You can sit with a sociopath and know he’s a sociopath, and sit with someone who perpetrates the behaviors of the sociopath, even as comfortably as the sociopath does, and yet know he’s not a sociopath. How? How can you know?
Is it something intuitive? I address this from a clinical perspective, not a personal or intimate one. But still, I find it somewhat interesting to feel, or recognize, this distinction, and maybe you’ll find it more relevant than I imagine.
Of course, the history says a lot. Whenever you are dealing with someone who is raising his kids with some real love, holding down a job, paying his bills, not abusing his spouse and maintaining a history (past and present) of friendships, these are indicators that whatever else he is up to, he is probably not a sociopath.
And so, strangely enough, in sitting with an individual who is perpetrating “dubious” behaviors, and is doing so perhaps even as a lifestyle versus, say, as a sudden, temporary departure from his normal self —strangely enough, in sitting with such a person, one sometimes gets the sense if this individual, in his essence, is “clean,” or “dirty?” Meaning, is his dubious behavior reflective of a corrupt essence, or does it somehow feel divorced from his essence?
Depending on the answer, one’s experience of the individual can be dramatically, significantly different and diagnostically very telling.
If this sounds simplistic, even untenable, I understand; and yet I’ve found it to be–for me, at least–a rather reliable experiential factor in ruling-out sociopathy.
I’ve worked with individuals who have done, or are doing, some pretty rotten, disturbing things, yet who clearly are not sociopaths, whereas I’ve also worked with individuals whose behavioral resumes may favorably compare to the former individuals’, yet who clearly are sociopathic.
Now what do I mean by “clean?” Of course, I don’t mean it in a physical sense. I mean that the individual transmits a certain authenticity, a certain genuineness that the sociopath doesn’t. He also possesses what I’d describe, very importantly, as a willingness and capacity to be known. Further, he possesses the capacity to really own his suspect actions: he does not deny them; is less likely than the sociopath to rationalize them; and is less likely to blame others for the liberties he takes with them.
He may, or may not, feel guilt for what he does that he knows is wrong from an ethical (if not legal) standpoint; and it’s often the case that if he doesn’t feel guilt he won’t pretend that he does; and yet, unlike the sociopath, he may feel genuinely uncomfortable with his lack of guilt.
He may say something like, “I know I should feel guilty about this, but I don’t. I really don’t. Sometimes I wonder, is there something wrong with me?” And he will say and mean this sincerely.
Conversely, there is something, as we know, very slippery about the sociopath—slippery in the way he discusses, or evades, responsibility for his behaviors. The sociopath’s emotional superficiality becomes evident in the office fairly soon; and, for that reason, one grows bored with him, soon.
If he doesn’t feign guilt or regret for his actions—that is, even if he admits to feeling no guilt, notably he is neither uncomfortable with, nor curious about, his lack of guilt. (In contrast, as I suggested, the guiltless non-sociopath tends to be somewhat more struck by, and curious about, his guiltlessness.)
The sociopath, I can’t stress enough, is not someone you can get to know. This is a subtle, very revealing experience. Something obstructs the process of getting to know him. First of all, he does not make himself knowable in a genuine sense. He is not engagable at a deep enough, and genuine enough level, to be “known.”
It is surely also true that something else, something perhaps more elemental, obstructs here: the sociopath is gapingly missing personal substance. And personal substance is required to be known.
There is emptiness there, which nothing can fill. At best the smoother sociopath can disguise this massive deficit with superficially entertaining, diverting qualities. But in the clinical setting, these disguises are less effective, their effect shorter-term.
He can’t hide for long the fact that he can’t make himself known; or that, at bottom, there is so little of him to know. If he weren’t so sociopathic, he’d feel ashamed of this, mortified.
Of course if he felt that shame, that mortification, he wouldn’t be a sociopath.
(This article is copyrighted © 2011 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the attitudes and behaviors discussed.)
behind_blue_eyes
Typo, I changed it. Should have left it…
behind_blue_eyes
I should have left it because anything good we see in them is a reflection on us, not them.
skylar
BBE,
ain’t that the truth.
