I’ve been taken Trimipramin for years now. It is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. The reason why I take it is that my brain doesn’t want to sleep in the evening and is up again very early in the morning. Trimipramin does help a little bit I guess (not sure how much thereof would be the placebo effect). Still it often takes an hour till I fall asleep at night.
After reading your post I’m wondering if TMS actually works or would work or treat depression and make a difference. I have researched it and read studies about whether it treats depression successfully. I’m always disappointed with the recorded results but the account of the writer you posted sure seemed to have had a real experience.
Your one of the most interesting people I’ve every known. And over time I’ve come to trust that your telling the truth. You don’t get an emotional payoff that others would with your writing. Because of that you are honest and logical in your approach.
Alcohol definitely affects people with neurodivergency differently.
I have ADHD, anxiety and depression ( diagnosed professionally ), and alcohol has never once done anything other than make me tired, give me a very mild buzz, a slight headache… and sometimes I get hungry. I’m talking i could put away multiple drinks at home and several more at the bar and all I feel afterwards is a bit tired and really hungry.
When I drink coffee, I don’t feel perked up. I get tired, like the aftermath of a sugar crash without having had the ‘high’ first. I once thought it was a result of ADHD medication mixing with the coffee that did this, but it happens even off my meds and I’m told by other ADHDers and people on the autism spectrum, even ones who’ve never medicated, that they react a similar way.
I guess it makes sense - coffee, alcohol, chocolate, drugs… all can affect the emotional and hormonal state of your brain. If your brain chemistry is already different from the ‘norm’ it makes sense that different effects will occur.
This was an interesting read! I’m curious to know more.
Huh, that’s interesting! Assuming no lifestyle changes that would cause it ( new more strenuous routines or medications etc ), it could be metabolism slowing down and processing it less efficiently? Of course, I don’t know how old you are, but for example I know in my late teens and early twenties I could eat tons of sugar, junk food etc and just burn it right off no problem. Now that I’m in my late twenties I need to be careful because I’m no longer growing and that stuff has more of an impact.
Or maybe it’s something else, like how allergies can develop late in life despite never having been allergic before. My coworker suddenly had a horrible allergic reaction to bananas a couple of years ago. In his fifties. Never happened to him before.
Thank you for the link. No, no changes. It was just a thing that I noticed. It took me a bit to link what exactly was making me tired, but once I made the link it was very evident it was the culprit.
I've known a guy who grew up in a rural area where home-made liquor is staple who told me he had no interest in getting drunk. He can appreciate a good beverage, but he doesn't care about getting into altered state. Also doesn't like local version of gin - borovička which he finds poorly tasting and weak and said that if he drinks more than usual, he just falls asleep. He had this very calm steady focused manner, seemed way less boyish than his roomies, though they all were the same age. Made me think of lumbers.
That is, our whole region with villages and small towns (think few thousand people, few tens at district centres) has liquor as staple and households that brew their own are not rare, but attitudes can vary from heavy drinkers who consider it corner stone of having fun to those who will have a small glass daily and that's it unless there is a celebration, or those who down a bottle occasionally, some who prefer lighter sweeter drinks like mead or those sticking to beer and some who will not consider anything under 45% a proper alcohol drink.
I did find this a while back! An interesting read. I had a premolar iirc pulled out back in 2020 and while it didn’t hurt o certainly FELT everything. Deep pulling sensation deep in my jaw and I heard every crack. I was under whatever they use to freeze and numb the jaw but I turned down the offer to put me under because it’s more expensive and I had to walk home after, lol.
I don’t change much with alcohol either. I experience the physical side, lack of coordination etc but there is no point when drinking where I feel particularly carefree or without inhibition. I think it’s possible that I can’t drink enough to get the emotional reward. I’d pass out or be sick first. I don’t do well on any form of meds either. Over the counter painkillers have no effect, give me anything stronger and I hallucinate or get palpitations, all sorts. I just don’t do well with chemicals.
The only time I have experienced that giddy, giggly, lack of inhibition buzz was mixing a bit of alcohol followed by a bit of weed followed by a bit of alcohol. That worked, which apparently it shouldn’t. Again though, I don’t feel great after so the after is never worth the before part.
It doesn't seem that the majority of the time the aftermath is worth it. For people who drink because it makes them feel good, they are often the same people that swear that they will never drink again the following day.
