"A Special Education"

... the title of this New York Times piece, in which the author relates his experience of suffering from what sounds like would be diagnosed nowadays as oppositional defiant disorder, and consequently being sent to a special education school in which he quickly stopped picking fights because the kids "fought like grown-ups. If you hit someone in the arm, he might hit you back in the face or the genitals." Despite the frequent violence from his peers and common apathy from "the system", he finds himself wondering about the value of the experience: 

Was riding the short bus for three years a good or a bad thing for me? I’m not sure. When I graduated from high school, I could not find New Jersey or Connecticut on a map. But one incident that happened in that first tumultuous year in fourth grade makes special ed invaluable in my adult eyes.

I realized after I got on the bus one morning that I’d forgotten my lunch and that there wasn’t any place near the office building to get food. When lunch period came, I was fearful, not because I’d go hungry, but because any public mistake was routinely seized upon by the other kids. “Idiot forgot his lunch” would make great fodder.

While the others unwrapped their sandwiches and unscrewed thermoses, I waited silently, looking down.

“Hey, man, why aren’t you eating?” a kid asked.

“F’rg’t m’lunch,” I muttered.

A whisper was passed down the table; here it comes, I thought.

A rectangular object wrapped in shiny foil whizzed through the air and hit me in the chest. I opened it and found half a bologna sandwich. An apple rolled my way, followed by half a turkey on rye, which I caught in midair. A bag of chips was slid down to me.

I looked up and all at the table were smiling at me.

“What do you say, Josh?” the teacher asked.

“Thank you,” I whispered to the class.

“Don’t mention it.”

“No problem.”

“You’re welcome, doofus.”

I held my breath in response to the sudden volcano in my belly and quickly shifted my gaze to my shoes, but it was no use. I knew how to squelch emotion in response to violence, but had not known mercy, kindness and warmth, and was not prepared for the waterfall erupting from my face. I sprang up from the table to run away and hide my feelings from the class, but was blocked by one of the teachers’ aides. I ran full speed into her arms, burying my face. She wrapped both arms tightly around me and maneuvered me quickly out into the hall, quietly closing the door behind her. She held me while I gasped and sobbed, my tears and snot staining her dress. She didn’t ask me what was wrong; she just held me. I looked up after a minute and saw she was crying, too.

In that moment I felt for the first time what it was like to be supported and accepted, taken care of rather than yelled at, punished or shunted off, which is how most people react to children who are violent or feral. Special ed got me directly in touch with a deeper place in the same way music would later on.

I think a lot of people see adult sociopaths and gate them and fail to see that they just happened to be born with that disposition with childhood experiences that triggered the development of those traits. I know that children with issues are easy to get angry at and to want to punish or scare straight. If those tactics worked, I would be 100% behind them too. But they don't. Not on these kids. So how can you justify treating a child like that? They may not seem as innocent as other children, but they can't help the way they are anymore than any other child can.

More on neurofeedback and EMDR

From a reader:

I found your Neurofeedback article highly interesting. Actually, many of your contemplations recently have been thought provoking for me, and quite useful in testing some of my own understandings.

In your post, you wrote the following:

my talk therapist suggested that the problem with the neurofeedback technology and techniques are that the brain changes are there, but that they don't last.

I posted a comment encouraging you to challenge the idea that the neuroplasticity you experienced can only be temporary. In the comment, I noted that EMDR can be similar in that it can provide temporary new pathways that fade. However, my experience was that those EMDR sessions in which I changed a belief were all that was needed to make permanent changes. The key is the change in underlying belief. I'll give you some examples for reference.

It took one session for me to let go of the need to impress my narcissistic father because I changed my belief from "I need Dad's approval" to "I'm an adult and I look after myself." Seriously, sorted right there. The following interactions I've had with him have been totally different in nature and I feel comfortable relating to him as a fellow adult. I can see his narcissistic behaviours and don't take them personally.

EMDR wasn't successful in helping me get over my relationship with the psychopath, A., (whom I've referred to previously as the FNP.) It did provide temporary relief, but I was still clinging to him in my mind.

My psychologist just didn't understand the depth to which the hooks had sunk. I knew, but didn't know what they were latched to in my own mind. Understanding finally that my psychologist couldn't help me, I helped myself. Probably exactly what I needed to do!

I've used many different resources recently to change my behaviour, my philosophy and my very self. Of these, the most useful have been Christopher S. Hyatt's books, particularly Undoing Yourself with energized meditation and other devices and Energized Hyposis: a non-book for self change. These are all about brain-change willed. And they've worked.

I'll share a journal entry with you. I hope it inspires you to continue in whatever direction you choose.

I finished working through the Energized Hypnosis book, at least those parts I can do now - the body scan exercises at the end are progressive.

