Borderline personality disorder and sociopaths: one big empathy-challenged family

As sociopaths we all have a baby sister named Borderline Personality Disorder. (This woman has a real sister with BPD and wrote a book based partially on her experiences). I say sister because unlike sociopaths, who are primarily male, BPDs are primarily female. She's a little sister because on the danger/power spectrum of the empathy-challenged, she is closer to the aspie's and the autie's than the narcissists or sociopaths. But don't underestimate her -- she can be nefarious when she wants to be. Though she's more likely to steal a spouse than to steal $50B.

The BPD is a lot of things, but most interesting to me is the skill with which she sheds one skin after another. For narcissists the mirror is always pointed at themselves, but for BPDs the mirror is always pointed at others -- allowing those around them to see exactly what they want to see.* For instance, under the title Meet the Marriage Magnet, this self-confessed chameleon explains why she believes she received nine marriage proposals:

I was living like a trainee Stepford Wife

Young and still experimenting with my sense of self, I was happy to pursue their pastimes, agree with their politics, even wear clothes they liked.
***
Besides, I find it easy to understand other points of view or problems and I get close to people quite quickly. I'm always interested in other people's hobbies, families and their lives - I suppose that's why I'm a writer.

This intimacy can be misinterpreted for a lot, lot more than mere curiosity. My boyfriends assumed I was smitten with them because I fell into the habit of moulding myself into their ideal.

A similar character can be found in Edith Wharton's short story "The Other Two," wherein the third and current husband of Mrs. Alice Waythone encounters the first two husbands by chance and is distressed to discover that these men -- who share nothing in common with him -- each had a relationship with his wife quite similar to his own. As professor Cynthia Griffin Wolff puts it:

To each and every one of these three quite different men, Alice Waythorne had been the perfect wife: eager to please, ready and willing to adjust her behavior and desires to those of her husband. Gradually, as Mr. Waythorne lets this fatal knowledge penetrate his judgment, the very qualities he had most admired in his wife begin to seem grotesque and deformed. He wonders who she is, wonders whether she is anybody at all in particular. He marvels at her personality, "for it was an art, and made up, like all others, of concessions, eliminations and embellishments; of lights judiciously thrown and shadows skillfully softened."

I have a friend who was married to a woman with BPD and had a similar lament -- he never knew who she was, or if what she felt was real. It makes me wonder -- even if sociopaths became truly harmless, would we ever be accepted? Or do our neurological differences represent an unbridgeable divide between us and empaths? If a Stepford wife-type creeps people out, do socios stand a chance?


*sociopaths are probably best described as being behind a two-way mirror.

J.S. Bach: music for sociopaths

Silencing the devil

Sometimes I feel like I have a devil and angel on my shoulders trying to convince me how to behave. More devil than angel, of course. In the books on which the TV show Dexter is based, the fictional Dexter refers to his devil as "the Dark Passenger." (Apparently. I haven't read the books, but so says wikipedia.) It's an interesting idea -- how do sociopaths perceive their identity? Is it split? Is there a devil tempting them to do things they otherwise wouldn't? With Dexter, the Dark Passenger is the one that wants to do all the killing. When Dexter can no longer ignore it, he "lets the Dark Passenger do the driving." That sounds plausible enough, until the books get all voodoo:

In Dexter in the Dark, the third novel of the series, it is revealed through third person narrative of an entity referred to as "IT" that the Dark Passenger is an independent agent inhabiting Dexter, rather than a deviant psychological construction. "IT" is revealed to be Moloch, a god worshipped in Biblical times. The Dark Passenger is one of ITs many offspring: IT had many children (formed through human sacrifice), and IT learned to share ITs knowledge with them. Eventually, there were too many, and IT killed the majority, some of whom escaped into the world. In the novel, Dexter learns of the Dark Passenger's true nature when it briefly "leaves" him, frightening him into researching possible reasons for its existence.

The demon angle is ridiculous, but again, maybe that is just how Dexter deals with his impulses. Because that is what I think the Dark Passenger really represents, and for me the little devil on my shoulder equals impulses. Everyone has impulses, and sociopaths are notorious for having poor impulse control -- at least those in prison. I am a highly rational person, always weighing the costs and benefits of every action, but I can still succumb to ill-advised impulses some of the time. That's my devil, always trying to get me into trouble. As I grow older, the impulse-control has actually gotten worse instead of better. When I was a child, I was used to people looking over my shoulder all the time, so keeping my own behavior in check was a more immediate concern. Adults don't have the same external restraints. For instance, I am frequently tempted to "ruin people" or lash out in anger. Recently I've been looking for ways to not just ignore or suppress these impulses, but to tame them. I am getting too secure in my career and position in society to risk having a blowout over nothing. I have found that swimming laps helps a lot; the rhythm and the white noise are very soothing. I have also recently discovered tai chi. I'm almost ashamed to admit this, but it really works wonders for soothing the mind. You have to do something, otherwise you'll end up in prison or a social pariah or worse.

True Blood: Sociopath Rights Amendment

The HBO show True Blood features vampires who have recently come out of the closet (due to the development of a synthesized blood food source called "true blood") and are demanding their legal rights in the form of an equal vampire rights amendment to the United States Constitution -- with regular opposition from the humans. Some think that the show's premise is a metaphor for gay rights, but it portrays equally well the issues that would face sociopaths if we ever came out of the closet and began demanding anti sociopath discrimination laws. The vampires, like sociopaths, are not united in the desire to "mainstream" their lifestyle and become like the human sheep they have long fed on. And for good reason -- although the vampires gain the freedom to live more publicly, they are also the target of violent hate crimes and other backlash from the humans.

Seeing all the problems the vampires are having, one wonders why they chose to come out of the closet at all. Unfortunately sociopaths may not always be able to remain in the closet themselves, but may instead be outed by genetic testing and overt discrimination. For instance, this is a relatively interesting collection of people's musings on the pros and cons of governments genetically screening for sociopaths.

Relationship with a sociopath: breaking up is hard to do

A(nother) reason that many sociopaths like to be around people, have friends, be in relationships, etc.:

Rejection resonates with a primal threat, one the brain seems designed to highlight. [I]n human prehistory being part of a band was essential for survival; exclusion could be a death sentence, as is still true today for infant mammals in the wild. The pain center [that triggers actual physical pain at real or impending social isolation] may have evolved this sensitivity to social exclusion as an alarm signal to warn of potntial banishment--and presumably to prompt us to repair the threatened relationship.

When our need for closeness goes unmet, emotional disorders can result. . . . Social rejection--or fearing it--is one of the most common causes of anxiety. Feelings of inclusion depend not so much on having frequent social contacts or numerous relationships as on how accepted we feel, even in just a few key relationships.

Also from Social Intelligence. This interesting because I can feel severe anxiety at the prospect of a break up, resulting in nausea, headaches, and other intense physical pain. A relative of mine (also sociopath) gets the same -- always in the toilet vomiting when his girlfriend threatens to leave him. I don't know whether all socios are that way, but I imagine that they at least find isolation or abandonment to be unpleasant.