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Speaker 1: slash Katiekuric. Hi everyone, I'm Katy Kuric and this is
Speaker 1: next question. Did you have any idea that sociopaths make
Speaker 1: up five percent of the US population? And what exactly
Speaker 1: is a sociopath anyway? Patrick Gagne short for Patricia grew
Speaker 1: up knowing she was different. Emotions for her didn't really
Speaker 1: register the way they did for her family and friends.
Speaker 1: In fact, she says, growing up she mostly felt nothing,
Speaker 1: but she wanted badly to feel something, so when she
Speaker 1: was seven that pressure to feel got so great she
Speaker 1: actually stuck a pencil in her classmate's neck. As she
Speaker 1: got older, to better understand what was going on with her,
Speaker 1: she went out and got a PhD in psychology, and
Speaker 1: now she's written a book that she hopes will help
Speaker 1: people understand and destigmatize sociopathy and show that in spite
Speaker 1: of it, those who have it can actually build a
Speaker 1: life and have a family. By the way, the voice
Speaker 1: you hear at the end of this conversation is my producer,
Speaker 1: Adriana Fazzio, who is absolutely obsessed with this book. First
Speaker 1: of all, Hi, Hi, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for talking about your new book, Sociopath.
Speaker 1: I think the first question I would have for you
Speaker 1: is what exactly Patrick is a sociopath.
Speaker 2: One of the most common questions I am asked is
Speaker 2: what is a sociopath? Because there is so much conflation
Speaker 2: between sociopathy and psychopathy, and it's made all the more
Speaker 2: complicated by the fact that sociopathy has recently been reclassified
Speaker 2: as secondary psychopathy, which makes it even harder to understand.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what psychopathy means.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you so. My interpretation of the research is
Speaker 2: that the classic psychopath has brain abnormalities that make it
Speaker 2: impossible for them to move through complex emotional development. So
Speaker 2: while they're able to feel the inherent primary emotions that
Speaker 2: everyone is born with anger, anticipation, joy, trust, fear, surprise,
Speaker 2: sadness discussed, they're unable to learn the social emotions shame, empathy, love, guilt, remorse.
Speaker 2: These are things that we're not born with. These are
Speaker 2: emotions that we are taught. That is different from sociopathy.
Speaker 2: Sociopaths act like psychopaths. Their behavior is often the same,
Speaker 2: which is why they tend to get confused. But sociopaths
Speaker 2: don't have that biological impediment, which means they can learn
Speaker 2: the social emotions. They just learn them differently. And in
Speaker 2: the book, I described it as an emotional learning disorder,
Speaker 2: which is what it felt like for me as a kid,
Speaker 2: sort of seeing other kids connect to these emotions and
Speaker 2: I struggled, but I always felt they were there, just
Speaker 2: a little bit out of my reach.
Speaker 1: People seem to use these terms interchangeably, you know, and
Speaker 1: they get confused. They really misname certain psychological disorders or behaviors.
Speaker 1: Why is that? Have we just not really learned to
Speaker 1: parse out the difference between this host of psychological disorders.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think it's I think it's convenient. I
Speaker 2: think it's you know, it's the research says that sociopathy
Speaker 2: makes up five percent of the population, which is a
Speaker 2: lot of people. And I was recently talking to someone
Speaker 2: who works in the prison system and She had made
Speaker 2: the comment that a lot of prison psychologists don't like
Speaker 2: to diagnose sociopathy or psychopathy because it's considered irredeemable. And
Speaker 2: I really just think that that speaks to why there
Speaker 2: isn't more research and there isn't more understanding, because it's
Speaker 2: just a group of people that collectively we have decided
Speaker 2: are untreatable. So it doesn't really matter whether we get
Speaker 2: to know them better or understand their motivations more comprehensively.
Speaker 2: So it's just it is. It was psychopathy. Sociopathy was
Speaker 2: the first personality disorder ever identified, and yet I don't
Speaker 2: know that we're any further toward understanding it than we
Speaker 2: were when it was first recognized, which is wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Let me get this straight though, Patrick so, which is
Speaker 1: such an interesting name, by the way, you're Patrick without
Speaker 1: a K.
Speaker 3: Well, it's short for Patricia.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, which is a cool name.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: My understanding from your book is sociopaths are redeemable. You
Speaker 1: can learn certain behaviors and actually almost develop certain emotions
Speaker 1: with work, but psychopaths are not redeemable. Is that accurate?
Speaker 2: I hate to use the word not redeemable. As of now,
Speaker 2: it's not amenable to treatment. Psychopathy does not seem to
Speaker 2: be receptive to any type of treatment, whereas sociopathy is.
Speaker 1: So if sociopaths account for five percent of the population,
Speaker 1: what do psychopaths account for?
Speaker 2: My understanding is it's zero point zero one percent. It's
Speaker 2: a very small number. But again, having reclassified sociopathy as
Speaker 2: secondary psychopathy, it's really tricky to parse out the research.
Speaker 2: You have to really dig into it and read to understand, Okay,
Speaker 2: are they talking about psychopathy the nineteen nineties version of psychopathy?
Speaker 2: Are they talking about the twenty twenty version of psychopathy
Speaker 2: versus sociopathy?
Speaker 3: And I think that.
Speaker 2: That's my biggest call to action is to separate these terms,
Speaker 2: give each one a very clear distinction. Because sociopathy is
Speaker 2: receptive to treatment. It seems insane to me that this
Speaker 2: is a disorder that affects roughly the same number of
Speaker 2: people as depressive disorders and bipolar disorders. And yet you'll
Speaker 2: walk into any bookstore and there's nothing on the shelves
Speaker 2: for sociopathy treatment plans. There are no support groups. There
Speaker 2: are support groups for people who claim to have been
Speaker 2: victims of sociopaths, but it's a lot of people, and
Speaker 2: they haven't been given any of the research or resources
Speaker 2: that most of the other disorders have been.
Speaker 1: Well, you talk about innate emotions versus learned emotions that
Speaker 1: are kind of through nature versus nurture in some ways,
Speaker 1: So can you give us examples of how a sociopath
Speaker 1: might like you might move through the world. And then
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to you about when you first
Speaker 1: recognized or realized that you weren't quite the same as
Speaker 1: some of the other people in your family or in
Speaker 1: society writ large.
Speaker 2: My experience was very much related to other sociopaths. I
Speaker 2: always struggled with empathy and it's very and again I
Speaker 2: want to make it clear, just because I don't necessarily
Speaker 2: react empathically doesn't mean that I want harm for others,
Speaker 2: or that I somehow get off or enjoy seeing others
Speaker 2: in pain. And that's I've seen that argument being made
Speaker 2: and nothing for me. It could be further from the truth.
Speaker 2: I don't react empathically, but I'm not enjoying watching someone hurting.
Speaker 2: And I remember thinking about other sociopaths when I was
Speaker 2: in college and sort of marveling over what limited resources
Speaker 2: and research there was available. And I remember thinking five percent,
Speaker 2: who is checking in on these people, Who's helping them
Speaker 2: keep their behaviors in check? Like, I know what I'm doing,
Speaker 2: but what about all the other people? And in that moment,
Speaker 2: I remember thinking, oh wait, that's empathy. That's me thinking,
Speaker 2: feeling compassion for others. And it happened pretty naturally. And
Speaker 2: at that time I was only able to empathize, or
Speaker 2: so I thought, with other sociopaths. But over time I
Speaker 2: sort of used that experience to grow the feeling for
Speaker 2: other people, other groups of people in my life, outside
Speaker 2: my life, and that's that became my touchstone for how
Speaker 2: to access shame remorse. I might not inherently experience those emotions,
Speaker 2: but I would think, okay, so what if this was
Speaker 2: happening to another sociopath, What if someone was treating another
Speaker 2: sociopath this way? I would try to access it from
Speaker 2: that angle as opposed to just this blanket learning curve,
Speaker 2: which is, we don't want to hurt people's feelings, right,
Speaker 2: we don't want to that's those are you know, That's
Speaker 2: that's how you socialize a kid, as you you know,
Speaker 2: sit them down and sort of help them understand the
Speaker 2: general benefits and not hurting others, not wanting to hurt
Speaker 2: someone else's feelings.
