We’re so used to assuming we all feel the same—just in different intensities. But what if someone simply didn’t feel the way you do at all? What if joy, guilt, and even empathy weren’t natural reflexes, but things to be studied, mimicked, and mapped like a foreign language?
This is what came to mind while watching Dr. Patric Gagne’ offers in her video’s interview, How Sociopaths Actually Work.
A clinical psychologist and diagnosed sociopath, Gagne dismantles the stereotypes we’ve been fed about sociopathy—not to excuse the harm some cause, but to create room for understanding, support, and healing.
Her story isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about making the most of what she is—with strategy, honesty, and an almost painful level of self-awareness.
Masking as Survival
Many of us know what it’s like to wear a mask—to adjust our tone, posture, or expression to meet expectations. But for Gagne, masking isn’t just social convenience—it’s survival strategy. From a young age, she noticed that when she was honest about how she felt—or didn’t feel—it was met with confusion, judgment, or even anger. So she studied the people around her, mimicked their reactions, and learned to perform emotional responses she didn’t internally experience. Not to manipulate—but to avoid punishment and navigate a world that didn’t understand her.
So she studied her sister’s face, her parents’ tone, the way people widened their eyes and nodded to show concern. She mimicked these cues to stay safe, to be accepted.
And here’s the surprising part: not to manipulate, not to exploit—but to belong. It was a way to move through the world without being punished for simply being different.
“I am masking right now,” she says openly in the interview. “If I wasn’t, I would have a much flatter affect.”
She’s not hiding something malicious. She’s building a bridge. A performance, yes—but one with utility, and potentially survival, at its core.
Coping Mechanisms, by Design
Gagne’s story of transformation begins not with a “cure,” but with strategy.
As a child, when pressure would build to unbearable levels, she didn’t have healthy outlets. Sometimes she acted out destructively. Sometimes she’d break into homes—not to steal, but to sit quietly, letting the silence wash over her.
These weren’t thrills per se. They were more like releases. A form of emotional self-regulation. In time, she realized she could prevent more dangerous behavior by creating small, controlled rituals of release—what she jokingly calls “micro-doses of mischief.”
She started therapy after opening up to her father, who encouraged her to seek help. The focus wasn’t on exploring the emotional why, but on getting her behavior under control. Her therapist framed it as anxiety—pressure that needed healthier outlets. Through CBT and journaling, she began to see that not acting on her urges wouldn’t destroy her. That insight alone made them easier to manage.
She developed structure. Predictability. A sort of rhythm of pressure and release that helped her function—and more importantly, helped her stop causing harm.
Healing, in her case, wasn’t about “feeling more.”
It was about finding non-destructive ways to live without feelings most of us take for granted.
Sociopathy vs. Psychopathy: A Key Difference
Gagne also clarifies something the public often overlooks: sociopathy and psychopathy are not the same.
- Psychopaths are believed to have biological impairments that prevent them from ever learning social emotions like remorse or empathy. They can’t emotionally course-correct.
- Sociopaths, however, may be born with a different temperament or shaped by environment. They can learn. They can mask. They may never feel deeply—but they can recognize patterns, form attachments, and choose pro-social behavior.
This difference matters. It opens the door to possibility—and responsibility. Gagne doesn’t let herself off the hook. She takes ownership of her behavior, and she finds ways to live ethically, even without emotional rewards.
That’s not just self-discipline. It’s integrity.
Can We Map Emotions?
One of the most compelling questions her story raises for me is this:
Could facial micro-expressions—those brief, involuntary flashes of emotion—be used as an emotional map for sociopaths trying to learn how others feel?
Could these visual patterns become a Rosetta Stone of sorts, helping those with low affect connect the dots between situation, expression, and emotion?
After all, if a person lacks internal affect, but can visually recognize the emotional cues in others, they can begin to build a working understanding of things like guilt, compassion, or grief.
Gagne herself mirrors others’ expressions. She studies their reactions. She pays attention. This isn’t manipulation—it’s orientation.
Maybe emotional literacy doesn’t have to be emotional.
Maybe it can begin with attention, observation, repetition.
Making Peace with Feeling Differently
One of the most touching moments in the interview is when she describes her husband—how he used to believe that if he loved her enough, she would start to feel like he did. But over time, he realized: she’s not broken. She’s wired differently.
And instead of demanding that she feel “more,” he began to listen to the way she experiences love.
“My love is different,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t count.”
We don’t all feel the same things, in the same ways, at the same volume. But we can all be honest. We can all be responsible. We can all find ways to care.
Even if the feeling doesn’t look like what we expect.
Final Thoughts: What We Can Learn
We rise and fall by the quality of our training.
Most of us are doing the best we can with the coping mechanisms we’ve been handed—or scrambled together on our own. Even destructive behavior, more often than not, is someone’s attempt to survive. To relieve pressure. To stay afloat.
What Patric Gagne shows us is that change is possible—not by waiting to feel differently, but by learning to act differently. By taking responsibility, building structure, and crafting strategies that interrupt old patterns.
We don’t all start from the same emotional baseline. But we all have the capacity to build better scaffolding.
With conscious effort. With honesty. And with the willingness to try again.
If you’re someone who struggles to feel—or to feel correctly—you’re not alone. And you’re not broken. You may just need different tools.
So before we judge someone’s expression, behavior, or silence, maybe we can pause and ask:
How does feeling feel to you?
That one question could open up whole new ways of relating—within families, friendships, marriages… and even with ourselves.
Further Reading
Sociopath: A Memoir Hardcover – April 2, 2024
by Ph.D. Patric Gagne (Author)
Emotions Revealed, Second Edition: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life Paperback – Illustrated, March 20, 2007
by Paul Ekman Ph.D. (Author)
