Sociopath, p.1
Sociopath, page 1
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For David
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
—Oscar Wilde
The story you are about to read is true. Though I did my best to present the information as accurately as I remember it, some timelines have been condensed, some dialogue has been reconstructed, and some characters have been presented as composites. Certain names, dates, and details have been changed to protect the identities of the innocent (and the not so innocent).
Introduction
My name is Patric Gagne and I am a sociopath. I am a passionate mother and wife. I am an engaging therapist. I am extremely charming and well-liked. I have lots of friends. I am a member of a country club. I throw parties for every occasion you can imagine. I live in a nice house. I am a writer. I like to cook. I vote. I make people laugh. I have a dog and a cat, and I wait in carpool lines next to other women with dogs and cats.
On the surface I resemble almost every other average American woman. Social media confirms my existence as a happy mommy and loving partner whose posts are borderline narcissistic. Your friends would probably describe me as nice. But guess what?
I can’t stand your friends.
I’m a liar. I’m a thief. I’m emotionally shallow. I’m mostly immune to remorse and guilt. I’m highly manipulative. I don’t care what other people think. I’m not interested in morals. I’m not interested, period. Rules do not factor into my decision-making. I’m capable of almost anything.
Sound familiar?
If you picked up this book, I’m willing to bet it might. You, too, could be one of the estimated fifteen million people in America believed to be sociopaths. Or you could know one of the millions more whose personalities are thought to reside on the sociopathic spectrum. And we’re not talking strictly criminals. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, mail carriers… Sociopaths are hiding everywhere, in plain sight. All you need to do is start looking.
The looking started early for me. As a child, while other kids in my neighborhood were riding bikes and having playdates with friends, I was reading mysteries. True crime, mostly. I was fascinated by the darkness in people. What is it that makes them evil? What is it that makes them capable? I wanted to know.
So when I stumbled across the word “sociopath,” I thought I had my answer. I’d heard the term before. But what did it mean? What exactly is a sociopath? I assumed the dictionary would tell me. Yet when I reached for my battered, yellowing 1980 Funk & Wagnalls copy, I discovered the word wasn’t there.
Thinking it was a mistake, I went into my mother’s office and opened another dictionary. Hers was a newer edition. “Sociopath” was sure to be there. Except it wasn’t. I saw the place where it should have been—right between “sociology” and “sock”—but the word was missing. It was as if it didn’t exist. But I knew better. I had read it in books. I had seen it on the news. I had heard it at school. I had written it in my journal. I knew the definition of “sociopath” was out there somewhere. I just had to find it.
* * *
In retrospect, it all makes sense. As a doctor of psychology, I can’t help but marvel at the cunning genius of the subconscious mind, why we’re drawn to certain subjects and indifferent toward others. According to Freud, nothing happens by accident. But you don’t need a PhD to know why I chose this field. You don’t have to understand Freud to grasp the connection. You don’t have to believe in fate to see my path could never have led anywhere else.
The red flags were there from the beginning. I knew as early as seven that something was off. I didn’t care about things the way other kids did. Certain emotions—like happiness and anger—came naturally, if somewhat sporadically. But social emotions—things like guilt, empathy, remorse, and even love—did not. Most of the time, I felt nothing. So I did “bad” things to make the nothingness go away. It was like a compulsion.
Had you asked me back then, I would have described this compulsion as a pressure, a sort of tension building in my head. It was like mercury slowly rising in an old-fashioned thermometer. At first it was barely noticeable, just a blip on my otherwise peaceful cognitive radar. But over time it would get stronger. The quickest way to relieve the pressure was to do something undeniably wrong, something I knew would absolutely make anyone else feel one of the emotions I couldn’t. So that’s what I did.
As a child, I didn’t realize there were other options. I didn’t know anything about emotion or psychology. I didn’t understand that the human brain has evolved to function empathically, or that the stress of living without natural access to feeling is believed to be one of the causes of compulsive acts of violence and destructive behavior. All I knew was that I liked doing things that made me feel something, to feel anything. It was better than nothing.
Now that I’m an adult, I can tell you why I behaved this way. I can point to research examining the relationship between anxiety and apathy, and how stress associated with inner conflict is believed to subconsciously compel sociopaths to behave destructively. I can postulate that the pressure I experienced was almost certainly a negative reaction to my lack of feeling, that my urge to act out was most likely my brain’s way of trying to jolt itself into some semblance of “normal.” But none of this information was easy to find. I had to hunt for it.
I am still hunting.
“Sociopath” is a mysterious word. Its origin is based in century-old science, but it’s since been misappropriated to cover all manner of sin. There is no singular definition for the term, not anymore. The word, much like the people it represents, has become something of a paradox. A shape-shifting modifier whose meaning is often assigned via vitriol and grievance, “sociopath” is a word that evokes far more emotion than it does analysis. And why is that?