Speaker 3: But for me that didn't work.
Speaker 2: That those those lessons didn't land, but did when I
Speaker 2: was able to apply them to other people like me.
Speaker 1: You were diagnosed in college. Talk to me about your childhood, Patrick,
Speaker 1: about how this manifested itself, this lack of empathy or
Speaker 1: this I guess not feeling certain things right. You do
Speaker 1: feel happiness and sadness. There was a story about your
Speaker 1: ferret dying and your mom told you and you had
Speaker 1: virtually no reactions. So what's the difference between sadness, which
Speaker 1: you say is a basic human emotion, and why didn't
Speaker 1: you feel sad when your ferret died.
Speaker 2: I did feel sad when my ferret died. I just
Speaker 2: didn't feel it to the extent that my sister did.
Speaker 2: I remember hearing her crying, witnessing her grief, and mine
Speaker 2: was so shallow compared to hers. I do remember being
Speaker 2: sad that I had this little critter that I now
Speaker 2: no longer had, and I remember feeling that I was
Speaker 2: not going to be able to, you know, bring her
Speaker 2: along with me on my adventures anymore. But it wasn't
Speaker 2: that overwhelming grief that my sister was experiencing, and that
Speaker 2: feeling that I had to react that way. It was
Speaker 2: sort of this pressure to be performative that I was
Speaker 2: really trying not to do. I do experience these emotions,
Speaker 2: as do others like me, but because they, you know,
Speaker 2: they aren't demonstrated at the you know, so called neurotypical level,
Speaker 2: they're discounted, or at least they were when I was
Speaker 2: a kid. So that led to a lot of deceit
Speaker 2: and manipulation on my part. Not because I was motivated
Speaker 2: by greed or bloodlust, but because I understood very early
Speaker 2: I don't feel things the way other kids do, but
Speaker 2: I need to pretend like I do. And this sort
Speaker 2: of deceit that I had leaned into as a survival
Speaker 2: mechanism over time became a lifestyle because it was all
Speaker 2: that I knew.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about sort of some
Speaker 1: of the things you did as a kid and why
Speaker 1: you did it. But is there something in your brain
Speaker 1: that is there a prefrontal cortex thing or something that
Speaker 1: doesn't process or learn behavior or have you express emotion
Speaker 1: like other people? What are the neurological reasons someone is
Speaker 1: a sociopath or are there.
Speaker 2: Biology doesn't seem to play as big a role in
Speaker 2: sociopathy as it does psychopathy. There is no real general
Speaker 2: consensus on why sociopathy presents the way it does. There
Speaker 2: have been some compelling arguments on temperament. So children who
Speaker 2: are born with the inherent everyone knows that kid, the
Speaker 2: one who's just a better liar, who's manipulating from a
Speaker 2: very early age. That speaks to a certain temperament that
Speaker 2: seems to be predisposed to sociopathy under the right circumstances.
Speaker 2: I wish that I could give you a precise answer.
Speaker 2: But one of the reasons, if not the reason that
Speaker 2: I wrote Sociopath was because I was hoping it would
Speaker 2: be a jumping off point for people to dig in
Speaker 2: and say, huh, why don't we know the answers to
Speaker 2: these questions and figure them out? Because I believe the
Speaker 2: answers are out there, it's just a matter of time
Speaker 2: and effort to find them.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of your behavior as a child.
Speaker 1: For example, when you stabbed a classmate in the neck
Speaker 1: with a pencil, it sounds to me that you have
Speaker 1: these overwhelming feelings. Can you talk about that and how
Speaker 1: those manifested themselves when you were a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember feeling this pressure. And what I now
Speaker 2: understand looking back is that this pressure that I was
Speaker 2: experiencing was caused by what we were just discussing a
Speaker 2: little bit ago, This understanding that I knew I didn't
Speaker 2: feel things the way I was supposed to, and that
Speaker 2: if I didn't either force myself into feeling or adapt
Speaker 2: a persona that was basically a mirror of other people's emotions,
Speaker 2: that I would be outed. That the perks of society,
Speaker 2: or my family, my mother's not necessarily affection, but having
Speaker 2: her on my side, all of that would be compromised
Speaker 2: if I didn't act normal, and I would feel this
Speaker 2: pressure start to build. And it seems to me that
Speaker 2: it resembles a lot of what people who suffer from
Speaker 2: OCD experience, and they have this need to engage in
Speaker 2: repetitive behaviors, not because they want to, but because some
Speaker 2: part of their mind is telling them, if you do this,
Speaker 2: you will feel better. And that's how I felt in
Speaker 2: that moment when I assaulted that child. I wasn't doing
Speaker 2: it because I wanted to hurt this child or see
Speaker 2: her in pain. It was very much a wrong place,
Speaker 2: wrong time. I could feel the pressure building. It had
Speaker 2: been building for days, and putting that pencil into this child,
Speaker 2: to me, was like popping a balloon, which I understand
Speaker 2: sounds vicious and violent, and certainly it was, but the
Speaker 2: motivations behind it were neither.
Speaker 1: So was it to feel something.
Speaker 3: I think so it was just this release of.
Speaker 2: If not to feel something, certainly to sort of. Later on,
Speaker 2: I described it as this feeling of I am who
Speaker 2: I am. I don't care who knows it, I don't
Speaker 2: care what comes of it. I just want to exist
Speaker 2: as I am and doing an act like that or
Speaker 2: committing a committing an act like that, engaging in that
Speaker 2: type of behavior. There's no real hiding from it. It's done,
Speaker 2: and so for a minute I'm free, I'm pressure's off,
Speaker 2: like I didn't have to keep this in anymore. I
Speaker 2: didn't have to conceal this pressure, conceal who I am,
Speaker 2: and it was it was a release in a way.
Speaker 1: I'm not a psychologist or a therapist, but it sounds
Speaker 1: to me like you have obviously some kind of issue
Speaker 1: with ID and ego, and your ID has kind your
Speaker 1: ID is likely to in certain cases run amok. And
Speaker 1: your ego, which controls the impulse to do something crazy
Speaker 1: or wrong or unconventional, you know it, It doesn't necesscessarily
Speaker 1: enter into the picture. Is that accurate?
Speaker 3: Really sounds accurate.
Speaker 2: I know exactly what you're saying, and I've used a
Speaker 2: similar analogy. Whereas the ID is typically that you know,
Speaker 2: tantrum me instant gratification side of oneself, whereas my ID is.
Speaker 3: Just a wild little dragon.
Speaker 2: And to your point, the ego does have a hard
Speaker 2: time keeping that little dragon locked up and pacified. Not
Speaker 2: so much now, but certainly when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: And is that something you learned, how to control this
Speaker 1: kind of your drag inside?
Speaker 3: I think yes.
Speaker 2: But the reason is because so much of my life
Speaker 2: was spent in hiding, was spent lying and denying to
Speaker 2: others who I was, And I found I was so
Speaker 2: much more peaceful when I was alone. And it's because
Speaker 2: I didn't have to hide or lie, or or conceal
Speaker 2: any aspect to myself. As I've gotten older and become
Speaker 2: more comfortable with who I am, become more understanding of
Speaker 2: my personality type, what it is, why it exists, how
Speaker 2: it exists, how it manifests itself. I don't feel the
Speaker 2: need to hide or lie, and that has contributed, I
Speaker 2: would say, tremendously to my destructive urges and impulses and
Speaker 2: has made them a lot easier to manage.
