The original article should have been titled "Red Flags of a Malignant Narcissist" instead of "Red Flags of a Psychopath" with all references to psychopath being replaced with malignant narcissist. It still wouldn't be that accurate, as you rightly point out that blaming the other person for one's unrealistic and naive relationship expectations is at the heart of the issue.
I laughed so hard at this article. Thank you, your responses are very well written. My ex is a narc and the honest truth is if I wasn't so full of myself, and if I didn't "NEED" the attention, I wouldnt have lapped it up. I had a lot of inner work ans growing up to do. How shocking lol the world doesn't revolve around me?!?! And Oh My Gosh, other people have feelings too? Not just me?!?! Yeah. I had a lot of growing up to do. I very much lived in a fantasy that someone was going to fix my life for me and that it would be perfect. This thought makes me barrel roll laughing now. More people need that glass of Grow Up cold water. Thank you, this might hurt someone's feelings but it's a truth they need to hear.
I think that what you said has a lot of teeth. It is important to see where your own faults are before looking to find them in someone else. Ownership in problems gives a person a great deal of power over their own lives. It's strange to me to think that someone wouldn't want that.
It's very hard to admit that maybe we aren't perfect, maybe we have weaknesses, and our strengths can be our downfall. I personally dont like to fall, and while sitting with myself isnt always pleasant, it helps me to not repeat the same things. After all, I am the only one I can change. I am the only one I should seek to change. Something my friend told me once, "Everyone is someone. Everyone has a story. If you sit with someone long enough, you can not only understand why they are the way they are, but how they came to be that way. Everyone hurts, no one deals with it the same way." I thought you might appreciate his view.
I see educated (and not-so-much) people use the diagnoses (and traits of) psychopathology, narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder as practically interchangeable, on an almost daily basis in all sorts of media. It is beyond unfortunate. I blame pop psychology just as much as the quick med school lecture and the outdated DSM. Time for a new one.
I explained the basics of psychopathy to a friend. Her response? "I don't believe it." She's not studied psychology. She's never researched psychopathy, yet she doesn't *believe* that psychopaths aren't evil?
It's baffling. How can anyone have a strong opinion on something they know nothing about?
I would blame faith in consensus. If someone wasn't dangerous, how come everyone always says that the danger is real. And double whammy of manipulativeness reinforces that image. And we internalize some expectations of how world works so the more something goes against that the more suspect it is.
The internalization of expectations is huge for some people. I knew a woman thought a mirror molecule of sugar that has no calories was ludicrous. Didn't make sense to her, even tho she never took a single chemistry class - so she refused to believe it.
It's flawed logic. If it doesnt make sense to these people, it can't exist. If it interferes with their sense of certainty about the world, it can't exist.
Most people fear uncertainty. So when they're uncertain, they dig their heels in and say their opinion is fact. That's what I don’t get. Life is uncertain. People either get comfortable with it or stay in fear & cling to their opinions.
This analysis and debunking is great. And Elinor is the bomb. But I think I will continue to disagree about culpability and personal responsibility in toxic relationships. I agree that people with actual NPD deserve our cognitive empathy, and have limitations on how they are able to conduct themselves. But the idea that everyone somehow should upon adulthood be entirely immune and resistant to that idealistic manipulative bull@#$t, well, just no. We all have to try and do our best as we mature. But I am the child of a relationship very like this. My father was a not particularly nice person, plus damaged as a survivor of 4 years of concentration camps as a teenager and the Cap Arcona ship sinking. My mother was also a war refugee who lost her beloved father age 3 and thereafter was with her very violent abusive mother as a German prisoner of war. As a sweet and emotional Catholic girl, a three year courtship did nothing to alert her to how my father really was. He switched to abusive in the afternoon of their wedding and continued thereafter. The shock was immense. She powered on but her ability to parent well was, well, let's face it, ruined, and she became abusive herself and that has obviously affected my life terribly. Because of this I have real doubts about people's agency. The idea that she should have somehow seen red flags and resisted the love she so much needed as a broken person, and the abuse later, well, it's ludicrous. These are perfect world scenarios. I cannot help but think that the bad actor in toxic relationships bears far more blame than the acted upon person. It's all very well to say they can and should just not let it happen, or get out when it does, but no. You say your opinion is unpopular but its also the truth. Not truth. It's VERY arguable just how much agency, culpability and responsibility people have in such situations. I don't believe in oversimplifications.
This is definitely a place where I deviate from NTs. To me, any of that behavior is not at all appealing and makes me very suspicious of their motives. That tends to make them turn up this behavior even more because they can't believe someone would be immune. When it is obvious that I am, they tend to follow me around like puppies trying to learn the secret to that.
I will never understand why this works on NTs, and yes, there is a degree of blame that they must shoulder for that. I will not change my mind on that. It is in their own capability to place this sort of nonsense into the unacceptable category. If they are able to not start using heroin because they know it will ruin their lives, they can do the same with love bombing.
The fact that they don't want to because it feels good is not an excuse. It is a matter of choice, just like any drug. If you don't want it to ruin your life don't indulge in it in the first place. As soon as someone starts giving them way too many compliments, telling them that they are their soul mate, they want to move things quickly, it can be decided to view those behaviors with a scrutinizing eye instead of diving in head first and then complaining later of that the person that they dove in with was a bad and evil monster who wrecked their lives.
People need to take responsibility for themselves instead of trying to paint themselves as innocent victims. If bad things keep happening to you, you are the common denominator. It might be painful, but it is necessary to accept your role in your life decisions.
