Have you been closely involved with a sociopath?

[alphawolf]

Have you ever become involved with a sociopath, captivated by their charm and lies, even though you could smell danger?


Profile of the sociopath:

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.



Rather than articulating his (her) own discourse, the devil interprets the other's desire. The devil's "language" is a reflection of the other's desire.
- Satan's Rhetoric, Armondo Maggi




I haven't been a religious person, don't believe in invisible gods in the sky, but I really start to understand the kind of people being referenced when the "devil" is described.

[yondyr]

Once, yes. Unwittingly, then realising after talking to someone more knowledgeable in psychology. Fortunately he included me in his ego, so I was never threatened, but I eased myself away and severed all contact - essentially disappeared. I suspect there's a fine line between sociopath and a psychopath and he could have been the latter.

[PortInStorm]

I think I have. I was lucky enough not to get involved in the romantic realm, but a less-related relative just reeks of it. I'm doing my graduate work on it, so I don't use the term lightly. But the suaveness, the absolute chilling willingness to do whatever to close family members, the complete lack of remorse had me really worried when I crossed their designs to keep my family safe from them. I still to this day don't know why they never did anything- retribution can be very, very high on their to-do list (After she dumped him, Ted Bundy reuinted with his girlfriend for about a year just so he could dump her after when she was "hooked").

And they're not out of control, that's the part that's really important- these traits are making them successful in life. Mind you, there are two major factors within psychopathy- the more affective traits, and the lifestyle-based traits. These two had mostly the first factor so were obviously not derailing their lives like psychopaths higher in factor 2 might be.

Actually, as far as I understand, psychpathy and sociopath are interchangeable terms. However, terms like antisocial personality disorder and Machiavellian have very fuzzy relationships to psychopathy- the relationships are still being examined.

Oh, and it's important to remember that this "quality" is very likely a continuous variable- that is, most of us have psychopathic tendencies to some degree. However, there is a cutoff if you're using something like Hare's PCL-R (this requires the person to be in the correctional system though as part of the testing involves their record) for adults (ie. you are/aren't considered a psychopath), but no cutoff if you're still a youth. They are hesistant to put that label on the underaged since it has implications for sentencing, self-fulfilling prophecies etc.

[amberlinen]

And they're not out of control, that's the part that's really important- these traits are making them successful in life. .


I think psychopaths have a fatal flaw--lack of commitment. That actually makes them less successful in life and they tend to do a lot of petty crimes.

Or maybe I'm talking about the average prisoner psychopaths and you are talking about intelligent criminal psychopaths.

[Sylar]

That eh, profile you have there.. has a seemingly familiar ring to it (not all of it). I thought it came with the ENTJ package..

[azelismia]

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


related thread.

[ToC]

I've always had a good feel for people, and with the additional obsession/education in psychology it's much easier to pick certain types of people out.

I'm sure I've met a few. I've observed a few. Gone to school with one or two.

One thing to keep in mind is that not all sociopaths are smart people; these are the ones you can pick out on the bus or subway openly attempting to molest people. These are the people that you pass on the street at 4am who try to pick a fight with little to no provocation. They're essentially people with little self-control who blatantly deviate from the norms of society's tolerance of personal infringement. They care little for consequences, are highly impulsive, and take what they want.

Such people are transparent, usually easily avoided, and tend to steer clear of more dominant/intimidating figures.

The people I'm careful around are the smarter individuals with a greater sense of self-control, but the same propensity to take what they want, never accept blame for their actions, and violate others' personal space/boundaries/values.

I won't use real examples, as doing so would be unnecessary and imprudent.

[Outdoorwhale]

My brother is one...

It is impossible to describe what he is and does on a forum. Port's first paragraph doesn't even come close. I suppose, telling a short story or two would help.

He's got no remorse, no guilt, no conscious, no empathy....its easier to just say no soul. A few years ago, before I knew what he was, we would get into open fights in the house. Whereas I would stop when my dad came around he doesn't. He doesn't care for my dad in any sense and shows him no respect. When my dad was hospitalized(severe nearly fatal infection) he didn't care. He never even visited and had the balls to ask my dad for 3 grand to buy a car while he was in the ICU on the phone then hung up when my dad said no and to visit. But going back, when he hit puberty he became EXTREMELY violent. During an argument I splashed him with water and his response to to grab a 6in steak knife and try and stab me in the chest. He would go into my room and break every single model and toy I had because I had nicer things and wouldn't let him touch them. So he had to destroy everything I owned. And now that he has gotten older is steals things like watches, Zunes, phones and anything he can get money for. Half of the time he'll deny it or say it was his then turn the tables and get extremely offended you accused him of such a thing. He got so angry my parents accused him of stealing my dads porn he destroyed his entire room. Dresser, computer, nightstand, futon...everything because we touched it and had no right to. We were looking for the laptop he stole while my dad was sick(which we found) but found the above. He's rammed people off the road, started school fights just to see blood...there is more but you get the drift.

Relationship wise he's so dangerous it isn't funny. He has learned to "copy" my personality since most women like what I can do(guitar, violin, paintings, foreign languages, kennel job(idk why on that one)) to the point he's tried to steal my paintings, memorize quotes from my dictionaries and quote "the dog whisper" then use things I've told my parents about my work at the kennel. Then when he has an "in" he finds out all he can about the girl since he gives generic responses. From her friends he finds out all about her music genre, what she likes in a person, style and etc...then does nothing but obsesses with each part then incorporates them into the fake personality. So now his answers get more specific instead of "I play guitar" he'll play her favorite band or say her favorite movie is without asking her(since he asked her friends). Then when he feels comfortable enough he'll start to dominate her. He'll try to make her quit he job or not get one to spend more time with him. He then gets incredibly jealous to the point of forbidding her to talk or see other guys when he isn't around. His real personality starts to come out and they realize he really can't play guitar or violin or speak more than a few sentences but by this time he's already found out where she lives, number, friends, job and everything personal he can use. He then gets incredibly vindictive and relentless. He's almost had charges placed but they couldn't find enough evidence.

