#aspd Exception

[mental-illness-bingo]

(Somewhat hopeful) vent:

My best friend and Exception moved a few states away a couple years ago. It stays hard for a long time, there’s no question about that. He moved in Jan 2020, so as you can probably imagine the plan was supposed to be “let me get settled in and then either I’ll come back to visit or you can come meet the people I moved in with and see the place”, but turned into us not seeing each other for 3 years in person. My heart broke daily for a few months. Weekly and sometimes more often for the rest of that time.

I fell into doing stupid stuff for a bit without realizing how much of it came from coping poorly with his absence. I called him when I got scared of who I was becoming every time but never made the connection because there were other circumstances pushing me to that too. I cut that out - unintentionally right before his first visit back. I couldn’t be happier or more proud of myself, especially for my accidental perfect timing.

It really didn’t stop until last year when he came to visit for the first time. It destroyed me when he left again, but I enjoyed every second. He visited again for a few days and is leaving today. While it still hurts like hell as the minutes are getting close to when he leaves for the airport in a few hours, there is something distinctly different than the pain used to be.

I know he’ll be back, and he brought up trying to have me come visit him sometime soon so I could start saving up to do that on this trip, so I know that the pain isn’t just me. He isn’t happy to leave in that he’s happy to not have me nearby. Him loving his home and the people he lives with and knows there doesn’t change that he loves me too (platonically; please learn how to tell yourself AND your friends that you love them). This visit made me realize that our friendship hasn’t changed at all. The way we feel about each other and the way we talk and laugh and stay up all night because sleep just doesn’t matter the same way it does with everyone else - none of that is different. It may happen less frequently, but it’s all the same. Put us in a room together and it’s still all the same. If anything, we’ve doubled down on all of that, but it wasn’t intentional. We didn’t have to think about “oh we should talk like we used to while we have the chance”, we just did it like we always have.

I don’t agree with what some people say - that the friendship will change when someone you love moves from walking distance to flying distance. I think that’s something you think will happen, but if the friendship is as close as we are at least, it surprises you that that doesn’t. Despite my hurt today, despite me crying even while typing this, despite the sobbing I know is coming after I walk back in my door, I know in my heart we’re the same.

I know that we are a matured version of the same kids that were everything for each other from the time we met through when we graduated. And I know that despite the (good but sometimes painful) fact that he has other people he can rely on too, we never stopped being everything for each other. More than one person can be that. More than one person can mean the world to you.

I’d live and die for him, and I have lived for him a million times when I didn’t want to. This is, I am certain, not the end of us at all. We are still so young. This is still just the beginning. There will be so much more to come.

I realized all of that this time. And now that it won’t be years between seeing each other (assuming things go to plan) - more importantly that I’ve had it proven to my brain that that really wasn’t what he wanted and was truly a product of the circumstances - I know I’ll be okay. All it is is a little extra time between those all nighters and some new pets for us to meet when we do hang out. And in the meantime, we keep learning more about ourselves so we get to know more about each other.

It has been and always will be an honor to have him in my life, and I look so fondly back on the stupid thing I said that day we met that got us here and fondly to wherever life brings this friendship next.

Friends may fall out of touch, but best friends very much can last a lifetime. I can’t see my life without him and I don’t want to learn how. He’s told me before that he feels the same.

All this to say that if anyone is struggling with someone you love moving away now, the growing pains will leave soon and be replaced with the knowledge and comfort that not a single nor a million miles can take away what you have. Text them. Call them. Make a group chat with them and the other people you love. Send a meme or cute picture of your cat. Remind yourself that you two still do talk even if it’s by a different method than it used to be - that the contact is still there. And, as soon as you can, plan a visit for those late night conversations and see that it’s all still there.

This time, some of these tears are tears of joy. With ASPD you often can’t tell if people care about you, but I made myself really listen to him this time every time he talked about us instead of getting in my head wondering if he hated me (though of course my brain still tried that) and noticed how often he both casually and emotionally spoke about our importance to each other.

We’re gonna be alright 🖤

[starlightseraph]

[redclown19]

Day 18 of Cringetober! I suddently remembered the High School AU i did in 2022 after watching the Batman movie. Going to write in the tags how i envisioned them. :3

[coffinsister]

I like to think that Andrew doesn't actually get incest guilt or shame but instead he gets really really anxious and guilty that he doesn't

Like whenever they are done and he just looks at his side and sees his happy covered in bruises and marks sister, he knows he should feel bad, or nasty, or gross, or anything

But he just doesn't, and it's that anomaly that really gets to him

[anarcho-masochist]

It's interesting how lately, in aspd circles, I've seen some people referring to relationships where they feel love/caring or a similar attachment as "exceptions" as in, as a relationship category. People are talking about their exceptions.

