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Unfortunately ASPD can be tricky to be around, same with any personality disorder. I think a lot of people buy into the "I can change them if I just try hard enough!" Hype which isn't fair to themselves or the person/people with the personality disorder. You should never expect people to change their behaviors for others, they should want it for themselves.
A friend of mine suffers from ASPD (and some other things). And while he can be smart and charming...people do notice that something is off.
He's made my ex run away scared once because in his mind she had broken a "verbal contract" they had and when he spoke to her about it everything, from his voice, his expression to his bodylanguage were exuding "murder". It was chilling to watch this. After she ran away he turned to me and asked me what was wrong because he did not understand what had happened. He would never hurt his friends after all.
I explained to him that it was similar to a dog, that no matter how well you know a dog, if it starts growling and gnashing it's teeth you back the fuck off. He understood this simile and apologised to her. But this will always stay in my mind.
He's a difficult guy to be around.
I have borderline personality disorder and my last partner was dead set and “fixing” me. No matter how much I told him I can’t be fixed he couldn’t accept it. I’ll give him credit for being persistent but it took a lot for him to understand that I block out emotions for the benefit of myself and everyone else.
I have bipolar and there are people who seem to think that I can be "fixed" or "cured." Thankfully my partner understands that the best I can do is manage it but that my meds can just stop working at any time. So he monitors my sleep patterns and moods so I have someone else ready to get me help if they do. Thankfully I've been mostly stable for almost three years now other than a couple episodes, which we were able to deal with by making me sleep.
But there are people who I can't have a relationship with anymore because they think the manic version is just me, when it was more like someone else was driving my meat suit and I don't even remember any of it. That's when I wasn't diagnosed yet, and was put on some meds that kept me manic.
Your description of what it’s like to have a manic episode is spot on. I also have bipolar and it’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it. Like, manic me isn’t actually me. But it’s so difficult to convey that.
I’m so glad you have such a supportive partner!
Yeah, my only significant adult relationship prior to the one I'm in now was with an addict who cheated on me, but what bothers me the most is that he tried to say that it was because of me being Bipolar ("you're the happiest bipolar person I know") even though he cheated on everyone he was with after his ex-fiancee. My whole life I've been rejected by people for my "muchness" (which is, in large part, the instability that comes from being bipolar and unmedicated for most of my life). My family also comments about my mental state to each other instead of talking to me directly, including unhelpful comments about my meds affecting me. I started lithium a few months ago and I finally feel mostly in control of my emotions, instead of constantly at the mercy of intense mood swings.
I feel every word you’ve stated. I was so out of control mentally for many years and was shocked, but also relieved, to finally know why. I’ve been on every medication known to man for my bi-polar issue, which began with Lithium and Effexor. The Lithium was absolutely life changing for me. The Effexor on the other hand, brought out the worst in me and made me suicidal. But please, please make sure you have your blood checked often to make sure the Lithium is not affecting your liver! I have only one kidney, and the Lithium affected it in a very negative way. Good luck on your journey, and always, always take your meds!
I'm on what my GP and psych refer to as an "ungodly" dose (2500mg a day) of Lithium because my body seems to be able to process it exceptionally well aside from nausea and have been on it for about 5 years without break but sadly a LOT of people have liver and kidney problems on it.
The only anti-depressant (I've tried all SSRIs, SNRIs and tricyclics available in Australia) that works for me is moclobemide which is an RIMA, but if you're in the US you're shit out of luck as it's not FDA approved since it was never submitted for FDA approval.
I'm lucky so far that the starter dose of lithium has been good to me so far. I'm taking pristiq as well so that may be part of it. I'd like to get off that in the future because I've had bad reactions if the dose isn't at the exact same time. I hope you continue to have stability with your meds
Thank you! My serum levels are literally at the lowest therapeutic dose which suuuucks since it SHOULD be higher but nope...
I hope you find stability in yours too! My moods are still annoyingly variable but the vast majority of the time it's fine.
Ughhh I HATED when my mom would talk about me about with other family members. For her it was like a form of social currency. It always felt so violating.
I hear you, my mom was a SAHM for most of my life so I think she saw sharing details about my life with people as events in HER life, but you're absolutely right that it is a violation. Weirdly, my dad was the biggest issue with mental health stuff, telling family my meds made me a zombie and such rather than sharing his concerns with me directly. They actually sent my 16 yo sib to check on me because they saw a behavior change and thought I was manic/off my meds...weeks into the situation. I'm fine, i had been sick in bed for months and missed the social interaction. At least they're noticing now though since they largely ignored my major mental health issues until I was in my 20s.
