How are we to understand Sociopaths?

[Monte_RCMS]

Not to change the subject, but there is an interesting case study going on right now on television.

On “CSI”, there is a serial killer named “Nate Haskell” … and his “relationship” with one of the CSI technicians.

Fabulous.

 

[PerfectTiming]

Not to change the subject, but there is an interesting case study going on right now on television.

On “CSI”, there is a serial killer named “Nate Haskell” … and his “relationship” with one of the CSI technicians.

Fabulous.

I’ve seen some of the previous episodes with that character. I think it’s interesting the way it shows how people with these disorders see the world and how they treat others as dispensable.

 

[Della]

What we have cited in this thread are worst case scenarios. Of course, they are going to make a lasting impression. One of the most notorious cases was Dr. Jeffery McDonald who murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters. A classic case. But even he could have led a normal life if it weren’t for certain factors that all came together to make him into a heartless monster.

Not all are heartless monsters. Most are simply self-centered and incapable of feeling others pain. I know such a person. He is honest, helpful, and believes he means well but he simply can’t relate to what others feel. He’s my sister’s boyfriend. They’ve been together for 10 years and he has never taken advantage of her, but she does whatever he wants, as he wants it no questions asked. She has tried to leave him several times, but just can’t do it. He would never hit her, but he can’t really empathize with her, either. She has given her life over to him almost exclusively, and she knows it. I see the whole situation as unhealthy, which it is, but they cope with it and want to be together.

There are levels of responsibility and of disability in every mental disorder. We can’t judge all such persons by the worst ones. I’m not negating the pain and suffering of anyone who has had their life all but ruined, but not all such persons are as bad as the very worst. Just like any other disorder, there are degrees of illness under which they labor and some do give themselves over to evil. And just like anyone else who does so they will have to answer to God for what they knew, how they applied the grace God gave them, and what they were culpable for. Only God can know these things, so we cannot judge anyone’s soul. But, we can be sensible and not let such persons manipulate us. Nor should we try to remake them into normal people because that cannot be done–at least not with what we currently know about this disorder.

 

[PerfectTiming]

There are levels of responsibility and of disability in every mental disorder. We can’t judge all such persons by the worst ones. I’m not negating the pain and suffering of anyone who has had their life all but ruined, but not all such persons are as bad as the very worst. Just like any other disorder, there are degrees of illness under which they labor and some do give themselves over to evil. And just like anyone else who does so they will have to answer to God for what they knew, how they applied the grace God gave them, and what they were culpable for. Only God can know these things, so we cannot judge anyone’s soul. But, we can be sensible and not let such persons manipulate us. Nor should we try to remake them into normal people because that cannot be done–at least not with what we currently know about this disorder.

I agree that we do tend to look at the extreme cases and generalise from them. There are degrees of severity within all disorders and there are some that perhaps don’t have that much actual control. Like you said, God knows what we cannot and He will judge them in all fairness and mercy.

But I wonder if perhaps we should to some extent be more sympathetic. It’s very easy to just say that these individuals are cruel, evil people but we forget that they are people too and do have a disability.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I agree that we do tend to look at the extreme cases and generalise from them. There are degrees of severity within all disorders and there are some that perhaps don’t have that much actual control. Like you said, God knows what we cannot and He will judge them in all fairness and mercy.

But I wonder if perhaps we should to some extent be more sympathetic. It’s very easy to just say that these individuals are cruel, evil people but we forget that they are people too and do have a disability.

… and with their non-stop constant demands they will run you ragged until you get sick.

 

[michellelemon]

I am seeing that there is a difference among those who find this an objective point of interest and those who have unfortunately experienced the effects of this first hand. And I would be the first to say in most cases that personal experience is not necessary for knowledge - but I am awakening to the fact that I was given a personal lesson about something of which I had very little knowledge - and would have chosen ideally for it to not have ever been … but that is just not the case. I opened my hearttso this guy, initially based on so much seeming goodness. It actually pains my heart to even recount my association with him… Again, I thank my Dear Lord, Blessed Mother and the Angels and saints who helped deliver me. I do not take this for granted!

