Psychopath

Well, in that case the charm and ability to fake emotions came into play... Believe it or not mine were popular shoulders to quite literally cry on. Or rant at about others. I got annoyingly strong reputation as a fixer of all problems - which did eventually take its toll on me, because everyone came to me for everything.

The HR woman was the one who actually caused one of the first big issues, and was actually a vicious bitch to me when I wouldn't divulge confidential board information to me.

(I'm not actually an emotionless robot you see, by the way! I just didn't "do" it at work, especially as it was patently obvious how badly skewed the emotional relationships were in the organization were. There were others who were similarly withdrawn, because I'm talking about an environment where people would literally yell at each other for hours.)

Yes, I mean, people with more deficits are much more likely to be problems.

In a way, lack of emotional range is a bit like poor vision. It makes certain things harder.

If the individual is also rather stupid, or comes from an abusive background, or had other significant disadvantages, it will be that much harder to compensate for what's missing, and any advantages will be much less evident too. At some point what you have is just a messed up individual.

Not every person with psychopathy is a surgeon or trader at Goldmans, many work in normal jobs in factories or menial jobs and this is the very worst combination

This is true.

Many, many years ago, I worked with young man who, in hindsight, was very clearly a psychopath.

He worked in a very ordinary, minimum-wage level retail role, still lived with his parents, no evidence of a friendship group, or any of the things you would associate with a man of his age. Obviously, that could just be because he was a bit introverted or unconventional, but what made it obvious there was a lot more to him was the way he interacted with customers.

This was a role where he was often the only member of staff on duty, so his behaviours were not always witnessed, which is why he would get away with it for a while, at least, before it was addressed.

I am not talking about general rudeness, indifference, laziness, or apathy. This chap used to regularly shout and swear at customers, challenge them to 'hurry up', 'stop wasting his time', 'make their minds up' and so on, and not in an exasperated manner, but in a very belligerent manner. I saw him threaten customers with physical violence, and this was all accompanied by chest-puffing, staring, grimacing, brow-furrowing etc etc. All the typical actions of young men when they are angered to the point that they intend violence.

Of course, this did eventually lead to his sacking, and at that point, he returned to his workplace, dressed in full football kit, socks and all, accompanied by his mother, demanding to 'have it out' with management. So far as he was concerned, he had done nothing wrong, and the customers were entirely to blame for 'driving' him to the point whereby he would act like this. They deserved it as far as he was concerned.

Now again, I accept that could have been down to something other than Psychopathy, but what stood out for me is that he did not differentiate between strong and weak people. He would bellow at small children, old people, and huge men alike who would clearly have ripped him in two with their bare hands. He had absolutely no fear, or at least, he showed no ability to recognise when he was completely out of his depth in terms of when the implied threats were liable to land him in serious trouble.

I often wonder what became of him, because I heard from other people that this wasn't just his personality in the workplace, and that he treated everyone he interacted with in this way regardless of setting. He wasn't in any discernible way deficient in cognition or learning, on the contrary, I would have said he presented as being of average, typical intelligence and ability. Somewhat bizarrely, he wasn't even an intimidating presence physically, being of completely average build and stature, and looking like a bit of a "nerd".

I used to wonder if he was just seriously mentally ill, but things like the football kit just confirmed for me that he genuinely had no concept of how he appeared or presented to other people, and that he could not rationalise why his own attitude used to rub them up the wrong way.

I'd be shocked if I found out that he isn't either deceased, institutionalised, or heavily into incel culture or somesuch, because he was the epitome of the very angry incel decades before there was any notion of such a thing.

People who are psychopaths aren't necessarily out to get anyone, and they aren't necessarily immoral either. They also are ot necessarily incapable of love and affection, though it's not always as strong as in other people.

For example, emotion is not the only way to understand right and wrong. You can also understand it through rational processes, and psychopaths can be perfectly capable of that. In some instances, it's even a benefit, because emotion can sometimes create poor moral reasoning. It's also possible to see the value in moral precepts and social order from experience - seeing that society is better when people generally follow the rules and even help each other.

Narcissists on the other hand are, in my experience, driven to use others for their own validation, and as such they are constantly looking to bend others and manipulate them to that end.

I agree with you in the large part, there is an awful lot of noise with someone with NPD and it’s totally exhausting and draining in a way it never is with someone with psychopathy.

Life with a psychopath is actually more straight forward, you learn not to piss them off in any way at all (and you might not always know what that days buttons might be) and then you might just navigate an egg shell path through gingerly for some of the time, but it’s littered with grenades and landmines. There is a sense of fairness and justice I have noticed too, they will never ever be swayed by an emotional angle or pandering. They will ruthlessly assess rather than jump to any conclusions.

