What It’s Like to Be a Sociopath

A New York Times Magazine article...

Don’t you love it when quotes over photographs are totally inaccurate but they state it with such certainty that people will believe them? I had to use the misinformation image, it just struck me as fun.

So, this interview appeared in New York Times Magazine this last week, and someone asked me about it, so I took a look. It was interesting enough to do a post on it, but I want to state from the outset that I am not a sociopath and I do my best not to speak for them. I dislike when people speak for psychopaths and have this absolute assuredness that they are correct, when in reality, they are so far off the mark that it’s mind-breaking.

The question I was asked about this article was whether the interviewee was actually a sociopath, or if she might be confusing sociopathy and psychopathy. The person that is the subject of this article is named, Patric Gagne, and she claims to be a sociopath. She also has a book coming out regarding the matter, so if it interests you, you can give it a read. I am not here to argue with her, or to say whether she is a sociopath or not. The same constraints that apply to people who read my writing and decide that I am not a psychopath apply to me as well when reading someone else. I do not know her. I wasn’t there during whatever diagnostic process she went through, so this is not some gotchya post.

*Edit: I am deep into this article and I see how much further I have to go, so it will be a two-parter, because I don’t have all that in me tonight.

Instead, I will go through what she speaks about and see where there are similarities and where there are vast differences between her experience and my own. This also allows a sociopath to speak for herself, instead of anyone making guesses about their experiences. Let’s get started.

As I mentioned, this is a New York Times Magazine article, but I am not really all that interested in giving the NYT any sort of money through subscriptions, and this was behind a paywall, so in true psychopathic form, I went around their expectations to read it without them getting a dime. That is the link that I am supplying, but you are welcome to go to their actual site if you want to pay them.

What It’s Like to Be a Sociopath

Sociopaths are modern-day boogeymen, and the word “sociopath” is casually tossed around to describe the worst, most amoral among us. But they are not boogeymen; they are real people and, according to Patric Gagne, widely misunderstood. Gagne wrote “Sociopath,” her buzzy forthcoming memoir, to try to correct some of those misunderstandings and provide a fuller picture of sociopathy, which is now more frequently referred to as antisocial personality disorder.

I would agree with the opening statement. I think that “psychopath” is likely used more often than “sociopath” is in regard to the worst of the worst among us, but I think that is because “sociopath” has fallen out of use to a large degree, whereas “psychopath” has still been widely relied on to describe evil.

As a child, Gagne found herself compelled toward violent outbursts in an effort to try to compensate for the emotional apathy that was her default. As she got older, those compulsive behaviors turned into criminal ones like trespassing and theft.

All right, hopefully, they are going to speak at least a bit about the circumstances that created the sociopathy to begin with, as it doesn’t just appear. Sociopathy is made, not born. There may be some genetic roots to it, but it isn’t something that shows up without the necessary prerequisites, so let’s see where this goes.

Eventually, she discovered that there was a name — that dreaded word — that could be used to describe and explain her experiences of remorselessness, criminality and lack of empathy. The desire to destigmatize her experience and also to help others who may share it (Gagne previously worked as a therapist to those with the disorder and has also written about sociopathy) put Gagne on a path that led to “Sociopath.” “I’m not trying to say, ‘Sometimes we do bad things, but we’re really sweet on the inside,’” says Gagne, who is 48. “I’m saying there is more to this personality type.”

I find the notion of wanting to “help other people” to be odd. Regardless of whether a person is a sociopath or a psychopath, the lack of concern for others tends to be very prevalent. However, sociopaths are capable of feeling the full emotional range, but capable doesn’t mean that they will feel it, just that it is just possible, not probable.

Now the actual interview begins, starting with the interviewer’s questions:

When I hear the word “sociopath,” I think of an antisocial, uncaring person who is interested only in satisfying his or her own desires. What’s a clearer picture?

Sociopathy is a perilous mental disorder; the traits associated with sociopathy aren’t great

Here in the article, they link to the traits of sociopathy, and we are going to have a look so we are on the same page. In this case, the footnote reads:

Traits may include lack of remorse, deceitfulness and a disregard for the feelings of others as well as right and wrong.

Moving on.

But that only tells part of the story. The part that’s missing is you can be a sociopath and have a healthy relationship. You can be a sociopath and be educated. That’s a very uncomfortable reality for some people. People want to believe that all sociopaths are monsters and that all monsters are easy to spot.