On the more objective side… he, by all accounts, grew up in a good, faith filled family (his parents are daily mass attenders and communicants), But he spoke often of his college experience being both traumatic and exhilirating,my guess, when he chose the dark side.

As someone said earlier - God does not “make junk” - again, we have free will and this guy was blessed with great intelligence and charisma - and chose to go too far with it. So the antithesis of my niece with Down’s Syndrome who may be mentally challenged but who has a “Hotline” to God that is so pure and beautiful!

 

[michellelemon]

The OCD behavior is a kind of selection test.

If you accept it or go along with it, then he’s got you hooked.

And you become his slave forever.

If someone recognizes the OCD behavior as manipulative and walks away … then there is not any leverage for the sociopath to use against you. The sociopath needs a teeny tiny crack to get his fingernail into. But if someone recognizes it as what is often called “enabling” … and walks away … then the sociopath has to look elsewhere for a victim.

Unhappily, there are plenty of good-natured people around to accommodate the sociopath.

Walk away at the first sign of “badness” or manipulative behavior.

You can call it “tough love” … you can call it refusal to be manipulated.

Lots of names.

But no one has the right to use someone else as an emotional punching bag … and no one should feel that he or she has the responsibility to be used as a punching bag.

If someone is really “up against it”, then they can use God as a punching bag. And God is the most expert psychotherapist of all and if the “patient” or “client” is sincere, then God will provide the resources for recovery. No joke.

 

[michellelemon]

Absolutely! It was tough - don’t get me wrong - this guy, I know now, took advantage of every shred of compassion I had in me - he once said, “You are the kindest person I know”! Just before he had a tantrum of selfishness and stepped on my sandwich and then threw it across my kitchen! I took it at the time as merely childish behavior and told him that my 4 year old nephew would know better than to behave in such a manner, but when I relayed it to close friends, they all said that it was just a step away from violence toward me… And I now get it and am so incredibly grateful that soon after, I was blessed to see the light! One of the things I have read about psychopaths is that, although they have no compassion for anyone else, they want to retain a sembalance of normalcy for their own future and and general acceptance and perhaps that is what kept him from actually physically harming me. Although I have been dismayed at the fact that we have mutual friends and his name is brought up at times, I now realize that it is probably actually a blessing to me! God is very, very Good!

 

[nordskoven]

I’m glad you brought this up. Catholicism, with its elaborate codified behaviors, can mask the sociopath quite nicely. They just go through the motions and make sure their sheep suit hides their wolfish paws. Sadly, this is the true genesis of the sex abuse scandals.

Nature and nurture can combine in curious ways. The Amen Clinic brain scans show hyper-and-hypo-active brain zones. Dr. Amen, appearing on PBS, bravely showed his own before-and-after brain scans when he wasn’t getting much sleep and had a junky diet. If a medical doctor can give himself brain damage–reversible as it was–anybody can.

You can “make” sociopaths with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, for instance, and that little baby will grow up with no wiring for compassion. You can poison a child via auto-toxicity with stress-produced cortisol, wreaking havoc on the endocrine system and neurological firing. You can scramble the system with chemicals passing through pregnant moms to babies, or with heavy metals like mercury.

It is diabolical that Americans allowed Congress to outlaw the incandescent bulb and is allowing more mercury-filled fluorescent bulbs to proliferate. A high-efficiency LED light bulb is now available through C.CRANE, btw. I live in the seemingly pristine state of Missouri, with hills and streams shaped by ancient glaciers. Not one stream in Missouri is free from mercury.

The predisposition to autism can come from moms and dads having high math skills. So those charming, intelligent parents may not necessarily yield “Rain Man” but they could produce a high functioning autistic child, one with Asperger’s. That person can turn into a highly-verbal narcissist who has a hard time bonding with others and feeling empathy. And autism is at epidemic proportions, with an estimated 1 in 100 conservatively; with Great Britain reporting more like 1 out of 40 boys. Males are more susceptible to such syndromes as having fewer nerve connections in the Corpus Callosum spanning the two lobes of the brain. It’s easier for males to get “stuck on stupid.”

