“Would somebody please tell me why he did this?” is one of the most common questions victims of sociopaths have. Three weeks ago I introduced the idea that the Inner Triangle can help each of us understand the individual sociopath that infected our lives. The Inner Triangle is formed by three qualities that develop in concert during childhood. These three qualities are Ability to Love, Impulse Control and Moral Reasoning. Last week I discussed the concept of Ability to Love. Lack of Ability to Love defines those with sociopathy. No less important however, is the lack of Impulse Control, also universally found in people with this disorder.
What is Impulse Control?
I’m sure many of you noticed that sociopaths have a lot of energy. Their minds come up with many plans and ideas. This energy would be a good thing if the sociopath could direct it toward positive goals. Sadly, however, the abundant energy sociopaths have leads them to pursue goals that damage others. The reason is poor impulse control. Sociopaths are unable to control the many impulses that come from their basic drives and emotions.
This poor impulse control causes sociopaths to be vulnerable to addictions of all kinds. Once these addictions are established, they are particularly resistant to treatment. Many have noted that the impulses sociopaths have are especially destructive. For example, sociopaths are often sexually driven. They may also be greedily driven to obtain possessions. However, the impulse to have power over others is the central defining impulse of sociopathy. Sociopaths expend most of their energy trying to gratify impulses related to having power and influence over others.
The desire for power
The desire for power has been very difficult for researchers to study. The reason is that unlike our other desires, there is no feeling associated with it. Think about it—when you want food, you are hungry. When you want affection, you are lonely. When you want entertainment, you are bored. When you want sex you’re”¦. The point is, how do you know when you want power? Researchers have established that this motive is completely beyond our conscious awareness!
Victims high in empathy do not recognize sociopaths
One of the main reasons why victims high in empathy do not recognize sociopaths is that the desire for power is non-conscious. People high in empathy make use of their knowledge of their own emotions to interpret the emotions of others. Can you see then why people who rely on empathy in interactions with others completely miss sociopaths? An empathetic person correctly observes that sociopaths enjoy the company of others. He/she then self-references his/her own feelings of affection with regard to enjoying other people. The victim is fooled into interpreting power motivations as affection-related motivations.
Power motivated people are high in testosterone
The power motive is directly related to testosterone levels in both men and women. This is likely also responsible for the hypersexual behavior seen in sociopaths. The relationship between testosterone and the desire for power is so strong that testosterone predicts dominance behavior better than psychological tests.
Many studies have shown that sociopaths do have higher testosterone levels both during adolescence and adulthood. This higher testosterone of male sociopaths may also make them more attractive to women. Women unconsciously sense male characteristics that indicate high testosterone and are attracted to these qualities.
Medications that “help” sociopaths
Medications that reduce overall energy and block driven behavior reduce problematic behavior in sociopaths. The medications that do this are called antipsychotic medications. They are also used to treat schizophrenia. The most commonly used anti-psychotic for adolescent and adult sociopaths is Risperdal. In the past, we used Thorazine for this purpose.
You may also wonder if castration works. Eliminating testosterone through either surgical or chemical castration does help some. However, removing testosterone does not restore Ability to Love and so does not really treat the underlying disorder.
Why me?
It is my hope that providing you with knowledge about this disorder will help you answer for yourself the “Why me?” question and will help you stop the self blame. We all can benefit from considering our own Ability to Love, Impulse Control and Moral Reasoning. The best thing for victims is to come out of this experience wiser and better.
Ox Drover
Good points SueK, TOWANDA!!!!
tobehappy
Oxy,
You are so right. In my “hungarian” family genes, there were lots of tyrants. Both grandfather’s were.One, I heard, murdered someone in Europe. My mom’s Dad. He also had a child from an affair, who is somewhere in Hungary. My brother looks like him and takes after him. My father’s dad sexually abused my sisters. I was tough, and “hated” him and refused to stay with him when I was young…even ran away with my coat on and all, when I was 3, while he babysat us. He was a pervert. My mother’s brother committed suicide.
So, I sometimes wonder where “I” came from…because my whole family is really F&cked up. I wondered that when I was ten yrs old…imagine that!
Yes, you are right. Time to stop living in fantasyland. My SIL blames my nephews “issues” on my brother. They fight about it all of the time. He dresses like a woman and my SIL wonders if he’s gay. There’s a lot more to this story.
They have a mansion in an affluent town, but guess what. My spathy brother put in a 40k resort yard…pool(that noone ever uses!) and all, and now can’t pay his mortgage, and is in foreclosure! So, he is careless with his money..spends like a drunkin sailor (another spath trait…recklessness) and so its ALL a facade!
Well, this Thanksgiving taught me something. I learned that its not worth it for one day, to put on a show for my children.
They now dislike their aunt and don’t want to be bothered anymore….they saw her true colors.
Another detail: (the devils’ in the detail….lol)…My neice has been trying to get an agent in NYC to act and model for years. MY SIL wouldn’t give us any advice on photographers..etc…knowing that MY daughter has the same goals. When my daughter was spotted in NYC and signed with an agent…all she could do is speak negatively about the agency and business. Also, my neice dumped my daughter to “hang out” with becuase a boy she had a longtime crush on, made comments about wanting to meet my daughter because she was so cute! So, she takes after her mom..my SIL. Jealous type.
