Patric Gagne and the Art of Sociopathic Zen
2024-06-11 01:09:56
<p>To be human is to fail – period. And not just to fail once, but to fail a lot. As the author Samuel Beckett said: “Fail again. Fail better.” This saying means a lot to me and my family – so much so that my daughter got a tattoo of it. Why are we, and so many others, so deeply concerned by failure? And if it’s something we all do so often, why are we so afraid of it – especially those of us here in win-at-all-costs America? In this podcast, I sit down with successful, thoughtful people like Ben Stiller, Bette Midler, Sean Penn and more to talk about failure – or what they labeled “failure,” but what was really an unparalleled opportunity for growth and revelation. I even want to delve into my own hardest moments, when I wrestled with setbacks, shame, and fear. We’ll still fail again. And again. But maybe if we fail better, we’ll feel better -- and maybe if we can all laugh together in failure, that's a start.</p>
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Lemonada.
So today's guest on the podcast is Patrick Gagne, who identifies as a sociopath and has written a memoir called Sociopath.
I'm in Greece shooting Malice, a limited series here, and I'm thinking about Greek gods because they figure into the show a little bit, but also because I grew up loving Greek mythology. Edith Hamilton's book on mythology was like by my bedside all the time, and I just ingested the Greek gods and their misbehaviors, and they were horrible to one another and horrible to humans. They were constantly raping and killing and being jealous of humans, and transforming themselves into swans and bulls, and just these incredible stories of the gods.
As I got older, I realized, well, they're just mirroring the worst of human behavior, or, let's say, the extremes of human behavior. What human behavior is capable of, or at least metaphorically capable of, these transformations, these acts of violence, these acts of transgression. It started me to think about sociopathy. When I was thinking about interviewing Patrick Gagne, so here I am in Greece, the home of these awesome myths and amazing transgressive gods and goddesses, and I'm talking to a transgressive figure, a person who, by label, would be feared, by label would be an outcast. We ascribe sociopaths certain powers, and if they do have certain powers, different powers, let's say, from us, then let's talk to her, let's talk to them, let's figure out what we can learn from one another, as we once learned from the gods.
I'm David Duchovny, and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are.
Patrick Gagne is a writer, former therapist, advocate for people suffering from antisocial disorders, and a sociopath. Her book is called Sociopath, a Memoir. Well, what is a sociopath, you might ask? It's a tricky and layered answer, but basically it's someone who can progress through normal emotional development, but they learn these social emotions, like love, empathy, even jealousy, differently than the rest of us. Patrick is a very, very interesting person because she knew she was different from a young age.
She describes a pressure that she would feel building up to act out. She wanted to break out of it, break out of a state of apathy, sometimes, of non-reaction, and she'd lie and manipulate. She'd break into houses when no one was home and just wander around. As she got older, she eventually tried to better understand her mental state and got that diagnosis of sociopathy and eventually learned how to behave in a socially acceptable manner, because, as she says, she didn't feel compelled morally to act this way, but she wanted to stay out of trouble. She wanted to stay out of prison.
She wanted a life. And she knew that if she didn't get her behavior under control, that was gonna be an impossibility. So I started out by asking her why she wrote this book.
I think. simply put, I wrote this book because I was trying to put a sort of humanized understanding of an otherwise dehumanized disorder. I was diagnosed with sociopathy, and at the time, the definition was very much what it is now, which is sensationalized and one-dimensional, and I had this life experience. I found some research that seemed to explain that experience, and I wanted to write this book to reach other people who resonate with that experience. It's essentially research wrapped in a narrative, and by that, I mean it's a story about a child who was very different, who grew into an adult in sort of a relentless pursuit of understanding.
It's a story of how someone was able to identify and live with a diagnosis of sociopathy and what that journey of learning emotions and learning behaviors has been.
Yeah, when you came out with this book, is there an identified sociopathic community of any kind? Did you get any, because it's basically a coming out. It's a coming out, it's a coming out book. Here I am, this is who I am. So did you get a reaction either from a community, your family, whatever?
Yeah, and I misunderstood the question. I thought you meant like an established community. No, I have been overwhelmed by the reaction that I've received from people who identify with my personality type, who have received similar diagnoses, and the through line is consistent. These are people who have managed to cobble together some semblance of a normal existence, but they are very much living behind a mask. And I assumed that would be the case.
I assumed, based on the research, that there would be enough people who would identify, that I would hear from them, and I have. And it's been just a collective sense of, I think relief would be the best word. And that aligns with my own experience. It was this feeling of obviously getting a diagnosis of sociopathic personality disorder. I think most people would not be relieved to have received it, but I think that really speaks to the personality type.
There's good news and bad news.
Yes, well, it also, it's like, all right.
I got a diagnosis.
Yes, I am not alone. There are at least enough people like me to have a personality disorder, and I'm okay with that. And that seems to be shared by those who identified with the book, in that I always knew that I wasn't alone or suspected, but now I have proof. Like, this is my experience as well. And I was expecting that, but what I wasn't expecting was the number of neurotypical individuals who were also reaching out, recognizing their friends, recognizing their parents.
Now, when you say that, when you're talking about this to me, I'm feeling emotional because I'm feeling happy for you. And I wonder, do you feel that way?
Do I feel that way about the people who are reaching out to me?
Just about yourself, yeah, just finding brethren, finding kindred spirits, finding some kind of community.
Yes, I do feel happy, although I had always known they were out there. So for me, it's-.
But I mean, like, the feeling that you get, how do you describe that?
