Life can be a lot, and it helps to have a therapist by your side. Register at talkspace dot com to connect with a licensed therapist within days for virtual support. Talkspace is in network with major insurers no insurance. Now get eighty five dollars off of your first month with promo code Katie when you go to talkspace dot com slash Katiekuric. Hi everyone, I'm Katy Kuric and this is next question. Did you have any idea that sociopaths make
up five percent of the US population? And what exactly is a sociopath anyway? Patrick Gagne short for Patricia grew up knowing she was different. Emotions for her didn't really register the way they did for her family and friends. In fact, she says, growing up she mostly felt nothing, but she wanted badly to feel something, so when she was seven that pressure to feel got so great she
actually stuck a pencil in her classmate's neck. As she got older, to better understand what was going on with her, she went out and got a PhD in psychology, and now she's written a book that she hopes will help people understand and destigmatize sociopathy and show that in spite of it, those who have it can actually build a life and have a family. By the way, the voice you hear at the end of this conversation is my producer,
Adriana Fazzio, who is absolutely obsessed with this book. First of all, Hi, Hi, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for talking about your new book, Sociopath. I think the first question I would have for you is what exactly Patrick is a sociopath.
One of the most common questions I am asked is what is a sociopath? Because there is so much conflation between sociopathy and psychopathy, and it's made all the more complicated by the fact that sociopathy has recently been reclassified as secondary psychopathy, which makes it even harder to understand.
I don't even know what psychopathy means.
I'll tell you so. My interpretation of the research is that the classic psychopath has brain abnormalities that make it impossible for them to move through complex emotional development. So while they're able to feel the inherent primary emotions that everyone is born with anger, anticipation, joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness discussed, they're unable to learn the social emotions shame, empathy, love, guilt, remorse. These are things that we're not born with. These are
emotions that we are taught. That is different from sociopathy. Sociopaths act like psychopaths. Their behavior is often the same, which is why they tend to get confused. But sociopaths don't have that biological impediment, which means they can learn
the social emotions. They just learn them differently. And in the book, I described it as an emotional learning disorder, which is what it felt like for me as a kid, sort of seeing other kids connect to these emotions and I struggled, but I always felt they were there, just a little bit out of my reach.
People seem to use these terms interchangeably, you know, and they get confused. They really misname certain psychological disorders or behaviors. Why is that? Have we just not really learned to parse out the difference between this host of psychological disorders.
Yes, and I think it's I think it's convenient. I think it's you know, it's the research says that sociopathy makes up five percent of the population, which is a lot of people. And I was recently talking to someone who works in the prison system and She had made the comment that a lot of prison psychologists don't like
to diagnose sociopathy or psychopathy because it's considered irredeemable. And I really just think that that speaks to why there isn't more research and there isn't more understanding, because it's just a group of people that collectively we have decided are untreatable. So it doesn't really matter whether we get to know them better or understand their motivations more comprehensively.
So it's just it is. It was psychopathy. Sociopathy was the first personality disorder ever identified, and yet I don't know that we're any further toward understanding it than we were when it was first recognized, which is wild.
Yeah.
Let me get this straight though, Patrick so, which is such an interesting name, by the way, you're Patrick without a K.
Well, it's short for Patricia.
Right exactly, which is a cool name.
Thank you.
My understanding from your book is sociopaths are redeemable. You can learn certain behaviors and actually almost develop certain emotions with work, but psychopaths are not redeemable. Is that accurate?
I hate to use the word not redeemable. As of now, it's not amenable to treatment. Psychopathy does not seem to be receptive to any type of treatment, whereas sociopathy is.
So if sociopaths account for five percent of the population, what do psychopaths account for?
My understanding is it's zero point zero one percent. It's a very small number. But again, having reclassified sociopathy as secondary psychopathy, it's really tricky to parse out the research. You have to really dig into it and read to understand, Okay, are they talking about psychopathy the nineteen nineties version of psychopathy? Are they talking about the twenty twenty version of psychopathy versus sociopathy?
And I think that.
That's my biggest call to action is to separate these terms, give each one a very clear distinction. Because sociopathy is receptive to treatment. It seems insane to me that this is a disorder that affects roughly the same number of people as depressive disorders and bipolar disorders. And yet you'll walk into any bookstore and there's nothing on the shelves
for sociopathy treatment plans. There are no support groups. There are support groups for people who claim to have been victims of sociopaths, but it's a lot of people, and they haven't been given any of the research or resources that most of the other disorders have been.
Well, you talk about innate emotions versus learned emotions that are kind of through nature versus nurture in some ways, So can you give us examples of how a sociopath might like you might move through the world. And then I'm going to talk to you about when you first recognized or realized that you weren't quite the same as some of the other people in your family or in society writ large.
My experience was very much related to other sociopaths. I always struggled with empathy and it's very and again I want to make it clear, just because I don't necessarily react empathically doesn't mean that I want harm for others, or that I somehow get off or enjoy seeing others in pain. And that's I've seen that argument being made and nothing for me. It could be further from the truth. I don't react empathically, but I'm not enjoying watching someone hurting.
