I hope you don't mind me saying this, but you sound 180* away from the guy writing a couple years ago. Specifically this, "Do you think it might be better to just believe that people can be lovely and so it is no great shame that you are just the same as everyone else?" That's a really healthy and benevolent view of humanity. I'm not there yet, but it sounds like a good place to be.
I have to ask; you garden, you blog, music and I think you mentioned a relationship that's pretty healthy, it sounds like these things are helping you. Do you have other suggestions / protips / caveats? I'm asking because in people I've observed almost nothing helps them overcome their personality disorders. Falling in love with a healthier person seems to help and life threatening illness can also have some effect, but who wants to wait for a cancer scare or get to the end of their life to figure things out? Maybe that's where choosing the better part comes in.
I hope you write about things getting better, if in fact they are. I hope you write about what's changing and what's staying the same. I know your blog is about sociopathy, not recovering from sociopathy, but that would be my special request.
My response:
Yeah, I have actually thought about maybe making my next book about this topic. The thing is, what works for me, I'm not sure will work for anyone else, and probably not most. I do think the gardening helps. Playing a musical instrument helps. There are a lot of things that I can identify in my own life that help, but I am just not sure anymore. I'm a little pessimistic lately maybe because a friend (not quite neurotypical, but mostly) has been stuck in a rut, and as sort of a project I decided to try to help him out of it. But I haven't managed to make any sort of discernible difference. And another time I was coaching someone to take a graduate school exam and I thought, I should for sure be able to help her get out of the lower quartile by teaching her how to game the test, but I couldn't. So now I think maybe I do things in a particular way and it's impossible to teach someone? I thought of this when reading Daniel Birdick's recent comment:
I’d only add that this analysis becomes almost instinctual by the time you reach adulthood. To use PP’s car analogy, it’s like learning how to drive. All of your movements as a new driver are conscious and therefore awkward. But after a while, everything that goes into becoming a decent driver becomes instinctive and automatic. That’s how it eventually is with reading people and social situations. Only, I suspect you have to learn how to read people using “bloodless rationality” as your default mode in childhood, so that by the time you’re in your late adolescence, it becomes second nature.
Maybe each person has to figure out their own selves, what it is that is holding them back. Also this quote I recently featured on twitter that I really love: "I will stay an addict until my last excuse." For me, I think that is what is really holding my friend back from getting out of his rut. He cannot, or will not give up the possibility that maybe he doesn't need to change at all -- maybe he just needs a new job or needs to move to a different city or find someone to love him. I know how this feels, this hesitation to change. It's hard enough to embrace change, you know? But I think it's even worse when the solution is coming from someone else. I'm not saying it never happens, because the person who finally got me to change was a person and I did have to trust her and do things her way, at least for a while until I could figure out what was absolutely necessary to live the life I wanted versus what I could sort of tailor to my own needs/wants/tastes. But I don't think most sociopaths are this open to submitting themselves like this to someone else. They don't understand trust and they are right to think that most people don't understand them enough to give them good advice. I don't know, it's a problem. I'd love to hear from sociopaths who have ever been helped by any of my advice, but I haven't so far.
I rarely appreciate unsolicited advice unless I have deemed the source worthy of dispensing it, and I don't generally like to be advised unless I specifically request it. This is because I abhor being told what to do. I have issues with authority.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I tend to be objective, critical and emotionally detached when evaluating new ideas. I judge concepts on the basis of their merit, not their source. As such, I will readily accept and even assimilate notions from individuals whose philosophies might differ radically from my own, as my world-view, opinions, and identity are flexible that way.
So while I may be initially resistant on account of my self-sufficiency and pride, I possess the capacity to adapt easily once I have determined that I can benefit from any given advice. It would not offend me to take Hitler's advice if he could offer me helpful, brilliant insight, but I still wouldn't like him any better. :p
^^
Deletethis is a good way to be.
AlteregoMarch 20, 2013 at 12:54 AM
DeleteI rarely appreciate unsolicited advice unless I have deemed the source worthy of dispensing it, and I don't generally like to be advised unless I specifically request it.
When I tell you I don't want YOUR advice, this is what I mean.
