Friday, February 5, 2016

Mr. Robot's reduction of people to patterns

I started watching the tv show Mr. Robot. I have never done much programming. I guess the closest I have come is working in Excel, which I have done since I was a tween, and maybe some basic coding that they you used to teach youngsters back when computers were much simpler in a way (does anyone remember DOS?).  But I really did enjoy it. I enjoyed the predictability and the knowing that if you pulled this lever you got this result. I even enjoyed trying to pull a lever and getting the wrong result, because it was just a puzzle to solve -- a puzzle that I knew had an answer just waiting for me to discover. It's no surprise I often thought of people that way too, and so does the main character of Mr. Robot.

The anti-social protagonist hacks everyone he knows to find out all about them. It gives him the illusion of knowing people. He says that he is very good at reading people. And he is in a way, in the sense that so many normal people are terribly predictable -- looking for love in all the wrong places, etc. But I have also seen other real life people, particularly with personality disorders, similarly attempt to reduce people to patterns and predictions and it seems ridiculously sysiphean to me -- often by the time you recognize a pattern, the person or situation has changed and your data is stale. Moreover, to my eyes, they are clearly less successful and accurate with it than they believe themselves to be. And so in maintaining those beliefs that (1) people can be easily reduced to knowable patterns and (2) that they have successfully reduced people to those said patterns, those types appear a little delusional to me. (I'm sure that I am the same with my delusions.)

With all of that said, I still think there is something very useful and often powerful about being able to recognize the patterns in the people around us (even if it will never give us as clear a picture of each other as we might fool ourselves into believing).

A reader gives a similar math analogy:

The environment in which I grew up was certainly governed by physical violence. This enviornment, however, had a steadily balanced input from both sides of morality/ethics: at school was the common child's play, at home was my father's emotional instability brought on from too much drink, at the gym was the overzealous, self-righteous police. Through my Grandparents, at home, I received a clearer understanding of an ethical/moral constitution for a Family man. From the gym I was able to glean between the Warrior's code of conduct (almost Nietzschiean in its focus on self-control  and discipline), and the police offered the legal ramifications of societies expectations. Through these I was able to become Nietzsche's Child, Campbell's Self Revolving Wheel, where, in his Discourse of The Three Metamorphoses, I compiled my own codes; allowing me to adapt to whatever the environment I found myself expected. For me, this was a mathematical puzzle; just as language is an algebraic formula wherein the values are interchangeable and the formula remains the same.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

PTSD and sociopathy

A reader recently wrote about the connection between sociopathy and post traumatic stress disorder:

I think I had post-traumatic stress disorder for two years. Your book however is the closest I have ever felt to being understood. In which case is it possible to be a sociopath for two years of your life? Or are the two related? I hadn't seen any similar links on your blog but I thought I'd share my story in case there are others like mine.

I am not sure if you can learn to be a sociopath, or if I have been one my whole life, or, indeed, writing this, I have been "cured". I had a happy childhood as an expat only child. Life was exciting, I was loved. I 'think' I used to be empathetic..I was always very concerned with people's problems, but it's hard to tell if it was curiosity and wanting to solve the puzzles in their lives or because I was upset by their hurt. I hated criticism, but because I was never wrong, not because I ever felt I had done wrong. To me, other children were nice, but rather stupid and didn't interest me much. My favourite games to play I would role play as a successful adult. I was quite quiet, perceived as shy and unassuming, and I constantly felt underestimated - a secret I saw to my advantage and loved. Aside from this, I feel I was a normal-ish child. I had more interest in over-achieving at school and being the best than of dealing with my peers, I enjoyed company when I had it but was quite content to be left alone. Perhaps had I grown up with siblings as competition my attitude would have been different.

