Patric Gagne: Sociopaths, compulsive behaviours, and theft

0:00Hello, and welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. Today, the author of this month's Happy Place Book Club breed, Patrick Gagne. She's written a memoir called Sociopath. My name is Patrick Gagne and I am a sociopath. I am a passionate mother and wife. I am an engaging therapist. I am extremely charming and well-liked. I have lots of friends. I am a member of a country club. I throw parties for every occasion you can imagine. I live in a nice house. I'm a writer. I like to cook. I vote. I make people laugh, I have a dog and a cat, and I wait in carpool lines next to other women with dogs and cats.

0:42On the surface, I resemble almost every other average American woman. Social media confirms my existence as a happy mommy and loving partner whose posts are borderline narcissistic. Your friends would probably describe me as nice, but guess what? I can't stand your friends. I am a liar. I'm a thief. I am emotionally shallow. I am mostly immune to remorse and guilt. I am highly manipulative. I don't care what other people think. I'm not interested in morals. I am not interested, period. Rules do not factor into my decision making and I am capable of almost anything.

1:33by Jenny Godfrey, and you can listen back to our really cool Book Club Meets episodes of Happy Place, where I chat to the authors and we hear little audiobook snippets too, and the voice notes that you've sent with your thoughts and reviews whenever you like. Don't worry, there aren't any spoilers in these episodes. Anyway, as I was saying, this month we're reading Sociopath by Patrick Gagne, and given Patrick was on a trip to the UK recently, I really wanted to sit down with her and properly get into her life experience as a sociopath. She's a writer, former therapist and now a real advocate for people suffering from sociopathic, psychopathic and antisocial personality disorders.

2:18Oh my god, I was chomping at the bit to get into this chat. Reading this memoir totally blew the lid on what I thought I knew, which let me tell you was nothing. I knew nothing about what it meant to be a sociopath. I had only heard, like many of you, the sort of Hollywood version of what a sociopath is. So to sit down with someone who has been diagnosed as one and to hear about the life experience and the challenges and just the amazing epiphanies that Patrick has had over the years, it blew my mind and I know that it will yours too. This is the kind of chat you'll want to get your pen and paper out to make a few notes.

2:57It is fascinating. Enjoy.

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5:16Patrick, as you take a slap of coffee. Hi. Hi. are you doing? I'm so well. How are you doing? I'm really good. And it's great to meet you because I have just recently finished reading your incredible memoir, Sociopath, which I don't even know where to start. I just loved reading it. It's also a Happy Place Book Club pick of the month because I'm so excited for everybody to get talking about this subject matter, which is really important. Like many people, I hadn't taken the time before reading your book to really understand what the word sociopath means. There's so much stigma around the word and the diagnosis.

6:00I don't know if I even would have put the word diagnosis with it, because I think in pop culture, we just hear it in a sort of derogatory way. What do you believe today is the biggest misunderstanding about the word sociopath or the diagnosis sociopath? That all sociopaths are created equal. You know, to your point, There is a tremendous amount of stigma associated with the word. And to a large extent, that's well earned. There are sociopathic examples whose behavior is violent and extreme and something that you would want to steer clear of. But what most people don't understand is that those extreme examples only make up a small percentage of the entire sociopathic picture.

6:40We're talking about a disorder that affects roughly 5 % of the population. and those extreme examples, I like to use the iceberg analogy where it's only the part sticking out of the water that you're paying attention to when in reality the iceberg extends deep, deep, deep beneath the surface. And I think the same can be said of sociopathy. So first of all, 5 % is a lot of people. Yes. So that's why it's really important. And when you consider that most of the diagnostic interviews for sociopathy and psychopathy take place within the prison system, there's no way that number isn't much higher. But even if we were just talking about 5%, that's roughly the same as those struggling with depressive disorders, bipolar disorders, borderline personality disorders.

7:27And yet when you walk into a bookstore, you will find dozens of books on those disorders and others, how to cope with them, how to treat them, how to help people suffering from them. And yet there's nothing on sociopathy. It's so fascinating. And I'm deeply interested about that bit of the iceberg that is above the water of the 5%. I believe it's 0.01%. 0.01 % of people where they've ended up in prison or they've caused extreme violence, whatever it might be. Do you believe then that there is a sort of gradient, a spectrum of sociopathy? or are there people who haven't had perhaps the right care or awareness or understanding of their disorder which has led them to then go down this path?

8:19100 % both. Right. My understanding of the research is that sociopathy is very much a spectrum disorder but that coupled with a lack of resource, a lack of understanding, a lack of support in treatment interventions, if you are struggling with sociopathy and you don't have access to those things your behavior is likely just going to get worse and you are going to end up being further you know on the further extreme side of the spectrum than if you received help which is really the same thing that can be said of most personality disorders on left unchecked they get worse yeah so this is something you've been on this incredible journey of self-discovery because you felt at the age of seven that something was off.

