On Psychopaths and Playing it Safe

If you want to stay outside a psychopath’s path of destruction, try these two things:

1. Be valueless. Of no value to the psychopath.

2. Be non-threatening. Of no threat to the psychopath.

Psychopaths spend their energy targeting people who will give them something of value in return. Whether they want money, a promotion, a good laugh, an ego massage, an upset response, a win, a sense of power… their goals may vary, but there’s always something they want.

Don’t give it to them. Don’t bite the hook, don’t react, don’t let them trigger you. This may be a superhuman feat, but when you learn to do it, you will discover two amazing things about yourself:

1. You are strong as hell.

2. You’re either free or you’re on the road to freedom.

Mental toughness is useful across so many platforms. The psychopath in my life helped me develop it, so I guess his treacherous ways somehow benefitted me. Wouldn’t that make him cringe! But I won’t tell him. You know why? Because I don’t want to be a threat to him. When he feels threatened by me, historically, he comes right after me with everything he’s got. And no one has time for that.

So there’s the second point to remember. Don’t do things or say things that threaten a psychopath. By this, I mean either eliminate contact entirely or, if that’s not possible, try your best to appear both neutral and detached.

This is tricky, and what threatens one psychopath is different from another. So here’s an example. My psychopathic ex is very threatened by my happiness. If he sees me bubbling over with joy, he will take drastic steps to try to wreck my life. The answer? Stay away from him as much as possible (no contact would be ideal but we are co-parenting) and set up my life so he can’t destroy it. So that I feel relatively secure in my position in the world.

I respond politely to his abrasiveness. I withdraw coolly and pleasantly when he tries to poke the fire. I go out of my way to be polite, pleasant, and neutral. I text photos of our kids to him at their sporting events so he can brag to his friends about how easy he is to get along with, how awesome his kids are, and so on. Does he reciprocate niceness? Never. I don’t expect it and don’t care. He’s belligerent and tries to hurt me when no one’s watching. Our protective institutions have failed us and he will likely never be exposed in our society, so I stay public, neutral, and in control at every point of contact. I protect myself. And I’m nice in the most detached way possible because when I’m polarized against him, then he sees me as a threat to his image and possessions, and he comes after me.

When I’m polite and uninterested and impossible to poke, I’m not useful to him at all. And he invests his energy elsewhere.

Does it feel fake? Of course. It goes against every bone in my genuine body. But my genuine, naive nature is partly what attracted him to me in the first place. And I’m going to make sure that I don’t attract him anymore.

Ultimately, when it comes to dealing with a psychopath, I’ve realized that I control our dynamic now more than he does. I manage him. It would drive him crazy if he knew that. So I will never tell.

I’d hate to threaten his ego.

Note: H.G. Beverly is the author of The Other Side of Charm.