All right, so I think what you're talking about is an inherent emotion. So there are these inherent emotions that everyone is born with. It's sort of the factory setting, okay? So these are anger, anticipation, joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, happiness, and disgust. Everyone is born with these emotions.
And so when you hear people talk about, oh, sociopaths, don't feel, that's not accurate. We are all born with these inherent emotions, and sociopaths, like everyone else, has access to those. Where we struggle is with another set of emotions, the social emotions, okay? Examples of these are embarrassment, guilt, love, shame, envy, empathy, even jealousy and pride. to a certain extent.
These are not inherent emotions. These are learned. Everyone learns these emotions, typically through modeling of friends, a parent, caregiver. Sociopaths have a harder time learning these emotions.
Do you remember feeling that back then, even as a child? Yes. Because can you talk to me about what it felt like?
Yeah, for sure. I remember being a kid and I had a sister, a younger sister. I have a younger sister. But I remember seeing her experiencing the world differently. Because I had this relationship with my sister, I understood what complex emotional development looked like, but I also understood that I didn't have it.
I would watch her internalize things like shame or guilt. My sister has oceans of guilt and I just never had it. And for me, the social emotions, it was sort of like needing glasses. Without my glasses, I'm physically capable of reading. It's just that sometimes I really have to squint.
And that's a lot like how I experienced the social emotions. And it's also how I remember feeling as a kid, just sort of, oh yeah, these kids say that they feel badly when they do this. And I don't feel badly when I do this. So I need to fake it. I need to act like I do.
Did you think maybe, oh, I'm bad?
No, I never did. I remember. I started to wonder when I was, when I was seeing myself in the sociopathic checklist, and then I would look, I would read things about sociopaths or psychopaths, and it was always that serial killer, that monster, every manner of evil. And I remember thinking, okay, so is this just a foregone conclusion for me? Because I didn't, I never felt bad.
That's terrifying. Well, me in your head, thinking back, that's terrifying.
No, it was. It was for me as well. No, and I wanna make that clear. My sense of fear is there. It might be muted.
I might have a higher tolerance for it, but it's there. And I was scared. I remember thinking just the idea that I have no control over how I'm going to evolve. If this is my personality type and everyone who identifies with this personality type ends up in prison or murdering people, then I'm fucked and I gotta figure this out. So I like being unnoticed, essentially.
I liked being perceived as, oh, this is a cute little kid. And I understood that if I acknowledged, you know what, I actually don't have any remorse or guilt or shame. And I don't know that I ever will have any of those things. Saying that usually made adults very uncomfortable.
I can imagine.
Right, but that's what I'm trying to say is that, as a kid, kids are smart. They pick up on things. I understood that I was different almost at the exact same time. I understood that acknowledging that difference was a bad idea.
That feeling of difference, I wonder if you experienced this part of yourself as a failure, as I'm broken, as there's something wrong with me, or this is just another version of life. And consequently, this is too complicated a question, but I also want to get to like, when did you decide that you wanted to have feelings? Like, were you not happy the way you were? When did you decide, oh, I want to be more like those other people?
So to the first part of your question, I-.
Sorry, sorry. No, no, no.
I know, I wanna, there's so much good questions and I just wanna, I wanna answer them all. I remember, I never, I don't think I recall feeling like a failure or bad, but what did speak to me when you were talking was, did you feel broken? Yes. I didn't feel bad, but I felt broken. I felt there is something wrong with me, full stop, no question.
And it really wasn't until I sort of understood the personality type in that, okay, so you don't just grow up and become a serial killer. You aren't a foregone conclusion. You aren't a lost cause. Once I understood that and I sort of had that agency, that's when I realized, okay, I'm not wrong. I'm just different.
There's nothing I can do about it. I don't wanna live my life behind a mask, but I also don't wanna live my life without access to society. I enjoy having friends, not a lot, but I enjoy having some friends. I enjoy conversations like this. I enjoy the white picket fence.
I enjoy peeking in and out of my windows within that white picket fence, but I understood you, in order to be a member of society, you have to assimilate. And when I made that decision, it was selfishly driven, of course, but it was also, I can't change who I am, but I'm also not gonna mask it anymore either. I'm just going to lean into who I am and be more honest about it.
And it sounds like, as a kid, somehow you were smart enough to figure out your own nature and how to try to fit it in. How to not go to jail, basically, is what I hear you saying. It's like, I wanna have a life and I don't wanna end up in jail.
And I also understood, I don't remember where or when I read this, but I remember, I wanna say it was the FBI. It was some kind of, it was some career where a criminal record automatically eliminated you from having the ability to pursue it. And I remember thinking, well, that sucks. Like, I don't wanna be told.
By the way, I don't think that's a thing anymore, looking at our political landscape.
I agree. I agree. And yet the rules do still apply for some and not for others. Yes, exactly. But I remember, yeah, reading that and saying, no, you're not gonna tell me that I can't have a career doing X, Y, or Z just because of a criminal record.
So I remember not wanting to go to jail, not wanting to be arrested, not for any real moral reasons, but because I don't wanna be told that my life choices are now limited as a result of this. And I also remember understanding.
that everyone was living in this box of feeling. It was a small box of emotion. And it's certainly not, actually, if anything, everyone has these colorful emotions, whereas my world was more in black and white, but it was, you have to be in this box. You have to have these feelings. You have to feel this way.
