Showing posts sorted by date for query weak sense of self. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query weak sense of self. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Monday, July 29, 2013

Knowing truth

I have talked before about truth and how my own belief in truth makes me act differently than sociopaths who may not believe in any objective or knowable truth. I was reading a talk by LDS President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "What is Truth" and was reminded of the recent "discovery" that sociopaths feel empathy, that so rocked people's previous conceptions about sociopaths that I received over a dozen emails about it. President Uchtdorf first tells the story of the blind men and the elephant:

One of the men finds the elephant’s leg and describes it as being round and rough like a tree. Another feels the tusk and describes the elephant as a spear. A third grabs the tail and insists that an elephant is like a rope. A fourth discovers the trunk and insists that the elephant is like a large snake. Each is describing truth. And because his truth comes from personal experience, each insists that he knows what he knows.
***
It seems to be part of our nature as human beings to make assumptions about people, politics, and piety based on our incomplete and often misleading experience.
***
So often the “truths” we tell ourselves are merely fragments of the truth, and sometimes they’re not really the truth at all.

Sociopaths can be equally susceptible to such



I thought of this talk when I saw this comment posted on someone's Facebook status about Edward Snowden being a whistleblower.

Snowden is not a whistleblower. He took no advantage of whistleblower protections. none. Zero. Nada. Zippo. His goal was self aggrandizement. Which pretty much failed. He's a crook. And should have the courage to face consequences. But he's weak. And scared. And stupid. He's seeking protection from Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, and the like. He will be remembered as a crook. Which is what he is. I'm no fan of prism, but snowden is a delusional young boy. And a coward. Whistle blowing dies not equal exposing state secrets. Ask Manning.

Particularly this part of the talk:

The “truths” we cling to shape the quality of our societies as well as our individual characters. All too often these “truths” are based on incomplete and inaccurate evidence, and at times they serve very selfish motives. Part of the reason for poor judgment comes from the tendency of mankind to blur the line between belief and truth. We too often confuse belief with truth, thinking that because something makes sense or is convenient, it must be true. Conversely, we sometimes don’t believe truth or reject it—because it would require us to change or admit that we were wrong. Often, truth is rejected because it doesn’t appear to be consistent with previous experiences. When the opinions or “truths” of others contradict our own, instead of considering the possibility that there could be information that might be helpful and augment or complement what we know, we often jump to conclusions or make assumptions that the other person is misinformed, mentally challenged, or even intentionally trying to deceive.

Things said with such certainty and with such scant support (either about sociopaths or any other thing that people assert as "truth") remind me of the Bertrand Russell quote: "One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision."

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Parent to a sociopath

I finally got around to watching We Need to Talk About Kevin, the film version of the book of the same name, about a school massacre perpetrator and his mother. The story starts with the mother Eva becoming pregnant. She is ambivalent about motherhood. Her son Kevin does not respond to her mediocre attempts to bond or soothe. As he grows just a little older, it becomes clear that he is not normal, perhaps even deeply disturbed.

The film is no chronological and skips between before and after the massacre. Her life before was first young and exciting New York then a downgrade (in her mind) to a suburban estate with her growing family. Her life after is lonely squalor where she is the victim of all vandalism, violence, and sexual antagonism meant to, what? Shame her into denouncing her son? Some of the perpetrators seem to be family to the victims of the massacre, but others apparently are just looking to participate in socially sanctioned aggression and exploitation (her co-worker, after a rebuffed unwelcome advance, snarls "Where do you get off, you stuck up bitch? Do you think anyone else is gonna want you now?"). Her life is ruined. The second part flashes back to her early struggles with motherhood, then power struggles with her son, as evidenced in part by his refusal to be potty trained. In a fit of rage over him deliberately soiling his diaper after she just changed it, she throws him and breaks his arm. When recalling the moment later, he tells her "It’s the most honest thing you ever did. Do you know how they potty train cats? They stick their noses in their own shit. They don’t like it. So they use the box." After coming home from the hospital, he lies to his father about the broken arm, saying he fell off the diaper changing table. He then extorts his mother with the threat of exposure in order to get his way.

She is obviously not mother of the year, but who could be with a son so cold and apparently evil? That at least seems to be the suggestion of the first half of the film -- that there's nothing else she could have done better and we're supposed to feel sorry for her because she was unlucky enough to have birthed a demon. By the middle of the movie, we know what is going to happen, we are just filling in details. We get a little more realistic characterization of the son. The mother puts a cd marked "I love you" into her computer, which infects it with a virus (and all computers from her office connected to the network). She asks, why would you have something like this, what's the point? "There is no point. That's the point." She makes fun of fat people at a rare mother son excursion, to which he points out "You know, you can be kind of harsh sometimes."

Eva: "You’re one to talk."

Kevin: "Yeah, I am. I wonder where I got it."

Apart from a brief childhood sickness, when young Kevin cuddles with her while she reads him a book, their relationship is strained. Oddly, she is shown devotedly visiting him in prison, even though they hardly exchange a word. What's her motivation? Penance? Curiosity? Duty? Not love, is it? We also discover that although she lives a lonely, isolated existence, she has at least in part chosen this life (still lives in the same town despite the antagonism, avoids her mother's plea that she visit for the holidays). Finally, we see that her new home has a bedroom for him with all of his things, including his clothes that she regularly washes and irons to keep fresh. Why? On the second anniversary of the massacre she again visits Kevin in prison. He is about to be transfered to an adult facility. His head is poorly shaved. His face is bruised. He is not his usual confidently unapologetic self. She tells him he doesn't look happy. "Have I ever?"With their time running out, she finally confronts him:

Eva: Why?

