Mormon psychopath video

Here is the video for today's Zoom meeting.

Alex and George Part 2 Video and Mormon Psychopath interview

Here is the video for Alex and George Part 2.


Here's the information for my interview with an ex-communicated but returning to the church
Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) psychopath-identifying individual.

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

Topic: Mormon Sociopath
Time: Jun 7, 2020 09:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/78448523671

Meeting ID: 784 4852 3671
Password: 9VDqxh

Zoom week 3 youtube link and Zoom details for Monday 5/4

Here's the video for last week. Our guest had technical difficulties and didn't end up making it in time, so it turned into just a little Q&A about filling out forms, ethics, moral inconsistency, and religion.


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

Topic: Sociopathworld Zoom Meeting 20 0504
Time: May 4, 2020 12:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/71647075746

Meeting ID: 716 4707 5746

Sick of shame?

Another month, another post about the limitations of public shaming, this time prompted by the people who seem to be confronting for the first time how to ethically oppose an ideology that you find to be abhorrent.

I've always been very vocally opposed to public shaming, even before I was the victim of it. At it's core, it uses the unwieldy weapon of mob mentality to enforce social norms, particularly those that its adherents believe have moral significance. Never mind that there is no universal morality, but rather that beliefs about morality are closely tied to such varied inputs as religion, culture, upbringing, genetics, etc. I'm not the only one who thinks that if shame had any value at all (perhaps evolutionarily or in certain smaller contexts),  although there have been other victims of shaming who still defend its applications. Most of these critiques fall under the category of the solution being worse than the problem, e.g. the self-censorship and resulting harm to open dialogue that can occur as a result.

But is it even an actual solution?

One thing that I learned in therapy is that everyone (1) is at a different stage than you (emotional, psychological, educational, etc.) and (2) that people can go through the stages in different orders, different ways, and prompted by different experiences than you did. To insist that other people go through their own progression at your pace, in your order, or in your way is just a denial of the realities of psychology. People can rarely make a lasting meaningful change in the moment. You can demand that they start doing or being something or stop doing or being another thing, but they are not psychologically capable of meeting your demand in that moment (although there is longterm hope because there is almost always possibility for real, meaningful, and lasting change in that area if they are open and committed to seeking it). So for instance, demanding that someone who has been socialized, educated, and undergone particular psychological development to the point where they are racist (at that moment in time), you cannot just demand that they stop being racist. And even if you could convince them at a certain intellectual level that there is reason to doubt their position, they need to go through whatever process is necessary for them to sort it all out in their head. Open dialogue could encourage this process, although it seems like more people on all sides are showing up to dialogues not to engage, but with already formed judgments that they seek only to make known.

Unfortunately, the shaming process does not encourage the sort of dialogue or safe space that is often conducive to people softening their opinions and being receptive to something new. What it does is foster reflexive defensiveness, further entrenching them in their viewpoint. Shame often targets the person instead of the behavior, which can lead to identity politics and culture wars:

In a guilt culture you know you are good or bad by what your conscience feels. In a shame culture you know you are good or bad by what your community says about you, by whether it honors or excludes you. In a guilt culture people sometimes feel they do bad things; in a shame culture social exclusion makes people feel they are bad.

I saw on Twitter last month this tweet regarding candied yams (my first encounter with them):

" y'all know what's going on " pic.twitter.com/25cNPIl0yz

— MOST HATED🕊 (@DuwopFrm89CG) July 25, 2017

And then subsequent chain involving a white guy ("@wwadas") who replied that he didn't recognize the candied yams. Black Twitter led him through the process of making the yams, with many praising what seemed to be an increasingly rare instance of building a cultural bridge:

Me, what's on the right?

— Will Wadas (@wwadas) July 26, 2017

Until others culled through the white guy's tweets to find good ol' boy and obliquely (if not overtly) racist content. Although some immediately tried to shame him, labeling him (not his behavior or beliefs) as being "problematic", other people were less inclined to jump to such conclusions:

It's an interesting thread, with some arguing that every instance of real or perceived injustice must be fought to avoid perpetuating such injustice and another person commenting: "Sorry not everyone is perfect, maybe he's on the way to making things right."

Of course, I may be speaking from a place of bias being religious myself, but I think religion gets it very right in this instance. From one of my favorite LDS talks from Elder Dale G. Renlund:

Just as God rejoices when we persevere, He is disappointed if we do not recognize that others are trying too. Our dear friend Thoba shared how she learned this lesson from her mother, Julia. Julia and Thoba were among the early black converts in South Africa. After the apartheid regime ended, black and white members of the Church were permitted to attend church together. For many, the equality of interaction between the races was new and challenging. One time, as Julia and Thoba attended church, they felt they were treated less than kindly by some white members. As they left, Thoba complained bitterly to her mother. Julia listened calmly until Thoba had vented her frustration. Then Julia said, “Oh, Thoba, the Church is like a big hospital, and we are all sick in our own way. We come to church to be helped.”

Julia’s comment reflects a valuable insight. We must not only be tolerant while others work on their individual illnesses; we must also be kind, patient, supportive, and understanding. As God encourages us to keep on trying, He expects us to also allow others the space to do the same, at their own pace. 

I understand that this requires forbearance from exactly those who are most likely to have been wronged, not just in this moment but from a long history of oppression. I understand this burden to be so heavy that I would not even ask it of anyone, much less demand. I would only hope to help them see, to persuade them that there is greater peace and joy there than in seeking to return the same. Or as Paul Gaugin said: "One day, you will feel a joy in having resisted the temptation to hate, and there is truly intoxicating poetry in the goodness of him who has suffered."

White Nationalism as Drug Resistant Bacteria

I want to argue yet again not only is shaming hypocritical and cruel, it's ineffective. Recently, I started to think of the rise of white nationalism as a drug resistant bacteria and shaming as the overused antibiotics that have led to the rise in white nationalism. I saw an Saturday Night Live recently hosted by Aziz Ansari where he asks people to start pretending not to be racist again.



It makes (obliquely?) an interesting point -- did all of the policing of political correctness, enforced by social shaming actually change people's underlying attitudes about race, class, privilege, etc.? Or did it just cause people to be quietly prejudiced and bitter about the shaming attempts?

A character from The Mindy Project recently remarked "Every white person’s greatest fear is being called racist. It’s their equivalent of actual racism." And I have noticed that white people do seem to feel quite oppressed and like they are being unfairly treated by being called racist. For instance, I had a conversation recently with a close family member of an older generation about political correctness and asked him what about it was so upsetting to him. He said that he didn't even believe that people who enforce political correctness even believe in it or care about the people they're allegedly trying to protect. He thinks it's just a way that people put other people down, for the same reason that anybody ever tries to enforce a social hierarchy against someone else -- a selfish desire to feel superior.

I tried to explain that anything can good be used to advance bad purposes (speaking of which, I'm watching the Handmaid's Tale). I just had a conversation with a friend whose non-Mormon husband was raised in a Mormon community -- wasn't invited to any of the block parties, wasn't allowed to go to anyone's houses for sleepovers, no one cared to communicate with his family at all until his mom got sick and they started trying to aggressively proselytize. I'm sure those Mormons felt like they had scriptural support to justify their exclusion.  But I'm also pretty sure it's all reasoning post-hoc, that is they decided how they wanted to act and took otherwise neutral or good principals and twisted them to fit their preconceived notions. It's why so many people hate organized religion (see again the Handmaid's Tale), which is the point I made to my Mormon relative who hates political correctness. In fact, it's a problem that has been specifically addressed many times in addresses by the church leaders to church members, including most recently this reference to my favorite topic of shaming by President Dieter Uchtdorf:

During the Savior’s ministry, the religious leaders of His day disapproved of Jesus spending time with people they had labeled “sinners.”

