Arya and Frances Interview Youtube link

Here's the interview with Arya and her ex Frances. From the YouTube description:

Arya (boo of M.E. Thomas) interviews her ex-girlfriend, who was the one who told Arya she might be a sociopath, had Arya read "Confessions of a Sociopath", and sent Arya to meet M.E. They talk about the role of mercy in relationships, the possibility of change, empath/sociopath relations, emotional growth, getting better, strengthening sense of self, kismet, spirituality, personal boundaries, relationship boundaries, etc.

Victoria Asian female psychopath Part 2

This was a super interesting one for me because I've tried to be less ethnocentric about my view of psychopathy, but with the language barrier and travel restrictions, it's been hard to connect meaningfully with any Asian psychopaths, and bonus a female Asian psychopath. Here's the description from the YouTube video:

M.E. Thomas of Confessions of a Sociopath interviews an East Asian woman in her 20's about why it may be easier to "mask" psychopathy in Asian than western cultures. 

1. There's no real word or sense of meaning regarding psychopath in East Asian cultures. 

2. The social norms are all explicit and easy to follow. 

3. Public displays of negative emotions are frowned upon as being a burden on the rest of the community, i.e. they require the listener or observer to respond empathetically, which is considered a little rude, too individualistic, and a burden on the community. 

We also talk about animal experiments, narcissistic parents, guilt vs. shame, and public shaming and community centric punishments in American law and East Asian culture. 

Victoria: Asian female 20s scientist married poly-amorous psychopath interview.

Hello friends!

I'm going to try to post last week's video on self as soon as I can get the slightly edited version, but here is this week's Zoom interview with Asian female 20s scientist married psychopath Victoria!

This is the astrology test we referenced.

Next Zoom meeting June 21st

M.E. Thomas is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Asian female, 20s cancer patient, scientist, self-identified sociopath
Time: Jun 21, 2020 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/73663904501

Meeting ID: 736 6390 4501
Password: 8V9uxH

Paris in an efficient week

This travel time is cheating a little bit because I met a friend in Paris and his friend had been living in Paris for the past few months studying cooking, so I kind of coasted.

Things that I did and found worthwhile were the Louvre. I went through the newer area up the stairs from the boat sculpture, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, first, which I think was a good idea because there's less pizzazz that route, and then when I was tired after lunch is when I hit up the crazy Italian wing. The French revolution wing was closed, which was a little disappointing because I'm a fan of Géricault and Delacroix, but ok.

Musée d'Orsay is not as massive as the Louvre, but is also very interesting and important more modern pieces and a beautiful building in its own right.

I really liked dining at the Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower. It as a Michelin star and was of course pricey, but seemed like exactly the sort of thing you would want to spend money on. Make a reservation for sure, and as early as you can. I think they assume you want a good window seat and seating is based on how early you make reservations. Even locals believe Jules Verne to be "classique".

For other restaurants in Paris, the Fork App is apparently good. As one local put it, it's like Groupon for Paris restaurants, but good. You make discounted reservations when restaurants think they'll have extra capacity. There's also Yelp, but apparently the reviews in French can be quite different from the reviews in English. For instance, one restaurant within a short walk of the Eiffel Tower had things like "Good standard fare" while the French reviews called it a "National scandal!"

Pigeon is delicious. Heads up! Also of course escargot. My chef friend really recommends Grand Cœur as one of her favorite restaurants.

Also, my friend had been taking private French tutoring with a Paris local, and I think he enjoyed getting the inside scoop on local trends before he went. The Google Translate app is a must for weak French. Be sure to download the French dictionary ahead of time and get used to the app if it's your first time.

Apparently Parisian French is particularly hard to learn and understand. I had heard that from many sources, but it wasn't until I was dining with a new friend who was French herself, but who had been away for a decade or two, struggling to communicate with a server at a restaurant that I realized how serious that admonition was. She said that when she comes back, she often ends up speaking to her friends in English, so they can practice and because it just ends up being easier.

Notre Dame was beautiful, although an interesting trend is that Cathedrals or other older buildings in big old cities that have turned into sprawling modern metropolises is that there is just a lot more updating and other changes that happen to the buildings over centuries, for better or for worse. I did meet a cheese chef outside named Remy and kissed in the rain near the bridge to the other little island behind Notre Dame and he invited me to come visit him in Monaco. That seemed very Paris, but I also think I viewed the interaction in a more casual way than he did. Be sure to check out that view of the Seine and Notre Dame, I think it looks its best that way.

