My immediate reply to this question from a Reader was: Yes... and No! A little more explanation is in order:"I have a question about self-awareness: you can easily spot fellow psychopaths, but for a long time you didn't know you were a psychopath. Before you became self-aware, did you sense that you were part of a minority,
and that other people whom you know know are psychopaths had something in common with you?"
I can see in hindsight why I sometimes felt "I'm like you!" about someone else who was also a psychopath, and though I never could confirm it, I just knew. Often I could tell that the other guy knew as well. Especially when I was younger I hoped to find out what it was that made me and those few other individuals different from everybody else, but I had no word for it. Now I have words for it, and they confirm what I felt back then and still feel when I meet another psychopath.
Since psychopaths rarely are attracted to each other and feel no reason to interact unless we have a common goal and can benefit from cooperating, it would mostly happen in that I knew exactly what the other person's motives were and could foresee his next moves. It's an unspoken recognition that "I understand this guy", whereas with normal people I may be able to foretell their behavior and motives, but I will never really, truly understand them.
Even when I meet others like me and I have a sense of recognition, I still feel set apart even from them. There is no sense of 'belonging' among psychopaths in the way that I imagine you have in mind. So whereas I did have some kind of vague awareness when I met another psychopath, also from early on in life, my sense of uniqueness has always been the strongest. When I meet other people and recognize they're psychopaths, it is just that: A recognition.
I can mention one thing that I noticed. When I met a psychopathic individual, and if circumstances spoke for it, we would use it to undertake actions in a quick and effective manner... actions which - when I undertook them with non-psychopaths - always require discussion and debating and lining up and agreeing on all the details in advance so as to not misunderstand the behavior or the intentions of someone else. With another psychopath things often happen almost without any talk at all, except for the most fundamental details that can't be 'intuitively' understood (locations' names, f.x.).
Today I am fully aware when I spot someone else, and I can tell if they're aware as well.
9 comments:
Exactly.
What do you think when professionals say 'psychopaths can't get along with each other'? Is it an exaggeration? Or is there something the professionals can't quite understand?"
Personally speaking, I have no desire, or need to befriend another psychopath. Magnets, identical poles will repel ;)
:-) this is something I have wondered about for a long time. For the simple reason that I believe many psychopaths will try to manipulate without properly sussing out the people in question. The result is that in my experience, they try to manipulate other psychopaths! This never works, and causes resentment, and anger on the part of the other one (how dare they?!). Personally, I have a friend who is also a psychopath, and I believe to a much greater extent than me. She can manipulate everyone we both know, with the result that everyone seems to worship her. She knows that I do not, and I think she knows that due to the fact that she used to try to manipulate me, I despise her. I tolerate her as this is in my best interest. On her part I think she hates me in return...possibly because I am immune to her control?! I don't know.
This is how psychopaths get on. We don't! Like knows like, and like trys to manipulate like sometimes. It doesn't work. I also know another 'shallow effect' who I get along with relatively well- but she is not manipulative.
I have also come across this in the workplace, where I had a boss who was an exceptionally extreme psychopath- a textbook case- who bullied us interns and sucked up to superiours. Again, he had not done his research, and instead tried to control a 'group' instead of a weak individual. He tried to bully me as I was an intern and he thought I would never tell. I got revenge.
Has anyone else had this experience? What about revenge, do you think this is more prevalent amongst psychopaths than normals? I for one, have no qualms about it!!
Those descriptions of persons in your life don't sound like psychopaths... just assholes.
@Anonymous October 28, 2011 10:59 PM
I wonder whether psychopaths *must* have a revenge *at all costs*, or if they can just pass by whenever they feel they have better goals to accomplish at the moment (going after a revenge may be time and resource-consuming). Perhaps they just take a mental note about that person and wait for a better chance to strike, even after decades?
@lele
I can only speak for myself. But I never forget when someone went out of their way to mess with me. I make a mental note, and if the time is right, opportunity etc. I may act on a little pay back. Nothing that would get me in trouble of course. But since the person decided to play the game with me... well, I must return the favour. After all, I know I play the game better, and wouldn't want that person to feel left out of the game they started :) Or perhaps that is the Narc side speaking.
Decades ? yes.
Anonymous 10:59
"I believe many psychopaths will try to manipulate without properly sussing out the people in question. The result is that in my experience, they try to manipulate other psychopaths! This never works, and causes resentment, and anger on the part of the other one (how dare they?!)."
Psychopaths have different levels of intelligence. Those who are highly intelligent usually know when they meet another psychopath.
But it can happen anyway, because many psychopaths have an incredibly high level of paranoia. That's why they're described as reacting to real AND perceived sleights.
When a highly intelligent psychopath reacts this way to another psychopath, even if the other psychopath hasn't attacked or ridiculed them, it is usually because that psychopath has a comorbid mental illness, often paranoid phychosis.
It makes that highly intelligent psychopath weaker than other highly intelligent psychopaths, and maybe that's why they often hate the stronger psychopaths really deeply and will do almost anything to discredit and ridicule them.
But of course they know that they can't hurt another psychopath.
But they attack other psychopaths because by convincing all the ASPD and socios that this psychopath is weak and that they won over him, the ASPD and socios will admire himself instead and follow him. Because the ASPD and socios don't know that they can't hurt the other psychopath, they don't even know if he IS a psychopath. Only other psychopaths, IF they're highly intelligent, can see who is a psychopath.
Even the best psychologists never become as good at it as psychopaths themselves.
For an intelligent psychopath it's easy to make a large number of people who are socio or ASPD believe in a competely fiction reality by using a mixture of fact and false claims and repeating them and saying they actually KNOW things that are just speculations that could mean anything.
I have seen exactly this happening only a few months ago. Zhawq knows it and says that method works everytime, and he's LAUGHING even though it was him it was done to!
Let us hope this 'Intelligent psychopath' has at least a basic understanding of the correct use of a grammar...
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