Here's a book I just finished reading the other day:
_Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain
Sight_ by "M.E. Thomas"
In her usage, "sociopath" is pretty much interchangeable
with "psychopath": various writers make various distinctions
between those labels (and between them and "Antisocial
Personality Disorder") but the categories overlap heavily.
The author also runs a Web site:
http://www.sociopathworld.com/for self-diagnosed sociopaths (and psychopaths) to
tell their stories.
She's a trained lawyer who has worked for prestigious law
firms in the past and who is now a **professor** of law.
Her book makes the point that kids with sociopathic (or
psychopathic) tendencies -- which are probably inborn -- can
indeed become unpleasant and dangerous adults if they
receive the wrong kind of parenting, but that with the right
kind of parenting they can eventually learn to lead productive
lives -- though they'll never learn to see the world, or care
about other people, the way "neurotypicals" do (just as
folks on the autistic spectrum can never learn to navigate
the social world as effortlessly as neurotypicals do, but can
nevertheless learn to "pass" successfully by learning
explicit algorithms for coping with other people).
And yes, psychopaths are indeed well-equipped to rise in the
ranks of modern hierarchies -- governments, corporations, and
churches. And they make good lawyers -- they see the law as
a game, they have nerves of steel, and they play to win.
From _Confessions_, Chapter 4 "Little Sociopath in
a Big World", pp. 101-102
--------------------
Of course I was never bullied or picked on. If anything, my
peers were afraid of me. And I usually had enough sense to
be selective about whom I targeted -- no one too likable.
Kids love vigilantism, so I frequently went after bullies.
I remember this one set of white trash twins. One of the kids
had something wrong with his legs, so he would show up to school
with braces or special shoes. He far exceeded children's
tolerance for diversity. Perhaps because they were identical
and to distance himself from the less fortunate twins, the
other one became a big bully. He was little but scrappy, and
since he couldn't really pick on the true alphas, he would
pick on everyone else, hoping merely to establish his dominance
as a beta. Everyone hated him, but no one wanted to provoke
his wrath. I didn't care either way about him. I think
maybe I scared him. But one time he was basically forced to
confront me during an undersupervised game of capture the flag.
I had cheated somehow and his team goaded him into calling
me on it. Words turned into shoves and pretty soon I had
him pinned to the ground and I beat the crap out of him. Not
too long, lest we draw attention, just enough that he didn't
get up for several minutes. The other kids loved me for that
for at least several months. I was happy to do it. To me,
stopping a bully was like putting out a fire. It may not have
reached my house yet, but fires are unpredictable and they
spook the surrounding wildlife into behaving unpredictably.
The probability that it will somehow affect me is high enough
that any preventative measures on my part are often warranted.
And beating on a bully makes you a hero in people's eyes.
I guess that's why Batman does it.
====
p. 117
--------------------
By the time I was ten, I had already developed full plump breasts,
and my hips had the contours of a Greek vase. Men openly leered,
their aggression palpable. The adult women in the world treated
me like I was a slut, even though I had no idea why. And so my
new body was primarily a liability at first. If I wasn't
careful, it functioned like a suicide bomb, with collateral
damage in the form of judgment from women and harassment
from men. . .
I did, however, use my gender to great effect with many of my
disgusting, perverted teachers. One of them I hated in particular.
My high school English teacher had given me a failing grade
on one of my assignments because my mother had turned it in
form me on a day I'd been away at a softball tournament or drum
competition. He ridiculed me in front of the class for having
"my mommy bring it," trying to make an example of me.
This teacher was old and vindictively petty. I never liked him.
I had seen him ruthlessly attack other students in my class,
so I never gave him any reason to target me. Still, there
was something about my silent defiance that must have gotten under
his skin, because he finally made up something plausible to
attack me on.
"Thomas! You may have noticed that you received an F. I didn't
even look at your paper, so next time you can save your mommy
some time and either come in and turn in your work yourself or
don't bother turning it in at all." I was instantly angry, but
quickly chilled.
"Screw you, fat man," I calmly retorted, and minutes later was
waiting in the principal's office.
From that time on we'd engaged in a low-grade power struggle.
