It was the literary equivalent of the cup-and-shell game. I saw the con happening right before my eyes and still got duped. Brilliant writing.
(Note: I refer to it as a con, but only for convenience. I don't think it's necessarily negative to leave the reading thinking exactly what the author wants you to think. The process C undertook for doing so was simply so well constructed that it didn't dawn on me that I was being expertly manipulated until tomstokes pointed it out.)
The most striking thing, in retrospect, is the manipulative talent they have, and how relentlessly and patiently they are to go for the "long con".
In my case, I happen to be very talented at programming and computer science. The psychopath (who has no particular scientific talent) I refer to found me, and basically befriended me and over time convinced me to work some 100+ hour weeks on an entrepreneurial project building prototypes. This would ordinarily be fine if the profit was split evenly, but only in retrospect did I realize the disparity of my persuaded reality from their distortion field versus actual reality -- i.e. this person took 100% credit for my work, and was sure to leave no evidence that I did anything so there was nothing I could do.
But that's not even the persuasive part. The persuasive part was when I brought this up with my "friend", saying "hey so I noticed you're taking complete credit for this with no mention of me" or something of that sort. I don't even remember the details, but this person masterfully diverted attention in such a way that I found it not important, and thought about other things.
Ultimately over time, I noticed all the little disparities (lies, deception, hints of absolute lack of remorse) and had a pretty good suspicion that this person was a psychopath. It was only when I caught him in a completely undeniable lie that it all exploded.
The excuses given when confronted were pretty impressive at the time, but I'm not stupid, and it was pretty clear he was struggling to come up with answers when confronted. The strangest thing though was despite me having hard and undeniable evidence, to this day he would refuse to admit the lie, and in fact tried to convince me to apologize for slandering him (despite him knowing very well I have conclusive evidence).
Then I let on I knew he was a psychopath. The change in personality was dramatic, creepy, and like something out of a horror movie. You don't know this person, but normally he has a very persuasive, seductive (in a non sexual way), and extremely socially charming and polite personality. When you're around him, he makes everyone feel good about themselves (part of his strategy to get people to follow him and do what he wants is making them addicted to feeling good about themselves around him).
But after he knew I knew, things were different. The attitude DROPPED completely. He had a stone cold expression, no emotion in his voice, and the coldest eyes and voice tone you could imagine. There was only one emotion he showed when I revealed I knew, and it was terror. Deep, deep terror he was struggling to conceal. This made the situation all the more creepy, because this person is characterized by being completely fearless (as is typical of psychopaths), but I suspect if it's one thing that scares a psychopath, it's being found out -- which btw is why this article from the OP is so remarkable (though no doubt it's just an attempt at manipulation, if you know anything about psychopaths). But beyond the terror you could see, there was nothing -- just pure cold and calculating rational self-serving thought. He immediately terminated a multiple year "friendship" without even a thought, and distanced himself from me after he realized I could not be persuaded and distorted into thinking I was wrong and imagining things.
Since then we've crossed paths only a few times, and you can tell he's still afraid of being revealed. He's doing well though in business as you would expect of a psychopath, climbing the social ladder very quickly to a future of possible fortune.
I should add that it is indeed a common misconception that psychopaths are cold blooded killers. The reality is in some ways much more scary. The stupid ones perhaps kill, but they eventually get caught. The smart ones are leeches on society, who have no regard for anything but their own animalistic desires of power, control, and inflated ego.
Also, having been "friends" with a psychopath gives an interesting perspective on other well-known figures. Though I never met him, I am convinced Steve Jobs is pretty high on the psychopathy spectrum. What's interesting is that Jobs accomplished something valuable to society, though not without leaving a trail of damage in his wake. The psychopath I met also has a strong motivation to make an impact in the world, to be known almost as a hero, no doubt to satisfy desires of ego and power. So perhaps society's social structure can work for good and turn the desires of a psychopath towards good (but unfortunately it can also work in reverse). So in a way, I think psychopaths aren't all inherently leeches on society if what they accomplish is positively impactful to it.
