Predator Detection and the Devil of Plurality: Personality Disorders and the Nature of Good and Evil
The following article is written by Alex Z. Cameron, whom regular readers of Shrink4Men may recognize from his participation in the comments of past articles.
In his first piece, Alex connects the dots from his undiagnosed personality disordered parents to his attraction for toxic, abusive personality-disordered women and the impact relationships with personality-disordered individuals has had on his life to an examination of personality disorders and the concepts of order vs. disorder and good and evil.
My sincere thanks to Alex for allowing me to publish his work. – Dr. T
When I look back now after thirty years of wandering, distressed wondering, and decades of self-diagnosis, the answer only ever gets clearer. Of course the partners I ended up with had personality disorders or serious problems, because both my parents have personality disorders.
That revelation was less of the grand enlightenment that others seem to experience, and more of an increasing acuity to the eventual fact that nothing would help, and nothing will change.
I’d spent thirty years wondering what was wrong with me, when in fact, the heartbreak of relationship failure after relationship failure forced me to understand in detail what personality disorders are and how to spot them – in short, what was wrong with them, and what it did to me.
The sharper edge of the sword in my case was the horror when I realised both my mother and father had undiagnosed personality disorders (PDs), and the implications for my identity, emotional life, and future. Liberation comes at a price.
Learning to recognise the telltale signs of these stigmatised mental health issues, like Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and the recently-declassified Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), in my experience, is closer to an art than a science. Nobody teaches it in school, the behavioural symptoms are often cultural norms, and then of course, there is the incredible strength of denial.
Whether you believe their behaviour to be malicious, or just plain absurd, there is no doubting that forewarned is forearmed. I wasn’t. And you need emotional acumen to detect emotional predators, just like animals need it to escape from real ones in the wild.
Possibly the strangest phenomenon about abusive individuals from whatever cloth they are cut, is that they literally use the same words, phrases, and justifications, like they are reading from the same textbook. They don’t have any new ideas. It’s old news happening to new people.
The first thing to understand is that both parties (i.e., you, the “victim,” and the predator) are equally looking to play out a childhood role, or a partner in a twisted dance. They’re looking for you, and you’re looking for them.
Not consciously, but you’re looking for what feels like love – the example of “love” that was modelled for you when you were small. You may just be “wanting” to be abused and/or encouraging your own victimisation because it’s what you remember “love” feeling like.
I’ve always felt that the best way to understand personality-disordered people is as a sprawling mess of chaotic coping mechanisms that have turned malignantly pathological. The inert blandness of denial becomes a delusional prerequisite to gaslighting. Criticising others is only a step away from outright projection.
The other crucial principle to establish in your soul, heart, and mind is that almost all personality-disordered people look entirely normal to the outside world, as their illness is relational and only appears in private. They have spent a lifetime hiding their disability from the other human beings around them, disguising and camouflaging themselves so they fit in with their surroundings. The “self” they project to the outside world is absolutely false, but expertly acted to the untrained eye.
They rightly know that being exposed for what they are means almost certain rejection, humiliation, shame, stigma, and pariah status. They operate on the basis that ultimately, at some point, they will be rejected – somewhere deep in the silent abyss of their heart, they believe they can only get what they need by getting around the defences of others.
The ancient Greek mythology that gave us the illustration of Narcissus of Thespiae also helps us to answer the Piper’s dance invitation to self-destruction with the story of the Sirens; dangerous seductresses who lured mariners to ruin with their intoxicating music and voices. The Sirens’ call of personality-disordered, abusive, and toxic people everywhere, in every language, is the universal heartstring-puller of pity. Pity for themselves, pity for others, projected distress and pain of all the unfairness that ails and grieves them; their pathetic inability to behave like an adult, and their “victim” routine.
To put it bluntly, the toxic pheromone of disordered people, or how they attract you, is feeling sorry for them, as you would for any normal human being.
The attack posture of this kind of urban predator is the baited trap. They emit their loud Sirens’ call to attract their prey — who feel sorry for them — and then simply lure them in closer by an appearance of pathetic weakness. Once you’re within their jaws and feeling comfortable, the fangs inject into their prey so slowly it barely registers.
The classic combination of the “Damsel in Distress” and the old-fashioned “bait ‘n’ switch” is tried, tested, and field-proven.
The reason they are predators is not just because they’re “feeding;” it’s because they don’t care how their behaviour affects the other person. They hold them in contempt, because it’s the only way they can rationalise their own sick behaviour next to their Holy image of themselves inside.
As I know to my own cost, some personality-disordered people are so expert at camouflage that they successfully smother their victims with the stigma of dysfunction, whilst appearing as pillars of the local community. When you meet one, that still small voice inside, or the strange feeling you have that tells you something is wrong but you can’t put your finger on it, is your primeval animal instinct registering that you have detected a predator that is camouflaged.
At that point, those reptilian instincts are signalling something doesn’t fit; it doesn’t work. Something’s strange, incoherent. There’s something strange about the person. But like any normal person would, you simply give them the benefit of the doubt. Your brain needs coherence. Small incongruencies are fixed by denial and rationalisation.
And that is where complications arise. You want, and desperately try, to treat a personality-disordered person like a normal, ordinary person. They don’t look howling-at-the-moon insane as their illness is socially transparent.
Most maintain the appearance that they have an enormous happiness for their life, are surrounded by close friends, and are busied by a huge array of interests, hobbies and ideas. The sad truth is that is only an appearance; an important social veneer.
They have friends, but none are actually close to any degree of significant intimacy. They talk about being interested in interests, but never have any substance for them. Their hobbies almost always exist solely to glorify them somehow, or offer social cover (e.g., church).
If you’re unlucky enough to be trapped in their proximity, it’s not long before you come face-to-face with the terrifying reality that they are inevitably totally convinced that, within specific boundary lines of demarcation, they are entitled to treat you as they see fit. For example, “It’s my house!” is abuser-speak justification that because they own the roof, they are entitled fairly to abuse you, or anyone else: children, animals or adults. Because they’re in a relationship with you, they’re especially entitled to irradiate you with their toxic emissions, because that’s your role. They’ll even abuse you for leaving.
Whether they are men or women, you begin to notice that most personality-disordered people exhibit a similar suite of behaviours that are subtle clues to the mess inside that they would sacrifice their own lives (or yours) to prevent anyone seeing. Healthy people avoid them unconsciously, and once you have spent a good length of time coping with their quasi-transparent insanity, they begin to stick out as if they had a large real estate sign above their head.
