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"Crazy and unpredictable," most people say. But there's more to it.

Psychopaths are people who suffer from a brain abnormality that causes them to grow up without developing a conscience or any capacity to connect with their fellow human beings. Most of the time, a psychopath feels bored and restless, craving stimulation. This is partly because they have the need for the benefits of human contact WITHOUT the ability to make or to receive such contact, and partly because the cerebral cortex of a psychopath is rarely fully aroused to normal consciousness (not to be confused with "conscience"), instead hovering at what EEGs show to be a hybrid of alertness and alpha-sleep waves. This may also account to some degree for the psychopath's ability to lie and also to their sometimes amazingly illogical grasp of reality.

Psychopaths make life hell for many people around them, but their existence is hell too. Therapy can sometimes help some, as can some medications, but until neurosurgeons can do something about the brain abnormalities that cause psychopathy, the condition, which afflicts four out of every hundred people, cannot be cured.

REMEMBER AS WELL THAT PSYCHOPATHS ARE IN FACT LIVING MEMBERS OF THE HUMAN RACE. Defending yourself against a psychopath is one thing; attacking someone just for being one is quite another. I do not need to have a conscience to see that!

Meaning that certain health-care givers who smiled grimly and knowingly when looking at my file, and who then have roughed me up or verbally battered me or even hit me, in clinical settings, plus all those so very pious folks who constantly preach that scum like me ought to be lined up and shot, are WRONG.

How can people know I'm "totally hopeless" if they never give me a chance? The therapist I see now is doing just that, and this, in combination with medications that change the ways my nervous system functions, seems to be helping me. Which, of course, is supposedly impossible. Well. It's happening anyway, and I know there are other ones out there too!

One very important point, therefore, is that, most certainly, no one helps sociopaths by repeatedly calling them 'evil'! That kind of response cannot possibly help anyone. A sociopath before treatment cannot trust anyone and must learn the fundaments of trust and interaction between people. No one who is persuaded to believe that he or she is just plain bad can sustain any hope for change. It becomes a vicious cycle: the sociopath, being told he or she is evil and cannot be helped, gives up, and in frustration and anger lashes out again at people, and in response to that, people say that their original point is proven.

The main reason sociopaths don't usually seek help is that they can't trust, rather than that they like being as they are. Plus, they can often sense exactly what sort of a response any call for help on their part is most likely to elicit from professionals and lay folk alike. Sociopaths are not breezing along in paradise. It isn't all a game. It's a truly miserable existence. And it can be made better. It may not be "curable" yet, but it most certainly isn't as hopeless as so many people say. There is therefore nothing to be gained and much to be lost when therapists and lay folk try to ostracize sociopaths from the human race entirely! Sensationalism and superstition will only prevent progress.

This was written on another question on the same essential topic as this one, by a self-confessed sociopath (other than me!) --

  • Sociopaths, though born that way, are people too. To avoid an entire group of people is absurd. That's like saying, "Since these people have dark skin, everyone should completely avert themselves from them." I am a moderate sociopath, and though part of me doesn't want to change, another does. Many times it is really entertaining to see how stupid people can be, especially when they're so gullible as to believe every word that mellifluously flows from my lips. Yes, I am parasitic, but even so, there are some people I would like to stop hurting. I can't find any websites that can provide a way to help my sociopathy. Maybe people like you should stop your self-victimisation and start trying to actually help people like me! I knew I was a sociopath before the age of ten but have only recently had it officially diagnosed. I am eighteen years old now, and I have been lying and destroying others' sanity for a long time. So, please post some helpful tidbits that might help sociopaths resist the sweet urges we get when we encounter weak human beings. When you cut us, do we not bleed? When you kill us, do we not die? Do you honestly think that you're being lied to and manipulated when we sincerely ask for help. Listen to yourselves! This is the internet; ergo, you're safe from our fortified mental grasp.

The essay that follows was written in another answer by another self-admitted sociopath, who actually might not be a sociopath. Still another person added the brief comment to that effect after her tragic essay.

  • umm... i kindof am one... just so y'all know, it's not so much fun being one either. i read that sentence up there, "Incapable of real human attachment to another." i don't even know what that is, i see it, i approximate it... it's like being outside a door looking through a dirty window and watching re-runs of people I've seen in love or with children or with friends, and scratching, sometimes banging at the glass to get in and... nothing. I'm fond of people in every sense of the word, their little quirks and habits, the way they see life, except if they went away it wouldn't bother me much other than finding someone else to be fond of. i don't have friends, i only date military men because they're ok with only having a girlfriend for a couple months and i tell them in advance i won't wait for them... i don't know what else to do to limit the damage i inflict on others just as a result of them knowing me, short of moving to the mountains... but i still move between 2-5 times a year :( it's kindof hard walking around knowing I'll never have what i see making other people so happy and running when i can tell someone is getting close just because i don't want to hurt them more later down the road... i'd like it alot to settle down, i WANT to be able to feel more with people, but it's hard to miss what you never had. i want what i THINK it would feel like... it'd be easy to give in and let someone stay because I'm so lonely... but hey, I've written enough, just know i try to be a responsible little sociopath, i won't ever get married or have kids, i practice safe sex, i won't stay in one city for long... everything you all take for granted i will never let myself have just because i WANT to take it for granted. being like this won't go away so hopefully i can limit the amount of hate thrown my way by limiting my interaction with people, i don't know what else to do. and you all might not belive this, but i am sorry, hopefully i can speak for the other people who have damaged your lives.
  • I've seen the 2nd-3rd anwers on a few questions dealing with psychopaths and I would like to say that a sociopath and a psychopath are very different. Much as a house cat and a wild tiger differ.
  • Comment: The above testimony is clearly not indicative of a sociopath because they seem to make efforts to keep from harming others, even if it doesn't benefit themselves.
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