I’m crazy! Because I want to be!
Alright, I’m not actually crazy. I think. But even if we’re assuming that I’m as mentally stable as the next guy, it doesn’t mean I can’t ACT like I’ve got a loose screw or two. Really, we’re all capable of being a psychopath, we just choose to be normal because, well, everyone else is too.
em·pa·thy | noun | [ˈem-pə-thē] : the ability to understand and share the feelings of another : the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions
A lot of people see empathy as the basis of human social interaction, the power that lets us live with one another in a society as tight-knit and intimate as ours without constantly treading on each other’s toes. The idea of empathy has been ingrained into our minds biologically as well, with children developing the ability to understand that others have their own thoughts by the age of four. But what about those odd few who can’t do all this?
Psychopathy is one of the numerous cases characterized by a lack of empathy. Scary thing is, psychopaths can actually be very intelligent people, and many learn to feign emotion in order to fit into society. Yeah, that’s right, that preppy, always-motivated young manager down at the office might actually be a closet psychopath. There’s a lot of confusion and mystery surrounding psychopathy and how it works, simply because normal, empathizing humans can’t understand the cold, emotion-devoid hearts of psychopaths.
What I was wondering, however, was whether or not psychopathy really is that hard to understand. I have empathy, of that I’m pretty sure. So I can say to someone going through some emotional turmoil, “I can imagine how it feels.” But under what circumstances can I not do the same for a psychopath and say, “I can imagine how it doesn’t feel like anything.”? Is the mind and heart of a psychopath really that difficult to understand? Just as we’re capable of understanding and feeling the emotions of others, we can also dull our emotions and detach ourselves.
Psychopathy can be measured in a lot of ways, but let’s talk about just one to keep it simple. The Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy test was developed by Michael R. Levenson in 1995 as a research tool for psychologists. It’s a basic questionnaire that separates psychopathy into two kinds: primary psychopathy, which is lack of empathy, and secondary psychopathy, which is ignorance of normal social behaviour. On my first (and honest to my best ability) run through, I scored higher than 80.6% of people for primary psychopathy, which actually falls into a pretty normal range (although it seems I’m a bit more emotion-devoid than most).
I took the test again with the intention of acting like a psychopath. My primary psychopathy score jumped up to 92.65%, and this is without knowing exactly which answers would change my score. I took the test simply with the mind of what I felt a psychopath would have, and as it turns out, I’m pretty good at being crazy.
Or… I’m actually just crazy.
