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What It’s Like Living As a Diagnosed Psychopath

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Re: What It’s Like Living As a Diagnosed Psychopath

#81

Post by philipov »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #80
philipov wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people imagine that mental pathologies are differences of kind, but they're actually differences of degree. Every mental pathology exists in a less intense form as a personality disorder, and even weaker as non-pathological personality traits. When we stop demonizing mental illness, it's easy to see those traits in ourselves, but the difference is in how intensely those traits negatively affect our lives. Man…

> "When we stop demonizing mental illness, it's easy to see those traits in ourselves, but the difference is in how intensely those traits negatively affect our lives." Are all mental traits that affect our lives negatively mental illness? I think it's quite a leap to say that just because you have negative effect in your life from a mental perspective/problem/limitation/etc... doesn't mean it's "illness" that requir…

That's my point: the difference between a pathology and a personality trait is merely of degree. A trait in small concentration is beneficial, but if you concentrate it enough, it becomes toxic and we label that a pathology.

In between health and pathology is a vast grey area where things get complicated, and people are biased to think everyone else is just acting like a spoiled rich kid.

Re: What It’s Like Living As a Diagnosed Psychopath

#82

Post by outlace »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #80
philipov wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people imagine that mental pathologies are differences of kind, but they're actually differences of degree. Every mental pathology exists in a less intense form as a personality disorder, and even weaker as non-pathological personality traits. When we stop demonizing mental illness, it's easy to see those traits in ourselves, but the difference is in how intensely those traits negatively affect our lives. Man…

> "When we stop demonizing mental illness, it's easy to see those traits in ourselves, but the difference is in how intensely those traits negatively affect our lives." Are all mental traits that affect our lives negatively mental illness? I think it's quite a leap to say that just because you have negative effect in your life from a mental perspective/problem/limitation/etc... doesn't mean it's "illness" that requir…

Is mild hypertension an illness? At some point the dividing line between normal and abnormal is blurry and arbitrary. But there are people with say severe anxiety that impairs their ability to carry out normal daily activities. That’s a mental illness, but is mild social anxiety? Maybe not, but it’s probably not optimal health either. There’s just the best possible life on one end and the worst possible life on the other.

Re: What It’s Like Living As a Diagnosed Psychopath

#83

Post by roflc0ptic »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #80
philipov wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people imagine that mental pathologies are differences of kind, but they're actually differences of degree. Every mental pathology exists in a less intense form as a personality disorder, and even weaker as non-pathological personality traits. When we stop demonizing mental illness, it's easy to see those traits in ourselves, but the difference is in how intensely those traits negatively affect our lives. Man…

> "When we stop demonizing mental illness, it's easy to see those traits in ourselves, but the difference is in how intensely those traits negatively affect our lives." Are all mental traits that affect our lives negatively mental illness? I think it's quite a leap to say that just because you have negative effect in your life from a mental perspective/problem/limitation/etc... doesn't mean it's "illness" that requir…

My household has a similar debate around the usefulness of kindness and empathy for changing other people's behavior. My household has several empathetic and caring members, who frequently (and effectively) use those traits to guide other people into better behavior patterns, often just by existing in the same space.

On the other hand, sometimes there are dudes whose bad behavior is intractable, and the only halfway effective intervention is when I tell them forcefully to stop. Not viciously, but mercilessly direct, and little concession made for their comfort.

Although as I write that out, it looks like maybe the issue is that the framing is wrong - it's not empathy vs force, it's more like empathy and force. A question of choosing the right communication strategy for the person and situation.

I have no doubt when entitlement is the issue, getting (metaphorically?) punched in the face a couple of times is an important "teaching moment". It's probably not the case that all lessons are best taught like that.

Re: What It’s Like Living As a Diagnosed Psychopath

#84

Post by dasmoth »

TuringTest wrote: post #67
AmericanChopper wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty sure we’re not. They can work very well together as long as they all see each other as competent.

Probably. But knowing human condition, that arrangement seems particularly unstable. If there's no emotional bonding, any stumble in competence can throw trust off, and then things may spiral down very fast.

I’m not convinced it requires empathy to recognise that the occasional stumble from someone with a solid track record doesn’t mean they’re not going to perform well again tomorrow.

Re: What It’s Like Living As a Diagnosed Psychopath

#85

Post by limeblack »

The book "The Psychopath Test" goes into how common some attributes are in society and being cautious giving out such labels with out thoroughly understanding the person. It gives a specific example about Tony being held in a mental hospital for years against his own will.

Re: What It’s Like Living As a Diagnosed Psychopath

#86

Post by wu-ikkyu »

philipov wrote: post #81
RobertRoberts wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "When we stop demonizing mental illness, it's easy to see those traits in ourselves, but the difference is in how intensely those traits negatively affect our lives." Are all mental traits that affect our lives negatively mental illness? I think it's quite a leap to say that just because you have negative effect in your life from a mental perspective/problem/limitation/etc... doesn't mean it's "illness" that requir…

That's my point: the difference between a pathology and a personality trait is merely of degree. A trait in small concentration is beneficial, but if you concentrate it enough, it becomes toxic and we label that a pathology. In between health and pathology is a vast grey area where things get complicated, and people are biased to think everyone else is just acting like a spoiled rich kid.

