Key Insights
Diagnosis as a turning point. Dorian was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) at 22, which set him on a path from factory work to studying psychology at university – with the goal of becoming Dr. Dorian Steel.
The glass box. Dorian describes his relationship with humanity through the metaphor of a glass box – not feeling trapped or isolated, but simply never having felt connected to other people. He’s comfortable in it.
Anger as the only real emotion. Of all emotions, anger is the only one Dorian is truly in touch with. He has no prosocial emotions – he can’t feel happy for someone else – but he can be friendly and has a good sense of humor.
No fear, no worry, no lost sleep. Dorian nearly fell off Snowdonia with no change in heart rate, faced a potential nine-year prison sentence without anxiety, and has never lost a wink of sleep over anything. Where other people have fear, he has adrenaline and a cold, analytical mind.
An overnight transformation. One night, lying in bed, Dorian said a one-sentence prayer – and the next day his entire life changed direction. He left behind the skinhead identity he’d held for five years, covered up his throat tattoo, and began building a new life around fitness, faith, and responsibility.
Control as a core need. Dorian describes a dominant need for control and power over everyone and everything – his environment, the people in it, outcomes. He manages this partly through compartmentalization and partly by carefully curating his surroundings.
Boundaries are invisible. Without an internalized moral conscience or empathy, Dorian doesn’t see boundaries until they’re pointed out to him – and by then it’s usually too late. He’s tried to get therapy for this, but has been turned away as “too high-functioning.”
Fatherhood is the exception. His five-year-old son is the one person Dorian calls “a little extension of me” – and their relationship is probably the only one where he feels somewhat bonded.
Regret, loneliness, and self-pity are absent. Dorian has never experienced deep regret, can’t feel lonely because he has no innate desire for human connection, and can’t feel sorry for himself because he can’t feel sorry for anyone.
Pain is just a signal. Dorian spent a full day lifting heavy bags and shopping while his appendix was inflamed, only going to the emergency room in the late afternoon. Pain doesn’t fill his perception – it’s something off to the side that he can mostly look away from.
Romantic rejection hits differently. Despite not feeling attached to anyone, romantic rejection causes intense narcissistic injury – a wound to ego and pride, not to connection. Job rejection, by contrast, doesn’t register at all. (My guess is that he’s a sovereign.)
The dream of the shrinking doorway. In a striking dream, Dorian meets an idealized woman, but the doorway they keep passing through shrinks until she can’t fit. When they finally get home together, the doors are wide open – and he wakes up flooded with adrenaline. He interprets it as being about emotional capacity and vulnerability.
The video game analogy. Dorian resonates with the idea that life with psychopathy is like a video game – you’re running around causing chaos, and you always reset the next day. Other people feel like NPCs, with his son being one of the few exceptions.
A message to the public. Dorian wishes people would stop equating psychopathy with serial murder and sex offenses, step away from the Netflix dramas and TikTok myths, and actually read or listen to people who live with it.
Glossary
Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R). A clinical assessment tool developed by Robert Hare, used to assess psychopathic traits. It covers interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and antisocial dimensions. Dorian’s prison psychologist administered this checklist during his time on probation. Please see my sequence on psychopathy for more information on the concept.
Narcissistic injury. A perceived threat to a narcissistic person’s self-esteem or self-worth, often triggering disproportionate anger or shame. Dorian experiences this specifically in the context of romantic rejection. Please see my sequence on pathological narcissism for more information on the concept.
Splitting. A defense mechanism in which people or situations are perceived in all-or-nothing terms – entirely good or entirely bad – with little middle ground. It’s a feature of borderline and psychotic personality organization. Dorian notes that his splitting tends to be permanent, which is characteristic of NPD.
Conduct disorder. A childhood and adolescent behavioral disorder involving aggression, destruction of property, deceitfulness, and rule violations. It is often considered a precursor to ASPD in adulthood.
Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). A childhood disorder characterized by a pattern of angry, irritable mood, argumentative behavior, and vindictiveness. Like conduct disorder, it can precede more severe personality pathology.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). A structured, goal-oriented form of psychotherapy that focuses on identifying and changing unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors. Dorian underwent CBT with a private psychologist.
Attachment styles. A framework describing patterns of relating to others in close relationships, typically categorized as secure, preoccupied (anxious), avoidant (dismissive), or disorganized (a combination of anxious and avoidant).
Compartmentalization. A psychological defense mechanism in which conflicting thoughts, emotions, or experiences are kept separated to avoid discomfort. Dorian describes being very skilled at this – putting feelings “in a box” so that others won’t see them.
Anattā (no-self). A concept from Buddhist philosophy referring to the absence of a permanent, unchanging self. In the interview, Dawn references Jamie’s description of a “no-self state” – a subjective experience of not identifying with one’s own body or personhood – which contrasts with Dorian’s strong sense of self.
Timestamps
0:12 How Dorian Steel Has Been Doing
0:56 From Factory Worker to Psychology Student
3:18 Starting “The Picture of Dorian Steel” on YouTube
4:58 Factory vs. University – Two Different Worlds
6:52 Friendship with Jamie (M.E. Thomas)
9:19 “I’ve Come a Long Way” – What Dorian Wants People to Know
10:23 Where Does the Motivation Come From?
13:50 Finding Christianity Overnight
20:57 Tattoo Stories – Barbed Wire and Impulse Bets
22:16 What Does Regret Feel Like? “I Don’t Know”
23:17 The Glass Box – Never Feeling Connected to Humanity
27:10 Anger: The Only Emotion That Arrives in Full
27:59 Emotional Regulation – Internal Control vs. Changing Your Environment
31:40 In Custody – Napping, Push-Ups, and a Handshake Through the Cell Door
36:21 “Slipped into a Skin Suit” – Growing into Himself
39:25 Grandiosity – “You Sit Like You’re Better Than Me”
41:54 Different Faces – Probation Officers, His Son, and Jamie
43:40 The Prison Psychologist Who Earned His Respect
47:54 Boundaries – “I Just Don’t See Them”
53:35 Why Pity Makes Him Angry
54:34 Therapy and Addiction – A Troubling Pattern
57:20 Depression and Self-Harm at 16
58:55 Agency and Impulsivity – Buying an Illegal Firearm on a Whim
1:04:50 Fear – Nearly Falling Off Snowdonia with No Change in Heart Rate
1:07:46 “Where Other People Have Fear, I Just Have Adrenaline and Anger”
1:13:21 Pain – Lifting Heavy Bags All Day with Appendicitis
1:15:08 Relationships, Attachment, and Not Feeling Attached at All
1:18:39 Intimacy as a Power Game
1:20:11 The Dream of the Shrinking Doorway
1:27:10 Romantic Rejection and Narcissistic Injury
1:32:21 His Son – “A Little Extension of Me”
1:36:00 Life as a Video Game – NPCs and the Glass Box Revisited
1:38:53 Bad vs. Out of Control – How Others See Him
1:40:51 Childhood Amnesia – 90% of Memories Gone
1:44:38 Selfhood – Comparing Notes with Jamie’s “No-Self” Experience
1:48:06 Funniest Stories – Chasing a Burglar in His Underwear with a Knife
1:56:53 Advice to His 15-Year-Old Self
1:57:36 What Does Dorian Steel Actually Enjoy?
1:59:41 “Stop Thinking We’re All Serial Murderers” – Closing Thoughts
Transcript
Dawn: Hello, flitterific listeners! Today I’m joined by Dorian Steel. Dorian can tell us a lot more about, in particular, psychopathy. So, how have you been doing?
Dorian: I’ve been doing well. I’ve just enjoyed finishing reading the paper that you wrote about me. University’s going well, and I’m more on the up. I find that the more I stick to my responsibilities, the more I’m on the up, so I’m sticking to that. But I’m very well, thank you. How are you doing?
Dawn: Yeah, cool – that would have been my next question. I can have very interesting times. I have a lot of very emotional conversations with some friends right now. Some of them have, some of them used to have personality disorders, so there’s always something going on. But my next question would have been exactly how your degree is going and what has drawn you into that field in the first place.
