Literature: Interview with the Vampire (part 2)

The other selections from Interview with the Vampire that I thought were interesting included this one about apparent inconsistencies, particularly with regard to being able to feel but also being detached:

You ask me about feeling and detachment. One of its aspects, detachment with feeling, I should say, is that you can think of two things at the same time. You can think that you are not safe and may die, and you can think of something very abstract and remote. And this was definitely so with me.

I think this accurately describes sociopaths as well.  Sociopaths are notorious for holding two inconsistent views at the same time.  I believe this is due to their exceptional ability to compartmentalize.  This ability to compartmentalize also manifests itself in the way sociopaths feel and express feelings -- sometimes there, sometimes not really there at all, sometimes an inappropriate emotion.

I realize that normal people are also quite capable of being grossly inconsistent, but for some reason I feel like there is a difference there.  I believe that people who do that successfully are employing extensive amounts of self-deception, whereas a sociopath is more likely to see every distinction collapsing in on itself at a certain level of abstraction and so there is no such thing as "inconsistent."

Another quote was from a vampire about his choice not to exercise the influence he naturally would have had being the eldest among them:

If I exercise such power, then I must protect it. I will make enemies. And I would have forever to deal with my enemies when all I want here as a certain space, a certain peace. Or not to be here at all. I accept the scepter of sorts they've given me,but not to rule over them, only to keep them at a distance.

This was also brought up in the book "Power", this issue of whether and when people choose to cultivate power.  Sometimes I would read things in "Power" and think, yes, I guess that is a form of power to take over the planning and production of a charity event, but for what purpose?  Maybe some people (control freaks) would choose to take on thankless, go nowhere jobs for the sake of power, but I don't tend to be one of them.  It's the same reason why I don't really think most high profile politicians are sociopaths but more likely narcissists.  I believe there is too much thankless work required to achieve power as an elected public official.  Unelected political officials (shadow players, as one of my friends used to call them) are an entirely different story.

Why we need psychopaths (part 3)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which sociopath thoughts are most popular/beneficial?

Forgive the intrusion on our regular scheduled programming. I'm working on a little project and would like some feedback (probably will leave this up for two days in a row for more time to think, respond, and interact). I've been trying to come up with a half dozen to a dozen ways that sociopaths think or methods of how they go about doing a particular thing that they find helpful or that other people would find helpful to either learn how to do or at least learn more about.

One that I thought about was a sociopath's ability to not feel guilt, or other ways to tame or otherwise interact with emotions (particularly negative ones?). Emotional detachment? Others?

Another thought was about how sociopaths might be more efficient or productive in certain aspects or have thought patterns or methods that can sometimes make them more efficient or productive. Ability to compartmentalize? To either hyper focus or not focus on something? Others?

Finally, I was thinking that there are ways that the sociopath sees the world, especially maybe in terms of power structures/hierarchies or utilitarianism or others?

Sociopaths advise sociopaths

Convo with thunderball (my responses in bold):

Hello M.E.,

I sometimes post as thunderball, george cromwell III and anonymously on your blog. I find what you write on there very intriguing. I am still very much trying to find myself or even decide 100% if I am a sociopath. I'm at the 80% point but still am trying to finalize my thoughts. Sorry to try and corner you on your blog, but I found it odd you didn't respond to anyone. It became a challenge to try and get you to comment. As you can see from my comments I've been very extroverted and narcissistic in my actions on your blog and in life over the last few years. That's interesting because the traditional wisdom is that sociopaths mellow with age.

I was far more introverted in my teenage years, perhaps more thoughtful in my actions. Mind you, I was violent as a teenager, as I felt I could get away with it. I also stole quite a bit and was very manipulative. To the point now I don't have any contact with people I was friends with at that time. Dare I say they don't want any contact with me. I've tried to get in contact due to curiosity, but most didn't respond through facebook, and the ones that did kept their distance even then. Yeah, I have a lot of old friends who I know would hate to be back in contact with me. I don't even bother trying. I know some of them have very specific reasons, and I suspect others just get a general bad vibe.

Sorry for the rambling, this is as much me trying to organize my thoughts as give you some background. I find myself very manipulative at work. In the past I've had a strong push to pit people against each other and after years of doing this I think I have a reputation for this among some of the employees. Ever since then and because of this I've become much more open about my dislike and manipulativeness, ultimately to my detriment. I haven't lost my job or anything, but I've become ineffective in going anywhere in the company and ineffective in controlling what those around me do. I feel like I've lost a lot of the subtlety and well thought out thinking processes I used to have. To be honest I feel ineffective and not very bright. I've pushed the limits without regard to consequence. Yeah, one of my most tempting impulses is to disclose who I really am to people. Bad idea. I used to be very reckless with my identity. Luckily I was able to learn vicariously through work experiences what a bad idea that is, and how much harm can come from that. Instead I try to provide myself relatively safe outlets for self disclosure, like this blog.

