Excellent post. I was particularly struck by your reaction to criticism: “Why do you care?” My father’s cyst caused him to have many ASPD traits and an imperviousness to criticism or verbal attack was one of them. As I outlined in my book, he had a very well-defined set of life lessons and rules that he lived by and taught me. When I was a kid and want to him to tell him about something someone said that hurt my feelings, his response was always, “Who?” and I would tell him who had said the thing. Then he would immediately respond, “No, who asked them?” This relieved me and was a valuable life lesson like all of his “Weinstein Wisdom” as I referred to it in the book. I describe a scene in which I witnessed a hulk of a man scream “Fuck you!” to my father’s face and him smiling, saying “Thank you,” and calmly walking away. I thought that made me father the biggest badass in the world.
You say you don't think a neurotypical would want to be more like you because they would want to keep the highs they get from others' approval etc. It doesn't have to be one or the other. I enjoy being valued by those I value, and get a mild pleasure from some compliments (much less than I get from my own sense of self though), but over the years I did become impervious to negative judgements from people at random, although I started from a point of crushing self consciousness and insecurity. It was a concious multi-pronged project, and what a relief it has been! (Unfortunately, other projects to harden myself in other ways have utterly failed, no guarantees in these attempts to reverse neurotypicality!)
It's true what you say that it freaks people out, they want their judgements on trivialities to have power and it's a shock when it doesn't work that way and you reject their framework altogether. And yes, the saying you suck at something. I suck at many things that I do and enjoy. But dispassionately saying so always has people saying, 'No, don't be down on yourself, have more confidence blah blah'. Well meant perhaps, but inapplicable.
I understand, anyway I have a theory on psychopaths, well it's said that you shouldn't shake an infant because it'll cause brain damage, death or internal bleeding, so I'm wondering if that's what brings psychopathy, shake a baby by mistake and something goes wrong with the baby's brain. This is just a theory, I could be wrong tho.
Everything you wrote makes a lot of sense. I also don't respond to praise or criticisms and I don't understand fake humility, although I've learned to emulate it. But I've been trying to care more about what people think for the simple reason that not caring was causing me harm. Just because people don't exist to me, it doesn't mean that they don't exist. And people will try punish me if they can.
I recall several years back my father being angry about something or the other and in the course of his rants he started hurling some pretty nasty insults. He kept it up for a while and noticed that I wasn't reacting properly and began to build up steam for a new verbal assault when I asked him exactly what he was talking about.
At that point he deflated when he realized he'd forgotten what it was that had made him angry in the first place. It was all very odd to me and until I started following Athena I had no explanation for for how I react vs how all the people around me behave
"Also, I am not certain that a neurotypical would necessarily want to be more like me. While bad things have no effect on my self esteem, good things don’t either, and I would imagine that there is a desire to keep those emotional highs around, even if it means dealing with the lows."
Spot on! I'm definitely quoting this in my blog post soon, even if it kills it from the onset. This kind of Ying/Yang thinking, I swear, is enough to graduate at any college.
People should just learn their limitations, ups and downs, and accept them, whether they are NT-s, autistic or psychopathic. It's the only way to approach self-actualization (becoming the best version of oneself).
Jan 13, 2022·edited Jan 13, 2022Liked by Athena Walker
If somebody psychopathic is also high in a number of narcissistic traits would you say that increases the chances of their going out of their way to carry out physical or psychological harm on others? Or not especially?
Who are you then if not your thoughts, actions, etc. Are you an impulsive, ruthless, confident person? Do personality traits factor in?
Or when you take a bite of chocolate, in that moment, the person tasting the chocolate, that is you. That's how I've heard a certain concept described.
The way you see your "self" sounds a lot like the yogic concept of Atman. (It seems that sometimes the eastern traditions hold psychological truths, even in they are tied to spiritual things I don't buy) this guy gives a pgood introduction to Atman: https://youtu.be/ji3YK4hAndw?t=55 Achieving a state of Atman is one one of the final goals of Yoga, btw, so perhaps refer people who ask to yoga.
