December 14, 2018 • 29 mins
After getting a PET Scan, Melissa meets with a neuroscientist who believes brain patterns can identify psychopaths. Dr. James Fallon also happens to be a psychopath. He shares his incredible personal story before revealing her results.
Melissa G. Moore: IG @melissag.moore; Tik Tok @melissa.g.moore
Lauren Bright Pacheco: www.LaurenBrightPacheco.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Previously on Happy Face.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Meeting Melissa's mom in person, I was really taken aback
by the fact that they don't look alike. She absolutely
looks like her.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Father, Keith Fell in high school. I believe it was
twenty five feet when they interview killers. They have found
that a large percentage of them damaged their frontal lobe
before they were twenty two, changes their whole personality.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I went back to my truck and rehearsed the lies
I planned to tell when I was arrested. What made
me cross the line into murder? Maybe it was my nature.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
There was just this thing that people said in the family.
They would say, Oh, that's just Keith, That's just how
Keith is, and it seemed to be acceptable.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
Did you feel you're in control?
Speaker 6 (00:49):
Did you just.
Speaker 7 (00:50):
Lose it with his soliders lost?
Speaker 6 (00:52):
I didn't.
Speaker 8 (00:53):
I don't think they had anything to do with control
and just had paybacks a bitch, you know.
Speaker 7 (00:58):
And I just grabbed him start wailing. Of course, I
didn't know him to stop.
Speaker 9 (01:02):
Now.
Speaker 7 (01:02):
I was going to beat him to death.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I'm scared I look like him.
Speaker 7 (01:06):
I came from here, That's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
My heart is so turned off.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
I'm afraid I've built like him.
Speaker 9 (01:13):
In the vies with the sun. I don't know, shine oh.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Oh, I threw. The worst case scenario about tomorrow when
I meet with doctor Fallon is that I'm going to
find out that biologically my brain is wired exactly the
(01:48):
same as my dad.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Melissa's deepest fear is that somewhere in the threads of
her DNA are the same miswired strands that eventually led
her father to kill I'm Lauren brag Pacheco, and this
is happy face.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
I'm prepared for both ways that it will like. I
know I'm a flawed human being. I know that I
sometimes can get narcissistic like everybody else. I know sometimes
I can be selfish like everybody else. I know that
sometimes I forget to say the right thing to someone,
(02:40):
or to offer the hug when they needed it. I
know that sometimes I laugh at inappropriate things at the
inappropriate time. I know sometimes I can be insensitive. I
know that, but that's not all the time. And I
know I'm not a bad person. And I can see
that other people are flawed too and make mistakes to
(03:04):
and that's what makes me give some comfort. Then maybe
I'm not a psychopath. Is that all of these things
that I've been looking for are just common traits amongst
us all. Maybe I'm just as flawed as everybody.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Even if you are, you're going to realize that it
doesn't change any of those things. You're a good person.
You would never do what your father's done, and you
could never be what he is. Last week, Melissa had
(03:40):
a pet scan to determine if her brain had the
neurological markers associated with psychopathy.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Today is a really big day for me. It's a
moment that.
Speaker 10 (03:55):
I am coming face to face with something I've been
running away from.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Learning about.
Speaker 10 (04:01):
A hard time sleeping last night, because today I find
out if my worst fears and insecurities are true. My
dad and I had a very close relationship, almost a
psychic connection, and it makes me wonder if my connection
with my dad was because our brains are similar, or
(04:23):
our makeup is similar, if I'm capable of being like
my dad, But I don't know. Maybe doctor Felon can
explain to me the difference between the brain of a
serial killer and the brain of a psychopath. Maybe they're different,
but in my mind right now, they're one and the same,
and I'm nervous about that.
Speaker 8 (04:40):
Are you ready to face it today?
Speaker 10 (04:43):
I think that in the past I wasn't in a
space where I could accept the results. I feel so
much more secure with who I am. I feel like
with Don's acceptance of who I am and knowing that
my heart is different than if my brain does prove
to be similar to my father, that at least my
(05:04):
heart is different. I'm actually you know, when I think
of the word psychopath, I think of someone who is
a killer, someone who's cold hearted, someone who is evil,
And maybe that term is the problem.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Melissa's definition of a psychopath is a description of her father.
Keith's definition, however, differs.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
I want to know what happens in prison's mind from
point to point in their life.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
I don't think person who's psychopath all their life? Yeah, no, No,
I think it's it's something they grow into. Yeah, And
it's a behavior pattern they grow into, and it's not
a It's like we live normal lives up to a
point and we make that conscious decision to go a
certain way, and then it's like watching Planet of the Age,
everything goes different directions. You don't turn right or turn
(06:00):
possibilities around it.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
What's going through your head right now? Do you know
what to expect.
Speaker 10 (06:12):
The doctor has my brain scans, and maybe I find
out that I am a psychopath, or maybe I find
out I have a brain tumor, or maybe I might
have a perfectly healthy brain.
Speaker 7 (06:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 10 (06:21):
I could be walking into anything actually today, but.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
I think knowing is better than not knowing.
Speaker 7 (06:29):
Why does it matter?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
What do you hope you're going to gain from today?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
For me, why it matters is for a lot of people,
I feel like I've been under a microscope and I
really haven't had any tools to combat what they say.
But at this point, I'm almost I really don't even
care what other people think.
Speaker 10 (06:48):
This is for my self awareness. This is for me
to be able to know how I relate to the world.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Doctor James Fallen is a neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry
and human behavior at the University of California Irvine School
of Medicine. I had first read about him years ago
in a fascinating article in The Atlantic titled Life as
a Non Violent Psychopath. In it, he shares his own
incredible experience of accidentally discovering he possessed the brain imaging
(07:26):
pattern and genetic makeup of a full blown psychopath while
conducting unrelated research, and how that knowledge impacted his life
and relationships. When Melissa shared her fears with me about
her own potential psychopathy, I immediately reached out to Fallin.
I felt if anyone could walk Melissa through her pet
(07:47):
scan and her results, doctor Fallen would be the perfect
person for the job.