That is because you only want advice that sounds good to your itching ears. But on this blog, anything goes. Solicitation is not a prerequisite here, nor are the conventional niceties and platitudes you claim to despise, yet cling to like a child who is afraid to let to go of her mother's hand when crossing the street. You ought to realize that by now.
DeleteYou cannot handle blunt truth, in spite of professing to appreciate it from others. You gush on for days about having ephiphanies brought on by those who truly abuse you, but when you are called on something as seemingly trivial as your unwillingness to own up to multiple online identities, you have rages and meltdowns of epic proportions. Why is that?
Think about it rationally for a moment. Why do you grovel to appease and earn the approval of those who abjectly abuse you, but wilt before constructive criticism? (Notice a pattern, there?)
When I hit a raw nerve, it renders you susceptible to emotional manipulation. The closer to the truth I get, the more hypersensitive your reactions, because I am threatening your ego. You have trained yourself to "handle" abuse in a manner that does not hurt. Your defense mechanism is to roll over and seek to appease the perpetrator. But when confronted with the truth by someone who possesses knowledge, success, or other qualities you admire that you think you lack, you resent it, because you are jealous, egotistical and insecure.
No, I don't respect you. Don't call running horses zebras. Sometimes, they are just running horses~
DeleteYou don't respect me because I refuse to cater to you on your own terms. At first, you were falling all over me. Then you decompensated in a similar fashion as with Raven when she refused to pander to your delusions. Following this, you claimed she was like a sister to you. This is called the idealization/devaluation cycle. She saw your weakness in this regard, and juiced it to the max, much to your chagrin.
DeleteI have never been overtly cruel to you, Monica. Why do you seek to appease those who are, yet refuse to accept truth from those who might actually assist you in understanding the root causes of the issues you claim to have? You are not interested in getting better. You like to wallow in self-imposed angst because it feeds your ego in a manner that is acceptable to you, as you cast yourself in the role of the victim. This is why I believe you are an inverted narcissist- and it is making you sick.
For one simple thing, I have told you time and time again that I don't want nor respect your advice, but you won't stop. Who is the deluded one?
DeleteI don't give a rat's ass what you think, Monica, nor am I giving you advice at the moment. I am only holding up a mirror.
DeleteStill you avoid the critical question. Why do you fawn all over your abusers but reject criticism from individuals who legitimately call you on dysfunctional internal mechanisms and motivations?
DeleteYes, sometimes blind squirrels like UKan can find a true nut. If UKan has said true things to me, I will listen, even if it is UKan. Once in a while, you have said some good things to me, but basically you cannot see me for who I am. You see me through you lens of who you THINK I am. Therefore, I don't pay attention because what you are saying is a reflection of who you are, not who I am.
No, Monica. I don't fawn all over my abusers. I don't sit here, day after day, decrying that I feel numb and helpless in the face of those who treat me like human garbage. I have a quick temper and shallow emotions, but I don't walk around with a heavy burden of pent up rage and jealousy, like you have admitted you do.
DeleteComfort yourself in this way if you must, but deflecting the issue by claiming projection will not work, because it isn't true.
Don't you get it? I don't pretend to know you. I can only see you through the lens that YOU provide here. What I perceive does not conform to how you see yourself, and this is a source of angst for you, because what others think is of critical importance in your world. You lash out at people who see through the false image you seek to internalize and project.
The other thing is that I may have needed to wrestle with people like UKan to realize that I could walk away. Things are not as simple as you see them. You think someone can be "told" something and that will heal them. That is simplistic, Alterego.
DeleteNeed an example to drive the point home? The very thing you accuse me of is what you do, such as your insistence that I am "numb", but fail to recognize it.
DeleteAlterego
DeleteMaybe I needed to revisit the tone of my childhood home to understand it and my role in it. Whatever I am doing here, I am healing. You can't put it into a box because it doesn't fit. I have healed a great deal from being here and that is all that matters.
You do not think in a complex way, imo. Lets leave it at that. We are not people who can offer much to each other and that is basically cool.
Peace
Again, you purport to tell me what *I* think, when I am only relating what I see.
