Monday, November 11, 2013

A sociopath's love story (part 1)

I thought this was an interesting story from the comments:

Introduction: What follows was originally a response I posted on a forum where the topic of interest was "What do sociopaths seek in relationships? The need to control to keep someone around is for some purpose...what is that."

I came up with this reply to another response I read that was written by a woman who is in a relationship with a sociopath. She was irrate with some of the other posts that people put on the forum suggesting that sociopaths "are the definition of evil" and that "the world would be a much better place if they would all eat a bullet." This was her post:

"You say these things as if a sociopath has any control over his/her mental illness. No one chooses this and it is a very hard life to live. My fiancee is a sociopath and I came here looking for some answers and possibly support but I found an ******* like you. YOU are what is wrong with the world. He hates himself everyday he wakes up and wishes he could be normal. He can't and I found a great person despite his mental deficiencies. I learn to live with them and love the man he is."

Now that is a story that actually makes me feel warm inside. No seriously, not kidding. I for one identify myself as a sociopath and have done research on whether such a person as a "good sociopath" exists, and some of the articles I've read and evidence I've found suggest that infact, yes they do. I struggled for a little while once I suspected myself of being a sociopath, and I won't bore you with the middle details, but now I embrace it. I generally give people the benefit of the doubt and make no attempt to harm an undeserving individual. But if for whatever reason my trust is broken with that person or group of people, I make it my mission to undermine them whenever possible. Surprisingly this occurs fairly infrequently, as I also tend to be a forgiving person (odd, I know) if the infraction isn't that severe.

The capacity to love is also something I question. Most websites will have you believe that sociopaths are incapable of love. I tend to disagree; I think there is a gray area. A "normal" human may experience love in a way that emphasizes intimacy and passion (i.e romantic love) , with commitment on the back-burner. A sociopath with a high intellect is constantly striving to better themselves, yearning for my power and knowledge in whatever way they can achieve it, usually at the expense of others. But what happens when that individual grows bored or tired of the ongoing power struggle that exists in our world. No matter what that person accomplishes, there will always be someone that is richer, smarter, sexier, has a more beautiful wife, essentially more powerful than they are. An intelligent, rational thinker may come to the conclusion that it's just not worth it anymore and my explore other ways to live their life. So what about this "love" concept? Am I not allowed to experience it simply because I have been labeled a sociopath? To us, practically anything is possible so why not love? In the past we have probably been involved in relationships purely for the sex, money, status, or connections. First off, who doesn't like sex? Sex is great! But what else would a sociopath striving to experience love seek out?

Intimacy might be the toughest part to achieve considering that attachment is not something usually associated with sociopaths. Over time, the desire to experience love with another individual may cause one's attachment boundaries to fall, or at the very least weaken. And when a sociopath admits to him/herself that they actually feel some sort of attachment towards another, more barriers will begin to fall (usually consciously) in the interest of exploring this new feeling of attachment. Keep in mind that at any time during this process, the sociopath can detach themselves at will if they feel that there is a significant fault in their partner. Just remember that while true perfection can never be achieved, we always try to strive for it.

Passion may come a bit easier for us. It drives our sexual attraction towards one another. Like I said before, sex is great, something that I believe any human being would echo. If we think of passion and sex as a game then as a sociopath, one would want to win that game. In the real world, this translates to us putting forth enough effort in the interest of capturing the sexual attraction of our desired interest. If successful, a mutual attraction will be achieved and both parties will experience all the wonders of sex. If the sex starts to get boring, a sociopath may simply decide that the relationship isn't worth it anymore and walk out. But if it was good in the first place, why can't it stay that way? I will go back to my analogy of it being a game. If someone employs the same strategy every time (say in a game of chess), then the other player will start to notice and play accordingly. This will eventually get boring since one party will always know what the other is going to do, so they can essentially always "win the game" if they desire. Who likes to win without a challenge? It's just not that satisfying. This goes for sociopaths and non-sociopaths alike. So what do we do? We change up our strategy, we invent new ways of playing, or play a new, more exciting game entirely. "Gotta keep the sex interesting" is something I'm sure you've heard of before. A sociopath will realize this and do whatever they can to keep it interesting. If their partner is too conservative or traditional, then this will probably be a breaking point. Who likes boring sex that is, in all honesty, just a routine and plain no fun? What is the point of staying with someone if they are not willing to evolve with you? Passion is important for both individuals in the relationship.


