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.)
Haha, yeah, most of the time I find it enough of a chore just being ME, so that I can’t even conceive of the motivation for taking on OTHER identities besides this one!
sisterhood- I want to make clear that I wasn’t referring to you when I made that comment. I know you are not a puppet. In addition to that, there have been psychos trolling LF before, under various pseudonyms. That said, I hope you’ll reconsider your decision to leave Lovefraud if it is solely based on the recent events that have occurred here. This doesn’t happen often, and I’m sorry that you were witness to it. I understand you may be under a lot of stress right now, post-traumatic/anxiety and/or otherwise. Best
sisterhood – dont go away…the tone will change here in a day or so I HOPE.
delete
Dear Sisterhood,
Don’t feel that way. I haven’t seen too many of your posts, but from what I have seen, you seem kind and genuine. It sounds like you simply share the “hypersensitivity” thing that most of us here are saddled with. However, I think that feelings of being “criticized” for what you post is entirely your own perception, and not anyone else’s. Anyhow, I hope you feel welcome here. I’m glad to chat with you whenever I’m around, and maybe if you write more about your ex (whenever you feel comfortable, that is) everyone can give you the “think tank consensus” regarding how high he ranks on the sociopathy scale.
As far as it not being “rocket science,” what I meant was that people here have a right to analyze their own situations and don’t always need to qualify statements with “I’m not a psychotherapist” etc. That is a given. But as I was saying, if you LIVE this, and then study it in some depth for several years, well, you don’t need to kow-tow or kiss anyone’s ass if they happen to tell you that you don’t know what you’re talking about! Because most of the people here know quite well what they’re talking about.
Of course, that might not be true for some of the more abstruse technicalities of this disorder that, say, seven or eight PHD’s fling back at each other in obscure and otherwise unread journals. But I’m not talking about that. I simply mean recognizing them “in the wild.” (Hopefully this doesn’t sound arrogant on my part, because I don’t think it’s that at all. More like the French notion of “amour-propre,” i.e., proper self-respect.)
This place is a pressure cooker for the hypersensitive. And that’s because we’re constantly discussing the most vile and disgusting aspects of human nature. So my advice is to take things in small doses. Read a little each day, and then go and do normal, healthy, “in the real world” type of activities. If you feel “panicky” or whatever, by all means, take a break. But don’t leave because you don’t feel welcome or unwanted. ‘Cause I don’t think that’s the case at all.
Anyhow, don’t try to figure everything out in one night! Go take a nice hot bath, get a good night of sleep and then come back when your are ready. Like I said, it will be nice to hear more of your story.
Sisterhood……I want to ‘second’ Constatines post!
And add:
I relate to your post above…..at one point early on at LF, I wondered the same thing…..it’s about ‘knowing’ who we are…..but right now….you’ve been beat down and second guess what you ‘know’.
YOU must take care of yourself….and do whatever it is YOU deem you must. Either temporary OR long term.
Anxiety sucks……but I will tell you……there IS always something to be learned by everything we experience in this thing we call life!
Don’t ever doubt yourself…..and don’t take ANYTHING PERSONALLY! Others don’t matter! Don’t let anyone project anything on you…..and most of all DON”T OWN others behaviors.
I may have missed something on the blog…..as I was just trying to divert and protect my LF friends from the freak show. (by providing my own freak show! LOL)
Lf is public…..we are on the web……that’s why we don’t post our names, addresses or identifying info……it’s about taking care of ourselves and each other here at LF…..we can only control just so much of who comes here to participate and we can hope all’s intentions are pure…..and when one or some of us see’s it differently….we go into action and report and hope to make it known to other posters posting at that time……it’s the hints we do….and it is best not to addrss them directly….but covertly, so other members of LF get it and post ‘around’ these freaks. BUT…..we can’t control who wants to come on and play games with us…….in the beginning. That’s just the reality of it.
Just like a minister can’t keep bad people out of his church. We mustn’t assume ALL people ANYWHERE ARE GOOD! There is no real safe haven 100% of the time…..that’s the cold hard reality. We must remain vigilant!
WE are very protective of each other….and you are one of us darlen!
It’s hard reading words and feelings rather than being in others presence. Getting the body language and all that goes along with comments. I found that even during the times I felt someone may have been referring to ‘me’ in a post……I reverted back to what I “KNOW” about myself or my intentions. OR, I just flat out asked? It’s a weird balance to strike…..we don’t want to appear paranoid or attacking…..but we want to know….was that directed at me?! LF’rs are very good at catching on to hypersensativity issues…..and girlfriend….we’ve all had em! You are NO different! 🙂
I promised myself I was going to NOT appologize for something I didn’t do…..ever again, after the spath. I spent 28 year appologizing.
Sorry comes out of my mouth ONLY when I am the one who made a mistake…..I won’t OWN others shit-only my own!!!
You’ll get through this…..and you’ll learn about yourself from this…..I know you can’t see it now….but it’ll come.
There is value in everything we experience…..good, bad, evil!
Just know…..we are here.
Don’t forget to Breathe!
XXOO
EB
Constantine:
You write with such eloquence…..Thank you for your participation here!!!!
What a value and a voice of reason!
🙂
I agree with ya EB, for a straight man he just a darn nice guy..
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sisterhood,
LF is like any other place in the world. spaths infiltrate. That said, it’s a bit safer than other places because it’s a blog. You can escape when you need to.
Don’t feel bad about what happened. be glad that this place afforded you an opportunity to observe without being in physical danger. Rather than feeling persecuted because we are vigilant about the spath infiltrators, take a moment to feel gratitude and learn how you can protect yourself by understanding the RED FLAGS. We are all about learning how to be safe when the world is not.