Why does the word “sociopath” make people feel more than it makes them think? Ironically, it’s what I wanted to know long before I was diagnosed. So I made it my mission to find out.
This book is the story of that mission, one that I was driven to write because the lived experience of sociopathy deserves to be illustrated. To be clear, I don’t want to minimize the severity of this disorder. Nor do I want to romanticize it. Sociopathy is a perilous mental condition, the symptoms, causes, and treatments for which need research and clinical attention. But this is precisely why I wanted to share my story: so individuals affected by sociopathy might receive the help they have needed for far too long. And—perhaps more importantly—that other sociopaths might see themselves reflected in a person who has more to offer than just darkness.
Of course, not everyone will relate to my experience. It is by pure luck that I am able to tell it. It was luck that I was born into a world where I would be afforded almost every privilege imaginable. The truth, I am well aware, is that my life would have gone very differently if my race, my class, or my gender were otherwise. It was luck that, in part, set me on a course to unpack the mystery of my condition and build a life where I have been fortunate enough to help others. Indeed, it is lucky that this book exists at all. And it is lucky that I have come to understand the value of relatability and representation.
Most sociopaths aren’t like the characters in movies. They don’t resemble the serial murderers in Killing Eve or Dexter, and they aren’t similar to the one-dimensional antagonists many crime novels suggest. They’re more complex than the fictionalized examples presented in The Sociopath Next Door. Diagnosing them requires more than the twenty-question “sociopath tests” in glossy magazines, and understanding them cannot be done using “sociopath tutorials” on YouTube.
Think you know a sociopath? I’ll bet you’re right. But I’ll also bet it’s the last person you suspect. Contrary to popular belief, sociopaths are more than their personality markers. They are children seeking understanding. They are patients hoping for validation. They are parents looking for answers. They are human beings in need of compassion. But the system is failing them. Schools aren’t recognizing them. Professionals aren’t treating them. They quite literally have nowhere to go for help.
Representation matters. I offer my story because it illustrates the truth no one wants to admit: that darkness is where you least expect it. I am a criminal without a record. I am a master of disguise. I have never been caught. I have rarely been sorry. I am friendly. I am responsible. I am invisible. I blend right in. I am a twenty-first-century sociopath. And I’ve written this book because I know I’m not alone.
PART I
CHAPTER 1 Honest Girl
Whenever I ask my mother if she remembers the time in second grade when I stabbed a kid in the head with a pencil, her answer is the same:
“Vaguely.”
And I believe her. Because so much about my early childhood is vague. Some things I remember with absolute clarity. Like the smell of the trees at Redwood National Park and our house on the hill near downtown San Francisco. God, I loved that house. I can still remember the forty-three steps from the ground floor to my room on the fifth, and the chairs in the dining room I would climb to steal crystals from the chandelier. Other things, however, aren’t so clear. Like the first time I snuck into my neighbor’s house when they weren’t home. Or where I got the locket with the “L” inscribed on it.
The locket contains two black-and-white photos I’ve never bothered to remove, and I still can’t help staring at them. Who were these people? Where did they come from? I wish I knew. I guess it’s possible I found the locket on the street, but it’s far more likely that I stole it.
I started stealing before I could talk. At least, I think I did. I don’t remember the first time I took something, just that by the time I was six or seven I had an entire box full of things I’d stolen in my closet.
Somewhere in the archives of People magazine there is a photo of Ringo Starr holding me as a toddler. We’re standing in his backyard—not far from my birthplace in Los Angeles, where my father was an executive in the music business—and I am literally stealing the glasses off his face. Certainly, I was not the first child to ever play with a grown-up’s glasses. But based on the spectacles currently perched on my bookshelf, I’m pretty sure I was the only one to swipe a pair from a Beatle.
To be clear: I wasn’t a kleptomaniac. A kleptomaniac is a person with a persistent and irresistible urge to take things that don’t belong to them. I suffered from a different type of urge, a compulsion brought about by the discomfort of apathy, the nearly indescribable absence of common social emotions like shame and empathy. But, of course, I didn’t understand any of this back then. All I knew was that I didn’t feel things the way other kids did. I didn’t feel guilt when I lied. I didn’t feel compassion when classmates got hurt on the playground. For the most part, I felt nothing. And I didn’t like the way that “nothing” felt. So I did things to replace the nothingness with… something.
It would start with an impulse to make that nothingness stop, an unrelenting pressure that expanded to permeate my entire self. The longer I tried to ignore it, the worse it got. My muscles would tense, my stomach would knot. Tighter. Tighter. It was claustrophobic, like being trapped inside my brain. Trapped inside a void.
My conscious reactions to apathy started out trivial. Stealing wasn’t something I necessarily wanted to do. It just happened to be the easiest way to stop the tension. The first time I made this connection was in first grade, sitting behind a girl named Clancy.
