R.K.: You have described how you have, you also discovered you've got some kind of bipolar disorder and that where you have not the worst kind, but you have maybe the best kind, the kind where you get the manic high and you've said, who would want to let that go and if you can describe and explain that a little bit.
J.F.: Sure. Well Rob you know bipolar disorder is defined more by the mania or hypomania than by the depression. So people can be purely manic or hypomanic can be described as bipolars and that confuses people because it's bipolar and it sounds like depression. It really has more to do with the mania or hypomania. Now mania, full blown mania is psychotic and that's your, and I have some colleagues who are professors who have that and in talking to them, they'll just in their personal life, they'll just all of the sudden fly off to Vegas and buy a bunch of cars and just really destroy their family life and their finances. They just really go wild. I have what's called hypomania and hypomania is this exhilarated feeling of very positive energy and you feel full of yourself and you're very confident and it feels great. That's what I have and I had that starting at about the time in my late teens it starts when I became a libertarian, when I left the church, when I became very aggressive. All of these things kind of happened at the same time, in my late teens, within the same year. From that time I've been quite, kind of stable in a sense that I've always had that and I have a form of bipolar, but I have the form that people, you want. I guess. I've had some dark times but the positive times so outweigh them with this hypomania that I'd never give it up.
R.K.: It sounds almost like the kind of state that you would want a drug to give you.
J.F.: Completely. And people with hypomania who do not have much of the depression part, they will not take anything. They will take no drugs or anything to get rid of that because it's, it's a non-drugged high without side effects other than it might get, people around you go, would you just shut up. Or we're happy that you're so happy but it's obnoxious. It can get to people, but in a situation people are attracted to that. They really like it. They like that energy and they sometimes equate it with charisma. You have that light around when you walk in a room. This swagger and this sociability that's very positive that people are attracted to.
R.K.: Now is there a tie-in between bipolar disorder and psychopathy?
J.F.: Yes. There is some co-morbidity. That is, there is a higher percent of those found together, but it's not a necessary part of being a psychopath. It's ,you know, some of the genes overlap that what gives you the bipolar and what is associated with psychopathy, especially with the serotonin and dopamine transmitter systems. There is overlap. The thing is is that cycling bipolars, which is a very bad disease, I'm not trying to make light of it because it's really a terrible disease in people who have the full blown one. The kind I have, that switch when it turns on, I become very creative and I just love everybody and when it turns off I'm less so, but it's in the positive state it's more conducive to psychopathy because you seem very charming, you seem very positive, full of energy, people like that so you're able to manipulate people more easily than if you're a down dark character, if you will, when you're in a depressed phase. So it's not a necessary part of being a psychopath, but it helps. It's part of the tool kit because you come off as being so confident and so stress free and so natural and positive that you can, it's good for conning people.
R.K.: So you kind of ride the power of the wave to engage in the kinds of things that you would do that are, would be considered, psychopathic behavior. Like manipulating people, or you also talked a lot about in your book about how you will take people who you care about, who care about you, into more dangerous situations than they would want to go into. You talk about one case where you exposed one family member to possible risks of Marburg virus which is like Ebola.
J.F.: Yeah. My brother hasn't quite forgiven me for that. That was in Africa, when I was living in Africa, and I wanted to see it and I didn't tell him about it. I just figured that the chances of us getting it were not very high and there was nobody there. The other physicians I know, that I worked with at the University of Nairobi, they said nobody goes up there because of what happened. I had to see it and go into the cave and follow that guy's pathway and when they finally, a couple of years later after we were there and Dustin Hoffman... the book and the film came out. He called me up and he was furious and he said, how could you expose me to that? I said, wasn't it a kick? And for me it was a great thrill and it wasn't quite the same for him. So, you know, I do that quite often, but I'm always with them. It's not like I could tell people to jump off a cliff, I say jump off the cliff with me.
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