Patric Gagne is the author of "Sociopath: A Memoir."
From a young age, she knew there was something different about herself. She didn't feel emotions the same way other kids did. To avoid stigma and to fit in, she learned to hide her true self. She tells Business Insider about breaking into homes and stealing cars to relieve the pressure of hiding. Gagne discusses the difference between sociopaths and psychopaths, traits of famous characters like Wednesday Addams and Dexter, and how to talk to loved ones about sociopathy.
She's a former therapist and holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from The Chicago School.
Today, she's married with two children, and she's still trying to fight the stigma neurotypical people still associate with her.
From a young age, she knew there was something different about herself. She didn't feel emotions the same way other kids did. To avoid stigma and to fit in, she learned to hide her true self. She tells Business Insider about breaking into homes and stealing cars to relieve the pressure of hiding. Gagne discusses the difference between sociopaths and psychopaths, traits of famous characters like Wednesday Addams and Dexter, and how to talk to loved ones about sociopathy.
She's a former therapist and holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from The Chicago School.
Today, she's married with two children, and she's still trying to fight the stigma neurotypical people still associate with her.
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FunTranscript
00:00My name is Patrick Agne. I have a doctorate in clinical psychology and I am a diagnosed
00:04sociopath. This is everything I'm authorized to tell you. People like to believe that sociopaths
00:13are one-dimensional serial killers because in a way if every sociopath looks like that then
00:19sociopaths would be easy to spot. You won't have to worry whether you're married to one or living
00:25next door to one or having birthed one when the truth is most sociopaths resemble normal people.
00:37It's a really complex and layered question because the term sociopath is no longer used
00:42clinically but if you're looking at it through that lens that the classic sociopath is someone
00:49who struggles to understand the learned social emotions. So everyone has a sort of hardwired
00:56set of emotions. These are the inherent emotions, happiness, sadness, etc. But there is another set
01:02of emotions that are learned. These are things like empathy, compassion, shame, remorse. We are
01:10taught these things mostly through modeling by caregivers. Sociopaths struggle to learn those
01:16emotions. There's been a lot of talk about the sociopathic mask and how sociopaths mask in order
01:23to charm and commit harm when in reality we mask for the same reasons that everyone else masks.
01:31It's easier to get through life if you are acting like everyone else does. I am masking right now.
01:38If I wasn't I would have a much flatter affect. I wouldn't be as friendly perceiving which isn't
01:48to say that I would be mean or that I would want to harm you or anyone in this studio but I would
01:54probably be blinking less. I wouldn't be as engaging but again I think this is very relatable.
02:02I was very problematic for teachers in elementary school in particular because whereas at home I
02:09worked pretty hard to fly under the radar and not cause any problems. I didn't do that so much at
02:16school. I got in trouble a lot. As a child I felt this emotional claustrophobia and the only way
02:26this emotional claustrophobia and the only way that I was able to neutralize that claustrophobia
02:32was to act out in a way that was destructive. I don't know why I just knew do this and you'll
02:39feel better. When I was in elementary school in San Francisco there was a little girl that I was
02:47friends with and I remember the day that I attacked this child. I had been feeling tremendous
02:57pressure and on this particular day I had been engaging in small acts of deviance in order to
03:02sort of neutralize the pressure and it hadn't been working and there was a child who was standing
03:08next to me and provoking me in a way that shouldn't have mattered and I just remember
03:14feeling the impulse to hurt her and so I grabbed a pencil out of my backpack and I stabbed her with
03:21it and I knew that it was wrong but again I understood this intellectually, not emotionally,
03:30but what was the most troublesome for me was when I stabbed this child not only did the pressure
03:38I was experiencing at the time go away but it was replaced by a type of euphoria. It was almost
03:45like being high. I just I did it and then I walked away and I walked home and it just felt so good
03:52but it wasn't the harming of another child that felt good it was the euphoria that it elicited.
