Regret being sociopathic?

From a reader:

I consider myself neurologically atypical if not also sociopathic. I don't have any official diagnosis so I'm not sure if my self-diagnosis is useful.

I wanted to ask about regret for being sociopathic. Much of the website posts and your book resonate with me rather deeply. I see myself in many many of the different posts and comments and stories.
I read the book (having been drawn to it primarily because I have considered myself atypical since my teen years) in only a matter of days and determined that I very strongly matched enough of the factors or variables that would classify me in the socio realm.

I struggle with something of a cognitive dissonance, though. And I'm not sure other identified sociopaths would agree I am in that realm based largely on this factor. I can't fit in anywhere since I behave in manners so out of place and abnormal to the folks at large (social, work, etc.)

But I want to. I see how others act and emote and engage and connect and I get angry at myself for not understanding how to do that and not being able to. I have definitely learned how to feign it, but I find that cuts a number of relationships short because the empathic (to use book language) types try to get me to open up and be vulnerable like they are and I think they see how shallow that pool of mine is or see something else that creates a sense of unease and they remain somewhat distance.

In a few instances I've invested a lot of time and energy into a specific person to get them to convince themselves that I am more and deeper and I feel things just like them. I have in essence made some very good pawns from it. The latest addition to my collection of people is someone who I've somehow managed to totally ...glamour. They are enamored to the point where I've had to detach time and energy from them. To the point where I think I've broken them or gone too far. They adore me, they love me, they want more of me, they dream of me, they masturbate to me. I am overwhelmed that I did this.

The latest ...conquest only happened after I underwent a lengthy period of loneliness / retrospection / self-revelation. I'm in my late 20s now and I identified my last couple of years with the "blue" period from your book, where you seem to have realized just how lonely life can be, for someone who has a rather difficult disconnect from a lot of other run-of-the-mill people.

This is getting long, but ...do you, in some ways or at certain times...regret being sociopathic? Do you have desires to be 'normal?' To not have to think about yourself in these ways? To not have to watch yourself carefully and present a persona all the time? To just...be able to relax and be "yourself" and not worry about being chased up the mountain by torches and pitchforks?

M.E.: I think I definitely do feel that way. It's not necessarily that I feel dysphoria so much as a sense of meaninglessness that can started creeping up on me in my late 20s and took firm hold of my early thirties. If everything is a game, then what's the point of playing? That sort of thing. And there is a lot of effort spent just maintaining a status quo. It just didn't seem that sustainable, at least not when you looked as lasting for decades. So I've tried to expand my mental and psychological horizons, so to speak, in terms of figuring out different ways to be. I don't ever expect to cease being sociopathic entirely, but I guess I am aiming to be more bilingual. 

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

As I wrote a like-minded friend, I have been recently thinking about the world of Oz. In Oz there are apparently witches, both good and bad. Anything remarkable that exists in that world is consequently attributed to witchcraft. When Dorothy shows up and kills the wicked witch, everyone is dying to know whether she is a good witch or a bad, as if her being any sort of witch is a foregone conclusion. The most interesting thing to me, though, is that their leader, the "wizard," is not a wizard/witch at all, but a charlatan who plays on their expectations of what their world looks like. He is a stranger in a strange land, someone from a different world, who doesn't think like they do. He uses misdirection and cheap tricks like gunpowder pyrotechnics and robotics to imitate the sort of witchcraft that the Ozians take for granted as an everyday occurrence. The wizard does all of this to hide in plain sight, but not just hide -- thrive. And not just thrive -- rule. My friend wrote:

Very interesting parallel there. If we wanted to play with the analogy a little, we could say that the Wizard is a literary example of how some sociopaths operate, including the whole “he isn’t as powerful as we thought he was” motif. He manipulated the people with the real magic. It was as if his deception was itself a kind of magic, potent enough to make himself the most powerful man in Oz. That is totally apropos. As you know, I believe that power is in one sense an illusion. I believe that people are always freer than they think they are. Because they believe in the social rules and roles and because their emotions almost compel them to even, they create power structures out of thin air, with most of them at the bottom of said structure. Awfully convenient for those at the top, don’t you think? ;)

This may all be true, but perhaps the strangest aspect to the story of the wizard is that he willingly gives up all the power and fame and return home to his native sepia-toned Kansas via the hot air balloon. This suggests a preference. Whether for loneliness or emptiness or meaninglessness, that for all of the wizard's success at assimilating into the world of Oz, he would rather live in a black-and-white world where everyone is just like him rather than all the color and glories of Oz.

