Is their sadism a sign of narcissism or sociopathy?

[Unbroken1]

Hi to everyone in this forum. I recently joined and this is proving to be a really valuable resource to add to my therapy.

As with many people who have the misfortune to be born into a personality-disordered family, I've spent much time researching why these individuals behave the way they do. I do this so I won't ever again make the mistake of getting into a close relationship with a narcissist, if I can help it.

One of the questions I have been wondering about is: how to distinguish the banal malignancy of the narcissist from darker behaviors that are sociopathic? For example, during my divorce, my uNPD spouse engaged in a number of behaviors that were meant to punish me for my transgressions which had been gathered on her mental scoreboard over the years. This included extorting me for money, threatening to make me pay for custody of the pets she previously agreed to let me keep, making sure I saw her destroying the 20-year collection of birthday, Valentine's and other cards I had given her over the length of our relationship, triangulating me with someone who had burned me on a business transaction and her brand new friends she sought out as her emotional posse.

But there was a darker side to her that I discovered after we had been together for a couple of years: she liked funerals. She would attend a funeral at the drop of a hat, even if it happened to be for someone she had never met, such as the parent of an acquaintance. I thought this was odd at the time since attending funerals was something I didn't exactly consider unless the deceased was a friend or family member. But over time I realized my ex got a perverse thrill out of experiencing an emotional environment where other people were suffering emotionally. Her eyes would light up and I could see her absorbing the suffering and negative vibes as she put on her best Communal Narc mask before walking through the door of the church or funeral parlor.

When my mother was on a respirator in the ICU and we were both there to be with her in her last moments, my ex latest described it as a "beautiful experience" while for me it was anything but, and left me emotionally devastated. Another thing that I have always wondered about is the fact that my ex told me that she had had five abortions before we met. I never once asked her about them over the 23 years we were together, but now I have to wonder if there was some other darker motivation in her decision to have repeated what I would consider an last-resort procedure when preventative forms of birth control have been so readily available for so long.

The dark personality also is present in my own family. My maternal grandfather once bragged to me about how as a boy on a farm in Kansas, he and his brothers would wire pieces of corn to car batteries which they would then lure chickens to eat. This just sounds like plain old cruelty to me but it was a farm in the 1920s and animals were not pets. But still. When I was 12 or so, I witnessed my grandfather casually physically abuse my cousin in public  who had annoyed him for being troublesome about something.

One time in college, when I lived in the same town as my grandparents, I went home for the Christmas break and asked my grandfather to look after my 2 cats while I was gone. At the time one of my cats had been diagnosed with cancer but wasn't yet showing symptoms. When I returned from break it was pretty obvious my grandfather hadn't been by but a couple of times as the litter boxes hadn't been cleaned and cat poop was everywhere. And I could only find one of my cats, the sick one wasn't around. I wasn't too worried but after a day or so, she didn't show up and so I became really worried. The next day while cleaning I saw a paw sticking out from under the couch. My cat had died there during my absence. I can't help but feel that if I had never left her in the care of this man she may have lived a little while longer - or at the very least not died alone.

At the time I didn't have the maturity or self-knowledge to address this with my grandfather and certainly would have encountered a wall of denial and gaslighting had I done so. In my family there was no questioning of parental authority. Once, before all this happened, this same man, my mother's father, once told me "you should kill them" with a smirk when I had mentioned my cats. I thought he was being facetious at the time.

These many years later, I'm much better at seeing people for who they really are when they tell me. But the price for being able to do that has been very painful.

[square]

I had to skip over the animal abuse stuff. But overall I would categorize most or all of the animal abuse as antisocial behavior (sociopathy).

There are a lot of blurred lines in PD and comirbidity is very common. Some people say all antisocials are narcissists (but not necessarily the other way around).

The thing I personally look at to differentiate, where possible, these types of behavior is whether the motivation is power vs interpersonal control - maybe my terms aren't quite right but I'll try to explain.

