Most people who get involved with a malignant narcissist do eventually decide to break away. At some point, they sense that, to survive as a person, they must. This often takes a very long time, but that is no reason to say that they are gluttons for punishment. A glutton for punishment never breaks away. So we must be careful not to judge too quickly. Denial is a powerful thing, and it is instinctive in traumatic situations.
Though I am less prone to denial than most people, I had an unforgettable experience with it many years ago. I was on a flight from Paris to Rome, and the security was much tighter even than it is today. Everything got X-rayed and thoroughly hand searched, including your person. You probably would not believe me if I told you all the things that happened without me allowing myself to know what was going on.
The more reality tried to impose on my consciousness, the more into a haze I went. I was in the boarding line for three hours before I gave in and looked up at the sign that said this flight was ultimately bound for Tel Aviv. My heart landed in the pit of my stomach. The people in that endless line behaved differently than Europeans. After nine days in Paris, it felt good to be among people like this, whom I felt must be mostly Americans. But now, for the first time I let myself see and looked around. Their hushed, almost whispering voices were not speaking English. And every twentieth man was bearded and dressed as an orthodox Jew.
But even that did not bring me out of denial. I kept whistling in the dark, to think this was probably routine and that there was no danger. The loaded plane then baked on the runway for several hours — I lost track of time. I didn't come out of denial until long after the cargo hold had been emptied, all the baggage re-searched by hand, and reloaded. Not once, or twice, but three times.
Denial is a slippery slope, so even that did nothing but accelerate me deeper and deeper into it. That's because every time a thought acknowledging reality managed to form, you quickly repressed it in denial to keep whistling there in the dark. I didn't come out of it until the plane had sat on that runway for so long you thought terrorists were in the cockpit and negotiations were underway. Not till the silent tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife and everybody was about to explode. (You were afraid to move or talk, for fear that everybody would attack you and tear you to pieces with their bare hands, thinking you were a terrorist.) The teenage girl in the seat behind me threw up for sheer fright and was comforted by two old men.
Then a young mother held up her one-or-two-year-old son at arm's length, obviously in some silent gesture that all understood. She made him giggle with delight for us. The center of all that silent attention, he held out his arms to be an airplane for us. To this day, whenever I recall that moment, I utterly break down into sobbing tears.
It changed my life. At the time though this vision just stunned me. Back into my senses. That's because I suddenly realized that people wanted to kill this child for being.
As if stuck by a hot poker or something, I turned around with a little voice in my head angrily asking, "Why? Where are they? Where are the bastards?" It was as though a gigabyte of understanding downloaded all at once. "Humph," I thought, sitting back in my seat, "Figures! They're hiding! Cute! But I'll be damned if I'll be afraid of the people I can see!"
Why did I think that? Because when I came to my senses I noticed someone's invisible finger on my button and snatched back control of my mind. That's why I suddenly could think straight enough to know whom to hate.
I am too ashamed to share what I had been thinking before that, as half-formed thoughts repressed just would not stay down, despite my denial, and kept surfacing to consciousness on me. But I will say that the terror tactics had me fearing those innocent people around me, not the unseen terrorists.
To this day, I am both ashamed and amazed at how backwards terror had made me think. Because they were dangerous to be around, the other passengers were the "dangerous" ones in my mind, not the unseen terrorists. What a toxic thought. Imagine how it made me view them.
And there is a very short step between fear and hatred. One takes it in a heartbeat.
Terror made me want to distance myself as far as possible from every Jew on the planet. And if there had been a terrorist in sight I would have wanted to kiss his feet, trying to suck up by showing him that I hated Jews too.
Yup, I was blaming the victim, viewing the targets of terrorists like Canadians and Europeans view Americans today. Yup, if we saw a bunch of sheep blaming the attacked one while making excuses for the wolf and even being friendly with him, we'd know they're crazy. But terrorized human beings NEVER fail to do just that.
Sure, those stupid sheep think that if they suck up to him, he'll like them and not eat them too. But we know that's too stupid for even a dumb animal to think. Yet, terrorized human beings NEVER fail to think just that.
I liken this crazy, backwards thinking to the true story of some children caught on a railroad trestle bridge when a train came. Observers said that, if they had done the natural thing — if they had run to the nearer end of the bridge, away from the train — they would have reached safety. But like deer in an automobile's headlights, their terror made them all run right into the onrushing train.
Truth is stranger than fiction, eh? That's how backwards terror makes people think, and narcissists use terror tactics.
Terror isn't fright. Terror is a darkened state of mind. Terror is your head buried in the sand. Indeed, the very word terror comes from the Latin word terra, which means "earth" and comes from this ancient figure of speech. Terror is that underground state of mind otherwise known as denial — fear of facing facts. In terror, you're on automatic pilot, acting on thoughts you repress to the level of the subconscious. Therefore, those thoughts can be absolutely absurd without your realizing it.
So, beware denial. It's a dangerous state of mind. A narcissist's shock tactics and terror tactics drive you into it. But don't go there. People in denial don't think straight. They think and do the most inexplicable things because denial compels them 180 degrees in the wrong direction. If I had not been deep in denial I would not even have boarded that plane.
By Kathy Krajco
Showing posts with label abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abuse. Show all posts
Thursday, April 7, 2011
What Provokes a Narc Attack
It wasn't till I went no-contact with a narcissist for months that I realized a narcissist is like a disease. Here I was, feeling better. I had been so used to feeling badly that I didn't even realize I was feeling badly anymore. A few months without any interaction with a narcissist and - poof - I'm a new woman!
That's a tough thing to say but true. It's because of what narcissists use you for.
And that's the bottom line: they don't relate to you: THEY USE YOU.
Like any parasite uses its host. Life with with a tick or tapeworm is unwholesome too. Life with bacterial or protozoan parasites is unwholesome. Parasites feed on you and that makes you sick.
There is no cure but to get rid of them.
Otherwise it's like trying to live with hookworm. Drop by drop the constant bloodletting WILL increasingly weaken and sicken you. You are not indestructable. You will eventually die of it.
The narcissists I have known (and quite a few that I have heard about as well) all seemed to instantly perk up like a predator the moment someone was trapped in a situation where they would have to take whatever abuse the narcissist dished out. The moment they sense that, look out. Mr. Hyde comes out.
Over the next few weeks I'll give some anecdotal examples. Here's the first one.
An old narcissist ran a stop light at the end of the block he lived in and hit another car. The driver was unhurt, and like any sensible person, his first concern was to see whether the driver who had hit him was hurt and needed help. On seeing that the other driver, too, was unhurt, most people's anger at some idiot running the middle of a red light and hitting them broadside would start to show. But this driver, presumably on seeing that the idiot was an old man, actually seemed to feel sorry for him. He was very polite and forgiving about it, probably fearing that the State of Wisconsin would take away the old guy's driving license.
Now of course when you have an accident, you must render aid, you must call the police, and you may not leave the scene. In other words, you're trapped. You must just stand there waiting for the police and take whatever abuse this old narcissist dishes out.
That was enough to turn old Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. The old narcissist blew up and dished out the crass abuse he normally dished out only to people trapped with him behind closed doors. But here he was, in public, in broad daylight, raging at a stranger on the street. The stuff he said was just wild and normally would get any man's block knocked off by the man he was talking like that to.
But, since the offender is old, you must bend over for it. You don't dare even yell back at him or give him a shove to get him to back off out of your face. Because he's old and people are idiots, YOU will be the evil one if you do anything to make him stop spitting and raging two inches off the tip of your nose. Because society gives old people a license to abuse anyone younger.
The laws of common decency don't apply to the aged, and old narcissists capitalize on their license to abuse at every opportunity.
People coming to that intersection didn't see the accident. All they see and hear is the old guy yelling as though HE is the offended party and making it sound as though the other guy was at fault.
This little story is one of the few I know of with a happy ending though. The police officer wasn't fooled. He drove up behind the old guy and saw and overheard. When the old guy turned around and saw the cop – presto chango! – suddenly the Bogey Man Monster was gone and in his place stood a meek and mild poor old man who wouldn't hurt a fly. You know, the old mask switch.
In one split second. A face change so instantaneous that no normal person could pull it off. How intimidating and contemptuous this old narcissist made himself seem to someone he could abuse with impunity, and how sweet and charming he made himself seem to a cop.
Maybe if you have never seen this transfiguration, and if you don't think about what it means, you don't know what it means. But if you have ever seen a narcissist do this, you know what it means. You have felt what it means punch you in the gut. It means that you are dealing with a devil.
You got a glimpse of Old Two Face with his mask off. But there he is now one second later. Beelzebub mocking you from behind that "Poor-little-old-me-wouldn't-hurt-a-fly" mask he now has on.
As I remarked in a comment yesterday, that ain't mental disease: that is just plain diabolical.
And what "provoked" this narc attack? Did the narcissist feel threatened in any way? Was he slighted in any way? He should have been grateful that the other driver was so kind and forgiving, but instead he took this as a sign of weakness and attacked.
It's about time the professionals started making observations instead of divinations. If they do, they will find that what "provokes" a narc attack is nothing but vulnerability.
As in any PREDATOR.
And you can't get stupider than to refuse to believe that some people ARE predators. They attack you to eat you, not because you have provoked them in any way. They target easy prey, not people who offend or threaten them in any way.
The deadheads who can't wrap their minds around this fact should just read the daily newspaper, duh. Don't tell me that people who attack total strangers, like serial killers, rapists and child molesters, are retaliating aganst any perceived threat or offense. Don't tell me that they are poor and NEED what they are stealing to survive. Don't tell me that ANYONE who abuses a CHILD does, or is retaliating against any perceived threat or offense. And show me a malignant narcissist, and I will show you someone who never misses a chance to hit on a child. Just look at the kind of things they do to THEIR OWN CHILDREN. Some folks need to wake up and smell the coffee about malignant narcissists.
One must be willfully blind to unknow that camouflaged predators do live among us.
And of course the narc later makes excuses, saying he was just retaliating against some perceived offense. Narcs are pathological liars, duh, and everyone knows it. So, what kind of fool believes them when they say this without evidence to back it up?
What's more, they lie to themselves as much as they lie to others, so they probably repress knowledge of what they're doing, twisting things to rationalize their unprovoked attacks on others. Only in moments of unwanted self-awareness do they know better. But they instantly repress such knowledge the moment it surfaces.
They don't do what they do for reasons. They do it just to do it. Whenever they think they can get away with it, that is.
You will never be cured of contact with them if you don't face this unpleasant fact about them. They don't love you. They don't love anyone. They can't.
Lamb, you are as lovable as can be, but the Wolf doesn't love you. He doesn't dare let himself love you, or he'd starve. Correction: he does love you – for lunch.
Bully Teachers
Speaking of teachers, here is something all students and parents should know.
Narcissistic teachers (and weak teachers) use something I call "scapegoat discipline." Believe it or not, they actually target a kid in each section at the beginning of the year. This kid is the selected class scapegoat. Whenever the teacher isn't getting what he or she wants, they start yelling at the scapegoat for something.
The reason is simple: Only one kid gets abused, so the others and their parents don't care.
But all kids are intimidated by the show. In other words, the teacher abuses one kid to control the others. Simply by making an example of the scapegoat.
This is nothing rare. Every schoolyard bully does the same thing. Every brutal dictator does too. The Jews served Hitler in this capacity for example, just as the Christians served Nero.
The abuse of the scapegoat escalates to shocking levels, just the most vicious looks and snarling and contempt you ever saw - way over the top. Truly, anyone who witnesses it should think Teacher belongs in a padded cell, but incredibly these smooth talkers get away with it, year after year.
Of course the kids hate these blow ups. But who do they blame for them? Not the teacher. They are afraid of the bully teacher, so they suck up to him or her. They have nothing but admiring praise for him or her. They blame the scapegoat for always doing something to set the bully off.
So now the scapegoat is a pariah, on top of it all. Anyone who blows that off is devoid of empathy. Kids kill themselves over stuff like that. It ain't no minor matter. And every adult who knows of it is morally obligated to protect any child from it.
It ain't good for your unabused child either. It sucks him into the ganging-up on the scapegoat, which he will have to project his shame for. It teaches him to blame the victim and suck up to bullies. So ALL parents should be concerned when they discover this happening to ANYONE in one of their child's classes.
The gradebook can be evidence in some cases. For, at least in one case I know of, the bully teacher would actually mark the scapegoat on the seating chart the first or second day so she could remember whom to target.
The target seems selected on basis of vulnerability in the cases I know of. He could be a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe she's a wallflower. Maybe he has been in trouble with the school before. Maybe a kid with no father and drunk for a mother. Whatever.
Weak teachers who use scapegoat discipline always impressed me as slipping into it rather than plotting it. They don't act so terrorizingly crazy when they get mad either. They are just trying to blame their incompetence on having a section "stacked" with "bad kids," so that the constant uproar coming from their door ain't their fault.
They will often target two or three kids in a section (instead of one) to take all the blame. Scapegoat discipline just passes the blame though, it doesn't establish discipline, because the weak teacher can just scream. She can't terrorize anyone. So, the gross unfairness just provokes more disrespect of her than it deters.
By Kathy Krajco
Narcissistic teachers (and weak teachers) use something I call "scapegoat discipline." Believe it or not, they actually target a kid in each section at the beginning of the year. This kid is the selected class scapegoat. Whenever the teacher isn't getting what he or she wants, they start yelling at the scapegoat for something.
The reason is simple: Only one kid gets abused, so the others and their parents don't care.
But all kids are intimidated by the show. In other words, the teacher abuses one kid to control the others. Simply by making an example of the scapegoat.
This is nothing rare. Every schoolyard bully does the same thing. Every brutal dictator does too. The Jews served Hitler in this capacity for example, just as the Christians served Nero.
The abuse of the scapegoat escalates to shocking levels, just the most vicious looks and snarling and contempt you ever saw - way over the top. Truly, anyone who witnesses it should think Teacher belongs in a padded cell, but incredibly these smooth talkers get away with it, year after year.
Of course the kids hate these blow ups. But who do they blame for them? Not the teacher. They are afraid of the bully teacher, so they suck up to him or her. They have nothing but admiring praise for him or her. They blame the scapegoat for always doing something to set the bully off.
So now the scapegoat is a pariah, on top of it all. Anyone who blows that off is devoid of empathy. Kids kill themselves over stuff like that. It ain't no minor matter. And every adult who knows of it is morally obligated to protect any child from it.
It ain't good for your unabused child either. It sucks him into the ganging-up on the scapegoat, which he will have to project his shame for. It teaches him to blame the victim and suck up to bullies. So ALL parents should be concerned when they discover this happening to ANYONE in one of their child's classes.
The gradebook can be evidence in some cases. For, at least in one case I know of, the bully teacher would actually mark the scapegoat on the seating chart the first or second day so she could remember whom to target.
The target seems selected on basis of vulnerability in the cases I know of. He could be a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe she's a wallflower. Maybe he has been in trouble with the school before. Maybe a kid with no father and drunk for a mother. Whatever.
Weak teachers who use scapegoat discipline always impressed me as slipping into it rather than plotting it. They don't act so terrorizingly crazy when they get mad either. They are just trying to blame their incompetence on having a section "stacked" with "bad kids," so that the constant uproar coming from their door ain't their fault.
They will often target two or three kids in a section (instead of one) to take all the blame. Scapegoat discipline just passes the blame though, it doesn't establish discipline, because the weak teacher can just scream. She can't terrorize anyone. So, the gross unfairness just provokes more disrespect of her than it deters.
