I Wish I Lived In A World Where Being Low Energy, Lacking Enthusiasm And Being Nonchalant Was Accepted

Sometimes I think I’d be a great actor because I’m already used to pretending and adapting to whatever people expect. But at the same time, having to do it constantly, on command, and according to someone else’s script? Sounds draining. And what if I don’t even get the roles I want? That's even worse. Pretending is easy when it benefits me, but following orders just for the sake of it? No, thanks.

Relationships are exhausting. The effort, the expectations, the unspoken rules I never fully understand or care to follow. It’s either too much or never enough. People say they want honesty, but they flinch when I give it to them. They say they value independence, but resent it when I don’t need them.

Welcome to the family, son

Antisocial Personality Disorder is a Spectrum

The question that people most commonly ask, while they're trying to figure out if they may have ASPD, or if the diagnosis they received is an accurate one, is: "Can I even have ASPD if I don't do *specific symptom*?"

Even people who have been diagnosed, or medically recognized, for years, still continue asking themselves, if ASPD is the correct diagnosis, based on how they perceive other people's presentation of the condition compared to their own.

Its a worry, that makes sense, since people with ASPD do often have experienced being invalidated in their childhoods, being told they're just choosing to misbehave and also continue being confronted with stereotypes as the "only valid & talked about presentation".

People who question whether they may have this disorder and whether it may be worth it to bring this concern up with a psychologist, often feel intimidated by the public's insistence on ASPD being solely defined by violence and law breaking.

Similarly, people who are diagnosed with ASPD, often feel as if they are not violent enough, or do not break laws often enough, in order to really have this diagnosis.

Other common worries/questions often circle around the lack of empathy, the lack of guilt/remorse, overall emotional intensity, impulsive behavior, having relationships, being manipulative, etc.

There's simply a sort of pattern, where people are concerned whether they have enough of the common experiences, or whether they have experiences, that automatically mean they do not have ASPD.

In the end, the answer to those questions, is relatively easy! ASPD exists on a spectrum, just as any other disorder/condition does.

You need to meet 3 out of the 7 criteria points (in the DSM-5) in order to be diagnosed with ASPD. Those criteria points are only met if your experiences are: not "normal" for your cultural/regional background, cause you impairment in your daily life, have been there for a certain duration of time and are not better explained by other conditions/episodes/etc.

In the case of ASPD, that means that you can meet criteria if you, as an example, check off the symptoms for impulsivity, irresponsibility and aggression OR check off the symptoms for the disregard for others, lack of remorse and law breaking OR...you get the picture. Theres a really big amount of combinations for the symptoms alone and an even bigger amount when it comes to how severely you experience each symptom.

Lets look at this with the example of lacking remorse! You can theoretically have ASPD without ever meeting this criteria point, if you meet enough of the others AKA you can have ASPD and still feel a shitload of guilt for the things you do. You can also partially meet it, by lets say, not feeling remorse for people unless they're really close to you, or only for specific actions/situations. You can have problems with feeling remorse emotionally, or you can have problems with understanding the concept cognitively, or both.

If you deal with episodic apathy due to other conditions, you may also experience a lack of remorse without that ever being caused by ASPD, but it may cause you to meet other criteria points to a higher/more frequent degree during those episodes. You may, as an example, break laws more frequently or have a higher amount of impulsive behaviors during which you disregard other people. Which could be symptoms you already experienced before, but now that you don't feel sorry for it, it happens more often until the apathy episode ends. In these cases ASPD symptoms and symptoms from other conditions influence each other and cause a complex individual presentation.

This is true for every single symptom, for every single person. A lack of one specific symptom doesn't immediately disqualify you from having ASPD. Thats just not how the criteria works.

Additionally theres a lot of experiences that, while associated with ASPD & used to support the diagnosis, are not in the criteria list themselves. So they aren't technically necessary, even if they are observed in a lot of cases (this includes the lack of empathy and muted emotions).

Now, while all of that is true, theres also a point to be made, that ASPD, in criterion A is characteterized as a pattern of "disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occuring since age 15". This pattern is then "indicated by three or more of the following" seven criteria points. Your symptoms, therefore, do need to form said pattern and be present relatively often and in a way, that indicates, that this is your day to day reactions and not something that just happens once in a while.

Another thing, thats maybe important to think about, is that the DSM-5 only mentions a few possible ways symptoms can present. It cannot and will not cover the whole range of possibilities.

Which means, that you may meet the criteria points without even realizing it, because you simply present in a way that deviates a lot from the common stereotypes.

Did you know that you can meet the criteria point for aggression, if you're only verbally aggressive? Or if your immediate reaction is aggression, but you let it out on yourself or in ways that just are not visible for other people? A lot of people think its only physical fights, or obvious lashing out, that get you to meet this criteria point, but theres a lot more to it and this is true for all the symptoms!