And was he a good wizard or a bad one? Dorothy accuses him of being a bad man, to which the wizard responds, perhaps slyly, "Oh no, my dear, I'm a very good man; I'm just a very bad Wizard." Does he mean that he is not really a wizard at all, or that he realized that the wizard he was pretending to be was best categorized a "bad" wizard in the same way that Glinda is a "good" witch and the witch of the west was "bad"? Combined with the fact that he leaves Oz, maybe he thinks that it was "bad" to pretend to be a wizard in the first place, although he probably just fell into the role (literally), given his circumstances.

Everybody needs somebody sometime

A reader asks: "Do sociopaths feel lonely? Sure, you can make yourself loved and adored by all, you have that brilliant gift. But what does it all feel like when that is stripped away? And also, is it common to have just a couple of close friends who know you as well as you can be known, and then just hundreds of people who barely know you at all?" My response:

Karl Marx says that religion is the opiate of the masses. That may be, but it's not the only drug in their cocktail. They have a lot of things that sociopaths don't have, one of which is the feeling of interconnectedness that comes from allowing considerations for other people to dominate their decision-making. It makes them feel that they are part of a web that is society. But even though sociopaths' decision-making isn't dominated by considerations for others, they still need people.

Our hard-wiring makes us social creatures, even sociopaths. How do you punish a criminal? Put them in prison apart from the rest of society. How do you punish someone who is already a prisoner? Further isolate them in solitary confinement. People go crazy without social interaction. Sociopaths aren't immune to this, despite being labeled "antisocial."

Sociopaths, like everyone else, get satisfaction from sharing our world, which is probably one reason why most of us have or strive for at least a few intimate associates in whom we confide. Even the Wizard of Oz seemed relieved to finally be discovered and be able to share the truth with someone. I am always charmed when someone sees through me. Obviously not everyone can or would want to share our worldview. For those that do not or cannot, it seems best for all concerned that they continue to be deceived.

Victim of sociopathy?

A reader wonders:

I was wondering if you were also a sociopath...and if you are, then perhaps you too also live in such a lonely inner world. I find it hard to live life without the pleasures it has to offer, but I find that I am also subject to various addictions...So I wonder, how do you cope? Do you find yourself hinting at how you really are, as a way to "express yourself"?...If not, then how do you express yourself? How do you counter that terrible lonely feeling?

...and if you are not, then why do you share so much information about this malady?...or should I say, gift.

My response:

I actually have a lot of friends and family members. I have at least five who I consider very close. They all know who i am and are fine with it. I guess I am blessed to be a relatively good judge of character that way. But you're right, when I told them, it was all hints at first. Sometimes I wonder how much they actually believe what I tell them, but it's nice to have someone to talk to anyway. But loneliness is the worst. I work very hard at charming my friends and family, maintaining the relationship in ways that come easy to me (money, gifts, flattery) so I don't end up being lonely.

I am also subject to various addictions. That is the problem with being a sociopath. We're so impressionable and have so many needs, it is hard not to be completely self destructive.

I think the focus of the literature on sociopathy to date has been on the victims and what it feels like to be a victim of a sociopath. Very little has been written about what it feels like to be a victim of sociopathy -- to be a sociopath. That's why I initially started writing. I keep writing because I get such positive response from both sociopaths and friends/enemies of sociopaths alike. Plus it is a good way for me personally to keep track of who I am and where I am going. It forces me to confront myself on an almost daily basis.