Speaker 9 (07:54):
Allen, Hi, how you go?
Speaker 7 (07:56):
Cat you out?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Nice to meet you, Marrick, Kay, great, thank you.
Speaker 7 (08:02):
So this is our house.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Doctor Fallon's house was bright and cheerful. The exterior was
surrounded by colorful, well tended plants and flowers, and the
inside was filled with family photos and art, he explained
was mostly created by various family members. It felt like
a welcoming, creative place.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
This is my lab, yeah, because I do analysis. We
play experiments here. So anyway, there's where we live. And
I was just looking at some of the slides. Just
got your slides, you know, your pet scan?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Did you imagine that I'm nervous? Well, I don't know
what you know about my background.
Speaker 7 (08:40):
I know who your dad is, certainly, but I don't
know much about you.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
And I didn't want to know too much about you,
you know, I just because I didn't want to.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
I didn't want to look at the scan with some
idea of who you were. Okay, that's the idea. The
less I know going in the better. Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Okay again, because doctor Fallon's own brain exhibits indicators of psychopathy,
we felt he had the ideal insight and expertise to
help Melissa navigate and process her PET scan results. Regardless
of what they revealed.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
The behaviors are not in themselves evil. It's the context
that we consider making him evil, and that context is
defined differently in different societies. All societies are not the same,
So no absolute behaviors are good and bad for these things.
So it's not just the genes you have, because I
mean I inherited all these psychopath related genes.
Speaker 7 (09:33):
I don't have much anxiety.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
If I'm caught by somebody doing something, I can look
them in the face and they go, he's completely innocent.
Speaker 7 (09:39):
So you can inherit them.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
But if you've been treated okay, and especially with love,
it kind of negates that effect. All you do is
become assertive. Low anxiety kind of up all the time.
You could be glib and all this stuff like that
you can sell like a salesman, but it comes across
as an earnest in an earnest way.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
So are you a psychopath?
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I'm not a categorical psychopath. I mean I've been analyzed.
I've been psychiatrically analyzed. And one of the interesting reads
I was looking at, you know, one of the diagnoses,
and it was basically the summary is that here's someone
who has all the thoughts and urges and dreams and
everything that a full blown psychopath has, but he never
acts them out.
Speaker 7 (10:22):
Now, I wouldn't have known that.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
I thought everybody was having these thoughts and really crazy
intense scared the hell out of people with them. I
always assumed because it was in my head everybody was
thinking this way, and they're not. The difference is that
I never act him out. I mean, I got absolutely
clean record, and I got a family. I'm still dating
the girl I dated at twelve years old. We were
both twelve, and we've been married forever, and I've had
(10:44):
a really great job forever, and I have kids and
grandkids and I've a normal family life. But somehow, and
two of the psychiatrists couldn't figure out why I was
not like a really bad guy because I have all
these other the genetics, the brain pattern and some of
the traits by and I just don't act the bad
stuff out. I'm a wonderful guy.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
I feel like I'm.
Speaker 10 (11:04):
Relating to you right now because I feel like I'm
a great girl.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
I feel like I'm a great person.
Speaker 7 (11:09):
Oh yeah, I think I'm terrific.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
And it's not that I don't have faults, but overall,
I said, who wouldn't like to be around me?
Speaker 7 (11:16):
You know? It's like I was up grade.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
I was like, and so I asked started with my
wife and I asked her, I said, you got to
tell me, now, really, what do you think of me?
I mean, tell me I'm not going to get mad
or anything. And I did that with my mother, my brothers,
my sister, my kids.
Speaker 10 (11:31):
A bravery to hear what people really because I didn't
really care.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
I mean, you know, for me, it was part of
the way it is. I just was interested. I being
a scientist, you're able to say, I'm just scientists. Yeah,
And they all told me the same thing. They said,
you do really psychopathic things and you don't even realize it.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Did they give you examples?
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, in great detail. I put people at
risk for the fun of it. And it's not like
strangers need to worry about me, But if you become
close to me, you gotta worry because I'll get you
to do something. I'm the person that runs with the
bulls and tries to get you to run with me.
That's not psychopathic, but I do it all the time,
and I put my people close to me and friends
(12:11):
at risk. I lived in East Africa and I went
trout fishing, brought my son, and I brought them into
a place I knew the werelions, and I said, there's
only a five percent chance we're going to get attacked,
But isn't it going to be fun? So I was,
I'm trying to kill them, but it was for the thrill.
So having the genes per se is not the death sentence.
What happens early to regulate those genes, which is fixed.
(12:33):
Is the problem is people always want to know what
percent of our behavior is determined by genes nature and
how much is by environment nurture. And it's almost the
wrong way to ask the question, as it turns out.
And so the idea is, if you have the genes,
if the gun is loaded with those alleles that tend
(12:53):
to give you those traits, and your abuse that fixes
those and in that case, the environment means everything.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
So in my dad's case, he had the genes and
had the environment.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
I mean this is almost every dictator, you know, really
aggressive dictator, and every serial killer I looked that I
you know, could find as much information were abused early
and they had in their family these traits. The only
one who claims he was never abused was Polpot. He
was the only one. I don't believe him. I think
(13:25):
you know a lot of sometimes they lie.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
I'm learning about that with my dad. That through this journey.
What has been unique about my dad is that he
says one thing and what he does is another thing.
But he's so believable and what he says that people
don't look at what he does.
Speaker 7 (13:39):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
That's and being raised with that, like I only saw
what he did and believed him too. And so as
I've been going on this journey, I've been figuring out
that it's not what he says that is what he does,
but it's exactly what you just said is how he said.
It was just so matter of fact and straight face
that you just don't even I guess, well.
Speaker 7 (13:56):
This is the charm of it. This is real.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
A psychopaths or people, well even narcissistic personality disorder can
do it with such earnestness and glibness and no anxiety.
You absolutely believe them. You believe them before you believe anybody.
And that's what makes it so pernicious and insidious. You know,
in fact, they you know, a real psychopath doesn't really
believe what they're doing is bad.
