Quoting a Reader who wrote the following thoughts on the topic of Psychopaths and the cycle of Idealization and Devaluation. I found it interesting and decided to respond in little more detail…
“From what I am coming to understand, which seems to deepen and/or evolve as time goes on, a person who is a psychopath may idealize someone when beginning a relationship with them, or, as you said, enjoy their company for the things they have in common. I get this. And for the record, many neurotypicals also end up hurting those they get close to. Maybe it’s for reasons that are different than yours, but it happens all the time.
My theory about what happens is this: As the psychopath gets to know the other person, he starts seeing what he considers weaknesses, such as insecurities, doubts, etc. (vulnerabilities that actually create intimacy and closeness in neurotypicals), and although the relationship started on equal footing, he starts gaining control and power…and as he does, his respect for the other declines, and so does his interest, and he becomes disgusted because he was let down (disappointed), and then finds the other worthy of nothing more than fun and games. I may not have chosen the best words here, but my idea in general is there. I’ll be looking for your blog post about this, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I might be in the ballpark somewhere, at least, and may have even hit a home run.”
You’re pretty much spot on. I used to wonder what they meant by psychopaths idealizing someone because it has happened so very rarely to me. But then I remembered a few occasions from the time when I was in my teens and early twenties. I don’t fall in love with people, but I can become fascinated with someone if I think they may know things I don’t, so I’ll want to learn from them.
There was this woman I met when I was in my twenties, she was a lot older than I was but still very attractive, and she made a pass on me. I responded because she appeared so strong, elegant, almost flawless. Since I’ve gained some knowledgeable about psychopathy I sometimes think about her, because it is very obvious that she was a psychopath. I didn’t know it at the time because I didn’t know any more about psychopathy than the average person does.
But as always in these rare cases when I do meet someone I think of as both strong and knowledgeable, also in this case I very soon lost any infatuation I had with this woman, because she blew it! It was very pitiful, really, she told me a really careless lie, and I thought: “You can’t even get something as simple as that right?!”. I also immediately knew she’d lied about other things that I had been impressed by when she told them to me, and as you can probably imagine my admiration disappeared instantly.
After that I dropped the relationship very quickly by showing her open disinterest whenever she was around. I knew she was somewhat bewildered about this, being obviously intelligent and therefore used to charm people easily, and then suddenly here was this young brad whom she’d taken on a vacation to Spain in Europe, and he’d so been enthusiastic about her, but now she just couldn’t seem to move him at all.
Of course, soon after that she lost interest in me too, since – though still interested in me – I just wasn’t easy enough to manipulate or bend, so after seeking me out twice, she gave up. We ran into each other a couple of times after that, and we were on good terms. Being a psychopath herself and much more experienced than me I’d have had no chance of playing with her anyway, and I sensed this just as she must’ve realized the same thing about me. So we respected each other, but there was no idealization anymore.
I’d almost forgotten… She actually did tell me once that psychologists in prison had said she was a psychopath. She never got around to tell me in detail about why she was in prison or about being diagnosed as a psychopath (that’s how short lived our acquaintance was), but it just isn’t likely that a clinical prison psychologist would call a prisoner ‘psychopath’ for no reason or out of anger. Of course I have no way of knowing how much she knew about how her psychopathy was reflected in how her personality was different from that of most other people, but I know she was very much aware that she was different and she would’ve said she was completely satisfied with being who she was.
I think she probably was as uneducated when it comes to the subject of psychopathy, as I was, and though she clearly had noticed some of the same traits in me, I’m not sure she had psychopathy in mind.
As for me, I didn’t put much trust in what authorities said, and I still thought of the word ‘psychopath’ as mainly a way for psychologists and mainstream to say: “I don’t like him!” about someone without actually having behaved “unprofessionally” or given away that they were emotional in their disliking of that person. A psychopath in my mind was our typical drunkard bully who couldn’t think of anything more interesting to do than beating up his wife every Saturday night.
