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.
He was! He visibly deflated! My father’s lesson to me was “Don’t worry about what other people think” and like all his lessons, he didn’t just say it, he demonstrated it. I think you would like the Weinstein Wisdom chapter in my book. He had some great life lessons and code of conduct. I describe an incident that illustrated his negotiating technique that used to totally throw people off. In brief, in a negotiation with a shop owner on the Lower East Side of NYC (where haggling over price is expected), a shop owner said, “$20” to which my father responded ”$10” to which the shop owner responded “$15” to which my father responded “$5.” The shop owner got all confused and upset ( like the Abbott and Costello Who’s on First routine) and said, “You just said you’d pay $10” to which my father responded, “If it’s worth less to you, it’s worth less to me.” You would have liked my father.
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.
When people say things like that to me, I simply reply, "I am confident that I suck at that."
I have had so many people think that they can teach me to draw for instance, and often it seems much less for me sake, than it is for the sake that they could either prove to me that I am wrong about my inability, or be the one that is able to overcome it. None of them ask me if it is important in my mind to pursue, or if there is an interest in learning any longer, just that I am wrong about my inability, and they will be the one to show me the way.
I usually enjoy praise and complements, however I also resent that my opinion of myself could be so easily pulled around by the opinions of others, both positive or negative.
And so I police my thoughts about praise or insults and remember that they are not praising me, but only a model of who I am in their mind, filtered their their biases and projections of what they imagine I might be.
So too have I been considered very sensitive since childhood. In some respects this has not changed at all, and much in life can send me into blinding spirals of pain and make it difficult to function, which looks bizarre to some people if I fail to hide it. Caring what random people think of me, though, is something that I WAS able to change, as well as developing a core confidence that comes from a personal and private sense of achievment and is not greatly affected by others. It isn't possible to know what unhelpful apects you can and can't change, but it is worth trying and being open to such change, as you can surprise yourself and life becomes that bit easier. (And you needn't lose the buzz you get from compliments!)
I wonder if your sisters perception of herself is the same as yours. You might be surprised if you haven't talked to her about it, that she may see herself as very different than you do.
And go down the rabbit hole, since none of us have direct experience of objective reality, but only well formed maps of realty via the senses, and then filtered thru our belief structures, biases and presuppositions we have no raw direct knowledge of who or what we actually are.
Yep, I hear you. I had a younger brother with a very retiring and 'chilled' and 'meek' (falsely and craftily assumed) temperament. We had different childhoods in the same home as a consequence. Lucky boy, he still diminishes what I went through in that home, and that makes me sad. He still cannot bring himself to acknowledge the ugliness, but we are nevertheless very close and he is an awesome guy and a great friend. No point wishing I was like him though, you get what you get. There's a lot he misses out on about people that I understand, so that just makes me think that we are at our best when we are in groups and can teach each other.
Yes it is exhausting to feel weak. I AM weak. I know I am weak. Constitutionally just utterly weak. Might as well acknowledge it because that's the way forward to being better than you are right now. But I am DONE comparing myself to other 'normal' people, and prefer to think about how far I came over the years from my pathetic baseline. For others it's just to normal, to me it's amazing.
I am not sure about why he doesn't acknowledge it, but he was not in any position to protect me, and was just a kid managing things in his own way, with parents who were damaged post-war people.
I don't think I am especially forgiving or patient, and it does bother me. But I accept that we are very different in some ways and what caused me much pain just washed over him or went unseen, he was able to detach. And I also understand that in some ways he might just 'not want to go there' and open that can of worms, and it's not for me to judge whether he 'should'. He was also very much the favoured child and the achiever, so I hear you. It does not affect our adult relationship much because he is a wonderful person who I greatly admire, and apart from early childhood squabbling, we have always been great friends, with shared interests and easy communication. As a child I certainly envied him, but it woild be pointless to do so now.
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.
No, your theory is not only wrong, but provably so. They have mapped the genetics that psychopathy comes from, and shown that it continues in genetic lines. It is fine to have theories about things that are unanswered, but this is a theory that is in conflict with actual data that is repeatable.
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.
Fake humility makes sense if you share the mentality of those that are prideful are terrible people. You fake humility to not raise the ire of those around you.
