D.I.Y. Guide to a Sociopath’s Brain and Psyche

D.I.Y. Guide to a Sociopath’s Brain and Psyche

Sociopaths, narcissists, pathological users, liars, predators don’t think as we do. Their hearts are colder than ice; harder than stone. The trouble lies within their brains.

Sociopaths are known for their charm if you like that particular sociopath. Then, along the way, there’s that hairpin turn to nightmare behavior. This D.I.Y. Guide to a sociopath’s brain and psyche cracks the code. So… what’s going on in those heads of theirs?

Sociopaths, the pathological user doesn’t think as we do because they can’t. The vast chasm of difference between “normal” and “sociopath” is found in the brain.

Read 11 Warning Signs Of A Sociopath in Your Life

Sociopaths Have a Brain That Works Very Differently than Ours

These pathological users can act in ways we’d never imagine. Making use of others is their normal.

Sociopaths and psychopaths‘ brains don’t work a bit like ours. It’s confusing and frustrating to try to build relationships with them because they’re missing the building blocks of bonding.

We get caught up in our own emotional reaction to what’s happening between us and them. We go to emotions and talking things out to correct conflict and confusion and to bond. We “feel” our way through life.

We Are Normal Through and Through

And that’s normal… and really great, except these narcissistic pathological users aren’t normal and don’t care what we feel, so it doesn’t help us at all.

Sociopaths and psychopaths do not have the brain capacity to feel any social connection or bond. We look into their eyes searching for a connection and find nothing but “empty”.

Empty and hollow and devoid of humanity. This is the real reason they have intimacy issues. Don’t believe that “abuse” story.

How Can Sociopaths Do What They Do?

Whether we call them sociopaths, malignant narcissists, con artists, scammers, covert narcissists, liars, or users – they’re all alike. It’s incredibly hard for us to imagine the vast emptiness inside their heads.

Without any human connection, they have only one thing going on in their upstairs hamster wheel of a brain: survival.

The way a predator, parasite such as the sociopath survives is like any parasite, they live through the efforts of others and off of others. They know this about themselves. They count on us not knowing this.

Read Why Empathic People Are Natural Targets For Sociopaths

We Can Only Be Normal

We, as normal humans who do bond and care, have limbic brains. This is the brain of a mammal. A mammal is an animal – including us humans – that gives vaginal births. Yah! I know, right! This includes in part cows, bunnies, dogs, cats, monkeys, elephants, dolphins, and whales. Each of these, including humans, bonds, loves, nurtures, creates family groups, and can even bond with one another.

Antisocial psychopaths are referred to as a sociopath, sometimes a narcissist or a psychopath. The sociopath has what’s called a “reptilian brain”. Think of creatures of a reptilian brain, snakes, lizards, crocodiles.

They lay eggs, do not create a family, and even eat their young both before or after the eggs hatch. – There are a few exceptions here, but this is to give an idea of the fundamental difference that matters: no nurturing, no parenting, no bonding, no pairs, or family group.

Sociopaths Can Only Be Sociopaths

What the sociopath is wired by their brain to do in order to live, to survive, to exist has the effect of destroying others. They know this. It doesn’t faze them. This sounds farfetched unless you’ve been in it.

There’s Really No One Home: But Evil

Sociopaths are without any bonding capability, therefore they’re without genuine concern or care for any human or for any animal though they pretend either or both.

They have no moral, ethical, spiritual concern for others or for the effect on others as fall out and as deliberate effect. imagine if you can: they have no conscience. – They do however make use of our conscience and our emotions and normal bonding impulses to prolong their parasitic stay in any person’s life.

With this primal urge to survive, which we all share, when the brain doesn’t bond or care then what’s left in these simple creatures is spartan. It’s purely and the only motivation to make use of other people, to take whatever they want, and get away with it. – There is nothing else there.

Sociopaths Don’t Feel What We Feel

A narcissist is the same thing as a sociopath, and a socioapth is in reality a psychopath. Sociopaths are all alike. I settled on the term “sociopath” because it’s more palatable than “psychopath” and has much more meaning as to their real nature than “narcissist”.

If you’re thinking of them as a covert, overt or malignant narcissist or borderline, please shift how you think of them through the concept of a sociopath and things will make more sense. – These DSM categories are irrelevant at best to those solving the crimes of a life invasion.

Collectively, these vast wastelands of humanity do not “feel” or experience any of the normal emotions that we do. Not at all, no matter how hard they pretend to. And definitely no matter how much we project our experience of human emotions onto them. – In fact, it’s this assumption that they feel like we do that causes us further harm and pain.