Speaker 7 (14:18):
It's kind of just whereas a sociopath knows what they're
doing is wrong.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Oh there's a difference.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
Yeah, yeah, well everybody's got a different definition. But then
usually people and going they're kind of the same. They're not,
you know, a real psychopath, we call a primary psychopath.
And these are the ones that are clinically psychopaths that
have no moral reasoning, have no guilt, they have no remorse.
So what makes the personality disorders so different than other
(14:46):
psychiatric disorders is that people don't know what they're doing
is wrong or different. And I'll give you an example.
We all know somebody who is obsessive and compulsive. In fact,
a bunch of people have OCD obsessive compulsive disorder. But
there are people with OCDPD, the personality disorder variant of this,
so they have obsessive compulsive personality disorder. The people with
(15:09):
OCD doing the crazy things every time they walk by
the three times and they skip over.
Speaker 7 (15:13):
They know what they're doing is crazy, but they can't
stop it.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
Okay, The people with OCDPD the percentage disorder, thinks what
they're doing is perfectly okay and good and works. Big difference, right, So,
superficially the behaviors are the same, but what happens inside
and how they're generating what they mean are completely different. Now,
somebody with sociopathy like we're talking about, which it's called
the secondary psychopath, they know what they're doing is wrong.
(15:39):
They do have remorse, they do have guilt, they do
have anxiety, but they're still driven to do those behaviors.
So both the psychopath and a sociopath can do the
exact same thing, murder, rape, and everything, different reasons, and
a lot of times the psychopath does it for fun.
It's game. It's just manipulation. They're playing a game with things,
whereas a sociopath a lot of time could be the loser,
(16:00):
who's getting even with all the women of the world
or all the athletes of the world, were all you know,
all the blondes in the world, and it.
Speaker 7 (16:07):
Goes on and on and on.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
There's always but those people can be maybe not wired
genetically for psychopathy, but they were like bullied when they're eight, nine,
ten years old.
Speaker 7 (16:16):
A lot of times these are bullied people.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
But if you are wired for it and you're bullied,
I mean, it's just terrible.
Speaker 8 (16:27):
See will my father beat me? I wondered what he
was feeling when he beat me? Like what was there
so gratifying to him to beat the shit out of
me and then send me to bed like nothing happened,
and then go back in and do what he wanted
to do with mom or whatever, or just go on
with life, and then the next day like nothing happens.
Speaker 6 (16:49):
He's okay.
Speaker 8 (16:50):
Now when I'm killing my victim, I'm sitting there going like, now,
is this what my father felt when he beat the
shit out of me? Is this the feeling he got?
Speaker 9 (16:59):
You?
Speaker 6 (16:59):
Getting answered to that I already didn't.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
The question remains, does trauma trigger violent psychopathy or is
it a domino effect?
Speaker 5 (17:23):
The thing is there's so many of these what are
called cluster B personality disorders. These are the ones that
are dangerous to other people, like histrionic, these are people
that are always using sex to manipulate people and they're
really nasty be around. And also narcissistic personality disorder and psychopathy,
(17:43):
and so for those, what you're doing is basically looking
at all these traits, ten fifteen to twenty traits, and
the standard thing is you take them. You score each
one of those traits from zero to two. Zero, let's
say zero narcissism one is kind of pretty narcissistic. Two
always narcissistic, like really bad. And you take all these
numbers and add them up, and if it's above a threshold,
(18:05):
like for psychopathy, it's above twenty eight or thirty, anything
from twenty eight thirty to forty, it's a full blown psychopath.
If you have a psychopath that's forty, you're talking about
such a dangerous person. I've been tested and I'm not
really a psychopath because I'm not a full blown psychopath,
but I'm like right on the edge, you know, I
score in the twenties every time. What I lack is
(18:26):
the criminality and the really anti social stuff.
Speaker 7 (18:29):
I really have no interest in hurting people.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
When I think of psychopath it seems to have a
negative label. Sure, but is it actually a good thing
to have for is it possible it could be good?
Speaker 5 (18:42):
Well, you know full blown psychopaths, you know the thirty
and above and a hair scale or on a number
of scales. It's kind of never a good thing because
a lot of times they never make.
Speaker 7 (18:51):
It past their teens or twenties.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
They're in prison, and they can have a lot of
disorganized behavior. But people who are borderline or pro socials
that are not quite clinically there a lot of those
traits are very very useful for navigating and becoming successful.
But there are the traits. One of the two main
groups of traits factors is called fearless dominance, and fearless
(19:16):
dominance is a bunch of traits, but it's basically the
person walks into the room and they got that light
around him. People interpreted his charisma. They walk fearlessly. They'll
take chances, but they win. They know how to take
statistical scientific chances and win. But they'll take risks and
they do quite well, and people sense it. People sense
(19:37):
it immediately, So they're very attracted to it. And so
that's a major psychopathic trait. And if you look at
the study of done of US presidents from George Washington
on those that scored the highest from their biographers and
knew all about them, the ones that scored highest and
fearless dominance. The top ones are like Teddy Roosevelt, JFK.
(20:00):
Bill Clinton. They're thought to have charisma and great abilities
as leaders, but they have the highest psychopathy ratings. So
people are attracted to it. I mean, this is one
of the reasons why psychopathy is always with us, because
people are attracted to it.
Speaker 7 (20:15):
These are people who will take chances.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
You want that person on your side, so I don't
care if he's a bad ass. I want him to
be my badass. I want them to be my crook,
my thief, you know. And so the successive psychopaths, especially
the pro social or borderline pro social psychopaths, is a
reflection of people's own lack of morals, I think, because
to win, they want them on their side, even though
(20:37):
they know that they're probably going to do. It's like,
don't tell me what you did, just win, you know.
Those traits are very much enjoyed and beloved by people.
So you said, what are you complaining about? But you know,
if you want to find out if you're a psychopath,
you got to go talk to a psychologists psychiatrist who's
an expert in personality disorders.
Speaker 7 (20:55):
There's no other way.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
But once you are found out to have something, then
we can use the brain scans and the genetics to
note why you're that way.
Speaker 8 (21:10):
This puts you in another world because you see, people
aren't expected to murder people.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
And when you murder.