Kevin: I used to think I knew. Now I'm not so sure. [pause]

Prison guard: Time's up.

They hug, Eva finally apparently reaching that place of love and acceptance for her son that had for so long eluded her.

I liked a lot of things about the film. There are some very accurate portrayals of sociopathic behavior. For instance, although Kevin never feels remorse about the massacre, he does show signs of regret -- an acknowledgment that perhaps he has miscalculated or misunderstood the true nature of life, including a sense of permanence of some consequences that many teenagers fail to intuit.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film is the way it contrasts moral certainty (portrayed as ugly behavior) with self-doubt (portrayed as a sign of hope and the possibility of change). When the mother is at her most self-assured, Kevin hates her the most. It's only when she was weak enough to break his arm that he respects her for being honest. And Kevin's only redeeming moments are when he is sick and at the end when he is unsure whether the massacre was a good idea. These are stark contrasts to the moral indignation of the mother as she repeatedly tells her son off, the son as he repeatedly tells her everything is meaningless and that she is a hypocrite, the townspeople as they rally around to collectively dehumanize her (a small nod to the Scarlet Letter?), the husband who tells her she is a bad mother, etc. The problem with making these sorts of comprehensive judgments about a person are not that they aren't founded in truth, but that people naturally defy such pat assessments. They're simply too dynamic and life is too complicated (and subject more to chance than choice) to say with any degree of certainty that "so-an-so would never do something like that," or even "I would never do something like that." Moral certainty is often based in truth, but it denies so much more than it ever considers.

The film is also a true tragedy in that despite Kevin being particularly sinister and Eva particularly cold, there is nothing inherently wrong with either of these characters. Put in different circumstances, Eva could have been a wonderful mother and Kevin could have channeled his machiavellian traits to more pro-social activities that would have made an equal splash. The problems were in the way they interacted with each other. They were locked in a death struggle, a double drowning. In a desperate effort to ensure that the one would not unduly rule the other's life, they spent all of their time reacting to each other instead of just quietly going about their own lives. I see this with victims on this site too -- becoming so obsessed with making sure that someone does not unjustly assert their will on you that you allow your whole world to revolve around thoughts of the other person. They were both so focused on winning particular battles with each other, thinking that the sum of small wins would add up to a gestalt of victory. They did not consider the possibility that these might be Pyrrhic, or that sometimes when you win, you lose. Because neither Eva nor Kevin were willing to bend their vision of the world to accommodate other viewpoints, they were both eventually broken.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Book responses

From a reader:

I graduated last week with a Masters in Counseling. I'm getting ready for my "post-corporate" career.

After doing nothing but reading and studying for national exams the last three months, I didn't think that I would ever want to read another book related to psychology again. However, I read a review of your book in the New York Post (below) and had to get this book. 

What I enjoyed about your book was your honesty. All good autobiographies show the darkness as well as the light (Steve Jobs autobiography is a great example). Thank you for being so candid. Your book was also incredibly well written and well researched. I could not put it down.

You also gave me insight into a disturbing situation that I experienced at work about 20 years ago. It always confused me, but now I fully know what happened - I was dealing with a sociopath!

Thank you for providing me this insight. 

Just a few comments as I am about to move into the mental health field as well as some personal observations of your book. But first, from an Empath's point of view, here is what I cannot stand about sociopaths.

I hate that you play games when we empaths are not playing games! (I acknowledge that all people play games).

Look I'm an empathic person, but I can be as competitive any anybody. But once the game is over, it's over! I want a real relationship, not games.

For sociopaths it never stops. And that's the problem, you think you are so F_____! smart, but the truth is sociopaths are cowards. You pick on people who are not even fighting with you. Deception has its place, in war, the board room and the court room but it's death in relationships. 

And the really perverse part is, you think that you are exerting your "power" and winning. But in truth you were destroying the person who wanted to show you trust which is the very thing that you need most. In the end you have a Pyrrhic victory, you won the battle, but lost the war in obtaining a true relationship.

Just my personal 2 cents (I know you don't care). Now I want to tell you what I found most interesting about your book (which you probably do care about).

I believe the most profound statement that you made was on pg. 153 in your book:

"I believe that a lot of the sociopath's traits such as charm, manipulation, lying, promiscuity, chameleonism, mask wearing and lack of empathy are largely attributable to a very weak sense of self. I believe that all personality disorders share a distorted or abnormal sense of self". 

You nailed it! During my internship it was very clear that whether I was dealing with Narcissists, Borderlines, and other personality disorders that all of these people had no true sense of self. 

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Hamlet - Act 1, scene 3

Secondly, I find it very interesting that on pg. 65 where you said, "my father's emotional and moral hypocrisy taught me not to trust emotions or anything else that couldn't be backed up with hard, indisputable fact." The majority of my client's struggle with trust issues - divorce, sexual abuse, illness, etc. So often the underlying theme in our sessions is, "I want to trust, but I'm so afraid, Help me!".

