Tuesday, March 15, 2016

My sociopath girlfriend?

Some of these guessing games from readers tickle me a little, either because I see some of myself in them or because the thought of this person out there in the world doing whatever he or she wants is sort of charming to me.

Despite these people being too young to tell, something tells me that this story will seem familiar to some of you. From a reader, regarding her girlfriend who gives off sociopathic vibes:

I think my girlfriend is a sociopath. We are both just finishing high school so I don't know if you can "diagnose" her at 17 but I just want some input. I've been with her for a year and a half now but I'll just give you a list of some of the things she does.

Whenever she's done something wrong to ME, she can somehow turn the situation back on me posing as though it's my fault. The issue is It always works. She'll try different methods of getting the same reaction from me. She'll fake hurt, as though she's sad or upset as though I hurt her. If that doesn't work which all this depends on my mood at the time she'll try ignoring me. This normally works as her giving me attention makes me feel good about myself. So when she ignores me I fee as though I've done something terrible to her and I'll consistently apologize and then get angry at her for doing this which just starts the whole cycle over again. But after a few rounds of this it always ends in sex. She wants sex all the and it an be odd especially when I'm declining and she's pushing for it. It feels like she's bored and she gets stimulation out of this. She told me multiple times she doesn't even like the feeling. So I don't know what she's in it for. Another thing is She's amazing at it but one thing I think might be of note is she likes to be on top, and dominant. Not like a dominatrix but she wants to be in charge. 

This girl is one of the most unique I've ever met. She never judges anyone for anything and I believe that's because she does terrible things herself or she just doesn't care enough about other people to remark on their business. 

She's dominant, abrasive, highly intelligent, but her reactions to things are off. Her father just died last month and she hardy cared about it. 

One thing she does is she sees things as a win or lose, relationships for her are either beneficial in some way or they're useless. I actually believe she's incapable of having healthy relationships she was cheating on me with 2 guys and 1 girl at the same time. When confronted with this she told me she never liked me, I was terrible in bed, and i just give her relief from the boredom. This visibly hurt me and she knew it, but the next day she spoke to me as though everything was fine! 

She's very popular in school for her weird but charming personality, she's befriended the creepy kids and the athletic popular ones. She's known for being "wild" and funny but also loud, and promiscuous. She's not even considered beautiful ( she really could be if she put effort in) but she acts as though she is. 

She's constantly asking how people see her as though she doesn't know how she acts. But one day she's the life of the party the next she's indifferent about her "friends" which she doesn't have many of. She's popular but true friends she has 1 of and I assume it's because the girl is like her. She's calculating, and seemingly indifferent about everything. She's smart as hell but can't understand people's emotions enough to comfort them through anything or even relate. Oh and another thing is she's  training to be an actor. Go figure. She mimics perfectly. Once while meeting a Scottish friend, after he introduced himself she said something back but in his own accent. These might be small examples but these are just a handful of the things she does. She's truly cold. I can see how she intoxicates people, but she can be a bitch because she's so strong willed and capable. 

Do you think she's a sociopath?

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Restoring from back-up

A therapist reader wrote, among other things, this observation:

"I believe sociopathy, like any other incapacity, can be improved upon by a relentless search for truth and love through an acceptance that good and evil powers drive our lives from a deep spiritual level. We need to get used to spotting which is which and going for the good one every time. That always yields healing and always leads to happiness for us and those we influence. If we keep doing these good things, they grow in us and it gets easier. Peace, happiness and identity just roll in."

My response:

I do think that everybody has an identity, a core identity that came with us from birth and is written into our genes and would have expressed itself much the same no matter where in the multiverse "we" currently are. That identity is never rooted in any sort of evil, never corrupted by this society and its well-meaning or malicious attempts to mold people. Everyone is like a computer that has a backup version stored somewhere, not corrupted viruses or user error or anything else. And if you can just get back to that backup version and restore the harddrive to that, no more virus, no more sociopathy, no more of any type of personality disorder.

What do people think about that analogy?

Friday, March 11, 2016

Seduction 103

A reader recently asked me how he could get back together with his sociopathic girlfriend that got bored with him and took off.

This is how I replied:

Today I went to the beach and was struck once again with the fact that even very very talented surfers don't always catch a wave. A lot more has to do with the wave than the surfer. This is true in seduction exploits too. A bigger determinant of your success is the vulnerabilities and susceptibilities of your target. Right now, it sounds like you're vulnerable and susceptible and she is not. You have no hopes of winning until/if that changes.

I think a lot of people mistake seduction and manipulation as an ex nihilo type of affair. Only god can do that, arguably, and Mormon God can't even (at least it's not part of the theology). Everything comes from somewhere. Even con men intentionally look for particular types of "marks", they don't expect to just make a "mark" out of absolutely anyone they come across. Similarly, people who have good seduction rates are mostly largely (if not primarily) talented at spotting good targets. In other words, the odds of getting someone to fall madly in love with you are great. The odds of getting a specific person chosen at random to fall madly in love with you are quite low, even for sociopaths.



Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Single-minded focus

A reader asked what to do with someone on the board of directors of her company (for which she is an executive director) that hired her just because he thought she would be easier to control than the previous executive director. When she resisted his encroachment into her stewardship, he has become increasingly aggressive and nasty.

She asked for advice, and I feel like my advice on these types of issues is a little different than it has been before, so I thought I would share (my current thoughts in brackets):

Ok, a couple of thoughts. First, I think you're right that you shouldn't get down in the muck with him. It's actually probably what he wants from you -- to have you play by his rules. [This reminds of mixed martial arts, actually, with your opponent always wanting you to play the particular style that he is most comfortable with, and vice versa.]

