Antisocial Personality Disorder- Let's talk about it!
Another week of let's talk about it! This week we will be talking about Antisocial Personality Disorder here. There can be so much misunderstanding and stigma around this diagnoses.
Here are the questions:
1) What is Antisocial personality disorder in your own words?
2) What are the symptoms of Antisocial personality disorder? If you have Antisocial personality disorder what symptoms do you experience?
3) What do you think might be the cause of people developing Antisocial Personality Disorder?
4) How does Antisocial Personality Disorder affect your day to day life? Or if you don't have Antisocial Personality Disorder how might it affect someone's day to day life?
5) How do you cope with day to day life having Antisocial Personality Disorder?
6) What are some misconceptions or myths that you have heard or dealt with relating to Antisocial Personality Disorder?
7) How do those misconceptions and/or myths make you feel? Or how would they make you feel?
8) How can we as a community work towards breaking misconceptions and myths related to Antisocial Personality Disorder? How can we do so in our own community?
9) What resources outside of 7 cups might there be for someone dealing with Antisocial Personality Disorder?
@LeetheUnicorn i experiance all symptoms, but that we dont have any empathy at all is fake. i might not sense others emotions but we can tell when people are sad angry, or happy, it might take a while but we can. And as someone with aspd i do like danger, and have a need for stimulation every once in a while
@LeetheUnicorn Having ASPD isn't really difficult for me personally, and I don't really feel the need to change it. I experience most of the symptoms but not all; I'm not really that impulsive, and I don't completely disregard social norms (I just think they're kind of stupid mostly, but some make sense as to why they're there I guess). As far as "coping" with ASPD goes, I just live my life normally; I don't do anything specific to deal with my ASPD, because it just feels like it's a part of who I am. My life isn't really that different to other people's lives, except that my relationships (both platonic and romantic) aren't necessarily as rich, but I personally don't see the issue with that. I feel like people are too quick to "fix" people with ASPD, and people are too "arrogantly empathetic" and assume that people with ASPD are "missing out," but you can't really miss something that you never had. On the opposite side, there are people who demonize us and make us all out to be killers or something, which I personally find equally frustrating. I think treatment should be a personal choice, both because treatment is almost always unsuccessful for someone who does not want that treatment, and because not everyone with ASPD is going to be overly cruel, violent, etc. There's no reason to change it if it's not doing or is going to do any harm, but that's just my two cents.
@Sketch1 Thank you so much for sharing. I like this part ( I think treatment should be a personal choice, both because treatment is almost always unsuccessful for someone who does not want that treatment, and because not everyone with ASPD is going to be overly cruel, violent, etc. ) I agree if someone doesn't want treatment and is in treatment I really don't think it will be successful. Good point !
I could use someone to teach me how to seem like a normal person.What I'm struggling with is being able to keep a conversation going to learn as much information as I can.Any tips?
@ayoungpsycopath
Keeping a conversation is like one of those games people play here with words - someone says a word and then the next person has to say another word that begins with the last letter of the previous word, for example:
Person 1: Banana
Person 2: Anvil
Person 3: League
etc.
You can do the same with sentences. When it seems like the conversation is ending, use one of the words of the previous sentence to start a new thread. For example (about, I dont know, planes):
Person A: ... so I was standing there and checking the Boeings motor in the end. Then my coworkers and I went to a cafe to finally take a break.
Person B (who wants an espresso for some reason): Is that a good cafe? What did you have?
Person A: ... [blah blah blah] We can go there if youd like?
Person B: Absolutely! Id love to try an espresso there!
This is a pretty trivial example, but the technique works almost anywhere. Just try not to overuse it.
To me, most conversations are pretty boring, like a waste of time. But hey, at least I tried. What I learned is that they build rapport and make friends with people.
And for seeming normal - I have no idea. Most social norms are actually a bunch of nonsense and many non-ASPD people think that too. The only things people get by being normal is depression, anxiety and lots of rage. As long as you dont hurt people and yourself psychologically or physically its ok.
If you have trouble identifying emotions, the 7 universal micro-expressions are a good start. And if you want to surpass normal people too, books on body language like Joe Navarros What everybody is saying is the way to go.
Hope this helps!
Btw, Im Machiavellian. Not exactly ASPD but my empathy makes me feel bad about what (normal) people do... I used to display very psychopathic tendencies as a kid. However, I somehow grew out of it mostly. I recently studied about and pretended to be a psychopath. I wish normal people were more... At least understanding... Everyone has feelings, and if not feelings, opinions. Its the medias fault...
Good luck!
@Nabla
Oh, and Dale Carnegies How to win friends and influence people teaches a lot about what to do when interacting with people and responding to their emotions.
And if youre not into books, the listener and member courses about helping others here on 7cups are incredibly helpful.
P.S. Theres likely a lot of free PDFs of these books online if you are into books.