Lastly, In Chapter 7 of your book you describe identifying yourself with the Tin Woodman in the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. "But as heartless as I am, I have wanted love, to feel connection, to feel like I belong to the world like anyone else. No one, it seems, can escape loneliness."

You quoted John Bowlby in your book. Of all the theorists that I studies in school, I was most impacted by his work. Yes, human beings can be untrustworthy, unkind, undependable and candidly, a pain in the ass! But they are worth it. In the end connection, love, kindness, goodness and gentleness is what makes life worth living.

My hope for you is that this "Tin Woman" finds her heart.

I also realize that you must be going through a difficult time right now as it appears that your identity has been outed and that you may expect some "unintended consequences" from publishing this book. 

Hang in there. The best thing for you is that people know that you are a sociopath. 

Your mask is your defense, but it's also your problem.

Someone can only have a relationship with you if you are honest about who you are. Your mask of secrecy is a hindrance and not a help in your life.

Best wishes and God's blessings to you in your journey.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Family ties

This was an interesting article about how people are more resilient when they feel like they are part of a larger extended family, know some stories and the origins of their ancestors, etc.

The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative.
***

“The ones who know a lot about their families tend to do better when they face challenges,” she said.

Her husband was intrigued, and along with a colleague, Robyn Fivush, set out to test her hypothesis. They developed a measure called the “Do You Know?” scale that asked children to answer 20 questions.

Examples included: Do you know where your grandparents grew up? Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school? Do you know where your parents met? Do you know an illness or something really terrible that happened in your family? Do you know the story of your birth?

Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush asked those questions of four dozen families in the summer of 2001, and taped several of their dinner table conversations. They then compared the children’s results to a battery of psychological tests the children had taken, and reached an overwhelming conclusion. The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. The “Do You Know?” scale turned out to be the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness.

“We were blown away,” Dr. Duke said.


Why does knowing where your grandmother went to school help a child overcome something as minor as a skinned knee or as major as a terrorist attack?

“The answers have to do with a child’s sense of being part of a larger family,” Dr. Duke said.
***
Dr. Duke said that children who have the most self-confidence have what he and Dr. Fivush call a strong “intergenerational self.” They know they belong to something bigger than themselves.

I come from a big family and for some reason I learned to see most of them as extensions of myself, so I looked out for them. And they looked out for me. I felt like we were like twigs -- weak apart, strong together. I don't know why I thought that and other children sociopaths see their family as threats. Maybe it's because we were all so smart we spoke a sort of shorthand/twinspeak with each other.  Maybe it was because we had a common enemy in our narcissist father. For whatever reason, I always felt like I was part of something bigger, almost like I had grown up in a mafia family. And it's true, I think it did make me a better person



Monday, October 22, 2012

Power


I love power. I'm fascinated by it. The power over self. The power over others. I think the power over self definitely should preceed the power over others. I've learned this over time of studying and practicing it.

It is interesting to read about world leaders in history who have started powerless and who had been thrust into a position of power without being prepared for it. They start off idealists, wanting only the best for mankind, only to be thrown on a downward spiral committing atrocities for what they perceived as the betterment of mankind or their country. I truly understand them.

I can't tell you that I'm partisan to any particular brand of ideology. I have studied all of them deeply. Communism and fascism are the most interesting when it comes to power, because it thrusts absolute power into the hands of a few people. Indeed capitalism does still keep power in the hands of a few, but not as little as you can count on two hands.

We don't have a lot of fascist leaders to compare, as the idea never gained enough popularity worldwide to have any long standing leaders. I have always found fascism to be power given to the impatent. It's guided by insecurity. As usual the theory actually makes a little sense to anyone who can look at it objectively: It's a structure of government that believes that people don't want freedom. It believes the strong should survive and the weak should perish. Individualism should be sacrificed for the state. Quoting Mussolini, "Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State...." Absolute power indeed. The fascists' insecurity, however, is written in their ideology from the gate. They reject liberalism and communism for the fact that they blame these ideologies for their losses in the first world war. This was the platform to which Mussolini and Hitler rose to power. It was the insecurity of the masses in these countries that propelled two insecure people into power.

The claim of supremacy of the Aryan race and throwbacks to a ancient civilization of glory were examples of this. The point the finger attitude of hating Jews, liberals, communists, France, etc. were yet another. I wouldn't claim Hitler a sociopath purely for the fact that his entire campaign and life rested on his insecurity and over-emotionalism. I won't delve deep into his life, as I'm not trying to write a biography on him, however those who have should throw a comment up on your opinion.

Communism is a doctrine that thrusts power into the hands of the powerless. I do believe the intentions of a majority of the leaders of communist revolutions to be genuine. Notice I said majority. People like Pol Pot I believe had no intention of furthering anything, but his lust for power and blood. Why do I think so? The foundation of communism is to create a egalitarian society. One where the workers who produce the products are in control. That's why they call it a dictatorship of the proletariat. For the sociopath at the top, this is a terrible idea. How then would they exploit the workers? For the powerless sociopath, this was a wonderful idea. What better way to gain popular support but to say that you would be giving everyone equality, and control over their own labor? I will use Stalin for a example.