Perhaps to them it looked like He was tolerating or even condoning sinful behavior. Perhaps they believed that the best way to help sinners repent was by condemning, ridiculing, and shaming them.

Perhaps the current adherents to shaming believe that the best way to get people to change is by condemning, ridiculing, and shaming them. Perhaps the shamers of the world truly believe that they're doing a good thing, rather than doing what my relative believes political correctness police do -- putting others down so that they can feel relatively more superior. Perhaps they choose to intentionally inflict harm on others for the sake of some higher purpose, thinking that the world will be a better place because of it, rather than the obvious natural result of their actions -- increased antagonism, hurt, distrust, pain, hypocrisy, etc. But even if shamers' intentions are to create more positivity and good in the world, it doesn't work (or works so seldom that the aggregate effect is failure). Because even if you are right when you try to correct someone, there's a psychological concept called the "backfire effect" that makes you confronting someone with those facts extremely ineffective -- it most often leads to them becoming further entrenched in their beliefs. Sort of like drug resistant bacteria becoming more beefy in response to increased use of antibiotics. This Oatmeal page has a great explanation with citations to further reading/listening on the backfire effect.

So if shaming doesn't work, is it just cruelty for the sake of being cruel? Is it just twisting otherwise good concepts to advance oneself in a social hierarchy to the detriment of someone else?

Evil wants an evil response

One of my mantras for the past year or so is evil wants an evil response (see here). But let me back up. One thing that has always bothered me about having my particular brain wiring is that despite craving power and control, it has traditionally been so easy to push me over the edge, lose my temper, make me angry. I get caught up in power struggles sometimes and make a bigger deal out of things than they warrant because I get ego hurt or my mind just seems to crave that particular stimulus.

But in the past couple of years of trying to find a better balance in my psychological and emotional life, the mantra helps me to understand that in having that reaction of anger against something that rankles me, I am at worst playing into my opponent's hands and at best losing control and perspective. There's actually a sort of suggestion in Mormon theology that enmity is its own sort of currency -- that you can stir up and use enmity to do plenty of momentous things that not even mountains of gold would do (think French Revolution or Hitler). And so our enmity often makes us pawns as well, and in fighting people that are filled with enmity, we're often just fighting pawns. (For some of you nerdier types, it's like when I tried to explain to my little relatives that Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars was leading both sides of the clone wars, but they couldn't understand how a war (every war?) could really just be fought completely by pawns against pawns, and of the same man.)

Martin Luther King Jr. (happy MLK Jr Day U.S.!) put it this way:

"The attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is the evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by the evil. If he is opposing racial injustice, the nonviolent resister has the vision to see that the basic tension is not between the races… The tension is, at bottom, between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness…. We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may be unjust."

Or Marcus Aurelius:

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own — not of the same blood or birth, but of the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions."

Enough about religion

A reader asks about my religious faith:

Good evening ME,

Thank you for an interesting blog.

Lately you have been writing quite a bit about your religion. I am curious , do you REALLY believe in any of your religion? One of the basic traits of sociopaths is, according to Hare and others, “free from delusions” and I dare say that anyone who is not delusional cannot believe in any religion since they by definition require you to believe something that clearly cannot be true (mostly because there never is any real evidence at all, just books and pastors but also because if you look at any religion with a clear mind it is quite obvious that people believe it because others have told them to believe it in combination with that reality(there is no heaven etc. ) is unbearable for empaths).

I am not saying there cannot be grains of truths and/or wisdom in any religion but the basic tenets cannot an are not true. Do you see this?

Yeah, I realize that a lot of people don't understand, or don't like, or don't like reading about how I relate to religion. And I'm sorry if it seemed like I over-posted about it before. I don't mean to inundate readers with anything they'd rather not hear about. I started posting more about religion when the book came out because I was no longer as worried about hiding certain aspects of myself from being used to identify me. Before that, I intentionally kept most of what I posted generic, both for the identity purposes and so people who shared those traits could project their own experiences onto what I wrote to be able to relate better. After doing that for several years, I thought that it might be interesting to change it up by giving people a more fleshed out portrayal of someone who has been diagnosed with this disorder. I know some of you didn't like that change, just like someone of you didn't like any of the other changes that I've made or things that I've done in the public eye. But I don't really know what I'm doing or have a master plan. I just try things out and sometimes they work ok and sometimes they are disasters.

But yeah, after the book came out I started talking more about things I had been quiet about before: being female, more about being in my particular profession, and more about some of my other specific formative life experiences.  Because I do feel like a lot of the way I think and present to the world is influenced by these things: growing up in a big, smart, (a little trashy) Mormon family; being female; studying and practicing law; being American and a Californian; being a classically-trained musician; etc. I don't think those things necessarily have much or anything to do with sociopathy, but they do have something to do with the sorts of choices I make in how I live my life. And I realize that a lot of people (most?) are not interested in me as a person, and I realize a lot of you believe that I am a narcissist for various reasons (maybe even narcissistic personality disorder? which I definitely show signs of), including that I talk about myself a lot (and use the word I and me a lot and seem delusional, or as my friend puts it, like a megalomaniac). But thanks everyone for your feedback and I hope to do better. But also sometimes I wrote posts more for niche audiences (or at least hope to), because although I understand that not everyone is interested in certain topics or certain aspects about me, I think others are? Maybe other Mormons, other musicians, other INTJs, or other people who have been diagnosed as having Asperger's (as my most recent therapist suggested, funnily enough). And often I just use this blog as sort of a journaling project to write about the things that are on my mind, not knowing whether they will appeal to outside audience or not. So feel free to skip the posts you find boring or inapplicable, and hopefully we'll pick up with something more to your liking in a later post.

But here is what I replied to this reader:

This is an interesting question. First, I think that everyone suffers from delusions because we cannot correctly perceive or understand reality. So when they say free from delusions, I think they are largely making the distinction that sociopaths do not suffer from psychosis. There may also be a small distinction between other personality disorders like narcissism, which seem to be a little more out of touch with reality than sociopathy manages to be?

In response to religion being delusional, we are always being delusional in some unknown way. We used to believe that homosexuality was unnatural and a mental illness. We used to bleed people. We used to think the world was flat. I do not flatter myself that I would have been immune to any of those delusions had I lived in those times and with that knowledge. I'm aware that the things we don't know vastly exceed the things we do know. So believing, perhaps delusionally, in religion is not a problem for me.

If anything, it has helped me to manage having a personality disorder. For instance, although I don't really feel like I am any particular person or have a strong sense of self, my religion teaches me that I am, I have a soul, and so does everyone else, and our main job in life is to become more perfectly who we were meant to become and to help others to do the same. My religion teaches me that just because I have done bad things does not mean that I am a bad person who is incapable of ever changing or doing good things (or my dad, or anyone else who has hurt me in the past). My religion teaches me that my brain and other physical defects can distort how I see the world, who I believe myself to be, and how I act in a way that is not really "me", and I can do things to minimize those effects and (eventually) become free from those. My religion also teaches me rules of morality are not determined by consensus and that I shouldn't worry about the judgment of other people so much as the judgment of a more perfect arbiter, so I try to focus on the big stuff, like achieving enlightenment, and not necessarily on the small bad stuff that currently happens to be most controversial in the world. My religion teaches me that although I can change, I have been given certain gifts that are essential to humanity, that no one is trash or sans value, and that all of us have a specific role to fulfill as part of the body of Christ. I'm sure some or all of this sounds ridiculous, but the net effects of believing it are good for me, and so I (like everyone else in this world?) maintain certain beliefs that are good for me that may otherwise seem entirely specious.

