Since I don’t know if this is taking place in a school, a neighborhood or a workplace but since my own personal knowledge comes from workplaces I’ll use that. For workplace bullying targets, I suggest the following:
1. Make one, but probably only one, very firm push against the sociopath, both with co-workers and management. This is a ‘do unto others before they do unto you’ situation — don’t hold back, realize your attacker will not play fair, respond accordingly.
2. If a case can be made without reference to the bully being a sociopath, go down that path. Too many people simply can’t wrap their minds around an individual in their circle actually being a sociopath, this often (almost always?) includes management and HR (how can this be?).
3. If the bully is so crafty that the campaign is invisible to third parties, in complaints to management and HR directly assert that the individual is a sociopath. Refer them to http://www.bullyonline.org/ if need be. Suggest that they request a brain scan from the bully. You want to have the workplace bully fired, they don’t play ‘live and let live.’
4. If the bully is protected by a high placed devotee (some individuals fall under a cultish spell regarding an admired sociopath — they are impossible to get through to, being almost as dedicated to the sociopath as a mother is to her own two year old. (I am totally serious.)); or if the sociopathic bully is protected by fellow sociopaths in management and/or HR (though management can override HR if management is strongly on your side) then leave. Give up. It doesn’t matter how much you like the job, how much you invested in it, etc. you can not trade blows with a sociopath. Everything connected to you is fair game to them, your reputation, your family, your spouse. Furthermore, workplace bullies may spend years on bullying campaigns. I’ve found them to be ‘beyond the pale’ sociopaths, completely emotionless mimics of normal human beings. Being emotionless they have no normal satisfactions and pleasures — to them it makes sense to dedicate years and immense effort and brainpower on these campaigns. If you say that “no enemy is going to make my choices for me” and stay, you, your marriage, and your family will be damaged by the corrosive stress of the situation — people die from this everyday, believe me. Don’t do it.
Sociopaths are a drag on society.
The costs of sociopaths are very, very high. These pathological types who run free and just below the radar are so costly that an economic analysis will show a very large dollar amount of damages to people, places and things.
The stress they cause others leads to nearly every preventable disease known to humanity. Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome is the insidious result of one having to “put up” with the incredible, over-the-top nonsense of these raging kooks.
They eschew exposure, so be prepared when you are ready or forced to call them out on their reckless life choices.
I’m currently going through a round with a bunch of horrible and ignorant bullies whose aim is to make me homeless and penniless.
They won’t. But they want to.
Sociopaths are suckholes of society.
Watch out. Protect yourself. They are not uncommon, especially in places where people are trusting. These types enjoy the cloaking they get around people who think “everyone is basically good”!!
I used to think like that, too! Then the creeps crawled out and have worked like a festering clump of parasitical worms to “destroy” me!!
Yes!! Those were their words!
The jerks!!
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Far, far too many people believe the fairy tale that “everyone is basically good.” At what point does refusal to see evil, become evil?
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They often look weird ….
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Hi Alice,
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your link to a trove of quite valuable articles, a number of which take on the misguided thinking that allows sociopathy to flourish unchallenged. (Alice’s posted link in turn links to http://www.waking-you-up.com/psychopathic-bullying.html.)
See, for instance, George Simon’s two-part article on the various forms of aggressive personality disturbance that underlie what we understand as psychopathy and its variants (“Aggressive Personalities – Part 1 and Part 2”). George Simon is also the author of the excellent “In Sheep’s Clothing” in which he discusses not only disordered character types but also the traditional therapy systems that unwittingly aid in concealing their true nature. You can see more at his website at http://drgeorgesimon.com/home.html.
“A Warning for victims and fluffy bunny lightworkers” discusses the mentality that refuses to accept that malicious, destructive people truly do exist and then rationalizes their destructiveness.
“Charismatic Psychopath Predators” led me to one of the most stunning videos I’ve ever seen. I looked up and read Harrison Koehli’s original article on Neil Entwistle, who was convicted of killing his wife and baby daughter, and watched the YouTube video of Entwistle’s reaction to the crime scene playback. Watch the entire video – the whole thing — and tell yourself what you see: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/161068-Neil-Entwistle-Psychopath.
“Sadistic Psychopath” links to an article here (http://www.friedgreentomatoes.org/articles/malignant_self_love.php#) in which the writer, a mental health professional, admits that all her training was useless in the face of two onslaughts from online psychopaths and analyzes her experience with a bogus online support group.
For an inside view, “Sociopathic Woman” gives you sociopathy straight from the horse’s, er, mouth. Deeply valuable reading.
All of the articles on the page are worth reading carefully – please take a look at them. (And Alice, did I say “thank you”?)
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There is precious little about the issue of these creatures and their bullying. My sister was put through living hell by a pack of female bullies at work for no other reason than the ringleader was a sociopath who was jealous of my sister’s happy home life. The sociopath just wanted to take her down. She was Gaslighted and everything. It brought my sister to the point of suicide. Horrible! I would like to see more on this issue. I will send her this link – thanks.
There is another good article below – but hardly anything else on the matter of bullying and sociopaths out there.
http://labyrinthpsycho.blogspot.com/2010/12/article-on-psychopaths-and-bullying.html
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Sadly the bullies seem to hide behind their targetting. It only makes sense in that individual’s sociopathic mind but onlookers assume there is some tangible reason. Thus onlookers feel safe themselves, since they feel that they give no offense.
I had a female friend who worriedly asked me once if a guy would throw over a fiancee for a fling. The jest of the question was, would a guy chose to walk down the street with a hot babe on each arm, or one day appear with one and the next day with another — some would indeed choose to be such a playboy. She said she had a friend who she knew stole other women’s boyfriends and that this individual was approaching her fiancee. But why have a friend like that?
This story ended up very badly. The relationship was in fact destroyed. It seems she ceased believing love was attainable and, according to a mutual friend, married a man she liked but didn’t love. Her ex-fiancee seemed to go psychotic and pursued the sociopathic love bully for years trying to force her to become once again the fantasy lover she had sold herself as.
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My last employment was over ten years. I believe the vice President is a Sociopath. I was conned from day one. He pushed all of his bad deals on to me and destroying me behind my back. He knew how to destroy.For over nine years I saw him as a friend. I always treated him well and his family. It . I never new what a Sociopath was or any of the hatefull things about them. All the books I have read is true. The stalking, lieing, tricking, stealing, gaslighting, more. Once he was done with me, I was pushed out of the company. I lost everything. He did this to make himself feel better. Nothing but hate and selfness. It has been over four years since then and I still have trubble getting through the day. I just never knew this kind of person was in the world.
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