The riskiest combination of factors for a violent sociopath is: a head injury; plus heavy metal poisoning. That tumble off the trampoline, bashing soccer balls with the head, or a brutal beating, or a car accident, plus the endemic mercury poisoning, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Sociopaths are very good at what they do. They don’t have any particular link with people or generate natural emotions so they have been mimicking what other humans do and respond to, and playing back what works. Their emotions can be strangely sentimental but in a shallow, Hallmark Card kind of way. It’s hard to see they are really heartless. So even bright people–maybe even especially bright people–get suckered into believing the sociopath’s phony persona.

Intelligent people are throwing out more cues, more emotional and behavioral data that gets beamed right back to them by the sociopath. The bright young thing might not notice they are actually looking into a mirror and miss the dangerously unmoored personality holding it before them. So let’s all pray for discernment, and hope that the dear Lord will preserve us and our society from any more damage we’ve done either in nature or nurture; and from getting too taken in by the unhinged product of chaotic, modern life. Jesus said, “Beware of Satan appearing as an angel of light.” That goes for the angelic-looking sociopath. God help us.

 

[BernadetteM]

I’m glad you brought this up. Catholicism, with its elaborate codified behaviors, can mask the sociopath quite nicely. They just go through the motions and make sure their sheep suit hides their wolfish paws. Sadly, this is the true genesis of the sex abuse scandals.

Nature and nurture can combine in curious ways. The Amen Clinic brain scans show hyper-and-hypo-active brain zones. Dr. Amen, appearing on PBS, bravely showed his own before-and-after brain scans when he wasn’t getting much sleep and had a junky diet. If a medical doctor can give himself brain damage–reversible as it was–anybody can.

You can “make” sociopaths with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, for instance, and that little baby will grow up with no wiring for compassion. You can poison a child via auto-toxicity with stress-produced cortisol, wreaking havoc on the endocrine system and neurological firing. You can scramble the system with chemicals passing through pregnant moms to babies, or with heavy metals like mercury.

It is diabolical that Americans allowed Congress to outlaw the incandescent bulb and is allowing more mercury-filled fluorescent bulbs to proliferate. A high-efficiency LED light bulb is now available through C.CRANE, btw. I live in the seemingly pristine state of Missouri, with hills and streams shaped by ancient glaciers. Not one stream in Missouri is free from mercury.

The predisposition to autism can come from moms and dads having high math skills. So those charming, intelligent parents may not necessarily yield “Rain Man” but they could produce a high functioning autistic child, one with Asperger’s. That person can turn into a highly-verbal narcissist who has a hard time bonding with others and feeling empathy. And autism is at epidemic proportions, with an estimated 1 in 100 conservatively; with Great Britain reporting more like 1 out of 40 boys. Males are more susceptible to such syndromes as having fewer nerve connections in the Corpus Callosum spanning the two lobes of the brain. It’s easier for males to get “stuck on stupid.”

The riskiest combination of factors for a violent sociopath is: a head injury; plus heavy metal poisoning. That tumble off the trampoline, bashing soccer balls with the head, or a brutal beating, or a car accident, plus the endemic mercury poisoning, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Sociopaths are very good at what they do. They don’t have any particular link with people or generate natural emotions so they have been mimicking what other humans do and respond to, and playing back what works. Their emotions can be strangely sentimental but in a shallow, Hallmark Card kind of way. It’s hard to see they are really heartless. So even bright people–maybe even especially bright people–get suckered into believing the sociopath’s phony persona.

