Getting back to the topic of NPD, something that has always puzzled me.
The monster couples…who is the vampire, and who is the victim?
How does that work?
Does one partner “taint”, or “infect” the other?
Or is there a “vampire/victim” dynamic at all? Maybe there is something quite different at play?
Is it rather that “birds of a feather, flock together”?
GD
Thats interesting. I sometimes think I was a part of a monster couple, though to a less extreme. We weren’t both psychopaths, but we did have a dueling of personality disorders going on that pretty much drove us both up the wall and insane, not that that can’t happen with a normal couple.
On one side you have the schizoid with an intense need for solitude and an avoidance of conflict, and the other side with intense attention seeking behaviors. Her need to be the center of attention and draw conflict was at odds with me to extreme. I’m sure the same went for her, as in most ways we were polar opposites. I’m sure I conflicted with her on a major scale also.
I suppose the vampire depends on the perspective. I thought she was quite toxic. But a year into our relationship, I was ready to leave… and she’d do absolutely anything to make me stay. Lie, pretend, even give up the NPD behaviors that were causing me to leave. She was highly resentful at me for that, though in reality the choice was hers. She thought I was a vampire that was controlling and wouldn’t let her do anything, such as flirt, lie, and cheat…
Either way, the dynamic in that relationship was odd. The NPD/BPD was forced to tone it down, and the Schizoid was forced to step up and take control of life… both unnatural. Strangely, the more healthy one of our behaviors became the more destructive the other became.
Dueling disorders from my experience can have some unusual effects. Schizoid doesn’t go well with any people =) much less a disordered one. I can only imagine how out there it can get when you have worse things going on than I did. I almost went psychotic a few times… or at least teetered on the edge.
I think there was once a part of me that COULD have been sucked in…a long time ago, when I was very young…
It happened twice, with (diagnosed, no less) psychopaths, when I was in my early 20s…
I felt as if I were being sucked into an alternative universe, with a whole different set of rules.
Both of them had, in different ways, the potential to be extremely dangerous to me. One beat me regularly and strangled me unconscious at least weekly…the other was utterly cold blooded and programmed to destroy anything that started to matter to him…
In both cases I felt as though I was living on the edge of my own death.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to know that you only had a few months to live…how liberating that would be…you might feel few, if any inhibitions?
Well it was a little like that…everything started to become unreal.
Both times I dropped them like a hot rock as soon as they pulled me against my conscience, but I have a very strong moral sense, and besides, I am an Aspie, it takes a cruise missile, and a direct hit at that, to change my mind once I have made it up.
But if I were more “normal”? Less inflexible…what might have happened then…
I often wonder…particularly when I was younger, and the sense of being “in lurve” was overpowering in it’s life and death intensity, and often, unfortunately, directed at men who might have derived considerable moral benefit from exorcism?
Whenever I see these monster couples, I cannot help feeling I should have a little sympathy for one of them, but I can never really tell WHICH one.
GD
To me, neither deserves any sympathy. Each is accountable for their actions. Maybe you can blame a person for losing control in an emotional fight like the spouse that hits the other, but murder?
Charles Manson is an interesting one also. I saw an interview a few years back with two of his women. They both claim they had been brainwashed and are now sane - of course they were still trying to get paroled out of prison.
The “Stockholm Syndrome” became a great excuse for Patty Hearst and her shenanigans.
CHARLES MANSON— NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER…ALL THE
WAY SUSIE JO…
ABSOLUTELY NO QUESTIONING THIS…AND THEN SOME…HE
IS AS MANIPULATIVE A PSYCHO AS IT GETS…BUT THE 60’S ARE WAY
OVER…AND HE HAS NO POWER…HE IS WHERE HE BELONGS. HELL
WOULD BE EASY FOR HIM…HE WOULD LOVE HELL…
On Dec 18, 2007, at 7:47 PM, susiejo wrote:
I have pretty good moral values too. My past relationship did drive me to do things I wouldn’t have normally done, but I did have my limits. I did snap and go a bit nuts, but in my wildest dreams could I never imagined assisting her in some sadistic plot. I’d have been the first to turn her in or protect anybody she would have harmed… I felt like I was doing it on a small scale in our time together. Being abnormal gave me some unique advantages in being in such a relationship as compared to a normal person, but it also gave me weaknesses that a normal person wouldn’t have. I think you’d have be really disordered yourself to be able to overcome your own conscience. I can’t help feeling sorry for anybody with mental problems… its a tradgedy to everybody. I could use a dose of healthy narcissism.
It sucks that you were treated that way. It sounds like you have lots of emotional strength, though. I hope I can always hold it together like I do these days. Losing control of my life and mind isn’t something I want to do again. I stayed way to long and put up with way too much.