9:08So talk to me about that. What was the self-awareness like at seven? What were you noticing? Just the other kids. They seemed to have reactions and emotions that I didn't. I had a sister, so I knew what complex emotional development looked like and I knew that I didn't have it. I didn't feel bad when I was quote unquote supposed to. And I understood very early that admitting to that, telling people about that, was the quickest way to get into trouble. So I learned how to lie and manipulate and mask at a very, very young age. And I think motivation is the cornerstone of any conversation I want to have about sociopathy, because so many people make the assumption that a sociopath is acting out because they are monsters.

10:00They're evil. They want to do harm. When in reality, for me anyway, it was a coping mechanism. It was born out of necessity. And that coping mechanism just developed into a lifestyle strategy. I started hiding very early. I understood that saying things like, oh, I don't feel remorse and I don't feel badly about X, Y, and Z, that was the fastest way to have all eyes turned to me. And I didn't want that. I just wanted to slip underneath the radar and survive. I mean, this is the bit that I didn't understand before reading your book. How could you, though? No. You know, where we're... There's no literature.

10:38Yeah, there's not. There's nothing out there, which is why I was just, you know, it was so... It was game-changing to read. Understanding this apathy that you became aware of, even if the language wasn't there to sort of support what you were feeling, you had this apathy. And knowing that that probably wasn't how you were supposed to be feeling then created a pressure and a stress. Yes. And you would then act out within this sort of coping mechanism you'd created to get some sort of release, to feel something. So what might that have been when you were a kid? The different releases? Yeah, the way to get that sense of feeling.

11:17It could have been anything from knocking this glass of water off the table to something more extreme. In the book, I talk about assaulting a child. And again, I didn't want to hurt this kid. I wasn't consumed with thoughts of wanting to harm her or wanting to see her in pain. It was just one of those situations where the pressure had been building and it was a means to an end, which certainly doesn't excuse it. But I think that it explains it a little bit more. I wasn't the child who was seeking to hurt other children so much as I didn't have any other way to cope with this building tension. And in much the same way that someone with obsessive compulsive disorder can't really explain why doing some repetitive action helps them feel better, I couldn't explain why that made me feel better either.

12:12I just remember, and I talk about this in the book, sitting behind a little girl in class, and it was take the barrette out of her hair and you'll feel better. I mean, it wasn't something, it wasn't a conscious, it was just something I knew would help. And I took her barrette and I did, I felt better. And I can't tell you, I can tell you why now, but at the time I certainly couldn't have. Yeah, when I have super bad anxiety, it manifests in OCD behaviour. I never feel completely comfortable saying I've got OCD because sometimes there's nothing for months and months and months. But that made me completely understand it because there's times where I have to go back into a room to move something or I have to go to the toilet one more time before I can sleep.

12:58And I don't know why, but I do feel better or a sense of calm or something. after I've done that action. So I completely understood it. And I thought it was brilliant that you were, you know, happy to talk about these situations, which would be deemed, you know, socially inappropriate. But for us to understand that it wasn't you wanting to create pain, but it was this necessary release that you had to have. I was also fascinated about these home breakings, You would break into houses. And the way that you describe walking into an empty home, I could almost feel it like, yeah, I get it. There's a sense of stillness that you couldn't seek elsewhere.

13:43So that must have been extraordinary, having an understanding that this isn't OK because people have told me that I've got to do it. Yeah. And it felt exactly what you said. It was that stillness. And I think that the stillness of those homes matched the stillness in my head. And that equilibrium was, it was like floating on top of water. And I remember before I started doing that regularly saying, making rules for myself, and one of the rules was I'm not going to take anything. But once I did it, I realized, oh, I would never take. It wasn't even something I considered. It was almost I would never defile the sanctity of this space.

14:29I would never. And that was interesting, too, because there aren't a lot of things that for me are quote-unquote off-limits. But again, it wasn't a sense of I would never because that's bad or because I would feel guilt. But it was, no, this is a world that I am not supposed to be existing in. And yet I have found myself existing in it. And I'm going to remove myself from it when I'm done existing in it. I'm not going to touch anything. I'm not going to rearrange anything. I want to leave it exactly as it was. So it wasn't necessarily a moral compass driving that. It was your rules which worked for you.

15:09And that's something that I really had to figure out. When you don't have those internal checks and balances, you have to sort of create an external philosophy that works for you. And I remember I always liked the idea of balance, of karma, and thinking, all right, I'm doing these things that I know are quote unquote wrong. Just because I don't feel wrong about doing them doesn't mean that someone else wouldn't feel that they were wrong. so if I see something amiss I'll fix it if I if there was a stove left on I'll turn it off it was just my way of of keeping things balanced so there's also a huge element of fearlessness you know reading about you as a young child walking around the streets at night I mean that would terrify me now to do that and then breaking into someone's home and there being risked that you could get caught.

