I’m a Sociopath: Patric Gagne’s Story

Transcript

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Speaker 2 Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. We are psyched today.

Speaker 2 We have a fascinating guest today that I have been listening to and reading and have learned so much, not just about her, but about all of us from her work.

Speaker 2 Her name is Patrick Gagne, and she is a writer, former therapist, and advocate for people with sociopathic, psychopathic, and antisocial personality disorders.

Speaker 2 Her New York Times best-selling memoir, Sociopath,

Speaker 2 so good,

Speaker 2 so good, shares her struggle to understand her own sociopathy and shed light on this often maligned and misunderstood mental disorder.

Speaker 3 Welcome, Patrick.

Speaker 2 How are you?

Speaker 3 Thank you. I'm so good.
How are you guys? Really good. Good.
We're good.

Speaker 2 Patrick, what is a sociopath?

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 3 So very simply put, A sociopath is somebody who has difficulty connecting to social emotions, who sees or uses manipulation strategies and destructive behaviors as a sort of maladaptive coping mechanism.

Speaker 3 And that isn't always understood. I understand that a lot of people, when they talk about sociopathy, it's, oh, sociopaths can't feel.

Speaker 3 But the truth is, we very much can in that there are inherent emotions, meanings everyone is born with them. These are things like anger, anticipation, joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust.

Speaker 3 these are inherent. But there is another set of emotions known as the social emotions.
Embarrassment, love, shame, jealousy, guilt, empathy. These are learned emotions.

Speaker 3 Sociopaths have a harder time connecting to these emotions.

Speaker 3 In the book, I refer to it as an emotional learning disability, because I remember being a kid, watching the other kids sort of grasp these emotions instantly, and I didn't.

Speaker 3 I had a very, very difficult time. It's sort of like needing glasses.
Without my glasses, I'm physically capable of reading, but it's just that sometimes I have to squint.

Speaker 3 And that's a lot like how I experience the social emotions. And it can be challenging because I'm not living in a world that's native to me, so to speak.

Speaker 3 But I also want to clarify that sociopathy is different from psychopathy.

Speaker 3 A psychopath is believed to suffer from certain biological impediments that make it impossible for them to move through complex emotional development.

Speaker 3 So, while they can feel those inherent emotions just like everyone else, they are incapable of learning the social emotions, whereas sociopaths are capable and they just struggle.

Speaker 3 All of this, I have to point out, is made all the more complicated by the fact that the term sociopath is no longer used due to stigma.

Speaker 3 They recently reclassified sociopathy as secondary psychopathy, which I'm not sure much for stigma, but it also makes it a lot harder to understand and also to research when you're looking up research.

Speaker 3 You don't know what you're necessarily reading about

Speaker 3 all the time.

Speaker 2 Tell us how this you experienced this as a kid, because I know what it's like to figure out what you are, and suddenly things make sense.

Speaker 2 And then you feel really bad for your younger self who thought they were

Speaker 2 lost.

Speaker 2 Tell us how you experienced being a kid. Maybe tell us about the pencil incident.
Just what was it like?

Speaker 3 I remember it probably

Speaker 3 didn't really resonate with me until I was sort of actively in school and relating to other people through socialization. But I just remember a very

Speaker 3 keen awareness that I was not. like the other kids.
I had a younger sister, so I understood what complex emotional development looked like, and I also understood that I didn't have that.

Speaker 3 So my sister seemed to take to the learned emotions, especially guilt and shame, like a fish to water. I mean, it was instant for her.
And I remember

Speaker 3 not getting it at all.

Speaker 3 But with that also came the realization, not only do I not get this, but I also understand that I can't talk about it because the few times I tried,

Speaker 3 it was very clear that adults were not comfortable around kids who started talking about how little remorse they have.

Speaker 3 And it was very much like a double bind for me in the sense that I was constantly told, you need to be honest, you need to be honest about your feelings, you need to be honest about your reactions.

