It was widely reported recently that two persons sleeping on pavements of Mumbai were killed by a man who smashed their heads with heavy stones. The name of the accused has been reported as Suresh Shankar Gauda. He readily admitted to the murders and told the police that he was arrested earlier in 2015 for allegedly killing a pavement dweller in the Kurla locality of Mumbai itself but the court later acquitted him for want of sufficient proof. The police suspected that he might have attacked more people in the past few years, unknown to anyone. Calling him a "psycho-killer", a senior police officer said that Suresh Gauda likes to see people suffer.
A 'psycho-killer' who 'likes to see people suffer' - welcome to the world of sadism!
The Dictionary of Psychology from American Psychological Association defines 'sadism' as the 'derivation of pleasure through cruelty and inflicting pain, humiliation and other forms of suffering on individuals'. Suresh Gauda probably derives sadistic pleasure from the gory killings of people. Other sadists may have their own choices of the methods of inflicting distress on others. Whatever they may be, the tough part of life with a sadist in a family, society, institution or workplace is that the connected people invariably end up suffering cruelty, pain, humiliation and many other forms of abuse. Sadism is the outcome of a personality disorder known as 'Sadistic Personality Disorder' and those suffering from this may exhibit some of the following symptoms:
- The sadist being weak, takes the support of groups of people, social media etc. and inflicts pain and humiliation on the victims. The victims in such cases are mostly the powerless, the ignorant and the gullible.
- The oppressive and authoritarian sadists enjoy scaring and maltreating others, forcing the victims to accept their dominance. They could be verbally abusive, harsh and contemptuous with little or no empathy.
- The sadists who have a tendency to ensure that their sadistic ideas are implemented in the family, workplace or society tend to derive pleasure when the sufferings of the victims become evident. They streamline their pain-inflicting (mental /physical) urges and impose them onto the victims even while giving them an impression that they are doing it for the ‘common good’. They like to do policing, play judge, become assertive boss, take up the role of a self-appointed detective or take control and mete out barbaric punishments.
- Some sadists are hotheaded and unpredictable. They frequently flare up. Their anger is usually unbearable and the verbal, physical and emotional attacks turn out to be overwhelming for the victims.
Sadists, while inflicting injuries on the victims, are likely to declare that they were not trying to hurt them. For a potential victim, becoming vulnerable or weak while facing a sadist is likely to invite stronger attacks. Within the available scope, setting limits and showing the boundaries to the sadist is very likely to bring in some respite. This is applicable in all kinds of relationships involving a sadist, including in friendship, intimacy, workplace, family or society. Day-to-day attempts to ‘improve’ or ‘correct’ a sadist may become counterproductive.
Many maybe unaware that there is a type of sadism known as Sexual Sadism Disorder. This is found more in males than in females. In Sexual Sadism Disorder, the sadist gets better satisfaction by fantasising or enacting the fantasies of causing physical or psychological harm to the partner during sex. In this, the behavior of these kinds need to be considered and dealt with as disorder if the person is generating distress in the partner for a relatively long period of time of about six months or more. Some of the examples of sexual sadism are,- tying the partner with ropes, belts etc., biting mercilessly, inflicting physical harm without any sense of guilt or remorse, burning the partner’s skin with cigarette etc. during the sexual acts.
The first step towards dealing with a sadist, especially if he / she is closely connected, is to gain awareness of the condition of sadism itself. Like in the case of most of the other mental disorders, the onlookers tend to ask questions like "why can’t he / she stop behaving like this?" Such questions have no relevance because people with disordered minds are bound to behave the way they do. Trying to firefight sadism using own perceptions, that too within the social / familial constraints, is likely to worsen the situation. Dealing with sadistic personality disorder has to be through professional means. In that, an experienced psychologist can provide guidance to the immediate victims on dealing with the sadist. The psychologist can also provide counselling and psychotherapy to the disordered person as well as the victims. Both may need medication in many cases and this will necessitate consulting a psychiatrist. The treatment is often long-drawn but it will help in improving the conditions of all those affected by the disorder directly or indirectly. Suresh Gauda, the 'psychopathic' killer of Mumbai too may need treatment for mental disorder because Sadistic Personality Disorder is standing out prominently in his act of killing the people sleeping on the pavement for 'pleasure'. In this, the question that is unlikely to be answered is whether or not the police and the judiciary will consider the role of mental illnesses as triggers of many crimes, in a way that it deserves.