Sunday, October 11, 2009

Frauds in Love

Today we are going on a field trip. A field trip to the opposite side of the spectrum. A lot of times when I need a good laugh I will visit Lovefraud.com. In case you don't know about this site, it's dedicated to victims of sociopaths. Broken, self-loathing, and bitterness fills the pages. It's like a sociopath's trash dump. My personal opinion is that these people set themselves up to be victims, then want to point the finger at the person who took advantage. Nobody put a gun to their head and told them to stay in a relationship they admit was so terrible. If you read the posts and comments (from people with weak names like 'justabouthealed'), you can see how they've already started off with defeat in their minds. It's not hard for ready made victims to become victims. The following post is the perfect example of how they set themselves up for the fall. Victory is not fighting, it's persevering. The old turn the other cheek. Lying to themselves, they believe that licking your wounds after getting victimized is a 'viable' victory. In reality it's failure. Here is the article:

My wonderful stepfather was a young basketball coach when he got his first real job coaching for a very small rural school which had not had a winning game in over a decade. The team was dispirited and had no real expectation of ever winning a game.

One of the local coaches bragged that he would beat them “by a hundred points!” at the next game. The team thought there was a good possibility that that coach’s team could do just that. However, it is “good sportsmanship” for a coach playing a much weaker team to let their second, third, and fourth strings get a chance to play, and to win over the weaker team, but not “tromp” them.

Daddy thought this other coach’s brag to stomp and tromp his team was poor sportsmanship so he made a plan. When the fourth quarter started and Daddy’s team had the ball, they “froze” it (which was legal in the game then) and wouldn’t either shoot the ball or take a chance on losing it, so passed the ball from one of Daddy’s team members to another the entire quarter. They didn’t make any points, but they kept the other team from even getting their hands on the ball the entire quarter, and thus making points against them. Daddy’s team didn’t win, but the other coach didn’t win by his “hundred points” either. That little team went on the next year to win their division championship because of the confidence that Daddy inspired in them.
Sometimes “winning” or “victory” can be interpreted in different ways. I’m also reminded of the old Country and Western song, the “Winner” where an older man and a younger man are in a bar talking. The younger man wants to be a “winner” in bar fight brawls, and the older man is educating him on what is “winning” and what isn’t.

Sure, you can get into a fight and you may inflict more damage on your opponent than he inflicts on you in the fight, but like the old man said, “He gouged out my eye, but I won.” Sometimes it is better to walk away from a fight and not lose more than you have already lost, or allow your opponent to take another “pound of flesh” in your attempts to “get justice.”

It isn’t always about getting what you deserve, or victory over them, or even seeing that they get “what they so richly deserve,” sometimes, I think, “winning” simply means keeping them from taking more out of you and, like Daddy’s team, “freezing the ball.” Sometimes, it is like the would-be barroom brawler, walking away (intact) with the other guy yelling curses in your direction.

It is emotionally tough to watch a cheater “get away with it” when they have ripped us off, and go “waltzing away” unscathed and apparently the victor. It eats at our sense of fairness to let them “succeed” and not pay a price for their bad behavior.

Yet, sometimes, “discretion is the better part of valor” to use an old phrase, or to “be a live dog, rather than a dead lion,” and “retreat and live to fight another day.”

Those victims who are not able to fight for a “victory” of any sort, I don’t think need to feel that they have “failed” because they chose not to fight the sociopath.

Too many times fighting the psychopaths are like “fighting a circular saw,” as my grandmother would have said. It “just isn’t worth it,” because the damage to yourself will be worse than you can possibly inflict on the psychopath. They stack the odds so in their own favor, that even if you “win,” you end up like the old brawler sitting in the barroom, broken and so gravely injured yourself in your effort to gain a “victory, of sorts” that in retrospect the price was too high.

Sometimes, it is better to walk away a “loser” but still intact, and with your head held high, using the energy and resources you have left to focus on healing yourself, on recovering what you have lost in terms of finances and strength, and take care of yourself. To me that is also a “viable victory.”

Friday, October 9, 2009

Do sociopaths have high IQs?

A reader asks:

"do you happen to know if sociopaths are typically of extremely high i.q.? from what i've seen from personal experience and posts on your site, most individuals who fit the classification appear to be at least above average in intelligence. is this an accurate observation?"

My response:
I think that sociopaths would typically score high(er) on IQ tests, but I don't know if that would necessarily mean that they are of above average intelligence. Sociopaths are extremely capable of finding the weaknesses in things, people, the social fabric, etc., like a shark sniffing blood or a dog "smelling" fear.

Let's take for example the fact that I have always performed very well on standardized tests. I will readily admit that doesn't necessarily make me "intelligent." Rather, when I read a question, I am not always looking for answers, or even clues to the answers, but rather clues into the test maker's mind. Are they trying to trick me? I think, if I were a test maker, how many different ways could I ask a question on a critical issue? There will always be a limited number of ways that test makers can/will ask questions--you just have to figure out which, and then recognize those particular questions when you see them. I also try to guess what would be the fake answers test makers might come up with. Test makers have fears like everyone else has fears -- fears that a question will be too easy, fears that a question may have more than one answer or be ambiguous. You can practically see a test taker's CYA precautions in some of the questions you read. You know immediately what the answer is, just like when you ask someone, "Where's the safe?" and they say "I don't know," but their eyes look to the wall behind the desk. Obviously the safe is in the wall behind the desk.

