Lies and Liars

How and Why Sociopaths Lie and How You Can Detect and Deal with Them

Gini Graham Scott

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781634503884
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia

Approximately 12 million Americans, or one in twenty-five, are sociopaths. But what does this statistic mean? What exactly is a sociopath? What do they do to be labeled as such? And how many people are affected by them? While everyday lying has become acceptable and even socially necessary, it is often difficult to discover when someone is manipulating you through lies or other actions. Since a sociopath has no conscience, he or she feels no remorse about piling lie on top of lie until, eventually, the façade comes crashing down and he or she is exposed.When Dr. Scott was warned about a film producer she had hired, she confronted the woman, only to be fed explanations and excuses. Eventually, Scott found that she had been the victim of this sociopath for five years, along with many others. In this book, she delves into medical research on sociopaths as well as interviews with sociopaths and victims alike to provide a comprehensive picture of this mental disorder. Lies and Liars also includes information about: The types of lies told by sociopaths in different situations
The relationships between sociopaths and victims
Recognizing when someone is lying
How to deal with a suspected or discovered sociopathic liarThe odds are very high that you know a sociopath already, so figure out what signs to look for to prevent yourself or your loved ones being manipulated or harmed.

PART I:

INTRODUCING THE LIES OF A SOCIOPATH

CHAPTER 1:

LIES AND DAMNED LIES IN L.A.

How could I miss all the signs that I was dealing with a sociopathic liar, when I came to L.A. with high hopes of getting some of my scripts produced as films? Many warning signs were flashing, but I wasn’t aware of them since I was new to the industry and was new to the common behaviors and traits of a sociopath. Also, I naively wanted to trust and believe the best in others, though now I know to temper that approach with a more “show me” attitude. So by way of introduction, let this story serve as a cautionary tale for others.

I should have recognized the first warning sign, when I met Sylvia, who claimed to be a successful producer at a 2007 film funding conference in L.A. where she was promoting a new film. I had just been to a workshop on how to raise less than $20,000 for a microbudget film shot in minimal locations. After I had the money for such a film, Sylvia expressed interest in helping me, and we met at a coffee shop near the freeway when I drove from L.A. to Oakland, where I lived at the time.

Sylvia described being very successful in building a dozen health franchises to over $10 million in annual sales, although she claimed the company owner forced her out since he felt she was earning too much in commissions. So now she hoped to repeat this success in the film business. Moreover, she claimed she could call in some favors to make my low budget film look like a $200,000 film.

Though I was impressed, in hindsight, I came to recognize many warning signs, the first one being that Sylvia never mentioned the company by name. But knowing little about the film business, I accepted what Sylvia told me as true and I imagined that her huge success in this other business might indicate she could turn my small investment into a successful film. Yet her claims should have been a warning, since successful lies often don’t include specifics one can check and verify. Plus sociopathic liars often embellish and exaggerate to show they are successful to persuade others to help them get what they want. And they may be eager to lie to place any blame for problems on others.

In any case, wooed by Sylvia’s success claims, I agreed to move forward with her, and on my next trip to L.A. we worked out the agreement. Then again, I ignored any warning signs, including her persuading me to increase the budget to $40,000 with a $10,000 payment to herself, since she would be spending so much time on day-to-day production details. Still another warning sign was her telling me not to let anyone know about her $10,000 salary or the budget, since she would get about $200,000 in favors and make this look like a big budget film. Sylvia’s “don’t tell” requests were the beginning of a series of secrets and lies that are a common pattern for sociopaths, who create a web of lies to achieve their success.

A few months later, casting began. I didn’t recognize still more warning signs, such as Sylvia’s conflicts with the more experienced directors to whom I introduced her in order to guide her as a co-director, since she had no credit directing a film before. But repeatedly, Sylvia declared that these directors were not as experienced as they claimed. She also now claimed that she had been a director on a recent film she was promoting, but didn’t get any credit because she made the film with her partner, who wanted full credit for himself and she gave it to him, supposedly because, “It’s something you do for love,” she said.

So again I accepted her explanation, although I should have been suspicious about her changing story, and eventually, she became the sole director of my film, though I should have seen her inability to get along with other directors as another warning, since sociopaths often disparage others or make false claims about their experience to make themselves look good.

More delays and excuses occurred: when we were in the midst of casting, she repeatedly claimed she was waiting for a cinematographer with a red camera to return from a film project abroad. But after six months when he allegedly returned, she said he had another job, and she needed to find another camera person, which took several more months.

Meanwhile, I referred a business associate, Jerry, to Sylvia’s partner for a rewrite in return for a 10 percent referral fee. But that led to still more lies in which she disparaged Jerry as a pest who repeatedly called for advice, until she finally told him to stop calling, which I later discovered was part of a strategy to separate me from my associate—a divide and conquer strategy that sociopaths frequently use in power games.

There were more lies when Sylvia claimed she had to visit a sick sister back East, which I later discovered was a ruse to cover up a trip to film a documentary for Jerry for three weeks in Indonesia with her partner. But after she returned and casting of the film continued, the big reveal came a few months later, when Jerry called in a panic claiming that Sylvia and her partner were criminals (You’ll read more about Jerry’s story in Chapter 4.)

