Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Famous sociopaths: Benjamin Franklin?

So suggests a reader:

Of course, I read the book, and though I was, myself, a mental health professional, learned a great deal about sociopathy. In my day, before the functional MRI, there was no certainty that it was the functional structure of the brain that determined the behavior. Nor, that despite the 3-4% incidence in the general population, that many, if not most, are socialized, like "M. E." or Jimmy Fallon, and very likely, Benjamin Franklin, for that matter.

Not all sociopaths do evil things. I stated that Franklin might well be one, based on his risk-taking behavior, his disrupted familial relationships, his legendary charm, his promiscuity, and his need to go from one activity to another.

The risky behavior: the man signed the Declaration of Independence, an invitation to hanging. Also, he nearly electrocuted himself during the kite experiment. I'm sure that there were others examples that escape me for the moment.

  • Disrupted family: Franklin had a hostile relationship with his son throughout their lives. He was also a very poor husband, and for all practical purposes, he acted as if he were a single man.
  • The charm: Thank the lord for this and his genius. He got Louis XV to bankrupt France to support us against Britain during the Revolutionary War. It was the French fleet that bottled up Cornwallis at Yorktown, after all. AND: that bankruptsy was a proximal cause of the French Revolution that transpired just a few short years later.
  • The hyperactivity: Again, thank the lord, and his genius, for his myriad inventions. Off the top of my head: a musical instrument that he called the Harmonium, the Franklin stove, bifocal lenses, the harnessing of electricity, etc.
  • The promiscuity: His love life is one of legend, continuing well into his old age!

The error is to think that all sociopaths are alike. Sociopaths differ from one another based on the presence or absence of other pathologies such as paranoia (Stalin) or Schizophrenia (Hitler) or combinations thereof. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are certainly sociopaths, yet their risky behavior was channeled into developments that have revolutionized our lives! Perhaps, we have advanced to where we are today because of  constructive sociopaths like these! Not every sociopath is a Jeffrey Dahmer or a Pol Pot!

I'm not entirely surprised at the suggestion that Benjamin Franklin could have been a sociopath, especially since studies have shown that entrepreneurs have several sociopathic traits ("The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship").

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Soft sociopathic traits

A lot emails that I receive from people describing their sociopathic traits strike me as being not quite placeable (nothing inconsistent with the diagnosis, but nothing really suggesting it either). This one seems to share a remarkable number of the "soft" sociopathic traits -- not quite in any textbook or diagnostic criterion, they are still traits that show up remarkably frequently in the sociopaths I have come to know. These soft traits include things like sexual fluidity, the particular instrumental way that charm is used, the obliviousness to certain things and hyper awareness at others.  From a reader:

As I’m sure since the subsequent publication of your book you receive these types of emails and attempts at correspondence daily, I will attempt to make this little stab at conversation short and sweet. Just a footnote here, I have no desire to exploit you and this is not an attempt to parallel our experiences. I suppose I am contacting you to relay some experiences of mine and perhaps receive some feedback.

My friend recently proposed the term, “sociopath” to me in passing conversation. I laughed off his name calling because I reasoned with myself: I grew up in a loving, stable environment, I have always had friends and significant others and I’ve always been keenly aware of my significance to them. I am not some brooding psychopath. I will admit here that I was unaware of the difference between “psycho” and “socio” and incorrectly found them mutually exclusive. However, the term “sociopath” sizzled in my brain for quite some time and I decided to delve into studying this alleged “disorder” and try to either self-diagnose or abandon the subject completely if it wasn't applicable to me. I reevaluated nearly every memory I can tap into and here’s just a sample of the conclusions I've come to:

By the age of 18, I had been arrested for assault, theft, and possession of criminal tools, vandalism, and a negligible complicity charge. At the various times of these altercations, I always was able to weasel my way out of the worst possible consequences. In my family’s eyes, I was a merely a victim of circumstance of hanging around the “wrong crowd” or being “scared, anxious” to be going away to college. At the time I think I believed those explanations myself. I have been in several altercations and what I refer to as “battles” with my family members often resulting in periods of estrangement with them.

Each one of my relationships throughout high school and my young adult life ended with a bang. The first ended in me cheating and spreading a rumor that my boyfriend had essentially taken advantage of me sexually. The second ended in cheating on my part as well and in a fiery battle with her parents that ended in a restraining order against me. The third was almost identical to the second. During these relationships, I would always befriend my significant other’s circle of friends and more often than not they all ended up liking me more than my girlfriend/boyfriend. I never felt particularly attached to my boyfriends or girlfriends, I always felt like, “well, I’m young, I don’t have to care about them or take these relationships seriously.” I have always identified as a bisexual. I like the differences between sexes and have never been able to adequately identify with one or the other. I am sexually fluid. This has always stirred confusion with those who have been in relationships with me and I've often heard they feel threatened by everyone around me, male or female.