Speaker 3 And yet when I did that, I was also met with instant disapproval and punishment. So

Speaker 3 I leaned into coping mechanisms, deceit, manipulation, charm. And over time, those developed into a lifestyle.
But I remember as a kid feeling, like, what choice do I have? I can't be honest.

Speaker 3 You know, I remember the, and I think I talk about this in the book: the truth shall set you free. That was never the case for me, ever, ever.
It was such a lie. And I also remember,

Speaker 3 I remember feeling

Speaker 3 so much theory about Santa Claus

Speaker 3 because, okay, so it's this whole, it's a lie. It's a lie that we tell every kid.
And I remember watching them telling my sister, like, oh, there's a Santa and da da da da.

Speaker 3 And I was like, okay, so let me get this straight. I'm not allowed to lie about anything, but you can create this, this world where this man lives and comes down a chimney.

Speaker 3 Oh,

Speaker 3 and don't talk to strangers. unless it's this insane person that comes out once a year, in which case we're going to sit you on his lap and you're instructed to tell him all of your secrets.

Speaker 3 I remember thinking as a kid, this is insane.

Speaker 3 And being told, no, you're the one, you're insane. You're the one that's, that's wrong on this.
And no one really seemed to get that.

Speaker 3 But what I noticed was happening was

Speaker 3 I started to notice this pressure, this tension.

Speaker 3 And I thought for the longest time that the tension was associated with apathy, with the fact that I was void of feeling the social emotions and but looking back i realized that that wasn't the case the apathy was never the problem it was the belief system that if i didn't do something to jolt myself out of apathy that i would be outed and i wouldn't be able to live my life the way that i wanted to live it i was very aware of rules i was very aware of right and wrong i understood that you know, the perks of society were only granted to those who acted the way they were quote unquote supposed to.

Speaker 3 And I understood that I had to do that. So when I would feel this apathy start to rise or start to sort of just settle in,

Speaker 3 I would feel an almost immediate compulsion to act out. And I can't explain it.
I can now, but as a kid, I couldn't explain it other than I would just feel compelled to act out destructively.

Speaker 3 And there were lots of ways that I did this. I would steal, I remember stealing backpacks was something that was very easy for me.
And again, it wasn't the acquisition. It was the action.

Speaker 3 I never wanted these things.

Speaker 3 I would act out just minor indiscretions to the extent that I would capitalize on any opportunity to do something wrong, be it going into my neighbor's house, be it sneaking around at night, just to sort of,

Speaker 3 I guess,

Speaker 3 activate some part of me that I felt needed to be activated. But on the day that I assaulted a child, I remember feeling that I had been doing, engaging in all of these minor,

Speaker 3 in my perspective, transgressions, and they weren't working or they weren't working the way that they had been. And I was standing next to this child who was,

Speaker 3 she was a bully, which is not to say she was deserving, but I remember she was poking and prodding. And I just remember

Speaker 3 taking a pencil and just turning and stabbing her with it. And

Speaker 3 understanding that it was wrong. I wasn't getting off on this child being hurt or in pain, but some part of me understood that that would neutralize this pressure that had been building.
And it did.

Speaker 3 And worse, it didn't just neutralize the pressure, but it resulted in a type of euphoria that I remember feeling and also understanding, oh man. I can't get used to this.

Speaker 3 Like this isn't something that I can,

Speaker 3 that I can do.

Speaker 4 So was the apathy like a blank page and that Euphoria was at least putting something on it? You said you wanted to, you were afraid of being outed.

Speaker 4 So doing these things would prevent you from being outed.

Speaker 3 I just remember,

Speaker 3 and again, I'm putting adult words on a childlike experience. So I just remember when I think about it, it was.
Yeah, you better do something. You better do something.
You better do something.

Speaker 3 You better do something. And it was the feeling like that.

Speaker 3 And it was just this understanding that

Speaker 3 the apathy, again,

Speaker 3 it's hard now as an adult because now when I'm apathetic, I really like it. It's like floating, it's wonderful.

