Sociopath Lessons Part 2

The reason I don't upload these as a podcast format is because it seems time intensive to list them on all of the major podcast apps. But if you know a better way and especially maybe if you can help, let me know! 

For now, for just the audio of this and other Zooms: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wyO6SUewBdCAy0gtf-v65iNoJ_Jsg9pI?usp=sharing

Confessions of a Sociopath author M.E. Thomas and Tony talk about Tony's application of Part 1 sociopath lessons in not caring what other people think. They continue in talking about how to not live in your "chicken feelings," i.e. how not to live a life primarily motivated by fear. They also talk about identity and not self-mutilating ourselves for the approval of others or because of fear about what might happen to us. 

Part 1 of this series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZtP4MVOIF8

The twitter thread referenced: https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1599453317884968961

Audio files for Zoom interviews

The reason why I haven't uploaded the Zoom/YouTube videos as podcasts is because it seems like I have to upload them to each podcast outlet separately. If you know better about this, please contact me? Otherwise, here is a google drive file of some of the Zoom audios, including all of the recent ones:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wyO6SUewBdCAy0gtf-v65iNoJ_Jsg9pI?usp=sharing

If you have a request for an upload of an audio file for a different video, just drop a comment or contact me. 

New York City!

 I will be in NYC the second half of December, if anyone wants to meet up? Find my contact info in the contact tab above.

Psychopaths on changing your past

Authors of Confessions of a Sociopath M.E. Thomas and Victoria talk about changing who you are as a person and what does that mean in terms of changing your past. Topics include the nature of memories (including the tendency to remember things differently when we have changed and go back to "touch those memories," meditation, processing through past trauma, family dynamics and working through the inherited traumas of a family, rule following, gray rage, process vs. outcome orientation, etc. 

They reference the most recent video with Pretty Morbid and the discussion of the Shipibo people, as referenced by the movie Tar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9e1F3QOsUo

They also reference the last time they spoke about long lasting change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is_s0fvEfp4

Other links from Victoria:

https://www.innerengineering.com/online meditation I do

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5871312/ scientific paper on this meditation practice

https://www.intronaut.com/ plant medicine healing

https://youtube.com/@JulianneKeu participant of intronaut

https://youtu.be/cv85tvudi7Y if God is good, why evil

https://www.thesecret.tv/products/the-greatest-secret-book/ 

Lydia Tar Psychopath?

Author of Confessions of a Sociopath M.E. Thomas and Pretty Morbid talk more about his theories of being identity vs. acting identity and about the movie Tar and the different ways in which Lydia Tar acts like a psychopath (M.E. says she's 6/10 psychopathic). 

They also talk about "the reckoning" and some of the difficulties that psychopaths experience in getting better. 

Part 1 of previous Pretty Morbid chat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQJ33muN84Q 

Part 2 of Pretty Morbid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSwWNXUFbGI 

Psychopaths against (?) empathy

Author of Confessions of a Sociopath M.E. Thomas and Roadrunner talk about the nature, upsides, and limitations of empathy. 

 

The Dis-integrated Psychopath

 Confessions of a Sociopath author M.E. Thomas talks to Roadrunner (official narcissistic personality disorder diagnosis) about his experiences and theories about personality disorders stemming from a dis-integration of various parts of the person that lead to an alienation from society and from the personality disordered individuals own actions at time. 

Good Psychopath, Bad Psychopath

Confessions of a Sociopath author M.E. Thomas interviews Risky Business. they discuss positive attributes of psychopaths that have been misconstrued by psychologists and the general public (and why) as well as negative aspects of psychopaths and how to mitigate or even eliminate some of the antisocial traits.

 

Paris!

Hello friends! I'm going to be in paris for the first half of September, if anyone would like to meet up with me? Email me at: me at sociopathworld dot com.

Psychopaths relate to Amber Heard

Author of Confessions of a Sociopath M.E. Thomas talks to fellow psychopath Victoria about things that they identified with regarding Amber Heard and the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial. They also discuss the role that intuition plays in being able to just be yourself.