I can elaborate on some paradoxical effects. Benzodiazepines will not relax me. Blood pressure will elevate with their use. Opioids and opiates push me into serotonin syndrome, at some risk to my life, and for quite a while that was misread by physicians as anxiety. I have near-threshold peripheral serotonin as a "normal" state and addition of serotonin produced with opiates and opioids sends me into blood pressure peak of about 200/105 when my normal is 120/65 (other anxiety symptoms go from nothing to very noticeable). I know in the brain that melatonin+serotonin = nearly constant total of molecules, but I am unsure that it also i true for peripheral serotonin/melatonin. Serotonin cannot cross blood/brain barrier but melatonin can. Melatonin can affect several axes, besides destroying melanin in the skin, including depressing libido and reducing serotonin in the brain, but then libido may be quite different for psychopaths.
As for drinking, alcohol is two things to just about any human, an irritant and a sedative. From Athena's article here I gather the sedative effects on the areas of the brain which are reduced in size in psychopaths cannot sedate the "missing pieces". I use my code of conduct when I get behind a wheel to remind myself that it is a great day when I have accomplished my job of keeping poor drivers from colliding with me, so I stay aware of road and traffic conditions and am a model defensive driver. Alcohol I do not use as a beverage, because I have an initial high rate of liver metabolism so that first drink is mostly acetaldehyde in my blood in 15 minutes or so, and the resulting headache is distracting.
Pain meds do not work well, and the side effects are like blunt force trauma. NSAIDS I use as little as possible, because I prefer not to depress prostaglandins which seem to be important in keeping the body's healing chemistry like cortisols in their area (not certain if that is a binding process). Self-hypnosis I can use to take the edge off of pain in extreme circumstances, but mostly I rely on the realization that pain is a symptom of my body's proper function in calling for self-healing and shrug it off. Pain can be there, but I can refuse to hurt, like backing off and observing the pain-to-healing as a natural process like river bank accretion and erosion.
I used to give lectures to first responders about Alcohol and its effects. I carried a book with me that had more than 1000 pages of mathematical tables and functions when people would bring up a person who blew less than alcohol .08. I would hold up mr thumb ad show them the book amd say "alcohol is an irritant, but we rarely can predict where the irritation will fall, but here is my thumb (placing it on the lectern) and here is an irritant (lifting the 2.5kg book and bringing it smartly down on the lectern). Tossing the book away, "OK so my thumb book level is zero, so should my thumb not hurt? It may be important to put together a history within your own limitations for that alcohol use of your patient to help focus the attention of the next provider."
This makes so much sense on why non-psychopaths drink so much, and why some are alcoholics.
Also, the weird drug interactions are neurodivergent related I’ve noticed.
Psychopathy is definitely a more relaxed preferred calm state over other brain variation types, but higher emotions can be fun too…until they become a drag, Lol, and being emotionless is just boring.
I wonder if there are psychopaths somewhere in the world who don't know they are psychopaths. But they feel like something is wrong. So they drink in order to make themselves feel more 'neurotypical'.
Hi, I know this is unrelated, but do you have any book/educational recommendations for an individual looking to improve on cognitive empathy and the entire realm of emotions? Or what where the resources that helped your understanding on these topics most marginally speaking (besides your significant other)?
My resource was my Significant Other. He was able to demonstrate how and why it is important to understand the actions, motivations, and feelings of others. Because he could show that there was benefit in doing so, I decided to start practicing it.
Before I grew up (into psychopathy) I could get drunk. After I grew up, ok maybe not into psychopathy, but gave up fear and indecisiveness, and vulnerability to stupid manipulative behaviour, I stay sober no matter how much I drink. And actually do not like alcohol anymore, because I can still feel the negative after affects of it even though I do not get any buzz from it. It is the same with pain killers. Everything that is addictive, I do not like. It does not do anything extra for me, it only makes me nauseous and ill, without any hint of benefits. I only take paracetamol, even after surgery.
I have thought about this change a lot. My theory is that when you are indecisive you naturally struggle to make decisions and always shy away from initiating action as much as you can get away with it. When people drink, the shying away from actions disappears, but you are still very bad at making decisions if your are not used to it, so you look like an imbecile under the influence. You also are not making meaningful thought through decisions, so that also affects the memory. You are acting more from impulsive chaotic instinct than actually from decisions. When you are decisive and analytical and unafraid of taking a action, a little bit, and even a lot, of mood altering substances, are not going to make that well honed skill disappear. Alcohol disinhibits you from actions that you rightly have not yet taken when you are unable to decide on all thing.
