Monday, May 28, 2012

Choosing self-awareness

This blog is an interesting resource directed specifically at those with narcissistic personality disorder.  I have always sort of assumed that narcissists are by their nature unaware of their self deception.  However, the author appears to be a self-aware narcissist.  Not only that, he posts advice to other narcissists about how to choose self-awareness themselves.  I think it's actually good advice for everyone, and is especially helpful in understanding how to deal with irrational or self-deceived people:

One big problem narcissists have is that they perceive people (including themselves) negatively. This is part of being out of touch with reality. Suppose you act like a jerk. In order to feel good about yourself, you convince yourself others have it coming to them, by distorting reality. Or you’ll goad others so that they’ll retaliate, allowing you to convince yourself that others are the bad guys.

The solution is to act on your good impulses so you have no need to self-justify:


To the extent you have impulses to be helpful or nice to others or yourself, you should try to carry out the impulses. E.g. if you see someone that needs help and you think, “I should help,” you really should. The reason: if you don’t, you’ll find a way to blame the other person so that you can feel you did the right thing by not helping. You’ll see that person negatively. As before, you may even goad them into attacking you, so that you can feel better about yourself.

The solution is simple: when around other people, pay attention. If you have an impulse to help them, do it. Do this again and again. If you forget and catch yourself not paying attention, just start over.


He also recommends zen meditation and some other interesting advice about how to recognize and process feelings of shame.  And more specifically about cultivating self-awareness:

Try to develop a friendly curiosity about yourself. Somehow you got to the present without paying much attention. Now is a good time to start paying attention. Try to notice your thoughts. Try to feel whatever you feel. Watch yourself making judgments. See how you spend your time. The key here is the attitude. You aren’t studying yourself coldly. You are, in a friendly way, trying to observe what you do. The reason is that “friendly” is less-threatening than “cold”. You are more likely to see all aspects of yourself if you observe yourself with friendly curiosity.
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Pay attention to things as you act. That way after the fact, you’ll be able to look back and remember what happened. The goal is to get away from reacting and instead become someone that acts deliberately.
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The neat thing here is that you get to catch yourself deluding yourself. You are routinely lying to yourself. You’ve got the chance to catch yourself and watch it happen.
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The alternative to self-awareness is being asleep and living a life of self-delusion and misery.

This post about self-deception is also very interesting, in which he cites this article (see also this book):

Humans are invested in seeing themselves as ethical creatures. We want to believe in the rightness of our own conduct, to see our lives as a series of mostly well-intentioned decisions. And it appears that we'll go to great lengths to feel that way, even if it means warping our own sense of morality to suit our needs.

This is why I don't want people to feel indebted to me.  I have narcissists and other self-deceived people in my family, circle of acquaintances, and group of business associates.  Those type of people cannot stand to feel indebted to someone else -- it goes against their own sense of self worth.  So what they will do is try to make up a story in which they are not really indebted to me, perhaps because what I gave them was not really worth much, or perhaps by imputing some sort of ulterior motive to me.  Or maybe they might imagine a story in which I am really just paying them back for something that I have long been ungrateful for.  Whatever the means, the purpose is always the same: to make them feel like they are in the right, even if it means convincing themselves that I am in the wrong.  It is not at all worth it to me, so I am very careful to preemptively downplay anything I might happen to do for them.

I have to say that I hate self-deceived people.  Sometimes they email me or I see them commenting on posts.  I wonder if they realize how obvious they are.  Maybe they can, in the way that we sometimes suspect we have bad breath but can never really be sure.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Song: I get a kick out of you

I was absentmindedly singing this song to myself the other day and thought, this is actually pretty accurately a sociopathic perspective.  I get obsessed with people sometimes just because I get a kick out of them, and there aren't a lot of things that do that thing for me.  Of course I will not let that person go (at least not easily) as long as I continue to get that kick from them.  It should be flattering to the other person, but I can also see how it could be creepy and threatening.



My story is much too sad to be told,
But practically ev'rything leaves me totally cold.
The only exception I know is the case
Where I'm out on a quiet spree
Fighting vainly the old ennui
And I suddenly turn and see
Your fabulous face.

I get no kick from champagne.
Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all,
So tell me why should it be true
That I get a kick out of you?

Some get a kick from cocaine.
I'm sure that if I took even one sniff
That would bore me terrific'ly too,
Yet I get a kick out of you.

I get a kick ev'rytime I see
You're standing there before me.
I get a kick though it's clear to me
You obviously don't adore me.

I get no kick in a plane.
Flying too high with some guy in the sky
Is my idea of nothing to do,
Yet I get a kick out of you.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Fictional sociopaths: Don't trust the B in Apt 23

A reader sent me this article about a new television show.  From an article entitled: "Chloe From Don’t Trust The B In Apt 23 Could Be The Sociopathic BFF You Always Wanted":

Never in my life did I think I would actively pursue a sociopathic roommate that makes my life more challenging and more dangerous on a weekly basis. But after watching Don’t Trust The B in Apartment 23 this season I’m adding it to my list of “people I want in my life.”
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There’s something magnetic about her character Chloe. Something that makes you root for her even after she does the unthinkable. Like taking in a foster child to use as a personal assistant or secretly selling June’s baking videos to a sexual festish site to make rent money. And yes, by the end of every episode she learns a lesson about morals and human decency. But never quite the right lesson.

