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I always knew I was different, I didn't know I was a sociopath

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Re: I always knew I was different, I didn't know I was a sociopath

#91

Post by coldtea »

em-bee wrote: post #51
JohnBooty wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely noticed something was wrong with me once I started school I hope you have gotten, or will get to, a place where you no longer think of this as something "wrong" with you!

that's very difficult when you have a trait that others can't see, and therefore can't be aware of or understand, and much less empathize with. it feels wrong because you keep getting confronted with expectations that you can't fulfill. and you can't see others that have the same experience. so you end up feeling you are the only one.

Yeah, and people say "being different is fine", "you're not wrong, you're you" and so on, but in the end unless you're one of socially accepted forms of different that are celebrated, they still shun you.

Re: I always knew I was different, I didn't know I was a sociopath

#92

Post by Lio »

williamcotton wrote: post #83
Lio wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's not hurting anybody. Well he did insist that other members of his team also take EPO, HGH, blood transfusions (occasionally with bad blood), etc. We don't know what the long term affects of that will be but he certainly wasn't thinking of health of his staff. He also destroyed Greg LeMond's career for exposing him.

“Well actually, Mr. Comedian …”

Hey, I'm not telling you the joke isn't funny. Burr cracks me up.

I'm just saying that Armstrong did more than just cheat in bike races.

Re: I always knew I was different, I didn't know I was a sociopath

#93

Post by xerox13ster »

wtfwhateven wrote: post #79
rafaelmn wrote: post #65

I thought this fad of building identity on labels was dying down ? I have no idea if her diagnosis is right - doesn't sound pathological/needing a diagnosis. Reading trough the article I don't feel I've gained any practical insights - just reads like someone trying to sound interesting by putting a label on themselves and explaining how it fits them.

the writer of the article is lying, she doesn't have a PhD and is using someone else's name, it's just an ad for another book https://old.reddit.com/r/askpsychology/comments/jqewhk/does_...

Well, I guess she isn’t lying about being a sociopath…

Re: I always knew I was different, I didn't know I was a sociopath

#94

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

Lio wrote: post #68
nordsieck wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best fit in a healthy society, I think, is doing things that others can’t, like extreme sport type of stuff, or astronaut, brain surgeon Reminds me of the Bill Burr bit on Lance Armstrong[1] > The guy was a sociopath on a bicycle. As far as I'm concerned we got off easy. If that guy was working for a corporation he would have been pouring stuff in the water supply, doing god knows what. Just keep him on the bik…

> He's not hurting anybody. Well he did insist that other members of his team also take EPO, HGH, blood transfusions (occasionally with bad blood), etc. We don't know what the long term affects of that will be but he certainly wasn't thinking of health of his staff. He also destroyed Greg LeMond's career for exposing him.

They're adults and can make their own decisions

Re: I always knew I was different, I didn't know I was a sociopath

#95

Post by gosub100 »

nordsieck wrote: post #58
klabb3 wrote: post #33

Super interesting. I can recognize this behavior with people playing multiplayer games. When there are no stakes, and everything is a game, people mess around – especially when they’re bored. If it’s just a game, who cares? People with extremely low “emotional reactivity” appear unlikely to share with others (why would they, most of us share stuff for empathy - and they may not see the point - or lose out socially).…

> The best fit in a healthy society, I think, is doing things that others can’t, like extreme sport type of stuff, or astronaut, brain surgeon Reminds me of the Bill Burr bit on Lance Armstrong[1] > The guy was a sociopath on a bicycle. As far as I'm concerned we got off easy. If that guy was working for a corporation he would have been pouring stuff in the water supply, doing god knows what. Just keep him on the bik…

He's hurting all the other players who do not dope, and hurting the sport in general by creating an incentive for most people to dope, tarnishing the reputation.

Re: I always knew I was different, I didn't know I was a sociopath

#96

Post by stareatgoats »

This is an area where we don't know the answers yet, but we're fumbling along. The main question that is still up for debate is this:

Are people really completely set in their personalities, so that we can say that this person IS a psychopath, that person IS a liar, I AM an upstanding citizen etc. The tendency for claiming such clearly comes from our current zeitgeist with its propensity for fixing labels to people, but to what extent has such fixed characteristics factually been true, and for what categories of labels, regardless of epoch?

We (or at least I) don't know.

Re: I always knew I was different, I didn't know I was a sociopath

#97

Post by staticman2 »

em-bee wrote: post #54
spiffytech wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is a therapist and says it's a very common reason people get into the field.

i think this is positive. because it means therapists can empathize when people feel that there is something wrong with them. there is nothing worse than a therapist who doesn't take your feelings seriously. also, when you do need therapy yourself, depending on what kind of therapist you get, you can end up spending a lot of time learning just for your own sake. my brother did that, and at some point he was able to e…

>i think this is positive. because it means therapists can empathize when people feel that there is something wrong with them. there is nothing worse than a therapist who doesn't take your feelings seriously.

On the other hand if you happen to have a condition that doesn't respond well to therapy it seems kind of horrific to me to become a therapist just to learn that.

Re: I always knew I was different, I didn't know I was a sociopath

#98

Post by Waterluvian »

williamcotton wrote: post #86
Waterluvian wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this reminds me of someone I was friends with in high school who quickly turned out to be absolutely insufferable to play any sort of cooperative game with. They would take absolutely _everything_ that could be shared, and calmly and with complete conviction explain it was better off with them. They were blind to the bigger picture of quickly having nobody who would ever play with them. Magic the Gathering at…

Teenagers are also experimenting with many philosophies and personas that don’t strictly align with personality disorders… unless you just want to call all of adolescence a personality disorder, which might not be far off…

Yeah, that's certainly something to consider. If the case, it's kind of interesting to look back and watch a teenager so heavily blacklist themselves from all social activities every chance they got. My experience with and as a teenager is that they're overwhelmingly focused on fitting in to whatever groups they identify with.

Re: I always knew I was different, I didn't know I was a sociopath

#100

Post by pi-e-sigma »

coldtea wrote: post #75
pi-e-sigma wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could he be 'very rational' and also 'threaten people to become his friends'?

By going about it on a very analytical and methodical and rational way. Rationality is about the mechanism, not some particular moral or value content. You might be asking "but if he was rational, couldn't he see that blackmailing is incompatible with friendship?". Well, if he wanted the trappings of friendship (having a friend group, playmates, hanging out and so on), and not some "genuine bonding", it's not that in…

> By going about it on a very analytical and methodical and rational way. If the kid was so calculating he would have to ask himself what exactly could he do to force other kids to hand out with him? And he would understand that he has no power of coercion. So he wasn't rational at all, it was just hopeless 'last ditch effort'
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