A commenter asked about narcissists vs psychopaths, and what the difference was.
I have dealt with a Narcissist, very closely, so I know that psychology very well. I grew up with a kid who in retrospect I suspect was a psychopath, so although my experience there is less, I think I understand the syndrome enough to compare them.
I view them as two ends of the amygdala spectrum, and in many ways, exact opposites, who end up very similar because of how the Narcissist hacks their brain, to make them function like the psychopath.
My view of the Narcissist is their amygdala is too painful when triggered, and their brain is not able to handle the stimulation of it. The narcissists I have observed would actually see their brains melt down when triggered, and it would manifest in what looked like incredibly unpleasant physical symptoms, almost combining a seizure, and the gastrointestinal upset and sickness of a major illness.
The psychopath is the opposite. Their amygdala is not there, so they don’t really feel fear. I am reminded of the character Hannibal Lector in the book Hannibal. At a critical moment, man-eating hogs are released, and rush toward Hannibal, who is holding FBI agent Clarice Starling in his arms. But the pigs move around Hannibal, because he feels no fear, and the pigs detect it. Although the scene is fictional, that is how psychopath brains operate.
Now narcissists, out of necessity, eventually hack their brains by using a false reality to shut off that amygdala-pain. They develop the ability to force their brain to believe something untrue, just so their amygdalae will feel relief and their amygdala will not turn on. I am quite certain it begins in childhood. As children however, I am not sure if they force themselves to believe an untruth, and that eventually becomes more more common as their brain finds it relieves angst, or if the untruth, when contemplated, is so relieving their brain cannot tell it from the truth. From their amygdala’s perspective, that would feel the same as when we find believing a falsehood irritating, and as a result we seek relief when we default to truth.
But once a narcissist develops this hack, now their amygdala’s influence on the brain and behavior is very similar to how a psychopath’s amygdala influences the brain and behavior. It is as if the amygdala is not there. The psychopath just feels nothing, while the narcissist alters their beliefs until they feel nothing.
I think they are different in other ways though. Psychopaths are, according to research, looking for stimulation. Narcissists, in my experience, are afraid of stimulation and are trying to control it. Psychopaths may have no fear, so they could do anything, but narcissists will be cowards when push comes to shove, because deep down they know they are running from reality.
So a Narcissist is driven toward hurting others as a way to assuage an amygdala that tortures him because others are happier than him, while the psychopath hurts people just because he wants the stimulation, and he has nothing holding him back. Both are evil, and detached from reality due to amygdala-defect, but they take different paths to get there.
From a practical sense, I saw some differences between the narcissist I knew, and the psychopath who grew up in my sphere. The Narcissist was haunted by amygdala. He was periodically angsty, desperate, and he feared exposure. He was running from reality, and he was very covert in his attacks on others. Everything was structured to minimize amygdala. Although his hack allowed him to avoid amygdala, he seems to still be stalked by it, and would take measures to avoid it.
The psychopath was more chaotic and disordered. He stole something unique once, and then freely used it in front of the person he stole it from, as if he thought they would never notice. My view was he could have unemotionally killed someone to take their wallet, and then spent the money, and afterward while in prison, he would have been grateful he had done it because he was probably always going back to prison, so at least he got to enjoy the money he stole.
A narcissist would plan the theft, and it would be done in such a way as to avoid detection and consequences, and he would not let the victim see it. If he ended up in prison, he might commit suicide because he couldn’t handle the amygdala angst from the reality.
The psychopath I knew struck me as very low IQ, but even if he had been clever, there was a critical planning function that would have been missing. When I think high IQ psychopath, I think Mitt Romney. I think Mitt is probably actually a decent guy in person, probably because he believes in his Mormon faith and abides by it in interpersonal interactions. I think he is also a hyper-competent leader. He had everything to be a successful presidential candidate, and his unemotional assessment of numbers makes him a business genius.
And yet, despite a sky-high IQ he didn’t have the ability to just sell himself honestly, nor did he have the ability to smoothly position himself as a politician and use lies and pandering to manipulate everyone smoothly. He was always strangely detached in a way that left him looking weird and phony to us to us, and his political moves had a color by the numbers quality to them. He lacked that amygdala, so he didn’t know the dog-on-the-roof-of-the-car story would bother people, rather than show them his leadership skills. And he couldn’t grasp how attacking Obama was not only moral, but would have won him the Presidency. He has no amygdala, and while it was great for number-crunching in business, it left him unable to really connect.
