Even bad people can sometimes behave well. That seems a strange twist on the idea of “good people behaving badly.” But it’s true. Even the skeeviest personality isn’t usually spending all day long exploiting everyone who enters his path.
Now this doesn’t mitigate his skeeviness one wit. But it’s also true that sociopaths aren’t always exploiting and mistreating others, all day long. They will be taking some time off, in different contexts, from their more unseemly behaviors.
And so sometimes, sociopaths can be nice, even very nice; sometimes they may extend themselves to others. Now we can question what motivates them when they are behaving well; probably, very often, their prosocial behaviors are driven by relatively shallow, if not manipulatively self-serving, motives.
Still, it’s fair to say that most sociopaths aren’t spending their lives 24/7 causing havoc to everyone around them; and it’s fair to suggest that, sometimes, if motivated to do so, they may even bring some cheer into others’ lives.
After all, we know these personalities can be charming and engaging; and that when they are, this isn’t necessarily, always an “act.” The sociopath can be genuinely charming and engaging, and he may enjoy, genuinely on some level, being charming and engaging.
In a sense I’m suggesting that not everything about even the sociopath is fraudulent; the sociopath, like anyone else, has genuine experiences, although we are right to question the depth of his experiences; and we are right to question his motives when he is behaving himself.
But to avoid confusion, my point is this: Beware! Do not rule-out sociopathy, or a similarly exploitative personality disturbance, simply because the individual is capable of behaving well sometimes, or even, alas, often. To do so risks our missing the significance of the dangerous, always lurking curve-balls that the even sometimes well-behaved sociopath may throw at any time (predictably or not).
One may be tempted to think, “If he can behave this well, can he really be that bad?” The answer is, yes. He can behave, sometimes, this well, and yet really be that bad!
So while I’m not necessarily saying “don’t be fooled” by his better behaviors, which may (or may not) have a genuine component to them, I am suggesting the exercising of great caution not to let the sociopath’s better behaviors distract you one bit from giving full weight to, and appreciation of, his destructive behaviors.
The latter should not be regarded as one bit less menacing and forbidding by virtue of his capacity to display the former.
(This article is copyrighted © 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is strictly for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the behaviors and attitudes displayed.)
LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: I fear for my granddaughter’s life
truelove, Feeling compelled to hate the spath is not prerequisite of being here. I’m sure you can find some of my writings here that “bash” the ex-tox… but I do not feel hate in my heart, I refuse to become bitter, I don’t want to live my life like that. I believe what your therapist said about sadness, for that is how I feel. IMHO I believe your grief will lessen as time goes by, that has been my experience, although I am still sad… I don’t feel the grief so much now. Does that make sense?
I once had a miscarriage, many years ago, and it was a terrible time, I loved the baby, cried for the baby, I had bought the baby some clothes, it took a long long time to get over that, and you have the miscarriage AND the spath to grieve. Please know that you will start feeling better, everyone is different, everyone’s time frame is different, sometimes I wonder why I am still sad all the time, but I try to be patient with myself.
So go ahead and vent away!! I’m not into the anger/hate either, in fact I have asked myself why I don’t feel anger. Maybe you have read some posts from people who are in the anger stage, some are in the denial stage or bargaining stage. I didn’t realize there were so many stages!! I was stuck in my own stage which was trying to pick myself up from the floor after I felt like I hit a brick wall at 90mph. Have you ever read Kathleen Hawk’s series on recovering from a sociopath? Her name is listed on the left hand side of the page under “Categories”.
She has written about the different stages we go through. I think I will read the articles again… I still feel kinda stuck.
The holidays are notorious for making people feel alone, even when surrounded by people I can feel lonely/sad. I am just waiting for these feelings to go away!!!! I have written many many times on LF about hating to be alone! I think holidays make it worse because we remember good times… how things used to be… it’s all supposed to be warm and fuzzy!!! Maybe I should have seen a therapist. I am glad you are talking to someone about all this, you are going to be ok!! Please keep posting, we all learn from each other, there are a lot of people who just read… you probably help people you don’t even know about, maybe someone full of bitterness and anger will read your post and start thinking of other possibilities.
Dear trueloveistrue,
You are sad, and sadness is only one of the many faces of grief and loss…you lost the baby you were carrying and that you loved from the moment you knew it was there. The baby that was part of you and him and part of your plans for the future, then you lost the plans for the future along with the baby, and it seems that seeing him, knowing he is with someone else now, and that maybe if the baby had not died the three of you might still be together.
