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
SKY – you said best thing is to talk about it like it isn’t here. well, that is what we are doing, isn’t it? 😉
somehow this experience seems like it was different for the blog as a whole. teeth were bared (actively by posts or grey rock) and the challenge was immediate by a number of posters. we were very very solid. dupes: 1 spaths: 0
skylar
Hens,
Don’t feel threatened, you already KNOW I was talking about you!! 🙂
Just KIDDING.
Nobody needs to feel threatened because the unmasking has happened off blog. Then the poster disappears from the blog.
The evil clown was such an obvious spath, out the gate. It takes audacity to come on to a support site for victims of spaths and demand that we show empathy for the “poor spaths” and then saying that they probably aren’t spaths at all. I busted a gut when she suggested that my exspath was probably aspergers. LOL! Then, to suggest that calling them spaths is slanderous is beyond the pale because WE are the ones who have been slandered repeatedly by the evil spaths’ LIES and she tries to silence our only outlet where the TRUTH is believed.
I almost feel sorry for the evil clown because she’s a failed spath who can’t keep her mask on to save her life.
skylar
One,
How is your mom today? any good news?
ElizabethBennett
Sisterhood-I really hope that you won’t leave LF. The spaths come and go after they confuse us and piss us off for awhile. All of us at different times have been triggered and gone into anxiety attacks. I have been here for awhile and sometimes I still can’t pick up on the trolls like some of the long timers like Oxy, ErinB, Sky, and Onestep. A lot of times they “get it” first and then I gray rock along with everyone else. Yes, occasionally I have also poked them with a stick too. I try not to do that though.
This one actually picked up on the whole gray rock thing and knew what we were doing and still stuck around causing trouble. That is when I knew for sure that she wasn’t just being a pain in the butt. How dare she think that we should have empathy for spaths and then talk about how they can be cured. I don’t know how many spaths/narcs would go to therapy-as she says, since they don’t think there is anything wrong with them. The N’s in my life think that there’s something wrong with us instead-since we have feelings and emotions. The one in my life has chastized me on many occasions for my emotions. I am a sensitive person and I wouldn’t trade who I am for anything-even though it makes life harder for me sometimes. We can’t change who we are, just who we choose to associate with, and I avoid her as much as I can.
When my N who brought me here called me to “get closure” he told me that he was in therapy. I know that if he was, he only went as condition that his crazy wife would take him back, and he also probably went to see if he could fool the shrink for his own entertainment. I just cannot believe that anyone who was truly ever spathed or narcd could possibly believe that they could be cured.
ElizabethBennett
Yeah Sky, I could hardly believe that one too-aspergers? You’re spath was slowly trying to poison you too death. I know someone, an N btw, who has an asperger’s daughter and she couldn’t hurt a fly.
darwinsmom
“I just cannot believe that anyone who was truly ever spathed or narcd could possibly believe that they could be cured.”
To see that happen, you’d have to hang around for a lifetime, and who wants to do that…. shudder
ElizabethBennett
They are always going to be like they are and they don’t seem to dimish with age either. They get even more set in their fake personas. The N next door is going to be 62 on Monday and she has no hope in this world to be anything different than what she is. Everytime I see her turn on the charm with the other neighbors, my heart is crying out to say, “don’t ya’ll see what she is?” I don’t see how people can’t spot the fakeness and superficiality from a mile away. She calls herself my friend, but she doesn’t have ANY real friends, they are all superficial acquaintances that she calls friends.
Ana
Hi Folks,
I’ve been off the blog for two days, boy, I’m kind of glad!
I do remember seeing Clown but didn’t respond to it. You know, I never liked clowns. I always thought they were scary looking and then I read Stephen King’s “IT” and that was a done deal for me. It did seem like a “knowitall”
Sisterhood, When I first came around not more than a year ago. I read a lot before I posted. I was/still am afraid of people, even on the blog. I’ve posted to spaths that came here and had no idea they were spaths. I now take my lead from others who have been here much longer than I and trust their judgement when I can’t trust my own. I hope you stay and learn and read. I KNOW LF helped me more than therapy. Looking forward to your posts.
KatyDid
Sisterhood
I confess I don’t understand. What about LF is so offputting to you?
The reason I don’t understand is I had to endure incredible mindfarking, finally leaving my husband, then the area – and I was REALLY physically sick at the time so it was a drive-until-i-was-going-to-pass-out/stop until that feeling went away…flipping back and forth the entire route to my escape – then a couple of years of paranoia type hiding and crying and avoiding (b/c he’d cut off my health insurance and I was such a basketcase that I wasn’t even able to be the walmart greeter so NO, I had NO help), then a year of library books and brain tricks and diet (I had developed food allergies to nearly everything), then I FINALLY received a small lump sum and was able to move into a cheap house where I found security and peace from harm and a volunteer job (so I could put SOMETHING on a resume and hopefully get a job, which hasn’t happened to this plus 50 yr old ugly fat woman who hasn’t had a paycheck since 1991), and THEN I stumbled on LoveFraud and HERE and ONLY HERE have I found that I was NOT ALONE and others GET IT, Totally GET IT.
SO I don’t understand your attitude towards LF. This is the ONLY place where I am not dismissed for my outlandish disclosures of mindfarking and abuse. Why would you leave the only real emotional support I have ever found?
But I do believe a person should know where they feel comfortable and if you have a better place, I wish you all the best. I know you have a nightmare to recover from and we have have our own paths to follow in this life. May yours give you blessing and peace. And if you do find your way back, we will be here to listen and support and understand and empathize, just as they were before me and continue with me.
Katy
Ana
One Joy,
So sorry to hear of your mothers illness and hospitalization. That is great you can be there for her and be there for you as well. Gee, I’m really admiring your
boundries! I hope to get there someday. Hugs to you strong woman!