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.)
one/joy_step_at_a_time
Katy – if your experience and sense of the totality of the phrase is based in your ocd, then that means i am too, because i completely understand what you are getting at. 🙂
Ox Drover
KatyDid, you may be a weirdo but you’re MY KINDA WEIRDO! LOL
dancingnancies
skylar, in respect to your comment about the other types- yeah there definetely are. I was just about to say more or less the same thing.
These spaths are the type that can fool anyone with their empathetic sounding “tones”.
yep.
MoonDancer
Thanks EB and Katydid….
One thing that makes me uncomfortable is brainiac’s, spouting off there intelligence, bragging about their education, there are alot of book smart people that dont know shit about surviving in this dog eat dog world. A good education is wonderful, dont get me wrong, but when used to impress someone or make oneself feel superior I get bored really quick. Grandiose know it all’s..yuck.
I was giving the clown the benefit of the doubt until it took me on for intertainment.
superkid10
ONE JOY
I suspect maybe you’re like me, you’re still learning from our recent TROLL experience. It’s the first time I was online while it happened. I could be wrong, but it seems to me like the last time it happened, the Troll left, and Donna removed the entire flaming string. So when I went to look at the scene of the accident it had already been cleaned up.
I am still thinking about this CLOWN. I was curious, gave benefit of the doubt (as I always do – silly girl), and then saw it clear as day. I would never have seen it three years ago.
I am glad I had this opportunity. It helps me see my spath more clearly.
No wonder my spath is full of anxiety. He is afraid the mask will slip. He gets this terrified look on his face and runs for the hills. He maintains confusion, constant energy, constant redirection, constant confusion and constant lies. There is no calm peace in which to have a honest, slow, heartfelt conversation where his TRUE SELF could be uncovered.
No wonder he was high anxiety.
No wonder he always ran.
No wonder he didn’t miss me.
No wonder he had random sex with strangers.
No wonder he did hurtful things to me.
This was a fantastic learning experience.
I’d welcome the opportunity to watch a troll any time.
It is a bit amusing.
Superkid
PS. I dont think trolls come in pairs. I think they probably already have several aliases and email addresses, and simply decide to create a second account so they can create the illusion of having somebody support them. More lies.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
edited
one/joy_step_at_a_time
Sk – when i said they come in pairs i meant that it is one person with sockpuppets.
this is very good:’ He maintains confusion, constant energy, constant redirection, constant confusion and constant lies. There is no calm peace in which to have a honest, slow, heartfelt conversation where his TRUE SELF could be uncovered.’
my spath did this in character (muchos sock puppets) – but she was obviously just expressing her mask through the character.
skylar
There are cases of both. Sometimes they come in pairs and sometimes they mascarade. The thing I find most disconcerting is when one spath shows up and another spath that had been lurking without causing trouble for months, suddenly “gets busy”. It’s like a “spath call to arms”. LOL!
Seriously, I saw this happen. There are lead spaths and there are follower spaths. AKA, fence sitters. The fence sitters are evil IMO, but they don’t have the balls to cause trouble. They just wait til trouble hits and then it’s like sharks smelling blood in the water.
I’M VERY VERY AWARE OF THIS WHEN IT IS HAPPENING.
Constantine
.
dancingnancies
…And sometimes they come on here under two pseudonyms at once to act as a buffer to their other pseudonym’s posts. Pretty pathetic, yeah- but what do you expect with a sociopath.