A couple things about this. First, my first impression (and the one I would bet on) of that place is that it was created for the purpose of worshipping god(s) or perhaps a shaman. It is an alter of sorts. Putting deities on pedestals and/or climbing mountains to see them is a repetitive theme in religions. Also, There is no protection from spears and arrows up there…no fortress-type walls where arrows can be shot AND guarded against. Just my theory.
As far as judgment, I am a little surprised that you gave such a strong “Yes” to the question. This is mostly because my father’s brain cyst made him behave like a psychopath in many ways, but he was unwaveringly nonjudgmental. However, after reading this, I’m thinking that the idea and language around being judgmental may be the thing to focus on here. For example, my father never said a bad word about anyone just because they would be absolutely intolerable to most people. If I were to say, “Isn’t Nina a total bitch and a non-stop annoying person,” he would respond with a very fact-based answer like, “Oh, Nina is a class-A pest.” But he would deliver it in a jovial manner akin to a kid getting an answer right on a test, no negative emotions poked through his responses (because he didn’t have negative emotions). I wonder if you truly are judgmental in the way the questioner might mean. I think you are saying that you EVALUATE the person, but don’t get into an emotional snit about it. To me, that isn’t what people generally mean when they say judgmental. I think, as you said, that they attach emotion to the word judgmental and regard it as one thing…being judgmental. I think you are careful to evaluate people and make rational decisions about what to do with them as far it concerns your life. I think (and I could definitely be wrong) that the way you would express yourself when asked about a person would never be considered judgmental by neurotypicals because it is missing the emotional “bitchy” part that neurotypicals bake into the word.
Judgment means that you arrive at a conclusion without necessarily having all the relevant information. I can easily shift my judgment and I have no emotional ties to it, but in my mind everyone is judgmental. Whether or not their emotions are tied to that judgment is another story. I don't draw have emotions tied to those conclusions, but I certainly arrive at them, justifiably or not.
I have a different definition of judgement from Dictionary.com: make a decision, or form an opinion objectively, authoritatively, and wisely, especially in matters affecting action; good sense; discretion.
I was thinking the same - the word 'judgemental' in the NT world implies that you're making a value judgement of the other person as 'good' or 'bad', or at least a value judgement of a specific behaviour of theirs as 'good' or 'bad'. But that doesn't seem like something a psychopath would do, because why would they care if someone was good or bad?
Athena it seems like you're using the word 'judgemental' in a much narrower sense, to just mean reaching a conclusion about someone without necessarily having the evidence to back it up.
Do your judgements ever include value-based conclusions like 'good' or 'bad' or would you only reach factual conclusions about someone normally, like trustworthy or not trustworthy?
The second, factual conclusions. Value based things are reserved for things that I have already assessed a cognitive opinion of. Predation on a child is a good example. That act already has a negative value judgment and a person that will commit such an act will have that value judgment extended to them
my brother and SIL are in the middle of a nasty divorce. i have seemed to be the only one able to field speculative comments about the ins and outs, ala, "she showed up looking like that to make me feel inferior," "she knew that would piss me off, that's why she said it," "he was absolutely aware that that outfit was the one he wore on our first date," etc.
i think since starting to read here, i've been able to shift from straight up confusion at comments like those to "ohh, they might be reading through a lens of XYZ emotion" or, "they're too zoomed in to see outside of their own speculation," kind of like this YouTube guy.
as i tend not to have any emotion for weeks to months (often longer) about a given situation, realizing this through reading here has actually made my corner of the world and the people in it make quite a bit more sense. ty.
A thought I had while reading it: the more I read about the world and people through your lense, the less I think I’m neurotypical. It’s something I’ve wondered for other reasons too, but I have this feeling I agree with and (to some extent) relate to your thoughts and other inner workings more than, for example, my siblings would. Mostly because I’m very mild and stable in my emotions most of the time, staying in a range of pure neutral to neutrally satisfied 95% of my time (from the remaining 3%, I’m pissed off, and for the 2% I’m excited). While I do have empathy, most of it is cognitive for me with no real emotions attached. Lots of the emotions I portray are just that; portrayals. Although I do also wonder if other people are also just faking their emotions to the same extent as I am, and it’s simply what people do. Or maybe I’m surrounded by one too many ADHD-ers to have a reasonable and realistic picture of how emotions should be felt? As they tend to be quick and big for them. But I also identify as aroace for having no interest in intimacy and romance, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s got something to do with my neutral emotional landscape. Or maybe I’m just a neurotypical from the calmer, more ”stable” side of the range (stable as in not turbulent, not stable as in others are unstable for having emotions). No clue.
A couple of questions about brain chemistry, one you can actually experiment with and the other one that you shouldn't
1: do you respond to oxytocin? You can actually purchase oxytocin nasal spray for use with an intimate partner. I tried this with a girlfriend once and it hit her hard but just made me sneeze
2: opioids... I had painful knee surgery and during recovery I acquired about twice as much much hydrocodone as prescribed as well as some OxyContin which is a pretty psychopath thing to do. I suffered no addiction at all, when the pain diminished I stopped taking it without another thought. No addiction at all.
The nasal oxytocin had a strong response to her? That really fascinates me. I would imagine that could make someone become clingy when they weren't previously. Hopefully the effect is short-lasting.
Fascinating. I'm surprised oxytocin is available over the counter. What is the purpose of taking it? Enhance bonding or desire? Would you mind sharing your gf's experience?
Oh wow. I wonder if it would affect me. 50 years ago, I had BPD. It sent me on a spiritual path.
4 years ago, everything shifted. Now, I lost my inner narration & my mind became very still. Can't experience infatuation, offense...I don't react emotionally anymore. I live in equanimity & joy.
