#my self destructing tendency is making myself cry by reading about 12

[dkettchen]

“I can’t believe I related to Logan Paul today”

I’m watching Shane Dawson’s Jake Paul documentary, and I just got to the part with Logan’s messages admitting saying that he has sociopathic tendencies, and talking about how he is trying to cope with them because they got the better of him earlier in the year.

Before I continue I just wanna put a disclaimer at the beginning here to say: I don’t approve of any of the horrible things the Paul brothers have done over the years (I don’t even know about most of it, is why I’m watching this documentary series in the first place), but I wanna put those things aside for a minute to talk about what it’s like having sociopathic tendencies (also I just got reminded that it’s World Mental Health Day today so yay that fits I guess x’D)

(also tws: self-harm, suicidal thoughts, trauma, depression, anxiety, I think that’s all of them)

I have sociopathic tendencies. I haven’t been officially diagnosed or anything, but like what would a diagnosis do for me, it’s not something that can get cured, it’s something I had to (and still have to) learn to deal with.

I have anger issues that I’ve been working on and dealing with since I was a teen. I have been self-destructive in so many ways over the years, from scratching my arms bloody because “it’s not self-harm if you don’t cut yourself”, to getting so caught up in analysing other people that I wasn’t looking after myself and fell into depression, to skipping meals and breaking my physical and mental health for work (see current straining injury as latest example). When I was around 15 I wondered what the point in living was, and the only reason I could think of not to kill myself and end my own suffering was because it would bring unnecessary pain to the people around me. 

The first time I changed schools because we moved I was 6, I cried my eyes out when my mom told me I wouldn’t be in the same class as my friends anymore. The second time I was 10 and better prepared. On the last day before I moved my classmates took turns hugging me goodbye, even the ones that I wasn’t that close with. I didn’t understand why they were so nice to me. Like yeah it was sad that I had to move away, but they didn’t need to care about me. I didn’t care. The third time I was 12. I had only been at that school for 2 years and I knew from the beginning I would have to change again for secondary school anyway, so I enjoyed my time there, but I didn’t get attached to anyone. Not really. On the last day, my friends cried at the idea of going to a different school than me, this person they’d barely known for two years, I watched my friends cry and didn’t feel anything. Or like, I felt guilty for not feeling anything, but I didn’t feel sad. I knew this was gonna happen. I had been through it so many times by then. They hadn’t. The school I changed to happened to be in my original hometown, so some of the people I had gone to primary school with were suddenly in my class again. It was like seeing ghosts. In my mind they had been dead to me, I was prepared to never see them again, and there they were, back in my life. It was very strange. I’m pretty sure the moving/losing whole friend groups is my trauma. Mom if you’re reading this, I don’t blame you, it’s ok, I got through it, if it hadn’t been for that it’d’ve been something else that messed me up. 

-Ah yes, look at me typing this and tearing up because of it, that’s the empathy that happens, and the reason I’m not a full sociopath. Sometimes there’s things I should care about, feel empathy about, and I simply don’t, I simply can’t, and I feel guilty for not feeling what I’m supposed to, and then other times I get overwhelmed by emotions, and I don’t understand why sometimes it’s one way and sometimes it’s the other.

There were many other bad things that happened during my teens, heartbreak and losing friends, and to some extent that’s part of growing up, but I can feel another part of my soul dying every time something like that happens. It gave me trust issues, it made it so I’d have a harder time truly committing to new friendships or relationships, in part because I am afraid they’ll leave and hurt me if I let myself have feelings, and in part because I simply can’t seem to feel things in the first place as easily anymore, even if I want to. 

And now I’m at uni, and I know most of the people I am in class with now I probably won’t see anymore afterwards, either because they’ll go to different places in the world or because I’ll be working in a different field from them (that’s what I get for studying animation and then deciding I wanna be a writer/director after all x’D) and I don’t care. I know I’ll be fine, I know I’ll find new people, life moves on. And that makes me sad. Not that I won’t see my current friends anymore or because they might feel sad (wow I didn’t think of that second one the first time around and added it now that I’m proof-reading, there’s the lack of empathy again I guess), but that I don’t care that I won’t see them anymore. Because I know I should. And I can’t. And I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. 

As for my anger issues and my analysing people I have found ways to use those productively by putting them into my art and stories. I don’t need to be violent or cruel in real life if I can torture my characters and play violence, I don’t need to manipulate people irl if I can use my knowledge of their psychology to tell stories. 

Sociopathic tendencies have the potential for hurting people, mostly other than the person who has them, but one can deal with them and keep their destructive potential under control. You are in charge of your demon and you’re responsible if it gets free and hurts people. 

And we need to talk about this more because that’s something you have to figure out for yourself, therapy can’t help with it in the same way it can with other mental health issues. It can help with some of the symptoms (as an example, I’ve had depression and anxiety, which in the grand scheme of things, were tied to some of the things I described, like my self-destructive tendencies, lack of empathy (and worry/guilt tied to that) and trust issues, and therapy helped with some of that, it helped me with finding coping mechanisms and ways to spot self-destructive behaviour)

People who have these issues aren’t monsters, their brains just sometimes fail to stop them from doing monstrous things, things that a normal person’s brain would recognise as such. We can become self-aware and prevent those things, but it takes effort to do that. 

I can’t believe I related to Logan Paul today. But the thing he said about not letting it get the better of you, and that ‘feelings are good’, hit very close to home. I am terrified of what I might do without realising its effects on others, because the problem with not being a full sociopath is, the feelings hit you eventually, even if they weren’t there in the moment itself. I am terrified of the person I could be. I am terrified of hurting people. I don’t wanna hurt people. 

We need to talk more about this stuff. Good thing is, I don’t mind talking about it, because to me it’s not a big deal, it’s just how life is for me. (I’m p sure that attitude is also a symptom of being on the sociopathic spectrum lol and probably the reason Logan doesn’t seem to mind “admitting” that he is too)

I’m gonna watch the rest of this documentary now xD Thanks for reading this. 

PS: one of the things I get overwhelmed by regularly is how much I appreciate the community I’ve built here on the internet and the support you guys give me no matter what, you’re lovely, and whenever I can, I love you guys (look at me tearing up again goddammit)