#basically with reasoning that boiled down to 'we (the board) don't wanna'

[tearlessrain]

I will never not be pissed about how covid has been handled. I don't really talk about it anymore because it's not going to change anything and I'm just gonna end up being That Guy evne more than I already am in general but. I'm just terminally pissed about it. the fact that so many people died who didn't have to, the fact that disabled and elderly people were so blatantly thrown under the bus to the point that a lot of people weren't even pretending to care, the CDC straight up lying multiple times and making it abundantly clear that the economy is more important than human life (or quality of life). the fact that everyone acts like long covid doesn't exist and "you won't die stop worrying about it," the fact that everyone (mainly the government and corporations but I see it on an individual social level too) is so desperate to get back to "normal" that they threw out a bunch of things that were actively improving lives like normalizing wearing masks during flu season/in doctors offices, and making more jobs remote, and respecting peoples' goddamn personal space. the fact that for some reason the prevailing opinion is that it's been long enough now and we should all get over it and accept it as a part of life and purposefully do nothing to mitigate the risk from this still very present and dangerous illness because you're harshing everyone's vibe.

it just really sucks man idk there's no point to this.

[uncloseted]

1. I don't have a degree in psychology, but I have written a 4000 word essay about sociopathy a while back in high school (for the IB), and I used legitimate studies as much as possible from NCBI. And I know that making assumptions about someone's mental health is wrong, but I did once meet one who does meet the symptoms quiet closely. With that being said, "let's just jump into it!"

