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.
for myself, a definition from my own experience:
a psychopath, will strangle a wife and kill her….
a sociopath will use strangulation too but will always leave her just enough air to “talk him down”…this time….
This was a really timely post for me as figuring out whether my ex-SP knew/knows what he is is the thing I’m struggling with most right now after the end of our 13 year “relationship”.
The empath (my heart) in me keeps trying to apply some sort of “goodness” to him and tries to convince me that while he knew he was an SP, he fought his illness for as long as he could (because he loved what I represented and wanted to be normal and felt that I could help him achieve that) before it took over (with the assistance of his addiction to crystal meth which was another complete surprise to me) and exposed the real him. But then the newly found skeptic in me remembers the haunting spoken words or written cards from the early years of our relationship (ex – asking me, several times, if I had ever seen his favorite movie – Six Degrees of Separation (about an SP) or telling me in his cards that his life was better with me than it had ever been for “reasons I could never understand”.
I realize that I’ll probably never know the answer to this question but wanted to see if anyone had any advice as to how to stop searching for it!
I meant to say in the last paragraph that the haunting words I’m remembering all the time now makes the skeptic feel like he was gaming me the entire 13 years.
If they have a deceived, loyal following, it will be almost impossible to expose them. I know, I have tried and have failed. I had documentation and he had nothing but his loyal followers who lied in court for him. Of course the judge believed him. Maybe too, it was because he managed to get permission from the judge to go into his chambers alone before court. My attorney was astonished he was allowed, but nonetheless, he managed to weasel his way in and plant those deceptive seeds in the judges ear before court. In the pretrial I won (by a different judge), but that didn’t stop him. This man was a pastor of a church, had several affairs, and even with the love letters and pictures, and his women admitting to it to me, he managed to get everyone to believe he was a faithful man. He burnt me for a lot of money and I just wanted it back to get on with my life. Easier said that done. Now I have nightmares about that creep constantly.
I usually lurk but I had to comment on this post. I remember the day I “informed” my ex-spath that he was what he is. He was quiet for a brief moment and politely confessed everything. Then as if a we had never had the conversation he suddenly changed. His eyes became cold and just as the blogger stated they were truly piercing. He knew my tendency to self-doubt ,so he began a rant of “how do you know you are not a psychopath?” how do you know that you are not the one doing the bad things? etc etc. I have never seen such evil in his face until that night . I had been warned on these boards and others to not confront when I was in a vulnerable position. I learned the hard way. Ramp up the attacks is an understatement. He literally tried to mentally destroy me. The best thing to do when you discover you are dealing with a psychopath is to remove yourself and protect yourself. Letting them know that you know who they are, won’t stop them from being psychopaths.
brandieewine: please be safe.
If you feel threatened in any way, contact your local law enforcement
and explain the situation to them. In no way confront the psychopath.
No contact is the only way to stop the insanity.
Trust me, I so know.
I have been stalked almost 13 years now by a psychopath.
It hasn’t been a fun journey and one that has almost taken my
life on a few occasions.
You are absolutely correct:
“Letting them know that you know who they are won’t stop
them from being psychopaths.” There is NOTHING that will.
They are who they are and we are who we are.
The one thing I AM a whole lot more of is determined to not be
a ‘victim’ any further. I ABOLISHED it completely from my world.
It’s the only way. You are right: for some strange reason, the
moment they find out that YOU know what they are, the attacks
ramp up and get worse and worse and if they are prone to violence,
anyways, murder is NOT out of their menu.
While they may seem so charming on the outside,
they are scheming how to get rid of you underneath.
Yes, remove yourself from the experience.
They so hate being ignored. They will only fight
and grapple and be ugly for a little while but if you
stay consistent, they eventually get bored with the
battle and move on elsewhere.
Best of wishes to you on your journey.
Dupey
Many years ago, about twenty or so, I gassed up our little Hyundai, packed my favorite, green teapot, and drove my older sister three and a half hours up to the mountains for a cup of tea. We had been living a distance away from each other for many years, and only got together around the holidays, sometimes. She was in the middle of losing her house, had just lost her job, and had been through a divorce the year before. The only thing I could think to do to help was to whisk her away to a beautiful spot in the mountains, near the valley oak trees and the noisy blue birds and the still wild river. Maybe just a few hours there, with her troubles out of sight, would remind her that we are welcome in places outside of our everyday lives. Places where the world is right and breathing is still easy on our souls. In other words, it’s time for a Road Trip!