Narcissist who constantly confabulate their fake reality on the spot, have impossible memory, because they are not communicating in a meaningful way. They are only throwing out in the heat of the moment, anything that they think will further their agenda in that exact moment, with total disregard to reality or truth. The consequence of that is that they do not remember their own actions like normal people do. And when they are put on the spot about their past behaviour, they repeat their hopeless strategy, making up again, on the spot, what they did at any given past moment, from their assumption in that moment, what they were likely to have done, that would also make them look like sane people now in hindsight. We remember meaningful things, we do not have the capacity to hold completely meaningless things in our memory.
So, hence, when you have not grown up into the adulthood of your own judgement and decision-making, sober or inebriated, you are not going to have as clear memories or sane actions. When you are sober you at least have less things to remember because you probably are to timid for meaningful actions, so you do not notice it so much. When you go wild from drinking, it is something that happens TO you, if you are not in control of yourself, it is not something you make happen. I imagine this could possibly play some part in the memory loss when people drink.
What do you mean by, "Before I grew up (into psychopathy)"
Psychopaths are born. No one can become a psychopath. You are born a psychopath, or you are not a psychopath. It is a genetically coded variant brain structure and difference in how the brain processes chemistry. It is innate.
I threw that up to underline my thinking that I maybe have some similarities in thinking and even feeling, to that of a psychopath. After I matured from a irrational idealistic underdog empath, I discovered that psychopathic thinking made so much sense to me. And a psychopath is a perfect place to talk about my newly found way of thinking and feeling, because here I can test the boundaries more freely, than with other mature people, that matured way earlier than me.
I once had a boyfriend that was very cool and level-headed in his thinking. He was the perfect mate for me. Being with him was my safe spot and the most meaningful thing that had ever happened to me. But at the same time, I felt extreme anxiety and almost sheer terror being associated to him, because my environment was so dysfunctional that it invoked some kind of existential threat in me to have to go between his and his family reality and my family and their reality. I broke up with him. At that time I was too lost to get a finger on it why I felt so bad being with him, when at the same time he was so perfect for me. Through the years I sometimes wondered even if he could be a psychopath, which shows, I think, how dysfunctional people often can´t discriminate between psychopaths and overly mature and level headed people. To me now, that shows me how psychopathy has been stigmatised and wrongly portrayed as something that it is not. But the control and clarity, that both overly mature people and psychopaths possess, very clearly threatens people and evil psychopathy has been the go to weapon in both cases.
I felt the same when I started to follow your writings. Your soberness irritates me, because it draws out the contrast with my current environment. I had to take a brake from you, but to be more precise, I had to take a brake from seeing so clearly how I was still not able to have the freedom from insanity that I have been working towards now for so long. My reality has much improved, but it is still a work in progress and some logistics get in the way of completing my escape from dysfunctional people.
I don't know if psychopaths are mature necessarily. There's a certain 'charming immaturity' to James Fallon at times, and I'm sure this was more pronounced when he was in his mid 20's say. There is a difference between not processing other peoples emotional reality and existence; to processing it and having arrived at wisdom that doesn't allow the self to become debased by the neurosis.
I actually was nowhere saying that being a psychopath was equal to being mature. But if you set up the two big components of a mature person, cognitively mature and in touch with their own emotions, and then you assign those components to two extreme cases. One person that is a psychopath who relies solely on his cool cognition and another that is an empath (in the meaning that he is led blindly by his feeling first and foremost). To me, the psychopath more resembles a mature person. You are much more likely to be able to argue with a psychopath than with a blind empath.
And I think that also plays into this idea that psychopaths are so dangerous. Highly emotional and unstable people have a hard time passing of as mature. But in many settings, the psychopath seems like a cool level-headed person (because they are), but they simply can not meet our expectation of emotional connection. Psychopaths in many settings look like any other person. People say that psychopaths trick others into believing they are something that they are not. But that is exactly the chaotic nature of blind empaths, they do not use cognition to see reality, they use their emotions, and if they wish a person to be emotionally invested in them, then they will "feel" that as a reality inside themselves, totally disregarding the cognition that could tell them otherwise. The empath does not pose a threat to the psychopath, because he is not able to deceive himself about the nature of the empath. I know I am talking in a lot of simplistic terms here, I am just trying to explain my thinking.
