Antisocials, psychopaths, and therapy

I know this was an old post but I read through the last several pages and this one I found interesting, so I'll try to answer it. I'm neither a psychopath nor sociopath, nor do I have ASPD, CD, ODD and so on so forth, however, as my time in currently finishing my Bachelor's, I've done a few research papers on psychopaths. I'm not expert but the best way I can think of to answer your question is to try to put yourself in the shoes of a psychopath.

Some have argued psychopaths feel no emotions at all, neurobiologically, that's not entirely true because many do, however, it's significantly reduced to such a point where we, as people who feel emotions so strongly, view psychopaths as emotionless. Some psychopaths however are emotionless.

A psychopath would associate with people if they serve some beneficial use. Usually psychopaths want to be in charge, directly or indirectly because you cannot easily manipulate someone if you're being fully controlled by them. A psychopath could have it so they're in full control or give some sense of control to the other person but still keep the majority of control. In this way, "friendships" are redefined as "easily usable" and emotional bonding is one-way, that is, the psychopath does what is needed to ensure the person wants to be around them because when you're with someone you trust, it's easier to get past much of the skepticism and suspicion of being a "stranger". People become friends not just due to emotional bonding but also because of common interests and separate interests. A psychopath and the person have a common interest: they want to maintain their relationship. Other common interests would be trying to "figure" someone out, that is, a psychopath may view someone not just as a useful objective in the sandbox of life but instead as a rubix cube, moving and pushing parts of the person to eventually get the desired goal. Like a rubix cube, once you've done it, you may toss it out and get a more challenging one.

It's like viewing life as sets of chess matches. People are the chess pieces, their usefulness and importance makes them to queen or king. To get something, you have to move the piece to a certain place, that is, have them do something or do something to them. Chess pieces are objects, if you break it, oh well it's replaceable and it's not a living being to worry about.

ok, well that was cute. i was half way through a response when i miss-stroke on the keyboard returned to me to the showthread screen and deleted my response in its entirety. someone really should look into what keystroke causes that, because i cannot fathom anyone ever finding that useful or positive to have as an available option... also i have seen others note that they lost entire replies in the same mysterious manner.

que sera, sera...

as i was saying before i was so rudely interrupted:

i was invited to this site quite some time ago by the (apparently) rather infamous mr. myers. (i laugh every time i see your new screen name, mike. tres appropo...)

i am one of the "others" that he referred to early on in this post, and i am finally here to give my first-person account. why did i want to do it myself? why let him take the glory for my exploits when i am perfectly capable of bragging on my own? lol

why did i submit to a psychological evaluation? curiosity. boredom. for my entire life i have caught bits of whispered conversations by family members and family "friends" along the lines of "really? you don't say.... i never would have... i am so sorry to hear that mrs. *****, how do you handle... you are so strong..." needless to say, i exercise caution when talking about my own children.. little bastards hear EVERYTHING! lol. after having had my curiosity piqued for years by these half-heard convos and not-so-subtle innuendo to the effect that i was not "quite right" according to a bunch of frumpy, middle class gossips. after i received a psychological discharge from the army (i know WHY i was referred to the psych shop there... long story avoided- it involved a superior NCO, a bottle of liquor, a perceived slight, and five large guys pulling me off of him in the barracks lol... but they never told me anything conclusive.. just got the discharge orders lol)

so fast forward a year- i'm 22 yrs old and have been married to the (diagnosed but not-at-the-time-in-treatment, borderline pd having 21 yr old girl of my dreams) for close to a year... we are in the middle of "ramping up" in a manner which generally presaged either an epic fight or epic fornication... and i was still trying to set myself and determine which way it was going to go... i decide the answer is going to be both on this occasion and begin to engage.... she stops, steps back with her hands up and says "please don't look at me like that- you are scaring me"... i laugh immediately (i was honestly not looking at her any differently than i had been moments previously) and she says "no, you just... when you go cold like that.... please, if i go back to the therapist.. will you go get tested?" epic buzzkill, but it caught my interest. so i agreed.

