Wow a lot of posts, I will respond to the ones I don't find boring.

I don't like being called a sociopath for several reasons, and that article summed up exactly why. I make a distinction between the terms "sociopath" and "psychopath" also. I know two sociopaths that are good friends of mine(though my definition of what a friend is, I am sure it is vastly different than the norm), they are very different than I am though we do all have some similar traits such as a blatant disregard for rules although I am a law abiding citizen. I engage in many antisocial antics, I just don't do anything illegal.

If you're going to start using words like that with me then just call me a psychopath, it's far more accurate. I am a product of nature. My environment was awful growing up, but as I've said in other posts around here the way I responded to my environment was highly atypical... Nothing "normal" about how I reacted to it all, I learned that as an adult. I saw the people who abused me as competition, I saw it all as a huge game... and yes, I won.

The man who crippled me was a malignant narcissist, sometimes reading about your mother I am reminded of him. He was born that way, from all that I could tell.

Calling me a psychopath is fair, and yes as I've said all psychopaths are narcissists but not all narcissists are psychopaths. However, while I do qualify technically for an ASPD diagnosis I do not do anything illegal these days though I was in and out of trouble as a child, teen, and young adult.

My mother's husband is a "fragile" narcissist, again born that way he has four other siblings that were also abused terribly and they're all neurotic and frankly ****ed up people. My mother's husband is happy as a clam, though his "woe is me" rants are... Interesting...

Narcissists feel plenty, the man who crippled me was most definitely a Narcissist but his emotions were clearly highly tempestuous. I think that his emotionality was ironically what made him so dangerous and why I'll be lucky if I can walk at all 20 years down the road... He was cruel, and highly explosive in the emotions department.

I qualify as a psychopath according to the PCL-R and other such tests designed to identify psychopathic individuals. However, like most functional psychopaths as I call us, I am obviously not in prison nor have I ever been in prison.

I was always seen as "different", from the time I was a very young girl. No matter where I was people noticed I was different, even if they couldn't recognize exactly what the differences were. And I've always thought of myself as different.

I just didn't know what it meant to be a psychopath, like many, I had misconceptions about what that word meant and I thought that meant some serial killer on death row... I didn't know much about psychopathy until adulthood, and even though I have scored very high on any test I've been given(quite a few) that measures psychopathic traits I laughed it all off until repeated disasters in my personal life forced me to address the issue.

I think on some level, yes a narcissist is capable of love... but I think that it is a selfish love, if a narcissist loves someone it tends to be because the narcissist sees that person as an extension of themselves.

Interesting question about if a pathological narcissist can benefit from therapy... I don't think born that way narcissists will benefit at all from therapy. All a born that way narcissist tends to do is go to therapy to appease their family and then argue with the therapist all day and insist there's nothing wrong with them and it's everyone else. I would know, my mother's husband did this and ranted about it frequently when he was in therapy.

As far as therapy helping me, it depends on what you call help. Like many have said about psychopaths, therapy has taught me how to be even more manipulative and so on. However, I have learned in therapy that it is okay to drop the mask around some, and I've also focused on learning practical things to do that keep my boredom at bay so I don't do anything too reckless. My therapist knows I cannot be altered as I was born this way and thankfully she's smart enough to be able to work with that, and she and I just focus on how to modify behaviors that can cause me to get into trouble in my interpersonal life. I was sick of certain patterns in my interpersonal life, so I've done the work to turn that around for myself.

Of course, none of this is at all altruistic. Lol. And I will fully admit that I like playing with my therapist sometimes because I find it entertaining and a therapist's office is a good way to learn more tricks on how to manipulate people to get what I want.

Unlike a narcissist I do not care if I am admired or hated, and I can be alone for weeks and not feel one pang of "loneliness"(whatever that is). I do not require attention nor do I particularly want it unless it's a part of my game for a very specific purpose... what I want is power and control over people and I have zero issues admitting that, again unlike a narcissist who will never admit that they're engaging in "bad" behavior.