I am not defending psychopaths.

Posted on June 30, 2015 by luckyotter

Someone has accused me of defending psychopaths because of the question I posted the other day wondering if there might be any “good” psychopaths. In case there’s any question, I think I need to explain a couple of things because I don’t believe that at all.

1. It was simply a random thought that popped into my head. I do not, and never have, thought of ANY psychopaths as good people, and I have never known one.

2. It was a question, not a statement or even an opinion. I just wanted to know what other people thought.

I have strange thoughts at times. Sometimes they even border on crazy. You can take that or leave it. I don’t mind constructive criticism (in fact I welcome it), but I dislike being pigeonholed and blanket judgments being made about me based on one random post. I never once said or even implied that psychopathy is a good thing. I don’t think it is.
Some people really misunderstand my motives. I guess I shouldn’t let that get to me but it does. People are too quick to judge.

Can a psychopath be “good”?

Posted on June 28, 2015 by luckyotter

I know, it’s a weird question and probably some of you are thinking I’ve really lost my mind this time.

But think about it. Psychopaths don’t have a conscience or empathy. Unlike malignant narcissists, they are not trying to get “supply” from others (which causes narcs to treat people like dirt). Psychopaths are free agents. So I was thinking about the possibility that some psychopaths may not choose evil because being evil simply doesn’t interest them. Maybe they just enjoy engaging in positive or beneficial activities instead, not to help others (because they have no empathy) but just because they enjoy those things over doing evil things.

I would like to hear your thoughts about this.

Psychopathy and malignant narcissism: what is the difference?

Posted on June 27, 2015 by luckyotter

I have been reading a blog written by a self-confessed Psychopath (who scored 36.8 on Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist) who writes engaging and well-informed articles about his disorder. I’ve always wondered myself about what it is exactly that distinguishes Malignant Narcissism from Psychopathy, because a MN can be every bit as cruel and callous as a psychopath. The primary difference is the Psychopath is not an attention-seeker, but the malignant narcissist is still trapped by his or her need for approval, attention and adulation from others. That is also one of the things (along with impulsivity–which ASPD has in common with BPD–as well as the likelihood of law-breaking) that distinguishes Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) from NPD/malignant narcissism.

There are those who believe that ASPD is on the same spectrum as NPD (but is at the top of the scale, while NPD is in the middle), but I’m not sure if it should be because there are qualitative, not just quantitative, differences. My opinion is that malignant narcissism is high spectrum NPD with ASPD traits. But they still need narcissistic supply. Psychopaths do not.

This writer has an interesting observation–that perhaps the only type of person able to control and/or take down a narcissist is a psychopath. He has little respect for narcissists due to their need for others (even as supply) and emotional sensitivity to rejection and criticism.

The anatomy of a psychopath. Malignant narcissists share with psychopaths the Factor 1 traits, but not Factor 2.

I think this article will explain these differences better than I can.

Narcissism or Psychopathy–Differences?
http://www.psychopathicwritings.com/search/label/Narcissism%20and%20Psychopathy

A Reader asks:

I would be interested in reading anything you wrote on psychopaths need for attention/acceptance. Have you? Like, how would they react to rejection?

Basically the need for attention and acceptance, if it’s a prominent and dominating aspect of what drives a person, is a distinctive trait in Narcissism. As such it is not exclusively something psychopaths are known for.

It is often said that psychopaths have strong narcissistic tendencies, and the statement isn’t completely wrong. But I also often see statements saying Malignant Narcissism and Psychopathy are the same, and this is not the case. There are some very important fundamental differences between psychopaths and malignant narcissists.

Narcissists may be callous and abusive – malignant narcissists definitely are callous and abusive! – and they lack empathy. These are things they have in common with psychopaths. But narcissists have a very strong emotional need for attention or Attention Seeking, Acceptance and Admiration. Their self esteem depends on whether or not they receive these things, and this makes them very vulnerable to rejection and other forms of negative attention such as humiliation, being out shined by someone else, or of being deliberately or naturally ignored.

Psychopaths do not need attention and we certainly do not need acceptance, at least not just for the sake getting it. Their emotional well being does not depend on whether or not they get these things, but they do play a part for most psychopaths’ sense of satisfaction. In this we’re probably not that different from normal people: We like to get attention, to be admired and respected just like everybody else, but we do not feel bad if we don’t get these things.

