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Psychopathy, empathy and moral agency: Lessons from autism

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 5:41am • My Weblog

If there is one thing that gets me argumentative it is statements like this one that appeared in a recent research paper: “non-incarcerated psychopaths have an arguably equal potential to illuminate our understanding of the emotional difficulties, such as lack of empathy and lack of conscience, which underlie psychopathy and which lead to offending behaviour.” (emphasis mine)

Now I agree that we can learn from non-incarcerated psychopaths, I wrote recently about a well designed study where sociologists conducted interviews of some. But I cannot believe that statements like the one above make it through editorial review for another reason. Researchers in psychology have spent the last 50 years and untold millions of dollars uncovering the cause of behavior. There is no mystery, we know what causes behavior!

Behavior is caused by rewards and stopped by punishment. Actually rewards cause behavior a lot better than punishment stops it in most people. That is because the brain reward system is functionally stronger than the brain punishment system for most, and especially for sociopaths/psychopaths. The rewards that cause behavior do so because they increase dopamine activity in the mesolimbic dopamine system.

Offending behavior exists and persists because it is rewarding and that reward affects the activity of the mesolimbic dopamine system. To put it bluntly, nothing but desiring/liking to offend leads to offending behavior. To say otherwise is to negate all the work that has been done in this area. The evidence is so strong that genes involved in dopamine metabolism and that system have been identified as candidate genes in the familial transmission of “offending behavior”.

I will repeat, a lack of empathy does not cause offending behavior, neither does a lack of conscience. These two may cause a person to show restraint if he is tempted to aggress against another, but it is the aggressive impulse that causes aggression. So a person with empathy and conscience can still offend if he has the inclination to do so. Furthermore, there is evidence that repeated offending erodes away empathy and conscience.

There is another source of evidence that calls into question the hypothesis that lack of empathy causes the sociopath’s behavior. That source of evidence is people with autism and autism spectrum disorders.

I recently found two very impressive discussions comparing moral agency in autism and psychopathy. The first is, Autism, Empathy and Moral Agency, a paper published in The Philosophical Quarterly (52:340, 2002) written by Dr. Jeannette Kennett, Deputy Director and Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, The Australian National University. Since I didn’t know to search Philosophical Quarterly for papers on psychopathy, I didn’t find that paper until I read “Moral Psychology, Volume 3, The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders and Development” MIT Press, 2008. Dr. Kennett also has two chapters in that book. But Chapter 5, Varieties of Moral Agency: Lessons from Autism, is a discussion of Dr. Kennette’s paper by Dr. Victoria McGeer, of Princeton University’s Center for Human Values. There is a back and forth discussion of the issues raised, with several noted professors also participating.

Both sources begin their discussions by saying that moral agency has two parts two it, a thinking part and a feeling part. They trace these concepts back to philosophers Kant and Hume. Dr. Kennett concludes that Kant is right and that reason is the most important aspect of moral agency. Dr. McGeer points to emotions being important even for people with autism. I am going to summarize the arguments, then give you my own opinion.

Now like sociopathy, autism is a spectrum. A large percentage of people with autism are mentally retarded, so this discussion involves those autistic individuals who are not mentally retarded. I should point out that many sociopaths also have poor intellectual functioning. These sociopaths tend to live in prison.

Dr. Kenneth quotes the following description of autism,

The most general description of social impairment in autism is lack of empathy. Autistic people are noted for their indifference to other people’s distress, their inability to offer comfort, even to receive comfort themselves. What empathy requires is the ability to know what another person thinks or feels despite that is different from one’s own mental state at the time. In empathy one shares emotional reactions to another person’s different state of mind. Empathy presupposes amongst other things a recognition of different mental states. It also presupposes that one goes beyond the recognition of difference to adopt the other person’s frame of mind with all the consequences of emotional reactions. Even able autistic people seem to have great difficulty achieving empathy in this sense.

Autistic people also experience an “aloneness,” yet this aloneness does not bother them. They are indifferent to the presence of other people and do not require affection. One autistic adult is quoted as saying, “I really didn’t know there were other people until I was seven years old. I then suddenly realized that there were people. But not like you do, I still have to remind myself that there are people. I could never have a friend. I really don’t know what to do with other people really.”

High functioning autistic people recognize that they are very different from other people and report feeling “like aliens.”

Dr.Kenneth correctly concludes, “Both psychopaths and autistic people experience outsider status, deficiencies in social understanding and social responsiveness… Both have a tendency to treat other people as tools or instruments, (they have) a lack of strong emotional connectedness to others and impaired capacity for friendship.” She says clinicians and researchers link these impairments in both psychopathy and autism to impaired empathy. But autistic people are in fact worse off in this respect than psychopaths. Psychopaths at least can interact socially with ease and behave in a charming way.

She correctly questions, “If empathy is crucial to the development and exercise of moral agency, then why is the autistic person not worse off, morally speaking, than the psychopath?” She points out that in spite of the lack of empathy which is at the core of the disorder, “Many autistic people display moral concerns, moral feeling and a sense of duty or conscience.”

That autistic people are not antisocial is evidenced by the observation that few come to the attention of police. I did a Google news search using the terms autistic and arrest. Although there were many arrests of people for abusing those with autism, all of the arrests of autistics for aggression were for aggression that stemmed from self-defense. For example, a 10 year old boy with autism was arrested for assaulting staff at his treatment facility. The boy assaulted staff members because he was afraid and they tried to prevent his escape.

Drs. Kenneth and McGeer basically agree on the source of moral agency in those with autism, and what they say is fascinating with respect to sociopaths. The source of moral agency in autism is a preference for order and organization. Autistic people have reported that their sense of morality comes from a desire to see their world as orderly and organized. Dr. Kenneth states that this need for order gives rise to an extraordinary rationality in high functioning people with autism. She says that since morality is organized and logical that those with autism easily pick up moral principles.

I also did a search on morality in autism and can attest to several studies demonstrating normal levels of moral reasoning in autistic children who are not mentally retarded.

Drs. Kennett and McGeer also agree on the issue of the lack of moral agency shown by sociopaths/psychopaths. They both say that this group just plain doesn’t care about morality or regard moral principles as important. This is where psychopaths and autistics differ. Autistics identify with and value moral principles. Dr. Kennett states, “It is not the psychopath’s lack of empathy, which (on its own at any rate) explains his moral indifference. It is more specifically his lack of concern, or more likely lack of capacity to understand what he is doing, to consider the reasons available to him and to act in accordance with them.”

The point of disagreement of the two experts involves the relative role of emotion and reason in autistic people’s moral agency and valuation of morality. Dr. Kennett says that the autistic person is like Dr. Spock of Star Treck, and views life in purely logical terms. Since morality is logical and rational, autistics embrace it. Dr. McGeer disagrees, she states that the autistic need for order leads to an emotional connection to order and rationality. She feels that emotion does play a role in the moral lives of autistics, since she sees them as emotionally as well as rationally invested in maintaining order.

What about sociopaths/psychopaths and the need for order/organization? This disorder truly involves disorder. Psychopaths/sociopaths thrive on chaos and seem to have a dislike for order. Everywhere they go they are a source of extreme entropy as they take order and turn it into disorder. Both Drs. link the lack of appreciation for order to a lack of thoughtfulness in sociopaths/psychopaths. Sociopaths are both disordered and not fully rational or logical.

Dr. McGeer States:

This failure of reason may seem surprising. After all, our image of the psychopath is of a person who is rather good at serving his own interests without concern for the damage he does to others; hence of someone who is rather good at thinking and acting in instrumentally rational ways…As Dr. Carl Elliot observes, “While the psychopath seems pathologically egocentric, he is nothing like an enlightened egoist. His life is frequently distinguished by failed opportunities, wasted chances and behavior which is astonishingly self-destructive. This poor judgment seems to stem not so much from the psychopath’s inadequate conception of how to reach his ends, but from an inadequate conception of what his ends are.”

I agree with Dr. McGeer in that I believe that the emotionality associated with the need for order leads to the rationality of autistic people. The brain punishment system is relatively intact in autistics as compared to sociopaths and when an autistic person senses danger instead of being disconnected from the source of anxiety/fear, the autistic person engages thoughtfully to avoid danger (punishment).

The brain punishment/anxiety system of sociopaths is both hypofunctional and hyperfunctional in that they experience anxiety but fail to engage their thinking brains in the presence of danger. The high functioning autistic is well practiced at using his thinking brain to avoid anxiety. The psychopath rarely uses the thinking brain he has- to do anything other than get into trouble and hurt other people.

There are interesting parallels between the autistic’s use of reason to manage anxiety and normal development. It turns out that anxiety and fearfulness in the first two years of life actually predicts the development of conscience. The brain punishment system seems to be more plugged in to the rational brain in kids who are dispositionally more anxious. These kids also have a more highly developed sense of empathy later on.

I am thankful to Drs. Kenneth and McGeer for their seminal contributions to our understanding of sociopathy/psychopathy. I encourage the scholars among you to purchase their book from Amazon. However, I think they both missed a further unifying explanation for why autistics are moral and psychopaths/sociopaths are not.

That explanation involves the brain reward system, which is fundamentally different in autistics and sociopaths. Autistics do not experience social reward, maybe not even in the sexual sense. They are indifferent to relationships. The main reward autistics live for must be the love of thinking because that is all they have. I don’t see that too many are obese, so I don’t think they even turn to food for their source of pleasure. Instead their inner worlds are rich with thoughts and reason. They busy themselves with their own thoughts. Most like who they are, enjoy life and wouldn’t choose a different life if they could.

The sociopath on the other hand, is completely dependent on social reward. The sociopath cannot tolerate aloneness because he has no entertaining thought-life to fall back on. The problem with the social reward system in sociopaths is that the only social reward they experience is dominance. All of their antisocial behavior is motivated by their dominance drive. When they lie, cheat or steal it is about gaining short term interpersonal dominance over some poor unsuspecting person. Autistics can’t lie and are as indifferent to dominance reward as they are to affection reward.

Dr. Keltner and associates at UC Berkeley are engaged in important research on the effects on people of obtaining social power. It turns out that when many people get power reward they change. Self-esteem increases, empathy is suspended, and they become uninhibited and less rational. They also think more about sex and tend to use more foul language. Their moral agency is diminished.

I believe that this response to power reward is the point of connection between sociopaths and the rest of us. Sociopaths are constantly in a state of power intoxication, or are in search of their next power fix. The rest of us can manage the power reward better, but the behavior of our politicians suggests that power intoxication doesn’t only make sociopaths less rational.

I could use your help on two things this week. First, I want your opinion on the term moral agency. I have been looking for a single term that would describe the moral deficits of sociopaths. Up until now I have used the term low “moral reasoning ability” because I couldn’t find another better term. Do you think people will better connect with/comprehend the term low “moral agency” or poor “moral reasoning ability”? Actually moral agency is more precise and technically more correct, but will people get it?

The second question I have concerns successful psychopaths. When I read the autism papers, it occurred to me that successful psychopaths do one of two things that unsuccessful ones don’t do. They either have a better appreciation for order or organization, or they find someone to organize and order their lives for them. If you know a successful psychopath, can you comment on how he/she is successful in spite of the chaos he/she tends to cause?

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written by Liane Leedom, M.D. • Permalink •

Donna Andersen says:

Liane,

Terrific article. A good, thought-provoking analysis.

In regard to your questions – when you first referred to “moral agency” in this article, I didn’t know what it was. I don’t think the term can be used without explanation. With “moral reasoning ability,” I can figure out what you’re talking about.

And a successful psychopath – how would you define that?

(Report abusive comment)

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 7:25am

Elizabeth Conley says:

” Do you think people will better connect with/comprehend the term low “moral agency” or poor “moral reasoning ability”? Actually moral agency is more precise and technically more correct, but will people get it?”

The downside of “moral agency” is that the vast majority of people will have no clue what it means. The up side of that is that you get to define it for them.

As long as you consistently provide a concise definition to people the first few times they encounter the term, it should work out very well.

“If you know a successful psychopath, can you comment on how he/she is successful in spite of the chaos he/she tends to cause?”

Yep.

He was an Administrative Officer in the U.S. Marines.

1. An administrative officer always has the direct services of an experiences senior staff non commissioned officer. He also has a staff of 3 or more other well trained clerks. Because of these circumstances, the performance of his primary duties was not a challenge.

2. He had an excellent understanding of human weakness. In any military unit, there are inconvenient people and circumstances. It is very helpful to the Commanding Officer to have subordinates who will do unethical things to make these people and problems disappear without the CO or the unit looking bad. This made the P an asset.

3. The P enjoyed human degradation. He loved to tell depraved stories of perversity and cruelty. This played to the worst aspects of many people’s natures, and made him socially popular in key circles.

4. The military affords officer’s a great deal of power over the lives of their subordinates. Subordinates who complain are usually destroyed, but professionally and personally. This is because it makes the entire chain of command look bad when there is a documentable case of abuse. It is in the best interests of everyone but the victim for the victim to be labeled as crazy and/or dishonest. That’s the way complaints almost always play out. He was very, very safe from his victims.

5. He was in a unique position to know things his peers and seniors did not want known. If he ever went down, he wasn’t going down alone. They knew that.

6. I would guess that the P’s IQ was about 110. Many of his victims and dupes were significantly smarter, but not nearly as cunning.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 9:59am

P.S. The P physicallyabused his son and emotionally abused his wife and daughters, boasted of committing a vehicular hit and run, and practiced every perverse cruelty conceivable against subordinates. In spite of all that, he charmed almost everyone he met. He could find the dark side of anyone and persuade them to degrade themselves in short order. He’s the most profoundly evil person I’ve ever known, bar none. I’m no mental health professional, but if he’s not a succesful P then he’s satan’s right hand man.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 10:06am

Kathleen Hawk says:

I want to get in early on this thread, because I have a number of problems with this article. As well as with the research behind it. As usual in a lot of this research, the conclusions reflect the questions asked, but there is little effort to understand the internal reality of either autistics or sociopaths. The question of “why are they like this?” ends at a fairly superficial level. There is little interest in the possibility that the symptoms of both conditions are actually responses to circumstances.

And your own bias in the analysis comes out with statements like “The psychopath rarely uses the thinking brain he has- to do anything other than get into trouble and hurt other people.” Which may reflect your feelings about your own experience, but is a broad generalization that is not consistent with the facts that sociopaths, especially intelligent ones, are high-functioning in many ways and have to be to mask their internal life in order to be accepted among feeling people.

I have a son who has been diagnosed with Aspergers and it has caused me to do a great deal of research on the experiences of parents of autistic children, as well as the writings of people with Aspergers and autism. This research looks into symptoms, but not causes of social alienation. And it doesn’t even begin to try.

Likewise most research on sociopaths examines their behaviors and thinking, but does not even start to examine their inner life. What is going on with them, and why are they like that? Not in terms of their current operating strategies, but what would cause those operating strategies.

I realize that I’m in the minority here, but I believe that their fundamental underlying problem is a failure of trust. I believe it is the underlying problem in RAD and other bonding disorders. And I believe that every symptom that we see with them can ultimately be explained by that. Beyond that, the failure of trust and the resulting bonding disorders orients them in a chaotic universe with nothing to depend on, including no ability to lean on and learn the security benefits of social structure — whether those structures are communities, one-on-one bonding, belief in God or even respect for their own need for personal integrity. They live in a survival-level reality without rules except to survive, and they live in a pain-based reality that keeps them reeling toward addictive fixes.

The social problem involved with these people — beyond the obvious damage they create in their no-holds-barred tactics for survival and pursuing addictive fixes — is that they cannot learn past this failure of trust. The failure of trust closes the door to the acceptance of risk associated with social learning. In particular, they reject any strategy that involves learning to trust.

While this plays out in the symptoms, creation of social damage, and unfixability of these people, the implications from my perspective are someone different than yours. It think it’s pointless to demonize them, except as a temporary state in our own healing and getting real about what’s going on, and more important to consider prevention — both of social damage and the causes of this failure of trust.

I understand that there are genetic considerations. And there may be genetic circumstances that just stack the deck too high for some individuals to avoided being triggered into permanent failure of trust. But I don’t think that is the situation with most of the garden-variety sociopaths who are creating havoc in the lives of feeling people. I think their capacity to be sociopaths was triggered by circumstance.

I think that study of these circumstances, the sensitivity of proto-sociopathic types, and the possible family and social strategies for addressing the growing problem of this type of damage and response is ultimately the the most useful area of research and action. It would also be nice if we could find a therapeutic approach to reconnect them with their social capacity, but if that is ever going to be likely (and it is not now), the answers are more likely to come from these paths of study than finding a dozen more reasons to confirm what we already know about their symptomology and its social effects.

You asked about the meaning of moral agency. Agency is power or capacity or ability to act. Moral agency is the power to link action with internal moral structure. Everyone has moral agency. The question is: what is the nature of their moral structure?

For all of us, our moral structure is a balance between what we would like to be possible and what our experience tells us is likely to present obstacles. That is we would like to be in a world that reflects our original state of total support in the womb. Where everything is there for us, and we can depend on that, and our relationship to what is around us is mutually benevolent and loving. The separation or interruption of that “Garden of Eden” ideal is based on what we have learned about what keeps us from it.

So depending on our level of trust in the ultimate benevolence of the outside world, we are open to shared consciousness, common standards and rules, life navigation based on good expectations, and feelings that we are okay as we are. If we are very damaged, or have a lot of unresolved trauma, our moral structure includes that information. And what is “right” becoming increasing based on what is necessary to survive in a dangerous and nonsupportive world.

In other words, the sociopath has morals. They are just not the morals of some one who is more socially integrated. They are the morals of the person who has learned that the structures of community were not designed for him.

And in this I agree with your viewpoint on positive and negative reinforcement. But what we are dealing with here is the result of negative reinforcement at a very deep level. A creation of a belief system based on a social dissonance that is so damaging and so profound that it has transformed despair into rigid distrust of anything but itself, and even that is warped, because its definition of self has blocked the normal human need for bonding and social dependency.

So the sociopath’s moral structure is that s/he has the right to survive and to care for himself or herself in this vaccuum. This is part of a normal human moral structure, but it is made pathological by the lack of the balancing piece of the normal human moral structure — that virtually every “great good” of life derives from connection.

The difference between autistic people and sociopaths (or people with that spectrum of emotional disorder) is that the autistic drama is fundamentally a need to adjust to internal conditions, not external. What I’ve gathered from reading and from my experience with my son is that autistic people have intense sensory sensitivities and related anxiety issues that require them to invest a lot of attention in managing their internal “weather.” A need for order, high-focus and various types of disassociation are typical responses.

The causes of this are neuro-electrical and brain chemical issues, not trauma-related personality disorder. My personal belief is that a lot of it is a complex issue related bacterial and fungal overgrowth related to diet and use of antibiotics. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t issues of established neural pathways for coping, as there are with other types of trauma response, but a great deal of progress has been made with diet-related strategies as well as direct work on the neural pathways through neuro-feedback.

To get back to moral agency in terms of autistics, their moral structure or belief system about what is good reflects what they have learned about what is good for them. Their battle is not with an uncaring world, but with an overactive sensory response and their need to manage their persistent and well-established reactive anxiety. They have no need to be predatory in the sense that sociopaths are. But they do have a deep need to create order that relieves their symptoms.

I hope this makes sense. I do appreciate your work in attempting to make sense of all of this. But I deeply wish there was less effort placed on demonizing sociopaths and more at understanding the temperamental types that are at risk and developing programs to support their maintenance of some level of trust before they are triggered to give it up permanently. I am not suggesting enabling, but providing loving supportive mechanisms to integrate them successfully into communal social structures.

I believe this is possible, especially if the formative years can be navigated successfully, and I believe their temperament is also the temperament of great people, of heroes and leaders and high achievers. That one issue — the belief in the reality of trust — makes the difference between preserved and lost potential, both personally and in the context of society as a whole.

Respectfully,

Kathy

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 10:14am

OxDrover says:

Dear Liane,

Great article.

Although MORAL AGENCY may be more correct, I think “most people” would not get it, and MORAL REASONING ABILITY is I think clear enough that ANYONE could “get it.” I think that CLEAR is always better than using a word that has to be defined in its context to the majority of people who will read it in that context.

Successful psychopaths: First, I’m not sure what a “successful” psychopath is, but if it means money and/or social status then BERNIE MADOFF would be a “successful” psychopath.

My own sperm donor was “successful” in that he finally made a pot of oney (was on the Forbes 400 list one year) and so was “successful” in his own eyes and got people to listen to him because he was “successful” (READ: Filthy Rich)

My own opinion is that Bill Clinton was a “successful” psychopath, and a fairly good president as politicians go (and in general I dont have a high opinion of politicians) The Gov of Illinois was a “successful” psychopath if being Governor of a state is successful, dittoo the ex gov of NY, and the Senator of Alaska who was convicted etc.

All these men have become “successful” in terms of money, position, and power. What makes them more “successful” than my P-son who was basically a criminal and convict by age 17? Maybe more impulse control, less rebellion as a teenager, more cunning and rebelled but didnt’ get caught like my son did.

My son scores in the 99th percentile in IQ, but I think he is perpetually STUCK in the “rebellious 15 year old” stage, only now his parents are the guards at the prison, and his continual game is to “out wit” his “parents.” His “reward” is a successful con on the guards, and he succeeds frequently enough to keep him playing the game. The odds are high risk and he loses often enough that it keeps his risk level high, so he gets plenty of adrenaline, win or lose. Typical adolescent, loving that risky behavior and the high they get from it. Only catch is, he will be 38 years old in a few days.

I’m not sure WHICH KIND of psychopath does more damage to society, the “successful” one with money and power, or the criminal one like my son.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 11:30am

Kathleen Hawk,

“I believe that their fundamental underlying problem is a failure of trust. ”

I’m willing to keep an open mind here. This is one of the incidents that makes me inclined to be open minded about the nature vs nurture question:

The P used to like to boast about torturing and starving his elder sister’s cat to death after she went to college. In order to accomplish this, he had to abuse the animal over a period of time, and right under the nose of his parents. How was this possible? What kind of people were they?

What I know about the P and the S makes the nurture theory just as probable as the nature theory. I’ve got nurture deficit information about each of their formative years. Information, I might add, which I tend to find believable. While both men lied easily, some of the nurture deficit information either passes rigorous logical cross checks or is independently provided/verified.

What I know about the N is more problematic. He was adopted, and his adopted mother spoiled him outrageously. If there was a nurture deficit, it was well and truly disguised. On the other hand, narcissism has been credited to catering parenting styles as well as abusive ones. What to conclude in his case? I dunno. When we point to faulty nurture, some counter by pointing to genetics. In the case of the N, that issue is somewhat blurred.

I suspect two people I know may be Borderlines. It’s hard to say. There’s serious long term inability to bond, plus a lot of personal and professional chaos. Both of them were “favorite” children of otherwise neglectful parents. In other words, they were spoiled rotten while their siblings were neglected. What’s to be gleaned from that? Again, I dunno! I’m not a mental health expert. I do wonder if there’s an aspect of failure to trust there. After all, both show signs of understanding that their favored status was patently unfair and irrational. As children, it seems they also considered the status tenuous, and the parents capricious.

Interesting questions.

As for the Autism, I come at that one from a different angle than you do. Diagnosing Autism has become a fad in public education. As a parent of a hearing impaired child, I’m more than a bit fed up. Here the nature vs nurture question takes on a more sinister quality. If a child is treated as if they do not have empathy, s/he develops a deficit in the ability to appreciate and use empathy. Not only that, but people discounting the child’s emotional life behave cruelly. It is absolutely possible for people who project autistic characteristics onto a child to do severe harm.

Real Autism is a serious problem. A projection of Autism on a healthy child is emotional abuse. For this reason I pray Autism loses its fad status and joins the list of possible diagnoses, rather than the default label.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 11:34am

Liane Leedom, M.D. says:

Kathy-

Thanks for the great contribution to our discussion here. It is not my desire to demonize sociopaths beyond the extent to which they demonize themselves by their actions. I too hope for a day when the condition will be treatable. I see the key to treatment as understanding the rewarding effects of social dominance. I believe that reward accounts for the compulsive nature of their antisocial behavior.

In terms of relative failure of the trust system which I believe is based on oxytocin action. Search my previous posts on this. I believe autistic people also have deficits here, since many don’t derive much anxiety relief or pleasure from the company of others.

Anyway how does a failure of the trust/oxytocin/love system relate to the predatory behavior of psychopaths? Remember that psychopaths do not pursue their own interests. They pursue short-sighted gratification of their drives for dominance and sex. There is a difference between being and ‘egoist’ and a predator. Psychopaths are predatory because in the absence of the ability to love, they develop excessive dominance behavior. This doesn’t usually happen in autism because there is a general disinterest in social reward.

There are two studies of Autistic individuals who offend, that I found. The consesus developing is that they are double disordered, psychopathy and ASD. So they derive some pleasure in aggression though they derive little to no pleasure in affection/love.

I want to state publically that for me the purpose of this blog is to provoke a discussion that will move the field forward. I hope everyone will feel free to disagree and that no one will take that personally. My students commented that I seemed upbeat last night. The reason was that the works I talked about this week are new and different contributions to the field of social emotions and morality. The idea of psychopaths not valuing order/organization and rationality is part of the literature, but it is not discussed much and has not before been linked to problems with moral agency.

Just by coincidence beginning next week I will discuss the important research on temperament and sociopathy as reported in a book, “Sex differences in Antisocial Behavior” by Dr. Moffitt and colleagues. I encourage you to read that book Kathy, it explains much of what you are discussing and is all based on thorough research.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 11:49am

holywatersalt says:

I have read a bit on “neuro-diversity’ and been intrigued by the differences and seeming similaries between psychopaths and autistics. Here’s a comment from someone with Asperger’s : http://holywatersalt.blogspot......istic.html

Especially since my highly manipulative psychopath claimed to have Asperger’s. Uh, he was too much of a womanizer to qualify. But I give credit for use Asberger’s as cover- I mean he has no empthy and was/is interested in only himself.

I want to write more on this topic- add it to my list-but I am struck by the fact moral agency is really free will. And that I don’t really believ everyone operates just for rewards and to avoid punishment, if that were the case we’d have no martyr’s , no self-sacrifice.

For myself, when I feel I am going int he right direction- doing good- it’s as if I am whole. I am working with in the egood, natural order.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 11:50am

Kathleen,

One of the issues with saying that the central problem with sociopaths is a “lack of trust,” or, for that matter, a “lack of conscience,” is that it doesn’t answer the question, “why do they harm people?” What gives them the motivation to purposely, aggressively, inflict harm on others? Why don’t they just shrivel up in the corner?

Dr. Leedom addresses these type of questions in her upcoming book, Driven to Do Evil. I will admit to being at an advantage here, because I’ve read the first draft. It is truly an important work, which will answer a lot of the questions that frequently get posed on Lovefraud.

To add to my point RE; rewards/punsihment- they are relative.

For a psycho hurting someone is a good.
For a normal person, causing someone pain is never a good – so the normal person has different higher drive.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 11:52am

holywatersalt:

How many “normal” people watch the execution of a murderer and think it is a good thing?

Actually dominance motives correlate with this perception of “justice”. Normal people also may enjoy violent entertainment or watching violent sports. There are many rewards associated with the dominance system. Watching and enjoying violence relates to the dominance system in the same way that watching pornography relates to the sex system.

