To wonder how many Sociopaths you have come across?

[Impsandelves]

Just read The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout after hearing it mentioned in another thread.

I feel as though I could list possibly 2 family members, a couple of friends past and present, as sociopaths to some degree.

Am I being unreasonably paranoid?! Or do you feel you have come across a few too?

Sociopaths are very rare, and difficult to diagnose, as we can see from some of the posts here its tempting to put people into boxes based on some percieved aspects of character.

Amateur psychology can be a dangerous thing.

Another good read is The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. He also says that when you start doing research into it, you start spotting them everywhere. There is even a questionnaire test that allows you to establish whether someone is a psychopath. I think the rate is supposed to be about one in 100. And as someone else said, they tend to be over-represented at CEO level because that combination of a total lack of empathy with a great deal of charm is exactly what's needed. I've probably met one or two people in business I'd describe as psychopaths but I'm not really sure.

My ExH, an ex 'friend' and quite a few managers at work. Thank god my radar is switched on now as I used to fall for the charm and I was a people pleaser.

Agreed,ParanOID...there seems to be an awful lot of posters who know sociopaths. Some people are just bastards,you know?!

I've only met the one, but I had the misfortune to work with him. It was the single most devastating experience of my professional career. I left my job because I was, frankly, frightened of him. One of my colleagues, 5 years after the fact, is still in counseling.

DS2 is 15. He has been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder. His birth mother abused drugs and neglected him for his early months. In three years when he's 18, he'll just be a sociopath. He already meets every single item on that list and always has.

We haven't given up, but this is the truth of it.

Divorcing one who most definitely falls within the spectrum of personality disorders. Mother falls into category too...and i know at least one other. Unless you know what you're dealing with these people mess up your life.
Read an interesting article the other day about the lesser evils; bpd and npd - there's a school of thought that many people who have these disorders live perfectly normal lives...it only becomes a disorder if it has a long term pervading affect on their life and npd/ or those surrounding them - i found that quite comforting: I've been secretly worried for a while now since i fit a few of the diagnostic criteria for both ( especially when having to deal with the ex or my mother in confrontation).

There are a few on here that seem like that...

Two. A married couple. Charming, generous, lovely people. Until they'd sucked you in, then they started on the manipulation, divisiveness and cruelty.

They are two of the most frightening people I know, and I go out of my way to avoid them.

I can think of others, who could be on the scale. But these two hunted in a pack, and I am actually scared of them.

XP. He devoted a lot of his waking time to making sure I knew I was worthless and then expected me to work ever harder for him and his DCs to make up for my failings.

The most chilling thing about him was his schadenfreude. Upon seeing another person's misfortune, he would crow his catchphrase 'funny as fuck'. This was often about me if I accidentally hurt myself, or his workmates if they had an accident.

He was very good at projecting his expectations to the whole family and we would all try to toe to ever moving line. His sulks were monumental and you could almost see the black cloud over his head.
It has taken me years to realise that I was not the one at fault.

DS now is reluctant to see him and I don't blame him; am constantly wondering if I should speak out about my feelings or just let DS find his own opinion.

Bloody hell, I'm glad I can't think of anyone!

Next door neighbour. Makes false allegations against people, involving police, social services, etc. Is charm personified to anyone who moves into the street, makes a point of finding out as much as possible about them and 'saves' the information to use against them (in very exaggerated form) later.

No conscience whatsoever.

Nope, I don't think I've ever met a true sociopath. I've met some right arseholes, but clever, charming, manipulative, emotionless and pure evil? Nope. I imagine that if you work in a high security prison you might come across a fair few, though.

My father. I once read a description of a sociopath which included the phrase "regard other people as the walk on cast in the play of their life" which pretty much summed up his attitude to human relationships.

He's a policeman.

I've known a few. My first husband, a friend/colleague I used to work with, one of DD's friend's mums. All manipulative, sucking you in as if they're nice, sulking for days on end if things don't go their way, nasty comments, threats, the lot. My first husband used to pull a guilt trip on me if I bought anything for myself, even some shower gel or tampons "Look if you keep spending at this rate we will lose our house, then DD will have no home and it will be up to YOU to explain to her WHY as it will be all YOUR fault". When I wanted to stop breastfeeding DD1 he said that it was my choice but that if she got eczema in the future I would have to explain to her that it was all my fault as I didn't breastfeed. I ended up doing/not doing a lot of things because I was scared of his reaction if I did what I really wanted to do.

Bythesea, I'm so sorry for you . How do you foresee your child's future? How is his relationship with you and the rest of the family?

I have known 3 in my life.

The one at Uni was interesting. He was really messing with my head, mainly by stalking me and putting me down all the time within a friendship group.