But you see... the scariest part of having encountered a psychopath is it's sometimes very difficult to know if that last thought is my own, or something I was persuaded to think.
Anyway, reading these comments I'm reminded of a friend, -- Jake, shall we call him. Jake has severe autism, but he is an incredibly smart guy and an excellent programmer. He's of old age now. He's completely broken... and he says the reason he's broken is no-one ever saw him as a friend, only as a worker they could use. Every other business person saw him as a tool that could write good code, and not complain about a shitty (or no) salary. I got to know some of the people who'd employed him... they were... well, just normal people, they were not psychopaths. I'm betting that a lot of people who're right now commenting on this article, and calling him are evil are possibly the people who'd use Jake just like psychopaths supposedly use mentally normal people. The power differential of a normal, average human being and Jake is comparable to the power differential of a psychopath and a normal, average human. Psychopaths see the weaknesses that can be exploited in normal people; normal people see emotional weaknesses in Jake - and they realize they can make him do whatever they want to, and he'll be helpless and voiceless in the end with you having gotten what you'd wanted from him.
You can no more teach a psychopath to be caring and empathic than you can teach someone with autism to implicitly understand social context and facial expressions. However, a psychopath will be thrilled to find someone who thinks they can "convert" them, because they can use this to their advantage.
On the other hand, I say some people over-demonize psychopaths though because they assume they're all on the extreme end of the spectrum and all with the same traits. For example, some autistic people can recognize facial expressions masterfully, but fail at other things. Similarly, not all psychopaths are alike or have the same motivations or methods.
If you read my post again, you'll note that I am admitting to the possibility that psychopaths can contribute positively to society, but only in as far as society arranges a cost/benefit system where positive contributions are rewarded more than negative ones.
However since there is really no scientific evidence a psychopath can truly change, you should not find it unsettling that we hold a non-scientific, subjective, anecdotal, and self-reported essay of change on the part of a psychopath with pessimism and doubt.
He will not attack you in public unless he has public on his side. Thats what makes a psychopath so horrible.
He will fuck you over then he will convince everybody else that you fucked him over.
Psychopaths are Varelse in emotional sense.
Unless you willingly let him fuck you in the ass again, then his psychopathic strategy will no longer work on you, and you will at least not cooperate, and possibly retaliate resulting in a net loss. In fact, this is extremely likely because it's in your incentive now to disincentivize him from further fucking you because you want to send the proper signal.
Psychopaths look at the world differently than we do, they are highly rational and self motivated, but that doesn't need we need to fear them, hide from them, avoid them, or try to lock them up. There are more ways to deal a person like this.
It's hard though to differentiate true psychopaths from those who simply share a few traits. When I read about psychopaths, I tend to find common traits within myself. I can't tell if I'm a psychopath or not. Are those who desire power, control, and inflated egos always psychopaths? Or do psychopaths just happen to always have that in common? Regarding myself for example, I may dream big and make promises that take time to meet, but I'm not a liar and I don't actively manipulate people for selfish gain; and I do crave power, control, and prestige, but not for the sake of it; I just know that those three characteristics are required to make some kind of real impact on the world that truly improves lives; and I've come to realize that if I want something to be done, I can't always rely on others to do it, so being in a respectable position of power and control is almost certainly required. Does that make me a psychopath?
When a normal person gets into a dispute, they worry about saving face and moral obligations, instinctively comfort (or maybe attack) the other person, etc, in an "I-Thou" situation. But a psychopath just sees a dispute as an "I-It" situation, like seeing a puddle on the sidewalk, something to casually (or carefully) navigate around, or (in the worst case) plow through and brush off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_and_Thou http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber
No. I, and I suspect most ambitious people, also desire power, control, and have inflated egos to some extent. Psychopaths are still human (though broken) and also have these traits, but since they lack other traits like compassion, generosity, etc., the former tend to show through more.
One thing you can say about the human mind is that there's nothing binary about it.