Yup, sounds familiar.

In the book, you write about stabbing a classmate with a pencil when you were a kid, and then as you got older trespassing. Specifically, breaking into people’s homes, and stealing cars. You don’t succumb to those sociopathic compulsions anymore. How did you learn to control these urges?

As a kid, I didn’t understand why I was acting out the way that I was. All I knew was I felt this pressure, and something in my brain was telling me, Punch that kid, and you’ll feel better. As I got older I understood, OK, there’s a name for this, there is a whole group of people who share this diagnosis. Once I understood that I wasn’t out in space untethered and going crazy, I was on the path to understanding that when I had those feelings of “go steal a car,” I could go, Yes, I could do that, but now I understand what’s going on. That understanding helped break the cycle — or at least redirect the compulsion toward something less destructive.

Weirdly, this sounds more like intermittent explosive disorder, not sociopathy, but again, I’m not a sociopath, so I will just roll with it. This is nothing like psychopathy. There was never an impulse to punch someone or feelings of “go steal a car”. That isn’t how it works for me. This makes it sound like there is a specific release that is associated with those acts that she was seeking.

Psychopaths are more inclined toward what sounds interesting in the moment. There isn’t a desire to release any sort of pressure valve, or any sort of release associated with anything. Just things that sound fun and things that don’t. If learning how to fire breathe was an option at the exact same time robbing a house was available to me as a teenager, it would depend on what sounds more interesting. Not what will be cathartic, or what will violate social norms more, or what might be a pressure release to prevent something larger happening.

What does that redirecting look like in practice?

Every once in a while, I will have an urge to do something destructive just because I can, and my redirect is, Do you want this destructive behavior? Or do you want to continue to maintain this life that you have, which requires that you not do those things? I have to have that conversation with myself.

Yeah, that isn’t like psychopathy at all. I have no interest in being a destructive force in the world I just want to do stuff that’s interesting. I don’t have the implications regarding the law and moral correctness that most people do. I am not concerned with being excised from the tribe. My sole concern is what makes my life the best it can be, and by that, I mean stuff for me.

What’s a recent sociopathic impulse that you had?

This is a very vanilla example. When I go to the grocery store and I come home, if anything that I’ve purchased has gone bad, I’ll make a mental note: I’m stealing this next time.

This doesn’t make logical sense to me. This seems like an emotional response that a psychopath wouldn’t be capable of. It is a great, if benign example of how differently our minds work. I used to steal all the time. Like… ALL the time, but it was never about getting revenge on anyone for not having the freshest produce, it was about seeing something, wanting something, and taking it if I saw the opportunity. I was really good at it, but I didn’t take unnecessary chances, and I think that if you are stealing to punish someone for slighting you in a very minor way, especially when you can handle that situation with a quick phone call, that is an emotional state that a psychopath cannot comprehend. For those wondering, I used to steal I don’t anymore. I have said it before, I was a toxic little beastie when I was younger.

You write about your difficulty with understanding other people’s emotions, feeling apathy and lacking empathy. But you also write about experiencing love. Why are you innately able to feel love but not, say, empathy?

The way I experience love seems to be very different from the so-called neurotypical experience. My experience of love seems less emotional. If I had to explain what love feels like to me, I would say symbiotic. So, a relationship that’s beneficial to both people involved. Not transactional, not possessive, not ego-driven. Mutual homeostasis. It’s not that I’m unable to access emotions or empathy. It’s that my experience of those emotions is different.

Her love seems less emotional, but that leaves room that there is emotion involved. That won’t be the case with psychopathy. Psychopathic love is intentional investment, not emotional in nature. I find the quote, “It’s not that I’m unable to access emotions or empathy. It’s that my experience of those emotions is different.” and I am hoping that there is going to be a deeper question addressing what she means by that.

When you write about becoming a *mom,

*Gagne has two school-age children.

you say that profound feelings of love toward your child were non-intrinsic, and you had to work to experience them. Can you tell me about that work?

As a woman — forget my personality type — you’re inundated with all these images: Your child is born, it’s incredible. I did not experience that. I didn’t have that immediate baby is born, I’m overwhelmed with love. It was, I don’t know this person. This person is very loud! That connection just isn’t there. It’s not innate. But over time, you can build it. Much like when I first met David, Gagne’s husband, whom she has known since they were teenagers.

