Confessions of a Sociopath Read online

  There are significant differences of opinion among academics and clinicians about whether psychopathy and sociopathy are diagnosable conditions at all. The good folks at the American Psychiatric Association who put together the DSM have decided to exclude both terms, despite movements by researchers for revisions in favor of antisocial personality disorder, or ASPD, a diagnosis based on observed behavioral patterns. The World Health Organization’s International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems describes a similar diagnosis it calls dissocial personality disorder but also does not include sociopathy. ASPD and sociopathy do not share all of the same characteristics; ASPD focuses primarily on the criminality of behavior, rather than the internal thought processes of a sociopath, since thought processes are difficult to ascertain, particularly with unwilling, institutionalized subjects. For instance, although I consider myself a high-functioning sociopath because of my weak sense of empathy, my failure to conform to social norms, and my predilection to manipulate others, I could not be legitimately diagnosed with ASPD.

  Further confusing the diagnostic problem of sociopathy is the overlap in behavioral characteristics between sociopathy and other personality disorders such as narcissism, like enhanced self-regard and diminished empathy, as well as some social developmental disorders like Asperger’s that are also seen on the autism spectrum.

  In his book Forensic Psychology: A Very Short Introduction, David Canter, a psychology professor at the University of Huddersfield, warns that “we should not be seduced into thinking that these diagnoses are anything other than summary descriptions of the people in question” and echoes the concern that they are “actually moral judgments masquerading as medical explanations.” The first line in the preface of Robert Hare’s book reads: “Psychopaths are social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a road trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty wallets.” So you can imagine what side of the fence he’s on. Still, these diagnoses are being used, and important decisions like whether or not to deny someone parole are made primarily on the basis of them.

  Unlike the problematic definitions of psychological diagnoses, neuroscience may offer some more clarity. Recent brain scan research and other studies suggest a link between these characteristics and something more “definitive” and unique about a sociopath’s brain. But it would be a mistake to conflate the list of characteristics of a sociopath with the definition of sociopath, just as it would be a mistake to assume that all Catholics would share the exact same traits—or that having a certain list of traits is what makes people Catholic. The diagnosis of sociopathy is useful, but only to the extent that people understand its limitations. The main limitation is that we cannot identify it by its root source; we know it only by its symptoms and characteristics. This is somewhat disappointing to people. It would be easy to think that I am bad because I was treated badly or raised badly, that I grew up in an environment devoid of love and filled with enmity. But I didn’t suffer the kind of outrageous abuses that so many people do. Mine were of the ordinary variety, maybe some benign neglect. When people ask me whether I had a bad childhood, I tell them that it was relatively unremarkable. We know from twin studies that there is a strong genetic component to sociopathic traits, and we also know that sociopaths have different brains from most people. But just because they have different brains does not mean that their unusual brains are what makes them act differently. The fact that they act differently could actually be affecting their brain circuitry. Similarly, just because a sociopath’s brain is different does not mean that is what is causing the sociopathy—that could be, according to Hare, a “by-product of some other environmental or genetic factor commonly found among psychopaths.”

  We don’t know the root cause, but we also know there isn’t a cure for this disorder, not that we would necessarily want one, for reasons that I hope will be clear upon finishing this book. Dr. Cleckley observed and counseled sociopaths as a psychologist and professor at the Medical College of Georgia. He wrestled with how to treat sociopathic patients and criminals, whom he believed to be deeply disturbed but essentially intractable. In the preface to his final revision of The Mask of Sanity, which he wrote at the very end of his life, Cleckley explained that he had been unable to discover an effective treatment but was heartened by the belief that he had contributed to the understanding of sociopathy—and especially that the relatives and loved ones of sociopaths could have some explanation for the unusual behavior of their beloveds. Indeed, he cited at length instances of incurable patients—individuals who had all the resources and support in the world to get better but ended up maiming significant others and committing other manner of misdeeds. To him we were a lost cause.

  Cleckley was not alone in this belief. Recent estimates of the criminal recidivism rate for sociopaths is approximately double that of nonsociopathic criminals, and it is triple for violent crimes. Even the Yoruba and the Inuit tribes believed that these antisocial individuals could not be changed. The only solution was to neutralize or marginalize them, or as one Inuit purportedly told Murphy, the anthropologist, “Somebody would have pushed him off the ice when nobody else was looking.”

  Today psychologists and criminologists are occupied with the same conundrum with which the Inuit and Yoruba dealt through discreet homicide—what to do with sociopaths who simply cannot be trusted and who do not belong. In Great Britain, authorities have given sociopathic criminals life sentences solely on the basis of their sociopathy. In America, diagnosed sociopaths have been committed indefinitely in psychiatric facilities with no hope of release, since their doctors assume they cannot be cured. Take the story of Robert Dixon, who received a fifteen-years-to-life sentence for accessory to murder as the getaway driver to an armed robbery gone wrong. Twenty-six years into his sentence, he was up for parole. As part of the assessment of whether he was likely to reoffend, he was given a test that indicated that he was a sociopath. “I remember reading the report and feeling heartbroken,” Dixon’s lawyer recalls, “because I knew no matter how hard I worked from that day forward, that when I brought him back to the board, we were going to get denied.”

