Inventing Anna: Portrait of a Stylish Abuser
This is an article FULL of spoilers. If you don’t like spoilers, watch Inventing Anna on Netflix first, then come back and read the article.
Like many people who love a good Netflix binge, I devoured Inventing Anna. I was fascinated by her story, though I constantly found myself asking, “Wait, we’re supposed to be rooting for her? Why?!”
60 Minutes did a feature on Anna Sorokin, a young Russian woman whose family moved to Germany when she was a teen. Anna went on to study fashion, moved to New York City and had what friends referred to as impeccably stylish taste in clothing. She changed her name to Anna Delvey and invented the fake persona of “German heiress” with a rich father and a trust fund she would inherit when she turned a certain age. 60 Minutes kept referring to Anna as a “conwoman” and a “fraudster.” In the segment, she firmly rejected both of these attributions.
60 Minutes Interview with Anna
Which signifier did she wholeheartedly embrace on social media though? Sociopath. She’s a sociopath and she’s proud of it.
Proud of Being a Sociopath
Anna is not a nice person! Why would we root for her? Is it because her “victims” are the rich and/or famous, so we see them less as “traditional” victims? Are we blaming the victims because they don’t look like we expect?
These are more rhetorical questions, but here is a question with a solid answer: what is a sociopath? A sociopath is an abuser. Anna is, in fact, an abuser. We’ve been conditioned to think that abuse only happens within the context of a romantic or familial personal relationship. Abusers don’t keep their abuse behind closed doors though, and it extends far beyond family and intimate relationships. Anna is what an abuser looks like in the public sphere, even though she doesn’t fit what our CONCEPTION of an abuser looks like.
Anna is also an NPD narcissist. That is, an individual with narcissistic personality disorder. She firmly ticks all the boxes for the cluster B personality disorders of sociopath and NPD/narcissist (this is different from those who might have narcissistic tendencies at times, but not the full-blown disorder). The interesting thing about NPD is that it’s like a cluster B personality disorder Russian doll: it easily fits inside the other disorders. So it absolutely makes sense that she exhibits NPD/narcissism and sociopathy. What does this mean in practice though, and how did/does Anna exhibit characteristics of these disorders? Here are some examples.
She thinks she is above the rules and is smarter than everyone else. While on 60 Minutes, she referred to the people at the top of the New York City Financial Ladder as “stupid.” She sees everyone else as below her in intelligence and in everything else.There’s a hint that she almost thinks of them as asking for it. That, because she’s smarter than they are, they’re asking to be victimized. It’s how she sees herself and how she sees others in comparison.
She can’t be seen as a loser at anything, even though she was sentenced to serve time in jail, so she says she doesn’t regret her time in jail. Accordingly, she frames her time in jail as “valuable” and something she wouldn’t change. That’s admirable, we think, seen from our lens outside the situation. Until we realize that there is no way she will ever learn her lesson. She is never wrong. She never apologizes. To anyone. Shockingly, she doesn’t feel a bit of guilt or remorse about anything she has done. Why?
Sociopaths have no empathy and thus can feel no remorse. In his book Psychopath Free, Jackson MacKenzie talks about the brain scans of those with cluster B personality disorders. The fascinating and horrifying finding is that these folks have thinner empathy receptors in their brains, and sociopaths and psychopaths don’t have ANY empathy receptors in their brains. Can Anna feel any empathy? Nope. It’s not in her current brain wiring. Does that give her a pass to hurt people? Absolutely not. Sociopaths and psychopaths also enjoy inflicting pain and their lifeblood is hurting people. They love seeing others squirm, cry and be at their mercy. They get off on it.
Psychopath Free
In Inventing Anna, the titular character perfectly engages in the cycle of abuse. She first love bombs her victims and pays for everything, including their clothing and nights out at expensive restaurants. She makes her victims feel lucky to know her and count her as a friend. She’s one of the “cool kids.” She tips with hundred dollar bills. She lets them know she has their back. Except, she doesn’t.
The second phase in the cycle of abuse, tension building, is when others have to walk on eggshells around her. “You look fat,” she tells a pregnant journalist (arguably the real protagonist of the Netflix show) who is dazzled by the girl. Anna makes others feel crazy and gaslights them. Then, there is the explosion phase, that leads right back into the love bombing. Going through this cycle more than once creates something called trauma bonding, which makes it even more difficult for a victim to leave their abuser after the explosion phase.
The Cycle of Abuse
A great example of this phase in the Netflix show is when Anna has love bombed her boyfriend Chase, then has him walking on eggshells around her. He finds out she has been lying and that her passport is from Russia, not Germany. He calls her on it, and she explodes. Anna confuses and love bombs him, saying the way forward is together. When she finds a weakness though, she pounces (sociopaths are predators), hurting his burgeoning company with one of his primary investors and, in essence, stealing the mentorship and connections of that mentor for herself. Anna effectively ends her boyfriend’s business and her relationship with him. Does she care? Not a bit. She got what she wanted from it, and from him. She’s off to her next victims.
Several more examples of Anna’s lack of empathy can be found during her trip to Morocco with friends, when she, in a very traumatic way, leaves her friend Rachel to foot the bill for the whole vacation (at a price tag of over $60,000). Back in New York, despite Rachel’s pleas, Anna (of course) doesn’t pay her back. During an intervention with Rachel and another friend, Kacy, which they hoped would result in Anna returning Rachel’s money, Anna intones sarcastically “Why are you being so dramatic?” while Rachel sobs at the restaurant table. Anna is utterly unmoved by her tears and anguish. She then exhibits another trait of NPD/narcissists: she makes herself the victim. How DARE Rachel and Kacy bother her with this nonsense? It’s absolutely below her and they are wasting her time. Never mind that Rachel is in danger of losing her job and her apartment because of what Anna has done. She makes it their fault, because she is incapable of accepting responsibility. For anything. What kind of person isn’t moved by the genuine and distraught tears of another human who is suffering? An abuser. That’s who.
Anna doesn’t care what others think, because, in her own mind, she is God. She is better than everyone else. So why would she care what the little people (everyone that isn’t her) think or feel?
After serving 19 months at Rikers Island jail, Anna served an additional two years after her sentencing before being released for good behavior. Anna is currently detained again, this time for extending her Visa, and may be extradited back to Germany. On 60 Minutes, she is heard talking about the current detention center, where she is being held by ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement). According to Anna, it is “dull” and Rikers was “happening.” Her attorney described Rikers jail as “hell on earth,” but Anna would prefer Rikers to the hell of “dullness.” She even goes so far as to say that going back to Germany would be a fate worse than jail. In Germany, she knows she won’t have the same celebrity status. Her deportation date has been set for this week, but she may have had some last-minute help. The next week will unfold more details.
Anna’s Detained Life
Where is the World is Anna Sorokin Right Now?
Her attorney, Todd Spodek, is fully bamboozled by Anna. He told 60 Minutes that she is a role model. “She is a go-getter, has hutzpah and moxie, and at the end of the day, she gets things done.” Of course she is charming. Most abusers are. Of course she gets things done. She doesn’t care who she has to step on, hurt or abuse to get results. Was she demonstrating kindness or generosity by tipping large and buying things for her friends? No, it was all part of a calculated lure: strategic acts of love bombing so she could meet who she needed to meet, craft the right image to get what she wanted, and make herself irresistible to others. Did it work? According to her attorney, it did. According to Netflix, it did. According to Anna’s blooming social media, it did.
Did it work on you? Are you rooting for Anna, the stylish abuser?
