Sunday, January 11, 2015

Sliding scale of emotions

From a reader:

I just heard your interview on CBC radio and was totally fascinated by you.

I could really identify with your perception of yourself as a child, and the knowingness of being different, your high intelligence and your ability to read people.  As  I listened, I was right there with you.  Funny enough, I am a highly empathetic person. I feel people and in the same way you enjoy "ruining people" I enjoy building them up.  I  hone in on an attribute and try to mirror it back to them to lift them up. It is a skill that I have and I derive much joy and satisfaction from expressing this aspect of myself.  Lucky for me, society looks upon this as an acceptable trait and therefore life is made easier for me.

I have come to believe that we all reside on a sliding scale when it comes to emotion.  If you are a sociopath, what would we call those who are so into their emotions that they are constantly surrounded by chaos, drama and never ending suffering. I love the way you see yourself, I love that you have rules you live by that allow you to exist in society and to find a solid balance between being o.k. with who you are and being o.k. with how the world sees you.  We should all be so lucky.

I just wanted to say thanks for sharing.  I wholeheartedly believe that we are all aspects of the whole and I was able to experience what you have to give today and for that I am grateful.  You are magnificent and I just wanted to express how much joy I felt listening to you.  I look forward to reading your book.

My response:

I actually also enjoy building people up. I enjoy seeing the effect that I can have on people, the power that I have over myself and my environment. I even have a preference for building people up, for whatever reason. But that doesn’t detract for me at all the pleasure in seeing something torn apart. Maybe being in law is a good career choice for me — tearing apart people’s stories, the lies that they’ve decided to live or at least try to pass off as truth.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Quote: Mobs

“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”

― StanisÅ‚aw Jerzy Lec

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Pros and cons of dating a sociopath

This was an interesting blog post about the pros and cons of maintaining a relationship with a sociopath. I believe that this definitely could be one person's experience of one particular sociopath. I wonder whether people think that it could be generalized. Some traits, sure -- exciting, charming, etc. Others, maybe not? For instance, is it true that sociopaths tend to push their partners to achieve their potential? I could see that happening perhaps with a high functioning sociopath that sort of takes the partner under his or her wing and teaches him or her to be more risk seeking, brave, confident, etc. 

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Curing Psychopathy

I got this press release and a copy of Willem Martens' new book on psychopaths who are no longer psychopaths:

[T]he new book of William Martens – MD, PhD. The Firebirds among the Psychopaths – Development and Remission in Psychopathy,” will be available from January 15 2015 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo, Apple iBookstore etc; ISBN: 978-2-7659-0740-4

This book is an attempt to describe and make understandable this rare phenomenon of complete remission in psychopathy and the developmental embedding of it. In this book the history of the concept of psychopathy; the psychosocial, psychodynamic, genetic and neurobiological aspects, the diagnostic tools as well as the therapeutic determinants of the phenomenon will be discussed in this volume.

A complete remission of psychopathy is defined as complete disappearance of all such manifestations of disease.  The case reports of remitted criminal and noncriminal psychopaths which are presented in this book are the only examples of real remission in a sample 667 patients which were treated in a forensic psychiatric hospital between 1966 and 1995. This a percentage of just nearly 2% .They might become “weller than well” as Karl Menninger called this phenomenon in his study of remitted in schizophrenic patients. This means that these patients are not just cured, but their life as very much enriched by the experience of conquer the disorder and self-transformation. They will continue improve still further.


Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Ender's Game on love and understanding

From a recent comment from the post about the Ender's Game quote:

This is actually one of my favorite quotes. If you haven't read the other books, you should. I've only read to Xenocide, but they're fantastic.

This quote makes a lot of sense. ...Sometimes, I accidentally profile people. I have a knack for knowing when something is "off," and by intuitive leap I've identified a few socios and a neurotypical or two who were waiting for someone to see behind the mask. Usually I'm clueless as to what makes a person tick, but when this thing happens, I am terrifically accurate. And I love them. The way them love themselves. Deeply, instinctually. It isn't empathy, but it is understanding. And oh, how I could destroy them. For me there's a fine line between love and the desire to destroy. They go hand in hand. Knowing someone in this way makes me love them, and loving them makes me want to break them. Ruin them. Possess them. When I love someone, I want their soul. Love, of course, is the reason I take care of them instead. But yes, knowing someone well enough to love them makes it possible to destroy them so completely they, for my own purposes, become essentially a non-entity.

Another quote, Ender talking about the Hive Queen:
"I knew her so well that I loved her, or maybe I loved her so well that I knew her. Either way, I was tired of fighting. So I blew up her planet."

And one more:
"You are the one human being who is capable of understanding the alien mind, because you are the alien mind; you know what it is to be unhuman because there’s never been any human group that gave you credentials as a bona fide homo sapien."

I think most of us here can relate to that one, just a little bit. 
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