The “sociopath,” boiled down, is someone who routinely does, and takes, what he wants, unconcerned with the impact of his behavior on others. Nothing in my mind defines his essence more than this concise, factual description. He is rather unique, and thus diagnosable as a sociopath, to this precise extent.
Sure, we’ve discussed this before, but it always merits, in my view, fresh reconsideration. And so let me add, I think, an important caveat: The sociopath doesn’t necessarily feel he has the “right” to what he’s pursuing, or planning to take.
Rather, he doesn’t feel he needs the right. He just needs the want.
Simply wanting what he wants, with or without the right to it, meets his standard for laying claim to his quarry.
Because after all, you may ask the sociopath, “Did you have a ”˜right’ to take that? To steal it?” And he may answer, with intellectual honesty, “No. I realize, intellectually, that I had no right to what I took.”
Which gets to the nub, the essence, of his condition: His” right” to what he wanted wasn’t relevant, didn’t even enter his thinking; rather, his wanting it was the sole factor necessary to support his comfortable, non-conflictual pursuit of it.
To sum up, the sociopath’s disordered essence is captured best in his pattern of taking, without remorse, what intellectually he may very well know doesn’t belong to him—he has no right to it—yet he takes it anyway.
To be clear: when I say that the sociopath intellectually can understand he may lack the “right” to what he’s taking, I’m not suggesting that he lacks a sense of entitlement. Quite the contrary: his sense of entitlement is all the more astounding for his intellectual awareness that he may lack the “right” to what he wants, yet still takes it. In doing so, he is exhibiting self-entitlement, and attitudes of contempt, in their gaudiest, most audacious forms.
One always must beware of oversimplifying complicated concepts. The sociopath’s disorder is complex on many levels. Yet on some levels the sociopath’s mentality isn’t so complicated at all. In some respects it’s pretty simple.
In this article I suggest the sociopath is, essentially, that strange, disconcerting, disruptive individual with a history, and pattern, of taking from others what doesn’t belong to him with an impoverished sense of shame and remorse. When you confront an individual with this history and pattern, you are dealing with a sociopath.
What he takes, and even how he takes it, are less relevant considerations that that he takes, with no right.
(This article is copyrighted © 2011 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is strictly for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the behaviors and attitudes discussed.)
Hi Newlife-
I dont want to throw a curveball your way however selling anything these days (depending on location) will in itself take time.
For what it’s worth..my objective opinion would be to sell both. Since the market is so slow it will in ensence take time. Opt to sell expecting a grace period of 3-5 months for a new buyer. Put it on the market asap to get things flowing and see where things are headed….nothing will happen overnight so there will be time to “change your mind” if necessary. This however will get the ball rolling and possibly prevent a more detrimental financial crisis.
Expect a fight…its better to leave with some cash as oppossed to no cash. Do not allow him to keep it…get your money 50/50 even if it does not seem fair or right. I know this does not help you.
I understand about being cramped and losing it all…Jr. and I are in 400 sq ft of pure heaven. LOL. It is however clean and most importantly SAFE!!
Katy, it was interesting how many people knew there was a “spath in the house”. Some knew even without KNOWING. Coping’s reaction was classic WTF? though she didn’t recognize it as such, her instincts were correct.
Gray rock is the correct response, but sometimes it’s difficult not to respond to the outrageous posts of the spath. In that case, maybe the solution is to discuss the spath as if it wasn’t there. You know, talk about it’s outrageous behavior but never actually address the spath.
I also like that nobody answered it’s questions about how we knew it was a spath.
Then there was ErinBrock’s brilliant recipe and comedy posts. It made my night. The spaths like to come in here and disrupt our comraderie. In the past, the blog would shut down, but it doesn’t have to, we can just talk around the spath. To paraphrase Superkid, “the best way to insult a spath is to treat it like the non-person that it is.” They can’t stand that.
