The Truth About The Amazing BrandO: A Public Service Announcement

Psychopaths exhibit a Jekyll and Hyde personality. "They play a part so they can get what they want," says Dr. Sheila Willson, a Toronto psychologist who has helped victims of psychopaths. The guy who showers a woman with excessive attention is much more capable of getting her to lend him money, and to put up with him when he strays. The new employee who gains her co-workers' trust has more access to their chequebooks. And so on. Psychopaths have no conscience and their only goal is self-gratification. Many of us have been their victims -- at work, through friendships or relationships -- and not one of us can say, "a psychopath could never fool me."

Psychopaths have only a shallow range of emotions and lack guilt, says Hare. They often see themselves as victims, and lack remorse or the ability to empathize with others. "Psychopaths play on the fact that most of us are trusting and forgiving people," adds Seto. The warning signs are always there; it's just difficult to see them because once we trust someone, the friendship becomes a blinder.

The problem with their game is that we don't often play by their rules. Where we might occasionally tell a white lie, a psychopath's lying is compulsive. Most of us experience some degree of guilt about lying, preventing us from exhibiting such behavior on a regular basis. "Psychopaths don't discriminate who it is they lie to or cheat," says Seto. "There's no distinction between friend, family and sucker."

No one wants to be the sucker, so how do we prevent ourselves from becoming close friends or getting into a relationship with a psychopath? It's really almost impossible, say Seto and Willson. Unfortunately, laments Seto, one way is to become more suspicious and less trusting of others. Our tendency is to forgive when we catch a loved one in a lie. "Psychopaths play on this fact," he says. "However, I'm certainly not advocating a world where if someone lies once or twice, you never speak to them again." What you can do is look at how often someone lies and how they react when caught. Psychopaths will lie over and over again, and where other people would sincerely apologize, a psychopath may apologize but won't stop.

Psychopaths also tend to switch jobs as frequently as they switch partners, mainly because they don't have the qualities to maintain a job for the long haul. Their performance is generally erratic, with chronic absences, misuse of company resources and failed commitments. Often they aren't even qualified for the job and use fake credentials to get it. Seto talks of a patient who would get marketing jobs based on his image; he was a presentable and charming man who layered his conversations with educational and occupational references. But it became evident that the man hadn't a clue what he was talking about, and was unable to hold down a job.

Even though we can't treat psychopaths effectively with therapy, it doesn't mean we can't protect ourselves, writes Hare. Willson agrees, citing the most important factor in keeping psychopaths at bay is to know your vulnerabilities. We need to "realize our own potential and maximize our strengths" so that our insecurities don't overcome us. Because, she says, a psychopath is a chameleon who becomes "an image of what you haven't done for yourself." Over time, she says, "their appearance of perfection will begin to crack," but by that time you will have been emotionally and perhaps financially scathed. There comes a time when you realize there's no point in searching for answers; the only thing is to move on.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• the amazing brando
• brandon lackey

[AfroOzzy2]

You look suspiciously like Brentalfloss in a wig.

[JoeyZadjinoTalks]

@AfroOzzy2 I've never gotten that ever but now that I have I can't stop laughing about it

[afterlifeavenger]

Joey, may I ask if the Master of Puppets a stab on BrandO for manipulating his fans, or just because you like Metallica?

[JoeyZadjinoTalks]

@afterlifeavenger Both!

[Reanchi]

You earned my sub!

[JoeyZadjinoTalks]

@Reanchi Haha thank you, but I made this channel just for this whole Brandon thing. I have my regular channel for music and whatnot, and I'd prefer not to link it because I don't want to involve it in this but I'm sure you realize it's not very hard to find.

[Anakira]

@blackbeltdude215 People can seem to be whoever they want. Brando has fucked a lot of people behind closed doors, dude. He kicked me out of his community with everyone hot on my heels just because I was doing art for a band he didn't like. Thought I was some mole or something. This is NOT a publicity stunt. I know it's hard to believe sometimes, y'know?

[JoeyZadjinoTalks]

@eromattiffarg I know! How dare I care about Brandon stealing thousands of dollars from his fans!

[CamStarkey]

Pyro SPY CHECK!

[Chemicol3]

Also, regarding Duane not having gotten any money from the donations, BrandO has mentioned that if Duane made any sort of attempt to get it, he could have it, but /apparently/ Duane won't do anything other than post hate speech and scowl at BrandO as he passes him.

[Chemicol3]

The thing about no one seeming to care about his accounts going missing is wrong, simply put, no one could post anything about it anywhere, as the main places people would post it (His site, Facebook and his YouTube page) were unavailable.

Also, the part about the amazing tour fund changing amount, was that he had publicly said that he was going to increase the target, before actually increasing it, and he even put up a bonus for those who would donate before the increase.

[BaconVox]

Wow, totally changed my perspective on Brandon.

[viero789]

@AxelLaw "Snappy to his fans" Odd, I have been following him for a long time now and I have yet to see one single instants of anything like this happening. People overreacting to something that was more then likely misinterpreted.

[slowtopunch]

i believe you should have played no remorse from metallica instead of master of pupppets

[MrHairball]

@kefkaexdeath Nonsense! It was perfectly necessary.