Speaker 3 But as a kid, this understanding that I'm not allowed to enjoy this thing because this thing is going to result in me being

Speaker 3 essentially denied entrance to society.

Speaker 3 And again, it wasn't the approval or the companionship that I was seeking. I just remember thinking,

Speaker 3 I have things that I might want to do in life and I'm not going to be told I can't do them because I'm not what you guys have decided is the right thing. I am what I am.
I don't know what to tell you.

Speaker 3 So I'm just going to act like all these other kids and I'm just going to slide through, you know, with the herd. And just this understanding that if I didn't do something to sort of jumpstart my

Speaker 3 emotional or like internal emotional state, that I wasn't going to be able to slide under the radar with the herd. Someone's going to say, hey,

Speaker 3 she's not, she needs to be in jail or she needs to be in, you know, the psych ward or something.

Speaker 3 And again, these are, these are sort of childlike feelings that I had just based on what I was feeling, based on the reactions that I got from other people when I tried to express the way that I felt or didn't feel.

Speaker 3 understanding that things that I was doing were wrong and would result in a great deal of unwanted attention.

Speaker 2 Patrick, is the apathy, so is this feeling that you called apathy when you were little, but now you call tranquility or this feeling, is it a feeling? Is it an absence of feeling?

Speaker 2 Is my first question. And then the follow-up to that is this.
One of the things we're always talking about on this pod is this quote that's like,

Speaker 2 the problem is the picture in your head of how it's supposed to be. Okay.
So my question, when I was reading your book, I kept thinking, okay, Is the apathy the problem?

Speaker 2 Or is your belief that you shouldn't have the apathy the problem?

Speaker 2 Like if a sociopath is born on an island with nobody around and no culture to tell that person how it should be, does the person just live comfortably with the apathy without the constant need to act out?

Speaker 2 Because the acting out is just

Speaker 2 cultures what told you what it should be. Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3 Yes, 100%. Yes, to the second part of your question.
Like that is exactly what it is. It wasn't the apathy that was the problem.
It was my reaction to the apathy.

Speaker 3 And that reaction was informed by society telling me, these are the feelings that you're supposed to have. If you don't have these feelings, you are denied entry.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 And to your first question about what is apathy, I've heard it described as, well, isn't that similar to depression? When I've heard people speak of depression, it doesn't sound the same in that.

Speaker 3 Apathy, my experience is that the inherent emotions are there in that I can feel glimmers of sadness and still be apathetic.

Speaker 3 I can feel glimmers of anticipation and still be apathetic because these are inherent emotions. It's the lack of the social emotions.

Speaker 3 It's more like all of these feelings may or may not be coming through my periphery and I don't care. It's, I don't have any shame.
I don't have any guilt. I don't care.

Speaker 3 And that's what that feeling of euphoria was when I assaulted that child. was I had done this.
I committed this act. I had done it in front of tons of people, children and adults.

Speaker 3 I knew that I was going to get caught for it. And in that moment, what happened was, is, I don't care.
Like, I don't care. Yeah, I did it.
You know why I did it?

Speaker 3 Because I don't feel like you guys probably,

Speaker 3 there's probably something wrong with me. And I don't care about that either.
It was just this glimpse of what it would eventually look like to just fully accept myself.

Speaker 3 I didn't understand that as a kid, but I looking back, I see it now.

Speaker 1 And that's what is so, that's like what's so problematic.

Speaker 1 that's what's so problematic about it all it's like in the world that we live in it's not even the the transgression that we are even most worried about it's how the person responds

Speaker 2 right wow and what is it like i kept thinking as i was reading there's just something so humongous about an entire culture telling you if you tell the truth we will understand you more if you tell the truth like that is something we all use as a safety.

Speaker 2 I don't know what we're doing with that, but it's usually true. But what is it like to be a person who knows for certain that the more I tell you, the less you will approve of me?

