A 24-year-old guy described himself in an Internet forum: He doesn’t feel emotion, is an excellent liar, becomes bored quickly, and experiences an adrenalin rush when deceiving or angering someone else. He asks, is he a sociopath?
I’d answer yes. The post is an interesting insight into how a disordered young man perceives himself and others.
Read Self-diagnosing sociopathy on the Dr. Robert forum.
slimone
Sky,
Totally agree. Not able to find much compassion…yet. A little. It’s still hard for me not to ‘blame’ my lack of compassion on their deep down evil-spirited meaness and the harm they do.
But I hear you. It is sad. Truly, when I dig down, it is. For them, and for us.
Ah, well…back to self-observation for me!
behind_blue_eyes
“To say I feel emotions would be misleading. I can feel frustration, I can be irritable (usually when I feel someone else is getting between me and what I want, be that conflict-less conversation…”
Saw this first hand with my x-spath. Good example, a cab driver was taking us for a bit of a “ride” and I became annoyed with the cab driver and got into a bit of an argument with him. My x-spath became irritable towards me, even though I was in the right.
“I’m an excellent liar…”
Only to the extent that he can charm people into trusting him. My x-spath lied about several things but it was easy for him because I never really questioned him.
“I consider someone a friend if I know their behavioral patterns well enough to know that they won’t betray me…”
Spaths tend to be very untrusting. From my experience now, I would say that people who don’t trust or are unusually “closed” about themselves are no trustworthy.
“If I’m to blame for something, I only feel anger at someone who dares blame me…”
Blame shifting is a core sociopath behavior.
This guy is unfortunately for real.
Near
Slimone: I bet the sociopaths feel that way about us. They think we are caricatures. They probably find our normal behaviour mind numbing. Then they also find it hard to feel nothing but disdain and contempt for us.
I just want to mention that I to feel sorry for many of them. It’s an empty life, as I’ve said before. They are alive psysically, but they have been dead mentally for a long time. Maybe they weren’t even really alive to begin with.
This guy certainly seems like one, and he already seems bored with his life and his post has a hollow feeling. I think he can sense it too, whether he admits it or not. There’s nothing there.
I remember a quote from somebody pertaining to sociopaths: “Something inside him MADE him this way, but at the same time you know there’s nothing good in there.”
Truly sad. I still don’t understand. I could spend my whole life studying sociopaths and still not understand them by the time I die.
aussiegirl
Sky –
I married 2 spaths, nine years apart.
Neither was abused in any way as a child. Both were nicely cared for and both have siblings who are not spath.
While I do agree that childhood abuse of any sort MUST impact on spaths (as surely as it does on humans who have this same awful experience) by making them “more spathy” than they might otherwise have turned out, or perhaps less inhibited in their choices to inflict damage on others later in life, I don’t agree that all spaths suffered abusive childhoods and therefore have some kind of an “out clause” for their reprehensible behaviours.
I also believe that many of those who claim to have been abused as children (talking about spaths here, not humans..) were in all likelihood NOT. Maybe not most, but many.
They are the people of the lie – and a jolly good sob story is a jolly good sob story – all the better to reel us in with. Anything as a pity ploy – the more sad and the more tragic, all the better to eat us with….
skylar
Aussie,
it’s been so long! It’s good to see you, how are things going for you?
I’m not going to say that all spaths have been abused, only that abuse takes many forms. My oldest (and only normal sibling) would say that we weren’t really abused. Nobody would say we were abused. But we were. emotionally abused and neglected and tormented. I have 2 spath siblings and I’m spath supply. My parents seem like the nicest people. If you met them today, you would NEVER believe they were abusive. But MANY people are narcissists even if they aren’t spaths. Narcissists don’t give love very well, even though they think that they do – and those same people seem soooo loveable (everyone loves and admires my parents today). My parents can’t quite figure out what they did wrong though they readily admit that they were clueless as parents.
It’s just very difficult to tell what a person is like until you’ve lived with them on an intimate level. And even then, you have to know what to look for. I lived with my spath for 25 years and couldn’t see what he was, until the end, when I read about spaths.
His father was a spath, but not one of the 6 sons (now in their 50’s and 60’s know it, because their mom covered for him. He was absolutely evil and she told me before she died. She never told anyone else. The boys still think he was a saint.
Secrets are evil.
Redwald
I was intrigued by that comment as well. Was it accidentally posted under the wrong topic or something?
I don’t have any trouble myself telling a guinea pig from a prairie dog. I see prairie dogs around our house all the time. Now and then you can catch sight of one out of the front window. Even when there’s none in sight, the ground is riddled with their little holes. But I’ve never seen a guinea pig around the place. The previous occupants of the house did leave us a hamster. But no guinea pigs.