Dorian: Well, at the moment I’m on my second semester. We’ve just finished the first one. We’re studying developmental, clinical, and investigative psychology. I’ve got classes for biological psychology as well, and research methodology – I like research methodology a lot.
Dawn: And what drew you into that field? In particular, why is research methodology your favorite?
Dorian: What drew me into psychology? It sort of happened without my realizing. Years ago – I’m 25 now – but when I was early 22, I started to suspect that there was something amiss with me. I went down a rabbit hole, educated myself, and then eventually, months down the line, after a psych eval, I got diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). From then on, I just started learning about psychology in general.
I was a blue-collar worker at a factory, in a food production environment. Anybody who knows that sort of work knows it’s not the most intellectually stimulating. So it took about two years and some kind words from a couple of professionals who put the seed into my head about maybe pursuing higher education. I applied for three universities. I got knocked back by two of them, but my last one – which was the best choice – accepted me. I realized all I do is read up on psychology. It became an obsession, and I realized I’m very smart and could make a good career out of this. That’s what’s led me there. But I’ve needed a nudge.
Dawn: Yeah, I can empathize with that – I find psychology very thrilling myself. You’ve also been very open about your experiences and your whole backstory, and you have your own YouTube channel where you share a lot of stories and details. What motivated you to be so open in public about it?
Dorian: There comes a time when everybody wants to tell their story in one way or another. For me, the idea to start a YouTube channel was suggested to me. I’ve had things suggested to me – that I should write a book about my life and the things I’ve done. But a YouTube channel was the way to go. I thought of the idea back when I was working in the factory, but I didn’t want any of my fellow workers to find out, so I held back and waited until I left and started at university.
It’s called The Picture of Dorian Steel, and it’s going very well, actually. I just did a video that’s got about 1,200 views, and I only started last year in September. I tell stories, give my thoughts and perceptions on various ideas and concepts about myself or about other things in the world. I paint a picture of myself, essentially.
Dawn: What’s different between the people you’re studying with now and the factory workers – that back then you didn’t want to start the channel, and now you do?
Dorian: I’ve got a lot more in common with the people in my class. Obviously, we’re all interested in the same thing. The factory was a very volatile kind of place at the time. Very poor communication between all levels of staff. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few good people in there that I genuinely liked and got on with. It’s just like anywhere you go in life, really. But it was very physical – a lot of heavy lifting. I used to tell myself it’s an extra workout that I’m getting paid for.
That’s how you get through that kind of job, but there are people who’ve been there for over 20, 30 years. Most of their life. And I just thought, I’ve got to do something else other than this. I owe a lot, really, to my diagnosis and to psychology as a whole for getting me out of it.
Dawn: Well, at least the people who do that for 20 years must be jacked by now.
Dorian: Yeah, some of them. But I’m just happy to be out.
Dawn: You’re also really good friends with Jamie Thomas. How did you meet? What is this friendship like, and how did it happen in the first place?
Dorian: I can’t remember exactly how, but I found out about her – bear in mind, I’d first discovered it when I was self-diagnosing. That was when I first saw her interviews on a YouTube channel called Psychopathy Is. They do nonprofit research into individuals with psychopathy. So I saw Jamie’s interviews on there, and one way or another I found out that she had a Discord. Somebody put a message in her server one day saying, “Ted, you should do an interview.” And I said, “If I’m lucky, she’ll ask.” And then Jamie herself responded, saying, “Well, we’ll set up a date – let’s do it.”
I think we’ve done five appearances together on her show. We’ve ended up meeting up in person. We went on holiday together last year in Windermere – me, her, and her partner Aria. It was nothing but good times. I’ve still got our pictures blue-tacked on my wardrobe.
Dawn: Between Jamie and Aria, in terms of your particular psychology, who do you think you’re more similar to?
Dorian: Oh, Aria, 100%. Jamie has described herself as sort of a milking stool – she’s got the antisocial traits, she’s autistic as well, and maybe obsessive-compulsive disorder. But Aria, her partner, is very much the same as me. Very strong in antisocial and narcissistic personality disorder traits. Her girlfriend is like me, but as a little blonde American girl. That is the way to describe it.
Dawn: If you had only about five minutes to describe what you want other people to know about you, what would you tell them? What would you focus on?
Dorian: I’d say I’ve come a long way. I’m much more responsible now, for the most part. Back when I was younger – in school, even as a teenager and as an adult – if you asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I never had an answer. No real sense of responsibility toward myself. Now I have a plan for life, future goals, and principles. Regimes that I stick to. I do a lot of reading, a lot of strength training, a lot of writing. I’ve got a creative hobby. I’m doing YouTube now. I’m keeping myself busy with good things, and it’s all looking up from here.
Dawn: Where does the motivation come from to make those changes?
Dorian: To really start taking things like fitness seriously and healthy habits – it started years ago. I just had a switch in my head flick. I was what you’d call a skinhead for five years, since I was a teenager, and that was very tumultuous at times, as you can imagine. Then five years into it, I’d just turned 22, and I looked at myself one day and thought, “This isn’t doing anything for me anymore.” So I snapped out of it, grew my hair out, and I haven’t regretted it for a day.
I like making progress on something. I’m extremely physically fit and healthy. I’ve just had my appendix taken out a few weeks ago, and the doctors were saying I was going to need all these pills. They tried to give me codeine, even though I told them I’ve had previous substance abuse issues with opioids and all manner of hard drugs. So I refused all my medication. They said don’t work out for the next six weeks, and I’ve already started again. Taking care of yourself benefits you. But it’s all about keeping myself rewarded – I’ve got to be getting some sort of reward from whatever I’m doing.
And it’s nice staying out of trouble, I’ll tell you that much. It’s nice knowing that I’m just being responsible and good now. A bit more prosocial, kind of like Jamie.
Dawn: Can you already tell if your life is a sequence of phases like that? Imagine you do a bachelor’s, a master’s, or a PhD in psychology, and that chapter ends at some point – what would the next step be for you?
Dorian: At the moment, I’m doing my bachelor’s degree with honors. After that, it’ll be a master’s degree, and then – because I want to be Dr. Dorian Steel, I want to have “Doctor” before my name – I’ll be doing my PhD in psychology.
Once I’ve done that, I think I’d like to go on the NHS as a diagnostician for a few years, and who knows, maybe even work with some of the people who diagnosed me. I remember some of them. I remember Nurse Anna, and the head doctor of the department. They were all very professional, and I remember leaving and admiring them. So I’d definitely want to do that for a couple of years, and then probably work in inpatient facilities as the end goal. I’m not sure about being a therapist, though – but definitely working at either a hospital or an inpatient facility.
Dawn: Part of the current reset in your life is also a shift toward Christianity in particular, and that’s something I found very interesting. How did that come about? I can see you have a few different versions of the Bible behind you.
Dorian: Yes, that’s right. I was alone in my bedroom one night, and it’s hard to put a word on it, but I just had an internal shift – this internal experience of myself. I’ve heard other Christians describe it. I just knew I had to admit the fact that there was a God.
So I started reading the Bible every day. I started writing scripture every day as well – anything I read that stuck out to me. I’ve still got my pad in my bedroom, just pages and pages of the Bible. I went to church about two or three months into being a Christian, and the church was good for a while. I even got baptized there. But I had a disagreement with the pastor on their policy regarding sex offenders being allowed to participate in the congregation, and I just left.
Now what I do occasionally – I’m what you’d call an evangelical Christian, somebody in the Billy Graham line of faith – but my dad is a Jehovah’s Witness, so I’ll go to one of the local Kingdom Halls with my dad occasionally on a Sunday. They’re very welcoming of me. They know I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness, and I don’t agree with them on everything, but that’s as good as it gets for me in terms of worship with other people. I still like to do my own thing. But that’s always been me – I’d just rather be on my own.
