“Splitting” is considered a characteristic of people with Borderline Personality Disorder. It means seeing people as either all bad or all good. But they’re not. Most people — no, all people are a combination of traits. “Good” and “bad” are subjective.They usually refer to what is beneficial or harmful to our egos. Really? I thought only psychopaths are supposed to be so fixated on our own well-being. But, guess what! Everyone is looking out for number one. Even the most selfless look out for their well-being. Otherwise, they wouldn’t survive.
Everyone thinks in terms of “good” and “bad,” even when we know better. It’s human nature. But most of us realize that people are a combination of both. Splitting is considered a “symptom” of a personality disorder because represents unrealistic thinking. Although I’m not a Borderline, I can relate. We want to avoid the bad and reach for panaceas. The panaceas change from time to time. Sometimes, it’s a noortropic. Sometimes, it’s a political candidate. Sometimes it’s a job we want. But we, well, I, sometimes think my life would be so much greater if only I had fill in the blank.
But with splitting, the panacea is usually a person. And the panacea’s evil opposite is also a person. I just made an interesting discovery. I was on one of the anti-path pages and I realized that these haters are also guilty of splitting. They see narcs and ‘paths as the BAD and empaths (themselves) as the GOOD. (The most alert reader will notice that I’m also guilty of splitting, making the authors of these pages the BAD. I call them “haters,” after all. Oh, well, I’m only human and they do direct an enormous degree of negativity at a group I belong to. Disclaimer: I realize these “haters” are human too and have good qualities as well.)
A dandy blog I recently discovered called Flying Monkeys Denied states, “We’re not Narcissists, Sociopaths, or Flying Monkeys… we’re Empaths.” Claiming Empathy is like flying a banner, displaying a badge of pride. I belong to some Facebook groups relating to Cluster B, Psychopathy and Sociopathy. Members of these group sometimes express skepticism that all the members are genuine. Who is the real deal and who is a “wannabe?” I wonder if the same thing happens among self-proclaimed “empaths.” I don’t think every NT (neurotypical) is really an empath. The Mind Unleashed defines empathy as “when you are affected by other people’s energies, and have an innate ability to intuitively feel and perceive others. Your life is unconsciously influenced by others’ desires, wishes, thoughts, and moods. Being an empath is much more than being highly sensitive and it’s not just limited to emotions.” Do the Flying Monkeys Denied test members for empathy. “Personality disorders” can be “diagnosed” by professionals. I doubt if they “diagnose” people with empathy as it’s not considered a disorder.
The blog addresses the reader as if it is assumed s/he is an empath. “Simply knowing (from an intellectual standpoint) that a person who is attacking you is guilty of egocentric and toxic thinking can help you depersonalize and compartmentalize abusive key terms, mind control methods.” See? You are the good guy. Anyone with whom you are at odds must be the bad guy. How do they know? Anyone can be reading their blog, even someone like me.
Cluster B consists of four “disorders,” Histrionic, Borderline, Narcissistic and ASPD. The latter is used as a stand-in for psychopathy or sociopathy. Many psychologists think ASPD is inadequate as a substitute term but that’s another subject. The people on Flying Monkeys Denied, however, expand ASPD to four separate categories:
- “Sociopath” (accessible using the hashtag #Sociopath) ~ a hyper desensitizing emotional response to being victimized or traumatized at an early age
- “Psychopath” (accessible using the hashtag #Psychopath) ~ people with aggressive or violent antisocial personality tendencies by nature and nurture
- “Narcopath” (accessible using the hashtag #Narcopath) ~ Narcissists with comorbid Anti-Social personalities
- “Dark Triad” (accessible using the hashtag #DarkTriad) ~ Malignant Narcissists with comorbid Psychopathic or Anti-Social personality tendencies
I notice they define a psychopath as someone with “violent antisocial personality tendencies.” This is incorrect. Some psychopaths are never violent. The biggest dispute with using ASPD as a stand-in for psychopath is the behaviorist focus on external behavior rather than the inner workings of the mind. You can be emotionally detached, unempathic and conscience-free without ever performing a violent act. The last two categories really look like one. A “Narcopath” and “Dark Triad” are both defined as “Narcissists with comorbid Anti-Social personalities.” I think these empaths just can’t decide whom they dislike the most, narcs or psychopaths so they created a category lumping both together. Whatever. Anyone under the ASPD umbrella is bad news.
