Sunday, March 17, 2013

Hitting a wall

I thought this was an interesting recent comment on an older post that deserved to be read:


I've reached the point where I'd like to get some help for my impulsive traits. I'm' saying "impulsive" rather than "psychopathic" because I'd like to focus on what I see as the problem.

You could say that I'm a high-functioning psychopath. I'm Machiavellian, narcissistic and psychopathic. 

I've apparently got enough impulse control (and intelligence) to get me what I need. But I sense that there's a gap. I'm missing something.

In the past, I wouldn't have done this because I was too proud. I wasn't able to admit that I was behaving "badly" or had a problem. And I was young enough that I was substantially getting what I wanted. 

Now that I'm middle aged, that isn't happening. Perhaps because I'm not getting what I want, I can see I've behaved anti-socially, and it has cost me. E.g. I'm heading into old age, and no matter how optimistic I'd like to be, it is clear that it is going to get harder and harder to have sex with women in their twenties. And eventually I will die, no matter how much I fight it.

Have any commenters, motivated by the same sense of "oh shit I'm screwed" sought help? How'd it go? 

Like many life situations, I can sort of tell how old someone is by their attitude about things -- even younger and older sociopaths. I think that a lot of sociopaths eventually hit a wall of ceasing to be functional in whatever life they've set up for themselves. Some react by just riding it out until it's gory conclusion, to be taken out in a blaze of glory without ever having to have compromised whatever it is that they didn't want to compromise about themselves or their lifestyle. Others adapt. I hit mine really early, I think, my very early twenties. I think that makes my experiences a little different than most -- more like Magic Johnson's HIV and less like orphans' in Africa -- i.e., my symptoms have never had much of a chance to flare up and allow me to flame out. I am not an obvious sociopath to strangers, the way that maybe my grandfather was with his scarred face and philandering and scamming ways. You probably wouldn't even notice something was wrong with me, unless you are one of the ~2% of the population that does. But it is interesting to think what would have happened if I hadn't encountered such early opposition and had to change. Would I be hitting my wall right about now?

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Fraudster tips

Pretty entertaining and educational -- "People don't want to appear silly, that's why they don't want to ask questions."


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Fake it till you make it

From a reader:

recently, with xmas on it's way i've started to ponder a little on this subject. i rarely buy gifts for my family, i never saw the point, even with those who gave to me i'd just claim to be broke and it's not like i care about what my family thinks because i don't really want a relationship with any of them, at least, i don't really care whether they are part of my life in the future when i move out ect... (i'm a teenager). i thought a couple of your recent posts were of some relevance, like when you used to go shoplifting, i'm curious about your thought process behind stopping. do you get narcissistic satisfaction from doing things in a legit, socially acceptable manner? were you afraid of getting caught? and did you see something to be gained from changing (like the incentive to go out and earn more money)? personally i thought incentive, gain and even the fear of getting caught would work best but maybe it's a good form of self-control for sociopaths to indulge in a little narcissism, even if i didn't care about something beforehand i'd actually start to feel for it if i simply just started acting in that way, maybe that's why your past seems to emotionally contradict your current self? but it begs the question, where can you draw the line between self-help and self-delusion?

My response:

This -- "even if i didn't care about something beforehand i'd actually start to feel for it if i simply just started acting in that way" is so true. Biologically we know it is true, for whatever reason when we smile we actually get happier. I sometimes coach friends on how to become better speakers and get them to speak in front of me to the point where they seem relaxed. I then take note of the things that they do or say, how they position their body, etc., while they are relaxed. I tell them -- do these things when you speak in public and the very act of doing them will signal to your brain to relax. It is starting to become apparent that our brain is more plastic than scientists have traditionally believed. Every day, every thing that we do is wiring and re-wiring our brain and (I think) for people like us it is even a bigger deal because we don't have the same sorts of mental rigidities and concrete self-concepts that other people seem to have.

With that said, it is very difficult to fight the tide, so to speak. If your current incentives encourage being a jerk to your family (for whatever reason), you probably don't have the willpower to treat them nicely. If you really want to change a behavior and it is impossible to change your physical incentive structures (whatever would be the equivalent of taking antabuse in your situation), you might still be able to change your perspective. Our brains only process a small fraction of what we encounter. The way we see the world will always be distorted, but it is not a static sort of distortion. We can nudge ourself to see the world in a different sort of distorted way that benefits us. People do it all of the time to become more happy and optimistic with things like gratitude journals, or they become depressed and suicidal by doing the opposite. You can easily learn to love or hate something because, as you say "even if i didn't care about something beforehand i'd actually start to feel for it if i simply just started acting in that way".

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Sociopath quote of the day: onlookers

“Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.”

-- Henry Louis Mencken

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Help?

Pardon the interruption to your daily programming, I'll probably take this down in a bit so don't start chatting here. I am making a "Can you spot the sociopath" quiz for the book promotion. I wanted to give short examples of something and have someone guess whether it's a sociopath, or something else, the something else probably being either: autism spectrum, borderline personality disorder, schizoid, narcissist, asshole, machiavellian, etc.

UPDATE: ALSO NEED JUST PURE ASSHOLE-ISH BEHAVIOR, OR OVEREMOTIONAL, JEALOUS RAGE, ETC. THAT MAY MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE YOUR CRAZY IN THAT MOMENT BECAUSE OF A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF JUDGMENT--ANYTHING THAT YOU ARE ASHAMED OF, SPILL IT!

Here's a sociopath example:
Q. Pat's co-worker confesses that she has been on the kidney donor transplant list for the past three years and undergoes weekly dialysis. Pay immediately offers his own kidney. Her doctors don't even consider him because obvious differences in race and size make him not a suitable candidate. 
A. This could be altruism (for obvious reasons) or it could be a sociopathic. According to the sociopath "I’m not 100% sure why I made that offer. I was ready to be tested if it came to that, but of course I assumed it wouldn't -- I assumed correctly. But just making the gesture sealed her to me. I’d be lying if I said I planned it all that way. I knew there would be some advantage of course, but not the extent of it or how useful she would actually end up being to me years later."   
I'd really like examples from all of the socio related characterizations as well (as well as additional socio stories). Hopefully this example illustrates what I am looking for -- very short (1-3 sentences) explanation of the situation followed by another short explanation of why you might have done it (if you were normal, or a sociopath), but why you actually did it. The examples can either be very obvious, quintessential traits of who you are, or surprising traits like the example above. Strong preference for personal stories by people who have either been diagnosed or self-identify as the particular disorder. Please follow the format above.

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