Favorite quote (so far, need to read this again) is, "this was behind a paywall, so in true psychopathic form, I went around their expectations to read it without them getting a dime."
My understanding of identity, at least in terms of gender, is that it ISN’T a choice. It is something you have, and the only reason your gender identity changes is because as you learn more, you understand what you are better.
If they mean ‘identify’ like that, I don’t see a problem with it being used.
Reading you suddenly complaining about Grammarly is kind of amusing.
I don’t know enough about sociopathy to make an opinion on whether or not the woman in the article is one, and honestly even if I did I wouldn’t even attempt to prove or disprove her.
I know that in online autistic spaces, many creators will get accused of “faking” autism. Even content creators who have an official diagnosis will get accused of faking autism.
An example I can think of was this behavioural therapist, who worked with young autistic children, accused a full grown woman, who created TikTok videos, of faking autism because she didn’t behave the same way her young clients behaved.
The content creator ended up calling her out by empathizing the fact that her videos are highly edited. The therapist ended up losing her job because parents found out about her behaviour online and didn’t want her working with their kids anymore.
There is no doubt there are people who fake whatever condition they’re trying to say they have, but accusing people of faking a disorder doesn’t help.
What I think of the woman in the article? I believe the experiences she describes are real and that she associates those experiences with sociopathy. Nature does not make hard distinctions between things so I can understand why people may adopt a label or two during the process of self discovery.
It seems to me Athena, absurd that this person uses the term “identify with a sociopath.”
It’s ridiculous. It’s also pointless why the person writing that book, cares so much about the label, but yet simultaneously rambles on about masking.
In my experience, the most obvious indication that one has the traits of sociopathy (or secondary psychopathy) although it’s clearly very different and probably shouldn’t be labelled psychopathy at all…
Is zero capacity for guilt. It’s much the same for fear. It’s absent.
People have this absurd notion that having no guilt = wishing harm.
This is nonsense. The two are not linked and unless the person is a vindictive individual; you do not need guilt (or even regret) to act with the best intent you know how.
I can feel emotions but there’s no division or conflict in any emotion I feel.
There’s never a rationalisation about the past. It has no connection to the present.
When I’m happy I’m happy.
When I’m sad I’m sad.
When I’m angry I’m angry.
When I’m content I’m content.
When I’m bored I’m bored.
People project into me and each other constantly and I find it unfathomable how emotionally invested they are in the past.
It doesn’t exist.
Tbh I don’t even have the inclination to write about sociopathy any more.
It gets boring.
I think there’s a lot of very interesting and talented individuals who were probably sociopaths.
It doesn’t make a person immune to creativity if you happen to be a creative person.
If anything I think it enhanced the ability to be creative.
Although it certainly hasn’t done me any favours writing about it and as a result I don’t any more.
That’s my opinion from my experience anyway Athena!
One thing that caught my attention was her description of the lack of bonding with her newborn. That sounded like a touch of post partum right there.
The poor impulse control is totally alien to me as I can't ever recall having the impulse to just do something violent to let off steam or whatever it was that provoked it.
I thought about you after my SO sent the article to me. I had a hunch that someone you knew would bring it to your attention. It's full of misinformation. I was especially galled by the "identifying as" a sociopath, and not any backstory of the child abuse or trauma that caused it.
I thought sociopaths, or secondary psychopaths were born neurotypical, but due to severe child abuse or trauma, no longer were?
You should ditch Grammarly. Spell check is all you need.
I’m sure you’ve been asked this before but I’m not sure how many articles I’d have to look back through to find an answer: what exactly is counted as neurodivergence? Is the difference a diagnosis that’s literally caused by a difference in brain structure versus one that’s purely environmental?
I’ve seen people with ADHD and Autism use neurodivergence to refer to themselves & I assumed it was just the new, socially acceptable term for mental, developmental and neurodevelopmental conditions. I wasn’t aware it actually meant a specific type of brain structure.
I don’t know Grammerly, but it did allow the misspelling of ‘societal’ as ‘sociatal.’ My take on her ‘vanilla’ example wasn’t that she had an emotional response with “I’m stealing it next time” but ‘OK, I paid this time for spoiled something, so next time I get a pass on paying for the same thing.”
