‘I’m a liar, I’m a thief, I’m emotionally shallow’: what it’s like to be a sociopath

Patric Gagne explains what it is to live a life ‘immune to remorse and guilt, capable of doing almost anything’

Patric Gagne believes sociopathy is a spectrum. Photo: Stephen Holvik

Andrew Lynch

Patric Gagne began her life as a ­sociopath by stealing Ringo Starr’s glasses. Introduced to the former ­Beatle by her music executive father, the Los Angeles toddler swiped his ­spectacles and still owns them today.

Young Patric was not a kleptomaniac, she insists in this intriguing, provocative but ultimately frustrating memoir. She simply wanted to feel something, any emotion at all that might fill the terrible psychic void inside her. Now aged 48, she claims to seem like a perfectly nice woman. She works as a therapist and volunteers as a grief counsellor, specialising in helping victims of violent crime. She has a husband, two children and plenty of friends. She lives in a big home, socialises at a country club and throws parties whenever the chance arises.