WEBVTT - A Sociopath Explains Sociopathy 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:02.920 Life can be a lot, and it helps to have 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:06.440 a therapist by your side. Register at talkspace dot com 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:10.400 to connect with a licensed therapist within days for virtual support. 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:15.280 Talkspace is in network with major insurers no insurance. Now 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:17.919 get eighty five dollars off of your first month with 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.759 promo code Katie when you go to talkspace dot com 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:31.200 slash Katiekuric. Hi everyone, I'm Katy Kuric and this is 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:40.239 next question. Did you have any idea that sociopaths make 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:44.239 up five percent of the US population? And what exactly 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:49.640 is a sociopath anyway? Patrick Gagne short for Patricia grew 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.000 up knowing she was different. Emotions for her didn't really 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.960 register the way they did for her family and friends. 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:00.520 In fact, she says, growing up she mostly felt nothing, 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:05.080 but she wanted badly to feel something, so when she 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.800 was seven that pressure to feel got so great she 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:13.000 actually stuck a pencil in her classmate's neck. As she 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:16.360 got older, to better understand what was going on with her, 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:20.520 she went out and got a PhD in psychology, and 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:22.880 now she's written a book that she hopes will help 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:28.959 people understand and destigmatize sociopathy and show that in spite 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.560 of it, those who have it can actually build a 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.480 life and have a family. By the way, the voice 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:36.959 you hear at the end of this conversation is my producer, 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:45.640 Adriana Fazzio, who is absolutely obsessed with this book. First 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:50.240 of all, Hi, Hi, thank you so much for being here. 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.560 Thank you so much for talking about your new book, Sociopath. 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:57.480 I think the first question I would have for you 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:02.440 is what exactly Patrick is a sociopath. 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.800 One of the most common questions I am asked is 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.840 what is a sociopath? Because there is so much conflation 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:14.720 between sociopathy and psychopathy, and it's made all the more 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:19.960 complicated by the fact that sociopathy has recently been reclassified 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:24.680 as secondary psychopathy, which makes it even harder to understand. 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:27.040 I don't even know what psychopathy means. 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.440 I'll tell you so. My interpretation of the research is 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:36.520 that the classic psychopath has brain abnormalities that make it 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:42.360 impossible for them to move through complex emotional development. So 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:46.600 while they're able to feel the inherent primary emotions that 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:51.840 everyone is born with anger, anticipation, joy, trust, fear, surprise, 0:02:52.520 --> 0:03:01.760 sadness discussed, they're unable to learn the social emotions shame, empathy, love, guilt, remorse. 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.079 These are things that we're not born with. These are 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:10.280 emotions that we are taught. That is different from sociopathy. 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.799 Sociopaths act like psychopaths. Their behavior is often the same, 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.040 which is why they tend to get confused. But sociopaths 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:22.160 don't have that biological impediment, which means they can learn 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:26.520 the social emotions. They just learn them differently. And in 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.799 the book, I described it as an emotional learning disorder, 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.160 which is what it felt like for me as a kid, 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.880 sort of seeing other kids connect to these emotions and 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:40.240 I struggled, but I always felt they were there, just 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:41.840 a little bit out of my reach. 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:46.800 People seem to use these terms interchangeably, you know, and 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:55.960 they get confused. They really misname certain psychological disorders or behaviors. 0:03:56.440 --> 0:04:00.080 Why is that? Have we just not really learned to 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:05.400 parse out the difference between this host of psychological disorders. 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.960 Yes, and I think it's I think it's convenient. I 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:12.960 think it's you know, it's the research says that sociopathy 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.240 makes up five percent of the population, which is a 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.599 lot of people. And I was recently talking to someone 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.119 who works in the prison system and She had made 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.479 the comment that a lot of prison psychologists don't like 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:32.360 to diagnose sociopathy or psychopathy because it's considered irredeemable. And 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.800 I really just think that that speaks to why there 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.960 isn't more research and there isn't more understanding, because it's 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:44.720 just a group of people that collectively we have decided 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.960 are untreatable. So it doesn't really matter whether we get 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:54.200 to know them better or understand their motivations more comprehensively. 0:04:55.120 --> 0:05:00.360 So it's just it is. It was psychopathy. Sociopathy was 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:04.360 the first personality disorder ever identified, and yet I don't 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:09.200 know that we're any further toward understanding it than we 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:13.240 were when it was first recognized, which is wild. 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:13.839 Yeah. 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:17.000 Let me get this straight though, Patrick so, which is 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:19.719 such an interesting name, by the way, you're Patrick without 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:19.920 a K. 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:22.480 Well, it's short for Patricia. 