I don’t relate to your death example though… I don’t think death would liberate me all. Seems like a lot of schizoids find life a chore and have been happily awaiting it for a long time. I’m not sure even death could put a spark under my ass, but… I could be wrong. It takes a cruise missle to get me to make a decision.
I don’t mean to say that there is any excuse for either, there isn’t, particularly the first two…British Moors Murderers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady the things they did to those poor children, on photograph and tape defied description.
There is no absolution…
But I can’t help the feeling that one is somehow MORE guilty, and that perhaps the other would never have offended at all without them, and that, if the offences had not been committed, we might otherwise consider them to be, at least, in some way, a victim.
I forgot these two:
Perhaps the most appalling and ambivalent of all. He seems to have been the most monstrous, and yet she seems to have been the dominant partner, a nightmare symbiosis.
They “get” to me particularly sharply as I was a teen runaway when they were killing and may have known at least one of their victims (hard to know, out on the streets, we lived by first names and not usually real ones). I also hitchhiked through their “hunting ground” aged 15, but I had the foresight to arm myself with a 6’2" vicar’s son on the day.
I know only too well how easy it must have been for them to get victims. All those poor kids and teens, like me, who had never been loved or wanted, and who had no refuge but a system that abused and emotionally deprived them as a way of life.
The Wests often offered them a brief illusion of everything they were being denied…before…
GD
Seems like a lot of schizoids find life a chore and have been happily awaiting it for a long time.
I feel pretty much that way myself most of the time, WY…
I never imagined assisting her in some sadistic plot. I’d have been the first to turn her in or protect anybody she would have harmed…
Me too…
I think you’d have be really disordered yourself to be able to overcome your own conscience.
I don’t think it is all disorder…I think there is honestly a point where you have to get primal, clutch your crucifix and whisper…“evil”
GD
Gosh Gaye, you do make a point bringing up evil - an incredibly powerful force I do believe exists.
Ever read the “Story of O”?
I have…(can we discuss that on a family site?)
I also know the story of how it was written…Anne Desclos wrote it much in the manner of Scheherezade to retain the waning interest of her employer and lover Jean Paulhan…in response to his challenge that “No woman could write a real erotic novel”
It is riveting stuff…not just on the level of S/m but also as an allegory the deconstruction and usurpation of an (originally strong and confident) individual identity in voluntary submission to degradation…
In the sequel, “Return to Roissy” (that was never clearly attributed to Anne Desclos) the degradation of “O” is so total that, on being rejected by Sir Stephen (a man she initially despised) she seeks his permission to end her own life and once that permission is granted quietly avails of it.
It may well be an allegory of the dynamics of the relationship between Anne Desclos and Jean Paulhan.
Read with an open mind it is thought provoking, to say the least…
GD
I dunno, I have a hard time as seeing them as evil. Maybe the were aware of the decisions they made, but they lacked those parts of the psyche that I have that would prevent me from such actions. They didn’t choose to have those malfunctions. I think to be evil you have to have a choice, and I don’t know that the psychopaths, sociopaths, or AsPDs are really aware what they are doing. I know that, some of them know they are causing pain, but they don’t have the capacity to realize why it is wrong.
The last interview I saw with Charles Manson, I just can’t see how he could ever have a choice. He’s one messed up guy, and I don’t think he’s capable of being anyone else.
Back to the topic, I just can’t see anyone else being driven to these behaviors either without suffering from the same problem. I can’t picture myself crossing that line, so I can’t see anybody else doing it either. I was sympathetic to my exes problems, but I always more concerned about protecting those she might wrong.
So, the NPD lacks conscience and empathy. So does the psychopath. What is it exactly that cause those limits to be passed that cause sadistic suffering and murderous tendencies. I still wonder if my ex was an actual psychopath due to some of her behaviors that I never see descriped on NPD or BPD boards, but she rarely broke any laws (moral laws a plenty though.) What keeps Ns from being violent, breaking laws, and murdering for sport and not the sociopaths? I suppose somebody could just continually make evil choices and eventually, and just get used to the guilt until it goes away.
They are all sick, sick, sick, sick people, thats for sure. The last interview I saw with Jeffery Dahmer he was describing how he didn’t like killing people. He just like the corpses, and it was the only way to get them. He wanted robot zombies he could control, and it was just a means to an end. I think my ex would have loved to have a robot zombie… I certainly started to feel like one after that life.
That’s interesting WY…
Personally I am conflicted there…
When I look at my mother or my son I cannot JUDGE them…I feel nothing for them, I don’t want them near me, they even repel me quite involuntarily…but I don’t actually judge them…
I know they are no more capable of feeling a difference between right and wrong than of reciting the Koran in Cantonese. Where there IS a clearly defined rule, they can choose intellectually to follow it, but in a grey area (and conscience, as well as life is all about grey areas I think) they might as well be stone blind.