The basic tenets of the book are that:
Under rumination and behaviour, there are feelings. Under the feelings, there is a belief. These belief-driven pathways are patterns that were most likely encoded at a very young age (before 7 or 8), before the brain was mature enough to understand scope and context.
The beliefs served a useful purpose then. They are most likely limiting now.
You can change your beliefs while still meeting the useful purpose.

Those were the biggest insights for me. The book leads you to understand these insights in a very practical way (which is why Hyatt and Iwema call it a 'non-book'.)

It didn't take me long to move past A. and go deeper. That wasn't exactly easy, mind you, but it was made easier by understanding my feelings of fear that no one will see me or understand me were driven by some belief... now where did that come from?

Well, guess, lol.

Book: To change a belief or behaviour, engage with it at its own level of communication and always be respectful to yourself.

So I went a bit deeper and a part of me said this:
 
I don't know where I am or what I am supposed to be doing

That's the part of me that has been hiding my whole life. The part that is petrified of not being noticed.

So I told that part of myself that I will listen to it. I will practice listening (the book encourages you to speak kindly as if to a young child who is scared or upset.)

Then, that part of me said of my father:

He scared me. I had to be either very, very quiet or do wild things so he would notice me. Wild things that he wanted to do. Him, not me.

The book then takes you through some steps for changing the underlying belief - identifying it's useful purposes and finding better, more suitable behaviours for NOW. The good thing is that my psychologist was already encouraging me to do new things (like booking this holiday) and I have been doing things of my own volition... so all of this is cascading very pleasantly for me.

A friend of mine has said I am "primed for change."

So here is what I wrote as my preferred behaviours (rather than squashing my own feelings and preferences and deferring to others; and always feeling I need to handle things on my own):

I will trust my own self to protect me.
I will ask questions to understand and to collaborate
I will present my ideas and solutions
I want to collaborate and grow and develop my practices. I want this to flow from the spring of energy inside me.

My new beliefs are:

I can take care of myself
I am curious, intelligent and adaptable
I have great energy!

The book also suggests adopting a new, unrelated behaviour which acts as another signal to the brain that change is occurring. I have chosen to clap my hands three times in the morning, evening and at any other appropriate time. 

Honestly, I feel good. I feel that all this stuff is resolving. I have new tools to understand my mind and how it works, and all the possibilities I have dreamed of are far closer. I am glad to have worked so hard on my philosophical understandings because the next step is truly mine; I diverge from Hyatt at this point, as I should. I think, from reading other material, that he sees power as the greatest good, the way of obtaining the happiest life. I, however, see power only as a factor in the pursuit of freedom, with freedom to choose being the greatest good. And this freedom comes from knowing your own mind rather than controlling external factors.

So that's pretty personal. I feel that it's resolved, although I did worry for a few days. I feel genuinely free and able to pursue my own interests in full trust of my own being.

I don't know if the end result for me is relevant to you, but I do think you can become more of who you are and be a genuinely self-willed human. 

North

PS re

"Making the little green boat move with my brain waves while keeping the red and yellow boats still in the little electronic regatta made me realize: (1) my thought patterns are a lot more fixed and beyond my control than I realize and (2) because I consciously process so much information as it comes into my brain, I am less open minded. By the latter I mean that my very mechanism of trying to consciously process as much information as I can rather than letting the subconscious deal with it requires me to quickly categorize the data as being interesting or important or not, and always according to my pre-existing criteria. I've always thought that this made me function higher cognitively because less is getting past me, but I realized that it also has the weird but predictable effect of making me search for familiar patterns and thus be closed minded to truly new things, concepts, or types of information."

I recommend reading about beginner's mind.

Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.
-- Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

not the best article, but ok: http://zenhabits.net/how-to-live-life-to-the-max-with-beginners-mind/

Sociopathic diversity

I am always interested to hear different perspectives from people who identify as being sociopathic. I think it's easy to hear from people who are at different stages in their lives or who have had different experiences and co-morbidities or different intensities of the sociopathic traits. For instance, before I ever experienced anxiety (about 5 years ago), I would have never thought myself capable of it and if anyone had told me that they thought they were sociopathic but experienced anxiety, I would have thought that couldn't be true. (It's a mixed blessing to now not be so sure of myself about things like that or anything else really).

I thought this description from a reader illustrated some of this diversity:

Its such a relief to know that I am not alone. So much of what you have said on this blog rings unbelievably true. Ive never been a very honest person. Honesty has never been priority because i know that if people really knew my motivations, intentions and feelings that i would be socially outcasted. My ability to change personalities to fit into and mimic whatever social scene I am in is the only way i can fill the strange lack of feeling that ive experienced ever since i was a child. 

