#PwASPD

[mirrorobsidian]

Society- Anger is a normal emotion. It's okay to be angry. It's a part of what makes us human

NPDs, ASPDs, BPDs, HPDs Enter

Society- Oh my god. Why are you so angry? Stop gaslighting and being so abusive. I was a victim of narc abuse you know and they needed to calm their anger

[scyththing]

Why minors can indeed have ASPD

[PT] Why minors can indeed have ASPD [END PT]

Written by, and yours truly, a minor professionally dxed with ASPD.

It's an very popular misconception that minors cannot have ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder) and instead must have CD (Conduct Disorder) because the diagnosis criteria states an individual must be 18 or older. But here is why that is wrong;

'Adult diagnosis' isn't really a thing as mental disorders can't just appear in adulthood. The causes of ASPD include genetics and childhood trauma and symptoms of ASPD can start at as young as 2-5 years old and in order to be diagnosed you must've showed symptoms before the age of 15.

Conduct Disorder is not an minor equivalent to ASPD, they're two different disorders. Adults can have CD just as well as minors can have ASPD. Conduct Disorder refers to unlawful conduct/behavior and CD itself doesn't typically affect the entire personality since it's not a personality disorder while ASPD does and is more severe than CD.

Although few, there have been multiple cases of minors being diagnosed with ASPD because their symptoms were too severe to be CD, and the symptoms weren't the result of puberty or from another disorder. One of, and maybe the only, reason why minors aren't typically diagnosed is because differentiating antisocial behavior and just normal teenage behavior can be difficult.

Of course still most minors won't be professionally diagnosed, a lot of them are self-diagnosed and there is no problem with that either as long as they've done their research and they know it's not CD nor puberty or another disorder. "What if they're wrong?" "What if it is CD?" It's okay to be wrong about self-diagnosis, they're no professional and you probably aren't either.

You don't know what another person has and, unless they blatantly say they're faking, you cannot know they're faking. Tired of some of y'all talking about a disorder you don't have or know nothing about.

[egopathic]

the DSM criteria for ASPD based solely on what random laypeople have told me about my diagnosis irl:

- at least one felony conviction

- CEO or otherwise high powered job

- homicidal triad

- “duper’s delight” smile

- assigned male at birth

- inability to smile with your eyes

- homicidal triad again

- cannot cry

- incapable of humor

- OR good sense of humor…but manipulatively

- sexually dominant (ONLY!!!)

- unable to hold a conversation without intentionally insulting the other person

- homicidal triad

[basalts-system]

I love my little brother so much.

He has BPD and struggles with accepting when he's wrong about something.

But he like always tells me when hes still in defense mode.

He's always like.

Give me a moment. And then I give him a moment.

Guys it's not hard to Respect pw/pd

Yes, and I shouldn't have to say this, this goes for all pd

Also npd

[devotedsickness]

I know online PD quizzies ain’t shit. But some of the questions for this test are fucking weird. Like what does being interested in art for a magazine cover have anything to do with personality disorders? Lmao

[pdpony]

trying to have emotions when u have aspd is like trying to find out where a faint noise is coming from but never being able to find it even if you get closer to the sound

[coolguy8000]

🍊🌊PINNED‼️🍊🌊

HIII IM JOY/LUFFY FROM @spiralofghosts

all you need to know is that this is my sideblog n im trying out he/she/it atm if that changes ill update it here o77777

thumbs up :D ‼️ 👍🏻 👍🏻 👍🏻

[liminallywell]

I want to say that if you're indifferent to someone's wellbeing and you don't actually like and value them* (eg if you have impaired empathy toward them), or if you think it's likely you'll only like and value them for a short time [eg that you'll idealize them, starting treating them worse ("devalue"), and then discard them], it might be worth making sure the person knows that these are things to be wary of if they continue interacting with you.

