Thursday, May 6, 2010

Shaming

I have become increasingly disenchanted with humanity, particularly these last few months. I think it may have something to do with being sick for a long time and never really catching up. It also may have something to do with the amount of traveling I have had to do, particularly international flights with immigration and customs checks.

The other day I had just boarded a plane and was trying to get an email sent before we took off. It was such a small plane that there was only a minute between when we were asked to shut off any electronics* and enforcement. After the announcement, I finished the sentence I was on and pressed send, but the connection was bad and I couldn't tell whether it had sent or not. I attempted to resend. At this point, I could have hidden the phone while the phone searched for a connection, but i decided to be honest about it and do it within plain sight. Halfway through attempting to resend, the flight attendant reprimanded me for not having turned the phone off already, trying to shame me in front of the other passengers. I quickly got very angry. My friend says "it's when you are trying to be legit and people still chastise you that you get the most irate." True. He also said that the flight attendant would probably not have been so angry if I had actually attempted to hide the phone, instead of blatantly and openly defying the order. Maybe also true. But I controlled my anger well, only giving the flight attendant chilling death glares. I think I must have creeped her out sufficiently, though, because I looked up a few times in the flight and saw her staring at me with a look of bewilderment and fear.

This incident was not a big deal, but it did remind me that I don't respond well at all to shaming attempts. I don't know why people would ever use them (particularly with people like me around) or over something so small as mobile phone etiquette. I always think -- poor phone etiquette is the least of your worries with me, guy. I think if people had to choose only one thing to worry about, there are many other things that should be prioritized, including the wisdom of sleeping with one eye open.

I'm sure there was originally some evolutionary impetus for shame and shaming, but can it really still be applicable? Effective? Safe?


*is there a legitimate reason for this rule?

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Sympathy vs. empathy (part 2)

My response:
Ha, hard to know if we're bad people, what does that even mean? I definitely think we can feel genuine sympathy or sadness, though. Sympathy just means feeling sorry for them, and has nothing to do with feeling what they feel or whatever else empathy is supposed to mean. I feel sorry for people when something bad happens to them or they cry or are otherwise struggling because I know what it feels like to have something bad happen to you, and it can be heart wrenching. I think we understand emotions a lot better than people think we do, but I also think that our understanding isn't too good unless/until we have experienced that exact same emotion, gone through that exact same experience before. At least for me, the more I can see other people as myself (i.e. the more they mirror me or my own past experiences), the better I can understand them. That doesn't seem strange or disturbing to me, but they keep telling me that there is this magic empathy thing that people are somehow born with a magical sense that allows them to feel what others are feeling naturally.
Reader:
Yes I understand what you mean. I truthfully think we sociopaths have a higher understanding of human emotion than most normal people do. Maybe because we spend so much time trying to analyze it to understand it. I think we are very emotionally intuitive and can pick up on when someone is lying or bullshitting us, or at least I can. I can meet people and within 5 minutes know what kind of person they are. This comes to my aid a lot when it comes to friendships...I know so many things about these people, they don't even realize I pick up on it. It's like you always know their intentions. I like this being able to 'read' people quality. It certainly helps with life.

As for sympathy, I can relate to an emotion someone is having as in...I understand it perfectly...though since it's not me going through it, I tend to not care. It doesn't mean I want them to suffer, I just have no feelings towards it at all.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Sympathy vs. empathy (part 1)

A reader writes:
I ran across your blog and just wanted to say I really like and agree with what you've written. I'm a sociopath myself, so maybe I'm just happy (yes, we do feel some emotions, don't we lol) to run into someone that understands what it's like. You present the information on what it's like to be a sociopath is a very honest and straightforward way, and I respect that. I, too, have come out to people who I've suspected are sociopaths themselves, but generally if I don't want someone to know, they don't. There's a certain kindred feeling I get in recognizing someone who is like me. Sometimes I admit as much to people as I believe I can get away with, such as admitting to being manipulative or deceitful to get what I want. Like everything, there's an agenda to that: it shows the person I consider them close enough to be able to open up to them and reveal intimate details about myself, and it also gives me attention. And if this person is someone I want something from, well you get the idea.

