hi i did drugs for 5 years str8 they were physicaly addictive. i quit them cold turkey the withdrawl was so intense it changed me. overnight i became very antisocial. i view people as my pawns. i hate them all. i love myself thou. i am very happy and positive and upbeat. i kill insects for fun and torture them i dont kill animals thou cause they r cute. i love doing stuff for the rush of it like returning something the manager dosent want to take back and argue with them. or flickin off random people and standing there to see their reaction. i like to fight people. i also used to vandalise stuff for fun but not anymore cause i dont want to go to jail. insead now i mostly do legal stuff for fun. like purposily decieving people and stiring the pot ect. im very charming. i watched [name of movie redacted at request of sender] and it was almost like watching myself exept i dont do home invasions n stuff cause it could land me in jail. i value my freedom. . i am also extremy sadistic. i dont love any1 not even my family. the only person i love is my dog. if im mad at her i sometimes lightly kick her just to see the terror on her face. but afterwards i usually pet her to show her i still llove her. i litter both for fun and to hurt and offend people. i have used a proxie to write this email so it cant be traced. i love the way i am. i would prefer if u didnt publish this on yer site. dont list my email or name if u do publish it although i hope u dont. but i would like a response from u thou
[name withheld]
Hello, [name withheld]--
I have no interest in invading anyone’s privacy whatsoever. I don’t keep track of anyone who writes to me. That said, I am willing to comment personally to you on your question, “am I a sociopath?” but in exchange I must be able to put your message along with my reply on the site for all to see. This is because the outreach of my website is twofold: 1) my reply is directed to the individual who poses the question to which I am replying, but also, 2) "ask dr. robert" is an educational resource which must be open to a wider public: the visitors (such as yourself) who find their way here.
Be well.
p.s. give your age. it would help me to formulate my reply
fine u can put it on yer site but dont list my name or email. also please remove the movie i listed because it will probabily inspire people. im 19. will u email me the response or just put it up on yer site or what?
Hello, [name withheld]--
Your
question—the subject line of your email—was "am i a
sociopath?" My regular visitors will know that this kind of
question comes up often here. A set of facts is put to me, and I am
asked to offer a diagnosis, which really means I am asked to put
someone in a certain category, or else to rule that out. Although I
explain that I cannot be confident in making a firm diagnosis without
a personal interview, or perhaps several interviews, people keep
asking, just as you
are asking now.
Along with the many questions about sociopathy and
psychopathy (usually taking the form of, "Am I one?"), I get
the same kind of question from people who are afraid that some childhood
sexual experience or another qualifies them as "perverted." Most of those
people are wracked with guilt and shame which they hope I can relieve by telling them, as I usually do, that they are not abnormal, that most children experience sex in one way or another as a part of normal childhood development, and that they should just get on with their lives.
But you claim to
feel
no guilt,
saying you view people as pawns, and that you enjoy terrorizing a defenseless dog which you say you "love,"
although one wonders what that word could possibly mean to you. Now you didn't
just happen
upon my site. You must have been researching all this, and so you know very well that the attitudes you describe in yourself strongly
indicate sociopathy. Obviously you could have made your own diagnosis if a diagnosis was really what you wanted,
but still you wrote to me to ask what I
think about your personality. I wonder why. If you really are so
"happy, positive, and upbeat," why does my
opinion mean anything to you, and why should you care to
receive any kind of diagnosis or opinion from anyone? After all, doesn't a person
asking for a diagnosis usually seek it because he feels ill,
disturbed, or otherwise uncomfortable in his own skin, and hopes the
diagnosis will help him somehow to accept and deal with his
situation. So if you really are so happy kicking your dog and
flipping people off at random, if you really find enchantment in littering, if all that really is so satisfying, why are you writing to me about it?
Of course, I can't know why, particularly without even having met you, and you either don't know yourself, or probably would not tell me if you did, but I will take a shot at it anyway, a kind of informed speculation based upon countless conversations with sociopaths I met while involved in a photographic project at the Penitentiary of New Mexico in Santa Fe.
Although
you claim that you are very happy, I imagine that often your life
seems to have no real meaning at all. You
would like to find something that matters, but so far you have not.
Although you may get some kind of sadistic thrill out of torturing
insects, that thrill lasts only a moment, and will not fully counteract the sense of
emptiness and the depressed mood you struggle to keep at bay. You used to fill that emptiness
with drugs; now you try to do it by causing discomfort to others, but
neither one—neither the drugs, nor the antisocial acting out—works
very well for you. Telling yourself, at nineteen, how "happy" you are isn't working either. The words ring hollow in your own ears. When you see others around you who seem to be engaged and enthusiastic, people who seem to be able to create meaning in their lives, you try disparage them as foolish, sentimental, or weak, but still doubt lingers: perhaps you are the one who doesn't see the big picture, not them.
By the way, your letter serves as a good example of something I have tried to point out in my replies to other questions about sociopathy: looking at behavior alone is no way to understand the sociopathic or psychopathic personality. Take your case. Most of your behavior is legal, and not terribly destructive—mostly just cruel and annoying. You want it that way, because, as you said, you value your freedom and do not want to end up incarcerated. Nevertheless, you claim to see others only as pawns, without empathy at all. You cannot fathom, you say, that others feel sadness, anger, joy, fear, emptiness, despair, pain and pleasure, and that they have their own needs and desires, as important to them as yours are to you.
I simply wonder if being that way really makes you feel as happy and free as you claim it does, or whether you sometimes feel, like other psychopaths I have known, that something important is missing in your life, and wish you could find out what it is.
Be well.
i read yer reply and i have to say u analise stuff way to much. i really am happy just cause u dont kno why dosent mean u have to shoot it down. there is no emptiness in me. i am not searching for a purpose. i am filled with happiness. u have to understand that i was not this way during or before my drug use. if u offered me a billion dollers or to be the way i am i would be the way i am. i really am that happy. is it usual for thi after intense pysical withdrawl? i have heard people who have had eletrical shock "treatment" lol say after if the go outside and look at the sky its like looking at for the first time it was like that for me. it was literaly like i died and became some1 else. i dont use drugs anymore not even drink. because i dont torture animals does that mean i am or am not a sociopath.
i saw this
"depressed mood you struggle to keep at bay. You used to fill that emptiness with drugs; now you try to do it by causing discomfort to others"
once i became this way i dont have this anymore. its not an emotion i feel anymore to be honest. u sound a litle jealous is that why yer tryin to shoot it down. i have noticed this irl if i talk about it with some1