You bring up free will. I too believe it is important and therefore have to believe that the psychopath could at any point choose to live free of his/her pleasure. Just like if I had to choose to give up my food pleasures if I was diabetic. The psychopath is extraordinarily tied to his/her pleasures. That is also why many religions practice asceticism (sp?) as a way to holiness.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 12:21pm

BloggerT7165 says:

I think that part of the problem is the amount of subjectivity involved in this whole area of research. I personally think that the term sociopath or psychopath is very much overused by most people. The majority of people in prison are not psychopathic yet there are folks who would call any action that is anti-social or hurtful “psychopathic”. Hsving worked in the prison system I can say that psychopaths are hugely different than your everday anti-social criminal yet trying to explain it is difficult. I will also admit to a bias I have in being slightly skeptical of researchers who have not experienced numerous psychopathic individuals in person.

As for a successful psychopath I would ask what the definition of success is first. I know Kevin Trudea is one I would use as a great example of someone who may fit and even though he continues to get into trouble and knows he is conning folks he still keeps going and making millions off people.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 12:31pm

Liane and Donna,

I’m going to respond to some of your statements below. But I want to say first that the results of one theory over another in terms of the psychopath’s or sociopath’s behavior are not meaningful. What is meaningful to me is understanding the underlying causes and doing something about it from a social and family perspective.

Liane wrote:

“I see the key to treatment as understanding the rewarding effects of social dominance. I believe that reward accounts for the compulsive nature of their antisocial behavior.”

In my view, social dominance is rewarding to them for two reasons. One, it is the only means they have of interpreting the benefits of interaction, because they don’t experience empathetic bonding and the potential to share a building experience. They only know how to “build” alone, and the only meaning they see in interaction is contribution to their objectives.

Second, their psyches are split, due to the complete suppression of trust, and all the related capacities of empathy, bonding, loving, and the skills and rewards that evolve out of those capabilities. Their “functional” identities (what they use to survive) do not include the aspects of communal interaction that provide enjoyment and the wealth of opportunities for personal growth and achievement that the rest of us take for granted. This is painful. In simply the matter of identity, they have no ground except self-reference in a personality with no capacity for love and no reference for emotional security.

If there was ever a fertile field for addiction, it is this. And there is absolutely no relief here, except the most fleeting confirmation that they are “real” by the triumphs of dominance and achievement. They can’t even learn for sure that they are real from these triumphs, because they automatically discredit either the sources or the triumph as untrustworthy. But in a social world that is clearly the consensus world, it is their single option for survival, because they are irretrievably blocked from options that require empathy and trust.

Negative reinforcement, in my view, is just another means to reinforce their inability to trust, unless it occurs in within a larger strategy to force them to trust to survive. There are anecdotal stories of sociopaths who have been critically injured who are forced to experiment with trust in order to survive in a medical environment. There is also Stephen M. Johnson’s work, detailed in “Humanizing the Narcissistic Affect,” which suggests that narcissists at least can be treated by facilitation of trust experiments, if they are sufficiently motivated to do so.

“Remember that psychopaths do not pursue their own interests. They pursue short-sighted gratification of their drives for dominance and sex.”

I disagree. They do pursue their own interests. But their perception of their own interests is limited by what they can imagine as “good,” given their failure of trust and resulting split psyche. Dominance and sex (and other sensory enjoyments) are what they have left, along with a few other things that might be combinations of the two, like an aesthetic pursuit of excellence in their own terms.

Their idea of what is good is also influenced by two other things. One is the addictive need for relief from the pain of this split. The other is a secondary result of these issues, which is the impulsiveness. I believe that their baseline reality is a combination of desperation, despair and anger. Anything that looks like relief — that is anything that looks like gratification, fun, a chance to confirm that they exist, an chance to exercise their capabilities, a chance for validation of what narrow identity they have — is virtually a shot a redemption.

There is one other factor here as well, which is their understanding of their difference and that it is unacceptable or evil or, in more basic terms, reasonable cause of banishment from the tribe. I believe this failure of trust is already a kind of despairing acceptance of marginalization for no understood reason, but that doesn’t mean that no residual need for acceptance exists, even though it is blocked and buried. The shadow side of any character tends to be noisy.

So all this impulsive, short-sighted and typically self-sabotaging behavior (in our terms) may be a logical attempt (in their terms) to undo this inexplicable bad that left them so different and so crippled. Or it may be acting out of their resentment, envy, etc. for the situation in which they’re fundable coping mechanism left them. Both of which roughly fits into the parameters of addictive behavior.

The matter of oxytocin deficit is, to my mind, as likely to be a result than a cause in these cases. Oxytocin is counteracted by testosterone, but it is also blocked by anxiety or tension.

Donna, you wrote:

“One of the issues with saying that the central problem with sociopaths is a “lack of trust,” or, for that matter, a “lack of conscience,” is that it doesn’t answer the question, “why do they harm people?” What gives them the motivation to purposely, aggressively, inflict harm on others? Why don’t they just shrivel up in the corner?”

I think the answer to this is probably where genetic temperament comes in. Though I think that further research with children of “dark triad” people is necessary for more clarification and identification of the specific traits.

I mentioned in my earlier post that these people also have the temperaments of heroes, leaders and high achievers. I’ve had close relationships with four sociopaths in my life. And as I’ve mentioned in other posts, I have a family trait on my father’s side that has turned out a number of sociopaths and addicts.

What I can see and what seems consistent with the descriptions of their behaviors are these characterists:

1. High energy levels and ability to respond to the requirements of crisis
2. High ability to focus, plan and execute
3. Strong survival instincts
4. High emotionality (even though it is self-referenced)
5. High and subtle sensory awareness (the N/S characteristic in Myers-Briggs), which could be termed hyper-vigilance
6. High pain tolerance and willingness to lose small in order to win big (as long as they’re not being impulsive)
7. High persistance

What all this adds up to, for me, is something the surviving people in my family have come to call high-voltage wiring. These are people who are designed to survive and achieve under the most extreme circumstances.

I don’t know how much of this is developed secondarily as a result of one or two primary characteristics playing out in extreme circumstances. But I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that high energy and high survival instinct are the two primaries. And that the rest of them are developed in circumstances that would cause less hardy individuals to die or fall into a state of despair that would be more depressive or catatonic.

I also wouldn’t be surprised to find out that their definition of what is unbearable enough to trigger that switch into no trust/empathy is relatively high. That they can survive a lot, before they make the switch.

So that is my answer to why they don’t just curl up and die. They’re not the type. They’re the type to survive, no matter what.

Your other question about why they purposefully harm people is probably answered by what I wrote in response to Liane’s comments. I’ve written here before that I believe that sociopath’s live in a state of feeling “ripped off.” Or that it is a underlying component of their pathology. I think that what we see (from our position as victims) as deliberate harm is more like a wounded bull in a china shop. And wounded is the operative word here. They are acting out, and if we are in front of them when they’re acting out, we are victimized.

But it’s not personal in the sense that we were chosen. We’re chosen by proximity, opportunity, and the state of their need. As well as by our own ability to identify the risk and take steps to get out of the way or otherwise neutralize it, before the damage is passed on to us.

I want to add her that I have one relationship with someone who doesn’t fit this model. Or had. It was a long time ago, and that person was in prison for a long time. He was probably the type of psychopath that is the worst-case scenario, but when I knew him he was still developing.

It was in Spain, in a small village where he was part of the village social scene, and most of the locals kept their distance. He was not only a psychological type but a physical type, and at the time a popular theory was the double-Y chromosome. He fit the type — physically powerful, aggressive, dominating, calculating, etc.

He was my gardener, handyman and go-to person when I lived there, and he guided me through the necessary things when my husband died. Later I discovered he had stolen many of my possessions. Ultimately, he attempted to force himself on me sexually, and I closed him out of my life. There were subsequent scary moments, and I got the police involved. But before things could get worse for me, he raped another woman, and was incarcerated.

I knew something about his background, which offered no explanations. But more than that, I saw a kind of implacability in him that went well beyond what I’ve seen in other people who match the sociopathic list of character traits. I get the feeling that he was another type, a more extreme type that does not fit into my model.

I also readily admit that my model, while it fits everything I know to date (except this man in Spain), is only my model. I keep reading, keep trying to refine it. But the model is definitely colored by two things. One is that I believe there are human tragedies involved here, not choices to be like this. And second, I believe that the increase in both sociopaths and autistic disorder are symptomatic of cultural issues that demand attention.

I thank you both for your generosity in these discussions. And as I said before, I am grateful for your work.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 1:13pm

gillian says:

Personally, I don’t care for the term “moral agency.” When I first read the term I was perplexed, wasn’t sure what it meant, figured it out by the context. I prefer “moral reasoning ability” although, I agree, it’s not precise. I myself think psychopaths are able to reason morally. That they go to great lengths to deceive, imo, demonstrates their reasoning abilities are quite intact: they realize what they are doing is “wrong,” or at least will be perceived so by others. Difference with them, though, is they don’t care. They don’t care how they hurt others, they probably even like that they do. So it’s back to “moral agency,” but what the heck is that? I myself dislike academic-type jargon (but not being an academic myself, perhaps my opinion is not very valid) that obscures meaning, which much of academic jargon seems intended to do. That said, I don’t have a better suggestion. Moral indifference? Immorality? Hmm. I don’t think it’s lack of reasoning though; I think it’s lack of caring.

As far as successful psychopaths go, my ex is an extremely successful psychopath (except for the fact I am now onto him, which only happened because of several wild flukes). In his case he definitely relies on others to organize and order his life. On his own I’m sure he would flounder. When he moved in with me he came with all his belongings in a jumble in the back of his truck and his personal records thrown into a box (at least that) but in no order whatsoever, never having been weeded through or sorted out.

For the 18 years we were together I handled all of life’s little details. I actually felt that because of his (cough cough) other marvelous qualities, the trade-off was worth it. So what if I paid all the bills, took care of appointments, made sure our taxes were done. He was so sweet and loving, so caring and giving, so devoted and affectionate; to me that more than made up for his shortcomings. What I didn’t realize, because the bamboozle was so complete, was that all of that good stuff was a complete sham, part of the operation, intended only to keep me ignorant, unsuspecting, and serving his needs.

I asked him once, a year ago, when he was into confession mode (brought about by the fact that by that time I knew enough to expose him to his new honey and threatened to do so if he did not come clean), why he ever wanted to be with me if he knew he would never be faithful. He said he thought I could provide a good home for him and his son. “So you used me!” I said, and he said, “I guess you could say so.”

Yeah, I organized his life. I provided a nice base of operations for him. A nice launching pad. I made it nice and I made it easy (although I do not blame myself for this) because I was so trusting.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 1:24pm

If there were ever a category of people who should be demonized I would say it is sociopaths. I also think the primary focus should be on providing loving support for the victims of sociopaths. Sociopaths themselves would probably only take advantage of such “loving support.” As far as I can tell there is ample evidence, amassed over decades, that sociopathy is an untreatable disorder and that sociopaths themselves will only use efforts intended to “help” them to better exploit others.

As far as trust issues, I cannot speak broadly of all sociopaths, but I will say that with my ex, lack of trust was not his problem. No way. Although there is huge dysfunction in his family of origin, much of which I have learned about recently, he did not stumble in the “trust vs mistrust” (if I have the terminology right) phase of development. In fact, near as I can tell, he was quite a well-adjusted, genuinely loving, cooperative child until his teen years.

And trust as an adult? He absolutely trusted me. Still does. He has a remarkable ability to assess others, which is probably common to successful psychopaths, to know who they can team up with, who they can victimize, who they can trust, and who would be useless (in their terms of course).

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 1:46pm

I think sometimes we are like the blind men examining an elephant, it is difficult to get the WHOLE and COMPLETE PICTURE by examining a PART of it. None of us can see the whole spectrum of psychopathy…we each “see” our individual piece. We can “study” other’s conceptions and views, but getting the entire picture of something so complex and with so many variations, so many variables as to cause etc. but I for one don’t feel like, even as many Ps as I have interacted with, have even scratched the surface of the disorder.

I can to an independent conclusion that there is a genetic basis of temperment in animals and in humans just by observation. Then I read more about that and confirmed my conclusion.

I also “figured” that there had to be a common thread with us (victims) as well, and I think it may have been answered in the research of “Women who love psychopaths”—we have all been somehow trained to accept the abuse and/or think we can “fix” it at least up to some point.

What makes some of “us” different from others is that some of us finally at some point (sooner or later) catch on to the patterns in the Psychopath(s) in our lives and start to work on ourselves after we have healed from the accute grief their D & D does to us. Others of us, never see the pattern and continue to stay with the original abuser, never breaking free, or if they do break free froom the first, not see the patterns and go on to find a series of abusers, living a life of total misery and chaos.

I don’t suppose I have all the answers for sure, heck I am not sure I know all the QUESTIONS, much less the answers! LOL I can only speak from my own perspective and what I have experienced or gleened from the experiences of others, and what I have read in research. I WISH I did have all the answers, or even all the questions. It seems when I get one new “answer” there are 50 new QUESTIONS it prompts. Does make me want to live for another 50 years to see what further research brings to light! God bless Dr. Hare and the others who started studying these people!

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 1:51pm

greenfern says:

The s I was with self-diagnosed himself as having Aspberger’s.

He is NOT as aspie, even though he would love to be seen as one.

This self diagnosis always pissed me off; it seemed like such easy cop-out for acting like a jerk.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 2:20pm

I also think that there is no single reason/cause for psychopaths but rather a variety of different things come together at the right time and right combinations which could be different for different people. Looking for a silver bullet has and I think is going to continue to fall flat because there is no single cause or answer. Most of the criminals I worked with who would have fallen under the psychopath label knew what they were doing, knew it was wrong, enjoyed how they were and did not want to change. And you can not force someone to change unless they want to. No matter what mental health treatments are tried it will not work unless the person sincerely wants to make the changes. I have yet to meet a true psychopath who has ever wanted to change. I have met anti-socials and some who could appear to be psychopaths (like gang members) who have wanted to change though.

I also have an issue with the whole moral reasoning bit because of the subjectivity of it. There were and are places and cultures and groups where it is acceptable to do whatever to “them” but not to “us”. And yet not all those folks are psychopaths. I have also seen quite a few “normal” people want to hurt someone else and feel it is a “good” depending on the circumstance (hurting the person that hurt them or their child is one example).

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 2:24pm

keeping_faith says:

My preference is “moral reasoning ability.” It lends more to “thought” or “purposeful decision making”. It puts responsibility on the sociopath to reason, which we know they can do.

Regarding success…… I tend to believe, based on my experience that they find someone to organize and order their lives for them. In the case of the XS, he used people in times of need, which led to his success financially and emotionally in many ways. (I do believe that will be short lived.) Even to the extent that he allowed his children to advise him in personal and financial matters. Adult children but they were extremely, immature, dysfunctional and totally financially dependent on him.

I spoke a few months ago to a woman with whom he had an affair years ago. He was successful in that when his father died, she helped him to organize his estate and money and she basically told me she was with him in NM when his father died and helped him with family finances. As I helped him with the same things in his divorce.

As far as the emotional drama……His daughter once stated that he would be in “all kinds of shit” if not for their mother. She “kept him under control”. He told me his daughter(who was in law school) was negotiating with his x wife on his behalf during divorce. (He also has grandiose ideas about her and insists theya re just alike and I htink he is right. She has serious issues.) Just caused more emotional drama and got her directly in the middle of the power struggle but he did it to make her seem more valuable to him and to try to WIN her from her mother.

He set up his girlfriend (former stripper on welfare, the one he cheated on me with) to clean houses for a living because he didn’t want her tending bar. So when he moved into his house guess who became his cleaning lady? When he had his heart attack and his kids weren’t available to care for him. She was available. I think that too will be short lived.

He has since lost his job. He couldn’t afford the house even when he was working but it’s a lure for him. All that he has was given to him by family or won in a lawsuit from an accident he had years ago. The financial success will not last. It was not made by him. As far as emotionally, It can’t be possible that I am the only one he treated like that but I am sure he will find more people like the x stripper to manipulate. I don’t think he will be happy enough and will cheat on her too.

So if emotional success to them is that they find more people to pull things over on. He has that now and who knows that may result in another 26 yr marriage as with his previous wife.

Under my definition of success, he will never have it financially or emotionally. He will just use people so that he APPEARS successful and after all, isn’t that what they want?

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 2:25pm

Jim in Indiana USA says:

Sorry, this one’s a little esoteric for me. How about…”Immoral Agency”? Or “Amoral Agency” Immoral (or amoral) agents driven to do evil.

I’ve interacted with a few autistic people. I don’t see a strong connection, when viewed as their impact on the world for good or evil.

But, that’s just me…carry on.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 2:59pm

Midnight_Reflection says:

holywatersalt – You say, “I don’t really believ everyone operates just for rewards and to avoid punishment, if that were the case we’d have no martyr’s , no self-sacrifice.” I think there’s more than one way to look at rewards and punishment. There’s the higher level reasoning of “if I clean my room, my mother will be pleased with me and let me play outside,” or “if I drive the speed limit I will not get a ticket,” but I think there are more subconcious aspects to it as well. When I take on burdens in my office because I know they need to be done I’m not doing it for a reward, it doesn’t make me feel happy to do it, but if I don’t do them and they fall through the cracks I feel guilty, so you could say my self-sacrifice is in fact a way of avoiding the punishment of guilt. I think quite often when someone does something out of the goodness of their hearts, they aren’t conciously looking for a reward, but they feel good about what they do and that in itself is a reward.

The S I knew operated on that higher level of rewards and punishments, “if I compliment her, bring her flowers, and put her on a pedastal she’ll do whatever I ask her to do,” or “I need to make this fake ID look as real as possible so I won’t get arrested.” When he brought me flowers it wasn’t because it made him feel good to make me happy, it was because it made him look good, it made people admire him. And when he bought me gifts after lying to me and committing credit card fraud, it wasn’t because he felt bad about what he did, it was to try to distract me with presents so I wouldn’t turn against him. I also have the feeling he gave me those gifts so he could try to implicate me in his schemes if I tried to turn him in.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 3:03pm

Jim, you are so funny!!!!

To answer Liane’s questions, I think “moral reasoning ability” makes more sense than “moral agency.” Moral agency may fit best by definition, but when I’m reading I have to stop and think about what it means which distracts me from the actual discussion at hand. Moral reasoning ability is very clear.

I’m assuming when you talk about successful S’s and P’s you’re talking about ones who have attained wealth and power and are maintaining it. I agree with keeping_faith, they will never have real financial or emotional success, but they consider themselves successful I’ve they’ve achieved the appearance of success. The S I knew was on his way to success, but he slipped up too many times, and shot himself in the foot. He was good at manipulating systems and playing by the rules just enough to fool everyone else and get ahead, but his mask slipped and he got sloppy and lost everything he’d built up. I think the successful ones build a buffer around themselves by controlling people who can maintain order for them while they live in chaos.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 3:18pm

Sorry, but amoral seems to fit better. Rules don’t apply to them. Truth doesn’t apply to them. Morals don’t apply. They are neither “moral” nor “immoral”…they are “amoral”.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 3:29pm

Jim, I do agree with you. Somehow moral agency sounds like a club for moral police rather than immoral (amoral)people who hurt others without a concern…..

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 3:50pm

Yeah, I just went back and reread what Liane wrote, that she was looking for a term that “would describe the moral deficits of sociopaths,” you’re right Jim, “amoral” would be the most fitting. “Low moral reasoning ability” would imply they just aren’t very good at applying morals to their reasoning, when morals aren’t really a consideration for them.

Speaking on issues of “trust” with the Ps. I think that THEY think that we are sort of like them (or at least some of them do) and since they know THEY have evil intentions, they assume we also do, therefore, they have difficulty “trusting” us.

DO UNTO OTHERS, BEFORE THEY DO UNTO YOU. Seems to be their motto. They EXPECT us, it seems, to be the way they are and therefore it is fine for them to “strike first” before we strike them. Since they have no way of knowing that we are NOT like them, and they ascribe their own feelings/thoughts/intentions to us, then why should they feel guilty?

We, in turn, ascribe them “human compassion etc” when they have none, but we think (or seem to) that everyone has “good down there some where” when in fact, that is NOT TRUE.

They do learn what triggers us, and learn how to “herd” us in the direction they want us to go, to keep us off balance, to distract us, etc. just like my Border Collie herds goats, sheep or pigs, or cattle. They know that with sheep they must stay far out and not come too close cause sheep are stupid and will panic, so to accomplish their purposes they do that. With cattle they know that they must be more aggressive and come in closer and even bite the animals to control them, with goats, some goats will fight back, and some won’t so they have to assess the individual goats a bit. In herding hogs, they have to learn to bite the ears of the hogs if needed, but also that pigs can also bite . With horses, they have to learn that they CANNOT herd horses because horses will and are equipped to kill the dogs rather than run from them.

I think the psychopaths are able to assess whether we are a “goat, a sheep, a pig, or a cow,” and treat us the way they treat others of our emotional species. When they come up against a “horse” they avoid that species because they know that they might get seriously hurt.

I think our task for our own safety is to quit being “sheeple” as the psychopaths call us on their web site, and become EQUINES—I am working on becoming a female donkey, a JENNY, the female equivalent of a JACK ASS! SMART, UPPITY, taking no nonsense from anything or anyone trying to “herd” me, and if I see strange behavior or aggressive behavior, either retreat or fight, whichever is appropriate.

Someone sent me a series of photograpsh recently of a mule (half donkey, half horse, but smart and gutsy like the donkeys) killing a COUGAR. So, I might even settle for being a “Molly Mule” (female mule) but I will never again be a SHEEPLE. TOWANDA!!!!

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 3:55pm

I wanted to post this link again for those that are interested about the whole nature/nurture and research into it. The study is one that follows up and adds to previous research:

Following analysis, the results showed that, in children with psychopathic tendencies, antisocial behaviour was strongly inherited. In contrast, the antisocial behaviour of children who did not have psychopathic tendencies was mainly influenced by environmental factors. These findings are in line with previous research showing that children with psychopathic tendencies are at risk to continue their antisocial behaviour and are often resistant to traditional forms of intervention.

Dr Essi Viding says: “Our research has important implications. The discovery that psychopathic tendencies are strongly heritable suggests that we need to get help for these youngsters early on. Any behaviour is influenced by multiple genes and an unlucky combination of genes may increase vulnerability to a disorder.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/25078.php

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 4:19pm

BloggerT, that’s an interesting research project, but it would be interesting to know how they factored out the impact of psychopathic parents or close relatives.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 4:39pm

On the Viding study…

I believe I blogged on it when it first came out. The problem is with the way they report their data. It is misleading. Anyone who wants the study, email me at ljleedom@aol.com. When you really look at their data they come up with a heritability estimate of about 50% the same as most other studies.

What does it all mean?

It means that about half of the differences between us all in terms of antisocial behavior are due to genetics, half to environment. But in all studies there is likely a gene environment interaction that is hidden in the genetic component. For example when tuberculosis was first discovered they thought it was a genetic disease because the genes make a person susceptible to the disease, even though the disease is caused by a bacteria.

I get argumentative with some researchers for two reasons. They want to say that psychopathy is 100% genetic. Then they want to say there is some disorder that involves antisocial behavior that is environmental. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE FOR THAT, I mean two separate disorders. Just plain criminality- your guys in jail pass thier criminality on to their kids. Also most everyone in prison is psychopathic. Their average PCL-R scores are 20 which is much higher than outside prison. There is no eveidence yet that a score of 20 is caused by something different than a score of 25. I have looked for this and there is none.

I will give you the evidence that all antisocial behavior stems from personality over the next several weeks. So the criminal in jail has a different personality. All of the environmental risk likely creates an “antisocial personality” which then offends to a greater or lesser degree. Please get the book Sex Differences in Antisocial Behavior. It is a discussion of the results of a comprehensive longitudinal study of a birth cohort of 1600 who were born in Dunedin NZ in 1972. They have followed these folks, assessing them in detail for 30 plus years now and their results are amazing with respect to what causes antisocial behavior. Also for you guys out there, they found no sex difference in dv perpetration! Tune in next week for more…

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 5:15pm

Thanks for this above comment.

WAsn’t the Identical twins, raised apart study about 80% if one was a P the other was? I also wonder, too, if the 20% (if that is the right figure) were a score of 10,20, or 25 instead of the higher numbers at the cut off?

I don’t think that psychopathic personality disorder is 100% genetic, but I also DO think there is a genetic>environment, but like you mentioned about TB or even diabetes, the TENDENCY is there and environment makes it “happen.”

With SO many variables in growning up in humans, there isn’t any way that we can “control” for the variables or have 1000 kids grow up in the same home…so I think MANY studies need to be done.

Also, a child raised by a P has the double whammy of a bad genetic tendency (most likely) and a BAD enviornment (surely). But at the same time, I know several kind caring people who have been raised by VERY abusive P parents…while their sibs are just like “Mommie/daddy dearest.” Plus, many people who adopt children from P parents, and even though the child has a “good” upbringing from caring parents, they turn out to be “conduct disordered” children who are dangerous as heck by the time they are 10-12 years old. I have seen many examples of these little darlings in in-patient units.

I don’t know if you remeber the mother who blogged on here a while ago (I can’t remember her name, CRS) but she had a daughter who was dangerous at age 10 and was having difficulty with fiinding placement for her daughter. The mother, as I remember it, was about “frazzled” out with stress and feeling hopeless.

Friday, 6 March 2009 @ 5:43pm

Stargazer says:

Wow, what a fascinating article. Great theory on why politicians become sociopathic just by virtue of enjoying increasing levels of social power.

In thinking about the last question, about “successful psychopaths”, I can only speak about what I know of my ex S, who seems to be enjoying a successful career in the army in spite of ongoing fraud and deception. I believe in his case his wife of 10 years (who once divorced him over his pathological lying and remarried him years later) probably does help to keep his life somewhat organized so he can accomplish his goals. I also think the fact that he is married with a young child makes him more sympathic to the authorities.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 12:12am

shabbychic2 says:

I vote for “poor moral reasoning ability”, it sounds more like one is speaking of an individual or a group of individuals.

Interesting article. I was involved for 14 years wiith a man I have considered an N. He has 2 brothers and 1 sister, the sister has always worked, none of the men has ever held down a job for a long period, in fact, they have hardly worked at all (the 3 of them are all in their 50’s now). The thing I have wondered about is… 1 of the brothers has a son who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s… could this be a defective gene that is carried in the males of the family and just came out more pronounced in the boy?

The N was a fabulous musician, never made a living at it, but he relied on me to try to get gigs for him at local clubs & to produce marketing material, seemed like he was not capable of handling the business side of things at all, I would meet the club owners and build rapport with them. And he fit right in there with the description of not being able to comfort others, and not wanting to be comforted himself.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 12:57am

I strongly disagree with the statement “Also most everyone in prison is psychopathic.” Hare himself states that psychopaths make up only 25% of the prison population and I find I agree with him. I would also expect people who are in prison for any length of time to score higher or appear more psychopathic because of the environment they are in. You almost have to think and act in a psychopathic manner to not be preyed upon in prison. I also see this as expanding psychopathy to include basically ALL antisocial acts or nearly all and I really think that this wrong and part of the problem.

