This is an age old problem that seems to lack an easy answer. Do we warn others if we recognize that they are involved with individuals with psychopathic features? Is doing so a moral obligation or is it crossing the line?
Back in the day, it was easier. Sure, we saw our friends dating people we didn’t like or who made us uncomfortable, but we probably just thought of these individuals as “jerks.” We surmised that the relationships wouldn’t last and left it at that. Even if they did endure, expressing negative opinions on such matters tended to be taboo. As a result, typically, we said nothing.
Now, however, society is beginning to acknowledge and discuss psychopathy more readily. With this increasing awareness, we are coming to recognize that many of these individuals, who we once dismissed as mere “jerks,” are, in fact, pathological.
What do we do with our awareness?
Once educated on the matter, we are aware that things are more serious and worthy of warning. We also recognize how these individuals manipulate and control those around them, often very covertly, and in manners that evade the radar of many. Here, we know the dangers that can follow once involved with such disorder.
When this predicament presents itself, we know that our friends either don’t see the problems for what they are or don’t understand what it is they are dealing with. If they did, they probably would have dropped these guys (or gals) on their own. I don’t believe that anyone sets out to tangle with psychopathy. Yet, it happens. So…do we help?
That’s a tough one. Ultimately, it comes down to personal choices and beliefs. However, for me, I think we should (mostly)and I have.
How will they react?
The outcomes can be mixed. Sometimes, we strengthen the bonds of friendship, as there is camaraderie in such experiences. The torment is unique. Our friends may be relieved and thankful. They may appreciate that they are able to make sense of the things that were very, very wrong. At the same time, some may become angry and defensive. They may suggest that we have it “all wrong” or are simply “unsupportive.” If we choose to share our thoughts, we must be prepared for either outcome to occur.
It may be frustrating or disappointing to see and hear our friends defend individuals we know will ultimately bring them unhappiness or place them in harm’s way, but we cannot make their decisions for them. We can only share what we know, share how we know it, and unobtrusively make ourselves available. Sometimes, it helps. Sometimes, it does not.
Undoubtedly, this is a difficult subject to discuss. However, I have chosen to think of it this way; I know that if I saw my friends performing other dangerous acts, minimally, I would at least encourage them to move toward safety, even if I felt my suggestion might jeopardized the friendship. Why should this be any different?
It shouldn’t be, but it can be. Why? One reason is that there are fewer absolutes in these situations. Even if we recognize that our friends are in clear danger, the signs may be less obvious, especially to them. In the event that they were inches from the ledge of a tall building, there would be no questions. In that scenario, there’s no grey area. Clearly, the ledge is unsafe.
However, this may be less cut and dry, especially when the relationships are fairly new, with an absence of more tangible serious concerns. If we mainly rely on “gut” reactions, feelings, and red flags, our assertions are less concrete, even if incredibly valid.
While we may be able to pinpoint solid indicators of potential trouble, our friends may refuse to acknowledge our thoughts or question our assessments. If they stumble upon similar gut reactions themselves, they may question their own assessments too. The tendency is to move forward, giving others the benefit of the doubt. Individuals with psychopathic features bank on this occurring.
Unless seriously scorched by individuals with psychopathic personality traits prior, many don’t necessarily understand that this is real. Therefore, when we discuss the red flags or warning signs their “great guys/gals” display, they may not like it. They may do the same things we once did and minimize the problems, make excuses for them, and take things at face value, freely giving trust, rather than insisting it be earned.
Our heads tend to spin as we watch. “Don’t they see,” we ask? We recognize what is happening. Sometimes, they do not. Sometimes, we watch as they fail to make the important connections.
Why does this happen? Most people want to feel special. Anyone who has encountered or become entangled with individuals with psychopathic traits knows that initially they do just that. So, listening to friends may not top any priority lists, when they are hearing and getting what they want from their new prospects.
