Book Review | Sociopath: A Memoir
Patric is beautiful, affluent, and blonde. She's a wife, a mother of two, and has her PhD. Patric has also been diagnosed as a sociopath; this is her story.
A powerful and shocking memoir. At times, the author terrified me. As early as Kindergarten, Patric knew that she was different from other people. She would get this feeling that she describes as a building tension in her brain, and the only way to release it is if she did something naughty. She started small by stealing personal items from strangers and leaving the house in the middle of the night. Things escalate quickly, and when she commits her first actual act of violence at the age of seven, she feels pure euphoria. She doesn't experience emotions the way that everyone else does; she feels no remorse and completely lacks empathy.
As she gets older, she realizes the only way to succeed in life is by mimicking other people's behaviour and by lying. While attending UCLA, she would go to keg parties to study other people. She would attend the funerals of strangers just to watch how different people grieved. She aims to infiltrate and assimilate into what she deemed 'normal' personalities. After all, Patric was beautiful and young, so why would anyone suspect anything?
She finds deep meaning in The Smiths song 'How Soon Is Now' and repeats the lyrics like a mantra: 'You shut your mouth, how can you say, I go about things the wrong way? I am human, and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does.'
During a Psychology 101 class, she hears the term sociopath described for the first time at length, and she finally feels seen. She spends the next few decades working through her lack of emotions. She tries to understand her sociopathy with the help of professors, friends, and therapists. She decides to limit her unsavoury behaviour to things that she deems as less harmful than others; stalking people and breaking into their homes become her new coping mechanism. She starts to see the allure of being a functional member of society. The idea of a white picket fence, dinners with wine and kids frolicking in the backyard appeals to her. To achieve this, she realizes she has to actively work at curtailing her sociopathic impulses to harm others.
Through her research on personality disorders, she realizes how outdated the science is. There are enough people in the world who are sociopaths for it to have a definition, but no treatment plans exist. Usually, the only way people are even diagnosed as sociopaths is if they end up in juvenile detention or jail. For the most part, the only studies that have been done are on psychopaths and on antisocial personality disorder. While sociopaths share many of the characteristics of both disorders, in general, very little is known about the disorder.
While reading this memoir, I often caught myself wondering if this was a work of fiction. Patric parties at the Playboy mansion, runs in an elite music industry crowd, and spends time on the set of Ashton Kutcher's show 'Punk'd'. People are drawn to her for her brash behaviour and unapologetic attitude. She tells anyone and everyone that she's a sociopath and dares anyone to react.
Honestly, this memoir was unlike anything I've read. I highly recommend it. Patric is a woman who is very aware of her privilege. The reason she gets to tell her story and has the space to unpack her disorder is a result of her race, class, and gender. She wrote this book with other sociopaths in mind, with the hope that they won't feel so alone after reading this.
As she states from the outset: 'Think you know a sociopath? I'll bet you're right.'
Get the book here.