Intelligent people are throwing out more cues, more emotional and behavioral data that gets beamed right back to them by the sociopath. The bright young thing might not notice they are actually looking into a mirror and miss the dangerously unmoored personality holding it before them. So let’s all pray for discernment, and hope that the dear Lord will preserve us and our society from any more damage we’ve done either in nature or nurture; and from getting too taken in by the unhinged product of chaotic, modern life. Jesus said, “Beware of Satan appearing as an angel of light.” That goes for the angelic-looking sociopath. God help us.

Some of what you say reminds me of my former husband. He told me when all was over, that he reads people and becomes what they want. When I said I never wanted another alcoholic, he was very careful about what he drank, until after the marriage and I was hooked on all the wonderful and thoughtful things he did. When I said I was Catholic at heart, he too said he always wanted to be Catholic. When he wanted business from a Jewish man, he told him that his sister owned the only Kosher deli in her town, which was true, as she converted. His main reason was to imply that he was Jewish.

They are very very clever, until they can no longer put up the pretense and must return to the dark side.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette

 

[michellelemon]

Really,…? “Catholicism with its elaborate codified behaviors”? What behavior is that? The simple fact that Christ died on the Cross for us and opened up the straightest way to Heaven for us if we but believe? It’s simply called grace, Analyze all you want…true intent and prayer for grace is never unrewarded… God bless!

 

[nordskoven]

St. John did say don’t bother praying for those confirmed in mortal sin. That’s a tough position. But, with his life spanning a century, I guess he knew about sociopaths (sorry I like the term). I will note that although the Catholic Church can harbor sociopaths by expecting only compliance in observable actions; and people project goodness upon them (women especially do); it can be a refuge for those who have no conscience. It’s like this…

Those having, perhaps, slower or impaired neuron firing can get delight in that most precious drug, adrenaline. So they may create a lot of chaos; or as one person noted, can exhibit a gleam in their eye as they feed off of reactions of the abused. This is because neurologically they can’t “feel” themselves, can’t grasp person hood very tightly. This is a kind of proprioception. You can touch your finger to your nose because you can “feel” where it is in space. The neurologically impaired cannot “feel” their person hood unless bouncing off of others.

Not “feeling” one’s self, the sociopath only gets feedback from the reactions of others about who they are or even if they are. So they can stir up a lot of stuff just to get a lock on their own existence. Not “feeling” right from wrong, the sociopath could use the Catholic Church as a decent replacement for the natural conscience, a kind of exo-conscience, to keep them on the straight and narrow. We may never know how many tragedies have been averted by adherence to norms that didn’t spring from natural tendencies.

But the socipath may drift into trying to feel good–stimulated–and so adopt negative behavior that juices up the adrenaline, including alcohol and drugs, predatory and other risky behavior. The rational mind could still be top notch, and that person may have a hard time getting God to dismiss the charges because an alternate route to virtue, the rational mind, has been rejected. The person might simply back-engineer their moral stance to adapt to their condition. Whatever sin makes them feel good IS good, so it’s cool to hate cops and treat women badly and rip off suckers yada yada yada. Only God can judge their disability. But they may be tempted to turn to Satan because they give in to the anti-social behavior to get the stimulant juice. May the Holy Angels encamp about us all.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

… and with their non-stop constant demands they will run you ragged until you get sick.

Sociopaths also have EXTREMELY excellent and skillful verbal skills.

They can twist words until you are dizzy.

They will have you believing anything.

They will take your words and twist them fifteen degrees and restate your words in ways that are absolutely incorrect, but that sound … sort of ok.

And if you say “no”, then they will twist the “no” to mean something else.

“You mean you can’t help me or you WON’T help me”.

Good guy question: “What kind of help do you want?” Sociopath answer: “I don’t know” … so you are paralyzed … fixed/ locked in place … waiting until they decide … and if you walk away because you have a life or if you say something like, “When you decide, let me know.” … then they go ballistic and raise the ante by saying, “You don’t CARE and you WON’T help me!”.

They are outstanding manipulators.

