Most people are blind & chase psychopaths & dark triads
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on September 8, 2023, 11:59 amI think instead that the higher the psychopathy, the more obvious it becomes that it's not "normal" (in general, exceptions apply).
I don't think this is the case.
This is because the "intensity/level of psychopathy" is a distinct and separate trait from the "ability of the psychopath to have an effective social mask".
In other words, there are cases of really high level psychopaths who are immensely able to give the normal impression of leading a normal life.
This does not mean they don't manipulate badly.
This means they are just harder to detect.
I have a relative who I heard countless times say outrageous things that showed his mysoginistic, racist, and anti-social outlook on life, who was able to manipulate me into believing he is a "good relative" for decades.
The most dangerous psychopaths are those who couple a very high level of psychopathy with a very high level of "mask-effectiveness".
They are able to effectively and convincingly fake tears, sadness, guilt, love. And they do so better than normal people!
The worst dark triad is not the one who says brazenly: "We need to manipulate people sometimes, you know?". That is just a rookie.
The worst dark triad is the one who is ruthlessly abusive, even criminal, in his behavior, while projecting a convincing image of a "good father", or "good mother", or "good person".
They fake being timid, shy, guilted, stilted, loving, worried. They study the way these emotions are expressed in other people and in movies, and replicate them. Sometimes very convincingly.
But they are evil incarnate. They prefer to do harm by remaining in relation as much as possible, rather than by shunning people. That is a "rookie psychopath's behavior".
EDIT: Also consider: the fact that a psychopath's behavior would be obvious to us, is not an indication that it is obvious to those they manipulate.
This is because psychopaths increase their manipulation depending on the level of "brainwashing" (or, if you prefer, trauma and confusion) they were able to gaslight the specific mark into.
The more one falls down the rabbit hole, the more they reveal their true personality to him or her.
This explains the phenomenon, which we also discussed in the past, where some psychopaths' victims say outrageous things publicly, while the psychopath seems more "normal": the psychopath revealed his real beliefs to the mark, and convinced the mark that these beliefs were normal.
Thus the mark goes around spouting the psychopath's beliefs as their own.
While the psychopath fully knows they would be shunned if they said the same thing publicly. And so does not.
And the fact that the victim seems more deranged than the psychopath?
It's a bonus to the psychopath. The mark is now the fall guy.
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You're right, I wrote "intensity" while instead I should have said intensity + lack of inhibitions (that's wher you get the prison type of criminals).
To those, the above analysis still applies.
EDIT:
BTW, this is exactly one of the reasons why I see adoptions as a higher risk.
Can't this publicly unluckily too much or you risk hurting children who may really need it. But the risk is that you end up adopting psychopaths that will wreak havoc in your life.
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I think you guys have awesome points.
On fighting evil: I agree. In the case of the father fighting evil was about reporting him (again: he already has a file) to child services and talking with the police about the situation. Sometimes all you can do is damage control and reporting.
When I talked about the ex-wife on the phone I was expecting a crazy selfish manipulator the way he described her. I actually talked with a very gentle and reasonable woman. At this moment I could see who was the real victim. For more details: he wanted the id card/passport to buy groceries in neighboring France (cheaper). So an easy solution for him would be to go and buy his groceries in Switzerland. But no: « he was not going to change his life for her ». So this gives us an insight in how they think: 100% selfishness.
He brainwashed the 10 years old girl so bad that SHE tried to guilt trip me in putting pressure on her mother to get the id card: « otherwise we cannot go to France! ». I had to tell her (!!): « You know X, this is not my responsibility ».
About adopting psychopaths: 100%. Long story short there is a family of 5 badly abused and neglected children. 3 of the girls: multiple suicide attempts, full on manipulators, etc. Child services took the custody from the parents it was so bad (like the horror stories you see in the news or close to it). The mother killed herself about a month ago (after the legal measures but not directly after). So that’s what they’re starting life with.
I was in charge of the hospitalization of 2 of the girls: batshit crazy unfortunately. I won’t go into details, just a few: multiple suicide attempts at the hospital, runaway attempts, we had to have a security guard 24/7.
So yes these girls if adopted will ruin their foster parents live. Very very high in dark triad traits.
In child psychiatry the current concept is that you cannot put a personality disorder on a child/young adolescent since personality cristallizes later in life (I think I already talked about it). That’s the current concept. In my opinion some children/young adolescents are already doomed. Some of them are so mentally ill that despite all the optimism and treatment in the world I don’t see how they could change. They’re already stuck in their manipulative ways and they must want to change and/or be aware. They’ve been so hurt that the chance of deep healing is close to zero. Sad.
A reflection on psychopaths:
watching some parts of "silence of the lambs", "red dragon" and listening to the interview from Howard Stern I posted recently I understand them better.
I think there is a misconception: that psychopaths have no feelings. They have feelings. They just don't have feelings for other people. That's why they can use them as means to an end. I believe they definitely can feel joy, anger, sadness and especially power.
The difference is that since they don't get the feed-back loop on how other people are feeling on their own nervous system, they live in a World of 100% selfishness.
For instance, if a normal mother hurts a child unintentionally, she will feel hurt when the child is crying. The psychopathic mother won't feel a thing. However, she will feel something if the child is escaping her control, insults her or anything of that nature. So in this case the child is an instrument for her own pleasure.
