First of all, let me forewarn you: THIS GUEST POST WILL CONTAIN ADULT CONTENT.
When I was asked to write a post
for Mental Health Awareness, my first thought was: “What on earth qualifies me to even do such a thing?” I mean, sure, I’m
on medication for depression and anxiety, I was intimately involved with
someone with bipolar disorder, and I’ve been called crazy plenty of times, but
that hardly makes me some kind of expert. So allow me to preface this post by
saying I am not a mental health professional and am in no way qualified to be
writing this post, so feel free to take what I have to say with a whole shaker
of salt.
With that disclaimer out of the
way, let me explain what I might be
able to contribute to the mental health topic and why I think your host asked
me to be a part of the conversation. For the past several years, I’ve been
developing a character for a series of novels named Aleksandr Zorin. Aleksey is
not a nice guy. In fact, he’s a psychopath and a sadist and a serial killer. As
much fun as it can be to create such a character, I’m one of those anal
retentive types that finds it necessary (nay, imperative) to be as accurate as I possibly can about his
motivations and behaviors, and therefore—by extension—his mental condition. And
since I don’t have an anti-social personality disorder like sociopathy or
psychopathy (as least insofar as anyone knows)—that requires lots and lots of
research.
What I have found is that it’s rarely
like what you see on TV. If programs like Hannibal and Criminal Minds and
Profiler are to be believed, there is a virtually endless onslaught of sadistic
psychopathic killers out there, and they will (almost without fail) be brought
to justice in approximately 42 minutes. In reality (and though I personally question
the accuracy of this statement), the FBI estimates that there are only
thirty-five to fifty serial murderers active at any given time in the United
States. With the abundance of crime dramas currently on TV, it would only take
a few short weeks to declare society completely safe from a horrible demise at
the hands of a violent psychopath. So let’s take a bit to separate fact from
fiction.
Sociopath or Psychopath? There is
much debate on what (if any) difference there is between sociopathy and
psychopathy, even among mental health professionals. Both are classified as
Anti-Social Personality Disorders. Both are primarily characterized by a
profound lack of emotion, empathy, and fear. Some state that the
classifications are two names for the same disorder and can be used
interchangeably. Others believe that psychopaths are born with the deficiency,
and sociopaths are more a product of their environment during early development.
Some say psychopaths are charming, cunning and organized; some say those are actually
the hallmarks of the sociopath. The
Sociopath Next Door suggests that 4% of the population is sociopathic, yet
Robert Hare—the foremost authority on psychopathy—estimates that 1% of the population
are psychopaths. Considering that is a difference of roughly 9 million people,
there must be a distinction between them, but no one really seems to know or
define what that is. So, for the sake of this post, we’ll just have to say that
between 3 million and 12 million people can be classified as psycho/sociopaths.
Those are astonishing numbers,
though, wouldn’t you say? Think of that—at least three million people are psychopaths. They can do virtually anything with little or no fear of
consequence, and have no internal moral compass to guide their actions. They frequently
view the rest of us as either inferior prey or insignificant pieces to be
manipulated in some grand game of their own design—a game we don’t even realize
we’re playing.
Contrary to what many believe (and
quite fortunately for the rest of us), only a very small percentage of those psychopaths
will ever become violent. Many will instead find ways to harness their uncommon
skillset by entering law enforcement or enlisting in the military, becoming
politicians, surgeons, or successful CEO’s. One might, as you read this, be playing
the stock market fast and loose with your money. Any role where a proclivity
for risk-taking, fearlessness and emotional detachment are considered advantageous,
the psychopath would most likely excel at it. Odds are, you’ve even known a few
without recognizing them for what they were. In reality, psychopaths are rarely
“monsters” and are much more likely to be the successful leaders that we look
up to and even admire.