  While in his first edition Cleckley asserted that sociopaths should be considered psychotics due to their deep inability to function in society, he revised his position in later editions when he realized that this characterization stood in the way of making them responsible for their criminal acts. He faced a crisis; he never believed that sociopaths were crazy, or “manic,” in the sense that others of his patients were. But he felt that they were just as troubled, just as deficient or wrongly equipped to live, and so should be kept apart from everyone else. He was concerned that dangerous sociopaths were not committed in mental institutions often enough, because an overemphasis on verbal intelligence and rationality in determining whether a person was mentally competent for the purposes of confinement weighed in favor of sociopaths.

  But depriving the sociopath of freedom purely on the basis of her psychiatric diagnosis is fraught with questions of moral significance. Social scientists worry about control and maintenance—how do we deal with these strange creatures, they ask themselves, in a manner that does not make monsters of the rest of us? Can a person’s lack of conscience justify a deprivation of his freedom? Society commits the insane to confinement by reasoning that they present harm to themselves and others. I’ve heard the argument that sociopaths cannot function in the outside world, so there is nothing that society can do but take the drastic step of separating the sociopaths from the rest of the world. But sociopaths can function; we just function differently. It’s not like we’re biting off our own hands or jumping off of buildings in the belief that we can fly. We’re not crazy. And the truth is that we are sometimes quite successful. It is just that we live, think, and make decisions in a way that some people find loathsome and most find disturbingly amoral. What do you do to people you simply don’t like?

  The ro
le that a diagnosis of sociopathy should play in criminal sentencing is an admittedly thorny issue. The legal standard for an insanity plea is that the perpetrator must not be able to distinguish between right and wrong. Sociopaths actually know what society considers right and wrong most of the time, they just don’t feel an emotional compulsion to conform their behavior to societal standards. The debate is whether this faulty wiring makes them more culpable, less culpable, or equally culpable compared to a similarly offending nonsociopath. Kent Kiehl, a prominent researcher who specializes in scanning the brains of sociopaths in prisons, suggested treating them the same as people with low IQs, who may know that their actions are wrong but lack sufficient “brakes” on their violent impulses.

  Furthermore, there is the question of effectiveness of punishment. Cleckley asserted that treating sociopaths as ordinary criminals—and simply imprisoning them when they had committed a wrong—did not work, since punishment does little to deter them. Of course, the deterring effect of imprisonment on anyone is questionable. I doubt that empathetic people who commit crimes of passion are deterred by the thought of imprisonment, and I wonder how much it works on lifelong drug dealers born into gangs and poverty who thus have few alternatives. However, scientific research has been conducted to show that sociopaths are particularly nonresponsive to negative consequences, and I have found this to be true in my own life. The threat of punishment at home or school only served as a challenge to figure out how to circumvent the consequences when I did what I wanted to do anyway. I didn’t fear the punishment, I just saw it as an inconvenience to work around.

  Cleckley’s intuition that sociopaths do not respond normally to negative consequences was validated by a famous study by Hare in which he administered mild electrical shocks to both psychopaths and a normal control group. A timer ticking down preceded the shock. Normal people would show signs of anxiety as the timer got closer to the shock, anticipating the slight pain. Psychopaths were remarkably unfazed by the shock and did not express a comparable increase in anxiety as the timer ticked down.

  This blithe reaction to negative events may be due to the excessive dopamine that characterizes the sociopathic brain. Vanderbilt University researchers have linked the excess dopamine in sociopaths to a hypersensitive reward system in the brain that releases as much as four times the normal amount of dopamine in response to either a perceived gain of money upon the successful completion of a task, or chemical stimulants. These researchers suggested that the overactive reward system is to blame for a sociopath’s impulsive, risk-seeking behavior because “these individuals appear to have such a strong draw to reward—to the carrot—that it overwhelms the sense of risk or concern about the stick.”

  I have my own doubts about this hypothesis, though. A hypersensitive reward system could explain why sociopaths are allegedly sex fiends, at least compared to the rest of the population. It could also explain why you’ll see them at the top of their field, professionally speaking. Sociopaths are probably contributing to society in all sorts of random ways in order to trigger an enormous amount of dopamine flooding through their brains. Risk takers, though? Maybe we are, but I don’t think it’s because of excess dopamine, particularly because an earlier study at Vanderbilt showed that low amounts of dopamine were highly correlated with risk taking and drug abuse. From personal experience, I feel like my risk-seeking behavior stems from a low fear response or a lack of natural anxiety in potentially dangerous, traumatic, or stressful situations.

