Bill Burr on regular vs. functioning psychos

Bill Burr's description of the sort of cost benefit that everyone (?) goes through:

Creating boundaries, finding outlets

A few of my socio readers have asked how to get to be higher functioning, particularly about controlling some impulses and knowing when it's ok to indulge others. Here is what another reader said:

For me it is a little different. I have a natural talent for art and I use this as a way to explore my impulses and desires without acting on them. My boundaries, sadly, are not that current. As long as I don't get caught, nothing truly stops me. There is a voice in my head that constantly reminds me of what I should not be doing, due to my possible loss in freedom, but most of the time this voice goes ignored. I can say that having a hobby, something that satisfies even for a brief moment, can aide in a form of control. My need to kill and destroy is kept in tact by an obsession I have of collecting objects that have to do with death. I study criminals, watch violent educational programming, and read as (well as collect) reading material on past crimes, violent fiction, and the like. Instead of killing animals I collect the road kill, and macerate the parts to keep the bones. I buy taxidermied creatures, and have photos of x-rays. I keep my urges under wraps by indulging what I want through Internet, books, art, and programming, everything, and I mean everything, besides the actual murder. The criminal television is the most helpful because more than half of the time at the end of the program the criminal is caught. Shows like "Law and Order: SVU" touch nearly every form of sexual perversion you can think of, so seeing it gives me plenty of joy for that moment. In "reality based" programming I hear the thoughts of the detectives, and learn that they are pretty clever and instinctive when it comes to what to look for. Regardless of what they are personally, they still get the job of capture and punish complete, and I get the point, and a tinge of hesitation.

I won't lie and say this hasn't made my temptations worse at times. Other than entertainment, I watch this form of programming to figure out what they did wrong, and how I would have done things differently to get away with it. Once I come up with a list of what they did wrong, I replay the act in my mind, committing the crime myself. In a fantasy it is always easy to assume I can get away with it, but one never knows until they try. The key is to never let it get to that point, repeating the words told to me by some associates of mine. Their words made sense.

Another thing I do, if the decision to go through with any impulse is still rampant, is to go through a mental list of pros and cons. I only get through this if I catch the impulse, which is something I am currently working on. On the rare occasions where I do catch them, I get irritated and anxious if I don't act. I can either do what I need to to calm this feeling, or walk away from it, and calm myself down. My laziness usually causes me to go through with the more damaging approach.

Example. There is a girl at my school right now that I am more than close to taking out violently. She is obnoxious, mentally deficient, cowardly, and her constant rhetorical questioning, instead of shutting her trap and listening, leaves me more than livid. Her existence does not contribute anything worthy to this planet. Even her look boils my blood, and there will be a point where my smart ass remarks towards her will not suffice. She used to sit near me, but I know she senses my distaste for her, so she has moved, which has helped. I spend half of the class daydreaming on ways to take her out instead of listening to the teacher. At first my fantasies seem more than pleasant, heavenly in fact, and in moments like this I forcibly question myself.

What will I really get out of this? Will this joy I may experience last long enough? What if this only makes my urges worse? Will I keep having to kill in order to get this euphoric feeling? Will I become a slave to my impulses to destroy? How long until I get complacent? What if I get caught? Where is my future if I do this?

My answers: Pleasure, possibly joy, who knows, find out. Who knows, find out. Deal with it when it happens. Possibly, is this a bad thing? Yes. Not that long. I may get caught, I may not. Prison, but once at the end of the road, who cares what the future outcome is.

Sadly, even after a list of logical reasoning and questions, most go ignored, but the main thing that always sticks out with me is the slave issue. I do not want to be a slave to anything or anyone, and if I fail to control my urges, I will, ultimately, become a slave to my desires. I will be living a paranoid life of never ending dissatisfaction because I'm being controlled by my need to destroy. Not fun.

Sexually my intentions are cruel. I indulge in them for the most part, but I make sure the people involved are, to some extent, willing. I frequent S&M conventions where you have people who want to be humiliated and punished, and though a little more controlled, this has helped. The fact that there is an audience helps a lot too. Being a secretive person, having an audience ruins my chances of completely acting out. Prostitutes are too dangerous to even bother with, as they are nobodies that can easily go missing, if not already, and make the temptation worse. They allow anything to be done to them, and because I don't value much of human life as it is, they would only make it easier for me to disrespect them. The people I have hurt and humiliated through sex wanted it, and what kept me from crossing that line was to constantly remind myself that I don't want to become a slave to this.