Speaker 1: Because you don't feel like you're hiding and you're figuring
Speaker 1: out how to move in the world. It sounds to
Speaker 1: me like you have trouble conforming to societal norms.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes I'm in church and I think, what
Speaker 1: if I don't go to church that often? But when
Speaker 1: I do, what if I stood up and started screaming
Speaker 1: and doing something crazy in the middle of church. I
Speaker 1: don't know if other people have this, Like what if
Speaker 1: this happened? Yes, and then so that's like my imagination.
Speaker 1: But then my ego says, I can't do that. That
Speaker 1: will be disruptive. People will think I'm crazy, and I'll
Speaker 1: be in page six in the New York Post. So
Speaker 1: I can't do that. But you know, it sounds to
Speaker 1: me like you have the first part but not the
Speaker 1: second part.
Speaker 3: It's cognitive.
Speaker 2: I understand it cognitively, but I think because I had
Speaker 2: I spent so much of my life feeling that I
Speaker 2: was very much at the mercy of these urges There's
Speaker 2: always that part of me that goes to that place of, well,
Speaker 2: what if this time I can't what if I can't
Speaker 2: stop myself this time? What if the urges get the
Speaker 2: better of me? And a lot of that for me
Speaker 2: has been resolved with cognitive journaling. When I find that
Speaker 2: I am starting to get concerned and have those feelings
Speaker 2: of what if I can't stop myself? One day, I
Speaker 2: go back and I say, but you always, but you
Speaker 2: have you know, your your history is that you have
Speaker 2: always figured it out and you will continue to figure
Speaker 2: it out. But I still feel those feelings of what if?
Speaker 2: You know, I I think I, especially recently having the
Speaker 2: book just coming out, I'm experiencing a type of you know,
Speaker 2: amorphosis where I'm living very publicly, out loud.
Speaker 3: Certainly I've been.
Speaker 2: Open, long, open with my friends and family, but this,
Speaker 2: you know, talking to you about something about this is
Speaker 2: not really something I've gotten used to or processed.
Speaker 3: You are someone.
Speaker 2: In fact, you're I think You're the only person I've
Speaker 2: gotten to speak with in the last few weeks for
Speaker 2: whom I have had a lifelong appreciation, which is not
Speaker 2: to say that I haven't enjoyed and thoroughly respected the
Speaker 2: other people you know, with whom I've had conversations, but
Speaker 2: you have always been someone that was sort of a
Speaker 2: touchstone for me in my life, and coming into this
Speaker 2: I should have been overjoyed, you know, I should be
Speaker 2: bursting with something. So when I got on the zoom
Speaker 2: today and and I found once again those that excitement,
Speaker 2: it's not there.
Speaker 1: As we led up to this conversation. What was your
Speaker 1: feeling apathy?
Speaker 2: Just being stuck behind department store glass? Like I can
Speaker 2: see the excitement. I can I can cognitively connect to
Speaker 2: what a exciting and wonderful opportunity it is to have
Speaker 2: this conversation, but I'm not.
Speaker 3: It's not connecting.
Speaker 2: Emotionally, and it's frustrating and it's it's sad because I
Speaker 2: recognize the gravity in not just this experience, but in
Speaker 2: other experiences of my life, certainly recently, and I it's
Speaker 2: sort of I have to remind myself. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: even now, I don't. I don't connect the way that
Speaker 2: I wish that I could. But I want to be
Speaker 2: so clear that the lack of that emotional connection isn't
Speaker 2: replaced by nefarious or manipulative or deceitful urges it's just
Speaker 2: what a bummer, and that more people understood that and
Speaker 2: certainly go ahead.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, so you can't really
Speaker 1: feel things deeply your life like me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's that's a you're little.
Speaker 2: Men, Yeah, and that's that's okay until you're presented with
Speaker 2: something like a graduation or a wedding or a birth.
Speaker 2: These you know, these opportunities are met with this expectation
Speaker 2: of emotion, and when you don't have them, you have
Speaker 2: two choices either admit it or fake it. And I'm
Speaker 2: noticing recently that I want to go stoo figing it.
Speaker 1: But you have I think perfected some workarounds, and I
Speaker 1: think in many ways you've been able to figure out
Speaker 1: your lack of emotion and replace it with something else.
Speaker 1: It sounds like so these impulses that you had as
Speaker 1: a child, this kind of almost feeling like there, I
Speaker 1: would describe it maybe like wax around your heart or
Speaker 1: having your emotions almost feel like you're underwater in a
Speaker 1: weird way. I guess what I wonder is criminal activity.
Speaker 1: You know, when people feel this impulse, this pressure building up,
Speaker 1: like you're talking about, this desire to kind of feel something,
Speaker 1: is that what spurs a lot of people to do
Speaker 1: criminal things. In other words, can you talk about the
Speaker 1: overlap between sociothopy and criminal activity or things that are
Speaker 1: just morally wrong.
Speaker 2: My understanding of the research and my own experience indicates
Speaker 2: that that's exactly what's happening. That your need to feel
Speaker 2: is really what's driving this destructive behavior.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: One of the things that always blows my mind is
Speaker 2: we go to that five percent. Sociopathy is believed to
Speaker 2: represent five percent of the population. But what people don't
Speaker 2: understand is that nearly all of the diagnostic interviews for
Speaker 2: sociopathy take place in prisons. So it's the only place
Speaker 2: that people are largely being diagnosed with psychopathy and sociopathy
Speaker 2: is in the prison system. You're going to find that
Speaker 2: most of them are conducting or you know, exhibiting criminal
Speaker 2: behavior or engaging in that.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I also know that there are people like me who
Speaker 2: have not spent any time in prison, and maybe unjustly so,
Speaker 2: and they are trying to navigate their destructive impulses while
Speaker 2: staying on that fine line of not wanting to get
Speaker 2: caught but also wanting to force these these feelings, these
Speaker 2: pops of color and an otherwise black and white emotional world.
Speaker 2: And it also speaks to privilege.
Speaker 3: You know, I.
Speaker 2: Am very clear that I am a white woman of privilege,
Speaker 2: and I had every opportunity and resource available to me.
Speaker 2: What might my life had looked like if I had
Speaker 2: been a different race, gender, had I come from a
Speaker 2: different socioeconomic background, I am almost certain I would have
Speaker 2: wound up in prison. And I think about that a lot.
Speaker 2: You know, these people who are incarcerated because they were
Speaker 2: trying to force these emotions by engaging in this destructive behavior,
Speaker 2: and that's all they knew how to do, and for
Speaker 2: a long time, it's all I knew how to do.
Speaker 2: So again, it speaks to the need for more research
Speaker 2: and understanding to help these people certainly be rehabilitated or
Speaker 2: at the very least, to become their own advocates for
Speaker 2: themselves and for others like them.
Speaker 1: We talked about losing your ferret, We talked about stabbing
Speaker 1: your classmate in the neck with a pencil. But what
Speaker 1: was that first experience like for you when you realized
Speaker 1: you were emotionally out of step with your family, that
Speaker 1: something was different about you.
Speaker 2: It was lonely, and again that's not something that people
Speaker 2: really think when they think of a sociopath. But the
Speaker 2: truth is I didn't choose to feel this way or
Speaker 2: to not feel this way. And I remember feeling again bummed,
Speaker 2: like I wish that I could have those overwhelming feelings.
Speaker 2: I wish that I could connect the way that they can,
Speaker 2: and that I could not made me feel very alone
Speaker 2: and lonely and sort of craving companionship of someone like minded,
Speaker 2: which was not necessarily the healthiest choice, but that's what
Speaker 2: I wanted, I felt. I remember watching Oliver Twist when
Speaker 2: I was a kid, and seeing the artful Dodger and
Speaker 2: how Oliver found himself in this, you know, glorified cave
Speaker 2: of criminals, and I remember thinking, I wish I could
Speaker 2: go there. Those sound like my types of people.
