Monday, August 26, 2013

Embracing your place on the sociopath spectrum

I think it's important to remember that most people think that sociopathic traits fall on a spectrum. There's nothing so totally different about a sociopath, it's more the suite of particular traits and the intensity of them that distinguishes them from the typical person. A reader tries to find his own place on the sociopathic spectrum:

I've just finished reading your book, and wanted to thank you for writing it. True honesty, combined with acute self-knowledge, is so rare in any autobiographical work that it's truly a gift when I come across a gem like this.

I suppose I should preface by saying that I'm not exactly sure if I'm a sociopath. I lack some of the characteristics you describe, such as sensation-seeking tendencies and fluid sexuality.

That being said, as I read your book I couldn't help but identify with so many parts of your story. You are basically me, cranked up to eleven. That is, I do seem to possess many of the traits you mention, just to a somewhat lesser degree than you do.

Power is the dominant lens through which I view social relations. I am sometimes scarily confident in my ideas, to the extent that people absorb the philosophies and biases I project almost by osmosis. Then I get sick of them because they've become intellectual carbon copies of "me". I have trouble believing in the concept of love or fixed identity since I have not had the experience of feeling them before - at least not in the sense most people seem to mean them.

Recently I had a dispute with a friend which ultimately ended the relationship. Typically enough, I held all the cards while she engaged in emotional outbursts, but despite the fact that I "won" in the end, I still felt disturbed because this was a relationship I wanted to keep, yet I could not see anything I would have done differently to salvage it.

Somehow, my friend had expected her emotional threats to have an impact on me that was different from what rationality and the balance of power would have suggested. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened, and it made me feel uncomfortable to realise I saw things in a way that was fundamentally different from other people, and that I could not seem to bridge that gap despite my best efforts to consider other strategic paths.

That's when I discovered your book.

I don't know if you realise what a gift you've given to people like me (us?). Reading it was like discovering an oasis in an alien desert. After months of searching for answers in literature, philosophy and even random internet forums and blogs, all of which seemed completely irrelevant to what I was going through, I found your Confessions to be a rare source of solace.

It's incredibly inspiring to read about someone older and more experienced than me, who seems to share the very traits I have, and who has nonetheless managed to create and (even more importantly) maintain a successful life and career.

I used to feel guilty about manipulating people, but more and more, I'm coming to understand its absolute necessity if I am to make my way in this world and achieve my goals. Your book has given me further assurance that this is not only necessary, but could in fact be seen as an ethical, charitable thing to do. If it makes empaths happy to be deceived in certain situations, where's the harm in that? Perhaps my real sin has been in being half-hearted about my schemes, instead of going full bore ahead and ensuring that I get away with them fully. Not just doing the minimum to get by (clumsily), but doing whatever is necessary for a graceful, virtuoso performance.

Thank you for casting light on an alternative system of ethics, a way of living life that works for people like me. I felt like I was reading a version of Seneca's "Letters" that was personally addressed to me.

I've never written to an author before, but you struck a chord with me.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Sociopath mentor

From a sociopathic teenage reader:

I am 17 years old and recently suspected that I am a sociopath. I am not looking for any conformation however your book helped to understand who I really am and has been more of a 'finding myself' exercise as I have always felt detached from society and those around me. Your book mentions adaptations to surroundings. I have had many changes in my life that I have had to adapt to and would be distressing to the average person. I think many sociopaths don't realise they are because of the belief that they are no different than anybody else and through being able to convince themselves of the 'lie' it goes un-noticed. My ambition in life is to be a successful lawyer or maybe a professor such as yourself. I have had no role models I can relate to in my life and oddly I feel as though you may be my inspiration. I love your anecdotes in the book and how you were quite scrappy. 

I understand that your identity must be kept a secret and I admire you for publishing the book to help others and all you went through with the blog. If possible I would like to know who you really are purely for the reason of researching your articles and having a name to my role model. I will never reveal it to anyone because to undermine your work is unreasonable and not important to me. 

It worries me how many are bent on the eradication of us and so we should 'hide in plain sight' and use our own intelligence to survive. I recently have told those close to me about my sociopathy and they are fascinated. I enjoy the uniqueness and ability to share my accomplishments as one with them. We are faced with a dilemma we crave human interaction and yet destroy it. Like a black hole requiring more matter yet obliterating and consuming it.

I hope you can be of assistance and feel free to class this as a 'book response' on your blog if you wish. I know you like doing it.

Many Thanks

A fellow 'stranger'  

I liked this email because I think it summed up the dilemma for the young sociopath well -- people hate you and will treat you poorly just because of the label "sociopath," but what else are you supposed to do? Kill yourself? Everyone has to find some way to live and if there aren't opportunities for youngsters to direct their unique personality traits in a direction that is pro-social, then they are going to find other outlets. With that in mind, I'd be honored to mentor or give advice to anyone who finds themselves struggling with similar issues.  

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Addicted to a sociopath

A reader asks about his troubled relationship with a sociopath:

I have a confession to make. A sociopath was in love with me.  It was the highest high I ever experienced.  She abandoned all sense of common sense, but not her sociopathy.  She still flirted with other men, and still longed to be the center of attention in every situation where more than two people were involved. 
What changed?

I found her behavior to be untrustworthy.  Her flirtations aside, her need for me and her need to please me at every turn exposed her in-authenticity, making me doubt that this person would be accountable in the context of a long-term relationship.  I quietly and secretly began picking up clues and further cues from her behavior.  I soon realized that this person could morph herself into anything and anyone at any time.  Although fantastic as an actress, or a career as a skilled negotiator, I felt with gut wrenching conviction that this person could sell me out if she fell out of love, just as easily as she could change skins to meet the needs of a conversation. 

