Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Sociopaths on Television: iZombie

At the recommendation of a twitter follower, I watched an episode of iZombie with a strong sociopath plot feature. The show's protagonist is a former heart surgery resident turned crime fighting zombie who eats brains of victims of crime in order to regain some of their memories, and as a side effect takes on some of their habits or abilities. For instance, in the pilot episode she acquires kleptomania. In the third episode, The Exterminator, she becomes sociopathic after eating the brains of a sociopath hit man.

The show was interesting enough to watch. I felt like they did a good job showing the bright parts of sociopathy a little (clear headed and ballsy when she needed to be). I think the premise of the show in general highlights the vast differences that there can be between different brains, that we all are really special snowflakes wandering around with such oddities rattling around in our heads, some with labels of diagnosis and some without. Whether we were pre-programmed that way or somehow had a hand in acquiring that programming, it is still programming -- hard wired and hard to get over.

The episode is available on Hulu for who knows how long -- here.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Tina Fey's Sociopath Daughter

Not sure why I didn't publish this before?

The first one:

 

And the more recent one, still doing bad to the bone:

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Meeting a sociopathic son halfway (part 2)

My response:

I've been thinking about this. First, can I publish this on the blog to see what others would suggest as well?

But I have a few suggestions.
  • It's very important that he trust you. You are essentially asking him to do a childlike abridged 12 step program in which he admits that he is powerless (or at least his power isn't endless) and to trust your judgment instead of his own. To do that, he has to believe 100% that you have his best interests at heart. 
  • To accomplish that (trust), plus provide him some good role models of people who hid their true nature sometimes, I would recommend reading to him books. I know he is old to be read to, but you could read something that is a little beyond his reading level and it would provide both bonding and instruction. One book series that I thought of immediately was Game of Thrones. There is a lot in there about duplicity. Another character I like is Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series, and how sneaky and effective he ends up being.
  • I would recommend involving him in activities in which secrecy and planning ahead are the whole aim, e.g. chess or poker or something similar. 
  • Maybe play mask like games with him, e.g. who can speak in a mock foreign accent at the grocery store the longest. Or pretend to be different people -- you're really tourists, or you're actually spies, or everyone is a pod person and you have avoid their detection by always looking them in the eye and responding directly to their questions, or whatever you decide to do. This will teach him to be creative and to focus on the image he is projecting. 
  • You're already doing this, but incentives are the key. You may like this program: http://www.accountablekids.com/ My nephew, who is a lot like your son, responded well to this. I would also, if he isn't already, enroll him in music lessons (I would recommend piano or strings, not an instrument he plays with his mouth, as it is more visual and probably easier for his brain to conceptualize). Pay him money to do his practicing and attending lessons. Learning the pleasure and value of money will be a great motivator for him in life. Music will also give him more of a clue to understanding emotions. It's been a while since I actually read about this, but the way our brain perceives music is related to the way that our brain perceives motion, which is also connected to the way that the brain perceives emotion. The theory goes that this is why the movement and motion of music is translated by our brain into something resembling an emotional response. Even if he is not able to register certain higher level emotional things, usually youngsters are still able to tap into the lower, more primitive emotional level of music. 
Another interesting question that was raised in this discussion was whether sociopathy as a diagnosis becomes a further rationalization to the sociopath of doing more and worse bad behavior. I feel like that is a very common worry that I hear expressed -- outside the sociopathic community. At least the way I experience my disorder, I don't care that much about any sort of justifications to tell myself, moral social or otherwise (now, justifications to tell other people or rationalizations based on my own values are a different story). And I don't look for reasons to believe that I can't control my behavior. When you hear bad people say that they do bad things because they're bad people, I don't think they're giving a justification for their behavior so much as just an explanation. In other words, in their minds they're going to keep doing the bad things not because of a belief that they can't help it but because of a belief that they like to do those things.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Meeting a sociopathic son halfway

From a reader:

I'm sure this is something you hear with relative frequency but I am fairly certain that my son is a sociopath. He is nine years old and he seems to have come upon a time in his life where he is beginning to sense that there is something different about him.

There has been something "off" about him for his entire life, from his epic tantrums to his insensitivity to cues like tone of voice and body language. He would go into episodes where his eyes went dead, for lack of a better word, and he would be absolutely uncontrollable. These same episodes now result in a child who just doesn't care what anyone is saying to him. He simply stands with that blank stare and absorbs nothing. What we were dealing with really hit me when I talked to him about his continued physical violence toward his younger brother. I was trying to get him to empathize with his brother and understand how he felt and my son simply could not do it. He was trying but when I asked about how he thought his brother felt, the only emotions he could manage to think of were "angry" or "happy". He also seemed completely unable to really understand the feelings of his brother, relying on physical cues from his brother rather than any real connection.

My concern is that he has been reacting violently to the tension he seems to be dealing with as a result of his peers advancing emotionally while he does not. He has been fighting with other students, arguing with teachers, stealing, lying, and manipulating. He's chokes his brother, physically fought with teachers and adults, delighted in feeding live lizards to the dog, convinced his teacher he was depressed, and threatened suicide to illicit a reaction. He's been suspended, put in detention, talked to by the school resource officer, had his grades drop, and any number of other consequences. He simply doesn't care and seems to not learn from experience. We've enacted an allowance method that gives direct correlation between his behavior and monetary reward. This seems to be effective, making good behavior more profitable than poor behavior but I don't know how effective it will be at curbing behavior when a strong impulse hits.

I am trying to understand how to help direct him toward a higher level of functionality. I know that he can't really be "cured" nor does he need to be. I just don't know how to help him understand why it is important to behave in accordance to society's rules. I have had conversations with him about it but the value of obeying rules is hard to impart to someone who genuinely doesn't care about the consequences and lacks the control to reign in his impulses. I'm scared that he will end up in jail or that he will really hurt someone someday if I can't direct him to a more productive path.

I suppose my question, after a bit of rambling, is this: Is there anything someone could have done at a young age to help you to understand the value of "the mask"? I hate that he has to put one on but there is no way for him to succeed in life without it. Is there any way someone could have helped you to develop the ability to live more easily in society? I know you did so on your own but might there have been a way for someone to help you to discover it earlier and save yourself some grief? I don't want to label him or make him something he's not. After all, there is a reason that sociopathy cannot be diagnosed until later in life but I want to help him because he is certainly on that path and I think waiting until he is an adult to address the likely cause of his difficulty would be a mistake.
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