The Path Whisperer

I’m splitting this section off from Search:  “I’m being blackmailed by a sociopath, what can I do?”.  It was a mistake to include this discussion, to switch viewpoints, in a post visited by those distraught at being blackmailed.

[Switching viewpoints,]  if you are a victim of a psychopathic harassment, slander (or whispering) or bullying campaign then you must view any blackmailed (by the same psychopath) friend as an enemy. Psychopaths love to get others to commit their crimes or dirty work.

As an example but in a different situation, I recall a contract killing in which the psychopathic contractee convinced the eventual murderer (a paranoid with actual enemies) that the target of the contract was out to get him, so he acted first.  The psychopath:  ‘Chortle, chortle,’ as he collected the remaining money on the contract (none of which he had to share) — also, legally, his hands were clean, the law couldn’t touch him.

Looking at blackmail from the psychopath’s viewpoint, many psychopaths experience life as strangers in a strange land, as is often said.  They live surrounded by weirdos (us) doing things they can’t understand for reasons they can’t understand.  The need for security can become topmost.  Blackmail simply becomes a tool for that end.  It can become their main tool-for-life as education and hardwork are for the rest of us.

I once had the rare opportunity to possibly bring blackmail charges as a third party.  However, the situation involved a woman who I considered a good friend.  I was also friends with her husband and sometimes gave her child gifts.  I didn’t want to harm her life or her family, so I didn’t follow up.

To paraphrase, an act of evil is like throwing a pebble into a pond, you never know where the ripples are going to reach.  One doesn’t want to be the cause of further misery.  But what course of action would actually lead to the least misery?  I now absolutely view a blackmailed victim as being complicit in a criminal compact.

The case follows, at one point my friend, A, a manager, fired individual, X.  However she was incapable of offering a reason for the firing to her superiors and was forced to rehire him.  The rumor was that it involved pictures.  From various hints and sources, the surmise is that A refused to believe her psychopathic lover, Z, would actually blackmail her, so Z showed his friend (and male lover) X the photos in front of A.  So in revenge and to assert some power A tried to fire X.

Around the same time A was repeatedly telling blackmail jokes that no one else laughed at.  For example, at an office party she and I had our picture taken together.  Later she repeatedly joked that I had had it altered to show a sex act and was using it to blackmail her.  I believe she was using these jokes, in effect, to tell us she was being blackmailed and to somehow deal with it emotionally.

The reader might wonder why I thought A and Z were involved in the first place.  The sequence went like this, first A spoke often about Z, often remarking on what troubles Z had (the psychopath was setting the pity play); second, they would go out for drinks more or less publicly; third A stopped talking about Z completely but one would often see them talking very quietly, standing very close to each other.  In addition one time another suspected lover/devotee [FN1] of the psychopath Z (a Don Juan or love thug, no doubt with hundreds, if not thousands, of lovers of both sexes [FN2]) started complaining to me (I don’t know why) that A needed to go home and spend more time with her husband and family.  It seemed clear that she was angry with the competition and wanted to express that anger.  I’m sure she didn’t think I would know what she was talking about.

Anyway, I suspect that X, the third party accessory, could have been the key to a prosecution of Z, the psychopath.  X would have needed to have been persuaded to testify to what he knew, or perhaps threatened with arrest himself as an accessory to felony blackmail.  He might have realized  his situation however, for not long after he moved across the country.  Perhaps he also have feared for his physical safety if his psychopathic lover, Z, ever recognized his, X’s, danger to Z.

The psychopath involved is of the “alien masquerading as a human” category who should be involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, in my opinion.  It is clear that the public wants to be protected from sociopaths/psychopaths from the numerous sexual predator laws.  I believe mental hospitals should be reopened or be used more often to protect the public from incorrigible psychopathic transgressors.

This particular individual (Z) lives to destroy others, imo — it’s his source of emotionless enjoyment (if such is possible).  It would have been a good bargain for the world to have incarcerated him (or even try to prosecute him) even if it had destroyed my erstwhile friend’s marriage.  Loose, I’m sure he’s destroyed other couples and families, probably caused death(s) through heart attacks brought on by stress and emotional devastation, or perhaps outright murders (I have no doubt he  would be capable of them).

My advice to anyone who is a victim of a psychopathic harassment campaign to always make the self-interested defense choice.  One should never say that the situation is done and over.  A blackmailed friend can actually do you more harm than the blackmailing psychopath since no one will assume ulterior motives on your ex-friend’s part and the bad blood which might be known to exist between you and the psychopath won’t be considered.  You have to protect yourself and let the chips fall where they may.  The blackmailed party has made his or her choice.

FN1: It is worth noting that this individual was actually engaged to be married at the time.  She described her fiancee as someone “who would be a good father” — i.e., Mr. Boring.  It didn’t seem that either had any guilt about “stepping out” with the psychopath, Z.  Perhaps it was too close to comforting-a-child.  This may also explain why the women I have known who destroyed a marriage or primary relationship through an affair with a psychopath were so shocked and confused, seemingly they didn’t see it coming.  I’ve certainly known men who destroyed their primary relationships through such affairs, but I never knew them to be surprised.

FN2: Such individuals are often described as having unusually strong sex drives — I don’t see it that way.  Seduction and sex are lifetools for psychopathic Don Juans — they are seeking safety and security, they exercise dominance, they gain protectors or even livelihoods (they may be able to live off the willing loans of girlfriends (which is a crime)).  Further, since there is zero emotional involvement, boredom is a huge driving force.  If you and I could only have sex with blow-up dolls we would probably go in for variety ourselves.  They are not sex addicts, they are bored silly.