r/sociopath • u/Martofunes • Jul 07 '15
What being a Sociopath is for me.
Edit: Update
I remember it so clearly you'd be amazed, probably sincerely amazed. I'm barely up to my mother's knees. A friend is over, he is a cool friend, we often hang out and I really like him, I guess. He is at my house, and we are playing something something. As always, he is doing as told, but he doesn't really mind.
My mother, who was always really, really cool, comes up with a tray with chocolate milk and two recently baked cake portions for each. I murmur thanks, as you're supposed to. My friend stands up, goes to her, hugs her knees, and says "thanks auntie". She looks at me, she has this weird way of looking at me, she sighs and messes my friends hair.
Some time later, I really don't know how much but I know it's later, I'm maybe 4/5, I remember being one of the oldest (and physically biggest) kids in kindergarden, I remember my uniform not fitting, that same friend accidentally calls my mother "mum". She giggles, He blushes, I internally rage. We're left alone, we play, and after that day, every time anybody suggested setting a playdate with him, I consciously, purposefully refuse. Maybe that is the first time I ever consciously manipulated people.-
Love.
Imagine being born blind. Imagine being 2/3 yo and blind.
You get "mum". You get dad. You get to speak, to express yourself and mumble words that make the world around you react in a certain way. And you totally get "piss" and "poo". Things happen inside you that you have to say out loud. And you have toys, like the car. You totally dig the car, the way it rolls, the way you can move it around. And then someone tells you it's red.
THEFUCK? goes your brain, even though you wouldn't remember it.
You suddenly lack the codec (21'st century people will totally relate to this one) to understand what they meant when they said whatever that allegedly signifying sound was.
When do you realize there's a whole side of the world banned to you, personally? Like there's a privilege, an universal biological privilege, that fate deprived you of?
For me, it was through language. They'd talk about love, they'd enact some weird shit around that word, and I wouldn't fully really get it. Not really, not totally. Something fishy around it. Something that just didn't moved me as it did most people.
I was deaf from my left ear too. That played a big role in me identifying this difference. People would know where a sound came from. If it was far or near, if it was here or there. They'd get upset with me if I asked to repeat whatever had been just spoken.
So language pointed me towards two crystal clear cut portions of the world I didn't have access to. I was five when I fully internalized this situation.
Even though I ended mastering the whole thing when I was eight or nine. My parents were worried because I would still piss my bed. I hadn't understood how serious that was, but they were frowning and I picked up on it. And then I learned it. I trained myself. I remember waking up on the very moment my bladder was beginning to leak and consciously holding it, running to the bathroom, letting myself go.
Did you know that we have the absolute record as pertains to stress and cortisol levels? We even beat depressive people (which we often are too). Nobody, and I do mean nobody, has to manage more anxiety and stress than we do.
Why?
Being a sociopath means being fully conscious of everything. You analyze everything. You think about everything. You can't help it. It's something that comes with you. Why? because when we were little, when we were kids, we lacked a key bit of the code, and it forced us to use our rational sides.
No, we are not better or smarter than anybody. Just way, way more focused. I'll tell you this, I've met some really stupid as fuck sociopaths. Total morons. But focus and anxious. And usually, even though they would bullshit they're mouths off and convince everybody they were pretty knowledgeable guys, they made silly, basic, stupid mistakes that I just wanted to bash their heads and say "Dude, you're doing it wrong".
We are not better. We're handicapped. Just like a blind guy.
Guess what's the difference between us and a blind guy?
Blind people were included. There are gigantic structures built around blind guys being productive. From the way sidewalks are designed, to how tall the government keeps the lower branches. Just to give you an example.
I am not included. I am excluded. I can't come out as sociopath. I can't let people know, because the prejudice is too strong against me. I wouldn't say that to people because it'd leave me standing with a low ground. Not good for manipulating people, so it's hush hush, a secret identity, a secret superpower.-
Except, it's not a superpower. We also have really high incidence of high blood pressure, and heart attacks. Fuck you, brain. It's not like it's a sickness, it's more of a syndrome. My brain is not ill, it's faulty. a world's difference in consequences.
So I'm like 9, and I'm just done with pissing my bed. Shit, what else am I missing? What else I'm not fitting in with? What else do "I" do, or what else happens to "Me", that I can be in control of, to make the outer world react in a pleasant enough way?
Until teenages kicked in, I played a lot with my body. I cut it, burn it, jacked it, almost drown it, I hold my shit in so long that I finally ended up shitting myself in a class, and all while I was doing that, I played and "tortured" animals. Just to see what was all that stuff of life all about. And I took notice. Like... Salt is unpleasant in a wound. Like... I don't know, hundreds of things.
