#AuSPD

[worms-in-my-brain]

Having affective empathy deficits because you have ASPD and cognitive empathy deficits because you have autism is wild. Especially when you have a high need for cognition and a high cognitive capacity. It’s like constantly playing 4D chess.

Someone telling me a story about something I have zero personal experience with? I am SO useless. Usually I refer to past situations I’ve been in so I know how the other person might be feeling and what advice I would give but when I have 0 context and I’m already bad at cognitive empathy. And I can’t even relate to how they feel or ‘feel for them’ even if they directly tell me. It’s like idk what do you want me to say. That sure is a situation. Do fuck all for all I care. Except I can’t say that, because I know people are expected to care about that stuff… and on some level, if it’s a friend, I do care—but the barrier to my understanding is so huge that I end up only caring from a, like, theoretical standpoint. Like yeah in general if my friend gets hurt I care. But also. I have no emotions regarding how you respond to this specific situation. And then my ability to engage on the topic starts to slim down to frantic attempts to engage social scripts so that I don’t show what’s going on in my head.

It’s also insane because like. I always think that I have good cognitive empathy (for an autistic person) until the end of the day. And then I drop my mask and I realise how tired I am. Or when I’m at a social gathering for a while and I use so much energy I wind up practically hiding behind a friend so nobody talks to me. And then I realise that, yeah, I might be able to use it to function to some extent, but every time I do I’m using all of these mental functions that I barely even realise I’m using anymore that it just nukes me.

AuSPD is a pretty intense combo in that it really severely damages your ability to relate to other people. Especially when the impacts they have on your thoughts make it so that, often, your perspective is only understood by yourself. (Its why I enjoy online communities sm—somebody out there is BOUND to relate EVENTUALLY and I like seeing that I’m not alone).

[worms-in-my-brain]

I’m coining AuSPD to refer to autism + ASPD. Modelled off of AuDHD. Possibly AuSPDHD could be autism + ASPD + ADHD if applicable (implying ASPDHD for ASPD + ADHD).

Makes it a little easier to talk abt it, autism and ASPD interact in an interesting manner and the high comorbidity of ADHD with both autism and ASPD can further complicate that relation. Esp since ADHD can have symptoms in common with both autism and ASPD (autism/ADHD: sensory issues, executive dysfunction issues, stimming, time blindness, sleep problems; ADHD/ASPD: boredom, need for stimulation, anhedonia, impulsivity).

* this is mostly just for me, I’m not sure how common it is to have all three and idk how other PDs would interact as I only have the one. But I would love for others to use it as well if they find it useful.