04:00That sounds crazy in the sense that that harming someone else made me feel good but it wasn't the
04:06act of harming another child it was the act of doing something very destructive. This kid was
04:13in the wrong place at the wrong time. I grew up just outside of San Francisco and my upbringing
04:20was really normal although I hate to use that word. I did however grow up during a time where
04:27we hardly had words for anxiety and depression much less sociopathy. My parents did the best
04:33they could but they weren't equipped to deal with a child like me and I would imagine most parents
04:40aren't and my father was in the music business so he was very charming and outgoing. My mother was a
04:49traditional perfect homemaker from the south. I would listen to my mother say to my sister
04:55you want to get good grades you want to make your teacher happy right and I remember watching my
04:59sister oh yes I definitely you don't want your teacher to be upset at you and no I don't want
05:04my teacher to be upset and I remember listening to this conversation and thinking I don't really
05:10care if my teacher thinks or if she's happy or sad and I also understood that saying that was
05:15not a great idea that when I was asked I should just nod and open my eyes really wide like my
05:20sister does and say yes no I don't want my teacher to be mad at me and admitting to that gets me in
05:26trouble for no other reason than because it's not how I'm quote-unquote supposed to feel so I
05:33learned to lie and manipulate other people's reactions very early again not because I was
05:41trying to hurt others but because I was just trying to go unnoticed. Anytime I was honest with
05:46someone about the way that I was really feeling it was always met with judgment and a lot of times
05:51anger and frustration so I learned to lie as a as a protective mechanism and over time that
05:59developed into just a maladaptive lifestyle strategy. I believe that I am one of those
06:04kids with that inherent manipulative temperament which sort of predisposed me to a higher
06:11likelihood of of being anti-social but I can't point to any specific trauma. I do know that
06:18having a dad in the music business and watching him sort of navigate and be charming I think I
06:23learned very early that I don't really need emotion I can just do what he does which is
06:28smile and be affable and and you get what you want but I can't speak to a specific
06:34environmental cause. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to live in a nice house and I wanted
06:41to have a relationship and I wanted to have a family but I also understood that the only way
06:46for me to get those things would be to interact pro-socially with other people. It is beneficial
06:51to me to act pro-socially so I do. My childhood was spent masking. I was just trying to survive
06:58but over time it became really exhausting and when I try to remind people who are resistant
07:03to the idea of helping sociopaths I try to remind them these people at one point were all children
07:09wouldn't you want to help a child and of course the answer is always yes.
07:16Constructive behavior typically elicits a dopamine release that I don't get so doing something
07:25quote-unquote kind I don't feel that attaboy that pride it's it's more matter of fact. There was
07:33someone in the grocery store who didn't have the money to pay for their groceries so I paid for the
07:38groceries for this person behind me and then I left the store. I wasn't doing it because I wanted
07:44I wanted any credit or it was this is a problem that needs to be solved so I'm going to solve it
07:48for this person but I don't get that hit of wow what a good person I am that was a nice thing to
07:54do but I do get it from something destructive. I get this jolt of of feeling that sort of
08:01snaps me out of my pressure in much the same way that someone who has obsessive compulsive disorder
08:08they can't tell you why washing their hands eight times or doing a series of rituals
08:13makes them feel less anxiety. It just does and that was similar to what I was experiencing as a
08:19child. When I was a kid I was at a sleepover and I decided to walk home in the middle of the night
08:25which I understand is not a typical choice and on that walk home there was someone who had left
08:32their garage open in my neighborhood and I went into the garage and I actually got in the car
08:37that was in the garage and I remember feeling so much peace. It was existing in a world where I
08:45knew I wasn't supposed to exist. It really neutralized the pressure that I had been feeling
08:50that day. As I got older breaking into homes was my sort of go-to for neutralizing the pressure
08:56that I would feel and I never took anything and I never did anything destructive within the home.
09:01It didn't matter to me whether it was a huge house, small house, an occupied house. I started to
09:07lean more toward houses that weren't occupied for obvious reasons but I found some regular places
09:12that I liked and I felt that I could get in and out of safely and I would just sit in the silence
09:21and I could feel all the pressure going away and all of the apathy flooding in which is not
09:28I don't believe that's normal. I think that when most neurotypical people find themselves in a
09:34house where they're not supposed to be they're going to be anxious about it. Their heart's going
09:37to be racing. It was the exact opposite for me and what I came to realize is this is how I want to
09:44feel. This I don't care. I don't care and it's okay. It's okay to feel apathetic. It's okay to
09:52just have no emotion to just sort of float and what I found was that these regular acts of
09:58discipline deviance helped prevent more spontaneous acts and that was always a concern for me
10:06particularly after I had stabbed the little girl in my class. If I waited too long there was a
10:13possibility that I might lose not lose control but resort to something more extreme and I never
10:19wanted to be at the mercy of these compulsions so as I got older I started to engage in them
10:26almost like a prescription. I would do it whether I felt like it or not just to keep the pressure at
10:35a manageable space there so there wouldn't be any spikes. I did this for years. I mean I like to
10:41joke that some people microdose mushrooms whereas I like to microdose mischief. You also stole cars.