Speaker 8 (21:17):
Someone and you're you're you have their life in your hand,
you just think of no one else has been there
about you, and and think of all the all your feelings,
all your emotions put all on the one that the
hurt that you have, and the love that you have,
and joy and hate and just everything all your emotions
(21:40):
you could ever put together.
Speaker 7 (21:41):
And that's what murder's like.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
After Fallen was able to give an evolutionary and historical
ex explanation of psychopathy, Melissa was finally ready to face
and accept her results.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
So I gave you this kind of a general like
how we do stuff, you know, look on the science
and the biological psychiatry of it. And so would you
like to know what I saw by looking at your scans?
Speaker 10 (22:18):
I would love to I'm ready you sure, Yeah, I'm
absolutely ready.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Yeah. I think after talking with you, I now see
that it might not necessarily be a bad thing.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
But I'm just curious now, I'm just I want to
know such a psychopathy can be a very useful thing,
and it does make it criminal or bad, but you
can still be a pain.
Speaker 7 (22:39):
And he has to be around.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
With some of these, right, I mean really can, So
you got to be then You've got to expect that
from people.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Okay, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'll follow you.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Doctor Fallon's office was filled with eclectic art he'd gathered
during his trap or was given over the years. It
also showcased some of his own signature paintings, which tended
to involve some very interesting and more than slightly disturbing
depictions of clowns, demented looking clowns.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Okay, okay, So there's many ways to get a pet
scan or a functional MRI. You can get a cat
scan or a regular MRI that just looks at the anatomy.
But this is then looking at the function. That's the
main thing. The task that you did. We could have
you do other tasks that test your empathy before you
(23:43):
go in there for a PET scan or while you're
doing it for fMRI. You can be looking at a
mix of images of things that in normal people provoke
emotional empathy versus cognitive empathy. You could go through different
kinds of scans that probe different circuits in your brain.
Then we can compare it to normal people and full
(24:04):
blown psychopaths. And really to fully do it, you have
to do all these different scans. That's why it's hard
for people, the average person to do it because it
becomes expensive and you got to get into a pipeline
and research hospital pipeline.
Speaker 7 (24:19):
But at any rate, you had it done.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
And so you had the basic PET scan and you
didn't have a task, that is, you didn't have to
look at scary pictures and discussing things.
Speaker 7 (24:28):
You were just told to.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
What close my eyes And for about twenty minutes, I
just kept my eyes closed and I was relaxed. I
didn't see anything, and I try to keep my mind
centered and not distracted.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Okay, so this is kind of the non task task,
and now it's called the default mode network. We're looking
for and it's a circuitry that we should see these
areas of the brain and a normal person light up,
and these are connected areas that most people's lives are
in this mode because you're kind of daydreaming or you relax.
Speaker 7 (25:00):
You know there's no task there, and so a lot
of your life is in this mode.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
And if you look at the connectivity of this circuit
of this plus with your limbics system, your emotional parts
of your brain, you can really get an idea on
why somebody is a certain way. You're simply given this
task and it sounds like the way you've described it
is exactly correct. And here's the raw scans. Part of
the raw scans are up here without any processing. So
(25:26):
this is ground truth, okay. And here is your pet scan. Again,
it's not doctored with colors or anything, okay, because usually
you see a pet scan, it's like there's blues and
red scale and that's made in software and it's kind
of fudged a bit. It doesn't mean it's wrong, but
it's fudged. This is like ground pure truth, okay. And
so wherever we see the dark areas you see right here,
they're dark. That's what has really turned on in that
(25:49):
half hour before you've got the pet scan. And so
here you are and here's the normal okay, And I
tried to this morning try to match them up if
I could, and it.
Speaker 7 (26:03):
Turns out yours is completely normal.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
So this first test that this is like your your
clinical scan is completely normal. So you don't have any
problem in your brain that anybody can see. And anatomically
it's not like tumors or anything like that, and there's
no no weirdness at all. It's completely normal. And now
when we looked at this, they really match up.
Speaker 7 (26:26):
You look like a completely normal for this test. So
that's amazing, it's amazing normal.
Speaker 5 (26:32):
Yeah, it could be disappointed too, So I mean, again,
this is not diagnostic, but you have quite a normal reaction.
And you see how sort of hot you are down here.
I cannot turn this part of my brain on at all.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
So when I do default mode, I can't turn that on.
And so that's a psychopathic pattern.
Speaker 7 (26:57):
It's normal.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
And so after years of wondering if her father's genes
had somehow infected her with the same traits, the same
buried evil tendencies, Melissa could finally breathe a sigh of relief,
knowing that she was another step in the opposite direction
of Keith.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
The power that he had over me. Now I feel
like he doesn't have any power over me anymore. I
feel like I'm my own person. I feel liberated. I
almost feel like I got out of jail. I feel
so much better. I almost wish I would have.
Speaker 10 (27:36):
Done this a long time ago, that I would not
have been running away, but I would have never been
ready for it. I don't think like I am now.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
But I feel amazing. I feel like I'm my own
person and free now. I'm excited about moving forward in
the future. Like this is less energy devoted to worry.
The energy that I've been using scared of my connection
with my dad can now be used for something useful
(28:07):
and purposeful. And it gives me everything that I need
to just look to the future and stead of to
the past.
Speaker 9 (28:18):
If you lost me or not, do you know what
I an a bag?
Speaker 8 (28:28):
What?
Speaker 9 (28:30):
Do you know what I see?
Speaker 5 (28:36):
You?
Speaker 9 (28:36):
And I know what I do that you don't know me?
You could have that too, but you would rather be free,
big free.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
In the final Happy Face, Melissa comes to a reckoning
with her past, her present, and her future.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Happy Face is a production of How Stuff Works. Executive
producers are Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright, Pacheco, mangesh Ha Tikedur
and Will Pearson. Supervising producer is Noel Brown. Music by
Claire Campbell, Paige Campbell and Hope for a Golden Summer.
