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.)
Bella,
You might look at the post I left for Confused on another thread.
Giving them ANY DRAMA OR REACTION always backfires. It’s what they want. No drama, no reaction makes them slither away. It’s what we call gray rock. Behave in the most boring way you can. Make sure that you do nothing to attract attention to yourself. eventually he will lose interest in you and you can resume a normal life. But you will always have to expect him to come back around every once in a while to check for drama. Do not respond. Go No Contact with him and anyone else who is in his circle.
darwinsmom
you gave bella great advice. mostly I’m doing that, but, this spath really took something important from me – and I want my JOY back.
He brought me this false joy, false hope, false happiness.
Now I see the lies of it all.
Recovery is sad, it is difficult, it is lonely.
SK
bella
I just read your post, I hear your pain and i am with you sister.
There are days that I too am just sitting in my pain – I’m angry at my spath and how he destroyed my joy – took things from me including hope, and love – and that’s where you are.
I think it’s important to sit in your pain, but also, when you are ready, every day to reach out and build a life for yourself. Volunteer to help elderly or homeless, do something good for yourself or others. There are people out there who need you. There really are.
I am so fucking angry at my spath, I want to egg him on too, and I’ve done that many many times. I worry he might kill me, it’s true. I egg him on and I don’t know why.
In any case, I’ve stopped, because when I egg him on he reappears and I want him gone.
Truly want him gone.
We are all here to support you, bella.
Superkid
There are days where I have some joy, most days I don’t, but at the very least I have peace. The days I am joyful are those when I have company and can just laugh over everyday stuff without looking over my shoulder.
So, I totally understand it Bella why you feel like it is hopeless. I think superkid gave you a great tip by finding an opportunity to volunteer. The help is welcomed and you meet fellow volunteers and people in true need of help. It is a good way to find a new social network and companionship.
Thank you….I used to be a missionary. Moved my family to Chile to care of the street children there. Then discovered my first husband had a double-life and we divorced. Only to meet Satan and marry him. Your right, all of you. I go months and months of trying to do my best to heal, for the sake of time I did not mention so many things he has done that are so unbelievable that I wake up in the night in panic and night sweats. So many times a day I feel the heat of a panic attack and then the sweat breaks out after just one thought of the trauma he has done to me and my family. I have no insurance so I live with it, and I know it is PTSD. It is like I have lived through a murder, only I am left all alone to deal with the aftermath and the grief of losing everyone I know while he continues to live with no repercussions. He is so evil and I put nothing past him. He lives to work people and situations and destroy women’s lives, but his mask is missionary,bible study leader and “councelor”. His 1st ex-wife is the only one I talk to…and she always says “your the only one who believes me,everyone thinks he is so wonderful”.
I had gone NC until I made the mistake of thinking he would give me his address to get him served after so many out-of state attempts. That opened a door, that I hopefully have shut again.
I tried a counselor 2 x’s and when I would share the story they looked glassy-eyed and then the last just said
“we’ll lets just start from today forward”. But how do you forget your children,and your entire life? So I stopped… not believing anyone would understand.Also they had no experience in Psycopaths and I found I was educating them rather than them helping me……all the time would go to me telling them that their are people like this!
I do shop, cook,clean and care for my 17 yr. old son…but it is the times when all that is done and you have no one to share with, laugh with and invite over that are so hard. I spent my 50th B.d completely alone……completely……. 2 weeks always together. I had the best family ever. We were inseperable.
Thanks~
bellaangel,
I read the book “women who love psychopaths”… It shook me to the chore. I felt like my ex-spath had attempted an assassination on my identity and used my identity as the weapon. But then I realized that he only managed to shatter the mirror, that my identity could only die with my last breath. There are many things that can alter and adapt and change in life, including personality, but never the chore identity and temperament.
I’m so sorry that you have lost so many people you love in believing him. But you are still here. You exist. And if you want to win from him, the only true win is one where you go out to meet new people and do what you love to do.
Read and talk on this site and learn how to recognize the red flags, because yes, spaths will be in volunteering organisations as well to find empathic, golden hearted people like us to prey on.
