Being Nice Is Exhausting

Actually, the whole mask is...

When Fallon was speaking with Chion for his interview he said something that I was thinking about afterward. He mentioned that his decision to be more considerate and nicer to those around him netted him much more exhaustion overall. He said that he found himself sleeping much longer at night. I can say that I have found this to be true as well, and I think that this has to do with the emotional feedback system that neurotypicals have naturally, and what we have to create intentionally.

Often when neurotypicals are nice to one another it gives them a boost. They get fulfillment from that action and in many cases, it gives them energy. Of course, I realize that this is not always the case, and that this isn’t true for all neurotypicals, but it is true for a lot of them, and it is never true for a psychopath. It set me to think about what it is that is operating in the neurotypical brain that isn’t in ours, and I realized that I don’t think that’s actually it at all.

I don’t think that this is an absence, but rather a contradiction of natural wiring. When there are nice acts exchanged by likeminded neurotypicals, each side gets and emotional payoff from those actions. They feel good about themselves for being nice, and they feel good about how the other person was nice to them. It makes them feel important, validated, recognized, and fulfilled.

Psychopaths lack all of that. There is no payoff to us being nice aside from what being nice actually earns us in terms of life benefits. When we do it, either because it is required of us for life to go along the path we want it to, or because it is part of a relationship agreement that we have accepted, there isn’t an emotional gain for us. It is always intentional action that we have to force ourselves to consider before undertaking it. In order to do this we have to specifically go against our own wiring.

I spoke about this a bit in my own interview with Chion, and I was building on a point that I had heard Fallon make previously that was quite similar to the one he made with Chion. As I mentioned, it isn’t as though we are interested in denying doing something for another person, but it never naturally crosses our minds.

I will give you an example. If I am out doing things with the friend that still owes me pasta salad (yes I put that in here to jab at her) and we decide that we are going to stop and get fast food, she will always think of my Significant Other, and whether or not he might want something. It took me watching this behavior for literal years before I made it a point to think about that myself. It seems obvious that I would do so, but it isn’t to me. I think about me. I am not discluding him, but I have to intentionally include him in the thinking surrounding that activity. Otherwise, it would never cross my mind.

My friend gets emotional payoffs from helping others. I never will have that, but in watching her I have learned a great deal about being considerate. It will never be a naturally occurring thing for me, but it is something that I can make a part of my life because it makes those that I am invested in happy. Because this isn’t natural, however, and because there isn’t something in that action that gives me an emotional boost, it is effort without personal reward.

I am sure that there is something in your life that has real-world practical benefits, but has no energy payoff for you that you do, but afterward feel that it took from you without there being anything in return other than the practical outcome. It is still something that you do, but it is also something that saps your energy. That’s how it is for us to do things for others. It is something that we can do, but it isn’t something that we will ever be naturally inclined to do. By contrast, it should be noted that we don’t get a payoff when people do things for us, either. We certainly recognize that it was a kind gesture, but there isn’t any emotional significance to it. It is cognitive recognition, but without the emotional payoff that happens for neurotypicals.

It is one of many ways that we differ from neurotypically wired individuals, and that difference can cause a lot of confusion and assumption regarding the reasoning for our actions, or lack thereof. When I heard Fallon speaking about it, it occurred to me that this disconnect likely causes a lot of confusion between psychopaths and their neurotypical partners, and it was something that perhaps needed a little bit more exploration.

It’s a short post this week, but it was topical to the Fallon interview, so I thought you guys would enjoy it.