That's why I believe these people can love as well. They love people for how they make them feel but not for who they are. They don't love people in the sense that they wish the best for them. They love people in the only sense that they make them feel good. I think it's a subtle difference but it explains why they can say "I love you" but the person does not feel loved.
I think the closest we can imagine as non-psychopathic people is how we love one of our t-shirt. We love the t-shirt but it's just a t-shirt. We don't love the t-shirt for the t-shirt's sake. We don't put it in our cupboard well-folded for the t-shirt. We do all this for us. We love the t-shirt because the t-shirt has a nice logo and we feel cool in it. It's instrumental.
I think that's the difference. I think these people mean it when they say they love someone. But who wants to be loved like a t-shirt?
For them people and things are the same. So it's their reality and perspective. So everything they say and feel is filtered through this. So they cannot imagine that other people can see the World in a different perspective. Just like it's so hard for us to imagine how they see the World.
For them I imagine they think that when people say they love someone for who they are (of course it makes everyone feel good to love) they think it's hypocritical. They cannot imagine that someone wants the best for someone else and don't get anything in return. They probably think that unconditional love is bullshit.
They are stuck at the material aspect of the human experience. The World as a collection of things.
Just like for instance some Christian people cannot imagine what it's like to live in a World as an atheist.
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Thank you Lucio for your recommendation of the book "the Wisdom of psychopaths". Definitely deserves its rank in your list of books about power. It changed my mindset for good. It opened my mind to new possibilities. Especially how to be ruthlessly analytical and logical about goals and strategies.
I understand that it's a powerful mindset that can be used for good. The trick is that now there is a new responsibility: are we going to inject good in those strategies? And if yes how?
For instance with my colleague I decided to be good. I think in the past I was more emotionally reactive. The following is a bit of an exaggeration of course. I was being mean when people were mean with me or if I wanted to hurt someone. And I was being good by default or to be submissive or to please or because my value system or because the judeo-christian system.
Now I feel more free to choose when and how to be good. And it's a good thing because it means I'm less manipulable to serve someone's interest as they hijack my value system. For instance when manipulators play the pity-game or the victim or guilt-tripping. They all play on the desire to be or seen as good. When one does not need this anymore, one is less manipulable.
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They are stuck at the material aspect of the human experience. The World as a collection of things.
.....
For them people and things are the same. So it's their reality and perspective. So everything they say and feel is filtered through this. So they cannot imagine that other people can see the World in a different perspective. Just like it's so hard for us to imagine how they see the World.
Cheers John.
Lately I've been listening to an audiobook about psychopaths (unfortunately it has no translation: "Mi jefe es un psicópata"/"My boss is a psychopath") I find it to be pretty good and interesting, there's lots of points I hadn't seen before, (e.g: children who aren't taught discipline and get all they want are very likely to become psychopaths in the future, as they get accustomed to see people as means to getting what they want)
And I would like to add something to the 2nd thing you said in the quote, I don't think that all psychopaths don't know that others view people as people rather than objects.
Of course I think that most psychopaths do as you say: specially those who were brought into the world with neurological changes that conditioned them to be psychopaths as well as having family issues since young.
However (and I'm sure you probably know this) many psychopaths are completely normal people that got f* up by toxic individuals so many times that became desensitized, that or they were manipulated by another psychopath/psychopathic organisation and assumed psychopathic traits.
Edit: There's also that psychopaths learn everything from the environment, specially when they go to therapy, so a psychopath could learn about the fact that most people don't see each other's as object or as least learn about that social rule/norm. Of course there are many psychopaths and many variables, I think it's better not to put them all into a box.
I think that there are no absolutes here, unfortunately many psychopaths know perfectly well what is wrong and what is good, but they don't care.
Agreed pretty much about everything else.
Cheers.
P.S:
I'm lately experiencing with being more dominant and less power protecting, if you spot any disempowering frames feel free to post about it.
& already started reading the book you told me about love, mind blowing to say the least. Thanks.
Forgot to add: *that's what I think about the matter
Got drunk the other day with my friend, who, as already told, is most likely a psychopath.
A couple of interesting excerpts from the conversation:
"I am a broken man, all my close friends are the same in this respect".
"You need friends who have experienced the same things as you, otherwise they will never understand you".
Finally asked him:
Roberto: Tell me honestly, you have Patrick Bateman as an Instagram picture. Who are you kidding?
L: "Laughs"
Roberto: Tell the truth for once in your life. Are you a psychopath?
L: *looks at me for a few seconds* I really don't know bro
I waited until he was very drunk and then I asked him alone but I don't think he's ready to admit it yet.
One note remains:
When you say psychopaths can be charming is one thing... experiencing it is quite another. This guy looks you straight in the eye with his smile and tells you how much he'd like to see you up there and if he ever makes it, he'll definitely help you up and so on.
You really have to slap yourself to remember that what you see is not real. This person feels nothing for you and he most likely never wants to see you up there with or without him.
Interesting.
It's totally possible, even likely, he has no idea.
There is a whole book by no less than a neuroscientist who chronicles how he found out ot be a psychopath only when he saw his own brain scan (also interesting to see how the people around him felt about him).
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Yeah true. I haven't thought about it this way.
If he has not heard of a more clinical/scientific definition he would stay with the very negative definition with which it's difficult to identify.