Psychopaths-do you know one?

[Ardent15]

Has anyone here know/think that they know or have met an actual psychopath? I find that they are fascinating (and frightening).


Here's Robert Hare's Psychopathy Checklist

Factor 1
Aggressive narcissism

1. Glibness/superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Pathological lying
4. Cunning/manipulative
5. Lack of remorse or guilt
6. Emotionally shallow
7. Callous/lack of empathy
8. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

Factor 2
Socially deviant lifestyle

1. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
2. Parasitic lifestyle
3. Poor behavioral control
4. Promiscuous sexual behavior
5. Lack of realistic, long-term goals
6. Impulsiveness
7. Irresponsibility
8. Juvenile delinquency
9. Early behavioral problems
10. Revocation of conditional release

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist

[DerekG]

1. They're not fascinating when you're among their prey

I believed in a just, merciful God until I battled a psychopath.

They're a ultra-slim minority, but manage to leave a lot of damage in their wake. These monsters have to be stopped, by any means necessary.

[Ardent15]

2. Fascinating from a distance

That's what I meant. And in a morbidly curious way.

Sorry to hear about your battle with one.

[Kali]

3. stop posting lists designed to make me look bad!

[SeattleGirl]

4. I dated one for awhile. He was really good at hiding it for

quite some time. Then my world turned to hell once his true self came out. Took me a long, long time to get over the effects that relationship had on me.

[iris27]

5. Ugh, yes. My sister.

Took me 21 years to realize it. Now I stay as far away from her as possible. Holidays and that's IT. She cost me thousands of dollars and a degree in any major that was worth a damn in the job market...it's a long, boring, bitter story.

[Writer]

6. Yes. I know several.

Some are in my family.

[MiddleFingerMom]

7. W?

.
Seriously.
.

[achtung_circus]

8. I have dealt with more than I wish to remember

on a professional basis. Animals and nutbars seem to attract each other.

[Kali]

42. hey!

good to see you! :hi:

You owe me an e-mail:P

[Haole Girl]

9. Oh yeah

A real fucking asshole, too. :-(

[jmowreader]

10. How many do you have to get to be considered a psychopath?

I have two in my life.

The guy I used to work for gets a perfect score on part 1, and on part 2 he doesn't display number 7, not sure about number 8 or 9 (although he probably gets a hit on 9), and he hasn't been in trouble with the law so number 10 doesn't apply.

My wide gets a perfect score on part 1. On part 2 she doesn't exhibit number 4, didn't exhibit number 9 or 10.

[Ardent15]

11. I'm not sure. Most psychopaths would be around 30/40, I imagine.

A perfect 40 is extremely rare.

[jmowreader]

12. Do you know how to score this thing?

I know it's not linear--it's got 18 points on it, and 18 doesn't directly go into 40.

[hyphenate]

13. Know a couple of them

My best friend's son--she is dead now, but he's been lying and causing trouble for a lot of people since he was 11 years old.

The son of an old landlord in the 60s--he's probably either dead or in jail now. He was extremely cruel to animals.

One of my sister's "companions" who made the statement about his son with my sister (who was a toddler when he said it): "I helped bring him into the world, I can take him out."


There are likely others as well, but I can't think of anyone else right now.

[BlueIris]

14. Yep. Ex-boyfriend.

And at least one president we've had, although I guess that doesn't count as "knowing" a psychopath.

[Shining Jack]

15. The line is a bit blured between Sociopathy, and Psychopathy...

Sociopathy(Antisocial personality disorder)

* Persistent lying or stealing
* Superficial charm<4><5>
* Apparent lack of remorse<4> or empathy; inability to care about hurting others
* Inability to keep jobs or stay in school<4>
* Impulsivity and/or recklessness<4>
* Lack of realistic, long-term goals — an inability or persistent failure to develop and execute long-term plans and goals
* Inability to make or keep friends, or maintain relationships such as marriage
* Poor behavioral controls — expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper
* Narcissism, elevated self-appraisal or a sense of extreme entitlement
* A persistent agitated or depressed feeling (dysphoria)
* A history of childhood conduct disorder
* Recurring difficulties with the law
* Tendency to violate the boundaries and rights of others
* Substance abuse
* Aggressive, often violent behavior; prone to getting involved in fights
* Inability to tolerate boredom
* Disregard for the safety of self or others
* Persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social rules, obligations, and norms
* Difficulties with authority figures <6>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder


"The American Psychiatric Association estimating that 4% of the population are sociopaths. Psychopaths are rare,found in perhaps 1% of the population."

[rcrush]

16. I think I get a 9/10 on Factor 2.

What do I win?

