Thursday, April 16, 2009

Living life as a sociopath

I asked a relative of mine to describe living life as a sociopath:
I might be a sociopath. When I make a nasty remark or hurt someone’s feelings, it is easy for me to blame my actions on the person I’m hurting. I lose patience with people that can’t do things as quick as me.

I am easily bored at social gatherings where all of the discussion is light small talk. I will use this time to get the most stoic person to laugh. This makes me feel I’m in control. I also use flattery to make people feel good.

I was a delinquent as a child and treated my teachers as tools for my pleasure. I would only stop the “torture” after they would cry and even then I felt a sense of victory when I could beat them mentally.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Sociopath or scoundrel?

Elie Wiesel, the nobel peace prize laureate and holocaust survivor, lost $15.2 million of his charity's money and lost his own personal life savings to Bernie Madoff. What did he have to say about him?
"Psychopath’ — it’s too nice a word for him,” Mr. Wiesel said in his first public comments on Mr. Madoff and the Ponzi scheme he is accused of perpetrating on thousands of individuals and charities, including the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.

"Sociopath,’ ‘psychopath,’ it means there is a sickness, a pathology. This man knew what he was doing. I would simply call him thief, scoundrel, criminal.”
Sociopath is too nice of a word for him?! I thought this day would never come! But NPR criticizes Wiesel's choice of words. In a 5+ minute commentary, their resident linguist says the following (paraphrased):
Sociopath is not a term we use affectionately, we reserve it for unsympathetic malefactors. . . Certain clinical language exonerates badness by reframing it as illness. Sociologists describe this phenomenon as the medicalization of deviance. . . Sociopath is a loose term now used to describe anyone unfettered by the pangs of conscience. . . "Sociopath" doesn't add anything to what Victorians would describe as "heartless wretch," but now it comes draped in a whitecoat.
Thank you for your unsolicited opinion, NPR. Wiesel, on the other hand, is clearly a true visionary and humanitarian.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Kill the rats!

Michael Vick was convicted of torturing and killing dogs. Many other football players have been convicted of rape. I asked my liberal co-worker, “What is worse, torturing and killing dogs or raping humans?” She said, “Of course killing dogs is worse!”

I’m sad to say, this is where the animal activist/liberalist/conservationalist mentality has matured to be. I once was asked, “How many lab rats would you kill to cure cancer?” I said, “Any and all rats I can get my hands on!”

I’m certainly not advocating killing off animal species left and right because any good biologist knows that the more diversified an ecosystem is, the more stable it is. If the lab can “produce” as many animals as they kill off, I say kill as many animals as you need.

One of my recent jobs had some Threadleaf Brodiaea (see image) on the site. We wanted to replant the bulbs on a portion of the land (almost ½!) that was not going to be developed. The environmentalist did not like that idea and made us create a 40 foot tall wall in order to not disturb the dirt the bulbs were in.The wall cost about 2 million to build. These are the reasons the economy is in the tank.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Feedback from readers

Here is some feedback on the site, both from commentary regarding the blog on other sites and e-mails:
I ran across another site called “Sociopathworld”. Very insightful and somethiing of an eyeopener. I would describe it as the “Glenda the Good Witch” of the sociopath world. I plan to go back there to read further. I’ve only ever heard of sociopath criminals without really considering the alternative. One article was about raising a sociopathic child. My understand, however erroneous, had been that sociopaths are born not made. It is apparent that it can be either. Taking it one step further, I would expect there to be some crossover or mixture of traits. Actually, there must be. It would explain a lot of things. Okay, I’m pretty sure I have sociopath out of my system now.
And
just wanted to say thank you for all your work writing your blog. I find it insightful and encouraging.
So I will continue to read, even if I never publicly comment.

Thanks again,

Friday, April 3, 2009

Dating a sociopath/narcissist (part II)

My reply to the question from the reader:
My initial thoughts are that he is obviously charming enough to be attractive, he seems very egocentric, and he is not above abusing close relationships but will still make the minimum amount of effort to maintain those relationships so they will be available for further abuse (milking the cow instead of slaughtering). He is manipulative, he doesn't conform to social norms, he has a flexible version of reality/truth -- these are all sociopathic traits. Growing up in a hard environment does not make him less likely to be a sociopath, but more so. The fact that he stood up for a kid being beaten up could go either way, but I think it argues more in favor of sociopath. Sociopaths and narcissists both have a grandiose self image, have a low fear response, and are in need of excessive amounts of stimulation. These and other sociopath/narcissist specific traits would encourage jumping into the fray rather than avoiding fights, even if the fight does not concern them at all. Particularly in this instance where the odds seemed stacked slightly against him, but not too much, and there was a certain amount of nobility to the cause (with the added benefit of impressing you), this seems more like the behavior of a sociopath than a rational person who probably would not have interfered or would have called the police instead of turning vigilante/superhero.

It's hard to diagnose sociopaths secondhand, and even more difficult to diagnose sociopaths thirdhand (firsthand would require intimate knowledge of thought processes that only the suspect himself would have access to), but it is not unlikely that your boyfriend is a sociopath or narcissist. The two are very difficult to distinguish based on outside observation alone. Like a dolphin and a shark, they may generally look the same and act the same, but they come from quite different patterns of interacting with the world. If you feel like your boyfriend has a great deal of self-awareness about his condition, his behavior, and his motivations for his actions, he is probably a sociopath. If he seems oblivious to the inner workings of his mind, the consequences of his actions, or seems to live in a reality entirely his own, he is probably a narcissist. Either way he sounds like he is low-functioning and is probably not a good person to indulge. If you continue to have contact with him, you should establish firm boundaries and clear consequences and follow through with those consequences (although arguably only sociopaths would have enough self-awareness to learn to live within set boundaries). Do not let him manipulate you into compromising you or the rules you have set for him. If you fail to do these things, anything negative that happens to you will be no one's fault but your own.

But I do understand the attraction. Sociopaths and narcissists can be very alluring.

Thanks for reading.
Reader's response:
thank you for your reply! yeah, after he abandoned me there i cut him off and he has yet to come back(but i DO care about him, which actually frightens me because i know he isn't good for me.) and you're right, they're very attractive to me atleast because i like a man who isn't afraid to defend himself or others. it's just hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that if he is a sociopath or narcissist, he can't feel compassion.. its very foreign to me. i really enjoy your site btw :)
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