I have had questions about the “WOS” that I have never been sure if they were traits that were common amongst narcissists/psychopaths or just unique to him so yesterday I went in search of answers, just out of curiosity. I am not going to quote a bunch of medical journals or thesis I read, I can get quite carried away on the net, you know how it goes, you click on a link and another and another and before you know it 5 hours have past and you have no idea how you got to where you got. (That was one of the excuses the “WOS” used to use for ending up falling asleep while looking at porn, he just clicked on a link and *BAM* there was porn on the screen!!)
Anyway, WOS had a very high tolerance for physical pain and an unhealthy lack of fear which makes for a dangerous combination and led him to have many “accidents”. According to him and his mother he was terribly accident prone as a young child and most of his life actually. As a wee toddler (now I am not sure it was the Grande Canyon but some huge canyon) they were at a national park with a cliff and he ran right up to the edge and looked over, teetering on the edge of the cliff. The parents didn’t want to scream and startle him and had to calmly coax him from the edge. He told me of the time he had matches in his pocket as a kid and fell, they lit on fire and he burned himself really badly and was afraid to tell. Another time he ripped his ass end some how and there was a parade happening in town and he was to ride on a piece of farm equipment in the parade so didn’t tell anyone he was injured. It was not until his dad saw the blood gushing that anyone knew.
As a teen he had car and motorcycle accidents, thank God he lived in Saskatchewan where the cops knew everyone and cut him some slack and where the land is so flat you can drive off the road and have a good chance of surviving. As an adult he was accident prone or so I thought, he was continually injuring himself, usually when he wanted to get out of something, like a job or trouble. If I was angry about something he would injure himself, what cold hearted woman is going to insist on discussed the personal ad when he is bleeding and needs stitches?
His unhealthy lack of fear showed in the chances he took speeding, even working on vehicles, and especially angering people and them coming after him. He had guys with guns, big Harley riding dudes who threatened to break his face because he had ripped someone off. When i first started dating him he called and told me he had been badly beaten, of course it was all a misunderstanding, he had done nothing to deserve it. I rushed down and took him to emergency. He had never had a woman do that for him. yeah ok.
But he never seemed to learn from it and would still rip people off but I think he didn’t hurt as badly as normal people so it didn’t impact him like it would a normal person. He told me more than once that he had never been afraid, he didn’t know what it felt like to be afraid. I found that strange.
He would cut himself and not even remember how he did it or know he had done it. One morning while his sister was living with us he had hit himself on the nose badly, it was swollen and had obviously bled and we both asked what he had done and he didn’t have a clue.
Apparently he had accidents in his semi where he was not supposed to walk again.
He used to say he got migraines and he seemed to be in pain, he also used to get a flu and be really sick with a raging fever etc and he said he had always been like that. Not get sick for a long time and then be delirious with fever but when I mentioned it to his mom she obviously didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. So I don’t know what I can believe and what was a lie. But I do know he totalled that pick up truck and put his head through the windshield and it sounds crazy that he would do that on purpose but it sure was convenient.
I think he probably was accident prone but from childhood he learned he could use it to his advantage.
Through studies they have determined that people who have had an injury to their frontal lobe of the brain have the same lack of fear and a very high pain tolerance exactly the same as psychopaths. This finding backs up Dr Hare’s research that showed psychopaths have deformed brains when they scanned normal brains and the brains of psychopaths.
I don’t recall WOS having a bad sense of smell but they say that is another trait of psychopaths and people with frontal lobe damage.
Another function of that part of the brain is their excitement level. They need a lot of stimulation and get bored on the job often (That is when James would end up stealing or something,) which would make sense and be why WOS never lasted more than a few months on most jobs.
It also explains why they are such good lovers (in the beginning) sex is one of the most stimulating things a person can do so it makes sense that they are insatiable sexually. I had never met a man who could have sex 4-5 times in a night. For the first 8 years of the relationship we had sex everyday 2-3 times a day. If he did come to bed he would wake me up in the night to have sex again. It explains the need for porn, why so many of them have addictions, and weird fetishes. The need for the excitement of affairs, leaving hints to their infidelity so you catch them, but of course they can’t ever be at fault and they want to be in control so not only are they getting the stimulation they crave they are getting the thrill of causing you pain.
That is why the physical abuse escalates he needs more and more in order to feel alive because he really is all most dead inside he is so lacking of normal feelings.
I just wanted to share that before I forgot. i am working on my funding package today so I have to get back to work on that.
Does any of this sound familiar to any of you?