Sounds like this author likes to just jumble all Cluster B personality disorders into one big mess of an “emotional” psychopath. Oxymoron, or just moronic?
I really have no idea. All I can manage to figure out with people like this is that there is a great deal of projection and demonization with their claims.
I agree. That author conflated [many-or-all] "toxic types" who lack empathy and then dumped all of them into the psychopath bin. Most of her descriptions sound to me more like narcissists and sociopaths. That is, disclaimer: I'm not a trained professional and thus cannot do any diagnosing, even from an armchair.
This is something i have noticed and wanted to write when finished reading - agree.
I am not in any way specialist but to me it seems that person writing all of that has some sort of narcissistic tendencies herself and tries to portray someone as psychopath with mirrored narcissistic characteristics.
Feb 19, 2022·edited Feb 19, 2022Liked by Athena Walker
Hello, sorry in advance that this is a long post here.
First off, I’m almost mad I didn’t discover you sooner. I’m a counselor who specializes in substance use disorders and am very aware of the large amount of misinformation about mental health on the internet and in the DSM which essentially exists for the sake of capitalism and means testing (who does and doesn’t “deserve” or qualify for treatment). It is true that a degree in the field is just an "entrance ticket" and that if you want to be a good clinician you must seek out research and study on your own. People with substance use disorders rarely have one as a primary issue but treatment for these individuals is still largely only available for the substance use part of their issues which is also often treated like a moral failing or character flaw, despite the evidence. Treatment for a “dual-diagnosis” is difficult for many for a large variety of reasons that I won’t go into here. I am not even allowed to diagnose anyone with anything other than “substance use disorder” due to regulations.
I want to express how thankful I am for the work you are doing. You have clarified a lot for me and I’m excited to read everything you have written here. I found you because I have a specific client right now that is an interesting case and I was trying to understand this person better. I have long suspected that this person would at least meet the criteria for ASPD but has some other tendencies that make me more curious. I wanted to get your thoughts on this if you are willing, just for curiosity’s sake and knowing that armchair diagnoses are just that. I present to you a case study that asks, do you think that serious trauma can change a psychopath's brain?
Say you, as a psychopath, were in a serious accident that caused significant bodily harm, you barely survived, and you now have flashbacks of the event, nightmares, anxiety, and depression. You were once fearless (emotionally) but now experience fear and maybe even paranoia and are frustrated by the fact that you feel things you hadn't before. Things you previously didn’t feel guilty about you now have remorse for, going as far as having nightmares about things you previously did but previously felt no remorse for. You are now more hesitant to take risks for fear of the consequences - it’s as if you now experience emotional fear instead of just the fight-or-flight threat response. You begin to feel self-hatred and may even consider suicide because you feel that you cannot function as you once did and your existence is therefore pointless because it no longer benefits you. Do you think that serious trauma can change a psychopath? Or maybe, can a person just become a Low Functioning Psychopath? Or maybe, could it be that the person was never a psychopath, had some other disorder such as ASPD, and that the trauma has worsened it? I realize you are not a mental health professional but I am curious as to what your thoughts are on this.
It’s hard because I did not know this person before their trauma. This person is always discussing how they used to be but I’m not sure if it’s the rosy glasses of nostalgia and that they truly had no emotional fear or remorse or guilt before the incident and that they didn’t have substance use issues or mental health issues before the incident, or if the trauma caused such a significant brain change that this person now experiences things they didn’t before. This person participated in some serious criminal behavior before as a means to an end and did grow up in an environment that could have contributed significantly to their behaviors - from the way the individual describes their father, it could just be genetic rather than environmental or it could be a combination of both. Either way, this person clearly now has PTSD & and an SUD but also has some “psychopathic traits” such as impulsivity, amorality, doing things as a means to an end with no consideration of the impact they have on others, no consideration of how they appear to others, little desire for attention or admiration, thrill seeking for entertainment purposes, and a lack of true attachments other than those that serve a purpose; however, they do seem to have a clear history of aggression when needed for a clear gain. It also appears that certain types of situations provoke rage and a desire for vengeance but, from their reports, this may not have always been the case. In fact, this rage "confuses" this person and the rage seems to stem only from a sense of injustice, creating a desire for them to take it upon themselves to enact justice. I’m just curious if you think it’s possible that a psychopath’s brain could change significantly due to serious trauma or if the person was not likely a psychopath in the first place and instead had another disorder.