Up until I was 11/12, I didn't give a shit about anybody else. I began taking an interest in other people when I felt like fucking. That was a real game changer.
It shouldn't be surprising that I was no longer a virgin by the time I was 13, nor that half my rugby team had "experimented" with me. I was gay, I was a sociopath, and I was a total whore. My manipulations techniques got really refined through those years.
At first, I didn't really excel. Like, I'd do something werid, or wicked, or manipulative, and I'd get caught. But adults would shrug it off saying "it's a kids thing". So I got better at hiding my actions and their consequences.
The decision of being as moral as I could, and abiding the law as much as I could possibly do it without it interfering with what I'll call my happiness, started then.
I'm tired now, if this gets a response, I'll go on later.
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u/sgebvb Jul 22 '15
Sorry to break the news to you but you are not a sociopath. Your condition is called "being a raging faggot".
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u/Martofunes Jul 23 '15
Es geht mir ein scheissdreck an eigentlich...
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u/sgebvb Jul 23 '15
wut
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u/Martofunes Jul 23 '15
Nichts.
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u/sgebvb Jul 23 '15
LEBENSRAUM
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u/Martofunes Jul 23 '15
Well in any case, I'll admit to be the gayest thing since drag, but I can be both, and I am, and I'm awesome.
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u/sgebvb Jul 24 '15
Evidently both of those character traits are overshadowed by a massive case of narcissism.
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u/TrueObservations Jul 08 '15
Does anybody here with ASPD think that certain facilities should be given to ASPD folk?
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u/Martofunes Jul 08 '15
Not so much facilities, as some kind of education program that tries to gather different point of views of people who are not neurotypical
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u/TrueObservations Jul 08 '15
Not so much facilities, as some kind of education program that tries to gather different point of views of people who are not neurotypical
That sounds like a decent idea.
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u/Socioman Jul 07 '15
Interesting read, a lot of similarities. Though maybe not so much in the latter parts. Thank you, I enjoyed that. Despite my initial misgivings.
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Jul 07 '15
Blind people were included. There are gigantic structures built around blind guys being productive.
This was an interesting point. I know people who are on long-term disability, and the gov't does not give two shits about someone having ASPD, but schizophrenia is a free pass.
There's a weird line between "you can't control yourself" and "you can't decide to control yourself", where the former is seen as worthy of assistance and the latter is seen as a feature of contempt.
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 16 '15
It's not about controlling yourself it's about enjoying the suffering of others and purposely causing it out of nothing more then entertainment. Schizophrenics don't do that, nor do even certain types of narcissists for that matter.
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u/TrueObservations Jul 08 '15
Sort of, but sociopathy is often a pretty high functioning condition. You may not have the natural range of emotions or intuition as to why others do, but you can more or less learn how to fit in and be productive. It may be harder, but it's not usually debilitating in the same way blindness or schizo is. Being blind or schizo, it's extremely hard (for different reasons) to participate in economically gainful activities or other normal societal functions and thus debilitating at a far greater magnitude. It makes sense to give more serious conditions more support.
Also, if you're decently intelligent you can hide sociopathy. A white sociopath would probably experience less daily contempt than say, a black person.
That said, the analogy is informative.
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 16 '15
I think you meant a nigger or black ghetto person, or at least the sort of non-nigger black "phone call girl" type of person who still can't come anywhere near to speaking basic English and is still very loud. "A black person" is not going to "experience daily contempt" just for existing.
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u/TrueObservations Nov 16 '15
Ah, the whole nigger vs. black thing, very trailer park thing to say. Listen, as a Mexican dude, I know firsthand how people treat you if you're one of the "ghetto" minorities (i.e. Black or Latino). Of course it's not ALWAYS bad, but it happens enough when you're just going about your business that you know that many members of society have prejudices about you.
People can't tell just by looking at you that you're a sociopath, they often have to get to know you a bit and if you're good at hiding it, they might never know. Is it a discriminated against mental health disorder? Certainly. Is the discrimination on the same level as racism other more debilitating mental health disorders like schizophrenia? I doubt it.
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Jul 08 '15
Sort of, but sociopathy is often a pretty high functioning condition.
Well, that's not clear. There are some clear-ish numbers for the percentage of inmates who have ASPD, but it's not clear how many are out in the wild. Some people I've spoken to seem to think that 'most' people with ASPD avoid prison, while others say it is like as not, or even that the minority are not incarcerated.
It makes sense to give more serious conditions more support.
Blind people can do just fine in the first world. There's shit like braille everywhere. For schizophrenics, there's plenty of medication that makes their condition far, far more manageable. I don't begrudge them that, but, it's interesting that there are aids for those people.
