Saturday, April 7, 2012

Emotion + Apathy = ?

Sociopaths do a lot of heartless everything.  What would you call one who can't tolerate wrong doing, to the point where they get very upset?  A reader writes:

I'd like to hear your opinion and the opinion of your readers on something I've been realizing lately. It seems to me that I am a very unique person, and anomaly. I seem to be a borderline sociopath, capable of feeling at both ends of the emotional spectrum. I've always been extremely intelligent, viewing the world in countless ways and expressing opinions that often earn contempt from my peers, simply because they are too narrow minded to understand my views. As such, have had trouble connecting to people around me, with most of my friends being simply people who pass the time. I've always thought that people were insufferable, cruel idiots, and yet, I am genuinely charismatic and enjoy the company of people. (The ones I can tolerate, anyway) I've only ever met one person who I thought of as my equal, and she was just as intelligent as me, which I found strange, as I thought that anyone with my level of intelligence would naturally be a logical sociopath, but she wasn't even close to one. 

When I am around people I care about, I am one of the nicest people in the world, and will go out of my way to help them, so long as my own needs are met first. However, when I'm around people I hate, or I here about criminals in the news, I am filled with a burning rage, and often fantasize about torturing and killing these people. If I ever had to kill someone for the right reason, I don't think I'd hesitate or feel even a shred of remorse. I have very strong morals, but I'm also flexible with some opportunistic actions, and I don't believe that any action is inherently evil. Rather, it is the circumstances and intent behind the action that are relevant. 

I believe that sociopathy is human nature, as all children act like sociopaths before they are taught to care for others, and while my mother made attempts to teach me empathy, my logic took over and made me ask "Why care for those who don't show me the same respect?" I don't go out of my way to manipulate people, but when I find it necessary, it is usually fun. I have my own very strong personality and I don't act with different ones as most sociopaths do, but I have a great understanding of the human mind and how to manipulate it. It just seems that, while the main focus seems to be total, emotionless sociopaths, I have an almost perfect balance of emotion and apathy, and I was wondering if anyone has ever encountered something like this before? And what do you think?

M.E.: This is interesting. I think a lot of people who are very smart naturally gravitate towards a more open minded, amoral, even pseudo sociopathic mindset. There are exceptions of course, like your intelligent friend. I think the thing that makes me least think you are a sociopath is that you want to kill criminals that you hear about on television. Why would you have such a strong reaction, if not moral outrage?

Reader:

I agree. If I were truly a sociopath, I wouldn't have such a strong reaction to crimes and immoral actions. It seems to me, then, that borderline sociopathy is a natural by-product of intelligence. In a situation like mine, it seems like it would be incorrect to even label it as a mental abonormality; rather, it is just another worldview that the common, narrow-minded empath would label and 'wrong,' as uneducated societies have always done to those who are different.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Confronting a sociopath

A lot of people ask me, how can I confront a sociopath?  There are a lot of ways, but you should also be aware of what the sociopath feels when confronted, basically confused and unaffected or very, very angry.   Here's how one reader described it in a comment:

When people yell at me, I am confused first and foremost. Bursts of strong emotion take me completely by surprise, and it takes a second or two for me to regain my wits. After that brief moment, my brain immediately kicks into high gear to analyze the situation: Why are they yelling? What are they saying? Have I done something deliberately to harm them recently or ever? Have I done something they could indirectly assume as harming them?

When someone calls me out, manages to look past my charming and pleasant mask and react negatively, it puts me into a very cruel and cold state of mind. It constitutes a threat of the highest order, a threat to my carefully maintained persona, and I treat it as such.

If I decide it is my best interest to passively accept whatever retribution/apology they demand, I do so with the utmost affected sincerity. If I can ignore it, I do, and their subsequent nagging is a mere minor irritation. In the rare occasion that continued contact/antagonizing on their part could compromise my peace, I strike back. I use everything I've learned about their insecurities, their weaknesses, their fears, and I break them. I hurt them so deeply and thoroughly that they are either frightened away entirely or too cowed to ever attack me again. I take great, great pleasure in doing so--oftentimes, to preserve my peaceful existence in the public eye, I have to hold back. It feels good to break others. Very good.