And I remember that rebellion kicking in and like, no, I don't actually, but you know what I can do? I can get in your little box and I can act just like you and I can pretend to have all these feelings just like you. Then, when you're not paying attention, I'm gonna step out of my box, but I'm still gonna watch and I'm still gonna have all of these things to my advantage. So this coping mechanism,
the manipulation, the lying, the destructive behavior, that ultimately evolved into a lifestyle.
Right. You know, you say in the book,
what's so uncomfortable in your skin was the sense of apathy. So then you go and you commit some kind of petty crime, which I want you to talk about, and that gives you some feeling and then you're feeling a little better.
What I ultimately realized, at first I did, I thought it was apathy. I thought it was, I don't like to feel apathetic, but what I came to understand was that it wasn't the apathy that was driving this pressure. I speak about this in the book, about how I felt this pressure. And at first I thought it was related to apathy, but what I have ultimately come to believe is that it wasn't just the apathy, it was the understanding that once I fell into an apathetic place and I couldn't get out of it, if I didn't somehow do something to jolt myself into feeling or meet others' expectations of what I was, quote unquote, supposed to be, feeling, that I would be outed. So as a child-.
That you would be outed, excuse me, you'd be outed, but also you would go further? Not only that, but you would go further at some point?
It was, eventually I realized that ignoring that pressure was the quickest way to fall into a place of being out of control.
These- So you're just releasing, releasing a little bit, a little bit, a little bit.
Yes, but it's interesting because, although I understood this consciously as an adult, when I, as an adult, I had been engaging in small acts of deviance as a kid, and those acts of deviance became more extreme as I got older.
Can you describe what those things give you?
Yes, when I was a kid, and this is such an interesting, it's really a testament to the power of the unconscious mind. And when I was a kid, I didn't understand this. All I knew is that if I would feel this pressure and I understood on some level that stealing this backpack-.
What does the pressure feel like?
It feels similar to what I've heard people with OCD describe, just this claustrophobia. I gotta do something, I gotta do something, I gotta do something, I gotta do something. And the more you don't engage or diffuse that, the greater the compulsion, the greater the urge. So people who have OCD can't really explain to you why they feel driven to count or engage in repetitive behaviors, washing their hands, checking the door locks, et cetera. Similarly, as a kid, I couldn't explain to you why I felt compelled to stab this kid or steal that backpack or break into that house.
All I knew was that just do it, just do it and you'll feel better. And I did.
Almost like hearing a voice, sounds like a voice of some kind.
Yeah, like a compulsion, an urge. Just do it. Like, just it. Yeah.
I mean, I've done some of this research before speaking to you, and often they'll talk about people getting better at what they do. For instance,
you know, they'll attack a child first because it's more defenseless, but it's not that they're just gonna attack children. They're getting better at murdering. They're getting, was there any sense to you? Did you fear at some point that this is not just letting the valve off, letting the pressure off, but I'm actually getting better at this, and this is fucked up?
Yes. Yes, I did understand that. I understood that.
I wanna say like 20s, when I was in my 20s, I realized this is not something on which I wanna rely for the rest of my life, which is part of what contributed to my decision to seek or experiment with different treatment modalities and interventions, because I understood that I was getting better. And I understood that I was getting older. And I also was, you know, I'm, and I've said this before, I'm very clear on the fact, you know, that I am a white woman of privilege. I understand that now, but I understood that then. And I understood that had I come from a different socioeconomic background,
had I been different. You're saying it was easier to get away with shit.
100%, but I understood that. But I also knew that it wasn't a guarantee. It's like, I remember as a kid thinking, I can do anything I want because your record will be sealed anything prior to 18.. I remember having that knowledge. So I'm really good here.
And I remember coming of age and realizing, all right, you no longer have a safety net underneath you. Like anything you do from this point forward will stay with you forever. You're gonna have to figure out how to be smarter. And ultimately I realized, no, you're gonna have to figure out how to do it without the destructive coping mechanisms, because it really is just a matter of time. No matter how charming you are, you're gonna get caught.
Like that's just what's gonna happen. And when that happens, you're gonna be screwed.
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Your relationship with your mother and father is very interesting to me, because your dad's a little manipulative. You know, your dad does some pretty shady things in the book. And he kind of-.
A little?
I mean, I don't want to throw dads under the bus, but he's like, you know, he kind of almost, you know, you do talk in the book about people using you.
because you'll do the dirty work. And I think that's a good thing. Without feeling bad. But what I want to get to is that, even though your mom, you didn't share with her or she might not have understood, she might've had the fear of it or whatever,
she loved you.
And when we talk about epigenetic and that kind of shit and nature versus nurture, it's not so much like, oh, I identify the disorder. I'm going to help you. I'm going to get you a drug. I'm going to get you therapy, whatever. But love, some kind of acceptance.
If your gene for what you have was going to turn at some point, if you had had a different upbringing, is that something that you feel? Is that something that you feel with other sociopaths?
I really do. I mean, I believe sociopathy stems from a genetic predisposition that can be unlocked, so to speak, by environmental stressors. That genetics and environment, you know, sort of interact with each other to produce symptoms. But to your point, because I had a mother who taught me very early,
or that, you know, my relationship with my mother, my sister, my father, I loved them. I loved them. And so I knew that very early. So later on, when I saw-.
But wait, when you say love, what do you mean when you say love? Because I'm not sure that we understand that word when it comes out of your mouth.
And I agree with you, and it's the same for me, because all I have is my interpretation of that.
That's all we all have. I mean, let's be clear. Love is just a word.
