Enoch writes:
Robert, you seem to be very knowledgeable on sociopathy/psychopathy.
While most people would turn crazy if they are isolated from people during a long period of time, do you think a psychopath would not (since he see peoples as objects)?
What famous people (excluding serial killers) do you think are true psychopaths?
Do you met people you think were psychopaths in real life ?
Would you consider yourself above or below average in psychopathy?
One by one.
While most people would turn crazy if they are isolated from people during a long period of time, do you think a psychopath would not (since he see peoples as objects)?
Hard to say, but I suppose they would be ok with it.
What famous people (excluding serial killers) do you think are true psychopaths?
See separate post. Clinicians now agree that Hitler was definitely a diagnosed sociopath. George Bush? I almost think most major politicians are, or at least they act like sociopaths. You have to behave like a sociopath in order to hold high office in many countries. If you don’t act that way, you can’t do the job. Lately I think Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are acting very sociopathic. Kerry especially worries me with his Vietnam record. Kerry definitely acts like a psychopath, but everyone who is a Secretary of State for the US has to act like one. It goes with the territory.
Do you met people you think were psychopaths in real life?
I am not sure. I met a fellow recently who was the most sociopathic person I have ever known, let’s put it that way. He was so sociopathic that I was actually stunned because I had never seen one that bad before. Sociopathy is a continuum ranging from 0-40 on a Psychopathy Scale, and this fellow was pretty sociopathic. Whether he was an actual sociopath (whatever that means) I do not know, but he may well have been. He’s a gang member. I used to let him into my house. I turned my back on him, and he stole an Indian knife from Guatemala from my home. It was worth $175. He is Cuban, part Black, sort of a mulatto.
I met a local Black man who was a pimp a few years back. One of the smarmiest people I have ever met. I definitely got a sociopathic vibe off of him.
My brother’s best friend had a girlfriend who seemed like a sociopathic female, but I do not understand sociopathic women at all. They definitely don’t make sense.
There was another longtime friend who was pretty high in sociopathy. He is out of my life finally, and I am so grateful.
I know a lot of people who act bad and are basically ratfucks, scumbags and lowlifes, but whether they are actually sociopathic or not, I have no idea. The idea that every ratfuck bastard out there is a sociopath strikes me as wrong. There is so much more to it than that.
I do not understand these people, and I do not know how to identify them either. It’s so hard to tell who they are. I wish I could know who they were so I could identify them and study them. The disorder frankly makes no sense to me. I have been studying them for years now and they still don’t make sense. I simply cannot understand how anyone could think that way. I honestly don’t get it. I think the only way you can understand them is maybe to be one.
Would you consider yourself above or below average in psychopathy?
I would think I am below average, or I would hope I was anyway. I have often worried that I was one, but of course no true sociopath would ever worry about such a thing. I surely had not developed signs of it by age ~18, and if you don’t have it by then, you will probably never get it. Psychopathy is one of those early-onset conditions that nearly always appears first in childhood. If you make it to age 18 and do not have it, you will probably never develop it.