One of the special pleasures of writing this blog and reading what people comment is seeing another sociopath describe almost exactly what something feels like for me.  I think this comment illustrates this supremely.  

  

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Choosing victimhood (or not)

From a reader:


You've helped me a great deal in the past when I was having to deal with my ex-husband. Your advice is golden and we're on good terms probably because you have showed me through your site exactly where he is coming from. We now get along better than we ever did when we were married.

I've been working with a psychologist who specializes in personality disorders and I talk to women who have been involved with sociopaths. Largely they are very unwilling to step out of the victim's role, which I think is the only way to recover from being taken for such a ride. I think much of the damage they suffer from has come from having someone torn out of their life so harshly. The unanimous advice when it comes from recovering from a sociopath is "run and don't look back".

This way of approaching the situation creates either a victim or something to be chased, neither of which seem productive to anyone involved.  The small few willing to try a new route and learn about this way of thinking benefit greatly whether they remain in contact with their sociopath or not. Unlike those who readily accept the victim's mentality, they learn a new value system and can appreciate in themselves what the sociopath saw in them. They learn to once again value the person and not reduce them to a label like what goes on at the lovefraud website.

I always encourage women to keep their sociopaths in their lives if they think they can handle it. This involves accepting them for who they are and not expecting typical reactions or relying on areas that have previously been problems (I will never again count on my ex-husband to be on time with his payments or expect that he will not cheat on his current and future spouses). I've never seen a sociopath "get fixed" (I personally don't think anything is broken) but I have seen the positive effects of having someone who understands and can help re-direct potentially dangerous energy.

I completely reject that sociopaths don't have feelings, I think they have more intense emotions than empaths because they are entirely their own, not diluted by whatever else is around. It is harder to create an emotion entirely from scratch than to just pick up on someone else's and add to it, so these true emotions are much more rare. If you allow a sociopath to be himself, you get to be part of all of this. This is one of the reasons I prefer to be around such company. I think it's entirely possible to create a mutually beneficial relationship that will be unlike any other.

This approach is almost always rejected by the doctors I have talked to, despite huge success I've had in my own life and in my field research. I've been told this is too dangerous, that I'm still being taken for a ride if I think "these people" have anything to offer me and that no good can come from such relationships. I do not think I can have any effect working with psychologists and therapists because I'm going up against a whole establishment and have no credentials, the only thing I have is a very open mind.

Do you think this approach, changing your perceptions to change your relationship is progressive? I realize that most will not want to be close to someone who has hurt them but for the ones like me, nothing can be more healing or enlightening. I value your opinion more than anyone in the entire field and I would love to know what you think the most effective method of being able to help people would be if you approve.

Thank you for everything you do, you have helped so many and you are among my favorite people in the world for doing it.

M.E.: I think you are spot on. I think the advice that specialists are giving to sociopaths and people involved with sociopaths is rubbish (for the most part). It's too bad that there are so many basic misunderstandings about the nature of sociopaths. And I agree with you that sociopaths have a unique perspective that can actually be beneficial to people who ar able to understand and appreciate it.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Broken

As someone who has used a similar relationship analogy in the past, I was pretty impressed by this comment from this post.


She is a car that has almost completely run out of gas. The gas is energy. Depression is having no energy. 

"But I keep filling her tank up with gas!" you say. Unfortunately for you, her engine nearly kaput. Fuel leaks everywhere, the sparkplugs are bad, the throttle is loose, and despite all that gas your pouring into the tank, she's lucky if she can get a mile further down the road.

All of these things are fixable, and but you're going to have to completely rebuild the car, and since you have a budget, (in your case, the amount of time you can stand to hang around her) it's going to take awhile. 