I knew right away that this person was going to be important in my life, but I didn’t have those sweeping romantic, flowery emotions affiliated with that experience. That was the same when I first met my son. Now I just think he’s a great kid!

This passage is interesting because the experience of profound love is created by oxytocin when a woman gives birth, but she states that she didn’t feel it. I wonder what the basis of that is. She definitely is not a psychopath, but there was some barrier to that oxytocin flood for her. There are other circumstances in which people do not have a normal experience with oxytocin and without doing a deep dive into her physiology I doubt there is an answer to be had for this, but it is very curious.

I can relate to how she thought of the baby, that he was very loud. I am certain that is how it would be for me as well. I don’t think I could build that connection either. That's not how psychopathy works. For the most part, however, I can understand what she is saying.

Are you able to describe how you’ve built a sense of morality?

Just because I don’t care about someone else’s pain, so to speak, doesn’t mean I want to cause more of it. I enjoy living in this society. I understand that there are rules. I choose to follow those rules because I understand the benefits of this world, this house where I get to live, this relationship I get to have. That is different from people who follow the rules because they have to, they should, they want to be a good person. None of those apply to me. I want to live in a world where things function properly. If I create messes, my life will become messy. I think people are uncomfortable with the idea of, You don’t really care? What does it matter? What does it matter why I choose to help the woman cross the street? Why does it matter why I choose to pick up a wallet and hand it to the person in as opposed to keeping it? It’s not because I’m a good person. It’s not because I would feel shame or guilt. But why does that matter?

This sounds a lot like what I have written for many years. And I mean… a lot.

Also, it matters why such things are done because it is the difference between an examined life and an unexamined one. The more examined life, the more a life can be led well for the person leading it. She is describing what I call “necessary action” which for some reason is a difficult concept for neurotypicals to grasp. As pretty much everything they do is tainted by emotion, they can’t grasp that there are things that are done with no emotional motivation at all. That lack is something that leaves them asking questions. Psychopaths see no need of emotional motivation for action, and neurotypicals cannot understand action without emotional motivation.

What advice do you have for neurotypical people about how best to interact with someone who identifies as sociopathic?

All right, breaking in here. Sociopaths are neurotypical based on all current research. They do not have different brain structures or different chemical processing. This is a conflation with psychopathy and she is most definitely not a psychopath. I wanted to make that clear. Calling sociopaths neurodivergent is misinformation. Until there is evidence to show that is the case, they are considered neurotypical. Let us once again be reminded, that “neurotypical” does not equal “without pathology”.

Also, let’s not use the phrase, “identifies as sociopathic”. That is not a thing. You are a sociopath, or you are not a sociopath. You don’t get to opt in, and sociopathy is caused by severe harm during childhood. You don’t just get to decide, “Today... I’m a sociopath”. We need to drop this sociatial nonsense of someone “identifying as”. Nope. You don’t get to co-opt someone else’s life experience because you feel like it, and you don’t get to pretend yourself into a diagnosis. Knock it off.

I’m not sure neurotypicals need any, because I have been identifying as a sociopath for years now, and my experience with people who don’t know that has been positive. I have yet to encounter anybody who, when I disclose my diagnosis, acts afraid or upset. I think, inherently, neurotypicals are fascinated by sociopathy because it’s a relatable disorder. Everybody has that darkness in them. Everybody has those thoughts that they shoo away because of guilt. If more conversations between neurotypical and so-called neurodivergents were to occur, it would benefit both. It would benefit the sociopathic person because that acceptance lets 80 percent of the air out of the balloon, but it would help the neurotypicals, like, Oh, I can share things with this person that maybe I couldn’t share with other people. I get more secrets from strangers after telling them my diagnosis; you wouldn’t believe the things that people have told me because they feel safe.

Yeah, no. There is no point in time where, sociopath, or, psychopath, as terms are going to be brought out of the darkness in people’s minds and welcomed as a normal part of society. There will always have to be an enemy and those two words are the title of the enemy in many people’s minds. I don’t give people the benefit of the doubt, and also I am not living in a fantasy world. It would be easier to rename both things than it ever would be to expect this idea to become reality.

