This recent comment from an old post was directed at parents of a sociopath, but I think is pretty good advice for any situation in which you have to deal with a sociopath, i.e. you can't opt out because they're a blood family member, co-parent, work associate, etc.
From what I know of this mum and that couple's ordeal over the years, is that if you have someone like that living with you or in close contact with you, try to stay back a step or two emotionally and psychologically.
Don't get tangled up in the stream of lies and the really clever, manipulative behaviour even if it is difficult.
Start by simply not believing anything this boy says - that is a great help and when my friend realised it, it took a burden off her shoulders.
There is no point in getting angry and upset over his behaviour - he will only use it to make you look bad - and no point remonstrating, reasoning or trying to point out his lack of morality.
I suggest you very consciously and pragmatically set out to manage the situation and look after yourself. Don't lose your head. Don't get mad at him.
Force yourself to accept what is in front of you and deal with it consciously and in a planned way.
Don't try to convince your partner of your suspicions if he is resistant to the possibility, because he will probably not want to believe you and it will upset him and make him resent you.
Don't lock horns with this boy if at all possible.
If your partner does, just stand back.
Be careful because he will try to drive your and your partner apart - from his point of view he will cause as much trouble as possible because then he can slip between the cracks and do what he wants while you two are thoroughly preoccupied with fighting with each other.
Oh yes, don't give him any ammunition at all, because he will talk about you. He will re-frame everything that happens to make him look like the victim and be aware that he will tell lies about everything and everyone.
Stay back and stay calm and don't ever let your emotions take over when you are dealing with him.
That's all I can tell you from the many many well-intentioned mistakes my friend made.
I am so sorry. However, if this is what you are up against and I do hope you are wrong - take comfort in the fact that you have several years to work out a strategy before he really starts to get going.
From what I know of this mum and that couple's ordeal over the years, is that if you have someone like that living with you or in close contact with you, try to stay back a step or two emotionally and psychologically.
Don't get tangled up in the stream of lies and the really clever, manipulative behaviour even if it is difficult.
Start by simply not believing anything this boy says - that is a great help and when my friend realised it, it took a burden off her shoulders.
There is no point in getting angry and upset over his behaviour - he will only use it to make you look bad - and no point remonstrating, reasoning or trying to point out his lack of morality.
I suggest you very consciously and pragmatically set out to manage the situation and look after yourself. Don't lose your head. Don't get mad at him.
Force yourself to accept what is in front of you and deal with it consciously and in a planned way.
Don't try to convince your partner of your suspicions if he is resistant to the possibility, because he will probably not want to believe you and it will upset him and make him resent you.
Don't lock horns with this boy if at all possible.
If your partner does, just stand back.
Be careful because he will try to drive your and your partner apart - from his point of view he will cause as much trouble as possible because then he can slip between the cracks and do what he wants while you two are thoroughly preoccupied with fighting with each other.
Oh yes, don't give him any ammunition at all, because he will talk about you. He will re-frame everything that happens to make him look like the victim and be aware that he will tell lies about everything and everyone.
Stay back and stay calm and don't ever let your emotions take over when you are dealing with him.
That's all I can tell you from the many many well-intentioned mistakes my friend made.
I am so sorry. However, if this is what you are up against and I do hope you are wrong - take comfort in the fact that you have several years to work out a strategy before he really starts to get going.
Many parents won't face up to the fact that their child is a sociopath to
ReplyDeletebegin with because it makes them feel guilty, and denial is the easiest thing.
But when someone has problem child, "leakages" are unavoidable.
For example, Cindy Anthony, Casey's mom, called her a sociopath. She said to
Jesse Grund, One of Casey's boyfriends: "Why you want, a lazy, unemployed
failure, as a girlfriend?" She also said to Tony Lazoro, Casey's "last" boyfriend,
"I hope you have a lot of money, because she'll take you for every cent."