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I was considered above average. I was and still am an avid reader and consider myself to be fluent in many musical instruments. I excelled in every activity I tried, guitar, drums, English, horseback riding, swimming, and softball. Music became somewhat of an obsession for me and I have become integrated in an underground community of musicians. I won several awards in academics and was able to attain a generous scholarship to a school I couldn’t otherwise afford. My family is exceedingly proud of me and I have always known I was the “favorite” to my various grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

I began waitressing at a small diner at the age of 16. I charmed my way into the hearts of many customers who still contact me after transferring to a different store several hours away. I consider myself to be the ideal employee, by befriending upper management and kissing a little ass I am mostly free to do as I please without consequence. However, I have managed to get approximately 5 people fired and dozens written up.  

You’re probably wondering why I failed to pick up on these things earlier or even realize how “abnormal” I am. The only explanation I can come up with is that maybe that’s just how the emotional and physical world naturally occurs in my mind. My “normal” is just maybe a variance on the society’s perceived notion of normalcy. I could go on forever but again, I am lazy. I realized rather quickly how much I assume the role of “sociopath” by textbook definition and although I have statistically come into contact with many sociopaths, you are the only one I have found to be formally diagnosed and have a way to contact.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Sociopaths on television: Fringe

From Fringe (spoiler alert, the observer characters are an advanced future race of humans that have evolved in such a way to replace emotions with rational thought):

Observer: But you ascribed meaning to something that was not there. You saw what you wanted to see. You believed what you wanted to believe, because that's what your emotions do. They ascribe meaning to something that is not there. They fool your perception as to what is real. A dog does not smile, no matter how many times your kind might think it does. . . You blame us for her death, but it is irrelevant. She was here, now she is simply not here.

Human: You're wrong about emotions not being real. My feelings for her are very, very real.

But that's not quite the point that the sociopathic observer is making, is it? He never said that emotions don't exist (i.e. are not real). He just said that they obscure one's perception of reality, which I think most people would agree with? I have seen people make similar statements as the human before and I always wonder what point they're trying to make. What does it mean to them for feelings to be real? For instance, if you were having a hallucination of a dragon and I told you that there is no dragon, you might tell me that the dragon is real. And I guess in a way you would be right be the dragon exists in your hallucination, and what does it mean for something to be real? But from my perspective and from the reality that most people share, there is no dragon. And if you persist in obligating me to acknowledge your hallucinated dragon as being "real" because it is real from your perspective, then you must equally acknowledge that the dragon is not real because from my perspective it is not.

It reminds me of this tweet:

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Put 'em down

This currently has 150K plus likes on Facebook?


I'm having a hard time following this argument. Is it because certain types of human life are more valuable than others?

Saturday, January 18, 2014

"I knew I was different when I was a child..."

I thought this comment posted here on July 7, 2013 at 9:42 AM was a good compliment to the recent posts on being told you're a sociopath:

I absolutely knew I was different when I was a child. My parents and all the "adults" I knew were emotional beings. I could not understand why they were so dramatic. I could not understand why they yelled, hugged, cried and talked about their feelings. It was bizarre to witness and I could not relate. Nor could I relate to my emotional siblings and classmates.

As an adult, I have to remind myself to hug my relatives when I see them or else they get quite cross. I comply to avoid their sad eyes, questions, and messy emotions.

I was strong willed as a child and learned to be deceptive to avoid punishment. And, of course, for the thrill of having "pulled one over" on authority figures.

I was always the schemer and the ring leader in pranks. I reveled in my ability to shock and bother others. I was always the calm, calculating one of the group. To this day, I never panic. I don't worry about social norms. Nor will I have them forced upon me by people I couldn't care less about.

Granted, there are places where I am no longer welcome. I guess those people never got the joke. Just because I thought it was funny doesn't mean they did.

I've been told by others that I am a cold person but I disagree. I can feel some emotions but usually think they are a waste of time. Who wants to float in an emotional cloud? I just want to have fun. I am the life of the party. I am a thrill seeker. Is there anything wrong with that as long as I do not physically harm others?

I learned at 2 years old not to harm things. I caught a butterfly and wanted to kill it, so I did. I stuffed it in a soda bottle and filled it with water. I watched it struggle and become still.

I didn't feel remorse about killing it but did regret that I would no longer be able to enjoy the beauty of its fluttering from flower to flower. For some reason, it seemed very important to me to remember that lesson and so I did. I may mess with your head and your heart but I will not physically harm you unless you attempt to harm me.

I had a boyfriend hit me, probably because he couldn't control me. Besides, I'm small in stature and seemed like an easy victory. I responded with a ferocity that alarmed him just enough to give me the advantage. I am very proud of the physical scars he bears from that encounter.

A message to empaths: Leave us alone and mind your own business. You cannot "fix" us and we do not desire your pity unless we can use it to our advantage. If engaged, we will win. We always do.

Cheers.
Join Amazon Prime - Watch Over 40,000 Movies

.

Comments are unmoderated. Blog owner is not responsible for third party content. By leaving comments on the blog, commenters give license to the blog owner to reprint attributed comments in any form.