A reader writes (cont.):
When I was younger, I was very much a slave to my emotions and I would definitely have called myself weak and I think a lot people took advantage of that (including a sociopath or two now that I look at it with the knowledge I've acquired). I'm actually quite thankful in retrospect, I've learned a lot on how to deal and I suppose in turn manipulate people. Another great learning ground was the internet, mostly message boards. People seem to let themselves go and troll with reckless abandon. At first I fell for it, then I identified it, then I partook then I got bored and realized fucking with people over the internet or even just interacting with them was a completely waste of time. Especially if you consider that the good trolls which i butted heads with were probably sociopaths themselves and it would never end.
Having a number of psychotic breaks (since i'm bipolar type 1) was incredibly beneficial. Being completely detached from reality can give you a unique perspective on life.
To summarize one of the points I'm trying to make, is that as I grow older I seem to be gaining better control over my emotions and in some ways closer to the world of sociopathness, which is interesting.
So besides telling you my life story, what's your take on manic depressives? I don't think you can use me as a baseline mind you. If you go into chat rooms geared towards people with mental illness or bipolar you can see that most are completely unstable and it's incredibly easy to push buttons (My meds have erased a lot of my emotions though). I think those people would be closer to average for manic depressives. Anyway, I find what you're going through interesting and wouldn't mind engaging in some sort of dialogue concerning our differences/similarities, at the very least it would help me learn more about myself and sociopaths and offer you the ability to peer into a mind you might not encounter very often.