DeleteWhat YOU see is through YOUR lens. Capiche? I am done. Blessings.
DeleteNow you are feigning complexity so as to mask and detract from the lies you tell yourself and others. This too is very transparent.
DeleteMy emotions may be simple, but my mind is not. I can see right through you.
You see yourself, not me. Anyway, this is going no place, so take care the the Force be with you.
DeleteWhat I see is what you unwittingly project behind your words.
DeleteWell, I appreciate that you call me Monica, so lets leave it at that.
DeleteYou are the one who engaged me.
DeleteI am curious as to how you think I am projecting when I say that you seek to placate your abusers and cast yourself in the role of the downtrodden victim who is crippled by her emotional numbness and petty jealousies?
I have provided concrete examples from your behaviour here to substantiate my perspective. Surely you can do the same if your observation is valid, and not just a means of detracting from your weakness?
Ok--two Sisters in Christ having a nice convo-- no jabs ~
DeleteI have explained to you some of my purposes for being on here, yet you persist in seeing me with YOUR lens.
I will give one example. I am disassociated and I talk about it, as it is not a quick fix. It is a process and a long one, and many people never get out of it. I am struggling with trying to come out of it, and some people walk with me in that struggle and they have the same struggle. But you seem to think I am wallowing in something, when I have told you up front that I am trying to do something concrete, in the best way that I know. Furthermore, it is working. Many people here are happy for me and walk beside me and get help for their own disassociation, but you persist in saying I am wallowing and other things, which miss the whole point.
The squiggle is meant to denote sarcasm. Just fyi, as you never seem to employ it correctly.
DeleteI asked you for an example of how you think I am projecting when I charge you with to placating your abusers and casting yourself in the role of victim. Are you ready to relinquish that claim, now?
The definition of wallow is to live self-indulgently, to revel. You say that you making progress, and that may be true, but all I have objectively observed is your banging your head up against the same brick wall, wrestling with the same issues, seeking advice for the same problems, and having the same "epiphanies" and "breakthroughs", over and over again. Still, you refuse to acknowledge your multiple identities, and remain uncomfortable using your own voice. You decompensate when you are called out on the real issues underlying the emotional problems that plague you. You say you appreciate blunt honesty, but you reject it every time someone serves it up to you, unless it comes from the mouth of someone who has abused you. Why is that? If you are truly improving, why is there no evidence of positive change in how you react and what you say here?
Piles once said something about you that was so astute (and funny) that it literally made me laugh out loud. She compared you to a goldfish who is surprised to "discover herself" over and over again, only to "forget" herself a few minutes later. I am not the only one who has pointed this out. If that is not the definition of wallowing, I fail to see what is.
I have changed. If you can't see that, you simply don't understand me and that is OK. I don't need everyone to understand me, but I do need a few people. I am blessed to have that. Some people are not on the same wave length and I think that is the case for you and me.
DeleteI have no idea whether or not you have changed. I have had far too few meaningful interactions with you to make such an assessment. I can only reflect back to you what you project here. I am left to wonder why I piss you off so much when others have been far more cruel, if it is true that I have never brought up anything remotely accurate, pertinent to your situation, or grated against any of your raw nerves.
DeleteNumber one
DeleteYou have not respected my simple boundaries, although today you did.
Number Two
You arrogantly give me advice which I have told you, on a number of occasions I do not want.
I will take your inventory since you took mine. I think you are dense, emotionally. If I did your chart, you would probably be a water void, but I may be wrong. You act like one, though. They have a combo of factors in being dense and arrogant, at the same time.
Furthermore, I don't care if you are like this and I am only in this discussion because you ride me, unasked for and unwanted.
Deletea goldfish who is surprised to "discover herself" over and over again, only to "forget" herself a few minutes later.
Deleteself identity problems are SO rare up in this bitch ~
I'll say whatever I want to whomever I please, whenever it suits me. I only ever tried to give you advice *once*, ami, and although I don't recall everything I said, I must have touched quite a few raw nerves because you are clearly still pissed. :)
DeleteYou initiated this discussion with your little snipe, and now you are trying to slink out of it whilst entirely evading any of my substantive questions. This is your usual tactic. Yet you have the gall to say that you have "changed", and to call me dense- whilst in the same breath substantiating your claim on the basis of *assumptions* you are making concerning my *astrological chart*! Do you even hear yourself? LOL!