Longtime meditators' show structural changes in the brain & they process neurochemicals differently
So I wonder if oxytocin would affect me. I don't know if I'm NT anymore!
I had seen a study using autistic people trying oxytocin and it seemed to help them with social cues. At the time I was in a gamers Discord channel and mentioned it but the denizens were unwilling or unable to understand the difference between oxytocin and OxyContin and apparently didn’t want to try
I have to go down this rabbit hole... I totally agree with you about the "Citadel", no water equals quick death out there.
Mesa Verde, if you have not been, is a really beautiful National Park with very interesting constructions. Maybe not all are as defensible as the Citadel, but there are reliable water sources - springs - back under those cliffs, that scientists think usually kept going even in droughts. (A very long period of drought may be why these towns were abandoned though.)
There are lots of images of these cliff dwellings...
Why do I commit the same mistake? It's part of the emotional world... I feel good and you care nothing else... everything you know goes out of the window because you just want to keep feeling good and it all to continue. Dealing with potential negative proposals is the party pupper that shuts it all down.
If someone fell for the things I have fallen for after acquiring certain knowledge I'd really question their mental capabilities... I do end up questioning mine lol. I fell for traps knowing they were traps because I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes it hurts. You don't want that reality lol... but facts no care about feelings boyos
I think anyone capable of having an opinion is capable of judgement. I also think it’s impossible to be completely non-judgemental.
As someone who’s taken college level science courses, I can attest 100% certainty is pretty much impossible. You can be as rigorous as possible and there will always be room for uncertainty. Testing more can increase the likelihood of a hypothesis being confirmed, but at some point the grant money’s going to run out and the research paper will have to be produced.
In everyday life, people general don’t like uncertainty, much less the idea that complete certainty is straight up impossible. Could you potentially gather more information before making a judgement of others? Sure you can. Is it worth the time and energy? That’s for you to decide.
I am by no means coming from a holier than thou place. I can be VERY judgemental, especially during days where I’m irritated or when I engage with political topics that I care about. The way I see it, I don’t let my judgements control my behaviour. It’s literally just me engaging with my own thoughts.
That’s the way I see your judgements as described in your post. It’s literally just you engaging with your own thoughts, unless it turns out you’ve been harming people because of your judgement of them, then I’ll see it differently.
I would have to consider people far more than I am capable in order to summon a notion of desire to do harm, so that isn't an issue. Unless my lack of concern causes harm... then there's that.
Part of what makes judgement from others so hurtful knowing it comes from a place of emotion (disgust comes to mind). This is due to tribalism, and knowing you are incapable of any of that takes the emotional punch out of whatever judgements I read you write about. My reaction may be very different if I encountered a psychopath in the wild, however, not knowing they were a psychopath and assuming they were making emotional judgements.
When it comes to NT's being screwed over multiple times by the same person, and not seeming to learn the obvious lesson not to trust that person again, I think it's (usually) not that the NT doesn't see the betrayal of trust, or doesn't draw the logical conclusion from it that the person isn't trustworthy. I think in most cases they probably see the same things you would see in that situation Athena, and draw the same conclusions - they might not admit it to others, or maybe even to themselves, but somewhere in the back of their mind, they know. I think it's more the case that other positive aspects of the relationship are overriding the trust/betrayal issues and stopping the person from taking the obvious action of cutting that person out of their life.
A relationship with an untrustworthy person can often still have many positive aspects - they might be someone really fun to be around, a good listener, really interesting to talk to, or someone that you share some fairly obscure interest or pastime with that you don't share with anyone else. And of course, if it's a romantic relationship, the chemical love aspect is an incredibly powerful drug - some would say better and more powerful than any actual narcotic that anyone's ever been addicted to. The level of happiness, contentment etc caused by just being in the person's presence, even if you're not a couple, is quite incredible and intoxicating. To end the relationship means giving up on all those positive feelings and experiences aswell as the negative ones, and that can be a really hard thing to do. People will often find all sorts of ways of excusing or denying the betrayals of trust, or trying to rationalise them away, before they'll admit that it's a lost cause.
Of course it's true that a psychopath is also giving up the positive aspects of the relationship if they cut someone untrustworthy out of their life, so I wonder if the difference between the psychopath and the NT, is to do with the coding of memories with emotions? When an NT thinks of a friendship or relationship, there will be a flood of all sorts of emotions attached to the memories of that person, reminding the NT of many of the positive aspects of the relationship, the connection they may feel with that person, the happiness and fun they associate with times they've spent together - which will tend to draw them back in to the relationship, and away from any decision to cut contact.
Whereas for a psychopath, they may cognitively know that there are positive aspects to the relationship, but they won't be re-experiencing those positive feelings when they think of the person (and the feelings would presumably have been pretty muted in the first place, or absent in the case of chemical love) - so there would be nowhere near the same level of pull back into the relationship, leaving the psychopath free to make a much more rational decision.
I really don't know which is better or worse - to have those positive emotions attached to a relationship, even though they can blind you to obvious harm being done and stop you from protecting yourself - or to lack those positive experiences, but have your eyes much more wide open, and be able to act much more rationally as a result.
Either way I can 100% see why it would drive you up the wall to watch NTs blindly stumbling into obvious traps that you've already warned them about a million times!
I learn so much and appreciate of your work to build my own life.
Loads of times I see myself in your thoughts but this is not one:
This weekend I took a client as a favor. He is the SIL of my friend: In about 4 hours, I produced tens of thousands $$$ of value correcting mistakes made.
These mistakes occurred over a period of several years. He failed to reach out for help - likely due to his own pride or moral failures.
