(New title:) How are people manipulated by psychopaths?

reply to post by korathin


Clever animals.. yes. I like that because it is dead on.

There was an interesting study about the condition in relation to normal brain activity and I wished I could remember where it was (it was on here a few years ago) But as I recall in out of the 4 cases /scans two had normal readings but exhibited traits. and the other two had none or unusual activity while demonstrating traits.

My guess is for those who have physical differences in thier wiring could this mean the body isnt 100% to blame in the condition?

What part of the mind is? It blew me for a loop personally being a lowly councilor but again few cases ive had opportunity to observe didn't enter care cause they wanted to be fixed.

The "Sorry they got caught" is also subjective... having encountered the less severe cases to feign or at least give a sense of.. uneathly peace about them. I can never be sure why but their stress levels are... zen like.

In regards to peoples' conversation re. Charles Manson, previous page:

I know many here have the widest ranging of beliefs, from athiest activist to devout Islam. I am convinced a spiritual element comes into play here, it is not just the neurons in gray matter. I saw some documentary, where Charles Manson, while sitting in the court room, looked over at this one guy, who was some lawyer or law enforcement officer, something like that. Charlie stared at this man and his arm with his wristwatch, and the guy's watch went kerput. Telekenesis. Then you all were wondering how Hitler could persuade so many otherwise normal people. In George Lucas' Star Wars, the Jedi speak of the Force having "a strong influence on the weak minded." Truly NONfiction real life -wisdom- there! I believe in demons and I believe in evil that is outside of mankind and has a life of it's own. The Bible talks about how we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of the air, rulers of wickedness, darkness in high places. Gives me chills.

reply to post by Greensage


I know why... but I'm not going to reveal the reason your post conjured up memories of the character "Jimmy" (John Taylor) in the movie The Seventh Sign (1988). It's gets too complicated to explain from my Special Olympics POV.

reply to post by wildtimes

We depend on our mental health professionals to understand these types of things. Yet you are telling us that they don't. And this seems strange, since the research has been done and various effective defensive methodologies have been devised. There have even been some therapeutic methodologies attempted.

My introduction to psychopathy was in the form of a very public killing, the JFK assassination. If it hadn't been for that event, I probably would have become a quiet scientist in some backwater university studying crickets or something.

It was my wake-up call that all was not right in the world. And that if anyone understood why, they weren't telling. The mental health system, I later learned, was itself the victim of a psychopathic takeover and had been contributing very little useful work to the subject of mental health since around the time of Freud.

My own personal interest in this subject lead me 1) to the whole "ancient astronauts" concept and 2) to the work of L. Ron Hubbard. If you want to break some ground on this subject, you have to go to these places. If you have always had the idea that these subjects are "useless" or full of "con artists" you might be interested to learn where those invalidating ideas originated.

Rather than writing a short primer on how psychopathy developed and how it works, which would be full of data that most "sensible" people would certainly consider to be at least bizarre and quite possibly dangerously misleading, I will end here and recommend these subjects to those interested in a broader understanding of this phenomenon. It is without any doubt a real phenomenon. But its genesis and solution are unbelievable. And thus it persists.

I was diagnosed as having ASPD, amongst others.
I personally do not see an issue with it. I hate people, although I seem to be able to stand dealing with the interaction through online sites to some degree.

Here is my insight, if anyone cares.

I have never been to a professional meta health expert so any ideas/claims/ect are just based off of what I think and have experienced. Nothing more.

First, I would like to point out that the original post did not separate sociopaths and psychopaths. They are two very different states of mind. Before anyone decides to believe they ARE the same, go do some research please.

Now, my experience AS something. I say something because how I perceive the world falls in line more with psychopaths but I am aware I am different. So, for all intents and purposes let us say that I am a Psychopath that has the ability to self reflect. I know, an oxymoronic statement if there ever was one, but the truth in my perception at least.