If Stalin wasn't a sociopath I will hand over my control to this website to Love Fraud. Hands down. Stalin's rap sheet as a young revolutionary is long: Armed robbery, kidnapping, assassination, counterfeiting, extortion, racketeering, inciting riots, and finally insurrection. Stalin manipulated his way into power. Such as his alliance with Kamenev and Zinoviev, which he used to make sure that Lenin's testament (Which had orders not to let Stalin in power) would never be revealed. After Stalin's death he shifted his alliance to another party member and had them both ejected from the party. Stalin's path while in power was one of a heroin addict with a unlimited supply of junk. He started executing anyone who opposed him. Even to go as far as having a assassin stab Trotsky (Former party member in exile) to death with a ice pick. He had his armies throw themselves into the enemies' guns in WWII resulting in the largest amount of casualties in a country during the world war. He changed history books to the point of erasing people out of pictures who he deemed counter revolutionary. This would mean erasing people's entire existence for going against him. His own son tried to commit suicide after Stalin told him he was a failure. Upon receiving the news he said, "He can't even shoot straight." After being captured by the Germans Stalin refused to trade for him saying that if he did it would be special treatment and not fair to the rest of the "Sons of Russia." Stalin's son then succeeded in running himself into a electric fence in the concentration camp. I believe Stalin was a sociopath given a cause and as he grew more powerful he lost vision of what exactly that cause was. In the end his cause was staying in power. The funny thing is he died with his only possession being his uniform. His power.

Power is raw and uncut. Its lure is subtle, but its taste is explosive. You have a little and you keep wanting more. The more you have it, the more you will excuse using it vicariously. You'll justify your every callous action with vigour. Soon you are nothing but a embodiment of fear and manipulation. You still think you are fighting for what you were in the beginning, but you're only fighting to maintain your position. As all the threats real and perceived mount, you become more awful in your preservation of it. In the end it's easy to lose sight, or is the real intention deep down inside everyone of us power itself? Sometimes it's hard to know. Even for the person fighting it.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Bully's bully

I've always considered myself a bully's bully. Bullies are particularly attractive targets to me because they are very adept at swaying the beliefs and behavior of mobs. As I have said before, mob mentality freaks me out. I feel like attacking the bully is like cutting off the head of the mythical mob beast, or to mix a metaphor, a mob is nothing without its ringleader.

Recently I have been exposed to a bully in a work setting. I never had much interaction with this person before, and then only in positive ways, which was why I was so surprised when a coworker of mine confided that this person makes his work life hell. This particular bully doesn't have any real authority. If anything, my coworker friend is the bully's superior, so the bully is always careful to cover any suspicious activity with passive aggressive behavior. The bully also preemptively attacks my friend's character and credibility so when/if my friend ever complains, he's not going to seem credible. This is a classic manipulative tool, making it seem like your target has a personal vendetta against you so when he reacts (seemingly unprovoked), he = crazy and you = victim. (I feel like this is the plot of many a cat/dog fighting antique cartoon. I also feel like sociopath may have been the inventor of the popular myth -- the completely unjustified personal vendetta.)

Before my friend warned me, I was lulled by the bully's seeming good-nature and charms. I disclosed valuable information, like what projects I was involved with, how things were working out, etc. The bully lulled me into a false sense of security by talking about his own personal details -- disappointing children, bumps in the road of life, etc. The bully did not seem like a threat at all, and I started to question my friend's assessment. But the bully quickly showed his true colors -- yelling, screaming, picking on his legitimate inferiors. I suddenly saw so clearly how the bully was targeting me indirectly -- asking me about my current projects because he wanted to help me fail.

As the bully was saying goodnight to everyone, I pulled him aside, put my hand on his shoulder and said, "You know, I have to apologize to you.Ii made a joke this morning that was in poor taste. You asked how everything was going with my new project and I said 'So far so good.' I didn't mean to imply that i wasn't giving the project my full attention and skill. On the contrary, I am 100% dedicated to the success of this project. I think I was just trying to be self-deprecating, but I realize now that the joke fell flat." Such a non sequitor, uncomfortably sincere apology where no apology was expected will always catch the receiving party off-guard. Granted, the apology was really for nothing, it was really more of a brag. All the better. It confuses the receiving party and makes him feel as if you are very sensitive/weak/vulnerable (even though you aren't), and therefore not at all a threat. They suddenly feel as if they too should be apologizing about things, or explaining, or something -- ANYTHING -- just to fill the oppressively awkward silence while you keep staring into their eyes with your hand meaningfully on their shoulder. I stood there and listened to the bully spill. "Well, it's true that the last few people in charge of that project got fired, and I was just thinking, maybe... but maybe you'll be different..." See what has happened here? I have forced my opponent to show his hand. He has acknowledged that he is aware of what my project is (even though he pretended to have no clue the day before), its history, its importance, his obvious interest in it, etc. It doesn't really matter if his cards are aces or deuces, in a world where bluffing and image mean everything (or almost everything), I immediately gain the upper hand. And he knows it.

The next day I was all deflection. He asked me a question, and I gave him a non-answer and asked him questions back, even for the most meaningless of things. "What did you get for lunch?" "Oh you know, same old. What did you get for lunch?" "What are you working on now?" "Little this, little that. What are you working on?" The terser the answer, the more offputting it is, like someone returning your baseline hits from the net. You pin him there. You want him to know that for every worthless piece of information he may get from you, you are getting twice the value and 10X the number. The bully, now desperate and sensing the shift in power, quickly progressed from "chummy" sideways questions to direct inquiries. "So how did that project turn out yesterday? Did it get approved?" Wouldn't you like to know.

