Should we have compassion for psychopaths?

I'm going to leave you guys with just one more personal story for those who think I'm some sort of devil or whatever. Just so that you may see that I'm actually an incredibly caring and forgiving person, but realize my enemy, and that of humanity.

I lost my little brother in 2006. It was, of course, quite the tragedy for my whole family. He was 18 and just about to go off to college set up as a quarterback, really big-hearted guy. So, he went out into the country to spend time with his cousins and friends. I live in DFW area, and it can be frustrating staying in the city..

Anyways, he went to party out there, had like one or two drinks, and asked his friend to drive him to our cousins place to rest. The guy he asked was drunk. My brother, being the 6'2, 220lbs fearless guy he was, made a horrible call and didn't wear his seatbelt. The driver was..

So they get to a turn, and the driver is going to fast. The truck flips, my brother rolls around, then is ejected and body is thrown 80ft. The driver was just a little scratched up because of wearing his seatbelt.

He got out, called for my brother, then took off back to the house they had just left a quarter mile away. He flipped. Burnt his clothes, neglected to call 911. Everyone at the party did. They were worried about getting caught with alcohol or whatever. About an hour later they went looking for my brother, and they found him. The report is that he was really bad off, but still barely alive at this point. They supposedly continued to debate what to do for several minutes, then called for an ambulance.

When the ambulance arrived, he was pronounced dead. He may have survived if this person didn't ... either go into shock and survival mode, or if he was without conscience to begin with. .. I took it as the former, and while I would NEVER do something like that, I was able to empathize that some people are too weak of character, intellect, and will to do the right thing. I realized he was internally bleeding dry by the experience. It KILLED him.

I saw him a few days later. He actually went to the funeral home. I saw him balling, and gave him a hug. I said, "there is no blame" and walked off. The rest of my family pretty much wants to see him burn. I couldn't accept condemning him. The whole thing was tragic for everyone involved. They all (at least everyone involved with conscience) have a scar in their hearts for how they reacted, and what came of the situation.

So, I can forgive people because of how things are. I can understand that the system is corrupted to the core. That because of how it is set up, we must fight and slave, and be forced into bad situations at times. I realize it's set up by psychopaths, and they mean to infect humanity with their sickness. Because I realize the root is their deception, and desire to kill the human spirit, I attack them directly.

In many ways, their values have become our own. We are conditioned to think they are heroes, superhuman, beyond morality via brilliance, and so on. Political correctness is a tool used by the ruling class to demoralize and twist everyone's mind so that they can continue their dominance. We must transcend all of our petty differences, and realize the common thread which may unite us all is the will to be free of those with intent to keep us down. It's the system, guys. Set up by barbarians. Literally, the Rothschild Khazars are ruthless rulers and they must be dethroned by any means necessary.

KNOW YOUR ENEMY!!



[edit on 5-8-2010 by unityemissions]

reply to post by unityemissions


awesome read! I wonder where the test is! LOL , but do I really want to know?

I often think I am psychotic when I am around a psychotic. Seriously! I am so engaged by my emotions that when someone 'acts out' I give it back with equal if not more powerful of a response. If I am yelled at I yell. I have tried to curb this 'attraction' of others' expressions, I really have, but having spent my young years abused and my adult years ridiculed I cannot help it.

Yeah, that would lead someone into believing they are psychotic. If I am out of the psychotic's train of thought or sight I am fine. I typically find myself comforted by privacy and I can sometimes hear music in my head all day.

Right now I am questioning my sanity because my neighbor is falsely accusing me of "trespassing" and has called the Sheriff twice now. I am not trespassing because the irrigation ditch I walk on is my landlady's farm, an active working farm. He is using this as a means to attack me and scare me. Yesterday he jumped out from behind a storage building like a charging gorilla screaming, "how many times do I have to tell you, quit trespassing". He will not take reason and I just yell back with the same force. I know I shouldn't even give him the response, but it just wells up from my belly and out my mouth it comes. Dang fool, I can dish it too!

So maybe this is the clash of two psychotics! I am over it, I swear; I have imagined every possible outcome from this and half of them are scarier than the next. Now I am Crazy!

Oh well, if you hear of a shooting with a FedEx employee in New Mexico, then you know it was me! I think the man has lost his mind. I have lived here 8 years and he has snapped overnight and his wife has her mouth wired shut for some reason. Something is up and it sure ain't me, I am just the one getting victimized. Story of my life!