At the same time, Yogics, like Buddhists, do not lose empathy or become emotionless by obtaining this state, so there are differences. I imagine they have a lot more control than other nuerotypicals about when to use emotions and when to remain detached.
Re: Due to this, if someone asks me what I am good at, there is no need for me to beat around the bush, or have some sense of false modesty about my talents.
Bruce Lee said that he was asked if he was good at Gung Fu
He said “If I told you I was good, you would say I was boasting, but if I said I was no good, you know I would be lieing”
I too have come to a place of identity resilience.
It’s not a default state and so can still be punctured, but I arrived at it by accepting myself with all my flaws and mistakes.
As far as Ego death, I’ve experienced that with high dose psychedelics, had a few short moments where it set my mind into a place of full detachment of my opinions about myself.
And I learn from Cats…
If my partner yells at me because I’m “being a dick” I just shrug and say yup I guess so, and?
The first encounter I had with what I considered to be a Psychopath with high Narcissism was when we were all staying at the same house, an otherwise friendly housecat intentionally shat in the center of this persons bed pillow.
He was so outraged (because we were laughing about it). That the next day he skinned and stretched the fur by nailing it on the front door of the house.
As a warning to anyone that would dare to humiliate him.
Hi Ethena, we communicated on Quora several years ago and I always credit you with clarifying for me what so many experts get wrong: they consider sociopathy and psychopathy as interchangeable terms. You explained to me the differences in their etiology, one being due to the inherited absence of certain neuropathways and the other being due to severe trauma early in life that shut down those same pathways.
I assume that another distinction is that sociopaths do not necessary share your total acceptance of self. If fact, if I were to guess, I would say that the early trauma and subsequent shutdown were driven by a sense of self so intolerable that they were forced to block whatever area in the brain that produced their intolerable feeling—likely an area very similar to the one not present in a psychopath. That extreme ability to block certain brain functions in the name of survival is a mechanism that those born “neurotypical” use ALL THE TIME!!
But the term, “neurotypical” is very misleading; it’s too broad a term to be used for everyone who isn’t considered neurodivergent by a bunch of doctors trying to simplify an extraordinarily complex issue! As you mention, everything is a continuum. And to emphasize the complexity— the continuum is three-dimensional rather than one-dimensional. No two brains are identical, not even those of identical twins. There are, however, patterns that hold some of the secrets of how our wiring is connected to our behavior. I love looking for those patterns.
I have been obsessively analyzing human behavior all my life. It’s a knowledge-base that I critically need to survive. The patterns I’ve seen lately underscore my belief that essentially all human (animal) behavior is either directly or indirectly linked to our drive to survive.
I have a PhD in molecular genetics and evolution from Caltech so I am also trained to think like a scientist who can distinguish between fact and fiction—and identify conspiracy theories. As I read entries in your substack, I find that everything you are observing through your lens (i,e, your brain wiring) is consistent with everything I am observing through my own lens both as a scientist, artist and careful observer of human behavior. That intersection interests me greatly!
I am curious how you interpret that Mark Twain quote you posted. I interpret it as meaning that a human cannot be comfortable in their own skin unless they fully accept themselves. Is that how you interpreted it? I fully agree with you that THAT kind of acceptance is the OPPOSITE OF NARCISSISM. Narcissists are narcissistic because their sense of self is so low that they must use all their energy on themselves–doing WHATEVER is necessary to alleviate the pain. As a consequence they show no interest or concern for others.
What I understand from your incredibly clear description of how your thought processes work is that your total acceptance of yourself makes you anything but narcissistic. Nonetheless, when you display a lack of concern for others as well as for yourself, that’s interpreted as narcissistic. It is not! After all, it’s not that you lack a concern for others because all your concern is directed inward; it’s because the emotion that constitutes “concern” is simply not in your repertoire of emotions.
Have you ever seriously considered writing a book? I think your insights have relevance for anyone studying the neurobiology of behavior. I’m going to go read all your posts so I’ll likely be making additional comments in the near future.
Thank you for sharing the lens through which you see the world.