I wanted to take him down, and since he had such a bad reputation,
the easiest way was just to create a paper trail of his
inappropriate behavior. I started taking detailed notes of things
he said and did in class that were even remotely questionable.
I made friends with girls in my class, planting in their heads
the total inappropriateness of even some of his more innocuous
behavior. He wasn't that bad a guy, really. He was just old and
a bit of a natural chauvinist in the way that men born before
1950 typically are. When we would take quizzes, he would project
them up on the board and have everyone move forward, ostensibly
so people in the back could see better. He always had the
first row move their seats all the way up to touch his desk,
and in that row just happened to be a girl who frequently wore
the revealing spandex of a dancer. I started a rumor that he had
us move like this to get a better view of her ample cleavage.
It was a very plausible story, particularly with the way his
face frequently contorted into what looked like a leer. It may
have actually been true. In any case, it made good gossip and
was accepted as truth shortly after it got started.
That rumor itself was not enough. Nor was it enough when I
finally goaded him into making a lewd and demeaning commment
about my breasts. The class was talking about a recent music
department production.
"How did you like my solo?" I sneered after listening to him go
on about everyone else in the class.
"Thomas! You have no class. Up there on stage, flopping all
around, letting it all hang out. Not like these other girls,"
he said, gesturing to the dancer in front of him. I think he
was trying to turn the class against me, but unfortunately for him
I had gotten there first. He didn't hurt my feelings; he had
finally, unequivocally, overstepped the student-teacher boundary
in front of witnesses.
After class I asked the dancer if she felt uncomfortable about his
thinly veiled harassment. I was the picture of worried concern.
She was touched by my sincerity. Yes, she had heard the rumor I
started about her and this teacher (unaware that I was the one who
started it). Yes, it did bother her. I was the sympathetic ear.
She confessed all her discomfort and I not only listened, I validated
and fed the flame of her distress.
I used his behavior that day to paint him as out of control. I
needed her to be afraid of him. I needed her to be one of the
other voices raised in condemnation against him. I told her that
we had to stop him before it got any worse. I told her that I was
thinking of filing an official complaint against him for sexual
harassment and asked if she would be willing to verify my story
if necessary. I made it seem as if her participation would probably
not be necessary, based on numerous contingencies, so she agreed.
She would soon find out that she would be my star witness.
When I got home I told my mother about what had happened in class --
strictly the facts, nothing about our power struggle or my
preparations to get him fired. I told her about how "violated" I felt
and about how I was not the only girl toward whom he had behaved
this way. I knew my mother felt bad about all of the times growing
up that she had failed me, so she'd be inclined to help me here.
I told her I had found out that you make sexual harassment claims
against teachers directly with school district. Would she like to
come with me to the district office the next morning to start the
paperwork? My father was completely opposed to the idea, which I
think made it all the more appealing to my mother.
I gave my statement and enlisted a small cadre of loyalists to paint
him in as bad a light as they could. He was supervised for several
weeks. There was always someone else with him whenever he was
on campus, I noticed with delight. Officially he received a
"strike," an official censure; unofficially I believe he was forced
into early retirement and had to give up his position as head of
the English department, which to me was success. I was never one to
be greedy or get caught up in the "principle of the thing." I
wasn't trying to get him fired to protect future generations of
vulnerable young girls. I was trying to get him fired to show him
that he was vulnerable, and to me, a helpless little girl.
Still, it was a good lesson in the limits of the formal justice system,
one that I would face again shortly in law school. This was not
the only time I tangled with a teacher, but no matter what I did
and to whom I reported them, none were ever fired or even removed
from their positions. And while I gained the satisfaction of causing
them pain, I garnered a reputation for making trouble. Maybe I
lied, cheated, and bullied in order to achieve their destruction,
but it was nonetheless true that they were bad teachers who should
not have been allowed around kids. One teacher was an idiot who
favored the popular kids over the unpopular ones, ignoring their
talent in order to bask in the social acceptance that he never received
when he was a student in high school himself. Another was sexually
obsessed with his students and paid special lascivious attention to
the ones with large breasts (including me) and low self-esteem
(not including me). I wasn't doing a public service in trying to ruin
them. I just couldn't stand that such unfit people could have
authority over me. And that was the double injustice of being a
young sociopath and a girl, too.
====
