Hey, it recently hit me that most people don't can't think about death without getting really bothered. E.g. you're going to die. If you have kids, they'll all die. Families, races, countries and species all die out. Nothing lasts forever. I suspect a good test as to whether or not someone is sociopathic is can they take the facts - the incontrovertible facts of life - stoically. Can you imagine going up to a mother with a little kid and saying, "what a nice kid! Too bad he'll probably be dead in 80 years or so. I sure wish he'd live forever - but you know how life is." I can remember being a kid and black kids would taunt me by saying, "yo mamma." I'd say, matter-of-fact, "I don't have a mother. She's dead. She killed herself when I was 3." They often felt sad and apologized to me; it made no sense to me. One minute they were insulting me, the next minute feeling sorry for me. Ha, hilarious. Did your mother really kill herself when you were 3? Can I publish this? It is all true. Yes, you can publish the whole thing. My experience of it was of misunderstanding. I didn't hate the black kids for being verbally aggressive, too personal and insulting. I thought they were a bit robotic with their insults - the black kids would reflexively say, "yo mama." Of course, it turns out I was the robot.
“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”
I thought this was a very interesting portrait of another successful sociopath from a recent comment that also seemed creepily similar to my own life story. She talks about her path to success, her bisexuality, her bout with cancer, recognizing one of her doctors as a fellow sociopath (whom she ruined), her instrumental view of relationships, among other entertaining tidbits:
I am an older sociopath with a terminal illness, I am female, a retired law professor, bi sexual - and predatory too - when I want something enough or I want to have some fun. I always knew I was different. I have clear memories from before I was able to walk, which I did at 9 months, so was alert and conscious very early. I was also a third child, with a non-maternal mother and a father who was often absent, but sociable. Both parents had high levels of hypocrisy. Like you I was trained to look beneath the surface at a young age. I was cleverer than those around me, and looked at issues from a perspective not often shared by others. This was a boost academically and professionally as it meant I was 10-20 steps ahead, as I had coolly considered all permutations, not just the socially acceptable or obvious ones. I was always able to get children around me to do things for me and I enjoyed manipulating them. I was incredulous when very young about how easy it was to get others to do what I wanted them to do. By the time I was around 10 years old I knew it was not a common way of being. I could also lie straight to adults without them detecting it. I learned to say "the right thing" as it was always too easy to work out what people wanted. I had a slew of aunts who loved hearing I wanted to be eg., a nurse so I could "help people." I had no intention of being a nurse and sick people always repulsed me, so by a very young age I was lying to curry social favours. I always knew I was lying. There was no self delusion about it. I enjoyed getting away with it. It has been interesting going through a life threatening illness [cancer] as a sociopath. Doctors and other health professionals are nonplussed at my lack of tears or panic for example and my interest in details that are important to me, but not to 99.9% of patients. Apparently 99.9% of patients go through these stages of grieving. I didn't. It certainly saved a lot of time on pointless emotions. I also never had a "why me" moment. Why not me? I wasn't born with a get out of jail free card and statistically it was always on the cards. Many cancer staff felt relaxed as a result of my matter of fact presentation, lack of hysterics and self deprecating gallows humour. Part of my motivation was to get them to do more things for me, but also I enjoyed the thought that if they thought they liked me, they would be more upset when I died and would never forget someone they thought of as a stoic, funny and engaging patient. During the course of my treatment I was referred to a Radiation Oncologist who I recognised immediately as a fellow sociopath. He let one comment slip as he thought I was a not particularly bright patient. The one comment/slip gave me my opportunity. Interestingly he did not detect me at the time, but as I questioned him later about the medical advice he had imparted and queried the statistical and other reasons for his treatment recommendations, he may have slowly cottoned on. It was fun putting him through the wringer especially as he had not even bothered to pay lip service to informed consent... and I had a witness, who was a hospital employee. He left the hospital's employ soon after. I had him on toast and he did not like it being exposed in front of his colleagues. I was about to leave a long term [10 years] female partner when I was diagnosed with cancer. She is very service oriented, so it suits me to stay with her now as I know I don't have to bother with shopping, cooking, cleaning, bills etc. The woman I was considering leaving her for would not have been as attentive and did not have as large an annual income or the selfless mentality which would keep me more comfortable when ill. It was a cold blooded and practical assessment of how to ensure I was best advantaged.
Interesting question. I am the world's worst sick person. When I was a teenager, I had a hard-to-diagnose health problem that made me very sick for some time. During that time I lost every single friend I had.
When I am sick, all I can think of is me. Usually I have the energy to keep up appearances, keep the mask on, etc. When I am sick, I simply do not. I typically don't even notice my ill behavior myself. For instance, when I was sick as a teenager, I thought I was handling things remarkably well. I was honestly surprised when all of my friends abandoned me. Since then, nearly every time I am sick, I get into an unprovoked argument with someone. The sickness makes me less patient, more easily annoyed, which I mistakenly attribute to that person being particularly troublesome. Does this ever happen to you? Where you feel nauseous and equate it to being nervous, but really you have the flu? Or you are short tempered and equate it to other people being difficult, when really you have a migraine? This is what happens to me when I am sick.
I think my emotions are so low level that I have gotten used to reading changes in my body as signs of how I may "feel" about something. If my stomach is upset, I figure that I am probably nervous so my adrenaline is up. If I have a fuzzy brain or a headache, I assume that I am tired or overwhelmed. Because I have gotten used to doing this, when I am sick because of a virus and not just sick and tired of something or somebody, I mistakenly believe at first that I am responding to things going on around me. But they are just emotional hallucinations -- my body is tricking my brain into thinking that certain negative things exist, but they don't -- it's all just my brain misinterpreting data.