Dawn: When I wanted religion, I also created my own. But what did it feel like to realize – or acknowledge, the word you used – that there is a God? Was it a feeling, or was it a logical conclusion that you arrived at?
Dorian: It was a feeling. I’ll never forget it. I think I was out of work, had no money, nothing. I was at the lowest of the low. Not stressed, but definitely always thinking about things. It was slightly nervous, but I remember I said a prayer – just a short, one-sentence prayer to myself.
When I went outside the next day, everything looked different and felt different. It’s really indescribable. I’ve never been able to speak in too much detail about it, but it was an internal physical feeling, an internal shift. But I’m always in that state of what we’d call wrestling in the flesh, really wrestling with myself at times.
Dawn: So you prayed for something? Was that related? Did you pray for something, and then it came true the next day in the form of this internal shift?
Dorian: It wasn’t a wish. It wasn’t like, “I want a new car” or “I want a new wife.” I wasn’t asking for something. I was just lying in bed, and I closed my hands together, closed my eyes, and said, “Okay, God, you’re real, I believe you.” And that was it.
But being out of church has affected that a lot. I do think you need a good church behind you, but the church is its own worst enemy. It’s a toughie.
Dawn: Can you try to describe more what the difference was like before and after that shift – in your perception of yourself and the world?
Dorian: In terms of behavior, that did a complete 180. I was unemployed – I was earning money outside of employment, let’s say. I was making ends meet in other ways. And I was extremely objectifying of people, in the sense that people were just literally objects to be used and manipulated for my purposes.
Then my life completely turned around. I wasn’t really dressed that smart. I started dressing smart, taking myself seriously, getting up at six in the morning to work out, getting healthy hobbies, and trying to be a good Christian as best I can. That hasn’t always been the case, and I’m not saying I’m perfect – I know I’m not. As much as my brain might like to tell me otherwise.
Dawn: That’s a remarkable shift, and that it happens so suddenly is impressive.
Dorian: It was at the snap of the fingers.
Dawn: I could imagine someone gradually developing over the course of a couple of years in that direction and then trying to remember what it was like before. But having that from one day to the next is stark.
Dorian: It was very late at night. Pitch black, and I was in bed. I’ll never forget it. The next day, I went and got my skinhead tattoo across my throat covered up. I couldn’t walk around with that anymore. Things started to change and go better, because I put my faith in a higher power. It’s the best decision you’ll ever make.
Dawn: You just touched on some tattoos. Are there any other stories behind any of the tattoos that you want to talk about?
Dorian: I’ve got a funny one. The barbed wire on my forehead – that was an impulse. I’d won money betting on horses. There used to be an old betting shop near where I live – it’s since closed down – but I went in there and bet a couple of pounds on a horse that was something like 100 to 1, or 200 to 1. And it won. So I took the money and went straight to the tattoo studio and said, “I want this done.” Some of them are very impulsive, but I’ve never regretted any of them. It’s a big thing with skinheads – tattoos. It was all about looking tough and all of that. But they’re just there now. They don’t mean anything to me.
Dawn: What would it feel like for you to regret something?
Dorian: I don’t know. I know this isn’t true, but in my head, it sounds stupid – why would you sit around regretting something? What are you going to get out of that? I don’t think I’ve ever felt regret. Maybe once or twice in a moment I’ve gone, “Yeah, maybe I could have gotten more if I chose option A instead of B.” But that actual deep-felt regret – I’ve never had it. I can’t even really talk about it. I just don’t have any experience with it.
Dawn: You’ve used this interesting metaphor of a glass box, or a plexiglass box, to describe your relationship with the environment, the world, and other people. I’d be quite interested in learning more about that – whether that relates to the previous version of you more than the current version, or whether it’s been constant. And what it feels like in the first place.
Dorian: I think it’s more a representation of what I don’t feel, if that makes sense. It’s always been there, always been the same. I’ve just never truly felt connected to humanity as a whole. People are people, and they’re there. But they’re always a little bit different in a way, and I just don’t identify with 99% of them. But I’m not particularly uncomfortable in my proverbial glass box. I’m very much fine in it. That’s just how I see things.
Dawn: Do you feel more isolated, or trapped, or protected by this box?
Dorian: Neither. I don’t feel loneliness, because I have no innate desire for human connection, so I can’t feel lonely. If I want to know if I’m lonely or not, I have to go through a checklist – right, I don’t have any friends, I spend a lot of time on my own, therefore I’m lonely. I don’t have a feeling to tell me that.
I don’t feel isolated from anyone, because I don’t feel it, so I’m not. It’s not about feeling protected either. Maybe protected from other people’s feelings, to a degree. I’ve been known to get angry quite quickly if somebody else cries. I don’t really like other people’s tears.
Dawn: That’s interesting, because when I get angry, I usually don’t notice it. I just notice that I start to have passive-aggressive intuitions that I usually don’t have, and then I wonder what’s going on. I didn’t used to be in touch with that feeling. So I wonder whether that’s similar with the loneliness – that there’s something going on that bothers you in some subtle way, but you’re not directly in touch with the feeling.
Dorian: Loneliness is just not something that I have. Anger, however – I’m very much in touch with my anger. It comes on very quickly, very suddenly, in vast amounts. I’ve been known to fight or attack people because of my anger, throw people out of my life because of it. There’s really no telling what would truly happen. So that’s why I try my best to avoid people who annoy me, and try to avoid as many triggers as possible. It’s something you have to do when you’re highly psychopathic, if you want to lead a good life. I don’t want to go to prison, because I know I’ll just be angry all the time and probably very paranoid as well.
The only main emotion that I’m really in touch with is anger, I’d say. I don’t have any prosocial emotions. I can’t feel happy for someone. It kind of sounds silly even saying that as a sentence – why would I feel happy for somebody else? Can’t they just feel happy and get on with it? That encompasses a large amount of my emotional range. I can be friendly, I can talk, I like to have a laugh. I don’t think laughing is an emotion, but I’ve got a good sense of humor.
Dawn: You try to emotionally regulate by surrounding yourself with people who bring out the best in you rather than the anger. That’s something I’ve seen from a bunch of friends of mine. Most of them seem to have an internal feeling of control, as if they can control how they want to react to their environment. Others rely much more on self-regulation through changing their environment. There’s this one person who told me that she told her son to call the police when she’s getting abusive, so that they can rein her in. She wasn’t used to being able to do that herself but clearly wanted to. Do you do both? Some kind of internal regulation and external regulation? Or do you rely more on external factors?
Dorian: I’m very good at compartmentalizing my emotions – or any feelings that I do feel. I’m very good at putting the ones I need in a box, tucked away so that you might not see them. That’s always been something I’ve been very good at.
But managing my environment is just as important to me. One of the key needs of somebody with psychopathy is that you have to always be in control of everything – not just your environment, but the people within it. You have to be in control of outcomes. It spreads into relationships, into every facet of your life – that dominant need for control and power over everyone and everything. So they’re both just as important. That’s probably part of where my ability to compartmentalize stems from – because I have to, otherwise I’m not in control.
Dawn: This control thing is interesting. What makes it so important?
Dorian: I don’t know. It’s just in me. It’s just the nature of who I am. What else would I do?
Dawn: What would it feel like to not have control, but in some harmless way – nothing bad happens?
Dorian: If I’m not affected in any way, maybe my pride will still be hurt momentarily. But if there’s no massive real-world fallout or consequences, then in a few seconds I’ll probably just not care and move on. I won’t linger.
Dawn: You had this interesting anecdote about being in custody, where you probably didn’t feel quite the same level of control as usual, but you managed to claw back a bit of that by getting a policeman to shake your hand through the cell door.
Dorian: Yeah, that was when I was in custody – not prison, but the custody jail where you’re taken after you’re arrested. My last arrest was when I was 22, or 23 actually, and it was for allegedly attempting to smuggle a firearm into the country, with ammunition, and a couple of other charges to do with illegal weapons found in my flat.