I have “legit” ADHD and sometimes struggle to condense my many thoughts so if you made it through all of this, I appreciate it. As a non-neurotypical I am often assigned with the "difficult" cases that others don't like dealing with because "difficult" people like this are fascinating to me and I'm not easily afraid. I appreciate any thoughts on this!
OK, I am tentatively offering an unsolicited comment. Why invoke psycopathy? Some people deal with trauma by becoming very hard and detached from their emotions, but this defence can be shattered by a significant enough event. Other untraumatisec people can be naturally very stable and steady and low on emotion but a profound bad experience can cause dramatic change and make them newly prone to anxiety, anger etc. Good luck with your client anyway!
A person qualifying for ASPD is not a particularly significant thing. ASPD is a garbage diagnosis that has no reason to be treated as anything other than that. It is identifying behavior only, not the cause of that behavior. That is much like a doctor telling you that you have a fever, but not being remotely interested in why you have said fever. There can be a thousand reasons a person has a fever, and there are many more reasons that a person may behave antisocially. Pointing to behavior and saying "LOOK! THERE IT IS!" is essentially what an ASPD diagnosis is.
If a person has narcissistic personality disorder with antisocial traits, their antisocial traits are going to be present in order to get external ego support. The antisocial behavior is simply an extension of the underlying NPD. People with NPD tend to be self-obsessed, and lacking internal ego support. Their antisocial actions are going to be reflective of their NPD.
A psychopath who also happens to be antisocial in nature is going to be antisocial to get things. Psychopaths are not self-obsessed, they are self-interested. The antisocial behavior is going to be reflective of that. Be it entertainment, financial gain, removing obstacles, the antisocial behavior is going to be reflective of the desired external goal. They will never be antisocial for the same reasons that someone with NPD might be.
By that same measure, a neurotypical that is antisocial (neurotypicals make up the largest percentage of ASPD diagnoses) their reasoning is going to be much different. Usually they are going to be antisocial in reflection of their deep emotions, and the antisocial behavior will be reflective of such.
That's not touching on the plethora of other reasoning for it. Anyone alive can be diagnosed with ASPD so long as their behavior fits the bill. Noting the behavior tells you nothing about that person at all. It tells you that a behavior is there, not the cause, and the cause is all that matters in the long run.
You asked:
"Say you, as a psychopath, were in a serious accident that caused significant bodily harm, you barely survived, and you now have flashbacks of the event, nightmares, anxiety, and depression. You were once fearless (emotionally) but now experience fear and maybe even paranoia and are frustrated by the fact that you feel things you hadn't before. Things you previously didn’t feel guilty about you now have remorse for, going as far as having nightmares about things you previously did but previously felt no remorse for. You are now more hesitant to take risks for fear of the consequences - it’s as if you now experience emotional fear instead of just the fight-or-flight threat response. You begin to feel self-hatred and may even consider suicide because you feel that you cannot function as you once did and your existence is therefore pointless because it no longer benefits you. Do you think that serious trauma can change a psychopath? Or maybe, can a person just become a Low Functioning Psychopath? Or maybe, could it be that the person was never a psychopath, had some other disorder such as ASPD, and that the trauma has worsened it? I realize you are not a mental health professional but I am curious as to what your thoughts are on this."
Nope. Not even a little. You cannot create things in psychopathy that do not exist in the first place. This is akin to asking you if you went through some serious trauma, can you now sprout wings and fly. It is literally asking the same thing. The psychopathic brain does not feel fear, anxiety, experience trauma, suicidal ideations, or anything of that sort due to how the brain is constructed, and how it processes it's own chemistry. No trauma can change these things. I have nearly died several times. It has changed nothing about my brain processing or experience in the world. It never could.