after a the first couple of b.s. "getting to know you" sessions the therapist tells me he wants me to take a couple of tests "if i am willing" it was at this point he explained what the MMPI-2 was and would involve... the appt. is made, test taken. i come in to "discuss my results"... therapist greets me as usual, and starts the usual chitchat. i cut to the chase.. so what did your test say? (my whole interest at this point was finding out if there was a name for whatever it was that made me so "scary" to my wife... and sundry others lol). he attempts to beat around the proverbial bush and dodges the question (it was not until MUCH later that i realized this "beating around the bush" was an cleverly delivered initial phase interview as part of the PCL-R). i continue to push the issue and finally he says the test results could not be validated and so were useless... tells me that he wants me to take a second, much shorter (he assures me) but similar battery test (verbally this time rather than the MMPI which was administered via computer console in a cubicle at the office) in the hopes that it may clarify the waste-of-an-afternoon jackwagonry of a failtest, and re-validate the responses. so i agree and leave. next visit- he fires question after question at me... i sense the verbal "traps" in some of them, but he insists on my answering quickly and concisely for this part of the test, so i am sure i tripped up more than a couple of times... whew, he brings me some coffee apologizes cordially and explains that it was a "format" deal with that particular battery... alright, this is getting tl;dr- so to cut it short, i later found out that i had just been butt-loved by robert hare's pride and joy, the PCL-R.... so i pried a little and found that the original mmpi was invalidated bythe psychosis index... do some research.. find out that schizophrenia is psychosis. i lul mightily at this point thinking (still not knowing about the butt-lovin) they thought i heard voices or something. so i fire the therapist, request my records. more research on psychiatric abbreviations, and the county and office billing and diagnostic codes, turns out i was dx'd aspd and the chicken scratch in the notes section (once i mumbled the magic words, and waved fire under the page) turned out to say, simply, "hare variant".

more research, learn about "rule-outs", learn about the ramifications of my shiny new label, decide to spend some time researching "schizophrenia" and "psychosis"... skip several more pdocs and therapists, move from alabama to north carolina to north akota to canada, to utah,... and by the time i hit 26 yrs old i was officially dx'd "schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type" and "adult ADD, AADD" as well as "ptsd"... long gone was any mention of that first tricky little quack (though i kinda respect him for pulling one over me- that's no small trick, not to boast overly lol) and never more would i be facing the "add ten yrs" label applied to any sentencing by law i may have had to deal with.

once i had secured that diagnosis and had spent some time practicing the proper presentation thereof... i was ready for the head shrinking bureaucrats at the social security administration. i won. i have not held a "job" that pays over the counter in nearly 6 years to date. if i work, it gets payed cash on the barrel head as the days go... "to prevent me losing my badly needed ssdi and medicare which covers the vital doctors appts and meds im (pffft) taking" good hearts bleed money...
so that's my story, and i remain in therapy and med management, since that is my job now. i consider myself an actor. i put on a show, they pay to see it, we all have fun, everyone leaves happy... win-win.

so that's my story. feel free to pick it apart and ask any and all questions that may pertain. i'll be around.

-JD

kaotikinside: I don't really have much to say in response other than DAMN. If I didn't have the unfortunate condition of being sickened by the antics of anyone other than myself, I'd applaud you. Not trying to be an asshole or anything. At least you avoided the ******** bylaws. I'm honestly surprised anyone can make enough money for a living on disability, even when supplemented by under-the-counter work... Continue enjoying the fruits of your labor! Once I get my degree & a solid job, I'll be paying your monthly checks. :P

lol. no offense taken. your tax dollars are being put to good use, i assure you.

my monthly net averages out to roughly 6k. i do alright. lol i get charity from churches, food stamps, and money from family in addition to the side work. plus i am a silent partner in a small business. (by silent partner, i mean to say i'm not on any of the paperwork, but i split the profit 50/50 with my partner)

last year i cleared 70k and the business is growing, so i should do even more this year.

not bad for a disabled father of four, yeah?