I downplay some compliments because I am worried that people might have expectations of me which I will not be able to fulfill. Yeah, I managed nicely this one thing, but it doesn't mean I will score across whole board, no, nope, do not put such faith in me, you are bound to get burnt and possibly also angry at me. I do not think it is neccesarily full blown impostor syndrome on all occasions.
I know also that I do want to think that I am better at stuff than some and that it did turn out at times that I was not, so I try to resist it.
However if I do feel good about something I can also launch into description of the process that led to it, with which bits I am especially pleased, which do not please me so much.
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 don't know what narcissistic traits would have to do with it. I would imagine that high narcissistic traits would mean they are more inclined to not even notice other people around them.
My bad. I didn’t consider that logically not all of the 9 narcissistic traits could apply to a psychopath given some of what you raised in this article. I guess only some of the 9 can.
Yes, I did that. It was really all I could do to counter the people that were able to take my answers, without my permission, share them in monetized spaces, and make money off of them.
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.
That would not be a psychopath. That would be someone so emotionally invested in how the world perceives them, and such a high ego, that they would slaughter an animal for disrespecting him. That is a highly emotional state of being and far more in line with MNPD.
When I was 18 I worked on a fish farm in a seine line crew with a man who once got even with a fish for finning him. I learned as I worked with him that he was fired from a job in law enforcement as a dog handler because he became enraged at the animal for some reason and shot it at a crime scene. That guy was dangerous and I have occasionally wondered what became of him
If you like animals, it is a wonder and privelege to have friendships with another species. If you don't like animals, you can ignore them. But to see yourself in some sort of ego contest with an animal, geez......
It was his long, complex and elaborate confidence games, along with a bone chilling, Ted Bundy like degree of smirking callousness that lead me to assume he was on that psychopathy scale.
I've seen you comment on different serial killers and such who were not psychopaths. Who are some notorious people who are A Tier psychopaths in your opinion?
You know, I actually have no idea. I thought Kemper was one, but found out that it was his childhood that created him. He apparently dealt with a great deal of shame.
It's really difficult to be able to point to a notorious criminal and say, that one is a psychopath. I am working on a post that I will be putting next Thursday that deals with the diagnoses of some serial killers that are not psychopaths. I mention this because unless you have access to their specific records, you can only know what is published.
The problem there of course is exactly what I spoke about with the PCL-R and it's misuse. They will be called a psychopath because of that, even if they are not, and unless you have access to read information that speaks about them having deep emotional disturbance, or physical issues that remove the ability for them to even be assessed, you can only go based on what is available. What is available may not even teel a quarter of the story, as I found out with Kemper
I recently read the book about Richard Kuklinski aka The Iceman and despite his being labeled a psychopath he was a career criminal with a very bad upbringing who was incredibly paranoid. The paranoia was apparently his principle motivation to commit most of his murders. Leave no witnesses or former associates who could testify against him.
I might be wrong about it but I equate paranoia with fear myself and it was the string of disappearances and murders that actually led to his arrest. Not very cunning at all looked at from a broader perspective
Ultra high Machiavellianism, complex and elaborate ruthlessness, very long complex con games, strong superficial charm, but all driven by raising insecurity and the ego the size of Jupiter, the most dangerous person I’ve ever known
"A"- lister psychopaths, or "Above the Snowline" psychopaths are the terms that Kevin Dutton assigned to psychopaths that have all their traits turned all the way up. They are very dangerous, and unwilling to change. They spend their lives most often in prison once they are caught.
And now that I have been thinking about it, I realise that I haven't ever looked at friendships in those terms. To do so now will just make me worry and overthink! Certainly many of my friends are smarter and more successful than I am, but they are gracious people who would not relish this or exploit it, and I am not envious, so all good. Romantic attachments during my life, yeah, sadly unequal, pretty cringey really, I am not proud of this. Athena said that you teach people how to treat you, and stupidly, I realised this very late. Anyway, thanks for raising this, it's something I need to give more attention to.
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.
I view the Mark Twain quote exactly the same as you do. If you do not have a steady and strong sense of self, then you are subject to the whims of other people's opinions. That is a dreadful way to live based on what I have watched. However, having that stable sense of self often comes across as arrogant to other people, and many people also have a sense of disquiet when they look internally for answers.
I wholeheartedly agree! I am someone who has spent more hours than I’d like to admit working towards total acceptance of self and comfort in being me. You are correct: it is a miserable, painful process. I can imagine how useless and unnecessary it all must seems to you. I can at least say that I’ve come a very long way in my 66 years. I feel pride about that—another emotion I suspect you don’t feel—but I have yet to figure out how to finish the job.
