Pawns and Patrons

One of the reasons it is hard to recognize the abuse by a psychopath/sociopath is that they don't treat everyone the same. Their masks are carefully maintained, and like predators, they prey on those they see as weak or least likely to defend themselves. This includes people who are sensitive and empathetic, because those sensitivities make them easy to manipulate. Also as it says in much literature about bullies, they pick on those who are not as socially savvy, which means they have less of a support system. Meanwhile the rest of the people in their life merit different treatment, sometimes very good treatment ... depending on how useful they are.

Narcissists tend to thrive on narcissistic supply, keeping near them people who feed their ego and fragile sense of self. To protect that self they eliminate and avoid those who might damage that ego with pesky things like reality. This goes deeper than vanity, and those who cause a narcissistic injury to their fabricated reality, will suffer an explosive reaction or feigned indifference. There are no middle grounds with a narcissist.

However a psychopath/sociopath, though steeped in their own esteem, is more about their agenda than their ego, though it also is important. For them, it is about gaining power and influence either over an individual or in the case of work, gaining a position that will grant them the most influence and power. While they may seem like an ambitious ladder climber, they will do so on the backs of those around them. And they will be drawn to fields that offer the most influence and chances to exercise their power and manipulation over others. Those professions in order are: CEO, Lawyer, Media (TV/radio), Salesperson, Surgeon, Journalist, Police officer, Clergy, Chef, and Civil servant. It's not that power corrupts, but that it attracts the corruptible.

The psychopath/sociopath does more than just keep their flatterers close like the narcissist. Everyone is sorted into pawns or patrons and that is usually due to the individual's perceived power. "Workplace psychopaths are often charming to staff above their level in the workplace hierarchy but abusive to staff below their level." The only reason they are really nice to anyone is because they want something, and their charm is only a superficial mechanism to attain what they want and covers their general disregard for people who can do nothing for them. In studies on empathy, what appears to be empathetic giving to those on the outside can in fact be a manipulation to gain ground that is motivated by self interest within the group. This is usually done only for the Psychopath/Sociopath's inner circle or people they wish to control or use.

Media, ironically the 3rd highest proponent of psychopaths/sociopaths, has shaped our view on what psychopaths and sociopaths are. They are seen as killers like Dexter, but in fact there are plenty of psychopaths and sociopaths that live relatively normal lives free of crime. However they are never free from behaviors that are manipulative and controlling. They lie without compunction. They manipulate people for their own gain, and they have no remorse about it. When they hurt someone, there is no guilt, only their agenda. They may be only verbal bullies, playing mind games, or just getting the job done in their own mind. The ones raised in a privileged environment often become corporate ladder climbers with less risk of legal penalties, while the less privileged are higher risks for legal penalties. 

Separating people into patrons and pawns is more than just treating those with less rank as inferior or being a diva. It goes deeper than that. On first impression it is hard to tell who is a psychopath or a sociopath. They are charming and have highly developed social skills, which tend to bypass internal warnings. Most people like them on contact and that is by design, as they are also known for being good at manipulating their appearance through clothes and makeup. They are seen as above average intelligent and attractive. They may even appear to be an empath but this is mimicry, designed to smoke out other empaths who are easier to manipulate. Their proclamations in that area are nothing more than words and it is an act. This is why it is said that when a psychopath or sociopath smiles, it doesn't reach their eyes, because the genuine emotion in the eyes is not there. It's just an act. This is one reason they make such good actors and it's the 3rd highest field for them. They're the magpies of emotions.

The character, Amy Burly, on TrueBlood is a very good example of this hidden psychopath. When she first meets Jason, she lies, to keep them from getting caught, looking for V, which is illegal. No rules here, and a decreased sense of fear, which points to psychopathy. However, in her mind, she performs acts which society deems as good, so she views herself as good and by her condescension, better than others. But then she has no actual empathy for those around her, manipulating and controlling to get what she wants, which is another hit of "V" and Jason's support. Meanwhile she takes the lead setting herself up as the mentor spiritually with Jason, seeing his desires and playing on them. All the while she is in control, dictating everything in the relationship, setting herself up as the authority. The vampire that sees through her is ultimately killed by her, and her only concern is containing the situation and manipulating Jason. There is no remorse, only control, and the only person who saw her as the psychopath she actually was, was dead.

When a psychopath/sociopath enters a situation with new people, they begin assessing those people as pawns and patrons, weighed up according to a person's usefulness. This may make the psychopath seem opportunistic at most, but also positively seen as driven and ambitious. While a pawn has some influence or talent and is easy to manipulate, a patron has formal power and will be used to protect against attacks. They will manipulate pawns, but they will be far more interested in playing nice in manipulating their patrons. The more the power or prestige a person has, the nicer they will be to that person whether they have money or happen to be capable of including the psychopath/sociopath on projects that might have potential for power. This is when carefully crafted tales will be spun. The ... "psychopath will create a scenario of “psychopathic fiction” where positive information about themselves and negative disinformation about others will be created, where one's role as a part of a network of pawns or patrons will be utilized and will be groomed into accepting the psychopath's agenda." This agenda often includes advancement, and once a person has served their purpose in elevating the psychopath, they are discarded while the psychopath/sociopath takes that position for themselves. 