No great loss. My gain. I learned a lesson and I am teaching my children about not associating with abusive, jealous people.
Thanks Oxy. “Thanks for giving” and you DO help so many people on here!
2b
Ox Drover
Dear 2B,
Thank you…sounds like your family might be kin to mine, I didn’t realize I had Hungarian ancestors though! LOL But with the promiscuious behavior of psychopaths, you never know WHO you might actually be kin to. LOL ROTFLMAO There is a saying among genealogists “mama’s baby, daddy’s….maybe” LOL ROTFLMAO
A great many people put in “resort yards” or live in “resort houses” that they never could afford and that is why the real estate market is tanking and our economy is tanking…people wanted to live like kings, couldn’t afford it, lived in fantasy land and felt ENTITLED to “the best” but weren’t willing to work for it.
I’m glad you are starting to sort out all these “relatives” and to THIN our your rolodex.
In my case it definitely makes for a SMALL family…just me and my adopted son pretty much except for some wonderful, but very elderly, cousins on the sperm donor’s side. I really dont’ have a loving or trusting relationship with anyone else.
New Beginning
My thoughts and prayers out to you all during the very difficult holiday season. I was married to a spath for 30 years (divorced Jan 2011) and sadly my brother married one 6 years ago. They wreak a havoc that no one can fully comprehend until they’ve lived it.
May we all heal a little more with each holiday that passes and I hope that each person can find at least one aspect of their life to be grateful for this holiday season.
Blessings, love and light to all.
skylar
Congratulations Freetobeme, on your parole from your spath prison.
Continue to read and learn because you will be amazed at how much you learn about yourself as you try to understand the spath. In that way, you might be able to enlighten your brother one day.
Ox Drover
Thank you free2Bme,
Holidays ARE what we MAKE THEM TO BE, not some Norman Rockwellian fantasy! LOL I got to where I hated the holidays, because they were ALL about the egg donor’s “vision” of our family around the holiday table with her brother, my UNCLE MONSTER! I couldn’t do it….so about 15 years ago I started having TG with my living history group at as state Park near here where we celebrated and have a good time with our friends, and NO DRAMA!!!!
Christmas I would take my kids and go visit friends in another state. Now that my family is just down to me and my adopted son D, we still don’t have any DRAMA, just peace and contentment….so I am getting back a bit to where I am not totally FREAKED OUT just by the bad memories of Christmas Past and can just have a quite, calm and PEACEFUL time with those I love. Egg donor shot herself in the foot with her screaming and crying and demanding that I “not ruin her Christmas”—well, she sure ruined a bunch for me! NO MORE though! Holidays are what we make them, even if we do it alone in the privacy of our own home!
callmeathena
I don’t know where else to post it, so please excuse a different train of thought. But.
Skylar was saying that she thought these various PDs are along a continuium or a spectrum of deficits in emotional maturity. (Sky, please correct me if I am wrong).
I found this article today about how people who have schitzophrenia actually DO see things differently than “normals”. I wondered if this is related to the issue we see with SPATHS in their predatory gaze. I thought it was very interesting.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090406102557.htm
Ox Drover
Athena,
I think that there are several things about people that make what they “see” different than what other people “see”—for example, color blindness, tone deafness, and various mental conditions as well.
Have you seen those pictures that if you look at them one way they are a vase or if you look at them another way are a woman’s face? Or that one of the woman sitting in front of a mirror, and if you look at it another way it is an image of a skull?
Some people have difficulty seeing both images, just like this one in the article you linked to.
This is a good article.
Also, what we “see” I think depends on what we have been told is “good or bad” as well. That’s why different cultures see different acts in one way from how another culture would see it.
For example in some countries a person would be stoned for adultery and that would be seen as a good thing to do, but in our culture we would not see that as a reasonable punishment for the same behavior.
New Beginning
LOL, thank you, Skylar. I have periodically visited this site over the past couple of years however did not contribute as my ex-spath was accessing my computers. Not being a techno-geek it took me awhile to figure out that he had the router IP/password and could access all of my computers any time he wanted to. That has since been remedied! 🙂
Sadly my brother’s wife is a psychologist so her opinion is as good as gold to both him and my other brother. Oh the stories I have.
Currently I am in the process of finalizing my Mom’s estate (she passed April 2011, miss her so much. Funeral was a nightmare with the spath SIL and her influence on my brothers) and making sure I cover my a$$ in every possible way in managing the assets. It’s been difficult but it is what it is and I know there is hope for the future. We are survivors! 🙂
New Beginning
Oxy, I so agree that holidays are what we make them! My family is also down to me, my adult son (and a very sweet Maine Coon cat) however he has to work holidays. This year I reserved a suite for Christmas Eve with a gas fireplace at the hotel he works at as a Christmas gift to myself. Am very fortunate that my son is a very caring person and also that I have a dear friend whose family has “adopted” me with open arms so I still feel love in my life. Every day I work on holding on to all that is positive in my life and letting go of all that isn’t……and I think I’m making progress!
May you and your son find many blessings within each other over the holiday season. 🙂