This interview that I read talks to some of this as well:

http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 12:58am

And for anyone who may have been interested in the Mask of Sanity by Cleckley the entire book can be read online at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2441.....ersonality

Note that it is 485 pages long and is the 1988 fifth edition of it.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 1:05am

Slow night at work so far so I thought I would toss another article out for those interested:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_.....063006.php

From the article:

“My main concern is that the label (of psychopath) is applied too liberally and without sufficient understanding of the key elements,” says Newman, who is chair of the UW-Madison psychology department. “As a result, the term is often applied to ordinary criminals and sex offenders whose behavior may reflect primarily social factors or other emotional problems that are more amenable to treatment than psychopathy.”

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 1:28am

S O S says:

I haven’t gone through the comments yet, sorry for anything redundant… Let’s see how well I understand this stuff:

“non-incarcerated psychopaths have an arguably equal potential to illuminate our understanding of the emotional difficulties, such as lack of empathy and lack of conscience, which underlie psychopathy and which lead to offending behaviour.”

The problem with that sentence is that survival context is assumed. A psychopath locked into box will probably push the correct button repeatedly for food. A severe autistic forced to work as a traveling salesman will probably push the doorbell repeatedly, which I consider to be offensive behavior. But the potential for understanding better via studying successful sociopaths, you bet.
—
“Many autistic people display moral concerns, moral feeling and a sense of duty or conscience.”

Are they “moral concerns”, and not really just a form of ‘pushing the correct buttons for food’? At some level, autistics know that their survival is dependant on being good dependants. I think they’d learn to grow aggressive behaviors as much as they were capable of learning the skills which allowed them to profit from aggressiveness.
—
“Autistic people have reported that their sense of morality comes from a desire to see their world as orderly and organized.”

Having (what looks to me like severed left-right brain functioning), they need order and organization to be able to navigate their way through their world without getting lost. With abstract reasoning or pattern matching abilities, comes an ability to predict what likely lies around the next corner.
—
“Dr. Kennett says that the autistic person is like Dr. Spock of Star Trek, and views life in purely logical terms. Since morality is logical and rational, autistics embrace it.”

Morality, as it’s defined by whoever defines it, is only logical and rational to creatures that require social order for their own (quality of) survival. Psychopaths prefer chaos because they can deal with it better than anybody else. They’ll go straight to the button which dispenses the food while everybody else is running around in a panic.
—
“Dr. McGeer disagrees, she states that the autistic need for order leads to an emotional connection to order and rationality.”

…until one moves the button which dispenses the food.
—
“His life is frequently distinguished by failed opportunities, wasted chances and behavior which is astonishingly self-destructive.”

In the extreme cases, I assume. The ‘addiction to control’ thing? They’re always looking for that next fix?
—
“It turns out that anxiety and fearfulness in the first two years of life actually predicts the development of conscience.”

The developmental psychologist I knew swore by this, based on her work with attachment disordered kids. In her world there were no bad seeds.
—
“The brain punishment system seems to be more plugged in to the rational brain in kids who are dispositionally more anxious. These kids also have a more highly developed sense of empathy later on.”

Yes, but machiavellians are psychopaths with normal anxieties. What the dark triad all seems to have in common is very low agreeableness and low conscientiousness.
—
“Most (autistics) like who they are, enjoy life and wouldn’t choose a different life if they could.”

Are you talking about autistics whose needs are being met without much effort on their part (by parents, caretakers, the state…), or those who must earn their living competing with normal people out in the real world?
—
“It turns out that when many people get power reward they change. …Their moral agency is diminished.”

I agree. Survival context is a variable, but I dont think it’s a big one late in life.
—
“Do you think people will better connect with/comprehend the term low “moral agency” or poor “moral reasoning ability”?”

Depends on the person. The 10% or so who frequent these kind of blogs will understand the former, but the 90% who aren’t as intellectually curious or as experienced with sociopathy (and who are most at risk as either targets or enablers) would get the latter. Personally, my worst problems were not with the sociopath but with those they manipulated against me. How about the catchy “fraudulent humanoids” or “camouflaged eviloids” ?
—
“successful psychopaths… either have a better appreciation for order or organization, or they find someone to organize and order their lives for them.”

Because they’re not psychopaths per se? (unless Hannibal Lecter types really do exist)… The successful sociopaths I’ve known (3) had rational goals of wealth and power but were insane in that they didn’t know when to quit. They caused plenty of damage unnecessary to their goals, but still reached their goals nevertheless, and two are still active in their careers. I’d classify them as sub-psychopathic machiavellians and narcissists. I’ll have to respond to that one in more detail later.
===============

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 1:36am

Work is really really slow tonight, a good thing, and so I thought I would post a link to another article that talks about a variety of different research views on psychopathy:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/.....=156002013

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 3:58am

eyeswideshut says:

“Emotional Autism” is what I used to call the condition of my ex. A complete blank when it came to human interaction, other than when there was a power play involved.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 10:11am

Rune says:

BloggerT: The article by Hercz that you use to quote Dr. Robert Hare says, “. . . thanks to Hare, we now understand that the great majority of psychopaths are not violent criminals and never will be. Hundreds of thousands of psychopaths live and work and prey among us. Your boss, your boyfriend, your mother could be what Hare calls a “subclinical” psychopath, someone who leaves a path of destruction and pain without a single pang of conscience. Even more worrisome is the fact that, at this stage, no one — not even Bob Hare — is quite sure what to do about it.”

The term used here is “subclinical” psychopath. The PCL-R uses a numerical scoring system with an absolute cut-off point for diagnostic purposes. It also relies on judgment of an interviewer who, no matter how highly trained, can be susceptible to manipulation by the psychopathic subject, as Hare himself has reported.

When assessing the percentage of the prison population that is psychopathic, I believe it is VERY important to consider that the 20% or 25% that you use may only represent those who are above Bob Hare’s cut-off. A person who scores 30 or 25 or even 20 on the PCL-R is still significantly psychopathic, certainly likely to be in the “subclinical” category. By this standard, the percentage of psychopathic individuals in the prison population increases substantially.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 12:02pm

Good point, Rune!

Yea, and for MY MONEY the percentage of “psychopathic subclinical” criminals is about 90% not 20%! I ALSO include every pedophile as a psychopath, every rapist. Maybe I am “over reacting” but how could someone commit these crimes if they had a conscience? No Conscience=psychopath.

To me, I realize that there are a few people who go to prison and come out “a better person” but the majority of prisoners are AT BEST dysfunctional when they go in, and prison itself doesn’t improve them any more than putting your collie into a cage for a year as punishment for disobeying, out in the front lawn, rain, snow, or heat pounding down on the poor dog, and then the neighborhood kids poking sticks at its ribs as it sits there in misery and pain, and then…what are you going to do, turn it loose and say to it “Now, have you learned your lesson, go play with the children now and be a good dog.”

I have come to the conclusion that there are NO EX-convicts, if they weren’t a psychopath when they went into prison, they are at least warped when they come out, having lost trust in mankind and probably with PTSD if they aren’t a P to start with. My P-son was a psychopath when he went to prison the first time, but when he came out after two years in prison, he had a PhD in psychopathic behavior….”new and improved” version then became a killer.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 12:33pm

BloggerT: Have you ever been in an intimate relationship with a psychopath? You research, you work in a setting that puts you in contact with psychopathic individuals, but have you ever had one insinuate himself/herself into your day-to-day life as a trusted friend or lover?

I’m not putting this forward as a challenge to you, but rather a point of consideration. If a psychopathic individual presented himself as heartless and remorseless, he wouldn’t get anywhere in society. It’s the fact that the fabricated persona is so “authentic-feeling” that they insert themselves into our lives the way they do to accomplish all this damage.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 12:36pm

OXY, Either get out the skillet or give me a dose of much needed reassurance.

I went out last night with girlfreinds. Went to a bit of a redneck place with two girlfriends after dinner. Scoped the lot as always to make sure his vehicle wan’t there. I don’t usually se e him there but it’s habit now tolook for his car when I am near home. THe place has really bad karaoke but good dance music in between. We were dancing and having fun and suddenly he walks into the room. I’m certain he saw me. I’m certain he came into the room because I was there.

One of my freinds was furious with me for wanting to leave. I had so much anxiety I came home and vomited. He gets up on the dance floor with, yes the trashy x stripper who is twice his size and mine and finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I told the other friend I have to go. SHe agreed.

I think he needed to be seen. He wanted to put on a show for me and I would not allow it. I left. One friend said “DO you think he’s trying to make you jealous?”. I said no, I think he NEEDS to be seen. He was with a group of people. Two women had teeth missing in front. One looked like she was searching for the nearest pole to dance. THe guys were wearing (not tshirts) undershirts, looked dirty, were very loud. I think they were her x con brothers. I’m disgusted and sick. NONE of the above paragraph matters because quite honestly he doesn’t give a crap about me or anything and I was just a fixture (from day one), one that he knows he will never use again.For a man who cared so much about me looking “classy”……WTF?

I didn’t sleep. I didn’t dream either about him. I can’t be near him WHy? After a year? WHy am I still asking why?

I wrote this to a friend this morning and it’s how I really feel:

“My earlier email wasn’t a question of better off or not without psycho freak. It was about continually struggling with why? Why he chose me? WHy he lied? WHy he is with the kind of woman/people he is with? How could I be so stupid? How are there such evil people in the world who can continue to get by with no justice or realm of punishment for what they do? Not just with regard to breaking the law or violating the stolen valor act or stealing the honor that others lost lives and parts of themselves to earn. NO how about stealing someones heart and spirit and soul because you are so unfaithful, immoral, unethical and disrespectful? Or violating other people’s boundaries by pretneding to be someone you are not and abusing the hell out of anyone for your own personal pleasure?

I am past the “relationship. I am past the lies. I am even past the mind rape. I can’t get past why. THis is where my analytical and logical self is just anal in trying to undersand the psychology behind it and the reality is that there are no answers. I will never understand because people who are selfish, greedy and imulsive will never seem logical to someone like me. THat kind of evil didn’t exist in my world of possibilitites. Thos e words aren’t strong enough to describe what they are and the damage they do.”

I can’t talk to anyone about it anymore. When my kids dwell on simple things I tell them “shit happens, get over it and move on.” If one more person tells me that I am going to die! Some days I feel so smart about all of this and days like today I feel like I have made no progress.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 1:01pm

keeping_faith: “THe guys were wearing (not tshirts) undershirts,”

The kind with no sleeves…ribbed knit..known as “wifebeaters”? Figures…

You’re making progress, one day at a time…do what’s best for you. You’re gonna get there!

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 1:40pm

no Jim not wifebeater. the kind with short sleeves like you would wear under a dress shirt, just dirtier and stained.

I suspect they save the wifebeaters for their various appearances on episodes of “COPS”

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 1:48pm

Rune, another good point.

After my X-DIL and the Trojan Horse Psychopath were arrested, my egg donor screamed out in pain that “but they were SO RESPECTFUL OF ME!” She just couldn’t believe that anyone that “respectful” was faking…I was the horrible bad one because I lost it in frustration one day when trying to convince her that the TH-P was a pedophile with a looooong record (I had the documentation she would not read or look at it, said I made it up, faked it, using my computer) I had lost it and in frustration told her she was “senile”—-so she was FURIOUS with me for “not being respectful”—-but THEY were “respectful” while they stole her money.

I asked her what she expected, that they should say “give me your money you old bat!” How much money would they have been able to get her to give them if they had done that? I was the only ONE NOT TAKING MONEY, but I wasn’t “respectful” so I was the BAD one. LOL

Yep, the faking it is what the Ps do best, and some of them are really REALLY good and some are only okay, but faking it is all they can do.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 2:07pm

learnthelesson says:

Keeping faith -

Once when my S was really “down on his luck” or so i thought.. but what it was – was really the choice he was making not to do anything positive for himself on his own for a job/career. All he could do was tell people he was out of work and sit around and wait for a friend or a friend of a friend to come up with a suggestion or a referral — when low and behold yet another person pulled through and suggested he try for a new career at his sister-in-laws business. Said he would hook him up. Think it was a mortgage co. i was skeptical but, I encouraged and supported him as I always did. He interviewed, he knew it didnt go great for lack of experience but he said “Ill get it, cuz my friend is the brother of the owner in the biz… but it wasnt handed to him..first he had to fill out a credit report and then agree to take and pass a three day course out of town… to get him in to an entry level position with the company with benefits and potential for growth. I saw it at as huge opportunity. He hung up from receiving the offer saying …Im not going to spend 300 bucks on a course, to end up working my ass off for someone sitting in a cubby making phone calls all day, ill lose my mind. I was flabbergasted. Here he was no job, no potential offers coming in and a valid opportunity practically tossed in his lap. I said, i think you need to do whats best for you, but please consider taking this opportunity thats in front of you. You have to work for things. You have to start somewhere, albeit from the bottom. And they are offering you a job with benefits and continued education to eventually get some kind of license, and career. I believe my support and encouragement helped him. He filled out credit report, background check etc. and ordered the books to study.

We were together the morning he got a call from the human resources dept. He saw the number and said “I knew it “- before he even answered. I did not know this, until that moment, but they noted a severely bad credit report ( think he thought they wouldnt even bother to check his credentials)…they said would you care to explain what this is all about. He said no – thank you for your time and hung up. I was in shock. I said why didnt you explain it? Why werent you honest? Why? Why ? Why? He stood up and said/LOUDLY I am $xx,xxx in debt. I ve written bad checks, Ive put my parents thru hell, etc. and nobody will want to hear that. All my life Ive had job after job. Nothing ever working out. AND WHY THE HELL DO YOU EVEN CARE ABOUT MY LIFE? THIS IS MY LIFE NOT YOURS? WHY DO YOU CARE?

I SAID, BECAUSE IM ABLE TO AND I DO.

(dont ask my how I did this- but I convinced him to call back and be honest. He was shaking. I said tell the truth – sometimes people will understand, and sometimes people will still not accept it and choose to pass on you – but tell the truth til someone accepts your truth. Because there are people who will. He proceeded to tell her during college he made poor financial decisions, he abused credit cards, he neglected to pay the bills and be responsible. He doesnt have a reason as to why. And he continued to do that after college. But in recent years he made better choices, started paying back what he could, kept more steady employment and is trying his best to get ahead. She asked if she could look into his recent payment history and get back to him after further review…. He hung up a different human being. i dont think he’d ever been honest about that a day in his life. Long story short, they approved him and the day before he was to leave for his training course – he bailed out. I dont believe he trusted himself, or ever will. He felt defeated, he also says he felt he cant work a desk job, or sit and cold call people all day every day 9 to 5. I was terribly disappointed FOR HIM, but I understood, for first time I really understood what it was like to let fear take over. And I understood that I was with someone who had somewhat of a lost soul, but I believed would find his way.

You asking yourself why, why, why over and over again is quite normal. Perhaps IF you didnt ever question him (rightfullly so tho) as to the things he was doing in the relationship that were red flags – you might still be in the relationship with him. You could be the girl on his arm. How lucky are you that you are not that victim anymore. She isnt questioning his actions, his words right now. Like you didnt in the beginning either. Maybe he’s on his best behavior, but the mask will drop. Or he will get bored. Or he will profess his undying love and then the next day someone unexpected will catch his eye and he is off and running around. The answer to the whys – are the answer I had to face to my question of why isnt he taking this opportunity this amazing job – the answer is HE DIDNT WANT TO, HE WAS AFRAID OF DOING SOMETHING HE IS NOT USE TO, HE DIDNT BELIEVE IN HIMSELF, AND ALL HE KNOWS TO DO/WANTS TO DO IS WHAT HE IS FAMILAR WITH – MAKING EASY AND BAD CHOICES. DOES THIS MEAN HE DIDNT CARE ABOUT ME – IT DOESNT MATTER – HE JUST DOESNT CARE ENOUGH ABOUT HIS LIFE TO MAKE GOOD CHOICES/BETTER CHOICES WHILE HE WAS WITH ME.. SO HE STAYS ON THE PATH HE IS ON. JUST A NEW FACE IN THE PICTURE WHEN THE COMFORTABLE ONES WISE UP. HE DOESNT KNOW HOW TO BE REAL, TO FEEL , TO CARE. HE JUST KNOWS HOW TO EXIST, GET BY, PLAY THE GAME…HOPE SOMEONE NEVER CATCHES ON …BUT LUCKILY FOR YOU — YOU DID.

WHAT I HAD TO DO WAS ASK MYSELF WHY DID I STAY? WHY DID I STAY WITH SOMEONE WHO MADE BAD CHOICES FOR HIMSELF? WITH ME AND FOR ME? WHY DID I STAY WITH SOMEONE WHO EVENTUALLY TREATED ME BAD, WHO DIDNT CARE IF HE HURT ME OR NOT, OR DIDNT HAVE A REAL DIRECTION OR GOAL IN HIS LIFE WHO JUST DIDNT CARE ABOUT HIS FUTURE LET ALONE MINE? HE ONLY LIVES EACH DAY TO MAKE IT TO THE NEXT THRU OTHERS, NOT ON HIS OWN, WHOEVER IS WITH HIM HAS TO FALL FOR HIS DECEIT ACCEPT HIS WAYS OR BE DISCARDED.

I HAVENT TOTALLY FOUND ALL MY ANSWERS YET. BUT ONE OF THEM IS BECAUSE I THOUGHT I COULD CHANGE HIM. ANOTHER ONE IS BECAUSE I THOUGHT HE WANTED TO CHANGE. AND ANOTHER ONE IS BECAUSE IT WAS A DISTRACTION FOR ME NOT TO LOOK INSIDE MYSELF TO FIND OUT WHY I WAS IN THIS DYSFUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIP.

So why did you stay? what we youre thoughts when you were being treated terribly or when you found out things you were comfortable with? Why were you willing to settle for less than you deserve? Why do you want someone like him? The whys arent about him anymore..for me…we know why they do it – they are unable to be any other way.

Start to think about the whys with you…the answers might help you get unstuck – as they did me.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 3:46pm

LTL,

Thanks for your response. I think sometimes I am curious as to what goes on with him now so that I may be able to make some sense of him just based on decisions he makes now….. like the trashy stripper chick on welfare. To some extent I know the answers to the questions I ask. Some I will never understand but I think it’s because I don’t truly understand impulsive or selfish behavior. He was married for 26 years and I don’t understand that either. I saw this bizarre behavior in month four or five. It lasted almost two years and there was no way in hell I could have allowed it to continue. He knew that and it’s probably why he is with someone now, much like his x wife, who is afraid to question him.

Why did I stay? For some time I didn’t care about the answers to some of the lies because the answers weren’t significant. I felt bad for the man who was so insecure (so I thought)he told people he was this Navy SEAL, POW who was so good he did covert work for the NSA. WHen the stories got more bizarre and the behavior became more dysfunctional…..I had more questions. Then there were more lies about money and homes and family and eventually all of it was a lie. He only cared about what it “looked” like….nice home = money, loud sporty car = badass. I stayed because THE GOOD WAS GREAT. I LEFT BECAUSE THE BAD WAS TORTURE. The pain became greater than the pleasure and still is !!!!

My questions are more about the psychology and some of the answers have not been found. He may be with her for a long time as he was in his marriage. I sense she knows somethin gisn’t right. He cheated on me with her and her with me. I later found. He would ditch her too. He would accuse her of cheating too and probably still does. Maybe being stupid or blind or just plain ridiculous has its advantages (what we don’t know won’t hurt us?) That’s what he has now. That’s what he had in his x wife and x affair and I’m sure many others. He is now unemployed so I heard. I can’t imagine how someone lik ehim finds another job. You would think he would be in a panic with a nice new home that he couldn’t afford when he WAS working. THERE ARE BAD DECISIONS ALL THE WAY AROUND. I don’t want to mother him or coach him and I’m glad I was NOT the one nursing him back to health after his steroid induced heart attack. I am glad and I know I am lucky.

Maybe not NEEDING answers like I/WE do is a blessing. Sometimes I wish I was one of these people that can simply say, “doesn’t feel right….goodbye” and NEVER look back. I think I need some sense of justice. I don’t think I will see it. It just kills me when things look so good on the surface…… but when we were out together they looked that way too. No one knew or understood the turmoil of a day to day relationship with a sociopath.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 4:14pm

LTL, I want to follow up by saying that although I didn’t care that he wasn’t a Navy SEAL POW, or aman who had money from working three jobs, and he didn’t own stuff, it was given to him and he didn’t earn $180000 a year, and he didn’t have a college degree……and on and on and on…… THAT stuff wasn’t important to me about him.

I felt so badly for this man because he HAD to lie to feel good, I LOST SIGHT OF THE FACT THAT a lie is a lie. There was something deeply wrong here and I didn’t look deeply enough, EARLY ENOUGH, to realize it’s not just a game to pick up women or look impressive or even simple insecurity and it KLLS me when guys, in particular, laugh like the lies are no big deal.

I realize now there is a dark dark place in him that these lies come from and I have tried to hard to see and understnad that, and I AM STILL ANGRY with myself for trying to absolve him for the lies. THe lies are a product of other REALLY bad things and I can’t even comprehend it. it makes me feel so naiive sometimes.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 4:21pm

keeping faith – I understand what you mean. Material things werent important to me either. I felt sorry for him too. If he really was the person he portrayed himself as being in beginning of our friendship, theres a good chance I would still be in his life today. People change, but as long as the fundamental basics are there – respect honesty etc etc.

“Sometimes I wish I was one of these people that can simply say, “doesn’t feel right….goodbye” and NEVER look back.” Keeping faith.

The fact that we didnt…and we dont know how to SAY TO OURSELVES AND TO ANYONE WHO PUTS US THERE – THIS DOESNT FEEL RIGHT…GOODBYE! – IS A FLAW OF OURS. WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO FEEL IT, SAY IT, BELIEVE IT AND KNOW THATS OUR RIGHT AND SOMETHING WE MUST DO FOR OURSELVES.

Wow did I ever need answers, closure, a sense of justice…for such a long time. I wanted answers, or I wanted to fix it, understand him, figure it all out. The answer for me is he just isnt healthy enough on the inside, mature enough on the inside, or capable enough on the outside to make good healthy choices for himself – let alone for the way to end a relationship.

They deal by just moving on, blocking it out… next co-dependent female in line please….all the rest in line, just be patient your number will eventually come up because Im unable to be real, honest, respectful, aware of others needs, beyond the basics – so none of my relationships ever grow – they just stay stagnant – and if Im lucky to get someone who wants to try to change me or figure me out or has her own flaws – then Ill be in the relationship longer if the money, sex and entertainment is good.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 5:19pm

LTL, thanks again. I agree with all you wrote. The only thing is that I do believe is that he will find another woman and maybe he already has found her, who will be like the primary relationship he had with his wife. He needs to be withsomeone who he can pull things over on. That wasn’t going to be me. ANd he will keep her around for all the security reasons regardless of who she is, what she believes, how she lives or how disgusting she is…. (maybe in their circle of friends she is the best thing since sliced bread. And based on what I saw last night….well, she has her teeth in front). BUT I have to believe he will cheat on her as he did his wife and me and the woman with whom he had an affair…etc…. because he just does. He will continue to lie until the FBI catches up with him. He will probably lose that house. In the end when his daughters and his x wife find ALL the truth about him, they will be in the same PTSD place that I am and I don’t wish that on anyone……maybe they already are. He jsut doesn’t give a shit.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 5:53pm

Dear KF,

I am so sorry you are still questioning the “why” and trying to “make sense” of the UN-sensible (how’s that for a new red-neck word?) You might as well be asking, I am afraid, “Why is the sky blue mommie? Huh? Huh? Why is the sky blue?”

He is obviously with what we here in the south would call “white trash.” Of course, being with people he considers his INFERIORS gives him a narcissistic supply to bolster up his ego. His claiming to be “all kinds of things” he wasn’t is also to bolster up his own fragile narcissistic ego. When he convinces someone he is those things, for that moment he IS those things because there isn’t a lot of difference between reality and fantasy for him.

Being the “biggest fish in a small pond” (having what appears to his “friends” as a LOT of money) makes him the big dog on the block and they will toady to him which gives him narcissistic supply, but since he reallly knows they are trash, he does’nt value that Narcissistic supply, so —–well you get the idea, it is like a hamster on a wheeel the faster he goes the FASTER HE GETS NO WHERE.

You being upset by watching him strut his stuff is a normal reaction to seeing him. When I saw my egg donor unexpectedly at the store, it did the same thing to me.

Actually, it also let me know that that “stress response” (I didn’t vomit but I felt like I needed to) is a response from your body to a BIG shot of adrenaline (stress hormones) and at least it is tellingyou that you no longer live that way 24/7 & 365 So, what you need to do now, IMHO, is to ABSOLUTELY AVOID SEEING HIM. It gives you stress and disrupts your healing, so avoid him like the plague. I’m doing that with my egg donor. THERE MAY COME A TIME when I have enough “control” over myself that I won’t react with a sudden and INTENSE stress response (like you have been bitten by a dog and then you are afraid of dogs) you were bitten by this man and now he PROVOKES AN INTENSE FEAR/STRESS RESPONSE—-normal response considering the circumstances.

Hang in there darling, and you DO get a BOINK!!!! for going out where you might see him, so don’t do that any more. (((((hugs))))) and always my prayers for you!

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 8:58pm

truebeliever says:

Oxy, You are the wisest of them all. You hit the nail on the head! Much Love to YOU! It is an “un-sensible” situation and thank God it is for us. I certainly do not ever want to think like a S!
Thank you for keeping us all in line with the Boink!!!!
Hugs to you too….

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 10:10pm

Thanks Oxy,

All that you said makes sense. It does put it in perspective. I can’t tell you the things I felt as I observed this group. I felt dirty. I felt embarrassed for him. I felt sick for myself that I actually loved and dated and slept with this guy who is sleeping with these trashy people in more ways than one. PLEASE don’t think I am judgemental. I am going on behavior that I observed and not being judgemental about people of a modest socioeconomic background. You and I had an exchange before about white trash with and without money !!!!!

I am not going to my gym anymore. It was 75 degrees here today. i will jog outside and do my weights here at home. If I go to the gym, I can hit up a different one during the week on my way home form work.

THis past summer and fall he must have been recovering and maybe that’s why he wasn’t so visible. I think the drama will all start up again now that he is no longer ill and is physically stronger. There are plenty of restaurants/bars that he won’t go to simply because his white trash friends and probably he, cannot afford so i will stick to a higher level of redneck, if you know what I mean. Thanks for the BOINK I deserved it and needed it. Mostly, thanks for the support. it’s been a rough week since I saw him last Friday. I’m done playin !!

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 10:22pm

OXY, I just want to comment on this as we all look for commonalities with these idiots. It is obvious that the XS feels some power through surrounding himself with people. He doesn’t care at all about what the morals or values of those people are. he cares about the control, the ease of manipulation, and as you pointed out oxy :

“being with people he considers his INFERIORS gives him a narcissistic supply to bolster up his ego.”

Isn’t that the result he is looking for? Even to the extent that he doesn’t concern himself (at least up front) with how others may view him. Or is it that he has to put on the good show that they are of value , when maybe deep down he knows they are nothing and mean nothing to him. As was true of me and I consider myself on a different level than his current friends. Maybe it’s all a show and for himself not even for the bystanders like me or his family or his x wife. There are many examples of this that I can think of.