Moral of this story: empaths who complain about sociopaths, who do you think will fight the bullies among you if we're not around? Empaths can be just as horrible (if not more so) than sociopaths, and some of them don't even realize it. If we are all locked up in your dream sociopath gulag, who will protect you from yourselves? We may not be the only ones who can beat you at your own little bully games, but we are certainly the most ruthlessly efficient about it.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Weak sense of self

A reader sent me this interesting lecture from Stanford Lecturer Kelly McGonigal about the neuroscience behind self-referential processing.  She sums up the main point of her argument thusly: "we carry the seeds of suffering in our own minds, primarily through the human mind's habit of carefully constructing and then rigidly defending a sense of self that is based on our preferences, our attitudes, our beliefs, and our personal stories and that it's this churning of the self machine that gives rise to so much of our daily suffering."




It discusses whether there is some way to have a self-awareness that does not engage the self-referential processing, i.e. an experiential self that is not based on the narrative of self-referential processing or the stories we tell ourselves, but rather is based on "the awareness of the constantly changing feelings, thoughts, and things going on in our environment".  The answer is yes, but only among people who are trained in meditation.  My personal experiences and anecdotal knowledge regarding sociopaths suggests to me that this would also include sociopaths, who naturally have a weak sense of self (see also here), and seem to experience self-awareness almost entirely as the experiential self, not the self-referential self (using her lexicon).

It's interesting too that this lecture was apparently given at a Buddhist conference.  I have never bothered to learn much about Buddhism, but people have frequently remarked here on how the sociopath's detachment from self and lack of anxiety regarding outcomes is what many Buddhists hope to accomplish in order to achieve Nirvana. And sociopaths just happen to be born that way.

Here's what the reader wrote:


There's 3 categories in the experiment:
1) non-meditators
2) recent meditators
3) experienced meditators


My understanding of what happens:
Category 1 feels the pain, then thinks "how long will this go on, why me? oh shit? get away, get away!"


Category 2 feels the pain and focuses on their breathing. They ignore the pain as best they can by focusing on something else. Meditation has given them the ability to concentrate, so they concentrate on something other than the pain.


Category 3 feels the pain and tries to feel and examine it as best they can. They are so busy doing that, moment by moment, they aren't thinking, "why me, how long will this go on" etc. because when they really focus on what they are sensing, as opposed to how things aren't how they would like it, they lose their sense of self.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Say it loud! I'm S and I'm proud!

A question from a reader:
Do most sociopaths know they are sociopaths, do narcissists know they are narcissists? Under what circumstances would a sociopath reveal himself? same question as to narcissists?
My response:
Sociopaths know that they are different, though they may not necessarily be familiar that the label "sociopath" applies to them. Narcissists tend to be self-deceived, so they think that they are the same as everyone else, just better.

When I was told by a friend that there was a label for people like me and it was called "sociopath," I actually willingly accepted the diagnosis. I knew I didn't have the same emotions as everyone else, I knew I had a weak sense of empathy, I knew I was different, and it wasn't something that I struggled with ever. I feel like narcissists deny deny deny when they are confronted with their identity. They are so self-deceived, though, that it is probable that they don't even recognize the signs of narcissism in themselves.

I don't think a narcissist would ever reveal himself, mainly because he probably doesn't think there is anything to reveal. For sociopaths I think revealing oneself is sort of like revealing a secret identity for a superhero -- generally not a good idea, but sometimes unavoidable. I have revealed myself to close friends (not all, only the ones who would be accepting), and on rare occasions to people whom I suspect to be sociopaths themselves. For instance, I have only once revealed myself to someone I had just met, but it was obvious from our conversational topics that if he weren't a sociopath, he was something akin to it. Even so it was a delicate dance of "how much do you think you empathize with others?" "Do you think manipulation is an appropriate tool for social encounters?" "Does anyone ever ask you if you are a sociopath?" Even from the people who are accepting of who I am, a lot of them can't believe that I am a sociopath, or they sort of pretend I'm not by imagining emotions or empathy where there are none. My parents are that way. I am high-functioning and take pleasure in being exceptionally considerate, so it is not too difficult to believe that I am normal. Bjust because most of me seems good doesn't mean I don't have any sociopath-flavoured bad in me.
There's another good response here:
I'm sure a sociopath realizes that they are "different" from normal people, in the sense that they do not comprehend normal emotional responses and connections. I would assume they don't understand why this is unless they recognize the signs through their own research or if someone tells them.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Sociopath - pain = no empathy?

A reader asked this very interesting question:

I learned in a psych class that living things (or mammals, at least), thanks to the magic of mirror neurons, do not distinguish signs of distress in another creature from their own distress. You mention in your one post that you have a very detached stance to pain. What if what we think of as empathy is tied directly to the perception of pain? What if sociopathy is not primarily a lack of empathy, but a greatly altered perception of pain both in oneself and in others? Would it be possible that if an empath's normal neurological responses to pain were tampered with, they would experience less empathy? Could the reverse be true for sociopaths?