We are told, “If you see a Narcissist or a Sociopath walking into a bar, you are hanging out at the wrong club. Stop duck hunting, excuse yourself politely, and run — don’t walk — to the nearest exit. Narcissists and Sociopaths cannot control their impulse to lie, manufacture chaos, engage in crazy-making behaviors, and socially destroy clueless targets by betraying confidences, engaging in serial cheating, and/or spreading false rumors about them behind their back compulsively all the time.” Sadly, so often people don’t realize that when talking about people, they may be speaking to the very person they are talking about. Psychopaths have been the subject of discussion by psychologists, psychiatrists, 
pundits and “recovering victims.” We have been portrayed in Hollywood drama, the subject of documentaries. Our speaking for ourselves is a fairly recent occurrence. Now we have a voice in the blogosphere, on Quora and even in books. We are still demonized and I doubt that this will end anytime soon. As with anything that is demonized, we are also glamorized. This can’t be an accident. I think it is splitting again. The thing we find most unacceptable acquires a certain allure. Jung talked about it.
The truth is that we are just people, neither devils nor angels. Empaths aren’t angels either. They do plenty of terrible things. We are all individuals, all a combination of qualities, some of which are probably in conflict with each other. The reification of a group of people is a way of stylizing them, raising them to the level of a Platonic ideal. Just remember, an ideal is just that. It’s an abstraction not part of the universe we really live in.
Links
- A New Way of Looking at Narcissism: understanding vs. hatred – Down the Rabbit Hole
- Shit Haters Say. Lucky Otter’s Haven
that many Americans have just been abandoned by the Democratic Party. They want their damned existence to be acknowledged and they will achieve that by voting for the other side. “Trump’s election is going to be the biggest ‘fuck you’ ever recorded in human history.”
Then there are Leftists who consider Hillary so corrupt that it either doesn’t matter which side wins or that Hillary is worse than Trump. There are plenty of those around on 
Christopher Allen Driscoll takes an even more dire view not only about Hillary but about Obama. “As America’s premiere Soviet-Russia expert, Stephen Cohen, has said many times in the last year, this period under Obama has brought us closer to nuclear confrontation than any since the Cuban (really, the Turkish) Missile Crisis of 1962. It looks as though Obama has been chastened by the opposition of the American people and is now backing down from WW3, but he still has two months in power. The price of survival today is constant vigilance. Now that the batshit crazy nuke-wielding banshee has been defeated and sent into retirement, don’t relax. Stand up to Obama’s nuclear ambitions and don’t relax till he’s gone.”
On the opposite extreme, are people who supported Hillary and really believed in her. 
My own opinion is that Hillary is a corporate drone. She stands for neo-liberalism, business as usual, the status quo. Bernie Sanders would have brought change. Hillary is a grievous disappointment. Many people, myself included, are bitter about how Hillary seemed to fight Bernie more vigorously than she did Trump. I blame her for Trump’s victory. She was a weak candidate. I also blame Stein and Johnson. Johnson took enough votes away from Hillary to give Trump Florida. I also blame Bill Clinton’s failure to protect fair voting. That allowed enough voter-suppression to also have made the difference.
The clearest and most on-target statement about the significance of Trump’s victory came from Bill Ayers. He reminded us of how racist Trump’s campaign really is. He nailed the pundits for their many platitudes trying to minimize the seriousness of what has happened.
For the white people who voted overwhelmingly for Trump, their candidate embodied the anti-Obama backlash. Pundits who say race was not a factor point to rural, predominantly white counties that went for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but now went for Trump, and to the low black and Latinx voter turnout. However, turnout was down overall, not just among African Americans. Post-election analysis shows that as a percentage of total votes the black vote dropped only 1 percent compared with the 2012 election, even while the number of black ballots counted decreased by nearly 11 percent. (Why this happened is beyond the scope of this essay, but one might begin with Greg Palast’s findings about voter suppression and the use of “crosscheck” to invalidate ballots.) Moreover, claims that nearly a third of Latinxs went for Trump have been disputed by the website Latino Decision, whose careful research puts the figure at 18 percent. The turnout does not contradict the fact that Trump drew the clear majority of white votes. This is not startling news.
Ayers points out that Bill Clinton was, himself, a force for reaction. Clinton “oversaw the virtual destruction of the social safety net by turning welfare into workfare, cutting food stamps, preventing undocumented workers from receiving benefits, and denying former drug felons and users access to public housing; a dramatic expansion of the border patrol, immigrant detention centers, and the fence on Mexico’s border; a crime bill that escalated the war on drugs and accelerated mass incarceration; as well as NAFTA and legislation deregulating financial institutions.”
life, hoping I won’t be harmed too much by the “
This is where I live, in the heart of the beast. If nothing else, life is going to be “interesting.” Many parts of the world have it a lot worse than I/we do. With a little luck, I will die before my own country reaps the chaos it is sowing. Until then, I’ll be a “good German” and keep my head down.