I can agree up to a point. That behaviour is not appealing to me either but there was a time when I was young and stupid when it might have been. If the love bomb behaviour is extreme, actual NPD stuff, and the person is receiving it nowdays, when there is more information and greater awareness, yes, it's creepy nonsense, run a mile, and if you fall for it, you ARE partly to blame. But the past was different socially and culturally, and if the behaviour was less extreme, coming from someone who was not actual NPD but just generally narcissistic and with some degree of war PTSD, and they spend three years pretending to be normal-level kind and loving, during an olden days chaste courtship, towards a very romantically innocent person, in a time of far less information, and then switch conduct once they have their 'good catch', then I can see no blame on the victim.
Most people know heroin can ruin their lives and how. If it was someone from another culture who did not know about this miracle feel-good substance, they would not be blameable. Culpability and personal responsibility are on a spectrum and even in our society not everyone is equally placed to evade bad situations. We accept that children are not, but our cut off age of 18 is a bit arbitrary. People raised in closed religious cults? I always consider a whole bunch of background and knowledge factors when assessing someone's personal responsibility. It is a mistake to oversimplify or make a sweeping rule about people's level of culpability and ability to make sensible decisions. (A recent example would be social-media-conspiracy driven anti-vax feeling in tribal areas of New Guinea.)
If bad things keep happening to you, yes, look for your role in the pattern. If it's one big bad thing, you may be an actual victim and not to blame.
Your take on this looks to me like a conspicuous gap in your cognitive empathy and understanding, and I guess that is because the emotional factors aren't available to create an immediate grasp (for all their pitfalls they can be a handy shortcut and starting place) , but it stands out because your psychopathy has clearly not limited your understanding of neurotypicals in so many other areas. You are missing something big here. In a neurotypical I would call it "lots of knowledge but lack of wisdom". You may not change your mind, but keep it open to a more nuanced view.
Responsibility is not a comfortable thing, but this has nothing to do with empathy at all. It isn't that I am not aware that the feelings feel good, but the point is that isn't an excuse. Toxic relationships take two toxic people for them to continue. That person has to acknowledge and accept their responsibility that they too are toxic. They have to sort themselves out.
The world is full of people that continually make ridiculously bad decisions, and blame everyone else. That needs to stop. Own your part of it because you are the only person you can affect change in. Crying and whining about someone doing mean and awful things to them will get my cognitive empathy, but not when it is part of a continuous pattern and their life is terrible by design.
Speaking about the past really doesn't have any relevance to this conversation. We do not lack information, we have entirely too much information, and people that are constantly complaining about how hard their lives are are in the habit of crafting reality for the rest of the world. How many sites will you find the same old song and dance and a narcissistic sociopathic psychopathic person with BPD that ruined the poor little snow dove flower's innocence?
Instead of patting these people on the shoulders and saying "there there you poor poor dear", it's time to say, "well, again, the common denominator is you, and until you fix yourself don't come crying to me that you picked a crappy mate yet again. You're just as toxic as they are, so how about you own your part. Then it won't happen to you again, and I won't have to listen to you sob about how you only meet psychopaths or narcissists, or whatever new combination word they are going to come up with next".
I would agree that it is a mistake to stick around in a bad relationship because of past of occasional current good (druggy) feelings. But the situation I refer to was just normal feelings and an apparently normal situation. And it was just one big mistake, not a series. I cannot blame someone who by temperament was cautious and wary about relationships, very conciously tried to make a good decision, had open eyes about the person's damaging past, married late for the era, had a very long courtship for the era so as not to rush into a bad decision, and still was completely tricked. It can happen to any of us despite our best intentions because we are not psychic and some people are masterful performers. Again, this was once, not at all a pattern in their early or later life.
I refer to empathy because there is a lot to understand about why people act as they do and why someone might fall into such a bad situation. Cognitive empathy allows judgement about the EXTENT to which people are responsible, rather than just deciding that they simply are or aren't. To me, its very much a matter of degree, which is why I speak of a nuanced view.
I had not considered that ALL toxic relationships require two toxic people. Now that I have, I can't agree. It's common enough, sure, but again, there's no reason why it should be a blanket rule. If someone stays in a toxic relationship, they do indeed need to sort themselves out, and they may be damaged and dysfunctional, but not necessarily toxic themselves. Nothing magic happens at age 18 or 25 or whatever to make people suddenly completely able to deal in a way that we acknowledge that a child victim is not able.
You say 'own your part in it because you are the only person you can affect change in'. To me this is not a 'because' at all. Own your part, if you do have a part in it (in my estimation you may not), because that is the right and adult thing to do and self knowledge is important. Effect change in yourself, because that is the way to make your life better. But none of this necessarily means that the person was responsible in some way for how others acted towards them.
I see how the excess of information nowdays confuses the discussion of mental conditions and neurotypes, as well as causing all sorts of other overload issues. But that is quite separate from what I am saying about people born in a different time and a very different society and information landscape. There is a lot about the 'olden days' that needs taking into consideration when judging the decisions made by people back then. And this applies as well to the ability to get themselves out of bad marriages. Things are much easier now.
I don't read those grumble websites that you do because it is relevant to your online work, but I will take your word for it! In my own life I do not know people who met only supposed psychopaths and narcissists or kept making many bad decisions and whining indefinitely. We all learned in time, grew up, whatever, more or less, so I have not had to deal with getting sick and tired of this behaviour, but nevertheless I do not feel contempt for it. What I have become increasingly aware of is just how dreadfully damaged so many people are, and how much pain they carry, and how their healthy functioning is affected, because of the social and familial dynamics of the past that were entirely normalised back then, but are now known to have been very harmful. I have met very few people who escaped this. We all just try to do our best regardless. Some of us were more naturally resilient than others. So knowing all this, it does make me much more sympathetic towards the 'snow dove flowers' (😃) and their victimhood, because I know what early damage can do and how hard it is to undo. I undid it to some extent through natural traits of introspection, a desire for knowledge, and a quietly fierce temperament that allowed me to turn my youthful impotent fury towards the fight to get myself back. Other people have other temperaments and fewer advantages.
