Very insightful! Indeed, the lens of our own experience is our main yardstick for measuring "what's going on out there."
And yup, "live and learn" is a good rule of thumb here. I have developed a philosophy of "three strikes and you're out" with regard to my tendency to give folks the benefit of the doubt. As in the first time something negative goes down, okay, that might be [reasons]. The second time, the scale of [reasons] is more balanced on the benign-toxic scale. Third time, I cross them off my "Christmas card list" -- not that I actually *have* a Christmas card list.
Way back in the day when I was married, my spouse had gone to the army equivalent of CIA-spook training. One thing he learned, and shared with me, is the idea that "once is a pattern". As in, if someone does this once, they will do it again. During the Vietnam war, this was used to select locales for placing an ambush for assassinating targeted people.
So sure, once *might* be an ordinary mistake -- but it's really just as likely to be a pattern. As you quoted in a comment here, "When someone tells you who they are, believe them."
I would think they are a troll too. I tend to disregard such comments because it is hard for me to believe that someone can write shit like that on a serious note. I mean if he actually wanted to do all of that to you and was all of these things, still why did he write all of this unnecessary information out?
On a larger scale, for several years the president of one country used to threaten another country with war openly in very bizarre ways. Everyone thought that if he actually planned to start a war he would be silent about it and therefore he was just bluffing, playing for his electorate or was simply insane and then we had a war lmao.
It is happening now again with another country, the patron of the said president is threatening them and again many people find it hard to believe that he would actually start a war because it makes no sense to.
At least to us, but it may very well make sense to him or his government.
I think the saying “When a dictator is threatening you with something he is actually telling you his plans” is true.
I think that part of it for him was getting the person that he was focused on to feel a particular way. He ran into a dead end in that regard with me, so he escalated. Being one of many that acted that way, I didn't think a great deal of it.
You are correct about that dictator quote. When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
Please never stop writing! You are educating people and I appreciate your time and your ability to say things in a way that make it easy to understand. Ive learned so much in the last few yrs and look forward to your posts. (And no im not a suck up) im going to try to apply this way differing perceptions or lens to a current issue. Im no psychologist, but im pretty sure (thru process of elimination) that im dealing w the lens of a man with NPD and possible sociopath. I'd know more if he actually pulled the trigger instead of pretending to.. or maybe he's just a neurotipical asshole. My problem is its fascinating. Hes fascinating. Hot n cold back n forth circular conversations never wrong no accountability and believes his own lies. Tells "just enough" truths to make me wonder. What im dying to find out is if he's an aware narscissist or oblivious. Im curious as to how he thinks. So long ass story short ,instead of labeling him, ive been trying to understand him in order to get his perspective. So your post got me thinking. And maybe you can explain how his and my thoughts are so radically diff.
He proposed to share locations on Google maps to gain trust. ( I knew immediately it would be a disaster because he has 2 phones and im not an idiot) but I played along. (All the while knowing he's totally hacked ny phone and knows what I text, where I am, can see pics ect...)but I wanted to watch it play out. So as predicted he started with the game of sharing then off line then sharing ect. Says he doesn't do that. Right. OK. First couple days he was diligent about proving he was where he said he was. So far so good. Yup. Helping trust. Then a day location at his house but no communication. Doesn't take a degree to figure that one out. I said wasnt a brilliant trust building exercise and now not sharing location at all and I presume will use the excuse he didn't want to share w a bat shit crazy woman. Doesn't phase me. Its predictable. My question is how I can see it so clear that its a big game of him seeing other women and trying to hide it. Yet he honestly thinks he was trying to help. I coukd catch him balls deep in a woman and he truly denies it. How can I try to understand his lens?
He sounds awfully controlling and negatively manipulative. I don't know what he is, but the behavior is not good. People who try to train their friends or their mates through these tactics rarely get better. They just double down on their actions.
