Patric Gagne is a sister, a wife, and a mother of two. Professionally, she’s a former therapist and has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. She’s also a sociopath — a diagnosis she explores in her revealing new memoir, Sociopath. And recently, she sat down with Katie for an in-depth interview on how life works for those among us who don’t feel trademark human emotions, like empathy.

In their intimate conversation, Gagne recounts anecdotes from her childhood — explaining how she processed death, grief, and everyday life without a full toolbox of feelings. Plus, she explains being moved to stab a classmate with a pencil — and what exactly went through her head as she committed this act of serious violence.

Listen to the full discussion to hear Katie dig into exactly what makes Gagne tick, what techniques Gagne has used to navigate society, the differences between sociopathy and psychopathy, and what privileges a sociopath is afforded when they’re a white woman. We’ve included some of our favorite moments below.

Katie Couric: Can you give us examples of how a sociopath like you might move through the world?

Patric Gagne: My experience was very much related to other sociopaths. I always struggled with empathy. I want to make this clear: Just because I don’t necessarily react empathically doesn’t mean that I want harm for others, or that I somehow get off on or enjoy seeing others in pain. I’ve seen that argument being made, and nothing for me can be further from the truth. I don’t react empathically, but I’m not enjoying watching someone hurting. 

I remember thinking about other sociopaths when I was in college, and sort of marveling over what limited resources and research there was available. And I remember thinking, [this is] 5 percent [of the population] — who’s checking in on these [diagnosed sociopaths]? Who’s helping them keep their behaviors in check? I know what I’m doing, but what about all the other people? At that moment, I remember thinking, Oh wait, that’s empathy. That’s me feeling compassion for others. And it happened pretty naturally. At that time I was only able to empathize, or so I thought, with other sociopaths. But over time, I used that experience to grow the feeling toward other groups of people. 

That became my touchstone for how to access shame and remorse. I might not inherently experience those emotions, but I would think, OK, so what if this was happening to another sociopath? What if someone was treating another sociopath this way? I would try to access it from that angle, as opposed to just this blanket learning curve, which is thinking We don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, right? That’s how you socialize a kid  — sit them down and help them understand the general benefits of not hurting others. But for me, that didn’t work. Those lessons didn’t land. But they did when I was able to apply them to other people like me.

You were diagnosed in college. Talk to me about your childhood. You do feel happiness and sadness. There was a story about your ferret dying, and when your mom told you, you had virtually no reaction. So what’s the difference between sadness — which you say is a basic human emotion — and why didn’t you feel sad when your ferret died?

I did feel sad when my ferret died, I just didn’t feel it to the extent that my sister did. I remember hearing her crying and witnessing her grief. Mine was so shallow compared to hers. I do remember being sad that I had this little critter that I now no longer had. I wasn’t going to be able to bring her along with me on my adventures anymore. But it wasn’t that overwhelming grief that my sister was experiencing. It was sort of this pressure to be performative. I experience these emotions, as do others like me. But because they aren’t demonstrated at the so-called neurotypical level, they’re discounted — or at least they were when I was a kid. So that led to a lot of deceit and manipulation on my part, not because I was motivated by greed or bloodlust, but because I understood very early: I don’t feel things the way other kids do, but I need to pretend like I do. And this deceit that I had leaned into as a survival mechanism became a lifestyle because it was all I knew.  

Let’s talk about some of your behavior as a child. For example, when you stabbed a classmate in the neck with a pencil. It sounds to me that you have these overwhelming feelings. Can you talk about that and how those manifested when you were a kid? 

I remember feeling this pressure — and what I now understand, looking back, is that this pressure that I was experiencing was caused by what we were just discussing: This understanding that I didn’t feel things the way I was supposed to. And that if I didn’t either force myself into feeling or adopt a persona that was a mirror of other people’s emotions, that I would be outed. …The perks of society, of my family, having [my mother] on my side…all of that would be compromised if I didn’t act normal. I would feel this pressure start to build. And it seems to me that it resembles a lot of what people who suffer from OCD experience, they have this need to engage in repetitive behaviors not because they want to, but because some part of their mind is telling them, If you do this, you’ll feel better. That’s how I felt at that moment when I assaulted that child. I wasn’t doing it because I wanted to hurt this child or see her in pain. It was very much “wrong place, wrong time.” I could feel the pressure building; it had been building for days and putting that pencil into this child [felt] like popping a balloon. Which I understand sounds vicious and violent, and certainly it was, but the motivations behind it were neither. 