As far back as I can remember I did not have emotions in the dictionary sense of the word. However, I understood how they worked and how most people reacted to certain situations. So I used this to my advantage at every chance, much to the dismay of others. However even as I was was negatively affecting someone I would make it "their fault". This allowed me to use this person at a further date if need be.

Time progressed and my life went through many changes, most very negative. I had stated earlier that I did not have emotions in the dictionary sense. Yet I can still feel, it is just very base. I can get enraged, happy, intrigued... But it never lasts long. They do not normally play a part of how I handle people or situations.

More time progressed and I had my first taste of a long term relationship, I learned a lot in it. I could become possessive, even obsessed, but not love. I also realized that while most of my habits were amazing on the short return, I had no plans or ability to survive long term. This struck me as silly, so I changed my habits to help instead of hurt people as long as the return was long term gain. I can trade instant satisfaction for long term security.

Lastly I will come to why I wrote this. I view mostly everything as a game. Really, as the only game that matters and I want to play it well. I want to play it so well that at the end, when I lay all of my cards on the table, people realize that I was nothing they knew, but someone they were all indebted to immensely in some way. So, how do I improve in a game where I am the player with the upper hand? I teach people to understand how I think.

If anyone has further questions feel free to ask.

reply to post by Wolf1nManSkin


What's up with you? err.. What's gone haywire in your brain chemistry? If anything;

reply to post by Wolf1nManSkin


I thank you for your insight, direct from the source. A most interesting read. Utmost candor. My experience with (well, you guys) is that you are indeed emotional, quite keenly so, but as you so correctly informed, anger, intrigue, happyness (on the sheerly superficial level) (my experience, that I could tell) but you are open to this thread, and that quite intrigues me.

I am a psychopath.... I don't mind it and if you don 't like it or don't want to play don't come around. Simply put if someone does what they want then let them do it, just don't get involved in it.

Crankyoldman, you hit the nail on the head with this one. "Love" and "sorry" are definitely 2 words that are thrown around a lot. I've been in multiple relationships with psychopaths and sociopaths alike. I was almost too disgusted/upset to be able to write a post to this so I'm just going to keep it fairly short and simple.

Some of these men (or, I should say people), are so incredibly charming, so manipulative, and because they lack a soul in every sense of the word (imo), they have all the time in the world to study and watch other people behaving to where they can become even the best of actors! They will tell you everything you want to hear! They are an empty shell of a person who is able to somehow morph into whatever your idea of a 'perfect person' is at the exact time you want to hear it.

I've been left broken, lost, confused, confined, and depleted of every single thing I own, inside and out. But I have regained my dignity and my self awareness to be able to pick my ass up and GROW! We CAN spot out these kinds of people! If anything in your gut tells you something weird, for God's sake, LISTEN!

And as for people who play the victim mentality thing, yes, there are people out there who are the "ultimate victim" and they play that card to gain sympathy (for a while I wallowed in my own sorrow after a long relationship with an absolutely horrendous, very potentially murderous, sociopath). But these are all lessons to be learned! We are not victims, we are survivors!

reply to post by wildtimes


Wildtimes, do you believe in syncronicity? I have a story regarding a sociopath who I became enmeshed with and I was just talking about it today for the very first time with a close friend. Even though I finally succeeded in severing all ties with this person nearly a year ago, I haven't been able to really talk about it and now twice in one day??? Anyway, the syncronicity comment is rhetorical but the story is not.

Let me preface it by saying that I've always considered myself a fairly savvy person and have ALWAYS had a distinctly precise intuition when it came to reading people and "feeling" their true motives. I thought I was more or less unfoolable until I had the displeasure of becoming closely involved with a true sociopath and the aftermath of my relationship with this person is still affecting me a year later. Suffice it to say, I finally found the fortitude to take back control and turn the tides on him, but his manipulations and grasp on me were so strong that I still find myself questioning whether or not I was right in my skepticism of him. There were times he had me convinced that I was the one with the problem - that I was obsessed with him and I was lucky he was equally obsessed with me; if I tried to distance myself from him, I would never be happy. I've come to believe that this is one of the major characteristics of a true sociopath; they are so good at what they do, it's as if you become brainwashed and find yourself doubting what is right in front of your eyes.