Yes, their illness is genetic/hereditary and runs in families, like physical illness. There’s a very good chance one of their parents also has/had a personality disorder.
A sense of frustrating childishness.
Dealing with personality-disordered people is confusing. Despite the fact you’re looking at an adult, you can’t help but feel that the way they think, talk, and act, is incredibly childish. Adults acting like children are all too common, but the difference is that even their behaviour reaches some kind of mature resolution. It goes away. The grown-up appears eventually. The only “maturity” a personality-disordered person emits is for public show, as you’ll find out in the next argument.
The distinguishing feature between child and adult is the ability to accept responsibility for oneself. An inability to accept responsibility for your own behaviour indicates a lack of maturity and/or dysfunction. In normal, healthy people it can be deferred temporarily. In disorder, it never appears and you will be waiting forever.
Pushy, pushy and more yet more pushiness.
Personality-disordered people are relentlessly pushy in every area of their lives and the lives of those around them. They push you away. They push their way into your life. They push to get what they want. Boundaries have no meaning to them other than being their victim’s selfish device to “hurt” them.
They operate on the basis that they will 100% be rejected at some point in the future, and so must find their way around their target’s defences, and control or contain anything they think, feel, believe or experience.
Natural drive respects boundaries; abuse doesn’t. Relationships have a natural “flow” about them, starting with a natural, healthy cautiousness – a luxury you are only afforded in a PD relationship if it’s providing additional social “camouflage.” Disordered peoples’ “relationships” are jerky, violent, pushy and chaotic combinations of demands, defences, and incoherence that are just below the threshold that triggers the “flight” response.
An endless influx needing immediate disarmament.
To a personality-disordered person, the world is a terrifying abyss of danger; threats around every corner, overwhelming feelings, the unpredictability of other people. Over a lifetime of never-ending “trauma” they’ve exhausted themselves trying to cope with, they all develop exactly the same system of defence: the desperate need to “disarm” anything that looks like it may induce bad, uncomfortable, or distressing feelings in them.
Their knee-jerk response is to devalue, demean, denigrate and/or just plain ignore the “thing” or “person.” The theory is sound. By devaluing the person, or what they think/say, they remove its “power” over them. Remove the value or meaning, and you disarm what it is. Discredit the source, and the threat loses all meaning.
Turning your escape into a prison.
Perhaps one of the most disturbing moments you will have in dealing with a personality-disordered person is their near-telepathic ability to sense the exact basis of your aversion to them. For example, if you consider them “toxic,” somehow you’ll soon find yourself being called “toxic” — by them.
And God forbid they discover any self-help books or personal development materials (e.g., websites), because it’s a 100% certainty they will be used against you. Your notes on boundaries will be transformed into you not respecting their boundaries, or your motivations for reading self-help material will be to “manipulate” them with “mind tricks.”
In disarming the “threat” of your means of escape, they create enough self-doubt through guilt to dig their fangs in deeper.
Perpetual misery that only a toxic waste dump could transmit.
Fundamentally, despite all their pretentions and protestations to the contrary, personality-disordered people are incredibly negative and depressive people who drain the life from you when you try to relate to them normally. They live in a state of continual fear of the world that’s entrenched and pathological. The “happiness” they project to the world is merely “contentment” of not being in pain.
The simple fact is they are profoundly unhappy and character-weak people who are endlessly distressed. But perhaps the most telling sign of their inner darkness is their absolute contempt for others, and the viciousness in how they talk about the feelings, thoughts, or cares or those they supposedly care about. When they’re pressured, their true nature appears, so clear particularly in their tone of their voice – a nasty defensive arrogance, devaluing and deriding anything that might require something of them with utter contempt in order to disarm it.
Spoken or unspoken, it’s your fault.
Listen to any unrepentant criminal who’s been convicted by a jury, and you have absolutely no doubt whatsoever when they complain their victim was to blame, that they are wrong, but also delusional. The trouble is personality-disordered people are mostly undiagnosed.
Any ordinary person who is blamed for a wrong naturally becomes reflective and introspective in order to healthily examine their possible guilt. Like the burglar who blames his victim for being “stupid enough not to close the curtains,” all abusers preach the philosophy that others somehow “caused” them to abuse, and that they are the real victims – often pre-emptively before you make a claim.
What separates personality-disordered people from the healthy norm is their terrifying lack of awareness – or willful blindness – of how their behaviour affects others. They are so completely unable to see their own behaviour because they are childishly enthralled in themselves.
Terrorised by criticism or accountability.
One of the most effective tests you can conduct if you need a degree of “proof” as to whether someone suffers with a personality disorder is to deliberately use criticism in a group dynamic. A disordered person cannot cope with even the slightest criticism without exploding into a hysterical routine, be it internally (e.g., red cheeks, silence, holding down panic and anger), or physically (e.g., raised voice, backing away) and reacting very badly indeed. Most normal healthy people, whilst disliking criticism, are able to “adsorb” it, whereas a personality-disordered person will act in panic to desperately “keep it away.”
On the other hand, they also suffer enormous provocation when they are in proximity of others being praised. Narcissists are particularly vulnerable to spurting a tidal wave of devaluation of the person who has stolen “their” attention. The quieter it is, the more advanced and adapted they have become at blending in with their surroundings, and hiding their dysfunction. Anger is something often expressed in a socially “acceptable” way, or passively.
An unfulfilled universal need for coherence.
Lastly, it is useful to admit to yourself that, on whatever level, we all have an emotional and spiritual need for coherence. We need order; be it routine, structured learning, or beliefs that are consistent with who we are. We need it in others. Words, feelings and behaviour that are incoherent cause an ordinary person confusion in the least, but typically, considerable distress.
Personality-disordered people are, as the name suggests, fundamentally disordered. They have little or no integrity. Their beliefs, logic, and cognitive processes make little or no sense. Arguing with them leaves a normal person entirely frustrated and confused.
Their arguments are disordered, their logic is illogical, and the easily-rationalised adult life in front of you is completely irrational. Yet they look adult, socially respectable, claim to be responsible, and refuse to admit their difficulties or make any effort to get any better. Stubborn, outrageous hypocrisy is the norm. Double-standards are their principles.
You slowly come to accept that you are only frustrating yourself by expecting and assuming a personality-disordered person to react and/or engage as an ordinary, healthy person would. An argument, debate, or healthy confrontation always, always, always becomes a meltdown, or game played to “get the upper hand.”
