I knew of the term sociopath from watching too many episodes of Law & Order SVU, but never really studied it until it hit home — 40 months of Con’s manipulation. Since then, I have read a few books, watched a handful of Podcasts/YouTubes, and dozens of articles to learn the in and out and all about sociopaths. Eye-opening is definitely is an understatement, I am surprised our society does not punish sociopaths but paddy-theft is a crime, or using a Starbucks bathroom without a purchase can be cuffed up.
Throughout the study of sociopaths,words like compassion, feelings, conscience, and empathy are used a lot to describe what they lack of. For the past few days I started looking into Empaths. An Empath is a hypersensitive person who is compassionate, considerate, and thoughtfully understanding of others. Many empaths have the ability to “feel” what someone else is experiencing and feeling, but unaware of how this actually works because usually they are so used to it as they grew up with the quality. There are different degree on a spectrum as an empath. I must say I am pretty much an 8 or 9 empath, if 10 is the full-on empath.
I remember when my aunt was visiting from California, I would save up my pocket money to get her a fairwell gift. I had paid attention to what she said she likes or doesn’t like. I told myself she must love this special gift it was all the thoughts that counted. I was only seven years old. Empaths are healers of the world, thoughtful givers, tireless teachers, starving artists/musicians, selfless nurses; all share their unique gifts to make this world a little better with their thoughtfulness. I stumbled on this article this morning. I cried. Especially the following part of what the author said,
… even the most mature empath can be tricked by a cunning sociopath. His lack of empathy or a moral conscience and disregards societal norms and antisocial behavior causing him living in a bubble, when bored sociopaths con people for personal pleasure and amusement. Since lack of remorse ignoring reality, the only goal is to meet his selfish needs, even harming others along the way.
A sociopath takes the knowledge that an empath has compassion and runs with it. On a first date for example, it is likely that the sociopath will share a sad story about childhood to appear sensitive and filled with emotions. They are masters at mirroring what someone with emotional capabilities says and does. Socially, the sociopath takes awkward long pauses, rarely breaking eye contact. The sociopath seems to be studying his counterpart to pick out facts about their life to later use to question them with…
Sociopaths use gas-lighting3 or similar effect to gradually gain control over their partner psychologically. During this calculated game, the first stage is called the idealization stage where the sociopaths paint a beautiful picture of themselves to charm and trick the empath. An empath sees the truth in people, so they are a sociopath’s natural nemesis. This makes for a high stakes situation and ultimate challenge for the sociopath. And to them, this is only where the fun begins. The sociopath slowly throws in small lines that devalue their counterpart in a tactful and clever way. The sociopath sees that this throws an empath off, because their sensitivity is strong. Sociopaths take pleasure in knowing that they have the power in this mind game and like to see their victim confused and questioning his or herself. It tickles them.
The purpose of a sociopath to develop a relationship with an empath is to seek, validate, soon feels indifferent, bored, and then toss the empath away like old milk, move on to his next target. The empath is left all wounded and completely confused. According to Psychology Today, “it is often the kindest and most trusting individuals who suffer most at the hands of sociopaths, and the healing for these individuals continues long after the relationship has ended”. For an empath who manifests negative energies physically, this can leave him or her distressed, physically ill and in a dark place wondering what they did to push the sociopath away. The saddest part of this story is if the sociopath keeps an empath around just as a toy to stoke his or her ego. This will only cause further heartache and can break the empath down to nothing, but can almost make an empath lose faith in the goodness of people. Sociopaths tell you what they want, which we’ll call “A.” You give them “A” except now they want “B.” You give them “B,” but now they want “C.” This can continue for “D,” “E” and “F.” In fact, it can continue through the entire alphabet, and then through the entire Greek alphabet. Each time, sociopaths insist that this will make them happy.
One target of a sociopath used a different metaphor to describe this behavior “moving the line in the sand.” This person said: Moving the line in the sand is a red flag. It serves many purposes. It damages the target. But it also grooms, tests and weakens the target. Plus, the target commits and gets deeper and deeper to recoup the loss (remember we talked about recouping the loss.) Because it is used to test the target, I think it is an important red flag to look out for. The target finds himself/herself tolerating more and more and doing more and more and the spath does less and less and needs/wants /implicitly demands/expects more and more. Sometimes its from an overt agreement, sometimes its from implicit agreements that the line gets moved. What happens to you as they keep changing the rules? You are totally off balance. You can’t figure out how to treat them, or how to be around them, because you keep getting mixed signals.
Sociopaths then make matters worse by demeaning you for not doing what they want. You try to explain that you did what they wanted previously, but now they want something different. The sociopaths vociferously deny that they ever told you anything different, and insist that they always wanted what they recently demanded and that you misunderstood them.
Sociopaths are so convincing that you begin to wonder if you did, indeed, misunderstand them, and if you’re losing your mind.
Moving the goal posts is a form of gaslighting. It messes with your sense of reality.
the Epitome of a Sociopath’s Evil Atrocious Game 