When I think high IQ Narcissist, I think Bill Clinton. He was totally immoral, and judging by his rages on staff a full blown narcissist. He lied all the time. Every word was a lie. But he had the ability to manipulate the masses because while he has poor amygdala tolerance, he knows how it works, and can use that to manipulate others and avoid consequences, at least in most cases.
The narcissist can be exponentially more dangerous than the psychopath in my opinion, because he will have told himself he is more clever than everyone, and he will have a very intricate plan to make his attack resistance-free, and consequence free. And because of the false reality he lives in, you may never be able to believe he would do the things he does, or understand the minutia he will be triggered by. And because that amygdala is so terrifying to him, any trigger can become a driver to produce any behavior, including murder.
The psychopath is capable of horrific things, but he probably won’t be as clever because he doesn’t have an amygdala, and thus won’t get any feed back from it. Again, think Romney vs Clinton. Even if Romney was malicious, be would never be as dangerous an adversary as Clinton. Clinton will be more charming, more difficult to see through, and he would plan things better to avoid all possible consequences, because for him that would be an obsessive compulsion.
But either one is dangerous, and you should steer clear of all of them.
If you’ve ever been around a narcissist (like a boss) and had them periodically “blow up” at the slightest things it is amazing to behold. Everything could be going great, functioning smoothly, generating big, big bucks- and BOOM- it’s like nuclear friggin war- it screws up the work flow- analysts aren’t thinking about how to make things more efficient, people quit, women go home crying. It’s just terrible to work for a narc and be about to achieve success- then lose it. It’s really demotivating too. It amazes me how these types always want to fail, and cost businesses massively.
A psychopath, on the other hand, will worm their way into accounts and abscond with all the money, but are probably kind of fun to be around- though not permanently.
Look at Dr. Fallon, he doesn’t look like that bad of a dude. You just don’t want to be around him in the apocalypse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx8RxRn6dWU
Re. Hannibal – he actually freezes in place when the hogs are released, and makes no movement until they have completely passed by him. Like you say, a certain lack of panic and fear.
That classifies the guy I have had experience with as a psychopath. My experience was initially he would be very likeable to people. But over time the lies and aggrandising would wear that facade down. He would keep behaving as if he were the most likeable person though. But the stories would keep getting wilder and wilder. He would never complete his work on time, and without fail somebody else would be to blame. He would take idea’s of others, and run to management as if they were his own. He would get angry at times, but never lost control. As if his anger had a purpose (it did imo). Anyway, I was glad the day he decided to leave.
I do not have experience with narcissists, though by coincidence I heard last week of a recent and local case where a woman drove her husband crazy until the point where he committed suicide. The woman had an official diagnosis of narcissism but the doctor failed to take that into account when “diagnosing” her husband (were she was present!). The husband was prescribed some drug and they were told not to leave him alone for the first couple of days. However they did, and that proved fatal.
I’d look closely at that husband’s death. You never know with narcissists.
Hey Anonymous can you think any Psychopaths that got into power?
I can only think of Genghis khan, Attila the hun, Vlad the Impaler & Erik the Red.
Some military leaders in WW2 manly in the Soviet and Nazi. Some of the mafia’s leaders and Intelligence Agencies but I can not think of a democratic elected political who is a Psychopath (maybe the first George Bush).
Most of the worst leaders in Democracies are Narcissists not Psychopaths. It might be the skill to convince people and fearing to be caught that a lot of Psychopaths lack.
I don’t think Genghis Khan (though i think he did have an Amygdala but damage) did not care what other thought of him, nor care about convincing others though speech (you did what he said or you got killed) and did not care about his own life (often putting his life at risk).
Though I would also like your thoughts on this one.
In times of order some Narcissists will do well since they do not have to use force, live in fantasy and can use others for their own good while avoiding the blame. The Psychopaths in times of order will do poorly since they can not control themselves and can not see the danger.
But in times of Chaos the reserve is the case. The Narcissists care too much of themselves and do not live in reality which you need to survive, so will poison the water of the most skill warrior because he broke their fantasy, betray the castle walls for a few coins and will run away when the fighting gets too risky. That will leave no where to go, no army to defend them and probably dying after the enemy has drag them by rope while on horseback.