Story editor is Matt Riddle. Audio editing by Chandler Mays
and Noel Brown. Assistant editor is Taylor Chicoigne. Special thanks
(29:36):
to Phil Stanford, the publishers of the Oregonian Newspaper, and
the Carlisle family.
Previously on Happy Face.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Meeting Melissa's mom in person, I was really taken aback
by the fact that they don't look alike. She absolutely
looks like her.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Father, Keith Fell in high school. I believe it was
twenty five feet when they interview killers. They have found
that a large percentage of them damaged their frontal lobe
before they were twenty two, changes their whole personality.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I went back to my truck and rehearsed the lies
I planned to tell when I was arrested. What made
me cross the line into murder? Maybe it was my nature.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
There was just this thing that people said in the family.
They would say, Oh, that's just Keith, That's just how
Keith is, and it seemed to be acceptable.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
Did you feel you're in control?
Speaker 6 (00:49):
Did you just.
Speaker 7 (00:50):
Lose it with his soliders lost?
Speaker 6 (00:52):
I didn't.
Speaker 8 (00:53):
I don't think they had anything to do with control
and just had paybacks a bitch, you know.
Speaker 7 (00:58):
And I just grabbed him start wailing. Of course, I
didn't know him to stop.
Speaker 9 (01:02):
Now.
Speaker 7 (01:02):
I was going to beat him to death.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I'm scared I look like him.
Speaker 7 (01:06):
I came from here, That's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
My heart is so turned off.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
I'm afraid I've built like him.
Speaker 9 (01:13):
In the vies with the sun. I don't know, shine oh.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Oh, I threw. The worst case scenario about tomorrow when
I meet with doctor Fallon is that I'm going to
find out that biologically my brain is wired exactly the
(01:48):
same as my dad.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Melissa's deepest fear is that somewhere in the threads of
her DNA are the same miswired strands that eventually led
her father to kill I'm Lauren brag Pacheco, and this
is happy face.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
I'm prepared for both ways that it will like. I
know I'm a flawed human being. I know that I
sometimes can get narcissistic like everybody else. I know sometimes
I can be selfish like everybody else. I know that
sometimes I forget to say the right thing to someone,
(02:40):
or to offer the hug when they needed it. I
know that sometimes I laugh at inappropriate things at the
inappropriate time. I know sometimes I can be insensitive. I
know that, but that's not all the time. And I
know I'm not a bad person. And I can see
that other people are flawed too and make mistakes to
(03:04):
and that's what makes me give some comfort. Then maybe
I'm not a psychopath. Is that all of these things
that I've been looking for are just common traits amongst
us all. Maybe I'm just as flawed as everybody.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Even if you are, you're going to realize that it
doesn't change any of those things. You're a good person.
You would never do what your father's done, and you
could never be what he is. Last week, Melissa had
(03:40):
a pet scan to determine if her brain had the
neurological markers associated with psychopathy.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Today is a really big day for me. It's a
moment that.
Speaker 10 (03:55):
I am coming face to face with something I've been
running away from.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Learning about.
Speaker 10 (04:01):
A hard time sleeping last night, because today I find
out if my worst fears and insecurities are true. My
dad and I had a very close relationship, almost a
psychic connection, and it makes me wonder if my connection
with my dad was because our brains are similar, or
(04:23):
our makeup is similar, if I'm capable of being like
my dad, But I don't know. Maybe doctor Felon can
explain to me the difference between the brain of a
serial killer and the brain of a psychopath. Maybe they're different,
but in my mind right now, they're one and the same,
and I'm nervous about that.
Speaker 8 (04:40):
Are you ready to face it today?
Speaker 10 (04:43):
I think that in the past I wasn't in a
space where I could accept the results. I feel so
much more secure with who I am. I feel like
with Don's acceptance of who I am and knowing that
my heart is different than if my brain does prove
to be similar to my father, that at least my
(05:04):
heart is different. I'm actually you know, when I think
of the word psychopath, I think of someone who is
a killer, someone who's cold hearted, someone who is evil,
And maybe that term is the problem.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Melissa's definition of a psychopath is a description of her father.
Keith's definition, however, differs.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
I want to know what happens in prison's mind from
point to point in their life.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
I don't think person who's psychopath all their life? Yeah, no, No,
I think it's it's something they grow into. Yeah, And
it's a behavior pattern they grow into, and it's not
a It's like we live normal lives up to a
point and we make that conscious decision to go a
certain way, and then it's like watching Planet of the Age,
everything goes different directions. You don't turn right or turn
(06:00):
possibilities around it.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
What's going through your head right now? Do you know
what to expect.
Speaker 10 (06:12):
The doctor has my brain scans, and maybe I find
out that I am a psychopath, or maybe I find
out I have a brain tumor, or maybe I might
have a perfectly healthy brain.
Speaker 7 (06:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 10 (06:21):
I could be walking into anything actually today, but.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
I think knowing is better than not knowing.
Speaker 7 (06:29):
Why does it matter?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
What do you hope you're going to gain from today?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
For me, why it matters is for a lot of people,
I feel like I've been under a microscope and I
really haven't had any tools to combat what they say.
But at this point, I'm almost I really don't even
care what other people think.
Speaker 10 (06:48):
This is for my self awareness. This is for me
to be able to know how I relate to the world.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Doctor James Fallen is a neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry
and human behavior at the University of California Irvine School
of Medicine. I had first read about him years ago
in a fascinating article in The Atlantic titled Life as
a Non Violent Psychopath. In it, he shares his own
incredible experience of accidentally discovering he possessed the brain imaging
(07:26):
pattern and genetic makeup of a full blown psychopath while
conducting unrelated research, and how that knowledge impacted his life
and relationships. When Melissa shared her fears with me about
her own potential psychopathy, I immediately reached out to Fallin.
I felt if anyone could walk Melissa through her pet
(07:47):
scan and her results, doctor Fallen would be the perfect
person for the job.
Speaker 9 (07:54):
Allen, Hi, how you go?
Speaker 7 (07:56):
Cat you out?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Nice to meet you, Marrick, Kay, great, thank you.