Someone that can feel any of those things is by definition, NOT a psychopath.
Also, that is not what a low functioning psychopath is. A low functioning psychopath is someone that is less intelligent, cannot predict the consequences of their behavior, cannot delay gratification, are antisocial in nature, and have low impulse control. It is not a psychopath that can magically feel things that psychopaths cannot feel. As I said, if a person can feel any of those things, they are not a psychopath. If they didn't feel them before their "trauma" and suddenly does, that means they were not a psychopath to begin with. Many people think that they are psychopathic when they are not because they have no idea what psychopathy is.
Psychopaths also do not feel nostalgia of any kind. That would require emotional coding of memories, and that requires the ability to process oxytocin. Psychopaths lack this ability completely due to a mutated oxytocin receptor..
Psychopaths cannot develop PTSD, nor can they become addicted to anything. The brain formation forbids both of these things, and they are looking into how psychopaths process drug chemistry as a possible avenue of treatment in people that can become addicted to things.
Psychopaths do not feel rage, or any emotional depth of any kind. There is also not emotional need of vengeance. That requires another deep emotional investment. Psychopaths can certainly get even with people, but this is not an emotional venture. It is a purely practical one.
Whatever the person was or is, they were never psychopathic. Nothing that you list is psychopathic in nature. People often conflate antisocial traits with psychopathic ones because they are seeking information on the internet, and most of the information on the internet is simply wrong. They find so-called checklists of "psychopathic traits" and think that it is representative of psychopathy, because if you google "psychopathic traits", you are going to get a list from the PCL-R, not an actual list of psychopathic traits. This is a mistake, and part why the PCL-R is such a terrible checklist.
Being antisocial has nothing to do with psychopathy. There are of course antisocial psychopaths, but them being psychopathic has nothing to do with that. They made those choices. Psychopathy does not make someone incapable of making good choices, nor does it compel people to make bad ones. That is entirely within their own control.
Great read! Are you still going to write a longer post on some of the tips Dutton Identified regarding psychopathic ways of looking at things? (What he called the manifesto) That would be very very interesting and any other tips you have which you think us emotional bastards could benefit from ! Ha cheers
I couldn't take most of what the other person said with any kind of value after the mention of Jacques Derrida. I deplore people whose worldview is focused on their victimhood and not how they can overcome it.
Feb 16, 2022·edited Feb 16, 2022Liked by Athena Walker
I have a question. Is the book 'My Sister Rosa' by Justine Larbalestier a correct description of a criminally inclined psychopath? Or is it full of misinformation and speculation too? It would be very insightful if you, a diagnosed psychopath, read the book and did a review. I do recommend you to check it out.
Nope. I looked at the reviews and plot synopses. Here is what I found.
Dysfunctional family.
The kid lies.
She's "creepy"
A bad seed.
The book is "disturbing".
The boy thinks his sister is a psychopath... no a sociopath... because he thinks he knows what he is talking about.
He doesn't, and the sister is the product of her family. Nothing more. Probably a neurotypical child looking to garner attention any way that she can, even if that attention is bad attention. A child lying is nothing out of the ordinary, saying "creepy" things has nothing to do with psychopathy. It sounds like a reimaginging of "We Need To Talk About Kevin", which was basically a story about a boy that was screwed up by a self-entitled parent that thought she did no wrong. Then when he shot up a school, of course, he was a psychopath. Not the product of his environment.
Neurotypical authors have a very annoying habit of thinking psychopathy is a relevant stand in to replace actual character development. It is lazy, inaccurate, and creates a plethora of misinformation that I in turn have to debunk.
Another great article. I wish NT people would try to understand different experiences instead of just painting the other as evil monsters.
That would be lovely.
Sounds like this author likes to just jumble all Cluster B personality disorders into one big mess of an “emotional” psychopath. Oxymoron, or just moronic?
I really have no idea. All I can manage to figure out with people like this is that there is a great deal of projection and demonization with their claims.
I agree. That author conflated [many-or-all] "toxic types" who lack empathy and then dumped all of them into the psychopath bin. Most of her descriptions sound to me more like narcissists and sociopaths. That is, disclaimer: I'm not a trained professional and thus cannot do any diagnosing, even from an armchair.