Those who oppose them will be character assassinated to maintain power, using others known as apaths to either discredit the person or torment them. This is the byproduct of the before mentioned psychopathic fiction, which if believed, makes the psychopath look like a saint and projects onto the victim all the darker aspects. One of the more insidious ways of this is when they seem to be taking the moral high ground. The psychopath/sociopath will drum up sympathy by seeming to be sympathetic to their victim, "the other person just doesn't understand" and makes it seem like they are compassionate in order to enlist others to try and push the victim into falling in line with the agenda, or simply to promote themselves in the eyes of others. This is often not helped by the individual who was singled out, usually being very angry and hurt at being abused by a psychopath, and thus the lie becomes easier to believe in the face of the victims hurt anger. This is by design, because although the person singled out may see the psychopath/sociopath's true colors, the saintly performance is still fully employed with others. This is workplace bullying at its darkest. The psychopath/sociopath is not some spiritual guru to maintain such calm, they simply don't have remorse for their actions, which they deem completely acceptable on the way to their goal.

This justifying of their own actions is often a double standard, if someone were to do the same to them, they would not spare criticism.  Psychopaths/Sociopaths will not take responsibility for these actions which they deemed necessary, because to do so might weaken their position and that's all they really care about. This ruthlessness is part of their general disregard for rules and the boundaries of others. Pawns and patrons may be used in other ways to gain power, as psychopaths and sociopaths tend to have no problem sleeping their way to the top, or using their power to have relations with those lower in the ranks. Regardless, those around them are not as important as the power they wish to attain, and are only objects to manipulate. I could go on, or I could share the list from the Wikipedia article on Psychopaths in the Workplace.

• Public humiliation of others (high propensity of having temper tantrums or ridiculing work performance)
• Malicious spreading of lies (intentionally deceitful)
• Remorseless or devoid of guilt
• Frequently lies to push his/her point
• Rapidly shifts between emotions – used to manipulate people or cause high anxiety
• Intentionally isolates persons from organizational resources
• Quick to blame others for mistakes or for incomplete work even though he/she is guilty
• Encourages co-workers to torment, alienate, harass and/or humiliate other peers
• Takes credit for other people's accomplishments
• Steals and/or sabotages other persons' works
• Refuses to take responsibility for misjudgments and/or errors
• Threatens any perceived enemy with job loss and/or discipline in order to taint employee file
• Sets unrealistic and unachievable job expectations to set employees up for failure
• Refuses or is reluctant to attend meetings with more than one person
• Refuses to provide adequate training and/or instructions to singled out victim
• Invades personal privacy of others
• Has multiple sexual encounters with junior and/or senior employees
• Develops new ideas without real follow through
• Very self-centered and extremely egotistical (often conversation revolves around them – great deal of self-importance)
• Often borrows money and/or other material objects without any intentions of giving it back
• Will do whatever it takes to close the deal (no regards for ethics or legality)

To understand more about how psychopaths work, check out the Wikipedia article.
Below is an episode of Monk that is one of the best illustrations I've seen on being singled out by a psychopath/sociopath. It's more than just simple bullying, and they pick the person most likely to see through them to tear down. This person is usually an empath, sensitive, and less socially adept. If there is a question, which one is the empath and which is the psychopath, the empath is usually the one with fewer people skills. The empath is the giver and the psychopath/sociopath is the taker. Who's taking the lead, dominating conversations, and in the spotlight? Because it's all about the psychopath/sociopath and their power. The problem is that it's a lot easier to control people by directing their hate, and by doing so deflecting criticism. This is how they work and this is why it works.

"Let me tell you something about the people. Lock ten of them in a room and they may not pick a leader but I guarantee you, they will pick someone to hate." - Dennis Hopper
The estimates in the population for psychopaths and sociopaths goes as low as 4% but I've seen as high as 10%. That means that you probably do know more than one. You probably like them, and they seem fun and care free. Probably because they are, by definition, lacking in concern for many of the areas that other people have. They are ambitious and opportunistic. While these by themselves don't make someone a psychopath/sociopath, they are symptoms along with a propensity for lying, jealousy, self-centeredness, and a disregard for boundaries. If you encounter one casually, you probably won't notice anything amiss. It's when you get closer that the trap springs. You may not even know you're trapped till you try to get out. These darker personalities can do a lot of damage, and it can take an immense amount of time to heal.

