The sociopath next door: Middle-class LA mom-of-two reveals what it’s REALLY like living with personality disorder

Patrick Gagne is a typical middle-class woman from the Los Angeles suburbs. She is a wife and mother of two, and on the surface she seems like a caring and kind person to everyone she meets.

There’s just one problem. she is a sociopath.

At 48 years old, she has yet to experience the normal emotions people feel when seeing a newborn child or meeting the love of their life.

When the baby was born, she was not overcome with love for her child, did not have any “romantic, flowery feelings” when she met her husband, and still only describes her firstborn as “a wonderful child.” I don’t think so.

Her lack of empathy in her youth led her to crime, not because she wanted to steal, but because the act filled a hole left by her “lack of social emotions such as shame and empathy.” Gagne writes that it is a body.

Gagne described his experience in the following personal article. wall street journalsaid his first memory of exhibiting antisocial behavior was in kindergarten when he realized he didn’t show the same emotions as other children.

She didn’t feel guilt when she lied, nor sympathy or pity when a classmate got hurt on the schoolyard, nor fear. She felt “nothing”.

Her childhood memories were vague. Except for the time she punched one of her classmates and stabbed another with a pencil.

“All I knew was that I was feeling this pressure and something in my brain was telling me, ‘Hit that kid, it’ll make it easier,'” she said. Told. new york times.

Gagne then went on a path of theft and violence, eventually realizing that he was a sociopath.

She added that she tried to replace “nothing” with something — a locket, a hair clip, a pair of glasses — that would make her feel better about the theft.

“This urge felt like an unrelenting pressure that expanded until it permeated my entire being,” Gagne writes.

“The more I tried to ignore it, the worse it got. My muscles tensed and my stomach tightened. Tighter. Tighter.

“I felt claustrophobic, like I was trapped inside my brain. I was trapped in a void.”

As an adult, when Gagne tells others about her diagnosis, they sometimes tell her their own often disturbing secrets.

Gagne told the New York Times that about two years ago, she was sitting across from a man at a dinner party when she told him she was a sociopath and the man said, “You know, I’m not a wife.” He said he was told, “I have been thinking about killing him many times.” ‘

When she asked him to tell me more, he said: I’ve reached out to people about hiring someone to kill her. ”

She told the outlet that people think Gagne is sympathetic to their plight because they think he can relate to them.

The term sociopath was not officially recognized as a disorder until the 1930s when it was called psychopathy, but it was not yet commonly discussed until 1952 when the term was changed to sociopathy. did.

Sociopathic people are not always easy to identify. Although they may appear friendly and charming, they are characterized by a lack of conscience or empathy, a disregard for following rules and other social norms, a reckless disregard for their own safety, and impulsiveness. And their aggressive tendencies set them apart.

According to Gagne’s press release, Gagne initially wasn’t convinced he was a sociopath until he was in college, but the disorder cannot be treated and he has “no hope of living a normal life.” ” he was told.

But after years of studying and examining the connection between not feeling remorse, anxiety, apathy, stress, and the need to engage in “destructive behavior,” she finally found control over her impulses. I can now do it.

Gagne studied the disorder for years, undergoing intensive treatment and earning a doctorate. Before she accepted her own disorder and realized that sociopaths are not “bad” or “evil” or “crazy”, they just can’t handle feelings and emotions the same way others do. She studied psychology.

“For more than a century, society has viewed sociopathy as untreatable and hopeless,” Gagné wrote.

“Mental health professionals either don’t understand or choose to ignore the fact that sociopathy, like many personality disorders, exists in many different areas.”

Scientists still do not understand the causes of sociopathy, now commonly referred to by psychologists as antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).

They believe that people are more likely to develop the disorder if they have a family history of sociopathy or have had traumatic experiences in childhood.

Research shows that approximately 1 percent of the world’s population has antisocial tendencies (also known as gaslighting), such as not showing remorse for something hurtful that they have done, or shifting the blame onto others. It is suggested that

Scott Lilienfeld, a professor of psychology at Emory University, told the Austin American-Statesman in 2018 that there is evidence that sociopathy or psychopathy is not an either/or phenomenon; He said he was neither a sociopath nor a non-sociopath.

There are varying degrees of sociopathy, and some people often exhibit only slight sociopathic tendencies.

“It is a tragic misconception that all sociopaths are doomed to a hopeless, loveless life,” Gagne wrote.

“The truth is that I have the same type of personality as millions of other people, many of whom have good jobs, close-knit families and true friends,” she said. continued.

“We are expressing an incredible truth. There is nothing inherently immoral about having restricted access to our emotions.”I am not alone in offering my story. Because I know that. ”