Saturday, August 8, 2015

Going limp: or how to response to a sociopath attack

Sometimes I give advice to people about how to deal with the sociopaths in their lives. Often they ignore the advice, or attempt to cherry pick the advice in such a way that the advice is essentially useless. Or they think they're following the advice, but they do it in a completely backwards way. For example, one time one of my overweight co-worker had decided to start what must have been the 201st diet of his life. He showed up at work and proudly announced that he had skipped breakfast. Another co-worker told him that skipping breakfast would actually make him fatter by triggering the body into starvation mode, such that his body would horde the fat stores while it still could. He promptly left the office and came back with a half gallon of buttermilk that he chugged, all so he wouldn't get fat. 

When people ask me about how to deal with the sociopaths in their lives, all I do is think about what would work on me or what has worked by me against other sociopathic individuals. One of the pieces of advice I often give is a variation on the strategy of "going limp". If the person you are "fighting" against needs any part of your engagement (e.g. they need you to stand up so they can keep pummeling your torso with punches, or they are gaslighting you and need you to overreact so they can portray you as crazy), you just go limp. You very passively do nothing, don't react, slump, relax or cease all efforts or reactions to your adversary. Becoming deadweight is often the easiest and most effective way to lose someone's interest.

This old comment from an old post gives similar advice:

One great way to manipulate a sociopath is to play naive, innocent, unaware. 

Cause major inconveniences for the sociopath but act like none of that was intentional, you actually even have no idea about these inconveniences (and see how they are not willing to share or put themselves in a victim position voluntarily, while being quite pissed off about it). 

They just hate it when 'universe' or 'chance factor' plays against them (a sin they are not in full control) and there is no one there to blame. 

In these situations they are upset but they cannot turn their rage against you because that would be accepting the fact that maybe you are smarter, maybe you are gas-lighting them but that just cannot be, you are so naive and more importantly they are so smart. 

This, of course, works if you got something they want, otherwise you ar non-issue anyway.

Don't ever appear like you know deep psychology around a sociopath, they'll act like they have no idea what you're talking about anyway. 

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Addict or sociopath?

Some people ask if they or an addict who they know is a sociopath. My understanding is that addicts often display the characteristics of sociopaths without being able to actually be diagnosed as sociopaths because it's not a permanent condition (e.g., recover from the addiction, recover from the sociopathic traits). I don't have any real experience abusing drugs, so it's hard for me to know when someone is just an addict or is also a sociopath?

From a reader:

Convinced that I may be a sociopath, or at least have some type of antisocial personality disorder, I've come to you for further analysis. I've come to the point where I can recognize patterns in my behavior, past and still occurring, that can be identified with sociopathic traits & characteristics. I’ve noticed my inability to empathize with my mother, or any of my relatives, and my lack of interest in others ideals or their emotions. In later infancy and early adolescence, I was described to be abusive and manipulative of my mother/sister during my father's absence while incarcerated. I would physically abuse my sister and take advantage of my mother’s tenderness and inability to deny me of almost any privilege. My father's arrival into my life brought structure and discipline within the household. I was very hateful of my father, initially, but respected his ability to deliver swift punishment with complete rationality. We had a lot in common which lead to me favoring him over my mother. But I still persisted in my mischief. In elementary school, I made friends easily and could band them together to accompany me in my nefarious schemes. It came to the point where my father couldn't afford to leave work anymore to beat me himself, so he gave consent to certain instructors and faculty members to do the job for him in his stead.

I grew fond of my father but still felt emotional unattached to him. For example, when he was hospitalized in the result of a stabbing during a street fight, I wasn’t very emotionally receptive and didn’t feel any sense of urgency for his well-being. During the hospital visit, I feigned sadness in order to seem concerned. My attempt to fool him wasn’t successful. When he saw me he immediately knew that my tears lacked sincerity and smiled at me while lying on his bed, with his abdomen stapled together.