Speaker 7 (08:02):
So this is our house.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Doctor Fallon's house was bright and cheerful. The exterior was
surrounded by colorful, well tended plants and flowers, and the
inside was filled with family photos and art, he explained
was mostly created by various family members. It felt like
a welcoming, creative place.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
This is my lab, yeah, because I do analysis. We
play experiments here. So anyway, there's where we live. And
I was just looking at some of the slides. Just
got your slides, you know, your pet scan?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Did you imagine that I'm nervous? Well, I don't know
what you know about my background.
Speaker 7 (08:40):
I know who your dad is, certainly, but I don't
know much about you.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
And I didn't want to know too much about you,
you know, I just because I didn't want to.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
I didn't want to look at the scan with some
idea of who you were. Okay, that's the idea. The
less I know going in the better. Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Okay again, because doctor Fallon's own brain exhibits indicators of psychopathy,
we felt he had the ideal insight and expertise to
help Melissa navigate and process her PET scan results. Regardless
of what they revealed.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
The behaviors are not in themselves evil. It's the context
that we consider making him evil, and that context is
defined differently in different societies. All societies are not the same,
So no absolute behaviors are good and bad for these things.
So it's not just the genes you have, because I
mean I inherited all these psychopath related genes.
Speaker 7 (09:33):
I don't have much anxiety.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
If I'm caught by somebody doing something, I can look
them in the face and they go, he's completely innocent.
Speaker 7 (09:39):
So you can inherit them.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
But if you've been treated okay, and especially with love,
it kind of negates that effect. All you do is
become assertive. Low anxiety kind of up all the time.
You could be glib and all this stuff like that
you can sell like a salesman, but it comes across
as an earnest in an earnest way.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
So are you a psychopath?
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I'm not a categorical psychopath. I mean I've been analyzed.
I've been psychiatrically analyzed. And one of the interesting reads
I was looking at, you know, one of the diagnoses,
and it was basically the summary is that here's someone
who has all the thoughts and urges and dreams and
everything that a full blown psychopath has, but he never
acts them out.
Speaker 7 (10:22):
Now, I wouldn't have known that.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
I thought everybody was having these thoughts and really crazy
intense scared the hell out of people with them. I
always assumed because it was in my head everybody was
thinking this way, and they're not. The difference is that
I never act him out. I mean, I got absolutely
clean record, and I got a family. I'm still dating
the girl I dated at twelve years old. We were
both twelve, and we've been married forever, and I've had
(10:44):
a really great job forever, and I have kids and
grandkids and I've a normal family life. But somehow, and
two of the psychiatrists couldn't figure out why I was
not like a really bad guy because I have all
these other the genetics, the brain pattern and some of
the traits by and I just don't act the bad
stuff out. I'm a wonderful guy.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
I feel like I'm.
Speaker 10 (11:04):
Relating to you right now because I feel like I'm
a great girl.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
I feel like I'm a great person.
Speaker 7 (11:09):
Oh yeah, I think I'm terrific.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
And it's not that I don't have faults, but overall,
I said, who wouldn't like to be around me?
Speaker 7 (11:16):
You know? It's like I was up grade.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
I was like, and so I asked started with my
wife and I asked her, I said, you got to
tell me, now, really, what do you think of me?
I mean, tell me I'm not going to get mad
or anything. And I did that with my mother, my brothers,
my sister, my kids.
Speaker 10 (11:31):
A bravery to hear what people really because I didn't
really care.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
I mean, you know, for me, it was part of
the way it is. I just was interested. I being
a scientist, you're able to say, I'm just scientists. Yeah,
And they all told me the same thing. They said,
you do really psychopathic things and you don't even realize it.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Did they give you examples?
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, in great detail. I put people at
risk for the fun of it. And it's not like
strangers need to worry about me, But if you become
close to me, you gotta worry because I'll get you
to do something. I'm the person that runs with the
bulls and tries to get you to run with me.
That's not psychopathic, but I do it all the time,
and I put my people close to me and friends
(12:11):
at risk. I lived in East Africa and I went
trout fishing, brought my son, and I brought them into
a place I knew the werelions, and I said, there's
only a five percent chance we're going to get attacked,
But isn't it going to be fun? So I was,
I'm trying to kill them, but it was for the thrill.
So having the genes per se is not the death sentence.
What happens early to regulate those genes, which is fixed.
(12:33):
Is the problem is people always want to know what
percent of our behavior is determined by genes nature and
how much is by environment nurture. And it's almost the
wrong way to ask the question, as it turns out.
And so the idea is, if you have the genes,
if the gun is loaded with those alleles that tend
(12:53):
to give you those traits, and your abuse that fixes
those and in that case, the environment means everything.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
So in my dad's case, he had the genes and
had the environment.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
I mean this is almost every dictator, you know, really
aggressive dictator, and every serial killer I looked that I
you know, could find as much information were abused early
and they had in their family these traits. The only
one who claims he was never abused was Polpot. He
was the only one. I don't believe him. I think
(13:25):
you know a lot of sometimes they lie.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
I'm learning about that with my dad. That through this journey.
What has been unique about my dad is that he
says one thing and what he does is another thing.
But he's so believable and what he says that people
don't look at what he does.
Speaker 7 (13:39):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
That's and being raised with that, like I only saw
what he did and believed him too. And so as
I've been going on this journey, I've been figuring out
that it's not what he says that is what he does,
but it's exactly what you just said is how he said.
It was just so matter of fact and straight face
that you just don't even I guess, well.
Speaker 7 (13:56):
This is the charm of it. This is real.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
A psychopaths or people, well even narcissistic personality disorder can
do it with such earnestness and glibness and no anxiety.
You absolutely believe them. You believe them before you believe anybody.
And that's what makes it so pernicious and insidious. You know,
in fact, they you know, a real psychopath doesn't really
believe what they're doing is bad.
Speaker 7 (14:18):
It's kind of just whereas a sociopath knows what they're
doing is wrong.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Oh there's a difference.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
Yeah, yeah, well everybody's got a different definition. But then
usually people and going they're kind of the same. They're not,
you know, a real psychopath, we call a primary psychopath.