The last couple of years have been the worst in my life. What’s interesting is that the nightmarish aspect of that is making me want to find some place that is free of the hope-fear dualism that drives so many “neurotypicals.” I imagine that those expressing a desire to adopt some of your worldview are experiencing something similar. But I understand why we can never reach your state. It’s simply not in the cards we were dealt.
When one’s behavior has incorporated all those thoughts that you never experience (most notably, a fear of feeling guilt and/or shame), they can never feel the level of freedom and self-sufficiency that you feel. Humans started evolving a sense of guilt and shame as soon tribes formed and genetically unrelated individuals began living cooperatively. And those emotions have been used as a means of civilizing our species for millennia. But as unpleasant as those feelings are, they were critical for our survival and ultimate victory in the hominid wars—and they remain critical for our survival to this day.
I make no judgment of you. I am a staunch believer in our lack of free will. But if everyone lacked a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others, we may have gone extinct like other hominid species. What I will say, however, is that the narcissistic version of not caring about the well-being of others is far more prevalent in the human population than the indifference of psychopaths—and far more responsible for the dire crises we are now facing.
Trump is a malignant narcissist; he is NOTHING like you. Whenever I see people labeling him a psychopath, I correct them. Due to his pathological need for approval, he managed to collected a base of very narcissistic white men who are filled with anger about the bad hand they were dealt. Their anger that poses the threat far more than their indifference to others. They are the ones who pose a danger to the long term survival of our species.
I envy that you don’t feel that fear (at least I assume you don’t). But, like you and your lack of understanding of the neurotypical mind, I have no true understanding of what it’s like existing in your conscious mind. I look forward to reading your book! Best!
It's normal for us. Guilt is so awful that once experienced, fearing it becomes inevitable, and fear is so awful too, and then you have a double whammy of badness to eat away at your insides, and it goes round and round.....welcome to our world!😃
Well, after doing something that close ones did not approve of, there would often be punitive action. That doing something wrong is followed by one's own suffering is deeply ingrained. We do to ourselves what was done to us. Emotional empathy strikes too. Pain someone is going through because of us is pain we should be in. We owe them to rectify the state and since healing something is not the same as fixing something, time cannot be unwinded and loss in the meantime erased, pain experienced forgotten, the cost is actually higher.
At least that is one reasoning behind the phenomenon.
I was very much like you once, except that you have more insight than I did at the time. The things you wish for- a stable secure sense of self, a thicker skin, making peace with yet controlling ones dark side- these can come with time and practice.
I am a good bit older than you. Yes, people who act as you describe can indeed be impossible to have relationships with, whatever the reason for their dismissiveness and indifference.
When I say accept ones dark side, I do not at all mean indulging it, just acknowledging it so as to be on guard. There is no excuse for being cruel, but there are explanations- people carrying unprocessed pain and boiling fury can be toxic, but if it is temporary and they are trying sincerely to sort themselves out, I will cut them some slack, because people cut me slack when I was in that position and I appreciate it.
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.
I can see why. I imagine that guy was very confused by that response.
He was! He visibly deflated! My father’s lesson to me was “Don’t worry about what other people think” and like all his lessons, he didn’t just say it, he demonstrated it. I think you would like the Weinstein Wisdom chapter in my book. He had some great life lessons and code of conduct. I describe an incident that illustrated his negotiating technique that used to totally throw people off. In brief, in a negotiation with a shop owner on the Lower East Side of NYC (where haggling over price is expected), a shop owner said, “$20” to which my father responded ”$10” to which the shop owner responded “$15” to which my father responded “$5.” The shop owner got all confused and upset ( like the Abbott and Costello Who’s on First routine) and said, “You just said you’d pay $10” to which my father responded, “If it’s worth less to you, it’s worth less to me.” You would have liked my father.
Sounds like it
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.
When people say things like that to me, I simply reply, "I am confident that I suck at that."
I have had so many people think that they can teach me to draw for instance, and often it seems much less for me sake, than it is for the sake that they could either prove to me that I am wrong about my inability, or be the one that is able to overcome it. None of them ask me if it is important in my mind to pursue, or if there is an interest in learning any longer, just that I am wrong about my inability, and they will be the one to show me the way.
