JGeropoulas
The Living Force
After years feasting on the steady diet of truth served daily on SOTT, I found myself in a complex wrestling match with a "petty tyrant" who is also a text-book psychopath (is that always redundant?). The "complex" part has been, this tyrant is my younger sister whom I discovered had embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from my trusting father. Historically, this sister and I have never really had a cross word. But the reason we've always "gotten along", I've realized recently, is because I've intuitively just disregarded most of what she's said for the past 50 years! But, it's even easier now - I disregard everything she says.
I say "text-book" because she meets nearly every criteria on Robert Hare's psychopathy checklist ( http://www.webhostingtalk.com/archive/index.php/t-605464.html ). In fact, at a family gathering when I told everyone that "riddle" Laura had posted (a screening question for psychopathy, http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=4508 ), this sister answered it in 3 seconds. (I'd given up after 2 days pondering it!)
And looking back, I think the reason I've disregarded my sister all these years, is because I've intuitively sensed she's not "real." I see her as an automaton cloaked in lively religious fervency. She's really just an outer shell of a person--the classic self-righteous Pharisee, "a white-washed sepulcher, full of dead men's bones." Even when I look at her, she appears almost like a hologram or a "fuzzy photo-copy" of a person.
As such, she's oblivious to the emotional world of "real" people, so she obnoxiously tells everyone, "why, what, where, and how" to live their lives. And when someone finally reacts to it all, she has the most baffled expression on her face. But her expression doesn't appear to reflect concern about how she might have hurt the person, but more of someone calculating how to reapproach to get what she's after (and she's always, always after something--usually control, money, or influence).
Of course, she's "active in her church" (because "there's no rest for the wicked"), well-liked by many, and known for her "good works." Her duped friends have said to me, "she'd give you the shirt off her back. She'd do anything for you." To which I mentally respond, "No, she'd give you the shirt of MY back, and she'd do anything for you so she could get something FROM you!"
After auditing my father's books for 2 months, I've discovered that she's as crafty as a spider, tenacious as a vampire, opportunistic as a snake, predatory as a shark, and insidious as a virus. And as dangerous as a "wolf in sheep's clothing." Their brazen lying is truly one of the most amazing traits of a psychopath.
But all that said, one day I scolded my mother and normal sister, that neither grieving my father's death, nor out-maneuvering the tyrant-sister was draining me nearly as much as was de-programming them every other day from the mind-bending lies they'd hear--lies amazingly customized to confuse my 83-year-old grieving mother (who "just wants to believe the best about others") and my overly-compassionate nurse sister (who "hates to hurt people").
Confirming the finding that psychopaths recognize they're different from others, this sister once noted, she couldn't believe "how different" we three siblings were. That's because my normal sister and I have a strong conscience. Speaking of which, I recently read that the literal meaning of "con-science" is "self-knowledge"-- interesting to ponder, especially considering the adjectives we commonly attach (e.g. "darkened, defiled, warped, good, clear, enlightened).
Some of the best advice around is this: "Get the log out of your own eye, then you can see to get the speck out of your brother's." Otherwise, you've got "the blind leading the blind," which is bad enough. But psychopaths add a special twist:
First, to disarm you by evoking sympathy, they'd recount tales of all the logs they'd gotten out of their eyes (and likely, so narcissistic as to include even the genus and species of each log). Thus qualified, they'd heroically then offer to get the speck out of your eye--only then to viciously gouge your out your eye, blame you for having two, remind you can still see out of one of them--and then scream that you quit screaming because they've got a headache!
So, even though I've been a practicing psychologist for 18 years, had I not been alerted and so well prepared by Laura's research and writing on the subject, I wouldn't have been able--much less, willing, to see what was brazenly obvious to anyone in the family being objective (try finding a better oxymoron than that!).
Thanks to learning the truth about the psychopaths among us, I've been able to guide my mother and normal sister through dozens of strategic ploys thrown in our paths. It has actually become, as I believe Laura once described it, "fun" being one step ahead of my tyrant-sister--a feat NO one, including my parents, has EVER been able to do. Part of the "fun" has been that this "wrestling match" has become a "learning lab" from which I've been able to teach many essential truths to my budding-STO family members.
After my father transitioned to 5th Density, it was sadly-amusing when I found a little "bubble-gum machine" charm he'd banished "out of sight" to the back of a drawer. The charm was the proverbial little monkey, using his own hands to cover his own eyes--aptly engraved "See No Evil"! Can you think of a better symbol of the treachery we commit against ourselves? Is that STS programming "good"-- or what?!
