Showing posts sorted by date for query born this way. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query born this way. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Monday, January 16, 2012

Portrait of a sociopath

I stumbled across this "self portrait" of a sociopath here, and thought it was one of the most accurate depictions of an everyday sociopath I've seen, and by that I mean it is the description of a sociopath that is the most similar to how I view myself:
I've often suspected I have sociopathic tendencies, but I don't fit all the criteria on your list.

I've lied and stolen from a very young age despite being brought up in a normal, loving, two-parent home. I had never been particularly loving until I learned consciously what the display of this behavior could do for me. In arguments with my sibling I was always labeled cold and unfeeling because I would turn off the outward expression of emotion to the point that I'm not sure I felt anything at all.

Despite this, I have forged some stable long-term relationships, married, and now have a daughter. I have learned to blend in with the status quo so much that I highly doubt if anyone suspects my inward nature. Once I learned consequence I stopped stealing and now only lie when it benefits me in some tangible manner and the risk of being outed is low. Despite this outward appearance of normalcy, I lack any sort of depth or substance. Emotions are often faked, and I have to work at performing regular friendship and relationship maintenance to keep these relationships going when there is no emotion behind the act whatsoever-(for instance, buying and providing a nice birthday card and gift for a long time friend with loving sentiments).

I struggle often with behaving appropriately and in a manner acceptable to society. I am still tempted to steal and have to slowly walk myself through the consequences of doing so. I don't avoid stealing by arguing the morality of it, but rather what would happen to me if I was caught. In my teen years I was promiscuous and to this day still struggle with my urges, though I have never cheated on my husband for fear of being caught. Sex and lust for me is more of a function of manipulation that it is a physical urge, though I can and have enjoyed sex.

I often fantasize about soulful, deep, searing love relationships but don't think I could ever truly experience this. I've used my looks and sexuality in the past to draw men in and after they fell I was through. I finally married after pressure from family, and conceived after 10 years due to pressure from my husband. I love my husband to the extent of what he can provide for me, financially and sexually, but I don't know what it means to have an aching heart for anybody real.

Nearly everything I do, even today, is calculated for personal gain. I am constantly weighing energy output VS gain VS acceptable behavior.

The only unfettered love I've experienced so far is for my daughter. She is the only one who I have *ever* given more to that I expected to receive in return, without calculating what my contribution will get for me.

I wish I wasn't like this, that I could feel a normal depth and range of emotion and not constantly be tempted by my urges. I really don't think anybody could help me, I think that my constant self-checking and chameleon lifestyle is really the best I can ever expect, I don't think a head shrink could provide me with any better "therapy". I some ways I think my disorder is a gift, because I am a consummate logician, being unfettered by normal depth of emotion.

I think there are probably many *many* people out there just like me, who live in a cloak of normalcy. I could be your neighbor, or even your wife. I firmly believe I was born this way and it is just how I am wired. I don't expect anyone to feel sorry for me but I wanted to give my own perspective on my APD.

I think I am more normal that anyone would care to admit, even to themselves.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Connect the dots

Remember those games you used to play in primary school where the teacher would give you a bunch of clues and you had to guess what the person or thing was?  From a reader:
I'm wondering where I fall on the sociopathic spectrum, and what if anything I should do about it.
I was born into a troubled family - mother is was paranoid schizophrenic & father is narcissistc. Grandfather was a sociopath (he was sadistic, transgressive and super low-empathy). I spent most of my childhood (mildly) abused or neglected. I was a bedwetter. 
I tend to interpret peoples' actions the way a paranoid would, although I know rationally that I'm often wrong. 
I'm low-empathy. I have trouble reading the emotions of others. I often say things that bother people. Unless I'm paying a lot of attention, it is easy for me to offend people. When I offend people, I try to make amends (as a practical matter).
I tend to take things literally. I have a hard time with jokes. I speak bluntly. 
I'm generally quite honest, although when I want to lie, I take great delight in saying something that is literally true, but misleading.
In general, I'm bold. If I want stuff, I'll try to get it. I very much feel like my life is slipping away; there's no time to waste. I get bored easily.
As a kid, I didn't abuse mammals, but I was tough on slugs and snails. I took them apart, tortured them, etc. In my adult years, my job had me doing terrible things to mammals. They'd scream for a long time. I didn't like hearing the screams, it bugged me. If anything, they pissed me off with their screaming, because I had a job to do. Sometimes I'd get so pissed at them for screaming at me that I'd hurt them more. My sense is, I don't abuse animals for fun, but if I've got goals and to reach them I have to hurt stuff, I'll do it. If the things I'm hurting make my job difficult, I'll hurt them more after I get angry at them.
I've got something of a conscience, but not like most people. I do feel bad if I hurt people I love. I don't steal. But I do trespass, snoop, cheat on my taxes, smuggle contraband when it suits me, etc. I regularly do things that could get me arrested. 
If people cross a line, I consider extra-legal retribution essential. I've broken the law, repeatedly, to get revenge. It involved killing animals. I did it without remorse. I've gotten good at it.
I enjoy internet trolling, particularly by expressing un-PC thoughts. 
I'm sadistic. I really enjoy hurting my enemies. 
I've got ethnocentric/racist sensibilities. I think the world would be a better place if we got rid of people not in my racial group. If making that happen required me to volunteer, I'd do it happily. In this way, I'm altruistic. I'm not totally selfish. Then again, I don't love everyone in my racial group (or family, etc). If there were important enough goals, I'd think it reasonable to kill them for the cause.
If I could kill people and get away with it (or get approval, by being on a death squad), I'd jump to sign up. I'm kinda hoping we'll get a race war before I'm dead, so that I can hunt some humans.
I'm very manipulative and calculating. I lie. I do this even with the people closest to me. I kind of delight in doing it.
I transgress. When I do "bad" things, I don't have remorse. I do have fear of getting caught, and a deep hatred of authority figures. I know that if I was in the middle of a crime and a lone law enforcement officer caught me, I'd kill him in an instant if it meant the difference between getting away or being punished.
That said, there are some transgressions I feel are wrong, so I don't do them. If I do them, I feel guilty. Yet for someone who hates authority, when people disregard my wishes or authority, I feel they deserve the maximum punishment.
I get lonely. Rejection hurts and pisses me off. I want to be adored. When I've been rejected, I've thought of stalking, attacking or trespassing the person rejecting me. Or I think of re-seducing them, so that I can dump them to punish them.
My general sense is that I can't be a sociopath; I have something of a conscience. But then there's only about 5 people in the world I care about in non-abstract terms.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Sociopath as entrepreneur

One of my mentors just asked me, "What made you who you are." It was meant to be complimentary. The implication was that I am better than a lot of my peers. Particularly my mentor is impressed with how I seem to understand many more aspects of the dilemmas we are working with than some of my colleagues.

I guess you could call it an ability to think abstractly, or an increased awareness of the mechanics--a more intimate knowledge of the behind the scenes action that is motivating so much of what we look at. It allows me to Bayesian update like mad, like an excel spreadsheet with hundreds of inter-working, interdependent formula, but capable of adjusting in an instant based on new information.

My mentor actually calls it "alien." Again, he means it to be complimentary. He subscribes to the theory that great thinkers and entrepreneurs tend to be "aliens," people who are not really part of their culture. Aliens live parallel lives with different mindsets than the majority. They're readily able to think critically about the world around them because it already seems foreign to them. There's no effort in trying to maintain distance or perspective regarding the problem. The distance has always been there. The distance will always be there because that is the way the alien interacts with everything in the world.