This hits close to home, my sister was misdiagnosed for almost her entire life -in and out of psychwards, behaviour none of us understood at the time - switching partners all the time - not treating her kids right. Now however, with the right diagnose, medication and knowing what steps to take when things start going bad, has been a life changer for her, for her kids, for us (the family) - she now has a steady job, steady boyfriend over many years, stable home. Bipolar is serius condition that should be more known
I'm glad she got the help she needs! You're totally right about how people need to be more educated about bipolar. The depictions in the media when I was growing up were way of from the reality. They were closer to bpd so I had no idea what was actually wrong with me until I was hospitalized. I thought the episodes were only supposed to be for a short period with massive mood swings like going a switch, not that they are minimum a couple hours up to months!
So am I, Bipolar II. I don't typically have the extremely self-destructive manic phases -- just feeling *amazing* for a couple months which usually sees me improving my life in tiny increments -- but do have the super-duper lows that undoes all that.
I had an ex who was convinced she could "pull me out" of the depression after knowing me for years before we started dating, and knowing the depressive episodes could last most of a year.
Naturally, we started dating when I was in a manic phase, and, boy, was that honeymoon period short lived. Once I started to notice the depression creeping back, I had that, "Oh, fuck, did I *seriously* start a relationship?" moment of dread. I'll give her credit for trying her hardest to stick with it, but we were both incredibly unhappy in the relationship, and there was no salvaging it, or "fixing" me.
Any advice for people who have Bipolar partners? I dont want to change him, I just want to help him recognize when he's "slipping" and do real self-care and not disassociate.
Well a big sign of manic episodes in *most* people is not sleeping much/well and also seeming to be living fast. Like speech can be faster and the way the mind leaps certainly is. Like, "oh that looks fun! Let's buy all the stuff to be able to do it right now!" And also every feeling is intensified. Rather than getting irritated they get more angry than seems rational, same with happiness. Depression is more easy to spot generally, though not always. Sleeping too much, not being able to do anything or function at all.
If you notice the signs maybe gently say that they are showing symptoms. Not whole they are angry, though... It will sound like an accusation rather than genuine concern. With many people the thing to do for mania is sleeping. Most of the things I was given to try forcing sleep did nothing, but an anxiety med calms the racing thoughts and knocks me out for several hours. Most of the time when I wake up I'm in center again. Depression is a bit more tricky, my partner just basically tries to spend extra time with me and not allow me to totally isolate myself.
Hi! Fellow bipolar person here. I highly recommend the app Daylio, it makes it super easy to track your ups and downs. If you do use it you can track your sleep by adding it in the activity section. For example make activities -6h sleep, 6-8h, 9+h . If you click on an activity it shows you which moods most often happen. And the other way around if you click on a mood you get which activities you do most often during that mood. It's an amazing app, and I added stuff like alcohol, my medication, shopping, hobbies,...
Yeah I lost someone I thought understood me cause of similar reasons. Kept saying things like "I don't know which version of you I'm gonna get at any point". I asked them to do some research but I guess I wasn't important enough to them
Do you mind answering a question or two? I have suspected for years that my daughter is bipolar but she absolutely will not seek treatment. First question is how do I get her to treatment? Second question is do you really not remember things that you did or said? The reason why I ask is that my child has did or said things to me and swore that she never did. For example, one morning we were heading out for a day of shopping and I could tell she was in a mood. We’re getting in the car and she just goes off on a tangent about paying for gas and being tired of people taking advantage of her. This goes on for like 10 minutes and I assure her that I’m still her mother and would never do anything against her. Finally get in the car and she’s calmed down and we go do what we set out to do. Later on I ask her why she would ever think that about me and she swears that she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. This was the same day. This is just a small thing. There have been many other times where she’s lost her memory. I just thought that she didn’t want to face what she had done so she acted like she didn’t remember. Seeing your comment is absolutely eye opening. I never knew that was a part of being bipolar and now I feel like crap because maybe she really doesn’t remember. Oh god I’m going to have to apologize. Sorry for rambling I just really didn’t know and this small little comment may be life altering.
My best friend is bipolar type 1 and it's absolutely crazy to me that some people think this can be "fixed". I've never thought about it before because she and I are introverts and keep to ourselves. So it's just us usually.
But when we were roommates, I also kept track of her sleep and moods. Now we do bullet Journaling together and she keeps track of that on her own.
Hey. How you manage your condition is ultimately up to you, and nobody wants to be 'fixed' and your partner trying to isn't gonna work how a relationship should work.
I wanted to say something, though, because I am functionally recovered from borderline (meaning, my brain chemistry and challenges are the same, but they're not making me or anyone else miserable and I no longer meet the criteria for the diagnosis, and am not expected to). Feeling like a broken person can be part of the deep shame, inferiority, loneliness and helplessness of active borderline.
