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
Thanks oxy! I think i did have a trifecta!
“Eccentric” is a normal persons polite way of saying FARKING NUTS!!!
“Highy Intelligent” is a normal persons polite way of saying FARKING INSANE!!!!
“Just a loner” is a normal persons polite way of saying “STAY AWAY FROM THAT FARKING INSANE NUT”!!!! I think I just laughed at that! ROTFLMAO!!!!!!! I must be going coo-cookier!!!
Gob Bless all of us that have had to find this website!
Oxy,
Now that I have laughed until I p’d my pants. On a more serious note, you are correct that he had me believing that his un-reality was reality!!! Whew!!! That was scary and when I called him on it…. is when the mask came off and I was nutz! Right Bud!!! Me nutz? I manage 100 employees and keep a business running efficiently and I’m nutz? No buckoo!!! You live in a fanatasy world that will never materialize and you’re running on a euphoric high!!! Is basically what happened. I put it in his face!!! About living in a fantasy world, I had given up all my security to find the reallity side of a dreaming spath!!!! OMGoodness! As I tell my brother, I made sure I left my writing on the walls before I left. This insane nut took it all away from me and had me questioning myself, I remember searching for ADHD on the net, he had me thinking I was ADHD!!! I became such an anxiety ridden nervous wreck. Months of those good ol oneuppers. For every nail I put in his arse(about fanatsy man), he tried to one up me and make me question myself!! I am not proud of how I acted sometimes… “but self preservation in survival mode” doesn’t put on the prettiest make up face in the morning! Whew!! I don’t know where taht came from…. but I’m glad to read it!
God bless us all!
NOT CRAZEEE!!!
Dear notcrtazzzzeee,
LOL, yea, I’ve laughed til I’ve p’d my pants on this blog many a time! Choke snort snif!!!
But I’m still hear after nearly three years because I learn something new every day, get a smile here or give one to someone that needs one.
I’ve questioned my own reality many a time, but now I’m realizing I’m not the crazzzzee one either, but doesn’t mean I haven’t acted crazy sometimes, or thought crazy thoughts, but those things, those times, don’t DEFINE ME!!!!
OXY!! HUGZZZZ!!!
I don’t think you are the crazzzeeeone either! You give such good advice, insight and understanding and I respect you for not hesistating to quote the Bible. When xspath proposed to me I told him I wanted God to be in our life, so… spath joined the local church up there and we would go when I visited and things were peachy! While I lived there we had our picture taken and put in our church directory under his last name!!! WRONG!!!! When I moved up there during the Lord’s prayer.. “Deliver us from evil”… I felt the evil with his arm around me and smiling about it! There is one man in the choir that could read my eyes and facial expression, he told me he knew I was in misery with his face. To this day the poor, unsuspecting ,caring good people of the deep south and this church are being fooled by him. Even after I left him and that town with a blaze of fire behind me. They just threw him a B’day party in August! I know how they think, I was raised by parents from SC and have had instilled all the Southern family values, religion ETC. He is gonna screw somebody else big time!
You are right that those times don’t define me and I shouldn’t be ashamed of how I reacted when the mask was falling off of my spath. I was provocked into showing the nasty fighting survival part of a deceived woman. Survival!!!!!!
Survial is not a pretty place to find yourself!!! You know that!
dear notcrazze,
I’ve done some things I’m not proud of either, when I was “acting crazzee” but I no longer beat myself up over doing these things because I do know why I did them at the time I did them. Doesn’t mean they were right, or that it was good that I did them, but I struck out in fear, fright and pain—sort of like your little dog might strike out and bite if it was lying on the road with bones broken after getting hit by a car. It was in such pain that it didn’t know up from down, right from left, or that the hand that reached out to it was there to “help” it just defensively struck out, snapping in all directions. I’ve been there. I know others have been too.
What people in the community think of me matters little to me now. There was a time, as I was growing up that “what would the neighbors think?” was THE most important thing in the world. NO MORE. I am now concerned more about what I think about my own actions (not in a narcissistic way, but in a way of assessing my moral compass, which I try to base on the “do-right” principle.)