As a teenager I was quiet but popular, seen as smart and sweet and liked by everyone even though I feel nobody really knew me. Through travelling I had learnt at a young age to adapt, to blend in, to make new friends. I found girls brought too much drama and needless emotional turmoil to my life and I didn't understand their mind games or fake attitudes, so my friends have always primarily been boys. I like that when they had a problem with each other it would be addressed with a hit to the face and be forgotten the next day. I hate unnecessary emotions. I also have a great disdain for violence, more because that also inevitably leads to gossiping emotional drama than because of the actual violence. I would have no qualms punching someone in the face given the opportunity and would greatly enjoy it. I was always the "peace keeper" breaking up fights in the playground. Most people saw me as the sensitive soul doing a good deed. I am in fact incapable of watching a fight and not being involved, I would have loved being hit by one of the bullies only to be able to beat him until I was restrained, but, primarily, I loved my power. I loved how ballsy I felt as a small framed girl being able to stand in the face of someone the rest of the school cowered to, I enjoyed making him feel weak, I enjoyed knowing that he couldn't hurt me physically or emotionally.

I don't think I've ever deliberately tried to manipulate people unless they've crossed me. I don't get a thrill out of manipulation because I find people's emotions such a nuisance and because ultimately, I like being seen as a nice person and don't want to unravel my own reputation. I am an exceptional liar and mid-teens realised I revelled in playing the murderous, sultry villains in drama plays...my "acting" was in fact just a subsection of my inner self.

It takes a lot to make me angry. But when I am a shift occurs in my mind and indifference becomes cold, malicious hatred. I don't have an exceptional regard for myself (probably a result of abusive tendencies and relationships with other sociopaths in an attempt to prove myself I was "normal"), but I know I am a survivor, I know I am pretty and flirt with almost everyone, I am charming and, when I am doing something I love, incredibly intelligent. I have never viewed people with malice, rather with a kind of nonchalance. I enjoy unravelling the ins and outs of people's stories and personalities, not because I will use that in a game against them, but because their self-discovery is my game. I enjoy working out people before they've even began to work out themselves. I think the way I view myself is much the same way I view other people. I have always been hyper introspective, I like to be the best, including at understanding myself, and perhaps that's when I start to runaway, when people start to get to high up the scale of understanding me, and I'll do something "out of character" (which for me really is all just a part of my character) and push them away.

I have very high sexual needs, so I suppose it has always seemed more pragmatic to have long-term relationships to satisfy this. For this reason I haven't been able to engage in any same-sex relationships as I experimented with as a child (I try to be faithful these days, except when seeking revenge). I like that men can be manipulated with just the raise of an eyebrow. I am a nice person and am good at adapting to being the perfect partner. Most of my relationships have been littered with arguments, "you're too independent", "you don't seem to even care", "you have too many male friends", "you never talk to me", "why didn't you ask for my advice"?! I get annoyed when people take my easygoing nature and uncomplicated pleasantness for granted. I am nice because it is convenient for me to be so and I enjoy the rewards of affection I get in return. When people confuse being nice with naivety or stupidity I see red. Perhaps this is why I surround myself with other suitable suitors that I claim are just innocent friends. I like people to know I have replacements lined up so that they treat me better. I also like people to flirt with when my current partner is being too emotionally needy. I find over-emotional pathetic.

So far perhaps my story sounds bland, I am potentially mildly sociopathic but I am not interested enough in the consequences of creating emotional havoc to indulge in any tendencies. Or perhaps I am just an incredibly laid back person, an intelligent and independent only child.

However, when I was sixteen my father was diagnosed with brain cancer. I was very close to my dad and my mum so this hurt me, a lot. My whole life became a soap opera, which I hated. I pushed myself even harder with my studies and did everything to try and make my dad happy and to make our lives as normal as possible. I hated anyone coming to our house, I felt insanely protective of our tiny three person bubble and anyone trying to burst that. I felt like if I allowed my emotions out I would be giving into them indefinitely and wouldn't succeed, so I would tell myself I was being pathetic and the emotions would fade out after about 5 seconds. Eventually the emotions just stopped. I don't remember when or how but I just stopped feeling. I was calm and composed, I would work on limited sleep and little food, since eating bored me and sleep seemed a waste of time. I spoke to almost nobody. I chose when I would go to and walk out of school. At the beginning I got a thrill out of concocting the most elaborate lies to bunk off but by the end I enjoyed that I could just get away with it. I would go home and work alone, I found my peers stupid and painfully immature and didn't think there was anything a teacher could teach me that I couldn't teach myself. I went home to avoid my incredible urges to punch someone in the face or throttle someone just to wake them up to reality, let them feel real pain and to be able to enjoy the lack of emotion I would have in doing it. I would imagine strange occurrences in my head where I would be able to exert my heightened coldness to undo people. I know I could have killed someone and would have enjoyed it.

