How often do you use the term “sociopath” as a throwaway description of a person or a behavior you disagree with?
When was the last time you thought about what this word really means? Have you ever considered that sociopaths are all around you, in your workplace, in your friend groups, in your family, and maybe even in your home?
Perhaps you’ve never considered it, but what’s more likely is that you don’t know how to look for the signs or that you just don’t know how common it is.
The reality is that almost five percent of the world’s adult population is likely living with sociopathy whether they know it or not.
But don’t worry, it’s not quite as scary as it seems, or on second thought, maybe it is.
This is where author and psychology Ph.D. Patric Gagne and her memoir Sociopath come in. Patric Gagne was one of those people who lived without identifying her condition until she reached her freshman year at UCLA.
Throughout childhood and adolescence, she was aware that she was different from other kids because she didn’t fear the repercussions of her actions or feel guilt like everyone else.
However, she also didn’t understand how to fix it, nor did any of the adults around her—especially since she was a whip-smart girl who could understand the feelings she lacked access to as concepts.
Gagne’s childhood was one fraught with frustration, but her memories make damn good stories, and she just happens to be one hell of a wordsmith, too.
Because she does not fear consequences the way the rest of society does, she holds nothing back in her writing. The result? Her personality leaps from the page.
Sociopath chronicles Gagne’s experience of how her otherness fostered anxiety that often inspired violent or dangerous behaviors. To her, acting out was like releasing a pressure valve.
We follow young Patric as she escapes from sleepovers at friends’ houses in the middle of the night, develops a taste for breaking and entering, and stabs one of her classmates in the neck with a pencil.
She also happens to quite enjoy a good bit of petty theft. Each one of these stories is told with comical detail and retrospective poignance.
And at the same time, it’s heartbreaking to watch the bold and vibrant Patric learn that she must mask her true personality in order to survive.
The real magic of the first half of the memoir, especially for someone who loves true crime, is to observe all the places where things could have gone wrong for Patric along the way, especially as she matures into young adulthood and develops a passion for stalking and automobile theft.
When we hear of people who have committed crimes due to sociopathy, it’s often difficult to understand how or why they escalate and snap into violence. Still, Patric is artful in how she explains her logic.
We follow her along for the ride of not one, but multiple escalation periods. She makes her behavior patterns easy to understand, something that’s no easy feat, and is also tremendously impactful.
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Considering Patric is a wealthy, white woman—privileges that Patric is aware of throughout the entirety of her memoir—it’s easy enough to empathize with her.
This is especially the case because we know that Sociopath is written from her present-day perspective, and we know that she hasn’t done anything horribly wrong.
She starts the memoir by stating that she is a mother and a wife and that she lives a normal life, hiding in plain sight before all of us. She is likable.
As the reader, we care for her childhood self, and we want her to get help. She is a categorically good person, and thus, we give her the chance to be heard.
However, much of this is luck and circumstance. Patric knows this, and understanding this drives her to the path of advocacy.
The magic of the second half of Sociopath is how determined Patric is to illuminate all the ways that the current courses of treatment for sociopathy make very little sense. First, she highlights how difficult it was at the time to even find anything out about the condition at all.
In fact, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders also known as the DSM, considered to be the bible of psychology, had quite literally written the term “sociopath” out of record before Patric got her hands on a copy.
In order to be diagnosed with sociopathy, patients, including Patric, had to participate in a test meant for psychopaths with an absolutely nonsensical results scale.
To truly understand herself and get the treatment she needed, Patric had to get a doctorate in psychology—something she was uniquely privileged to have the resources to do.
Sociopath is a memoir, but it’s so much more than that. It’s part theory with Gagne explaining how sociopathy intersects with anxiety, a concept that was often received as counter-intuitive whenever she posed it—because how could someone who doesn’t feel or fear like everyone else experience anxiety and panic?
Gagne likens the sociopath's desire to act out as a way to mitigate the pressure of anxiety and panic to the impulse to carry out a ritual experienced by someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
It makes so much sense, and it's no surprise this topic would become the backbone of her doctoral research.
Most importantly of all, though, Sociopath is a work of record that shows how difficult it is for someone, even in the most ideal of circumstances, to get the help they need to successfully integrate with society and live a productive life as a sociopath.
On the flip side, it’s also proof that it can be done.
Sociopath is a record of how much stigma and judgment any sociopath might face. It is documentation that most of us consider people with sociopathy to be inherently “bad.”
If it is this challenging and stigmatic for a wealthy, white woman to get help and to be understood, what does that mean for everyone else?
Sociopath is a blast to read, it’s funny, heartfelt, and eye-opening, and it will reframe how you think of people diagnosed with this condition.
Featured photo: Detlef Hansmann / Unsplash
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