I would like us to consider the psychopaths that did not have access to good education, did not find themselves in positions or authority and/or even personal autonomy. The lowly psychopaths that could not get a foothold in management and silently seethe. Imagine that’s your scenario for a moment. They don’t lead with their analytical minds, but are ordered around by some idiot jobs worth that didn’t deserve the role, do you know what happens when they need to tolerate this level of frustration day in any day out?

They absolutely explode.
On a regular basis, and no one wants to see that when it happens trust me.

Not every person with psychopathy is a surgeon or trader at Goldmans, many work in normal jobs in factories or menial jobs and this is the very worst combination.

I can see why you make an exceptional manager/leader. What happens when staff come to you for emotional support with depression, their cat died etc? Are they scared of you so easily complying? I can see how this might work if you a good HR team to deal with the human side of staff, I can also see why your company would value your skills.

In every human tribe, it would have been useful to have a percentage of people who were more ruthless than others.

It was interesting when Boris Johnson was brought into the discussion earlier, because although I think he's a Grade A twat, I think that there would have been certain discussions around Covid that would be impossible for normal people to reconcile.

Like choosing between courses of action that meant that different types of people would die...

We actually did theoretical exercises in interviews about Plane Crash scenarios, and the purpose of the exercise was actually just to see how you discussed things in a group, how you negotiated/advocated for your idea.

Two things I noticed were:

1. Someone always got super emotional about the imaginary people and wouldn't participate.
2. The exact same four would always get chosen - a family of three including an epileptic child, and a survivalist tasked with taking care of them. And there would always be someone biting their tongue off (or not) pointing out that taking the child was fine, taking the mother was fine (nurse with some survival skills), but that adding the father so as not to split the family up was insane and likely to sink all four of them (can't remember why but he was a liability). But that was always the decision reached.

It makes sense. In every human tribe, it would have been useful to have a percentage of people who were more ruthless than others.

I'm not a clinician, but I always thought psychopathy was innate, ie. something you're born with, and not modifiable, whereas narcissism is more an issue of arrested emotional development. Narcissists are low on empathy in the same way toddlers are low on empathy - they're just extremely focussed on themselves and what they want. As I understand it, narcissism can be caused by environmental factors and poor parenting, although I suspect there's often a genetic predisposition in there too.

Yeah, I get that and to be honest that's kinda what it needs in those circumstances.

I'm self employed now but when I worked it was always the same, people in management or authority always had some form of emotional bias depending on who they were friend's with and that totally messed with the dynamics of the workforce and caused issues. Whereas those who didn't do that, everyone got on fine, you all knew where you stood.

For myself I think I'm wired differently to most too but not to the extremes of my wife. I have empathy, very strong empathy to the point I can feel others pain, animals too but not for people I don't know.

I can't get worked up about celebrities, other people's lives that I'm not associated with. I don't know them and they don't know me. Family members who I don't see hardly ever, the same. More of a case of well they don't ever contact me, they know nothing about me and I'm the same so why worry. So, I have trouble when family talk about other family members like I should care deeply...but I can't they are essentially strangers.

I find it hard to trust people, I can talk to most people but not truly trust unless they are close. My partner is the only person I can genuinely open up to and trust and I would never cheat, it doesn't come into my mind I actively avoid situations and find it offensive if someone was to try and get me to.

Generally, I can see consequences and often find I can see patterns or future consequences or outcomes ahead of other people. Like my circumstance now, I said this would all happen from the start, I've been ten steps ahead of my wife from the start but nobody believed me. Well it all happened, everything I said came to be, including the order. Albeit totally illogical, I'm playing a strategic game of mind chess with her while everyone else is kinda oblivious to be honest. That's the difference between me and her and always has been, I can think logically and she cannot.

Likewise, I have absolutely no favouritism in me and can see right from wrong. Doesn't matter how close I am to someone, if it's wrong it's wrong and if someone is in the right, they are right, regardless of friendship.

Selfishness is something I don't have in me and that's why I'm in this mess. I'm often putting others needs before mine, which is weird in a way because it doesn't fit the rest of me.

It's a generalization for sure, but I've found the true narcissists I've met to be much worse to deal with than psychopaths.

Me, too, @Rudderneck - socially and at work, anyway. People with NPD are what we used to call mad (useful word, that!) Psychopaths aren't: they're just brutally logical and often very good fun, too.