No, that's a narcissist. Afaik psychos aren't attaching that much emotional involvement to their public persona. They might be annoyed if sussed out, but that's about it.
Edit: BellsOnSunday: I'm responding in an edit because for some reason HN doesn't allow me to reply directly to your post.
"Deep, deep terror" does not imply "strong, outwardly expressed terror." By "deep" I meant it was well concealed, deep rooted, and rarely encountered whatever it was. If you replace the word "terror" with "unsettled loss of composure", the sentiment remains the same. The latter is perhaps more accurate, the former takes less words and is what first came to my mind when initially describing it.
> There was only one emotion he showed when I revealed I knew, and it was terror. Deep, deep terror he was struggling to conceal.
with
> I must admit the "fear" I thought I detected was subtle at best
you seem to have got a bit carried away in the telling of your story (which sounds to me like a rather standard one of someone taking advantage of another in a business situation).
Everyone is afraid of something. Psychopaths are still people. If you believe someone is fearless, it's a safe assumption they either hide their fear (when they feel it) extremely well, or you simply haven't encountered it yet.
That is, are they less afraid of car crashes and drowning, or just less afraid of pissing people off (because they don't care about other's personal needs, and because they can easily "fix" a relationship with the advantages of deception)
Did you think about telling anyone or did you even tell anyone, so that maybe others don't have to go through the same thing you did?
It is insane how memories can be overwritten. I can write at length on this, I learnt it from videoing her talking to me. They have total frame control and will keep switching subjects away from facts.
I never confronted her to tell her that I knew who she was, but she did warn me indirectly. She showed the 'psychopath face', if that means anything to anyone...
> "Don't mess with me."
I heard this exact phrase, he said it right to my face. I didn't think at that moment that I'm posing any threat. Perhaps the guy overestimated me.
To me, it's far more dangerous to confront someone who is a master manipulator and expert at knowing how to do so subtly and undetectably, versus someone who throws around angry threats. The latter is almost harmless, unless it's backed up by the former.
Apart from his feelings he didn't have feelings? I appreciate you telling your story and I realize you were taken advantage of, and he treated you unquestionably bad, but painting this person as completly unhuman is not very helpful.
It seems to me that the things you describe here is an extreme end of human nature, but in way outside human nature. The best laws of physics are the one that are valid from all perspectives, so it is with the laws of human nature. Having a completly ad-hoc theory for someone elses behaviour is not emphatic or useful.
The trouble with much of this discussion is that, apparently, once classified as a "psychopath", all bad behavior is typical and all good behavior manipulative.
Furthermore, though, minds are assembled of, and driven by, complex and messy mechanisms: "lack of remorse" means what, exactly? Lack of feeling? Or, perhaps, the person feels it but chooses to ignore it? Are they ignoring it for self-serving reasons? What if those "self-serving" reasons are necessary because of the job one has (e.g., military)? Similarly, "lack of guilt" means what, exactly? Is it lack of learning what things one should feel guilty for? Is "feeling guilt" a learned skill, or does its ontogeny happen "all on its own"? (whatever that means; but in any case, we cannot have had the capacity to feel guilt "since conception")
You say you don't necessarily mean "con", but "manipulated" definitely implies you feel you were led to believe something likely false that you wouldn't have otherwise via trickery, etc.
The letter may have no long-term purpose, but it might be written that way because the author is so used to this way of thinking.
Despite his intent, I believe that I left the letter thinking exactly what it was designed to make me think. Therefore, the actual mechanics of the letter (which were outlined well by tomstokes, in my opinion) were excellent at eliciting what I assume is the intended response. This is akin to successful manipulation, but may not necessarily be from a place of malice on the part of C. However, C's changing my opinion of psychopathy does in fact place him in a more advantageous position if the two of us were ever to meet, thus I was manipulated.
Judging by the comments here, the parent's been pretty successful. One comment below notes that "What's brilliant about this letter is how easily I stepped into it." Others are calling the parent's analysis "fantastic". It's incredible to see just how effectively this parent comment resonates with the people who read it.