And I remember thinking about other sociopaths when I was in college and sort of marveling over what limited resources and research there was available. And I remember thinking five percent, who is checking in on these people, Who's helping them keep their behaviors in check? Like, I know what I'm doing, but what about all the other people? And in that moment, I remember thinking, oh wait, that's empathy. That's me thinking,
feeling compassion for others. And it happened pretty naturally. And at that time I was only able to empathize, or so I thought, with other sociopaths. But over time I sort of used that experience to grow the feeling for other people, other groups of people in my life, outside my life, and that's that became my touchstone for how
to access shame remorse. I might not inherently experience those emotions, but I would think, okay, so what if this was happening to another sociopath, What if someone was treating another
sociopath this way? I would try to access it from that angle as opposed to just this blanket learning curve, which is, we don't want to hurt people's feelings, right, we don't want to that's those are you know, That's that's how you socialize a kid, as you you know, sit them down and sort of help them understand the general benefits and not hurting others, not wanting to hurt someone else's feelings.
But for me that didn't work.
That those those lessons didn't land, but did when I was able to apply them to other people like me.
You were diagnosed in college. Talk to me about your childhood, Patrick, about how this manifested itself, this lack of empathy or this I guess not feeling certain things right. You do feel happiness and sadness. There was a story about your ferret dying and your mom told you and you had virtually no reactions. So what's the difference between sadness, which you say is a basic human emotion, and why didn't you feel sad when your ferret died.
I did feel sad when my ferret died. I just didn't feel it to the extent that my sister did. I remember hearing her crying, witnessing her grief, and mine was so shallow compared to hers. I do remember being sad that I had this little critter that I now no longer had, and I remember feeling that I was not going to be able to, you know, bring her along with me on my adventures anymore. But it wasn't that overwhelming grief that my sister was experiencing, and that
feeling that I had to react that way. It was sort of this pressure to be performative that I was really trying not to do. I do experience these emotions, as do others like me, but because they, you know, they aren't demonstrated at the you know, so called neurotypical level, they're discounted, or at least they were when I was a kid. So that led to a lot of deceit
and manipulation on my part. Not because I was motivated by greed or bloodlust, but because I understood very early I don't feel things the way other kids do, but I need to pretend like I do. And this sort of deceit that I had leaned into as a survival mechanism over time became a lifestyle because it was all that I knew.
I want to talk to you about sort of some of the things you did as a kid and why you did it. But is there something in your brain that is there a prefrontal cortex thing or something that doesn't process or learn behavior or have you express emotion like other people? What are the neurological reasons someone is a sociopath or are there.
Biology doesn't seem to play as big a role in sociopathy as it does psychopathy. There is no real general consensus on why sociopathy presents the way it does. There have been some compelling arguments on temperament. So children who are born with the inherent everyone knows that kid, the one who's just a better liar, who's manipulating from a very early age. That speaks to a certain temperament that seems to be predisposed to sociopathy under the right circumstances.
I wish that I could give you a precise answer. But one of the reasons, if not the reason that I wrote Sociopath was because I was hoping it would be a jumping off point for people to dig in and say, huh, why don't we know the answers to these questions and figure them out? Because I believe the answers are out there, it's just a matter of time and effort to find them.
Let's talk about some of your behavior as a child. For example, when you stabbed a classmate in the neck with a pencil, it sounds to me that you have these overwhelming feelings. Can you talk about that and how those manifested themselves when you were a kid.
Yeah, I remember feeling this pressure. And what I now understand looking back is that this pressure that I was experiencing was caused by what we were just discussing a little bit ago, This understanding that I knew I didn't feel things the way I was supposed to, and that if I didn't either force myself into feeling or adapt a persona that was basically a mirror of other people's emotions,
that I would be outed. That the perks of society, or my family, my mother's not necessarily affection, but having her on my side, all of that would be compromised if I didn't act normal, and I would feel this pressure start to build. And it seems to me that it resembles a lot of what people who suffer from OCD experience, and they have this need to engage in repetitive behaviors, not because they want to, but because some part of their mind is telling them, if you do this,
you will feel better. And that's how I felt in that moment when I assaulted that child. I wasn't doing it because I wanted to hurt this child or see her in pain. It was very much a wrong place, wrong time. I could feel the pressure building. It had been building for days, and putting that pencil into this child, to me, was like popping a balloon, which I understand sounds vicious and violent, and certainly it was, but the motivations behind it were neither.
So was it to feel something.
I think so it was just this release of.
If not to feel something, certainly to sort of. Later on, I described it as this feeling of I am who I am. I don't care who knows it, I don't care what comes of it. I just want to exist as I am and doing an act like that or committing a committing an act like that, engaging in that type of behavior. There's no real hiding from it. It's done, and so for a minute I'm free, I'm pressure's off,
like I didn't have to keep this in anymore. I didn't have to conceal this pressure, conceal who I am, and it was it was a release in a way.
I'm not a psychologist or a therapist, but it sounds to me like you have obviously some kind of issue with ID and ego, and your ID has kind your ID is likely to in certain cases run amok. And your ego, which controls the impulse to do something crazy or wrong or unconventional, you know it, It doesn't necesscessarily enter into the picture. Is that accurate?
Really sounds accurate.
I know exactly what you're saying, and I've used a similar analogy. Whereas the ID is typically that you know, tantrum me instant gratification side of oneself, whereas my ID is.
Just a wild little dragon.
And to your point, the ego does have a hard time keeping that little dragon locked up and pacified. Not so much now, but certainly when I was a kid.
And is that something you learned, how to control this kind of your drag inside?
I think yes.
But the reason is because so much of my life was spent in hiding, was spent lying and denying to others who I was, And I found I was so much more peaceful when I was alone. And it's because I didn't have to hide or lie, or or conceal any aspect to myself. As I've gotten older and become more comfortable with who I am, become more understanding of my personality type, what it is, why it exists, how
it exists, how it manifests itself. I don't feel the need to hide or lie, and that has contributed, I would say, tremendously to my destructive urges and impulses and has made them a lot easier to manage.
