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The tricky things about sociopaths and their narcissistic tendencies. Even when they are diagnosed, they are quite proud of who they are and wear their sociopathy like badges of honor.
And why shouldn't we? I didn't make myself this way but it is who I am. I may not be ready to say it out loud and let people know about it, but I don't see why I should be terrified of it and hide it either. Before I move to a new city I may tell my friends and co-workers here. With nothing to lose as I will most likely not stay in contact with any of these people after I'm gone it will give me a good indication of how people react to me coming out of the closet (or should I say "coming out of the crawl space beneath my house"? )
I am what I am. And I love how even people who believe in GOD seem to hate us for doing nothing. I mean if GOD created us it obviously has some use for us.
Alrighty then. It seems you are really looking to get something going here. Only damaged people are going to sympathize with someone who thinks and behaves as you do. Why even mention killing the ducklings, unless you are intentionally playing with people here. If it's even true. Everyone knows that serial killers get started by killing small animals, the more cute and vulnerable the better, like cute fuzzy baby animals.
Like I said, I was 12 at the time. I'm now thirty and while I don't regret it I have no more interested in nailing a baby duck with a rock than I am in watching a Disney movie...
Well, okay, so I still love Fantasia, so let me rephrase: I'm an adult, so I will not engage in such childish behavior. And I know killing people will most likely come with a prison sentence complete with anal rape, so I won't do that either. And I have better things to do with my time than kill anyway. I look at behavior like that the way some may look at stealing jewels from some corrupt oil exec: I have nothing against it in a "knee-jerk" fashion, but I don't see why I would want to go out of my way to do it. And I don't want to risk getting caught.
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The answer isn't Gulag or Scarlet letters, and you can stop helping people, the world will not collapse if you are not doing that and your ego isn't important. Some empathetic person will step up and do it and won't go on tv and won't even think themselves a hero. The world doesn't need sociopathic baby animal killing "heroes".
And what about every other narcissist and bastard who only helps people to help them? Take away recognition for doing good, and how much good would people do?
So, after everyone and their grandmother has told me I should see a shrink for my issues, I finally started. After several secessions he sent me to see a specialist...and that specialist sent me to another specialist. We talk and talked and I answered a bunch of questions and finally he got this serious look on his face and asked me if I was ready for a diagnosis. As it turns out, the Nietzschean philosophy I've always believed in, sense before I could pronounce "Nietzsche", and the fact that I don't really love anyone and generally do what I can get away with and the fact that I now admit I can't really emphasize with anyone means that, while I'm not a full blown "prostitutes buried under the backyard" kind, I do indeed have sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies. My shrink told me that these things aren't really black or white but are more on a spectrum, and I'm on an end of the sociopath spectrum but not the far end.
My reaction? Fear, denial...and then, suddenly, relief.
All this time I knew there was something different about me. I moved 3,000 miles from my family and never really wanted anything to do with them and never missed anyone from home. People are just an audience for me, and I've never really attached to them. I am not very impulsive (hence I'm not a full blown psychopath) but that's because I'm always worried about getting caught. But at the same time I never really cared about the future and sometimes think there isn't one, which I now know is something sociopaths usually feel. Vancouver painting
My doctor said that it may have something to do with my awful "childhood", but it is also probably genetic. So, if this is the way I was born...why should I be ashamed?
And no, I am not going to be a serial killer...granted, I like the idea of doing that sort of thing, but I also like the idea of flying an X-Wing against the Galactic Empire. That's just a fantasy, and I'm not so stupid to think I'll never get caught. I have found another way to get my thrills and satisfy my hedonistic urges. I box. It gets my aggression out and lets me hurt people in a structured manner without breaking the law. That and my shrink has informed that indeed, I have another, unorthodox way of getting my psychopathic fix: I like to volunteer at the homeless shelter.
Yes, I like to help people. Do I give a damn if they live or die? No. I just do it because I like the look in their eyes when help them out. It isn't altruistic at all and I'm done trying to full myself that it is. Just as another sociopath may enjoy the look of terror in a person they were about to kill, I enjoy the look of happy surprise in the faces of the people I help. When I volunteer I usually take chocolate truffles with me, which is much better than most homeless ever get. I like the feeling of control I have over them that they are happy because I said so. Last year I went to a school toy drive and personally handed two laptops that I bought to some of the underprivileged kids. I was their hero...and it fed my ego to make them believe that. I would NEVER in a million years have wasted that on an anonymous donation. And if that kid died the next day in an awful car crash...I would shrug and go right back to eating lunch.
And that is the scariest part about me for you non-sociopaths: I am not that different from the rest of you, and you may be a lot like me. Do you help people to help them, or to feed your own ego? Do you hang around with your family because you love them, or because of the pleasure they give you by loving you?