Their inner world and private life never reflects, or aligns with integrity with, their public persona. Who they are outside to others at arm’s length is entirely different to who they are behind closed doors to those they are supposed to love and care about. There is no integrity or coherence. Empathy, introspection, and compassion are the reserve of healthy normal people, whereas to the personality-disordered, they are important theatrical gestures.
Being fundamentally disordered means you can’t recognise your own disorder, or even order itself. To do so would trigger pain. And that, to the personality-disordered person, comprises their only philosophy in life: To avoid pain at all costs. The obnoxious, toxic, and vile behaviours you experience are their attempts to avoid pain using defence mechanisms that have become pathological responses.
The basis of all morality is that all life has value. If we accept that there is good, we accept there is also evil.
To distinguish between them, we understand there needs to be “moral law.” Natural law says that our choices have consequences; moral law says there is right/wrong and good/evil. Our world is built on order, whether it be the laws of nature, or moral law. That order reflects that, because we have intrinsic value, by extension, who we are is sacred. Our heart, mind, soul, being, property and relationships are all sacred. No-one has the right to violate them, and we have no right to violate those of others.
It’s easy to write-off the sins of personality-disordered people on the basis of involuntary mental illness (i.e., excusing it as not deliberate), but our conscience is what helps us navigate the choices we face every day (i.e., ethics). It’s not reasonable to suggest that someone is “good” despite all evidence to the contrary.
Moreover, it’s ridiculous to believe that someone’s soul is separately ordered “good” when the rest of them is disordered – one is connected to the other. It’s easy to wrap up therapy in the clinical blanket of objective reasoning about “character” and “dysfunction.”
The painful and inescapable truth that becomes harder and harder to run from is that there is something morally evil in personality disorder, not just social dysfunction (evil itself is defined as a violation of the natural, sacred order or a moral code). The behaviour is just outright wrong, as in right/wrong.
Narcissism, scripture tells us, was the first original sin – the root that begat all the others. A politician’s private infidelity easily becomes fraud in taxpayer accounts because the root is dishonesty; integrity means that which happens in the private dark is the same that happens in public view.
The foundation of our recovery from the damage caused by personality-disordered people needs to be firmly anchored in moral and natural law, before we even begin to deal with the therapeutic platitudes. We must live according to conscience, with character.
As comforting as it is to re-railroad ourselves with the list of sins and betrayals committed against us, we have to begin by understanding there is a law higher than ourselves that has been violated. Life is about “we,” not just “me” – it is our collective experience.
Disorder favours fog. Those who demand blind obedience are usually planning to abuse it, and the perfect world for a personality-disordered person to cloak their behaviour is one where everything is relative; one where boundaries are flexible, and a permissive system where good, evil and moral law do not exist. A world where they can do whatever they want because everything is permitted, and higher law is superseded by concern for the self, or even just plain survival.
However, there are absolutes, and disordered “philosophy” is invariably incoherent. Truth is simple.
A lifetime of dealing with personality-disordered people teaches you to not only recognise an absence of conscience and morality, but also the critical weakness of dictators, despots, tyrants, criminals, abusers and fanatics everywhere from the beginning of time immemorial: A complete inability to tolerate plurality and the idea that we accept more than one idea. The concept that we accept there is more than one point of view.
But the most telling trait of a personality disorder? The fact that they could read this whole article –or a whole library, in fact, and not begin to suspect for a second, let alone recognise, that it could be about them.
Much gratitude to Alex for sharing such a thought provoking work. – Dr T
Shrink4Men Coaching and Consulting Services:
Dr Tara J. Palmatier provides confidential, fee-for-service, consultation/coaching services to help both men and women work through their relationship issues via telephone and/or Skype chat. Her practice combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Shrink4Men Services page for professional inquiries.
105 Responses to “Predator Detection and the Devil of Plurality: Personality Disorders and the Nature of Good and Evil”
Comments
Read below or add a comment...
Follow Shrink4men
Where in the World
Subscribe to Comments
Affiliate
The vast difference between their public and private personalities can not be overstated.
Publicly, we may see in them an elevated level of compassion and empathy for strangers, sometimes so much as to seem socially inappropriate. Privately (e.g., only in the presence of immediate family members), their behavior turns contemptuous and demeaning.
People outside of the disordered person’s “inner circle” have no clue about what goes on with these people behind closed doors. Outsiders will express shock and disbelief when they see evidence to the contrary of what they perceive the disordered person to be. This disconnect is completely understandable. People place the most trust in their own perceptions of people, and are wary of what others tell them.
A stock answer to give the doubting outsider is, “I could tell you what she is really like, but you would never believe me.”
I agree with this 100%, Verbal.
My wife gave to charity, organized fundraisers, taught disadvantaged kids, went to bat for kids who were going to juvenile detention or prison. When I tried to explain what was happening, to family members and friends, no one believed it. Even my sister, who deals with people with personality disorders as part of her job, can’t wrap her head around the stuff that I tell her. It just blows her mind.
And this feeds into one of the other points in this article. The fact that people of this type are all so eerily, freakily, *the same*. It’s like they’re a cancerous hive mind, or something, just growing and spreading and doing the same, broken robot dance, trying to ape the patterns and behaviors of normal people and never quite grasping it. And while it makes them easier to spot for folks like us, the mere fact that there seems to be so many of them out there just terrifies me.
the spooky psychic stuff is creepy.
Hi Memnoc,
I agree. The similarities are uncanny. The fact that there are so many similarities in traits, cognitions, behaviors and attitudes is why they are grouped into specific disorders in the DSM and other diagnostic tools.
Indeed. In my experience, the sad part of it is that people believe what they want to believe, often against all evidence to the contrary. It’s especially difficult when you really need the support of others not only for validation, but in the logistics of leaving. The level of denial goes up the worse the dysfunction gets.
I have this issue with my sister, who i love dearly. I talk to a blank face that doesn’t know or recognise that it’s abuse. When you push the abuser, they’re -always- contemptuous that something is abusive, in the most self-righteous way.
I do my best to reiterate: “i don’t need your agreement before it’s actually abuse.”
Hi Alex,
You write:
The level of denial goes up the worse the dysfunction gets.
Agreed. Never underestimate the powerful combination of cognitive dissonance, dysfunction and denial.
>> Publicly, we may see in them an elevated level of compassion and empathy for strangers, sometimes so much as to seem socially inappropriate. <> People outside of the disordered person’s “inner circle” have no clue about what goes on with these people behind closed doors. <<
Sometimes the punishment starts the instant the front door closes behind them. And worse, some family members who have seen the gross manipulation and had it done to them just seem to forget about it after a few months and start believing her again, and defending her against other family that has gone no contact.
