About
Mission Statement:
To share information about sociopathy and sociopathic behavior in everyday life. “It’s as though there’s a dangerous fish in all the waters of the world, that is never mentioned” — not if I can help it. The psychology, law enforcement, therapy, marital counseling and adoption communities have been grotesquely irresponsible in their public silence on a subject that they are well aware of. I seek to counter that.
Welcome to The Path Whisperer [copied from my Welcome post] . I’ll be seeking stories of possible sociopathy (focusing on sociopathic behavior and thinking patterns) in daily news and current events. Our popular culture is already soaked in sociopathy. The only thing missing is recognition. The only joke in Borat was that he wasn’t joking. There are movies made for adults based on bodily functions. Parents can’t understand their teens’ wildings — sociopathic teens, feeling no need for restraint, have raised the bar, and teens being teens strive to outdo their peers. Sociopathic cruise passengers have figured out they can commit crimes with impunity since the cruiselines won’t want the publicity of an investigation and prosecution (a sociopath’s dream) – sociopathic cruiseline employees have known this and pushed the crime envelope for years. Sociopathic teen criminals will often videotape their cruel exploits (sociopaths are essentially non self-referential, they need a mirror and comments from others). Millions of parents wonder why a child behaves the way he or she does — they have been lied to about the true cause of their children’s behavior. No one tells adoptive parents of the risk of a sociopathic child (the progeny of unhappy seductions by sociopaths are often put up for adoption). The phenomenon of sociopathy is everywhere but the recognition of it is not. I truly believe the world is anxious for this discussion.
Without going into them here, I will also be touching on related matters: the relationship between sociopaths and incest; sociopaths and the rigidly narcissistic and/or the corrupt; and sociopaths and the phenomenon of the evil couple.
There is also a subcategory of sociopaths, in my opinion, termed pseudologues — pathological and fantastical liars who actually believe what they say, seemingly unaware that there is a real reality out there, confusing reality with the verbal claim of reality. Geniuses at gathering sympathy they often claim a deadly illness miraculously recovered from or lived with. Traveling to the Holy Lands they claim divinity (Jerusalem Syndrome). Seemingly not very common, they do appear in the news from time to time
Finally, two additional points of interest, first, in our economy corporations are essentially given sociopathic freedoms. Not surprisingly sociopaths often then climb to the top. Second, I believe this country could use a political movement that excludes the pathologies of the right (a sociopathic lack of generosity and empathy) and the left (a self-congratulatory rigid narcissisism capable of creating a welfare system that rewards the breakup of the family).
Again welcome. I hope you find this of interest. I try not to hold my opinions dogmatically and see this as a journey towards the truth — thus the photo in the header. Hopefully some of you will wish to add your own comments.
[on edit] It seems I should add what I claim to be my alternate credentials for claiming insight into sociopathy (as opposed to the traditional credentials of higher degrees, specific jobs, etc.). There are really three. First, I believe I have a very intimate knowledge of sociopaths and their thinking patterns. I have always gotten along with sociopaths very easily. Back in elementary school slightly odd classmates (who I now recognize as being sociopathic) I hardly knew would make my acquaintance, telling me things and asking me questions, as though I might have some insight into their experiences. To this day sociopaths continue to do this.
Second, my father’s career was in mental health (this career took him to a state commissionership of mental health). I would say that I grew up with the idea of an almost infinite complexity of the psychological universe.
Third, among other things, I am a professionally trained actor — I studied around 5 years with Bill Hickey and around 3 years with Sandy Dennis. We were taught to respond spontaneously to our instant reading of the emotional vibes of an acting situation (the theatrical buzzword was “organically” as I recall). Much to my surprise this gave me one foot in the world of sociopaths. Sociopaths simply use words for strategic reasons, as a life tool — meanings are another thing entirely. The truth is read behind the words themselves.
In terms of my educational background I have a B.A. in Anthropology from Columbia. While I don’t think this gave me insight into sociopaths specifically it did give me a non-judgmental ‘people are what they are and do what they do’ approach. Sociopaths fall into the ‘just are’ category of life.
I’m not sure the above will carry weight with anyone else, but I do believe these factors have helped give me insight into sociopathy.
Finally, I am obviously an adherent of the idea that one learns best what one teaches oneself. I offer these posts in the hope that they will help make sense of the reader’s experience and world. My target audience are those curious or already knowledgeable about sociopaths, those trying to come to grips with interactions with sociopaths, or those who may be totally at a loss to understand what has happened to them but have stumbled onto the site. To the casual visitor who may not believe in the possibility of sociopaths in their personal sphere I hope, at the very least, you’ll decide to keep in mind what I have to say just in case the knowledge turns out to be useful someday.
June 21, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Thank you!
December 2, 2011 at 7:33 am
I was very glad to see this site, and share your concerns about the non-sociopathic population’s unawareness of exactly what sociopathy really is and how often one is likely to encounter it.
Have you ever considered which fields tend to have unusually *low* percentages of sociopaths? You name stock traders and other “usual suspects” fields as having an unusually high percentage (and I have no reason to disagree with your judgments there). But conversely there must be some fields sociopaths would tend to avoid. I have a few ideas about which ones, but would be more interested to see your thoughts…
December 2, 2011 at 4:30 pm
I’m trying to think of some, but sociopaths are attracted both to fields that allow wolves to be wolves and fields where they can be wolves hiding out among the sheep (charities, EMT/ambulance drivers, the clergy, etc.).
