The twisted cognitive thinking skills of the narcissistic sociopath

Learning is a complex process that requires constant attention and nurturing. As we grow, our learning either improves, stagnates, or deteriorates. We could have been great learners as children but lack the ability to process information and comprehend new information as adults. Why does this happen? How does this happen?

For some reason, some of us lose our motivation to learn. Our cognitive skills flounder and we become less effective in the following interdependent areas of cognition:

• Attention (sustained, selective, and divided attentions)
• Working memory (retaining information for short periods of time)
• Processing Speed (the rate at which our brain handles information)
• Long-Term Memory (restore and recall information for later use)
• Visual processing (perceive, analyze, and think in visual images)
• Auditory Processing (perceive, analyze, and conceptualize what is heard)
• Logic and Reasoning (reason, prioritize, and plan)

When one area of cognition fails to grow and be nurtured, all areas of cognition are affected. More frightening, if one cognitive area is manipulated in such a way to cause false interpretations and analysis, the other cognitive areas will fail and become distorted. A perfect example is the criminal mind and that of the narcissistic sociopath.

The criminal and the narcissistic sociopath (often one and the same), successfully ignore visual and auditory cues and distort all logic and reasoning rendering their remaining cognitive skills useless and ineffective. All interpersonal communication becomes twisted, and the opportunity to build a healthy relationship with a narcissistic sociopath is a pipe dream.

For example, you arrive home from work to discuss a work-related issue that has you worried. You want and need some basic love and support. You explain to your intimate partner/spouse that you feel like you’ve been taken advantage of and that your co-worker took your ideas and claimed them as his own. You expect your partner/spouse to use your visual and auditory cues to see how sad and frustrated you are. You also expect your partner/spouse to remember past conversations you had shared related to this particular co-worker. But your partner fails you because he fails himself and misinterprets everything either by accident or on purpose.

Instead of your partner saying something useful and constructive to you like:

“Oh, it will be okay. Why don’t I take you out to dinner so you can relax and try to forget about your frustrating day.”

Your partner says something uncaring and destructive like:

“What did you do that would have made him take your idea and use it for himself? Did you piss him off?”

The first sentence is a statement that implies he was listening to you and watching you in hopes of comforting you with a response. That’s what loving couples do. They help ease each other’s worries.

The second sentence consists of two accusatory questions that would lead anyone to think their partner/spouse doesn’t really care if you are put at ease. The second sentence implies he’d rather see you suffer and get more upset with the situation.

His ineffective (or effective depending on his motivation) cognitive skills are putting you on the defensive. Relationships are not supposed to do that. A relationship isn’t a court of law. A successful relationship requires healthy communication skills. Healthy communication skills require sane and healthy cognitive thinking from both.

You make an attempt to answer the questions without being defensive. You say something like:

“Of course not. I do my work and try to collaborate when collaboration is necessary. I would never steal someone else’s ideas. That’s not right.”

Then your partner says something like this:

“You obviously did something that pissed him off.”

This finally puts you on the defensive and you repeatedly explain that you did nothing. Your partner repeatedly counters you and says you must have. It all spirals into a shitty conversation because the narcissist is projecting and you have no idea that sick people do this in hopes of making others feel sick, too.

If you had the same sick and twisted cognitive thinking skills as the narcissistic sociopath, you would ask him:

“Is that what you do narc? Piss people off on purpose so they’ll steal your ideas and give you a reason to bitch? To me, that’s going out of your way to invite unnecessary drama into your life. It seems a little stupid to me.”

The narcissistic sociopath’s illogical thinking doesn’t work in reverse, does it? The next time one of them starts frustrating you with their illogical thinking, reverse the argument. Project it back at them. But be careful. You might get thrown out of the house or called a whore for pointing the ugliness back in their direction.

Narcissistic sociopaths do not think cognitively the way the rest of us do. What is logical and reasonable to us, is the absolute opposite to them. It’s one of the reasons healthy people get so frustrated and confused by narcissistic sociopaths. We would never consider making someone angrier or more upset to be a good idea. To the narcissistic sociopath, making someone more angry and more upset is their goal in life. Losers.

Namaste!