Impulsivity/failure to plan ahead, can absolutely look like the more stereotyped reckless spending, reckless driving and dyeing your hair a bunch of colors, but it can also be stuff like: saying things before you stop to think about them, booking a ticket to another country for in an hour without considering whether you can get there in time or how you'll fly back, leaving the house in a rush because you see your friends are in town and forgetting your keys and phone inside and having to call a locksmith from your neighbours house at 3am, frequently staying up at night because you wanna just play one more game or read one more book and failing to consider that you have work in the morning, calling in sick because you dont wanna get up and it sounds like a good idea but its actually the thing that gets you fired etc.

A lot of this can also tie into irresponsibility, which is more than just not showing up to work, or not paying your debts back. Irresponsibility can range from not caring for your children properly, to consuming unsafe things, to not caring properly for yourself while you're ill, to putting off repairs on the house because you can't be bothered to do it until its too late.

So yes, you can have ASPD as long as you meet 3 criteria points and criterion B-D. Yes, even if:

• you feel guilt/remorse

• you develop deep bonds to others

• you love cute things and "childish" stuff

• you have hobbies you're passionate about

• you feel empathy

• you've not broken the law (tho you need to make sure you still meet "conduct disorder prior to age 15" requirements in other ways here!!)

• you're not impulsive at all

• you can hold down a job

• you have children you love

• you care about animals

• etc.

As long as you meet criteria, despite things like that, you have ASPD and no uneducated "but ASPDers never care and never feel and never do x" opinions can change that.

Do keep in mind, that personality disorders usually affect all three: thoughts, emotions and behaviors! If your actions are cruel, but you experience no lack of prosocial emotions or thought patterns, your experience will likely not be grouped under ASPD. If it was, every bully or asshole in this world would be diagnosed with ASPD, but they usually are motivated by prosocial thoughts and emotions as well (just to the detriment of a few specific groups of people).

In my opinion, theres a clear difference between someone with ASPD, that has an overall disregard for people and a bigot, who has a specific disregard for a specific group of people due to a misguided belief, that he is actually helping "his group" by opressing that "other group" => prosocial motivations can be harmful, but harmful prosocial motivations are not antisocial.

That being said, as an antisocial person, it can be hard to differentiate between a disregard for specific groups and an overall disregard, especially if people treat it as the same and use the same terms for it, so its not surprising to me, that many people can't tell the difference.

Long story short:

• ASPD exists on a spectrum because every person has an individual presentation

• As long as you meet 3 criteria points and criterion B-D, you have ASPD, even if you dont conform to stereotypes, or if you do something that people think is an immediate disqualifier

• The DSM-5 only lists examples and not every possible presentation and it acknowledges this itself

• ASPD symptoms are not equal to bigotry, because bigotry is not antisocial. Its harmful prosociality, which makes it that much more attractive to people, because they aren't against society, they are for a BETTER society for THEIR people and thats much harder to argue against. Which may seem irrelevant to the topic, but trust me its especially important right now, because I for one would love it, if people could stop calling people "sociopaths" or "psychopaths" when they're actually bigots, thank you very much.

first posted on my instagram (same @)

taspdfw you had conduct disorder as a kid and you were physically punished, emotionally punished, grounded, etc but nothing clicked and you just kept doing the same shit. and your parents wonder why you want nothing to do with them.

People always disappoint me the moment they seem to finally understand me. Maybe for a second, I think they get it, but they never really do. And that’s fine. I don’t want them too close anyway. I don’t fear abandonment, if anything, I’m always the first to cut people off when they become useless, irritating, or start thinking they have some kind of hold on me. Every time, it just proves what I already know: being alone is better. No expectations, no attachments, no one slowing me down. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s a mistake. But it’s the only thing that seems to work for me.

I don't get emotionally attached to people. I don't ever need that. I recently told someone this, and instead of taking it at face value, they asked if I still felt something for them. As if they were the exception, as if a relationship without emotional involvement is impossible. They seem to think their so-called "special" love can fix me, as if I'm broken. It's laughable. I'm not in need of fixing, and I don't crave any dependency or emotional attachment. If you think you’re special enough to change that, you're wasting your time.

ASPD: The Desire for and Run from Intimacy

This post will only contain my personal opinion and experience. It may not be applicable to all other people with ASPD and may likewise be relatable to people who do not have it.

I am only going to be talking about emotional intimacy, but this post is definitely also applicable to the other type of intimacy!

I'll make myself pretty vulnerable in this post, by discussing my personal experience, so you better not make me regret that!

Abbreviations:

ASPD = Antisocial Personality Disorder

ASPD is a disability caused by prolonged childhood trauma (with many possible variations), that develops in order to protect the brain from said trauma, or rather to help the brain deal with it in some way!