Antisocials love power and enjoy causing pain and destruction just for the thrill of being able to do it. They enjoy it whether anyone else sees it or not, or whether it causes a behaviir change or not. They just like owning you or hurting you.

A narcissist cares more about winning in front of others, or making you feel or behave a certain way. They want you to pay, or cede control, or see them as a victim, or look a certain way in front of others (grandiose/victim).

The deathbed and funeral thing, I'm not sure but the way I'm leaning from your description is that it's a blend.

Antisocials enjoy high drama because it's hard for them to feel anything. It's interesting to them to get any fleeting sense of emotion so if somebody is dying and people are upset, it can feel a little like something to some of them if they are interested (others would not care about the deathbed scenario).

But it does seem to me like she may also being getting some narcissistic kick out of it, not sure I can put my finger on it quite, but some way she seems to be feeling superior or centered in the drama.

By the way, punishing behavior is common to other PDs as well, such as Paranoids and Schizoids. Paranoids are focused on righting perceived wrongs. They would like to see behavioral change as a result of punishment but often consider that likely futile and just want to see "justice" since they feel the world is very dark and "justice" is all there is.   

[Unbroken1]

Thanks for pointing out the distinctions. When framing the difference that way, it's easier to understand. My uNPD ex was a massive control freak, particularly late in the relationship during the discard period (she initiated the divorce). Her masterpiece was the finale: creating the public narrative that our split was amicable and that we remained on friendly terms. This was the Big Lie that she created to smooth the way forward as she triangulated me with the new group of supporters she collected during this period. Most of them were from the church we had begun attending to see if there was hope to be found there for the marriage. That environment was perfect for a Communal N and she morphed into a pious Church Lady persona. Anything I might say to contradict the narrative was neatly pre-silenced. How could I possibly present a different story after that?

Her punishment during the divorce, with the exception of the money, was more like what I would imagine a teenage girl to do in a game of relational aggression with a school rival or enemy. Behavior which was pretty much just designed to hurt me as much as possible for my offenses, plausibly deniable if confronted, and not seen by anyone else. On the other hand, my grandfather's cruelty seems darker because it was overt and violent. I believe both were both seeking pleasure by inflicting pain.

[tommom]

Unbroken, I would suggest a book, Martha Stout's "The Sociopath Next Door". It has been helpful to me, as I am married to a textbook sociopath.

In the book, Stout (who counsels survivors) gives great examples, filled with details of the partners of her clients. Makes these behaviors quite clear.

Injury to animals usually falls -as I understand it- in the the psychopath end of ASPD. Sociopaths are individuals who do not feel a sense of responsibility to behave in a fashion that is legal or ethical. That means a serial rapist, for example, would be a psychopath. A person who doesn't pay his taxes, or repeatedly drives drunk tends to be a sociopath. Just my understanding, mind you. I'm not a psychiatrist or such.

There is a combination, though, called a Dark Triad or Machiavelian Narcissist. These individuals exhibit three versions of Cluster B's like a narcissist who is also a sociopath and histrionic. Anyway, like I said, I would recommend Stout's book to better understand sociopathic behavior.

[Catothecat]

The above book recommendations are excellent, well worth reads.

From my personal experience, sociopaths seem to enjoy their cruelty and it often seems to come out of "nowhere."  That is, they do it just because they can.  And if you react negatively (as any normal person would) they enjoy it even more because they "got to you."

But as others have noted, narcs don't seem to be so much engaged with cruelty and sadism as part of their personality but rather as part of their repertoire, that is, they will employ it if they think it will achieve what they want.  They don't necessarily enjoy doing it, but it's what they might do to get the desired end result.  They size you up then use the weapons in their arsenal to best effect.  Sociopaths, on the other hand, just do it regardless.  It makes no sense to you.  With narcs, however, you can see the manipulation behind the action if you look for it and, in its own weird way, makes a kind of sense.

[Hazy111]

All sociopaths are narcissists