When I move out I'll probably never speak to him again nor will I attend his funeral. We are not family to one another.

[LofK]

Married one when I didn't know that they were actually walking around loose.

Moved half a continent away, and to this day, thank heaven that he was too busy capturing other young women to take vengeance on me for leaving him.

INTJ they ain't. They are missing too many elements.

[PortInStorm]

I think psychopaths have a fatal flaw--lack of commitment. That actually makes them less successful in life and they tend to do a lot of petty crimes.

Or maybe I'm talking about the average prisoner psychopaths and you are talking about intelligent criminal psychopaths.
Yes, I think you're getting at a crucial point- if psychopathy truly is a range (and there's a lot of evidence it is), then we're trying to categorize a very diverse population. Yes, they do lack commitment- whether that's adaptive evolutionarily speaking is another debate altogether :-)





PortInStorm added to this post, 4 minutes and 33 seconds later...

I've always had a good feel for people, and with the additional obsession/education in psychology it's much easier to pick certain types of people out.

I'm sure I've met a few. I've observed a few. Gone to school with one or two.

One thing to keep in mind is that not all sociopaths are smart people; these are the ones you can pick out on the bus or subway openly attempting to molest people. These are the people that you pass on the street at 4am who try to pick a fight with little to no provocation. They're essentially people with little self-control who blatantly deviate from the norms of society's tolerance of personal infringement. They care little for consequences, are highly impulsive, and take what they want.

Such people are transparent, usually easily avoided, and tend to steer clear of more dominant/intimidating figures.

The people I'm careful around are the smarter individuals with a greater sense of self-control, but the same propensity to take what they want, never accept blame for their actions, and violate others' personal space/boundaries/values.

I won't use real examples, as doing so would be unnecessary and imprudent.
Actually, you may be differentiating between those with antisocial personality and psychopaths. I really don't think you could call psychopaths needlessly violent or stupid. Even those higher on Factor 2, the antisocial behaviour aspect, are cunning and at least of average intelligence, from all I've read. They don't needlessly piss people off, that is only counter-productive.

[yondyr]

Very interesting discussion. I have only the one example to retroactively study. In some ways he had some INTJ traits, such as an ability to lead, others admired and respected him, logical etc. But, all his public projections were acquired from observing what 'worked' - none of his impulses/actions were generated by empathy, consideration for others, or from any connection with the world outside his own mind. A completely amoral person who had incorporated society's mores in order to 'pass'
But he exposed his thinking to me, and his journals, was never violent with me or others because it would thwart his path through life, but only for that reason. But, and this was the crunch for me, I suspected that he could be violent if he could get away with it and he was very bright and forward thinking enough that I removed myself completely.
(posted more and went back and edited out part of it, such is my own paranoia these many years later, with apologies for being enigmatic)

[alphawolf]

My brother is one...

It is impossible to describe what he is


This is really interesting...

And you honestly have no idea what has created such a monster?

[Thinker]

My ex business partner was a sociopath.

I didn't find out until too late - I trusted him - as did the other 4 partners.

What can I say - he was the consummate salesman!

He nearly bankrupted all of us.
He was the youngest of 5 business partners - and believed that any success we had was entirely due to him.

The fact that we had provided the capital, intellectual property, client base, loyal staff, credibility etc etc - had nothing to do with our joint success.

He has no guilt or remorse for anything he did - His lawyer refused to act for him during the drawn out litigation - His lawyer told him what he was doing was immoral. He found another lawyer.

His wife was also a sociopath - and provided much of the impetus for his actions.

I disagree with the fact that sociopaths are usually unsuccessful.
I would suggest there are any one of a number of high profile corporate failures which can be attributed to sociopathic behaviour.

[changos]

Remember, we intjs have been called sociopaths by some other people. (take a look at the forum, there are some threads about it) and take a closer look at the "symptoms" we ourselves might be very alike at first shallow view.

A sociopath might be disturbed-kinda-crazy- but they are not dumb people at all, so they manage to get close to many kinds of people, including US, because "we can see things others can't see" and blah blah (they say) but they are really smart people.

I had close encounters... not sure if they really were SP. Lucky for me I'm a loner. I must confess there are times with disturbed people I can't deny the problems they have, but cannot deny the reason behind their logic. Not that I agree with them.

Not sure but 3 times close to SP and able to get away alive and with no problems.

Wen you have an office-life is easy to catch you. I'm usually hard to find (and now harder to find due to my ex girlfriend-stalker experience) so... SP can wish and do what they want... I'm into sports and a speed life, so they can't keep up the speed for long.

Note: Books... trust me, there are many books out there that help to keep unhealthy people far away. Internet? oh yes... but books are far more serious. Anyone can write or copy a page on the web. Not everybody can publish a book. I prefer books. In fact, many successful famous people are in fact sick in some way, unhealthy... evil forces at work. But we often don't see that. So yes, there are many successful SP out there... and many wanting to follow their lead.

* I'm also afraid that many many "intjs" at this forum are in fact not even close to be an intj. Many just want to feel "special".