He doesn’t seem to have the capacity to evaluate differences in people based on things like belief systems, values, integrity or lack there of, level of intellect, or even good dental hygiene LOL……….. We are all the same regardless. We are simply supply until he decides we are of no worth to him. I do think this group of friends will last a while. he is in a vulnerable position (unemployed, recent surgery) in that his conquests were mostly made in his travels for work. Now he doesn’t have a job. He needs these people more FOR NOW. But would rather die than ever admit that. I’m sure that feeling alone is causing a whole new kind of drama for him and them, particularly the girlfriend.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 10:36pm

Matt says:

keeping_faith:

“BUT I have to believe he will cheat on her as he did his wife and me and the woman with whom he had an affair…etc…. because he just does.”

You don’t have to believe it, you KNOW it. Jethro will cheat on Jethrine (that’s what we call ‘em in my part of the South). These creatures are constitutionally unable to be faithful, tell the truth or any other key requirement for two adults to have a relationship.

Saturday, 7 March 2009 @ 10:44pm

Matt is totally right, this “group of people” that we refer to as “trash” have a lifestyle that does not include morality, responsibility, etc. by the “common definition.” Many of this group of people are low income because of the LIFESTYLE they embrace, not embracing that lifestyle would mean they went to work, held a job, got an education, etc. and they don’t aspire to those things.

“The rolling stone gathers no moss”—they don’t accumulate money, homes, possessions, stability because they are NOT stable, they are irresponsible, live skirting the law, or over the line in criminal activity.

Sure, some of us have lost our jobs, lost our homes, have little left to show for a life time of work because it was bam-boozled away from us by our relationships with psychopaths. Bad decisions. The difference is that we DO feel a sense of responsibility to support ourselves, to take care of our children, to be honest and “upright” so even if we have nothing physical or financial left, we still have OURSELVES and our MORAL COMPASS. WE may be financially broken, emotionally broken and wounded, but we are NOT TRASH.

Many very wealthy people are TRASH–Bernie Madoff is a prime example. What was that “Hotel Queen’s” name, can’t even remember it, but the one who got in trouble for tax evasion and for abusing her employees.

My P son after his transformation from “honor student” to thug started to hang out with the thugs in the neighborhood rather suddenly, after dumping his good, bright and nice friends like hot potatoes. He is very very bright but he feels infinitely superior to people of lower intellect than himself. He loves impressing them, and even impressing the guards at the prison where he is with his “genius.” Yep, he’s a “genius” for sure—no matter what his IQ is though, or how high it is, he is definitely TRASH. But HE sees himself as grandiose, larger than life, exciting, successful, when all he has ever been is a thug and a murderer. He also makes up stories of his wild successes on the outside when there is NO WAY he could have done any of these things, he’s essentially been incarcerated all but a few months since he was 17 1/2—he hasn’t been a SUCCESS at anything since 7th grade. As long as he can convince some convict that isn’t really very bright, that he is a “big shot” on the outside, then he feels better about himself. Sheesh! What aspirations he has, impressing the other convicts with sub-human IQs that he is a genius. Big deal! KF, your X is just as pathetic…and that is the only word I can think of to describe that confabulation about how great they are. They don’t even know enough to tell a believeable lie.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 12:14am

Rune not only was my mother a psychopath but my first wife was one as well. That is something that I do not usually disclose to people because of my children and what happened to them when she and I split up. Back then the courts pretty much automatically gave custody to the mother regardless and in my case in was no different. It took almost 10 years for childrens services to take the children from her. Why did they take them from her? Because she had been physically, emotionally and sexually abusing them and they finally were able to prove it.

As for the prison population I see people trying to say that anti-social behavior is the same as being a psychopath when it is not. If you look at the prisons you will find that the higher the classification you go the more psychopaths you will find. Minimum/Medium security places have the least with the Maximum and supermaximum ones having the most.

If you look at the last article I posted you will see this:

Two conditions–sociopathy and antisocial personality disorder–often get confused with psychopathy. Sociopathy refers to criminal attitudes and behaviors viewed as normal in certain groups, such as street gangs. Sociopaths have a sense of right and wrong that is based on the values of their criminal group.

Antisocial personality disorder, an official psychiatric ailment, is a diagnosis applied to people who commit a broad range of aggressive and criminal acts. Some qualify as psychopaths, but many don’t.

And that is what I see happening. Trying to lump all anti-social behavior into psychopathy. Maybe it is just semantics and they are different levels BUT I have seen and there are numerous people who have been the “sociopath” as described above and anti-socials who have changed their lives for the good. There are “sociopaths” as described above who could easily commit anti-social/psychopathic acts against a rival gang person (the us and them) yet they truly and deeply care for their own family members, friends, etc. They have empathy and compassion for one of “us” but not one of “them”.

Then there are the addicts. People who got hooked into the drug lifestyle and committed anti-social/psychopathic acts to continue their drug use and lifestyle yet some of these people, like the gang member above, get free of the lifestyle and turn around and devote their lives to trying to help others.

Look at the Columbine school shootings. It would be easy to label BOTH those kids as psychopaths yet only one of them was. (I’ll link that article below). People do what is considered anti-social acts for many different reasons.

And Rune yes it is true that a psychopathic individual can con an interviewer, heck anyone can be conned by anyone. That is also why proper training and ongoing training and evaluation of the person using the tool is so important. There is a lot of other materials that are involved also. As for the scores, if you read the last article I posted that has a different number of views/theories in it, you will see this comment:

Consider that psychologists working for the prosecution and the defense in criminal cases often generate disparate psychopathy scores for the same defendants, Edens says. To make matters more confusing, the incriminating score of 30 or more on the PCL-R hasn’t been rigorously linked to psychopathy.

Edens recommends that courtroom psychologists report a confidence range for each psychopathy score assigned to a defendant. Scores of individuals given the test under different conditions typically span 14 points, he says.

Now seeing as they did not list any references for the claims made in the article I have no idea if that is true or not. The 14 point span would not surprise me though. When we did assessments (not the PCL) we had months of training on the tool we were using to make sure we all were on the same page of understanding how to use it properly and then we had ongoing eval’s and training to make sure we are all still doing so as time went on. Without the ongoing checks our scores would have been widely varying depending as well. But think about it. A 20 with a 14 point span could be a 34 or 6.

Here is the link to that last article I posted http://www.thefreelibrary.com/.....=156002013

Oxy – I agree with you that pedophiles are psychopathic. As for other sex offenders it varies depending on what exactly the case is because the term sex offender covers a wide variety of crimes. I also agree that the prison setting, in our country anyway, does not help people and I think often makes people worse. When I was doing sex offender treatment I often made the comments to co-workers that for the psychopathic ones all we were really doing was helping to make them better criminals because now they knew what to say and how to act to better fool people and professionals.

And Rune, Oxy, everyone, I am also struggling and trying to get discussion and dialogue about psychopathy. If I come across as trying to discount your thoughts please know I am not and I value hearing everyone’s thoughts on the matter. The nice thing about science is that many things change and good science is all about being open to and even knowing that things can and do change as new evidence is found. Personally I would not be surprised to find that all these theories are right and wrong. And since this is an issue that has a great deal of subjectivitiy in it, it makes it harder to tease everything out. The columbine case is one example of how subjective the issue can be. How many people think both were psychopaths or neither were?

And here is the link to the Columbine story were they talk about the one being a psychopath and the one not and why http://www.slate.com/id/2099203/

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 12:49am

Dear BloggerT: Thank you. You, like me, are researching and reconsidering your life, and hoping for new breakthroughs, while having a life education in skepticism about the reality of “treatment” for people who are deeply disordered. I appreciate you sharing your background of experience. This means a great deal as I look at your comments.

I read the Slate.com article and I was in complete agreement that the “nice kid” was the really scary one of the two. This is where our notions of what “normal” looks like and what “psychopathic” looks like can be wildly different, depending on our experience.

The S/P I was recently involved with is apparently also a serial pedophile, underneath his highly “spiritual” persona. He is also not very organized, although he “fakes” organization in an interesting way. He might look like a “successful psychopath” but he is continually choosing chaos over anything that might reasonably serve his “greed.” Yet, he look so very credible. Because his act is so good, he really doesn’t look like someone who would test a certain score on the PCL-R, unless you had a real-life “longitudinal” study on him, as I did. I had several serious events when I wondered if he was planning to kill me. I didn’t have any way to comprehend at the time the terror running through my veins. Now I think that he knew how bright I was and how well-versed I was in research, and psychological research, and he was afraid that I would figure him our and I might be dangerous. I believe the way that he used his D&D was specifically intended to discredit what I might have figured out about his pathology. He was also a “Navy SEAL.” (Well, not quite, but same difference in the hero stories he told.)

Thank you for disclosing a difficult part of your own history. I’m having to face many things from my past as I now work through unexplained dark times in my own history. The other night I remember the cops sitting in my living room, gently listening to me as I explained my terror over the threats my ex had made. I remember this one man, blond, so young, and I remember the bulk of his bulletproof vest under his uniform. Yes I believe that my gun-carrying ex had been outside. I was grateful on that night that I was believed. I had forgotten that night, as I have repressed so many moments of terror. That moment was decades ago, with a different sort of psychopathic individual. Yes, for appropriate clinical reasons I also would say he was psychopathic, but his patterns were different.

I welcome our dialogue, and I’m sure that as we all share our stories we can all learn more and help in furthering understanding to protect ourselves and those we love.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 1:12am

Blogger, I am WITH you on the “changes” in “Science”—especially the social sciences where it is difficult to come up with HARD EVIDENCE, and there is always an inter-rater problem as well. As more hard science is able to be applied to psychology (like the hormones and genes involved in our emotional and mental make up being studied) I think things will advance very fast, in the meantime, we are still not in agreement on what the NAME OF THE DISORDER is and if it is 1,2, or 3 separate disorders, plus if the person has maybe several OTHER illnesses or disorders that also impact on behavior—WHAT IS THE DIAGNOSIS? LOL When I was working clinically and evaluating patients and filling out all the little forms and check lists to come up with a “clinical diagnosis” I was always cognizant of the legal and other implications in tagging someone with a diagnosis that might not be right or missing something.

The discussions here, even if I don’t agree with the conclusions, at least make me THINK about what is going on. The BOTTOM LINE though for us that are not clinically and legally involved with them is that WE DON’T HAVE TO COME UP WITH A DIAGNOSIS except that THEY ARE TOXIC. For our purposes as “victims” or “former victims” we just have to know that we can’t change them, they don’t want to change, no matter what they say.

Yes, you are right, there ARE a few individuals who clean up from drugs and alcohol, and there ARE a few that come out of prison “better men” than they went in, HOWEVER, THAT SAID, the percentage is LOW for that. SO, for MY purposes, the SAFEST thing for me to do is to be wary of any “ex-”convict, and any “former” drug addict. I admit that in my youth I smoked my share of grass as many of the kids of the 60s did, I’ve even been drunk, but thank God I am not an addict of illegal drugs, I don’t “crave” any kind of substances except nicotine (which is bad enough) and caffeine, but those two “cravings” do let me know somewhat it is that makes people continue to crave and use substances that are harmful for them. I haven’t quit smoking entirely, but I do chew a bunch of nicotine gum to keep the urges down—-good thing I guess I don’t crave heroin as I would probably be on methadone. Fortunately, none of my kids are “addicts” and I don’t take credit for that, because they have all had the opportunity I am sure.

What Rune pointed out about us having to face the difficult parts of our past is very true with me as well. I had not “forgotten” a lot of things, but just pushed those memories back down, or “explained” them with some kind of phrases or words that made those memories not seem so terrible. Facing those memories, and dealing with them, then moving on is a daunting task while we are in the acute stages of grieving over the lost relationship, I think it is only when we get over that ACCUTE phase and STAY on the road to healing, rather than think, “Oh, wow, I’m healed,….” because then we (at least in my case) started on the next or continuing relationship with the next or even the same P.

My focus now is on ME–on what it is about ME that made me vulnerable to being hooked into such a dysfunctional relationship. I could sit down with YOU (that’s the universal you) and diagnose your problems, give you some good insight, but I couldn’t do the same thing for myself. I saw myself not the way I WAS but the way I WANTED to be. Now I am having to face my own hypocrisy, my own failure to do what I taught to others.

One of the greatest things about this LF site is the level of education and knowledge of all the posters and writers here is so WAAAAAY above the average blog. It gives you reason to think as well as feel, and some very very good insights. I know what I have had here in the way of support has helped me very very much on my own “road to healing.” I am going to STAY on that road and NOT get back on the ROAD TO HELL which has been paved with my own good intentions and poor judgment!

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 1:44am

Rune – Thank you

Oxy – I am so much in agreement with you and applaud everytime you say:

The BOTTOM LINE though for us that are not clinically and legally involved with them is that WE DON’T HAVE TO COME UP WITH A DIAGNOSIS except that THEY ARE TOXIC.

I think that is a wonderful way to frame the discussion for a supportive group. To me I think that is the most important thing for those not clinically involved.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 2:43am

Blogger,

Not every “toxic” person is a psychopath (by any name) but “toxic” people are just that, they are POISON to us. The only way we can handle it is to cut these people out of our lives to the extent possible. Sometimes if we share children with them it is legally impossible—and sometimes that has disasterous results, like Dr. Amy Castillo whose Psychopathic x husband murdered her children to hurt HER.

I think above all else we have to keep in mind that our very lives can be at risk with these people. Some of them, such as Scot Peterson, kill without a lot of “advance warning” and others, like my P-son give plenty of warning of the dangerous nature of their intentions.

As I advance further along the “road to Healing” I realize that though I am intellectually curious (I am a retired mental and medical professional) the take home lesson for us ALL is that we have to get them out of our lives and overcome the damage they have done, and to fix whatever it was in the first place that made us sit still for the abuse they heaped on our heads.

To me, that means, that now that the Ps are OUT of my life (though I must for my own safety’s sake keep a bit of a cautious eye out for repeat attacks), my focus is turned inward to my own flaws.

As Rune pointed out once, setting boundaries with THEM is only a “challenge” to them to step over that boundary, so the only boundary we can successfully institute with them is NC (or as little as legally possible). Boundaries are for people who respect you, or to differentiate who you need to go NC with (if they don’t respect them).

I hope that research in medicine and the social sciences will discover a cause and/or cure or control for these human predators but I sincerely doubt that will ever take place. There are so many variations of the disorder that as far as I am concerned we don’t handle the dangerous criminals among them correctly and I doubt that will change in the near future. Society does not seem to understand that the P-criminal will only get worse. A universal 3-strikes you are out law with ENFORCEMENT rather than “plea bargaining” might help by getting the worst of the worst off the streets. The “Love-fraud” P, though, is likely to continue to skate free of the law. The wreckage they produce is usually “not illegal.”

The pedophiles among us (all Ps I think) are also not prosecuted to the extent they should be and there are some that think there is a “treatment” for them. (There is NOT).

But I can’t solve all of the problems of society and the human race, I can only take care of myself, keep myself safe and enjoy what I have left of life on this earth.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 3:44am

I was just reading a story that talks about one of these “ex-cons” and it is interesting:

http://www.columbusdispatch.co.....ml?sid=101

One comment from the article As ashamed as we are that we warehoused people in the 1970s, we will look back at the ’80s and ’90s and think the same thing about how we’ve used prisons for the mentally ill.”

And if you read it you will see that his troubles began at age 4…

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 7:37am

J Reid Meloy in Chapter 20 of the book International Handbook on Psychopathic Disorders and the Law writes:

“A substantial body of research has shown that, at most, only one out of three patients with antisocial personality disorder has severe psychopathy. … Psychopathy is not synonymous with behavioral histories of criminality or the categorical diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, although it is often a correlate of both in severe cases”

And Dr. Donald Carveth in a paper about psychopths wrote:

We must take care not to oversimplify the relationship between psychopathy on the one hand, and criminality or antisocial personality disorder on the other. There are many
people who display psychopathic traits who are not criminals and do not qualify for the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder; many criminals do not display much psychopathy; and some criminals do not have antisocial personality disorder. Criminal gangs are wary of severe psychopaths for their extreme narcissism makes them unreliable and untrustworthy gang members.

Here is a link for anyone interested in the book

http://www.amazon.com/Internat.....amp;sr=1-1

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 8:34am

Hey Matt and Oxy, Are you thinking of Leona Helmsley? ANyway, I think some of my frustration comes from NOTHING BEING REAL about him. He likes that impression of having money, impression of strength because of his steroid induced body, impression of some Navy hero, I can’t stand that the facade is greater than reakity and why am I the only one who sees it? Maybe that’s why I feel like I am crazy. Maybe no one else cares and maybe it all doesn’t even matter.

He IS trash. his friends are trash. His daughters, and anyone else who protects him by buying into, ignoring, defending the lies are all trash. THey are not victims. I’m DONE with victim. If I can’t have justice then i need to have a life and this idiot is disturbing me. Worse….I am letting him.

Today is the start of my new routine. I’m not going to the gym. I am not going to place that he may show up. And if he starts showing up at other or new places I go or at Starbucks early in the AM….then he is followin gme again. THen I WILL leave town. Matt, I’ll be coming to live with you instead of you coming here !!

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 8:48am

Dear Blogger,

I have one of Meloy’s books (boy is he a difficult writer to follow) but I also saw a 48 hours mystery where Meloy’s testemony (almost alone) put an innocent boy in prison for 15 years (the kid had drawn some “satanic” pictures at age 15, a woman was found murdered near his home and though there was NO other evidence that he was guilty (later it was proven that there were TWO people who had killed her, and her ex-BF’s DNA was found INSIDE her panties and the kid was let out of prison eventually, pardoned and is now suing Meloy and one of the cops, and the state. I really don’t blame this kid, but actually in the interview with him, he sounded pretty grounded and not bitter, but just relieved to be out. Truthfully after 10-15 years in prison, what kind of life can he pick up?

The social sciences are still way behind the “hard” sciences, but hopefully with new advances in medicine and the knowledge gained in the last 20 years, they will catch up from a lot of the “just opinions” that seem to be what “passes” for expert knowledge.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 10:44am

DEar KF,

NO contact (as close as you can reasonably come) is absolutely the ONLY way to go because our injury is so raw that contact is like pulling the scab off and in that way it never will heal or the pain stop.

No matter how tough we think we are or how we can “handle it” THERE IS NO WAY TO DO SO WHILE WE ARE RAW.

I thought I was a pretty “tough old bird” (jackass riding, skillet weilding etc.) and you know what, I WAS FOOLING MYSELF, I am human just like you, and Donna, and Liane and everyone else here on this blog, I AM HUMAN and I respond like a human, and I HURT and respond to STRESS.

Now that I have quit fooling myself that “I can handle it, I’m tough, I’m rational” and all that other crap I told myself that was SO counterproductive, I am really getting places on the road to healing, I am getting to JOY and PEACE.

As we pass these milestones and things start to feel better, I may eventually get to where I can see them and not re-inure myself, I saw my X-DIL a while back and it didn’t hurt, and I have seen the X-BF, and so on, but I am still WAY too raw to confront my egg donor. She still has that power just by her presence to RIP THE SCAB OFF. I’m not gonna pretend I’m a “Navy Seal” and TOUGH any more!~ LOL I’m a caring, compassionate and nice person and I react to the sight of the egg donor, so I will be good to myself and AVOID the chance of contact. That doesn’t mean she has “won” it just means that I have finally copped to the fact I’m not as “tough” as I thought I was, as I pretended I was, and I want to be KIND TO MYSELF and not expose myself to more stress than necessary. PEACE is necessary to further healing. NO CONTACT=PEACE. ((((HUGS)))))

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 10:51am

Thanks OXY, Yea I hate to admit this is a weakness in me. I am very strong in many ways. I’ve never ridden a jackass but as you know I shot a 9mm this summer. I can’t kick this thing unless there is absolutely no sighting.

Today, I went to Starbucks with my daughter. His vehicle was parked there. The gym is too close so I now have to change Starbucks, which is easy enough to do. I will bet a million dolalrs he saw us there because we had breakfast for an hour and a half and his car was still there when we left. Even that makes me angry.

I have made some good friends and acquaintances at the gym and Starbuck. I’t my only social time. I will have to change it up and that pisses me off. He has way too much time on his hands now and I can’t seem to get away from seeing him. Partly my fault mostly his. I should have known. As my daughter said. He’s a creeper. Now I;m moving on. Thanks Oxy. He is pushing the envelope. I’m not pushing it back. He can have the gym. I’d rather have peace of mind.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 11:34am

I went to my gym this afternoon and saw something that immediately made me think of you.

Opposicte the sign in desk is one of those locked, glass fronted bulletin boards where they have the class schedules posted, etc. Scomebody had slipped between the panes of glass a piece of oaktag on which was glued a photo of what was obviously his/her ex b.f., in a military uniform, with the obligatory red circle slash through it.

Underneath, in big bold letters it said:

“NAME OF X:

MILITARY STAUS — 4-F:

1. FRAUD — NAVY SEAL IMPOSTER
2. FINANCIAL — CONMAN
3. FABRICATED LIFE — COMPLETELY
4. FUCKED-UP — TOTALLY”

The subject matter of the above was going ballistic — demanding the sign be removed, threat to national security, he was going to sic’ the JAG Corp on them etc. Of course, it being weekend staff, nobody had the key.

Damage to his myth? Incalculable.

Amusement for the masses? Priceless.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 3:24pm

matt!!!! ROTFLMAO!!!!! GREAT!!! TOWANDA FOR THAT WOMAN!!! I just looooooove it!

Keeping faith, not meaning to say “I told you so” (though I did) but at the point I told you, YOU were not ready to bite the bullet. YOU ARE ready now, and that is how we ALL do it. We do not move until we are ready. It takes different times for each of us. I never even CONSIDERED going really NC with my egg donor, that wasn’t even considered as a possiblity, but UNTIL I DID CONSIDER IT, and them IMPLEMENT it, I would never have healed cause I would have never reached a peaceful enough place to heal from.

Today I was riding with my little 26 yr old friend who is divorcing her P, and her MIL (who has so far been friendly to her) called up and started some drama on the phone and my little friend got angry and her and snapped back. Due to the way the financial stuff is set up, right now my friend NEEDS her MIL (who is divorcing her FIL as well) so I talked to her and asked her to call the MIL back and APOLOGIZE to her for “becoming so upset”—-and then told her what the drama was all about—the excuse to “pick a fight” over nothing. Keep the crap stirred. I think this young lady is starting to “get it” about the Ps and their accompliaces the game players and the drama queens. When we need peace iin the worst way, they do everything they can to keep us from having it, to keep us in chaos so we can’t think.

Being AWAY from them is the only way, NOT participating in the drama games the accompliaces play etc. I told my little friend that no matter what her MIL says to her, even if she calls her a bitch to her face, to just say “I’m so sorry you feel that way” and walk off. BETTER –FAR better—to not get into “fights” with these folks, and just move out of the way. Stay out of the fray! Sure, they all know how to push our buttons and it is easy to do when we are in pain. When we have a “headache” even a fly crawling across the ceiling “sounds” like a “freight train”—-so we MUST get our wits about us as quickly as possible so we can function. Keeping out of the way, NC is the best way! ((((hugs))))

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 6:08pm

If genetics plays no role in psychopathy, then with the correct trust building techniques it should be equally easy for anybody to train a pit bull or rottweiler to be as friendly and non-territorial as it is the Bichon Frise or Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

The first S I met was at age 7, and was a nasty piece of work. Every kid and parent on the block knew there was something wrong with her and avoided her. Yet her sisters (one year younger, one year older) were quite normal. Same parents, same environment, very different behaviors. I have a lot more examples where that one came from. And then you have twin studies. Not to mention the general consensus within the entire psychology/psychiatry profession that behavior is roughly 50% genetic and 50% environment.

How can anybody ignore all that? I’m not saying that a focus on what happens during transient exuberance, and the importance of healthy attachment at that age isn’t extremely important. But an extreme perspective along those lines seems to ignore the genetic bell curve diversity which is an obvious part of humanity.

Most of the rational purpose behind demonizing the sociopath is not vindictive. Demonizing them is the best way to engage the tribalistic instincts which drives the majority of the population. Now, if you’ve come up with some techniques to deal with the successful sociopath, where everybody winds up in a great big ole group hug or similar, then I’m interested. But until I’m completely convinced about any techniques effectiveness I hope you don’t mind if I watch from a safe distance.
==============
Student Of Sociopathy

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 6:10pm

justabouthealed says:

Good for you keeping_faith! NC is the only way! I’m sorry it means some more losses for you, but your sanity and peace of mind AND eventual freedom from him even being in your thoughts is WELL WORTH IT. I’m so happy for you! Way to go!

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 7:25pm

penelope says:

Hi, I’m new here and the S wasn’t my boyfriend but he sucked me into his drama nonetheless. Are there ever too many victims for these types to use? He’s gone but I couldn’t resist IMing him. I cut off IMs on Friday, deleted his phone number and blocked his email address as well as those of common acquaintances. In a few months I’ll move so he can never find me. But the person he pretends to be is so wonderful that I cry when I realize that I’ll never see a glimmer of that man again. Tonight when I was crying I hoped that his fake self is a ghost or an angel so that he can exist somewhere even if I can’t see him. Maybe all I can say is that he created that self from bits and pieces of good people he has known and that there are more people like them than like him.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 8:12pm

henry says:

penelope I love the way you surmised the experience, and those bits and pieces of good he took from (you) and used them in the most evil way…you are welcome here and you will find knowledge and power and maybe you wont have to move – just stay with the No Contact and he will disapear when he realizes you have ended the dance.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 8:27pm

penelope:

Welcome.

All journeys begin with a first step. The first step for you is realizing that everything about him was a lie. That wonderful person you are mourning never existed and will never exist.

We (the victims) serve one purpose and one purpose only for these parasites — we are a source of supply. When they bleed us dry, they move on to a new source of supply.

But, you realize that already. “Maybe all I can say is that he created that self from bits and pieces of good people he has known and that there are more people like them than like him.”

The thing is, he isn’t a good person. All he is doing is mimicing what those good people are.

Nothing about him is real. You’ve already taken the right steps, cutting him off, changing email addresses, staying away from common acquaintances. If your S stays true to form, by the time he is done trashing you to those common acquaintances, they won’t want anything to do with you. anyhow.

You are in a place of healing. Also, knowledge is power. Read the archives here and “Without Conscience” by Robert Hare and “The Socipath Next Door” by Martha Stout. You will find a lot of answers to your intellectual questions. The emotional questions, people here can help you out.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 8:35pm

Dear Penelope,

Welcome! You are in the right place. Welcome to our “club” but sorry that you “qualify” for membership. I wish I could say that we are an “exclusive” club without many people who qualify for membership, but unfortunately, many people have walked in our shoes, the victims of these EVIL people.

Matt is right, KNOWLEDGE=POWER and unfortunately because we loved and trusted these people they used that trust and goodness against us.

Learning how to spot them, learning to keep away from them (we call it “no contact”) and it means JUST THAT, ABSOLUTELY NO CONTACT WITH THEM. Every time we contact them or allow them to contact us we start to hurt more again. I suggest you read the articles here in the archives and post as much as you want or need to. It is a caring place and there are people here to support you, as previous people supported us.

You have taken the first steps on your road to healing, and it will be a bumpy ride, but you have friends here, who DO understand what you are feeling! (((hugs)))) an again, WELCOME!

