The banner on my home page proclaims, among other things: “Getting Away From Users, Abusers, Liars, Cheaters, Thieves, Manipulators, and Violent Assault.” Unfortunately, there is no simple set of rules for complete avoidance.
However, you can better your chances of identifying the bad actors by carefully watching for instances of:
—those who treat others with contempt. Observe a person’s disrespect of other people and ask yourself if that’s how you want to be treated or thought of; if you stick around, eventually, you will be.
—those who lie repeatedly. Keep as much distance as possible from habitual liars. You will not be the exception to their lies.
—those who scream, yell, strike, or otherwise intimidate. Violence is mother’s milk for some. I’ve battled it in myself and others for decades. If you hang out with violent types, your turn to be abused will come.
‘Getting away’ from different types of predators is a vast topic, ranging from martial arts and battered women’s shelters to overcoming character assassination. But to get away, we must first believe that there is something to get away from. Stay alert for tipoffs that something is amiss; learn not to dismiss the slip-ups that mean little in themselves but, when added together, equal lack of conscience. Don’t wait until there’s blood spraying from your jugular to take evasive action.
Look for discrepancies between people’s words and actions. An example would be incongruent facial expressions while expressing sympathy for tragedy; a micro expression of delight doesn’t jibe with the rest of the predator’s story. Or, your new romantic interest behaves nicely to you but complains of the ‘idiots and fools’ they put up with . And the person on the verge of ‘hitting it big’ but has no source of income may not be the best person to tie your finances to.
Please watch out for pitiless opportunists. When I became the plaything of one of the remorseless, it took years even to suspect and several more years to convince myself.
So if you’re being fooled by someone you trust, I get it; even with mounting indications of malice, we find it impossible to believe the worst of someone we trust. God forbid if our livelihood depends upon this person or if they’re a close family member.
There comes a point when, if we were a disinterested third-party observer, we would say with certainty, “He (or she) is definitely a social predator; stay away from that one!” but we miss it in our own lives because we cannot accept it when it’s our guts the predator is twirling on her selfie-stick and parading through the public square.
Social predators become part-time owners of our thinking by injecting us with their falsehoods. And the more of their lies we believe, the greater their ownership. Please be on guard and understand that it can happen to anybody.
But who am I to tell you? Well, I’m a recovering psychopath who owes his turnaround to being trampled by a superior psychopath. So it really can happen to anybody. You can read the fictionalized version of how I was decimated and reset in Memoir of a Repentant Psychopath, available on Amazon. Fiction aside, I now realize that treating people with respect and dignity, for me, is a quantum leap in intelligence. I’ll take it.
In More on Trauma Recovery I touch upon a couple of books by psychiatrists renowned for their work in healing trauma. But if any of you have ideas for getting away from social predators before they inflict trauma, please send them.
Along the lines of prevention, here’s a link to This Charming Psychopath: How to spot social predators before they attack. The paper is from Psychology Today, 1994, but is as relevant today as ever. World-renowned psychopathy researcher, Robert Hare, begins the article with a poignant anecdote of a romantic predator. From there, he lists vital symptoms of psychopathy and detailed explanations for each. Hare then summarizes the origins of the personality disorder and prospects for treatment or prevention. The entire piece is helpful for anyone concerned about social predators, but be sure to see the end of it, “A Survival Guide…some things you can do to reduce your vulnerability.”
Hare’s article is excerpted from one of his books, Without Conscience, which you can preview on Amazon to see if you’d like to read the whole thing. I’ll be recommending the excerpt and book over and over, along with encouragement:
If you’re under pressure from a social predator, stay strong and keep looking for help; you’re not alone! For immediate help, see the resources listed on my psychopathsavvy.com home page. Or, if you just need to be heard, contact me at RobertRedAct@protonmail.com.
Robert Red Act