When I was scrolling through M.E.Thomas' recent blog posts, I came across a reader's comment that led me to do a Google search on some old news about her true identity. If you're interested, you can watch her on Dr Phil here and another interview here. I am not sure how credible this source is, but apparently BYU was going to offer her a tenure position, but nullify the contract after she was outed.
It got me thinking though, that writing what I'd been writing on this public blog is not a safe/smart thing to do. I'm not making money like M.E. does by publishing her stories. The only reward I get from writing all these is the pleasure that comes from gloating... which is not worth jeopardizing my future opportunities for. I should probably privatize or even delete this entire blog, but I hope unlinking it from my main blog is good enough for now.
I've decided that certain stories I was planning to write should remain a skeleton in the closet. Call me paranoid, but I even slightly regretted talking about sociopath and wanting to ruin people on Messenger. I mean, if ever comes the chances and I carry out the acts, law enforcement can easily trace my chat records and use it against me in court? I guess I've unknowingly given myself incentives to never actually succumb to my criminal or socially unacceptable impulses... ha ha ha.
I've decided that certain stories I was planning to write should remain a skeleton in the closet. Call me paranoid, but I even slightly regretted talking about sociopath and wanting to ruin people on Messenger. I mean, if ever comes the chances and I carry out the acts, law enforcement can easily trace my chat records and use it against me in court? I guess I've unknowingly given myself incentives to never actually succumb to my criminal or socially unacceptable impulses... ha ha ha.
Anyway, reading M.E.Thomas' blog post in chronological order is like reading someone describe my thoughts on this new journey of self-discovery. It's quite liberating to finally have answers to certain ways I've always been. From one of her earliest posts:
I always attributed my sense of being "different" to being smarter than everyone else. I didn't think I had some mental disorder. And for the most part, my "mental disorder" has been easy to live with. There's been no external struggle, no conflict I couldn't master--though sometimes I have find myself behind the curve in certain areas, having to play catch up. Normal people seem to follow an invisible path of personal development. Sometimes I would get confused if there was a fork in that path. I couldn't always predict normal social development enough to anticipate it.
How would I describe my condition today? When people ask I have doubts about how best to explain it. It's easy to confuse causes for symptoms and vice versa, but for me sociopathy feels like an extreme form of compartmentalization. I can shut myself off or open myself up to emotions like fear or anger or anxiety or dread or joy just by flipping an internal switch. Or turning a dial, like a radio. All those things are out there, all the time being broadcast through our airwaves. All I have to do is tune into the right station. If I want to feel something--despair, anxiety, bliss, horror, disgust--I just think about it. It's like seeing a glass half empty and then flipping the switch or turning the dial to look at it half full. I believe empaths sometimes have a similar sensation and label it an epiphany--a sudden shift in perspective. This happens to me many times a day.
I remember this little "game" I used to play during my childhood, since I was only two or three. I told the adults in my family that there were different versions of myself, and I get to decide which one to switch to depending on where I was, whom I was with, and what I was trying to achieve. With limited vocabulary at the time, I named it "the head change". I made up labels for different "versions" of myself: the obedient, the chirpy, the mischievous, the whiny, the fierce, etc. Sometimes when the adults needed me to behave, they would ask me to "do the head change". Growing up, I always have the ability to flip an internal switch and turn off my emotions whenever they became too much for me to cope. Within seconds, calmness would take over and I would suddenly become this sharp-minded, goal-oriented bystander. I did it a lot when I got into crazily emotional arguments with my parents, and such sudden shift pissed them even further. My mother would call me "cold-blooded" with the look of disgust and frustration on her face, like she's about to cry, "your heart is made of rock."
But I do love her. I really do, albeit not the way she wants me to. She didn't love me the way I wanted anyway, so I think it's fair.
People think sociopaths lack emotions and empathy, but I don't think that's the case. Sociopaths just have the ability to opt out feeling those, and they set that as their default. They can definitely tune in when it serves a purpose. How else do you think sociopaths manage to get into their preys' silly little heads and manipulate them? It's compassion they lack.
On a trivial note, two months ago I sold the bag Dom bought for me for my birthday. I did feel a little sentimental when I was packaging the bag to be mailed off, but not enough to make me change my mind. Didn't love it, didn't need it, didn't want to wear it, would rather get some money to buy something I actually like. Didn't tell him about it, didn't think I need to. We still talk everyday, but I hadn't seen him since July, everything isn't quite the same anymore, you know?