I'm all for agency and taking control of improving oneself and ones own life, it's really the only way forward. But it just isn't in any way necessary to take responsibility for ones part/blame oneself in order to do this if clear self'blameability isn't there in the situation. Action is possible regardless. I will not apply blame 'just because'. I remain mystified why you see a necessary connection here.
I suppose all I'm really saying is that there really is such a thing as victimhood. For children, for animals, for people randomly violently assaulted in public, for the very old, of course. But there is no clear cut off point. Personal responsibility is a matter of degree. And it takes a thorough appraisal of the psychology and background of the people and the dynamics of the situation to work out that degree.
There is no situation in which both people are not responsible. Giving passes to people because they are young and naive, all right, to a degree, but not one bit of a pass goes for the second, third, fourth, or eleventh time, they are out of luck.
All toxic relationships absolutely have two toxic people for them to be ongoing. If the other person was healthy, not toxic, they would leave or insist on change. To stay means you have a great deal of work to do before you are remotely ready for a new relationship. They won't wait though, they will go ahead with the next person that breathes sweet nothings into their ear. That is toxic.They don't want to change, they want to be worshiped. Young and innocent is not what is causing the garbage relationships in the world. A tiny percentage? Sure, but the rest are toxic people bringing out the worst in one another and then complaining about it.
I don't define things by the minority, I define them by the majority. Are there exceptions? Sure, and if they don't get help after that relationship guess what they are going to find next time? Another toxic relationship. Again, people need to own their responsibility. People have gotten far too much leniency and because of that they have gone one to blame everyone else for their problems. If something is to change they will have to stop projecting.
In no place in my statements did I say anything about animals and children. I keep my points to relevance. I see no relevance to either of those in this conversation. By that same token I could point out that people are victims of serial killers, and it would be super easy to say all of those people were innocent victims. Were they though? There are an awful lot of them that made bad decisions and put themselves in harm's way. The murderer is responsible for the killing, and they should be under the prison for it, but the if the victim is hitchhiking in the middle of the night and gets into the big rig with the torture chamber in the back, they bear responsibility for their choices. I don't remove the responsibility from the victim just because they were murdered and we are supposed to feel sorry for them and their family. They chose poorly. To let that lesson pass without addressing it condones the choice that they made and removes the lesson from the next person that is faced with that choice.
It isn't relevant to my point, however. If we want people to be better stewards of their partners, that work begins internally. Just as the person with NPD is toxic for their behavior, so is the person that keeps choosing that type of person for their mate. If they don't accept their part and work on it they will repeat the same behavior.
There was an excellent piece over on Quora that spoke about why people choose this kind of mate. It is a harsh reality, but it's true. If anyone hears from those that claim to be the victims of narcosociopathic narcissistic, borderline personality disorder having psychopathic schizophrenic, and they have no responsibility in the situation. That is not true, and they all need to do a lot of work on themselves. They won't hear that though, because they are the victim, they are the one wronged, they are the poor innocent that somehow attracts the nonsense above because they are a pure as the driven snow "empath". They have to heal their own internal narcissism. They cannot own their responsibility.
Unless people are held to account for their actions, they repeat them, and they get an emotional payoff of being a victim. It surprises me that that isn't recognized more. We need to stop incentivizing victimhood.
I have known plenty of actual victims or horrific things. All of them need so much internal work before they can even trust another person. If they went out and tried to be in a relationship as they are, they would be extremely toxic to a partner. They have no idea how to relate to others in a normal way, but they know that. They aren't under any delusions that they are normal or healthy. It takes many years, and many of them never have relationships with others because they are too messed up.
I don't put blame on them for what they went through, but they would be responsible if they decided that not being lonely was more important than their ability to be a good partner.
"There is no situation in which both people are not responsible". No situation? That's quite a claim, and I entirely disagree because I trust my ability to assess and analyse real world examples and that is not my conclusion.
I am not disagreeing that people who find themselves in this situation repeatedly bear some responsibility, I am only saying that if it is a first and only instance that ends up disastrous, if they took all care and were still fooled, they are not blameable or in any way responsible, and should not be put in the same camp as the repeat offenders. They are absolutely an innocent victim.
I think we are defining toxic differently. You rightly point out that the repeat victim will be messed up and not mentally healthy, sure, but I would not call that toxic. Toxic for me is about bad and harmful action, and I reserve the term for the abuser. Acting with cruelty and being a passive recipient of repeated cruelty are both messed up, but too different to have the same word used to describe them.
We really do have a very different worldview here, I do not think people have had too much leniency, quite the reverse. I have no illusions about people and think very many of them are pretty dreadful, I don't go for this 'most people are good' nonsense, but as far as these relationship situations go, I am very sympathetic.
You did not mention animals or children, I know, I just used them as an example of beings at one end of the range of degree of responsibility, ie zero, with repeat victims at the other end, and many people in the middle, as I see it, with responsibility being a matter of degree.
Yeah, the victims of serial killers thing, I have thought about this a lot before and no, that's just not how I see things at all. Of course we all have to do our best not to put ourselves in harms way, but that is a practical consideration, not a moral one, and I just cannot apply any blame to the victim at all. Making safety decisions is unfortunately a necessity, but should not be. This is probably something that people will see differently and no amount of discussion can change that!
I don't think that most relationship victims are that way because of narcissism or wanting to be worshipped or emotional payoff. They just want ordinary love and care the way most people do, but are members of the damaged masses that the revolting aspects of our society and bad parenting practices have produced, no wonder the world is a mess and all that. I can see that some would be twisted and narcissistic, but as a defining feature, no. There are so many other psychological factors involved that I think account for it better. I can't prove it, obviously! But yeah, I just see it very differently. Incentivising victimhood? I don't think we are. Here's me thinking we are becoming more enlightened!