My shrink says that because I am not a full blown sociopath and I'm willing to talk openly about it, there may be hope for me. I can, if I work hard on it, feel love and remorse and all those other things. Question is...why? If this is who I am, why should I change it? It isn't really harming anyone and I don't see how it could. I really have nothing against hurting people, but it just isn't my shtick.
Once, decades ago, homosexuality was a mental disorder. Then the radical idea that people could relate to others sexually in a different way while not being crazy took hold and now, homosexuals are proud and open and we understand that there is more than one way to feel sexual attraction. What if empathy is the same? What if there is nothing wrong with not feeling empathy in the sense of unconditional love, but some people, like me, feel nothing but hedonistic satisfaction in helping others or keeping friends and family around?
What if, years from now, sociopaths were just like gays: regular people, out and proud? I mean, society needs us: without us, there would be no need for laws and police would have no jobs. That, and we have shaped history, from Genghis Khan to Dick Chaney and Thomas Edison.
I think that might be the next great social (or, anti-social ) movement: sociopath pride. Hell, nothing is going on in August, how about August becomes sociopath pride month?
I'll keep seeing this shrink and talking about my mother (what else?) but at the same time, if this really is me, is it worth changing, or would I be compromising myself the same way gays did when they submitted to electro-shock therapy? I'll keep in mind that being a non-sociopath may be preferable to being one, but I'm not sure that is the case. Maybe I should start a sociopath-pride movement? I mean, in the words of Lady Gaga, I was Born this Way.
Like I said, I was 12 at the time. I'm now thirty and while I don't regret it I have no more interested in nailing a baby duck with a rock than I am in watching a Disney movie...
Well, okay, so I still love Fantasia, so let me rephrase: I'm an adult, so I will not engage in such childish behavior. And I know killing people will most likely come with a prison sentence complete with anal rape, so I won't do that either. And I have better things to do with my time than kill anyway. I look at behavior like that the way some may look at stealing jewels from some corrupt oil exec: I have nothing against it in a "knee-jerk" fashion, but I don't see why I would want to go out of my way to do it. And I don't want to risk getting caught.
And what about every other narcissist and bastard who only helps people to help them? Take away recognition for doing good, and how much good would people do?
What do you care?
And twelve is old enough to know to know you were doing evil in killing a helpless animal for no reason.
Your behavior now IS childish because you want to excuse it as if you can't help it and even defend it as something good. And connecting things to sociopathy that are not so, like comparing consensual fetish fantasies to kidnapping and rape thoughts, when you are intelligent enough to know they are completely different. It is very immature to seek ego gratification expecting sympathy for your "diagnosis".
I'm not reading this thread (and probably someone has noted this already), but does everyone on here realize that an actual sociopath or someone with marked sociopathic tendencies is not going to take advice on protecting others from their tendencies or care much about admonishment? You're just feeding the beast with your responses (and yes, I realize my own hypocrisy).
I'm not reading this thread (and probably someone has noted this already), but does everyone on here realize that an actual sociopath or someone with marked sociopathic tendencies is not going to take advice on protecting others from their tendencies or care much about admonishment? You're just feeding the beast with your responses (and yes, I realize my own hypocrisy).
Walk away. Nothing to see here.
You are absolutely right. I probably wouldn't listen to anyone whining "think of the children!" or such. But...my shrink kind of got to me. Well, my psychologist, not the one who told me I have a medium case of ASPD. He told me that human connection, love and absolute trust are tied to empathy and are paid for with guilt. He went on to tell me how I'm missing out on the best things in life. That got to me, and kept me in therapy.
When I see people hugging and loving one another, a part of me wants to think they are just as hollow as I am...but if they aren't, there is something I'm missing and maybe having a conscious is a price worth paying.
But then again, it would be suicidal for me to change. I am what I am, and if I stop being me the "me" that is here now will die and something else will take its place. Will my "reincarnated form" be worth it?
I usually know everything, but that is one question I have no answer for.
So, after everyone and their grandmother has told me I should see a shrink for my issues, I finally started. After several secessions he sent me to see a specialist...and that specialist sent me to another specialist. We talk and talked and I answered a bunch of questions and finally he got this serious look on his face and asked me if I was ready for a diagnosis. As it turns out, the Nietzschean philosophy I've always believed in, sense before I could pronounce "Nietzsche", and the fact that I don't really love anyone and generally do what I can get away with and the fact that I now admit I can't really emphasize with anyone means that, while I'm not a full blown "prostitutes buried under the backyard" kind, I do indeed have sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies. My shrink told me that these things aren't really black or white but are more on a spectrum, and I'm on an end of the sociopath spectrum but not the far end.
My reaction? Fear, denial...and then, suddenly, relief.
