LoveFraud reader buzzibee raises some important issues in a recent comment.
How does a tested and proven psychopath usually respond to being told “You have a mental disorder. You are characteristically a psychopath”?
Are [they] so arrogant to dispute a medical diagnosis that they have a mental disorder? Do they display any desire to learn more about the disorder and at any point admit to it?
In order to be diagnosed as a psychopath, a person needs a score of 30 out of a possible 40 on the Psychotherapy Checklist-Revised test (PCL-R). This is a very time-consuming test which only trained personnel can administer, so by and large only prisoners and research subjects are likely to have it.
Psychopaths don’t see themselves as having a problem and so wouldn’t present themselves for testing anyway. Unless they thought they might benefit from the diagnosis in some way. So that’s point number one: psychopaths are unlikely to receive the diagnosis unless they are incarcerated, and probably not even then.
Point number two is that those who do get the diagnosis respond like psychopaths; in other words they use it as yet another tool to manipulate others. Here’s a quote from a December, 13 ‘Nature’ article on research scanning the brains of psychopaths in order to better understand empathy:
All the subjects seem to find the experiment to be nonsense. “It was stupid, boring,” says inmate Willem Boerema (not his real name), who claims to have taken part only because he likes Meffert [the young female researcher]. Then, contradicting himself, he adds that “if they say the study can help people then it’s good”.
Boerema, smart, articulate and multilingual, has a PCL-R rating of 35 and a big problem with the term ‘psychopath’. He views it as a fashionable label abused by the judicial system to keep people like himself from being released. “The courts look at your PCL-R rating and add two years to your sentence, then another two years, and then another.”
When he entered the prison five years ago, Boerema says, ‘borderline personality’ was the fashionable term, and his designated pigeon-hole. “The psychopathy label is more damaging though it prompts everyone to see you as a potential serial killer, which I could never be.” (Note, in reporting this article it was agreed that inmates’ crimes would be neither asked about nor reported on.) But Boerema also wears the score as a badge of honour: “I think my high psychopath score is a talent, not a sickness I can make good strong decisions, and it’s good to have some distance with people.”
I’m reminded of Freud’s comments on the following “piece of sophistry”:
A. borrowed a copper kettle from B. and after he had returned it was sued by B. because the kettle now had a big hole in it which made it unusable. His defence was: “First, I never borrowed a kettle from B. at all; secondly, the kettle had a hole in it already when I got it from him; and thirdly, I gave him back the kettle undamaged”….We might…say: “A. has put an ‘and’ where only “either-or” is possible.”
‘Boerema’s litany is classic. It’s ‘nonsense’, ‘stupid’, ‘boring’. I’m going along because I like the doctor, I want to help people. It’s ‘fashionable’, ‘damaging’, labeling, used as an excuse to keep him in prison. It’s a badge of honour, a talent. It’s not a sickness… In short, there is no such thing as psychopathy, but to the extent that it’s true, it’s a good thing.
Just two other uses to which the diagnosis might be put are: as a threat, and to elicit pity.
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There’s never anything wrong with the psychopath. This is perhaps the main reason why therapy doesn’t work with them – they have no motivation to change. But that’s a topic for another day!
Did yours have the classic nutjob theories about the way the planet is run? And his future greatness? (I think they all think, on alternate days, they’re Jesus and then the Antichrist).
(The tattoo is connected with a nutjob theory).
Has anyone read ‘The Sociopath’s Bible’ by Hyatt, or any of those books supposedly written by and for sociopaths? I bought it to try and understand a bit more (and I’m also writing about my ex-maniac and thought it would be helpful for characterisation). Dull is not the word.
EnnLondon: Reasons for this woman to be my wife: Stability, ability to work a room (in a networking sense), complete support of my efforts (the above board ones, obviously), rich family (means she doesn’t NEED my money), beautiful, adventurous, well educated, laid back, and of course, completely in love.
Her family are very powerful back in the states and represent a safety net in case things go bad here work wise. I typically like to have exit strategies set up ahead of time.
And as far as me being your boy – Unless you live in the middle east, there is nothing to worry about ;).