10:47Was that the same general feeling? Yes it was exactly the same and there was never any damage
10:53or there was never any like super destructive driving or anything like that. It was
10:58it was existing someplace I wasn't supposed to exist and I figured I was dancing a
11:05fine line of was it wrong in the sense that everyone whose cars I took I engaged with in
11:14some way and they were usually inebriated so in the back of my head I felt like for some reason I
11:20got pulled over or busted for this. I would have a very logical explanation. I have the guy's keys.
11:28He gave them to me like I don't understand what the problem is. Over time I realized that
11:33doing that required a very specific set of circumstances, required interacting with people
11:38to get the keys and it was too much work. I just wanted to be able to get my hit so to speak without
11:44having to go to a party, without having to time it. It was a lot more work.
11:49It wasn't a moral choice. It was a selfish choice. I remember thinking my luck will run out if I
11:56continue to do this. If I escalate I will end up in jail and I don't want to go to jail. There are
12:01other things that I want to do. I always felt very much as if I was floating in outer space.
12:11It was just this abyss and I didn't know how far my lack of emotion would take me and also because
12:18I saw sociopathy associated with monsters. There was a long time where I remember thinking
12:23so is this just what happens? Like I don't feel like a monster but am I going to wake up one day
12:29and suddenly want to kill people? It was scary. I was really relieved when I got the diagnosis
12:35which is not something I think a neurotypical person would experience but when I've spoken to
12:40others like me recently I found that with them it was the same. I was relieved to get this
12:46diagnosis. I was relieved to see myself in your story because I've always felt that there was
12:51something off and now I had a name for it and I also knew that I wasn't alone. There were at least
12:57enough people out there like me to justify a psychological disorder. Towards maybe the end of
13:02college I had a conversation with my dad where I came very clean about the way that I was not
13:08feeling and the things that I was doing and it was his suggestion that I see a therapist who did
13:14a clinical assessment on me and then I was given the PCL and that the score of that PCL is what
13:21determined the actual diagnosis. The PCL is the psychopathic checklist revised. It's the gold
13:27standard testing for psychopathy. The DSM is the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental
13:33disorders. It's the the psychological bible so to speak. It's what clinicians use for most
13:40diagnoses and it's what insurance companies use in terms of coding and how to pay for the treatment.
13:46In order to diagnose someone with antisocial personality disorder you use the DSM and this
13:52is someone whose behavior is the huge driving force. You're going to see a lot of impulse
13:57control issues. They don't really respond to punishment or correction at all. It's the same
14:02behavior over and over again. In order to diagnose someone as a sociopath or a psychopath you cannot
14:07use the DSM. For that you have to use the PCL. So although these disorders have a tremendous
14:13amount of overlap and are roughly the same they're different in that they require different measures
14:18for diagnosis. If something isn't in the DSM that means it doesn't exist. When that's not true there
14:23are many disorders that aren't in the DSM because they need a more complex measure to test. I'm
14:30pretty sure sex addiction isn't in the DSM. Looking at the behavioral markers for sociopathy
14:35and thinking who says all sociopaths act like this? Who says that you're saying that all
14:41sociopaths are irresponsible? All sociopaths demonstrate criminal versatility? All sociopaths
14:47are incapable of impulse control? Well I'm capable of impulse control and I'm sure that I'm not alone.
14:55I'm capable of being responsible. I demonstrate criminal versatility but you don't know that.
15:00I'm telling you that. If you don't have proof of it how would you know? And so I was coming to it
15:07from a space of we should be talking more about what's going on psychologically and we should be
15:12spending less time talking about behavior because not every person who has this personality disorder
15:18is acting in the exact same way. In order to sit for the PCL it is a requirement to have a criminal
15:25record and what that says to me is you're making a generalized statement about this group.
15:34If you are only testing people who have a criminal record you're going to miss all of those who are
15:40sitting on the mild to moderate side of the spectrum who do not have a criminal record,
15:44myself included. Now there is a different version of the PCL called the PCL-SV which is given to
15:53those who do not have criminal records but the fact that there are two different versions of
15:58the same test I feel is potentially problematic and if you're only testing within the prison
16:02system for the most part your results are going to be far more conservative. My therapist's primary
16:09goal was getting the behavior under control and figuring out better coping mechanisms to deal with
16:14what we ultimately understood was anxiety related to this pressure that I was feeling.