I know this: I can see this: I use this info to solve and deliver more value and direct the corrective action.
But judge him? It makes me smile to think about that: I don't care enough to judge him. I'm not interested enough. I solve his financial issue but that is all!! I don't even care enough to manipulate him in some way.
Going forward I hope my touch was light enough, deft enough, that other people take any credit for a good outcome. I trust the professionals involved will be paid well and experience a successful outcome crushing their enemies.
The best for me is never involved with them again.
I have only skimmed it so far, but it seems like a good one to do a post on, so I shall, but she doesn't appear to be either a sociopath or a psychopath in at first glance. She seems to be someone with ASPD.
Edit, no, I might be incorrect about that, she may well be psychopathic to some degree, but the explosive anger doesn't make any sense. That part is likely where the idea that she is sociopathic comes from. I will do a post on it and consider her perspective more so I can address it properly.
Great! I’d love to hear your thoughts. She sounds more like a malignant narcissist than either a sociopath or a psychopath. Do the traits of ASPD overlap more with malignant narcissism than psychopathy? Malignant narcissists have difficulty controlling their outbursts, especially those who are not skilled at masking. I just skimmed the article, as well, and got the impression that she learned how to mask as she grew older. I’ll read it more closely and wait to see your thoughts.
ASPD overlaps with anyone that decides that is how they are going to behave. It can be a neurotypical, it can be a psychopath, it can be a narcissist, it could be anyone. Behavior is a choice, and there the only thing that seems to incline the percentage of neurotypicals to have ASPD more than anyone else is their percentage of the world's population. Though, interestingly, I wonder what the impact of emotions might be on the decision to take on that behavior. It is an intriguing thing to ponder, though I doubt I will get an answer
Behavior isn’t always a choice. Our agency has limits. We do not possess free will. Here’s an essay I wrote about why I believe that free will is an illusion humans created in order to hold people fully responsible for their actions. If societies weren’t founded on the belief that we are fully responsible for our actions, there would be no justification for punishing transgressors through a justice system. Without some form of law and order, anarchy would ensue. I believe that the fallacy of free will is at the core of what makes life fundamentally unfair!
I'll read it. I am familiar with the line of thinking, but don't agree with it. Humans have free will. You can choose to knock an old lady into the street and steal from her, or you can choose not to. The article you sent me is evidence of free will, she speaks about it and the notion she has to steal a car or groceries, but chooses not to. If you allow a person to throw up their arms and proclaim, "It's not my fault" and give them preconstructed excuses like they don't have free will, people will do whatever they want. When society weakens it's hold over the law, crime goes up exponentially.
That in and of itself is clear evidence that people indeed have free will, and they exercise it every day, What keeps them in check in the fear of the consequences of their behavior which means that they don't have irresistible impulses, they have impulses that they choose to resist or act upon.
There is no such thing as a decision without constructs that influence it, but that has nothing to do with will. That is simply the world. Will is the consciousness of self and the knowledge that despite where we come from, we are in control over our own actions. "I can't help myself" is almost never an excuse aside from the very rare circumstances of psychosis or organic illness. People use it all the time until they are called out. Then they sheepishly admit that it was just what they wanted to do, but they didn't think that they would get caught.
What I believe you are talking about is agency, not free will. It’s difficult for people to distinguish between those two because the experience of agency “feels” very much like what we imagine free will to feel like.
But, of course, one’s opinion on whether or not we possess free will depends on how one defines free will. Free will from my perspective means that a person has no limitations on their choices and actions in life. But our choices and actions are all clearly limited by both our genetic makeup and the environment that our genetic material interacts with. We never had the opportunity to choose either one. Without being our causa sui—that is, without creating ourselves from scratch—we cannot possibly have free will as I define it.
For instance, you never freely chose to be born with a psychopathic brain. So the choices you make in life, that is, your agency, is restricted to actions that are not driven by emotions like guilt, fear or self-doubt. And your agency in life does not afford you the freedom to decide to add guilt into the equation because the neural pathways that generate that particular emotion are not present.
It’s this perspective that can keep me from being judgmental when I so choose. It’s why I have no reason or desire to judge you for being a psychopath. It allows me to be a more empathetic, compassionate person, in general—something that I am wired to aspire to be. I do not have the option not to feel guilt or shame or anger or pain. Those feelings happen without my conscious mind and regardless of my will.
I can imagine that for someone like yourself, who is free from some of these powerful, sometimes debilitating emotions, your experience of agency is particularly indistinguishable from what you imagine to be the experience of freely willing your actions. People have different amounts of agency, and external events can alter the amount. For instance, members of a cult lose their agency the more they go down the rabbit hole that defines their cult. That’s why it requires trained deprogrammers and lots of effort to rescue people from cults.
My essay is very long and dense; few people actually get through it. If you do read it, I would be very grateful to hear your thoughts. Thanks!!
That's quite a tour on judgement! I use some of that but my orientation (by choice) is of course, totally selfish but with much aforethought and following out probabilities. I judge myself if I have not been thoughtful enough, but only for the purpose of improving my lot.
About age 13, I became curious why I was in this world. What purpose(s) could I choose that could make me think I should be here instead of departing this world? Since I did not fear death but still wanted to preserve my life, I needed some meaning. My initial (and foolish) choice was that I had best make my mark by leaving the world in a better state than I found it. To achieve that, I needed to observe behaviors of others and add to my behaviors those things that promoted smiles. If I was going to lead improvements, I needed credibility. I discovered that kindness usually cost me nothing and improved my ability to influence others, but never in a transactional manner which lead to tyrannical relationships and had at best temporary effects.