By Kathy Krajco
The Narcissist Makes Everyone, Including You, Think that You Are the Dependent One
Who is needier than a narcissist? More dependant?
Their dependence is the dependence of any parasite on its host. This dependence is the very essence of their so-called "relationship" with you. It is the relationship you have with a tick or disease. That's all there is to it. Nothing for YOU in it at all.
They truly are emotional vampires and probably are the type storytellers had in mind when they invented the story of the vampire. They NEED your blood/suffering. They feed on it. They will die without it.
Why? because it's the only thing that makes their existence bearable. Just look at what lowdown, dirty, rotten things these gutter slimes have done through life. Wouldn't the memories haunt you to the point that you couldn't stand yourself? A character of white trash put it succinctly in a movie about racism once when asked why he treated black people like dirt: "Because if you ain't better than a n*****, you ain't better than nobody."
Narcissists are doing the same thing. Down in that gutter they need to feel better than somebody else. It's the only thing that can make them happy. Because it's the only thing that makes them feel good.
About themselves. For awhile.
As a drink is the only thing that makes an alcoholic feel good. For awhile. No booze – they get to feeling worse and worse until they are dying for a drink. They WOULD die for a drink. They would die for just the few minutes release from feeling so bad that drink will give them.
Same thing with the heroin addict.
Narcissists must constantly resist falling into the abyss - awareness of what a lowdown thing they are. How? By playing a stupid and irrational mind game: they think they raise themselves out of that gutter by tearing someone else down and walking all over that other person.
Ah, what a high they get! They thump their chest and give a Tarzan yell. That's just Tarzan's way of saying, "Look Ma! Ain't I grand?"
They are sucking that person's lifeblood. They are feeding on it. They are bleeding him or her of self-respect.
That's how they get self-respect, by stealing that which belongs to others. For, what they do is so despicable that, for sheer shame, they'd otherwise have to kill themselves. As one narcissist herself put it to me, she'd be one of those suicides who doesn't even leave a note.
So, they play this game to fight off awareness of what a contemptible thing their conduct has made them. It's what keeps them alive = from killing themselves. It's how they live.
And of course doing this just gives them more shameful conduct to bury that way. It's a vicious cycle.
Now, of course, this neediness of theirs, this parasitic dependence on their host, isn't grand. So this fact of their existence constantly challenges their delusions of grandeur.
That's where being a Projection Machine come in. They ward off awareness of their humiliating neediness by projecting the semblance of it off onto their host.
I know one who blew me away some years ago with "but then maybe because I'm so gosh-darned independent I just don't understand people like that."
My jaw hit the ground. She was 40 years old and had never left the nest. She never paid rent. She made more money than her father but never even bought or paid for her own food and toiletries or cigarettes. Yet in her narcissist eyes, she was so gosh-darned independent. The suckling pig didn't need her parents: in the Land of Pretend, THEY needed HER!
Now is that crackpot thinking? Or is that crackpot thinking?
Therefore, never underestimate the power of a narcissist's upside-down and backwards brain to warp the real world into a work of fiction that twists thinking and perception a full 180 degrees!
In fact, here's one bit of advice I will give: notice these farces. They're hilarious. A sense of humor goes a long way toward healing. It also keeps you from falling under the spell of these crackpots.
I gave another example a few days back in How to Kill Your Sister and Get Away with It.
The narcissistic teacher is desperate for attention. Hard to believe, but true: even being a teacher doesn't fulfill her need for attention.
Yet her ego won't allow her to call her sister for someone to talk to. But though she has tried many baits, she can't sucker the sister into calling her or having anything to do with her (though they live across the street from each other). So the pretext of "helping the needy sister" is the only pretext the narcissist's ego will let her call her sister on. Get it? That way the narcissist doesn't need her sister, the sister needs her.
And so the narcissist must dissemble to hide her need for attention. She must make it seem as though the sister is the needy one, the one who needs someone to talk to. For years, she has tried to sucker her sister into reestablishing a close relationship with her. Presumably, the result would be the same as historically it was: the N never condescends to call her sister, but plays her sister like a fish on the line to call her. Then, she doesn't even let the sister get one sentence out about why she is calling: the narcissist has already launched into a three-hour monologue.
Sound familiar?
So, who's the one who needs someone to talk to. Or "AT", I mean?
Games, games, games. That's all narcissists do is play stupid games like this. Narcissists ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS blame the victim by protray the victim as asking for it and even liking it. They always claim that their victims have a martyr complex.
Clue: the martyr complex is thinking you are underappreciated. Oh, woe is you, because things don't get done, or get done right, if you don't do them. So you do, do, do for everyone all day long. And nobody appreciates how you sacrifice for them. Oh, woe is you.
That's the martyr complex, and it has nothing to do with abuse. Nobody wants abuse. How can sensible people believe such a bizzare assertion? Indeed, they refuse to believe known facts that are far more believable than this absurdity. What? Do people just love to believe the bizarre?
This absurd claim that the victim wants it is most shocking in the case of rape. When are people going to learn to quit playing the fool for him or her every time a narcissist opens their mouth?
Narcissists do everything possible about the material circumstances of the relationship to make YOU seem like the needy one and THEM seem like the independent one.
For example, women, beware any man who tries to get you pregnant before marriage. Or, even immediately after marriage. That's a patented trick of these spiders to ensnare you in a web.
Both men and women, beware of any lover who can't stand your family and friends around. Another patented trick to isolate you. The narcissist picks fights on the sly and then comes running to you whining about how mean your family or friend is to him or her. They come running to you telling you that your mother or father or sister or brother or friend said this or that.
Do you hear a snapping sound? That's your lifelong relationship with that friend or family member breaking. You will never know that the narcissist is lying, because you have taken the bait and will stop communicating directly with that friend or family member. That is housebreaking, my friend, otherwise known as con artistry.
Know it when ANYONE has come between you and others and is cutting off direct communication between you two. No one who does that is ever up to any good.
Before you know it, you are isolated and alone in the world. At that spider's mercy. Because you are dependent on the narcissist alone for all that we get out of human companionship.
That ain't nothing. Human beings need love and appreciation. We need it like we need the air we breathe. But if a narcissist has isolated you from the rest of the human race, so that you depend on the narcissist alone for all these things, you are in trouble, baby.
The narcissist is doing that to cut your ties to other important people in your life. Like a cowboy, or a pedator, he is just cutting his target out of the herd. He wants you dependent on him alone for human companionship.
Then all he need do is toss you a scrap now and then. Otherwise, he can do anything he wants to you, and you won't leave.
Yet another example, again one that usually applies to women. So, he got you pregnant several times already. How gallant that he says to quit your job and that he will take care of you. Don't do it, lady! This is another patented tactic of narcissists and other spousal abusers.
When he has burned all the employment bridges behind you, the honeymoon will be over. You'll feel trapped in the web this spider has woven and feel dependent on him.
But in my experience and judging by what I've learned from others, that feeling of dependence on the narcissist is more perceived than real. It's largely due to projective identification = what the narcissist says and does to make you FEEL like a worthless wretch who NEEDS him.
Yes, of course, if you are dependent on the narcissist's income, you are dependent on the narcissist's income. But does that dependence come close to the absolute dependence of this vampire on you for a daily drink of your blood, which he cannot live without?
To him or her, you are nothing but a rat they keep for this purpose - you know, for a vampire's "transfusion" every so often.
This is similar to the phenomenon known as "the kept" woman." Just as some men pay a lot of money to support a "kept woman" for someone to have sex with, narcissists will spend a lot of money to support a woman kept to abuse.
Any drug addict will pay whatever it costs to maintain a constant supply so he is never without a fix. This doesn't make narcissists not niggardly. In all other matters, they are niggardly to the hilt. But when it comes to spending whatever it takes to keep someone handy to abuse, they show how desperate they are. No price is too high, because they NEED that constant fix.
So don't let these pushers get you hooked on their money, life in the fast lane, or anything else they can try to buy you with. It will make you feel dependent on them.
And don't fall for their efforts to brainwash you into thinking YOU need THEM. It's nothing but projective identification.
You CAN walk away, in almost every case.
I'll never forget the moment I realized this. Here I was, clinging to a narcissistic abuser for dear life. I'll never forget where I was and what had just happened when the little voice in my head said, "You need THAT?"
No I didn't. I immediately went out and bought new door locks.
A few weeks later I began to notice how good I was feeling. I was astounded by the fact that, while I was with the narcissist, I had gotten so used to feeling bad, that I wasn't even aware of feeling bad anymore. But now, when I began to feel good, I realized how bad a case of hookworm anemia makes you feel.
Indeed, when you get rid of a parasite, you are getting rid of a disease.
By Kathy Krajco
Their dependence is the dependence of any parasite on its host. This dependence is the very essence of their so-called "relationship" with you. It is the relationship you have with a tick or disease. That's all there is to it. Nothing for YOU in it at all.
They truly are emotional vampires and probably are the type storytellers had in mind when they invented the story of the vampire. They NEED your blood/suffering. They feed on it. They will die without it.
Why? because it's the only thing that makes their existence bearable. Just look at what lowdown, dirty, rotten things these gutter slimes have done through life. Wouldn't the memories haunt you to the point that you couldn't stand yourself? A character of white trash put it succinctly in a movie about racism once when asked why he treated black people like dirt: "Because if you ain't better than a n*****, you ain't better than nobody."
Narcissists are doing the same thing. Down in that gutter they need to feel better than somebody else. It's the only thing that can make them happy. Because it's the only thing that makes them feel good.
About themselves. For awhile.
As a drink is the only thing that makes an alcoholic feel good. For awhile. No booze – they get to feeling worse and worse until they are dying for a drink. They WOULD die for a drink. They would die for just the few minutes release from feeling so bad that drink will give them.
Same thing with the heroin addict.
Narcissists must constantly resist falling into the abyss - awareness of what a lowdown thing they are. How? By playing a stupid and irrational mind game: they think they raise themselves out of that gutter by tearing someone else down and walking all over that other person.
Ah, what a high they get! They thump their chest and give a Tarzan yell. That's just Tarzan's way of saying, "Look Ma! Ain't I grand?"
They are sucking that person's lifeblood. They are feeding on it. They are bleeding him or her of self-respect.
That's how they get self-respect, by stealing that which belongs to others. For, what they do is so despicable that, for sheer shame, they'd otherwise have to kill themselves. As one narcissist herself put it to me, she'd be one of those suicides who doesn't even leave a note.
So, they play this game to fight off awareness of what a contemptible thing their conduct has made them. It's what keeps them alive = from killing themselves. It's how they live.
And of course doing this just gives them more shameful conduct to bury that way. It's a vicious cycle.
Now, of course, this neediness of theirs, this parasitic dependence on their host, isn't grand. So this fact of their existence constantly challenges their delusions of grandeur.
That's where being a Projection Machine come in. They ward off awareness of their humiliating neediness by projecting the semblance of it off onto their host.
I know one who blew me away some years ago with "but then maybe because I'm so gosh-darned independent I just don't understand people like that."
My jaw hit the ground. She was 40 years old and had never left the nest. She never paid rent. She made more money than her father but never even bought or paid for her own food and toiletries or cigarettes. Yet in her narcissist eyes, she was so gosh-darned independent. The suckling pig didn't need her parents: in the Land of Pretend, THEY needed HER!
Now is that crackpot thinking? Or is that crackpot thinking?
Therefore, never underestimate the power of a narcissist's upside-down and backwards brain to warp the real world into a work of fiction that twists thinking and perception a full 180 degrees!
In fact, here's one bit of advice I will give: notice these farces. They're hilarious. A sense of humor goes a long way toward healing. It also keeps you from falling under the spell of these crackpots.
I gave another example a few days back in How to Kill Your Sister and Get Away with It.
The narcissistic teacher is desperate for attention. Hard to believe, but true: even being a teacher doesn't fulfill her need for attention.
Yet her ego won't allow her to call her sister for someone to talk to. But though she has tried many baits, she can't sucker the sister into calling her or having anything to do with her (though they live across the street from each other). So the pretext of "helping the needy sister" is the only pretext the narcissist's ego will let her call her sister on. Get it? That way the narcissist doesn't need her sister, the sister needs her.
And so the narcissist must dissemble to hide her need for attention. She must make it seem as though the sister is the needy one, the one who needs someone to talk to. For years, she has tried to sucker her sister into reestablishing a close relationship with her. Presumably, the result would be the same as historically it was: the N never condescends to call her sister, but plays her sister like a fish on the line to call her. Then, she doesn't even let the sister get one sentence out about why she is calling: the narcissist has already launched into a three-hour monologue.
Sound familiar?
So, who's the one who needs someone to talk to. Or "AT", I mean?
Games, games, games. That's all narcissists do is play stupid games like this. Narcissists ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS blame the victim by protray the victim as asking for it and even liking it. They always claim that their victims have a martyr complex.
Clue: the martyr complex is thinking you are underappreciated. Oh, woe is you, because things don't get done, or get done right, if you don't do them. So you do, do, do for everyone all day long. And nobody appreciates how you sacrifice for them. Oh, woe is you.
That's the martyr complex, and it has nothing to do with abuse. Nobody wants abuse. How can sensible people believe such a bizzare assertion? Indeed, they refuse to believe known facts that are far more believable than this absurdity. What? Do people just love to believe the bizarre?
This absurd claim that the victim wants it is most shocking in the case of rape. When are people going to learn to quit playing the fool for him or her every time a narcissist opens their mouth?
Narcissists do everything possible about the material circumstances of the relationship to make YOU seem like the needy one and THEM seem like the independent one.
For example, women, beware any man who tries to get you pregnant before marriage. Or, even immediately after marriage. That's a patented trick of these spiders to ensnare you in a web.
Both men and women, beware of any lover who can't stand your family and friends around. Another patented trick to isolate you. The narcissist picks fights on the sly and then comes running to you whining about how mean your family or friend is to him or her. They come running to you telling you that your mother or father or sister or brother or friend said this or that.
Do you hear a snapping sound? That's your lifelong relationship with that friend or family member breaking. You will never know that the narcissist is lying, because you have taken the bait and will stop communicating directly with that friend or family member. That is housebreaking, my friend, otherwise known as con artistry.
Know it when ANYONE has come between you and others and is cutting off direct communication between you two. No one who does that is ever up to any good.
Before you know it, you are isolated and alone in the world. At that spider's mercy. Because you are dependent on the narcissist alone for all that we get out of human companionship.
That ain't nothing. Human beings need love and appreciation. We need it like we need the air we breathe. But if a narcissist has isolated you from the rest of the human race, so that you depend on the narcissist alone for all these things, you are in trouble, baby.
The narcissist is doing that to cut your ties to other important people in your life. Like a cowboy, or a pedator, he is just cutting his target out of the herd. He wants you dependent on him alone for human companionship.
Then all he need do is toss you a scrap now and then. Otherwise, he can do anything he wants to you, and you won't leave.
Yet another example, again one that usually applies to women. So, he got you pregnant several times already. How gallant that he says to quit your job and that he will take care of you. Don't do it, lady! This is another patented tactic of narcissists and other spousal abusers.
When he has burned all the employment bridges behind you, the honeymoon will be over. You'll feel trapped in the web this spider has woven and feel dependent on him.
