Yesterday’s post about 9/11, lukewarm marriages, and divorce has spawned a few interesting emails. I hope to have another post up within the week on the topic.
I want to blog this morning, however, about a very different topic: the remarkable fascination so many bright, acutely sensitive young women have with serial killers and sociopaths. I’m not talking about the women who actually pursue and fall in love with (and even marry) actual incarcerated murderers. I’m talking about something much more subtle, and, in my experience as a teacher and youth worker, surprisingly common.
Just this past week I was having a chat in my office with a very bright, perceptive, student of mine; I’ll call her "Michelle." She had taken my women’s history class last fall, and her journals were vivid, imaginative, and indicative of an exceptionally empathy towards others. Michelle is trying to decide on a major, and she’s choosing between psychology and women’s studies. As we were exploring her reasons for picking one or the other, I asked which field of psych appealed most to her. I must confess that based on experience, I knew what Michelle was going to say before she said it. I was right; she answered "abnormal and forensic psychology." She explained she’s always been fascinated with "serial killers and sociopaths." "I want to know what makes them tick", she explained, "they are endlessly interesting to me."
Without the slightest exaggeration, I can think of two dozen other young women I’ve worked with in the past decade who share Michelle’s intense interest in sociopathic killers. Invariably, these young women are unusually bright, unusually sensitive, and almost always either the first-born or the only daughter in the family. I’ve only known of one who actually pursued forensic psychology as a career (I think she ended up at the John Jay school of Criminal Justice); the others just loyally consumed television programs, books, and movies on the subject of serial murderers.
My theory may not be original, but since I haven’t seen it in print anywhere else, I’m going to put it out there. I’m convinced that young women like Michelle become fascinated with sociopaths for the simple reason that these men represent the opposite end of the emotional spectrum from where these women find themselves. Sociopaths, by definition, lack compassion and remorse. The young women who become intensely intrigued by them are often overwhelmed by chronic feelings of guilt and a painfully acute sensitivity to other’s perceptions. They are often emotionally drained and exhausted, because within their families they’ve frequently been the ones to shoulder all of the responsibility and do all of the "feeling work" for everyone else.
I often think of emotional sensitivity as a spectrum from 0-10, similar to the volume controls for a radio. Most "normal" folks are tuned into the needs of others at about 4 or 5 on the spectrum. They are aware of the needs of those around them, but aren’t overwhelmed by them. The Michelles of the world hear the world’s emotional noise at an 8 or 9 on the spectrum. The needs and demands of others are so clear and loud that these young women often can’t hear themselves think. They are actually incapacitated from the effort of absorbing so much emotion, and frequently they feel immensely guilty for not meeting the insatiable demands of those around them. Is it any wonder that they become fascinated with — and even, in some sense, envious of — sociopaths? What else is a sociopath than someone whose "volume control" for the needs of others has been set to mute? How many bright, talented, acutely sensitive young women have fantasized about having an internal "mute button" that could silence the judging, nagging, needy voices of all of those around them?
Look, I know I’m playing pop psychologist here. I’m stepping well outside my field of professional expertise. I’m blogging my observations as a friend and a mentor, not as a professional therapist. But as a pro-feminist who teaches women’s studies, the emotional resiliency of my female students is of significant concern to me. And I’m convinced that one of the key tasks for those of us who do teach in this field is to help young women "find the remote control" that can help them "turn down the volume" in their lives. Do I want to turn out young women who are amoral sociopaths, cheerfully wreaking havoc on the world? Of course not. But if the needs and wants and expectations of others are coming in at the #9 setting, we who do this work need to help young women learn to turn down the volume to a balanced 4 or 5. For some women, learning to turn down the volume comes with age and experience. But we could spare a lot of heartache — and perhaps reduce the demand for endless TV programs about sociopaths — if we who teach and mentor actively encouraged young women to find their inner emotional remote and use it.
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