Versailles was great, but I definitely got lost going out there, had to ask people what train was the right one (which I should have done in the first place) and it's true that the line is pretty long to get in. It was what I thought it would be, which is a testament to its fame and current status.

A cheaper and dirtier version of French opulence was the Paris opera house, which was wonderfully more than I thought it was going to be. Also, for Phantom of the Opera fans, you can see the Phantom's box -- Box 5. While we were there, the inside (Chagall ceiling!) was closed for a ballet rehearsal. That was also beautiful to watch.

The catacombs were awesome! Again, because they are so small and down so far, only so many people can go in at a time so be sure to book well ahead, print out your tickets, etc. so you don't end up having to stand in the very long line and instead can stand in the shorter.

You can climb up to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica and check out Montmarte, in fact one of my new friends suggest I wake up early and climb up those steps to see the sunrise, but I was exhausted by this time.

I took a quick day trip outside the city to meet a new sociopath friend. More on her later, probably, but her story for me was perhaps one of the most compelling because she had just discovered her identity by chance a few months before, so I was seeing her discover herself and come to terms with it in almost real time. And she's such a classic example of what you would expect a very smart, beautiful, successful sociopath to be. Really you would all love to meet her, as well as the rest of the new friends I met on this trip and I hope to be able to write more about them in the next book.

I never feel sorry for the people I meet, but sometimes their circumstances are so poignant to me. A lot of them just want to live an authentic life of pleasure, but also some sort of substance or meaning. And it's not so much their unique mental processes that often keep them from it, but rather the reactions and misunderstandings of the people around them. I hope that we can do better as a society in this regard. I hope that we can come to understand each other better and allow each other to freely live genuine lives. 

Sociopaths on TV: The Girlfriend Experience

Public service announcement: a tv show about a female lawyer turned high class prostitute premiered today on Starz, with all of the episodes available at once. The character apparently gets described by others as a sociopath, and by the way its described, it definitely seems influenced by a sociopathic worldview. From the Rotten Tomatoes interview:

Rotten Tomatoes: What do you think is the correlation between office politics — or even the legal industry — and something like prostitution? Are you trying to make that comparison? Does the show have a specific point of view?

Seimetz: As dark and sort of moody as the show is, we’re not trying to say that this is bad — that the world is bad. Or good. We’re just sort of showing it and trying to draw conclusions as to how we act as human beings. In general, whether it’s law or business or prostitution, I think most interactions are transactional — whether it’s money or what somebody can do for you or how they make you feel. You want something out of an exchange from a human being in general in your life, right? And I think any business or any sort of part of your life is also about creating boundaries and knowing when a relationship isn’t good or isn’t benefiting you anymore.  Which I think, in the world of escorting, is sort of heightened, because there are these ready-made relationships that you step into and you’re immediately intimate. The expectation is to immediately become intimate with somebody. It’s this sort of heightened — or a much more dense — version of how we operate in society.
***
Rotten Tomatoes: Christine is referred to as a “female Ted Bundy.” She doesn’t seem to like people. Then it makes her question herself. Is she a good person, and what sort of character arcs can we expect from that personality type?

Seimetz: I don’t really know what a good person is. I come from a laundry list of extremely complicated human beings [laughing]. And so there have been moments where they’re not so great and there have been moments when they are wonderful. So I don’t know. I think what’s interesting is her feelings, in general. The conflicts that occur in the show are from the aspects of her personality where she is extremely unapologetic about how she feels. She has a flicker of a moment where she wonders if something is wrong with her — if she’s a sociopath. But that’s only because somebody said that to her. But really she’s like, “You know what? I really don’t care.” And she just keeps going. Most of the conflicts come out of that unapologetic nature of the female character, because in our society — and in television — we don’t see a lot of women who are unapologetic, or are sort of OK with how they are in life, and whether or not that meets everyone’s norm. She’s not struggling to understand herself — she already knows herself. She’s just discovering her superpower, in a way [laughing].
***
Rotten Tomatoes: When do we see the real Christine? Is it when she’s working, or out socially, or alone?


Seimetz: I think that’s up to the viewer to decide. Part of the allure of what we wanted to do from the series is for the viewer to constantly question who the real person is. Whether Christine is herself when she is doing her law stuff or if she is herself when she is with her clients, I don’t think any one personality is that simple. I like to say that I am myself no matter what, but I don’t treat the clerk at the grocery store like I do my mother. I feel like we’re all playing roles every time we make a transaction or every time we are in social settings. Not that we’re all completely changing our point of view, but we are all sort of playing a certain part that participates in whatever is convenient to the situation.