[coyotespaw]

17. Do you really think it's a good idea for people to be diagnosing others...

based on a vaguely defined set of standards culled from the oh-so-trustworthy depths of Wikipedia? It would be much more reasonable to ask if anyone has ever gotten a case of the heebie jeebies from someone else.

[TK421]

37. Edit-proof Wikipedia? The hell, you say!

:D that thing sure is like the Bible on the fucking internet these days

[rcrush]

53. Almost like Snopes

SNOPES SAYS ITS NOT TRUE AND THATS THE GOSPEL!

Who the hell are Snopes? Just some couple who started a website?

[unpossibles]

40. I agree

Plus the lists just remind me of the average music scene.....

[jobycom]

18. Yeah, my brother. Sociopath, psychopath... same problem, different names.

There was a guy here on DU a while back who used to claim they were different, but psychologists use the words interchangeably, and the only real difference is how the psychologist thinks the problem was created. Those who believe nature creates them call them psycopaths, those who thing they are the result of environmental issues call them sociopaths.

I had a brother who was clearly whichever word you prefer. Not very smart, but very instinct-oriented, and nothing to stop his instincts. I'm still discovering things he did 35 years ago that had traumatic results on a lot of people. A couple years ago I learned he tried to rape a girlfriend of mine, and I never saw her again because she was so afraid of him. I had never known why I lost her. Just one of the less scary stories, although when she finally connected with me thirty years after the event, and I told her Bobby was dead, she was noticably relieved. She was still afraid of him and the way he told her he would hurt her and kill her if she told anyone.

The real thing is very rare. People classify anyone with a self-centered streak a psychopath sometimes, but when you've really dealt with him, and really seen through the disguise, you know them. The thing is, they are usually very good at pretending to be someone else, usually some victim of circumstances that everyone misunderstands. You can deal with them extensively and think they are just people with really bad luck, and sometimes maybe a bit of bad decision making, but they are always the victim of everything around them. Then one day you are dealing with them and you catch them at it--at the lie, at the manipulation, at the crime itself, or maybe suddenly it all collapses under the weight of one too many stories--and you see it all, and you can't believe everyone doesn't see it. But you can never convince others of it, because they still see what you did at first.

Bobby wasn't a blood brother, we were both adopted, and he was taken in when he was five. By then, he'd had a horrible life, so I don't know whether his life created him, or whether there was something in the DNA, or what. I tend to think it was his environment. When you are a todler and your mother (his real mother) is a drunk and your father is an untreated schizophrenic who can one minute love you and the next try to hurt you, you sort of skip over the development of abstracts like right and wrong and just go straight to doing whatever you have to to survive. I don't think that's the only thing, but I think it was a defining influence on my brother. But that's just one story.

Anyway, yeah, they are not good to be around, if you even know you are around them.

[PassingFair]

49. Yep, a psychiatrist I knew once told me that a sociopath is just a...

psychopath who gets caught.

Criminals are "sociopaths" and
those who manage to avoid the
criminal justice system are
psychopaths.

[mdmc]

68. wow

thanks for the post..

[velvet]

19. The doco "I, Psychopath" was on tv tonight

In this extraordinary documentary, suspected psychopath Sam Vaknin goes in search of a diagnosis…was he born without a conscience?

“Making a movie with a psychopath,” declares I, Psychopath’s director Ian Walker, “is a little like poking a snake with a stick.” Unwittingly, the filmmaker becomes a textbook victim.

Joined by Vaknin’s long-suffering but ever-loyal wife Lidija, the threesome embark on a diagnostic road trip to the world’s top experts in psychopathy in which Vaknin (and his wife) undergo a battery of rigorous psychological tests and neuroscientific experiments.

He is the world’s first civilian to willingly seek a diagnosis for psychopathy. The former corporate criminal turns out to be a way-better psychopath than any of them imagined. By the end, Walker almost calls it quits on his own film rather than spend another day with its main subject.

Program Summary, ABCTV http://www.abc.net.au/tv/guide/netw/201003/programs/DO0723H001D2010-03-25T212500.htm

You can watch it online here: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/i-psychopath/

[Shining Jack]

55. Sounds great.

Thanks for the link.:)

[IntravenousDemilo]

70. That was outstanding. Thanks a lot for the link. I just finished watching it. n/m

[myrna minx]

73. Thank you for the link to Top Documentary! I didn't know about this site.

I'm a documentary nerd - so this is a gold mine. :hi:

[Symarip]

20. Hey, wait a fucking second...

There's nothing superficial about my charm.

[hobbit709]

21. Quite a few

Including one that made the news later.

[PRETZEL]

22. Married to one,

two of her kids would qualify also.

[applegrove]

38. Yes he destroyed my life.

[applegrove]

56. This should have been in reference to the original post. Never been married.

[bif]

23. I used to work for one.

That year was the worst ten years of my life.