I would not give up on finding a counselor. They are out there. My therapist who worked me through my identity crisis 14 years ago I was pretty sure to be knowledgeable about it. And she is very helpful. At my intake, she asked particular questions regarding my story with him to verify for herself whether he met the requirements in his behaviour towards me and others. She asked me to show her his picture I have and that was just a confirmation for her. Though she’ll never use the term officially, because she never met him to diangoze him, she fully endorses the no contact, the effects it has on me, and calls him a truly dangerous person.
They are out there. And I see no reason why you can’t contact one and ask them straight out beforehand whether they have therapeutic experience with victims of sociapaths and psychopaths.
Bella,
Your family members may simply be showing their true colors.
Although my spath did everything he could to get my family to join him in my persecution, he ultimately failed. They hate him. YET, I found out that they are spaths too! They just want to torture me on their own without interference from another spath.
I never would have guessed that my parents are spathy. In fact it took me 2 entire years of crying over their behavior before I could admit to myself that the reason they love to see me suffer is because they are spaths. Before I came to that conclusion, I tried to twist my brain in every direction to come up with some way to make them SEE how wrong they were behaving. It was when I finally admitted to myself that they ALREADY KNOW that they are evil and they LIKE IT, that I finally found peace. Spaths are not worth any of our emotions, not even anger or hatred. The only emotion that I allow myself toward them is revulsion.
You may have to find a new way of looking at your family members too. IMO, the spaths can’t really make someone hate you who doesn’t already have that tendency somewhere inside. Spaths are opportunists, they use what is available, they don’t actually create anything.
I hear you on the therapist. Mine was very similar. He had a blank look on his face, repeated everything I said and had no idea what to say about spaths. It was a therapist through the catholic church so….’nuff said.
Yes. I will try again…. I have read all the books etc. and have already met 2 men in my line of work that would have liked to have dated me ( i am not dating) but clearly fall under the dangerous man catagory.So, I know I am making progress in some areas, and then in others I am stuck. Not wanting to move ahead and leave my loved ones behind. I have to believe that their are others out there on this blog that “get-it” of how deeply it cuts to your core to even have your loved ones think for one minute the lies and scheme of the psycopath are true.
Thank you for helping me get through this Saturday… anna, darwinmom,skylar,superkid and those that are out there as I have been so many times not blogging but feeling your pain.
Ox Drover: It’s funny you bring up teachers with violence charges being able to teach. I just found out that a teacher in my math department went to prison for twenty years for rape and attempted murder. He is allowed to teach at the school and is even given the keys to come and go as he pleases. He is also allowed to privately tutor students(most of them are girls, in the age range of his prior vitim) when he isn’t in class.
How did I find this out? He went on a date with my mom, of course! I didn’t even make it through one semester without this crazy nonsense. He also sits with me every morning before classes and talks with me, alone. Nobody else in the building. The lights aren’t even all on.
The school knows everything about his past, but never told us. I feel weird sitting there knowing all this about him while everyone else is oblivious to it. What do you guys think?
Oh! He did give my mom a speech about changing, but when he talks to me he does nothing but rant about how disrespectful we kids are, and how he hates malicious people and disobedience. He even told me about a girl he tutors turning her back toward him and he screamed at her and made her cry. He bragged about it. He said he even made he cry twice more. Then he talked about wanting to beat her with his belt. 🙁
Bella-I am so sorry for what you’ve been through and what you’ve been feeling. I agree with all the advice that everyone has given you today. I would also be concerned with getting some surveillance for you house if you can. That story you told about him showing up and you thinking it was the dog, was scary. That screams danger to me.
You really gotta practice gray rock with him too and don’t let him rent space in your mind-I know that’s easier said than done. I have been there were you are too, with all the anger that you feel. I am doing the gray rock thing myself right now and it is the most important thing-as Sky says, to keep the drama away from you, because that’s all THEY want.
I agree with too about the therapists. My counselor that I was seeing was a sexual assault counselor and I don’t think she knows much about psychopaths/narcissists. She looked at me a little strange when I started talking to her about my parents being Narcissistic. I wish there were more therapists and counselors who had a clue. If you can this weekend, do something for you. I’m sorry that you are so down this weekend.