From the book: http://www.amazon.com/Psychopath-Fre...+relationships

There are a lot of phenomenal studies on the traits and characteristics of psychopaths. For professional research, check out Cleckley’s criteria or Hare’s psychopathy checklist. A quick Google search ought to do the trick. The red flags in this book are intended to supplement those resources.

So what’s different about this list? Well, for one, it’s specifically about relationships. But it’s also about you. Each point requires introspection and self-awareness. Because if you want to spot toxic people, you cannot focus entirely on their behavior—that’s only half the battle. You must also come to recognize the looming red flags in your own heart. Then, you will be ready for anything.

1. You feel on-edge around this person, but you still want him to like you. You find yourself writing off most of his questionable behavior as accidental or insensitive, because you’re in constant competition with others for his attention and praise. He doesn’t seem to care when you leave his side—he can just as easily move on to the next source of energy.

2. Uses sex as a tool for control. After first hooking you with sexual praise and flattery, he suddenly becomes reclusive and uninterested. He makes you feel desperate, ensuring that you are always the one to initiate physical intimacy. He uses insulting names like “whore” and “slut” to drive this point home. He might also openly comment on his diminishing sex drive.

3. Plasters your Facebook page with compliments, flattery, songs, and poems. He texts you dozens, if not hundreds of times per day. You come to rely on this over-communication as a source of confidence.

4. Quickly declares you his soul mate. And for some reason, you don’t find it creepy. He tells you how much he has in common with you. On the first few dates, you do most of the talking and he just can’t believe how perfect you are for him.

5. Compares you to everyone else in his life. Ex-lovers, friends, family members, and your eventual replacement. When idealizing, he makes you feel special by telling you how much better you are than these people. When devaluing, he uses these comparisons to hurt you.

6. Lies & excuses. There is always an excuse for everything, even things that don’t require excusing. He makes up lies faster than you can question them. He will always blame others—it is never his fault. He spends more time rationalizing his behavior than improving it.

7. No startle response. Total absence of anxiety, fear, and worry where there otherwise should be. He is also very easily bored by the familiar. You write this off as calm and cool, often feeling inferior and over-sensitive because you have normal human emotions.

8. Insults you with a condescending, joking sort of attitude. Smirks when you try to express yourself. Teasing becomes the primary mode of communication in your relationship. He subtly belittles your intelligence and achievements. If you point this out, he calls you hypersensitive and crazy.

9. Uses social networking to provoke jealousy and rivalries while maintaining his cover of innocence. He once focused all of his attention on you, but now he posts ambiguous videos and statuses to make you doubt your place in his heart. He baits previously denounced exes with old songs and inside jokes. He attends to their activity and ignores yours.

10. You find yourself playing detective. It’s never happened in any other relationship, but suddenly you’re scrolling back years on his Facebook page and albums. Same with his ex. You’re seeking answers to a feeling you can’t quite explain.

11. Surrounds himself with former lovers and potential mates. Brags that they want to sleep with him, but assures you there is nothing to worry about. These people make you feel jealous and give off the perception that he is in high-demand.

12. Hyperbolizes emotions while displaying none of them. He makes passionate statements like “I’ve never felt so happy in my life” in a completely robotic voice. It sounds like an alien trying to explain how he imagines human emotions might feel.

13. You are the only one who sees his true colors. Others will think he’s the nicest person in the world, even though he uses them for money, resources, and attention. They won’t care because he strategically distracts them with shallow praise (often done over social networking). Psychopaths are able to maintain superficial friendships far longer than their relationships.

14. Accuses you of emotions that he is intentionally provoking. He will call you jealous after blatantly flirting with his ex over social networking for the world to see. He will call you needy after intentionally ignoring you for three days straight.

15. Cannot put himself in your shoes, or anyone else’s for that matter. You find yourself desperately trying to explain how he might feel if you were treating him this way, and he just stares at you blankly.

16. You are engaged in constant conversations about his ex. You know her by name, and you know everything about their relationship—at least, his version of events. She becomes one of the most frequent topics of discussion in your relationship.

17. You find yourself explaining the basic elements of human respect to a full-grown man. Normal people understand the fundamental concepts of honesty and kindness. No adult should need to be told how they are making other people feel.

18. Focuses on your mistakes and ignores his own. If he’s two hours late, don’t forget that you were once five minutes late to your first date. If you point out his mistakes, he will always be quick to turn the conversation back on you.

19. Suddenly and completely bored by you. Gives you the silent treatment and becomes very annoyed that you seem to be interested in continuing the passionate relationship that he created. You are now a chore to him.

