angiEmedia

What is the one thing a sociopath does not want other people to know? The truth. More specifically, sociopaths do not want the truth about them to be known as they are insecure, malicious, and devious people. Beyond being embarrassed by the truth of their behaviors and thoughts, they have a deathly fear of being exposed and rejected. That’s in large part because they use lies, manipulations, and distortions to control other people and get what they want. If others were to know about their true nature, they realize that most would want nothing to do with them. They would lose the support networks of malicious minions they control and incite to abuse other people. Therefore sociopaths have a strong motivation to attack, discredit, harass, and ruin anybody who presents arguments and facts that might tend to raise questions and doubts about their behaviors and their false statements.

Many sociopaths are so insecure and malicious that they feel similarly motivated to go on the offensive, perhaps with lesser severity, in reaction to people who might embarrass them with obviously nasty (to them) comments like “Is that lettuce stuck between your teeth?” or “Your car is filthy! There’s a $3 carwash special across the street.” If that gets them unhinged, just imagine what being exposed as a child abuser, false accuser, liar, or thief will do.

Sociopaths Experts At Blaming Others, Greatly Fear Being Blamed

Nobody likes to be blamed, but a responsible person will accept blame for something appropriate. Sociopaths don’t like to accept blame for anything, even if it is well-earned. While part of this is likely from their typically narcissistic “I’m better than you” and “rules don’t apply to me” attitudes, there’s more to it than that. They may realize that blaming is how they control others to harm the targets they viciously attack, often family members or former love interests. They understand both the destructive and defensive powers of blaming and make regular use of both.

Sociopaths may be especially cognizant of the risk that people whom they have used to abuse others might even turn against them, especially those who might be greatly angered by how they were manipulated into participating in destructive and harmful activities against others. People like to blame others. While sociopaths do it with extraordinary intensity and dishonesty, the people they manipulate are likely to do it, too. After all, a sociopath was able to manipulate them into unjustly attacking a former partner, a child’s other parent, teacher, doctor, counselor, therapist, or some other party the sociopath doesn’t like and that clearly demonstrates they are the sort of people who are into blaming others. Who is to say they won’t turn and attack the sociopath when they realize how they were used?
Read more…

Personality disorders are a growing problem in the United States. Recent NIH studies indicate that 20% or more of Americans suffer from one or more personality disorders. Author Bill Eddy points out that in his experience about half of “High Conflict Personalities” (or HCPs) involved in destructive divorce and child custody battles probably do have one or more full-blown personality disorders. The other half may not meet all the criteria for a full-blown personality disorder yet still show many traits consistent with troublesome personality disorders such as BPD and NPD.

(from Don’t Alienate the Kids! Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce)

I believe that about half of HCPs have a personality disorder and about half have some of these traits, but not a full personality disorder. This means that they are still difficult, but may respond more easily to approaches designed for people with personality disorders.

It helps to understand some of these traits, but it is important to not tell someone you think they have a personality disorder. They may become very defensive and angry with you, as defensiveness is a common characteristic of those with personality disorders and those just with traits.

I fully agree with Eddy’s advice about not telling a person they may have a personality disorder. To be clear, this is not because it is better for them but primarily because hearing this news seems to turn them into even more destructive abusers than they were in the first place. Even if you are only trying to help, they will probably interpret your words as dire threats and redouble their efforts to destroy you. There is also a substantial risk that you will be ridiculed for your reasonable beliefs by divorce industry “professionals” who have an agenda that does not make room for unpleasant truths unless they are stated by an expensive paid expert.
Read more…

While the old research on BPD reflected in the DSM-IV indicates that females Borderlines far outnumber male Borderlines, newer research indicates that is not so. Yet there has still been a strong focus on BPD being an illness affecting primarily women. We’ve previously shared a video produced showing the emotionally manipulative conversations some Borderline females have in about a minute and a half. A year later, it’s still a popular article as it resonates with folks who have had relationships with Borderlines.