[old mark]

24. My old job involved spending time with several of these guys, 3 of them

murderers, several more child molesters. There is no "treatment" for them, just drugs for keeping them under control and observation for life.

I retired early.

I believe many people with "milder" psychopathology become bosses - or politicians or bishops.
But that's just my opinion.

mark

[Tuesday Afternoon]

25. yes. maybe...sociopath for sure. is there a difference, clinically speaking?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

Psychopathy vs. sociopathy
Hare writes that the difference between sociopathy and psychopathy may "reflect the user's views on the origins and determinates of the disorder."<44>
David T. Lykken proposes psychopathy and sociopathy are two distinct kinds of antisocial personality disorder. He believes psychopaths are born with temperamental differences such as impulsivity, cortical underarousal, and fearlessness that lead them to risk-seeking behavior and an inability to internalize social norms. On the other hand, he claims sociopaths have relatively normal temperaments; their personality disorder being more an effect of negative sociological factors like parental neglect, delinquent peers, poverty, and extremely low or extremely high intelligence. Both personality disorders are the result of an interaction between genetic predispositions and environmental factors, but psychopathy leans towards the hereditary whereas sociopathy tends towards the environmental.<39>

[NuttyFluffers]

44. i like to think in AD&D terms of chaotic evil and lawful evil. :)

chaotic evil is pretty uncontrollable, even of themselves. lawful evil understand society enough to keep it under wraps long enough to save their hide or eliminate threats.

not a professional psychiatrist, but reading from the above it's a simplistic assessment of the previous clinical distinctions. so that's the analogy i use to keep it simple for me to understand.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

45. ok...so then which do you consider the sociopath ...

the "lawful evil one" ..?

and then the "chaotic evil one" is the psychopath..?

[DarkTirade]

26. I know one.

And the only reason I didn't hospitalize him the first time I ever met him was because the setting we were in prevented me from doing so. And that's why he said and did the things he did then, because he knew he could get away with it.

[Tom_Foolery]

27. It appears that everyone I know suffers from aggressive narcissism...

And a few live deviant lifestyles.

[pitohui]

28. well sure i've known several

some functional, some not so much

isn't something like 4 percent of the population supposedly a sociopath? how could you not know any, unless you're the type who is just completely taken in by their lies, such that you don't even realize that OF COURSE you know a socio/psychopath (whatever they're calling them 2 day)

everyone who is a successful sales person has "factor 1" of course -- one reason why buying a car is such a hellish experience

[Shell Beau]

29. I think there are a few in GD, other than that, I don't think I know of any.

[revolution breeze]

30. Yes! n/t

[rcrush]

31. It seems I may be a psychopath.

I checked yes for all but 3 of them!

[zanana1]

63. You should definitely include that on your resume! nt

[kimi]

32. Yes, my father, and there has been another fairly recently

Needless to say, it's taken some intense therapy to put my life back in order. I think that therapy, and separation from the person involved, is about all that can be done when it comes to dealing with the damage from these people. They usually leave only debris in their wake.

[mitchum]

33. Honestly, I fit the profile...

except for that whole empathy thing.
And sometimes I wonder if that is because I derive pleasure from being compassionate?

[JonLP24]

34. Going by factor 2

I may be a psychopath. :scared:

[Faygo Kid]

35. Worked for one over a decade ago.

After two jobs in which I lasted 10 years each, I left working for her after 10 months - and found out that I had lasted longer than my three previous predecessors.

No one like her before or since. She was fired quickly a few years later after her powerful protector retired.

[TrogL]

36. One of my former bosses

[Deep13]

48. MOST of my former bosses!

How does that happen so often?!

[PassingFair]

50. Some one telling you to get back to work...

does NOT automatically qualify as a psychopath.

:P

[Deep13]

51. Huh. No one has ever actually told me that.

Well except one guy I was working 60-hrs. a week for and he begrudged me taking two days off to go back East for Christmas. I know you're kidding, but the few "down to business" employers I have had were not psychopaths.

[mnhtnbb]

39. Bushie boy.

[Taverner]

41. I did. Then I got the fuck away from them

[Initech]

43. Factor 2 describes me and pretty much every one of my friends.

So jump to your own conclusion. :evilgrin:

[One_Life_To_Give]

46. He keeps staring at me

This Psychopath keeps staring at me in the mornings. Every day it seems I look up and see him staring back at me. How am I supposed to shave?

[Deep13]

47. Mom!

"Factor 1
Aggressive narcissism

1. Glibness/superficial charm--YUP. SHE'S GREAT FOR AN HOUR OR SO.
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth--IT'S ALL ABOUT HER ALL THE TIME.
3. Pathological lying
4. Cunning/manipulativ--HARD TO TELL IF SHE"S LYING OR JUST DELUSIONAL
5. Lack of remorse or guilt--That would mean admitting error. That will never happen.
6. Emotionally shallow--big time. She's like a thirteen year old.
7. Callous/lack of empathy--big time
8. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions--More like failure to see her own actions.

