The Sad, Sad End of a Sociopath

Search Amazon.com for narcissismI just returned from quite a bizarre trip. 

An old family "friend" died recently and since she had burned bridges with every last friend and family member except my sister, she got to take care of all the final arrangements. I have maintained for years that this woman is a died-in-the-wool sociopath, but I don't think my sister quite believed me.  I believe she does now. 

This woman went out in true sociopathic style, having not taken responsibility for her own final arrangements even though she had been wanting to die for at least a year.  My poor sister had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get the legal okay to get the arrangements taken care of- at her own expense! 

A return trip had her and I trying to clear her condo upon the landlord's request.  We held an estate sale to try and recoup the costs of the cremation and the travel.  We had one and half days to sort through and "stage" the condo for the sale including four dressers, two walk-in closets and an armoire of clothing and we worked very hard and got very little sleep and began to get a little "punch drunk" because of it.  It was getting quite comical towards the end as every time we thought we were done displaying something we'd find another drawer of that same item. 

Calls would go out across that apartment, "Make that 66 purses!" 

"Now we have 50 saleable shoes!"

"Hold on, here is another drawer of clothes!"

"A-n-d... we have another pair of glasses!"

Sadly, she had once been a very wealthy woman and we sold many items far below their value because we had to clear it out in a hurry.  Those who came got great deals and the sale netted only a few hundred dollars.  A whole life for a few hundred dollars.

She had two albums of family members, two of her dog and over 30 of her, her, her.  I don't think she ever had an outfit she didn't get a picture in.  There was shot after shot of close ups of her (quadruple prints) and an entire album of pictures of her possessions and homes.

It was absolutely tragic to sort those dozens of albums, pull out a few pictures and throw the rest away.  With each hefty volume I launched up and into the dumpster, I reflected on what an empty life she had led.  Sure she traveled the world extensively, but she did it alone or with someone else's husband.  Now there is nobody in the world left to treasure her memories.  What if she had gone on humanitarian trips instead?  Imagine the improved lives she could have left behind. 

As a pastor hauled off her clothes to an inner city ministry, my sister found herself saying, "Well friend, at least your clothes are going to a good cause."  She said she heard the friend's voice reply in her head though, "To those filthy drug dealers and prostitutes?"

Her paperwork was left in complete disarray too, requiring many hours of work to sort through.  It also left a trail of proof as to her sociopathic ways.  Paper after paper revealed falsehood after falsehood and laid evidence of the web of  lies that was her existence.

Most entertaining was a letter she'd written to her most recent ex-husband who she had been married to for only a very short time.  A millionaire, or at least that's what we'd always been told, he had been trying to get out of paying her so much alimony and she was berating him.  She had written a long list of problems in her life (many of them falsehoods) and after each one, she wrote "YOU DID THIS TO ME!" 

Amusingly enough, she accused him several times over of being a sociopath, even listing off all the traits and characteristics of one.  We couldn't help but wonder if she recognized herself in them or if her lies just ran too deep to do so.

She lived a selfish, self centered life, never taking responsibility for her own actions and died a sad, sad person who will be remembered only for the comedy of errors she left behind. 

Oh, and when packing her urn for the trip, which is, quite simply, a crock from her own kitchen counter, my sister couldn't quite resist labeling the wrapping, "YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

Why break with tradition now?