This sounds awful, and it is. It’s the recipe that gangsters use to make child soldiers. It’s how many businesses operate. Accept and survive, or resist and die. The violence and threats may be subtle, and economic rather than physical. Yet this basic recipe is the core philosophy of many organizations.
Look deeper, and the distinction between primary and secondary psychopath is vaguer. There are no "born" psychopaths, it is always genes expressing according to their environment. I’m not sure that psychopathy can always switch off. It seems impossible after a certain point.
This recipe for secondary psychopaths is how Mallory raises his children, if any. He divides them into helpers and victims. The helpers practice on their brothers and sisters. They emerge at young adulthood as unflinching predators with a decade of training. The victims spend a life as hosts, stumbling from one parent figure to another. Genes have no pity, in their endless race to stay relevant.
Let’s Go Back
We can model the human mind as interlinked yet distinct tools. This includes the tools for decision-making[55]. These tools tend to pull in different directions, and balance each other. Our emotions pull us according to what other people are doing around us. Our empathy pulls us according to how we think other people are feeling. Our intuition pulls us according to slower and more careful background analysis. Our executive pulls us according to conscious analysis and forward planning. When someone yells at us in the street, our emotions say, "Yell back, louder!" Our empathy says, "Smile!" Our intuition says, "Laugh!" Our executive says, "First see who it is, then respond."
Our emotions develop early. A young child already experiences happiness, anger, jealousy, self-pity, fear, hate, joy. Our empathy develops later, when we are teenagers. A young child can already plan and solve problems. Our intuition and executive only mature when we reach adulthood.
If our executive, intuition, and empathy are not working, then our emotions decide everything. It is far easier to manipulate someone’s emotions than the other parts of the mind. Psychopaths often attack these three instruments of adult thinking. This pushes their target back into juvenile acceptance of their situation.
I’ve already explained a set of techniques that do this. Each mental tool needs a certain consistency in its dealings with the world. The more Mallory controls the world, the more she can create inconsistency. And in an inconsistent world, emotions rule the stage.
A young woman goes to her manager to ask for a raise. He does not talk about her excellent work and successful projects. Instead he chastises her for her clothing. "There have been complaints," he says, "suggestions that perhaps you dress a little too,…" he looks up and down at her, .".. flamboyantly. Now what did you want to talk about?" he asks. She shakes her head and leaves.
A company is giving its executives bonuses. Meanwhile it is also sacking staff. The CEO announces a new ranking system. Employees will score each other. Each year the company will fire the lowest ranking 10%. The emotional chaos ensures that no employee questions the bonuses. Conform or die.
One can also talk straight to the child mind, to reinforce it and encourage it to dominate. One tactic is to ask for small favors. Ben Franklin wrote[56], "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged."
Asking someone for favors makes them like you. It is simple, effective, and Mallory uses this often. This is the "Ben Franklin effect". I think it is a mild form of Stockholm Syndrome, something I’ve already explained. Either you rebel and say "no," or you accept. Then you feel attachment to the parental figure asking you the favor.
Doing random favors for Mallory disrupts Alice’s schedule, and keeps her afraid and uncertain. Mallory never asks "please." She demands "or else!"
The Wrecking
It gets worse.
The Feeding doesn’t last forever. After a while — it could be a few days, or many years — Mallory decides to move on. To be more accurate, she starts to act on plans she’s been making from the start. Bob is close to empty. Or, a fantastic opportunity has opened up. Or, Bob is threatening to explode and expose the whole scheme.
So her next phase is a demolition job I call the Wrecking. It is a classic part of Mallory’s relationships, and yet puzzling. She doesn’t work from revenge, nor vindictiveness. She is too lazy to take time and effort to hurt people unless there is a pragmatic reason. It has to be profitable.
The Wrecking can be hard to see. It happens in private for the most part. It is often subtle and insidious. The obvious symptom is long term depression and trauma in Bob and Alice. Years after Mallory is gone, they still hate to talk about their experiences. They feel long-lasting shame, guilt, and self-pity. Anything that reminds them of their experience triggers flashes of fear, anger, and pain.
Brenda Myers-Powell, in her article "My 25 years as a prostitute"[57], wrote: "I can tell as soon as I meet a girl if she is in danger, but there is no fixed pattern. You might have one girl who’s quiet and introverted and doesn’t make eye contact. Then there might be another who’s loud and obnoxious and always getting in trouble. They’re both suffering abuse at home but they’re dealing with it in different ways - the only thing they have in common is that they are not going to talk about it."
During the Wrecking, Mallory only has two masks for Bob. One is neglect and absence. The other is aggressive anger. There are no rewards, only silence or punishments. And during this, she tells him over and over, "this is your fault, you are worthless." And she reminds him how he has ruined her life, how she will make him pay. "No matter where you go," she says, "I will find you and hurt you."
Bob becomes dysfunctional, gaunt, violent, and defensive. If anyone sees the couple, Bob looks hostile and unstable. Mallory looks comfortable, easy, delicate. It is clear to observers who the victim is, if any.
This wrecking brings no direct profit to Mallory. A dysfunctional Bob is worth nothing to her. This is the mysterious part. Mallory needs to feed, and yet she spends effort making Bob useless. We can see the answer in Bob’s long-term PTSD.
Mallory has strong incentives to keep Bob from telling people about his experiences. Mallory needs to keep her cover, or she cannot hunt. An ex-victim who talks is dangerous. This is how cults like Scientology fall. Ex-members tell stories of the insanity and criminality, and public support turns to hate. Likewise, firms have collapsed due to ex-employees exposing corruption and criminality. Governments have fallen the same way. As for serial abusers, it is the silence of their victims that lets them continue.
Serial Killer vs. Psychopath
The man sits next to him, unwraps a package, and offers him a piece of bread with sausage. "Here, take some, you’re hungry," says the man. He takes a piece then nibbles at it. It’s the first food he’s had in days, since he left. He can hardly swallow, his mouth is so dry. The man offers him a canteen. "Drink" he says. It’s water. He drinks and hands back the metal bottle, then finishes the rest of the bread.
"Where you from?" says the man. "Gukovo," he mumbles. "Runaway, eh? What are you, thirteen, fourteen?" says the man, and gives him another chunk of bread and sausage. He nods, says nothing, and eats. The man reaches into his pocket and takes out his wallet. He opens it, pulls out some notes. "Take this, you’ll need it," says the man. He hesitates. Why is this stranger helping him?