Sunday, November 10, 2013

Call me sociopath?

A reader wonders if he is a sociopath:

First of all great blog. I really like that you don't talk about sociopathy, but through it. I find it similar to reading for example Nietzsche - nothing new, but if I find it HERE people must see it differently, it's funny how blind they are.

Moving to main part of this email I feel, that I will screw English terribly ;) If you want to publish it feel free to fix anything that sounds really bad.

I'd like to ask, what would you consider me to be. I tried tests – I always score full points on “lack of feelings and machiavelism” scale while having average score on aggression. On PCL-R I get about 17.
Where to start...
Maybe with what I'm not. I don't like killing animals and never did. Ants, some frogs etc, but not mammals. I don't commit crimes on daily basis and I'm not impulsive. I cheat in any way available and I find it enjoyable, but I didn't steal for fun or anything like it. When I had to fight few times in my life I just turned off anything but anger, so I could aim for eyes and veins, but I it was always a choice and I could stop at any point. I also wouldn’t say I’m fearless, I know that emotion pretty well. That will be it about being normal.

I’m narcissist, but I work on it. It’s like drug and I don’t like anything to control me. I guess you know that nice feeling, when people say how they think, that they know you really well, when they only know mask – or even better feeling, when they tell you, how they can see through your mask and describe another mask as “real you” ;) But the drug part is the only thing that I fight with. I feel better, I don’t think about “difficulty level” when I choose goals and so on.

I play with people. I see them like they were sets of algorithms. I read “Influence” by Cialdini when I was 8-10 year old and I never stopped learning psychology from that point(I’m 21 now). I always could easily imagine how to break someone or how to help him evolve and I find both ways enjoyable – what I care about is how good am I with it. And I am pretty good ;).

I don’t think there is any “real me” behind all that games.

I never felt remorse. I also didn’t feel love, attachment or friendship and I don’t think I fully believe these are real things like people describe them. I know it on cognitive level, that they exist but I just feel like it was some fake. I know happiness, anger, some lust, sorrow(and I think it’s nice),fear/anxiety and flow. Actually, I heard few times that people find it hard to imagine me in any other mood then happy.
I’m also pretty smart. I like math, physics or philosophy and can understand them as well as I can remember lots of biological stuff. At the moment I study three full courses and it’s just fine. I even prefer when I have more to do and I find time pressure fun.

Opinions?

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Song: She's Always a Woman

Even before I had ever heard the word sociopath applied to me, I always sort of identified with this song and it does seem to accurately portray the ups and downs with being with a female sociopath.



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Friday, November 8, 2013

Datamining

People sometimes ask me what does it mean when sociopaths say they datamine. Basically they are collecting information about you in an effort to predict your future behavior and what might please or displease you. In this way, they are not much different than Google, Facebook, Orkut, or the other programs that kids are into these days. This was a good description of how these programs work, from Mind Hacks:

The Economist has an excellent article that discusses the increasingly diverse ways in which information from your social network – drawn from services like Facebook, or from telephone calls or payment patterns – are being used to obtain personal information about you.

This is not information which you have explicitly stated or included, but which can be found out or ‘mined’ from your patterns of behaviour and your connections to other people.