August 1, 2011 at 3:00 am
I’ve known 3 sociopaths in my life. 2 were violent and I luckily escaped with my life. The third was pure evil with the face of an angel. I write quite a bit on my blog about my unfortunate experience,(s) but mostly I keep much to myself and surround myself with anything but those memories. One post in particular, The Predator, I protected. I would allow select readers to gain access if they request the password. But occasionally I do reopen it. I suppose like you, in self defense. As painful and disturbing as it is, it is critical to bring it out into the light.
This is so encouraging that you are exposing this malignant behavior, that America and the world consistently applaud. I find it abhorrent that these monsters lurk at the top of every corporation in America and every political post, not to mention the successful business traveler, luring women into relationships whilst courting a wife at home and several others for his sick sense of gratification, ego stoking and his next fill of narcissistic supply. Without conscience is not merely a trite definition. It is a disturbing and destructive force that damages, destroys and kills.
Thank you for exposing the sociopath as I am trying to do. Sometimes I feel like I’m crazy writing about it. It’s a tough audience, the world.
August 2, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Could you share your blog url? Thanks.
July 27, 2011 at 8:02 am
So many blogs I’ve seen on the subject paint sociopaths as the most vial, inhuman monsters one could imagine. In reality, I believe this only represents a very small percentage of an otherwise quasi-normal population. Many sociopaths have learned to blend, and even excel in society.
I sincerely hope your blog will paint both sides of the portrait.
January 23, 2011 at 2:07 pm
This is fascinating and of great interest to me personally. I can’t post the reasons because the issues I refer to are the subject of major police and FSA investigations both of which are on going. Is there a private contact e-mail address on your site?
January 23, 2011 at 7:04 pm
pathwhisperer@yahoo.com
January 14, 2011 at 8:55 pm
I’ve been dying to ask you this since I first read through your blog: how do you “get along with” a sociopath?
I experienced my first sociopath in kindergarten. She was quite similar to the pseudologues you’ve discussed in some of your posts – lying for the sake of lying, as if the only reality that existed was the one she spun with her yarns. These lies were self-aggrandizing, however, rather than being designed to induce pity: she’d created some masterpiece out of clay, for example, something that upon inspection proved to be a mass-produced object no child that age could even approximate, or she’d been involved in some extraordinary adventure, or some older boy was madly in love with her. These were not just the blabberings of an overly-imaginative child. Envious, she wanted to be envied.
She also indulged in more insidious amusements, such as giving me away during classroom games and attempting to swindle me out of my lunch money (unsuccessfully) or, in later years, out of favorite possessions (again unsuccessfully). To my irritation, no teacher or other student ever acknowledged or even seemed to notice anything “off” about her. But surprisingly, she wasn’t quite the malicious, “mean girl” type – she was grandiose and dishonest and had the usual gutless followers, and she annoyed me greatly at times, but I never observed her to pick fights or instigate terror campaigns against anyone during the years I knew her, and believe me, as aware as I was of the type of person she was and as wary of her operations as I was, I would have known.
I experienced my next sociopath in third grade. This, as they say, was a whole ‘nother ball game.
She was the foster child of a couple who had moved up from another town and were renting a house down the street from me, and I became acquainted with her in class. Because of her proximity, we became friends. Shortly into my acquaintance with her, she began acting out what I suspected at the time was sexual abuse from her birth home, hence the foster situation. (I never asked, feeling that she would talk about it at some point if she wanted to. She never did.) Her play was permeated with lewd acts, sexual references, foul language, and cruelty, all of which she soon directed at me.
Had I simply been able to get away from her, and had I had some support in doing so, I would have been able to avoid the psychic withering I experienced that school year—until, by some miracle, she moved away in the spring—from her direct torments and those she engineered through others: the physical abuse, threatened and actual character assassination, alienation from peers, credit-stealing and coercive dominance. But I was confronted with her in class and out, with no means of escape. The teacher all but ignored the situation; her foster parents ignored her vile outbursts and bullying. (“We just dote on her,” they said.) Even my own parents dismissed it. I sensed something desperately, twistedly wrong with her, but as before, no one seemed to notice. That’s the real horror of sociopathy – the indifference that seems to surround it.
Some readers may feel that her behavior was simply the result of exposure to an unfit home. To a degree that may have been the case, but I believe that her malice and perception management skills were too sophisticated, devious and instinctive to be merely reactive. Picture a female version of Macauley Culkin’s character in “The Good Son,” only nobody ended up dead…that I know of.
Since my introduction to the varieties of sociopathic experience as a child in school and later as an adult in the workforce, I’ve found that the only way to get along with sociopaths is to get away from sociopaths and, when necessary, bounce them off psychically, as I discussed in my response to Heartbroken’s comment on another part of your blog. In both the above situations and in encounters with sociopaths since then, I found that there was no dealing with them in any capacity other than being their means of demented self-gratification. If I had encountered the Dress Gray rapist you mentioned in your own comment on the DSM-IV post, for example, I’ll bet you a dozen doughnuts that I not only would have been revolted on the spot by him as that initial few were but also might have become some sort of target. But you seem to be able to coexist with this type with some intimacy and without becoming a target, a feat that warrants examination.
January 15, 2011 at 8:17 pm
Actually I got into a lot of trouble regarding that sociopath I referred to as a Dress Gray rapist. I printed out 8 to 10 pages from Cleckley’s “Mask of Sanity” and Hare’s “Without Conscience” to warn friends and co-workers. Perhaps I should have sought out a psychological assessment office in HR (if such existed). He is one of only two or three sociopaths that I have met that I believe truly belongs permanently in a mental institution as a danger to society.
I’ve certainly been a target of sociopathic campaigns. While I don’t talk that much of my personal experience, wanting to keep the blog of more general interest, a large part of why I write this blog is pure self defense.
February 1, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Amazing.