Psychopathy and the People Among Us

Been thinking a lot about psychopathy lately. Been a psychopathic week for me. I am re-reading all the Homolka documents again. And I thought about the link posted by a friend on the brains of psychopaths and how they differ from the normal population. Does that mean they are created differently? Are they a different species? Are they sick? Regardless, they should still be neutered at the first sign of psychopathic behaviour. They do not play by the same rules as we do and they do not have the same values as we do. And that is our problem on so many levels. They count on us judging them by our value system and that is where we fail again and again and again. They cheat, lie, manipulate, change facts, and distort the truth as they see fit. They know the difference between right and wrong. And they don't care. As long as it suits their needs. I saw one person tell a horrific story, crocodile tears glistening in her eyes....until she turned. And then the smirk appeared. Not a tear in sight.


Six percent of people are psychopaths. One in one hundred. One in every four classrooms. They are our neighbours, roommates, friends, lovers, husbands, wives, teachers, students, co-workers, doctors, lawyers, business partners, etc. Chances are, you know one. Or have met one. Or are living with one. They are charming, friendly, easy to talk to, persuasive, happy to help or offer advice. To a point. To the outside world, they are concerned citizens, helpful, caring and only looking out for others. But if you dig a little deeper, you see the cracks. You notice the help comes in the form of offering others to help. Or giving advice how you could do it better. Or how you are doing it wrong. Nothing that involves them. Unless it makes them look better. 

In meetings or group settings, they are the most hard working, without saying anything concrete, the busiest, without being able to pinpoint any one thing, in the most meetings, and are the brightest person in the room. When something is mentioned, they have done it, done it better, done it smarter, done it first. Their team is the smartest, the only ones that know what is really happening and everyone should be listening to them. They lead the team, the unit or the country. And everyone follows them. If something fails, it was the fault of someone else. If it succeeds on any point, it was because of them. 

If any idea is brought up, it is a stupid idea, unless it is theirs. If someone else's idea is seeming to succeed, they will do whatever they can to make it fail. And blame that person. 

They are adept at finding weakness in others and hammering on that weakness until that person breaks. Once this happens, they have won and are now in control. 

I was raised by a psychopath. And it was an incredible learning opportunity. Lead me to my career choice, my writing path, my stance on Ethics with a capital E, my views on morality, organized religion, and self-professed prophets. He honed my instincts to a sharp point and gave me the ability to read people in a matter of seconds, taught me to read body language before listening to words, taught me to rely on instinct and not on other's charm. Taught me that making snap judgements on people is seldom wrong and if people show you their character, believe it.

It made me a better listener. It made me look for motive. And it made me realize the majority of people are good.

I look for detail in things and patterns. I look for reasons and make connections when others can't see them. It makes me see the bigger picture and look further down the road. 

I trust...but verify. I love....and protect the ones I love. I give my children the benefit of my experience .....but let them decide for themselves. I let people in.......and cut them off just as quickly if they show me their character. I will help others....unless they refuse to help themselves.

I will not put up with drama and living crisis to crisis. Attention seeking, victim mentality, self-sabotaging behaviour is a waste of my time. 

Being raised by a psychopath was an experience that gave me many gifts. I am open......until I am betrayed. I love unconditionally.....until I am betrayed......I help until I cannot.

Yes I judge others. I have to; it is self-preservation. I was taught this by the age of three. I learned that not all family members love each other and have their best interests at heart. I learned that not all parents love their children and that not all homes are safe. I learned that the dark is evil and monsters do exist. I was taught that not all motives are healthy and clear and without consequences. And that acting on your urges leaves life long scars.

I learned that bullies are cowards and when you challenge them, they back down and move onto someone else.

And, above all, I learned that love is a gift. That when given to someone worthy, it grows and transforms and destroys all the evil in the world.

Zippered Flesh 2!

Next month Smart Rhino will be releasing Zippered Flesh 2 More Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad! edited by Weldon Burge.

My story, After Darque, is in this release, along with other brilliant stories by the extremely talented Bryan Hall, Chris Larsen, L.L. Soares and Daniel I. Russel.

You will see a few familiar names in here as well from the first Zippered Flesh like the eerie Charles Colycott and Michael Bailey. Man those two creeped me out in the first one. Lisa Mannetti makes another appearance as well as Johnathan Templar and Jezzey Wolfe. 

The first Zippered Flesh was a brilliant concoction of madness and mayhem and I am sure Zippered Flesh 2 will be just as Darque.

To see the full table of contents check out http://smartrhino.com/books/upcomingzf2.html, an up and coming new publisher in the horror field making his mark.

Writing Your Demons and Devouring Mental Illness

Stories circulate in my head on a constant basis. Reeling them in and trying to get them into neat little boxes that eventually intertwine and could possibly become something interesting and cohesive is an entirely different matter. So I keep either a notebook or an electronic version of a notebook with me at all times. I write down ideas, thoughts, weird things I've seen and wait for the magic to begin.

My son and I have recently begun watching the X-Files from the beginning and I realized a few elements of the show had wound up in my stories. Weird. I love the way the brain works. I love that human memories can take a dozen different experiences, warp them all together into one gigantic blob and put them in our frontal cortex where we would swear this really happened. Nothing explains this clearer to me than looking back at old X-Files episodes and realizing that's where this fit in. Or raising children and hearing their version of a childhood memory.

Everything gets stored in the brain. All those inane experiences that we shrug off are sitting in the three pound, synaptic firing, vision inducing hunk of meat screaming to be let out. Whether it is in a verbal backlash or in a new story. I prefer the story. I can take all experiences, good, bad, or indifferent and release them upon unsuspecting characters to see what happens next. I love that feeling. It is so cathartic to fight your demons on paper and let your characters sort out the aftermath. Because, let's face it, as writers that is what we do. We fight our demons on a daily basis whether we think we do or not. At least, we do if we are any good.  That's how we make sense of the world. That's how we figure out why bad things happen. And that's where we try and get a grasp on our demons. I also believe it keeps us sane. More sane than the regular population. As a group of people, horror writers purge their inner thoughts, they vomit their greatest fears, and they defecate their emotions on paper. 

We can take an abusive childhood and turn it into the next zombie apocalypse where the parents get devoured one piece at a time. Or we can take depression and create a survival story of being trapped in a blizzard, surrounded by hungry bears and getting out alive. We may not realize it at the time in the throes of writing, but we are killing the childhood bullies, the beasts, and the monsters with every stroke of the pen. And with any luck you gain an audience. And a few royalties.

So yeah, we may be a little weird and we definitely see the world in a way most of the population doesn't, but we also understand human nature a lot more clearly than most. Because living in our heads we have to understand the demon in order to defeat it.