"if free will didn't exist we'd still be better off believing in it."
— M.E. (@sociopathworld) April 11, 2014

Sorry for all of the recycled posts. I'm on vacation.

Also, this Brene Brown video on returning to religion as a researcher.

Practicing Catholic

From a reader:

My name is Violet and I have recently been "Diagnosed" with ASPD, specifically Sociopathy. My psychologist of six years has recently told me (recently, as in almost three months ago) that he believes me to be a sociopath and for quite a while now. This was sort of a revelation; so many aspects of my life and mind became clear and made complete sense. I then realized why so many relationships failed and why I never could understand certain life lessons my mother or others would try to explain.

The reason I am writing to you is because I have a few questions and I am internally torn at the moment.  I am a practicing Catholic and have been since the "age of reason." I think that is probably one of the most difficult aspects of my life, that is, being myself and trying to live by what my Faith and Church teach even when I disagree or possess no love or interest in it. I am purely a Catholic because the fear of Hell was instilled within me from a very young age. I have always questioned the Church when others around me follow it blindly, or what appears to me to be blindly. Do you believe it is possible for a sociopath to fully accept a form of religion? My religion teaches that human nature is inherently sinful. There are degrees and variations of evil and good. The Church never mentions anything about the human brain and how certain disorders or personalities could make one more susceptible to sin. Sociopaths can lie, cheat, kill, steal, etc. without feeling remorse but this doesn't mean that we will, we are just more inclined to do those things and with ease. Would you say I am right? Psychology doesn't seem to apply with most Christian religions. People do not think psychologically. Most people do not seem to think, independently anyway. I am a philosophy major. I have also taken many logic courses. Thinking differently and more extensively has always been a part of me. I am sure you can relate.

I am having difficulty finding facts about Sociopathy online. Most of what I come across are the exaggerated and dramatic narratives from "Victims of Sociopathic/psychopathic relationships" who complain about their past romantic relationships and the "Sociopath or psychopath" who wronged them. I find it very humorous that they think that because one man/woman (normally a man though) cheated on them and ended the relationship that this therefore makes them a sociopath or psychopath. What a hasty generalization. There are so many disorders, why do people always label the "evil doer" as a sociopath or psychopath? Also, there doesn’t have to be something psychologically wrong with a person to perform hurtful or faulty acts.

Most people are terrified of sociopaths/psychopaths. I find this very interesting. I told my closest friend and she has absolutely no issue remaining my best friend. In fact, she finds it fascinating and she said it explains a lot of my behavior. She is also Catholic and an empath. I think she has a "Normal personality." She is the least dramatic and emotionally charged person I know, and because of this our friendship works very well.

I understand that most people are fixated on the "no remorse" aspect of the personality and that is why they are afraid and prefer to remain apart from us. I am tired of pretending though and I am tired of being an actress. Every now and then I am myself though, either with people I am just meeting or my mother's friends. I just do not see the sense in pretending for certain people; I gain nothing from them so I will stay away.  

I also have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Is this common? My research online only stated that the personality favors order and control. I am constantly internally examining myself for all of the traits I have read or the little "ticks" that I possess. Since discovering that I have the personality this has been a great personal study.


I have one more question. Is it normal that there would be an abusive instigator or crucial person who would illicit abnormal emotional behavior for a sociopath? From Childhood maybe? Research has suggested this. Sort of like the one person who helps form the person through abuse and could possibly only be the person to illicit any sort of emotional behavior? My psychiatrist thinks it is possible and told me that my mother is this person. She is the only one who can make me cry. Do you have that sort of person?

Your website is very helpful.

My response:

Thanks for this! Your thoughts on Catholicism reminded me of this and this post on contradictions.

I do think sociopaths can be religious, for various reasons, including maybe that they just want to. My religion seems to take into account psychological issues and relies more on mercy than justice, so maybe that's why I feel at home there.


I don't think that we don't have emotions, we just don't usually give them any sort of meaning or real role in our lives. You probably feel anger towards your mother? I used to feel angry at my father, now I just don't. I figure, what's the point?

Neuroscientist and diagnosed James Fallon has talked about having bouts of both obsessive compulsive behavior and anxiety issues. If you believe that sociopathy is largely a disorder of attention, which I do, then it makes sense that we would become fixated on things (OCD or anxiety) in addition to being completely oblivious to others (unemotional, unempathetic) -- hyper and hypo attention, if those are words.

The worth of souls

I've been thinking recently about the different ways that people value human life. From LDS President Dieter Uchtdorf on how God values human life:

Think of the purest, most all-consuming love you can imagine. Now multiply that love by an infinite amount—that is the measure of God’s love for you.

God does not look on the outward appearance. I believe that He doesn’t care one bit if we live in a castle or a cottage, if we are handsome or homely, if we are famous or forgotten. Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God’s love encompasses us completely.

He loves us because He is filled with an infinite measure of holy, pure, and indescribable love. We are important to God not because of our résumé but because we are His children. He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken. God’s love is so great that He loves even the proud, the selfish, the arrogant, and the wicked.

What this means is that, regardless of our current state, there is hope for us. No matter our distress, no matter our sorrow, no matter our mistakes, our infinitely compassionate Heavenly Father desires that we draw near to Him so that He can draw near to us.



Apart from being a reminder of the impossibly high standard that many religious people are meant to hold themselves to when tasked with loving their fellow man as God loves them (and the great chasm from that expectation to their actual performance), I think this represents an interesting alternative to valuing human life than what has become the fad of late: prestigious job, fancy house, and attractive significant other being the baseline indicators for success, with additional money, celebrity, talent, or power being the true distinguishing characteristics to lift one above the masses of mediocrity. I have been in all sorts of cultures, from where Porsches are considered wannabe striver cars to where owning a bike is the envy of the village, but no matter where you are or what criteria you are using people always manage to find some way to think that they're better than other people.

I'm not suggesting that people stop judging others -- that's for them to reconcile with their own personal beliefs. I just think it's telling to see the different standards the people use to judge themselves and others. I thought the video below was an interesting perspective that happens to be very counter the majoritarian view -- so much so that I imagine many people assume she feels this way just because she does not rate high on attractiveness herself (sour games?). Her view: "I never want to get into this place where I feel like what I look like is more important than what I do . . . . Being beautiful is not an accomplishment." I especially liked the part where she compared humans to how other animals look: "It's absurd when you waste too much time on it, when you look at the perspective of being part of this kind of silly looking species on this planet in this solar system in this universe that is huge and contains life forms we haven't even encountered yet and that are completely foreign to us."


But what is the sociopathic angle to all of this? Maybe that sociopaths also sometimes get judged according to standards that they feel are arbitrary or silly? And if you can see some absurdity to the way that many people value human life, maybe you can better understand how sociopaths feel about adhering to seemingly silly and arbitrary things like social norms? Maybe to let the people know who write to me to tell me, "get your life together and establish a legitimate career" or opining that what I have done with my life is "wholly insignificant" that my value system for the worth of a life is probably a little different from there's? And that's ok. I'm glad some people love their middle class lifestyles because they stabilize society and pay into the welfare coffers for the rest of us bottom feeders. Or maybe I am setting up a pity play -- trying to trigger an emotional response in people who read this in order to promote more tolerance as part of a desperate ploy to prevent further legally sanctioned prejudicial treatment of sociopaths?