This is all fine and great. It is possibly very useful because you can distinguish between someone you actually got attached to and other partners.

But it's really funny seeing people talking about their exceptions as if they've had many of them. I don't think this is harmful either, but at what point does it stop being an exception to care or love and start being that you do normally have that capacity, possibly even at a level approaching what prosocials experience?

Every symptom is on a spectrum, capacity to care/love included. Many antisocials hate the idea that they're expected to not feel those things just because of their diagnosis.

So I just wanted to point out that it's not a bad thing if the person you care about this time isn't an exception, per say. It doesn't necessarily make you less antisocial.

I don't know where that line would be drawn, but I do think it is interesting to think about why someone would/wouldn't label their love an exception.

[iindigoeyed]

so I don't typically like chloe. she pisses me off and i think she only exists to drive the plot forward. but i started drawing her as practice and now the more i think about it, i actually really like her and feel like she has so much potential to be amazing. i've never been a huge chloe fan and have never been swayed one way or another before. but i get it. I get why she has so many fans now. You could do SO much with chloe if she was written correctly (which she is absolutely not in canon.) like a rich girl who is kind of a bully but aside from her brash and outwardly cruel behavior has the capacity to do good things and learn if she's given the opportunity? with a clear-cut motivation for why she does what she does and a tragic backstory? she knows some of the most important characters in the show and could do amazing things with her unique situation? she could have very easily been redeemed pre-s5. but they just… don't. they don't do anything with her except keep her where she is. there is no growth.

it feels like the sympathy that she would otherwise get goes to adrien, felix, and kagami because of their similar history. and that's great, i love those characters too. But she doesn't deserve this. she's a teenager who is heavily npd-coded and nobody extends that sympathy to her. even as a villain, she is undermined by lila. she is shown up in every regard and dumbed down to nothing, and only shows up when they need her to do something stupid so the main characters can defeat her yet again. it's so frustrating.

[aspd-culture]

are there any specific terms to ASPD that are important to know? like narc crashes/high, bpd euphoria, depended person, favorite person, and so on?

The only one that I can think of at the moment in Exception. They are not unlike FPs in BPD necessarily, but they are kinda a similar concept with opposite presentation. Afaik, in BPD an FP is where you will see heightened/exacerbated symptoms. In ASPD, however, Exceptions are where, for the most part, we see the least symptoms on a typical day. We may have the desire to be around them, have some social instincts in reference to them, and even experience empathy and/or remorse when it comes to them. However, when we are in a flare, many times our Exceptions will be the main target of our stress/anxiety/fear of people and therefore may deal with the brunt of the flare. This can look like breakups, cheating, lying - sometimes just for the hell of it - picking or escalating fights, violence, etc. That’s because we are most vulnerable with our Exception/s (for those that have them), and we feel the risk of that when our symptoms are flaring. Further, our Exception/s will *notice* the flares more because whilst most people see us with fairly intense symptoms on average days, our Exception/s go from having a nearly typical relationship with us to seeing us as the rest of the world sees us and then some.

Aside from that, I can’t think of any terms specific to ASPD, but if there are more please leave them in replies/reblogs/tags/etc so I can see them too!

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

I have a problem with fics end with Izaya quits being an informant. He's famous and powerful, he can choose whom he gonna work for.

Does he has to quit everything he was to be a better person?

this is literally what the first post i ever made was about but im gonna expand on it a little~

i think "being a better person" is kind of like, a loaded statement, like... being "better" is like, by whos standards do we define better? what constitutes better? does better mean, better for the individual? or better for other people around the individual? is it balance? does "better for the individual" mean what makes the individual happier, or what makes them healthier?

by that logic, if its "better means, they're healthier, and don't hurt themselves or others," then just throw izaya in a psych ward! he's healthier, he's getting help and medicine and isn't hurting people and can't hurt himself because he's watched too closely!

obviously this is a terrible idea.

i personally think that being a better person shouldn't be the main goal. i mean- it's good if it happens! and its good to hope it happens! but it shouldn't be the main goal. like.... wanting to stumble across a stray kitten while on a walk. every Cat Person wants their moment where they get to help a lost little kitty and rescue it and hand rear it and all of that. i do too! it's good if you find a lost, scared, and alone stray kitten, who probably wouldn't have survived without you! it's good to hope to get the chance to both help a creature that needs it, and to have a personal desire fulfilled! but if you go on a walk for the sole purpose of finding a cat, you're gonna be pissed and miserable every second that you don't see one, and you might end up snatching the first cat you see and stealing someone's lost pet

ya know?