Here's how to use the car analogy to help you stay sane while dealing with someone who is, by definition, a drag. Say that she has a habit of not looking you (or anyone) in the eye. She stares at her nails, she stares at her feet, she stares out the window, but her eyes are unfocused and you know she's not actually staring at anything. This is a big habit for depressives, because by not looking at anything we don't have to care about anything outside ourselves, and therefore we can protect ourselves from any further emotional pain. It's our primary defense mechanism. So how to fix this? In car terms, the headlights are out, which is maybe why the car looks like it's been inadvertently offroading a lot. The only thing to do is to replace them. Imagining your friend as an inanimate object may seem inconsiderate, but empaths get much less worked up over inanimate objects than they do with people, so it's much easier to not take what she does personally, which is essential if you're going to be dealing with a depressed person much of the time. 

So now that you have a mental defense in the form of an analogy, how exactly do you go about repairing your friend? You basically train her like a dog into certain habits. Punishment won't work, because I guarantee you nothing you can do to her is worse than what she's already doing to herself. So the two big tools in your repair kit are going to be distraction and reward. When you notice her starting to get that introspective "I'm going to beat myself up for no good reason" look, distract her. Research on the internet for things that are excellent distractions. If she's distracted, she is focusing outside herself and can't slip into full-on "I hate myself" mode. The second is reward. Whenever she does something- no matter how small- that is in the direction on forming a habit to combat her own depression, reward her. It doesn't have to be anything fancy- a smile or a sincere complement will do. With these two tools, you can slowly warp her worldview into a more positive tint. 


I think that this is actually really helpful for people who are less empathic (and everyone maybe).  It's still cause and effect, sort of, but just a different project than maybe you thought you were working on.


Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Anxiety vs. fear (part 2)

There was an interesting article in the NY Times about the difference between fear and anxiety a little while ago.  Here is how they described it:

You are taking a walk in the woods ― pleasant, invigorating, the sun shining through the leaves. Suddenly, a rattlesnake appears at your feet. You experience something at that moment. You freeze, your heart rate shoots up and you begin to sweat ― a quick, automatic sequence of physical reactions. That reaction is fear.

A week later, you are taking the same walk again. Sunshine, pleasure, but no rattlesnake.  Still, you are worried that you will encounter one. The experience of walking through the woods is fraught with worry. You are anxious.

Human anxiety is greatly amplified by our ability to imagine the future, and our place in it.

What is the difference between anxiety and fear?

Scientists generally define fear as a negative emotional state triggered by the presence of a stimulus (the snake) that has the potential to cause harm, and anxiety as a negative emotional state in which the threat is not present but anticipated. We sometimes confuse the two: When someone says he is afraid he will fail an exam or get caught stealing or cheating, he should, by the definitions above, be saying he is anxious instead.
***
The automatic nature of the activation process reflects the fact that the amygdala does its work outside of conscious awareness. We respond to danger, then only afterward realize danger is present.


Every animal (including insects and worms, as well as animals more like us) is born with the ability to detect and respond to certain kinds of danger, and to learn about things associated with danger.  In short, the capacity to fear (in the sense of detecting and responding to danger) is pretty universal among animals.  But anxiety ― an experience of uncertainty ― is a different matter. It depends on the ability to anticipate, a capacity that is also present in some other animals, but that is especially well developed in humans.  We can project ourselves into the future like no other creature.

While anxiety is defined by uncertainty, human anxiety is greatly amplified by our ability to imagine the future, and our place in it, even a future that is physically impossible.  With imagination we can ruminate over that yet to be experienced, possibly impossible scenario. We use this creative capacity to great advantage when we envision how to make our lives better, but we can just as easily put it to work in less productive ways — worrying excessively about the outcome of things. Some concern about outcomes is essential to success in meeting life’s challenges and opportunities. But at some point, most of us probably worry more than we need to.  This raises the questions: How much fear and worry is too much? How do we know when we have skipped the line from normal fear and anxiety to a disorder?


And of course the line between fear and anxiety is not always clear either.

I thought that the article made an interesting point about the human ability to predict the future.  It's odd that I have cast myself in the part of oracle in my life -- an amateur fortune teller.  I guess it's because I thought it would be powerful to know the future.  I've gotten better over the years to the point where now every time that I get burned in a prediction it's been because I've failed to take into account how truly unpredictable other human behavior can be.  The more burned I become, the more reluctant I am to stick my hand in the fire.  I can't decide whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.    



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