Speaker 2 Usually, the more someone tells me, go, oh, we understand you.

Speaker 2 But your truth is more isolating.

Speaker 3 It's so much more isolating. Like, are you kidding? And again, kids are smart.
We pick up on things, you know, kids know.

Speaker 3 And you test the waters you'll you'll say i was raised in the baptist church so i understood these concepts and what you were supposed to do and i remember i would try using fake vignettes like well what would you say to somebody who was like this you know and it's like well

Speaker 3 and then they would give me their full

Speaker 3 you know, download on exactly what they thought, how they would interpret someone who didn't feel or didn't have remorse or didn't have shame.

Speaker 3 And it was always evil and devil and these just singular negative words. And I remember as a kid, not even taking it personally, just being like, well, I won't be telling you anything.

Speaker 3 I'll just, it was the sort of a litmus test of how, where am I in this?

Speaker 3 And then it was, I would just look around and find the kid that seemed to be getting the most favorable response and just mirror whatever that kid was doing.

Speaker 3 It was instant.

Speaker 3 Like almost as soon as I sort of came online in terms of my understanding of how different I was, I also understood I had to manipulate charm lie and instantly it was that they were just opposite sides of the same coin.

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Speaker 2 Okay, so Harlow is the fake name of your sister in the book.

Speaker 2 Love how you write about Harlow and how she, it's just beautiful. Okay, so let's just say Harlow stabbed somebody in the head with a pencil.

Speaker 2 What she feels after is, oh my God, I did this horrible thing. That person's hurting.
I feel so guilty. Everyone's going to be mad at me.
I'm a terrible person. Right.

Speaker 2 And I'm not, I'm just saying Harlow being a neurotypical.

Speaker 3 Yes. No, I can't even imagine her doing something like that, but yes, correct.
All of those.

Speaker 2 So that's Harlow's mind afterwards or neurotypical. You stab somebody with the pencil.
What exactly is happening in your mind? With your grown-up perspective of

Speaker 3 relief.

Speaker 2 Because you're being yourself. I understood it as I'm trying to feel something, but that's not it.
That's not exactly it, right? It's not just trying to feel something.

Speaker 2 It's I am asserting who I am in this moment and I don't give a fuck.

Speaker 4 Yes. I'm telling the truth because when i try to tell you the truth you tell me that's not possible and you hate so i have to tell the truth in my actions which is i don't give a

Speaker 3 yes yes that's exactly right that's exactly right okay

Speaker 2 do you see superpowers of sociopathy because i want to hear about all the like i know it can be dangerous people this is not like something to glamorize is it's messy and however i will point to a few things like when you talk about the tranquility tranquility and things coming in and out, and I'm like,

Speaker 2 isn't this what I'm trying to like, I'm paying all these people to make me sit down and breathe for an hour so I can get to this non-attachment place?

Speaker 2 Or when I think about what we think of as good people, quote, who feel a lot of things, I think I make some of my worst decisions from powerful emotions.

Speaker 2 Not my best.

Speaker 2 Like, I almost have to be in the non-attachment to make my best decision. So do you see

Speaker 2 superpowers of this or is it just something to manage?

Speaker 3 No, I think if I could go back in time and undo it, I wouldn't because

Speaker 3 I have seen what you're talking about. They talk about how sociopathy is so dangerous because the lack of emotion, the lack of remorse, that that means you're capable of anything.

Speaker 3 So are people who are full of emotions.

Speaker 3 You know, it's like crime of passion, like, hello. There's such a hypocrisy associated with the, you know, so-called disorders of aggression.

Speaker 3 And, and maybe not even hypocrisy, but just maybe a lack of self-awareness. And I'm speaking of the general we or the general you in that.

Speaker 3 Do you guys not understand that your abundance of emotion makes you just as quote unquote dangerous, if not more so, than my lack of emotion?

Speaker 3 And what an elevated conversation to be having. Like, that's the conversation I want.

