Hi Madcap--I get the feeling that you expressed yourself in terms that came across stronger to some than you may have intended. I don't know any better than anyone else here but my feeling is not that you don't have a basic motivation of wanting to do harm to others, but that you're miserable and it really hurts to see happy people--schadenfreude, as someone else suggested. If so, that's really common . I want to say respectfully that from my viewpoint the use of the term "sociopathic tendencies" earlier in the thread was very speculative and too frightening a term to throw out without compelling evidence--sociopaths are rare (mercifully) and you don't sound like one to me. I would encourage you to think about the language with which you express yourself a bit so that if the wrong impression was given here you don't run into that problem again. It can happen with MH professionals-- I once used a term that referred to hurting people obviously (to me) figuratively to a T who didn't know me well yet and he could not let it go (I'm the last person who would ever actually do what I referred to). I felt stigmatized, betrayed for having spoken my feelings, and that the T was being really dumb, frankly. At the same time, especially if a T doesn't know us well and with the climate of violence of the last few years, we need to be careful about how we come across to people. Reasonable people can get the wrong impression. I hope you get the chance soon to talk about this at length with a caring, competent therapist. My two cents...