I got brought in for questioning, and to be honest, both times I’ve been in custody, I’ve loved it, because it’s just like a game of Monopoly, really. To me, it is, at least. Some people really can’t handle it – you hear them having breakdowns. But not me. I’ll go in, do my push-ups and sit-ups, get some food in my belly, have a nap, and then rinse and repeat until it’s time for my interview.
The last time I was in there, after questioning, I stuck my hand out through the hatch in the cell door – which you’re obviously not supposed to do, because you could be trying to attack an officer. But I got this detective to actually shake my hand through the hatch. It was just fun knowing that I could have broken his hand or his fingers, and having that power over that person, even for a couple of seconds – that’s just a thrill for me.
Dawn: Does it feel more like stoicism – that you can make the best of those situations – or more like indifference? What feeling is dominant there?
Dorian: The feeling is power, ego. In my head, I just feel powerful, and I feel it in my body. In my mind it’s: “Yeah, I’m in control. I made you do something.” When I decide I’m going to make you do something, you’re going to do it. That’s just a way of regaining power and control in that situation.
Dawn: And generally, this whole arrest situation – they’re taking some power away from you initially. I imagine it feels like a game?
Dorian: A little bit at first. The thing is, I’m registered as a violent male with the local police due to past instances. If someone reports me, they check that name, and everything’s got codes. I’m registered as a violent male, so if the police have a warrant for my arrest, they have to turn up with what they call Mariah vans – big yellow vans normally used for riots, with grates over the windshield, riot gear inside – shields, batons – and then normally three male officers will come out and get me. It makes a bit of a scene, because people see it.
At first I didn’t like it, and it was a long drive back to the station. I asked them if they had a radio I could listen to, and they said no, they have to be on the police radio the whole time. But it is what it is. You’ve just got to play the game.
Dawn: You’ve also described feeling as if you were slipped into a particular skin suit with regard to your body and personality. To what extent do you actually identify with yourself now – your body, brain, personality, mind, everything – and to what extent do you feel like you’re just operating it like a vehicle?
Dorian: I feel more like a person now, I’d say, than back then. It’s less like I’m operating a vehicle. It’s me. I haven’t got any qualms about being me. I’m very happy with the person I am, and I always will be.
Dawn: How have you grown into yourself, as it were?
Dorian: Truly, honestly, being responsible and being healthy – it’ll do those things for you. I owe it all to my hard efforts. There’s no particular right way or wrong way, just the way that you need to do it. I know a lot of people really do feel distant from themselves. But that’s not me anymore. I think a big part of that is the fact that I’m doing something I want for a living now, with being in higher education. I reckon that has probably played a significant role.
Dawn: I would imagine that increased identification also comes with – what does aging, for example, feel like for you? Has that become something you think about more now that you identify more with your body?
Dorian: I don’t even celebrate my birthday. A lot of people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) will celebrate their birthdays, because it’s their day. But that’s never been me. Since I was maybe 17 or 18, I’ve just never felt any connection to it. I don’t mind celebrating somebody else’s birthday – if you want me there at your party, sure, I’ll come. But I just don’t see my own birthday as important. I turn 25 in November, but it’s not a reason to get a cake.
Dawn: Grandiose behaviors seem to evoke different reactions in different cultures, and I imagine this varies not only by country but also by the particular social context. Did you observe in what contexts it works better and in what contexts it leads to resistance?
Dorian: The thing is, I was never aware of how grandiose I came across as. It wasn’t until it was pointed out to me – first by my father. My dad said to me once, “You act like you’re the only person who deserves to be thought about.” In my head, I’m thinking, “Do I act like that?” I know I think like that a lot of the time, but I never realized I acted like it. Apparently, when it comes out, it comes out in heaps and waves. I had an old therapist once tell me, “You sit like you’re better than me.” All I was doing was sitting, but apparently it’s the body language.
It’s served me well recently at university. People have come up to me and said, “Do you ever get nervous about anything? You’re pretty confident, aren’t you?” I was just voted class representative at my uni – unanimously. Put in the right people, and they’ll put their faith in you. But some people really won’t like it – they’ll go, “Who does this guy think he is?” You get a lot of different reactions, but generally I’ve been told that I come across as polite and intelligent. I always mind my P’s and Q’s, especially around women. But apparently the grandiosity can seep out eventually.
Dawn: If I want to practice my grandiosity, what environments do I need to avoid?
Dorian: I really couldn’t tell you. Half the time I don’t realize when I’m doing it.
Dawn: Are you usually quite consistent in your behavior and personality across contexts, or do you behave differently with, say, a probation officer versus your son versus Jamie?
Dorian: Massively different. My son – it’s just all about having good times with him. Going to the park, going to the movies. He likes to play-fight me all the time, so he gets to punch me in the face a lot, and he loves it. It’s great.
But somebody like a probation officer – I’ve never really liked a lot of them, because they’re always someone who’s got their thumb over you for a whole year. I’ve had a history of cycling through them. New probation officer after new probation officer, because they all didn’t want to deal with me.
Being with my son isn’t a power game, because he’s my five-year-old son and he respects me anyway, because I’m his dad. That’s just a given. But with someone like a police officer or a probation officer, it’s very different.
Dawn: And with Jamie?
Dorian: We’re just friends. It’s quite simple – we message each other occasionally, and it’s all good.
Dawn: I think I heard in some interview that one of your probation officers, or someone related to that, was actually a highly qualified expert in the field. Am I remembering this correctly?
Dorian: Kind of. He’s not a well-known expert – he’s a prison psychologist. To explain for people who are reading: you’ve got His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, which splits into two – the prison service and the probation service. A lot of the time, when they get criminal offenders like myself who might have a personality disorder or be really difficult and noncompliant, they’ll get a psychologist from the prison service and bring them in to help. That’s what happened with me.
The thing is, with probation now, you have to declare all your social media accounts. Your YouTube, your email, your Instagram – even old accounts you don’t use anymore. If you haven’t declared everything, you risk going back up for resentencing. At the time, I didn’t have a YouTube channel, but I had my Instagram blog where I write about living with psychopathy. They found that, and then they all said, “I’m not working with him. No way.”
So that’s why they brought in Matthew – the psychologist. He’d done work with pretty high-profile prisoners. He’s based at a prison in Liverpool, but they brought him down to probation. I actually ended up really liking him in the end, but at first? No. I hated him. Absolutely hated him. The first time I saw him, he said he could only speak to me for 10 minutes, and I kept him in the interview room for over an hour. I just played mind games with him – funny looks, staring at his forehead and looking back down. Any little trick in the book, just to put him off and let him know I’m in charge.
But eventually that fizzled down, and I grew to respect the guy. He was really good. They ended up doing it where, for my weekly meetings, he’d bring in trainees – people who were training to be probation officers. One or two of them would sit in the interview room each week and observe me and Matthew talking. We did talking therapy. He was the one who administered the Hare Psychopathy Checklist on me, and because he’s a probation officer, he’s got access to all my previous arrest history records and all of that.
Dawn: Did it feel different at the end of your interactions, when you respected him, compared to the earlier ones?
Dorian: Don’t get me wrong, he was an alright guy, but I still didn’t like being on probation. The best feeling was when it was over. I said to him, “I’m not going to see that purple welcome sign” – he had a big purple sign saying “Welcome” at the front desk. I said, “I’m not looking at that again. I’m done now.”
Dawn: You’ve said somewhere that you have a hard time knowing what boundaries are in the first place, where they’re supposed to be, and that of course makes it difficult to respect them. What do you think is the reason for that? For some people it’s obvious, for others certain boundaries are really difficult to anticipate. I’m quite puzzled myself, because there seem to be cultural differences too. How do people pick up on boundaries throughout their maturation process, and why is it more difficult for some than for others?