So I could see how your father might blame you or others for the discomfort he feels. Even if that isn't true, he certainly has much less energy to put on a happy face. What you are getting from him right now is the uninsulated, un-papered over version of him. And you're right that he is probably annoyed that life (and you in some weird way) has betrayed him, failed him by allowing him to become the shadow of the man that he was. But that must be pretty normal for old people with a touch of narcissism, I would imagine.
I would be very interested in knowing how a sociopath deals with illness and old age. I am an RN and have cared for many a sociopath in my day (without knowing it). As I mentioned in previous emails my father is sociopathic. He is now in his 80's and a very miserable person to be around. He hates the fact that he is growing feeble, like we all will/do but his behavior is not the norm.
There seems to be no way to interact with him that does not turn out be a disaster. If I show my empathy and caring, he finds something to put a wedge between us. For example, the last time, I tried to talk to him about his physical health he threw in my face my teenage years and how I was not there for him during a difficult time. He let me know that he gave up on me at that time and that he had no use for me. If I ignore his ailments, he gets angry because no one understands or cares. It obvious that he feels quite less than everyone else and he makes little effort now to communicate with others with the exception of his wife who has devoted her life to him. I have not seen my father in almost 4 years.
I am wondering what is the best way to deal with an ailing sociopath. When sociopaths are faced with life-threatening illness and require hospitalization, do they look for empathy from others? Do the games stop even then or do they continue to manipulate people with a feeling of enjoyment? How does a sociopath think, feel and behave in times of such extreme vulnerability such as a terminal or life threatening illness along with the perils of aging?
Someone once remarked that I rarely discuss any negative emotions I experience -- joy, elation, success, but rarely sadness. Maybe it's because I frequently forget my negative emotions soon after I've experienced them. Because apart from feelings of disappointment, most of my negative feelings seem to be without context or meaning. If anything, the dominant sensation of them is a sense of meaningless, typically brought on by a lack of sleep or mental exhaustion. I call it feeling "raw." It is a feeling of introspection but without any real thing to introspect upon. The result is a loop of thinking about nothing, which gives me a sensation of nothingness.
Today I feel raw. I knew I would. I have had a murderous travel schedule recently. I've moved and am alone in a new city. Instead of going outside, I spent most of the day watching trite television dramas. I like to watch bad television with unrealistic interpersonal situations in which it feels like the writers are forcing the characters to endure awkward and unnecessary drama as if the writer were an ancient god playing humans like puppets. (For this reason, I have also become a surprising fan of fanfiction.) It reminds me of my own desire to play god and to pit people against each other just to see what sort of effect I might have upon the unsuspecting. This was fine, but one of the main characters died. I had just had a conversation with one of my friends about a mutual friend dying. The death was expected but came unexpectedly soon. We had both planned to visit her before she died, but she slipped away without saying goodbye to anyone, like she did in "real life" at parties, I had joked with my friend. I like to do that at parties too, I thought privately to myself. Maybe I wouldn't mind doing that in "real life" as well. I kept watching the television drama, to see how and why the story arc needed this particular character death, and apparently it was just to throw all of the other characters completely off-kilter and into a spiral of self-destructive depression.
I got up and walked to the (dog) park in my new neighborhood. I have been there often enough to know the perfect place to escape the encroaching shadows of the trees as the seasons change in the northern hemisphere. I listened to music until I just listened to one piece over and over again, from one of my favorite works to play. A small dog came and snuggled up next to me for several minutes. I didn't shoo him away. I took a photo of a crescent moon in blue sky surrounded by streaks of clouds and made it the "wallpaper" for my phone. Maybe seeing it tomorrow (this time) I will remember how it feels to be sad.
It's hard to fake real emotions, particularly when the expected emotional response is complex or is unusual enough that you haven't had much experience witnessing it, much less practicing it well enough to be considered genuine. Better to instead come up with a lie about why you aren't having the expected emotional response. For instance, I had a close family member die. I didn't feel like making a big deal out of it but I also had to be out of town for a while, so I had to let some people know about it. Some were surprised that I didn't seem that upset. Luckily I had a readymade excuse: "It was expected. S/he had actually survived longer than we thought, so we are just grateful for the time that we did have with him/her." Voila. Death suddenly becomes something that you could legitimately take in stride.
There was a recent death in my family, a close relative of mine. The family has been convening, making me wonder why there needs to be all of this effort over someone's death. I feel no grief, but then again i never felt emotionally close to this relative. It is making me wonder who I would grieve for, though, and I think there are only about 10 people for whom I would feel genuine loss at their deaths. And even with those people, as I have said and read before, the sadness seems to be more a feeling of personal loss than sadness for the deceased himself. Or is that how everyone feels? Sadness for their lack in your life. Which seems good enough, I guess, because it means that they had a significant role or impact in my life, unlike all these other relatives that I am interacting with now, for whom I feel nothing.
I have also been thinking a little about my own death. All my life I have felt todestrieb/thanatos, the death drive. Whenever I have been faced with death, I simply consider how bad it could be to die. Not bad at all, really. In fact there have always been very appealing things about death -- no more work, no more masks, complete and eternal rest. Plus my own spiritual beliefs acknowledge a life after death, an eternal existence of self, so death holds no fear for me. Maybe that is why I am so fearless in general -- isn't all fear just a derivative of the fear of death?
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