It’s easy to get obsessed with, fixated on, “labels” and diagnostic categories like sociopath, psychopath, malignant narcissist, narcissist, etc. To be sure, labels and diagnoses can be important and informative.
In the case of “sociopathic” individuals, for instance, we know that there’s no changing them; we know that there’s no real hope for their redemption; and so, if you’ve correctly identified a sociopathic type, you can know that it’s pointless, self-destructive to invest another minute of your time in him. And this is a good thing to know.
But it’s also the case, I’d suggest, that an overfocus on labels and diagnoses can sometimes be a distraction, a form of avoidance, sometimes of obsession, and, in some cases, a habitually poor use of one’s time.
Does it really matter, as several LoveFraud readers have pointed out in various posts over the months, what precise label—accurate or not—you affix to an individual when he’s proven to be emotionally unavailable, or a compulsive liar, or an abusive personality, or a chronically selfish, self-centered partner, or a chronic, comfortable manipulator and deceiver?
Does it really matter, in the end, what you call this? It seems to me that what’s suitable to call this, and perhaps all that’s necessary, sometimes, to call this, is–This is a bad dude for me. This is the wrong dude for me.
Sometimes this is the diagnosis that ultimately matters: Wrong dude for me, or Right dude for me.
Whether he’s a narcissist, sociopath, or neither (in a fullblown sense); whether he’s got another personality disorder, or a hybrid of personality disorders, or whether, again, he fails to meet the full criteria for any personality disorder, sometimes this isn’t the main issue.
Often, what matters most is what it is that you require in a partner, and whether he has the goods to deliver it. And once you establish that he lacks what you require—say, sufficient integrity, emotional generosity, dependability, you name it—then, as I suggest, you’ve nailed the really, and sometimes only, relevant diagnosis—the he’s wrong for me! diagnosis.
I understand that a community of people who’ve suffered some of the common indignities inflicted by exploitive personalities can offer one another invaluable support, and I surely don’t mean to devalue the fantastic healing power of this communal process.
But it’s also important to remember, going forward, that we, each of us, needs to take a good, long look in the mirror and take charge of the kind of relationships that dignify us. I maintain that, in a great many cases, when we’re honest with ourselves, we discover, in examining the history of our relationships, that we may have tolerated, overlooked, or denied behaviors and attitudes that, in retrospect, should have been unacceptable to us.
These may have been the behaviors and attitudes of a sociopath, or just a selfish, immature partner; a narcissist, or just an emotionally unavailable, detached boyfriend or girlfriend.
We may have invested a great deal of false, unrealistic hope in the possibility that this person would change; that we could somehow change this person; that this person would somehow, someday, “get it,” wake up, possibly “grow up,” realize and, finally, properly value,what we had to offer him (or her)!
But as so many of us know all too well, this can be a misguided fantasy that leads us into dangerous, compromising investments–investments which can devolve us into protracted, paralyzing resentment of the individual in whom we made this too-long, too-patient and too-compromising investment; and then get hung-up on eviscerating him for his deviance—when all along, maybe more obviously than we ever wanted to admit, we might have recognized that he was the wrong dude for me.
Again, I sincerely don’t mean to minimize the trauma arising from the violating—sometimes the shockingly violating behaviors—of those in whom we’ve invested our trust. And I particularly don’t mean to minimize the pain engendered from the chronically violating behaviors of serial expoiters.
But I do mean to question whether, sometimes, dwelling on any diagnostic cateory, including the sociopathic spectrum category, can distract us from a most important, and, ultimately, liberating achievement, which is to own that sometimes we end up making terrible choices of partners, regardless of their diagnoses—partners incapable of doing us justice, and capable all too often of doing us terrible injustice.
These are partners—whoever they are, and whatever drives their unacceptable behaviors—whom we want to be grateful to be rid of, and whose destructive qualities, in future relationships, we want to seize every opportunity to steer clear of.
(As usual, my use of male gender pronouns in this article is purely for convenience’s sake. Everything discussed in this article applies equally to female perpetrators of deception and exploitation. This article is copyrighted (c) 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
wow Oxy…strong words…..sucking advice and comfort and never give it back, yes I experience it all the time. I totally agree, I will give people advice to a point, then it may become apparent ( I do it myself and then come around) that we do not WANT the help…or the help that we crave is not as strong as the craving to suck and pull and destroy the helper (to prove how terrible life is)…
so I just cut the line and let em sink or swim, hoping they swim…but I won’t patronise someone into a helpless lump of self pity…there is a fight on and you get up and you get active or succumb to “help me help me” there comes a point where..shut up and help yourself…
do something that builds your self esteem instead of literally trying to DRAG someone else into the black pit of depression with you….it’s the drowning man syndrome..we can just hook onto someone and pull them under…two drowning instead of one….gettoffmeee! karate chop to the neck..and let em drown….