Sociopaths in Poetry: Keats' "La Belle Dame sans Merci"

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and pale loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful,a fairy’s child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A fairy’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

John Keats

It's not personal

The Godfather taught us that some things are just business, not personal. I've had to explain to a lot of people in the past few years that so much of what I do does not generate from any feelings of sadism or pleasure in the pain of others, but simple pragmatism/instrumentalism in which someone or something has just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I thought this recent-ish comment described something similar:

"to sit and smalltalk with other people about weather, for no other purpose than "to do so", does not fit the average psychopath"

Well it certainly doesn't appeal to me. I love having one-to-one conversations about interesting topics but I admit it's for the purpose of deepening my understanding and widening my views.

Here's another sign of (my) socio Christmas: I never buy presents to my friends/family. I say that it's because I don't like the stress and Christmas should be about chilling out etc but really I just don't see the point and don't want to spend my money on others – except for my clients, in which case I consider it a marketing expense.

I'm not bothered about receiving presents either. I think quite often people think that sociopaths are people that want attention and gifts etc but I'm the opposite. And anyway I think people often confuse sociopaths and narcissists. I don't like giving affection and I don't want it back. I also don't like being admired and it actually sometimes really irritates me if I get those kind of vibes.

I guess I'm the type of a sociopath who doesn't feel the need for other people but I don't feel the need to hurt them either. It just sometimes happens that when people annoy me for whatever reason I ignore them or dump them or dismiss them and do something that they think is hurtful. But its never for the sake of harming others but more like the people just get on the way of what I want. This wasn't meant to sound like me giving excuses, I'm just thinking out loud.

Another thing I thought here is that maybe this is just more what a sociopathic traits look like when they manifest in a female who is also introverted?

Sociopathic feminity

From a reader:

Saw this documentary and thought that it seemed like the kind of thing beautiful sociopathic women might do to take advantage of their looks.

Is this an instance of sociopathic femininity or is it something else entirely?

Body

From "The Last Nude" by Avery Ellis, via "The Best Bisexual Women's Literature":

Ever since my sixteenth birthday, my body had felt like a coin in an unfamiliar currency: small, shiny, and heavy, obviously of value to somebody, but not to me… My body felt coincidental to me—I could just as easily be a tree, a stone, a gust of wind. For so long, I still felt like the ten-year-old me, skinny as a last wafer of soap, needling through Washington Square on her way to Baxter Street. But my months with Tamara had worn away the lonely old questions and replaced them with a greed of my own: my body was just a fact, this night, a kind of euphoria. I coincided with it, and with the dancing crowd. Throbbing with the horns and drums, we formed a waterfall passing over a light, each of us a drop, a spark, bright, gone. The music danced us, and I knew it wouldn’t last, this body I’d learnt to love.

Does this mental detachment with one's body familiar anyone?

Never Home School a Sociopath

From a reader (and let's play a game where we guess what gender the sociopathic reader is then I tell you at the end):

M.E.,

First, I do want to express my sincere appreciation for your having written your book.  There are so many expressions of your perspective that absolutely take my breath away with their accuracy.  I really thought I was the only one who thought the same things.

Let me start by saying that I am a miserably bad sociopath.  I have all the intellect, the lack of emotion, the ruthlessness, the egoism and swagger, the charm, the wit, the lack of absolute moral code, etc.  I rate fairly high but not the highest on every sociopath "test" I've taken so far, mostly because many tests unfairly include causing harm to others a requisite.  However, I often fail when it comes to using these advantages in the workplace or in my personal life.  When I do succeed (and I definitely have), it's often due more to raw talent and intelligence than any utilization of my skill set.

You see, for a long time, I was (and still am in some ways) completely and unfairly crippled by the fact that I was home schooled from 4th through 7th grade.  Being thrown into the lion's den of junior high school with no context or social capabilities would be bad enough for an empath, but is obviously a nightmare for someone like me.  To have those years back and be able to observe and participate in the most essential social development years would be invaluable to me.

As a result of this, I stumbled my way through my teen years, always a few degrees off kilter from everyone else and unable to understand that they most decidedly did not think or feel like me.  In fact, not even knowing there was any other way to think or feel.  I would often enter social situations and groups, dazzling them with the native charm but fairly quickly become the most hated member of the circle without ever knowing why.  They just knew somehow that I was not like them, that I didn't relate to anything they were saying or feeling.

