Confessions of a Sociopath

This book is a work of memoir. It is a true story according to my best recollections; however, in addition to the inevitable flaws of memory, this story is told through the lens of how I see the world, including my megalomania, single-minded focus, and a lack of understanding about the inner worlds of others.

I have chosen to publish this book under a pseudonym, and I have changed the names and identifying characteristics of my family and friends and certain other people mentioned in the book to protect their privacy. In some instances, I disguised settings and rearranged and/or compressed events and time periods in service of the narrative. Otherwise, this is a true and honest account and I have not knowingly misrepresented any material facts.

Ms. Thomas is a 30-year-old Caucasian female seeking an assessment of her personality, particularly in regards to the presence or absence of psychopathic traits. Across multiple self-report inventories tapping both normal-range and pathological personality characteristics, Ms. Thomas scored beyond the 99th percentile of the community normative data. Her presentation in many regards could be considered that of a prototypical psychopathic personality. Additionally, the results of the PCL:SV assessment largely converge with this description, particularly in regards to the affective and interpersonal features displayed by Ms. Thomas, such as a pronounced lack of empathy, a ruthless and calculating attitude towards social and interpersonal relationships, and a relative immunity to experiencing negative emotions.

Most notable in Ms. Thomas’s clinical presentation … were pronounced elevations on scales tapping antisocial and psychopathic traits (particularly egocentricism and sensation-seeking characteristics), interpersonal dominance, verbal aggression, and excessive self-esteem, as well as very low scores on measures tapping negative affective experiences (e.g., phobias, traumatic stressors, depressive symptoms), interpersonal nurturance and stressful life events. Here again, her overall profile reflected a constellation of personality characteristics and interpersonal style highly
consistent with current conceptualizations of psychopathy.

Although cognizant that she is “different” from most people she knows in terms of her personality structure, Ms. Thomas does not view herself as “disordered” in the sense of suffering from a form of mental illness per se. Quite the contrary, she seems content with her lifestyle and its current trajectory and rather blasé about many issues and concerns that might cause others some degree of uncertainty or distress. Of course, such attitudes are emblematic of individuals who are highly psychopathic.

By all accounts Ms. Thomas has thus far experienced relatively few objective (or subjective) negative consequences associated with being highly psychopathic—and in many regards appears to have excelled across various life domains (e.g., academic, occupational). This suggests that one might describe her as a “socialized” or “successful” psychopath, or at least a relatively non-maladaptive variant of this personality pattern.

—JOHN F. EDENS, PhD,

Professor, Department of Psychology,

Texas A&M University

If my life were a television show it would start like this: It’s a pleasantly warm summer day in a beautiful southern clime. Sunlight glints off ripples in the pool. The sliding door opens with a gentle rumble. A young woman steps out in her flip-flops and a black Speedo swimming suit. Her dark hair hits just below muscular swimmer’s shoulders. Her skin is darkly tan from lifeguarding at the local municipal pool. She is neither pretty nor ugly, of medium build and with no prominent features. She looks like an athlete; there’s a clumsy tomboyishness about the way she moves, an emotional disconnect with her body. She does not appear to have any feelings about her body, good or bad. She is used to being near-naked, the way athletes are.

Today she is giving a private swim lesson. She flings a towel on a deck chair and kicks off her sandals. There’s a casual recklessness about the way she does these things, as if letting loose wayward objects into the world with abandon. That’s when she notices the ripples on the surface of the water. She sees that there is something moving in the pool.

It is so small that she doesn’t recognize it until she’s close—a baby opossum, probably only a week old, its tiny pink paws frantically paddling, its even tinier pink nose struggling above the surface of the water. The poor thing must have fallen into the pool in the night. It is too little to thrust its tiny body up and over the nearest ledge. The baby’s muscles quake with exhaustion. Even its tiny sparkling eyes look tired; it is on the brink of succumbing to fatigue.

The young woman moves quickly, sliding her sandals back on, and pauses for a moment at the top of the deck. She grabs a net and heads toward the opossum. The camera cuts in as the net lowers, dipping into the surface of the water, catching the baby opossum under the belly just in front of its hind legs. With a quick, almost effortless movement, the net drags the opossum under the surface until its head is fully submerged. The animal thrashes, its tired body now alert to a new threat. It struggles loudly, whimpering and squealing, until it finally manages to free its hindquarters from the lip of the net. But it’s barely able to gasp a breath before the net comes down again. The angle of the net is awkward though, and the animal is able to writhe out of its trap.

