Suffering Souls

Psychopathy & me

Picture this. You are alone at home, you enjoy a wonderful, calm, day. You are not doing anything special and you feel quite cool about it. You are serene and time goes by in a cosy, relaxed, slow mode. Suddenly, the phone rings. You are surprised; you have not talked to that person, for a long time. You have not seen them for even longer… Things have happened. Layer after layer, crack after crack, you have grown apart. Like two islands! Two new continents! You are not sure why and how, and what is underneath all this. It is as if, like often, you can almost hear monsters and ghosts growling under the surface of the earth. After all, you are family….

It might also be that this has happened because of what modernity is good at : separating people, sisters, friends, lovers. Reducing and cutting. Into smaller and smaller pieces. Scientifically adequate.

At the very moment the phone reveals their name, you feel extremely confused. You don’t really know what to do. You first think : I should not answer. Then, almost immediately, unfortunately, your natural make-up kicks in. What if this is an emergency? Maybe they need help? Your embedded savior syndrome grabs you by the neck, your «being of service» way of being tricks you in. It is stronger than you. Same shitty pattern! Damn. Of course, this is what makes you. Who you are. Your way of being in the world and in your family of origin. Down deep, you know there is no emergency but still, the tiny possibility that something has happened, a death, an accident, that you are needed - all the what ifs feeds you into action. What is really amazing is that all this mix of feelings and brain cells firing up and everything happens in just 4 to 5 seconds; and you feel like vomiting…already!

You pick up. You answer, trying to find a fitted detached natural voice, or to be more precise, what you think is closest to natural. But you know it is not. You sound fake. In fact, to be honest, you don’t remember natural with them.

You look up in search of light. In your blue idyllic sky, a small dark cloud is moving fast. As it gets closer, the whole ceiling turns black. Unfortunately, it is too late; you cannot disengage. Your inner voices get louder. You think : I should never have answered! What should have been reconnection, will just be a freaking awful disconnection. Misery. Torture. Hell.

The word Psychopath comes from the Greek words Psyche - the soul -and Pathos - the suffering or the sickness. Basically, if you examine the etymology of the word, a psychopath is a suffering soul, a sick mind. The term can also be understood as soul loss which implies that the missing soul part can eventually be retrieved. Sometimes, the word refers to a sense of soullessness, which implies irretrievability of the soul - lost of forever.

After almost 2 hours of a very stressful and intense interaction which was neither «inter» nor an «action», I was left without a drop of energy. It felt like I was left without blood in my veins. No circulation. My brain was foggy, my tongue mushy, my cells completely numbed. I was all ruins. Did I collapse from the inside? Was my outside holding? I felt the need to breathe fresh air, to become tree, grass, sky, moon, stone, flower, green. I went out for a walk. As I indulged in some intense long breaths, I realised once again that when I am activated this way, I feel trapped. I have no way out. What does it do to me? What does it mean for me? Do I need to go through these emotions in order to find some ways through? When there is no way to communicate, no way to engage, no way to work out anything or repair, what do we do next? Words will not be enough. No action either. My emotional and intellectual literacy came short at that moment; no knowledge nor wisdom were going to be enough.

Have you ever known somebody who seems charming and intriguing at first, but then after a while leaves you puzzled, troubled, confused? Self-doubting, anxious, and eventually even devastated as time passes? You remember that there were red flags in the discussion, but you either ignored them or were skilfully talked out of your feelings? Were you denied of the moment for expressing them?

I felt ashamed of being victimised. After all, am I not supposed to know a few things about the subject? Am I not «trained» as a therapist? In fact, I am. And I am well informed and I really know the subject inside out. So, how can I still fall for it? All these years, with my weird dysfunctional family of origin plus my studies (plus some lovers, plus some bosses…) I should be better at it. But here I am, admitting powerlessness again. And eventually giving them once more the priviledge of mastering their «art» : getting close and getting in again!

I felt anger and loss. Could this have been avoided? No. This is exactly what a psychopath is good at doing; they grab you by the neck, get inside your veins and burn you inside out!

Of course, all happens for a reason. All lessons, when not learned, are presented again and again. We all know that. Same dish. Eat it up Madam! Whatever we fail to face, to integrate and to alchemize, will end up possessing us. Haunt us. I would soon be confronted again with another of these lessons, through yet another psychopath. Apparently, I am not able to escape them, not in this life time anyhow ….

Many people don't like using the word psychopath. I do not either; it is such a terrible term, it feels derogative, insulting and is often associated with some kind of criminality. Often, other terms are used: like for example, antisocial personality disorder or even the common and over-used narcissist. For me, it is really complicated to understand which term fits best and what the differences are. If they are antisocial, does it mean they don't get along with others? Well, that doesn't sound like them, does it?

There is a very interesting description in Robert Hare’s book Without Conscience: “We live in a camouflage society, a society in which some psychopathic traits, egocentricity, lack of concern for others, superficiality, style over substance, being “cool”, manipulativeness, and so forth, are increasingly tolerated and even valued. Psychopaths have little difficulty infiltrating the domains of business, politics, law enforcement, government, academia and other social structures.”

That.