16:21So we approached it that way like let's treat the anxiety and that's what she did and it
16:29seemed to be really effective but for me understanding the motivation behind my behavior
16:36was secondary to stopping the behavior. So at the time that I was in therapy at first I was engaging
16:42in a lot of destructive behavior and that needed to stop in order for me to start learning about my
16:48motivations and develop new more positive coping mechanisms which is what we did, my therapist and
16:55me. In my experience a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy which is behavioral based and
17:02talk therapy was really effective and but it was sort of trial and error. There was no standard
17:08treatment plan, there is still no standard treatment plan which is wild when you consider
17:13that sociopathy affects roughly the same number of people who suffer from depressive and
17:19borderline personality and bipolar disorders. I did a lot of cognitive journaling which is
17:24basically you write a thought you're having and then you write a counter thought so I and it
17:30it sort of forces you to take a look at any irrational belief systems you have
17:34and I had an irrational belief system that if I don't act out my compulsion to act out will
17:40grow stronger and it will overpower me. So it was if I don't act out I might be overcome by
17:47a compulsion to act out very destructively and the counter thought was is if I don't act out
17:53I might be uncomfortable but I can process this differently and that ended up being the more
17:59accurate construct like taking place and once I understood no actually that's not the case
18:06it made me feel better and it made my destructive urges so much more so much easier to control.
18:14It was okay so you're normalizing what's going on with me, you're not normalizing the behavior and
18:20that's something I want to be really clear on. At no point do I ever want to romanticize
18:24sociopathy or normalize the destructive behavior that so many people with sociopathy
18:30engage in. What I do want to normalize is the psychological, the lack of emotional affect
18:36and that felt really good to have somebody say the way you feel or don't feel is very normal
18:43for someone like you. I don't have that desire to engage in pleasure the way that
18:54neurotypical people seem to so I put it off and then I put it off and then I put it off
19:01and then I find that the longer I put it off the closer I get to getting what I can only imagine
19:07is something like a dopamine hit. If I drink a lot of water and I have to go to the bathroom
19:11I will avoid going to the bathroom for as long as possible. I don't know that I would say I enjoy
19:18being a pleasure delayer and I can't speak to the specifics of why and this isn't something this
19:24isn't a choice that I'm making consciously it's like I'll do it in a minute I'll do it in a minute
19:27I'll do it in a minute and I have done this so many times to the point where I have peed my pants
19:34multiple times because I just don't go to the bathroom when I'm supposed to go to the bathroom
19:39like a sane person. So I was at the White House for an event and my husband and I were you know
19:47this was the White House it's cool it's fun and I was wandering around and I knew I had to go to
19:51the bathroom. I was like fidgety and my husband was like do you have to go to the bathroom? I was like
19:55no it's fine I'll yes but it's fine I'll go in a minute and we kept going and wandering wandering
20:02wandering and I was not asking to use the restroom which is what I should have done and we finally get
20:08to this place in the White House where we're supposed to be gathering for this event and that's
20:12when I realized I have to go to the bathroom right now. As this lovely woman launched into
20:20a rendition of the national anthem I was like I'm just gonna pee my pants at the White House that's
20:23what's gonna happen and I did and my husband very sweetly recognized what was happening and he was
20:32like are you pissing your pants at the White House and I yeah yes sure I am. He took off his
20:37blazer and he wrapped it around my waist so that nobody would see. No we did not stay much longer
20:41after that because I don't know how much experience you have in in in urinating yourself but it's one
20:47of the most uncomfortable experiences to be just standing in a suit soaked in your own urine.
20:54According to the PCL which is the gold standard for psychopathic sociopathic testing you're
21:00looking at someone who has a limited emotional affect and that's really really key because so
21:06much of a sociopath is defined by their behavior the quote-unquote bad things they do but really
21:13I think the focus should be on this limited low affect. You're going to see a lot of pathological
21:19lack of remorse or guilt parasitic lifestyle is often something that's associated with sociopathy
21:25irresponsibility criminal versatility but these behaviors are problematic because not every
21:32sociopath acts that way. Psychopaths are believed to suffer from a biological abnormality that makes
21:38it impossible for them to progress through complex emotional and psychological processes.
21:43A biological abnormality that makes it impossible for them to progress through
21:47complex emotional development so they never learn things like shame guilt or remorse.
21:54They can't course correct they have trouble with impulse control that is different from a
21:59sociopath who is believed to be capable of experiencing these emotions they just struggle
22:05to do so. There's no real consensus on why the prevailing theory is that psychopathy is the
22:11result of biology whereas sociopathy is the result of environmental traumas or a temperament
22:18that sort of predisposes a child to be sociopathic but can be sort of coaxed out of it with therapy
22:26and different coping mechanisms. This inability to connect with these learned emotions put me in
22:32this position where I felt as though I had to fake it and that contributed to a lot of destructive
22:37behavior. It was essentially a maladaptive coping mechanism that developed into a lifestyle.