I don't know that he honestly thinks anything. A lot of people like this do not have a sense of self, and feel justified in their actions because they are blameless in the situation. No sense of self, means no accountability. I would imagine that who he is has changed, perhaps drastically throughout the years, and there rarely are, if ever any, left over friends from different times in his life. If there were, they may compare notes, and that would be bad for him.
I wouldn't want my kids seeing a man like this, but to me its entertaining and a challenge and I love to learn how diff people tick. I thought it ended with people's zodiacs!lol
Absolutely correct. He has one friend who lives in Portland. His daughter moved out 3 yrs ago, no contact. Hasn't changed much. Same predictive patterns.. 1st three months great. Till he said I was easy to manipulate. Since then its been an on again off again deal. Course why would he change if what he does works. I kept returning. He thinks its cuz I want him. I do it to learn and study his behavior. Im learning to understand why he is the way he is but im having a hard time trying to feel what his perspective feels like. To him I must seem like a pathetic reliable dumb shit. Little does he knkw I coukd run him out of town if I wanted to. The hardest part to wrap my head around is their ability to truly believe their lies. How they can re write history. Hg tudor has helped me understand narscissism. He is one and a psycopath. But he hasn't talked of that part of it yet. That I know of.
HG Tudor is not a psychopath. He has NPD, which is exclusionary for psychopathy.
Psychopaths cannot have something that dictates the person having severely dysregulated self-esteem and need for external ego support, feelings of shame, as well as many others. Psychopaths have unassailable self-esteem, and have no need of others emotionally.
Someone with NPD can be antisocial, but that doesn't mean that they are a psychopath. Specifically with NPD and antisocial traits, the diagnosis is malignant narcissism.
From all ive learned im having a hard time finding anything negative about being a psycopath. Can you name a.negetive side effect (other than boredom)?
Well, for starters, being born into a world built for an entirely differently working brain certainly causes hurtles.
Impulse control must be learned, as well as personal responsibility to a great degree.
You will always have to perform in order to not stand out, and even though you work to blend in, standing out tends to still happen.
The moral framework that most children are raised in falls on deaf ears. That is the sort of thing that must be taught manually using logic that a psychopath can see value in. These are just a few.
Negative to the individual or to those around them? I'm not anafective/psychopathic, but it's my understanding that anafective individuals have higher rates of interpersonal violence. It's not because they desire violence, but because their emotional barriers against violence are much weaker than in neurotypicals. A lack of such barriers can be problematic, in terms of increased risk taking.
Of course, the research that this is based on is flawed, so take these statements and their context with a grain of salt.
Not having the limitations definitely does make for difficulty in making good decisions, and if there is a lower intelligence in the individual deciding there may not be the ability to see a reason to do what it is that they want. They cannot extrapolate out and see how these decisions are causing problems in their lives that they would prefer not to have.
I understand that. What I meant was I think neurotipical emotional thinking and behaving sucks. Id much rather have the confidence and the ability to not be bothered by depression or jealousy and being hurt by loss. Id love to fail at something and proceed with another way instead of feeling inadequate. And id love to punch some people in the mouth and not feel guilty at times. Psycopaths aren't the only ones that hurt people.
Id be very curious to get your personal opinion of him. Ive learned alot from his videos ..he seems l knowledgeable but to what extent.i dont know..the "404" video is a good one..makes me laugh cause I've witnessed it personally 2 times!
This perspective is spot on. You wrote, “Someone that seeks to take advantage of you is going to bank on those assumptions being in place, and will play to them to get you on the hook. Someone that wishes to do you harm will likely do the same thing.
This lens allows you to make excuses for a person when they are not warranted.” I’ve lived it and learned from it. Perfectly described and beautifully written.
It’s a consequence of a muted fear response. I have the same reaction when I’m occasionally, randomly threatened online. It seems so utterly ludicrous that anything noteworthy could ever come of it, I tend to subtly mock them. I suppose I’m assessing their intelligence level, plus it usually happens when I’m not engaged in anything more interesting. It’s similar to being one of the characters in a dull movie clip for five minutes.