But in my experience and judging by what I've learned from others, that feeling of dependence on the narcissist is more perceived than real. It's largely due to projective identification = what the narcissist says and does to make you FEEL like a worthless wretch who NEEDS him.
Yes, of course, if you are dependent on the narcissist's income, you are dependent on the narcissist's income. But does that dependence come close to the absolute dependence of this vampire on you for a daily drink of your blood, which he cannot live without?
To him or her, you are nothing but a rat they keep for this purpose - you know, for a vampire's "transfusion" every so often.
This is similar to the phenomenon known as "the kept" woman." Just as some men pay a lot of money to support a "kept woman" for someone to have sex with, narcissists will spend a lot of money to support a woman kept to abuse.
Any drug addict will pay whatever it costs to maintain a constant supply so he is never without a fix. This doesn't make narcissists not niggardly. In all other matters, they are niggardly to the hilt. But when it comes to spending whatever it takes to keep someone handy to abuse, they show how desperate they are. No price is too high, because they NEED that constant fix.
So don't let these pushers get you hooked on their money, life in the fast lane, or anything else they can try to buy you with. It will make you feel dependent on them.
And don't fall for their efforts to brainwash you into thinking YOU need THEM. It's nothing but projective identification.
You CAN walk away, in almost every case.
I'll never forget the moment I realized this. Here I was, clinging to a narcissistic abuser for dear life. I'll never forget where I was and what had just happened when the little voice in my head said, "You need THAT?"
No I didn't. I immediately went out and bought new door locks.
A few weeks later I began to notice how good I was feeling. I was astounded by the fact that, while I was with the narcissist, I had gotten so used to feeling bad, that I wasn't even aware of feeling bad anymore. But now, when I began to feel good, I realized how bad a case of hookworm anemia makes you feel.
Indeed, when you get rid of a parasite, you are getting rid of a disease.
By Kathy Krajco
The Narcissist's Strange Relationship to the World Around Her
A narcissist has no proper relationship with herself. She unknows the self inside and identifies with something external, her projected image, instead. Hence, NPD has often been called a "disorder of the self."
Now THAT'S a pretty important relationship to foul up. If you don't relate to yourself, how can you relate to anyone else?
Narcissists don't. They relate to other human beings as objects. You know - objects, things to use and ab-use for self-serving purposes. Things that have no rights, no right to be even. Things that have no feelings. Tools.
Until that fact sinks in, you just don't "get" malignant narcissism. You keep acting on the premise that the narcissist has some feelings for you, some conscience. And that premise is all wrong. Based on it, nothing makes sense. Hence you keep pinching yourself and wondering whether it's you or the N that is crazy.
The more I see, the more impressed I am by how a narcissist relates to the world around her. These are just my observations, but they are based on a lifetime of experiences fit together like the pieces of a puzzle - for what that's worth.
It's like she goes around with an artist's pallet and paintbrush in hand, painting over reality here and there, almost whimsically and on the fly, to make it more to her fancy or liking.
I think this is a lot like little children do as their minds and personalities begin to take shape. Their mind becomes a playground. They discover how it can be used to "alter" any reality they don't like. They tend to get carried away in flights of the imagination like Alice in the Looking Glass Room.
To us in the real world, the world Alice is in there behind the Looking Glass looks like this one. But beyond the edges of the glass (our look into her life) nothing is the same as in the real world. (More on this in the book.) In fact, Alice says that it's as different as can be.
She made it that way in flights of reckless fancy, often on a whim, just to make her world more interesting and exciting than the real world.
This reminds one of all the reckless experimentation with LSD and other mind-altering drugs, especially during the 1970's.
Fortunately, children normally attain the Age of Reason, when they develop a preference for truth and reality. Partly, they learn to fear the terrible power of the mind to alter perception and delude itself. Partly, they want to grow up and live in the real world like older kids and adults do.
They still daydream and take off on flights of the imagination. But they clearly distinguish between dreams and reality now. For example, they won't insist that you set a place for their imaginary friend at the table anymore.
The more I see, the more I suspect that narcissists never really made it to that point. From time to time they will say something that betrays their presence in some strange other world.
Ms. Painter does the same thing with the people in her world. She paints over them to make a work of art of them, one more to her liking. In doing so, she reduces them to caricatures. Pay close attention to the way she talks about others, and you will see that.
I am constantly struck by how similar these characterizations are to those of a novelist. In a novel, you don't want your secondary characters and minor characters to distract attention from the main characters, so you deliberately draw what we call "flat" characterizations of them. Caricatures. Often called "cartoons," because they have no depth.
To keep them from being bland and boring, you spice up the hero's sidekick with some eccentricity that makes him entertaining. In fact, in novels where attention is on the plot or whodunit, even the main character (e.g., Inspector Poirot) may be little more than a cartoon with some entertaining idiosyncrasies.
Notice that this is what a narcissist makes of the people she talks about. They aren't people; they are characters. There's a difference, you know. They aren't even realistic characters with depth; they are cartoons, caricatures.
She may describe a person as a "Kris Kringle" one day and as a "b****-slapper" the next though.
Because she is an artist, you see, CREATING and EDITING these cartoons on the whims of fancy, reducing human beings to them.
If you ask her about these people, you will find that she actually knows nothing about their character. How could she? She gets 100% of their attention without giving back any of hers. So, how could she have noticed anything about their real character?
All have but bit parts in an autobiographical work of fiction that is all about her.
Of course the narcissist is shallow too. How could she not be shallow? She doesn't identify with the real person inside; she identifies with the image she paints of herself. Another mere character, not a real person.
This is why a narcissist will be a Nazi one day and a socialist the next. She is just another character she creates. So, she can change that character any time the story isn't going the way she wants.
And she does everything possible to make the world reflect her fantasy. Her fantasy about you. (Through character assassination.) Her fantasy about the past. (By pathological lying.) Her fantasy about herself. (In con artistry.) She couldn't possibly have greater contempt for truth.
Now THAT'S a pretty important relationship to foul up. If you don't relate to yourself, how can you relate to anyone else?
Narcissists don't. They relate to other human beings as objects. You know - objects, things to use and ab-use for self-serving purposes. Things that have no rights, no right to be even. Things that have no feelings. Tools.
Until that fact sinks in, you just don't "get" malignant narcissism. You keep acting on the premise that the narcissist has some feelings for you, some conscience. And that premise is all wrong. Based on it, nothing makes sense. Hence you keep pinching yourself and wondering whether it's you or the N that is crazy.
The more I see, the more impressed I am by how a narcissist relates to the world around her. These are just my observations, but they are based on a lifetime of experiences fit together like the pieces of a puzzle - for what that's worth.
It's like she goes around with an artist's pallet and paintbrush in hand, painting over reality here and there, almost whimsically and on the fly, to make it more to her fancy or liking.
I think this is a lot like little children do as their minds and personalities begin to take shape. Their mind becomes a playground. They discover how it can be used to "alter" any reality they don't like. They tend to get carried away in flights of the imagination like Alice in the Looking Glass Room.
To us in the real world, the world Alice is in there behind the Looking Glass looks like this one. But beyond the edges of the glass (our look into her life) nothing is the same as in the real world. (More on this in the book.) In fact, Alice says that it's as different as can be.
She made it that way in flights of reckless fancy, often on a whim, just to make her world more interesting and exciting than the real world.
This reminds one of all the reckless experimentation with LSD and other mind-altering drugs, especially during the 1970's.
Fortunately, children normally attain the Age of Reason, when they develop a preference for truth and reality. Partly, they learn to fear the terrible power of the mind to alter perception and delude itself. Partly, they want to grow up and live in the real world like older kids and adults do.
They still daydream and take off on flights of the imagination. But they clearly distinguish between dreams and reality now. For example, they won't insist that you set a place for their imaginary friend at the table anymore.
The more I see, the more I suspect that narcissists never really made it to that point. From time to time they will say something that betrays their presence in some strange other world.
Ms. Painter does the same thing with the people in her world. She paints over them to make a work of art of them, one more to her liking. In doing so, she reduces them to caricatures. Pay close attention to the way she talks about others, and you will see that.
I am constantly struck by how similar these characterizations are to those of a novelist. In a novel, you don't want your secondary characters and minor characters to distract attention from the main characters, so you deliberately draw what we call "flat" characterizations of them. Caricatures. Often called "cartoons," because they have no depth.
To keep them from being bland and boring, you spice up the hero's sidekick with some eccentricity that makes him entertaining. In fact, in novels where attention is on the plot or whodunit, even the main character (e.g., Inspector Poirot) may be little more than a cartoon with some entertaining idiosyncrasies.
Notice that this is what a narcissist makes of the people she talks about. They aren't people; they are characters. There's a difference, you know. They aren't even realistic characters with depth; they are cartoons, caricatures.
She may describe a person as a "Kris Kringle" one day and as a "b****-slapper" the next though.
Because she is an artist, you see, CREATING and EDITING these cartoons on the whims of fancy, reducing human beings to them.
If you ask her about these people, you will find that she actually knows nothing about their character. How could she? She gets 100% of their attention without giving back any of hers. So, how could she have noticed anything about their real character?
All have but bit parts in an autobiographical work of fiction that is all about her.
Of course the narcissist is shallow too. How could she not be shallow? She doesn't identify with the real person inside; she identifies with the image she paints of herself. Another mere character, not a real person.
This is why a narcissist will be a Nazi one day and a socialist the next. She is just another character she creates. So, she can change that character any time the story isn't going the way she wants.
And she does everything possible to make the world reflect her fantasy. Her fantasy about you. (Through character assassination.) Her fantasy about the past. (By pathological lying.) Her fantasy about herself. (In con artistry.) She couldn't possibly have greater contempt for truth.
Narcissist Sympathizers
I am often amazed at the cavalier attitude of some clinicians and bystanders toward malignant narcissism. They seem so concerned about how they SOUND that they have no concern left for what they're saying. Indeed, one wonders if these people ever hear themselves.
They are so busy trying to sound like nice people that they utter utter nonsense. The cruelty of narcissistic abuse is lost on them. It strikes no chord of empathy in them. They hear about it and just mouth-breathe as if to say, "What's so bad about that?"
Obtuseness is invincible. They talk like it's a mere irritation or aggravation. They say we should make nothing of it and not be angry over it. For, the simpletons cannot think morally and therefore must have a list of dos and don'ts as a cheat sheet to distinguish right from wrong.
Fortunately, good therapists would never tell you to repress your feelings. They would tell you that there are times when you have an obligation to get angry, and that failing to is sometimes the morally reprehensible thing to do. Just as failing to fight is sometimes the morally reprehensible thing to do.
But they aren't saying that to SOUND good, so they aren't as loud as the phonies are.
You can read what you need to know about malignant narcissism in the comments here. Those by the children of narcissists.
They are anonymous, so they have no motive to lie, and the stuff they tell that their abusive parent did to them is too bizarre to be made up. It isn't the kind of thing anyone would make up. In fact, it's antithetical to the kind of thing a person would make up. You can see that. It rings true louder than the Liberty Bell.
Read these accounts of narcissistic abuse and weep. Read back through.
I really want people who think that narcissistic abuse is no big deal to do that. And those who think that narcissists are not bad people and will be fine if you just give them a hug, a musical instrument, and a puppy.
These narcissist sympathizers who say that their victims shouldn't abandon the poor narcissist, because that will make poor little him or her so saaaaaaad (to be without a host to parasitize) - people who say that need a lesson that will teach them where to place their misplaced sympathy. Let them be told they are dirt every day in every way by someone close to them for 20 or 30 years. Let them have their reputation, career, and marriage utterly brought to ruin by character assassination. THEN let's see if they still think it's nothing.
Then let's see how well THEY are handling the life they've been dealt.
Thinking it's funny to force your child to do something you warn him in advance you will beat him for? Have you ever heard of anything more perverted and sadistic than that?
I have it from a narcissist herself that mental cruelty is her game.
Rushing your husband's funeral so that one of his children misses it? After you DROVE him to suicide? People who hear that without it twisting their guts have an empathy problem themselves.
Which must be why they are so callous that they just don't see what's so bad about narcissists.
And then the narcissist immediately shacks up with somebody else to give the knife in his or her kids a twist. That one not only appears in the comments here, I know of that happening once myself. In fact every narcissist I have known who lost a mate immediately (as quickly as fleas abandon a dead rat in search of a new host) hopping into bed with somebody else.
That should be a clue about something to clueless narcissist sympathizers. A clue about what other people are to a narcissist.
Driving people to drink? Driving people to suicide? No big deal? I'll wager that many, if not most, people driven to suicide are driven by a malignant narcissist. That's absolute power over someone = the power to make them kill themselves. I know of three narcissists who did this and fortunately succeeded only in driving to drink, and a third who I think did it and did succeed in driving a teenager to suicide.
Not murder? Not WORSE than murder?
Narcissists do this as lightly as you step on a bug. That's what human beings are to them.
And in treating human beings as subhuman beings, they are treating them inhumanly and failing to recognize humanity. Which means they don't know humanity when they see it. If they were human themselves they would recognize and respect the image and likeness of humanity in human beings.
That's what becoming God has done to them. It was a big fall.
If the abundant evidence about psychopaths is any indication, some narcissists come from happy homes. As for those who don't, hey, if they got even with the parent who abused them, that would be natural. But they deify the abusive parent (as soon as they out of his or her clutches) and take it out on the nicest, lovingest, most vulnerable and defenseless prey they can find.
Come on, everybody knows what that means. They are BAD people. I don't care if it's against your political religion's doctrine to admit that. It's true.
Narcissists are known for making the most mild mannered, gentle, patient, kind, and unassuming people livid with anger. They are known for making people who never hate hate them with a passion.
Jeez, do you suppose there could be a reason for this?
This is just common sense. Let the phonies (on the Web and in the clinics) find some new issue to sound holy on and quit making a farce out of this one. Let them find fault to condemn where it is, instead of where it ain't.
They are so busy trying to sound like nice people that they utter utter nonsense. The cruelty of narcissistic abuse is lost on them. It strikes no chord of empathy in them. They hear about it and just mouth-breathe as if to say, "What's so bad about that?"
Obtuseness is invincible. They talk like it's a mere irritation or aggravation. They say we should make nothing of it and not be angry over it. For, the simpletons cannot think morally and therefore must have a list of dos and don'ts as a cheat sheet to distinguish right from wrong.
Fortunately, good therapists would never tell you to repress your feelings. They would tell you that there are times when you have an obligation to get angry, and that failing to is sometimes the morally reprehensible thing to do. Just as failing to fight is sometimes the morally reprehensible thing to do.
But they aren't saying that to SOUND good, so they aren't as loud as the phonies are.
You can read what you need to know about malignant narcissism in the comments here. Those by the children of narcissists.
They are anonymous, so they have no motive to lie, and the stuff they tell that their abusive parent did to them is too bizarre to be made up. It isn't the kind of thing anyone would make up. In fact, it's antithetical to the kind of thing a person would make up. You can see that. It rings true louder than the Liberty Bell.
Read these accounts of narcissistic abuse and weep. Read back through.
I really want people who think that narcissistic abuse is no big deal to do that. And those who think that narcissists are not bad people and will be fine if you just give them a hug, a musical instrument, and a puppy.
These narcissist sympathizers who say that their victims shouldn't abandon the poor narcissist, because that will make poor little him or her so saaaaaaad (to be without a host to parasitize) - people who say that need a lesson that will teach them where to place their misplaced sympathy. Let them be told they are dirt every day in every way by someone close to them for 20 or 30 years. Let them have their reputation, career, and marriage utterly brought to ruin by character assassination. THEN let's see if they still think it's nothing.
