Hi. I'm a 26 yr old male, and I'm wondering what is so different about me from most everyone I've ever met (if not everyone). I'm very aware of my differences but am wondering what it would be classified as.
Over the past 8 years or so I would loosely tell some people that I was a sociopath as a child when explaining my history, but I never really put a lot of research into the subject. Recently I've begun to do more so out of a need for an even deeper understanding of these differences and my inability to reconcile them.
I have read "Profile of the Sociopath" (search it on Google, it should be the top result), and it is exactly who I was to the extreme, up until I turned 14, with the exception of promiscuity and not being clinically diagnosed. Also I was obviously too young to have a job yet the related qualities mentioned still applied.
I only found 1 constant other than most everything in the previously stated article, and that was an intense drive towards power. Power by any and every means. It even led me deep into magick and witchcraft. Seeking some instant gratification in magical powers came up empty though I did my best to achieve them and even believed that I had them on some level. Deep down I knew it wasn't so but I would never had admitted it. So I used magick and witchcraft to manipulate others finding it an effective platform as their intrigue and beliefs into such matters made them easy targets. Just before I turned 14, circumstances led me into a born-again Christian church full of people who believed in such powers as well as powers of God. I quickly became one of them (or at least put on their sheep's clothing). Before this time I feel that I was more my natural self. While in ways I had lied to myself about certain aspects of who I was, once I became "born-again" I took on a whole new level of lies to where I thought I was as pure a Christian as they come. Within the next 2 years I was "speaking in tongues" and "Holy Spirit filled". I was shaking under the presence of God very often and even knocking over others with the Holy Spirit's power that came out of me. I read the Bible 8x's front to back and a few books within it hundreds of times, as well as countless other Christian materials. In fact God spoke through me often and most every church I went to people flocked to me for God's power. Honestly though I still never felt guilt or shame for anything I've done before or during my "walk with God". I'd even "repent" outwardly but felt nothing within except desire to fill a hole in me.
Eventually at the age of 16 I could delude myself no further with Christianity and began to find it didn't make any sense. I tried my best to make any sense out of it by studying the cultures of the times and the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek translations, but I found no real sense in any of it, until it just became completely repulsive. I started searching other belief systems with a vengeance, reading every "holy" text I could find. It was all B.S. to me, but I needed power. I needed something, and I couldn't find it anywhere.
This led to a mental breakdown over the next 6 months and then (I would like to say) "a true rebirth". The mental breakdown was a sort of search for truth or reality that I found nowhere. In fact I just read the book "A Holographic Universe", by Michael Talbot, and it made more sense than anything else. It made sense because I felt no real connection with anything in reality beyond ephemerally, and the book's concepts brought a great paranoia and distress. I thought, "For all I know my whole life can just be the work of some evil demon weaving this illusion of 'life' just to torture me". Eventually I basically followed Immanuel Kant's postulate for finding the Self and found it to be the only thing I could be sure of as real. I started to live life somewhat again starting with no belief in anything but myself and a continued search for power and now truth. I could no longer knowingly lie to myself.
I went somewhat back to my roots in reading about magick and the occult while I searched for power and understanding. I already had a deep understanding of world religions and faiths and just incorporated that, but I didn't follow or believe anything. It was all a search for me. Eventually the search came up empty when it came to trying to find something outside of myself, so at the age of 18 I decided to create my own system.
To me this is the important part because I find that the main things that sets me apart from everything I read about sociopaths is the search for truth that started after my mental breakdown, vowing to never lie to myself knowingly again, and the starting of my own system of truth by testing every detail and building up what was real to me by testing the elements of everything I could through a sort of scientific analysis.
Since then over the years I've made amazing progress in understanding myself, others, and the systems of this world and society. I've learned to alter almost any part of my mind to my will through strict processes (i.e. metacognition) and the aid of trance and meditation. Still I feel extremely alien to most everyone I speak with and emotional connections are fleeting. Almost everything I choose to do is more choice than acting on feeling. Many of my choices are based on what I logically want than naturally or emotionally. I don't listen to my emotions but use them as a tool when necessary. It almost feels robotic. I can have friends but it's obvious how different it is from when others have friends. Emotionally people are still just objects to me but I've developed a care for certain people or even humanity as a whole based on a complex system of logic. It's weird for me because if I didn't feel alien enough from others before, my system of thinking only serves to make me feel more so, because it's now become the entire basis of all my thinking. But I feel that if it weren't for my system, I'd easily be living the life a serial killer or something quite like it. I would no longer kill someone without great cause such as self-defense or the defense of others. I'm also not a threat to those around me as I've definitely been in enough extreme situations to test that. But I still feel like a sociopath aside from my immense control over my faculties. I still have intense bloodlust, especially in oppressive situations or when around people that disgust me. My vision takes on a red hue, I taste blood, and feel a deep desire to inflict pain or death. I've even done extensive meditation on this bloodlust and unwittingly increased its intensity but also my understanding and control over it. As an example explanation: just as someone gets frustrated a curses out of their frustration to express their feelings, I do the same, but the cursing is extremely disappointing. It's disappointing because it's not accompanied by screams and pain of others. This disappointment only serves to evoke an intense desire to fill me where it feels like every cell in my body is SCREAMING out for genocide when I curse, but not just genocide. To have everyone die so quickly would end it too quickly and seems too merciful inside. It's more like a genocide of the most intense pain unimaginable followed by continuous revival and repetition of that genocide over and over accompanied by a desire to hear all their screams at once and feeling their blood rain down on me and splash across my face and even in my mouth so I can taste how real it is as it happens over and over again. Again, I am not a threat to anyone so there's no need for alarm. For me this feeling is so primal and natural. I don't know how to rid myself of it. Though it doesn't influence my decisions it's still discomforting to not be able to rid myself of it. Though on one hand I desire my bloodlust to be satiated, I've thankfully developed a strong moral code through my system that I've created for myself that acts completely opposite from what I feel is more natural for me. I choose my system over my nature any day. My system has become the source of power that I've ever so sought after my whole life. I also will probably never feel my desire for more power satiated and without my system I'd have no restrictions. In fact, I feel that the only thing that is 'truly' restricting me is my nature or primal urges for bloodlust and the like. This bloodlust is one of the 2 main things that makes me feel like I'll never truly connect with another human being. The other is how detached I am from people on an emotional level. I try very hard to but can only approach their emotions with my logic and desire to connect but nothing more. I can't even tell someone I love them without knowing I'm completely lying to them, so I usually avoid it unless they tell me they love me and I would want to love them back. But then it still feels like I'm half lying cause I don't really feel it. I more desire that love or connection with them. I'll respect them. I'll care for them but I know I don't love. A few years ago I had a relationship that made me believe that I finally conquered the hurdle of love. The relationship lasted a year and I was extremely attached to the girl. In fact I was crushed for a year or two since she broke it off with me and only recently stopped feeling the effects of the breakup. I believed I loved her and not only loved her but loved her even more than myself. I believed this completely until I read another article from the site SociopathWorld titled, "Do sociopaths love?" . I completely identify my feelings for her with the original post exactly and some of its following comments.
Honestly I don't think there's anything "wrong" with my mind, but I want to know what this is "classified" as. I don't need "help" or medication. Nor am I looking to get clinically diagnosed. I just need information. Also if you have any tips about my bloodlust or lack of the ability to "bond" with people, that would be appreciated.
Topic: Am I a Sociopath? (Read 253 times)
September 23, 2010, 10:19:39 AM