Speaker 1: You would be the artful Dodger.
Speaker 2: I think I probably would. And if you remember the
Speaker 2: artful Dodger. Although he was very criminally versatile and certainly
Speaker 2: checked every one of the sociopathy checklists criteria, he had
Speaker 2: a heart and he was capable of loyalty. He was
Speaker 2: capable of more than you might have suspected if you
Speaker 2: were just looking at his rap sheet.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Patrick describes growing up feeling like
Speaker 1: she only saw black and white while everyone else was
Speaker 1: seeing color. Everyone needs someone to talk to and text
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Speaker 1: You were growing up in San Francisco with your parents
Speaker 1: and your sister. How did they react to this your
Speaker 1: black and white emotional range? I think that's so interesting,
Speaker 1: the way you describe a pop of color in a
Speaker 1: black and white world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's and that's really how it felt. I it's
Speaker 2: such a fun dated reference. But I remember watching that
Speaker 2: who is at aha? Take on me that video where
Speaker 2: he's like trying to get out of this black and
Speaker 2: white cartoon. I remember, yeah, always stuck with me. I
Speaker 2: remember thinking, that's exactly what this is like. But in
Speaker 2: terms of how my parents and my sister reacted, they
Speaker 2: didn't know was going on any more than I did.
Speaker 2: And certainly we were living in a time where mental
Speaker 2: health wasn't a conversation.
Speaker 3: There were hardly words for anxiety.
Speaker 2: And depression, which sociopathy or conduct disorder, you know, oppositional defiant.
Speaker 2: And I think my mom did the best she could
Speaker 2: with the tools that she had. I think my sister
Speaker 2: was different because, you know, my sister, I was already
Speaker 2: around my sister was born, so to her, I was
Speaker 2: different from her other friends. But it was always she
Speaker 2: never judged me for being different because to her, I
Speaker 2: wasn't different. To her, I was just her sister. And
Speaker 2: we have such a beautiful relationship, and that my sister
Speaker 2: has every emotional hue imaginable, you know, in spades. And
Speaker 2: I always like to joke that she got both good
Speaker 2: sides and I got both dark sides.
Speaker 3: But she never related.
Speaker 2: To me as anything other than someone deserving of love
Speaker 2: and compassion, and a lot of my ability to emote
Speaker 2: now is a direct result of my interactions with her.
Speaker 1: You bring up the dark side and the light side.
Speaker 1: Is there any genetic predisposition to sociopathy.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that there is. I can look back and
Speaker 2: see similarities in other family members, close family members.
Speaker 1: Have you discussed it with them since kind of having
Speaker 1: this epiphany about your own situation.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it's been a very matter of fact conversation,
Speaker 2: as one might.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of emotion there, but yes, I have.
Speaker 2: I've said, hey, I think we should talk about some
Speaker 2: of this stuff, and it's yeah, very matter of fact, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're right, I am like this and I have done
Speaker 2: these things, and we probably are very similar. What that
Speaker 2: genetic component is I don't know, but again, looking through
Speaker 2: my immediate family and my extended family, I definitely see
Speaker 2: I see a few branches that it might need further
Speaker 2: investigation of the old family tree.
Speaker 1: It's so fascinating and it is amazing that more research
Speaker 1: hasn't been channeled into studying this. And I know that
Speaker 1: you believe there's a whole spectrum of characteristics or you know,
Speaker 1: intensity for sociopathy, but I wonder before I ask you
Speaker 1: about your marriage, if you could just click through some
Speaker 1: of the characteristics, because I want people listening to this,
Speaker 1: maybe they will recognize that they have a lot in
Speaker 1: common with what you're describing.
Speaker 2: So when you're dealing with sociopathy and psychopathy, a lot
Speaker 2: of them overlap, and the consensus is that the classic
Speaker 2: psychopath is going to have more of these traits, like
Speaker 2: these traits are going to be more more prominent than sociopathy.
Speaker 2: Superficial charm one hundred percent. For me, again, that was
Speaker 2: a coping mechanism that developed into a lifestyle. But I
Speaker 2: was always very superficially charming. I knew what I had
Speaker 2: to do to get people to trust me, and I
Speaker 2: leaned into it very hard.
Speaker 1: You sound like some of my old boyfriends, But go on.
Speaker 2: Everybody says this, You're not alone. Grandiose sense of self worth.
Speaker 2: I never really possessed that to the extent that a
Speaker 2: psychopath would need for stimulation. Proneess to boredom one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: pathological lyying, pawning, manipulation, lack of remorser guilt check check check,
Speaker 2: shallow affect check, callous, lack of empathy. I want to
Speaker 2: push back on that because callous slash lack of empathy.
Speaker 2: I had lack of empathy, but I wouldn't describe it
Speaker 2: as callous. And I think that such an important distinction
Speaker 2: to be made. Just someone who's lacking an empathy doesn't
Speaker 2: necessarily make them callous.
Speaker 3: I couldn't.
Speaker 1: But also if you believe there's a spectrum, there might
Speaker 1: be some who were callous and some who are less
Speaker 1: callous or not callous at all.
Speaker 3: Yes, parasitic lifestyle. That wasn't for me.
Speaker 2: I was always very capable of excellent school at work.
Speaker 2: When I wanted to poor behavioral controls, Yes, promiscuous sexual behavior,
Speaker 2: I found that that was that's more a male driven
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of gender bias in this
Speaker 2: checklist right. Also, the sort of hallmark trade of a
Speaker 2: sociopath psychopath is that sort of pushy salesman type of
Speaker 2: behavior where it's this overt aggression the social dominance A male.
Speaker 3: Is going to assert social dominance that way a woman isn't.
Speaker 1: For me.
Speaker 2: It was always charm and sex. I would never go
Speaker 2: into a bar and start throwing my weight around. And
Speaker 2: I think that that's something that maybe should be addressed
Speaker 2: in terms of the diagnostics, early problems with behavior, lack
Speaker 2: of realistic long term goals, impulsivity, irresponsibility, failure to accept
Speaker 2: responsibility for one's own actions, many short term relationships, juvenile delinquency,
Speaker 2: and criminal versatility. So you can see how some are
Speaker 2: perfect fits and others are, like, huh, maybe that might
Speaker 2: be for the more extreme personality type.
Speaker 1: And how does this overlap with things like borderline personality
Speaker 1: disorder or narcissistic personality disorder, because I've known some narcissists
Speaker 1: and they possess some of these qualities but not all
Speaker 1: of them. And is it sort of like a ven
Speaker 1: diagram where there is a lot of overlap.
Speaker 3: It's behavioral overlap.
Speaker 2: And I'm really glad you asked this question because there
Speaker 2: is so much confusion the borderline personality, sociopathic personality, and
Speaker 2: the narcissistic personality. They tend to demonstrate the same behaviors,
Speaker 2: but it's where those behaviors, how those behaviors are motivated,
Speaker 2: that differ. So someone who is suffering from borderline personality disorder,
Speaker 2: their greatest fear is the re judgement bandon right, yes,
Speaker 2: rejection like loss of love. So they will do anything
Speaker 2: to hold on to that connection, and oftentimes their fear
Speaker 2: is a.
Speaker 1: Isn't it a result sometimes of trauma or abuse that
Speaker 1: they experienced as a child. And similarly, I think narcissism
Speaker 1: is so interesting because it's about not being able to
Speaker 1: model certain emotions and a lack of kind of receiving love.
Speaker 1: You know, people think narcissists are so full of themselves,
Speaker 1: but they just have this insatiable emptiness where they feel
Speaker 1: like they're never going to be loved. And I think
Speaker 1: because of narcissus stared at himself in his own reflection
Speaker 1: that people think narcissis. It's actually a really sad thing.