Anything I've written here is really just a summation of what I feel are failures and poignant examples of how ineffective I have been so far in my life. I guess I want some stability to some degree so I will be more enabled to do what I want.

Have you found this to be true of yourself? Have you gone through a period where you pushed the boundaries and let everything fall apart? Yes, when I was younger especially, particularly when i felt very conflicted about my identity. I couldn't distinguish well between the mask and who I really was. Either I would overestimate the power of my mask to conceal my actions, or I got so disgusted with the mask that I threw it away and just indulged my every evil impulse in plain sight. To avoid this, there needs to be balance. There needs to be a certain amount of honesty with even strangers, like half masks, otherwise the stress of deception is too great -- you lose touch with who you are. The key is finding the outlets for self-expression that are the least destructive to your chosen lifestyle.

I even feel like what I have written above lacks a certain subtlety and sharpness. I am doubting myself right now in a big way. Hence the 20% of me questioning who I really am. Wouldn't a sociopath not care? Sociopaths probably care more than most. We pretend so much, we have to wonder what is true and what is fake.

I feel like I lack a certain confidence. When put into the mix of people I exude confidence, but when I think about things later I pick conversations apart. I try to improve on my interactions but ultimately I see all the little and big flaws in myself and actions. Have you experienced this? Yes. Professional performers are the same way. When you are up on stage you have to stay very in the moment, being a showman. Afterward you can self-criticize, but not during. If you play a wrong note, sing a wrong lyric, trip over a joke, you have to keep going -- push it immediately out of your mind. You'll just make it worse if you think about it. That doesn't mean you have or don't have confidence. What is confidence anyway? It seems like it is just an ability to compartmentalize, to say to yourself, there is a time and a place for questioning, and it is not now. Arrogance is when people never take the time to self-question. Timidity is when people never take the time to act.

People tell me I come across as extremely bright and communicate well. I don't really feel that way. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel depressed about this, just agitated more so. I used to feel deep depression years ago, but it all just disappeared at one point. Poof, gone. Has this happened to you? Yeah, I can get blue, particularly seasonly. I used to get depressed all the time around my birthday. Birthdays used to be reminders of the horrible person I thought I was. Once I confronted myself, and was able to acknowledge there are good and bad parts about me, and that mostly I just "am," I got over the depression. I know I have to reset in a way, but don't really know how. I don't want to quit my job because I get good medical and pay, but it's going no where. I would love to cast off all the people I know now and dissappear into a new life, become someone different. I just can't bring myself to do it. Too costly, too many sacrifices.

A shift in focus can go both macro and micro. If you feel like you're not seeing the forest for the trees, sometimes the answer is to take a step back and focus on forest. But sometimes it is better give up on seeing forests and instead take a step forward and focus on the bark or leave structure of a particular tree. Do you know what I am saying? Big changes are very risky (which is why they are overly appealing to sociopaths). And there is little guarantee that they will make you happier. It is much more likely that picking up an additional hobby that you enjoy or otherwise making small improvements to the quality of your life will increase your overall sense of well-being.

From what I've written here and on your blog what is your view of me? Do you need more info to come to a conclusion? Feel free to ask any questions. I'll answer honestly because I am really looking for some answers. I think that you mainly sound bored. Not surprisingly, boredom is a constant plague of the sociopath. A lot of sociopaths self-medicate for boredom by resorting to quick fixes -- creating chaos, destroying people. These tactics don't work as well when you have become as established in the normalcies of life as you have. Posting comments on the blog can be entertaining, or at least you seem to enjoy engaging people in relatively meaningless altercations, enjoy provoking people, and enjoy trying to manipulate people. It's also relatively harmless since no one knows who you are. I guess that is the magic of the internet. But in regards to your claim that you are searching for answers -- to what questions? From what you have written here, writings that you have described yourself as "rambling," "lacking sharpness, " characterized by "doubt" and "questioning," it seems like your first priority is to really think exactly what questions you are trying to answer. Once you do that, I think you will find that the answers will soon follow.

Thanks ahead of time for your response and I do really appreciate your blog. Its helped a lot. Of course feel free to post this on your blog and any other interactions we may have.