Jesus christ, 6 am in the morning and the neighbors are fighting so loud I can hear them from my office (home office). Have they no consideration for the time? Can’t they beat the shit out of each other when most normal people are at work? This is annoying my morning ritual.
SecretMonster
Beverly-Yes the same for me.. he always remained very cool, patient, calm and collected no matter if things were going great or things were coming undone. I looked like the one coming unraveled. And like you, he arranged or knew some magical way, knew ahead one night – 10 months into our relationship that the other woman he was sleeping with ( his exgirlfriend) was going to be at the same club. We were having wine and listening to music and she came up out of the blue and hung on him and walked off. He said “that was Susan”. I asked “THE Susan?”. He said he knew she was going to be there but didnt want to tell me so I wouldnt get worried. …
Little did he know or maybe now I see he wished….. she clued me in that night that he’d been sleeping with her all along. She was weeknights I was weekends and occasional weeknights. He of course denied it being all along but that it was once or twice and it was due to his tax problems and his recent heart trouble.. she showed up and he’d had too much wine. Pusher herself on him. Ya right blah blah blah blah blah… I am appalled at myself that I went back to him after that one. I bet that was a hightlight of his whole year to see that unfold. And then win me back again. sheesh.
I have a question for everyone: Do you notice in their eyes a far off look, distant or when ever they do happen to look at you, its as if they are looking through you but not at you? It was worse the first year – hollow – but the second year of off an on I think he tried harder to look normal.
Wondered if that was a common trait amongst all yours. ??
Something I forgot to touch on – the sociopath slumber party. I can’t imagine anything more absolutely painfully boring.
A room full of liars who all think they are better and smarter than anyone else in the room? Sign me up!….. Or not.
I do that enough at business meetings. They may not be card carrying sociopaths, but not one of them is faithful to their wife, not one of them feels even remotely bad about it, and all of them would leap at the chance to screw you over for any miniscule of personal gain. And all of them are intrensicly full of shit.
People with actual emotions are more entertaining and less predictable (more interesting).
I think I am better than them in the simple fact I know how bad I am. I’m pretty sure these clowns think of themselves more like modern day aristocrates.
SecretMonster
PS: I have been known to be too “intense”, part of that is eye contact. I have to be very careful about that as I have a tendancy to “look through people”. Also, I’ve freaked women out by listening too intently to what they say, while observing body language, etc. I always thought that was a funny comment – they are used to guys not paying so much attention to them! Haha god forbid someone listens for once! People are funny.
EnnLondon, I am laughing SO hard about his bad clothes being a form of self mutilation. What’s “The Sociopath Bible”? I just went onto Amazon and they didn’t list it.
Your being from London got me thinking: The guy I was with was English, living in England. I’m American, living in America. We had a long distance relationship. I kept ascribing the inconsistencies about him–the things that felt off but that I couldn’t pinpoint– to cultural differences. When his dating history didn’t quite make sense–duh; because he was living with someone–when he was reticent about discussing why things had ended with his last girlfriend–the one he had, in fact, gotten back together with, though not the one he was living with–I’d say, “Well, he’s British. They have that reserve.” This guy blossomed, was debonair as all hell on email, was wonderfully charming and kind and silvertongued when he wrote, but in person he was lumpen and didn’t speak much. The email persona kept me hooked–he was like every amazing Brit I’d ever seen in the movies: cool dry wit, sang froid, charming, well mannered. I understand now that that’s because he’d created that personality FROM studying actors in the movies, among other sources. So bizarre. Bizarre, too, how he couldn’t keep it going in person and I’d overlook that.
About the lizard stare: he had that sometimes. The first time we met, he told me something tragic from his past–calculated, I understand now, to make me feel sorry for him–and he stared me down the whole time in this way that I half registered wasn’t right. It didn’t match the painful confession. When you’re confessing something, your eyes flick around the room. You don’t coldly appraise the other person to gauge their responses, which is what, I realize now, he was doing. I don’t remember being creeped out by this intense stare so much as feeling the coldness and being puzzled.