My mentor thinks I must be an alien because my smart ideas are not just smart, they're groundbreaking. Even the way I explain my ideas to others is alien. It's like I am trying to translate my ideas into a language that others will be able to understand. The effort I am making to communicate is apparent, like figuring out how to instruct someone to hike from point A to point B when I had just teleported there instantly. My mentor thinks that you simply cannot teach people to think this way. You can open their mind and teach them some tricks, but they will never think fluently this way the same way that an "alien" would. I laughed off his comments, saying that I have plenty of stupid ideas too. "Well I do too," he responded, "we all do. That's part and parcel of risky thinking."

Here's an example of "alien" entrepreneurship, Tony Hseih, head of Zappos. From the NY Times:
At times, Mr. Hsieh comes across as an alien who has studied human beings in order to live among them. That can intimidate those who are not accustomed to his watchful style. “I have been in job interviews with him where you are expecting more, and it can be awkward silences,” said Ned Farra, who manages relationships with other Web sites for Zappos. “He is not afraid of it. It is almost like he is testing you.”

Mr. Hsieh said that he surrounds himself with people who are more outgoing than he is, in part to draw himself out. “My view is that I am more of a mirror of who I am around,” he said. “So if I am around an introverted person that is really awkward. But if I am around an extroverted person I will be whoever they are times point-5.”
***
Outwitting the system is something Mr. Hsieh has honed from a young age. In addition to describing his youthful business ventures (worm farms failed, personalized photo buttons succeeded), “Delivering Happiness” recounts a history of scam artistry. To fool his Taiwanese-born parents into thinking he was practicing piano and violin, he recorded practice sessions and played them back on weekend mornings.
***
Jason Levesque, another Harvard friend who worked at LinkExchange, recalled Mr. Hsieh’s self-effacement. When inviting friends to play a video game, “he was obviously the best at the game, but he would sort of hide that in order to get everyone to play,” Mr. Levesque said.

Like Mr. Zuckerberg’s, Mr. Hsieh’s success has been built in part on his ability to anatomize the way people crave connections with others, and turn those insights into a business plan.
***
Mr. Hsieh, who professes fascination with dating guides like Neil Strauss’s “The Game” and pontificated on his theory of the evolutionary futility of sexual jealousy, said he does not date. “I don’t usually define dating or not dating, together or not together,” said Mr. Hsieh, nursing another tall shaker of wine at the Downtown Cocktail Room. “I prefer to use the term ‘hang out.’ And I hang out with a lot of people, guys and girls. I don’t really have this one person I am dating right now. I am hanging out with multiple people, and some people I hang out with more than others.”
***
“I think of everyone I know in my life, he’s the best at not feeling jealousy,” she added. “But I think he’s human, whether anyone believes that or not.”
This is not the first time I have been called an alien. It is not even the first time that I have been called that with a positive or value neutral connotation. I never know what to say in these situations. I agree with them, obviously, but in terms of explaining to them why I might have grown up with the mentality of an "alien" in a foreign world...? "It's a mystery," I tell them. But it's not. It hasn't been a mystery since I became self-aware, or maybe since I learned of the term "sociopath".

Monday, November 21, 2011

Guest post: schizophrenic sociopath

From a reader:
Schizophrenic sociopath: a joyous autoportrait of Pabaisa
And they worshiped the dragon [the prototype of Pabaisa] which gave power unto the beast [the archetype of Pabaisa]. And they worshiped the beast, saying: "Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?"
- The Revelation of John, 13, 4
Pabaisa – the Immoralist, the Antichrist, the Anarchist, everything, that is opposed to civilization, the breaker of codes and rules; the man with the strength of a giant and the brain of a child; the soul contract Terminator and the wish fulfilling Mephisto. Pabaisa imagines himself as a green-skinned, sharp-toothed, bird-of-prey-nosed, hatty, sabotted and with dingy purple dusters, even if no one is afraid of him outwardly and react to his grotesque smile neutrally. The blind, who don’t see the accursed wickedness and consider him as a friend. The feelings of abandonment, terror and lost identity spring from the degenerate’s inner being, his projection of himself as a despicable demon, who looks at his own reflection in pond like Narcissus, and cannot see himself truly, so he rolls away from his Olympian mountain of solitude and seclusion, and engages on a journey through dark, naked forests and barren, scorched deserts, searching for something, which would give him an identity, an understanding and a shelter. The beast does not look aggressively in reality, even on the contrary, like a sociopath, like all the rest, maybe even a perfect replica of a human. The intra-speciary predator is unfazed by the hunters in this regard.
The problem of Pabaisa‘s sexuality: Pabaisa is only partly a man. At least, he doesn‘t perceive himself as one. Due to accidental meiosis and gene selection, his body was born as a man. Pabaisa doesn‘t see himself as a woman, either. There is no hidden desire to be a woman, no secret jealousy. For all he knew, it didn‘t matter, if he‘s a man, a woman or both. Things like sex and sexuality didn‘t matter, from an abstract perspective to life; he could become any with the circumstances. He was a man, but he could easily become a woman any time he wished, if he felt, that the circumstances demanded it. The mastery of disguise.
First metamorphosis: Schizophrenia and split-personality disorder. Five different voices in his head and 1 = ½ + ½, or A = B + C. A as the state before Lucifer gets thrown out of Heaven, like a pure state, B and C as different embodiments of “evil”, annihilators of “good” and destroyers of life, i.e. chimeras and killers with the thirst for power and the hate for weakness. Question: Why? Answer: The man’s becoming a half-man, or two half-men, was prompted by his genius-overman flight to the skies of brilliance, which was replaced by anti-genius, when he flew too high to the Sun, or madness, and burned like Icarus. The absence of identity, family, friends from birth or losing them along the way. Adam without his Eve, or the inability to hide from humanity without his species representative. The Colossus B is Pabaisa’s A part, which doesn’t want an identity from the start, being the universal bodily brutality in the world of objects. The Titan C is Pabaisa’s A part, which wants an identity from all his heart, despite the consequences, being the conscious identity-subjectivity seeker. From appearances alone, one would say that here exists an extreme complex duality and conflicting characteristics, despite this, they both are nihilistic psychopaths, who, due to an open intimacy, love each other more than the lost A, the last connection with humanity, which they forged.
It seems, that monster’s C only goal, like some kind of ambitious animal, who is playing God, is to give others power, or value, maybe he even wants to create a race of snakes. Save himself by saving his saviors? Still, when the vampire extracts and reaches the other person’s zenith of happiness and the height of potential, when there is no place to climb higher, for him that person becomes a bore and he feels incomplete, which makes him act with cruelty and kill the parasitical person from hunger. On the other hand, the giant B is bathing in nihilistic conscious revelations about the indifference of the universe and the relativity of values, by which he tries to justify his murders. Cerber C didn’t want an identity connected to physical activity, which will never satisfy him, but with intellectual; he wanted an identity, which embodies everything he is opposed to, so he searches out the aristocrats.
Second metamorphosis: Narcissistic possession of a Prince. Prince is not as much of an ogre’s fruit of labor, as that, which Nietzsche claimed to be as soul-awareness transformation’s third stage. In short: 1. The camel – memory. 2. The lion – will-to-knowledge. 3. The child - wisdom. In this case, Prince is something of a “second childhood”, radiation of will-to-live and the forging of new values. Prince to the devil is everything, which he desires by his understanding of identity at that time: a status in society, political power, money, reactionary disregard for the sheep morality, wide connection circle, etc. The creature endures his hunger and postpones this inevitability for a long time for the means to an end, but one thing is missing – the War ambition, the natural evolutionary development condition, the only Art form of the ruling elite. The seven-headed, ten-horned and ten-crowned behemoth rises up and swallows up his Father and Mother, the King and the Queen, burning everything behind him and searching for a greater height, a new order within himself, which would shake the whole foundation of the Earth. The barbarian should not be held responsible for the killings of other people, because it is in his nature to be the Machiavellian, to be the blond beast-of-prey, devouring the lives of others.
Third metamorphosis: Re-integration into one person. The need to become singular: the pianist’s cut off arms, the drowning man's oxygen, the thirsty man’s water need. I am you. You are me. We are one. Prince is the outcast. We always were a monster, with a human side, which desperately clung to an identity, to save ourselves from drowning. The dragon with his identity as a Prince and as a Kreator gulps down the centaur without an identity. The active nihilism overcomes the passive nihilism. The monster, with a monster’s hunger, with a monster’s appetite, munching his other half from within. Pabaisa in a poisoned garden of Eden, knowing and wallowing in his own death, was made wild and totally uncontrollable, to satisfy his every desire, to realize his every ambition with unconditional commitment. And only then the Leviathan experiences his second true suffering, - having in mind, that the first one was the absence of identity, - not by killing his family and humanity, but whilst assimilating his other half, his primordial anonymity. The formless, faceless, nameless mammoth of a Prince, in the past only thinking of himself as un-and-in-human, feels a human, an all too human, familiarity with humanity, as if being a slave to the collective unconscious programming, which doesn’t have any uniqueness, personality or individuality, as if all the memory was implanted into his robotic brain – the gargoyle, who achieves cold intellectual empathy, the Satan, who finally kills God and outgrows the nameless humanity and its identity, swallowing it and making it his little, dirty dog-bitch. Ego-centrism as a whole humanity’s ego. Not power through wisdom, but the “real” world’s transcendence, which is denied to the rational mind. My name is Titas, for I am many.
Mutant A, troll B and savage C in the consequence of all the metamorphoses become phoenix A again, who has no identity, because it is stolen from the Prince, and made his own. The achieved pseudo-identity results in an existentialist tragi-heroism: after finding an identity, a meaning of life, Moby Dick understands, that the identity is the reaction between him, the other person and the whole world, that there is nothing, who could call him by his name, his meaning of life effectively disappears. The eternal incognito, a walking corpse and the super-cannibal in the end returns not even there, where he started, but into a negative sequence, because the beauty of the identity has disappeared, leaving only a heart filled with choking terror and disgust. The last man standing syndrome: will-to-life and will-to-power as will-in-itself, the loss to the world is its conquering. And so stands the Prince of princes, saying to himself, that if he is made of the parts and characteristics of dead people, then, basically, he is a person, but because they are dead, he never himself is alive. What scares the most – the paradoxical hunger in Pabaisa’s eyes and a satisfaction with his fake identity. Nobody stands on top of the world, except the highest alpha predator, who doesn’t have any dreams or hopes, who exists alone only to write himself an ending, then he will stop wandering and not knowing eternally his unbelievably mysterious soul, ignorant of boundaries and fears, but constantly fighting within itself. The realization, that you cannot become “a fake somebody”, but you can become “a true nobody”, the last prophet of the nihilistic truth of the universe. The wind became stronger, its screeching howl louder, and the air colder, as the demiurge’s eyes ached, while he was smiling into the Void.
Question: What is meaning of the story? Answer: No meaning. The worthlessness of efforts. To acquire, what is wanted, but to understand, that it doesn’t mean anything. To see, that there is no difference between good and evil, well and bad. Finally, a man can become anything he wants according to his wishes. He doesn’t have to take the walked-out road. He has a freedom of choice… People are like dice, they throw themselves in the direction of their own choosing.
Moral: If you admit your ontological uniqueness, identity becomes unimportant.
Sincerely, your friendly neighborhood Pabaisa.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Faith