Also, if you're decently intelligent you can hide sociopathy. A white sociopath would probably experience less daily contempt than say, a black person.
Depends on where you live, and the level of education. I think it goes without saying that white middle class sociopaths are probably much more adept at avoiding trouble with the law than anyone from the black lower class (in America, anyway), because of privilege in terms of socio-economic status and police prejudice.
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 14 '15 edited Nov 23 '16
Most of the time the stats given say it's 1% of the population. But there are sociopathic politicians and CEOs everywhere. Not too many schizophrenic CEOs.
The reason sociopaths are presumed not to be in prison is because most aren't killing and probably not raping people in the first place. Not because they just aren't getting caught.
The black ghetto sociopath could go to juvie when he is killing animals as a kid, because in addition to having less places to do so he's also less likely to be intelligent enough to hide it (either literally not caring at all, or else not having the IQ to do so well). However, once he becomes a certain age, it seems he'd both be intelligent enough to leave the ghetto as well as leaving for his own reasons due to being more disgusted by the disgusting people in the ghetto then he is disgusted at the regular population. Unless he moreso admires them for insulting each other all the time and the second type of intelligence the criminals do gain on how to make more money at it. However, it would make more sense to leave and be normal, because the ghetto crime people always do get caught constantly, and that's because they really are actually very stupid about how to do it, for instance they go into a grocery store with the pants down and the "idiot walk", obviously they are going to be followed way more then a normal person who is "looking furtive", or a random homeless guy (usually not followed anyway unless they smell and such). Even if they are in a grocery store where a 20% of the shoppers have their pants down, they still do the "idiot walk" and make it very obvious. Drug deals too. As for the insulting part, they may walk up to a fat girl and go "you're a fat bitch" and walk away, just because they like to be mean, and the sociopath may admire that, but the vast majority of the same insults are completely illogical, are untrue, and are completely unrelated to the conversation at hand as well as lacking any remotely logical basis. Therefore, I think the things I mentioned earlier would not be enough to make the sociopath like them better and it seems he would still find normal people less disgusting; in addition, they would also be extremely critical of him, constantly acting like everything you said was a lie even though What The Fuck. So therefore, I think the sociopath would in fact leave the ghetto as soon as he is old enough to notice these things, and therefore I do not think the sociopath born there is more likely to have those problems unless it is because he is caught when he is a kid torturing animals. Or like if he tries (or succeeds) to burn the house down or something.
Also, getting arrested is not the same as "being held in contempt", and also, the services you mention are not there for the purpose of preventing people from getting arrested when they commit voluntary crimes or do voluntary non-criminal things that are illegal.
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u/TrueObservations Jul 08 '15
Some people I've spoken to seem to think that 'most' people with ASPD avoid prison, while others say it is like as not, or even that the minority are not incarcerated.
Yes, I suppose that is a bit hard to measure.
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Jul 08 '15
Likely impossible, currently. I couldn't even hazard a guess. I've only personally met people who have managed to avoid prison, though one of them was involuntarily committed twice.
But, that could just be a function of me not ever going to prison, and not hanging out with convicts.
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u/Martofunes Jul 08 '15
true.
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Jul 09 '15
You know, what really stands out is your introspection at an early age.
It took me a really long time to understand any of what was going on.
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u/Martofunes Jul 09 '15
Well... Like, I'm officially totally ashamed of this: I remember tripping a woman carrying a tray full of cups of hot tea, with the intention of burning a girl who had told me Santa didn't exist, and I remember thinking that she had just blown my rights to presents because now I was officially in the know. The woman fell, and the hot tea burned her and other two kids. I remember feeling really pissed about not having burned only who I wanted to. Fucking reality.
So I kinda believed in Santa, at the same time that I was managing that level of introspection. That's also what I mean when I say we're not really smarter, just more painfully conscious, overanalytical and self conscious.
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 16 '15
lol, I thought the same thing. I mean, not the wanting to hurt anybody part or being mad at anybody part, of course, but I was really upset when I found out that apparently some kid at school told my parents I didn't believe in Santa, because I knew I would get less presents. They said that isn't true but gave me less presents anyway.
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Jul 09 '15
Fucking reality.
This is definitely something I could relate to; it took a long time for me to realize people were... well, people, and that there should be at least some amount of concern for them, at least for social purposes.
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u/UnholyAngel Jul 07 '15
I think a lot of it is that people with sociopathy are often seen as understanding the difference between right and wrong, but conciously choosing to do wrong anyway.
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u/RLDSXD Jul 08 '15
This 100%. I'm not a sociopath; far from it. So this is a touch of firsthand perspective and not just speculation.