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:26.920 Right exactly, which is a cool name. 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:27.360 Thank you. 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:32.640 My understanding from your book is sociopaths are redeemable. You 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:38.960 can learn certain behaviors and actually almost develop certain emotions 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:44.680 with work, but psychopaths are not redeemable. Is that accurate? 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.119 I hate to use the word not redeemable. As of now, 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:52.120 it's not amenable to treatment. Psychopathy does not seem to 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.360 be receptive to any type of treatment, whereas sociopathy is. 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.760 So if sociopaths account for five percent of the population, 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:02.479 what do psychopaths account for? 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:07.520 My understanding is it's zero point zero one percent. It's 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:13.320 a very small number. But again, having reclassified sociopathy as 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.080 secondary psychopathy, it's really tricky to parse out the research. 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.960 You have to really dig into it and read to understand, Okay, 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:26.560 are they talking about psychopathy the nineteen nineties version of psychopathy? 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.000 Are they talking about the twenty twenty version of psychopathy 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:31.040 versus sociopathy? 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:32.920 And I think that. 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:36.640 That's my biggest call to action is to separate these terms, 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:41.479 give each one a very clear distinction. Because sociopathy is 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:48.479 receptive to treatment. It seems insane to me that this 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:52.320 is a disorder that affects roughly the same number of 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:55.960 people as depressive disorders and bipolar disorders. And yet you'll 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:58.560 walk into any bookstore and there's nothing on the shelves 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.040 for sociopathy treatment plans. There are no support groups. There 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.440 are support groups for people who claim to have been 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.719 victims of sociopaths, but it's a lot of people, and 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:13.040 they haven't been given any of the research or resources 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.520 that most of the other disorders have been. 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:21.840 Well, you talk about innate emotions versus learned emotions that 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:26.040 are kind of through nature versus nurture in some ways, 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.520 So can you give us examples of how a sociopath 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:35.040 might like you might move through the world. And then 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.000 I'm going to talk to you about when you first 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:41.600 recognized or realized that you weren't quite the same as 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.080 some of the other people in your family or in 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:45.840 society writ large. 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:51.440 My experience was very much related to other sociopaths. I 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:56.200 always struggled with empathy and it's very and again I 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:01.520 want to make it clear, just because I don't necessarily 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:06.880 react empathically doesn't mean that I want harm for others, 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:09.320 or that I somehow get off or enjoy seeing others 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.400 in pain. And that's I've seen that argument being made 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:15.320 and nothing for me. It could be further from the truth. 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:21.240 I don't react empathically, but I'm not enjoying watching someone hurting. 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.680 And I remember thinking about other sociopaths when I was 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.920 in college and sort of marveling over what limited resources 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:34.439 and research there was available. And I remember thinking five percent, 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:39.320 who is checking in on these people, Who's helping them 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.679 keep their behaviors in check? Like, I know what I'm doing, 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.360 but what about all the other people? And in that moment, 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:51.400 I remember thinking, oh wait, that's empathy. That's me thinking, 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.920 feeling compassion for others. And it happened pretty naturally. And 0:08:56.080 --> 0:09:00.240 at that time I was only able to empathize, or 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.840 so I thought, with other sociopaths. But over time I 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:09.360 sort of used that experience to grow the feeling for 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.960 other people, other groups of people in my life, outside 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:17.960 my life, and that's that became my touchstone for how 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:24.160 to access shame remorse. I might not inherently experience those emotions, 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:26.600 but I would think, okay, so what if this was 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.920 happening to another sociopath, What if someone was treating another 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:32.960 sociopath this way? I would try to access it from 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:39.240 that angle as opposed to just this blanket learning curve, 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:41.520 which is, we don't want to hurt people's feelings, right, 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:43.560 we don't want to that's those are you know, That's 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:45.480 that's how you socialize a kid, as you you know, 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.920 sit them down and sort of help them understand the 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:53.719 general benefits and not hurting others, not wanting to hurt 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:54.840 someone else's feelings. 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:56.640 But for me that didn't work. 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.600 That those those lessons didn't land, but did when I 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.120 was able to apply them to other people like me. 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.679 You were diagnosed in college. Talk to me about your childhood, Patrick, 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:13.880 about how this manifested itself, this lack of empathy or 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:18.959 this I guess not feeling certain things right. You do 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.880 feel happiness and sadness. There was a story about your 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:26.800 ferret dying and your mom told you and you had 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:32.160 virtually no reactions. So what's the difference between sadness, which 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:36.480 you say is a basic human emotion, and why didn't 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:38.559 you feel sad when your ferret died. 