Ritambhara tells us the three telltale signs of a psychopath, exclusively in Different Truths.

There are no classes in schools and colleges on how to safeguard from miscreants and when it comes to dealing with the quintessence of relationships, we hardly find any pointers or guides. It’s all a trial-and error game from the get-go. And, for the majority of us, it’s usually an error. We commit mistakes and we learn from our mistakes.  Well, “To err is human” is the only lame excuse with which we tend to assuage our mistakes. The real problem creeps in when we are in a relationship with someone who is a psychopath or a sociopath. There is a very thin line to differentiate the nitty-gritty of the relationships. There are certain relationship habits that actually are baked into our culture and are against normal behaviours, but might be considered traditionally as “romantic” or “normal”. We tend to die for the so-called romantic love that someone finds breaking household articles, screaming and thrashing in a fit of tears, somewhat captivating, and belittle the practicality or idiosyncratic sexualities. In our society, men and women are raised to personify each other and their relationships. We tend to take our partners for granted and often treat them as a resource rather than someone genuine to divvy up mutual emotional support. Nevertheless, in handling the nitty-gritty of the relationships, we usually tend to forget we are nurturing a person with psychopathic tendencies.

Wikipedia describes a psychopath as “a person with extensive callous and manipulative self-serving behaviours with  no regard for others, and is often associated with repeated delinquency, crime, and violence, but may also present itself in other, maybe even successful social settings.”

Macmillan dictionary describes a psychopath as “someone with a mental disorder that makes them behave in ways that can be dangerous to other people. Psychopaths are usually characterised as those who possess no empathy.”

Yet, another dictionary describes a psychopath as “a person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial behaviour, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.”

These persons with anti-social personality disorders share an identical set of traits. They seldom possess any inner sense of right-doing or wrongdoing and are indifferent to other person’s feelings or well-being. All they are good at is manipulating the emotions of others and using them to their best advantage. With all such traits, the psychopaths are detrimental to anyone in a relationship with them. But, the worst part is it is not easy to spot a psychopath as they play very safe and portray themselves to be extremely good and some even showcase themselves with a charming personality.

Let’s have a look at some of the traits, you shouldn’t overlook in identifying a maniac before it’s too late.

1. Inner Voice of Conscience Never Prevails in Psychopaths: They lack the inner voice of conscience, constantly lie, steal and on being found guilty, won’t feel any moral qualms. They would observe others and manipulate their actions intricately and this renders it difficult to trace their deeds. Remorse for their wrongdoings is hardly seen in them; instead, they would start blaming you to the extent that you start finding yourself to be guilty. They would do everything to encash your emotions and drain you out physically, emotionally, financially, and in whatever way, one can possibly think of. Respect and empathy aren’t something that can be expected from them. For them, every individual they come across is an object they can use to their best leverage.
2. Not always Characterised by Bestiality: The portrayal in movies and other media has made us believe that psychopaths or sociopaths are violent, killers, criminals, and outside society, but that is not usually true. They can, in fact, be very polite and with their manipulative behaviours they seem to be calm and compose and perfectly hide their reckless behaviours most of the time. They are very clever and skilled in achieving their targets mostly at the cost of others. Their aggression is planned in well-crafted to achieve what they want.
3. Indifferent and Unsympathetic to Other’s Sentiments: These obsessive-compulsive personalities are not easy to spot as they pretend to be compassionate, intelligent, alluring, and possess a marvellous feat at mimicking emotions. They purport to be friendly and caring, but in reality, they are just self-centric and hardly care for anyone’s emotions. They concentrate all their skills in manipulating people for their personal gains and blaming others.

If you can correlate some of these attributes with a family member or a co-worker owing to their mean or selfish behaviour, it doesn’t necessarily mean, they are psychopaths. Well, it doesn’t mean you start speculating your partners, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry, and any relationship that is not healthy should be timely despised.

©Ritambhara K. Upadhyay

Photos from the Internet.

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Ritambhara K Upadhyay

A Panjab University, IIT- Roorkee, and IIRS-ISRO alumnus, academician, and researcher, Ritambhara is a writer by choice. Her passion for reading and writing has impelled her to foray into the world of writing. As a freelance writer and editor, she loves to pen-down whatever comes to her mind. She staunchly believes, “Truth doesn’t admit any impediments.”