In personal relationships at home, my experiences of psychopathy were awful. No amount of wit or pragmatism can compensate for being an unwelcome burden to someone who's supposed to love you but experiments with killing you. At least I could divorce the husband - actually I manoeuvred him into divorcing me. When it's a parent on whom you depend, the damage runs deep.

That said, any parent with a Cluster B condition is going to wreak havoc on their children's psyches.

I'm still catching up on the thread and would like to thank the posters who are talking about their lives with restricted emotional range.

Having had experiences of both, in my opinion Psychopaths are much easier to handle than people with NPD. The former can be somewhat predictable, and you can sometimes comprehend their rationale once you have a bit of familiarity with their personalities and thought processes, whereas the NPD people I've dealt with can be far more unpredictable due to the histrionics, refusal to acknowledge reality, 'gaslighting', and I'd also say that I find them to invariably be even more self-centred than psychopaths.

I've found that I can generally tell when something is going to cause my NPD "chums" to "kick off", but predicting how, exactly, they will choose to "kick off" is difficult. You get the whole gamut of performative emotionality. Crying, tantrums, anger, bitterness, scheming, attention-seeking, sometimes even hilarity and incredulity, but the fact it's such a Pandora's Box means it's not as easy to insulate yourself from them or prepare for how they'll respond to something.

I think I "get" psychopaths a bit more because I share some commonality with them, namely the lack of empathy, dispassionate nature, and ability to regulate emotions, disguise them, compartmentalise them, or not even experience them in the first place. I'd describe it almost like one extreme of emotionality v's the other, and I personally find the absence of emotion, or under-emotionality, far easier to relate to and comprehend.

As I said up thread, whilst I'm well under the threshold for psychopathy, I can definitely see how some psychopathic traits of mine have resulted in a much happier working environment.

(Though maybe that's my self-aggrandizement talking...!)

Basically I took over a workplace toxically fraught with emotion, and dispassionately worked through the problems without getting emotionally bogged down in them. I did things that other leaders I know fight shy of - cutting hours and increasing pay.

Selfishly, I wanted these things for myself. I wanted to work fewer hours, I examined a research base that supported it. I was sick of working with a bunch of whiners, so instead of "getting people out of their comfort zone", I got them to thrive in their comfort zone. The team bloody loved me for it. I stopped micro managing, which was another pervasive culture, because I didn't want to be dragged in on every last thing.

I wanted a non-toxic work environment, a successful company, higher pay. In achieving these things for everyone, I achieved them for myself. I ruthlessly made a executive decisions to sort shit out because frankly I liked having a cushy, well-paid job in walking distance from my home.

It worked. And everyone was much happier - but I didn't do it because of fuzzy sentimental reasons. And I achieved something that the far more empathetic leaders had failed to do for years.

Was a while ago now but I read a theory that was similarly interesting in that evolution wise we could potentially, further down the line, become more along the lines of psychopaths with feelings and emotions less prevalent to progress more effectively as a human race.

As in, less emotions or own views influencing decision making but more strategic and logical way of thinking.

How that would actually pan out though, who knows. Suppose, could also be a disaster.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/evolutionary-human-sciences/article/is-it-good-to-be-bad-an-evolutionary-analysis-of-the-adaptive-potential-of-psychopathic-traits/D3BF1647779B06D0B16018C0CC13FCA0

an interesting read too.

Evolutionary advantage. It’s a school of thought.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34605282/

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00139/full

An adaption of what?

I have every faith in our mental health services to complete competent and accurate assessments for those requiring them, they are experienced and more than capable of noticing and recording masking etc.

Are you uncomfortable with psychopathy or diagnosis? I am not sure what the issue is here.

“Yes it’s your personal preference but it wouldn’t necessarily be other people’s personal preference. For instance I am a facts based person for that reason. ‘Logic’ can corrupted by agendas, as well as emotional defences can be manipulated or tainted by perspective and/or bias and experience. Both defences are vulnerable to manipulation, malicious or otherwise.

I can see why being labelled a psychopath might not be ideal, given it’s negative reputation in society, but as we can see by this thread many are successful, highly educated individuals that have found ways to use their differences to their advantage.”

Sure, I didn’t say otherwise 🤷🏻‍♀️ what you consider better or worse is up to you.

and absolutely, I mentioned earlier that there is a school of thought that psychopathy isn’t necessarily a disorder but an adaptation.

“Also the problem is if the person is say NPD then willingly getting a diagnosis goes against everything they believe in themselves, they won't unless they happen, I believe, have a defining moment that leaves no one else to blame but themselves.