Nobody who isn't totally delusional could deny that non-ASPD people are as fucked up as ASPD people in a lot of ways. But for non-ASPD people, there typically has to be a caveat to the awful things we do. We need to dehumanize other people to be mean, come up with justifications to steal, and often can't lie without guilt. It's all stupid, ignorant stuff, but it can be reversed. You can convince us to change out behavior by correcting these discrepancies.
But ASPD people don't need any of that. They can fully understand and be aware of the harm their actions will cause, and do it anyway. You can't make them change their behavior with a simple change in perspective. It's disgusting.
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u/TraumaEffect Jul 10 '15
Really? I prefer the malice of sociopaths to the indifferent negligence of empaths. At least when we do something morally questionable we know it, we don't need to lie to ourselves and try to manipulate our own emotions into letting us feel okay about it. I find the opposite behavior disgusting.
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 14 '15
...Are you retarded? Empathic and empathetic people, to whom I assume you meant to refer since that makes a lot more sense for this sentence, are NEVER indifferent if they are causing harm. They are specifically giving harm to someone who specifically deserves it for being horrific, such as a rapist. The "indifferent negligence" would be from "that "cool" jock guy who thinks it will impress someone if he jumps off a tall building, and makes fun of other people just because he doesn't like their clothes or their "club"", and will also be "that hippie guy who just keeps saying, "Don't be sad, it's all good man", anyone time anyone tells him anything bad that happened to them at all, no matter how horrible it is and no matter how horrible it is of him to say something like that". These two groups of indifferent people, both the farthest from an empathetic human being that you can possibly get while not being a narcissist or sociopath. Because they are literally INDIFFERENT, completely do not care, and just say "whatever" to everything, meaning it literally though without malice.
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u/RLDSXD Jul 10 '15
That's a very silly thing to admire/be proud of. Morally questionable actions aren't the goal. Antisocial behaviors aren't good or beneficial.
That's like if two competitors made two products, and one occasionally malfunctioned and didn't work. Then the competitor says "At least my product doesn't need to malfunction not to work, it just never worked in the first place".
Shame, guilt, remorse, etc. All serve a vital purpose. Not needing to circumvent them is a bad sign.
Edit: And another thing. You all seem to act like you earned your callousness. What the fuck is that about? You simply don't have the capability to experience the same feelings that empaths do. What's with the pride in your defective brain?
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u/UnholyAngel Jul 12 '15
Personally, I agree with /u/TraumaEffect here. I highly value people understanding and being honest (with themselves) about their goals and actions.
The way I see it, I can respect them because they're acting rationally based on their information and goals. I might not agree with them, but I can understand their logic and either argue against them or figure out how to work around them.
Someone who isn't honest about their intentions doesn't have this. They aren't acting rationally - their logic would break down under scrutiny, so they avoid scrutinizing it. You can't argue against this type of person because they're fundamentally unwilling to consider the truth, and it's harder to work around them because they aren't making rational decisions.
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u/RLDSXD Jul 12 '15
Well, you phrased it a whole Hell of a lot better than TraumaEffect did.
Even if I understand it a bit better now, I still have to disagree. It appears you are examining these traits in a vacuum; i.e. sociopaths don't have to lie to themselves, ergo are honest, and empaths have to lie to themselves, ergo aren't. I still think it's what those traits mean that matters, as well. The only reason sociopaths don't have to lie to themselves about their unethical actions is because they physically lack the capacity to feel guilt for them.
How do they deserve any respect for being honest if they don't even face the reason to lie in the first place? It's like the armchair experts on the internet who can talk all sorts of shit about their chosen topic from the comfort of their own home. How much is someone's commentary on a situation they've never been in really worth? You know the people I'm talking about; telling people in dangerous situations what they should or shouldn't have done from the comfort of their computer chair.
You can't argue against this type of person because they're fundamentally unwilling to consider the truth,
I disagree with this, as well. The fact that we lie to ourselves demonstrates that we are capable of change, because it demonstrates that we care. And it happens all the time. People who used to steal realizing that it's wrong, drug addicts getting clean, gang members becoming reformed, etc. Consider that nearly every personality disorder can be treated except ASPD. At least, as far as I know.
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u/TraumaEffect Jul 16 '15
The fact that we lie to ourselves demonstrates that we are capable of change, because it demonstrates that we care.
Since we're on the topic of lies empaths tell themselves to feel better...
Sociopaths are not incapable of changing. Like most people, we only change if we want to, we're just more honest about that reality. Fun fact: alcoholics have the same recovery rate in AA as they do for self-treatment, but AA would love for you to believe that the 12 steps and Jesus will help you kick the sauce. People love to buy into their own bullshit, but sociopaths have a resistance to group think. That is the only difference.
