How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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One thing that’s certain about sociopaths and exploitive personalities generally: when it comes to relationships, they are the worst historians.

They are chronic historical revisionists—that is, they are constantly revising history.

And their revisions are headed in predictable directions—to make them look good, unguilty, unresponsible for the damage they’ve caused and, of course, whenever possible, to position themselves as the true victims of the circumstances.

And that’s, of course, when history interests them. And history will interest them, but only when they can use it against you. If it suits their need, say, to punish you for a decision you made in the past, even before you met them, abusers may use this knowledge of your history as a weapon of attack or control in perpetuity.

The issue on which they fixate, for instance, may pertain to a sexual relationship that predated your knowing them; they may have coaxed, if not coerced, this information from you, perhaps in the honeymoon phase of your relationship, on the pretext of their wanting to know, preciously, everything about you.

They will not have hinted at their truer, underlying motive: to stumble upon eternally damning evidence of your corruption for future, endless punitive purposes.

On the other hand, when history obstructs, rather than enables, the exploiter’s self-centered agenda, then surprise surprise, he will have no use for, or interest in, it whatsoever.

History (accurate history, that is) will instead loom as a great annoyance to be ignored, if not aggressively suppressed. In such cases, the exploiter is likely to frame your interest in the history of his exploitation of you as off-limits.

How ironic—suddenly the self-centered, chronic boundary violator invokes the sanctitude of his boundaries, fingering you as lacking respect for his space. This would be funny, if it wasn’t so not-funny.

The problem of the exploiter’s manipulation or censorship of relationship history is grave inasmuch as healthy relationships depend on partners processing their history together with integrity; and also with the aim of deepening their intimate connection through joint efforts to understand, and make mutual meaning, of their shared history.

When this process is corrupted, there is no chance for a healthy relationship.

The exploiter, by virtue of his underlying disdain of your integrity, boundaries and individuality, makes this vital collaborative process impossible. This is not a process he will ever feel motivated to engage; and it’s a process, in any case, that will overwhelm his deficient capacity for true intimacy.

(My use of “he” in this post was for convenience’s sake. This article is
copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)

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  1. skylar

    Oxy and Blogger,
    I see it like this: Everyone is well aware of the imprinting that happens to ducks or geese. They are genetically programmed to follow their mother, single file. Unexpectedly, that same genetic program, does not include a description of what the mother should LOOK LIKE. There is no, “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…it is a duck.” in the genetic programming. Therefore, the first living thing the gosling or ducking sees when it hatches, gets imprinted as the Mother Duck/Goose and that is what gets followed around in single file. The imprinting is nature, but the environment may provide a different result. In the case of humans, our infancy is a very long one compared to most animals. Language and emotional bonding are part of our genetic programming, but whether we learn language or bonding and which language we learn or how we bond is going to affect our thinking patterns. Considering the length of time we are infants, there is lots of time for complex variables to be inserted into that programming. Anything could come along.

    The book “The Myth of Irrationality”discusses the way that language shapes the way our brain develops. In one chapter, it describes the stories of several people throughout history, who were found being raised by wolves or else just living in the wild since infancy. They never really learn to speak, but furthermore they never grasp the concept of time either. They live, like animals, in the present.

    On a related subject, what I find amazing is that Jaycee, the 29 year old woman found yesterday, was described as, “…Jaycee looks like, almost like when she was kidnapped,” he said. “She looks very young…”

    It’s like she didn’t age. I’ve heard it said that there seems to be a relationship between narcs and not aging. I think narc-supplies also have this tendency. At least 2 people on this board have mentioned looking much younger than their years. Anyone else get carded up til age 38? I’m just thinking there could be an emotional component to the look of aging, since a youthful appearance is part of the infant’s survival mechanism.

  2. skylar

    Inquirente,
    books have saved my life. Get the book, “why is it always about you?” for your niece. Reading this will help her see what has happened to her and assist her in avoiding it in the future. As many of us can attest, once we are raised by narcissists, we are likely to end up as narcissist-supply for the rest of our lives unless we know how to recognize and avoid it. Just getting rid of the P isn’t enough, they come back or a new one shows up like magic.

  4. Ox Drover

    Dear Kim, It broke my heart too. as a medical professional I don’t have any trouble olperating on an animal, even causing it pain to save it’s life, but the poor old dear was so special to me, I couldn’t even be AROUND when the vet operated on his eye lid, I had to leave when he started crying in anticipation of what he knew was going to happen.

    When he developed it again, I didn’t have the heart to put him through that surgery again (and later, after his death) we discovered it had already spread into his jaw, so his time would have been up soon anyway. My son and I discussed about putting the healthy one down at the same time, and decided it was the kindest thing to do as well. Neither of them were afraid at all, or suffered any pain with their deaths. So at least I have that to lean on.

    Any time you have animals you usually out live them and must have the grief of losing them. these old boys were proably 110 in human years as the life span of a bovine is 10-12 years if they are lucky and don’t get injured. These old boys were nearly 17 and had spent a good life, so it was the best choice for them. I still miss them though, and have a large portrait of them on my office wall. They were such hoots and even did practical jokes on us humans in their lives! I could see them smile about pulling one over on me.

    The patience and calm manner of an ox (a trained steer of any breed) has been known since before the Bible was written, the oxen that have plowed our fields, pulled our loads and fed us when they became too old to work, have given humanity every thing we have now, and even in todays world in Canada and Northern US and in almost every country in the world, there are still cattle (oxen) working to feed the world. I’m glad to have had the experiences with these gentle old souls, and I know if there are green pastures in heaven, they will be waiting for me there, munching on clovers and will come nuzzle my hand when they see me coming.

  6. Ox Drover

    Dear Erin,

    Well, I am getting to the point when I look into the mirror I see my grandmother there….wheeeee, what a realization!

    But, any day on the green side of the dirt is a good one, and I am going to enjoy as many of them as I can. Besides, in the end, we all look like Yoda anyway!

  7. Tilly

    I had a guy with aspergers syndrome “fix” my computer yesterday! I just noticed (above) the good job he did! ( x5) LOL! thatll teach me! Is Aspergers Syndrome cluster B ?

  9. super chic

    I would seriously like to know more about Asperger’s! The N had a nephew (his brother’s son) who has Asperger’s, and I was wondering if it is genetically passed through the males of the family… because N’s sister had kids but they are fairly normal (whatever that is). Neither the N or his other brother have children, but all three of these guys are assclowns. Maybe they all have a touch of Asperger’s? I don’t know what difference it makes, haven’t talked to him in over a year, I just remember reading about it.

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