He got found out quite quickly when I spoke up about it to the people I thought were his friends but they turned out to be his victims as well. They were all on the edge as it were, feeling down and confused. There was one other girl he stalked and a boy he tried to control and they all said he treated them the same as me. Togeather we were able to make sense of what he was doing and we all managed to remove ourselves from the problem.
He was also very very clever and got the highest marks ever in the whole history of the department. He was one scary messed up guy and if I saw him in the street I would run and hide from him rather than be polite and say hello. No one knows where he is or what he is doing as everyone avoided him and no one kept in touch.

2 at work. After my experience at Uni I knew when and how to step away from these people, but not before some hurt (a little) and damage to my career (respect for me returned when the truth came out about one of them) had been caused but I survived with my head held high.

Unfortunately these two people went on to hurt and destroy other people and the company itself with their behaviour. I had to sit and watch it happen and to this day I look back and wonder what I could have done to stop it. They would charm people, win them over, become very close and then destroy them.

It was the stuff movies and novels are made of.

Ex next door neighbour. Even now, years on, just thinking about her leaves me with the shakes and close to a panic attack. She's currently grooming her next victims (the people who live in our old flat), and there's nothing I can do to save them because she's so fucking convincing until her hooks are in that they would never believe us.

I was just one of her victims; I truly hope she reaps her harvest soon, and wish there were laws against her behaviour. I got the feeling when I ended up going to the police about her that she is quite known to them for this, and that they'd love to throw the book at her, but their hands are tied...

Dh's SIL. My mum was never keen on her when she was my friend before she set me up with DH. She insists on moving house every couple of years, has no friends due to driving them away and blows up in rages for no reason at the inlaws. She was adopted at an older age from abusive parents so no love shown or basic needs met. They often say they're neglected of maternal love.

2 former bosses would seem to fit some of these categories pretty well - one was an alcoholic, though, so I don't know how much of his personality and behaviour was a product of the alcohol rather than his innate personality.

He certainly behaved in such a way that caused serious damage to my career and those of my colleagues (e.g. trying to shift blame for his mistakes onto us, dropping massive amounts of work on us at no notice because he had forgotten to tell us about it...) and also did huge damage to the reputation of the company.

In the long run he made himself unemployable, was cut off from friends/family etc so the ultimate damage was really to himself. I would go a very long way to avoid having anything to do with him in future, but luckily he finally seems to be completely off the radar of anyone I know. (I had a couple of friends who used to get drunken late-night phone calls from him occasionally, but think it has stopped now).

The other boss was actually owner of a company I worked for - so everyone he employed was grist to the mill of his goal, which was to keep the company afloat and himself solvent. He demanded loyalty and submission from everyone but gave none in return, ran the company like his own little fiefdom and kept people in check by constantly putting them down, reminding them that he'd nurtured them, plucked them out of the gutter, etc, and they'd never get anywhere on their own if they left the company.

One guy desperately wanted to leave and was on anti-depressants but had such low self-esteem he never thought anyone else would employ him - I'm glad to say he did eventually leave and have a successful career elsewhere.

The other thing that makes me think this boss had sociopathic tendencies was the way he talked about people in the most insulting ways in front of their faces as well as behind them - he styled himself as one of those 'I tell it like I see it' people, and said some really nasty things to/about people, including his current and ex girlfriends.

Having said that, he was capable of real generosity and some people I know do still consider him a friend, so there must be something good in there. I just couldn't bear to be in a room with him by the time I left that job.

I've come across a few (teach psychology so quite aware of the condition). Luckily never been close to any of them.

One I can think of seems to fit the bill. A good friend of mine was married (and now, thankfully, divorced) to him. I was with her on the day they met. I don't think I've ever met anyone who made my skin crawl so much from the instant he introduced himself. Once he'd ingratiated himself with her, he used a number of strategies to try and detach her from her friends - with varying degrees of success, but not successful enough for him. So he then persuaded her to put her house on the market so they could buy a larger house in the country; they spent months house hunting. Fortunately something happened, I know not what, and she changed her mind about moving.

Then he wheeled out the big guns. A marriage proposal. She paid for everything to do with the wedding and romantic honeymoon - including her own engagement ring. For a while they were the picture of wedded bliss, of course. But then he started up again - mainly undermining her, as far as I can gather, and being an absolute arsehole to her friends. Finally, after a few years of marriage, divorce loomed, which I'm sure was part of his strategy too. She ended up not only paying her legal fees, but his too - and he walked away with a sizeable chunk of her money.

Maybe he was just a con artist - but there was something deeply unpleasant about him and I still shudder when I think about him.

No, I've known some nasty, evil people in my life, but never a true sociopath.