20. The ultimate hypocrite. He has extremely high expectations for fidelity, respect, and adoration. After the idealization phase, he will give none of this back to you. He will cheat, lie, insult, and degrade. But you are expected to remain perfect.

21. Sometimes it seems as though he’s forgotten who he’s supposed to be around you. He adopts different personas for different people—transforming his entire personality to match various audiences. It’s always very eerie when he slips and accidentally uses the wrong mask for you. You will start to feel that his personality just doesn’t seem to add up.

22. An unusual amount of “crazy” people in his past. Any ex-partner or friend who did not come crawling back to him will likely be labeled jealous, bipolar, an alcoholic, or some other nasty smear. He will speak about you the same way to his next target.

23. Flatters your deepest insecurities. If you’re self-conscious about your looks, he’ll call you the sexiest woman in the world. If you’ve got a need to entertain, he’ll say you’re the funniest person he’s ever known. He will also mirror your greatest fantasies, playing whatever role is necessary to win your heart.

24. Frequently comments about what you’re wearing and how you look. He tries to arrange you. You become obsessed with your appearance, noticing flaws that likely don’t even exist. During and after the relationship, you will spend significantly more time in front of the mirror. (Thank you to our member, ckwanderlust, for these valuable insights).

25. You fear that any fight could be your last. Normal couples argue to resolve issues, but psychopaths make it clear that negative conversations will jeopardize the relationship, especially ones regarding his behavior. You apologize and forgive quickly, otherwise you know he’ll lose interest in you.

26. Obsessed with humiliating successful, kind & cheerful people. Delighted by the idea of breaking up friendships and marriages. If you work hard to maintain interpersonal peace in your life, he will make it his mission to uproot all of it.

27. Gaslighting. Blatantly denies his own manipulative behavior and ignores evidence when confronted with it. He will become angry if you attempt to disprove his delusions with facts.

28. He expects you to read his mind. If he stops communicating with you for several days, it’s your fault for not knowing about the plans he never told you about. There will always be a self-victimizing excuse to go along with this.

29. Selfishness and a crippling thirst for attention. He drains the energy from you and consumes your entire life. His demand for adoration is insatiable. You thought you were the only one who could make him happy, but now you feel that anyone with a beating pulse could fit the role. However, the truth is: no one can fill the void of a psychopath’s soul.

30. Your feelings. After a run-in with a psychopath, you will feel insane, exhausted, drained, shocked, suicidal, and empty. You will tear apart your entire life—spending money, ending friendships, and searching for some sort of reason behind it all.

You will find that normal, loving people do not raise any of these flags. After an encounter with a psychopath, most survivors face the struggle of hypervigilance: who can really be trusted? Your gauge will swing back and forth for a while, like a volatile pendulum. You will wonder if you’ve gone absolutely mad—wanting to believe the best in an old friend or a new date, but feeling sick to the stomach when you actually spend time with them.

Developing your intuition is a personal process, but I would leave you with this: the world is mostly full of good people, and you don’t want to miss out on that because you’ve been hurt. Spend some time getting in touch with your feelings. Keep tweaking until you find a comfortable balance of awareness and trust. Look within and understand why you felt the way you did. You will discover that many old relationships may need revisiting. And as you begin to abandon toxic patterns, healthier ones will inevitably appear in their place.

To quote a longtime member & friend, Phoenix, you will stop asking “Do they like me?” and start asking “Do I like them?”

Question: Have people had the experience of the "mask slipping" and a totally shocking rage emerging in a way it has never emerged before-- raw, naked, and pure death-drive-rage? Is there anything out there to read on psychopathy and rage? I never experienced any physical violence from this one, but only this, something so utterly awful and destructive coming out from way under all of those elaborate "civilizing" personality constructs... It happened in response to my making it clear, for one last time, expressed so convincingly, that I absolutely refuse to take the blame for the relationship having gone down the tubes...

I guess they are as close to evil as possible. Though the actual biblical devil sounds like a nice chap in comparison to a Psychopath, he had his weak moments;Psychopath.
I was also terrified to discover that it may be that evil is actually a bit more real than I've ever imagined and yeah, it gives me chills. But also I think that it maybe better to think of them what they really are - a mental disability with horrible consequences. I think calling them evil romanticises them in a way and makes them somehow interesting/mysterious. Calling them products of brain underdevelopment makes it somehow more understandable. Evil I guess was a useful category in times when we couldn't take brain scans.
But, yeah, seeing the "real face" wakes up some ancient fear centre deep in your brain. It feels like there is one specific for psychopaths since this is a completely different feeling from a normal fear (it's not even really a fear, it is literally staring like into the abyss - I've never felt this way in my life before).