Then let's see how well THEY are handling the life they've been dealt.
Thinking it's funny to force your child to do something you warn him in advance you will beat him for? Have you ever heard of anything more perverted and sadistic than that?
I have it from a narcissist herself that mental cruelty is her game.
Rushing your husband's funeral so that one of his children misses it? After you DROVE him to suicide? People who hear that without it twisting their guts have an empathy problem themselves.
Which must be why they are so callous that they just don't see what's so bad about narcissists.
And then the narcissist immediately shacks up with somebody else to give the knife in his or her kids a twist. That one not only appears in the comments here, I know of that happening once myself. In fact every narcissist I have known who lost a mate immediately (as quickly as fleas abandon a dead rat in search of a new host) hopping into bed with somebody else.
That should be a clue about something to clueless narcissist sympathizers. A clue about what other people are to a narcissist.
Driving people to drink? Driving people to suicide? No big deal? I'll wager that many, if not most, people driven to suicide are driven by a malignant narcissist. That's absolute power over someone = the power to make them kill themselves. I know of three narcissists who did this and fortunately succeeded only in driving to drink, and a third who I think did it and did succeed in driving a teenager to suicide.
Not murder? Not WORSE than murder?
Narcissists do this as lightly as you step on a bug. That's what human beings are to them.
And in treating human beings as subhuman beings, they are treating them inhumanly and failing to recognize humanity. Which means they don't know humanity when they see it. If they were human themselves they would recognize and respect the image and likeness of humanity in human beings.
That's what becoming God has done to them. It was a big fall.
If the abundant evidence about psychopaths is any indication, some narcissists come from happy homes. As for those who don't, hey, if they got even with the parent who abused them, that would be natural. But they deify the abusive parent (as soon as they out of his or her clutches) and take it out on the nicest, lovingest, most vulnerable and defenseless prey they can find.
Come on, everybody knows what that means. They are BAD people. I don't care if it's against your political religion's doctrine to admit that. It's true.
Narcissists are known for making the most mild mannered, gentle, patient, kind, and unassuming people livid with anger. They are known for making people who never hate hate them with a passion.
Jeez, do you suppose there could be a reason for this?
This is just common sense. Let the phonies (on the Web and in the clinics) find some new issue to sound holy on and quit making a farce out of this one. Let them find fault to condemn where it is, instead of where it ain't.
Narcissists and the Language of Babel
Quite a few years ago, I saw a documentary on TV about batterers. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the program or the expert being interviewed, but what he said I think is self evident to anyone who has ever tried to communicate with an abusive person.
What was it? He pointed out that in arguments between the victim and the batterer (not beatings, just arguments), the victim always argued circles around the batterer, beating him hands down. I mean she whupped him.
They actually captured examples on film, from counseling offices and even from cameras placed in the home.
This should be no surprise. Of course she whupped him to shame. Reason was 100% on her side. He either had to concede her points or be totally irrational and blow back a wall of gibberish and bullshit at her, like a character in a Monty Python skit.
Any fair and rational judge of the debate must award the victory to her, by pinning him on every point.
If you live or work with a narcissist, you know that all you ever get is fallacious arguments from them.
But we get so used to the irrational blather of these people that we grow tired of fielding it all and blasting it by exposing it for the nonsense and gobbdygook it is.
So we need to remind ourselves now and then that the way people use language can be a red flag.
I know of a narcissistic administrator who ordered his charges to do despicable and even illegal acts while remaining unaccountable simply by issuing these orders in the Biblical language of Babble.
What is it? It’s confused language, language that confuses things with what they ain’t. I have given examples of this before, like confusing patriotism with nationalism to make patriotism sound like a vice.
If you examine Babble closely, you see that it is nonsense, language as literally meaningless as the babbling of baby. Just noise. Blather.
Nonetheless, listeners get the message the babbler intends from it. How? Through the power of suggestion. And, as they say, Never understimate the power of suggestion.
It’s bullshit, in other words. What writers call gobbledygook. The chief tool of propagandists. A way of saying things without really saying them. A way shooting a sentence through the forest without nicking a single tree. A way to confuse the listener enough that he or she misses the absurdity in what you say.
It works because we are in the habit of fixing other people’s English on the fly. We must, because we all make errors in speaking even our native language on the fly. We start out a sentence one way, see it won’t work, and change some crucial grammatical element like the number of subject or the subject itself mid-sentence. Our listeners follow what we’re trying to say and correctly interpret the sentence anyway.
Experiments have shown that listeners naturally fill in words you leave out, without even realizing that you have left them out. They correct nonsensical phrases to make sense of them.
When, for example, Radar O’Reily rushes in crying, “Major Hoolihan went to get married to Japan!” we are but momentarily thrown overboard and instantly fix his sentence to “Major Hoolihan went to Japan to get married!”
Next time you’re listening to someone, pay attention to how many times you think, “Huh? Oh, he actually means this” or “He actually means that.”
That’s great. But when a particular person requires you to do too much of that, look out: it’s no accident. It just someone blowing a wall of blather at you.
It’s full of extraneous gobbledygook that makes it hard to follow what they are saying. Characteristically, these people put so many miles between the subject and verb, interrupting the thought with everything but the kitchen sink, that by the time your poor cerebral software gets the verb, it has forgotten what the subject was.
You are supposed to get confused and think, “Well, I don’t understand it but it must make sense.”
No it need not make sense! Run a logic check on everything people say before you let it into your head.
The administrator I mentioned above wasn’t nervous at all before an audience. To the contrary, he was in his glory. And he was perfectly capable of speaking perfect English to an audience when he wanted to. But when he wanted to avoid responsibility for what he was saying, he mangled his sentences; he left words and whole phrases out; he started sentences over so many times in the middle of one that there was no way to make English out of that gibberish. And don’t even get me started on the hints and innuendo. His charges understood exactly what he was telling them to do, though any direct quotes you could have supplied law enforcement authorities were nothing but innuendo and incoherent gibberish.
We see this now even in writing. It’s politically incorrect to expect even the most basic standards in email. Blowhards exploit this green light. When educated people, even writers and editors, cannot get through a sentence of email without some unbelievable spelling or grammatical error, or way-off misuse of a word, look out. They are doing that on purpose, to make it seem as though they typed this with blazing speed and cannot be held accountable for making sense or meaning what they say.
Why? Well, because this is email, Baby. And you know the rules of political correctness about email: we babblers can throw up smokescreens, confuse the issues, cloud the issues, sidestep the issues, and utter Nimrodean nonsense as freely in email as we do in speech. And it’s against the rules for you to call us on it. Ha-ha!”
And that’s why the victim blasts every argument of the abuser to smithereens. All she has to do is take his blather one piece at a time and say, “Huh?” exposing it for what it is – bullshit and irrational absurdity.
Narcissists and other abusers never do have a leg to stand on. Reason is never on their side. They never have even a single legitimate point to make. The wall of blather they throw at you is just an attempt to conceal that. It’s like the inky cloud an octopus exudes to conceal its escape route from a predator.
That’s why communication with a narcissist is impossible. Communication is another thing on that long list of things that the poor babies call “threats” to themselves. So, communication with them is impossible simply because they block it, throwing up this wall of flak to prevent anything you say from getting through.
By Kathy Krajco
In the Looking Glass
Recall that another person's attention is a kind of mirror reflecting the image of ourselves we're portraying in the interaction. We all notice when we are making a good impression on somebody. We see it reflected in that person's response to what we're doing and saying. We often adjust our words and behavior to tune that response. People do this in a job interview, for example. They also do this when meeting a potential mate or anyone they wish to favorably impress, such as the traffic cop who just stopped them for speeding or some V.I.P. they're being introduced to.
Playing to the mirror of another person's eye is perfectly normal — under certain circumstances. In fact, it's adaptive. Like scorpions approaching each other as potential mates, or ships at sea or in space, people play this game to smooth the interaction and establish a safe connection.
But we don't like doing this. It's a bit nerve-wracking. And we know it's a game. (See the excellent book The Games People Play by Dr. Eric Berne.) Playing it makes us uncomfortable. And there are limits to how far we will go. We don't mind being civil and friendly or even humble and overly agreeable to avoid topics of conflict and smooth our interaction with a person. But we immediately sense the prostitution in our actions when our hypocrisy sensor goes off. Then our self-respect kicks in. In fact, we prefer the company of intimates and friends — people we can be ourselves with.
Narcissists are different in that they are never themselves. They identify with their image instead. So, they are in game-playing mode 100 percent of the time. And they are not trying to make a safe connection. Or a good impression. The reflection they're playing for is grandiose — not necessarily pleasing, friendly, or good.
For example, if someone looks at you in fear, that reflects an image of you as powerful. Being powerful is grandiose, so a narcissist really likes to see people looking at him in fear. In fact, he'd rather see people looking at him in fear and trepidation than in admiration, because it's grander to be powerful than to be merely admirable.
This is why a narcissist who becomes a dictator becomes a Nero, Stalin, Hitler, or Saddam Hussein. These men were just narcissists capitalizing on the fact that no one could hold them to account for anything they did. So, when they gained absolute power, the angel-faced mask came off, and they concentrated on making everyone just plain terrified of them.
Because that's the biggest ego boost, all narcissists bully and intimidate whomever they can whenever they can. Some don't dare bully and intimidate anyone outside their immediate family. Others go around intimidating everyone in their presence so that a hush falls around them wherever they go, because when people fear to say anything — ANYTHING — he might overhear.
It's amazing how charged the atmosphere around such a person is. The cliché that "the tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife" is no overstatement. You'd swear that any moment somebody is going to crack and scream, "This is crazy! What are we all so afraid of this guy for?" But nobody ever does.
I know of two who did that daily for decades to everyone in their workplace, even their superiors. A normal person would feel terrible if people reacted to his approach that way. But to a narcissist, it's nirvana. Because that's the way people act when God walks into a room.
Notice how abnormal this behavior is. Normal people don't like to see others looking at them in fear. That would hurt and deeply disturb a normal person. So, we almost never behave in a manner to evoke fear. We do that only (a) while engaged in a fight, to persuade the other party that he might as well give up or (b) when we feel threatened and are posturing to avoid a fight by making that other party think twice about attacking. In other words, we use fear-evoking behaviors for an essentially peaceful purpose — to discourage fighting. That's why the moment the other party backs off, the steam stops coming out of our nose and ears.
In fact we see the same thing throughout the animal kingdom: animals are ferocious one second and acting like nothing happened the next.
But narcissists use fear-evoking behavior out of the blue to threaten and thus initiate strife. That's because they have a completely different purpose — to make themselves feel grand by intimidating whomever they can whenever they can (and get away with it).
Unlike us, they don't seem to mind strife. I don't think it's an unpleasant experience for them, like it is for us. In fact, they seem to enjoy it. After all, it gets them what they want. And they don't want to get along; they just want to get their way. They don't want to be liked by anyone; they just want to be obeyed, feared, or admired by others. Like children, they want what they want and they want it NOW. They never think ahead to future consequences.
I'm sure they know that strife is an unpleasant experience for us, one that we try to avoid. So, they menace us with it as a way to say, "If you don't do what I want, I'll start a fight. And how will you like that?"
Manipulation. It works too, doesn't it?
So, the reflection a narcissist plays you for varies greatly. The common denominator is that it always reflects an image of him or her that is grandiose.
Narcissists want you to look at them in admiration, adulation. They want you to look at them approvingly, gratefully. They want you to look at them in awe. Oooh, that's a good one — very grandiose. They want to see a reflection of themselves as magnificent in your eyes. They want you to hang on their every word. They want you to never remove your eyes from them. They want you to reflect their grand importance by carefully discerning and attending to their every need, without them even having to ask for what they want. For, when you wait on them hand and foot, you reflect an image of his highness that is majestic.
Therefore, grandiosity need not be reflected in the mirror of someone's pleased or admiring face. In fact, as every chest-thumping rapist knows, it is best reflected in the outraged, desolate and wretched face of someone who can do nothing to stop him from demolishing her for maximum impact.
That's the victim, but the rapist's reflection in it is that of one who is so powerful as to have such a demolishing impact on her.
It's a rare narcissist who can vaunt himself on just anyone though. So, a narcissist plays different people/mirrors for different kinds of grandiose reflections. He'll play a priest for one kind of reflection, his buddy in a bar for another kind, his boss for yet another kind, and so on. As the narcissist Sam Vaknin explains it, each person in his world is like a different kind of flower that the narcissist (a bee) visits to exploit for a different type of nectar. That's as good an analogy as any.
I knew one narcissist that I wish people could see on a split screen, with his persona in a church compared with his persona in a tavern. The difference was so extreme that the show would be hilarious! If his bar buddy saw him in church and his priest saw him in a bar, neither would believe it could be the same person.
By Kathy Krajco
Cyberstalking and Online Harassment
The Internet is a wonderful place to work, play and study. But don't let that fact make you blind to its down side. The Net is no more and no less than a mirror of the real world, and that means it also contains electronic versions of real life problems. Stalking and harassments are problems that many people especially women, are familiar with in real life. These problems can also occur on the Internet, in what has become know as "cyberstalking" or "online harassment".
If you thought that owning a computer and having an Internet account would make a person considerate and respectful; then think again. There are just as many predators in cyberspace as anywhere else. It is only their methods that have changed. Some predators might harass you by trailing around after you in live channels like lovesick puppies; unable to take NO for an answer and pestering you with email messages. In other cases this harassment may become a systematic campaign against you; where your harasser bombards you with threatening messages of hate and obscenities. Although distressful enough, the situation can even escalate to the point where your harasser traces your home address and telephone number; causing you to face not just emotional distress but also physical danger.
It should come as no surprise to you that the "bad guys" are making use of this wonderful technology to harass people and prey on the innocent. Why wouldn't they? Not all bad guys are street punks with no education. Some are university graduates with computers.
There have been many examples of cyberstalking crossing over to "IRL" stalking (In Real Life stalking). Sadly, those users who have been victims of cyberstalking, tell a similar story: That no one took the harassment seriously until it became "IRL". Cyberstalking can be a devastating experience for a person online. As they discover that the difference between the "Brave New World" of the Internet and the Real World is that in the real world people listen when you tell them you are being stalked and harassed. In cyberspace people say things like "well just turn off your computer". Such incomprehension is common. "You can't be hurt on the Internet - it's just words" is commonly heard and "If you can't handle it, then you shouldn't be online" is another commonly hear comment. The online stalking is just as frightening and distressing as off-line stalking, and just as illegal.
Men and women may be stalked on-line, but statistics show that the majority of victims are female. Women are the minority of the Internet population which means that their attention is generally a fierce competition between male users. This part of the Internet, resembles crude online single bars, with little in the way of politeness. Unfortunately the immediate and relative anonymity of live chat communications facilities enable users to be rude and insensitive. Cyberstalking and online harassment are also much easier to practice than real life stalking. In cyberspace, a stalker can harass their victim without ever have to leave the comfort of their own home, or have any witnesses to the incidents.
One reason for the lack of successful prosecution of cyberstalkers, is that there usually is a lack of sufficient evidence available for the officials to warrant "probable cause" in order to further investigate. Many law enforcement agencies are Internet illiterate, therefore unaware that the problem could and does exist. To date, the only legislation regarding cyberstalking is the Communications Decency Act, enacted by the US Congress on 2-1-96, and is still being challenged in the Supreme Court. The real life, anti-stalking laws deal with actual attacks, and until such an attack happens, are actually very limited in defending yourself, or preventing any progression of the stalker. There is very little done about threats or harassment in the early stages.