Religious people sometimes get on this site and tell us that we're all going to burn in hell. I don't know what religion these people belong to, but I imagine that they have some pretty common judeo christian beliefs that God created man. Even if you accept the belief that God does not actually create evil, he certainly creates the ingredients, possibly even sets the ball in motion. At least I think that is a relatively common belief among those religiously inclined in those ways. You may say that God doesn't want man to lie down with man as he would woman, but you can't deny that God seems to have made certain people especially prone to wanting to do just that. Similarly, the sociopath. Born different, although not necessarily to murder indiscriminately. To those religious people, were the sociopaths born to live a wretched life and burn in hell?

It's odd because I think some sociopaths are actually more inclined to religion than the general population. We're so used to taking things on "faith," e.g. the legitimacy of other people's personhood, the existence of an emotional palette different than our own, etc. It's sort of like the colorblind people who have to take our word for it that orange exists the way it does (or does it? who is to say that our perception of that particular segment of the electromagnetic spectrum is any more or less correct than theirs?). These things I take on faith not really as truths but as things that seem plausible enough that I cannot deny their existence (I cannot reject the null hypothesis for you statisticians out there). Because I am so used to accepting the existence of things that I can neither feel nor see myself, it's not at all a jump for me to indulge in religious beliefs. And I do indulge -- maybe because they are a form of hedging my bets, maybe because I was raised to be religious and many of my familiar and other relationship ties are based on religion, or maybe because these beliefs actually do help fill the void of meaning that I otherwise would feel in my life.

But accepting the possibility of a God as I do, why do I not agree with my religious brothers that I am destined to go to hell. How do I reconcile any religious beliefs with who I am? Honestly, although part of me feels dark, a big part of me thinks that I am more Godlike than most people, particularly the God of Abraham and Moses. It's easy for me to think that I was a ruler before this life and will be in the life to come, which is I guess the real reason that these religious types get on here saying I'm going to hell, because I'm pretty sure that's blasphemy in their eyes.

Rex tremendae majestatis,
qui salvandos savas gratis,
salve me, fons pietatis.

King of tremendous majesty,
who freely saves those worthy ones,
save me, source of mercy.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Desensitized

Sometimes I hear people say that they were "born this way," whatever way that happens to be. To say you are born a sociopath or born gay is like saying you were born smart or born tall. Yes, you may have the genetic predisposition to be smart or tall, but the existence of feral children is an important reminder that no one is born any of those ways, that we rely on the most basic daily interactions, nutrition, culture, education, experiences, and myriad other influences in our development to become who we become. I realize that "born this way" is just shorthand and I've used it too, but I think it is sloppy and often masks some of these other important influences.

Was I born to charm? Born to harm? I wasn't necessarily even born to speak or wield a weapon. So how do we get there? What makes some of us different from others. Obviously it has a lot to do with genetics, but it also has so much to do not just with our our experiences, but in what particular order and when in life we experienced them. It's through our experiences that normal gened people can be desensitized to things like killing, and sociopathic gened people can be sensitized to things like being aware of the needs of others.

I intentionally sensitize myself to things all the time. When I studied music, I sensitized myself to minute changes in pitch because I played a fretless string instrument and needed to be keenly aware of pitch to play in tune. Now it drives me crazy to hear musicians playing out of tune. It's not just that I have a more discriminating taste than I used to, I actually have a very visceral reaction to pitch problems to the point that I can feel nauseated.

Things that used to shock me no longer do through repeat exposure, and vice versa. I know that my genes might predispose me to the way I think and interact with the world, but I also take full responsibility for the amount of control over the rest. Every day I am in motion, sensitizing myself or desensitizing myself, constantly reshaping my brain, making and breaking habits, making myself more less inclined to act or think a certain way.

I am careful what I do and say, what I allow myself to think and daydream about. It's not always because I am worried about external consequences (would I do these things if I were sure to not be caught?), but rather internal consequences. How would doing or thinking that thing change me and is that someone I want to become? I'm all too aware that we are what we eat.

On a related note, I don't expect to look or act exactly like other sociopaths because I haven't made the same trillion decisions in the same order that they have, even if we might share a particular gene sequence. Via my exposure to the myriad variety of sociopaths and other personality types that I've run into on the blog and in real life, I have eliminated many misconceptions I had about sociopathy (criminals are low-functioning, etc.). Keeping an open-mind is one of the habits I hope to keep by challenging my own beliefs as vigorously as I challenge those of others.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Sociopath(ic) (part 1)

From a reader:
I've been reading your blog for well over a year now and a lot of my questions about sociopaths and their tendencies have been answered, but there's one topic I've not seen discussed in any real depth.