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.200 I did feel sad when my ferret died. I just 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.080 didn't feel it to the extent that my sister did. 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:51.520 I remember hearing her crying, witnessing her grief, and mine 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:58.520 was so shallow compared to hers. I do remember being 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:04.240 sad that I had this little critter that I now 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:08.040 no longer had, and I remember feeling that I was 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:12.240 not going to be able to, you know, bring her 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:16.520 along with me on my adventures anymore. But it wasn't 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:22.000 that overwhelming grief that my sister was experiencing, and that 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.560 feeling that I had to react that way. It was 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.120 sort of this pressure to be performative that I was 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:35.199 really trying not to do. I do experience these emotions, 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.760 as do others like me, but because they, you know, 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:43.959 they aren't demonstrated at the you know, so called neurotypical level, 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.800 they're discounted, or at least they were when I was 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:50.400 a kid. So that led to a lot of deceit 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:55.720 and manipulation on my part. Not because I was motivated 0:11:55.720 --> 0:12:00.360 by greed or bloodlust, but because I understood very early 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.000 I don't feel things the way other kids do, but 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.199 I need to pretend like I do. And this sort 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:13.079 of deceit that I had leaned into as a survival 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.600 mechanism over time became a lifestyle because it was all 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:17.120 that I knew. 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:19.760 I want to talk to you about sort of some 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.920 of the things you did as a kid and why 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.640 you did it. But is there something in your brain 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:31.480 that is there a prefrontal cortex thing or something that 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:39.200 doesn't process or learn behavior or have you express emotion 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:44.840 like other people? What are the neurological reasons someone is 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:46.840 a sociopath or are there. 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.600 Biology doesn't seem to play as big a role in 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.800 sociopathy as it does psychopathy. There is no real general 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.760 consensus on why sociopathy presents the way it does. There 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.760 have been some compelling arguments on temperament. So children who 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:07.360 are born with the inherent everyone knows that kid, the 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.319 one who's just a better liar, who's manipulating from a 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.160 very early age. That speaks to a certain temperament that 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:19.920 seems to be predisposed to sociopathy under the right circumstances. 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.960 I wish that I could give you a precise answer. 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.000 But one of the reasons, if not the reason that 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.320 I wrote Sociopath was because I was hoping it would 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.520 be a jumping off point for people to dig in 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:36.880 and say, huh, why don't we know the answers to 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.840 these questions and figure them out? Because I believe the 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.040 answers are out there, it's just a matter of time 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:44.880 and effort to find them. 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.520 Let's talk about some of your behavior as a child. 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:52.960 For example, when you stabbed a classmate in the neck 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:55.840 with a pencil, it sounds to me that you have 0:13:56.040 --> 0:14:01.480 these overwhelming feelings. Can you talk about that and how 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.760 those manifested themselves when you were a kid. 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:11.000 Yeah, I remember feeling this pressure. And what I now 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:16.480 understand looking back is that this pressure that I was 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:20.200 experiencing was caused by what we were just discussing a 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.720 little bit ago, This understanding that I knew I didn't 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.640 feel things the way I was supposed to, and that 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:33.600 if I didn't either force myself into feeling or adapt 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.440 a persona that was basically a mirror of other people's emotions, 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.840 that I would be outed. That the perks of society, 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:45.040 or my family, my mother's not necessarily affection, but having 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.000 her on my side, all of that would be compromised 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.440 if I didn't act normal, and I would feel this 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.480 pressure start to build. And it seems to me that 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.840 it resembles a lot of what people who suffer from 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:02.520 OCD experience, and they have this need to engage in 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.880 repetitive behaviors, not because they want to, but because some 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.800 part of their mind is telling them, if you do this, 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.320 you will feel better. And that's how I felt in 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.920 that moment when I assaulted that child. I wasn't doing 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.160 it because I wanted to hurt this child or see 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.200 her in pain. It was very much a wrong place, 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:24.840 wrong time. I could feel the pressure building. It had 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:31.480 been building for days, and putting that pencil into this child, 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.760 to me, was like popping a balloon, which I understand 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.880 sounds vicious and violent, and certainly it was, but the 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:41.520 motivations behind it were neither. 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.200 So was it to feel something. 