But when I look at neurotypical people, or when I listen to them describe it, and I've said this before, it sounds crazy, but I understand that love is that sort of be-all, end-all of neurotypical emotions. But for me, I experienced it less emotionally. It was more of a matter of fact. I didn't have those sweeping, overwhelming feelings that my mother or sister certainly demonstrate, but I love you. I love you, and the reason that I know that is because I care about what happens to you, and I don't want to see you in pain, and I will follow to the ends of the earth anyone who's trying to hurt you.
I don't think that my sister or my mother or some of my friends would fall in that latter category. I think that they would be really mad at somebody who hurt me, but I'll end you if you hurt someone, who hurts someone I love. And that's how I understand love.
But let's just say what I'm fascinated, like. theoretically, and this is like dangerous territory, I think, and I hesitate to talk about it, but fuck it. It's like, sometimes, I think, we're more like an ant colony than we like to admit, and that certain people are born with certain proclivities, because that's how the hive, well, ants don't have hives, so let's say we're bees. Because-.
I get it.
So who are our warriors? But people who are okay with battle, people who don't have fear, people who are okay with hurting the enemy or fighting the enemy or killing the enemy. And so, aside from being a spectrum, you call it a disorder, I mean, I can look at it as something just the way, I don't know how else to put it. It's very, we all have a place, I guess, is what I'm saying, and nature is a genius and creates the right pegs to fit in the right holes.
I really agree. And see, you can say that, and I'm glad you did, because-.
You can't say that?
Well, the last thing I want is anyone to think that I'm romanticizing this disorder, or I'm-.
Do you feel that that was romanticizing it?
No, no, no, no. But coming from me, I can see that people are gonna push back on, there was an article that ran about me, it said something like, LA mom is a sociopath and loves it, like, or things, and I thought it was funny.
You know what, I read reviews of your book, and I thought they were snarky. I didn't, the New York Times one, talking about your photographic memory, well, there's so many books you can attack, memoirs that you can attack like that. I was kind of pissed off reading those. I'm sure you were as well.
You know what, I wasn't, I really wasn't pissed off. I was disappointed because it was lazy to me. That's what I felt. It felt petty and lazy.
It is lazy, it is lazy.
Listen, I knew that in writing this book, I was gonna be met with a certain level of skepticism. I identify myself as a liar on the first page of the book. I mean, the first paragraph, I think even, I get it. What I wasn't anticipating was the degree to which some people would intentionally disregard facts in order to justify an inaccurate narrative.
Understand, all I'm trying to do is expand the conversation. This isn't a zero-sum game. This isn't, if I'm right, you're wrong. And if you're right, I'm wrong. So let's talk about it.
Let's expand the research. Let's find more treatment options. Let's investigate different modalities. There's a much more elevated conversation we could be having. So it's mystifying to me that people want to pit my life experience against the pop cultural definition of sociopathy or apply skepticism to my name or my degrees, things that are just so easy to fact check.
I think that ultimately, I represent sort of an inconvenient truth, in that people wanna believe that all monsters look like monsters. All sociopaths are monsters, therefore they're easy to spot. So I don't have to wonder whether I'm sleeping next to one or whether I birthed one or whether I'm one. They want things to be neat and clean, but that's not reality. And to your point, I think that there is a tremendous advantage in certain elements of the sociopathic personality.
Well, first of all, you have a sense of humor, which I didn't think sociopaths had.
Well, it's charm.
Not just because you're, oh, it's just charm, so you're faking it? You're not really?
No, I'm not faking it, but I think that that's, for me, that was the easiest.
You can tell me the truth, yeah.
Yeah, I think that's the easiest way to, for me, humor was always the easiest way to diffuse discomfort.
Yeah, so, just like, you call us neurotypical. I think that's a weird term, but I don't think anybody's typical, but let's say, what can you tell us from the land of, your land, you know?
For the longest time, when I was coming on this podcast, I thought it was Fall Better. I thought the name of it was Fall Better. And then I was like, oh no, it's Fail Better. And I think that, yeah, I don't know. I think that just that name indicates an understanding that there sort of is no such thing as failure.
Everything brings you to the next space, and certainly it's easy for me to say, because I don't have that feeling of failure. And again, which is not to say that I can't fail, that I can't, you know, that I can't do a poor job, but I don't internalize it that way. So when I, if I-.
Why not?
I just, it just doesn't land with me that way.
Does this have something to do with, you? say at some point in the book, and please correct me when I misquote you, or in the checklist of sociopathy, inability to learn from mistakes.
Well, no, because I do.
And it's my theory that mistakes have to hurt. To learn. And if you can't be hurt- Yeah, I don't think they do. Yeah, okay, so please tell me, talk to me about that.
I'm trying to think of, oh, like,
okay, well, this is the only one I can. really, that's coming to mind that I can connect to a sadness.
And that was a failure. And even though I'm gonna get an instant pushback, because this isn't a failure, this is the only one that I can remember having an emotional reaction to. And that was, I had a number of miscarriages. I stopped counting at five. And I remember, I remember feeling sadness, and frustration, and rage.
And I can only assume that that's what a lot of neurotypical people experience when they have that, you know, that sense of failure, which is that I have done something wrong. I am not good enough to produce what I wanna produce. And that leads to shame, and to guilt, and to remorse, and regret. But when you don't have those emotional constructs that are sort of keeping you tethered, you have to look to an external philosophy. And, you know, if I write something that I don't like, or if I have pursued something that I didn't get, I don't remember ever feeling that shame, or I'm not good enough, or I need to work harder, or I need to do better.
I just remember thinking, all right, I'm just gonna figure something else out.
That's a superpower, I hate to tell you.
