Just being psychopathic

So, New Year’s Day, 2018. I spent it in the company of my mother for the most part, playing board games. It was nice to reconnect, nice to not have anything else to do but play a few games and enjoy spending time with the woman who birthed and raised me. It’s not often that there’s literally nothing else I’d rather be doing than what I’m currently doing, or that there’s nothing else that really has to be done.

The way my mind works, it’s goal-oriented. Win this. Get that. Do such and such. Beat him. And when I have a goal, everything I do, every bit of effort is put into achieving that goal. You could say I have a sort of tunnel vision, a razor sharp focus on the prize, outside of which nothing else matters. When I’m trying to achieve a goal is when other people are most likely to be adversely affected. This single-mindedness is what causes me to manipulate and use people like tools. You see, people who have been hurt by psychopaths get it all wrong. They take everything personally. They act like there was always a plan on the part of the psychopath to ruin their life or to make them unhappy. This is rarely the case. The psychopath was just doing what he or she needed to do to get what he or she wanted. You just got unlucky, by being in the way or by being the key to achieving his or her goal.

Sometimes, I am accused of deliberately hurting someone or of setting out to cause them harm. This is fair enough; people are inclined to take things personally, as they love to imagine themselves as more important than they really are, being at the centre of their own universe. I don’t blame people for feeling like shit when they’ve been cheated or taken an emotional battering. It’s not a good place to be in. But it’s when they call me cruel or sadistic, they’re wrong. I’m not cruel. I’m not sadistic. I don’t wish anybody harm. On the other hand, I am single-minded. I am selfish. I am ruthless.

But not today. Today, there was nothing to do but play games and enjoy being with my mother. I suppose that was a sort of goal, and could be reimagined as an objective: ‘spend time with Mum and enjoy self’, which would require of me such behaviour as ‘be polite’, ‘be charming’, ‘be loving’, ‘be upbeat’ (yes, that is really how I think). However, there was nothing beyond this simplistic ‘goal’, no detailed planning or second-guessing required!

And it was enjoyable. We both had a good time. We drank cups of tea, and later glasses of beaujolais. We played ‘Monopoly’ and ‘Sorry’, and I won four out of five games. I was probably thinking more strategically than Mum, because she was just having fun with her son, while I can never really ‘switch off’ one hundred percent. I manipulated and cheated my way into winning four times, but always with a cheeky smile, playful banter and a joke to make my parent laugh. She could see what I was doing most of the time, both when I was giving ‘advice’ on what move she should take next, and when I tried to bribe her with 500 Monopoly money, but she didn’t hold it against me because she loves me, and because I was on top social form. I like that kind of interaction. Being charming and having someone hang on to your every word – it’s a good feeling, even when it’s with someone who is pretty much biologically-programmed to love you.

Still, the way I look at it is although my Mum can’t help but love me, the fact that she also likes me must count for something, and says something about our relationship.

New Year’s Day 2018 – it was simple, but fulfilling.