and difficult still,I find myself re-reading the same sentence over and over again, but I put it down to depression and just keep ‘practising’.
But I guess the depression is part of the PTSD.
The stuttering was really weird though, never happend to me before, felt like ‘nerves’, but happend with my children even, so looking back it was very strange.
I had an interesting conversation with my Niece that ties in with this maybe?(bit of background) To cut a long story short, she is the daughter of my ‘imaginary sister'( I was told my memories of her living with us were false she was taken into care when I was young) and has been in and out of care her whole life, Her mother (my sister) displays all the signs of being a sociopath and I also believe some munchausen(sp?) symptoms.
Niece is an incredibly well adjusted woman now, I think being taken into care and having the support of counsellor and social services saved her life and sanity.
Anyway, waffle waffle, my point is: she was telling me that when she was a child she felt like she was living in a fog, that she didnt know who she was, which is very familiar to me, but at one point she LOST the ability to speak. Completely, for about 6 months, when she was able to speak again she only spoke in ‘spoonerisms’ – probably about 7 or 8 years old.
So does the brain shut down systems when under extreme stress (PTS), in order to conserve itself, and speech/language / reading is one of them… but it can be remedied right, she’s totally fine with regard to that now, and I am getting better every day… just partially brain dead;)xx