I would never in my wildest dreams imagine that there was a serious threat there, so I can totally see why you were surprised when the police contacted you, to warn you that he was actually dangerous.
Very insightfull, your writing on the siuation and the circumstances you describe is quite superb. To an extend you also rely this very point of constructivistic philosophy, that each mind does construct it's own reality and no outside person does know thsi inside reality in very simple words, and I find that very good.
(Although I do guess/think you might not have been aware of such, and you approach it from a psychological lense/paradigma)
A question: when you talk about "cognitive empathy", would you consider it a way to attempt to cross that barrier of very different internal experiences?
That is what it seems to me, when I read your posts about that. In past years, I would sometimes have a mental image of myself seeing a model of people... and the "me" interacting with them was also a model I had built, in many respects. Now I have the words "camouflaging" and "masking", but before that, my understanding of this stuff was nonverbal. Talking about it is imprecise at best. But I had a sense that the "real me" was a step back, that this person I was presenting as "me", was a construct designed to interact in the ways I'd figured out (cognitively) that the external people wanted. With loads of mistakes. But people ignore quiet women a lot, so when in doubt, smile and nod.
My lens of the world was still limited, maybe to what I was able to figure out about the limited number of people I was around most. I am much better at masking with people in academia, maybe due to the greater opportunities to socialize more cognitively, I'd say.
One key thing in my childhood... I did learn about what I considered levels of consciousness... denial in some people who were around abusers, and the confusing somewhat unpredictable behavior of an abuser too. Repetition makes for really solid learning of "reality"! I believed I was seeing peoples' emotions regularly pulling them out of clear thinking, back into denial... I suppose I might do this too? but I just could not internally see it in myself. Maybe that helped me understand the extent of human differences too, pre-autism-diagnosis; sometimes when you see a really really different person do the same things over and over, and you feel you are at risk because of it, you can come to expect them to be themselves... not what you can relate to or figure out or would have loved them to have been.
Learning to accept that some people really won't do this stuff was almost more difficult, as a young adult.
Yes, that would be a fair description. Cognitive empathy is meant to fill in what you cannot personally understand through experience, but can observe and understand through observation.
I was reading other threads and cought myself that i just love the process of "observing and understanding through observation" - but could not exactly pin point what it was exactly.
I still do not understand why it is pleasurable experience for me. Seems like a mixture of fun, something interesting for mind, mayby with posibility of positive long term effects? I do not know to be honest.
I think i just really like the moment "Acha i understand and get that!"... often followed by "Acha - I was wrong before and had no idea! Now i get that"... followed by "<...>"
"Learning to accept that some people really won't do this stuff was almost more difficult, as a young adult." Yes, those expectations can last far too long, they certainly have for me.
What a beautiful article. Athena, you are so full of knowledge. I believe many men must be enchanted with just your words. I wish to find myself a girl like that, but oh my I guess I am still a young retard.
I have had a pattern of dating chaotic and unstable men who iniate said "dating" by stalking me and convincing me I need them in my life despite the obvious lesser value they add. After a time I agree. It's my pattern, my habit. Three months out and I'll be holding myself back by the bit to not get back into a toxic cycle again no matter how much damage they caused to me or my life. Gosh. I hate how they hurt me and destroy my boundaries, but damn I love it and don't know how to live without it. But I'm in therapy and I am learning and working on this so I can be stable and have a stable partner in my life. Sometimes I wonder if they just use me as a ploy to try to make it seem like they could hold a relationship - maybe raise their own value somehow despite lowering my own. I'm not totally sure. I also don't know why they want me to meet their family and integrate right away. I still talk to my ex's moms and after the relationships end I'm welcome in the home/etc. Still not there to understand this yet. What I do know for sure is they both had relationships with others despite our very public dating the entire time.