There is no way to say it all and it is probably pointless for me to start. I have a thousand bizarro dark miserable experiences in just 2011. I started keeping a detailed journal a bit more than a year ago, after 10 years of worsening suffocation and mental stress, especially because everything is forgotten down the memory hole and the mood changes are so stark. I couldn't keep things straight in my own head. I think I'm close to 300 pages now.
I have tried to tell a few other people about it. One friend gets it, but the one that I need to believe me so I can have some support and help has consistently dismissed me as being a complainer. "You must think you have it worse than anyone else" is what he said once… that really smarts. Nevermind…
Well my comment got corrupted by html formatting problems. I guess it is still mostly readable.
So what is your plan? Do you plan to stay in your abusive marriage hoping that your spouse will change, or do you plan to get out of it? Since you are keeping a journal, it seems to imply that you are planning to do something…
The question of getting out… I have heard some on here say that your kids will resent you if you don’t get out and get them out too. But… there is no guarantee that I can take them with me, and it is certain that the world has never seen bizarro world like they and I will have to endure if I went that route. I am sure it would damage them terribly. And last, my oldest is turning against me and turning dark in some ways. At all costs I must not allow the possibility that he will be alone with her, or she will have the excuse to alienate him from me.
This is all a sick joke because from the time he was born she was annoyed with the day to day drudgery of raising kids, and I have picked up all the slack with him and his siblings. Now that he’s old enough, she somehow has taken over again, “spiritually” if you will.
you can “get out.” just separate for a while and have the kids half the time. do your repair work when they are with you. if your spouse/partner is willing to meet for therapy or mediation — see where it goes.
your “alone time” with your kids is absolutely essential.
“i left because mom was hitting me, hitting is wrong, if she hits you, call the police.”
Agree with anon. More than anything else, set an example that will last and sit in their brain. She can only contain your kids for so long, as when they become adults they’ll certainly be asking you why you did what you did. Be incredibly, incredibly clear about why you’re leaving when you do, and reassure them relentlessly about how you love them at every point. You could write them individual letters and leave them with a family friend – then tell them (in private – away from mum) when they’re ready to listen and want to know, they can approach that friend and read what you have to say (and couldn’t say because they wouldn’t listen/understand). Lies don’t last and have to be continually re-stoked. The truth is uncovered effortlessly.
fironzelle:
I’ll share with you my experience. And take it for what it’s worth, because as woman, I did have group counseling and a shelter available.
I have two daughters. While living with the ex, my elder daughter often cut herself down, calling herself stupid, dumb and bad.
My younger daughter showed me zero respect, and was downright snotty and rude, refusing to help out or contribute, like she was above the rules.
Within weeks of moving out, Older Daughter started speaking and acting more positively about herself. Younger Daughter showed respect and I could see a sweetness in her.
After a year or so, before the divorce was final, all I could find in my area was a 1BR apartment, so I agreed to let the girls sleep at their dad’s. Big mistake. Within a matter of two weeks, both of them were RIGHT BACK to where they had been – OD very negative towards herself (scapegoat), YD snotty with me and disrespectful to all adults (golden child).
I had to basically ‘kidnap’ them back, then tell him my reasons when he called me later over the phone(not that he cared).
What that taught me, is that it’s not me. They are far more healthy and positive with me than they are living with him – King Baby.
Best of luck~
Tony Robbins has an interesting point to make about this. His theory is that if you’re putting something off, it’s because you link more pain to going through with it than you do to not doing it. So, the theory goes, the trick is to turn the scales and make it more painful *not* to leave than to stay. Easier said than done of course, but what is the meaning of your suffering?
Hi fironzelle,
I am very sorry to read that your friends/family have not been a reliable support for you.
Some people don’t want to hear about pain, especially marital pain because their own relationships are tenuous. They turn a deaf ear and blind eye and pretend there’s no problem. Some people refuse to acknowledge that there is evil in the world.
To any friends and family members who are reading this website because someone you care about is suffering this kind of abuse and torment, please know that one of the most important and helpful things you can to is to just acknowledge that your loved one has been abused and has been harmed. Good people don’t deliberately hurt those they claim to care about over and over and over again. Nor do they refuse to take responsibility for their actions and blame the peole they’ve hurt for hurting them.
Hi Verbal,
Unfortunately, many people can’t conceptualize the hell individuals with these issues can inflict until they’ve had the misfortune to tangle with one.
This is also why so many of us who have been involved in this kind of relationship often feel an instant kinship or camaraderie when we encounter another “veteran.”
yeah and incredible frustration when friends and family are unable to be supportive. it’s like explaining the abusive behavior to them puts them into some kind of hypnotic zone. it just doesn’t register. it can’t register. she can’t be acting like that. it has to be an exception. there has to be a reason.
a cousin recently raged at me on the phone because he was like “yeah, but what was the REASON she broke your window and banged on your door?”
umm — what?
Most people believe that we’re all “accountable” for conflict exactly in the same way. If I speak about personality disorders to some of my friends, they just blank. They believe there is some kind of bad karma attached to those relationships, and that both parties are stubborn and immature (ha!).
I suppose it’s all a matter of educating the public and making sure that in the same way Axis I disorders (bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, for example) have become mainstream topics, the same will happen with personality disorders. I was diagnosed as Bipolar II in 1998, and you bet I kept my mouth shut! I was the odd one out at work, the eccentric who’d at some point become melancholic and quiet. Thirteen years after having been diagnosed, my chairman at Uni knows I’m bipolar and that I’m getting treatment for it. He also knows I reach out to students who suffer from psychiatric conditions, and has given me all his professional and personal support.
My take on personality disorders is that since they deeply affect how we relate, they’re part and parcel of everyday life, strange systems of belief, witchcraft, karma and the like. I only became aware of what Cluster B is 5 years ago, and it is this website that is giving me amazing tools not only for intimate relationships, but also for dealing with psychos at work (some students are extreme manipulators, for example).
It is thanks to Dr. T. that I found a new explanation to the relationships I had with my mother and grandmother (both Cluster B undiagnosed), my second ex-husband (a full-blown sociopath) and two female friends that abused the bejeezes out of me (Cluster B). Once my income is stabilised, I would like to make a regular donation.
