Living with a Psychopath

Disclaimer

This article is not intended to be, in any manner, gender biased. The  word ‘he’ instead of ‘he /she’ , has been used  throughout the length of the article only to maintain the flow of writing and  the observations given hereunder, are deemed to be applicable to both men and women falling in this category.

Are you dealing with a Psychopath?

What can be worse than waking up to a discerning fact, one fine morning, and realizing that the person whom you thought of spending the rest of your life with, is nothing short of a devious psychopath? I don’t blame you for not being able to decipher his sociopathic behavior while you dated him as I am sure he must have mesmerized you by his charming and condescending ways. That’s how such people project themselves in public. Perhaps they have a deep seated desire to get what they want, be it attention, appreciation, affection or recognition. This kind of behavior is, normally, an offshoot of a twisted or a neglected childhood, consistent failures in life, poverty (especially in childhood) or a constant nagging by an abusive parent or a partner / spouse. Well, there is an exception to this rule, though. We see children with psychopathic traits born and raised in homes of loving and caring parents. It’s tough for the parents to deal with such children; somehow nothing seems to work for such kids and finally the parents give up which makes things even worse.

It has been seen that in most cases such people develop antisocial behavior in order to seek (some sort of) vengeance from the society as they believe that it was the society that took away from them the happiness which they were they so rightfully entitled to. The crime files are loaded with profiles of such people…people who committed their first crime in their early childhood by killing the abusive parent and somehow continued deriving a perverse pleasure in punishing the wrong doers whenever they got a chance. Ok about the ‘wrong doer’ thing, they develop their own perception and make their own judgments about right or wrong and that might not necessarily be in conformity with the rules of a civilized society. Would it sound scarier if I tell you that such people exist everywhere; they can be in our own homes, work places, grocery stores, gas stations, diners we frequently visit, so on and so forth. It’s almost impossible to see that devil hiding behind the mask of a charmer. By the time reality hits, it’s generally too late.

Lack of a conscience in conjunction with a weak ability to defer gratification and/or control aggressive desires, often leads to antisocial acts.

Psychopaths (and others on the pathological narcissism scale) low in social cognition are more prone to violence, occupational failure, and problems maintaining relationships. Psychopaths differ in their impulse control abilities and overall desires. Those high in the pathological narcissism scale are more equipped to succeed, but pathological narcissism does not in any way guarantee success.

1. He lacks the capacity of feeling someone else’s pain. He might fake it though.

2. He gets a sadistic pleasure in ‘starting the fire’ or, so to say, turning one friend against the other. See him slyly walking out of the situation as if he had nothing to do with it.

3. He is generally a control freak. All he is interested in is to have you all for himself. If you have friends (especially from opposite sex) and you love spending time with them, you would soon have to make a choice between your friends and your dear sociopathic lover. Depends on how desperately you want to hold on to a hopeless relationship.

4. He would generally keep assuring you that he loves you more than anything in the world but soon enough you will find his words meaningless and not correlating with his actions. His controlling ways gradually act as a slow poison to your overall personality, your confidence and your self esteem; it won’t be long enough before you stop believing in your own strengths, or should I say, become oblivious to who you actually are. You find yourself shying away from the crowds, fall short of words in front of people, subconsciously limit yourself by believing that you are not good enough as anything you do brings no results, live with an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach for the fear of confronting the unpredictable ‘him’. Obviously, by then, he would have played so much havoc with your mental health that you would always feel unsure of yourself and the words that pop out of your mouth. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to annoy a psychopath, especially, when you have to live with him underneath one roof and sleep in the same bed.

5. He gets a perverse pleasure in having sex with you, especially, if it’s against your wishes. What could be more exciting for him than hurting your pride and shattering your inner strength? You are just one of his prized possessions who is supposed to wear a smile at the dining table and carry a voluptuous and sensuous body to the bed, besides being a good mother to his children (if you have). Well, in some cases, such psychopathic individuals don’t have the capacity to love their children which makes it even more challenging for the abused spouse to take care of the emotional needs of the children, especially, in the event of being the battered and badgered one.

6. He is completely oblivious to your pain and emotional deprivation. He feels that he has given you everything you want, be it home, food or clothing and if you are still not happy with him, then something’s got to be wrong with your morality; you’re probably a slut as per his standards as he thinks that you can never be happy with one man. Don’t be surprised if, one day, you start questioning yourself or doubting your own morality, as such people are experts in lowering their partner’s self esteem.

7. If, somehow, you muster courage to tell him that you want to quit the relationship, he will try his utmost to keep you from walking out on him as that would not be conducive to him. He would never want anyone, not even you, to hurt his ego that bad. However, if, by any chance, you succeed in leaving him, he would make your life miserable even after you walk out of his life. He does not believe in ‘live and let live’ theory. All he knows is that he does not want you to be happy alone or with someone else. It’s his twisted mind which signals him to hold on to you even if that amounts to putting his own life on hold. He wants you to believe that he loves you but in reality, he has no clue as to what love really means. He manifests this strong emotion (love) by trying to keep you tied to him, by hook or by crook. The mere fact of having you missing from his life is unsettling for his narcissistic mind. Don’t ask me why they have such behavioral patterns as I wouldn’t know myself. They are what they are!

8. The whole idea of relationship is about ‘him’, ‘his happiness’ and ‘his rules’; you don’t exist. It’s nothing about you. You are only supposed to live a life he devised for you and that too within the parameters he set for you. You are supposed to be happy with all that he has offered you, with no complaints and no grievances; he doesn't want to believe that you could have reasons for not being happy in the world he created for you for the simple reason that he lacks the capacity of seeing things from someone else’s perception. He just believes that he is right and everyone else is wrong.

9. He has a tendency to hold on to whatever he possesses, be it material wealth or the people (he thinks) he loves; he does not know how to ‘let go’. You might feel that he is totally insensitive, inhuman and incorrigible when he so easily tramples your emotions and compels you to live a life that limits your inner growth and proves detrimental to your objectives and dreams. Did I say dreams? Well, don’t try to explain to him that you have dreams of your own as you are not supposed to have anything independent of him in the first place.

10. He would expect you to accompany him in all his social events and dinner parties but he would not, most likely, like to return the favor when you ask him to visit a friend of yours or attend a party hosted by your own dear friend. Even if he does accompany you, you might find yourself on tenterhooks all the time, not knowing which act or body gesture of yours could turn him off. So on your way back home you might regret the idea of going to the party in the first place. After all what is the idea of participating in such events when you cannot be yourself and have fun with that sword of Damocles hanging on your head all the time. The net result? Your social life, eventually dies an untimely death and you bury it with your own hands in some corner of your aching heart.

I hate to say this but it’s a fact that there is no treatment for such disorders. Such people are incurable and untreatable. First of all they would never realize that they need help and even if they do visit a psychiatrist or a psychologist for consultation, they would end up being put on some long term medication which is essentially prescribed to such patients for keeping their nerves under control. Well, that might help if the person shows signs of aggression and violence also but in all other cases, I doubt if the medication can help in changing the very thought process which has its roots in the unhealthy past of such people. I don’t like to say that such people should be left alone or that you should be careful enough in not letting yourself fall for their pseudo charm but then it does not make sense to put your life at stake for someone whom you can never be sure of. Who wouldn’t want a life full of sanity and stability! Watch out for the lurking dangers! It’s your life which is involved here so be sure of what you are getting into. That’s all I can say.