Second, I think that the best thing you could do along with any actual day to day things that you do or interactions you have with him is to make sure that none of what is happening is interfering with the way you conceive of yourself or define yourself in any way. My therapist would call this taking "identity hits." I'll give you a quick example of what I mean. A lawyer friend was telling me about how her colleague at a very adversarial deposition tried to be friendly with the opposing attorney during a break by asking him if he had any kids. The opposing attorney sneered at him, as if to say -- I know what you're doing, playing this game of let's be friend -- "yeah, I have kids, two of them, and then went back to his phone." Somehow, this objectively small interaction made her colleague feel very small, made him doubt his own self-conception of himself as a "nice guy", and someone who people respect sort of as a matter of course. He should have no access to tinker around with those areas of your identity and self-conception, which is your job to keep them safer and more tucked away than you'd keep your passport. [This is not something that sociopaths have to worry about because they don't really associate with their sense of self in this very personal way that non personality-disordered individuals seem to. But having recently gotten more in touch with my sense of identity, I now understand how debilitating these identity hits can be -- or at the very least, they will distract you and impede your performance in a fight.]

Third, you need to be an immovable force to survive and thrive in this type of caustic situation. [Again, sociopaths naturally do this third thing because they have a big obsessive streak and they are capable of hyperfocus, or in this case a single-minded focus on getting one over on other people. I think this is hugely advantageous for reasons I explain later. The rest of the advice is to non-sociopathic people who might not naturally come by this single-minded focus, particularly not for something as potentially boring and fungible as their job.] A lot of religious people get this immovable force assurance from the sense that they are doing God's will. I think you're religious? Maybe you could contemplate or pray what it is that God would have you do in your particular situations, and then act with the confidence that what you are doing is approved of by God. Addicts in 12 step programs submit to their higher power (often as relayed through their sponsor). But their program requires them to make that choice and accept the consequences willingly and happily, the same way that martyrs are happy to die for their cause. Single-minded focus is a win-win approach because you have (1) the confidence and self-assurance that is usually required of high performance and (2) the spiritual or emotional robustness to weather small setbacks without counterproductive self-doubt. [Of course the risk is that your single-minded focus results in a Gallipoli, so be sure to pick your battles wisely before going all in, but do prepared to commit to all in if you get even a hint of your opponent being willing to do so.] There are other ways you can get to being an unmovable force (an incredible sense of personal integrity is probably the other major one or an overwhelming passion). You need to get to the point where you feel like you're not even choosing these choices so much as you are being swept up in something greater than yourself, otherwise you'll probably get cold feet at some point. [It's like they say about athletes, you have to get into the flow where you're not even thinking about your next move, it's just a natural extension of who you are.] The truth is that the actual decisions to be made are so complicated that you can't rationalize to the right answer, likely, and definitely not under time and stress conditions, and if you try you're just going to spend a ton of emotional energy in expecting things of yourself that you have no right to expect [and no adequate skillset to back up]. 

Monday, March 7, 2016

Just depression

I responded to another "am I a sociopath?" email two years later and found another young person who would now describe what she was going through at the time as something very different from sociopathy. I asked her to write how her perspective changed over those years:

During most of my teenage years, I was determined to find the crucial component to my personality; a defining factor. Something has to be wrong with me, because no one else seems to have my problems and issues. In 9th grade, I had friends; none close, but people to talk to during class, and see in the halls. I would act differently around all of them... (it wasn't until two years later that I noticed this behavior). When around the cool kids, I'd act cool, when around the nerds, I'd act nerdy, and so on. I'd take on similar personalities, so I could fit in, and have friends. 

Later on I noticed that my emotions were fading away... as if one day I'd wake up and no longer be able to feel a certain emotion. I first noticed it with embarrassment, from my ability to do anything and not feel that emotion from it... I felt fear at the realization that I could potentially lose my emotions and become void. It was until one day that I no longer feared losing my emotions that I realized was a sociopath. I didn't feel empathy or regret... I didn't care who I upset. Albeit I realize it now, just a teenager's desperate attempt at clawing their way into accepting themselves. 

All of this was from depression, that went unnoticed for years. I didn't know that then. I convinced myself, and others, that I was a sociopath, and I lived by it. I didn't allow myself to feel emotion, and that bit me in the butt. In the latter part of my teenage years I sorta, grew out of that pit devoid of emotion... Back then, I wanted to be important and special. A lot of people going through their teenage years experience this with other categories too. I wanted to be the strong one of my family, no emotions to cloud my judgement... pure logic; like a robot. I take this in part that there was no father figure in my family. I felt like I had to be the man. 

That's not me now... I climbed out of the hole I dug myself into by conditioning myself to feel happiness. What I mean by that is, I would do my best to find something to make me happy during my day... It took a while to feel full emotions again but now I'm at the point where it's a normal part of my life. I have learned that with happiness, comes sadness... and to not block either emotion. Emotions are like yin and yang and you cannot have one without the other. 

Mental health is not self-diagnosis, mental health is accepting your personality for what it is... if you are normal, average... that's okay. I had to learn that. Also of course, seeing a therapist helps, which is what I did to get my anxiety under control. Now, I will be driving down the road and I'll smile at a bright blue day, and I'll smile at a gloomy rainy day. Both are beautiful to me, because contrast is good. 

The whole period where I thought I was a sociopath is not something I'm proud of. It's a little embarrassing because I genuinely believed it. and now I know how stupid it was. Let this be a lesson to all.
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