If their default reaction is to initially perceive you as not being indifferent to their wellbeing, some may feel tricked/betrayed/double-crossed that you masked your indifference. And they might not have the reactions that you prefer if/when they find out they're tricked/betrayed/double-crossed. They might feel upset, angry, affronted. And they might not be as cooperative as they were before with you.

Obviously disclosure about anything about yourself is up to you (*insert rhetoric here*: you don't even have to tell anyone what your favourite colour is), but I wanted to add this disclaimer.

(Ofc not everyone will gaf in every situation, but the more you interact with someone, the less acceptable it may be to them that you aren't correcting their false interpretation of your actions, thoughts, emotions, feelings, intentions, etc.)

*independent of how useful they are to you

people who are good and kind and uplifting and say and do nice things for other people, solely for the purpose of gaining attention or upholding your reputation, i love you, and you still are good people.

i don't care if you're seething with anger or jealousy or hatred inside whilst you do the nice things. you're still a good person. i don't care if you're constantly criticising the other person in your head whilst you do nice things. you're still a good person. i don't care if the entire time you help someone or say something nice you're constantly thinking about yourself or how much you want them to say something nice back or only doing the good thing to get praise or for your own sense of achievement. you're still a good person. i don't care if you're messy or find it extremely hard to do nice things for others and in general. you're. still. a. good. person.

[heartless-aro]

One of my least favorite responses to discussions about arophobia in fiction is “That character isn’t aromantic though! They’re just a psychopath/sociopath/narcissist/[insert relevant stigmatized disorder here]”. Being aromantic and having a personality disorder — including ASPD or NPD — are not mutually exclusive. The trope of “This person doesn’t feel love, therefore they are evil” doesn’t stop being arophobic the moment it’s directed towards a character with a personality disorder (yes, even if they have one of the “scary” personality disorders). Ableism and arophobia often intersect in this way, and that doesn’t make the arophobia any less arophobic

[aspd-culture]

questioning aspd-culture is: it seems I have all the traits, though I haven't done anything illegal because I live with controling probably bpd parent and have a fairly well-developed rationalization and I have good control over all emotions i may feel because of that (I just suppress them)

Edit: TW/CW uncensored ableist language in the comments (not used in an ableist way - it’s the name of a diagnostic test)

Oh yeah, this is actually super common. That's why a common take amongst non-ableist professionals is that the criteria for lawbreaking also covers rulebreaking including social rules. Any strong desire that has to actively be fought to break laws also can fall under that depending on who you ask if the reason you don't is grounded in something other than morals or respect for the law.

Something I like to bring up as often as I can for people stuck under the misconception of the law breaking thing is that a big thing in pwASPD is a desire for convenience because happiness seems at best temporary and at worst fake, but living a life where everything is fairly convenient is a tangible, achievable task. Hiding a body is not convenient, cleaning up blood is not convenient, hiding from the law is not convenient. Also talking to cops sucks and jail sounds like one giant ASPD flare so screw anything that would make me go there.

Also, remember that you don't have to fit every criterion to have ASPD - it's 3/7 that are persistent and consistent, plus paying attention to associated traits/development criteria and checking for differential diagnoses.

Plain text below the cut:

Edit: TW/CW uncensored ableist language in the comments (not used in an ableist way - it’s the name of a diagnostic test)

Oh yeah, this is actually super common. That's why a common take amongst non-ableist professionals is that the criteria for lawbreaking also covers rulebreaking including social rules. Any strong desire that has to actively be fought to break laws also can fall under that depending on who you ask if the reason you don't is grounded in something other than morals or respect for the law.

Something I like to bring up as often as I can for people stuck under the misconception of the law breaking thing is that a big thing in pwASPD is a desire for convenience because happiness seems at best temporary and at worst fake, but living a life where everything is fairly convenient is a tangible, achievable task. Hiding a body is not convenient, cleaning up blood is not convenient, hiding from the law is not convenient. Also talking to cops sucks and jail sounds like one giant ASPD flare so screw anything that would make me go there.