Hmm, Sociopaths _might_ be neurodivergent, at least in the case of narcissistic sociopaths. In answering a question on Quora (placed in bad faith) about comorbidity of narcissists and psychopaths, I researched brain structures and activities of psychopaths and narcissists and provided that in the answer which the querent then replied that I had told him nothing new (never mind that narcissists have emotions in 3D brilliant color). Ah well, Quora is behind me. Anyway, here is the article about narcissists https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10605183/. In that abstract, certain similarities in the networking of signals between narcissists and psychopaths were identified; however, they did not make an issue of dissimilar sizes of the amygdala or other areas of gray matter and white matter between the two.
Brain research is difficult in the best of cases. Subjects need to be measured in many areas and their activity in those areas, as measured by glucose-burning or electrical activity may evoke a number of explanations. To be realistic we are like a blind man grasping a stick. We don't know its length, its shape outside the area f grasp, or even if it is the same stick we grasped last time. And the folk we are measuring are operationally defined as being X range of scores on test Y.
With all of that said, some learned heads do postulate the existence of narcissistic sociopaths, and if in fact these exist, then we have a sociopath who is neurodivergent. Buddhist sects do seem to describe narcissists rather well, and assign them to various hells or realms to which people may be reborn or assigned for the purpose of learning by suffering... Indian Buddhism calls them Hungry Ghosts, Tibetan Buddhism calls them Jealous Gods, and some of the Japanese Buddhists recognize a mental state (one of more than 35,000) which people may live through and learn from, in the space of a few seconds to several lifetimes.
My personal experience with what I believed to be narcissists is that they have a unique terror which turns them away from self-examination, despite my exposing them to case histories of fearful people who lived through it and gained more control over their lives. Obviously, when encountering such a level of fear, I refuse to practice hypnotherapy with them for practical and ethical reasons. (Those ethics are part of my personal code of conduct which I follow by choice.)
While reddit may have many tales of entitled people who behave like narcissists, that may be storytellers making up Karens and Kevins. Good luck taking census on narcissists, let alone the possibly mythical narcissistic sociopath.
Athena, you have my endorsement for taking on such a task with a self-admitted sociopath wh may be something else. I am just amazed that so many folk dance on wet ice while trying to honestly learn and more than a few trying to pontificate for self-serving goals. Your judgments usually meet my gold standard because you seem honest in these efforts.
I’m the person who mentioned the article to you. Thanks for your commentary; it’s exactly the kind of analysis I was hoping you would give. I still haven’t gone back to read the entire article, so I’m glad you are writing about this in two parts.
I wrote to you earlier that my impression was that she’s probably neither a psychopath nor a sociopath—but displays the kind of psychopathic behavior that comes from coping with her repressed explosive emotions. Your comments reinforced that impression. If she had suffered some trauma in her youth, that might explain why she was diagnosed as a sociopath. But she didn’t share that.
I suspect that, like all types of neurodivergent traits, psychopathic behaviors exist in people who fall within the neurotypical range. There’s likely a continuum rather than a sharp line between a neurotypical with some neurodivergent traits and a neurodivergent with some neurotypical traits.
Pathological narcissists, for instance, behave like psychopaths in some ways, but instead of being comfortable in their own skin, as you are, they feel absolutely horrible about themselves. They experience unbearable hurt and insecurity and anger and jealousy and vengeance, and they will do anything to block those feelings. I suspect that behaving as if they feel none of that helps them suppress all those uncontrollable feelings. They block out all the shame by denying they feel guilt.
The woman in the article seems to fall somewhere between a psychopath and a pathological narcissist.
(My thesis advisor in the 80’s was a pathological narcissist, so I have spent my entire adult life thinking about personality disorders—particularly pathological narcissism.)
You say you don’t want to pay to accede to the article, so you understand those who choose not to pledge their support? What do you think of those who do?
So glad you are writing this in two parts.
Favorite quote (so far, need to read this again) is, "this was behind a paywall, so in true psychopathic form, I went around their expectations to read it without them getting a dime."