Now some of those things WERE true, but generally, Cindy had to deny them to
HERSELF, that's were the "leakages" come out. In true sociopathic fashion,
Casey didn't care what her mother said. She went right along.
Sociopaths have no compunction against harming their own family members.
That's why they don't mourn them after their deaths. They may even have CAUSED their deaths. The only thing that would get a raise out of a sociopath is
if you take what's theirs. Cindy threatened to take Casey's daughter from her.
Casey said her pet dog, and her computer were the first things she really owned.
Some other woman was going to take Travis away from Jodi.
But Casey WILL out last all her critics as I said. With her staying power, and
attractability, she will be around for years. Nobody wants to do jail time for
harming Casey. It's Jodi who's in more danger because she's already in a
sociopath's nest. Poor girl.
"Force yourself to accept what is in front of you and deal with it consciously and in a planned way."
ReplyDeleteI would not use the word "forcing," but, thinking ahead, accepting and planning would be part of handling a situation of this nature. As I just wrote in the post "Falsification," including my relevant comment to North in that same post, accepting things that fall within this "light," and seeing the true character or face (without any sense of falsification), level of thinking and potential of another, constitutes the real key to solving this equation.
When dealing with socios empaths have to study psychopathic behaviour and start acting properly; the worst situations occur when monsters are being pampered and can hide behind lies everybody accepts as facts. THEY ONLY RESPECT POWER: If somebody gives them lessons what it means "to shit on mamas carpet" they´ll change behaviour. DONT LISTEN TO BULLSHIT, JUST INFORM ABOUT THE HOUSE RULES and if these are not respected , well. See the first line in capital letters. They dont love you but they can begin to respect you. Make this your goal. Only see "what happens", care less about talk. If the specimen is a real "shitbird", ignore the talk.
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic advice
DeleteThere is always the possibility of a retroactive abortion. Oh, dead, that would be fighting fire with fire. Put on your asbestos vest.
ReplyDeleteI probably shouldn't comment. But what the hell.
ReplyDeleteI think it's safe to say that we all bullshit now and again, to shunt responsibility, avoid embarrassment, etc. However, when someone fabricates their entire life story, including having lost babies that never lived, spouses who never died, claiming poverty where none exists, fame they never had, well, after a while I stop listening altogether. Time passes but once; time spent listening to lies is time ill spent. And it's the time of my life, after all. Time I will never get back. Worse, the relationship built on lies refutes reality and reality is where I prefer to live. Hard enough to see what's going on without purposely smearing the glass.
"Every time a lie is told some part of the world is murdered."
Lie all you want. But don't ask me to listen: If I want lies I'll turn on the TV.
Part of the reason I read this blog is for the brutal honesty.
"Hard enough to see what's going on without purposely smearing the glass."
DeleteFaust, If you were about to give a speech on something you've written for this purpose, how would you clarify this statement?
Once,
DeleteIt's difficult enough to see my own prejudices through the glass of perception, through my own ego, let alone someone else smudging the view with outright untruths. (There is no such thing as gravity, the earth is flat, if you pray deeply enough the flames won't burn you death.)
Want to smudge the mirror of reality?
Write fiction, a song, etc. We can tell the truth without lying to others, without defiling their experience of reality. If some scumbag rapes a child and convinces that child that it never happened, or that i's "part of growing up," that child will grow up to question their ability to perceive reality.
Funny how that works: Tell folks to drink the Kool-Aid and down the hatch it goes. We all want to get to Heaven. Not face the world as it is.
How would you clear the glass?
You come here for the honesty. Half the people here are lying to themselves, and the other half are lying to you, too. It's easy to paint your world in brighter shades while hiding behind the veil of anonymity. At best you'll see a silhouette here.
DeleteEveryone has a goal, something that they want. Sociopaths are blind to traditional morality. Let's say a sociopath wants a loaf of bread. Perhaps he has enough money to purchase one, but someone walks out of the bakery with some. He sinks lower, casts his eyes down, and feigns starvation as he pleads for the food. The patron takes pity and gives him the loaf, and as soon as they are out of each other's sight the act is dropped.
