Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Jinx

Again, I am late to the party. I just started watching this. Can I say that I love the taped conversations he has with his wife while in prison?

Friday, August 14, 2015

Reading people (part 2)

This was an interesting old comment from an old post:

I love Jung's concept of the "Shadow". It is the part of our identity we split off from our own consciousness because it is too threatening to the persona we access (constructed to a greater or lesser degree based on our need to calculate vs be sincere) .To have our shadows exposed feels like an annihilation of self- and the sociopath knows this. You are correct- a few select individuals who are not sociopaths seem to have an eerie knowledge of how to "map" the Shadow sides of new acquaintances. However they rarely employ this talent for nefarious purposes. But it is a formidable skill set to have- and anyone who has had their own Shadow exposed (or have been threatened by exposure) tend to have a reflexive defensive reaction to people who have developed this gift- sociopathic or otherwise. 

The best "tell" I know for whether someone with this gift is sociopathic or simply insightful is their use of flattery whenever you look at them funny for saying something that to outsiders might seem innocuous, but has pierced you to the core. The sociopath has made a note of your reaction and tries to switch the subject by propping up your wounded ego. The insightful person is more likely to stay present with you and not immediately pretend they did not see what you both know that they saw. They aren't necessarily interested in learning more- they happen to just reflect back to you what they have seen.

In contrast- the sociopath becomes obsessed with knowing every last detail about you as a way of learning the "Shadow" part of you that you hide even from yourself. They want to know what buttons to push should they ever have the need to ruin you, and also for the purposes of inducing your confusion and anxieties when you deviate from their plan to make you one of their sycophants. 

The gift of having your life turned upside down by a sociopath is in having your "Shadow" self exposed. When this happens, your comfortable illusions about your identity are shattered. This experience will either destroy you or strengthen you, depending upon your own resistance to the lessons you chose or refuse in the aftermath of this traumatic experience. 

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Sociopathic feminity

From a reader:

Saw this documentary and thought that it seemed like the kind of thing beautiful sociopathic women might do to take advantage of their looks.

Is this an instance of sociopathic femininity or is it something else entirely?

Monday, August 10, 2015

Empathy

I saw this on social media, 23 Emotions People Feel, But Can't Explain. I can't speak to the legitimacy of this particular list, but I myself know of some emotions (like "saudades" or "schadenfreude") that have words for them in certain languages but not others, suggesting that certain emotions are more prevalent, or at least more on the radar, in certain cultures than others.

Some of these emotions on the list I could see myself having (or have had), others not so much. It made me think of emotional (affective) empathy (as opposed to cognitive empathy). If people are not even aware that some of these emotions exist in the broader population, how could they possibly feel empathy for someone who is experiencing one of these emotions? It makes me wonder about some people's absolute faith in empathy, that just because they happened to have been born a human being they were somehow magically imbued with being able to reliably understand each other and feel each other's feelings. In a world in which researchers are constantly finding new ways in which our cognition fails us such that entirely new disciplines have sprouted up over the past decade or so (behavioral economics for one), it's odd to me that there is still such blind faith and misconceptions about what exactly empathy is, means, and can do.


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. 

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