The one thing that WILL stand out, however, to those close to you (if after years, there are any left who haven’t been scared / coerced / threatened or discouraged away) is the difference that has come over YOU, the ‘insignificant other’ – sometimes that is the only clue others have, and IMO, the most telling.
Exactly. These are the people “you were warned about” who, in my case, seemed to instantly change behind closed doors / immediately after vows have been spoken.
Within a year after marrying my NPD AXH, I remember looking at him and thinking, “Who ARE you?” I had no idea.
Nothing he did made any sense to me…until I realized, years later, that he really DOES see me as an adversary, rather than as a partner. I like Dr. T’s term: “Normalcy prop.”
I always took marriage to mean, “You and mean against the world” but he treated me like it was him and the world against me.
Like being on a see-saw, where the only way he knew how to feel ‘up’ was to bring me ‘down.’
I grew up with severe dysfunction and 2 disordered parents (Mom = dx’d BPD, Dad = undx’d NPD). Like you, I subconsciously sought out dysfunctional people in relationships. It took several failed attempts before I got myself in to see a counselor and figure out why I had such poor taste in partners.
I’ve done a 180 now and have super-honed predatorial detection skills.
Great job! I think the strangest part was the auto-pilot part. I was left scratching my head, asking myself how we managed to pick each other out in a virtual crowd knowing so little about the other. It’s a mysterious and quasi-magical transaction. I figured it’s better to have failed a few times and got it right in the end, than to give up or just keep bashing my heart against the same thornbush.
Great article
thank you!
I agree! Deep, insightful and well-worded
This article I must say is by far, for me, the greatest work I have read yet on peronality disorders. I’ve been trying for the last three years to sum up my experience with this disorder and this does it for me. I’ve been visiting your site over that time and appreciate everything it stands for. Alex, thank you!
My absolute pleasure, and thank you for being so kind about it! I have to say thanks to Dr T, because everything i’ve come to know started on this site. Two years ago, i sat in my study with a diagnostic list of BPD criteria on the screen, with the girl i’d fallen in love with on my lap verbally identifying with all of it. Healing’s a journey and a process rather than a destination.
Wait wait wait… Are you saying you are in a relationship with a person who acknowledged all of these things, and is now getting better?
Oops didn’t mean that! *facepalm* No, thankfully. That relationship (if you can call it that) ended rather painfully about 2 months after i showed her my discovery of BPD. We got back together briefly, until she went nuts again by routine. We never spoke again, but i heard many absurd things being relayed – her telling everyone i abused her (as allegedly, the last guy had done), that i am manipulative etc, as well as her going right back to doing everything she had done 100x before. Sadly, she just got even more pathological, and it only inflamed her incredible dishonesty. She used to spy on my account here! Would have been nice if she had wanted to make the change for herself, as i probably would have given serious thought to supporting her.
OK, I get it. Hey, I’m 12 years deep into marriage and watching this horror unfold maybe in my kids, so I get you now. I would have been interested if you had a success story. It’s nice to have hope you know.
There is hope. I was brought up by PD parents, and you just read what came out of me. Your kids are your hope, and they need a dad who’ll fight for them. If you give in, they’ll suffer it. But if you give them normality, consequences, and the best you can, they will have a model to heal from. Mum maybe insane, but Dad taught us how to live in the face of oppression. Invest in their future by being their source of humanity and normality for later on. It took me a long time because i didn’t have any help or support. Having a reassuring hand on your shoulder makes all the difference.
Mum may be turning at least one of them bad because he is her golden child. It is so depressing, or terrifying, to be fighting against the contempt of a 9 year old. Very hard to be “normal” in some of the sickening scenarios that have started to play out this last year. But your comment is why I stay.
I only learnt recently about all these roles (scapegoat, golden child etc) by researching how families with dysfunctional people in them operate. I hope i don’t seem insensitive by saying it’s quite fascinating – definitely a revelation to a former scapegoat like me. Info here is good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysfunctional_family
Allow me to say this to you though, as a child of PD parents. My mum and dad stayed together until i was 18 “for the kids” before they divorced. Well, i said stay together, when what i meant was keep joint ownership of the home whilst the world collapsed.
As hard as it may be to believe, and as much as it may have hurt at the time, i truly believe that both myself and my sister would have been so much better off if they’d split when we were small, or much earlier.
It would have shown us by example that the right response to someone abusing you is to leave, and separation can be an important act of love. We learnt the opposite (to stay at all costs), and have had worse relationship trauma than most a lot of people we know because neither of us know how, when, where, or why to separate from bad people. We learnt codependence, and behaviour that violated the natural healthy law of sowing/reaping.
As painful as it may be, i know i would have at least respected them more. Them staying together didn’t help at all – in fact we were somewhat relieved they split eventually as it kept them apart, and we ended up actually getting on with them better as people.
I’m not married, but i can imagine it must be impossibly difficult with children. I don’t want to make light or appear naive, but i’d urge leadership over sacrifice.
the question i ask is: what behavior do i want our children to model?
do you want your kids to either be predatorial abusers or victims who just take it — or people who fight back — or people who make it all ok?
or do you want your daughter to leave her husband when his demeaning and awful ways turn into him beating her?
do you want your son to leave his wife, kids in tow, when she lights the bed on fire, throws down the christmas tree for the 4th time, scratches dad for the 8th time, etc. etc. etc.?
would you want your children to leave their marriages if they found themselves in a reflection of yours?
AZ, and anon, these are very good statements. Thank you.
While I, too, think this is an excellent piece, especially the conclusion, I don’t agree with this point:
Not consciously, but you’re looking for what feels like love – the example of “love” that was modelled for you when you were small. You may just be “wanting” to be abused and/or encouraging your own victimisation because it’s what you remember “love” feeling like.
I have spent some time trying to go back through my childhood, and it’s just not there. My parents weren’t perfect, but that’s not how I felt growing up. At least for myself, I think the White Knight / nice guy training, this chivalric ideal, is more what betrayed me, rather than a misguided attempt to find that chldhood love. There is a childhood question here–why did I have so little self-confidence that I would choose, consistently, women who were somehow in need of what I could bring them? I haven’t answered that yet, but I think that’s the question I need to answer before I consider dating another woman again.
Excellent! I always find the dissenting view the most enlightening. It’s an interesting point too, because correct me if i’m wrong, but aren’t you talking about social conditioning? I’m certainly idealistic so i understand the pursuit, but i’d disagree because i don’t believe we are driven to pursue some-one-, rather than some-thing-. Arguably we can’t connect emotionally with a thing (e.g. an abstract concept, or object), only appreciate it.