On the flip side of that coin,
however, is something that can be truly terrible to behold. Some psychopaths will become violent rapists and
murderers. But contrary to what popular media frequently depicts, they don’t
look like creepy fuckers/scoundrels, nor are they all brilliant cannibals like Hannibal
Lecter. They may be the quiet bloke that lives next door or your asshole/hardnosed/tyrant
boss or the cute ripped guy at the gym. Like any other slice of the population,
they are quite diverse. They can be any race or gender (but are predominantly
male), come from any background, and will have varying degrees of intellect. What
most of them do have in common is a
frightening ability to blend in. They are the chameleons of our society. They
learn to mimic behaviors that they don’t understand in order to fit in; they
are often charming and disarming. They are the ones whose chain-smoking,
muumuu-wearing neighbors wind up on the news exclaiming: “I just can’t believe
it! He was such a nice, normal guy.” Well, no. He really wasn’t. He was actually
a vicious predator that wore a very convincing mask.
The most
asked and obvious question is “why?” What
is it that causes one human being to revel in the agony of another? Psychopaths
themselves can’t usually provide a clear, objective answer for that. They tend
to place the blame squarely on their victims, or their upbringing. But there is
some new research that seems to shed some light on the subject. Functional
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (or fMRI) of the brains of known psychopaths has
shown significant deficiencies in the areas that process emotion and fear. They
also do not experience the same brain activity that “normal” people do when
shown images or words with violent connotations. In short, the words table and
rape elicit precisely the same emotional response in the psychopath—none. For them, hacking off someone’s
limbs is no more or less remarkable than chopping wood.
Perhaps
Aleksandr Zorin can provide us with another part of the answer: “Imagine an existence without any
feeling at all. A vast desert of nothing as far as the eye can see in every
direction. It is an endless ocean of sand. Empty. Barren. Then one day you
do something and find it to be… exhilarating. Suddenly
within this existence of dust, there is a small oasis—a place that quenches the
endless thirst of nothing. Not an emotion, per se, but a feeling. Something
you've never experienced. Adrenalin flows. Your stomach knots. Your cock gets
hard. Your heart races. Your senses become heightened. It may never be
happiness or love but it is something where there once was naught. It is new.
It is a stirring. It is enjoyable. It is purpose. It is life.”
If Zorin is right, sociopaths and psychopaths eventually
discover just a tiny spark of what the rest of us experience every minute of
every day. It is a glowing ember in the void of their existence. And they like it. They are compelled to ignite it
again and again—to feel again and
again. Unfortunately, it is sometimes the suffering of others that provides the
kindling for those feelings in the psychopath.
Are these broken individuals that
need to be “fixed”, or are they a natural variant in the evolutionary process? Violent
psychopaths are in direct opposition to the laws of civilized society, so they
are hunted by law enforcement. They are often referred to as “evil” and
punished to the fullest measure—by life in prison, and sometimes death. Still,
they fascinate many of us, who perhaps see in them the boogeymen of our nightmares,
or the monsters under our beds. But they are far scarier than any of our
mythological constructs. They are human beings devoid of humanity, barely (and
not always) held in check by our nebulous concepts of compassion and justice.
So how might this post relate to
mental health awareness? First, understand that the portrayals of psychopaths
and serial killers in the media are rarely accurate. Remember that one of every
hundred people you meet is completely indifferent to your feelings, and they have
a tendency to wreak hell and havoc on the lives of those around them. If
someone you know is charming yet constantly takes advantage of those around
them and then ultimately destroys those relationships,
you may be dealing with a functional psychopath. Urge those that you care about
to steer clear—there is zero hope of “fixing” them, or getting them to change.
Transformation is impossible for the psychopath. And if the hairs on the back
of your neck stand on end and you get a shiver when someone approaches, listen
to your instincts—you are programmed to sense danger from predators and
psychopaths are the equivalent of modern sabre-tooth tigers.
While I doubt many with Anti-Social
Personality Disorder have read this post, and though I suspect you wouldn’t
listen even if you had, I encourage you to seek help from therapists. There are
cognitive therapies available that will help you channel your unique assets and
minimize destructive behaviors. It is possible for you to lead extremely
productive and successful lives, despite (or perhaps even because of) your lack
of compassion for others.
Whether we view them as a different
species entirely, or those saddled with an unmanageable mental “illness”, the
three million psychopaths among us already own a link in the evolutionary chain.
We must learn to adapt to—and accept—the reality that there are ruthless
predators in our midst. We are sometimes hunted. We are sometimes stalked.
We are
sometimes prey.
