Contrary to the popular belief, many Sociopaths a.k.a. Psychopaths do want and need meaningful relationships. Sociopaths are human and have the same basic human needs of being accepted socially and personally. The problem being that such relationships are exceptionally difficult to maintain. There are several reasons for this: emotional and physiological in nature.The primary reason being the discomfort that a sociopath may feel when other people are close to him or when there are people inside his "safe zone" at home or work. All the sociopaths that I know, including myself, experience various degrees of discomfort when around other people. The degree of discomfort tends to increase the closer those people are, culminating with immediate family, relatives, roommates and love partners. The discomfort may be very intense, up to the point of experiencing pain and revulsion at physical contact. Though, if there is sufficient personal space available, this discomfort may be at a tolerable level and manageable even in the long term. This discomfort may manifest in sociopath being irritable or reserved. Importantly, whatever happens in the relationship, a sociopath is extremely unlikely to display any physical violence - even much less likely than a normal person. Sociopaths do not commit "crimes of passion" because their capabilities to have strong emotions such like rage are very limited.
Secondly, the abnormalities in the orbitofrontal cortex of sociopaths affect the processing of certain stimuli. Particularly this concerns processes relating to empathy, leading to sociopaths being viewed as "cold" or "callous". Empathy itself is extremely important for the human species and is the key component upon which the bonding within social groups and between people occurs. Within relationships emotional feedback tends to be very important for the relationships to be stable. But these are the things that a sociopath may be completely incapable of. Unlike many autists, sociopaths can clearly perceive normal social interactions and understand what is required for such interactions to occur.
This in fact creates the biggest problem in the life of a sociopath. Though a sociopath may desire a normal and meaningful relationship, the sociopath lacks the natural tools for it to happen at the most basic biological level. To deal with this sociopaths exclude themselves from the society as much as possible and imitate the responses they think that expected of them in the setting that they are in. As sociopathy is something that one is born with and being perceptive by nature, it is very likely that by adulthood, a sociopath may be exceptionally good simulating the required responses. But this task is very demanding in terms of energy.
So, in order to fulfill the natural human desire to be accepted socially and personally, a sociopath is often required to use tools that are frowned upon by the society at large or even deemed immoral by many people. When it comes to relationships, the choices actually available to a sociopath are pretty bad and have major drawbacks: to be excluded from the society or to simulate the required responses. On the other hand, it seems to be difficult for normal people to understand this situation and the real motivation behind the deemed "deception" if it comes to light. So, to put this lightly, misunderstandings happen.
Some things a sociopath needs to do to transcend their biological limitations.
ReplyDeleteFinding at least one person they can be themselves with, that understands what is going on and will meet them with the same honesty and transparency needed, This is an important step AND IT CAN ALSO BE YOURSELF (you can be your own friend, but this is a difficult and very resource intensive task that many may not have time(availability of resources) for (And precludes you from access to other people as a real friend unfortunately for a time anyway), where this one comes in is not relevant to the remaining things, but is important for being able to form bonds with other living and non-living beings, as you must accept yourself as you really are(not an idea you have about your self, your ideal self, who you WANT to be, who you NEED to be, or anything else along those lines) in reality. That means understanding yourself (And you may need someone else to help you understand yourself in the self-friend scenario, so being your own friend may not even be possible for some in the span of 60 or so years of experience), and regardless understanding things is vastly easier with a true friend (most humans only have 0-3 people they can really talk to/confide anything in, over the course of their whole life span, with 1 or 2 being the majority (40%) and more than 3 people being an extreme minority (compared to 0). Generally speaking these relationships are formed before the end of puberty when everything is much more intense and dramatic, they generaly only form later in life under drastic and extreme circumstances (unintended "trial by fire" (meaning no party involved initiated the trial or plotted. It MUST occur "naturally.")), which are rare to encounter as one gains maturity and emotional intelligence (things stop being a big deal as most people get older thus precluding them from being able to form deep bonds anymore, as there is no longer available stimuli to form such a bond baring massive catastrophe, alien invasions, war, etc, which some may still not even bat an eye at as they've "seen it all" already, at which point only pure "luck" might have you encounter a true friend. This applies for aged and experienced sociopaths as well.) The major difficulty of this, is that it requires an immense drain on the individual(s) involved and is VERY uncomfortable. which does lead into:
Get used to being uncomfortable, like you are wasting resources, etc. Only once you get past petty entitlements like "I need a safe space, I need to be comfortable, etc" will you gain the emotional, physical, mental endurence nessicary to live in reality (reality is harsh, and this world is very tough on anything trying to live a static existence, the universe itself unusually quickly working to BREAK something that has achieved a mostly static state, reality, especially living things NEED to change CONSTANTLY and indeed are, all the time, through the day, even at this moment). While it is not wrong (or similar lines of thoughts) to find a safe space to retreat to once you are exhausted, you cannot grow unless you are outside of your comfort-zone (though of course eventually EVERYTHING in existence will be encompassed in your "comfort zone" once you start doing this, this can take very little time to accomplish in reality).