This background has turned me into a different sort of sociopath, I think.  I have developed an abhorrence for harming others; you see, everyone I could harm during my social development years was someone essential to my survival or personal enjoyment.  This left me completely defenseless when dumped unceremoniously into the public world.  Also as a result of this, I've probably also suffered more harm than they typical sociopath might, as i developed an extreme hesitation to strike back and have typically been utterly naive to possible threats to my person.

I could go on, but you're no stranger to the aspects of wearing this strange mantle.  Suffice it to say that, although it's rather late, I'm glad to finally feel free to know and be who I am. 

Female.

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size  
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,  
The stride of my step,  
The curl of my lips.  
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,  
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,  
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.  
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.  
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,  
And the flash of my teeth,  
The swing in my waist,  
And the joy in my feet.  
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered  
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,  
They say they still can’t see.  
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,  
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.  
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.  
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,  
The bend of my hair,  
the palm of my hand,  
The need for my care.  
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

--Maya Angelou

Sociopaths on television: Luther's Alice Morgan

There's a very fun "malignant narcissist" (seems more sociopathic) character in the BBC television series Luther. The titular character says this about her: "The way Alice sees it is this world is full of people that have "offended her, embarassed her, let her down, and those people deserve to be punished." The way she is portrayed is very well done -- her moments of quiet reflection, her inappropriate emotional responses, her boredom, her seeming contradictions, her complicated relationships, her pleasure in life -- all come off as being very three dimensionally real, and, apart from a few bad acts and the occasional moments of craziness, she is very high functioning.

Definitely worth watching.

Spoilers in the clip below, but a good example of the narcissistic/sociopathic traits in the character. Also a good example of how useful getting advice from a self-aware narcissist or sociopath can be:

Female sociopath: fact or fiction?

Merve Emre writes for Digg ("The Female Sociopath") on the popularity of the female sociopath in fiction (TV/books, etc.), and the reality. Worth reading in its entirety, the first little bit:

If you don’t know who Rosamund Pike is, you will soon. In October, she will appear in David Fincher’s film adaptation of Gone Girl, one of the most popular and addictive novels of the past decade, as Amy Dunne — the beguiling and cerebral housewife who stages her own murder and frames her philandering husband. Amy’s creator, the novelist Gillian Flynn, has proudly described her character as a “functioning sociopath,” which she is quick to distinguish from “the iconic psycho bitch.” The iconic psycho bitch, Flynn explains, is crazy because “her lady parts have gone crazy.” Think of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, so consumed with desire for Michael Douglas that she boils his daughter’s pet rabbit to death; think of Sharon Stone and Jennifer Jason Leigh (and Kathy Bates and Rebecca De Mornay) chasing men through dim rooms with sharp objects. 

Unlike these women, the functional sociopath isn’t “dismissible” as a slave to her emotions. She is not outwardly violent. Patently remorseless, clear-eyed and calculating, she is chameleonic in the extreme, donning one feigned feeling after another (interest, concern, sympathy, simpering insecurity, confidence, arrogance, lust, even love) to get what she wants.

And why should she feel bad about it?

For M.E. Thomas, author of Confessions of A Sociopath, such affective maneuvers are tantamount to “fulfilling an exchange.” “You might call it seduction,” she suggests, but really “it’s called arbitrage and it happens on Wall Street (and a lot of other places) every day.” Whatever you choose to call it, its appeal is undeniable when linked to the professional and personal advancement of women. “In general, the women in my life seemed like they were never acting, always being acted upon,” Thomas laments. Sociopathy’s silver lining was that it gave her a way to combat that injustice, in the boardroom of the corporate law firm she worked for in Los Angeles, but also in the bedroom, where she marveled at how her emotional detachment let her commandeer her lovers’ hearts and minds. Somewhere along the way, pathology became recoded as practice — a set of rules for how to manage the self and others.

No wonder the female sociopath cuts such an admirable figure. Intensely romantic, professionally desirable, she is the stuff of fiction, fantasy, and aspirational reading. And while actual female sociopaths like Thomas are rare, and sociopathy isn’t even recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the female sociopath looms large in our cultural imagination. Amy Dunne may stand as the perfect example — a “Cool Girl” on the outside, ice cold within — but she is not alone. Of late, she has faced stiff competition from fictional females like Lisbeth Salander, the ferocious tech genius in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, or Laura, the shape-shifting alien who preys on unwitting men in Under the Skin. Network television has been even kinder to the female sociopath, placing her at the center of workplace dramas like Damages, Revenge, Bones, The Fall, Rizzoli and Isles, Person of Interest, Luther, and 24. Here, she has mesmerized audiences with how nimbly she scales the professional ladder, her competence and sex appeal whetted by her dark, aggressive, risk-taking behavior, and lack of empathy.