All this time I knew there was something different about me. I moved 3,000 miles from my family and never really wanted anything to do with them and never missed anyone from home. People are just an audience for me, and I've never really attached to them. I am not very impulsive (hence I'm not a full blown psychopath) but that's because I'm always worried about getting caught. But at the same time I never really cared about the future and sometimes think there isn't one, which I now know is something sociopaths usually feel.
My doctor said that it may have something to do with my awful "childhood", but it is also probably genetic. So, if this is the way I was born...why should I be ashamed?
And no, I am not going to be a serial killer...granted, I like the idea of doing that sort of thing, but I also like the idea of flying an X-Wing against the Galactic Empire. That's just a fantasy, and I'm not so stupid to think I'll never get caught. I have found another way to get my thrills and satisfy my hedonistic urges. I box. It gets my aggression out and lets me hurt people in a structured manner without breaking the law. That and my shrink has informed that indeed, I have another, unorthodox way of getting my psychopathic fix: I like to volunteer at the homeless shelter.
Yes, I like to help people. Do I give a damn if they live or die? No. I just do it because I like the look in their eyes when help them out. It isn't altruistic at all and I'm done trying to full myself that it is. Just as another sociopath may enjoy the look of terror in a person they were about to kill, I enjoy the look of happy surprise in the faces of the people I help. When I volunteer I usually take chocolate truffles with me, which is much better than most homeless ever get. I like the feeling of control I have over them that they are happy because I said so. Last year I went to a school toy drive and personally handed two laptops that I bought to some of the underprivileged kids. I was their hero...and it fed my ego to make them believe that. I would NEVER in a million years have wasted that on an anonymous donation. And if that kid died the next day in an awful car crash...I would shrug and go right back to eating lunch.
And that is the scariest part about me for you non-sociopaths: I am not that different from the rest of you, and you may be a lot like me. Do you help people to help them, or to feed your own ego? Do you hang around with your family because you love them, or because of the pleasure they give you by loving you?
My shrink says that because I am not a full blown sociopath and I'm willing to talk openly about it, there may be hope for me. I can, if I work hard on it, feel love and remorse and all those other things. Question is...why? If this is who I am, why should I change it? It isn't really harming anyone and I don't see how it could. I really have nothing against hurting people, but it just isn't my shtick.
Once, decades ago, homosexuality was a mental disorder. Then the radical idea that people could relate to others sexually in a different way while not being crazy took hold and now, homosexuals are proud and open and we understand that there is more than one way to feel sexual attraction. What if empathy is the same? What if there is nothing wrong with not feeling empathy in the sense of unconditional love, but some people, like me, feel nothing but hedonistic satisfaction in helping others or keeping friends and family around?
What if, years from now, sociopaths were just like gays: regular people, out and proud? I mean, society needs us: without us, there would be no need for laws and police would have no jobs. That, and we have shaped history, from Genghis Khan to Dick Chaney and Thomas Edison.
I think that might be the next great social (or, anti-social ) movement: sociopath pride. Hell, nothing is going on in August, how about August becomes sociopath pride month?
I'll keep seeing this shrink and talking about my mother (what else?) but at the same time, if this really is me, is it worth changing, or would I be compromising myself the same way gays did when they submitted to electro-shock therapy? I'll keep in mind that being a non-sociopath may be preferable to being one, but I'm not sure that is the case. Maybe I should start a sociopath-pride movement? I mean, in the words of Lady Gaga, I was Born this Way.
You are absolutely right. I probably wouldn't listen to anyone whining "think of the children!" or such. But...my shrink kind of got to me. Well, my psychologist, not the one who told me I have a medium case of ASPD. He told me that human connection, love and absolute trust are tied to empathy and are paid for with guilt. He went on to tell me how I'm missing out on the best things in life. That got to me, and kept me in therapy.
When I see people hugging and loving one another, a part of me wants to think they are just as hollow as I am...but if they aren't, there is something I'm missing and maybe having a conscious is a price worth paying.
But then again, it would be suicidal for me to change. I am what I am, and if I stop being me the "me" that is here now will die and something else will take its place. Will my "reincarnated form" be worth it?
I usually know everything, but that is one question I have no answer for.
Sorry but none of us is just one thing. You don't just CHANGE like a werewolf. If you have developed anything outside of the sociopath/narcissist that is part of you, that doesn't need to change. Just the empathy thing but you may not be willing or able to do it. It doesn't kill off your entire being to go from uncaring to caring, if it is possible at all.
Eye opening thread. I have nothing to add other than reading about punk and his diagnosis really helps me explain a few people I've run across in my life.
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) 
) movement: sociopath pride. Hell, nothing is going on in August, how about August becomes sociopath pride month? 
If you have developed anything outside of the sociopath/narcissist that is part of you, that doesn't need to change. Just the empathy thing but you may not be willing or able to do it. It doesn't kill off your entire being to go from uncaring to caring, if it is possible at all.