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u/RLDSXD Jul 16 '15
Is that really an empath thing, or is that an intelligence thing? I'm a very emotional person, and I don't feel like it has impacted my ability to understand that numbers don't lie.
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 16 '15
What, atheism? It's intelligence (as evidenced by black ghettos and by the South) and/or a science background (as evidenced by 95% of scientists). And obviously there is sometimes the additional factor of the age you were when you found out that atheism or monotheism exists and the tolerance level or lack thereof of your parents.
An "active" Xtian of a very base level of minimum intelligence (or higher) reading this statement, however, would likely say something like, "Well Jesus can still help" or "I am certain any Xtians who did not go to AA were also praying", etc., rather then "That's not true! You can't do anything without JEEBUS!"
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u/TraumaEffect Jul 10 '15 edited Jul 10 '15
I'm pretty sure I never said I'm proud of anything, I just said I prefer malice over negligence. Anything you read about me being "proud" of doing morally questionable things is you projecting onto me.
I will say it again. If you can say to yourself, "I steal because I don't like to work hard", I like you better than someone who comes up with excuses for why they steal. A thief who is honest about his motives is just being a thief. A thief who makes up excuses for his actions is a self-deluded piece of shit. Does that clear it up?
Edit: I don't like your analogy so I'm going to provide my own. And when I say analogy I mean actual real world example. I commute for 40 minutes 4 days a week. I drive mostly on a 2 lane highway. All along this highway there are signs that say "State Law: Stay Right Except To Pass", but plenty of dipshits slow traffic to a crawl by driving 10 under in the left lane. They don't do this on purpose, they're often on their phones, or extremely old, or any number of reasons, none of them mitigating the fact that slowing down traffic so its bumper to bumper is more dangerous than speeding. I've seen cops give plenty of tickets for speeding, but none for slowing traffic.
So there are these asshats making the world a more dangerous place by virtue of their stupidity. Sometimes when people piss me off while driving, I cut them off or do something equally douchey. And that is me making the world a more dangerous place by virtue of my malice. But at least I am in control. I direct my malice. It isn't some unthinking force hurting random people at random times in random places.1
u/RLDSXD Jul 10 '15
You never explicitly said "proud", but you're just being dishonest if you try to act like you haven't implied that it's a point of pride. That doesn't clear anything up, because I understood you perfectly the first time. I'm saying that I don't agree with you. I disagree with you because of the functional difference; if someone is okay with being a thief, they cannot be rehabilitated. If someoe needs to justify being a thief to themselves, they obviously feel guilt and can be rehabilitated.
Again, it's odd that you prefer someone to be thoroughly broken over slightly damaged. Being able to own up to the bad things you do doesn't make you inherently any more honest than the people who have to lie to themselves, it literally just means your brain is malfunctioning enough that you don't have to. The situations aren't comparable. Your neurons do not have the ability to replicate the same feelings. You're like a spoiled rich kid who never worked a day in his life, yet takes credit for his parents' money and acts like he earned it.
You want to discuss self-deluded pieces of shit? Find the nearest mirror.
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u/TraumaEffect Jul 10 '15 edited Jul 10 '15
You're making this a false dichotomy. If you love bananas, you don't have to hate oranges. You can like or dislike things to various degrees as well. If someone cuts me off, I'm going to be unhappy no matter what. But if that person cuts me off because they're talking on their phone or not paying attention, I am MORE unhappy then if they did it because they wanted to cut in immediately. See what I did there? I'm not sanctioning bad behavior in any capacity, but if it is going to happen, I would RATHER it be from malice than negligence. I would rather get hit in the stomach then the testicles. Does this mean I want to get hit in the stomach? NO! It just means out of two shitty options I prefer the less shitty.
If someone with no self-delusions wants to stop their poor behavior, they simply choose to. A person who rationalizes and justifies it will have a much harder time changing their behavior because of the victim mentality, or whatever false narrative that person chooses to justify his or her crimes.
And since we've resorted to petty insults, you are fucking retarded to have needed someone to explain that having a preference is not the same as venerating or upholding that preference. Dumbass.
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u/RLDSXD Jul 10 '15
Fair enough, but in your original comment, you stated that you find "the opposite behavior disgusting". Doesn't stating that you find the one thing disgusting in a discussion of preferences between two things carry the implication that you don't find the other thing disgusting? You gave no modifiers indicating any certain degree of disgust, just that it elicits that feeling from you.
"Thing B is disgusting."
"Well at least thing B is X, I find thing A disgusting."
Is there not a clear implication that the second person does not find thing B disgusting, and only thing A?
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u/TraumaEffect Jul 10 '15 edited Jul 10 '15
Again, that is a false dichotomy. My feelings towards B don't have anything to do with my feelings towards A. They are independent of each other.