If you didn't want this discussion, you should not have engaged me on this topic. It is really that simple.
Btw, I am water sign, and Scorpio rising. Water figures prominently in my chart, although I do not lend it much credence. So much for your "psychic" intuition. :p
DeleteYou're the only one that seems pissed here, Alterego. Monica has stayed calm. Strange you should have such a problem with her multiple identities without even considering your own name.
DeleteI selected my name very deliberately.
DeleteI'm never pissed here, Medusa- even at my most scathing and incisive. Focusing my aggression feels therapeutic, and has a calming effect. Besides, I like Monica. I don't have a problem with her multiple identities- she does. Rather than own it, or play with it like Slimeball, Wanker, or even Spacecase, she takes anyone calling her on this issue very personally. It is a sensitive point for her, so I like to probe at it every now and then. (God help me, I do.) Of course, that is her prerogative, but it *is* blood, and so fair game here.
Also, she started it. ; )
This is just a game for me. It started out as a desire to engage in a bit of self-therapy, but it has evolved (or degenerated) into this. The atmosphere here is combative, entertaining, and engages me intellectually to a greater extent than the majority of my conversations. I even enjoy it when someone eviscerates me, because it shows me where I am weak. But there are certain lines I do not cross on principle- and my boundaries are conservative by the standards here. Monica is well aware of the dynamic on sw, and participates in it herself. We have both seen her get down and dirty. She doesn't need your defense.
Alterego
DeleteHere is where I differ with you. I don't come here to "mess" with people. I don't come here to fight to make myself feel better. I try not to be hurtful to people, if I can help it. I do it, unwittingly, as we all do.
You have tried to snipe at me, harass me and get me into fights with you, for months. I have ignored you up until now, when I gave you a piece of my mind.
Don't pick at people, if you don't want them to lash back.When they do, they might tell you more truth about you than you care to know.
See, you violated my boundaries again, but I expected that.
You're lying. You have never ignored *any* of my comments. And if you continually moan about the same things all the time, I will call you on your shit. I don't care whether or not you like it. You will always think twice before engaging in pity parties when I am around. And if you will allow it to, this can make you stronger. Boundaries beg to be pushed.
DeleteDon't pick at people, if you don't want them to lash back.When they do, they might tell you more truth about you than you care to know.
*You* instigated this discussion. You should follow your own advice, because you're the one who gets offended by "more truth about yourself than you care to know". I don't care whether you lash out at me one iota. Hit me with your best shot, baby. :)
Or not. Either way, stop holding grudges. That is one of the greatest sources of bitterness and angst in your life.
You will always think twice before engaging in pity parties when I am around.
DeleteYou think I freaking am intimidated by you? What planet do you live on?
Calm down, and try not to take everything so personally. Your rabid, over-defensive reactions are a dead give away. All I'm saying is that if you want to avoid getting called on your shit, stop smearing it around. I dont "attack" the posts you make that are intended to be helpful, just the ones that reek of self-pity or rank bullshit.
DeleteMany people come to talk to me. I am pleased and happy to be of service to people. My sharing my struggles are something to which people can relate, as well as my getting healing. Just butt out, if I am not your cup of tea.
DeleteYou are just my cup of tea. :)
DeleteMost of your struggles are self-imposed. The grudge bearing in particular is a source of much bitterness and grief for you. You need to learn to let things go.
Share until everyone's ears bleed, I don't care. But you dont get to tell me what to do here, Monica. If you don't like what I have to say, ignore me. Or defend yourself. Whatever suits you best.
You are an excellent gaslighter. You are telling ME what to do. At any rate, do you want to drop it :P
DeleteSure :) You are my sister in Christ, and in Him I love and pray for you. I wish you much health, happiness and prosperity. But I'll *always* call you on your bullshit, and say exactly what I think whenever it suits me here, whether you like it or not. ♥
DeleteOK you have the last word ^^
Deletebetter than who
ReplyDeletei'm the best)
I'd love to hear from sociopaths who have ever been helped by any of my advice, but I haven't so far.