The young woman sighs, and the net is lifted. The baby opossum feels relief wash over it for a fraction of a second, only to resume its desperate paddling against the water. The young woman drops the net on the ground, grabs her towel, and heads back inside. Moments later she is on the phone with her private student—today’s lesson is canceled; there is something wrong with the pool. She grabs her keys, flings her front door open, and skips down the stairs to the muscle car that she’s been driving since her sixteenth birthday. The V-8 engine stutters for just a moment, then roars to life. She slams the transmission into reverse, just barely dodging the other
cars in the driveway, then takes off, ready to make the most of a newly free summer afternoon.

When she returns home at dusk she sees a dark shadow at the bottom of the pool. She grabs the same net, manages to scoop up the small bundle on the first try, and pitches it over the fence into her neighbor’s yard. She drops an extra chlorine tablet into the pool and heads inside. The camera lingers on the placid pool, no longer interrupted by frantic waves. Fade to black.

I am a sociopath. Through dual quirks of genetics and environment, I suffer from what psychologists now refer to as antisocial personality disorder, characterized in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
as “a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others.” Key among the characteristics of the diagnosis are a lack of remorse, a penchant for deceit, and a failure to conform to social norms. I prefer to define my sociopathy as a set of traits that inform my personality but don’t define me: I am generally free of entangling and irrational emotions, I am strategic and canny, I am intelligent and confident and charming, but I also struggle to react appropriately to other people’s confusing and emotion-driven social cues.
Psychopathy
and
sociopathy
are terms with an intertwined clinical history, and they are largely now used interchangeably, though some academics distinguish between the two based on genetics, aggression, or other factors. I have chosen to call myself a sociopath because of the negative connotations of
psycho
in the popular culture. I may have a disorder, but I am not crazy.

I can trace the likely genetic link through my father to his birth father, who was known for being an exceptionally cold
man. My grandfather’s heavily scarred face attested to his impulsiveness and penchant for risk taking and violence. He was literally a rocket scientist but fancied himself a cowboy. He spent all of his inherited wealth on a ranch that he ran into the ground, then lost to back taxes. He knocked up my grandmother and was forced into an unwanted marriage that ended quite suddenly just months after my father was born. He gave up parental rights and never saw my father again. I don’t know anything about my paternal great-grandparents, although my guess is that the apple did not fall far from the tree.

My upbringing promoted my genetic propensities, but not in the ways that you would expect from watching television or movie depictions of a sociopath. I was not a victim of child abuse, and I am not a murderer or a criminal. I have never skulked behind prison walls; I prefer mine to be covered in ivy. I am an accomplished attorney and law professor. I am a typical well-respected, young academic, regularly writing for law journals and advancing various legal theories. I donate 10 percent of my income to charity and teach Sunday school every week. I have a close circle of family and friends whom I love and who very much love me.

Does any of this sound like you? Maybe you are a sociopath too. Recent estimates say that 1 percent to 4 percent of the population, or one in every twenty-five people, is a sociopath—that’s higher than the percentage of people who have anorexia or autism. You’re not a serial killer? Never imprisoned? Most of us aren’t. Some of you may be surprised to find that it is no defense that you’re not a criminal. Only 20 percent of male and female prison inmates are sociopaths, although we are probably responsible for about half of serious crimes committed. Nor are most sociopaths incarcerated. In fact, the silent majority of sociopaths lives freely and anonymously in society,
holding down jobs, getting married, having children—fitting in with varying degrees of success in a culture that easily considers sociopaths as monsters. Who then are sociopaths? We are legion and diverse. At least one of them looks like me. Does one of them look like you?

Do you have plenty of friends, paramours, or admirers? That doesn’t disqualify you; in fact quite the opposite. Despite our bad reputation, sociopaths are categorically known for our exceptional, albeit superficial, charm. In a world filled with gloomy, mediocre nothings populating a go-nowhere rat race, people are attracted to the sociopath’s exceptionalism like moths to a flame.