Thursday, August 1, 2013

The sick and the dying (part 2)

My response:

Interesting question. I am the world's worst sick person. When I was a teenager, I had a hard-to-diagnose health problem that made me very sick for some time. During that time I lost every single friend I had.

When I am sick, all I can think of is me. Usually I have the energy to keep up appearances, keep the mask on, etc. When I am sick, I simply do not. I typically don't even notice my ill behavior myself. For instance, when I was sick as a teenager, I thought I was handling things remarkably well. I was honestly surprised when all of my friends abandoned me. Since then, nearly every time I am sick, I get into an unprovoked argument with someone. The sickness makes me less patient, more easily annoyed, which I mistakenly attribute to that person being particularly troublesome. Does this ever happen to you? Where you feel nauseous and equate it to being nervous, but really you have the flu? Or you are short tempered and equate it to other people being difficult, when really you have a migraine? This is what happens to me when I am sick.

I think my emotions are so low level that I have gotten used to reading changes in my body as signs of how I may "feel" about something. If my stomach is upset, I figure that I am probably nervous so my adrenaline is up. If I have a fuzzy brain or a headache, I assume that I am tired or overwhelmed. Because I have gotten used to doing this, when I am sick because of a virus and not just sick and tired of something or somebody, I mistakenly believe at first that I am responding to things going on around me. But they are just emotional hallucinations -- my body is tricking my brain into thinking that certain negative things exist, but they don't -- it's all just my brain misinterpreting data.

So I could see how your father might blame you or others for the discomfort he feels. Even if that isn't true, he certainly has much less energy to put on a happy face. What you are getting from him right now is the uninsulated, un-papered over version of him. And you're right that he is probably annoyed that life (and you in some weird way) has betrayed him, failed him by allowing him to become the shadow of the man that he was. But that must be pretty normal for old people with a touch of narcissism, I would imagine.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

The sick and the dying (part 1)

A reader asks:

I would be very interested in knowing how a sociopath deals with illness and old age. I am an RN and have cared for many a sociopath in my day (without knowing it). As I mentioned in previous emails my father is sociopathic. He is now in his 80's and a very miserable person to be around. He hates the fact that he is growing feeble, like we all will/do but his behavior is not the norm.

There seems to be no way to interact with him that does not turn out be a disaster. If I show my empathy and caring, he finds something to put a wedge between us. For example, the last time, I tried to talk to him about his physical health he threw in my face my teenage years and how I was not there for him during a difficult time. He let me know that he gave up on me at that time and that he had no use for me. If I ignore his ailments, he gets angry because no one understands or cares. It obvious that he feels quite less than everyone else and he makes little effort now to communicate with others with the exception of his wife who has devoted her life to him. I have not seen my father in almost 4 years.


I am wondering what is the best way to deal with an ailing sociopath. When sociopaths are faced with life-threatening illness and require hospitalization, do they look for empathy from others? Do the games stop even then or do they continue to manipulate people with a feeling of enjoyment? How does a sociopath think, feel and behave in times of such extreme vulnerability such as a terminal or life threatening illness along with the perils of aging?

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Thinking the impossible

I have been getting asked a lot what are the advantages (if any) of being a sociopath. I think one of them can be (in certain situations) that you tend to be a little delusional, megalomaniacal, and optimistic in ways that could make you a great entrepreneur, if for no other reason than you occupy a world that is not quite like the world everyone else does. Consequently, your world of possibilities is going to look a lot different than other people's.

Along those same lines, I really liked this passage from Debbie Millman :

Every once in a while — often when we least expect it — we encounter someone more courageous, someone who choose to strive for that which (to us) seemed unrealistically unattainable, even elusive. And we marvel. We swoon. We gape. Often , we are in awe. I think we look at these people as lucky, when in fact, luck has nothing to do with it. It is really about the strength of their imagination; it is about how they constructed the possibilities for their Life. In short, unlike me, they didn’t determine what was impossible before it was even possible.

Of course the downside is that you can also experience failures that most people would not think possible. But of course sociopaths are risk-seeking stimulation seekers that act as if they have nothing to lose.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Knowing truth

I have talked before about truth and how my own belief in truth makes me act differently than sociopaths who may not believe in any objective or knowable truth. I was reading a talk by LDS President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "What is Truth" and was reminded of the recent "discovery" that sociopaths feel empathy, that so rocked people's previous conceptions about sociopaths that I received over a dozen emails about it. President Uchtdorf first tells the story of the blind men and the elephant:

One of the men finds the elephant’s leg and describes it as being round and rough like a tree. Another feels the tusk and describes the elephant as a spear. A third grabs the tail and insists that an elephant is like a rope. A fourth discovers the trunk and insists that the elephant is like a large snake. Each is describing truth. And because his truth comes from personal experience, each insists that he knows what he knows.
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It seems to be part of our nature as human beings to make assumptions about people, politics, and piety based on our incomplete and often misleading experience.
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So often the “truths” we tell ourselves are merely fragments of the truth, and sometimes they’re not really the truth at all.

Sociopaths can be equally susceptible to such



I thought of this talk when I saw this comment posted on someone's Facebook status about Edward Snowden being a whistleblower.

Snowden is not a whistleblower. He took no advantage of whistleblower protections. none. Zero. Nada. Zippo. His goal was self aggrandizement. Which pretty much failed. He's a crook. And should have the courage to face consequences. But he's weak. And scared. And stupid. He's seeking protection from Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, and the like. He will be remembered as a crook. Which is what he is. I'm no fan of prism, but snowden is a delusional young boy. And a coward. Whistle blowing dies not equal exposing state secrets. Ask Manning.

Particularly this part of the talk:

The “truths” we cling to shape the quality of our societies as well as our individual characters. All too often these “truths” are based on incomplete and inaccurate evidence, and at times they serve very selfish motives. Part of the reason for poor judgment comes from the tendency of mankind to blur the line between belief and truth. We too often confuse belief with truth, thinking that because something makes sense or is convenient, it must be true. Conversely, we sometimes don’t believe truth or reject it—because it would require us to change or admit that we were wrong. Often, truth is rejected because it doesn’t appear to be consistent with previous experiences. When the opinions or “truths” of others contradict our own, instead of considering the possibility that there could be information that might be helpful and augment or complement what we know, we often jump to conclusions or make assumptions that the other person is misinformed, mentally challenged, or even intentionally trying to deceive.

Things said with such certainty and with such scant support (either about sociopaths or any other thing that people assert as "truth") remind me of the Bertrand Russell quote: "One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision."

Sunday, July 28, 2013

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