(This article is copyrighted (c) 2012 by Steve Becker, LCSW. The 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.)
“Loyalty” and “the sociopath” are incompatible terms. We’ve discussed many traits of the exploitive personality, but let’s not minimize a very vital one: deficient loyalty. Clearly, deficient loyalty is a sociopathic characteristic.
A deficiency of loyalty can be disguised very well by clever, self-serving rationalizations. But you will not find the case of a true sociopath about whom you will ever be able to say: he (or she) was really, through and through, truly loyal.
Loyal? What does “loyal” mean? It’s actually pretty simple to define: when you are loyal, you “have the backs” of those who’ve “had your back.”
You “have their backs” because you want to “have their backs.” You are glad, if not grateful, for the chance to “have the backs” of those who’ve had yours. This is loyalty. It’s application feels good, and it feels consonant with the loyal individual’s “value system.”
Now, in some cases “loyalty” can lead to corruption. For instance, look at law enforcement: cops, corrections officers, will often “have each others’ backs—”they will often “go down” protecting their own even in scandals where, intellectually, they are well aware that laws were broken (by colleagues and friends), and the public’s trust violated. But they “have each others’ backs,” sometimes stubbornly and illegally. Their loyalty to each other may, in a rather complex way, sometimes contravenes other “values” they may have, such as ethical ones.
In a person of conscience, this may produce real conflict and stress. In someone with a weaker conscience, this may not be the case.
In some cases, the “whistle-blower,” who might “look” more honest and courageous than his seemingly more ethically-challenged colleagues, might be more sociopathic than his “corrupt” counterparts who, in snubbing authority and the law, maintain “the backs” of those who had his (or hers).
I am not judging this phenomenon in any way at all, just pointing out its sometimes complexity.
So “loyalty—”its demonstrations (and abdications)—can encompass serious moral complexity.
This is a case where, of course, not all evidence of disloyalty is a hot red flag of sociopathy, but “disloyalty” is absolutely a feature of the sociopathic personality.
And this is especially true: when “loyalty” becomes inconvenient, now we have something to evaluate. When it’s “inconvenient” to be loyal, watch the disloyal individual (and sociopaths) shed their capacity to “seem” loyal with a variety of disturbing rationalizations, and sometimes without even the need to explain. Watch them, in any case, emerge in their truer colors.
If there is a single quality, in fact—a single, true trait—whose presence alone virtually “rules out” sociopathy, it is arguably “loyalty.”
You simply cannot be “loyal” to those in your life who have been loyal to you—that is, be truly loyal to them even when it’s no longer expedient to be so—and be truly sociopathic.
As I said, true loyalty and true sociopathy are simply incompatible concepts, and will never describe the same individual.
LF Dears:
I have recently shared my diagnosis, so let me share this. The past weeks have been the most spiritual experience of my life. Most awesome experience of all, is that my Higher Power has removed all the BAGGAGE I have carried for a lifetime. GONE!!!! How could I have gone into the battle of my life schleping all that….couldn’t and win the battle. Thank you all again. Shalom
Good for you! I’m really happy for you, so nice to read 🙂
I hope your health situation improves as well.
My best wishes
Stargazer,
Yes I believe you are right. The universe probably did, for what reason I’m not sure of. Something must be awaiting me…Either way, I’m looking forward for a better life, within my self 😉
Shalom, odd how that worked out, right? Bless you, tenfold, during this fight of fights. You’re strong. You’re resolved. And, you’re courageous. Take that nasty bull by the horns and wrestle it down!
Brightest TOWANDA blessings to you
Shalom:
You are right…you couldn’t fight the cancer battle with all that other baggage. Hallelujah to you for getting rid of it so you can fight!!! HUGS to you!
Truthspeak and Louise:
Back atcha with hugs and blessings. Shalom
I need a sanity check and some advice on how to Grey rock. My sister was officially diagnosed with terminal cancer earlier this week. She is stage 4 and will probably need hospice care soon. I found out yesterday that a few months ago she had my exspath write her will…before she knew she had cancer and while I thought we were on good terms. She has alienated my daughter from me and spent every Christmas with both of them since I went NC with him. My daughter still invites him for Christmas and I will not go anymore. The whole family thinks it is just fine to treat him like family and shun me because I get hurt and angry about being left out while he plays a perfect “poor innocent me”.
I did not expect it to be easy with my children but I am devastated at how my sister could do this to me. There is no need to bring it up to her now, she is dying but I need help on how to accept it enough to Grey rock and treat my sister with love while she is dying. We used to be close and I love her very much even though she has been depressed and angry at me for years.
My daughter has been NC for 6 moths with me and my husband (her step-father of 30 years who did nothing but love her) and we have not been allowed to see our grandchildren for 6 months. She will not tell us why except in vague terms implying my anger and she believes the spath. I am NC with him and get angry when she lies, sneaks and tries to manipulate my one boundary. She is 40 years old and when he bribed her away from us 5 years ago taking away my grandchildren I had a breakdown. She had just decided that she was an alcoholic and started with AA. Her dad used the vulnerability to alienate her and geographically and mentally steal her away from me. My brother was dying of cancer when she did that. I was advised in therapy to set my boundaries so did. I now refuse to see her or her brother on any holiday or weekend that they see him and I told them the whole ugly truth about him. My son does not like it but he respects my boundary. He lives out of state and just never visits anymore. My daughter eventually moved back near us but is still very very angry at me…mostly constant silent glaring sneaking, lying anger unlike my loud outburst anger. We are both hurting and the spath is loving it. I think my daughter just got fed up and went NC with both of us because she does not know whom to believe.