DAMN, & my mother was *actually* disabled & they wouldn't give her a cent over $700 a month for our family. But I suppose she just wasn't as business savvy as thou.

700? that's crap! i get 1500 from SSDI and i know people who get more than that.

p.s.- i think you answered your own self- "my mother was *actually* disabled..." i do have that one teensie advantage going for me.

That's what I thought!! For a family of three, especially. Meh. I'm just grateful to be out of that **** now hahahha! Greeeeener pastures... At least for the most part.

I mentioned several posts up that I've done a few undergrad research papers on psychopaths, aggression and so forth. However, it's my first time chatting to a person with the label of psychopath, so I want to pick your brain if you don't mind.

Before I start though, I got to say, the way you wrote the post had me chuckling away.

Buzzkill indeed.

What were you thinking about at the time just before she said you were looking at her in a "cold" manner?

Schizophrenia is psychosis, however, psychosis extends beyond that.

In the book called Essentials of MMPI-2 Assessment 2nd Edition by David S. Nichols, it means the Goldberg Index is used for measuring psychosis thought processing (page 316, see link below). Psychosis can be found in other disorders in the form of incomprehensible communication that's incomplete or makes no sense, such as Tourette's Syndrome, delirium, delusional disorder, paranoid personality disorder, etc... . So I'm not sure why they initially suspected psychosis.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=63sx...0index&f=false

Each sentence has a cluster of abbreviations and unfortunately the appendix isn't fully shown so you can instead find the meaning to the abbreviations here:

http://psychcorp.pearsonassessments....htm?Pid=MMPI-2

I know you mentioned you put on a show for the therapists and doctors but I'm curious, was the PTSD diagnosis from the show you put on or was it from your short-lived army experience?

Also, why did you move all over North America?

I wouldn't be so sure. Although it's very common, people have used a defense plea of "insanity". I'm not sure what the official name is in the US but in Canada, it's called "not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder" (NCRMD). In Canadian law, once you successfully get this defense, it doesn't matter what the actual sentence is for the crime committed because you can be held indefinitely or get out unusually early. If you remember the case of the Vincent "Greyhound Bus Killer" Li in 2008, he was tried for second-degree murder and pleaded guilty by NCRMD. Normally, he'd be eligible for parole in 10-25 years but that's not the case with NCRMD because sometime in 2011, it was said he would finally be granted access to walk the hallways in the secure psychiatric ward even though his rehabilitation was going very well.

I'm curious, have the doctors ever requested a blood or urine test to see if the medication is at the appropriate blood concentration? If they haven't, then that's a bit surprising given all the medications you'd supposedly be on. If they have requested, what did you do?

yes i have blood work done about once a year. i'm prescribed abilify 20 mgs lexapro 20 mgs and adderall xr 20 mgs all of them once daily. the adderall is purely for entertainment, so i take a very liberal view of PRN with it. lol. as for the abilify and lexapro- my doc will tell me that he needs blood work, and then it's up to me to go make the arrangements since his clinic is purely psychiatric.... so i start taking the meds when they tell me that... three weeks to a month late ri "remember" that he had asked for blood tests and schedule them for the following week. so i take these meds for a grand total of one month a year long enough to get in my system, but not long enough to **** me up too bad. i mean, the worst "eps" i get is kind of a lightheaded feeling while i'm on them, nad fatigue.. i usually sleep more when i'm prepping for blood-work. other than that, i fill my scripts on time every month, come home, drop one down the toilet per day til it's low, go get the refill- lather, rinse, repeat.

i think that covers these questions, please correct me if i missed any, and feel free to ask more.