Excellent post. I was particularly struck by your reaction to criticism: “Why do you care?” My father’s cyst caused him to have many ASPD traits and an imperviousness to criticism or verbal attack was one of them. As I outlined in my book, he had a very well-defined set of life lessons and rules that he lived by and taught me. When I was a kid and want to him to tell him about something someone said that hurt my feelings, his response was always, “Who?” and I would tell him who had said the thing. Then he would immediately respond, “No, who asked them?” This relieved me and was a valuable life lesson like all of his “Weinstein Wisdom” as I referred to it in the book. I describe a scene in which I witnessed a hulk of a man scream “Fuck you!” to my father’s face and him smiling, saying “Thank you,” and calmly walking away. I thought that made me father the biggest badass in the world.
You say you don't think a neurotypical would want to be more like you because they would want to keep the highs they get from others' approval etc. It doesn't have to be one or the other. I enjoy being valued by those I value, and get a mild pleasure from some compliments (much less than I get from my own sense of self though), but over the years I did become impervious to negative judgements from people at random, although I started from a point of crushing self consciousness and insecurity. It was a concious multi-pronged project, and what a relief it has been! (Unfortunately, other projects to harden myself in other ways have utterly failed, no guarantees in these attempts to reverse neurotypicality!)
It's true what you say that it freaks people out, they want their judgements on trivialities to have power and it's a shock when it doesn't work that way and you reject their framework altogether. And yes, the saying you suck at something. I suck at many things that I do and enjoy. But dispassionately saying so always has people saying, 'No, don't be down on yourself, have more confidence blah blah'. Well meant perhaps, but inapplicable.
I understand, anyway I have a theory on psychopaths, well it's said that you shouldn't shake an infant because it'll cause brain damage, death or internal bleeding, so I'm wondering if that's what brings psychopathy, shake a baby by mistake and something goes wrong with the baby's brain. This is just a theory, I could be wrong tho.
Everything you wrote makes a lot of sense. I also don't respond to praise or criticisms and I don't understand fake humility, although I've learned to emulate it. But I've been trying to care more about what people think for the simple reason that not caring was causing me harm. Just because people don't exist to me, it doesn't mean that they don't exist. And people will try punish me if they can.
Very well written! I'm glad your brain hasn't liquified. I own all of the"Never ending story" movies. I like them too.
I personally think that a lot of the psychopathic misinformation, comes from sociopaths and people lower on the spectrum.
Maybe people with only psychopathic traits but other more prominent issues.
Have you considered writing a book Athena? I think there would be a market for it.
I recall several years back my father being angry about something or the other and in the course of his rants he started hurling some pretty nasty insults. He kept it up for a while and noticed that I wasn't reacting properly and began to build up steam for a new verbal assault when I asked him exactly what he was talking about.
At that point he deflated when he realized he'd forgotten what it was that had made him angry in the first place. It was all very odd to me and until I started following Athena I had no explanation for for how I react vs how all the people around me behave
"Also, I am not certain that a neurotypical would necessarily want to be more like me. While bad things have no effect on my self esteem, good things don’t either, and I would imagine that there is a desire to keep those emotional highs around, even if it means dealing with the lows."
Spot on! I'm definitely quoting this in my blog post soon, even if it kills it from the onset. This kind of Ying/Yang thinking, I swear, is enough to graduate at any college.
People should just learn their limitations, ups and downs, and accept them, whether they are NT-s, autistic or psychopathic. It's the only way to approach self-actualization (becoming the best version of oneself).
If somebody psychopathic is also high in a number of narcissistic traits would you say that increases the chances of their going out of their way to carry out physical or psychological harm on others? Or not especially?
I see. Ok, thank you.
Were you aware that some of your quora answers are locked behind Quora plus?
Who are you then if not your thoughts, actions, etc. Are you an impulsive, ruthless, confident person? Do personality traits factor in?
Or when you take a bite of chocolate, in that moment, the person tasting the chocolate, that is you. That's how I've heard a certain concept described.
The way you see your "self" sounds a lot like the yogic concept of Atman. (It seems that sometimes the eastern traditions hold psychological truths, even in they are tied to spiritual things I don't buy) this guy gives a pgood introduction to Atman: https://youtu.be/ji3YK4hAndw?t=55 Achieving a state of Atman is one one of the final goals of Yoga, btw, so perhaps refer people who ask to yoga.
