Editor’s note: A reader who identified himself as a sociopath recently posted this comment on the Lovefraud Blog, and sent it to me in an email. I am posting this piece because it provides a good description of how sociopaths view themselves, and explains why they are quite comfortable taking advantage of the rest of us. Be sure to read the question I asked him, and his response, at the end.
We are uniquely gifted
“Sociopath” is a misleading word: it implies a disorder, something wrong and unnatural with the person, and this couldn’t be further from the truth. We, the people you refer to as sociopaths, have nothing wrong with us. We are instead, the uniquely gifted. Our gifts have been mischaracterized and maligned and it’s time someone set the record straight.
What the experts call superficial charm, I call having a natural ability to win friends and influence people. What experts call manipulative and conning, I call an affinity for persuasion based upon an innate ability to pinpoint others personality strengths and weaknesses. What the experts decry as a lack of compassion, I call pragmatism and clarity. What experts call a “problem with authority”, I call embracing personal power and celebrating the independent spirit. What experts call “delusions of grandeur”, I call self confidence and optimism. What experts call “shallow emotional affect,” I call freedom from the tyranny of irrational emotions. And finally, while the experts say that guiltlessness is a disorder (because it is the lack of guilt that separates the sociopath, psychopath and Machiavellian from the general population), I say it is the enhanced ability to do the things that build civilizations and keep societies going, the very things that the guilt afflicted shy away from. It is no coincidence that our lack of guilt so often comes with abnormally high intelligence and charisma.
We are born to lead and many of our traits support this conclusion. We are born knowing this and the rest of you know it when you see us. It is these very traits that make us necessary for the survival and success of the human species, especially since the dawn of civilization. It’s why you elect us, follow us, and often give your very lives by our command. Though we are found disproportionally in prisons we are found with even greater frequency in your governments, your corporations, your military. Who else but someone devoid of conscience could order thousands of soldiers to die, regardless of how noble the cause? Who can fire hundreds of workers to save a company from bankruptcy and then sleep peacefully that night? Who can so elegantly tell the lies that must be told, to protect the very people to whom the lies are told? It takes one of us to make those calls, the calls that the rest of humanity cannot make.
And yet a distressing number of us become the very thing you fear us all to be; criminals and abusers. This creates a cycle of ignorance, as all the “sociopaths” identified by the news are killers or wife-beaters, and so we identify this collection of gifts as evil, as pathological, and thus those of us in our proper roles feel the need to disguise ourselves for fear of being labeled evil. A similar cycle of ignorance has kept homosexuals oppressed for decades; homosexuality has been associated with child molesters and perverts, drug use and disease, and it was called “evil” for this.
We are not evil; you simply do not recognize the “good” ones as the same phenomena. Google “sociopath” and all you find are ways to recover from contact with a sociopath, information advising you to run from relationships with sociopaths, and misinformation that will claim that “sociopaths cannot feel love” or that we “cannot think of others as human beings” or that we are “parasitic”.
It is very distressing to discover, for a child who has always known that he was different, that he is a monster… that he is doomed to live a loveless life and become a criminal, that he will never be able to hold a job or raise a family. Indeed, one must wonder how often do one of us accepts the mischaracterization of our abilities and instincts as things to be repressed and rejected due to ignorance? How often do the young among our frequently demonized minority discover what he is, buys into the paranoid misinformation and simply does what he is expected to do, withholding from society the very qualities it needs and secretly wants to maintain itself and imprisoning himself in a state of confusion and needless pain as a result?
What is the so called sociopath? A sociopath is one of your potential leaders, labeled by the fearful and unreasoning masses as something sick and evil. “Sociopath” is a negative label which only serves to further alienate people who simply need to be allowed to embrace their gifts. Getting rid of this misleading term should be the first step towards fully understanding who we are and the role we play in this world. We are not the embodiment of a pathology. On the contrary; we are instead the uniquely gifted.
Editor’s note: I sent the author this question: “How do you justify lying and deception?” His reply:
Justify? Did you forget the “no guilt, no remorse” part already? We have no need to justify the lying, as we don’t see anything inherently wrong with it. Deception is merely a means to an end. Nor is it necessarily malevolent. We simply act in our own self-interest. We know what we want and the easiest way to get it. It’s a gift.
Hey, Kathy, good to see you!!!!
I think your comments about being “self centered” is necessary at times, for our own good. If we are totally “other centered” we would not even live very long because we would fill our houses with homeless people, feed them all the food and do without ourselves to the point that we would die of starvation because we gave it all to others.
Psychopaths on the other hand are all about “self centered” without any tendency to be “other centered” at all. So there is a spectrum of other and self centeredness in the middle (envision a bell curve) with the psychopaths on one end and a complete empath on the other end (I don’t know that I’ve ever heard about or seen a “complete” empath)
The complete psychopath is as far from “normal” or “average” on his/her end as the “complete empath” would be.
