A woman who claims to be diagnosed as a psychopath has shared the “morbid” interest she had as a child, revealing a window into the minds of those who suffer from the personality disorder.
One TikToker, named victhepath, revealed that her special interests included the Holocaust, ancient Mayan human sacrifice, and the original Grimm fairy tales, among three other gory stories.
Scientists have found that because psychopaths have reduced empathy and sensation-seeking behavior, they tend to have a greater interest in violent and disturbing content.
Research suggested that psychopaths may be drawn to violent or gory stories because of a desire for stimulation or a need to assert dominance, which may explain the TikToker’s special interests.
One TikToker, named victhepath, revealed that her special interests included the Holocaust, ancient Mayan human sacrifice, and the original Grimm fairy tales, among three other gory stories.
Generally, people who are described as psychopaths display traits such as antisocial behavior, falsehood, irresponsibility, and a lack of remorse or empathy.
Studies have found that psychopaths often exhibit diminished emotional responses to frightening or disturbing stimuli, allowing them to interact with such content without experiencing the discomfort or revulsion that most people would feel.
Only about 1.2 percent of American adults are considered to have clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits, but that increases in prison, where between 15 and 25 percent of inmates display these characteristics.
The disorder is diagnosed using a 20-item Hare Psychopathy Checklist, which features traits such as lack of empathy, pathological, and impulsiveness.
Each is rated on a three-point scale, zero is for no apple and two applies completely.
However, some medical professionals avoid the term “psychopath” and sometimes label it as antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).
“I was especially interested in the Holocaust as a child, not World War II at the time,” he said. TikToker said in the video..
Generally, people who are described as psychopaths display traits such as antisocial behavior, falsehood, irresponsibility, and a lack of remorse or empathy.
‘When I was in third grade we had a book fair at school and I remember seeing this little black book called The Holocaust and being really intrigued.
He went on to explain that he spent an hour reading the book under a table at the event.
“After that, the subject fascinated me greatly,” he continued.
‘When I was in eighth grade I took a trip to DC and opted to go to the Holocaust Museum instead of the Smithsonian.
Her second special interest was Grimm’s fairy tales and original stories that are “extremely morbid.”
One of the stories is ‘The Thieving Bridegroom’, which is about bandits who drag a maiden to their underground hideout, force her to drink wine until her heart explodes, tear off her clothes, and then cut her body into pieces.
The original Cinderella, another written by the Brothers Grimm, says that the stepsisters tried to cut off their toe or heel to fit into the glass slipper.
“The last special interest is the Aztec and Mayan empires,” he said. ‘It shouldn’t surprise you that I was really intrigued by the whole human sacrifice thing.
Many of these stories have since been revised to be suitable for children, but the TikToker said she had a giant book with all the original work.
She went on to explain that her other interests as a child were the Romanov family, all murdered by Bolshevik soldiers in 1917, Greek mythology, and labyrinths.
“The Hunger Games is loosely based on Labrythin, the idea of putting kids in the sand until they make it,” the TikToker said.
‘The last special interest is the Aztec and Mayan empires.
“It shouldn’t surprise you that I was really intrigued by the whole human sacrifice thing.”
The TikToker’s video comes after experts in New Mexico analyzed recordings of women interviewed by police to uncover signs that a woman could be a psychopath.
They found that the biggest psychopaths kept their heads very still, just like men.
A stationary posture may be a tactic employed by psychopaths to hide potential clues about their personality or intentions revealed by body language.
The study, which claims to be the first to link psychopathic women and non-verbal communication, was led by researchers from the Department of Psychology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
“Nonverbal behaviors (i.e., brain dynamics) represent an important, yet understudied, form of communication that may improve our ability to detect certain forms of psychopathology, including psychopathy,” they say.
“We believe our results help identify a unique pattern of head dynamics characteristic of women with high psychopathy scores, specifically, who exhibit a more stationary head position during the administration of the clinical interview.”
For the study, researchers used an image processing and machine learning tool to automatically extract head movement from recorded interviews of 213 incarcerated women in the United States.
Since psychopathy is “highly predictive of future recidivism” in both women and men, the findings could be important for prison officials.
In police interviews, inmates who keep their heads still might be more likely to reoffend, although proving this would require more study.
One limitation of the study is that the participants were only inmates, so the team does not know how much “the prison environment may have influenced the participants’ behavior.”