Last Victory Day, an Omsk pensioner killed her roommate by stabbing him in the throat with a kitchen knife. Before this, the couple had not quarreled, at least the neighbors did not record disturbances in the calm. What’s even more interesting is that it turned out that this same old woman killed her previous partner with a knife seven years ago, also on Victory Day. Hence the question: could the deceased 72-year-old man have recognized a monster and murderer in his girlfriend in advance? Is it even possible to understand in advance that not everything is fine with a partner? What personality traits should you be wary of when choosing a life partner? And what to do if a dangerous partner is already nearby? Doctor of Medical Sciences, head of the department of forensic psychiatric prevention of the State Scientific Center for SSP named after V.P. told Lenta.ru about this, as well as about the chemistry of love and the right approach to creating a family. Serbian" Oksana Makushkina.
Who is a psychopath?
If we talk about terms, then psychopath is an abbreviation for the term “mental pathology”. Simply put, a psychopath is a predator who takes advantage of other people through charm, deception, violence and other methods to get what he wants.
Photo from the site matrony.ru
Of course, everyone shouldn’t be labeled as a psychopath. We are all human, and at different moments in our lives we may not be friends with our heads. But a psychopath differs from an ordinary, adequate person in that his inadequacy is a permanent state, not a temporary one.
And the problem is that identifying a psychopath is not so easy. You can easily connect your life with him, suffer for a long time and persistently, being in a close relationship with him. So, for example, it is very easy to get him as a husband or wife, as a lover or mistress, as a friend.
Fell, woke up...
Borderline disorders are not always an inherent personality trait. They can appear after suffering exogenous hazards: head injuries, neuroinfections (encephalitis, meningitis), intoxication, including alcohol surrogates, which adversely affect the brain. But most often these are injuries.
A person has an accident, gets hit on the head, a year and a half passes, and suddenly the one who was previously calm and balanced becomes hot-tempered, irritable, picky, and does not tolerate alcohol well. As a rule, such people react to changes in weather - their mood changes, irritability increases.
- What should be done in this case? - Professor Makushkina continues to explain. — If an injury or severe infection occurs, you need to get help from a neurologist: nootropics, vascular drugs that improve the functioning of the brain, must be used in courses and not just once, but for a long time. The reversibility of symptoms depends on the severity of the injury, the person’s ability to recover, age and treatment. In any case, this disorder will not go away on its own.
Professor Oksana Makushkina
Photo: Pavel Orlov / Lenta.ru
Why is it easy to get into a relationship with a psychopath?
Unlike normal people, psychopaths are extremely pleasing to others. This is their special ability. And they use it when they strive to have a close relationship with someone.
Photo from the site korysno.pro
By the way, as a rule, psychopaths have increased sexuality. They are more sexual than normal, attractive and more tireless in sexual matters than normal people. This is explained by the fact that their animal essence dominates over their spiritual human essence.
Psychopaths literally charm people with their understanding and attractiveness. This mechanism is similar to the behavior of killer flowers. A psychopath is capable of seducing you into any relationship with him - from family and love-sexual to friendly. And then slowly and persistently it will begin to “devour” you. And then he will simply forget about you, taking from you everything he needed.
Refusal to take medications
With schizophrenia, in addition to thinking and the emotional sphere, the patient’s critical attitude towards himself also suffers. Patients often ask the doctor to reduce the dosage of medications, and often they themselves “quietly” stop taking the medications. They motivate this with the words “I feel better.” It is not possible to influence the patient's decision through persuasion. The result of refusing to take medications is placement in a hospital. After discharge, the scenario repeats. What can you offer relatives? In modern psychiatry, there are prolongation drugs - medications that are prescribed by injection once or twice a month. They are as effective as tablets and are more convenient to take.
Energy in a peaceful direction
The patient, diagnosed with schizophrenia, a young, beautiful woman, discontinued her medications on her own after discharge.
Over the course of a month, there was a sharp deterioration in his condition: delusions of religious content, aggression towards relatives and, as a result, forced hospitalization. This was repeated until a certain point, until something changed her attitude towards treatment. Perhaps it was the reluctance to end up in the hospital again. Maybe the endless conversations with the doctor had an impact. But the following happened: she began to regularly take medications and visit her doctor. The woman channeled her irrepressible energy into helping homeless people. She picked them up on the street, gave them food and shelter in her home for a while, then accompanied them to a shelter for the needy. She spoke enthusiastically about her charitable activities. This patient was never admitted to the hospital again. Do you want your wish to come true? We invite you to a transformational psychological game that will make your dreams come true!