Because you don't feel like you're hiding and you're figuring out how to move in the world. It sounds to me like you have trouble conforming to societal norms.
Correct.
You know, sometimes I'm in church and I think, what if I don't go to church that often? But when I do, what if I stood up and started screaming and doing something crazy in the middle of church. I don't know if other people have this, Like what if this happened? Yes, and then so that's like my imagination. But then my ego says, I can't do that. That will be disruptive. People will think I'm crazy, and I'll be in page six in the New York Post. So
I can't do that. But you know, it sounds to me like you have the first part but not the second part.
It's cognitive.
I understand it cognitively, but I think because I had I spent so much of my life feeling that I was very much at the mercy of these urges There's always that part of me that goes to that place of, well, what if this time I can't what if I can't stop myself this time? What if the urges get the better of me? And a lot of that for me has been resolved with cognitive journaling. When I find that I am starting to get concerned and have those feelings
of what if I can't stop myself? One day, I go back and I say, but you always, but you have you know, your your history is that you have always figured it out and you will continue to figure it out. But I still feel those feelings of what if? You know, I I think I, especially recently having the book just coming out, I'm experiencing a type of you know, amorphosis where I'm living very publicly, out loud.
Certainly I've been.
Open, long, open with my friends and family, but this, you know, talking to you about something about this is not really something I've gotten used to or processed.
You are someone.
In fact, you're I think You're the only person I've gotten to speak with in the last few weeks for whom I have had a lifelong appreciation, which is not to say that I haven't enjoyed and thoroughly respected the other people you know, with whom I've had conversations, but you have always been someone that was sort of a touchstone for me in my life, and coming into this I should have been overjoyed, you know, I should be
bursting with something. So when I got on the zoom today and and I found once again those that excitement, it's not there.
As we led up to this conversation. What was your feeling apathy?
Just being stuck behind department store glass? Like I can see the excitement. I can I can cognitively connect to what a exciting and wonderful opportunity it is to have this conversation, but I'm not.
It's not connecting.
Emotionally, and it's frustrating and it's it's sad because I recognize the gravity in not just this experience, but in other experiences of my life, certainly recently, and I it's sort of I have to remind myself. Yeah, I mean even now, I don't. I don't connect the way that
I wish that I could. But I want to be so clear that the lack of that emotional connection isn't replaced by nefarious or manipulative or deceitful urges it's just what a bummer, and that more people understood that and certainly go ahead.
I was just going to say, so you can't really feel things deeply your life like me.
Yeah, and that's that's a you're little.
Men, Yeah, and that's that's okay until you're presented with something like a graduation or a wedding or a birth. These you know, these opportunities are met with this expectation of emotion, and when you don't have them, you have two choices either admit it or fake it. And I'm noticing recently that I want to go stoo figing it.
But you have I think perfected some workarounds, and I think in many ways you've been able to figure out your lack of emotion and replace it with something else. It sounds like so these impulses that you had as a child, this kind of almost feeling like there, I would describe it maybe like wax around your heart or having your emotions almost feel like you're underwater in a weird way. I guess what I wonder is criminal activity.
You know, when people feel this impulse, this pressure building up, like you're talking about, this desire to kind of feel something, is that what spurs a lot of people to do criminal things. In other words, can you talk about the overlap between sociothopy and criminal activity or things that are just morally wrong.
My understanding of the research and my own experience indicates that that's exactly what's happening. That your need to feel is really what's driving this destructive behavior.
You know.
One of the things that always blows my mind is we go to that five percent. Sociopathy is believed to represent five percent of the population. But what people don't understand is that nearly all of the diagnostic interviews for sociopathy take place in prisons. So it's the only place that people are largely being diagnosed with psychopathy and sociopathy is in the prison system. You're going to find that most of them are conducting or you know, exhibiting criminal behavior or engaging in that.
Right.
I also know that there are people like me who have not spent any time in prison, and maybe unjustly so, and they are trying to navigate their destructive impulses while staying on that fine line of not wanting to get caught but also wanting to force these these feelings, these pops of color and an otherwise black and white emotional world. And it also speaks to privilege.
You know, I.
Am very clear that I am a white woman of privilege, and I had every opportunity and resource available to me. What might my life had looked like if I had been a different race, gender, had I come from a different socioeconomic background, I am almost certain I would have wound up in prison. And I think about that a lot.
You know, these people who are incarcerated because they were trying to force these emotions by engaging in this destructive behavior, and that's all they knew how to do, and for a long time, it's all I knew how to do. So again, it speaks to the need for more research and understanding to help these people certainly be rehabilitated or at the very least, to become their own advocates for themselves and for others like them.
We talked about losing your ferret, We talked about stabbing your classmate in the neck with a pencil. But what was that first experience like for you when you realized you were emotionally out of step with your family, that something was different about you.
It was lonely, and again that's not something that people really think when they think of a sociopath. But the truth is I didn't choose to feel this way or to not feel this way. And I remember feeling again bummed, like I wish that I could have those overwhelming feelings.
I wish that I could connect the way that they can, and that I could not made me feel very alone and lonely and sort of craving companionship of someone like minded, which was not necessarily the healthiest choice, but that's what I wanted, I felt. I remember watching Oliver Twist when I was a kid, and seeing the artful Dodger and how Oliver found himself in this, you know, glorified cave of criminals, and I remember thinking, I wish I could go there. Those sound like my types of people.
You would be the artful Dodger.
