Wednesday, February 3, 2010

On empaths controlling/manipulating sociopaths (part 2)

A reader writes (cont.):
The method is quite simple. In fact, it employs many of the same methods that sociopaths use to manipulate empaths. The first key is to realize an essential fact: everything - and I mean absolutely every single thing - the sociopath says is suspect (particularly things of any significance regarding the future). (This is why I remain skeptical about your true nature, and extremely so of your supposed intentions regarding your site.) What do I mean by this? In short, I mean: I always figured his words were very likely total bullshit. I always had my guard up. I stopped believing in the authenticity of everything that came out of his mouth, of all his actions, of all his feigned emotions. I maintained the artificial pretense (sound familiar?) that I felt authenticity out of him and out of his supposed intentions. This actually required much less acting than I initially thought it would, because more than anything it simply required a "freeing up" of my typical emotional responses (which wasn't all that hard to do). I would have to feign an air of nervousness in his presence every now and then, because I knew this satisfied him and made him feel in control.

Step 2: I engaged in subtle, subtle, subtle forms of flattery. You sociopaths are more prone to flattery than you would like to believe (and no - he is not a narcissist...not worth my time explaining how I know, but I am quite certain). In fact when I came across a blog post on your site (I haven't read that many) where you stated that one way to control a sociopath might be through flattery, I literally laughed out loud.

Step 3 (the last step): I acted and planned constantly with the awareness that what he craves most is control and power. This awareness allowed me to devise situations that would appear to him as if they would lead to more power/control for him in his life (especially toward his peers), when in fact I engineered them to end up in him sacrificing something to me. You may notice that this is basically the same thing you do to empaths in relationships with them: you create a pretense of situations that will lead to more emotional security, fulfillment, sympathy, etc. because this is precisely what many empaths crave, whereas I create the pretense of situations leading to more power/control because this is what sociopaths crave.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

On empaths controlling/manipulating sociopaths (part 1)

A reader writes:
Hello, m.e.,

I've been reading about sociopathy for many years now but only recently came across your site. I am an empath. In fact, I am perhaps a bit "more" empathetic than most empaths would be.

I believe I have developed a method for controlling, even manipulating, sociopaths: that is, beating them at their own game. I will not post my entire story yet because 1) I remain, and probably always will remain, unconvinced that you are a sociopath until I can observe you in person (this is my skeptical nature) and 2) I'm not sure that you would be interested in hearing many of the details. You'll have to respond to let me know.

The story, in brief: about six years ago I discovered the sociopathic nature of a male friend very close to me. In short, he briefly successfully conned me out of hundreds of dollars (not that serious, but unpleasant) to fund an affair (he had another long term girlfriend then) I had no idea he was having. Even though he was able to guilt me into not accusing him of failing to repay me, I quickly became very suspicious. I began to notice an almost inhuman detachment in his facial expressions. When he smiled, I would often notice that the smile was emotionally vacant. This may sound strange, but the smile felt subtly slower to me. I am very adept at picking up facial cues and intuitively knowing what people around me are thinking, how they're feeling - even what their true intentions are. It is nearly at the level of a psychic ability (though I am a strict materialist and do not believe in that). My Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ (the same as Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, and supposedly/theoretically Jesus Christ) and is often attributed an uncanny ability to see straight through to what people are thinking/feeling.

Back to the story, I began researching sociopathy and similar disorders online. I was completely certain that what I had on my hands was a full blown sociopath - and certainly one of the more impulse controlling varieties (a college grad and actually quite motivated and hard working). At this point, I became really excited. I could not wait to see what I could do to him - in short, to see if I could actually beat him at his own game. (This statement may give you the impression that I might be a sociopath. I am not. I sometimes cry during those infomercials about feeding African children and so forth. I could not list the number of times I've cried on someone else's behalf.)

Monday, February 1, 2010

Haruhi Suzumiya: textbook sociopath



A reader recommended this "popular Japanese book/manga/anime starring a high-school aged girl named Haruhi Suzumiya who is a textbook sociopath." I watched it and liked it. There were a few things that are just eerily accurate for a sociopath in the character of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Manic depression and sociopathy (part 3)

Reader:
Oh, there's something that I wanted to add. My own theory when I'm in a hypomanic and manic state. From personal experience my brain has the ability to work faster and harder in a hypomanic state, so when you're in a social situation everything is happening in slow motion. That means a few things, one you get bored easily, secondly you can decipher people and their motivations much quicker. Combine the latter point with boredom and playing with people becomes entertaining. However, my brain would spin faster and faster if you will, becoming more capable by the hour but at a certain point you have a psychotic break. As if you're reached the practical limit of your brain's processing power and you just unravel and lose touch with reality. At this point you're living in your own world, and it feels great (at least in my experiences it has), but you will freak everyone around out.
M.E.:
I don't know that much about manic depressives, although I was accused of being one once during a period of prolonged illness. I wish I knew more about it, but maybe my readers do. Shall we see what they have to say about things?

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Manic depression and sociopathy (part 2)

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.
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