Online users are vulnerable to being targeted as cyberstalking victims in three areas.
1) Live Chats (AOL, Yahoo, Skype, Messenger) or IRC (Internet Relay Chat): in which a user talks live with other users. This is the most common place for cyberstalking.
2) Message boards, Blogs, Reunion Sites and Newsgroups: a user interacts with others by posting messages, conversing back and forth.
3) Email box: a user has the ability to write anything and even attach files to the email.
Example: a user enables your email, via live chat or newsgroup postings, then emails you with obscenities, and attaches porno pictures. A common area regarding cyberstalking is at the "edu" sites, which are educational institutes, such as colleges and universities.
One user might know another user personally and interacts on the Internet anonymously, so starting the cyberstalk. One student can enter the Internet as easily as another student, therefore not letting his true identity be known. And since user names can be unknown alias, who would ever know the identity or be able to prove the identity. In such cases, the stalker usually has the ability to trace the victim's phone number and sometimes the address of his victim. Another includes interpreting a posting you may have made on a message board regarding your opinion as an "attack" if it differs from theirs. The stalker then becomes fixated on proving you wrong.
Other forms of online harassment:
1) Unsolicited email
2) Live Chat
3) Hostile Usenet Postings about you
4) Spreading vicious untrue rumors about you (as opposed to telling the Truth at exposure sites)
5) Leaving untrue messages on site guestbooks
6) Impersonation of you online
7) Electronic sabotage, (sending viruses, etc)
8) Threatening phone calls
9) Threatening mail
10)Vandalism of property
11)Physical attack.
There are many precautions that you can take NOW to protect yourself in advance from the unwelcome attention of a cyberstalker. Remember: The goal of a cyberstalker is CONTROL. Your task is to reverse this situation. Keep control of who you communicate with on the Internet. To do this, you may like to consider the advice below. Remember, the time to deal with cyberstalking is before you become a target.
CYBERSTALKING PREVENTION TIPS
If you are being harassed online by a cyberstalker, the chances are that you are not the first person they have stalked. Cyberstalkers, like other predators, are opportunists. They know what they are looking for and how to get it. "Stalking" is a "power" crime, the stalkers has the power to make you suffer and enjoys that power. Stalkers' self-esteem rises when they attack your self- esteem. The more pain and suffering they can cause, the better they feel about themselves. The best protection against becoming a target of stalking is not to reveal anything personal that you might have in common. Often, stalkers are mentally unstable, paranoid, delusional, and extremely jealous, and have extremely low self-esteem. Stalkers may display selfishness, malice, sadism, be very cunning and arrogant. Most are anti-social, and to put it in layman's terms, be a "control freak", enjoying manipulating other people. They crave power over others, and enjoy the type power that hurts other people. harassment is common enough in live chat on the Internet. The three most common ways it can start are:
1) sexual harassment (or innuendo);
2) a flame war (argument that gets out of hand);
3)users that show their technological power by attacking innocent users, channels or even networks.
Those who regularly start flame wars online are rude and obnoxious people, often having poor social and communication skills. Their idea of fun is throwing obscene abuse at another just to upset them. These kind of harassers are often loners who don''t have a companion and their attempts to attract your attention is often clumsy and crude. Care should always be taken when turning the away, as the are highly sensitive to rejection and humiliation, and could cause a vendetta to start against you. Understand that although clumsy and crude in most cases, the stalker is not stupid, they are very organized and usually experienced in their war against you.
Stalking is a form of obsession. The difference between a normal cyber harasser and a cyberstalker, is this: harasser moves on to others and forgets you and a stalkers will come back to stalk you another day.
The Internet enables the stalker, his powers, in most cases, merely a knowledge of the technology is all required to have the ability to stalk another user. Most stalkers, having been rejected desire to instill fear in users, therefore, upsetting the normal enjoyment of the Internet.
Note that educated, smooth talking, responsible people also can be stalkers, appearing to be a perfect gentleman or lady with perfect manners. The major "clue" to cyberstalking, is when the stalker pushes for information regarding you personal life, private life, or life away from the net. Rule of thumb, as it may be referred to is: "NEVER GIVE ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION ACROSS THE INTERNET!"
Online meetings should stay online, the individuals are, in fact, strangers. Online, the physical warning signs usually in the "body language" are missing. Also the clues of personality within the voice and eyes are missing. All there is to determine a personality is the skill in which they type there messages. There is no code of honor in protecting privacy on the Internet. Each user should therefore take steps to protect their privacy online.
1) never specify gender
2) use neutral-gender names
3) change your password often
4) edit your online profiles often
5) review your email headers and signatures often
6) use secure chat programs that do not permit tracking of your isp#
7) use a good chat network
8) use standard names, passive names to as to not draw attention to you
9) use anonymous remailers
10)use an anonymous browser
11)use encryption to authenticate email
12) discuss privacy with your server.
And last: learn your technology. REMEMBER: PROTECT YOURSELF!
Top 10 Relationship Wreckers
1. Neglecting Your Partner (ignoring, workaholism, addictions):A primary function of a relationship is to provide companionship and to meet each other’s needs. When other activities, interests or preoccupations interfere with our availability, we can wind up short-changing our partner. This can be thought of as absenteeism or being MIA. Taking an inventory and making adjustments in how we spend our time is the first step in correcting this problem. Treat your partner as the important person they are by spending enough quality time together to satisfy each of your requirements in this area and to maintain your connection.
2. Depriving Your Partner (not being attentive, expressive, affectionate, supportive, caring, loving):Being there physically is not enough. We cannot expect our relationship to thrive if we withdraw emotionally for extended periods of time. In order to be fully present, we must be aware of our partner and be willing to show how we feel both verbally and non-verbally. Expressing love though affection and caring behaviors are crucial to keeping a relationship strong and vibrant. Small regular doses of intimacy will usually suffice, and the most important times of day to communicate positively are upon waking, upon reuniting after a long day, and before going to sleep.
3. Dishonesty & Betrayal (infidelity, lying):Most people are aware that the foundation of any relationship is T-R-U-S-T. In no relationship is trust more important than in a relationship between mates, except for a parent and dependent child relationship. Cheating and lying breaks down the basis for a relationship, and often results in its demise. A problem of this nature is serious, and resolving it must be a top priority if the relationship is to survive. Couples counseling is highly recommended in order to facilitate the changes that are needed.
4. Attacking Your Partner (blaming, abuse – physical, emotional, sexual):Aggressive communication is simply unacceptable, especially if the abuse is getting physical. Physical or sexual abuse are deal-breakers in a marriage, and should prompt a permanent separation. The abusive partner needs to get professional help to learn skills in anger management, in order to gain and consistently demonstrate better control over his or her emotions and behavior. Even if the help is sought and progress is made, the risk of recurrence remains high, so in most cases, the abused partner should not return to the relationship. Returning serves to reinforce the abusive behavior, leading to increased severity and frequency of subsequent abuse. Instead, the abused partner should also seek help, and work through issues that have potential to lead one into another abusive relationship. Verbally blaming, accusing, and insulting your partner are less extreme forms of destructiveness, but are not OK either, and assertiveness training can provide the essential skills for healthy communication.
5. Scapegoating (taking your anger or frustration out on you partner):We all know that it’s not right to kick the dog after a hard day at work, so why do it to your partner? Being held responsible for things that are out of our control is the most stressful of conditions, and that is what we do to our partner when we scapegoat them. Rather than hurt the ones you love, do what it takes to meet the real problem head-on, as effectively as you can. If you are unsure of how to address a problem, the strong and mature thing to do is to ask for help and support from trusted sources (i.e., a friend, relative, or therapist).
6. Negativism (nitpicking, nagging, criticizing):In order to have a good relationship, the positives must outweigh the negatives by a large percentage. If negativity is creeping into your relationship, it is like water seeping into walls, eventually weakening the structure. People usually feel good around others who are upbeat and positive, as well as those who help them to feel good about themselves. Bringing a negative spirit into your relationship crowds out the positive. However, pushing aside or neglecting to address real problems is not the answer either, and can be just as harmful to relationship health as dwelling on the negative. So pick your battles wisely, strive to communicate effectively, and practice cooperative negotiation.
7. Gossiping (telling family or friends about your problems but not addressing them with your partner):That’s right, if you are talking about the problems in your relationship with friends or relatives but not working on improving the situation, that amounts to gossip. Gossip is not a productive way to handle problems, and can result in additional problems. For instance, your partner may feel betrayed that you revealed sensitive material to others that cause him or her to be embarrassed or uncomfortable around them. Also, if you promote a negative side of your partner or your relationship, others may get a distorted view, and changes in their attitudes and behavior may follow. Others may remember your conflicts long after you and your partner have gotten past them. Instead, work on improving your communication skills. Turn toward your partner, not away. If you need help, seek out the assistance of an objective third party such as a therapist who works with couples. When it comes to your needs, stop complaining and start asking!
8. Controlling Your Partner (“my way” or else, perfectionism, trying to change your partner, possessiveness):Wanting things to be a certain way and having preferences are completely natural and even healthy. However, when this tendency becomes extreme and starts to encroach on the rights, needs and desires of others, it can cause major havoc. Freedom of will and self-determination are basic needs, and when these are being threatened, negative reactions may include anger, resentment, and/or rebellion. If the need to control is a problem in your relationship, identify the motivations behind it and work towards dealing with those issues rather than acting them out with your partner.
9. Putting Yourself First (self-centeredness, selfishness, entitlement):It’s not “all about me,” folks. Letting one’s self interests take priority in an unbalanced way can be toxic to a partnership. The other person usually winds up feeling deprived, resentful, and unimportant. Furthermore, the more self-involved you are, the more you take your relationship for granted, the less you appreciate your partner, and the more alone you actually are. So if your relationship is slanted in this way, you also lose out, because you experience less of the joy that a true connection brings. You and you partner both get more from the relationship through reciprocity in giving and receiving.
10. Putting Yourself Last (self-neglect, passivity, self sacrifice):Martyrs are seldom happy. More often, they are angry, bitter, resentful, depressed and burned out. This is not to say that you should not consider others and be thoughtful in meeting their needs. But having a healthy relationship involves factoring your own needs and desires into the equation. You teach people how to treat you, and if you act like a doormat, you can’t completely blame someone if they wipe their feet on you. Learn how to stand up for yourself, practice assertive communication, ask and allow others to meet your needs, and take care of yourself as much as you take care of your loved ones.
Source
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Seventeen Masks/Faces of the Psychopath
Described below are 16 different expressions of psychopathy, each focusing largely on the psychopath's lifestyle and habitual ways of interacting with other people. Behind each of these descriptions it is assumed that a universal psychopathic structure (characterized by narcissism, primitive impulsivity, along with deficits in emotion, empathy, guilt, and morality) belongs to each type. These type descriptions have been gathered from a variety of sources and amalgamated to form the collection. Most psychopaths are combinations or overlaps of these types:
1. THE LIAR/CONTRACT BREAKER
This Psychopath is a pathological liar who will often lie for no reason at all. He/she is usually skilful at this, but sometimes fails to remember. This P will agree to anything then turn around and do just the opposite. Legal/custody agreements and normal social protocol mean nothing to him/her. Technically, these psychopaths never lie because lying is not a relevant issue for them. The idea or image of truth doesn't exist with the psychopath, so he cannot lie…. there is for him no difference. He says what's convenient, what comes to his mind, but never figures out 'Is that now really true, or not'? There is something in normal people which wants to see the truth and wants to be truthful, but if that internal sense is missing then the word 'lie' is senseless.
A psychopath, for instance, may have gone to the bank and 'conned' the bank manager in order to get money, and what he or she said to the banker in regard to that is not necessarily concealment or lying, it's just 'part of the story' that goes with getting the money, and he does that very well and that's the adapted or successful psychopath. He says what the banker wants to hear and for the psychopath who says it, that's it -there is no truth or lying. The psychopath sometimes has an understanding that other people distingish between lies and truth and will often adjust himself and behave in accordance with these facts. But the 'liar/contract breaker' psychopath completely refuses to recognise the social sense of lies/truth, and lives only by saying and believing "what is convenient" in any given moment.
2. THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC "CLIMBER"
Frequently occupationally-successful, this P will rise to the top in work and social circles. No one knows the hell that his/her family lives through. They are often gifted and intelligent in their chosen field, but must be in absolute control. They will manipulate others to further their ideas. They can be a vindictive bullies in the office. They have no genuine social conscience. Can be suspicious and paranoid. This disingenuous psychopath's behaviour is typified by a veneer of friendliness and sociability. Although making a superficially good impression upon aquaintances, this P frequently shows a more characteristic unreliability, impulsive tendencies, and deep resentments and moodiness among family members and other close associates They are often extremely verbally gifted and charismatic, and everyone may love him/her -- except those who truly know the demon he/she is. This wheeler-dealer will leave others holding the bag.
3. THE SEXUAL PSYCHOPATH
This P will display an impulsive hypersexuality (male or female), and frequently expresses a polymorphic sexual range - eg., pornography and masturbation, promiscuity, homosexuality, and various paraphilias - including possible incestual tendencies and perversions.
The sexual psychopath takes a predatory approach towards his targets, including stalking behaviors. This type may derive his sexual pleasure from a single theme such as serial rape or pedophilia, in which his primary sexual aim will be to dominate, to use, to control, and to subjugate another person (often someone weaker and less able to manage the situation) in the service of a gradiose self. According to researcher Darwin Dorr, "the majority of pedophiles are psychopathic, or manifest a significant degree of psychological characteristics of psychopathy." Of the psychopathic pedophile, Robert Hare writes, 'The number of children who are sexually abosed by parents, other relatives, child-care workers, clergymen, and teachers is truly staggering. Unlike other abusers, many of whom were themselves abused as children, are psychologically disturbed, and often experience anguish about what they are doing, psychopathic abusers are unmoved - "I just take what's available," said one of our subjects, convicted of sexually assaulting his girlfreind's eight-year-old daughter.' For the sexual psychopath, then, all people may be targets, including both the very young and the very elderly, and both genders, who are often targeted for sex without consent.
4. THE EXPLOSIVE PSYCHOPATH
The explosive psychopath is differentiated from other psychopathic variants by the unpredictable and sudden emergence of hostility. These "adult tantrums," characterized by uncontrollable rage and fearsome attacks upon others, occur frequently against members of the psychopath's own family.
Such explosive behavior erupts precipitously, before its intensive nature can be identified and constrained. Feeling thwarted and threatened, these psychopaths respond in a volatile and hurtful way, bewildering others by the abrupt change that has overtaken them, saying unforgivable things, striking unforgettable blows. As with children, tantrums are instantaneous reactions to cope with frustration or fear. Although the explosive behavior is often effective in intimidating others into silence or passivity, it is not primarily an instrumental act, but rather an outburst that serves to discharge pent-up feelings of humiliation and degredation.
