Victims of Psychopaths Community Group
Is he or she a sociopath or psychopath? Think we're only talking about serial killers here? Psychopaths, sociopaths and even narcissists come in every walk of life, every career level, and every socio-economic category.
I am just finishing an astounding book, which I believe addresses a lot of the worries we have about Ns and Ps, even though the book is not about that. I started to talk about this in another thread on the psychopath (P) forum. Here's the link to my comments there:
http://www.dailystrength.org/groups...
I think this is so important I wanted to highlight it on both the N and P boards as a separate topic.
We wonder how we were so unlucky to get selected by the N or P in our lives (assuming it was not a relative). We want to know what they noticed about us that attracted them. We want to know how to see them sooner and more clearly so we can avoid more Ns and Ps in the future.
The book, Compelling People, by John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut, addresses these concerns, reading between the lines, and explicitly a couple of times where they mention Ns and Ps. Basically they say there are two main qualities to people's personality and they are somewhat opposite and on a spectrum of tradeoffs between them. The two qualities are "strength" and "warmth". Strength is often what attracted us to the N or P in our life, and I would say embodies at the extreme, things like charisma, intensity, animal magnetism, strong personality, confidence, controlling, manipulating, etc. The other dimension is warmth. Warmth embodies things like caring, empathy, inclusiveness, embracing (physical and metaphorical), and other connecting, feel-good emotions and qualities. Ns (mostly) and Ps (totally) can be viewed as having only strength with no warmth.
I believe victims of Ns and Ps either have mostly warmth, or show mostly warmth. I believe the Ns and Ps, without warmth, want that in their lives, so they pursue warm people, who tend to be giving people. (Though, we on this board know they also want what we can give them, LOL!)
If we have mostly warmth, and we are lower on strength, this results in our being vulnerable and not protected from the strong who would want to hurt us. Not all strong people want to hurt us, but I'm talking now about pathological Ns and Ps or other abusers (mostly Cluster B PDs) who do want to take advantage of us.
The book goes further into the topic of strength and weakness in a chapter on romantic relationships. In women in romantic relationships, the authors note, the opposite of strength is not warmth (which is complementary to strength and, as I understood it, desired by the strong in romantic relationships). Instead the opposite of strength is weakness in women in romantic relationships (which not apply in other areas of life, such is in professional life).
So, why do we maybe have lower strength? Well, we could have started out that way, as many in the caring professions and the more selfless may -- with high warmth, and less strength than those drawn to more exploitive professions or who are more selfish and self-focused. Or, we did have strength once upon a time, but were incessantly worn down by abusive Ns and Ps, that wore us often even to the extreme of learned helplessness, similar to what a brainwashed captive goes through. That certainly takes away our strength.
This latter way explains how so many formerly successful, confident, educated people still get ensnared by N and Ps. Sandra Brown, in her book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, devotes an entire section to why the personalities between Ps and victims were a match or a fit, even in seemingly strong, impervious victims. Additional factors contributing to actual or perceived weakness in successful people from high socioeconomic groups (upper class, especially) were also described in the book, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages, by Susan Weitzman. The Ns and Ps in our life have made us weaker. But these observations about strength and warmth (and weakness) seem universal, and I would think apply to all victims of Ns or Ps, men or women, gay or straight.
In thinking more about this, I think strong women involved with strong men in romantic relationships tend to hide and pull back on our strength so as not to outshine our men. We want them to feel and act in a strong masculine way. And they may not want us to feel or act in a strong way, seeing it as competitive, aggressive, emasculating, etc. They want us to be the "little woman" to some extent. So, it behooves both of us, to on the whole, even in this time of greater feminist initiative, to let him be the stronger guy. That might be OK, desirable even, with a non, but give a N or P an inch, and they'll take the entire circumference of the earth. Characters like Ns and Ps who win one up by pushing us down take advantage of this social and biological dynamic.
As I said in the thread I referenced above (see link above in this comment), this book can help us see what it looks like in daily life to show strong vs warm traits. This book is like a manual, guiding us through this process. We could learn to see too extreme or too many strength traits untempered by warmth. That will identify Ns, Ps, or those too much like them. We could learn how to better hide our warm traits, and emphasize more strong ones to better protect ourselves and make ourselves less appealing to Ns and Ps. Even if we're not feeling strong, we can learn to look strong. (This tactic also reminds me of earlier posts about getting approached in public by Ns and Ps. Looking stronger might stop that.)
Thinking back on it, I am a strong woman who was outgoing and confident socially and successful professionally. If you had asked me before reading this book, am I more strong or warm? I would have said both, but more strong. However, I saw in the book that I either am more warm, or I show myself as more warm, and sometimes in my marriage to a N/P, weak. As we know, fatal error. I know I pulled back on my strength to maintain his male pride and not emasculate him, especially when I began to succeed and he, due to his N/P weaknesses, began to fail. I may not be the only one who faced this dynamic and made these kinds of choices.
If we want to avoid being victims, we have to learn to make better, more informed choices. I think this book will be an immense help to those of us looking for answers to these problems.
http://www.dailystrength.org/groups...
I think this is so important I wanted to highlight it on both the N and P boards as a separate topic.
We wonder how we were so unlucky to get selected by the N or P in our lives (assuming it was not a relative). We want to know what they noticed about us that attracted them. We want to know how to see them sooner and more clearly so we can avoid more Ns and Ps in the future.
