Deadly Relationships: Sociopaths and Psychopaths

“Dude, they were crazy. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you some of the things that happened.”

I think at one point or another we’ve all said this at least once. Sure, sometime we’re just exaggerating how we feel but I’m sure we’ve all had at least one relationship that we were actually were concerned. Perhaps at first, we had a funny feeling about them but we spend a lot of time telling ourselves we’re overreacting.

You meet them, they’re good looking, have an easy time talking with them and being engaged and seem to have a lot in common. You seem to have this instant spark of a connection. Within an incredibly short amount of time you go from friends to a relationship where you’re always together, your friends are his, he’s constantly praising you, you found a support system, they may have an iffy past but they’ll make sure to explain the situation so you realize they were the victim of a wrong doing. You’ve built up trust with them. Soon you’re living together perhaps even sharing money. Even though things moved incredibly fast, you think they’re perfect.

But things begin to change, and not the good kind.

Turns out, the person you had gotten attached to was actually a sociopath/psychopath. But how do you know? You didn’t fall in love with one? How could you miss the signs?

He wasn’t Charles Manson or Norman Bates. You’ve seen the movies, he didn’t come off like anything they showed. He seemed so different from anything you could imagine.

The media tends to amp things up when it comes to mental illness or any type of illness. If you made a movie completely based on fact, well, you wouldn’t have much of a movie, it’d be like watching someone else life. While some psychopaths can be like their on screen villains, it’s rarer to find someone like that.

First things first, what’s the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath?

There term is used interchangeably by most, even in professional fields, but there are differences, though not huge. Both possess very similar traits. The most common traits are:

• Incredibly charismatic and charming

• Superficial and are smooth talkers, though insincere or shallow

• Lack connections to their past

• Large egos

• Excellent at playing the victim

• Possessive of your time and resources

• Possess sexual charisma and magnetic personalities

• Compulsive pathological liars

• Skilled at manipulation and deception

• Live lives that are very parasitic

• Able to mimic your values, morals, hobbies, emotions

• Quick to place blame on someone else

• Lack of remorse

• No shame

• Lack of conscience

• The inability to embrace empathy

• Unable to develop emotional connections

• Produce the ability to gain pity to get what they want

• Violent, either emotionally, physically, or both

So if both sociopaths and psychopaths share similar trait makes them different?

Though both cannot be diagnosed until the age of eighteen or above, the diagnosis requires certain criteria to be met by or before the age of fifteen such as:

• Repeated violation of the law

• Pervasive lying and deception

• Physically aggressive

• Reckless disregard for the safety of themselves or others

• Consistent irresponsibility in work or family environment

• Lack of remorse

Psychopathy is view as the more severe form of sociopathy with a few additional symptoms:

• Lack of guilt or remorse

• Lack of empathy

• Lack of deep emotional attachments

• Superficial charm

• Master manipulator

• reckless risk taking

First, let’s look into sociopathy.

A sociopath lacks the ability to love, though they are experts at faking it. Most people believe sociopaths cannot form emotional connections and attachments, which isn’t completely true. They are able too but it’s very rare, and not the same attachments others make. The attachments would most be with family or longtime friends. They are able to experience feelings of rage or grief, though perhaps not as well as a normal person. Typically, the emotions we view as negative are the ones that they are able to experience.

When a sociopath finds their target, they turn on the charm. In a roomful of people, they are able to pick out the most trust, vulnerable and decent person. A skill developed throughout their life. Along with the above mentioned traits, also look for things like “we” statements, gaslighting, and above all they will make you pity them. They’ll tell us horrible stories of their childhood or how bad their exes treated them. When you pity them, you fall into their trap making you emotionally defenseless and overly sympathetic. Through your sympathy you may be able to empathize with what they’ve told you. Most humans are compassionate and want to help others. Which is exactly what they want.

Now, let’s glance at Psychopathy.

Individuals who are psychopathic have no emotions and are unable to bond with anyone. Developed and evolved is the Psychopathic Personality Inventory, which currently contains 154 items used to diagnose revolving around 8 factors. Those are Social Influence, Fearlessness, Stress Immunity, grandiose egocentric, rebellious nonconformity, externalization of blame, carefree and lack of planning ahead, and incredibly cold hearted. The PPI is used to diagnosed psychopaths.

Psychopaths aren’t able to form the same connections as sociopath’s are. They literally have no way to bond with anyone due to their lack of positive emotions. They’re aware of the separation between them and the world which can cause them dissatisfaction and suffering. They may also be hypersensitive to certain things such as disrespect, rejections by others, changes in circumstances out of their control, and loneliness. While most emotions are not felt by the psychopath, it appears that they can feel (in some manner) the negative emotions, when things aren’t going their way or worse yet, when they’re found out. Things can take a drastic turn making things extremely bad, incredibly fast.

It’s important to remember that both can be violent, emotionally, physically, or both. A psychopath is more likely to become violent to anyone, whereas a sociopath has the potential for violence, it’s likely they wouldn’t physically hurt anyone they have a bond with.

*This Psych Sunday is part of a series. I will post them all day by day. Due to the amount of information and my view of how incredibly important understanding these people are for your emotional and physical safety.

Please, I ask that you read these and really try to remember important information. It’s not a rare circumstance to encounter one of these individuals (its estimate that 1 in 25 humans are either a sociopath or psychopath) but understand the signs, you will be able to spot a problem you may not notice or choose to ignore.*

In the Monday’s entry, we’ll go into the traits with more description.

Be safe,

Lobeless

#sociopath #psychopath #traits