The next post should be about how the victims attract these people. I certainly could use that information because I either have "fool" on my head or "Here I am, Your Victim". Why do I have these people in my life? Even my Landlady is without feeling or remorse, she drives me crazy when she can stand there and run my heart through the coals. I can remember my first garden here, my own seeds, I planted corn. Just as the corn was about to ripen she called to tell me that she didn't need any and that I could have what I wanted. LOL In my own garden! Now that is Psycho!

Somehow I have to get Psycho Landlady to talk to Psycho Neighbor; he can get his property surveyed and she can move her irrigation ditch off his property. The Tenant should be left alone! LOL

Forgive the rant, this may be the only proof I existed after this week! LOL Watch the News! Remember FedEx!

reply to post by Greensage


Well it's said that questioning your sanity is a sign of mental health, so..

If the neighbor wants you off his property and is nitpicking, it's probably something else. I mean, if he really feared you were psychotic he wouldn't approach you. It sounds like he may be having financial security issues, so he has become flippant towards his property. I really have no clue of the underlying context regarding the situation, though. Could be anything else, I guess.

Expect to see a rise in violence and an overall breakdown of society as we have known it. It's time for the strong hearted and good willed to be ever so more empathic and altruistic in these times, else the elite have won. We must do everything within our power to keep the communities in a state of basic civility, else violent anarchy will be the likely result, or "forced" (engineered) open dictatorship.

Don't give in. Realize the guy is probably hurting a lot. If you've ever noticed that he has heart, then work with him. If he has ALWAYS been cold-hearted, well perhaps you should keep to yourself, and other decent folk.

reply to post by Bkrmn


I have read that sociopaths tend to mellow as they grow older. imo theyre probably at their worst in their teens or 20s when they feel they dont have as many responsibilities. or maybe later on in their 30s or so when they are working in an environment among innocent people. my point being theyre going to strike where there is oppurtunity. either way supposedly when they get old, they mellow. i had a grandfather who hit my grandmother and my mom + her family. He's almost 80 and just drinks all the time now, but doesnt attack anyone physically. hes just grumpy. so no, i think its anything that can progress

reply to post by matrixportal


Another great point! I do wonder if it's all sociopaths who follow these life stages, or if it's just the sociopaths/sec psychopaths --environmentally created-- ones who do. In my view, a sociopath pretty much flips the conscience switch on and off a lot, where as a normal can't usually flip that switch unless under extreme, life-threatening conditions, and a psychopath's wiring has no switch, no circuit for a conscience.

I would gather that perhaps the ones who are capable of turning it on and off, still learn and acquire lessons to grow a conscience, it's just much, much slower.

reply to post by queenannie38





I only have a minute to answer as I'm to my kids as a bell is to Pavlovs dogs...lol. queenannie38- you're a very kind and understanding person, many more should be like you. I can see that you are a positive asset in your field. I will continue reading your post and answer more later...the dogs are barking..lol

reply to post by unityemissions


thanks! i had thought that psychopath and sociopath were the same thing. guess theres been some changes since i last studied both thanks for letting me know im glad i got reminded about this and did more research. great thread!

"love your neighbor as you love yourself." -JC

everyone needs compassion, but sometimes a person going to prison or a place where they cant hurt others is the most compassionate thing to do. for everyone. think about the compassion that the victims need as well. this is a very tricky subject!

I am back and I shall comment on the DSM and the lovely article posted by unityemissions


DSM

Is more credible than the bible because, the bible is fiction. DSM is fact held by scientific studies which are conducted. The DSM is updated and changed when more data is available and ALL licensed practitioners in the mental health field are required to look at updates which are made available. The DSM is not only written by the APA but the CPA also contributes their findings the CPA is the Canadian psychological association. Since EVERY licensed psychologist uses it and is used by psychiatrists I would assume that the information it provides is true as well the studies are peer reviewed by multiple boards and if you have ever studied psychology you would know this. I take it you have not.


unityemissions


Your article Cannot be taken as credible since the phrasing in it is OUTDATED meaning the sources they used are OUTDATED. No psychologist that is credible will use the term Psychopath or Sociopath. They are required to use APD as a cause.


As well not all APD cases are aggressive You only hear about the aggressive ones because the media only shows you that. Many cannot hold down jobs, have long lasting relations, and turn to drugs. They Can't feel emotion they live their lives with nothing no meaning. It's a lonely world for them.

reply to post by Xiamara


I won't even try to reason with you. It's incredibly obvious that you've got boxed thinking. You've been institutionalized.

unityemissions, thank you for putting out a thread that important to everyone. If the understanding of these things is out there then maybe people, as a whole will stop stigmatizing people who suffer from mental health problems.