Dorian: I’ve read up on this, because I did a YouTube video on boundaries recently. The thing is, boundaries come from having an internalized moral conscience. I don’t have any feelings in me that tell me it’s right or wrong to lie to you, take advantage of something, or put you in harm’s way. Along with that comes not having empathy, not having any awareness of boundaries, and not feeling like I should feel guilty or sorry about anything. I just don’t see them until they’re pointed out to me, and normally by then it’s too late.
I’ve tried to get therapy over it, but nowhere will deal with me. Even the hospital that diagnosed me has said they won’t have me back because they deem me too high-functioning. And I’m an unemployed student at the moment, so it’s not like I can afford private therapy.
Some boundaries I can guess. But I will tend to cross the lines eventually, sooner or later, and that can have repercussions. I remember when I was 15, after I assaulted another kid in school, I had to have anger management therapy of some kind. This woman used to visit from some sort of center that dealt with troubled kids. I used to flirt with her. I was a 15-year-old boy – I get now that that wasn’t okay, but at the time I was just loving it. Boundaries – I just don’t see them to begin with. And also because I’m very entitled, so why would there be a boundary if I’m entitled to that anyway?
Dawn: But I feel like you’re aware of some boundaries that I wasn’t aware of until a couple of months ago. For example, I always appreciate it when I share some story from my past and other people express sympathy. I enjoy that. Whereas I think you would rather feel patronized by that. I was thinking of the thing you shared on Facebook, where some university therapist expressed sympathy for something that happened to you in your childhood, and you felt patronized. I found that very interesting, because I wouldn’t have had this reaction. But of course I want to treat my friends the way they want to be treated.
Dorian: Kind of, yeah. Obviously there are very obvious boundaries that I understand. I’ve never been physically abusive toward any girlfriends, things like that. But it’s more that once you’re in my life, I sort of feel like I own you – you’re more like a possession than an actual person, and then I can just do what I want.
Dawn: Where do you think our difference comes from?
Dorian: I’m not really sure. But I remember the thing about the therapist. I don’t like pity being expressed to me. I don’t really like people feeling sorry for me. It just puts me in a situation that irritates me even more. When that therapist said, “I feel sorry for the child Dorian,” I just thought – what is that going to do? It didn’t annoy me until later that night. I just kept replaying it in my head, and I really got angry about it. But it’s over now. It was just a comment made by another therapist.
Dawn: I’m also wondering about therapy in general. I think at one point you observed that some addiction problems – maybe alcohol – were exacerbated by therapy. What’s the mechanism behind that?
Dorian: No idea. I absolutely haven’t got a clue, but I noticed a very distinct pattern. When I was doing talking therapy with my old probation officer, my drinking spiked. And then again, when I was doing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with a private psychologist, my drinking spiked again, and there was drug use on top of it. No idea why. I don’t know why, but I know it happens.
Dawn: Do you think it was something circumstantial – like maybe the practices happened to be next to a bar?
Dorian: No, no. I’m not big on going to bars or pubs. I’ve always been more of a solitary drinker – I’d rather buy a bottle of whiskey from the shop and bring it back here. Honestly, I’m sure there is a reason, but I just don’t know what it is.
Dawn: You mentioned you don’t like pity or being pitied. Has there ever been a self-pity type of phase that you want to leave behind, or has that just never happened?
Dorian: Self-pity? No. When you can’t feel sorry for anyone, it also means you can’t feel sorry for yourself. I don’t feel sorry about anything that’s ever happened to me. That’s just a waste of time to me.
Dawn: Have you had phases where you wanted nothing to do with society – to just isolate yourself somewhere away from people?
Dorian: Yeah, definitely. Especially when I was younger. When I was 16, I had a very short – two, three months – but very strong bout of what they call major depressive disorder. I was extremely withdrawn from everyone. It was very noticeable. I was self-harming all the time. Not really eating well. But in general, I’d rather keep to myself. It’s more a preference than an absolute need, if that makes sense.
Dawn: In what way were you self-harming?
Dorian: I was just really, really depressed and down, constantly. I’ve often heard that children with conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) can go through either an extreme period of depression or anxiety – normally one of the two. And my brain, for whatever reason, just went the depression route. It was physical – I used to steal disposable razor blades and take them apart with a pair of nail clippers.
Dawn: The next section is more about agency and intentionality. You already mentioned the case where you were charged with importing a weapon – a thing called a lifeguard.
Dorian: Yeah, it was a disguisable handgun with two or three rounds of ammunition.
Dawn: I was curious what decision-making itself feels like for you. When you’re on Facebook Marketplace and see a lifeguard on offer that’s cheap – does it feel more like you’re watching yourself make the decision, or do you feel like you are the one making this decision, that you are choosing?
Dorian: Yeah, it’s me making the decision. I’ll just do really risky things on impulse. Quite often. But especially when I was younger – now I’m very mellowed out, so to speak. But back then, things like that, it’s not a big thing. It’s just an impulse thing, and I’m the one doing it. That’s all there is to it.
Dawn: What about minor decisions, like whether to get a coffee or a tea – what does the decision process feel like for you?
Dorian: Just normal. If I want something, I’ll think of a way to obtain it. If I want the coffee, I’ll go get the coffee. It’s not really a big thing for me.
Dawn: Some people have this feeling that something in their brain discreetly makes the decision for them. For me, it feels more like I weigh all sorts of factors – do I feel like drinking matcha now, or my espresso? – and simulate what that would feel like and what effects it would have. And then my actions just flow automatically from that ranking process. Does either one of those resonate with you?
Dorian: I don’t go through any of that. It’s very straightforward for me.
Dawn: Say you chose the coffee, and then someone asks you why you picked it. Where would you go to figure out why? Would you study your past behavior, or would you introspect on some feeling of tiredness, and that the teas here don’t have caffeine, and so on?
Dorian: I would just say I wanted a coffee and I got it. That’s not really anything to get deep about with me. If I see something, I want it, I get it. I’ve got my reasons, and my reason is that I wanted it.
Dawn: Here’s a concrete decision – you closed the viewfinder to save battery. The alternative would have been to sacrifice battery life and be able to see me. If someone was curious about how you made that decision, where would you look for the answer?
Dorian: It’s just a logical decision I had to make, because I need to see you and talk through here. It’s just all logic.
Dawn: Do you sometimes make a different decision than the one dictated by the logic?
Dorian: No, not really. I’m a very logical creature.
Dawn: Fear is a big one for me. I imagine it’s not such a big thing for you.
Dorian: Why do you feel a lot of fear?
Dawn: Throughout my life, it was the dominant emotion for most of my adolescence, and then I got better. I don’t know what your relationship with fear is.
Dorian: Very minimal. Not a lot of it. Even going back to when I was a kid, I think I got conditioned into a mild arachnophobia because my mother has a very severe one, and I was always the one who got the spider out. But I can be around spiders now and I’m fine.
Fear as a whole? No, not really. I remember when I was 15, climbing Snowdonia in Wales with a friend and her mother. I nearly slipped off the peak of the mountain. It’s all icy, and there was nothing to grab onto, but my heart rate didn’t change. Nothing happened physically. I’ve overdosed multiple times, even before I was 18. There were times where I thought I was going to die, but I was never fearful of it. I never had that sensation.
Or when I looked up the charges for the illegal firearm and weapons – even seeing that I was probably looking at 9 to 10 years in prison, it didn’t scare me. It was just, “Alright, I’ll need to do A, B, and C.” I got all my stuff in my flat packed up. I never lost a wink of sleep. I’ve never, ever missed out on sleep over anything.
Dawn: So you have problems with impulsivity when it comes to anger, but situations that would induce fear in other people just leave you neutral?
Dorian: Neutral, or maybe my adrenaline might be spiked, but that’s not going to stop me from thinking logically about the situation and the best way to handle it. My anger is definitely my Achilles’ heel. It’s gotten me into some trouble over the years.
Dawn: Imagine situations that for most people would combine both fear and anger. If someone attacks you, the average person would probably be afraid of the physical danger and also angry that someone would attack them. I imagine you only have the second?