I think I probably would. And if you remember the artful Dodger. Although he was very criminally versatile and certainly checked every one of the sociopathy checklists criteria, he had a heart and he was capable of loyalty. He was capable of more than you might have suspected if you were just looking at his rap sheet.
When we come back, Patrick describes growing up feeling like she only saw black and white while everyone else was seeing color. Everyone needs someone to talk to and text with about life's challenges, and while girlfriends are great listeners, there are limits to your group chat. A talkspased therapist will give you an objective perspective and professional guidance. Register at talkspace dot com to connect with the licensed therapist within day and you can start messaging back and forth
and also schedule live video or audio sessions. Talkspace is in network with major insurers and copays are usually twenty five dollars or less no insurance. Now get eighty five dollars off of your first month with promo code Katie when you go to talkspace dot com slash Katiecuric. Match with a licensed therapist at talkspace dot com slash Katiecuric. You were growing up in San Francisco with your parents and your sister. How did they react to this your
black and white emotional range? I think that's so interesting, the way you describe a pop of color in a black and white world.
Yeah, that's and that's really how it felt. I it's such a fun dated reference. But I remember watching that who is at aha? Take on me that video where he's like trying to get out of this black and white cartoon. I remember, yeah, always stuck with me. I remember thinking, that's exactly what this is like. But in terms of how my parents and my sister reacted, they didn't know was going on any more than I did. And certainly we were living in a time where mental health wasn't a conversation.
There were hardly words for anxiety.
And depression, which sociopathy or conduct disorder, you know, oppositional defiant. And I think my mom did the best she could with the tools that she had. I think my sister was different because, you know, my sister, I was already around my sister was born, so to her, I was different from her other friends. But it was always she never judged me for being different because to her, I wasn't different. To her, I was just her sister. And we have such a beautiful relationship, and that my sister
has every emotional hue imaginable, you know, in spades. And I always like to joke that she got both good sides and I got both dark sides.
But she never related.
To me as anything other than someone deserving of love and compassion, and a lot of my ability to emote now is a direct result of my interactions with her.
You bring up the dark side and the light side. Is there any genetic predisposition to sociopathy.
I'm sure that there is. I can look back and see similarities in other family members, close family members.
Have you discussed it with them since kind of having this epiphany about your own situation.
Yes, and it's been a very matter of fact conversation, as one might.
There's a lot of emotion there, but yes, I have.
I've said, hey, I think we should talk about some of this stuff, and it's yeah, very matter of fact, like, yeah, you're right, I am like this and I have done these things, and we probably are very similar. What that genetic component is I don't know, but again, looking through my immediate family and my extended family, I definitely see I see a few branches that it might need further investigation of the old family tree.
It's so fascinating and it is amazing that more research hasn't been channeled into studying this. And I know that you believe there's a whole spectrum of characteristics or you know, intensity for sociopathy, but I wonder before I ask you about your marriage, if you could just click through some of the characteristics, because I want people listening to this, maybe they will recognize that they have a lot in common with what you're describing.
So when you're dealing with sociopathy and psychopathy, a lot of them overlap, and the consensus is that the classic psychopath is going to have more of these traits, like these traits are going to be more more prominent than sociopathy. Superficial charm one hundred percent. For me, again, that was a coping mechanism that developed into a lifestyle. But I was always very superficially charming. I knew what I had to do to get people to trust me, and I leaned into it very hard.
You sound like some of my old boyfriends, But go on.
Everybody says this, You're not alone. Grandiose sense of self worth. I never really possessed that to the extent that a psychopath would need for stimulation. Proneess to boredom one hundred percent, pathological lyying, pawning, manipulation, lack of remorser guilt check check check, shallow affect check, callous, lack of empathy. I want to push back on that because callous slash lack of empathy. I had lack of empathy, but I wouldn't describe it
as callous. And I think that such an important distinction to be made. Just someone who's lacking an empathy doesn't necessarily make them callous.
I couldn't.
But also if you believe there's a spectrum, there might be some who were callous and some who are less callous or not callous at all.
Yes, parasitic lifestyle. That wasn't for me.
I was always very capable of excellent school at work. When I wanted to poor behavioral controls, Yes, promiscuous sexual behavior, I found that that was that's more a male driven I think there's a lot of gender bias in this checklist right. Also, the sort of hallmark trade of a sociopath psychopath is that sort of pushy salesman type of behavior where it's this overt aggression the social dominance A male.
Is going to assert social dominance that way a woman isn't.
For me.
It was always charm and sex. I would never go into a bar and start throwing my weight around. And I think that that's something that maybe should be addressed in terms of the diagnostics, early problems with behavior, lack of realistic long term goals, impulsivity, irresponsibility, failure to accept responsibility for one's own actions, many short term relationships, juvenile delinquency,
and criminal versatility. So you can see how some are perfect fits and others are, like, huh, maybe that might be for the more extreme personality type.
And how does this overlap with things like borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder, because I've known some narcissists and they possess some of these qualities but not all of them. And is it sort of like a ven diagram where there is a lot of overlap.
It's behavioral overlap.
And I'm really glad you asked this question because there is so much confusion the borderline personality, sociopathic personality, and the narcissistic personality. They tend to demonstrate the same behaviors, but it's where those behaviors, how those behaviors are motivated, that differ. So someone who is suffering from borderline personality disorder, their greatest fear is the re judgement bandon right, yes,
rejection like loss of love. So they will do anything to hold on to that connection, and oftentimes their fear is a.