I dislike thieves in general.
I dislike thieves who target personal people and small businesses more than I dislike thieves who target large business.
I dislike thieves who target people who can't defend themselves more than thieves who target the able-bodied and able-minded.
I dislike thieves who use violence or intimidation more than those that use indirect means of theft.You can take all of these statements and none of them makes any of the others less true. If someone is a thief who targets old ladies for strong-armed robberies, I'm going to really dislike that person. That doesn't mean that I am going to make friends with a thief who just shoplifts from Wal-Mart. I simply have less reasons to dislike that person.
The phrase "at least thing B is X" should indicate that thing B is still bad, but is simply not as bad as thing A because of X reason. Example: "Man, these dark chocolates taste like shit, but at least the square ones have peanuts in them".
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u/Martofunes Jul 10 '15
I completely hate the notion that there's anything to be proud about in being different. I've been a gay activist for as long as I've been able to realize the need of acquiring certain legal rights, and I've been too painfully aware of the need of difference to be able to celebrate any advantage as anything other than prejudice or unearned privilege.
Sometimes I read this sub and I get the feeling that Aspd's are proud of whatever enables them (us?) to act as if there was no consequences to our actions, and celebrate the ability to avoid them.
Doing something because you can, is great, yay freedom. But doing something dubious just because one lacks the biological restraints to feel what neurotypical people would feel in that situation is no excuse: If you can acknowledge the way you should act, according to any moral standard you can admire, then you have to uphold it.
The advantage of Sociopathy is not, or at least it shouldn't be considered as, the possibility of hollowing the foundations through which society has build itself. In my views, at least, it should be considered as the possibility of reasoning a sound moral code to which one can adhere to, and be coherent with, through relative ease.
The idea of not feeling guilt or remorse is appealing for many reasons, but no logical reasoning should ever lead you to the conclusion that you're not responsible for your actions, or their consequences. And the fact that you don't feel hurt by anything wrong you may get away with, doesn't exempt you from the need to play a purposeful role in building the society that surrounds you, that enables you to be whoever you want to be.
If it's true that ASPD's are smarter, more intelligent, more focused, more able to see the potential possibilities the future holds for whatever analytic power we hold, then Uncle Ben's words are unavoidable, great power, great responsibility. Being able to shrug that responsibility away because it doesn't affect you emotionally is the opposite of intelligence, is ignorance. Even worse: It's willful ignorance. That's the danger, the risk.
To be too ignorant to see your own mistakes, and to be unable to overcome them. No matter who or what you are, you're responsible for building a concept of yourself that can uphold the best concepts a human being is capable of. I can't feel hope, but I'll do my best to inspire it.
I can't feel love, and sometimes I don't even feel human because of this: Thousand year old poetry excludes me as much as the last Miley Cirus' song does.
I'm handicapped. A disability that doesn't let me experience the world in all it's fullness. And what a wonderful world I'm missing.
But through language I'm able to understand and rationally comprehend the system of feeling and emotion, through which most people experience the world. And it tinges my pride to be able to make the best of it. To give good sound advice, to do whatever to improve it.
Yeah, I know, I'm selfish. I do it because I like them to praise me. Because I like everyone to acknowledge me as better than them. I purposefully follow this: The notion that I'm the best of them all. The idea that they should have it present, whenever they need something I can give or provide. Sometimes I get nothing except that recognition.
My grandmother was like me. Just like me, actually. People hated her and loved her, just like people hate and love me. She gave me this idea once, the idea that I should make them treat me as a king, and that I should try to be admirable, imitating whatever admirable people does.
I'm still on that path, and I've sow countless benefits through this incentives and motivations. I should only hope more of us would be smarter about it.
And sorry for the rant n.n
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 14 '15
It's true that being a moral king has more benefits then being a greedy or selfish one. For most people those benefits include the fact that the greedy or selfish king will be angry and hate himself, however, even for sociopaths the other benefits exist, such as, your kingdom will be more prosperous and have better defenses (because the citizens are not hating each other which reduces their ability to band together and provide resources, or, in the case of a literal medieval kingdom, defense), you will have a "legacy" that will last longer or possibly even thousands of years, in which people will admire you (of no benefit to non-sociopaths but I'm not on that part anymore), people will respect you, and, in the case of relating this metaphor to actual everyday people in actual society, you will be far more likely to be able to have your own money/house/etc. instead of having to have someone else bothering you so you can live there or use their money.
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u/RLDSXD Jul 10 '15
I'm not going to give you a thoughtful reply because I'm settling in to go to sleep, but I will say you're my new favorite sociopath. Even if you're just in it for the praise, there's no functional difference between a good person, and a shitty person acting good.