Dorian: Yeah, pretty much. Where I live, it’s a very deprived, high-criminality area, so I’m always on my guard anyway. But it’s more the latter for me. There’ll be no anxiety – just adrenaline. Where other people have fear, I just have adrenaline and anger, and a very clear-cut, cold mind to analyze the situation.
The most people I’ve ever fought in one fight on my own was eight lads – what we call scallies over here. One of them tried throwing something at me, and I just ran into them and started fighting. Again, it’s that reaction: who does this person think they are? And I won, too. The men in my family, especially on my dad’s side, have a knack for having a good fight. It’s a lot to do with genetics, but pride and ego as well. I’ve just never worried about anything, really.
Dawn: In the situation you described – almost slipping off the mountainside – was there a moment of “Oh shit, I’m going to die” and then a moment of acceptance, or was it just nothing?
Dorian: It was just nothing. Especially because I was wearing trainers with no grip on the ice. My friend had a go at me because I kept trying to go right on the edge of the mountain. She said, “Will you move away? You’ve just nearly slipped off, and you’re going to die.” There are no railings or anything up there in Snowdonia – just no safety at all.
My lack of anxiety, fear, and genuinely having this “I don’t care” attitude used to bother my son’s mother. We’re no longer together. It also bothers a lot of people. I might genuinely care about something, but I’m not going to go into a panic or worry about anything.
Dawn: When it comes to fear, I have two different experiences. One is more like a phobia – nervousness and a reflex to run away. The other is catastrophizing, where I don’t feel anything physically, my heart rate is normal, but when I think about the thing I’m catastrophizing about, I have thousands of thoughts about how it could go wrong. Do you only lack the phobic type of fear, or do you also not catastrophize?
Dorian: I won’t overthink too much either. That’s probably partly because there’s no fear there in the first place. I’m a very cutthroat, straight-to-the-point, logical kind of person. I see things for what they are and go from there. There’s no fear, no overthinking, no overplanning. That’s just me.
Dawn: I’ve also been wondering about pain itself. With your recent surgery, for example – does pain feel like literal suffering for you, or is it more of a signal that you can choose to interpret?
Dorian: I can put up with high amounts of pain. I won’t enjoy it. It’s just a part of life, really, isn’t it? It’s a signal, I know that, but it’s nothing too deep. If I feel pain, I’ll try to think of ways to minimize it, but I probably won’t make as much of a fuss as the average person.
Dawn: Does it feel like something that fills all of your perception when it happens, or is it more like something off to the side that you can look away from?
Dorian: I can ignore it for the most part. It’d have to be really bad for it to take over everything I’m doing. Even when I had appendicitis, I woke up with the pain in the morning and I didn’t go into the emergency room until five o’clock in the afternoon. I spent the whole day lifting heavy bags and doing shopping. So there’s a good example for you.
Dawn: Jamie also has a similar story from her childhood. It’s very strange to me but super interesting. I used to have a bouldering partner with a similar attitude. Let’s hop to the next section – relationships and attachment. You mentioned you had a three-year relationship, probably the mother of your son, and it was on-and-off. What caused the offs, and what caused the ons?
Dorian: There were a couple of times where I walked out, but I can’t even really remember why. It will have been a trivial reason. But overall, we were together for 90–95% of it. It is what it is.
Dawn: Do you know your attachment style?
Dorian: What are they? Do they have names?
Dawn: Yeah. My favorite measure is the Attachment Style Questionnaire, short form. There are two dimensions: preoccupied attachment, also called anxious attachment, and avoidant attachment, also called dismissive-avoidant. When someone is high on both, they don’t have one distinct style and just chaotically jump between them – that’s called disorganized. When conflict happens and the person disappears or walks out, that’s associated with avoidant attachment: “I don’t really need this person, I don’t want to deal with this conflict.” With preoccupied attachment, it’s more about eagerness to keep the other person, or testing whether they’re as securely attached as you hope. Disorganized is just a back-and-forth between the two.
Dorian: I don’t really know if I have an attachment style. None of that really describes me. If I want someone in my life – say, a girl – I won’t feel attached to her. So I wouldn’t say I have an attachment style, because I don’t feel attached to begin with. I’ll interact with her in a certain way, but that’s about it.
Dawn: Have you ever tried merging with another person – just sort of adding someone to your identity?
Dorian: No. No interest in it, either. I’m very fine with who I am. If you want to be a part of my life, if you want to merge with my life, we can do that. But I don’t need to merge anyone with my identity. It’s mine.
Dawn: You’ve described intimacy as a kind of power game, and vulnerability as a dangerous weakness in that power game. Where does that come from, and what does it feel like when someone gets emotionally close to you for it to feel threatening?
Dorian: When you say emotionally close, do you mean that they understand me more, or that they trust me more and tell me how they’re feeling more often?
Dawn: I would imagine you don’t feel any vulnerability or threat from me right now doing this interview. But in some relationships, when they get close enough in whatever sense, probably something does start to happen where you feel like it’s a risk.
Dorian: I’d have to say no. I don’t think I’ve ever been through it like that.
Dawn: Is that something you worry might happen?
Dorian: No.
Dawn: There was also a story about a dream of meeting some idealized woman and a doorway, and the doorway keeps shrinking. Can you describe that dream and what you think it represents?
Dorian: It wasn’t a recurring dream – it was just this dream I had once. I had this house that I lived in, and I went on holiday on my own. I met this girl at the hotel, and she had this gorgeous, fiery red hair. Really nice girl. We kept having to go to this other room in the hotel, but the doorway kept shrinking every time. Eventually, the girl said, “I can’t fit through the door anymore – you’ll have to stop.”
So we leave the hotel and make our way back home. She’s going to come and live with me. I end up losing her at the airport, but then we find each other again and go home. Right at the end of the dream, we’re at my house, talking about how we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together. But when I turn around, the front door and the back door are wide open. At that moment in the dream, my heart rate spiked, and I woke up almost ready to fight – filled with intense adrenaline.
I think what the dream meant was that the doorway represented my emotional capacity, or my expectations. The girl couldn’t fit – she wasn’t emotionally compatible, or she couldn’t meet my expectations in a partner. And the door to the house being open, which freaked me out, could have represented emotional vulnerability. That’s my take on it. There’s definitely something to do with my attachment style with women, if I have one.
Dawn: So the first part was about her being able to get to you, or vice versa, and the second part was probably about not her getting out through the back door, but someone coming in.
Dorian: There was no one coming in. It was just me and her, no one else.
Dawn: What would a successful relationship with that woman, or someone else, look like for you? What would the give and take be? What needs would you want met, and what would you be able to give in return?
Dorian: I’m a date-to-marry kind of guy. I want to be married. I want to be a successful doctor. If she wants kids, that’s fine – I already have a son, but if she wants another couple of kids, who am I to say no? Very traditionalist and conservative. That’d be my ideal marriage – somebody who’s accepting of who I am. A girl who can be with a guy who can’t feel sorry for her but can still have a laugh.
Dawn: So you’d be the breadwinner? What would be her role?
Dorian: Primarily a housewife, stay-at-home mother. But if we both want to do things in the community, or if she gets a job or a business, that’s fine, as long as everything else is taken care of.
Dawn: If she has a big business, then both of you can provide financially.
Dorian: Yeah. Well, first you’ve got to go out with the girl, so I don’t think it’ll be happening anytime soon. But in an ideal world, yeah.
Dawn: Why not anytime soon?
Dorian: I’m very avoidant when it comes to women. I get very paranoid and tend to keep my distance. My last girlfriend basically had to crowbar her way into my life to be with me. That kind of gives you the idea. But they say you can meet anyone at any second, so if it happens, it happens.
Dawn: Is there some kind of worry behind that avoidance?
Dorian: Yeah. I realized one day – I think a therapist said it to me – that if you want a successful relationship, you’ve got to compromise and surrender a bit of control. I don’t like the idea of that. But I’m willing to work on it with the right person.
Dawn: What sorts of control would be both likely and difficult to compromise on?