And now I am the family pariah and he is accepted by my sister more than I am. This sister divorced and moved here 15 years ago and I welcomed her into the bosom of my family. She is jealous that I have a husband and children and has tried to alienate them all from me. Everyone knows the facts and accepts her behavior and the spath anyway. They blame me for getting angry and my sister promotes it so convincingly as does the spath. “Me getting angry” can mean anywhere between telling them the truth, telling them I am hurt by their actions or actually me being pushed to the point of losing it when they purposely violate my one boundary or try to sneak around it and keep secrets. They know shunning drives me crazy so that is what they do.
My other sister who does not live here told me the secret about the spath being asked by my sister to do her will “to test me to see if I could be trusted to take it and be included” in the death and dying clique. I passed at first then called her back and told her I did not think I could handle the betrayal and now she doesn’t want to talk to me because she says she can’t trust me.
I told her I cannot trust her either and will believe she is coming down to help when and if she gets here. She likes to play savior but is mostly Might Mouse who never pulls through.
I cannot leave my sister. I am trying to get my daughter to work with me. But I cannot get angry. I have therapy, seeing shrink for more meds. but short of a lobotomy, I do not know if I can do it.
Husband fell for a lot of it but is now solid on my side even though he thinks appropriate anger is violence too. I admit my fault and try to work on it. I have no “anger” problem with anyone outside the family. Please help!
Betsy,
your emotions run away from you because the family members know exactly which buttons to push. They’ve used the same tactics for years and they know what gets the responses they want. When you get angry they effectively put responsibility on you for whatever drama ensues. NC is the cure.
If you can’t go NC, gray rock won’t work if you can’t control your responses. gray rock is all about boundaries on your emotions.
One thing that helped me with spaths, is when I’m able to not take their behavior personally. It actually helps me to feel compassion instead of anger. They are pathetic and deluded, that is why they act as they do. It has nothing to do with me, it is their problem. I can only pray for their healing.
Once you change your perspective, your feelings will change as well. There will be times when you will slip into your old patterns, that’s natural, since they are habits. But as you practice your new perspective, it will become second nature.
There is a book, called “The 4 agreements” and that is what it’s about. Here is a summary:
http://www.humanpotentialunlimited.com/Summary-content.html
I’m sorry that your sister has cancer and you are having to make these decisions. It’s not likely that she is going to change in the last days of her life and there is nothing you can do to change her. All you can do is change yourself.
I understand that all of this is easier said than done. If it was my spathy sister, I would be a mess because even though she is evil, I loved her for many years.
This article might also help.
http://www.realitysandwich.com/dealing_suffering_seeing_grace
hugs to you, betsy
Dear Betsy,
I hear the pain in your post above and I know that being “shunned” by your family hurts you.
In a situation where your child shuns you and associates with the person who hurt you I know that hurts as well.
It sounds like there is a lot of “drama” going on with your family as well and “drama” usually winds up like a Greek Tragedy.
That is why we recommend NO contact with people who are abusive. NONE. Because no matter what the relationship is, whether it is a sister, a mother, a lover, a husband, a wife, a friend, ANY contact will lead to being hurt.
With your sister at death’s door, I know you would like to have a good relationship with her before she passes away.
I know you would like to have a good relationship with your daughter and grandkids but it sounds to me like there is not much chance of that at all.
If you have a loving husband that may be your “family” and there are those here who don’t have even one family or friend to believe in them.
I have contact only with my adopted son and my other son C who is not a psychopath, but is not someone I can trust, the only contact we have is by e mail concerning his brother Patrick getting out on parole. My egg donor lives just across the field from me, but she supports Patrick and shuns and smears me in the community and to the extended family.
I am essentially alone except for my one son D and a few friends who do understand.
I suggest that instead of trying to have relationships with people who have made up their mind that you are a someone who can be abused at will, to be blamed for everything that is wrong in the family, that you accept (as hard as it is to do so) that these people are not your family any more no matter how much DNA you share or how much you would like them to be your family.
Celebrate your life with your husband, celebrate your holidays with your husband, don’t let the lack of these people who have abused and accused you ruin your life. It is a choice, your choice and I hope that you will give up the MALIGNANT HOPE that they will change, because as long as you have that malignant hope, you are just as doomed as your sister is to her malignant cancer.
Skylar, Thank you! That is exactly what I needed to hear and have told myself many time when things were not so crazy. I know I have to change and not take whatever bait they offer. Thanks also for the articles. Good reading is so helpful to know I may be crazy but I am not THE only crazy one. I am the youngest in the family and have been at the bottom of the pecking order all of my life. We used to be happy and have enough fun to make up for the dysfunction and not be so touchy but now it has fallen to irreparable disrepair. I just cannot let my emotions upset her anymore. Compassion should be easy under the circumstances but emotions are running high. I am going to print that out and read it every day. Hugs back to you, Skylar.