Neurological correlates of aggressive, hostile-type stalking: the cognitive inflexibility and source memory impairment of OCD topped off with a lack of self awareness.
I didn’t realize January is National Stalking Awareness Month assuming HR Resolution 46 (January 2009) is passed:
Whereas an estimated 1,006,970 women and 370,990 men are stalked annually in the United States and, in the majority of such cases, the person is stalked by someone who is not a stranger;
Whereas 81 percent of women, who are stalked by an intimate partner, are also physically assaulted by that partner, and 76 percent of women, who are killed by an intimate partner, were also stalked by that intimate partner;
Whereas 74.2 percent of stalking victims reported that the stalking partner interfered with their employment, 26 percent of stalking victims lose time from work as a result of their victimization, and 7 percent never return to work;
Whereas stalking victims are forced to take drastic measures to protect themselves, such as relocating, changing their addresses, changing their identities, changing jobs, and obtaining protection orders;
Whereas stalking is a crime that cuts across race, culture, gender, age, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, and economic status;
Whereas stalking is a crime under Federal law and under the laws of all 50 States and the District of Columbia;
Whereas rapid advancements in technology have made cyber-surveillance the new frontier in stalking;
Whereas there are national organizations, local victim service organizations, prosecutors’ offices, and police departments that stand ready to assist stalking victims and who are working diligently to craft competent, thorough, and innovative responses to stalking;
Whereas there is a need to enhance the criminal justice system’s response to stalking and stalking victims, including aggressive investigation and prosecution; and Whereas the House of Representatives urges the establishment of January 2009 as National Stalking Awareness Month. . .
So, why do stalkers stalk? In the national Stalking Victimization Study, victims were asked about a presumed motivation for their stalkers (Table 6). Out of 3,416,460 victims:
- 36.6% said stalker’s motivation was “Retaliation/anger/spite”
- 32.9% said “Control”
- 23.4% said “mentally ill/emotionally unstable”.
So. . . again, why do stalkers stalk — what is this psychopathology?
First, here’s the law enforcement guidelines for “stalking”
Stalking can be defined as a pattern of repeated and unwanted attention, harassment, contact, or any other course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear.
It is a course of conduct that can include:
- Repeated, unwanted, intrusive, and frightening communications from the perpetrator by phone, mail, and/or email
- Repeatedly leaving or sending victim unwanted items, presents, or flowers
- Following or laying in wait for the victim at places such as home, school, work, or recreation place
- Making direct or indirect threats to harm the victim, the victim’s children, relatives, friends, or pets.
- Damaging or threatening to damage the victim’s property
- Harassing victim through the internet
- Posting information or spreading rumors about the victim on the internet, in a public place, or by word of mouth
- Obtaining personal information about the victim by accessing public records, using internet search services, hiring private investigators, going through the victim’s garbage, following the victim, contacting victim’s friends, family work, or neighbors, etc.
Source: Stalking Resource Center, National Center for Victims of Crime
Fear and intimidation as a means of unleashing vindictive aggressive hostility is probably pretty common. Here’s an instructive article about a Harvard educated lawyer stalked and murdered by an ex. Tragically, this is only one of thousands and thousands and thousands of stories ending in murder of the victim. This woman even worked for a time in a public defender’s office defending domestic violence defendants – she knew the system. She had gotten a protective order against her stalker at the time of her murder. Apparently she had moved across the country, to Seattle, left the law, and got a gig at Microsoft working on gaming to avoid this guy. No matter; he followed her, shot her to death in a parking lot, and then killed himself. (If you go to the link, read the comments. Very scary.)
Putting all of this together, aggressive, hostility-based stalking seems like a deficit in the parietal region, associated with a sense of self as well as self-referential memories. This, combined with a particularly malignant form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (“OCD”). This is just a preliminary connect-the-dots. Finding research is tough — there are no brain scans of stalkers, and the shrinks with behavioral profiles don’t seem to be talking to the imaging departments:
1. Cognitive inflexibility: similar to those with OCD, the fronto-striatal loop seems to be stuck: stalkers so objectify the targets that beyond mere “obsession”, there is a compulsive need to “complete” the stalking.
2. Impairment of “source memory” (memory of where or from whom you learned something): People with OCD have impaired source memory functioning. If you can’t remember who told you something, then no one has credibility, I suppose, and you sort of re-write history to suit your current state of funk. Source memory is pulled out of the right inferior parietal region – an area associated with a sense of “self”.
3. Lack of perspective taking: Stalkers don’t see things from the victim’s point of view. This much is apparent from behavior: they plainly screw things up. If you want a romantic interest to return, you don’t harass them. Why would someone want to be around the person who harasses and intimidates them? I asked a rage-a-holic this once — “What do you think other people think of you when you rage at them?” and this person went stone silent. Stumped. I don’t think this had occurred to them. I dunno, but seems like a theory of mind deficit, found in the fronto-parietal loop. (That link is an interesting study — putting a transcranial magnet by the brain regions involved in theory-of-mind results in subjects have a tough time figuring out stories about what other people are thinking).
Is anyone out there a stalker? Why do/did you stalk? Why did you stop or is there anything your victim can do to convince you to stop? Was the fear you instilled in your victim satisfactory to you, and in what way? Are you diagnosed with a clinical condition or on psych meds?
I’m serious. What is your thought process?
I don’t expect anyone will answer.
Here’s John Lennon, “Jealous Guy”:
also if anyones interested, i just started up a blog on mental health, would love anyone to check it out!
http://www.tumblr.com/blog/tryhonesty2
Thank you Christine, by the way. I learned some helpful info about myself.
apfmh, I keep relapsing also when there is nothing else for my brain to do. I go out and do new things, meet new people, focus on work, start a new hobby. It gives my brain a break and a temporary sense of relief. Moving on to the next guy should do it. Someone nicer that wants to be next to me and not just follow me around.
What’s keeping you from asking girls out? Why do you just watch them? For me, being watched by strangers is creepy. I feel objectified and annoyed. Like they are crossing into my personal space and I didn’t give them permission to be there.
Go put someone else in your head that wants to be there. Go get a girlfriend if you don’t already have one. Get a new one if the one you have isn’t working out.
I’m actually a girl myself, (i know not obvious by username so thought id clarify that), and i do have a boyfriend who i am very much in love with, he is everything to me and i know we will get married one day. he’s amazing.
my issue is, i used to “stalk” these girls when i was pretty young, about 14-16, and then they graduated (they were a couple years older than me) and i hardly saw them so i was FORCED to get over them…i wish i could remember how i did…
because a few months ago i decided to apologise to them, and they were both really good about it and told me not to worry or beat myself up about it, etc. etc. and then since then i’ve had them on my mind again…i was just getting over it again, when my sister mentioned she was having dinner with them in a few days time, (which was now last night) and it all flared up again…
and last night i was just in tears because i wanted that feeling to go away, i was so jealous that my sister got to see them and i didn’t. i basically took some sedatives (prescription) and put myself to sleep so i didnt have to think about how my sister was with them…right now…cause that hurt too much.
i know it doesn’t make much sense, even to me. i just wish i could click a button and get over it.
That clarifies things. What did you want from those girls when you were stalking them? When I was upset last I went back (mentally) to a couple of people that I hurt, guys and girls. It helped when I apologized to those I was able to get a hold of. Now that I feel better I am able to let go of those I couldn’t get a hold of.
It could be the depression that brings you back to those girls. Maybe focusing on making yourself happy. Some people go out and make others happy (volunteering). Go see a doctor to rule out any medical condition for your depression. I’ve also read that our brains need constant stimulation, always working for that next thing to keep us interested in life. Whatever you discover, good luck. I know it’s not easy having to deal with depression that’s why so many people turn to medication.
sc: … The leaders who view the atrocities as the mere instrumentality toward the end of basically mass thievery are clearly psychopathic, to us. This goes along with the charm, emotion-faking, etc. as instrumentalities toward an end goal. The followers — usually “ordinary” people as you suggest — who are of interest.
I disagree. I’d lead a genocide if I could. But I’m not a sociopath: I do have emotions, have some empathy for people, don’t have the glib charm, etc.
SC: We gather that recent academic genocide theory proposes that, for the “ordinary extremist” followers, it’s the avoidance of social rejection that’s the kicker, that gets people in the “just following orders” mode to commit atrocities…
At one point in my lifeI took great delight in being a sadistic asshole in the course of doing my duties. I behaved terribly because I had official sanction to be a total dick. I loved being given orders to “take care of things” – because that meant I had a carte blanche to vent my rage while doing my job.
In different circumstances, I’d be happy to be on a death squad, or “interrogation” (aka torture) squad.
Also, I’ve done more studying. Most people, when given the choice of taking action to kill one person, or not taking action, and having 5 people die, agree that it is better to take action and kill one person. But for whatever reason, they can’t bring themselves to act. Although I haven’t been in the circumstance, I know I’d do the killing of the one person. My being able to do it would prove that I’m better than the weaklings who can’t do what’s necessary.
In this way, I agree totally with Himmler, who said, “Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interest me only in so far as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished. We shall never be rough and heartless when it is not necessary, that is clear. We Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards animals, will also assume a decent attitude towards these human animals. But it is a crime against our own blood to worry about them and give them ideals, thus causing our sons and grandsons to have a more difficult time with them. When someone comes to me and says, “I cannot dig the anti-tank ditch with women and children, it is inhuman, for it will kill them”, then I would have to say, “you are a murderer of your own blood because if the anti-tank ditch is not dug, German soldiers will die, and they are the sons of German mothers. They are our own blood”
SD:
Thanks for the comment. We don’t mean to treat you like a living laboratory, (and readers, we have no idea who is for real and who isn’t) but we think you are doing a public service by explaining how you think. We assume you are of the sort studied by the Southern Poverty Law Center . We note with interest you in-group affiliation, even if the atrocities to out-group is only incidental in the perceived protection of the appointed in-group.
So some questions that we’re curious about, and thank you in advance for your answers. We’re interested in the biology of extremists.
1. On rage and anger (“carte blanche to vent my rage”). We ask because there are tons of papers on anger/intermittent explosive disorder/hostile attributional bias, etc. you get the drift. Not to mention feline rage. Do you have any insight into your rage? Why is it enjoyable? And thanks for an answer in advance, we think a lot of our readers would be interested in this.
2. On emotion in general. You mention that you do feel emotion, and relatedly (in terms of brain wiring) you can carry a tune. What emotions do you feel? We’re guessing you don’t ever feel true, unbridled joy, yet, if we read you, your form of joy is with true, unbridled rage. (This has lots of implications as far a brain wiring, as you can imagine.)
So some frontal lobe questions — we’ve been wondering whether the lack of ability to feel happiness/joy is related to forms of frontal lobe dementias based on neurofibrilliary tangles or other actual, physical brain clogging molecules, so hence the questions:
Any dementias in your family?
Are you apathetic?
Do you have binge eating or other lack of inhibition? (The frontal brain dis-inhibition, we’d put rage in that category)
You seem to have the ability to have some introspection, do you agree?
Do you blame people a lot for your troubles (externalizing indicates impaired introspection, in our view)
Also:
How’s your sense of smell?
Do you have high cholesterol (we’re wondering about the APO E4 allele)?
Do you get headaches? Seizures?
Ever had a head injury?
Do you feel disgust?
Do you feel fear?
Do you feel envy/jealous?
Again, to be clear: We couldn’t be more in disagreement with your worldview (expressed here) but we thank you for checking in, and think on balance, that the people (mostly students and academics) who read this would be interested to see what you have to say . We may have to delete your posts at some point if things get over the top out there, but for now, we think this is constructive, and we hope you find it useful to you.
We’re curious as to several SNPS so when you get your DNA done, would you let us know? We’re actually curious about the APO E4 alleles, and rs53576 (the oxytocin receptor).
SC: We note with interest you in-group affiliation, even if the atrocities to out-group is only incidental in the perceived protection of the appointed in-group.
SD: You might have misunderstood me. Although I quote Himmler, I’m quoting him because I agree with him in principle (it is important for people to suspend their empathic instincts for the greater good). All extremists I can think of would agree with Himmler – but they typically would be more self-deluded, less lucid and less blunt zan ze evil Germans.
The Germans were, like me, self-aware extremists. They sat down, looked at themselves, figured out who they were and did what they did without needing to deceive themselves about it. Somewhat stupidly, they kept a lot of records and let everybody know what low-empathy assholes they were – which lead to a lot of blowback. Nevertheless, I respect the Germans for being so honest about themselves. It goes hand-in-hand with me despising people who feel the need to delude themselves about their ethnocentric nature.
About rage: I’ve got no tolerance for people that break rules I consider important. I despise them. Having a job where I can punish them, under color of authority, is a tremendous delight. I am a sadist.
I do feel true, unbridled joy. There are days I wake up and am happy to be alive. I marvel at what a miracle it is just to exist.
No clear dementia in the family. I’m not apathetic. I’ve had eating disorders. I’m introspective. When competing with others, I blame them for my troubles. However, in general, I’m self-reliant. I have a decent sense of smell. I’m not sure about the cholesterol – haven’t had it tested. I don’t get headaches or seizures. Can’t remember any serious head injury. I feel disgust regularly, along with fear and envy/jealousy.
Great post. I would also like to add something. I believe stalking also relates to having lack of intimacy and i think this would lead to a stalker having unrealistic fantasies of the desired person he/she is stalking. Just my 2 cent.
SD, listen to this radio show (it’s about 30 minutes or so) about the biology of dictators. You may find it of interest.
http://english.ruvr.ru/radio_broadcast/25298789/62759625.html
To oversimplify, and kindly excuse the cursory nature of this, your answers (if we understand the research reports correctly) point to OK frontal lobe (smell, no dementia, etc.). The joy, if felt only upon someone’s impending demise, doesn’t count. But your comments indicate the ability to feel happiness/lack of apathy, and so that also indicates OK frontal lobes. Cholesterol is related to APOE allelic variants, and those are related to dementias/early Alzheimers. You indicate no known issues, but you may want to check your Alzheimer’s results when you get the 23 and me spit test results back. (APO E4 allelic variants are correlated with early Alzheimers, not in all people, but sometimes).
The fact that you feel envy/jealousy would seem to indicate no autistic spectrum, as some reports say that those with autistic spectrum don’t have the social awareness/interest to determine competition between people, never mind envy/jealousy. Interestingly, you regularly feel disgusted, and recent reports point to disgust sensitivity correlated with increased connectivity with(in) the insula. Given that psychopaths are thought to have some white matter functional connectivity issues, it’s interesting to us that the psychopaths we know (yes, our view, nothing official) seem to be disgusted frequently. (It’s also interesting given that they have no gag reflex to their own disgusting behavior, and seem to have no mirror neuron reaction when others are disgusted with them. Perhaps there’s local hyper-connectivity as a compensatory mechanism for global wobbly white matter disconnects.
You indicate despising (hatred/digust?) people who don’t admit that they feel superior in their own ethnic origin. We view this presumption of other people’s intent as a hostile attributional bias, something not uncommon in those with mental health disorders, such as bipolar (no we’re not a doctor, this is our interpretation of the research, so don’t quote us on this one). We haven’t been able to figure out the biology of a hostile attributional bias but it seems to us to be a matter of perception. (See our post about the Uncanny Valley). Or maybe it’s just a cognitive thing, an ex post facto excuse for having aggressive hostility to begin with (viz.; an excuse of “we know what they were really thinking, so we beat them up first” type of in-group territoriality). The blaming-others always puzzles us: failure to self-correct mistakes results in repeating useless behavior. So perhaps there’s a neural plasticity/impaired ability to learn new things aspect. (This could be on a cellular level, such as cytoskeletal formation, tauopathy, or any number of things). The purely cognitive “blame others to get out of trouble” learned in toddlerhood is not strategic if you really don’t understand your own mistakes.
This brings us full circle again to in-group parochial altruism. To us, ethnicity is a social construct — genetically, ethnicity is usually counter-factual. We suppose that anyone can chose whatever arbitrary phenotype they want for their in-group. Skin color? Religion? Wharton MBA? We think a better indicator of “race” qua genetic heritage is lactose tolerance, or mitochondrial DNA. But whatever. That’s why we view this “in-group” parochial altruism as territoriality related to vasopressin receptor variants, in some regards, as we mentioned earlier.(Interesting paper: shame and honor drive social cooperation).
But you point out your need for power over someone — presumably anyone, regardless of in-group status — and so there’s always that. Psychopaths do have locally enlarged amygdalas (the rage thing, see a brain map here). The power trip thing would seem to be a dopamine thing, and psychopaths are thought to have abnormally large and dopamine-receptor filled striatums. You mention paranoia and depression, if we recall correctly, so one genetic correlate is the MAOA-l form (serotonin, particularly with early childhood abuse, at least as reported in some studies, persumably resulting in the popularity of SSRI’s).
All of this is merely at the parlor game level, of course. And, even the biology you’re born with isn’t destiny. (Our view is that epigenetics gives everyone a second chance).
SD: We’ve deleted your latest comment. Thank you for your comments to date.
” swivelchair on December 28, 2011 at 7:57 pm SD: We’ve deleted your latest comment. Thank you for your comments to date.”
Are you sure I made another comment? If it wasn’t a duplicate (that I made inadvertently) of the one ending “upcoming nasty acts”, maybe it was a forgery.
swivelchair why was Snoop Dog’s last comment deleted? There was nothing particularly offensive about the post. This coming from a person who is most likely not in his “in group” judging by the shade of my tan.
He has to understand that the site will not be used as a stage, and we an audience, to his “nasty acts” if they include harm to himself or others.
His last comment suggests that you might be feeding his paranoia.
He needs to get out of his head and out in the world more where he can see that both he and his race are safe. His vast resources should be proof that he is doing better than most people in the world and that he should use some of it to get help.
Does he really want to spend the rest of his life stuck in this fight or flight mode? Doesn’t he remember a time when everything was relatively peaceful and how can he not want to get back there? Unless he is delusional, in which case all we can do is point out his irrationality, which is what I thought you were doing.
Michelle — I didn’t knowingly make another comment. I’m guessing it was a forgery. I don’t think I’m paranoid now.
I don’t intend to harm myself or others. My point was just to make clear – I’m still a nasty person, despite being more self-aware.
I think you are wrong about things. The entire Western world is being overrun right now. Meanwhile, Africa is safe for Africans and China is safe for Chinese; there may be some other peoples that are safe, but those are the obvious ones.
That said, I’m not in fight or flight mode; I’m relaxed right now. I’m resigned to the fact that the universe doesn’t always go the way I want it to.
Now – back to the topic of people who do bad things:
I’ve learned about sociopathy, and I’m definitely not one, despite being capable of doing very bad things without remorse. I think I’m a “morally-deficient” extremist. I’m the sort to lose my temper, take offense, and engage in massive retaliation. And I’m quite aware of it.
I don’t think this is particularly unusual. If you study vendetta, it is how things have been done for a long time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feud
I think it would be neat if people would study this stuff, because then people would stop lumping in people like me (who are reasonably normal) with the sociopaths.
T think I’m a malignant narcissist, with habitually low (but improving) cognitive empathy.
Traits: craving of adulation from others, despising others, living according to my own moral code, hurting some people without remorse, Machiavellianism, sadism, being more afraid of getting caught than guilt, paranoid traits, hunger for risk and sexual conquest, need for revenge, attention seeking behavior, hypersensitivity to criticism, harsh criticizing of others, suicidal thinking, etc.
I’m surprised nobody figured that out, based on the revenge-related stuff. It really hit me that I’m mean and nasty and feel good about it. Rule out sociopath and narcissist fits. Malignant narcissist fits even better. That’s why I’m able to talk about how “evil” I am and feel OK about it; I really think I’m better than the rest of you.
I’m ashamed to realize this. I intend to change.
Also swivelchair, I disagree with you on this one: http://neurologicalcorrelates.com/wordpress/2008/11/12/narcissistic-leaders-remove-them-dont-coach-them/ — I have “coaches”. I listen to what they say because I know when my emotions are too stirred up, I’m better to listen to them. I’m very loyal to them too; they aren’t there so I can throw them under the bus when it suits me.
It happend to me twice. Once when I was 21; I got obsessed over my boyfriend’s ex. It came out of the blue this intense desire to get to know this person I heard so much ( I was young and stupid and asked about ex girlfriends) about, but never met. I remember I used to walk by her house hoping to get a glimpse and feel this rush of pleasure. No make a long and sad story short, I waisted a whole summer by living in a secret world of my own and feeding my addiction ( this rush of pleasure when getting close to this girl). I never had any interntion of harming her and in the and I only got to see her once. Bun I am stil ashamed today at what happened that summer. I behaved completely irrational, like an animal, and I don’t know the reason, what could have triggered that instinct to stalk. The second time, it had a reason. Somehow, the idea that my professon in graduate school was secretively in love with me,got stuck into my head. To my defence he has done something ( stared , and I know I was objective about it because I counted how many times he looked my way, while changing my place in the room over courses). Well I lost my objectivety pretty soon and developed come form of delusional ideas and reference ideas. Luckily, I had enought sense to stop myself ( for fear of public humiliation) and not stalk the guy, but I thought often about it . In the end the ionly way out was with a complete breakdown when I started to realize it was all my delusion and the guy may have never had any interest for me, or even if he had, he would”t have acted on it. At first I didn t what to believe it. Part of my mind ( that used with the dayly fix of thinking/reading/imagining etc about this guy) was in agony. I felt physical nausea. But I was also very scared at how I lost control and waisted almost 2 years fantesizing about a guy I never ever talked to informally
). I had what I know think it was a small psychotic reaction with a couple of hours not knowing what was real, self harming ( literally punching and slaping myself) and intense feeling of anger and hate. And then I got into a lovely depression. With medication ( I insisted on antipsychotics because I was so afraid ) I recovered in time . I am better now and in a way stronger because I guess I know now what I am capable of ( my brain mostly). I have the potential of becoming obsessed with somebody/something/goals, the energy and motivation to persist and I can get very vindictive. I guess I don’t have to mantion that I am walking on egg shells at the moment, very careful with what I put my thoughts/intentions/objectives into.