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Yeah… and if they’re not getting what they want… what do they do? Stomp their feet like a little kid not getting his supply immediately. Then comes a statement that is intended to reflect their ‘superiority’ ( HA! barf. ) Predictable would be an understatement. That shows what they really are- how can you consider yourself powerful if you can’t even control your impulses? That’s a piss poor weak individual to me. The mask has fallen off, and we have witnessed the bald little man behind the curtain- who is actually the exact opposite of who he proports himself to be- absolutely powerless. And so the snake slithers away. Congrats ya’ll.
“Gray rock is the correct response, but sometimes it’s difficult not to respond to the outrageous posts of the spath.”
I have found this also to be true……and they do ‘up the ante’ with outrage and accusations and disagreement, to get attention……..and what has helped me….in ‘real life’….is to notice the compulsion I FEEL…..and go in an opposite direction. This is difficult to do and takes some practice…..I refer to it as my ‘high road’. We don’t have to feel stifled…..or silenced by this……just change our thoughts….it doesn’t matter to ‘them’.
None of it matters, our words, points, feelings or whatever will NEVER be heard anyways……is it THAT important we just get the ‘words’ out? NO……we speak and converse to be ‘heard’.
Toxics may as well have been born without ears also…..they don’t hear!
I’ve made a commitment to myself to (when I notice the compelled feelings hitting me to speak) to just SHUT UP…..or redirect focus…..shake it up and take my power back.
Trust me…..we all feel compelled to just add our 2Cents, however ‘short’ our response is…..but it doesn’t matter.
REact with matter…….
Talking around or ignoring and carrying on ‘around’ a toxic is effective……very effective. They are ‘far too important’ to be ‘left out’…….
Get the dig….by leaving them out!
So…..did I ever tell ya about the dog and the spath……..
BADABING-BADABOOM! 🙂
XXOO
EB
Amen EB. “…And neither is this a narcissistic injury.”
EB is absolutely RIGHT—when we feel the MOST TEMPTATION to respond, we should NOT RESPOND at all…..even for those of us “far down the healing road” it is STILL HARD to make ourselves do what we KNOW IS RIGHT….EB took the “high road” on the deal with being excluded from her uncle’s funeral by her “female parental unit” and her “aunt”—-and it paid off in the end.
I have not discussed it here on the blog but last week I had an encounter with a very demanding narcissistic person who then SMEARED me to others for no apparent reason than to hurt me, blasted me to my face, and then said “oh, I’m sorry I hurt you, let’s be friends.”
I DID NOT REPLY to any of their e mails, but BOY DID I WANT TO, oh, how I WANTED TO!!!!!!—just as much as I have ever wanted to tell someone off I wanted to tell that narcissisticly entitled demanding and lying person just exactly what I thought of them. But I realized that would ONLY FEED them.
When the recent troll came through here, I got a “spidey” sense fairly early on. The very name itself was a tip off actually, and the argumentative tone of being the “authority” on psychopathy since they were a “student’ of psychology….well, having been a veteran of several P-trolls who came here pretending to be wanting to “learn” etc. there were just some GUT FEELINGS that made the bells ring.
For one thing, if they were here to LEARN they sure were trying to establish themselves as an EXPERT…. next, the nasty comments made to others, and the dismissive ways of talking to others was a big tip off, and as much as I WANTED to reply, I didn’t…I “talked around” or “posted around” them, purposely not replying….because giving them ATTENTION, even negative attention is FEEDING THE PSYCHOPATHS and no matter what the “excuse” we use for feeding them, it is COUNTER PRODUCTIVE to the peace of the blogs.
I can understand a newbie responding to them, but in order to KEEP THIS PLACE PEACEFUL, we ALL have to work together to “police” that peace when we have trolls pop by. The REPORT ABUSIVE COMMENT button, and the e mails to the “head gardener” Donna are ALWAYS AVAILABLE….and until she is able to Pull the weeds out of the garden by blocking their access, then we have to HOLD THE LINE WITH GRAY ROCKS AND POTTED PLANTS and just pretend they are not there and go on with your posting, ignoring them TOTALLY.