Speaker 3 Let's sit down and sort of see what we can learn from each other as opposed to making one group of people the villain and one group of people normal. Yes.

Speaker 3 To your point, you know, I want to be really clear too. My intent is never to minimize sociopathy, but just to understand it more clearly.
Sociopaths are known for being singularly evil, and I get it.

Speaker 3 There are people who sit on the extreme side of the sort of sociopathic spectrum that have earned that reputation.

Speaker 3 but it's only one part of the equation yes i actually do think that there are superpowers to borrow your term associated with the sociopathic personality and that i don't experience shame or guilt or people pleasing or remorse

Speaker 3 certainly not to the extent that a neurotypical person does but i think that so many times the conversation starts there it's like well then you're dangerous it's no i just have to use

Speaker 3 you know when you don't have those internal constructs you have to find an external philosophy.

Speaker 3 I choose not to do bad things because I choose not to do them, not because I have some internal emotional

Speaker 3 system that's forcing my hand.

Speaker 2 It's like being an emotional atheist compared to a Christian who is only doing good things because I'm scared shitless, I'm going to hell. Like, who's the better person?

Speaker 2 The person who's only doing it to save their ass or the person who's choosing to do it through no dogma, through no feeling that's going to come up in there just because it's the right thing that they've decided.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I could not agree with you more.

Speaker 3 And I have heard so many times people using a similar argument, but aimed at a different purpose, which is that good things that I do don't count because they don't come from an authentic place or they don't come from a feeling place.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And this is not something that I've really discussed publicly, but for a long time, it's something that I did was I would volunteer like crisis counseling.

Speaker 3 I had a friend who volunteered with the LAPD and he would let me know about different incidents and I would just show up. You know, I would offer to counsel or to sit there or just to exist.

Speaker 3 And over time, I expanded my reach outside of LA and I just started showing up other places, like large, chaotic.

Speaker 3 horrific events just for no other reason than because I could be of service and that I can be of service isn't attached to this, I guess, maybe altruism in some way, but not, there wasn't an emotional connection.

Speaker 3 It was just more matter of fact. It was, I have a high emotional tolerance.
I have a high tolerance for pathology and I could extend that tolerance to others in these moments.

Speaker 3 And I've been told by people that I shouldn't do this work. I shouldn't talk about it because it doesn't come from an authentic place, because I don't really care.

Speaker 3 And I find that to be just one of the core issues surrounding certain mental disorders, in that if you don't care in the right way, then it doesn't count.

Speaker 3 And it's why I wrote the book, because I really wanted people to understand that there's more to this personality type than just these sensationalized one-dimensional examples that pop culture likes to churn out over and over and over again.

Speaker 3 There is so much more to this, to this personality.

Speaker 4 And there's also so much more people. I was blown away when you said one in 20 people essentially

Speaker 4 are living this way so why that's a lot that's the same number ish of people who are depressed are all of these people just living like you were as a child just trying to hide hide hide hide it well if you consider that it's five percent of the population is That's like the clinical assessment.

Speaker 3 That's what the research indicates. But when you consider that most of the diagnostic interviews for psychopathy and sociopathy take place within the prison system.

Speaker 3 There's no way that number isn't likely much higher. But yes, to your point, let's just stick with 5%.

Speaker 3 100%

Speaker 3 the same as depressive disorders, bipolar disorders, borderline personality disorders. And I think that the reason that there isn't more is

Speaker 3 I read somewhere recently that viewing someone who is suffering as quote unquote morally bad reduces compassion and desire to help in neurotypical individuals, which I found to be completely fascinating.

Speaker 3 And my guess is that that's why so few public health resources are devoted to those disorders of aggression, psychopathy, sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder, because when neurotypical people are presented with someone like that, their ability to empathize goes straight down.

Speaker 3 And again, that's a conversation worth having because

Speaker 3 in essence, those individuals who are having this reaction are experiencing a sociopathic reaction.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 as someone for whom socialization was really tricky to understand, I'm always really perplexed by the reasoning that, you know, sociopaths don't deserve any compassion or empathy because they don't have any compassion or empathy for anyone else.