If I DO RIGHT then I don’t have to be afraid of the consequences, I’ve done all I can do. If I do wrong, then the consequences will bite me in the arse one way or another.
Even the Apostle Peter wasn’t perfect by a long shot, he denied Christ the night before the death of Christ, after being with Him for three years. King David was a murderer and an adulterer and yet he was a “man after God’s own heart” because he could and did REPENT of the bad choices he made. Moses killed a man and fled from prosecution. Not all the “heroes” in the Bible (old or New Testements) were angels by any means. To me this shows that we can’t expect each other or ourselves to be perfect, only to work toward the DO-RIGHT principle and to listen when we are RIGHTLY rebuked for our behavior.
Many people “don’t want to judge” others behavior but Jesus told us that by “their fruits ye shall know them.” In other words, by their ACTIONS and their DEEDS. We CAN SEE what other people are, and whether or not they are good or evil by how they ACT and what they DO. If they are dishonest (to anyone) or lie or steal or abuse, then we do not need to be around them if they show no signs of repentence or changing their ways.
Believe me, I should have cut myself off a long time ago from those in my family and my circle who were dishonest and abusive and I didn’t do it. I kept making excuses, or letting others make excuses for them rather than looking to the scriptures to see how to handle it.
Not only the Bible but other historical and psychological and philosophical writings outline a better way to live and to get along with people. Tolerating abuse and dishonesty is NOT one that should be taught or believed anywhere I know of. Not in Islam, Christianity or any other place I’ve read.
What ever belief or cultural system that people have, no belief system that I know of, that allows or condones abuse of others is righteous. Even a person who doesn’t believe in a “creator” or a “higher power” can believe in a system of moral behavior and have a moral compass. Those that CLAIM to have a belief system that says “treat others well” (in whatever form) and yet they do NOT treat others well, or use that belief system to abuse others, are NOT practicing any kind of “religion” or “spirituality” that I want anything to do with.
My egg donor uses her religion as a CLUB for others, to belittle and devalue them, while raising her own “holy” status in her own mind—but to me that is NOTHING of what the Bible says.
Just like the “preachers” and “pastors” and other leaders that Jesus warned would sneak into the churches like “wolves in sheep’s clothing”—the news is full of these false prophets and the evil deeds they do in the name of God. Just like the Muslim ministers that preach hate and death for others that don’t believe like they do, we have all probably had an ancestor or two who lit the match on the fire that burned another one of our ancestors at the stake for “heresy.” People are persecuted in the name of “good” all over the world by people of all “faiths.”
Just like King David, I have to recognize my own faults, and try to correct them and do the best I can do with the “do-right” motive, and realize that I’m not perfect, but that I am still OK.
but Oxy actions and deeds are given a perfect “10” to an spath, becuase they are charming and cunning until you have to share living space with them and watch all their immature and irresponsible decisions! I saw the movie Mr. Deeds after I decided to leave him… OMGoodness! That was him! Mr. Deeds played by Adam Sandler… wanted to charm and intrigue everybody! He thinks he won’t slip up and let the mask come off. If the fact that I left that town with a blaze of fire behind me and didn’t get a chance to say goodbye or Thank you to anyone but my boss at the time, shouldn’t that be questionable? I did stick a 12 page print out about abuse in the couples door across the street. anonoimously!!!! (too late can’t spell). I can just imagine the crap he spread and told!!! OMGoodness. I will eventually go back and clear my name and reputation! I have never had anyone think what this arse probabaly told!!!
@Oxy-
Like your post above.
You seem to be very well-read,and know your Bible stories.
It is both interesting and helpful,in my opinion,the way you refer to Bible stories to make analogies.
Like you mention in your egg donor story above though,I also have had an experience with a few people who nearly made me want to run the other way,using Christianity as a way to justify certain behaviors..
I think it is true,though..Every religion will have a few “representatives” that misrepresent in a way that might make it
distasteful to some.
I know that this site isn’t about religion,but I really like,and can relate to the “Do-Right” principle you talk about here.
I believe that most are born with an innate sense between right and wrong.
THAT very principle is what continues to baffle me about the spath.
I have a desire to know why they systematically choose to do selfish,abusive things and in turn..feel nothing…
I do,however,accept it..
