The Successful Pathological

Pathology Education teaches that pathological partners come in all levels of social and economic success.

Survivors say, "He's a doctor" to which I respond "SO?" So what. Doctors, attorneys, clergy, law enforcement---it's not the job that's pathological--- it's the character and personality disorders underneath.

Pathologicals flock to all types of careers. Those with high levels of narcissism and psychopathy flock to areas where they are experts, heroes, or are able to climb high up the career ladder. These disorders 'want' adoration. You don't get a lot of that on the back end of garbage truck as a worker.

Paul Babiak and Robert Hare wrote about this in their book 'Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work.' The book examines the rise of white collar psychopathy in our country and in the work place.  Some forms of pathology hide very well within their careers and success. A subconscious belief system is "If they are successful, they must be ok."

A degree from Yale means he's smart. It doesn't mean he's safe. A doctor that saves 'others lives' doesn't mean he won't take yours. Clergy who will pray for others souls doesn't mean he isn't soul-deadening in a personal relationship.

We only have to look at the nightly news to see examples in our culture of those within the 'helping profession' who were really predators. Pediatricians who sexually abused children, religious leaders who led the sheep astray, psychologists who had sex with their clients, trusted financial advisers who stole people blind, loving partners who murdered their wives and children.
People who appeared 'normal' or 'successful' to others were disguised dangerous and disordered persons.

Pathologicals with a lot of success and money are often the hardest ones to leave according to their partners. They have more connections, can pay off more bribes,get better outcomes in court, skip on retraining orders, talk their way out of all sorts of legal issues because of who they are, what they have, or who they know. Partners are at a disadvantage when leaving the wealthy pathological.

'They are sicker than we are smart' is a logo we have long taught in Pathology Education. Leaving a successful pathological is often difficult because non-pathological partners can never be as deceitful, conning, or manipulative to fight on their turf. Non-pathologicals don't think in those terms so their sickness ends up as gain for them--up the career ladder, out of the marriage, or anywhere else they want to go.

In the end, success, career, or wealth has NOTHING to do with mental health or your safety. Career is just that. It's what they do for a living or the vehicle in which they hunt their prey.

Just Because You Believe It, DOESN'T Make It True

I am reminded frequently that this statement is so true when it comes to denial in pathological love relationships. There’s something about a narcissist and psychopath that can make you forget all about their pathology and return to your previous ‘fog’ of beliefs.  F.O.G.–Fear, Obligation and Guilt.

Entrenched in the partner is the dire desire to have a normal partner. Couple that with the NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) and PP’s (Psychopath’s) ability to convince you of their, at least, fleeting normalcy and you have a woman who has dug her finger nails into the nano-second of his normal behavior and she’s not gonna let it go! Otherwise highly educated, bright, and successful women can be reduced to blank-stared-hypnotized-believers when it comes to believing he is normal, can be normal, or that it’s her that is really the messed up one.

Many therapists miss this process in working with the partners–they feel they have made substantial headway in helping her (or him) understand the nature of the unchangeable-ness of the disorder and then what appears to be out of nowhere, she’s blank-staring and hypnotized yet again.

The only thing that has changed is her belief system. Obviously an NPD and/or PP is not capable of true sustainable change. He didn’t change. But her desire to believe his normalcy and to deny his pathology is the only thing that has changed.  It’s not so much a ‘change’ per se, as it is a return to straddling the fence about the belief system.

Most partners live a life of cognitive dissonance–this conflict between ‘He’s good/He’s bad’ that is so distracting they never resolve the internal conflict of whether he is MORE good than bad, or MORE bad than good. They live in a fog of circulating remembrances that support both view points–remembering the good, but still feeling the bad. This circulating remembrance keep them straddling the fence with the inability to resolve a consistent belief system about him.

This inability to hold a consistent belief system is what causes cognitive dissonance, it’s also what increases it and causes intrusive thoughts. Dissonance is caused by thought inconsistency which leads eventually to her behavioral inconsistency–she breaks up and makes up constantly.  Thought and behavioral inconsistency increase Dissonance which increases Intrusive Thoughts. No wonder she can’t get symptom relief!

Her desire to ‘believe it’ doesn’t make it true. It doesn’t make him normal. It doesn’t cure his NPD or Psychopathy. It only keeps her stuck straddling a belief system that has caused her emotional paralysis.  In a crude way of understanding this–the only thing that happens when you’re straddling a fence is you get a fence post up your butt! Try moving when your paralyzed by a fence post!

Just because you believe it, doesn’t mean he’s ok, he’s going to stop doing the thing he said he’d stop, that counseling is going to work, that there never was anything wrong with him, that it’s probably you….or any of  the other items you tell yourself in order to stay in a relationship of pathological disaster.

Even Benjamin Franklin said “We hold these truths to be self evident…”  For us in the field of psychopathology, these self evident truths are that pathology is permanent whether you believe it or not.