Psychopaths loves the chaos. They will throw themselves and others head on if it can bring victory. They chase the person ran from the battlefield into foreign lands for revenge even if it causes war. They kill every men and livestock if the castle that they are sieging does not surrender the first time. Kill off entire civilizations for the deaths of two of their diplomats. Unfortunately they will keep the blood going and do not know when to stop. They help the chaos continue, burning everything that does not agree to serve them or their gods.
Back in the 60s, I read an article in I think it was Popular Psycholoy, stating that of all the characteristics to look for in a Presidential candidate, mental health was most important. If so, and if your amateur diagnoses are correct, we dodged a bullet with Mitt Romney, and got hit with Bill Clinton.
This guy was a psychopath for sure. No doubt. Alcibiades. Some had an intense hatred for him, some great love. It was Alcibiades that pushed the great idea of attacking Syracuse on the Athenians. The failed Syracuse attack was THE downfall of Athens. The failed attack destroyed them completely. The same Alcibiades went from city to city in the ancient world. In Sparta he was more Spartan than the Spartans. Changing his chameleon skin every time he moved somewhere else and betraying everyone he came in contact with. Alcibiades killed Athens with risky schemes to glorify himself.
Story of Alcibiades
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Alcibiades*.html
What did Plutarch have to say about him.
“…He had, as they say, one power which transcended all others, and proved an implement of his chase for men: that of assimilating and adapting himself to the pursuits and lives of others, thereby assuming more violent changes than the chameleon. That animal, however, as it is said, is utterly unable to assume one colour, namely, white; but Alcibiades could associate with good and bad alike, and found naught that he could not imitate and practice. 5 In Sparta, he was all for bodily training, simplicity of life, and severity of countenance; in Ionia, for p65 luxurious ease and pleasure; in Thrace, for drinking deep; in Thessaly, for riding hard; and when he was thrown with Tissaphernes the satrap, he outdid even Persian magnificence in his pomp and lavishness. It was not that he could so easily pass entirely from one manner of man to another, nor that he actually underwent in every case a change in his real character; but when he saw that his natural manners were likely to be annoying to his associates, he was quick to assume any counterfeit exterior which might in each case be suitable for them…”
http://www.ancient.eu.com/Alcibiades/
One thing not widely known is King Agis of Sparta hated Alcibiades because Alcibiades had a child by the Kings wife.
Psychopaths of the competent type are some of the best actors ever. I think it’s their nonreaction. No emotional cues from their bodies hides that they’re lying. I think subconsciously that we humans rely a great deal on these subconscious body reactions to tell if people are lying and when there’s none there we assume that someone is telling the truth.
I have a theory that the period of time for the downfall of Empires is related to how long it takes psychopaths to move up the ladder of leadership. If a way is not found to restrain them the country disintegrates.
Something you should always keep in mind about Mitt Romney. He took over several companies with leveraged buy outs. These were old line basic industries that made stuff like paper envelopes stuff like that. These companies had no debt and employed a lot of people at fair wages for an older company like this. He then loaded them up with debt, meaning they no longer paid any taxes to the Treasury of the US, and demanded huge “consulting fees”. Some of these he destroyed all together when they couldn’t take the strain wiping out decades of business gains and the retirement of these people. He’s a predator plain and simple and cares about nothing but for himself.
Oh yeah, he is a psychopath. I just think he is probably nice in person, like if he was a neighbor, as long as he isn’t able to steal your house or something without a consequence.
Though I don’t actually know him, so I could be wrong.
Psychopathy, narcissism, etc. are not toggles — one is not “either” a psychopath or not, or a narcissist or not. It’s a continuum. Traditionally, a person who has “some” empathy/conscience but not a ‘normal” amount is considered a “sociopath” rather than the more extreme “psychopath,” but the fact is that a very large number of people have varying degrees of sociopathy, narcissism, or both.
The reason that you can be both is that more recent studies have suggested that the difference is not whether or not the amygdala is working, but in the white matter connections between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. In other words, psychopaths have a functioning amygdala, but the prefrontal cortex is not talking to it well. In contrast, psychopaths have increased connections *within* the prefrontal cortex, which makes sense in that psychopaths can be very good at analyzing and manipulating people, consistent with greater connectivity within the prefrontal cortex.
See: Korponay C, Pujara M, Deming P, et al. Impulsive-antisocial psychopathic traits linked
to increased volume and functional connectivity within prefrontal cortex. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience , 2017, 1–10 doi: 10.1093/scan/nsx042 (pdf is available for public download at the University of Wisconsin Koenig’s Lab in Psychiatry).
