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Confessions of a Sociopath

Page 28

by M. E. Thomas


  I think I might be a sociopath, but I’m not sure. I don’t have a conscience per se, it’s more like a logical guide for what is right and wrong. Nothing turns my stomach, no type of immoral behavior enrages me unless I’m on the receiving end. All of my responses, even my “emotional” responses, are calculated and performed.

  I know I’m not the smartest person on the planet—VERY WELL, but I feel it. As far as my heart and soul are concerned, there is nobody smarter on this planet, even though the very mind in question knows that’s not the case.

  I use people when I can, so long as it doesn’t hurt them in the process. I’m not sure if that’s because I don’t want to hurt people or because I’d like to believe I’m not manipulative. Generally speaking, I don’t lie about anything except for my feelings.

  But I don’t go out of my way to hurt people. I actually go out of my way NOT to hurt people. Pretty much my entire life IS an act, and I don’t really know who I am … but I’m definitely not normal, nor do I fit all of the negative aspects of the sociopath stereotype.

  What does this sound like to you? I’m asking because as much as I’m able to make sense of the world around me, I cannot for the life of me make sense of myself. That is the one thing that my mind can’t penetrate. I can state facts about what I do, what I don’t do, my habits and tendencies, etc, but trying to form an opinion about myself is like walking through a minefield of self-deception and convenient stray thoughts.

  This kind of question is common. Many of the people who identify as sociopaths who read and post on the blog are self-diagnosed. There is little advantage to being formally labeled sociopathic by the psychological community, but I believe that a lot of self-understanding can come from deciding for yourself that the label fits you. Here is how I answer these people:

  You sound like a sociopath to me, but don’t be disheartened. I think you will find that as you continue to learn more about your condition and yourself, the world will begin to seem very right.

  Self-deception is a classic denial symptom. Denying the sociopathic aspect of yourself distorts how you see others and impairs your judgment. It is important that you realize that you are different from others—this will help you to avoid hurting them. For instance, most people assume that everyone else is like them and project their own feelings and emotions on others, e.g., “I wouldn’t be offended by that comment, so they shouldn’t be, either.” This is faulty thinking. What you think or feel has nothing to do with what most people think or feel. In fact, it is best to avoid all normative judgments in favor of descriptive ones. Normative judgments hide a million different biases and self-deceptions that will lead you astray.

  You are special. You are very smart, I am sure, but better than that, you think in a way that very few other people think. Your success at utilizing the intellect that you have likely lies in your ability to think outside of the box all the time. This is easy for you because you have never been inside the box—you don’t even know what it looks like. You can see things that no one else can because you have entirely different experiences coloring your clarity of vision—their blind spots are where you excel and vice versa.

  You seek answers. You seek logic and structure. You probably see behavior around you from empaths that you cannot explain. The explanation for their behavior is the most complicated and difficult thing for a sociopath to understand, but in seeking those answers you will learn much about yourself as well. You will also learn that just because we can manipulate others does not mean we choose to do so. Just because we can exploit does not mean we choose to do so. Sometimes you find weaknesses that you do exploit, and sometimes you find flaws in society that you patch. Sociopathy includes both variants. Personal preference, upbringing, and life objectives can all influence why we choose to do what we do. What makes you a sociopath is not that you choose to do certain things, but that you are presented with an entirely different set of choices than a neurotypical person.

  I would add that sociopaths are important to society because we are original thinkers. I like ingenuity; it’s probably the thing I admire most about humanity. Theo Jansen, the Dutch artist/sculptor/engineer responsible for Strandbeests (“beach animals”), gigantic moving sculptures made out of plastic piping that crawl along the Netherlands’ coasts, had this to say about the benefit to society of original thinkers:

  Mine is not a straight path like an engineer’s, it’s not A to B. I make a very curly road just by the restrictions of goals and materials. A real engineer would probably solve the problem differently, maybe make an aluminum robot with motor and electric sensors and all that. But the solutions of engineers are often much alike. Everything we think can in principle be thought by someone else. The real ideas, as evolution shows, come about by chance.