It's quite irritating.
Yes, indeed they do
Cognitive empathy at work
I usually enjoy praise and complements, however I also resent that my opinion of myself could be so easily pulled around by the opinions of others, both positive or negative.
And so I police my thoughts about praise or insults and remember that they are not praising me, but only a model of who I am in their mind, filtered their their biases and projections of what they imagine I might be.
So too have I been considered very sensitive since childhood. In some respects this has not changed at all, and much in life can send me into blinding spirals of pain and make it difficult to function, which looks bizarre to some people if I fail to hide it. Caring what random people think of me, though, is something that I WAS able to change, as well as developing a core confidence that comes from a personal and private sense of achievment and is not greatly affected by others. It isn't possible to know what unhelpful apects you can and can't change, but it is worth trying and being open to such change, as you can surprise yourself and life becomes that bit easier. (And you needn't lose the buzz you get from compliments!)
I wonder if your sisters perception of herself is the same as yours. You might be surprised if you haven't talked to her about it, that she may see herself as very different than you do.
And go down the rabbit hole, since none of us have direct experience of objective reality, but only well formed maps of realty via the senses, and then filtered thru our belief structures, biases and presuppositions we have no raw direct knowledge of who or what we actually are.
The “self” we all speak of is also a model
The map is not the territory, don’t eat the menu.
Indeed it is.
Yep, I hear you. I had a younger brother with a very retiring and 'chilled' and 'meek' (falsely and craftily assumed) temperament. We had different childhoods in the same home as a consequence. Lucky boy, he still diminishes what I went through in that home, and that makes me sad. He still cannot bring himself to acknowledge the ugliness, but we are nevertheless very close and he is an awesome guy and a great friend. No point wishing I was like him though, you get what you get. There's a lot he misses out on about people that I understand, so that just makes me think that we are at our best when we are in groups and can teach each other.
Yes it is exhausting to feel weak. I AM weak. I know I am weak. Constitutionally just utterly weak. Might as well acknowledge it because that's the way forward to being better than you are right now. But I am DONE comparing myself to other 'normal' people, and prefer to think about how far I came over the years from my pathetic baseline. For others it's just to normal, to me it's amazing.
I wonder if his refusal to acknowledge it would, in his mind, make him admit that he failed to protect you, so denial is easier for him.
I am not sure about why he doesn't acknowledge it, but he was not in any position to protect me, and was just a kid managing things in his own way, with parents who were damaged post-war people.
I don't think I am especially forgiving or patient, and it does bother me. But I accept that we are very different in some ways and what caused me much pain just washed over him or went unseen, he was able to detach. And I also understand that in some ways he might just 'not want to go there' and open that can of worms, and it's not for me to judge whether he 'should'. He was also very much the favoured child and the achiever, so I hear you. It does not affect our adult relationship much because he is a wonderful person who I greatly admire, and apart from early childhood squabbling, we have always been great friends, with shared interests and easy communication. As a child I certainly envied him, but it woild be pointless to do so now.
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.
No, your theory is not only wrong, but provably so. They have mapped the genetics that psychopathy comes from, and shown that it continues in genetic lines. It is fine to have theories about things that are unanswered, but this is a theory that is in conflict with actual data that is repeatable.
Okay, thanks for writing the horror story on October 31, best birthday gift from you 😚
Shaking babies can cause a lot of things, psychopathy isn't one of them
It's a theory like I stated.
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.
Fake humility makes sense if you share the mentality of those that are prideful are terrible people. You fake humility to not raise the ire of those around you.
I downplay some compliments because I am worried that people might have expectations of me which I will not be able to fulfill. Yeah, I managed nicely this one thing, but it doesn't mean I will score across whole board, no, nope, do not put such faith in me, you are bound to get burnt and possibly also angry at me. I do not think it is neccesarily full blown impostor syndrome on all occasions.
I know also that I do want to think that I am better at stuff than some and that it did turn out at times that I was not, so I try to resist it.
However if I do feel good about something I can also launch into description of the process that led to it, with which bits I am especially pleased, which do not please me so much.
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.
I could see that being the case.
Have you considered writing a book Athena? I think there would be a market for it.
I am actually working on one
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).
Yes I agree, and the best version of self is a good goal to have in life.