And so we lean in to the cultural logic of the female sociopath, for she is the apotheosis of the cool girl power that go-getter “feminists” have peddled to frustrated women over the last half-decade. The female sociopath doesn’t want to upend systems of gender inequality, that vast and irreducible constellation of institutions and beliefs that lead successful women like Gillian Flynn to decree that certain women, who feel or behave in certain ways, are “dismissible.” The female sociopath wants to dominate these systems from within, as the most streamlined product of a world in which well-intentioned people blithely invoke words like arbitrage, leverage, capital, and currency to appraise how successfully we inhabit our bodies, our selves. One could easily imagine the female sociopath devouring books with titles like Bo$$ Bitch, Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, The Confidence Gap, and Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman to hone her craft — to learn how to have it all. From atop the corporate ladder, she can applaud her liberation from the whole messy business of feeling as a step forward for women, when it’s really a step back.

The result is a self-defeating spectacle of feminism that finds a kindred spirit in Rosamund Pike on the cover of W, erasing her own perfect face to reveal that what lies beneath might be nothing. Like Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne, who confesses that she “has never really felt like a person, but a product” — plastic, fungible, ready to be consumed by anyone, at any time — the female sociopath is a product of a broken promise made to women, by women. She is a product poised to disappear into the immense darkness from which she came. 

One of my favorite parts of studying music was learning that the representation of women in professional orchestras skyrocketed when they started doing blind auditions (i.e. the judges couldn't see who was performing). When I taught, I told my students to use their initials on their C.V.s and résumés, because it seems like every year there is another study that shows that everywhere in every field there is gender and racial bias. Sometimes I wish we could do the equivalent of blind auditions everywhere. Maybe we shouldn't out any sort of name on our résumés. Maybe we should make that illegal, like it is illegal to put your name on a standardized test. Because why should it matter?

When I first started writing this blog, it was like a blind audition. No one knew who I was, only what I wrote. I didn't realize at the time how great that felt, what a respite from my normal life that was. Without realizing even to what extent, I had been swimming against the current all of my life, until I was allowed to just be me. And then when I came out as being female there was a certain significant portion backlash that wasn't really explainable apart from being a reaction to my gender. (See also, popular science blogger Elise Andrew who got a cyclone of hate only after it was discovered that she was female.) There was probably as much backlash in my sociopath life for being female as there was in my normal life for being a sociopath. And now when I write or say things, it is seen through a different, distorted lens of my perceived femininity. I used to never get accused of the typical "oh man, you won't believe how crazy my ex-girlfriend was" type behavior -- "classic female traits" like self-harm/cutting, attention seeking, jealousy, vanity, histrionics, woman-scorned flavored vengeance, man-hating flavored vengeance, or anything else that is likely to get a woman slapped with the term "crazy". Now I get them all of the time. Which was sort of a surprise to me. Why did it bother people that I had been given the diagnosis "sociopath". Because it really seemed to. They took what I said and twisted it to fit something else, until I was "just borderline." as if the biased-female diagnosis was lesser than the sort-of male equivalent. Until I was "just crazy". Until I was something or someone that could be dismissed as a nobody nothing. Because that's how we marginalize people, I guess.

See also SNL – Red Flag | Katabatic Digital

Sociopathic savior

When I was growing up I had such insight into the psyches of others (and when I was younger, not enough of a filter from saying creepy things to people's faces), that people would tell me that I should be a psychologist. Often I feel like people either seek me out because they are interested in having me see through them or someone else they're trying to understand, or at the very least it contributes a lot to what my friends seem to get out of our relationships. That's why I thought this email from a reader was an interesting take on the reasons why a sociopath might choose to help people:

First of all, I just wanted to thank you so much for Confessions... I personally have several male sociopath friends (we just attract each other!), but no fellow female sociopaths have ever come my way. As such, I was naturally curious how other women display their sociopathy, and how the display of my own characteristics "measured up" to other females. I'm happy to say that much of your book felt like stream of consciousness coming from my own mind. There were even a couple of adages or quotes I found within your book that I've been saying for years, haha. It was a pleasure to read.

All gushing, flattery, and gratitude aside, I wanted to take a chunk of my own life and throw it to the wolves, as it were ;) I'm not asking for clarity on whether or not I'm a sociopath (I know I am, and I don't need "reassurance" for such things), but I suppose I would like to initiate a bit of discussion among your readers as to how sociopathy can play out.