Becoming bitter is the the very thing I “preach against” here on Lovefraud every day—and if we do feel bitter, I think we need to work on overcoming that feeling.
Sadness is a valid part of grief, of letting go the painful emotions that are connected with an injury or a loss. Anger (not bitterness) is also a valid part of that process of grief. Bargaining is another part of the process.
Google Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who was one of the early writers and researchers on grief process and you will get some information that will be very helpful and informative for you. Grief is not just about psychopaths, it is about loss and recovery. Whatever the loss, the more important it was the greater the loss, the greater the grief.
We can’t go around the stages of grief, the sadness, the feelings of being alone in our grief and pain, and all the others associated with that loss and pain, we have to go through it. We may be in different stages at the same time but no one here is trying to even suggest that you must be in the same stage we are in…or that you have to be a hater or be bitter. We have some gallows humor sometimes, and that’s okay. Some of us hate them or him or her sometimes and that’s okay, but just like you don’t want to feel sad for the rest of your life, but to resolve that sadness and move toward resolution of your grief, none of the people here want to feel bitter either, but want to resolve that and more toward acceptance of what IS rather than grieve over what is NOT. God bless. (((Hugs))))
Trueloveistrue:
Grief is absolutely appropriate. Grief for all that you lost – the relationship, the baby, your hopes and dreams.
It does not serve us to stay embroiled in hatred. The emotion chews us up, and does absolutely nothing to the sociopath.
Our goal should be to process the pain to the point that we can transcend it, and they no longer have hooks of any kind lodged in our hearts. We want to release the hooks of hatred, grief, resentment and pain. We want to get to the point where we just accept that that is the way they are, and it is not our problem anymore.
trueloveistrue :
You poor darling girl – I just want to hug you so big and hold your hand and cry with you. My sad months are March and May, when I lost my babes (at 6 and 7 weeks) and October and December (when they would have been born).
They were the only two children I ever managed to conceive and I’ve not fallen pregnant since. They would now be 20 and 15, had they lived. I’ve even imagined that I knew their sexes and what they looked like. The first time, I didn’t realise I was pregnant until I began to miscarry; then I spent years blaming myself for drinking too much coffee – but if anything external influenced it, it must surely have been the enormous stress I was under, living with an abusive person and being devalued daily (and no – he was not a spath, just a short-tempered man with no self-control)(husband number 1; there have been 4)(so shoot me). The second time, I KNEW before I had the tests, the first of which came back negative (too early to tell) but the test a week later was positive. I had two days of stunned disbelief and wonderment and joy and then a day in bed, in agony, while that little one left me. Horrific. Then to be told (a while later in hospital, after exploratory surgery) that I wouldn’t concieve again. Gut-wrenching. I still get sad in those months and I still grieve those losses, but time has softened the pain, as it will with you. I never thought it would. I’m now 44, with multiple health problems, so the chances of being are mummy are a million to one. My application to foster is also in the deep freeze, until I have completely de-spathed my life and have a better handle on my health issues.
Even without a spath in the picture, the grief of losing an unborn child will eat you alive for a long, long time. Please make sure that that you spend at least as much time focussing on this dreadful loss as you do on the spath’s betrayal, when you talk to your counselor. This is not a loss to be borne silently or on your own; it goes way too deep.
“My feelings are that I do not see the helpfulness in becoming vicious towards him,though some would say it may be warranted..If in order to fit in here,one has to be comfortable in bashing the spath/(or spaths),then I will surely never belong..”
You DO belong already. My “vicious and bitter” stage lasted a couple of months and was long ago. It came as I found my anger and the righteous indignation I was entilted (as are all victims of spaths) to feel. Before that, the sadness and sorrow, the quiet feeling that the world was dissolving around me and I couldn’t even muster the courage to hang on, lasted over 2 years. It could not have been rushed – it was how long I needed to grieve what I was grieving. The “Bitter and twisted” bit is just a small part of the anger stage that you will reach – it’s necessary so that you can pass on through to a better stage of healing. Even so, “bitter and twisted” is different for different folks. “Angry” is also different depending on your nature and personality. There is no right or wrong about how you feel it. The only wrong would be for you to resist moving through the stages you need to move through.
“I am still not interested in becoming a “hater.””
