I’ve committed a great number of grievances in my lifetime.  I’ve stolen, I’ve caused bodily harm, I’ve defrauded, and so on and so forth.  Never have I really felt bad about any of these sins though.  Well, at least not bad for those that I’ve hurt.  I often worry about my reputation and my ability to move along undetected.  Any pang in the pit of my stomach is internal in nature rather than external.  It’s easy for me to say that I do not see the logic in crying over others’ hurt feelings or lighter pockets – which I don’t – but I think that it is just as important to note that such an automatic and debilitating response does not come to me anyway.  There is no governor to hold me accountable through self-inflicted emotions.  It just isn’t there.

I don’t understand the mechanism that exists in the neurotypical’s mind.  I’ve had close acquaintances speak of their sins to me and I can tell that they were deeply uncomfortable.  It was as if they were reliving their sins over and over again.  I too relive (some of) my sins.  But there is no emotion attached.  I wonder how my reputation would be different if I didn’t pass out drunk before a presentation in college.  I wonder the same if I had not driven my husband away after years of abuse at my hands.  I don’t think of the damage I caused him as hurting him.  I don’t think of my sins as being negative for others.  I simply accept them as fact, without value judgement, and I move on.  Remorse may register as something I should feel via intellectual mechanisms but as impossible to feel via emotional mechanisms.

Remorse will always be alien to me.  It is a part of the human condition that is not mine.  I can’t say that I am sad that I miss out on such, for it sounds to be terribly dreadful.  Why would anyone want to be saddled with a never-ending and negative emotion?  I believe the psychopath can strive to better themselves and better enjoy life through other “alien” experiences, but these experiences have no room for remorse.