Naturally I had to learn to judge whether another person would respond to kindness with a sense of debt, or would try to take advantage of my kind gestures or who would respond by "paying it forward". That third effect was worth my time and effort and furthered my goel of making my life meaningful to me. (maybe I don't live in the moment enough to be pronounced neurodivergent-type P, but my sense of time is quite strange to those I have tried to explain it. In a few seconds, even in the spaces between spoken words, I can follow several chains of what-ifs to likely conclusions and prioritize test choices for their desired effects.) To the ones who felt debt, I reduced the frequency of acts of kindness and sought to teach the idea of a reward for them if they, paid it forward (cf. works of Robert Heinlein). For those who sought advantage I distanced myself unless it was something clearly needful. For those who paid it forward, they were already fellow soldiers in my fight. Those were my judgments in interpersonal relations.
That seemed simple enough, but then there were the addictions and addictive behaviors. ah well, that is a tale for another day. Suffice to say for now, I made judgments, but only in terms of what furthered my objectives. I did seek understanding, and I found some good explanations that meshed with the cognitive empathy I was actively developing. One helpful resource was "I'll Quit Tomorrow" by Vernon Johnson, M.D. Another fine source (for self-discovery) was "Psycho-Pictography" by Vernon Howard. These caused me to expand the scope of how I judged some folk, by their negative or positive influence on the moods and actions of others.
And of course trust was a whole separate issue. But then my studies in the theory of games made judgments of others weak sauce against optimal strategies (cf. Prisoner's Dilemma where the scope is often a means of confusing people into picking a losing strategy).
Ah well, thank you Athena for bringing about awareness of so man,y things. Let me tell a tale from the folklore of Diomede Islanders someday and the first successful air to ground missiles in North America.
Sounds like a very interesting story indeed...I wish Substack had an area that would be a community area for stories from readers. That would be cool. For now, the comment section will have to suffice for such things
Talk about opportune timing; I was sitting here randomly pondering on something (non-somatic ways to diffuse anger) that curiously ties in with what you wrote here. Well, at least in my mind. So, I'll just lay here because, why not?
Observations:
1) I have noticed that judgmentality can be indeed maladaptive and even addictive, for some people, in which case it's often emotionally driven like all addictions are (there is actual literature backing this hypothesis).
2) I have also noticed judgementality can be adaptive and defensive; a functional way to difuse negative emotions. (I recently realized I was not nearly judgemental enough, and that had been backfiring in many diffrerent, annoying ways).
Speculation time:
It's possible that your judgmentality could be tied to your "emotional circuit breaker" and your inability to experience sustained anger, or generally dwell on negative emotions. If something bothers you, your neurological wiring may well just interrupt emotional processing, and either sorts it out or drops it.
It's also possible that over-emotional people are often bothered by their own emotions as well as making themselves more susceptible to negative manipulation because they (we) do not naturally have that judgmental circuit breaker. There' even that colloquial phrase "lapses of judgment" which seems to indicate this possibility.
I could certainly see that there are people being addicted to judgment. It seems that nearly anything that provides an emotional payoff runs the risk of becoming addictions.
Exactly - whether it be substances, processes or judgements.
I also noticed a contradiction in what I just wrote - since I'm suggesting judgementatity can both be provide an emotional payoff, as well as it can interrupt emoting.
Upon further reflection, it seems you allude to this pardox in the final section of the article although you do not quite use the term which I feel hits the mark: self-reflection.
You are seemingly able to turn your judgement inwards, and that possibly keeps it from going too far - as people who get emotional pay-off from judgementality likely don't have this feature.
Hmm, and interesting thought. I have noticed that many people seem to lack the ability to self-reflect and have considered that to be something emotionally based that I cannot relate to. It never considered it as a form of judgment.
In my experience the lack of ability to self-reflect is more related to age and intelligence than emotions, although there are certainly some people with profound emotional barriers against self-reflection (e.g. Doso's example of narcissists).
I've always been both very emotional and self-reflective. Part of that reflection might be true reflection, something as a result of thinking about things, but much of it is just from *noticing* things, without any effort or control at all. It can be both good things and bad things. Maybe that's more properly termed "self-awareness," but the two go together. Awareness gives you a reason to reflect, and reflection leads to awareness. Reflection is something you can choose to do, but without awareness you don't know what to choose to reflect about.
I don't tend to bond with people who aren't very self-aware, so sometimes I forget how lacking in self-awareness a lot of people are (because I'm not normally around them).
I think you're definitely on the right track, but there are added complexities. Having inability to self-reflect is a hallmark of pathological narcissists (and possibly other PD's since it may be a function of split object relations).
Dr. Greenberg has a really interesting article on this matter called "When insight hurts".
(When insight hurts: gestalt therapy and the narcissistically- vulnerable client. The British gestalt journal 5/2, pp113-120. 114 Elinor Greenberg. 1981, 1989)
I'm not sure it's quite that inability to self-reflect is a form of judgfement, as much as its presence necessarily makes for partial judgement that inevitably carries emotional undertones and/or blind spots.
A couple things about this. First, my first impression (and the one I would bet on) of that place is that it was created for the purpose of worshipping god(s) or perhaps a shaman. It is an alter of sorts. Putting deities on pedestals and/or climbing mountains to see them is a repetitive theme in religions. Also, There is no protection from spears and arrows up there…no fortress-type walls where arrows can be shot AND guarded against. Just my theory.
