Have any of you met a true 'psychopath'

[Hearnoevilspeaknoevil]

Just wondering.
I watched Des last week and found it chilling. The utter ordinariness of Dennis Nielsen and the normalising his awful crimes.
I was thinking how terms like psycho are so overused and often used to describe overly angry or irrational behaviour.
I believe it's more about a very controlling person who operates outside any 'normal' behaviour boundaries.
I've only met one person who I would say is a psycho. Some with narcissistic traits, plenty of angry people but that cold dead reasoning and complete lack of empathy or even humanity, is much rarer.
Interested to see what others think. Or have experienced.

[fantasmasgoria1]

Psychopaths have barely any emotions. Sociopaths can feel admittedly only a little but some remorse, empathy etc. They are also more violent. Psychopaths are more measured and will follow social norms when they need to. As I said before athena walker on quora is very good. She has a boyfriend and a job. She answers a lot of questions there. In fact there are several people diagnosed with aspd on quora. one response a person described a lot of the stereotypical psychopaths/serial killers said to be so are actually in fact much more likely to be sociopaths.

[IdblowJonSnow]

This is a terrifying thread, only read a few pages can't bear to read anymore.

[Legoandloldolls]

I have thought that someone in.my life is a sociopath or psychopath but then had a job and a family so dont seem to be a good fit for any diagnosis.

Seems shy and introverted and is quite socially inept but takes delight in hurting people and having a victim on the go who they go out of their way to cause pain to. They take great delight in telling me every detail of how nasty they have been. Even when I say I dont to hear it, they continue. They take delight in pain and have hatred for those who suffer. Like someone who needs help, they think they shouldn't have PIP DLA.

Most of it well hidden.

[tornadoalley]

Nursed Ian Huntley when he'd been beaten up, but didn't get into any kind of conversation.

[GetThatHelmetOn]

Do any of you who know psychopaths. Have you ever seen one who could experience worry? I never saw that in the one I knew. He was either happy, angry, disappointed, but never worried.

[Eckhart]

@GetThatHelmetOn I think that us not being able to tell what they think/feel is key to the way they manipulate. You think they're feeling something but actually it's something else entirely. Certainly they can accurately pretend to worry.

[Doginabandana]

GetThatHelmetOn
My ex never worried. When his crimes came to light and he was fired, investigated by his professional body, in half a million debt, had been arrested he still fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He was absolutely furious that his lies, deception, fraud etc had been found out but never worried . So bizarre

[Doginabandana]

NotSandwiches. You sound like you’ve been through some major shit too 🙁. I have never come across anyone else like my ex. Your ex sounds like his equally evil twin though.

[GetThatHelmetOn]

Thank you, it did strike me that he could replicate other people’s behaviours to the point I started recognising who he was mimicking but again, he never chose to copy worry. He simply assumed everything was going to go his way, assumed he could lie his way through if they didn’t (people were, in his book, too stupid to notice).

[PicsInRed]

Sociopaths are damaged into that state through their early experience, so they have the genetic, wired ability to feel empathy, however the empathy is blunted. But it's there.

A true psychopath, one who is born and not made, will be totally lacking in empathy for others. They can't feel it or find it in themselves as the wiring isn't there. It doesn't exist and never will.

[PottedIvy]

A close friend of mine when I was in my teens and 20s. She could be fun and interesting but she was so cold inside, a total machine. Not Des Neilson level but high dark triad personality type. It was never enough for her to do well but she had to make other people feel bad about themselves. She was very cruel and manipulative. On some level I understood what she was and always kept her at arms length, which infuriated her. She was highly intelligent and charismatic, people were drawn to her.

In end she and a boyfriend who was in her thrall did something awful and went to prison for it. I cut ties with her at that point. I do sometimes see her sister who also no longer speaks to her but still hears about her through her parents.

She is out now and very successful in her work but she cannot maintain any sort of relationship anymore friendship or romantic. She also has had to turn down high profile things to keep her past quiet.