Anonymous said to effys-closet: 2. First of all, I did feel like Kati's handling of sociopathy was unprofessional. And more so her response to the backlash. She has had credentials, maybe she did cover ASPD briefly but she wasn't qualified in Abnormal Psychology to comment on it. I mean, neither am I, but let's move on. I know that sociopathy isn't a term used for diagnosis, people are diagnosed with ASPD, but I have seen a thing called Hare's Psychopathy Checklist, which does determine whether someone is a psychopath or not. Anonymous said to effys-closet: 3. Most people use the terms psychopath and sociopath interchangeably. Others however think that there is a difference, psychopaths are the ones who are cooler, calmer and more meticulous in their planning, whereas sociopaths can get angry easily and act more impulsively. There is also a thing going around that psychopaths are "born" whereas sociopaths are "made". My essay was based around how much of it is genetic and environmental, and like most things in psychology, it is both. Anonymous said to effys-closet: 4. That being said, it is absolutely possible for cases to be more genetic based or more environmental based, and that is what people would like to differentiate between psychopath and sociopath. Psychopathy and sociopathy fall under the umbrella of ASPD, and until now I used to feel like they were virtually the same thing, but there are people saying that it is still possible for ASPD people to have emotions and empathy and can be cured, idk about that, I personally doubt the cure claim. Anonymous said to effys-closet: 5. The reason being, that people with ASPD have huge underdevelopments in their brains, caused genetically and/or cuz of shitty childhood, and that leaves them with huge deficits in grey matter. I think at reaching adulthood these gaps can't be regrown or filled, cuz there are certain brain developments that only happen in childhood. Compare it with the effects of depression where that does affect the brain but once you're cured of depression you can still reverse those effects. Anonymous said to effys-closet: 6. I think in the case of the Paul brothers, the main person is Greg Paul. You didn't watch the rest of the series, but basically at one point Shane drops the sociopath label and works with Jake to talk about his problems, meaning the thing with Alissa, the Martinez Twins, and all of the complaints people have had against him. He also talks to the people that have beef with him. In the end it's concluded by most people watching that he isn't a sociopath, but more emotionally stunted, cuz of Greg Anonymous said to effys-closet: 7. Jake and Logan's parents were divorced early on, and they had to live with their mom and dad interchangeably from time to time. Their dad had them play football, turn tires and basically attempt to make them "tough" men. From the very beginning they were taught that you shouldn't show your emotions cuz that makes you weak. Even today Greg is pretty controlling of Jake's whole team 10 thing. Jake hasn't been taught how to deal with emotions from the very beginning. He has never known what is Anonymous said to effys-closet: 8. right and wrong, he has always made offensive jokes around his friends and has never known the line. This is why the Martinez Twins felt bullied while he didn't even realise it. His relationship with Erika is currently nice, she seems to be a stabilising force in his life, and is a good influence for him. With her he can be vulnerable, and he trusts her. The reason why it was so hard for him is cuz his trust has been broken time and time again. In Shane's series it seems he wants to change. Anonymous said to effys-closet: 9. I recommend you finish the series cuz it gets better from the one episode with Kati. Now, in the case with Logan, it seems different. I read a book called Confessions of a Sociopath, written by an actual sociopath using a pseudonym. She has several siblings, one of who was a "weak" brother according to her. She had abusive parents, and he was emotionally scarred by it whereas she was indifferent, she never cried during her lashes, occasionally her and her siblings beat the weak brother. Anonymous said to effys-closet: 10. My point is that it is possible for people to have the same parenting (or lack there of) and turn out completely different. One ends up a sociopath the other doesn't. This is probably where the genetics thing comes to play, cuz one sibling has more of a tendency to become a sociopath than the other genetically. When Alissa talked to Shane about how she once slept with Logan, she recalls how he was completely indifferent to betraying his brother, in fact he was proud of it, saying... Anonymous said to effys-closet: 11. "I'm a maverick, I'm savage". He didn't give a damn about breaking his brother's trust. When Alissa came on a song with him and said she didn't want it to be uploaded later, he said that she signed the contract so she can't get out of it, and he will upload it anyway. The suicide forest video, the way he treated the tasered rat and took a fish out of water to give CPR, he threw a prank on his fans of him being shot in his house, with fake blood and everything. Ik we're not supposed to assume Anonymous said to effys-closet: 12. but my brain can't help but reach to the conclusion that Logan is the sociopath, or has ASPD. There's also a thing called conduct disorder, which applies to kids and teens, basically the symptoms include manipulative behaviour, rage, impulsiveness, similar to sociopathy, but not necessarily. Kids with conduct disorder can have other disorders when they grow up, they don't have to have a lack of empathy, they can have ADHD. But diagnostically, in the US, you can only be diagnosed with ASPD if Anonymous said to effys-closet: 13. they have a diagnosis of conduct disorder in childhood. That's not necessary in Europe. So, a sociopath could not be diagnosed with ASPD in Europe, move to America and not be diagnosed with ASPD in adulthood, cuz they don't have a conduct disorder diagnosis. Now, about the whole controversy of kati vilifying sociopathy, I kinda disagree with most people. I do think that the whole idea of sociopaths being all serial killers needs to be debunked, most sociopaths actually function in society. Anonymous said to effys-closet: 14. Psychopaths even do well in business and politics cuz they have the manipulation skills, and the willingness to exploit. I myself have had issues with mental health, I hate the stigma, but to say that "not all sociopaths and ASPD people are bad" kind of goes against the definition. I have even seen someone say that some sociopaths they've met want to cure themselves and one had even succeeded. Well, again I doubt the cure claim cuz it's a significant amount of brain damage to be reversed... Anonymous said to effys-closet: 15. And also, why would you want to get cured if you're a sociopath? They tend to see emotions and empathy as a weakness, and they get the most ahead with their manipulation in life, they have fun in exploiting people. Why would they wanna cure themselves? Now, I do feel some empathy for sociopaths cuz it's not their fault they are the way they are, but still, they are bad people, why would we wanna be around them and have things to lose? Again, I do still feel Kati's approach was unprofessional Anonymous said to effys-closet: 16. But I'm just not on board with the whole mental health stigma thing being applied to sociopaths. I don't want there to be a stigma that all sociopaths are criminals or serial killers, but if the key of sociopathy is to lack empathy, and if you do have empathy then you're not a sociopath. That being said, I'm in no way an expert, I took psych in high school, and am in my 2nd gap year with no direction in life. I wrote an essay and that's where my credentials end. That's it from me. Bye!

Okay so this is maybe the longest ask I’ve ever gotten which is super exciting for me.  But also bear with me if my answer is a bit disjointed to try and respond to it all. 

Before I get into the meat of my answer, I think I should say two things.  First, I really don’t care all that much about this series or about Jake Paul.  I’m happy to answer questions about it but I think the entire thing boils down to nonsense and we shouldn’t be giving Jake Paul our attention.

I also think this entire conversation is the blind leading the blind.  You with your 4000 word essay one time in high school, me with my master’s degree, Kati Morton with her MFT degree… none of us are really qualified to talk about this since we don’t work in the field of ASPD research, diagnosis, or treatment. So I don’t know how productive this conversation can really be.  Like much of medicine and especially psychiatry, the research moves so quickly that what we thought was true two months ago may not be true now, and so it becomes a lot of “well in my understanding…” and “when I researched this once…” instead of people who can really make definitive statements about this topic.  A lot of the conversation around this has been based on pop-psychology, and I think that benefits no one.  I’ve been doing my best to correct those pop-psychology misconceptions about ASPD on here, but my knowledge is really limited in this area.