Thanks again.

Collapsing upon abstraction

The clip below is interesting. It is relatively easy for me to think abstractly, which also makes it very easy for me to compartmentalize. As a child I used to practice abstract thinking all time. I always liked to keep in mind the big picture. Even when I was very young, I wanted to know what was going on, and I kept a mental map of where i was at all times. In school when we discussed a new concept, I would constantly flash between the forest and the trees. Visually I would practice finding diamonds in chain link fences, trying to build bigger and bigger diamonds by forcibly expanding my vision. This facility with abstract thought allows me to hold two opposing viewpoints because, as the video clip makes clear, at a certain level of abstraction it all collapses.

When I first learned about the distortions that occur on maps of the world vs. globes, I found it fascinating: you take three dimensional concepts and try to represent them in a two dimensional world, but it never looks quite right. Similarly, I don't think I have ever believed that there is such things as a completely accurate truth for anything. It is not that I believe that truth is relative because I do think there is absolute truth. We just have a flawed ability to perceive it or completely comprehend it.

Compartmentalizing

A reader asked me how a sociopath could seemingly feel one way about something one day and feel something entirely inconsistent another day. I responded:

Sociopaths seem to be exceptionally good at compartmentalizing, which would explain why it is possible for him both to have cared (and perhaps still care) for you very much but seem to not be at all interested in you now. A good way for normal people to understand the extent to which this works is to think of a vivid dream, perhaps an anxiety dream in which you dream of things that need to happen, projects that need to get done, problems that need to get solved. During the dream you get very caught up in the urgency of things, whatever it is that you are dreaming about becomes very important to you, you can't imagine a world in which this was not a primary concern for you. When you wake up from the dream there are still lingering feelings of the dream. Perhaps you just have the feeling that you need to do something, or maybe you actually remember specifics of what you supposedly "need" to do. Within the first fifteen minutes or so of wakefulness, however, you eventually realize that it was just a dream, that you really don't have to worry about those things at all, and so you continue living this other life and quickly forget about the dream life. That is how much sociopaths can compartmentalize. The dream world never fully goes away, maybe they remember some of it, or something will remind them of it, but for the most part it and the feelings felt are a faint memory. Those feelings associated were "real" in that they reflect how the sociopath would feel under the circumstances of the dream, but those circumstances just turned out not to be true.

I wonder whether the mechanism of compartmentalizing for the sociopath is the same as the mechanism that allows people with multiple personality disorder to have separate personalities each living essentially independent lives, sometimes unaware of each other.

More on loyalty

A reader asks:

How can you be loyal if you are a sociopath? I ask because I'm reading a lot about sociopaths and recovery from pathological relationships. And reading that being unfaithful is one characteristic.

My response:

Good question. I actually think it is very easy for a sociopath to be loyal. In some ways it's easier for them than it is for an empath to be loyal. To be truly loyal, you have to adopt a certain reality. For instance, to be patriotic you have to be "my country, right or wrong" (to take the popularly misquoted, and I think more accurate version). People loyal to Hitler had to drink the Kool-Aid, had to adopt his reality, his world view, his everything. If they didn't, then when the going got tough, they would betray him. Is that loyalty? I don't think so. But sociopaths can be this loyal if they choose. They have such a flexible sense of self and an ability to compartmentalize that together allow them to adopt your reality or Hitler's reality or really anything they want to believe. Why would we want to do it? I don't know, why not? For me, as I said, I use it when I am trying to maintain an interpersonal relationship.

I'm not saying empaths can't be loyal. There are probably more loyal empaths than sociopaths, even per capita. I'm just saying being a sociopath doesn't preclude the possibility of displaying incredible amounts of loyalty, particularly for the "favorites" that we have chosen. There's pretty much nothing I wouldn't do for some of my loved ones -- literally. I know empaths say that a lot, but I think it's obvious why that might be even more true for a sociopath friend.

Negative emotions

A reader asks me what sorts of negative emotions I feel: "You've written of loyalty, gratitude, exhilaration (when winning or achieving something), a desire to be in control, etc. I'd like to know more about the other end of the spectrum." My response:

I haven't really thought about this much. One thing that I like about the way my brain works is that it is very easy for me to compartmentalize, so usually I am an optimist, not prone to depression etc. Plus I am very sensitive to pleasure, like I must have too much serotonin or something, but I do sometimes feel down. Some sociopaths are particularly susceptible to depression, or I have a few readers at least who feel debilitating depression.