What’s wrong with chivalry and provision though? I’ve also seen male friends who had great childhoods fall foul of toxic partners. The only answer i can comfort myself with is that they are -very good at camouflaging themselves- as normal people.
Nice contribution. The group dynamic test is so true. It works best when one of her relatives brings up something not ideal from her past, so you don’t have to be the bad guy! You are right about personality disordered people not recognizing their own traits. I have watched Black Swan and several other personality disordered moviews with wife. She has no clue but she does realize how screwed up they are. When I read something or see it I have insight into my own behavior and my own issues.
Thank you! It truly is unbelievable. The hard part is the real effort to normalise the reaction too. If she goes bats**t over talking about an ex, that’s on the far-edge of the “normal” range for a typical Cosmo reader. I’ve only done it deliberately a few times, and i have to admit, found it to be more enjoyable than perhaps i should, in a near-sadistic way. The theory should be fairly simple: pick something that can’t be misinterpreted or normalised that pricks their ego, and let rip. Wearing a helmet and pads of course.
This was a good article…but too short…but a proper summary would take volumes. I’ve had to deal with a number of them, mostly in the workplace…and a few references & “rules of thumb” have proven very helpful:
Identify who is at the “eye of the hurricane.” In any organization, including a family (e.g. one into which you might be dating into/marrying into), if there’s constant conflict, strife, chaos, etc. the person at the center, usually the one that seems to be holding everything together, is the problem. Source: a neighbor who worked on a psych floor at a hospital; he was regarded as particularly adept at spotting the narcissistic personality before anyone else. This was his first indicator. His second was undue flattery too early on in any kind of relationship — basic pushing of one’s emotinoal buttons.
READ: “Your Inner Child of the Past,” by W. Hugh Missildine. This won’t address the toxic personality so much as easily describe how you got molded into you via a number of simplified categories, a variety of which will undoubtedly apply to varying degrees to whoever you might be. The book is out of print, but still readily available.
Get therapy–for whatever “hang-ups” you might have from your particular rotten childhood experiences. If you can. If you’re getting sucked into a relationship with a clearly toxic personality, something is damaged inside you (fortunately there’s no shame in this, as a sizeable proportion of society has such issues). The toxic neurotic is brilliant at spotting one’s weaknesses and targeting them with laser precision, and doing so with little conscious thought. Confronting & healing those wounds from childhood translate into much stronger emotional defenses and/or less vulnerable weaknesses. With healing one can increasingly instinctively spot the tactics as they’re being deployed.
Narcisissts come in a wide variety of types & with a variety of associated issues. I’ve used http://samvak.tripod.com/ to great effect. Its the on-line summaries from a narcissist’s book about narcissism/narcissists; its not well organized by design–to induce one to buy the book. So far, rooting around that site has worked for me.
Check out the site: GuessWhatNormalIs — its by someone that survived alcoholic parents (so-called Adult Child of Alcoholics, ACOA or COA) and there you can read her perspective & advice to others with similar backgrounds. Clearly this is someone qualifying as a mildly abusive personality struggling for normalcy — someone capable of recognizing that thier disordered view of the world is flawed, and while they might not admit this to outsiders, many do struggle internally. What is striking is how miserable they are and how they perceive things. Reading about it from a healthy person’s perspective (e.g. this site) is fine; reading about it from the unhealthy person’s perspective may provide insight that one can use to adjust tactics to much greater effect.
As is very clear, using objective logic doesn’t work. Its more of a kind of series of dance steps, built on emotions of a sort, the abusive person cannot avoid…therefore there’s no sense in trying to force logic. One must play to their music, or, one must get off the dance floor.
I’m done when I get metaphorical…
Ken, thanks for the referral to GuessWhatNormalIs – I had not seen it before but am not interested in reading the whole site through!
Sam Vaknin. Scary guy! Just remember he is a narcissist and psychopath. He tries to explain everything as narcissism to increase his importance. I do think he is a great resource and I had read some of his stuff before Dr. T. mentioned him on the holiday radio show on AFVM radio. Just read it with the right amount of skeptisism. Most of us men attached to a PD/HC woman do have our own issues.
Hang on, a narcissist who is aware of his own narcissism?
Its quite a fascinating story and he is very eager to tell it as well as other admirers and detractors on the net.
Sounds like he needs to be in a zoo, rather than posting on the web.
I hate Vaknin. The PDs are awful nightmares but he somehow makes them seem even darker and more disturbing than I think they really are. I think he likes causing misery. I can spiral down into depression after I read his stuff, because I fear for a couple of my kids and I don’t want that happening to them.
That is an understandable reaction to Vaknin. I can see why you would say that. I fear for my kids too. Its necessary to look darkness in the eyes but just wanted everyone to know he is darkness. The first several times I was exposed to Vaknin I didn’t know that and I got very caught up in the insightfulness of the writing.
Just did a Google and it turns out he was the subject of a TV program called “I, Psychopath” on CBS? This might be a taboo, but i find narcissism humorous in many ways – because of how absurd it is. Think about it – it’s the story of how a hunter was cursed, and starved to death because he couldn’t consummate his love for his reflection. In essence, he died trying to go f**k himself.
I agree with that. Narcissism is shameful and pathetic if you can step outside of the atmosphere and look at its absurdity.
azcameron, fironzelle and everybuddy: I, Psychopath is on YouTube as well, divided into episodes. After watching it , I couldn’t sleep properly and had nightmares galore. Vaknin is very much like my ex-husband. Pure torture on steroids, sporting the image of a gentleman.
Yeah, I saw that several months ago. It’s amazing how he can get you believing that he’s perfectly normal.
Too short? Really? It clocks in about 3100 words, if i recall correctly? Very, very wise words, and strong points. I think what i (eventually) rambled onto saying was that it’s important for us to acknowledge the moral dimension involved with mental illness, as well as to be clinical about what needs to be done. We are part of something bigger, together, as people. It’s about all of us, our shared experience, and who we are as a species. Those who abuse are violating something we all exist under (moral law), and attacking what is sacred to all.
Great links there though! Reading them now.
“there’s constant conflict, strife, chaos, etc. the person at the center, usually the one that seems to be holding everything together, is the problem.”
