50 People Who Met A Psychopath Share The Chilling Moment They Realized It

My son. From day one he was incredibly difficult. He never really had specific cries for things like my other children. I was always guessing what he needed. His sleep was terrible, so my sleep was terrible.

He was impossible to teach. He loved to throw toys, so I made a consequence that any toy thrown gets out in timeout. They went in a clear bin, my thinking being a normal 3-4 year old would hate losing his favorite toys and stop throwing them. Nope. It wasn't even hard to earn them back (I can't recall specifics but things like getting dressed on time in the morning, brushing teeth, etc) he just didn't care.

Then he started torturing animals, but carefully and his cruelty was always so carefully done that there was never any proof. He was f*****g brilliant, reading biology textbooks at 10, that kind of thing.

I took him to therapy, I asked for help from the state, I tried to find ways to have him committed, but there was literally nothing I could do. There was one private hospital I found that could take him (and wasn't one of those questionable a*****e ranches) but they charged 4x our annual gross income. His dad and I separated so we could keep the kids in separate homes at all times, protecting his siblings as much as we could, though we later found out it was too little too late.

Eventually his siblings reported their abuse in a way that could be prosecuted and there was enough documentation from the school and he went to juvenile. I relinquished my parental rights to the state and got restraining orders for the whole household, including the kids too scared to report.

It's a horrific thing for a family and there really isn't any support in the US for those who have to survive it.

Years and years and years ago when I was in my early 20's dating casually I met up with a guy who was a highway patrol police officer, he had previously worked in intelligence for the airforce and was telling me various stories but what got me was his story about his favourite thing to do at his current job.

He told me his favourite shift is the morning shift as it is during the peak morning work traffic and he loves to look out for people who he can tell are in a rush, they aren't breaking the law, or speeding per say but he can "just tell" that they are running late or have something very important on, so he will pull them over and take as long as possible to run all their information, f**k them around and create more stress for them, he had the widest smile and his eyes were just manic as he was telling me all this.

He finishes it off with something like "yeah just knowing i've completely f****d up someones entire day brings me more joy than anything in the airforce" a tiny example but ill never forget it.

My former spouse.

She was charming, charismatic, beautiful, manipulative, pathological liar, emotionally and financially a*****e.


I dropped her off at the hospital so she could takeover watching her mom to give her aunt and uncle a reprieve.

Aunt and uncle informed me MIL was doing well.

I drove home. She called me 20 minutes later to say her mom suddenly died.

She smothered her mother to death.

After our divorce, I met with her step mom and SIL to talk about things. Unsolicited, they said they believed she smothered her mom. I nodded my head in agreement.

I’ve worked with teenagers my entire career, and I’m fairly well-versed in how mental illnesses can show up with middle/high school kids.

We had one kid, let’s call him Evan (not real name). I generally understand why kids are popular, but this kid befuddled me. He wasn’t charismatic in the hallway, he wasn’t a party kid, he wasn’t athletic, he wasn’t funny, and he certainly wasn’t kind. This kid ALWAYS had fanfare and would pick out one other male peer and essentially friend love bomb them. He build these emotional bonds with them, and then totally use it for his benefit.

He would pick a teacher, and mercilessly torment them. For example, for creative writing he wrote about how a character in his story named Kevin (again not real but very close) had gone to a teachers house that happened to have a dog like the teacher had and he wrote graphically about how he tortured it, not k**l it, but tortured it. He’d change details justttt enough and say he was mimicking Vonnegut or something like that. When he got disciplined for it, he had the current favored male peer, ‘talk sense into the teacher.’ Yeah this friend ended up getting suspended bc that “talking sense” just was threats to protect Evan. When the friend came back from suspension, his mom asked everyone to try to keep him away from Evan. Evan got in no trouble bc he didn’t think this friend would get aggressive (yes he did).

It was constant and eventually he was placed in my class. He tried the ole essay to scare the teacher thing again (he wrote about how a character not named Evan but something mighty close, knew where a teacher that sound like me, lived and was planning on burning my house down with her entire family in it). The next day, I read it out loud to the class and asked them to give him feedback ALL TOGETHER during class. He didn’t like that at all especially bc the girls, who knew nothing of this drama before, were horrified. And deemed him a creep that they didn’t like.