Counseling with one will not help because they will just manipulate the counselor too, making them another patron. They will not change, all they change is victims and methods to not get caught. Counseling just makes them better manipulators by revealing your weaknesses, or allowing them to excuse their inappropriate behavior as being mentally ill. They may even use that as a crutch for special treatment. My ex committed himself after he took his first swing at me and I kicked him out. He had the counselor called me, because I was avoiding all contact, and so it snuck past my radar. It was a conference call, and I heard this innocent psychologist, completely snowed by his victim act, try to pull me back in for him. She was appalled when I informed her that he had threatened to kill me and drove 90 miles an hour to a dead end into the interstate, for mentioning divorce. He had been billing me as the villain and him the victim, as many of these types project onto the victim. She had believed him as most do, and when he tried to backpedal or dismiss my claim, I'm not sure they ever grasped what he was. Even though this reworking things to fit, rewriting history and circumventing things they are guilty of without addressing them is all part of their controlling perception. Even my family was trying to push us back together, feeling sorry for him after committing himself. He had them believing that I was blowing things out of proportion, until he almost succeeded the next attempt on my life.

If you've been singled out, chances are you are not only a victim, but being made the villain as well through blame shifting, gas-lighting, and character assassination. This is to break any support that you might have, keep the victim silent, and to avoid alarming anyone else to their true nature. It is a deeply unsettling position to be abused and taking all the blame as well. It messes with your memory and reality and makes one question if they are crazy. Ironically that's a question they would never ask themselves due to a sever lack of self awareness, or because it was a planned manipulation which seems reasonable to them. They don't question themselves if they are the problem, or if called out on something, consider that maybe they might have done something and try to understand. This is why many people develop memory problems after abuse. When they play with your mind, they literally damage it, and you can develop PTSD. The traumatic moments are seared into your mind while becoming forgetful in other ways. Meanwhile your abuser tends to have a cast iron vault for memories. Liars tend to have excellent memories in order to keep track of their lies, while honest people do not need to expend such energy, but suddenly feel the need when dealing with the ever changing chaos just to keep up! Studies have also shown that those with great self control tend to have worse memories, while psychopaths tend to be impulsive.

Again, I could go on, list out all the horrible experiences I've had, all the situations that fell soundly into the psychopath/sociopath description, and relay how twisted their minds work. I could express the frustrations at being both victim and projected onto as the villain. I could tell you how it has ruined my life and how I stayed longer than I should have out of hope for a person that was not who I thought they were.  Feeling sorry for and reaching out to help people got me used and abused, while draining my resources financially and emotionally. The thought of leaving but knowing the fall out would be horrible, kept me tolerating and trying to slowly withdraw only to be pulled back in again and again. But the thing is, even with all this information, and all that I've learned, I still get blind sided by them. Looking back, I can see all the red flags, but as a certain cartoon commented, "when you look at people through rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags". While posting about this, I want to help other people not end up like me, it's still hard to explain unless you've been there. So here's another article by someone who's been there called The Dance with the Devil and some excerpts of why being an empath or codependent makes you easy prey for these types. I encourage you to watch the episode of Monk at the bottom. Like I said before it's one of the better illustrations I've seen of how psychopaths and sociopaths work. You can see how they cover their tracks with pawns and patrons, and how Monk is singled out as a threat and people are turned against him, because he sees through the act. You can see how this tears apart Monk's support from people who could help him, and how the charm of a psychopath/sociopath seems to override all reason. And if anything else, it's a good show. But as Tom Clancy said, "the difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." In reality, the psychopath/sociopath aren't so neatly wrapped up in the end.

"The Sociopath uses his or her intuition to find a person to take on a support role in the his/her life and to keep them happy in that role until that person is invested in the relationship. This is called The Hook. Empaths are great support people. We will listen to the Victim’s story, we will help him with his projects, and if we haven’t healed our dependency issues, we will do this in exchange for having material support or for having a sense of purpose and belonging in the world."

"Abusers of the Cluster B Personality Disorder Type are usually charming, attractive people. They know how to make the Empath feel special, but they are shut off from their hearts in order not to feel that worthlessness. They are also liars. He lies to himself, he believes his own lies, and then he tells those lies to the people around him without knowing he is lying.

The Empath starts thinking that she is the crazy one, when it is he who is actually ill. He is so focused on his outer image that he is willing to sacrifice reality (and the Empath). Unfortunately, the Sociopath has usually gathered enough people around him that are willing to go along with the facade. These people, unlike the Empath, do not get past the outer shell and fall for the facade. Or worse, these people catch glimpses of the unhealthy inner core, but do not call him out on his behavior. These people would rather live by appearances as well. As you can imagine, this living-by-appearances is crazy-making for the average Empath. She begins to doubt herself; the Empath can get stuck in a mental loop of analysis of the situation and the relationship without making the realisation that the Hero is happiest living a lie and wants it that way.

However, eventually the relationship disintegrates when the Empath either becomes so drained the Hero has to find another support person, or the Empath leaves the relationship out of desperation for her sanity. For many Empaths it can feel like an act of survival to leave this relationship while everyone else involved thinks the Empath is the crazy, over-reactive one. Most Empaths who have been through this scenario have been in the relationship for years."