Do you ever feel like a sociopath?

Post Reply New Topic

I meant the conscious & deliberate choice to hate people, not a feeling you deal with. Sure, I could plan to get revenge in other than violent ways but I don't really have the skills or motivation for it. Everyone may feel it to some extent but others clearly do so more than I do, which is neither their fault nor my credit. That much is the way you're born, your personality & upbringing - what you do about it is your choice, etc. Complex subject & I'm trying to keep my replies short!

Some of them don't ever admit to hating people. They are so friendly and likeable. People find out later how destructive they are when they get screwed over or someone they thought was a friend stabs them in the back. I am not talking about someone who sits in their house disgruntled and hating everyone. What I am talking about has a nice smile, sweet tone of voice, does the con job well only because they have an underhanded agenda...trying to convince others of something. They use people as a means to their own ends.
I knew a family of sociopaths who did this. Sometimes they were actively anti social and I saw their true colors when no one else was around. Other times, they were so sweet and nice no one believed the kinds of things that were said and went on when they weren't around. This is what the sociopath excels at. Fooling people. They do it better than anyone. If someone rats them out, people have a hard time believing the person who ratted anyway because the sociopath is so nice. The ratter must have some hidden motive and is making stuff up. It's like a bad script to a Lifetime Movie. The only one who's believed is the sociopath.

You pretty much described the psychopaths motto on the dot, "Look out for number one". However that's the reason why I think psychopathy is more widespread than the experts claim, alot of people seem to follow that motto and it doesn't seem to be 5-10% of the population but quite alot more. That's why I call the claim that "most people are good" BS, I'm not stupid if I see quite a few people acting like social-psychopaths their whole life then humanity isn't as good as people like to claim.



Yes but hating people doesn't equate psychopathy, a person can be misanthropic because alot of people act like freaking psychopaths and no one gives a rats ass, they just claim "that's life", "you're too serious", "life's a game", "you/they had it coming", or "I'm sure they didn't mean to hurt you/him/her/them", I mean it's BS, no one wants to take responsibility, the stream of BS just keeps coming.



You once again pretty much described psychopaths to a T, this is one of the reasons I hate it when people claim they know creepers/psychos, because they don't. They expect them to come up to them looking like a vagabond and say "I'm going to rob/kill/rape/manipulate you for laughs/use you now", they don't do that. Freaking Ted Bundy the serial killer didn't do that (he was a psychopath as well, people described him as they do all psychopaths "charming, nice, funny, talkative, blah blah blah"), what makes people think that they're going to do that? Psychopaths are smiling, charming, lying, manipulative a-holes, not deranged psychotics.

I was thinking the same thing... I had a friend at one point (not a very good one, mind you) who was a sociopath. I didn't put 2 and 2 together for a very long time. No matter what I was going through, he was always able to relate. He would use his knowledge to manipulate others to the extreme, then disappear once he started an uproar essentially, or he would just stand back and watch it.

At one point in time, he lived with us... that is when I finally figured it out. He was the most manipulative person EVER... no one else in the house picked up on it, just me. But maybe that was because I started thinking that someone who can relate to me so much HAS TO BE playing some sort of game with it all.

During that time, his interest became... well, me. He was always starting up trouble between my fiance (at the time) and I, and then would come and "comfort" me once he got the big mess going.

Everyone thought that he was very charismatic, charming, and he could fit in with any social situation that you threw him into, basically. He was an actor, but while pretending to care about everyone, and weaseling his way into everyone's life by being so charming, all that ever followed him was chaos no matter who he was around... yet, he always seemed so calm during it. It always appeared (to me) very planned out... it was just too coincidental that every time 2 people got into a fight, he was there... he was always ready to try to "fix" the problem and look like the bad guy, but would always start it right back up again after it stopped.

Thing is, he didn't hate anyone... he just didn't care one way or the other, and enjoyed the choas and control he had over the situations.

Last edited by anxiety25 on 12 Nov 2009, 6:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't ever bother with revenge. I find it a waste. I only do little things that could be seen as payback like if someone insulted me, I insult them back. I can get pretty nasty if someone pisses me off or does something to me. In fact if I didn't like how someone treated me, it makes me want to do X more just to piss them off because they are not nice.