It is interesting that some of the victims of abuse that you know have chosen not to have a partner. This is sad though. A good partner could be very beneficial. But if they are just not ready and able, so be it, perhaps it's the best choice. The idea is not foreign to me though, because I chose not to have children because I knew I was too messed up to do the job properly, but that is about protecting children. If the adult people you know tried a relationship and got hurt because they were too vulnerable or chose badly, they would not be to blame for having tried.
Hmmm. Our attitudes here are so entirely different that I think that's just how it is, and we both have our own life experiences backing up our views and convincing us. So be it!
I just recently had a discussion with someone who held that a politician was a "psychopath". I observed that the guy was pretty clearly a malignant narcissist by anyone's standard and I got the reply that that he might be both AND that MN was really a subset of psychopath.
Some people really want to hang on to the word psychopath as a general use all encompassing slur
Yep. The informal usage of the term is so entrenched that we may never get rid of it. I think Athena is right to suggest that we need a new technical term for this neurotype.
First sentence: Psychopaths aren’t capable of love. But that doesn’t stop them from involving unsuspecting people in false romantic relationships that have devastating consequences.
***
Who person writes something this non sensical?
Did I miss where you identified the author and the source of the public funding he receives for this BS?
Is this from a grant request?
Surely it is NOT a peer reviewed professional article!! Truly awful!!
OMG- I went back for the author: Ms. Birch makes a living writing about this issue, over and over and over. Wow. Her style is omnipresent: She just "knows" why people act. Far more dangerous people than I ever was.
hehehe. Truly awful material. Sadly it appears she sells alot of materials.
Let me ask you this: Is it obvious she is writing about herself?
It is, isn't it. She writes as if she is the protagonist and an cunning evil genius lacking every thing good set his sights upon her for prey!!
She is so illogical, because she is resented of a past lover.
She got taken and burned by someone. In her despair, she goes all in: "That person was a psychopath!" which to her is the worst insult.
She can't say child molester or criminal, so she cries out 'psychopath'!
She explains her own, deep, personal failure in terms of the other people, people she loved, always using words, concepts and ideas in non sensical ways.
If she was an artist, well, an artist named Yamagata, we would call her whimsical. Bc there no one creates art more whimsical than he.
Just as Yamagata found an audience for his childlike art, her audience longs for her fictionalized self help missives.
I could in theory imagine someone divulging a little bit, or even making up sensitive information to be divulged to lure their prey into confiding much much more. Just enough to entice, but in the end theratio between vulnerability of the target and vulnerability of the enchanter would be very lopsided, with target giving away much more. But it would have to be phrased so and what you quote really comes across more as a contradiction. Oh well, at least advice on taking it slow and establishing boundaries is actually useful.
As for falling for love bombing, my theory is that if someone was in childhood sheltered and made thought to be the centre of the universe and perfect, sucked up to by scores of people, they really are in for having a very rude awakening. Alternatively, someone who experienced lack of care or has insecure attachment is basically running on deficit of that parental unconditional affection and so that's what they are looking for, like vitamin defficiency seeking to be treated, a catode looking for an anode. Other reasons for tendency to succumb to love-bombing could be at play too. Which is not search for an excuse, rather explanations.
I have a question please. You mention that it is impossible for an individual to be both narcissist and psychopath. I have thought similar. The narcissist internalises and the psychopath externalises. I can’t understand therefore how it is possible to be both at the same time. The term narcissistic psychopath is widely used. Is it possible that the correct description is really NPD with high psychopathic traits? Or ASPD with high narcissistic traits?
Most psychopaths are not antisocial, and most antisocial people are actually neurotypicals that have some sort of pathology.
Someone that has NPD does not have psychopathic traits. I have known people with it, and they are nothing like psychopaths. They can however have antisocial traits. A person with narcissistic personality disorder with antisocial traits is called a malignant narcissist. They are nothing like a psychopath, and people using the term narcissistic psychopath are making it obvious that they do not know what either of those terms mean.
Thank you for your response and also for the link to additional information. Much appreciated.
If an individual was diagnosed with NPD and ASPD essentially then he would be a malignant narcissist. If the same individual had no startle reflex and no fear response, is it possible that he was born with the brain wiring of a psychopath but thanks to an abusive childhood developed NPD with antisocial traits? Born psychopath but made malignant narcissist?
From the information you provided, the individual I refer to fits the description of a malignant narcissist, his lack of fear response is throwing me entirely.
If they claim to have no startle reflex, they are lying, which makes me think that they are lying about not feeling fear as well. The startle reflex is not an emotional response, and it is not located in the same part of the brain as a fear response. They clearly don't know that, which is why they believe that they should say that they lack both.
The startle response is located in the brain stem. Even with psychopaths who are totally fearless, while the startle reflex is blunted a fair amount, it still exists. Someone claiming not to have one, is straight up lying.
That was a brilliant post Athena! Very entertaining and spot on regarding this erroneous amalgamation, made even by so-called ‘experts’ on psychopathy and NPD! Whenever I read or watch videos about these ‘narcopaths,’ the information is shot through with so many contradictions and illogical holes - it’s mind-boggling how people can gobble it up as fact! 😆
The article was good, but I found myself thinking it's too bad psychology takes so many years of study - if you're having to listen and guide so many people, you may as well get paid for it!
The original article should have been titled "Red Flags of a Malignant Narcissist" instead of "Red Flags of a Psychopath" with all references to psychopath being replaced with malignant narcissist. It still wouldn't be that accurate, as you rightly point out that blaming the other person for one's unrealistic and naive relationship expectations is at the heart of the issue.
