Do psychopaths know what they are? Do they know that they are different from the rest of us? I believe the answer to both of these questions may be yes. As neuropsychiatry makes progress, science offers various thoughts and opinions on the matter. But while medicine is working hard to unlock the mind’s secrets, we may be able to draw valuable discussion from our own experiences.
Since psychopaths are not a particularly introspective group, I am not suggesting that they possess great insight regarding their pathology. However, I believe they do have some level of awareness. They may realize that they do not experience appropriate emotions and that they live their lives and view their worlds with the emotional mute buttons on.
“I figured it out…I know what you are”
When I realized that I had been touched by psychopathy, it took me quite some time to digest all that revelation brought with it. I knew I was not dealing with “normal,” but what was I dealing with?
Behaviors and solutions that would typically work under normal circumstances set us back when dealing with this population. Adjusting to the concept takes time. While I was still learning, I was still saying too much and also allowing the manipulations to bother me. I was in the process of trying to make sense of the nonsense and working to rectify issues that could never be solved. I tried, but trial and error prevailed and sometimes, I got it wrong. With my understanding too fresh to accurately process what was occurring, I allowed myself to become frustrated and exhausted from the underhanded tactics. On one occasion, when I could no longer take it, I emphatically blurted, “I figured it out…I know what you are.”
I am not sure what I expected might occur when I announced that “I knew,” but I was completely unprepared for what came next. The individual had been walking away from me, but then stopped dead in his tracks. He stood still with his back toward me for a moment. Then, turned and advanced toward me. His eyes met mine and I was on the receiving end of a deliberate, piercing stare. The eyes that could double as daggers were poised to intimidate. Glaring and angry, he replied, “I know you did. I know you know.”
What? The investigator in me wanted to continue the conversation very badly. I wanted to know what he knew about himself. I considered the possibility that he may not have heard me correctly. How did he know what I meant? But he did know. Chills quickly replaced my curiosity. I turned away and left. If he knew what he was, all the wrongs, all the evil were, without question, intentional. Pain, suffering, abuse, unhappiness, and shear destruction had been purposely inflicted with full awareness and for or with some degree pleasure.
Interestingly, I never said the word. Sociopath, psychopath, narcissist never crossed my lips. Shortly after this encounter, this individual ramped up the attacks and staunchly advertised his “normality,” while threatening and belittling me. Suddenly, I was “disturbed” and a “PhD,” in an attempt to discredit me and my assertions.
Previously, he merely blamed me for his actions, claiming that the behaviors were the consequences for my “insanity.” But this was different. I uncovered something he never thought I would. First hand, I witnessed the “I’ll get you before you get me” mentality – the smear campaign. Sticks and stones…for now I was armed with understanding.
Gray or color?
What must it be like not to feel genuine emotions or to feel them so completely differently than non-psychopaths? What must it be like to view the surroundings so differently than others? How must it be to know life in black and white, when we see color?
They may have great disdain for us as a result of the warmth in our souls, something they will never know or feel. They want revenge for our existence and throw temper tantrums mirroring those of toddlers if they do not succeed in their destructive and controlling efforts. But even when they do get their ways, they are often insatiable, looking for more. As a result, they can be dangerous to us.
When they claim to feel hurt, pain or other normal emotions we experience, their words may merely mask ulterior motives. They are able to behave ruthlessly without second thoughts, often hiding their agendas behind righteous causes. But the anger, jealousy, and rage that they direct toward us shows through as raw and primal. Knowing they know makes the behaviors easier to understand, but no more acceptable.
They are envious of our genuine connections and abilities to love, even if they laugh at us in their next breaths for being “weak” enough to feel. How would they be able to hold such contempt for us, if they had no awareness of our differences? It must be horrible living half alive. Wait…we already know. It was how we lived before we understood. The beauty is that we can recover.
The last sociopath I was involved with outright told me he was a sociopath, as a weird non-sequitur, long before I had discovered enough of his behaviors to know he was telling me the truth (about this part of himself, at least). At the time, I brushed it off, and he and I were alone, so there were no witnesses – so of course, he could deny this if he chose to if I’d opted to out him. I believe that he is proud of what he is, and that he feels he is smart enough to get away with anything he wants to.
I’m not so sure the one before him was quite as self-aware, but he was proud of what he could get away with (the things he was willing to expose to the light of day because they were still on the right side of the law). I no longer feel ashamed to say I’m thankful he died of a drug overdose, several months after I went no contact.
In a very, very strange way I can say I was very lucky. My ex let me in into his mindset. He answered sometimes very truthfully his thoughts. I was lucky in the way that it lead me here, lead me to see his true colours and lead me to get away from him. He even warned me him self in the beginning as the post above, but he never said it straight out. His words: When I’m done with you, you’ll think of me as one really big mistake. I’ll wear you completely out of energy.