I was talking with a friend about this and asked what it looks/sounds/feels like when I am allegedly depressed. She said that it just seems like I am frustrated with my inability to think, which I think is accurate. I think when I feel "down," it is usually because my mind has lost some of its functionality, either because I am sick, tired stressed, or the brain is overtaxed. My friend also described her own depression, as a comparator. She said that she puts so much of her identity in how she feels, that when she is feeling poorly, she has a bit of a crisis of identity. I believe that is true for me too. I believe that I put so much of my identity in how I think ("I am how I think") that when my brain is sluggish and not performing up to par, I also have a crisis of identity. Being a sociopath already feels really empty, which I am fine with because I have never experienced anything different (and question whether anything different even exists). So emptiness is something you just have to learn to deal with day to day, like any other chronic illness, but sometimes it flares up or something irritates it, like a sluggish mind. And sometimes it gets really bad, like a crisis of identity, inflamed, and probably the only solution at that point is to (self) medicate it, dull it, quiet the deafening silence of the void, and maybe even that won't help. When it gets really bad, there's a hopelessness in wondering whether I'll ever go back to feeling like myself again. If I never go back to feeling normal, will I still be me? That's a really disturbing concern. I have never, ever have thoughts of suicide, but I do think there are worse things than dying.

Sociopaths and Compartmentalization YouTube Interview

We had such great feedback on the Brad longer Zoom that I'm experimenting with the longer format, so this morning I did one with just Arya and Elsa (the time constraint doesn't kick in unless there are multiple people on the call) and I continue to like the results. I'll probably either continue to do one on ones to avoid the Zoom time limit or just bite the bullet and buy a pro Zoom account. If I do the former, I'll upload the one on ones to YouTube and post here. I'll also do a live shorter Zoom session at least once a month. If you have strong opinions either way, let me know in the comments!

From this morning's one on one with Arya and Elsa:

Author of Confessions of a Sociopath M.E. Thomas and two 20 something female psychopaths discuss the role of compartmentalization for neurotypical people and for psychopaths. Normal people experience their self as a stable concept and when they have experiences that are inconsistent with their self, they experience cognitive dissonance. To avoid or resolve the cognitive dissonance, they can do one of three things: (1) change their behavior to be consistent with their self-conception, (2) change their belief about their self to be consistent with their behavior, (3) compartmentalize and essentially ignore the dissonance. Psychopaths do not experience these things as much because they have a very weak sense of self. 

There is a second use of the word compartmentalization, which is to keep thoughts and parts of our life separate to avoid conflict, to avoid worrying or being concerned about something, or to be more efficient. In this second sense of the word compartmentalization is something that psychopaths tend to do frequently, perhaps even better than normal people. Because of their weak sense of self, they feel less conflict from holding inconsistent viewpoints or manifesting inconsistent behaviors. 

Married to BPD (part 1)

From a reader:

I am intrigued by your honesty on your almost autobiographical perspective on sociopathy. You have quite an insightful blog that is helping me gain some different perspectives. I don't think all sociopaths are bad people, just as I don't believe all empaths are good people. 

Recently, I married a woman I knew for a relatively short amount of time (4 months and we've been married since May) out of impulse and I have come to the realization that she may be a Borderline. When it's good, it's great...but when it's bad, it's horrid. When we fight, I become just as bad as her, trying to one-up her or try to control her, as she tries with me. I have never had these sort of power struggles with anyone. But my emotions have been on a roller coaster ride for the past nine months . Never have I experienced such exhilarating pleasure and turmoil at the same time with one person.

I recently joined an online "BPD" support forum for Non's and have come to fine many "veteran Non's" who ended up with BPD's (often bitter) express a common opinion and that is that the BPD label is actually a farce, namely created by "recovered borderlines" and those with empathy towards females afflicted with sociopathy.

In my personal opinion about the Cluster B's...From what I've gathered thus far, I am starting to believe that BPD is in actuality a form sociopathy and Histrionics may just be an offshoot of Narcissism. Modern psychology likes to compartmentalize everything into "disorders" as to easier "label" an individual. I agree with doing away with such compartmental labels and placing diagnoses into degrees on a spectrum, such as high functioning, low functioning and everything in between.

I consider myself to be a low-level sociopath (anti-Narcisssistic). I do have some of the tendencies (I often switch between apathy and empathy...and certain things I cannot feel, but I consider myself to be an empath for the most part). But my philosophy that if you mess with me, I will go out of my way to make your life hell, reinforces my belief of my tendencies.