This may be especially frustrating when we witness those around us who seem to make repeated dangerous or unhealthy choices.
Either way, deciding whether or not to speak up may not be an easy choice to make. However, I feel I must share and help those I care about when I see things going wrong. For me, my decision to warn friends is one that I have become comfortable with. Thankfully, it does not happen too frequently. At the same time, I also understand that every person is different and so are the circumstances.
Where do we draw the line?
Who don’t we tell? Is sharing information of this nature always appropriate? This is another personal decision. However, I tend to feel that we should limit these discussions to our friends or others with whom we are very close.
There are certain scenarios in which no amount of “evidence” will change the minds of others. Some situations have the potential to become quite volatile. Sharing our thoughts and feelings may not only be fruitless, they may also be dangerous. With new resolve to take care of ourselves, we should respect the limitations that are inherently part of certain situations.
This topic is one that I am certain we all share many different views on. Some of us may feel letting others know what may lie ahead is a moral obligation, others may feel that it is crossing the line. I don’t necessarily think there is a right or wrong answer that neatly fits in every situation. Rather, the circumstances may dictate our actions. Either way, it’s something to consider.
Linda, this topic is going to open up some serious discussion – and, I appreciate this article, right now. And, I mean, “right now.” It is so uncanny how I read what I need to when I need to read it!
For me, “warning” someone that I care about FEELS like a moral imperative. I clearly saw where the marriage of the female ex-con was headed before the nuptials were even spoken, but any attempt to “warn” her victim would have resulted in an even stronger trauma-bond with him. He had been homeless when they met. She “gave” him a place to live. He had no direction and she “gave” him his opportunities. And, so forth….to tell him that she had targeted him, baited and lured him, and ultimately snagged him would not have helped him, at all. Not at all.
The same goes true with the people that we’re staying with. I can clearly see where this relationship is headed, and “warning” my friend will only strengthen that bond between him and his girlfiend. He either can’t see, or doesn’t WANT to see the manipulations and passive/aggressive behaviors. His kind heart and giving nature won’t allow him to believe that someone that he cares about has an agenda.
Peripheral people respond to the discussion of sociopathy with almost identical beliefs that they’re “disordered” and can, somehow, be “cured” or “helped.” So, that type of discussion is moot. Raising awareness about sociopathy/psychopathy is a platform of very thin ice, especially when one isn’t a “qualified professional” to discuss the facts.
Today, I choose to refer to “red flags” and my personal experiences, as Linda has mentioned, but I have to choose my words and opportunities very, very carefully. I no longer “volunteer” ANYTHING. When someone that I care about complains about their partner or friend or family member, I must be very, very cautious in my choice of words and responses. “That’s pretty awful,” is a response that I try to use rather than, “My god, but he/she sounds like a sociopath!”
If the person that is speaking to me presses for validation or insight, I try to respond with, “I felt the same way when _____ did _____ to me.” Nothing more than that is needed, I think.
True counseling is, in most cases, impossible to provide to friends for an untrained layman. I don’t know the words to use or how to separate my experiences from someone else’s. I’m still too raw for that. But, the one thing that I know that I do have the ability to provide is validation. And, even that must be approached with carefully chosen words.
What a fantastic article, Linda. Donna, thank you for posting this!
Linda, all I can say is “it depends” on the circumstances.
When I realized that the Trojan Horse psychopath who had installed himself in my mother’s home as her “live in caregiver” and I found out that he was a pedophile and that he was a “friend” of my convict son, Patrick….I got all the evidence I could from the sheriff and from the internet sex registry site and then went to her…shedid not believe a word I said…she accused me of making up the poster on my handy dandy little computer. wouldn’t believe a word I said.
I tried to warn her because I believed her LIFE WAS IN IMMEDIATE DANGER I was in TERROR. I left her house that day in sobbing tears believing at that time that I was leaving her to be killed…I had even tried to take her to court and get him kicked out of her home but that didn’t work for long…she let him back in.