I think so, I agree, I agree with you. But a lot of people don't wanna hear that.
Why not? I mean, I know you're a therapist, and you work, I think, mostly with people who have sociopathic tendencies, right?
But what would you- Not anymore, but yeah.
If you had somebody in therapy, like, say me, and I'm saying, fuck, I can't get over this thing, and this was a failure, and it's just sitting with me, and I can't, what do we do?
Well, I think that's where, therapeutically, I was able to offer something that not every other therapist could, which is, they talk about in the therapeutic process, you will lend your patients, or ego strength. Lending of ego strength is common, and I-.
And you have that in spades, right?
Sociopathic strength, it's okay. So let's take a look at the feelings that you have, and let's observe them objectively. And because I wasn't coming to my practice with my own typical emotional baggage, my emotional experience never played a part in that. So I would have individuals disclosing all types of things that might make someone else react emotionally, whereas, for me, it was more,
I didn't come to it emotionally, I came to it objectively. You have shame because of this thing that you can't get past. Let's talk about it, let's get into it, let's process it. And I think, maybe even unconsciously, somebody seeing another person in front of them not having a pearl-clutching reaction, or even a reaction at all, sort of diffuses, takes the sting out of it a little bit.
So it's a little different from, say, neurotypical therapy, where the therapist would model consolation, or grief, or empathy. So you're modeling objectivity, and, for lack of a better term, just get over it. Let's go, let's go.
Let's get over it, but just not, because my goal wasn't just get over it, it was observation. So it wasn't, hurry up and get over it, it was, oh, wow, let me observe this. Like, oh, that's interesting. So this thing happened to you, this was your reaction to it, and now you're carrying this reaction into all of these other reactions. And have you noticed that?
Like, have you thought, like, did you notice that this action right here from 10 years ago looks a lot like this one from yesterday? Like, isn't that interesting?
You're not clouded by any kind of emotional reaction to the story, and you can just see the plot points, and you go, hey, you're just in an endless loop of repetition here.
Yeah, as opposed to, you, fucking idiot, like, you did that 10 years, do you not see what you're?
It's a nice way of saying you fucking idiot, but it can help, you know, it can help.
So you're coming, you're helping them come to a place of observation, too, as opposed to reliving this trauma, reliving this shame, sitting in it, and certainly all of those things are helpful, and that occurs, too, but ultimately, it's observation and helping them, people, be more objective about what's going on with them, as opposed to this endless cycle of guilt and remorse and grief and shame.
Yeah, yeah.
That's the ticket out, if possible, you know?
Yeah, I think so.
Okay, we did it. I was wrong, we solved it. That's the end of the podcast. We're ready to move on to something else. Thanks, everybody.
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Hi, I'm Alicia Haley. And I'm Kate Mag. 20 years ago, we met playing best friends on the set of the TV show, The L Word, which quickly morphed into us being actual best friends for the rest of our lives. Truly. It feels like we're an old married couple, but with fewer cats, although we each have a number of cats in our lives.
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By your estimation, are you going to say 5% of the population is sociopathic?
Yeah. The clinical understanding is that it hovers right around 5% of the population.
So we're talking about millions upon millions of people.
Millions, millions of people. But 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 likely considerably higher. But even if we were just talking about 5%, that's roughly the same percentage as those suffering from depressive disorders, bipolar, borderline personality disorders. And yet, if you walk into a bookstore, you will find dozens of books on every personality type, every disorder, every psychological ailment known to man, except for sociopathy or psychopathy. There are no self-help books.
There are no support groups. There are books for those who have been victimized of sociopaths and psychopaths, but there's nothing for that personality type specifically. And it's because of that stigma.
It's just lazy Hollywood writers are your problem.
And not just Hollywood writers.
Depressive. people can't drive a plot. They just lie in bed moping.
Well, if it bleeds, it leads. It's a lot more fun, I think.
And you're saying in the book, you call it a spectrum disorder, which to me, it's tough, because once you say spectrum, all of a sudden, it's very hazy. All of a sudden, what I had was a diagnosis, and now what I've got is a mood, you know?
Yeah. Certainly, there are going to be those extreme examples, as there are with lots of different personality types. But there are also individuals that fall on the mild to moderate side, for whom treatment is possible, for whom self-awareness is possible. And I think it's really important to understand that, because the research indicates that the majority of the individuals who fall under the sociopathic umbrella are those mild to moderate cases. And I think as long as we continue to define sociopathy by the extreme examples, we're going to miss the opportunity to address the individuals for whom treatment is not only possible but effective, potentially, especially when we're talking about juveniles.
You know, you write about this in the book, and it's a major, to me, a major part of the book and something that I'm very interested in from the experience I had when my daughter was nine months old and she got very ill and I was afraid she was going to die. And I kind of disconnected in a way because I was terrified.
And you talk about having this, maybe a fantasy of when you're going to give birth, you're going to feel that love. And it doesn't happen. And can you talk a little about that? And again, I would go back to if you could also address it as, did you feel like a failure? I mean, if you said that to a mom, I, oh, my life didn't change as soon as my child was born.
I didn't feel that overwhelming thing, which is what you write in the book. Can you talk a little about that?
Yeah, and that's a really good point. I never made that connection, that I probably did feel like a failure in that moment. But what I felt, so I felt when my son was born and I didn't have that instant connection to him. I remember, I was, I was, it was rage. It wasn't sadness.
It wasn't, it was rage. And I remember-.
Who's the rage directed at?
