Hello, my name is Dorianha Bogelund. I’ll be frank with you—I am just a 13-year-old female on the Internet. After reading an article by Jennifer Kahn featuring your work with prepsychopathic children, I felt I needed to contact you. I do hope this email reaches you, and I would greatly appreciate if you could read it in its entirety and reply to me.

I simply can’t feel empathy for others—not any more, at least. I remember a time where I was very emotional in general. I often cried at petty insults in primary school, and it made me sad to hear stories on the news about tragic events. However, I no longer feel empathy, remorse, or guilt. There are rare occasions where I’ll feel a small level of empathy, and those give me hope that some day I’ll be “normal” again, but other than that I feel like a lost cause.

I think that one of the possible triggers for these psychopathic traits is the things I’ve been exposed to on the Internet. I have seen extremely disturbing gore and pornography, and I’ve read about too many horrible stories to care any more, plus I have received much emotional abuse from other people online. Surprisingly enough, I have not been exposed to any physical, emotional, or sexual abuse in real life. I believe that what I’ve seen online is really the main cause.

As to the genetic side of things, I do not have too much information about either of my parents, but I’m quite sure my mother is not a psychopath. From what I know about my father, it would be reasonable to assume he was indeed a psychopath. When I was about 3 years of age, I was vacationing in Mexico with my father and my grandmother (she is the mother of my mother, not my father). On the last day of our vacation, my father allegedly attempted to kill my grandmother and I with his vehicle. My grandmother has also told me he was very abusive to her, me, and my mother, although I do not have any recollection of these events. (Interestingly, while she was telling me about this visit to Mexico, I found that I was shaking and twitching uncontrollably, despite feeling no emotional attachment to anything she described.) So, it is likely that I inherited some of these traits from my father. That makes me worried, seeing as he was a very violent psychopath as an adult and did not simply grow out of it.

Now onto the specific behaviors I exhibit. I am very emotionally abusive to my grandmother. I frequently yell and scream at her if she annoys me in the slightest, and I have gone as far as threatening her with a knife (I am not proud of this at all and I don’t believe I would ever do it again, even though I can never be entirely sure). I usually feel as though I have no control over these outbursts. I have tried many times to control them, but my attempts never seem to work.

On the Internet, my behavior is even worse, I would say. I target vulnerable people, who are often innocent, with my relentless attacks, and I find it quite difficult to drop a grudge. I think of many people as “stupid”, annoying, and unintelligent. I email them daily with vulgar hate messages that have proven to be emotionally scarring. I recognize that they do not deserve this, and that I am likely being irrational, but I can’t seem to get over my hate for them.

However, on the other hand, there are a few people who I really like and become attached to, often in both an emotional and sexual way. There have been a total of seven people who I have felt this way towards before, with each case varying in severity. When I’m thinking under this mindset, I tend to think of everything they say as good, event though I might not agree with some things they say while thinking normally. The opposite can be said for the people whom I hate irrationally.

After a bit of research, I’ve found that this could be classified as idealization and devaluation. I’m clearly not a psychologist, but that sounds about right to me.

Please note that I am certainly NOT proud of these behaviors, and I honestly hate myself for them. I will admit I take pride in my skills to manipulate and con, but the abuse I exhibit towards others is horrible.

Now, I have actually been to a treatment center recently called Maples Adolescent Treatment Center, but they failed to provide a proper diagnosis or any sort of treatment plan. I think one of the main problems is that I am extremely shy in real life, to the point where I can literally hardly speak with adults. I find it far more easy to adjust to an environment with other children of my age. When trying to speak with adults, I experience symptoms of social anxiety. This has unfortunately had quite an effect on their observation and analysis. They have actually referred me to another treatment center, but I am not sure what’s happening with that.

I apologize if I am inconveniencing you in any way. I just felt I needed to send this because of your research in child psychopathy, and because no one so far has been able to help me at all. As I said earlier, I would really appreciate a response to this email. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Thank you,

Dorianha