 

[michellelemon]

Yes! Amazing manipulators! To the point that, although you are being as kind and rational as you can muster, they try to turn truth, reason and logic against you and try to make it seem as if YOU are the unfeeling, thoughtless, irrational one! That is just plain evil. When I looked back, after this information about him was relayed to me, at e-mails I had sent him, part of one, for example “Your actions are just humanly deplorable! How do you live with yourself? But I for some reason continue to pray for you”… I cried for the girl who went through that and still believed there was any chance of redemption… Just this evening, I met up with a “mutual” friend, who had gone out of his way to call me, after having spent the day with him, and I think was looking for the “bright side”, after having been around the darkness of him and said to me, with no provocation, for the first time, “He is just a jerk!”

We are all born with an inclination toward the good, and unfortunately, through original sin, individual temptations with which we must wrestle. And we have our falls - so beautifully exemplified through Christ’s Passion and His falls, while bearing the cross… and some may be seemingly more difficult to bear than others… but God, in the end, created us in equality and gave us each the gifts, if we so choose them, to bear with and overcome. It is in the end a choice. And choosing wrongly for oneself, and making every effort to bring down everyone in one’s path, is just evil.

 

[michellelemon]

It just struck me, what was said earlier about the"eyes" - although he was a good looking guy with what would have been lovely blue eyes, I always saw them as oddly “button eyes” - which I at the time, joked with him about (I would laughingly say, “Why do you have “doll” eyes?” ) After having read about how, if you look closely, you can see a difference in their eyes, I now get it! What is that phrase “The eyes are a glimpse into one’s soul”…

 

[PbloPicasso]

It is the love of the Will and not the Love invoked from passion that makes us holy. Feelings often fail us. Love is a choice. We choose to love God and our neighbor. In time, it may be possible that our passions align themselves with the will of action. That’s my thoughts on the subject. I’ve been thinking about this topic for many years. It’s very interesting.

 

[EvelynEVF]

I think the poster who mentioned “codified behaviors” is right on, though it doesn’t just apply to Catholics. My ex has at least one personality disorder, but was able to hide it (away from home) for years because of all his pious behaviors.

Sometimes he seems just very wounded and unable to function (and I know there was a lot of cortisol in his bloodstream as an infant!), but there were definitely times when he was just plain evil.

I have no idea what his culpability would be, but I do manage to pray for him. It gets easier the longer we are apart. Initially, the best I could do was admit to God that I knew I ought to be forgiving and prayerful, and He would just have to get me the rest of the way there.

 

[I_love_rocks]

I can’t disagree with that. I am wondering if I’m just not far enough along in my reading of the great theologians… Are there any precepts that are defined / explained by St Thomas Aquinas or St Augustine that I haven’t gotten to yet that would open a door here? I’m still in the first half of reading and digesting the Summa, and the first half (at the same time) of Confessions. Not easy reads, and not an easy balance, as they are so uniquely different from each other. Anyone further along who can shed smoe more light on the possibility of factoring the doctine of Election as understood in the Catholic Church?

 

[michellelemon]

I think it was beautifully and simply said to me by a dear priest recently… repeat five times “Jesus I trust in you” - and we move forward… As philosophically and deep understandingly of all I am inclined toward, some things just come down to the battle between good and evil, I now realize. And I have to take a stance no matter what ,“St. Michael the Arch Angel - be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil”.

 

[Della]

I’m glad you brought this up. Catholicism, with its elaborate codified behaviors, can mask the sociopath quite nicely. They just go through the motions and make sure their sheep suit hides their wolfish paws. Sadly, this is the true genesis of the sex abuse scandals.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the norms of Catholicism. I was, for quite some time, involved in Evangelical and Pentecostal churches where I saw several people who exhibited all the traits of the sociopath. It was the perfect hunting ground for them because the people were so open to believing their particular leader(s) was another Moses (these people are very OT oriented). More than one leader in these groups used and abused their people shamelessly and always found a way to make the poor victim into the bad guy. Such people seek out the vulnerable wherever they can find them. Religion is just a tool for them. They care no more for theology than for the feelings of their victims, although they can mask this well since most of them are quite intelligent.