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.)
Sister- this to shall pass. I have severe anxiety as well but have never heard of going to bed for it… I can’t even sleep let alone think when it happens.
Be kind to yourself. It’s gonna be ok.
Sisterhood
One thing you can count on here. Whatever the spath did to you, there’s another member here who can relate b/c they had the same done to them. CPTSD? I’d be surprised who did NOT suffer from the same. So we can empathize totally. My point, and I thought I said it directly, was that THIS site was the ONLY place I found people who truly understood and therefore help and support and understanding blooms in abundance here and I have NOT found that ANYWHERE else. If sometime when you feel better, you would share how CPTSD is an emotion of shame, I would be grateful for such insight. It’s not something I had ever considered.
Best
Katy
Sisterhood-I’m really glad that you explained what happened. I want you to know that you don’t have to feel foolish for not seeing the spath’s signs. I don’t see them all the time either and I have to just go along and gray rock with the others until I can pick up on the signs myself. I took the young Circus at first as just being a young know it all undergrad who thinks they have all the answers. Then I started to see the sympathizing with the spaths and the comments regarding the fact that some of our members weren’t spathed by actual spaths, but misdiagnosed people that we should feel sorry for. My therapist was acting like she didn’t know what I was talking about when I was talking about my parents and neighbors being narcissists.
THen she started telling our LF members how they couldn’t diagnose people and then quoting the DSM all the time. Our members on here have enough first hand experience with these people that has nothing to do with the damn DSM. Most of the members on here could pick out a spath or a narc better than a lot of trained experts-just my opinion. I hope you don’t stay away.
I think….’reading between the lines’ is something we all had to do with the spaths.
I get that.
I also commited to myself that I wouldn’t do that anymore…..because when I did read between those lines……with spath…..the lines always were reprinted, so I was and could have never been correct in my ‘reading’.
It’s part of the eggshelly feeling……
and once I feel eggshelly…..I stop.
I won’t spend time doing that anymore…..and on LF….I take things the way I do……and if I ‘,m confused I re-read…..and respond how I interpret a post……or if I’m totally confused……I have a choice to NOT respond.
Sisterhood….I don’t read Katys post as you do……I read them as she is confused by something…..but she’s set boundaries with herself on how far she will go to try to figure others out, due to bringing back feelings she shared when WITH her spath. Not a personal attack on you.
BUT……..this is the downside of not conversing in person as we hold each others hands. As I’ve said before.
no facial expressions or embellishmnts.
We all must do what we must……sensativitiy is part of the healing process…..and I assure you…..also part of the learning process.
Good luck…..and don’t stay in bed too long! **See I think that is an analogy of your therapist to just take a break from life and recoup…….but not seeing them face to face and having the luxury of embelleshment…….I may be totally off basse on that too?!?!?!
Sister ~ If my memory serves me correctly, your first “corresponding” to the circus tent was in defense of someone else. You stood up for one of your friends. This is nothing that you should feel guilty about, but rather this is a testament to your character. I do not believe that anyone on here meant to make you feel like you were the only one who did not see this person for who they were. You were hypersensative THIS IS NORMAL for all of us on here. I have appreciated reading your comments and feel that you have a lot to offer, I hope you reconsider hanging around for the long haul.
I am going to say something that will probably be very unpopular right about now. I am reading everyone’s opinions and am trying to keep an open mind. I also recognize that MOST of the people on here have a lot more experience with spaths. I am just not 100% convinced that this circus person was a bonafide spath. I also had an almost immediate reaction to her postings, but I pegged her (or him) as a young (responses were very immature) “save the poor souls” do gooder, know it all rich kid, almost a psychologist wantabee, look how smart I am, spoiled brat. Or not ???
I thought I would die when I saw Donna had picked the topic on how to do away with the Spath right in the middle of it – perfect timing. Really, could imagine first coming to this site and that was the first thing you read – how funny.
Anyways, I love you all – and this site
EB – I have booked you at the local comedy club, keep some dates open.
Liz,
in response to your question: I can only speak from my own experience. I do have some people that I occasionally email with from LF and of those, most of them are sweeties, some were not and they have disappeared from my life and the blog.
I made one LF friend, spoke to her in person and in emails. She is still my friend, or at least I consider her as one.
