Sunday, July 6, 2014

Loving a sociopath child

From a reader:

I have just finished reading your book, Confessions of a Sociopath, and appreciate so much the wider view I have gained as a result.  Having read every published work on sociopathy previous to yours, I had become disheartened by the firmly held clinical theory that all sociopaths are “unredeemable” and therefore not worth the effort to help them to manage to live among “the rest of us” (whoever “we” are).  This is a position without hope for the sociopath or those who happen to love them. 

I spent all of my adult life trying to understand my childhood and how I was different (and therefore somehow less than) the other members of my family.  It was in my graduate education to become a Licensed Mental Health Counselor that I came to understand something that years of therapy had not shown me: that both of my parents and two of my siblings are sociopaths.  A genogram study of my family-of-origin, going back four generations from mine, looks much like that of an alcoholic family: mostly sociopaths with an “empath” or two thrown in for fun.  My antecessors and contemporaries were not the productive-but-easily-bored variety, however.

Fortunately, naming a thing can grant one dominion over it, and this was the effect of that understanding for me.  All the literature pointed to the fact that it was “them” and not “me”’ thus providing me with the permission to “feel” and also the label of “normalcy.”  I determined not to repeat the past.

Unfortunately, though, one of my own children, my only daughter, is also a sociopath.  Her birth 27 years ago provided the impetus for a different view of the “problem.”  How can one not be part of the “problem” while also producing a child, which by all accounts, is “damaged goods?”  Her lack of empathy, fear, and conscience, as well as her intelligence, manifested themselves at the age of 14 months in a single event that I captured in pictures because I was so baffled by it: When I left the kitchen for a brief minute, this child climbed from the floor to the top of a wire-shelved pantry, removed an unopened 5 lb. bag of flour from the top shelf, climbed back down, opened the bag with a sharp knife retrieved from a drawer with a toddler lock on it, and began loading the flour into the cat food dish on the floor to “make them stop crying, and you took too long.” She was angry and NOT worried about the cats.  She was angry with me for leaving the room.  She also moved to “fix” the problem of the crying cats by feeding them in a way she had identified as a means to her own sustenance.  I did not at that time know the significance of that cluster of behaviors. 
                
This child’s lack of fear and empathy caused me so much distress in her early years that her brothers are significantly younger than she is.  I knew I did not have the capacity, and I certainly lacked any sort of empathic filial support, to bring another child into the world until this one was pretty much self-sufficient.  She marched off to kindergarten about the time her first brother was born.  Her entry to school seemed like a much-needed break from the “watchful” parenting and constant lessons in application of the Golden Rule.  However, this was when the real problems began, as public schooling only served to exacerbate the difficulties she encountered in trying to “fit in” with their fungible “rules” and lack of training in any sort of excellence.  We tried private schooling, Christian education, and finally ended up homeschooling her (and her brothers) so that she might adopt a set of values not unlike the ones you described having in your book.  It also became necessary to terminate contact with unproductive and sadistic sociopathic relatives. 
                
All of this served to produce a woman who is beautiful, somewhat ruthless, intelligent, talented, and never governed by her emotions.  I think she cares for her brothers, and she is always checking in with me to make sure she handles relationship and communication issues with coworkers appropriately.  She never emotionally eats or drinks.  She moved to NYC about 3 years ago right under our noses with a man more than twice her age so that she could live the big city life.  She dumped him like a hot potato (on Valentine’s Day, no less!) when he decided that at 60, he might like her to join him in living a slower, more rural life in Iowa.  She went back to NYC and slept on the couches of “people in her network” (“friends” to us empaths), tolerating circumstances for months that more feelings-oriented folks would find intolerable for the sake of her own goals.  She is currently seducing her next “provider” because “it is simply unacceptable for me to live for long in a three-bedroom apartment in this city with two other people without demoralizing them or wanting to ruin them, Mom.”  I do not subsidize her lifestyle because that would be to invite the ruin of us both, and I often feel like the ethereal father of the sociopathic killer on the series “Dexter” working to help her to identify “the code” by which to live the most fulfilling life possible.  I don’t know whether she actually loves me, or not.  I love her deeply, and have thanked God every day that he should give me the daughter I had wanted as a young woman nurturing her precious life in my womb.  I focus on being the kind of mother I need to be, doing what is best for my adult child as I did when she was an infant.  I think she has taken the tools I have given her and put them to mostly good use.  She has taught me not to ask God for what I want, but to be thankful for what I get.
                