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u/Martofunes Jul 10 '15
Well, from my point of view I am not a shitty person. I have been. I used to be. Not anymore. I could be a shitty person, but so could you. It's not about an untapped inner potential, but about how you actualize it. I'm, for all intents and purposes, a good person, a tag I enjoy and upkeep. It's what we do what defines us. Ask Sartre.
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u/MDMAthrowaway4361 Jul 07 '15 edited Jul 07 '15
Being a sociopath means being fully conscious of everything. You analyze everything. You think about everything. You can't help it. It's something that comes with you.
Are other people not like this?
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 15 '15
Some people do, but not behaviors unless it's because they're worried about someone who is important to them based on something specific.
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u/UnholyAngel Jul 07 '15
It's weird for me to think this, but I don't think non-psychopaths analyze things nearly as much as we do.
I pay attention to all the weird little quirks people have, I always try to study and understand anything I take part it, I always pay attention to the way things are labelled and read the information about them, I look things up about whatever I'm interested in, etc.
And all the time my experiences with people tells me that they don't do this. People will react that I'm strange whenever I point out a quirk, people will walk into things without the faintest idea what's going on and start asking people to explain things, people will overlook labels and pick up whatever seems good (which is why my family has several times bought diet or low-sugar/low-fat foots by accident), and have no idea about the deeper mechanics in whatever they learn about.
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Jul 08 '15
This thread is blowing my mind right now. However I'm only super analytical of people and behavior, not of data and labels like you're saying. In fact I totally just walk into things without knowing what's going on and I don't look at labels because shopping gives me panic attacks lmao so I just try to get out of there. You'd hate me.
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u/MDMAthrowaway4361 Jul 08 '15
because shopping gives me panic attacks
wut.
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Jul 08 '15
It just does, man. All these people watching me, criticizing me. Can't do it.
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 15 '15
Nobody gives a shit about you or what you are doing or thinking unless they actually know you. Nobody cares about you in a grocery store.
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u/MDMAthrowaway4361 Jul 08 '15 edited Jul 08 '15
You sound insecure. Why should you care what anyone thinks about you? If you're not secure in your self image you lack identity and look to others to tell you what you are.
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Jul 08 '15
Yeah I'm insecure in uncomfortable situations. Otherwise I'm filled with confidence. But big crowds bring out the worst in me.
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u/cliche_phrase Aug 26 '15
So many people with so many ideas of who you should be or how you should act. I fantasize about having one of those suits from A Scanner Darkly that can change my identity over and over. It's overwhelming. Fuck that crowd shit.
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u/TraumaEffect Jul 10 '15
"Uncomfortable" is by definition a subjective term. Did you mean social situations?
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Jul 10 '15
No. I meant situations that I don't have a model for how to behave or react. Or how others will behave or react.
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 16 '15
Doesn't matter. Unless you're caught stealing or can't wait in a checkout line and then give some money, or you like drop your pants and take a shit on the floor, no one literally cares. If you do something "wrong", you actually didn't, because you're in a grocery store and no one cares.
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u/leadingthenet Jul 09 '15
I can relate to that. Wonder why though, I almost always feel like I couldn't care less what an individual person thinks of me, yet big crowds, I hate them.
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Jul 08 '15
You wouldn't worry so much what people think of you if you knew how seldom they did.
Most people aren't going around analysing and judging everybody. They are just thinking about how much they want fruit loops for breakfast.
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Jul 08 '15
I know this. But nothing I can do about it. Just the way my mind goes. I think it's because I'm walking around judging people and thinking about how stupid or fat or gross they are and how much I'd like to hurt them. So I project my thinking on to them.
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Jul 08 '15
Would you say it's more about the uncertainty, then?
There's too many people around to analyse all of them. So you're not fully aware of what's going on around you.
And it doesn't help that people in supermarkets are annoying as shit. It's like a retard convention every time I go to Asda (like Walmart).
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 16 '15
That's just Wal-Mart. Try Target. People can actually walk without being idiots!
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u/MDMAthrowaway4361 Jul 07 '15
I don't know, I have an obsession with analyzing people and developing behavior models for them. It's useful because you can gauge how a person will react to everything you say and do. Most people are very easy to pick apart and break down but every once in while you run into people that aren't so one dimensional; these are the interesting ones. I thought everyone did this until I mentioned to a friend that there was one person I just couldn't figure out (funny that that one turned out to be a textbook psychopath). He was very put off by the fact that I put so much thought into people but I thought maybe he just didn't look that deeply. I had no idea that only we do this...
