Showing posts sorted by relevance for query regret. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query regret. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Guest post: The Next Generation

I've long been struck by the idea of childhood diagnosis of sociopaths--of exactly how early and easily we can be spotted.  I, myself, was pretty aware of my own differences at an early age.  Couldn't describe it back then, but I always saw the difference, that desire to compete fiercely, and even humiliate, break, and if possible, injure the competition in a way that never led back to me, all while playing adults like fiddles.  Because of this history, I recently recognized another small sociopath with absolute clarity.

Recently, my wife and I were on vacation visiting friends of ours from grad school. They have a five-year-old boy.  It was like looking at a little version of myself.  Seeing this kid take joy in first playing with his puppy, and slowly but surely escalating the play and contact to the level of inflicting intentional pain.  I recognized on his part that he knew precisely when he was crossing a line--looking up, causing the pain when he thought no adult was looking, and the false regret in his voice but clearly not his eyes when caught.  It was like looking back in time into a mirror.  He didn't reserve his violence and force for his pet, either, but also targeted both his parents and my wife and I.   When his parents tried to use the old parenting canard of "you're hurting mommy and daddy" which usually reduces kids to crying, mewling shame-balls, their son only grinned.

If seeing his joy at this weren't a recognition of my own childhood feelings when I caused physical or emotional pain, the cinch was seeing his uncanny understanding of social dynamics, and the privileged role that most kids occupy in society which saves them from adult wrath.  In other words, this child was manipulative beyond his years.  Again, something familiar to myself.

By looking at him, you wouldn't think he's growing up in a nurturing, progressive, yuppie household where both parents hold doctorate degrees (or on second thought, maybe you would).  His parents were oblivious to their little 'angel' and the intentionality of his aggression.  Or at least have developed a practiced obliviousness.

But what surprised me most was how quickly a weekend around a small version of myself stirred up territorial feelings.  Those feelings made me think of the practices of male lions direct towards a competitor's cubs.  Good thing I live half a country away.


Saturday, September 21, 2013

Not feeling bad about not feeling bad

I thought this story from a reader was very interesting, particularly the parallels with my own life. I especially find her thoughts about religion to be very familiar:

I just recently started doing research on sociopaths.  Years ago a girl that knew me well said she thought I might be a sociopath but I brushed it off thinking that I’m nothing like the monsters sociopaths are portrayed as.  That’s why I find your website so refreshing.  Its not claiming all sociopaths are the same, nor are they always people that should be avoided at all cost.  Last week again I had someone close to me say they think I have sociopathic tendencies.  I started reading from your website and I do see a lot of similarities.  I’ve always felt different from everyone else.  I have an very emotional mother and growing up I could never understand her reactions to things.  Most of the time when I see anyone get emotional or upset by something it’s not like I don’t care, I just don’t feel it. I want to understand it like a puzzle.  I’ve always struggled with the concept of guilt.  I grew up in a very religious family and feeling remorse and repentance for your mistakes is considered to be key for forgiveness of sins.  I’ve always really struggled with what guilt is exactly because when I’ve done things I know I shouldn’t have, I don’t get an emotional response.  Me knowing it’s wrong is always based on logic and knowing what’s expected of me.  When I have done something wrong I do regret it but it’s usually because I see it as a failure on my part to live up to an expectation that either I or others have placed on me and I hate feeling like I don’t have control over myself or I have failed in anyway.  I know I have been cruel to people before and have messed with and manipulated people’s emotions.  When I was young I did it because watching how easily people could believe something or be manipulated was entertaining.  Now it’s usually only when I feel wronged or slighted and I never feel bad about it because it does seem justified.

I have a great job, a few close friends and overall I think I’m a very stable person but I do feel different.  I was disconnected from my family entirely for a year and I never felt an emotional sense of missing them.  My parents are normal people, never abused me, always supportive so when I hadn’t seen or talked to them for a long time I was hoping I would feel something but I mostly just felt indignant and irritated when I asked for help with different things and they ignored me.  On the reverse side while I usually get bored with guys very quickly there was this one guy that was almost impossible for me to let go of.  He has a PhD in psychiatry and he’s always fascinated me.  Whenever I saw him do something to intentionally irritate or passive-aggressively insult a friend simply because they told him something he didn’t want to hear I became more drawn to him.  Everything about our time together was intense but I would feel this gaping sense of loss any time he had to go or I didn’t see him for a while.  Even now I compare other guys to him and I can’t be bothered.  I don’t know why with one guy I could miss him so intensely but with my own family I feel so indifferent.  I don’t want to be a difficult person to be around but whenever I want something and I see a way of getting it I instinctively start shifting and manipulating the people around me to get it.  I think what I want usually benefits other people as well so I don’t feel bad about it and when a close friend who knows how I am calls me out and tells me she feels played I can’t help but feel she’s missing the bigger picture. I have also done a lot for the people close to me. I’ve gotten them jobs, found them nice places to live and helped them out of bad relationships.  I don’t think I’m a bad person or ‘evil’ and yet I am so disconnected from the people around me.  I mentioned I’m religious.  I do believe in God but recently I’ve had people in my religion ask me ‘heartfelt’ questions.  They’re the only questions I’ve ever struggled with.  I found myself trying to take apart the meaning of the questions, remember if I had heard other people express their answers before and guess what they wanted to hear because inside I didn’t understand, there was nothing indicating how I felt about it.  Explain why I want to be part of the organization, how guilt and repentance have motivated me to correct my actions; deep down I still don’t really think anything I’ve done has been all that bad.  Knowledge of the consequences and not wanting to see myself as a failure have taught me not to make the same choices.  I do want to make God happy but I don’t see why my actions or way of thinking would make him unhappy.