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 9:38pm

blindsided31 says:

Matt
I found your story-Wow- although (thank goodness) my S did not get me for any money, he sure broke my heart. And you are right- the further away I get, the more I look back and see the monstrous things he has done to me and others. Thinking about the devalue part, he said so many hurtful things to me at the end- reading what you said helped me to start to get past what he said- to realize that the devaluing is part of a sociopath’s MO.
Penelope
I’m pretty new too- so welcome. Read the two books Matt mentioned, they help alot as does reading the posts on this site. It is still so very sad to think that the S I thought I knew and loved (and sadly still love) so much really does not exist- that it was all an act (I know it in brain, but even after seven months I still do not know it in my heart- I still want him back- but a tiny bit less every day).

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 9:51pm

blindsided31 – I want to welcome you as well – listen too your brain and your heart will catch up. I am at one year no contact – at 7 months I was still suffering from the illusion of love – I would like to suggest a simple little book to you and penelope that helped me and still does – Meaning from Madness by Richard Skerrit – but more than anything I want you too know you will be ok and that feeling of loss will not last forever..

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 10:17pm

My dear dear Henry,

You cannot know just how glad I am that you are doing so well on the “road to Healing”–”you’ve come a long way, Baby!” I am so proud of how you have hung in there, and even though the occasional skillet bashing about the head and shoulders was necessary, I think you are the “poster child” for HEALING on LF! You have done so well and I am so glad.
(((((henry))))))xoxoxox Oxy

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 10:36pm

Poster child for skillit abuse!!!!!!

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 10:40pm

WHAT DOES THE POSTER CHILD FOR SKILLET ABUSE REPRESENT – A STRONG HEAD, SOUND MIND, AND ABILITY TO SEE A N/S/P FROM MILES AWAY BECAUSE HIS EYES ARE KNOCKED OUT PAST HIS NOSE AND HIS BRAINS ARE NOW SPREAD OUT FROM HIS HEAD TO HIS TOES!! A WALKING S/P/N FREE MACHINE!!!! IF DONNA EVER NEEDS TO ADVERTISE… ITS SETTLED.. OXY AND HENRY WILL BE ON IT WITH FAT AND HAIRY, A SKILLET, AND A SIGN THAT SAYS… THE ROAD TO HEALING….WWW.LOVEFRAUD.COM

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 10:57pm

I have learned that the ‘road to healing’ is a journey and not a destination – I have learned that the truth will set you free but first it will piss you off – i have learned to look inside myself and deal with the baggage of my life that brought me here – I didnt want to acknowledge in the beginning that this was all about me – I was too focused on the pain the S had caused – one of my first responders to my post said “This is a life Lesson dont fail it” lovefraud gave me so much more than a lesson in Sociopathy – I am still learning and that is the wonderful thing about the journey.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 11:02pm

TOWANDO!!!!! TOWANDA!!!! AND YOU GAVE YOURSELF SO MUCH MORE BECAUSE YOU OPENED YOURSELF TO THE POSSIBILITIES OF LEARNING, GROWING AND HEALING… THATS INSPIRING HENRY! AND GOOD THING YOU DONT LIVE NEAR OXY, OR YOUR HEAD WOULD REALLY BE POUNDING!!! )

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 11:08pm

Dear Learnthelesson – One day I will meet Oxy and I will be wearing a crash helmet for sure. The visuals of advertising for lovefraud gives me a headache. Oxy has beat me up alot but it was out of love.. I am somewhat hard headed I will admit. So if someone had to knock some sense into me I am glad it was her. Just dont tell her I told you so….

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 11:36pm

Henry – the beauty in the skillet journey – I suspect is that you already had the good sense in you — Oxy was just love tapping you to remind you what you already knew about yourself and what you were learning along the way. Oxy made sure you (and all of us) dont forget who we are and what we are all about. The S/Ps have a way of frying our brains, burning us out. Oxy’s skillet is a love tap to ensure we remember to trust ourselves and never give up or lose our sense of self.

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 11:50pm

Good night all… hope everyone turned their clocks ahead…Spring FORWARD!!

Sunday, 8 March 2009 @ 11:56pm

Yes Yes and one year ago I was so lost and had given up but I did find my way home and my self again. I was just thinking back to a year ago, I remember the anxiety was overwhelming and I just wanted closure, I am almost afraid to say that word ‘closure’ because there really isnt such a thing, but we do heal and learn to set boundaries and to respect ourselves and most of all we did not do anything to deserve what the s-p-n did too us, once again “life Lesson”

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 12:01am

Dear Henry and LearnED,

Thank you for those kind words! I DO LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH, and it makes me as proud as a mamma hen strutting around when you wonderful people start to GET IT that you ARE WONDERFUL and that there is LIFE AFTER THE P-EXPERIENCE!!! If it takes a little wake up call with the skillet and a BOINK or two to get your attention then I hope you won’t hold it against me.

Henry is right “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off”

I have been on “the road to Healing” so many times before and after I finished (more or less) the grief process for the acute stage of the lost, I thought I AM THERE! When, in fact, I was a LONG WAY OFF THE ROAD TO HEALING, and let myself get lured back to the ROAD TO HELL.

Unless we STAY on the road, we fall right back into the old traps that led us here to lovefraud in the first place. IT IS ALL ABOUT US, not them. THEY are just the common denominator that brought us together to hold hands while we make ourselves “P-RESISTENT” and learn and grow. It IS ALL ABOUT OUR HAPPINESS AND PEACE—-and if the experience we had with them leads us to get and STAY on the road to healing our wounds and fixing ourselves, as bad as it has been, for my money, it is WORTH IT ALL IN THE END.

Much love to you both and all our friends and fellow travelers here at LF! ((((Hugs))))) and always prayers!

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 12:06am

Henry – perhaps the best closure w/ an N/S/P- is when we make our own. So we can close that door behind us ourselves. Mine always liked to leave door open to slither to and fro, he never wanted real closure.

And if a S/N/P gave it to us — (its prob. bs anyway:) and plus we really wouldnt deal with it, it would just be this pile of crap at our doorstep. Kindda like making my own closure within.

Of course when we are dealing with healthy, caring, respectful people – we are get to share a level of understanding, acceptance, mutual closure together – it just happens naturally in healthy relationships.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 12:18am

Dear Oxy, Right back atchya!!! You encourage me to UNDERSTAND that this is a healing journey – a road that I can choose to always stay on, because I can be vulnerable at times (as I am human) – but as long as I make the choice to learn as much as possible about MYSELF from my experience with him – then there isnt nearly as much loss as there is gain from all of it.

Im SO thankful we all found unconditional love/support from eachother here at LF. Always always happens when you least expect it in your life. Its good people, good place to be/ come back to, on our journey. Thanks Oxy ! And your grandma for cooking with a Skillet or we would be getting microwaved!!!! xoxo

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 12:28am

[so we can close that door behind us ourselves] yeppers~~!!

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 12:32am

blindsided31,
Would you believe me if I said I was jealous of who ever he’s moved on to? That fantasize that he’ll come back? If I showed you a picture of me, his ex-girlfriend here, and his ex back in his hometown we all look alike and are the same “type”. We all exist to service him and he consciously picked me for that purpose.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 6:00am

Matt,

IMPORTANT QUESTION: Re: the item you saw at the gym….. let’s say hypothetically someone did something like that or let’s say they distributed a flyer, oh maybe in a particular neighborhood or at a particular gym or redneck bar, you know in the bathroom stall or sent them to local VFW’s…… that kind of thing. Maybe even to a reporter at a local newspaper.

What are the legal ramifications of that kind of distribution? Using the person’s photo? Using the US mail? Any idea?

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 7:17am

Hypothetically speaking, for the intended target of the action to proceed legally on, oh lets say libel or slander, he’d first have to prove some kind of quantifiable damages (for example, his business of consulting to the NSA has been irreparably harmed). Of course, there’s that pesky little legal principle called the truth is a defense he’d have to deal with.

My guess is he could argue that as a private citizen he has privacy rights beyond those of a celebrity. However, hypothetically speaking, if the information is already in the public domain, say on that site run by the group that exposes phony “former Navy Seals” that argument is shot out of the water.

As for distribution of the information through local channels such as a particular gym, a redneck bar, bathroom stalls or the local VFW, well, if the distributor’s fingerprints aren’t on the envelope or his DNA isn’t on the envelope flap (God bless, self sealing envelopes), and it isn’t postmarked from the distributor’s zip code and…well you get the drift.

Bottom line is, the creature has a very difficult case to make.

By the way, I thought the item I saw at the gym deserved an A+ for execution. How about you?

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 8:12am

The execution of that item was fuc*&^g fantastic. (sorry)

Since all of his military records were hypothetically burned and destroyed, (LOL) he would have no way of proving “his own words”. Let’s just not even beat around the bush….there are no record and he has already been publicly exposed. (Did I tell you that he tried to convince me that the show on USA called “Burn Notice” was really about him????)

I think a local paper may be interested in exposing a different kind of predator….. sexual, stealing valor, to commit veteran fraud. I think they could get a lot of good info from the people who run that website, verifying victims and yet protecting them? I’m thinking neighbors who are not real happy about their neighborhood being turned into a trailer park and biker bar….may also be inclined to have interest in this info. Maybe even former neighbors upstate.

In the end, he would have to be willing to go to the police to have this distribution investigated correct? Why would someone do that unless they were innocent or if they have no facts to prove anything….. yet again he can play victim with his new friends in that “he can’t go to the police because his work was so top secret that he can’t be exposed or the FBI will come after him”……God help this man.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 8:25am

His military records were hypotehtically burned and destroyed. And the dog ate my homework. There’s always an excuse, isn’t there?

I’ll bet all those “Navy Seals” on that website also had their military records burned and destroyed. Yet somehow the people running that site were able to provde that these clowns were frauds. Personally, I’d be inclined to contact that website with what you know and let THEM do the work for you.

Of course, not to say that your other sources of “distribution” would certainly be effective. Of course, then he’d have to be willing to go to the police with his “charges”.

As for his claim that “he can’t go to the police because his work was so top secret that he can’t be exposed or the FBI will come after him…”

Let’s see. What’s the problem with that statement? HELLO! He has already exposed himself to the public! So, where is the FBI?

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 8:34am

The people at the site can only do so much. The FBI are too busy going after the same guys, but those who have committed arson, VA fraud and murder. They think the kind I dealt with is just a nuisance, simply because he preys on women and that’s not important enough. When I called the FBI, I spoke to a woman and I felt like she was laughing at me. I told her he says he killed seven people, isn’t that worth investigating. She said he’s blowing smoke…….and had no other complaints.

The newspaper may not go to the police but it raises awareness right???? They may not get HIS name in the paper but that in conjunction with other “exposure” may make it interesting. I think I told you about the guy a few weeks ago trying to tell me he was a SEAL but picked the wrong BUDS class number. And the woman at my gym whose daughter is being conend by another guy. It’s so embarrassing that no one wants to come forward. There are probably so many others…… the newspaper can probably interview the former SEAL and author who sent me the five page letter calling the XS a “legend in his own mind” .

I think it would make for a great story.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 8:41am

The more I think about it, the more I like your newspaper idea. Especially if the paper is local.

If your local paper is anything like the one in my parents’ town, you read it as follows: First, the obituaries, then the city briefs which discuss who is getting divorced, who has been arrested and who has been convicted. Then, if you have a canary you insert it in the birdcage.

At those small local papers there is always some baby reporter looking to earn his chops. Seems to me you could make a case that locals are be exploited and its in the paper’s interest of letting their readership know what is going on in their midst.

If the paper is bigger, I think you’ve got an interesting angle with the fact that you know for a fact that 3 “phony Seals” (we need a better name for them — how about “Flippers”?) are operating in your area and tell them what they do. I’d take the paper the letter and the information on the website exposing them.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 8:56am

OMG Matt, you are making me laugh so hard….. “flipper” is more like it. Or even “guppy”. It’s a metro paper and you are right, the article could read like a soap opera in some ways and people love that stuff.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 8:59am

Year’s ago I worked in TV. You always need an angle to sell a story. Thinking about what I’ve read on this site, your angle is that all these guys claim to be Navy Seals. Never Green Berets. Never astronauts. Never anything else. What is it with these guys?

Regarding your case, there is stuff in that story that would send your ex-S running for the hills, starting with “my testicles are shrunken because they attached electrodes…”

Oh, the hills are alive, with the sound of laughter…da dum dee da dum…

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 9:06am

LOL….thanks Matt for remembering all the GROSS details. It is so hysterical. I do enjoy telling people that story (embarrassing as it is for me) he just looks like a bigger asshole. Did I tell you about the time his wife called him and he cried in the video store because she said she had herpes and he tried to convince me she got it from using her sister’s towel. Believe me the first thing i did was go to my OBGYN. Thank GOD…..he gave me a nice Yurman necklace once but he didn’t give me the gift that keeps on giving.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 9:15am

Sorry, if I were in your shoes, I would be dining out all over town with that particular detail! Too bad you don’t have him on video telling that story. The entertainment value alone…

The only thing more ridiculous than S claiming his wife got herpes from her sister’s towel would be if he claimed if she got it from a toilet seat.

I say the same thing you did regarding S not giving me the gift that keeps on giving. Right after I gave S his walking papers (4 month anniversary was 3/7. Yippeee! Pop the Veuve Cliquot!) I ran for my doctor’s office had had every STD test known to mankind.

Sheesh. What a way to live.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 9:32am

How embarrassing too. i cried the whole time i was in the Dr. office and the Dr just hugged me. She didn’t know waht to do with herself. I had never met her before !

Let me put this in perspective… (just for comedy sake) You can get herpes from a towel, x strippers are known for their fidelity, your daughter isn’t a sociopath she lacks a “social filter”, you killed your captor after he shrunk your testicles, you had a heart attack at 50, but it wasn’t from abusing steroids even though you have ALL the other symptoms, you killed terrorists working for the NSA (part time), the NSA may come and kill me if I tell your stories. Your Navy diving watch is REAL (I don’t think he can swim), your daughters friends all WANT you…..and on and on and on.

Congrats on the anniversary MATT. You are doing great and you have helped me SO much !!!

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 9:43am

Thanks for the Reader’s Digest version. Amazing when we boil things with our ex-Ss down to just the facts, how ridiculous they really look.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 9:49am

I can’t even believe Matt that I was in such a SPIN over this guy that i even let some of this nonsense slip by. WTF? I may write a book and rather than it be a drama, it may have to be a comedy !!!

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 9:53am

I’m right there with you. Forget my head being in the clouds. It was right up my ass. The bullshit I tolerated and let slip by floors me.

I was thinking the same thing — if I wrote my story it would have to be a comedy. A black comedy, but a comedy nonetheless.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 9:59am

I’m picturing a screenplay that has all the makings of “Dumb and Dumber” as sociopaths. I love you, man !! You made my day. But I had better get to work. I can’t support you if we are both unemployed…… by the way, anything good on the job search??????

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 10:02am

Have seen a few federal postings that have piqued my interest. Also, a few headhunters have called me.
I need to start dragging myself to the outplacement service. Otherwise, I while away my hours surfing the web.

Back to revamping my CV.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 10:06am

Well if I can help in anyway….seriously, I am in HR. I could help with your CV. Just let me know! The funny thing is that the templates in Word are some of the best structured for resumes so check that out too.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 10:17am

Correlations of the Dark Triad with the Big Five
From: http://www.psych.ubc.ca/~della.....lliams.pdf
(my best guess as to closest MBTI type)

Narcissism
Extraversion ======= .42
Agreeableness ===== -.36
Conscientiousness == -.06
Neuroticism ======= .02
Openness ========= .38
(ENTX)

Machiavellianism
Extraversion ====== -.05
Agreeableness ===== -.47
Conscientiousness == -.34
Neuroticism ======= .12
Openness ======== -.03
(XXTP)

Psychopathy
Extraversion ======= .34
Agreeableness ===== -.25
Conscientiousness == -.24
Neuroticism ====== -.34
Openness ======== .24
(ESTP/ENTP)

From: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s.....318047e4d4

Autism
Extraversion ======= negative
Agreeableness ===== ?
Conscientiousness == negative
Neuroticism ======= positive
Openness ========= ?
“Sixth factor”======= ?
(ISTX?)

Incomplete, but makes some sense to me. May yield insights into the “successful sociopath”. Have at it.
==============
Student Of Sociopathy

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 11:34am

Blogger T7165,

I was very interested in the twin study with children, but I want to understand which children they considered psychopathic and which children they considered merely sociopathic. What were the criterion for classification?

The information would be much more meaningful and useful if that were made clear.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 2:12pm

This found in wikipedia:

Children showing strong psychopathic precursors often appear immune to punishment; nothing seems to modify their undesirable behavior. Consequently parents usually give up, and the behavior worsens.[71]

The following childhood indicators are to be seen not as to the type of behavior, but as to its relentless and unvarying occurrence. Not all must be present concurrently, but at least a number of them need to be present over a period of years[citation needed]:

An extended period of bedwetting past the preschool years that is not due to any medical problem.
Cruelty to animals beyond an angry outburst.
Firesetting and other vandalism. Not to be confused with playing with matches, which is not uncommon for preschoolers. This is the deliberate setting of destructive fires with utter disregard for the property and lives of others.
Lying, often without discernible objectives, extending beyond a child’s normal impulse not to be punished. Lies that are so extensive that it is often impossible to know lies from truth.
Theft and truancy.
Aggression to peers, not necessarily physical, which can include getting others into trouble or a campaign of psychological torment.
The three indicators—bedwetting, cruelty to animals and firestarting, known as the MacDonald triad—were first described by J.M. MacDonald as indicators of psychopathy.[72]

The question of whether young children with early indicators of psychopathy respond poorly to intervention compared to conduct disordered children without these traits have only recently been examined in controlled clinical research. The empirical findings from this research have been consistent with broader anecdotal evidence, pointing to poor treatment outcomes.[73]

Opinions Anyone?

What’s the difference between a child psychopath and a child sociopath?

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 2:26pm

Matt & keeping_faith….while searching the employment world…remember, I need to find a J O B or something when I get back from Scotland end of March…in case you run across something that doesn’t fit you, let me give you my resume:

1. Valid drivers license
2. No criminal record
3. Excellent credit score (for now)
4. Unique talent…I can unitask in a slow-paced environment.

Well, that’s about it.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 3:42pm

One of my best friends dated this 26 yr old when she was 17, he was overweight, balding, a bit of a pervert …. and claimed to be a former Navy Seal. He even showed her a picture of him in the water with diving gear on giving a thumbs up as “proof.”

I used to quote my ex and do impersonations of him being high and drunk, my friends loved it at parties. I can’t remember how I did it anymore, guess that’s a good thing.

Just wanted to comment on the “big fish in a small pond.” That was what my ex-S strived for. In the big ponds they saw through him, but in the small pond he could peddle his lies and the drunk and/or uneducated believed them, or so he thought. He lived for the bars downtown. He would go on and on about how everyone knew him, he was the life of the party, how it was like Cheers when he walked in. After we broke up and I went to DJ at one of the bars with him he actually got jealous of me. I walked in the door and all the guys were talking to me, giving me hugs, all he got was an “oh, hey.” He hated that I stole his attention. Then after I started talking to some of the guys I found out they kind of felt sorry for the S, they weren’t his friends, they didn’t think he was cool, they thought he was pitiful.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 3:54pm

EC – The one article I posted above of the different views said this about sociopathy:

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 4:27pm

Well, that’s consistent with my point of view too. “Sociopathy” is the values and attitudes of your garden variety thug. Psychopathy, on the other hand, usually implies more. I’ve witnessed children who exhibited (1) Cruelty to animals. (2) Lying, often without discernible objectives, extending beyond a child’s normal impulse not to be punished. Lies that are so extensive that it is often impossible to know lies from truth. (3) Aggression to peers, not necessarily physical, which can include getting others into trouble or a campaign of psychological torment. I’ve also seen a child I considered to be pre-psychopathic employ campaigns of manipulation against adults, and even efforts to get adults in trouble. This last I consider very rare, and truly bizarre.

I truly thought there was hope for the child I considered pre-psychopathic, but it required his family to get a clue. He needed limits, and the direct supervision of an adult who understood logic well enough to sort through his stories. It was not good for this kid to be the smartest person in the family. At least half of the males of the family showed sociopathic tendencies, but this kid was and is a serious problem.

I’m just curious about the study. The “information” doesn’t mean much without clarification. As we all know, Psychopathy and Sociopathy are used interchangeably by a lot of people, even supposed experts. These two researchers at least acknowledge that they exist as two separate conditions, but they fail to explain their criterion for categorizing their subjects. This strips their “findings” of practical use.

I also find the “bed wetting” claim to be more than a bit suspect, and consider this idea to be dated. Toilet training practices have altered considerably over the last 50 years. Parents are now desperate to get their kids toilet trained for daycare, but willing to diaper them at night almost indefinitely. I know kids still wearing pull ups to bed way, way past preschool. Is it psychopathy or child rearing practices? My vote is the latter.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 5:05pm

Grant says:

Elizabeth
In my practice, I see a lot of kids that wet the bed due to stress (they are being bullied at school, parents are divorcing, have suffered a trauma, etc). I never view bed-wetting as an indicator of psychopathy, in the anti-social sense. Anxiety, maybe.
Personality testing for disorders doesnt happen pre 18. Sure, there are tests, like the MACI that look at teenage personality clinically, but you cant talk of a ‘personality disorder’ until they are 18, and the personality is ‘formed’. Untill then, you talk of ‘tendencies’.
Cruelty to animals is always a very poor sign, and quite common, Im afraid.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 5:42pm

Jim,

I saw your resume. It looks good for potential as a partner, I’m not sure about any other skills….can you clean? Would you be more interested in me or Matt???? LOL

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 6:17pm

keeping_faith….clean?…I can. I have. I need to now, instead of wearing out my keyboard.

Oh, I like girls. Matt’s OK to talk to, but I like to talk to girls more. Yeah, I still like women…as I recall. Haven’t run desperately out to find one yet, though….probably not good at this point for her or me to rush it. I’m getting there now, though….

Updates to resume:

5. Reliable transportation (for now)
6. House (for now)
7. P-detection personal security system (upgrading daily)

But if all else fails…I can clean a rabbit and run a trotline…THIS country boy will survive!

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 7:30pm

Knows how to clean a rabbint and run a trotline. Sounds like a keeper to me. Guess I’ll have to bow out of the competition for your heart.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 7:55pm

Jim …getting there… I havent accepted an offer in over a year and a half. Well I did accept a few and then cancelled at the last minute. Just couldnt bring myself to go through ANY of the social graces/meet for lunch/dinner drills. I just havent been ready to go through that hoopla. I recently accepted an offer from a friend I use to work with years ago, weve stayed in touch, but Ive said no to all the formal invitations and finally agreed to just get together and catch up. He was taking the metro home from Manhattan and I agreed to meet him at his place… he phoned an hour ahead of the time we agreed upon to say the train was running late (weather was bad) …I said okay another time… he said oh no Im not canceling I just wanted you to know I ordered us a pizza and hope you’re hungry…When I got there, he still had his coat on and was rushing around putting the pizza and a bottle of wine on the kitchen counter. Everything was fine until we sat on the couch with our pizza and glass of wine. It was the smell of the warm pizza box being lifted open.. just sent me WAY BACK..and reminded me of xtox… many, many times the x-tox would ask me to stop and grab a pizza for us because he was on his way home from gym or auto store or some other insignificant place — and I would go out of my way to accommodate him. But the other night, something felt so right about this guy taking the initiative to go out of his way for me. I dont know how I got through the feelings that overwhelmed me (esp. because Im a TALKER lol)… but I sat quietly in the moment and just convinced myself to enjoy the moment, his company and the movie. When it was time to leave, I said next time pizzas on me (can you believe i said that!)– he said next time I hope you will say yes to me taking you out to dinner . LIVE AND LEARN. I had alot of mixed feelings that night, but I was proud I got through it, and didnt fall apart afterward. The trigger memory of being with my xtox is STILL so raw for me – and its not all entirely bad memories – thats whats so messed up.

But there are decent ones out there… just have to watch for the red flags EVERY STEP OF THE WAY…and let go of the past and stay in the moment – a little more each and every day.

Monday, 9 March 2009 @ 9:04pm

learnEDthelesson-good job! Yes, there are regular old decent people out there. And remember the yellow flags and green flags. Trust your intuition, and your new knowledge. One day at a time. Stay safe.

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 6:44am

nottakingitanymore says:

I’m not sure if this answers your question exactly, but my experience is this: I think the best description of my X is narcissist, although many descriptions of sociopath, psychopath, and sadist apply very well to him.

Sociopaths are often described as having no moral compass. My X seemed to have several levels to him, like an onion.

On the surface, to a casual contact in society, he was charming and gracious and an upstanding citizen. When we were dating, he was flattering and attentive.

At the next level, for those who got to know him, he was a liar, a backstabber, and very emotionally sadistic. He got a great deal of pleasure out of hurting other people, sabotaging their work or their dreams, thwarting their plans.

After we got married, he pretended to be supportive while doing whatever he could to upset me. Then he would pretend to be innocent and pretend to not have any idea why I could possibly be upset.

I learned, for example, that telling him what I wanted was a recipe for disaster. If he asked what movie I wanted to go to and I told him, it was a guarantee that we would NOT go to that movie. If he asked me what I wanted to do over the weekend, he would be sure to interfere if I told him. It didn’t matter if the plans were large or small. If I planned to scrub the floor, he’d want to go out of town. If I wanted to go out of town, then it became an emergency to clean the house. He did it in such a way that for many years I didn’t understand what was happening.

He always managed to make it seem that he was helping while in reality he was doing the opposite. It was very much like someone who is practically twisting your arm off while they smile and pretend that they are helping you put your coat on. If you say anything about it, they act all innocent and indignant. Now, not only are you ungrateful for their wonderful help, you are now a bad person for saying anything negative about it.

The third layer is where my X seems to diverge from what I read in the literature. This may be the part that would be most interesting to a professional. Unlike the description of a sociopath, I believe that my X *did* have a conscience. What seemed to happen, in my opinion, is that when he behaved badly, he looked for a reaction. I have a very long fuse and I think I have a natural tendency to look for the best in people. So, I tended to explain away and excuse much of his behavior. For example, with the movie issue, a disagreement over one movie is not a pattern. I had no problem going to see the movie he preferred. The second time, too. He would have some compelling argument about why, once again, we should do what he wanted. It took many incidents before I realized that not only did we never do what I wanted, but what was worse, he would find out what I wanted in order to thwart it. I would have had a better chance of seeing a movie I liked if I had not admitted what it was and left it to chance.

Stating my preference was a guarantee that it wouldn’t happen. So the next step for me was to point out the pattern (still naively thinking I was married to a normal person, who loved me and therefore had my best interests in mind and if I just pointed it out, he would realize what he was inadvertently doing and stop) or I would say very calmly that something was bothering me. Pointing it out just helped him refine his technique and prolong it.

Finally, what he was doing would become impossible to deny, it would become clear that any rational calm discussion had no positive effect, and I would blow up (cry or yell). Since both crying and yelling were very rare for me, this actually got his attention.

If I cried (maybe 5 times in 20 years), I could tell that he actually felt sorry. This was unlike the pretend contrition that he often feigned which was just another technique to manipulate people. I think he truly felt bad on these very rare occasions. But what I think separates him from a normal person, is that to make himself feel better, he needed another “fix” of sadistic success, only he had to be careful that he didn’t go too far. It would be like a physical sadist who nearly killed his victim. That would be too far.