I always like these sorts of explanations that somehow tie together different, seemingly unrelated aspects of sociopathy together -- e.g. so insightfully perceptive (enough to be exceptionally manipulative) but lacking empathy?  It's really an odd disorder, with a suite of traits that so consistently present amongst sociopaths and yet seem so scattershot.

One of my favorite unifying theories from a psychologist named Joseph Newman is the idea that sociopathy is largely an attentional disorder, where the sociopath is getting all the right input but is just not paying attention to them in the same way that everyone else is, so they are meaningless to him.

[One of my own pet theories is that a lot of the sociopaths traits (charm, manipulation, lying, promiscuity, chameleonism, compartmentalization, mask wearing, lack of empathy, lack of strong gender, racial, social, sexual or other identity) is largely attributable to a very weak sense of self.  I believe that all personality disorders share a distorted/abnormal sense of self, that that is essentially what makes them a "personality" disorder, and not something else.]  

I also like the one the reader suggested above -- that to the extent sociopaths do not feel things like pain the same way empaths do, the mirror neuron cues are just falling on deaf ears.  But I wonder.  A lot of sociopaths have complained that they have in fact felt something akin to empathy in isolated incidents, particularly if they happen to be feeling something similar at the same moment and happen to recognize that same emotion in others.  This seems to me to be more attentional, but I don't know.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Misanthropy

I was searching for a particular old email recently and stumbled across an interesting discussion between me and a friend.  To give you some insight into my friend's view of humanity, this friend had one time suggested that it was easy for me to be so happy-go-lucky about humanity because I had more "faith" in love than she did.  It is weird for me to read things like this because I don't feel this way anymore--I am not as enamored with humanity as I was even a few years ago.  Then I saw this email (again, from several years ago) to the same friend about how I had been helping out with the political cause of a mutual acquaintance--a political view that this particular friend abhorred.
I'm very impressionable it is true. And yes, I did pick a conclusion first and then come up with ways to justify it to myself. I didn't realize that I had done such a poor job that you could see through me so easily.  
Anyway, this is how I have always been. I don't really think things are morally abhorrent. I usually don't think about stuff that way. I really am pretty much a blank slate. I just like people, I don't mind adopting their values on things and fighting for those values. It's like the Naomi character in the bible saying, "where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. your people shall be my people, and your god my god." People are my beliefs and alliances, you included. If the other side had gotten to me first, maybe it would be a different story and a different set of justifications. I can understand people not respecting that or not thinking it is a legitimate way of living, but I don't know. It seems alright to me. But I am not entirely surprised that my justifications didn't make sense to you. Don't be sad, though. I'm ok. I'm not about to join a cult or anything.
It's weird for me to read something like this. It's odd to see certain very familiar things about myself (i.e. weak sense of self, impressionable, people pleasing), but I also realize that I used to like people much more than I do now. It's as if my love and interest in humanity was a passing phase--a bit of a personal fad, like the careers or other exploits that I have picked up and dropped just as suddenly over the years. I think I exhausted the potential upside with people and then it became (and still is) just maintenance. There's no longer the same thrill that I used to get in interacting with people.

My current relationships take so much more effort than my previous relationships did.  When I was younger, I would just burn through relationships.  I confessed to one that I was using him like a paper napkin, to be disposed after I was done with him.  After a while I got a little tired of the drama and upheaval that went along with these aborted relationships.

Now I have a general rule that I don't mess with my intimates, only with people to whom I do not have many ties.  It's basically a policy of not defecating where I intend to eat.  There are real benefits in living my life this way, but there are also definite costs.  Now if I am fed up with someone, I don't blow up or try to hurt them, I distance myself from them and spend some recovery time alone.  Sometimes I have to spend the equivalent of several hours alone in order to be one hour of my well-behaved, solicitous self around certain people. It's odd, but the nicer I have become to my intimates, the less goodwill I have for the rest of humanity.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Another view (part 2)

(cont.)
Your story of the socipath woman who was persecuted by the Aspies really struck a chord. I was bemused by your confusion at why such a person would approach Aspies for help understanding neurotypicals. To me it's entirely reasonable and even brilliant: Her style was probably wrong, but she was groping in the dark. The thinking would be simple: "Neurotypicals don't understand me. I thought I understood neurotypicals but now I realize I don't and a lot of my life has been fucked up because I misunderstood shit. Here is a group that gets together and strategizes on how to deal with neurotypicals. They may be able to help me." That's not dumb dude, that's way fucking smart. Aspies and socios should be able to offer each other all sorts of insights, actually, as any two people looking at the same problem from different perspectives will often help each other. Both could help each other overcome where they are weak, and also identify where they are stronger and better than neurotypicals.
I suspect extremely sadistic sociopaths (i.e. deriving strong pleasure from inflicting suffering for one reason or another--enjoying the sounds of screaming and the sight of blood spurting and the feeling of power caused by cruelty) are probably dangerous to the point where they probably need to stay watched at all times. But otherwise, I begin to suspect that if more sociopaths "outed" themselves a whole hell of a lot of them could be made useful to society and have happier, more productive lives for themselves.

Why should you care if you're more helpful to neurotypicals? First so you don't have to hide; hiding may be fun sometimes but is probably exhausting much of the time. Also, because you can have a life you just plain enjoy more and which allows you to accomplish more of your goals in straightforward, no-bullshit fashion.