What makes LoveFraud the peaceful place it is most of the time is the “ownership” felt by all of us here in keeping it free of flaming and trolls. Donna can’t be on the blog 24/7 so we have to hold the line. Every time someone comes on here like this and causes a mess of chaos, we need to use it to learn and to educate (especially new posters) that this is an open forum and anyone can read or post here (unless blocked) but even then they can come back with a new name and new IP address and start in again. So we must WATCH for that. Some of them also pretend to be very pitiful victims too….but they soon out themselves with their lack of convincing display of FAKE “empathy.”
So, let’s all stick together and keep this blog supportive and weed out the bad seeds that blow in from time to time! (((hugs)))
hi EB – i have posted to 2 or 3 trolls of varying types since i have been on lf. I have had a serious hoot at times with posting around above and ‘smiley facing’ it. I report people to Donna the first,wiff I get. Usually the first or second post I see.
They trolls don’t ‘bother’ me. I don’t often feel compelled to engage, just to protect the blog and posters. Mostly i don’t have to grey rock (active choice), they just bore me so intensely that i don’t even see them after I report them.
And it is ALWAYS a learning opp. ALWAYS.
…and from this one we get the great line from Sky: first rule of fight club is…. snort.
My fave is still the one night troll who called me a ‘stupid *c*’ – still chuckling over that one.
EB and Ox, thanks for that.
I am a newbie here and did end up feeding the shark. Next time I will hit the “report abusive comment” marker. I completely overlooked that feature! I thought we had to somehow bore it until it left. Good to know that Donna can just pull them out of the garden like that if we notify her. I noticed that the clown said it would come back as another persona. That was one of the last things it said before Donna yanked it up. The nerve! And….let’s just keep this in mind in case we do see a similar monkey in here in the coming days.
Ox, the NAME was what immediately got my attention as well! Remember Mike Myers? Yet again, a name that makes you raise your eyebrows. I came in a bit later, so by that time, the more obvious comments were already out in the open, so it was terribly obvious at that point. Starting with the very FIRST comment I read from that poster (a later comment at the bottom of a thread) my mind immediately said: Spath. Without hesitancy.
Learning experience….YES! It’s actually nice to reinforce just how predictable a run-in with a spath is. It helps us to find new resolve in our skills for dealing with these situations. What I mean is that my ability to spot the spath, my awareness that I shouldn’t speak to it despite my feelings wanting me to argue back, and my instant self-doubt which made me feel like I was already heading down the crazy train are all things that I recognize for what they are! I am no longer sitting in a mess asking myself, “What the HECK is going on here?” I was immediately able to say, “Here we go. This is a textbook reminder of how a spath negatively effects you.” As Sky said, it really IS THEM. It’s actually VALIDATING to encounter a spath in here, to predict what they will likely do next and how I will likely feel soon, and then watch it all happen. This tells me that I am learning and reinforces some of the truths that I am trying to retrain myself to see….aka undoing the gas-lighting that messed up my ability to see clearly. For example, when it said, “I won’t be coming back,” I immediately knew it would be back…..and, in fact, I felt that it was oddly threatening to be more present. When my suspicion was proven correct, I gave my “gut” some more credit and a pat on the back, and my trust in my own instincts solidified. Getting back to that core is a good feeling.
One/Joy, you have way…you don’t beat around the bush 🙂 I can imagine why you might have been the one called a ‘stupid *c*’ by a previous visitor. I’m sure you weren’t being subtle and indirect either, hehe. Kung-fu!
And the good thing about this learning experience is that we don’t have to experience being run over by a truck before finally ADMITTING to ourselves that we’re indeed in the presence of a sociopath. Gut feeling? Move those feet! One foot in front of the other. No “poking and prodding” the monster to see if it’s real. You know where that’ll get ya. Straight into the pits of hell.
I also think this is an appropriate moment to recommend Gavin DeBecker’s book, The Gift of Fear for those of you that haven’t picked it up yet. Our intuition is in place for a reason. Listen to it.
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