Me neither, yet I did for a while there. It’s not in my nature to hate and I have always been good at forgiving. I’m also a very patient person. I have also ended up with illnesses because of the spath in my life. My doctors are convinced that repeated bouts of pneumonia, followed by shingles, followed by Chronic Fatigue, followed by a breast lump, followed by Fibromyalgia, all with a good measure of crippling PTSD are due to my having lived for years with ongoing, chronic stress and distress in my life. Depleting my cortisol, messing with my hormone levels, putting my body out of kilter and creating physical illness in me.
“There is no where else where people will understand what Im talking about..” I agree and it’s why I’m here too.
“I am confused,” – how could you NOT feel this way? What we have been through is abnormal, weird, cruel and unusual. To take that in your stride without missing a beat would just be to ignore the facts. We live through hell, our recoveries are nightmarish, recovering our foothold on the life we once had is a slippery business (with plenty of back-sliding along the way) and the reserves we have to do all of this with are non-existent. Personally, I think that by the time we make it through to the other side (which you WILL do, even though you can’t see or feel or believe it just now), we are all HEROES. We all, each and every one of us, eventually and in our own time, do magic with nothing but a handful of dust. If that doesn’t make us heroes, then I don’t know what would. Hang in there darling; your time is on its way.
“I only grieve for now”” – and I grieve for you and with you. x
Dear Aussiegirl,
You are very profound and moving in the post above. God bless your wise heart! (((hugs))))
xx
(still crying)
Dear Aussiegirl, I can hear and FEEL the empathy you have for truelove and only someone who has experienced such profound loss can truly relate to someone else who has experienced such a loss. Your heart is wise and your compassion boundless.
When Witsend came here desperate to find a solution to her son who seemed to be “morphing” into a psychopath before her eyes and she was literally in fear of her life with the boy, yet wanted so desperately to find a solution to “fix” him (he was 16) but I knew how she felt because I had BEEN in those shoes, those exact shoes wanting to find some way to SAVE MY SON….Wits end’s son will turn 18 in december and she only comes here from time to time now, but though her heart still aches at the “loss” of her son (though he still breathes) I think my understanding of that loss helped her to survive that intense pain.
Each of us here has suffered, and in some way alike and in some ways differently, but there is a common thread. Henry and Matt are both gay men and though one i s a landscaper in Oklahoma and the other an attorney in Washington DC they have a common bond that “us girls” don’t have with them, an understanding for each other. So there are people here from all walks of life who have had different relationships with various psychopaths of all levels, from murderers to just hateful arse holes…sons, daughters, parents, sibs, coworkers, spouses, co-parents, etc. but the contribution we each make is so important.
Thank you for being here…your kind, compassionate and very wise advice to someone who is I am sure hurting deeply was very moving to me, and I think will be/is to her as well. Your sage advice is a great addition to our community here. (((hugs))))
Aussiegirl,
Thank you so much for your caring post. It is so wonderful that we are all here for each other.
I love reading all of these posts and it has helped me so much with not losing my mind and NC. At times I feel so strong not being with my Spath and then I get moments of weakness where I feel so sad and lost and upset.
It is weird that spaths can do great acts of kindness and fool everyone into believing what a great person he or she is. My soath is always doing other things for people and going out of his way to help others. But…that is what they do…right? They try to make others believe that they are great people to maks all of the messed up stuff they do.
My spath lied and lied and lied. One day I took off work after we were on the rocks from me finding out he had been on sick porn sites and lied to me about it and said that someone else signed him up for thoses. I took off work to get tested for everything under the sun.(all came back okay) I drove past his house just to see if he was at home(he lives w his parents) bc he was supposed to be at work. It was like 10am and he was supposed to be at work early that day. I sat at the end of his driveway and called him.
Here is how the convo went:
Me: “Hey, where are you right now?”
Spath” What do you need? Hurry up because I am about to walk inot a meeting.”
Me: “You are? Where are you?”
Spath: “I am in _______ about to walk inot a meeting.”
Me: “Really? What car are you in?”
Spath: “My truck.”
Me: “Really? Your truck is in ______ risht now?”
Spath: “Yes,l I am in_____”
Me: “Then why am I looking at your truck in your parents drivweway?”
Spath: “Ummmm I meant to say I am in a hurry and about to leave for a meeting.”
When I would bring this up again he would swear he never told me he was walking into a meeting that I misunderstood him.
I totally understand how these types of people can make you crazy. They make you constantly think if you are losing your mind and not hearing things correctly etc.
Right now I am sad tonight and don’t know why….it will pass I guess.
Had to get this off my mind and heart.
So I can’t type well…lol. I read my post and it is full of typos…sorry:(