The boredom? Something I will just have to suck up and deal with, like everyone else. I don't have any successful methods for this as of yet. I still use art, but lately the drive to fulfill a finished piece isn't happening. I have some assignments that are time consuming, but after a certain amount of time, usually two and a half hours, I need to do something else. I go on spontaneous shopping sprees buying things I don't need just to do something, but being around people acting so foolish only causes my mind to race all over again with violent thoughts. I have medication that I am not taking because it leaves me awake for days even though it is supposed to make me drowsy. Not much aide in this category, tee-hee, sorry.

Is this a reverse psychological way of teaching me how to control myself, by having me write down my methods?
You sly devil ;)

If you were, in fact, clueless as to what went on here, and this wasn't a positive manipulation of yours, then I take back the credit I gave you. Have a grand day, M.E.

Ask a sociopath: high-functioning

This blog has been a good outlet for me -- in the past couple years that I have been writing it, I have had a more stable life. I've answered questions and had questions answered, I've seduced and been seduced, I've lived vicariously through you and you through me. It's been a very unique experience -- fascinating to see the breadth and depth of humanity and to be forced to contribute regularly to that type of dialogue, particularly since I would never do so otherwise (I get very bored with purely philosophical discussions). Anyway, I thought I would share just a few recent questions and answers.

I asked a socio reader what it was like to be in a relationship with another sociopath: "What we were able to share was more than manipulation and sexual mind games. It was a simultaneous hollow connection that would eventually come to an end due to lack of further interest, or one of us ultimately winning."

One socio reader who describes herself as low-functioning but high-functioning enough to recognize it asked me, "How is my perspective interesting to you?" I answered:

I think everyone that has their feet in two different worlds (e.g. you being both high/low functioning) is interesting. For instance I am interested in someone who is transgendered, or black but light enough to pass for white, or poor but very educated. They are about the only people I trust to speak honestly about their own circumstances because they have a rare objectivity about what it really means to be a certain gender, or a certain race, or a certain social class. It's an objectivity about one's own personal circumstances that I think I lack in a lot of ways.

Another question, "How functional are you? like in maintaining an image?"

I'm single, so do poorly at relationships, but haven't really wanted to be in a committed relationship yet either (not enough). I've never been to prison, but have been "officially disciplined" several times, discharged from my employment a couple times, progressed from career path to career path while still managing to "climb" rather than slide in terms of prestige and money. Right now I have a relatively stable life in which I basically do what I want within reason in a field where micromanaging is frowned upon as stifling of creativity.

"Have you ever been this low in your life?"

No, but yes in some ways. I have made mistakes before and had my bad actions revealed to everyone that mattered, lost my good reputation and had to start over from scratch. Does that count?

"How did you manage to change yourself?"

I had a problem with self-deception, believing my own lies, which got me into trouble because I was blinded to the real risks inherent in my actions. Recognizing self-deception as being the root of my problems, I went on a dishonesty fast for about a year until I could trust myself to lie to others while still maintaining a knowledge of the truth for myself. Sometimes I fear that I have again strayed too far into self-deception, but I don't have the luxury of another complete fast from being dishonest at my current stage in life. Instead, I try to be as honest as I can and only lie if it is necessary.

Let's play doctor (part 2)

It's been a while since we've had an, "am I a sociopath?" post. I thought this one was interesting. There were several things that I really identified with and other things that I didn't as much (maybe you all can guess which is which), but who knows what that means.


Hey, I've just come across your blog and I relate to your thoughts. I'm a 16 year old sociopath girl. I've always known that I was different from everyone else, and about a year ago someone told me I was a sociopath. I didn't really know what that meant at the time and I spent a lot of time researching it. That person was dead on. I score a 29 on the Hare psychopathy checklist too. The post you had that has a representation of how a sociopath develops from child to adult is extremely accurate, however I only relate to the one about a male, not the one about a female. Let you know this, though: I am a very well-liked and somewhat popular person at my school. I'm sure people realize I'm not quite like them, but they are drawn to me for that reason exactly.

