What Psychopaths Have Taught Me

I've been learning about an eye-opening subject lately: psychopathy. For example, I learned that approximately 1% of the population are psychopaths. That's pretty startling. Of course, they aren't all murderous psychopaths, like Ted Bundy or John Gacy. They are your run of the mill psychopaths: people devoid of empathy, compassion or conscience who prey upon others to get what they want, living emotionally shallow lives of manipulation, lying, and deceit. In fact, there's a checklist of behaviors that psychologists use to identify whether a person has a psychopathic personality, and it is from reading this list that I had a revelation about the way I look at others, and myself.

As I read this list, I experienced what most people do: a tendency to look through my own life and wonder, "Was this person a psychopath?" And I found it especially tempting with people who I haven't liked very well. The behaviors listed include: callous, narcissistic, manipulative, pathological lying, irresponsible, etc. I could think of a lot of people these traits applied to, going back to my earliest memories, and I was tempted to label a lot of people. As I learned, though, I realized that for all of these people, there was some exception that probably ruled out their being psychopaths.

However, what I also realized was, that this list represented the behaviors associated with every action a person had ever taken that had really hurt me. And this is what the revelation was for me. It was someone who didn't care whether they hurt me or not that made me cynical and guarded, it was someone who callously betrayed me that made me not want to trust, it was someone who treated me like a means to their ends that made me resent authority, and so on. It wasn't accidental harm, or sad events, or differences of opinion that left lasting scars. It was the people who behaved in ways that are associated with monsters.

Now, here's the thing. People judge themselves, and each other, over a lot of things. Things that, when you look at what really has brought pain into your life, seem pretty trivial. People worry about their weight, and their crows feet. They worry about whether they have a nice home or car. They worry about the status their job provides them. And all these worries amount to the same thing: what is my worth as a person? Well, ask yourself this: if you add together all the "unacceptable things" that you've ever experienced from others, how much pain have they caused you compared to one act of callous betrayal, or intentional humiliation, or belittlement? I'll bet all the people with shitty jobs, muffin tops, bad breath, crooked teeth, poor social skills, big butts, crappy apartments, and all the rest that you've encountered in your life didn't cause you a tenth of the anguish that being laughed at would... That being publicly humiliated would... That being hurt by someone indifferent to your pain would.

That was what struck me. I am an empathetic person who genuinely cares about people's feelings. If you tell me a secret, I will not use it against you. I am a good friend. I am a safe place for anyone who needs to be seen and listened to. I'm not perfect. I have shitty credit, am overweight, and I make a crappy living. But how can I judge myself negatively, when I know that no matter what superficial flaws I may have, I am part of the solution, not the problem?

There are people out there who feel nothing for others, and see them as objects to be used. Some of them are psychopaths. Others just think it's okay to act like psychopaths sometimes. And they are the reason that sayings like, "Life's a bitch and then you die" are so popular. Not the people who don't "measure up" socially. Those values are just trivia. This realization changed my feelings about myself and others quite deeply, and I haven't had a day with self-doubt since. I am MORE than "good enough" as a person.

I hope that my insights inspire you to reconsider your own negative self-judgments, and to see yourself in a new light. I have known the kindest people who yet felt unworthy, and it is a great tragedy since it is they, and people like them, who are solely responsible for life being worth living, and even, occasionally, wonderful.

Jim