Yes, I think that it would be far closer to being realistic.
I laughed so hard at this article. Thank you, your responses are very well written. My ex is a narc and the honest truth is if I wasn't so full of myself, and if I didn't "NEED" the attention, I wouldnt have lapped it up. I had a lot of inner work ans growing up to do. How shocking lol the world doesn't revolve around me?!?! And Oh My Gosh, other people have feelings too? Not just me?!?! Yeah. I had a lot of growing up to do. I very much lived in a fantasy that someone was going to fix my life for me and that it would be perfect. This thought makes me barrel roll laughing now. More people need that glass of Grow Up cold water. Thank you, this might hurt someone's feelings but it's a truth they need to hear.
I think that what you said has a lot of teeth. It is important to see where your own faults are before looking to find them in someone else. Ownership in problems gives a person a great deal of power over their own lives. It's strange to me to think that someone wouldn't want that.
It's very hard to admit that maybe we aren't perfect, maybe we have weaknesses, and our strengths can be our downfall. I personally dont like to fall, and while sitting with myself isnt always pleasant, it helps me to not repeat the same things. After all, I am the only one I can change. I am the only one I should seek to change. Something my friend told me once, "Everyone is someone. Everyone has a story. If you sit with someone long enough, you can not only understand why they are the way they are, but how they came to be that way. Everyone hurts, no one deals with it the same way." I thought you might appreciate his view.
It is an excellent view.
I completely agree.
I see educated (and not-so-much) people use the diagnoses (and traits of) psychopathology, narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder as practically interchangeable, on an almost daily basis in all sorts of media. It is beyond unfortunate. I blame pop psychology just as much as the quick med school lecture and the outdated DSM. Time for a new one.
I explained the basics of psychopathy to a friend. Her response? "I don't believe it." She's not studied psychology. She's never researched psychopathy, yet she doesn't *believe* that psychopaths aren't evil?
It's baffling. How can anyone have a strong opinion on something they know nothing about?
It is oh so very common unfortunately.
I would blame faith in consensus. If someone wasn't dangerous, how come everyone always says that the danger is real. And double whammy of manipulativeness reinforces that image. And we internalize some expectations of how world works so the more something goes against that the more suspect it is.
The internalization of expectations is huge for some people. I knew a woman thought a mirror molecule of sugar that has no calories was ludicrous. Didn't make sense to her, even tho she never took a single chemistry class - so she refused to believe it.
It's flawed logic. If it doesnt make sense to these people, it can't exist. If it interferes with their sense of certainty about the world, it can't exist.
Most people fear uncertainty. So when they're uncertain, they dig their heels in and say their opinion is fact. That's what I don’t get. Life is uncertain. People either get comfortable with it or stay in fear & cling to their opinions.
Yes, I agree
This analysis and debunking is great. And Elinor is the bomb. But I think I will continue to disagree about culpability and personal responsibility in toxic relationships. I agree that people with actual NPD deserve our cognitive empathy, and have limitations on how they are able to conduct themselves. But the idea that everyone somehow should upon adulthood be entirely immune and resistant to that idealistic manipulative bull@#$t, well, just no. We all have to try and do our best as we mature. But I am the child of a relationship very like this. My father was a not particularly nice person, plus damaged as a survivor of 4 years of concentration camps as a teenager and the Cap Arcona ship sinking. My mother was also a war refugee who lost her beloved father age 3 and thereafter was with her very violent abusive mother as a German prisoner of war. As a sweet and emotional Catholic girl, a three year courtship did nothing to alert her to how my father really was. He switched to abusive in the afternoon of their wedding and continued thereafter. The shock was immense. She powered on but her ability to parent well was, well, let's face it, ruined, and she became abusive herself and that has obviously affected my life terribly. Because of this I have real doubts about people's agency. The idea that she should have somehow seen red flags and resisted the love she so much needed as a broken person, and the abuse later, well, it's ludicrous. These are perfect world scenarios. I cannot help but think that the bad actor in toxic relationships bears far more blame than the acted upon person. It's all very well to say they can and should just not let it happen, or get out when it does, but no. You say your opinion is unpopular but its also the truth. Not truth. It's VERY arguable just how much agency, culpability and responsibility people have in such situations. I don't believe in oversimplifications.
This is definitely a place where I deviate from NTs. To me, any of that behavior is not at all appealing and makes me very suspicious of their motives. That tends to make them turn up this behavior even more because they can't believe someone would be immune. When it is obvious that I am, they tend to follow me around like puppies trying to learn the secret to that.
I will never understand why this works on NTs, and yes, there is a degree of blame that they must shoulder for that. I will not change my mind on that. It is in their own capability to place this sort of nonsense into the unacceptable category. If they are able to not start using heroin because they know it will ruin their lives, they can do the same with love bombing.
The fact that they don't want to because it feels good is not an excuse. It is a matter of choice, just like any drug. If you don't want it to ruin your life don't indulge in it in the first place. As soon as someone starts giving them way too many compliments, telling them that they are their soul mate, they want to move things quickly, it can be decided to view those behaviors with a scrutinizing eye instead of diving in head first and then complaining later of that the person that they dove in with was a bad and evil monster who wrecked their lives.
People need to take responsibility for themselves instead of trying to paint themselves as innocent victims. If bad things keep happening to you, you are the common denominator. It might be painful, but it is necessary to accept your role in your life decisions.
I can agree up to a point. That behaviour is not appealing to me either but there was a time when I was young and stupid when it might have been. If the love bomb behaviour is extreme, actual NPD stuff, and the person is receiving it nowdays, when there is more information and greater awareness, yes, it's creepy nonsense, run a mile, and if you fall for it, you ARE partly to blame. But the past was different socially and culturally, and if the behaviour was less extreme, coming from someone who was not actual NPD but just generally narcissistic and with some degree of war PTSD, and they spend three years pretending to be normal-level kind and loving, during an olden days chaste courtship, towards a very romantically innocent person, in a time of far less information, and then switch conduct once they have their 'good catch', then I can see no blame on the victim.
