Sanctuary for the Abused

Sunday, December 17, 2017

Psychopathic Bullying


by Thomas Sheridan

One of the most common misconceptions relating to the pathology is that psychopaths are deep down inside self-loathing and they project their inner hatred of themselves onto their victims. Nothing could be further from the truth. To imply this is to suggest that psychopaths are somehow self-reflective of their own pathology - as they would have to be, in order to come to this conclusion. The fact is that psychopaths adore themselves, period. What is being classified as self-loathing is in reality more akin to resentment and jealousy. They do not feel inferior to other people who enjoy the relationships, social life, careers and material goods which the psychopath covets - they just want to take these things away from the victims for the sake of it. A sick game of one-upmanship which can destroy another person’s life for a brief rush of energy in the psychopath.

This resentment is most commonly seen when psychopaths bully other adults, having first developed their craft as children. They begin to realise the value of bullying while still in school - however, they will continue to do this for the rest of their lives as bullying pays off for the psychopath on many levels towards their relationship, social and employment ambitions. Although a psychopath will implement a smear campaign or bullying campaign against another person at work or in an organisation in order to take over that person’s position - the underlying thrust is that the position the victim holds is what the psychopath desires for themselves. It’s nothing really personal against the victims as such - they just have to give up to the psychopath what they have. If this leads to the bullied victim resigning, transferring to another department or even killing themselves (murder-by-suicide) then so be it. Once they give up what the psychopath wants from them, they do not care one iota how the victim chooses to undertake this.

In his paper, Intelligence as a Person-Situation Interaction, Dr. Robert Sternberg lists five fallacies of thinking. He states, "There is another dimension to person-situation interaction: the extent to which particular situations elicit ’stupid’ thinking in intelligent people." All of his five fallacies which range from a sense of godlike indestructibility to extreme hubris occur mainly in the context of perceived power or dominance over others. Dr. Sternberg is one of many scientists who have discovered that the enjoyment of power and control over other people changes brain chemistry and behaviour. Some people are more prone than others to these effects of power and positions of influence - depending on personality type along with social and environmental factors. Psychopaths know no other way to live other than to gain and hold power over others constantly - similar to an addict seeking a drug fix - they are likewise subject to the above fallacies all the time and for all of their lives.

Neuroscientists have established that the human brain continues to grow and change long after the rapid developmental stage of early childhood. It is now well established that people who have been bullied as children by a psychopathic parent or another student at school, or as an adult at work - are much more likely to be depressed, anxious, and suicidal. The psychological torment that bullying victims experience is emotionally ravaging and visceral. Contemporary research into the psychological effects of bullying is now underpinning its emotional and psychological scarring as something with very real negative consequences for the victims. Bullying has now been shown to leave a lasting effect on a young person at a time when their brain is still developing - actually leading to reduced electrical connectivity within the brain, along with destroying the growth of new neurons. This very real neurological damage is identical to what is also seen in those who have been physically and sexually abused in childhood.

In the July 2010 edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry, in a paper by Martin Teicher, a neuroscientist studying the effects of children being verbally abused by adults and their peers presented some unsurprising data, which finally gave scientific legitimacy to what victims of psychopathic bullies have long known. In his study of more than 1,000 young people, he discovered that words were indeed as hurtful as "sticks and stones". Teicher’s participants varied in how much taunting, ridicule, criticism, shouting, and bad language they had been subject to in the past. What was uncovered found that victims of bullying had higher incidences of depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders than the subjects who had not experienced bullying.

Those subjects who reported having been bullied by their peers had observable abnormalities in a part of the brain known as the corpus callosum which connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain, vital for visual processing, and very significantly from a psychopathic standpoint, clarity of memory. Victims of psychopathic relationships always have trouble recalling memories from the time their relationship with the psychopath commenced. Psychopaths will often say to their victims. "Do you recall when you said this…?" and so forth and the victim will often reply that they have no memory of doing and saying certain things which the psychopath claimed they said and did. Victims memories are impaired and this allows the psychopath to invent a fake past event(s) which the victim cannot readily dispute. This is why it is very common for psychopaths to target people who were victims of childhood abuse and bullying.

In another study Tracy Vaillancourt, a psychologist at the University of Ottawa, discovered that being bullied as a child can alter levels of cortical in victims - a hormone produced during times of stress. Vaillancourt’s findings showed that boys who have been bullied have higher levels of cortisol than normal - while bullied girls have abnormally low levels of cortisol. Weakening the victim’s immune system, sometimes destroying neurons leading to memory problems.

With verbal bullying, more and more studies are finding it is more akin to physical and sexual abuse than had been previously assumed. As psychopaths perform all three on their victims it becomes very apparent how a skilled psychopath can break down and psychologically destroy even the most rational and emotionally balanced person. If the target has been bullied as a child this creates a perfect opportunity for the psychopath to implement techniques such Gaslighting more effectively and much sooner into the relationship. The psychopathic child who is bullying other children at school, or the psychopathic parent bullying his/her own children can be viewed in the same context as a farmer planting an apple orchard to be harvested later on in life.