My mother used to sing a couple of lines from a song that went:
How can a guinea pig show he’s pleased
If he hasn’t got a tail to wag?
I’ve never heard that song anywhere else, except from her. I did try googling it and found it has a few more lines, but nobody seems to know where the song came from, or when.
Redwald
Somewhere—I forget where, but I’ll probably stumble across it again some day—I recall hearing about a clinician who was testing subjects for psychopathy by asking them to explain the meanings of words. Generally a psychopathic person had no trouble describing what ordinary words meant, like “chair,” say, or “star.” This included abstract words, like “deafness” for instance. But when the researcher started on words with more emotional connotations, the typical psychopath had more difficulty, started to hesitate, and seemed less certain about the meaning.
For obvious reasons, “love” was one of the words that psychopaths hesitated over—though as a word it’s not necessarily meaningless to a psychopath. I saw an excellent post on this board not too long ago—maybe it was Donna’s?—describing “what psychopaths really mean when they say ‘I love you.'” So while the word “love” caused difficulty to some psychopaths, it did not present an insuperable problem. But the word that REALLY caused a problem for at least one subject was the word “trust.” He struggled with the word for a minute or two, then he literally gave up. He couldn’t assign a meaning to it at all. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just a word.”
“Just a word.” Incredible! Since psychopaths have a relative absence of fear, that may have something to do with the difficulty this guy was having. Perhaps if they don’t experience much fear, it’s harder for them to envisage the opposite, the banishing of fear that comes with the ability to “trust.” What was curious was that the guy on that Dr. Robert forum did say “I consider someone a friend if I know their behavioral patterns well enough to know that they won’t betray me.” That means he must have some knowledge of the concept of “trust,” in an abstract sense. Again, I suspect it’s the emotional dimensions of the word, and the “warm fuzzies” that come with the notion of “trust,” that defeated this other guy.
Louise
This concept of the spath not trusting is very interesting to me. I had one actually tell me that she didn’t trust that many people; that she didn’t let many people into her world. And the X spath never said outright he didn’t trust people, but I just kind of got that feeling.
It all makes sense to me because I imagine if they know they are duping everyone they meet, why is everyone not trying to dupe them? I am sure they feel like they can’t trust anyone. They want to be the one who inflicts harm before it’s done to them.
aussiegirl
Hi gorgeous Skylar! xx
You are right – I’ve barely here been the past few months, other than one or two quick “hit and runs”. Quite a few things are coming to a head all at once for me.
I began my graduated “return to work” program about 8 weeks back. My doctors are only allowing me to do 6 hours a week and even then it is spread over 3 days. I feel a bit pathetic, but Fibro IS what is IS and I have to be a good girl and do as I am advised to give this the best chance of working. I am so much enjoying being with the children at school again; I missed them very much after being away for over a year. To be honest, I couldn’t handle more than 6 hours right now – even that is making me soooooooooooo tired.
Plus – the Family Court sage continues. It’s been one adjournment after the next for months now, while the Superspath (whose whole idea this “let’s go to court and play silly games and try to do Aussiegirl’s head in” charade was in the first place) endlessly comes to court unprepared and having not complied with any of the orders that the court keeps making. So – he starts the game and then he keeps it dragging out as long as is humanly possible and for no good reason – now THAT doesn’t sound at ALL spathy, does it?!?
At least now the callover hearing has been set. That is day 1 of what looks set to be at least a 3 day trial. The first day is separate – it’s to make sure everything is in order before the evidence is heard and the judgements are made. It begins in 3 weeks time and I wont know the date for the trial proper (the 2 days of arguments) until after the callover takes place.
Nervous times; watch this space to see whether Aussiegirl has anywhere to live after the trial, or whether Wallace and Grommett, the magical dancing sheep have been shipped off to live at the circus, where they will need to perform all manner of ovine clevernesses to earn their keep.
“Nobody would say we were abused. But we were. emotionally abused and neglected ….and I’m spath supply. My parents seem like the nicest people. If you met them today, you would NEVER believe they were abusive. …Narcissists don’t give love very well, even though they think that they do ”“ and those same people seem soooo loveable…. My parents can’t quite figure out what they did wrong …”
Ah yes! There you are again, singing my life with your words….
I totally agree with the inability of Ns to acknowledge or understand what it was that THEY did to stuff us up.
superkid10
Louise
People who are trustworthy, trust.
My spath scolded me all the time for being too trusting. Little did I know he meant I shouldn’t be trusting HIM.