Isn't it a result sometimes of trauma or abuse that they experienced as a child. And similarly, I think narcissism is so interesting because it's about not being able to model certain emotions and a lack of kind of receiving love. You know, people think narcissists are so full of themselves, but they just have this insatiable emptiness where they feel like they're never going to be loved. And I think because of narcissus stared at himself in his own reflection
that people think narcissis. It's actually a really sad thing.
It really is, and it stems from, to your point, a deep, deep lack of self worth. Right, they build this world up for themselves where they are these kings, which is why grandiosity is so prevalent in narcissism. Everything has to be perfect, all of their friends have to be the best, everything needs to be the best it can be. And it's all just a defense mechanism against this crushing sense.
Of worthlessness completely and emptiness.
Yes, and so you see why you can start to see how the behaviors are similar. So borderline it's the same. It's this abandonment, this terror of being rejected, and they become sort of a self fulfilling prophecy.
Right.
Theopathy is very similar behaviorally, but again we're not talking about a fear of abandonment or a lack of self worth. It's more the desire to feel, the desire to connect, and it's sort of it's almost like a version of cutting. You know, I understand that people who cut there doing it.
To feel, how to feel something, and feeling pain is better than feeling nothing.
Yes, and that was my feeling of it. And again I wasn't always conscious of it at the time, but looking back, I remember, I see, I see, I see the pattern this. I would drop into apathy, the pressure of needing to either feel or fake it would kick in. The longer I would go without doing something about it, the more the pressure would increase, until I would finally act out in order to sort of neutralize the pressure.
What's interesting to me about your situation is with education, you know, understanding yourself and your behavior, you have really learned to manage the manifestations of sociopathy by figuring out, really negotiating almost with yourself and with others. How you were going to exist in a way that wouldn't harm yourself or harm other people emotionally or physically. Talk to me about how you were able to do that. I
know you met your husband in summer camp. You were fourteen, he was a few years older, and I feel like that that partnership has really helped you become the person you are now.
Yes, and again, I was very lucky, and I to the first part of your question that negotiation with myself is a perfect way to describe it. And one thing that's almost never present in a negotiation is emotion. In fact, they discourage emotion and negotiation. And I felt like so much of those conversations with myself were rooted in logic. I want to live as normal quote unquote life as I can. I understand that continuing to act out is a threat to that life that I want.
So what do I want more? Do I want the normal life?
Or do I want to continue to act out and manage my impulses this way? That was an easy decision. Certainly it became easier once I met my husband. He is such a good person, and he is such an emotional person, and I knew very early on that I enjoyed being around him, and I recognize that the reason was he was the first person other than my sister who just liked me for me, I didn't have to hide around him, and he wasn't a member of my family,
so I knew that it was real. He really wasn't out of obligation or you know, just sort of a knee jerk emotion. He really liked me, and it sort of made me realize I'm not bad, I'm just different, and maybe if this guy can like me, I can sort of learn to live more authentically and not feel as though I have to hide so much.
And how did you get to that point? Because I know it took you a long time long to process that. How did you get there? And how did your research help you? And then you had some hacks with your husband, like the little statue of liberty that you would when sort of you're the opposite of your better angels would kind of take over. Yeah, so I know I've asked you sort of three questions in one, but tell me about getting to this point where you have been able to manage.
You know, I went back to school in order to gain a better understanding of myself. You know, in the process of getting my PhD, I did, I uncovered a lot of research about my own personality type, and it was it was very selfishly driven. And you know, I want to be very clear on that, I am not a researcher. I am not some revolutionary therapist. I went to school and earned my PhD solely because I was trying to understand and help myself.
Well that's okay, because in the process you're probably going to help a lot of other people.
That's my hope.
But I remember in that process it, you know, and again this speaks to my personality type that this didn't occur to me sooner, but realizing, oh, in order to get my PhD, I'm going to have to learn about other people too, which at the time was kind of a bummer, But ultimately I'm so glad that I did, because understanding other people really helped me understand myself better, but also how I could coexist.
With others in a way that was healthy.
And you know, that process of again negotiating with my husband, it was tricky because my husband is a very neurotypical emotional human being who is like, wait, you're going to leave a statue on the table for when you do something illegal like this is insane, and in retrospect, I can see why he felt that way, but at the time I didn't know of any other ways to manage
my pressure. I hadn't fully come to understand it yet, and this just made sense to me in much the same way that breaking into cars and homes felt like a reasonable way to keep myself in check.
Looking back, I can certainly.
Understand why every alarm was going off in my husband's head, but it was it was something that we had to just consistently communicate and discuss until both of us sort of had a deeper understanding of our personality types.
It sounds like for a long time, Patrick, you were a very high time and continue to be a high functioning sociopath. And in fact, you worked in the music industry, which in some ways was tailor was tailor made for your personality disorder. Can you tell us why? Because I think that the music industry is.
Very much a lawless land, and and I love it, I still do. I don't think it was a very healthy environment for me, and had I stayed I probably would have gotten into all sorts of trouble but I think that there's a veneer. You know, the entertainment business in general has been able to conceal oceans of horrific behavior behind this sparkling veneer, and the music industry is
certainly no different. And I was able to thrive as a result of my personality type and the moral flexibility I naturally was able to employ.
Can you explain that, because I'm having a hard time understanding sort of what you mean by that specifically and in terms of why it could have been a fertile environment for your sociopathic behavior, Can you just help me understand that a little bit more.
Sure, it's when you are working with or in proximity to people of power, you tend to have the same benefits of that power. So if you are working with a celebrity who is never held accountable, you sort of can get away with things and not be held accountable either.
