Do psychopaths get depressed? (yes or no)
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OptimistMinds
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Author bio
The Optimistminds editorial team is made up of psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Each article is written by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The article then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
In this blog post, we will try and understand better whether psychopaths get depressed or not. We will explore more about what it is like to have the symptoms of a psychopath.
Psychopathy is a psychological disorder with interpersonal, mental and behavioral characteristics. Prototypic psychotic traits include the cruel and deceptive use of people, impaired judgment and lack of maturity, superficial and short-lived consequences, reckless actions, reluctance to love, absence of guilt or embarrassment, a grandeur sense of identity, low self-control, persistent grandiosity, and compulsive deceit, and hypersexual sexual conduct.
Psychopathy may also be described in terms of behavioral dysfunctions or characterized as a mental behavioral type marked by a manipulative relational style based on expectations of negativity. Psychopathy, in other words, maybe described as a violent, furious, or aggressive-sadistic, interpersonal type of individuals. In their psychodynamic interactions, conflict, irritability, rage, and provocation reflect interpersonal relationships and psychological characteristics considered to be consistent with depression.
Do psychopaths get depressed?
Psychopathy is identified by diagnostic characteristics like artificial charisma, physical prowess, weak judgment and lack of maturity, narcissistic egotism and inability to care, absence of guilt or embarrassment, impulsive behavior, grandiose self-esteem, excessive deception, deceptive behavior, poor self-control, sexually deviant sexual habits, conduct problems, and illegal behavior.
As a result of these parameters, the picture of a psychopath is that of a cruel, insensitive, inhuman being. Like other individuals, often psychos love their families, their partners, their kids, and their animals in their very own way, but they also have trouble accepting and believing others.
When Psychopaths mature, they are unable to maintain their hectic lifestyle thus becoming burnt-out and frustrated as they reflect on their unhappy life full of emotional dissatisfaction. Their wellbeing is declining as the consequences of their irresponsibility develop.
Psychopaths have been reported to be getting depressed. As psychopaths can suffer from psychological distress for several reasons. Psychopaths, like everyone else, have a strong need to be cherished and provided by. That being said, this wish also leaves much to be desired, since it is clear that it is not convenient for another human to get attached to somebody with such loathsome personal attributes.
Reasons psychopaths get depressed
Unhappy lives
Psychopaths have been at least continuously mindful of the consequences of their actions upon everyone and maybe profoundly disturbed by their failure to manage it. The experiences of most psychiatrists are deprived of a secure social network or strong, intimate relations.
Psychopathic personal lives are also marked by dysfunctional home life, inadequate parental care and direction, parental drug dependence and anti-social behavior, poor marriages, separation, and negative communities. They may feel like they are hostages of their own underlying genetic nature and think that, relative to ordinary people, they have fewer chances or benefits in life.
Despite their apparent superiority, Psychopaths feel inadequate to everyone else and realize that they are stereotyped according to their particular actions. Many psychopaths are outwardly accustomed to their community and even prominent, but they believe that they must consciously conceal their true identity so it would not be accessible to others. This leaves a psychopath with a tough choice: to conform and partake in a barren, surreal life, or to adjust and live a solitary life disconnected from the social environment. They see the affection and friendship that others express and feel disheartened, aware that they’ll never be a member of it.
Psychopaths are considered to require intense stimulation, and that most foolish adventures conclude in dissatisfaction due to confrontation with someone and unreasonable aspirations. In comparison, many Psychopaths are frustrated by their trying to enforce their sensation-seeking desire and constantly challenged by their vulnerabilities. While they can attempt to improve, a low reaction of uncertainty and subsequent reluctance to learn from experience contribute to frequent unpleasant, frustrating, and depressive confrontations, including conflicts with the justice system.
Feelings of pain and violence
Social alienation, depression, and related emotional distress can invoke violent illegal behavior. They assume that the entire world is against them as well and might finally become persuaded that they earned extra benefits or freedom to fulfill their wishes. As the Psychopathic Serial Murderers, Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Nilsen have said, brutal Psychopaths eventually reach a tipping point, where they believe they have broken through the last thin link with the regular world. Consequently, their depression and pain grew, and their offenses became increasingly absurd.
Dahmer as well as Nilsen said they murdered only because they felt lonely. Both men had no families, and their only human connections were occasional encounters in homosexual clubs. Nilsen viewed the shows and spoke for hours with the deceased remains of his victims; Dahmer ingested pieces of the organs of the individuals in order to be one like them: he claimed that his victims were still alive in his body in this way.
Through the majority of us, it seems incomprehensible that these individuals were so alone, and they described their isolation and social shortcomings as indescribably traumatic. Each of them developed his own psychotic world to help defeat his encounters of rejection, violence, embarrassment, disappointment, and emotional misery.
