Psycho skills

Kill the messenger

Rosa says: Isn’t it amazing how sociopaths can run around smearing people, telling insidious lies with impunity…THEN…when WE try to warn others (with the TRUTH) about possible danger of the socio, it’s “Kill the Messenger” time…and we are the “Messenger”. What’s up with that?

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Dear Rosa,

What you are describing is the standard abuser protocol called DARVO, an acronym for Deny, Attack, Reverse roles of Victim and Offender.  Your question and your righteous outrage are about psycho/sociopaths’ ability to harm others easily and repeatedly—with impunity—sometimes with devastating consequences for their victim. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the victim’s friends and family may withhold support or reject him/her at the worst of times because the abuser had the evil foresight to secure their sympathy and support, and at the same time, destroy the victim’s reputation and credibility.

The reason why pathological aggressors are so successful with this cunning scheme is quite simple: they are exceptionally skilled actors with a lifetime of practice in lying, manipulating, persuading, and deceiving. The psycho/sociopath will callously aim to crush his victim, unperturbed by any ethical concerns. The victim’s moral standards will limit his options, and lacking the persuasive powers of a psychopath, he may fail to convince others of the truth of the matter.

Another reason why many of us are conned again and again is because we cannot fathom that a friendly, intelligent, respectable person to whom we may have extended exceptional kindness, trust, and generosity; would be capable of acting so atrociously. It is incomprehensible to most of us that there really are human beings who don’t have a conscience and we fail to see the patterns in our experiences that verify the ‘unpleasant’ facts that challenge or contradict our long held beliefs.

Read about Denial and

 

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