I have just applied it to a “friend” who just bites onto me and sucks everything out of me, I come away exhausted (trying to tell myself …she is a friend and she needs me…No) she is an energy hoover and I cannot do it anymore, I ask the universe to give me friends that can look after themselves and not lock onto me….sick of it….so sick and tired of it….
Thank you Oxy! hmmm I am hoping I give back … I have received a lot of knowledge and strength here… and would not be where I am today without this site or the wonderful, amazing ppl that have been through similar experiences… = ) thanks! All!
Hens I feel ya the more I read the more I look at myself, I have goals … I have a heart and morals and a conscience enough said….. Oh and I pay my bills I dont sponge off other people! And I do not walk around with a sparkly look in my eye like the rest of the world is my bait??? has any one else noticed this look that they all have almost 24/7 and why dont people write more about this… that way we can spot them quicker!
Dear BP and Spirit,
I’m glad you got my meaning, and Yes, they are STRONG words because those people are energy depleting. They can suck you DRY both in real life and on-line support. Fortunately, they are few and far between here on LF and are absent in my life in real life now, because those people have been thrown to the side lines. I no longer provide them convenient place or time to SUCK MY LIFE BLOOD.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t HELP someone, but I am very careful to walk that FINE LINE between “help” and “enabling.”
Help is not doing for someone what they can do for themselves. Not doing what they SHOULD BE DOING FOR THEMSELVES.
If you lend a shoulder to a friend or stranger who has a broken leg and CANNOT walk, you are HELPING THEM. But, if that same person wants you to carry them when they have two perfectly good legs, you would be “enabling” them.
Sometimes the enabling comes on slowly, we “help them” when their leg is broken but as they get well, we continue to cater to them and do-for them.
We bathe and feed, and dress our infants…do EVERYTHING for them. That is Helping that child because the child at first is NOT ABLE to do any of these things for themselves.
As the child gets older and is more able to DO things for themselves—such as walk. If we continued to carry that child instead of let him walk, or to dress him, feed him, and diaper him instead of require he go to the toilet, we are NOT “helping” that child, but ENABLING him to become a parasite.
Sure, maybe the child cries and WANTS to be carried all the time, but there comes a point we must say “NO, you are able to walk on your own and at 100 pounds you are too big for me to carry.” LOL
Seriously though, we must let others make their own decisions, even if we have more “know how” and are “smarter” and “better educated” to make those decisions. We can SUGGEST choices, even STRONGLY suggest choices, but each person must make their own decisions and ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES OF THOSE DECISIONS.
An “Enabler” will become angry if the enabled person doesn’t comply with suggestions made by the enabler, and so if I start to feel angry that “suzie just keeps making the same mistake over and over even though I’ve told her what she SHOULD do” then I know I am NOT “helping” Suzie, but I am TRYING TO ENABLE HER. Or if I am picking up the dirty clothes off the floor for someone who is quite capable of picking them up themselves and feeling RESENTFUL , then I am ENABLING them to evade an adult responsibility to care for their own clothes.
Son D and I live together. We divide the chores of the household and the farm. I usually do his laundry and do most of the cooking and dishwashing. Just because those are the things I am more able to do (though he knows how to do those things) and he works on the cars, usually mows the lawn, takes out the trash and feeds the critters, and other things we do together because it takes “two people.” I am not enabling him by doing his laundry though he is responsible for his own clothing as an adult. WE have a DIVISION of labor that suits us. And, if I have not gotten around to doing the laundry when he wants a specific piece of clothing, he will do it himself. On the WHOLE we are pretty fair about our division of labor and we don’t bitch at each other if something doesn’t get done in the time frame WE think it should. It is what makes us such great roommies.
He tells me in advance when he plans to be gone from home over night or for several days so if I have any plans we can make adjustments. And I keep him advised of when I plan to go somewhere. Neither of us asks “permission” of the other for when we go somewhere or do something. We make accomodations.