And these are the ones that are clinically psychopaths that
have no moral reasoning, have no guilt, they have no remorse.
So what makes the personality disorders so different than other
(14:46):
psychiatric disorders is that people don't know what they're doing
is wrong or different. And I'll give you an example.
We all know somebody who is obsessive and compulsive. In fact,
a bunch of people have OCD obsessive compulsive disorder. But
there are people with OCDPD, the personality disorder variant of this,
so they have obsessive compulsive personality disorder. The people with
(15:09):
OCD doing the crazy things every time they walk by
the three times and they skip over.
Speaker 7 (15:13):
They know what they're doing is crazy, but they can't
stop it.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
Okay, The people with OCDPD the percentage disorder, thinks what
they're doing is perfectly okay and good and works. Big difference, right, So,
superficially the behaviors are the same, but what happens inside
and how they're generating what they mean are completely different. Now,
somebody with sociopathy like we're talking about, which it's called
the secondary psychopath, they know what they're doing is wrong.
(15:39):
They do have remorse, they do have guilt, they do
have anxiety, but they're still driven to do those behaviors.
So both the psychopath and a sociopath can do the
exact same thing, murder, rape, and everything, different reasons, and
a lot of times the psychopath does it for fun.
It's game. It's just manipulation. They're playing a game with things,
whereas a sociopath a lot of time could be the loser,
(16:00):
who's getting even with all the women of the world
or all the athletes of the world, were all you know,
all the blondes in the world, and it.
Speaker 7 (16:07):
Goes on and on and on.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
There's always but those people can be maybe not wired
genetically for psychopathy, but they were like bullied when they're eight, nine,
ten years old.
Speaker 7 (16:16):
A lot of times these are bullied people.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
But if you are wired for it and you're bullied,
I mean, it's just terrible.
Speaker 8 (16:27):
See will my father beat me? I wondered what he
was feeling when he beat me? Like what was there
so gratifying to him to beat the shit out of
me and then send me to bed like nothing happened,
and then go back in and do what he wanted
to do with mom or whatever, or just go on
with life, and then the next day like nothing happens.
Speaker 6 (16:49):
He's okay.
Speaker 8 (16:50):
Now when I'm killing my victim, I'm sitting there going like, now,
is this what my father felt when he beat the
shit out of me? Is this the feeling he got?
Speaker 9 (16:59):
You?
Speaker 6 (16:59):
Getting answered to that I already didn't.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
The question remains, does trauma trigger violent psychopathy or is
it a domino effect?
Speaker 5 (17:23):
The thing is there's so many of these what are
called cluster B personality disorders. These are the ones that
are dangerous to other people, like histrionic, these are people
that are always using sex to manipulate people and they're
really nasty be around. And also narcissistic personality disorder and psychopathy,
(17:43):
and so for those, what you're doing is basically looking
at all these traits, ten fifteen to twenty traits, and
the standard thing is you take them. You score each
one of those traits from zero to two. Zero, let's
say zero narcissism one is kind of pretty narcissistic. Two
always narcissistic, like really bad. And you take all these
numbers and add them up, and if it's above a threshold,
(18:05):
like for psychopathy, it's above twenty eight or thirty, anything
from twenty eight thirty to forty, it's a full blown psychopath.
If you have a psychopath that's forty, you're talking about
such a dangerous person. I've been tested and I'm not
really a psychopath because I'm not a full blown psychopath,
but I'm like right on the edge, you know, I
score in the twenties every time. What I lack is
(18:26):
the criminality and the really anti social stuff.
Speaker 7 (18:29):
I really have no interest in hurting people.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
When I think of psychopath it seems to have a
negative label. Sure, but is it actually a good thing
to have for is it possible it could be good?
Speaker 5 (18:42):
Well, you know full blown psychopaths, you know the thirty
and above and a hair scale or on a number
of scales. It's kind of never a good thing because
a lot of times they never make.
Speaker 7 (18:51):
It past their teens or twenties.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
They're in prison, and they can have a lot of
disorganized behavior. But people who are borderline or pro socials
that are not quite clinically there a lot of those
traits are very very useful for navigating and becoming successful.
But there are the traits. One of the two main
groups of traits factors is called fearless dominance, and fearless
(19:16):
dominance is a bunch of traits, but it's basically the
person walks into the room and they got that light
around him. People interpreted his charisma. They walk fearlessly. They'll
take chances, but they win. They know how to take
statistical scientific chances and win. But they'll take risks and
they do quite well, and people sense it. People sense
(19:37):
it immediately, So they're very attracted to it. And so
that's a major psychopathic trait. And if you look at
the study of done of US presidents from George Washington
on those that scored the highest from their biographers and
knew all about them, the ones that scored highest and
fearless dominance. The top ones are like Teddy Roosevelt, JFK.
(20:00):
Bill Clinton. They're thought to have charisma and great abilities
as leaders, but they have the highest psychopathy ratings. So
people are attracted to it. I mean, this is one
of the reasons why psychopathy is always with us, because
people are attracted to it.
Speaker 7 (20:15):
These are people who will take chances.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
You want that person on your side, so I don't
care if he's a bad ass. I want him to
be my badass. I want them to be my crook,
my thief, you know. And so the successive psychopaths, especially
the pro social or borderline pro social psychopaths, is a
reflection of people's own lack of morals, I think, because
to win, they want them on their side, even though
(20:37):
they know that they're probably going to do. It's like,
don't tell me what you did, just win, you know.
Those traits are very much enjoyed and beloved by people.
So you said, what are you complaining about? But you know,
if you want to find out if you're a psychopath,
you got to go talk to a psychologists psychiatrist who's
an expert in personality disorders.
Speaker 7 (20:55):
There's no other way.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
But once you are found out to have something, then
we can use the brain scans and the genetics to
note why you're that way.
Speaker 8 (21:10):
This puts you in another world because you see, people
aren't expected to murder people.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
And when you murder.
Speaker 8 (21:17):
Someone and you're you're you have their life in your hand,
you just think of no one else has been there
about you, and and think of all the all your feelings,
all your emotions put all on the one that the
hurt that you have, and the love that you have,
and joy and hate and just everything all your emotions
(21:40):
you could ever put together.