—what?
i think the people hitting each other and breaking things and verbally, emotionally, and physically abusing others are “the problem.”
i mean, basically, i am often the guy who “makes it all ok,” i don’t like needing to do it, but i am mr band aid, and yes, a lot of times, when things are horrific, i get really calm. but i get calm because it saves peoples’ lives, not because i am a part of the problem.
remaining calm in the face of abuse does not make you the problem.
i did not scream while my wife beat me — because i did not want to scare the kids. i wanted it to be as quiet as possible, and i wanted things to be taken care of professionally and appropriately. yes, i called the police. they came. i did my best to stay calm. that does not make me “the problem.”
Interesting you mention ACA / ACOA – I went to those for a while, b/c it seemed ‘close’ to what was ‘wrong’ with me…and was convinced that the problem had to be Dad, as he used to drink, and Mother used to talk about him like he was a raging drunk [/idiot / beast / monster / ad infinitum].
I have since discovered books and websites about the effect narcissistic mothers have on their children, and have watched the same One Act Play unfold that looked so familiar from my childhood –
Mother: pick, pick, pick, nag, nag, nag, whine, bitch, complain, get little jabs in, says hurtful things, shows zero gratitude
Father: Stands up to her mildly
Mother: cries bloody murder, causing sons to want to defend her.
Chaos ensues, TGI runs into a closet (only to be accused of picking fights and acting beligierent later in life) while all hell breaks loose.
Father leaves: presumably to the bar or to visit friends/ family. My guess is so that he does NOT end up beating her.
I have recently discovered ASCA – Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse, and EA – Emotions Anonymous, and sense that I am finally getting to the root cause. I hope.
Mother: pick, pick, pick, nag, nag, nag, whine, bitch, complain, get little jabs in, says hurtful things, shows zero gratitude
Father: Stands up to her mildly
Mother: cries bloody murder, causing sons to want to defend her.
YES. Oh, she lays sobbing and then almost comatose on the bed. Oldest son, highly attuned to her emotional state, goes in to minister to her, and draws her a picture starring me as the monster. OR he snottily and contemptuously, with what sounds alarmingly like authority, tells me I will never speak to her like that again. OR he says casually, almost indifferently, “Mom says you’re sad because I like her more than I like you.” (She then denies that she did this.) OR, while sitting with her watching her junk reality TV shows, flatly tells me “No” to my request that he clean up after himself in the kitchen. She smirks and says nothing. In a fit of panic I pull her aside and say “Don’t you see what is happening?!?” She insists she only was raising her eyebrows at his bad reaction and was waiting to see what I would do next. OR when she is gone for the evening, he gets out of sorts and starts wailing “mom is the most precious person to me, I love her more than life, she has the most beautiful face, the only face I want to look at, and I want her home.” OR because he has a hard time sleeping because of his medications, she started sleeping with him in our bed, and I sleep on the couch like a dog, listening to them cuddle and tell secrets. (Oh you know I put a stop to that one, in desperation, when I saw where it was going.) It is so bad that I have several times brought it to her in the hope that she can see this is getting too weird and she must wake up to what is happening and support ME and not encourage this disturbing reversal of authority in the house. She says “All moms have a special relationship with their firstborn sons. I cannot change that, and I am not going to.”
Yeah, I’m the guy plugging the cracks in the dam.
On the other hand, she spends so much of her time checked out of the day to day activity with the kids that I still am the one that interacts with all of them in 99% of their lives. Tonight, for instance, was very positive with the oldest. He was cooperative, diligently did his homework, helped me clean up the basement, etc. That will go in my journal. I need to know that it is not all dark all the time.
I feel for you in your situation, I really do. In fact your story is what my life most certainly would have been if I hadn’t initiated a divorce with my wife, as she was already sowing the seeds of alienation, entitlement and impudence with my infant son. And I can also identify with the near-incestuous relationship that your wife seems to have with your son, since my ex-wife used to actually claim ownership of my son’s genitals. It’s definitely sick, disgusting & obscene and really drives home the fact that some people should just not be parents.
I don’t know what else to say to you other than to please extricate yourself from this situation because the dysfunction will only increase as time goes on. You may have less time with your sons, but you can then provide a safe haven for them, and you will find this time to be much more rewarding.
I actually feel physically sick now thinking about the incest thing…
An excellent article. Thank you!
To bubbajoebob’s point, above, I think that it may not have been “love” that I was looking for in what became a nightmarish 20-year marriage to a BPD, but maybe “familiarity”. The relationship was definitely similar to that of my parents, but I didn’t think it was love.
If nothing else, that awful experience helps me appreciate every day what I have now. I’m 5 years into my second marriage and every day is peaceful and rational.
My pleasure! I’m so grateful i didn’t go down the route with any of my exes, and so glad to hear there’s immense hope!
I don’t think you ever get the feeling we know as adults to be “love” (if you believe love is a “feeling”, which i don’t), but almost some kind of an “echo” of what your tiny self felt. I certainly found it strange when i said it from my own mouth that abuse feels like love. I also see so many of my friends becoming their parents, as well as how my niece and nephew mimic their mum and dad in little ways. It makes sense that they would be our model for everything important: love, relationships, discipline, justice, and more. As the saying goes “mother is God in the eyes of a child.”
I think you are right; but also that what we are first exposed to as ‘love’
is what we come to believe is ‘love’ even though it isn’t.
This is an amazing article. I read a self-help relationships book once – I cannot remember its name – which predicated a similar theory: that we seek out relationships that seem familiar and comfortable to us based on the parenting we received as children, whether healthy or unhealthy. Recognizing these patterns is the first step to making change. This is also why, when I was single, I avoided any guy who spoke about a crazy ex but had not sought any kind of therapy or intense introspection himself.
I agree with that group dynamic test; it’s a very convenient and reliable way of answering the question, “do I want to see where a relationship with this person is headed?”
So knowing those two things – that our parental relationships and dynamics affect who we will be, and that we have a simple way of screening a potential personality disordered individual – what do you do when a young person whose parent is disordered also fails that criticism test badly? Is it a direct path to therapy, or can you hope to mold and guide somehow with healthier role models?
Thank you! Sounds like you have a very wise head that i could definitely have done with! I wish i’d have been adequately prepared to avoid these types of people, but as i found out, i was conceived by two of them.
I remember reading about the “family systems experiment” in John Cleese’s book “Life and How To Survive It” that was similar. The theory is that if you leave a room of people who’ve never met before together in a room and tell them not to speak about their past, they will automatically and subconsciously group by background. Orphans gravitate to orphans, eye colour meets eye colour etc,
Your question is of great sensitivity to me, and i’m grateful for it. I grew up acting out because i was reacting to a toxic atmosphere, and was conveniently scapegoated as the “troubled problem child” who “chose to rebel”, rather than my sister who was the darling that didn’t resist. It’s so easy to stigmatise children, particularly if, like me, they have exhibited PD symptoms, despite not having a PD but simply modelling the behaviour of parents who do.
