(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.
Eralyn,
Narcissist see their family as an extension of themselves, so you will see a certain amount of loyalty to other family members. Until you offend them, then they cut you off for not being good supply.
For example my father said he never wants to hear ex-spath’s name again. He hates him so much for everything he’s done including trying to kill me.
But my spath sister also was trying to drive me to suicide and he loves her anyway. He is trying to save her from her own spath-cop-husband (whom my spath sent to marry her a decade ago), but she won’t listen. She thinks evil is ok, she said so. She doesn’t get that her demise is being planned by her spath -cop-husband.
My n-dad knows she is a spath. My brother is also a spath and put me in jail on a fake DV charge, while I was hiding from my ex-spath when I first left him. Years earlier, my spath sister tried to put spath bro in prison and I saved him. I derailed her and her spath-cop-husband’s plans to make the judge give him the longest possible sentence after he was arrested for buying crack. Yet, that didn’t stop him from immediately trying to contact my ex-spath and plotting with my spath sis and her spath-cop-husband to put me in jail.
My dad knows all this and still lets him live in the basement, drinking beer and playing online poker and watching porn and selling his food stamps. at age 48.
My brother and sister are definitely spaths. My dad is an N and is loyal to his family so he feels sorry for them despite what they’ve done to me. Until the day that they actually attack HIM, he won’t learn a lesson.
As “Jerry Springer” as my family sounds, none of this would have happened without my ex-spath instigating it. There are a lot of fence sitting spaths in the world who don’t do too much harm. Sure my brother would still be in the basement wasting his own life, but not really attacking too many people. He finished his criminal career in his late teens. My sister would still be a pathetic money grubber, looking for someone with status, to ride their coat tails.
So you can see where loyalty lies: spath bro has none to anyone, spath-sis is loyal to her spath-husband but he is not loyal to her. N-dad is loyal to blood relatives.
Skylar,
Thanks for sharing. I felt like if I read that out loud I would’ve spit all over myself. LOL in a tweety bird voice of course.
So what about her not identifying with the word “betrayal”? “oops my mask fell off” sociopath? Or simply a narcisist? I can attest to the cut you out, off, down, with any indication of a betrayal to her……lived it….
Steve, thank you for this insight. Yet, another lightbulb going off.
“Loyalty” is something that I have observed the spaths that I’ve known to exhibit, vociferously, UNTIL they were crossed or exposed for what they are. But, they don’t really display what I would consider to be “true” loyalty.
When it comes down to it, spaths are “loyal” only to their own wants and desires. This holds true, especially, with spaths in positions of power: police, judges, prison guards, etc. These people only have each other’s backs as long as there’s something in it for them. It’s not a “brotherhood,” at all, because a “true brother” would hold their family member accountable in the interest of truly loving and teaching their family member. Enabling isn’t an expression of “love.” It’s an expression of FEAR, and this is what I believe the “Brotherhood” is based upon: fear.
Eralyn,
I don’t really understand your question regarding her not identifying…what?
😕
Skylar
To me it was a very obvious betrayal, breech of trust, and/or lack of loyalty. My question would be does throw that change the potential situation out of naricisist and into sociopathy or are they considered one in the same?
Eralyn, I think a Narcissist is loyal to you, as long as you allow them to render you voiceless, powerless and invisable….if you become a non-entity, in your own right, you become very valuable to the N…but, if you assert yourself, in any way, you will be disgarded….or abused….
On one of the Narcissism web-sights I read a quoite that went something like this:
If you submit to this, you become depressed. If you resist this, you become abused.
So simple, isn’t it? If it’s so simple, why is it so difficult? Simple isn’t the same thing as easy.
Eralyn,
I think that an N feels loyalty and when betrayed will cut you off, maybe forever.
But a spath has no concept of the word. Though he knows that you do. My ex-spath said to me, “I will say that you are very loyal.” Then my gay frienemy who was having sex with the spath, said, “You are more like a dog and I’m more like a cat.” He was insinuating that I could be kicked repeatedly and still come back to the spath.
When I say spaths have no concept of the word loyalty, I mean that even if you betray them – for example if you are a spath too – the next day they might still join you for coffee, a beer, sex or an evil escapade. It’s like they see nothing wrong with what you did because it’s part of a game. Of course they do remember it.
Example, my spath sis tried to put my spath bro in prison and I saved him, yet, when it came time to pick sides, he betrayed me and chose to attack me at her bidding. About 2 years later, I spoke with her at my parents’ home. My parents and I were yelling at her and telling her how she needed to stop being evil. When I brought up the incident of her trying to put our spath bro in jail, she denied it. She said she didn’t remember that. This was not an instance, it took place over weeks with various letters being written to the courts, etc… Of course she remembers.
Well my spathbro was downstairs listening and he came bounding up the stairs red faced. “YOU LIE, SPATH SIS, YOU DID TRY TO PUT ME IN JAIL AND YOU REMEMBER.” Then he ran back down. WTF? Did HE conveniently forget what he did to me? Did he forget what she did to him while they were conspiring against me?
No, he remembers, it just has no meaning to him, because they don’t “get” loyalty.
I remember that he would get into fist fights with his friends and one guy actually stabbed him and he almost lost his life. But later they were out getting drunk together. Even life is meaningless to them. The only thing real to them, is the game.
Kim,
Your simple explanation was the nail on the head. I have lived it.
Skylar,
Thank you for explaining that so well. I have said the very words you use about spaths and saw without a doubt at all times my father and psycho terrorist father of my child both could light you on fire in the morning and take you to dinner that night. It has always baffled me. I am not so sure about the first longterm abusive man I was with. I am absolutely sure about those two.
My mom can’t grasp betrayal unless is directed her? That is how it is seeming.
I love (not for you) your brother running down to make sure she owns her $hit and calls her out. So spath! But running back up? Just going to fling his poo and run? Typical…
I am still baffled by my mom. I don’t know if it’s my heart or my mind. Or both………. But…….It’s something PD for sure.
It’s been a real mind bending life for me.
Skylar,
Miss Greenjeans over here (me) is just comprehending why when I respond to someone it is best to address them individually as it shows up to the left under the subject. 🙂 Lightbulb moment. lol
Athena,
I am not sure as she has never had a professional diagnosis. I am looking at upbringing, learned behaviors and long time career along with being married to at least a sociopath for many many years. I have a difficult time when they are covert. It’s not so difficult with my father as he is proud to wear his asshat and wouldn’t mind the label most likely so it’s not feeling as bad to speculate about him and he has some pretty solid obviouses in his behaviors.
I am on the fence (ooh no) about never seeing the dark black stare in my father that I have seen in the eyes of both other sociopath men in my life.