Nice.
About the use of ‘identifies as:’
My understanding of identity, at least in terms of gender, is that it ISN’T a choice. It is something you have, and the only reason your gender identity changes is because as you learn more, you understand what you are better.
If they mean ‘identify’ like that, I don’t see a problem with it being used.
Reading you suddenly complaining about Grammarly is kind of amusing.
I don’t know enough about sociopathy to make an opinion on whether or not the woman in the article is one, and honestly even if I did I wouldn’t even attempt to prove or disprove her.
I know that in online autistic spaces, many creators will get accused of “faking” autism. Even content creators who have an official diagnosis will get accused of faking autism.
An example I can think of was this behavioural therapist, who worked with young autistic children, accused a full grown woman, who created TikTok videos, of faking autism because she didn’t behave the same way her young clients behaved.
The content creator ended up calling her out by empathizing the fact that her videos are highly edited. The therapist ended up losing her job because parents found out about her behaviour online and didn’t want her working with their kids anymore.
There is no doubt there are people who fake whatever condition they’re trying to say they have, but accusing people of faking a disorder doesn’t help.
What I think of the woman in the article? I believe the experiences she describes are real and that she associates those experiences with sociopathy. Nature does not make hard distinctions between things so I can understand why people may adopt a label or two during the process of self discovery.
It seems to me Athena, absurd that this person uses the term “identify with a sociopath.”
It’s ridiculous. It’s also pointless why the person writing that book, cares so much about the label, but yet simultaneously rambles on about masking.
In my experience, the most obvious indication that one has the traits of sociopathy (or secondary psychopathy) although it’s clearly very different and probably shouldn’t be labelled psychopathy at all…
Is zero capacity for guilt. It’s much the same for fear. It’s absent.
People have this absurd notion that having no guilt = wishing harm.
This is nonsense. The two are not linked and unless the person is a vindictive individual; you do not need guilt (or even regret) to act with the best intent you know how.
I can feel emotions but there’s no division or conflict in any emotion I feel.
There’s never a rationalisation about the past. It has no connection to the present.
When I’m happy I’m happy.
When I’m sad I’m sad.
When I’m angry I’m angry.
When I’m content I’m content.
When I’m bored I’m bored.
People project into me and each other constantly and I find it unfathomable how emotionally invested they are in the past.
It doesn’t exist.
Tbh I don’t even have the inclination to write about sociopathy any more.
It gets boring.
I think there’s a lot of very interesting and talented individuals who were probably sociopaths.
It doesn’t make a person immune to creativity if you happen to be a creative person.
If anything I think it enhanced the ability to be creative.
Although it certainly hasn’t done me any favours writing about it and as a result I don’t any more.
That’s my opinion from my experience anyway Athena!
Keep well and all the best,
Martin
One thing that caught my attention was her description of the lack of bonding with her newborn. That sounded like a touch of post partum right there.
The poor impulse control is totally alien to me as I can't ever recall having the impulse to just do something violent to let off steam or whatever it was that provoked it.
I thought about you after my SO sent the article to me. I had a hunch that someone you knew would bring it to your attention. It's full of misinformation. I was especially galled by the "identifying as" a sociopath, and not any backstory of the child abuse or trauma that caused it.
I thought sociopaths, or secondary psychopaths were born neurotypical, but due to severe child abuse or trauma, no longer were?
You should ditch Grammarly. Spell check is all you need.
I’m sure you’ve been asked this before but I’m not sure how many articles I’d have to look back through to find an answer: what exactly is counted as neurodivergence? Is the difference a diagnosis that’s literally caused by a difference in brain structure versus one that’s purely environmental?
I’ve seen people with ADHD and Autism use neurodivergence to refer to themselves & I assumed it was just the new, socially acceptable term for mental, developmental and neurodevelopmental conditions. I wasn’t aware it actually meant a specific type of brain structure.
I don’t know Grammerly, but it did allow the misspelling of ‘societal’ as ‘sociatal.’ My take on her ‘vanilla’ example wasn’t that she had an emotional response with “I’m stealing it next time” but ‘OK, I paid this time for spoiled something, so next time I get a pass on paying for the same thing.”