ReplyDeleteAll these years with this blog, and never a person writing in or making a comment here that told you your advice worked for them? Or are all the people who benefited borderlines, codeps, and narcissists?
One of the things I have learned from M.E is to take what I have and make the best of it. M.E does not whine that she didn't have this or that. She tried to face herself head on and cognitively decided where she wants her life and herself to go. This model is different than mine. I would say that mine was Learned helplessness and fear of change, as M.E's friend was afraid of change.
ReplyDeleteBingo
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newser.com/story/164707/man-banned-from-yelling-bingo.html
I am a tapestry. I am depraved and seemly. Some colors shine vibrantly, like sunshiny yellow. Others are murky like the green that makes you want to run when they paint the walls with it.
ReplyDeleteI take out my unseemly side. I feel like a lady, in times past, when she wore layers upon layers and underneath was the corset.
Now, I loosen the corset and reach my bony hand out to touch another bony hand. I think this is intimacy,two bony hands reaching out for each other. It is just a touch but I think this is as good as it gets and it is good enough.
the new background is too bright
ReplyDeleteHasn't science now proven the plasticity of the brain, ie the ability to re-wire ourselves, albeit with intense and ongoing venture?? I suppose everyone's path or currency to this is different, esp. NT's versus socios. It must begin at will, or 'wanting' something badly enough and having a true vested self-interest in the outcome, which, with socios, I would believe the pull would have to be quite strong in order to begin the work.
ReplyDeleteFrom today's post. ME says:
ReplyDelete... because the person who finally got me to change was a person...
Someone that loved him and was his significant other. The one person he trusted the most, is my guess.
Delete
DeleteThey will have to be your eyes.
Off topic, but are all sociopaths sadistic?
ReplyDeleteAnd so are Covert Malignant Narcissists.
DeleteAnd so are you.
DeleteI don't enjoy physical pain, but i can't gaze enough at emotional pain.
Deletelol. nuts^
DeleteMyMind, so you like to watch people cry or be angry? Can you elaborate on why you enjoy it so much?
DeleteTwo quotes i'd like to share, one kinda fits the topic, the other one is probably the reason why most sociopaths don't feel the need to be "healed".(whatever that means)
ReplyDelete"Find what you love, and let it kill you."
"Inner peace begins the moment you choose to not allow another person or event to control your emotions."
Hi MyMind
DeleteWhat about the posters who do want to improve, so to speak, like the guy in 'Hitting A Wall' or even M.E. and Ellicit?
I've heard borderlines become increasingly isolated with age if they fail to adapt. Maybe it's the same for S's. Maybe conflicts and defeats accumulate over the decades and S's have a hard time from their twenties on as expectations increase and fewer allowances are made for youth.
QM
"I've heard borderlines become increasingly isolated with age if they fail to adapt."
DeleteYeah. I didn't know I've been driving a car without putting the right gas in it for a pretty long time.
I really do have to adapt. I see that.
I didn't know I've been driving a car without putting the right gas in it for a pretty long time.
I want a permanent or long term relationship. I see that if i don't nest like everyone else i'll be alone. Ok, so where does that leave me with the normal person? What kind of an idiot is going to go along with " I love you like crazy. Right now. For how long, i dont know."
Do I lie?
Brigg says I should pick people who also can't attach permanently..ok that's seems fair and easy. But I dont want to be abandoned. That's NOT fair. To me. To be in this net is not at all fair.
Do I lie?
I hear you, Intimacy Anon. The short answer is to have a defined self that moves in her own world. That self, which is DEFINED, has intimacy with another person. If one does not have a defined self, one cannot have intimacy, by definition, as intimacy is a sharing of two people's selves. However, to go from an amorphous self to a defined self is the long road <3
DeleteM.E seems to be doing it and that is a hope and a path for all of us.
thank you. <3
DeleteI have to decide what works for me the same way i had to decide how to study.
it was haphazard, irresponsible, disorganized, and i got As. But i have to be satisfied with Bs.
Being killed is an interesting experience
ReplyDeleteHave you never been killed before?
Delete