Speaker 2: It really is, and it stems from, to your point,
Speaker 2: a deep, deep lack of self worth. Right, they build
Speaker 2: this world up for themselves where they are these kings,
Speaker 2: which is why grandiosity is so prevalent in narcissism. Everything
Speaker 2: has to be perfect, all of their friends have to
Speaker 2: be the best, everything needs to be the best it
Speaker 2: can be. And it's all just a defense mechanism against
Speaker 2: this crushing sense.
Speaker 1: Of worthlessness completely and emptiness.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so you see why you can start to
Speaker 2: see how the behaviors are similar. So borderline it's the same.
Speaker 2: It's this abandonment, this terror of being rejected, and they
Speaker 2: become sort of a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Theopathy is very similar behaviorally, but again we're not talking
Speaker 2: about a fear of abandonment or a lack of self worth.
Speaker 2: It's more the desire to feel, the desire to connect,
Speaker 2: and it's sort of it's almost like a version of cutting.
Speaker 2: You know, I understand that people who cut there doing it.
Speaker 1: To feel, how to feel something, and feeling pain is
Speaker 1: better than feeling nothing.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that was my feeling of it. And again
Speaker 2: I wasn't always conscious of it at the time, but
Speaker 2: looking back, I remember, I see, I see, I see
Speaker 2: the pattern this. I would drop into apathy, the pressure
Speaker 2: of needing to either feel or fake it would kick in.
Speaker 2: The longer I would go without doing something about it,
Speaker 2: the more the pressure would increase, until I would finally
Speaker 2: act out in order to sort of neutralize the pressure.
Speaker 1: What's interesting to me about your situation is with education,
Speaker 1: you know, understanding yourself and your behavior, you have really
Speaker 1: learned to manage the manifestations of sociopathy by figuring out,
Speaker 1: really negotiating almost with yourself and with others. How you
Speaker 1: were going to exist in a way that wouldn't harm
Speaker 1: yourself or harm other people emotionally or physically. Talk to
Speaker 1: me about how you were able to do that. I
Speaker 1: know you met your husband in summer camp. You were fourteen,
Speaker 1: he was a few years older, and I feel like
Speaker 1: that that partnership has really helped you become the person
Speaker 1: you are now.
Speaker 2: Yes, and again, I was very lucky, and I to
Speaker 2: the first part of your question that negotiation with myself
Speaker 2: is a perfect way to describe it. And one thing
Speaker 2: that's almost never present in a negotiation is emotion. In fact,
Speaker 2: they discourage emotion and negotiation. And I felt like so
Speaker 2: much of those conversations with myself were rooted in logic.
Speaker 2: I want to live as normal quote unquote life as
Speaker 2: I can. I understand that continuing to act out is
Speaker 2: a threat to that life that I want.
Speaker 3: So what do I want more? Do I want the
Speaker 3: normal life?
Speaker 2: Or do I want to continue to act out and
Speaker 2: manage my impulses this way? That was an easy decision.
Speaker 2: Certainly it became easier once I met my husband. He
Speaker 2: is such a good person, and he is such an
Speaker 2: emotional person, and I knew very early on that I
Speaker 2: enjoyed being around him, and I recognize that the reason
Speaker 2: was he was the first person other than my sister
Speaker 2: who just liked me for me, I didn't have to
Speaker 2: hide around him, and he wasn't a member of my family,
Speaker 2: so I knew that it was real. He really wasn't
Speaker 2: out of obligation or you know, just sort of a
Speaker 2: knee jerk emotion. He really liked me, and it sort
Speaker 2: of made me realize I'm not bad, I'm just different,
Speaker 2: and maybe if this guy can like me, I can
Speaker 2: sort of learn to live more authentically and not feel
Speaker 2: as though I have to hide so much.
Speaker 1: And how did you get to that point? Because I
Speaker 1: know it took you a long time long to process that.
Speaker 1: How did you get there? And how did your research
Speaker 1: help you? And then you had some hacks with your husband,
Speaker 1: like the little statue of liberty that you would when
Speaker 1: sort of you're the opposite of your better angels would
Speaker 1: kind of take over. Yeah, so I know I've asked
Speaker 1: you sort of three questions in one, but tell me
Speaker 1: about getting to this point where you have been able
Speaker 1: to manage.
Speaker 2: You know, I went back to school in order to
Speaker 2: gain a better understanding of myself. You know, in the
Speaker 2: process of getting my PhD, I did, I uncovered a
Speaker 2: lot of research about my own personality type, and it
Speaker 2: was it was very selfishly driven. And you know, I
Speaker 2: want to be very clear on that, I am not
Speaker 2: a researcher. I am not some revolutionary therapist. I went
Speaker 2: to school and earned my PhD solely because I was
Speaker 2: trying to understand and help myself.
Speaker 1: Well that's okay, because in the process you're probably going
Speaker 1: to help a lot of other people.
Speaker 3: That's my hope.
Speaker 2: But I remember in that process it, you know, and
Speaker 2: again this speaks to my personality type that this didn't
Speaker 2: occur to me sooner, but realizing, oh, in order to
Speaker 2: get my PhD, I'm going to have to learn about
Speaker 2: other people too, which at the time was kind of
Speaker 2: a bummer, But ultimately I'm so glad that I did,
Speaker 2: because understanding other people really helped me understand myself better,
Speaker 2: but also how I could coexist.
Speaker 3: With others in a way that was healthy.
Speaker 2: And you know, that process of again negotiating with my husband,
Speaker 2: it was tricky because my husband is a very neurotypical
Speaker 2: emotional human being who is like, wait, you're going to
Speaker 2: leave a statue on the table for when you do
Speaker 2: something illegal like this is insane, and in retrospect, I
Speaker 2: can see why he felt that way, but at the
Speaker 2: time I didn't know of any other ways to manage
Speaker 2: my pressure. I hadn't fully come to understand it yet,
Speaker 2: and this just made sense to me in much the
Speaker 2: same way that breaking into cars and homes felt like
Speaker 2: a reasonable way to keep myself in check.
Speaker 3: Looking back, I can certainly.
Speaker 2: Understand why every alarm was going off in my husband's head,
Speaker 2: but it was it was something that we had to
Speaker 2: just consistently communicate and discuss until both of us sort
Speaker 2: of had a deeper understanding of our personality types.
Speaker 1: It sounds like for a long time, Patrick, you were
Speaker 1: a very high time and continue to be a high
Speaker 1: functioning sociopath. And in fact, you worked in the music industry,
Speaker 1: which in some ways was tailor was tailor made for
Speaker 1: your personality disorder. Can you tell us why? Because I
Speaker 1: think that the music industry is.
Speaker 2: Very much a lawless land, and and I love it,
Speaker 2: I still do. I don't think it was a very
Speaker 2: healthy environment for me, and had I stayed I probably
Speaker 2: would have gotten into all sorts of trouble but I
Speaker 2: think that there's a veneer. You know, the entertainment business
Speaker 2: in general has been able to conceal oceans of horrific
Speaker 2: behavior behind this sparkling veneer, and the music industry is
Speaker 2: certainly no different. And I was able to thrive as
Speaker 2: a result of my personality type and the moral flexibility
Speaker 2: I naturally was able to employ.
Speaker 1: Can you explain that, because I'm having a hard time
Speaker 1: understanding sort of what you mean by that specifically and
Speaker 1: in terms of why it could have been a fertile
Speaker 1: environment for your sociopathic behavior, Can you just help me
Speaker 1: understand that a little bit more.
