Sociopath by Patric Gagne
Published by Simon & Schuster
Publication date: April 2, 2024
Genres: Book Clubs, Debut, Non-fiction, Memoir
Bookshop, Amazon
It wasn’t until the 70s and 80s that men like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy entered the national public consciousness. Their horrific crimes birthed new terms that have now become almost commonplace and are used seriously (and sometimes in jest amongst friends): psychopath and sociopath. But what are the actual definitions of those terms and more importantly, what would life be like if you were one? These questions and more are answered in Patric Gagne’s fascinating memoir, Sociopath.
If you’re looking for true crime non-fiction stop reading now. Patric is a woman and aside from petty crimes when she was young she’s a law abiding, married with children, psychologist. Sociopath is about her hard-won battle to understand how and why her mind worked differently than everyone she knew. Even more perplexing were her emotions, or rather, complete lack thereof.
Gagne documents events in her life, some of which include childhood violence on her part with unflinching honesty—not something sociopaths are known for. But while it’s all true, it’s not honesty that motivates her. It’s simply a complete lack of interest in the opinions of others. The honesty is her own moral code and one of the ways her mother found to help her. Emotions may not have been readily available to her, but she did have a deep-seated desire to be the good person her mother believed she was. To this end they created a coping strategt wherein Patric, even if unable to behave as expected, would be honest with her mother at all times.
As she got older these strategies became less successful and Gagne taught herself more adaptive techniques, but by college her need to better understand her own psyche and to manage it productively lead her to the field of psychology. From here the journey in Sociopath expands to encompass not just Gagne’s personal experiences but what she learns about this unexplored mental health condition.
What is most striking about reading Sociopath is the amount of emotion it evokes for a person who can’t feel. There is a sense of jealousy for someone who doesn’t care what other people think of them and goes her own way and sadness for her loneliness, twined together with a nagging discomfort in empathizing with someone who has no empathy. If Gagne was not such a self-aware, intellectually curious person her violent tendencies and criminal behavior could easily have led her down another path.
With the help of other researchers in the psychiatric field it’s become clear that sociopaths are no different than people who suffer from other mental illnesses like bipolar disorder or clinical depression. It’s another condition on the mental health spectrum and can be helped with the proper treatments. This is just one of the many take-aways in this gripping, discomfiting story of one woman who, by her own admission, fits the description of a person most would find unnerving. By telling her story in Sociopath she de-fangs the stereotype of innate evil that surrounds sociopathy and, hopefully, opens the doors for further recognition, research, and aid for others who need help.
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*I received a free copy of this book from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review.*
This one is absolutely on my reading list – I imagine it offers some rare and unique insights.
It is a wild read as there are moments of recognition in some of her behaviors and yet she seems utterly foreign in most ways.