I was stunned. But when I was ready to cancel the project, Sylvia had a series of explanations after apologetically admitting the lie. Among them, she told me: “My partner didn’t want me to tell you about the script, because he didn’t want to pay the commission …I didn’t give Jerry the film, because my partner and I wanted to edit it ourselves, since we feared Jerry would edit it very cheaply, which would hurt our reputations.” In other words, she blamed the lies on her partner and Jerry, though I should have realized this attempt to blame others and not take responsibility herself was another warning sign.

To further convince me, Sylvia had several people contact me to say she was a good person and that I should forgive her for this one lapse. Only later did I find out that Sylvia had gotten an associate to make these calls or maybe she even did herself, since she was an actress. So she used a lie to get out of being caught in another lie, building an expanding edifice of lies to explain away previous lies when she had been caught.

Looking back, I realize I should have recognized her use of wilder and wilder lies to back up her story as a sign of a sociopath weaving an increasingly elaborate web of lies. But I didn’t know what to look for at the time.

Over the next week, I went through a crisis of who to believe, though I should have recognized Sylvia’s wild story as an even more elaborate lie. But she seemed so apologetic and sincere about wanting to make my film, even offering to take no more salary to repay me for the commission I should have gotten. Plus I had already paid her $7500, and she was starting to cast the film, which she still claimed would look like a million dollars because of all the favors she would get.

So now that the past lies were exposed and seemingly atoned for, albeit by the erroneous phone calls made to me, I thought she would continue on the project in a spirit of truth and forthrightness. But, boy, was I ever wrong, though I didn’t realize this for over four years.

To make a long convoluted story short, among other things, Sylvia began to change the script on the set, including turning an agent from a supporting character into a lead to give her partner a leading role. And worse, she turned my suspense thriller about a wanna-be producer who goes on a revenge vendetta against a former mentee into a romantic comedy narrated by a dog. Why? Because she bought a puppy for a brief kidnap scene and later claimed this would be good for the film, since a Disney executive liked films with dogs (although she never actually spoke to a Disney executive). If nothing else, she had the sociopath’s great skill of building a facade of lies to cover up preceding lies, and she told them in such a convincing way that they actually seemed very believable.

When it came time to edit the film, she delayed with more explanations, excuses, and reasons why she couldn’t show me the film, such as claiming that a Russian editor with the original footage on his hard drive had to go overseas for a few months to work on a project, so she couldn’t find another editor and had to wait for his return. But when he came back, he had another job. Another story was that she had put in $80,000 of her own money to finish the film, but no longer had any money to pay an editor. Then, she fell down an escalator, and was in a cast for six months. And when she gave someone $1,000 to get a loan, he disappeared, so she lost that money, and a prospective editor from her office proved unreliable. After about three years of this, when I offered to have someone in the Bay Area edit the film, now that I had written and produced forty short videos locally and knew more about what I was doing, she found an excuse to turn down my offer, claiming that she didn’t want to give me the film, because she was afraid I would steal it from her and because she had to be with the editor to guide him. Again, I should have seen through her lies and confronted her, but I kept giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Meanwhile, as I became part of the Bay Area film community, I finally woke up and began to doubt Sylvia’s excuses. At last I gave her an ultimatum to finish the film by the next American Film Market in November 2013 or return the money I paid and keep the film for herself.

That was the beginning of the end of what had been a long charade. Not surprisingly, I didn’t hear from Sylvia again about the film—a disappearing act that often happens when sociopaths realize that they have been exposed and the game is up. Then, a month later, I discovered that Sylvia had posted online a trailer for her romantic comedy narrated by her dog under another title, so she was claiming my film as her own. And later I realized this was one more ploy of a sociopath—having no conscience about taking something away from someone or betraying to reach one’s goal—in this case, recognition for directing her first film.

Eventually, after I wrote Sylvia a series of letters about breach of contract, copyright infringement, and a request to take down the trailer with no response, I sent a take-down notice to the website host who took it down. Since then, nearly a year later, neither the trailer nor the website have reappeared anywhere again. And later, when I contacted the cast and crew members from the set from five years before, and called Jerry to reestablish a connection, I discovered the many ways in which Sylvia had repeatedly lied to them too—including telling everyone that the line producer had left the film after five weeks because he embezzled from the film, when there was nothing to embezzle, and he had actually left because of health reasons and because he was tired of driving Sylvia around like a personal servant, because she had no car. She even told everyone she couldn’t finish the film because I didn’t give her any of that money that I had promised.

So the experience was an up close and personal look at how sociopaths operate, using lies to manipulate people to do what they want and separate people from each other, so they can’t compare stories or work together.

Why didn’t I recognize the signs sooner? Because that’s the problem with dealing with a sociopath. Outwardly, they seem so normal, and are often very charming and articulate, so you don’t suspect anything is wrong. And taken individually, the lies might seem reasonable, such as claiming an illness, accident, or delay because someone is out of town. Then, too, if you question anything, the sociopath always has a ready response, though it will most likely be another lie. And we commonly want to trust the people we are with, especially when they offer to do nice things for us or give us surprise gifts, such as when Sylvia brought me gifts from time to time. But gift giving is often part of a sociopath’s charm to ingratiate him or herself, so a potential victim will more readily respond to their manipulations and accept their lies.

Also, reflecting the two-faced nature of the sociopath, Sylvia tried to be very helpful while trying to turn me against Jerry. For example, she did research on the Internet like a private investigator to find things to discredit him and show how little he knew about the film business.

So what can you do when you have suspicions that one has become a victi...