Is this ability to sense weakness what intelligence is? I wouldn't think so. Standardized IQ tests don't necessarily test intelligence, they just test someone's ability to correctly mark the right answer -- they don't account for how you managed to choose that right answer. Take the extreme example: you obtained all the answers ahead of time (cheated). Your score indicates a very high IQ. Does that mean you are intelligent? What if, instead of "cheating," you are a mind reader and get the answers that way? What if you are just very good at predicting what answer test makers think is "right"? Does that mean you are intelligent?

But I do think most sociopaths seem intelligent, particularly to empaths. They have different blindspots than you do, and they think out of the box because they aren't in a box, or at least not the same box you are. Have you ever heard a child speak a foreign language? Maybe for a moment you are amazed. "Good lord! That child's speaking Swahili!" But you are amazed because you are framing the issue in terms of how difficult it would be for you to be speaking Swahili, particularly at that child's age. Your mind has forgotten that some people grow up speaking Swahili as their native language, or in bilingual homes. So the sociopath can amaze the empath with his charm, wit, and intelligence, just because that is the sociopath's "native language," so to speak.

But are sociopaths perceived as being above average, charming, witty, and intelligent? Yes, most of us manage to come off that way. And life is almost always form over substance, rarely the other way around.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Culture Of Narcissism


Here's an excerpt from Christopher Lasch's Culture Of Narcissism:
"The contemporary American may have failed, like his predecessors, to establish any sort of common life, but the integrating tendencies of modern industrial society have at the same time undermined his 'isolation.' Having surrendered most of his technical skills to the corporation, he can no longer provide for his material needs. As the family loses not only its productive functions but many of its reproductive functions as well, men and women no longer manage even to raise their children without the help of certified experts. The atrophy of older traditions of self-help has eroded everyday competence, in one area after another, and has made the individual dependent on the state, the corporation, and other bureaucracies.

Narcissism represents the psychological dimension of this dependence. Notwithstanding his occasional illusions of omnipotence, the narcissist depends on others to validate his self-esteem. He cannot live without an admiring audience, His apparent freedom from family ties and institutional constraints does not free him to stand alone or to glory in his individuality. On the contrary, it contributes to his insecurity, which he can overcome only by seeing his 'grandiose self'
reflected in the attentions of others, or by attaching himself to those who radiate celebrity, power and charisma. For the narcissist, the world is a mirror, whereas the rugged individualist saw it as an empty wilderness to be shaped to his own design."

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Don Draper: Sociopath?

The fictional character Don Draper, from AMC's Mad Men, beat out Usain Bolt and Barack Obama as most influential and gets called out as a sociopath:
In a poll conducted by Askmen.com, readers have chosen Don Draper as the most influential man of 2009 — yes, that Don Draper, Jon Hamm’s 1960s ad man who coasts through Mad Men while cheating on his wife, changing his name, uttering horrible secrets about his (and your) childhood, and gently warming his kids to the idea of patricide. Now, you’re wondering: What can be the benefit of admiring this sociopath when we already trust the teachings of Dexter, The Joker, and Roald Dahl? AskMen has the not-even-joking explanation after the jump.

“Men are seeking the stability of tradition in the masculine qualities that they imagine their fathers and grandfathers to have had,” said James Bassil, AskMen’s editor-in-chief. “The character of Don Draper brings all these traits together, and in doing so speaks directly to the modern man. He’s a man whose time has come.”

Breaking: I actually prefer not to think of my grandfather as an unscrupulous asshole. Nor do I like imagining him treating my grandmother like an alcohol-powered parking meter. In sympathy with the voters, though, I do imagine that my grandfather had a desk.
Joker for sure is a sociopath, and Don Draper definitely shows leanings, but Roald Dahl?

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Sociopaths in Shakespeare: Edmund

“Now, gods, stand up for bastards!”

From Edmund’s soliloquy in Shakespeare’s “King Lear”

Edmund, bastard son of Gloucester, is one of Shakespeare’s most intriguing villains. Crafty, manipulative, self starting and utterly anti-social, Edmund ruthlessly climbs the social ladder and into the hearts of two sisters, which in turn finally leads to the destruction of a family and a dynasty. But as he himself lay dying near the end, Edmund seems to repent, to show a spark of humanity. Does this mean he wasn’t really a villain after all? Or can villains actually be more complex than is normally supposed?

If only people were as simple as their labels...
Join Amazon Prime - Watch Over 40,000 Movies

.

Comments are unmoderated. Blog owner is not responsible for third party content. By leaving comments on the blog, commenters give license to the blog owner to reprint attributed comments in any form.