I can say that they do plan a head how they are gonna get what they want, they do enjoy mindfucks, they do live in a fantasy world where they are kings and the fantastic superstars of every ones life. They have some buttons others can walk on and if they do, they surely will do anything to hurt them back twice as hard, they do only enjoy money, power and sex – love they don’t know what is. They know they are egocentric and they do get sexually arousal of your resistance…. I can give you many more examples, but then it would be a very long post.
My ex told me he knew him self very good (and he did, he was very smart, but plays stupid infront of other people so he won’t have to do something or take responsibility) and the one thing that scared the shit out of me was when he said: I know I have limitations and boundaries on certain actions, but if I let my self step over them, I know there’s no way back. Then I’ll continue without any limitations what so ever. When he said this, I got really scared of what he might be capable of doing and he once said that if we were to break up, he would make sure I’d see that side of him. He said he’d pray for my sake that I’d never see it.
My personal belief is that they know all about them selves just as we now know all about them.
My ex pulled me in and was attractive to me partly because of the talk about spirituality and self-improvement. There were books by Wayne Dyer and other such authors around her house. I also ‘made her whole’ and ‘validated’ her. There were also her suggestive messages that were still on my phone and computer – that she was later denying.
It took a while but I then began to recognize how she was projecting a lot of unacceptable behaviour and attitudes onto me. Ultimately, I saw the pattern – as it had been played out in her previous relationships was being played out with me. Eventually she openly admitted that what she wanted out of life was power, money and sex – which happened when I believe shge realized the jig – the ‘game’ – was up. By then I was spiritually and emotionally and psychologically bludgeoned.
My situation has me second-guessing myself in every way. I am sure my husband’s exwife is a sociopath. However, now that we have finally gotten custody of their 3 children, I am concerned that the 9 year old boy is emotionally stunted like his mom. He has formed a sexualized attachment to me. When he doesn’t get the attention he is craving, he behaves horribly for me and his father. His attachment is so unnerving that he stares at me all the time, and throws tantrums when I give attention to one of the other children. He doesn’t want to go anywhere unless I’m going too. When we try to reason with him, it seems as though nothing gets through to him. He continues to do the same behaviors, it seems, just to wear me out. When I lose my cool with him, he gets a little smirk on his face, like he’s got me right where he wants me. I even made the mistake of telling him he’s wearing me out. He knows he’s different from the other kids. He doesn’t want to be like them. He wants to focus all his attention on me. He wants to act badly around me. He thinks I want him to be around me all the time, when in fact, I’m dying for a break from the uncomfortableness. He is in therapy, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. We are also taking him to a chiropractor that specializes in natural-type adjustments (no bone-crunching). I know his mother sexually molested him when he was younger, so I believe he has a normal mother-son love mixed up with an abnormal romantic relationship. It’s so hard to tell if I’m dealing with an up-and-coming sociopath, or just a mixed up kid. But I do know it’s intolerable right now.
WOW- what insight !!
I remember going to my Ex-N with a book I had read and the author’s phone number in hand for counseling.
He looked at me blankly – but took the book. I had highlighted a great deal that pertained to him.
He read the book – but rejected the possibility of being an N.
While he acknowledged that many traits applied to him – he insisted he had it all under control.
However, I think he was self -aware – to whatever extent they can be.
Over the years , he said such things like :
You don’t know what it’s like to be me inside
You have no idea what I am capable of
Every time I get close to you you pull away – projection
He is gone 4 years and we are divorced 7 months but he continues to torture me in any way he can.
Very interesting article. I’m ashamed to say that I got weak and broke no contact. Prince charming posted to me on a site (not Facebook, as I’ve blocked him. When I saw what he wrote I was upset. He wanted to talk. I fell right into it and texted him to please stop posting and delete all past declarations of “love”. The postings on this site chronicled the love bombing phase of the relationship. He knew he would get to me if he posted, and im sorry to say worked.
In the conversation he asked me what was wrong with him. I thought to myself, “I know what you are”, but didn’t respond. When I think back on things he said about himself, he was telling me all along what he is, but I didn’t know about sociopathy. When he told me that he broke up with his girlfriend and when he’s done, he’s done….it’s all up here….as he points to his head. His cackling laugh when talked about duping his exs or “stealing me away from my husband still plays in my head.
In the phone conversation, he apologized. Do sociopaths apologize? He misses me. He wants to talk in person. He had had two breskups since ours. He is so unhappy. He cried! Do they cry?
As he spoke, i thought oh boy there it is One by one I checked off the signs: pity play, check; stalking, check; pattern of relationship cycles, check; manipulation and half truths, check. I know what he is and he may know that I know. Getting beyond this is so difficult and puzzling to me. I know I’ve come a long way, but I’m not there yet!
