my father (parents were divorced when i was small) was certainly NPD, which was difficult as a kid and early teen, but it taught me to recognize sinister traits and the need to protect myself from people who lack compunction.

but a no-joke psychopath? just one. a coworker over a decade ago. just a real piece of work, constant lying, using/trying to use sex as a weapon, just wanted to watch everything burn. took me about a week after they showed up on the scene to see/feel something was way off. that unsettling urge to run that climbs up your spine.

i tried to discretely warn others, people i regarded as friends, but i was regarded as too sensitive and my warnings were dismissed. that hurt, but i try to remind myself that a lot of people can't recognize them. the precarity of capitalism saved me and i had to suddenly relocate hours away to find employment, which had the benefit of me scrambling too hard to dwell on what all had transpired. i ended up getting a shittier paying job but working with a lot of great people, so a remarkably better situation. it was refreshing to work somewhere i didn't have a 4 lb ball of lead in my gut.

anyway, like 3-4 months after i split from the situation, i get a call from a work friend at the old place. very out of the blue. they wanted to apologize and tell me i was right, that X had, in fact, been a terrible person who had torched the place socially and professionally and had been lying their ass off about all things big and small, manipulating others to cover for them.

now everyone was jumping ship and the project we had all been working for was dead in the water. but more than that, people were just plain shaken up. like, moving back home to "figure things out" or asking for old mentors to "please help me get out of here, i can't be here".

my way of dealing with that kind of thing now that i'm older hasn't changed a lot in the broad strokes. i stay away from them, socially and professionally, to the best of my ability. i acknowledge and listen to my fear. if circumstances are against me, i stay as uninteresting as possible around them to not draw their attention, while quietly trying to change the circumstances to increase the space between us. i do not seek to become embroiled in a conspiracy to isolate them, but if asked by someone i trust i may relay concerns in professional language, especially if it is to help protect one of their victims.

i've always been somewhat of a private person in larger groups. people like this, though a tiny minority of the population, are probably why.