It's like coasting off of that wake. And there were multiple times where I had opportunities to steal, I had opportunities to manipulate and enrich myself, and I knew I would never be caught or even implicated, because no one's paying attention to you when you've got a celebrity standing next to you, and that was something that I recognized very quickly, and also recognized this is not good long
term if you keep doing this. Maybe I wouldn't have been caught, but it certainly wouldn't have led to the life that I have today, which is rooted in like pro social behaviors and just rewarding emotional experiences. I don't think I would have found that if I had stayed in the music industry.
I'm curious how emotional range jibes with a sense of morality. Do you have an inherent sense of right and wrong or is that you know what I mean. I'm trying to figure this out, because if you have these urges, where does morality come in to being a sociopath.
I think there's a difference between knowing right and wrong and morality. So I always knew the difference between right and wrong. It's that that knowledge wasn't tethered to any emotional construct and that's where I think morality kicks in. So a neurotypical person is going to know, don't take the bubblegum off the shelf and put it in your pocket, because that's wrong.
And when you go home about it.
You're going to feel shame when you're going to feel the need to atone or confess or apologize. Whereas I knew that taking the bubblegum was wrong, but I also knew that when I got home, I wasn't going to feel badly about it. So that's really tricky because when you were lacking those emotional constructs, you have to make choices based on something external, and that was tough. It's you know, all of the other kids that I grew up with, they had things like guilt, shame, and remorse
keeping them in check. I didn't get to rely on those, so I had to come up with external philosophies.
So what keeps you from stealing bubblegum today?
Karma's That was just something that really resonated with me. I really once I started when I got into college, I think I took I think it was a theology class. It was a class that where I had to do reading and Buddhism, and I remember really responding to it and liking the balance of it this scale and that really resonated with me, not on an emotional level, but on what goes up must come down type of logic.
And I remember thinking, this is how I will keep myself in check, understanding that okay, you can do this, but chances are if you put too many coins in the bad site, on the bad side of the scale, you're going to have to there's going to have to be an adjustment at some point. And the idea that I have this outstanding karmic debt, I never liked that feeling.
It's like, no, I want to keep my scale very even, I want to keep things very clean and organized, and that's what worked for me, and I have it's and it's It's also not lost on me that that one of the objectives within Buddhism is a quiet mind and
not being held captive by your emotion. So I have been able to utilize that in meditations and things that are very advantageous spiritually, that maybe someone who is neurotypical might struggle with more because they can't quite those emotions, they can't keep things still or as I can.
You have two children, and I'm curious how this has impacted your parenting. This kind of more looking at emotions through a glass window people talk about and I know you write about this feeling, this overwhelming sense of love when you have a baby and you didn't feel that way, how did you manage the emotional disconnect when it comes to parenting and having children.
I remember being very angry when I did not experience that that surge of emotion, and I looking back, I was very It was all directed at myself, not because I was unable to feel those things, but because I had allowed myself even a sliver of hope that I might. So for the longest time, I was so angry at myself for like, how could you even think that this would be possible for you? But once that went by
the wayside, it went back to logic. It's like, Okay, I don't have all of the tools that a neurotypical parent does, but I have what I have, and I'm going to make the best out of what i have.
And I have found that my lack of emotion can be advantageous when I'm dealing with my kids and they're really struggling to regulate, or they're really struggling with big feelings, I have found that I can intervene in a way that allows them to express their reactions without the fear of my reaction getting in the way, and That's something I've sort of noticed from friends, family, even watching television. A child will have a feeling and that feeling will
immediately be met with their parents feeling. You know, how could you fail this test or how could you let that happen? Whereas I've noticed that doesn't happen. It tends to be very level emotionally, and I have chosen to perceive that as an advantage. Well, because what choice do I have, you know, That's what I've got, so I try to make the best of what I've got.
Do they ever get frustrated? Or did your husband get frustrated? With this sort of homeostasis and the lack of You're almost overregulated, it feels like in your emotional state, do they ever feel like, hello, anyone home? Why aren't you happier for me? Why aren't you mad that the bully was mistreating me? Why aren't you?
Oh, I do get mad, That's the right. I do get mad, you know what I mean?
Why aren't you more closely aligned with what I'm feeling on my behalf?
Yes, and I've always tried to be very transparent with my kids. Obviously, my children are young, so I how old are they thirteen and eight. So I share transparently but age appropriately. But I've always just tried to come at it from a very honest place. I am limited in what I can give you. You might not get what you need from me in this department, but maybe I can help you figure out some things over here
in this other department. It's interesting. My two sons recently introduced me to Taylor Swift, and through that introduction, I've been able to communicate with them and understand their emotional world on a much deeper level. And again, it's like being in an art gallery where I might not be able to paint these colors, but I can see them and I can understand where they're coming from.
And appreciate them.
Yes.
Yes, So that's been a very very cool experience, sort of seeing the world through through their lens and through that music.
You say, you're limited, but can you love?
Yes? I think I just love differently.
And for a long time I was made to feel that because I love differently, that love didn't count. But that's not true, and I rejected that completely. I don't have that instant connection. A lot of times, love for me starts out as like a cognitive understanding. But I love my children and I love my husband, and although that love might not look like someone who is overly
affectionate or overly effusive, I very much love them. And I also loved my sister and my mother and father growing up, so I always knew.
I was capable. It's just how deep can I go?
And I'm finding that as my children can get older, that ability to connect continues to grow. It's just a little bit different than someone who's neurotypical.