Don't get me wrong: It's both impressive and admirable that the parent was able to not only paint the original author's analysis as manipulative, he was able to build such a persuasive and fluid dissection of it. What's truly amazing is how the parent transforms the original author's letter from an anonymous insightful expression to a vile manipulation of the reader that the reader can't help but feel fooled by the end of the parent's comment.
As you read the comment and experience strong feelings of guilt about having been manipulated by a psychopath, consider this: You can paint pretty much anything effective as a psychopath's manipulation. For an author to be effective, she must portray her beliefs as effectively as she can. Discrediting the words of any person - psychopath or otherwise - on grounds of them being capable of effective manipulation serves little purpose and just perpetuates a stereotype.
As I stated below, the article more or less claims the author has magical supper powers. He overcomes the great internal struggle (with some help from the great expert) and ultimately chooses to use his powers for the good of the world.
The comment isn't transformative when the article is taken at face value- self aggrandizing.
If your position is that all convincing self-accounts by psychopaths are themselves only convincing because the psychopath is somehow 'tricking' you, then you can take that statement and s/psychopath/any group you care to name/ and you'd never know the difference.
Don't believe me? Try substituting various bogeymen of the twentieth century: crack dealers, pedophiles, etc. You see what I mean? It always works: You shouldn't trust what pedophiles say because, well, they're pedophiles!
Generalizing, there's always a reason why someone's supposed perfidy makes them an untrustworthy speaker, and that's a problem.
One floor down, what's going on is 'begging the question' -- not in the colloquial motivates-the-question sense, but in the sense that you are assuming what you set out to prove (circular reasoning).
Watch:
CLAIM = C is a psychopath; therefore, don't trust him when he says C is good.
CLAIM' = X is a Y; therefore, don't believe X's claim that Z.
But there's still an implicit claim hiding! In fact, it's the value of Z. Let's suss it out:
CLAIM'' = X is a Y; Ys are untrustworthy; therefore, don't believe X when X says that Ys are trustworthy.
There you have it: a textbook case of circular reasoning. That's the sort of thing C is talking about: people get so emotional when they think about psychopaths, they fail to hold themselves up to the same standards for rational discourse at which a psychopath ironically excels.
Your logic chop fails because one of the elements of psychopathy is being a convincing liar.
"Does my bum look big in this"? "Hi, wow you look great...."
And so on.
Humans lie. If they didn't, they'd be in constant conflict.
Reading the top parent of this thread was very interesting because he was thinking in exactly the way I had been conditioned to think at that time in my life.
When a person in your life lies to you or manipulates you, you will certainly begin to question the value of other interactions from that person. Once you have confirmed that the person has a personality type that makes them particularly likely to lie or manipulate (compulsive liars, psychopaths, criminals, what have you), you must be careful about your interpretation of any communication. But here's the real difficulty: If a psychopath is trying to manipulate you and knows that you are conscious of it, the manipulations morph. They adapt to your particular defense. In the institutional setting, they're in it for the long haul so they don't mind missing a couple times. In fact, getting caught is often part of the manipulation.
I wandered off my initial topic here so I better wrap it up.
Certainly lots of paedophiles are terrible liars.
Thus you can't debunk him just by saying "Don't believe him because he is a psychopath is insufficient".
If you want to pin all of his logic on that baseline theory (which would be stretching it), then your replacement no longer works, as crack dealers aren't known for being persuasive and manipulative in words in that way. Similar for most other distrusted groups.
But we are both just conjecturing :).
He made no such generalization. He simply talked about this one self account.
See, I positioned myself for not getting it quite right -- I can say, "this means I'm probably less psychopathic than you."
Monster! :D
Once you see that, the material of the letter takes on a different aspect. Even if it weren't from a psychopath, it would be enlightening.
(I have other issues with your use of naive logic based on non-probabilistic propositions, but you may be doing that to dumb it down for the audience.)