Recently I ran across a set of three videos about a Borderline male made with the XtraNormal animation tools that have been popular with many of those trying to explain what it is like interacting with personality disordered emotionally abusive people. After watching them, I’d say the conversations are quite plausible representations of how these people reason and speak. The guy in these videos, represented by a cuddly looking teddy bear, seems to engage in the “magical thinking” sometimes seen in Borderlines. In particular, he seems to believe that his girlfriend is inhabited by demons because she doesn’t do what he wants. This sort of twisted thinking is typical of Borderlines. If you don’t do what they want in every way, something must be wrong with you. And they are not afraid to tell you that and to make threats, such as the “withdrawal of affection” threat seen in these videos, to get you to comply with their demands.

In my previous article Extreme BPD / NPD Behaviors Are Internally Triggered, I discussed the puzzling ways in which normal circumstances seem to trigger abusive behaviors from Borderlines, Narcissists, and other personality disordered abusers. My advice to those who can do so is to get away and stay away from these people as they are a serious danger to your own mental health, even your freedom and your life, if you continue to have anything to do with them.

Unfortunately, not everybody can easily extricate themselves from the abuse without severe consequences. This is particularly true for parents of children whose other parent is a Borderline or Narcissist. Staying in the children’s lives means staying in the line of fire of the abuser. Leaving is likely to subject the children to even more abuse. Often the abuser has focused most of her or his rage against their former partner or spouse. But if that parent leaves, the rages, abuses, and emotional manipulations are not going to stop. They will probably be redirected at somebody else close to the abuser as loved-ones are the tops targets for these sick people. The children are a likely target for even more abuse than they have already received. This chronic abuse with no escape (as the healthy parent has disappeared) is likely to create severe psychological damage, even personality disorders, in these children as they have even less means to defend themselves against one of these sociopaths than an adult does.
Read more…

Recently a reader of our site wrote a comment about our article Talking With A Borderline citing how it didn’t show how non-Borderlines trigger the negative behaviors associated with Borderline Personality Disorder. The comment seemed to be intended to place some of the blame for Borderline behaviors on the people around them, particularly people who are essentially the targets of Borderlines who do not suffer from a personality disorder or engage in abusive behaviors themselves. This is mostly a mistake in my view. It also makes me wonder if the comment came from somebody with a Borderline son or daughter or who is personally suffering from BPD and therefore may be prone to blame-shifting as a means of coping with his or her own guilt or shame.

Most of the people around a Borderline are not abusive, yet they may trigger reactions in Borderline akin to an actual abuser even when they aren’t displaying an iota of aggression or hostility. In most of these situations, the Borderline perceives aggression or abuse in their own minds, even when a neutral disinterested person would say none is present, and then launches into a reaction that is similar to what they might do if there actually was an abuser trying to harm them. The trigger is much more internal, in the mind of the Borderline, than external. This is what makes is so difficult for others to understand why the sociopathically inclined individuals, be they Borderlines, Narcissists, or something else, behave as they do.

Extreme Reactions Product of Child Abuse

Borderlines are sometimes said to suffer from “emotional dysregulation” because they react in extreme ways to normal stimuli. This extreme reaction in many cases developed from their experience as child abuse victims, an experience most of them share, and trying to find ways to avoid being abused again. Many of them have found that extreme reactions including false blaming, projection, lying, and other behaviors associated with Borderlines and Narcissists alike are reasonably effective at either drawing fire away from them and making somebody else the target of their abuser. Other times, their extreme behaviors may somehow justify in their own minds why they are deserving of abuse, perhaps giving them some delusional feeling of control over the abuse. Over time, many of them may generalize these maladaptive behaviors by applying them to people who are not abusing them but by whom they are reminded of what it feels like to be abused.
Read more…

Dr. Tara Palmatier’s Shrink4Men website has recently been bombarded with abusive comments from somebody who sounds like she has BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) with malicious acting out behaviors, or as I’d call her, a personality disordered abuser (PDA). The good psychologist is hoping to help identify the attacker and perhaps help her victimized ex in the process.