The pressure had been building for days. Without knowing exactly why, I was overcome with frustration and had the urge to do something violent. I wanted to stand up and flip over my desk. I imagined running to the heavy steel door that opened to the playground and slamming my fingers in its hinges. For a minute I thought I might actually do it. But then I saw Clancy’s barrette.
She had two in her hair, pink bows on either side. The one on the left had slipped down. Take it, my thoughts commanded suddenly, and you’ll feel better.
The idea seemed so strange. Clancy was my classmate. I liked her, and I certainly didn’t want to steal from her. But I wanted my brain to stop pulsing, and some part of me knew it would help. So, carefully, I reached forward and unclipped the bow.
The pink clip was hardly attached. Without my help, it probably would have fallen out on its own. Except it didn’t. With it in my hand, I felt better, as if some of the air had been released from an overinflated balloon. The pressure had evaporated. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t care. I’d found a solution. It was a relief.
These early acts of deviance are encoded in my mind like GPS coordinates plotting a course toward awareness. Even now, I can recall where I came across most of the things that didn’t belong to me as a child. But I can’t explain the locket with the “L.” For the life of me, I don’t remember where I got it. I do recall the day my mother found it in my room and demanded to know why I had it.
* * *
“Patric, you absolutely must tell me where you got this,” she said. We were standing next to my bed. One of the pillow shams was crooked against the headboard, and I was consumed with the urge to straighten it. But Mom was not letting up.
“Look at me,” she said, grabbing my shoulders. “Somewhere out there a person is missing this locket. They are missing it right now and they’re so sad they can’t find it. Think about how sad that person must be.”
I shut my eyes and tried to imagine what the missing-locket person was feeling. But I couldn’t. I felt nothing. When I opened my eyes and looked into hers, I knew my mother could tell.
“Sweetheart, listen to me,” she said, kneeling. “Taking something that doesn’t belong to you is stealing. And stealing is very, very bad.”
Again, nothing.
Mom paused, not sure what to do next. She took a deep breath and asked, “Have you done this before?”
I nodded and pointed to the closet, where I showed her my stash of contraband. Together we went through the box. I explained what everything was and where it had come from. Once the box was empty, she stood and said we were going to return every item to its rightful owner, which was fine with me. I didn’t fear consequences, and I didn’t suffer from remorse, two more things I’d already figured out weren’t “normal.” Returning the stuff actually served my purpose. The box was full, and emptying it would give me a fresh space to store things I had yet to steal.
After we’d gone through everything, Mom asked me, “Why did you take these things?”
I thought of the pressure in my head and the sense that I needed to do bad things sometimes. “I don’t know,” I said. It was true. I had no idea what prompted the sensation.
“Well… Are you sorry?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. Also true. I was sorry. But I was sorry I had to steal to stop fantasizing about violence, not because I had hurt anyone.
Mom seemed to want to put the matter behind us. “I love you so much, sweetheart,” she said. “I don’t know why you took all these things, but I want you to promise that if you ever do something like this again, you’ll tell me.”
I nodded. My mom was the best. I loved her so much that it was easy to keep that promise. At least, it was at first. We never did find the owner of the locket, but over the years I got better at imagining what it must have felt like once they realized it was gone. It’s probably a lot like how I would feel now if someone took it from me, only I don’t know for sure.
Empathy, like remorse, never came naturally to me. I was raised in the Baptist church. I knew we were supposed to feel bad about committing sins. My teachers talked about “honor systems” and something called “shame,” but I didn’t understand why these things mattered. I got the concepts intellectually, but they weren’t things I felt.
As one can imagine, my inability to grasp core emotional skills made the process of making and keeping friends somewhat of a challenge. It wasn’t that I was mean or anything. I was simply different. And others didn’t always appreciate my unique attributes.
* * *
It was early autumn and I’d just turned seven. I’d been invited—along with all the girls from class—to a friend’s slumber party. Her name was Collette and she lived a few blocks away from us. I arrived at her house wearing my favorite pink-and-yellow skirt. It was her birthday and I insisted on carrying her present, the convertible Barbie car wrapped in iridescent paper.
Mom gave me a big hug when she dropped me off. She was anxious about our first night apart. “Now, don’t you worry,” she said, handing me my backpack and Holly Hobbie sleeping bag. “If you need to come home, you can.”
But I wasn’t worried. In fact, I was excited. A whole night in another place! I couldn’t wait to get started.
The party was fun. We gorged on pizza, cake, and ice cream before changing into our pajamas. We had a dance party in the living room and played games in the yard. But around bedtime, Collette’s mom announced it was “quiet time.” She started a movie in the living room, and all of us pulled our sleeping bags into a circle. Then, one by one, the girls fell asleep.
When the movie ended, I was the only one awake. There, in the dark, I was again acutely aware of my lack of feeling. I looked at my motionless friends. It was unsettling, seeing them with their eyes closed. I sensed my mounting tension in response to the emptiness and felt the urge to hit the girl next to me as hard as I could.