Speaker 3 And yet these emotions are learned. They are modeled.
So how can you expect somebody to demonstrate compassion or empathy if they've never never experienced it for themselves?

Speaker 3 Like it's just an around and around and around we go.

Speaker 2 And if you tell them it doesn't matter if you learn it. What matters is if it's inherent in you.

Speaker 3 No, that's yeah, that's the second. It's the double vine.
It doesn't matter. No.
The goalpost is always changing.

Speaker 2 If you learn it, you're a fake and we don't like you. Right.
But so is it something that's so massive? It's bigger than, it's what we believe as a culture. You are only good if you feel a certain way.

Speaker 2 It doesn't matter what you do. It's what you feel.

Speaker 2 And so if we taught kids differently, would kids who didn't inherently feel these social emotions not have to act out in the first place because they wouldn't be being told that they were bad?

Speaker 2 Would it fix the even negative to culture effects of sociopathy at the root?

Speaker 2 And then allow us to see the superpowers. For example, if I'm going into surgery, I don't want my surgeon to be a fucking empath.
I don't want my surgeon going, oh my God, I feel so bad for you.

Speaker 2 I don't necessarily want empaths on the front line of activism. I don't want someone like me in all those places, honestly.

Speaker 2 So, does it start so early with how we define what is a good person and a bad person?

Speaker 3 Yes. And the research also indicates that sociopathy, even though you cannot diagnose a child as a sociopath, but it starts with oppositional defiant disorder.

Speaker 3 And what they're finding is that oppositional defiance is much more easily treated or treatable in young young kids and young people.

Speaker 3 And I think that because it's this, nope, they're all monsters, they're all evil, throw them all, and they don't deserve to have anything, we're missing the opportunity to reach those kids, to have that conversation early, to address that culture of there's only one way to feel, there's only one way to love, there's only one way to be.

Speaker 3 But One thing I've noticed is that there has been a shift, certainly in entertainment. I was asked by a parent, if you had a child who was acting out in the way that you were, what would you say?

Speaker 3 How would you connect to that child?

Speaker 3 And I explained, it sounds oversimplified, but the first thing I would do with a child like me is I would sit her down and I would have her watch the new iteration of Wednesday Adams, the Wednesday series on Netflix.

Speaker 3 Because make no mistake, Wednesday Adams,

Speaker 3 she meets all the criteria of the sociopathic personality.

Speaker 3 And yet, that composite is so much more complete in that, yes, this is a child who is criminally versatile, who struggles to connect with the social emotions, struggles to connect with other individuals, low affect.

Speaker 3 She lies, she manipulates, she steals, and yet she is capable. It takes her a minute, but she is capable of loyalty.
She is capable of deep relationships. She grieves when her pet dies.

Speaker 3 Yes, her pet isn't that stereotypical pet, but she still grieves that pet. She fights like hell for her friends and her family.

Speaker 3 That to me truly is a more complete example of the sociopathic personality. So I would sit a child down and I would say, What do you think about this? How do you experience emotion?

Speaker 3 Knowing that there's no wrong answer.

Speaker 3 And this Halloween, when I was walking around and seeing all the little Wednesday Adams, not just wearing the costume, but embodying her, refusing to smile back at me, refusing to make small talk, just really owning that whole personality.

Speaker 3 It really gave me hope for other kids like me

Speaker 3 to see that representation as opposed to the Ted Bundy examples, as I like to call it.

Speaker 2 That's so cool. That's really cool.
What is the hardest part of

Speaker 2 being a sociopath?

Speaker 2 in a marriage?

Speaker 3 I think the hardest part isn't me. It's my husband, probably.

Speaker 2 So you're just like everyone else is what you're saying.

Speaker 3 I just, he carries the greatest burden in that I don't take things personally. My husband is a hot-blooded Italian.
He is very affectionate.