Or maybe I've just been thinking about this because it seems like our transition from consumer culture to information culture has made us all connoisseurs and critics of "content," including the people that populate our lives. But I'm not sure that most people enjoy being the subject of other people's scrutiny. Nor could you really say that everybody is fair game, if fair is something you believe in. Because I don't remember asking to be born, much less born the way I am and I can't imagine that most people do/did either. And yet there is such a temptation to become an amateur critic of the humans we encounter. But what a dim view of humanity to believe that there is any morally sound and unbiased basis for sorting people out according to value, ranking something so unknowable as the human soul according to such superficial criteria as "our 'riches' and our 'chances for learning.'" Because out of all of the wonders of this world, humans are the most amazing to me. I guess that's why I like the Mormon doctrine on this point: "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God".

When saw we thee a stranger?

I grew up in a very welcoming church in which the primary doctrine was that we are all children of God (spirit siblings) with the divine potential to become gods ourselves. Over the recent holiday I asked my uncle how he converted to the church. He told me a story of being 17 years-old, searching for truth, and finding it in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I asked him what were the church teachings that inspired him to make such a change. He said primarily the belief in the pre-existence -- that we had spiritual lives before this one and that we each chose to come to this planet and receive a body to have a physical existence.

After he answered my questions he turned it back on me. He had read the book and wanted to know what about the church made me keep believing, despite being the way I am. The truth is that I have always believed and never doubted. My mother thinks that is a gift of the spirit. But I've also never had reason to doubt. The teachings of the church have always felt as true to me as anything else people have told me. But I told my uncle, I have learned that everyone has their own view of any belief. There are no identical Mormons -- there are no identical political conservatives, or feminists, or humanists, or even sociopaths. Even though you can categorize people into big groups, people really are special snowflakes and they will not always fit the mold in the way that other members of that group will expect. That doesn't mean they don't belong to that group or groupings are not useful, We were never meant to be the same and we're all too complex to describe with just a few categories or characteristics. For instance, I used to fixate on the "criminal" description of criminal sociopaths, thinking that they must be the "low-functioning ones." It wasn't until I interacted with some that I realized that "criminal" didn't really mean everything I had just sort of assumed it did. Now I don't have such rigid views about how I expect people to manifest their personality disorders or other mental issues.

But bringing it back to religion, I liked this talk from a LDS Bishop about gay mormons:

Even in the Church, among brothers and sisters, we are sometimes strangers. We have a tendency to judge one another for failure to understand the gospel as we understand it or abide by the commandments as we ourselves do. In every ward there are members who speak disparagingly of those who are different, who question the devotion of their brothers and sisters on some basis, who treat them as strange.

In Romans, Paul emphasizes the importance of the saints having tolerance and charity for those who are different. To those who may make judgments about others in regard to their eating habits, for example, he says, “If a man is weak in his faith, you must accept him without attempting to settle doubtful points. For instance, one man will have faith enough to eat all kinds of food, while a weaker man eats only vegetables. The man who eats must not hold in contempt the man who does not, and he who does not eat must not pass judgement on the one who does; for God has accepted him” (14: 1-3, New English Bible; hereafter NEB). Disputations about the Sabbath day are seen in the same light. “This man regards one day more highly than another, while that man regards all days alike. On such a point everyone should have reached conviction in his own mind. He who respects the day has the Lord in mind in doing so, and he who eats meat has the Lord in mind when he eats, since he gives thanks to God. For no one of us lives, and, equally, no one of us dies, for himself alone. . . . Let us therefore cease judging one another. . . . Let us then pursue the things that make for peace and build up the common life” (14:5-7, NEB). Building that common life is our common stewardship and when we take it seriously we progress as individuals and as a Church.

I am struck by what Paul says because I think he is trying to teach a very important lesson: there are a number of things about which the Lord seems not to care, in which He gives us choice. It seems there are many issues over which we choose to be divisive, which are of no consequence to God. He doesn’t care whether we are Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, rich or poor, sophisticated or simple. It is probably of no concern to Him if we are vegetarians, eat white flour, have beards, wear colored shirts to Church, or the myriad other things that some of us consider important enough to judge, condemn, or spiritually disfellowship one another over.

Instead of focusing on such trivia, we should, as Paul says, “pursue the things that make for peace, and build up the common life.” Those things generally are love, understanding, tolerance, acceptance, liberality of spirit, magnanimity, and forgiveness.
***
[T]he following statements by Joseph Smith might prove instructive:

“The nearer we get to our Heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls. We feel we should want to take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our backs.”

“Nothing is so much calculated to lead a people to forsake sin as to take them by the hand, and watch over them with tenderness. When persons manifest the least kindness and love to me, O What power it has over my mind, while the opposite course has a tendency to harrow up all the harsh feelings and depress the human mind.”


“Our Heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and [more] boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive.”
***
The entire burden of Christ’s message is that we should be slow to judge and quick to forgive, that we should consider all people as ourselves, and that we should love one another without regard to our differences. The Golden Rule applies especially to all those whom we consider strange, queer, abnormal—all those whom we might see as different from or less than we are.

The truth is that despite all being special snowflakes, we have much more in common with each other than we would ever have separating us and we are interconnected in ways that we cannot comprehend.

Mormons ok with mental illness

For something that is as shockingly common (this foundation cites 1 in 4 Americans with a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year), very little has been said about mental illness in the LDS/Mormon church. This weekend is the 183rd Semiannual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints where church leaders speak to the church members and the world (watch the final two sessions today via internet or BYUtv). Member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles Jeffrey R. Holland addressed his remarks on Saturday to "those who suffer from some form of mental illness or emotional disorder, whether those afflictions be slight or severe, of brief duration or persistent over a lifetime." Among other things, Elder Holland asserted that "[t]here should be no shame in acknowledging [mental illness]" and that mental illness is much like any other physical affliction that can be treated and eventually healed, whether in this life or the life to come. From the Deseret News:

While those dealing with a mental illness or an emotional disorder may feel like a “broken vessel,” they must remember the “vessel is in the hands of the divine potter,” said Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve.

“Broken minds can be healed just the way broken bones and broken hearts are healed,” he said.
***
These afflictions, he said, are some of the realities of mortal life.

"In striving for some peace and understanding in these difficult matters, it is crucial to remember that we are living — and chose to live — in a fallen world where for divine purposes our pursuit of Godliness will be tested and tried again and again.

“Of greatest assurance in such a plan is that a Savior was promised, a Redeemer, who through our faith in Him would lift us triumphantly over those tests and trials, even though the cost to do so would be unfathomable for both the Father who sent Him and the Son who came. It is only an appreciation of this divine love that will make our own lesser suffering first bearable, then understandable, and finally redemptive.”
***
“So how do you respond when mental or emotional challenges confront you or those you love? Above all never lose faith in your Father in Heaven who loves you more than you can comprehend. …. Faithfully pursue the time-tested devotional practices that bring the Spirit of the Lord into your life. Seek the counsel of those who hold keys for your spiritual well being. Ask for and cherish priesthood blessings. Take the sacrament every week and hold fast to the perfecting promises of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Believe in miracles.”