16:00That fearlessness and the apathy, what else are we missing in the picture here? What is a true diagnosis of sociopathy? What do you have to check off the list to have that diagnosis? Well, before I get into that, let me parse out the difference between sociopathy and psychopathy. Because that's a huge question and I understand why they're very similar. So psychopathy is very similar to sociopathy, but psychopaths are believed to suffer from brain abnormalities that we believe make it difficult for them to progress through normal stages of emotional development. So while they have access to inherent emotions that everyone has access to, happiness, sadness, disgust, surprise, et cetera, they're unable to learn the so-called social emotions.

16:45And those are learned. You teach your child at a young age shame, guilt, empathy, love. Psychopaths appear to be incapable of learning those emotions. That is different from sociopathy. Sociopaths can learn the social emotions. They just learn them differently. In the book, I describe it as an emotional learning disability because for me, that's what it felt like. But the biggest difference is that sociopathy can be treated. In terms of a diagnosis, the diagnosis of sociopathy isn't used anymore. For the most part, it's considered clinically obsolete due to stigma. They recently recategorized sociopathy as secondary psychopathy, which I don't think does a lot to reduce the stigma.

17:30That makes it worse. I didn't make that decision. But not only did it not help with stigma, but it also further muddies the waters in terms of research. Because there have been times where recently I send some research about this or that, and I have to preface it by saying, OK, this is a research study on psychopathy. But since they've recategorized sociopathy as secondary psychopathy, you kind of have to, it's tough. It really is. So a diagnosis of sociopathy today, as I understand it, it's going to be a lesser, a milder form of psychopathy. So when you are assessed for psychopathy or sociopathy, you're given the psychopathy checklist.

18:11And this has been the gold standard for decades. This is the go-to test. It's a total score of 40, if I'm not mistaken. Psychopaths, I believe their score between 30 and 40, and a sociopath is going to be right on the cusp or have a slightly lower score. A normal person would score a four. And I go into this in greater depth in the book. And if I misquote myself, just let me know and I'll correct it. Everyone needs to go buy the book and they can read it. Yeah, because I might be getting the scores wrong. But essentially, sociopathy is a milder form of psychopathy. So you're going to see a lot of the same behaviors, but it's the motivation of those behaviors.

18:51It's the ability to be self-aware. It's the ability to course correct, learn through your mistakes. You will not see that in a psychopath. You will see that in a sociopath. So I'm very fascinated by this. So, and I'm asking this not only from your own personal experience, but also as a therapist yourself. With these learned behaviors that, you know, you're saying here it is treatable. You can learn to understand what's appropriate, what's not, but you can learn to understand how to be empathetic, for instance. Is there access to the actual feeling ever or is that a no-go? I think so because in my own experience, it wasn't until I started thinking about, I started doing the research, I saw what little resources were available.

19:38And I remember the moment I started thinking, well, what are people like me supposed to do? And it dawned on me, hey, I think this is empathy. So it started as cognitive. And then I had that first feeling about other sociopaths. And it was sort of like a tree branch. From there, I was able to extend the branch to a different category of people. So at first, it was just sociopaths. And then I was able to empathize with my husband on certain things. And you can learn. And it does develop into the, quote, unquote, real feeling as much as I understand it. Again, I only have my interpretation of what neurotypical people feel.

20:16But I think it's, in my experience, very possible. It just takes a minute to understand it cognitively first and then give yourself a break if it doesn't happen right away. It sort of happens in unexpected moments. For me, it was, oh, I can empathize with other sociopaths. Aha. Okay, I am officially capable of feeling this. It's just now can I extend this feeling to other people? Yeah. Wow. It's extremely hopeful, I think, for people that could be listening to this or will pick up your book and go, this is me. You know, I'm completely relating to the apathy or the lack of access to these feelings that it can be learned.

20:58But I guess having a diagnosis or maybe even self-diagnosing to an extent is helpful so you can then make some change. I think it's helpful in that you feel you're not alone. So you resonate with, if you resonate with this personality type, the most important thing I want you to know is it's okay. You're not a lost cause. You're not a monster. You're not evil. I remember as a kid and as an adolescent and an adult sort of identifying with a lot of the sociopathic traits, but then also seeing sociopaths portrayed in this singularly evil way. And my thought was, is this just what happens? Like, I feel okay now, but eventually am I going to grow up and be a murderer, like, even though I don't want to?