Things didn’t go exactly as I planned. Somehow, we never did sit down with a hot cup of tea, and the Danish rolls I brought to share were never touched. It was a whirl-wind trip up the mountain that oddly featured how obtuse she was towards anything I had to share. On the road home, she drove for a while to give me a break. Nice of her, I thought.
Rushing along at 95 miles an hour (no kidding ”“ I was scared), she told me a secret. She said that she wasn’t really that nice of a person. When I protested, she assertively and quietly said, “No really. You don’t know me or about some of things I’ve done.” I reiterated that she was naturally feeling down with all her troubles. I said that I loved her and things would get better.
But now I know, that day, she was telling the truth.
I have been learning from this site now for over a year and this is the first blog I have been open to produce since my awareness. I have truly been in shock. I was programmed by a psychopath mother (somewhere between birth and 3years per regression symptoms), sexually violate by a sibling (somewhere from age 5-9), memory has been choppy all my developmental life. I married a sociopath at 29, figured out something was off after 6 years, stayed because of a baby for 10 years, 4 more years of hell (“mentored” by my mother) until I could see what they were up to when I had a mild stroke ( “alliance” it what he called it).
I have always preyed to God, especially with the type of abuse, just that I recall as a child, I always believed there was a God, even in my state of terror and one day i would be free. Of course, the child like freedom i was thinking of was not the true freedom that I would receive. Leaving that violent house (mother/programmer) never returning was just the surface. My freedom was in my awareness, understanding, knowledge, and learning to practice an awareness in a world I had no concept even existed(I was forced to submit to it, not understand it). Freedom is only in the mind, we must protect our minds like the most precious of gold (purpose of NO CONTACT), this is freedom, this is how we care for our children. I will never stop loving, truly loving, I will never stop being me. I still believe there is a God, because I know freedom now, its working. Still learning who I am. Poweroflove
Yes, I believe they do know. My exS took the mask off twice throughout our 2.5 year relationship. One time during a fight where his blank expressions and callous response, and smirk on his face brought me to the point of being boiling mad with anger where I was shaking, sweating, etc, he actually said very calmly with a smirk, “Why do you keep trying to get me to be someone I’m not? You can see that I won’t change. You are better off without me.”
I was so angry that someone would say that, that I just passed it off as he was just trying to make me mad and I justified it with that and couldn’t see past my anger. I couldn’t see that he blatantly told me who he was. He took off his mask for a couple of seconds and straight up told me what he was and even gave me a warning.
Then, another time, toward the end before I could muster up enough life in myself to escape, when I caught him in a string of lies again after I thought that he had “grown” past that, he said very calmly again with a smirk on his face, I can’t tell the truth. It is not in me to tell the truth. Can’t you see that? It’s impossible for me to tell the truth about anything.”
That time, the dots connected. He took of his mask again and I saw it for what it was. It was then that I started seeing everything. Right in the midst of my own tears, I stopped dead in my tracks and just stared at him. It was like I finally realized what he was and he knew that I realized it. It was the creepiest feeling in the whole wide world and I will never forget it.
Anyway, I believe that they know who they are. I believe that they know they are different. And I believe they do take off their mask and admit to it.
My own son Patrick, in a prison visit, with my son D and me was trying to get me to do something for him (don’t even remember what) that I didn’t want to do and he kept up this plea of “but Mommmm, what would Jesus do?” and I kept resisting.
Then, out of the BLUE, quick as a flash, his eyes got HARD and it was like looking into the eyes of Charlie Manson, or Satan himself, and he said to me “You wouldn’t like me if you knew the truth of my crime, it was worse than even the cops knew”
His crime of course was putting a gun to a young woman’s head and blowing her brains out.
That moment passed then he SWITCHED BACK to the calm sweet “But Mommmmm what would Jesus do?” facade.
Yes, sometimes they get frustrated, angry or upset in some way and DROP THAT MASK and you can see behind it and see the awful face it covers.
That was the last time I saw my son and when I started pulling away from him. It was several months later when I learned that the parasite that had latched on to our family was sent there by my son Patrick…with the express purpose of killing me and making it look like suicide.