What do you do if you know a sociopath?

Answer 1

The parent of a psychopath/sociopath child should love the child anyway. Because to turn your back on your child because they are born different is not the way to raise your kids. I speak from experience when I say that. My own parents gave up on me when I was around 12 or so. They realized that my incessant lying, stealing and manipulation of everyone around me was never going to get any better. When they realized that I was actually incapable of loving them, they stopped showing any love or affection towards me. While I don't blame them because now as an adult I understand that they were just trying to protect themselves, I still think it was the wrong thing to do. We all became strangers living in the same house. We never interacted and that isolation combined with the void that I felt inside, left me a very cold person inside. Maybe I would have ended up like this anyway, who knows. But I do know that the way I was raised only helped exacerbate my condition and has virtually made any type of loving and intimate relationship with anyone extremely unlikely. The only thing good I can say about the way I was raised was that being alone all the time gave me much time for reflection on myself. Even though I had no concept of 'psychopath/sociopath' at the time, I knew that something was wrong with me. The lack of feelings and the disconnection from the world around me was a very hard thing to deal with when you are a teenager. I was very lucky that in my younger days I didn't do anything to screw my life up for good. I was able to figure out a way to act so that while I always was viewed as different, people really had no idea how different I actually was. I was able to hide who I was to a degree. I mention this because it is important to do this because when you are a minor, your parents can have you put into a institution against your will. I was very careful to make sure that my parents never felt that their life was threatened by me because I knew that they would lock me up at the slightest hint that I was dangerous to them. I managed to find other ways to indulge myself without endangering my freedom. Even with all the effort I was putting in to being 'normal', I still was a very troubled child with a background of expulsion's, suspensions, arrests and things of that nature. Lying was the way I talked. I used to always wonder why I lied so much and why I enjoyed it so much. The point I am trying to make is that being what I am was hard enough, but when you add the fact that my parents turned their back on their own son, because of something that I had no control over was wrong. I understand that they had to protect themselves and all that, but how they raised me was cowardly. Just because your child may be incapable of deep profound emotion, doesn't mean you throw them out to the cold, harshness of the world. Because as any genuine 'psycho' will tell you, that will only make us worse. I might have never been capable to love for real, but I will never know because instead of taking responsibility for their own actions, my parents decided to quit and pout because I didn't act like they thought a child should act. If you really want to know how to raise your 'psychopath/sociopath' child, my only advice to be brutally honest with them. Never try to B.S. them, because all that does is piss us off, and make us look at you as weak. Always be aware that your child is observing you all the time and assessing your strengths and weaknesses so as to find a better way to attack you. Try to remember that this is just a natural part of the way they think and that it isn't directed at you personally. Although it might be, I don't know your home life. I can only speak from my own life and I can say that for me, nothing is or was ever personal. So that is it, it isn't pretty but it is the truth. Now if you choose to raise your kids like my parents raised me, just be ready for your kids to never talk to you again. I have very infrequent contact with my own parents and I anticipate that it will be no contact in a very short while. While I harbor no ill will toward them, I also feel no need to deal with them anymore. It is like they don't exist, except in my memories.

Answer 2

== == == == And if you possibly can, find someone trained by Dr. Robert Hare of Canada; he has developed a specialized type of therapy that will help child psychopaths (sociopaths) veer off the destructive path and have the best life the illness allows! Arguably, he is the ONLY one who knows how to train therapists to deal with sociopaths, and has a special type of therapy developed for children with this devastating mental illness.

See his BOOK, "Without Conscience," available at online bookshops, and you'll be able to understand much more.

Has the child been professionally diagnosed as a sociopath? Or is this your personal opinion? If he or she has been diagnosed by a mental health care professional, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't have recommended some form of treatment. ANSWER I think a good idea would be to read bullyonline http://www.bullyonline.org/related/family.htm

More info:

Sociopaths are the way they are because, from birth onward, the brain of a sociopath stores learning information in a random, chaotic way instead of in the usual designated places in the cerebral cortex. Part of this involves lack of crucial neurotransmitters, but as of yet no one knows whether this lack is caused BY the brain abnormality or is the cause OF it. It's probably the former.

Since their information -- including emotional information -- is scattered all over both brain hemispheres, it takes too long for the brain to retrieve and process information, and the entire process of socialization becomes so ponderous that ultimately it fails. (See the book "Without Conscience" by Robert Hare, PhD.)