But I wonder, do you think we are "bad" people? I hate using that word because it seems so black and white. But there are times I almost think I do feel genuine sympathy or sadness, or what I imagine it would feel like, but then again this could be me fooling myself into trying to believe I am normal. Oftentimes, I find myself imitating the behavior I see on TV shows or soap operas, and it's like playing a role of sorts. My grandpa is dying of cancer and will be dead in a few months' time and I stand to inherit his home when he passes. The idea of owning a home is of course a plus for me, and I admit when the doctors expressed a slight chance he may live, I was even disappointed because it meant I wouldn't get my house after all. But things have gone downhill and although I do my best to show sympathy, I know I want that house. I'd never kill him myself, but you get the picture. But just thinking that I can behave this way gets me depressed and I can say I can genuinely make myself cry for real, but not in any way that expresses sympathy for my grandfather...more like a self-involved "why do I have to be this way" thing. I realize I am not normal and my emotions are not normal, but that doesn't mean I believe them to be wrong. I often find myself accusing others of having false emotions, but then I realize that's most likely because they seem so foreign to me that I think everyone must be faking it like myself. It shocks me to find out people actually DO care about others and it's genuine.

If I do feel sadness or empathy, it stems from the fact that I realize I am not normal and I can make myself cry about this. Like "What's wrong with me? What am I lacking? Why can't I be normal?" But I can never seem to cry over anything regarding -another- person. If I hurt someone and I cry about it, it's not because of any remorse, it's more like "Jeez I'm so screwed up"...notice the "I'm" there. It makes it selfish, if you know what I mean.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Sociopaths and depression

From a reader:
I am already sorry that my email has to begin with "my ex-boyfriend is a sociopath..." because I know this is something most women think has happened to them. My ex, however, is what he describes as "caught in the net"; a diagnosed sociopath, treated once in hospital and still in occupational care. Not that it helps, of course.

When we were together, he didn't act in a way that most women would describe their apparently sociopathic exes as acting, in fact he was very loving and caring, and always spoke of the huge amounts of respect he had for me, and how he took me seriously, and this is why he loved me. Before we were together we were friends and I would watch him systematically destroy the emotional lives of his exes, just for fun, just for kicks. My reasons for loving him were the normal ones; mainly, I was attracted to the sociopath in him.

I saw him just the other day, and we had this long conversation, where he told me about how much he feels he is suffering. I am adverse to all people who assume that sociopaths have no feelings whatsoever. Sure, he doesn't feel guilt, which sometimes makes me feel incredibly upset that he could - and has - hurt me spectacularly, and the only remorse he would feel would be the remorse would follow my excommunication of him, not the fact that he had upset me.

He has started to complain of feeling he has built himself a prison of his own behaviours, that his lack of impulse control is what's driving him to his own insanity. He doesn't feel guilty, his problem doesn't lie in his fear that he is hurting people, it is his basic fear that he will be lonely, that he is damaging himself. He has had a few scares that have nearly killed him, a few outbursts that have landed him in the Police Station or the psychiatric unit. He said something to me about his grip on reality; something about the fact that every time he does something "typically psychopathic", he is bored of himself, and he feels another barrier between him and the real world has gone up. I'm not entirely sure what he means by this.

I wouldn't assume that the reason he is saying this stuff to me is to appeal to my empathy, because I currently have nothing he wants. He is always relatively honest with me, in that if he wants something from me, he will ask for it. He respects me, still, so the mind games he plays with me are very minor and are usually just to keep himself on form.

My question is, is this feeling of suffering a common thing? Sociopaths I know only feel very primal emotions, and he has often told me that my downfall in life is that I am far too empathetic and this is slowing me down, that I could be like him if I wanted to but I'm too compassionate and he finds this quite sickening.
Occupational hazard?
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