One of Us Has Sociopathic Tendencies

Let me preface the entry with this, that while some of our others think me a sociopath, I’d say that it’s more of a borderline condition if anything (I wrote this before I took the test talked about at the end of the entry, is borderline the same as having tendencies?). I know right from wrong in most cases, and I would never injure anyone – if only because it goes against the whole purpose of all of our existence. We are a protective unit/system.

I read an e-mail that was sent to us about how we “just chew up people and spit them out”, and felt defensive. They (the Us) cannot all be blamed for this behaviour, I do a good job of cauterizing their emotions after a certain point, it is the purpose for which I exist, to protect them, especially the younger ones, and usually it’s only in desperate situations, or when they request help. Not that this was a specific case where they required me, the elimination of these people from our life; as we’ve stated before…we didn’t like those people in the first place, little help was needed to deal with the erasure of them.

So, what do you do when the people who share your brain think you are a sociopath, as someone has written in my bio on our mapping project on our other blog? You try to figure how to prove them wrong. Just out of curiosity, today I looked up some info and took a sociopathic test for fun, and fell down a rabbit hole of endless information from endless sources that all seemed vague and not at all consistent with crossovers and more filler than actual information, but at least we came out the other end having learned a little something.

First of all, we’ve talked with James about this recently, today we had a discussion about not missing people, and yesterday we had a discussion about taking responsibility for each other’s actions, because at the time you become aware that you have Others (that you are a “sufferer” of Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Indentify Disorder) it is our belief that you have a certain responsibility to each other.

For example, if we, if one of us, were to injure someone it would reflect on all of us, if we were to go to jail for something if would ruin all of our lives, and who is to say the one of us ultimately responsible for the offense wouldn't just fuck off to the recesses of our mind and leave the rest of us to suffer. To prevent this kind of thing, denying responsibility, we have to be responsible for each other, and this means doing the opposite of what people probably think sufferers of this disorder do, which is deflecting responsibility.

Though inwardly we will play the blame game, and get angry at each other…and in writing we can express it, when faced with the consequences of our actions in the outside world, just like anyone else, we can only blame us, our system, our unit. Only once did we blame one so heavily for the failures of our life so harshly as to destroy her, and we understand now as a unit it was a bad decision on some levels (but we are still not sorry for it). Not taking responsibility for our actions would be sociopathic behaviour.

So what makes a sociopath anyway?

Back to the sociopathic disorder, which by the way is classified as a personality disorder [http://www.dsm5.org/proposedrevision/Pages/PersonalityDisorders.aspx], not to be confused with MPD/DID which is a Dissociative Disorder [http://www.dsm5.org/proposedrevision/Pages/DissociativeDisorders.aspx]

I spent the good part of the last couple of hours looking online for information on sociopathic tendencies and diagnosis, and have to say, I am more confused than when I started reading. There are so many disorders – mental one, personality ones, depressive ones, anxiety ones, sexual ones, you name it and there is a disorder for it. The label system of the world of psychology is intense, and often times vague, and can cross over from one things to another in at least one easy step. We can’t even begin to talk at length, but we can point you in a direction to finding legitimate information about what a sociopath is, and open you up to thinking abut the classifications of personality disorders.

This year, according to a press release (Jul 7, 2011 No. 11-36) by the American Psychiatric Association, the APA is updating its Diagnosis and Statistical Manual (DSM) which “is the standard classification used by mental health and other health professionals for diagnostic and research purposes1”, for Personality Disorders. They are taking 10 personality disorders and reducing them to 6 (antisocial, avoidant, borderline, narcissistic, obsessive/compulsive and schizotypal) and within those six there will be degrees of diagnostic ability. Can you play well with others (function in society), or not at all, do you lay somewhere in between…what degree of personality disorder can you be diagnosed with? In the end it just means, you can easily have a disorder to a varying degree and so they can easily prescribe you some medication so you can cope with the personality disorder symptoms.2

Meanwhile, being diagnosed even borderline mentally ill/having a personality disorder is enough to induce symptoms that they can easily prescribe medications for. You would totally be anxious about being diagnosed with some obscure personality disorder if you walked into a psychiatrists office in mid-adult life only because you’ve been sad for a couple of weeks and can’t shake some mild depression and they analyze you and slap a strange label on you to deal with the rest of your life.