As far as judgment, I am a little surprised that you gave such a strong “Yes” to the question. This is mostly because my father’s brain cyst made him behave like a psychopath in many ways, but he was unwaveringly nonjudgmental. However, after reading this, I’m thinking that the idea and language around being judgmental may be the thing to focus on here. For example, my father never said a bad word about anyone just because they would be absolutely intolerable to most people. If I were to say, “Isn’t Nina a total bitch and a non-stop annoying person,” he would respond with a very fact-based answer like, “Oh, Nina is a class-A pest.” But he would deliver it in a jovial manner akin to a kid getting an answer right on a test, no negative emotions poked through his responses (because he didn’t have negative emotions). I wonder if you truly are judgmental in the way the questioner might mean. I think you are saying that you EVALUATE the person, but don’t get into an emotional snit about it. To me, that isn’t what people generally mean when they say judgmental. I think, as you said, that they attach emotion to the word judgmental and regard it as one thing…being judgmental. I think you are careful to evaluate people and make rational decisions about what to do with them as far it concerns your life. I think (and I could definitely be wrong) that the way you would express yourself when asked about a person would never be considered judgmental by neurotypicals because it is missing the emotional “bitchy” part that neurotypicals bake into the word.
Judgment means that you arrive at a conclusion without necessarily having all the relevant information. I can easily shift my judgment and I have no emotional ties to it, but in my mind everyone is judgmental. Whether or not their emotions are tied to that judgment is another story. I don't draw have emotions tied to those conclusions, but I certainly arrive at them, justifiably or not.
I have a different definition of judgement from Dictionary.com: make a decision, or form an opinion objectively, authoritatively, and wisely, especially in matters affecting action; good sense; discretion.
Now that is interesting. I always saw judgment as subjective. Opinions always are. Not sure how anyone could call it objective.
I suppose it depends on whether you are drawing a conclusion based on internal opinion, or something external like the law.
I was thinking the same - the word 'judgemental' in the NT world implies that you're making a value judgement of the other person as 'good' or 'bad', or at least a value judgement of a specific behaviour of theirs as 'good' or 'bad'. But that doesn't seem like something a psychopath would do, because why would they care if someone was good or bad?
Athena it seems like you're using the word 'judgemental' in a much narrower sense, to just mean reaching a conclusion about someone without necessarily having the evidence to back it up.
Do your judgements ever include value-based conclusions like 'good' or 'bad' or would you only reach factual conclusions about someone normally, like trustworthy or not trustworthy?
The second, factual conclusions. Value based things are reserved for things that I have already assessed a cognitive opinion of. Predation on a child is a good example. That act already has a negative value judgment and a person that will commit such an act will have that value judgment extended to them
Hey: I really enjoy reading your post. You seem to be "grappling" with it and seems so admirable. Best wishes.
my brother and SIL are in the middle of a nasty divorce. i have seemed to be the only one able to field speculative comments about the ins and outs, ala, "she showed up looking like that to make me feel inferior," "she knew that would piss me off, that's why she said it," "he was absolutely aware that that outfit was the one he wore on our first date," etc.
i think since starting to read here, i've been able to shift from straight up confusion at comments like those to "ohh, they might be reading through a lens of XYZ emotion" or, "they're too zoomed in to see outside of their own speculation," kind of like this YouTube guy.
as i tend not to have any emotion for weeks to months (often longer) about a given situation, realizing this through reading here has actually made my corner of the world and the people in it make quite a bit more sense. ty.
I am glad you have been able to utilize what I write about
Another good read.
A thought I had while reading it: the more I read about the world and people through your lense, the less I think I’m neurotypical. It’s something I’ve wondered for other reasons too, but I have this feeling I agree with and (to some extent) relate to your thoughts and other inner workings more than, for example, my siblings would. Mostly because I’m very mild and stable in my emotions most of the time, staying in a range of pure neutral to neutrally satisfied 95% of my time (from the remaining 3%, I’m pissed off, and for the 2% I’m excited). While I do have empathy, most of it is cognitive for me with no real emotions attached. Lots of the emotions I portray are just that; portrayals. Although I do also wonder if other people are also just faking their emotions to the same extent as I am, and it’s simply what people do. Or maybe I’m surrounded by one too many ADHD-ers to have a reasonable and realistic picture of how emotions should be felt? As they tend to be quick and big for them. But I also identify as aroace for having no interest in intimacy and romance, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s got something to do with my neutral emotional landscape. Or maybe I’m just a neurotypical from the calmer, more ”stable” side of the range (stable as in not turbulent, not stable as in others are unstable for having emotions). No clue.
A couple of questions about brain chemistry, one you can actually experiment with and the other one that you shouldn't
1: do you respond to oxytocin? You can actually purchase oxytocin nasal spray for use with an intimate partner. I tried this with a girlfriend once and it hit her hard but just made me sneeze
2: opioids... I had painful knee surgery and during recovery I acquired about twice as much much hydrocodone as prescribed as well as some OxyContin which is a pretty psychopath thing to do. I suffered no addiction at all, when the pain diminished I stopped taking it without another thought. No addiction at all.
Maybe don't try either of those things
The nasal oxytocin had a strong response to her? That really fascinates me. I would imagine that could make someone become clingy when they weren't previously. Hopefully the effect is short-lasting.
Let’s call it an extreme bonding experience. It was short lived
Fascinating. I'm surprised oxytocin is available over the counter. What is the purpose of taking it? Enhance bonding or desire? Would you mind sharing your gf's experience?
She said, and I quote, "Holding you then was like holding my first child again and I would do anything for you". It was really intense for her
Oh wow. I wonder if it would affect me. 50 years ago, I had BPD. It sent me on a spiritual path.
4 years ago, everything shifted. Now, I lost my inner narration & my mind became very still. Can't experience infatuation, offense...I don't react emotionally anymore. I live in equanimity & joy.
Longtime meditators' show structural changes in the brain & they process neurochemicals differently
So I wonder if oxytocin would affect me. I don't know if I'm NT anymore!
