#autism or adhd however you interpert it :)

[hjonko]

PT.2

They’re like this to me

Alternatively

[hamcakevaletguy]

Can you actually explain how he was acting passive agressive? People love to misunderstand and twist his words and to me he was coming off as blunt but not rude. And yes his autism definitely plays a part in how he expresses himself and people might interpert it as rude when it wasnt his intention. Remember he might want to be considerate but he still struggles with empathy and understanding how other people might feel.

I did not address the passive aggressive comment in my personal post because I did not believe that viewpoint was contributing to the conversation that needed to be had. I outlined one way he could be viewed as passive aggressive in my last answer to an ask. I’ll link it here later if you can’t find it. I’m typing this out on mobile and I’m new to posting this much, so I’m not quite sure on how to do that.

Regarding his autism, I’m studying as a psychology major, going into my third year and I just took a class on Abnormal Psychology, so I know more about this than I previously would have. His autism, ADHD, etc. are a possible reason for his irritability, lack of awareness of the situation and sounding brusque, yes. However, my first sentence was directed towards people who say that he is autistic, therefore he can’t be expected to do anything about what his words caused.

Like I said in my original post, his autism and other mental illnesses are an explanation of his actions, but regardless, there are consequences to those actions that he does have to deal with. Those consequences being active harm to another person.

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

YOU!! YOU GET IT!!!!! i liken the aspd obsession with dopamine to addiction, and it honestly oftentimes leads to more conventional addictions. (substance abuse is VERY common in pwASPD)

also b4 i Rant: i am 100% certain that the reason aspd izaya isnt talked about much is because fucking NOBODY knows what its like to have aspd. all the literature on it sucks and the stuff that doesnt suck either a) barely scratches the surface or b) is a full-on academic study that a layperson might not be able to FIND, let alone read and interpert. its ONLY people w aspd actually talling at length about what its like to have this disorder, and even then its hard to find them!! blogs become defunct, people delete, and honestly some people with aspd are mean as fuck and constantly put down other people w aspd that dont fit THEIR narrow idea of what aspd Should Be like, which.... their ideas on what aspd Should Be like end up reinforcing stereotypes. so!

so the information is really hard to find so all the fandom talks about is "is izaya a psychopath? (read: evil iredeemable nonperson) here's why he ISNT!!! (because i love him and empathize with him)" or "izaya (my blorbo whom i love and who needs to be redeemable in some way) was charmed by shinra, a sociopath (read: evil iredeemable nonperson) (because they NEED izaya to have been ALTERED in some way, to have been coerced down this path by A Sociopath, because izaya Isn't A Sociopath)"

(yes i am still fucking mad about that. but what can i expect from someone who still bases their identity off the terf book series)

anyway yeah. also u CAN have autism and aspd if thats a headcanon u still want! i for one have autism adhd AND aspd... da triple threat. so it Can happen!

BUT. THE SUBSTANCE ABUSE. which, yeah substance abuse issues are one of the top 3 comorbidities for aspd (the other 2 being anxiety disorders and depressive disorders) yes this has to do with izaya just trust me mkay

so like. yall might have gleamed that i have a BIT of a weed problem from my highposting... and the fact that i stopped tagging it so yall wouldnt know how often i got high 😳 but now its mundane for me so i want to try harder drugs... which is dangerous for me because theyll either interact badly with my meds or i'll skip a dose. which. one of my meds is a heart medication for my Very Painful Arrythmia. i should not be skipping that. in fact i need more of it honestly. this is dangerous!!

i liken izaya's job to my drug problems. i chose to do drugs and i choose to continue doing drugs, its not an urge i'm fighting against. i do it, and i like doing it. HOWEVER, if i were to one day decide to stop doing drugs, it would be nigh impossible. i know this because i didn't do any substances for two weeks once, and it was only possible because i knew i'd get to do them again soon.

i think that's how izaya is with his work. he likes it and continues to do it, but if he ever wanted to stop, he would be unable to.

a nausea-inducing mix of choice, and the terrifying and utter lack of it.

i'm on my aspd izaya bullshit again but like. thru this lens, isnt his arc a perfect encapsulation on how aspd negatively affects the person that has it? even to this day, many professionals do not believe that pwASPD suffer from aspd. like at all. to the point where aspd was specifically listed as an outlier to the "patient distress is what defines a disorder" rule in an abnormal psych textbook

(see why i don't respect the field?)

but... he does suffer! a lot! like- remember his speech to mikado at the end of the first arc? how you need to keep evolving, keep changing in order to escape the mundane? how you have to keep going and going and going, wether it be aiming high or low?

yeah. normal people don't need to do this, izaya. you are a broken person.

but why SHOULD he be content with the mundane? the things people usually have that make them content with daily life- friends, family, a purpose, a distinct lack of extreme chronic boredom that drives you to do completely insane shit- izaya doesn't HAVE any of that!

