Why do people follow psychopaths, narcissist and sociopaths?

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neurotypicalET
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05 Sep 2017, 11:52 pm

I'm just curious, why is this so? Can't they tell that what another person is asking them to do is wrong. Don't they have enough common sense to realize that if a person spends too much time, effort and money to screw over another person is just plain sick?


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Joe90
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06 Sep 2017, 1:23 am

And yet Aspies supposed to be the naive ones...


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wrongcitizen
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06 Sep 2017, 2:56 am

Probably because they don't see the problem. We often see it because AS makes it hard to see social rules. To neurotypicals the manipulation of a Sociopath and the normal behavior of a person all blend in together as this set of behaviors while to us the Sociopath will stick out as odd or corrupt. At least for me anyways. I've gotten really good at spotting them, because they all have the same traits and rarely change their behavior, and don't recoil from criticism, but instead resisting it equally. It's like being an empath but not the same.

Actually, to tell you a funny story, I sort of attract sociopaths because they see me as a challenge. I am doing my own thing and they decide to come out of nowhere and start up a chat, but I'm cold towards them so I confuse them. They know I'm somewhat socially stupid but they don't know why, or how to take advantage of it. AS hasn't often been useful but in this case it is, because I feel like I can see right through their BS.



neurotypicalET
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06 Sep 2017, 5:10 am

I have taken a lot of online personality, mental disorders and empathy test lately just to better know myself, apparently I am more aware of other people's emotions/ situations than my own. I got sociopathic traits according to the test but because of my age which is above 25 I do not fit the profile. And I also have histrionic personality traits which I think what my mother had and not actually covert narcissism.I'm not usually emotional but I think I've just reach my limit I guess.


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Benjamin the Donkey
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06 Sep 2017, 8:24 am

"People are bloody ignorant apes."

--Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot


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06 Sep 2017, 8:41 am

Oh, let's see, how cynical am I feeling at the moment?
It is only 8:38 in the morning, can I even do cynical this early in the day?

Maybe because it saves them some of the effort of making and being responsible for their own decisions?
Maybe because being independent scares the (insert your favorite icky bodily substance) out of them?


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06 Sep 2017, 9:56 am

I was with an Aspie sociopath/psychopath type. I used to even be that type, but maybe I wasn't... maybe I just read a lot about psychopaths and was jealous they could get what they wanted from the world because they knew it would screw them over every chance it got. I was jealous of their success. I was jealous of the respect they got from other people, really. Because as an autistic I got NO respect. Back then I would RATHER have been seen as a psychopath/sociopath. I am not like that now. I have more empathy now/am more aware of the empathy I have now.



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06 Sep 2017, 10:14 am

kitesandtrainsandcats wrote:
Oh, let's see, how cynical am I feeling at the moment?
It is only 8:38 in the morning, can I even do cynical this early in the day?

Maybe because it saves them some of the effort of making and being responsible for their own decisions?
Maybe because being independent scares the (insert your favorite icky bodily substance) out of them?


I would agree with that. True independence/freedom seems to scare the living s**t out of...uh...most people.



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06 Sep 2017, 11:35 am

neurotypicalET wrote:
I'm just curious, why is this so? Can't they tell that what another person is asking them to do is wrong. Don't they have enough common sense to realize that if a person spends too much time, effort and money to screw over another person is just plain sick?



Because these people are manipulative and know how to charm and groom people even NTs miss it? Plus if you don't know anything about narcissism and stuff, you are going to miss the signs and it starts out slowly as the narcissist reveal their true colors and the victim continues treating their partner like they are normal. No one turns into an abuser overnight, it happens gradually and the victim just thinks it's a slip up and the abuser is apologizing and then it doesn't happen again until a few months later let's say and they miss the patterns as it keeps on happening and the apologizing again. I used to think my autism also had something to do with me picking the wrong men but now I think it was just me being naive due to my young age and lack of experience with dating and and I knew nothing about narcissism then and Borderline Personality Disorder. But I guess my mother would call it giving him the benefit of the doubt too. :roll: I also had another guy but he was no narcissist or sociopath, he was just lazy and wanted a mother and be taken care of. He was a schizophrenic so his laziness might have been attributed from it and he might have unintentionally wanted a mother to take care of him because he was not capable of doing that himself and him making excuses might have just been him trying to hide his mental illness. But yet he wouldn't get any treatment for his problems. I never last long with either of my ex's because I was smart to nope the f**k out than staying around and hoping the guy will change and getting him to change because what if they never do, then I have wasted my life with them. Plus it was getting worse.