  Sociopaths’ minds are very different from most people’s. Our brain structure is different: smaller amygdala (emotional center), poorer connections between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex (decision-making, inter alia), what has been described as “potholes” in our brains, and a longer and thinner corpus callosum separating the hemispheres of our brains. What that means is our thought is not as dominated by emotions, nor do emotions drive our decision-making, and we can transfer information between the hemispheres of our brains abnormally fast. In other words, give us a problem to think about and we will naturally process it in a different way than people with typical brains. How that plays out in the individual sociopath depends on a lot of different factors, but I have met sociopaths who have both the innocence of children gleefully hurling their bodies into ocean waves and the ruthlessness of single-minded predators under threat. There’s something sort of refreshing about our brutal approach to the world. And when we live in a world where “everything we think can in principle be thought by someone else,” it might be nice to be around someone who is an entirely different “someone else” than you are.

  I like who I am. I like that I am methodical, relentless, efficient, able to capitalize on any situation. I have friends, I value my family, I am a good colleague. Still, I often wonder what other things I may be missing out on in life. Love? Human understanding? Emotional intimacy? Do I experience those things in their fullness? Is my experience of these things a mere shadowy approximation of what is normal or a legitimate human experience in its own right? And if I have in any way chosen this life, have I chosen the better part?

  But what are the alternatives? I have sloppily used the term empath throughout this book to refer to nonsociopaths, but it is simply not true that every nonsociopath is empathetic. Some have suggested I use the term normal, but that is even less correct. The percentage of “normal” people in the population may be an actual minority (i.e., less than 50 percent). Sometimes I think people talk about sociopaths being 1 to 4 percent of the population as if the other 96 to 99 percent are normal, maybe even the opposite of the sociopath. Maybe we believe that if sociopaths have low empathy, then everyone else has robust empathy? Maybe we believe that if sociopaths do not feel guilt, everyone else must? Maybe we believe that if sociopaths frequently engage in crime, then no one else does?

  The truth is many people are just assholes. You don’t have to be a sociopath to be an asshole, nor is a sociopath an asshole to all people all of the time. When I first started writing about sociopathy on the blog, I hoped to help people realize that sociopaths are natural human variants. I thought at the time that the big challenge would be to try to showcase some of our strengths in a more positive light, to demonstrate that we are not as bad as people might think. Recently I have been thinking that the real problem is not in getting “normal” people to believe that we’re better than they think, but in getting them to see that the “normal” ones are actually worse than they believe themselves to be. Sometimes it seems that most people assume that they are that minority of “normal” people instead of thinking that they might also be a little bit “off.”

  Some people balk at saying that “normal” people might actually be in th
e minority: “How could the psychological world label half or more of us with a diagnosis?!” But so what if the majority of people qualify for a psychological label? Doesn’t that seem equally if not more probable than assuming that half of the people in the world are pretty much interchangeable in terms of brain and emotional functioning?

  It is convenient to define normal as whatever you happen to be. No need to confront the possibility that maybe you aren’t as empathetic as you seem. Maybe your conscience doesn’t have quite the sway that you thought it did. Maybe you are both capable and incapable of much more than you had hoped. Maybe you have a lot more in common with sociopaths than you’d like to think. Maybe it is just one big long spectrum with only a few people at the extremes and the rest huddled closer to the middle. Some have derided self-diagnosed sociopaths as poseurs, clinging to the label as sanctuary from the disappointments of an average existence. Could it be that self-diagnosed sociopaths are just much more honest with themselves than the rest of you who claim, “That’s not sociopathic, everyone does that”? Could both be true, that acting a particular way could be both sociopathic and something that everyone does? Or that most people do? Specifically, you—that you sometimes do those things? Does that make you normal, or me?

