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 Coping – yesterday was hard.
then i went for nuerofeedback and to see mom.
and i realized that the vibe in the whole hospital is very aggressive and defensive – i listened to how the nurses talked to other family members who were being perfectly polite and ‘compliant’ and how the people were on the desk when i came in – i don’t know what’s happened to that hospital in the last 7years, but it is very bad. it was so different when mom was in for brain surgery, and even in the last 3 since one of my lost friends had a stroke.
i was calmed by seeing her resting, hydrated, clean and in a calmer environment. The n sire still has not brought her leg in, nor any toiletries (i don’t know what cream she can use – she has such sensitive skin, but needs some terribly). I wonder if her has been in to see her since the first night….or if he has just ‘dumped’ her there. i talked to her day nurse on the phone yesterday and said that dad could bring her leg in and asked if they had his phone number. they really wanted to get her up for a walk, and then they realized she was missing a leg – hmmm, she’d been in for about 40 hours before someone noticed that. her night nurse said it wasn’t on her chart. she got a wee surprise when she went to check mom’s circulation in her ‘feet’. snort.
feeling a bit better today in the lungs too – that nuerofeedback is amazing. i was really agitated last night during the treatment, but i am feeling much better this am. i am teary today about mom, but it is very nice to see her more often. i am going to have some bowen done on my neck and lungs after work today and not go see mom. i will see her on the weekend.
really, i think she is in there as n sire stopped talking care of her in any way. his email to me said he thought * he* was losing the battle. yah, uh huh…if he wasn’t a narc that line would read so differently. everyone is entitled to ‘give up’ – i know how hard dealing with dementia is. guess he’s not ‘all powerful’ after all.
that’s the other thing – being around this situation, the n sire and nurses, sarcasm is so want to leak out of my pours. it’s not my usual way – but the stupidity of being the person behind the desk and saying, ‘i don’t know who that is’; not looking anything up, not pointing me in the direction of someone who would know of who i could ask…..’ i kept my mouth shut and waited. Everything was such a chore to them. What a nightmare work environment.
and the buddhist welcomes your prayers. 😉 made me laugh.
Oh, my goodness! Go offline for a day, read a few pages, then discover what an amazing difference a day makes! So many comments on the circus character and here my very first post was directed to that foolish fake of a human being. Oh, well…another lesson learned. I hope! (And now I understand about gardening, weeding, and the placement of gray rocks, too.)
Okay, I need to say something to Louise, who said to me: “Yeah, but when do we finally give up? I mean after all, who wants to keep repeating being so hurt you don’t want to live? At this point, I am saying what you said before you were duped again”I will never risk getting hurt again. I cannot put myself out there. Putting myself out there involves risk and I am not willing to risk myself again, no way. I feel like my life was over at 46.”
First of all, I hit my sixth decade a couple of months ago and, despite the nightmare world I literally woke up to in early June, I still, deep in my heart, believe that we must never give up on love. Never, ever…
I guess this is where I admit that this is my third husband. (“3TimeSurvivor” just sounded so pathetic and like I’d never learned any lessons the first two times!) And, of course, I thought that my “Mr. Dream Come True” THIS time meant that my many years of being so careful with my heart meant that “the third time’s the charm.” But, instead, I’m still feeling like it’s “three times and you’re out!” (Don’t we just love convenient cliches?)
But—and this is my point—I don’t want to be “out.” I want to be “in” and live my life until the very the end, knowing that I’ve “lived” it!
As a point of reference, here’s a quick synopsis of my “3Time” losing propositions, aka, bad marriages…
Husband #1: My very first boyfriend when I was a senior in high school. I married him because we’d had sex and I thought that I was supposed to marry “my first.” He was a budding alcoholic and became increasingly abusive as he fell further into the disease—both verbally and physically. I divorced him when I had two babies to support. I was destroyed financially, but we were young and I didn’t have too much to recover from back then. But, I did. (I don’t even know if the man is still alive, but he stole from everyone he could to support his habit, so he’ll probably end up dead in a gutter someday, if he hasn’t already.)