But that isn’t because they are screwed up (though my son certainly is) it is simply because there is a piece missing, it’s just not there…not repairable, but not their fault.
BUT…when I look at cases like these…my gut whispers “evil”.
I think an NPD is very different…they have a conscience and feelings, but they are living detached from them…the way you might detach from fear to climb a ladder or something…
It isn’t that they don’t exist. They are just more muted, less painful, uncomfortable (or, of course, when appropriate, pleasing) but regardless, once they are aware of those things they still have the choice to heed or ignore them, a choice the psychopath does not have…
I would never condemn anyone for shutting out their feelings to survive, or even for ignoring them, that is personal choice that is no-one else’s business, and often a question of survival…whatever gets you through the night…but when someone shuts out and ignores their conscience, that is surely unforgivable?
GD
I think the difference in NPD is that they really do have values - just cannot see when they violate them. It is the lack of empathy and ability to assess consequences of their actions (cause and effect), and loss of impulse control that they end up doing things contradictory of their personality.
This could be true of some psychopaths but then others know exactly what they are doing. They do know the pain they cause and take pleasure in causing it. And there are ones who go into the bowels of hell and experience emotional thrills from doing great cruelty - has to be neurotransmitters that can be elicited. There is a big difference in all of these. That’s a problem on the board and the blind followers who assume all is true of the person they deal with.
Jeffrey Dahmer got thrills from his cruelty. He did not have a bad childhood. He was not crazy as a loon like Charles Manson was.
I like the story of Bonnie and Clyde Parker. They were psychopaths but not serial killers. Well so what if some got killed in their bank robberies. Bonnie was right there with Clyde but there are no accounts of her ever killing anyone. Now when they go down, Texas State troopers set them up and just butchered them to death with machine guns. They both became folk heroes (and especially Bonnie) for being victims of a much crueler murder than either ever committed, and Bonnie by accounts, never committed any.
So were the Texas troopers psychopathic?
A psychopath is not, of himself sadistic at all. They are so detached that other people’s reactions often don’t affect them, one way or another…this described them pretty well I think, because they do HAVE personalities too:
It is the lack of empathy and ability to assess consequences of their actions (cause and effect), and loss of impulse control that they end up doing things contradictory of their personality.
“The Teacher” in the movie “The juror” is the best fictional psychopath I ever saw…if he has a reason he is utterly remorseless, he will kill, and even torture, a child…but if he has no particular reason he doesn’t care if you suffer or not (like the guy he gets to pass out happily drunk before pushing him off a cliff - no suffering there) and is riddled with personal protocols and standards that are simply unrelated to the rights and needs of others or whether anyone gets hurt or not.
Dahmer didn’t actually get a thrill from killing or causing pain at all, he just had a fetish with dead bodies, and to fulfil that he had to kill…rather like the German consensual cannibal case where the killer is quite peeved that his voluntary victim expected to be killed too because “I did not want to kill him, I just wanted to eat him”.
Serial killers rarely seem sadistic, the killing always seems to be a means to an end, however nauseating and grisly that might be.
What can be horrific is the combination of psychopathy and sadistic PD. That is a drive to cause pain coupled with absolutely nothing to stop you. Given how boring and lacking in stimulation life must be with the reduced effect of the psychopathic personality, it doesn’t bear thinking of…
Irma Grese, a pretty country girl (with abysmal dress sense) hung at age 23, was probably more of a sadistic psychopath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irma_Grese
NPD is just a turning inwards…all the equipment is there, they are just averting their eyes from the altruistic elements in order to focus on self interest, usually as a conditioned survival mechanism…if a true NPD hurts you he knows EXACTLY what he has done…he is just choosing to either deny it, or not let it affect him…in order to pursue his self interest.
Here are Bonnie and Clyde:
I admit, I feel quite sorry for her myself…
GD
Well Bonnie got made a folk hero of sorts. I’m not sure that was merited or not. My question would be whether the cops who shot her did not have their own degree of psychopathy. Obviously they were not serial killers in the sense of the word, but on the other hand, they felt no restraint from an outflat murder of her and Clyde. And they chose a profession where they could get away with murder at will.
What about Klu klux clan members who killed, but then lived their normal lives as respectable citizens?
What is even more interesting to me in your links is that I can remember back 20-30 years ago when the FBI and psychologists stated only men were serial killers, not women. They have now changed that - there are a number of ladies who played the arsenic game with husbands, one after another. You have provided links that predate that position. It’s interesting to me - I wonder if it was not sexism, blaming the male and considering the female just another of his victims. Or is the FBI dumber than I already thought of them.