I decided to try out an experiment to see if this was so. 
Words to the unwise:

Be sure you are ready to know the truth of the questions you so passionately seek answered.  Sometimes trusting your gut and abandoning the need for experiments is the more sensible choice.

I'll just simply say I was correct in my assumptions - although she didn't sell me out as fast as I thought, once she did, she sold me out for concert tickets (example). 

The problem lies in that I am devastated by the loss of that love she gave, and the high I received from it.  I tried not to let it grow roots in me, but I was apparently unsuccessful.  Her cruelty near the end, and the pain that ensues as a result, shakes the roots and trembles within me, making the absence feel even greater. 

What's confusing is that now she contacts me all the time.  She wants to get together and know how I'm doing and tells me she still loves me.  For the most part I have turned her down each time.  A few days ago, I point blank asked her:
What do you HOPE for in your contact with me.  Do you want to be FRIENDS?  Or are you hoping to rekindle a relationship?  There is a large can of worms between us and for us to even have a friendship, that can of worms must be cleaned out and healed.  Then I went on to reiterate some of the pain she caused me.
She answered that she felt attacked again. That until she doesn't feel safe, she can only think of a deep and honest friendship.  I found that hilarious, since she lies so much about almost everything.  Has she truly changed?

Needless to say I remain confused about this situation.  She lied, she hurt, she flirted, she emotionally cheated.  The problem is that she did all that once I was in love with her.  When you love someone, what do you do?  You grow into them, understand them and forgive them.  I feel I am in a very challenging position.  Feeling a bit like your brother Jim who was able to see your needs and allow himself to get beaten up so that you may get what you needed, and he could therefore have a sense of peace.

The things I wonder are: 
Does she still love me?
Does she see that the things she did were wrong?
What options does this situation still hold?
If none, how can I walk away with some dignity?

Thank you for listening and for putting yourself out there.  Your influence is of Christian proportions!

My response:

She sounds like she is genuinely fond of you if she still stays in contact with you. I don't know if that's what you (or she) means by "love". She probably thinks she did some things wrong, but they probably are not the same things that you think she did wrong. Maybe she wishes that she hadn't done certain things that made her attitude towards you and your relationship so explicit to you, or maybe she wished that she had indulged you more than she had, to keep you happy. Apart from these small things, though, I don't believe she will fundamentally change. Rather I think that she would take your return as evidence that you were ok with who she is and how she approaches relationships. So those are your options -- take things on her terms, or don't. I don't know what more dignity you could want apart from being the one who decides what you want most in your life and acting on that. Everyone trades good things for things they want more.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Love is a choice

I really liked this recent comment about love:

We need to stop equating emotional responses with being good or bad. They just are.
***
And what is love? Sentiment? I've dealt with plenty of sentimental men and am generally unimpressed. I may sound like a sociopath but I've come to the conclusion that Love is the will to act constructively to preserve attachments we consider to be valuable. It's not a feeling- it's a choice, one that sociopaths are equally capable of making. The one important caveat- there is no such thing as unconditional love with a sociopath.

Is there such thing as truly unconditional love with a non-sociopath? If there is, it's the rare exception. 

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Sociopaths in the news: Stealing babies

I actually don't know enough about the culture of China to be able to tell whether this would be considered something sociopathic, or rather something just a little opportunistic and coldheartedly pragmatic. The Los Angeles Times reports about an obstetrician in China who convinced parents and grandparents to give up newborns that she claimed were disabled or otherwise undesirable:

Her method, authorities and victims say, was cruel and effective: convincing families that their babies were dead or dying, or afflicted with incurable diseases or congenital deformities. In rural China, a lack of support and restrictions on family size can make people reluctant to raise a child with disabilities.

Police say the doctor's victims were often friends and neighbors, forced to make heart-wrenching decisions about whether their babies should live or die, thus becoming complicit in their purported deaths. Zhang, the families say, even charged them a fee of about $10 to dispose of the corpses.

Zhang is believed to have frequently preyed on the fears of the grandparents, who in the Chinese countryside are desperate for healthy grandchildren to carry on the family line. The mothers were frequently left out of the loop.

Part of the reason this could happen is that health care is not sufficient to care for certain babies who could otherwise survive, or a lack of support for people raising children with disabilities:

A generation ago, unwanted babies in rural China were dumped in a well or smothered. Zhang Wei of the Enable Disability Studies Institute, a Beijing-based advocate for the disabled, said a disabled child still makes life very difficult for rural families.

"The whole burden comes down on the family. There is nobody to help them, no money and no education about what they can do, so they abandon the baby," Zhang Wei said.

However, perhaps the most shocking example happened with a family who was convinced to give up a baby who was claimed to neither be clearly male nor female, due to the dishonor it would bring on the family:

"He is not completely male, but not female. It will bring shame on the family," whispered the doctor, Zhang Shuxia, a trusted family friend whom they affectionately called "Auntie." "Don't worry," Dong recalled Zhang telling him. "Auntie can help you."

She advised that Dong and his mother give up the baby, euphemistically, to let him be euthanized.

Now I understand that parents of newborns are probably vulnerable, particularly ones without a high level of education and sophistication, but can you imagine choosing to euthanize your child just because it failed to conform to particular social norms that had nothing to do with its health? Of course it is difficult to raise a child who is different in these ways, but it has nothing to do with actual physical disability and everything to do with a natural human intolerance for difference. People put enormous pressure on each other to conform, often enforced with bullying and shaming. Although sociopaths don't feel the same sort of pressure to conform or enforce conformity, I can imagine that they would use this pressure people feel against them, if it would benefit them. That's why I wonder about the obstetrician. Either way, the antidote is to be self-actualized and to not fear the opinion of the masses, something that these princess boys have down (and Bradley Manning, apparently, good for him).

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