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Hosted by Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. and Megan Hunter, MBA, It’s All Your Fault! High Conflict People explores the five types of people who can ruin your life—people with high conflict personalities and how they weave themselves into our lives in romance, at work, next door, at school, places of worship, and just about everywhere, causing chaos, exhaustion, and dread for everyone else.
They are the most difficult of difficult people — some would say they’re toxic. Without them, tv shows, movies, and the news would be boring, but who wants to live that way in your own life!
Have you ever wanted to know what drives them to act this way?
In the It’s All Your Fault podcast, we’ll take you behind the scenes to understand what’s happening in the brain and illuminates why we pick HCPs as life partners, why we hire them, and how we can handle interactions and relationships with them. We break down everything you ever wanted to know about people with the 5 high conflict personality types: narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, antisocial/sociopath, and paranoid.
And we’ll give you tips on how to spot them and how to deal with them.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those involving someone with high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie. Hi
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California where we focus on training, consulting, coaching classes, and educational programs and methods, all to do with high conflict. Today is the second episode of our new series five types of People who Can Ruin Your Life. And today's focus will be on the cruel, calm artist types, the anti socials. But before we start, send your questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or on our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast. For you also find all the show notes and links. Give us a like or a review wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Alright, bill. So last week we talked about, in the first episode we talked about the basics of the high conflict personality, which we identified as about 10% of the population. And today we're going to talk about the first of the five types, the cruel con artist type, the antisocial personality, and we're going to talk about what it is, what here's the problem and here's what it looks like, and then what can we do about it? What can be done? So let's talk then. Let's start with the problem. You start the book, the chapter on antisocial is in this book with this, one of the most charming and therefore incredibly dangerous high conflict personality types is the sociopath, while typically thought of as a criminal personality. The majority of sociopaths are not in prison and you may run into them in everyday life, but their behavior is antisocial against society's standards of social behavior and laws and can be extremely harmful. So the con artists, it strikes me, I mean we all hear about artists bill, but what struck me with how you title this chapter is the use of the word cruel. And this what we hear a lot when we talk about this personality type and how they impact other people. So there's the con artist part, there's the cruel part. So it's kind of confusing, right?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, there's a wide range of this personality, but some of the themes that they really lack, the empathy that most people have that help us watch out for each other and not try to hurt each other, but they lack the empathy. They lack remorse. They don't feel bad if they've hurt somebody, it just doesn't register. And it almost seems like a brain wiring issue that they just start out wired a little bit differently. And some people say in many ways, like three-year-olds that they want what they want and they want it now, and they don't care if they have to hurt somebody to get it. And you might say, what's the it that they want? And it really varies. It's often money, it's often property, maybe it's reputation, certainly sex, a lot of suggestions that they're more promiscuous than the average person. And then other personality disorders that they're more aggressive, that they're certainly more deceitful.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
That's one of the biggest characteristics that they'll lie and they'll lie without remorse. And unlike when we talk about narcissists who tend to exaggerate their importance and stuff, but they don't lie a lot, antisocial really lies a lot. That's often how you notice, hey, this person lies about everything. Well, that's a hint. You may be dealing with an antisocial, which means that you may be dealing with somebody with a lot of secrets with secret behaviors that aren't going to come out until you've made a commitment. Maybe you've gotten married and now all that sweet charm goes away and there's a lot of dominance going on. But before I forget it, I want to mention we're not teaching people to diagnose personality disorders. We're looking at the more practical side of patterns of high conflict behavior. And this personality, whether it's a disorder or maybe someone just has some traits of this, can still be very difficult, especially in close relationships because they're so manipulative saying things like, Hey honey, I got to take off for the weekend.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
