Psychopaths excel at deceptive facial expressions

A reader sent me a link to the article "Would I lie to you? ‘'leakage’' in deceptive facial expressions relates to psychopathy and emotional intelligence."  In the study, researchers tested the ability of psychopaths and those with high emotional intelligence ("EI") in emotional deception.  Here are some fascinating highlights (citations omitted):

• Emotional deception via the alteration of facial expressions can occur in three ways : simulating an expression involves adopting an expression in the absence of any real emotion; masking an emotion involves replacing a felt emotion with a different emotional expression; and neutralizing an expression involves concealing a felt emotion with a neutral face.
• Some psychopathic individuals are chameleon-like actors and appear to use their acting skills to effectively manipulate others in various interpersonal contexts. In corporate settings, white-collar criminals with psychopathic characteristics, such as Bernard Madoff, often find easy victims by appearing trustworthy, empathetic, and kind. Psychopathic offenders can readily feign remorse and a pro-social attitude to manipulate their way into lower sentences (i.e., manslaughter rather than murder), permissions to appeal their sentences, and undeserved conditional release. Despite their much longer criminal histories and poorer conditional release histories, psychopaths are 2.5 times more likely than non-psychopaths to be released when they apply for parole . Further, these decisions are faulty; psychopathic offenders in both studies spent fewer successful days on release compared to non-psychopaths released. In fact, extended interpersonal contact with a psychopath can lead to less accurate perceptions of psychopathic traits.  
• Despite evidence that psychopathic individuals are successful manipulators, the manner in which they deceive and manipulate others is open to question. Psychopathy arguably is associated with effective emotional deception. The psychopath’s distinctive lack of emotional experience may prevent emotional ‘‘interference’’ in feigning emotional displays. That is, because of the lack of real emotion, there may be less genuine emotion ‘‘leaking’’ onto the false face during a fabricated emotional display. In support of this prediction, Herpetz et al. (2001) found that psychopathic offenders exhibited fewer and less intense facial expressions in response to pleasant and unpleasant emotional images relative to controls. We predict that psychopathic individuals, particularly those with strong interpersonal-affective features of the disorder, will have an advantage when attempting to control their facial expressions during deception because of their lack of emotion; such individuals may express less ‘‘leakage’’ of genuine emotion during deception. However, due to emotional recognition deficits and a lack of understanding of what a sincere expression ‘‘looks like’’, these individuals will not necessarily be proficient at creating a facial expression consistent with the feigned emotion.
• As predicted, psychopathic traits – specifically, high levels of interpersonal manipulation – were related to shorter durations of unintended emotional ‘‘leakage’’ during deceptive expressions. In contrast, the erratic lifestyle element of psychopathy predicted greater emotional inconsistency during deceptive displays.  Individuals higher in EI – specifically, the ability to perceive and express emotion – feigned emotions more convincingly than others but were not more immune to emotional leakage.

In other words, psychopaths are the best at not letting other actual emotions interfere with the feigned emotion (presumably because the psychopath does not have strong feelings to suppress), but that people with high EI did a better job mimicking actual emotion (presumably because they know better what those emotions look/feel like).

Sociopathy as treatment?

From a reader:

As a 'neurotypical', I found your book both fascinating and inspiring. In fact, it may have been life-saving, if that description does not sound too melodramatic. 

I was diagnosed with an eating disorder (EDNOS) about three years ago, and the disordered habits in turn triggered a very self-destructive form of depression. That depression came with its own score of disordered behaviors, steadily growing into masochism. I was, essentially, drowning myself in emotion. I lost sight of what was important for me and my life, and instead spent my energies either helping others or antagonizing them until they used me as an emotional punching bag.

And then I came across your blog, and the perspective you presented captured my attention. It was the opposite of where I was mentally, and thus intrigued me as I struggled to imagine what it would be like to be a sociopath. Several weeks later, I hit rock-bottom in all aspects of my life. I was either half starved or full to bursting, suffered frequent panic attacks, and couldn't find the strength or motivation to complete my classwork. For a period of about two weeks I was incapable of anything that wasn't self-destructive, and I was in a constant emotional state of pain and guilt.