21:46That was really concerning for me. And I know that there are people on the periphery not knowing what's wrong, not knowing how to help their kid, their partner. And this book is a bridge to them to understand it's OK. There is nothing inherently immoral about having limited access to emotion. It's not what we feel. It's what we do. Yeah. I mean, one of your first encounters with the word was on a visit to a prison with your Uncle Gilbert. It's very atypical. Yeah. So you're in a prison, you're seeing the context of a sociopath in a cell. How did that impact you? I remember, first and foremost, having, speaking of atypical, having an atypical reaction to his description of sociopathy or sociopath.

22:35I remember thinking, oh, wait, that sounds like me. And as odd as it sounds, feeling a little bit of hope, like, does that mean there's a name? and does that mean that there are a category of people and maybe I can not end up in a prison? Because certainly not every sociopath ends up in prison. I remember that was my first instinct, like, oh, wait, so I'm not bonkers. Or I am, but at least there's a name for what it is. And then seeing these men in the prison, I remember wondering if they were better able to control their compulsions because they were physically confined and wishing that I could talk to them and ask them if they had ever felt pressure or if they had ever.

23:25And I wanted to go down onto the floor and start having these conversations immediately. Of course, I wasn't allowed, but that was my first instinct was to understand. So you almost visualized that cell being something that kept them safe or stopped them from getting in trouble. Yes, which is, of course, you know, I would never want to minimize the atrocity of being in a prison. And I understood that as a kid, that this is not a place that these men want to be. But at the same time, I was wondering if it wasn't like a boundary that kept them safe from themselves in addition to other people safe as well.

24:04Yeah. But I guess did that, I mean, obviously there's the fearlessness, but I wonder, did that stay with you? That thought of, I could add up there. I don't know if I want to or I don't want to. Yes. And I remember thinking, I knew I didn't want to go to prison, but I remember wondering if I could, if there was a way for me to physically incapacitate myself. I remember thinking, if I broke an arm or a leg, would that keep me confined to an extent great enough to keep me from acting out on these compulsive, destructive urges? I mean, one of the next game changing moments in terms of understanding yourself and not feeling alone was when you went to UCLA and your professor mentioned the word sociopath and talked a little bit more directly to that topic.

25:08What did you feel in that moment? What impact did her sort of sounding that out have on you? Relief, which I understand is not what a neurotypical person would experience if they found themselves identifying with traits of sociopathy. But I remember having tried to look up the word, not being successful, I couldn't find a true definition for it. And when she started speaking about it and laid it out so clearly, I really got my first sense of, okay, now I know. Now we know what we're dealing with. And that logic helped take or really the normalization of what I'd been feeling took 80 % of the air out of the balloon.

25:56Suddenly it was, oh, all right, I see what's going on here. This is what appears to be my brain trying to jolt itself into feeling. And it was my discomfort with apathy up until that point that had been driving a lot of this anxiety. The idea that if I don't either force myself to feel like other people or put on a very convincing act, all of the perks that come with society will be unavailable to me. And again, contrary to popular belief, I wanted to be a member of society. I might not be as pro-social as everyone else, but I wanted to have relationships. I wanted to have a house with a white picket fence.

26:44I wanted all that stuff. But I knew that I would not be able to get any of those things if I continued to steal cars and break into homes. And it was a strategy that needed to be improved.

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29:12You just need Wix. Try it out for yourself at Wix.com. This catalyzed this, you know, incredible journey through the huge lack of research that was there. When you went to the library and looked in the DSM, which is the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Health Disorders, the word sociopath had been removed at this point, is that correct? So why had it been removed and what was it replaced with? Because it really wasn't replaced with anything. And that's a common misconception is that antisocial disorder replaced it. Except you can't diagnose sociopathy using the criteria for antisocial personality disorder.

29:50You can only diagnose sociopathy and psychopathy using the PCL. You can diagnose antisocial personality disorder using that criteria in the DSM. But when you're talking about that, the criteria for antisocial personality disorder is going to include things like multiple arrests, multiple stints in juvenile detention, expulsions, suspensions, impulse control, repeated acts of violence, no real ability to moderate or alter their behavioral patterns. And that wasn't me. I didn't meet that criteria. So it's really important that people understand that because sociopathy and antisocial personality disorder are often used synonymously, but they really shouldn't be because the diagnostic criteria for each of those is very different.

30:42Similar, but different. Yeah, so you wanted to rectify that and rightly so dived into this subject matter to try and get a better understanding of yourself. And like you say, this cultivation of empathy to then help other people in a similar position. Was it around this time that you started to try and create some sort of rulebook for yourself? Obviously, you had in childhood, but this seemed to be the point where you started to schedule mischief into your life to help have mini releases that stopped you from stealing a car or doing worse. And did that help for a period of time? Yes, it really did.