 I think that because of him and his almost militant approach at disciplining me, I turned out to be much more tame than what I could've been. As I grew older, I used lies and manipulation in order to avoid being beaten. Although it wasn't foolproof and it ended up contributing to my family members deeming me generally untrustworthy, I was able to maneuver around and stave off immediate punishment.

In high school, I was extremely conflicted. My father wasn't around anymore, due to his past criminal charges coming back to haunt him. I was then elected to be the man of the house and was expected to fill his shoes. I tried to emulate him and his role as a diligent, selfless, and stern family man. That proved to be very difficult. In some ways, it was easy to fashion myself after him. He could be extremely calculative. In addition, my apathy could be mistaken for benevolent qualities similar to his selflessness and generosity. Ultimately, I felt inadequate in my role. My responsibilities also hindered me from indulging in the typical activities that a normal teenager would have been able to. 

I also felt a slight betrayal from my mother, who couldn't accept my general impartial attitude towards my duties and at the fact that she was very intrusive of my privacy. Whatever discoveries she made as a product of her habitual prying, she became more and more aware of my true nature. I simply did what I felt like doing, as long as I felt it didn't have a detrimental affect on others. I believed that it was justified. She had hopes for me to grow into a loving and compassionate son who was considerate of other’s feelings, and primarily of hers’. I thought of her as a mess, at times. She could be very emotional and it didn't have a pull on me. She would question my love for her but I would say things like I loved in my own way. I feel that I do love her as my mother but am not very fond of her as a person. I grew to be very close to my sister. I hold her very dear to me, despite our past violent relationship.

Upon graduating from high school, I was accepted to one of the best design schools in America. I chose to major in illustrations because I was very good at it. After completing my freshman year, on the slow track of a part time student, I felt quite passionless about drawing in general. Around that time, I became unemployed and was earnestly looking for work. I took to craigslist and went for a rather unordinary job for someone of my background and stature. Growing up middle class, others felt that it was odd that I felt compelled to sell $2,000 vacuum as a cold call, door-to-door salesman, in trailer parks to boot. I didn’t know exactly why at the time, but I didn’t have any qualms with the work and had a rather positive outlook. During that time period, I believe that I was at my most sociopathic. I played the role of a seasoned salesman well, as I went from trailer to trailer pitching a sale to people who were obviously financially unfit to buy a vacuum for the price of a used car. People were often forced to buy with the alternative option to finance the payments on the vacuum. The money was terrible, due to the company being an actual pyramid scheme, but for some odd reason that did not concern me. My mother recommended that I should find work elsewhere, after a month. 


 Working in the environment that I did, I fell into recreational drug use. I began to experiment with MDMA and LSD to rouse myself or try to gain some direction, because I fell into apathy. It ended up being quite detrimental. I started to feel emotions and couldn't understand them. I started to feel extremely alienated and off kilter. I felt weak and had numerous episodes of uncontrollable sobbing. Sometimes from depressions, anxiety or deep joy. I did not like it. Going to raves and partying every weekend was also taking a toll on my school life and finances. I stopped for a short period of time and turned to drinking. I felt much more I control while intoxicated from alcohol. I also started to experiment with narcotics (Xanax, Adderall, Oxy, Cocaine). They induced almost the same feeling. Oxy and Xanax put me into a state of dismissive drowsiness that I am not very fond of. Cocaine and Adderall were almost identical in how they induced energetic highs with a trace of overzealous aggression, when tapped into. All of these drugs gave me the ability to draw off of a spectrum of emotions that I normally couldn't. I appreciated it, but wasn’t fully convinced that they were going to be beneficial to my quest of self-discovery. They eventually led to me being kicked out from under my mother's roof and my current homelessness. Nevertheless, I am complacent. Without a working vehicle, I am unable to work as my position of delivery driver. I am currently stationed near a well-populated and budding town where I have access to nearly free food and Wi-Fi. I spend my days reading books in a local cafe that I steal from Barnes and Nobles. On weekends, I spend my time in the company of my female familiars that I've met during my drug and alcohol filled adventures with friends. My family does not know of my homelessness only because I feel that it will complicate things if they did.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Sociopaths in film: Paper Towns?