Speaker 2: Sure, it's when you are working with or in proximity
Speaker 2: to people of power, you tend to have the same
Speaker 2: benefits of that power. So if you are working with
Speaker 2: a celebrity who is never held accountable, you sort of
Speaker 2: can get away with things and not be held accountable either.
Speaker 2: It's like coasting off of that wake. And there were
Speaker 2: multiple times where I had opportunities to steal, I had
Speaker 2: opportunities to manipulate and enrich myself, and I knew I
Speaker 2: would never be caught or even implicated, because no one's
Speaker 2: paying attention to you when you've got a celebrity standing
Speaker 2: next to you, and that was something that I recognized
Speaker 2: very quickly, and also recognized this is not good long
Speaker 2: term if you keep doing this. Maybe I wouldn't have
Speaker 2: been caught, but it certainly wouldn't have led to the
Speaker 2: life that I have today, which is rooted in like
Speaker 2: pro social behaviors and just rewarding emotional experiences. I don't
Speaker 2: think I would have found that if I had stayed
Speaker 2: in the music industry.
Speaker 1: I'm curious how emotional range jibes with a sense of morality.
Speaker 1: Do you have an inherent sense of right and wrong
Speaker 1: or is that you know what I mean. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to figure this out, because if you have these urges,
Speaker 1: where does morality come in to being a sociopath.
Speaker 2: I think there's a difference between knowing right and wrong
Speaker 2: and morality. So I always knew the difference between right
Speaker 2: and wrong. It's that that knowledge wasn't tethered to any
Speaker 2: emotional construct and that's where I think morality kicks in.
Speaker 2: So a neurotypical person is going to know, don't take
Speaker 2: the bubblegum off the shelf and put it in your pocket,
Speaker 2: because that's wrong.
Speaker 3: And when you go home about it.
Speaker 2: You're going to feel shame when you're going to feel
Speaker 2: the need to atone or confess or apologize. Whereas I
Speaker 2: knew that taking the bubblegum was wrong, but I also
Speaker 2: knew that when I got home, I wasn't going to
Speaker 2: feel badly about it. So that's really tricky because when
Speaker 2: you were lacking those emotional constructs, you have to make
Speaker 2: choices based on something external, and that was tough. It's
Speaker 2: you know, all of the other kids that I grew
Speaker 2: up with, they had things like guilt, shame, and remorse
Speaker 2: keeping them in check. I didn't get to rely on those,
Speaker 2: so I had to come up with external philosophies.
Speaker 1: So what keeps you from stealing bubblegum today?
Speaker 2: Karma's That was just something that really resonated with me.
Speaker 2: I really once I started when I got into college,
Speaker 2: I think I took I think it was a theology class.
Speaker 2: It was a class that where I had to do
Speaker 2: reading and Buddhism, and I remember really responding to it
Speaker 2: and liking the balance of it this scale and that
Speaker 2: really resonated with me, not on an emotional level, but
Speaker 2: on what goes up must come down type of logic.
Speaker 2: And I remember thinking, this is how I will keep
Speaker 2: myself in check, understanding that okay, you can do this,
Speaker 2: but chances are if you put too many coins in
Speaker 2: the bad site, on the bad side of the scale,
Speaker 2: you're going to have to there's going to have to
Speaker 2: be an adjustment at some point. And the idea that
Speaker 2: I have this outstanding karmic debt, I never liked that feeling.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, I want to keep my scale very even,
Speaker 2: I want to keep things very clean and organized, and
Speaker 2: that's what worked for me, and I have it's and
Speaker 2: it's It's also not lost on me that that one
Speaker 2: of the objectives within Buddhism is a quiet mind and
Speaker 2: not being held captive by your emotion. So I have
Speaker 2: been able to utilize that in meditations and things that
Speaker 2: are very advantageous spiritually, that maybe someone who is neurotypical
Speaker 2: might struggle with more because they can't quite those emotions,
Speaker 2: they can't keep things still or as I can.
Speaker 1: You have two children, and I'm curious how this has
Speaker 1: impacted your parenting. This kind of more looking at emotions
Speaker 1: through a glass window people talk about and I know
Speaker 1: you write about this feeling, this overwhelming sense of love
Speaker 1: when you have a baby and you didn't feel that way,
Speaker 1: how did you manage the emotional disconnect when it comes
Speaker 1: to parenting and having children.
Speaker 2: I remember being very angry when I did not experience
Speaker 2: that that surge of emotion, and I looking back, I
Speaker 2: was very It was all directed at myself, not because
Speaker 2: I was unable to feel those things, but because I
Speaker 2: had allowed myself even a sliver of hope that I might.
Speaker 2: So for the longest time, I was so angry at
Speaker 2: myself for like, how could you even think that this
Speaker 2: would be possible for you? But once that went by
Speaker 2: the wayside, it went back to logic. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't have all of the tools that a neurotypical
Speaker 2: parent does, but I have what I have, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to make the best out of what i have.
Speaker 2: And I have found that my lack of emotion can
Speaker 2: be advantageous when I'm dealing with my kids and they're
Speaker 2: really struggling to regulate, or they're really struggling with big feelings,
Speaker 2: I have found that I can intervene in a way
Speaker 2: that allows them to express their reactions without the fear
Speaker 2: of my reaction getting in the way, and That's something
Speaker 2: I've sort of noticed from friends, family, even watching television.
Speaker 2: A child will have a feeling and that feeling will
Speaker 2: immediately be met with their parents feeling. You know, how
Speaker 2: could you fail this test or how could you let
Speaker 2: that happen? Whereas I've noticed that doesn't happen. It tends
Speaker 2: to be very level emotionally, and I have chosen to
Speaker 2: perceive that as an advantage. Well, because what choice do
Speaker 2: I have, you know, That's what I've got, so I
Speaker 2: try to make the best of what I've got.
Speaker 1: Do they ever get frustrated? Or did your husband get frustrated?
Speaker 1: With this sort of homeostasis and the lack of You're
Speaker 1: almost overregulated, it feels like in your emotional state, do
Speaker 1: they ever feel like, hello, anyone home? Why aren't you
Speaker 1: happier for me? Why aren't you mad that the bully
Speaker 1: was mistreating me? Why aren't you?
Speaker 3: Oh, I do get mad, That's the right. I do
Speaker 3: get mad, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Why aren't you more closely aligned with what I'm feeling
Speaker 1: on my behalf?
Speaker 2: Yes, and I've always tried to be very transparent with
Speaker 2: my kids. Obviously, my children are young, so I how
Speaker 2: old are they thirteen and eight. So I share transparently
Speaker 2: but age appropriately. But I've always just tried to come
Speaker 2: at it from a very honest place. I am limited
Speaker 2: in what I can give you. You might not get
Speaker 2: what you need from me in this department, but maybe
Speaker 2: I can help you figure out some things over here
Speaker 2: in this other department. It's interesting. My two sons recently
Speaker 2: introduced me to Taylor Swift, and through that introduction, I've
Speaker 2: been able to communicate with them and understand their emotional
Speaker 2: world on a much deeper level. And again, it's like
Speaker 2: being in an art gallery where I might not be
Speaker 2: able to paint these colors, but I can see them
Speaker 2: and I can understand where they're coming from.
Speaker 1: And appreciate them.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, So that's been a very very cool experience, sort
Speaker 2: of seeing the world through through their lens and through
Speaker 2: that music.
Speaker 1: You say, you're limited, but can you love?
Speaker 3: Yes? I think I just love differently.
Speaker 2: And for a long time I was made to feel
Speaker 2: that because I love differently, that love didn't count. But
Speaker 2: that's not true, and I rejected that completely. I don't
Speaker 2: have that instant connection. A lot of times, love for
Speaker 2: me starts out as like a cognitive understanding. But I
Speaker 2: love my children and I love my husband, and although
Speaker 2: that love might not look like someone who is overly
Speaker 2: affectionate or overly effusive, I very much love them. And
Speaker 2: I also loved my sister and my mother and father
Speaker 2: growing up, so I always knew.
