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How Do You Know If Someone Is A Sociopath?
While most of us would imagine a psychopath is the worst kind of person you could come across, in my own experience sociopaths can be even worse.
06/04/2024
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
Sociopathic traits can be hard to distinguish from psychopathic or narcissistic traits if you are not trained in this area.
A psychopath can have sociopathic traits and/or narcissistic traits, and these traits can overlap. It doesn’t have to be the case, but it can be.
As I have come to know from my own experience of having been married to a psychopath who also has sociopathic traits (I would say it is approximately 70% to 30%), psychopaths are usually conscienceless and cruel. Contrary to what one may expect, sociopaths may even top psychopaths in cruelty though.
Because narcissists generally don’t listen to rules, and sociopaths and psychopaths often have NPD, a sociopath can be hard to spot if you are not familiar with sociopathic behavior.
The main characteristic of a sociopath is a poor comprehension of social rules and social norms. They usually have poor social skills and a poor comprehension of body language. Unlike other people, they may be completely blind to body language and unable to read it.
(Not so dangerous) sociopathic behavior may look like this: While most of us have learned that speaking in class while your teacher talks is rude, a sociopath may speak loudly all the time about a completely different topic, disrupt class and make it impossible for others to hear what the teacher is saying, not even realizing that their behavior is considered absolutely rude.
This sociopath is not able to distinguish between ‘man’ and ‘woman’. He doesn’t know that certain things are only things a woman does and has a right to do.
For example, he said he wanted to change my menstrual cup, wanted to tell me which kinds of menstrual products I need to use as though my body were his body to own (or as though he were a woman), and as though he had a right to be in my stuff.
He also told me he would coerce me into giving him a ‘blow job‘, would make me ‘fuck him’ and many other very disgusting things.
He thinks he is the most beautiful and sexiest man the world has ever seen (see how sick this person’s narcissism is?) and tries to coerce me into telling him just that, right after he has called me ‘a whore’, ‘a jew’, ‘ugly’, and ‘a cheap woman who needs to take any ugly man as her boyfriend who crosses her path‘.
His bullying of me is constant and happens daily.
He is also trying to manipulate my view and thoughts of him. He has been trying to energetically heal me by proxy very often (think “hypnosis”). For example, when I say I do not like him, he will use Neurolinguistic Programming on me to try and change my subconscious beliefs about him. If my original thoughts are – “this person is really ugly”, he will try to change my thoughts into “this man is really hot and sexy”.
It is a form of mind control that has a severe impact on your thinking and this behavior is extremely manipulative. He is trying to break my will so I will not reject him and tries to coerce me into still allowing him into my life, even though I have asked him to leave me alone forever.
When a healthy person is projected onto by an unhealthy person that she is the one who is wrong or crazy and who supposedly ‘needs to heal’, this is forcing a healthy person into the role of the “identified patient”. It is a projection of illness onto the wrong person, so that the person who is actually ill in a (family or other) system does not need to take responsibility for their sickness or insanity.
This stalker is in my phone and computer all the time via spyware, checks my period calendar, and tries to force himself into all my other relationships as well.
He tries to make himself the ‘center of attention’ all of the time.
He will forbid me to concentrate on my work, on my relationship with my children or on anything else that is important to me. Whenever I concentrate on my own priorities, he’ll pop up somewhere to contact me and try and force me to pay attention to him or his (real or imagined) issues. His issues are simply put – mommy and daddy issues and codependency issues – and I do not want to be forced by a stranger to take responsibility for that.
Not that I even really know this person, he is simply a sick stalker, voyeur and sociopath who is trying to coerce me into having regular contact and communication with him.
I once had to inform my sister about his rude behavior because he had started a completely insane smear campaign against her which he simply wouldn’t stop, no matter how often I told him that this was unacceptable behavior. To him, she was a stranger, a person I hadn’t even mentioned.
But by that time, he had already been stalking me for more than three years, and it came to my attention that he had also started to stalk my environment.
I have not asked him about his opinion on things and I have not talked about my period with him. He simply thinks he has a right to force his opinion on me and to treat me like an object. There is no concept in his head that this kind of behavior is insane.
This is also a person who simply will not ‘shut up’. He talks all of the time, and it never stops. When others ask him to be quiet, he’ll keep on talking and being loud.
When I have a video call with my kids (I have had two calls so far), he watches our video calls via spyware and then later comments on it as though he has a right to stalk me and my children and to comment on them.
I have repeatedly told him to stop stalking me, to stop enmeshing with me, and to stop living my life ‘instead of me’. I have also asked him repeatedly to leave me alone and to leave my life. When I do this, he gaslights me and acts as though his behavior is actually normal behavior and as though I am out of my mind to ask him to respect my privacy and to stop violating my boundaries.
‘Living another person’s life’ is typical sociopathic behavior. They can be in anyone else’s business, but don’t usually deal with their own stuff and problems. It creeps me out when people steal my identity and my life. It is like a takeover of your persona – think Tom Ripley in the movie ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’.
It also makes it impossible to live a normal life.
A grandmother who is in competition with you with regards to your children may simply be jealous.
But a grandmother who thinks she is the mother of your children would be considered a sociopath if she completely overtakes your persona.
There would be a lack of understanding of differences in roles, such as the difference between the role of a grandmother versus the role of a mother, with the grandmother acting as though she has a right to parent your children and to be the mother of your children.
This stalker is also in constant competition with me, which shows just how sick he is.
Sociopaths usually have a poorly defined self. They may, for example, always do whatever seems to be ‘cool’ in the moment without having a critical mind and a self-definition of who they actually are in comparison to others.
While psychopaths can be very charismatic, a sociopath is usually not!
As a quick note: Merely the fact that I am writing a blog is not an invitation for sick people to abuse me.
Have you ever had to deal with a sociopath?