Thus, I would like your opinion on BPD? Do you think it's a solid label or is it a variant of sociopathy? Thus I think my wife has "BPD"...Sociopathy. But she intrigues me and although we have highs and lows, the relationship is nothing close to boring. I love her and would like to make this work. I just want to know something, am I merely an object to her, a possession? Or do you feel sociopaths are capable of love in their own way? There are many good qualities with the bad...or is that just part of an act?

BBC's Sherlock Holmes

I finally got around to watching the first few episodes of the BBC version of Sherlock Holmes. The show is fun to watch, but mainly for how the writers choose to portray a "high-functioning sociopath." For those of you unaware of the quote/scene in which BBC Sherlock outs himself:

Some have suggested that the BBC's Sherlock is not a high-functioning sociopath, but on the autism scale, probably Asperger's or maybe the more dickish Ass-perger's. The reasoning is that he doesn't seem particularly charming, nor particularly interested in wearing masks. But BBC Sherlock can act normally when he wants to, even charming, as reflected in this clip:



I don't think BBC Sherlock is an entirely accurate depiction of a high-functioning sociopath, but he is quite good, at least in broad strokes -- ambisexual, morally ambivalent, constant need for stimulation, ADD, obsessed with playing games to keep his brain from "rotting", unapologetically uses people, chooses to do "good" only because it's convenient and not because of any concern for the people he is "helping," incredible ability to compartmentalize, seductive, compelling, obsessive, flexible and ambiguous personality, seemingly inconsistent behavior or beliefs, actively cultivates and wields power, thinks the world of himself but is realistic about his shortcomings, mental maps of his physical and personal environments, manipulative, cunning, capacity for single-mindedness but also easily distracted, etc. The exact ways in which these traits are portrayed sometimes seem ridiculous, like this explanation of why Sherlock wouldn't know certain basic facts, like the make-up of the solar system, because he is so hyper focused on other things that he finds much much more interesting:

But most of television focuses on the outrageous and the exaggerated. If BBC Sherlock weren't so extreme in some of his sociopathic traits, he wouldn't be as fun to watch. But as a message to any BBC executives who may be reading -- if you're really interested in making BBC Sherlock as accurate as possible, I'm available for a very reasonable consultation fee.

Of course this is an essentially useless analysis of a fictional character, but it's heartening to see on television another sympathetic portrayal of a (presumably) self-diagnosed high-functioning sociopath, and of course people's relatively positive reactions to him.

The definitive sociopath test?

I was talking with a socio reader about the possibility of someone developing a foolproof method for identifying/diagnosing sociopaths (e.g. brain scans), and what that would mean in terms of our own sense of self and identity:

You know, I have given a lot of thought over the last year about whether this sociopath label really does fit or if I am trying to make it fit when it really doesn’t. As we both agree, in the end it doesn’t really matter anyway. The value of the exercise for me though, was conceptualizing my life experience in an entirely different but ultimately much more enlightening way. That is what matters.

I think the people that say that you and your readers are not sociopaths are right and wrong. They are right to the degree that people like us are indeed not like the prison/institutionalized population. Obviously. They are wrong to then surmise that the label has little to no direct link to what is referred to the suite of behaviors collectively referred to as sociopathy. Everyone assumes all sociopaths must look exactly like the ones in prison and if you don’t, the label can have zero relevance to you (or me). That assumption is based on a lack of research as well as a lack of independent thinking. I know. Even as I don’t wrap myself up with that label or identify all of myself with it, I nevertheless recognize it’s utility. I don’t have to say any of this to you. I’m preaching to the choir.

Bottom line for me anyway, is that I wouldn’t be shocked to discover that my brain looks normal. It really could be that those psychopaths whose brains look different are different in precisely those ways that gave rise to behaviors that landed them in prison to begin with. It might go back to the whole primary versus secondary psychopath distinction. The primaries may be the way they are because of their brains while the secondaries may be the way they are because of social/childhood issues. Maybe you and I would fall under the secondary category. Who knows? Although I do think it would be interesting to have more scientific research done on this, research involving an entirely non-institutionalized population of would be sociopaths. There would be many correlations between the two groups I’m sure (prison verses non-imprisoned), but I imagine there would also be some interesting and maybe even startling differences. While we’d share traits like a relative absence of conscience, low empathy, shallow emotions, an aptness for deception and manipulation, grandiose sense of self, etc, all the traits that set us apart from the psychological average, there might be some very important reasons why you and I aren’t in prison while the prototypical sociopaths are. Has there been any research done in this particular area?