Speaker 3: I was capable. It's just how deep can I go?
Speaker 2: And I'm finding that as my children can get older,
Speaker 2: that ability to connect continues to grow. It's just a
Speaker 2: little bit different than someone who's neurotypical.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Patrick talks about controlling some of
Speaker 1: her more mischievous impulses, like dumping a smoothie into somebody's
Speaker 1: sunbrief If you want to get smarter every morning with
Speaker 1: a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health
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Speaker 1: Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. When
Speaker 1: it comes to your impulses, you don't really necessarily want
Speaker 1: to stab someone in the neck with a pencil anymore,
Speaker 1: but you do. Yeah, But you're able to control those impulses.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you do what you call mischief. You know,
Speaker 1: you'll kind of do something funny, and if you're feeling
Speaker 1: these impulses, you'll put this little statue of liberty figurine
Speaker 1: so your husband can see it. What does that mean exactly?
Speaker 1: And what are some of the examples of some of
Speaker 1: the things you might do today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're really putting me on the spot. Okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: That's my job. That's my job, Patrick.
Speaker 3: I know it is.
Speaker 2: It's not Actually, it's not me because I'm delighted by
Speaker 2: this question. But I can I can feel my husband
Speaker 2: in my head going careful, careful, because he's very protective.
Speaker 2: But here's a great example. I don't necessarily feel at
Speaker 2: the mercy of my impulses, but that little dragon's always
Speaker 2: looking for an opportunity to strike. If we can find
Speaker 2: if we can find a justification, do you think I
Speaker 2: might be able to come out of my cage a
Speaker 2: little bit? And there was I was behind someone in
Speaker 2: the car, and this person was throwing all manner of
Speaker 2: garbage out of their window, I mean everything.
Speaker 3: Glass, bottles, plastic.
Speaker 2: Just and I followed this woman for a long time,
Speaker 2: and I remember thinking, feeling the little dragon say, come on,
Speaker 2: come on, come on, let me at her, Let me
Speaker 2: at her. And I followed this woman until she stopped
Speaker 2: at a grocery store. And when she stopped at a
Speaker 2: grocery store, she took I guess she had had a
Speaker 2: milkshake that she hadn't finished and just put it next
Speaker 2: to another car, which I found just particularly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you're gonna put it next to someone else's car.
Speaker 2: But she left her sunroof open, so I waited until
Speaker 2: she was gone, and then I upended the contents of
Speaker 2: that milkshake right through her open Mercedes sun roof.
Speaker 3: And I got back in my car.
Speaker 4: You asked, Gosh, I'd like to drive with you so
Speaker 4: I can act out my fantasies when a driver is
Speaker 4: a real jerk.
Speaker 2: It was just one of those moments where again I
Speaker 2: knew I wasn't supposed to do it. I knew that
Speaker 2: it was wrong, but I also knew that I didn't
Speaker 2: have those emotions keeping me in check.
Speaker 3: And it was just I was in a mood.
Speaker 1: And to me, it almost sounds like you had the
Speaker 1: emotions that you couldn't keep in check.
Speaker 3: Anger. Well, it was anger, and that's and and.
Speaker 1: And that's one of those things that you innately have, yes.
Speaker 2: And I but I have never been I've never had
Speaker 2: much of a temper I'm not really explosive in that way,
Speaker 2: but I think it also stems from a place of
Speaker 2: I am a sociopath, and by the virtue of that diagnosis,
Speaker 2: I have been subjected to all manner of criticism, and
Speaker 2: I'm expected to keep myself in check and honest, and
Speaker 2: and I'm expected put that figurine on the desk when
Speaker 2: I get home, and I adhere to these these rules
Speaker 2: that I that I work very hard to keep in place,
Speaker 2: and then when I every once in a while, it's
Speaker 2: very exhausting.
Speaker 3: So when I come across somebody.
Speaker 2: Who's just doing whatever what with no consequence whatsoever, I
Speaker 2: think that was more like, well, how come this lady.
Speaker 3: Gets to do this?
Speaker 2: Like she shouldn't be doing this? This is horrible, She's
Speaker 2: she's destroying the earth. And I've and I'm not in
Speaker 2: a nude, did you.
Speaker 1: I wish you had stuck around to see her reaction.
Speaker 2: The only reason I didn't was because there are cameras
Speaker 2: everywhere now and I wanted to sew badly.
Speaker 3: But I can. I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know that we needed to be there in
Speaker 2: order to guess what that reaction was. It was a
Speaker 2: very nice car, and this was not. This was a
Speaker 2: This was a very wealthy woman, clearly based on what
Speaker 2: she was wearing when she was driving, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: that she wasn't rilled.
Speaker 1: I think it's important for the world to see someone intelligent, successful,
Speaker 1: well spoken, thoughtful talk about her life as a sociopath.
Speaker 1: What has the response to your unleashing this on the world.
Speaker 1: What has the response been?
Speaker 2: You know, it's largely been so positive. I've heard from
Speaker 2: so many people who resonate with my experience and my
Speaker 2: personality type, who see themselves represented positively. They see someone
Speaker 2: like them who is functioning in society, in a healthy relationship,
Speaker 2: and has kids, has a good relationship with those kids,
Speaker 2: has friends, has a job, is able to live a
Speaker 2: normal life out of hiding. And that's been the positive element.
Speaker 2: And it's been largely positive. And that's mostly from people
Speaker 2: who are like me or people who know people like me.
Speaker 2: But I'm also finding that the reaction to my book,
Speaker 2: again by virtue of the fact that I have outed
Speaker 2: myself as a sociopath, people reacting with their own ideas
Speaker 2: of who I am and more concerning who they want
Speaker 2: me to be. A lot of people I found they
Speaker 2: want me to be a liar. They want me to
Speaker 2: be a fake, They want me to be that stereotypical sociopath.
Speaker 2: And I find that to be problematic because why on
Speaker 2: earth would someone like me, others like me want to
Speaker 2: come forward or admit to being sociopathic if the climate
Speaker 2: is still so dangerous for them. So that's I expected skepticism,
Speaker 2: But skepticism in the presence of fact is where I realize, Oh,
Speaker 2: it's not that you don't believe me, it's that you
Speaker 2: have chosen that I am going to be a liar
Speaker 2: full stop.
Speaker 3: I think that's more convenient.
Speaker 2: But choosing to deny reality doesn't change reality. It just
Speaker 2: makes you less safe within that reality. So that's something
Speaker 2: that I'm that I'm trying to now navigate, not for
Speaker 2: myself as much as for the others like me who
Speaker 2: were watching and trying to make decisions for themselves.
Speaker 1: Do you think this will lead to more research and
Speaker 1: more of a focus since so many people fall into
Speaker 1: this category, given that there's a spectrum, but so many people,
Speaker 1: if in fact five percent, as you said earlier, Patrick,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of people. Do you think this might
Speaker 1: lead to mental health professionals wanting to understand this particular
Speaker 1: disorder better or this neuro divergence better.
Speaker 2: I really hope so, and I think it will, because
Speaker 2: this is a conversation that wasn't happening before that seems
Speaker 2: to be happening now, and so much research has already
Speaker 2: been done. One of the struggles I had in writing
Speaker 2: this book is I had to stick to the research
Speaker 2: that was available to me at the time that I
Speaker 2: was in college, which was ten thousand years ago. But
Speaker 2: in researching more recently, there's so much more now, and
Speaker 2: I can only hope that conversations like this will move
Speaker 2: the needle even more toward wanting clarity, wanting understanding. It
Speaker 2: is very important that we not marginalize everyone who is sociopathic.
