The Psychopath: A True Story(53)

People with antisocial disorders are low empaths; in other words, they don’t care about anyone except themselves. Put simply, ‘using and abusing’ leaves no imprint on their conscience. Conversely, their victims are often high empaths or emotionally sensitive: people who feel genuine pain when others are hurt or in trouble. Psychopaths love these empathic types because their inherent caring makes them not give up easily – even when the psychopath begins exhibiting disturbing behaviour. Someone who is not so empathic is more likely to leave a man who starts to show signs of aggression, addiction or lying, whilst a highly empathic woman will instead think that she can help or even save the psychopath. As a result she stays and becomes even more bonded and involved with her abuser, becoming even more convinced that her help is needed, despite troubling or escalating behaviour on his part.

Sandra L. Brown, who wrote Women Who Love Psychopaths, was asked how psychopaths choose their targets and she said:

‘I’ve asked men like this how they pick their targets and they say they’ll tell a sad story about early childhood abuse to see someone’s reaction. They’re looking for someone very compassionate who is willing to problem solve, who will be all “oh, that’s terrible, oh my god, you should get some help”, because that woman has to get hooked into their storyline and be willing to rescue their ass over and over again. The woman who says, “good luck with that” – he’s not going to be chasing her into a corner.’

Women who have high levels of empathy as well as compassion, trust, tolerance and attachment, simply do not see the red flags that others might until it is too late. Once a woman like this gets involved with someone, no matter how toxic the person turns out to be, it’s very difficult for her to disengage.

It isn’t possible to stop being an empath, and I would never want to, but I can work on emotional control and choose who I share my empathy with. I have accepted who I am and have learnt how to say ‘no’ to people who are psychological and emotional vampires. As someone once told me, ‘Remember that “No” is a complete sentence and doesn’t need any clarification.’ Although life is not always easy, I am proud of who I am. Will Jordan may have used my empathy against me, but I still see it as a superpower. I just need to learn to control it better.





IMPOSTERS

Whenever I had passed an exam or had done well at something I always felt it must be a fluke or a mistake. It took a long time for me to realise that I wasn’t stupid and when I finally did, I wanted to know why I had felt like that before. I found out that it’s something ironically called ‘impostor syndrome’ and it is defined as a feeling that you don’t deserve your accomplishments, have doubts about inadequacy, and fear being found out as a fraud (even though you know you have done everything right).

I read that 70% of people suffer the syndrome at some point in their lives and I made a conscious decision to reject impostor syndrome altogether after that. However, it does still raise its head occasionally, particularly when I’m at book industry events amongst traditionally published authors, all of whom I perceive as being more valid and successful than me, although now I also realise most of them are thinking the same as me! Once I started talking openly about impostor syndrome I could see how common it is. It’s also something that a manipulative person will use against their victim. If a toxic person can tap into their target’s impostor syndrome, they can more easily control them.

I can imagine that it must be so easy – and probably really clear to these kinds of people – to use that insecurity. A small comment or perceived criticism of something the victim was starting to feel confidence about. A question of ‘Did you do that all yourself?’, which might from the outside seem an innocent statement (and in some cases look to be phrased as a compliment) but in fact is designed to play on a person’s insecurity and put the victim down.

I remembered how Will Jordan made me feel – that I could only really succeed with him beside me, that without him I would be nothing. I don’t remember the actual words he used but do remember that I constantly felt I had to live up to his expectations of me, which in itself meant I had low expectations of myself. I do remember him saying things like ‘I only ever wanted to be the wind beneath your wings’, which seems on the surface to be a nice thing to say but in fact implies a lack of ability to fly on your own.

Then I was reminded about the four ‘control dramas’ I was taught about during a work team-training day many years ago. These are four roles that people (not necessarily just psychopaths and narcissists) use to control other people’s emotions in a subconscious way. They are the ‘Interrogator’, the ‘Intimidator’, the ‘Aloof’ and the ‘Poor Me’.

Most normal young people use a control drama to get attention until they become more self-aware. Teenagers can often be ‘Aloof’ or ‘Poor Me’ and can move into ‘Interrogator’ and ‘Intimidator’ when they don’t get what they want. Gradually though, they learn that they don’t need to control other people but only themselves. Toxic people, however, just carry on learning how to perfect the techniques.

Will Jordan was expert in using all four dramas on me. He was subtle about it though – as most toxic people are.

The ‘Interrogator’ asks a question and then criticises the answer so that you become careful about what you say around them. For instance they might ask: