Writing about how Psychopaths Can Hide In Plain Sight spurred a debate in the comments. Some feel psychopathy is genetic. Others think otherwise.
I think psychopathy is genetic. It runs in families. I know this because it runs in mine. It also runs in every other family with a psychopathic gene, I have ever known. It’s no different than the Mars Mercury signature in my family, or our Jupiter-flavored moons.
“Phoenix” mentioned in one of his comments, I seemed, okay, meaning I am not a psychopath. He’s right about that. My siblings are not psychopaths either. We all have plenty of tears and feelings. It’s a miracle, really. That said, my father is not the only psychopath in my family. I’m going to try to explain this, down to the nitty gritty.
I have another close relative who is a notorious psychopath. He was a brilliant young man; I think he was twenty years old, when he committed a crime so shocking and heinous, to this day, I can’t believe I am related to this dude. They called him a mastermind.
He copped a plea and was sent to prison for life, with a chance of parole, but there is no chance he will ever be paroled. Basically, he goes before the board every five years and forget about it. I don’t know anyone who would want this man loose, based on the one crime; never mind, there’s no doubt he’s running amok in prison.
There are some fine points to make here. This crime was freakishly sophisticated with layers upon layers of FU, embedded. I can’t tell you if the whole of it was done consciously, at that age, or otherwise, but I can tell you, I can read his language. We share DNA! I know a lot about what he did, whether he did knew it at the time or not.
I’m not sure if this is clear, so I will try again. A high level musician will hear nuance in another musician’s work, that will pass by the masses. When this happens, it bowls you over. The fine hand, see? A light goes on, clear as a bell.
Does the first musician know what they did? Probably. Or maybe? I’m unable to discern, but I am definitely related to this guy and this is my point.
They called him a mastermind and the crime is stupefying and that’s what people see. What they see is true, but it’s also “blunt”. They are missing this bastard’s fine hand and I’m sure he laughs at their stupidity. Psychopath love to mock others.
The person(s) he wanted smack with this crime, felt it though. I’m talking about the collateral victims, not the literal victims.
They called him a “mastermind” due to the details of the crime, but they are only one layer in. This kid was killing far more birds with his stone, and I recognize his thought patterns.
It’s because he has the family stamp. And this is the same as other families, whether we’re talking about psychopathy or twins or red hair or green eyes… or signatures in astrology charts.
This is by no means, all my evidence. But there is something to glean here, if that’s your actual goal.
This man is a Pisces with a moon Jupiter conjunction exactly like one of my sisters. Pluto and Uranus oppose his sun and he’s got a Mars Saturn conjunction in Aries.
Born that way.
Yes, it is inherited kinda. Even with identical twins when one has schizophrenia, there other will not. We are just learning about the brain.
I have a family member related through my father that I really started to click with when she explained to me some of the empathy difficulties she has had. Before that we didn’t feel connected, and she said that she had previously thought the empathy issue was due to a dysfunctional childhood. Like, environmental. But then the next day she basically went into a low level panic attack after what I had told her about our father, so she has all the emotion. There’s just a “shadow” cast by my father genes.
My own behaviours can’t easily be separated from my medical condition. I think I’m fine. But I do have a lack that male friends don’t seem to have, and people in the past have been naturally frightened of me although, to my mind, with my medical condition and hence lack of physical power in that regard, makes this stupid.
I get what you are saying with family with those moments where a veil comes back and you see a similar thought process in the other. My cousin (mother side) and I share a similarity in that we have supernatural memories in a sense and remember things like films and such in altogether too much depth, and in this conversation it feels like our genes are the same.
Part of the trouble I have with the whole paradigm though is that I don’t think neurotypicals are ethical people. In the Rwandan genocide, after they had completed their “work” for the night, the Rwandans hung around drinking and laughing together. The Milgram experiment showed that 80% of people will kill someone on the direction of an authority. There are areas even today where slavery and sex trafficking is openly practiced and such.
I was listening to a radio show the other day that discusses deep psychological issues and it was discussing a young girl who had grown up on ‘trash planet’, and there just wasn’t one individual that was a good person. She got violated by her step mothers son, violated by the church band, her fathers friends locked her in a closet when they supposed to babysit her. It’s just like these ghettos where every good person was forced out a long time ago.
They can’t all be psychopaths.
I think some neurotypicals also get a point where they have done so much evil that they can’t ever redeem themselves, and after that their brain kind of shuts down.
I forgot to mention and this is primarily an astrology site. There are a few quite amazing things in our astrology charts. A Uranus-Mars aspect in mine, my half sisters and fathers chart. It’s very relevant to our emotions in relation to him and each other.
I believe that the father is in the 4th house and mother is in the 10th house of the chart. She has Neptune in the 4th house which is opposing my Sun to a zero degree orb. Her natal Chiron is on her fathers Sun. There are other aspects not so specifically relevant, i.e. one that relates to her mother and me, but a lot of it is quite amazing when considered together.
When Pluto goes over her Neptune then obviously, we are highly likely to get some big thing happening around this it seems to me.
Elsa, the young man is a cousin?
I am from a family of narcissits, both mother and father. Mum is covert. Dad is a specimen.. So dad’s brother and sister are both horrible horiible narcs. Genetics? I see from all the discussions in the last 3 posts that to each their own, some of us believe it’s genetic and some believe it’s acquired. I believe in the latter. So what to you and others looks like genetic because it runs in the family to me (even if it runs in the family!) looks acquired – parenting. We observe the same thing but make different conclusions. I see how my parents raised me and my brother and understand that that’s how their parents raised them because that’s how their parents in turn raised them and further down the family tree. And what I just like you observe as karmic repetition of aspects in a chart to me again means a different thing. Not that it’s genetic and I was born with that because someone else in my family had that too but because this is my challenge to overcome in this life – here’s Venus square Saturn and how my mum was with me and how I should not be with my child if I have one. Because well if I don’t change that, there will be more of this repeating in the next generation, someone else will get born with this aspect. Now my brother does not have this aspect but he shares another one with my mother. And he might not have the same problems as I do with parents in childhood, because we are different people perceiving things differently. Someone will turn out a narc, a psycopath, or normal. Some siblings will make it okay and some not. I think they tested mice for ptsd, would the baby rats be affected if mother rat had ptsd? And they concluded that yes, BUT it’s not genetic – it’s epigenetic, they would be more anxious which meant that in the future they will be more prone to developing ptsd too. Means they Might get ptsd too but they might not! We are exactly the same when it comes to it all. Do we succumb or not? It depends on parents, us and on the external factors – so many factors makes it complicated. It’s a choice and it’s not at the same time because the formation happens when a person usually is not fully mature.
You obviously care a lot about this argument. You have posted a lot on it.
I have not strongly stated a preference. I am comfortable with ambiguity with this because in most ways it doesn’t effect me.
But it seems to me that the emotional root of your argument, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that you do not want psychopathy to be genetic because it it’s genetic, you can’t change it in your family in general?
My understanding is psychopathy per sey is not a guarantee that someone is unethical. I can point to research that talks about that that states that 85% of psychopaths are not in jail and most live crime free productive lives.
I was going to ask you what researchers you consider to be leading and relevant in this field? Dr James Fallon for example, scanned his brain and found out he was a psychopath. But he’s not a mass murderer or anything like that, he’s just a guy.
The problem is that if a psychopath does commit crime they are better at it than most people. Because their brain responds to a picture of a mutilated human being in the same way as a picture of a flower.
Yes, I think you are right that I care about this and I just took a minute to think about why. The reason I’m so emotionally invested in this argument is because for me this is about being human and having empathy for children (not psycopaths) and taking responsibiity for their upbringing. Accepting that psycopathy is genetic takes responsibility off people (parental figures) being a part in creating a monster. The problem with this philosophy is that we continue creating monsters because well, we had nothing to do with it, they are just born like that, genetics. I noticed that the more someone is traumatised by a psycopath, the more they believe that he was born evil. I’ve gone through that phase too believing someone who hurt me so bad must be evil and born that way. Because I wasn’t ready to see anything that would take the blame off of them for becoming a psycopath, it had to be their fault 100%. What they choose to do with their psycopathy is entirely their choice, that is nothing to do with parents. So I make a clear distinction between the two.
“correct me if I’m wrong, is that you do not want psychopathy to be genetic because it it’s genetic, you can’t change it in your family in general?”
No, not because you can’t change it in the family. Because then we are given a green light to keep causing it. Narcissistic parents will go ‘look, your sister/brother turned out all right, so there must be somethig wrong with you’. They won’t stop to think they had a part to play in this kid turning out the way he did. Also, children of narcissistic parent(s) who made it just because they made it will often think the other sibling was born a psycopath because well ‘look at me, I didn’t turn out like him’ or ‘well, look at me, I was abused by my dad but didn’t turn out a psycopath’. These are children of narcissist now not even suspecting they cought some parental traits! Where is that going to go? Towards raising their own children.
Saying they were just born this way makes things simple. It leaves only one person bad – psycopath. Problem remains unsolved and then we end up with more psycopaths in society. We make them by not taking accountability. We are monsters too.
I just looked this up after watching the Zodiac documentary… there has to be a genetic basis
Mine is marked by serious mental illness. I have recently heard that ADHD can also be attributed to brain reactions to never feeling safe as a child. I don’t consider ADHD as traditional mental illness per se, just overwhelm – others will likely disagree. But I think a large part of why I have it was due to that lack of feeling safety as a child. The brain cannot cope with so much stress when you are a child and there are crazy people everywhere in your family.
This is good elucidation on this particular subject. I posted before, and my former wife, who was the daughter of the inhuman I described, was one of the kindest and most altruistic people I have ever known, still is. Not her fault who her father was (and yes, I understand there is esoteric thought about that). Nevertheless, nothing is a given.
This may sound harsh, but in these times, I feel there is a tendency to come to this kind of conclusion with others when really what we need is to look at ourselves. Modern dating is at least currently a dumpster fire for people of all ages.
Again, you cannot mistake psychopathy. You will absolutely know you are dealing with someone like this, and it won’t be ordinary dating or relationship dissatisfaction or a bad match – really, get a grip.
Forgive me for the directness, but a real psychopath is not someone you want to be within ten feet of, and if that instance ever comes into your experience, you will know. Trust your gut on such things, and do not blame the people that have been the victims, they did the best they could.
And if this person was a parent, the others involved didn’t really have a choice.
Look for the kindness and realness wherever that happens in your life and gravitate toward that.