It could be argued that the sociopath is cynical: contemptuous; mocking; concerned only with his own interests and typically disregarding accepted or appropriate standards in order to achieve them – the opposite of idealistic.
And there is a danger that one who has learned the hard way about sociopaths becomes jaded: dulled, blunted, deadened, inured; tired, weary, wearied; unmoved, blasé, apathetic – the opposite of fresh.
The online version of the Guardian newspaper runs a series in which readers provide their responses to ‘Ethical conundrums’. Given the nature of our interests on this blog, this one caught my eye: Is it worse to be cynical or jaded?
One reader’s response captures the issue I raise above (our key terms inserted):
A jaded person [someone who has fallen for a sociopath] has loved and lost. A cynic [sociopath] has never loved at all.
Another provides some clues as to how come the sociopath and his or her victim get together in the first place:
I don’t like either alone, together though: the jaded person before becoming jaded makes friends with a cynic and then they both have a great time. So long as the cynic enjoys the doses of optimism and doesn’t get annoyed by them. And the optimist doesn’t become disillusioned by hanging out with the cynic. Because that would be boring, pointless and gloomy. Cynics and optimists together can be really proactive and make great company: CAN be…
Or not, right?
One reckons that positivity can turn into negativity, but seldom the other way round:
Pessimists tend to become cynical, as they tend to believe the existence of a hidden motive. Optimists, with experience, tend to become jaded, as the world falls short of their expectations. Jaded people tend to become cynical, but cynical people rarely end up jaded. So, being jaded is kind of the scenic route to cynicism.
One reader sees the merit of cynicism:
Cynicism is essential for surviving this lousy superficial society. Being jaded is the result of being insufficiently cynical.
I was tickled by this one:
Someone who’s jaded hasn’t lost the will to change, they’ve just lost the means….Polish the surface of a jaded person and you’ll find they’ll come up good as new.
As we get a new year underway, what are your thoughts?
Dear dupedster,
I can relate to the “re-program” and I have had to do it from the ground up…I think many of us were “programed” to be victims by the way we were raised….either by abuse as a child or by being taught “nice” manners, to make others happy, to ALWAYS put others before ourselves…but what ever the programming, the very niceness, the very goodness of our hearts and souls sets us up to be duped and taken and used and abused and confused. (Hey, I’m a poet and didn’t know it!)
I’m glad the EMDR is helping you, it sure helped me…and even though my “specific treatment” was focused on the accidental death of my husband, I found that by working through THAT, it also helped me with the other traumas with the Ps.
I really liked the therapist that did my EMDR, and I had to laugh at him, after a 2-hour, very emotional intake interview, during which I had related to him that my husband had burned to death, that I had a son trying to kill me, my DIL and my egg donor and my son C were all “against me” and I was living in hiding remain safe, etc. etc. he VERY GENTLY asked me if I could bring a “witness” to all this chaos. Since I am a retired RNP who has actually BEEN on the other side of the clip board, I realized what he was saying, GENTLY SAYING, saying none the less–he thought I was a paranoid nut job! LOLROTFLMAO
The next week I took in my son D and the court documents that outlined my story. I told him I understood that he would want to VERIFY such a “tall tale” as I related to him. When I hired the lawyer in Texas to fight my son Patrick’s parole he ALSO didn’t believe me either UNTIL HE SAW THE DOCUMENTATION. LOL
I’m not the only one here either who has an “unbelievable” story that sounds more like a TALL TALE than the truth…sort of like Kim Jong II North Korea’s dictator playing his first round of golf and scoring 38 with 5 holes in one. LOL ROTFLAO and wetting my pants (spilled my coffee in my lap is how I wet them..yea, right? you believe that don’t ya!)
Oh yes, Ox….
I can COMPLETELY RELATE. COMPLETELY.
People have a tendency to NOT believe us because SURELY nobody could be that dumb; right? To let all this stuff ‘befall’ you…
You start looking like a nut job; right.
But all of it is true; completely. I now how it goes.
That makes us even more inside ourselves.
I am happy to report that now and for the past almost five years, I have had the most wonderful therapist who completely understands. Not just ONE therapist but TWO.