There's this really big project at work I have to do. And instead they're flying to the other side of the continent to spend the weekend with their other family that you don't know anything about. And so it could be this, but there's a wide range and some people have a little bit of this and you may be able to manage relationships with them. But by and large, this is the most extreme, I would say, of the cluster B personality disorders, which is antisocial, histrionic, borderline and narcissist, and what we call the high conflict personalities, which are those four plus paranoid. So this is one to be aware of and be aware that you're being deceived and most people will be deceived at some point by someone like this. Let me mention though, before I forget, it is the three different terms that people confuse here.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So there's antisocial personality disorder, which is primarily what we're talking about, although it doesn't have to be a disorder. It may just be mild traits, but has this pattern of conning, aggressive behavior, et cetera. Then there's sociopath and sociopath and antisocial personality overlap a lot. But what's interesting, antisocial personality lacks empathy lacks remorse. Whereas some sociopaths may have families that they care about, and an example might be like the mafia. They're out there killing people and conning people, but in their family, they really do love their wife and love their kids. So someone who's a sociopath may have that just for certain people, but everybody else should watch out. Antisocial personality disorder seems more sweeping that there's really nobody that's safe, even their spouses and children like say Bernie Madoff, who kept it secret from his family and destroyed his family when it finally came out that he was a conning billionaire and really had a pyramid scheme of sorts. So anyway, and the last is psychopath, and that's like a quarter of antisocial and sociopaths, maybe psychopaths, which is more aggressive energy, more willingness and perhaps pleasure out of hurting people. It's a smaller group, maybe 1% of society, whereas antisocial and social paths are around 4% of society.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Let me go back to the conning. We hear about the people that do have a guy or a girl in every port. Now is that bonafide? Absolutely. That person has some tinge of this antisocial personality if someone's caught out in something like this or not. And how would you tell?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Well, there's certain categories of behavior that make me think, okay, there's antisocial traits here, like having multiple families or multiple partners that they've been very secretive about. And what's interesting, again, I'll mention narcissists. Narcissists often like to have more than one relationship to keep them getting the narcissistic supply that they want, but they often don't keep it a secret. Instead they say, Hey, you have to understand my needs are more than most people and I have to have this. Whereas the antisocial may have an entire secret life. For example, I worked consulted with a divorce client that she was married for six years and it wasn't until going through the divorce that she found out that her husband did not have a job. He would go to work every morning, but he didn't have a job. He was pretending to go to work every morning. And apparently where he got his money was he was somehow siphoning money off her father's business. And so that's where the family money was coming from. It wasn't his job, so he conned her. Now, he wasn't a violent person. Some are violent, but many aren't violent and in many ways was a seemingly kind person, but it was a pretend life. He wasn't who he said he was, and she had this kind of cold feeling like there's a lot that's not there. So that's one example.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
So I had an acquaintance who said they didn't have a job, but they would leave their home every day at the same time and drive to 25 miles to the downtown area of the city all dressed up and come home about the same time every night. And she said she was job hunting there, but I don't know anybody else that would job hunt for eight hours a day in person pounding the streets for a marketing executive job. So it's kind of interesting to realize that the isn't a specific all the time, it's just whatever suits their needs, she needed to money from people saying, I don't have a job. When an actuality she did have a job and there were a whole lot of other red flags. And that's what confused me, and that's what is always the tell. And we'll talk about here's what it looks like later, but one of the tells is confusion. And I got that from your book, bill. It's all your fault. When I was dealing with this particular female acquaintance and I was feeling so confused with her, and I went back and I read that antisocial chapter and ah, there it is. When you feel confused, things just don't add up.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I told the double life people, whether it's lying about whether they have a job or they don't, or whether they have cancer or they don't, or whether they have this beautiful wife on Facebook or Instagram with beautiful pictures and loving and kind toward everybody, I'm praying for you. I love you. I think you're wonderful. Oh you poor thing. Let me, can I bring you a meal? All of those things. But on the flip side and in the real life is a whole different story and they're cruel and they're destroying other people. So there's a double life people. Bill. On a scale of one to five, picking between these five high conflict types, antisocial, borderline narcissistic, histrionic and paranoid, where does the antisocial rank in terms of their impact on others?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I would say it depends on the individual because you could have someone say with borderline personality disorder who is so jealous that they kill their lover or their partner's boyfriend or girlfriend. But overall in general, the antisocial is generally the more difficult and more damaging, partly because it's such a psychological deception and people just feel so devastated when they find out that this isn't at all the person I thought this was like after getting married. And then you find out you've got this very aggressive, domineering kind of partner who was sweet and loving up to that point. That's why we say to wait a year before you commit to get married, have a child, buy a house, all of that, because they can cover up this stuff for quite a while, but usually not a whole year. So that's, I'd say it's the worst, but I also, it's more generally the worst.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
