“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.
dear verity and buttons – thank you both for being so candid about your experiences. i applaud your honesty and bravery….these are the things that most make me feel safe as a fellow traveller.
best,
one step
Mine did the roses trick too – a dozen red ones with one white one for my mother designed to win her over. It didn’t work though – she noticed the holes in the soles of his shoes despite his polished outer exterior.
I have no evidence that mine cheated but he’s so textbook that it’s pretty much a sure bet he did and I just missed the signs. Mind you there’s a lot that can slip past your attention when you are suicidal with grief and pain because of all the abuse and what he’s done.
Mine was also obsessed with sex and would constantly pressure me for it. I stood up to him though in the end up and said NO “Your sexual needs are your responsibility – not mine. If you are horny then go wank. I don’t mind.” I seem to recall I even suggested he go hire himself a prostitute if he was that desperate for it. He was furious with me for that one! It was such a turn off though – he would grab me from behind while I was trying to cook dinner and just touch my breasts and whole body. Initially I would laugh and push him away but it happened too often and one day I threatened him with a knife I had in my hand. He backed off pretty quick that day.
He was an excellent actor. I actually believed him when he wept about how sorry he was for the latest muck up he’d created. Tears and angst and worry and pain – oh it was all there in every glorious micro facial expression – crocodile tears I realise them now to be but at the time they were so convincing. I would forgive him again and again and I actually wondered if he was cursed – bad things just seemed to ‘happen’ to him. Now I know he was the cause of it all – always was and the tears and remorse were totally faked.
What a loser.
Verity, the healing is happening, whether you are feeling it, or not. The fact that you are calling a spade a spade is evidence that you’re refusing to live in the Land of Denial. Healing takes place in fits and starts. Some days are full of glory and hope, and other days are dark and full of despair. But, the better days far outnumber the dark days, and that’s my yardstick for measuring my healing.
Guilt for feeling anger? It’s very easy for anyone to say, “Lose the guilt!” Here is something that may help: you have a RIGHT to feel angry. You are ENTITLED to experience your anger. The anger is a necessary part of the healing process (read “On Death and Dying” by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross) regardless of what our loss is. Without anger, there’s stagnation. With stagnation comes complacency. With complacency comes fear of risk. With fear of risk, we remain in the “comfort zone” of being a victim.
Everything is a risk, from choosing friends and partners, to opening a jar of peanut butter. Healthy risks involve evolution and growth. FEEL that anger, Verity! It’s OKAY – you are allowed to indulge that anger! Just make sure that you don’t allow the anger to develop into an obsession. Turn that anger into positive energy, and you will be amazed at who you are six weeks from now.
HUGS!!!!!!!!!
from the article: 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.
THIS is why we have to work hard to de-bunk the stereotype of spaths as loners and serial killers. mine LOOOOVED yucking it up with people. the more we talk about their traits and qualities and the types of scams they run, the better. i have decided that i am going to call the local college that has corrections services, behavioural physch and social work programs and see if they would like me to come speak to their classes. which means i have to write. and writing is thinking. i need to move on from this victim stance of hiding this stuff and from hiding from the ppath.
one_step_at_a_time says:
“THIS is why we have to work hard to de-bunk the stereotype of spaths as loners and serial killers.”
I could not agree more. Mine was a bit of a loner, but he was charming and present “good” people skills.
The comment regarding empathy is so true. While to some degree I was being mirror, I have the “benefit” of being privy to a detailed personal profile from a dating website where I learned he very much desired a long-term, committed monogamous relationship.
Thus, my empathy sensed this and a lot of other things regarding him. I just missed that he was not only a sociopath but withholding critical details of his life, even with all the red flags present.
Sociopaths never cease to amaze me. They are so textbook yet variable with the destruction they cause, they are a form of cancer!! And like cancer, they ruin many women and childrens lives. I have 2 boys from a man with apd and the oldest would rather him leave, but the youngest is intrigued by his horrible behavior. Needless to say, we will definately be attending family counseling! I have been physically and emotionally scared, my car has been stolen, the list could go on but I always bounce back. I have put him in jail, went on with my life and as soon as he is released he is calling my parents or me to start the whirlwind back up again, resulting in 14 years of violence. He feeds on my willingness to change him, my determination to have a career, and my tolerance for his poor behavior. And I fed on the fact that he always wanted me, he took me as is, and he was the father of my children. We all have our reasons for staying with these people, good or bad, and unfortunately they count on the kindness of strangers and loved ones. I wish for every woman, strength to get through their situation, self-esteem to understand what they are doing to you does not define you as a person, and to all the children resilience in order to become successful and intelligent people despite the horrible actions of their parent. In the future I hope to become a psychologists that specializes in the treatment of sociopaths through the legal system. Many times extreme consequence like jail time is the only way to get them to pay attention. And of course they are able to fly under the radar because their victims are usually in the home and may have feelings for them and want to protect them. So, I encourage every visitor to this site to find some community project in which they can assist and inform others about this silent (dream) killer; lets treat this personality disorder like cancer to bring awareness and help find a cure. Keep your head up! What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!!! Thank those idiots for giving you a thick skin and showing you what not to do!!!
Dear shojo,
Your letter made me so sad, that you continue in this game of magical musical chairs of trying to find a way to “fix” him.
I have news for you though, prison does NOT get their attention, they do NOT change….the “treatment” only makes them worse.
My hope is that you will find your strength to break AWAY from this dance and to heal yourself of the pain and get away from the “14 years of violence” before it becomes FIFTEEN years of violence, and then 16.
My focus is healing myself–there is no “cure” for them. They don’t want a “cure” so as long as you can “lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” is true, there is no cure for ASPD because they don’t want to be cured. (But they will tell you they do!) Don’t believe them. God bless.
yes unfortunately I agree with OxDrover….prison is another supermarket for them to shop in, I also suspect they unconsciously want to be caught…not because they have remorse, not because they want to be healed…but I actually think they desire RECOGNITION for their ‘exploits’ which they think are ‘pretty cool’
I say this not from reading or research but just from ‘picking up’ energy signals from the P and looking back via flashbacks to the way he was…there were dark moments when he would turn the air cold with the vibrations coming off him…this was a deep underlying need to express himself….something to do with having NO FEELINGS and being proud of it…
The energy that they can display. I remember an incident when we were on vacation in Tenessee (years ago, my two oldest children being there, not having had our third child yet), renting log houses (with my side of the family). The h-spath was standing on a deck and he looked very agitated, unnatural to me, having a look that I’d never seen in anyone before. He was trying to smile, seemingly being aware that whatever was going on inside of him was hard for him to handle. I thought that dealing with the children was getting to him. I really don’t know what I witnessed in him, but to this day, it seemed spooky to me, not liking what I observed. I don’t think that anyone else noticed what I saw (I was standing in front of the house on a grassy hill looking up at him).
Dear BP, I agree with you, they not only WANT recognition for what they did./do but they almost HAVE TO HAVE IT. They feel no shame for getting caught even as that was OF COURSE SOME ONE ELSE’S FAULT, NOT THEIRS. My P son is actually proud that his crime is “worse than even the cops know” (murder) How CAN it be “worse”?
I asked him that. He didn’t answer but went right back into “but Mommmmmm, what would JESUS DO?” Oh yes, he FOUND JESUS in prison. I think it is “Jesus Manuel Ortega” though, not Jesus the Christ.
Bluejay, I’ve seen “the LOOK” and many others have too. It is sort of like for a second they open the window into their black hole (I won’t say “soul”) and you can see the EVIL inside.