If things continue to be debilitating, seek the advice of reputable people with certified training, professional skills and good values, Elder Holland counseled. “Our Father in Heaven expects us to use all of the marvelous gifts He has provided in this glorious dispensation.”

Although the stigma of mental illness encompasses most if not all mental disorders, sociopathy is often the hardest for people to understand or sympathize with. Oddly, I think that people who believe in souls have a harder time with sociopaths than those who don't. For the atheists, it makes all the evolutionary sense in the world to have a segment of the population who is particularly ruthless and predatory. For the religious, it suggests that mankind is more animalistic than they're comfortable believing. But so do a lot of things, like the evidence against free will, the debunking the idea that our thoughts come from us (the way we typically think of that happening), or that we can control our thoughts. Where is the soul there? Where is the soul with my two Down Syndrome relatives? A lot of my Mormon family members believe that their souls are "in there somewhere," but the physical limitations of their brains do not allow their souls to manifest themselves as they otherwise would. I read an op-ed recently where the parent of a child on the autism spectrum felt that their child was locked away inside his mind, never able to fully express himself or be understood. Let's say I started acting like a completely different person and it turned out that I had a brain tumor, the removal of which caused me to return to my normal self -- which one is the true expression of my soul, and how could you prove it? Do religious people with dyslexia feel like their soul is dyslexic? But a lot of religious people assume that I must be soulless, or my soul is damned, or that I'm a demon, or that I must be possessed by demons. It's sort of a weird thing for religious people to believe for a lot of reasons. Like what is the point of God creating things that are eternally damned because they happen to have particular brain wiring/ genetics?

The Gervais Principle (part 3)

A reader sent me a link to the latest edition of the Gervais Principle. From the reader:

Have you read the final installment of the Gervais Principle? You mentioned the previous installments in older posts, but the last section is much more insightful and relevant to sociopaths than the previous ones. 

Venkat basically describes sociopaths as ultimate social nihilists that progressively learn that every single ideal or moral calculus that gives meaning to human existence as social constructs. In the end, sociopaths find immense freedom in a world that has no meaning except what they create or choose to acknowledge. This means that sociopaths can still coexist peacefully (social contracts), both with empaths and other socios. I identify very strongly with this nihilism, and I have frequently mentioned the idea of an absent god before I read the Gervais Principle, but I also feel that you do not identify very strongly with this description, given your adherence to the tenets of Mormonism, unless I am misinterpreting you. What are your thoughts? 

Here's what I replied (makes the most sense if you read the article first):

Thanks for this! I enjoyed it a lot. I especially liked this part:

"The mask-ripping process itself becomes revealed as an act within the last theater of social reality, the one within which at least manipulating social realities seems to be a meaningful process in some meta-sense. Game design with good and evil behaviors."
I feel like a lot of sociopaths stop at that stage for a while. They give me a hard time for revealing their methods, as if playing a game was any less meaningless than everything the empaths are up to.

I think it is that sort of nihilism that allowed me to write the book and be so flippant about it and possible ramifications. Some people think my zen attitude is from my mormonism. Maybe. It is true that if you believe in religion then a lot of things in life just don't matter much. But if you don't believe in religion, then for sure nothing in life matters much. So that's where I sort of am on Mormonism. I'd like to think that I will continue to exist forever and be a god. If that doesn't work out, oh well, there's really no such thing as "wasting time" doing one thing over another. But I do think my conception of God is really different from most people's, including most Mormons. The Otherwise Occupied God, or the God who might care about us but has the perspective to not really be as caught up as we think he might be in what all we get up to (or he cares about different things than we think).

The article's most basic argument, in reference to the emphasis that the "losers" place on social interactions and the accompanying emotional checks and balances:

But by their very nature, emotions overweight social behavior over material substance. Having a $100 bill thrown contemptuously at you hurts. Being politely handed $10 feels good. The Loser mind, predictably, sees the first act as a slight and seeks revenge, and the second act as nice and seeks to repay it.

We saw an example from the The Office last time. In the sales-commissions episode we find that for the support staff, sharing in the salespeople’s commissions and being thrown a thank-you party are emotionally equivalent. Both heal the emotional rift, but one leaves the salespeople vastly better off.

The Sociopath as Priest

It is this strangely incomplete calculus that creates the shifting Loser world of rifts and alliances. By operating with a more complete calculus, Sociopaths are  able to manipulate this world through the divide-and-conquer mechanisms.  The result is that the Losers end up blaming each other for their losses, seek collective emotional resolution, and fail to adequately address the balance sheet of material rewards and losses.

To succeed, this strategy requires that Losers not look too closely at the non-emotional books. This is why, as we saw last time, divide-and-conquer is the most effective means for dealing with them, since it naturally creates emotional drama that keeps them busy while they are being manipulated.

Sociopaths encourage this mode of processing by framing their own contributions to betrayal situations as necessary and inevitable. They also carefully avoid contributing to the emotional texture of unfolding events, otherwise their roles might come under scrutiny by being included in the emotional computations.

For theatrically skilled Sociopaths, other non-vanilla affects are possible. “Divine anger” (Jan),  ”charming but firm elder” (Jo Bennett) and “unpredictable demigod” (Robert California) are examples. These framing affects are designed to shape outcomes without direct participation, in ways that cannot be achieved by neutral low-reactor affects.
***

These non-vanilla personalities operate by adding to, or subtracting from, the net emotional energy available to go around in Loser emotional calculations, but without intimate involvement. Sociopaths basically create the emotional boundary conditions of Loser life in simple or complex ways, depending on their skill level.
***
Guilt is the one emotion that Losers cannot always resolve for themselves, since it sometimes requires quantities of forgiveness that mere humans cannot dispense, but priests can, as reserve bankers of the fiat currencies of Loser emotional life.

Other good nuggets:

• manufacturing fake realities is very hard. But subtractive simplification of reality is much easier, and yields just as much power.
• Sociopaths exercise agency on behalf of others. They do not grab power. Power is simply ceded to them.
• Sociopathy is not about ripping off a specific mask from the face of social reality. It is about recognizing that there are no social realities. There are only masks.  Social realities exist as a hierarchy of increasingly sophisticated and specialized fictions for those predisposed to believe that there is something special about the human condition, which sets our realities apart from the rest of the universe.
• There is, to the Sociopath, only one reality governing everything from quarks to galaxies. Humans have no special place within it. Any idea predicated on the special status of the human — such as justice, fairness, equality, talent — is raw material for a theater of mediated realities 
• Non-Sociopaths dimly recognize the nature of the free Sociopath world through their own categories: “moral hazard” and “principal-agent problem.”  They vaguely sense that the realities being presented to them are bullshit: things said by people who are not lying so much as indifferent to whether or not they are telling the truth. Sociopath freedom of speech is the freedom to bullshit: they are bullshit artists in the truest sense of the phrase.
• Non-Sociopaths, as Jack Nicholson correctly argued, really cannot handle the truth. . . . The truth of values as crayons in the pockets of unsupervised Sociopaths. The truth of the non-centrality of humans in the larger scheme of things.
• When these truths are recognized, internalized and turned into default ways of seeing the world, creative-destruction becomes merely the act of living free, not a divinely ordained imperative or a primal urge.  Creative destruction is not a script, but the absence of scripts. The freedom of Sociopaths is the same as the freedom of non-human animals. Those who view it as base merely provide yet another opportunity for Sociopaths to create non-base fictions for them to inhabit.
• Morality becomes a matter of expressing fundamental dispositions rather than respecting social values. Kindness or cruelty, freely expressed. Those who are amused by suffering use their powers to cause it. Those who enjoy watching happiness theaters, create them through detached benevolence.