If the problem is not in the amygdala itself, but in communication *with* the amydgala, then your hypothesis that narcissism and psychopathy are mutually exclusive is not necessarily supported. In fact, narcissistic traits are common in psychopaths — though narcissistic sociopaths are more common than narcissistic psychopaths, just as a matter of diminishing cohorts.
I agree it is a spectrum, but I also think they are opposites mechanistically.
I don’t see psychopaths needing that false reality. They know fully well, and don’t care. A Narcissist actually believes he never did something he did do, until total evidence is put in front of them, at which point you have a full brain meltdown into sputtering rage and loss of control. I have seen it and done it to them. A psychopath in that situation smirks, because you caught him, and now he will play it a different way, and try to charm you as the incorrigible rogue. It is a seamless change of plays. They are, operationally total opposites.
But, they seem similar, and may share the exact same traits in places. But it is because the Narcissist is hacking their brain, (or rather the narcissist’s brain is hacking itself without telling the narcissist), to produce a psychopath-like functionality, because they need to go to the other end of the spectrum to function. Short circuit the hack, and they go into the meltdown mode they would always be in without the hack.
I think the problem is people are saying a psychopath may have narcissist traits, and a narcissist may have psychopath traits, because they know they are different. But they don’t realize the narcissist is mimicking the psychopath as an adaptive mechanism, so in some ways, operationally they are the same, even though functionally they are opposites.
So a psychopath would be someone totally lacking in emotional range – some sort of biological damage or genetic defect, whereas a sociopath would be a malignant narcissist, someone with an overly capable emotional range that has been consciously subverted and walled off as a self-defense measure?
That would indicate that most “Born Again Psychopaths” refocus their stimulation-seeking with “God as the ultimate rush.” A relatively easy shift if it is able to happen. By contrast, a “Born Again Sociopath” should be remarkably difficult – a lifetime’s worth of psychological defense measures would need to be torn down and reworked. That would require a true Saul on the Road conversion experience or probably organic brain damage to physically rip out the narcissistic defense circuits.
Bill Clinton has to be one of the most effective narcissists seen on the global stage in recent decades. A true maestro. And “Man in the Middle” is correct, we did dodge a bullet in Mitt Romney. Thinking of him as a psychopath modestly reinterprets his meltdown on stage in 2012 during the Crowley attack – Romney had no emotional range to adapt with.
In contrast to Mittens, Trump pwned Megyn Kelly’s more devastating attack in only three words; that took effective emotional insight and range. Trump is also a far better tactical and strategic mind than Bill Clinton, but nowhere near as good a narcissist actor. He’s never needed to rape a woman, for one – highly “Gamma” behavior on Bubba Bill’s part. Still, to steal Scott Adams’ turn of phrase, Trump’s talent stack is exceptional; the ringmaster and actor skillsets are good enough, and combined with everything else… damn.
There is a lot of terminology in the field, and it is constantly changing, it is tough to keep up with. I read a few times, it used to be that a psychopath was basically an amygdala-less robot with no empathy which was born that way. A sociopath was similar but was formed through neglect during the critical developmental period when a baby, so they never developed a human connection. The Narcissist appears to usually have gotten into early childhood somewhat normal, when repeated abuse and trauma caused their amygdala-pain to grow so intense they had to hack the brain, and rewrite everything they see as a false reality which they would emotionally bond to, because to give it up is to go back to being in amygdala agony since their amygdala is just too triggerable.
As we have rabbitized, these things keep changing though, and my understanding is that psycopaths and sociopaths became seen as derogatory terms, so it became Antisocial Personality Disorder, but that was seen as an attack on the person’s personality, so it is now conduct disorder for the younger set, which I assume will make its way up to categorize adults next. I’m sure at some point Psychopathic killers will be diagnosed with Not As Friendly As Friendly People Behavior (NAFAFPB).
My take on Trump is he is a totally non-pathological introvert, and that has allowed him to see where all of those pathologies are unusual, study them, and adopt their techniques to do good. I suspect he is really a good person at heart who wants to see others happy.
I agree totally on Adams. To look at Trump is to just say, “Damn….”
What about the people who insisted, from the moment they heard the news, that Sandy Hook never happened, it was all actors and fake blood, the alleged victims never existed, etc.? Are they aspiring narcissists desperately trying to quell the fear of being randomly cut down by a lone gunman?