For psychopaths getting attention and respect from others is most of all a technique to get what they want without having to resort to coercion – threats, blackmail, and physical violence, i.e. – with the same frequency as we otherwise would. Having attention and respect – and acceptance – from others is really only paramount for as far as it is necessary to avoid the risks associated with the more negative techniques. In short: Attention and acceptance to psychopaths are not goals or ends, they’re means to ends.

When we (psychopaths) do care about whether or not we get attention it is not because we have an emotional dependency on being recognized or confirmed by our surroundings. It doesn’t matter to us that people speak badly about us, or that they try to avoid us. Being feared makes an opening for controlling those who fear you, and control leads to possible power.

Making sure you get a lot of attention is also a kind of control, it is a potential opener for gaining power, and it is the central, and often the only, reason why we seek to get it.

This is a well known fact, and the entertainment industry – just to mention one – knows and uses it: Make yourself known, make sure people notice you and that they can’t overlook you, and you have the basis for influencing how people respond to you.

If people like you, there’s a greater chance that they’ll support you or help you in other ways, especially if it’s mutual. <– This is what I've chosen to do, but I certainly did not always use a friendly approach. I've been very abusive in the past, and it has worked very well for me too. – But I've changed in many ways, and I find the mutual idea much more interesting now – and that is good, because it keeps me out of prison, and it has created a good possibility for me to actually do something valuable that others can benefit from… But that was a side note.

Narcissists seek attention and acceptance for it's own sake, and are miserable if they don't get it.
Psychopaths seek attention and acceptance because it is part of a technique to get something else. Attention and/or acceptance for it's own sake doesn't matter to how a psychopath feels.

A Narcissist, opposite a psychopath, is very vulnerable to Social Rejection and rejection in general. If you deny them admiration and respect, and – more important still – if you humiliate them publicly, you can crush a narcissist completely (provided you do it right and with timing).

Narcissists get very hurt when they get rejected.
Psychopaths do not feel any emotional pain or discomfort when they get rejected.

No narcissistic person can go through public humiliation and not feel emotionally very disturbed by it. With this knowledge one can destroy a narcissist quite easily… This is the typical area of most psychopaths' expertise, and it is why we so easily can control most narcissistic people. For the same reason most psychopaths have a lot of contempt for narcissistic people. We see individuals who love to abuse and humiliate, but who are even more vulnerable to these things themselves, and it's hard to find it in your heart to respect such people…
– I suspect we may have this in common with most neurotypicals.

The chilling mental landscape of a high spectrum narcissist or psychopath

Posted on June 21, 2015 by luckyotter

I read this chilling post from a man who says he is a narcissist. Based on his description of what it’s like to be him, I would say “narcissist” is probably an understatement. My guess is he’s a very malignant (high spectrum) narcissist and a probable psychopath. Most people with NPD do have emotions, but can’t access them easily or only feel emotions when they pertain to themselves. When someone claims to have no emotions at all, that indicates psychopathy to me. This man could also be “suffering” from Schizoid Personality Disorder, another disorder where the “sufferer” feels nothing–or he may have a combination of psychopathy and SPD. It’s scary and sad to read something like this. It’s as if some people have lost every shred of humanity and seem to have no soul. They are reptilian. At least this writer is self aware though, so I guess that’s something. (Post has been edited for brevity).

Certain passages in this post would make me suspect Aspergers (social awkardness, etc.) but Aspies do have emotions and empathy, even if they don’t always express them well or at all, so I’m suspecting this man has Schizoid PD mixed with psychopathy/malignant narcissism.

Also striking are the dissociative episodes and feelings of unreality this man claims to experience. I have seen these sort of near-psychotic behaviors (talking to himself in public, strange expressions on his face, etc.) in most of the malignant narcissists and psychopaths I have known. These people are so deluded they really aren’t in touch with reality at all. They live in a barren, hellish dreamworld of their own making.

[…]I just discovered that I’ve had pathological NPD for most my life. Reading this […]has been both very frightening and a major relief. […] It’s a relief to know that many of the strange decisions I’ve made were not entirely my fault. [This material] has completely changed how I view my past. It’s like I was in a dark room and then someone finally turned the light on.