And I want to mention briefly, of course, in addition to my own books, there's a book I read recently called Sociopath, and it's about a woman who really talks about growing up realizing she was different, that she lacked empathy for people that she enjoyed stealing from people she enjoyed, breaking into people's houses, usually thinking that they're not home. And yet she set rules for herself. And she said, I'm not allowed to hurt anybody. I can never let myself hurt anybody. So she limited her sociopathic behavior to breaking into houses and stealing things but not hurting anybody. She also seems to have a good relationship with a man who became her husband. And that's why I wanted to mention that sociopaths may be able to have empathy for somebody even though they don't have empathy for most people. So there's a wide range and wide, that's why it's important to be aware of this, but not be judgemental, but be protective and don't let people into your life too close who may have these very deceptive personalities.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Absolutely. So that's an interesting premise in that book that she was able to have that level of insight. And it makes me think about someone I had a conversation with recently whose adult child has been diagnosed now with autism spectrum disorder and it's made the parent that I was talking to wonder if they also have this autism spectrum disorder. And one of the issues is just not really feeling something when someone's dying, let's say. I mean having empathy, being able to handle it. And even last night I was watching the 6 0 2 lost in Phoenix channel on YouTube. It's a guy that interviews homeless people in Phoenix. It's so tragic. And there's one gal that he's been following lately that's very close to death. She's down to 75 pounds and the drug use is just horrible. And so his followers were messaging him saying, Hey, how is your mental health?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Are you doing okay? And he said, look, I'm one of those people that has a personality that can just compartmentalize. I can go and talk to them and I can say, okay, this is their life. This is not my life. I'm going to do what I can to help, but I don't let it affect me. I guess the questionnaire is, I don't want anyone to think that just because you don't have maybe strong emotions or feelings of empathy, is that the right way to say it? Or that you can handle things differently. It doesn't mean you have an antisocial personality. You could be maybe somewhere on another spectrum, but it doesn't mean you have your a sociopath or you could just be able to be very good at compartmentalizing. I don't know. I mean, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I think a lot with antisocial and sociopath is it's about being against the rules of society. You're willing to harm people, you're okay breaking the law, and you're good at deceiving people so that you can either harm them or get away with things that benefit with you. So I think of the lack of feeling or lack of empathy itself may be situational. I know sometimes if someone's dying, you would think you feel empathy for them, but what if that's someone who's been hurting you or an abusive spouse who gets cancer and stuff? And it's hard to have empathy, not going to get hit anymore if this person is sick or if they're dying. So it's more to do with those kind of against society characteristics and willingness to harm other people. A lack of empathy, I don't feel sad for them is different from, Hey, I'm willing to hurt them to get what I want.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So if it's a lack of empathy or lack, then you've got to have the plus plus the crew outside or plus I want to harm someone, plus I want to steal from some, I want to hurt someone. And there's the lack of remorse.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yes. And let me add, if you're concerned about yourself, go to a counselor and talk about what concerns are. Because what's interesting is the high conflict personalities are busy blaming everybody else. And they don't go to counselors unless they want to manipulate them to get a letter for court or something like that. They don't seek to change or work on themselves. People who are reflecting on themselves and have concerns on themselves usually don't have a personality disorder because that's a more fixed and less self-aware condition. And same with anti socials. There's a lot of programs out, and I think about the program, Dexter Dexter's, this guy, he works with the police force, but on the side he tends to murder people that he thinks need to be eliminated from society,
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Take out the trash,
