Confessions of a Sociopath

The Watercooler
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No this is not a personal report :smiley:

I just read this book and it was a really enlightening read:

I highly recommend sticking through it and reading the entire thing. Before reading it I thought that sociopaths were essentially “hopeless” creatures, very cunning, devilish, that always manipulate, don’t want the same things non-sociopaths want (like connection and understanding), massively more self-centered/selfish than usual, and are essentially a danger to society unless their selfish interests happen to align with what is productive.

After reading it, my understanding now is that sociopathy is more similar to autism/asperger’s, in that it’s simply a different way that the brain functions. i.e. you have neurotypical people, then you have people on the autism spectrum, people with varying degrees of sociopathic traits, etc.

Not to say sociopathy is similar to autism per se, just that the cause of the other-ness is the same: their brains work differently.

And it was interesting that she wanted the same as neurotypical people in terms of love, connection, etc. She just didn’t understanding it from the usual perspective, and it took her some time and experience to figure it out.

Also as a common critique/objection of actual freedom is that you would be a sociopath without feelings, it was instructive to read a diagnosed psycopath’s depiction of their inner world, how vastly different it is from a PCE, and it was informative to see her write that she never met a sociopath that would say they don’t have feelings.

One common trait of sociopaths is that they don’t experience negative emotions in the same way as neurotypicals do. They still occur, but they are massively shuttered off, and essentially requires a conscious act of will to observe it or feel it… and why would you? This combined with an apparently instinctive impulsiveness and propensity to manipulate, makes a really powerful negative cocktail that can spiral out of control - as it appears to do for many. The main problem though seems to be that neurotypicals don’t know what to do with such a person. Moral judgement simply doesn’t work, it is completely alien to the sociopaths because they simply don’t feel it. They can figure out what it means for other people but only by observing etc. But in the book essentially the author comes to the conclusion - as many sociopaths do apparently - that it’s logically beneficial to be a productive member of society… it’s good for everyone and good for you too. So it’s not that they can’t be sensible… it’s that they perhaps have a harder time getting there, and a rockier path.

Anyway, my brief take-aways don’t do it full justice, but it was quite intriguing!

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Sounds very interesting, I have always been intrigued by this topic too. Just ordered the book.

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So far I am about 1/3 of the way through the book and it is super fascinating! The eery thing is that I can actually relate (in degree) to a lot of the qualities that the writer describes. Whether this is a sign of a degree of sociopathy or more intrinsic to the nature of ‘self’, I am not sure about.
Nowadays the way I am and the way I feel I cannot relate at all, but I do remember when I was younger, experiencing alot of similarities.
I remember when I was younger observing myself do all sorts of manipulative and sociopathic behaviours and wondering whether I might be a sociopath myself.
From a young age I was always pretty perceptive of people around me and also very malicious. I got very adept at being cunning and manipulative.
Then when I moved to England I was completely removed from any social interactions during my teenage years which meant that I observed that whole world from the outside.
When I began trying to integrate I very much had the sense of not really buying into the structures of society but rather doing it to create an appearance of being normal and I got pretty good at it.
I would say between 18-24 I lived a life of appearing normal and yet being extremely deceitful, playing the game whilst not completely believing in its rules. Life was this enormous construct of stories and lies that I prepared and practiced then enacted.

For example I was acting towards my friends in a way I observed a good friend would act, even though what was happening on the outside did not integrate at all with what was going on inside.

Interesting to think about, the cool thing is that ever since Actualism I can confidently say that those qualities have more or less disappeared.
Nowadays my day to day existence is mostly marked by sincerity, consideration and an assessment of what is silly/sensible.

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Yea I related to a few of the things too. But on the other hand I have a very strong feeling of moral judgement, I don’t want to be perceived as having done anything wrong, etc. That has a very strong hold on me, which is very different from her reports of simply not experiencing that dimension of the human condition at all.

I think of it more that there are certain attributes that sociopaths have, that others also have. And perhaps ‘sociopath’ is just a particular constellation of traits.

I think that being outside of ‘normal’ there are advantages and disadvantages. It’s easy for her to see that feelings are not facts, for example – she notes how empaths believe they know and understand someone cause they have a feeling about them, but that feeling can be nowhere near what is actually the case. She never has a feeling about people, so she has to observe them, see what they actually do… and in doing so she ends up understanding them a lot better. This is not so unlike how a person freed from the human condition would understand people – without the emotional dimension you have to rely on facts, observations, behavior, etc. However the critical differences are that 1 - having felt those same things in the past, it’ll be easier to understand some things, and 2 - the sociopath does not actually care about the person (which isn’t different from ‘normal’ anyway).