About a year after my fathers death I began to get a few emotions back. I remember reading a joke and feeling shock when I remembered how to laugh. Gradually over four more years other emotions have come back to me. During a brief encounter with a counsellor (I was more intent on unravelling her than letting her in so I gave up) I was told I had had post-traumatic stress. Nobody ever diagnosed me at the time, but it seemed a reasonable evaluation and one I had considered several times before.

I can now say that I have the majority of emotions that I had before my dads illness, I "feel" as well as logically calculate that I am happy, and I am very much in love. I care about my friends and invest a lot of time in them and enjoying their company. I trained in architecture, but, learning I couldn't be the best quickly enough or earn enough money, I switched to international development. Most people think I am a saint, they don't understand that I do what I do because I'm good at it, I like helping people for my own sake and I'm one of the few people capable of finding logical solutions to over-emotional disasters. I've been through enough I can be clinical in disaster analysis. I hope that I can undo the incompetency of previous development failures and I like feeling like I am perceived as a "good", intellectual person..even if I don't perceive it myself as "good", I just think I'm highly competent at helping people, mainly because most of the time I can detach from empathy. This said, there is this part of me that still switches beyond indifference, if I find someone pathetic, if someone angers me, if I'm caught in the wrong mood, my brain switches from feeling like I care, beyond indifference, to wanting to hurt them. In those moments the most important people in my life mean absolutely nothing to me. I would of course never say any of this to them, but these are the questions that interest me:

1. Is post-traumatic stress just a branch of sociopathy? Or am I just one or the other?
3. Does everyone have sociopathic tendencies under extreme conditions as a built in survival mechanism or is it just a few of us?
4. Under different circumstances, at what point or if ever would i have shown sociopathic tendencies?
5. Have I really been able to undo the extremes of my sociopathic post-traumatic stress and go back to the extent of my emotions before they cut off? Will I be able to learn new emotions? Will I ever forget how to "switch off"?

Monday, February 1, 2016

Sociopath or no?

From a reader:

Im a newbie to your website and im obviously interested in psychopathy. (Short mark: english isn't my mother language, so i hope you'll understand what im trying to say...) Theres always a question that keeps repeating inside my brain: Am i a psychopath or what am i? Ive done a lot of research about this theme and whenever i read something about sociopathie and psychopathie i can identify me with it. But it seems like im a mix from sociopathie and psychopathy. I DO feel pain or fear. And i have feelings. But im not as impulsive as a normal sociopath. I always know what i do and if it wi have bad consequences for me. What im sure about, is that i have no guilt or conscience. I do things because i want it and if my actions are affecting anyone in a bad way its their problem. As a kid i painted always dragons, never a knight or flowers and so on. I liked the 'bad guys' more than the good normal people. I like dirty dark things. Also im a big fan of killers in movies or other cruel heartless men. I was a wonderful kid. Friendly and open-hearted. As i loved a girl i was able to focus only on her, seeing no other person around. There were meaningless. But i still was a normal and influencing person. It was always easy for me to insult people. In school i often have played roles and  copied the personality of others and i was able to feel and act like them. But i still had strong feelings and had empathie. I will never forget the day we were at a journey in school and i read a book, all were silent and only listening to ME. But then there were things happen and changed me. In a  short version: I got depressed for a time. Began to hate the world and myself. Then i overcame it at some point. I became more selfish and confident. Slowly i lost empathie and became colder. At first i didn't recognized but when i read an article about psychopathie for the first time i saw it. I fit in it. I engaged in researching about all kinds of disorders. I felt good when i was able to find myself in the diagnosis. Time passed by. I sometimes felt intense emotions but they changed pretty fast. After an hour my view was completely turned around. I never knew if these feelings are real or not. They were so instabile (does this word exist?). Whenever i destroyed something important from my parents, it doesnt made me feel guilty. I only was angry because i must say something about it or excuse for what i did. I did it because i wanted to and nobody has the right to try to make me feel sorry about it. I enjoyed to do bad things, it gives me adrenaline and helped me to overcome the feeling of boredom. I did what i wanted to do. In the eye of chaos i felt best. I can't describe it. Next i found out that i can control easily every impulse that i had. I would try to explain in detail what i mean but i don't know the word in english for it. However. Then i tried to control my feelings. It was easier then i thought. Since i found out that i can control everything within my head i no more experience mood changings. If i recognize it, i bring myself to stay cold and let the feeling pass by. If my mother is in tears im tired of her and see that my opinion about her is right. Shes only a piece of dirt. I have better things to do than hear her annoying sounds. I worked on the feeling of fear and can now turn it into the feeling of joy. They have much in common. Its amusing. The only feeling i can't control is pain. But im on it. I enjoy my dark side. I thought sometimes about comitting crimes. I would do if there would be no consequences. Im sure i would enjoy it but there are these little consequences... I don't want to go to prison. When im with other people i everytime fake feelings and act normally. But lets go back to the beginning. For psychopaths its typically to don't know fear or sadness but i do. I can control it, sure, but i do feel it. Now after i told you the story of my life i would be glad if you can help me figuring out what and who i am? Can you help me bringing light in the question if im psychopathic or sociopathic or what i am? If you have questions feel free to ask. I would really appreciate it to know what i am.
Thanks for reading and good wishes, 

