Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Pushback (part 1)

I've gotten a lot of interesting pushback and challenge on who I am and things that I've asserted either on the blog or in the book. I appreciate the time people take to write me and give me their opinions. There are a couple questions and issues that I've noticed keep coming up. The following is sort of a typical exchange that happens to touch on a lot of these issues. Maybe it will help to clarify some common misconceptions.

A reader starts out writing:

Regardless of how much you seem to pride yourself on you unfortunate disorder of sociopathy, it is a sad sad thing to be void of conscience and the ability to associate with or care for other people's feelings. I feel bad for you for the fact that you don't feel for others. That's the best part of living and. And I feel bad for your  utter ignorance regarding your Mormon religion. Your motivation for being a member of a religion is...what? Ego? To reach the point of Godliness through manipulative actions that help you to succeed in life? Good luck on that. Your take on what Mormons believe has been twisted to serve yourself and little else. I'm surprised that you haven't grasped the basic tenets of such a religion even though you are an active member, but that seems to be fairly common in the Mormon community. Your spirit is stunted which is the precise reason you feel the need to follow a religion that you've malleabalized to your own liking in your head. Mormon's do believe that everyone has the ability to be as God is since God has been/is what we are now. But getting to that form takes a hell of a lot more than action and Mormons do not believe that actions are all that matters. Being aware of other's states of being in this existence and giving a shit about that matters as well. I was raised in the Mormon church and I was certainly never led to believe that your thoughts and motivations don't matter,rather the opposite.Your thoughts and motivations are at the basis of all of your actions and it's your intentions that matter most. Therefore actions are the lowest on the totem pole.That's what I was taught. Everyone messes up, everyone thinks horrible thoughts sometimes, but what you WANT to do with those actions actions, thoughts and feelings, what you strive for and intend in your heart is the only thing that ultimately really matters. All of the success in life doesn't matter even a little in God's eyes if you don't give a shit about anyone else to begin with. So sorry for your misunderstanding your whole life.  

My first response:

Yes, I know what you mean. As you say, it cannot just be actions that matter, because then my down syndrome relatives would be in trouble every time they did something wrong-ish (e.g., counterfactually, sexually abusing a young child). On the other hand it can't be that thoughts are the only things that matter, otherwise if you are gay you're pretty much toast because you can't really control being sexually attracted to members of the same sex, and actually aren't we all sort of toast because haven't we all looked at someone else to lust after them, or had any other sort of bad thoughts pop into our heads? The truth is that we can't control our thoughts, or at least can't prevent having certain thoughts. Yes, we can choose what to do with those thoughts, and that's why I think one's actions are particularly relevant when one is discussing dealing with a mental disorder that is characterized by having unsavory thoughts. I think we probably agree on this, that the whole point of life is to try to conform one's behavior to a particular standard and in so doing eventually/hopefully change one's brain wiring? But also I don't consider myself an expert on Mormon doctrine, particularly not this particular area which has always sort of been hard to reconcile for me (do sociopaths have a place in Mormonism or mainstream Christianity?, etc.).

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Touchstone

Sociopaths and normal people are not so different. We're more like different breeds than different species. Different breeds of dogs can co-habitate and produce other great dogs, and I think sociopaths and other normal people can enjoy a similar result. Dogs have it easy, though. They have an owner or master to mediate differences between them, such as intervene during a useless fight. I think having a third party mediator would also help ensure a successful socio/normal relationship, whether business, family, or romantic. Perhaps a therapist or a trusted friend could fill this role – an enforcer that the sociopath will trust or face certain consequences, like the end of a relationship. This is, of course, assuming that the sociopath wants to be in the relationship, otherwise the threat of the ending the relationship is not much of a threat at all.

I think that the main problem in a socio/normal relationship is the inability to understand the point of view of the other. Little things aren’t dealt with, needs aren’t being met, misunderstandings abound. If there is some need that is consistently not being met or problem that is not being attended to in the relationship, it will eventually build up until it is blown out of all proportion, like medical diagnostic shows where people go crazy or blind because they have a copper deficiency. To even be able to pinpoint the problem, you have to be able to describe it accurately, which can be harder than it looks. I just read an article about it being difficult to diagnose appendicitis in small children because they aren’t able to accurately describe the locus of their pain – they don’t have the vocabulary or shared experiences with their doctor to do so. I think something similar happens with sociopaths and normals, that problems could be addressed if only they could first be identified. In the meantime, something so simple as a nutritional deficiency or small infection left untreated could easily compound into something serious or life threatening. These little problems can do so much damage, but many of them are very preventable if you knew what to look for.

I think this is why a knowledgeable third party would be crucial in helping the sociopath/normal get past the inevitable impasse -- someone with the emotional/intellectual equivalent of dynamite to blast through all of the bullshit. A touchstone to keep things from getting out of hand.

Somebody besides the cops.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Sociopath quotes: hunting

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.

Ernest Hemingway, "On the Blue Water," Esquire, April 1936

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Why you can't control your thoughts

Sociopaths can't control what they think. That may be scary, but there's something even scarier -- neither can you. From New Scientist via Gizmodo:

Forget complex math problems, logic puzzles, memorization. The hardest thing you can try to do with your brain is to not think about something. It's virtually impossible. But why? As New Scientist explains, it has to do with what thoughts are actually made out of.