Most people know heroin can ruin their lives and how. If it was someone from another culture who did not know about this miracle feel-good substance, they would not be blameable. Culpability and personal responsibility are on a spectrum and even in our society not everyone is equally placed to evade bad situations. We accept that children are not, but our cut off age of 18 is a bit arbitrary. People raised in closed religious cults? I always consider a whole bunch of background and knowledge factors when assessing someone's personal responsibility. It is a mistake to oversimplify or make a sweeping rule about people's level of culpability and ability to make sensible decisions. (A recent example would be social-media-conspiracy driven anti-vax feeling in tribal areas of New Guinea.)
If bad things keep happening to you, yes, look for your role in the pattern. If it's one big bad thing, you may be an actual victim and not to blame.
Your take on this looks to me like a conspicuous gap in your cognitive empathy and understanding, and I guess that is because the emotional factors aren't available to create an immediate grasp (for all their pitfalls they can be a handy shortcut and starting place) , but it stands out because your psychopathy has clearly not limited your understanding of neurotypicals in so many other areas. You are missing something big here. In a neurotypical I would call it "lots of knowledge but lack of wisdom". You may not change your mind, but keep it open to a more nuanced view.
Responsibility is not a comfortable thing, but this has nothing to do with empathy at all. It isn't that I am not aware that the feelings feel good, but the point is that isn't an excuse. Toxic relationships take two toxic people for them to continue. That person has to acknowledge and accept their responsibility that they too are toxic. They have to sort themselves out.
The world is full of people that continually make ridiculously bad decisions, and blame everyone else. That needs to stop. Own your part of it because you are the only person you can affect change in. Crying and whining about someone doing mean and awful things to them will get my cognitive empathy, but not when it is part of a continuous pattern and their life is terrible by design.
Speaking about the past really doesn't have any relevance to this conversation. We do not lack information, we have entirely too much information, and people that are constantly complaining about how hard their lives are are in the habit of crafting reality for the rest of the world. How many sites will you find the same old song and dance and a narcissistic sociopathic psychopathic person with BPD that ruined the poor little snow dove flower's innocence?
Instead of patting these people on the shoulders and saying "there there you poor poor dear", it's time to say, "well, again, the common denominator is you, and until you fix yourself don't come crying to me that you picked a crappy mate yet again. You're just as toxic as they are, so how about you own your part. Then it won't happen to you again, and I won't have to listen to you sob about how you only meet psychopaths or narcissists, or whatever new combination word they are going to come up with next".
I would agree that it is a mistake to stick around in a bad relationship because of past of occasional current good (druggy) feelings. But the situation I refer to was just normal feelings and an apparently normal situation. And it was just one big mistake, not a series. I cannot blame someone who by temperament was cautious and wary about relationships, very conciously tried to make a good decision, had open eyes about the person's damaging past, married late for the era, had a very long courtship for the era so as not to rush into a bad decision, and still was completely tricked. It can happen to any of us despite our best intentions because we are not psychic and some people are masterful performers. Again, this was once, not at all a pattern in their early or later life.
I refer to empathy because there is a lot to understand about why people act as they do and why someone might fall into such a bad situation. Cognitive empathy allows judgement about the EXTENT to which people are responsible, rather than just deciding that they simply are or aren't. To me, its very much a matter of degree, which is why I speak of a nuanced view.
I had not considered that ALL toxic relationships require two toxic people. Now that I have, I can't agree. It's common enough, sure, but again, there's no reason why it should be a blanket rule. If someone stays in a toxic relationship, they do indeed need to sort themselves out, and they may be damaged and dysfunctional, but not necessarily toxic themselves. Nothing magic happens at age 18 or 25 or whatever to make people suddenly completely able to deal in a way that we acknowledge that a child victim is not able.
You say 'own your part in it because you are the only person you can affect change in'. To me this is not a 'because' at all. Own your part, if you do have a part in it (in my estimation you may not), because that is the right and adult thing to do and self knowledge is important. Effect change in yourself, because that is the way to make your life better. But none of this necessarily means that the person was responsible in some way for how others acted towards them.
I see how the excess of information nowdays confuses the discussion of mental conditions and neurotypes, as well as causing all sorts of other overload issues. But that is quite separate from what I am saying about people born in a different time and a very different society and information landscape. There is a lot about the 'olden days' that needs taking into consideration when judging the decisions made by people back then. And this applies as well to the ability to get themselves out of bad marriages. Things are much easier now.
I don't read those grumble websites that you do because it is relevant to your online work, but I will take your word for it! In my own life I do not know people who met only supposed psychopaths and narcissists or kept making many bad decisions and whining indefinitely. We all learned in time, grew up, whatever, more or less, so I have not had to deal with getting sick and tired of this behaviour, but nevertheless I do not feel contempt for it. What I have become increasingly aware of is just how dreadfully damaged so many people are, and how much pain they carry, and how their healthy functioning is affected, because of the social and familial dynamics of the past that were entirely normalised back then, but are now known to have been very harmful. I have met very few people who escaped this. We all just try to do our best regardless. Some of us were more naturally resilient than others. So knowing all this, it does make me much more sympathetic towards the 'snow dove flowers' (😃) and their victimhood, because I know what early damage can do and how hard it is to undo. I undid it to some extent through natural traits of introspection, a desire for knowledge, and a quietly fierce temperament that allowed me to turn my youthful impotent fury towards the fight to get myself back. Other people have other temperaments and fewer advantages.