Having said all of that, an exciting possibility that the naysayers brings up is that maybe we are so different that no one has thought of a label for us yet. Maybe we aren’t sociopaths at all. Maybe we represent undiscovered country, psychologically speaking. Who knows?

In any event, finding out your brain looks perfectly normal wouldn’t change a thing about your life experience up to this point, would it? It would be like a homosexual (I like using homosexuals as examples) discovering that his brain looks precisely like a heterosexual’s would. So what? Would that knowledge change him into a hetero? Would he suddenly start liking women? Would the results of this scan invalidate everything he’d been through his entire life? Would he have to force himself to like women because a brain scan indicates that his preference for men may have more to do with how he grew up and less to do with his genes and hormones? I don’t think anyone would seriously suggest that other than the religious fundies. I think it would be similar for you (and for me). Ditto for Hare’s checklist. I have already surmised that I wouldn’t score high enough on his list to justify labeling me as a Hare psychopath. I’m guesstimating that I’d get somewhere between a 22 and 26 tops and in the US, you have to score 30. What would it mean to have that guess proved right if the test was administered to by Hare himself? Not much.

I asked myself why I did the verbal diarrhea thing with this response. It’s because your email struck a chord. I spent so many years trying to be normal. I kept thinking that if I found my calling or found my true love (that was back at the beginning of my search phase, in my early twenties… my ex-wife quickly disabused me of that fantasy), found god, found spiritual enlightenment, I would then be full of all those emotions I lacked. I thought it was the absence of these things that created the absence, the vacancy, I saw within myself. That’s what movies and books and TV and my family and friends all told me in one way or the other. I was stupid and blind enough to believe them. It wasn’t until a few years ago, when the search began to look like the dead end it was, that I finally started giving up hope. During that winding down period I had my “wow, I have went about my search in an entirely self centered way” insight. You know the drill, seducing, manipulating, then abandoning once I discovered that the other person or persons didn’t have what I was looking for. I hadn’t thought of it that way at all up until that moment of insight. I suppose that in a very real sense, I discovered that I was a bit of an emotional vampire. A year or so later, I found your blog and for the first time, someone else had my experiences. Someone else knew what I had gone through because they had gone through life in a very similar way. Even down to the moment in your childhood when you knew something had changed and that you couldn’t go back! I’d never told any of my closest friends or family that, yet you’d been through it yourself! Finding out my brain looks normal wouldn’t alter any of that. Not one single bit. In fact and if anything, it would only deepen the mystery. If we can’t point to any specific neural distinctions, then what the hell created the differences? Why do I not understand guilt on an emotional level after all these years? Why are my emotions so superficial? Why don’t I have a stable sense of self? Etc.

Ok, I’ll stop now. You just got me thinking for a bit, that’s all. What would it mean to you to discover that per your brain scan or per Hare’s checklist, you can’t possibly be a socio/psychopath?

It's funny, how we're always going on about self-awareness and self-knowledge, trying to ferret out or at least understand any delusions. Sometimes I wonder if so much self-introspection can actually create delusions, though. I know how easy (sickly easy) it is for me to compartmentalize and have one part of me trick the other part. I've done it in the past and lived lies for years. Am I currently in the middle of a delusion? Is everything I think I know about who I am and what sort of world I live in completely delusional? Including being socio-leaning?

Sometimes I think to myself, if my life depended on it, would it be easier for me to prove that I am a sociopath, or that I am not. Interestingly, I think it is my "sociopathic" traits that would make either scenario seem about equally likely or unlikely. There does seem to be something to it all, though, something consistent between me and other people that find me at this site, although I'm not wedded to the term "sociopath." Sometimes it's creepy what I discover in common with those who email me. Whatever I am, there must be a lot of others like me.

Giving in

One symptom of my life being too legitimate recently is an increasing need to exercise self-control, a resource that recent research suggests is in limited supplies:

Results suggest that "people have a diminishable supply of energy that the body and mind use to engage in self-control," says study author Kathleen Vohs, a consumer psychology professor at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. "When people use this energy toward achieving one goal, they have less of it available to use toward achieving other goals."

***
Results suggest loss of self-control resources isn't the same as being tired, she says. "The ability to engage in self-control is determined by prior use of self-control, not by how much sleep one had the night before."
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Sian Beilock, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, says it's interesting that "being taxed in terms of doing one task can have these spillover effects on another." People may think they can compartmentalize the different tasks they do during the day, but it turns out they are all connected, she says.
***
For the rest of us, Vohs recommends being more mindful of priorities:

"When you want to engage in good self-control, the best thing that you can do for yourself is set up your day so you exert your self-control resources toward that specific task you want to succeed at."