5. THE VIOLENT PSYCHOPATH
Especially distinctive is this type of psychopath's tyrannical desires is their willingness to go out of the way to be unmerciful and inhumane. Often calculating and cool, these psychopaths are selective in their choice of victims, identifying individuals who are likely to submit rather than to react with counterviolence. Quite frequently, they display a disproportionate level of abusiveness and intimidation, in order to impress not only their victims but those who observe the psychopaths' unconstrained power. More than any other type, these individuals derive deep satisfaction in creating suffering and in seeing its effect on others. In contrast to the explosive psychopaths, for whom hostility serves primarily as a discharge of pent-up feelings, the tyrannical psychopaths employ violence instrumentally as a means to inspire terror and intimidation. These experiences then become the object of self-conscious reflection, providing the psychopaths with a sense of deep satisfaction. This P has often turns into a demon. Their objective is often watching us dangle while they inflicts emotional, verbal and occasionally physical cruelty. Their enjoyment is all too obvious. He/she may be a sexual sado-maso. Women, children, men, the elderly, (and even animals) - anyone with any vulnerabiliies are his target
6. THE CHARMER, OR "SOUL MATE"
This Psychopath will come on strong, sweep us off our feet, says he/she has the same interests, wants to marry us quickly. This P may appear helpful, comforting by their feigned 'idealization' of us phase, but it never lasts. Jekyll always turns into Hyde eventually. This P is aware that you will be drawn closer by his/her relaxing aura and lack of inhibitions. This kind of P is aware that non-psychopaths are tortured by their usual neurotic compulsions, and doubt's, and guilts, and inhibitions, and that he/she can us offer an atmosphere where we are temporarily free of such tiring emotions (free like the P). When you have this kind of psychopath in front of you it's lovely, it's great, it's relaxing. Nothing feels quite as relaxing as having dinner with this psychopath because then you feel absolutely great and those darned horrible emotional states fall away, especially when having a few drinks with them, it's the greatest thing you can do, and they make you feel absolutely at peace. That's part of their charm, and it's almost as if they are graced with a kind of charisma, which is why so many women and men fall for psychopaths. The psychopath has no inhibitions, and this type can play up to achieve his sexual aims by ascertaining and telling you everything you want to hear. He will talk to a woman who is interested in poetry about poetry. He doesn't care about poetry but he will quote poets. The female psychopath will take a great interest in a man's work and talk to him for hours. She doesn't really care about his work, but will charm him with her interest. They will be romantic, invite you to candle-lit dinners, compliment you, and when they have you hooked they will drop the charm-game for the more selfish lifestyle for which they are well known.
7. THE THIEF OR "COVETOUS PSYCHOPATH"
In the covetous psychopath, we see a distilled form an essential feature of the DSM's antisocial personality disorder, and the ICD's syssocial personality disorder: aggrandizement. These individuals feel that life has not "given them their due"; that they have been deprived of their rightful level of love, support, or material rewards; that others have received more than their share; and that they personally were never given the bounties of the good life. Thus, they are driven by envy and a desire for retribution - a wish to take back what they have been deprived of by destiny. Through acts of theft or destruction, they compensate themselves for the emptiness of their own lives, dismissing with smug entitlement their violations of the social order. They act on the rationalization that they alone must restore the karmic imbalance with which life has burdened them.
For those who are merely somewhat resentful, and for whom some conscious controls remain intact, small transgressions and petty acquisitions often suffice to blunt the expression of more extreme characteristics. For the more severely disordered, however, the usurpation of others' earned achievements and possessions becomes the highest reward. Here, the pleasure lies in taking rather than in having. Like hungry animals pursuing prey, covetous psychopaths have an enormous drive, a rapaciousness. They manipulate others and treat them as pawns in their power games. Although they have little compassion for the effects of their behaviors, feeling little or no guilt for their actions, they remain at heart quite insecure about their power and their possessions; they never feel that enough has been aquired to make up for earlier deprivations. Regardless of their achievements, they remain ever jealous and envious, pushy and greedy, presenting ostentatious displays of materialism and conspicuous consumption. For the most pat, they are completely self-centered and self-indulgent, often profligate and wasteful, unwilling to share with others for fear that they will take again what was so desperately desired in early life. Hence, such psychopaths never achieve a deep sense of contentment. They feel unfulfilled, empty, and forlorn, regardless of their successes, and remain forever dissatisfied and insatiable. Believing they will continue to be deprived, these psychopaths show minimal empathy for those who are exploited and deceived. Some may become successful entrepreneurs, exploiters of others as objects to satisfy their desires.
Here an active exploitiveness, manifested through greed and the appropriation of others' possessions, becomes a central motivating force. The covetous psychopaths experience not only a deep and pervasive sense of emptiness - a powerful hunger for the love and recognition not received in early life - but also an insecurity that they perhaps really are intrinsically less than others, somehow deserving of life's marginal dispensations.
8. THE QUIET PSYCHOPATH
This Psychopath is socially withdrawn, often dirty, unkempt. Odd thinking is observed. This P is occasionally insecure and irresolute, perhaps even faint hearted and cowardly. Psychopathic aggression in this variant, when present, represents a paradoxical response to felt dangers and fears, intended to show persecutors that one is not anxious or weak, and will not succumb to external pressure or coercion. Such craven and cowardly individuals are spineless psychopaths. These personalities commit violent acts as a means of overcoming fearfulness and of securing refuge. For them, aggression is not instrinsically rewarding, but is instead essentially a counterphobic act. Anticipating real danger, projecting hostile fantasies, spineless types feel it is best to strike first, hoping thereby to forestall their antagonists.
9. THE BRAINWASHER
This Psychopath can charismatically charm and manipulate groups of people to achieve his goal. Often found in religion and politics. His goals: manipulation, control, compliance, money, position, attention. He masterfully targets the naive and vulnerable.
10. THE RISK TAKER/THRILLSEEKER
This Psychopath never learns from his past follies. He is doomed to forever repeat bad judgment after bad judgment. Poor impulse control is a hallmark. This type of psychopath often engages in risk taking for itself - for the excitement it provides, and for the sense of feeling alive and involved in life, rather than for such purposes as material gain or defense of reputation. Many of these individuals respond before thinking, act impulsively, and behave in an unreflective and uncontrolled manner. Beyond such simple impulsiveness, however, the risk-taking psychopaths are in addition substantially fearless, unblanched by events that most people experience as dangerous or frightening. In contrast to many psychopaths, whose basic motivations are largely aggrandizement and revenge, these individuals are driven by the need for excitement and stimulation, for adventures that are instrinsically treacherous. They are, in effect, thrill seekers, easily infatuated by opportunities to prove their mettle or open their possibilities, The factors that make them psychopathic are the undependability and irresponsibility of their actions, and their disdain for the effects of their behaviours on others as they pursue a restless chase to fulfill one capricious whim after another. The introverted variation of this type may turn more specifically towards substance abuse - alchohol, heroin, speed, or whater drug - as a way to get his thrills and excitement without the more overt behaviors of the former.
These daredevils are attracted to thrills like lemmings to cliffs. Look for: Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. They will draw you in with: Fun, excitement, and adorable adolescent rebelliousness. They will drain you dry by: Overdoing everything exciting, and underdoing everything else. Thrillseeker P's are the one's you see everyday: Cowboys, cowgirls, day traders, party animals, rebels without a cause, and that one lover you just can't seem to forget. DEFENSIVE STRATEGY: Keep your brain engaged even when theirs are turned off. Especially then.
11. THE PARANOID PSYCHOPATH
This Psychopath is suspicious of everything and everyone. Usually there's no reason. He is terrified of exposure and may be potential dangerous if threat of exposure is imminent. This P will often accuse others of wrong-doing, and will never accept responsibility. It doesn't matter whether he made the mess or not, someone else must take the blame. A master at projection. Their features frequently blend with those of the paranoid personality disorder. They are characterized best by their autocratic power orientation and by their mistrust, resentment, and envy of others. Underlying these features is a ruthless desire to vindicate themselves for past wrongs by cunning revenge or callous force, if necessary.
Left to their own ruminations, they begin to imagine a plot in which every facet of the environment plays a threatening and treacherous role. Moreover, through the intrapsychic mechanism of projection, they attribute their own venom to others, ascribing to them the malice and ill will they feel within themselves. As the line between objective antagonism and imagined hostility becomes thin, the belief takes hold that others are intentionally persecuting them. Not infrequently, persecutory delusions combine with delusions of grandeur; however, these later beliefs play a secondary role among these psychopaths, in contrast to their primacy among fanatic paranoid personalities.
Preeminent among malignant psychopaths is their need to retain their independence and cling tenaciously to the belief in their own self-worth. Their need to protect their autonomy and strength may be seen in the content of their persecutory delusions. Malevolence on the part of others is viewed as neither casual or random; rather, it is seen as designed to intimidate, offend, and undermine the individuals' self-esteem. "They" are seeking to weaken the psychopaths' "will," to destroy their power, to spread lies, to thwart their talents, to control their thoughts, and to immobilize and subjugate them. These psychopaths dread losing their self-determination; their persecutory fantasies are filled with fears of being forced to submit to authority, of being made soft and pliant, and of being tricked to surrender their self-determination
12. THE 'BAD BOY' OR 'BAD GIRL' ANTISOCIAL PSYCHOPATH
This type of Psychopath is considered the archetypical delinquent, openly pursuing a diverse range of antisocial behaviors and often in trouble with the law. The antisocial psychopath is the main type found in prisons, whose availability for psychological testing results in a disproportionate representation of this type in psychopathy descriptions. The American 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual' (DSM) description of psychopathy is based on this group of offenders, to whom the manual gives the name 'antisocial personality disorder'. Descriptive criteria for this category are as follows:
1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
2. deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another
13. THE USED CAR SALESMAN (OR WOMAN)
The used-car salesman is a metaphor for the psychopath who can sell you anything, even themselves. Unlike the charmer above, this psychopath uses a quick talking 'sales-pitch' to catch people out. Their main techniques are: (a). Do it because you like me - It's easy to like these types. In the short period of time when there is some doubt as to whether you are going to give them what they want, these psychopaths can sprinkle with wit and glow and synthetic kindness. The display usually ends three seconds after you give in, but while it lasts it smells sweet as cherry blossoms on a warm spring day. The main reason that people like other people is that they perceive them to be similar to themselves. These P's usually begin their sales pitch by establishing a perception of similarity. They watch you closely. They ask questions about who you are, what you like, and what you think, and then profess to like and believe the same sorts of things. Unless you are paying attention, their probes and ploys can seem like innocent chit-chat. (b). Do it to reciprocate - These types would have you believe that because they gave you something, you owe them something back. In their view, compliments are like free samples those motherly types hand out in grocery stores. The purpose is not to nourish you, but to get you to buy. (c). Do it because everybody else is doing it - This person will try to convince you that you are 'part of the crowd' or 'are in the group' of whatever craven scheme they are enticing you to join. (d). This offer is good for a limited time only - These individuals know that anything sought after or scarce takes on a value far beyond its intrinsic worth, and will use this knowledge to push your buttons. (e). Do it to be consistent - Being consistent in our behaviors and choices helps provide the important feeling of selfhood. But foolish consistency is the psychological principle that makes manipulation possible. People also try to maintain an internal sense of consistency between their actions and beliefs. This is hard enough to do without careful thought. It's almost impossible with a psychopath trying to confuse your perceptions about who you are and what you believe by making you cross one little line after another. (f) You can believe me, I'm an authority - These psychopaths know that people are likely to do what authority figures tell them. (g). Do it or else - This P knows that one of the main reasons people listen to an authority figure is the fear that they will be punished if they don't. These are just some of the techniques the used-car salesman P will use, but use them he will in a great variety of situations - even with friends and family members, this psychopath will apply his hard sell to get what he wants.
14. THE MURDERER OR SERIAL KILLER
This malevolent subtype is one of the least attractive of the psychopathic variants. These individuals are particularly vindictive and hostile; their retributive impulses are discharged in a hateful and destructive defiance of conventional social life. Distrustful of others and anticipating betrayal and punishment, they have aquired a cold-blooded ruthlessness, an intense desire to gain revenge for the real or imagined mistreatment to which they were subjected in childhood. Here we see a sweeping rejection of tender emotions and a deep suspicion that others' efforts at goodwill are merely ploys to deceive and undo them. They may assume a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, a readiness to lash out at those whom they wish to destroy or can use as scapegoats for their revengeful impulses. Many are fearless and guiltless, inclined to anticipate and search out betrayal and punitiveness on the part of others. The primary psychopathic characteristics of these individuals blend with those of the sadistic or paranoid personality (or both), reflecting not only a deep sense of deprivation and a desire for compensatory retribution, but also an intense suspiciousness and hostility. Many murderers and serial killers fit this psychopathic pattern. Such persons might be described as belligerent, mordant, rancorous, vicious, malignant, brutal, callous, truculent, and vengeful.
To "prove" their courage, malevolent psychopaths may even court punishment. Rather than serving as a deterrent, however, punishment often reinforces their desire for retribution. In positions of power, they often brutalize others to confirm their self-image of strength. If they are faced with consistent failure, beaten down in efforts to dominate and control others, or finding aspirations far outdistancing their luck, their feelings of frustration, resentment, and anger mount to a point where their controls give way to raw brutality or secretive acts of vengeful hostility. Spurred by repeated rejection and driven by an increasing need for retribution, aggressive impulses will surge into the open. At these times, the psychopaths' behaviors may become outrageously and flagrantly antisocial. Not only do they show minimal guilt or remorse for their violent acts, but they may instead display an arrogant contempt for the rights of others.
What distinguishes malevolent psychopaths is their capacity to understand guilt and remorse, if not necessarily to experience it. Although they are capable of giving a perfectly rational explanation of ethical concepts - that is, they know the difference between right and wrong - they seem nevertheless incapable of feeling it. These psychopaths often relish menacing others, making them cower and withdraw. They are combative and seek to bring more pressure upon their opponents than their opponents are willing to tolerate or to bring against them. Most make few concessions and are inclined to escalate as far as necessary, never letting go until others succumb. In contrast to other subtypes, however, malevolent psychopaths recognize the limits of what can be done in their own self-interest. They do not lose self-conscious awareness of their actions, and press forward only if their goals of retribution and destructiveness are likely to be achieved. Accordingly, their adversarial stance is somewhat contrived and works as a bluffing mechanism to ensure that others will back off. Infrequently, actions are taken that may lead to misjudgment and counterreaction in these matters.
15. THE MORALIST OR SAINT
This Psychopath proclaims his high moral standing, and other people are seen as immoral. He wants justice for society. "Hang 'em high" he says about the murderer on the 6:00 news. These P's may be found in the professions of school teacher, prison officer, religious leader (or devout attendant), manager of an orphanage or hospital for the mentally ill, or similar jobs which require an morally responsible presentation. They may be very quick to exploit corrupt political or social situations as an excuse for being brutal and cruel, political situations like those seen in Nazi Germany, or Apartheid South Africa, which supply a socially sanctioned way to enact their pathology. When this P is not being 'watched', he/she often lies, cheats, schemes, corrupts, abuses, deceives, controls, manipulates, and torments, while portraying himself to be the morally upstanding victim when questions are asked. This P is a consumate image maker and will flaunt all credentials and accomplishments, often bullying his/her family into perfect presentation for the public, in order to reinforce his/her position as a paragon of goodness. Gaining admiration, attention, even glances from others, and evoking envy are central ploys. These 'morally compensated' psychopaths cannot depend upon love because, like all psychopaths, they have a severe deficit in the area of emotion. Instead, their egos work out a moral system which is fool-proof in any and every situation. The result, as paradoxical as it may seem, is usually a well-developed outward morality but one woefully lacking in love. Such compensated psychopaths continually and at all costs uphold moral conventions, fanatically defending their moral systems. Were they to relax the hold on their moral code, the entire structure might well collapse like a house of cards, revealing their psychopathic nature. It is rather like cooking, a poor cook sticks assiduously to the recipe, while a gifted one can change this and that according to a momentary whim. This P's saintliness or rigid morality, then, is a cover for an underlying grandiosity, immorality, and sadistic drive to power typical of many psychopaths.