I'm an "empath". I'm the sort that feels so intensely that it's often physically painful. I've been that way for my entire life, so I'm fully aware that I'm not a sociopath, but I have a few sociopathic characteristics.

The main sociopathic characteristic that I identify with is mimicry. I've been doing it for most of my life, and I've called it mirroring. I, like you, have a difficult time navigating social situations naturally; every move has to be planned in order for me to seem normal. Like you, I've been picking and choosing parts of my personality for decades, and every single one of those parts is meant to add up to what other people appreciate in their peers. People really aren't very difficult to read; their cards are out on the table the moment they open their mouths. As soon as I can size them up and assess their likes and dislikes, I pour myself into a mold resembling their ideal companion.

I abuse substances quite frequently, also. I realize that this is something more characteristic of "low-functioning" sociopaths due to poor impulse control, and I own how pathetic it is, but, as an empath, I do it to make myself feel less. I find that I fit in better when under the influence of opiates, or, in a pinch, any "downer" in general. Not heroin, mind you; heroin scares me. I have an addictive personality already. I'm more partial to hydrocodone. It's easy to come by, and cheap when you find the right people to buy from. I have a difficult time being insincere when I'm sober, but once I have about five 10 mg hydrocodone tablets in me, I don't feel bad about insincerely telling people what they want to hear.

Weirdly, I've noticed that the males in my family have a stronger tendency toward sociopathy. The possibility exists that they do, in fact, FEEL, but it actually seems more likely to me that they've become incredibly good at reading women in (especially those in my family) and acting accordingly. My dad is a very low-functioning sociopath. He propositioned every single friend I had in my youth and blamed it on alcohol, and now he's facing his tenth year of probation due to poor impulse control. Despite the fact that I've recognized and researched his neurological leanings (he's the main reason for my interest in the subject of socipaths), I find myself feeling sorry for the man, like he's some sort of bumbling idiot , as opposed to a cold and calculating monster. He's used me since the day that I was born, and he's done it well. I feel like a terrible person every time this man feigns innocence when I find out about him molesting my friends. He denies it and I, as an empath, desperately want to believe him. I fancy myself logical, but guilt trips me up, and when he plays the idiot as well as he does, I feel like an abusive monster. Fear and guilt trump reason. Consciousness is a bitch.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Seeing psychopaths for what they are

A reader sent this very long selection from "The Psychopath Test", which appears to have the most salient parts. Some selections:
Everyone in the field seemed to regard psychopaths in this same way: inhuman, relentlessly wicked forces, whirlwinds of malevolence, forever harming society but impossible to identify unless you're trained in the subtle art of spotting them, as I now was.
***
Becoming a psychopath-spotter had turned me power-crazed and a bit psychopathic. I was starting to see the checklist as an intoxicating weapon that was capable of inflicting terrible damage if placed in the wrong hands. And I was beginning to suspect that my hands might be the wrong hands.

I met up with Hare again. "It's quite a power you bestow upon people," I said. "What if you've created armies of people who spot psychopaths where there are none, witchfinder generals of the psychopath-spotting world?"
***
Journalists hardly ever made it to a DSPD unit and I was curious to see inside. According to Maden, the chief clinician at Tony's unit, it wouldn't exist without Hare's psychopath check-list. Tony was there because he had scored high on it, as had all 300 DSPD patients. The official line was that these were places to treat psychopaths with a view to one day sending them back out into the world. But the widespread theory was the whole thing was in fact a scheme to keep psychopaths locked up for life.
***
I wondered if sometimes the difference between a psychopath in Broadmoor and a psychopath on Wall Street was the luck of being born into a stable, rich family.
***
"Ever since I went on a Bob Hare course, I've believed that psychopaths are monsters," I said. "They're just psychopaths – it's what defines them, it's what they are." I paused. "But isn't Tony kind of a semi-psychopath? A grey area? Doesn't his story prove that people in the middle shouldn't necessarily be defined by their maddest edges?"

"I think that's right," he replied. "Personally, I don't like the way Bob Hare talks about psychopaths almost as if they are a different species. . . . I would also say you can never reduce any person to a diagnostic label. Tony has many endearing qualities when you look beyond the label."

Monday, April 4, 2011

Let's play doctor

From a reader:
I was wondering about sociopaths and have a feeling that I may be one.
So I've been scouring the internet searching for some sort of answer. Every site has different answers to what makes one as well as their tendencies differ. Unfortunately it seems I can confirm a majority of the tendencies. I play mind games with people and enjoy it when I hurt them through them. Breaking people up making them cry. Weird things like that. Also since noticing that I'm positive for things like that I've been thinking back on certain things. Everything I ever do causally with other people some how turns into a contest in my mind and I have to do everything possible to win. Extreme hatred towards loud obnoxious rude people (aka narcissist).

Also my ultimate goal is to take over the world... Has been for a long time. Long before I even started thinking about if I was a sociopath. I have had daydreams and dreams of gaining power for as long as I can remember. I've also had other dreams from about when I was 13. The first one was watching some kill themselves and it was extremely exciting. There have been other ones. Most recently I've been excited from the thought of watching as a rain of fire kills everyone on the earth. I know these things are "Wrong" but the thoughts of killing people is so exciting. I don't see anything wrong with it. It's supposedly just our animal instincts to kill. Of course I wouldn't kill anyone for pure pleasure right now. I still have no power and even though I could probably get away with it saying that they attacked me first. It would be a waste of time right now. I have an obvious lack of respect for human rights and people as people. I've thought before this that people are simply tools and I still do.

Your recent sociopath test was extremely helpful. The second question is exactly what I've always done for as long as I can remember. Lies about things that happened to gain sympathy, trust, or interest from other people. My favorite one is pretending to be grieving for an old friend who died of cancer. Of course I've learned that if you add some truth from a story that you have heard or read people believe it instantly. Yes again to questions 3,4,6,7,8 and 12.

As for why I think I am a sociopath I noticed it awhile ago when reading up on some stuff online and I came across the term sociopath for the first time. Now that I've read your site more I'm almost positive that I am. I guess I just came asking you for confirmation. Kinda pointless. I don't think it's a bad thing to be one. In fact supposedly from all I've read being a sociopath makes you superior to everyone else. That's pretty much all I can come up with to tell you. I don't know if you can tell me if I am one but thank you for your time either way. The only other question now is whether I was born one or if it was from childhood trauma. A bit of both I think. My parents were a bit abusive at times. Anyways thank you for your time and your Blog. It has been extremely helpful.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Sociopaths in the news: Julian Assange

In celebration of Valentine's Day, this is a hilarious story of friend-seduction starring Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. From the Daily News:
This is a love story - an unrequited love story, but a love story nonetheless. 'My first thought upon seeing him was: cool guy.' This is how Daniel Domscheit-Berg describes his first meeting with Julian Assange at a conference of computer activists. . . . Daniel is smitten, and will remain smitten until, a year or two later, it all ends in tears.

'We used to be best friends, Julian and I - or at least, something like friends. Today, I'm not sure whether he even knows the concept. I'm not sure of anything any more.'
***
From the start, their relationship is that of servant to master, or disciple to guru. Daniel, dull and solid, is mustardkeen to do Julian's bidding, even to the extent of carrying his bags. Meanwhile, the vain and monomaniacal Julian barely notices him.
Before long, Daniel is tying himself up in knots about Julian.

'On the one hand, I found Julian unbearable, and, on the other, unbelievably special and lovable.' But between the lines, it is clear Julian finds Daniel a bit of a bore, worth tolerating only for as long as he kow-tows.