22:44I think that people feel safer believing that sociopaths are one-dimensional
22:50dangerous monsters that you can see coming from miles away.
23:00Almost without exception every single person that I have told I am a sociopath
23:06they lean in they want to be closer to me they want to know more they want to hear
23:13they want to hear everything about it and then they want to start talking about their darkness.
23:18Well I've always wondered if I'm a sociopath because of this or I want to hear about this
23:21person who I think they're interested in it. No one has ever clutched their pearls and run
23:27shrieking in the other direction. It's always been the opposite. Everyone has a darkness that
23:34they have labeled as bad but when you get around someone like me who ostensibly doesn't have any
23:40judgment they see it as an opportunity to unburden themselves like oh I can talk to this person
23:46they're not going to judge me for these thoughts that I've had or these things that I've done.
23:50I find that I find that really delightful and also a little bit sad in that I want to lean over and
23:58say you know you don't have to feel bad about all this stuff you can just drop it you can just be
24:02yourself and it's going to be fine but nine times out of ten they don't feel that they can they don't
24:07feel that they can admit to feeling a certain way or behaving a certain way without a tremendous
24:13amount of backlash either self-inflicted or otherwise. Every single bit of my decision to
24:20pursue a doctorate in clinical psychology was motivated by sociopathy but what I found out was
24:28in order to get your doctorate in psychology you have to study other personality types too
24:33so and I wasn't interested at all. I was it was I was selfishly motivated. I wanted to help me and
24:42maybe others like me. I was able to understand the human condition in a way that I don't think I ever
24:46would have been able to otherwise and it made things very black and white for me. It was oh
24:52this person acts this way because of this that type of person acts that way because of that.
24:57It helped me understand concepts like guilt and empathy better. I didn't connect to them
25:02emotionally but I could understand them intellectually especially when I had to start
25:08seeing patients which is not something I wanted to do and I tried to get out of it in every way
25:12possible but what I found was it was similar to breaking and entering only I was in people's minds
25:18and they were allowing me obviously but it was wow I don't have to have an emotional reaction to do
25:25this work. I don't have to have empathy which sounds crazy coming from a therapist but I think
25:33it's interesting that people always want to know does my therapist really like me? Does my therapist
25:38hate me? What does my therapist think of me? And my answer is do you ask do you wonder that of your
25:42oncologist? Do you wonder that of your primary care physician? Probably not and I think the same
25:48should be said about your therapist. It's not my job to like you. It's not my job to empathize
25:54with you. It's my job to help you. It's my job to observe the things you're telling me
25:59and help you figure things out and once I got that and I realized how unemotional psychology could be
26:06you know ironically it really shifted the way that I perceive just humans in general.
26:12Something I noticed about people is is darkness is extremely relatable and everyone has
26:22everyone has an element of sociopathy within them. It's a matter of navigating through the guilt in
26:28order to get them to admit it and accept it and be okay with it and so much of so much of society I
26:34feel is overly burdened by guilt having thoughts they quote unquote shouldn't be having having
26:40feelings they quote unquote shouldn't be having and I think getting people to be more accepting
26:45of their darkness is healthy and I and that was that was something I really tried to do when I
26:52was working as a therapist to get people to stop judging themselves for having negative thoughts
26:57or negative feelings. There's perks to being a sociopath not to glorify the disorder but the
27:03ability to operate outside of emotion the ability to not be guilted into things the lack of people
27:10pleasing. I think when you're people pleasing you're operating from a place of need. I need
27:16someone else's approval in order to justify this decision or in order to feel good and I've never
27:25benefited from other people's approval which again is not to say that if I'm doing a job and
27:31my supervisor likes what I'm doing obviously that's that's a good thing but I don't make
27:36decisions based on a need to be liked and I and I don't think that anyone should be making decisions
27:43based on a need to be liked. Certainly I would prefer to be liked I would prefer to get along
27:48with people but I think when you are making choices because you need someone else's approval
27:56it's potentially problematic for a large host of reasons.