For several years, I would occasionally wake up in the early morning with a feeling that something was very wrong. I couldn’t explain the feeling but it was similar to guilt. But I couldn’t pinpoint what I had done to feel so guilty about. This has been clarified […] along with everything else about my strange life. Everyone posting on this site describes the Narcissisist as a monster, which I agree with, but it’s also a horrible disorder to have.

[…]There’s so much I want to say, but it would turn into a novel about as long as the book itself. I’m a male in my 30’s and fit every characteristic of someone with pathological NPD.

I have no emotions. When my Father left our family to fend for ourselves, I felt nothing. When my Grandmother died, I felt nothing. When I witnessed my roommate seriously injure his neck, I felt nothing at all. These events were only slightly negative, as if someone had dropped and broken a dish.

I have technical degrees from elite universities which makes it easy for me to secure employment, but when I’m at work, I hardly do anything at all because I can’t concentrate for more than a couple minutes at a time. I’m constantly day dreaming and people notice that I have strange expressions on my face when I’m supposed to be working or paying attention to a lecture. I constantly talk to myself, but I’m not sure if that’s a characteristic of NPD.

I have no social skills and am socially inept. As far as personality goes, I wouldn’t even say its a poor one, more accurate would be to say it’s nonexistent. I don’t greet anyone unless they greet me first. If someone asks “How are you?”, my reply is “Fine” and that’s about as far as the conversation goes. I can feel myself creating hatred where I work by ignoring social norms, but I don’t care how much people hate me. I feel like I’m a plague that creates pain and destruction where ever I go, and I like it. I have no friends except the ones from childhood, but I don’t feel I need them anyway. I’m more comfortable just sitting at home and playing on the Internet.

As far as looks go, I’m a 10, which makes me a somatic narcissist. I often get compared to male celebrities and women often audibly gasp when I enter a room for the first time. I’m in my 30’s but everyone assumes I’m in my 20’s. Despite this, I haven’t had a relationship with a woman my entire life (being a devout catholic when I was younger also had an influence on this). Through techniques I’ve learned from the pickup manuals available on the Internet, and by dressing fashionably, I’m able to create a huge amount of initial attraction from women. This has kept me in school much longer than necessary since there’s a huge amount of narcissistic supply in a school environment, especially in classes with many women. Despite this huge initial attraction, I always reject the (very attractive) women when they come after me, which only increases their attraction to me. I justify rejecting them by telling myself “when they see what my personality is like, they would just reject me anyway”, which is probably true considering my social ineptness. However, sometimes I will talk to a girl a few times and she still hasn’t rejected me despite my personality. At this point, I would reject her, and have no idea why I rejected her. I now know it’s due to EPIM (emotional involvement prevention disorder). It’s ironic, I’m the guy every woman in the school wants to be with, but I don’t even have a girlfriend.

I feel completely omnipotent. I will make long eye contact with girls right in front of their boyfriends, even if their boyfriends look like bodybuilders. I can hold my own in a fight with most anyone, but even if a guy is twice my size, I have no fear. I will try to seduce women who I know are engaged just to make them feel pain. I have no empathy so I don’t care about their pain and actually enjoy it. When women look at me in class and try to get me to look back, I will ignore them just to humiliate them in front of the class. Or if an attractive woman is trying to make eye contact with me, I’ll pretend I’m interested in a less attractive girl. Needless to say, I hate women. However, I also badly want to have a girlfriend. I feel this is one of the many conflicting states of the narcissist […].

Not having emotions is a powerful tool in attracting women because women are attracted to guys who don’t want them. Women want what they can’t have. It’s easy for me to play hard to get and I can easily outlast a woman who’s playing hard to get, which most men can’t do. I know I’ll never actually be able to have a relationship with these women, so it doesn’t bother me if a semester ends without having pursued a relationship. So I have many “victims” from my school years, but the biggest victim is myself since I’ve spent years upon years alone.

[…] I see women as predators who are only interested in draining a man of his money while offering as little as she can get away with in return. After the man has been consumed, he is decapitated (divorced) while she runs off with another man. I’m not sure if this view is due to NPD or what I’ve seen my friends (colleagues) go through. There is a book called “The Predatory Female” that probably helped cement this view. I’ve also noticed that in times when I’ve had no money, I didn’t exist to women.