Thomas Sheridan is an Irish writer, and artist and is the author of 'Puzzling People; The Labyrinth of the Psychopath' published in Spring 2011.


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shared by Barbara at 12:08 AM


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4 Comments:

Wow, huh? Yet on we go. Most people who try to get help for being bullied (emotionally raped) will get some trite self-help guru who will give them some "positive" techniques to try, or some ways they should "try to show fairness and good will". Our minds are raped. Our hearts and souls destroyed and yet HOW MANY EVEN KNOW ABOUT PSYCHOPATHY? Another thing is that bullies/pscyhopaths seem to know about the way this affects the victims inherently (it's inate to them). The "I, Psychopath" guy actually verbally breaks it down to his victim after he abuses him. Describes how his brain, mind and body react.

We are NOT all the same and everything is NOT okay.

Just reading a weblog by a psychopath who is in prison for murder. Said he'd been there since he was 18 years old and that's when he was diagnosed as a psychopath. Said he didn't really know what that was but had since looked it up. Said that he was (as is typical for psychopaths) superior to others as he didn't have fear, wasn't burdened by the "niceties" of society etc. That he didn't believe there even was such a thing as empathy or remorse etc. This is not the first time I'd read this. Another woman said she'd been in a Master's program for Psychology and a fellow student said the same thing. He didn't believe there was such a thing as empathy. She added that he'd gone on to become a psychologist. Makes you feel all warm and snuggly inside doesn't it?

This is the horror of psychopathy. They have no care or concern about others. They cannot gain any true insight into themselves or others. Even though it is many times through the empathy and care of others that we have any social programs etc, they (psychopaths) only see these things as vehicles to manipulate in order to further themselves or gain access to harm others.

It is really bad people. Reading one of Corrie Ten Boom's books (she was a christian dutch woman who's family hid Jews during WW11) brings something to mind. She'd been working at one of her girls clubs and had told them about the love of Jesus, how he died on the cross for their sins etc. One of the other teachers there chided her for this, saying that she should just teach about "good citizenship", how to be a good person. (How to "act right", if you will.) A few years later Corrie said she found out one of the girls she had witnessed to and who had given her life to Christ died (young). And Corrie said she was so glad she didn't just teach this little one to be a "good citizen."

Is this all we want? People who "act" like good citizens? Psychopaths can do this all day long, standing on their heads but what do we get? We get evil manipulators that are the epitomy of "acting right" yet DESTROY the souls of genuine-hearted people. Mri's checking for psychopathy and psychopathy awareness. We need this little ones.

9:42 AM  

From a web article titled "What Treatment Works for Psychopathy?
by Dr. Zoe Hilton (Senior Research Scientist)"

"3. No treatment will ever be effective. Psychopathy
is not even a clinical disorder that can be treated. All that
can be hoped for is a set of strategies that limit the harm
done by psychopaths by incapacitating the psychopath.
By the same token, not all clinical interventions require
there to be a clinical deficit or disorder in need of a remedy.
The best example is behaviour modification. Often provided
for seriously disordered and disabled individuals,
behavioural principles are also applied to healthy persons,
such as classroom management techniques or workplace
safety strategies. There is empirical evidence that this
approach has worked with some offender and violent
populations (although not psychopaths)."

The more I learn about psychopathy the more I really believe that there will not only never be a "cure," but that anything that we come up with, will make them much worse. Meds or electric shock or whatever I'm guessing will make them worse. Why? Because they are just what they were born to be. Evil. But we don't have to pretend and we don't have to deny this (that people with the brain functioning of a psychopath are evil) as THIS is where we really run into trouble. As we don't give ourselves a chance to protect ourselves or our loved ones.

11:12 PM  

"Charity begins at home" (cit)
Also bullying, in all its forms, has its roots at home, or in the lack of a genuine home. Scolding, or incest-rape, it makes no difference, PTSD is the consequence, that is, the loss of life quality or life itself.

8:49 PM  

A test for the emotional centre that is in evey NORMAL PERSON should BE done at birth.

If it is missing then it is a psychopath and it should BE DESTROYED immediately..

They ARE THAT BAD..

They take because they can not build themselves and they enjoy hurting people.

Then SHOULD YOU BE THE TARGET FOR DESTRUCTION LIKE I HAVE BEEN SINCE 2003.. YEP, attacks of every type including death threats & conspiracy to murder..

Then cyberbulling WHICH my the way IS 24/7 it not like when we were at school.

Bullying at school was only AT SCHOOL we got resoure at home & weekends. NOT so now adays.

A Psycho THAT has you AS HIS TARGET I'd determined to destroy you. I'd BE or WAS BB; Before Breaking, hence I lasted 11 years.
But broken IS devistating to me.

I'm no longer the VITAL AMAZIBG PERSIN O WAS.
Don't know IF I will be. SO I am medicated INSTEAD of him being in JAIL?

THERE SHOILD BE EASIER access by police to these cyber criminals details FOR PROSECUTION

to attack bot until they break you is a CRIME worse than rape (with due respect to the horrific acts done to persons raped. I am nit lessening your nightmares for this heinous act)..

3:05 PM  

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