Since the entire cerebral cortex of a sociopath is almost never at a normal level of alertness (their waking brain waves resemble the waves of a normal person in a light sleep, alpha waves), this may be the crucial deficiency that cripples the developing child's ability to develop many aspects of the human mind. As the child grows, some of the basic mental and emotional skills the rest of the world takes so for granted never develop, and crucial among these is the thing called conscience. That one never develops at all.

Some people may envy the apparent calm of a sociopath, but their existence is misery. They cannot connect with other human beings, and as babies they are so uncomfortable being held that they fight to wriggle free of all but the most basic necessary contact. Their heartbroken parents often blame themselves or the child, never knowing that what is really wrong with the child is in his or her brain.

Under the almost somnolent calm sociopaths project is a constant sense of restlessness and unfulfillment that is nothing other than the basic need all people have to receive stimulation and support from others. But a sociopath has no way of receiving this even if it's offered. The endless frustration of this, and a discomfort that they are utterly incapable of articulating or even really understanding, is the source of much of their chronic anger and aggression.

Plus, since they grow up in constant conflict with authority, they are most often bitterly angry and sometimes violent adults, brittle and combatative under a thin veneer of charm. Offered friendship, they appear to respond, but quickly discover that they can get nothing from it; they see the obvious pleasure of other people in such contact with each other, and they often seek to "even it up" by stealing what they can -- material goods, or even human lives. They are constantly told how "bad" they are, and by adulthood, most of them believe it. And behave accordingly.

Sociopaths rarely feel true happiness. If they do, it is usually in the condition that some kind of intervention -- such as one of the small number of medications made for other conditions that may also help somewhat with theirs -- has taken place, and it will be fleeting. For all their frantic racing around, they are really very dead inside, and this is tragic beyond description. Imagine spending your entire life trying to get your brain to wake up! And failing. Thousands of times.

There are stories of people diagnosed as sociopaths who did improve to some degree, with the most ceaseless and diligent help. But since the vast majority of this huge body of people (there are more than three hundred million sociopaths on Earth) cannot get that kind of attention, they turn to abusing those they envy, and often to crime. It is certainly vengeance: "If I can't have any of this, why should you?" This is the real reason sociopaths lash out at strong and kind people. No matter what they say, they know that inside, they are always empty and damaged beyond repair.

Only in neuroscience is there hope for these incomplete people. The key lies in awakening the brain, which is risky because sociopaths are much more prone to seizures than the rest of the population, and that -- an uncontrolled blast of electrical discharge spreading through the brain and causing violent convulsions -- is likely to be the first response from brain pathways that, after years or even decades of silence, are suddenly flooded with impulses. But if the devices of neurosurgeons can be tweaked to avoid this shock, and all else related to this idea is workable, it's feasible that small electronic devices planted in the brain (these already exist, but are not yet being used for mental illness) could open up a closed connection.

That leaves us with the problem of whether a lifetime of scattered information can ever be set into order. Probably the best that could be hoped for would be a kind of retraining -- like what is now done with stroke survivors and head injury patients -- that would be both intensive and compensatory.

One of the things that would be necessary would be to try to socialize the person whose congenital birth defect made such a thing completely impossible before. Whatever intervention is used, be it drugs or computer chips or what have you, it would probably -- I'd say certainly -- be excruciating for the patient at first. With no knowledge of how to cope with the emotions the rest of the world has been dealing with all their lives, the recovering sociopath would be rendered as vulnerable as a baby. Which makes sense, because some of the most basic aspects of the human mind would be developing from the primordial stasis in which they had remained since birth!

A person thus treated would never be fully normal, but the human brain is amazing in the way it adapts and continues to develop all through life. And given the utterly joyless and meaningless existence a sociopath leads, any improvement is better than none.

The matter of missing neurotransmitters in a sociopath is, of course, another problem. Would "waking up" the cerebral cortex eventually stimulate production of these? Or would they have to be synthesized? Only time will tell.

Just as science understands that epilepsy is not demonic possession, that people with dissociative conditions are not harboring ghosts or devils in their bodies, and that depression is not a "deadly sin," it would and will be able to prove that sociopathy happens for a reason and that it can be dealt with. Sociopaths do very bad things. But branding them all "pure evil" isn't going to help anyone. It's just more hate.

I have commented elsewhere that the human brain is the greatest new frontier in many ways. (Although I certainly have no lack of interest in space.) Sociopaths, along with other "hopeless cases" like people with Alzheimer's disease, Down's syndrome, Asperger's, ADD, ADHD, autism, and the schizophrenias, along with more common disorders such as depression and addiction, and so on, are a mystery, but scientists have a way of hammering away at mysteries until they unravel them, and, be assured, they are well on their way to the core of this one.

