Thanks!
Another question would be about people who think they are good at reading people but aren’t, or who are good at reading but can’t use what they read.
My Idiot Aunt does believe it, but she can’t do it at all. She goes through life systematically insulting everybody she meets and doesn’t really understand why nobody will want anything to do with her unless there is a common hobby, bloodline or something like that. We’re all mean to her! There are frequent street markets in the boulevard in front of Grandma’s old folk’s home; I’ve seen her buy some sweet preserves from a vendor and, when the vendor said “this one is my favorite, I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do!” reply “well, I can see that you enjoy it too much…” (with accompanying derisive look). The woman is like a dog with a verbal UTI, she marks dominance by insulting people.
I posted this in the Pit thread too, but Spice Weasel, I’m sorry that I responded angrily and hurt your feelings. I still can’t look at what you wrote and see it as you’re describing it here, but with so many people responding like they are I think I can’t be right in my perception. I think the combination of the topic and something in your style of writing is triggering an emotional response in me like I’m in an argument with my ex- who had BPD. I can’t just read and respond calmly or even go into the online argument ‘argue angrily for a post, then laugh and move on’ mode, I get angry at what you wrote and ready to tear it to pieces. I don’t think you’re doing something wrong, I think this is just my issue, and I didn’t even realize how outrageously I was responding until I tried to really analyze it.
I’m going to drop off discussing with you in this thread because I don’t think I can respond to you without getting angry, and it’s not good for me and not fair to you. I’m not even sure that we actually disagree on the topic.
And as I also responded in the Pit thread, I appreciate your apology, I understand this is an emotionally charged issue (and may be projecting a fair amount of my anger toward my mother onto you as well) and I hope once we both have a little more clarity we can learn from one another in the future.
And now for something completely different… antisocial personality disorder, or straight up sociopathology.
My friend was telling me about the fascinating case of neuroscientist James Fallon. He studied the brain scans of psychopaths, and one day was reviewing brain scans of his own family to look for early signs of Alzheimers… whoops, looks like the brain scan of a pscyhopath got slipped in there by accident!
It was no mistake, the psychopath brain turned out to be his own brain. He also had several of the known genetic markers for psychopathology and a distant family history of murderers (I think at least seven people way back in his family tree were killers, including Lizzie Borden.)
So, why wasn’t James Fallon a crazed murderer, or even a terrible human being? He embarked on this quest to find out. Ultimately he identified 3 core ingredients required to create a sociopath:
- brain damage to the pre-frontal cortex
- one or more of up to ten specific genetic markers
- severe childhood abuse
Dr. Fallon determined that the reason he wasn’t a serial killer is that he had strong, positive role models growing up, a life free of abuse, and a host of supportive people in his life. He had people modeling pro-social behavior all the time.
And yet, when he asked around, some of his coworkers replied, ‘‘Well, you are kind of a jerk.’’ 