Lovefraud recently received a letter from a woman who we’ll call Valerie. She met her husband, who we’ll call Dylan, at age 18, and has been with him for seven years. She thought they were happy together in their wonderful home with their family of pets.
Suddenly Dylan started acting erratically. He said he didn’t want to be with Valerie any more. He picked fights. She asked Dylan to leave, but made it clear that she was willing to do whatever was necessary to help him. So he left, and wouldn’t tell her where he was. Eventually, Valerie’s intuition told her to check her husband’s Facebook page, where she found Dylan’s love letters to another woman.
Then Valerie found how Dylan described himself on another website. Here’s what he wrote:
My name is Dylan and I believe in Chaos, destruction and murder. I will contradict myself but I don’t think that should make me a hypocrite. I hone my strengths and hide my weaknesses because only the strong will survive. I lie, cheat and steal. But only if it’s the most intelligent plan of action; & only the stupid get caught. I’m fighting a personal rebellion I can’t justify. I’m losing my mind, my friends and my morals with each passing day, but each day I pass leads me closer to finding myself. I would rather live my life in surrender to temptation than to deny my natural instincts. I never hurt those who do not hurt me first, I don’t believe in physical confrontation but as in eastern philosophy I am trained to engage in it, if for nothing more than the practice of strengthening the bond between mind and body.
I know who I am, but not where I am, or why I am here. I find Art to be the only voice of reason in a place otherwise inhabited by counter-production. I promote sex, but lack emotion, I hate addicts but I believe in drugs, I make music but I destroy everything else. I bore easily but I am doomed to repeat myself.
My name is Dylan and this is only the beginning.
Whoa! Did this guy just write the sociopath manifesto?
I don’t know if Dylan is truly describing himself—apparently he’s got some kind of hardcore band and perhaps he wrote the above statement for its shock value. Still, is it possible to even come up with these ideas if he didn’t experience the state of mind that they imply?
Fundamentally different
The truly scary thing about sociopaths is that they are fundamentally different from the rest of us. They do not want what we want. They do not value what we value.
Normal human beings want affection, cooperation and achievement. We want to care about others and contribute to life. Sociopaths want power, control and sex, and they’ll destroy anyone and anything to get what they want.
But sociopaths look like us and appear to act like us. That’s why they are so hard to identify. It’s also why people who have not experienced their manipulation up close and personal find it so difficult to believe us. The uninitiated—those lucky souls who have not been devastated by a sociopath—have yet to learn that there are people in the world for whom proclamations of love, truth and promises are nothing but tactics in a power game.
Everything changes
This is the bottom line: Dealing with a sociopath changes everything. Normal human courtesies do not apply. Social protocols do not apply. Rules do not apply. Contracts do not apply. Laws do not apply.
If we find that we are interacting with a sociopath, the best thing we can do is get the person out of our lives. When that is not possible, we need to be on mental red alert at all times and understand that anything the person says may be a lie. We need to know that for the sociopath, we are not a friend, or a lover, or a relative, or a co-worker. For a sociopath, all we are is a target.
I just re-read what I wrote – and I have to say I am not very good at communicating and tend to be over optimistic in times of trouble. I can see how it rattled you Rosa. I am definately not walking about cock-a-hoop about my new insight into the existance of evil, but I definately know more than I did before. Mainly down to reading people’s stories here. I think I was trying to say something about how these people are different, they’re not running around naked or foaming at the mouth with a big label with ‘MAD’ strung round their necks… those are not so scary…(flippant again)… but, for me, I have learnt something very important about what to lookfor in people, feelings and instincts to take notice of… maybe I couldnt spot one a mile off…but I’ll certainly listen to the sirens.Somthing like that.
Blueskies: You’re making a good point — once we understand that these REALLY scary people are “not running around naked or foaming at the mouth with a big label with ’MAD’ strung round their necks” ” we’ve taken a huge step forward.
The fact that you’ve learned to look for more subtle signs, and to pay attention to your feelings and instincts puts you miles ahead in the “game.”
What scares me, though, and Rosa might have been hinting at this, is when people read just enough to get a grip on their own situation, and then they think they know all the “red flags,” all the possible signs, and they are now “S/P-proof”!
I don’t get the feeling that you are that (dangerously!) certain of yourself. Even professionals who study psychopaths for a living can be fooled. None of us should ever assume that we are S/P-proof. We can hope, though, that we’d recognize one sooner, and know that we need to GET AWAY! (Or, in Rosa’s case, stay close by to watch over her niece and brother . . .)
Blueskies”
I did not mean to upset you.
I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.
If a psychopath heard you say that you could “spot it from a mile off”, they would make you eat those words.
:)x Rosa and Rune.x
Dangerously certain of myself? I wish!
Like I said, I dont think I word things right.
All of our situations are different, no I may not be able to protect myself from now on, but I have to say I am pissed at being told that I have never encountered a s/p.
sigh.
Dear Blueskies,
This is my take…with calmness, with a sense of total understanding of self-worth, self-respect, and self-trust….the interaction I have with a potential psychopath will be SIGNIFICANTLY reduced going further.
The red flags I am aware of put a percentage of them in the bin upon HELLO and brief conversation…
The red flags I have yet to be made aware of are being learned as I go and thus putting me way ahead of the game of where I was having no knowledge or preparedness about becoming a target. I am learning the tools and I am learning the ways in which I can self-protect while choosing stop. change direction.