At the same time, Yogics, like Buddhists, do not lose empathy or become emotionless by obtaining this state, so there are differences. I imagine they have a lot more control than other nuerotypicals about when to use emotions and when to remain detached.
Re: Due to this, if someone asks me what I am good at, there is no need for me to beat around the bush, or have some sense of false modesty about my talents.
Bruce Lee said that he was asked if he was good at Gung Fu
He said “If I told you I was good, you would say I was boasting, but if I said I was no good, you know I would be lieing”
I too have come to a place of identity resilience.
It’s not a default state and so can still be punctured, but I arrived at it by accepting myself with all my flaws and mistakes.
As far as Ego death, I’ve experienced that with high dose psychedelics, had a few short moments where it set my mind into a place of full detachment of my opinions about myself.
And I learn from Cats…
If my partner yells at me because I’m “being a dick” I just shrug and say yup I guess so, and?
The first encounter I had with what I considered to be a Psychopath with high Narcissism was when we were all staying at the same house, an otherwise friendly housecat intentionally shat in the center of this persons bed pillow.
He was so outraged (because we were laughing about it). That the next day he skinned and stretched the fur by nailing it on the front door of the house.
As a warning to anyone that would dare to humiliate him.
Hi Ethena, we communicated on Quora several years ago and I always credit you with clarifying for me what so many experts get wrong: they consider sociopathy and psychopathy as interchangeable terms. You explained to me the differences in their etiology, one being due to the inherited absence of certain neuropathways and the other being due to severe trauma early in life that shut down those same pathways.
I assume that another distinction is that sociopaths do not necessary share your total acceptance of self. If fact, if I were to guess, I would say that the early trauma and subsequent shutdown were driven by a sense of self so intolerable that they were forced to block whatever area in the brain that produced their intolerable feeling—likely an area very similar to the one not present in a psychopath. That extreme ability to block certain brain functions in the name of survival is a mechanism that those born “neurotypical” use ALL THE TIME!!
But the term, “neurotypical” is very misleading; it’s too broad a term to be used for everyone who isn’t considered neurodivergent by a bunch of doctors trying to simplify an extraordinarily complex issue! As you mention, everything is a continuum. And to emphasize the complexity— the continuum is three-dimensional rather than one-dimensional. No two brains are identical, not even those of identical twins. There are, however, patterns that hold some of the secrets of how our wiring is connected to our behavior. I love looking for those patterns.
I have been obsessively analyzing human behavior all my life. It’s a knowledge-base that I critically need to survive. The patterns I’ve seen lately underscore my belief that essentially all human (animal) behavior is either directly or indirectly linked to our drive to survive.
I have a PhD in molecular genetics and evolution from Caltech so I am also trained to think like a scientist who can distinguish between fact and fiction—and identify conspiracy theories. As I read entries in your substack, I find that everything you are observing through your lens (i,e, your brain wiring) is consistent with everything I am observing through my own lens both as a scientist, artist and careful observer of human behavior. That intersection interests me greatly!
I am curious how you interpret that Mark Twain quote you posted. I interpret it as meaning that a human cannot be comfortable in their own skin unless they fully accept themselves. Is that how you interpreted it? I fully agree with you that THAT kind of acceptance is the OPPOSITE OF NARCISSISM. Narcissists are narcissistic because their sense of self is so low that they must use all their energy on themselves–doing WHATEVER is necessary to alleviate the pain. As a consequence they show no interest or concern for others.
What I understand from your incredibly clear description of how your thought processes work is that your total acceptance of yourself makes you anything but narcissistic. Nonetheless, when you display a lack of concern for others as well as for yourself, that’s interpreted as narcissistic. It is not! After all, it’s not that you lack a concern for others because all your concern is directed inward; it’s because the emotion that constitutes “concern” is simply not in your repertoire of emotions.
Have you ever seriously considered writing a book? I think your insights have relevance for anyone studying the neurobiology of behavior. I’m going to go read all your posts so I’ll likely be making additional comments in the near future.
Thank you for sharing the lens through which you see the world.