16. THE CREATIVE ARTIST
This psychopath will choose lifestyles or communities where his immorality is considered a gift. He/she blends in well with other artists, writers, countercultural-bohemians, and revolutionaries. In such circles the psychopath becomes almost indistinguishable from the non-psychopath, and can comfortably seek out victims who are willing to view his pathos as 'misunderstood genius', a person whose insights are wasted on the morally burdened masses.
This Psychopath will trick you into feeling that it is you who are psychologically crippled for following social conventions like decency, respect, restraint, fairness, or justice, and will introduce you to the "liberated" life of untrammeled selfishness, rudeness, impulsivity, and sexual perversity. This type will frequently display the pseudo-intellectual style of a Bohemian. This P:
1) Will spend hours absorbed in painting a single flower. He interrupts his work only to make dramatic sounds of exhaustion and angsty-artistic grunts, demands for water and other sustenance, and frequent sweeps of his furrowed, sweaty brow. When his day's work is done, he proudly displays a painting of his own penis in a lovely shade of lilac, and with petals attached. His painting is generous in its depiction of its subject.
2) Peppers conversations with cultural, literary, and historical allusions, whether relevant or not. Says "ahh" and "hmm" a lot when listening to someone more knowledgable than himself. His favorite partner in conversation is the pre-teen girl, because she cannot dispute his opinions on Nietzsche. Nietzsche does not hang out at the mall.
3) Your favorite subject is--suprise!!--his as well. And he knows much more about it than you. Take feminism, for example. If you consider yourself a feminist, he will let you in on the "real deal" with many artists, will tell you if they are, in fact, good for the image or self-esteem of woman. It goes like this: If he likes someone's work, then they are a feminist; if you like someone's work and he does not, it is only because they make women look bad. This is why "Penthouse" is perfectly harmless--good for women, in fact, because it empowers them sexually; Madonna is bad for women because she traded her feminine curves for muscle, and makes young ladies feel bad about their bodies the way they are meant to be. Which is without muscles.
4) Will invite the family to bond with him over a crossword puzzle, which means that the clues are read to him for him to solve. No help please, you are wrong and will just slow him down.
5) Also likes to bond over "Jeopardy!" which means that he shouts out the answers to all questions before they have been read completely, thus preventing anyone else from participating. If anyone else should get a question which he does not, he will get up to go to the kitchen or bathroom. You see, the reason he didn't get that question is that he was thinking about his snack. He will mutter the answer after Alex has said it, agreeing that the host was correct. The game may proceed. Has never tried out for "Jeopardy!"
6) Is the local King of Lawn Sculpture, which consists of concrete representations made from plaster casts of his body parts. His pride and joy is the forearm and hand with middle finger extended. The significance of this, which even he does not know, is that he is painfully aware of the fact that he is a blue-collar worker with no formal higher education, surrounded by over-educated, well-travelled hippies. And gosh darn they're nice. They can intelligently discuss any academic subject the psychopath raises, but alas, he cannot.
This Psychopath is the literal emodiment of the term con-'artist'.
17. THE ACADEMIC PSYCHOPATH
These psychopaths often work as doctors, lawyers, university lecturers, psychiatrists, specialists, scientists, preists, and in other intellectually oriented professions. Clientele, patients, and students of these P's are often taken advantage of in social, financial, or sexual ways. These types are sometimes schooled in their chosen topics, but a good number are known to fudge their qualifications. Robert Hare reports - "They have no hesitation in forging and brazenly using impressive credentials to adopt, chameleonlike, professional roles that give them prestige and power. When things fall apart, as they usually do, they simply pack up and move on. In most cases they select professions in which the requisite skills are easy to fake, the jargon easy to learn, and the credentials unlikely to be thoroughly checked. If the profession also places a high premium on the ability to persuade or manipulate others, or to "lay on the hands," so much the better. Thus, psychopaths find it easy to pose as ministers, counselors, and psychologists. But some of their other poses are much more difficult to pull off. There are psychopaths who sometimes pose as medical doctors, and they may diagnose, dispense drugs, and even perform surgery. That they frequently endanger the health or lives of their patients does not bother them in the least."
As mentioned above, these P's do not always forge their qualifications, and sometimes do complete their studies in a chosen academic field. But whether formally trained or not, the marking feature of the academic psychopath is the use of formal ideas as a vehicle for interpersonal communication, and a psychic style relying predominately on intellectual functioning. This type has the universal psychopathic-deficits in emotional functioning, but unlike other psychopaths may not cultivate phoney emotional skills to use on others. They may instead degrade emotion as something messy and unreliable, and will rely solely on the manipulative powers of intellectual-authority with the backing of their office.
Most unsettling are the coldly calculated violations of power and trust committed by these psychopathic professionals whose very job it is to help the vulnerable. It is very common amongst these individuals to callously use their positions to take sexual advantage of their charges, leaving them feeling bewildered and betrayed. And if victims complain, they may be traumatized further by a system primed to side with the perpetrating psychologist, doctor, or teacher.
Blog Owners Note: Most psychopaths are a combination of a number of these profiles & traits listed above.
For more on psychopaths go to LOVE FRAUD for eye-opening reading.
1. THE LIAR/CONTRACT BREAKER
This Psychopath is a pathological liar who will often lie for no reason at all. He/she is usually skilful at this, but sometimes fails to remember. This P will agree to anything then turn around and do just the opposite. Legal/custody agreements and normal social protocol mean nothing to him/her. Technically, these psychopaths never lie because lying is not a relevant issue for them. The idea or image of truth doesn't exist with the psychopath, so he cannot lie…. there is for him no difference. He says what's convenient, what comes to his mind, but never figures out 'Is that now really true, or not'? There is something in normal people which wants to see the truth and wants to be truthful, but if that internal sense is missing then the word 'lie' is senseless.
A psychopath, for instance, may have gone to the bank and 'conned' the bank manager in order to get money, and what he or she said to the banker in regard to that is not necessarily concealment or lying, it's just 'part of the story' that goes with getting the money, and he does that very well and that's the adapted or successful psychopath. He says what the banker wants to hear and for the psychopath who says it, that's it -there is no truth or lying. The psychopath sometimes has an understanding that other people distingish between lies and truth and will often adjust himself and behave in accordance with these facts. But the 'liar/contract breaker' psychopath completely refuses to recognise the social sense of lies/truth, and lives only by saying and believing "what is convenient" in any given moment.
2. THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC "CLIMBER"
Frequently occupationally-successful, this P will rise to the top in work and social circles. No one knows the hell that his/her family lives through. They are often gifted and intelligent in their chosen field, but must be in absolute control. They will manipulate others to further their ideas. They can be a vindictive bullies in the office. They have no genuine social conscience. Can be suspicious and paranoid. This disingenuous psychopath's behaviour is typified by a veneer of friendliness and sociability. Although making a superficially good impression upon aquaintances, this P frequently shows a more characteristic unreliability, impulsive tendencies, and deep resentments and moodiness among family members and other close associates They are often extremely verbally gifted and charismatic, and everyone may love him/her -- except those who truly know the demon he/she is. This wheeler-dealer will leave others holding the bag.
3. THE SEXUAL PSYCHOPATH
This P will display an impulsive hypersexuality (male or female), and frequently expresses a polymorphic sexual range - eg., pornography and masturbation, promiscuity, homosexuality, and various paraphilias - including possible incestual tendencies and perversions.
The sexual psychopath takes a predatory approach towards his targets, including stalking behaviors. This type may derive his sexual pleasure from a single theme such as serial rape or pedophilia, in which his primary sexual aim will be to dominate, to use, to control, and to subjugate another person (often someone weaker and less able to manage the situation) in the service of a gradiose self. According to researcher Darwin Dorr, "the majority of pedophiles are psychopathic, or manifest a significant degree of psychological characteristics of psychopathy." Of the psychopathic pedophile, Robert Hare writes, 'The number of children who are sexually abosed by parents, other relatives, child-care workers, clergymen, and teachers is truly staggering. Unlike other abusers, many of whom were themselves abused as children, are psychologically disturbed, and often experience anguish about what they are doing, psychopathic abusers are unmoved - "I just take what's available," said one of our subjects, convicted of sexually assaulting his girlfreind's eight-year-old daughter.' For the sexual psychopath, then, all people may be targets, including both the very young and the very elderly, and both genders, who are often targeted for sex without consent.
4. THE EXPLOSIVE PSYCHOPATH
The explosive psychopath is differentiated from other psychopathic variants by the unpredictable and sudden emergence of hostility. These "adult tantrums," characterized by uncontrollable rage and fearsome attacks upon others, occur frequently against members of the psychopath's own family.
Such explosive behavior erupts precipitously, before its intensive nature can be identified and constrained. Feeling thwarted and threatened, these psychopaths respond in a volatile and hurtful way, bewildering others by the abrupt change that has overtaken them, saying unforgivable things, striking unforgettable blows. As with children, tantrums are instantaneous reactions to cope with frustration or fear. Although the explosive behavior is often effective in intimidating others into silence or passivity, it is not primarily an instrumental act, but rather an outburst that serves to discharge pent-up feelings of humiliation and degredation.
5. THE VIOLENT PSYCHOPATH
Especially distinctive is this type of psychopath's tyrannical desires is their willingness to go out of the way to be unmerciful and inhumane. Often calculating and cool, these psychopaths are selective in their choice of victims, identifying individuals who are likely to submit rather than to react with counterviolence. Quite frequently, they display a disproportionate level of abusiveness and intimidation, in order to impress not only their victims but those who observe the psychopaths' unconstrained power. More than any other type, these individuals derive deep satisfaction in creating suffering and in seeing its effect on others. In contrast to the explosive psychopaths, for whom hostility serves primarily as a discharge of pent-up feelings, the tyrannical psychopaths employ violence instrumentally as a means to inspire terror and intimidation. These experiences then become the object of self-conscious reflection, providing the psychopaths with a sense of deep satisfaction. This P has often turns into a demon. Their objective is often watching us dangle while they inflicts emotional, verbal and occasionally physical cruelty. Their enjoyment is all too obvious. He/she may be a sexual sado-maso. Women, children, men, the elderly, (and even animals) - anyone with any vulnerabiliies are his target
6. THE CHARMER, OR "SOUL MATE"
This Psychopath will come on strong, sweep us off our feet, says he/she has the same interests, wants to marry us quickly. This P may appear helpful, comforting by their feigned 'idealization' of us phase, but it never lasts. Jekyll always turns into Hyde eventually. This P is aware that you will be drawn closer by his/her relaxing aura and lack of inhibitions. This kind of P is aware that non-psychopaths are tortured by their usual neurotic compulsions, and doubt's, and guilts, and inhibitions, and that he/she can us offer an atmosphere where we are temporarily free of such tiring emotions (free like the P). When you have this kind of psychopath in front of you it's lovely, it's great, it's relaxing. Nothing feels quite as relaxing as having dinner with this psychopath because then you feel absolutely great and those darned horrible emotional states fall away, especially when having a few drinks with them, it's the greatest thing you can do, and they make you feel absolutely at peace. That's part of their charm, and it's almost as if they are graced with a kind of charisma, which is why so many women and men fall for psychopaths. The psychopath has no inhibitions, and this type can play up to achieve his sexual aims by ascertaining and telling you everything you want to hear. He will talk to a woman who is interested in poetry about poetry. He doesn't care about poetry but he will quote poets. The female psychopath will take a great interest in a man's work and talk to him for hours. She doesn't really care about his work, but will charm him with her interest. They will be romantic, invite you to candle-lit dinners, compliment you, and when they have you hooked they will drop the charm-game for the more selfish lifestyle for which they are well known.
7. THE THIEF OR "COVETOUS PSYCHOPATH"
In the covetous psychopath, we see a distilled form an essential feature of the DSM's antisocial personality disorder, and the ICD's syssocial personality disorder: aggrandizement. These individuals feel that life has not "given them their due"; that they have been deprived of their rightful level of love, support, or material rewards; that others have received more than their share; and that they personally were never given the bounties of the good life. Thus, they are driven by envy and a desire for retribution - a wish to take back what they have been deprived of by destiny. Through acts of theft or destruction, they compensate themselves for the emptiness of their own lives, dismissing with smug entitlement their violations of the social order. They act on the rationalization that they alone must restore the karmic imbalance with which life has burdened them.
For those who are merely somewhat resentful, and for whom some conscious controls remain intact, small transgressions and petty acquisitions often suffice to blunt the expression of more extreme characteristics. For the more severely disordered, however, the usurpation of others' earned achievements and possessions becomes the highest reward. Here, the pleasure lies in taking rather than in having. Like hungry animals pursuing prey, covetous psychopaths have an enormous drive, a rapaciousness. They manipulate others and treat them as pawns in their power games. Although they have little compassion for the effects of their behaviors, feeling little or no guilt for their actions, they remain at heart quite insecure about their power and their possessions; they never feel that enough has been aquired to make up for earlier deprivations. Regardless of their achievements, they remain ever jealous and envious, pushy and greedy, presenting ostentatious displays of materialism and conspicuous consumption. For the most pat, they are completely self-centered and self-indulgent, often profligate and wasteful, unwilling to share with others for fear that they will take again what was so desperately desired in early life. Hence, such psychopaths never achieve a deep sense of contentment. They feel unfulfilled, empty, and forlorn, regardless of their successes, and remain forever dissatisfied and insatiable. Believing they will continue to be deprived, these psychopaths show minimal empathy for those who are exploited and deceived. Some may become successful entrepreneurs, exploiters of others as objects to satisfy their desires.
Here an active exploitiveness, manifested through greed and the appropriation of others' possessions, becomes a central motivating force. The covetous psychopaths experience not only a deep and pervasive sense of emptiness - a powerful hunger for the love and recognition not received in early life - but also an insecurity that they perhaps really are intrinsically less than others, somehow deserving of life's marginal dispensations.
8. THE QUIET PSYCHOPATH
This Psychopath is socially withdrawn, often dirty, unkempt. Odd thinking is observed. This P is occasionally insecure and irresolute, perhaps even faint hearted and cowardly. Psychopathic aggression in this variant, when present, represents a paradoxical response to felt dangers and fears, intended to show persecutors that one is not anxious or weak, and will not succumb to external pressure or coercion. Such craven and cowardly individuals are spineless psychopaths. These personalities commit violent acts as a means of overcoming fearfulness and of securing refuge. For them, aggression is not instrinsically rewarding, but is instead essentially a counterphobic act. Anticipating real danger, projecting hostile fantasies, spineless types feel it is best to strike first, hoping thereby to forestall their antagonists.
9. THE BRAINWASHER
This Psychopath can charismatically charm and manipulate groups of people to achieve his goal. Often found in religion and politics. His goals: manipulation, control, compliance, money, position, attention. He masterfully targets the naive and vulnerable.