Dorian: Could be anything. All matters, big and small.
Dawn: What does romantic rejection feel like for you?
Dorian: It’ll hurt my ego. I’ll go through what most people would call narcissistic injury. That’s a very big ego wound for me. Which is really weird, especially when you don’t feel attached to anyone. But it’s more a pride thing than anything. I’m very paranoid or fearful of rejection – “fear” is not quite the right word, but that’s what I’m using. I have some borderline traits as well, so those can play up a little bit.
Dawn: What makes romantic rejection so much more difficult than, say, job rejection?
Dorian: Job rejection? I won’t care. It only occurs with romantic rejection. One’s just a job, but the other is a girl that you really like. Apples and oranges.
Dawn: There are all sorts of possibilities for why rejection stings – losing access to something, not getting needs met, feeling unworthy or flawed, losing control. Do any of these resonate?
Dorian: I don’t really know the mechanics behind it, but I just know that’s the way it is.
Dawn: When you do suffer a romantic rejection, do you pine more for the other person afterwards – think about them, think about how much you would have wanted to be close to them? Or is it more about yourself and what it means for you?
Dorian: It’s more about myself.
Dawn: What borderline traits have you noticed?
Dorian: I can tend to split quite easily on people. In some episodes, I can have a very rapid change in emotion – suddenly going from calm to absolutely furious. But then once everything’s calmed down, I’ll be fine within seconds. It’s really weird.
Dawn: When it comes to the splitting, is that something that happens for an hour, a day, a week – or is it usually permanent?
Dorian: It’s usually more permanent.
Dawn: I wouldn’t associate that so much with borderline – much more with NPD. Interesting. When a judge passes some kind of judgment against you, that’s also a kind of rejection in a way. But that probably doesn’t resonate the same way as a romantic rejection.
Dorian: No. When a judge sentences you, it’s not rejection. Unfortunately, you broke the law and got caught. It’s just an unfortunate consequence of life.
Dawn: What is your relationship with your son like? You’ve told me a bit about the play-fighting. Can you elaborate on what that relationship feels like and what you do when you’re together?
Dorian: He’s a young boy, and he’s the spitting image of me. My son is like a little extension of me. I don’t feel deeply bonded to him, but I do really care about him. I always pay his child support on time, I have him every weekend. We’re always doing days out, or sometimes he’ll just want to stay at home – he’s got an Xbox here. We just always have good times. I let him bounce up and down on the sofa, which he’s not allowed to do at his mum’s.
It’s probably the only fully transparent and healthy relationship that I’ve got in my life.
Dawn: To the extent that he’s an extension of you – has there ever been a partner, or anyone else, who felt similar in that sense?
Dorian: No, just my son.
Dawn: Does that mean it feels like his actions reflect on you? His achievements?
Dorian: They can do, in a way. Personality-wise, he’s the complete opposite of me. His mother has always said about our son that he’s the nice version of Dad. He looks like me, but he’s actually nice.
Dawn: He doesn’t have that swinging brick. Where does that metaphor come from? You have a swinging brick where your heart should be, or something?
Dorian: Yeah, that’s something his mother said years ago. This was all way before I was diagnosed. I didn’t get diagnosed with ASPD until a year or two after we’d split up. It’s just a phrase she said to me one day, and it stuck with me.
Dawn: It’s so specific – why is it swinging? We’ll never find out. What would it feel like for you if your son showed similar behaviors to the ones you probably showed around that age, or a little older?
Dorian: I wouldn’t feel deeply about it. His mother would probably get him referred to a child psychologist, and we’d go from there. But I wouldn’t feel bad about it or anything.
Dawn: Some friends of mine describe their role in the world like a video game, where they control a player character running around completing quests, and all around them are non-player characters (NPCs) they can interact with and manipulate. It makes virtually everyone in that world feel very unreal to them. And anything that happens in the game is really removed from who they actually are – if the character is injured or dies, there’s a health bar that goes down a bit, but it’s far removed from them. But they have exceptions – usually a dog, children, a husband – characters that feel much more real to them. Does that resonate with you? And does your son feel like one of those different characters who feels different from other people?
Dorian: Yes and yes. I’d say both of those are true. Especially when you’re a child, with psychopathy it’s like you just don’t really develop any emotional intelligence. You can think about the consequences of actions and words, but you don’t feel them deeply, so you don’t feel the world around you deeply. It’s a good way of describing it. You’re just running around, causing chaos, and you’ll always reset to the next day.
Dawn: And I imagine what has probably decreased is how removed you feel from your avatar?
Dorian: I don’t know – I’m just me. I’m not necessarily removed from myself. It’s just the world around me and other people in it.
Dawn: You described earlier that you’ve sort of grown into yourself, so I imagine you were more removed previously from your avatar, and now you’re more in there.
Dorian: Yeah.
Dawn: And this has had no effect on how most other people feel to you?
Dorian: Not really. I keep to myself for the most part, but people at uni are really nice. I like my classmates.
Dawn: I imagine that’s a contrast to the factory. There are all these attributes – being seen as bad or dangerous, as opposed to being seen as weak or out of control. Some people, in order not to seem bad, will claim not to have been in control. Others, in order not to seem out of control, will claim to have been bad intentionally. Does that make sense to you? Do you see yourself in one of those?
Dorian: I’ve kind of been described as both – “Dorian’s out of control, and therefore he’s being really bad.” But I don’t mind. It’s just the way somebody else sees me. From an outside perspective, I’d say I’m a very put-together, prioritized individual. I’m doing well in life, managing my money better, financially better off. I’m on a good trajectory. I can have my moments where I lose my temper, but I just try to keep out of certain situations, or keep away from a certain type of person who’s going to annoy me. And that seems to be working well.
Dawn: Can I make a return to your childhood? You mentioned at some point that you have some kind of childhood amnesia. Which years are affected, and what exactly is lost there?
Dorian: Probably 90% of everything from being a newborn right through to 17 or 18. I just honestly don’t care about my childhood that much, at all. It’s in the past, it’s gone, it’s done. It is what it is.
Dawn: Did you change a lot afterwards, and that’s why the new version can’t access those old memories?
Dorian: I’d say in some ways I’m a lot different than when I was a kid. But it’s not something I think deeply about, because I don’t need to. It doesn’t benefit me.
Dawn: Did the amnesia start right at age 19 or so, or is it more that years later you noticed you were having more and more trouble recalling those memories?
Dorian: I just noticed it years later, I think. But again, it’s not something that’s on my mind. I don’t live in the past or the future – I just live in the now. I’m always in the present, and that’s just my way of being.
Dawn: If some kind of hardship befell you – a long prison sentence, for example – would you also just be in the present? You mentioned you actually thought at one point that you might go to prison for about nine years.
Dorian: Yeah, that’s right. It didn’t feel like anything. I’ve never been scared of it. The thing is, with prison in this country at least, they’re always on 22- to 23-hour lockdown. What’s motivating me to stay out of prison is the boredom and the paranoia I’d feel in there. I just know it wouldn’t be good for me. I’d go on a mad one, essentially. Probably never get out. I’d be lucky if I did.
They’re very solitary, and very good at making people paranoid and depressed. I don’t know if I’d get depressed, but definitely paranoid. You can’t ever really relax in there. And you can’t really be the best version of yourself in that kind of place.
Dawn: A friend of mine also said that prison would be so boring for her that she would just start fights all the time, which would make the sentence longer and longer, and then she wouldn’t be able to get out anymore.
Dorian: Yeah, exactly. My dad, or my son’s mother, has said the same about me. They said I’d just be starting fights all the time, or stabbing people, because of how pent up I’d be. And I go, “Yeah.” So I’ve always got to keep myself stimulated or engaged with something.