Being a psychopath, her efforts to guilt-trip me only make me laugh. In this second video, she tells the story of two hypothetical girls. One decides to go vegan and the other doesn’t. Naturally, the one who went vegan is “superior” to the one who didn’t. Freelee doesn’t seem to get the fact that there are many ways someone can be superior to another. Maybe the non-vegan becomes a virtuoso violinist. Maybe she writes a great novel. Maybe she finds a cure for AIDS. No. Freelee thinks the only criteria for superiority is how we eat.
However, when veganism came into vogue, the good health motivation was edged to the side by the moral argument. To be a good person, we should minimize the harm we do to our fellow-creatures. The religion that takes this concept the furthest is Jainism. To quote Google, “
only a few allowed to procreate. I kid you not. There is actually a movement of people who believe this. It’s a real thing. And there is some logic to it. Humans are destroying the planet. There’s a certain allure to being against the group you are in. Lots of Americans hate America, whites fulminate against white supremacy. You can feel really smart when you see through the brainwashing of your group. And it’s all true. Seeing through the established lies is one thing. Actually fighting to bring down the system is something else. It’s nice to take such an objective point of view that you transcend the interests of your demographic. But those who really fight to eliminate imperialism end up living lives of sacrificial selflessness. Been there. Done that. I am in awe of those who continue to fight for their cause for years. I wish them well. Some radicals have said they are glad Trump won the election because Hillary would have pursued war against the Third World more viciously than even he. I had to admit that I am more invested in whose policies would have impacted my life domestically than in saving the rest of the world. Color me selfish. I will cop to that.
Tina Taylor
Tina has long been known for
What I don’t agree with her on is her statement: “Society would best be served by diagnosing children so that they can be led to a less destructive life path. And, also schoolchildren should be taught the basics of personality disorders so we all don’t grow up oblivious to the deviant con artistry of the psychopath’s mask.” The plan to diagnose children with psychopathy goes against the current standard bigtime. Psychologists are forbidden from giving children such a diagnosis on the ground that children are still developing and we can’t know what they will become.
I do agree that psychopaths are born and, so, psychopathy is present from the earliest age. But the profession insists on calling children with these tendencies “callous unemotional,” and say they have “conduct disorders” or “oppositional defiant disorder.” But children are still undeveloped and have potential to grow in many different directions. She hasn’t said how she would diagnose childhood psychopaths. She would subject adults to the MRI brain scan.
Tina has long advocated compulsory testing of everyone who seeks a position of power and authority in the community. But, if children are also to be tested, it amounts to testing the entire population. Doesn’t it?
The brains of psychopaths do look noticeably different from those of the rest of humanity. But what about the brains of kids. 
But the article goes on to say, “No child should ever be labeled a psychopath, Viding said, because their brains and life experiences are still developing and, especially if given intervention, they may never wind up psychopathic, but callous traits are a real problem.” 
However, other scientists such as Jarkko Jalava, Stephanie Griffiths, and Michael Maralin are more skeptical who wrote The Myth of the Born Criminal: Psychopathy, Neurobiology, and the Creation of the Modern Degenerate. This book points out that it isn’t necessarily the brain causing qualities in the psyche. The psyche, including a person’s behavior, can shape the brain too.
Then, once a child is found to have signs of psychopathy, what can be done with or for him? Is psychopathy treatable in children? Most psychologists don’t think adults can be treated. There have been efforts to treat kids with “callous unemotional” traits but the results have not been very promising. A comment inserted in the article Can Psychopathy be Cured says, “Even though their behaviour is extremely primitive, there 
is no need to cast them out as monsters. Put to work in properly controlled environments, perhaps even psychopaths could yield benefits for the greater good. But first things first, we need to give up the idea that we can save them. They don’t want to be saved. They regard US, normal humanity, as an alien species that needs fixing.” The statement goes on with what I consider a paranoid conspiracy theory that blames psychopaths for all the ills of society. “That is why they have taken over socio-political 
institutions the world over and are busy trying to ‘remodel’ humanity in their image. While humans are busying themselves with concern for psychopaths, psychopaths are busy caging humans into a global hi-tech big brother society then tasering them with economic shock therapy, shock and awe, war and so on.” Quite an accomplishment for 1% of the population. I think some of the fuck-up in society must have been brought about by NTs and/or empaths, wonderful as they are thought to be.