A normal person would see that as despicable behavior. However, the sociopath got what he wanted and didn't have to pay for it, to him he made the best, most pragmatic decision. An objective third party might even consider his actions at worst neutral, because the patron who gave up the bread feels good about themselves for aiding a starving child.
Here's a thought Faust. Perception is reality. If that child believes that nothing wrong happened and forgets the incident, that child is better off. You need to teach the child about shame, about how they were assaulted and degraded and hurt, that they are now broken and damaged and that their life will forever be tarnished. You must force the identity of abused child on him/her, not for the child's own good but to reaffirm your own morality, to blindly seek justice without regard for the consequences until the world falls within the confines of your perception of reality.
I do not mean to defend child abuse, or attack abused children. However, to that child, perception IS reality and if you don't project your own feelings of shame, humiliation, and fear upon him, he/she will not perceive the harm. Let's take the abuser out of the equation and talk about the discovery of masturbation. To any child, exploring sexuality at its earliest is amazing. They find themselves with a novel method of experiencing pleasure at a whim and under their own control.
Then, you must take that child, sit him down, and tell him that pleasure is wrong. That he shouldn't do what he's doing, ever. That it is dirty and if he must do it, he must do it in secret and never talk about it. Masturbation has gone from an experience of pleasure and wonder to one of shame and guilt.
Perception is reality. When you alter someone's perception such that they must accept your interpretation of reality, that they have been hurt, you are not righting a wrong. You are creating the harm.
If I ever have kids I won't abuse them. I will teach them society's rules, but I will not teach them shame. If anyone does, then I will break them.
“How would you clear the glass?”
DeleteFaust, Ever since I can remember I’ve had a strong affinity for discovering and fully unearthing things that are hidden from mere sight. As I matured, this affinity has turned to experimenting with certain ideas and abstractions that have, somehow, escaped clarity/truth. Having said so, this would be my method for clearing the glass. It is only through exploration, analysis and revelation that one is able to discern truths and convictions pertaining to the primary subject you have discussed. In doing so, one must cast all fear aside, and experiment until the truth of the matter is fully disclosed and authenticated. This step is followed by acceptance and identification, leading to growth and being true to one’s own self. Above all, it takes courage to attain this level of understanding, considering the high level of exposure and accession.
“Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.” (Ezra Pound)
Ryan, Perception does mold reality. But that doesn't necessarily mean perception alters the basic facts of physical reality. The physical reality of abuse. A child's body is built for adult sex.
DeleteYou're implying that until someone teaches the child to perceive shame, the sexual experience of rape was not rape but mutually pleasurable. I would call that BS: Have you seen a child recant how an uncle forced their penis into them? I have. Rape involves physical pain. Physical pain is concrete. All organisms know when their body hurts. It is not a perception shaped by society or parents.
The psychological shame imposed on children via morality and masturbation with the 'shame' of being sexually abused are not comparable. Not to my mind anyway.
Correction to statement above. Should read: A child's body is NOT built for adult sex.
DeleteOnce, "experimenting with certain ideas and abstractions that have, somehow, escaped clarity/truth. . . . In doing so, one must cast all fear aside, and experiment until the truth of the matter is fully disclosed ..."
DeleteI viewed the emergence of 'invisible' forces at work as a child, through the toxic exchange of emotions working beneath a shiny exterior (the exterior of my family was one thing, the internal reality was another) Experiments in biology class were fun until it came time to dissect frogs. Frogs were my constant playmates, along with turtles, birds, etc. It was then, as a grew older, that I really began to embrace my sensual side as a means to ascertaining the invisible.
The only thing I can say for sure is that my approach to understanding anything involves picking apart my own biases first; secondly I surrender to being vulnerable and open, and third, I merge (as much as possible) with the ways of being of the subject I am studying. To see things through their eyes as best I can. If I could, I'd become that entity, just to cruise around their head, observe their stream of consciousness.