I now realize I quit my previous well-paying job due to a lack of narcissistic supply. A somatic narcissist needs attention from women, and they were pretty much non-existent where I worked. The most abundant place for narcissistic supply is a university, and after receiving a degree, the cerebral narcissist can receive more NS because of it.

When I saw the movie Batman “The Dark Knight”, I was intrigued by the character of the Joker. He had no fear, didn’t care about anything (even money), and caused havoc ever where he went. His actions made no sense and he was unpredictable, but he wasn’t stupid. He was omnipotent because he didn’t care if he was caught, or if he was killed, and was capable of doing anything. He had no empathy caused havoc for the fun of it.

My mentality is very simple and childlike and I don’t like speaking with other adults. If someone spoke with me for 10 minutes, they would think I’m a normal person, but it’s just a matter of time before I say something factual but very insensitive, which causes the person to hate me. The only emotions I feel are jealousy and rage. When I see a guy with an attractive women, I want to attack him and have daydreams of attacking him while the woman watches in horror.

[…] the chance for healing from NPD is bleak. Even if I were to get into a relationship with a woman, I would probably just cause her a lot of pain before dumping her when she’s no longer a source of NS.

Malignant narcissists: HSPs gone bad?

Posted on June 12, 2015 by luckyotter

The concept of malignant narcissism and HSP traits coexisting in the same person is a matter that has very little research behind it (I could find nothing at all on Google), so this article is based on my own opinions, gleaned through a combination of my readings and personal observations of the narcissists I have known. My opinion may come as a surprise.

In my article A Match Made in Hell: Narcissists and HSPs, I wrote about the tendency for narcissists and HSPs to form trauma-bonds with each other–that’s really just a fancy way of saying these two seemingly opposite types of people are often drawn to each other and become codependent on each other. The narcissist is both attracted to and repelled by the HSP’s vulnerability and high empathy. They both envy and loathe it; part of this loathing is due to the narcissist’s realization that they NEED the high empathy of the HSP because it’s good narcissistic supply and makes them feel validated. It’s also a quality that on some level (perhaps unconscious) they know they jettisoned a long time ago, and that knowledge causes them to envy and hate the HSP at the same time they depend on them. Because they hate their own vulnerability and hide it from the world (and see dependence as vulnerability) that’s another reason why they may abuse the very person who gives them a reason to exist.

The narcissist feeds off the HSP like a vampire feeds on blood. This can be an extremely unhealthy, even deadly, relationship for the HSP, who will eventually either leave the narcissist or be destroyed. But the HSP gets something out of the relationship too–the belief that through their love, they are saving the narcissist from him or herself. They often believe they can “fix” the narcissist through their empathic love and transform them into feeling human beings capable of returning what they have been given. Of course, this belief is almost guaranteed to end in disappointment (if the HSP is lucky), and possibly much worse.

The great irony here is that I think most narcissists are, way deep down, HSPs. No, you didn’t read that wrong.

But how can that be? Narcissists are incapable of empathy, have problems feeling and expressing deep emotions, and are incapable of loving anyone but themselves. Isn’t that the opposite of being an HSP?

Well, yes and no. The explanation is complicated, so I hope you stay with me here.

As I’ve explained before, I think most narcissists began life as highly sensitive people who at an early age suffered psychological trauma due to abuse. This caused them to shut off their too-vulnerable true (authentic) selves from the world and in its place construct an elaborate defense mechanism–the false self–initially meant to protect the vulnerable true self from further harm, which has no defenses at all. Even HSPs who are not narcissists have some protective psychological armor, so they did not need to construct a false self to take the place of the true one. Healthy HSPs are truly authentic people who feel deeply and are emotionally honest with themselves and others. Narcissists were born with no emotional defenses at all; the false self replaces the true one and appears invulnerable. But this is only an illusion, because the mask is only an illusion. When you face a narcissist, you will never know who that person really is because all they will show you is the protective mask they have created. They are so terrified of further hurt that they will attack with vicious ferocity if they think you pose any threat to its flimsy underpinnings. It must be a terrifying way to live.