I appreciated your view that sociopaths are just different.  This is what makes the world go round, and my belief in an all-knowing and perfect Creator informs me that just as Judas was part of God’s plan for the redemption of mankind through Christ, my daughter has a purpose known to him, too.  I had questions of faith with respect to the definition of words like redemption, sin, forgiveness, remorse, and evil.  I have come to believe that sociopathy cannot be a mistake, but is, rather, an act of creation and for the benefit of mankind.  Sociopaths are fearless, and in difficult times, this is defined as “courage”.  Your book was very helpful to me in the challenge it provided intellectually, maternally, spiritually, morally, professionally, and personally.  I wanted you to know this.  Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. 

Monday, June 30, 2014

People pleasing

People are sometimes surprised to hear how much I "care" about other people--how much I want to "please" them. To them, that's the only explanation for some of my behaviors, e.g. when I go out of my way to help a stranger, or when I'm solicitous or accommodating just past the point of mere politeness and into the realm of generous and sincere. That's where all the real payoff comes, though. Anyone can be politely civil, in fact most people are. If you put forth just a little more effort, you're a standout and in a good way (if you're going to be a standout, and let's face, we all are, it should be for good things as well as bad--it muddies up the signal strength and will make some people doubt their assessment of you as "off" or "wrong").

For example, the other day I was set to have lunch with a professional associate (someone who handles some of my affairs) to meet another possible work contact for a sort of sales pitch. Although it was going to be a networking lunch, I had a friend in town (not in the industry) so I asked if I could bring him along. The lunch went fine, but we didn't talk as much about business as perhaps the new contact wanted. Afterwards I asked my associate, "Do you think she felt like she wasted her time? Should I follow up about XX?" My associate listened to me for a while and finally asked, "Why do you care what she thinks of you?", as if it was the strangest thing in the world for me to be asking all of these questions. The thing is, I wasn't going to necessarily follow up with this woman, and I certainly didn't care whether she felt like she wasted her time or not for her sake, I just wanted to know. I wanted to know to better inform my own behavior just in case I met her again. I wanted to know whether I should be expecting a phone call from her and on what topic so I could plan my response ahead of time to achieve whatever goal I decided on. I wanted to know whether in the future it would be wholly inappropriate to bring a friend to a lunch of that exact type. I wanted to know whether I came off as charming as I hoped I did. I just wanted to know so that if I decided to do something--to snub this woman, to waste her time, to insult her career choice and her business acumen, to be incredibly rude, to have wasted any sort of opportunity, to do the same in the future--that I would be making an informed choice, not bumbling blindly through a world of unknowns.

Knowledge is power, particularly information about a person. It's a very valuable service to be able to anticipate and meet other's needs, should you ever care to. I always like to have that option, so that's why I keep a mental dossier on everyone I associate with regularly. It may seem like "people pleasing", but I think true people pleasing requires you to want what's best for them.

Friday, June 27, 2014

Truly sickened

... is something that I feel like never happens to sociopaths, at least not the way empaths seem to use that phrase most. From a reader:

Have you heard about this story?

The first thing I thought when I read about this boy has severe ADHD or maybe some sociopathic traits.  I say the latter because I cannot imagine ever having the chutzpah or 'cunningness' to pull off sneaking on an airplane or stealing a car at 9 years old even if I wanted to.  What do you think?

As hard as it must be to raise that child right now, that kid is definitely going places.  

On another note, I subscribe to artist Miranda July's email thing, We Think Alone, that curates weekly emails from celebs and various 'important' people based on some sort of theme.  It's entertaining, but this weeks roundup of emails included one from photographer Catherine Opie that made me immediately think of you and your website (see below).  I'm guessing certain types of psychopaths (?) must be constantly getting emails like this.  

Anyways, love the blog and book. 

All best,

Catherine Opie email referenced above:

Dear C,

Let me first begin with the fact that this is a very difficult letter for me to write.  I am writing because I am very disillusioned as to who you actually are. Several of my friends have begun to question the reality of your foundation, as well as feeling that your pushing for meetings and more connections is very invasive.