i think... first and foremost, izaya needs to figure out what makes him happy. does his current job make him happy? is he fulfilled doing it? is it genuinely entertaining, fun, and interesting for him to track information down, and to see peoples' reactions to said info? if yes... he should keep it! durarara is a story about fucked up people doing fucked up things- if you think izaya's job is immoral, everyone better have a different career by the end.

inversely, is he unhappy doing it? is his constant exposure to people who have loved ones, families, stable relationships, hurting him? is he getting an unhealthy sort of enjoyment in seeing peoples' messed up relationships, to cope with his own shitty relationships? or did he simply just find something he'd rather be doing? if so, then... hit da bricks!

and ideally, the fic is about izaya's growth as a person, and him slowly becoming happier- that's what they're usually like, from what i've seen. he'll slowly become a better person, simply by lieu of just, things happening. he's received genuine care and affection, so he has a reason to improve- i kind of talked about this in this post i made while high; aspd is very challenging to recover from, and if you don't have a support system in place, it's a lose/lose situation: either do your best to conform to society's standards and remain bored and lonely, or let your disorder's urges take over but you're at least not depressed. it's kind of hard to find the drive to recover if you feel completely alone in the world.

so if izaya is growing as a person and becoming closer to other people, he'll become happier, become less likely to do insane fuck-with-people shit, because he has no real reason to besides "it's fun-" he's not running from anything anymore. and he can slowly walk back on doing it until he replaces it with something else that's fun- whether it be more "societally acceptable" versions of fun like things to do with your partner, or if he still has a twisted idea of fun but doesn't fuck with, yk, suicidal high schoolers.

he absolutely doesn't have to completely change who he is to become better- if he did that, then he wouldn't be himself anymore! and i don't think him totally changing himself would make him better- he's perfectly capable of growing and improving as a person, while still keeping traits that are less societally acceptable, like his job or his tendency to mess with people- and as for the things that are actually hurting both himself and others (messing with suidical people, his quest to become immortal and go to valhalla (which... also counts as a suicide- just, his weird attitude towards suicide in general) and fwiw, said immortal quest is why he messed with mikado and masomi and co. in the first place, that and It's Fun- see how him having people who care about him, who help him, lead to helping others around him?

he doesn't want to become immortal and kill himself, because he has something worth living for- doesn't need to ruin peoples' lives to gain that immortality- doesn't ruin peoples' lives.

he doesn't need to mess with random people For Funsies because he has someone he cares about in his life, making recovery more possible and the idea of going through the roughness of it less miserable- doesn't need to mess with random people in order to be happy- recovers enough so that he doesn't act on the urge enough to catfish random people and mock their sucidality for The Reaction- doesn't mess with random people

him keeping his info broker job at least provides some sort of service to somebody, doesn't lead to him being miserable, and isn't completely meaningless. is it societally taboo? yeah. is that taboo deserved? yeah. could you say someone, somewhere benefits, for a reason other than "yeah it's fun and i wanted to do it?" also yeah, and isn't that what durarara is all about?

tldnr:

[cluster-b-culture-is]

Cluster b culture is hating (most) gifts and favours because not only do you get some random crap that is already an insult in itself, but you also have to pretend to "like" it, only to make those people shut the fuck up!

.

[ladynicte]

I need the Coffin of Andy and Leyley to get an actual fandom right now

[mango-dolphin]

finished reading matthew ward's english translation of albert camus's The Stranger and can i just say: meursault just like me fr.

[orangegloom]

anyways sarah (by tyler the creator) is roughly bruno-esque. not the necrophilia or rape, but the general obsession, rejection, murder

[aspd-culture]

Hey, so I’m a prosocial person who stumbled onto your blog trying to figure out what it was like to be antisocial because I have never heard about antisocial people from their own mouths.

I saw you mention an “exception” whilst reading. What is that, if you don’t mind me asking?

Welcome! I can happily explain that for you.

So essentially, an Exception is someone that a pwASPD (person or people with ASPD) experiences less or less severe symptoms around.