I think part of why the X felt sorry on these rare occasions is that in his mind, he maintains the careful fiction that he is a good and moral person side by side with his emotional abuse of others. (Maybe this is like an adulterer who thinks it doesn’t count if it’s only a prostitute, or it’s out of town, or whatever.) The rare occasions when he felt sorry were when the results of his behavior could not be explained away. He would apologize and try to make up for it. When he asked what was wrong and I cried and said we hadn’t been out to dinner in over 5 years, we went out to a very nice restaurant and he bought me flowers. That is like putting a bandaid on an amputation. (And by the way, we were not poor. He had plenty of time and money to take other people out to restaurants, but never me.)

It took something very jarring to shake his view of himself as perfect, but when it did, and he was forced to face it, he felt sorry. Maybe he felt more sorry for himself than for his victim, but I think he felt sorry for me, too. It was as if all the other abuse just fed his appetite, but when it reached the point of being the last straw, he was forced to see it.

I think that perhaps his brain was wired so that all the sadistic things he did caused an increase in “dopamine activity in the mesolimbic dopamine system.” They were rewards (in his warped world). But when I cried, he was no longer able to get that dopamine fix. It disrupted his typical reward system and he actually felt sorry. Then he would try to be nice (press the reset button on the brain reward system) so that he could go back to his familiar patterns of abusing others to get his reward.

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 7:05am

Jim and Matt,

What a way to start the day!!! You guys ROCK. I’m laughing out loud !!!

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 7:25am

keeping_faith….we live to serve…keep on laughing!

nottakingitanymore-I read your post twice, or three times. Glad you’re here, sorry you have to be. I think you’re giving him too much credit…I don’t think he’s sorry…just adjusting his game. Maybe one of the other people here has another take…

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 7:35am

Thanks for the kind words. I’m doing pretty well now and just hope that what I post can help others.

I used to talk about “recovering from the divorce” which came as a shock to me. Now I realize that it was a blessing in disguise and I am “recovering from the marriage.”

Jim, Matt, keeping_faith,

Thanks for the stories. Made me laugh! Sorry that the bad parts had to involve you. I knew I was recovering from the bad relationship when I started to recover my sense of humor. Sounds like your sense of humor is doing fine!

All,

Thanks for all the posts, information, and support. God bless you all!

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 7:45am

nottakingitanymore,

I can’t tell sometimes if the XS was narcissistic, S/P Borderline……. it’s probably irrelevant in the scheme of things. I too used to thing he DID actually FEEL something. he seemed to show empathy, and sorrow…… Every single time he had told a story about his military career and being tortured, killing terrorists on bahalf of the NSA and US gov’t, he cried hysterically, passionately. REAL? Seemed traumatized by these events and he got the attention, adoration, pity, that he sought. Yet he would apologize later and say how he does not usually talk about these things. it’s against the “rules”. He was so proud of his service. The man wore dog tags and a diving watch 30 years later. WHY WOULD I NOT BELIEVE HIM?

None of this was true about him. I later learned that he served all of four months in the Navy before he was kicked out. He was a really good liar, fake, phony. He appeared to care, to show sorrow and empathy on many occassions….. but the reality is that what you see in alleged emotion and even behavior is totally different than what goes on inside their head and it’s hard for us to comprehend that. One should relate to the other. Right?

Now when I start to think about the times he professed to love me and the engagement ring he bought and how I was supposedly the most beautiful woman in the world and allegedly the best sex ever….. I think back to how believeable he was when he told his stories and gained all kinds of satisfaction from conning me. THIS is who he REALLY is. He is/They are cons who don’t know who they are themselves. They don’t feel. They show what they need to in the moment for any or no reason at all and sometimes it has no rhyme or reason.

It’s incomprehensible to those of us who do as we say, are truthful, respectful and show the emotion that we truly think and feel.

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 8:05am

nottakingitanymore-I didn’t think my words were very kind…but, now, you can see the movies you want to see, spend the weekends the way you want to…right?

I was familiar with a long campaign of “appear to support while subverting” when I was in the fog. I was far from perfect, but the subtle “devalue’ went on for a long time, accelerating as the “discard” was planned. She’d have done it sooner, but she needed a source of backup supply….

On my first visit to my therapist he said…”Did she support you in your work?” The more I looked back, the worse it looked. There wasn’t a partnership, it was a “power struggle”.
I found out after the divorce was filed she had revealed this concept of marriage to my oldest daughter.

I wish someone had told me…I didn’t know I was in a game, much less what the rules were.

The thing is we were palying real life and they were playing a game where NO RULE APPLY, unless they benefit them. RULE 1: it’s inappropriate for me to have coffee with a friend (a guy) at Starbucks. But it was OK for him to crawl in bed with the nearesr biker chick x stripper two days after we picked out all the things for our new home. (because he ditched me first). That’s not being disloyal….but because i questioned all the lies about military service and them discussed them with his sister….I WAS DISLOYAL. but he wasn’t for lying…..WTF????

Believe me, he ditched me a lot and i am thinking each of those times it was probably a different bar and a different biker chick.

Nice rules. Huh?

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 8:27am

Nottakingitanymore
Thank you so much for your post. I know EXACTLY what you mean in terms of THWARTING. That is a word I seldom used, but it came to dominate how I felt. I also could never quite get a handle on how things never seemed to work out my way. I began to feel that I had an evil spell on me, a hex, because my luck was so bad. It was uncanny how I was thwarted, every time, despite enormous efforts on my part.
It tends to make you start to feel paranoid. It errodes your belief that you can achieve even simple things. It results in that constant, low-level dispair that others have mentioned.
I too began to feel hugely frustrated. Its part of the stratergy – I knew, unconsciously, that if I acted out my frustration, Id be labelled the nut. If I did nothing, then Id just get thwarted somemore.
It is a passive-aggression that is so insidious that it, over time, is literally soul destroying. It kills your Joy.
Mine also went too far at times (though not often), and feigned regret. My trust was so damaged, however, that I didnt know what to make of his regret.
I think that one day he may pick on someone with a little less self-control, and come to a sticky end. I live in hope.

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 10:56am

Nottakingitanymore:

I read you post in which you question what you ex really was. My personal take is you’re attributing human emotions where there were none. I think those few episodes you recounted where he felt bad were just instances of him perfecting his game because he knew you had about reached you limit.

Never forget, they are masters of manipulation. They will do whatever they have to do in order to “win”.

I think it was Kathleen Hawk who one time said — turn off their words and watch their actions against a blue screen. That’s the real key. Actions always do speak louder than words.

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 11:23am

Dear Nottakingitanymore,

I think you are too “kind” to your X, sounds to ME like he is a full fledged P, enjoying hurting you, and then PRETENDING REMORSE—they are SOOOOO good at that! That is why we don’t suspect for so long that they are EVIL and their intentions ARE TO HURT.

But now you are FREE of his problems, and his putting you down!

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 12:31pm

Nottakingitanymore – I sometimes thought my ex-S actually felt bad too, but with time and distance now that I look back I think the only thing he felt bad about was breaking his toy. He didn’t feel bad for the toy, he felt bad because he wouldn’t be able to use it anymore until he put it back together. That’s when he’d be really nice, apologize, hugs and kisses, but I’d still get the “you know I only say those things because I care about you and want you to know the truth.”

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 1:43pm

WHY ARE SOME SOCIOPATHS SUCCESSFUL?

A very big issue which I have about ‘feeling and morally rational’ types (normal folks, regular guys), is that I have never witnessed them unify to act against a successful sociopath. Dumb S’s, yes, but they are not considered successful sociopaths, are they? Theoretically, any three or four people with a clue should be able to combine resources to expose and discredit an SS. But in my own personal life, I have never seen this happen. For some reason, people will not effectively unify to aid or prevent more innocent victims being targeted by SS’s, within a complex social context, until much obvious damage has been done. And thus the SS’s moral retardation is reinforced.

1. People knew what was going on when I was targeted for bullying by an SS, yet did nothing. The boss was a good man, yet fell for the SS’s lies. I responded by finishing my schooling, leaving that job, and adding 40# of muscle to my frame. I was targeted the way I was because I was perceived as weak.

2. I found out after the fact that a girl I worked with had been hazed into PTSD for pure sport. Management simply transferred her away, while allowing her tormentor to remain in our group. The rumors which remained involved her having “insecurity issues”, yet her tormentor never figured into any rumors. I found out the rest of the story straight out of that girl’s mouth when I bumped into her months later. Her perceptions ‘jived’ with my own, and knowing the truth I became enraged. Some in that group believed me, but nobody wanted to unify against the SS. I assumed that issue ended when I was transferred to a site much closer to my home. But many years later, I found out via an unlikely source, that that SS was still smearing my reputation with lies.

3. I quit a job when the SS unified 3 other guys and our immediate boss against me. He’d accomplished this by pretending to be my “bro” and “buddy”, while setting me up behind my back. There had been other good people there who were aware of and/or been targeted by the SS, but nobody unified against him, and they moved on to other ventures when business within that company declined. Eventually, the good boss was ousted by the bad one (with support from the SS), and I had no choice but to quit. I had been a target because I was perceived as psychologically weak and naive. (I’d been burning the candle at both ends working that job while also working on two houses after hours.) I assumed that being a good employee would be protection enough. Wrong!

4. The best results I’ve ever had against an SS was the first time I consciously fought against one. Long story short, I discovered to my shock that our ‘friendship’ had been in reality, a skillful cultivation for me to be used as a disposable tool for her career. In hindsight, she was a good psychoanalyst (and actor), with excellent ‘people skills’, who could size others up for their usefulness as scapegoats, henchmen, enablers, rivals or allies. I committed the crime of refusing to do her dirtywork. She never took me on directly, as I was twice her size, instead skillfully manipulating others into believing that I was a threat to them, a ratsnitch, was mentally unstable, etc.. But again I was naïve. After figuring things out I attempted to negotiate a rational truce, which her warped brain interpreted to mean that her SS tactics against me were weakening me.

And again the pattern, nobody would unify against her, even when it was obvious that management were the only ones who liked and trusted her, and I was trying to expose the truth about her. But I did get results. While I volunteered for layoff never to be recalled, I had also gotten enough truth about her to stick. She eventual quit “to spend more time with family” (she went into local politics and spent more time with her boyfriend while her husband supported her).

The biggest mistakes I made was not trusting my gut quickly enough, allowing her to poison the big boss against me, and not being more knowledgeable about taking down SS’s. Yes, maybe she could have manipulated a couple of her henchmen into carrying out their veiled threats to kick my ass, but I could have countered with an army of my own. She’d forced her neighbor to quit in disgust (an INTJ) who was friends with the SS’s rival (a big ENTJ). She’d also slimed her 220# 6’3” tall (ISTJ) lead for mistakes she’d made, while taking full credit for the highly creative and inventive work being done by two other excellent employees (NF’s). Plus I had helped get the big boss promoted (ENXJ), once upon a time.

Right now I’m banging my head over this. Instead of using the considerable advantage I possessed, such as the above and my reputation among all the PMs as a hyper productive speed demon, I still managed a draw in that war (the SS and I ruined each other). But that’s all in hindsight, and after considerable knowledge had to be been learned the hard way.

I made the idiotic assumption that being “the perfect employee”, while remaining a civil team player, would magically bring allies to my cause. This is probably the SS’s greatest asset, next to their intelligence: they know that most people are either in it for themselves, or are afraid to risk confrontation and conflict. Nobody came to my aid until the game was over. SS’s know that political cunning and alliances will defeat the pure and good intentioned (but frightened) normal naïve people every time.

Their natural gift for ‘low moral reasoning’, and their subsequent survival skill set, is reinforced by polite society.
==================
Student Of Sociopathy

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 2:48pm

Grant,

I’m cheered to read you don’t hold bed wetting against children. I never have. My kids pretty much toilet trained themselves when they were ready. Most of their peers were “trained at gunpoint” far before they were ready. The kids toilet trained under heavy pressure were pretty stressed, and not just about potty issues. I felt the demands placed on them were unreasonable.

Their parents were pretty stressed too, so I guess they didn’t realize the pressures the kids were under to meet their expectations.

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 3:09pm

Eye_Of_The_Storm says:

Dr. Liane,

A couple of comments.

Defining the term “moral agency” for your readers in terms of a capacity to make reasonable choices based on ethical values rooted in an accepted moral code of behavior that separates and defines right and wrong should be easily understood by anyone reading your work. You are an educator! Why water down what you have to say! You have the chance to teach through your writing! Bring the reader up to your level and improve his grasp of the subject!

Dr. Liane wrote: “Remember that psychopaths do not pursue their own interests. They pursue short-sighted gratification of their drives for dominance and sex.”

This makes a lot of sense to me and helps me put some pieces together about something I observed and never quite understood. I think this is very accurate.

For those trying to understand WHY, I found the books “The Lucifer Principle”, and “The Global Brain” by Howard Bloom extremely interesting and worthwhile when it comes to developing an understanding of WHY people behave in certain ways that confound anyone with a conscience, an ethical perspective, or highly developed moral agency. Dr. Bloom considers human behavior from the perspective of “psychobiology” and casts a different light of understanding on social behavior from that which is routinely presented by experts in the mental health field.

As for successful psychos, my observation is that they frequently have an entourage doing everything for them! They exercise power and control over these clinging followers who often carry out the wishes, dreams, or orders of the S/P/N/!

Anyone who cannot function independently and without an entourage in whatever form that takes, raises red flags for me now. Whenever someone must get someone else or others to do even the simplest thing for them, and the “someone else” has obviously surrendered his/her sense of self to the S/P/N, it’s a blazing sign to watch out, IMHO! The chaos they create often has consequences outside of the inner circle. If the psycho is powerful, those closest to him and content with that status are often insulated from the immediate fallout until things eventually break down and backfire!

Eye Of The Storm

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 3:27pm

SOS,

You ask why Sociopaths are so successful. I don’t think they often are, but Psychopaths can be.

The only Psychopath I’ve ever met had a genius for exploiting people’s weaknesses. He used their perversions. He used their jealousies, envies and petty misunderstandings. He used their fears. He used their cruelties, prejudices and inevitably, their shame.

Over and over I watched the P’s one time dupes become his targets. I also saw subordinates who knew full well he was pulling scams to persecute people remain silent or even play along, hoping they’d be spared if they lay low. They weren’t. Not only were they eventual targets, but by that time these victims must have wondered if they deserved to be punished.

The various other cluster Bs I’ve known have been far too disorganized and impulsive to follow a long term scheme to completion. The S would have liked to, and occasionally thought he pulled one over. In reality he rarely had, and never for long.

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 3:30pm

I saw an S destroy an entire hospital, which ended up being sold. I was there the first six months while this was going on and along with the rest of the nursing staff, we couldn’t figure out why no one higher up SAW This. Then half the staff left at the 6th month of this, then in the next six months the rest of us left, leaving ONLY one nurse there, and she was the human resources and infection control nurse.

Eventually the director of nurses was fired, the S, and the hospital administrator (a clueless dupe) then the hospital sold.

I think a lot of it is like the Jews in Europe and Germany, they kept a low profile and disbelieved what was going on as the psychopaths kept taking small “bites” a few at a time. I think in the corporate world many people think if they will just stay “neutral” and their head down THEY will be safe, and you are on your own.

Whistle blowers are notoriously beaten to the ground….that’s just the way it works. Everyone waits for someone else to blow the whistle, but they will not support them.

I went to work for a BPD (after having been warned BTW) and when she went into a RAGE and spit fire at me, I was totally shocked. I resigned that day. Found out later that she had done that same RAGE and Spitting fire at everyone in the office ONE AT A TIME to show her control and power. I, fortunately, was in a position to quit, but many of the other people weren’t. She was totally shocked when I put my resignation letter in her “in box” and came to me and said “we need to talk.” I assured her she had already said enough for both of us and there was nothing left to say. I worked out my notice and never again spoke to her, if I passed her in the hall I treated her like she was invisible.

ONe of the nice things in my profession (retired registered nurse practitioner) is that I could get a job in 15 minutes, never had any down time I didn’t want. Even now with times really hard and jobs going away, there is still a shortage of nurses to fill the slots that are there.

Elizabeth,

I “conditioned” mine instead of “training them at gun point” by sitting them on the potty and pouring warm water over “it” at which time they would urinate and then they got some reward and praise, didn’t take long til they had it down pat! Animal training comes in handy! I also train my dogs to “do it on command” by saying the word(s) as they are DOING it, and it isn’t long before they will do it when you say the word.

I also taught them (my kids) to “sit” and “stay” by the time they were a year old! LOL ROTFLMAO. I actually didn’t even realize it until a new friend pointed out that I talked to my kids like they were puppies! LOL But heck, when I got my kids I had never seen a new born baby so used the “skills” I had to teach them. It worked well with puppies and did with my kids too—I never did spank them with a newspaper though and I never “rubbed their noses in it”—the analogy with training puppies only goes SO FAR! LOL

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 3:38pm

anetsu says:

Concerning the “successful ” sociopaths….here is my experience:
When I first met my S(online) she was way down and out! Living with a woman who had two kids and living off the government. Of course her situation was all the fault of the other woman(something I can laugh so hard at now) She was financially in ruins and emotionally as well. At least that is what she led me to believe and I fell for it hook,line,and sinker! The only bright spot in her life seemed to be her job where she bragged repeatedly how everyone loved her there and she really knew what she was doing. Now I can see a pattern in that for her. Her jobs is where she shines and becomes someone else to all her coworkers and the “front” that she so cautiously maintains.
I sent her thousands of dollars to pay off bills and get her out of her situation so she could move three hrs south to live with me. I even sent her the lead to the job she holds now. Ultimately, she interviewed and got the job at a property management company working the front desk. Within three months she had the owner wrapped so tight around her little finger that she was given a supervisors position over other candidates that had been there much longer. She had NO experience and was actually going to have several managers under her!!! Low and behold she worked her magic over and over and transformed into a shining star of the company. Loving that she was able to hire and fire people at her leisure. She has these people so fooled because they dont know who she is….that she abused me for three yrs, lied, cheated and if I had pressed charges for everything she did to me she would be in prison for 5 yrs. If I told everything I knew to her boss about the company policies she has violated she wouldnt even have a job. But her successfulness is her employment. She is very professional,courteous and it used to make me sick she adopted some of the “southern drawl” sayings and everytime she said them it would make my skin crawl but to other ears it was like “Oh she is so sweet” Yuck! But as soon as she walked in the door in the evenings she tranformed into a lying manipulating,conniving, user. And the worst part is, now that she is gone, Ive been finding out she was telling her coworkers and friends that I abused her!!!!!!! There are two of her friends(husband and wife) that I have somehow managed to be on my side. probably because my S had slept with the husband(LOL) and he used to work with her at her old job. When I started telling them all the things she had done they were like OMG she told us you did that to her. So it made for a good weeks worth of conversations and emails with them asking question upon question. They absolutely couldnt believe it!!! But I knew too many tiny details for them to think I was lying. Of course when my S found out I had been talking to these friends they were her instant enemies. Forget they had been friends forever ya know. She deleted both their numbers from her phone and they were now known as expletives instead of their first names.
So my S’s successfulness is her employment. It it where she keeps the spinal cord of her evilness in tact and “healthy” if you will. Where she wanders around in her fantasy that she is so needed and non dispensable.

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 4:21pm

Ox Drover,

My kids are just naturally easy going people. I think God sent me easy going kids because He knew I am a pushover. I even have a good natured husband and the world’s most easy going dog. This can’t be an accident. God knows I’m simply not lion tamer material, and has been merciful toward me.

As for the toilet training, it just kinda happened on their time table. They’d each watched the parent of the same gender, and wanted to imitate us. At that point in their development when they started waking up dry in the morning, I started taking them to the toilet when they woke up. They were pretty thrilled to be doing the big people thing. Within a few days they had it mastered. All the other kids in their play groups had been through months of exhausting drama, and still wore pull ups at night. We started later than everyone else, but within a few days we were done.

I’ve read volumes on toilet training, and volumes more have been written. I think the biggest problem is the pressure to start early. Daycares think they want toilet trained children. They should want sane children.

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 5:14pm

Wini says:

Elizabeth Conley: Cute story about the children (SMILE).

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 @ 5:40pm

SS#1 & SS#2 (both ESTPs) could do their job if required, usually when the boss was watching. They didn’t waste effort and would take advantage of anybody whenever possible. Both had a sadistic streak which was ignored or tolerated by their ‘entourage’. They loved mindf^%king “the weak” for entertainment. Both had the odd habit of ‘making discoveries’ (coming to unsubstantiated conclusions) about people they didn’t know and then wasting time trying to get the group to buy into these ‘discoveries’. I’m not sure if the last thing was idiocy on their part or if they enjoyed the game of persuasion and persecution or both.

SS#3 & SS#4 (ENTP and XNTP) would only reveal members of their inner entourage when it was politically expedient to do so. They seemed to prefer to keep some or most of them hidden, (or imply such to keep people afraid of forming alliances against them?) unless they were a fall guy. Both had narcissistic qualities and needed to appear stronger and more intelligent than they actually were. Interestingly, both were much less willing or capable of doing their jobs themselves than were SS#1 &#2, preferring to manipulate others into doing things which they would then take full credit for themselves. They also had much less education and experience relative to peer average than the other two, and they lied more often and more skillfully.

I’d say 3% of the people I ever worked with had enough SS characteristics to be a real pain and make work life miserable. About 10% of people are potential henchmen or wannabes, but without a psycho leader around they’re tolerable and reasonably well behaved and handled. I get along with worldbeater taskmasters, micromanagers, grumps, blowhards, touchy types, smartasses and absentee managers, as they add some color and personality to the office landscape and they’re usually fairly predictable, honest and not evil. OTOH, all of the SS’s had excellent people skills and started out as normal, civil, and very self-controlled.

OxDrover,
I read that nursing has a higher incidence of SS’s than other professions. I’m in engineering, which fortunately has less. Most of my jobs and groups have been pretty good – I even had a couple ‘animal house’ groups full of characters where there was always something nutty going on. It’s a real drag to go from wild and crazy fun group that’s like family, to one owned by a control freak psycho. One asshole can sure do a lot of damage to a good environment.
==================
Student Of Sociopathy

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 1:21am

DEar Elizabeth,

Yea, the first mother on the block that got a spoonful of cereal down her kid was the “winner” in the “first solid food” race—I think mine were 12 or 13 days old! LOL Of course I found out later that a baby can’t digest starch until 4 months so we might as well have been feeding them saw dust. I did breast feed mine though so I didn’t have much problem with either of them as infants and my “housebreaking” them was pretty much “conditioning” with rewards and so no harsh problems.

My oldest son had bed wetting problems (for which I never shamed him) but my younger was dry at morning by 1 yr old, very unusual, but did it on his own. Didn’t potty train other wise any sooner than “normal” though, just had a good big bladder I think.

My kids never went to a conventional day care except when we lived way out in the boonies and I would take them one day a week just so they could socialize. The only tantrum my older one ever threw was when I came to get him that first day and he didn’t want to leave (I think he was 3-4) but when I told him he could come back the next week, he was OK.

I loved it when they were toddlers, everything was so new and exciting and so much fun for both them and me. I loved their language development and seeing the “lights” go on when they figured out how to do something new, or discovered some new body part or skill. They were a challenge, each one individual, not alike at all, but so much fun. I was fortunate to be home with them and have friends with kids the same ages and I never ceased to wonder at these wonderful little guys! I think I took a roll of film a week taking pictures of them, even photos of them sleeping! LOL

Ahhhhh, the memories!

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 1:29am

AllPainNoGain says:

Hi All!

I don’t know if hearing all this makes me feel better or worse. Talk about chaos and being off balance. This is what I live with on a daily basis. Are you sure we aren’t talking about the same S/N? Stupid me I give away all my power by telling him what I know. Yes, I’m the insane one and EVERYONE knows just how insane I am. Uh, because he tells everyone I’m insane.

I’m still stuck in the “Boo Hoo, I still love him” thing. I’ve been told to get out, but I have nowhere to go. I’m working on it, but I can only go as fast as I can. He’s not physically abusive, but most of the time I’d rather him punch me in the face than do the things he does to me emotionally.

It is ALL a game to him and he loves it. He loves watching me try to defend myself, but it’s a hopeless cause with him. There is no defending myself against an S/N. It will never EVER work. Someone asked if they do it on purpose and I believe the answer to that is not a simple yes or no answer.
They know full well what they’re doing, but can they help themselves? I don’t know, but I think they do what works for them.

They will do what we let them do to us from the very start of the relationship. They blind us with so much love and attention that we are defenseless against it. I have been paralyzed with love, fear and hatred for this man. He’s stripped me of all that I use to be once apon a time. Being a very smart woman, I ask myself “How the hell did I allow myself to get involved with this S/N?”

I take responsibility for this, but now that I’m in it, I don’t know how to get out of it. “Just leave” they all say, sure, but it’s not that easy. I’ve given up my previous life, my home, my business, my dignity, and ALL my money… and for what? There is no gratitude when it comes to these types of people. They feel they are deserving and somehow owed what they take from people like us… good, kind, loving, giving people that only want to love and be loved.

It’s a sickness. The longer we’re in it, the sicker WE become. The less able we are to make healthy decisions for ourselves, to take good care of ourselves, to LOVE ourselves. We’ve become the trapt rat in the cage and the S/N is poking his/her stick at us making us dance, making us run on the wheel to the point of exhaustion, all the while they are so incredibly amused and disgustingly proud of the fact that they have so much power over another human being.

We are nothing but pathetic little puppets in their world. We walk on eggshells hoping not to have “A look on our face” that makes them mad, not to say something that may make them fly off in a rage, not to ask for anything because we are so selfish and only think of ourselves.

Here we are, beautiful people, deserving of all the best life has to offer, but we practically beg these MFs to love us. Please, I love you. Please don’t say those horrible things. All I want to do is love you. Please let me love you. Please LOVE ME!!

The only thing I have are my books, and as far as he’s concerned, I shouldn’t even be reading them… self-help books of course. I just found out that I can actually paint. I’m good at it, but he’s so hateful that he doesn’t want me to have any talents. I’m selfish if I buy a book or some paints… with MY OWN MONEY!!

It’s all so so very sick. These are the lyrics to a song that really describes how I feel, and imagine how a lot of you have or are feeling too. It’s by Pink…

I’m lying here, on the floor where u left me
i think i took too much
i’m crying here what have you done
i thought it would be fun

Bridge
i can’t stay on ur life support there’s a shortage in the switch
i can’t stay on ur morphine cuz it’s makin’ me itch
i said i tried to call the nurse again but shes being a little bitch
but i think i’ll get out of here

chorus
where i can run just as fast as i can
to the middle of nowhere
to the middle of my frustrated fears and i swear
you’r just like a pill stead of makin me better you keep makin me ill
you keep makin me ill

Verse
I havnt moved from this spot where you left me
This must be a bad trip
oh all the other pills, they were different
Maybe i should get some help

Bridge
i can’t stay on you’r life support there’s a shortage in the switch
i can’t stay on you’r morphine cuz it’s makin’ me itch
i said i tried to call the nurse again but shes being a little bitch
i think i’ll get out of here

Chorus
where i can run just as fast as i can
to the middle of nowhere
to the middle of my frustrated fears and i swear
ur just like a pill stead of makin me better ur makin me ill
u keep makin me ill.

End of Lyrics-

Thank God you guys are all here. Before I found this site I started wondering if I really was crazy. I thought that maybe it WAS all me. My reading helps. I write may prayers and affirmations in a notebook every day. I’ve also been listening to CDs by Paul Scheele from Learning Strategies. They’ve really helped me a lot. I’m feeling stronger, but nowhere near ready to jump. I’ve lost weight (14 pounds), I’m actually making new friends, and continue painting, so it’s not as bad as it was a few months ago.