This has led me to many questions and now to a completely distrustful feeling to your intensions.  I have gone through all the e-mails you have written me since we have started corresponding and it just doesn't all add up with the research I have done on who you are.  I actually don't want you to answer any of these questions.  I DO want to end all further contact with you, which includes you NOT coming to A's house for dinner on Thursday.  I have spoken with A about my concerns and she knows that I am asking you not to come. She thoroughly agrees with me.

 W let me know of her problems with you as well. I went through my past emails from you, and discovered I had originally been introduced to you by K. I talked to K today,and he has informed me that he severed all contact with you, and apologized to me for not informing me of this.  He also informed me that your name is not even G, but L.  I could dig further and probably find out more, but what I know is that any more access to me, my friends and my business relationships are now going to be protected. I want you to NEVER use my name in relationship to your foundation or anything else.

I could say more, but I am truly sickened.

 Catherine Opie

Yeah, a very difficult letter for you to write. It's funny how easily people are sickened by people. I'm sickened by Catherine Opie. Not really, but I wonder if she realizes that there are worse things in this world than to have someone use your name to make a name for themselves. In my opinion, people are way to hung up on the idea/possibility of being used. Who cares if you were used? Basically it is just a damage to your ego? Because even in the best of relationships people use each other? I don't really get it, obviously, and I don't really want to.

Btw, for those that tie their sense of morality to religion, how Jesus handled being blatantly used:

And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any,

Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.

And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?

And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.

And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately.

And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Sociopathic Sense of Time

From a reader:

There's a phenomenon that you've probably noticed - things in the past don't seem important or real. This trait allows you to land on your feet, adapt to changing circumstances, etc.

Other people may find it disturbing. Some murderers murder their spouses and then immediately remarry. Partly the sociopath is just doing what he wants to do (get married), but also his sense of time is different - it is difficult for him to conceive that others will get bothered that the sociopath has moved on so quickly. Maybe he cries once, feels a little sorry for himself (for losing the wife) and then he's done and ready to move on.The empathy deficit explains the inability to anticipate what others will think & feel about the sociopath's actions, and the fear deficit means that to the extent he thinks others might notice and care, he doesn't care enough to change his behavior.

It occurred to me that this might explain a phenomenon that some have noticed: a sociopath will act antisocial one moment and then basically act as if it happened long, long ago. E.g. you argue with family ferociously and then 10 minutes later ask them for a favor.

I think some might talk of a "sense of self" - the self occurs in the present, in the form of thoughts about who one is. The sociopath is too busy doing stuff to pay attention to thoughts like, "I've been pushing things to the limit and should slow down before I piss them off."

I recently encountered this with a woman. I broke up with her and said I wanted to be friends. A week or so later it sounded like she was OK with socializing. I interpreted that to mean she was all done processing her feelings, so I asked for a favor. That led to her getting upset. To me, it just seemed like it was long ago, and apparently she'd worked it all out, so it was OK to ask for a favor. I also assumed, like me, that if we were friends, she'd follow whatever code of behavior she follows for her friends. Of course that's absurd - she follows her feelings. In any case, I couldn't possibly imagine how touchy she was going to be about this issue, or I never would have asked - because why would I irritate a friend? That's against my habits.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Song: Bette Davis Eyes




Her hair is Harlowe gold
Her lips sweet surprise
Her hands are never cold
She's got Bette Davis eyes
She'll turn her music on you
You won't have to think twice
She's pure as New York snow
She got Bette Davis eyes

And she'll tease you
She'll unease you
All the better just to please you
She's precocious and she knows just
What it takes to make a pro blush
She got Greta Garbo stand off sighs
She's got Bette Davis eyes

She'll let you take her home
It whets her appetite
She'll lay you on her throne
She got Bette Davis eyes
She'll take a tumble on you
Roll you like you were dice
Until you come out blue
She's got Bette Davis eyes

She'll expose you, when she snows you
Off your feet with the crumbs she throws you
She's ferocious and she knows just
What it takes to make a pro blush
All the boys think she's a spy
She's got Bette Davis eyes

And she'll tease you
She'll unease you
All the better just to please ya
She's precocious, and she knows just
What it takes to make a pro blush
All the boys think she's a spy
She's got Bette Davis eyes

She'll tease you
She'll unease you
Just to please ya
She's got Bette Davis eyes
She'll expose you, when she snows you
She knows ya
She's got Bette Davis eyes
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