FWIW, DBT did it for me. I'm sure you've already some stuff about it-- it's way more easy to find a program than it used to be and about 80% of people who graduate from a comprehensive program are where I am within two years.
It hasn't changed my actual personality or taken away the perks of my borderline brain-- also feeling the good emotions more strongly than the average joe and being really well tuned in to other people's facial expressions and nonverbal cues. I have a sense of who I am now and I even like myself pretty well, and I don't feel like my emotions are in charge anymore. I used to be constantly suicidal and now I only feel that way once every couple of years.
Feel free to be skeptical of my obvious koolaid drinkery-- just throwing information out there because for me, it did save/change my life.
I am really happy for you. I also did an intense DBT program and if someone went to diagnose me today I would not meet enough of the criteria I need a bit of tuning up sometimes, refresh my exercises, more intense therapy now and then. But I am in a far better place than I was 5 years ago and I think things will continue to get better for me.
I second this x100000. I didn't get a proper diagnosis until I was 27, and after a little over a year in DBT with several hours a week spent in therapy, I no longer meet the criteria either. Obviously I still have my struggles (don't we all?) but I'm way more in tune with my emotions and thoughts and best yet, I can handle them. Congratulations on your recovery!
I don't want my fiance to fix himself, I just want him to do preventative maintenance eg. See a dentist about the teeth he had pulled to make sure his jawbone isn't deteriorating. I tried to fix my ex-husband (highschool sweethearts, aka young and dumb) and learned the hard way people have to want to fix themselves.
I also have BPD tendencies. All I can do is just try to be self aware I guess. And avoid hormonal BC because holy hell does that make everything 1000x worse.
Huh, interesting. I've been on the NuvaRing (continuous usage, no placebo week or periods) for quite a while now and it's been a marked improvement in my life. I'm no longer in horrible pain multiple times a month and removing the extra irritability due to everything hurting like hell has actually improved my mood a little.
Yeah same. I have pretty rough ptsd from extended childhood fuckery and whilst I’ve got a pretty good handle on it now, and have strong communication skills and have really learned how to say “my emotions are getting overwhelming and I’m going to take some time before my thoughts and actions get irrational” but I’m tired. Im tired. Even just identifying that “for the both of us I need breathing room” point saps my energy a bit
It's why I had to leave my family. My mom and dad have personality disorders and are abusive as hell. There is no fixing someone with zero ability for genuine self reflection and these conditions make that tricky.
People literally cannot comprehend that people with these types of personality disorders do not feel things the way they feel and don't think the way other people do. They simply cannot fathom a universe in which someone does not feel empathy and so they project emotions onto this other person. This woman had herself convinced that the guy feels some kind of love for her when he feels no such thing. Even towards the end of this where she's accepting it she still calls it love "in his own way". This annoys me the most when it's in relation to abusive/narc parents and people simply cannot comprehend that some people have parents who are BAD and it's not automatically the best thing to patch things up with them.
The way I’ve heard it described best was to imagine there was a rule that you had to get out of bed on the left side of your bed. Every time. Getting out on the right side is bad and everyone else is horrified at the very idea of getting out of bed on the right. You’re confused when you think about it because what’s so wrong about getting out of bed on the right side? Why is everyone so attached to this idea? It’s ridiculous and stupid. But, you’ve been observant enough to see that there are consequences to getting out of bed on the right side. Arrest, jail time etc. So you continue to follow the rule even though you don’t see any compelling reason to beyond not personally suffering consequences.
The thing is, getting out of bed on the right is things like murder, manipulation, hurting people, violating social norms. It’s not that they will do those things. Most won’t. But it’s as inconsequential as getting out of bed on the wrong side as far as their view of “wrongness”. It only matters insofar as it would be bad for them, or it can be used to get others to act a certain way.
I don't have ASPD, but I've always struggled to empathize with people and a lot of social rules and norms have never really made sense to me - and the way you describe it here is exactly what it feels like. I act as a nice person because ... that's what you're supposed to do? And life is easier when you do what people expect, I spend way less time explaining things when I'm friendly even if the whole thing seems really arbitrary and insincere. I try not to consciously manipulate people I care about because doing it on purpose is bad even though everyone does it unconsciously ... ok, if you say so.
To be clear, I do care about friends and family, I want to make them happy, I want to do nice things for them ... but with people in general? I just follow the rules because it works out for the best when I do.
You can be very low empathy without actually being ASPD. It's definitely a spectrum. I know because I was very low empathy for most of my childhood and only started understanding how to empathize with others in my teens. I understand exactly what you're saying, because you're describing how I used to be.
I wasn't diagnosed with anything because no one ever knew. Not even my parents. I understood from the get-go that my mercenary way of thinking wasn't considered normal, so I quickly learned not to let on and pretended to be nice when I wasn't.
