In all things we see ourselves as being something entirely different from what we really are. Perhaps as a whole society we are deluded into a false belief of ’self.’ I spoke briefly with my father tonight and was attempting to strike up a conversation with him, though found it hard to do so. My whole life I cannot truly recall a time when I actually was able to speak with him frankly. Always as I have stated before our conversations have been when I have failed in something.

Though in continuing on what I was talking about, the discussion with my father, I believe that I am coming to the realization that I am not the person that I see in my mind’s eye. There I am courageous, helpful and full of prospect. Perhaps it is due to the way I have been brought up that I believe this ‘lie’ to be a ‘truth’. I have no way of knowing for sure or not of course, but it is there. The realization that has dawned on me is that perhaps I am none of those things, but in truth, perhaps I am craven, selfish and damned to being destitute. The dream of being wealthy is just that, a dream.

I have read often enough that perhaps I have set my dreams/goals at to high of a standard for myself right now. That maybe I should give myself ‘reasonable aspirations’, and start low and build myself high. To follow a tangent slightly, it is as my brother said one night about a week ago when we were speaking to one another.

“I have watched you and seen the things that you are capable of. You get involved in something and find that you excel at it… you don’t bide your time and build up to moving forward, you see the end game and want it then. Often enough you find that you are capable of getting it and just can’t hold onto it. Put it in this context. It is like the Marathon runner who in the first five miles of the race sprinting, and is winded even before he is a quarter through the race. You are like that, you attack with such tenaciousness and ferocity that you give no thought to the end game, to the last mile or two when you should have conserved your energy and sprinted towards the goal line.”

I have given some thought to that, and in doing so I believe that he is right. I don’t realize the end game and therefor do not understand why it is that I shouldn’t attack an opportunity when one presents itself. Though I am finding after reflecting on that some, I have found the qualities that I am lacking. Yes I know that I often get by on my natural charisma and charm. People will often overlook the qualities that I am lacking (in the business sense) to afford me the opportunity to hang myself. I cannot even begin to tell of the many jobs that I have failed in. Every job I have ever held for longer than a month I manage to find myself promoted into a managerial role. Though in doing so I find that sometimes I am truly unprepared to the task, but deny that to myself. I ‘know’ that I am fully capable of performing these tasks set out to me by my superiors but fail because I lack the proper ‘training’. Having found myself being promoted faster then my experience could actually account for.

My ambition has always been a motivating factor within myself; often times my mind has starved for a lack of it. It is a beast that needs to be fed, but cautiously. That is something that I am finally beginning to understand. The years I never knew that I should hold myself in reserve, to check my ambition. Its like the old saying of your eyes are bigger than the dinner set before you. Though hopefully with this understanding will come temperance of my previously unchecked ambition. In addition to this knowledge I am hoping that the assistance that I receive through therapy and counseling will also aid me in my understanding of why it is that I have failed numerous times in the past.

Perseverance is something that I am totally enthralled to. That I think is what bothered me most about my conversation with my father earlier tonight, the small talk that it was. He told me that he had survived for thirty years until things finally began to calm down for him, and he understood what it was that needed to be done. I suppose that I resent the fact that he never taught me how to succeed. Granted he instilled in me the desire to ’survive’ the will to manage it, but never gave me the drive to actually succeed. To learn true patience. I have the ambition, the drive, and the hunger. Often I achieve everything I set out to do, but only to find out that I am unequipped to retain what I have gained. In retrospect you could say that I resent them (my parents) for giving me that gift. For a gift it was to learn to survive, but to never have learned how to turn survival into success. I am chafing against the bit that burns in my mouth to realize there is right there in front of me the path to success, but getting on the road is easy enough… along the route I lose the way. I hate being lost, and am waking up to the fact that I truly am and that I need a guide to get me back to the road. So here I am, hoping that I am finding myself back on the road, and that this time I will have a guide with me to show me when I am beginning to press to much on to myself…

There are always a few things that I have wondered about in my life time, who am I? Why do I do the things that I do? And to what purpose am I driven?

These questios by themselves really have no apparent meaning or order. They in and of themselves are things that people often reflect upon. Though look at through the fractured mind of who is “Me.” In speaking with my sister on various subjects we were on the topic of my earlier years again tonight, and during that discourse we found the several ‘characters’ that I had played through out the years. Allow me to take you back yet again to my past and visit the changes that were brought on to me and how they were wrought.

Who is Joel? Who is Alex?

Alex was who I was before high school. I was a little carefree and had a different set of ‘ideas’ as to how things should work in the world around me. I remember thinking that life would be alright, everything was going to be ‘OK’. I was deluding myself into these thoughts. Alex was a very blind person to the world around him. He thought that everything would be as said above ‘alright’ things would work out to be fine. Time and persistence would see to it that this was so.

Alex was also carrying around a lot of emotional baggage though. He was dealing (although not at the front of his psyche and mind) with the abandonment of his sister at an early age. She had left him for a man who wound up treating her like shit. He knew this was wrong, he also knew that everything was wrong with how his parents reacted to him. The fact that they were doing nothing, was what it boiled down to. At that young of an age I was damaged. I was weak, and floundering. How could I hold myself together to be what I saw as the ‘Person that I was?’ I couldn’t. That is why the development of Joel occurred. Coming into high school saw this happen.

Now let us not say that these are ‘two’ separate people because in a sense they are both me, because they are both my given birth names. Though under each name lies a different persona. For those people who knew me as Alex, I was that carefree and very helping almost nurturing person. I would go out of my way to help you and truly not expect anything in return. My ‘friends’ were very close, and would do anything for me and I them.

High school comes, and then the change. Joel steps in and takes over, he knows that Alex is weak and cannot continue down the road that he is traveling. People would have run him over and in his condition would never have known why, or even how they were. In Joel there was strength, dominance and the ability to use others. He in a sense was the diametric opposite of Alex. That is when I started truly manipulating people around me, using them to my ‘benefit’ and they never knew that they had been used. Joel had no qualms about ’stabbing that friend in the back’ so to speak if he saw that it would be to his advantage. Or rather if in someway he would profit from the exchange, because let me boil it down to these simple terms. Profit is ultimately what we all seek, and in profit is power. Alex lacked the need or understanding to see how he could profit from others.

Now going back to what was said above and how ‘Alex’ related to his ‘friends’, Joel had no ‘friends’ he had acquaintances and many of them. For he never knew when the usefulness of said ‘friend’ would dry up, or when said ‘friend’ would awaken to the fact they were being manipulated. That didn’t happen often but it did occur and there had to be back up plans placed so ties had to be shallow. Because as Alex made very ‘close friends’ with others he would never have been able to turn his back on them and not feel guilty for ‘hurting’ these people. Joel had no empathy for anyone other than his self. He is what mattered. To cut ties with someone because they were either not useful or had found out they were being drug along was a very useful trait to have. Why be emotionally tied to someone you knew you were going to have to potentially give up in the very near future?

Above gives you a very small understanding of the two people I am. Joel and Alex. One in the same when you really begin to look at them. Though they are not. I have often had people tell me that they see a very real difference in attitude whenever I am being addressed as one or the other. My sister and I were discussing this and this is actually why I am writing this because I got to thinking about it. I am essentially to different people. A fractured mind who for the protection of myself has splintered into another person. For example when those of my old ‘friends’ who know me as Alex and address me as such I am more relaxed, open and for all appearances demure. Though when I am Joel and everyone who knows me as thus addresses me I am calculating, cold, distant yet out going. I am pandering to other people’s vanity. I destroy who and what they are and smile the entire time they are falling down into demise, because I know that when they hit the bottom I will offer them that ‘hand’ to bring them up again. They will be reliant upon me, and that is a very useful thing to have in another person when you are trying to get ahead. Without conscience I could easily toss these people to the wayside and not give two shits about how they will fair in life. They have outlived any usefulness that they had for me. They have gotten me to where I wanted to be in life at that ‘moment’…

This is something that I am going to bring up to my psychiatrist whenever I go in and speak to him in a month. Of course until then I will always have theories and a warped understanding that this is wrong, but not caring still that it is being done.

 Today I ran full force into bureaucratic red tape. It was the lesson that we all have learned in physics, that when two immovable objects collide what is the result? A massive static discharge. Well today I went to attempt to receive some sort of aid from the state in so far as my medical condition is concerned, because I don’t have any kind of Medicade or medical insurance, so I need some assistance when I start getting prescribed medications.

Alright with that knowledge in hand above I went down to the Care-Link office to sign up for assistance and the lady there was being snide with me because the ID that I do possess stipulates my first and last name. (Its a TDC Offenders card, as I have just recently been released from State Jail) Well the lease that I took with me states my middle name as “Alex” not “Alejandro” so there for it is invalid as “Alex” is an entirely different ‘person’. Going round and round with this woman was at the least, irksome. I initially wanted to berate and belittle her affront to my intelligence. Though what I ended up doing was smiling and nodding my head and going along with her little masquerade for a time. In the end what was required of me to go and get was a copy of the lease that my parents have signed showing that I was a tenant on it from the current year’s agreement.

Not so difficult right? WRONG! When we pulled into the Rental Agencies place of business and spoke with one of the representatives there it didn’t seem like it was going to be all that much of a hassle to get a copy of the lease showing that I was a tenant on it. Though somewhere in the mix some asshole came out and informed us that they were going to have to run a criminal background check on my sister and I because we were trying to change the lease and that we had never initially signed the lease to begin with. Being that we were both over the age of 18 we had to fill out applications and the whole nine yards. I just started laughing because well my criminal history is a bit jaded. I mean honestly I was just released about five weeks ago from a state run jail. So of course my criminal background check is going to get flagged and humorously enough I won’t even be able to live with my parents long enough to receive the help that I do need for my medical affliction…

So in wrapping this up I am currently pissed off at society because here I am trying to get the help that I need so I can become a productive member of society. So as that I can get away from the past the things that I have done. Though now it looks as though doors are being slammed in my face and I will be kicked out onto the streets to be one of the many wandering vagrants. I laugh at the irony that me, a person who has never once in his life asked for help, asks for the help to get my life in order is now being ‘possibly’ forced into making a drastic decision. The only avenue that I feel is open to me if all this goes down the way I believe it will, will be to go back into drug dealing or to leave the state of Texas entirely. To start over somewhere else, and hell even possibly in another country. Though to do that I would have to get my passport again. More bureaucratic red tape!! How I look forward to the future that does not appear to be very forth coming.

 Why shouldn’t society be held accountable for my actions? As it is the beast that dictates my decorum. From a young age we are told to be one thing and then another. And failing that we are admonished because we did not live up to the eyes of our fellow’s views. Something is abhorrently wrong with this ideal. From everything that is todays point of view we should be the young sub-urban knight with the 2.4 children, a family dog and the white picket fence on 1.8 acres of land. The very idea of that pisses me off. Who are you to tell me what I should be and how I should live my damn life.

To hell with your views. The weak are there to be trampled on and to excel my life. If you are to weak to fight then you do not deserve the dream that is yours. Now granted this very same point of view could be turned against me, and many have tried. Though I don’t think anyone has truly understood the fact that I feel if someone has the ability to run me over or rather ‘pull the wool over my eyes’ the I deserve whatever happens to me. If I can not defend say for instance a position within a company because someone beat me out of it then dammit they deserved that position more then I. Does not mean that I won’t feel upset by the fact that my inadequacies were so pointedly placed before me. No one likes to feel as though they are not adequate enough for something. I just happen to measure myself against those that are better then me and I know it. I hold myself accountable to a higher standard in the work force. My own life is chaotic but at work I am able to focus my ambition, my drive and my many talents towards that environment.

My entire life people have told me that I have the talent of leadership. That everyone flocks to me whether I would want them to or not. So why shouldn’t I use that natural charisma to my benefit? Manipulate the situation at hand to see that the outcome is one that I would like. Well that is where society steps in and tells me.. No that is wrong! You can’t step on the single mother of four to get that job because she needs to feed her family! All I have to say to that is this; if she had been able to get off her back from the bed and done her duty of feeding the first of her brood she wouldn’t be in the predicament that she is in now. She is at fault herself for her predilection towards breeding. Because I am able to focus myself on work should I be held back to help this single mother? Should I suffer the bleeding heart of society and say… “Oh yes! I’m sorry please take the food, clothing and shelter from me so you can continue to pollute the world with your wasteful progeny!” This is just one aspect of many that I hold Society accountable for. They will tell me that I am wrong for doing this. That we should help the weak… We are being held back by the weak! Cull the weak is what I say. Either force them to be productive members of our Society who will in some way benefit us, or allow them to fall to the wayside and do not waste our dwindling resources on them.

Of course the above statement is in direct opposition to what I am right at this moment doing. I am asking for help from the state to get me through this mental illness that I suffer from. Many would argue that I am acting hypocritically. Speaking out the side of my mouth as it were. No! I am not. I am using the state to further myself, eventually I will become a productive member of this society. I will turn myself into something that will help (now I won’t lie here) mostly myself. Though as a byproduct of my helping myself other’s will be helped as well. Though we only have ourselves to look at. It is the old adage of “You look into the mirror in the morning, and do you like the reflection that stares back at you?”.

Something is wrong with today’s world when we have to lie to ourselves and delude ourselves with beliefs that we are actually helping these people. We aren’t, we are facilitating the continuation of their demise. Because without them actually seeing that they are failing they will do nothing but take, take and continue taking. They do not know any better. Much like myself. I didn’t know that was what I was doing. Am I taking steps to correct and remove that ‘trait’ from myself. Yes. Will it be successful? I am not the one to say. Of course I will be judged by society for my actions, and eventually be found either wanting or I shall be entirely successful. There is not an in between for me. I will either utterly fail and find myself locked away from society to protect themselves from me and my ‘poisoned’ point of view, or I will be a success in such a way that I will bring to society a new idea of the way things should be done. That we have been living a lie and I will not shelter those who are with me from it.

 Growing up in my household was not as pleasing as some of the stories that I have heard from those I used to consider my friends or even that of strangers. Violence or a form of it was a constant friend to me in those days. Almost everyday I could expect to see my brother and sister attack each other either physically or verbally.

I believe this has been the root of my problems in being able to open up to anyone. I will not speak my mind to someone if I feel that they will be harmed by what I have to say. Now mind you that is only if I have some emotional attachment to you. If for whatever reason I am able to disassociate myself from you then I find no fault in being scathing and unrelenting in pursuing in what I feel to be the best course of action for you. My advice is not advice it is a way of life. Only within the past week have I come to realize this. I do not tell people what has happened to me, I tell them what they ‘will’ do based on what I feel that I know. And, for the most part this is harmless advice and would in more times than others be helpful in some form or fashion. Though it wrong, fundamentally wrong. Especially the outcome. If say for instance you have asked for my advice and I actually submit to your request and then am not followed I take it as an affront to me. How dare you ask me for something and then not go through with the plan I had so easily set out for you. Who are you to do this?

It is strange as I actually seek help, again at the prodding of my sister, for without her I would never have gone to MHMR and been admitted to see a psychiatrist. I find that I am more readily able to identify the things that I have done over the years to people and realize that they are wrong. Though I really don’t care that I have done them because well… they are in the past, and are already done why should it bother me? Move on! Callousness is something that I have been told I qualify for. How much of this can I believe is true, I can’t say because I don’t care what it is that ‘you’ think of me. Its what I think of myself that matters. Though going back to what I had said above about wronging people and not caring, I have begun to look back and notice these things. Does that mean that I will stop? Supposedly through medication and psycho therapy I will learn to curb this innate ability to manipulate others and the constant lying. (On that last note I am trying to be as dreadfully honest in these compositions as is possible for me. There are memories of the past that are warped and beyond repair to remember truthfully.)

I remember a lot of things from my early childhood. Some of the memories are innocent and are in some aspects actually healthy memories. I remember when I was a child living in the country seeing a double rainbow and walking through out the country with my dog. I was at the oldest four. My family then moved from that country setting into a small town and again the memories of that first house were not for all tends and purposes, bad. They were actually fond memories of sitting up on the balcony of this beautiful Victorian style home and watching a hail storm ensue around us. It was beautiful, and of course I remember my brother damn near losing his finger when the BBQ pit lid slammed down on his hand. Though most of all I remember the horses that my parents owned that were stabled out in the country on a friend’s piece of land. Those were cherished times nothing ‘ill’ was happening, no wrong could occur so to speak.

Then things started to change, my father could no longer afford that beautiful two story Victorian home for his family and we had to move across town to the ‘wrong side of the tracks’. These are when my memories start to become warped and my life began to change. This is when my memories of my brother and sister violently attacking one another begin. (Now mind you I know that there would be some sibling rivalry and bickering in any normal family… the amount of violence that ensued between the two was not normal, nor was it healthy.) My father had a violent rage and took it out upon my older siblings and even myself when I was not careful to get out of his ‘war path’. One memory that still follows me to this day is that he beat both my older brother and myself for losing my Mother’s pocket protector. Only to come and find out minutes after being beaten by him that she had misplaced it in her pants. How I had felt about that then I don’t remember but years later I learned to resent my Mother and Father. I thought little of them, and they were never there for when I needed them. Only at times that I had failed in some way. I later took to just taking off from the house for some times days at a time. I was the only child that was allowed to do this. Why? I don’t know they (being my parents) kept a tight leash on my older brother and sister, never allowing them to leave until they knew where they were going and at what time they were coming home. Me, I never told anyone where I was going, what I was doing nor when to expect me to return. I just left and grew up on the streets. I got one hell of an education out there. It wasn’t from the public schools that I learned to add and subtract. I knew about these concepts from the street. I learned to add to my own ‘holdings’ by taking from others. What they were to blind or stupid to hold onto why should they need it? Obviously they didn’t. This rationalization only worked for me for a few years before I was caught stealing. That is possibly one of the few lessons that my Mother and Father actually did instill into me. One does not steal ‘things of monetary’ value. Now if I could steal your emotions or something else then by all means… I did.

Perhaps things could have or rather should have been different. Though I have no regrets, never have even through out the years of constant failings. I just move on. Never particularly caring whether or not someone had to be run over for me to get where I was at. They were in the way of me achieving my goal. Why should I care that they weren’t smart enough to get out of the way? I hold at the core of me the truth of Natural Selection. The strong will survive and only they should prevail. The bullshit of the “Weak shall inherit the Earth” that these damn Christians like to preach is bullshit. They don’t understand what it is that they preach and neither do they follow their own advice. They preach and then do the exact same thing that I do. Though the only difference is that they would admonish me for actively living that. I don’t hold myself in contempt for the things that I have done. They do. They feel guilt for having to run over a fellow co-worker to get that promotion. Or for using that girlfriend to get to the next step of their life. I could care little for that. I just go. I attack and move on. The useful ness of people is only so far as they can be useful.

Do me a favor those of you who read this. Look up the song “Slow Motion” by Third Eye Blind. You will begin to see the type of character that I am. I swear that song is a perfect rendition of my life in exception of the first few lyrics… Let me know what you think … I am not necessarily done in writing, though I am going to take a break because I do not like writing so much at one time. It is a flaw, or I see it as flawed…

 Sometimes we all sit back and have to wonder exactly what it is that we are here for? To what purpose are we born upon this world, and what happens in the after years? Of course it is not our place to ever truly know these things until we have actually passed onto those realms beyond the mortal existence. Questions like the one posed above have really no place in the here and now other then in a philosophical sense. As all that we may do is debate whether or not something is true or false. Are there really any Gods left in this world? I would like to believe that there is something though I cannot say for a certainty.

As every person takes a step forward into their lives they have to ask themselves these questions. It is only a part of growing into adulthood. Sometimes these individuals find a spiritual guide to lead them through the murkiness that is this world. Finding a religion allows many a person to have the faith to continue in what seems a meaningless existence. I know that I lack their conviction in this field, as I have yet to find anything that I could readily identify myself with. I have tried to tie myself to Christianity but find their God and Bible to be full of lies and deception. Honestly how could a God be “All Powerful, Knowing and Benevolent”? It just isn’t possible. To be all Knowing and Powerful means that one would have to at one time be harsh in their rule to make one’s followers understand their laws. And to be a “Benevolent God” but yet a “Vengeful God” is just one more of the many contradictory statements that are found within the verses of the Holy Bible.

Perhaps I will possibly offend someone with my views, though one must understand that they are just that, my point of view. Not the outlook of an entire people. For if I had my ways I would abolish Christianity in its entirety because truthfully more blood has been spilled in the name of “Our Lord Jesus” then any of the wars of the world combined.

My thoughts on religion as a whole are mixed and conflicting. I at one side believe that there is a “Higher Power” and know that the world could not have been created through just a ‘magical spark’. Though on the other half of that view is the skeptic telling me that the world is just that. An accident in the scheme of the universe and that we really were not meant to be. That we are just that, a people, a race drifting through the sands of time and space without any goal in sight other then to destroy ourselves and everything that is surrounding us.

Psychopath. We hear the word and images of Bernardo, Manson and Dahmer pop into our heads; no doubt Ted Bundy too. But they’re the bottom of the barrel — most of the two million psychopaths in North America aren’t murderers. They’re our friends, lovers and co-workers. They’re outgoing and persuasive, dazzling you with charm and flattery. Often you aren’t even aware they’ve taken you for a ride — until it’s too late.

Psychopaths exhibit a Jekyll and Hyde personality. “They play a part so they can get what they want,” says Dr. Sheila Willson, a Toronto psychologist who has helped victims of psychopaths. The guy who showers a woman with excessive attention is much more capable of getting her to lend him money, and to put up with him when he strays. The new employee who gains her co-workers’ trust has more access to their chequebooks. And so on. Psychopaths have no conscience and their only goal is self-gratification. Many of us have been their victims — at work, through friendships or relationships — and not one of us can say, “a psychopath could never fool me.”

Think you can spot one? Think again. In general, psychopaths aren’t the product of broken homes or the casualties of a materialistic society. Rather they come from all walks of life and there is little evidence that their upbringing affects them. Elements of a psychopath’s personality first become evident at a very early age, due to biological or genetic factors. Explains Michael Seto, a psychologist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental health in Toronto, by the time that a person hits their late teens, the disorder is almost certainly permanent. Although many clinicians use the terms psychopath and sociopath interchangeably, writes psychopath expert Robert Hare on his book ‘Without Conscience’, a sociopath’s criminal behavior is shaped by social forces and is the result of a dysfunctional environment.

Psychopaths have only a shallow range of emotions and lack guilt, says Hare. They often see themselves as victims, and lack remorse or the ability to empathize with others. “Psychopaths play on the fact that most of us are trusting and forgiving people,” adds Seto. The warning signs are always there; it’s just difficult to see them because once we trust someone, the friendship becomes a blinder.

Even lovers get taken for a ride by psychopaths. For a psychopath, a romantic relationship is just another opportunity to find a trusting partner who will buy into the lies. It’s primarily why a psychopath rarely stays in a relationship for the long term, and often is involved with three or four partners at once, says Willson. To a psychopath, everything about a relationship is a game. Willson refers to the movie ‘Sliding Doors’ to illustrate her point. In the film, the main character comes home early after just having been fired from her job. Only moments ago, her boyfriend has let another woman out the front door. But in a matter of minutes he is the attentive and concerned boyfriend, taking her out to dinner and devoting the entire night to comforting her. All the while he’s planning to leave the next day on a trip with the other woman.

The boyfriend displays typical psychopathic characteristics because he falsely displays deep emotion toward the relationship, says Willson. In reality, he’s less concerned with his girlfriend’s depression than with making sure she’s clueless about the other woman’s existence. In the romance department, psychopaths have an ability to gain your affection quickly, disarming you with words, intriguing you with grandiose plans. If they cheat you’ll forgive them, and one day when they’ve gone too far, they’ll leave you with a broken heart (and an empty wallet). By then they’ll have a new player for their game.

The problem with their game is that we don’t often play by their rules. Where we might occasionally tell a white lie, a psychopath’s lying is compulsive. Most of us experience some degree of guilt about lying, preventing us from exhibiting such behavior on a regular basis. “Psychopaths don’t discriminate who it is they lie to or cheat,” says Seto. “There’s no distinction between friend, family and sucker.”

No one wants to be the sucker, so how do we prevent ourselves from becoming close friends or getting into a relationship with a psychopath? It’s really almost impossible, say Seto and Willson. Unfortunately, laments Seto, one way is to become more suspicious and less trusting of others. Our tendency is to forgive when we catch a loved one in a lie. “Psychopaths play on this fact,” he says. “However, I’m certainly not advocating a world where if someone lies once or twice, you never speak to them again.” What you can do is look at how often someone lies and how they react when caught. Psychopaths will lie over and over again, and where other people would sincerely apologize, a psychopath may apologize but won’t stop.

