“All that glitters is not gold… sometimes it’s really just thinly gold plated tin held on by duct tape”
People who are considered to be abusers, such as, sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists are all members of a very special “social club”, which Psychologists like to refer to as “those with “Antisocial Personality Disorder”, and they have a lifetime membership. In order to be a member of this “very special club”, you need to exhibit and excel at special skills in areas such as- screwing people over and not really caring much about it, then throwing them away, and seeking out excessive attention and adoration, especially for things not really achieved. Speaking of “achieve”, you can even “achieve” higher club status if you are also able to brag about your misdeeds in a cold and uncaring manner. Yes, if they happen to possess copious amounts of apathy, well then that will get them a higher status and ranking for sure! Oh, to be so adored! These people like to live outside of the social contracts that the rest of us are “bound” by and make their own rules. They tend to regard real laws and rules more as, “rough guidelines” or “mere suggestions”, or not at all. The problem with these types of people and the destruction they cause, is that the crimes they commit are usually the non-violent, interpersonal , moral and ethical ones that are invisible and therefore hard to identify, quantify or collect as tangible physical evidence or proof.
I call the people, who fall into this category, “Soulspirit Murderers”, because, well, that’s exactly what they do and because no one can really agree on the terminology or where one begins and one ends. Soul and spirit murder, is also exactly what it feels like as a victim of one of them. They rate fairly high on the psychopathy scale and are mainly characterized by 4 specific domains according to the PCL-R (Psychopathy checklist- revised) scale, which is used to rate the level of psychopathy in an individual. These domains are; interpersonal, affective, lifestyle and antisocial. According to the article, ‘Diagnosing Psychopaths”, on the website, “www.psychologytoday.com”, Scott Bonn, Ph.D. states that, “The interpersonal traits include glibness (in conversation-insincerity, lack of forethought, superficial charm- think used car salesman), grandiosity, pathological lying and manipulation of others. The affective traits include a lack of remorse and/or guilt, shallow affect, lack of empathy and failure to accept responsibility. The lifestyle behaviors include stimulation-seeking behavior (because they have “chronic” boredom due to low levels of dopamine and approx. 4 times the dopamine released for “rewards”), impulsivity, irresponsibility, parasitic orientation and a lack of realistic life goals. Antisocial behaviors include poor behavioral controls, early childhood behavior problems, juvenile delinquency, revocation of conditional release and committing a variety of crimes.”
Dr. Scott Bonn goes on to say that, “An individual who possesses all of the interpersonal, affective, lifestyle and antisocial personality traits measured by PCL-R is considered a Psychopath. A clinical designation of psychopathy in the PCL-R test is based on a lifetime pattern of psychopathic behavior.“
“The results to date suggest that psychopathy is a continuum ranging from those who possess all of the traits and score highly on them to those who also have the traits but score lower on them. This PCL-R allows for a maximum overall score of 40. A minimum score of 30 is required in order to designate someone as a psychopath.”
“The scores for those who are Psychopaths vary greatly, revealing that very high to low levels of the condition exist among those who have it. Non-criminal psychopaths generally score in the lower range (close to thirty) while criminal psychopaths, especially rapists and murderers, tend to score in the highest range (close to forty.)”
“No two psychopaths score exactly the same on the test. The average non-psychopath will score around five or six on the PCL list.”
And lastly, Dr. Scott Bonn concludes, “Dr. Hare and other experts, including forensic psychologists and FBI profilers, consider psychopathy to be the most important forensic concept of the early twenty-first century. Because of its relevance to law enforcement, corrections, the courts and related fields, the need to understand psychopathy cannot be overstated.”
Regardless of what people and doctors decide to call or categorize these creatures as, the most important thing to remember is that they have the potential to inflict unimaginable pain, physically, psychologically and otherwise. It is very easy for them to manipulate and abuse people because they can separate their almost non-existent emotions from their actions. They are pathological which means they have a narrow pattern of behavior that will eventually give them away. They can behave themselves for short periods of time but that narrow patterned behavior (deviant of course) will always surface, usually after a commitment has been made… like moving in with each other, engagement or marriage!
***KNOWLEDGE IS POWER… ARM YOURSELF***