Hexagram 61 Chung Fu / Inner Truth
The wind blows over the lake and stirs the surface of the water. Thus visible effects of the invisible manifest themselves.
This indicates a heart free of prejudices and therefore open to truth.
Faust,
DeleteThis is a terrible topic, so I will only say that I was referring to sexual abuse in a broader sense, which in many cases can be committed without physical pain occurring.
Faust,
DeleteThis is a terrible topic, so I will only say that I was referring to sexual abuse in a broader sense, which in many cases can be committed without physical pain occurring.
“It was then, as a grew older, that I really began to embrace my sensual side as a means to ascertaining the invisible.”
DeleteFaust, reaching “maturity” is akin to finding that place where the pages of life are no longer “blank.” There is an emerging feeling of the words being there, penned and recorded in visible ink…bustling to become visible. Identifying this place, and accepting it, is the ultimate, desired result. In other words, one no longer needs that covert “cloak of invisibility,” understanding the imperceptible and shedding all of its armor. As a result, by knowing and acknowledging the truth, one has authenticated and re-gained himself/herself from everything that was formerly fragmented and lost.
“The only thing I can say for sure is that my approach to understanding anything involves picking apart my own biases first; secondly I surrender to being vulnerable and open, and third, I merge (as much as possible) with the ways of being of the subject I am studying. To see things through their eyes as best I can. If I could, I'd become that entity, just to cruise around their head, observe their stream of consciousness.”
This is how it would seem, sound and feel prior to finding that place I described above and reaching identification. It is a state filled with hypotheses and experimental modes:
“After a seven days' march through woodland, the traveler directed toward Baucis cannot see the city and yet he has arrived. The slender stilts that rise from the ground at a great distance from one another and are lost above the clouds support the city. You climb them with ladders. On the ground the inhabitants rarely show themselves: having already everything they need up there, they prefer not to come down. Nothing of the city touches the earth except those long flamingo legs on which it rests and, when the days are sunny, a pierced, angular shadow that falls on the foliage.
There are three hypotheses about the inhabitants of Baucis: that they hate the earth; that they respect it so much they avoid all contact; that they love it as it was before they existed and with spyglasses and telescopes aimed downward they never tire of examining it, leaf by leaf, stone by stone, ant by ant, contemplating with fascination their own absence.” (“Invisible Cities”)
And, in one essential word, this is how it would alter after authenticating each truth:
“The eyes of Faith will allow you to see the invisible.” (M. Corazzari)
“The wind blows over the lake and stirs the surface of the water. Thus visible effects of the invisible manifest themselves.
This indicates a heart free of prejudices and therefore open to truth.”
I like the abundance in these words, Faust. Quite a lot.
"Once, Identifying this place, and accepting it, is the ultimate, desired result. In other words, one no longer needs that covert “cloak of invisibility,” understanding the imperceptible and shedding all of its armor. As a result, by knowing and acknowledging the truth, one has authenticated and re-gained himself/herself from everything that was formerly fragmented and lost."
DeleteVery well stated. "The eyes of faith" only open when I let go. The world cannot fully penetrate if my guard is always up; on the other hand, one must be discerning.
"Nothing of the city touches the earth except those long flamingo legs on which it rests and, when the days are sunny, a pierced, angular shadow that falls on the foliage.Nothing of the city touches the earth except those long flamingo legs on which it rests and, when the days are sunny, a pierced, angular shadow that falls on the foliage."
Pardon my quip, but such is city life. It's perhaps cruel of me to observe that these days most citizens appear fascinated by their 'own absence' or awareness of their physical surroundings . . . digitally thumbing through life. Each of us googling our own way through the rabbit hole.
Dwelling on the threshold of these times, "He who is wise sees near and far at the same time."