  I don’t mean to redefine sociopathy as the new normal, and certainly not “better than normal.” Sociopaths are not a race of Übermenschen. We’re not out doing good among the populace—standing up for the disenfranchised when everyone else is too afraid—not often, at least, and never as a general rule. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always loved vigilante-justice movies, but I often root for the bad guy. Society labels the subversive a criminal or revolutionary, not him. He rarely needs to tell himself stories of moral justification in order to engage in his flourishes of elaborate violence. I know I’m not alone in my love of the villain. In him, we see freedom.

  Perhaps that is why the sociopath has loomed so large in our fictive spaces—Hannibal Lecter pulling Clarice’s strings from behind bars; the talented con artist Tom Ripley infiltrating and destroying the life of his wealthy beloved, Dickie; the perfectly coifed Patrick Bateman traipsing through yuppie New York soaked in blood, real or imagined. They constitute walking manifestations of overblown desire and destructive forces, characterized by the absence of limitations, whether it be empathy, guilt, or fear. Indeed, the most enduring of coldblooded villains, Dracula, is so limitless that he dissolves into mist. Historically, the diagnosis for sociopathy has in many ways served as an amalgam of miscellaneous reprobate traits, a depository for wayward, antisocial behavior from which its members can be identified and separated from everyone else. In the gothic vampire myth, the existence of the nocturnal creature can be explained, and thus contained, in the realm of the supernatural. In everyday life, however, explanations for the existence of the sociopath are much more elusive.

  I wonder if my story is disappointing to you for that reason—that I am not so much myth as man. I do not have secret stories about killing animals (opossum aside), or not that I remember. To the extent that this book is fatally flawed because I do not have a criminal record or shocking or cruel enough examples of my sociopathy, it’s a flaw that cannot be mended. Through my website, I’ve encountered all manner of individuals who exhibit symptoms of or identify as sociopaths or psychopaths—from Bonnie-and-Clyde-type criminals to sensitive teenagers struggling with the difficult notions of empathy and human connection. Despite this heterogeneity, I think there are obvious and substantive differences between the sociopath and the average person.

  I have no problem exploring why I do the things I do, but there are no stories about how I am irredeemably depraved. I can only offer my thoughts about how any moral system that could lead to an adjudication of depravity is likely to be flawed, and in ways that won’t be immediately obvious to those who have never dared question the foundations for their moral “feelings” about the world. As researcher in the ethics of forensic psychology Karen Franklin told NPR, criticizing the dominant conception of psychopathy:

  By foregrounding intrinsic evil, [the diagnosis of] psychopathy marginalizes social problems and excuses institutional failures at rehabilitation. We need not understand a criminal’s troubled past or environmental influences. We need not reach out a hand to help him along a pathway to redemption. The psychopath is irredeemable, a dangerous outsider who must be contained or banished. Circular in its reasoning, psychopathy is nonetheless alluring in its simplicity.

  But sociopathy is not as simple as you have been led to believe. It is not a synonym for evil. Hearing people saying that we are irredeemable should give you great pause. I hope that you hesitate upon hearing the suggestion that sociopaths should have microchips implanted in their brains, or be institutionalized indefinitely, or be shipped off to an island somewhere, and remember that the history of man is marked by similar acts of hubris and cruelty.

  I remember once in law school doing research for a paper and reading an old statute criminalizing homosexuality. They’re easy enough to find; some of them are still on the books in democratic countries. The state of Pennsylvania still has a prostitution law that finds it necessary to specifically include “homosexual and other deviate sexual relations” (emphasis mine). What makes a sexual relation deviate? The dictionary defines it as “departing significantly from usual or accepted standards.” Interestingly, I once read an old statute in law school that had two notable exceptions to criminal homosexuality: same-sex relations in prison and in the military. Presumably those same-sex relations are not “deviate” because “normal” people have historically done them—in the absence of females, what is a little dalliance between men?

