What is the best way to deal with sociopaths?

Post Reply New Topic

I am the type of person that when I meet someone I can determine in under 5 seconds whether he or she is a sociopath. I am not sure how I am able to do this, but I am rarely wrong.

I don't know how to deal with them.

It seems like a no win situation. Ignore them and their inappropriate behavior and they become angry and probably will become violent. Engaging them opens someone to manipulation.

What is the best way to do deal with these wretched people?

I'd say, try to avoid them as much as possible.

Some questions if I may
What traits do you look for to identify them?
What are the inappropriate behaviors that they do to annoy you?

Are these co-workers or is it possible to avoid them altogether?

It's in your best interest to avoid these people as much as possible. If you're talking about the kind of people I have in mind right now there's nothing you can say or do.

Spot the sociopath. Ignore. Walk away in a public, well lit space, and tell everyone you know to avoid this person.

If they talk to you, and you can't ignore them, engage them in superficial chit chat, play dumb, play like you're in a rush, and that will save them face, and give you an opportunity to leave.

Socio- and psychopathy are mere concepts spawned from outdated pseudo scientific pathological profiles. If the people you refer to are actually narcissists or antisocials, then I agree. I can sense them. There's something off about their body language and once you see how they interact with other people, it becomes very evident that there is nothing but mirroring coming from those lifeless eyes. And I am usually blind and deaf to body language as a whole! Then again, I grew up with a NPD father. All I can say is...

I disagree completely with catering to them. Avoid them, yes. But make sure to display confidence, if not dominance. While there are differences between the two, the only way to treat either of them is to show them that you are absolutely not afraid of or impressed by them. This is the most important part! A diagnosed antisocial person once told me that he never thinks about others, that hr completely disregard others as a whole. But that when he knows that someone is afraid of him, he (and I quote) "Will go out of my way to torture that person both physically and mentally". A narcissist is most likely going to retreat when embarrassed after all, but an antisocial person might snap, no matter how large the crowd is.

Well, what if the sociopath is your downstairs neighbour? That complicates the whole 'ignore and avoid' stratagem, now doesn't it?

I usually can sense (those who I believe are) sociopaths and narcissists well myself. I have no idea why. They seem really obvious to me and their fake charm is off-putting.

I try to just avoid them because they creep me out.

No it doesn't... you just move to another appartment.

According to my research, most sociopaths will ask you to do favors for them and never do anything in return

1. The next time they ask you to do something for them, just say no.

They are very charming and can lie coolly but do a good job of making you believe them. EG- They lie about being a job training coach by getting you to believe that you are learning new skills because he promised you a job with a company. Meanwhile he/she are charging you money. When the training is done you never see that money

2. Never give anyone like that the money

3. Don't tell them anything about yourself

I was asking because there was a circumstance when I could not avoid this person.

This is my dilema. I always think that if I show I am not afraid of them or impressed by them, it will make them more angry than they already are. Maybe my thought process is flawed.

I also always believed that if I were to outwit them, which I know I am capable of doing, it would make them more angry. Again, maybe my thinking is flawed.



Can I receive clarification of this? This is seems contradictory.

Isn't a sociopath both narcissistic and antisocial?

I think I'm starting to get good at detecting them because most of them seem to act the same.

Sometimes when I tried to avoid people like that they would seem to follow me and interact with the people was around to get closer to me. It seems like they don't really follow me much if I don't make it as obvious that I'm avoiding them.

No, NPD is a little different. A narcissist has no real sense of self, therefore constructs a false one. Builds more and more by fantasy, grandiosity and mirroring (of other people's personalities). The term they use for other human beings and interactions with them is supply. Admiration and attention. It can get histrionic in the sense that even negative attention is good enough. The narcissist, not being able to empathize, disregards the wellbeing of others on a regular basis. At times they shoot for that, other times it would not even occur to them. But of course sadistic individuals exist. An antisocial person needs no supply, they simply disregard others as a whole or might simply enjoy torturing others. Maybe it's correct to say that for a narcissist, life's a chess game. Where they are always the winner, with their own imposed rules, of course. While with the antisocial person, it's more of a crash rally.