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Right? Or Tony Soprano in the Sopranos. But the thing that's not real is those people are busy reflecting on themselves in those TV shows, and that's not real. They're doing what just fits who they are. They're not even really thinking much about it in that kind of self-reflective way. They're looking at how they can run their next scam or get their next person. So that's important for people to know. There isn't this self-reflection that's a piece that's missing and it's really missing for all of the personality disorders and all of the high conflict personalities. They're totally thinking, how can I do my next thing rather than, gee, should I have really done that? They don't have that kind of reflection.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So let's talk a couple of minutes. Let's switch into the from this is the problem into the how do we identify this? Here's what it looks like. So I like to say when I think about this, that we kind of think that the antisocial personality with the word cruel attached to it, that they're going to show up with an ax or with a sign that says, I'm going to really make your life hell. I mean, you've already mentioned that they often present with charm, but do they always present with charm? Because the female I was talking about a few minutes ago, she did not present with charm. She was very a neutral affect and had an odd vibe about her. But then everything after that was ticked all the boxes of this personality pattern.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
There's variation because generally it's an anti society kind of thing is they may come on with charm. And by the way, charm itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. There's people who are very charming and it's true, but it's more common with these folks that they're very charming. And I would suggest that anti socials and narcissists are the most charming people in the world. So it's a warning sign, but it's like a yellow light. It's not a red light. You want to check it out and see what's really going on. But the biggest thing with I think with antisocial is don't pay attention to what they look like and what they say. Because they can look and say like everybody else is, do a background check, find out who knows this person. What do they know about this person? Does this person have any relatives that I can talk to?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
So if you're dating or if you're hiring those kinds of things or going to hire someone to do some work on your house, those kinds of things, you want to get some verification that they are who they say they are. And I'll just give a quick example with that. In my very first book for legal professionals, high conflict people and legal disputes, I included a guy who went to prison for insider trading on Wall Street, and I put his name in there, his first name was Jeffrey. I put his whole name in there. Well, about five years after that, I get an email from a woman saying, I just read your book. And I can't believe, but that's the same guy that I gave $10,000 to fix a retaining wall in front of my house, and I never saw him again. I wish I had read your book before. He used his real name.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Wow. Wow. Yeah. So there's a bat right back to they lie when they know they can get caught, right?
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yes. Because they can talk people out of it because their facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, they can manipulate. And that's why cross-examination in court with anti socials is a risky thing because they often can people, and I'm not saying it particularly fits this person, but you remember the bloody glove.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Oh,
Speaker 2 (23:13):
The bloody glove. That wouldn't, if it doesn't fit, you must have quit. Well, that's the kind of that these con artists do. And I'm not saying OJ was a con or was antisocial, but I'm saying that's the kind of behavior that anti socials will do in court. And they win sometimes because they're so good at conning. So you've got to check that out. And one other thing I want to mention is your gut feelings sometimes are the ones that say, Hey, something's out of sync here. The words are perfect, but it just doesn't feel right. It's kind of cold, disconnected.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
That's what I was experiencing from this person. It was a little bit of a frost and disconnect. Yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Or a danger feeling like, Ooh, this person could hurt me if nobody else was around.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Okay, and another thing, and we'll take a break right after this is when we have over empathy for someone, I want to do more for this person, I'm going to give more. So they either have cancer or grandpa's in a wheelchair and needs a wheelchair. And I've got a situation right now I'm working with where there's a wheelchair at issue for someone in a third world country, this felony is a wheelchair. And I tell you what, the person here at the US has managed to buy that wheelchair or maybe buy 50 wheelchairs with the amount of money that's been raised individually from people without them knowing that there's 49 other wheelchairs aren't even purchased, not really, but it's all a con. And the same individual has been caught on camera doing something that they said they didn't do. And with the video, this is the thing about the antisocial type is with video proof presented to their face, absolutely will not confess to it. That didn't happen. Didn't. That's not me.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I don't know how that could be.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I don't know what happened. Your brain, it makes your brain doll, is there something wrong with me? Am I missing something? What? I better watch that video again. So if you have those thoughts, there's your clue, right? There's get your antenna up, you're not dealing with something that you think you are, and that person's going to go and charm and all that. So okay, with that, let's take a quick break. We'll come back and talk about what you can do. So Bill, let's talk about what you can do. You've created the cars method of handling high conflict. It's the overarching principles. It's the way you handle high conflict people in your interactions with them and get those sorted. But is there one that you're going to use more than others with the antisocial personality?
