Patric Gagne – a person with sociopathy that leads a normal life and wrote a book about it: Sociopath: A Memoir

Note: sociopathy is not a clinical term.

Some things that were very interesting to me:

• some overlap in symptoms
  • flat affect
  • no affective empathy
• she can perceive the social signal
  • and can tell she is different
  • and cares about fitting in
• much like James Fallon - Psychopath she talked about not harming people but doing bad things
• she is trained as a psychologist

Note: I didn’t read the book. but did watch a couple video interviews where she talks in-depth.

• her website and FAQs
• distillation of sociopathy from what she said and what I learned/generated from LLM
  • low/flat affect
    • no emotional contagion – we do not feel what others feel
    • detached from social situations
    • we share this but the mechanism is different
  • perceives social cues, status hierarchies, and emotional vulnerabilities with high precision (working TOM)
  • lack Affective Empathy (feeling what others feel) but possess high Cognitive Empathy (knowing what others feel)
    • I lack both of these – no signal
  • coping mechanisms
    • uses masking to avoid friction
    • acting out as a way of release
  • aware that they are different and this can be a source of anxiety
  • mechanism
    • value system is ego-centric
    • sociopaths receive the signal but do not mirror the emotions (they do not take them on as their own) (lack of affective empathy)
    • they will “care” if the information affects their goals – they may use masking to fit in
    • can be observed as cold or cruel
• her thoughts on sociopathy (from youtube videos)
  • ask people: how does feeling feel for you?
  • emotional learning disability, can be treated
    • developmental lag
    • redirect anxiety with logical choices
    • natural coping mechanisms can be destructive and antisocial
  • equate expression of emotion with feeling of emotion
    • this is a key for NT people – feeling and expressing are tightly coupled
    • this is the missing piece that she identified in herself
    • it didn’t make sense to me because these are decoupled in me (aside from physiological effects)
  • judgmental
    • most people find her easy to talk to because she is not judgmental
    • meaning (I think) that she doesn’t appear to be affected when somebody tells her something “shocking” (low affect)
    • I think I get some of this (I also show low affect) but people usually perceive me as judgmental – i will say what I think while she is aware of the cost of doing so
  • felt she couldn’t be honest
    • masking and mimicking
    • exhausting
    • very lonely
    • she has social salience and cares about the social aspects (wants to fit in). i lack the care so I don’t identify with this
  • shame and guilt can be helpful
    • she doesn’t feel them but sees utility in providing stability for people who do
    • maybe she wants to feel them in the sense it would make things easier for her
    • instead of manual thought on what is right/wrong, it would be automatic
    • I have a different mechanism for prevention of cruelty, etc. and I don’t have the signal to implement these – they don’t make logical sense to me (but intellectually I can understand them)
  • sociopaths act like psychopaths
    • aha, this is the tie to me and autism
    • but sociopaths do not have the biological mechanism
    • these are considered irredeemable so people avoid diagnosing and studying – this is interesting!
  • story about sister
    • you want to get good grades, you don’t want your teacher to be sad (shame)
    • author thinks who cares what teacher thinks?
    • and knows this feeling is “wrong”
    • learned to lie and manipulate
    • me: i don’t care and would say so
    • author: met with judgment and she didn’t like that, so reinforced lying behavior
    • me: sounds like “white lies” justification
  • no dopamine hit for good deed
    • e.g. paying for somebodies groceries
    • perception of altruism as “irrational” or “boring”
    • me: I don’t think I feel this either. I would do a good deed because I think it is right, not for a reward.
    • NT people feel more reward toward people they “know”
  • opposed to diagnose via behavior
    • but behavior is what is treated
    • also very interesting
  • description of spouse and how they felt sounds familiar
    • the difference being she could tell the effect and maybe why

There seems to be a lot of distrust and antipathy towards the author, such as this thread from reddit and this random post. Some of the points are interesting but I think largely addressed by the FAQ on her site and just listening to why she is talking about sociopathy – she wants to put a human face on it and let people know they might seek treatment. She even addresses the use of the terms psychopathy and sociopathy (they are not current terms but she needs a name that isn’t as broad as ASPD).