31:23And again, this really speaks to the power of the unconscious mind, because to some extent, I'd been doing this my entire life. I just wasn't aware of it. it wasn't until I was older that I really started piecing together that smaller acts of disciplined deviance would probably be safer than spontaneous larger ones. If I waited for the pressure to rise, I noticed that I tended to be more impulsive and I tended to be in less control of my behavior. And I didn't like that. So I started regulating. I called them my prescriptions. And I say in the book, the fact that I was, you know, roughly acting like a lunatic never once factored into my, you know, decision making or the fact that I was, yeah, I've got this under control.

32:13Under control might have been, you know, a little fast and loose for what I was doing. But for the first time, I remember feeling as long as I do this, the rest of the day is quote unquote normal. I don't feel as if this is a dragon that constantly needs feeding. It was, I'm going to feed you once in the morning and you're going to be fine until the next time. And it was consistency and discipline that helped. It really helped allow me to focus and get a job and not have that constant tug of when are you going to do this next thing in order to prevent another rise in pressure. So how might you be feeding it on those scheduled slots at this point in your life?

33:02I would, I love to follow people. And again, because I never had any intention or drive to hurt them. I didn't consider that bad. I'm sure they wouldn't have loved it, but, or maybe they would have. I mean, who knows? It's not, again, the motivation was never nefarious. It was never, I'm going to follow this. And then as soon as she's not looking, I'm going to know. It was, I'm really interested. I'm going to watch and I'm going to see, oh, how do they, oh, she's meeting this person and oh, she's going to go. I wonder if this person has kids. And it was just something I wasn't, quote unquote, supposed to be doing, but it didn't register as bad to me.

33:38Same with the houses. I knew that it was not ideal. but at the time it was just I gotta do something and I don't want to I don't I don't want anyone accidentally getting hurt in the process of this so I'm just trying to do things that that are solitary and kept me away from from people for for to a great extent and at what point did you think maybe this isn't working maybe I should look for something else well after it had been going on for a long time. And I, and I, again, I knew that I wanted a relationship, but I also knew like, how am I going to, how am I going to explain this? Like just off to nick a car.

34:20Yeah, exactly. A hundred percent. And I was like, yeah, I have to make a decision if I, if I mean what I say, and I want to be a member of society to the extent that I can be, I'm going to have to find ways to deal with this that are less anti-social and more appropriate. Yeah. I want to get onto those in a minute, but you mentioned relationship and your husband, David, features heavily in the book because you met him as a teenager. And your initial reaction to the feelings you were having around him and being in his proximity as a teenager was surprising to you? You felt unsettled or confused by those feelings at that point?

35:03No, I just remember feeling really seen. And again, all I have is my interpretation of the neurotypical experience of love. But, and I've been laughed at in the past for saying this, but my experience of love, which I understand to be just the be-all, end-all of emotion, is my experience of that is just less emotional. And that tracks for when I was a kid meeting David, I knew that I had love for him, but they weren't these sweeping romantic feelings. It was more, I felt very seen. I felt very safe. I felt that this is someone that I could be my true self with, that if I did have a shot of having a relationship, it would be with someone like that who I could confess my deepest, starkest urges and they would not necessarily accept them and give me a high five as I'm walking out the door to nick a car, to your point, but at least isn't going to hold up a crucifix and start screaming as soon as I start confessing to these things.

36:11I mean, you confessed to him quite early on when you were teenagers and he was extremely level-headed about your confessions. And that seemed to, well, it was undulating, but continued to an extent until you ended up marrying and having kids together. Is that something that in a marriage you have to keep talking about even today? I think so. But I just I think it's also very relatable. I think if you have any type of mental disorder, be it sociopathy or anxiety, you're so much better off talking about it, checking in so that your partner understands and vice versa. I always made an effort to be hyper honest with David, and that was not always appreciated.

36:54But even today, I think it's really important to talk about things that are uncomfortable, including feelings about other people. You know, there's this misconception that when you get married, I guess you lose your sense of sight and every other sense, and you just never look at another person. That's not accurate. And I think that what happens when you sort of subscribe to that belief system is if you find yourself looking at someone else or your partner and it's discussed, that means something's wrong. When I think nothing could be further from the truth. If my husband found someone at a bar attractive, tell me.

37:29We can have a conversation about it and move on as opposed to this, I think it's probably rooted in shame, like you're not supposed to. You're not supposed to ever have feelings or attractions to anyone else. And if you do, that means something's wrong. I don't agree with that. And I think that, to your point, getting everything out on the table, not just what's going on with you mentally, but everything is helpful. Yeah, it seems like one of the real pluses of sociopathy, and I think there are a few, and you list them towards the end of the book. You can say that. Is that you... The market's uncertain.

