Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Narcissist?

I sort of hate to pile on this random guy plucked from obscurity for our collective scrutiny, but he is an interesting case study.


Sunday, June 7, 2015

Dealing with a sociopath

This recent comment from an old post was directed at parents of a sociopath, but I think is pretty good advice for any situation in which you have to deal with a sociopath, i.e. you can't opt out because they're a blood family member, co-parent, work associate, etc.

From what I know of this mum and that couple's ordeal over the years, is that if you have someone like that living with you or in close contact with you, try to stay back a step or two emotionally and psychologically.

Don't get tangled up in the stream of lies and the really clever, manipulative behaviour even if it is difficult. 

Start by simply not believing anything this boy says - that is a great help and when my friend realised it, it took a burden off her shoulders. 

There is no point in getting angry and upset over his behaviour - he will only use it to make you look bad - and no point remonstrating, reasoning or trying to point out his lack of morality. 

I suggest you very consciously and pragmatically set out to manage the situation and look after yourself. Don't lose your head. Don't get mad at him. 

Force yourself to accept what is in front of you and deal with it consciously and in a planned way. 

Don't try to convince your partner of your suspicions if he is resistant to the possibility, because he will probably not want to believe you and it will upset him and make him resent you.

Don't lock horns with this boy if at all possible.

If your partner does, just stand back. 

Be careful because he will try to drive your and your partner apart - from his point of view he will cause as much trouble as possible because then he can slip between the cracks and do what he wants while you two are thoroughly preoccupied with fighting with each other. 

Oh yes, don't give him any ammunition at all, because he will talk about you. He will re-frame everything that happens to make him look like the victim and be aware that he will tell lies about everything and everyone. 

Stay back and stay calm and don't ever let your emotions take over when you are dealing with him.
That's all I can tell you from the many many well-intentioned mistakes my friend made. 

I am so sorry. However, if this is what you are up against and I do hope you are wrong - take comfort in the fact that you have several years to work out a strategy before he really starts to get going. 

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... 
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