Julian gives little sign of noticing anything about Daniel but, for his part, Daniel takes an obsessive interest in Julian and his little quirks: the way he says 'hoi' instead of hello, and asks 'how goes?', the way he slides down banisters, the way he dances by galloping across the floor 'almost like a tribesman performing some ritual', the way he alters his name on his business cards to the more mysterious and glamorous 'Julian D'Assange'.
***
[W]henever Assange enters, we are all ears. Like most heroes and villains in literature, he is entirely self-centred and extremely peculiar. . . . He is a fantasist, and has what Daniel describes as 'a very free and easy relationship with the truth'. At one point, he tells Daniel that his hair went white from gamma radiation when, at the age of 14, he had built a reactor in the basement and reversed the poles.

The first cracks in the master-servant relationship appear early on. When they visit Switzerland to install a computer server, Daniel spends the rest of his money on supplies of Ovaltine to take home with him.

'I love the Swiss chocolate drink and for the rest of our tour I couldn't wait to get back home and make myself a huge cup of cocoa. But when we arrived back in Wiesbaden, the cocoa powder would be all gone. Julian had at some point torn open the packages and poured the contents straight into his mouth.'

Julian is forever taking more than his fair share of everything. 'If there were four slices of Spam, he would eat three and leave one for me.' Daniel often thinks: 'You could at least ask,' but doesn't like to say anything.
***
Julian is also something of a skinflint, always letting other people pay for things. He claims it's so his whereabouts can't be traced via a transaction with a cash machine, but when he uses this excuse straight after appearing at a televised Press conference, Daniel begins to smell a rat.

Before long, infatuation turns to irritation. Julian picks up women and brings them back to their shared hotel room. 'One night I really needed to sleep. I was dead tired, and I asked him to let me crash in peace for once. A short time later, I heard Julian talking to a woman on the phone...Julian insisted she come to the hotel. My problem was that we shared not only a room but a large double bed. I buried my head in my pillow and tried to sleep, or at least give that impression.'
***
[The] social isolation [of the Wikileaks team] fosters their self-regard, their notion that the world should be made to dance to their tune.

This turned, as Daniel says, 'two pale-faced computer freaks, whose intelligence would have otherwise gone unnoticed, into public figures who put fear into the hearts of the politicians, business leaders and military commanders of this world. They probably had nightmares about us. A lot of them probably wished that we had never been born. That felt good.'

In passages such as this, it becomes clear that the megalomania-they affect to despise in world leaders is as nothing compared to their own.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The meaning of life (part 1)

A reader asked:

Hey dude, you know what would be interesting? An article about how sociopaths deal with boredom. What is boredom for a sociopath, why is it that it is so hard to deal with it and what do we do to not get bored. I am also curious about it. Thing is i am scared of the emptiness within myself. it's like when i was younger i used to have all these feelings that managed to keep me from getting bored by myself, you know, i had a way to meditate. but now whenever i am alone all i can sense is an empty space and for some reason i feel scared about it. it's like if i don't hold tight onto something i might fall into emptiness and never come back, dunno exactly. anyway, it's that emptiness that i want to know more about and how to deal with it.
Good question. I address this issue a little bit in this post. I was sort of made fun of for it in the comments of this post.

The human psyche really is so fragile. We lie to ourselves all the time about our existence and the meaning of our existence, like my recent post about free won't. Ignorance really is bliss in a lot of ways, but no matter how we try, we end up catching glimpses of the meaningless of life. I don't know why, really, but your question reminded me of Clive Wearing, a former musicologist, now the most severe form of amnesia ever documented. Every minute or so, he forgets absolutely everything and experiences a feeling of being born ex nihilo -- as if he never existed before, but now suddenly he does. He keeps a journal in which he writes over and over again, "I'm awake! For the very first time!" "I'm alive! For the first time!" "This is the first moment of my consciousness!" I think about him sometimes and wonder whether his life is horrible or wonderful.

What do you think about the subject?
I read the post and i think you are kinda right. That's how i feel, like living in a foreign country, gazing at the view but not being able to make any real interaction with the environment. I have been recently diagnosed with immature behaviour by a psychiatrist because i can't really make real progress in getting more mature, and i have to because i just dropped out of college because i was getting bored. Now i have to start all over again cause i don't want to skip college. I think it's true what you say about our meaningless existence also. I keep lying myself with fantasies about me being some kind of "chosen to do great" like that harry potter thing you talked about but i can see through the fog i create that i could also be a looser like everyone else. The "bad" thing is that realizing that i am just like everyone else doesn't change me. It's like i can't accept it willingly. I go on doing what i do and i feel kinda bad cause my psyche doesn't want to stop playing and realize that it has to get it's ass to work. Guess this unchangeable emptiness is something i have to get used to and work myself off to start doing some actual work. Guess this is why i reminded you of that amnesia guy. No matter what i do i can't change my perception upon life. I am still a kid even though i am 19.

About what you asked, i think he is having a good life feeling the beginning of his existence all the time like that. If he doesn't remember and the thrill keeps coming and coming i think he lives kinda happy all the time. Even though if someone explained to him his condition from a to the z, i think he would be kinda sad but not for long, right? Reminds me of the movie "First 50 dates" with adam sandler. If the people around him keep his illusion alive he doesn't have any reason for which to be unhappy and i guess that is all that matters. Sure, he won't do anything with his life being stuck in that loop hole but for him it doesn't matter, right? If i get to think of it he could be unhappy if he realized at the end of the loop that he is loosing his memory. That would be a moment of unhappiness, which would only make his existence pitiful but not horrible. Is pity a feeling a sociopath would feel? Hm...

Monday, July 12, 2010

Orthodox sociopathy (part 1)

Being sociopathic is not necessarily inconsistent with being religious. An addictive spiritual high frequently accompanies the practice of religion. Like tantric sex, denying yourself certain things intensifies the pleasure of your indulgences. Religion is a good beard and a prosthetic moral compass. For some, it can also be a welcome respite from the sociopath's legendary feeling of emptiness, at least as much as any other opiate. Plus it's not that hard -- sociopaths are used to keeping up appearances. In short, the benefits of religion for a sociopath can and often do exceed its costs. I asked one of our sociopath readers to describe what role religion plays in his life:
In order to understand my religious upbringing better, you'll have to understand the back story of my life. I was born in a small town in Florida. My mother was an Adventist and my father Agnostic. Me and my mom would go to church every Saturday, and me being little at the time, I couldn't care less. When I was eight years old, my parents divorced, mostly because my mom hung out in these places on this new thing called the internet call chatrooms. She met a guy, divorced my dad, and we moved to Montreal. A few months later, she had enroled me in a Catholic school, and married my stepfather. She quit being religious at the time, but was more than glad to send me to a private school because of Quebec's language laws at the time- I could only go to a public french school.

When I was fourteen, my stepfather died. At that point in time my stepfather had become a heavy smoker and a total drunkard. One beautiful Friday morning, he broke into my room with a butcher's knife as I was getting dressed for school. He was drunk and therefore easy to subdue. A few well placed punched to the ribs and he was out. He had to be hospitalized for his injuries. He died that day. And my mom blamed me for his death. The police also thought I killed him, they escorted me out of class that day, and in my opinion, they could have shown more discretion. My mother decided to have him cremated, and under Quebec law, you need to have an autopsy before you do something so irreversible to a body. Luckily for me, it revealed that he had lung cancer, and that it had spread to his brain. That was my first major religious experience. I was not sure whether his death had been ordained by God, or if it was His way of laughing in my face.

A few months later me and my mom had moved back to Florida. At first we were living with my father. We arrived in time for me to finish the last week of school in the Florida calender. Summer had come and gone, and because of the moving process I had failed a grade because I missed so many days of school. On top of that, The States have one more year of high school compared to Quebec. So instead of graduating in 2006 as I had planned, it was 2008. To add insult to inconvenience, because I wasn't around for the FCAT testing, they put me in remedial classes.