The thing is by the time we get to the point that we realize what the person is dealing with, THEY ARE HOOKED and it is like trying to get a baby lion away from mommy. They will fight to stay with Mommy and mommy will attack to keep us away.
There are times we can just stay around to help pick up the pieces, but many if not most times I think we have to figure it out for ourselves. Sad but true.
Good article and bound to get some discussion going.
Interesting topic, Linda.
A friend at work has told me about having a “crush” on a customer. They flirted, a bit, and bantered. She finally asked him if he would like to meet her for a drink, sometime, and he immediatly shut her down, by admitting that he was currently seeing someone else. She backed off completely, in fact felt a little duped.
So, he keeps coming in the restaraunt, trying to engage her. She avoids him, whild maintaining a polite and professional facade.
Then, she starts getting perverted phone calls, and she KNOWS it’s him.
He denies it. She is somehow hooked in by this attention…sort of tickled by the whole thing. I asked her,” Don’t you think that’s a little creepy?”
She has told me that she isn’t particularly attracted to him, physically, until she looks in his eyes. It’s those eyes. Then, she feels the spark.
I haven’t told her about the sociopathac stare.
The most I’ve done is suggest that I find him a little creepy, and to tell her I think it’s a good thing they never hooked up.
What is interesting is watching how these freaks hook us.
She said, she thinks he’s a little odd, but, “I like odd.”
If she ever really hooked up with him, I think I’d warn her.
There is a wonderful page in Al-Anon’s original daily reader, One Day at a Time, that talks about what do when somebody else is in crisis.
Sometimes, the help is appreciated and wanted. Other times, people “need” the crisis to stop or grasp the harm that is occurring, either by their behavior or somebody else’s. Even so, there are those who never see regarding of the circumstances. People ultimately believe what they want to believe.
For instance, I found out by accident that somebody that I knew fairly well was arrested as part of huge child pornography investigation. I found out years after he and I parted as friends and long after he had been arrested and incarcerated. (I think he served 3 years. So much for getting the maximum.)
The report that I found out about him on the Internet said that the people who were the lesser offenders and arrested 10 months after he was were each facing $250,000 in fines and 10 years in jail.
Had I known that was what this guy was up to (he presented himself as Mr. New Age/granola/organic nice guy,) I wouldn’t have given him the time of day. In fact, had I known he was doing this, I would have reported him to the police.
By the time that I found out about his arrest, he had already been convicted, imprisoned, and released. A mutual friend was all set to fly to his side and hold his hand because she knew what prisoners do to guys like him in prison.
I had no compassion for him. He deserved the consequences of what he did. She came down hard on me, telling me that pornography is an addiction and I understood addictions.
First of all, this was child pornography and secondly, we both knew that he went to Thailand in search of a “bride.” I’ve been to Thailand. When you go through the airport at Bangkok, they have huge posters up on the walls for child prostitution.
As for me understanding addictions, I told her that he wasn’t addicted when he first did it and he, a college graduate, certainly knew that child porngraphy was wrong before the first time he “indulged.”
I thought what he did was heinous. I wanted no part of him. She thought not supporting him would literally be bad karma for her. She was all about not judging people and being there for them.
This situation broke apart our friendship. She saw me as a monster letting him lay in the bed that he made for himself and I saw her condoning sexual child abuse by wanting to support an abuser who had been punished for his crimes. To each his own, I guess.
Getting back to the Al-Anon page, it says that sometimes people need the experience because that is the only way that they will learn. We do not know what somebody else’s Higher Power has in mind for them. We can be more of a help to do nothing, in order to let the crisis happen sooner, than to step in, which will only prolong the inevitable and possibly permit even far more damage to happen.
Also, we need to keep in mind that what seems so obvious to us might not be the full story at all. There might be a whole lot else going on that we are not aware of and us stepping in might cause more harm than good. Our perspectives can be very limited at times. We often don’t have the whole story and it may genuinely be none of our business.
