Sociopath fraud

A reader wrote me:


I ended up stumbling across Sociopathworld amongst other websites, all claiming to have the true definition of what a psychopath/sociopath is and how they differ / do not differ. Naturally I was surprised after reading some of your posts how much in common I have with yourself, and a few others who posted, and yet frustrated at the same time. This is caused by the, as far as I can tell, mini war between a) those who claim the vast majority of people on your site aren't socio's, and b) those that retaliate with sarcasm or angst. The frustration is born out of the fact that, as much as these opinions are seemingly coming from sociopaths, there is also the matter of objectivity, in that, there is very little. How to tell the sociopaths from the frauds, then added to that, individualism whereby every sociopath is slightly different in certain aspects, thus resulting in what I deem to be, sadly, a possibly subjective/biased source of information. It is my suspicion that the majority of sociopaths will not comment on this site, possibly because of apathy, the fact that they may gain some amusement from merely reading the bitchy, petty comments, or that there is futility in making a comment, whereby the majority would ideally, be understanding.

I must press upon the fact that I do not claim to be a sociopath, only that I share several characteristics which have aroused my attention. However whether these are due to being a sociopath, or merely born from experience resulting in a highly misanthropic, manipulative and moral nihilistic personality type. I have always been slightly different since a child in terms of recklessness and disregard for social norms, however it has only been in the last 4/5 years or so, I have changed more and more (I'm 20 yrs/o). Needing an objective view and with luck, an end to this horrible itch that cannot be scratched as a result of my morbid curiosity, I have started to see a psychiatrist, not for therapy but merely to see if I may be different, if my suspicions are true. I am who I am, and if I am truly different from your typical empath, an amusing and appropriate term, then fair enough.


I replied:
What is a diagnosis? Psychological diagnoses seem to serve several purposes. If the condition or the symptoms are treatable and are causing the individual discomfort, then they serve as a plan of action for how to combat the symptoms. If the condition is not treatable, what then? Specifically for something like sociopathy, is the point of the diagnosis? Keeping people in prisons is one purpose, probably the most practical purpose right now with most of the diagnoses being made on people int he prison population. Warning others? Only if others know your particular diagnosis. What else? Self discovery? Possibly. Or is it to identify some concrete scientific phenomenon that is happening in the human race. I guess if you're a scientist/researcher you would say the latter so you would be concerned with issues of validity, etc., and reject anything or anyone that might hurt that sense of validity (and your funding). Since I'm not a scientist (at least not this type of scientist), I don't care about validity, so it doesn't really bother me to have the diagnosis bastardized a bit. I figure that people who have firsthand experience with sociopathy will be able to recognize themselves in the posts on the site. If they don't, maybe we are something different from each other, although I wouldn't know whether to call me a sociopath and them something else or vice versa.