Yes, ‘reprogramming’ myself. It’s daunting and tiring and exasperating. I meditate, think and have to consciously FORCE MYSELF to redirect my thoughts. The ground-up; wow…don’t I know that feeling. I feel like a small child all over again. Even MORE vulnerable NOW than ever before. I keep myself safe and away from everything that will interfere with my ‘quest’.
hahahahahahaha
Kim Jong story: I like it! xxoo
Have a good one Ox; thanks for being the incredible YOU that you are. ~ Dupedster
I mean, that is why I have withdrawn inside of myself and away from others because they just can’t possibly understand nor believe everything I have to say. But every bit of it is the truth.
Some of us are just plagued with other people’s karma. It’s like they shove it off onto us and it follows us around and causes us extraneous misery. I am learning how to get rid of it, slowly but surely, but having the right counselor truly does help a lot.
I would no doubt be in the hospital, a blubbering and raving maniac, if it were not for my current counselors, unraveling all this with me and helping me to make some sense out of otherwise non-sensical things.
Dear Dupedster,
I laughed out loud at your above posts, they made me smile. You have a good heart and I can see why you were “scammed” but you know, You are making progress…getting there. Taking care of YOU! That’s the important thing, so just keep on the journey and keep on discovering wonderful new things as you go along! (((hugs)))
🙂 Happy to make you smile, there, Ox…
I have a very naive heart and I can see why I was scammed too! Too dang nice and always thinking the best of people before they ruin it. 🙂 Yah, I feel like I am making progress, Ox…
I got “IT” away from me – that’s the best thing I could have done for myself in the past five years; seriously.
I have time to think and rest and live life for myself instead of for some raging idiot who is hellbent on destroying his life and everyone else around him.
(((thanks Ox))))
Dupedster
The trip to the Grand Canyon…… What a great metaphor for what was in store for you. The threat of ever increasing psychological warfare is so hard to believe. Who could want you to get life insurance ( while they have none) and make sure your will is in order before you go on the BIG Vacation? In real life that can’t happen, it is just reserved for the movies. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that even as he is saying that he will love me until the day he dies that the reality was more like he would love me until I died. Looking back it would have been so easy for him to push me off the boat and I knew at some deep level that I didn’t want to go out on the boat with him anymore.
I am still affected by the relationship that lasted seven years and it is five years after the termination of that relationship. There are residual effects like being hugely in debt for about 150,000 dollars, not being able to work, health problems like PTSD with its sleeplessness, anxiety, body pains, startle and panic attacks. My life was turned upside down financially, physically, emotionally, socially etc.
My relationship with my daughter deteriorated and a lot of people just outright shunned me. There was nothing in their own lives that prepared them to understand what had happened to me.
I lost hope and struggled with feeling suicidal for years. Five years later I am coming out of that. I have taken conscious steps to recover because I decided I wanted to survive. I am studying the bible, attending a 12 step program that is wonderful, walking, working in the garden, being careful not to isolate myself, working on my passions and hobbies, praying, meditating and soul searching.
I was such easy pickings. Yes he was a nasty guy but I wanted him. I have looked at why I wanted him and I looked into my childhood for the seeds of my self destruction. There were plenty of red flags and I ignored them with a grandiose abandon. I could HELP him become the man he could be, not the man he was. I was willing to leap tall buildings for him. I didn’t believe people who warned me that he lied about anything and everything. I thought that they did not realize what a treasure he was. He did things that did not add up and I believed his wonky excuses.
So I had lots of character flaws to but they weren’t as destructive to others.
I don’t trust myself with men. I don’t like all that testosterone that makes them so overpowering. I still need to lick my wounds and I would have to be with someone who had real psychological insight into things. Most men seem to be very action oriented, task oriented and I don’t want that anymore.
Where I used to love adventure, I now really love peace and contentment. I like the simple things in life.
Yesterday I talked to a woman who had been shattered by her relationship with a psychopath. She didn’t know what hit her. I helped her to give voice to what had happened and I validated her experience.
So that is something I can give back for surviving a psychopath.
Maybe resilience is inherited. I just can’t get cynical. I could do with some of the bitchy, kick ass, get back up on your horse, what are you lookin at, attitude.
Right now I am glad that I can stand waking up in the morning and facing another day. I am grateful to be here.
I am grateful for having regained a little hope. It has been a hard road back.
Sea storm
I am still haunted.
Things just pop in my head and I finally string the dots together. When he left he packed up his things and left behind a garbage bag. Inside, along with the garbage, was a picture of his new girlfriends daughter bending over and showing her bare bottom and her tush. The picture was obviously send over the computer. I just went into shock.
What was he doing with it? How could this happen? Maybe it was accidental? Maybe she is starting a porn site to make money? Maybe the new girlfriend sent it because she was horrified.??????
