Friday, May 1, 2009

Desperately seeking sociopath

More from reader "R":
I realized part of my bitter disappointment was that [the man i was dating] was only a narcissist [not a sociopath]. I am a person that is highly sensitive and I do think that I have an almost debilitating capacity to understand and at times feel what other feel. Is seems that just because you are emotional does not necessarily make you good. It has however after a lot of time of introspection made me realize that I can understand people's motives pretty easily. I'm distressed because they are usually, well... So I oscillate between thinking I 'm a crazy narcissist or I'm doomed to be lonely, because I'm afraid I'm on to something. Anyway, I think I was trying to find a sociopath, 1) for relief from having to feel all the time and 2) so I could objectively share information. What do you think?
My response:
I think your reasons for seeking out a sociopath make perfect sense. From what you are describing, you sound like what I call an "uber-empath," someone who is on the opposite extreme of the empathy spectrum as the sociopath. Like many extremes, sociopaths and uber-empaths actually seem to get along quite well. I have had many friends and relationships with uber empaths. In this post I say the following with an uber-empath friend:

Uber-empaths and sociopaths actually make okay friends because the empath is constantly emoting all the time, like kryptonite killing off lesser things, but the sociopaths are unfazed, immune. And sociopaths rarely get to show off to people who really appreciate them, but uber-empaths can understand and appreciate.
So I think there can be a healthy, symbiotic relationship between the two.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

How did you become you?

Shocked (and impressed) question from a friend after I explained to her how to seduce her crush. I didn't tell her, only smiled in response. She wouldn't understand.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Aspie's bully sociopaths

In keeping with the previous post of aspie's/autie's not being as innocent as they seem, I was sad to see this story of an innocent sociopath being tormented by people with asperger's/autism. I guess being empathy-challenged makes aspie's/autie's excellent bullies:
I got involved in a forum war on Aspergia three years ago, in which I was arguing that a sociopath’s neurodiversity should be respected just like everyone else’s. The argument got started after a woman who was a clinical sociopath started posting on Aspergia’s forum. She had a very poor understanding of other people’s emotions, and she habitually made provocative statements as a way of getting responses that were strong enough for her to understand. Although she knew this wasn’t the ideal way to interact with people, she didn’t know what else to do. She came to Aspergia to learn how autistics dealt with the problem of misunderstanding emotions.

Of course, she didn’t explain all of this forthrightly and ask for help. I don’t think she was capable of expressing her intentions so clearly. Several of us dragged it out of her after a long, convoluted discussion that literally went on for days. After we figured out why she was there, a few of us started giving her advice on constructive ways to ask people about their feelings without being manipulative.

Unfortunately, by then she had already annoyed several other members of the forum with her confusing and provocative writing style, and they got together and decided to hound her off the forum with a barrage of nasty personal insults and rants about sociopaths. The poor woman did her best to avoid taking the bait and to practice writing friendly, non-provocative posts, but it didn’t matter what she wrote—they bashed it, and her, mercilessly.

I told them they should be ashamed of themselves for bullying a person because of her neurology on an autistic rights forum. The resulting argument went on for two months.

I’m not trying to start a war here, but I do feel it’s necessary to say this: Sociopaths have a cognitive disability. They’re not necessarily evil, and they can be taught more positive ways of interacting with people. And I am very strongly opposed to demonizing any group of people on the basis of their neurology.
First of all, I want to know what is this aspergia and what happened to this woman?Second, I wonder why she would be on an asperger's/autism site for advice on understanding emotions. That seems like the blind leading the blind to me. But fellow sociopaths, be warned that you will get even less acceptance from the rest of the empathy-challenged community than you will from the empaths themselves, to their eternal shame.

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.
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