I had seen a study using autistic people trying oxytocin and it seemed to help them with social cues. At the time I was in a gamers Discord channel and mentioned it but the denizens were unwilling or unable to understand the difference between oxytocin and OxyContin and apparently didn’t want to try
*head on desk*
Another excellent post, thank you Athena.
I have to go down this rabbit hole... I totally agree with you about the "Citadel", no water equals quick death out there.
Mesa Verde, if you have not been, is a really beautiful National Park with very interesting constructions. Maybe not all are as defensible as the Citadel, but there are reliable water sources - springs - back under those cliffs, that scientists think usually kept going even in droughts. (A very long period of drought may be why these towns were abandoned though.)
There are lots of images of these cliff dwellings...
https://cdn.britannica.com/22/116522-050-3A23E0E7/cliff-dwellings-culture-Ancestral-Pueblo-Colorado-Mesa.jpg
Thank you, Yvonne. I have always found those ruins to be fascinating.
Why do I commit the same mistake? It's part of the emotional world... I feel good and you care nothing else... everything you know goes out of the window because you just want to keep feeling good and it all to continue. Dealing with potential negative proposals is the party pupper that shuts it all down.
If someone fell for the things I have fallen for after acquiring certain knowledge I'd really question their mental capabilities... I do end up questioning mine lol. I fell for traps knowing they were traps because I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes it hurts. You don't want that reality lol... but facts no care about feelings boyos
Quite true, and feelings don't care about the facts either
I think anyone capable of having an opinion is capable of judgement. I also think it’s impossible to be completely non-judgemental.
As someone who’s taken college level science courses, I can attest 100% certainty is pretty much impossible. You can be as rigorous as possible and there will always be room for uncertainty. Testing more can increase the likelihood of a hypothesis being confirmed, but at some point the grant money’s going to run out and the research paper will have to be produced.
In everyday life, people general don’t like uncertainty, much less the idea that complete certainty is straight up impossible. Could you potentially gather more information before making a judgement of others? Sure you can. Is it worth the time and energy? That’s for you to decide.
I am by no means coming from a holier than thou place. I can be VERY judgemental, especially during days where I’m irritated or when I engage with political topics that I care about. The way I see it, I don’t let my judgements control my behaviour. It’s literally just me engaging with my own thoughts.
That’s the way I see your judgements as described in your post. It’s literally just you engaging with your own thoughts, unless it turns out you’ve been harming people because of your judgement of them, then I’ll see it differently.
I would have to consider people far more than I am capable in order to summon a notion of desire to do harm, so that isn't an issue. Unless my lack of concern causes harm... then there's that.
Part of what makes judgement from others so hurtful knowing it comes from a place of emotion (disgust comes to mind). This is due to tribalism, and knowing you are incapable of any of that takes the emotional punch out of whatever judgements I read you write about. My reaction may be very different if I encountered a psychopath in the wild, however, not knowing they were a psychopath and assuming they were making emotional judgements.
That makes sense.
When it comes to NT's being screwed over multiple times by the same person, and not seeming to learn the obvious lesson not to trust that person again, I think it's (usually) not that the NT doesn't see the betrayal of trust, or doesn't draw the logical conclusion from it that the person isn't trustworthy. I think in most cases they probably see the same things you would see in that situation Athena, and draw the same conclusions - they might not admit it to others, or maybe even to themselves, but somewhere in the back of their mind, they know. I think it's more the case that other positive aspects of the relationship are overriding the trust/betrayal issues and stopping the person from taking the obvious action of cutting that person out of their life.
A relationship with an untrustworthy person can often still have many positive aspects - they might be someone really fun to be around, a good listener, really interesting to talk to, or someone that you share some fairly obscure interest or pastime with that you don't share with anyone else. And of course, if it's a romantic relationship, the chemical love aspect is an incredibly powerful drug - some would say better and more powerful than any actual narcotic that anyone's ever been addicted to. The level of happiness, contentment etc caused by just being in the person's presence, even if you're not a couple, is quite incredible and intoxicating. To end the relationship means giving up on all those positive feelings and experiences aswell as the negative ones, and that can be a really hard thing to do. People will often find all sorts of ways of excusing or denying the betrayals of trust, or trying to rationalise them away, before they'll admit that it's a lost cause.
Of course it's true that a psychopath is also giving up the positive aspects of the relationship if they cut someone untrustworthy out of their life, so I wonder if the difference between the psychopath and the NT, is to do with the coding of memories with emotions? When an NT thinks of a friendship or relationship, there will be a flood of all sorts of emotions attached to the memories of that person, reminding the NT of many of the positive aspects of the relationship, the connection they may feel with that person, the happiness and fun they associate with times they've spent together - which will tend to draw them back in to the relationship, and away from any decision to cut contact.
Whereas for a psychopath, they may cognitively know that there are positive aspects to the relationship, but they won't be re-experiencing those positive feelings when they think of the person (and the feelings would presumably have been pretty muted in the first place, or absent in the case of chemical love) - so there would be nowhere near the same level of pull back into the relationship, leaving the psychopath free to make a much more rational decision.
I really don't know which is better or worse - to have those positive emotions attached to a relationship, even though they can blind you to obvious harm being done and stop you from protecting yourself - or to lack those positive experiences, but have your eyes much more wide open, and be able to act much more rationally as a result.
Either way I can 100% see why it would drive you up the wall to watch NTs blindly stumbling into obvious traps that you've already warned them about a million times!
I would guess there is no better or worse, as they both have pros and cons to them, so it would depend on the individual and what works for them.
I learn so much and appreciate of your work to build my own life.