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:48.520 I think so it was just this release of. 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:56.600 If not to feel something, certainly to sort of. Later on, 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.680 I described it as this feeling of I am who 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.320 I am. I don't care who knows it, I don't 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:05.840 care what comes of it. I just want to exist 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:10.480 as I am and doing an act like that or 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.280 committing a committing an act like that, engaging in that 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:15.880 type of behavior. There's no real hiding from it. It's done, 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:20.240 and so for a minute I'm free, I'm pressure's off, 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.760 like I didn't have to keep this in anymore. I 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.240 didn't have to conceal this pressure, conceal who I am, 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.120 and it was it was a release in a way. 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.760 I'm not a psychologist or a therapist, but it sounds 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:41.080 to me like you have obviously some kind of issue 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:45.840 with ID and ego, and your ID has kind your 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:50.200 ID is likely to in certain cases run amok. And 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:55.080 your ego, which controls the impulse to do something crazy 0:16:55.200 --> 0:17:00.480 or wrong or unconventional, you know it, It doesn't necesscessarily 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:03.600 enter into the picture. Is that accurate? 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:05.040 Really sounds accurate. 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:09.080 I know exactly what you're saying, and I've used a 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:14.560 similar analogy. Whereas the ID is typically that you know, 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:23.480 tantrum me instant gratification side of oneself, whereas my ID is. 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:24.520 Just a wild little dragon. 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.400 And to your point, the ego does have a hard 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.760 time keeping that little dragon locked up and pacified. Not 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:34.680 so much now, but certainly when I was a kid. 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.959 And is that something you learned, how to control this 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.120 kind of your drag inside? 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:42.320 I think yes. 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.480 But the reason is because so much of my life 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:50.000 was spent in hiding, was spent lying and denying to 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.280 others who I was, And I found I was so 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.440 much more peaceful when I was alone. And it's because 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.200 I didn't have to hide or lie, or or conceal 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.520 any aspect to myself. As I've gotten older and become 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.320 more comfortable with who I am, become more understanding of 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.280 my personality type, what it is, why it exists, how 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.320 it exists, how it manifests itself. I don't feel the 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:16.040 need to hide or lie, and that has contributed, I 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:23.000 would say, tremendously to my destructive urges and impulses and 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:25.160 has made them a lot easier to manage. 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.320 Because you don't feel like you're hiding and you're figuring 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:30.560 out how to move in the world. It sounds to 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:34.320 me like you have trouble conforming to societal norms. 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:35.200 Correct. 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.159 You know, sometimes I'm in church and I think, what 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.240 if I don't go to church that often? But when 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:42.960 I do, what if I stood up and started screaming 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:45.760 and doing something crazy in the middle of church. I 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.240 don't know if other people have this, Like what if 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.720 this happened? Yes, and then so that's like my imagination. 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.800 But then my ego says, I can't do that. That 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:57.520 will be disruptive. People will think I'm crazy, and I'll 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.119 be in page six in the New York Post. So 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.919 I can't do that. But you know, it sounds to 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:05.080 me like you have the first part but not the 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:05.760 second part. 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:06.760 It's cognitive. 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.680 I understand it cognitively, but I think because I had 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:13.840 I spent so much of my life feeling that I 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.640 was very much at the mercy of these urges There's 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.920 always that part of me that goes to that place of, well, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.760 what if this time I can't what if I can't 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.879 stop myself this time? What if the urges get the 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.000 better of me? And a lot of that for me 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.000 has been resolved with cognitive journaling. When I find that 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.399 I am starting to get concerned and have those feelings 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.840 of what if I can't stop myself? One day, I 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.480 go back and I say, but you always, but you 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:45.560 have you know, your your history is that you have 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.680 always figured it out and you will continue to figure 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:51.280 it out. But I still feel those feelings of what if? 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:56.520 You know, I I think I, especially recently having the 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.720 book just coming out, I'm experiencing a type of you know, 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:04.359 amorphosis where I'm living very publicly, out loud. 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:06.120 Certainly I've been. 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:09.119 Open, long, open with my friends and family, but this, 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.960 you know, talking to you about something about this is 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:15.320 not really something I've gotten used to or processed. 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:16.600 You are someone. 