The article goes on to describe life at the “summer camp” a psychopathic kid named Michael is getting “help” (or so they hope). It looks like there is a lot of behaviorism at work. People get “reward points” for good behavior. They seem to learn how to better manipulate the system to get what they want. But isn’t that what maturing and becoming part of society really is all about? People do what society likes and they are rewarded. They do what society doesn’t like and they are punished.
“Treatment” for adult psychopaths in prison sometimes consists of getting the psychopath to understand that good behavior results in more reward than bad behavior. This approach has been more successful than attempts to instill empathy in someone who lacks it. Yet hope springs eternal. Dr. Waschbusch said, “In my view, these kids need intensive intervention to get them back to normal – to the place where other strategies can even have an effect. But to take the attitude that psychopathy is untreatable because it’s genetic – that’s not accurate. There’s a stigma that psychopaths are the hardest of the hardened criminals. My fear is that if we call these kids ‘prepsychopathic,’ people are going to draw that inference: that this is a quality that can’t be changed, that it’s immutable. I don’t believe that. Physiology isn’t destiny.” Yet the kids in the summer program described in the article didn’t seem to improve.
A series of studies conducted by Lee Robins showed that while all psychopaths were once antisocial kids, not all antisocial kids grow up to be psychopaths. “That gap is what gives researchers hope. If a genetic predisposition to psychopathy is a risk factor, the logic goes, that risk might be mitigated by environmental influences – the same way that diet can be used to lower an inherited risk for heart disease. Like many psychologists, Frick and Lynam also suspect that the famously ‘intractable’ nature of psychopathy may actually be overblown, a product of uninformed treatment strategies. Researchers are now careful to distinguish between callous-unemotional traits observed in children and full-blown 
adult psychopathy, which, like most psychological disorders, becomes harder to treat the longer it persists.” Dr. Frick said, ” If treatment is begun early enough, he says, it may be possible to rewire the brain so that even C.U. children might develop greater empathy, through therapies that teach everything from identifying emotions (C.U. children tend to have difficulty recognizing fear in others) to basics of the Golden Rule. No one has yet tested such treatments in C.U. children, but Frick notes that one early study indicated that warm, affectionate parenting seems to reduce callousness in C.U. kids over time – even in children who initially resist such closeness.” I wish them luck. I think accepting psychopathy and teaching psychopaths how to have a better life by working with instead of against society is a better idea.
Tina’s idea of teaching kids about personality disorders is more troubling than the idea of testing those who show signs of psychopathy. Even adults who are well read on the subject have a tendency to label each other with joyful abandon. “He’s a narc.” “She is histrionic.” “He’s borderline.” “What a psychopath!” If grown-ups do it, wouldn’t kids do it even more? Would knowing about these “disorders” really help kids deal more effectively with them? The standard advice given in “how to handle a psychopath” is no contact. In a school situation, that amounts to ostracizing. Surely, there’s enough of that in school without actually telling kids it’s alright. Adults are already highly confused on the subject of “disordered” personalities. If we are confused, how can we give children any clarity on the subject? If it’s wrong or, at least, questionable to label children, teaching the whole class how to label each other can’t be a good idea.
CLUSTER B 
That’s a very good question, and one that a number of us psychopaths have wondered about. Probably because they have no idea what they mean when they say that. There are several misunderstandings when it comes to psychopaths. Perhaps it has to do with the idea that they have in their heads about what they believe us to be.
Maybe they want to be devoid of guilt. Maybe it’s so they have no fear for the sense of power. So if they are in a confrontation, they might feel like they have an upper hand. They wouldn’t be intimidated and instead be in control.
Perhaps they want to be without sadness or remorse, or heartbreak. There are a number of people that seem to think that we are all super geniuses that all have our secret caves where we plot world domination…….. yeah, we don’t, and no, we’re not. Psychopathy in no way relates to intelligence. Where this thought came from eludes me. We can be of low, average, to high intelligence. Nothing about the condition makes us want to be super villains.
Really, it seems to come down to the idea of psychopathy being very attractive, or conversely I have noticed a new trend, and that is the idea of psychopaths being the tragic victims. Somehow it has become a romanticized emo ideation that we are dark lost souls just wanting to be loved. Now, I thought super genius/villain was bad, but tragic dark horse hero wanting someone to save us, that one is even worse.
To both of them, no…………..just no.