knowledge_of_self
The Living Force
I was searching the net for fight or flight syndrome last night when I came across this article on this site. I think this article has some interesting points but quite a few obvious flaws.. I'll point a few out at the end.
_http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_can_you_tell_if_someone_is_a_psychopath
I found this bit interesting
Having read Martha Stout’s book recently I can say that I really don’t think she does this. In fact, she clearly states that many people CAN be cured of sociopathy, with long term and regular therapy and the RECOGNITION that they have this disease and that they ARE different than regular people. It is sheer will that makes a large difference in these peoples lives. As it is their will and strength that causes them to seek therapy to begin with and to continue with therapy once light has been shone on their issue, many of which originate from a neglected child hood and trauma.
Another interesting thing was this contradictory statement
In Myth of Sanity, many of the accounts Martha wrote about were from people with deep issues of trauma therefore she and most people don’t claim that “sociopath is breezing happily through life having a blast whie a trail of wounded victims struggle to put their shattered lives back together." It is most of the time the opposite. These people begin to be the people they are BECAUSE of trauma and the anguish they have felt throughout life.
All in all, I found it interesting that the writer was trying to say “normal people” are wrong to “label sociopaths as nonhuman.” Because that’s not how I see it.
_http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_can_you_tell_if_someone_is_a_psychopath
wiki said:How can you tell if someone is a psychopath?
Answer: Psychopaths are simply people who do not feel empathy or react to stimuli the way normal people would. They will feel no consequences to their actions whatsoever and morality is an abstract concept to which they can never feel obligated. They will not react to death, incest, violence, sadism, or any shocking behavior the way a normal person would, and are immune to feeling regret or compunction. A psychopath will never feel the need to apologize or seek forgiveness.
ALSO:
This is how life is for a psychopath (sociopath)...
The term "psychopath" is used by people who believe the mental illness these people have is caused by neurological, social, and environmental conditions. People who emphasize the social influences use the term "sociopath". And the Fourth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV) calls the condition "Antisocial Personality Disorder". The equivalent overseas is Dissocial Personality Disorder.
They are people whose peculiar and dysfunctional brain wave patterns and structure of the cerebral cortex cause them to fail to be socialized while growing up.
Part of this is because, rather than having the usual specialized sections of the brain that handle various tasks in processing information, these people have such information scattered chaotically all over the higher brain throughout BOTH HEMISPHERES, which makes many of the normal processes impossible. Although they can be intelligent, they tend to find school extremely difficult and don't tend to be organized enough to do well at jobs. The mocking term "scatterbrained" seems to describe them, in way that's far more tragic than funny.
Their condition causes parts of the brain function to develop faster than in most people, in an attempt to compensate for the many areas that never develop at all. The undeveloped areas remain for life as they were in infancy.
Since they are usually hostile, sometimes violent, and often very abrasive, in addition to deceitful and manipulative, these people may seem evil, but under all that, they are simply miserable. The rage may not develop immediately, but usually by the age of four or so, the child is already in such a continual state of frustration that rageful acts of sometimes shocking violence -- including attempted murder -- are possible and should be anticipated.
It was up until very recently believed that children cannot be diagnosed as psychopaths; the newest research, recently published, says that it starts in the womb. The condition is inborn and, so far, incurable. But neuroscience will almost certainly be able to develop some way of compensating for and even partially correcting this terrible condition with the use of computer chips and other artificial implants in the brain, and as well a certain type of specialized inpatient therapy geared to awakening as much as is possible in the person as soon as the condition is diagnosed.
One of the problems with anything wrong with one's central nervous system is that if it's severe and pervasive enough, it can interfere with the autonomic and peripheral nervous systems as well. In psychopaths, such maladies as what was once called neurasthenia (a state of unnatural sedation) or epilepsy (seizure disorders) are far more frequent than in the general population. Many people who are not psychopaths have some of the more than 100 forms of peripheral neuropathy, but some of these may be more common in psychopaths.
The autonomic nervous system, which prepares the body for emergencies (fight-or-flight) is erratic and inefficient in a psychopath, which can, in some situations, lead to fatal accidents; human beings have adrenaline for a reason, and the sympathetic nervous system of a true psychopath is sluggish and cannot sustain arousal for long. (In Borderline Personality Disorder, the problem is the opposite: the sympathetic nervous system responds too easily, too strongly, and way too often!)