I looked around a bit more and "invalid" is an interpretation of results, often when the F scale (detects unusual responses and lying) is high. Scale 4 attempts to detect people who have ASPD, psychopathy or amoral/asocial. Interestingly, people who score high on Scale 4 are more likely to get a diagnosis of ASPD or psychopathy but very unlikely to be considered psychotic. Scale 8 is the hardest to interpret and attempts to detect psychosis, so if you scored high on this one as well, then it may give an interpretation that doesn't make much sense, so it'd be invalid. There are many other scales used so any of them could be involved but these seem the most likely.

Have you taken a formal IQ test in-person (not the silly online ones you find all over the place on a Google search)? Psychopaths tend to have very high IQs, if you recall Karla Homolka has an IQ somewhere around 130-135, which is ~2 standard deviations above the average IQ of ~ 100. Also, have you attended college or university, and if so, what did you study? What areas of academic study appeal to you the most even if you haven't studied in them a lot?

I haven't taken any formal IQ tests as of yet, although I probably would get a high score.

Why do you prefer smaller areas over large city areas? I could see advantages for both but large cities have the benefit you can hide in them easier due to the higher population, whereas in smaller areas, there's a greater chance others will know where you are in the event someone wants to find you. I know you mentioned that there are fewer near-by clinics so you're indirectly forced to use that one particular clinic but for reasons relevant to this thread, are there any others?

Some research has shown males with schizoaffective disorder tend to show anti-social traits. Were you attempting to get this diagnosis from the start or was it something clinicians kept pointing to, so you went along with it?

Also, since there's a genetic component to psychopathy (but not completely genetically determined), do other family members have psychopathy, ASPD or NPD? The best example I can think of is Richard Kuklinski (died some time in 2006) who worked for Italian mafias in the US as well as the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante family mostly as a contract killer. You can watch YouTube videos of ballsy psychiatrist interviewing him (psychiatrist intentionally makes him a bit angry but doesn't even flinch). From one of the interviews, he stated his father was psychopathic and so was his grandfather. It's also interesting to hear him say he won't commit certain crimes, yet his brother Joseph Kuklinski who may not be psychopathic did commit those crimes.

Although he was a killer, the way in which he says certain things is in a dark-humourous way.

i'll even go ahead and answer a question you HAVEN'T asked yet- i have, in the course of "ruling out" temporal-lobe epilepsy and traumatic brain injury submitted to no less than three separate mri scans at three different clinics in two states, all administered independently. results? motor cortex damage resulting in benign tremor... no evidence of epileptic scarring whatsoever... and almost zero discernible activity in the orbital cortex. i may not be the fastest learner.. but after the third mri, resulting in the fourth administration of the PCL-R.... and the subsequent train wreck, hare variant dx, and hasty relocation which occurred in rapid succession following.... i developed severe claustrophobia and an obstinate refusal of and revulsion toward any suggestion of any scan thereafter. in other words, i figured out the connection and deduced what was going wrong..... lol

wow this is beginning to read like an autobiography lololol... any further questions or comments?

Further comment: "my e-peen is bigger/smaller than theirs, ergo i am happy panda/sad panda about my own life". I laughed my *** off!!

Nice autobiography. Perhaps you should start a chronicle of your life so, just as they're about to kick it, you can send them a copy to make them feel like illegitimate assholes. Hahaha!

Although you mentioned they're meaningless, nice scores lol! I'm not sure if I have a photographic memory or just an exceptionally good visual memory that's sometimes a bit odd. I'm utterly hopeless when it comes to telling someone how to get somewhere even if I've been on that road many times. Instead, I can tell them how everything on that road looks, how many houses on each side to memorizing license plate numbers (a hobby of mine from a young age).

HAHAHA, man you're reminding me of a reincarnation of George Carlin!

The IQ test isn't something I plan to flash around to show I'm smarter or stupider in some abstract poorly defined way of intelligence. This is not to you personally but I don't really care if someone holds a high or low esteem in me. The way I look at it, if one person doesn't care for me, oh well, there's ~ 7 billion other people on the planet. But yes, I understand your point.