Living with a Psychopath
You can live with a psychopath. And you can even live happily. True, for this you need to be just like him, a psychopath. That is, to profess and adhere to the same principles in life as he does. If not, then your life with him will turn into an eternal hell, from which you can only get out by escaping from the “inadequate”. Don’t even hope to change it, since psychopathy is a state of personality and psyche, and therefore incurable. With modern methods and medications of psychotherapy, psychopathy can only be slightly corrected.
Photo from the site bm.img.com.ua
Phase 7: Overcoming Shame
Shame is a natural reaction to abuse and is the reason why many cases of abuse go unreported. However, it is extremely important to discuss it if you have experienced this feeling with family members, friends or professionals. It is necessary to seek help, firstly, because you do not deserve shame, just as you did not deserve violence.
It's not your fault: the psychopath is a social predator, and you became his victim.
Secondly, the very feeling of shame makes you an easy target for further manipulation. Think of abused wives who, despite beatings and verbal abuse, beg abusive spouses to return to the family or find new abusive partners. Moreover, a psychopath will be able to turn your sense of shame against you just as easily as he played on your shortcomings, needs and fears from the very beginning.
Don't let the shame of being fooled stop you from seeking help and advice; Don't put this weapon in the hands of a psychopath.
Here are the 19 most significant signs of psychopaths:
- Psychopaths are not just attractive - they are charming. Especially at first glance. Sweet, intelligent and smart.
- The charm of psychopaths always helps them to catch people in their networks and force them to do what the psychopaths themselves need. Riding others is their favorite pastime. They know how to flatter like no one else.
- Psychopaths speak well. They can easily give out a real acting monologue, forcing those around them to listen to themselves with their mouths open. They most likely won’t let you get your word in.
- Psychopaths are never consistent in their lives. Frequent changes of places of work and study, love partners and even views. In the distant era before electronic books, you could easily find 10-20 books on a psychopath’s desk, which he started reading and abandoned everything at the very beginning.
Photo from the site st.kp.yandex.net - Psychopaths lie constantly. To everyone and for any reason. They lie to no avail and do not particularly try to hide it. The actions of psychopaths are often at odds with their words.
- They do not recognize any norms of behavior and moral laws, and often legal laws, considering them unnecessary, fictitious restrictions. They can steal, deceive, mock people and consider this to be completely natural behavior, to which they have every right.
- Psychopaths don't respect anyone. They always consider themselves superior to their surroundings. In a work team, a psychopath who is at the bottom of the administrative ladder can easily jump over the heads of all his bosses and go to resolve the issue directly with the head of the organization, sometimes literally bursting into the boss’s office to do this.
- Psychopaths become angry very easily and can be frightening. However, they also calm down easily. Switching between rage and calm can be almost instantaneous.
- In communication, a psychopath adheres to a condescending and contemptuous tone. He always does this when he doesn’t want to seem very nice, as he knows how to do. And even in relation to people older than him in age and position. Such condescending and contemptuous behavior of a psychopath, his ironic half-smile on his lips in response to all the objections of his opponent, often drives people to a state of white heat. If this happens, the psychopath patronizingly tells the opponent to calm down. Or, on the contrary, he falls into inadequate repentance: he begins to wring his hands, kneel down and ask for forgiveness.
- A psychopath blames others, most often people close to him, for his own shortcomings and misdeeds. At the same time, he is well aware when he is telling a lie. But very often, at the moment of an argument, he begins to blame his opponent for this same lie, driving him crazy. This is the goal of a psychopath - to deprive his interlocutor of peace of mind.
- Psychopaths are two-faced and multifaceted. They can change their masks every minute. Just now a psychopath played the role of an “evil policeman” in front of you and immediately turned into a “miserable child” who should be pitied. But as soon as you soften, he will immediately try to “bite” you again.
Photo from paidagogos.com - Psychopaths do not remember good, but always remember the evil done to them. And they not only remember, but also greatly exaggerate it. When communicating with a psychopath, you will always be aware of how terrible his parents, grandparents, acquaintances, partners, school teachers, kindergarten teachers and everyone else were. How they all did not accept him and treated him all his life.
- When communicating with a psychopath, you may get the impression that this person simply does not understand that he hurts people. You might even want to explain it to him. There's no need to rush. You can rest assured: a psychopath always knows that he is hurting, and he does it on purpose.
- Psychopaths never have long-term good relationships with anyone. They have no friends, they hardly communicate with relatives, their love partners run away from them.
- When driving, a psychopath often adheres to a dangerous driving style: speeding, cutting off, pressing. It gives him real pleasure to see other people's fear, especially if he is not alone in the car.
- Psychopaths love to make their romantic partners feel jealous. They can easily come on a date and bring with them a “friend” of the opposite sex. This behavior is demonstrated by both male and female psychopaths.
- Psychopaths sleep little. Usually no more than 4-5 hours a day. And almost all the time they are in a state of excitement and “business” activity.
