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Morgan Gwenwald, Butch/Fem Picnic

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Aspd culture is feeling like you don't have it because you're just some guy and not either an extremely charming businessman or a deranged killer

aspd-culture is

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Things about ASPD people seem to get wrong a lot:

(I've made this post for other things before, but it's time for one on ASPD).

Please for the love of fuck do not take this to mean my experiences are universal or that this is clinical information on a disorder. I'm not a professional, just a person with PDs.

1. We can feel love, fear, and other emotions. People w/ASPD aren't emotionless robots.

2. Being a "psychopath" and being psychotic (experiencing psychosis - delusions and/or hallucinations) aren't the same thing. People w/ASPD may have comorbid disorders but aren't automatically psychotic, and if you use "psycho" as a derogatory term you are using an ableist slur for people with mental illnesses.

3. Sociopathy and psychopathy are not modern diagnostic terms. They are not separate classes of the disorder; it's simply antisocial PD.

4. Antisocial and unsocial are different things. Someone w/ASPD isn't necessarily introverted or averse to socializing! We can have friends.

5. People w/ASPD (just like NPD) are not automatically abusive. We can be in healthy, committed relationships. We do not automatically cheat or harm our partners.

6. An extremely small percentage of the population are murderers, and an even smaller percentage are murderers w/ASPD. This is not the "serial killer" disorder. People with PDs are often repeat victims of violence themselves.

7. Many people w/ASPD bond with animals more easily than other people; we aren't evil, and we don't automatically abuse animals either. I personally love animals very much.

8. Low/no empathy =/= evil, abusive, or unable to care for others. I care about my partner. I care about my family and close friends. People need to stop equating capacity for empathy with capacity for care and compassion.

9. We still do nice things for others. I do things to make my partner happy because I value the relationship, and I enjoy seeing him happy. It may not be the same as empathetic, "contageous" happiness - but I care.

10. Many people w/ASPD (think vast majority) have this disorder due to childhood trauma and abuse themselves. Lack of empathy is often a response to abuse, to protect one's self, either physically or emotionally and to create distance from abusers. "The world is an unsafe place" is a commonly held belief by people w/ASPD.

11. Many of us did go through childhood and adolescence being prone to criminal acts such as theft or fighting. Many of us also learn as we get older how to control impulses and recognize consequences for our actions. I may not feel remorse, but I also don't want to create more problems in my life. We can learn.

12. Lack of remorse =/= we don't give a shit about hurting people in our life, or that we can't regret our actions. I care about my relationships because I don't want to go through life alone; it matters that I take care of those relationships. If I hurt someone I care for, I try to make it right. Even if this is somewhat transactional, the end result is me putting in effort to fix things.

13. Transactional relationships aren't inherently bad. Many egotypical people are probably more transactional than they realize or admit. Relationships often work on an effort in -> effort out basis; if the relationship is mutually beneficial that's a good thing. It's only a bad thing if the benefits are one sided.

14. We don't just go out of our way to hurt people or cause problems. If absolutely nothing else, it's inconvenient; it takes effort. I usually just ignore people entirely even if they annoy me. Generally speaking we just aren't motivated to cause harm. Also, again, we can learn about consequences.

15. Because ASPD has largely been studied among prison populations, it is poorly understood in the general population and there is a heavy bias to frame people w/ASPD as criminals. The DSM criteria focuses on this angle and others have proposed a rewrite.

16. OUR symptoms affect US first and foremost. 50% of people w/ASPD have comorbid anxiety disorders, and we have a higher rate of suicide and shorter lifespan.

17. Your abusive ex, or parents, or that politician probably aren't "sociopaths." They most likely just suck (same with NPD).

18. We don't constantly think about manipulating people in every situation. Again, effort. Most of my interactions are genuine because I don't have a reason to manipulate those people in the first place.

19. We don't belong in prison or dead just because of our disorder. We are still human and deserve dignity and compassion.

20. Most of the time you'd never know whether someone has ASPD or not just by interacting with them. It's not that obvious; people w/ASPD are from all walks of life and most of us are pretty "normal" and boring from the outside.