And also when I wrote that previously I thought sociopaths were “essentially a danger to society unless their selfish interests happen to align with what is productive”… it struck me that this also describes every feeling-being haha. The difference is that neurotypical feeling-beings fit into the moral dimension/framework which prevents the worst excesses most of the time. While for a sociopath there isn’t that, so they are self-centered without this natural/intuitive/instinctive check (they don’t have the instinctual foundation for morality to get a hold), and so unless they actively cultivate a reason or sensibility not to be malicious, it’s natural for them to be so.

That is great to hear!

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I want to quote your whole post haha because those are all exactly my thoughts too! Also upon reflection I think I might have been a bit quick to out myself as a sociopath :laughing: I think it is as you say that certain traits can be expressed in various degrees across all individuals. I think I am prone to doing this because I remember taking magic mushrooms once and convincing myself I was gay, until the trip ended of course :man_facepalming:

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So I’ve finished the book and I’m super intrigued about the whole subject, it is very interesting to suss out the line between how a sociopath experiences life and what it is like for an actualist!

There is no doubt they are trapped within the human condition however their emotionally devoid and hyper-rational viewpoint is interesting to contemplate with how it relates back to the social identity.

It seems a sociopath is able to observe the social norms and customs from the outside and see them for what they are in a way that an empath cannot because they are too affected by their own emotions.

The author of the book has an interesting webpage with a bunch of podcasts with various sociopaths if anyone is interested - sociopathworld.com

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I read that book many years ago during a stage when I wanted to know why people can be so awful to one another. It’s one of my favorite books. My take is different though. I found her to condition to be far worse than most non-sociopaths. I think the feeling of caring is mostly beneficial and without it, sans an actual freedom, you’re going to be cruel at worst, callous at best and egotistical all the time. I did find it most interesting how sociopaths can be reflective and chose to be non-violent. She did humanize the condition. But I disagreed with her conclusion. I don’t think sociopaths should be allowed to play a significant role in society. That said, society seems to be led by sociopaths so obviously that opinion is moot. Btw, I use the word ‘led’ deliberately. I don’t think most leaders or most industrialists are sociopaths. But I do think the sociopaths among them set the direction and pace of progress. And that’s a horrible thing. Even those not at the top, the ones in the middle, wind up enforcing/encouraging some awful norms.

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That’s a really good point about feeling caring @JonnyPitt I remember going through various degrees of the ‘actualist asshole’ syndrome and it was because of this.

I would paste actualist lingo over various forms of suppressed feelings that would end up making me callous, we had somewhat of a display of this recently on this forum in fact!

This is a good reminder for me, that as long as I am a feeling being it is all about feeling.

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Right. I did that for a few years. pretty much for as long as I was able to deceive myself.

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I am also making my way through this book. Wow! What a different perspective on life. I think anyone who comes to actualism will likely have a certain disillusionment with social norms and feelings. So I have also felt what many of you have. I surmise that if I, like @claudiu, did not have such a strong (even, overturned), moral conscience, I would’ve easily become malicious.

This book really made me despise feelings though. As in, seeing how easy it is to manipulate a feeling being and such a fragile existence we feeling beings have. It even made me feel that sociopaths are much better off, and probably way happier than your average neurotypical. I guess I haven’t had a PCE so I am feeling kind of bitter about it all. But it makes me want to have a PCE so bad to finally be free from affect.

Edit: I guess it also highlighted for me how limited I am living my life atm and what I could do if I was free from affect (fear, specifically).

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I agree. I spent a life of repressing and it only got worse in Spirituality where I became more confused. Thusfar, the biggest benefit in my journey to becoming actually free has been allowing myself to be a human being.

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I worked for a sociopath. He even ripped off one of Australia’s richest men. Funnily, he really liked me. Despite ripping of of 5 million dollars from others, I was paid every cent I was owed. I was on 150K a year. But it lasted 3 months. Somewhere in the recesses of what modern humanity thinks to be the “worst” type of person, a very straightforward appreciation of the facts resides.

I was fascinated with the topic back when I was objecting to actualism. The thing I discovered without trying was looking them straight in the eyes, being 100% there, they can’t help but admire you. They want more than anything to feel the genuine experience of what life is all about. It’s not possible to appeal to conscience, only the direct reading of what is happening works. White lies are the playground, the morally justified weakness of the weak, but when you know, when that quasi-suicidal ability to look Satan in the eyes and know why he exists is there, sociopaths are capable of respect.

It helps that I had indeed given my soul to Satan a decade earlier, in the conviction that such a being was the sum of human fear.

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