It’s like if Danny Tanner lectured DJ Tanner about the evils of smoking cigarettes and she turnd to binge drinking instead. Chloe listens and Chloe comprehends and Chloe interprets the lesson in her own way. It’s magical and it’s slightly wrong and it’s something you rarely see on TV. And that’s exactly what makes it so refreshing.
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How cool is it that there’s a female character on television who puts herself first. She may not always put herself first at the right time or in the right situations, but she always puts herself first. She knows what she wants and she does what she needs to do to get it done. Yes, she has moments where she tires to help June and James.

But if it comes down to her happiness or theirs, she’ll choose her happiness any day of the week. That’s what probably what makes her a sociopath, but it’s also what makes her some kind of backwards role model for women who are so used to pleasing everyone else in their lives.

After watching so many characters on TV like June, who are go-getters sacrificing their youth to acheive their career dreams, it’s so wonderful to see a character just enjoying her life. A character who exemplifies selfishness in its human form and reminds us that it’s okay to look out for yourself. It’s okay to care about yourself more than you care about others.



I confirmed this with my friend, that with regard to being friends with a sociopath, "the pros outweigh the cons."






Friday, May 25, 2012

Sociopaths, loss, and fungibility

I have been thinking about loss recently. I have always thought that I treat people as being more fungible than they are used to being treated. I once warned a friend that i was likely to use her up like a paper napkin and dispose of her. I have always understood what a "friend of convenience" meant to me, and treated those people accordingly. I am unable to care for those people unconditionally. The kindness I show them is directly proportional to the value they have to me.

When I was younger, I was as quick to make "friends" with inanimate objects as they were real people. One particular "friend" has stuck with me through the years. He is as valuable to me as most actual friends, and perhaps even some family members. I lost him once and was able to reclaim him only through hard work, brilliant problem solving, and luck. Since then I have been very careful with him, until recently. I was scheduled for a long trip and wanted my friend to come along, but was worried for his safety. I started searching for a substitute on the internet and chanced upon his twin available for sale. When substitute friend came in the post, he looked different, and I still favored my old friend. Quickly, though, the two have become surprisingly interchangeable. Whatever my faults, I have always considered myself a rather loyal person by nature (Cancerian?), but here I was discarding a lifelong friend for someone who just fit nicely into the mold. But am I so different from empaths? One of the empaths in my life said the following about loss:
"One of the saddest things about death is that the world does go on, and you feel like that devalues the person that they were. Eventually even we move on, we fill the void that was left with other people. We have to, it's human nature."
However, she admits that void fillers won't ever be perfect. She remembers particularly her mother losing her parents, how painful that was, and how she was never able to find that type of relationship again, not like she expected to.
"People come in and out of our lives a lot. That's the nature of the beast. For some reason in our culture, only family sticks around, and even then certain family members will drift apart."
Death has never made me sad, maybe I because I've never cared that much about anyone who has died. I have lost people in other ways and been sad, but am I really sad for their loss? Or am I upset that they have left me? Angry at myself for failing to keep them around?

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Learning to be sociopathic (part 2)

My reply:

I do think that it is possible to learn to be more sociopathic. I frequently have people from the former Eastern Bloc who write to me and tell me that it seems like everyone in their country is sociopathic. I have visited other countries -- Vietnam, Egypt, Israel, the Netherlands, etc. -- that seem more naturally sociopathic than others. I think people who are raised in abusive situations become almost bilingual in the language of ASPD (if not necessarily sociopathy). And of course everyone can be trained to kill, if pushed to it.

I was actually thinking of how we train our mind to think in particular ways.  For example, I went to a graduate school with a particular philosophical bent.  Today I met someone else who went to the same school and caught up on a recent project that has been keeping me very busy.  I was surprised how easy it was to explain it to him.  I would start a sentence and he would finish it for me.  When I started telling him about a follow up project, I only had to begin giving him the premise and he immediately understood everything.  I was so charmed by the exchange because it reminded me of how pervasive that mentality is that we share.

In contrast, recently I have been trying to learn a new method of analysis and so I talk with people who come from a completely different discipline from mine.  It's so interesting hearing the way they see problems -- the things that interest them and their biases and blindspots are so different from my own.  Sometimes I see them making small errors, but it's actually hard to explain to them because they are, after all, blindspots and some people get so attached to a particular viewpoint.

I always tell people sociopathy is really only a competitive advantage just because its incidence is low.  It's like being left handed in certain sports like boxing.  There is nothing inherently better about left handedness over right handedness.  It's just that people are used to defending against the right handed, not the left.

I have also heard from people who have been raised by sociopathic parents who say that they also grow up bilingual in the language of sociopathy.  I think that is ultimately where most people will end up in their lives, at least the smart ones.  It's good to see things from different perspectives.  
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