How does a sociopath feel about being diagnosed?

Answer 1

Sociopaths -- psychopaths; people with ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder) -- actually feel very little. The sociopath is essentially a hollow shell.

Yet, according to Robert Hare, an expert on psychopathy, they are "not fragile" -- their character is "set in stone" for life.

But there are no human beings without some vulnerability. I'm not the only one pointing this out. Two other sociopaths here have written of it. (See below, after the end of my essay answer.)

Even after being told one is a psychopath or sociopath, it often seems meaningless to the one being diagnosed.

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. Robert Hare agrees with that latter statement.

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.

Indeed, for years I didn't really get it. But as one clinic after another rejected me, often with venom and even threats, I began to realize I'd better see what there was about the diagnosis I'd been given that could possibly carry such a terrible stigma.

So, I had no real clue what I was as an individual, until the diagnostician emphatically and angrily told me what I was.

And he said that one of my most insidious actions was to attempt to make contact with and even become friends with other, unsuspecting people.

I tried to tell him I actually wanted to help people and that I simply had a normal need to make friends, but he said he wasn't buying it. Not from the likes of me.

Yet, even though warmth almost never touches my frozen core, I still seek it...

Another psychopath (sociopath) wrote this on another question:

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.

(Comment: Many of the assertions made by the main answer have no basis in medical or psychological fact. Far from being hollow shells, sociopaths are subject to almost the full spectrum of human emotions, albeit in a stunted or arrested-development fashion. After I was diagnosed, I was directed to various papers on the subject, which I would advise you to read. Ones that may be particularly of concern are in reference to diagnosal reaction.)

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.

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.