Reality???

The Psychopath as Self-Proclaimed Maverick by psychopathyawareness

As we've seen, unless there's a specific advantage for him, a psychopath never admits to being wrong, to doing wrong, to having wronged anyone. Whatever he does wrong to others--cheating, lying, manipulation, hurting them emotionally and physically--he manages to project blame on the victims and on those around them. In fact, the psychopath will see his cowardly actions as superior; on a higher plane of existence than the rest of humanity. Rather than seeing himself as the pathological person that he is--essentially, a Loser who spends his life parasitically using and taking advantage of others--the psychopath is likely to see and describe himself as a maverick: a lone dissenter, a willfully independent hero, who rejects the dated and commonplace notions of right and wrong and of truth and falsehood.

Like the Nietzschean Superman, the psychopath considers himself beyond the norms of good and evil: except, of course, when it comes to double standards, since no psychopath would want others to use, manipulate and hurt him as he does them. The underlying narcissism that leads the psychopath to focus only on his desires, pleasures and needs also blinds him to his faults and protects him from self-blame. He reframes reality to fit with his narcissistic delusions. Sleaziness, violence and perversionare framed as "hedonism" or "libertine freedom"(hence my picture of Valmont, above, from the novel and movie, Dangerous Liaisons). Lies are framed as "creative interpretations of reality" or clever "modes of persuasion".Manipulativeness, slander and back-stabbing become, in his deranged mind, Machiavellianism or cunning.

Admitting fault, or taking responsibility for harmful actions would, after all, take a degree of empathy--of putting himself in others' shoes and seeing himself as they do--which the psychopath is not only incapable of, but also repudiates. For a psychopath, caring about others, putting oneself in their shoes, is only for followers, for the herd. In his own mind, he's a born leader: even when nobody follows him, or even if he only  leads others to their destruction. After all, from the psychopath's self-absorbed perspective,humanity exists only to serve his immediate needs.  Because of this absolute and fundamental narcissism, where everyone and everything in life revolves around him and his desires, a psychopath can't change and, most importantly, he doesn't want to change. He inhabits a fantasy world--which becomes more real than reality for him and those he manages to brainwash --whereby truth and falsehood hold only instrumental meaning and where morality is just an outdated fiction for the weak.

But even this doesn't fully capture the outlandishness of the psychopathic mindset.Psychopaths live in an Orwellian doublethink world. They believe the truth of the moment while actively seeking new opportunities. We might as well call it a “psychopath-think,” since such individuals have their own language. It is a language of narcissism; a delusional doublespeak. For example, to a psychopathic seducer, “I love you” means “You give me a rush at this moment.” “You love me” translates as “you forgo your needs to bend to my will.” “Trust me” means “What a sucker!” “You’re the woman of my life,” translates into “You’re one of a long, indefinite sequence of women that’s also simultaneous” (Psychopaths have their own version of math as well).

“Mutual fidelity” means “you need to be faithful to me while I cheat on you.” “Betrayal” means “You dared disapprove of something I did” or “You disobeyed me in some respect.” “Mutual commitment” translates into “You need to revolve everything in your life only around me while I do exactly what I want.” “Honesty” means “My truth,” or “Saying whatever gets me what I want at the moment.” “I miss you” means “I miss the function you played in my life because I’m a little bored right now.” “What my Baby wants, my Baby gets” means “I’ll give you attention, flattery and gifts only until I hook you emotionally and gain your trust. Afterwards, Mazeltov Baby! You’re on your own.” “I cheat because my wife/girlfriend doesn’t satisfy me” means “…and neither will you, in a few months, at most.” “We belong together” means “I own you completely while I remain free.” “If anything happens between us, it won’t be because of me” means “Nothing’s ever my fault. If I do something harmful, it’s because you (and others) weren’t good enough for me.” Unless you learn to decipher the psychopathic code, you’re likely to be “lost in translation.” If I put my mind to it, I could write a whole dictionary of “psychopath-speak” and its translation into regular human language.

Every so-called “truth” psychopaths utter is momentary and contingent upon their immediate gratification. Since their feelings are shallow, so is their truth-value. If you add “for now” to their declarations of love, they may sometimes ring plausible. For instance, during the euphoric seduction phase, psychopaths may believe when they tell a girlfriend that they love her and want to spend the rest of their life with her. But their passion isn’t grounded in any empathy, love or commitment.

Since the euphoric state of “being in love” comes and goes even during the course of a single day, so does the truth-value of their statement. One minute they might tell a girlfriend with genuine emotion that they love her and will always be faithful to her. The next hour they might be pursuing another woman, just for the heck of it, because they’re bored. While psychopaths scheme and manipulate a lot, they’re short-term, or tactical, schemers. They can’t see more than two steps ahead of their noses, to chase the next temporary pleasure. Tactics, or short-term maneuvers, prove to be far less effective than strategy, or long-term planning, however. Over the long-term, the lives of psychopaths usually unravel in a sequence of failed careers, sordid crimes and perverse, disastrous relationships. However they try to reframe reality, these self-proclaimed mavericks turn out to be nothing more than pathological Losers, driven by perverse desires, consumed by envy and filled with contempt for humanity. 

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness