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Patric Gagne holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology and was diagnosed with a mild form of antisocial personality disorder - and there are quite a few valuable things she aims to do here: She encourages readers to understand sociopathy as a form of emotional learning disability, meaning that some emotions do not come naturally to neurodivergent people afflicted with it. She also distinguishes deficits in emotional literacy from concrete behaviors, because behaviors entail decisions - and that's a valuable distinction when it comes to determining agency. And of course, Gagne shares personal experiences: In a twisty turn, she tells us what it feels like to be emotionally deprived, how it affected her as a child, a student, a wife, a mother.

But the problem is that this memoir is way too much in love with the assumed shock factor of declaring "I'm a sociopath", and that doesn't carry over ca. 370 pages - the book feels awfully long and frequently does what it criticizes, namely leaning into the stereotypes in order to use them to gain attention. Whether the author's name is a pseudonym or not is debated on the interwebs, and the legitimacy of her academic credentials are questioned - be it as it may, "gagne" is French for "wins". "Patric Wins", the name couldn't be more apt regarding her self-perception. You decide whether that's quirky or annoying. At the end of the day, Gagne is a person with lots of theoretical knowledge and personal experience regarding a highly stigmatized mental disorder, so the constant coquettish "I'm a sociopath" wouldn't have been required. The facts alone, smartly told, would have been enough.

In fact, I think she could have gone more in depth regarding treatments and scientific research on anti-social personality disorder. In short: This book would have needed a strict editor.