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?

There has been a fair bit of supposition that those with personality disorders have had their emotional development fragmented at some point within their own childhood.
It is my understanding that true sociopaths are very rare.

oh just read the diagnosis and my sister has most some of the symptoms

Three:

An ex partner.
An ex friend.
A friend's son.

The last one is the scariest and I expect to see him on crimewatch one day.

I have met 2 people with what I consider to be personality disorders, and 2 more who I have my suspicions about but they may just be cunts.

I don't think I do.

I do find non-physical diagnosis really difficult to understand though.

My bf at school is dx bi-polar, we have lived together and shared a room but I have never ever seen her have a 'high' phase, only depressive ones. Whereas my mum seems very very obviously bi-polar to me with very clear and extreme phases, but has no dx at all as she doesn't believe in mental illness and won't seek medical advice.

I also have a cousin who I lived with and is dx'd schizophrenic, he definately has MH issues but I have never seen him show any signs that are obviously for that disorder, and he is off his meds by personal choice so surely something would've happened in the last 7 years...

To me my friend seems to have more symptoms in common with autistim which is aparently commonly misdiagnosed as depression in girls, but of course I am no expert and have said nothing.

I suspect lists don't tell you very much.

1 of my friends has MH problems and it affects her personality so she has some traits too but i dont think she is a true sociopath iyswim ,

TeWihara,
Bi-polar has 2 major forms, I and II, the main difference being one has manic periods and one has hypomanic periods, which are less obvious and affecting.

Schizophrenic is another one that varies wildly. There are at least 5 subsets, and every person differs.

This is my point entirely, while the labels are well known and recognised, the actual illnesses in all their variety are not.

That's interesting, thank you.

So my friend is probably dx'd II then, I know it took a long time to get to the right dx so I have always been confused as to why it didn't seem to quite fit. I could have just asked her I suppose - but it's not really relevant to our relationship just interesting, so it seemed too nosy.

I used to know someone at university who had some of these traits - she caused a huge amount of damage and did some truly bizarre, blatantly cruel and manipulative things. I might have said she was a sociopath.

Until I met a real one. A young man I came across through work was a diagnosed sociopath. He was utterly devoid of morality, compassion or fear. Everyone around him was just a pawn in his scary games. Fortunately he is highly unlikely to see the outside of the prison system for a considerable period of time.

"If it quacks like a duck it's probably a duck. I fail to see how calling someone a cunt or a nasty bastard is any less of a label tbh"

I think in this case it's more like saying if it quacks like a duck it's definitely a lesser spotted mallard with short feathers?

I'm not disputing that all the people on the thread are horrible people, and may well have serious personality disorders of some form, but just based on the examples given there is a such a huge range in behaviours and presentation that not all of them can actually fit into the specific criteria of sociapath or psychopath.

my daughter is the victim of a sociopath at school. not bullying- the levels of manipulation are truly bizarre- including this person alienating everyone in the class, then stating that my dd has turned everyone against her. the school "investigated" which consisted of asking everyone in the class what had happened. they all said the same thing- that the other girl had been rude/upset them/spread false rumours. The girl then said, well they would, wouldn't they?

added to which, creating false fb profiles to send herself messages, print them off and bring in to school as "proof". it was only when i conclusively proved that this is what she had done, did the school actually listen. Joy of joy, DD moved school- she has followed and has started the whole thing again in the new school. new school has, thank god, listened to me but every time she makes an allegation of bullying, they have to investigate which means removing my child from class and questioning her. school have finally, after several of these, started to have some semblance of what is going on.

but this 14 year old fits exactly the description of a sociopath.

Under 18's CANNOT fit the definition of a sociopath (such as there is one) since it is a diagnosis that specifically EXCLUDES children and adolescents.

You really are just proving my point over and over again.

the 14 year old sounds awful and attention seeking which really honestly isnt rare amongst teenage girls , My dd has a friend who wants her all to herself they are 14 , dd1 is older but a friend of hers said she was pregnant at 14 dd1 beleived her supported her defeanded her , the girl was lying ,

believed and defended*

"added to which, creating false fb profiles to send herself messages, print them off and bring in to school as "proof"."

I knew a girl who sent herself poison pen letters (before facebook existed) and even scratched horrible messages about herself on the desks. Big ongoing school investigation eventually transpired that she's been writing them herself. She wasn't a sociopath. She was very very unhappy, but is now 15 years on happy and fine within herself. That just seems an odd criteria to use to diagnose sociopathy.

You beat me to it there Paranoid!

you might well be right- but to see this person in action is quite spectacular and indeed far beyond attention seeking. If she is not diagnosed with a serious disorder and goes on to make many more people lives a living hell, i will be amazed.

concede that i (and indeed practically everyone in mn) is not a mental health professional.

One true pyscopath in my last job. He was the most self absorbed entitled person ever. He genuinley believed that he was deeply superior to everyone else. His work was crap but he was successivly promoted to more and more senior positions with great rapidity. I couldn't work out whether people were taken in by his charm (ask anyone who had met him just a few times and they would say how nice he was). But he lacked any empathy or desire to understand people.

He would undermine other people, manipulate people against other people, steal things, invent problems to blame people for, lie and continue to lie even when presented with evidence he was lying, have tantrums when he didn't get his way and seek out less senior members of staff to push his workload on to.

I have met some others who were similar in their lack of empathy and selfishness, but with him the other behaviour was on another level and constant.

Aqua your daughter mustve gone through hell with this girl I have been through similar things with girls at school and people doctoring Msn messages when dd1 was at school , I dont understand the motivation behind it ,

If you can't spell psychopath, don't diagnose it, as a general rule.

God, no! I don't know anyone like that. Thankfully.

I don't want to get into a 'my baddie is worse then your baddie' scenario but I'm sorry, some of the behaviour mentioned on here, while clearly nasty and malicious, does not fall into the same category as what I described in my post up thread.

There is a difference between an unpleasant person and a sociopath - I am no expert but having lived with someone like this for over 5 years I do think I am in more of a position than most to tell the difference. Nasty neighbours and odd colleagues (not picking on anyone specific, just using random examples) are not in the same league as someone who can change from amiable charmer to violent bully in the blink of an eye and who has a whole family living in absolute terror of their behaviour.

I agree with the poster who said labels like 'bipolar', 'panic attack' and clearly now, 'sociopath' are over-used, often in the media but also by people who are just being over dramatic. Thank goodness, very few people are truly this evil.

mrsjay- indeed- and the worst thing is that we suspect that it will just keep repeating over and over again. my dd has already talked about moving to another part of the country at 18 to get away from her. unfortunately with so called social networking, even that wouldnt be guaranteed to work. dds response to this is that she could change her name.

Or she could get off the social networking sites for a start. They aren't moderated or exclusive so anybody posting there does so at their own risk.

This girl sounds vile has she gone to your DDs new school has her parents had any input into all this ? It will pass as they get older honestly I dont think she will be stalking her forever , she can be spoken to by the police for harassment at 14 its worth thinking about if its getting to much to handle ,