Growing up, I had all of the classic symptoms of a sociopath. I used my parents' divorce to manipulate, guilt-trip, and ultimately profit from both parents, I would get in fights at school, covering up quickly by claiming the other child wanted me to hit them because they wanted to see what I was learning in martial arts, I learned how to fake guilt in that "I guess I took it too far," with crocodile tears to boot. I would lie about the most mundane of things, like whether or not I had brushed my teeth a particular morning, and sometimes I would lie just to create emotional outbursts "for the fun of it" (ie: I was homeschooled by my stepmom, who I despised entirely, so occasionally I would come to my dad in tears, confessing I had "failed" a really important test, that I felt like I wasn't taught any of the material covered. In reality, I always got very high marks, but I gained a sort of satisfaction in watching my dad blow up at my stepmom for "ruining my education.")

All of this took a turn when I was sixteen, when my dad, in one of his outbursts, killed my stepmom, baby sister, and himself. (I was also shot, but survived.) I was "sentenced" to court mandated therapy, which was entirely necessary as I was having flashbacks, nightmares, etc. But my therapist noticed something: aside from my dad--who, at very least, had sociopathic tendencies, though his primary dx was bipolar... he was incredibly intelligent, however, and through his own wits and ways of "bending the law," he went from being a high school dropout, son of a hooker to a multimillionaire by his early twenties. I still admire and respect him, probably more than any other person--aside from my loss of this influential role in my life, I did not grieve. I was not concerned for my losses, except the man I saw as most contributing to my education and growth (he spent hours every week teaching me about social manipulation, business strategy, etc)--someone I had seen as "useful." My therapist chalked this up to a delay in grief caused by shock, but five and a half years later, I have never been so much as concerned to think of the others. 

Though I was not grieving, being in therapy taught me how I "should be" grieving. My therapist used a lot more suggestive questions than she probably should have, likely to try to draw me "out of my shell" or to help me put a name to emotions I was "experiencing," but didn't "understand." So I created a persona based on this "grieving me." My performance won me a full-ride scholarship to college, many families opened their homes to me, and I noticed something odd--people came up to me, seemingly out of the blue, to talk to me about their problems, thinking "if anyone could relate," it would be me.

Having been in therapy, and having keenly observed my therapist, I simply played counselor to these people. And they would look at me and tell me how much I inspired them and gave them hope... Several told me, eventually, that had it not been for me, they would've killed themselves. The power and influence I had over these people was astonishing--and I loved it. 

So I used my education to get my BA in psychology, and in the near future, I will be pursuing a MA in Grief and Trauma Therapy. I currently volunteer once a week at a grief center for teens (I specifically work with teens who have lost someone to suicide, which earns me double points for 1. working with "the toughest cases," and 2. for being "strong enough to open up to relate in such a personal way to these teens"). I also work at a residential treatment center for adolescent girls who have been through trauma and abuse. Everyone I tell my persona's story to gushes at me in admiration, and more often than not, opens themselves up ever so completely to me. They trust me, in many cases, more than anyone else they've ever met. Trusting someone is laying down your defenses completely and being bareboned honest, fearless of the consequences. People trust me so much as to let me in where no other may go. I saved their lives, and in essense, now control their lives. The power of that is incredibly intoxicating.

So, yes: these days, I help people. And I am damn good at it. But I'm tired of hearing so many people (mostly empaths and wanna-be-sociopaths) tell me that no "real" sociopath would want to help people the way I do. Even some sociopaths are skeptical. But the display of sociopathic behavior is rooted in what we want. We want power. For me, I've found the most success in gaining power through letting people trust me on what they believe to be their own terms. Yes, I could ruin them, and that is a delicious fantasy (and one, admittedly, I play out now and again with lovers)... but if I did so with clients, my reputation could be ruined more than it would be worth. By being "responsible" with my power, I gain more of it. 

I'm curious what you and yours would remark on my endeavors. I don't help people because I feel "compassion" or any nonsense like that. I don't feel any sort of "trauma bond" either. Simply, I'm good at something, and people admire, praise, and depend on me (to the point of stopping themselves from suicide) for that. Any other "savior sociopaths" out there? (After all, being a Savior entails being someone's God...)

Magazine story request

From a journalist:

Dear M.E., 

I am a journalist in the Washington, D.C. area planning to pitch a story to [a women's magazine about sociopathy. To prepare a good pitch I need to find several people under the age of 30 (the [magazine] demographic) who have had some sort of relationship with a sociopath.

In addition, I also need to compile a list of potential sources and interviewees for such a piece.