Speaker 3 It took him a long time to understand that I am not as affectionate as he is, but it's not personal. It's not you're doing something wrong.
Therefore, I'm not as affectionate. I'm just not.

Speaker 3 I don't really express love that way naturally. Now, he is my husband.
He's my partner. I understand that there are different ways and I want him to feel love in the way that he wants to feel love.

Speaker 3 So yes, I have grown to become more affectionate. But I think for him, it's that constant reminder of

Speaker 3 don't take it personally, don't take it personally, because

Speaker 3 he also,

Speaker 3 I think he's someone who likes to regulate his moods based on mine.

Speaker 3 So he needs that constant validation vis-a-vis, I'm happy, or I feel this way, I feel that way. And we have to have a lot of conversations where I have to remind him, no, how do you feel?

Speaker 3 Like anchor in with you, and then we can talk about what's going on with me.

Speaker 3 But I think that having been raised in an Italian Catholic childhood where it was all the emotions were big and his emotions were minimized for different reasons than mine were, you know, because all of the adults were loud and screaming.

Speaker 3 And he learned how to take his own temperature by taking the temperature of those around him.

Speaker 3 So to marry someone like me, that's a slippery slope.

Speaker 2 But don't, okay, I think this might be one of the reasons why I'm so fascinated by all of this and you and all this work is that I think I have bought the idea over a long time that being an empath, being empathetic is the goodest girl.

Speaker 2 It's like the kindest thing to be.

Speaker 2 I am now in a phase of my life where I'm wondering if being an empath is horseshit, if that is just hypervigilance.

Speaker 3 You're asking the wrong person.

Speaker 2 If it's just a group of people who were raised in houses where they had to be hypervigilant of everyone else's feelings, because

Speaker 2 me saying, I am an empath, I feel what you feel

Speaker 2 is impossible. I don't feel what you feel.
I feel what's coming up inside of me that is about me. I'm not a vampire.
I can't like suck out exactly what you're feeling and put it in me. So,

Speaker 2 in some ways, all we're doing, the empaths, is using everyone else to regulate our own self. It's actually quite selfish.

Speaker 1 Or dysregulate.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 And again, you're talking probably to the wrong person because this is very much how I feel.

Speaker 3 But,

Speaker 3 and I had this conversation, I think it's in the book where we were talking about acts of kindness. And my husband was saying, you know, I do these things for you.

Speaker 3 And I was saying, no, you do these things for you. You do these things because you want my joyous reaction.
When I do something, I don't tell anybody about it.

Speaker 3 And to your point, these empaths, and again, there's nothing wrong with being empathic, but yes, that word has become almost revolting because

Speaker 3 to me. Because it's like, okay, oh, you're an empath, huh?

Speaker 3 Well, why didn't I see you at that huge traumatic event that happened in our neighborhood i don't remember seeing you there because patrick it would make us too upset correct correct yes yes and i remember a couple years ago a friend of ours passed just weeks after delivering a child because

Speaker 3 She had been complaining to the doctor and the doctor basically blew her off. It was so horrendous.
And I remember saying,

Speaker 3 I'm just going to go over the house. And everyone's saying, you shouldn't do that.
You shouldn't do that. You should just leave them alone.
You shouldn't.

Speaker 3 And I'm like, no, no, I'm just going to show up. That's what you, no, you wait.
No, you just show up.

Speaker 3 And I think to your point, it's not only am I not going to do that, but I don't want you to do it either. Because if you do it and I don't do it, then I'm going to look bad.

Speaker 3 When the reality is, it's not comfortable for me to just go to that house where this husband and child are alone and grieving. That's not a place I want to be.

Speaker 3 So I'm I'm just going to stay back here and you shouldn't go either because it's inappropriate. No, it's because you don't want to go.
That's what's going on here.

Speaker 2 Not because they can't handle it, but because you can handle it.

Speaker 3 Because you can't handle it. Yes.
Right.

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