Maybe this explains why I have been needing so much alone time recently. My social interactions used to be casual, more for pleasure and relaxation. As my life gets more legitimate, more of my social interaction is professional and highly visible. Consequently, I have had to exercise more self-control in dealing with others. However it is important to realize that exercising self-control in one situation, even in a relatively meaningless social interaction, could hurt the amount of self-control I could muster in another situation in which it might be more important for me to exercise self-control.

The article is right, it's a question of being mindful of priorities and not being a spendthrift with scarce resources. Instead of denying myself all the time, I should find healthier outlets so I can be around people without exercising so much self-control, perhaps athletics or music.

Coming out to your family

With the holidays upon us, a story about being out with your family. From a reader:

You're going to love this. Dad's a US Army chaplain (former civilian pastor), Mum's in seminary getting her M.Div, and younger sister's, well, she's still an innocent high school student. That would make me a sociopath pastor's kid. Once everyone got over the initial shock of my nature, we had a good laugh about the irony. Parents are empaths by occupational hazard, whilst my kid sister is an empath by nature. They all know about it, and they don't necessarily dislike talking about it. I'll ask for their perspective on certain things, and they respond with wholehearted earnest. They just dislike hearing about my exploits and modus operandi, haha. Perhaps it's less dislike and more morbid curiosity due to our brains being wired so radically differently, because they always ask about the outcome. I guess you could say that they're my greatest cheerleaders. Just not when I'm lying to lie, manipulating others for my benefit, or pursuing sexual relationships since I'm not married, etc. That's why it's kind of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, haha. And I do things for them, like putting up a believably genuine front for Dad's congregation, people I have to impress at university, etc. The thing that bothers them most is the characteristic lack of conscience. No surprise there.

My own family is equal parts disbelief and acceptance about who I am. I guess that way they get the best of both worlds -- deniability, but also an easy excuse for my ill behavior that doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on them. My parents are religious too. Sometimes my mother asks me about the blog, says do I ever have the chance to share my religious beliefs with others. I tell her yes. They think I'm helping others, and I don't think that is wrong, necessarily. The older they get, the funnier they get. Like at a recent family reunion, they were talking about my cousin having a viral youtube clip. My mother started telling them about my blog and about how crazy "technology" is these days. I didn't realize what was going on until she yelled over to me, "What's the name of your blog again? Psycho something?" in front of my entire extended family.

I'm really grateful for my family. I think they have helped me more than anything else to feel like I am an integral part of the human race and that my choices define me more than anything else. Whether or not those things are actually true, I think it makes my life better to believe them (even compartmentalize-believe them) and act on them (for the most part).

High on Life

I was watching an interview with Deepak Chopra and some other scientists and he mentioned bio-regulation of autonomic functions through heightened awareness. I was intrigued because I felt like I had personal experiences that confirmed what he was saying, thinking myself to more dopamine. I found this interview that references such a possibility:

I do think technology is a huge advantage, taking us into an exploration of the hidden dimensions of our own existence. And that includes consciousness, that includes the subtle levels of awareness, that includes the autonomic functions.

I see that in about five or 10 years, if we are successful, you could go to a doctor and say, “You know, I have migraine headaches” or even a narrowing of the coronary arteries, and the doctor will say, “Well, I can give you a prescription or you can play a video game. How's that?” And I think it will happen. You know the biofeedback responds to the autonomic nervous system, it responds to what is called the RR variability in your heart, it measures skin resistance, and soon brain waves. I know one of the things that is very likely in the future is that you could take drug addicts and train them through this technology to understand what happens in their nervous system when they're experiencing a drug high. And then through the appropriate bio-regulation, you can have them regulate their brain waves, so that they can have the same experience without taking the drug. And I think all that is wonderful. Technology can take you to a certain point. It can give you insights, just like in the 60s people had great insights taking LSD and mushrooms and all that. I think now we have enough biotechnology and bio-regulation that can do that perhaps even better.

But ultimately the exploration of consciousness has to go beyond technology. It takes time, it takes discipline, it takes intentionality, it takes sincerity, it takes a great of deal authenticity to be wanting to go there - not just for the experience, but because you know that that experience will take you from your personal self into your more interdependent collective and hopefully Universal self.

My bet is that if bioregulation of autonomic functions is possible, sociopaths would excel at this because of their ability to compartmentalize and hyperfocus. Thoughts?

I meant to write this...

I meant to write this in a grandiose fashion when I first thought about writing something here as a guest. I found the mental state to do that too hard to reach and it would have meant manipulating myself in such a way that my views would alter. So I just gave it a go.