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Two things. One is core is connecting, analyzing, responding, and setting limits. And with connecting, we tend to use ear statements, empathy, attention and respect. Antisocial really like respect. So if you sprinkle your conversation, I was consulting once with a celebrity whose ex-husband she believed might be antisocial. And I said, then sprinkle your conversations with the word respect. I respect you. I respect your relationship with our child. I respect your efforts, and this is that, and I hope you'll respect mine. That may calm an antisocial person. Like I said, they're not all violent, they're not all involved in criminal behavior, but they may have a secret life. They may be connecting with phone sex or escorts or something. And that's where looking up the records, credit card records of a partner. I've had several people I've consulted with who were shocked to find what their partner was spending money on gambling, big gambling debts and such.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
So respect is a word that helps manage them, but in many ways it's setting limits and imposing consequences that that's really what's going to happen. And that's what employers need to think about earlier. Employers tolerate bad behavior longer than they should. If it's a pattern of bad behavior, look, you give one chance, but not five chances, things like that. And one thing I want to quickly say is not all people with a criminal record or prison record are antisocial. And there's some businesses that hire people out of prison to give them a second chance in life who do well. So this is tricky stuff, and you should get consultation and not jump to conclusions. But on the other hand, be cautious. So part of setting limits and imposing consequences is taking your time to get to know somebody, because I can't tell you there's one single sign that will tell you, oh, this is an antisocial person who will abuse you if you marry them. I can't tell you that we don't know there's one sign, but the general thing, get some background. Take your time. Same with whenever you're going to give somebody $10,000 to work on your house, do a good background check, Google them. So many people are out there on Google and they have a history, those kinds of things. But you may need to set limits and in relationships and marriages, if you don't go to counseling with me, I'm going to have to separate and think about our relationship, things like that.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
The old phrase, trust but verify comes to mind. And I think with this, it's don't trust and verify. Right,
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
So one last question and then we'll wrap this up is the problem with one of the many problems with the con artists is so many people believe them and they have no problem destroying you and relationship or your reputation in a community, in a family, in a business, in the media. They just don't stop. If you are their target of blame, they want to destroy you. They probably say bad things about you to other people and bad mouth you, most people will believe them because the con is so strong. So if you're the person that's having your reputation destroyed, you're being badmouthed and people don't know what to do or just dunno who to believe. Do you say, do you try to convince someone that this person is conning them?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
You want to say, first of all, hey, look, whenever someone's making strong, severe accusations about something, you need to have three theories. One is it might be true. The second is it might not be true at all. It completely false in the person saying these things is making false statements and acting badly. The third is maybe both people are acting badly. Well, in this case, that person's making false allegations against me. And you have to look at that serious possibility. And that's what I tell people if they're going to court, because socials are good at persuading judges, good at persuading communities, good at persuading employers that you're a terrible person and that they're a victim of you, so that they're playing the victim is a common theme for anti socials. And it works. They will turn people against you who will hate you without knowing you, and that's where this comes from. So keep your eyes open,
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Or even if they do know you, it plants a seed of doubt in their mind and they start then creating their own story or their own narrative without checking it out. So one last question for you, bill. If you had one piece of advice or wisdom for someone who understands just through listening to this episode that, wow, there's somebody close in my life who this really marks the spot. It's the spot. What would that piece of wisdom be? I know that's a big question. Broad one,
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Get consultation. Talk to a therapist who may understand what's going on. Talk to a lawyer who may understand.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
So if most therapists, whether they're master's level counselor, PhD in psychology, SD, do they identify and recognize the antisocial personality? In case in point, this past weekend, I was listening to someone's divorce story and this person had gone to a therapist and the therapist said, oh, this person has extreme narcissistic personality, and I'm listening to this and I'm going listening to the whole story. I'm thinking, that just doesn't sound so narcissistic. It sounds a lot more antisocial to me. Not that I was diagnosing or anything, but just looking at the patterns of behavior. This is someone who punched the ex-wives, new husband in front of 200 people at a party, just walked past him and smacked him, knocked him out. And there are a whole variety of other things. So I guess the concern is, does the therapist have this kind of training all therapists? And if so, I mean, how do you tell if someone does? And if you're told that there's what you're dealing with is maybe something different than this, is that going to harm you potentially? Or can you just use the same skills?
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah, so many therapists don't understand this personality and get conned by this personality as well, like in couples therapy. So you want someone who knows something about this either in your community or, I mean, consult with us. That's always an option. We do a lot of consultation, 30 minutes, 60 minute people trying to figure out what's happening to them.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Speaking of which, I think you have a consultation right now, bill.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, I need to do that. Let's start this stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Thanks for listening today. Next week we're going to talk about the third episode, the borderline personality types in this series. In the meantime, send your questions to@highconflictinstitute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast. Until next time, keep learning and practicing the skills and while we all try to keep the conflict small and try to find the missing piece, it's All Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. Find the show notes and transcripts at True Story fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.