I'm all for agency and taking control of improving oneself and ones own life, it's really the only way forward. But it just isn't in any way necessary to take responsibility for ones part/blame oneself in order to do this if clear self'blameability isn't there in the situation. Action is possible regardless. I will not apply blame 'just because'. I remain mystified why you see a necessary connection here.
I suppose all I'm really saying is that there really is such a thing as victimhood. For children, for animals, for people randomly violently assaulted in public, for the very old, of course. But there is no clear cut off point. Personal responsibility is a matter of degree. And it takes a thorough appraisal of the psychology and background of the people and the dynamics of the situation to work out that degree.
There is no situation in which both people are not responsible. Giving passes to people because they are young and naive, all right, to a degree, but not one bit of a pass goes for the second, third, fourth, or eleventh time, they are out of luck.
All toxic relationships absolutely have two toxic people for them to be ongoing. If the other person was healthy, not toxic, they would leave or insist on change. To stay means you have a great deal of work to do before you are remotely ready for a new relationship. They won't wait though, they will go ahead with the next person that breathes sweet nothings into their ear. That is toxic.They don't want to change, they want to be worshiped. Young and innocent is not what is causing the garbage relationships in the world. A tiny percentage? Sure, but the rest are toxic people bringing out the worst in one another and then complaining about it.
I don't define things by the minority, I define them by the majority. Are there exceptions? Sure, and if they don't get help after that relationship guess what they are going to find next time? Another toxic relationship. Again, people need to own their responsibility. People have gotten far too much leniency and because of that they have gone one to blame everyone else for their problems. If something is to change they will have to stop projecting.
In no place in my statements did I say anything about animals and children. I keep my points to relevance. I see no relevance to either of those in this conversation. By that same token I could point out that people are victims of serial killers, and it would be super easy to say all of those people were innocent victims. Were they though? There are an awful lot of them that made bad decisions and put themselves in harm's way. The murderer is responsible for the killing, and they should be under the prison for it, but the if the victim is hitchhiking in the middle of the night and gets into the big rig with the torture chamber in the back, they bear responsibility for their choices. I don't remove the responsibility from the victim just because they were murdered and we are supposed to feel sorry for them and their family. They chose poorly. To let that lesson pass without addressing it condones the choice that they made and removes the lesson from the next person that is faced with that choice.
It isn't relevant to my point, however. If we want people to be better stewards of their partners, that work begins internally. Just as the person with NPD is toxic for their behavior, so is the person that keeps choosing that type of person for their mate. If they don't accept their part and work on it they will repeat the same behavior.
There was an excellent piece over on Quora that spoke about why people choose this kind of mate. It is a harsh reality, but it's true. If anyone hears from those that claim to be the victims of narcosociopathic narcissistic, borderline personality disorder having psychopathic schizophrenic, and they have no responsibility in the situation. That is not true, and they all need to do a lot of work on themselves. They won't hear that though, because they are the victim, they are the one wronged, they are the poor innocent that somehow attracts the nonsense above because they are a pure as the driven snow "empath". They have to heal their own internal narcissism. They cannot own their responsibility.
Unless people are held to account for their actions, they repeat them, and they get an emotional payoff of being a victim. It surprises me that that isn't recognized more. We need to stop incentivizing victimhood.
I have known plenty of actual victims or horrific things. All of them need so much internal work before they can even trust another person. If they went out and tried to be in a relationship as they are, they would be extremely toxic to a partner. They have no idea how to relate to others in a normal way, but they know that. They aren't under any delusions that they are normal or healthy. It takes many years, and many of them never have relationships with others because they are too messed up.
I don't put blame on them for what they went through, but they would be responsible if they decided that not being lonely was more important than their ability to be a good partner.
"There is no situation in which both people are not responsible". No situation? That's quite a claim, and I entirely disagree because I trust my ability to assess and analyse real world examples and that is not my conclusion.
I am not disagreeing that people who find themselves in this situation repeatedly bear some responsibility, I am only saying that if it is a first and only instance that ends up disastrous, if they took all care and were still fooled, they are not blameable or in any way responsible, and should not be put in the same camp as the repeat offenders. They are absolutely an innocent victim.
I think we are defining toxic differently. You rightly point out that the repeat victim will be messed up and not mentally healthy, sure, but I would not call that toxic. Toxic for me is about bad and harmful action, and I reserve the term for the abuser. Acting with cruelty and being a passive recipient of repeated cruelty are both messed up, but too different to have the same word used to describe them.
We really do have a very different worldview here, I do not think people have had too much leniency, quite the reverse. I have no illusions about people and think very many of them are pretty dreadful, I don't go for this 'most people are good' nonsense, but as far as these relationship situations go, I am very sympathetic.
You did not mention animals or children, I know, I just used them as an example of beings at one end of the range of degree of responsibility, ie zero, with repeat victims at the other end, and many people in the middle, as I see it, with responsibility being a matter of degree.
Yeah, the victims of serial killers thing, I have thought about this a lot before and no, that's just not how I see things at all. Of course we all have to do our best not to put ourselves in harms way, but that is a practical consideration, not a moral one, and I just cannot apply any blame to the victim at all. Making safety decisions is unfortunately a necessity, but should not be. This is probably something that people will see differently and no amount of discussion can change that!
I don't think that most relationship victims are that way because of narcissism or wanting to be worshipped or emotional payoff. They just want ordinary love and care the way most people do, but are members of the damaged masses that the revolting aspects of our society and bad parenting practices have produced, no wonder the world is a mess and all that. I can see that some would be twisted and narcissistic, but as a defining feature, no. There are so many other psychological factors involved that I think account for it better. I can't prove it, obviously! But yeah, I just see it very differently. Incentivising victimhood? I don't think we are. Here's me thinking we are becoming more enlightened!