- In their sexual life, psychopaths often have perverted needs and force their partners to satisfy them.
- Psychopaths have a reduced sense of danger. They often engage in extreme sports.
Phase 6: Awareness and Understanding
Over time, constant lies, inconsistencies, negative emotions and comments from friends and family will lead you to believe that you were a pawn in a psychopath's game. It will take a long time before you are convinced of the validity of your suspicions and accept this fact. Once this happens, everything will get better.
Once you realize what happened, you will feel like a simpleton. Many victims of psychopaths say to themselves: “How could you believe such a lie?!” This is a natural reaction, but it comes with a price.
People who feel fooled are reluctant to share this and, instead of trying to find confirmation or justification for their new opinion about the psychopath, begin to avoid others. Maybe those around you really didn’t notice, but in any case, it’s much better to trust your friends and family than to allow yourself to be tormented by your own stupidity.
Talking to someone about your experiences and writing about them in a journal is a good way to release negative feelings. You may want to write down everything that happened after your encounter with the psychopath.
And of course, you need to make sure that all your things are in place: bank account, credit card, documents, computer, phone. It is very important to distance yourself from the psychopath and take steps to protect yourself from retaliation from him. It might be worth posting your story (anonymously) on a website for support groups for victims of psychopaths.
How to communicate with psychopaths?
If you want to maintain your mental health, it is better not to communicate with them at all. You can and should abstract yourself from them. If fate brings you together with a psychopath in your personal life, run away from him, if with your boss, quit. If the psychopath is a colleague you meet every day, but who is not your manager, simply ignore him, no matter what he says or does.
Photo from the site www.wmj.ru
And most importantly, trust your instincts and intuition. If you think someone has psychopathic traits, stay away from that person to avoid being manipulated or pulled into a relationship that will only hurt you.
Suicides
Suicidal behavior is another problem that relatives of patients with a psychiatric diagnosis may face. And the most unpleasant thing about this behavior is the fact that a suicide attempt is difficult to predict. A person can carefully hide his intentions if he has made a final decision. Sometimes the patient manipulates in order to attract attention or gain some benefit. However, distinguishing between a demonstrative patient and a patient who has decided to commit suicide can be difficult and sometimes impossible. The most dangerous is the so-called extended suicide, when the patient decides to “save the suffering” of other people, for example members of his family. And first he kills his relatives, and then himself.
Depressed parents
“My mother seems to be a kind and sincere person, but she sees her whole life in a black light. As a result, 90% of our conversations boil down to her whining about the terrible weather, terrible health, terrible news on TV and how she suffers from the fact that we see each other so rarely. But how can I communicate more often if, after an hour of talking with her, I become so depressed that I might as well drown myself?”
Depressive disorders are also a very common occurrence both among the young and apparently prosperous, and among the old and sick. Of course, difficult living conditions, serious illnesses (for example, oncology), and the loss of loved ones increase the likelihood of their development.
It is important to distinguish between chronic depression (depressive disorder) and that caused by certain sad events (reactive depression). In the second case, the person will eventually return to normal, but in the first, episodes of melancholy and melancholy will accompany him throughout his life.
Depressed parents aren't all doom and gloom. They are cold and distant, which is especially unbearable for children. Often they are passive, helpless and dependent; they constantly need to be rescued because they have difficulty coping with ordinary tasks. Sometimes they are irritable and suspicious.
Depressed people often talk about illness and imminent death, even if the person is only 40, they may have a specific “cemetery” humor.
Depression differs from the “ordinary blues” in that a person remains in it for a long time (months, sometimes even years), and a pessimistic outlook spreads to everything around.
If parents become sick and unhappy only when they need something from you, most likely they are manipulators (which also does not guarantee their health, see “Psychopathic Parents”).
Depressed people cannot believe that things will change for the better, which can make it very difficult to motivate them to get treatment. Some people suppress depression with alcohol, which is especially typical for men. Depression is often accompanied by anxiety. In addition, it can manifest itself at the level of physical sensations: inexplicable pain in the heart, in the abdomen, a feeling of weakness, heaviness.
How to help depressed parents. In many cases, antidepressants can work wonders: the eternal “whiner” turns into a completely cheerful person who suddenly has interests and plans for the future. In addition to a certain amount of pills, depressed people need a lot of support - both moral and in practical matters.
It is important to understand that love and understanding alone cannot cure them. Such people have a black hole in their soul that cannot be plugged, no matter how hard you try.
How to help yourself. To maintain your own sanity, you will have to dose out the support provided. Decide how many hours of complaints per week you are willing to endure without fatal damage and how many practical requests to fulfill (their flow will never dry up). Recognize that you are doing this for yourself, and not for the sake of winning your mother’s love: until depression is cured, the flow of complaints about life, as well as about your callousness and inattention, will not stop.
