It was July 17, 2013.  After a long turn of events after I had finally kicked Bipolar depression thanks to electro-convulsive therapy, my therapist had given me a diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder.  On this night in particular, I was going to find out if something more informative lie behind the mirror.  A few days prior, she had administered the PCL-R, the Psychopathy Checklist – Revised, to see if I was actually psychopathic.  This was the night that I would find out the results of that diagnostic.  I thought heavily about the implications of the hypothetical results on the long drive to therapy.  Would I be gaining insight into my seemingly non-existent identity this night?  Were my lies really pathological and my lifestyle truly parasitic?  I knew that I was impulsive, but was I that impulsive?  We all know the answer to this now, but that night would prove fateful in many ways.

As a result of several years of case history with that therapist and the diagnostic itself, a confirmation of psychopathy was quickly made and I realized that I had much more to learn about myself after all.  My identity is still non-existent, but at least I have a better insight into my inner workings thanks to that instrument, even if such is not of any concern to the author of the diagnostic. On the drive home, after receiving the confirmation, I thought of what I would do with such knowledge.  Would I crash and burn?  Could I change fate?  Did I have to be secretive or could I be open?  I still don’t know the answers to some of these questions, but I knew what I had to do at the time.  I vowed to continue onward in therapy and to better understand the shadow that I always possessed.  I also felt that it was instrumental to discuss my story with someone else, even if it was in secret, so I started this very blog that very night.  The knowledge I’ve gained from my readers has been instrumental in helping me define an amorphous shape that I can call “me”.  The more I know of the condition and my ways, the more I know about myself.  In many ways, this blog had to be more about me than my readership.  I didn’t know if that would change.

Slowly, but surely, the focus has changed, however.  Two years later, I am now confident with what makes me tick and my focus for this blog has changed from a tool for self-education to a tool used for educating others.  Discourse is now of the utmost priority and I have vowed to contribute to the voices on psychopathy in any way that I can.  No longer will we be silent, even if I am the only one truly speaking.  I have no idea where this journey will take me, but I know this: we will certainly be no worse off than we were yesterday thanks to voices like mine.  I hope one day I can say “voices like ours.”  I want to see more stepping up to the plate and showing the world that successful psychopaths do exist that are not behind bars or in shallow graves.  I know that I am more privileged than most on this front and, either due to megalomania or delusion, I am ready for whatever consequences may come my way.

While coincidental, the fact that my biggest interview yet should be published this weekend is appropriate.  We can show others that while we fulfill evolutionary niches with our neurology and deed, we can show restraint and progress.  We all certainly have our sordid pasts, but those pasts need not be the future.  I cannot claim total reform, but I can prove that I am worth more to society today than I was yesterday and tomorrow more than today.  I’m not sure that such progress could have been made without the therapy that I continue to engage in or the energy that I pour into my writings.  As for the latter, I certainly would have given up long ago if it were not for my readers.  I may be a megalomaniac, but I don’t spend the hundreds a month on server costs that I do without some form of conviction.  You, my readers, give me that conviction.  I may not be able to see what lies beyond the mountain in front of me, but I would not be as close to the peak without each and everyone of you.  Thank you.