When your book came out I purchased it immediately. I latched on to the personal perspective and tried to imitate it, just to see if I could get relief from my own situation long enough to recover my grades. It slid on like a second skin, and I couldn't shake it. I did not magically become a sociopath, of course; but I do think something in my subconscious clung to the behaviors I had tried to imitate. For a period of about a month I lost all of my programed emotional responses. I no longer felt pangs of empathy, nor could I consciously recreate those feelings. All my self-destruction evaporated as I was suddenly able to see how completely idiotic such behaviors were, even as coping mechanisms or addictions. I no longer had intense emotional reactions to food, and I no longer cared empathetically for my friends or family. In essence I became a creature of complete selfishness. Boredom was my arch-enemy, for I had no emotional issues to occupy my thoughts (except anger; interestingly, I felt anger with a bright passion I hadn't ever felt before), so I launched myself into projects of my own creation. I wanted to see what I could do. I found I had huge influence over the emotional states of the people around me, and I convinced my teachers to extend due dates and give me opportunities to gain back the points I'd missed with very little effort. I enjoyed pushing people and watching their reactions with a fascinated sort of distance. Of course, I also lost the love of a few friends, simply because I didn't have the motivation to sustain a relationship if it wasn't giving me anything. But the gains I made were outstanding. I could eat normally and was able to lose weight healthily. I participated in sports without having fainting spells. 

After my exams were over, I slowly fell out of that state and returned to a pre-eating disorder, pre-depression mentality, with a much healthier body and mind. And I began to wonder if sociopathy is not a programmed survival mechanism. Perhaps we all have the capacity to abandon empathy and embrace an a-moralistic and self-centered world view. Perhaps it is an adaptation which allows those who do not have the luxury of being pro-social to survive. Of course, I do not pretend to have become sociopathic. But I was able to step into a similar pattern of thinking and behavior which likely saved my life. It certainly improved it. Maybe the sociopathic mind is designed to surmount obstacles the empathetic mind cannot. 

Either way, you have given me a new perspective and a very good book, and I thank you!

This was a particularly interesting email for me to receive because one of my friends also has an eating disorder and found it to be very empowering, which is not the typical response that most people have to the book. I wonder if there are other disorders or issues that people have that would benefit from trying to put themselves more in the sociopathic mindset, at least temporarily?

How do you cope?

From a reader:

A little bit of background on me; I'm 27, male and I've been trying to figure out what is wrong with me since middle school. At first I thought it was my upbringing - and I'm still curious if that played a role in how I've turned out. I had a tough childhood, and I was forced to become defensive at home and at school. More recently I'm noticing that; as far as I can tell I don't connect with people or have the same emotions or thought processes they do.

It has worked out for me fairly well in my professional life, I tend to advance quickly in the things that I do, because I have an innate understanding of what people want. In my personal life, it's just about destroyed it. It's not so much that I attack people, I do subtly manipulate relationships in my personal life - and much more in my professional life. The problem is I can't relate to people, I can't relate to their emotions at all. There are times I feel like I should be sad, because I can tell everyone else is sad, but I'm not. The emotions I generally feel strongest are anger and frustration, or irritation.

I feel like I can only juggle a handful of relationships, otherwise it's too much to keep up with and process. I guess what I'm getting at is this; if I told people how I really felt, or what I thought about life, and how they go about their lives, they would be horrified. If I acted as I feel I should, and I were really how I am, they would not want to know me. It's not that I'm aggressive, or violent, but I don't understand how they think. Everything seems to go through some sort of filter and come out dirtier than when it went in. Personally, I think in terms of A+B=X, about almost everything - including relationships.

So I guess my question is, how do you cope with this? Was there a time where you just decided to accept who and what you are? I don't know if I'm a sociopath, I don't really understand any of it, mostly because I don't have anything to compare it to. It would be helpful to understand where you're coming from, and possibly other sociopaths as I might actually relate to it.

My response:

This sounds very close to my own experience, although I couldn't say for sure whether that makes you a sociopath. I don't know if anyone really accepts himself completely. The problem with the idea of finding yourself (perhaps particularly if you're a sociopath) is that you're aiming for a moving target. But I think you'll be surprised that many people will be able to understand you or at least accept the bulk of you if you are honest with them -- particularly those who are most empathetic, oddly enough. Many of the people you tell may disappoint you, but you at least have the option. Should we see what other people think?