Yes, same
I know! I found it such an obvious error!
This is something i have noticed and wanted to write when finished reading - agree.
I am not in any way specialist but to me it seems that person writing all of that has some sort of narcissistic tendencies herself and tries to portray someone as psychopath with mirrored narcissistic characteristics.
There was this person telling me that psychopaths don't feel anything at all.
It baffles me that how comfortably people pull all kinds of ---- out of their mouths about topics they're not even remotely familiar with.
Indeed, that gets to be quite tiresome when people do things like that.
Hello, sorry in advance that this is a long post here.
First off, I’m almost mad I didn’t discover you sooner. I’m a counselor who specializes in substance use disorders and am very aware of the large amount of misinformation about mental health on the internet and in the DSM which essentially exists for the sake of capitalism and means testing (who does and doesn’t “deserve” or qualify for treatment). It is true that a degree in the field is just an "entrance ticket" and that if you want to be a good clinician you must seek out research and study on your own. People with substance use disorders rarely have one as a primary issue but treatment for these individuals is still largely only available for the substance use part of their issues which is also often treated like a moral failing or character flaw, despite the evidence. Treatment for a “dual-diagnosis” is difficult for many for a large variety of reasons that I won’t go into here. I am not even allowed to diagnose anyone with anything other than “substance use disorder” due to regulations.
I want to express how thankful I am for the work you are doing. You have clarified a lot for me and I’m excited to read everything you have written here. I found you because I have a specific client right now that is an interesting case and I was trying to understand this person better. I have long suspected that this person would at least meet the criteria for ASPD but has some other tendencies that make me more curious. I wanted to get your thoughts on this if you are willing, just for curiosity’s sake and knowing that armchair diagnoses are just that. I present to you a case study that asks, do you think that serious trauma can change a psychopath's brain?
Say you, as a psychopath, were in a serious accident that caused significant bodily harm, you barely survived, and you now have flashbacks of the event, nightmares, anxiety, and depression. You were once fearless (emotionally) but now experience fear and maybe even paranoia and are frustrated by the fact that you feel things you hadn't before. Things you previously didn’t feel guilty about you now have remorse for, going as far as having nightmares about things you previously did but previously felt no remorse for. You are now more hesitant to take risks for fear of the consequences - it’s as if you now experience emotional fear instead of just the fight-or-flight threat response. You begin to feel self-hatred and may even consider suicide because you feel that you cannot function as you once did and your existence is therefore pointless because it no longer benefits you. Do you think that serious trauma can change a psychopath? Or maybe, can a person just become a Low Functioning Psychopath? Or maybe, could it be that the person was never a psychopath, had some other disorder such as ASPD, and that the trauma has worsened it? I realize you are not a mental health professional but I am curious as to what your thoughts are on this.
It’s hard because I did not know this person before their trauma. This person is always discussing how they used to be but I’m not sure if it’s the rosy glasses of nostalgia and that they truly had no emotional fear or remorse or guilt before the incident and that they didn’t have substance use issues or mental health issues before the incident, or if the trauma caused such a significant brain change that this person now experiences things they didn’t before. This person participated in some serious criminal behavior before as a means to an end and did grow up in an environment that could have contributed significantly to their behaviors - from the way the individual describes their father, it could just be genetic rather than environmental or it could be a combination of both. Either way, this person clearly now has PTSD & and an SUD but also has some “psychopathic traits” such as impulsivity, amorality, doing things as a means to an end with no consideration of the impact they have on others, no consideration of how they appear to others, little desire for attention or admiration, thrill seeking for entertainment purposes, and a lack of true attachments other than those that serve a purpose; however, they do seem to have a clear history of aggression when needed for a clear gain. It also appears that certain types of situations provoke rage and a desire for vengeance but, from their reports, this may not have always been the case. In fact, this rage "confuses" this person and the rage seems to stem only from a sense of injustice, creating a desire for them to take it upon themselves to enact justice. I’m just curious if you think it’s possible that a psychopath’s brain could change significantly due to serious trauma or if the person was not likely a psychopath in the first place and instead had another disorder.