Good lord, the secrets thing alone is enough reason for me not to tell people that I am psychopathic because they already do this to me on a regular basis. People just download all their private details onto me like I am their personal therapist as it is. If telling them that I am a psychopath would make this happen more often, that is a hard pass from me. Also, do sociopaths want to kumbayah with people like this? If so, this is a far departure from psychopaths. We are not looking for a group nor are we looking to make other people feel connected to us. The idea that people do anyway is quite perplexing.

What secrets do they tell you?

Oh, man. I was sitting across from a man at a dinner party — this was like two years ago — and my diagnosis came up, and 30 seconds afterward he said, “You know, I have thoughts of killing my wife a lot.” Not to normalize that, but I was like, Tell me about that. And he goes: “I’ve really thought about it. I’ve reached out to people about hiring somebody to kill her.”

Yeah… don’t tell me things like this. I will turn you in so fast. The last thing I need to to have that dude actually do this and then decide he wants someone to suffer along with him. Does she not realize that the first words out of that guy’s mouth when he is caught and knows it is to say that he told a sociopath about this and that sociopath told him to do it? It doesn’t have to be true, he can just say that she manipulated him, and just by being a “sociopath” that will make certain that she is going to have a big problem on her hands.

So people just assume that you’re a sympathetic audience?

Yeah, because these are things you’re not supposed to think about. So to be able to talk to somebody — you don’t have to worry that I’m going to start clutching my pearls.

I get this. People message me on Quora all the time to talk to me about things. I don’t tell their secrets, so long as they aren’t telling me that they want to commit a crime and want advice or something. The difference for me is this, when people tell me these things, what they say to me, and what I respond is in writing. This is also why I do not speak to people outside of writing. Whatever I say, and whatever you say, there will be a record of it. Me being a psychopath is not going to be a convenient scapegoat for some opportunistic person in the world. I think she is playing with fire here, and my only thought when reading these couple of passages is, “You’re dumb.”

Remember my last post, psychopaths can be very judgy. Case in point.

You were a practicing therapist, and we think of therapists as highly empathic, invested in the emotions and stories of their clients. So how did you relate to your clients?

I didn’t relate to them. Now, that is not to say I didn’t care about my patients. The easy answer is, of course I care about you. I wouldn’t continue to see you if I didn’t, but why do you need that reassurance from me? My job is to help you understand what’s going on with you. My job is to help you take your emotions, separate them out, explore your motivation. That’s my job. I think that I was a good therapist because I was able to parse those things out unemotionally. My gift to my therapy patients was that I was able to lend them sociopathy: Why do you care? What does it matter? What do you need from that? That, I felt, helped them achieve things that maybe a nonsociopathic therapist couldn’t have offered.

Yup, fair play here. I get this all the time. People use me to get a different perspective. This includes people in my real life and people online. They find it much easier to figure things out when speaking to me because of the lack of judgment and my unemotional point of view. People find this helpful, so this portion makes total sense to me.

Question for everyone which is totally aside from this article. Would you prefer I replace Grammarly or randomly yell at it during my writing? I could also… theoretically… just deal with it without doing either, but that seems less fun to me. Anyway, back to it.

In the book, you describe things like mirroring people back to themselves or your conscious and intentional manipulation in the moment. Is that happening now?

Listen, everyone has a front-facing persona. Most people use that persona as a preference: a desire to be liked, a fear of judgment, wanting somebody to be friends with them. But sociopaths use it out of necessity, and that’s a really important distinction. My decision to mask is not because I have some dark ulterior motive. It’s because you guys are interesting to me. Neurotypical emotions are so colorful and complex. In order for me to engage with you, you have to feel comfortable with me. In order for you to feel comfortable with me, I have to mask. I find that people are unnerved by me when I’m not masking. Because otherwise I’m quiet. I ask invasive questions. I stare. My affect is low. The bottom line is that I want you to feel comfortable, so I engage. I smile. I mirror. It’s not nefarious; it’s necessary. The issue here is motivation. I don’t mask because I’m secretly trying to kill you. I mask because I want you to feel comfortable because I find you interesting.

This part sounds way too altruistic for a sociopath. Neurotypicals are interesting, sure, that’s true, but the mask is for the purpose of self-service. Your colorful and complex emotions aren’t enough of a motivation to go through the extensive creation of a mask. You can observe colorful and complex emotions from the comfort of your own home. You can read about them in books if that’s what you want to learn about. You can watch them on TV or in movies, and if you want to see the real thing, not acted, YouTube exists.

All right, that’s part one. It’s time for me to go find food.

Part two is next week.