Have you ever come across a Sociopath / Psychopath?

[Bursarymum]

I've been reading 'The Sociopath Next Door'. And it got me thinking. Psychopathic killers are rare but it seems those without any conscience are not so rare.

Having said that, not everyone who has been talking about eyes has been deliberately lying, I'm not accusing them of that, but never the less, their statements were not true.

Are you affected by this condition, Charis? If so, this is quite interesting as your remarks enhance our earlier discussion about semantic dysphasia in sociopathic disorders.

If not, it isn't interesting.

No garlick, I am not, as I have explained, I have a second cousin, and a close friend's son, affected.

Let me explain yet again, then. I spent seven years patiently explaining the subtleties of human interactions to a husband I now realise ticks enough boxes on the diagnostic matrix to qualify as a psychopath, were he diagnosed.

Having been "affected" by more than one such individual in close proximity, I no longer play that game.

then you will know, Garlick, that his eyes were perfectly normal!

No they fucking weren't.

This a a very strange and pedantic approach, which IMO does not add much to the discussion.

*is

Aren't we all just discussing our experiences. If so then why would someone patently claim that someone's experience was wrong? Were you there? I personally had a feeling that something was just off. As someone said upthread, it was a sense that my ex was mimicking emotion, and had learned to read normal emotion despite not genuinely feeling it.

People can read faked expressions explicitly through the minor nuances and tics in an persons facial expressions and eyes.

In normal shorthand we say "it's something about their eyes", it can be pupil dilation, narrowing or widening of eyes or holding another person's gaze. Phrases such as their "eyes look empty or dead" is just a simple way of articulating a lack of honest facial expressions and clues. Eyes are pretty critical in all mammals non-verbal language.

This a a very strange and pedantic approach, which IMO does not add much to the discussion

because this insistence that you can identify a psychopath by their eyes is blatantly untrue, and incredibly unhelpful.

My cat is gazing at me steadily right now. Depending on MY preference, I could interpret that look as loving, warm, hungry for dinner, or cold and dead.

A lot of what is being described here is not really anything to do with genuine psychopathy.

"I thought he was nice, now he is being horrible, so he must be a psychopath, and he's got dead eyes so that proves it"

I suspect a lot of these exes would be saying the same thing about the posters!

Psychopaths are not cold eyed, they are not necessarily clever, charming, handsome, lethal,

Many of them are conceited, not as bright as they think, and typically a large number are overweight.

Charis - I thought you were only speaking from your personal experience of knowing two people with this condition ? You are rather generalising from your sample of two

Please stop telling others posters that their experience is wrong . It's illogical and unhelpful . I'm suprised you can't see that . It won't make people agree with you, it just pisses them off

i am speaking from my own personal experience of people I have met in my private life, but I also worked in a psychiatric hospital for a year once.

Ok, fine, say as much about eyes as you want, I'm not stopping you, I'm just pointing out that it is delusional.

Thanks, I appreciate your giving me permission to discuss this and I'm sure other posters do too

you can state it all you like, you are still delusional.

You can't identify anything much from one factor: and I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that someone's expression, or appearance, or our impression of these, constitutes a diagnosis or anything like one.

People are however, free to discuss this in any way they wish in an open forum, provided they are not breaking a law. Using colloquial and common use expressions is not 'writing fiction', it is just normal discourse. People can write as they wish, as can you.

Can we just say that "dead eyes" is shorthand for something like "facial expressions that subtly betray a lack of genuine emotion, described in the way that they are perceived by most people, who tend to focus on the eyes of the person they are interacting with and to process non-verbal cues subconsciously"?

delusional? Maybe we just have a different opinion . Or have had different experiences.

I've been following this thread with interest and pondering whether to post.

I strongly suspect my XP of being a sociopath or having NPD (I know they are not the same thing). So many things fit. Oversized ego. Complete lack of empathy. Uses and discards people with conscience. And yes, the dead eyed stare (that was when I knew I was in real trouble...it usually preceded some awful punishment). Not that he would ever get or seek a diagnosis, he think's he's perfect!

On the eyes thing....Martha Stout (author of 'the Sociopath Next Door) who is a psychologist of many years experience and who also has a PhD has commented on the 'dead eyed stare'. Others with experience in the field also refer to this so I'm happy to trust their opinions.

Obviously I mean without conscience!

By the way, if a cat is gazing steadily at you, without blinking, I'd watch out as it's a sign of aggression (funnily enough). If they're blinking, that's ok.

I know this from 40+ years of real-time feline interactivity experiences .

Charis - you don't have any right to tell any of us that we are delusional. You have not lived our lives. And I find your comments quite patronising and unkind, given the traumas Ps cause in people's lives. I have had a terrible time with the P that I was sucked in by, and I didn't even know him for a long time. It has been a shock to discover the truth around the head fuckery and mind games, the cruel treatment and suddenly ignoring me if I said one thing he didn't like. Not to mention the sexual abuse. And then realising that I have been with someone else like this before too. And possibly that my dad is also one of these people.

I, for one do feel that this man in my life had something 'other' about him. As humans it's quite normal to be able to pick up on a vibe someone has, or an expression or a lack of an expression. And I don't know why you are so defensive about it or so determined to belittle our feelings and opinions.

That's funny, bursary, I was going to say that the woman I knew also seemed 'other'; exactly the same word. I deleted that comment but you've hit the nail on the head with it. When she got violent there was no defensiveness, no attempt to justify it in the way that even regularly violent other people do. It just seemed reasonable to her. She didn't need to justify it.

She was also deeply pitiable. Don't think anyone had ever shown her love or caring as a small child. Sometimes she'd come out with something entirely unconscious of the implication of what she was saying, and it'd cut you to the core with just how truly sad it was; the level of indifference that she'd been on the receiving end of. In a way she was strangely and uncomfortably innocent; even when she was violent she didnt seem to realise it wasn't ok. It was like the violence of a shark, it was just natural to her and nothing to be ashamed of. She could only barely comprehend that other people found it unacceptable.

Getting a bit poetic there. it's just hard to describe.

Meerka and Bursary the term 'other' is perfect to describe my XP.

I know the posts I've made on here sound a bit flippant but what he did to me was really and truly horrendous. I honestly believe he deliberately set out to push me into committing suicide so that he and his new partner could have my DS to themselves (and yes, I know how utterly bizarre and unbelievable that sounds).

Not at all flipp, I've often heard it said that psychopaths try to do those kinds of things. It's chilling.

No, it doesn't, ada. Dad tried several times to get Mum to top herself on the flimsiest of excuses. My theory is that he was just interested in whether she'd do it, and what it would look like. She reckons it was for pragmatic advantages such as life insurance. In reality it was likely to have been both a power trip and a fleeting desire to be widowed.