After experiencing a fraudulationship with a sociopath, self-trust and trust in others tends to take a big hit. We may question ourselves about our ability to identify who is trustworthy and who is not. We may blame ourselves for being “too trusting.” The support community may subtly victim blame us and say directly or indirectly that we are “co-dependent” or “weak” or somehow deserved to be conned. I have a real problem with this and find that it is not helpful for healing. In this instance, it does not “take 2 to tango.”
The sociopathic predator targeted you in the same way a cat “targets” a mouse. Do we blame the mouse for being dinner for the cat? Do we say or imply that if only the mouse had better cat radar, he wouldn’t have ended up as cat chow? No. And for the record, I’m not implying that the cat is sociopathic. He’s a predator and he hunts mice. That’s as far as I’m taking the metaphor. The cat is not evil. So please don’t send me messages saying that I’m making cats out to be bad! That’s not my point. In any case, if you’ve experienced a sociopathic fraudulationship, you were targeted and you may be wondering how you can ever trust yourself or anyone else again. That’s what I’d like to talk about in this article. I drew heavily from Dr. Martha Stout’s book, The Sociopath Next Door, which I highly recommend if you haven’t read or listened to it.
How to Really Know Someone
The bottom line is that the only way to really, truly know someone is to know them for many years and watch their actions. And, even then, as in my own case, it could turn out that they were lying. There isn’t a test you can give to someone to make sure they are telling you the truth. To expect yourself to be able to identify liars with 100% accuracy is really not fair to yourself.
But there are things that can improve your odds. You can learn to identify problematic behaviors and typical “tells” of predatory personality types. Once you know what to look for, and if you see a pattern of behaviors in someone you are dating or becoming friends with, you need to be able to set a very firm boundary and a zero-tolerance policy for patterns of behavior that you observe. I want to emphasize patterns of behavior. I’m not talking about someone having the occasional off day, although you can set your own boundaries. Sometimes even one instance of a behavior, such as raging or throwing items in your direction, is too many, and you needn’t feel guilty about giving this person their walking papers; you don’t owe second chances or benefit of the doubt to people who behave abusively. Believe them when they tell you or show you who they are.
The Statistics of Sociopathy
So even though there isn’t a foolproof way to tell if someone has no conscience, i.e. is sociopathic, all is not lost. Imagine yourself observing a room of 100 people. Statistically we know that approximately 4 of these people would meet criteria for antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy), and have no conscience.
That means that 96 people in that group of 100 people do have a conscience and can be counted on to behave in prosocial ways, i.e. decently and responsibly, in average life situations. I’m not talking about extreme situations where people with consciences do atrocious things when led by a sociopathic leader. The group of 96 people do have consciences, but may or may not listen to them in any given situation. The group of 4 sociopaths have NO conscience to listen to whatsoever. That’s an important distinction, although difficult for us neurotypicals to really wrap our heads around.
So how do we recognize these sociopaths? What does research show is the thread running through all of them? Maybe you’re thinking it’s that smug look on their face, or their dead eyes, or backhanded, passive-aggressive “compliments.” Maybe you’re thinking it’s that they go from calm to raging in the blink of an eye. Maybe it’s the mole on the back of their right hand or the cleft in their chin. Nope. This would be too obvious, too easy to spot.
Step 1: The Pity Play
It is, according to Martha Stout’s The Sociopath Next Door, the pity play. She says “The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.”
Why would anyone want to be pitied? It is because good people, those with consciences, will let people they pity get by with pretty much any behavior. It is much less likely that we would give someone a pass if they were always abusive and mean. We just wouldn’t tolerate it.
But if someone plays on our pity, appears to be remorseful, pathetic, we tend to let them off the hook more easily. And the sociopath knows this and uses this tendency of ours against us. This is not to say that pity and sympathy are always misplaced. If something bad happens to someone, say a house fire, loss of a job, or otherwise fallen on hard times, pity and sympathy are appropriate responses. It becomes a problem when someone who displays a pattern of antisocial behavior is always the victim (or hero) of the story, that should raise red flags for us. October is domestic violence awareness month.
An example of misplaced pity, weaponized pity is the sociopathic husband who abuses his wife and then sits on the couch, sullen, crying, stating he is such a screw up and that the wife only needs to find it in her heart to forgive him. The sociopath’s appeal for pity distracts us from the antisocial behavior. Those without conscience do not care about honoring social contracts, but they do know how they work and they also know that we normal respect the rules of prosocial behavior, and the sociopath has no qualms about using this for his own advantage. Martha Stout says, “All in all, I am sure that if the devil existed, he would want us to feel very sorry for him.”
Step 2: Pattern of Behaviors
So again, when you are trying to figure out whom to trust, look at the combination of the pattern of behaviors common amongst sociopaths with plays for your pity. Is the person almost always the victim of his own story? This is, according to Dr. Stout, “as close to a warning mark on a conscienceless person’s forehead as you will ever be given.” This doesn’t mean that the person is going to be a mass murder or even violent. It does, however, mean that it isn’t in your best interest to associate with them, date them, marry them, have kids with them, or even ask a favor of.
The Right to Protect Yourself
You have a right to protect yourself from predators. You have a right to set the boundaries on what behaviors you tolerate and what behaviors you don’t. You don’t owe it to anyone to give them the benefit of the doubt or a second chance. Your life is not a democracy and you have a right to determine who is in and who is out.