What started me off, was my experience of going from a very indecisive person to a very decisive one and what effect that had on me, like regarding alcohol consumption as the topic was about. A person that does not dare to come to conclusions and decide on all thing in life, is left with only emotions as their regulatory system. I think that should put things in perspective for people. Of two evils so to speak, being controlled by only cognition or only emotions, I think the former is way better.
One thing I wonder, is it the emotional component that makes a person vulnerable to being manipulated in a bad way or is it not the lack of cognition, lack of being able to come to obvious conclusions, that is actually what makes you a prime material for a victim?
OK, I can't answer your points exactly so I will mention just general thoughts on these subjects.
I have known a few enablers of what I would term, for lack of attention from anyone properly qualified, a "sociopathic" personality. The 'sociopath' didn't have to do much. It seemed to be the preference on the part of the enablers to aid that individual because they wanted someone to look after. (Manipulators are always the victim).
I don't think conflating these individuals with people that are emotionally intelligent serves anything. There are a lot of neurotypical types of people that are very intelligent, but highly, highly emotional; and also able to navigate nasty individuals and can be quite hard, but only when the situation demands it. There are others that are pathologically kind of lost in their own emotion and not able to function. I don't know what it is that separates these people but it is not the fault of the emotion but the pathologising of it. When it becomes so strong it lacks all objective reality.
Of these types of emotional enablers they often had harder personalities around them that were able to protect them from the manipulators but they CHOSE to dislike the protective personality and enable the nastier personality. At the end of the day these things are a choice.
Are you good at playing challenging videogames, since your pent up anger and frustration don't get in the way? I've been playing such games to practice my emotional management, and while it seems to be working, my skills aren't catching up, yet.
I can spend several hours repeating a challenging section in action platformers, neither getting frustrated or angry or upset nor making progress. I do imagine if I keep at it, my reflexes might eventually catch up.
I like your hypothesis on why people drink; I concur, addictions and coping mechanisms seem to help reset the emotional circuitry,
I am good at them, but I am not fond of them. Games like Dark Souls, which is notorious for being difficult for the sake of it simply annoy me. I find it pointless and tedious for a game to be unnecessarily hard just because. Different difficulty levels is a much better system.
Good point there. Superior game design takes it up a notch by adapting the chosen difficulty level dynamically to the player performance - as to keep them challenged but not frustrated, at all times.
Godhand on PS2 is the best example that comest to mind. Total underdog.
It's a direct precursor to Bayonetta, although a bit less campy and more Tarantino-ish. If you come across it, you might find it worthwhile having a go.
It's really mind-blowing how bad the reviews for that game were, even though it's objectively a fun game with solid production values, unique style and several fascinating ideas; surely there was some kind of political type backstory to that.
Or maybe it just fell flat against the spirit of its days, since the same studio went on to make Bayonetta a few years later, and that turned out very popular. God Hand did use tank controls, which at the time were very much out of style and made for cumbersome maneuverability. These days, the whole thing probably works better due to the retro appeal of it. Who knows? Total underdog legend, tho.
Could you elaborate a little about the paradoxical effects that you’ve had with medications from doctors?
Im not sure, but I believe you’ve said in the past something about needing to take a very high dose of melatonin to sleep.
Thanks for the post, looking forward to next week!
Let's see, Compazine makes me wired, it should make me tired.
Pain medications often do not work, if they do work they will work for a few days and then my tolerance far exceeds their efficacy.
Caffeine makes me tired.
Those are just a few that I can think of at the moment, but there are many more.
Most medications do not work as intended, those that do are rare.
I’ve been taken Trimipramin for years now. It is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. The reason why I take it is that my brain doesn’t want to sleep in the evening and is up again very early in the morning. Trimipramin does help a little bit I guess (not sure how much thereof would be the placebo effect). Still it often takes an hour till I fall asleep at night.
How do psychopaths sleep, in general?
I don't think that there is any specific amount of time that would apply to psychopaths. Everyone is different in that regard
Athena - and the others who don’t experience “normal” effects when medicated: what about local anaesthetics, at the dentist for example?
No, those seem to work fine on me
Personal experience, Gabapentin not only failed to relieve pain but it gave me homicidal urges.