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06 Sep 2017, 12:45 pm

Leaders are usually bastards IMO. Humans usually organise themselves into hierarchies. Some follow leaders because they are given no choice if they want a reasonably peaceful life. Others follow leaders voluntarily. I don't know why they do that. Nor do I know why most human societies are hierarchies.



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06 Sep 2017, 6:45 pm

League_Girl wrote:
neurotypicalET wrote:
I'm just curious, why is this so? Can't they tell that what another person is asking them to do is wrong. Don't they have enough common sense to realize that if a person spends too much time, effort and money to screw over another person is just plain sick?


I also had another guy but he was no narcissist or sociopath, he was just lazy and wanted a mother and be taken care of. He was a schizophrenic so his laziness might have been attributed from it and he might have unintentionally wanted a mother to take care of him because he was not capable of doing that himself and him making excuses might have just been him trying to hide his mental illness. But yet he wouldn't get any treatment for his problems. I never last long with either of my ex's because I was smart to nope the f**k out than staying around and hoping the guy will change and getting him to change because what if they never do, then I have wasted my life with them. Plus it was getting worse.
I find this a little bit confusing because you've never mentioned anything related to schizophrenia. You only mentioned him being lazy and wanting a mother which could be anything actually. I've also taken an online schizophrenia test and I always test negative. I mean it's kinda hard to miss visual and audio hallucination. But I'm lazy as f**k as of now which I can contribute to moderate depression. When I last work in a hotel we used to work from 8am to 10pm without any days off. I don't even know if that was legal I just did what I thought was necessary. In fact all my problems started happening since that job.


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neurotypicalET
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06 Sep 2017, 7:37 pm

It's kinda hard to post something when your being censored.


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06 Sep 2017, 8:28 pm

neurotypicalET wrote:
Why do people follow psychopaths, narcissists and sociopaths? I'm just curious, why is this so? Can't they tell that what another person is asking them to do is wrong. Don't they have enough common sense to realize that if a person spends too much time, effort and money to screw over another person is just plain sick?

Some people don't see ANY of what those three types of people, do----they just see someone who is giving them some attention, complimenting them, buying them stuff, doing stuff for them, etc. (something at which those 3 types, are VERY skilled), and it makes them feel better about themselves, and ups their self-esteem; so, if they can do something for one of those bad types of people, chances are, they will (even if it's wrong)----if it keeps the bad person liking them, and so-forth.....




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06 Sep 2017, 10:49 pm

First point, A sociopath is skilled and practiced at manipulation, and has often learned to get past the defenses of the average person.

Second point, what people actually look for in a leader and the traits that make a good leader are opposed. This may be due to false attribution (we attribute the actions of a well led organization to the personal qualities of the leader, not the result of effective collaboration amongst its participants).

To combine these points, a sociopath will present themselves as a model leader, while defeating the defense of a majority of people, they may also make efforts to earn a good reputation (via first impression), allowing later transgressions to be forgiven or minimised.

To his/her followers then, the sociopath looks in every way a culturally and socially acceptable character with strong leadership and broad support. It's only after it all comes crashing down that people say to each other "it should have been obvious".



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06 Sep 2017, 10:57 pm

I don't respect sociopaths much at all, had to give away watching that series "house of cards" Underwood's actions and motivations started to become physically painful to watch.



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06 Sep 2017, 11:17 pm

wrongcitizen wrote:
I've gotten really good at spotting them, because they all have the same traits and rarely change their behavior, and don't recoil from criticism, but instead resisting it equally. It's like being an empath but not the same.

Actually, to tell you a funny story, I sort of attract sociopaths because they see me as a challenge. I am doing my own thing and they decide to come out of nowhere and start up a chat, but I'm cold towards them so I confuse them. They know I'm somewhat socially stupid but they don't know why, or how to take advantage of it. AS hasn't often been useful but in this case it is, because I feel like I can see right through their BS.


That's a great skill to have developed! I'm better than average at spotting them, they try to use empathy against other people (it's like they know what the other person is feeling but can detach and take in into their calculation instead of being affected). It's also domain-specific (based on observation of past examples), so I can become needlessly mistrustful in certain situations due to a false positive.

I've met sociopaths who operated on motives of simple amusement, regular salespeople, money, charitable donations, religion, political thought (often quite extremist or radical), even conspiracy theories. The latter few types are no doubt valuable assets to the various armed terrorist groups worldwide.