Anyway, the gist of my story is not unique - I had just come out of a divorce after being married to my high school sweetheart for 15 years and I met this man through a friend. He quickly saw that I had something he wanted (I'm not going into detail in order to maintain anonymity) and I can't begin to describe how quickly he went into action. At the risk of sounding pretentious (which I am not), I'm an intellegent and attractive woman; I never had problems meeting men or being asked out on dates, but I was inexperienced in the world of dating having been married so young and was still licking my wounds from the divorce. This person honed in on all of my "soft spots" to methodically find and then play on my vulnerabilities. He quickly assessed what I would consider the "ideal man" and morphed into this persona (which was the complete opposite of his true self). He saw that I was struggling to find my own identity and manipulated me into becoming the person that benefited HIM the most. By the time he was done, I was exactly who he wanted me to be and, at his insistence, had more or less forsaken everyone else in my life due to his constant need to be front and center. For several years I lived in this dysfunction until my family (ex-husband, kids, parents, siblings, etc.) held an intervention. The picture they presented to me of the person I had become was just too much for me to believe because I was so brainwashed. I distanced myself even further from them (at his urging) and although I tried to block them out completely, enough of what they said had planted a seed of doubt in my head and I finally started to think for myself and notice that his actions weren't only focused on me; if there was anything he wanted or felt he was entitled to, he would manipulate the situation without a single shred of remorse of conscience. That's when the real battle began because once he felt me trying to break away, it became a nightmare. The emotional maniplations escalated to physical threats and fear. I almost didn't come out on the other side. I had what some would call a breakdown and put myself into the hospital so that he wouldn't have access to me. Every day was a struggle because I was so obsessed and no amount of self-talk seemed to break the hold. My doctors recognized the situation for what it was and tried to appeal to my intellectual side by pointing to irrefutable proof of his psychopathy, but I didn't want to believe them. It took more than two months for me to start seeing the reality and as I said earlier, there are still times when I doubt myself and the decision(s) I made. I don't want to get into details about the lengths he went to in order to try to regain control. All I'll say is that with the support (and protection) of family and friends, he finally gave up and completely dropped his facade with a malicious sort of glee that I'll never forget. He quickly moved on to his next target without any guilt or remorse. More than a year later, I'm still trying to put the pieces back together.

In closing, I'll say that I was never a particularly trusting person and if someone had told me this would happen to me, I would have deemed them crazy but sociopaths are the most insidious and seductive manipulators you could ever imagine meeting and he quickly maneuvered passed all of my innate warning systems. There's still not a day that goes by when I don't think about him and, as shameful as it is to admit, miss him. It's sick, I know, but it's a process similar to deprogramming and I take it one day at a time with the hope that I'll eventually stop thinking about him. I've put my love for myself ahead of my misguided feelings for him but it's still a struggle. Sorry this was so long but once I started writing, it just all came out..

Timidgal

reply to post by matrixportal

You mention listening to one's gut about the red flags. And not only that, but some of those guys I encountered were dead honest with me! But at the time, I said to myself, things like, "Oh he doesn't really mean that, or he will have a change of heart" But no, we should listen with open ears (Eyes Wide Shut-to-open) to those kinds of people, because even though some may be liars, some tell you the real deal. One told me I was his ("sex friend") and thought I would go, "Oh okay, thats cool." (I went berzerk instead! And worseley, it turned out he was engaged and awaiting her arrival to live with him from another state!!!)

read everyone's post/stories, and agree psychopaths can be the most relentless monsters to ever come across..(sorry to any self-proclaimed psychopaths on here, but it's the truth... ) These people are the exact reason I try to avoid anyone who gives off a negative vibe.


