Friday, June 5, 2015

Trial and error

A reader asks:

Hi I read some of your book and blog entries and I figured I'd reach out a bit.

I don't know 100% if I'm a sociopath but there are signs. I feel nothing towards my mother or sisters. Not hate or love, like or loathe, just, well nothing.

I can't hold a relationship because I'm a pathological liar and i don't feel love.

Do I have to fake it my whole life? Can I not feel at all? Will I ever? Is there a treatment out there somewhere that will make me feel like a human being and not some empty shell?

Please,

I just want to know how to stop this pain. I feel so lonely. Like I've got nothing to live for.

I have not felt direct distress as a result of my particular mental make up, but it certainly has distressing elements (emptiness, lack of sense of true meaning in life, lack of connections to others, etc.) to it or puts me in distressing situations (funny, then, that I still would not identify as feeling direct distress from it?). I get this question or a variation of it all the time. From personal experience, I think you can get better but there's not necessarily one way to go about it and no guarantee of success. I've written a little bit about what has helped with me, but it's been a matter of trial and error. For instance, I may have difficulty with wanting to control people and situations and using the bluntest of instruments. That doesn't go over well indefinitely, so I learn how to indirectly influence something via gardening. For some reason that really helped me to relax my death grip of control. I didn't know how to not manipulate, but my therapist got me to see how not to: (1) realize that you have a natural preference of choices regardless of what effects that choice might have on others, (2) act according to that natural preference and disregard the predicted effects that it will have on others. It is actually impossible to be manipulative if you follow that easy formula, and once you have learned that skill, maybe you start eventually factoring back in the effects that choice will have on others (sort of a cold turkey approach that would make a great comedy movie premise, a la Liar Liar).

But I don't mind compiling a list of helpful topics, giving my take (if any) or others take on them (if posted on this post in the comments or emailed to me with the trial and error subject line) and then leaving the comments open for future helpful ideas? What would be a good list of topics of most common issues that sociopaths might face in trying to establish a more stable manner of existence? I'd also look for helpful book recommendations (and a quick description of why) or helpful films and other media. Then I can make a page, "Resources for Sociopaths" or something. 

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Falsification

Not really apropos of anything in particular, but I liked this article about how people struggle with the concept of falsification:

In Paul Tough’s book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, he tells the story of an English psychologist Peter Cathcart Wason, who came up with an “ingenious experiment to demonstrate our natural tendency to confirm rather than disprove our own ideas.”

Subjects were told that they would be given a series of three numbers that followed a certain rule known only to the experimenter. Their assignment was to figure out what the rule was, which they could do by offering the experimenter other strings of three numbers and asking him whether or not these new strings met the rule.

The string of numbers the subjects were given was quite simple:

2-4-6

Try it: What’s your first instinct about the rule governing these numbers? And what’s another string you might test with the experimenter in order to find out if your guess is right? If you’re like most people, your first instinct is that the rule is “ascending even numbers” or “numbers increasing by two.” And so you guess something like:

8-10-12

And the experimenter says, “Yes! That string of numbers also meets the rule.” And your confidence rises. To confirm your brilliance, you test one more possibility, just as due diligence, something like:

20-22-24

“Yes!” says the experimenter. Another surge of dopamine. And you proudly make your guess: “The rule is: even numbers, ascending in twos.” “No!” says the experimenter. It turns out that the rule is “any ascending numbers.” So 8-10-12 does fit the rule, it’s true, but so does 1-2-3. Or 4-23-512. The only way to win the game is to guess strings of numbers that would prove your beloved hypothesis wrong—and that is something each of us is constitutionally driven to avoid.

In Wason’s study, only 1 in five people were able to guess the correct rule.

And the reason we’re all so bad at games like this is the tendency toward confirmation bias: It feels much better to find evidence that confirms what you believe to be true than to find evidence that falsifies what you believe to be true. Why go out in search of disappointment?


Monday, June 1, 2015

Aspie wisdom

From a recent comment to an old post:

If a cat got a thorn stuck in it's paw, and you knew it didn't care about you, you should still take the thorn out if you consider yourself kind. I don't think your kindness should depend on whether the cat cares about you or not, especially since it's the cat's nature. ~ I'm an aspie... 