I read an excerpt from your book online just now and just in the small portion I read I see a lot of similarities.  When I was a teenager I had this girl I couldn't stand and I used to break into her house and rearrange little things around her room and memorize snippets from her diary to work casually and discretely into regular conversation to mess with her.  I even get the staring thing, I constantly have people think I'm glaring at them or trying to seduce them because I don't look away like most people. I just read a couple paragraphs but I think I'll have to buy a copy soon and take a read. It's interesting some of the things I recognise in myself. Even putting myself in life threatening situations... almost bleeding out on a camping trip because I didn't want to call attention to my injuries, look weak or have people try to assist me when I figured I could deal with it on my own.

I’m emailing I guess for curiosity and understanding.  I know this is the way I am and I don’t think it’s ‘bad’, just different.  I struggle with having to control myself, I want to have fun, I want to take chances and I enjoy seeing how one action can lead to a ripple effect in my favour but I don’t think I’m dangerous or need to be fixed I just want to know if that’s how sociopaths sometimes feel.  Like I said, I just started looking into this and I’m not saying I am a sociopath or think it’s terrible if I am. I just want to know more.

In my religion, there are a lot of people who think that emotions are the way that God speaks to you or a sign of true repentance (godly sorrow). But that's not necessary. As LDS Elder Richard G. Scott taught:

A testimony is fortified by spiritual impressions that confirm the validity of a teaching, of a righteous act, or of a warning of pending danger. Often such guidance is accompanied by powerful emotions that make it difficult to speak and bring tears to the eyes. But a testimony is not emotion.

And why would we need to feel things? Why would God make a group of people who were doomed to hell the moment they were born that way? But some religions believe that, I guess. Also some people believe that gay people are going to hell?
 

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

How to maximize utility of socio relationship?

I thought this was a remarkably insightful comment, left July 7, 2013 at 7:56 AM

HOW TO BEAT A SOCIOPATH ... is the wrong question. If you're trying to beat, that means you're engaged in a competition, and non-socios tend to get revved up by their emotions during competition and thus will make it very difficult for themselves to "beat the socio", while the socio expends much less effort to pick at the non-socio's weaknesses.

Instead, the proper question for non-socios is "How do I maximize the utility to me of the socio relationship?"

In some cases, there may be no utility, so just terminate the relationship, or get out of it with at little damage as possible. In other words, you're in a hole, stop digging, don't try to beat or compete with the socio, just tend to your own needs. Do not feel sorry for the socio, or try to make the socio regret or repent, just leave. (If you can't control your own emotions, particularly to stop worrying about the socio, then you certainly aren't going to be able to control anyone else, including the socios, who are very good at control.)

If there is possible utility, then strictly enforce your boundaries, so the socio cannot damage you. Constantly assess whether you are getting enough from the relationship; do not worry that you are being selfish, trust that the socio is doing the same calculation for themselves, and will leave if they aren't getting what they want, so you can just worry about your own needs.

The tricky thing is to realize that socios imitate emotions to manipulate non-socios. If this satisfies your utility need, then great. Otherwise, realize that the socio has limits, and if you impose unrealistic expectations on the socio, you will just get burned.

It reminds me of this recent tweet:

Monday, March 30, 2009

Sociopaths in literature: E.M. Forster's Maurice

A slow nature such as Maurice's appears insensitive, for it needs time even to feel. Its instinct is to assume that nothing either for good or evil has happened, and to resist the invader. Once gripped, it feels acutely, and its sensations in love are particularly profound. Given time, it can know and impart ecstasy; given time, it can sink to the heart of Hell. Thus it was that his agony began as a slight regret; sleepless nights and lonely days must intensify it into a frenzy that consumed him. It worked inwards, till it touched the root whence body and soul both spring, the "I" that he had been trained to obscure, and, realized at last, doubled its power and grew superhuman. For it might have been joy. New worlds broke loose in him at this, and he saw from the vastness of the ruin what ecstasy he had lost, what a communion.

Maybe not full-fledged sociopath, maybe just baby or very high functioning sociopath, maybe just British.
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