Let’s be honest : the archetype breeds very well in modernity!

The other thing quite important to know is that psychopathy seems to be like many other «disorders», on the spectrum. Saying this means that obviously we can assume that to some degree, it likely resides in each one of us. Weird thought indeed. I have a lot of questions around the conditions that breeds psychopathy : how does anyone acquire such a trait? How does it happen really? When? Gradually or abruptly? Why this person and not another? Early Trauma? Abuse? Toxic and maladapted relations?…. But even if we go through similar experiences, nothing compares to nothing. People develop differently, they react differently, they are affected differently. Environment, and other elements impacts us. It remains certainly a vast area of investigation and research in psychology.

In fact, personally, I am both fascinated and frightened by them. Is this why I am constantly facing them in my life? Am I attracted to them? Or them, by me? Like a magnet? There must be something in my story that made that attraction/repulsion possible. What I also understand from a long experience and exposure to them, is that they have a lot of power specially if I see myself as an empath, and extra-sensitive. I need to remind myself to be mindful in maintaining space for nuance and yes/and rather than drawing rigid conclusions.

It is very difficult to recognise them, they are difficult to be with, and of course almost impossible to heal them. First of all, psychopaths don't come to therapy! Except when they are ordered by court and that is not often. Secondly, they are adept at hiding in plain sight. They blame others, triangulate with smoke and distort reality - so they are not seen as the actual source of our losses. They are also less likely to be arrested and studied. In fact, we know much less about the free ranging high-functioning psychopath, than we know about the criminal psychopath.

Digital Collage (not published) Title: “Archetype 1” - 16 February 2024

The psychopath in your life might be a colleague, your sister or your father, or a close friend, or your boss or a lover or even your child! And, if it does not come in the personal realm, most of us know somebody in a position of leadership or a political organization or a religious leader who definitely meets the profile. They are more or less all over. They all have common features and very distinct characteristics. The most common is a lack of conscience (often), pathological lying (always), superficial charm and a grandiose sense of self. Their mind is very complex. There is another quite recognisable characteristic: they have quite an obsession with money - this is one their big facet. Psychopaths wear a lot of different cloaks but underneath they're pretty similar. They lack empathy; they have no remorse for their acts, they can't feel deep emotions. They can see the others suffer around them but they dont care. Their primary goal is to take advantage of others.

Psychopathy is primarily a pathological condition of the soul. When the soul has been repressed for too long or too young, or it has been lost. Psychopathy happens when the person is possessed by their shadow, they have an isolated core or an empty self. There is a hole inside where there should be a heart. They are heartless; a horrible but quite fitting conclusion.

Last summer, at an international workshop I participated in Helsinki, I was confronted again with the psychopathic behaviour of a person - this time with an extreme/fundamentalist profile. I understood long after that he in fact was a very dangerous person; he had harmed people in the past (war, gangs) and also has been harmed as a child. In a few minutes after his first intervention in the group, he succeeded to disable, confuse and throw everyone off balance. Soon there was verbal aggression, shaming, naming, humiliation and a variety of other emotional - direct or indirect - threats. Boundaries and limits were discarded. We got thrown into a weird soup of untethered anger and liminal wounds. The group was not ready for that. They did not see this coming. Even worse, the group did not react at all: they got sort of frozen! A psychopath knows the rules and codes very well - they are very sensitive about that exactly¹ - that the container was not holding - that it was not sealed - so they just exploit the cracks. When I think back, it seems we all jumped together into a giant rabbit hole of an unbelievable collective pain that runs through the veins of modernity right now.

This encounter might have marked the end of my naive and romantic belief that “everyone can be saved, if only you show love” or “there is something kind in everyone”…. Unfortunately, even if I tried, I assured you I did try the whole week, and it was so exhausting, I could not help that person. I could not reach out to his soul. There was a hole in his heart.

I want to continue to believe deeply that there is beauty in everything and everyone. I want to look at the light and the dark with the same enchantment. In the hope and in the hurt. In the fire and in the ash. I still believe that I can help mend the broken, that I am strong enough. That I can be of service and that I can do good in the world. Of course, today, I feel exhausted. Maybe you feel that too? Some days, I don’t want to be strong anymore. Maybe you feel that too? I still ask myself: was all this meant to be? Maybe all the events that came my way in the last months, all the tragedies and the ordeals, are teaching me how to hold on to my power.

I need to see things otherwise.

I am trying different paths.

Maybe some of these paths will bandage my fears and my doubts.

I don´t know.

What I know is that you have not lived until you have died.

1. Believe it or not, empaths and narcissists have foundational similarities. Not only does the brain chemistry look the same, but empaths and narcissists both struggle with nervous system regulation and look to others to help them regulate their emotions. But whereas the narcissist avoids the emotions of others, empaths are deeply affected and have a physiological experience to the emotions of others on a subconscious level. This can lead to emotional fatigue, chronic stress, poor sense of self and more. So what’s the difference between having empathy and being an empath, and how can you change subconscious behavior? You can listen to the podcast TRAUMA REWIRED where they cover the signs of being an empath, the causes of elevated empathy, such as deficits in the interoceptive system, and how it impacts our overall health.