The high sensitivity of a narcissist is retained in the way they react to personal insults or slights. They are huge babies who overreact when they feel like they are being attacked, ignored, or they perceive their source of narcissistic supply may be in danger. They are paranoid, touchy, and utterly lacking a sense of humor, especially about themselves. They may try to appear as if they don’t care, usually through the “silent treatment” or sneaky attacks such as triangulating against or gaslighting the person they perceive as a threat, but if you know narcissism, it’s usually not too hard to see the emotional fragility behind their acts of false bravado. However, when it comes to other people, they can seem incredibly insensitive. Here’s the rub: for malignant narcissists, this isn’t really the case at all. Stay with me here.

Warm and cold empathy.

In my research about NPD, there has been a lot of discussion about a concept called “cold” empathy. For those of you who don’t know what this is, I will explain. Most of us associate narcissism with a lack of empathy, but this isn’t exactly the case. Most narcissists–especially malignant ones–do have empathy, but it’s not emotional or affective empathy; it’s cognitive or “cold” empathy. What this means is that a narcissist KNOWS what you are feeling very well, and may use what they know you are feeling against you. Cold empathy is “felt” on the cognitive (thinking) level, but not as an emotion, and that is why the narcissist can feel no compunctions about turning your feelings against you in order to hurt you.

An extreme example of this would be the sadistic, psychopathic rapist. The rapist “smells” your fear and uses that against you to become even more sadistic. It *is* empathy, but it’s “cold”–the rapist understands exactly what you are feeling and your fear makes him feel powerful, so he increases the level of torment. He feeds off your fear like a vulture feeds on carrion. You don’t need to tell him you’re afraid; he KNOWS.

Cold empathy is the twisted narcissistic mirror image of warm empathy, which non-pathological people are capable of feeling on an emotional, not just a cognitive level. HSPs have more warm empathy than anyone. Here’s where things get complicated. If a narcissist is also an HSP, their high sensitivity can morph into a quality that seems almost supernatural and is utterly chilling–a cold, sadistic form of “empathy” where they seem to be able to see into your mind. A non-sensitive person would not be able to detect your emotions without you telling them how you feel, and therefore not have that creepy, unsettling way of “seeing into your soul” that the malignant narcissist does. The higher the sensitivity a narcissist has, the more malignant they will be.

Malignant narcissism is high on the HSP spectrum.
Credit: http://dondepresso.rujic.net/post/116940034025/manic-chart-narcautism-spectrum

This idea was actually illustrated in the humorous-but-true graph I posted the other day (shown above), where initially I wondered why “malignant narcissism” was showing so high in HSP traits. But actually it makes perfect sense. A HSP who adopts narcissism as a way to cope with the world will become malignant or even psychopathic. A non-HSP may still become a narcissist, but they lack enough “cold empathy” to become malignant.

In summary, HSPs can be the most kind and caring people you can ever hope to meet–or the most dangerous. A narcissistic HSP is a malicious, deadly beast who is best avoided.

They are two sides of the same coin. No wonder they are so often drawn to each other. The tragedy is that a malignant narcissist can infect a previously healthy HSP with their evil but it doesn’t work the other way around: a non-narcissistic HSP cannot change a malignant narcissist into a good person.

Godzilla and the gazelle.

Posted on June 7, 2015 by luckyotter

The other day I was cleaning the home of one of my regular customers. I speak to this woman casually, but she loves to talk and always does the bulk of the talking while I mostly remain quiet and make polite noises where I think they need to be.

I can tell this woman, Heidi, is terribly lonely and desperate for someone–anyone–to talk to. I’m not the best person to engage in small talk with, but I try to for her sake, because she seems to need adult companionship even more than she needs her house cleaned (which, truth be told, doesn’t seem to be her #1 priority).

When I first met Heidi, she screamed Victim. Not in a bad, manipulative way, but there was a strange sadness about her that I recognized right away. She seemed so desperate for love and acceptance. She’d ramble on about her religion (she’s a biblical Christian) and her love for birds. She purchases bags and bags of bird food to give to the outdoor birds that populate the thick grove of trees that surround her home.

She is also a hoarder. She had no furniture to speak of, but never throws anything away and keeps ordering stuff from QVC or wherever she orders from–useless things no one needs that she is always trying to give away. She loves to make herbal remedies herself at home using various herbs, and there are bottles and jars of strange concoctions all over her house.

There is a sadness in Heidi’s eyes that her smile and cheerful manner can’t hide. So I wasn’t surprised when she told me that she was divorced and in hiding from her abusive ex husband, who she told me was abusive in every way it’s possible to be abusive. He had left her with nothing, but he continues to stalk her. He drinks heavily. They never had children.