It wasn't until I was 20 that I moved back to Montreal. When I first arrived here, I found myself in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood. I always wanted to have a sense of community. I did my research on Judaism vs Christianity, and found that I rather prefer the monolithic portrayal of God. I fabricated a little story about how my grandmother practiced Judaism, but never converted. My first time at the shul, and I didn't even have a yarmulke (head cap). I was quickly welcomed into the community, and after a while, I realized that they have resources I don't have, and that it would only be a matter of time before my parents quit supporting me. I made sure to attend the social functions, and mingle. At first I thought that I would have to manipulate them to get what I need, however I've learned since then that they are good people.

Monday, May 24, 2010

An empathy exercise

A lot of the empathy-challenged have expressed an ability to "imagine" what it would feel like to be another person going through a particular situation. I was explaining this to someone and they asked -- isn't this empathy? If it is, then I guess I'm an empath too. But first let me describe what it feels like using an unusual analogy that I hope works.

Imagine that you are having sex with someone. Better yet, imagine that you are engaged in foreplay, attempting to stimulate a reluctant lover. This is your first time. You have been on an island, grown up there alone, and one day another island dweller like yourself appears. Your experience so far has been auto arousal. You are very familiar with the ins and outs of your own equipment but have had no other exposure to sex other than what you have seen in wildlife. As you attempt to elicit a reaction from your partner, you think of everything you like to do to yourself and try that first. The more similar your partner is to you, the more accurate and effective your actions will be. But what if your partner's equipment looks nothing like your own? In that situation, the best you could do is extrapolate from your own experiences to imagine what it might feel if you had equipment more like your partner's, and act accordingly.

The process may seem very artificial to you at first, like when you scratch a part of your skin that has been numbed by anesthesia and feel only the scratching, not the being scratched. But the more similar the situation is to something you have experienced yourself, the more you can rely on your own personal experiences. Even if the other person is rather different from you, if you have done a decent job data-mining them you should be able to come up with a relatively accurate picture of them. And just like with the sex analogy, you would be getting positive or negative feedback indicating whether you are on target. If you engage in this imaginative exercise enough you can get quite good at it, the same way a professional pianist is not born with the ability to play, but can make it seem like he was with the ease with which he manipulates the keys. As I tell my loved ones all the time -- I don't understand you, but I can predict you very well.

If this is empathy, then I feel empathy. If empathy involves some automatic response to the emotions of another, though, or vicariously experiencing the emotions of another, then probably not. I don't feel vicariously what another feels any more than I vicariously feel the pleasure that I give someone else. Or maybe empaths don't feel empathy either. Maybe they think they are feeling what another feels, but really they are just projecting their own emotions on another.

Rejoinders, empaths?

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Child custody fights (part 1)

One of my readers has been going through child custody issues with her sociopathic ex and father of her child. It's an interesting subject, and I do believe that there are pretty common mistakes that empaths predictably make. About the topic generally, this lovefraud post is actually sound advice. But for a more personal angle, I asked my reader to write her story summing up some of the advice I had given her and how she applied it to her particular situation:
How do you deal with a sociopath when he's fathered your child?

It wouldn't be such a big deal if there wasn't so much at stake. Sure, there's the whole business of my heart. He didn't just break it, he masterfully chiseled at it until there was nothing left. I hardly knew I was being tormented as he romanced me into insanity, literally through hell and back. But that's another story for another time. The end result was that I finally left with what shreds of dignity I had left. I was three months pregnant.

Our relationship was convoluted with other women, one of whom he married around the time I was about four months along. She never knew about me, much less the impending baby.

When my daughter was born, I filed for child support, confident he would not pursue visitation in order to protect both his marriage and reputation in his community. He is a charming, executive director of a well-known non-profit organization and is socially active in his town. This, I believed, was my leverage. I would soon learn that when you choose to engage in battle with a sociopath, nothing is what it appears to be, and you have to step into his world, his rules, his games. It is not for the weak or faint of heart. You have to be strong, have an undetectable poker face, and be ready to call bluff when the timing necessitates (but be ready for the consequences of calling bluff - it will generate a strong reaction from your sociopath, which is not advisable when children are involved).

But...

It is also a delicate balance of knowing just exactly how far to push, and when to give in. I learned the hard way that you absolutely never, ever let a sociopath know what your vulnerability is. This seems like a no-brainer, but for me, the fear was all to real when he began to threaten me with visiting my infant daughter. Mistake Number One. It would prove to be a fatal mistake that would be difficult for me to overcome and regain my footing. I learned it became easier for me if he underestimated me. So I played the light-hearted airhead. Absent-minded, not a care in the world. This worked for a while. When it came closer to our court date, he pushed more and more to see my daughter. I told him he was more than welcome to stop by. And then I would inquire innocently how his wife was doing. This was just subtle enough to make him gently back off. We did this for a while until we met in court.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Potholes in the brain

What a quaint way to describe a sociopath's brain. Apparently that is all researches can come up with when they are trying to interpret the results of a study about brains scans on known criminal sociopaths:
Psychopaths who kill and rape have faulty connections between the part of the brain dealing with emotions and that which handles impulses and decision-making, scientists have found.

In a study of psychopaths who had committed murder, manslaughter, multiple rape, strangulation and false imprisonment, the British scientists found that roads linking the two crucial brain areas had "potholes", while those of non-psychopaths were in good shape.

The study opens up the possibility of developing treatments for dangerous psychopaths in the future, said Dr. Michael Craig of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, and may have profound implications for doctors, researchers and the criminal justice system.

"These were particular serious offenders with psychopathy and without any other mental illnesses," he told Reuters in an interview.

"Essentially what we found is that the connections in the psychopaths were not as good as the connections in the non-psychopaths. I would describe them as roads between the two areas -- and we found that in the psychopaths, the roads had potholes and weren't very well maintained."

The scientists cautioned against suggestions the study could lead to screening of potential psychopathic criminals before they are able to commit crimes, saying their findings had not established how, when or why the brain links were damaged.

"The most exciting question now...is when do the potholes come -- are people born with them, do they develop early in life, or are they a consequence of something else?"
***
Dr. Craig, who conducted the study, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry with colleagues Declan Murphy and Dr Marco Catani, stressed that the numbers in the brain scan study were small, with only nine psychopaths analysed and compared with nine non-psychopaths.

"Trying to get people of this particular type to take part in a study, and also then deal with all the security you need to get them into a brain scanner, is not an easy feat," he said.

The study used new brain imaging technology to further analyse psychopaths' brains after previous studies found that the amygdala part of the brain, which processes emotions, and orbitofrontal cortex, which handles impulses and decisions, are structurally and functionally different in psychopaths.

"Up until recently the technology hasn't been available to look at the connections between those two brain areas in any meaningful way," Dr. Craig said.

But a new technique, called diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI), allowed the researchers to look at the white matter tract linking the two key brain areas.

As well as finding clear structural deficits in the tract in psychopathic brains, they also found the degree of abnormality was significantly linked to the degree of psychopathy.

"As for the moral significance for society, and how society wants to deal with these things, that is a little premature," said Dr. Craig. "This is a small study and the important thing it raises is that more research needs to be done."
But seriously, just because the sociopath's brain obviously works differently than the empath's does not mean that one has "potholes" and the other is the Autobahn. Where are the studies showing the deficiencies of the empath's brain compared to the sociopath's? I guess they don't want to do those studies because "trying to get [empaths] of this particular type to take part in a study . . . is not an easy feat."