When we come back, Patrick talks about controlling some of her more mischievous impulses, like dumping a smoothie into somebody's sunbrief If you want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. When it comes to your impulses, you don't really necessarily want to stab someone in the neck with a pencil anymore,
but you do. Yeah, But you're able to control those impulses. But sometimes you do what you call mischief. You know, you'll kind of do something funny, and if you're feeling these impulses, you'll put this little statue of liberty figurine so your husband can see it. What does that mean exactly? And what are some of the examples of some of the things you might do today.
Yeah, you're really putting me on the spot. Okay, I'm sorry.
That's my job. That's my job, Patrick.
I know it is.
It's not Actually, it's not me because I'm delighted by this question. But I can I can feel my husband in my head going careful, careful, because he's very protective. But here's a great example. I don't necessarily feel at the mercy of my impulses, but that little dragon's always looking for an opportunity to strike. If we can find if we can find a justification, do you think I might be able to come out of my cage a
little bit? And there was I was behind someone in the car, and this person was throwing all manner of garbage out of their window, I mean everything.
Glass, bottles, plastic.
Just and I followed this woman for a long time, and I remember thinking, feeling the little dragon say, come on, come on, come on, let me at her, Let me at her. And I followed this woman until she stopped at a grocery store. And when she stopped at a grocery store, she took I guess she had had a milkshake that she hadn't finished and just put it next to another car, which I found just particularly.
Yeah, like you're gonna put it next to someone else's car.
But she left her sunroof open, so I waited until she was gone, and then I upended the contents of that milkshake right through her open Mercedes sun roof.
And I got back in my car.
You asked, Gosh, I'd like to drive with you so I can act out my fantasies when a driver is a real jerk.
It was just one of those moments where again I knew I wasn't supposed to do it. I knew that it was wrong, but I also knew that I didn't have those emotions keeping me in check.
And it was just I was in a mood.
And to me, it almost sounds like you had the emotions that you couldn't keep in check.
Anger. Well, it was anger, and that's and and.
And that's one of those things that you innately have, yes.
And I but I have never been I've never had much of a temper I'm not really explosive in that way, but I think it also stems from a place of I am a sociopath, and by the virtue of that diagnosis, I have been subjected to all manner of criticism, and I'm expected to keep myself in check and honest, and and I'm expected put that figurine on the desk when I get home, and I adhere to these these rules that I that I work very hard to keep in place, and then when I every once in a while, it's
very exhausting.
So when I come across somebody.
Who's just doing whatever what with no consequence whatsoever, I think that was more like, well, how come this lady.
Gets to do this?
Like she shouldn't be doing this? This is horrible, She's she's destroying the earth. And I've and I'm not in a nude, did you.
I wish you had stuck around to see her reaction.
The only reason I didn't was because there are cameras everywhere now and I wanted to sew badly.
But I can. I don't.
I don't know that we needed to be there in order to guess what that reaction was. It was a very nice car, and this was not. This was a This was a very wealthy woman, clearly based on what she was wearing when she was driving, and I'm sure that she wasn't rilled.
I think it's important for the world to see someone intelligent, successful, well spoken, thoughtful talk about her life as a sociopath. What has the response to your unleashing this on the world. What has the response been?
You know, it's largely been so positive. I've heard from so many people who resonate with my experience and my personality type, who see themselves represented positively. They see someone like them who is functioning in society, in a healthy relationship, and has kids, has a good relationship with those kids, has friends, has a job, is able to live a normal life out of hiding. And that's been the positive element.
And it's been largely positive. And that's mostly from people who are like me or people who know people like me. But I'm also finding that the reaction to my book, again by virtue of the fact that I have outed myself as a sociopath, people reacting with their own ideas of who I am and more concerning who they want me to be. A lot of people I found they want me to be a liar. They want me to be a fake, They want me to be that stereotypical sociopath.
And I find that to be problematic because why on earth would someone like me, others like me want to come forward or admit to being sociopathic if the climate is still so dangerous for them. So that's I expected skepticism, But skepticism in the presence of fact is where I realize, Oh, it's not that you don't believe me, it's that you have chosen that I am going to be a liar full stop.
I think that's more convenient.
But choosing to deny reality doesn't change reality. It just makes you less safe within that reality. So that's something that I'm that I'm trying to now navigate, not for myself as much as for the others like me who were watching and trying to make decisions for themselves.
Do you think this will lead to more research and more of a focus since so many people fall into this category, given that there's a spectrum, but so many people, if in fact five percent, as you said earlier, Patrick, that's a lot of people. Do you think this might lead to mental health professionals wanting to understand this particular disorder better or this neuro divergence better.
I really hope so, and I think it will, because this is a conversation that wasn't happening before that seems to be happening now, and so much research has already been done. One of the struggles I had in writing this book is I had to stick to the research that was available to me at the time that I was in college, which was ten thousand years ago. But in researching more recently, there's so much more now, and I can only hope that conversations like this will move
the needle even more toward wanting clarity, wanting understanding. It is very important that we not marginalize everyone who is sociopathic. Understand there are those extreme versions of this personality type who should be avoided, whose behavior should never be condoned. I'm not trying to romanticize this personality type at all, simply to bring awareness that there is more to this
personality type than that's extreme version. There are so many people who fall on the mild to moderate side, for whom treatment is very possible and could be very effective. But in order to treat something, you have to be able to identify it, and right now, sociopathy doesn't really have an identification beyond this sort of sensationalized definition and it's not in the not anymore. And that's another issue that's confusing, is that it was quote unquote replaced by
antisocial personality disorder. But what's so important to understand is it wasn't replaced because you can't diagnose sociopathy using the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, just like you can't diagnose antisocial personality disorder using the sociopathic criteria. They're very similar,
but the diagnostics are completely separate. And I think that there should be a section within the DSM that deals with psychopathy, sociopathy, and antisocial personality disorders because they are very similar but diagnostically very separate, and I think that would bring a lot of clarity to how they're different, how they can be treated, especially early. That's the research indicates that you cannot diagnose a child as sociopathic, but
sociopathic leaning children respond quite favorably to early intervention. That would save so many people from having to go through the stuff that I went through and others like me went through, and especially when it's an easy intervention. I'm using that, you know, loosely.