Pushback (part 2)

The reader responds:

Thank you for your response, but I think your missing the gist of what I was saying. First off, who says being sexually attracted to the same sex is wrong? That's merely a matter of opinion, so there is no factuality involved in that idea. Secondly, if you read carefully what I wrote you'd see that I never said that thoughts are more important than actions. I said that the only thing that really matters/matters most of all in the end is INTENT and even alleged sociopaths who claim to be devoid of conscience and ignorant of others' feelings have that. Thoughts are the mid-way between actions and intent. One acquires intent, then thinks about how to manifest it and follows through with acting on thoughts bred of intent. What you think or do is subservient to what you are actually trying or intending to think or do. It's a person's intent that shows them for what they really are. Actions fail, thoughts deviate, intent remains from begining till end and is therefore, most relevant and important. Intend-think-act...intentions come first and are the basis for all else. They can be hidden from others, falsely projected as something they are not or used as a justification for any lame thing done but a person knows what they mean to do, even a sociopath. In regards to Mormonism, I'm no expert at all but I have grasped the basic beliefs of the religion. As I said, I was raised in the church, but I am no longer an active member nor do I suscribe to their basic belief system or even consider myself an actual Mormon. While I feel they are good people with all good intentions (the most important thing) I think they are a bit jaded on the workings of the hereafter and I have a big problem with their denying women the privilege of holding the priesthood, something which I believe women are naturally better suited for anyway. And what about the fact that not until the 70's could african american men hold the priesthood? These issues (among numerous others) don't jive with me but that is a whole other subject for a different time. You are the one who claims to be an upstanding Mormon who "even teaches Sunday school" (your words). My question/issue is how can a real sociopath be a truly good Sunday school teacher? That's a bit scary to me. Sociopaths are the epitome of selfishness so why would a sociopath desire to be a teacher of any sort? It's not particularly prestigious and is one of the most selfless positions anyone could wish to hold. Neither of these jive with sociopathy. Why are you a Sunday school teacher if you have no regard or thought of other people's feelings? This again, comes down to intent. What are your motivations/ ultimate intentions for doing good works (like teaching Sunday school)? Are they selfish or selfless? Is it about control? Is it to be a God someday?....because as I said, if that's all it is Good Luck! You're supposed to do something like teach Sunday school in order to help children to be the best that they can be, which is for you, apparently, God. You don't teach it so that YOU can become a God, rather you teach it in order to help THEM become Gods. A pretty basic premise which may have  eluded you. Going through the motions of being a "good person" doesn't mean anyhting if your intentions and motivations are selfish (i.e to be a God). Good works should be born of selflessness, otherwise they're not as good as they should be. On the other hand, if you're a Sunday school teacher for the correct reasons (to help those kids be the best they can and reach God-stage) then I guess you wouldn't really be a sociopath as you would clearly be excersisng a conscience and be caring for the well-being of others. Then what would you have? Your identity would be lost (as it seems to be largely, or wholly, based upon your alleged sociopathy) and you'd be saddled with the responsibility of caring about how you make others feel and selfless actions in order to be a halfway decent person. If cognitive empathy is possible, and it is, perhaps you should try. Your life would be much fuller and you claim intelligence. It sounds like your sociopathy wasn't something you were born with, but rather a coping mechanism that you adopted as a child because you didn't get the kinds of emotional responses and attention from those closest to you (parents) in order for you to feel genuinely cared for, appreciated and loved (and in turn be able to care about and love others). Kids learn mostly through example, so if your mom was the distant detached individual that you paint her as every time things became emotional with the person closest to her (your father) well then, it makes sense that you learned to mimic such behavior and took it to the extreme, as you sound like a pretty thorough person. Everyone needs specific types of attention as a child in order to become the best that we can be (which entails selflessness, not selfishishness). Very few of us get it.You just deal as best you can, which is always possible to do without hurting others. Kids do crazy things in order to get attention (as you did) and even negative attention is attention. When those efforts fail, well, we all deal differently. But, your supposed to look at your parents and figure out exactly what you DON'T want to be, not take on their worst qualities or turn into them. Caring for others is a learned behavior in a big way. It's harder for some than others, but for those with half a brain it's always possible. I have a smart kid who is on the autism spectrum and he's figuring it out. I can see that he's the type of person who, if he never got the correct types of attention from those closest to him, may very well grow up as someone like you. But he won't. He'll definitely easily succeed at whatever he chooses to do, as you claim to have done, but he's going to be happy inside (and have to hurt too) because he can feel other people. Maybe you're using the label of sociopath as an excuse to not have to feel (it hurts) or take responsibility for lame stuff you do/did. You've also created an entire identity through it and a life that, to a big extent, seems to revolve around it. In your case, your parents clearly didn't give you what you needed (emotionally), but get over it. It's done.You're not stupid and claiming to be a sociopath is most likely a cop-out. Yea, there are alot of sociopaths out there, but all of the real ones are weak, ignorant and stupid. All of those conniving and calculating people who are labeled sociopaths are simply people who didn't get everything they needed when they were young and/or were hurt horribly which resulted in them feeling horribly hurt. There vicious and vile actions are responses to the pain that was inflicted on them, their spite. But you  can't feel hurt without a conscience and these people did/do and it's the reason for all of their vile deeds. Real sociopaths aren't created (those are simply kids who've been fucked up by those closest to them) they are born that way (stupid and mentally and consciously lacking). In regards to your motivation for being a Sunday school teacher, if it's to be a God then your acting in an utter opposite manner of godliness. Believe me, I'd love to make it to God status too but I'm pretty sure that it's gonna take alot more than correct actions and a selfish desire. I think you need to care about people too...and those Mormon Sunday School kids are going to be needing someone who really and truly DOES sincerely care in order to end up with healthy heads because the whole Mormon thing is a mind-fuck for a thinking kid.

My second and last response:

Ah, I see. I guess then that what we largely disagree about is that what "really matters/matters most of all in the end" is intent. As you said regarding whether same sex attraction is wrong, it seems to me to be largely a matter of opinion and not of fact.

I teach Sunday School because they asked me to and I think they asked me to because I'm good at it. I like to perform and teaching is like performing. I like to get people to think about different things or see things in different ways (like I do in the book and the blog). I think I have learned to care for others. I'm not sure what having a conscience has to do with caring for others. As I see it, a conscience is largely built on feelings of guilt, which I don't really have. But I can want to do "good" things for other reasons than just to avoid feelings of guilt. Why not just because I like to? Because it makes me feel good to be liked or to do something well?

I take responsibility for what I do. That's what writing the blog and book is all about, understanding what exactly was the nature of the things that I have done and who I am. I don't necessarily care about the label sociopath. It wouldn't make me sad to not be a sociopath. Spending all of this time writing and thinking about it has been interesting, particularly since I have mainly focused on myself and how the diagnosis does or does not map onto my own perceptions and behavior, however my life has never revolved around the label or diagnosis. The book and the blog are basically just 20% of my life. I have feelings. I feel happy, disappointed, stressed, angry. I just have a hard time giving them meaning or context. I don't feel upset with my parents. I like them, particularly my mother. I don't hold grudges. I like being around my family and friends. I have a normal and happy life. I'm not sure what you think I am trying to avoid in life (cop-out) by identifying with the term sociopath. Do you think it's possible that I am not completely self-deceived?

