PSYCHOPATHY AND CHRISTIANITY

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In high school I made an audiobook version of the novel American Psycho for my girlfriend.  I was 16 years old and I used a hand held tape recorder and it took several tapes to complete the book.  I used different voices and everything.  My girlfriend told me her mom said I was “profoundly disturbed.”

Maybe I was too young to read American Psycho.  That’s fair.  I was 14 when I first read it and it sickened me; one passage in particular made me physically ill the first time I read it, but I also thought it was hilarious.  I read the book aloud at the lunch table for my friends.  I thought it was funny.  But there was also part of me, and that part of me is still around, who thinks there must be something wrong with me to give Patrick Bateman such psychological real estate in my head.  (For free, no less.)  Maybe I’m psychotic or a sociopath and that’s why this fictional character was so funny and awesome.  My high school girlfriend’s mom would certainly agree with the assessment.

What’s a sociopath?  Well what’s any psychological disorder?  A list of traits, which, when ticked off by a Professional, indicate something fundamental about You.  The treatment is probably never stopping talking to the Professional.  You won’t be cured but you can manage your negative symptoms by never stopping talking to the Professional.  Or you could be a CEO or a politician with great life outcomes, certainly better than the Professional’s profession, as evinced by all your cool assets, in which case I guess you don’t need to see the Professional even though you are a straight up fucking sociopath, and the Professional is envious of all the ass you pull and the way you lie so easily.  

One one hand, I legitimately think I might be a sociopath or Seriously Fucked Up in some capacity because I think Patrick Bateman is funny and awesome and I made a fucking audiobook of American Psycho for a 16 year old girl, the proof is in the pudding.  On the other hand, lying and manipulation are supposedly like breathing for a sociopath and I’m autistically devoted to Truth, how else could I recognize my own sociopathy?  Or is the sociopathic self-diagnosis a defense against the more banal reality of the garden-variety narcissism afflicting most of us these days?  But then maybe that’s the defense against something else I REALLY don’t want to acknowledge.  Psychoanalysis and religion are funny like that (tragic?); they’re a Russian Doll you live inside, except one makes you cry tears of joy and the other provides regular tears.

Could a psychiatrist ever diagnose someone as totally healthy?  What would that even look like?  Probably really fucking gay.  What about in Christianity?  As far as I can tell, the only perfect being is Christ, you are born with sin and you live in a fallen state, this is fundamental.  The Professional Diagnoser is The Pope and he lives to lie about it.  He doesn’t even have a model of psychological health (well I guess he does but it’s just agreeing with his peers at the moment, come back for the next edition of the DSM to find out that gay sex is healthier than you can imagine and oppositional defiant disorder is totally real and on the rise (still no diagnosis of being a pathetic piece of shit, curious)) but he’s got a paycheck to get and a professional network to maintain; his healthiest patients are those most delusional AKA those most at the mercy of some transcendent truth, they are delusional, they are healthy.  He is not allowed to say that he shouldn’t have a job.

More and more I think there is some Truth I am defending myself against through psychological projection and self-deception and it’s Christ.  Writing that sentence felt good so maybe I’m onto something.  In his book Sadly, Porn, TLP diagnoses all of us as narcissists–we keep a ledger of all our interactions with everyone and our unconscious goal is to come out ahead all the time.  It could be as small as depriving someone else of your genuine reaction to something–you know better, they’re deprived, you’re ahead.  His solution?  The Last Psychiatrist’s solution to the universal psychological problem of ubiquitous narcissism?  Drumroll please.  It’s love.  It’s Christ.  

If everyone is a narcissist maybe we’re actually dealing with a spiritual problem.  But there’s no spirit in psychology, the Professionals all agree, and you would be delusional to consider the spirit, at all.  And the universal narcissism diagnosis comes from TLP, it’s not psychiatrists, per say, they’re more likely to tell you depression and suicide are on the rise.  Checkmate, Christians.  Regardless, psychopaths will be a minority in all populations (or are they religious fanatics?).  If your foundational story is science and psychiatry, then a guy running around talking about the Love of Christ definitely has something wrong with him; another side of the multi-dimensional coin (it’s probably closer to an infinite-sided die, let’s be honest) is if your foundational story is that a loving God made the world and some guy is running around telling everyone that’s actually a projection from your subconscious then he’s totally fucked up.

Maybe it’s just a question of resolution–I must admit I am drawn to zooming out.  The psychiatrist has some good models and can maybe even reveal truth but he’s embedded in the Truth of Christ.  So like Jesus would be your best psychoanalyst.  And he wants you to love and act in the world and glorify God and creation.  And I’m pretty sure that’s mostly what a psychiatrist wants too–she wants you to live well and be happy (I guess I’m more considering the Platonic Ideal of the Psychiatrist, like the real one would be more likely to encourage your kid to cut his dick off (don’t worry she says evil isn’t real though and she went to school for a long time, it would be embarrassing if every single thing she said was not only wrong but also evil but don’t worry evil totally doesn’t exist haha)).  

What would my high school girlfriend’s mom have said if I told her I see evil everywhere?  Yikes dude, take a chill pill, maybe you can make my daughter an audiobook of American Psycho instead of being such a psychotic freak.  Yeah she would totally say that.