By air quotes. Yeah, yes, but it's.
Not We're not talking about intensive therapy or institutionalized treatment. It's this is cognitive behavioral interventions, talk, therapy, analysis. These are things from which sociopathic leaning children can really benefit. But right now I get letters from parents all the time. Where should I send my child? What should I do?
I don't have an answer because there isn't that collective understanding yet.
Well maybe this will be the start of a movement. Who knows, God would I'm curious, Patrick, how can someone tell if their child has these tendencies and might fall into the category of sociopath.
It's tough because you cannot diagnose a child as a sociopath. There is no diagnostic criteria for children who fall in this category. Conduct disorder, oppositional defiant. Those are typically the diagnostics we look to for someone who might later in
life become a sociopath. But if you have a child that you think whose experience is similar to mine, my advice would be to sit that child down and ask him or her how they experience emotion instead of always relying on behavior or punishing the behavior or trying to eradicate the behavior. Talk to that child and give them space to have an emotional reaction that is different from yours. That was something that was really helpful for me. I
didn't have that growing up. It was this is the way you're supposed to feel, and if you don't feel this way, you're wrong. But once I understood, no, that's incorrect. People feel things differently all over the place. And giving a child the permission to not care, giving a child the permission to not have remorse without you know, resorting
to that knee jerk lesson of shame or guilt. That's really what I would would do if I had a child who is who I appeared to have sociopathic traits, talk to me about how you feel, what is your what does your world look like? And make it safe for that child to admit it. And another thing I would do, and this sounds like a flipant answer, but
it's it's not. I would sit that child down and I would watch the New Wednesday Adams series with that child, because something that was so clear to me in watching that was that Wednesday Adams is a sociopath. She meets every single one of the criteria on the sociopathic checklist. And yet this is also a child that's capable of learning how to love, learning, how to connect, learning how to empathize. It takes her a bit, she struggles, but she can do it. She's capable of loyalty. She grieves
when she loses her pet. She doesn't grieve like everyone else, but she does it. And it's certainly sensational. But the Wednesday Atams Tim Burton's Wednesday Adams, I believe encompasses a more comprehensive composite of the sociopathic personality. And I would have my kid watch that, and I would watch it with them and normalize their experience and discuss their experience and use that as a jumping off point.
That's a fascinating suggestion for a lot of parents. Adriana wanted to add, what, wait, is there something I didn't ask that you want me to ask?
Well, the one thing I was going to say, h Rana.
Is obsessed with you, Patford. Well, I loved your book.
Thank you.
And what I liked about your book is I am a Catholic school like guilt ridden child, so I never had fear that I was also a sociopath and because I'm so gilbritten. But the other thing I was going to say is in the new Taylor Swift album that came out this week, I'll broads lead back to Taylor Swift, No, I'm wearing my well. This week, I was reading your book and listening to her new album, and there's a song called I Look Through People's Windows, So you should listen to that.
So many people have sent me that song, and I very very I was delighted by it. I know exactly what you're talking about, and I think it's such a cool song and I obviously relate to it. But it's nice to you know, even though do I think Taylor Swift is a sociopath. No, But it's so nice to see themes like that sort of put in the universe in a way that's positive and that a lot of people can relate to. And that's something that I really
you know, this is a very relatable disorder. These feelings that I have are shared by a lot of people. Like you know, my husband is also a Catholic school victim and others from so much guilt, and he loves sort of escaping into these places of what if and what if I didn't. And the truth is we all do that. It's not what we feel, is what we do. So I'm so grateful for that song, and just like all the stuff that you things about that are taboo, it's I love it.
It's good.
Well, Patrick Gagney, thank you so much for this conversation. I know you weren't very excited about it, but I hope you feel good about it.
I feel great about it.
That's I can't tell you how cognitively I am so excited to have been able to have this conversation with you.
I have been.
I have been looking to you my whole life. I wasn't able to connect with others, but I remember watching you on television and connecting to you because you were always so logical, You had the facts, you were so level, and I really appreciate and I experience cognitively, or understand cognitively, what a momentous occasion this is for me.
Personally, I might not have the emotional reaction, but.
I get it.
Well, that's so nice of you to say maybe I'm a sociopath.
Probably.
Thanks for listening. Everyone, If you have a question for me, a subject you want us to cover or you want to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world reach out. You can leave a short message at six h nine five point two five to five five, or you can send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers
are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martx, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app, or visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me on Instagram and all my social media channels.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, is it the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Everyone needs someone to talk to and text with about life's challenges, and while girlfriends are great listeners, there are limits to your group chat. A talkspace therapist will give you an objective perspective and professional guidance. Register at talkspace dot com to connect with a licensed therapist within days, and you can start messaging back and forth and also
schedule live video or audio sessions. Talkspace is in network with major insurers and copays are usually twenty five dollars or less no insurance. Now get eighty five dollars off of your first month with promo code Katie when you go to talkspace dot com slash Katiecuric. Match with a licensed therapist at talkspace dot com slash Katiecuric