I'll tell you a quick story. When I scheduled an appointment to get diagnosed, I was very busy at the time. The psychologist sent me several tests ahead of time called self-report tests where you just fill in bubbles that apply to you. There were hundreds of questions and I didn't feel like I had enough time to fill them out before I had to meet with him, so I sent them to my closest friend to fill out for me, who filled them out knowing me as well as she does. It turned out that I did have enough time to fill them out myself, but I was still curious about whether my answers differed from hers so I compared them. Her responses were different from mine in only a handful of the hundreds of responses. I think I was a little surprised at how consistent our responses were with each other. I sent the responses off to the psychologist and ended up scoring in the 99th percentile for psychopath on those tests, even when compared against both genders and all age groups. If I lied and manipulated those tests to score high on sociopathy, I also must have lied and manipulated in the exact same way consistently around my friend for the past decade and more. I must have lied and manipulated before I even knew what the word sociopath meant, since I was a child and all through my adult life. It's possible that the test scores don't accurately reflect my true personality. I probably am smart enough to manipulate the tests to a certain extent, but why would I? And some of the tests I took I was not at all familiar with, so I wouldn't have known what the "sociopath" answer was "supposed" to be. I just answered as I understood myself to be. And according to those tests performed by an expert in the field, my results were consistent with sociopathy. And I teach Sunday School. These things that I've said about myself happen to actually be true. And they can seem like a contradiction, but so do a lot of things (I am both an easy-going and aggressive driver and maybe you are a strict but loving mother).

I disagree with you that the "real ones are weak, ignorant and stupid" and I think a lot of prominent psychologists would disagree with you as well. If not, if you're right, if I have to be weak, ignorant and stupid to be a sociopath then I guess I am not actually a sociopath.

Anyway, I don't know if this has cleared anything up for you. I think I understand what you're saying, I just disagree about a lot of your underlying assumptions, I think. Which is fine. Maybe you're right and I'm wrong.

In any case, best of luck with your son. 

Pushback (part 1)

I've gotten a lot of interesting pushback and challenge on who I am and things that I've asserted either on the blog or in the book. I appreciate the time people take to write me and give me their opinions. There are a couple questions and issues that I've noticed keep coming up. The following is sort of a typical exchange that happens to touch on a lot of these issues. Maybe it will help to clarify some common misconceptions.

A reader starts out writing:

Regardless of how much you seem to pride yourself on you unfortunate disorder of sociopathy, it is a sad sad thing to be void of conscience and the ability to associate with or care for other people's feelings. I feel bad for you for the fact that you don't feel for others. That's the best part of living and. And I feel bad for your  utter ignorance regarding your Mormon religion. Your motivation for being a member of a religion is...what? Ego? To reach the point of Godliness through manipulative actions that help you to succeed in life? Good luck on that. Your take on what Mormons believe has been twisted to serve yourself and little else. I'm surprised that you haven't grasped the basic tenets of such a religion even though you are an active member, but that seems to be fairly common in the Mormon community. Your spirit is stunted which is the precise reason you feel the need to follow a religion that you've malleabalized to your own liking in your head. Mormon's do believe that everyone has the ability to be as God is since God has been/is what we are now. But getting to that form takes a hell of a lot more than action and Mormons do not believe that actions are all that matters. Being aware of other's states of being in this existence and giving a shit about that matters as well. I was raised in the Mormon church and I was certainly never led to believe that your thoughts and motivations don't matter,rather the opposite.Your thoughts and motivations are at the basis of all of your actions and it's your intentions that matter most. Therefore actions are the lowest on the totem pole.That's what I was taught. Everyone messes up, everyone thinks horrible thoughts sometimes, but what you WANT to do with those actions actions, thoughts and feelings, what you strive for and intend in your heart is the only thing that ultimately really matters. All of the success in life doesn't matter even a little in God's eyes if you don't give a shit about anyone else to begin with. So sorry for your misunderstanding your whole life.  

My first response:

Yes, I know what you mean. As you say, it cannot just be actions that matter, because then my down syndrome relatives would be in trouble every time they did something wrong-ish (e.g., counterfactually, sexually abusing a young child). On the other hand it can't be that thoughts are the only things that matter, otherwise if you are gay you're pretty much toast because you can't really control being sexually attracted to members of the same sex, and actually aren't we all sort of toast because haven't we all looked at someone else to lust after them, or had any other sort of bad thoughts pop into our heads? The truth is that we can't control our thoughts, or at least can't prevent having certain thoughts. Yes, we can choose what to do with those thoughts, and that's why I think one's actions are particularly relevant when one is discussing dealing with a mental disorder that is characterized by having unsavory thoughts. I think we probably agree on this, that the whole point of life is to try to conform one's behavior to a particular standard and in so doing eventually/hopefully change one's brain wiring? But also I don't consider myself an expert on Mormon doctrine, particularly not this particular area which has always sort of been hard to reconcile for me (do sociopaths have a place in Mormonism or mainstream Christianity?, etc.).

Sociopathic altruism?

A female reader who relates to the sociopathic mentality writes about a lot of things that I relate to -- being a disruptive force in my family and provoking people emotionally to manipulate them until I grew older, then started using my people reading and manipulation skills to smooth things over. And now I am the peacemaker/powerbroker in the family:

I've been reading through your blog, and feel a lot of familiarity in your posts and fact section.

I lie constantly and can't control it, I have a grandiose opinion of myself, many admirers both male and female, a chameleon personality, and in the past have been prone to a quick temper--saying intentionally and specifically hurtful words to the people closest to me. As a defense mechanism usually, but I always knew how to hurt someone the most, how to put the ball in my court; how to manipulate and control. It was the worst with my family when I was younger. I've since learned this is rather unacceptable behavior among other people.

I often think to my childhood. My father was an angry man, his own father suffered from PTSD and my father inherited some violent tendencies and anger management problems. The thing is, I'm much smarter than he is--much smarter than most people, and when I was a young powerless little girl and into adolescence...well it grew to be a very dramatic power struggle. Shouting matches, crying, drama, anything to break him out of his rages--sometimes outrageous displays of emotion(though, intentional).

At the current age of 22, I now have the most influence on every member of my family. Thing is, I had to, in order to repair what was so broken and dysfunctional. Get into everybody's head, maybe control them, manipulate a bit sure--but I fixed things, eventually. Seemingly altruistic, but when it comes down to it, isn't altruism also selfishness?

I remember when I was 7 or 8, my grandma died. I'd met her many times, she'd given me plenty as a child. We were at her funeral and my mom was crying, leaning on a church pew. I had no real tears, but I forced myself to bawl that day. I remember thinking simultaneously, while crying and exaggerating my shoulders, that this is what she wanted from me though I had no inner emotional response. I knew instinctively that this would also benefit me. Turns out I've been painting the picture of myself as a very loving, innocent, and caring person for a very long time...

I'm wondering if sociopaths ever use their abilities to altruistic extremes, in which the end result benefits them, as well as everyone else? I also feel like I have the capacity to feel strong feelings, but it's more of an intensity. Romantic relationships can be very intensely positive, and intensely negative. When sleeping with people I either have absolutely no attachment to the person, or an unhealthy obsession.

Found your website and was engrossed. I've always known I was different. When my roommate found out she was pregnant, and told me and my friend--she was crying hysterically and my friend was visibly distressed. I didn't react at all. I had to think first how I was going to react to this, what was appropriate, because I had no immediate response. It didn't affect me at all.