A cynical stereotype would be to say that we use you when killing and other nasty business needs doing, but that's ridiculous oversimplification; a person lacking empathy could do all sorts of positive things that aren't in the least bit destructive, and wherein lack of empathy has no more particular value than the inability to see the color red or a tendency to be easily sunburned; just not relevant. A socio who has fully concluded, "it is in my rational self-interest to help people in ways X, Y, and Z, and to not engage in A, B, and C" could be a tremendously productive in all sorts of fields where their sociopathy would be irrelevant. In other areas, it could be an outright asset in an endless number of subtle areas where your blunted or nonexistent empathic reponse would allow you to clinically analyze and recommend in areas where other people's emotions cloud their judgment. If I were a manager I'd probably want at least one of you on my team, and not necessarily for "dirty work." I don't need "dirty work," I need someone who thinks dispassionately and logically and can see shit other people can't. At minimum, you'd be the guy to tell me in a business negotiation, "Stop with the goody-goody reasoning with that guy. He doesn't care. You're just irritating him." Or better yet, "You don't know how to deal with this guy, I do. Just let me do it. I'll close the deal, watch."

If you are a sociopath, for whatever reason you have a blunted or nonexistent sense of empathy. Although this has multiple ramifications, in the end that's all it amounts to. It may amuse you to know that I discussed this with a very serious-minded Christian (Catholic) friend and he said (at first to my surprise but not now) that indeed, there's absolutely no reason a sociopath could be not just a good Christian but an outright Saint; his basic line was "emotions are overrated, it's actions that matter. It doesn't matter how you feel about it, it's what you DO that counts."

Sunday, August 7, 2011

willPOWER

A reader asks:
I've been reading your blog with considerable interest for the past few months. I'm an empath, but I have a strong interest in understanding the sociopath purely because I find the idea of them interesting, so I've read most of the texts I could find. What I would be interested to grasp is the sociopaths response to discipline. Much of what I've read suggests sociopaths typically would avoid pursuits which require impulse control/dedication etc. such as a diet, goal setting, pursuing a degree or working hard generally. It would be great if you can provide some idea of how a sociopathic individual perceives discipline, and delayed gratification. I find it hard to reconcile the idea that sociopaths will do anything to get what they want, with the idea that they are very poor at controlling impulses and dealing with delaying gratification. I ask this question as I'm fairly sure I've encountered a few sociopathic individuals in work settings that have been extremely hard working, disciplined and dedicated to the task.
My response:

Good question. I think your intuition is right, that some sociopaths are clearly able to discipline themselves enough to accomplish longterm goals. I myself always brag about having fully funded my retirement by the time I was 30. I didn't do it as a feat of self control, though, I did it because I love making money and my employment and community has various benefits to incentivize retirement savings that would be silly to not take advantage. The pleasure in retirement savings for me then is to play the game so much better than everyone else is -- and so seemingly effortlessly! In fact that's my main interest/love about money: that so many people want it but can't figure out how to get/keep more of it. It makes any wealth making you do look almost like magic -- very powerful image to project!

So maybe then the real distinction is not that sociopaths are more weak-willed than empaths or vice versa, but that they're both weak-willed in their own unique and predictable ways. Empath weaknesses appear egregious to sociopaths because they seem so obvious and easy to avoid, whereas sociopath weaknesses seem abhorrent to empaths because they find it so shocking that anyone would even consider behaving in that way. It makes perfect sense then that empaths would look weak to sociopaths and sociopaths look like monsters to empaths.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Frauds in Love

Today we are going on a field trip. A field trip to the opposite side of the spectrum. A lot of times when I need a good laugh I will visit Lovefraud.com. In case you don't know about this site, it's dedicated to victims of sociopaths. Broken, self-loathing, and bitterness fills the pages. It's like a sociopath's trash dump. My personal opinion is that these people set themselves up to be victims, then want to point the finger at the person who took advantage. Nobody put a gun to their head and told them to stay in a relationship they admit was so terrible. If you read the posts and comments (from people with weak names like 'justabouthealed'), you can see how they've already started off with defeat in their minds. It's not hard for ready made victims to become victims. The following post is the perfect example of how they set themselves up for the fall. Victory is not fighting, it's persevering. The old turn the other cheek. Lying to themselves, they believe that licking your wounds after getting victimized is a 'viable' victory. In reality it's failure. Here is the article:

My wonderful stepfather was a young basketball coach when he got his first real job coaching for a very small rural school which had not had a winning game in over a decade. The team was dispirited and had no real expectation of ever winning a game.

One of the local coaches bragged that he would beat them “by a hundred points!” at the next game. The team thought there was a good possibility that that coach’s team could do just that. However, it is “good sportsmanship” for a coach playing a much weaker team to let their second, third, and fourth strings get a chance to play, and to win over the weaker team, but not “tromp” them.

Daddy thought this other coach’s brag to stomp and tromp his team was poor sportsmanship so he made a plan. When the fourth quarter started and Daddy’s team had the ball, they “froze” it (which was legal in the game then) and wouldn’t either shoot the ball or take a chance on losing it, so passed the ball from one of Daddy’s team members to another the entire quarter. They didn’t make any points, but they kept the other team from even getting their hands on the ball the entire quarter, and thus making points against them. Daddy’s team didn’t win, but the other coach didn’t win by his “hundred points” either. That little team went on the next year to win their division championship because of the confidence that Daddy inspired in them.
Sometimes “winning” or “victory” can be interpreted in different ways. I’m also reminded of the old Country and Western song, the “Winner” where an older man and a younger man are in a bar talking. The younger man wants to be a “winner” in bar fight brawls, and the older man is educating him on what is “winning” and what isn’t.