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Am I a sociopath? (part 6)

My long response:
Sorry I haven't written back sooner. I have been thinking a lot about what you wrote, though. Your story has reminded me so much of my own, and you are hitting this self-recognition point right about the same age that I did. I didn't start hitting my first rough patches in life or in interactions with others until my late teens, early twenties. Like you, whenever I had problems, I would doubt myself, wonder whether maybe things needed to change, maybe I needed to see the world a little differently -- but stuff would calm down and I was pretty Burkean about things -- if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I really had a skewed view of the world, too. I was so self-deceived. I felt like I was two people: I was the person I pretended to be, and I was the person I feared I was. I would snap back and forth between the two like Jekyll and Hyde. When I was trying to be good, by playing by the rules, I would be Jekyll, when things weren't going my way or I felt that other people were "cheating," I turned into Hyde. It's funny, by avoiding who we are as sociopaths, by trying to ignore or avoid our natural tendencies to manipulate and wear masks, we become even more manipulative and masked. We try to be something we are not, try to convince others that we are something we are not, we think our "emotional" reactions to things are justified and act accordingly, when really they are just Jekyll-crazy claims that we take as if they came from honest-Hyde. Do you know what I mean? It's one thing to hear voices telling us to kill people and realize that it is a hallucination, a side effect of a malfunctioning brain. It is quite another thing to hear the voice and think it is god telling us what we need to do. When we pretend that we aren't sociopaths, we take information and perceptions we receive with our sociopath brain and interpret it under what we think are empath rules. What we end up with is a ticking time bomb of self-deception and totally misguided beliefs and irrational behavior -- we literally act like we are crazy.

As a concrete and personal example of what I'm talking about, although I was widely respected and accomplished as a teenager, I never had close friends through my teenage years. After a long period of time in isolation due to my studies, I realized how important human interaction was compared to academic or professional achievements . When I reentered society, I put a huge emphasis on personal relationships, particularly friendship and camaraderie, but in what I see now as a very sterile, selfish way. Because of my natural skills, it was very easy to make friends -- I could be whatever they wanted. Plus I seemed to have everything and, despite that, still wanted to be their friend. People were flattered, but mere months in the friendship I would tire of things being always about them. Their faults would bother me, I would be mean, they would react poorly, things would escalate to the point of me flipping a switch to a total remorseless, vengeance-minded sociopath. I would pour out the wrath, and the other person would never be the same. I felt bad whenever this happened. I tried to figure out what went wrong, but always through my same lenses of self-deception. Kind of like your experience: "I've always reached a point of terror and confusion, and then I'd force everything to the back of my mind and go on trying to be a normal person." I would always go back to the same way of doing things, the same way of thinking. But I was increasingly afraid of myself, what I could do to people -- what I did do to people. I felt out of control. I started warning friends to watch out for me. The pattern continued until I had my own personal version of scorched earth. I retreated from society again and really tried to figure out this time what was happening, who I was. This time I was truly open to any real possibility.

What I came up with at the time was that I was different, I was special. Or perhaps more accurately, I had special powers and abilities, and that made me different. I felt like the proverbial superhero myth, originated with tales of the gods. Like Superman, like Heracles, (like Harry Potter even?), like so many other people born with talents for writing, theatre, dance, music, I seemed normal at first, indistinguishable from anyone else, really. But I wasn't -- I had a gift. That's how I thought of it back then. Just as I would think it was a waste if Bach had never written a note, Dickens had never written a line, etc. etc., I knew I had a responsibility to magnify my talents. Maybe this sounds grandiose or narcissistic, but it helped me to accept myself at the time, helped me reform good habits of dealing with myself and others. And it is true. The world needs people like us. We fulfill a very special function -- we have been evolutionary selected over millenia. And we are rare. That makes us very powerful, and yes, very special. Hating sociopaths is like hating a wildfire. We may seem destructive, but we pave the way for growth and renewal by rebooting the land back to a more pure state.

I would write more, answer questions from your earlier emails, but not now. Soon. But keep me informed. I am very happy for you.

Best,
M.E.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Acting normal: gateway drug to charming

Okay, as promised, I address the reader's question of how to act normal, or in this reader's particular case, charming.
Although I had a tumultuous childhood and adolescence, I am now 21 and more in control of myself than anyone I know. I watch others have emotional breakdowns and can only think that it looks like a lot of wasted effort on their part. I have learned facial expressions through FACS (the facial action coding system, used by investigators). Not a single person I know has guessed that I am anything other than well-adjusted and the most controlled person among a bunch of seniors panicking about the next few years of their life. I am not a criminal, nor do I have criminal intent, but I manipulate those around me just enough for them to leave me alone so that I can live a normal life. I am routine-oriented, and rarely let others get in the way. I am still working on a sort of a front, but I think I am well on my way to complete control of my own little spot in the world. I found your blog looking for strategies that sociopaths have used in their lives, as I hear that they have somehow learned to act "socially charming" and would like to acquire that skill as well for when I need it.
Acting normal is not an easy thing to learn. It is trial and error. It is specific to you. The good news is that the skills you learn to "pass" (manipulation, deflection, projecting confidence, listening skills, strategic flattery) are the same skills you use to be charming. This wikihow article about being charming is actually a good primer:
Charm is the art of having an attractive personality. This characteristic can only be achieved over a period of time. While everyone is born with differing amounts of natural charm, much can be acquired and honed through practice and patience. As with dancing, the more you practice, the better you will become. Effort and careful attention to the needs and desires of others will ensure that charm becomes a permanent part of your character.
Et cetera. There are also other books that have helped people, like Emily Post's Etiquette, How to Win Friends and Influence People, How to Talk to Anyone, among others. Use your sociopath wits and extreme objectivism and learn social graces like you learn anything else--hard work and genius.

It turns out that things like deflecting--always turning the conversation back onto the other person--and similar "smoke and mirrors" routines--are all things that people think are charming. It may take a while to get to the point of mastery, but if you are already "passing," sociopath charm is right around the corner.

I don't want to be normal

In a previous post, I quoted from a reader about normalcy. I apologize for the repetiton, but here are the relevant parts:
"Do you try to act normal? I don't know what I am, and I won't try to label myself. I don't want to be normal, but I need to learn to act normal. I don't feel how I should, but I want to learn to act that way so that I can keep my independence."
Here is one person's response to the issue of sociopaths and normalcy:
Human beings are born ignorant. We believe that we are special, yet ultimately we each must die and suffer the same ignoble end. After many years and much soul searching I began to wake up to this and begin to understand why I was so unhappy. Religion is a specialized madness. Morality is adherence to said madness. When you stop to ponder it, and I mean deeply ponder it, you will begin to understand what I mean. Study the work of Frank Herbert for the answers you seek. Every one who has posted here is NORMAL.

If we are all special, how can the group exist? Are we not in competition? Is the caste system wrong if it gives us purpose among the masses, or must we refute our place and strive for the purpose within? How can one fight the system and operate within it unless he/she us/we accept that our divinity/damnation is a personal choice. Why am I cursed with intelligence if I must acquiesce to my masters?
V! That's you, right? Or maybe you have a doppleganger. V's pet subject is normalcy and the sociopath, and how the world's perception of what is normal is really a perversion. I get it, and I like reading those arguments, but also I understand what our reader means: that even if there isn't such thing as normalcy, and/or sociopaths are superior anyway (i.e. if we're picking something to be normal, we should pick sociopathy), the truth is that sociopaths still have to slum it (i.e. act "normal") to get along in this world. More on acting normal in another post.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Dealing with sociopathy