I’m not sure with Sandy Hook. Some of them cite legitimate bullshitery. I’ve seen the “sniper” carrying his AR by the mag, with the optics upside down, running around like he didn’t know what he was doing. Nobody who owns an AR carries it upside down by the mag, which is designed to pop out. My theory is sometimes bad things happen, and the media, being a variant of show business, may produce extra-footage to air to make a story more interesting. My guess is there was almost no video at Sandy Hook, and somebody may have created a scene so there would be video to show, and emphasize how bad an event it was.
We saw that with a photo of an early spacewalk, which today they can show was actually created from a training photo. They didn’t have a camera out there to document the spacewalk, so somebody took a photo of an astronaut in his suit training in a pool, blackened out everything else, and claimed it was taken in space. No doubt, the photo was bullshit. but at the same time, the walk probably happened.
And that was back when I would have assumed everyone was more honest. Today, who knows?
Truth be told, we are all lied to so much of late, who knows what to believe these days.
What causes the intense amygdala irritation to begin with though? Or does it matter? I’m thinking of a boy I knew in grade school that lived with a domineering single mom and freaked the hell out when a girl noticed he’d taken her pen (apologizing profusely etc). So then I could see a narcissist adapting to that excess of guilt by shutting the ability to feel guilt altogether, because otherwise they’d walk around in a constant panic over trivial things.
It’s also pretty grim because a person is going to be almost completely resistant to change and honest self-reflection if doing so immediately results in harsh mental and physical agony.
“…“sniper” carrying his AR by the mag, with the optics upside down, running around like he didn’t know what he was doing. Nobody who owns an AR carries it upside down by the mag, which is designed to pop out…”
That sniper guy looks just like one of the “stricken” parents. Same moles etc. and no one, no one ever in the history of planet Earth that has training as a sniper carries an Ar-15 by the magazine. Not only that a sniper would carry his sniper rifle and not carry an Ar-15 at the same time.
The overhead shots by the helicopter that day of the supposed shooting show police cars blocking the road to the school. They refused ambulances to drive to the school. I can’t imagine that happening ever. The helicopter footage also shows people just wandering around in random motion. The whole thing looks stupid. Add in Gene Gene the crying machine,”oohhh the children came to my house and told me their teacher was dead”. The whole thing is so fake. There’s even another thing most people didn’t notice that I did. There’s a vent hood off the roof where it appears the cafeteria is. That’s right a big mushroom shaped vent hood is missing and water can run right in the cafeteria exhaust vents. I;ve seen other pictures that show the building appearing to be abandoned with supplies stacked in the halls. The vent hood missing adds evidence to that. Here’s a picture of a vent hood and then Sandy hook school
http://www.aikencolon.com/assets/images/Fantech/RoofMountedFans/Fantech-Axial-Ventilator-Industrial-Roof-Vent.jpg
Now look on the front on top of that wall the round vent sticking up with no top. There’s another with thew top on at ten o’ clock in the same picture. No one leaves these off. No one. There’s a fan in the top of all of these and to get to it you remove the vent hood. If you’re working on it you remove the fan then put the top on. Even if it was being worked on the hood should be on the roof and I don’t see it. Notice the snow no one would leave this off on a working building.
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/reuters/2013-05-03t201651z_1_cbre9421kc700_rtroptp_3_usa-shooting-connecticut.jpg
I happened to notice it on the helicopter video and it stood out like a sore thumb to me as I’ve worked on those before so to me it was immediately obvious.
Here’s a picture of Gene Gene the crying machine on the day of the shooting. Look to his right. So they just happen to have a portable check in sign at the fire station on the day of the shooting.
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/EveryoneMustCheckInsign.jpg
I can’t say a 100% Sandy Hook is a hoax but…there’s a LOT of stuff that doesn’t add up. Add in a guy, former State trouper, who used to run safety programs for schools, including shooter type drills, who says none of the proper procedures were followed and says he believes the whole thing is a lie.
Just for fun here’s a picture of our fake swat guy. Holy smokes this guy is a dipshit. Look at his sling dragging the ground. Look how he’s carrying two guns. Just how do you shoot a sniper rifle and a AR at the same time???
http://i.imgur.com/1Ql0lBU.png
Here’s a frontal picture.
http://i.imgur.com/SLr1Uyt.png
Now here’s one of the grieving Fathers. See a resemblance? If you look for him there’s other pictures and I swear they’re the same guy. One more of Wheeler.
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