Reading the stories is enough evidence to have me convinced that it is true..
It’s “how they are”..
But I admit..
I’m having a very time wrapping my head around it.
Dear True,
There are many many articles here about WHY a psychopath is what s/he is….from genetics to choice, and the main reason seems to be LACK OF EMPATHY, lack of connectedness to other humans as humans of value. The view others as objects for their USE not as feeling thinking caring other humans.
The closest example I have that I can come up with is I raise cattle for their meat. I treat them well, feed them well, but guess what, when I get hungry I put one in the freezer. I do not feel guilty about eating that cow, or ending its life to do it. I want beef, I GET BEEF. It doesn’t grow on trees. That is the way the Psychopath feels about us. They want sex, money, admiration…whatever they TAKE it from us and don’t feel guilty. They want it, we have it, they get it. No guilt because that’s what we were brought on this earth to do and be for THEIR BENEFITS no matter what it costs us.
So I’m a COW-psychopath and they are HUMAN-PSYCHOPATHS, and if push came to shove and we were all on a life boat THEY WOULD EAT even if it meant killing one of us to do it because that is how they think. It is all about them.
Oxy,
so much wisdom in all your posts here for the last coupla days…..as always…..& much needed, as always.
I’ve had a tough couple of days, & hearing you say that you were “crazy as a bessie bug” (dunno what a bessie bug is!) for a year, makes me feel that there might be hope for me in 6 months, if I can keep from going completely crazy &/or driving everyone around me crazy for that long!
((Hugs Hugs Hugs))
Dear Whyme,
Darlling I don’t know what a bessie bug is but that’s a saying from my youth I always heard! But believe me I was CRAZZZZEEE, and it kept me from functioning at a level I wish i could have done, and I made some BAD financial decisions in those days and bad personal decisions, and popped off at the mouth when I should have sewed it shut, I put up with chit from people I should have told to go to hell, and I cried when they used me and stomped on me and I didn’t know which way to turn.
I was on another blog then, actually one owned by Sam Vaknin the self proclaimed Narcissist who is a PSYCHOPATH, and got flamed there by the MODERATORS, but about the time they were doing me in I FOUND LOVE FRAUD….sometime that summer or fall of 2007, and LF was my salvation.
I pretty well know WHAT TO DO it is just a matter of being able to DO it….to apply what I know to my own life….if that makes any sense, and I bet 99% of the people here on LF know what they should do, but they let the gaslighting and the emotional pain and confusion and the crazymaking make them crazeeee enough to wonder if they are CRAZY! Or drive them CRAZY!
All I can say is TAKE ONE DAY AT A TIME. One step at a time. One minute at a time if you have to, don’t borrow trouble from either tomorrow or yesterday.
Pick 3 things you need to do today, doesn’t matter which 3 it may be a simple as take a bath, change clothes and cook a meal. There were days I didn’t do any of those things. I lost 40 pounds without trying, I forgot to eat. Then I gained that 40 back and another 60 with it.
Start with basic things. Then when you have those things down “pat” and are doing them on a regular basis, then pick three more. BABY steps. Be GOOD to yourself.
Take things that you are doing that are NOT good for yourself, and pick ONE thing and stop it. When you get that down pat, PICK ANOTHER ONE. Some of the things may be pretty big, one of mine was SMOKING. I quit it. FINALLY, been a bit over a year now and I’m done with them, still want one once in a while but know I WILL NOT go back to smoking.
Once I got the smoking cessation down, I turned toward my diet and exercise and weight gain, higher Blood pressure and higher blood sugar (all really ONE thing, not different things) and set out to take care of it by losing some weight, increasing exercise and as bad as I hate to give up SALT, am on a lower sodium diet restriction, and guess what—-blood pressure is normal, blood sugar is normal and NO SWELLING in my feet or legs and I FEEL BETTER PHYSICALLY, sleep better, and all around life is getting better….one piece at a time! You can do it, start today!!! Don’t worry how far you have to go, just go the distance TODAY! You can DO IT!!!! We’re a couple of tough old birds and they can’t keep us down! We won’t let’em! TOWANDA!!!! ((((hugs)))