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 don't know what narcissistic traits would have to do with it. I would imagine that high narcissistic traits would mean they are more inclined to not even notice other people around them.
My bad. I didn’t consider that logically not all of the 9 narcissistic traits could apply to a psychopath given some of what you raised in this article. I guess only some of the 9 can.
I see. Ok, thank you.
Were you aware that some of your quora answers are locked behind Quora plus?
Yes, I did that. It was really all I could do to counter the people that were able to take my answers, without my permission, share them in monetized spaces, and make money off of them.
fair enough
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.
I have briefly achieved a state of Ātman a few times, for a few minutes.
It changes what we mean by self or I
It would be more precise to say that this has achieved a state of Ātmaning
Thoughts, actions, preferences, among other things construct a personality in everyone, psychopaths are no different.
I am unfamiliar with the notion of "atman", so I will have to look into it.
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.
That would not be a psychopath. That would be someone so emotionally invested in how the world perceives them, and such a high ego, that they would slaughter an animal for disrespecting him. That is a highly emotional state of being and far more in line with MNPD.
When I was 18 I worked on a fish farm in a seine line crew with a man who once got even with a fish for finning him. I learned as I worked with him that he was fired from a job in law enforcement as a dog handler because he became enraged at the animal for some reason and shot it at a crime scene. That guy was dangerous and I have occasionally wondered what became of him
I can see why. Sounds like he had a very unmanaged temper.
Utterly pathetic conduct.
If you like animals, it is a wonder and privelege to have friendships with another species. If you don't like animals, you can ignore them. But to see yourself in some sort of ego contest with an animal, geez......
I have seen this first hand myself, and it is something truly strange.
Oh yes, I see the difference.
It was his long, complex and elaborate confidence games, along with a bone chilling, Ted Bundy like degree of smirking callousness that lead me to assume he was on that psychopathy scale.
So interesting... Bundy was a malignant narcissist, not a psychopath. I will be putting up post up about him soon
I've seen you comment on different serial killers and such who were not psychopaths. Who are some notorious people who are A Tier psychopaths in your opinion?
You know, I actually have no idea. I thought Kemper was one, but found out that it was his childhood that created him. He apparently dealt with a great deal of shame.
It's really difficult to be able to point to a notorious criminal and say, that one is a psychopath. I am working on a post that I will be putting next Thursday that deals with the diagnoses of some serial killers that are not psychopaths. I mention this because unless you have access to their specific records, you can only know what is published.
The problem there of course is exactly what I spoke about with the PCL-R and it's misuse. They will be called a psychopath because of that, even if they are not, and unless you have access to read information that speaks about them having deep emotional disturbance, or physical issues that remove the ability for them to even be assessed, you can only go based on what is available. What is available may not even teel a quarter of the story, as I found out with Kemper
I recently read the book about Richard Kuklinski aka The Iceman and despite his being labeled a psychopath he was a career criminal with a very bad upbringing who was incredibly paranoid. The paranoia was apparently his principle motivation to commit most of his murders. Leave no witnesses or former associates who could testify against him.
I might be wrong about it but I equate paranoia with fear myself and it was the string of disappearances and murders that actually led to his arrest. Not very cunning at all looked at from a broader perspective
Ultra high Machiavellianism, complex and elaborate ruthlessness, very long complex con games, strong superficial charm, but all driven by raising insecurity and the ego the size of Jupiter, the most dangerous person I’ve ever known
I can imagine. The only type I think outranks MNPD is an "A" lister psychopath
A lister?
"A"- lister psychopaths, or "Above the Snowline" psychopaths are the terms that Kevin Dutton assigned to psychopaths that have all their traits turned all the way up. They are very dangerous, and unwilling to change. They spend their lives most often in prison once they are caught.
Yes of course it does, but then I do calmly addressed her complaint and if valid I work to remedy the issue
You have got me thinking now about friendship inequality. As silly as it sounds I hadn't really looked at that.
And now that I have been thinking about it, I realise that I haven't ever looked at friendships in those terms. To do so now will just make me worry and overthink! Certainly many of my friends are smarter and more successful than I am, but they are gracious people who would not relish this or exploit it, and I am not envious, so all good. Romantic attachments during my life, yeah, sadly unequal, pretty cringey really, I am not proud of this. Athena said that you teach people how to treat you, and stupidly, I realised this very late. Anyway, thanks for raising this, it's something I need to give more attention to.