Much thanks to Laura for staying true to the "Mission" she accepted after she got through that "cleft in the rock": To always speak only the truth.
I say "text-book" because she meets nearly every criteria on Robert Hare's psychopathy checklist ( http://www.webhostingtalk.com/archive/index.php/t-605464.html ). In fact, at a family gathering when I told everyone that "riddle" Laura had posted (a screening question for psychopathy, http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=4508 ), this sister answered it in 3 seconds. (I'd given up after 2 days pondering it!)
And looking back, I think the reason I've disregarded my sister all these years, is because I've intuitively sensed she's not "real." I see her as an automaton cloaked in lively religious fervency. She's really just an outer shell of a person--the classic self-righteous Pharisee, "a white-washed sepulcher, full of dead men's bones." Even when I look at her, she appears almost like a hologram or a "fuzzy photo-copy" of a person.
As such, she's oblivious to the emotional world of "real" people, so she obnoxiously tells everyone, "why, what, where, and how" to live their lives. And when someone finally reacts to it all, she has the most baffled expression on her face. But her expression doesn't appear to reflect concern about how she might have hurt the person, but more of someone calculating how to reapproach to get what she's after (and she's always, always after something--usually control, money, or influence).
Of course, she's "active in her church" (because "there's no rest for the wicked"), well-liked by many, and known for her "good works." Her duped friends have said to me, "she'd give you the shirt off her back. She'd do anything for you." To which I mentally respond, "No, she'd give you the shirt of MY back, and she'd do anything for you so she could get something FROM you!"
After auditing my father's books for 2 months, I've discovered that she's as crafty as a spider, tenacious as a vampire, opportunistic as a snake, predatory as a shark, and insidious as a virus. And as dangerous as a "wolf in sheep's clothing." Their brazen lying is truly one of the most amazing traits of a psychopath.
But all that said, one day I scolded my mother and normal sister, that neither grieving my father's death, nor out-maneuvering the tyrant-sister was draining me nearly as much as was de-programming them every other day from the mind-bending lies they'd hear--lies amazingly customized to confuse my 83-year-old grieving mother (who "just wants to believe the best about others") and my overly-compassionate nurse sister (who "hates to hurt people").
Confirming the finding that psychopaths recognize they're different from others, this sister once noted, she couldn't believe "how different" we three siblings were. That's because my normal sister and I have a strong conscience. Speaking of which, I recently read that the literal meaning of "con-science" is "self-knowledge"-- interesting to ponder, especially considering the adjectives we commonly attach (e.g. "darkened, defiled, warped, good, clear, enlightened).
Some of the best advice around is this: "Get the log out of your own eye, then you can see to get the speck out of your brother's." Otherwise, you've got "the blind leading the blind," which is bad enough. But psychopaths add a special twist:
First, to disarm you by evoking sympathy, they'd recount tales of all the logs they'd gotten out of their eyes (and likely, so narcissistic as to include even the genus and species of each log). Thus qualified, they'd heroically then offer to get the speck out of your eye--only then to viciously gouge your out your eye, blame you for having two, remind you can still see out of one of them--and then scream that you quit screaming because they've got a headache!
So, even though I've been a practicing psychologist for 18 years, had I not been alerted and so well prepared by Laura's research and writing on the subject, I wouldn't have been able--much less, willing, to see what was brazenly obvious to anyone in the family being objective (try finding a better oxymoron than that!).
Thanks to learning the truth about the psychopaths among us, I've been able to guide my mother and normal sister through dozens of strategic ploys thrown in our paths. It has actually become, as I believe Laura once described it, "fun" being one step ahead of my tyrant-sister--a feat NO one, including my parents, has EVER been able to do. Part of the "fun" has been that this "wrestling match" has become a "learning lab" from which I've been able to teach many essential truths to my budding-STO family members.
After my father transitioned to 5th Density, it was sadly-amusing when I found a little "bubble-gum machine" charm he'd banished "out of sight" to the back of a drawer. The charm was the proverbial little monkey, using his own hands to cover his own eyes--aptly engraved "See No Evil"! Can you think of a better symbol of the treachery we commit against ourselves? Is that STS programming "good"-- or what?!
Much thanks to Laura for staying true to the "Mission" she accepted after she got through that "cleft in the rock": To always speak only the truth.