Also, remember that you don't have to fit every criterion to have ASPD - it's 3/7 that are persistent and consistent, plus paying attention to associated traits/development criteria and checking for differential diagnoses.

[mirrorobsidian]

Memory of my session with an old therapist for Conduct Disorder/ASPD

Therapist- Why do you lie?

Me- *shrugs* I don't know

Therapist- Let me ask, how long have you been lying?

Me- I don't know

Therapist- Do you know lying is bad?

Me- That's what they say

Therapist- Do you have any reason to lie?

Me- I don't know. Maybe

Therapist- Why maybe?

Me- I get in trouble when I lie but I also get in trouble when I tell the truth so why does it matter?

Therapist- Has anyone told you to lie?

Me- No

Therapist- Why not we start telling small truths from now on?

Me- Because the truth is always wrong. They wanna hear what they wanna hear

Pathological lying is one of the conditions therapists look for when diagnosing CD/ASPD while it does not give direct symptoms of the disorder, it's one of the listed criteria. While many view lying as "bad" and "intentional" it's not always such. Lying can be done as a defense mechanism, lying can be the result of one's environmental growth, etc....

Pathological lying is also considered a compulsive disorder in which the person whether intentionally or unintentionally, will lie in order to either get what they want or to protect themselves from punishment

Being a pathological liar does not indicate you are a bad person however it does make you work harder to be trustworthy and being able to decipher which is the truth and which is the lie

[mirrorobsidian]

This confuses me as well. Do you want a whole essay? Do you want it in a different word? A different language? What? I have seen people use the broken glass and liquid method/analogy to explain apologies after being hurt and to me it just tells me I don't have to apologize since it means nothing however if I don't "apologize" society goes out of whack so tell it straight. Do you or do you not want an apology

questioning NPD culture is not knowing how tf to apologize, like, how??

what more than ‘i’m sorry’ do people want? like ??

.

[meowzet]

BREAKING NEWS: WHAT THE FUCK?

who is asking these questions? i have no joke / punchline to share, just utter confusion.

[autistic-beshelar]

Hey! I'm very interested in what you've told me about antisocial personality disorder, neurodivergence, and empathy vs. compassion so far. I would love to hear more!

hi, sorry this has taken me a bit to get to, i've had a hectic few days, and i knew i'd end up writing a lot!

ASPD:

i'll start by saying that i don't have ASPD, so i'm just going to give the basics and hand you off to people who DO have it. it's important to bear in mind that ASPD is primarily considered traumagenic, and that, like any other disorder, it can manifest in a bunch of different ways, and people with it can behave very differently from one another.

ASPD is a cluster b personality disorder characterised by low empathy, limited range and depth of emotions, disregard for other people's feelings, disregard for societal conventions and morality, chronic anger, and chronic boredom. the common view of pwASPD is that they are violent criminals, but that is primarily because research is only ever done on the worst kinds of people, and i'm sure many of them are misdiagnosed. i'm sure i don't need to explain to you why basing a disorder solely off of people in prison is fucked as a concept, given how both the prison system and psychiatry are both incredibly flawed. (it's also for this reason that i have no scientific studies to give you, because the only ones i've come across are grossly ableist)

having ASPD comes with a lot of challenges, but having a disorder - any disorder - doesn't make you a bad person. from what i have seen, a lot of pwASPD don't so much 'not have morals' as have a deep distrust of authority and base their morality on logic or serving their own interests. in fact i've seen an awful lot of pwASPD who are very left leaning or are anarchists. of course there's also plenty who are right wing assholes, but that kind of goes to show that a disorder doesn't dictate your morality, it just might lead you to approach your sense of morality differently.