Truly insightful. I struggle with reading people and understanding their intentions. In the case that you mentioned above, the guy made some obvious comments that caught your eye and he made things explicit, in which case, I assume it would have been easier to read him. But, how does one read when you meet people who manipulate you? Their intentions are hidden and leave you confused, misdirected and gaslit? Would love to know your thoughts. Btw, I absolutely love reading your content. It helps me gain new perspectives. Thanks!
Assume that someone speaking to you is manipulating you. All human interaction is about getting your wants and needs met, and that is no different than the person that you are interacting with.
Never give the benefit of the doubt, never assume that the other person is good or trustworthy. Make them prove it over a very long period of time with consistent actions, not only with you, but everyone around them as well. If they are seeking to get over on you, and you're a hard target, they'll look for someone else.
This is so important to keep in mind. I took far too long to realise that others were different, waiting for pennies to drop in their head that never did. Oh dear.
"I knew the rules, no they did not matter to me. They were more a suggestion, a request, and a disruption to my primary function of “find stuff for me”, when I was caught violating them. There was no internalizing these rules in a way that meant something other than, an inconvenient result when discovered in violation of them." This sounds surprisingly familiar, something I recall from very early childhood. That's how things felt in the developmental stage that followed the incomprehension and confusion and short memory of infancy, but before proper understanding of rules occurred.
It interests me that an example of your own falling for this trap in thinking that others think as we do applies to low functioning psycopaths, and your overestimation of their ability to control themselves or understand the practical sense of doing the right thing. This seems just a touch at odds with your views on personal responsibility. (Yes I know that it is necessary to hold people accountable for their harmful acts, but my own views on degree of responsibility, as something morally ascribed, are more flexible.) Have you softened those views/judgements in any areas or am I misunderstanding you?
I have never been in that type of functioning brain, and while I think that they do have control over themselves, I am willing to consider that may be my own projection onto them. Low functioning psychopaths tend to be those that have rough childhoods. Add a head injury on top of low impulse control that is there naturally, maybe they aren't capable of denying that impulse.
I very much think that it is more likely than not that they are indeed in control of their actions and providing excuses for the ones that are most likely to take that excuse and live under it's umbrella is a losing strategy when it comes to understanding their thinking. However, I am also fully capable of admitting that I may not have all the information necessary to make a hard line proclamation about their cognitive abilities.
In some circumstances I would think they truly do have little control. Which is not to say they can be given a free pass. And of course that presents a tricky contradiction in itself! I have a hard time deciding when people are blameable. We of necessity use the rough measures of normal intelligence, normal sanity, and adulthood to decide responsibility, but these don't have sharp cut off points.
When it comes to personal responsibility for non-criminal actions, I also remind myself that I don't know what I dont know. The old 'walk a mile on my shoes' before judging. This really complicates issues of personal responsibility because The ways in which people can be compromised are legion.
I noticed this about myself also. I call it projecting myself onto others or specifically projecting my empathic nature onto others and I do some form of pronoia (not paranoia) thinking.
I'm glad you wrote this it confirms my speculations and theory.
! Think you should too! I think it would be interesting and helpful. I often wonder how it is that narscissists and psycopaths can learn to imitate emotions and copy how to fake feelings but neurotipicals have a hard time understanding what low emotions or empathy feels like?
Quite true, the world is full of different viewpoints. Some of them are very valuable to learn from, some are damaging, but important to learn about for protection reasons. There are others that will simply make it easier to understand those closest to you in life. All of it is very interesting.
Very insightful! Indeed, the lens of our own experience is our main yardstick for measuring "what's going on out there."
And yup, "live and learn" is a good rule of thumb here. I have developed a philosophy of "three strikes and you're out" with regard to my tendency to give folks the benefit of the doubt. As in the first time something negative goes down, okay, that might be [reasons]. The second time, the scale of [reasons] is more balanced on the benign-toxic scale. Third time, I cross them off my "Christmas card list" -- not that I actually *have* a Christmas card list.