So was it to feel something? 

I think so… Later on, I described it as this feeling of, I am who I am. I don’t care who knows it. I don’t care what comes of it. I just want to exist as I am. And committing an act like that, engaging in that type of behavior, there’s no real hiding from it. And so for a minute, I’m free. The pressure’s off. I didn’t have to keep this in anymore. I didn’t have to conceal this pressure, conceal who I am, and it was a release, in a way. 

I’m not a psychologist or a therapist, but it sounds to me like you have some kind of issue with id and ego. Your id is likely to, in certain cases, run amok. And your ego, which controls the impulse to do something crazy or wrong or unconventional, doesn’t necessarily enter into the picture. Is that accurate? 

Sounds accurate. I know exactly what you’re saying. I’ve used a similar analogy. The id is typically that tantrum-y, instant gratification side, whereas my ID is just a wild little dragon. And to your point, the ego does have a hard time keeping that little dragon locked up and pacified. Not so much now, but certainly when I was a kid. 

We talked about losing your ferret. We talked about stabbing your classmate in the neck with a pencil. But what was that first experience like for you when you realized you were emotionally out of step with your family, that something was different about you? 

It was lonely. And again, that’s not something that people really think when they think of a sociopath. But the truth is, I didn’t choose to feel this way or not feel this way. And I remember feeling bummed, like, I wish that I could have those overwhelming feelings. I wish that I could connect the way that they can. And that I couldn’t. It made me feel very lonely and sort of craving companionship from someone like-minded. But that’s not necessarily the healthiest choice. But that’s what I wanted, I felt. I remember watching Oliver Twist when I was a kid, and seeing the Artful Dodger, and how Oliver found himself in this glorified cave of criminals. And I remember thinking, I wish I could go there because those sound like my types of people. 

You were growing up in San Francisco with your parents and your sister. How did they react to this? Your black-and-white emotional range? I think that’s so interesting, the way you describe a pop of color in a black-and-white world. 

And that’s really how it felt. It’s such a dated reference, but I remember watching that “Take On Me” [music] video where he’s trying to get out of this black-and-white cartoon. It always stuck with me. I remember thinking, That’s exactly what this is like. 

But in terms of how my parents and my sister reacted — they didn’t know what was going on any more than I did. And certainly, we were living in a time where mental health wasn’t a conversation. There were hardly words for anxiety and depression, much less sociopathy, conduct disorder, or oppositional defiant [disorder]. I think my mom did the best she could with the tools that she had. I think my sister was different because I was already around when my sister was born. So to her, I was different from her other friends. But she never judged me for being different because to her, I wasn’t different. To her, I was just her sister. And we have such a beautiful relationship in that my sister has every emotional hue imaginable, in spades. I always like to joke that she got both good sides and I got both dark sides, but she never related to me as anything other than someone deserving of love and compassion. A lot of my ability to emote now is a direct result of my interactions with her.

You have two children and I’m curious how this kind of looking at emotions through a glass window has impacted your parenting. I know you write about this overwhelming sense of love when you have a baby that you didn’t feel. How did you manage the emotional disconnect when it came to parenting and having children?

I remember being very angry when I did not experience that surge of emotion. Looking back, it was all directed at myself, not because I was unable to feel those things, but because I had allowed myself even a sliver of hope that I might. For the longest time, I was so angry at myself for like, How could you even think that this would be possible for you? But once that went by the wayside, it went back to logic. It’s like, OK, I don’t have all of the tools that a neurotypical parent does, but I have what I have, and I’m going to make the best out of what I have. And I’ve found that my lack of emotion can be advantageous when I’m dealing with my kids and they’re really struggling to regulate or they’re really struggling with big feelings. I’ve found that I can intervene in a way that allows them to express their reactions without the fear of my reaction getting in the way. And that’s something I’ve sort of noticed from friends, family, or even watching television. A child will have a feeling, and that feeling will immediately be met with their parents feeling, you know, “How could you fail this test?” Or, “How could you let that happen?” Whereas I’ve noticed that…it tends to be very low level emotionally, and I’ve chosen to perceive that as an advantage. Because what choice do I have? That’s what I’ve got. So I try to make the best of what I’ve got.