Dawn: Jamie describes this very interesting no-self state, or anattā state, where she basically did not used to identify with what I, from the outside, would describe as herself. I have my own selfhood, which I probably developed in the first two years of my life, and so I just project that onto others. I feel like a separate person with my particular perspective on the world, and I feel intuitively that I’m allowed to move this body but not other bodies. And then I run into people who say, “No, actually, I don’t really identify with my own body.” I found that super interesting. I imagine you probably don’t have quite the same experience?
Dorian: I wouldn’t say so, no.
Dawn: You have your own particular perspective on the world. Is there something that, when you talk with Jamie, resonates about how you perceive the world, or how you perceive yourself in relationship to the world?
Dorian: My relationship to the world is that it’s kind of like – it’s my world, but you’re all just in it. That’s the closest or best way for me to describe it.
Dawn: It’s kind of like a playground. That’s a very clear distinction between yourself and others. Is there anything else where you and Jamie differ in your opinions or takes?
Dorian: I can’t think of any particular opinions that stick out. Me and Jamie are very similar but also very different. On some things we’re worlds apart, on others we’re not. Probably about an even 50-50 mix.
Dawn: In Jamie’s Discord server, what would you say is the ratio of people who are more like Jamie versus more like you versus just different in some other way?
Dorian: Everyone’s different in their own way.
Dawn: So you feel a similar degree of kinship with everyone?
Dorian: I wouldn’t say I feel kinship or friendship. It’s just a place where all different people come to chat.
Dawn: I have a few light closing questions, if you like. What is the funniest thing that’s actually happened to you because of how your brain works?
Dorian: I’ve got one. I remember talking about it in Jamie’s Discord, actually. To me, at the time, it wasn’t very funny. But now I can kind of look back on it and laugh.
I was getting ready to have my son over on the weekend. It was a Friday afternoon, and I was making the bed, getting his pajamas ready, getting everything ready for my kid. I was in my bedroom changing the sheets, and I looked out of my window. In my front yard, there was a young male – maybe early twenties or about 18 – with a balaclava over his face. My neighbor who lived above me was a 50-year-old man, so I knew it wasn’t him.
I opened the window and shouted down at the guy: “What are you doing in my yard?” He swore at me. Said, “What’s it got to do with you?” So immediately I saw red. I was only wearing socks and black boxer shorts. I grabbed this hunting knife – a big, silver, Rambo-type fixed-blade knife I kept in my bedside unit – put my boots on, and just ran outside half-naked. As soon as I opened the door, the guy saw me and ran. I chased him.
Honestly, I was trying to get him. This was years ago, not too long after I’d moved in. I was completely without fear or hesitation – that’s one of the few good things about having psychopathy. You’re not afraid, you’re not overthinking, you’re not procrastinating. You see a threat and you extinguish it one way or the other. I’m glad, in a way, that he got away, because imagine if I’d gotten hold of him – I could have been doing a life sentence. But I absolutely just wanted to get him.
He was probably scoping the place out for a burglary – it’s a high-crime area. We have locks, security lights, alarms, and everything now. But I ran out, chased the guy off, and as I turned to go back in, a woman was about 10 feet away who’d seen the whole thing. I just backed into the garden. I never got done for it.
There are probably loads of other funny things – nearly falling down the side of Snowdonia, getting the detective to shake my hand through the cell door. To me, it’s all very mundane. I have to think about what would be funny to someone who isn’t like me, because to me it’s not funny.
Here’s another one. I don’t even remember it, but my son’s mother told me about it last year. There was a time when we were together and living together. I’d been into town to some shop, and I got into an argument with somebody who owned a local business. She said I came back to the house really angry. Later that evening, my anger had simmered but it never went away. I said to her, “I’m going to burn down that guy’s shop. I’m just going to blow it up right now.”
How many guys have said that and then done nothing? She thought it was just me being angry. But when she saw me start putting my boots on and getting my jacket, she panicked. She was thinking, “Oh my God, he’s actually going to go out and do this.” So what she did – because I think she’d figured out by then that something was not right with me – was she had sex with me. And it worked. We went upstairs, and she said she made sure that when I woke up, there was a big, hot roast dinner ready for me. She said I just woke up and ate my dinner, as if I hadn’t been about to go out and commit arson.
I’ve got no memory or recollection of it. I just know what she’s told me. She was terrified, she said – her stomach was in bits, and she just didn’t know what to do.
Dawn: Unfortunately, arson is such a common first reaction. Very plausible. And the big knife – is that one you still have, or did the police take that when they found the lifeguard?
Dorian: No, the knife wasn’t an illegal weapon – just a normal fixed-blade hunting knife. The blade doesn’t fold. But it was a really cheap knife, and I was using it to cut weeds or do gardening, and it just snapped. So it went in the bin.
I’m sure I’ve done loads of other daft, crazy things, especially as a kid at 15, 16, 17 years old. But I probably won’t care to remember half of what I’ve done, because it’s just another day. Now I’m a lot more reserved and mature.
My dad has said to me, “I’ve seen a big difference in you, slowly over the years. I don’t worry about you as much. I don’t always think he’s going to get nicked. You’re at university now, and we can tell you care about that.” So staying engaged with things that are good and interesting for me – that’s how I’d end things.
Dawn: Caring about something also means having something to lose, and that has flow-through effects for other areas of life. What advice would you have for the 15-year-old version of you?
Dorian: I’d say: do more. Go for even more. Just do what you want – go out and do more.
Dawn: More of anything?
Dorian: More of anything.
Dawn: Is there anything in particular that you actually enjoy? I would imagine that control and winning are pleasurable, but beyond that?
Dorian: I don’t work toward “Am I happy?” or “Am I feeling happy?” The way I do things, it’s more: Am I content? Am I satisfied with the way everything is at the moment? But I do genuinely enjoy the time I spend with my son. I’ve trained him up to be really good at fighting – he’s only five years old, but he throws a hell of a left hook now. He’s an extension of me, and I think any healthy man likes to be a good dad. That’s one thing I enjoy.
I enjoy my studies as well. I like doing my assignments at university, writing academically. And I like going there, because school for me as a kid – especially secondary school – was like prison. It was horrible in a lot of ways. I even had bars on the windows in my old secondary school. It wasn’t a great place. So now I’m sort of getting to relive going to school, but this time it’s good. I’m enjoying it. Just staying on the straight and narrow.
Dawn: That also made a huge difference for me – between high school, where I was forced to be on the property during certain hours, and university, where I actually chose to go and wanted to be. Finally, is there anything that you wish people like me would ask you, but they never do?
Dorian: Not really – not in those terms. But I wish everybody would stop thinking that we’re all serial murderers and sex offenders. Maybe just get away from those Netflix dramas and TikTok and all the myths. Open a textbook once in a while. Look at some actual information on people with psychopathy, or maybe listen to us a bit more. That’s what I’d say.
I’ve had some interesting questions posed to me on my YouTube channel. They’re a good bunch. I think we’re nearly at 140 subscribers now. If anyone’s got any questions for me, you can comment them down below, or go over to my channel and ask me on there. I’ll be taking a look at both either way.
Dawn: I’ll link the channel in the description. You’ll probably do FAQ videos from time to time to answer them.
Dorian: I’ve done one already – a comments reaction. I like doing them because they’re really easy. Somebody in my comments section asked a question, and then another person replied, “He doesn’t bother replying to his comments.” So I had to reply and say, “I am – I just do it in video form.” Which I prefer. It’s just better that way, isn’t it?
Dawn: Makes a lot of sense, and you get a cool new video out of it. That was all of my questions. Thank you so much.
Dorian: They were really good. Thank you very much for having me on, Dawn. I appreciate the offer and the invite. I know we were supposed to do this last week, but we had technical difficulties. We’ve cracked the matrix now, so we’re back. Thanks for having me on, and everybody, thank you for watching. Be sure to check out my channel – the link will be in the description below. And before you subscribe to me, make sure you’re already subscribed to Dawn here. We’ll both see you in the future. Dawn, thank you for having me on – it’s been an absolute pleasure. Take care.
Dawn: Thank you, goodbye, and like and subscribe!
Dorian: Bye.