Husband #2: The first guy I fell for who fell for me and my kids about a year after my divorce. My son and daughter were only 2-1/2 and 4-years-old, so he became their “dad” and he is the only father they recognize to this day. Unfortunately, he was/is a pathological liar, a womanizer, a narcissist and, according to my therapist at that time, a sociopath. (That was the first time I’d ever heard the term.) He has gone through another wife and is working on another one, but he will never change and his behavior is typical of much that is posted here. I quit caring about his life long ago, except when it comes to how he treats and relates to my son and daughter. Surprisingly, he is a pretty proud father, since they are the only “bragging rights” that he can claim as his life’s accomplishments.
Husband #3: What can I say? I was totally blind-sided and never had a clue that I’d married a “Jekell & Hyde.” He’s a very smooth criminal, who used me, my great credit, my contacts, as well as all of our friends and their contacts to steal almost $22 million before the early morning raid that resulted in his third arrest five months ago. After I survived the first few weeks of shock, numbness, disbelief and denial, I began putting one foot in front of the other and, hopefully, I’ll have all of the fires, messes and everything legally explosive behind me by the end of the year. Except for my decimated credit, of course, which is somewhere in the depths of the sewer system and will probably remain there until I’m eligible for social security. Another ten years to regain my good name and good credit! Again…
But, despite the fact that I trusted completely—I’ve been telling everyone that “If love is blind, then I was the blindest person on the planet!”—I’m still an optimist. I know that I will get through this nightmare and live to love another day. I have to; it isn’t an option for me to let another person destroy my present AND my future, too.
I want to Live to Love again. Life is a risk. Love is a risk. Every day is a risk. If we don’t risk ourselves, we’ll never experience love again. But, as EB pointed out, we must be careful with our trust quotient. That’s where I totally blew it. None of my husbands deserved my respect, let alone my trust. I will NEVER make that mistake again. But I DO believe in Love. I truly believe that it is worth taking a risk because I know that I do not want to go to my grave without loving again.
That saying, “live, love, laugh” should really be “live, love, laugh, learn.” Boy, do I ever have some good lessons learned for this lifetime! But I hope that my next lessons are easier or, at the very least, more obvious.
Thankfully, being here, on this blog, is a lesson in itself. I’ve read enough postings over the past few months to realize that everyone has learned something from their own experiences and I’m grateful for the sharing that allows all of us to become a little bit smarter because others cared enough to share the lessons of their personal pain. I have learned so much at this site and only found it because I needed to know/search for what I had “missed” when I fell in love with a con man of the highest order. I never saw the signs and I needed to know how I could have been so duped when I’m considered a pretty intelligent woman. But I felt so very, very stoooopppid!
So here I am. Grateful to be here. Grateful to be accepted. Grateful to be learning what I didn’t know I didn’t know. Grateful for EB’s amaretto recipes and late-night jokes. And very grateful to know that there are “protectors” of newbies, like me. Gray rock, indeed. 🙂
P.S. And, just so there’s no misunderstanding, I still do feel that I would rather live the rest of my life alone than to live with a person who makes me feel as if I’d rather be alone.
That’s a given, if I’ve learned anything at all. 🙂
2TimeSurvivor…
Your post resounded with me! I’m so with you when you say, they robbed us of my past, but they ain’t gonna rob my future as well. I totally agree. When there is no future, that is when we cease to live. I’m willing to change my view on humanity, but not into one where the spath wins. More, we cease to live when we stop learning.
I believe in love too. I cannot deny it exists and even lifelong love. My parents are an example of it existing, perhaps not in its most cinematic romantic forms, but in its humble human form, including annoying each other…
I hope my next lessons will be easier too. I’ve made it difficult for myself pretty all my life, in order to feel challenged, and I’m at the point where I feel I ought to pamper myself a bit more and take it more easy in life’s lessons :p
I’m new to the site, which I just stumbled across, but what I’m reading is what I have lived. Following 22 years of wonderful marriage, my husband died suddenly of a stroke. I apparently was the perfect sociopath victim…single mom, two young daughters, no nearby family. I met my spath 2 years after becoming a widow and he hasn’t left me alone off and on for the ensuing 6 years. I recently discovered that another woman with which he was simultaneously in a relationship while seeing me took an Order of Protection out against him a couple of months ago. Since that time he has been trying to get back into my life. I have made police reports and cut off all contact with him for over 3 months. My question is whether my taking an Order of Protection out against him is likely to enrage him and tip his behavior from aggressive harrassment to something more dangerous? I am tempted to contact the “other woman” since we have met in the past, but I am sure she is trying to heal from her relationship with him and I don’t want to upset her in any way. But I would like to know what if he has totally left her alone now…Did it Work? As a side note, the spath is a former police detective and now is a private investigator so he has all the tools at his disposal to be a real creeper. Any advice?