I didn't get homicidal urges with it, but it didn't work for me either.
After reading your post I’m wondering if TMS actually works or would work or treat depression and make a difference. I have researched it and read studies about whether it treats depression successfully. I’m always disappointed with the recorded results but the account of the writer you posted sure seemed to have had a real experience.
It's difficult for me to guess as I have never known anyone who has had it done.
Your one of the most interesting people I’ve every known. And over time I’ve come to trust that your telling the truth. You don’t get an emotional payoff that others would with your writing. Because of that you are honest and logical in your approach.
Thank you, Matson
Exactly! You just explained why Athena is the real deal and therefore a trusted source.
Alcohol definitely affects people with neurodivergency differently.
I have ADHD, anxiety and depression ( diagnosed professionally ), and alcohol has never once done anything other than make me tired, give me a very mild buzz, a slight headache… and sometimes I get hungry. I’m talking i could put away multiple drinks at home and several more at the bar and all I feel afterwards is a bit tired and really hungry.
When I drink coffee, I don’t feel perked up. I get tired, like the aftermath of a sugar crash without having had the ‘high’ first. I once thought it was a result of ADHD medication mixing with the coffee that did this, but it happens even off my meds and I’m told by other ADHDers and people on the autism spectrum, even ones who’ve never medicated, that they react a similar way.
I guess it makes sense - coffee, alcohol, chocolate, drugs… all can affect the emotional and hormonal state of your brain. If your brain chemistry is already different from the ‘norm’ it makes sense that different effects will occur.
This was an interesting read! I’m curious to know more.
Caffeine used to have no effect on me, but recently I have noticed that makes me tired now as well. I wonder what brought on the change.
Huh, that’s interesting! Assuming no lifestyle changes that would cause it ( new more strenuous routines or medications etc ), it could be metabolism slowing down and processing it less efficiently? Of course, I don’t know how old you are, but for example I know in my late teens and early twenties I could eat tons of sugar, junk food etc and just burn it right off no problem. Now that I’m in my late twenties I need to be careful because I’m no longer growing and that stuff has more of an impact.
Or maybe it’s something else, like how allergies can develop late in life despite never having been allergic before. My coworker suddenly had a horrible allergic reaction to bananas a couple of years ago. In his fifties. Never happened to him before.
I did look up caffeine and tiredness and found several articles indicating it might be a genetic thing: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326443#how-can-coffee-make-you-feel-tired
Thank you for the link. No, no changes. It was just a thing that I noticed. It took me a bit to link what exactly was making me tired, but once I made the link it was very evident it was the culprit.
Lucky you. Now you you know what to take for getting tired in the evening 🙂
I've known a guy who grew up in a rural area where home-made liquor is staple who told me he had no interest in getting drunk. He can appreciate a good beverage, but he doesn't care about getting into altered state. Also doesn't like local version of gin - borovička which he finds poorly tasting and weak and said that if he drinks more than usual, he just falls asleep. He had this very calm steady focused manner, seemed way less boyish than his roomies, though they all were the same age. Made me think of lumbers.
That is, our whole region with villages and small towns (think few thousand people, few tens at district centres) has liquor as staple and households that brew their own are not rare, but attitudes can vary from heavy drinkers who consider it corner stone of having fun to those who will have a small glass daily and that's it unless there is a celebration, or those who down a bottle occasionally, some who prefer lighter sweeter drinks like mead or those sticking to beer and some who will not consider anything under 45% a proper alcohol drink.
On a related note, have you read any of the new-ish research on resistance to lidocaine in people with ADHD?
I did find this a while back! An interesting read. I had a premolar iirc pulled out back in 2020 and while it didn’t hurt o certainly FELT everything. Deep pulling sensation deep in my jaw and I heard every crack. I was under whatever they use to freeze and numb the jaw but I turned down the offer to put me under because it’s more expensive and I had to walk home after, lol.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9235314/#:~:text=The%20data%20presented%20here%20are,of%20patients%20meeting%20ADHD%20criteria.
I don’t change much with alcohol either. I experience the physical side, lack of coordination etc but there is no point when drinking where I feel particularly carefree or without inhibition. I think it’s possible that I can’t drink enough to get the emotional reward. I’d pass out or be sick first. I don’t do well on any form of meds either. Over the counter painkillers have no effect, give me anything stronger and I hallucinate or get palpitations, all sorts. I just don’t do well with chemicals.