Friday, January 29, 2016

Sociopaths in Television: Bart Simpson

Apparently Bart was diagnosed (wrongfully?) as a sociopath in a recent episode of the Simpsons, "Paths of Glory". Spoilers follow.

In a play off of Ender's Game, Bart is sent to a special facility with other sociopathic children:

As all the kids there have no reactions, an army general says that they're perfect to test U.S. Air Force Drone Simulators. Bart manages to destroy all targets, but later the kids are informed that they were actually controlling a real drone, killing real people. Bart is the only kid who gets worried about it, so he's diagnosed as being sane and is free to go back home.

It makes you wonder who is actually running the drones currently.

Also on television, in the BBC's "Call the Midwife," Season 4, Episode 3, the show explores how homosexuals were handled in the late 1950s, early 1960s in the UK, with some interesting parallels. for this audience First gay people are criminals. Second, they're thought to be degenerates. Third, if caught they either end up in prison or undergoing "treatment" to "cure" them, apparently most commonly either electroshock therapy or feminine hormone treatments for the men.

Dr. Turner:  You will be prescribed Stilbestrol by the hospital.  You will be allowed to take this, largely in the privacy of your own home, but you will be monitored to make sure you’re taking it.  There are other treatments. ECT, aversion therapy, but I’d say this is less brutal and more private.

Marie:  That’s all right.  You’re not funny about tablets, are you?

Dr. Turner:  They contain a form of estrogen, the female hormone.  It will stop your body from producing testosterone, which in turn will suppress your urges.

Marie:  But he’ll be all right, otherwise?

Dr. Turner:  Impotence occurs, as the testosterone reduces.

Marie:  We’ll already have our child.  Is that it?

Dr. Turner:  There may also be gynecomastia, development of breast tissue, there is often a loss of muscle and body hair.

Tony:  Dear God.

Marie:  Well, it’s not prison.  And that’s all that matters.

A parallel story line involves an infestation of rats, and the attempts of most to brutally kill them. One of the nun attempts to fight the brutality: "We are all God's creatures. It's just some are easier to love than others. It's the others that need us most.".

The end monologue talks about how important it is to have some place at which we can be truly ourselves despite the world's constant demand that we conform in some way or another:

A world is not just made of bricks and mortar, but of minds.  We can rebuild cities, paint beautiful facades, invent new ways of living.  We can protect all that we have.  But that place which we call home must be the place in which we are ourselves with no facade, no foundations weak below us.  Only then can we face outwards with our heads held high, playing the roles assigned to us with open, honest hearts.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

My boyfriend, the sociopath?