I agree that there are times when we can express our concern. It depends on, as Oxy said, the circumstances. People get overwhelmed. There may be so much going on that they missed something or there is so much chaos around them that they may appreciate a calmer insight.
How we present the information is important, too.
In a case like what Kim just mentioned above, I might say something like, “I don’t know if this applies, but from what you describe, it reminds of me of…” and I’d tell her what I thought was applicable, finishing it with, “it’s something to think about. I’m not trying to interfere, but I’d really hate to see you get hurt.” If appropriate, I might also add, “I don’t want to see psychopaths behind every tree, but I do know that they are out there and they usually aren’t the serial rapists and murderers that Hollywood would have us believing.”
What I do think we can do, which requires patience and persistence, is write to newspapers, magazines, and our congressional representatives stating our concerns. We can provide a little education in our letters as well. Things won’t change quickly, but we can always point out, “Did you read in the paper about…” Messages often hold more creditability when they are printed as opposed to being delivered verbally by a friend.
My town newspaper prints every letter to the editor it gets, while our state newspaper picks and chooses which letters it will print.
Sometimes we’ll get press and sometimes we won’t, but we can make our voices heard at town, school, community, and religious meetings. We don’t need to supply the answers or solutions. It is enough to ask, “Hey, what is being done about X?” The squeaking wheel most definitely gets the grease these days.
Just be prepared that while some people will listen, there will be enough in denial who won’t hear you and there will be those who don’t care. In those instances, simply brush the dust off your sandals and move on.
The important things are to keep moving and not give up.
For me, anyway, there is no obligation. Just because I know something, there is nothing requiring me to tell unless it is actually mandated by a law.
The problem isn’t the spath, it’s the person with poor boundaries. I know from experience. That’s why warnings often fall on deaf ears. The victim can’t see anything wrong with the situation.
Some of us were raised to be spath food and we just don’t see how to be different. My sister, the good one, is married to a controlling narcissist. I think she sees that but she’s determined to make this marriage work. She doesn’t realize that she is sacrificing her integrity for the sake of her marriage. Why? Isn’t she worth more than her marriage? Shouldn’t her marriage give to her, rather than take? Yes her husband brings home the big bucks and they travel and they’ve raise 3 kids. It’s just sad to know that what makes him happy is that she sacrificed her potential just for the sake of his ego.
In her situation, nobody could say she is in imminent danger. Rather, her soul is slowly being erode away. Death is death, whether it’s slow or quick. She should know better, she saw what I went through. Slow death is worse because, like a frog being boiled slowly, you never know when to jump out of the water, not even when it’s reached a boil. At least when you see a full-frontal attack, you run, like I finally did.
An “AHA!” moment skylar: you are right. The problem isn’t the spath, it’s the person with poor boundaries.
That is really the crux of the issue, isn’t it? We can’t control others but we CAN control ourselves.
You are right: ‘the victim can’t see anything wrong with the situation.” Exactly.
HA: ‘raised to be spath food’; don’t I know that is right. For some reason, though, I have always managed to slip through the cracks with my life. My boundaries go way out there now, though. “Imminent Danger”…oh yes, the soul being eroded away is as precious as life itself. In fact, it IS life itself; is it not? We can’t trust the abuser NOT to abuse us, based upon conscience but we CAN trust OURSELVES to not be abused anymore. It is not a requirement of a relationship, I don’t think, to allow it to suck your life.
Death IS death, whether it’s slow or quick.
Slow death is worse than going quickly. Where you feel your flesh being ravaged from your body by merely hearing one word…..
I found the ‘boil’ point in my water. I jumped out and left it keep boiling…I made my escape, FINALLY.