The only time I have experienced that giddy, giggly, lack of inhibition buzz was mixing a bit of alcohol followed by a bit of weed followed by a bit of alcohol. That worked, which apparently it shouldn’t. Again though, I don’t feel great after so the after is never worth the before part.
It doesn't seem that the majority of the time the aftermath is worth it. For people who drink because it makes them feel good, they are often the same people that swear that they will never drink again the following day.
Haha, yes, exactly!
I can elaborate on some paradoxical effects. Benzodiazepines will not relax me. Blood pressure will elevate with their use. Opioids and opiates push me into serotonin syndrome, at some risk to my life, and for quite a while that was misread by physicians as anxiety. I have near-threshold peripheral serotonin as a "normal" state and addition of serotonin produced with opiates and opioids sends me into blood pressure peak of about 200/105 when my normal is 120/65 (other anxiety symptoms go from nothing to very noticeable). I know in the brain that melatonin+serotonin = nearly constant total of molecules, but I am unsure that it also i true for peripheral serotonin/melatonin. Serotonin cannot cross blood/brain barrier but melatonin can. Melatonin can affect several axes, besides destroying melanin in the skin, including depressing libido and reducing serotonin in the brain, but then libido may be quite different for psychopaths.
As for drinking, alcohol is two things to just about any human, an irritant and a sedative. From Athena's article here I gather the sedative effects on the areas of the brain which are reduced in size in psychopaths cannot sedate the "missing pieces". I use my code of conduct when I get behind a wheel to remind myself that it is a great day when I have accomplished my job of keeping poor drivers from colliding with me, so I stay aware of road and traffic conditions and am a model defensive driver. Alcohol I do not use as a beverage, because I have an initial high rate of liver metabolism so that first drink is mostly acetaldehyde in my blood in 15 minutes or so, and the resulting headache is distracting.
Pain meds do not work well, and the side effects are like blunt force trauma. NSAIDS I use as little as possible, because I prefer not to depress prostaglandins which seem to be important in keeping the body's healing chemistry like cortisols in their area (not certain if that is a binding process). Self-hypnosis I can use to take the edge off of pain in extreme circumstances, but mostly I rely on the realization that pain is a symptom of my body's proper function in calling for self-healing and shrug it off. Pain can be there, but I can refuse to hurt, like backing off and observing the pain-to-healing as a natural process like river bank accretion and erosion.
I used to give lectures to first responders about Alcohol and its effects. I carried a book with me that had more than 1000 pages of mathematical tables and functions when people would bring up a person who blew less than alcohol .08. I would hold up mr thumb ad show them the book amd say "alcohol is an irritant, but we rarely can predict where the irritation will fall, but here is my thumb (placing it on the lectern) and here is an irritant (lifting the 2.5kg book and bringing it smartly down on the lectern). Tossing the book away, "OK so my thumb book level is zero, so should my thumb not hurt? It may be important to put together a history within your own limitations for that alcohol use of your patient to help focus the attention of the next provider."
Your posts here are always interesting, Athena.
This dead on jibes with my own experience with alcohol. I sort of enjoy the buzz and have a ridiculous capacity but I really can take it or leave it.
Exactly. Like all things that people get very addicted to are things I can take or leave on a whim.
This makes so much sense on why non-psychopaths drink so much, and why some are alcoholics.
Also, the weird drug interactions are neurodivergent related I’ve noticed.
Psychopathy is definitely a more relaxed preferred calm state over other brain variation types, but higher emotions can be fun too…until they become a drag, Lol, and being emotionless is just boring.
😎🙏🏼😉
I wonder if there are psychopaths somewhere in the world who don't know they are psychopaths. But they feel like something is wrong. So they drink in order to make themselves feel more 'neurotypical'.
Just a thought though.
I don't know how it would make them feel more neurotypical. When drinking, it is all the more obvious that there is a stark divide.
I would think so
Hi, I know this is unrelated, but do you have any book/educational recommendations for an individual looking to improve on cognitive empathy and the entire realm of emotions? Or what where the resources that helped your understanding on these topics most marginally speaking (besides your significant other)?
My resource was my Significant Other. He was able to demonstrate how and why it is important to understand the actions, motivations, and feelings of others. Because he could show that there was benefit in doing so, I decided to start practicing it.
