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.
MiLo
Witty ~ It’s not a lot to ask and I will be happy to share some of the things I noticed, some I look back on now, in hindsight, and realize WOW, that was bad. I will mention the stuff that was really above and beyond normal. i’ve been around enough kids, actually conducted foster parenting classes at one time, to know the difference and this was a pattern of behavior, over and over.
I will write later, because unnfortunately people need to eat and seeing I am their main source of food – lol
G1S
MiLo,
I hope Sarah finds her way here.
I got shut down. My posts need to be approved now because I mentioned the “control” word. Won’t bother going there again (I did a few times because I missed you and Sarah.)
They “had” to approve the US Department of Justice’s website on Violence Against Women and the DOJ’s one on Stalking. WOW! They know better? Unbelievable. Kept telling them that we’re all adults capable of thinking for ourselves. Didn’t need Daddy telling us what was all right and what wasn’t.
I felt we were being studied, which is a HUGE HIPAA violation if we don’t know AND give our written consent. Got the reply, “Nobody is studying YOU.” (My emphasis. As if we haven’t become skilled at reading between the lines at this point.) Odd way of phrasing the response.
That website isn’t for us; it’s for them. I asked them about that point blank, pointed out ethics issues, and was ignored.
MiLo
G1S ~ I know I recommended a well respected book once on Reactive Attachment Disorder and DELETED. I saw the US Dept. of Justice’s website was DELETED. I thought WHAT!
Oh, well.
Ox Drover
I think I know what you are talking about. There was a psychopath on the board of directors and I knew her….she tried to scam me and I told her to take a hike. Some other board members recognized what she was and also tried to intervene and they were ignored by the “experts”–she was eventually outed from the board, but I was asked to post a story about her by a board member who recognized what she was…no names of course…and she got it deleted…so I quit going there. My story being posted there was what got the “net nanny” to be installed and posts had to be approved after that. LOL So you can thank me for that.
The PhDs sometimes are very “up tight” about what is posted, and back when, there was worry about a law suit and all that carp….when I worked at the college for 4 years I found out a little bit about how PhDs (some of them) perceive that they walk in some elevated plane above the rest of us. LOL Not to worry, I don’t walk on water, I teach others how to. LOL How is that for HUMILITY! LOL
MiLo
Witty ~ you had asked about my daughter’s story.
We adopted her at 14 months, she had been in a foster home for a year. We lived about 3 hours from the foster home so we were to go for our initial visit over a weekend. She immediately clung to us and would not let go. The case worker saw this as a good sign and had us take her home with us that weekend. It WAS NOT a good sign, it is not normal for kids to instantly bond with strangers unless they have attachment disorders.
She could already crawl out of a crib, high chair, playpen, car seat, andything that was meant to confine. You could hardly hold her because she squirmed constantly and NEVER took naps. In just a couple short months, she was moving chairs to climb on and get into things up high.
The word NO was taken as a challenge to her. If you said NO, she was going to figure out a way to do it. She DEMANDED to be the center of attention. The more positive attention she received the more negative attention she demanded. It was like she had a huge attention empty hole and there was no way to fill it. This lasted all her life.
At age 4 she unhooked a safety gate and pushed her 10 month old baby brother down a flight of stairs in his rolling seat. At age 5 she tried to do one of those wrestling body slams on him and ended up breaking HER arm. At about this age she repeatedly tried to start Barbies hair on fire by holding it on a light bulb (she managed to get it smoking pretty well) She started stealing food and hiding it.
By forth grade she started to steal money from us and her brothers. We had to hide all money. She took all kinds of things from her brothers, including their clothes ???
By fifth grade she was writing sexually explicit notes to boys in her class and asking them to meet her places so she could do things to them. She repeatedly told classmates she had tried to kill herself (she had not, nor did she intend to) She started taking off and wandering the town when she was suppose to be waiting for us to pick her up.
She was so “boy crazy” and so obvious about it. My sister in law came to stay with us and stayed in her room. She pretended to be having sex with some boy “while asleep” She would write about sexual encounters in her diary.
She lived by the code “there isn’t a rule that wasn’t meant to be broken” She could NEVER get the concept of actions get consequences, NEVER She LIED about EVERYTHING, things that meant nothing, just to LIE.
I’m going to write the rest tomorrow, Witty. If you have questions or are looking at something specific, please ask.
MiLo
Oxy ~ I don’t want to come out and outright “bad mouth”, but you would not believe (oh you probably would) what was done to me, G1S and another. We were publically humiliated and asked to apologize for something that DID NOT deserve an apology.
skylar
MiLo,
hmm… that sounds like that board is worthy of MY study!
Intriguing to watch the dynamics of the spaths that wear masks, isn’t it?
MiLo
Sky ~ I think you are right.
witsend
Milo,
Thanks for sharing this….I am anxiously waiting for the next chapter.
Not really looking for anything specific. Just what you remember….
Ox Drover
I’m sorry MiLo, but you know sometimes people have egos as big as barns and anything that is a threat to their ego becomes something that they have to pounce on. I didn’t let it worry me much, it isn’t like there isn’t LF. I was disappointed but not surprised really. Many people in academics live in ivory towers. LOL I learned that when I worked at the college. And the “Peter Principle LIVES”!!!! LOL People are promoted to their level of incompetence.