So asks a reader:

I, recently, had a boyfriend who I think is somewhat of a sociopath. He was in his late 20s when we were together and I was a little older. If I tell you the behaviors, can you let me know if its the case, and why he chose to carry on those behaviors, please? I feel unsafe and want to know what he may be capable of doing.
The behaviors are?
1. Burning of mosquito trap at a restaurant without telling a waiter it was bothering him and ask waiter to remove it. Then, raising his voice and speaking passionately to the restaurant manager about incident. Sharing the story saying he was not talking angrily. Saying what he did wasn't wrong.
2. Getting very angry and displaying aggression (from 0 to 7) after i discussed relationship challenges by raising his voice, tensing his face muscles while making anger gestures, changing his tone of voice to an accusative/authoritative one, adapting a defensive attitude, saying he wasn't angry, then saying he wasn't being disrespectful- that everyone who is angry talks like that. That it isn't normal to be angry and calm.
3. When I told him that he can tell me anything and be angry, as long as he communicated it to me calmly and respectfully, he would more-less calmly proceed to tell me how what I feel or my beliefs where not real. ( I eventually caught on to this like the 3rd time it happened and told him and he got drastically angry as well.)
4. I was feeling super bad, dizzy and nauseous once he was driving (he drove super fast- like a jerk and a tad reckless) and i told him i needed the ac full blast bc I was miserable. He turned it on and after 2 minutes turned the heater on. When I asked why he had done that, he said angrily, that he was freezing. (I thought, why not just take it for a bit if I was feeling so miserable, or why not close his vents.)
5. He smoked weed more than twice per day, drank at times when driving, talked too loud everywhere he went, showed poor social skills like politeness and manners, expressed hatred towards police and society, said he grew up rough and poor, lived with a weed dealer, and a couple who smoked weed daily and had a child,
6. suddenly changed plans twice because he was doing some "needed" shopping and found a restaurant at the mall that had a great deal on tequila shots so he had two, 7. said "I love you" like the after the fourth month- but continued raising his voice and talking disrespectfully when we talked about issues- instead of discussing them civilly and regulating his emotions. And He would ask if I was with sleeping with someone else during our beak ups.
8. By the 5th month, i told him I wouldn't listen as soon as he started raising his voice and being disrespectful and proceeded to direct my attention to my phone when he did, and he took it away from me.
9. He took my car keys twice after having had arguments where I "stormed out" (as he would say it) because I got tired of his disrespectful and inappropriate behaviors and reactions to our relationship issues which included him constantly interrupting, not listening, abruptly, not being polite or considerate, always being angry-wether it was road rage, anger towards me, anger due to jealousy of his roommate and wife and how privileged they are.
10. Telling people how to do things (even those who were older and more knowledgeable on the subject needed to accomplish the task at hand)
11. Going into the recovering room after i had surgery when he was not one of the visitors allowed, and he is aware of hospital procedures and protocols as we works in hospitals. When they asked him to leave and he was leaving, he said: "she (the nurse) cannot do anything, I have stuff on her).
12. The last week we were together, he was just mad at everything and everyone most times, he got in my space and yelled: "you bitch, you are crazy", "shut up"-all as he was driving fast, yelled at me in front of multiple people, reacted annoyed and frustrated with me when I talked or asked very simple things such as plans we had made.
13. There were a couple of times he was yelling and doing all of the angry behaviors i explained previously and i felt so hurt I started crying and he continued to yell. He would always apologize, but it didn't seem to be genuine- more like something to finish the argument.
14. He also usually tried to push my boundaries after I had made them clear to him. He would do this over and over when he wanted to get it his way like have me scratch his back.
15. He would talk greatly about himself. A lot more so than the average person. And would also talk about how he was done wrong, and treated bad, and how people tried to take advantage of him and manipulate him.
16. He was also very affectionate (not abnormally or inappropriately), and wanted to spend a lot of time with me, but was very inflexible when it came to plans,  not adapting to his surrounding environment or social situations, and overshared with people he did not know.
17. As far as criminal history, he evaded arrest at age 17, had a DUI at 24 while at the Air Force in Alaska, , again had a DWI at age 26.
18. He wanted to have a child with me even though we had only been together 3/4 months.
19. To end, when I found our he was impulsive and smoked weed daily, i suggested Adderall and he said he took it but would sell it every time he got a chance. He would also dip tobacco, smoke cigarettes, and take tramadol at times for back pain-allegedly.

What do you think? Did he have ASPD, NPD, or what? Should I be scared? We broke up almost 2 weeks ago. Will he want to I want to hurt me? I want to hear all your thoughts.
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