Sociopath quote: Darkness

And they shall look unto the earth and behold trouble, and darkness, dimness of anguish, and shall be driven to darkness.

Isaiah 8:22

We have met the enemy and he is us

This is an interesting column discussing novelist Franny Burney's experience with an un-anesthetized mastectomy that I thought tied in nicely with the Love Fraud discussion:

Burney’s struggle reminds one that character is not only moral, it is also mental. Heroism exists not only on the battlefield or in public but also inside the head, in the ability to face unpleasant thoughts.
She lived at a time when people were more conscious of the fallen nature of men and women. People were held to be inherently sinful, and to be a decent person one had to struggle against one’s weakness.
In the mental sphere, this meant conquering mental laziness with arduous and sometimes numbingly boring lessons. It meant conquering frivolity by sitting through earnest sermons and speeches. It meant conquering self- approval by staring straight at what was painful.
This emphasis on mental character lasted for a time, but it has abated. There’s less talk of sin and frailty these days. Capitalism has also undermined this ethos. In the media competition for eyeballs, everyone is rewarded for producing enjoyable and affirming content. Output is measured by ratings and page views, so much of the media, and even the academy, is more geared toward pleasuring consumers, not putting them on some arduous character-building regime.
In this atmosphere, we’re all less conscious of our severe mental shortcomings and less inclined to be skeptical of our own opinions. Occasionally you surf around the Web and find someone who takes mental limitations seriously. For example, Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway once gave a speech called “The Psychology of Human Misjudgment.” He and others list our natural weaknesses: We have confirmation bias; we pick out evidence that supports our views. We are cognitive misers; we try to think as little as possible. We are herd thinkers and conform our perceptions to fit in with the group.
But, in general, the culture places less emphasis on the need to struggle against one’s own mental feebleness. Today’s culture is better in most ways, but in this way it is worse.
The ensuing mental flabbiness is most evident in politics. Many conservatives declare that Barack Obama is a Muslim because it feels so good to say so. Many liberals would never ask themselves why they were so wrong about the surge in Iraq while George Bush was so right. The question is too uncomfortable.
There’s a seller’s market in ideologies that gives people a chance to feel victimized. There’s a rigidity to political debate. Issues like tax cuts and the size of government, which should be shaped by circumstances (often it’s good to cut taxes; sometimes it’s necessary to raise them), are now treated as inflexible tests of tribal purity.
To use a fancy word, there’s a metacognition deficit. Very few in public life habitually step back and think about the weakness in their own thinking and what they should do to compensate. A few people I interview do this regularly (in fact, Larry Summers is one). But it is rare. The rigors of combat discourage it.
Of the problems that afflict the country, this is the underlying one.

I don't think sociopaths are inherently more self-aware than normal people, in fact it may be quite the opposite. I do think sociopaths are at least used to the idea of there being more than meets the eye. The smart ones, in my mind, realize that the phrase "more than meets the eye" doesn't just apply to their own petty shenanigans. In other words, the smart sociopaths realize that they can be just as vulnerable to willful blindness in certain areas as their victims are in others. The stupid ones suffer for that blindness, eventually.

Sam Vaknin (part 2)

I asked Sam Vaknin about self-aware narcissism. He corrected me that he has never been diagnosed a psychopath, that he scored a 13 on the PCL-R when he would need an 18 to be diagnosed a psychopath in Europe and a 30 in the U.S.

He linked me to the following about self-aware narcissism, in which he makes some very interesting points about the difference between "changing" and "healing" that I think apply equally well to sociopaths:

Narcissism defines the narcissist's waking moments and his nocturnal dreams. It is all-pervasive. Everything the narcissist does is motivated by it. Everything he avoids is its result. Every utterance, decision, his very body language - are all manifestations of narcissism. It is rather like being abducted by an alien and ruthlessly indoctrinated ever since. The alien is the narcissist's False Self - a defense mechanism constructed in order to shield his True Self from hurt and inevitable abandonment.

Cognitive understanding of the disorder does not constitute a transforming INSIGHT. In other words, it has no emotional correlate. The narcissist does not INTERNALIZE what he understands and learns about his disorder. This new gained knowledge does not become a motivating part of the narcissist. It remains an inert and indifferent piece of knowledge, with minor influence on the narcissist's psyche.

Sometimes, when the narcissist first learns about the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), he really believes he could change (usually, following a period of violent rejection of the "charges" against him). He fervently wants to. This is especially true when his whole world is in shambles. Time in prison, a divorce, a bankruptcy, a death of a major source of narcissistic supply - are all transforming life crises. The narcissist admits to a problem only when abandoned, destitute, and devastated. He feels that he doesn't want any more of this. He wants to change. And there often are signs that he IS changing. And then it fades. He reverts to old form. The "progress" he had made evaporates virtually overnight. Many narcissists report the same process of progression followed by recidivist remission and many therapists refuse to treat narcissists because of the Sisyphean frustration involved.

I never said that narcissists cannot CHANGE - only that they cannot HEAL. There is a huge difference between behavior modification and a permanent alteration of the psychodynamic landscape. Narcissistic behavior CAN be modified using a cocktail of talk therapy, conditioning, and medication. I have yet to encounter a healed narcissist.

The emphasis in therapy is thus more on accommodating the needs of those nearest and dearest to the narcissist - spouse, children, colleagues, friends - than on "treating" the narcissist. If the narcissist's abrasiveness, rage, mood swings, reckless and impulsive behaviors are modified - those around him benefit most. This, as far as I am concerned, is a form of social engineering.

