Confessions Of A Sociopath Analysis

Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight is a book by M.E. Thomas detailing her life as a sociopath. She relates her experiences growing up and attempting to navigate the waters of interpersonal connections, all while not being able to understand the language. To begin her book, Thomas details the hallmarks of the average sociopath. She states that most fail to comply with societal norms, are impulsive, aggressive, dominating, and have reckless disregard for the safety of themselves and other. She emphasizes, however that every sociopath has a lack of empathy. These people are actually cognitively unable to empathize with others, as they lack the area of the brain that allows them to process such feedback. As she progresses …show more content…
In moments of rage or perceived personal slights, she has recognized in herself the desire to kill the person annoying her. She has never acted on these emotions, but the simple fact that they are there and not sporadic is worrying to her. Additionally, her sociopathy has rendered her unable to recognize most emotions in others and in herself. Concern for others, for example, does not register on her radar as viable emotion, as she tends to only look out for herself, regardless of the cost to others. Admittedly, she does concede that the birth of her niece has stirred up altruistic emotions she did not know that she was capable of feeling. To conclude her book, Thomas cites several studies that find connections between decreased density and synapses in certain parts of the brain to sociopathic individuals. She acknowledges that there is the possibility that sociopathy can be diminished by raising children in nurturing homes and providing them with strict moral guidelines. She assures the reader that sociopaths are nothing to be afraid of; in fact, she postulates that they might have just as much, if not more, to fear from those with unpredictable