Recovery from Psychopath

dr_maria_mercedes: “Voluntary discard: If their pathological partners just won’t leave them alone, sometimes survivors orchestrate situations or events to make pathological partners go away on their own...often it is more of a subconscious act of desperation. Because pathological partners have rules for their partners to follow or they punish them with discards and silent treatments, survivors may break the rules…Once the pathological partner realizes their partner is no longer under their control, if they already have other partners lined up, they may respond by rejecting the survivor who isn’t responding the way they pathological partner expects or desires, switching over to a new partner who is more controllable and hasn’t seen behind the mask yet. Note: this is not always safe, as the pathological partner may instead respond with rage and attack or try to exert even more control.”

dr_maria_mercedes: The psychopath is not attached to the victim. The psychopath induces disorganized attachment in the victim, causing traumatic cognitive dissonance and making it impossible to think through escaping the psychopath. Seminal work, amazing.

dr_maria_mercedes: You will recognize the psychopath you know in Cleckley's clinical profile of 16 characteristics. "Here, it might be said, is not even a consistency in inconsistency, but inconsistency in inconsistency."

dr_maria_mercedes: Hirigoyen shows that an integral part of the psychopath's tricks is to include an anesthetizing or numbing agent. Like a parasite attaching to a host.

dr_maria_mercedes: possibly the best book ever written

dr_maria_mercedes: "He was a broken promise personified."

dr_maria_mercedes: Venom. Poison.

dr_maria_mercedes: Brilliant. "You know...can you tell me if I have ADHD? ...I mean, do you know how hard it is to hold still sitting in a tree to stare through the cracks in a...blind for three hours until someone comes into the bedroom and takes their clothes off?"