Heidi’s demeanor is sweet, almost naive, although she’s seen more than anyone should ever see, and experienced abuse so horrendous she could have been a war veteran. She even has scars to prove it. Once she showed me the weltlike scars on her back and chest from when he had beat her repeatedly.

I noticed on her small bookshelf are books about PTSD and major depression; the rest are religious books, books of daily affirmations, and several Bibles. She said she was never religious until after her divorce, when she realized how evil the man she had been married to was. Jesus was her only comfort.

Heidi only has a few pictures gracing her plain white walls. The one that takes center stage, placed lovingly in the middle of her living room mantel in a gold-toned embossed frame, both mesmerized and disturbed me. It showed her as a younger woman (but not looking much different) at her wedding. Her smile is radiant and her blue eyes are glistening with happy tears. She was the bride every man dreams of marrying, the bride every mother dreams that her daughter will become. She trusted the man who faced her. She loved him. She looked into a future that promised happiness, security, comfort and a family.

She got none of those things.

I could tell immediately the man in the picture, the man who became her husband, was at the very least a malignant narcissist and very possibly a psychopath. It was his face and body language that gave him away. He too gazed into his wife’s face, and he held her arm, but the odd thing was the way he held his body at a distance from hers. As Heidi leaned forward, he almost seemed to be recoiling from the love she was feeling. He looked stiff, as if he was playing a role. But even more telling was the man’s face. There was no love in his eyes, no warmth, not even liking for Heidi. His eyes appeared cold and dead–small pinpoints of glittering gray-blue that were as absent of emotion as a doll’s eyes. And his smile–if it could be called that–was a smirk. The overall feeling I absorbed from looking at the two of them was a predator who had just captured his prey and was preparing to rip his kill to shreds to be consumed the way a lion rips apart a gazelle he intends to eat.

Although the picture was taken years ago and she is safely away from that man, I felt afraid for her looking at that photo. My heart felt as if someone had packed it in ice cubes.

Even sadder is that Heidi still appears to be in love with that evil POS, keeping their wedding photo on the living room mantel with two vases of flowers on each side of it, as if it’s a shrine to what they never had.

Looking at that photo made me realize just what the vulnerable of this world–people like Heidi–are up against when they fall in love with narcissistic predators. I hope one day she can move on emotionally and stop loving a man who nearly destroyed her mind and soul, and caused her so much suffering.

The Perfect Narcissist.

Posted on June 4, 2015 by luckyotter

In order to be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) a person must meet at least five of the nine criteria specified in the DSM. Most narcissists do not meet all 9.

Brian Blackwell, a young man who murdered both his parents and then callously left their bodies behind to take a trip to New York City with his girlfriend, met all 9 criteria. Here is his story.

“The Psychopath Next Door”

Posted on June 4, 2015 by luckyotter

Here is a very interesting but disturbing documentary featuring Dr. Robert Hare, the forensic psychologist who developed The Psychopathy Checklist (which is used routinely in courts of law and police departments to identify psychopaths.) Here, the focus is on the non-prison population of psychopaths, which includes a high percentage of financially successful people in business.

Psychopaths tend to rise to corporate stardom quickly because the qualities they have (ability to focus on a goal, risk-taking, cunning, ruthlessness, etc.) are valued in business, while the ones they don’t have (empathy, guilt, caring, love, etc.) are not. High-functioning psychopathy was behind the 2008 financial crisis, and it’s said here that many banks were actually using Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist to hire new employees!

The video also discusses psychopaths in relationships, how psychopathic brains differ from normal ones, and the causes of psychopathy.

I’ve often noticed how dead-looking the eyes of some of our CEOs and politicians are. It’s like they have no soul. It’s very scary that these are the people who have the most power right now. They are like reptiles. Snakes in suits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsGOymlFNww

Courtney Love, murderous psychopath?

Posted on May 31, 2015 by luckyotter

DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING ARE THE OPINIONS OF THE AUTHOR. THESE ARE NOT FACTS AND THERE HAS BEEN NO PROOF OF FOUL PLAY.

The two-decade long question of whether or not Kurt Cobain really committed suicide came up between myself and my friend today. It’s been bandied about for years, but it seems no one has ever bothered to take it seriously or re-open the case to further investigate Cobain’s death.