Sam Vaknin (part 1)

A reader writes regarding Sam Vaknin:

I'm thinking it might be interesting to do a post on this internet phenomenon. I'm guessing you've come across this guy already, but if not, he's a very interesting subject. He's a self-proclaimed malignant narcissist who writes incessantly about narcissism. First there is the clusterfuck that is his main site (samvak.tripod.com), but if you do a google search he's all over the place. He does interviews with himself, and has his own forums where he's the only one allowed to post or answer questions. There is quite a bit of controversy surrounding him in narcisissm circles, and it is said his writing actually causes damage to victims of narcissism. I think he's kind of awesome in his own fucked up way.
Now, why a post of narcissism on a sociopathy site?

Two reasons:

1. He's not your average self-deluded narcissist. He's extremely self aware, and also extremely intelligent. He's especially interesting because at first glance it looks like he's trying to help out victims, but really he's just a very self-involved dude who is really writing about himself and his journey of destinationless self-realization. His most telling stuff is his journals (samvak.tripod.com/journal1.html).

2. He is the subject of the documentary I, Psychopath (indiemoviesonline.com/watch-movies/i-psychopath), in which he actually goes through a battery of tests and is diagnosed as a psychopath in two countries. The film shows him fucking with everyone around him, including the filmmaker, who ends the film in a disturbed state. There is also his sad wife, the victim, who will never leave him, who knows what he is but still stays.

3. I think a lot of the self-proclaimed sociopaths as well as some of the "victims" that post comments on your blog are actually narcissists, or are self-aware enough to be struggling with narcissistic tendencies :)

I also recommend reading this thread about him: http://www.psychforums.com/narcissistic-personality/topic48396.html

I first read Vaknin (and many other resources including your blog) in an attempt to get a grip on what was going on with a relationship with a narcissist/sociopath, but in the process recognized myself in a lot of his writings. At first it was like swallowing a horse pill, but I've gotten used to it now and am trying to figure out how best to proceed.

I keep using the "narcissist/sociopath" term, instead of one or the other, because I do think it can very hard to tell the difference from the outside, though I know they are very different internally. It can be very hard to tell if the self-deception is feigned or not. This particular person I am talking about is self-aware (at least partially) but often acts like he is not. Is a self-aware narcissist still a narcissist? Or does he become something else? This is why Vaknin is especially interesting. The self-aware narcissist actually diagnosed with psychopathy.

Love Fraud: the book!

I got stuck watching the movie "Must Love Dogs" at a family function. It was fascinating, if for no other reason than to experience how a certain segment of the world experiences life. Or maybe not, maybe it's just a ridiculous older white woman fantasy about trying to find a "good man" in a world full of crazies, e.g. a philanderer and someone who dispenses with small talk on the first date. The film features Diane Lane saying things like "I slept with a man who isn't my husband, I guess that makes me promiscuous." Weeks later, I'm still wondering -- is this reality or fantasy? Maybe 50-something women really experience the world this way. But it is a Hollywood movie and knowing what I know of the world, I question its accuracy.

In a similar vein, Love Fraud founder Donna Andersen has written a 640-page book religiously chronically her marriage with someone whom she has diagnosed as a sociopath. I've been told that she's being featured on the premiere episode of "Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?" on Investigation Discovery, a sister network of the Discovery Channel.

Premiering on Aug 25 at 10 pm ET, Who the Bleep is a series that features first-person tales of people who were married to scandalous spouses who turned out to be bank robbers, international spies, bigamists and more.

You can watch the trailer here.

Why do I say similar vein? Like the movie "Must Love Dogs," I just can't quite figure out whether your typical Love Fraud reader is delusional, principled, obsessed, wronged, out of touch, or on top of things. I think the position that Love Fraud people take on what happened to them can best be summed up by this passage:

This helps in part shed light on why people on the outside of some exploitative and abusive relationships generally blame the real victims, or express impatience by suggesting victims should just leave a bad relationship right away or should at least have known what someone else was doing behind their back.

But who can truly fathom the tangled webs sociopaths weave when they set out to deceive? Had the women Montgomery victimized known the truth about him before they got involved, surely they would have been in a better position to make different choices, more informed decisions. But they didn't know. They may have suspected something wrong, but short of doing full-fledged investigations, they generally had no direct access to proof when they needed it.

Okay. It's not an entirely far-fetched sounding version of events, but it is just so far outside of my own reality that I have a hard time seeing things their way. I'd much rather see people taking control/responsibility over what happened to them, like this:

Just as Andersen describes from her own personal growth journey, each of us can explore beliefs that potentially set us up for manipulation by others, whether due to feeling unloved or other unresolved issues from childhood. We can change our thinking and behaviors to focus more on our own well-being rather than expect to be rescued by a relationship or base hopes and dreams on fairy tales. We can learn to identify red flag behaviors in people who are toxic. We can change the way we react to others' attempts to guilt and shame us. We can learn to avoid being sucked into the drama that sociopaths are adept at creating.

I think at their best, support groups like Love Fraud should be trying to accomplish this real, lasting self-empowerment and healing. Instead, I wonder what percentage of these people get better. Do most actually "explore beliefs" that led them to what happened? Do they then apply what they learned through those explorations to fashion a better life for themselves? I would like to see some statistics on Love Fraud recidivism.