Me. Because, because I understood that unconsciously, I had been holding out hope that this would be the one time that emotion would not be robbed from me. And I didn't, it wasn't playing out on a conscious level, because I remember I had, I had been through the graduations. I had been through the weddings. I'd been through, you know, all of these markers that are supposed to, you know, elicit these reactions.
But, but this was, this, was it. If it wasn't going to happen here, it wasn't going to happen. And I instantly understood that I had been holding out hope and I was so angry at myself. It's like, what have you done? This whole experience now is once again, proof that you can't feel, only now you've brought a small person into it.
And what if you never feel for this kid, like way to go, way to go, mom, excellent job. And just this, just fury at myself for having been so foolish. But once that part calmed down and I-.
How long?
Like, probably a couple of months, like weeks to months.
And at that point, are you having trouble being with the baby?
Oh yeah. Oh, oh yeah. And I, and I, um, I just sort of went through the motions. I did what I needed to do. Um, but again, without that emotional component, I understood that it was, it was, it was lacking, but I also understood there was something I could do about it.
But after the rage came down, that's when I settled into the, yeah, there's something I could do about this. Like I didn't choose this. All I have is this, this toolkit. That's what I got. And, and there are some tools missing, but there are also some tools added.
So if I can look at this from, from that, you know, from, from that lens, I think that I could be a good mom. I might not be a typical mom. I might not be like everyone else's mom or all the other moms on the block, but I also don't give a shit. So as long as my child is not being hurt, as long as I can, as long as I can give him what he needs, and when I can't, I know, to bring in others who can, it's going to be okay. And, um, and I, and I remember later reading about the postpartum depression and the experience of, of women that suffer from that and, and also being better equipped to treat that as a clinician, because up until that point, I didn't really have any, I didn't have any understanding of that.
And my experience grew that understanding. And it was also sort of nice to feel that, although other women were not experiencing this necessarily based on sociopathy, they were having a similar experience and they figured it out. So I'll figure it out too.
Well, that's that, that gets back to. like, you know, you have this access to the non-apathetic version of Zen detachment. You have an access to what all the housewives in Beverly Hills are paying so much money to try to get, you know, to try and be not, we all valorize non-attachment in this society. And we also, this is the Holy grail. And then when we, then when we show it, we're vilified, though, you know, when we show it in action, we are vilified.
For instance, it would be caring for the planet more than the fucking people destroying it from time to time. So how do you experience other people's sense of Zen attachment or non-attachment? How do you experience that in neurotypical people? And how do you kind of, can you describe it in yourself? What it feels like?
Well, it's funny because, you know, you referenced, you know, it's what every, it's every housewife in Beverly Hills is trying to attain, myself included, by the way, I was one of those women that spent thousands of dollars to take one of these, like, you know, you know, advanced meditation.
You had it, you had it. What were you doing?
Well, I, well, I got, I got, I remember walking around Brentwood, like, we're all going to take a walk now and we're just going to be with the trees and we're not going to say anything. We're not going to have any reaction or emotion. I remember we were walking around, I was like, this, is it.
Like, this is what I do every day. Yeah, really.
And I remember laughing about it with, with the guy leading it, who's this extraordinary?
guru named Steve Ross, who I just think, I know, Steve Ross, God, he's the best.
You mean the yoga teacher?
Yes. We laugh about that to this day.
I've known Steve for 30 years, probably, good friends with my brother.
I love him. Yeah. I've probably known him for about, yeah, it's like maybe 20 years and, and, and he was like, yeah, I don't, I didn't understand why you were doing this, but my interpretation of others detachment is that it is, it's an effort and it's, well, as you have to make an effort.
to feel, they have to make an effort to not feel. So we can have, we can have sympathy, maybe, for one another and try to meet in some kind of a middle, but maybe you, maybe you have again, like your approach or your natural approach to failure, maybe you have some, some insight from the other side of what non-attachment is like and what it feels like. I don't know what I'm asking, but you know, if you've thought about these things.
Yeah, no, I just, I, I think it's, from what I understand, it's so much of the clutter in the neurotypical mind comes from shame and guilt. and what other people are thinking, this fear, this need to people please, this fear that they're not doing enough, that they aren't enough.
And. You really, you really don't care what people think of you.
I really don't.
I, I. Not one, not one bit.
I really don't. God bless you. God bless you. No, listen, that is different from, you know, not caring. when I have hurt someone who, who I care about.
I hear you. Yeah. But you know, I don't, I don't care. Not at all.
And that's. So. let's go back to that New York times. Cause, when the New York times doesn't like you, I hurt. You didn't hurt.
No, no, no, no. I, I was frustrated for the others, for the others like me, um, you know, what are the.
others like you, other sociopaths, other people who identify with my personality type.
So here's, okay. So, so, um, I was contacted by, uh, uh, a magazine who wanted to write a profile on me, and the fact checkers wanted to vet my credentials, proof of my degrees, proof of my clinical work. They wanted a copy of my dissertation. No problem. We sent it over.
They acknowledged receipt. And yet, when the article ran, it said, and I'm paraphrasing, um, while Patrick claims to have a PhD, we were unable to find evidence of it online, which was intentionally misleading. And that's when it dawned on me, Oh, it's not that you don't believe me. It's that you don't want to believe me. You would rather stick with your one dimensional understanding of sociopathy, because it sells.
what I'm saying isn't as sexy as the serial killer composite. And so did I, no, I don't agree with that.
What you're saying demands a lot of work.
Yes. Okay. Yeah. It's, it's lazy. This isn't about me.