Way back in the day when I was married, my spouse had gone to the army equivalent of CIA-spook training. One thing he learned, and shared with me, is the idea that "once is a pattern". As in, if someone does this once, they will do it again. During the Vietnam war, this was used to select locales for placing an ambush for assassinating targeted people.
So sure, once *might* be an ordinary mistake -- but it's really just as likely to be a pattern. As you quoted in a comment here, "When someone tells you who they are, believe them."
What an excellent quote.
one of my own faves too. <grin>
I can see why
I would think they are a troll too. I tend to disregard such comments because it is hard for me to believe that someone can write shit like that on a serious note. I mean if he actually wanted to do all of that to you and was all of these things, still why did he write all of this unnecessary information out?
On a larger scale, for several years the president of one country used to threaten another country with war openly in very bizarre ways. Everyone thought that if he actually planned to start a war he would be silent about it and therefore he was just bluffing, playing for his electorate or was simply insane and then we had a war lmao.
It is happening now again with another country, the patron of the said president is threatening them and again many people find it hard to believe that he would actually start a war because it makes no sense to.
At least to us, but it may very well make sense to him or his government.
I think the saying “When a dictator is threatening you with something he is actually telling you his plans” is true.
I think that part of it for him was getting the person that he was focused on to feel a particular way. He ran into a dead end in that regard with me, so he escalated. Being one of many that acted that way, I didn't think a great deal of it.
You are correct about that dictator quote. When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
Yes I thought it was overdone for a serious threat tho.
Please never stop writing! You are educating people and I appreciate your time and your ability to say things in a way that make it easy to understand. Ive learned so much in the last few yrs and look forward to your posts. (And no im not a suck up) im going to try to apply this way differing perceptions or lens to a current issue. Im no psychologist, but im pretty sure (thru process of elimination) that im dealing w the lens of a man with NPD and possible sociopath. I'd know more if he actually pulled the trigger instead of pretending to.. or maybe he's just a neurotipical asshole. My problem is its fascinating. Hes fascinating. Hot n cold back n forth circular conversations never wrong no accountability and believes his own lies. Tells "just enough" truths to make me wonder. What im dying to find out is if he's an aware narscissist or oblivious. Im curious as to how he thinks. So long ass story short ,instead of labeling him, ive been trying to understand him in order to get his perspective. So your post got me thinking. And maybe you can explain how his and my thoughts are so radically diff.
He proposed to share locations on Google maps to gain trust. ( I knew immediately it would be a disaster because he has 2 phones and im not an idiot) but I played along. (All the while knowing he's totally hacked ny phone and knows what I text, where I am, can see pics ect...)but I wanted to watch it play out. So as predicted he started with the game of sharing then off line then sharing ect. Says he doesn't do that. Right. OK. First couple days he was diligent about proving he was where he said he was. So far so good. Yup. Helping trust. Then a day location at his house but no communication. Doesn't take a degree to figure that one out. I said wasnt a brilliant trust building exercise and now not sharing location at all and I presume will use the excuse he didn't want to share w a bat shit crazy woman. Doesn't phase me. Its predictable. My question is how I can see it so clear that its a big game of him seeing other women and trying to hide it. Yet he honestly thinks he was trying to help. I coukd catch him balls deep in a woman and he truly denies it. How can I try to understand his lens?
He sounds awfully controlling and negatively manipulative. I don't know what he is, but the behavior is not good. People who try to train their friends or their mates through these tactics rarely get better. They just double down on their actions.
I don't know that he honestly thinks anything. A lot of people like this do not have a sense of self, and feel justified in their actions because they are blameless in the situation. No sense of self, means no accountability. I would imagine that who he is has changed, perhaps drastically throughout the years, and there rarely are, if ever any, left over friends from different times in his life. If there were, they may compare notes, and that would be bad for him.