"wait, chronic boredom?" i hear yall thinking. maybe. "isnt that an adhd thing?"

more than one disorder can have the same symptom. theres like a billion that have "want to die" as a symptom. but i dont really blame you for not knowing, its not talked about much

studies have shown that aspd and adhd are both problems with the dopamine receptors in the brain. more specifically, adhd is a chronic deficiency of dopamine, whereas with aspd, when you DO get dopamine, your brain gives you quardruple the normal amount.

studies have ALSO shown there to be a sort of... adhd to aspd pipeline. the story goes like this: you have a kid with adhd. maybe they're born like that, maybe the symptoms developed from trauma (which can happen? apparently??) anyway. kid gets abused. kid develops conduct disorder as a result of that abuse, as a natural extension of the existing adhd symptoms. they're MORE impulsive, which leads to them hurting others- and if it sets off the dopamine receptors, an abused kid starving for happiness and power is gonna chase it, no matter what. theyre like, six, they dont know anything about like. morality. all they know is, theyre sad and this makes them happy. anyway kid never gets treated, abuse continues to exasperate the symptoms, and now you have an adult with aspd, AND the original adhd diagnosis! and ptsd, which is HIGHLY comorbid with aspd! and probably another personality disorder, because you're actually statistically more likely to have two of them!

anyway! that's ONE of the ways aspd can develop from trauma, which it is Known To Do.

does any of that sound pleasant to go through? at all?

let me ask you a question:

imagine you aren't getting dopamine. maybe it's your adhd. maybe you're depressed. either way, you try to get it any way you can. wether it's throwing yourself into a hobby or a job, so the sense of satisfaction gives you dopamine, or something like drugs or gambling.

now, imagine that "rush" you felt. was Four Times Stronger.

wouldnt that compel you to do increasingly dangerous and risky shit, just to feel okay? imagine if you had no friends. imagine if this was your only way to be happy. wouldnt you, eventually, stop caring about others and only care about yourself? after all, other people have thinga like friends and a family that you don't have. they have a fallback. you only have this.

and you might say, "i'd never do that!" but every addict says that, and most eventually cross that line out of sheer desperation. and this? effectively makes you into a dopamine addict. which is dangerous! you can't just STOP... gettng dopamine....! it's necessary! but you have no help so you keep doing what youre doing. (and how could you get help? its baked into the system that people like you don't suffer. why try if youll just get burned?

anyway, back to izaya.

he's lonely. he has one friend and he sucks. he feels compelled to do these things even though he KNOWS it'll hurt him.

i stole this screenshot from some1 who insulted my friend once for something stupid <3 die

but it illustrates my point very well! does it look like he has much control over things?? he sure like to ACT like he does, but at the end of the day, he doesn't, really. he ends up spiraling more and more, doing increasingly risky and rash things, just to get his end goal... which is to die and ascend to the afterlife. a lofty goal.

aiming high, isn't he? a final, spectacular evolution.

or, it should have been.

but it wasn't.

izaya's impulses and deep desire to continue becoming more and more drastic, coupled with his lack of personal ties to anyone that could keep him from doing so....

it didn't make him ascend. it left him in a wheelchair, with chronic pain that will last his whole life.

THAT is where mental illness takes you. it doesn't make you a hollywood psychopath, reveling in the destruction you chose, of your own free will, wholly and truly, to cause. it makes you want More. no matter what, you need More. you see people content with lives worse than yours, everyone bound together with some sort of invisible thread, some sort of tie that keeps them together. a thread that missed you. your brain refuses to see people as people, thus you remain lonely forever, unsatiafied wirh company other than the superficial, because it's fun. that's all you're allowed to care about. an endless cycle of bigger and bigger actions, impulses slowly getting worse--

--and the worst part is, it tricks you into believing you ever had a choice. it tricks everyone into believing you had a choice. your suffering is worse than disregarded, to all the people you look at from your apartment, all the people you wish you could have been like.

it's nonexistant.