Before I grew up (into psychopathy) I could get drunk. After I grew up, ok maybe not into psychopathy, but gave up fear and indecisiveness, and vulnerability to stupid manipulative behaviour, I stay sober no matter how much I drink. And actually do not like alcohol anymore, because I can still feel the negative after affects of it even though I do not get any buzz from it. It is the same with pain killers. Everything that is addictive, I do not like. It does not do anything extra for me, it only makes me nauseous and ill, without any hint of benefits. I only take paracetamol, even after surgery.
I have thought about this change a lot. My theory is that when you are indecisive you naturally struggle to make decisions and always shy away from initiating action as much as you can get away with it. When people drink, the shying away from actions disappears, but you are still very bad at making decisions if your are not used to it, so you look like an imbecile under the influence. You also are not making meaningful thought through decisions, so that also affects the memory. You are acting more from impulsive chaotic instinct than actually from decisions. When you are decisive and analytical and unafraid of taking a action, a little bit, and even a lot, of mood altering substances, are not going to make that well honed skill disappear. Alcohol disinhibits you from actions that you rightly have not yet taken when you are unable to decide on all thing.
Narcissist who constantly confabulate their fake reality on the spot, have impossible memory, because they are not communicating in a meaningful way. They are only throwing out in the heat of the moment, anything that they think will further their agenda in that exact moment, with total disregard to reality or truth. The consequence of that is that they do not remember their own actions like normal people do. And when they are put on the spot about their past behaviour, they repeat their hopeless strategy, making up again, on the spot, what they did at any given past moment, from their assumption in that moment, what they were likely to have done, that would also make them look like sane people now in hindsight. We remember meaningful things, we do not have the capacity to hold completely meaningless things in our memory.
So, hence, when you have not grown up into the adulthood of your own judgement and decision-making, sober or inebriated, you are not going to have as clear memories or sane actions. When you are sober you at least have less things to remember because you probably are to timid for meaningful actions, so you do not notice it so much. When you go wild from drinking, it is something that happens TO you, if you are not in control of yourself, it is not something you make happen. I imagine this could possibly play some part in the memory loss when people drink.
What do you mean by, "Before I grew up (into psychopathy)"
Psychopaths are born. No one can become a psychopath. You are born a psychopath, or you are not a psychopath. It is a genetically coded variant brain structure and difference in how the brain processes chemistry. It is innate.
I threw that up to underline my thinking that I maybe have some similarities in thinking and even feeling, to that of a psychopath. After I matured from a irrational idealistic underdog empath, I discovered that psychopathic thinking made so much sense to me. And a psychopath is a perfect place to talk about my newly found way of thinking and feeling, because here I can test the boundaries more freely, than with other mature people, that matured way earlier than me.
I once had a boyfriend that was very cool and level-headed in his thinking. He was the perfect mate for me. Being with him was my safe spot and the most meaningful thing that had ever happened to me. But at the same time, I felt extreme anxiety and almost sheer terror being associated to him, because my environment was so dysfunctional that it invoked some kind of existential threat in me to have to go between his and his family reality and my family and their reality. I broke up with him. At that time I was too lost to get a finger on it why I felt so bad being with him, when at the same time he was so perfect for me. Through the years I sometimes wondered even if he could be a psychopath, which shows, I think, how dysfunctional people often can´t discriminate between psychopaths and overly mature and level headed people. To me now, that shows me how psychopathy has been stigmatised and wrongly portrayed as something that it is not. But the control and clarity, that both overly mature people and psychopaths possess, very clearly threatens people and evil psychopathy has been the go to weapon in both cases.
I felt the same when I started to follow your writings. Your soberness irritates me, because it draws out the contrast with my current environment. I had to take a brake from you, but to be more precise, I had to take a brake from seeing so clearly how I was still not able to have the freedom from insanity that I have been working towards now for so long. My reality has much improved, but it is still a work in progress and some logistics get in the way of completing my escape from dysfunctional people.
I don't know if psychopaths are mature necessarily. There's a certain 'charming immaturity' to James Fallon at times, and I'm sure this was more pronounced when he was in his mid 20's say. There is a difference between not processing other peoples emotional reality and existence; to processing it and having arrived at wisdom that doesn't allow the self to become debased by the neurosis.