Yes of course.
Mutual respect is critical.
I take all the steam out of personal attacks (you are an x) by simply agreeing with them with self acceptance regardless.
You are being such an ass!
Yep that’s me sometimes, so anyway, what’s the issue?
A statement more like (I feel frustrated when you do X) is not personally directed, and so I respond accordingly.
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.
I view the Mark Twain quote exactly the same as you do. If you do not have a steady and strong sense of self, then you are subject to the whims of other people's opinions. That is a dreadful way to live based on what I have watched. However, having that stable sense of self often comes across as arrogant to other people, and many people also have a sense of disquiet when they look internally for answers.
I am on working a book currently.
I look forward to your insight.
I wholeheartedly agree! I am someone who has spent more hours than I’d like to admit working towards total acceptance of self and comfort in being me. You are correct: it is a miserable, painful process. I can imagine how useless and unnecessary it all must seems to you. I can at least say that I’ve come a very long way in my 66 years. I feel pride about that—another emotion I suspect you don’t feel—but I have yet to figure out how to finish the job.
The last couple of years have been the worst in my life. What’s interesting is that the nightmarish aspect of that is making me want to find some place that is free of the hope-fear dualism that drives so many “neurotypicals.” I imagine that those expressing a desire to adopt some of your worldview are experiencing something similar. But I understand why we can never reach your state. It’s simply not in the cards we were dealt.
When one’s behavior has incorporated all those thoughts that you never experience (most notably, a fear of feeling guilt and/or shame), they can never feel the level of freedom and self-sufficiency that you feel. Humans started evolving a sense of guilt and shame as soon tribes formed and genetically unrelated individuals began living cooperatively. And those emotions have been used as a means of civilizing our species for millennia. But as unpleasant as those feelings are, they were critical for our survival and ultimate victory in the hominid wars—and they remain critical for our survival to this day.
I make no judgment of you. I am a staunch believer in our lack of free will. But if everyone lacked a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others, we may have gone extinct like other hominid species. What I will say, however, is that the narcissistic version of not caring about the well-being of others is far more prevalent in the human population than the indifference of psychopaths—and far more responsible for the dire crises we are now facing.
Trump is a malignant narcissist; he is NOTHING like you. Whenever I see people labeling him a psychopath, I correct them. Due to his pathological need for approval, he managed to collected a base of very narcissistic white men who are filled with anger about the bad hand they were dealt. Their anger that poses the threat far more than their indifference to others. They are the ones who pose a danger to the long term survival of our species.
I envy that you don’t feel that fear (at least I assume you don’t). But, like you and your lack of understanding of the neurotypical mind, I have no true understanding of what it’s like existing in your conscious mind. I look forward to reading your book! Best!
Fear of guilt... what an interesting thing to be afraid of.
It's normal for us. Guilt is so awful that once experienced, fearing it becomes inevitable, and fear is so awful too, and then you have a double whammy of badness to eat away at your insides, and it goes round and round.....welcome to our world!😃
That is really strange to me. I try, but can't really understand how it would be terrible. I believe you, but it is something that is quite odd to me.
Well, after doing something that close ones did not approve of, there would often be punitive action. That doing something wrong is followed by one's own suffering is deeply ingrained. We do to ourselves what was done to us. Emotional empathy strikes too. Pain someone is going through because of us is pain we should be in. We owe them to rectify the state and since healing something is not the same as fixing something, time cannot be unwinded and loss in the meantime erased, pain experienced forgotten, the cost is actually higher.
At least that is one reasoning behind the phenomenon.
Guilt is a very unpleasant physiologically feeling—and it erodes at whatever self esteem you’ve already built.
I was very much like you once, except that you have more insight than I did at the time. The things you wish for- a stable secure sense of self, a thicker skin, making peace with yet controlling ones dark side- these can come with time and practice.
I am a good bit older than you. Yes, people who act as you describe can indeed be impossible to have relationships with, whatever the reason for their dismissiveness and indifference.
When I say accept ones dark side, I do not at all mean indulging it, just acknowledging it so as to be on guard. There is no excuse for being cruel, but there are explanations- people carrying unprocessed pain and boiling fury can be toxic, but if it is temporary and they are trying sincerely to sort themselves out, I will cut them some slack, because people cut me slack when I was in that position and I appreciate it.
You will continue to learn your entire life if you do it right