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“… I wonder if I will ever find a language to speak of the things that haunt me the most.”

— Bao Phi, from “Vocabulary,” Thousand Star Hotel (via wordsthat-speak)

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Susan Sontag, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh

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i think the debate about mental illness and violence kinda looks over the fact that psychiatry can, in fact, decide anything it wants is “mental illness” and if they say violent behavior can be a symptom of mental illness then… it is. these diagnoses are far from scientific and like, they already focus on criminal conviction as a sign of aspd which should be concerning since the types of crimes that are usually prosecuted are usually primarily associated with marginalization and poverty. the answer to the question “can mental illness cause violent behavior” should be “maybe, but there is no inherent validity to any of these diagnoses–people have brains and behaviors, and psychiatry assigns them labels based on behaviors observed to be commonly comorbid. the line between “normal brain, normal behavior” and “abnormal brain, abnormal behavior” is entirely socially constructed. the question we should ask: who does it benefit, and who does it hurt, if violence can be (and it already is) a symptom of mental illness.”

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ASPD Thought:

The feeling of having to keep your problems to yourself, or make others think everything is ok when it’s not, because your problems come off as selfish, narcissistic, or cruel to other people? That is what will eat you alive faster than anything else. It’s not the problems themselves that are so bad at times. Feeling completely isolated and alone with no one to talk to but yourself because if you voice how you truly feel to others, it will leave you actually isolated and alone, that’s what kills you.

I have tried to perfect the art of hiding my problems from others. The longer I hide them the more I fail, because repressing feelings causes them to eventually boil over. I sit inside of my head all day long, week after week, trying to solve my own problems. Trying to make sense of them. Trying to talk myself out of them. Not daring to be completely honest with anyone around me. But the more I’m left alone with my own thoughts, the worse my mental state gets.

The feeling of literally not ever being safe enough to say how you truly feel 100% with absolutely anyone is the worst part for me. Sometimes it’s better to be alone in your own mind while still surrounded by people that you do care about, than it is to be truly alone. Even if you feel like you’re slowly dying inside. Because in the end, neither situation will ever give you the ability to say how you really feel so you may as well do what you need to do in order to not end up entirely alone. Even if it means never having anyone who can listen to how you really feel without looking at you like a monster. Because for people like me with problems like mine, that person doesn’t exist.

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Doubt, lost, anger, depression.

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Me every morning when I have to wake up and do it all over again:

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You can't win with ASPD, because if you mask then you're a liar. If you make an effort to treat people with compassion you're manipulative. If you display symptoms you're either an edgelord or a scary sociopath not worthy of respect.

You'll struggle your entire life with the trauma that caused your disorder while people discredit your experiences, because obviously you're not allowed to feel pain or let anything bother you.

Chasers fetishize your disorder while ableists screech about how you should be locked up, denied basic human rights, or put down. Media that glamorizes your disorder for shock value will make beaucoup bucks while you're unable to find a single therapist willing and able to treat you. Psych literature will state that you're emotionally volatile while onlookers call you cold and incapable of human emotion. Psych literature will state that 50% of people with your diagnosis have a comorbid anxiety disorder, but textbooks will claim people like you are unable to feel fear in an effort to dehumanize you.

Any resources you find will be buried between ten times as many resources for victims of people like you, telling them to run and teaching them how to manipulate you. Even educators will fail to discuss your diagnosis in a practical way because they're too busy name-dropping Bundy and Dahmer. You will be told to fix yourself without any help doing so. You will be told to fix yourself while being told that people like you are beyond saving. Other abuse survivors will tell you to not interact with them, so you'll make your own spaces and then they'll follow you into your own spaces to harass you.

People armchair diagnose politicians, cops, and abusers with your disorder as an explanation for their bigotry and cruelty. People armchair diagnose CEOs with your disorder to prove that you have some kind of unfair advantage over everyone else in society. They'll write articles about it for clicks and clout and everyone in the comments section will vent about their ex.

If you complain about any of it they'll accuse you of gaslighting and proving their point - that you're a terrible person who's not a person at all.

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