Read 8 Identifying Traits of A Sociopath

Sociopaths Do Not Feel The Way We Do

All the very normal human emotions we experience aren’t felt by them. We assume these emotions are felt by them. This is from our world. They do not feel any of these feelings in the way we do.

Limbic Brained Normal: Trust, Bonding, and Connection

We, on the other hand, have limbic brains; the brain of a mammal that bonds, cares and makes connected family groups.

Their reptilian brain is a primal self-survival brain. We walk into what we think is a friendship or relationship with our limbic brain. Essentially, we’re jumping like little puppies expecting things to be good. This then is where the real trauma lives when ensnared by a sociopath. We can heal our traumatized brain.

Sociopaths aka psychopaths and some of the ones you might still be referring to as a narcissist, genuinely do not like others or feel part of a group, they have no love for their parents, no love for their children, no love at all. These parasites can be disarmed before they start.

D.I.Y. Guide to the Inside of the Dark-Dark Noggin

A Sociopath’s or a Pathological Predator’s Behaviors are Identical and Predictable

– They don’t really tell much about their lives other than highlights of being used or heroic things they’ve done.

– They try to show themselves as humanitarians, or fighters for justice, or do-gooders.

– Surprisingly, they are naive.

– They get restless and bored.

– Predators give the impression of being sincere and humble.

– When meeting someone new they want to hear about the other person.

– Agree with us to inspire our trust and feelings of intimacy.

– They create a forced “we”; create an “us and them”.

– Go through periods of hyperactivity contrasted with heavy downtime. There’s a significant reason for this and it’s not because they have PTSD or are bipolar or other malarkey.

– When threatened personally that their toys will be taken, they experience trauma and lash out.

There’s Still More

– Say one thing then another.

– Tell tall tales of being used by others.

– Some “play dead” like a kid. They talk about death, dying, or suicide.

– Say odd things that are in reality when they’re telling the truth of how they feel.

– Hesitate before responding, looking at us in a paused mode.

– Give inappropriate or disjointed off the mark response in emotional situations that call for empathy, sympathy, or compassion such as someone’s death, accident, or illness.

– Have hidden sexual activity; hedonistic, BDSM, sex industry, pedophilia, porn.

– Employment is sparse, short-lived, or a long-term professional setting or claim they have their own business; under the surface, all is fraud.

– Though sociopaths – because of the inherent sociopath power of influence – they can have a huge scope of influence in politics, law, criminal justice, and religious settings.

– Careless with material possessions yet seem attached to some items to obsession.

– Can be very entertaining and hold sway with a crowd, paradoxically quite hermit-like.

– They can sound and seem like two different people in different situations.

– Have the ability to morph age-wise, gender wise.

– A sociopath can cross over, shift in what they seem to be in terms of where they’re from, their economic status, and more.

Sociopaths Have Different Brains Than Normal People

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National Geographic made an informative video about antisocial psychopaths aka sociopaths in our midst.

Antisocial in this context is Latin medical terminology referring to their abnormal brains. it means they behave outside of the expected or the accepted social behaviors and norms. It’s got nothing to do with being uncomfortable or shy socially.

Sociopaths aka psychopaths are within this category, but the full-blown psychopath is more focused on the entertainment they feel at other’s pain than on scamming a place to sleep. 

We might not all experience all of the kinds of horrific things a sociopath can potentially do, say, their darkest thinking may not be seen by all of us, in many cases, they are not shown to all of us. Some of you have the “relationship” crumble and end without a harsh word between you. – This is great you were spared and yet this also becomes a stumbling block to seeing what they are.

Read 15 Reasons Narcissists and Sociopaths Lie

Easy-Peasy: Criminal is Their Normal

A sociopath will claim to be a great parent, especially on FB. Steal money or possessions from a spouse, or friend, or stranger. Have affairs with married people. Impregnate and abandon. Hide money from a partner. Lie to authorities. “Cheat” while in a “relationship”. For a sociopath aka narcissist, immigration and marriage fraud are as ordinary as it is for them to have us do the laundry and pay their phone bill.

It’s a possibility they have two phones or more and keep them but one hidden. Or pretend one or the other phone is for work because they’re so big and important. If you noticed they don’t genuinely pay their own way financially, even if they work, the work is fraud. They use a different name. Hide where they go, and the things they buy.

Their World Is Nothing Like Ours

What we think we know about the sociopath who hijacked us is usually not nearly the tip of the iceberg. Don’t wait to find out more. Go no contact. Sociopaths separate groups of people and their “second” family, along with their second or third or fourth alias, alternate versions of their names, or completely different identities.