I think I might be a narcissistic sociopath. Not because I manipulate, not because I don't seem to have what it is called affection, but because I am an outsider in society. I read a lot about sociopathy, psychopathy and ASPD which from what I understand they are three different things. The actions of psychopaths that are being portrayed by writers (Martha Stout, Robert Hare, Hervey Cleckley and others around the web) don't seem relevant to me because all that is written and depicted in their stories is purely circumstantial. Each one of us has to do what he has to do. I will never think of my past and say that I wanted to do harm here and there. Instead I firmly believe that I am a good man, have done nothing wrong, only what was necessary. If someone comes to me and tells me that I have hurt them, I immediately try to apologize and make them understand my behavior.

This blog has helped me because I felt lost in the vortex of my urges. I wanted to be normal and everything I did seemed to be out of the ordinary. I didn't understand why I did what I did and why I didn't feel anything. If I wouldn't have found this blog I would've surely ended up in prison by the time I reached 30. Finding this blog allowed me to sit on it a while and think and compartmentalize.

As I said, I don't feel that I am doing anything wrong and when I read about reoffending sociopaths I see them somewhat below me, stupid and unable to control themselves.

The facts that strongly point me to thinking that I am a sociopath are the simple things, not the schemes I involve myself into. I am asexual, I don't have any opinions, I can say whatever it is need for me to say without it affecting me, I don't fit in any group in the whole world.

Before I started reading this blog I felt that the whole world was against me because I thought that everybody was thinking like me. When someone tried to give me some advice, I took it as manipulation, when someone helped me I took it as their way to indebt me, I didn't even trust my mother. Now I understand that the people do things that I don't understand for reasons I don't understand and I can pretend I understand and go with the flow.

Dark matter

Some minor health issues have had me thinking recently about diagnoses of exclusion. There are certain things that we can never prove, we can only prove that they must exist because there is an observable effect with no other explanation. Certain stomach viruses are diagnoses of exclusion, so is love and religion/god. Along those same lines, a reader asked, " is it possible for a sociopath to be self aware when there is no self construct?" I responded:

Your question is interesting and implicates what it means to know anything about oneself. Whenever I write things that would be considered autobiographical about myself, I always wonder -- is this the truth? Is this what actually happened? I'm sure everyone feels this way to a certain extent, but I wonder if my weak sense of self combined with my ability to hyper-compartmentalize makes me even more susceptible to those effects. I often question the objective veracity of my reality -- I acquired that habit a decade or so after I went on a self-deception binge that ended very poorly. If I'm not careful, I am just as likely to hide certain things from myself as I am to hide them from outsiders, like Hyde hiding things from Jeckyl, or more modernly Tyler Durden and the Narrator. This may be why it is commonly said that sociopaths are not aware enough to even wonder whether they are sociopaths (although clearly the oft heard suggestion that "if you think you might be a sociopath, you aren't one" is an exaggeration).

It is true what you said about the difficulties of being self-aware without a self construct. A lot of it is indirect observation, I think, like how we know that there exists dark matter in the universe not because we can see or measure it directly, but because we can see its effects so we presume it to be there. I guess that is how society knows that there are psychopaths among them as well -- we typically stay hidden, albeit in plain sight, but you can certainly see our effects.

How to detect when someone is lying

Everybody has some ability to detect whether people are lying or not, though some of us are better at it than others. Psychologist Paul Ekman has developed a tool that he believes will improve that ability for everyone. Ekman is a leading authority on reading microexpressions (unconscious facial expressions that in a split second can reveal the owner's true thoughts) to detect lies. His work has been dramatized by the American Television show Lie to Me. I haven't had the time to use the microexpression training tool, but apparently it takes only an hour. It's available at www.PaulEkman.com.

I think the ability to read microexpressions would be more useful against empaths than sociopaths. Why? Because sociopaths have a less rigid sense of self, they are able to actually believe their own lies much better than empaths are. For instance, I am able to compartmentalize quite well -- just like the protagonist in the movie Memento, I'm able to tell myself lies that I can actually believe. Once I believe a lie, any microexpressions seen on my face would seem to support the lie, not undercut it. Empaths, on the other hand, seem to need a stricter sense of identity. Although I'm sure they unconsciously lie to themselves all the time and microexpressions wouldn't be able to detect those lies, they seem much less able to consciously lie to themselves to the point of believing the truth. In those situations, the ability to read microexpressions would be a very useful tool against a lying empath.