Another time I’d been physically hurt the night before I
was to have a meeting with a business associate. I had difficulty
walking without it showing that I was in pain, so already here I had to
set aside some feelings, overriding the Neural Signals
that told my brain I was in pain. Pain is a condition that can be quite
compelling in terms of hindering normal movement, but moreover, I was
hurt in a way that left me no choice either way because a muscle in one
of my arms had been partially cut through and therefore couldn’t
function normally. I’d probably been able to set aside my discomfort
from the pain, but the physical inability to control my movement was
unsettling.
Obviously I didn’t exactly look forward to
show up in a weakened state, and I certainly did not want to wince in
front of my associate while we were negotiating a business deal. As
mentioned, the latter I might’ve controlled but not the former, and so
this is a good example of a situation where I definitely had to set
aside feelings both physically and psychologically.
I
have to say that my Reader is right: We (psychopaths) do have the
ability to put our emotions aside, though how easy it is differs quite a
lot individuals in between, and it also differs what types of emotions
we can easily put aside though there are certain commonalities.
Frustration, f.x., is I feeling I cannot always easily put aside even
when it would more than suit me, and the same is the case when I get
very angry.
There is another type of situations where setting aside feelings can get into play, namely in a Buridan’s Ass
kind of situation where you’re torn between two different possible
lines of actions and both are equally appealing or vice versa. One such
situation could be if you get to like somebody but for some reason have
to either leave and save yourself some trouble or stay and suffer the
consequences, and the other person would prefer that you stay. The catch
usually is that the consequences you may suffer will also affect the
other person, so the best choice will often be to leave. Or you might
save the other person some discomfort by leaving but you really want to
stay, and then it’s a matter of weighing for and against: Will my
discomfort be so severe that I think it’ll be better to let the other
person take some unpleasantness, or will it in reality be a minor
discomfort to me and worth the satisfaction of knowing the other person
didn’t get hurt? I’ve had both types of situations.
The
funny thing about it is that I still don’t remember having to set aside
any of my feelings or emotions, I see it more as a choice between which
feelings or emotions I would engage with. This is a particular trait in
psychopathy termed as ‘fleeting emotions’ and is related to ‘Shallow
Emotions’ and ‘Shallow Affect’
or ‘Flat Affect’. It still confirms nicely what the Reader said just as
it does what I wrote in my previous article (mentioned in the beginning
of this text).
I hope with the examples on this page
to have given some idea about what types of situations that the Reader’s
statement have relevance for and to thereby also exemplify what the
difference is between situations where you (if you’re a psychopath) have
no emotions to detach from in the first place and situations where you
do have to make a choice and sometimes decide to not engage certain
feelings.
Lastly I hope to not disappoint by not
presenting better examples. It is not ill will, I just don’t have any
examples where deciding to detach has been either more difficult or
relevant to me than the ones I have included in the descriptions above.