I wouldn't want my kids seeing a man like this, but to me its entertaining and a challenge and I love to learn how diff people tick. I thought it ended with people's zodiacs!lol
Absolutely correct. He has one friend who lives in Portland. His daughter moved out 3 yrs ago, no contact. Hasn't changed much. Same predictive patterns.. 1st three months great. Till he said I was easy to manipulate. Since then its been an on again off again deal. Course why would he change if what he does works. I kept returning. He thinks its cuz I want him. I do it to learn and study his behavior. Im learning to understand why he is the way he is but im having a hard time trying to feel what his perspective feels like. To him I must seem like a pathetic reliable dumb shit. Little does he knkw I coukd run him out of town if I wanted to. The hardest part to wrap my head around is their ability to truly believe their lies. How they can re write history. Hg tudor has helped me understand narscissism. He is one and a psycopath. But he hasn't talked of that part of it yet. That I know of.
HG Tudor is not a psychopath. He has NPD, which is exclusionary for psychopathy.
Psychopaths cannot have something that dictates the person having severely dysregulated self-esteem and need for external ego support, feelings of shame, as well as many others. Psychopaths have unassailable self-esteem, and have no need of others emotionally.
Someone with NPD can be antisocial, but that doesn't mean that they are a psychopath. Specifically with NPD and antisocial traits, the diagnosis is malignant narcissism.
From all ive learned im having a hard time finding anything negative about being a psycopath. Can you name a.negetive side effect (other than boredom)?
Well, for starters, being born into a world built for an entirely differently working brain certainly causes hurtles.
Impulse control must be learned, as well as personal responsibility to a great degree.
You will always have to perform in order to not stand out, and even though you work to blend in, standing out tends to still happen.
The moral framework that most children are raised in falls on deaf ears. That is the sort of thing that must be taught manually using logic that a psychopath can see value in. These are just a few.
Perhaps I should write a post about this.
Yes, you should write a post about it. It is an interesting topic. People have the tendency to think the grass is greener on the other side.
Negative to the individual or to those around them? I'm not anafective/psychopathic, but it's my understanding that anafective individuals have higher rates of interpersonal violence. It's not because they desire violence, but because their emotional barriers against violence are much weaker than in neurotypicals. A lack of such barriers can be problematic, in terms of increased risk taking.
Of course, the research that this is based on is flawed, so take these statements and their context with a grain of salt.
Not having the limitations definitely does make for difficulty in making good decisions, and if there is a lower intelligence in the individual deciding there may not be the ability to see a reason to do what it is that they want. They cannot extrapolate out and see how these decisions are causing problems in their lives that they would prefer not to have.
I understand that. What I meant was I think neurotipical emotional thinking and behaving sucks. Id much rather have the confidence and the ability to not be bothered by depression or jealousy and being hurt by loss. Id love to fail at something and proceed with another way instead of feeling inadequate. And id love to punch some people in the mouth and not feel guilty at times. Psycopaths aren't the only ones that hurt people.
That makes sense. Wonder why he calls himself a narcissistic psycopath?
It catches people's attention, and either doesn't know the difference, or does, but is using ASPD as an excuse to claim psychopathy.
I don't know anything about that person, just enough to know the diagnoses claimed as people do ask me from time to time.
Id be very curious to get your personal opinion of him. Ive learned alot from his videos ..he seems l knowledgeable but to what extent.i dont know..the "404" video is a good one..makes me laugh cause I've witnessed it personally 2 times!
This perspective is spot on. You wrote, “Someone that seeks to take advantage of you is going to bank on those assumptions being in place, and will play to them to get you on the hook. Someone that wishes to do you harm will likely do the same thing.
This lens allows you to make excuses for a person when they are not warranted.” I’ve lived it and learned from it. Perfectly described and beautifully written.
It’s a consequence of a muted fear response. I have the same reaction when I’m occasionally, randomly threatened online. It seems so utterly ludicrous that anything noteworthy could ever come of it, I tend to subtly mock them. I suppose I’m assessing their intelligence level, plus it usually happens when I’m not engaged in anything more interesting. It’s similar to being one of the characters in a dull movie clip for five minutes.