I am writing this not to vent , but to inform those who are interested into how people ( apparently normal and intelligent people) can lose control over their actions. Maybe some info about my hystory would help : my father’s side of the family are all emotionally instable, with marked hypomanic ( some manic) traits. My father is very irritable/impulsive, emotionally and sometimes physically abusive. He does that because of his irritable mood and narcissism. My mother is very stable and has no symptoms of personality disorder, ocassionally anxious. I was a healthy baby with temper tantrums in chilhood. My basic personality/mood was hypomanic ( over-talkative, very energic, even as a baby had troubles going to sleep before 00-01 AM, irritable, adventurous- reckless sometimes, and very self motivated- I always got what I wanted). Since then ( I am 29) over my basic hipomanic disposition I had some episodes of severe depression. Usually I had mixed mood ( irritable and depressive) but over the years the depression became more severe- ahedonia, inability to move, cold etc). My doctor does not want to give me a diagnostic of bipolar but I am treated as one. What I have noticed is that, sodium valproate( 500-1000 mg/daily) took my hipomania ( and with it my personality) away. I was calm, didn’t talk, normal energy, slept early and I was even tempered and soft. Not a single angry outburst in 1 year ! And guess what, my obsessive mode went away also. But every good thing has a set back : I was bland, uninteresting, un motivated etc. I had a lousy job, no decent man was interested in me ( because I souded dumb)and I could’n recognize myself anymore. But I wasn’y controling angry and obsessive. In the and I made a compromise. I take my antidepressants and a very small dose of valproate and my old self is back
) with anger, compulsions, drive ambitions and the rest.
This post is too long and I am somehow ashamed for overexposing myself like that, but as a mental health professonal myself ( indeed
I know how it is to be on the other side and I guess other could gain something from this.
P.S sorry for my english
I got my 23andme results. I know how to browse the raw data, but I don’t know how to interpret the results. Fire away.
self{help|review} thank you
SD – You can also share your snps on OpenSNP although we haven’t tried it and can’t vouch for anything. Please take all of this with a huge boulder of salt as the research is early, the studies may be underpowered, and who knows if it’s nature or nurture or whatever. Thank you in advance for your reply.
(Readers: Again, we have no idea who is for real and who isn’t so you, too, take all of this with a grain of salt).
OK: here goes:
Oxytocin receptor
rs53576
Our guess: AA (lower binding to oxytocin, explains lack of bonding with others, and apparently associated with autistic spectrum conditions, to oversimplify)
D2 (dopamine 2) receptor (DR2/ANKK1 Taq1A)
RS1800497
Our guess: low dopamine receptor expression
COMT (Warrior or worrier?)
rs4680
Our guess: GG, worrier (per your description of being paranoid) although you self-describe as highly intelligent, so maybe AG. COMT GG is the high enzyme activity which apparently decreases blood flow in the frontal cortex. The AA version is associated with higher intelligence, and you self-describe as highly intelligent. This one will be interesting — if you have GG and are highly intelligent, then there must be some other reason for the increased blood flow in the frontal brain that defeats any deleterious affects of the excess COMT activity.
Here’s a whole list from SNPedia. There’s a long list about hostility, paranoia and cynicism (the paper). Alot of the SNPs don’t appear to be characterized or located in 23 and me.
From SNPedia, go to the right column and click the 23 and me link — if you log in to your 23 and me account you can go there to see what you have.
Once we get enough for a blog post, we’ll move this out of the comments and into a regular post under the headline: “Exclusive! Self-described extremist shares SNPs!”
Not a scientific study (n=1 and that 1 may be total hooey) but hey, it does contribute something.