Do they know? I think some do and some don’t…just as “we” as a group have more or less insight into what we are., how we think, and how functional (or dysfunctional) we are I think they have levels of understanding of themselves as well.
Dr. Baron-Cohen’s assertions and research showing that people as a whole have a varying level of empathy from the total autistic who has ZERO empathy to the person with Asperger’s who has a bit more empathy, to the person who has way too much empathy.
From observing him, I think my son Patrick, a full-blown violent psychopath, knows what he is doing, what he is planning, but thinks others are also like him “out too get what they want at any price” or that they are too stupid, too worthless to be anything except prey to stronger people (like himself.) From what he said to my son adopted D, I think he views D as “just like me” and out to get whatever he can.
Patrick can quote the Bible from Genesis to Revelation word for word, he can quote great philosophers, but his APPLICATION of those moral principles shows that he doesn’t know how to apply them in a way that would be considered “normal.” Just as Robert Hare said..”they know the words but not the music’
In a letter my son Patrick wrote to my then Daughter-in-law, (his brother’s wife) who was at that time having an affair with the Trojan Horse Psychopath is a great example of this.
I don’t have the letter she wrote to Patrick, only his reply to it, but in that reply he was addressing her affair with the TH-P and said “lighting one candle from another doesn’t diminish the light of the first.” It was his way of telling her that her affair with the TH-P didn’t diminish the relationship of her and her husband, and he went on to talk about how all of “us” (meaning him, the TH-P, the DIL, and my son C (her husband) should all keep on working on the project together (getting rid of me) and then he ended the letter to her by saying “You need to WORK ON YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH C (her husband)” DUH? It is OK for her to have a relationship with another man, but she and the other man and her husband should be WHAT? one big happy family?
Because Patrick has never loved anyone, he doesn’t realize that it is not “healthy” or “normal” for a woman (or a man) to be having deviant sex with one man, and be “happily married” to another one. Patrick has NO concept of “love” though he can philosophize all day about “love” and quote great poets about love.
He killed a young woman, then took her jewelry and purse back to her roommate….he didn’t “get it” that the fact that he had killed the girl would be more upsetting to the roommate, more so than the loss of the girl’s “stuff.”
I know it sounds like Patrick is some kind of “nut job” or “crazy,” but he isn’t, he just has NO concept of empathy, or how others think. He thinks everyone else thinks like he does, and would behave like he does if they had the chance.
I think my P-sperm donor had little psychological self awareness, as well, just was “mean as a snake” and capable of great rage and murderous violence if he was thwarted in his plans.
I’ve known a couple of other people I think were high in P-traits or were even full blown psychopaths, who realized they were different than others, but they were in my opinion, not quite sure what it was that “we” had but they wanted to find it and get some for themselves.
Many of us (people who have been intimately involved with psychopaths) have noted that many of them are “addicted to sex” and seek to have many many different partners.
My theory on this is that SOME Psychopaths seem to know that “we” get something out of sex that they don’t—(the bonding hormones released by sexual intercourse give to “normal” people something that they don’t get,)— and I think they know we get “something” from it that they don’t, and they would LIKE to have that something, but not knowing what it is, they think each new partner might be “the ONE” to give it to them.
Bottom line, I think that since psychopaths are like the rest of us in that they have varying levels of empathy (or lack of it) that some have an awareness of their own condition, and some don’t.
That being said, though, I think that OUR awareness of their condition is important for US. We need to realize that there is no changing them against their wills (or changing anyone against their wills for that matter) and that we must disengage from them to the extent possible. The best possible being, of course NO CONTACT.
Snowwhite:Yes yes yes they do! BUT THEY NEVER MEAN IT and the tears are FAKE! He is crying for him self, the loss of money, sex, power, attention what ever it was you gave him! DO NOT FALL FOR IT!
Stay NC, keep reading here! The more you understand the easier it gets, blame shifting occurs, and step by step, aha moment after aha moment, you will let more and more of him go. You’ll regain your self and your power. You will take back your life.
Hang in there!
Kerisee,
I am so sorry that you have such a troubled child in your home, and I can definitely imagine the problems you are experiencing with dealing with this child.
You say that he is in Therapy but it doesn’t seem to be helping. It is rare for children this young to be this disturbed, THANK GOD, but at the same time, if you are unfortunate enough to have one of them in your family, it can be life shattering for the entire family.
I strongly suggest that this child might benefit (or your family benefit) for him to have some INPATIENT therapy as soon as possible.
It sounds to me that this child has received the “double whammy,” both the DNA and the environment, in which a child becomes very problematic.
Whatever happens with THIS child, though, you MUST take care of yourself AND the other two children and protect yourself and them from the trauma and drama that this child represents in your home. God bless and help you and their father. ((hugs)))
Sunflower
Thanks for your support Lately I need reality checks.