Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Sociopath or what?

From a reader:

Hello. 

I really have no idea of where to start. I've Always felt different from everyone else and ive Always known that there was something wrong with me. I think i might be a sociopath. When i was a small child, i used to beat up everyone. Ive Always had all this violence built up inside even though when i was small i never got physically or verbal abused. I was that little bully that everyone feared yet everyone loved, till this day. Even though i got bullied, cut myself, attempted suicide. Ive Always thought about murder, my aunt told me that when i was 5 i used to make up stories about people getting brutally murdered with chainsaws, getting tortured, then id just smile and walk away. Im not capable of feeling love. Every single time i got into a relationship id insult and make that person feel bad, hurt them. I didnt care. I never did. Ive never felt remorse. Sometimes id wake up just thinking ''i wanna fight with him''. Even when someone close to me is hurting, i dont care. I cant understand how people can feel pain when someone they love is in pain. I can't do that, i just don't care, no matter who the person is!! Some time ago my dad got mad at me cause we were having a conversation and i said ''i prefer to speak the truth no matter how hard it is. If the person kills herself, then be it. Its their problem, not mine. If they're weak then its not my fault''. 
Now im 17, ive fucked up my last relationship with a guy  i was in love with cause i kept on insulting him heavily, im very anti social, ive had problems at school for the past 2 years : Teachers calling for my behaviour, failed gr10 twice, i dropped out.  I got called ''psychopath''.  A friend of mine said ''i could tell you're a sociopath from the first day ive met you''

Looking forward to a response :) thank you!

Just as an aside, I am just as guilty of making judgments about a person's mental state and possible mental disorders based on just a few short paragraphs of self-reporting, but I sort of think it's interesting what sort of comments these elicit. I'm not sure if you can tell more about the original poster, the projections of the people commenting, or if it's a mixture or neither or what. But I also found it to be at least interesting to see other people respond to who I was via the book -- whether it was things that I thought were interesting, insightful, factually (in)accurate, not likely, etc. If you've ever wondered how quickly (and far) people would take a few salient facts about you and run with them, you should email me a quick bio for me to post to see how ready others are to give you their assessment (and with what absolute confidence, some of them). 

Monday, December 8, 2014

Human connection

This was an interesting recent comment on an old post, "Am I My Asperger Brother's Keeper?":

Is the resentment/jealousy of auspies that they are what sociopaths are, but that auspies don't need people? Most of the negative view against socios is that they "prey" on empaths. It seems to me that sociopaths lack empathy but still want/need a human connection... but as they can't have a "real" empath-style love, they only have power and control for a connection. It makes me feel sad for sociopaths... which maybe makes me an uberempath? Being an auspie actually sounds pretty awesome and very well suited for a post singularity humanity. 

What do you think? A main distinction is that sociopaths need humans and aspies or autistics don't? I have sometimes opined that sociopaths are on the autism spectrum, and that their fixation is on humans and human behavior rather than, say, trains, as is true of my friend's brother (not to stereotype).

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Friday, December 5, 2014

Which sociopath thoughts are most popular/beneficial?

Forgive the intrusion on our regular scheduled programming. I'm working on a little project and would like some feedback (probably will leave this up for two days in a row for more time to think, respond, and interact). I've been trying to come up with a half dozen to a dozen ways that sociopaths think or methods of how they go about doing a particular thing that they find helpful or that other people would find helpful to either learn how to do or at least learn more about.

One that I thought about was a sociopath's ability to not feel guilt, or other ways to tame or otherwise interact with emotions (particularly negative ones?). Emotional detachment? Others?

Another thought was about how sociopaths might be more efficient or productive in certain aspects or have thought patterns or methods that can sometimes make them more efficient or productive. Ability to compartmentalize? To either hyper focus or not focus on something? Others?

Finally, I was thinking that there are ways that the sociopath sees the world, especially maybe in terms of power structures/hierarchies or utilitarianism or others?

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Attention deconcentration

I was reading about the phenomenon of attention deconcentration in an old New Yorker article about free diving, "The Deepest Dive," unfortunately not available in its full form unless you are a subscriber. Here is the relevant portion:
To still the unbidden apprehensions that might interfere with her dive -- what she describes as "the subjective feeling of empty lungs at the deep" -- Molchanova uses a technique that she refers to as "attention deconcentration." ("They get it from the military," Ericson said.) Molchanova told me, "It means distribution of the whole field of attention -- you try to feel everything simultaneously. This condition creates an empty consciousness, so the bad thoughts don't exist."

"Is it difficult to learn?"

"Yes, it's difficult. I teach it in my university. It's a technique from ancient warriors -- it was used by samurai -- but it was developed by a Russian scientist, Oleg Bakhtiyarov, as a psychological-state-management technique for people sho do very monotonous jobs."

I asked if it was like meditation.

"To some degree, except meditation means you're completely free, but if you're in the sea at depth you will have to be focussed, or it will get bad. What you do to start learning is you focus on the edges, not the center of things, as if you were looking at a screen. Basically, all the time I am diving, I have an empty consciousness. I have a kind of melody going through my mind that keeps me going, but otherwise I am completely not in my mind."
This passage in the article intrigued me because it reminded me of playing games to see how far I could expand my visual focus. On the diver Molchanova's website, she mentions that although it is rare for most people to have stumbled upon this experience, people who are subject to persistent stress factors typically have, such as hunters or fighters or other activities where quick decisionmaking is necessary and "emotional reaction in critical situation can lead to the wrong decisions and panic." I feel like I frequently will do this, or try to at least go that direction with my focus. I will do a more toned down version in big crowds, like at an airport. I've heard another practioner refer to something similar as "situational awareness." When I get closest to the idea of deconcentration, I am so hyper aware of all of sensory inputs that I reach a sort of ecstasy. It's very pleasurable.

I'm curious, have the other sociopaths experienced something similar to attention deconcentration?

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