It is interesting that some of the victims of abuse that you know have chosen not to have a partner. This is sad though. A good partner could be very beneficial. But if they are just not ready and able, so be it, perhaps it's the best choice. The idea is not foreign to me though, because I chose not to have children because I knew I was too messed up to do the job properly, but that is about protecting children. If the adult people you know tried a relationship and got hurt because they were too vulnerable or chose badly, they would not be to blame for having tried.
Hmmm. Our attitudes here are so entirely different that I think that's just how it is, and we both have our own life experiences backing up our views and convincing us. So be it!
Really hilarious. Both the original article and your responses to it.
Thank you, Andi
I just recently had a discussion with someone who held that a politician was a "psychopath". I observed that the guy was pretty clearly a malignant narcissist by anyone's standard and I got the reply that that he might be both AND that MN was really a subset of psychopath.
Some people really want to hang on to the word psychopath as a general use all encompassing slur
Yep. The informal usage of the term is so entrenched that we may never get rid of it. I think Athena is right to suggest that we need a new technical term for this neurotype.
I have dealt with people like that. They just don't want to hear it.
First sentence: Psychopaths aren’t capable of love. But that doesn’t stop them from involving unsuspecting people in false romantic relationships that have devastating consequences.
***
Who person writes something this non sensical?
Did I miss where you identified the author and the source of the public funding he receives for this BS?
Is this from a grant request?
Surely it is NOT a peer reviewed professional article!! Truly awful!!
OMG- I went back for the author: Ms. Birch makes a living writing about this issue, over and over and over. Wow. Her style is omnipresent: She just "knows" why people act. Far more dangerous people than I ever was.
Her articles are headache inducing.
hehehe. Truly awful material. Sadly it appears she sells alot of materials.
Let me ask you this: Is it obvious she is writing about herself?
It is, isn't it. She writes as if she is the protagonist and an cunning evil genius lacking every thing good set his sights upon her for prey!!
She is so illogical, because she is resented of a past lover.
She got taken and burned by someone. In her despair, she goes all in: "That person was a psychopath!" which to her is the worst insult.
She can't say child molester or criminal, so she cries out 'psychopath'!
She explains her own, deep, personal failure in terms of the other people, people she loved, always using words, concepts and ideas in non sensical ways.
If she was an artist, well, an artist named Yamagata, we would call her whimsical. Bc there no one creates art more whimsical than he.
Just as Yamagata found an audience for his childlike art, her audience longs for her fictionalized self help missives.
I wonder if this sort of narrative makes her feel like the heroine of her own story.
I could in theory imagine someone divulging a little bit, or even making up sensitive information to be divulged to lure their prey into confiding much much more. Just enough to entice, but in the end theratio between vulnerability of the target and vulnerability of the enchanter would be very lopsided, with target giving away much more. But it would have to be phrased so and what you quote really comes across more as a contradiction. Oh well, at least advice on taking it slow and establishing boundaries is actually useful.
As for falling for love bombing, my theory is that if someone was in childhood sheltered and made thought to be the centre of the universe and perfect, sucked up to by scores of people, they really are in for having a very rude awakening. Alternatively, someone who experienced lack of care or has insecure attachment is basically running on deficit of that parental unconditional affection and so that's what they are looking for, like vitamin defficiency seeking to be treated, a catode looking for an anode. Other reasons for tendency to succumb to love-bombing could be at play too. Which is not search for an excuse, rather explanations.
Have to say that thought had crossed my mind also. Thank you for the further insight.
You're welcome
Hello,
I have a question please. You mention that it is impossible for an individual to be both narcissist and psychopath. I have thought similar. The narcissist internalises and the psychopath externalises. I can’t understand therefore how it is possible to be both at the same time. The term narcissistic psychopath is widely used. Is it possible that the correct description is really NPD with high psychopathic traits? Or ASPD with high narcissistic traits?
ASPD and psychopathy have nothing to do with one another. I went over this in detail here:
https://athenawalker.substack.com/p/psychopathy-and-aspd
Most psychopaths are not antisocial, and most antisocial people are actually neurotypicals that have some sort of pathology.
Someone that has NPD does not have psychopathic traits. I have known people with it, and they are nothing like psychopaths. They can however have antisocial traits. A person with narcissistic personality disorder with antisocial traits is called a malignant narcissist. They are nothing like a psychopath, and people using the term narcissistic psychopath are making it obvious that they do not know what either of those terms mean.
Thank you for your response and also for the link to additional information. Much appreciated.
If an individual was diagnosed with NPD and ASPD essentially then he would be a malignant narcissist. If the same individual had no startle reflex and no fear response, is it possible that he was born with the brain wiring of a psychopath but thanks to an abusive childhood developed NPD with antisocial traits? Born psychopath but made malignant narcissist?
From the information you provided, the individual I refer to fits the description of a malignant narcissist, his lack of fear response is throwing me entirely.
If they claim to have no startle reflex, they are lying, which makes me think that they are lying about not feeling fear as well. The startle reflex is not an emotional response, and it is not located in the same part of the brain as a fear response. They clearly don't know that, which is why they believe that they should say that they lack both.
The startle response is located in the brain stem. Even with psychopaths who are totally fearless, while the startle reflex is blunted a fair amount, it still exists. Someone claiming not to have one, is straight up lying.
That was a brilliant post Athena! Very entertaining and spot on regarding this erroneous amalgamation, made even by so-called ‘experts’ on psychopathy and NPD! Whenever I read or watch videos about these ‘narcopaths,’ the information is shot through with so many contradictions and illogical holes - it’s mind-boggling how people can gobble it up as fact! 😆
The article was good, but I found myself thinking it's too bad psychology takes so many years of study - if you're having to listen and guide so many people, you may as well get paid for it!