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.
Dupey
I have said your exact words to my counselor… It may have been a fraud but in my mind I truly loved him. I am not ashamed of that. There are many things I regret, but truly and deeply loving someone is t one if the. At least I am capable of love. That’s what sets us apart from them.
Thank you very much Oxy, Slimone, Sunflower, Back-from-the-Edge for the explanations, additional validation (Not that I am at all happy that you have experienced the negative affects that spath left to you, to have to contend with) and the very entertaining (I hope that’s ok) description of your experience riding in car with driver with Asperger’s, Ox. I appreciate you giving me the clarity that you have, and I am absolutely going to read the Baron-Cohen books.
Ox Drover, I did read an article here, somewhere, where in you speak of Temple Grandin (I believe it was you, at least) and it fascinated me to the point that I did much research on her, and what is interesting is that I see some of her ways, preferences, needs, in myself to a degree. Anyway, that’s beside the point. Many thanks! ~Shane
Snowhite, what you truly loved was the clever illusion that he constructed. I loved the person that I thought that had been married to for over a decade – then, I learned the truth about what he really was and what he had really been doing. The two personalities aren’t even remotely similar, but the behaviors (had I been more vigilant and edumakated) were there – subtle, but still there.
Each day takes me further and further from that illusion and closer and closer to truth.
Brightest blessings
Thruthsoeak
I value your words of wisdom and am sorry for what you endured. the damage done to me was of.a shorter duration…it makes me feel so foolish to be struggling when it could have been so much worse. Reading all of your stories helps me to see your strength. If you could come out of it a better person, I can too. Every contribution on this site gives me something I can use to heal. While I’ll never be the same person, I have hope to be my happy go lucky self soon. Point taken….dies mantle the illusion!
Shane,
Temple is “diagnosed” as a “high functioning” Autistic—I am not sure exactly about the differences between that “diagnosis” and Asperger’s. I think that those problems are like psychopathy and are on a continuum of symptoms, i.e. a “syndrome” but not all exactly alike.
Because I raised cattle and ahve always been fascinated with the herd mentality of the bovine, when I moved back here and got back into the cattle business (actually, selling “grass fed beef”) I read about Temple’s research on handling cattle and ended up buying one of the circular handling chutes that she designed. WORKED GREAT!
I have also spent countless hours just observing the cattle and the interactions of the herd. Because I kept the heifers in my own herd to increase the production instead of buying outside cows, I started seeing generational behaviors with sisters and mothers and grandmothers interacting together. Also watched the dominance and submissive activities in the herd. Then I started training calves to work (oxen, is not a special breed but means “working cattle”) Then I learned still more about cattle that I didn’t know previously.
Studying animals we see things that they do…but there are also some analogies to our own behaviors…dominance, submission, etc. and that go along with how we have allowed someone else to dominate us even though we have an intellect that should tell us that what we are doing is “counter productive to a good life.”
After the chaos died down some, i started reading lots of research on psychpaths and on empathy, on chemical and physical changes in the brain brought on by trauma.
Cattle have a “set” herd dominance pattern, and once it is set up, unless there is a death of an animal or a removal from the herd, no one challenges the status quo.
I once saw a dominance fight between 3 cows that lasted about 3 days until the winner was decided. The top cow had broken a leg and that left an opening in the dominance chain, and these 3 cows fought until they decided..then it was all quiet.
I also saw early on, before that last mentioned event, something that was interesting. I had bought some sisters that came together, and I also had one cow that was a very dominant cow and she was an “outsider” and she bossed them around badly, hooked them with her horns just for the hell of it.. finally, after a while of this three of the sisters said “ENOUGH” and they all three took her on. I thought they would kill her (my herd has long horns) and it was hot weather. After they whipped the tar out of her, she never again actually rejoined the herd,, but would stay on the outside of the herd, very alone and lonely and whipped looking. The only “friend” she had in the herd was her calf each year and you would see her grooming that calf and playing with it differently than a mother who had other friends. When her calf left the herd (if it was sold) she was again very droopy. My husband felt so sorry for her that he wanted to buy a “friend cow” for her…but it wouldn’t have worked.
This cow was an abusive cow of her earlier power, but the cattle decided ENOUGH so I was glad to see that. Also, though I kept her in my herd and usually culled out kickers, etc. all but one of her calves were “kickers”– I still have her last daughter who is a sweetheart, but the rest of her offspring went to the butcher.
What I called “high headedness” in cattle is very inheritable and other traits are. By the time I got out of the business and kept only enough cows to supply my family with meat, I had culled out the trouble makers and ones that were hard to handle and my entire herd was very gentle.
I have also “culled out” the trouble makers in my life as well. My “herd” is smaller but there are no fights, no manipulations, no drama rama and there is love, cooperation, compassion, mutual aid and just plain PEACE.
Shane, I hope you don’t mind me adding my two cents about Asperger’s and empathy.
Dr. Baron-Cohen determines whether a person has empathy according to whether they have both components of empathy. 1) They must recognize the emotions (the cues) emanating from another person, and 2) They must have an appropriate emotional response to that other person’s emotions.
Aspie’s tend to have a deficit in the first component. They tend to not recognize the cues from the other person unless they are overt clues or they know that other person well and are in-tune with them.
However, they do have the second component, which psychopaths lack. Aspies do have an appropriate and genuine emotional response to the other person’s emotions once they have recognized the cues from that person. If they see someone who is sad, they may not realize they are sad unless they know that person well or there are overt cues. If they see the other person crying (an overt cue) about something, for instance, then they do feel genuinely sad for them in the same way most people feel sad for the co-worker. They have empathy for them. The psychopath doesn’t feel empathy for the co-worker like the Aspie does.
People with Asperger’s are unfortunately lumped together with psychopaths, because they don’t meet the diagnostic criteria (meaning having both components) of empathy. However, they do have a genuine empathetic response to other people’s emotions and they do feel those emotions like most of us do.
Christine, I regard asperger and psychopathy as the opposites:
Someone with asperger cannot or has great difficulty reading body language, but they have normal emotions themselves and once they are told how they made someone else feel they will make an emotional empathic association, with genuine guilt and remorse if they were the cause of hurting someone.
A psychopath can read body language without any problem, but only having shallow emotions themselves cannot emotionally empathize with someone else’s feeling: irregardless of whether they recognize the body cues or are told how they hurt someone.
Sadly enough the result is often that because aspergers are inept at responding to body language (and tone of voice, etc), people often think they are cold and lack emotions. While this is not true. Meanwhile, because psychopaths can read body language well and are able to act an appropriate response people think they have as rich an emotional and empathic inner life as we do. This instinctive conclusion is not true either.
Ox. You would enjoy seeing the herd of Watusi Cattle that is a few miles from me, I pass them everyday and have watched them for years.. They are the most beautiful longhorn cattle I have ever seen. Their ancestry can be traced back 6000 years from africa, they are known as the cattle of the King’s. Picture’s of them have been found on pictographs in egyptian pyramids. The owner of the heard treat’s them all like pet’s, they follow him single file when he is walking down his loong drive way. He probably has about 75, I have often thot about takin pictures of them and sending them to you but I am sure your familiar with the breed.
snowwhite, you ‘truly loved’ an illusion, not him. I think it might help to separate the illusion you loved from the real him. Your feelings were real, but the object of those feelings wasn’t. It’s like a child who loves an imaginary friend really.
Thanks Darwin. I know what I know now but yet I periodically have doubts. This healing stuff is so frustrating and mind boggling. I look forward to the day when it all comes together for me.