Sociopath

Patric Gagne opens her memoir by revealing the life she has meticulously constructed—a life that appears stable, admirable, and entirely ordinary. To the outside world, she functions as a successful therapist, a dedicated partner, and a loving mother. This version of herself is polished and socially seamless, the kind of person no one would suspect of struggling internally. Yet she quickly clarifies that this façade is an act, performed to conceal an emotional architecture fundamentally different from those around her. She does not experience empathy or guilt in the ways society expects, and her ability to manipulate situations comes as naturally to her as breathing.

Behind her carefully maintained persona lies a persistent awareness that she has spent her entire life acting. The emotions she outwardly displays are studied and mimicked. What others do instinctively, she performs deliberately, constructing a social mask durable enough to withstand scrutiny. The tension between who she outwardly is and who she actually feels herself to be becomes the central conflict of her life. This “mask of normalcy” is not a malicious deception but a survival strategy she cultivated to navigate a world built on emotional signals she does not naturally possess.

She learned early that fitting in required learning what emotions looked like, even if she could not internally generate them. The more responsibilities she acquired—career, marriage, motherhood—the more intricate the mask became. Her memoir shows that her existence is defined as much by what she hides as by what she reveals. The mask protects her, but it also isolates her, creating a life where she is constantly present but rarely feels truly known.

Childhood Shadows and Secrets

Gagne’s childhood provides the earliest clues that she experiences the world differently. While other children immerse themselves in games, friendships, and spontaneous emotions, she grows up as an observer rather than a participant. Her interests gravitate toward darker subjects: crime stories, moral transgressions, and narratives that explore the nature of wrongdoing. Instead of frightening her, these themes feel familiar, sparking curiosity rather than revulsion.

She remembers searching for a word to describe the peculiar emptiness she felt, eventually stumbling upon the term “sociopath.” Yet even that discovery yielded little clarity, as definitions were vague or inconsistent. Her sense of disconnection intensified as she realized that emotions like guilt or compassion were foreign to her, even though joy or anger occasionally surfaced. The absence of what she calls “social emotions” left her feeling like she lived behind a pane of glass, close enough to observe humanity but distant enough never to fully join it.

To cope with an internal numbness she could neither articulate nor escape, she turned to misbehavior. Stealing small objects or deceiving classmates provided momentary relief—not out of cruelty, but because these acts punctured the emotional void. The rush that followed felt like proof she was alive. These early patterns set the stage for her lifelong attempt to understand herself and the invisible barrier separating her from everyone else.

The Pressure Within

One of the memoir’s most vivid recurring images is the ...