Sociopaths feel emotion

I have been surprised by how often I hear or read someone saying that sociopaths don't have emotions or can't form emotional bonds with other people. Most often it's people talking about how sociopaths are soulless monsters or must live lives completely devoid of any real meaningful relationships, but sometimes it's someone saying that he couldn't possibly be a sociopath because he feels emotions and love, etc. This is all fallacy. The three main diagnostic criterions actually have relatively little to say about emotions: Cleckley only mentions "general poverty in major affective reactions" and a poorly integrated sex life, Hare's PCL-R also lists shallow affect, and the DSM-V's ASPD only says that sociopaths tend to experience irritability and don't feel remorse. Nowhere does it say that sociopaths don't love. Nowhere does it say that sociopaths can't form emotional bonds. There is not a single historical example of a sociopath who is a completely emotionless, robot loner, so I don't know from where people are getting this image of the emotionless sociopath.

I thought about this popular misconception when I read this recent comment:

"How does a sociopath know when the missing emotions that make him supposedly so different, since he does not feel them, are feigned? In other words how does he learn to differentiate between feigned and real emotions?"

I am sociopathic, but have some emotion. These emotions are egocentric and only arise with events I am directly involved with, but they are still there. I feel joy and happiness at doing my favorite activities and I can (but may not always) feel anger or sadness when things do not go my way. Nonetheless, these are 'feelings' because they provide information that goes beyond the intellectual analysis of the situation at hand.

Because I have those feelings I can easily contrast those with situations where I do not or am faking them. If I am 'acting' in such a way to not betray myself, and my only contribution to that acting is my intellectual state, then I know that there is an absence of feeling there. If one tells me about how their friend died and they are in tears, I know that I must contribute with an appropriate response so that they 1) do not realize my status and 2) are not feeling any worse. Going through the motions because of this intellectual realization is far different than the automatic response given by most non-sociopaths. I think, by and large, we realize that we are not giving the same response as non-sociopaths because we realize that we have to craft the *entire* interaction with another person, not just the words.

But I don't think even this idea of faking emotions is so different than most people. Do you always mean it when you say "oh, I'm so sorry to hear that"?

Of course who knows whether sociopaths are feeling the same emotions that everyone else is, but I don't think anyone's emotional palette is completely identical to anyone else. Rather people's emotions are going to depend on their culture, their belief system, their education, the societal expectations placed on them, along with the vast natural and physical differences between people's brain and brain chemistry. This applies particularly to a complex emotion like love. I was actually just talking to a friend about how the only reason he can tell his wife loves him is that she very actively ensures that he is sexually satisfied (she's not a sociopath, but this "complaint" could very well be said about many sociopathic spouses). But whatever, right? Who is to say that this is a lesser or less desirable love than someone who would love to hold your hand in a hot air balloon?

Why we need psychopaths (part 3)

Suitable careers for sociopaths (I'm particularly amused by the reference to morticians, as one of my sociopath friends has just started mortuary school):

There are a variety of careers that require such emotional detachment and mimicry, in addition to the corporate world. Funeral directors are not deeply saddened by every single funeral, but they pretend to be as part of the ritual of mourning and to show respect to the families they serve. People expect this treatment and would be very offended if they were not treated in such a manner. Prior to this sacred event the deceased person’s naked body is placed on a table, formaldehyde is pumped into their arteries, their blood is removed, more embalming chemicals are added to their internal body cavity and, finally, cosmetics are applied. An alternative to preservation is cremation. This occurs by burning a human body at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and then grinding up the remaining skeleton. When funeral home employees shake your hand and offer their seemingly sincere condolences it is after one of these processes has taken place. And this is repeated hundreds of times per year, often to babies and children. It has been said that the funeral services are to benefit those left behind as an avenue to mourn, to see their loved ones one last time and to say their final farewells to provide needed closure. Essentially, a human being is put through these horrifying postmortem processes because the remaining family and friends want them to.