Psychopaths also tend to switch jobs as frequently as they switch partners, mainly because they don’t have the qualities to maintain a job for the long haul. Their performance is generally erratic, with chronic absences, misuse of company resources and failed commitments. Often they aren’t even qualified for the job and use fake credentials to get it. Seto talks of a patient who would get marketing jobs based on his image; he was a presentable and charming man who layered his conversations with educational and occupational references. But it became evident that the man hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, and was unable to hold down a job.

How do you make sure you don’t get fooled when you’re hiring someone to baby-sit your child or for any other job? Hire based on reputation and not image, says Willson. Check references thoroughly. Psychopaths tend to give vague and inconsistent replies. Of course the best way to solve this problem would be to cure psychopaths of their ‘illness.’ But there’s no recipe for treating them, say psychiatrists. Today’s traditional methods of psychotherapy (psychoanalysis, group and one-on-one therapy) and drug treatments have failed. Therapy is more likely to work when an individual admits there’s a problem and wants to change. The common problem with psychopaths, says Sets, “Is they don’t see a problem with their behavior.”

Psychopaths don’t seek therapy willingly, says Seto. Rather, they’re pushed into it by a desperate relative or by a court order. To a psychopath, a therapist is just one more person who must be conned, and the psychopath plays the part right until the therapist is convinced of his or her ‘rehabilitation.’

Even though we can’t treat psychopaths effectively with therapy, it doesn’t mean we can’t protect ourselves, writes Hare. Willson agrees, citing the most important factor in keeping psychopaths at bay is to know your vulnerabilities. We need to “realize our own potential and maximize our strengths” so that our insecurities don’t overcome us. Because, she says, a psychopath is a chameleon who becomes “an image of what you haven’t done for yourself.” Over time, she says, “their appearance of perfection will begin to crack,” but by that time you will have been emotionally and perhaps financially scathed. There comes a time when you realize there’s no point in searching for answers; the only thing is to move on.

Taken in part from MW — By Caroline Konrad — September 1999

 The purpose of writing is to be self therapeutic and to allow one’s self to digest things on a sub-conscious level. Now I can’t say as that anything has been ‘bothering’ me lately only because I’ve been so numb. Being released from prison has given me an elation of freedom though beyond that there really isn’t anything left. My freedom meant quite a lot to me but now I am at a position where I really am not moving. Granted there are steps that I am taking towards ‘Progress’ but are these things really going to work for me? Am I going to forever be stuck in the ‘Cycles’ of my own destruction? Questions constantly plague my head of the order that I know that something is wrong with me, why don’t you ever go and ask for help? Why can’t you get things right you do so well! Why are you fighting the changes that are trying to take hold socially, economically and so on and so forth. I don’t understand why my mind or something in me lashes back against these things.

Somewhere inside of me is a switch that is turned on precluding a ‘Manic state’. I mean look at what just happened to me with Kelsea and my work at Shell. Everything was going so well for a little while (and by well I mean there were no major obviously flawed actions taking place). After thinking about what I have just written I will have to re-qualify that statement. There were lots of things wrong with that time table. Actually pretty much from the moment that I found Yahoo! Chat on Kelsea’s computer at the old apartment, that facilitated my change to occur. Now perhaps it isn’t the exact ‘thing’ that caused me to begin my descent into another ‘manic state’ but it was definitely I am thinking the catalyst that facilitated these ‘negative’ changes to occur. I’m going to go ahead and examine the past two and half years of my life and show the ‘cycles’ that occurred and how it was that I lashed out at everything around me.

Alright roughly two and a half years ago I was coming out of a ‘manic episode’ in which I had stolen my Mom and Dad’s ATM debit card and withdrew $800.00 for the purchase of crack cocaine and prostitutes. I knew the moment that I was doing it that it was wrong and that there would be severe repercussions of those actions. Again though I didn’t care or perhaps I did but just not enough. I remember that series of ‘nights’ because I had disappeared for a number of days, it literally was a drug induced binge. I really don’t remember much of what happened exactly during that time, I mean I remember getting some crack and getting a hotel. I also remember having this woman give me head on the bed while someone else watched us from across the room. I also remember that same woman that gave me head trying to hook me up with a younger girl but I was already to far gone in the drugs haze by then to even care about ’sex’. The fallout of that whenever I ran out of money and began to sober up was I finally came home. (Home is relative, I have never had one) The first thing that people did, and I remember that everyone was here at that time. Sam, Kaela, Sonya, Mom and Dad, did was to first find out that I was ‘OK’ and then my father filed into me about being a failure, him being a failing father and “How could I do this? How could I do what I did and bring shame to the family and my Mother?!” In that one moment he systematically destroyed who I was again. Already I was in an unstable frame of mind and had no true knowledge of self to identify with. Though I was a fractured mind, spirit and soul I continued on.