Hmm, Sociopaths _might_ be neurodivergent, at least in the case of narcissistic sociopaths. In answering a question on Quora (placed in bad faith) about comorbidity of narcissists and psychopaths, I researched brain structures and activities of psychopaths and narcissists and provided that in the answer which the querent then replied that I had told him nothing new (never mind that narcissists have emotions in 3D brilliant color). Ah well, Quora is behind me. Anyway, here is the article about narcissists https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10605183/. In that abstract, certain similarities in the networking of signals between narcissists and psychopaths were identified; however, they did not make an issue of dissimilar sizes of the amygdala or other areas of gray matter and white matter between the two.
Brain research is difficult in the best of cases. Subjects need to be measured in many areas and their activity in those areas, as measured by glucose-burning or electrical activity may evoke a number of explanations. To be realistic we are like a blind man grasping a stick. We don't know its length, its shape outside the area f grasp, or even if it is the same stick we grasped last time. And the folk we are measuring are operationally defined as being X range of scores on test Y.
With all of that said, some learned heads do postulate the existence of narcissistic sociopaths, and if in fact these exist, then we have a sociopath who is neurodivergent. Buddhist sects do seem to describe narcissists rather well, and assign them to various hells or realms to which people may be reborn or assigned for the purpose of learning by suffering... Indian Buddhism calls them Hungry Ghosts, Tibetan Buddhism calls them Jealous Gods, and some of the Japanese Buddhists recognize a mental state (one of more than 35,000) which people may live through and learn from, in the space of a few seconds to several lifetimes.
My personal experience with what I believed to be narcissists is that they have a unique terror which turns them away from self-examination, despite my exposing them to case histories of fearful people who lived through it and gained more control over their lives. Obviously, when encountering such a level of fear, I refuse to practice hypnotherapy with them for practical and ethical reasons. (Those ethics are part of my personal code of conduct which I follow by choice.)
While reddit may have many tales of entitled people who behave like narcissists, that may be storytellers making up Karens and Kevins. Good luck taking census on narcissists, let alone the possibly mythical narcissistic sociopath.
Athena, you have my endorsement for taking on such a task with a self-admitted sociopath wh may be something else. I am just amazed that so many folk dance on wet ice while trying to honestly learn and more than a few trying to pontificate for self-serving goals. Your judgments usually meet my gold standard because you seem honest in these efforts.
Hi Athena,
I’m the person who mentioned the article to you. Thanks for your commentary; it’s exactly the kind of analysis I was hoping you would give. I still haven’t gone back to read the entire article, so I’m glad you are writing about this in two parts.
I wrote to you earlier that my impression was that she’s probably neither a psychopath nor a sociopath—but displays the kind of psychopathic behavior that comes from coping with her repressed explosive emotions. Your comments reinforced that impression. If she had suffered some trauma in her youth, that might explain why she was diagnosed as a sociopath. But she didn’t share that.
I suspect that, like all types of neurodivergent traits, psychopathic behaviors exist in people who fall within the neurotypical range. There’s likely a continuum rather than a sharp line between a neurotypical with some neurodivergent traits and a neurodivergent with some neurotypical traits.
Pathological narcissists, for instance, behave like psychopaths in some ways, but instead of being comfortable in their own skin, as you are, they feel absolutely horrible about themselves. They experience unbearable hurt and insecurity and anger and jealousy and vengeance, and they will do anything to block those feelings. I suspect that behaving as if they feel none of that helps them suppress all those uncontrollable feelings. They block out all the shame by denying they feel guilt.
The woman in the article seems to fall somewhere between a psychopath and a pathological narcissist.
(My thesis advisor in the 80’s was a pathological narcissist, so I have spent my entire adult life thinking about personality disorders—particularly pathological narcissism.)
How did you read that New York post without paying?
You say you don’t want to pay to accede to the article, so you understand those who choose not to pledge their support? What do you think of those who do?
One vote for kicking Grammerly to the curb.
Not to say I’m endorsing it. But that was my read on her.