In a separate but similar profession as embalmers, doctors and surgeons must see their patients as scientific puzzles to solve and, at the same time, express tender concern and support to their patients and their families. This sympathetic, emotional interaction even has a name: bedside manner. An oncologist who sees hundreds of cancer-ridden patients in their lifetime may show compassion for the patient while simultaneously prescribing treatments that are nothing short of agonizing. A medical examiner, or coroner, performs autopsies on deceased persons to provide closure to the families, to solve mysteries and to provide justice for those who lost their life at the hands of another. To do this means to cut open a corpse, expose organs, remove tissues, cut through bones and sometimes extract the brain from the skull. Autopsies are routinely performed on infants suspected of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Most people could not cut open an infant body without experiencing severe and long-term emotional distress.

Another disturbing experience often resulting in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and even suicide is the wartime horrors our military is currently experiencing. Soldiers leave their families behind, not knowing if they will survive the battlefields they are sent into. Witnessing mass pain and inflicting death onto other human beings is often a soldier’s very first experience with such intense violence. Veterans often report nightmares, flash backs and haunting memories of the people they killed, all in the name of defending our freedom. There is seldom a desensitization process to lessen the psychological impact of being thrust into bloody violence. And upon discharge soldiers are expected to return home and resume a normal life with only a plane ride to separate the experiences. Although the military has taken steps to rehabilitate the mental health of veterans the sad truth is, sometimes that is not enough. After spending, at a minimum, eighteen years building empathy it is expected that it be shut off and back on again like flipping a switch. Rather than learning to reduce and increase empathic feeling on demand, a more attractive option would be eliminating the need for a transition from the beginning.

The motivation for nearly all of these professions is to provide a service to people in a respectful, dignified manner but impression management hides the underlying psychological processes. Many professionals intentionally become hardened over time so as to not cause themselves distress. They do this by gradually removing their capacity for empathy. It is replaced by shallow, but visibly identical, sympathy. Their patients cannot be seen as fathers, daughters, sisters or even human beings. This is achieved through depersonalization and dehumanization. They learn to compartmentalize their work, which allows them to perform their job duties to the best of their abilities and then go home and have dinner with their families. While this is admired by the people who benefit from these highly esteemed professionals, these are the same processes found in sadistic serial killers.

In laymen’s terms this is called “cold hearted.” It would be nearly impossible to discern whether the doctor making strides in cancer research is altruistic and haunted by the patients he could not save, or whether he wants to achieve such accolades selfishly and by whatever means necessary. The family-owned funeral home may be upholding a sacred tradition honoring the deceased, or they may be solely seeking to profit off a never ending cycle. The highly educated coroner voted into position may be grateful to serve their community in a time of loss, or they may take great pleasure in desecrating dead bodies. Perhaps the disturbed loner who can’t quite get a grip on his desire to kill should be the forefront of a special operation cloaked in the name of liberty. If the end result is the same, does it make a difference to us what emotions are experienced in the process? More often than not the graphic processes themselves are explicitly ignored while we focus more on the results. It may be unfathomable to consider these respected, charismatic and driven individuals as ‘cold-hearted’ until you consider what their job descriptions truly consists of. In addition, it may be sickening to consider they repeat these processes daily for decades because they enjoy it; why else would they endure such intensive, difficult and expensive schooling if they don’t gain something positive as a result? They may come across as charming and genuinely altruistic but so did some of the most destructive serial killers in our nation’s history. What these people share is the chilling ability to inflict gruesome human torture for hours and then sit down at the dinner table before sleeping peacefully in bed.
***
This emotional detachment and presentation of a normal personality, just as previously described, is now not referred to as desensitization or “impression management.” Dr. Hervey Cleckley referred to this as the “mask of sanity.” Cleckley describes the psychopathic person as “outwardly a perfect mimic of a normally functioning person, able to mask or disguise the fundamental lack of internal personality structure, an internal chaos that results in repeatedly purposeful destructive behavior.” If the mask of sanity slips then how does one save face? Does the description “purposeful destructive behavior” describe incinerating human remains? Where is the line between an autopsy and mutilating a corpse? The distinction between murder and combat is in the fine print. Would the facilitators of those processes be exercising emotional detachment against their true nature or harnessing their true cold-hearted nature?