Everyone loves a sociopath because there’s nothing there, so they just mirror you and voila! instant soulmate!
Ox Drover
Well, gang, I’m off to bed with a book….husband’s grandkids will be here monday to wednsday and I’ve got to get the house finished up, and food cooked and all that. Don’t get to see them but every couple of years (they live in virginia) Canceling my living history gig tomorrow as it will be over 100 degrees and I do NOT want to dress out in 5 layers of linen and go play in the park! LOL I’m gonna hug my AC unit and tell it I love it!
slimone
Sky, Louise, Oxy, and All,
Hey Sky…you know, though I am just talking here and don’t really know ‘anything’, I would say being had at 17 exempts almost everyone from having even a modicum of success at tuning in to the conniving manipulations of these brain damaged beings. Plus I have read a lot of your story, and you were set up from birth for this kind of manipulation. And a miracle, if I ever saw one, you didn’t end up having the same genetic triggers your family posses ( regardless of your self deprecating evaluations of your own narcissism, I think you are a good and ‘healthy’ woman).
I haven’t truly ‘come up’ against the particular flavor of psychopathic ‘beast’ you did. Or if I have, I didn’t engage. Not because of any smartness, or radar…..I think our triggers and attractions are always operating, and unconscious, until and unless we are able to root them out, at their source. I think we all have our responses, at time in our lives and development that are not in our absolute control.
Maybe no absolute mental hygiene is available to protect us. I think I have to agree, though it saddens me to do so. However, knowing ‘them’, as much as we can. AND knowing ourselves to an even greater degree is some inoculation.
Oxy, thanks :-D.
Louise…..these were always ‘my’ kind of spaths: LOVE monsters. Who promised me salvation through the healing of their love. They were my favorite flavor of shit! Total eviscerating, heart stomping, humiliators. I can relate to his dumping you so soon after his ‘trauma drama’. Piling drama upon drama upon drama. Blech!!!!
Thank GOD for Love Fraud….this community has helped me find the courage to look reality as squarely in the eye as I am equipped to do.
Night….
Louise
Slimone:
Yeah, it’s like he couldn’t handle all that was happening to him so he had to dump me and cause more drama instead of allowing me to help him. He didn’t want help.
Thank you again.
behind_blue_eyes
Skylar;
Let me give you the most concrete example of mirroring I saw. Never posted it before because it was too identifiable. Now, I do not care.
On my second night out with the x-spath, I had a very long conversation with him. It was the most open I had ever been with somebody I had just met. The reason I did that was since I was going through a lot, I did want him to have any surprises. How ironic.
I told him about my health issues, the fact that I feared I was going to be illegally terminated, there was a recent relationship that did not work out and that I was under treatment for stress and depression. I also told him that I had plans to address each and that I was optimistic about the future.
Then I took a word from my favorite song at the time. I told him that despite of everything, I was actually no longer depressed. Disillusioned, yes. Depressed, no.
He turned to me and said “that is exactly how I feel, disillusioned but not depressed.”
A couple of days later, I emailed him the lyrics to the song, which is Rogues by Incubus.
He sent me a text. “Read the lyrics. Are you a Rogue? I like Rogues.”
behind_blue_eyes
Louise;
Funny, I was thinking the same thing regarding help this morning. Sociopaths do no want help because everything needs to be on their terms.
Louise
BBE:
Very good way of putting it, BBE!! They DO want everything on their terms without a doubt so it would make sense that they don’t want to accept help…makes them look weak…it confirms they have a problem and they don’t think they do or they can’t accept that they do.
Ox Drover
BBE I think that was a “tell” where they actually speak the truth. He was NOT wanting a relationship, he wanted a ROGUE. He wanted drama and chaos, not caring and kindness.
Sky’s X was good at the “tells” and we may notice them but not put the COMPLETE meaning to them that they are.
My X did the “tells” too, and my P-dar zinged on them, but I EXPLAINED it away because I didn’t want to believe what it said. DENIAL. LOL
Now when people tell me they are ROGUES I believe them. LOL