Aside from this is the fact that a true psychopath has an extremely peculiar brainwave pattern: while awake, their brain waves most resemble a hybrid of normal waking brain waves and alpha-level sleep waves. And they often tend to sleep deeply.
Emotionally, they are cold, detached, distant, and yet deeply resentful of normal people. They know they're missing something, and often spend most of their typically short, tragic lives avenging themselves on others for what they cannot ever enjoy. So they are not truly emotionless, but they do not love, do not know true joy, and are hostile and destructive.
This ISN'T the work of the Devil; it's Nature gone horribly awry. ANYTHING THAT CAN DAMAGE THE DEVELOPING NERVOUS-SYSTEM IN A FETUS OR VERY YOUNG CHILD CAN CAUSE OR SEVERELY EXACERBATE THIS CONDITION.
THAT INCLUDES STREET DRUGS, ALCOHOL, and even SMOKING!!!
It also includes some medications; check with your obstetrician before taking anything at all during your pregnancy!
During delivery, using a forceps to grasp the baby's head should be avoided if at all possible. Any touching of the area over the FONTANEL (soft spot on top of the baby's head) must be done with caution until the fontanel has closed.
Any head injury that causes dizziness -- even without loss of consciousness -- should be treated as a medical emergency.
And another thing: NEVER SHAKE YOUR BABY!!! NO MATTER WHAT!
What is it like to be a psychopath? And what can be done to help them TODAY?
Think about it: you know something isn't right, but you can't tell other people, because you have not the slightest idea how to phrase what's wrong. Plus, for some odd reason, everyone keeps getting rubbed the wrong way by you. You try to get ahead in life, but everybody keeps telling you about these strange rules you're supposed to obey, that they all seem to know by heart, but you don't. So you study them and try to memorize them and use them by rote, but keep messing up because you have no mechanism to tell you (from within) that you're stumbling over the line again, and inevitably, you do. Then everyone gets mad at you and among other things tells you that you know perfectly well what the rules are, so why don't you obey them? You start to secretly suspect they're adding new ones or changing the old rules around just to get you to screw up, but actually that isn't true -- however, you have no real way of knowing that, either.
As if all this isn't enough, you feel at the very least uncomfortable, and at the worst like a human bomb, most of the time you're awake, which at times can be several days in a row. You notice that the very things that make other people happy have a very opposite effect on you: your head fills with jarring "static," like a radio playing with the tuner caught between two or more stations. Reacting instinctively to this, you try to push people away because their closeness causes the static to get worse, but then you discover a new problem: you seem to need them anyway.
You seem to need something from other people, but you don't know why. That hug each other and smile, not a phony smile but a real one, and their eyes light up. They get close and they talk to each other without having to closely study the other's eyes to try to figure out what to do in response. This seems to be a delicious pleasure to them, much better than anything you've ever experienced. But if you try it, and if you are actually lucky enough to persuade one of them to attempt such a relationship and interaction with you, it immediately starts to turn sour on you. Their touch does not warm you; you feel colder and deader than ever. You don't know how to give back, so you end up grasping for words you've heard used by other people and trying to fake your way through it so they won't figure out how you are; you've experienced enough to know by this time that when others figure out your difference, they hate you for it; in fact, you've been told you're "not a real person" and that you "have no soul" (you're not too sure what a soul is, anyway) and that people like you "ought to be lined up and shot"!
After trying several times in this new relationship to get the pleasure other people are always basking in, and failing, you start to get angry at all of this -- and the anger builds into a terrible, towering rage that begins to make you feel like a human bomb. "I will actually, physically explode if I don't..." you're thinking, and yet under the rage there is a weird, disconsolate feeling that even your burgeoning hatred is as hollow and empty and starved as you are. You consider taking your life, and certainly you think about taking lives of some of these lucky, smugly superior others. You settle for embezzling money, or something of the sort; you're clever and manipulative and you don't get caught. Triumph!
Or not. The things you buy please you for five minutes; a day, tops. Then...flat, meaningless, like everything else in your life.
