The Odd Mind Out

You happen to witness a murder in a building opposite to yours. The killer re-alizes he has an audience. He looks out of the window and smiles at you. If that isn’t terrifying enough, the killer sticks his hand outside and moves his index finger up and down. If you are able to figure out the meaning behind this peculiar action, you’ll realize, with growing dread and a certain sinking feeling, that you have been forewarned. For those who do not get it, the answer lies in the last paragraph. Those who figured it out….well, start reading some good books. Your imagination is acting up. A certain section of people already considers you to be a part of the not-so-coveted 1% of the world's pop-ulation: psychopaths.

The definition of psychopathy according to Wikipedia is: “a personality disorder characterized by persistent antisocial behaviour, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits”. You would have thought that a per- son exhibiting antisocial behaviour would be setting off all kinds of alarms in the minds of people around them. You would be wrong. Even those who run mental asylums are unable to diagnose mental disorders correctly, a fact that was established quite conclusively in Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test.

The book gives a rather hilarious account of the skirmishes between the Scientologists and the psychiatrists. A particular incident involved a group of Scientolo- gists who took it upon themselves to expose the hollowness of the science of psychiatry. They sought to do this by gettingthemselves admitted to various mental in- stitutions across the United States by faking symptoms of mental disorders. Theyhad meant to leave the institution within a day or two after establishing the fact that the psychiatrists had been unable to diagnose them correctly. As their luck would have it, it took them a month to convince their captors that they were sane. Upon exiting, they published the results of their ‘experiment’. The psychiatrists’ community played it down and urged them to send another batch of fake patients, promising to identify them this time. By the end of the next month, mental hospitals came forward to announce that they had successfully identified 40 fakes. With unconcealed glee, the Scientologists declared to the world that they had in fact not sent any.

Psychopaths are highly manipulative. They can come across as totally different individuals than what their thoughts would lead you to believe. It is hard to wrap one’s head around the fact that people found Ted Bundy charming, a man who confessed to 30 murders and who was ultimately condemned to the electric chair. Perhaps this trait is what makes psychopathic killers deadlier than the rest: you won’t suspect anything amiss until it’s too late.

While a dysfunctional amygdala in their brains prevents psychopaths from understanding emotions as we do, psychopaths resort to emulating emo- tions in order to fit into society. The mere thought is disconcerting. Imagine talking to something that is trying to act like a normal human but is not even re- motely humane. A documented conversation between a psychopath and a therapist had the latter showing the former a picture of a man with abject terror on his face. The therapist asked him to recognize the emotion. The psychopath scrutinized the photo and came up with a bone-chilling reply: “I don’t recognize the emotion but it is what I see on people’s faces right before I kill them.” With their unpredictability and suscep- tibility to fits of violence, the archetypal psychopath is not someone I would yearn to have around me. However, to be fair, not all clinically diagnosed psy- chopaths are violent. That, though, is not comforting to all. They haven’t been violent till now. Who is there to prevent the malevolent psychopath in them from rearing its ugly head one fine day and going ballistic?

Medical science hasn’t been very helpful here. There is no mention of Psychopathy in the ‘comprehensive’ reference book for mental disorders, the DSM. I would not trust the DSM very far, though, given the description of the meetings of esteemed psychiatrists that Jon Ronson provides in his book: in one cramped room, amidst a gaggle of psychiatrists, a single typewriter sits and struggles to listen to them shout ing over each other. The one who shouts the loudest gets their ‘version’ of the dis- order incorporated in the next ‘new-and-improved’ edition of the DSM. Psychopathy is incurable. With deranged killers like Dennis Rader, solitary con- finement is the only way people outside can lead a normal, safer life. Prevention of psychopathy is still an open field of re- search with ‘Nature or Nurture?’ being an important question for pinpointing the cause. Statistically speaking, most psycho- paths claim to have had a not-so-normal childhood with abusive parents or siblings. However, a definite answer is yet to emerge.

The dystopia of murderous insanity can be quite appealing to one’s curiosity and imagination. This is not to say that psycho- pathic crimes can be ‘looked up to’ in anyway. Instead, what is worth marvelling at is how the delicately woven fabric of our san- ity is integral for our peaceful and meaningful coexistence. We take our normalcy and our mutual agreement on the perspec- tive of the world for granted. Perhaps, all that differentiates us from psychopaths is just the perspective. That such a small difference in the make-up of their brains can wreak havoc in others’ lives is indeed worth pondering about.

While you’re at it, it would be better if you barricaded yourself inside your house and called the police. The killer was counting the floors in your building!