10. THE RISK TAKER/THRILLSEEKER
This Psychopath never learns from his past follies. He is doomed to forever repeat bad judgment after bad judgment. Poor impulse control is a hallmark. This type of psychopath often engages in risk taking for itself - for the excitement it provides, and for the sense of feeling alive and involved in life, rather than for such purposes as material gain or defense of reputation. Many of these individuals respond before thinking, act impulsively, and behave in an unreflective and uncontrolled manner. Beyond such simple impulsiveness, however, the risk-taking psychopaths are in addition substantially fearless, unblanched by events that most people experience as dangerous or frightening. In contrast to many psychopaths, whose basic motivations are largely aggrandizement and revenge, these individuals are driven by the need for excitement and stimulation, for adventures that are instrinsically treacherous. They are, in effect, thrill seekers, easily infatuated by opportunities to prove their mettle or open their possibilities, The factors that make them psychopathic are the undependability and irresponsibility of their actions, and their disdain for the effects of their behaviours on others as they pursue a restless chase to fulfill one capricious whim after another. The introverted variation of this type may turn more specifically towards substance abuse - alchohol, heroin, speed, or whater drug - as a way to get his thrills and excitement without the more overt behaviors of the former.
These daredevils are attracted to thrills like lemmings to cliffs. Look for: Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. They will draw you in with: Fun, excitement, and adorable adolescent rebelliousness. They will drain you dry by: Overdoing everything exciting, and underdoing everything else. Thrillseeker P's are the one's you see everyday: Cowboys, cowgirls, day traders, party animals, rebels without a cause, and that one lover you just can't seem to forget. DEFENSIVE STRATEGY: Keep your brain engaged even when theirs are turned off. Especially then.
11. THE PARANOID PSYCHOPATH
This Psychopath is suspicious of everything and everyone. Usually there's no reason. He is terrified of exposure and may be potential dangerous if threat of exposure is imminent. This P will often accuse others of wrong-doing, and will never accept responsibility. It doesn't matter whether he made the mess or not, someone else must take the blame. A master at projection. Their features frequently blend with those of the paranoid personality disorder. They are characterized best by their autocratic power orientation and by their mistrust, resentment, and envy of others. Underlying these features is a ruthless desire to vindicate themselves for past wrongs by cunning revenge or callous force, if necessary.
Left to their own ruminations, they begin to imagine a plot in which every facet of the environment plays a threatening and treacherous role. Moreover, through the intrapsychic mechanism of projection, they attribute their own venom to others, ascribing to them the malice and ill will they feel within themselves. As the line between objective antagonism and imagined hostility becomes thin, the belief takes hold that others are intentionally persecuting them. Not infrequently, persecutory delusions combine with delusions of grandeur; however, these later beliefs play a secondary role among these psychopaths, in contrast to their primacy among fanatic paranoid personalities.
Preeminent among malignant psychopaths is their need to retain their independence and cling tenaciously to the belief in their own self-worth. Their need to protect their autonomy and strength may be seen in the content of their persecutory delusions. Malevolence on the part of others is viewed as neither casual or random; rather, it is seen as designed to intimidate, offend, and undermine the individuals' self-esteem. "They" are seeking to weaken the psychopaths' "will," to destroy their power, to spread lies, to thwart their talents, to control their thoughts, and to immobilize and subjugate them. These psychopaths dread losing their self-determination; their persecutory fantasies are filled with fears of being forced to submit to authority, of being made soft and pliant, and of being tricked to surrender their self-determination
12. THE 'BAD BOY' OR 'BAD GIRL' ANTISOCIAL PSYCHOPATH
This type of Psychopath is considered the archetypical delinquent, openly pursuing a diverse range of antisocial behaviors and often in trouble with the law. The antisocial psychopath is the main type found in prisons, whose availability for psychological testing results in a disproportionate representation of this type in psychopathy descriptions. The American 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual' (DSM) description of psychopathy is based on this group of offenders, to whom the manual gives the name 'antisocial personality disorder'. Descriptive criteria for this category are as follows:
1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
2. deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another
13. THE USED CAR SALESMAN (OR WOMAN)
The used-car salesman is a metaphor for the psychopath who can sell you anything, even themselves. Unlike the charmer above, this psychopath uses a quick talking 'sales-pitch' to catch people out. Their main techniques are: (a). Do it because you like me - It's easy to like these types. In the short period of time when there is some doubt as to whether you are going to give them what they want, these psychopaths can sprinkle with wit and glow and synthetic kindness. The display usually ends three seconds after you give in, but while it lasts it smells sweet as cherry blossoms on a warm spring day. The main reason that people like other people is that they perceive them to be similar to themselves. These P's usually begin their sales pitch by establishing a perception of similarity. They watch you closely. They ask questions about who you are, what you like, and what you think, and then profess to like and believe the same sorts of things. Unless you are paying attention, their probes and ploys can seem like innocent chit-chat. (b). Do it to reciprocate - These types would have you believe that because they gave you something, you owe them something back. In their view, compliments are like free samples those motherly types hand out in grocery stores. The purpose is not to nourish you, but to get you to buy. (c). Do it because everybody else is doing it - This person will try to convince you that you are 'part of the crowd' or 'are in the group' of whatever craven scheme they are enticing you to join. (d). This offer is good for a limited time only - These individuals know that anything sought after or scarce takes on a value far beyond its intrinsic worth, and will use this knowledge to push your buttons. (e). Do it to be consistent - Being consistent in our behaviors and choices helps provide the important feeling of selfhood. But foolish consistency is the psychological principle that makes manipulation possible. People also try to maintain an internal sense of consistency between their actions and beliefs. This is hard enough to do without careful thought. It's almost impossible with a psychopath trying to confuse your perceptions about who you are and what you believe by making you cross one little line after another. (f) You can believe me, I'm an authority - These psychopaths know that people are likely to do what authority figures tell them. (g). Do it or else - This P knows that one of the main reasons people listen to an authority figure is the fear that they will be punished if they don't. These are just some of the techniques the used-car salesman P will use, but use them he will in a great variety of situations - even with friends and family members, this psychopath will apply his hard sell to get what he wants.
14. THE MURDERER OR SERIAL KILLER
This malevolent subtype is one of the least attractive of the psychopathic variants. These individuals are particularly vindictive and hostile; their retributive impulses are discharged in a hateful and destructive defiance of conventional social life. Distrustful of others and anticipating betrayal and punishment, they have aquired a cold-blooded ruthlessness, an intense desire to gain revenge for the real or imagined mistreatment to which they were subjected in childhood. Here we see a sweeping rejection of tender emotions and a deep suspicion that others' efforts at goodwill are merely ploys to deceive and undo them. They may assume a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, a readiness to lash out at those whom they wish to destroy or can use as scapegoats for their revengeful impulses. Many are fearless and guiltless, inclined to anticipate and search out betrayal and punitiveness on the part of others. The primary psychopathic characteristics of these individuals blend with those of the sadistic or paranoid personality (or both), reflecting not only a deep sense of deprivation and a desire for compensatory retribution, but also an intense suspiciousness and hostility. Many murderers and serial killers fit this psychopathic pattern. Such persons might be described as belligerent, mordant, rancorous, vicious, malignant, brutal, callous, truculent, and vengeful.
To "prove" their courage, malevolent psychopaths may even court punishment. Rather than serving as a deterrent, however, punishment often reinforces their desire for retribution. In positions of power, they often brutalize others to confirm their self-image of strength. If they are faced with consistent failure, beaten down in efforts to dominate and control others, or finding aspirations far outdistancing their luck, their feelings of frustration, resentment, and anger mount to a point where their controls give way to raw brutality or secretive acts of vengeful hostility. Spurred by repeated rejection and driven by an increasing need for retribution, aggressive impulses will surge into the open. At these times, the psychopaths' behaviors may become outrageously and flagrantly antisocial. Not only do they show minimal guilt or remorse for their violent acts, but they may instead display an arrogant contempt for the rights of others.
What distinguishes malevolent psychopaths is their capacity to understand guilt and remorse, if not necessarily to experience it. Although they are capable of giving a perfectly rational explanation of ethical concepts - that is, they know the difference between right and wrong - they seem nevertheless incapable of feeling it. These psychopaths often relish menacing others, making them cower and withdraw. They are combative and seek to bring more pressure upon their opponents than their opponents are willing to tolerate or to bring against them. Most make few concessions and are inclined to escalate as far as necessary, never letting go until others succumb. In contrast to other subtypes, however, malevolent psychopaths recognize the limits of what can be done in their own self-interest. They do not lose self-conscious awareness of their actions, and press forward only if their goals of retribution and destructiveness are likely to be achieved. Accordingly, their adversarial stance is somewhat contrived and works as a bluffing mechanism to ensure that others will back off. Infrequently, actions are taken that may lead to misjudgment and counterreaction in these matters.
15. THE MORALIST OR SAINT
This Psychopath proclaims his high moral standing, and other people are seen as immoral. He wants justice for society. "Hang 'em high" he says about the murderer on the 6:00 news. These P's may be found in the professions of school teacher, prison officer, religious leader (or devout attendant), manager of an orphanage or hospital for the mentally ill, or similar jobs which require an morally responsible presentation. They may be very quick to exploit corrupt political or social situations as an excuse for being brutal and cruel, political situations like those seen in Nazi Germany, or Apartheid South Africa, which supply a socially sanctioned way to enact their pathology. When this P is not being 'watched', he/she often lies, cheats, schemes, corrupts, abuses, deceives, controls, manipulates, and torments, while portraying himself to be the morally upstanding victim when questions are asked. This P is a consumate image maker and will flaunt all credentials and accomplishments, often bullying his/her family into perfect presentation for the public, in order to reinforce his/her position as a paragon of goodness. Gaining admiration, attention, even glances from others, and evoking envy are central ploys. These 'morally compensated' psychopaths cannot depend upon love because, like all psychopaths, they have a severe deficit in the area of emotion. Instead, their egos work out a moral system which is fool-proof in any and every situation. The result, as paradoxical as it may seem, is usually a well-developed outward morality but one woefully lacking in love. Such compensated psychopaths continually and at all costs uphold moral conventions, fanatically defending their moral systems. Were they to relax the hold on their moral code, the entire structure might well collapse like a house of cards, revealing their psychopathic nature. It is rather like cooking, a poor cook sticks assiduously to the recipe, while a gifted one can change this and that according to a momentary whim. This P's saintliness or rigid morality, then, is a cover for an underlying grandiosity, immorality, and sadistic drive to power typical of many psychopaths.
16. THE CREATIVE ARTIST
This psychopath will choose lifestyles or communities where his immorality is considered a gift. He/she blends in well with other artists, writers, countercultural-bohemians, and revolutionaries. In such circles the psychopath becomes almost indistinguishable from the non-psychopath, and can comfortably seek out victims who are willing to view his pathos as 'misunderstood genius', a person whose insights are wasted on the morally burdened masses.
This Psychopath will trick you into feeling that it is you who are psychologically crippled for following social conventions like decency, respect, restraint, fairness, or justice, and will introduce you to the "liberated" life of untrammeled selfishness, rudeness, impulsivity, and sexual perversity. This type will frequently display the pseudo-intellectual style of a Bohemian. This P:
1) Will spend hours absorbed in painting a single flower. He interrupts his work only to make dramatic sounds of exhaustion and angsty-artistic grunts, demands for water and other sustenance, and frequent sweeps of his furrowed, sweaty brow. When his day's work is done, he proudly displays a painting of his own penis in a lovely shade of lilac, and with petals attached. His painting is generous in its depiction of its subject.
2) Peppers conversations with cultural, literary, and historical allusions, whether relevant or not. Says "ahh" and "hmm" a lot when listening to someone more knowledgable than himself. His favorite partner in conversation is the pre-teen girl, because she cannot dispute his opinions on Nietzsche. Nietzsche does not hang out at the mall.
3) Your favorite subject is--suprise!!--his as well. And he knows much more about it than you. Take feminism, for example. If you consider yourself a feminist, he will let you in on the "real deal" with many artists, will tell you if they are, in fact, good for the image or self-esteem of woman. It goes like this: If he likes someone's work, then they are a feminist; if you like someone's work and he does not, it is only because they make women look bad. This is why "Penthouse" is perfectly harmless--good for women, in fact, because it empowers them sexually; Madonna is bad for women because she traded her feminine curves for muscle, and makes young ladies feel bad about their bodies the way they are meant to be. Which is without muscles.
4) Will invite the family to bond with him over a crossword puzzle, which means that the clues are read to him for him to solve. No help please, you are wrong and will just slow him down.
5) Also likes to bond over "Jeopardy!" which means that he shouts out the answers to all questions before they have been read completely, thus preventing anyone else from participating. If anyone else should get a question which he does not, he will get up to go to the kitchen or bathroom. You see, the reason he didn't get that question is that he was thinking about his snack. He will mutter the answer after Alex has said it, agreeing that the host was correct. The game may proceed. Has never tried out for "Jeopardy!"
6) Is the local King of Lawn Sculpture, which consists of concrete representations made from plaster casts of his body parts. His pride and joy is the forearm and hand with middle finger extended. The significance of this, which even he does not know, is that he is painfully aware of the fact that he is a blue-collar worker with no formal higher education, surrounded by over-educated, well-travelled hippies. And gosh darn they're nice. They can intelligently discuss any academic subject the psychopath raises, but alas, he cannot.
This Psychopath is the literal emodiment of the term con-'artist'.
17. THE ACADEMIC PSYCHOPATH
These psychopaths often work as doctors, lawyers, university lecturers, psychiatrists, specialists, scientists, preists, and in other intellectually oriented professions. Clientele, patients, and students of these P's are often taken advantage of in social, financial, or sexual ways. These types are sometimes schooled in their chosen topics, but a good number are known to fudge their qualifications. Robert Hare reports - "They have no hesitation in forging and brazenly using impressive credentials to adopt, chameleonlike, professional roles that give them prestige and power. When things fall apart, as they usually do, they simply pack up and move on. In most cases they select professions in which the requisite skills are easy to fake, the jargon easy to learn, and the credentials unlikely to be thoroughly checked. If the profession also places a high premium on the ability to persuade or manipulate others, or to "lay on the hands," so much the better. Thus, psychopaths find it easy to pose as ministers, counselors, and psychologists. But some of their other poses are much more difficult to pull off. There are psychopaths who sometimes pose as medical doctors, and they may diagnose, dispense drugs, and even perform surgery. That they frequently endanger the health or lives of their patients does not bother them in the least."
As mentioned above, these P's do not always forge their qualifications, and sometimes do complete their studies in a chosen academic field. But whether formally trained or not, the marking feature of the academic psychopath is the use of formal ideas as a vehicle for interpersonal communication, and a psychic style relying predominately on intellectual functioning. This type has the universal psychopathic-deficits in emotional functioning, but unlike other psychopaths may not cultivate phoney emotional skills to use on others. They may instead degrade emotion as something messy and unreliable, and will rely solely on the manipulative powers of intellectual-authority with the backing of their office.
Most unsettling are the coldly calculated violations of power and trust committed by these psychopathic professionals whose very job it is to help the vulnerable. It is very common amongst these individuals to callously use their positions to take sexual advantage of their charges, leaving them feeling bewildered and betrayed. And if victims complain, they may be traumatized further by a system primed to side with the perpetrating psychologist, doctor, or teacher.
Blog Owners Note: Most psychopaths are a combination of a number of these profiles & traits listed above.
For more on psychopaths go to LOVE FRAUD for eye-opening reading.
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