My husband and I were pretty much on that same “division of labor” though when I was employed off the farm, he did the shopping, I did the cooking, etc. and I hired most of the house work and laundry done, so I could have more time to spend with the family and also to do things I wanted to.
That is a give and take relationship, not “enabling” anyone. EVeryone pulls their own weight to the best of their ability and all adult members of the family act responsibly toward others.
Psychopaths don’t participate in a give and take division of labor or tit for tat friendship. They TAKE MUCH MORE than they give back.
Sure, in any friendship or relationship of any kind, there are times one person “gives’ more than the other, but on the whole over time it is about even. Not with a psychopath of any level. If you sit down with a paper and pencil or just thoughts in your head and you feel like you are GIVING MORE in a relationship than you are getting and you are starting to RESENT doing things for those people, they are SUCKING off of you, then you are probably in a relationshit with someone who is more of a TAKER than a GIVER….and you need to set some boundaries.
Sometimes if this relationshit has been over a great period of time, and you are emotionally attached to this person, or they are a relative, etc. it is difficult to set these boundaries since you have “always baby sat Suzie’s kids at a moment’s notice” but now you don’t want to. So, Suzie may actually become very HOSTILE toward you when you are no longer her SUPPLY for instant baby sitting. You always have, so why are you stopping now?
Also, maybe Suzie is your husband’s sister and he is very attached to her—and now the two of you are HOSTILE because you have set boundaries with Suzie.
So these things can escalate into family feuds when Suzie isn’t just YOUR friend and YOUR problem alone. This is where the problems come with entire social networks and family networks. You can’t easily go NC with a hostile person because you attend family functions together and others are concerned about a breech between you and Suzie. People split up and take sides. The hostility grows.
Looking back at my own family situation this is an exact description of what was going on. Plus my egg donor would complain how my son C and/or his P-wife were treating her, and want me to DO SOMETHING, and I would jump in and go talk to them about what they had done to egg donor, and guess what? then Egg donor would say “well it wasn’t all that bad anyway.”
ROUND and ROUND it went, like musical chairs of VICTIM, RESCUER and ABUSER. Everyone having their favorite chair, of course, but in the end, each of us sitting in all THREE CHAIRS and feeling abused. Justified in our anger at the others and feeling holy as we Rescued the current victim.
This may not always be a psychopathic relationshit but it sure is a dysfunctional one. I’m done with it. I HAVE TO BE DONE WITH IT in order to live a peaceful life. To take responsibility for what I am responsible for, to have others in my life BE responsible for what they are responsible for, and to set and enforce boundaries of the behavior I will tolerate from those close to me.
Most of the time, those boundaries are even unspoken, and are simply GOOD MANNERS and WHAT IS THE KIND THING to do. What is being a “good neighbor” to others or a good housemate, or a good friend. When someone violates those good manners or takes repeated unfair advantage of my kindness, then I realize that I must be responsible for myself and enforce those boundaries—even if it is NC. This was a difficult lesson to learn, and especially when I realized that I was RESPONSIBLE for most of the abusive things done to me in the past, because I ALLOWED it to continue well after I knew what it was. Now I am responsible for keeping myself health, happy and at peace by acting in my own best interest.
on_step_at_a_time,
Too bad all of us here (as a group) couldn’t kick his _ss, keeping your friend out of harm’s way, enabling her to live in peace. She’ll stay in my prayers.
I sometimes wish they would “open season” on them with NO “bag limit” but what would we do with that much vermin meat? Can you imagine how we would stink up the universe if we bagged them all at once!
Then someone would declare them an “endangered species” and protect them so we’d be right back where we are now–just like with wolves and rattle snakes!~ LOL Protected species!
bluejay – i used to talk about a ‘spath squad’, an idea for an elite squad of the spathed who could ‘deal with’ each other’s spaths….um, ‘directly’.
now, i just want us to care for one another. the friend from lf who has been out of contact offered more than once to help me with the ppath, but i care too much for my lf friend. i know it would have been traumatizing for her, and i wouldn’t court that. but she offered, and that meant a lot to me – a friend is someone who offers, and a friend is someone who refuses to put you in harms way.
querida…wherever you are…besitos.
🙂
one_step_at_a_time,
The best thing that we can do for ourselves is to heal. So true.
Steve,
Thanks so much for this article. The types of personality that might obsess over whether their partner does/does not fit a particular diagnostic label (like me!) needed exactly what you provided. PERMISSION to TRUST OURSELVES! YAY! Power back to the people.
Thank you again!