Saturday, May 30, 2015

ENTP = quintessential sociopath?

From a sociopathic-identifying reader:

I have been fully immersed in psychology in the last few years, leading to my exposure to the Meyers Briggs personality indicator, which I feel is relevant to my possible sociopathy due to my strong identification with the ENTP type. 

Even on the surface level, ENTPs seem to be the ideal candidate for a sociopath: our zero tolerance policy toward boredom and consequent willingness to go to any lengths for stimulation combined with our ability to turn charm on and off without a second thought is nearly identical to the driving factors that sociopaths seem to have. Personally, I exercise my social manipulation skills (aka "charm") often and with much joy, objectively viewing most people as little more than pieces in a large and exciting game. 

Regardless of my psychopathic tendencies as a child, my uncertainty toward my identity is due largely in part to the contrast of stereotypical sociopathy and my ENTP personality. My lack of morality could either be attributed to a mental disorder or the results of inherent indecision and refusal to accept traditional ideals--although many believe INTJs to be the personality most closely linked to sociopathy, I think (possibly from personal bias) ENTPs natural inclination to charm, cajole, and intently seek out to challenge any form of regulation aligns us almost perfectly with the portrait of a sociopath.

My struggle now is mostly originated from the possibilities of either my true nature as a sociopath or of the simple fulfillment and exhibition of qualities blanketed under the ENTP personality type. 

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Pedophilia = not a crime

A reader sent me this New York Times op ed, "Pedophilia: A Disorder, Not a Crime" written by a law professor. I thought there were some pretty strong similarities to other hated mental disorders, and the comments section is a little disheartening with people talking about how this law professor would not be saying the things she is saying if she knew how disgusting and sick these pedophiles really are. One was from a prosecutor, talking about how he has prosecuted exactly two of these cases in which the details were apparently disturbing, so therefore feels like an expert on the subject: "These people don't need protection; children do." False dichotomy (can't they both need protection?), and one that you could really use for any class of people based on the actions of a few individuals, e.g. couldn't we make the same argument about NFL players based on their seemingly expressed propensity for violence (either on the field or with their wives and girlfriends?).

The article is worth reading in its entirety, but here is the probably the part that most closely parallels other maligned mental health disorders:

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines pedophilia as an intense and recurrent sexual interest in prepubescent children, and a disorder if it causes a person “marked distress or interpersonal difficulty” or if the person acts on his interests. Yet our laws ignore pedophilia until after the commission of a sexual offense, emphasizing punishment, not prevention.

Part of this failure stems from the misconception that pedophilia is the same as child molestation. One can live with pedophilia and not act on it. Sites like Virtuous Pedophiles provide support for pedophiles who do not molest children and believe that sex with children is wrong. It is not that these individuals are “inactive” or “nonpracticing” pedophiles, but rather that pedophilia is a status and not an act. In fact, research shows, about half of all child molesters are not sexually attracted to their victims.

A second misconception is that pedophilia is a choice. Recent research, while often limited to sex offenders — because of the stigma of pedophilia — suggests that the disorder may have neurological origins. Pedophilia could result from a failure in the brain to identify which environmental stimuli should provoke a sexual response. M.R.I.s of sex offenders with pedophilia show fewer of the neural pathways known as white matter in their brains. Men with pedophilia are three times more likely to be left-handed or ambidextrous, a finding that strongly suggests a neurological cause. Some findings also suggest that disturbances in neurodevelopment in utero or early childhood increase the risk of pedophilia. Studies have also shown that men with pedophilia have, on average, lower scores on tests of visual-spatial ability and verbal memory.

The Virtuous Pedophiles website is full of testimonials of people who vow never to touch a child and yet live in terror. They must hide their disorder from everyone they know — or risk losing educational and job opportunities, and face the prospect of harassment and even violence. Many feel isolated; some contemplate suicide. The psychologist Jesse Bering, author of “Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us,” writes that people with pedophilia “aren’t living their lives in the closet; they’re eternally hunkered down in a panic room.” 

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