Of course, you don't HAVE a life -- and you never will. That's starting to become increasingly clear.
But WHY???? You see "The Others," as you're starting to think of them, studying diligently to help and even to cure other kinds of weird things wrong with people's minds, most of which seem to have to do with the brain. But no one seems to know what's going on in you. It occurs to you that to get some kind of attention from them, you might pretend you have one of those other problems they study, and then once they're paying attention to you, maybe somehow it'll lead somewhere. What have you got to lose?
You're about to find out you can still lose more.
You go into a clinical situation presenting with carefully-memorized symptoms of the mental illness you have decided would get you the attention you want. But faking whatever it is turns out very quickly to be a lot more complex than you'd thought. In fact, it turns out to be impossible. And, branded a malingerer, you are rejected yet again, told that all that's really wrong with you is that you don't want to try to better yourself.
That, and you're "evil," and it's not paranoia on your part to realize that EVERYONE HATES YOU. Once they figure you out. Yes: to know you is to hate you.
And you will go to your grave (as gloats Martha Stout of "The Sociopath Next Door" book fame) never knowing the wonders of real human interaction, meaning, and warmth.
It might just make you decide to go off the rails and kill everyone you can before turning the weapon on yourself.
Except for one thing: YOUR CONDITION MAY SOON BE TREATABLE!
Just the very fact that some scientists know that much about the brain of a sociopath means that solving the problem is no longer an impossible and obscure wish -- it's moving within the realm of concrete possibility.
As soon as large numbers of sociopaths begin to be treated in a way that actually helps them, that corrects as much as possible the chaos of misdirected signals in their confused and disorganized brains, and then a form of therapy that in addition to that, by necessity, teaches them to cope with the resulting maelstrom of emotion and impression that was formerly impossible, so that they can put it in order and start to develop the heretofore dormant and silent segments of their brains and better use those formerly mixed-up areas where no recognizable order ruled, THEN THE OTHERS MAY BEGIN TO NOTICE WHAT IS GOING ON...and they will know at least this much: instead of "the kiss of death," a diagnosis of ASPD (the DSM-IV way of saying sociopathy or psychopathy) will lead someplace; that there will be things done that actually make a difference.
Crippled as they are neurologically, sociopaths are yet shrewd, and they're always looking out for themselves in a way similar to that of a loner predator. Seeing others like them actually benefitting from treatment will have to start persuading them that there's something to gain in going for help after all. Not being rejected or met with "We can't help you; you're evil incarnate," or the equivalent thinly disguised in euphemistic psychology jargon; NOT being met with a situation where they'd have to substitute symptoms of an "acceptable" illness in place of those they bear in secret -- that would almost certainly, if gradually, have an effect: if a sociopath can clearly see a benefit coming from admitting his or her real situation, there's nothing to stop him or her from doing just that.
It's already started to happen, if in a tiny, barely perceptible trickle.
Right now, all science has at the ready for them is to use various types of preexisting medication given in attempts to counteract the chaotic way the brain of a sociopath functions. That and types of talk therapy carefully altered to avoid the pitfalls that have in the past caused regular therapies to make sociopaths worse instead of better. But the more that scientists such as Robert Hare and his colleagues delve into and experiment with the new types of brain scans and learning what makes sociopaths tick like human bombs, the more likely that it becomes with each passing year that a means will soon be isolated to defuse those bombs.
The primary source of a sociopath's infamous rage is frustration, of a sort so alien and so extreme that almost no one else can understand what it means. Once they start getting taken seriously, that frustration, and the wild rage it provokes, will lessen, and since it is a primary source of the constant distrust that makes regular therapy fail sociopaths, the defusing of that rage and its maddening causes will be a huge step in the right direction.
In her book, Martha Stout expresses the hope that people in general will stop excluding groups of other people as less than human -- ethnic, racial, the disabled, and even the mentally ill -- except for one group among the latter. It's apparently perfectly okay to dismiss one group alone of people as less than human, and she does: the sociopaths. And many other people do, too.
And sociopaths know that. And people whose messed-up brain circuitry makes it almost impossible for them to trust others certainly aren't ever going to try again after getting hit with THAT.