(from Lost and Found: Does Anyone Have an Ex-Borderline Girlfriend or Wife in the West Hempstead-East Northport-NYC Vicinity Whom You Told about Shrink4Men During the Break-Up?)

Perhaps this is not the best way to go about doing this, but I’m a big believer in implementing consequences for crazy and malicious BPD behavior, so here we are. Beginning late last week, a woman, whom I assume is the former spouse or girlfriend of a man who frequents this site, began spamming my site with puerile comments in which she engages in name calling and other typical BPD verbal attacks against Shrink4Men readers/commenters and me.

None of these comments have been approved nor will they be approved because they’re nothing more than lame attempts to hurt my readers feelings and my feelings and they would only distract from the meaningful dialogue, sharing and support that takes place here. The irony is that her attacks don’t hurt my feelings. In fact, my thoughts are, “Gee, I can see why her ex broke up with her” and “I wonder how many texts and voicemails the poor bastard who was dating/married to her is getting everyday?” If anything, her spams only reinforce my beliefs about BPD and the information presented on this site.

Now, the reason I am posting this rather than something more productive: Gentlemen, if you believe this is your ex/gf/wife, please contact me and I will send you all of her spam comments with the date, time stamp and multiple IP addresses, so that you can include them as evidence of her unstable/stalker/harassment behavior in any pending divorce/restraining order cases. If need be, I have access to an Internet security expert who can trace pretty much anything directly to the source.

Information warfare by a nasty PDA, often one who suffers BPD or NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), is a frequent feature of the ending of a relationship involving such a person. But the comment spamming mentioned above is really among the less serious of attacks.

Distortion campaigns can become ruinous and virtually unfixable, especially if there are children involved. Some might call it a catch-22 situation in which anything you do to try to fix the disaster only makes it worse. When the Internet becomes involved, the risks of this may be even higher as I’ll discuss below.
Read more…

Some emotional abusers are particularly adept at using a technique called “gaslighting” (from a movie starring Ingrid Berman and Charles Boyer) to drive their victims to question their own grip on reality and even to make them feel like they are going insane. The essence of gaslighting is to make somebody believe a falsehood and to wonder why they didn’t remember or recall it previously. It is a mind game often used to distract from their own problematic behaviors and to create self-doubt in their target of abuse. Many Borderlines and some with related personality disorders from the DSM-IV Axis II Cluster B group (including Borderline, Narcissistic, Antisocial, and Histrionic) personality disorders are particularly skilled and prone to using gaslighting on their partners and people close to them.

In The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life, Dr. Robin Stern sums up the behavior like this:

Gaslighting is when someone wants you to do what you know you shouldn’t and to believe the unbelieveable. It can happen to you and it probably already has.

Read more…

Some of the most emotionally abusive relationships and traumatic divorces involve the mentally ill. One of the most difficult of these mental illnesses is Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) because it is not easily diagnosed. Behaviors can range from extreme violence to subtle patterns of emotional blackmail and projection. On top of that, many Borderlines tend to live in denial, constantly avoiding their own feelings of emptiness, insecurity, anger, disappointment and fear that more often than not stems from an abusive childhood. It is hard to treat and help someone if they don’t want to face their own abuse — abuse that they themselves suffered or the abuse that they themselves do.
Read more…

Donna Andersen

I happened across a very good posting on LoveFraud.com titled LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Tips for co-parenting with a sociopath containing advice on how to co-parent with a sociopath. Sociopaths are people who manage to portray themselves to the general public as friendly, caring, nice people but in reality they are manipulative, deceitful, and endeavor to hurt others to get what they want. Some of the common sociopaths you are likely to find in family law courts are people who are “acting out” Borderlines, Narcissists, and Antisocials. Their morality can be summed up in one sentence: If it gets me want I want or will hurt somebody I don’t like, it’s A-OK.
Read more…

Eric Moelter has started to speak up a bit about what has happened in the false sexual abuse and child custody abduction case of Cindy Dumas v. Eric Moelter now that all three boys are living with him once again. He believes their mother Cindy Dumas suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder and has been waging a distortion campaign against him for years.
Read more…