Even then, how does someone diagnosing not get led down the garden path by masks or personas behaving as if they are perfectly fine or so emotional you can't make heads nor tails of it.

I mean I'm sure there must be indicators they are aware of but it's confusing all the same.”

I believe a lot normally get diagnosed as a result of getting in trouble with the law.

Yes, psychiatrists and psychologists can and do get fooled. That’s another reason why it takes expertise in personality disorders, a long time, more than one opinion, a lot of observation and a deep dive into a patients history. It takes quite a lot.

Also the problem is if the person is say NPD then willingly getting a diagnosis goes against everything they believe in themselves, they won't unless they happen, I believe, have a defining moment that leaves no one else to blame but themselves.

Even then, how does someone diagnosing not get led down the garden path by masks or personas behaving as if they are perfectly fine or so emotional you can't make heads nor tails of it.

I mean I'm sure there must be indicators they are aware of but it's confusing all the same.

*on this thread

Yes it’s your personal preference but it wouldn’t necessarily be other people’s personal preference. For instance I am a facts based person for that reason. ‘Logic’ can corrupted by agendas, as well as emotional defences can be manipulated or tainted by perspective and/or bias and experience. Both defences are vulnerable to manipulation, malicious or otherwise.

I can see why being labelled a psychopath might not be ideal, given it’s negative reputation in society, but as we can see by this thread many are successful, highly educated individuals that have found ways to use their differences to their advantage.

@Remembermynamealways Well I can only reference my experience but an emotional reaction to a situation that has absolutely no logic to it is dangerous or has detrimental consequences. Either to themselves or those around or both.

Someone who is reacting purely off of extreme levels of emotion, say anger, is capable of doing a lot of damage or harm without thinking of the fallout from their actions or behavior. From what I have witnessed it wasn't just an emotional response in the general sense, it was hysterical whether that be sadness or anger, the actions that followed, logic or reason did not come into it. Akin to seeing red and just on auto pilot lost in their emotions.

For someone who is that fragile deep down to the point they have to go to extreme lengths to protect it, can be dangerous. It's not like the person is just fragile and weak, they are in reality but wrapped around that is all the defensive layers there to protect that ego that can do all manner of things to protect it.

A psychopath I would think from what I understand wouldn't respond emotionally and would perhaps be more able to see consequences of whatever actions they were considering of doing as not to have a detrimental effect on themselves.

Again, different levels not all psychopaths are dangerous or murders.

I recognize what is being described with in the behaviour, @whumpthereitis from an experience of my own.

A highly manipulative individual, but also quite self-deceiving and unable to shake the idea that I was bad, malicious and wrong, even with documentary proof.

He had got the wrong end of the stick in a particular business meeting - which fair enough, wasn't entirely his fault. A different person had been a little unclear, and was supposed to outline specific terms to him, but didn't.

However, he latched onto me as the one responsible for a scenario that didn't even exist. He harassed, plotted and pursued me based on that misconception. Even when it was conclusively proven that I had never planned or intended for the scenario he imagined, he was too emotionally attached to his plan of destruction to drop it. And he had whipped up staff in his own business to hate me too - quite disturbing, really.

A logical reaction to seeing clear cut proof of my intentions would have been to stop, not to double down.

Funnily enough, long before this he had mentioned the emotional reactions of other members of staff, and I had joked, "sure, whilst I am cold and emotionless like a snake" - and he agreed! He found my impartiality and professionalism cold, and identified a lot with the more emotional reactions - in spite of considering himself good, worthy and logical.

“I understand what you mean, but why is a ‘logical’ defence more superior to an ‘enotion’ led one?

Secondly, I can’t see a fragile, vulnerable ego being more dangerous than one that has no feeling?

Obviously there is a range for both disorders.

’Labels’ are important leading to diagnosis, treatment and informed decisions around medication, safe guarding and support. Many clients are relieved by knowing, certainly beneficial to family and loved ones that are living with it too.”

Personal preference I suppose. A logical one can at least be followed and understood. An emotional one is at best unpredictable, and can quickly veer into absolutely batshittery.

Yes, if a diagnosis has been correctly applied. Psychopathy and NPD cannot be diagnosed based on second hand information, or by anyone that doesn’t have the necessary qualifications and experience. Diagnosing a personality disorder takes time, it requires a thorough investigation of someone’s entire life, and more than one professional needs to be involved. You can diagnose the vast majority of, if not all, people with a personality disorder if you cherry pick specific incidences without considering the wider context of the entire person.