Sociopaths don't always behave as though they're invulnerable. Some have said, "You don't know this, but it hurts to be me." People sneeringly say to this, "Another of your miserable lies!" But it is in fact a miserable truth.
Being angry at them is understandable, but why do people insist on justifying their anger by dehumanizing the object of their rage? Sociopaths may seem like aliens, but they aren't. Perhaps what really galls the others is that when they look at sociopaths, in certain tiny ways they see aspects of themselves, for everyone has some antisocial thoughts.
Also, sociopaths hurt a lot of people. What seems to hurt most is the idea that the sociopath is breezing happily through life having a blast whie a trail of wounded victims struggle to put their shattered lives back together.
No sociopath breezes through life. They just know how to make it look like they do. It's part of the sick game they play because they can't do much of anything else, as they are.
If sociopathy is treated instead of ignored and shunned, this won't have to happen.
Those who would have been hurt by sociopaths might not be able to fully appreciate that they escaped harm because neuroscience finally found a way to treat these people who would otherwise have hurt them, but the thing that makes the most difference is that, in the final analysis, they wouldn't have to know.
Just as science understands that epilepsy is not demonic possession, that people with dissociative conditions are not harboring ghosts or devils in their bodies, and that depression is not a "deadly sin," it would and will be able to prove that sociopathy happens for a reason and that it can be dealt with. Sociopaths do very bad things. But branding them all "pure evil" isn't going to help anyone. It's just more hate.
I have commented elsewhere that the human brain is the greatest new frontier in many ways. (Although I certainly have no lack of interest in space.) Sociopaths, along with other "hopeless cases" like people with Alzheimer's disease, Down's syndrome, Asperger's, ADD, ADHD, autism, and the schizophrenias, along with more common disorders such as depression and addiction, and so on, are a mystery...
But scientists have a way of hammering away at mysteries until they unravel them, and, be assured, they are well on their way to the core of this one.
The main reason sociopaths don't usually seek help from their fellow human beings is that they can't trust, rather than that they like being as they are. Plus, they can often sense exactly what sort of a response any call for help on their part is most likely to elicit from professionals and lay folk alike. Sociopaths are not breezing along in paradise. It isn't all a game. It's a truly miserable existence. And it can be made better. It may not be "curable" yet, but it most certainly isn't as hopeless as so many people say. There is therefore nothing to be gained and much to be lost when therapists and lay folk try to ostracize sociopaths from the human race entirely! Sensationalism and superstition will only prevent progress.
This was written on another question on the same essential topic as this one, by a self-confessed sociopath who was officially diagnosed (other than me!) --
* Sociopaths, though born that way, are people too. To avoid an entire group of people is absurd. That's like saying, "Since these people have dark skin, everyone should completely avert themselves from them." I am a moderate sociopath, and though part of me doesn't want to change, another does. Many times it is really entertaining to see how stupid people can be, especially when they're so gullible as to believe every word that mellifluously flows from my lips. Yes, I am parasitic, but even so, there are some people I would like to stop hurting. I can't find any websites that can provide a way to help my sociopathy. Maybe people like you should stop your self-victimisation and start trying to actually help people like me! I knew I was a sociopath before the age of ten but have only recently had it officially diagnosed. I am eighteen years old now, and I have been lying and destroying others' sanity for a long time. So, please post some helpful tidbits that might help sociopaths resist the sweet urges we get when we encounter weak human beings. When you cut us, do we not bleed? When you kill us, do we not die? Do you honestly think that you're being lied to and manipulated when we sincerely ask for help. Listen to yourselves! This is the internet; ergo, you're safe from our fortified mental grasp.
The essay that follows was written in another answer by another self-admitted sociopath, who actually might not be a sociopath. Still another person added the brief comment to that effect after her tragic essay.