These pathological users will fake illness. Leave for days. Stop talking, or talk too much. Marry only for houses, cars, property, and borrowed respectability. Sociopaths aka narcissists use online social media and dating sites to fish prey. Primary prey suffers pain and confusion when the sociopath-predator withholds sex. Change phone numbers frequently.

They make bold claims about glorious accomplishments. Promise many things. Place their prey in the position of being liable for their crimes. These are criminals: read more about that in this NY Times story on one of the latest sociopaths put behind bars.

Want to know more about sociopaths? Check this video out below!

Let’s Withdraw the Magnanimous, Generous Credit we Give these Beasts

We tend to give the sociopath’s machinations and ability to lie more flattering significance than it’s worth. We imagine their ploys require “intelligence”.

We think what they do requires some kind of genius because they’re doing things we’d never think of doing in a million years or ever dare to do if we could think of it.

In reality, they can do what they do because they don’t care. I don’t mean they decide not to care. Deciding not to care would require the ability to care and then to weigh and discern caring more about one thing than another. They don’t have “care” for others in their lexicon of emotion.

When there’s no concern or consideration for other people, no sense of responsibility, no obligation to society, family, friends, humanity, or any living being other than self allowing one to carry out any action to gain a desire – is this intelligence or genius? Or is it simply a kind of diabolical freedom? When caring is absent, what’s left?

~ Jennifer Smith, “Pathological Narcissism”

Read PTSD Is A Thing After Life With A Sociopath

Sociopaths Fake Next to Everything

Sociopaths avoid work. Pass STD’s. Demand a partner to stop practicing a religious faith. Ruin others with lies. Lie in court. Lie to immigration. Block wives, girlfriends from their social media.

Abandon their children. Scam and lie to their children. Obtain fake passports. Use fake ID’s. Never have a real address.

Use two or more Facebook accounts with different identities. Control and abuse children just as they do adults. Claim fame that doesn’t exist.

Use someone else’s social security number. Fake their educations. Cheat through school. Leave others holding the bag for their debts.

What Sociopaths Don’t Want Us to Know About Them

Sociopaths don’t like us to know their vulnerabilities and darker secret behaviors and their genderless sexuality and are promiscuous nature. In reality, anyone will do as a sexual “partner” since there is no love or emotional connection.

There is a concerted effort to hide their alcohol use, porn, prostitutes, and gambling or drug use. It’s important for pathological predators to hide their deep fear of discovery. Their huge fear of losing their prey, though they know every false connection will eventually end from the moment say “hello”.

Violence, Secrets, and Things We Can’t Imagine

They usually keep violent behavior under wraps, bar fights, stealing, criminal records. Sociopaths separate groups of people and their “second” family, along with their second or third or fourth alias, alternate versions of their names, or completely different identities.

These pathological users can act in ways we’d never imagine. Making use of others is their “normal”. This can be hard to see even when we feel they’re lying, not completely honest, and we feel suspicious of them.

Things we might be missing are that they act out in impulsive violence. and have uncontrollable rage. They defraud governments and agencies. Embezzle funds or property. Blackmail. Commit forgery. Sell drugs. Pimp. And, really and truly couldn’t care less.

Sociopaths try to cover up that they know what they’re doing. These creatures know that by being what they are, others are hurt.

Sociopaths, Even if you Call them Narcissists, Narcopaths or Narcs, Need Others to Believe Them

Here’s the best part: they need us. And they know they do. Their success is dependent upon us not knowing any of this. And they don’t have a chance of using others or surviving unless we believe them and believe they’re at least within some range of normal. Maybe normal but troubled.

Recognize them for what they are. Put aside our emotional investment and connection. Shut down the sociopath’s ability to use and abuse. Exit stage left or get them gone. Go no contact, trust our gut! We are our own angels! We are Super Heroes!

Read 5 Things You Must Do When Leaving A Sociopath

Jennifer Smith, founder of True Love Scam Recovery is an author, public speaker, and international private recovery coach and holds support groups in Los Angeles for those coming out of narcissistic abuse and fraud relationships. Guest contributor to Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare. Hear Jennifer interviewed on Mental Health News Radio. Find Jennifer on Instagram @truelovescamrecovery, @truelovescamrecovery_health, and @jennifer_smith_tlsr On Facebook and Pinterest. Reach Jennifer at, jennifer@truelovescam.com – Jennifer Smith is a pen name.


Written By Jennifer Smith
Originally Appeared On True Love Scam
Sociopathy 101: Understanding the Mind & Psyche Of A Sociopath
Sociopathy 101: Understanding the Mind & Psyche Of A Sociopath
D.I.Y. Guide to a Sociopath’s Brain and Psyche_Pin
D.I.Y. Guide to a Sociopath’s Brain and Psyche Pin

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