Dahmer and Nilsen said that they didn’t really love the act of killing people. Dahmer attempted to render the corpses of his victims by pumping acid into their bodies after they had been anesthetized with sleeping tablets. He had sole control of his captives, so when that collapsed, he murdered them. Nilsen was much more familiar with mutilated corpses than with living human beings; the dead did not abandon him. He wrote poetry and said compassionate lines to the dead bodies, and used them to help reduce his loneliness for as long as humanly possible. In other aggressive psychiatrists, a link has been identified between the strength of depression and isolation and the severity of aggression, imprudent and impulsivity.
Self-destructive traits
Aggressive Psychopaths are at elevated danger of directing their hostility towards themselves as well as towards others. A large number of psychiatrists die of violent deaths very soon after they have been released from intensive psychiatric medical care as a result of their own actions. Psychopaths can believe that life, as well as their own, is meaningless.
Treatment for when psychopaths get depressed
In the last decade, neurobiological theories have been accessible for several of the characteristics of psychopathy. An excessive level of neurotransmitters, including monoamine oxidase (MAO), serotonin and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, triiodothyronine, free thyroxine, testosterone, cortisol, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axes, can be characterized by impulsive behavior, imprudent/irresponsibility, aggression, and assertiveness.
Other traits, like stimulation and failure to benefit from observation, maybe due to cortical under arousal. Stimulation can also be associated with lower levels of MAO and cortisol and subsequent accumulation of gonadal hormones, and decreased prefrontal gray matter thickness. Thereby, several psychopaths can be perceived, at least to some extent, casualties of neurobiologically influenced mental problems that establish a defined barrier among them and the rest of humanity.
Characteristics such as sensational, impulsive, violent, and associated mental distress can be minimized by cognitive behavioral therapy, medication, and/or neurofeedback. Long-term psychotherapy (at least 5 years) tends to be successful in certain groups of psychopaths, in so far as it can decrease the psychopathic personality characteristics.
Psychotherapy itself will not be adequate to relieve symptoms. Medications can help to normalize neurobiological behaviors and associated behavior/personality characteristics. Lithium is impressive in the management of antisocial, violent and offensive behavior. Hollander found that mood stabilizers, like Divalproex, SSRIs, MAOIs, and neuroleptics, have reported effectiveness in the management of violence and mental distress in impulsive patients. No controlled trials in medications have been performed for other primary aspects of Psychopathy.
Taking care of self
In case you feel depressed here are some self-care techniques that can help:
Healthy eating
There are no particular foods to treat depression, but a balanced diet should be part of the overall recovery strategy. Create your breakfasts and lunches around for a lot of fruit, high – fiber foods.
Foods that help boost mood
Many research indicates that omega-3 as well as vitamin B12 can contribute to neurochemistry that influences mood and several other brain activities. Decreased amounts can be associated with depression. Fatty fish, such as trout, tuna as well as mackerel, contains omega-3s. So do flaxseed, almonds, soya beans and even leafy green vegetables. Fresh fish is a decent source of B12, though vegetarians have to get it from dietary fibers, milk products including medicines.
Exercising and staying fit
For certain people, exercise performs quite well as medications do. So just taking a stroll with a friend is more than enough. When days pass by, walk around and you workout multiple times in the week. You’re going to do better mentally, rest better at night, and feel happier.
In case you do not want to hit the gym, join a sport that you enjoy. The more rigorous the sport is the better you will feel after a day’s workout.
In this blog post, we tried to understand better whether psychopaths get depressed or not. We explored more about what it is like to have the symptoms of a psychopath.
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FAQs: Do psychopaths get depressed?
What profession has the most psychopaths?
The professions that have the most psychopaths are people in the media industry, salespeople, surgeons, journalists, clergy, chef, police officers and civil servants.
Do psychopaths suffer?
Psychopaths often struggle mentally as a result of a breakup, divorce, loss of a loved one, or disappointment with their own deviant actions. Psychopaths can experience a range of emotional distress for a plethora of purposes. Psychopaths, like everyone else, have a strong need to be respected and cared about.
Do psychopaths have multiple personalities?
Psychopathy has traditionally been recognized to be a specific personality disorder. However, there is research indicating that there is a combination of a variety of distinct personality characteristics. Therefore we can say psychopaths do not have multiple personalities based on the current research.
Can psychopaths develop feelings?
There is also credible proof that Psychopaths can genuinely feel feelings – often under the correct conditions. And they will show ordinary feelings and emotions – when empathy is part of their objective, or if they are prompted to react to conceptually simple specific shapes or specific objects.
Do psychopaths have anxiety?
Although psychopaths exhibit a particular lack of feelings, such as anxiety, terror, and depression, they may experience other emotions, such as satisfaction, excitement, surprise, and disgust, in the same way that any of us will feel.
How do psychopaths develop?
Behavioral genetic experiments have suggested different genetic and non-genetic factors to psychology, including effects on brain development. The advocates of the triarchic hypothesis claim that it emerges from the relationship of inherited biases and the adverse environment.
References
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