I know all about frontal attacks, too…
You are right, at least you can see those coming and I think that is a lot of what made me hang on as long as I did, to keep a watch on the situation. When I found a chance to jump out of the boil, I had to take it or I wouldn’t have survived. And that’s the truth. ABSOLUTELY THE TRUTH.
I am NOT sacrificing MY LIFE for a sick person who chooses to do NOTHING about their sickness. That is all there is to it. NOT after everything “I” have been put through. It’s just over and finished. I pulled the plug and it’s done. Period. I will never compromise myself and all that I am for another human being without their earning it in my eyes. While I won’t be cruel and mean, like they are, I will retreat inside of my cave and we’ll call it good. There is nothing left I want to see but safety and to be able to live what life I have left without all the ugliness.
THIS IS MY LIFE; NOT ITS.
Thanks skylar for bringing that up.
Have a good day today, would ya?
Dupey
Grace, I realize you may not agree with me, BUT I’m gonna say it anyway.
People have control over an “addiction” if they WANT control over it.
I was addicted to cigarettes. I “quit” (half heartedly, knowing I would go back to smoking eventually because I did not want to quit) multiple times, but when the time came that I knew I HAD TO QUIT, I DID. Sure it was hard, I had to exercise some “won’t power” and NOT pick up a cigarette no matter how badly I wanted on. Period.
He had the same ability to control his “addiction”to kiddie porn.
One day at a time, one desire at a time. The same way I did.
Granted it may be hard, but if you really WANT to curb the behavior you can do it. He was obviously into more than just “visual porn” if he went to Thialand —and you know I have no empathy for him at all. I hope he caught something and it rotted off. Doesn’t matter to me if he got a kid over seas or here, he is a pervert. He knew it was WRONG.
Oxy, I agree with you 100%. Addiction can be controlled. I’m not disagreeing with you on that.
My point was that he wasn’t addicted the first time that he did it so claiming addiction is not applicable.
He should never have gotten into it in the first place. He knew it was wrong before he ever looked at a piece of child pornography.
I also agree with you that he was doing a lot more than looking at photos. You don’t spend that kind of money to travel from the US East Coast to Bangkok to look at photos you could have just as easily downloaded on your computer in New Jersey.
I can’t imagine all the children that he harmed, but I now understand why he refused to hold my infant son. I am so grateful for that.
This has been a subject that has been on my mind since I found out my ex (spath) plans to marry his new victim in 2 months. I would love for him to move on and leave me and the kids alone, but….I don’t want her and her family to suffer and live the same hell he (and still attempts to) put me through. Sometimes I feel morally obligated to let someone in her circle know what she’s in for. Although I know she would not believe me after the many lies that have been spoken to her about me. It would also make matters worse with my ex spath and in his evil vindictive ways he would make sure there were “severe consequences” for my actions. Sickens me to know what lies in store for this woman and her 2 children. Nobody knows my ex as well I do. The man should be in jail!
Has anyone ever tried to warn their childrens’ future “step-parent” of the lies, emotional pain, cheating, stealing, bankruptcy, etc that is inevitably their future?
Would love to read your thoughts/experience and advice.
Thank you!
2nd chance: they wouldn’t believe you anyways.
I tried to warn the ‘new victim’ and by then the lies had already been laid down. Sometimes all you can do is pray. I would be very careful as to how close I allow my children to their ‘marriage’. I would, I am afraid, get real selfish and protective of my children.
There is nothing that you can do to prevent anything.
All you can do is protect yourself and your children.
I had a ppath just like that…always ugly and threatening. Sit tight and be patient; the ‘mask’ always slips and falls off. I know exactly what you mean about them belonging in jail.
If you are in any danger, do seek assistance from your local authorites. There are ways to escape abusive relationships. There is nothing we can do about the new ‘victims’ unless we were declared ‘super heroes’ and were given capes and we could fly around warning of their evilness. All we can do is take care of ourselves and try to help people just like us who have fallen for the devil himself…..
I wish you peace and happy endings.
Dupey