Since you have an online community on the topic, I suspect you probably receive many e-mails from both victims of sociopathy and sociopaths themselves. Would you be able to connect me with some of the victims (preferably women under 30) who have interesting stories to tell? Perhaps someone who was in a committed relationship with a sociopath?

Many thanks!

If you are either a female sociopath or a female victim of a sociopath, preferably under 30, let me know and I'll forward your email on to the journalist.

Fictional sociopaths: Smerdyakov?

For some reason I found this to be so funny. From a reader:

I am 70 years old. I posted to the forum on your website but got a very nasty response from the denizens there. I thought maybe it was because saying I looked forward to finding a community of like minded people was a faux pas. But you say the same thing so I guess it was alright. 

I think I'm a sociopath/psychopath but I am different from you in some ways. You describe yourself as a chameleon in who you are around different people. I have been a different person at different times and places in my life but my identity has been driven primarily by fantasy. When I was 13, I identified with Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. Since he killed himself at the end of the novel, I decided to kill myself. But I didn't succeed and ended up in a mental hospital instead. While my parents were finding the right place for me and I was getting interviewed, I felt my fantasy shifting from Smerdyakov to just a suicidal mental patient. I saw myself as the director and author of a play in which I was also the star. It seemed everyone acted accorded to the role I assigned him/her. I liked that. I was in the nut house for about two years. At some point, I read about teenaged "thrill killers" and decided I wanted to be one. So I selected a victim who was convenient and tried to kill her. I had nothing against this girl, a childhood friend and neighbor, actually. I hit her over  the head with a heavy,  blunt object. She got away and, luckily for me, I was already a mental patient so I didn't go to jail. I just went through my adolescence in the hospital and was discharged around the age of 15, finished high school and went through college and managed to have a pretty normal life since then. 

I discovered I was a sexual masochist, was adventurist, worked in offices, dropped out to be a hippy, joined a cult (Maharaj Ji), co-founded The Eulenspiegel Society, S/M liberation, etc. At 70, I'm in a stable relationship, 24 years. I'm on Social Security and am pretty mellow and laid-back in my old age. I'm pretty happy about the life I led, I don't feel guilty about much of anything although I realize some of the things I did were pretty shitty. I don't know. Blame it on the old amygdala. 

Hilarious, Smerdyakov really? And why is the Brothers Karamazov so popular with sociopaths?

Female and sociopath: double-edged sword

There was something about this comment that I thought illustrated well how a female sociopath both plays to and fights against gender-based expectations:

Anonymous,

I assure you I am not deeply sad or troubled.

Actually, I feel pretty. Very pretty. I think you would find me very pretty too.

I can look deeply into your eyes and immediately find your gentle, delicate soul. I will know exactly how you wish to be held, caressed.

My touch will be tender as I run my hands over the soft swell of your adorable derriere. My lips moist and yielding. My tongue hot and seeking.

You will want to consume me, but I will consume you.

Now that I have your attention, please take note: I do not want or need your pity, unless, of course, I can use it to my advantage.

Cheers. 

Soft sociopathic traits

A lot emails that I receive from people describing their sociopathic traits strike me as being not quite placeable (nothing inconsistent with the diagnosis, but nothing really suggesting it either). This one seems to share a remarkable number of the "soft" sociopathic traits -- not quite in any textbook or diagnostic criterion, they are still traits that show up remarkably frequently in the sociopaths I have come to know. These soft traits include things like sexual fluidity, the particular instrumental way that charm is used, the obliviousness to certain things and hyper awareness at others.  From a reader:

As I’m sure since the subsequent publication of your book you receive these types of emails and attempts at correspondence daily, I will attempt to make this little stab at conversation short and sweet. Just a footnote here, I have no desire to exploit you and this is not an attempt to parallel our experiences. I suppose I am contacting you to relay some experiences of mine and perhaps receive some feedback.

My friend recently proposed the term, “sociopath” to me in passing conversation. I laughed off his name calling because I reasoned with myself: I grew up in a loving, stable environment, I have always had friends and significant others and I’ve always been keenly aware of my significance to them. I am not some brooding psychopath. I will admit here that I was unaware of the difference between “psycho” and “socio” and incorrectly found them mutually exclusive. However, the term “sociopath” sizzled in my brain for quite some time and I decided to delve into studying this alleged “disorder” and try to either self-diagnose or abandon the subject completely if it wasn't applicable to me. I reevaluated nearly every memory I can tap into and here’s just a sample of the conclusions I've come to:

By the age of 18, I had been arrested for assault, theft, and possession of criminal tools, vandalism, and a negligible complicity charge. At the various times of these altercations, I always was able to weasel my way out of the worst possible consequences. In my family’s eyes, I was a merely a victim of circumstance of hanging around the “wrong crowd” or being “scared, anxious” to be going away to college. At the time I think I believed those explanations myself. I have been in several altercations and what I refer to as “battles” with my family members often resulting in periods of estrangement with them.