anyways great post OP, S+F

reply to post by simone50m


Wow, I feel for that girl who married him from another state. Freaking unbelievable. I too thought along the same lines as you (I can change him, I can save him, He just needs love) but those kinda people just feed off of sympathy and really any kind of energy you put towards them, so I try my best to just not put any energy towards thinking about them because if we let them get to us, then we're still letting them win and continue to reabuse us by allowing our thinking to be brainwashed into believing that's all we deserve, so we end up in a cycle of abuse over and over. I used to really truly think that every person had a good part inside of them, that any person could truly change....I'm not really sure I believe that anymore though.

reply to post by matrixportal

I used to really truly think that every person had a good part inside of them, that any person could truly change....I'm not really sure I believe that anymore though.

You shouldn't let negative people give you negative thinking..Every person can change, but it's still up to the person and whether they want to or not. I sincerely believe that every psychopath is at least somewhat aware that they use and manipulate people, because some do indeed seek help, while others see it as a "tool" and a way to get what they want, so of course they won't accept help or change.

Now as far as good goes, well it depends on what you would call good.

Originally posted by unityemissionsHere is a brief description of something that got me thinking differently about trying to fit into societal standards a while back:

Positive Disintegration

This link is fascinating, actually, and really lines up with my personal experience, both as my own person and as a mom. One of the hardest things you have to do as a parent is let your kids experience discomfort so they will learn. We went through this last year with my youngest (early elementary) learning that if you aren't a good friend, your friends won't want to hang out with you.

Regarding the OP... I wonder if we'll have to redefine psychopathy at some point? Society is teaching that only one's personal needs are important. Isn't the definition of psychopathy basically not caring about the needs or well-being of others? We're systematically teaching this to kids. I see it in half the kids I know - absolutely no thought for anyone else and no remorse for causing hurt to others. Completely self-absorbed, and constantly reinforced by mom & dad.

At some point in the future psychopathy may be a study for sociologists, not psychologists.

OMG I was going to post about my sociopath neighbors, but DAMN reading this I realized I have been DUPED!!!!Yes my neighbors were sociopaths, but I just realized I am in a relationship with a sociopath. I am CONVINCED about this it now, how could I not have seen this?!?!?!?!?! I have kids with him too, a manipulation of his, wow, SO GLAD he isn't around enough to have any influence on their upbringing. My children are like me, none of them are like him thank the LORD!!!!! I am convinced now I have to get away from this POS. HE IS a Sociopath he fits every one of the other stories' description. WHAT???? Oh I am awake fully now...Please wish me luck I am getting the H_E_double hockey sticks out of this foul relationship. Thank you OP for starting this thread and opening my eyes wide for this one really did slip right under my nose!!!!

Originally posted by Wolf1nManSkin

More time progressed and I had my first taste of a long term relationship, I learned a lot in it. I could become possessive, even obsessed, but not love. I also realized that while most of my habits were amazing on the short return, I had no plans or ability to survive long term. This struck me as silly, so I changed my habits to help instead of hurt people as long as the return was long term gain. I can trade instant satisfaction for long term security.

This is good.

So many sociopaths are mercantilistic; they want a piece of the big pie. But few realize that they can just bake more pies.

It is good that you have decided to bake pie.

reply to post by Wolf1nManSkin

Wolf, this sounds so much like how my grandmother operated all her life. Everything was a game to manipulate everyone else into being indebted to her. She had NO idea of how a normal relationship and interdependence would work. No concept, no understanding. She thought people would only stay around her & be useful to her if they were indebted to or dependent on her.

In her case, I believe it was deep emotional trauma very early in her life. A mother who completely rejected her emotionally, a sadistic father. Another relative told me she showed signs of being deeply troubled by the time she was 5 years old.

So I'm very curious (and you don't have to elaborate) whether you think you were "born" this way or molded by early life experiences.

reply to post by ldyserenity


Do you want to elaborate? With at least one psychologist and possibly a couple of like-minded (socio- or psychopathic individuals) reading right now, you might get some really great advice.