And from the Economist article mentioned, the fascinating way in which phone companies target trend-setting customers:

Telecoms operators naturally prize mobile-phone subscribers who spend a lot, but some thriftier customers, it turns out, are actually more valuable. Known as “influencers”, these subscribers frequently persuade their friends, family and colleagues to follow them when they switch to a rival operator. The trick, then, is to identify such trendsetting subscribers and keep them on board with special discounts and promotions. People at the top of the office or social pecking order often receive quick callbacks, do not worry about calling other people late at night and tend to get more calls at times when social events are most often organised, such as Friday afternoons. Influential customers also reveal their clout by making long calls, while the calls they receive are generally short.
Similarly, sociopaths watch your behavior to figure out who you are. It can be something as small as the way you grip a steering wheel when you drive or whether you break prolonged eye contact and when. The sociopath collects all of this information about you and mentally references it to the thousands of other people he has collected information from, coming up with a rough sketch of who you are. As marketers have known for centuries, people that like certain things will probably like other similar things.

It's not hard to collect this information, the sociopath is paying attention to these little behavioral responses anyway to make sure that he is remaining undetected. And it's hard not to notice certain very common human behavioral patterns, once you've been made aware of them.

After the sociopath has collected all of this information, he can use it in various ways. He can use it to better construct his own masks to stay hidden. He can use it to anticipate your every need and desire. Or he can use it to get into your mind and plant yet another type of mine. That's the mining that you really should be worried about, and the only way that the sociopath can set traps in your mind is if you have weaknesses or needs that you refuse to address yourself.

Apart from that, datamining of any type is relatively harmless. It's basically just catering to your expectations.


Thursday, November 7, 2013

How a psychopath is made

As a follow-up to its stories on Colonel Russell Williams, The Globe and Mail investigates "How a Psychopath is Made." There are the usual suspects trotted out to give their two cents, and these interesting insights into how sociopaths grow from child to adult.
The theory is that neglect, abuse and early trauma somehow desensitize children to the feelings of others, says Dr. Kiehl, but it still has not been proven. Not all psychopaths had horrible childhoods. Some come from stable families. Millions of children are abused he says, but don't become psychopaths.

In one of her studies, Dr. Gao found that children who lived apart from their parents in the first three years of life were more likely to have psychopathic personalities. This suggests that failure to bond may play a role, she says. She also found that adults who reported they were neglected by their mothers when they were children were also more likely to have difficulty with empathy, and other psychopathic traits.

But every child showing signs of callousness and fearlessness isn't a psychopath in the making – although it certainly increases the odds. It is rare for people to become callous and unfeeling as adults if they began life as caring, empathetic children, says Paul Frick, a psychologist at the University of New Orleans, who studies anti-social behaviour and develops therapies for anti-social children. These troubled kids learn to conform quickly, often even fooling researchers by posing as model citizens until the end of the day, when, denied a reward, they become nasty intimidators even with adults.

But one study that followed 12-year-olds with these traits into adulthood found that only about 20 per cent met the measurement for psychopathy. Genes may lay the foundation, but environment builds upon it. A fearless child with callous traits who lives in a stable, supportive home with a parents that can afford to send him skiing as an outlet for his risk-taking has better outcomes than one raised in a poor family where the parents have few resources.

In the past, it was argued that psychopaths could not be treated – therapy sessions appeared to have no impact on their recidivism rates, and they often emerged having learned new skills about human nature that made them better manipulators. Some new research, however, has shown progress in teaching empathy to young children, as well as the benefits of very intense therapy for adult criminals.
It's interesting thinking what might trigger sociopath genes in an otherwise relatively normal child. Yes, abuse or severe neglect, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient. I've already talked about some of the banal details of my childhood that may have triggered a predisposition to sociopathic traits, including possibly a particularly serious case of colic. Perhaps the colic interfered with normal maternal bonding, perhaps I sensed a more urgent need to compete for resources than normal people, but I understand how these explanations might fail to be convincing.

People always think there are going to be graphic, horror stories from my childhood, but there just aren't. I can imagine how frustrating that might be to those looking for an easy explanation, but disturbed or disordered people often have surprisingly normal backgrounds. For instance, when asked to discuss his own past, Col. Williams, perhaps anticipating the disappointment that his answers might elicit, responded almost apologetically, “it will be very boring.”


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