Loads of times I see myself in your thoughts but this is not one:
This weekend I took a client as a favor. He is the SIL of my friend: In about 4 hours, I produced tens of thousands $$$ of value correcting mistakes made.
These mistakes occurred over a period of several years. He failed to reach out for help - likely due to his own pride or moral failures.
I know this: I can see this: I use this info to solve and deliver more value and direct the corrective action.
But judge him? It makes me smile to think about that: I don't care enough to judge him. I'm not interested enough. I solve his financial issue but that is all!! I don't even care enough to manipulate him in some way.
Going forward I hope my touch was light enough, deft enough, that other people take any credit for a good outcome. I trust the professionals involved will be paid well and experience a successful outcome crushing their enemies.
The best for me is never involved with them again.
Hi Athena,
Years ago, you clarified to me how to distinguish between a psychopath and a sociopath. You explained that psychopathy is an inherited trait due to a structurally divergent brain while sociopathy is an acquired trait due primarily to altered neural pathways following severe abuse in childhood. Is this woman—who identifies as a sociopath—confusing the two diagnoses?https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/25/magazine/patric-gagne-interview.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
I have only skimmed it so far, but it seems like a good one to do a post on, so I shall, but she doesn't appear to be either a sociopath or a psychopath in at first glance. She seems to be someone with ASPD.
Edit, no, I might be incorrect about that, she may well be psychopathic to some degree, but the explosive anger doesn't make any sense. That part is likely where the idea that she is sociopathic comes from. I will do a post on it and consider her perspective more so I can address it properly.
Great! I’d love to hear your thoughts. She sounds more like a malignant narcissist than either a sociopath or a psychopath. Do the traits of ASPD overlap more with malignant narcissism than psychopathy? Malignant narcissists have difficulty controlling their outbursts, especially those who are not skilled at masking. I just skimmed the article, as well, and got the impression that she learned how to mask as she grew older. I’ll read it more closely and wait to see your thoughts.
ASPD overlaps with anyone that decides that is how they are going to behave. It can be a neurotypical, it can be a psychopath, it can be a narcissist, it could be anyone. Behavior is a choice, and there the only thing that seems to incline the percentage of neurotypicals to have ASPD more than anyone else is their percentage of the world's population. Though, interestingly, I wonder what the impact of emotions might be on the decision to take on that behavior. It is an intriguing thing to ponder, though I doubt I will get an answer
Behavior isn’t always a choice. Our agency has limits. We do not possess free will. Here’s an essay I wrote about why I believe that free will is an illusion humans created in order to hold people fully responsible for their actions. If societies weren’t founded on the belief that we are fully responsible for our actions, there would be no justification for punishing transgressors through a justice system. Without some form of law and order, anarchy would ensue. I believe that the fallacy of free will is at the core of what makes life fundamentally unfair!
https://medium.com/@topolj/the-luck-of-the-draw-6373e87e507e
I'll read it. I am familiar with the line of thinking, but don't agree with it. Humans have free will. You can choose to knock an old lady into the street and steal from her, or you can choose not to. The article you sent me is evidence of free will, she speaks about it and the notion she has to steal a car or groceries, but chooses not to. If you allow a person to throw up their arms and proclaim, "It's not my fault" and give them preconstructed excuses like they don't have free will, people will do whatever they want. When society weakens it's hold over the law, crime goes up exponentially.
That in and of itself is clear evidence that people indeed have free will, and they exercise it every day, What keeps them in check in the fear of the consequences of their behavior which means that they don't have irresistible impulses, they have impulses that they choose to resist or act upon.
There is no such thing as a decision without constructs that influence it, but that has nothing to do with will. That is simply the world. Will is the consciousness of self and the knowledge that despite where we come from, we are in control over our own actions. "I can't help myself" is almost never an excuse aside from the very rare circumstances of psychosis or organic illness. People use it all the time until they are called out. Then they sheepishly admit that it was just what they wanted to do, but they didn't think that they would get caught.
What I believe you are talking about is agency, not free will. It’s difficult for people to distinguish between those two because the experience of agency “feels” very much like what we imagine free will to feel like.
But, of course, one’s opinion on whether or not we possess free will depends on how one defines free will. Free will from my perspective means that a person has no limitations on their choices and actions in life. But our choices and actions are all clearly limited by both our genetic makeup and the environment that our genetic material interacts with. We never had the opportunity to choose either one. Without being our causa sui—that is, without creating ourselves from scratch—we cannot possibly have free will as I define it.
For instance, you never freely chose to be born with a psychopathic brain. So the choices you make in life, that is, your agency, is restricted to actions that are not driven by emotions like guilt, fear or self-doubt. And your agency in life does not afford you the freedom to decide to add guilt into the equation because the neural pathways that generate that particular emotion are not present.
It’s this perspective that can keep me from being judgmental when I so choose. It’s why I have no reason or desire to judge you for being a psychopath. It allows me to be a more empathetic, compassionate person, in general—something that I am wired to aspire to be. I do not have the option not to feel guilt or shame or anger or pain. Those feelings happen without my conscious mind and regardless of my will.
I can imagine that for someone like yourself, who is free from some of these powerful, sometimes debilitating emotions, your experience of agency is particularly indistinguishable from what you imagine to be the experience of freely willing your actions. People have different amounts of agency, and external events can alter the amount. For instance, members of a cult lose their agency the more they go down the rabbit hole that defines their cult. That’s why it requires trained deprogrammers and lots of effort to rescue people from cults.
My essay is very long and dense; few people actually get through it. If you do read it, I would be very grateful to hear your thoughts. Thanks!!
That's quite a tour on judgement! I use some of that but my orientation (by choice) is of course, totally selfish but with much aforethought and following out probabilities. I judge myself if I have not been thoughtful enough, but only for the purpose of improving my lot.
