Taming Toxic People

Introduction

Imagine for a minute that you are carving your way, machete in hand, through  impenetrable jungle in some terribly exotic place. You happen upon a clearing when suddenly you notice you are not alone. On the other edge of the glen, a stone’s throw from you, stands a tiger. He is staring intently at you. Assessing you. He doesn’t care whether you love your mother, what your favourite colour is or even that tomorrow is your birthday. To him, you are one of just three things: a meal, entertainment or too nasty to bother with.

The tiger will test you. He will growl, bare his teeth, or make an imperceptible, but swift, movement in your direction. These are all tests. He is probing you. Monitoring you for signs of strength or weakness. He will use every faculty millions of years of adaptation have given him, to determine whether you are trouble, or lunch.

You cannot reason with him, you cannot threaten him, you cannot plead for mercy. Your only chance of survival is to convince him that you are more trouble than you are worth. If you manage that, he will turn and walk away without a backward glance. If you can’t, your goose is cooked. Well, eaten.

The tiger’s cold assessment of your meal-worthiness is the same as the one your psychopathic boss, workmate, relative or lover performed on you within the first few seconds of meeting you. This is a book about convincing the tiger you are more trouble than you’re worth. And if you are really brave, it is a book that can tell you how to catch and tame the tiger. After all, who wouldn’t want a pet tiger?

I’ve had the misfortune to encounter a large number of psychopaths. No, I don’t work in a psychiatric unit or a prison. I’ve run across these people in all manner of benign social and work settings. None of these people would satisfy a test for overt criminality. But many skate very close to the edge. Their skill is obtaining a benefit – using criminal or at least, immoral, means – without ever exposing themselves to the force of the law.

I’ve been thinking about writing an easy to understand guide to dealing with psychopaths for a long time. Over the years, I’ve spoken to hundreds of people about the ideas in this book. Every single one (and I mean Every. Single. One.) of those people, often complete strangers, knew exactly what I was talking about. Every single one of them had worked for, been related to, been taught by, been married to or been in a relationship with someone who they felt to be a psychopath. Every one of those people had been profoundly damaged by the experience and most wanted to share their stories as a warning to others and never speak of it again. I didn’t seek out people affected by psychopaths. These were just people I chatted to after giving book talks or interviews, or people I ran into at the coffee shop. The truly amazing thing is that once I described how I believed a psychopath behaved, not a single person could say they had never experienced it. Many did not know that they were describing a psychopath, but believe me, if you have been, or are, a psychopath’s victim, you are not alone.

One common theme emerged from those conversations: confusion. Psychopaths confuse the hell out of us normal people. They behave in bizarre and often highly unpredictable ways. And as soon as we are entangled with them, we spend more time worrying about how to deal with them than we do running our own lives. A psychopath ties us in knots for months, years or even decades. And while they are doing that they are causing us emotional and, often, financial harm. Harm that we are unlikely to ever recover from.

This is the book I wish I’d had when I encountered my first (and my second and my third . . .) psychopath. In it I have dissected the evidence on what we know about these callous and parasitic humans. But, even more importantly, I have used that evidence to create a plan for dealing with them.

With this plan in hand you will recognise the difference between a psychopath and the rest of us (who I call empaths) and be able to spot them instantly. Once you know what you’re dealing with you will be able to precisely predict how a psychopath will behave in any situation and use that knowledge to save yourself weeks, months and even years of emotional distress.

You will understand the science behind psychopathy and how it tells us YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE A PSYCHOPATH. So you won’t waste your time and emotional energy trying.

You will also come to appreciate the role of empathy in human relations and how a psychopath’s lack of empathy is the key to understanding why they are so dangerous.

You’ll know why psychopaths gravitate towards certain industries and positions of power, and you’ll understand that they usually get them because psychopathic traits are often very close to what we look for in leaders.

Critically, you will understand how we have changed our society to be the perfect breeding ground for psychopaths. Over the past two centuries we have systematically destroyed the collective instincts and societal rules which so successfully held them in check before. By gravitating towards a society where the desires of the individual trump community values, where communal property is non-existent and where profit is much more important than how it was achieved, we have created psychopath heaven.

But best of all, you will know with absolute certainty how to use this knowledge to manage a psychopath in common situations and how your behaviour can help us to psychopath-proof our society.

What do psychopaths have to do with me (and you)?
 I’ve always been a curious person. I was one of those irritating kids who always asked ‘why?’ and didn’t stop asking until the answer made logical sense. When I was about ten, my dad signed up to one of those ‘buy this encyclopedia in 1000 weekly instalments’ deals for something called ‘How it Works’. This was well before the internet, so it was the only practical way to give detailed answers to a kid as annoying as me. Every week, Dad would drop by the newsagent and pick up the latest instalment.

I’ve still got the ten-volume collection of hundreds of weekly instalments. And at the drop of a hat I could flip to how a jet engine works or how a telephone works or how the human heart works. That incessant need to know how things worked, or why they were the way they were, was a big part of why I started writing books. I didn’t understand why sugar was poison, so I went looking for an answer. I didn’t understand why manmade vegetable oils were toxic, so I went looking for an answer. And I didn’t know how to deal with the poisonous and toxic people in my life or why they behaved the way they did, so I went looking for an answer. This is the book about what I found.

The thing I remember most from my first close encounter with a psychopath in business was my utter confusion. He seemed to continually do things that had the real potential to drive away our best workers. He was an odd mix of obsessive micromanager on some things and completely absent on other things. I’ve had many good managers in my various careers and they all shared one thing in common: once they were satisfied you knew what you were doing, they stayed out of your way. Those managers became a resource I could bounce ideas off but they rarely intervened in my day-to-day work. And even then only if I was clearly lost. The psychopath was very different. He was constantly meddling, making last-minute changes in direction, getting upset if I made a decision – any decision – and, in general, micromanaging the workplace. He implemented procedures which seemed to be aimed at monitoring what everybody was doing. He insisted that all decisions had to be made by him, no matter how small. There were enormous delays in getting even the smallest thing decided. And then sometimes, if it was a pet project of his, it would be fast-tracked past all possible hurdles. He trusted nobody and the impact on the business was devastating. Our once happy, harmonious and focused workplace started to fall apart. No one seemed to trust anyone else and there was continuous in-fighting. We all felt like we were being watched.

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