Theory of empathy

This may sound completely idiotic, completely obvious, completely redundant, or all three, but reading people's responses to the post on using babies to teach empathy, I thought maybe for the first time I have a theory about what empathy is:

• Empathy is you feeling an emotion you have previously experienced in response to seeing someone else experience something that looks similar enough to remind you viscerally and poignantly of your own experience.  In a way, you are re-living the previous experience, not necessarily feeling what the other person is feeling.  
• Empathy requires some degree of attention to the emotional cues of others to trigger your recollection of your own experience.  
• People who are particularly observant of or in tune with the emotions of others and people who have had a greater breadth and depth of emotions are more likely to feel empathy. 
• To the extent that sociopaths seem to lack empathy, it may be attributed to the fact that they are both (1) relatively oblivious to social cues and that (2) they have a different emotional palette that is triggered less frequently by the emotions of neurotypicals.  
• Sociopaths do have infrequent feelings of empathy when the stars align and the sociopath is both paying attention to the cue and has previously experienced the emotion himself.  

Thoughts?  It's primarily based on Newman's work with sociopath emotions and attentional issues, but I wonder if I am misunderstanding what empaths (or sociopaths) feel.

Sociopaths in literature: Interview with the Vampire

I was given Interview with the Vampire by a friend and have been reading it over the past year on airplanes.  I was not surprised to see many parallels between the vampire protagonist and sociopaths.  I thought before I finished the book and discarded it in the seat of my next plane, I might share some passages that I thought were particularly relevant, like this one:


"Babette, the way you speak of her," said the boy. "As if your feeling was special."
  
"Did I give you the impression I could not feel?" asked the vampire.
  
"No, not at all. Obviously you felt for the old man. You stayed to comfort him when you were in danger. And what you felt for young Freniere when Lestat wanted to kill him . . . all this you explained. But I was wondering . . . did you have a special feeling for Babette? Was it feeling for Babette all along that caused you to protect Freniere?"

"You mean love," said the vampire. "Why do you hesitate to say it?"
  
"Because you spoke of detachment," said the boy.
   
"Do you think that angels are detached?" asked the vampire.
  
The boy thought for a moment. "Yes," he said.
  
"But aren't angels capable of love?" asked the vampire. "Don't angels gaze upon the face of God with complete love?"
  
The boy thought for a moment. "Love or adoration," he said.
  
"What is the difference?" asked the vampire thoughtfully. "What is the difference?" It was clearly not a riddle for the boy. He was asking himself. "Angels feel love, and pride . . . the pride of The Fall . . . and hatred. The strong overpowering emotions of detached persons in whom emotion and will are one," he said finally. He stared at the table now, as though he were thinking this over, was not entirely satisfied with it. "I had for Babette . . . a strong feeling. It is not the strongest I've ever known for a human being." He looked up at the boy. "But it was very strong. Babette was to me in her own way an ideal human being. "

Narcissists vs. Sociopaths (part 1)

A narcissist writes about the differences between sociopaths and narcissists, from a narcissist's perspective:

In "The Sociopath Next Door", Martha Stout describes several varieties of "sociopaths". They have the following traits - let's call the people with these traits sociopaths:

Sociopaths
almost no affect (very shallow emotions) - with compensatory faking of emotion to fit in
selfish & manipulative
don't bond with other humans
shameless
think they are awesome
treat life like a game (don't take their own lies too seriously)

Some sociopaths have ASPD traits too. So in addition to the "sociopath" traits listed above, they:
take offense easily
love retaliating
are impulsive
tell stupid lies
they don't fear punishment, so they tend to get in trouble repeatedly
don't take criticism from others personally
are glib and superficially charming

In one sense, sociopaths are like selfish, immoral robots (cool and rational). The sociopaths with ASPD traits are hotheads.

Some people assume that if someone behaves immorally and without concern for the welfare of others, he fits the above pattern. That's too simple. There are some very low empathy people with a different pattern. We'll call them narcissists.