This has nothing to do with me at all. This has to do with the word sociopath, the emotion it evokes in people, which I find endlessly fascinating, that this personality, this word sociopath, which is, which is synonymous with lack of feeling, actually elicits the most feeling. And it's problematic, not really for me when, when something like that happens, but for others like me, who are going to be less inclined to come forward because the climate is still so, so charged. and yeah, I don't, I don't have that sadness, or, Oh, I, I, I wish you liked me. I don't, it's just not there.
It's just not there.
That's a superpower. If ever I heard, no, no, I'm not, I'm not even making a joke. And I, and I wanted to ask you a, you know, a lightning round. First I wanted to, first I wanted to ask you, do you think there's a difference between male and female sociopaths?
A hundred percent. And that's one of the things that I really hope. I, I, I, I, and I've had this conversation with, with other clinicians and, and, and I've had this conversation with, with actual researchers, people whose life is, is research. And in that I find a lot of, a tremendous amount of gender bias in the diagnostics. One of which being the, um, one of the, the dominant traits of sociopathy and psychopathy is social dominance, and the way that they have determined psychopaths and sociopaths assert social dominance is through overt physical aggression.
But that was never the case. for me. The way that I always asserted social dominance was through charm and sex. And I find that a lot of females are going to move through the world. Female sociopaths, female psych, they're going to move through the world differently than men, because we are built differently.
We have a different set of skills, right?
Right. Um, two last things I want to talk about, cause this, I don't want to take up too much. No, no, no.
I'm loving this conversation. This is truly, yeah.
One is I want you to talk a little about cognitive behavioral therapy, because that's what works for you. And that's very interesting because it's very similar to like 12 step stuff to me.
Cognitive behavioral. I always understood right from wrong. I just don't always have that emotional connection to it. So when you're missing that emotional connection, again, you have to make decisions based on external philosophies. For the longest time, acting out was rewarding for me in that it, it neutralized this pressure that I was experiencing.
Could I act out now? Yeah. And I, and I remember somebody asking me what, what keeps you from kicking the dog? And it, and it was, I was, I just remember being like, I don't want to kick a dog. Like it doesn't, I don't, it's not like.
I need these invisible forces keeping me from, from injuring animals. But even if I did want to kick the dog, it's, there's no more reward. Like for me, being able to live in society, being able to have these, these conversations, that's the reward. I understand that if I engage in, in negative coping mechanisms, destructive coping mechanisms, I'm not going to get anything out of it. So it's, it's a very, it's very selfish.
It's very, it's very objective, but who cares? There's this understanding that, well, if we don't want to do good, if it doesn't come from your heart, then it doesn't count. And I'm here to tell you that's insane.
Right. Yes. Yeah. So I want to, it's gotten dark here where I am and in Greece, and
It's like that, it's that, it's that, what is that? It's one of my favorite songs.
I can't read my notes.
Not, not dark yet by Bob Dylan.
Oh, it's a great song. I know, I know you love music. Oh, this is perfect. Perfect. You led me right there.
I wanted to ask you, do you think actors are sociopaths?
Actors?
Yeah. Cause you have this line in the book, which was very, very harsh, and I don't think I agree with it. Um, but you said something about artists, once they become artists, they stop evolving as human beings.
Oh, no. Yes. Yes. I remember it was, um, I was talking to someone about, it was less artists. It was more fame.
It was, it was specifically related to fame.
I can relate to both. And I'll say, I'm really interested in this topic because there is something about artists. Well, first of all, you take actors, actors create masks. They mimic behavior. They plunder their world, the world to try to come up with facsimiles that are dramatically palatable to an audience.
How is that different from a sociopath?
Uh, yep. I would say that, that behaviorally it's quite similar, but the difference is the motivation. So an actor is doing that. Why? For validation.
They want the fame. They want the attention. They want to be liked. They want that, that, that constant.
Or they want to escape themselves.
Or that, whereas, whereas the sociopath masks out of necessity. So I, and listen, it's always tricky to generalize, like, of course, certainly there is, there is a current of, of, of manipulation. There is a current of masking. There is a current of deceit that runs through, uh, actors whose job is to impersonate others for a living. And I think that there's something sort of alluring about that.
When you become an actor, at first, it's like, oh, this is fun. And then it's like, oh wait, no, this is actually really fun. And I have all of these tools and I can do all of these different things. And it's, it's all an illusion.
Well, what I've said before, what I said before on, on this podcast, is, you know, I came from a very kind of heady intellectual upbringing and it was through acting that I learned how to access my emotions. And it's very, it's, it, it reminds me a little bit of your journey as well, where you're trying to access something in yourself that was muted. And myself, it was not, it was not the lingua franca in my family. Well, you know, it's, it wasn't that you weren't validated for being emotional, you were validated for being smart and intellectual. So I had to then go back and learn myself.
And that's, you know, we, we list a lot of, like shitty, reasons why somebody becomes an actor, but they're also, you know, self-teaching and, and artistic reasons to become an actor.
Oh, a hundred percent. And I, and I hear that when you're, when you're saying that it sounds like, you know, in order for you to learn emotions, it was probably easier for you to pretend to be someone else, because you can, you, David, can sort of stand off to the side, whereas...
Well, it was like you, it was like you, it was the tricky thing of like, they don't know that I really have this inside me. I'm putting it through this, this character named whatever, but shit, I, I could do these things. Yeah. Can you spot the sociopath? Could we play that game with you?
Yeah, but I want to be, I want to be transparent in saying that it's not easy. You can't, you can't really spot the sociopath. There, there's, it's, it's tricky, but, um, but yeah, we can play that game.