In the past you either had a personality disorder or you didn’t, but now they are working on smudging out the black and white diagnoses, and applying degrees of “illness”…this is either going to be a good thing, or a bad thing.

So, now everyone can have a personality disorder, all that matters is the percentage/degree of which they are affected.

Someone is going to need to sew extra pockets in the pants of the pharmaceutical companies.

Boil it down and all it means in one sentence is: more medication to more people.

Back to trying to disprove the theory some of us have about whether or not I am indeed a sociopath.

“The following questionnaire is based on research and experiences of socialised psychopaths. For each trait, decide if it applies to the person you suspect may be a socialised psychopath, fully (2 points), partially (1 point) or not at all (0 points).

1. Do they have problems sustaining stable relationships, personally and in business?
2. Do they frequently manipulate others to achieve selfish goals, with no consideration of the effects on those manipulated?
3. Are they cavalier about the truth, and capable of telling lies to your face?
4. Do they have an air of self-importance, regardless of their true standing in society?
5. Have they no apparent sense of remorse, shame or guilt?
6. Is their charm superficial, and capable of being switched on to suit immediate ends?
7. Are they easily bored and demand constant stimulation?
8. Are their displays of human emotion unconvincing?
9. Do they enjoy taking risks, and acting on reckless impulse?
10. Are they quick to blame others for their mistakes?
11. As teenagers, did they resent authority, play truant and/or steal?
12. Do they have no qualms about sponging off others?
13. Are they quick to lose their temper?
14. Are they sexually promiscuous?
15. Do they have a belligerent, bullying manner?
16. Are they unrealistic about their long-term aims?
17. Do they lack any ability to empathize with others?
18. Would you regard them as essentially irresponsible?

A score of 25 or above suggests strong psychopathic tendencies. This does not mean the person is a potential mass-murderer: socialised psychopaths are not mad, nor do they have to resort to violence. Even so, a close professional or emotional relationship with a socialised psychopath is likely to prove a damaging experience. [source: http://www.cix.co.uk/~klockstone/teleg.htm] {I scored a 19 after silencing some of the others from their better influence}

….Or try out this test from http://sociopathic.net/…we did, and so did James. Just for fun. http://www.sociopathic.net/cgi-bin/sfesurvey.cgi?areyousociopathictakethesociopathstest

This first one is James' test, it says "You are a wanna-be sociopath, you try to act sociopathic but it does not become you"
...the one below is ours, it says "You have some sociopathic traits, but you are not sociopathic"

Yes, we are aware it is a silly online test...but they are based on criteria that can be used for general purposes.

Just for fun we and James sat down with the test right before we finished this entry to see if we could simulate a high score by inserting what we thought were traits for a sociopath, the first attempt didn't work and produced a score lower than what James scored, so we had to go line by line and produce results for each answer changed to see if it would lower or raise the score. In doing that we learned A LOT about sociopathic behavior, and eventually were able to produce a high score of about 80, turns out sociopaths are not as anti-social as one would think, according to the test anyway.

In any case, we learned something about personality disorders today, and any day we learn something new is a good day for us.

~ Melody and some of the “et al”

¹http://www.dsm5.org/Newsroom/Documents/DSM-5-Revisions-for-Personality-Disorders-Reflect-Major-Change-.pdf

²While there are “no medications specifically approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat personality disorders. However, several types of psychiatric medications may help with various personality disorder symptoms.” 2

Antidepressant medications. Antidepressants may be useful if you have a depressed mood, anger, impulsivity, irritability or hopelessness, which may be associated with personality disorders.
Mood-stabilizing medications. As their name suggests, mood stabilizers can help even out mood swings or reduce irritability, impulsivity and aggression.
Anti-anxiety medications. These may help if you have anxiety, agitation or insomnia. But in some cases, they can increase impulsive behaviour.
Antipsychotic medications. Also called neuroleptics, these may be helpful if your symptoms include losing touch with reality (psychosis) or in some cases if you have anxiety or anger problems. [http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/personality-disorders/DS00562/DSECTION=treatments-and-drugs

American Psychiatric Association DSM-5 Development http://www.dsm5.org

Another source, it’s easier to understand on some levels…proceed with caution and cross reference if you use any of the information ‘Narcissism Support Resources’ http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/narcissism/antisocial_sociopath_psychopath.html