Narcissists
have shallow emotions
are relatively unaware of their emotions and thoughts
are full of shame and controlled by it (but mostly unaware of it)
believe their own lies
are selfish and manipulative
fantasize of being rich, attractive and powerful (but may be relatively unaware of this)
love to hear positive things about themselves
deep down, dislike themselves tremendously
deceive themselves about their strengths and weaknesses
create a false "self" and spend a lot of effort getting people to admire it
are hypersensitive to criticism
don't make realistic plans
are glib and superficially charming

Some narcissists have ASPD traits too (take offense easily, love to retaliate, are impulsive and sadistic), making them "malignant narcissists".

Note: we're calling them "sociopaths" and "narcissists" - but other people might just call them "sociopaths" (because they are both very low empathy) or even "narcissists" (because they both treat others like objects). Even medical personnel who specialize in these people don't agree on terms.

Sociopath advise on how to deal with sociopaths, part II

Reading these comments from sociopaths, you may be asking yourself, why does anyone put up with sociopaths in the first place? Can sociopaths love? Can they be in a relationship?

"In the beginning, what people are attracted to in psychopaths is they seem to know what you want, what you need, what makes you laugh, and feel good. They are mirroring what is inside you back at you, and throwing in what they've learned. In return, they absorb part of who you are psychologically. They become what you want as much as they can. The relationship feels good because it seems you've found your soul mate."

"I can't comment on what will be enough to have a specific person leave you alone. I can comment on what his motivation might be in continuing to contact you, assuming he is a psychopath. He might be after something you provide, such as money, sex, comfort/normalcy, a fear or fight fix. You might be considered part of who he is. He has absorbed part of your personality by mirroring and he wants to continue or have that back."

"Co-dependant people are attracted to us because we provide a complete immersion of attention and focus. But co-dependant people are not inherently strong enough of personality. The experiment fails and we begin to despise. If she begins to show weakness, such as eventually seeking our guidance or not maintaining discipline and surety of purpose, we begin to despise. We seek to give in a relationship, but we cannot give love, compassion, or empathy. We seek to give what we have."

"From my point of view a boundary is: "Either don't do this or I will do this unpleasant thing to you" and, "If you do this, I will do this nice thing for you." A psychopath will push you to find out how concrete those boundaries are. Willpower and discipline must be maintained in order to keep the psychopath in line until a natural order is established and a direction given (if the psychopath wants a relationship)."

"As an N, I also memorize other people's emotions. It's the easiest way to seem human because I have no idea how to feel them myself!! I'd be very easy to spot if I didn't know how to pretend to have emotions like everyone else."

"Normal people may sense or feel the presence of 'evil'. It permeates from the P. We react with nauseau, fear, and we often say "Oh, he doesn't mean that". It is often intangible and something we can't really define."

The rant that won't make sense to the uninitiated

99th percentile

According to a study in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, sociopaths make up 1% of the world's population. I guess that puts me in the 99th percentile. Again. I don't think people are surprised when they find out I'm a sociopath. I think they're surprised people like me even exist. But they shouldn't be. It's just another human abnormality like color blindness, dyslexia, or tone deafness. We walk among you unnoticed.

I wasn't surprised when I realized I was a sociopath. Like realizing you're gay or adopted, you may have always known it in your heart. You don't realize you're different until the differences become manifest. Sociopathy takes longer to notice than, say, a learning disability. Just like some people don't realize they're gay until puberty kicks in (or sometimes much later), sociopaths often don't realize what they are until suddenly someone hates them.

I always attributed my sense of being "different" to being smarter than everyone else. I didn't think I had some mental disorder. And for the most part, my "mental disorder" has been easy to live with. There's been no external struggle, no conflict I couldn't master--though sometimes I have find myself behind the curve in certain areas, having to play catch up. Normal people seem to follow an invisible path of personal development. Sometimes I would get confused if there was a fork in that path. I couldn't always predict normal social development enough to anticipate it.

For example: When I started school I quickly learned that it was important to be smart--to do well on tests, to get good grades. It wasn't until fifth grade when I realized (too late) that it's just as important to be well-liked. I missed the fork in the road. It took four years to undo the damage, but by high school I constructed a new, better social persona: I was into indie films and underground music, alternative sports and thrift store clothes. I didn't pander to the whims of the majority through mimicry; my uniqueness demanded respect. And it worked: people liked me, or at least liked the person they thought I was.