ASPD resources, from actual pwASPD:

https://shitborderlinesdo.tumblr.com/post/115096247519/the-anti-social-personality-disorder-checklist

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/your-stories/life-with-antisocial-personality-disorder-aspd/ (cw for mention of csa)

https://inanawesomewave.tumblr.com/post/177638772232/the-bones-of-it

EMPATHY:

my favourite thing to rant about. empathy is wildly misunderstood by most people, so let's start off with a proper description. there are two main types of empathy: cognitive and affective. you will also see some people say that there's a third type, 'compassionate empathy', but i have never seen a definition of it that isn't based on the idea that empathy is necessary for compassion, so i'm ignoring it, and i'll get to compassion later.

cognitive empathy: basically, thinking about feeling. cognitive empathy is the ability to recognise and understand emotions. it is involved with reading people's expressions, or understanding why a certain situation might cause a certain emotional response.

affective empathy: this is typically what people mean when they talk about empathy - the ability to feel what someone else is feeling.

it's extremely important to note that this is fucking impossible. 'feeling what someone else is feeling' is some sci-fi nonsense. it isn't real. the belief that it is causes a lot of harm.

affective empathy, properly defined, is the a person's emotional response to an emotion that they perceive someone else having. it isn't always as simple as 'i'm happy because they're happy'. affective empathy can also be involved in more complicated situations, like feeling afraid because of perceived anger (which leads to a whole conversation about hyperempathy and hypervigilance and the relationship between them, but that's a whole other post that someone who actually has feelings would be more qualified to write)

so that's empathy. it's really just a bunch of feelings that we have about or in relation to other people's feelings. there's no moral component to feelings whatsoever. morality only comes into play when action is involved. which leads me to...

compassion: being kind, not as an inherent state of being, but as a choice.

i'll talk about my own experience here, but i've heard similar from other people with low/no empathy, and i've heard similar from some pwASPD as well.

i choose to be kind because i believe it's the right thing to do. i see a lot of injustice in the world, and it makes me furious - in fact, for me, it's primarily my anger that fuels my compassion. my morals have been based partly on feeling, but also on logic, and on a lot of research. to me, being kind is logical and sensible. it's logical to want people to be happy and safe and free. it benefits me too, for starters.

i don't need to feel sad about people's suffering to want it to stop. and though i don't really feel much empathy, i do still get emotional about things - i can still be sad or angry or happy about certain things happening, it's just... less than other people.

i look at the world around me and i try to find things that i can do to make it better because i think that's my job as a human. sometimes i'm bad at it, and sometimes i'm too tired to, but at the very least i can refuse to cause harm, and when i do, inevitably, cause harm, i can make amends.

(there's also a long discussion to be had about how basing your morality on your ability to empathise with people makes it extremely easy to no longer care about people who have been dehumanised, but that's a post i don't feel qualified to make)

a book i am desperate to read on this subject is Against Empathy by Paul Bloom, but here's an article about it, which is of course not perfect, but makes a lot of interesting points: https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/1/19/14266230/empathy-morality-ethics-psychology-compassion-paul-bloom

i hope that helps explain some things. if you have - or anyone else has - more questions, feel free to ask, and i'll do my best to answer.

[epick-cluster-b-blog]

hi so i have more questions! this time for pwASPD!

i know that a big part of aspd is not feeling guilt/remorse, although technically that is not required to be diagnosed with aspd.

so i wanted to ask some folks with aspd about their experiences with sympathy and/or empathy, whether you feel you have fluctuating/altered sympathy or empathy, what the experience is like for you, etc. as long as you’re comfortable sharing!

im always trying to gather more info about cluster b experiences so any response is appreciated :)

[mischiefmanifold]

I've been wanting to talk more about my ASPD and the symptoms that I experience because of it, but it's been hard for me to explain in a way that feels right to me. Part of it might be anxiety about how others will take what I'm saying and potential misinterpretation, but I think a big part of it is that these symptoms are really not socially acceptable (which is kind of the point).

And while I feel that it's important to discuss these things, a lot of people will have negative knee-jerk reactions to hearing us talk about them. I think maybe that's what I'm worried about, but I don't know.