Like I said in my response when we talked about this before, sociopathy and psychopathy are not diagnosable conditions and so using them as terms is functionally useless because there’s no agreed-upon criteria for what those words actually mean. ASPD is a clinically separate diagnosis and takes a more nuanced approach to the types of behaviors that one sees in so-called psychopaths and sociopaths.  The Hare’s checklist exists, and that’s about all you can say for it.  There’s a lot of criticism around its usage and again, it’s been rejected by the psychiatric community as a whole and isn’t really used clinically, so it can’t be considered a consensus for how we define “psychopathy”.  The checklist sometimes used in prisons in the US to try and assess how likely it is for a felon to reoffend, but if you know anything about the US prison system, you’ll know it’s not really up to date with the latest and greatest in medical science.  And even within the prison community, it’s efficacy is being questioned.

There are distinctions that people have made between “psychopaths” and “sociopaths”, but again, those words don’t really mean anything from a clinical standpoint and so any distinctions or definitions people assign to them are useless from a practical standpoint because there’s no agreed upon definition for those words.  There isn’t really research focused on those terms and so to draw distinctions like “one is born and the other is made” is, in my opinion, silly.  There is ASPD and the research behind it, and as we learn more about ASPD we learn about the genetic basis for it and how environment impacts peoples’ likelihood of developing it. 

As with many things, ASPD is a spectrum.  It has come out through the research that some people with ASPD do indeed have empathy and emotions, others respond to treatment, and others don’t seem to exhibit empathy, emotions, or respond to intervention.  Many neurological, biological, and psychiatric conditions are like that, so I’m not surprised that it’s like that in this case as well.  Depending on the severity of the case, people with ASPD may not have the ability to recover.  Depression is similar; in mild to moderate depression, you can sometimes see reversal of neurological changes, but in severe depression, those neurological changes are permanent to the brain structure.

It is not true that a diagnosis of ASPD requires a diagnosis of conduct disorder in childhood.  It requires that the individual have exhibited conduct problems by the age of 15, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that all individuals with ASPD were diagnosed with Conduct Disorder or vice versa.  Conduct Disorder is a diagnosable condition with its own set of criteria; “conduct problems” is a generalized symptom.  Statistics are hard to come by, but it seems that only 25-40% of children with conduct disorder are later diagnosed with ASPD.The idea that “psychopaths do well in business” is pop psychology more than anything else, but I think it’s correct that not all people with ASPD are bad.  They’re people who were predisposed to an illness who had the bad luck of being put in an environment that brought it out in them.  I think there’s a limit to how culpable they are, and I think that some people with ASPD do realize that there’s something wrong and seek treatment.  The idea that “some sociopaths want to cure themselves and one even succeeded!” is again pop psychology and taking a very un-nuanced approach to the disorder.  ASPD is a spectrum.  It’s not as cut and dry as “no emotions/empathy” or “emotions!”, and that’s not part of the clinical criteria for having ASPD. In fact, criteria that included remorse, guilt, or empathy have been removed from the DSM in the fifth edition because it was felt that that criteria was too subjective; now it focuses primarily on observable behaviors.  Some patients do find ways to lessen the severity of their symptoms.  Because it’s a small population to begin with and many of the population who are studied are in prison, it’s hard to make generalizations about what percentage of the population with ASPD that might be, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. 

As far as the Jake Paul series goes, I didn’t watch the rest of the series and I don’t plan to.  As I said before, I’m uninterested in the Paul brothers and don’t think they deserve my time or attention.  I think it does sound likely that Jake’s upbringing and environment contributed to making him who he is today.  But that is true for everyone, and true for people who grew up in much worse situations than he did.  The divorce of parents and being forced to play football and encouraged to be “more of a man” is not exactly trauma inducing for the average person.  It seems that there are genetic factors involved in ASPD and other psychiatric diagnoses, so it makes sense that some people in a particular environment develop psychiatric conditions and others do not. But that ultimately doesn’t excuse his behavior nor does it make him a particularly sympathetic character in my eyes.  There is always an opportunity for people to seek help and better themselves, and he seems profoundly uninterested in doing either.

TL;DR: The terms “psychopath” and “sociopath” are functionally useless and we should stop using them, and everyone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about (myself included) should stop feeding this discussion.