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40:05they don't want to be or whatever it might be. It feels like you don't have that filter. You're just going to say it as it is. That's a good thing. I think so. And that's what I meant when I said, you can say that there are benefits to having sociopathy. When I say it, I understand the interpretation is, I like being a sociopath and everyone should want to be a sociopath. It leans toward that. But that's stigma saying it. I understand, but it is what it is. Perception is reality until it's not. But yes, I remember as a kid, my mom explaining things to me and she would get frustrated because my response would always be, why?

40:43Why? Why do we have to do that? Why? Because of God. What's God? Well, it's being and well, it's just important that we follow the Bible. Why? What's the Bible? I don't why. Whereas other kids were just internalizing it. And that That is the neurotypical response to take in those. We want our teacher to like us, right? Yes, we do. Why? Like, I don't. What is the point of this? So that does track for me as an adult. And again, it's not always appreciated if my husband has a social function that he feels he has to go to and he wants me to go. And I usually, why? That's what I'm like. I don't want to go anywhere.

41:30Exactly. It's not. But I like that there's that lack of a filter with stuff that we just go, oh, I guess I have to. I think, you know, and there are other things in there that I thought, wow, you know, how must it feel to not care how other people think about you? I care too deeply sometimes. I think, oh, God, this is such a drag that I'm wasting so much time and energy giving a shit about people I will never even meet. Think about me. Why am I doing this to myself? It's torturous. You don't have that. I don't. But I'm seeing it in you as you're talking about it. I see it on my friends' faces.

42:06And again, that's my bridge where I see myself, oh, I feel badly for them. I can't empathize, but I do. I feel genuine sorrow for the look of pain on your face or distress. And same with my friends when they're just so beaten down about fears over what someone's going to think or what someone's going to do, which is not to say that I don't care about anything. Certainly, I understand that actions have consequences, and I don't want to cause anyone harm. But if there's nothing I can do about it, if someone doesn't like me, what do I care? I don't. Which is more logical than the majority of us that are people-pleasing, I think.

42:51I think it's more logical what you're saying. And I don't know, you obviously don't have anything to compare it to, but I'm imagining it's freeing. You're not wasting all that time and energy sitting there going, I shouldn't have said this. And that was a bit weird. And I shouldn't have done that because it's not there. It's not. And I, and I, again, I see that struggle even with my husband to a certain extent. And that is very different from I said something insensitive and this person is upset. You know, in an instance where I can see that I have taken a misstep, I might not be able to empathize with why that something I said upset this person.

43:36But it doesn't really matter if this person is upset and I can see then I can I'm happy to have a conversation and fix it. But certainly with people that I don't know. No, like I just it's all a projection. And I think that this – it's always been so fascinating to me that the word sociopath evokes so much more feeling than almost any other personality type. That's such a – How interesting. Isn't it? Isn't that interesting? And it's so true with this book. There's so much emotion about it. And I think that I represent a very inconvenient truth. I think that people want to believe, no, no, no, sociopaths are all evil.

44:19They're all monsters, which makes them easy to spot. So I don't have to worry that I'm sleeping next to one or working with one. No one wants to hear that it's a spectrum and that the psychological traits of sociopathy can be normalized. Not the behavioral ones, but the psych. It's a very activating topic of conversation, which I found very interesting. Yeah. I mean, if there's 5 % of the population walking around undiagnosed, we need to start using this terminology in a medical way, in a psychological way, rather than in a pop culture, scary movie way. Because it's not helpful to be walking around like that.

44:59And actually, I've seen you talk about this on videos, that this book is a book of hope. It's a book of hope to show that you can have a life with friends and family and a job and passion and you can move through society just fine. But we've got to lose this stigma. And we also have to amplify treatment and research and resources. It's mind-boggling to me that there are support groups for people who believe they've been victims of sociopaths, but there's no treatment or support groups for people who are sociopaths themselves. And again, I'm not speaking to those extreme types for whom treatment does seem to fail.

45:42I'm talking about those who are mild to moderate, who struggle with accessing emotion, and who feel very lost. And rightfully so. There is no place for you in this pro-social world. I want there to be more clarity so that you can't diagnose something without first being able to identify it. And right now, sociopathy has no real identification beyond, like you said, pop culture. Yeah. And I guess, you know, people aren't setting up support groups because there is this stigma still encourages this thinking that it's a choice. It's a choice that you're a sociopath. And it's like you've just turned up into the world with your brain working as it is.

46:30You haven't chosen to do any of you to act in a way. It's been coping mechanism based. It's been survival based at times. And I think it's just a huge misunderstanding in terms of what it even means, what it even means. A part of the book that I really enjoyed reading about was when you enter the world of the music industry. Your dad's worked in the music industry for a long time. You started work with him. My background is music industry. I was a radio DJ for a long time and moved in that circle. And as you say in the book, quite a high number of people that might have sociopathy going on. Who claim to.