The book, Compelling People, by John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut, addresses these concerns, reading between the lines, and explicitly a couple of times where they mention Ns and Ps. Basically they say there are two main qualities to people's personality and they are somewhat opposite and on a spectrum of tradeoffs between them. The two qualities are "strength" and "warmth". Strength is often what attracted us to the N or P in our life, and I would say embodies at the extreme, things like charisma, intensity, animal magnetism, strong personality, confidence, controlling, manipulating, etc. The other dimension is warmth. Warmth embodies things like caring, empathy, inclusiveness, embracing (physical and metaphorical), and other connecting, feel-good emotions and qualities. Ns (mostly) and Ps (totally) can be viewed as having only strength with no warmth.
I believe victims of Ns and Ps either have mostly warmth, or show mostly warmth. I believe the Ns and Ps, without warmth, want that in their lives, so they pursue warm people, who tend to be giving people. (Though, we on this board know they also want what we can give them, LOL!)
If we have mostly warmth, and we are lower on strength, this results in our being vulnerable and not protected from the strong who would want to hurt us. Not all strong people want to hurt us, but I'm talking now about pathological Ns and Ps or other abusers (mostly Cluster B PDs) who do want to take advantage of us.
The book goes further into the topic of strength and weakness in a chapter on romantic relationships. In women in romantic relationships, the authors note, the opposite of strength is not warmth (which is complementary to strength and, as I understood it, desired by the strong in romantic relationships). Instead the opposite of strength is weakness in women in romantic relationships (which not apply in other areas of life, such is in professional life).
So, why do we maybe have lower strength? Well, we could have started out that way, as many in the caring professions and the more selfless may -- with high warmth, and less strength than those drawn to more exploitive professions or who are more selfish and self-focused. Or, we did have strength once upon a time, but were incessantly worn down by abusive Ns and Ps, that wore us often even to the extreme of learned helplessness, similar to what a brainwashed captive goes through. That certainly takes away our strength.
This latter way explains how so many formerly successful, confident, educated people still get ensnared by N and Ps. Sandra Brown, in her book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, devotes an entire section to why the personalities between Ps and victims were a match or a fit, even in seemingly strong, impervious victims. Additional factors contributing to actual or perceived weakness in successful people from high socioeconomic groups (upper class, especially) were also described in the book, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages, by Susan Weitzman. The Ns and Ps in our life have made us weaker. But these observations about strength and warmth (and weakness) seem universal, and I would think apply to all victims of Ns or Ps, men or women, gay or straight.
In thinking more about this, I think strong women involved with strong men in romantic relationships tend to hide and pull back on our strength so as not to outshine our men. We want them to feel and act in a strong masculine way. And they may not want us to feel or act in a strong way, seeing it as competitive, aggressive, emasculating, etc. They want us to be the "little woman" to some extent. So, it behooves both of us, to on the whole, even in this time of greater feminist initiative, to let him be the stronger guy. That might be OK, desirable even, with a non, but give a N or P an inch, and they'll take the entire circumference of the earth. Characters like Ns and Ps who win one up by pushing us down take advantage of this social and biological dynamic.
As I said in the thread I referenced above (see link above in this comment), this book can help us see what it looks like in daily life to show strong vs warm traits. This book is like a manual, guiding us through this process. We could learn to see too extreme or too many strength traits untempered by warmth. That will identify Ns, Ps, or those too much like them. We could learn how to better hide our warm traits, and emphasize more strong ones to better protect ourselves and make ourselves less appealing to Ns and Ps. Even if we're not feeling strong, we can learn to look strong. (This tactic also reminds me of earlier posts about getting approached in public by Ns and Ps. Looking stronger might stop that.)
Thinking back on it, I am a strong woman who was outgoing and confident socially and successful professionally. If you had asked me before reading this book, am I more strong or warm? I would have said both, but more strong. However, I saw in the book that I either am more warm, or I show myself as more warm, and sometimes in my marriage to a N/P, weak. As we know, fatal error. I know I pulled back on my strength to maintain his male pride and not emasculate him, especially when I began to succeed and he, due to his N/P weaknesses, began to fail. I may not be the only one who faced this dynamic and made these kinds of choices.
If we want to avoid being victims, we have to learn to make better, more informed choices. I think this book will be an immense help to those of us looking for answers to these problems.
No wonder I was seduced by the psychopath I left a month ago. It may have been totally fake, but he had more "warmth" than any other human being I have ever met. He was like a warm puppy. The first time I hugged him, He collapsed into my arms. He looked at me with total love the fist time we kissed. He was always touching my hair, touching me. When we lived together for 2 years, he was rarely out of physical contact with me. He was the only man I have ever known who likes to cuddle for hours, even after sex. Though he is a "morning person," he would stay in bed wrapped around me until I was ready to wake up, always late morning. He told me he loved me many times a day.
Of course, there were periods of emotional withholding which were all the more brutal due to the huge prize being withheld. But as time went on, there were fewer periods of withholding. The withholding was replaced by an even crueler behavior--ogling other women in public. I guess I could say that the warmth had a heavy of emotional cruelty mixed into it. Bat as far as early impressions go, this particular psychopath, at least, had strength AND warmth, but more warmth than strength.
I am sorry to hear it. Mine ogled women in public too, asked my opinion of them, and told me when I should try to look more like the woman being ogled. (But I have found that men comparing us to ideal women is not that unusual, so this may not be that strange, though perhaps very hurtful.)
But I take your original point about yours seeming more warm than strong. They are too good at the mask.