Everyone always wants to know how to deal with sociopaths, even sociopaths themselves. But for many sociopaths, the most difficult sociopaths they will ever have to "deal" with are themselves. Says a reader:
I'd like to communicate with you, I haven't seen much on the internet from the view of a sociopath. Do you try to act normal? I don't know what I am, and I won't try to label myself. I don't want to be normal, but I need to learn to act normal. I want to keep myself out of jail, the mental hospital, that kind of thing that I've experienced too much. I haven't done anything wrong, but that's what people see in me so it doesn't matter what I do. I just want to live my life freely, unimprisoned. I don't feel how I should, but I want to learn to act that way so that I can keep my independence. Please let me know if you have any experience in this area. Thanks.
There were a lot of points in this comment as well as a follow up comment from the same author that I will address in a later post. The thing that struck me initially about this comment, however, was its similarity to another (long) comment I had seen on another site regarding hospitalization, et al:
I was diagnosed with ASPD in 1992, by a psychologist who gave me a "very poor" prognosis, automatically, due to the diagnosis. It took me over a decade to find a therapist who would actually treat me! Most took one look at my records and dumped me on the spot, because of the stigma attached to such a definition. "Doesn't ASK for help"???? HAH!!! How would they KNOW??? I was asking for help, for certain, but no one was listening. One of them actually said "You don't need a therapist, you need an EXORCIST!" Another threatened to call the cops, and I hadn't done anything! Still another called me "scary and dangerous" and instructed security to bar me from re-entering the building. Later she told a social worker that my EYES had scared her "half to death". Right, like I was giving her the "evil eye" or something. Give me a break. So much of it is just because of words: a label. I had a brief inpatient visit this Spring, partly because of this very same issue. I started shouting sarcastically in the middle of a psych-eval interview, "So, you all agree?!! Oh, WOW, watch OUT!!! I'm a PSYCHOPATH!!! I'm going to destroy the WHOLE WORLD!!!" at the top of my lungs. Not the best idea. I didn't exactly get my true point across. And I discovered that some shrinks just don't have a sense of irony at all; so, of course, I ended up getting committed. And during my stay, another patient, obviously of superior CONSCIENCE, tried to beat me with her Bible, to "get the devil out" of me! The nurses automatically accused me of lying about everything, no matter what the issue, and they kept yelling at me because they were constantly suspicious that I was "up to something". And of course, they just HAD to put me in a room alone; fine by me, if somewhat insulting. Did they think I was going to EAT a roommate?? Or maybe just LOOK at them -- because I started getting that business again from some of the patients and even staff, about giving them the so-called "evil eye" -- whatever. What do they see in my eyes??!! It's too much. Just everything. I'm sick of being treated like a female version of "Jason" or "Freddie"! People look at my psych records and get all these weird ideas, and they expect a cinematic show. Oh, and if I cry or show the slightest bit of pain, no way does anyone believe it's real; I'm automatically attacked for trying to put one over on someone with my "dramatic performance". So. I'm giving psychotherapy one last shot, with a therapist who can look me in the eye without suddenly turning into a panicky wreck. I guess that makes her special. That and the fact she sees me as just another human being, not a freak or "monster" or vessel of "pure evil," as I've been called. But now I finally believe that I'm not "sub-human". I've had extensive neurological testing, and I've been told by several specialists that parts of my nervous system are messed up. I sustained substantial trauma to the head as a child. Meanwhile, as I'm struggling through all that, plus (and especially) the emotional and cognitive aspects of my illness, it seems to me that the rest of the world is having a party to which I am always uninvited. I feel that way because they share things I will never know. Ever, as long as I live, no matter how much progress I do manage to make. Accepting that is very hard. Up until very recently, my hatred for the world was formidable. BUT one thing is vital to remember: IT WAS NEVER MY CHOICE to be as I am. People need to be aware that mental illness is first and foremost a PHYSICAL thing. No one CHOOSES to develop any form of it. The human brain is still a largely unfathomed territory. Less blame and judgment, more science and intervention, would go a long way toward preventing or at least much better management of disastrous illnesses such as mine. Hollywood shouldn't dictate all that people know about such things. Well, anyway. I just thought it was a good idea to offer another person's point of view. And, YES, I am a person, not an "it". Despite numerous protests to the contrary. So many people have called me "evil" -- if I believed it all, I'd end up committing suicide. Although the damage that was done to me so long ago, and what I was born with, cannot ever change, a lot can. I have already changed enough to be able to do something like writing here! Now all I want is to move as far beyond my staggering limitations as I possibly can do. I want a life. I live in self-imposed exile, isolated and reclusive. And yet, when someone tells me I'm "hopeless," it only makes me more adamant about breaking free of the mental cage in which I've spent my whole life -- so far. Statistically speaking, my expected lifespan might fall twenty years short of the general average. But I intend to defy that, too. I'm in great pain now, psychologically, because I'm facing things that are quite horrifying to remember, and it is necessary. But in spite of that, I am starting to conceive of having something worth living for...and THAT is brand new for me. One thing I never forget: "When you're going through hell, KEEP GOING!"
The primary lesson to be learned from this comment, I think, is never disclose to anyone that you are a sociopath, and for sure don't yell about it in the middle of a crowded room. For the high-functioning sociopaths among us, I think it is hard to even want to care about those of us who end up in prisons and hospitals. We want to believe that it is their fault--that they give the rest of us a bad name. But sometimes I really do wonder whether we disown them out of fear because we don't want to acknowledge that there could be a prison term and/or hospital cell in the future for every one of us.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Sociopaths speak out

Sociopaths describing how it feels to be them:
The main reason sociopaths don't usually seek help from their fellow human beings is that they can't trust, rather than that they like being as they are. Plus, they can often sense exactly what sort of a response any call for help on their part is most likely to elicit from professionals and lay folk alike. Sociopaths are not breezing along in paradise. It isn't all a game. It's a truly miserable existence. And it can be made better. It may not be "curable" yet, but it most certainly isn't as hopeless as so many people say. There is therefore nothing to be gained and much to be lost when therapists and lay folk try to ostracize sociopaths from the human race entirely! Sensationalism and superstition will only prevent progress.
Another quote from Wikianswers, along a similar vein:
Sociopaths, though born that way, are people too. To avoid an entire group of people is absurd. That's like saying, "Since these people have dark skin, everyone should completely avert themselves from them." I am a moderate sociopath, and though part of me doesn't want to change, another does. Many times it is really entertaining to see how stupid people can be, especially when they're so gullible as to believe every word that mellifluously flows from my lips. Yes, I am parasitic, but even so, there are some people I would like to stop hurting. I can't find any websites that can provide a way to help my sociopathy. Maybe people like you should stop your self-victimisation and start trying to actually help people like me!
And another, in response to a list of sociopathic traits:
umm... i kindof am one... just so y'all know, it's not so much fun being one either. i read that sentance up there, "Incapable of real human attachment to another." i don't even know what that is, i see it, i approximate it... it's like being outside a door looking through a dirty window and watching re-runs of people i've seen in love or with children or with friends, and scratching, sometimes banging at the glass to get in and... nothing. i'm fond of people in every sense of the word, their little quirks and habits, the way they see life, except if they went away it wouldn't bother me much other than finding someone else to be fond of. i don't have friends, i only date military men because they're ok with only having a girlfriend for a couple months and i tell them in advance i won't wait for them... i don't know what else to do to limit the damage i inflict on others just as a result of them knowing me, short of moving to the mountains... but i still move between 2-5 times a year :( it's kindof hard walking around knowing i'll never have what i see making other people so happy and running when i can tell someone is getting close just because i don't want to hurt them more later down the road... i'd like it alot to settle down, i WANT to be able to feel more with people, but it's hard to miss what you never had. i want what i THINK it would feel like... it'd be easy to give in and let someone stay because i'm so lonely... but hey, i've written enough, just know i try to be a responsible little sociopath, i won't ever get married or have kids, i practice safe sex, i won't stay in one city for long... everything you all take for granted i will never let myself have just because i WANT to take it for granted. being like this won't go away so hopefully i can limit the amount of hate thrown my way by limiting my interaction with people, i don't know what else to do. and you all might not belive this, but i am sorry, hopefully i can speak for the other people who have damaged your lives.
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