Psychopaths I imagine mature in their own way.
I would agree with that
I actually was nowhere saying that being a psychopath was equal to being mature. But if you set up the two big components of a mature person, cognitively mature and in touch with their own emotions, and then you assign those components to two extreme cases. One person that is a psychopath who relies solely on his cool cognition and another that is an empath (in the meaning that he is led blindly by his feeling first and foremost). To me, the psychopath more resembles a mature person. You are much more likely to be able to argue with a psychopath than with a blind empath.
And I think that also plays into this idea that psychopaths are so dangerous. Highly emotional and unstable people have a hard time passing of as mature. But in many settings, the psychopath seems like a cool level-headed person (because they are), but they simply can not meet our expectation of emotional connection. Psychopaths in many settings look like any other person. People say that psychopaths trick others into believing they are something that they are not. But that is exactly the chaotic nature of blind empaths, they do not use cognition to see reality, they use their emotions, and if they wish a person to be emotionally invested in them, then they will "feel" that as a reality inside themselves, totally disregarding the cognition that could tell them otherwise. The empath does not pose a threat to the psychopath, because he is not able to deceive himself about the nature of the empath. I know I am talking in a lot of simplistic terms here, I am just trying to explain my thinking.
What started me off, was my experience of going from a very indecisive person to a very decisive one and what effect that had on me, like regarding alcohol consumption as the topic was about. A person that does not dare to come to conclusions and decide on all thing in life, is left with only emotions as their regulatory system. I think that should put things in perspective for people. Of two evils so to speak, being controlled by only cognition or only emotions, I think the former is way better.
One thing I wonder, is it the emotional component that makes a person vulnerable to being manipulated in a bad way or is it not the lack of cognition, lack of being able to come to obvious conclusions, that is actually what makes you a prime material for a victim?
OK, I can't answer your points exactly so I will mention just general thoughts on these subjects.
I have known a few enablers of what I would term, for lack of attention from anyone properly qualified, a "sociopathic" personality. The 'sociopath' didn't have to do much. It seemed to be the preference on the part of the enablers to aid that individual because they wanted someone to look after. (Manipulators are always the victim).
I don't think conflating these individuals with people that are emotionally intelligent serves anything. There are a lot of neurotypical types of people that are very intelligent, but highly, highly emotional; and also able to navigate nasty individuals and can be quite hard, but only when the situation demands it. There are others that are pathologically kind of lost in their own emotion and not able to function. I don't know what it is that separates these people but it is not the fault of the emotion but the pathologising of it. When it becomes so strong it lacks all objective reality.
Of these types of emotional enablers they often had harder personalities around them that were able to protect them from the manipulators but they CHOSE to dislike the protective personality and enable the nastier personality. At the end of the day these things are a choice.
Are you good at playing challenging videogames, since your pent up anger and frustration don't get in the way? I've been playing such games to practice my emotional management, and while it seems to be working, my skills aren't catching up, yet.
I can spend several hours repeating a challenging section in action platformers, neither getting frustrated or angry or upset nor making progress. I do imagine if I keep at it, my reflexes might eventually catch up.
I like your hypothesis on why people drink; I concur, addictions and coping mechanisms seem to help reset the emotional circuitry,
I am good at them, but I am not fond of them. Games like Dark Souls, which is notorious for being difficult for the sake of it simply annoy me. I find it pointless and tedious for a game to be unnecessarily hard just because. Different difficulty levels is a much better system.
Good point there. Superior game design takes it up a notch by adapting the chosen difficulty level dynamically to the player performance - as to keep them challenged but not frustrated, at all times.
Godhand on PS2 is the best example that comest to mind. Total underdog.
I think I have that around here somewhere, but never played it. I might be misremembering though.
It's a direct precursor to Bayonetta, although a bit less campy and more Tarantino-ish. If you come across it, you might find it worthwhile having a go.
It's really mind-blowing how bad the reviews for that game were, even though it's objectively a fun game with solid production values, unique style and several fascinating ideas; surely there was some kind of political type backstory to that.
Or maybe it just fell flat against the spirit of its days, since the same studio went on to make Bayonetta a few years later, and that turned out very popular. God Hand did use tank controls, which at the time were very much out of style and made for cumbersome maneuverability. These days, the whole thing probably works better due to the retro appeal of it. Who knows? Total underdog legend, tho.