Speaker 2: Understand there are those extreme versions of this personality type
Speaker 2: who should be avoided, whose behavior should never be condoned.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to romanticize this personality type at all,
Speaker 2: simply to bring awareness that there is more to this
Speaker 2: personality type than that's extreme version. There are so many
Speaker 2: people who fall on the mild to moderate side, for
Speaker 2: whom treatment is very possible and could be very effective.
Speaker 2: But in order to treat something, you have to be
Speaker 2: able to identify it, and right now, sociopathy doesn't really
Speaker 2: have an identification beyond this sort of sensationalized definition and
Speaker 2: it's not in the not anymore. And that's another issue
Speaker 2: that's confusing, is that it was quote unquote replaced by
Speaker 2: antisocial personality disorder. But what's so important to understand is
Speaker 2: it wasn't replaced because you can't diagnose sociopathy using the
Speaker 2: criteria for antisocial personality disorder, just like you can't diagnose
Speaker 2: antisocial personality disorder using the sociopathic criteria. They're very similar,
Speaker 2: but the diagnostics are completely separate. And I think that
Speaker 2: there should be a section within the DSM that deals
Speaker 2: with psychopathy, sociopathy, and antisocial personality disorders because they are
Speaker 2: very similar but diagnostically very separate, and I think that
Speaker 2: would bring a lot of clarity to how they're different,
Speaker 2: how they can be treated, especially early. That's the research
Speaker 2: indicates that you cannot diagnose a child as sociopathic, but
Speaker 2: sociopathic leaning children respond quite favorably to early intervention. That
Speaker 2: would save so many people from having to go through
Speaker 2: the stuff that I went through and others like me
Speaker 2: went through, and especially when it's an easy intervention. I'm
Speaker 2: using that, you know, loosely.
Speaker 1: By air quotes. Yeah, yes, but it's.
Speaker 2: Not We're not talking about intensive therapy or institutionalized treatment.
Speaker 2: It's this is cognitive behavioral interventions, talk, therapy, analysis. These
Speaker 2: are things from which sociopathic leaning children can really benefit.
Speaker 2: But right now I get letters from parents all the time.
Speaker 2: Where should I send my child? What should I do?
Speaker 3: I don't have an answer because there isn't that collective
Speaker 3: understanding yet.
Speaker 1: Well maybe this will be the start of a movement.
Speaker 1: Who knows, God would I'm curious, Patrick, how can someone
Speaker 1: tell if their child has these tendencies and might fall
Speaker 1: into the category of sociopath.
Speaker 2: It's tough because you cannot diagnose a child as a sociopath.
Speaker 2: There is no diagnostic criteria for children who fall in
Speaker 2: this category. Conduct disorder, oppositional defiant. Those are typically the
Speaker 2: diagnostics we look to for someone who might later in
Speaker 2: life become a sociopath. But if you have a child
Speaker 2: that you think whose experience is similar to mine, my
Speaker 2: advice would be to sit that child down and ask
Speaker 2: him or her how they experience emotion instead of always
Speaker 2: relying on behavior or punishing the behavior or trying to
Speaker 2: eradicate the behavior. Talk to that child and give them
Speaker 2: space to have an emotional reaction that is different from yours.
Speaker 2: That was something that was really helpful for me. I
Speaker 2: didn't have that growing up. It was this is the
Speaker 2: way you're supposed to feel, and if you don't feel
Speaker 2: this way, you're wrong. But once I understood, no, that's incorrect.
Speaker 2: People feel things differently all over the place. And giving
Speaker 2: a child the permission to not care, giving a child
Speaker 2: the permission to not have remorse without you know, resorting
Speaker 2: to that knee jerk lesson of shame or guilt. That's
Speaker 2: really what I would would do if I had a
Speaker 2: child who is who I appeared to have sociopathic traits,
Speaker 2: talk to me about how you feel, what is your
Speaker 2: what does your world look like? And make it safe
Speaker 2: for that child to admit it. And another thing I
Speaker 2: would do, and this sounds like a flipant answer, but
Speaker 2: it's it's not. I would sit that child down and
Speaker 2: I would watch the New Wednesday Adams series with that child,
Speaker 2: because something that was so clear to me in watching
Speaker 2: that was that Wednesday Adams is a sociopath. She meets
Speaker 2: every single one of the criteria on the sociopathic checklist.
Speaker 2: And yet this is also a child that's capable of
Speaker 2: learning how to love, learning, how to connect, learning how
Speaker 2: to empathize. It takes her a bit, she struggles, but
Speaker 2: she can do it. She's capable of loyalty. She grieves
Speaker 2: when she loses her pet. She doesn't grieve like everyone else,
Speaker 2: but she does it. And it's certainly sensational. But the
Speaker 2: Wednesday Atams Tim Burton's Wednesday Adams, I believe encompasses a
Speaker 2: more comprehensive composite of the sociopathic personality. And I would
Speaker 2: have my kid watch that, and I would watch it
Speaker 2: with them and normalize their experience and discuss their experience
Speaker 2: and use that as a jumping off point.
Speaker 1: That's a fascinating suggestion for a lot of parents. Adriana
Speaker 1: wanted to add, what, wait, is there something I didn't
Speaker 1: ask that you want me to ask?
Speaker 5: Well, the one thing I was going to say, h Rana.
Speaker 1: Is obsessed with you, Patford. Well, I loved your book.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 5: And what I liked about your book is I am
Speaker 5: a Catholic school like guilt ridden child, so I never
Speaker 5: had fear that I was also a sociopath and because
Speaker 5: I'm so gilbritten. But the other thing I was going
Speaker 5: to say is in the new Taylor Swift album that
Speaker 5: came out this week, I'll broads lead back to Taylor Swift, No,
Speaker 5: I'm wearing my well. This week, I was reading your
Speaker 5: book and listening to her new album, and there's a
Speaker 5: song called I Look Through People's Windows, So you should
Speaker 5: listen to that.
Speaker 2: So many people have sent me that song, and I
Speaker 2: very very I was delighted by it. I know exactly
Speaker 2: what you're talking about, and I think it's such a
Speaker 2: cool song and I obviously relate to it. But it's
Speaker 2: nice to you know, even though do I think Taylor
Speaker 2: Swift is a sociopath. No, But it's so nice to
Speaker 2: see themes like that sort of put in the universe
Speaker 2: in a way that's positive and that a lot of
Speaker 2: people can relate to. And that's something that I really
Speaker 2: you know, this is a very relatable disorder. These feelings
Speaker 2: that I have are shared by a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Like you know, my husband is also a Catholic school
Speaker 2: victim and others from so much guilt, and he loves
Speaker 2: sort of escaping into these places of what if and
Speaker 2: what if I didn't. And the truth is we all
Speaker 2: do that. It's not what we feel, is what we do.
Speaker 2: So I'm so grateful for that song, and just like
Speaker 2: all the stuff that you things about that are taboo,
Speaker 2: it's I love it.
Speaker 3: It's good.
Speaker 1: Well, Patrick Gagney, thank you so much for this conversation.
Speaker 1: I know you weren't very excited about it, but I
Speaker 1: hope you feel good about it.
Speaker 3: I feel great about it.
Speaker 2: That's I can't tell you how cognitively I am so
Speaker 2: excited to have been able to have this conversation with you.
Speaker 3: I have been.
Speaker 2: I have been looking to you my whole life. I
Speaker 2: wasn't able to connect with others, but I remember watching
Speaker 2: you on television and connecting to you because you were
Speaker 2: always so logical, You had the facts, you were so level,
Speaker 2: and I really appreciate and I experience cognitively, or understand cognitively,
Speaker 2: what a momentous occasion this is for me.
Speaker 3: Personally, I might not have the emotional reaction, but.
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 1: Well, that's so nice of you to say maybe I'm
Speaker 1: a sociopath.
Speaker 3: Probably.
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