Yes I had lost my job at Diamond Shamrock at the time because I no longer cared about it, to be honest I was rather bored with that position. Though continuing on, over the period of the next few months I had made signs of showing that I was getting ‘better’ that everything was ‘OK’. No one knew that I was still falling apart inside, I wanted to find someway to expel these demons that haunt my mind. Alcohol and drugs did that for me. Why? I unfortunately couldn’t tell you. After sometime my brother invited me to move down to San Marcos with him (Yes I was living in San Antonio with my parents when all the above occurred.) Thinking only that I could escape from the demons that were chasing me around San Antonio I jumped on board and never looked back. It worked! For about a year, I didn’t have any kind of problems other then that I had the occasional trouble spot in dealing with Sam. I held job for almost a year at Pizza Hut and everything seemed fine superficially, though right underneath I was beginning to boil because all of the tension from my past was coming up again. I had never dealt with all these issues that have just been stored somewhere in my mind. Of course with this time that I was living with Sam I had excelled at work and was on the fast track to promotion yet again. Everything was going alright until I started drinking again. I don’t know why it was that I picked it up once more, but for whatever reason I had. And I was beginning to drink heavily, nothing really mattered then. Bowie a once good friend of mine moved in with Sam and I, and everything was alright for the time being. Then I went to a party down the block with Sam and Kaela and well there is where I met Emily the woman that more or less acerbated and fed my illness. I fucked her that night on floor in our living room. We had a strange relationship with one another. I used her for nothing more then as someone that would give me somebody to warm my bed. I believe at one point she attempted to try and talk me into a relationship, though something in me would not allow that. I knew that she wasn’t anyone that I could be ‘Emotionally intimately” involved with. Though continuing with what happened; she was someone that I could feed off. Sexually and Emotionally. I remember the fall out that occurred because Sam And Bowie had to find me after I had taken Bowie’s car one night after drinking quite a bit. Of course they literally found me in her arms the next morning after I had used her the night prior. I remember the feeling of some ‘guilt’ that I had for making Sam believe that he had failed, though it wasn’t much. I had done what I did because I needed to do it. That is the only way that I can actually describe it. The action of stealing Bowie’s car didn’t in my mind hold any consequences because well Bowie was my ”friend” why would he be upset? That should have been a warning sign for me then, though it wasn’t. Only now can I look back and realize that it was wrong to do that, and to feel anything for them then. I supose you can say that I am playing catch-up with my emotions for the years of pain that I have caused.

As one might think the fall-out that happened between the three of us was severe. Bowie more or less fell into his already fragile mind in the belief that I had betrayed him. To some degree at the time I did not understand this, now though I realize that I was wrong. Again, it is years later though, and nothing I say or do will change what has happened in the past. Anyways, it took some time though I wound up with someone who was a little bit more insane then myself. Jill. She definitely has many self-esteem issues that she needs to address, and I used her and her family to the breadth that I could. I ran over all of them. That’s what I did then. I used anyone and everyone that I could to continue moving forward towards something. What that something was I didn’t know then, and I still don’t know now. Though I moved in with Jill I thought things would be alright, and they were for sometime. Until the day came that I woke up from my revelry and knew that Jill was nothing more then a washout. I started looking for something else. Through this time I found an ‘old friend’ Robby, to whom I started seeing a lot of again. He re-introduced pot back into my life For almost a year I hadn’t smoked, maybe a little longer, I don’t remember correctly. Though anyways it is inconsequential, my life changed again. I was once more smoking, thinking that it was alright to do so. Everything fell apart between Jill and I, and somehow I don’t remember I talked Sam into allowing me to move back into the apartment with him in San Marcos. I changed jobs and started working at Jack in the Box, it was fine again for a time. I wasn’t technically lucid as I am now writing this, but neither was I entirely lost in the throws of downward spiral, though one was coming very shortly.

While working at Jack in the Box I had wound up meeting with the woman that I was to be with for the next year and a half of my life. She drew me out of the downward spiral that I had started and had a very mellowing effect upon me. Somehow I was on a plateau neither falling or rising above it. I just was. We did well with one another for about six months before problems started to step forward. (I omitted the fact that during those six months I had started to smoke and towards the end drink very heavily) Though things were strained between us they were manageable. I remember her finding a conversation of mine from a Yahoo! Online chat that I had had with another woman. I guess I knew then that Kelsea wasn’t providing me with something. Though what it was I don’t know. I lied about it to her of course, said that it was me that had said those things but that I had acted upon them. She never knew that our relationship started the same night that I ate another woman out in her bathroom. Some foundation, right? Anyways we ‘worked’ through that, or rather we swept it under the rug and forgot about it for a while and believed that everything was fine. My mind’s illness wouldn’t be so easily fooled into believing those lies. I started to wander to other women, and even at times men. I lied to everyone around me, whether they were friends, family or fellow coworkers. I remember that when I was arrested the first time in February of 06′ for the felony possession of marijuana and DWI that Kelsea had found out I had lied to a co-worker of mine at Apple. Of course I recovered and lied to her, she believed me because she wanted to. I don’t know who was worse in that relationship. Me for the lies that I constantly spoon fed her, or her knowing that I was lying and continuing to believe me. She enabled me far worse then anyone else in my past.