Sure, you can get into a fight and you may inflict more damage on your opponent than he inflicts on you in the fight, but like the old man said, “He gouged out my eye, but I won.” Sometimes it is better to walk away from a fight and not lose more than you have already lost, or allow your opponent to take another “pound of flesh” in your attempts to “get justice.”

It isn’t always about getting what you deserve, or victory over them, or even seeing that they get “what they so richly deserve,” sometimes, I think, “winning” simply means keeping them from taking more out of you and, like Daddy’s team, “freezing the ball.” Sometimes, it is like the would-be barroom brawler, walking away (intact) with the other guy yelling curses in your direction.

It is emotionally tough to watch a cheater “get away with it” when they have ripped us off, and go “waltzing away” unscathed and apparently the victor. It eats at our sense of fairness to let them “succeed” and not pay a price for their bad behavior.

Yet, sometimes, “discretion is the better part of valor” to use an old phrase, or to “be a live dog, rather than a dead lion,” and “retreat and live to fight another day.”

Those victims who are not able to fight for a “victory” of any sort, I don’t think need to feel that they have “failed” because they chose not to fight the sociopath.

Too many times fighting the psychopaths are like “fighting a circular saw,” as my grandmother would have said. It “just isn’t worth it,” because the damage to yourself will be worse than you can possibly inflict on the psychopath. They stack the odds so in their own favor, that even if you “win,” you end up like the old brawler sitting in the barroom, broken and so gravely injured yourself in your effort to gain a “victory, of sorts” that in retrospect the price was too high.

Sometimes, it is better to walk away a “loser” but still intact, and with your head held high, using the energy and resources you have left to focus on healing yourself, on recovering what you have lost in terms of finances and strength, and take care of yourself. To me that is also a “viable victory.”

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Sexuality and sociopathy

Sociopathy is a personality disorder. We are unusually impressionable, very flexible with our sense of self, and with our defining characteristics. Because we don't have a rigid self-image or worldview, we don't observe social norms, we don't have a moral compass, and we have a fluid definition of right and wrong. We can also be shapeshifters, smooth-talking, and charming. We can become your ideal mate, in a way described here and here. We do not have an established default position on anything. This extends, at least in some degree, to our sexuality.

The original diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM), released in 1952, listed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance. The connection between the two was subsequently removed due to protests from the gay community that homosexuality was being equated with sociopathy. Many have commented since that sociopaths seem to have no particular sexual identity, that even the term bisexual is misleading as it implies some sort of a preference, albeit a shared one, and that "equal opportunity" is a more apt label. In fact, the sociopath seems to be the bonobo of the human world -- frequent, casual, utilitarian sex. As one person reasoned, "such an individual, in their quest for dominance and power would not feel the need to discriminate according to gender."

We see fictional examples of the sociopathic "bisexual" with the talented Mr. Ripley, Joker from Batman (depending on who writes him), and real life examples with Leopold and Loeb and others listed here. If I had to speculate about current celebrities, I would also include Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, and Lindsay Lohan, although narcissism could apply equally well for some of those.

I was thinking about all of this while reading an article on Sir Laurence Olivier's sexual predilections. Although married three times, he apparently also had many male interests, one of whom explained it as follows:
"He's like a blank page and he'll be whatever you want him to be. He'll wait for you to give him a cue, and then he'll try to be that sort of person."
Maybe larry wasn't a sociopath, maybe he was, but he shared with sociopaths the common characteristic of a weak sense of self, and he illustrates well how that might play out with one's sexual identity. In any case, the lesson learned here is not only does being a sociopath potentially make you a great thespian, it also gives new meaning to the old consolation, "there are plenty more fish in the sea."

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Personality disorders

A reader asked me to address other personality disorders associated with sociopathy besides narcissism. Narcissism and sociopathy are on the same cluster with the other "emotional" disorders -- Borderline Personality Disorder and Histrionic Personality Disorder. According to wikipedia, the cluster breaks down as follows:

Antisocial personality disorder: "pervasive disregard for the law and the rights of others."

Borderline personality disorder: extreme "black and white" thinking, instability in relationships, self-image, identity and behavior

Histrionic personality disorder: "pervasive attention-seeking behavior including inappropriate sexual seductiveness and shallow or exaggerated emotions

Narcissistic personality disorder: "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy"
I don't necessarily agree with these one-sentence descriptions. In fact, I don't believe that sociopathy is necessarily the same thing as APD. Like Dr. Robert Hare, I think APD isn't specific enough to give a good picture of sociopathy, and that the two do not necessarily share all of the same characteristics. Consequently, although I consider myself a high functioning sociopath because of my weak sense of empathy, failure to conform to social norms, manipulativeness, etc., I do not necessarily believe that i have APD. Nor do I think I have any of the other personality disorders with the possible exception of very mild Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which helps me fight my impulsiveness.

What about everyone else? Are there connections between sociopathy and other personality disorders that I am not aware of?
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