Zim
Dear Sisterhood,
The only thing lower on my list than “scolding” you, is taking a giant rock over to my neighbor’s house and dropping it on his puppy dog’s head! Really, my dear, whatever you are referring to, it had NOTHING to do with you or your posts. I have many flaws, but passive agressiveness is not one of them. And as I said before, from the little I know about you, you seem like a good and likeable person.
Nevertheless – and just as a “reality check” – I have to say that you are seriously misinterpreting other peoples’ intentions here. What’s more, if you allow yourself to fall into a pattern where you are always pushing away (or drawing away from) precisely the people who have nothing but goodwill and concern for you, then that’s just giving your ex S yet ANOTHER victory! And what is the point of doing that?
Anyhow, I wish you nothing but the best, Sisterhood.
Thank you, Constantine! I really do think I was just having an episode from my CPTSD. I was triggered in a big way and then my mind just got carried away. It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. I never really thought of myself as a conspiracy theorist. Maybe I am. LOL
You’re right, I do have to be sure not to push away those who mean the best for me. I am super hyper-vigilant in this area and it is even difficult for me to trust my closest friends because I feel that there must be an ulterior motive to why they care about me. This is the precious little gift my ex-spath gave to me. I want to make sure that I catch being suckered before I am. It is very difficult for me to let down my guard. I think that is why I haven’t gone into a whole lot of detail about myself and my experience on LF.
I feel bad that I lost it yesterday, but I am also relieved. I’ve learned a lot in the past 2 days about myself. I feel this was a super long therapy session. I can’t wait to tell my therapist about this. We’ll have a good chuckle. I hope.
I’ll tell you one thing, I really hate suffering from CPTSD. It is not fun and unfortunately, after yesterday, I realize that I have a lot more light therapy in my future. That therapy is very deep and tiring. Woo Hoo, lucky me.
Katy-My therapist tells me that when I get into that dark place it is really the emotion of “shame” I am in. And it is only and emotion. She explained to me that shame is much different than guilt. Shame is not our fault. It was put upon us by our abusers. We have to self talk out of the shame and/or just go to bed (or you’ll end up doing what I did last night which is never good) It is a nasty spiral down. Shame is a nasty component of CPTSD. Some feel shame for having been victimized in general because they were told by their abuser it was their fault for being abused. Others might feel shame for not being able to control or “see” the victimization happening and stop it. The feeling of being suckered and being mad at yourself for not being stronger or good enough to see it. Guess which one I felt last night. There are many other reasons why a survivor might feel shame, but the great news about shame is it is “just” an emotion. It is not a staple characteristic. It will come and go like any other emotion we experience. We don’t have to define ourselves by the shame we feel. It is a lifelong process to heal from CPTSD. In a nutshell, it sucks.
PS Sisterhood,
There’s nothing to feel bad about!
But what you describe does remind me of something. There was a famous study done about twenty years ago on child abuse, and the way it affects the victim’s perceptions of other people. (And no, Sisterhood, I don’t think you were abused as a child! But it sounds like you were in a very abusive relationship…) Anyhow, they had two groups, one made up of “normal,” non abused kids, and the other, a group that was chronically abused by their parents. For each group, they showed a set of three kinds of photographs: one series of photos had people smiling, another had people frowning and showing displeasure, and the third was just people with completely “neutral” expressions. (And all of these photos were rated by a third, control group in order to get an “objective” measure.)
Interestingly, the non-abused and the abused kids scored exactly the same when it came to evaluating the “smile” and “frown” pictures. But the striking difference (and this has stayed with me all these years!) was that the abused kids CONSISTENTLY rated the “neutral” photos as being “hostile,” “angry,” “aggressive,” and so forth. Whereas the non-abused kids correctly rated the “neutral” photos as “neutral” – identical to the control group.
Again, I’m not making any assumptions here. But perhaps your abusive relationship has made you a bit like those kids who repeatedly saw negative things in the “neutral” photos? That’s not for me to say, Sisterhood, but I do sense that this is rather common here. And with all the non-verbal communication and “toxic people talk” we engage in – well, it’s surprising that it doesn’t happen more frequently!
At any rate, just some stuff for you to think about. As you said, it is ALL a learning experience. It does make me sad, though, when I see a good person like you viewing everything through the lens of “internalized abuse” (assuming that idea has some truth to it), and finding hostility or anger, where there is only goodwill and friendship.
(Hopefully none of this sounds too presumptuous! I could be totally off base here, so take it for what it’s worth!)
Okay, I have to run for tonight, but I hope you have a nice evening and a better day tomorrow!
Blessings to you.