[JohnMcCainsDeathStare]

I bet Kent Hovind is a psychopath - tellingly his son Eric and family haven't had any contact with him in 30 years. He is someone who will talk about beating his then 7-year old son so badly that he couldn't walk as a cute family story and making bank of a child drowning at the Creation Adventure Park.

[DannyGlickWindowTapping]

An acquaintance of mine is a psychiatrist. He considered himself as scoring highly on the psychopath scale, along with most others in his specialism, and the majority of surgeons. Doesn't mean that any of them are going to act maliciously. He reckoned it was almost a requirement for them to be able to do their jobs. He also said I showed pretty clear sociopath tendencies, which I also understand. I don't read social cues very well, but know how I'm supposed to act in public, even if I don't "feel" what I'm supposed to all the time. I have a successful, fairly senior job, so I guess the "fake it till you make it" mantra works. 🤷

[Srictlybakeoff]

@DannyGlickWindowTapping
I know many psychiatrists- and I would absolutely refute the idea that lots of them have psychopathic tendencies . It isn’t helpful to make sweeping generalisations like that . In any career there will be a spectrum of personality characteristics. I would say that empathy is one of the most important characteristics of a good doctor.

[derxa]

No I have never met a psychopath but I'll bet MNetters will have met 1000s of them.

[SerenityNowwwww]

And that’s just at the London MN meet-ups....

[PawPawNoodle]

I've met two.

[JovialNickname]

I have met one, a very ordinary seeming girl. She has a professional wedding photography website and business, and in fact has a degree in photography and other relevant qualifications. She uses this business just to reel people in to book her for their wedding day, then doesn't turn up (or sometimes does incognito as a visitor so she can enjoy first hand). This isn't a malicious account by me in any way; I have never used her and am not married. She has been reported to the police apparently and even featured on Crimestoppers (!) but the authorities don't seem to have much of an appetite to chase her. She loves all the angry reviews and gets off on them and the destruction she knows she's caused. And is very blase; if you confront her she doesn't deny anything - if there's no game playing or challenge she's not interested, although she does like baiting the naive.

[Thatbliddywoman]

@JovialNickname that is fascinating. Would love to know more about her.

[JovialNickname]

@Thatbliddywoman I'd probably better not, she tends to develop focus on people and I'd rather it wasn't me! You're right though, it is fascinating x

[WellTidy]

My SIL once did a ‘test’ on me and the answer I have apparently showed that I had psychopathologic tendencies. She announced it to a room of our family members along the lines of ‘OMG you’ve got a psychopath gene’ and not one person, not one, said anything in my favour! It really really disturbed me and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. In the end I concluded that if I really was a psychopath, I wouldn’t be so worried about it or alternatively I would be more worried as I would want to hide it. So I decided that being worried about it meant that I wasn’t. Fingers crossed anyway! This was about eight years ago and I haven’t forgotten it.

I’ve googled and apparently the ‘test’ has been debunked. Not that I’m worried about it or anything!

[Eckhart]

@WellTidy Don't worry, lots of people have 'leanings'. Psychopaths are pretty much conscience free, so, whatever goes on inside your head, knowing what's right and wrong, and worrying about it if you get challenged (as you have) are key to not being a psychopath.

Anyway, that journalist who did the study on psychopaths was shocked to find he was one himself, but he's got a very happy life. As long as you're not going about destroying people's lives, that's the main thing.

[WellTidy]

Eckhart thanks for your reassurance, I do appreciate it, but I don’t want to have ‘leanings’! I was very concerned that a whole room full of family members saw me, or maybe had always seen me, in that way and I had no idea! Maybe they see things that I don’t! Or that I don’t want to!! I’ve really worried about this - can you tell?!

[Eckhart]

not one person, not one, said anything in my favour

Did they say anything at all? Like 'Well, yeah, I've always thought WellTidy was a bit of a nasty selfish screwed up wierdo...', or was there just silence?

The fact that you're very worried about whether you're a psychopath indicates that you might be over worrying about their response, perhaps. I mean, she said you were carrying the gene, not that you were or seemed like one.