28:04Most of my friends and family understood they all knew that I was different. My husband is a
28:11perfect example. He lived through most of this with me and yet it wasn't until it was in a book
28:16that he was able to say oh I understand this differently. He would take my actions or or
28:24inactions personally as if if I just loved her more or loved her better she wouldn't she would
28:32feel differently or react differently and I think now he understands oh this actually really has
28:37nothing to do with me and so when I was dating others I think I would go into different relationships
28:42thinking maybe this is going to be the relationship that gets me to the emotional point that I seem to
28:47be lacking and they never did. Now what I've come to understand is they never would because it wasn't
28:53about the it wasn't about the other person it's what I was working with
28:57but I didn't get that then. I would end up being frustrated and ending and ending up having to
29:04mask a lot in relationships faking emotions that I wasn't having faking experiences that I wasn't
29:09having and it was very lonely. I think one of the reasons that my relationship with David was so
29:15special so quickly was because he was one of the only people that I did reveal myself to when I was
29:22a kid. We met in a summer camp just before going into high school and we dated for that summer
29:29and then we broke up he went off to college and we kept in touch and then reconnected
29:37in my 20s. I had to do a lot of you know work I had to do a lot of figuring things out and so did
29:43he so when we reconnected I think that it speaks to his patience that he was able to sort of
29:51understand and help me manage a lot of this stuff but I remember sitting with David and I really was
29:57just extremely candid about I didn't feel things and I didn't experience guilt and I kept waiting
30:04to get the look from David but I never did. Really for the first time I could have some semblance of
30:11a normal life if I if I chose a person like this with whom to spend my life I would never have to
30:18ask I could just be myself. He didn't like that I had these destructive urges he didn't like that
30:26I was breaking into homes go figure and we had to work through it but he also had to understand
30:33that any coping mechanism I came up with even if it was a positive one wasn't going to increase
30:39my affect I was never going to be as affectionate as he is. My husband is very affectionate he's
30:47very emotional so for him when I wasn't affectionate when I wasn't emotional he was taking
30:52it personally as if this was a choice I was making I'm not being affectionate with you or
30:57I don't have these emotions the way that you have these emotions but what he needed to understand is
31:02my emotional experience is different than yours my love is different but that doesn't mean it
31:07doesn't count I'm never going to match your emotional intensity I just don't have it it's
31:13not because I don't love you it's because I don't have that intensity that you have our journey to
31:21to becoming the the solid couple that we are today was relatable in the sense that we got to do a lot
31:27of therapeutic work and I think that the more people engage in therapy and the more people
31:32engage in getting to know themselves first and foremost the better partners that they will be
31:37for who they choose to spend their life with
31:44my kids are younger the conversation is a bit is a bit adult for them they understand
31:50the word sociopath they but I have explained it to them using a more complete definition
32:00certainly they know about this book they know about that word they certainly are going to grow
32:04up with a different understanding of the word than their friends but they they see me as someone
32:12who is less emotional than daddy but I've noticed with neurotypical parents is that so much of their
32:18reaction to things is sort of built into how they parent the neurotypical parent suffers from a lot
32:24of guilt and a and a lot of second guessing with parenting and I don't seem to have that which
32:32isn't to say that if I make a mistake I'm not upset about it but I I don't really experience
32:40a lot of guilt with my kids and I don't ever use guilt with my kids let's say my oldest comes home
32:46he has a bad grade on the test his father is going to be frustrated and how could this have happened
32:52you studied and and and doesn't this matter to you and and we have to do better whereas I don't
32:59have that reaction but I also know that that allows my child to have their reaction to the
33:04test so and I find that in parenting so much of a kid is having to navigate their parents response
33:12to something as opposed to being able to process and deal with their reaction to what happened
33:17so I might say yeah this is a bad grade how do you feel about it and then we have the conversation
33:22about how my child feels about it as opposed to how I feel he's not having to deal with my
33:27disappointment which again it doesn't mean that I don't care about his poor performance it's just
33:34that my feeling about it takes a far back seat to his feeling about it which I think is better
33:41in a way my son recently wrote a speech on FOMO fear of missing out and he wanted me to weigh in
33:48on it and I was able to have that conversation with him which is this is actually something
33:52mommy has never experienced or doesn't experience but you do and it's so interesting that that you
34:00can process it to the extent that you can write a speech about the fear of missing out where it
34:04comes from how it impacts your life and how interesting is it that we can come to this topic
34:09from two very different places when you're talking about sociopaths in in fiction I think that it can
34:21be detrimental in that it perpetuates this very one-dimensional composite the first thing that
