Are abusers sociopaths?

[Differentneeds]

My ex seemed to get joy out of seeing me suffer, I’m sure there was something very wrong with him. On the outside he looked normal but at home he was really strange.

@TheVanguardSix he comes home from his house hysterical. He says the night before coming back he cries all night because he doesn’t want to leave his dad. His dad is extreme love bombing at the moment. He says that he never wants to make dad unhappy because he won’t love him, daddy needs me. I know what he is doing and as long as our son gives him what he wants he will be nice to him. He isn’t interested one bit in his needs though, he shouldn’t be letting him cry all night in distress, he enjoys that he cries it makes him feel needed, he did the same with me. He was the abuser and the rescuer. He says things to him like he can’t live without him etc

I'm so sorry about the way he is treating your son. That is awful.

Are there any professionals involved? I would be keeping records of the effect he is having on your son, and trying to get contact reduced if possible.

@MMMarmite there were when the contact was supervised but no longer. Ive tried all avenues this past few years but he remains abusive and fooled them all in the end.

it was agreed at court he was abusive towards me and contact was stopped for quite a while. They don’t seem to understand that abuse is intentional. It wasn’t about mine and his relationship. They don’t have disordered thinking for one person and not the next. All there thinking is disordered.

You should have your son in therapy. Play therapy at his age. He needs this to help process all of this for his own well-being and you need an independent professional who is also hearing and aware of what your son is experiencing.

I think sociopathy is a neurodivergence. It would certainly explain my mother. No abuse or neglect in her childhood and a perfectly normal sister.

@Hubblebubble i think that’s more psychopathic, sociopaths are born without disordered thinking and the disorder comes from outside influence of some kind like abuse. The other is a issue with the brain from birth I believe. Like the part to do with empathy and impulse just didn’t develop from the very beginning.

Sociopathy and psychopathy aren't actual disorders. You cant be diagnosed as a scociopath or psychopath. They are just social constructs and don't have an exact meaning. Typically they are part of a personality disorder - usually antisocial personality disorder and sometimes narcissistic personality disorder.

@Freefall212 thats really interesting. Yes, definitely a lack of empathy. She has the ability to recognise emotions, she just doesn't care about other people's emotions or the impact of her actions.

I think there needs to be a way of identifying those who enjoy causing others harm/have no empathy early on. So we can help them and stop them harming others.

Here is a description of the various personality disorders. However the psychiatric world recognizes that delineating in this way isn't an accurate representation of humans. Many people with a personality disorder have characteristics across more than one diagnoses on the list - but they only have one personality so it doens't make sense to give them multiple diagnoses! They looked at a new way of diagnosing based on a rating scale of a list of characteristics but didn't have enough research yet to use it so they still use this list for now!

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/personality-disorders/symptoms-causes/syc-20354463

Ah ok @Freefall212 i get what your saying, it’s just an umbrella term. My ex seems to understand emotions and how to provoke them in others, he just doesn’t feel them himself. It didn’t seem to bother him if he made me upset. He purposefully used things he knew hurt me to get a reaction. He wasn’t happy if he didn’t get the reaction he was looking for or my reaction wasn’t enough so kept going. He always said he deserved more, more love more money more attention etc, nothing was good enough.

@Freefall212 thank you!

@Hubblebubblemine was offered help as a teenager but turned it down and turned to drugs and self harm, then he moved on to harming others. Difficult to help someone who doesn’t think they need help.

Unfortunately extremely common for teen boys. Talk therapy is a very poor fit for many teen males. They refuse to engage and don't find it helpful if they aren't an introspective talker. Most are just trying to avoid and numb their feelings and hurt and most don't have safe ways to express it in a way that could release it. I used to work in teen programs and in one therapy program for teen males that I worked at, we would bring in old cars from the wrecker and give them baseball bats and let them get out their anger by smashing cars for as many hours as it took. Many guys need a physical release. After they released that anger, then they were better able to engage in talking and also to slowly learn how to identify and manage their feelings in healthier ways - gym workouts or physical activity (flipping big tires) and physical labour jobs are a good replacement where they can push themselves physically. It is easier for them to talk about how they felt smashing a car then how they felt in the actual trauma but you can get at the same feelings. But they need an outlet if they aren't a naturally emotive or introspective guy

Also a great deal of abuse and trauma is still too deep at that developmental stage to process congitively. Unfortunately by the time they are older and more able to work through it, they are too damaged and have very dangerous or unhealthy patterns of interacting that therapy at that time can only do so much. For some though it is still helpful as adults and can reduce the abusive behaviour when they get validation for how trauma impacts people and understanding ACEs. (Adverse Childhood Events).

Yes and Narastistic disorder personality

People like your ex are definitely obviously seriously damaged broken 🙃 people

Who unfortunately are beyond the help of therapy

They are lost cause

I thinking is it cause of Nature or Nuture Theory or both ?

I think it's mix of both

What do you think?

I think his thinking is so disordered that he is impenetrable now. His addiction is feeding off people. Before he hurt himself only but now it’s others. It’s only a temporary fix though. I know I tried so hard to help him I lost myself completely in the process. He thinks it’s us that need the therapy.