Each one of my relationships throughout high school and my young adult life ended with a bang. The first ended in me cheating and spreading a rumor that my boyfriend had essentially taken advantage of me sexually. The second ended in cheating on my part as well and in a fiery battle with her parents that ended in a restraining order against me. The third was almost identical to the second. During these relationships, I would always befriend my significant other’s circle of friends and more often than not they all ended up liking me more than my girlfriend/boyfriend. I never felt particularly attached to my boyfriends or girlfriends, I always felt like, “well, I’m young, I don’t have to care about them or take these relationships seriously.” I have always identified as a bisexual. I like the differences between sexes and have never been able to adequately identify with one or the other. I am sexually fluid. This has always stirred confusion with those who have been in relationships with me and I've often heard they feel threatened by everyone around me, male or female.

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I was considered above average. I was and still am an avid reader and consider myself to be fluent in many musical instruments. I excelled in every activity I tried, guitar, drums, English, horseback riding, swimming, and softball. Music became somewhat of an obsession for me and I have become integrated in an underground community of musicians. I won several awards in academics and was able to attain a generous scholarship to a school I couldn’t otherwise afford. My family is exceedingly proud of me and I have always known I was the “favorite” to my various grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

I began waitressing at a small diner at the age of 16. I charmed my way into the hearts of many customers who still contact me after transferring to a different store several hours away. I consider myself to be the ideal employee, by befriending upper management and kissing a little ass I am mostly free to do as I please without consequence. However, I have managed to get approximately 5 people fired and dozens written up.  

You’re probably wondering why I failed to pick up on these things earlier or even realize how “abnormal” I am. The only explanation I can come up with is that maybe that’s just how the emotional and physical world naturally occurs in my mind. My “normal” is just maybe a variance on the society’s perceived notion of normalcy. I could go on forever but again, I am lazy. I realized rather quickly how much I assume the role of “sociopath” by textbook definition and although I have statistically come into contact with many sociopaths, you are the only one I have found to be formally diagnosed and have a way to contact.

"I knew I was different when I was a child..."

I thought this comment posted here on July 7, 2013 at 9:42 AM was a good compliment to the recent posts on being told you're a sociopath:

I absolutely knew I was different when I was a child. My parents and all the "adults" I knew were emotional beings. I could not understand why they were so dramatic. I could not understand why they yelled, hugged, cried and talked about their feelings. It was bizarre to witness and I could not relate. Nor could I relate to my emotional siblings and classmates.

As an adult, I have to remind myself to hug my relatives when I see them or else they get quite cross. I comply to avoid their sad eyes, questions, and messy emotions.

I was strong willed as a child and learned to be deceptive to avoid punishment. And, of course, for the thrill of having "pulled one over" on authority figures.

I was always the schemer and the ring leader in pranks. I reveled in my ability to shock and bother others. I was always the calm, calculating one of the group. To this day, I never panic. I don't worry about social norms. Nor will I have them forced upon me by people I couldn't care less about.

Granted, there are places where I am no longer welcome. I guess those people never got the joke. Just because I thought it was funny doesn't mean they did.

I've been told by others that I am a cold person but I disagree. I can feel some emotions but usually think they are a waste of time. Who wants to float in an emotional cloud? I just want to have fun. I am the life of the party. I am a thrill seeker. Is there anything wrong with that as long as I do not physically harm others?

I learned at 2 years old not to harm things. I caught a butterfly and wanted to kill it, so I did. I stuffed it in a soda bottle and filled it with water. I watched it struggle and become still.

I didn't feel remorse about killing it but did regret that I would no longer be able to enjoy the beauty of its fluttering from flower to flower. For some reason, it seemed very important to me to remember that lesson and so I did. I may mess with your head and your heart but I will not physically harm you unless you attempt to harm me.

I had a boyfriend hit me, probably because he couldn't control me. Besides, I'm small in stature and seemed like an easy victory. I responded with a ferocity that alarmed him just enough to give me the advantage. I am very proud of the physical scars he bears from that encounter.

A message to empaths: Leave us alone and mind your own business. You cannot "fix" us and we do not desire your pity unless we can use it to our advantage. If engaged, we will win. We always do.

Cheers.