---------------
In fact, why this young man's treatment likely exacerbated his psychopathic acumen, is because it gave him an entirely new language to dissimulate with. Why the psychopath is untreatable, is because it is a "lying" disorder. The essence of psychopathy is profound dishonesty. It is an inversion of meaning, an inversion of the order, where good becomes bad and bad becomes good. Where kindness is reformulated through the process of the ultimate lie, which is a perversion in the thinking processes. Evil triumphs. It is strong and good. The psychopath has only the machinery of perverse reasoning to use to cogitate reality. Thus he lies not only to others but necessarily lies to himself about himself.
Because of this endogenous dishonesty, he is intrinsically incapable of telling the truth. Thus he cannot accurately self-assess. He can never formulate a truthful thought due to this profound mental perversion that is the hallmark of this disorder. He has only acquired more slick, refined and better labguage to dissimulate others as a "treatment success." Thats why so many of you were duped into feeling empathy for him. He is simply pulling for it in you, but he has no empathy for you. It is all just a game for him. There is nothing genuine about his letter. Feeling empathy for a psychopath is a fools game. That is like having the profound mental perversion that is the hallmark of this pernicious disorder. He only coopts new slicker, more refined language as a "successfully therapized".
I disagree: People who believe their own lies eventually get caught off guard by the discrepancies between their lies and life. That leads to their downfall.
Unless you believe that your motivational orientation is made of some magical pixie dust handed down by the Holy Ghost, you should keep in mind that your instincts, your sense of morality and right and wrong and all those gut feelings are engendered by a truly massive utility computation; your feelings of selflessness as you drop the coins in the bell ringer's jar, your protectiveness toward your children, your lesser protectiveness toward your more distant kinship relations, all of it is equivalently cold-blooded. It's just dispersed enough that you don't see it for what it is.
So when you stop talking to your friend because he's annoying, or you don't give money to that homeless guy because you've already gave enough money, and maybe he's a drunk; and you buy a nice present for your nephew but not your coworker's kid, and you think it's best that your grandmother died because she was suffering so terribly, you're a psycopath, too. There's just a lot of epiphenomenal stuff larded on top of it.
Instead, reading it gave me the impression of somebody obsessed with themselves - somebody with a superiority complex. Nothing more, nothing less, and I've met plenty of people who have that in different amounts. But maybe that is what psychopathy is?
I hope not because I had a similar reaction to the letter.
Made me wonder if this person is indeed changed, or if there's a just new manipulation game underway.
You might be right, but you seem to accuse the writer of a hidden agenda because he tries to gain the sympathy of the reader. If he didn't try at all, would you see callousness and cold detachment (and therefore a psychopathic trait) in this? What would constitute for you a honest, non-manipulative account of the same facts described in the post? How should it have been written to be consistent with the 'psycho no more' scenario?
If it's true, that is. Pathological lying is a part of Hare Psychopathy Checklist. The entire article may well be totally made up.
Also, maybe I am wrong, but I don't think there are people who "just are" psychopaths? I mean, if it's chemical/hormonal, it could theoretically fixed that way... and if it's not, then it might not be "fixable", but it's not magic either, and layers and layers and layers of defense, redirections and rationalizations are expected. Nobody wants to accept that the center of their pearl is some banal, useless, accidental piece of dirt someone else or the wind put there. But that's usually what it is, I think. And pearls can kill, they're not pretty at all. They're like a scab turned cancer.
I agree that considering psychopaths as some spooky "other" is silly, it's all a matter of degree, and I guess we only call it psychopathic once it crosses a threshold. That is, I doubt anyone here can claim they never used someone, or calculated more coldly than they let on, or looked down on sentimentality when they didn't feel sentimental about a particular thing. Or maybe I'm projecting, I don't know. I know putting others down because I felt crappy, and for me that letter sounds like a much more elaborate and Machiavellian version, but still kinda the same.
TL;DR: The thing about the powerful is that they're not, that's why they need power, and of course the alligator part of the brain gets real good if that's all you use. Use your mammal brain to see what a small achievement that really is.