Unfortunately by the teens it's too late.

The personality is fully formed by then already.

I agree with op, there should be a system in place to stop these personalities developing in the first place. But it needs to be caught when children are very young. Which can be hard to spot. As things like selfishness and lack of empathy and manipulation ...Well to an extent, all kids do that.

But every time I hear of things like bullying in old folks homes or nurses kill people ect...and these institutions going 'we will learn from our mistakes to make sure these things things happen again' I think, how? You're going to keep hiring rotten peoples because, they exist, and nothing is being done to stop them coming into existence.

Also, there don't seem to be any checks and balances. Imo, organisations hiring people to work with the vulnerable (schools, hospitals, nursing homes) should have to do mandatory psychiatric evals on their students. 2 qualified psychaitrisrs should have to go on record stating there is no diagnosable cluster b personality.

I'd even go as far as to say universities should have to run these tests before admitting students to courses that may lead these students to 'caring' roles.

It would be good if ANY management role in every company required the same too. In order to help prevent workplace bullies getting extra footholds. But tbf some psychopaths make
..effective leaders (...and popular politicians xD).

But the fact is, we know that so many things like spousal abuse, workplace bullying, many violent crimes, frauds and power exploitation- come from these sorts of people. We know many of these disorders form in childhood. But nothing is being done comprehensively to tackle that.

So all these horrible things will keep happening en mass. Indefinitely.

I’ve done much research on this topic and watched many videos on YouTube made by qualified psychiatrists so that as a victim of abuse myself, I was able to understand why I was being abused.
Apparently a sociopath has many similar traits of a psychopath. The difference being that a psychopath was born that way and behaves the way they do regardless of how lovely their upbringing was. However a sociopath is man made sociopathy forms as a direct result of a traumatic upbringing and background and traumatic life experiences.

Not all abusers are sociopaths, however most do usually have some sort of personality disorder such as narcissism, sociopathy or psychopathy or some other disorder. Not all abusers abuse to the same extent. Some are very subtle, some abuse in the form of serial cheating on their partner and lie and manipulate to cover their tracks but realise other forms of abuse such and violence and name calling are nasty. Some abuse covertly and gaslight and manipulate and name call, some abusers become physically abusive and some abusers are outright psychotic and will stalk, harass and even try to kill their partner/ ex partner. Abuse tends to be on a spectrum so no one fits all.

Most abusers are brought up that way due to their own upbringing. That usually includes sociopaths. This can be anything from subtle put downs and criticism by their parents to full blown violence depending on what sort of parent has brought them up.

No, not all abusers have personality disorders, although some have. Far fewer are narcissists or sociopaths than people think, although it's extremely common for victims of abuse to label their abuser with a disorder or condition.

What I see in perpetrators most almost entirely across the board is a foundational belief that in a relationship people aren't equal; there is a superior and an inferior. Because of their upbringing and family dynamics, they have a terror of being the inferior one, so their abuse (however it pays out), is about squashing the other person down. That makes them feel better. It feels like narcissism/sociopathy to the other person who doesn't have a non-abusive mindset and is approaching the relationship from an assumption of equality, but that is not how the abuser is functioning. So I'd say rather than personality disorders (although of course some do have them), it's more to do with relationship blue-prints, attachment styles, and a belief that they have the right to be in the superior role (which may be more to do with sociological beliefs than narcissism).

You are right, not all abusers have personality disorders or at least haven’t been actually diagnosed with one anyway. Narcissism, sociopathy, BPD, psychopathy etc is on a spectrum so although someone might have a lot of say, narcissistic traits, it may not make them a full blown narcissist or enough to be diagnosed with any sort of personality disorder. Most normal people do have certain narcissistic traits but that doesn’t make them anywhere near being a full blown narcissist. I have come across many people who have a lot of ‘narcissistic’ traits and are subtly emotionally abusive and manipulative but then seem to have empathy in certain other situations.

But I’d say all abusers have high levels of cluster b traits or some sort of other personality disorder, just not enough of those traits to give them a label. It purely does seem to depend a lot on their upbringing.

Definitely a lot going on and a lot depends on the family situation they witness and the rules and morals they learn.

I think this is really important and protective for your son.

"Unlike sadists, psychopaths don’t harm the harmless simply because they get pleasure from it (though they may). Psychopaths want things. If harming others helps them get what they want, so be it." https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/from-psychopaths-to-everyday-sadists-why-do-humans-harm-the-harmless/#:~:text=Someone%20who%20gets%20pleasure%20from,when%20they%20may%20feel%20bad.
He could be a sadist, you don't have to be a psychopath or sociopath to enjoy harming others. The harm is more incidental in the second case, whereas the harm is the whole point for a sadist. It's not unusual for abusive men to use their children as a way to go on abusing their ex after the split. I don't think my stbxh is a sociopath or psychopath or any cluster b personality disorder. I think he's just an entitled arsehole who doesn't care what harm he causes as long as he gets what he wants.

I understand why you want to understand him, but I don't think it's possible because that way of thinking is so alien to most people. Then even if you did it wouldn't change anything, he'll still be him. You focusing on him and worrying about his behaviour is probably exactly what he wants.