Even though Kurt may have been prone to depressions and shied away from the stardom he achieved as both an early pioneer of the Grunge movement and The Poster Child of Generation X, I never believed he really killed himself. Why would he? He had everything–talent, success as the frontman of Nirvana, a bestselling record, a baby daughter, and a…ahem…new wife who everyone believed was in love with him.

It’s his wife, Courtney Love, we need to take a closer look at here. Most people just take it on faith that Kurt killed himself because his music was dark and depressing and his poetry was dark and depressing, and because he rarely smiled. He had also come from an abusive home and suffered from lifelong depressions and severe stomach problems. Stories of his addiction to heroin abounded in publications like People and Rolling Stone, and on MTV, VH-1, and the nightly news.

But it was also said that he was getting clean when his girlfriend and fellow musician, Courtney Love, became pregnant. He didn’t want to be a drug-addicted new dad. Things looked rosy for awhile. He had several relapses and stints in rehab but heroin isn’t what killed him. If he was depressed, I doubt it was really due to the commercial success of Nirvana’s album Nevermind.

I think Love was gaslighting Cobain, which exacerbated his depression and drug problems. According to Wikipedia,

On March 18, 1994, Love phoned the Seattle police informing them that Cobain was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun. Police arrived and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills from Cobain, who insisted that he was not suicidal and had locked himself in the room to hide from Love. [italics mine] When questioned by police, Love said that Cobain had never mentioned that he was suicidal and that she had not seen him with a gun.

This is an interesting quote. The first thing that stands out to me is that Cobain felt he needed to hide from Love. Why would he tell police that if it wasn’t true? Sure, he could have been gaslighting her as the crazy one, but something feels off about that to me. Because in this same paragraph we can see that Love is a liar. She tells two different stories to the police: first, that Cobain had locked himself in a room with a gun, and second, denying that she ever said that and insisting Cobain had never said he was suicidal at all! Why would she change her story?

Kurt was found dead in his Seattle home on April 8, 1994, when his daughter, Frances Bean, was less than two years old. He had been shot in the head. Investigations found he had been dead for three days. There was a note, addressed to his childhood friend “Boddah” stating that Cobain wasn’t feeling the excitement of listening to and creating music anymore.

Although there was a note, it seems unlikely to me a suicide would be performed by such means, especially by a man who had easy access to heroin and other drugs and could easily have OD’d and died in a more peaceful manner. Also, why didn’t Love report his death? How could a newly married man with a child not be discovered by his wife for three days? Surely she must have known something.

On the tenth anniversary of Cobain’s death, in 2004, Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain, was published. Its authors believe Kurt’s death could not have been a suicide and argued that the case should be reopened. According to the entry about the book on Wikipedia:

The book is based on 30 hours of revealing audiotaped conversations, exclusively obtained by the authors, between Courtney Love’s private investigator, Tom Grant, and her entertainment attorney, who both dispute the official finding of suicide and believe Cobain was in fact murdered.

The lawyer says on the tapes that she believes the so-called suicide note was “forged or traced.” The authors also interview Cobain’s grandfather, who believes Kurt was the victim of foul play, and Courtney’s father, who also believes he was murdered. In the book, a prominent forensic pathologist examines the known autopsy evidence and claims that the official suicide scenario was “impossible.” She claims that there is compelling and authoritative evidence that Cobain was murdered.

So even Courtney’s own father believes Kurt was murdered! Hank Harrison (Love’s father) couldn’t stand his own daughter (which was documented in the 1998 documentary Kurt and Courtney) and told RadarOnline:

I can’t prove she pulled the trigger, but I can prove her involvement to a high degree of certainty. […]She’s a psychopath, she has a sociopathic personality like I do.

Later, he published his book, Love Kills: The Assassination of Kurt Cobain, which argued that Kurt did not commit suicide but that his own daughter killed him.

According to Wikipedia, Nick Broomfield (the filmmaker who made Kurt and Courtney) decided to investigate Tom Grant’s claim that Cobain was murdered and had his film crew interview people associated with the couple, including Love’s father Hank Harrison, Kurt’s aunt, a former nanny for the couple’s daughter Frances Bean, and several others associated with the couple, including a bandleader named Eldon “El Duce” Hoke, who claimed he had been offered $50,000 by Love to kill her husband.