 

Sociopath lessons Part 1

 Author of Confessions of a Sociopath M.E. Thomas offers to give "Tony" lessons in being a psychopath, specifically in this part 1 of a continuing series, why feelings of self-consciousness are undesirable and how to avoid them.

New article re Schema Therapy, etc.

 I stumbled upon this article from the American Psychological Association "A broader view of psychopathy" while looking for a quick legitimate source for psychopathy being a personality disorder and it had a wealth of interesting information including the origin of psychopathy being part of ASPD:

For these and other reasons, the mental health community has not had an easy time homing in on a uniform definition of psychopathy. For decades, its symptoms were examined in two very different populations: people in criminal or forensic settings and people in inpatient or community mental health settings. These groups had somewhat different characteristics, which led to different ways of conceptualizing and assessing psychopathy, said Florida State University psychologist Chris Patrick, PhD, who studies and has written extensively on the condition.

To add to the complexity, psychopathy is not a diagnostic category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V)—one reason the area tends to be both underfunded and undertreated, Marsh added. In part, that is due to earlier disagreements in the field: Some of those studying the disorder worried that a psychopathy diagnosis would stigmatize people too much, while others were concerned that clinicians would have difficulty in accurately assessing traits like callousness or cruel or indifferent disregard of others. So, although psychopathy was included in the first two editions of the DSM, it was replaced in the third edition by antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), which focuses mainly on the behavioral aspects of psychopathy, such as aggression, impulsivity, and violations of others’ rights, but only minimally on personality characteristics like callousness, remorselessness, and narcissism. As a result, only about a third of those diagnosed with ASPD also meet the criteria for psychopathy, according to research using validated scales, which often leads to confusion over how and if the two conditions are related, Marsh noted.

And regarding successful treatment, including schema therapy:

Collectively, these findings suggest that those with or at risk for psychopathy need more than single-dose therapy. Rather, therapy needs to be both correctly tailored to the problems the person is facing and of sufficiently long duration to ensure that changes stick, Viding said. 

Pretty Morbid Part 2

 See the previous post.

Pretty Morbid talks about "being" identity

Confessions of a Sociopath author M.E. Thomas talks to Pretty Morbid about what Pretty Morbid calls a "being" identity that many normal people experience, as opposed to an "acting" identity that is more in line with what M.E. Thomas and Pretty Morbid experience. The being identity is characterized by a sensation of going with the flow of life and not really choosing things but allowing things to sort of arise organically. In this Part 1 they discuss some of the characteristics of this type of identity and the distinctions between this and the acting identity. In the next part they criticize the being identity.

 

Mysterious hot blonde Ray

00:00 Story of chickens being massacred by neigbors' dogs

23:23 Ray introduces herself

41:18 Thought Journals: https://positivepsychology.com/though...

I bet you never thought psychopaths could be mysterious hot blondes. Or maybe you did and that's why you're here is that you put in those exact search terms!!!

Here are the videos I reference about personal boundaries:

WeiWei: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JskiDjjZ1c

Bree Said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq-8oYUUzM8

https://youtu.be/_8PUvZM0Cpw 

More psychopaths react to Killing Eve Finale

 This time with RT!

M.E. Thomas talks Killing Eve with psychopath RT.

More RT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIe1U1XoJ3A&t=0s

https://youtu.be/5gnb55iHRQI

First Psychopaths React to Killing Eve Finale is here: https://youtu.be/oYmX9sOvA2U

M.E. and Victoria on Killing Eve Finale

 Confessions of a Sociopath author M.E. Thomas and Victoria (see video links below) and Victoria's husband Victor talk about identity, diversity/equity/inclusion workshops, and what the finale of Killing Eve got right and wrong about psychopath portrayals.

https://youtu.be/oYmX9sOvA2U 

More Victoria:

Part 1 of this series:  https://youtu.be/EAujim_xKWE  

Part 2 of this series: https://youtu.be/TmL55G9xgVU

Part 3 of this series: https://youtu.be/fnFjkWsKKnk

Part 4 of this series: https://youtu.be/ZJ68szHTOPs

Part 5 of this series: https://youtu.be/Is_s0fvEfp4

More from Victoria on willpower: https://youtu.be/E-IIJoei_hk

Feedback Loop Quiz

I renamed "The Cycle" from last post to the "Feedback Loop". The steps are still the same. This is quiz I came up with so people can see in which steps of the Feedback Loop they may be skipping or not giving enough attention to:

Quiz

Take this short self-assessment to see where you might be skipping steps in the Feedback Loop. Mark your answers yes or no:

1. Do you feel like you always understand your own motivations?

2. Do you spend more than 3 hours per day on your phone?

3. Do you feel ok in work performance reviews?

4. Can you feel comfortable receiving compliments?

5. Do you feel comfortable asserting your personal boundaries?

6. Do you often choose to do things you want to do but scare you?

7. Do you have a growth mindset (vs. fixed mindset, feel free to Google if you’re unfamiliar with the terms)?

8. Are you often proud of the work that you’ve accomplished? 

9. Do you feel comfortable telling people no? 

10. Do you try things even if you think you might fail?

11. Are you fearless in the dressing room, looking down at the scale, or at the beach in your swimsuit?

12. Do you know more than 10 people where you can say that you made a real difference in their lives?

13. Is it easy for you to answer questions like these asking you about yourself?

14. Are you ok with making mistakes? 

15. Are you ok with unflattering photos of you at a social function being shared on social media?

16. Can you list your 10 biggest life accomplishments?

17. Do you know what activity you do that helps you to feel most like yourself?

18. Are you always satisfied that you did your best, even though other people did much better than you?

19. Are you generally able to move on from a broken relationship?

20. Do you feel like you have mostly fulfilled your potential?

21. When other people tell you negative things about you without your consent, do you ask them to stop?

22. Is it easy for you to do difficult things without procrastinating?

23. Is it easy for you to forgive others for unintentional mistakes?

24. Do others often turn to you for advice or do only a few people seek your advice but they highly prize that advice?

25. Is it easy for you to identify and/or understand your emotions?

26. Is it easy for you make realistic New Year’s resolutions and keep them (and/or do you understand yourself well enough to know if you’re not interested in making New Year’s resolutions)?

27. Do you often think after a negative experience that at least you learned something about yourself or the world?

28. Are you a reliable person?

29. Do you know which of your relationships are most sustaining to your well-being?

30. Do you feel like you are mostly in control of your feelings (as opposed to them being in control of you)?

31. Do you find it easy to accept that you are not perfect?

32. Do you often feel engaged in life? 

33. Do you find it easy to accept that people may never change in the ways that you would like them to (or may change in ways you don’t like)?

34. Do you release limiting beliefs about yourself easily?

35. Do you find it easy to cope with uncomfortable feelings?

36. Do you regularly engage in activities or areas for which you have a passion? 

37. Do you value others thoughts or opinions above your own?

38. Are you ok with the fact that your to-do list will never be complete?

39. Do you use your feelings only as information about yourself without judging them as good/bad?  

40. Do you commemorate your victories?

41. Do you regularly assert yourself (as opposed to staying silent to keep the peace)?

42. Do you always overtly express your expectations of others?

43. When you get angry or frustrated that someone has not met your expectations, do you often pause to reflect on whether you adequately communicated those expectations?

44. Do you find it easy to acknowledge your limitations?

45. Do you know well who in your life is worthy of your trust?

46. Do you do things primarily for your own satisfaction (as opposed to doing what others want you to do)?

47. Is it easy for you to concede and apologize when you’re wrong or have made a mistake?

48. Do you feel like you have shown a great deal of resilience in your life?

49. Do you find it easy to stand up for yourself?

50. Do you have little to no life regrets?

Scoring:

To give yourself an idea of where you might be struggling in terms of the Feedback Loop steps, count only your “no” responses. The questions are arranged in the Feedback Loop order: 

Step 1: 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37, 41, 45, 49 

Step 2: 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34, 38, 42, 46, 50

Step 3: 3, 7, 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, 31, 35, 39, 43, 47

Step 4: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40, 44, 48

What do your results mean? If you have a lot of no’s for Step 1, it means you often skip or pay too little attention to Step 1 in the feedback loop, etc.