I have consciously on several occasions admitted to myself that my personality can very dramatically change depending on my location, situation, and who I'm surrounded by. I somehow easily win people's trust, respect, and admiration--I seem to cater my approach to each specific individual, and it doesn't take me much time. I always chalked it up to being charismatic and understanding, and I'm not entirely sure if I'm a sociopath who's grown up and figured out how to truly blend in and still get everything I want--or something else.

I've been viewing life from this perspective lately and have realized that I am different, but have been lucky enough to be surrounded by certain influences and experiences growing up which have developed into a great and generous moral code I can abide by. 


There has been much growth and change since my teenage years especially, and even now and this past summer, such constant change. Seriously, thank you for all the work you've put into your site, it's contributed a lot to my growth and helped me navigate my own relationships and the way I am. Understanding. I didn't understand why I am the way I am for so long. 

Can sociopaths be altruistic? I don't know, but they certainly can be very effective at relating and interacting with people. I was listening to a talk from LDS primary children President Rosemary Wixom in which she discusses trying to think like a child in order to better relate and deal with children. It's such an easy concept but so hard for a lot of people to put into practice. Sociopaths very naturally understand and adapt to the needs of the people around them, though, whether people of different ages, cultures, genders, ethnicities, etc. That's obviously going to be a very useful and welcome trait in almost any situation. It's funny, though, what the reader said about not understanding herself -- I think especially younger sociopaths find it easier to understand other people than they understand themselves.

Better off post-sociopath?

A reader writes about how he appreciated having sociopaths in his life, if for nothing else because they add excitement and color to life and brought out different aspects of his own personality:

I'm much better off for having sociopaths in my life at one time.  Have you ever read Jack Kerouac's "On the Road?"  Whether you have or haven't, I'll give you some context: JK, in my estimation was a very shy empath, hence the raging lifelong alcoholism.  He found himself drawn to Neil Cassady, a sociopath who probably had some bipolar disorder thrown in as well.  Cassady brought so much fun, spontaneity and wildness into Keroac's life that there literally would be no "On the Road" or Jack Kerouac if it weren't for Cassady. 

Anyway, in all honesty, I'm probably more like Keroac in temperament - a good bit more outgoing, but nonetheless, an introverted empath.  My best friend through much of my childhood and adulthood is the co-founder of a website that's a household name now.  To make a very long story short, he cut me out and threw me away when I was no longer convenient for him in the internet businesses, however I wouldn't trade the experiences and pain for anything.  It's the time in my life that's worth writing a book about (which I have), and if we're really all honest with each other, I would bet that its sociopaths that make life more interesting, and worth writing about in the first place.

By the way Ms. Thomas, I love your book.  I am now a practicing psychotherapist, a profession mostly populated by empaths, and your book provides the greatest insight into sociopaths of anything I've ever read, and I have a stack of books up to my chin about sociopathy.  

If you feel so inclined, I'd love to ask you some questions; I'll start with one: you said in your book that Mormons were some of the sweetest, most loving people you've ever met, or you said that about people at Brigham Young, I believe.  How do you as a sociopath react to sweet, kind people?  Do you see them as rich source for gain and opportunity, or do you enjoy the love you feel, or some combination of both?

My response:

I like sweet people as long as it comes from a genuine place. I think that most people who are self-actualized or able to see the big picture tend to be a little bit sweet and generous because they realize that life is short and there aren't really winners or losers (at least not in the rat race), so why not make friends with your seatmates. And a lot of Mormons are this way. It is like I said in the book -- Mormons believe that we are all spirit brothers and sisters and of course you're going to act more generously with your brothers and sisters than an enemy or non-relative, so there is generally a lot more social capital that I have with Mormons than other people.

But I guess to get more to the heart of your question, I like who I am around them. I'm really impressionable, like a chameleon, so when I'm around goodhearted Mormons, I'm more goodhearted myself. I'm also more willing to take risks and consequently I feel more effective, like I'm leveraging my assets in a way that is clearly making a difference in the lives around me. That makes me feel powerful. And I feel more in control of my own self when I am being that way, like it is my best self. It's one of the times when I feel most engaged in the world. Oddly one of the other times I feel most engaged with the world is when I'm playing a long con or mind game ("ruining people"). 

Sociopathic morality?

This is an interesting summary of the dominant views in the scientific community regarding morality. Many have been discussed here before, including Jonathan Haidt's views on intra-culture morality and Paul Bloom's findings on the moral world of children. I liked this insight into the role that empathy/emotions play in morality vs. logic:

People who behave morally don’t generally do it because they have greater knowledge; they do it because they have a greater sensitivity to other people’s points of view. Hauser reported on research showing that bullies are surprisingly sophisticated at reading other people’s intentions, but they’re not good at anticipating and feeling other people’s pain.

The moral naturalists differ over what role reason plays in moral judgments. Some, like Haidt, believe that we make moral judgments intuitively and then construct justifications after the fact. Others, like Joshua Greene of Harvard, liken moral thinking to a camera. Most of the time we rely on the automatic point-and-shoot process, but occasionally we use deliberation to override the quick and easy method. We certainly tell stories and have conversations to spread and refine moral beliefs.

When you put it that way, it seems obvious why sociopaths would struggle with having an internal sense of morality.

My favorite part of the article, though, was this critique:

For people wary of abstract theorizing, it’s nice to see people investigating morality in ways that are concrete and empirical. But their approach does have certain implicit tendencies.

They emphasize group cohesion over individual dissent. They emphasize the cooperative virtues, like empathy, over the competitive virtues, like the thirst for recognition and superiority. At this conference, they barely mentioned the yearning for transcendence and the sacred, which plays such a major role in every human society.

Their implied description of the moral life is gentle, fair and grounded. But it is all lower case. So far, at least, it might not satisfy those who want their morality to be awesome, formidable, transcendent or great.

It's an interesting argument. I see this skewed focus frequently with religious people. They often tend to want to focus on the nice, nondescript aspects of their religion where God is behaving well, not killing children or drowning the world or enacting all sorts of vengeance. But most versions of God have some sort of edge to them. All versions of God are powerful beings, after all. They wouldn't remain powerful without doing certain things to cultivate that power, including being awesome, formidable, transcendent, and great. If we think that godliness is a virtue, then it would also be a virtue for us to cultivate power and try to become more awesome, formidable, transcendent, and great. And you don't necessarily get to be that powerful by rolling over and being "nice" in every situation.

I find it really disingenuous for people to focus on the "nice" side of morality without giving any consideration to the obvious ying to the yang (unless it really is true that all conservative people are godless and going to hell). As a religious person myself, I sometimes have people get on my case about some of the more aggressive, competitive, and antisocial things that I do, claiming that they are not consistent with my religion. I am not necessarily humble the way they expect the religious to be humble (but which is better, to lie to yourself in order to be humble, or to honestly acknowledge both your strengths and your weaknesses?). I can be ruthless and I don't often doubt myself. There are things about me that seem a little too dark and edgy to be the Mormon/Christian I profess to be. But the Christian God can be ruthless too. The Christian God can be all the things that I am, given the right context. I just feel like I am coming at godliness from the opposite end that most people do -- that the cultivating power side of things happens to be my area of expertise and that I need to practice and work at the love side of things. And for other people maybe it is vice versa, but that we'll all eventually meet at our goal in the middle.