I’m finally to the point to where I can IMAGINE being without him. I couldn’t do that a month ago. Reading your posts and having your support has really helped me to stop feeling suicidal and I’m eternally grateful.

“The courage to wonder about other life-perspectives than presently held, Dear One, unprovoked by people and circumstances, especially when they may contradict lifelong convictions, takes not only a spiritual giant with a child’s curiosity, but a blazing desire for more of everything life has to offer.”

The Universe

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 1:50am

AllPainNoGain: Hi! Thanks for posting the song by Pink, I really like it. I too have been going through the “I still love him” phase, and wondering how I got involved in the whirlwind of the whole thing. I am happy to hear you are at the point to where you can imagine being without him! I never lived with the guy I’m seeing, but I stopped calling him and was just trying to gracefully bow out of the situation with what little dignity I have left. I don’t cry in front of him, and I act like I’m just fine! Now that he has told me how sick he is I feel really bad again.

You do sound very smart! You’ll get strong enough to jump! Interesting how when we start understanding what they are doing we get stronger. A couple of months ago the nut case in my life tried the pulling away strategy “I can’t see you for a few weeks because I’m broke”… so I just said “okay!” LOL, he was on he phone and then at my door the next day… but no money!

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 2:16am

Oops, I meant: he was on the phone.

My cat is bugging the crap out of me, I’m sitting in a large/overstuffed chair like a loveseat but it’s just for 1 person, the cas sits behind my head on the cushion while I’m on the computer and plays with my hair! Then he tries to squeeze in and sit next to me, which isn’t too bad until he starts rubbing his face on the laptop and then starts drooling. Yes, my cat drools. I can’t stand it! But I love him anyway.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 2:22am

“the first mother on the block that got a spoonful of cereal down her kid was the “winner” in the “first solid food” race—”

Yep. I call it the “Full Contact Sport of Competitive Parenting”. It makes Ice Hockey look tame.

Like you, mine only went to daycare for a few hours of “socialization” a week. This was while we lived oversees and I hadn’t made friends yet. We’d go in to the base childcare center. It was good childcare in a technical sense, but still a loony bin. I was glad I didn’t have to interact with them as much as the mothers on active duty did.

The institutional setting seemed to bring out the worst qualities in the kids.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 7:06am

I think it is good to have an open discussion about whether there are two groups of antisocial people that we may either call primary and secondary psychopaths or psychopaths and sociopaths. For all of you who believe there are two distinct groups email me at ljleedom@aol.com and I will send you the zip file I have put together.

I try to ask questions then look to research to answer the questions. To date everyone who has looked at the two disorder question has rejected the two disorder hypothesis. Even those who say that early and later onset make a difference still come to the one disorder conclusion. The evidence this is only one disorder is very strong at present. That is not to say that some subtrait like anxiety might also very in these individuals.

I will be the first to tell you when some research gives support for the two disorder model. It seems like those who are severely affected do form a separate group. The data do not show this.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 9:24am

It is all made worse by the fact that the term ‘Psychopath’ is not a DSM term, and thus unofficial, and that the term ‘Sociopath” was dropped by Psychologists in the 1950s, and replaced with Anti-Social Personality Disorder. This disorder embraces both. Because “Psychopath” literally means “mentally ill”, it will never be specific enough to describe any particular disorder, and will never gain popularity. “sociopath” has Freudian connotations which make it too narrow.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 9:57am

At this place, I use “sociopath” to partly go with the flow, partly to refer to anybody whose adult behavior is incorrigibly solidified within the Dark Triad domain. I’ll get more specific whenever I see the need to.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 2:07pm

Thank you for your comments, and for posting so much research on the disorders. I too wish the 1 or 2 debate would be settled, and I also wish the “name the disorder(s)” game would be settled once and for all. LOL

If professionals can’t agree what the problem is, or even the NAME FOR IT, how on earth do they think that the general public, even the educated general public, can understand it?

Thank you again, so much!

I use “psychopath” mainly because Hare does, and that is the term I “think” about it in. I would be glad to change it to ANYTHING that everyone could agree on!

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 2:56pm

Dear Elizabeth,

Well, fortunately, except for early solid food feeding I didn’t engage in much of the “competitive” sport of “parenting.” LOL I never got into the “games” of “my kid is taking more culturally uplifting activities than yours” or “my kid is excelling at more sports than yours” as we lived in the country and there weren’t a lot of those things available then so I never did the “soccer mom” routines! LOL

My kids grew up with lots of wide open spaces to explore, lots of camping out, riding horses, hunting and fishing, then later, flying airplanes. My P son played football in highschool one year, but I didn’t encourage it as I am TOTALLY against high school foot ball because of the many life-long injuries that are received. I know I may stir up a hornet’s nest here by “sports” fans, but sports that routinely leave lasting injuries are barbaric in my mind. I worked in Sports Medicine when I worked with the orthopaedic surgeon and saw HORRIBLE LIFE LONG DISABILITIES from multiple stress fractures in YOUNG kids whose parents pushed them to Olympic level gymnastics, and other sports. By 24-25 years old they were crippled with arthritis. Ditto football players. Joe Nameth (hhow ever you spell his name) was interviewed and he is in horrible pain on a daily basis from his days in professional sports….one player now is having a hip surgery and others other surgeries. Just isn’t worth it to me. Play for FUN but as a “business” (and that starts at high school level I think) it STINKS. To say NOTHING of the huge amount of money that is sunk into college sports when the achaedimic end gets pennies compared to sports. The millions and millions of dollars that are paid to the coaches of college teams when the profs are not paid well at all. Priorities all wrong I think….but that is just me!

If you have to have “sports,” at least I think we should abuse animals instead of our children! Not that I am FOR abusing animals, because extreme sports DO abuse animals, but if it is a choice of children or animals being abused, I would rather abuse the animals than my child for the “wholesome entertainment” of the “gladiator mentality” folks.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 3:12pm

Sports fans?

I played basketball in the 7th grade. We were in another school’s locker room sizing them up saying “You don’t look so bad”, when they replied: “Wait ‘til you see our center”. Then in walked a 6’2” 200+ pound 13 year old man. In that game they’d run the ball down the court and wait for behemoth to arrive, who’d just dump the ball into the basket. Again and again. We got creamed. Many years later, behemoth played pro football as a lineman. Today, he’s had over 30 surgeries including amputation of a leg, and is crippled from football. He works as an injury representative for the players union.

Contact sports is risky, for sure.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 3:51pm

My step dad was a great basketball coach and seldom had an injury to his students but that was 50 years + ago and sports was more a “fun” thing for the kids than an obscession like it seems to be today. Even watching a “little league” game the parents seem to take it like “kids” acting out.

Even out here in the boonies now the “soccer moms” drive their kids to events of one sort or another 4-5 nights a week and weekends.

I know what you mean about the 6′2″ 13 year old, I have seen a few of those myself. It is a shame he sacrificed his body for a “game” of “business.”

I’ve seen “gymnists’ ” moms insist a kid go back to an event with a fractured ankle in 1-2 weeks and be furious that the 12 yr old’s career is “ruined” by missing that one event. When you look at the x-rays of gymnists’ backs by the time they are 18, every vertebra has had a stress fracture and most are due for major pain and disability by the time they are out of their teens or into early 20s. The young bodies just can’t take that kind of pounding as well as starvation in addition to over exercise. Many of them actually don’t reach puberty correctly due to lack of fat in their bodies. I am glad my kids didn’t participate any more than they did (my P-son that one season, but he was a bench warmer) I’m ALL FOR plenty of exercise but in a safe and sane way, NOT contact sports or one in which the child is put into extreme physical stress and high impact which their bones are not ready for.

Having worked in ortho as well as head and spinal cord injury for several years, when my sons wanted to do motor cycle riding (and YES they ARE FUN!) or ride bulls in rodeos, I told them that the way we would do it (as long as they kept their feet under my table) was that I would take a base ball bat and break all their bones, and we would skip the part where they got on the bull/motorcycle. LOL

Of course, P-son had to steal a motorcycle while he was still living at home (and keep it hidden of course) and ride it to school to show off, one of those BIG crotch rockets, all shiny and red. I’m suprised he didn’t steal a bull to ride too! LOL

Non-P sons are careful drivers and don’t ride either motorcycles or bulls! I used to ride motorcycles, but finally got smart so don’t do it any more. I do ride horses, but not jumping (Christopher Reeve reminds me that jumping horses fall) and not broncs any more, and not “hell bent for leather” sports on horses either. I don’t live in terror of being hurt doing anything, but I try to use caution and good sense in what I do and don’t take UN-necessary risks with fun or work either.

I’m the say way about the Ps now as well, NO UN-necessary risks in dealing with them. Spot them as early as possible, get them as far away from you and your business as possible and NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON THEM, even when you think they aren’t around! Just ’cause you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they ain’t out to get ya!

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 5:13pm

Is opn says:

Oxy says: NO UN-necessary risks in dealing with them. Spot them as early as possible, get them as far away from you and your business as possible and NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON THEM, even when you think they aren’t around!
Just ’cause you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they ain’t out to get ya!

I agree with this last part in my life with the S, to believe the paraniod feeling when S is gone out of sight and is very quiet. A contemplation game I think it is. Last night at midnight the text buzzed while I was setting the clock. The text popped up, something about a vampire. I caught the last word, and did not read it. S must be reading himself bedtime stories. I turned the lights out and tried not to give it another thought, and then I thought boy, how desperate he is to talk of vampires, ie. Was he aware I was going to sleep and wanted to make me very uncomfortable? Yep.

I laughed and rolled over, not paranoid, but knowing he exists and still is out there with having plenty of nightime, all night to be up without working now. Never ceases to amaze me. Alaways a new angle. This one I never heard before.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 10:37pm

checkeverypremise says:

looking at all these articles together, I have the following suggestion. Terminology is very important and it seems that the terms sociopath, psychopath and antisocial personality disorder are used very loosely and synonymously here.

Historically, psychopath was used to describe any genetic or biological factor that acts to prevent an individual’s full normal development. the term became associated with a list of personality characteristics described by Cleckley in the late 40s and this was subsequently refined and expanded by Robert Hare who created an updated list of descriptors and developed a test to measure them.

Historically, sociopathy was used to refer to any social or environmental factor that prevented an individuals full development. although the term is sometimes still used in this context, it is also often used synonymously with psychopathy, leading to confusion

Antisocial personality disorder is the official term used by psychiatrists in diagnosing patients. Its emphasis is not on personality characteristics, rather its emphasis is on behaviour

not all people diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder also meet the criteria of psychopaths and conversely, not all psychopaths will qualify for the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. In a prison population, between 50 to 80% will be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder based on the criteria however, measured by Hare’s test only about 15% will be found to be psychopathic. in the general population, about 3 or 4% would qualify for antisocial personality disorder and about 1% would qualify for psychopathy

the historical view of psychopathy as a biological or genetic defect — and not a learned behavior — not something that is acquired — appears to be substantiated by modern research. Psychopaths appear to vary both in terms of their personality characteristics and their neurophysiological responses. Recent research has begun to document various degrees of brain pathology, for example, reductions in prefrontal gray matter volume, associated with these diminished responses.

it is also now recognized that psychopathic characteristics can be reliably seen and measured in children and that adolescent
psychopathy carrys forth into adulthood — it is a predictor of later adult psychopathy

the view today is that psychopathy is an evolutionary adaptation that is consistently present in a small percentage of the population. It is extremely consistent in individuals, however, its expression can be modulated by factors such as age and environment — that is to say, the degree the underlying trait that is expressed may be open to some modification

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 @ 11:12pm

Dear Check,

Yes, I agree with what you said above, I think most of us here agree with what you have said. I am not sure if you have gone back through the articles in the archives here but if you haven’t, I suggest you do so. 99.9% of everything you said here is in one or more articles here.

We agree that there should be a concensus in terms for what they are called, but unfortunately, various researchers use various “definitions” and there is no concensus even among professionals. The general public sees “Psychopaths” as Ted Bundy or the BTK killer, and yet, they don’t have any idea how to “spot” one.

There is some disagreement here (but no rabid disagreement) about if there is one kind or two, one socially (only, no genetics, and can be helped or cured) and one kind that is primarily genetic and can’t be controlled or cured at least in the adult stage.

Whatever term you give it, though, for victims, the term TOXIC covers a “multitude of sins” and takes in other Cluster B disorders as well. A “definite” legal/clinical diagnosis doesn’t really, in the basic bottom line, make any diffference in how we must respond to what they do in order to heal and get away from them.

If you’ve had your arm torn off by a lion, or a cougar, it does’t really matter if it is a North American variety or an African variety, you must know that “big cats” are dangerous and how to avoid them and how to treat your wounds. Knowing the brain structure of the big cats isn’t necessary as long as you basicly know that they are stalking predators and kill with a bite. Maybe that analogy isn’t all that great, but I am sure you get the idea.

Since we are “attack victims” and not researchers, only a basic knowledge of the general behavior patters so that in the future we can avoid them, and also realize that there is NO HOPE that they can be “domesticated” and rendered NON-TOXIC…that learned, we can then get back to working on our own lives and healing.

Glad you are here by the way. Thanks for sharing.

Thursday, 12 March 2009 @ 12:06am

Check: You’ve been doing a lot of research, and that’s great! One of the challenges with evaluating adolescents is that the development of their prefrontal cortex — the judgment center — lags behind other brain functions, leaving them, for example, at the mercy of their impulses.

I believe the experts generally agree that genetics contribute about 50% to the development of a psychopathic individual Twin studies show an 80% correspondence — that if one identical twin is psychopathic, there is an 80% chance that the other twin is also psychopathic.

I also understand that since the DSM is a committee-driven “edict,” the final terminology depends on votes. I understand from “unnamed sources” that “psychopathic” was edged out by a very small margin.

I guess that your reasons for finding this site may include some personal turmoil, and for that I am sorry. I am glad to see that you are doing your own review of research that can help you filter through all the information, and contribute to this ongoing dialogue.

Thursday, 12 March 2009 @ 1:46am

Oxy: We’ve been researching them “in the wild.” You said, “We agree that there should be a concensus in terms for what they are called, but unfortunately, various researchers use various “definitions” and there is no concensus even among professionals. The general public sees “Psychopaths” as Ted Bundy or the BTK killer, and yet, they don’t have any idea how to “spot” one.

WE have a better idea of how to spot one IN THE WILD! And our work on the site here is about educating people on how to spot them in bars, on websites, in the dentist’s office, at the law firm, in the admissions office at school, swooping in on a white horse to save us from our tawdry lives, or coercing us into rejecting the REAL “white knight” because they’ve got their hooks into us.

In our free-for-all discussions, we’re helping each other see. The researchers don’t have the real-life info!

Thursday, 12 March 2009 @ 1:50am

the view today is that psychopathy is an evolutionary adaptation

My personal belief is that in pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer times, extreme personalities (specialists) such as the natural born hunter/warrior were valued as long as their contribution outweighed the cost of keeping them around. But once they were deemed a hindrance or danger to the tribe’s survival (an ‘evil spirit’) they were banished, which would have been a fate worse than death in those incredibly difficult and brutish times. Or else they’d destroy the tribe. When agriculture and animal domestication arrived, so did the size of the tribe. And as population grew, it also became increasingly difficult to determine the line between useful warrior and useless sociopath, and sociopathy grew and evolved.

Thursday, 12 March 2009 @ 7:15pm

SOS
psychopaths tend to be more successful in short-term relationships than average men, have more relationships and tend to father more children. these children will tend to be psychopathic genetically although there is now evidence that this psychopathy will be expressed slightly differently in boys than in girls. As well, at least according to Lykken, when these men move on they leave the mother and child fatherless, another contributing factor to psychopathy developing. (or to use Lykken’s terminology, sociopathy) –based on this idea, Lykken advocated licensing parenthood.

Thursday, 12 March 2009 @ 10:31pm

I should’ve also added that psychopathy appears to be very consistent in the population and contrary to popular belief the incidence of psychopathy does not appear to be increasing genetically as society moves forward. I think it’s legitimate to ask a related question — is sociopathy increasing based on factors like more single parents more latchkey children more violence on videos etc.

It would be nice if we could identify all of the lions and tigers but remember they only constitute about 1% of the overall population. The question was asked — if psychopaths are not doing all of this damage who is and the answer is illustrated in our percentages of average men judged antisocial in prison about 50% to 80% depending on the study, compared to about 15% judged psychopathic. Contrary to the suggestion that any man acting in this way should be considered psychopathic — a suggestion that would water down the definition of psychopathy and make it meaningless — we need to acknowledge that there are two groups — the obvious psychopaths — the 1% Lions and Tigers and as well, there is a larger group by three or four times of non-psychopathic average men who behave in ways extreme enough to constitute antisocial personality disorder. Of course, these are the most difficult to identify because they blend in to the general population the most.

Thursday, 12 March 2009 @ 10:51pm

Psychopathic, Not Psychopath: Taxometric Evidence for the Dimensional Structure of Psychopathy

First off, I’m not a scientist. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express long enough to learn that most people who stay there aren’t scientists. Anyways:

Although the clinical and theoretical importance of psychopathy is well established, there remain a number of unresolved and intensely debated issues regarding the nature of the construct… the putative existence of variants or subtypes of psychopathy.

Are you kidding me? Still debating? Are there other creative ways to gain useful data? Maybe a website where (screened) participants can fill out a structured questionnaire regarding their own personality and upbringing, their experiences with what they believed were sociopaths, and details about S behavior they’d witnessed? This place has some ideas for format:
http://similarminds.com/personality_tests.html

The dimension versus taxon question

I’m not a lawyer nor law maker, but just a working man who cannot afford or tolerate anything that resembles “sociopathic” again. I’ve gotta survive.

The only way that “taxon” makes any sense to me, would be if psychopathy was a sort of behavioral addiction which one falls into when etiological variables combine to cause the experiencer to cross some irretrievable threshold. The attachment disordered child abused ESTP of psychopathy, might then be the aboriginal Nome Alaskan bartender of alcoholism.

Dimension make far more intuitive and experiential sense to me.

…most individuals who commit crimes are not psychopathic, nor are most callous individuals psychopathic

I have no experience with prison life or convicts, ouside of MSNBC’s “Lockup” series. But I think it’s safe to assume that they’re more on the barbaric-nasty side of the barbaric-nasty — politically-correct-nasty continuum, than are the SS’s I’ve encountered. My SS’s stole, murdered, raped, conned, mobbed…, but did so in ways that were more… politically correct, and appeared to have an equal amount of apathy about what they’d done as those prisoners on TV.

Our results are consistent with recent calls for closer research linkages between the often-disconnected domains of personality and psychopathology

What’s taking you guys so long? Sensitive types are obviously far more at risk of becoming avoidant than psychopathic. Extraverted mercurial types are obviously far more at risk of becoming borderline than schizoid. And extreme versions of each are more at risk than those more ‘moderately flavored’.

Moreover, they are encouraging in that they suggest that researchers ultimately may be able to draw from the large body of research on the assessment and causes of continuously distributed personality traits to better inform their understanding of psychopathy among criminal populations.

Just don’t forget the criminal population which is skilled at avoiding getting caught and punished.

Friday, 13 March 2009 @ 2:01am

“Just don’t forget the criminal population which is skilled at avoiding getting caught and punished.”-S O S

I agree. There are a grat number who avoid detection, fly below the legal radar, or have even been granted immunity by the legal system…they do a lot of damage to society.

Friday, 13 March 2009 @ 12:45pm

Unfortunately, I think that many mental health professionals seem to think that there is a “cure” for everything. Just as many medical physicians will “treat” a 90 year old terminally ill cancer patient with life support, surgery, and medicine when it is obvious that there is no benefit to anything in the way of treatment. They just (as a general rule) can’t bring themselves to be HONEST with the patient and/or family, and say, “There isn’t any thing we can do for your loved one except keep them comfortable.”

When my late husband was taken to the hospital, with burns over 95% of his body and there was NO CHANCE he would survive for more than a few hours, the physician did not even indicate to me that his burns were terminal….and was going to ship him to a medical center about 150 miles away.

Since I had been first on the scene at the crash site and am a registered nurse practitioner, I knew my husband was terminal, and my husband knew he was terminal, but the physician would NOT acknowledge that HE knew as well.

WHY? Beats the heck out of me. I identified myself to the physician as an RNP and told him that I KNEW my husband would not last much more than hours. But if I had NOT been medically educated, this man by his FAILURE to tell me the TRUTH would have “tortured” me with HOPE that was not realistic.

I have fought with physicians for years over this very thing, and even had some physicians hauled by the short hairs before the hospital ethics committees for doing just this sort of thing. And they should be@! Yet, there are few people who are willing or able to confront this with physicians.

The lack of agreement of the mental health field is understandable and more I think about semantics than real research or rational thought. The psychopaths do an inordinate amount of damage to our society and yet the professionals (medical and legal) seem reluctant to LABEL them. Children who are absolutely out of control are “treated” and a less “Prejudicial” label of “conduct disorder” or “oppositional defiant” etc is put on them, at least until age 18. They are in and out of “treatment facilities” without any help being done to them over physical control. Their parents are given the “hope” (unrealistic) that they can “treat” these children and the parents’ hopes are repeatedly dashed over and over. They spend every dime they have trying to “save” this unsaveable child.

Not all psychopaths are “visible” by age 10 or 11, but some are. My own son appeared to be (at the time with what I knew) to be just a “rebellious” teenager, a bit over the top, but NOT as dangerous as he really was. (I didn’t know all the things he was doing at the time.)

I have know other rebellious teenagers who went on to be great people—when I look into the mirror I see one, at least the older version—but I never got into criminal activity,, but even some of those kids who do some minor “criminal” activity “grow out of it” and “settle down.”

The hard core criminal kids, though, do usually NOT grow out of it, even if they avoid going back to prison. They stay in the sub-class of society, many using drugs or alcohol, petty theft, etc. The “kids” that murder, rape and commit felonies become the repeat repeat repeat offenders that are in and out of prison, or go to prison for 20-30 years and then come out with a PhD in crime and violence.

A few states have enacted 3-strikes-you’re-out laws of life without parole for these multiple felony offenders, and I applaud this.

Texas is in the process of putting GPS tracking ankle bracelets on people who are convicted of domestic violence so that the victims can know when they are in the vicinity or when the perp goes where he/she is forbidden to go. GREAT idea. Personally, I think all violent X-convicts should wear those for the rest of their lives, and all child molesters etc. It should be attached to the person in such a way it CANNOT be removed short of cutting the leg off or shorting it out in such a way that the cops immediately converge on the person and they are returned to prison for life—without parole.

As technology improves and becomes smaller I think this might be the way to control the behavior and the movements of society’s most dangerous offenders. My P-son’s “best friend” had to wear one for a year after his release. He was returned to prison 4 years after his release for a new crime. The new crime, I think, might have been prevented if he was wearing a bracelet that tracked his movements and monitored his location and activities.

As a juvenile my P-son had to wear one, but because he was a juvenile he was not outfitted with one that could not be cut off, and guess what—he cut it off and ran, out of state on a stolen motorcycle. Of course he got caught eventually and brought back to our state of residence and incarcerated. Didn’t do him a bit of good. I think if he had had one that COULD not be cut off, he might not have run. Who knows, but at least they could have tracked him.

Oxy – I think the reluctance of medical professionals to deliver a death sentence, or to tell a parent their child is a psychopath with no hope of treatment, comes down to a fear of liability. They’re so afraid of being wrong, or being sued, that they stay comfortably in the gray areas. Some people have survived terrible injuries against all odds, some kids may appear to be psychopaths but turn out not to be, nobody wants to be the person responsible for taking that hope away.

Friday, 13 March 2009 @ 2:19pm

Yea, I think you are right, Midnight (I say again you are a smart cookie!) but while the “truth will set you free, first it will pith you off” and I personally know from experience that people are not usually anxious to have the TRUTH about their loved ones impending death, even if that loved one is 99 years old, hasn’t had a thought in years and lies in a nursing home bed. I have heard the cries of “SAVE MAMA!! Oh, God don’t let her die!” I have seen physicians put “mama” on life support when only one out of the ten kids says “do it” and the other 9 say “Mama has a living will, she doesn’t want this.”

That is why I am going to get the tattoo on my left chest that says “Do Not Recusitate” right there on the top of my left breast where the paddles go so there will be NO DOUBT what my wishes are. I have seen docs do this repeatedly on patients whose CHARTS ARE MARKED DNR and the chart is in their hand and they KNOW the patient’s wishes.

We used to have a neurosurgeon who would operate on anyone no matter how gone their brain was, and we had a special ward in this hospital (a step down unit) filled with his patients who were all comatose and on life support. We (being a little crude) called it “Dr. X’s VEGETABLE GARDEN.” I honestly think this doctor was an N at least and probably a P, he would curse and slam things, throw things at the nurses, I’ve hung up the phone on him many times. I too am a crusty old bat and was a crusty young bat as well. I actually think he was doing it for the “business” (i.e. money) he did not show any compassion for his patients or their families.

I used to debate with a physician friend whether neurosurgeons had to be arse-holes to become one, or whether becoming one made them arse-holes. I’ve only known one or two neurosurgeons who were NOT arse-holes. But at the same time, they seem to be the best cutters in the business. So, go figure. One of the best surgeons in my little town and he IS GOOD, is a flaming P with all the ex wives, drama in personal life and a biatch to work with (I could never do it) one of the best family physicians I have ever known is also a biatch and a flamming N, but a great physician.. I would GO to her in a minute and once I threated to quit job if they made me work with her, and they said “Okay, we know she is like she is and I wouldn’t want to work for her either” so they didn’t fire me, but I was ready to quit. I did cover her clinic on her day off and there was no problems, but no way I could have worked WITH her.

So even Ps in the medical professions have some good about their work….but the over all thing of not being up front with the patients and families about what is possible and what is not, isn’t handled well even by many of the best and most caring physicians. It causes over use of medical resources, and pain and other trauma to the patients and families which is unnecessary.

I really like the way hospice is structured and works, and I have worked with them and used them for my step dad. Unfortunately, many physicians will NOT refer to hospice even when the patient would benefit and accept it.

Friday, 13 March 2009 @ 3:08pm

Hello. It is very frustrating when one’s experience of the world is not validated by doctors or clinicians. I have just a couple of comments on the last few entries.

It seems very frustrating in psychology and psychiatry that we don’t have better answers to some of these questions the fact remains that we don’t know whether psychopathy is a taxon or a dimension. If it is a taxon, you either have it or you don’t, if it’s a dimension then of course you can have degrees of it. This debate is underscored by another philosophical question — is psychopathy merely an extension of normal personality characteristics (a dimensional viewpoint) or is it a disease per se like cancer (the taxon viewpoint). This question is not simply theoretical it has implications in how we diagnose and treated psychopaths.

You may be surprised when I say that there is no consensus in the research concerning treatment for psychopaths and the latest research cautions that this is an open question. There are three aspects to this question — one, would there be work? Two, as has been suggested, this therapy may psychopaths worse? Or three, would therapy help psychopaths? As I say, today there is simply no answer to this question.