Out of curiousity, did you manage to keep your female sex partner with you?

Ignoring the fact the PCL-R isn't truly part of the DSM system, do you believe it could generate a label accurately applied to you? Could ASPD be applied?

Some people may be offended by this question although it's not meant to be offensive, were you ever hospitalized in the psych ward, voluntarily or involuntarily?

I know it's a generalization and cant be applied to every person with it but however many years ago, the Homicide Triad was made. To summarize, it states in children who exhibit fire-setting, hurt/homicide of animals/people and bed-wetting for unusually older age, are all likely to be found in an adult with ASPD or psychopathy. Are any of those three true for you?

I'm not sure how much detailed of an answer you're allowed to give on the forums but it's often said many people with ASPD, psychopathy, NPD and a whole list of other mental illnesses may be partially due to a very abusive childhood. In the example of Richard Kuklinski, he said this was the case for him. Obviously you're not him unless I fell into a worm hole and magically survived.

LOL, well you already answered the MRI, temporal lobe and orbitofrontal-orbital cortex questions. Did you participate in any research studies involving brain-imaging and scanning, whether it was a MRI study or not?

Also, for each of the 4 (or more) administrations of the PCL-R, were the total scores of each the same? If you know, what was the highest you got out of 40? I don't know how many people have it but there are people with a score of 40/40 (John Wayne Gacy was one of them).

apparently, this board requires that i post at least 8 characters OUTSIDE of the quote box in order to submit. lol.

lol. that WOULD be pretty funny.... i may just do that. thanks for the idea lol.

HAHA no problem at all. I was feeling a bit creative.

Two of three aint bad lol.

What was it about fire-setting and fires you found liked? Was it sexually motivating?

Regarding the fighting, was it mostly for fun or as a result of anger? Also, did you ever try martial arts, whether it be for exercise, fighting purposes or self-discipline purposes? In Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), most of the fighters don't have anything close to ASPD, although some are cocky and cry-babies. Would you ever consider martial arts at an amateur level or professional level? If you currently do or used to do martial arts, which ones were they?

I'll give you a break for now by asking a non-autobiographical question. There has been concern for labeling youth as psychopaths after they get high scores on the PCL-YV (I'm not sure how the content of the questions differs from PCL-R). So, I have 3 questions. First, suppose you were 14 years old and were deemed a psychopath based on the PCL-YV. Would that label have affected how you viewed yourself at that age up until your current age? Second, many people have called for youths who get a high score on the PCL-YV to be labeled something other than psychopath. For the sake of argument, you agree with them (regardless if you actually do, pretend if you must). What label do you think would be appropriate? Many criminal or deviant youths are labeled as "delinquents", which often evokes a sense they have low intelligence and social functioning. Do you think that label would be appropriate for youth psychopaths?

Lastly, many criminals, psychopath or not, refuse to commit certain crimes to certain people. Is there a particular crime(s) you wouldn't commit to a certain group?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. (8 characters outside of quote box )

Hey, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8." is technically 16 characters if you don't count spaces! You overachiever, yooouuu!!

Personally I don't see the big idea about crime being sexually motivating. Other than rape or perhaps killing some woman & leaving obvious sexual innuendo, I can't see "sexual desire" as fitting categorically into most crime at all. Unless we are using the good old stereotype that serial criminals/killers/psychopaths are somehow sexually impotent just because of their lack of affect (which I know the 1st & last, firsthand, aren't necessarily true) & thus they use crime as a way of getting their jollies. Simplistic Freudian psychology. Personally, it's all just a need for a lack of boredom. A project. Something to do that provokes some sort of aesthetic reaction or something that challenges society's view of right & wrong.

Buuuuuuut that's just my two cents.

Interesting. I'm not sure if this has happened to you or not, but when you get the "cues" you mentioned, such as the finger-twitching, has anyone restrained you at that point, seconds before you could do anything further?