I have “legit” ADHD and sometimes struggle to condense my many thoughts so if you made it through all of this, I appreciate it. As a non-neurotypical I am often assigned with the "difficult" cases that others don't like dealing with because "difficult" people like this are fascinating to me and I'm not easily afraid. I appreciate any thoughts on this!
OK, I am tentatively offering an unsolicited comment. Why invoke psycopathy? Some people deal with trauma by becoming very hard and detached from their emotions, but this defence can be shattered by a significant enough event. Other untraumatisec people can be naturally very stable and steady and low on emotion but a profound bad experience can cause dramatic change and make them newly prone to anxiety, anger etc. Good luck with your client anyway!
A person qualifying for ASPD is not a particularly significant thing. ASPD is a garbage diagnosis that has no reason to be treated as anything other than that. It is identifying behavior only, not the cause of that behavior. That is much like a doctor telling you that you have a fever, but not being remotely interested in why you have said fever. There can be a thousand reasons a person has a fever, and there are many more reasons that a person may behave antisocially. Pointing to behavior and saying "LOOK! THERE IT IS!" is essentially what an ASPD diagnosis is.
If a person has narcissistic personality disorder with antisocial traits, their antisocial traits are going to be present in order to get external ego support. The antisocial behavior is simply an extension of the underlying NPD. People with NPD tend to be self-obsessed, and lacking internal ego support. Their antisocial actions are going to be reflective of their NPD.
A psychopath who also happens to be antisocial in nature is going to be antisocial to get things. Psychopaths are not self-obsessed, they are self-interested. The antisocial behavior is going to be reflective of that. Be it entertainment, financial gain, removing obstacles, the antisocial behavior is going to be reflective of the desired external goal. They will never be antisocial for the same reasons that someone with NPD might be.
By that same measure, a neurotypical that is antisocial (neurotypicals make up the largest percentage of ASPD diagnoses) their reasoning is going to be much different. Usually they are going to be antisocial in reflection of their deep emotions, and the antisocial behavior will be reflective of such.
That's not touching on the plethora of other reasoning for it. Anyone alive can be diagnosed with ASPD so long as their behavior fits the bill. Noting the behavior tells you nothing about that person at all. It tells you that a behavior is there, not the cause, and the cause is all that matters in the long run.
You asked:
"Say you, as a psychopath, were in a serious accident that caused significant bodily harm, you barely survived, and you now have flashbacks of the event, nightmares, anxiety, and depression. You were once fearless (emotionally) but now experience fear and maybe even paranoia and are frustrated by the fact that you feel things you hadn't before. Things you previously didn’t feel guilty about you now have remorse for, going as far as having nightmares about things you previously did but previously felt no remorse for. You are now more hesitant to take risks for fear of the consequences - it’s as if you now experience emotional fear instead of just the fight-or-flight threat response. You begin to feel self-hatred and may even consider suicide because you feel that you cannot function as you once did and your existence is therefore pointless because it no longer benefits you. Do you think that serious trauma can change a psychopath? Or maybe, can a person just become a Low Functioning Psychopath? Or maybe, could it be that the person was never a psychopath, had some other disorder such as ASPD, and that the trauma has worsened it? I realize you are not a mental health professional but I am curious as to what your thoughts are on this."
Nope. Not even a little. You cannot create things in psychopathy that do not exist in the first place. This is akin to asking you if you went through some serious trauma, can you now sprout wings and fly. It is literally asking the same thing. The psychopathic brain does not feel fear, anxiety, experience trauma, suicidal ideations, or anything of that sort due to how the brain is constructed, and how it processes it's own chemistry. No trauma can change these things. I have nearly died several times. It has changed nothing about my brain processing or experience in the world. It never could.
Someone that can feel any of those things is by definition, NOT a psychopath.