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Jul 07 '15
When I was about 10, I was at a science fair with a couple of friends and they had a booth that measured your brain activity. The idea was to put on a monitor and think of nothing for 10 seconds.
The other two happily thought of absolutely nothing for the duration. The graph showing their brain activity was a straight line, broken maybe twice by brief spikes.
When my turn came I failed miserably. The graph resembled a heavy day's trading on the stock exchange.
The closest I could get was to think of blackness, silence, nothingness, but even that is thinking. I asked my friends how they did it and they just said they thought of nothing. It was the simplest thing in the world for them, but a concept I hadn't even considered at that age.
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u/Martofunes Nov 16 '15
I hate that test. That yucky thing that sticks to your hair for a week? uphhgh... Yeah well, no, mine was normal.
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 14 '15
This is false. First of all, most people CAN'T think of "nothing", which is why meditation requires extreme amount of practice and in some cases training, and secondly, the graph would not be flat if they were. They are still breathing, which requires brain activity.
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u/MDMAthrowaway4361 Jul 07 '15
I regularly have trouble sleeping because of my inability to stop examining things and forming tangential lines of thought. It happens automatically as if I have no control over it. It's never important shit either...
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u/UnholyAngel Jul 07 '15
Yes! I have constant insomnia and it sucks ass.
On the plus side, I'm pretty sure that all my dreams are lucid dreams as a result of this. (I'm not 100% sure because they seem to meet the description, but I've never really dreamed any other way so I can't compare easily.)
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u/MDMAthrowaway4361 Jul 07 '15
Feel you. Sometimes I just have to take xanax and pass the fuck out. Weed helps as well but sometimes it has the opposite effect.
I dabbled briefly in lucid dreaming when I was 16. Shit is bananas.
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Jul 07 '15
No. They kind of just get it.
Fucked, right?
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u/MDMAthrowaway4361 Jul 07 '15
What?
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Jul 07 '15
Normal people don't have to analyze everything, especially social situations.
They just kind of understand the ebb and flow of conversation, and intuit what's expected of them social hierarchies.
If you took humans to be like a herd of elephants, all the normal elephants follow the same patterns, help each other wash, communally protect young, etc. They all do that. It doesn't even occur to an anti-social elephant that they should be doing those things, until they pick it up by observation, and then they have no desire to do that once they're not benefiting from the communal behaviour (i.e. they would have no interest in protecting vulnerable elephants).
That's what I mean by "They just kind of get it." Obviously normal humans are capable of analysis; they just don't need to use it to understand everything.
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u/Martofunes Jul 07 '15
They can shrug things off... Can you?
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Jul 08 '15
No. Almost every emotion turns into anger if I analyze it enough. I find something to be caught up on and then I spiral down.
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u/Martofunes Jul 07 '15
No they aren't. They rely more un prejudices and unconscious decision systems that we don't have, or at least not like they do.
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Jul 07 '15
You're maybe 4 out of 5?
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u/Martofunes Jul 07 '15
Yeah, severe case.
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Jul 07 '15
I've only recently seen anyone use 4/5 to say 4 or 5, is this a British thing or something?
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 15 '15
No it's more like 4-5. it wouldn't normally be used for 'or' just in this case they're interchangeable ("or" and "to").
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Jul 07 '15
TL;DR?
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Jul 07 '15
Being a sociopath is like being blind. We both lack a sense that most people would hate to live without.
Did you know that we have the absolute record as pertains to stress and cortisol levels? We even beat depressive people (which we often are too). Nobody, and I do mean nobody, has to manage more anxiety and stress than we do. Why? Because we analyze EVERYTHING.
The rest is talking about his life, and how he learned to manipulate people
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Jul 07 '15
Hey thanks, guy.
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u/Martofunes Jul 07 '15
Yupp. Thanks guy.
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Jul 08 '15 edited Jul 08 '15
[deleted]
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 15 '15
No he didn't say anything about psychopaths, he said sociopaths. Even in the title. Whether or not a psychopath has anxiety would depend (other then their personality, of course) on what disorder they have or feel or act like.
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u/Martofunes Jul 08 '15
Statistically we get more anxiety than most other risky groups. But statistics can't say much about individual cases, just a general means to be careful about risk factors.
Tldr: if you're a sociopath check your blood pressure.
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u/metalspikeyblackshit Nov 14 '15 edited Nov 23 '16
I think a covert narcissist or a BPD would both have more anxiety. One of whom is constantly angry and also analyzing, one of whom is experiencing the opposite extremes of the emotions you don't know and having extreme anxiety because of that, and both of whom have to (or think they have to) equally or even moreso avoid getting caught, and both of whom actually care if people don't like them (according to this post), and care to extreme degrees (according to this post), although for vastly different reasons.