I should clarify a point I made yesterday –

The viewpoint is that if a person has a psychopathic predisposition genetically and they are exposed to great environment then here she may channel their personality characteristics into legal enterprises for example a politician or policeman. Hare goes so far as to suggest that certain occupations benefit from this type of personality and he specifically cites examples of the politician and police who do better in conducting their responsibilities without much empathy.

An individual with a strong psychopathic predisposition exposed to a bad environment will likely go on to develop what we commonly think of as the typical manifestations of psychopathy including a long criminal involvement.

A normal individual can develop criminal behaviors — develop sociopathy if they are exposed to a bad environment — this is Lykken’s argument for preventing fatherless family situation

Friday, 13 March 2009 @ 3:52pm

Having been the child of one, and having been the mother of one, and having a lot of knowledge about my mental health genetics (I’m fortunate to be acquainted with or know considerable information about both sides of my family, extended family, etc for many generations) I am inclined to believe that it is mostly genetic.

I have also raised foster kids, some the children of psychopaths and some came out ok and some really bad from the same “litters.” Having raised and bred and trained livestock and other animals I also see “temperment” “inborn in animals and am familiar with some of the research on this inborn temperment in animals—from tendencies to be submissive and tendencies to be alplha-dominant.

My P-sperm donor is one of the VERY aggressive ones, fortunately he did not raise me, and my P-son is so much like him it is spooky, facial expressions, stance, violence, cunning, intelligence, etc. but he just went to prison early, but did not commit nearly as many crimes (my P sperm donor never was convicted of any serious criminal conduct though I know personally of two people he killed, and probably more.)

Natural selection “selects” for various things. I raise scottish Highland cattle and since they have long hair they stand in the pond a lot during the summer, and ALWAYS stand head to the shore. European cattle which were coddled by farmers will also stand in water to cool off, but they stand willy-nilly, facing in all directions. WHY? Think about it. The Highlands stood head out because that is where predators come from if you are in the water, and you need to see them. The ones who did NOT stand head out were weeded from the gene pool by being attacked from the rear. (that’s my own guess about why but it makes sense). My cattle have never been attacked at all, so this is not a learned behavior and they do it even as 2-3 week old calves who first go into the water. They wade out and immediately turn to face the shore.

Just like the musk oxen, they will form a circle with the calves and young ones in the center with the entire herd facing out. Most cattle will not do this, and only the mother will come to the defense of her calf and sometimes she will not, but Highlands the whole herd comes to a cry of distress with fire in their eyes, not just the mother. When the herd goes out to graze, they will appoint a baby sitter cow or even the bull will take a turn sometimes and all the little calves will lie down with this one adult animal keeping the kindergarten safe and the mothers off at a little more distance, but always ready to come to a cry.

There is a pecking order in a herd of cattle just like with chickens and the alpha cow is the boss, and usually they don’t abuse this position, but I have seen an entire herd gang up on an abusive cow and put her out of the herd, whip her completely to a stand still and then “shun” her. I’ve never seen that in any other breed of cattle. I’ve never seen a stable herd where the boss cow abused anyone else, much less the herd gang up on her for her abusive behavior, then shun her. (the bull will over come this shunning at least once a year for a day or two) LOL

Our ancestors also were “selected” in the days of cave dwelling and in the days when danger lurked around the corners from other people and animals. I think the psychopath would have a decided advantage in a tribal population unless the tribe would “gang up on” him/her and whip them down and then shun them as my cattle did. There are some primitive peoples who did just that.

The Jewish law of Moses commanded that a disobedient and rebellious son (pretty good description of a psychopathic kid) was to be brought before the elders and then stoned to death.

The early American colonies would shun a person who did not respect and abide by the local culture and laws, or toss them out. The Inuit also did this. There were other less drastic social sanctions as well for someone who endangred the peace of the community.

We have a “criminal justice system” (boy is that an oxy moron!) that is supposed to do that for our society, but does a very poor job of doing this. Our “kinder and nicer” society is not dealing well, (IMHO) with containing these people who do such a LARGE amont of the violence, cause the most chaos and damage to the rest of the population. Until our society and our medical establishment decides what to do about these people they will continue to terrorize the population and cost BILLIONS of dollars yearly in damages not to say anything of the emotional damage they do.

I know that we are not going to be able to “bell every cat” but if we at least corral the worst of the offenders we might be able to decrease the crime rate 90% and cut our prison population by 50% or more. (and the cost that goes with it)

We need to decriminalize drugs and RE-criminalize murder and other violent crimes. And get Matt a job with the prosecution instead of the defense. LOL

Friday, 13 March 2009 @ 7:38pm

Maybe whether its genetics or environment – someday there might be enough research and a cure! As well as for all the other genetic/environmental diseases in the world. In the meantime … NC…NC…NC… watch for RED FLAGS …and protect yourself…but not to the extent that you lose your good spirit and soul along the way. Educate ourselves and grow and learn from our own individual experiences. No two or the same, yet the common link of personality traits in sociopaths are overwhelming. And the common link of personality traits in empathetic people are overwhelming.

Friday, 13 March 2009 @ 9:20pm

alohatraveler says:

Dr. Laine,

I feel like I am one of your students. Your posts take us to a whole new level and reading here at LF has been quite an education for me. I have learned so much since I first found this site.

I think you might want to use “moral reasoning ability.” I had to look up “moral agency.”

About “successful psychopath” ….

I think a successful psychopath is one that is NOT in jail.

An UN-successful psychopath is one that IS in jail.

That’s what I think!

HAHA!

Thanks again. I appreciate your posts that are dense and challenging!

Friday, 13 March 2009 @ 9:55pm

Hello. While we agree that psychopathy is largely if not mostly genetic, it is well to remember that genetics — genotype — is modulated and expressed through environment so that the end product seen — the phenotype — will depend in part on both genetics and environment. Of course, the stronger the genetics the less the environmental modulation but it is still a factor we can’t ignore.

You say: Until our society and our medical establishment decides what to do about these people they will continue to terrorize the population and cost BILLIONS of dollars yearly in damages not to say anything of the emotional damage they do.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. For example, what is our medical establishment supposed to do with such individuals? Even if an individual is identified as an extreme psychopath he or she is not considered legally insane and therefore they cannot be just locked up involuntarily. Indeed, I’m sure some of these people would be running companies and holding positions in society. Again, if such individuals do break the law then it’s handled in a legal manner that is to say, if there is sufficient evidence of a crime then a conviction would take place putting these people in jail.

You say: I know that we are not going to be able to “bell every cat” but if we at least corral the worst of the offenders we might be able to decrease the crime rate 90% and cut our prison population by 50% or more.

Again, I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. If we can identify them all and catch them and convict them then we might be able to decrease the crime rate through their incarceration but then you say we can cut our prison population by 50%. Who are we letting out of jail? Remember that only about 15% of prison populations are made up of psychopaths, however they’re all in there for something. Most criminal psychopaths on the street are well known to police authorities however in many cases there is insufficient evidence on a particular crime to press charges or to result in a conviction and therefore these individuals remain on the street. Also, although extreme psychopathy may be used to maximize a criminal sentence, sentencing is primarily based upon the crime at hand and these individuals will be released at some point.

Friday, 13 March 2009 @ 11:29pm

I didn’t explain myself well, so let me try again. sometimes my fingers run faster than my brain on the keyboard. LOL

Since the majority of the violent crime is committed by the 15-20% of the prison population, if those people who have committed REPEAT crimes, like the “three strikes you are out” law in some states where the 3rd felony conviction puts them in prison for live without parole, those people would NOT be released again into society. Therefore the crimes tht they WOULD have committed will be prevented.

I know we will not be able to get the Bernie Madoffs off the street, or the Gov of NY or the Senator from Alaska, those men skate usually underneath the radar, and the “love fraud” people who are psychopaths will also skate under the legal radar.

But if the people who are NOT psychopaths who commit a crime (but not violence) were handled in some way BESIDES incarceration, and make room for the 3 time losers who are iin forever, then we could keep all of the hard-core Ps locked up. My son has 4 felony convictions that I know of, and many he was never convicted of, but one is for murder, and under the 3 strikes law, he would be in forever.

The trojan horse psychopath he sent to kill me, has 3 separate sexual rape charges on 3 different kids at 3 different times, plus 15 pages of felony convictions, he would also be locked up and the key thrown away.

These people will continue a life of violent crime and if after the third felony conviction they were sent away, this would allow the police to not have to hunt them down again, allow the victims of their crimes to go unvictimized…..think of the money that could be saved just in police costs alone.

Sure, not every P on the street is going to do 3 felony convictions, but a bunch of the worst would “qualify.” Think of the money we could save in hunting down, trying them, etc. and the court loads could be redueced too. Think of how over worked the parole officers are, and this would reduce their case loads as well with the chronic offenders permanently locked up.

The non-violent crimes could be treated differently and any that would reform could be possibly slavaged. It is a fact that prison doesn’t “improve” or “reform” many, most it makes worse. But, if they chose to commit 3 felonies they would go to prison for life as well.

Many of the criminal element on the streets today has 3 or more felony convictions, and yep they get out over and over and over.

Having had a P son in prison for over 20 years, and having studied some about the prison systems, and the effects it has on the inmates, I think we are going about it all wrong. But prison theories have changed over time from one extreme to the other and back again. What we have now isn’t working, and most of what we had in the past didn’t either. But long term and life long incarceration of Ps with multiple crimes would reduce the number on the street for sure. I will do everything I can to see that the parole board does NOT release my son. He is dangerous to me and to society.

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 12:42am

“it is also now recognized that psychopathic characteristics can be reliably seen and measured in children and that adolescent psychopathy carries forth into adulthood — it is a predictor of later adult psychopathy”

The problem is that although I agree with the above statement, most of the people in your group above, would fall under your designation ASPD not psychopathy!

So the same experts who say there are two separate disorders point to the child and adolescent findings even though the child adolescent findings better predict criminality than they do anything else.

Moffitt followed the child and adolescent “psychopaths” so read about what she found… That their main problem is poor impulse control. That symptom is more associated with ASPD and secondary psyshopathy than it is primary psychopathy. In fact when you remove the impulse control-antisocial domain from the concept of psychopathy it looses ALL of its predictive value. That fact has been a real disappointment to psychopathy researchers because it points to the lack of predictive value of factor 1 and therefore “personality features”.

The primary psychopaths of the Dunedin study could have been “closet antisocials” as children and not even identified in the study I guess, though being a lying, manipulative individual did qualify for antisocial even if no criminality was present. I asked Dr. Moffitt about the “closet antisocial” idea. She said they did not look to see if there were people who had the personality traits but no ASB… too bad.

But still you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If childhood/adolescent behavior links to primary psychopathy, it links as much if not more to secondary psychopathy, ASPD and criminality.

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 8:28am

“But still you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If childhood/adolescent behavior links to primary psychopathy, it links as much if not more to secondary psychopathy, ASPD and criminality.” LIANE LEEDOM

YES, I AGREE BOTH…BOTH…. BOTH… and more important more reasearch is needed re: what CAUSES the childhood/adolescent behavior…

AND PERHAPS THERE IS A MUCH STRONGER GENETIC LINK VS. ENVIRONMENTAL TO PRIMARY PSYCHOPATHY than the other personality disorders.

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 9:15am

I will stop here I have much more learning and reading to do… SO MUCH TO LEARN..

I cant help but think of when my daughter was 2 and suffering from bouts of vomiting all night long. I called the Dr. and she said prob FLU… by 6am she was vomiting green… we went into office at 8am… Dr. checked her and said prob very bad virus… gave me med for vomiting and said push fluid…back home she was listless, couldnt get her to raise a hand.. I couldnt accept it was a normal reaction to a virus…I called saying my other kids have been sick in past and never, never showed any signs of this type of behavior…she said if make me feel better go to ER…I did. They felt it was viral… they adminstered teaspoons of fluid for and hour and sent us home. Reluctantly I left… An hour later, my daughter was nearly unconscious…I called Dr. again and TOLD HER I WAS GOING TO CHILDRENS HOSPTIAL. IT TOOK THEM 48 HOURS TO REALIZE SHE HAD RUPTURED HER APPENDIX….WAS A LONG JOURNEY…BUT AFTER TWO WEEKS IN HOSPITAL SHE WAS BACK TO HERSELF…

The next check up with my Doctor went like this. I have learned that no amount of research, medical books, education can compare to the instinct of a parent. Your daughter did NOT fit the criteria for appendicitis (typically teenagers) — I understood. I totally understood.

But it left me with the knowledge that all the research, documented findings, still do not give us all the answers as to why.

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 9:25am

Almost…lol… I must point out that THE INITIAL DIAGNOSIS was what was so difficult to figure out. They went “by the book”.. she just wasnt textbook… they drew conclusions based on oral and clinical exam..at that point she had not ruptured… but the pieces did not all add up to appendicitis for any of the Doctors.

Lastly, at CHOP, they noted fluid in abdomen…but again said that COULD BE INDICITIVE OF VIRAL…she was admitted for observation. The ball dropped thereafter because she was assigned an ortheopedic intern to monitor her and it just went from bad to worse when the INTERN was of the opinion it was all viral..even when she ruptured while in observation and was in toxic shock.. she didnt alert the Attending – the INTERN misdiagnosed her.

In the end, I learned alot about the difficulting in diagnosing as well as going by the book with many things in life.

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 9:44am

Learned,

Sometimes physicians do NOT listen to the patient or the parent. I could tell you lots of tales but no need to….just know that YOU have to “pound on them” sometimes to get them to do what they should.

My egg donor had CLASSIC signs of an obstructed bowel, including VOMITING fecal matter, and the doc sent her home from ER. I went back next day with a trash can full of the vomitis (which smelled just liek what it was) and he RELUCTANTLY admitted her. They had to do emergency surgery that day. Ditto with my husbands subdural hematoma (blood between the brain and the skull from internal bleeding). I have learned to STOMP my foot if needed and get another opinion. If a child LOOKS REALLY SICK AND IS LETHARGIC etc and you think there is something serious going on, STOMP your foot. I’ve even had to stomp my foot once on a misdiagnosis that should have been obvious to the treating physician on myself.

Always go with your gut on that one and don’t let the letters after their names make you not question them. Even GOOD docs miss things once in a while or “poo poo” something that is serious. They are human too. The ones that I think are the worst are the ones that refuse to listen to you or “trivalize” your concerns as “just another anxious mother/wife/daughter” etc.

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 11:48am

carriesguns says:

question for kathleen hawk-
are you aware of any research concerning the possible relationship of autism preliminarily affected by high anxiety/betrayal feelings during gestation? is there anyone concerned with those deep roots of brain chemical imbalance?
any comparative studies including those possible factors?

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 2:23pm

When I was in college, there was a theory of autism that blamed the mother, for working, being wrapped up in herself etc. this disorder is very biologically based likely more so than psychopathy.

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 2:45pm

Isn’t there also a thing going on now where parents are blaming routine vaccines for autism?

I also saw on the news lately (here in Arkansas) where a boy with severe autism is going to get a “service” dog to prevent him from running into traffic and hurting himself etc. There is already one such service dog here in Arkansas and this will be the second. The children are tethered to the large dog (German Shepherds) who are trained to sit and hold the child. Apparently the parents of the child who were interviewed are very excited about the prospect of this dog, and they also showed clips of another service dog with a 10 year old autistic child who also was darting into traffic on a regular basis. The parents of that child said the dog had made a difference in the child in other ways as well, besides keeping him safe from traffic.

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 3:43pm

OxDrover:

I think I read a story in last week’s New York Times regarding a decision in one of the Federal Appeals Courts which reviewed the extensive medical research available and ruled that the vaccines didn’t cause autism. Of course, there are similar lawsuits in other Federal Circuits, so no doubt there is going to be a divergent opinon one of these days, so hell only knows where this will all come out.

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 9:36pm

Matt, Thanks. I never did think that vaccines caused autism, but I know that there was (at least in the past, haven’t kept up with it lately) a rabid group of parents who didn’t want to vaccinate their kids. Of course, with MOST of the kids vaccinated, there is some “herd immunity” but it still leaves those kids at risk for some nasty diseases that used to kill a lot of kids.

I think that the “rise” in the rate of autism is that there is more awareness of the disorder and more are “noticed” rather than there BEING more of them. Of course the very serious cases are and always have been “noticed,” but the more subtle cases, I think might have been missed or passed off as something else.

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 10:49pm

The Omnibus rulings on the whole vaccine causing autism thing was basically the best 3 cases out of the bunch. And the standard of evidence was much lower to make it easier to compensate families, they only have to provide a plausible theory of injury – not evidence that the theory is correct.

In all 3 cases the scientific evidence overwhelmingly showed no link at all. For those interested here is a link about it http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=478

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 10:58pm

Blogger, you are amazing!!!! You are like a genie, giving links and all those neat things!!!! Gosh, how great it is! Information at your finger tips and a smart man to find it for me! LOL Thanks!

So it was all about compensation, huh? Well, I suhda figured that! Matt, how come you weren’t in on the class action suit and made a million or ten?

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 11:07pm

Guess I wasn’t in on that one because I thought my odds were better playing lotto.

I have a friend who was in on one of the big class actions in Louisiana. He got a good payday — but he had to front so much money that his family was on the financial ropes for over 10 years. He said he’d never do it again.

Saturday, 14 March 2009 @ 11:15pm

Yea, your odds of winning the lotto are about like mine of finding another good man for me! 13 million to one!!!! LOL

Sunday, 15 March 2009 @ 12:11am

BACKGROUND: The epidemiology of autism has been rather confusing, with very variable published prevalence figures and no clear incidence data. The cause of autism is unclear; vaccines have been incriminated. METHODS: Literature review and interpretation. RESULTS: The recorded prevalence of autism has increased considerably in recent years. This reflects greater recognition, with changes in diagnostic practice associated with more trained diagnosticians; broadening of diagnostic criteria to include a spectrum of disorder; a greater willingness by parents and educationalists to accept the label (in part because of entitlement to services); and better recording systems, among other factors. The cause(s) of autism remains unclear. There is a strong genetic component which, along with prenatally determined neuro-anatomical/biochemical changes, makes any post-natal ’cause’ unlikely. CONCLUSIONS: There has (probably) been no real increase in the incidence of autism. There is no scientific evidence that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine or the mercury preservative used in some vaccines plays any part in the aetiology or triggering of autism, even in a subgroup of children with the condition.

Taylor B. Vaccines and the changing epidemiology of autism. Child Care Health Dev. 2006 Sep;32(5):511-9.

Sunday, 15 March 2009 @ 10:17pm

Epidemiology. 2009 Jan;20(1):84-90.

The rise in autism and the role of age at diagnosis.
Hertz-Picciotto I, Delwiche L.

BACKGROUND: Autism prevalence in California, based on individuals eligible for state-funded services, rose throughout the 1990s. The extent to which this trend is explained by changes in age at diagnosis or inclusion of milder cases has not been previously evaluated. METHODS: Autism cases were identified from 1990 through 2006 in databases of the California Department of Developmental Services, which coordinates services for individuals with specific developmental disorders. The main outcomes were population incident cases younger than age 10 years for each quarter, cumulative incidence by age and birth year, age-specific incidence rates stratified by birth year, and proportions of diagnoses by age across birth years. RESULTS: Autism incidence in children rose throughout the period. Cumulative incidence to 5 years of age per 10,000 births rose consistently from 6.2 for 1990 births to 42.5 for 2001 births. Age-specific incidence rates increased most steeply for 2- and 3-year olds. The proportion diagnosed by age 5 years increased only slightly, from 54% for 1990 births to 61% for 1996 births. Changing age at diagnosis can explain a 12% increase, and inclusion of milder cases, a 56% increase. CONCLUSIONS: Autism incidence in California shows no sign yet of plateauing. Younger ages at diagnosis, differential migration, changes in diagnostic criteria, and inclusion of milder cases do not fully explain the observed increases. Other artifacts have yet to be quantified, and as a result, the extent to which the continued rise represents a true increase in the occurrence of autism remains unclear.

Monday, 16 March 2009 @ 4:37pm

I just wanted to add a few links/studies that might be interesting to some:

Pervasive developmental disorders and criminal behaviour: a case control study.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17615427

Among 113 cases with childhood autism, .9% had been convicted. In atypical autism (n=86) and Asperger’s syndrome (n=114) the percentages were 8.1% and 18.4%, respectively. The corresponding rate of convictions in the comparison groups was 18.9%, 14.7%, and 19.6% respectively.

Is basic moral judgment spared in autism?
http://www.informaworld.com/sm.....order=page

Here we investigate basic moral judgment and find that it appears to be substantially intact in children with autism who are severely impaired in “theory of mind”.

Saturday, 21 March 2009 @ 6:58am

Mordant Carnival says:

This article makes me very, very sad indeed. Articulating the full depth of my offence and hurt at some of the quotes here from Drs. Kennett & McGreer, and some of the comments in the article itself, would take an essay. I will therefore confine myself to a few observations, and to pleading with the author and anyone who reads this to go and listen to people on the autism spectrum themselves.

Before I go on, here are some links that I really hope at least a few people will read:

Here’s “Bev,” a woman with a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, with some myths about Autism:

http://aspergersquare8.blogspo.....sm%20myths

And here’s a video from the same person (and her good friend Squawkers McCaw), illustrating the way that empathy can take different forms:

From Amanda Baggs, an autistic woman & disability activist, here is a video on dehumanisation of autistic people & other people with disabilities: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c5_3wqZ3Lk

…and here are some posts on stereotyping: http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?cat=144

And here’s Autistics.org (http://www.autistics.org/), a website with more information. You might also want to check out the rest of those blogs and the places they link to as well.

While you may or may not agree with everything these people say, you can hardly continue to view them as “Mr Spock,” or “emotionless.”

Tuesday, 10 November 2009 @ 3:15pm

Based on my own personal experience and studies (limited as they may be, since I’m an engineer and not a psychologist or neurologist), I would be tempted to say that an autistic person is practically the polar opposite of a sociopath.

An autistic person may be cognizant of love, fear, friendship, shame, pride, and all of the emotional richness of the human condition, but may lack the conventional social interfaces to fully understand and communicate this with others. A sociopath, on the other hand, has an uncannily sophisticated social interface–s/he is masterfully adept both in counterfeiting deep emotions and evoking them in others–but lacks the ability to feel any of these emotions.

It is bitterly ironic that many people on the autistic spectrum who have a vibrant and passionate inner lifeare branded as “empty shells” and depersonalized completely; while in the reverse, many sociopaths enjoy the full support of society thanks to an irridescent carapace that conceals an utter deficiency of feeling.

This is what I mean by sociopathy being the opposite of autism.

Tuesday, 10 November 2009 @ 3:54pm

Dear Mordant Carnival,

You have some good points. As you I am sure know, autism has a wide spectrum of functional/dysfunctional people. Dr. Temple Grandin is a perfect example of a person with autism who is VERT highly functioning. In fact, she developed humane handling facilities for cattle based on her feelings and empathy with the animals. I own such equipment for handling my own cattle. This woman is very self-aware and I have read a great deal of her writings, both about autism and about her field of expertice.

I don’t think there is anyone here who equates autism with sociopathy, I know that I don’t see any similarities.

There is a young autistic boy (age 6) who lives near me that has just received a service dog because the boy kept darting into traffic and it limited the places he could be taken by his parents for his own safety. over $15,000 was raised by the community to buy the boy a service dog to keep him safe. the boy and the dog are quite bonded now and the two can go anywhere together because the dog will not allow the boy to endanger himself. The boy’s mother even says the dog knows when the child is about to have a “tantrum” and will notify her so that she can head it off.

While some people with autism will never be totally functional in society, Dr. Grandin gives me hope that more and more of those people will be able to lead “mainstream” lives. I’m glad that the “low end” of the spectrum children with autism are being recognized so that those chldren can also be helped.

Thank you for your posts.

Tuesday, 10 November 2009 @ 7:51pm

sweetcynic says:

I have to agree with the engineer above, as someone who has been dxd with autism. Autistic people care about others’ feelings, but have difficulty perceiving them while sociopaths are very perceptive of others’ feelings but don’t care about them. Brain scans of autistic children have shown that while they tend to be unresponsive to the facial expressions of strangers, they are very responsive to the facial expressions of their parents. Asperger’s is actually a lot more like the social deficits often associated with learning disabilities than sociopathy. Thus Aspies and people with LDs may stand too close to people and perseverate about the same thing over and over again but, unlike sociopaths, they generally don’t harbor malicious intent, at least not any more than “normal” people.

As a sidenote, my mom dated a P for 3 years when I was 10-12. He did some pretty horrible things, most of which I won’t go into here. Interestingly, he probably didn’t know that I cared about others’ feelings(which is just as well), because he sought pity from my mom and brother for his fake terminal illnesses, but never from me. In a way, I saw through him a little faster than my mom because I realized that some of his claims made no logical sense(how can he hit mom hard enough to get her to call the police and then lie about it if he’s dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease? Why do all of these famous people need him to be their ghostwriter?)but at the same time I wasn’t mature enough to realize that this wasn’t normal adult behavior. At that time, I started cutting myself and lying more, especially to him and my mom, and just generally caring less about myself and other people as a defense mechanism(a few more years with him and I might have either turned into an S or killed myself – the worst part is that he did temporarily convince me to tell him and trust him more than I told/trusted my own parents, even as he would lie about me to my mom to try to turn her against me). But, as I didn’t start doing that until they got together and stopped cutting/lying/etc. within 6 months after she dumped him, I think it was environmental rather than me being a sociopath.

Saturday, 12 December 2009 @ 11:16pm

Dear Sweetcynic,

Welcome to LF, and thank you for sharing what must be painful memories with us.

The thing about relationships I ithink is that it starts off learning about them, but ends up a personal healing journey within ourselves to heal from the things that made us vulnerable. Of course you were a child and had no choice about this person being in your life. I am glad your mother finally tossed him and I hope that she did not get hooked by another S.

Good luck as you search for healing in your life, peace and joy. God bless.

Sunday, 13 December 2009 @ 9:48am

one_step_at_a_time says:

Easy, thanks for posting this.

I am usually very careful about vaccines, but I was quite concerned about h1n1, and got the shot.

thimerosal is the perservative in the h1n1 vacination. ergggh – nothing like a bit more neurotoxin!

Sunday, 13 December 2009 @ 8:14pm

Thanks Oxdrover. No, my mom did not get hooked by another S. I actually did much better in jr high and high school once I was away from him, had a more sane mother, and had a fresh start at a new school. We even moved to a new city within a year after she dumped him.

Monday, 14 December 2009 @ 12:01am

I don’t know if you are aware of the work that Dr. Temple Grandin has done. She is autistic, but she has revolutionized the cattle handling industry with her designs for handling cattle under lower stress and increased safety for both the cattle and the handlers. I have a chute which she designed, and she actually found that the “squeezing”motion which calms the cattle (it is a natural reaction to being held very firmly that calms the animal) also helps calm her. She built a padded apparatus that she can climb into (she controls it) and it squeezes her and calms her. She even used her knowledge to hellp herself, and her own knowledge to hellp the animals.

She is well respected in the industry as THE expert in handling cattle. She can literally THINK like the cattle she says. And obviously she is right. So sometimes a “disability” can really be an ABILITY that others don’t have as it is a different perspective.

I realize that there are different levels of autism but I think that sometimes we can make our “handicaps” into benefits!

Monday, 14 December 2009 @ 11:20am

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Psychopathy, empathy and moral agency: Lessons from autism

198 Comments to “Psychopathy, empathy and moral agency: Lessons from autism”

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