The model of young psychopaths as out-of-control future delinquents seems so wrong. It describes young Mallory acting on primitive impulse, unsocialized and dysfunctional. It is a model without hope. I think we make it worse when we frame child psychopathy as a "medical problem." If drugs and therapy do not work on adult psychopaths, why consider them for children?
Mallory the adult started young and sharpened his talents on his schoolmates. He learned to not get caught. So here is my list of traits for young Mallory, before and during differentiation:
❂ He is charming and can be angelic. His teachers tend to adore him.
❂ He is popular with other children, dominant, and independent.
❂ He teases and bullies smaller and younger children for fun.
❂ He is not afraid of larger children, nor of disapproval. He does what he likes.
❂ He despises the school rules, though he avoids getting into trouble.
❂ He leads a small gang of other children. They experiment with breaking the rules.
❂ He asks other children to give him their toys, and other possessions, and they do.
❂ He steals from other children, and takes small items in shops.
❂ If you ask other children what he is like, no-one has a solid answer.
❂ He never asks others how they are doing or what they are feeling.
❂ He is as likely to show violence and aggression as other children. It is how he aims it that is different.
❂ His empathy does not develop. He laughs when others fall and hurt themselves.
❂ He is chaotic with his and others' possessions. He does not enjoy organized order.
❂ On line, he stalks and bullies those he feels are weaker and vulnerable.
❂ His family shows chaos and narcissism in one parent.
So the adult Mallory emerges over time. I suspect that by the age of 12 or so, it is too late to change the trajectory he has taken. The full adult Mallory emerges at 15 or so, as he builds a career in taking from others and getting away with it.
What about old Mallory? At what age does a psychopath retire? The answer is "never." Mallory’s genes make her more resistant to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other illness. She manages, to her last breath, to draw her family in to support and look after her. I wrote that psychopaths divide and torture their children. One of the benefits for Mallory is that she keeps her scapegoats around for decades, serving her.
The seductress side of Mallory disappears when she hits 45 or so. She tries to keep the interest going with plastic surgery, tight clothes, wigs, and cosmetics. She looks more and more grotesque. Yet she pays no attention to others' advice. She is never wrong.
If you look at older Mallory you may see these traits:
❂ Her children surround her and look after her. They ignore or despise their other parent. It is Mallory who is the center of attention.
❂ People exist to serve her. This goes beyond her children. She collects a circle of admirers who look after her. Her social life is about recruiting and keeping this circle alive.
❂ She does nothing sincere for other people. If she does charity work or community work, it is always a display, in public view. She despises her neighbors and ignores them as far as she can.
❂ Her main hobby is watching television soap operas. She does not keep house plants or cats. If her family give her a companion dog, it becomes sick or disturbed.
❂ She hoards relics: photographs, clothes, old possessions. Her home is not tidy and functional. It is chaotic and full of arbitrary things left for years in the same spots.
❂ She may be frail and on the verge of hospitalization for years, decades. Her retirement revolves around phases of ill health. Yet she lives to a surprising age.
❂ She leaves no inheritance to her children. Maybe she never worked. Or, if she had wealth, she leaves it to a charity, to teach her children a lesson.
❂ She feels no reason to talk to her family unless she needs something. Yet she has no compunction about interfering in their lives at any time, and without notice.
Conclusions
In this chapter I’ve explained where and how to spot Mallory. Is there a single reliable way to tell if a given person is a psychopath? The answer is "no." It depends so much on the state of your relationship with the person, and the context. All your data are lies. Every accusation and observation is wrong or biased. The truth only emerges after time, as the average of many errors.
Can we spot psychopaths in the wild? Yes, we can. It is even quite simple. Watch groups and couples in public settings. Observe without opinion. You will see the narcissists, the rule breakers, the charmers and the mimics. You will see some people always triggering others, yet rarely responding. This is how psychopaths spot and avoid others "playing their game."
Except it’s not that simple. Prey and predator are in a constant arms race. We can predict that some ants will evolve to imitate their spider parasites. We can predict that some social humans can and must play the psychopath game. Predator mimicry is an interesting idea, and I’ll come back to it later.
The Dance of Emotions
The Best Friend
Sure, I’ll tell you what happened.
We had a rocky relationship from the start. I’m a large guy and usually pretty chill. Yet we fought all the time. And I mean, all the time! There was no real reason. Sure, I look at other women sometimes. I’m human. She’d freak out. "Hey you," she’d shout at a waitress who I’d said hi to. "Do you want to go out with my boyfriend? Do you?"
We stopped going out after she got into a fight. Some woman had called her a whore, when her boyfriend stared at my wife’s legs. Short shorts, right? I told her she’d been showing a lot of skin, men were going to stare. "So you think I’m a whore, do you?" she said. "No," I sighed. "He called me a whore in public, in front of everyone!" she said, to anyone who would listen. For years.
I thought she was insecure and jealous. She’s so good looking though. I was so in love. So in love. My family loved her too, told me I’d found the right woman, told me to look after her. So that’s what I tried to do.
She started going to college, evening classes. I paid her tuition. "It’s our money," she said. To be honest I don’t know why I wanted to marry her. But I did, more than anything, and she said "yes" right away.
About a year after we married, my unit deployed to Iraq. We spent our last night together, and she cried, and told she would wait for me. Only two months later, our Humvee hit an IED. It was like I flew overseas to get blown up. I was in hospital for a month and then they sent me home on disability.
The decision happened so fast I didn’t have a chance to call her. OK, I thought, I’ll surprise her. I’m back from work, honey!
I got back to our place and the house was empty and quiet. The plants were dry and going brown. There was mail, a lot of mail. I walked through our home, and sat on our bed. The side cupboard was a little open. I pulled it open and saw this little beaten-up black notebook. I’d never seen it before. Strange.
I opened the book and read it. It crammed with letters and dates. "A.H.B, 3-12-05." The same letters showed up over and over. They were peoples' initials. Beside some of the names there were figures. Money, could be. There was an entry every few days, and the first ones dated back to years before we met. There, I found our first few dates. I looked through twenty pages, to the end. The dates continued until a few days ago. I recognized the last initials. J.A.K. One of my best friends, across the street. Wife and two kids. Not possible. No harm taking a look, right?