From a reader:

Hello, I've been a reader on your blog for a while now and find it mostly very insightful, so thanks for that. I'm writing because I just saw the movie Paper Towns (haven't read the book) and I found the character Margo quite relatable. If you aren't familiar with the story it's just a teen coming of age story about a boy who likes a girl (Margo) and decides to chase after her when she leaves unexpectedly. Margo growing up in the movie had few friends, and ran away from home five times on impulse. She would also always leave clues just to toy with the people she left behind. Later during high school she seemed to act quite impulsively, and liked to live on the edge as she described it. When she found out her boyfriend cheated on her she had no problem cutting off him and her friend group, getting a quick revenge, then leaving town again. 

At the same time she was dragging along an old childhood friend who is the main character of the story, and just seems to use him for the poetry of him being her first and last partner in crime. She also tells him that she thinks Orlando is a "paper town" and the people are paper, basically she means that she doesn't think anything of them. She also talks about how she just created a persona of herself for everyone to know and like. Then she leaves again, and the whole coming of age teen thing plays out while the boy follows the trail of clues and finds her. But in the ending when he finds her she seems surprised to see him simply because she didn't think he'd come looking. Then they have a romantic moment, but he ends up returning to Orlando and she just continues with her own adventure. 

Overall the movie was so-so, but I found this character of Margo most interesting. So after the movie I realized from relating myself to Margo that she might be a sociopath. I don't know if the author had that intention when creating the character, but I definitely think she has quite a few traits of one. I was wondering if you had seen this movie and had any thoughts on it? If not, I think it's worth watching to analyze the character.

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Penelope Trunk, sociopath posing as aspie?

A reader wonders:

Be interesting to do an article on how common this is. She's fabricated a lot of her career success, and created a blog around 'aspergers honest' career advice. She ticks a lot of boxes for sociopathy.

-ex pro volleyball player
-bisexuality/lots of partners
- Supposedly founded 4 startups, but no in depth details about the first two websites she founded.
- pathological liar, her account of the 9/11 attacks is obviously a creative writing exercise
 http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2001/09/12/first-hand-account-of-911/

- lack of responsibility, seen in her financial advice where she tells readers not to worry about credit card debt and just pay the minimum monthly payment. Also been fired from multiple jobs. 

- multiple aliases, used to write semi-autobiographical chic lit 
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Scenes-Adrienne-Eisen/dp/0970351704

The unnamed narrator is a stunning young woman who wants to play professional beach volleyball at least until she decides to become a model, and then a graduate student. Her succession of nonstarter relationships with variously inaccessible men is matched only by her inability to keep a job for longer than one chapter. Beset by a series of issues straight out of a glossy women's magazine eating disorders, lack of self-esteem, the could-you-be-a-lesbian question she moves from Chicago to Los Angeles to Boston with money donated by her parents and lovers.

Her book while fiction, is probably much closer to the truth that anything she presents on her website. Because of the similarities between aspergers and sociopathy, she could claim the aspergers label and thus publish sociopathic career advice, and people would applaud her for 'keeping it real' and being honest. Most career advice is pretty generic so hers stands out & she's definitely a marketing genius in that sense.

I think her career advice is actually pretty good. But its impossible for someone with aspergers to be a charismatic speaker, a pathological liar or to sleep around. hence why she's probably a sociopath. 

Friday, July 31, 2015

Sociopath fan boy

A list of movies/characters/tv:

Movies
Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl
Jake Gyllenhaal - Nightcrawler
Eva Green - 300 Rise of an Empire
Toby Kebbel - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Matt Damon - The Departed
Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
Carl Urban and Lena Headey - Dredd
Ralph Fiennes - In Bruges
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Ryan Gosling - Drive
Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci - Goodfellas
Hugo Weaving - The Matrix
Christain Bale - American Psycho

Tv
Kevin Spacey - House of Cards
Bryan Cranston - Breaking Bad
Many actors - The Sopranos
Michael Kenneth Williams - The Wire
Robert Knepper - Prison Break
Iwan Rheon - Game of Thrones
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