If a pwASPD has an Exception, they may have some amount of empathy toward them, enjoy or at least not feel drained by being around them, feel some remorse or guilt for wrongdoings that hurt them, and/or genuinely miss them when they aren't around. They may be more inclined to follow rules if encouraged to do so by this person, or be responsible/not impulsive solely or mostly for the sake of not negatively affecting them. A good amount (but not all) of pwASPD who do seek treatment choose to do so on the recommendation or request of an Exception. Things that commonly feel like they have no value for many pwASPD like physical affection, staying within boundaries, sugarcoating things to avoid hurt feelings, etc. may suddenly have value if they are for the benefit of an Exception. Sometimes, while alone with their Exception, pwASPD will feel so "normal" that it causes imposter syndrome and makes them question if they actually have ASPD or not. This is normal and does not mean they don't have ASPD.

Other specific symptoms tend to be worsened for some pwASPD when it comes to their Exceptions, because they feel overly vulnerable with them. They may experience increased impulses to harm them (emotionally or physically) during times where they feel harmed or abandoned by their Exception. Exceptions also tend to be pushed away and detached from for seemingly no reason by pwASPD during symptom flares. This comes from the trauma associated with a poor attachment to caregivers - basically that affects how our brain forms attachments and causes us to see close, loving relationships (as one would have with an Exception) as fake and dangerous. Our brain believes that feeling safe with someone is proof they are going to hurt us, so we may lash out.

An Exception can be romantic, as I would say is most common, or platonic. Many pwASPD call their Exceptions their "best friends", but never feel like it quite feels like it described the closeness well enough before they're aware of the term. Some pwASPD who had one good caregiver may have said caregiver as an Exception, which may have helped them avoid conduct disorder diagnosis and/or treatment early on because they listened to and respected one authority figure. This was the case with me, for example. I've talked to more than one person who's Exception was their therapist. Anyone in the life of a pwASPD can be an Exception,

As of right now, this is a phenomenon noted by pwASPD but not researched and reported on by professionals, unlike the favorite person (FP) in BPD. Afaik, I believe the term was separated on request of pwBPD as there was some controversy over pwoBPD (people/person without BPD) using that term even if they were also cluster b.

Some pwASPD who don't have have experienced their professuinals referring to the same thing we refer to as an Exception as a favorite person/FP. I would consider this inaccurate both out of respect for the wishes of pwBPD but also because it's not really the same. Favorite People exacerbate the symptoms of a pwBPD, while Exceptions mostly ease the symptoms of a pwASPD. They're different enough that I would want a different term even if pwBPD were ok sharing the term.

I hope that helps! Feel free to ask any other questions you have. Thank you for listening to the voices of those of us who have ASPD. /gen

[midas-well]

I do not remember if I have spoken of this here. But I recall a time where sadism was a key trait of mine.

Not that it is uniquely mine; nor is it an extreme form. But it was something that was commonly associated with me.

I wonder if that is why I am oftentimes bored, or if it is simply that we are always lacking in dopamine.

We have begun rewatching Kakegurui, an anime that we enjoy. Yumeko Jabami is admirable, though we could never be in her place. It is the perception of craziness that has drawn us to her, yet it was the seemingly inhuman logic and skill she possessed that initially drew us in.

A thought one had whilst watching is that… if we were to watch someone’s demise in person, perhaps there would be greater amusement. Personally, we often take great pleasure in minor inconveniences of the individuals we are surrounded by. Not always, but it is commonplace. It is to the point of rage and genuine, deep-cutting pain that we typically do not enjoy it; perhaps it is due to trauma, keeping ourselves safe from individuals who may cause us harm if they were to be significantly distressed.

…I do not remember very well where my train of thought was going, admittedly. But I am thinking about the sadism that we, and many individuals, indulge in on occasion. I wonder of our apathy, lack of care. Is it truly empathy if one does not want another to be harmed because they fear for themself? Do I care for you on the basis of if you are hurt, I feel hurt? Or because if you are hurt, your actions could bring me pain as collateral?

Perhaps that is why we can never allow those we consider close to us to be brought such pain, especially if it were because of us. We cannot hurt them or allow them to be hurt, because it will hurt us. But if you were not an exception… perhaps I would greatly enjoy seeing you suffer.

It is all in good fun, afterall :)

[cluster-b-culture-is]

(I think) cluster b culture is obsessing over a fictional character, consuming a bunch of media for them, and then realizing that you've started creating a persona eerily similar to them or subtle behaviors of theirs until you stop obsessing over them and go back to "normal"

Maybe that's just me?

.

[anarkhebringer]

That post made me curious, so I looked up some general Native etiquette and social behavior studies and. Oh. I get it now.