I respectfully you Rosa that if a psychopath heard me say I could spot it from a mile off that they would TRY to make me eat those words…but if a Psychopath (S/N or Disorderd person or bad person) came close enough to my radar and started oozing with unusual kindness and bizarre humor or engage in one upping me or quickly trying to romance me or ever treated me badly or left me feeling awkward or uncomfortable or raised a hand, etc. etc. (any of the A-Z numerous red flags) I and MANY OF US would be able to spot him this time around faster than I could say SEE YA PSYCHO….
Question is how prepared are we to act on the red flags… think we are all getting more and more prepared with each passing day. Am I vulnerable to another personal hit from a psychopath — I guess anything is possible — but this time Im better prepared and unless I let my guard down and lose my self-awareness i dont believe Ill ever be in a fetal position again over a toxic relationship…because I wont be getting involved in one! And Rosa I think you would be able to react differently to one now too :))
First of all, Donna acknowledged that there could be other reasons that Dylan wrote what he did. But the point is, regardless of why DYLAN wrote it, shock value or what, it is a damn good representation of what a sociopath would write. Doesn’t mean he is one, as Donna acknowledges and some of us could write a good imitation of the rantings of a sociopath because unfortunately we’ve come to recognize a little bit about how they think. But it IS a great representation of how different they are from normal humans. And until you get that, really, really, really get that, I don’t think a person understands sociopathy.
On April 28th, Sandra from another site sent out in her newsletter a list of all the ways scientists are discovering that sociopaths are different from the rest of us in physical ways. The list had 39 individual items, such as “The amygdale in psychopaths have less reaction to fight-flight responses, causes them to feel restless, spurring them on to raising hell just for the excitement value.” These items have been documented by tests with MRI imaging, controlled studies, etc.
The P/S/N I was involved with had a sister with Down’s Syndrome. I used to teach retarded children and she is the only retarded child I met who was consistently aggressive, angry, etc. I now think it was a result of living with her P/S/N brother.
I also now think of him as just as damaged physically as she is. Emotionally retarded doesn’t quite capture it. But to meet him, at first you would not suspect that. A successful doctor, has made mega millions, very very smart. But now when I think of him, I feel so much sadness for him. Much more so than his sister, I think he never had a shot at being a fully functioning human being. That has ultimately replaced all the hurt and then anger I felt toward him….a raging anger! But now I truly feel sorry for him, but would never lift a finger to help him. Futile. Completely futile.
One point I keep making, I know, I know, because it took me so long to get it, is that we MUST always keep in mind that the sociopath is bad news for everyone. EVERYONE. Sometimes the S doesn’t cause problems for someone because the S is sucking up to them for something they want, and they get it and just leave. Like a job recommendation. But if they choose to target someone, it WILL be something that person has to deal with.
BUT now that we know there are S’s out there, there ARE things we can do to better protect ourselves. And yes, many of us on lovefraud share traits that made us an easier and jucier target for a S. Some of those traits are STRONG good traits. And some are vulnerabilities that we can now work to resolve or protect. But the point is, in a world of good people like we have on lovefraud, our vulnerabilities would not matter, because no one would try to take advantage of them.
JAH!! :))
says..
“But the point is, in a world of good people like we have on lovefraud, our vulnerabilities would not matter, because no one would try to take advantage of them.”
But the problem is I thought the world was full of good people…so my lesson was to work on my vulnerabilities across the board as it only helps me in healthy and unhealthy environments… It is true to continue to be ourselves and all that we are with everyone…while being consciously aware of our vulnerabilities and what we have learned from our experience with an extox and carry those tools with us for life…
Something so many keep pointing out is how different they are from normal humans…so in that sense I do believe… (oh no here i go again… 🙂 but I do believe some of my ex-tox “ways” were “ways” even he had no clue and was confused about my sudden reaction or comment to something he might have done — because they are so different they dont do what we expect them to do — and they dont necessarily know whats expected (barring the learned behaviors and common sense stuff that we all know…sometimes his lack of knowledge in social skills would get to me in my most vulnerable ways…so NOW THAT I KNOW…I dont let it get to my vulnerable area… does that make sense? Its almost reverse psychology in a sense — I am aware x is unhealthy so he is no longer on the same playing field as me )and I know its IRRELEVANT whether he knows how bad his choices are or not…Im just saying when you REALLY KNOW AND HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING ABOUT THESE CREATURES…they affect your strong and good traits and weaknesses less and less…and you just learn to stop and change direction.
blueskies, you express yourself wonderfully and I have no doubt that you have encountered a P/S. It is rare to be mistaken about that, I think. If anything, most of us tend to give the person the benefit of the doubt, and hope it is something curable.
I have a relative that I think is a S. Even at birth, she would go rigid when picked up. She is a man eater. She is a dare devil way beyond normal, doing brave feats. Most people who meet her admire her tremendously. But she is an S. No doubt about it. ARRGGHHH. Any man I have seen her get involved with thinks he has died and gone to heaven. And I’m never close enough to warn them, and I doubt they would listen. She is a very seductive package, but she leaves them all in a fetal position on the floor, often their careers ruined too.
learnthelesson….You nailed it I think!