How would I describe my condition today? When people ask I have doubts about how best to explain it. It's easy to confuse causes for symptoms and vice versa, but for me sociopathy feels like an extreme form of compartmentalization. I can shut myself off or open myself up to emotions like fear or anger or anxiety or dread or joy just by flipping an internal switch. Or turning a dial, like a radio. All those things are out there, all the time being broadcast through our airwaves. All I have to do is tune into the right station. If I want to feel something--despair, anxiety, bliss, horror disgust--I just think about it. It's like seeing a glass half empty and then flipping the switch or turning the dial to look at it half full. I believe empaths sometimes have a similar sensation and label it an epiphany--a sudden shift in perspective. This happens to me many times a day.

Most people have to listen to whatever signal is being broadcast the strongest, both within themselves and in their social environments. I get to choose which signals to listen to. Sometimes it's nice to be able to choose who to mirror to or how to feel, but it can also be a burden. I have to constantly and actively monitor the airwaves. Most people pick up on social and moral cues because they automatically tune into other people's emotional stations, reading body language unconsciously and displaying appropriate emotional responses in a natural, instinctive way. Empaths are like cell phones in this way--they automatically seek out the strongest signal from the cell towers. Sociopaths, on the other hand, are like traditional radios. I can only hear the strongest signal if I happen to be on that station, or if I'm being extra vigilant about scanning. There's a lot of trial and error involved. Often the best I can do is realize I've missed an important cue, then shift and shuffle through my stations to recover. There can be some awkwardness, but I've gotten pretty good at masking my errors. I can cycle through possible emotional choices very quickly and come up with acceptable responses like a computer playing chess. I'll never be as fast as an empath, but I retain much more control this way. I have the ability to turn my feelings on a dime.

Frequently I won't bother trying to figure out which radio station everyone else is listening to, and instead will broadcast my own station powerfully enough to become dominant. I guess that's what some people call manipulation. When I'm with a group of people, I can control the conversation (assuming I can engage everyone) so that I'll know what they are all thinking. They're thinking about me and whatever it is I'm saying. I purposefully construct what I say to evoke a particular simultaneous reaction. So I'm broadcasting instead of listening. And I can do this as broadly as a drive-in movie theatre, with a large group of people, or as specific as an ipod trip. I can broadcast indefinitely, but I can only be certain of your attention for 20 minutes, 30 minutes tops. And I can't multitask. When I'm broadcasting I can't listen to any other stations. It gives me somewhat of an advantage, if you can call it that. And I use it somewhat frequently, especially at parties. I never feel bad about it, I don't think it is wrong. It's my way of coping. People are listening to whatever broadcast comes in strongest anyway, so why not make it mine? It's not like I think people are stupid or look down on them because of it. It's just that people seem willing to give up so much control over their lives and will listen to such drivel sometimes. I figure I can't be the worst thing that's happened to them.

Narcissists I hate. They are my mortal enemy. They are reckless and sloppy. They don't "pass" as normal to anyone but themselves. They don't get the right social or moral cues either, but it isn't because their radio is faulty, but because they're too busy listening to their own mix tape. Sociopaths don't reject the idea of the radio like they do. I don't believe that we are the same as empaths or better than them like narcissists do. I realize I am different, and I suspect that every sociopath, from the most psychotic serial killer to the most mild mannered office worker, feels isolated. Sociopaths sit in front of our radio all the time, listening like some listen to police scanners. We try to piece together the story. We try to understand what makes empaths do what they do, what makes them tick. We "pass." We walk among you. But we never feel like one of you. We can always tell the difference between sociopaths and empaths, even if you can't.

Most sociopaths want to hide their identity, but I don't want to hide forever. My life's goal is not to have to "pass." I want everyone to know who I am. I want to live in the light. Right now it's not safe, though. People don't like sociopaths. There are books and web pages devoted to detecting and avoiding sociopaths: don't talk to these people, don't be around them, don't let them ensnare you. I want people like me to know that they aren't alone. And I want everyone else to know who I'm a natural human variant. I want to come out of the closet, but not until I change the world to be a safer place for me.