M. Thomas: Confessions of a Sociopath

But what are the alternatives? I have sloppily used the term empath throughout this book to refer to nonsociopaths, but it is simply not true that every nonsociopath is empathetic. Some have suggested I use the term normal , but that is even less correct. The percentage of “normal” people in the population may be an actual minority (i.e., less than 50 percent). Sometimes I think people talk about sociopaths being 1 to 4 percent of the population as if the other 96 to 99 percent are normal, maybe even the opposite of the sociopath. Maybe we believe that if sociopaths have low empathy, then everyone else has robust empathy? Maybe we believe that if sociopaths do not feel guilt, everyone else must? Maybe we believe that if sociopaths frequently engage in crime, then no one else does?

The truth is many people are just assholes. You don’t have to be a sociopath to be an asshole, nor is a sociopath an asshole to all people all of the time. When I first started writing about sociopathy on the blog, I hoped to help people realize that sociopaths are natural human variants. I thought at the time that the big challenge would be to try to showcase some of our strengths in a more positive light, to demonstrate that we are not as bad as people might think. Recently I have been thinking that the real problem is not in getting “normal” people to believe that we’re better than they think, but in getting them to see that the “normal” ones are actually worse than they believe themselves to be. Sometimes it seems that most people assume that they are that minority of “normal” people instead of thinking that they might also be a little bit “off.”

Some people balk at saying that “normal” people might actually be in the minority: “How could the psychological world label half or more of us with a diagnosis?!” But so what if the majority of people qualify for a psychological label? Doesn’t that seem equally if not more probable than assuming that half of the people in the world are pretty much interchangeable in terms of brain and emotional functioning?

It is convenient to define normal as whatever you happen to be. No need to confront the possibility that maybe you aren’t as empathetic as you seem. Maybe your conscience doesn’t have quite the sway that you thought it did. Maybe you are both capable and incapable of much more than you had hoped. Maybe you have a lot more in common with sociopaths than you’d like to think. Maybe it is just one big long spectrum with only a few people at the extremes and the rest huddled closer to the middle. Some have derided self-diagnosed sociopaths as poseurs, clinging to the label as sanctuary from the disappointments of an average existence. Could it be that self-diagnosed sociopaths are just much more honest with themselves than the rest of you who claim, “That’s not sociopathic, everyone does that”? Could both be true, that acting a particular way could be both sociopathic and something that everyone does? Or that most people do? Specifically, you—that you sometimes do those things? Does that make you normal, or me?

I don’t mean to redefine sociopathy as the new normal, and certainly not “better than normal.” Sociopaths are not a race of Übermenschen. We’re not out doing good among the populace—standing up for the disenfranchised when everyone else is too afraid—not often, at least, and never as a general rule. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always loved vigilante-justice movies, but I often root for the bad guy. Society labels the subversive a criminal or revolutionary, not him. He rarely needs to tell himself stories of moral justification in order to engage in his flourishes of elaborate violence. I know I’m not alone in my love of the villain. In him, we see freedom.

Perhaps that is why the sociopath has loomed so large in our fictive spaces—Hannibal Lecter pulling Clarice’s strings from behind bars; the talented con artist Tom Ripley infiltrating and destroying the life of his wealthy beloved, Dickie; the perfectly coifed Patrick Bateman traipsing through yuppie New York soaked in blood, real or imagined. They constitute walking manifestations of overblown desire and destructive forces, characterized by the absence of limitations, whether it be empathy, guilt, or fear. Indeed, the most enduring of coldblooded villains, Dracula, is so limitless that he dissolves into mist. Historically, the diagnosis for sociopathy has in many ways served as an amalgam of miscellaneous reprobate traits, a depository for wayward, antisocial behavior from which its members can be identified and separated from everyone else. In the gothic vampire myth, the existence of the nocturnal creature can be explained, and thus contained, in the realm of the supernatural. In everyday life, however, explanations for the existence of the sociopath are much more elusive.

I wonder if my story is disappointing to you for that reason—that I am not so much myth as man. I do not have secret stories about killing animals (opossum aside), or not that I remember. To the extent that this book is fatally flawed because I do not have a criminal record or shocking or cruel enough examples of my sociopathy, it’s a flaw that cannot be mended. Through my website, I’ve encountered all manner of individuals who exhibit symptoms of or identify as sociopaths or psychopaths—from Bonnie-and-Clyde-type criminals to sensitive teenagers struggling with the difficult notions of empathy and human connection. Despite this heterogeneity, I think there are obvious and substantive differences between the sociopath and the average person.

I have no problem exploring why I do the things I do, but there are no stories about how I am irredeemably depraved. I can only offer my thoughts about how any moral system that could lead to an adjudication of depravity is likely to be flawed, and in ways that won’t be immediately obvious to those who have never dared question the foundations for their moral “feelings” about the world. As researcher in the ethics of forensic psychology Karen Franklin told NPR, criticizing the dominant conception of psychopathy:

By foregrounding intrinsic evil, [the diagnosis of] psychopathy marginalizes social problems and excuses institutional failures at rehabilitation. We need not understand a criminal’s troubled past or environmental influences. We need not reach out a hand to help him along a pathway to redemption. The psychopath is irredeemable, a dangerous outsider who must be contained or banished. Circular in its reasoning, psychopathy is nonetheless alluring in its simplicity.

But sociopathy is not as simple as you have been led to believe. It is not a synonym for evil. Hearing people saying that we are irredeemable should give you great pause. I hope that you hesitate upon hearing the suggestion that sociopaths should have microchips implanted in their brains, or be institutionalized indefinitely, or be shipped off to an island somewhere, and remember that the history of man is marked by similar acts of hubris and cruelty.

I remember once in law school doing research for a paper and reading an old statute criminalizing homosexuality. They’re easy enough to find; some of them are still on the books in democratic countries. The state of Pennsylvania still has a prostitution law that finds it necessary to specifically include “homosexual and other deviate sexual relations” (emphasis mine). What makes a sexual relation deviate? The dictionary defines it as “departing significantly from usual or accepted standards.” Interestingly, I once read an old statute in law school that had two notable exceptions to criminal homosexuality: same-sex relations in prison and in the military. Presumably those same-sex relations are not “deviate” because “normal” people have historically done them—in the absence of females, what is a little dalliance between men?