Speaker 7 (21:41):
And that's what murder's like.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
After Fallen was able to give an evolutionary and historical
ex explanation of psychopathy, Melissa was finally ready to face
and accept her results.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
So I gave you this kind of a general like
how we do stuff, you know, look on the science
and the biological psychiatry of it. And so would you
like to know what I saw by looking at your scans?
Speaker 10 (22:18):
I would love to I'm ready you sure, Yeah, I'm
absolutely ready.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Yeah. I think after talking with you, I now see
that it might not necessarily be a bad thing.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
But I'm just curious now, I'm just I want to
know such a psychopathy can be a very useful thing,
and it does make it criminal or bad, but you
can still be a pain.
Speaker 7 (22:39):
And he has to be around.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
With some of these, right, I mean really can, So
you got to be then You've got to expect that
from people.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Okay, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'll follow you.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Doctor Fallon's office was filled with eclectic art he'd gathered
during his trap or was given over the years. It
also showcased some of his own signature paintings, which tended
to involve some very interesting and more than slightly disturbing
depictions of clowns, demented looking clowns.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Okay, okay, So there's many ways to get a pet
scan or a functional MRI. You can get a cat
scan or a regular MRI that just looks at the anatomy.
But this is then looking at the function. That's the
main thing. The task that you did. We could have
you do other tasks that test your empathy before you
(23:43):
go in there for a PET scan or while you're
doing it for fMRI. You can be looking at a
mix of images of things that in normal people provoke
emotional empathy versus cognitive empathy. You could go through different
kinds of scans that probe different circuits in your brain.
Then we can compare it to normal people and full
(24:04):
blown psychopaths. And really to fully do it, you have
to do all these different scans. That's why it's hard
for people, the average person to do it because it
becomes expensive and you got to get into a pipeline
and research hospital pipeline.
Speaker 7 (24:19):
But at any rate, you had it done.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
And so you had the basic PET scan and you
didn't have a task, that is, you didn't have to
look at scary pictures and discussing things.
Speaker 7 (24:28):
You were just told to.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
What close my eyes And for about twenty minutes, I
just kept my eyes closed and I was relaxed. I
didn't see anything, and I try to keep my mind
centered and not distracted.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Okay, so this is kind of the non task task,
and now it's called the default mode network. We're looking
for and it's a circuitry that we should see these
areas of the brain and a normal person light up,
and these are connected areas that most people's lives are
in this mode because you're kind of daydreaming or you relax.
Speaker 7 (25:00):
You know there's no task there, and so a lot
of your life is in this mode.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
And if you look at the connectivity of this circuit
of this plus with your limbics system, your emotional parts
of your brain, you can really get an idea on
why somebody is a certain way. You're simply given this
task and it sounds like the way you've described it
is exactly correct. And here's the raw scans. Part of
the raw scans are up here without any processing. So
(25:26):
this is ground truth, okay. And here is your pet scan. Again,
it's not doctored with colors or anything, okay, because usually
you see a pet scan, it's like there's blues and
red scale and that's made in software and it's kind
of fudged a bit. It doesn't mean it's wrong, but
it's fudged. This is like ground pure truth, okay. And
so wherever we see the dark areas you see right here,
they're dark. That's what has really turned on in that
(25:49):
half hour before you've got the pet scan. And so
here you are and here's the normal okay, And I
tried to this morning try to match them up if
I could, and it.
Speaker 7 (26:03):
Turns out yours is completely normal.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
So this first test that this is like your your
clinical scan is completely normal. So you don't have any
problem in your brain that anybody can see. And anatomically
it's not like tumors or anything like that, and there's
no no weirdness at all. It's completely normal. And now
when we looked at this, they really match up.
Speaker 7 (26:26):
You look like a completely normal for this test. So
that's amazing, it's amazing normal.
Speaker 5 (26:32):
Yeah, it could be disappointed too, So I mean, again,
this is not diagnostic, but you have quite a normal reaction.
And you see how sort of hot you are down here.
I cannot turn this part of my brain on at all.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
So when I do default mode, I can't turn that on.
And so that's a psychopathic pattern.
Speaker 7 (26:57):
It's normal.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
And so after years of wondering if her father's genes
had somehow infected her with the same traits, the same
buried evil tendencies, Melissa could finally breathe a sigh of relief,
knowing that she was another step in the opposite direction
of Keith.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
The power that he had over me. Now I feel
like he doesn't have any power over me anymore. I
feel like I'm my own person. I feel liberated. I
almost feel like I got out of jail. I feel
so much better. I almost wish I would have.
Speaker 10 (27:36):
Done this a long time ago, that I would not
have been running away, but I would have never been
ready for it. I don't think like I am now.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
But I feel amazing. I feel like I'm my own
person and free now. I'm excited about moving forward in
the future. Like this is less energy devoted to worry.
The energy that I've been using scared of my connection
with my dad can now be used for something useful
(28:07):
and purposeful. And it gives me everything that I need
to just look to the future and stead of to
the past.
Speaker 9 (28:18):
If you lost me or not, do you know what
I an a bag?
Speaker 8 (28:28):
What?
Speaker 9 (28:30):
Do you know what I see?
Speaker 5 (28:36):
You?
Speaker 9 (28:36):
And I know what I do that you don't know me?
You could have that too, but you would rather be free,
big free.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
In the final Happy Face, Melissa comes to a reckoning
with her past, her present, and her future.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Happy Face is a production of How Stuff Works. Executive
producers are Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright, Pacheco, mangesh Ha Tikedur
and Will Pearson. Supervising producer is Noel Brown. Music by
Claire Campbell, Paige Campbell and Hope for a Golden Summer.
Story editor is Matt Riddle. Audio editing by Chandler Mays
and Noel Brown. Assistant editor is Taylor Chicoigne. Special thanks
(29:36):
to Phil Stanford, the publishers of the Oregonian Newspaper, and
the Carlisle family.
Happy Face News
Hosts And Creators
Melissa Moore
Lauren Bright Pacheco
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