The ultimate answer to that question is: love them. It all comes down to that. They’re emotionally starving. Therapy, yes, and of course, inspiring role models, but it all starts with loving them. Everything else is just paperwork.
Very thought-provoking article indeed.
I have often wondered how evil has been explained throughout history: we have used words like demons, witches, psychopaths and now personailty disorders but, in essence, aren’t they all just describing evil? Who is to say that we are any more correct in describing evil as a personailty disorder than our ancestors were in describing it as demonic possession? Both are just as intagible and serve to explain behaviours that are outside the norm and contemptible to most of the general populace.
The fact that many PD individuals are functioning members of our society simply implies that they are further up the scale on the continuum of evil (I know my ex-wife is in there somewhere). What seems to be a common theme amongst them is their unilateral lack of empathy and subsequent lack of accountability for their actions. One can only hope that there are measures in place in any functioning society to weed out and isolate this evil from the general populace, for the sake of the greater good.
Thank you mister funky monk!
You might be interested in Scott Peck’s definition of evil from his fantastic book “People of the Lie” where he also addresses group behaviour, demonic possession, and other fun things to read before bed at night. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil#Is_evil_a_useful_term.3F
What’s even more interesting is that i think what you’re referring to is the concept of sin? Presumably the difference is that “evil” in the abstract is a violation of moral law, and “sin” is a transgression against the moral law-giver.
For that one, in my experience, needs the wisdom of scripture. Never one to bypass an opportunity to go deeper, i checked. I can’t speak for other texts, but Christ’s teaching was that evil/sin always involves a -wilful- rejection of the light (i.e. doing something we know to be wrong when we know better – feeling tempted and/or making mistakes are not sinful/wrong).
Is it possible then to say that the line is when a PD wilfully rejects, or knows better, but behaves destructively to violate that moral law?
Then we must speak of: justice.
I hate evil. I hate sin. I hate it with a pure and righteous hatred. What’s always driven my anger towards those who used me for target practice is so simple: they do evil, whilst pretending they are good. That’s what enrages me.
What kept me hanging around more than anything else was that for every attack, i could see where they picked it up, why they were doing it, and the little girl underneath. Thankfully, i know better of it now.
What i do know is that in the UK, over 50% of prison convicts have Anti-social Personality Disorder or psychopathy, and over 90% suffer with TWO OR MORE mental illnesses.
The medical profession, the judicial system, and our spiritual leaders are going to have to sit down at some point to decide where the boundaries of illness and wilful sin/evil lie, and what our appropriate response is.
Thanks for the further insights!
This topic reminds me of the immortal words of Friedrich Nietzsche:
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into the Abyss, the Abyss also gazes into you.”
– this is a concept that I must be reminded of at some level every day, that I can never stoop to the levels to which my ex-wife stooped just to get even or to gain the upper hand; for doing that would ultimately turn me into that which I despise.
I, personally, had a messed up childhood. I know for a fact that it had a lot to do with my encounter with a PD. But I also agree with you. I know many people who had GREAT childhoods and just got beat down after a few years and became “brain-washed” after the honeymoon was over. Some are VERY good at “hiding and holding out”. The phrase “bait and switch” is a great one. I know of one gentleman who, without a doubt, had his ex be the “perfect wife” for a couple of years and then…BAM…she flipped the switch. I think a majority of people who fall for it are conditioned by childhood but I strongly believe a healthy person can be conditioned as well. Look at “Manchurian Candidate” type POW brainwashing. It happens. Another example is the advertising industry. I once read a book called “The Hidden Persuaders” which outlined the rise of the advertising industry and the psychology behind the way they “sell” the public. It happens to millions everyday…just in a different way. A good salesman can sell anything.
Worst i ever heard was a FoaF in Wales left his fiancée the week before their wedding. Why? Apparently he said something wrong after they sat down to dinner, and after knowing her for 4 years and not a single incident, she grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed it through his thigh. Needless to say, the engagement was off just slightly afterwards.
I never felt the truth of that until the last year or so. I knew what it was to look into the abyss, so to speak, but not what it felt like when the abyss looked back into me. As MLK so wisely pointed out, the ultimate weakness of violence is that it is an ever-descending spiral – returning violence for violence only multiplies violence. Best to thank her for the invite to join her in the gutter, but you’ll pass. The measure of a man is his character in the dark, and how he treats those who can’t fight back.
This is really interesting. I just read People of the Lie this spring during one of her very bad months long episodes. When I read your comments on evil in your original essay, People of the Lie was the first thing I thought of.
I want to get back to you and Funky on a couple of other things you all said but that will have to wait.
If i recall correctly, Peck isn’t wild about BPD? In fact, i think he outrightly calls it evil?
What Peck does is redefine evil as Narcissism. It’s basically semantics from my point of view. It took me until 2008 before I ever heard of the “cluster b personality disorders” and since then I’ve wasted very much time trying to figure out which one she is, because she’s all of it. Hey let’s do a syllogism. Narcissism is evil. Wife is narcissist. So, logically, if she weighs the same as a duck, then…?
Malignant narcissism was Lucifer’s downfall. I can’t agree with you, and the reason is because doing evil is a choice – that implies they can discern between what their choices are, and have a chance to get it right. How you approach that process is anyone’s guess. I think we have to be careful about distinguishing between “evil people” and evil acts carried out by broken people.
I didn’t follow you on this point. I do know that I endlessly flip between “she is broken so I must have compassion and faith, even now” to “only a devil could do this”. I’m not sure which one of those you heard me saying, and at any given time, you might catch me thinking either one.
It’s a tough line to walk, if you’re compelled to walk it. I guess when you’re in a situation with a PD, part of the exhaustion is forever trying to regain your equilibrium and wondering which side to come down on. In my experience, the more spiritual a person you are, the harder it is.
This is the BEST article I have read about explaining who my ex wife is. And I agree when you say the more spiritual a person you are the tougher it is to understand. The question that haunts me is what was I married to for 15 years and is she crazy, evil, or both?
I also disagree that I was searching out a relationship that was the norm for how I was raised. I came from a very well adjusted and loving family. I think I was more of a white knight myself and thought I had shown her a better way to live.