You're walking down the street and you run into somebody and you have a little conversation with them. Do you go, hmm, or is it, or do you need more than that?
No, you need more than that. And I, and there, it's Donald, Donald Trump, it's, it's, it's tricky, because how many people?
have asked you that?
Everyone. And I, and I don't have, I don't have the answer that.
Yes, he is. I'm giving you the answer right now.
No, I don't have the answer that everybody wants. because to me, no, because to me, when I look at, at someone like him, it's, it's grandiosity, fragility, and the need for admiration. And those.
Why are we holding back?
Why? Why am I holding back?
Why are you? Why are we saying?
Oh, because I don't, I don't think he's, I don't think he's sociopathic. And that's the thing. It's like everyone wants that, that, that diagnosed the diagnosis for him. And I don't believe that to be the case. I, it doesn't match it.
You know.
Inability to learn from mistakes.
Yes. But you, what you have to understand is that narcissism and sociopathy have a tremendous amount of overlapping, overlapping traits.
I don't think narcissism is really a diagnosis, though.
It is a narcissistic personality disorder is, is, is not only a diagnosis, but it's, it's, it's empirically recognized. And, and listen, sociopaths, they, they struggle with the ability to connect to other people. So they're going to fake what they, they're going to fake it when they need to get something, you know, sometimes it's nefarious, most of the time it's benign, but ultimately it's a means to an end. Sociopaths take the path of least resistance. Other people's opinions don't matter to them.
They don't need the validation. If appeasing you helps them reach their goal, they're going to do it. If not, appeasing you helps them reach their goal, they're going to do it. All they care about is the goal. To a narcissist, though, the goal is meaningless without the validation.
They need that adoration. They need to believe that other people see them as, as a godly creature. It's all that matters. That's what I see. And that's not consistent with a sociopathic diagnosis.
You know, everything to me is a double edged sword. Life is a double edged sword. So narcissism and sociopaths, whatever we call these disorders or these, whatever you want to call them, there's good and bad to what those things are. They give power as well as taking it away. They give beauty, as well as, as being the ugliest things we can, we can think of.
So, you know, I believe you can't be an artist without being somewhat narcissistic. You have to, you have to believe, you have to believe that you have something. the world needs to come out of your mouth, or out of your paintbrush, or out of your typewriter or whatever.
I agree. But I do believe that there is a difference between narcissism and what is described as malignant narcissism. When someone's talking about malignant narcissism, they're speaking to the personality type. The narcissistic ego defense has gotten so out of control that there is no coming back. But just narcissism, you know, once you tip into that, that malignant area, that's when, that's when it is believed that it is not treatable in much the same way that, that psychopathy is not believed to be treatable.
So we'll see it as kind of, you're saying. at some point, we'll start to see it seen as a spectrum disorder as well.
I really believe, especially when you're talking about something, that is, that is born out of necessity, as, as is with narcissism. Again, this need for grandiosity, this need for admiration, it comes from a place of pain. It comes from a place of deep inferiority, like primal life or death inferiority. So if we can dismantle that coping mechanism, if we can redirect it before it gets to the point where you can't scale that wall, I think that in that case, treatment is possible. Self-awareness is possible.
But again, we got to get to this stuff early. We have to identify this stuff early, and you're not going to do that so long as everybody's just being tossed into the garbage bin of narcissism, sociopathy, psychopathy.
Of course. Well, I think I would like to end here because we, it's dark in Greece and we ended with narcissists. You know, we ended back with the myths. and, um, I thank you for, uh, you know, for entering into that conversation. And, um, like I said, I, I really enjoyed reading the book.
Thank you. Thank you for your honesty.
Thank you for having me. Honestly, this was truly, it was such a, it was such a, a fun and smart conversation.
I don't believe anything you're saying, but that's okay. Because I know it's just charm. It's just charm. You're trying to get at my people. Please.
No, I'll tell you what. You're trying to manipulate my narcissism. I know what you're doing.
Here's why. And here's why that's not true. Because if, if it, if it, if I didn't mean what I was saying now, I wouldn't have stayed on, on the call. I enjoyed this, which is the only reason that I wanted to, to keep talking. Otherwise, I would have made an excuse and bailed.
When I finished my conversation with Patrick, I was, felt myself going back to that discussion we had about the failure she felt when her child was born, and she didn't feel that overwhelming maternal love come out of her the way she realized she'd been expecting it. And I thought back to my own mom, not because my mother was a sociopath, but just because there was a time when I was in first or second grade when I was hyperactive or acting out or whatever. And they sent me to the psychiatrist. I didn't know they were watching me play. They were just watching to see what kind of kid I was, I guess.
And my mom, bless her, she ended up telling them, just because you can't handle him doesn't mean there's anything wrong with him. That just fills me with love for my mother and respect for her as a parent. And that's the kind of parent that I think Patrick can be. That kind of fierce, protective, draw the line in the sand, kind of mother. That's the kind of love that she can give.
I'm sure with other kinds of love as well, but that's what I'm thinking about after the conversation.
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Fail Better is a production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Keegan Zemma, Aria Bracci, and Donny Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neal.
Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Krupinski, and Kate D. Lewis. The show is executive produced by Stephanie Whittles-Wax, Jessica Cordova-Kramer, and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band, the lovely Colin Lee, Pat McCusker, Mitch, Stewart, Davis, Rowan, and Sebastian Modak. Special thanks to Brad Davidson.
You can find us online at Lemonada Media, and you can find me at David Duchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership.
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