47:07Who claim to. But also I think you can see it perhaps in the competitiveness at times and how the industry works. It can be extremely odd. My father used to call it a prerequisite, a job prerequisite. Yes. It's intense, to say the very least. But it was a real rollercoaster ride reading through that part of the book. And I love reading that part of the book. But what was really fascinating was how people hooked into you and hooked into, certainly once you had had an honest chat with them and told them that you were a sociopath, how people interpreted that and again projected onto you was fascinating.

47:46Almost like you were a free ride to danger, but without them dealing with the consequence. That I found fascinating. how do you navigate that even today because it isn't usual to hear someone say hello I'm a sociopath whilst you're getting to know them and for some people that is tantalizing and charismatic and exciting but that's something that then you have to deal with because you've got people piggybacking on something they think you are that isn't particularly correct how have you worked through that? Trial and error. So at the time that I was in the music industry, I'm pretty sure that was right when I was sort of experimenting with how honest I wanted to be about my personality type going forward.

48:35And to your point, at that time in the music industry, I was encountering people to whom that personality type was very attractive. So I got a lot of those instant confessions of quote unquote darkness and again, wanting to sort of coast off of my lack of guilt and lack of shame to experiment with their own destructive behaviors. But now that I am older and I've done this, I've been doing this a while, I can spot it now. When someone leans in and wants to tap the vein of sociopathy, I typically lean back. Whereas before I was so desperate to find someone like-minded, I think I indulged it. I know I I indulged it much more frequently than I should have.

49:20And now I, it's, I don't want to say it's, well, it's just not, it's not a conversation I want to have anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that's just sort of life and age and experience, isn't it? Anyway, that you learn how you want a dynamic to flow. I was really interested in the therapeutic tools that you yourself have used and tools that you work with today as well. one of them being cbt journaling and also exposure therapy because these can be extremely helpful in and outside of looking at this particular diagnosis so first of all how is the the journaling side of thing helped you over the years and is that something that you use with patients as well i am a huge believer in treat the behavior first if you have someone that you're working with or in a relationship with who is acting out destructively and that can be destructive behavior, but it can also be cutting or restricted eating.

50:18I mean, anything destructive, anything. It doesn't have to be sociopathy. You handle the behavior first. And that's what I really liked about CBT was that it was a very common sense approach. Stop the behavior and then let's figure out what is contributing to the drive to commit that behavior. So for me, the reframing really helped, the cognitive journaling, where you take something, a belief system and you isolate it. For me, it was, if I don't do small acts of deviance, I'm going to end up doing something really, really bad, was a big belief system that I carried my entire life. And until the day I was journaling and I said, write that down and then write a counterthought to it.

50:59Actually, there's no evidence that that's true. I am however old I am at the time, and I haven't done anything, quote unquote, really bad. So it might just be that there are healthier coping mechanisms that don't involve destructive behavior. There's this logic reasoning. And certainly the exposure therapy is helpful. I know that that's helpful in terms of anxiety. And since there is anxiety associated with sociopathy, it works to the sociopathic anxiety in much the same way I suspect it works with neurotypical anxiety, where you're just exposing yourself to a stimulus that generates an unwanted response and you keep exposing yourself to it until that response is altered.

51:45Which is no mean feat at first, I think, to... It's a hellscape. Yeah. I mean, not fun. Because you've got to sit in the discomfort without doing the thing that you know releases it. Not fun. But then over time, with more and more exposure to it, I guess you're firing off new neural pathways to go, oh, I don't have to do that thing. I've coped once. You're retraining your brain to have a different reaction. So what would you say is your main coping mechanism today to deal with the apathy or the anxiety that could come with the apathy? I have very little anxiety related to apathy anymore because I've come to accept my apathy.

52:30So when I feel apathetic, I just enjoy it now. Whereas before I felt, oh, no, oh, no, we got to fix this. We got to stop it. Now it's my most favorite place to be in a little apathetic cocoon. Again, apathy doesn't mean I want to harm. Apathy, that's the assumption of lack of feeling. That means they're coming to kill me. With all due, I don't care enough about you to want to come and kill you. Like, you know, like my understanding is that murder requires a degree of emotion and certainly desire. And I don't I'm tired. I don't want to I don't care. I just and I think that an understanding that, no, I'm not I'm not going to, quote unquote, grow up and kill somebody someday.

53:17Like I am grown up and that doesn't happen. And I'm not even violent. I, I, we're okay. And as a result of that acceptance, the apathetic acceptance, the anxiety is reduced. Therefore, the behavior associated with that anxiety is reduced. So interesting. And, and the stress and anxiety that was due to the apathy before was social conditioning. Would you say that you knew you shouldn't feel apathetic? It was more that I'm going to be outed. I understand that the world frowns on people, quote unquote like me. And most of us, according to the literature, end up in prison and I don't want to end up in prison.