34:28people think about neurotypical people anyway my understanding is fear and monster serial killer
34:34these are all largely negative associations when in fact sociopathy is just a personality disorder
34:42and it deserves to be understood beyond the sensational one-dimensional characterizations
34:49that it's become largely known for you know you're showing these people as being singularly bad
34:56with no ability to feel period and that's not accurate and when you are someone who sees
35:04themselves in a sociopathic checklist but everywhere you look the sociopath is portrayed as someone
35:12horrible why on earth would you ever admit to that it makes it more difficult for people like me
35:18to speak up and I mean even as a child I understood kids who say they don't feel remorse
35:25are are blackballed and cast aside and not involved in things that they should be involved in
35:34if people understood that sociopathy is so much more than these extreme characterizations there
35:44would be more compassion and there would be more treatment Wednesday Adams is sociopathic she meets
35:50most of the criteria she's criminally versatile she has trouble making informing bonds she has a
35:56low affect she is manipulative she's cunning she's extremely charming and yet I believe that Wednesday
36:02Adams offers a much more complete version of the sociopathic profile because in addition to all of
36:09those quote-unquote bad things she's also she's also capable of experiencing grief she struggles
36:17to form bonds but she can do it she's very loyal to her friends she is very loving to her family
36:23members and that piece of the puzzle is largely missing in the overall understanding of sociopathy
36:29you see that she can feel she feels deeply she feels differently than a neurotypical person does
36:36but that doesn't mean her feelings don't count and I found that parents who watch the that show
36:42with their children who resonate with my story it opens up a narrative for them that goes beyond
36:50that monster stereotype and it's nice for these kids to see themselves represented by something
36:57other than a dangerous criminal I enjoyed seeing all the Wednesdays knocking on my door for
37:05Halloween and not just in her costume but they were mimicking her her flat affect they weren't
37:12smiling when smiled at and I thought that was so liberating not just for me but for them I wanted
37:18to say I bet it feels good to you know to be bad little Wednesday you're not doing anything overtly
37:25cruel or bad but you don't have to play by the rules if only for tonight giving these kids the
37:30space to say I actually don't feel much and that's okay they're they're allowed to have a
37:37different emotional experience than you and they should be allowed to have to be honest about their
37:44experience I was able to talk to my kids about that personality through the Wednesday lens and
37:51it could not have come at a better time for me to have that conversation it's not just Wednesday
37:56though it's there are so many characters fictional characters that are sociopathic
38:03that I think the general public takes for granted they don't realize that they're rooting for
38:08the sociopathic character Elphaba I remember reading Wicked the book and and really resonating
38:15with that with this this character who is believed to be bad just because she has a different
38:22experience of the world I actually really appreciated the Dexter character because I
38:28saw myself in that strategy obviously I wasn't murdering people but what he was doing is he was
38:36experiencing a need to act out and he decided to channel that need into essentially being a
38:42vigilante that shed more light on a fuller composite this is someone who is capable of
38:51having a relationship he's capable of love he loves his sister he he cares for his wife he
38:59cared for his kids perhaps not in the way a neurotypical person does but he was capable of
39:04leading a high functioning life so I appreciated that they that it wasn't a bloodlust story it
39:11wasn't someone that was getting off on hurting people for hurting people's sake Larry David I
39:17mean this is a character that everybody loves and what does he do he acts anti-socially 90 percent
39:23of the time he doesn't have much of an affect he doesn't seem to have a great deal of empathy
39:28and yet we root for him we love him I think that as a society we are far more comfortable rooting
39:34for a sociopathic fictional character but what that tells me is unconsciously we're ready to
39:40root for the non-fiction people too we just need more information in order to get there we need to
39:46see them as more complete individuals in order to do that
39:54roughly five percent of the population are sociopathic the research indicates that it's
40:00right around four or five percent but when you consider that the diagnostics for sociopathy and
40:05psychopathy are largely conducted within the prison system my belief is that that is a very
40:10conservative estimate if there was more testing available for this personality disorder I would
40:16bet that the prevalence would be higher than four or five percent when I've been contacted by parents
40:22or others who resonate with my story and they're looking for help the first thing I say is ask your
40:27child or yourself what does it feel like when you feel because that's really the key you'll find that
40:34a lot of these people they don't connect with these social emotions and that ends up driving
40:39them to act out compulsively if we're only looking at the behavior I think a lot of people who are on
40:45the mild to moderate side of the sociopathic spectrum will fall through the cracks because
40:49not everybody is acting out really aggressively or extremely as soon as a child starts acting out
40:57anti-socially get them in therapy and ask them what does it feel like when you feel because so
41:03much of therapy is dedicated to behavior which makes sense if you have a child or an adult that's