 I am exhausted from being villainized and shamed for my sexuality and inconsistency and impulsive actions. Maybe i am just projecting when i say this, but I cant accept that I am worse or not as worthy of life just because I lie and have flexible ethicals. Other people cause just as much, if not more, harm to their fellow man with honesty and set value systems. Everyone is selfish and careless at some points in their lives, or at least they should be. I think having flexible character and morals is so much more valuable then having identities and morals that you would go to war over. 

I have fit into many places and situations with wild success by mixing beautiful concoctions of lies and the truth. These partial narratives have created my outward identity. But in these narratives i do give glimpses of truth and with this i have been working on piecing together my true personal identity. What i have found about myself, is that I am complicated and have a rich story to tell. 
I will never identify as a sociopath because it feels like a betrayal. I have tried to "define" or "identify" myself as many things to cover up for some of my unconventional behaviors. Ive tried being a sex/love addict to explain my cheating and jumping from partner to partner, or bipolar to explain my sometimes wild actions. Ive claimed that people close to me have died just to explain being unnecessarily emotional, so no one will know where my anger or agitation is really coming from.  The truth is though that i don't have an excuse that i can give people, other then coming out as a sociopath. But If i claimed the title "sociopath" i risk making the term inauthentic to myself. 

I Had a good childhood. no real traumas. I am successful and privileged and damn lucky in my exploits. I have no reason to think that this world is lonely, random and inescapably disastrous. But thats how i know the world to be. And whats interesting is that that doesn't bother me. we as individuals are too small for it to matter what we go through because for all we know the universe as we know it is just a micro combustion; the spark of a flint striking steal in a bigger picture we can not see or conceive of.  

That was sort of a long winded rant but I needed to share it for some reason with someone who might understand because you shared with all of us. you really are an inspiring character and excellent example of a slice of society no one wants to look at. 

I really identified with this: "I have no reason to think that this world is lonely, random and inescapably disastrous. But thats how i know the world to be." I think it describes well the way the world looks like when you don't have any of the usual emotional/love/hope/etc. wool over your eyes like others do (but obviously still other types of wool -- sociopaths are not immune to their own delusions about themselves and the world.).

"How psychopaths can save your life"

... is the title of a Kevin Dutton piece in the Guardian that I retweeted. Here are some quotable quotes:

This “new science” of psychopathy has met with resistance from many clinicians. And with good reason: their job means they only get to meet bad psychopaths. I’ve met them, too. But I have also met people more likely to save your life than take it. I wouldn’t go for a curry with many of them. But if a kid of mine had a brain tumour or my other half was on an airliner that had been taken over by al-Qaida I know who I’d like to see scrubbing up or storming the aisle. Those who go where angels fear to tread often have more in common than you might think with the demons they rub shoulders with.

Much is written about the stigmatisation of mental illness, but we still have a long way to go. What headline writer worth their weight in bold would dream of vilifying autistic individuals or victims of depression or PTSD in the same way that they pillory “psychos”? Last year in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, I and my co-authors presented the first published evidence that psychopathic traits – especially those linked to the personality dimension “fearless dominance” – are positively associated with holding leadership and management positions as well as high-risk occupations, such as police work and firefighting.

Next time you hear the word “psycho” spare a thought for the functional diaspora of card-carrying psychopaths who aren’t “psychos”. Who by their ruthlessness and fearlessness do good. And who, with their low-fat consciences and sugar-free emotions, execute the knife-edge transactions that can improve the lives of the rest of us. “You never know,” as Andy McNab points out, “next time you use the word ‘psycho’ it might even be as a compliment.”

"My experience of you" vs. "real you"

It's funny once you become aware of something and it's on your radar, you start both (1) seeing other instances of it and (2) you understand what's going on in those instances. For instance, I remember at one time in my life not understanding the meaning of the Fleetwood Mac song Landslide, and I also remember there being a very specific (although I've forgotten it now, ha) moment in which I suddenly understood it and it applied perfectly to my situation at that time.

I've always liked this Bjork song, but a few months ago I finally understood it:


I watched the first episode of the Netflix comedy Grace and Frankie, sort of an odd couple dynamic between two women whose husbands leave them for each other. Frankie is hippy dippy, Grace is rich white lady. But it also had an example of the sort of defining someone's identity that I mentioned in the last post:

Frankie: I lost my best friend. You don't even like Robert. 

Grace: You have no right to judge me. You don't know us. 

Frankie [clears throat] I'm sorry, I was judging by my experience of you, not the real you. That was wrong of me. 

I thought, that's a good distinction to make -- judging by our experience of a person versus whatever the real them is. We would never assume that we know all there is to France and French people after watching a French film or visiting Paris. Why do we feel so sure of ourselves in terms of our ability to judge someone's character after seeing a similar small sliver of the real them.