Is is a Bird, Is it a Plane, Syndrome 

No its a Psychopath !

Sarah Strudwick

I was inspired to write this article after receiving an email from my colleague and friend John Nutting after my reactions to some findings that one of my colleagues was a psychopath. 

So what you may ask yourself, why would I have got upset at finding yet another person I know was a psychopath.  After all there are thousands of them all over the planet but let me explain.

I grew up in a very dysfunctional childhood whereby I didn't know what a psychopath was until a couple of years ago. I certainly didn't know how to spot them. It wasn't until I wrote 'Dark Souls – Healing and recovering from Toxic relationships', after having a relationship with one, that all the pennies started dropping and everything really started fitting into place. 

Psychopaths target victims of abuse and to some degree I had been a magnet to these types of predators for most of my life. Excuse the language but in some ways I had this invisible sign above my head to any psycho on the planet saying “Psychopaths come and get me” or worse I was like a pile of manure whereby they were attracted to me like flies round Sh** LOL. Although I keep my humour nowadays and tend to think of it more along the lines of what happened to me being a blessing in disguise as I now use my story to educate others and its more of “coming up smelling of roses”. 

So what possible good could come out of all this? Well before all this happened I couldn't spot a psychopath from a bird or a plane to be be perfectly honest. Now since I have looked at my own beliefs about myself and the reasons why I would have been so “appealing” to the psychopath I can instantly spot them. How instantly is almost scary to be honest. Without being on constant guard all the time and thinking all people are psychopaths, which they are not, it starts with a feeling that I get which some people called intuition. Immediately I get that feeling I notice some red flags, especially if I haven't met them personally. I may take a day or so to spot them, sometimes even a bit longer. In the case of the psychopathic colleague I may even have to do a bit of research in the form of using a bit of detection work but nearly always my initial gut feelings now prove to be accurate. 

Psychopaths are everywhere in the workplace.  Working in jobs of trust, the police force.  It's only through denial that we would want to not accept that psychopaths exist.  You only have to read books like the "Sociopath next door' or "Snakes in Suits' to see how many psychopaths are around us. In the case of my colleague what better way to wrap up helping others by pretening to be a "Sheep" in Wolfs clothing.   

The reason I sometimes get so upset is because when I uncover yet another psychopath especially one who may work in the same field as I am which is supposed to be helping victims not harming them even more, I felt totally powerless because I cannot do anything. I can't publish their name, I can't write up that so and so is running x corporation. I can only hope in time that eventually people will see them for who they really are and that the amount of damage they do in the meantime is minimal. First of all I am going to have a hard time arguing my case and secondly I will probably end up with a lawsuit on my hands.

The bottom line is that psychopaths are everywhere and if people think that they are not working in the same kind of field that I am working in, which is helping victims of psychopaths and educating people, they have the same kind of "is it a bird, Is it a plane mentality that I had.  People like myself who have had a history of abuse may then end up will also have the same kind of mentality. When actually -the answer is "no its a psychopath". But the good news is this kind of mentality can change with education and you can spot them rather than going back to your old way of thinking like I had in the past. 

In this particular case I couldn't do anything but I could move away immediately.  When it comes to personal relationships I also now know when to get away immediately and my wish is that others learn that skill too and so more and more people will be able to look around us and now say “It is a Bird, Is it a Plane - No its a Psychopath”.

If you would like to learn some skills on how to spot Psychopaths you can find out more by contacting me at my website www.darksouls-thebook.com or go back to that I said on the beginning of this website

"However out of all the darkness most victims have what can only be described as a “lightbulb” moment where they finally wake up. They stop trying to figure out the reasons why these people are doing what they are doing and put all the energy they have focussed on the disordered personality such as the NPD, or the sociopath or psychopath and put it into themselves so that they can heal. They start to understand the reasons why they got into the relationship in the first place by searching for answers and eventually they find some kind of healing."

"That's entire experience in a nutshell. The pivot point between anguish and recovery." Thomas Sheridan

Sarah Strudwick