 I am not a violent sociopath, but I am indifferent to violence. I do not truly love anyone although I am attached to some people such as family friends but only for selfish reasons. I think if one of them were to die, i would get over it quickIy. I hate saying "i love you" to my family because I don't LOVE them.

I lie all the time, I enjoy manipulating people, I feel the need to be in control. I do not have empathy of any sort...

However, I've found that I do get angry. Do you get angry? People say that sociopaths don't have any emotions at all, but anger is an emotion.

Also, when you see violent movies or hear about shootings or murders do you feel anything towards the victims? I feel so aloof in my world of other teenagers  because I feel nothing at all. When I heard about the massacre of the children at Sandy Hook elementary school, I didn't care at all. Like at all. Today in my English class we are discussing slavery and before showing us this clip from a movie about the transportation of slaves in the Middle Passage, my teacher said "this is extremely graphic and hard to watch and it's very emotional..." Blah blah blah. When I watched it, the only thing I felt was interest in what would have gone on, I felt nothing for the slaves who were suffering incredibly. Everyone (including the teacher) was like crying and shit and i always find it fucking annoying when people show emotion. It's like this for everything, I only feel extreme interest about violence and crimes. I enjoy reading about all the different stories about all the serial killers and how they went about getting them alone and how they killed them. I would never or could ever do anything violent, but I love to read about it. Do you feel this way?

I am a very high functioning sociopath. I  am very intelligent (125 IQ) and I put on all sorts of masks and know how to behave in all the different social situations. I find it extremely exhausting though. It annoys me to no end and I find myself sometimes just not putting on a mask because its such a low risk situation. I need motivation to act like an empath and when I don't have motivation for something I would gain from acting, I just don't bother. Do you find yourself doing that?

I also am extremely impressionable. When I read a book or watch a movie/tv show where I really like the personality of a character, in the time period in which I like them a lot, I mix their personality with mine. It usually doesn't last long, and I'll find another that I like. People that I've known for a long time never know what I'm going to do or say because I am so impulsive.

Also, I'm attractive and I can have whatever guy I want. The whole game is getting them to like me and chasing them. When I win, and I always do, within a couple months ill get bored and dump them. Ordinary people are just so lame and boring and easy to manipulate.

I get bored so so easily and I have to live my life on the edge without explicitly breaking the rules. I get off on it.

It's a relief to be able to say this all to you because I can't say it to anyone else..

Thoughts?

BBC's Sherlock Holmes

I finally got around to watching the first few episodes of the BBC version of Sherlock Holmes. The show is fun to watch, but mainly for how the writers choose to portray a "high-functioning sociopath." For those of you unaware of the quote/scene in which BBC Sherlock outs himself:

Some have suggested that the BBC's Sherlock is not a high-functioning sociopath, but on the autism scale, probably Asperger's or maybe the more dickish Ass-perger's. The reasoning is that he doesn't seem particularly charming, nor particularly interested in wearing masks. But BBC Sherlock can act normally when he wants to, even charming, as reflected in this clip:



I don't think BBC Sherlock is an entirely accurate depiction of a high-functioning sociopath, but he is quite good, at least in broad strokes -- ambisexual, morally ambivalent, constant need for stimulation, ADD, obsessed with playing games to keep his brain from "rotting", unapologetically uses people, chooses to do "good" only because it's convenient and not because of any concern for the people he is "helping," incredible ability to compartmentalize, seductive, compelling, obsessive, flexible and ambiguous personality, seemingly inconsistent behavior or beliefs, actively cultivates and wields power, thinks the world of himself but is realistic about his shortcomings, mental maps of his physical and personal environments, manipulative, cunning, capacity for single-mindedness but also easily distracted, etc. The exact ways in which these traits are portrayed sometimes seem ridiculous, like this explanation of why Sherlock wouldn't know certain basic facts, like the make-up of the solar system, because he is so hyper focused on other things that he finds much much more interesting:

But most of television focuses on the outrageous and the exaggerated. If BBC Sherlock weren't so extreme in some of his sociopathic traits, he wouldn't be as fun to watch. But as a message to any BBC executives who may be reading -- if you're really interested in making BBC Sherlock as accurate as possible, I'm available for a very reasonable consultation fee.

Of course this is an essentially useless analysis of a fictional character, but it's heartening to see on television another sympathetic portrayal of a (presumably) self-diagnosed high-functioning sociopath, and of course people's relatively positive reactions to him.