41:09acting out anti-socially or destructively you want to you want to stop that behavior first and
41:13foremost but that's just the beginning one of the things that I always like to suggest is that they
41:21watch the latest iteration of the Wednesday Addams series on Netflix ask your child what does it feel
41:27like when you feel and chances are the Wednesday story gives those kids the tools to answer that
41:35question to be clear you can't diagnose a juvenile as sociopathic or psychopathic but you don't even
41:41want oppositional defiant disorder early onset conduct disorder these are red flags these are
41:48the you know sort of precursors to sociopathy and no parent wants that for their kid and I
41:52understand this is such a hypocrisy in that sociopath is thrown around mercilessly to
42:00describe every manner of evil and yet everybody claims to know a sociopath everybody claims to
42:05have dated a sociopath everybody claims to everybody loves the sociopath shows and when
42:14I have had conversations with these people all they want to do is unburden themselves and and
42:20find a way to normalize what they perceive as sociopathic behavior but I've got news for you
42:26this isn't sociopathic behavior this is the human condition how does feeling feel like for you I
42:31think that's a very benign and evolved way to have that conversation as opposed to I think you might
42:40be a sociopath you know even someone who does identify with a sociopathic checklist is going to
42:49probably be defensive if somebody says that because of the way that that word is used incorrectly but
42:55how does feeling feel like for you is not a question I think is asked enough and it could be
43:01that your partner is experiencing emotion differently than you are and that no one
43:06has ever bothered to ask and I think that at the very least feeling seen feeling like you
43:15have a safe space to explore how you experience emotion is a wonderful place to start
43:20I didn't want my memoir to be a glamorization of this personality type my goal in writing the book
43:29was I wanted people like me to feel seen and I wanted to put I wanted to offer a humanized take
43:38on a dehumanized disorder it's it's really easy when you're writing off of a book
43:47easy when you were writing off a huge group of people as monsters to just discount everything
43:54about them but when you can put the face of a child on it when you can put the face of a mother
44:00a wife someone who is living a high functioning life that changes the landscape a little bit and
44:06I wanted others like me to see themselves represented by something other than a serial
44:14killer I wanted I wanted to give them a hope for a happy loving relationship motherhood if they
44:21choose you know friendships I mean these things are very possible for someone with sociopathy
44:27if they're given the tools and the space to learn I don't think it's as interesting to the public as
44:34the the monster serial killer definition that everyone's fond of if you don't trust me if you
44:42don't feel that you can trust me don't go out and do the research yourself you know I've said this
44:48before if everybody who came across my story went out and fact-checked the research I think that in
44:56itself would shift the narrative don't you don't have to believe me believe the research believe
45:02the other researchers believe the um the society for the scientific study of psychopathy believe
45:09them it's it's not about me it's about sociopathy and those struggling to get treatment and I feel
45:17that if more people understood the research it wouldn't matter who was telling the story because
45:24the research is really the most important part the real work is let's get into the affect I would love
45:29to reclassify this disorder psychopathy and sociopathy as low affect disorder it's such a
45:35wonderful name because sociopath psychopath those are so stigmatized and they are they are so
45:44activating whereas low affect disorder it speaks directly to the psychological
45:50underpinnings of the behavior well I think that's happened a lot in psychology look at mental
45:56retardation for instance you would never use that word today and yet that was a clinical diagnosis
46:01for a long time and then they changed it because it had become so negatively stigmatized rightfully
46:05so multiple personality disorder that's another one that they replaced with a different name
46:11specifically because it had become too stigmatized why can't they do that for psychopathy or sociopathy
46:16as long as we continue to identify it based only on the most extreme examples we're not going to
46:23get anywhere in terms of treatment or understanding and the research also indicates that the majority
46:29of people who fall on the sociopathic spectrum fall on the the mild to moderate side and there's
46:35a lot of disagreement on how to test and where individuals who fall on that lower end of the
46:41spectrum what they should be labeled as there should be more consistency because if you're
46:46talking about a disorder that represents millions of people and most of those people fall on the
46:51mild to moderate side of the spectrum we should have a working treatment plan a working diagnostic
46:58kit we should have things that are available well certainly more available than they are now
47:03in terms of a general treatment plan i don't think that we're much closer but i think we're getting
47:09there and i think because more people are speaking about psychopathy and antisocial personality
47:15disorders at it and i and because they're speaking about them at a younger age again this speaks to
47:22that ability to feel more compassion for someone who is antisocial if they are a child or if they
47:28are younger when it you know when a child is acting out you don't want to throw them in prison
47:35and even if you did you can't you have to find ways to to deal with it
47:58you