It is all labels nowadays, and took years for them to actually explain things to me.

Originally posted by Xiamara
APD people meeting could be really good or really bad.

i was thinking about that as i wrote. i did a thought experiment based on my own observations and experience.
i imagined a day room that did not resemble a jail or prison or even barred-window hospital ward, at least from the inside. there were tables and chairs and groups of couches, etc., and people milling around in groups of various sizes and some alone, sitting or looking out the window.
i imagined what the conversation would be at one of the tables, with 3 or 4 people. playing cards or dominoes or maybe just talking, this handful of APD stricken people would be a complex interplay of bob-and-weave manipulations that would probably come down to either a tie, to be contested the next day in the same manner, or perhaps leave one sitting alone after the others had one by one got up and walked away, out of disgust in not being able to pin down their quarry. in that case, i'd say the one left sitting was the 'winner.'

that was just a hypothetical situation but a very probable one, imo.
a micro-society comprised of only anti-social individuals would be a new and unprecedented dynamic, for sure!

I think it all depends on the factors at play the only borderline APD case I've seen is my own cousin who has a multitude of other neurological disorders that are NOT treated; ADD (attention Deficit Disorder) OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and a few other minor social disorders.
At one family event he and another one of my cousins, who also has OCD and ADD (treated), ended up in a near physical altercation because of a minor thing. Though its not two APD cases I'm sure that it would be the same. It could go very well at first but a minor thing like who ate the last piece of pizza would set them off. APD cases are very intriguing because one moment they can be cool and collected and perfectly decent then the next they can be attacking you because you didn't agree with them. So you can imagine the carnage left after two APD cases are left in a room together. Can you say cage fight?

well, you're right, to a point. if the two were prone to violence, then no doubt it would be a big fight, and nasty. but if there are not other issues involved, no other accompanying diagnoses, then from what i've seen, APD people do not seek to get into altercations of the physical sort because it could result in their own injury. they are quite protective of self. i've seen some injure others, but it was never another APD patient or person - it was someone different than them that somehow triggered something in them to make them act out violently. and those cases were rare.

On a psychological stand point It would be fascinating to see two APD cases in the same room and watch their actions, my guess would be the non violent cases, which are harder to detect.

(...)

All patients must come in and leave the same, damn you ethics preventing me from studying potentially non ethical people *shakes fist*

exactly! it might even result in a totally new social dynamic that had its own rules and which APD persons would follow! that would be quite a discovery.

you never know, you might get your wish in the future as liberal ideas continue to replace more conservative ones from the past decades.

if so, then i'll be eager to hear about it!
good luck!

Also I'm Glad people are reading my article and now using the term APD instead of psychopath or sociopath.. My work on educating even a few people is done.

Hopefully others will spread this new knowledge and we can be more accepting to those suffering from this disorder.

Xiamara

that's all you can do - educate some and accept others.
offer facts and don't get riled up.
you've done wonderfully, i think.
you'll be very good at your work.

Still looking for a good thesis....

YIKES.
good luck with that, too.

APD(anti personality disorder)?

In the UK we call it BPD(borderline personality disorder), it is a generic term to encompass multiple mental health conditions. Just like manic depression is now called bi-polar.

reply to post by Cambion


anti-social personality disorder

APD

i think borderline is different, in the U.S.
but i can't remember, for sure

someone else can tell you exactly


[edit on 8/6/2010 by queenannie38]

What do you want to do, take babies from their parents after birth because they have the potential to be criminals? Lock them all in a room? Execute them?

Originally posted by unityemissions
Should we not judge a psychopath for the way they were born?

I don't believe they are born that way.

Many are actually possessed by entities and that is why they behave so "unhuman". But because most people don't believe in such a thing, they struggle to understand them.

Look at the eyes of serial killers. Do they look normal to you?

reply to post by queenannie38


That is brilliant. It's all about the ethics though... After the stanford prison experiment debacle its hard to get approval of such tests creating micro societies. Zimbardo's whole experiment is what pretty much created the ethics board. At the university I'm attending there was some issues even with getting participants of a study to shoot people in a video game saying the study was about aggression when it was to really study how everyday people racially profile.

So setting up APD people in a group just to study how their behavior would play out would be very hard to convince. Since the liabilities are quite high, depending on the patient they could manipulate the observers, which would then make the study not credible. Or you could end up with patients becoming traumatized, we know so little about APD that its hard to predict the results.