He ended up moving the next year, and he is an adult (18+) now. Every now and then I google his name bc I truly don’t know what damage a person that operates that effectively can do.

I was told prior to meeting them that they were diagnosed with psychopathy. It was a situation where they were talking to my coworker and I was supposed to observe. It was like seeing through glass. The person was there but there was no substance. The words and mannerisms were right, but there was no personality. No source. It’s hard to explain.

I used to work for one. Every sincere, vulnerable moment was fabricated to prompt me to share my story, so he could collect information to use against me. He used to get upset that he was "so open" with me and I was "like a brick wall". Sir, I'm at work.

He told me he used to live in London, his marriage open and he was lining up dates on his business trips, how he used to be romantically involved with his last assistant when they would travel together, he keeps his parents on payroll to help them out, etc. None of it true, except him having blatant affairs. He would name drop people of influence saying so and so was an old friend - just compulsively lying to make himself seem important.

He would fabricate dramatic situations that were "my fault" so he would have an excuse to scream (literally) at me. Like wording a phrase just wrong enough that I would misstep. His eyes would go absolutely black.

I started questioning when I met someone close to him in his personal life, and was asking "oh was that when he lived in the UK?" (insert confused expression). I got coffee with his former assistant and she told me she had never travelled with him let alone had an affair with him. It was ALL a lie.

I screen shot him making really obscene, sexual comments towards me on slack. Still not sure what to do with it all. Obviously I don't work for him anymore.

to say I had PTSD would be dramatic, but the emotional whiplash of someone being manipulative and having power over you, left me scarred in unexpected ways for a long time. Now I just see him as a tiny piece of s**t.

My mother. She's VERY good at hiding herself. Very charming, smart and pretty. Appearances are the most important thing to her. Im her oldest child so I was the one that got the most a***e. We are 3 daughters all smart, never got into trouble, never did d***s. Yet she loved to make up stories about us to other adults about how bad we were- RIGHT in front of us. (Honesty dont know why. Wouldn't you want people to know your kids are great?) It got to the point that we would call her out to her face while she would say her stories. She also hates my husband just because we are high school sweethearts and I quote "He's a lower class than we are." She's all sweet around extended family and no one really sees who she really is.

We are low contact now because of her hatred of my husband and horrible things she's done to him. Ive started to tell a select few extended family how and who she really is. Im tired of everyone telling me how amazing my mother is. NO she is not. If she wasn't married to my dad, I would never speak to her again


I know this is late to the thread but it felt good to get it out there.

I told this story once before.

I met a woman at a party who gave me this kind of chilling suspicion. She was sociable and easily commanded to attention of every small gathering she was in. She leaned on the woes of her job to keep the conversation about her.

She was a nurse working in the maternity ward, and she went on about the hours and the pay and everything. To change the vibe I asked her what she liked about her job and she lit up.

But what she said didn’t come down to her coworkers, or helping people, or making a difference; her answer amounted to power. She absolutely glowed as she described how fragile new mothers are, and how many subtle things could go wrong. She was proud to say how she knew when a mother wasn’t going to make it through the night without complications, and how she was the only nurse on the floor to be the one that could help the mother. She loved how she was in control over a precious and delicate thing that could not be replaced.

I remember feeling deeply uncomfortable by her answer, and that smile of hers. I still remember that smile. Others around us at the time picked up on it too.

Oh this one is easy. I didn’t realize he was one at first. We actually dated for 3 months and I thought he might have high functioning autism or something, like I noticed he reacted to things different. He was really cute and we had a lot of the same hobbies. He liked to climb so I kind of ignored it, but the longer we were together I would notice little things like he would feign when he thought he was supposed to be upset about something. He would know it was an upsetting thing but only when he realized I noticed or other people noticed would he have tears or act sad. He hit a wolf one time when we were on the way to a camping spot in northern Idaho. And that was when I really saw it. He took a life and didn’t even react. I know some people just don’t think animals are important, but he didn’t even swerve the car or react at all. He said it should have known better to cross the road and I cried because to me hitting a wolf was traumatic and I wasn’t even the one driving. They are beautiful creatures and he looked right at me stone cold and said, you are ruining my weekend by crying. I need you to stop right now. I broke up with him as soon as we got home I was too afraid to do it in the woods.