Also, that is not what a low functioning psychopath is. A low functioning psychopath is someone that is less intelligent, cannot predict the consequences of their behavior, cannot delay gratification, are antisocial in nature, and have low impulse control. It is not a psychopath that can magically feel things that psychopaths cannot feel. As I said, if a person can feel any of those things, they are not a psychopath. If they didn't feel them before their "trauma" and suddenly does, that means they were not a psychopath to begin with. Many people think that they are psychopathic when they are not because they have no idea what psychopathy is.
Psychopaths also do not feel nostalgia of any kind. That would require emotional coding of memories, and that requires the ability to process oxytocin. Psychopaths lack this ability completely due to a mutated oxytocin receptor..
Psychopaths cannot develop PTSD, nor can they become addicted to anything. The brain formation forbids both of these things, and they are looking into how psychopaths process drug chemistry as a possible avenue of treatment in people that can become addicted to things.
Psychopaths do not feel rage, or any emotional depth of any kind. There is also not emotional need of vengeance. That requires another deep emotional investment. Psychopaths can certainly get even with people, but this is not an emotional venture. It is a purely practical one.
Whatever the person was or is, they were never psychopathic. Nothing that you list is psychopathic in nature. People often conflate antisocial traits with psychopathic ones because they are seeking information on the internet, and most of the information on the internet is simply wrong. They find so-called checklists of "psychopathic traits" and think that it is representative of psychopathy, because if you google "psychopathic traits", you are going to get a list from the PCL-R, not an actual list of psychopathic traits. This is a mistake, and part why the PCL-R is such a terrible checklist.
Being antisocial has nothing to do with psychopathy. There are of course antisocial psychopaths, but them being psychopathic has nothing to do with that. They made those choices. Psychopathy does not make someone incapable of making good choices, nor does it compel people to make bad ones. That is entirely within their own control.
Great read! Are you still going to write a longer post on some of the tips Dutton Identified regarding psychopathic ways of looking at things? (What he called the manifesto) That would be very very interesting and any other tips you have which you think us emotional bastards could benefit from ! Ha cheers
Yes, I will do a deeper dive on the Psychopathic Manifesto, and his other tips. I will start working on it this week or next.
Great 👍
I couldn't take most of what the other person said with any kind of value after the mention of Jacques Derrida. I deplore people whose worldview is focused on their victimhood and not how they can overcome it.
Yup
I have a question. Is the book 'My Sister Rosa' by Justine Larbalestier a correct description of a criminally inclined psychopath? Or is it full of misinformation and speculation too? It would be very insightful if you, a diagnosed psychopath, read the book and did a review. I do recommend you to check it out.
I have no idea. I have never heard of it until now. Looking at the description however:
"The narrator, Che, is a 17 year old boy who is convinced his younger sister, Rosa, is a psychopath and potential killer. "
Nope. She not remotely old enough to be considered psychopathic. It is silly to even make a book with this as a story line, as it is very misleading.
True, not old enough. But if she were one, she would exhibit those traits, even if she could not be diagnosed, wouldn't she?
Nope. I looked at the reviews and plot synopses. Here is what I found.
Dysfunctional family.
The kid lies.
She's "creepy"
A bad seed.
The book is "disturbing".
The boy thinks his sister is a psychopath... no a sociopath... because he thinks he knows what he is talking about.
He doesn't, and the sister is the product of her family. Nothing more. Probably a neurotypical child looking to garner attention any way that she can, even if that attention is bad attention. A child lying is nothing out of the ordinary, saying "creepy" things has nothing to do with psychopathy. It sounds like a reimaginging of "We Need To Talk About Kevin", which was basically a story about a boy that was screwed up by a self-entitled parent that thought she did no wrong. Then when he shot up a school, of course, he was a psychopath. Not the product of his environment.
Neurotypical authors have a very annoying habit of thinking psychopathy is a relevant stand in to replace actual character development. It is lazy, inaccurate, and creates a plethora of misinformation that I in turn have to debunk.
Thank you for your reply.I was terrified when I read the book. Glad to know it is just speculation.
In the future I will write a post about the misconceptions of child psychopaths.
I am sure it will be an amazing read.
The Derrida reference is very telling
Right?