a rather sobering thought

[Wade]

Scientist Related to Killers Learns He Has a Psychopath's Brain - Yahoo

from the site "...James Fallon admits he has a lot in common with serial killer Ted Bundy and Columbine assassin Eric Harris. He is aggressive, lacks empathy and is a risk-taker. Fallon, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California Irvine, accidentally discovered what friends and family have suspected for years -- he has all the genetic traits and brain scan patterns of a psychopath.
"When somebody gets mad at me, I never show it -- they can't read it on my face," Fallon, 66, told ABCNews.com. "I never get even immediately, but four years down the road, I get them with revenge."
"I don't have special emotional bonds with those who are close to me -- I treat everyone the same," he said. "I am involved in a lot of charities and good works, and my intentions are good for the world. But I don't have the sense of romance or love I am supposed to have for my wife. It's not there."
But Fallon is not a mass murderer and in his new book, "The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey Into the Dark Side of the Brain," he tries to understand why...."

from a certain standpoint this is not exactly news to me or probably many of you guys, but to hear about someone openly talking about it is fascinating to me if not only because i am a very inwardly looking person and i wonder about some of my negative traits and how close i could be...or better to say COULD HAVE BEEN a "lesser" person that what i am. i guess i can really thank my folks for that. I do get into very dark moods but snap out of them fairly easy, all it takes are pufffy white clouds on a breezy day and beautiful sunsets.

you also hear about people who just snapped and did something exceedingly antisocial and when you hear this you realize there are probably not a few people just like this, maybe even a neighbor of yours and all it could take is that one final thing to make them go rogue.

i think i know what my next read will be, has anybody ever read "The Lucifer Effect" ?

sorry to get all dark and sinister, i guess i'll have to post something lighthearted to make amends

 

[stonehart]

sorry to get all dark and sinister

No carry on this is an interesting topic

 

[Wade]

I have a certain fascination with abnormal brain activity for lack of a better word, namely serial killers and sociopaths and psychopaths, how these people can commit anti-social acts and think nothing of it because it doesn't really register with them. That interest carries over to people like Jim Jones and Charles Manson and the like who can get into other people's heads and completely manipulate them. Many years ago when I was still a young'un I was walking through what was then a rather run down Santa Monica mall (now the promenade) this was during the day time'. at one point I was greeted by a friendly smiling girl who was being a little too overly friendly and very soon I found myself surrounded by a bunch of smiling zombies. Although I wasn't directly threatened I felt these guys weren't clearing away fast enough and things started to get a little out of hand. They were smart about it in that they weren't aggressive but castigating me because I was trying to push them away. I had no idea at the time what was going on but soon found out I was a victim of a favorite tactic at the time of the Alamo Foundation before they lit out for Texas.They were trying to convince Me to just drop everything and jump on this bus that was idling nearby. No doubt they had done the very same thing at one time. It was just like you see in the movies. They tried to overkill me with kindness. In later years I wondered if they pegged me as a potential recruit because I was "lost" or missing something in my life. I wasn't, I was just hungry and was on my way to breakfast at polly's house of pies.

 

[Muadib]

This is definitely interesting, and it reminds me of a documentary I watched on the emerging science of genetic analysis. In the documentary a scientist submits his DNA for analysis and finds out that, among other things, he has the genetic marker for early onset male pattern baldness. What was funny about that was that this guy was in his late 50's or 60's (can't remember his age off the top of my head) and had a huge mane of flowing hair that certainly didn't look like it was going anywhere anytime soon.

He went on to explain that this discrepancy between his DNA and reality wasn't that uncommon, because there are so many other factors involved in deciding which genes are going to end up expressing themselves. Things like environment, diet, lifestyle and probably some other things that we may not even know about yet. So it doesn't surprise me that this guy has a psychopath's brain but only displays some traits of your typical psychopath. Who knows where he would've ended up had other factors come into play in his life.

 

[Randall]

I think that a lot of presumptions get made about what's supposed to be normal and what's not. The next thing you know, they'll be using this kind of data to refuse to give people passports or jobs or credit and so on. You know the routine. And the more upset the person becomes at being treated that way, the more "disturbed" they'll be considered, until one day they snap and drive their car through the window of an insurance company, after which time they end up in a psych ward where they shoot them up with drugs in an effort to make them "normal". Does anyone remember One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest? It's stuff like that that warns us not to get too excited about supporting a technocracy bent on pressing people out the same boring bland government approved molds as Chicken McNuggets ... rant rant rant ... That's the real sobering thought !

 

[boomerang]

I think that a lot of presumptions get made about what's supposed to be normal and what's not. The next thing you know, they'll be using this kind of data to refuse to give people passports or jobs or credit and so on. You know the routine.

A genuine concern, certainly. But better understanding of the brain side of the mind/body equation seems to have paid off in ethical dividends so far. Such knowledge is indeed powerful stuff to be handled with the greatest deliberation.

 

[Wade]

You both make good points and I hadn't really considered either. I was aware that there is a number of people out there that are embracing their "differences" to the point of becoming militant about it. That could, I suppose ran smack into Ufology's point about the possibility of having furthur constraints upon the mentally ill. it seems we have seen some evidence of what can happen with the various shootings that have been in the news, but these numbers probably reflect a minority of the potential problem cases out there. Later today I'll upload a pdf of a Newsweek article from a few years back called listening to madness. Here is a website dedicated to coping with various afflictions for those attracted and the support givers.