I think if a psychologist did get approval though the results would be shocking. I really do believe that there is more to APD than we know at this point. I think we would see that they can express emotions and guilt it's just processed differently than the average human. Its a long shot hypothesis but still we know so little about the human mind and there are so many ways of examining it.

Also thanks for the support in my attempt of trying to help others understand mental health disorders. I find is so hard to believe people are unwilling to accept that psychology is trying to help people become rehabilitated, and not brain wash people... The fact people think that psychology is so close minded is absurd. The goal of a psychologist is to be open minded and accepting of others to better understand and help the patient. In the mental health field you always have to be open minded because there is so much we don't know and there are so many ways to examine the human mind. There's Fruedians, Jungians, Humanists, Behaviorists, and there's a tone more as well as all the sub categories, and now there are even newer ways of looking at the human mind. Looking at how the brain is only chemical signals, genetics and the human genome.

There is no genius gene, there is no killer gene. Its all about your personal control. You have free will so you can use it to do what ever you want. Some people's brains may be hard wired so that access to information is easier but they have the choice not to use it just like some one who has a learning disability can end up being a rocket scientist, it takes more effort but they can do it. Some peoples brains are wired to be aggressive but they can calm themselves and turn off the impulse with enough will power. Just like the calmest nicest person in the world can pick up a gun and fire it.

Society in order to be civilized has always had RULES.
Everyone living in the society verbally agreed to follow the rules.
There were consequences to breaking the rules.

The practice of punishment has evolved over the centuries and basically follows thus:

In Biblical times it was simple--Retribution (eye for eye, tooth for tooth). These are reality based here and now punishments. Murder=death, rape=death.

Later the punishment evolved to Deterrence--Create artificial consequences to fit the crime. Speed in car=fine, Murder=25 to life, Rape=15-25 years.

Current contemporary punishment theory due to Menninger (1950-1960) is that those who break society rules are sick and need treatment, rehabilitation, and they will straighten up and follow the rules.

So the evolution of punishment has gone in the direction of making the person who breaks the rules and commits the crime less and less accountable and responsible for their actions.

Currently the unspoken reality of why so many are in prison and why so many are on the psyche meds in this country is that the "treatment and therapy to rehabilitate these is not evolved or perfected to the point to be able to help these people".

IN OTHER WORDS IT IS THE FAULT OF THE MENTAL HEALTH WORKERS, who have not been allowed to study the certain mental disorder APD to find the cure.

The entire mind set of the psychiatric and mental health system is find someone to blame. (MOMMY SAT HIM/HER ON THE POTTY CROOKED).

How about boil the solution down to basic human nature. Criminals choose to break society rules.

Criminals solve their problems by breaking society rules. It is not the fault of mommy, genetics, poverty, bullying, low self esteem, and on and on ad nauseum.


"and turn off the impulse with enough WILL POWER. Just like the calmest nicest person in the world can pick up a gun and fire it."

That says it all right there Xiara (sp) throw away all the pills, counseling sessions about how abused you were as a child, AND TELL THE PATIENTS TO USE THEIR WILL POWER. Use it to follow the rules.

[edit on 6-8-2010 by slugger9787]

reply to post by slugger9787


My good Goddess... You have no clue what psychiatry and psychology is... You look at it from one view and only one view that is old world psychology. Modern psychology doesn't blame mommy and daddy... That is ONE branch on the psychology tree. To be precise behavioral psychology.

Clinical psychology and psychopharmachology (the study of psychology and pharmaceuticals) Study's how chemicals in the brain trigger certain disorders and how medical science can help them. They study how enlarged ventricles in the brain may be a sign of schizophrenia and how lithium treatment can help stabilize the chemicals in the brain so as they can have proper brain functioning.

We try and look at all the factors, you can't look at everything but we try and treat medically and therapeutically. Drug treatments we try and avoid because we have not mastered drug therapies because people like you jump up and down saying how we over medicate society then when we under medicate people we get yelled at saying how we need to do our jobs...

reply to post by Xiamara


Go read Toxic Psychiatry.

The fastest rate of population being proscribed psychotropic drugs in America today age the children aged 2-10 years old.

reply to post by Xiamara


You yourself spoke the truth in a post a couple of hours ago where you said use their free will to overcome the urge.

""and turn off the impulse with enough WILL POWER. Just like the calmest nicest person in the world can pick up a gun and fire it." quote/unquote

Current buzzword to dismiss personal responsibility and accountability for anti social behavior is "I HAVE A CHEMICAL IMBALANCE".

Reminds me of Flip Wilson comic in the 1970's "THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT" LOL

[edit on 6-8-2010 by slugger9787]