I agree with your premise but would nitpick against calling mental illnesses (in the psychiatric sense) pathologies.

>pathology: the science of the causes and effects of diseases, especially the branch of medicine that deals with the laboratory examination of samples of body tissue for diagnostic or forensic purposes.

In the words of Allen Frances: "psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Frances

There are no known causes for psychiatric illnesses. Once a biological cause is discovered, it is no longer deemed a mental illness, but an actual biological pathology.

Re: What It’s Like Living As a Diagnosed Psychopath

#87

Post by BrandoElFollito »

philipov wrote: post #68
ivoras wrote: post #59

Judging by how many people in this comment thread identify with the traits described in the article, it probably just shows that those traits are pretty ordinary, just a facet of the normal diversity of humanity, and have probably been with us forever. The true problems of recent societies might in fact be overdiagnosis and Hollywood-style oversimplifications, not the traits themselves. Not everyone needs to be hyper…

I think people imagine that mental pathologies are differences of kind, but they're actually differences of degree. Every mental pathology exists in a less intense form as a personality disorder, and even weaker as non-pathological personality traits. When we stop demonizing mental illness, it's easy to see those traits in ourselves, but the difference is in how intensely those traits negatively affect our lives. Man…

I think you have a very good point.

I do not feel much empathy, except to my children and pets.

I am still attached to people but tend to rationalize a lot of things. My wife was diagnosed with MS, zero reaction. I help her to go through that but do not feel any emotion. Her neurologist mentioned that a lot of relationships break out when MS is diagnosed. I can understand this, but cannot comprehend which emotions push people to run away (I know them, just do not understand how one can feel them).

My mother was diagnosed with cancer, zero reactions from me. I love her very much, in some weird rational way.

I was diagnosed with an auto-immune illness, zero reactions. In that case it was really "zero fucks given" because I did not need to externalize anything.

At the same time I like very much to spend time with people and it bringd me joy.

So yes, I think it is a matter of spectrum.

Re: What It’s Like Living As a Diagnosed Psychopath

#88

Post by CM30 »

bitwize wrote: post #70
piazz wrote: post #23

The bits of the transcript about having to wear a mask in order to function, having to internalize algorithms of human behavior that are totally unintuitive, and realizing that one’s deepest interpersonal instincts are out of sync with the rest of your kin remind me strongly of some individuals I’ve known with Aspergers/severe ADHD. Additionally, her descriptions of not feeling fear, processing emotions at a lower in…

Most people on the autism spectrum can experience the whole gamut of human emotion. There were some studies done just recently that concluded we feel compassion just like everybody else. (Certainly comports with my personal anecdata.) What we lack is the ability to express our feelings in a manner that registers as legitimate to neurotypicals. (Some of us lack the ability to quickly read emotions in others, others do…

Yeah, the uncanny valley effect is very damaging to people with invisible disabilities or psychological differences. If you look normal but don't 'act' in a way that's expected, it seems to creep out a lot of people.

And unfortunately, I believe this may be why to some degree, having the difference being physical/visible may make someone with a disability more sympathetic/liked. Disability itself has an uncanny valley setup ranging from 'can pass as completely normal' (certain high functioning psychopaths)to 'is visibly different and accepted'.

I also wonder if fiction may have had an effect here too. The average fictional psychopath/sociopath/whatever may look more like someone on the autistic spectrum than a genuine psychopath or sociopath.

Re: What It’s Like Living As a Diagnosed Psychopath

#89

Post by salawat »

goatlover wrote: post #75
icebraining wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems rather like interacting with corporations. I trust them insofar as I trust reputational and legal mechanisms to provide them the incentive to keep their part of the bargain.

Corporations often behave like psychopaths on a large scale. That's the problem with the bottom line being the only thing that really matters to a business.

This.

So many people seem to be entirely blind to this dynamic.

You can look at a business person and point out "You know browser fingerprinting is a bit like a salesman walking into a User's house and taking a bunch of metrics to send back to base before making a sales pitch right?"

Then they look at you horrified by the mental image and say "But it decreases fraud!"

The cognitive dissonance is delicious, but our obsession with the Market mediating the worthiness of anything to the point where ethical and moral violations are encouraged as long as they can be hidden is a blight on our society at large.

Re: What It’s Like Living As a Diagnosed Psychopath

#90

Post by btrettel »

roflc0ptic wrote: post #83
RobertRoberts wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "When we stop demonizing mental illness, it's easy to see those traits in ourselves, but the difference is in how intensely those traits negatively affect our lives." Are all mental traits that affect our lives negatively mental illness? I think it's quite a leap to say that just because you have negative effect in your life from a mental perspective/problem/limitation/etc... doesn't mean it's "illness" that requir…

My household has a similar debate around the usefulness of kindness and empathy for changing other people's behavior. My household has several empathetic and caring members, who frequently (and effectively) use those traits to guide other people into better behavior patterns, often just by existing in the same space. On the other hand, sometimes there are dudes whose bad behavior is intractable, and the only halfway…

I've come to similar conclusions from talking to people parked in the bike lane, of all things.

Some people do care once you tell them that blocking the bike lane is rude and a real safety problem for cyclists. Others don't care at all that a cyclist has a problem with this. Those people tend to respond best to me threatening to call the police to ticket their car. Once I recognize which category the driver is in, I know which approach to take.

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