Factor 2
Socially deviant lifestyle

1. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom--sometimes, during the upswing in her mood.
2. Parasitic lifestyle--only emotionally, but in that regard, big time!
3. Poor behavioral control--yup.
4. Promiscuous sexual behavior--yup. married men.
5. Lack of realistic, long-term goals--a lot of pipe dreams.
6. Impulsiveness--mostly in spending
7. Irresponsibility--she bought a house she could just barely not afford and then lost it when the interest rates spiked. Then she quit her career. A bunch of personal stuff too.
8. Juvenile delinquency--unknown
9. Early behavioral problems--unknown
10. Revocation of conditional release--don't know what that means

Additional factors listed in the Wiki article

Many short--term marital relationships--three
Criminal versatility--unknown, unlikely

[Mopar151]

52. I've met a few I was pretty sure of -

One cost me an 18 year job, another screwed up a whole industry 'til he got somebody killed. Another burned lots of people, then my friend's daughter ran off with him - we're still worried for her.
There are a lot of marginal cases, IMHO - a lot aren't smart enough to rise to the top of the scale - that's where bullies can come from.
As was mentioned in the post on "I,Psychopath" - I am repelled by many of them as if by magnetisim.

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

54. I do unfortunately

and he is a close relative. I've had nothing to do with him for over 15 years. He's never killed anybody "THAT I KNOW OF" but he sure is a soul killer.

[NNadir]

57. Been there, done that.

I was concerned about the message I would send to my sons if I disowned my brother, so I tolerated him one more time, until I learned some stuff about what he did to other members of my family and, in a very weird way, my wife's family.

I sat my boys down and explained to them that while I always wanted them to do their best to forgive themselves and, if need be, other members of their family, there is a time to cut one's losses.

I will never speak to my brother again. He's toxic.

It's amazing though. I still can't figure out where he came from, and neither can any of my other relatives. My parents were wonderful people with high ethics and great love for both their children.

[applegrove]

58. Yes. Soul killing is for sure what they do to the life of a normal person. My life

has been diminished so much by him.I have a completely different life from what mine should have been. But it is my life so I'll live it with hope that things will get better in the future.

[triguy46]

59. Socially? No. Professionally, yes, and meet new ones weekly. Its a living.

[TwistedSister]

60. Yes I Married One And Now Happily Divorced

Huge mistake...big....huge....got the heck away from him and glad.

[ScreamingMeemie]

61. Wow, a lot of answers to the yes. I like to think that I have never truly

met one. I have met a few classic narcissists that I think we tend to want to throw the socio/psychopath label on.

[woo me with science]

71. Yes, everybody's an amateur diagnostician these days. nt

[Taverner]

62. I knew one

Got the fuck away from him too

[Mutley]

64. I do know and have known people who fit many of these attributes

but not all. I am not sure they are "psychopaths" per se, but who knows what some people are capable of?

[glinda]

65. Ex-husband and uncle. I avoid both of them.

[That Is Quite Enough]

66. A woman I once knew fit all of these perfectly, though I don't think it was the result of illness

Then again, you never know. She probably could've been a sociopath.

[mdmc]

67. imho i think i do know one

he isn't a criminal - he is a hard worker and loves earning money (so he does not have factor 2 - parasitic lifestyle- perhaps he does and i don't know).

[Lars39]

69. I have at least two 2 sociopaths in my family.

The damage one can do is pretty bad, but these 2 teamed up and totally split the family. :(

[haele]

72. I've known a few sociopaths, but there were a few people I've avoided on instinct

who have shown some overwhelming psychopathic tendencies.
The two can be mistaken, but my understanding is that where sociopaths tend to get that way through environment or experience (as an emotional coping mechanism), and psychopaths actually have a brain chemistry issue. Sociopaths might be "fixed" - or can learn different coping mechinisms that might allow them to at least visulize empathy if they can't deal with whatever in their past that caused them to shut off empathy for others, but there isn't really any evidence of medication or treatment for a psychopath that does not involve forcing them into a docile state.
And not all psychopaths - or sociopaths - are violent or sexual deviants. But neither can be trusted with any situation that doesn't directly benefit them.

Haele

[WinkyDink]

74. Does Dubya count?

[lunatica]

75. Some of my estwhile bosses were sociopaths at work

Maybe they were psychopaths, but they kept it hidden at work.

[Odin2005]

76. A friend's brother.

A mean, self-centered, narcissistic prick who constantly demeans people and thinks he's hot stuff.