Have you ever gotten arrested for fighting or property damage due to the rage? I know you mentioned before you feigned psychotic episodes to avoid arrest a few times. However, this question has a "deeper" meaning because many researchers have differentiated psychopaths as "successful" and "unsuccessful", purely by a functional neuroanatomical basis. For example, unsuccessful/easily caught/very violent psychopaths have a 22.3% reduction in prefrontal grey matter vs controls (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...06322305000983) and larger right anterior hippocampus (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...06322303007273). As far as I know, there's no explanation for this odd neurodevelopment that's reflected in thousands upon thousands of psychopaths worldwide.

Also, have you been able to eventually stop yourself after however long when nobody was able to physically restrain you long enough?

What belt level were you in jiu-jitsu?

Lastly, as we discussed earlier the reasons for why you chose schizoaffective disorder, I'm a tad confused on something. You said that feigning schizophrenia wasn't something you wanted to shoot for, however, a few times you did feign psychotic episodes to get out of a few jams. If you had the desire and ability to fake them then, why not continue to fake them instead of schizoaffective? As you and I both know, someone who genuinely has schizophrenia doesn't need to have ever experienced hallucinations or delusions.

LOL, I don't use Freudian psychology, usually a waste of time in my opinion.

12345678.

What was the situation in the bar where you were said to have a certain look in your eye and finger twitch?

Haha, that sounds like something from a Jason Statham movie.

Since I have access to numerous databases for scientific articles, if you have a certain topic of interest, I can find papers for you. I also have written a few papers on the neurophysiological aspects of psychopathy myself with several fMRI and MRI scans for a few courses. If you want, I can send you it, although for privacy reasons I'd remove my name from the version I'd send you by e-mail.

Sorry, I wrote that part poorly. What I meant to ask was the reason why you were unwilling to feign "true" schizophrenia as opposed to schizoaffective disorder because of the psychosis to be feigned?

sufficient? if not, please continue to ask.

Sufficient. I'll list out several studies and books on psychopathy from different levels of examination, all biological and neurobiological though.

Luis F. Garcia et al, 2010. Incremental effect for antisocial personality disorder genetic risk combining 5-HTTLPR and 5-HTTVNTR polymorphisms. Psychiatry Research, 177, 161-166.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...65178109000079

Chapter 9 The Neurobiology of Psychopathy: A Focus on Emotion Processing. http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&l...opathy&f=false

Carla L. Harenski et al, 2010. Aberrent neural processing of moral violations in criminal psychopaths. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 119, 863-874.
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/abn/119/4/863/

I'll post some more later on but these few should be good for a starter. I'm not sure how well-versed you already are in this area.

Here I am again, feeling extraordinarily sociable. How's it going? I decided to give therapy a try a few months back, for the hell of it, and I've gotta say, I'm not too impressed thus far. I'm constantly on the verge of dropping it these days. I originally decided, hey, I'll go in and (with the exception of any criminal activities that may or not have been committed) just let it all hang out for once, try forcing myself to be honest, let that "mask" come down, see what happens, see what is made of me. No records, nothing.. clean slate.

Trying to express myself genuinely was a real challenge. I went over each session again in my head on the way home, and many times I'd have to go back the next week and amend some of the stuff I'd said, because it was just.. nothing.

Initially he pegged me as dysthymic. "Low emotional responsiveness," "anhedonia" and all that. Then it moved to "psychopathic personality," and there's been nothing helpful since, just a lot of prodding and poking in vain attempts to "get a reaction" and "challenge me." Says "we need to figure out something that's going to keep you out of prison." As far as I can see, the guy lost any real interest in treating me. Went from suggesting antidepressants and continuing therapy when he thought I was depressed, to suggesting coke or Adderall to help give me an extra kick.

What gives? I've heard tell that in the clinical psych community, psychopath = untreatable, automatically. Who's trying? There's not all that much I want "treated," but for the couple things I do have problems with, I was what, screwed from birth? Well, if that's the case, I guess I'll see you all in hell..