Here’s a question for people: have you tried getting involved with other men since? It’s been three months and I’ve started dating; I think if I don’t l’ll lose my mind. It’s so weird, though: because my ex S was mimicking the perfect man, because he, like Beverly’s guy, remained calm cool and patient at all times, these men I’m meeting all seem flawed by comparison. I have to keep telling myself: that’s because they’re HUMAN.
Sorry to interject but this – “cool dry wit, sang froid, charming, well mannered.”
Had me dying with laughter! Oh my, spend more time around English gents. I’ve developed a new found hatred for english men since living in the Middle East. I assure you, I’ve found in my travels that the Englishmen you see on TV are akin to unicorns, dragons, sleep, and other fanciful things that likely don’t exist. The one thing they are absolutely brilliant at is… complaining. It’s a gift, really.
Okay okay, just had to speak up about that, sorry. Carry on!
Secret(bored)Monster
Secret Monster: What do you get out of your wife being beautiful and well-educated? Is it an ego thing? A sex and boredom thing? I mean, you have no preference spending time with her the minute someone more well-educated came along? (I remember early on my sociopath sharing some bit of wisdom like ‘you can learn something from everyone’ which I took as some great egalitarian statement but is actually pretty creepy in retrospect).
Lesley: Eyes YES! It’s a shame we can’t have a photo file of eyes (a bit like on the cover of The Sociopath Next Door) of our former sociopaths. His stare was a joke long before I met him. Intense yet blank!
Calm under pressure: YEP! Calm despite the three (more?!) women he was messing about working on the same floor, and sitting round the same table WITH HIM in the company bar!
Oh ‘The Sociopath’s Bible’ is just some sort of manifesto for how to behave or something. Sort of like ‘The Prince’ by Machiavelli I suppose, tells people how to behave strategically to become successful. Except it’s all talk, endless foreplay, he says throughout ‘DO NOT READ ON! THIS BOOK IS SO SCARY! YOU’RE GOING TO BE CHANGED!’ But I’m still waiting. Sorry, I got the title a bit wrong: it’s ‘The Psychopath’s Bible’.
LOL at ‘well he’s British’ 🙂 LOL at acting! They are such actors! What’s the crappest line you ever heard? I head lots of Barbara Cartland-type stuff. ‘What am I to do? What would you have me do?!’ just seemed a bit melodramatic as a response to me telling him he was behaving like an arse.
Tragic past: YES! Stares coldly as delivers it: YES! Now: do you think WE’VE been seeing the same bloke?
Secret Monster: Everyone I’ve known from here who’s worked in the Middle East has been a wannabe playboy. (We call them wide boys). A bit grasping and out to impress.
I would have thought being beautiful and well-educated would be self explanatory? Aren’t those desirable traits in any “partner”? She looks good on my arm, works the room like a pro, and is smarter than the average bear.
Let’s not forget those other traits I mentioned as well. It takes more than good looks and half a brain. Part of the looks thing comes from the fact that I’m not some GQ great looking guy. I’m horribly average. Of course there is ego involved in being with someone who’s not only good looking but also sharp as a whip, and doesn’t take shit from no one. Add in all the other traits, and she’s the perfect partner.
Biggest bonus? She doesn’t want children. Even better!
I’m still acting. I can be pretty relaxed for the most part, but I’m always in role. It’s not like I “love” this woman. She serves a purpose and is also pleasant to be around for the most part. That’s win/win. I’ve been in relationships that were useful but my time was spent imagining the different ways I would love to bash her head in out of abject boredom or disdain.
And yes, I just may drop her for far away girl. This remains to be seen at this point. I’m leaning towards not, but if it’s not far away girl it’ll potentially be someone else. It’s my nature.
I haven’t spent much time in London so my experience with English people are from here, nice to know they may not all be douche bags.
SecretMonster
To Secretmonster – Women are very intuitive, how has she not realised that you are playing a persona. If you are a pretty average guy she sounds much higher in status than you – what does she see in you. My ex didnt want children, presumably that is because of the committment – or is it something else?
I have to join the ‘staring eyes’ club. My ex had cold staring eyes. Friends who never met him but saw photographs said they felt very uncomfortable looking at his picture. My eyes are soft and warm, his were cold and hard.