I remember the moment that Kelsea was curious about Cocaine,I was more or less again in a semi-lucid state. I informed her then that I didn’t want to be around the stuff, because I knew what it did to me. Hell I had just a year prior come from an $800 cocaine binge. Though finally she did get me to come around and buy some coke, and it wasn’t long after that the world around me started to change again. I have come to the conclusion that whenever I abuse cocaine it is the step over the cliff and the beginning plummet to the Earth below. Well things were going ‘alright’ for a time and then I was recruited into Shell for management. I loved that position. It was everything that I had been wanting in a position prior in my life. I finally found a job that valued me for who I was and the natural aptitude that I applied towards the job that they gave me. I was an assistant manager first and the hours I worked weren’t that long initially, though that changed towards the end of November of 06′. I was beginning to take on more responsibilities of a manager. Through out this entire time Kelsea and I had been drifting apart slowly. Everything was beginning to fall apart around me. My initial fear of doing drugs because I was on probation began to fall away. The long hours of work, the stress of coming home to Kelsea and finding that I no longer cared for her began to take its tole on me. I lied to myself of course, thinking that things would eventually begin to fix themselves. I should have known that at one point I had stolen Kelsea’s car and run up to San Antonio in the evening and stayed there an entire day doing coke and hanging out again with prostitutes. I remember feeling agitated towards the whore that I was with because she kept running around in Kelsea’s car and wouldn’t allow me to go home. I knew a fight was coming so I prepared myself for it. I walked in the door and Kelsea and her friend Kim were there talking. Of course Kelsea asked where I had been I don’t remember what I answered her but I replied something along the lines of being out. She took another bite from that spoon.

The lies continued for months after that. I was constantly cheating on her with people that I had met through work or old friends. There was Jill of course because she wanted to be ‘Loved’, and I didn’t care what she wanted, I just wanted a piece of ass. I used Jill over and over again, and she is and was still to weak to understand it. Then one night Aurora walked back into my life, literally. She was a woman that I had almost cared for as much as my ex-wife Ashleigh. Though I knew she was ‘damaged goods’ as well. She had a lot of issues in her life that she needed to walk through. I used her sexually too because I remembered from our previous times together that she was a nymphomaniac. I hadn’t known she had changed till later when I was incarcerated of what I had done to her. Akin to rape. I raped her emotionally and almost physically, though she never once said ‘No’. I remember one letter she wrote me while I was locked up and she had said that she ‘Never knew she could say NO to me.” For probably the first time since Ashleigh had I felt guilt or some emotion towards abusing a woman’s trust. And make no lie about that, I realize now that she trusted me to know what was right. I can’t excuse my actions towards her or ever make up for them. We still talk to this day. She is one of the people who is helping me through with this illness whatever that it may be. I lean on her friendship more when I can. Though as I said above she has problems of her own to handle, and she shouldn’t be forced to shoulder my own.

Aurora was the last person that I saw (that mattered to me) before I was arrested on March 28, 2007. I had originally left the house and stolen a $100 from Kelsea’s wallet and her car, and was on my way to try and get a piece of ass from this girl Devin who had actually about a week prior spent the night with me in the apartment while Kelsea was in Houston with her mother. Yeah it was a rather interesting relationship that I had with Kelsea towards the end. Well I found myself once more in the ghetto’s of San Antonio again doing the drugs and talking with the prostitutes to whom I felt comfortable divulging my fucked up life to. I remember calling home that next morning at around seven in the morning and not thinking much about the strained voice on the other end. I should have realized that something was wrong though I didn’t care. Or at least not until I had the cops drag me from her car right in front of the apartment. I didn’t fight them, I knew that I was going to jail that day anyways why shouldn’t it be expedited by Kelsea calling the cops on me for stealing her car? Heh’ should have known it would turn out like that but I really just didn’t give to shits about it. I spent the next month in jail comfortably numb. Recovering from my life that I had been leading up to that point. I truly didn’t start to think about the pain I had caused others until a few months in. Though I was still using people even while I was inside. Aurora and Jill the two outlets I had to the world outside besides my family. Though I would never tell my family what was really going on because they would never understand what was going through my mind. Of course I told them just enough to get through to them that I wanted to change. They (being my parents) didn’t need to know my past, all they would do is deny that it ever happened anyways. I can do no wrong. And I thought I was the one living a lie all these years. Who knew?

I’m starting to wake up now to everything. Of course this is probably in case to the fact that I am in a lucid frame of mind and not surrounded by people who have any kind of negative influence on me. Though I have no friends anymore, all I have left is the family that I am trying so hard not to lose. Everything up until now has always been about me in a negative way. Selfish and without thought or conscience thought to how it would effect others around me. Now though I am trying to seek the help that is needed to get me through my life and without anything that would adversely effect me. The thought of going back to the life style that I was living before now frightens me more than anything else. I don’t want to wake up again in six months and find that I am again stuck in and have no where to go but down. Right now I realize that I have up and that is all I need to know. Life has been harsh for me because I have placed so many barricades before me that it is nigh impossible to step over them. Though I have to make myself believe that it is possible to go forward, and that I can succeed on top of that. Without that hope without the knowledge that there is a possibility that I could get better then there is no reason to continue fighting. And unfortunately that isn’t who I am? I am a fighter always the survivor. I am tired of being just the survivor I want to live life again. And I want it to be on my terms.