  There is a similar double standard currently applied to sociopaths versus sociopathic behavior. Sociopaths are prone to violence, but empaths also commit gruesome acts of violence. Those acts are more excusable to juries as long as the empath shows “remorse.” Jurors can self-identify with those who show remorse because they too may have also committed varying degrees of heinous acts while caught up in the moment that they later anguished over, swearing that they wish it had never happened. It’s harder for most people to understand someone who, while recognizing that it was a “bad” thing, went ahead and did it anyway. It’s hard for me to not see this as a unique form of hypocrisy to which “normal” people are particularly susceptible when attempting to condemn the behavior of others. Interestingly, once you get people alone, you get a different result. A recent experiment suggests that when single judges sentence sociopaths for whom there is evidence of genetic predisposition to violence and crime, they give lighter sentences than they otherwise would for the reasons that you would expect—sociopaths are less culpable because of their genetic predisposition to committing crimes. As a group, though, people are only a few mental steps away from a sociopath witch-hunt. While only a minority thinks that homosexuality should be criminalized, people have few qualms about unequal treatment of those diagnosed as “sociopaths.”

  And so the majority goes on deciding what is “normal” and not, who is irredeemable or not, until one day you also get defined as abnormal. But if I look a lot like you, maybe it is because I am. We really should be friends, because if I can be marginalized in a democratic society, so can you. And once you also become a victim of the state, who do you think will be spearheading the revolution? Probably people like me.

  One of my favorite parts about writing the blog is meeting strangers who are just like me, down to the most odd and intimate details. I want to accurately represent myself so that when they read the book, they will recognize themselves in my stories. I want to foster a sense of solidarity, a community of like-minded individuals who have a lot to learn from one another. In that way, writing this book has been calculated to achieve a particular effect. It’s difficult, though, without having the reader in front of me, to predict whether I have created that desired effect. Perhaps it’s like the difference between performing a piece of music to make an audio recording ver
sus performing in front of a live audience. I am unable to gauge the reactions of book readers; I’m blind in a way that I am not accustomed to being. Even on the blog people will comment that they love things I thought were borderline pedantic and hate things that I thought were insightful. That’s the true weakness with my manipulations, that I don’t understand and never will truly understand the way normal people think—not my closest friends and family members and certainly not strangers, sociopaths or not. I can’t test-run a particular passage on myself to gauge how others will feel. I only can extrapolate from what I’ve learned in past experiences with normal people to try to make general predictions about what will and will not be effective. Writing the book is probably one of the most risky things I’ve done.

  On my blog I actively obscure my identity. Google hosts my Web page. My domain name registration is anonymous. I use gender-neutral pronouns to describe myself. I use Britishisms when I can remember to do so. I have noticed that other sociopaths do this as well—there are several whom I know to be Americans who internationalize their language and their cultural references, the result perhaps of their natural instincts to obscure and befuddle. It’s not enough to try to keep your personal information out of reach. One must also actively poison the well with disinformation.

  Only one person has come close to identifying me without my at least tacit permission. I learned a lot from that experience, and I cleaned up my act. I became more careful about who knew what about me and particularly paranoid about what personal information made it online, either under my persona as M.E. or my birth name.

  When I decided to write this book, I thought a lot about what that would mean for my public life, the life where I’m not known as M.E. In that life, particularly up until starting the blog, almost no one knew that I identified as a sociopath. At that time, even I didn’t care about attaching a label to myself. When I finally decided to accept it and started the blog, I told my immediate family and a couple friends. Since then I’ve averaged telling about one or two people per year—typically when I have needed their experienced advice in a particular area, about writing, search engine optimization, legal, etc. Or I’ve just been dying to let them know of some horribly great thing I just managed to pull off, like crushing a bully at work or seducing someone just to ruin them. It can be lonely not having anyone to share your exploits with. About a year ago my mom decided to be open about me with her own siblings. I think she was sort of proud of me and what I have managed to accomplish with my blog and the positive effects on my life from all that self-introspection. There is a difference between being out to people who love you and have various incentives to want to keep you safe, though, and being out to the world.

 

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