  I do all sorts of risky and often stupid activities, particularly when you consider that I am a financially secure white-collar professional with a brilliant IQ who was raised devoutly religious in a stable middle-class home. When I was young, I did the usual reckless teenage stuff: mosh pits, hitchhiking in developing countries, being towed in a shopping cart from the back of a truck, fistfights, etc. I might have grown out of some of the more childish thrill-seeking activities, but I never quite grew out of the inability to learn from experiences.

  One summer I lost all of my savings trading high-risk options. Not only were the options risky, I took an incredibly risky approach to them—holding when I should have sold and putting all of my eggs in one basket. Even after many failed trades, I still took unnecessary gambles. I knew objectively that I was losing a lot of money, but I couldn’t make myself feel the pain of it in a way that seemed to matter. Though it doesn’t seem related, I don’t use knives. The risk of injury never sinks in, even with such a mundane tool. I’ve cut myself many times, lopping off chunks of skin or cutting down to the bone and requiring stitches, but I can never force myself to be more careful, so now I just don’t use them.

  I’ve always loved to bike in cities, partly because it’s so dangerous. If a car starts creeping into my lane, I will punch at it or use my portable tire pump to swing at it. If a car cuts me off, I will follow it until I catch up, then dart in front and come to a skidding halt, forcing them to slam on their brakes. I’m sure it’s incredibly dangerous for me to do this, and really only for me, but it also freaks the hell out of them. And I don’t really care for my safety enough to change my behavior. It’s not that I’m being irrational. It’s that suffering the consequences of something rarely involves actual “suffering.” Maybe there is a small thrill in taunting drivers or risking my life savings, but mainly it’s that I just don’t feel sufficient anxiety in these situations warning me to be more careful.

  I can’t tell you how many times I have gotten food poisoning from eating rotten and questionable food, but I never seem to learn my lesson. A few years ago I woke up naked on the floor of a YMCA shower. I couldn’t remember how I had gotten there, but I am sure it was something stupid. People who know their limits don’t end up passed out naked in a YMCA. I don’t have the off switch in my brain telling me when to stop—no natural sense of boundaries alerting me to when I am on the verge of taking something too far. When I do these things, it doesn’t feel as if I’m so overwhelmed by the carrot; it’s more like I am so unimpressed by the stick.

  I have always lived in the worst neighborhoods. Rent is cheap and I figure there’s no need for me to pay a safety premium if I have health insurance. It drives my friends and family crazy, but it makes me easy to shop for when it comes to birthdays and Christmas: pepper spray, dead bolts, automobile theft deterrents, etc. Just after college I lived next door to a drug-infested Chicago housing project, taking night jogs through the neighborhood with headphones blaring loud enough to cover the sounds of gunshots, which were pretty loud. Recently I walked in on my apartment getting burglarized for the second time—the first time was just a few days after I had moved in. When it’s not getting burglarized, I get visitors banging on my door at all hours of the night. (I think one of my neighbors might be a drug dealer and these people are mistaking my apartment for his. Just idle conjecture.)

  Perhaps my risk taking can be best seen in terms of my affection for and mishaps with motor vehicles. I love cars. I feel invincible behind the wheel, and I often put myself and others at risk because I didn’t think through the consequences of my decisions. Once when my brakes started going out, I opted to drive the car into the mechanic’s rather than pay for a tow, even though I had driven much too long on the brakes, until they were all but useless. It was rainy that day and I had to drive several miles on a steady decline. Making matters worse, when I got close to the shop, I saw that I would have to cross a bridge over train tracks, which rose and fell dramatically over the distance of about a block on a busy four-lane main thoroughfare. By the time I was at the bottom of the bridge without brakes, I was going at least forty-five miles an hour, much too fast for traffic that was slowing at a red stoplight up ahead. Making a split-section decision, I jerked the wheel to the left and power-slid across two lanes of opposing traffic, across both lanes of a parallel frontage road, and finally jolted to a stop when the right rear and then front wheel made contact with the curb on the far side of the street. I looked up at the addresses on the buildi
ngs and noticed that I was just south of the driveway to the mechanic’s, so I crawled into the parking lot and used the parking brake to come to a full stop, all to the gaping stares of onlookers.

  Of course I was pretty pleased with myself at the time. It’s nice to have proof of your seeming invincibility. But if it had gone horribly wrong—had my car slid off the bridge and exploded on impact—I would have felt much the same about it. As long as I keep surviving, I seem okay. It’s not that bad things don’t happen to me; they do. But I just don’t feel that bad about them. Maybe in the moment I feel some regret or anxiety, but it’s quickly forgotten and the world seems ripe with promise again. I’m not superhuman, not entirely immune to sorrow or pain. I just have an extremely robust sense of optimism and self-worth that keeps me looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.