Dr. Baron-Cohen’s book about empathy and his studies of lack of empathy in both psychopaths and autistic patients calls the psychopaths Zero-empathy Negative and the Autistic is Zero empathy Positive, and points out that while both the complete psychopath and the autistic would neither have empathy but the psychopath would enjoy “duping delight” where the autistic person would generally not be desirous of hurting others. (Although we just had a young girl diagnosed as high functioning autism age 9 who deliberately shot and killed her 7 year old brother)
I agree with this poster that there are highly functioning unbonded psychopaths in the military, police, judges, business etc. I don’t believe though that having psychopaths in these positions is a positive thing. In fact, I have seen psychopaths destroy corporations and businesses more than otherwise. Though some like Bernie Madoff do flourish at least for a while.
Hope you are doing well and glad to have your scope on this blogger, some good ideas to ponder. (((hugs)))
Kathleen,
“the letter accurately reflects what he is, an over-developed half a person.”
That just might be the best description of a spath, yet!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htz9CS-Zmms&feature=related
Oh, Silvermoon, I wish.
Sociopathic transactions are with us all the time. Or might-be or would-be or wanna-be sociopathic transactions. That’s the problem, not the sociopaths.
We’re going to get fooled over and over (unless we want to spend our lives making ourselves look poor, ugly and useless). Because if we’re not all of that, someone is going to see an opportunity in us. Are we supposed to give up our dreams because someone might use them to try to take advantage of us?
The only defense we have is our belief in the rightness of our emotional reactions. “Whew, this makes me feel kind of bad” is good enough for us to back away and take some time away from the trigger to figure out what’s really bothering us. Or confusing us. Or disappointing us. Or putting tears in our eyes.
When I think of all the years I would second-guess these feelings, I know exactly why I had so many failed relationships. I would actually ask people if I was “allowed” to feel like that, given the circumstances. Studying Buddhism was a help. Don’t worry if you’re right. You’re where you are, and if you’re feeling it, that’s your truth. No one is perfect, but the only chance you have to evolve as a person is to live your own life. Believe that you have a right to your feelings, and trust yourself. If it doesn’t feel good, it’s a pretty good hint that it’s not good for you.
Real mastery is becoming so sensitive to what’s going on inside ourselves that we capture it early, when it’s just a tickle, and it’s so right on top of the emotional trigger that we know exactly what’s making us uncomfortable. So that we can act with some subtlety, deflect the thing before it really happens. Chose not to engage. Make things difficult. Have somewhere else to be. Flag down a cop or a cab, or start crying or laughing hysterically. Whatever it takes to change the path of what’s going on.
In the last few weeks, three people from my past reconnected with me. I was glad to hear from them. But in the course of our conversations and email correspondence, I repeatedly directed the interactions away from places I didn’t want to go and toward topics I wanted to discuss. (And so did they, which I liked a lot.) In one case, in order to protect myself from a situation I didn’t want to endure, I told one of them that I’d love her to visit but not with her boyfriend, who I dislike. When she told me how wonderful he was, I said that I found him arrogant, bigoted and rude. I’m not sure she’s going to talk with me again, but there’s a cost to being authentic. You lose certain opportunities. But then I’m not sure what the purpose would be in spending much time with a woman who’s involved with someone like that. It’s inevitably going to spill into my life in some way. And I’m not interested in going there.
It’s too bad; I like her in other ways. But I’m living in my own truth now and it makes me sensitive to what’s happening to me.
I think that’s what I’m trying to say. That the only real defense is being sensitive in that way. To what’s happening to me, and how it affects what’s happening inside me.
And dealt with at that level, the moment I anticipate trouble, rather than waiting for it to get really painful. things generally stay small scale. I don’t have any wounds to heal, though I do have a bit of a regret about what’s lost. I think that’s okay. Honoring her for the parts I love, while deciding that the things I don’t want in my life are more important. I’m not into that kind of suffering anymore. Not in the name of friendship or anything else. And if I want to look at in terms of being a good friend, I’m probably being a better friend than someone who enables something she finds repulsive.
Am I making sense here? The man who wrote the post that started this thread caused a reaction in me. Actually a two-step reaction. I first read the post nodding my head, thinking I liked the way he talked. And then I got to the end and thought, “Where’s the rest of it? What about love?” And then I backed away. No thanks, fella. Come back around when you’re interested in how it is for me, being around someone like you.
I didn’t apply any rules to this (though he did remind me of a lot of people). Crazy as it may sound, I don’t think that’s fair to him. I only listened to myself. First I found him attractive and then I realized he can only jitterbug, and sometimes I want to slowdance. And there’s a million people with that type of rap who use it as a prelude to asking you for money or to sign up to fight for them or lay down and let you walk over them in some other way. It just got really clear inside me. No thanks.
So I don’t have to judge him. Or follow the rules. I just listen to myself. And yes, I get drawn in, just like I did with him. I like smart, driven people, because I’m one myself. But I don’t like being used by people who just want to promote themselves, unless I’m being paid for it. (It’s what I do for a living.) And even then, I have my limits. I’ll help them get applause in the outside world, but it’s my job to clean them up and help them look good, not kiss their feet.