I realized that this picture was dynamite. This is the sort of thing one can use to destroy lives. How carelessly he left it for me. How off hand. He was probably proud that he had such a picture. He had some kind of sexual relationship with his new girlfriend’s daughter.,Who knows what he thought or did not think. This is surprising because he can be almost asexual for long periods of time.
At that point I realized that I could use that picture to get my money back but I just tore it up. The girl in the picture was about 23 and married to a professional and she has two kids. I was sickened, angry, confused, shocked and so many other things all at once.
I was living in terrible bitterness for a long time. At the same time I could not get rid of memories of the good time. I was still in love with him. Even after all that abuse. I was so ashamed of myself for still wanting the good man in him to win out.
There was also a copy of his will made out at the same time he wanted me to get my will made out. In his he left everything to his kids. In mine he wanted me to leave him everything. That was the same month he started the affair with the new woman.
Sometimes I look back and I would like to have wielded that picture like a poleaxe and given it to the new girlfriend, or given it to the husband of the girl in the picture. They are very wealthy and conservative and appear to be a close. upstanding and thriving family. Sometimes I would like to use that picture to destroy more lives. The better part of myself tore up the picture.
Now I think it was fortunate. Nothing could have provided clearer evidence of his amoral, self serving and putrid character.
No one would believe me except my sister and my counselor. It seemed that if I tried to explain what had happened people would end up thinking I was deranged.
That made the abuse so much worse.
Thanks for listening
Sea Storm, welcome to our world…but it gets better. Honestly it does. I’m glad that you have a counselor and a sister that are understanding and supportive. There is a great supportive community here too…we’ve been there. We do understand. We do believe. Welcome!
Seastorm,
Welcome to LF. I was married 22+ years. There were many good times and I thought I had a mostly awesome family. Spath got worse and worse and more nasty, created more confusion, distant, aloof. I was going to leave him just based on his abuse and behavior toward me, but when I knew for sure that there was adultery, that was it for me. DONE
It’s been almost 2 years since he moved out. My divorce is final, but THINGS KEEP POPPING IN MY HEAD TOO. I have been connecting dots and so many things now I get this feeling of (Oh, that’s why he was acting weird)….. He really was who he was ALL ALONG>
I now think he cheated on and off our entire marriage. He was very sneaky and the way he covered it was being quiet, kind of shy, he wanted very few family friends. It was weird.
I too work on the bitterness. It’s a process. Don’t be hard on yourself. It was really hard for me to make the decision of being done – and thank God he didn’t try anymore to win me back. I think he finally knew I saw his lies.
I knew I certainly wasn’t living the life I had wanted, hoped and dreamed for- BUT now I can. I am working on it.
I did still love him. I love him now BUT it’s a different kind of simple humanitarian love. I don’t wish him evil, but I will admit that secretly I hope a little for some karma to kick in. I really did return love for his meanness and he tried to destroy me – I think he was jealous that I could be happy.
We should not be ashamed we love. We should not be ashamed that we want the good man to win out. Wanting the good man to win is a gift that our brain thinks that way. The damage comes when we hold out too long, be duped, being tricked, coerced, manipulated that the “good man” is back and really the mask is just in place.
I too am very careful about with whom I share my stories – for fear people will judge me as an idiot, over tolerant, stupid, or what could I possibly been thinking. ??? Had we not have had kids, the decision to go would’ve come sooner, but as I mention on another post, I feel it is appropriate to leave for the kids. That is the book title I want to write. “Leave for the Sake of the Kids.”
Now I worry about what it means for my kids to have witnessed spaths behavior. They know it’s not normal, but how much will play out in their lives? Hopefully as I’ve told them, take the best of you mom and the best of your dad and be the best YOU that you can find.
Peace Sea Storm
I read somewhere that we go into a relationship with a sociopath as naive, but not innocent, and come out as innocent, but no longer naive.
That gave me chills.
Jaded? I am not jaded, I don’t think. I have C-PTSD. I am weary of at least 1 out of every 25 people, and I cannot completely let my guard down until I know if I’m dealing with the 1 or the other 24.
The term jaded is relative. If a 7-year old finds out Santa isn’t real, to all the other 7-year olds, he/she is jaded. They will either find out eventually or they will grow up to be delusional.
I think survivors burn some of the most genuine light with the most sincere warmth I’ve ever seen in people. They know how to really value the good stuff in life because they know what it really means to lose what truly matters.