Y’know sometimes I think women were just a little bit TOO smart for the FBI?
evil grins
There is a marvellous novel by Caleb Carr “Angel of Darkness”, about a victorian lady serial killer…
Certainly policing is a profession that attracts, and accepts (if only because they would rather have them on the inside pssing out than on the outside pssing in, and it was a psycho-cop who told me that too) it’s fair share of psychos…
To my mind, that is to be expected…what I find TERRIFYING…is (seeing as you mention the KKK) the “Betrayed” effect…
Where the racist monster, played by Tom Beringer is also a warm, loving, hard working single father (of the kind we all despair of finding) who commits himself wholeheartedly to the undercover FBI agent (played by Derbrah Winger) sent to expose him…
What scares me is when the warm, loving, healthy people somehow grow a blind spot that leads them to do terrible things. They always seem to become the worst monsters of all.
It is human nature, and part of the drive to affiliate, to have a psychopathic disregard for anyone who is rejected by the “tribe”, aka “The enemy” - that is how perfectly normal men manage to kill in war, even to drop A Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
GD
Why are narcissists not prone to suicide? Simple: they died a long time ago.
They are the true zombies of the world. Read vampire and zombie legends and
you will see how narcissistic these creatures are."
Continue to read this article here (click on this link):
http://samvak.tripod.com/journal12.html
FIRST, there is a craving for Narcissistic Supply - and then the hunt. The
narcissist pursues women not because he finds them attractive, appealing,
possible soul mates, or sexual partners. He pursues women because he needs
his drug. He is an energy and attention vampire and women are the best
sources of this much-desired elixir.
Continue to read this article here (click on this link):
http://samvak.tripod.com/archive47.html
But when a vampire tick attaches themselves to you, in whatever form, then
you have to be careful. The best way is to apply a lit match to their body
and that will make them release their head that is embedded in your skin.
Without becoming cynical, I can recognize true friendliness that is not
exploitive.
Continue to read this article here (click on this link):
http://samvak.tripod.com/dialogues11.html
The narcissist is, thus, often described by others as “robotic”,
“machine-like”, “inhuman”, “emotionless”, “android”, “vampire”, “alien”,
“automatic”, “artificial”, and so on. People are deterred by the
narcissist’s emotional absence. They are wary of him and keep their guard up
at all times.
Continue to read this article here (click on this link):
http://samvak.tripod.com/narcissismself.html
I always think of myself as a machine. I say to myself things like “You have
an amazing brain” or “You are not functioning today, your efficiency is
low”. I measure things, I constantly compare performance. I am acutely aware
of time and how it is utilized. There is a meter in my head, it ticks and
tocks, a metronome of self-reproach and grandiose assertions. I talk to
myself in third person singular. It lends objectivity to what I think, as
though it comes from an external source, from someone else. That low is my
self-esteem that, to be trusted, I have to disguise myself, to hide myself
from myself. It is the pernicious and all-pervasive art of unbeing.
Continue to read this article here (click on this link):
http://samvak.tripod.com/journal4.html
People find the arcissist “cold”, “inhuman”, “heartless”, “clueless”,
“robotic or machine-like”.
Continue to read this article here (click on this link):
http://samvak.tripod.com/indifference.html
The narcissist is a machine which never rests, not even in his dreams, and
it has one purpose only - the securing and maximization of Narcissistic
Supply.
Continue to read this article here (click on this link):
http://samvak.tripod.com/journal38.html
Narcissists often strike their interlocutors as “machine-like”,
“artificial”, “fake”, “forced”, “insincere”, or “spurious”. This is because
even the narcissist’s ostensibly spontaneous behaviours are either planned
or automatic.
Continue to read this article here (click on this link):
http://samvak.tripod.com/journal47.html
The over-valuation and devaluation cycles are mere reflections and
derivatives of these ups and downs of the narcissist’s pools of energy and
flows of supply. Efficient (that is, abrupt) energy shifts are more typical
of automata than of human beings. But then the narcissist likes to brag of
his inhumanity and machine-like qualities.
Continue to read this article here (click on this link):
http://samvak.tripod.com/devaluationidealization.html
----- Original Message -----
From: “wastedyouth” npd-cpt7180@lists.careplace.com
To: palma@unet.com.mk
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 12:03 AM
Subject: Re: [npd] Tainted Love: Vampire or Victim?
Well Blitzen, don’t tell anyone I said this but being smarter than our FBI is not difficult for most people no matter what the sex. They have a great PR dept that has created this image of brilliance but that is all it is. They always catch someone, thing is, they don’t care if it is the right person or not.
Yeah,
I have heard even the odd guy can outsmart 'em…
winks
GD
I shall spare my mouth on the FBI who have become our national police now.
So can you explain to me the difference in a true psychopath and a narcissistic personality disorder.