It’s also telling that Courtney’s overnight rise to fame occurred immediately after her husband’s death. She appeared at the funeral and interviews playing the part of the grieving widow quite well, but how suspicious is it that her band, Hole, released their bestselling album Live Through This FOUR DAYS after Kurt’s death?

Love’s public persona is very narcissistic and she seems to crave attention and adulation even more than most celebrities. She also appears to be emotionally unstable, although in recent years she seems less so. Perhaps her instability was due to drug abuse, but I think that in itself coupled with her unpredictable and prima-donna like behavior points to a personality disordered woman. Based on the way Love acts, I believe her father’s claim that she is sociopathic and that she probably killed her husband.

What would have been Love’s motive though? In my opinion, I think Love was pathologically envious of Kurt’s success, and wanted his fame (which she probably felt he didn’t appreciate) for herself. She hated playing second fiddle. She also knew that the death of a major rock star (at the age of 27 too–Kurt’s entry into the “27 Club” was probably not lost on her) was the best publicity stunt for herself she could pull off. She could play the grieving widowed new mom, garner pity, and ride on the coattails of that to sell her new album.

Tell me Courtney Love isn’t a sociopathic murderer and I’ll tell you Elvis is going to run for President.

Narcissists who love animals and their mothers.

Posted on May 30, 2015 by luckyotter

I’ve noticed something strange about some narcissists that I’ve never seen mentioned anywhere else. Some narcissists, though lacking empathy for other people, seem to have it in spades for animals. Even some psychopathic malignant narcissists are actually very good with non-human creatures. My ex is one of these. He cried like a baby when our dog, Daisy, died of a massive stroke in early 2013. He was always very kind to her and the cats. He used to be beside himself with worry when one of them got sick. The animals seemed to trust him and even preferred him to me! In spite of being No Contact (really, very low contact) with him, I completely trusted him when I had to recently rehome two cats and a dog, all whom I cared about very much (the pets are now staying with my daughter).

But that’s the only time you would ever see him be genuinely kind. Any “kindness” he showed other people was meant to be either manipulative or to impress.

A commenter on another post, discussing her psychopathic ex-lover who is still actively gaslighting her and generally being psychologically abusive, had this to say about him:

The guy I know loves cats. Many of the photographs he sent me have him in photos with kittens in his hands. The photos make him look very loving. Because you would think that any man that relates to cats and kittens in photos would be loving, gentle and harmless.
[…] His nickname for me was Kitty Kat.

This phenomenon is actually pretty common. It surprises me it’s almost never discussed.
So here is the conclusion I come to about why some narcissists can genuinely feel empathy for animals. The problem isn’t that the narcissist lacks empathy per se, but that they have shut off their capacity to feel empathy for other humans. They may feel it for an animal (or maybe for some, a lesser or non-mammalian animal because dogs and cats may be seen as “too human.”). Here are two surprisingly touching essays Sam Vaknin wrote about his relationship with a goldfish and a snail. The reason some narcissists have normal or even excessive levels of empathy for animals is because animals are “safer” to feel empathy for than other humans, who they have come to hate and devalue due to abuse they suffered at the hands of their parents.

Of course this doesn’t apply to all narcissists or people with an antisocial personality. We have all read of cases of serial killers and other sadistic criminals who spent their childhoods tormenting all living creatures, even the lowly ants and spiders of the world. But only some are like this. Most are probably indifferent to animals.

Mama’s boys.

I have also seen a related phenomenon that’s even more strange than the affinity some narcs have with animals. Some psychopaths and malignant narcissists (almost always male) who seem to live to abuse or even torment other people, at the same time seem to genuinely love their own mothers and even feel protective of them. You hear about serial killers who worshipped their mothers (but hate all other women), even though the mothers were almost always abusive to them. The movie “Psycho” illustrates this in Norman Bates’ relationship with his dead mother. Obviously the exceptions these psychopaths make for their mothers are rooted in severe codependency to the point most people see their relationships with them as “sick,” but it’s still an indicator of a more vulnerable, codependent side of themselves they show to no one else.

For both the seriously character disordered who love animals (because they’re safer to love than people) and those who love their mothers (because they have unhealthy codependency with them), it’s as if little piece of their true self somehow remains split off and immune from their otherwise impenetrable wall of narcissism.