I'm sorry if it's all a little dry. Unfortunately there is one person in my family who has NPD with antisocial tendencies. That is unpleasant to be around, as you can imagine. Personality disorders are not acknowledged where I am from and it took me years to get out of this abusive environment. I learned to heal because I sought contact with NPD and APD individuals (I am adventurous) who made me understand their ways. You have to experience a narcissist up close in order to understand what it does to their surrounding, it's a different kind of torture. I'd rather bump heads with an antisocial individual than to be sucked dry by a narcissist, that's for sure. You asking whether ignoring them or even outwitting them is going to backfire? It surely can. But it could with anybody else! And I believe that that's still the healthier option than letting them in your head.

There are antisocial people who actually argue that a sociopath is conditioned/raised, while a psychopath is simply born. Others say both terms are utterly useless to begin with and that we should stick to personality disorders. I think once someone voluntarily hurts others, it's irrelevant what we call them. Always remember. Don't let them sniff the fear, if there ever is any. These days, I am more afraid of my neighbor's pet pheasant.

It seems like a lot of Autistic people are actually BETTER at noticing sociopaths and narcissists...that's interesting. I notice them pretty quickly too, mostly because of how easily other people get entranced by them. But I actually have a few friends who are sociopaths.

The thing is that being a sociopath (Antisocial Personality Disorder) doesn't necessarily have to mean being a bad person. They ARE capable of empathy; they just have to consciously decide to empathize. If you meet one of the ones who makes that effort, then I say it's fine to go ahead and be friends with the person, as long as you remain aware of yourself and don't let that person take advantage of you. If you really do want a relationship with a person like this, you will have to be willing to put up with some ridiculous BS. I'm fine with it, if only because I know I'M not the easiest person to get along with either. Sociopaths can actually end up being incredibly loyal friends.

But of course, you won't know if the person is truly empathizing right away. It took me years to figure out if my friends empathized or not--before that, I just interacted with them without judgment while making sure to keep myself safe and watching out for others who seemed to be falling under their grip. A lot of sociopaths don't actually have much control over the effect they have on people. Even when they don't MEAN to make people like them, they do--it's a subtle body language/tone thing that I can't really pick up on, so it doesn't work on me.

But even if your sociopath doesn't empathize and you don't want to be friends with it, it's OKAY to still interact with them on occasion. Just because a sociopath touches you doesn't mean you're automatically going to get manipulated. If nothing else, being Autistic can help us tell when someone's trying to elicit emotional reactions from us, since the person will be behaving illogically and we are often not affected in the same way that most people are.

Just don't give up any of yourself. Don't go out of your way to do things for the person unless you'd do those things for any other stranger. Don't TRY to piss off or antagonize the sociopath; don't cater to them and DON'T try to dominate them (seriously, a show of dominance is just asking for some kind of power struggle). If you have to have acquaintance-level interactions with the person, don't interact any longer than you're comfortable with and don't let the person throw you off balance.

Narcissists are a bit different, but as long as you don't pay much attention to them or try to make friends with them, you're perfectly safe. Narcissists don't tend to be as violent and want to surround themselves with people who can adore them, so if you just remain indifferent they'll probably leave you alone for the most part. Pissing off a narcissist isn't nearly as bad as pissing off a sociopath.

When it comes down to it, you're the only person who can decide to trust one of these people, and they really do need your trust to do too much damage to you--unless you piss off a sociopath, but there's no need to do that. As long as you don't get too deeply into interactions with these people, you probably won't have much of a problem, and at worst will have to witness some annoying/obnoxious antics.

I'm pretty sure I posted a reply in this Thread, was it deleted?

That is not true, nomral. The narcissist in my life resorted to violence, further threats and stalking. Narcissism is a spectrum. There's differences between overt and covert behaviors, borderline mashups and then there's the malignant narcissists who could get diagnosed with both disorders. In my opinion, a malignant narcissist is worse to be around than any person with APD. And the line between lack of empathy and sadism can be very, very fine. Have you ever heard antisocial people talk about how they torture animals or people? I would argue that if you do not feel empathy and love (or very selectively so, that one's up for debate), you couldn't care less what someone else feels like. Why would I go out of my way to hurt someone if I didn't care? I don't buy into that "because I was curious" BS. They're not curious, they wish to violate. To find satisfaction in being cruel or to see a live fleeting away. It all comes back down to that nasty power trip of theirs, which the cluster B disorders all revolve around.

Antisocial people tend to make very reckless decisions, just because they don't have the finesse for more covert actions. And certainly not the patience! Never. While a narcissist quickly becomes a master manipulator, can lie in wait and look out for the best moment to attack the prey. You have to know for yourself what kind of people you surround yourself with, but always remember that their behavior and attitude can certainly rub off.