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Begin Part 2
ReplyDeleteHealth: Is the sociopath eating the right foods and nutrients specific to their individual biology? This can make everything "easier" (easier to function, MORE internal resources, higher tolerance to change, less time wasted being sick or fatigued, etc), even something as simple as the antifatigue properties of fresh grass fed beef liver can be astonishingly helpful when in high stress or high physical demand situations (and in general).
Let it go: The general consensus amongst individuals( yeah, i know right? weirddddd) is that: be yourself, don't follow what other people do, stop worrying about social acceptance, be authentic, people will like you more if you are (there is a reason even sadistic serial killers have tons of people fawning over them).
This area falls into that whole "get used to being uncomfortable" thing, as there of course is huge draw back and resource costs involved (but the long term pay off can be extremely fabulous, and so can the short term(self satisfaction)).
Only you actually matter (unless you love someone AS MUCH AS you love yourself, in which case then 2 people, such as true friend(whom may or may not also be a lover depending on chemical attraction (and perhaps bonding)), and i mean this in the sense of "while being accepted by others seems important, when others aren't there, how do you feel? they aren't there for you but you are, so be there for yourself first, others won't always be around and one needs to be self-sufficient in the event that no others are around to help (lost in the jungle, war breaks out and there is no one left living for 100s of miles from you, transported to an alien plane of existence or stranded on a deserted island, just as some obvious but common examples, etc)
end PART 2 (1 more part to go)
Being Final Part (3)
ReplyDeleteThese are some good starting steps for ANY individual of course, and it may be a bit biased since it is coming from an individualist (albeit one whom is an objective observer....almost all the time).
On the topic at "revulsion from physical contact" or down right "physical pain." If you are experiencing these and it bothers you, stop freting about it, you are just young and inexperienced, as you get older and more and more injuries happen to you, and detrimental circumstances befall you, one gets quite over the feelings of "pain" as anything other than "informative data that something damaging is going on, AND how to fix/resolve it." anything like "chronic pain" (where at this moment/circumstance you cannot fix or resolve the underlying issue or have to wait for the injury to heal) quickly becomes barely noticable (and certainly not particularly bothersome or resource intensive, just a slight adjustment in the way one does things to make sure the injury isn't exacerbated (such as not usually walking on a broken leg, but if you do to do so carefully so as to minimize the damage when it is needed to walk). The brain is pretty fantastic and pain is just informative, an individual experiencing these pains and revulsion, has just not had enough experience yet to not be bothered by it (see the whole, get used to being uncomfortable part again, and feel free to do further research). Many inexperienced souls attempt to AVOID pain instead of EMBRACE it for what it is (a meaningful learning experience and high source of data/information about body function and how to CONTROL it and/or gain invaluable information from pain(when you accept the pain your brain will also generate quite a lot of pain-relief on its own in the form of neurotransmitters and hormones, etc that actively make it tolerable if not down right giving you a high!).
I guess really the first step, if you can't yet find that true friend to be yourself around is "Get comfortable with being uncomfortable!" this is the gateway to growth and change and the active ability to actually change your circumstances (and to some extent, especially for sociopaths, their biology and gain masterful control over their own bodily functions(bodily including the brain). Followed by "Eat Healthy and Work out/Be physically highly active if able" figuring out which, and having the right resources to fuel your unique biology is pretty key to improving over all quality of life, as well as strength from being physically active is useful in every area (even increasing intelligence and completely mental or digital areas!).
These are again good tips for anyone, but they are really great and highly effective for Sociopaths and Psychopaths to gain self mastery (since they are naturally highly predispositioned to self mastery and have somewhat unique traits in the brain that highly expedite and enhance all such processes and goals)