About age 13, I became curious why I was in this world. What purpose(s) could I choose that could make me think I should be here instead of departing this world? Since I did not fear death but still wanted to preserve my life, I needed some meaning. My initial (and foolish) choice was that I had best make my mark by leaving the world in a better state than I found it. To achieve that, I needed to observe behaviors of others and add to my behaviors those things that promoted smiles. If I was going to lead improvements, I needed credibility. I discovered that kindness usually cost me nothing and improved my ability to influence others, but never in a transactional manner which lead to tyrannical relationships and had at best temporary effects.
Naturally I had to learn to judge whether another person would respond to kindness with a sense of debt, or would try to take advantage of my kind gestures or who would respond by "paying it forward". That third effect was worth my time and effort and furthered my goel of making my life meaningful to me. (maybe I don't live in the moment enough to be pronounced neurodivergent-type P, but my sense of time is quite strange to those I have tried to explain it. In a few seconds, even in the spaces between spoken words, I can follow several chains of what-ifs to likely conclusions and prioritize test choices for their desired effects.) To the ones who felt debt, I reduced the frequency of acts of kindness and sought to teach the idea of a reward for them if they, paid it forward (cf. works of Robert Heinlein). For those who sought advantage I distanced myself unless it was something clearly needful. For those who paid it forward, they were already fellow soldiers in my fight. Those were my judgments in interpersonal relations.
That seemed simple enough, but then there were the addictions and addictive behaviors. ah well, that is a tale for another day. Suffice to say for now, I made judgments, but only in terms of what furthered my objectives. I did seek understanding, and I found some good explanations that meshed with the cognitive empathy I was actively developing. One helpful resource was "I'll Quit Tomorrow" by Vernon Johnson, M.D. Another fine source (for self-discovery) was "Psycho-Pictography" by Vernon Howard. These caused me to expand the scope of how I judged some folk, by their negative or positive influence on the moods and actions of others.
And of course trust was a whole separate issue. But then my studies in the theory of games made judgments of others weak sauce against optimal strategies (cf. Prisoner's Dilemma where the scope is often a means of confusing people into picking a losing strategy).
Ah well, thank you Athena for bringing about awareness of so man,y things. Let me tell a tale from the folklore of Diomede Islanders someday and the first successful air to ground missiles in North America.
Sounds like a very interesting story indeed...I wish Substack had an area that would be a community area for stories from readers. That would be cool. For now, the comment section will have to suffice for such things
Talk about opportune timing; I was sitting here randomly pondering on something (non-somatic ways to diffuse anger) that curiously ties in with what you wrote here. Well, at least in my mind. So, I'll just lay here because, why not?
Observations:
1) I have noticed that judgmentality can be indeed maladaptive and even addictive, for some people, in which case it's often emotionally driven like all addictions are (there is actual literature backing this hypothesis).
2) I have also noticed judgementality can be adaptive and defensive; a functional way to difuse negative emotions. (I recently realized I was not nearly judgemental enough, and that had been backfiring in many diffrerent, annoying ways).
Speculation time:
It's possible that your judgmentality could be tied to your "emotional circuit breaker" and your inability to experience sustained anger, or generally dwell on negative emotions. If something bothers you, your neurological wiring may well just interrupt emotional processing, and either sorts it out or drops it.
It's also possible that over-emotional people are often bothered by their own emotions as well as making themselves more susceptible to negative manipulation because they (we) do not naturally have that judgmental circuit breaker. There' even that colloquial phrase "lapses of judgment" which seems to indicate this possibility.
I could certainly see that there are people being addicted to judgment. It seems that nearly anything that provides an emotional payoff runs the risk of becoming addictions.
Exactly - whether it be substances, processes or judgements.
I also noticed a contradiction in what I just wrote - since I'm suggesting judgementatity can both be provide an emotional payoff, as well as it can interrupt emoting.
Upon further reflection, it seems you allude to this pardox in the final section of the article although you do not quite use the term which I feel hits the mark: self-reflection.
You are seemingly able to turn your judgement inwards, and that possibly keeps it from going too far - as people who get emotional pay-off from judgementality likely don't have this feature.
Hmm, and interesting thought. I have noticed that many people seem to lack the ability to self-reflect and have considered that to be something emotionally based that I cannot relate to. It never considered it as a form of judgment.
In my experience the lack of ability to self-reflect is more related to age and intelligence than emotions, although there are certainly some people with profound emotional barriers against self-reflection (e.g. Doso's example of narcissists).
I've always been both very emotional and self-reflective. Part of that reflection might be true reflection, something as a result of thinking about things, but much of it is just from *noticing* things, without any effort or control at all. It can be both good things and bad things. Maybe that's more properly termed "self-awareness," but the two go together. Awareness gives you a reason to reflect, and reflection leads to awareness. Reflection is something you can choose to do, but without awareness you don't know what to choose to reflect about.
I don't tend to bond with people who aren't very self-aware, so sometimes I forget how lacking in self-awareness a lot of people are (because I'm not normally around them).
It sounds like you keep good company
I think you're definitely on the right track, but there are added complexities. Having inability to self-reflect is a hallmark of pathological narcissists (and possibly other PD's since it may be a function of split object relations).
Dr. Greenberg has a really interesting article on this matter called "When insight hurts".
(When insight hurts: gestalt therapy and the narcissistically- vulnerable client. The British gestalt journal 5/2, pp113-120. 114 Elinor Greenberg. 1981, 1989)
I'm not sure it's quite that inability to self-reflect is a form of judgfement, as much as its presence necessarily makes for partial judgement that inevitably carries emotional undertones and/or blind spots.