Can psychopathy be learned?

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The material world including culture is a function of objective forces. I see this everyday on my trading charts and it is, frankly, intriguing. That said, the take away from this for me is that the world is as it is and whilst I may not have the biggest circle of connections, I am less inclined to beat myself up or hate the rest of humanity for that matter. If I meet someone who I can relate to and who relates to me, I count that as a blessing (without the religious overtones as I am an atheist.)

Try it some time. It certainly makes for a less complicated life.

Try what? I occasionally meet people with whom I somehow relate. And what religious overtones?

I certainly hope not.

Sociopathy is learned; Psychopathy is not - it is genetic.

I don't think you gave us enough information. Merely telling us that you used to harm your cat for a while when you were 10 is not indicative of psychopathy. Besides, the fact that you stopped because you realised it was wrong counts against that disorder.

There's probably a lot going on in your life right now and it's your brain trying to cope with it all.

Yeah, I don't think I'm a psychopath either. Maybe I just wish I couldn't care.

I am struggling with work right now - it's a lot of stress mentally.

When I was 16, I wanted to drown our puppy because he was making my life a living hell because he wouldn't stop peeing in the house. What saved me was when he got hit by a car. He was making my OCD flare up because of dog urine and no one would keep him locked up or outside and he would come inside and find a spot to pee. No one was willing to watch him to catch him if he tries to pee and keeping him crated which is what you are supposed to do for housebreaking but my parents felt it was cruel to keep him crated so they let him run around where he can piss. As a result, my whole family had to deal with my aggression and daily meltdowns and tremendous anxiety. My mom threatened to lock me away in a mental hospital so I moved onto self harm and then onto being mean to the pup because he was no innocent animal to my eyes because I saw him pee in the house on purpose, he came inside and took a piss right away so there you go.

I have wondered if I had any psychopath traits. But I would never ever want to live this life again from when I was 16 so when I found a wet spot in my room found by my brother's dog, outside he was and not allowed in my house ever again and i was glad my parents kept him out in our yard leashed. I do not want a dog and my son wants one but we tell him no. I would hate to go insane if the dog is one of those animals that keeps pissing inside and not house train. I would find solutions first before I go crazy, literally. When I was 16, I was just trapped and not allowed to do my solutions because my whole family went against me by not keeping the dog outside or crated or not watching him so I went crazy. Then it was a relief when the puppy died and I was a lot calmer and I had a lot less meltdowns and less anxiety. Then I threatened animal abuse when my dad got a new puppy so they watched her like a hawk and she as house trained. I have to use threats to get my needs met. Am I proud of all this, no. But I don't feel bad about it either. But I know it wasn't the puppy's fault and I know my dad should not have brought home that dog and my parents should have taken him back or rehomed it since it was the wrong time to get a new dog but my dad got impulsive and bought one because of the sale price. My mom didn't like the dog either but the difference is she didn't go crazy like I did due to the havoc in the home caused by the dog and me.

I have wondered if psychopathy can come and go, someone can be one in certain situations and then it goes away when they are not in a stressful situation or in a bad one. Diane Downs wasn't diagnosed as a psychopath until she shot her children. But before then she had never committed a crime or harmed anyone (though she admitted to hitting her kids and yelling at them and how her oldest daughter had to be the mother of her siblings because Diane would go out and do her own thing and not put her kids first) until her lover dumped her because he didn't want kids but according to Ann Rule, she was already one to begin with and she wrote if she was born evil or not and if one is born evil or are they created. I suppose one can be born evil but something in the environment has to trigger it for them to grow up to be a psychopath and those born without evil don't grow up to be one and her siblings were all raised the same way she was and they didn't grow up to be narcissists like her or psychopaths so she doesn't really have an excuse.

Is it possible I am born evil but I was fortunate to not have it be triggered so I didn't grow up to be one? (rhetorical question)

Ann Rule says Diane Downs was not insane because insanity can be cured, personality disorders cannot. So if I was insane, then that means I would be cured so it wasn't the psychopathy, it was just me going through a tough time due to the OCD and anxiety and then when that situation ended, I got better. If I had a personality disorder, I wouldn't have gotten better. I would still be that same person I was at 16. My therapist said I wasn't trapped because there was another solution I could have done but he wouldn't tell me. If I had the resources or if I knew how to do my research, I would have learned it is okay to crate an animal and show the information to my family to convince them it is not cruel and give up my own hobbies to train that damn thing myself and always have him with me. Then I wouldn't have gone insane and that would have given me less anxiety and I wouldn't have gone so crazy and have nightmares. I bet he would have been house trained in no time because he would have figured out he is supposed to go outside, not inside. But i didn't know this at 16 nor did I know how to find information on the internet so I did feel trapped and like there was nothing else I could have done so it was like the walls were closing in one me so I pushed against them. Now that I know this information, I won't ever have to go insane again about an animal peeing in the house. But a psychopath wouldn't be cured after knowing this. They would probably still do it.