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.480 In fact, you're I think You're the only person I've 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.000 gotten to speak with in the last few weeks for 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:28.320 whom I have had a lifelong appreciation, which is not 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.720 to say that I haven't enjoyed and thoroughly respected the 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.520 other people you know, with whom I've had conversations, but 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:36.760 you have always been someone that was sort of a 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:41.840 touchstone for me in my life, and coming into this 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.960 I should have been overjoyed, you know, I should be 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:51.600 bursting with something. So when I got on the zoom 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:55.679 today and and I found once again those that excitement, 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:56.960 it's not there. 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:59.880 As we led up to this conversation. What was your 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:00.960 feeling apathy? 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.840 Just being stuck behind department store glass? Like I can 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.720 see the excitement. I can I can cognitively connect to 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:12.800 what a exciting and wonderful opportunity it is to have 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:14.160 this conversation, but I'm not. 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:16.239 It's not connecting. 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:19.879 Emotionally, and it's frustrating and it's it's sad because I 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.639 recognize the gravity in not just this experience, but in 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.840 other experiences of my life, certainly recently, and I it's 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.920 sort of I have to remind myself. Yeah, I mean 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:34.879 even now, I don't. I don't connect the way that 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:38.679 I wish that I could. But I want to be 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:43.359 so clear that the lack of that emotional connection isn't 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:49.080 replaced by nefarious or manipulative or deceitful urges it's just 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:53.359 what a bummer, and that more people understood that and 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:54.639 certainly go ahead. 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:57.080 I was just going to say, so you can't really 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:00.600 feel things deeply your life like me. 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.320 Yeah, and that's that's a you're little. 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:09.320 Men, Yeah, and that's that's okay until you're presented with 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.560 something like a graduation or a wedding or a birth. 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:17.760 These you know, these opportunities are met with this expectation 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:20.879 of emotion, and when you don't have them, you have 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:23.600 two choices either admit it or fake it. And I'm 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:26.359 noticing recently that I want to go stoo figing it. 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:33.240 But you have I think perfected some workarounds, and I 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:37.720 think in many ways you've been able to figure out 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:41.840 your lack of emotion and replace it with something else. 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:46.960 It sounds like so these impulses that you had as 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:52.080 a child, this kind of almost feeling like there, I 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:55.720 would describe it maybe like wax around your heart or 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:59.320 having your emotions almost feel like you're underwater in a 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:06.679 weird way. I guess what I wonder is criminal activity. 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:11.680 You know, when people feel this impulse, this pressure building up, 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:16.280 like you're talking about, this desire to kind of feel something, 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:22.560 is that what spurs a lot of people to do 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:25.840 criminal things. In other words, can you talk about the 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:31.840 overlap between sociothopy and criminal activity or things that are 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:33.040 just morally wrong. 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:38.040 My understanding of the research and my own experience indicates 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:41.320 that that's exactly what's happening. That your need to feel 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:44.800 is really what's driving this destructive behavior. 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:45.720 You know. 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:47.760 One of the things that always blows my mind is 0:23:47.800 --> 0:23:50.800 we go to that five percent. Sociopathy is believed to 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:54.320 represent five percent of the population. But what people don't 0:23:54.400 --> 0:23:57.960 understand is that nearly all of the diagnostic interviews for 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:02.199 sociopathy take place in prisons. So it's the only place 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:06.600 that people are largely being diagnosed with psychopathy and sociopathy 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:11.119 is in the prison system. You're going to find that 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:14.560 most of them are conducting or you know, exhibiting criminal 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:15.719 behavior or engaging in that. 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:16.480 Right. 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:20.600 I also know that there are people like me who 0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:25.159 have not spent any time in prison, and maybe unjustly so, 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:30.800 and they are trying to navigate their destructive impulses while 0:24:31.280 --> 0:24:34.000 staying on that fine line of not wanting to get 0:24:34.080 --> 0:24:38.560 caught but also wanting to force these these feelings, these 0:24:39.240 --> 0:24:43.440 pops of color and an otherwise black and white emotional world. 0:24:43.920 --> 0:24:47.880 And it also speaks to privilege. 0:24:48.080 --> 0:24:48.520 You know, I. 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:52.560 Am very clear that I am a white woman of privilege, 0:24:52.600 --> 0:24:56.480 and I had every opportunity and resource available to me. 0:24:57.119 --> 0:24:59.960 What might my life had looked like if I had 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:03.480 been a different race, gender, had I come from a 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:09.600 different socioeconomic background, I am almost certain I would have 0:25:10.160 --> 0:25:12.760 wound up in prison. And I think about that a lot. 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:18.840 You know, these people who are incarcerated because they were 0:25:19.680 --> 0:25:23.000 trying to force these emotions by engaging in this destructive behavior, 0:25:23.160 --> 0:25:25.080 and that's all they knew how to do, and for 0:25:25.119 --> 0:25:26.680 a long time, it's all I knew how to do. 0:25:27.480 --> 0:25:30.480 So again, it speaks to the need for more research 0:25:30.480 --> 0:25:36.520 and understanding to help these people certainly be rehabilitated or 0:25:36.520 --> 0:25:40.040 at the very least, to become their own advocates for 0:25:40.080 --> 0:25:41.920