“Very well stated. "The eyes of faith" only open when I let go. The world cannot fully penetrate if my guard is always up; on the other hand, one must be discerning.”
Delete“Do not be afraid; our fate
Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.” (D.A.)
“Pardon my quip, but such is city life. It's perhaps cruel of me to observe that these days most citizens appear fascinated by their 'own absence' or awareness of their physical surroundings . . . digitally thumbing through life. Each of us googling our own way through the rabbit hole.”
Faust, when it comes to life, we spin our own web, and where we end up is really, in fact, where we always intended to be.
Some of you are real psychopaths. (I am not. Part of me vibrates on that wavelength.) Some of you seem eager to reform or at least deceive on a more constructive level. The best way to do that is help the law authorities capture the escapees from the prison break in New York state. I am equipped or authorized to do anything for you, but someone reading this is so authorized to assist and reward you. Perhaps Mr. Putin or somebody.
ReplyDeleteHere is a freely available Cleckley chapter on an amazingly successful manipulative son of a gun and his helpless parents and girlfriends. Would have loved to take this guy to town.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/cleckley.pdf
Accept the fact that many socio-offspring are hopeless cases, not even another psycho could raise those. YOU ARE NOT TO BLAME, SO STOP SELF-BLAMING. Nice, good people can be cursed with "Seeds of Satan", its just the way life is. If life were meant to be another way, it would be. BUT BE CAREFUL NOT TO BE MISTAKEN: the "rotten"child may be a zodiac Scorpio. THEN: change tactics. The kid may APPEAR TO BE an evil, sadistic & scheming fiend, but in reality this is NOT TRUE and if this (false) part is the dominant one the parents are likely to be the culprits: evil bastards serving as useless examples for the unfortunate wee one. With great care this type of youngster can be good, productive & ..well sort of loving.
ReplyDeleteYou should see a film titled, "My Son, My Son," from the 1930's.
ReplyDeleteA father spoils his son rotten, and gets a sociopath in the bargain.
The boy's mother warns the father who doesn't listen. She tries to repremand the
boy to undo the damage. You can see that the boy's soul is posioned due to the
"do-gooder" father. The father interceeds in the boy's defense, and the boy yells,
"Leave my mother alone!" The weakling, indulgent father is hurt.
The son walks all over the father.
The son goes into the army to fight in WW1 (Implausible unless he was drafted.)
The son does another wicked deed, and the father tells the hurt party that the son is no good and not to waste their time on him. This so stuns the son, that
he finally appreciates his father, admits how abusive he has been, and vows to
make his father proud. After his speech the father utters "My son, my son."
The son sacrafices himself to make his father proud, and takes up with a woman that the son had been after, just to hurt the father. Happy ending.
I love Putin!!!! I was adopted from Russia, so.... ya. But I'm not a psychopath I'm a sociopath dude. Big diff there. But ya Putin and Napoleon are my heroes.
ReplyDelete-Z
I am the mother of a sociopath. For many years our family has realized the "every time she opens her mouth, she lies". These lies don't hurt anyone, but they are not truths as we live and perceive the world we live in. Our sociopath has adapted achievements from siblings and friends as her own, yet never acheived anything on her own. We love and shelter her when her lies and deceptions blow her world to smithereens and then she steals from us and denies direct evidence like it was our fault and our doing. Thank you for coming forward. I am going to read "Confessions...." in the hopes of getting some healing within myself that her state of being is not my doing, I did not "cause" her to be this way. That maybe I can still love my adult child, yet somehow protect myself from her intense manipulations that keep me from sleeping at night. That I do not have to give up on her and throw her out to the world and whatever may happen because I am tired of hiding my wallet, locking my bedroom, changing all my passwords, making excuses to our friends in common, avoiding her to the point of rudeness when I KNOW she is beginning to spin one of her "tales" that may go on for hours about her wonderfulness or someone else's inadequacies. I am so tired.
ReplyDelete