* umm... i kindof am one... just so y'all know, it's not so much fun being one either. i read that sentance up there, "Incapable of real human attachment to another." i don't even know what that is, i see it, i approximate it... it's like being outside a door looking through a dirty window and watching re-runs of people i've seen in love or with children or with friends, and scratching, sometimes banging at the glass to get in and... nothing. i'm fond of people in every sense of the word, their little quirks and habits, the way they see life, except if they went away it wouldn't bother me much other than finding someone else to be fond of. i don't have friends, i only date military men because they're ok with only having a girlfriend for a couple months and i tell them in advance i won't wait for them... i don't know what else to do to limit the damage i inflict on others just as a result of them knowing me, short of moving to the mountains... but i still move between 2-5 times a year :( it's kindof hard walking around knowing i'll never have what i see making other people so happy and running when i can tell someone is getting close just because i don't want to hurt them more later down the road... i'd like it alot to settle down, i WANT to be able to feel more with people, but it's hard to miss what you never had. i want what i THINK it would feel like... it'd be easy to give in and let someone stay because i'm so lonely... but hey, i've written enough, just know i try to be a responsible little sociopath, i won't ever get married or have kids, i practice safe sex, i won't stay in one city for long... everything you all take for granted i will never let myself have just because i WANT to take it for granted. being like this won't go away so hopefully i can limit the amount of hate thrown my way by limiting my interaction with people, i don't know what else to do. and you all might not belive this, but i am sorry, hopefully i can speak for the other people who have damaged your lives.
Comment: The above testimony is clearly not indicative of a sociopath because she seems to make efforts to keep from harming others, even if it doesn't benefit herself.
Answer by me:
"help sociopaths resist the sweet urges we get when we encounter weak human beings." I know it won't help to advice you to just turn around and walk away, for it's neigh impossible. Approach it this way, whenever the 'appetite', for lack of a better word, occurs think of it as it is. They are weaker than I am, therefore if I were to try and break them down it would make me pathetic. For I already knew I would succeed in doing so. There's no challenge in this. It isn't worth doing them.
The most important thing is to come to terms with who you are, don't aspire to be like them. I often feel like I'm living a lie. I've tried numerous times in my school to be like them. I've tried to change myself. But then I realized ... No matter what, it would be a lie to try and live like they do. I'm sick of trying to be accepted and definitely will not pursue their interests. I am me.
I will continue to strive ahead, relentlessly. Those who try to understand me I view as those I should leave alone. I don't want to hurt them.
my comment to above :well....................if psychopaths have no conscience or ability to empathise with others ,how would they be able to just let go of an opportunity for excitement ,their only way to feel anything??? i can understand that it must be frustrating not to be able to experience emotions others display but i highly doubt that there is any way to make psychopaths resist the sweet urges they get when they encounter weak humans ... because giving in to these urges and maybe 'unwillinlgy' hurting others is the only way there boredom stricken lifes get kind of exciting, am i wrong ? and i would probably do the same ,whats the point of living a life without any excitment and if the only way to feel anything is a way that supposedly hurts these OTHERS so be it .. because i cant relate to the word empathy and empathy would be the only reason that could keep me from doing'my thing'its a vicious circle
I found this bit interesting
In her book, Martha Stout expresses the hope that people in general will stop excluding groups of other people as less than human -- ethnic, racial, the disabled, and even the mentally ill -- except for one group among the latter. It's apparently perfectly okay to dismiss one group alone of people as less than human, and she does: the sociopaths. And many other people do, too.
Having read Martha Stout’s book recently I can say that I really don’t think she does this. In fact, she clearly states that many people CAN be cured of sociopathy, with long term and regular therapy and the RECOGNITION that they have this disease and that they ARE different than regular people. It is sheer will that makes a large difference in these peoples lives. As it is their will and strength that causes them to seek therapy to begin with and to continue with therapy once light has been shone on their issue, many of which originate from a neglected child hood and trauma.
Another interesting thing was this contradictory statement
Also, sociopaths hurt a lot of people. What seems to hurt most is the idea that the sociopath is breezing happily through life having a blast whie a trail of wounded victims struggle to put their shattered lives back together.
In Myth of Sanity, many of the accounts Martha wrote about were from people with deep issues of trauma therefore she and most people don’t claim that “sociopath is breezing happily through life having a blast whie a trail of wounded victims struggle to put their shattered lives back together." It is most of the time the opposite. These people begin to be the people they are BECAUSE of trauma and the anguish they have felt throughout life.
All in all, I found it interesting that the writer was trying to say “normal people” are wrong to “label sociopaths as nonhuman.” Because that’s not how I see it.
I'm looking forward to reading Sociopath Next Door in the near future.