Latest Shows | Madness Radio

 

[Stagger Lee]

Using opiate abuse as an example- let's say a person spends several years of his/her life addicted to painkillers before successfully rehabilitating/freeing themselves. That person loses a piece of their personality. They may find it difficult to enjoy the small things in life they once did before they were consumed. There must be some type of chemical reaction that destroys natural endorphins(sp)
Anyway, there seems to be those who truely believe that they are the only mind- or that they are the center of creation and all others aren't real and only there for their own amusement.

 

[Muadib]

Using opiate abuse as an example- let's say a person spends several years of his/her life addicted to painkillers before successfully rehabilitating/freeing themselves. That person loses a piece of their personality. They may find it difficult to enjoy the small things in life they once did before they were consumed. There must be some type of chemical reaction that destroys natural endorphins(sp)

Speaking as someone who has been through the exact situation you describe when I was a bit younger and as someone who's spent a good deal of time researching addiction and how it relates to brain chemistry, the current medical thoughts on this are that the brain produces natural opiates, which we call endogenous opiates (endorphins), these chemicals help regulate things like mood, pain, gastric function and panic response, among other things. Once you start abusing opiates, your brain simply stops producing them due to the fact that your system is already overloaded with endorphins and your brain recognizes that and decides that it doesn't need to produce more.

When you quit, endogenous opiate production does not just immediately start up again, it takes time (usually 1 to 2 years, sometimes more) for your brain to adapt and start producing these chemicals again. It's similar to people who abuse anabolic steroids, their body stops producing testosterone naturally and sometimes it never starts up again, leaving them in the unfavorable position of having to go through testosterone replacement therapy for the rest of their lives ala Jose Canseco. This is why opiate addiction is so hard for so many to overcome and it's also one of the reasons why most, if not all traditional treatment methods have such a high failure rate when it comes to dealing with opiate addicts.

 

[Wade]

Embracing your madness

 

[Stagger Lee]

Muadib,
Thanks for that bit of info. Let's just say I have a friend who was able to quit the opiates through suboxone maintenance- and continues to see his doctor to stay on the subs as prescribed. "He" doesn't trust himself to not fall back into the depths of opiate abuse, and the subs keep him walking the line. Still, it's been a few years now, and he feels like a piece of his "wellbeing" is missing. Could/probably the fact he is taking the suboxone?

 

[Muadib]

Muadib,
Thanks for that bit of info. Let's just say I have a friend who was able to quit the opiates through suboxone maintenance- and continues to see his doctor to stay on the subs as prescribed. "He" doesn't trust himself to not fall back into the depths of opiate abuse, and the subs keep him walking the line. Still, it's been a few years now, and he feels like a piece of his "wellbeing" is missing. Could/probably the fact he is taking the suboxone?

No problem. It could be the suboxone, but I'd caution your friend to be prepared for about 2-3 weeks of continuous withdrawl (which will be miserable but nowhere near as bad as withdrawling from the heavier opiates) when he stops taking them, on top of that, if he doesn't trust himself to stay away from opiates then I would suggest that he not stop taking the suboxone until he feels like he's ready. I myself took them for close to two years when I stopped and then I used trams (seriously? tram*dol is a banned word?) to taper myself off of the suboxone, this won't work for everyone as trams effect different people in different ways, but it worked for me and the withdrawl upon quitting the tram was virtually nil.

You may get off of the suboxone and still have the same feeling, if your friend was a long term opiate abuser like I was, there's a chance that he's changed some aspects of his brain chemistry in a permanent way. That doesn't mean that he can never stop taking suboxone, he just needs to be prepared for what's coming and he needs to be ready to deal with it, without going back down that dead end road. I can tell you that personally, I don't feel the same way as I used to and I don't think the same way as I used to, this kind of thing leaves scars, but it's not necessarily something that you can't adapt to, you just have to work at it. I wish your friend the best of luck.

 

[boomerang]

Speaking as someone who has been through the exact situation you describe when I was a bit younger and as someone who's spent a good deal of time researching addiction and how it relates to brain chemistry, the current medical thoughts on this are that the brain produces natural opiates, which we call endogenous opiates (endorphins), these chemicals help regulate things like mood, pain, gastric function and panic response, among other things. Once you start abusing opiates, your brain simply stops producing them due to the fact that your system is already overloaded with endorphins and your brain recognizes that and decides that it doesn't need to produce more.

When you quit, endogenous opiate production does not just immediately start up again, it takes time (usually 1 to 2 years, sometimes more) for your brain to adapt and start producing these chemicals again. It's similar to people who abuse anabolic steroids, their body stops producing testosterone naturally and sometimes it never starts up again, leaving them in the unfavorable position of having to go through testosterone replacement therapy for the rest of their lives ala Jose Canseco. This is why opiate addiction is so hard for so many to overcome and it's also one of the reasons why most, if not all traditional treatment methods have such a high failure rate when it comes to dealing with opiate addicts.

I don't doubt a word of what you say. I would add that many people with chronic pain issues face troublesome choices. They may live with chronic pain which itself wreaks havoc on mood and personality. Or they may choose medications which take their own kind of toll on cognitive and emotional function. Resolving the underlying medical problem is, unfortunately, not always possible.

 

[Stagger Lee]

Muadib,
thanks for sharing your knowledge of the situation. I have no doubt that such abuse does leave the scars you mention. When the time seems right, I will look into the tram*dol you mention. I know "he" had a very difficult time moving from the methadon mainten into the suboxone. He almost didn't make it, and had it not been for having a good doctor to talk him through it, would prob still be caught up in that vicious cycle- that started with some back pain and a script for pain killers.

 

[Wade]

This week's this American life, a repeat about unconditional love. That is loving those who have ill will...even homicidal thoughts...towards themselves. One child with attachment disorder another with autism

Unconditional Love | This American Life