Also a fantastic example of why real world psychopaths are so dangerous. Most don't kill or commit any serious crimes. They just win people over and draw them in, smoothly and very easily. Until it is to the psychopath's advantage (or impulse, really) to use, hurt, and leave others behind them.
Here's something even more fascinating, and surely much more controversial - now re-read that letter, and try and count how many times you hear in it echoes from Ayn Rand's characters, or from the writer herself.
I was actually waiting for a reveal of something like, "And I discovered the reason I connected with the top therapist so well was because she was a closet psychopath!"
(IANA psychiatrist, needless to say)
In fact, I suspect that most people who flaunt their psychopathy on the internet are in fact narcissists. The two psychos I've met in my life couldn't have cared less for attention from the public at large or validation of their struggles. I can't really imagine them writing an open letter about their condition, an act that doesn't provide tangible control, or money, nor damages an enemy. On the other hand, narcissists needs validation and attention and writing an open letter is attention-seeking behaviour (which we are involuntarily feeding).
Nah. I'm kidding. I'm just generally distrustful of words and people that utter them.
Judging by the comments here, the letter has done just that. One comment below notes that "Jeez, that's the single most interesting, insightful, and well-written piece I've read on the internet in a long time." Others are expressing a desire to meet the author or expressing how they can identify with the author. It's incredible to see just how effectively this letter resonates with the people who read it.
Don't get me wrong: It's both impressive and admirable that the author was able to not only admit that he needed therapy but to press on long enough to make therapy work for himself in an effective manner. I don't want to downplay his accomplishments. However, it is still interesting to dissect and observe all of the persuasiveness of the letter and the fluidity with which the author transforms psychopathy from a very difficult personality disorder into somewhat of a super power that the reader can't help but envy by the end of the letter.
As you read the letter and experience strong feelings of empathy for the author, consider his own poignant words at the end: "In the end, psychopaths need to be given that very thing everyone believes they lack for others, empathy."
The letter begins with the psychopath distancing himself from the traditional destructive psychopathic traits in the most admirable and self-aggrandizing way possible: He went against all odds and admitted himself into treatment, where he claims the health agency had never seen someone of his nature walk-in before and he was too incredible of a case for anyone but the highest-ranking therapist to handle.
He continues by setting up various straw-man caricatures of psychopathy ("cartoon evil serial killers" and the CEO who prizes profits over people) and knocking them down one-by-one, leaving the reader feeling guilty of possibly embracing those stereotypes at one point. With the reader feeling a bit guilty, empathetic, and as if the author's condition is simply misunderstood, the author has set the stage to rebuild the reader's view of psychopathy in a way that benefits the author.
Toward the end, he even goes so far as to put words in the reader's mouth just so he can turn around and undermine the very caricature of a psychopath he suggested you might hold : "Such as statement might tempt you to say 'well obviously you're not a real psychopath then'. As if the definition of a psychopath is someone who exploits others for their personal power, satisfaction or gain."
The rest of the article explains the author's psychopathy the way the author wants you to view it: As "a highly trained perception, ability to adapt, and a lack of judgment borne of pragmatic and flexible moral reasoning." He goes on to say that he "enjoy[s] a reputation of being someone of intense understanding and observation with a keen strategic instinct." At this point, the author has completely distanced his psychopathy from the purely negative caricature he painted in the first half of his letter. Who wouldn't be envious of such incredible, valuable, and morally-neutral abilities as he described them?
I've read the letter several times over, and I'm still amazed at how effective it is at garnering empathy from the reader and cultivating a sense that the author is an impressive individual who has triumphed over adversity after a great struggle. And it's true that overcoming your own objections to seek, and stick with, treatment for such a severe personality disorder is both impressive and admirable. His points about the general public's misunderstanding of true psychopathy are equally true, although he crucially omits any and all explanations of how psychopathy can actually be dangerous and destructive to others. It's an incredible piece of writing, and incredibly persuasive and manipulative in a way that I'm sure PR and marketing teams everywhere would be jealous of.