NEW INFORMATION:

It is now known that it can be diagnosed in childhood, since the underlying brain dysfunction is present at birth.

It was up until very recently believed that children cannot be diagnosed as psychopaths; the newest research, recently published, says that it starts in the womb. The condition is inborn and, so far, incurable. But neuroscience will almost certainly be able to develop some way of compensating for and even partially correcting this terrible condition with the use of computer chips and other artificial implants in the brain, and as well a certain type of specialized inpatient therapy geared to awakening as much as is possible in the person as soon as the condition is diagnosed.

One of the problems with anything wrong with one's central nervous system is that if it's severe and pervasive enough, it can interfere with the autonomic and peripheral nervous systems as well. In psychopaths, such maladies as what was once called neurasthenia (a state of unnatural sedation) or epilepsy (seizure disorders) are far more frequent than in the general population. Many people who are not psychopaths have some of the more than 100 forms of peripheral neuropathy, but some of these may be more common in psychopaths.

The autonomic nervous system, which prepares the body for emergencies (fight-or-flight) is erratic and inefficient in a psychopath, which can, in some situations, lead to fatal accidents; human beings have adrenaline for a reason, and the sympathetic nervous system of a true psychopath is sluggish and cannot sustain arousal for long. (In Borderline Personality Disorder, the problem is the opposite: the sympathetic nervous system responds too easily, too strongly, and way too often!)

Aside from this is the fact that a true psychopath has an extremely peculiar brainwave pattern: while awake, their brain waves most resemble a hybrid of normal waking brain waves and alpha-level sleep waves. And they often tend to sleep deeply.

Emotionally, they are cold, detached, distant, and yet deeply resentful of normal people. They know they're missing something, and often spend most of their typically short, tragic lives avenging themselves on others for what they cannot ever enjoy. So they are not truly emotionless, but they do not love, do not know true joy, and are hostile and destructive.

This ISN'T the work of the Devil; it's Nature gone horribly awry. ANYTHING THAT CAN DAMAGE THE DEVELOPING NERVOUS-SYSTEM IN A FETUS OR VERY YOUNG CHILD CAN CAUSE OR SEVERELY EXACERBATE THIS CONDITION.

THAT INCLUDES STREET DRUGS, ALCOHOL, and even SMOKING!!!

It also includes some medications; check with your obstetrician before taking anything at all during your pregnancy!

During delivery, using a forceps to grasp the baby's head should be avoided if at all possible. Any touching of the area over the FONTANEL (soft spot on top of the baby's head) must be done with caution until the fontanel has closed.

Any head injury that causes dizziness -- even without loss of consciousness -- should be treated as a medical emergency.

And another thing: NEVER SHAKE YOUR BABY!!! NO MATTER WHAT!

Answer 3

It depends on what is wrong with the child. If the sociopathic parent abused the child, then you would refer to standard abuse therapy. If the child has or is suspected to have RAD, or Reactive Attachment Disorder, then the therapy would be for that. If you suspect the child itself to be a sociopath or developing a Conduct Disorder or Oppositional Defiant Disorder, then the treatment would be for that. (I assume that you can find some of these strategies online, or hopefully (if you are a therapist) you already know them.) It's really just treating the emerging psychological disorders.

The child needs to be away from the parent. If abuse or neglect is suspected, then no matter who you are, you have the right to report it.

What you can do also depends on who you are. If you are a therapist, then you will probably be able to do this with the help of the child and the parent (foster or otherwise). If, however, you are the foster parent or other biological parent, then you would need to go to a professional therapist and tell them that the parent was a sociopath.

Answer 4

1) recognize that you absolutely CANNOT win

2) build a strong sense of self, build yourself.. physically (weight train or take up Martial Arts) and mentally, this is not incase you get into a fight but just to toughen you up so you do not get sucked into their abusive patterns and so you can stand your ground... even sociopaths do not pick sh!t with strong people for no reason, they will take advantage of you if you are WEAK

3)let ur friends know, and have a supporting group of people

4) this should be #1 actually, GET THE F*CK AWAY and LIVE YOUR HAPPY LIFE

this comes from 19 years of experience with a sociopath father

Answer 5

Express your concerns to your father or another adult family member. Let them deal with the issue if there is one.

Answer 6

If your son is truly a sociopath, first, you should accept that YOU may not be able to help your son personally. You can best help him getting him help from a mental health specialist.

Answer 7

Typically, sociopaths won't bother you