Sorry for the rant. As you can tell I feel really passionate about this. We will get fooled again. But not for long if we’re paying attention to our own feelings. There’s always a moment, and usually very early on, when it starts getting weird. That’s the time to change direction, unless you’re willing to let their problems become your problems.
And if we look at sociopathic transactions — ones in which we are not getting our needs met, and the other person doesn’t care or isn’t capable of meeting them — then we don’t have to worry about what they are, sociopath or not. Lots of times these transactions aren’t with sociopaths at all, but people who are upset or needy, and are unable to really be empathetic, or who want to take more than they are able to give.
And maybe we sometimes are willing to give more than we get back, because it’s our way of being charitable. But charity can’t be a full-time occupation; we have to take care of ourselves. By listening to our feelings, rather than judging other people, we don’t have to generate a lot of unnecessary hatred or fear. The issue becomes “what do I do in this situation to take care of myself?” rather than what’s wrong with them.
And it’s not like we have to do this all the time. There are all kinds of wonderful “transactions” that greatly outnumber these ones that present challenges. People are generally wonderful. Life is generally full of beauty and interesting surprises and chances to be active and creative. It’s just we want to get out of the unsatisfactory situations as expeditiously as we can, so we can get back to the good stuff.
And silvermoon, thanks for the link. They were so cute and sexy, and we were all so young.
Kathy
I read the article and thought, “this is an utter waste of my time”.
And for me, that’s a huge clue. If it seems like a waste of time off the bat, it probably doesn’t get better.
I agree with what you wrote: “No thanks”.
There is nothing to be fascinated by.
It reminds me of the story about the girl walking through the forest. She came upon a snake. And the snake pleaded with her that she should carry him under her cloak where it was warm. The girl at first, refused on the grounds that he would bite her. But, he pleaded so. Finally she picked up the snake and put him under her cloak. A few minutes later, she felt a sharp pain.
“Snake! You bit me!”, she exclaimed.
“Yes. I did. I am a snake. Its what I do.”, he answered.
You are right, we don’t have to judge the gifted author. Neither are we obligated to pay any attention. That’s the way it starts, being fair to the snake. Snakes bite. So when you see one, unless it is your desire to be bitten, don’t pick it up, or poke it with a stick in the gutter. The fun you have before it bites is not worth what you will suffer.
And, I think that is the key: deciding not to pay attention.
Sometimes, when they get into politics or business, they force us to pay attention. Things are wrong. And we are obligated then to speak or act accordingly to make them right.
We just learned by experience that this points to that. And when its in plain sight, well… its in plain sight.
What I see so clearly is the lack of structure and foundation – the inherent weakness of the argument. It lacks integrity. It has no substance behind the bark. There is plenty of noise, but not much more.
Integrity is the substance and structure behind the bark. Its what holds things up. Like trees, or relationships. Integrity makes things strong.
Integrity isn’t a gift, its a choice. And its a choice made over and over. Its cumulative. It has a way of overtaking other “gifts”.
I think sometimes that all of us who have been there and done that mistook something else for the integrity that when you find it in strong, smart, driven people is so very attractive.
The answer to this guy is: “whatever”.
I so enjoy your posts. And look forward over and over to reading them.
Peace out,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FUGzwUTN80
“There’s always a moment, and usually very early on, when it starts getting weird. That’s the time to change direction, unless you’re willing to let their problems become your problems.”
Hi, Kathy –
This is kind of off-topic, but when you start dating someone and it either gets weird or there are red flags or it’s just not what you’re looking for, but they’re persistent, what EXACTLY do you say to them without hurting their feelings? That’s my problem. I’m dating for the first time at 47, and I know exactly what I want and what I don’t want, how I want to feel and be treated. I will not settle, and I don’t care if I’m alone for the rest of my life in lieu of something unfulfilling or dysfunctional. Is it sufficient to just say, “This just isn’t going to work for me” without going into detail as to why? They always seem to press and want reasons, then their response is that I’m wrong or that they’ll change or do whatever it will take. It just turns me off to dating altogether. Is there a boilerplate thing to say that works? : )
Kathleen
Beautiful post. Thank you.
Athena
Survivor I’d like to answer your question if I may though I am not Kathy. “what EXACTLY do you say to them without hurting their feelings? That’s my problem.”
Answer: you say it as nicely as you can but if their feelings get hurt that is too bad. Yes, it is sufficient to say “this just isn’t working for me” and you owe no one, NO ONE any more information than that.
“I’m sorry, joe, this just isn’t working for me” RINSE AND REPEAT until he leaves you alone.
Kathy, your post above is RIGHT ON THE MONEY, AND VERY CLEAR AND MAKES PERFECT SENSE. GOOD JOB!
Thanks, Ox Drover! I don’t know why I have such a hard time with it because if someone were to tell me that or just stop contacting me, I wouldn’t think twice about it. Why would I have any interest in someone that clearly is not interested in me? Too many fish in the sea. I guess I’m still trying to shake some experiences I’ve had where “I’m just not interested” seemed to make them even more interested…the psychopath in particular.