I would never in my wildest dreams imagine that there was a serious threat there, so I can totally see why you were surprised when the police contacted you, to warn you that he was actually dangerous.
Indeed. It didn't appear to be anything other than yet another troll.
Very insightfull, your writing on the siuation and the circumstances you describe is quite superb. To an extend you also rely this very point of constructivistic philosophy, that each mind does construct it's own reality and no outside person does know thsi inside reality in very simple words, and I find that very good.
(Although I do guess/think you might not have been aware of such, and you approach it from a psychological lense/paradigma)
Thanks for your blog.
Thank you for reading, Lukas
Thank you, another excellent post!
A question: when you talk about "cognitive empathy", would you consider it a way to attempt to cross that barrier of very different internal experiences?
That is what it seems to me, when I read your posts about that. In past years, I would sometimes have a mental image of myself seeing a model of people... and the "me" interacting with them was also a model I had built, in many respects. Now I have the words "camouflaging" and "masking", but before that, my understanding of this stuff was nonverbal. Talking about it is imprecise at best. But I had a sense that the "real me" was a step back, that this person I was presenting as "me", was a construct designed to interact in the ways I'd figured out (cognitively) that the external people wanted. With loads of mistakes. But people ignore quiet women a lot, so when in doubt, smile and nod.
My lens of the world was still limited, maybe to what I was able to figure out about the limited number of people I was around most. I am much better at masking with people in academia, maybe due to the greater opportunities to socialize more cognitively, I'd say.
One key thing in my childhood... I did learn about what I considered levels of consciousness... denial in some people who were around abusers, and the confusing somewhat unpredictable behavior of an abuser too. Repetition makes for really solid learning of "reality"! I believed I was seeing peoples' emotions regularly pulling them out of clear thinking, back into denial... I suppose I might do this too? but I just could not internally see it in myself. Maybe that helped me understand the extent of human differences too, pre-autism-diagnosis; sometimes when you see a really really different person do the same things over and over, and you feel you are at risk because of it, you can come to expect them to be themselves... not what you can relate to or figure out or would have loved them to have been.
Learning to accept that some people really won't do this stuff was almost more difficult, as a young adult.
Yes, that would be a fair description. Cognitive empathy is meant to fill in what you cannot personally understand through experience, but can observe and understand through observation.
This comment nails it for me.
I was reading other threads and cought myself that i just love the process of "observing and understanding through observation" - but could not exactly pin point what it was exactly.
I still do not understand why it is pleasurable experience for me. Seems like a mixture of fun, something interesting for mind, mayby with posibility of positive long term effects? I do not know to be honest.
I think i just really like the moment "Acha i understand and get that!"... often followed by "Acha - I was wrong before and had no idea! Now i get that"... followed by "<...>"
It is always interesting when something finally clicks into place.
"Learning to accept that some people really won't do this stuff was almost more difficult, as a young adult." Yes, those expectations can last far too long, they certainly have for me.
Thank you for this, Athena. Another great read.
That's very kind of you, Elisha, thank you.
What a beautiful article. Athena, you are so full of knowledge. I believe many men must be enchanted with just your words. I wish to find myself a girl like that, but oh my I guess I am still a young retard.
I have had a pattern of dating chaotic and unstable men who iniate said "dating" by stalking me and convincing me I need them in my life despite the obvious lesser value they add. After a time I agree. It's my pattern, my habit. Three months out and I'll be holding myself back by the bit to not get back into a toxic cycle again no matter how much damage they caused to me or my life. Gosh. I hate how they hurt me and destroy my boundaries, but damn I love it and don't know how to live without it. But I'm in therapy and I am learning and working on this so I can be stable and have a stable partner in my life. Sometimes I wonder if they just use me as a ploy to try to make it seem like they could hold a relationship - maybe raise their own value somehow despite lowering my own. I'm not totally sure. I also don't know why they want me to meet their family and integrate right away. I still talk to my ex's moms and after the relationships end I'm welcome in the home/etc. Still not there to understand this yet. What I do know for sure is they both had relationships with others despite our very public dating the entire time.