While the consequences of this in the context of intimacy, look different for every person with ASPD, many do report: a difficulty with developing bonds, having problems trusting people & giving away control, losing feelings for people quickly and abruptly/getting "bored" of people, responding extremely to arguments, having problems dealing with peoples emotions/ problems with being close to people etc.

This may be due to a variety of factors, but does often tie back to having no or few positive experiences with intimacy, having not learned how to exist in relationships properly/a lack of being socialized, not having the necessary prosocial emotions and mechanisms to deal with it and other similar things.

While this causes some people with ASPD to develop a brain, that does not have a need for emotional intimacy at all, others develop a brain, that craves the emotional intimacy it has been denied, but which will also fight said intimacy at every turn.

Thats as much generalized info as I can give you, as the exact representation of this is highly individual, but I will offer my personal experience on the following slides!

What you need to know is that I was accidentally neglected for huge parts of my childhood and teens and did not get my emotional and social needs met most of the time, while also knowing that my parents were theoretically capable of that, as they were giving everything I lacked to my sibling.

This caused me to grow up with a burning desire for intimacy, while being disappointed by people time and time again, failing to actually develop the things needed to experience this intimacy and partially growing to resent it and viewing it as "weak" and "bad".

Ever since then I have been stuck in what I like to call the "ASPD stages of running". Theres different points in getting close to people (in any nature of a relationship), that'll send me running and feeling like I am "weak" for wanting it, or as if being close to people is the worst thing that could happen.

The stages (simply put) are:

1. Desiring/Daydreaming about my dream relationship

2. Looking at peoples relationships/Looking at people with the intent of getting closer to them

3. Talking to people (online or irl)

4. Getting closer / being friends with people

5. Being friends with people for longer

Optionally:

6. Getting so close that a romantic relationship may happen

7. The moment of getting in the relationship / the days after

8. Being in the relationship for a bit

At any of those stages, I'll very likely have one or multiple moments where my ASPD will try to get the better of me and will try to convince me to just run away, drop contact and never talk about it again. Even just admitting to this and talking about it is hard as fuck, because it is so deeply ingrained in my brain to see emotional intimacy as a weak and dangerous thing.

What this will look like exactly really depends on the person and situation, but things that have happened in the past were:

• blocking the person and everyone I am friends with and pretending I am no longer alive

• my brain fixating on their faults in order to give me a good reason to hate them so I don't get closer to them and can hold them at arms length

• responding less often/more dryly or ignoring messages entirely

• not replicating the energy of the conversation/relationship

• staging an incident so I ruin the relationship

• running at the first signs of a disagreement

• avoiding people when they are emotional

• feeling uncomfortable around people as a whole => isolating

• beating myself up about letting it happen again

• impulsively bumping the relationship to another stage, just to immediately regret it (in a "fuck that has consequences" way)

• shutting off all my emotions, dissociate or otherwise make sure to stop the feelings (or just lose them automatically)

To put it in a shorter and more simple way, I'll usually either get the fuck outta there, or make sure to change the relationship/my personal position in the relationship to a more comfortable and less vulnerable and intimate level. This may also just look like me shutting off, becoming distant, or seeming mad, when all I am is overwhelmed by the intimacy and grossed out that I actually need and desire that.

As you can possibly imagine, that is not the most useful thing, as it causes issues in relationships, cuts friendships short and makes dealing with people a lot harder!

The most frustrating thing about this for me though is, that even if the most perfect friend or partner came along and even if the relationship would work at first, I am very very likely to crash it against the wall, simply because my brain cannot handle having the things, that it needs and desires.

It desires a hug and runs from the one who offers it.

It needs help and bites the hand that does.

It needs love and gets grossed out by whoever offers it.

It wants attention and can't handle it when it gets it.

It wants gifts, but doesnt know what to do when it gets them.

Whatever it wants, it can't have, so it keeps wanting, keeps yearning, keeps desiring and has to watch itself be unable to accept any of it.

And if that sounds painful, thats because it is.

Its a vicious kind of pain when you have to watch yourself ruin yet another thing, because your brain can't handle it, while you scream at it in frustration to get its act together, because it also is everything you desperately need.

ASPD sucks when it comes to intimacy and it especially sucks when it comes to talking about it, or being honest about these problems. It developed to protect me from being too "weak" to deal with the trauma and now its practically preventing me from showing any "weakness" or seeking out what previously hurt me. Which wouldn't be this bad, if I didn't still have this kid in me that just wants to be loved and daydreams about all the things, the ASPD hates.

When your shell disagrees with your core and you're not strong enough yet to break your shell, what does that really leave you with, other than curling up into a spiky ball and letting the shell do its job? I know I still need the protection, but I wish it wasn't actively preventing me from learning to live without it.

First posted on my instagram (same @)

I know, I know. I’ve done… I’ve done terrible things. And I enjoyed every second, soldier boy!