I tossed a pair of gloves on the floor at work because they were on the cart and I didn't need extra gloves. I am sure other people wouldn't want me tossing extra gloves on their carts because I wouldn't want extra gloves being tossed on mine so the only place was the floor. I pissed my co worker off and I refused to pick them up. Maybe if he asked nicely or show me where to put them instead, I would be grateful for that. But instead he was nasty so I ignored him. Then he shoved into me with his elbow and doesn't say his sorry and then he says I'm stupid and f****d in the head and I laugh and snicker and say quietly "shut up" and the whole thing was funny because he was saying I was stupid but he was the one who was. Getting pissed off over a pair of gloves being thrown on the ground, shoving me with his elbow, closing the door to the janitor's closet when he saw me waiting for him to be through so I can get in, who's stupid now? How ironic. I am not going to bother with any comebacks to insult him because he can't even hear. He's deaf but I have no idea how much he can hear or how little he can hear or if he is profoundly deaf. But he can still speak but not well. I would love to keep throwing gloves on the ground to piss him off but I got told we aren't allowed to make people mad at work.

To me pissing jerks off is all a game. I find it fun and entertaining. Yeah I am not a nice person when it comes to jerks.

Sounds like arch-fraudster Bernie Madoff to a T.

Madoff is what I think of when I think of "sociopath". When I think of Bundy, I think "psychopath" because he murdered people. I like to make two catagories, even if it's inaccurate by dictionary definitions:
One is for psychopaths who deceive others only to murder them, or, murders people and feels no guilt/remorse/doesn't care, is indifferent to other people's pain.
The other is "sociopaths" and that, to me, are the Bernie Madoffs and people who use others for their own gain without caring what happens, or, convincing themselves they are doing a lot of good. Madoff, for instance, was very kind and generous to his employees. He must have thought himself a kind, wonderful, generous, person and rationalized away his sociopathic ponzi scheme. I don't know why he thought everything would work out, but I bet he really believed that somehow these people would all get their money, meanwhile, let's make some money for Bernie. That's the more common type of sociopath, except Madoff had the means to do sociopathy on a grander scale than most.
That's why I think there's little hope for people who know and love sociopaths. It's nearly impossible for them to change their ways because it's like a personality, it's so natural for them to think this way and they can't see where they err. How are they supposed to work on changing it? Even if they tried, there's a good chance they would slip into their old patterns eventually.

My sense of humor is very dark, but I hadn't realized that that could be an AS trait. I just find stuff funny that might not be funny to anybody else.

but the way that sociopaths are described here could be pretty much quite a few people that I work with, that's for sure. Or the people that I went to school with, although they were moderately better.

Although I do kind of have a dark side, very brooding, I'm not a violence lover, can't stand gore movies, but on the other hand, I don't sympathize with babies crying or floods in foreign countries or whatever else might be happening that's pretty awful. I don't know what to think at large disasters as the whole thing is overwhelming and so I don't think anything at all. I just don't carry it with me; it's impossible.

I do sympathize with animals though, even stuffed animals. Ever want to walk into a toy store and set all the stuffed animals free? That's me.

But people have left me so wary and leering of believing or caring because of being treated really badly and being made fun of because of being different that I just can't summon anything to sympathize. I mean, why do kids make fun of the dfferent kids? People are just jerks, mean and nasty when they sense weakness.

I understand what you mean about people at work Spokane Girl, because people where I work are complete idiots. They basically try to lay traps for me to prove to supervisors that I don't know my job, but I've gotten around them every time and have begun talking to supervisors about them. My work history there is very good, so I have a lot to go on. Anyway I'm going to get these people, believe me.

I do think I am misanthropic, and that I have a dark view of humanity and life's condition in general, but I feel that it's more a reaction and a self-defense now than anything.

That's the defining difference. A sociopath wouldn't feel bad for causing hurt to someone else.

The lack of empathy that you're describing sounds to me more like a lack of understanding, rather than a lack of caring. You can't quite imagine how someone feels, you can't put yourself in their shoes or quite understand what they're feeling, so you don't feel anything about it because you just can't quite imagine it. If you can't imagine it, how can you really feel about it? If you can't imagine it, a lot of times I think it just doesn't seem like it could really be real. You might know that it is, but it doesn't connect.. you know but you don't understand.