Oh so true, we all do this to done extent.
Truly insightful. I struggle with reading people and understanding their intentions. In the case that you mentioned above, the guy made some obvious comments that caught your eye and he made things explicit, in which case, I assume it would have been easier to read him. But, how does one read when you meet people who manipulate you? Their intentions are hidden and leave you confused, misdirected and gaslit? Would love to know your thoughts. Btw, I absolutely love reading your content. It helps me gain new perspectives. Thanks!
That's awesome, I'm glad it's helpful to you
Assume that someone speaking to you is manipulating you. All human interaction is about getting your wants and needs met, and that is no different than the person that you are interacting with.
Never give the benefit of the doubt, never assume that the other person is good or trustworthy. Make them prove it over a very long period of time with consistent actions, not only with you, but everyone around them as well. If they are seeking to get over on you, and you're a hard target, they'll look for someone else.
Wow, thank you!
No problem
This is so important to keep in mind. I took far too long to realise that others were different, waiting for pennies to drop in their head that never did. Oh dear.
"I knew the rules, no they did not matter to me. They were more a suggestion, a request, and a disruption to my primary function of “find stuff for me”, when I was caught violating them. There was no internalizing these rules in a way that meant something other than, an inconvenient result when discovered in violation of them." This sounds surprisingly familiar, something I recall from very early childhood. That's how things felt in the developmental stage that followed the incomprehension and confusion and short memory of infancy, but before proper understanding of rules occurred.
It interests me that an example of your own falling for this trap in thinking that others think as we do applies to low functioning psycopaths, and your overestimation of their ability to control themselves or understand the practical sense of doing the right thing. This seems just a touch at odds with your views on personal responsibility. (Yes I know that it is necessary to hold people accountable for their harmful acts, but my own views on degree of responsibility, as something morally ascribed, are more flexible.) Have you softened those views/judgements in any areas or am I misunderstanding you?
It's more, I don't know what I don't know.
I have never been in that type of functioning brain, and while I think that they do have control over themselves, I am willing to consider that may be my own projection onto them. Low functioning psychopaths tend to be those that have rough childhoods. Add a head injury on top of low impulse control that is there naturally, maybe they aren't capable of denying that impulse.
I very much think that it is more likely than not that they are indeed in control of their actions and providing excuses for the ones that are most likely to take that excuse and live under it's umbrella is a losing strategy when it comes to understanding their thinking. However, I am also fully capable of admitting that I may not have all the information necessary to make a hard line proclamation about their cognitive abilities.
In some circumstances I would think they truly do have little control. Which is not to say they can be given a free pass. And of course that presents a tricky contradiction in itself! I have a hard time deciding when people are blameable. We of necessity use the rough measures of normal intelligence, normal sanity, and adulthood to decide responsibility, but these don't have sharp cut off points.
When it comes to personal responsibility for non-criminal actions, I also remind myself that I don't know what I dont know. The old 'walk a mile on my shoes' before judging. This really complicates issues of personal responsibility because The ways in which people can be compromised are legion.
Ambiguity defines the world in many respects.
I noticed this about myself also. I call it projecting myself onto others or specifically projecting my empathic nature onto others and I do some form of pronoia (not paranoia) thinking.
I'm glad you wrote this it confirms my speculations and theory.
I am glad it resonates for you
! Think you should too! I think it would be interesting and helpful. I often wonder how it is that narscissists and psycopaths can learn to imitate emotions and copy how to fake feelings but neurotipicals have a hard time understanding what low emotions or empathy feels like?
Quite true, the world is full of different viewpoints. Some of them are very valuable to learn from, some are damaging, but important to learn about for protection reasons. There are others that will simply make it easier to understand those closest to you in life. All of it is very interesting.
It seems to be quite common
Agreed