Dear DLCurry,
Welcome to LF. I also was a widow when I met a guy I had “known” (i thought) through a living history group…I was the perfect victim as well.
I would contact the other woman, and I am going to bet you two can be of support to each other. I ended up talking to the x GF and X wife of my guy….the three of us were very supportive to each other.
As far as the order of protection, FILE ONE if you can get it, the judge may not even grant it, depending on what he has done or said or threatened or not….but It will show him you are serious about being left alone.
YOU CANNOT APPEASE THEM. Read the article about appeasement Donna put up today. BLOCK HIM on text, telephone, e mail and any other way you can. Tell your boss you don’t want contact from this man, and file a police report. Do what ever you have to do to break off contact with him. Good luck, and God bless.
ps. keep on reading here, knowledge is power….learn about what he is, and how you heal from the experiences with him, and how to avoid more pain in the future from this kind of person. Again, Welcome to LF.
DLCurry,
I talked with several x gfs of my spath, and it opened all of our eyes. And it was very supportive. He had treated them as he had treated me. But they all thought he was truly in love with me, because he praised me into heaven to them. They were shocked to find out I had just the same story to tell. Heck, I even found stuff out about him that I had not known before while he was with me. So together we all realized that this man will never change.
Unless, the ex still thinks herself in love and hopes for a reunion with him, I think contacting her will be beneficial for the both of you.
One/Joy: Blessings and warm thoughts to you and your mom. Her “warm eyes” comment brought tears to my eyes. I so miss my mom…
DarwinsMom:
At my age, I decided I’d better learn this latest lesson really, really well…because I sure can’t afford many more years of “losing ten years of my life” due to some a**hole’s agenda. Ya’ know what I mean…?
And, yes, I do know that I will love again. I’m a really good person and I deserve it. I didn’t deserve this…but I do deserve that! We ALL do! 😉
DLCurry:
Welcome to LF!
I’ve had several restraing orders against my spath ex H.
I DO NOT REGRET ANY OF THEM!
What i’ve found is……you must follow through….and go the lengths.
It’s not a golden fence around you ….it’s a tool, of which if used correctly can be very effective, on many levels.
It may not keep them away…..but you report it. (don’t expect the police to ‘act’ and arrest him each time…) but you build a case.
If he is ever prosecuted, an order of Protection ups the ante of charges.
Sometimes without an order, a DA won’t prosecute DV cases….and hopes this is enough of a ‘wake up’ call to have him stop.
(it’s usually not).
With an order……it creates a trail….for you and the bonus….for other future victims (if they do research onhim)….it creates a history on him……
You can’t control how he will respond…..you can only do what you must to keep yourself safe.
I am ADAMANT that if you will NOT follow through…..DO NOT start the process. NEVER EVER EVER drop an order of protection. This invalidates others experiences when they appear in front of the courts.
An order of protection is full of ALWAYS AND NEVERS…..
ALWAYS FOLLOW THROUGH……ALWAYS!
NEVER DROP AN ORDER! …… NEVER!
Document each contact, take a photocopy of your police reports PRIOR to handing them off to the police….and keep a binder of pictures, reports and ALL violations.
After about 5 years…..of dual orders…..criminal AND Civil Stalking and harassment and DV protection orders from me and oiur kids……I think he’s finally got the jist…..GET THE HELL AWAY FROM US!
When my Jr turned 18, he filed his own protection orders.
Our last orders were up in June. I had to refile every year to renew. Since then……it’s been mostly quiet on the homefront-barring a set of phone calls in July.
I had the spath by the balls……he is a drug dealer who won’t cease…..and i’m a chatty kathy who won’t stop informing the cops and others……after awhile…..I think his supply was transfered from ‘us’ to his drugs or other victims.
And he KNEW……i’d follow through.
If i’d have waivered or let him back in……none of the orders would have been sending the messages we truely want to send…..LEAVE ME ALONE….OR YOU”LL BE BUSTED!
I highly recommend protection orders…..just don’t think they are the magic bullet protecting you. Its still YOUR responsibility.
Good luck to you darlen……keep yourself safe!!!!
XXOO
EB