A woman who claims to be a diagnosed psychopath has shared the ‘morbid’ interest she had as a child, opening a window into the minds of people with personality disorders.
A TikToker named Victhepath revealed that her special interests include the Holocaust, human sacrifice by ancient Mayans and the original Grimm fairy tales – among three other gory tales.
Scientists have found that because psychopaths have less empathy and sensation-seeking behavior, they tend to be more interested in violent and disturbing content.
The 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 could explain the TikToker’s special interests.
A TikToker named Victhepath revealed that her special interests include the Holocaust, human sacrifice by ancient Mayans and the original Grimm fairy tales – among three other gory tales
In general, people described as psychopaths exhibit characteristics such as antisocial behavior, untruthfulness, irresponsibility, and a lack of remorse or empathy.
Research has shown that psychopaths often exhibit reduced emotional responses to gruesome or disturbing stimuli, allowing them to engage with such content without experiencing the discomfort or disgust 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 15 to 25 percent of inmates exhibit these traits.
The disorder is diagnosed using a 20-item Hare Psychopathy Checklist, which includes characteristics such as lack of empathy, pathology and impulsivity.
Each is scored on a three-point scale, with zero being “not appealing” and two being fully applicable.
However, some medical professionals avoid the term “psychopath” and sometimes label it as antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).
“I was really interested in the Holocaust as a child, and not really interested in the Second World War since,” he says TikToker said in the video.
In general, people described as psychopaths exhibit traits such as antisocial behavior, untruthfulness, 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 a little black book called The Holocaust and being really intrigued by it.
She went on to explain that she spent an hour reading the book under a table during the event.
“After that, I was so fascinated by the subject,” she continued.
“When I was in eighth grade, I went on a trip to DC and chose to go to the Holocaust Museum instead of the Smithsonian.
Her second special interest was in Grimm’s fairy tales and the original stories that are ‘extremely morbid’.
One of the stories is ‘The Robber Bridegroom’, which is about bandits who drag a girl to their underground hideout, force her to drink wine until her heart bursts, take off her clothes and then dismember her body.
In the original Cinderella, another written by the Brothers Grimm, it 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,” she said. “It shouldn’t be a shock to 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 of all the original work.
She continued to explain her other interests as a child: the Romanov family, all of whom were murdered by Bolshevik soldiers in 1917, Greek mythology and the Labrythin.
“The Hunger Games is kind of based on the Labrythin, the idea of putting kids in the arena until they get there,” the TikToker said.
‘The last special interest concerns the Aztec and Mayan empires.
“It shouldn’t come as a shock to 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 being interviewed by police to spot signs that a woman may be a psychopath.
They found that the biggest psychopaths kept their heads very still, just like men.
Staging may be a tactic used by psychopaths to hide potential clues about their personality or intentions given away by body language.
The study – which claims to be the first to link female psychopaths and nonverbal communication – was led by researchers from the Department of Psychology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
“Nonverbal behavior (i.e., head dynamics) represents an important but understudied form of communication that may enhance our ability to understand certain forms of psychopathology, including psychopathy,” they say.
‘We believe that our results help identify a unique pattern of head dynamics that characterizes women high in psychopathy, specifically in exhibiting more stationary head positioning during the conduct of clinical interviews.’
For the study, the researchers used an image processing and machine learning tool to automatically extract head movements from recorded interviews with 213 incarcerated women in the US.
Because psychopathy in both women and men is “highly predictive of future recidivism,” the findings could be important for prison staff.
Police interviews show that female detainees who keep their heads still are more likely to reoffend – although this requires further research.
One limitation of the study is that the participants were exclusively prisoners, so the team does not know to what extent “the prison environment influenced participants’ behavior.”