The landscape for discourse regarding psychopathy could be quickly changing and not for the better.  With M.E. Thomas’ recent admission that she is “no longer a psychopath” and the apparent endgame inferred by such a statement, the situation looks bleak.  I’ll be honest, I am not a fan of Thomas, but I recognize that she is the face of the psychopathic demographic.   What validity will there be for those wishing to speak if the main voice is perceived as fraudulent?  Infinitely more distressing, what outcome will be had when the champion of the cause speaks of “hope and redemption” as being the individual endgame of each psychopath?  We face potential extinction from within.

There has always been a trend for those to embrace psychopathy as a means of being trendy.  The condition is (falsely) portrayed in popular media and many adolescents have taken to the term akin to how many embraced goth or emo in the past.  Psychopathy is not a condition to be played with.  For those who possess the condition, they are to be feared so long as they do not end up incarcerated.  Many play with identifying with the condition in a most casual manner, but ultimately, the shepherd will shoot regardless of whether the fur of the wolf is faux or real.   Will Thomas’ present a lesson in humility and caution or will her turn merely fuel the ranks of false psychopaths?

Discourse and our contributions to it are all we have as psychopaths seeking both to diminish the stigma of the condition and to reclaim the respect we deserve. The constant wave of voices who are illegitimate cloud the discussion and lead to a cacophony of chaos.  The condition is not one to accept lightly; God knows I’ve spent the better part of the past 18 months trying to prove the PCL-R wrong, that a mistake was made by the assessment or administrator.  I accept the burden I carry with the condition.  It is my responsibility to both honor myself and others through discourse, paradoxically telling truth from a mouth that is prone to lies.

The alternative is a world in which the academics continue to dictate our lives for us.  We need successful voices to speak.  We need to challenge the assumptions and “facts” that are born from the prisons of the world.  Psychopaths that are (or are perceived to be)  illegitimate destroy the progress being made by those that fight from the shadows, seeking to overturn the assumptions of our incorrigibility and worthlessness in the eyes of the larger mass.  If our champions relinquish the facade that we believed in – that others believed in – for a true face that is no different than the neurotypicals of the world, then who left would actually believe that any of us exist outside of cold prison walls?  Eventually the search would end and our successful brethren would be relegated to the land of fiction.

In the next post I will discuss what especially troubles me regarding Thomas’ recent words: the notion that conformity and cure are the endgame of every psychopath.  Poison is not the cure; it is the death of a natural part of humanity.