Keeping up the religion theme from last post, some people have told me that it is not enough to do the right thing, you need to also have the right intentions or motivations. Vice versa, it's not enough to avoid doing wrong things -- you cannot even desire the wrong thing. The evidence that Christians give me is Matthew 5:27-28:

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

The thing is that research suggests that the average college man thinks about sex a couple of times an hour and the average college woman only slightly less frequently. That's maybe a million times in a lifetime? A lot of sinning. But let's get away from silly sex sins and get more serious. What about killing? Have non-sociopaths ever thought, "I could kill that guy!" Have most people? Has everyone? Everyone except Gandhi and Mother Theresa? I guess we're all sort of scary that way. But it's probably good that we're like that. It might explain why we are on the top of the food chain instead of extinct.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Not feeling bad about not feeling bad

I thought this story from a reader was very interesting, particularly the parallels with my own life. I especially find her thoughts about religion to be very familiar:

I just recently started doing research on sociopaths.  Years ago a girl that knew me well said she thought I might be a sociopath but I brushed it off thinking that I’m nothing like the monsters sociopaths are portrayed as.  That’s why I find your website so refreshing.  Its not claiming all sociopaths are the same, nor are they always people that should be avoided at all cost.  Last week again I had someone close to me say they think I have sociopathic tendencies.  I started reading from your website and I do see a lot of similarities.  I’ve always felt different from everyone else.  I have an very emotional mother and growing up I could never understand her reactions to things.  Most of the time when I see anyone get emotional or upset by something it’s not like I don’t care, I just don’t feel it. I want to understand it like a puzzle.  I’ve always struggled with the concept of guilt.  I grew up in a very religious family and feeling remorse and repentance for your mistakes is considered to be key for forgiveness of sins.  I’ve always really struggled with what guilt is exactly because when I’ve done things I know I shouldn’t have, I don’t get an emotional response.  Me knowing it’s wrong is always based on logic and knowing what’s expected of me.  When I have done something wrong I do regret it but it’s usually because I see it as a failure on my part to live up to an expectation that either I or others have placed on me and I hate feeling like I don’t have control over myself or I have failed in anyway.  I know I have been cruel to people before and have messed with and manipulated people’s emotions.  When I was young I did it because watching how easily people could believe something or be manipulated was entertaining.  Now it’s usually only when I feel wronged or slighted and I never feel bad about it because it does seem justified.

I have a great job, a few close friends and overall I think I’m a very stable person but I do feel different.  I was disconnected from my family entirely for a year and I never felt an emotional sense of missing them.  My parents are normal people, never abused me, always supportive so when I hadn’t seen or talked to them for a long time I was hoping I would feel something but I mostly just felt indignant and irritated when I asked for help with different things and they ignored me.  On the reverse side while I usually get bored with guys very quickly there was this one guy that was almost impossible for me to let go of.  He has a PhD in psychiatry and he’s always fascinated me.  Whenever I saw him do something to intentionally irritate or passive-aggressively insult a friend simply because they told him something he didn’t want to hear I became more drawn to him.  Everything about our time together was intense but I would feel this gaping sense of loss any time he had to go or I didn’t see him for a while.  Even now I compare other guys to him and I can’t be bothered.  I don’t know why with one guy I could miss him so intensely but with my own family I feel so indifferent.  I don’t want to be a difficult person to be around but whenever I want something and I see a way of getting it I instinctively start shifting and manipulating the people around me to get it.  I think what I want usually benefits other people as well so I don’t feel bad about it and when a close friend who knows how I am calls me out and tells me she feels played I can’t help but feel she’s missing the bigger picture. I have also done a lot for the people close to me. I’ve gotten them jobs, found them nice places to live and helped them out of bad relationships.  I don’t think I’m a bad person or ‘evil’ and yet I am so disconnected from the people around me.  I mentioned I’m religious.  I do believe in God but recently I’ve had people in my religion ask me ‘heartfelt’ questions.  They’re the only questions I’ve ever struggled with.  I found myself trying to take apart the meaning of the questions, remember if I had heard other people express their answers before and guess what they wanted to hear because inside I didn’t understand, there was nothing indicating how I felt about it.  Explain why I want to be part of the organization, how guilt and repentance have motivated me to correct my actions; deep down I still don’t really think anything I’ve done has been all that bad.  Knowledge of the consequences and not wanting to see myself as a failure have taught me not to make the same choices.  I do want to make God happy but I don’t see why my actions or way of thinking would make him unhappy.

I read an excerpt from your book online just now and just in the small portion I read I see a lot of similarities.  When I was a teenager I had this girl I couldn't stand and I used to break into her house and rearrange little things around her room and memorize snippets from her diary to work casually and discretely into regular conversation to mess with her.  I even get the staring thing, I constantly have people think I'm glaring at them or trying to seduce them because I don't look away like most people. I just read a couple paragraphs but I think I'll have to buy a copy soon and take a read. It's interesting some of the things I recognise in myself. Even putting myself in life threatening situations... almost bleeding out on a camping trip because I didn't want to call attention to my injuries, look weak or have people try to assist me when I figured I could deal with it on my own.

I’m emailing I guess for curiosity and understanding.  I know this is the way I am and I don’t think it’s ‘bad’, just different.  I struggle with having to control myself, I want to have fun, I want to take chances and I enjoy seeing how one action can lead to a ripple effect in my favour but I don’t think I’m dangerous or need to be fixed I just want to know if that’s how sociopaths sometimes feel.  Like I said, I just started looking into this and I’m not saying I am a sociopath or think it’s terrible if I am. I just want to know more.

In my religion, there are a lot of people who think that emotions are the way that God speaks to you or a sign of true repentance (godly sorrow). But that's not necessary. As LDS Elder Richard G. Scott taught:

A testimony is fortified by spiritual impressions that confirm the validity of a teaching, of a righteous act, or of a warning of pending danger. Often such guidance is accompanied by powerful emotions that make it difficult to speak and bring tears to the eyes. But a testimony is not emotion.

And why would we need to feel things? Why would God make a group of people who were doomed to hell the moment they were born that way? But some religions believe that, I guess. Also some people believe that gay people are going to hell?
 
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