League_Girl, some things trigger me and I become incredibly hostile and angry in a matter of seconds. It is at these times that I am likely to act harmfully. Lately, I seem to be able to get over this feeling fairly quickly (most of the time, before any damage is done.) But sometimes my anger scares me.

I think the cluster b traits can become pathologised, especially if you're exposed to trauma. The fact that you're noticing them makes me think that you're resilient, empathetic, and strong enough to change them. In psychodynamics it basically means you probably have coping strategies that are maladaptive. Old wounds are sensitive, everyone copes though. Whether it be by smoking, habitually watching tv, over eating, projecting on others that in ourselves we deny, and some pain is harder to see and harder to overcome.

I go through this a lot, sometimes I feel like I have zero choice, then afterwords I feel a sort of guilt, shame,self doubt and abandonment mixed with a ton of ambivalence.

I've been in therapy for about 5 years now.

::edit::- my dx went from schizotypal, to asperger's, to ptsd, and now c-ptsd. (in the last 5 years)

I read the book "The Man Who Couldn't Stop" by David Adam and it was about OCD. He wrote how compulsions can cause someone to do a violent crime or to molest a child due to their compulsion but they didn't want to do either of those things but they just couldn't stop their compulsions so they gave into them. They tend to get misdiagnosed with psychopathy or pedophilia. I realized me wanting to harm our pet at 16 and wanting to kill him was the OCD but the only thing that held me back was fear of being hospitalized. But the fact that I was concerned about myself than our pet makes me think i am a psychopath or makes me feel narcissist.

I used to tell a fictional story called The Abusing Adventures of Squeaky in my therapist's office and it was about our dog being tortured.

Now I know it's unPC to say people commit crimes due to a mental illness so I am sure this is rare if an OCD person committed a crime due to their illness. I read that people with mental illnesses rarely commit crimes so that means most of them don't commit a violent crime and never had before and the ones who have are in the minority. But the problem is it has been stigmatized in the media so it has made it look like the majority so people don't like to hear about people with mental illnesses committing crimes and crimes being blamed on it so it's become unPC now. If I had killed our animal and it went in the media and my OCD and anxiety was mentioned, I bet people would have been pissed and label me as a psychopath and say I wasn't sick and that anxiety and OCD doesn't cause someone to do animal cruelty. But if I had still felt justified to this day, then I would wonder if I am a psychopath because a none psychopath would feel bad about it and wish they hadn't done it.

I don't know if you're a psychopath or not. Sounds like guilt feelings are not an issue for you. I don't think it's OCD either, because you specifically targeted your dog because it was bothering you. I would think you are very sensitive to disturbances in your environment to the extend that you have violent thoughts about defending it. But I may be projecting from my own experience here.
I think there are a lot of psychopaths in the world. Not all of them are dangerous.

No they're not because because lot of people think psychopathy means violence, if you are not out torturing people or animals and have no desire to, they say you are not one.

Psychopathy generally involves harming or exploiting others in a destructive (though not necessary violent) manner without remorse.

You seem to feel pretty crappy about having the thoughts. Ergo, I do not believe you are a psychopath.

I do believe that you are becoming more human. It is human nature to think nasty thoughts, and also to exploit others for personal gain. The difference between "human" and "psychopath" is that a human sometimes feels like dirt for it later, thereby limiting HOW exploitative they can bring themselves to be and motivating them to try to do good things to compensate or mend their ways.

You're stressed out and becoming bitter and cynical. Welcome to the club. You're late.

The truth is complicated. Just ask James Fallon, author of "The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain" and self-identified psychopath.

https://www.ted.com/talks/jim_fallon_ex ... anguage=en

I've done a lot of research on Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Psychopaths, Anti-Social Personality disorders, etc. and from what I have read it seems that as most things, there is a genetic component. A component to where if either of your parents had such a condition, you could possibly have started out with oppositional defiant disorder as a child, but through abuse, trauma or your environment, could possibly later develop psychopathy or similar.

Social interaction is the food and drink of the mind.

Social isolation damages the mind. Exactly what was your situation when you killed that cat of yours?