Two Psychopaths

Psychopath: A mental disorder resulting in a greatly diminished lack of empathy and remorse with an increased feeling of boldness without boundaries wrapped in a disinhibited personality; a sense of fecklessness, of uncaring or unfeeling.

Uness you are born one it is not easy to become a psychopath and they are even harder to identity. There are also many levels of what it is to be one. I know two of them. One is violent if provoked and the other of a passive but uncaring nature. The first guy you can see coming and at least have time to get out of the way of his sword, and the other will still be smiling at you as he draws the knife out of the main artery of your heart; at least this scenario will play out only in his mind. 


The former is all testosterone still and the latter possesses a masked gentler side. To insult them would be no good for they would not know the difference for it is only what they desire that counts to them and nothing more. 

How did both become this way against the generalities of the 'normal' family dynamics, considering they were raised under an unbrella of the reasonable functioning  democracies of England and Ireland? The easy answer is that you take away all that they ever had, starting with family, and leave nothing to hope for. Rip apart any sense or pride of self and you are left with primary instinct against feelings of empathy or sympathy; then they will quickly learn not to ask anymore and only take it, one way or the other.

The Irishman was left in an institution since birth, never met his parents, never hugged, not even an accidental one, but was beaten as a matter of routine and got raped at ten years old before that became routine too. He was finally left on the streets at fifteen years old. Stealing was his survival and he never cried again long after he forgot when he ever did.


The Englishman was also left in an institution, albeit a better one, not beaten, fed marginally better, and like the Irishman, had never known a hug or any kind of affection. He adopted the identity of another and many more, and depending who was in the room, showed them the best one on the day to either in order to be left in peace or get what he was looking for. Their paths were set to enter the wider world and never cross. 

The Irishman killed a man before he reached twenty years old, stayed homeless for many years, and eventually found a peace with his wife in a home that they could both call their own. She showed him at least how to to feel in some form and trust just a little. His life of crime was over and had just really begun too.  

The Englishman set his course onto lockdown from the wider world and waited, still like a beggar, in the hope that something better would come long. He built his own prison in a room little bigger than a coffin where no one could break in and he could not break out. He is is still there. He had never realised the waiting itself was what was killing him, and doesn't know yet.

Statistics prove that if a child does nor receive love of some kind and emotional support by the age of five years old, then they have a much higher degree of having a troubled adulthood. But if they have none of these supports at all by the age of eleven years old, they have an even higher chance of becoming  psychopaths; And that is how and why these two became one.



Barry Clifford