He told me an elaborate story of how his puppy got out and when he found it, it had been attacked by something so he had to k**l it to end its suffering. Months later after our relationship ended, I found it he actually just left it in his apartment with no food or water to die.

He is now in prison for... I actually don't know what, but it involved children. It's the closest thing I've encountered that screamed psychopath. Looking back, the list is long and a huge reason for much of my trauma.

Used to work as a mental health nurse, so saw people with diagnosed psychopathic traits. The thing that got me were their eyes. They could have the most brilliant, dazzling smile and have a contagious laugh, but their eyes were just flat, empty, lifeless. Sent chills down my spine every time.

I am diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder— commonly known as Psychopathy. The way to catch a psychopath is in the details of what they tell you. We ASPDers like to come up with elaborate lies to paint ourselves in certain lights. You might not focus on the details because you trust someone, but you need to do that when someone has ASPD. The tiny details will be inconsistent or won’t make sense— focus on them and make the psychopath explain them.

My now dead husband. He created scenes as proof of cheating in order to allow him to a*****t me, then admit he planted the false evidence etc. He blatantly lied when telling stories to his friends that would make him seem heroic or funny. He actually would be smugly happy when his friends or family suffered a downfall but act concerned to their faces. List could go forever but yeah f**k him.

Everything is a lie. They lie to themselves and the grandiose facade is so complex and deeply rooted in them that you believe it too at first. Their words do not line up with their actions or reality. Everything is a way to make themselves look better than everyone else, or to put others down and thus themselves higher. They view people as a means to an end. Can be extremely charming, outgoing, fun on the surface— but there is literally 0 depth beyond. It’s quite sad when I realized. They sure do know how to reel people in, tell them what they wanna hear, and sell this image of themselves.

He was charming the first two years, but once we got engaged he locked in. Controlled all my money, friends, time outside of the apartment. It took a physical altercation that I successfully defended myself from to escape, I mean he had everything from me possession wise and social wise. It happened so fast too.

When I got away a few years later and he did a week in jail and some anger classes, I saw him again, and he smiled and came up to me like nothing ever happened. I literally stared him dead a*s in the eyes (it was a public panera bread) and just said firmly "nope" and left. He didn't follow me.

That was years ago.

When I went to therapy after dating satan, and my therapist looks at me one day in a session and says “so, you know you dated a psychopath right? That everything you’re saying is actual, psychotic behavior and non of this is normal” that’s when I knew. They have an amazing way of facading through life.

Former manager. I realised that he would literally work me to death and his only problem with that would be finding a replacement.

17 people in that company left within 6 months of him joining. People were crying at their desks. He implemented a ban on the dev team communicating with the marketing team. He secretly has our IT systems modified so he could read our emails and used that to attack us.

Imagine feeling like someone’s knee is on your throat all day, every day. That struggle to breathe. The weight crushing you. Several of us developed anxiety and depression as a result of working under him.

There was a time after a group of us had quit that we started discussing retaliation. Nobody said the actual words but we all knew what we meant. Even though I very much wanted “retaliation”too, I convinced them that our best retaliation was to move on and be successful.

As it happens, 13 years later I’m working with two of the same guys and we’re absolutely smashing it and working in a great place with great conditions.

But I still have to convince myself not to find him and retaliate.

I think for me it was how charming, outgoing, and kind he was to others.. one time we went down to the woods by our houses and I found a wild rabbit with a bite mark in it but it was still alive, I picked it up and was trying to wrap my sweater around it, during this I kept the rabbit on the floor on top of my bag and he shot it dead. Right there. In front of me. While I was trying to save it. He thought it was the funniest thing ever and that was the day I decided to leave.

They put on a mask ALL THE TIME. They treat a specific group of people they deem weak horribly while trying to maintain a good image with anybody else. The closet ppl to them will describe them completely different than a colleague or a stranger they just met. And before u say everyone is like that NO this is veryyy different.

Psychiatrist here. I’ve met several men with true antisocial personality disorder through my work, no women yet, and it is truly unsettling. Some of their earliest diagnostic behaviors include k**ling animals as children, although it had often progressed to violence toward other people (I will keep the details vague for anonymity). There is indeed often a legal history for those that make it to the inpatient unit, but a lot of these people in the general public can be extremely charismatic and successful.