53:58So I need to find a way to act exactly like everybody else. Otherwise, I'm in trouble and I don't really want to be in trouble. That sounds not liberating. So it was selfishly motivated. And as was my PhD, I get a lot of credit for going back to school to learn how to help others. No, I went back to school to learn how to help myself, first and foremost. The fact that I was required to log these hours and I ended up working with people, that was a gift I was ultimately happy to receive, but I didn't want to do that. And again, all of these things that we're talking about, the resources, the education, I am very clear in who I am, which is a white woman of privilege.

54:45I wouldn't have gotten away with a lot of these things had I been a different race, a different gender. I had resources to go to college. I had the resources to go to therapy and to stay in therapy. You know, sociopathy is sociopathy, but how that is experienced really varies based on gender, race, and socioeconomic stratas. And I cannot stress that enough, that if you don't have the ability to help yourself, there's nobody else that is out there to help you for this yeah yeah I mean you say on the on the back of the book I'm a criminal without a record I'm a master of disguise I've never been caught I've rarely been sorry I'm friendly I'm responsible I'm invisible I blend right in and like you say you know you could have so easily been caught oh I should have been caught but I I wasn't.

55:38And it's just luck, luck and privilege. But, you know, when I understand why that blurb was pulled, it's very, it's very like poppy, like people. But when I read that back, or hear you read it to me, every single thing in there is true, but it's true from a perspective that I don't think people understand. It's, I am a master of disguise. I am a criminal without a record, But I don't get off on that. I wasn't driven by the bloodlust that is believed to be associated with so many sociopathic behaviors. It was something born out of necessity that developed into a lifestyle that was necessity, that I needed to survive.

56:25And what I think is really liberating is that that has changed over the years with your own self-awareness and research and study. You've understood there are better ways and that there are really healthy ways for you to live your life and have a family and a job and all of the things that everybody hopes for as they're moving through the world. It is possible. And that's why I think the memoir is extremely powerful, because you're showing that with your true life story. If someone is listening to this and it's really resonating for themselves or a partner or a friend or a child, what can they do at the moment?

57:05Because the resources are still limited. Help is scarce. What can you do? Provide space to have the conversation. Because, again, for me, the normalization of the way I was feeling or lack of the way I was feeling really helped me feel less stress. And I think that, you know, I think if you were married to someone who walked up and said, we need to have a conversation, I don't feel any empathy and I don't feel any guilt about bad things I do. I mean, your first reaction would probably be fear. And I think that maybe reframing that as a conversation that is allowed to be had, again, we're not normalizing antisocial behavior.

57:50We're normalizing reduced access to emotion. I was at an event recently where I sat a therapist in the audience, asked a question, and I wish I could remember her name because I would love to give her credit for it. But she had spoken of her own struggles dealing with people who fit this personality type. And she said, I wish that we could rename this low affect disorder or low internalized emotion disorder. And I remember thinking, what a great idea. Because that's really what we're talking about. Not the classic sociopath or sociopathic behavior. But let's deal with what's going on up here. What's driving that behavior?

58:26What's contributing to those compulsions? If you had a kid who you felt resonated with these descriptors, I would give that kid permission. Let's talk about how you experience emotion. And don't worry about how I'm feeling. Don't worry about what's going on with me. How do you feel when X, Y, and Z happens? And don't have the pearl-clutching response if that kid says, I actually feel nothing. I don't care. Allow that child or that friend or that spouse to feel accepted within that conversation. That's the first thing I would recommend. Without a doubt. It's just getting rid of the stigma and talking about this in a non-two-dimensional way, which is what we've been presented sociopathy to be.

59:12is this sort of two-dimensional sensationalised experience where we're only really seeing the impact rather than all the stuff that came before the action, all of the cognitive behaviour, whatever it might be, or whatever's caused that tension. We haven't seen any of that. And that's why I found this book so interesting. And I'd like to learn more about this subject matter. It certainly feels like the start of my journey of looking into this subject and learning more. and I'm really grateful to have had this chat with you today, Patrick. It's been nice. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

59:49I really do. Thanks, Patrick. Oh, I really wasn't ready to finish that interview, if I'm honest with you. I could have sat and chatted to Patrick for hours and hours and we've actually been messaging on Instagram since because there's just so much more that I really want to learn and I'm just so fascinated by what Patrick has taught all of us and also just can't stop thinking about her book. It is so, so brilliant. Have you read Sociopath yet? Oh my God, if not, please read it. I urge you to come and be a part of the book club on Instagram. It's at Happy Place Book Club. We have some really good discussions about the themes in all of our recommended reads.

1:00:30But look, I'm going to be back here next week with something very different. If you like the idea of starting your own business, this will be the one for you. In the meantime, the biggest thank you again to Patrick, to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Play Studios, and to you. You are the best.

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