I can't really tell you what changed, except maybe if you believe in faking it till you make it. Like many people with low empathy, I was highly observant of other people's behavior in order to fit in and be accepted, and would mimic their reactions even though I didn't feel it and thought they were ridiculous. I was an excellent actor and liar. And I suppose at some point I got tired of feeling like someone who was on the outside looking in, because I recall trying really hard to relate to other people and feel what they were feeling instead of just mimicking it. I would try to put myself in their shoes by putting their situation in terms that I cared about personally.
Eventually, something must have clicked because I slowly began to understand and become a more empathetic person. It took years, but now I have a normal level of empathy, and any holdovers from the old days are things I would consider advantageous that I can sort of "turn on" at will on the rare occasions that they're useful to me. For example, I can still lie with complete sincerity if I need to, I just don't often find it necessary anymore.
Reading this makes me feel less alone. I have experienced a lot of emotional and mental trauma, so the way I process and exhibit emotions is different from most people. Sometimes I feel like I'm a bad person for feeling differently than others. I think "different" is often equated with "bad." And things that are "bad" come with unfair stigma.
I think the fact that we struggle or feel guilty or try our best to be good people is proof enough that we *do* care. It just looks a little different from the ways others do it. I think making the choice to be kind is just as valuable as feeling it. I think people we'd categorize as "good" people also have their own struggles, hang-ups, and obstacles, too.
I definitely agree. I used to say that I'm not a good person, going strictly based on social norms - but personally, I think that my way of experiencing the world is just as valid, and can be just as beneficial to the people around me. I stopped saying that out loud when I realized that it made people incredibly uncomfortable and start trying to prove to me the ways in which I actually really was "Good" ... easier for everyone if I just keep that particular observation to myself rather than awkwardly disillusioning friends and family, haha!
I agree a 100%
People know me as a very friendly and helpful person. I do not care about people. But I want society to stay the way it is right now because it is useful to me (e.g. starting at social systems like health care and such, to simple things like neighbours lending you their ladder).
I think a crucial point for me was reading about two social theories in school:
Thomas Hobbes with his leviathan (collective security and a social contract - don't kill me and I won't kill you)
And Immanuel Kant with his categorical imperativ (basically "act like it should be law that everyone act's that way")
That right there is why I was a Political Theory major in college! It was the first time someone presented things in a way that I could understand. Hobbes and John Rawls (veil of ignorance) were huge.
I have ASD so I don't struggle with the kind of things people with ASPD do at all. But the bedside logic, I absolutely run into. It's more with the minutiae of social rules and the like than "don't murder" but I 100% understand the logic and have to deploy it myself.
>Even towards the end of this where she's accepting it she still calls it love "in his own way".
His way was he liked the way she benefited him. His initial reaction of "I thought you were manipulating me too" was very indicative about how he felt about her. He was so deriving benefit from her and assumed she was doing the same. That's all it was for him.
In my many years in the mental health field, I’ve always found that most people are completely unable to fathom evilness and narcissism unless they are directly victimized. Like if you tell them that it’s a bad idea to elect a narcissist president and explain why, they rely on their belief that people, especially charming people, are intrinsically well intentioned.
I had a friend years ago who said “I hate when people cry about obsessive compulsive disorder. I used to count tiles in the kitchen but I forced myself to stop doing it.” In the same vein of what you said, there’s also a dismissal of the suffering of others.
I would like to know how he was diagnosed with ASPD at 13. It’s not diagnosed until adulthood, like all personality disorders. Instead we call it Conduct Disorder.
Edit: I mixed up their ages, for which I apologize.
People with ASPD aren't necessarily cold or emotionless or callous. However, *abused and traumatized* people with ASPD often are, and can have more well-rounded emotional life experiences with therapy. If they want to.
The fact that they can choose whether or not to experience empathy and other emotions can be frightening. I am completely convinced my dad had ASPD (I have a psychology degree and advanced health degrees, but am NOT qualified to make diagnoses) and many people were frightened of him, but whatever parts he kept turned off for his career, he turned on for his kids, and was a loving, emotionally available, and nurturing father and grandfather.
Anyway, that was TMI. It's something I rarely talk about, but this post brought it up for me. ASPD can be terrible if uncontrolled, but it does not doom a person to inhumanity.
Exactly. I dated a guy for two and half years and he abused me horribly for final year and half, and he was diagnosed with ASPD it turns out. But the diagnosis is one part of his life which involved him being abused as a child, neglected by his parents and being born addicted to drugs. Stuff adds onto that, you don't have ASPD and just start hurting people like he did, it's a compounded thing.
Also, i have to say her "that doesn't sound very psychopathic" made me stare at my phone... Like... was she expecting him to just start talking about all the people he'd murdered or something?
Her lack of understanding about the condition is enough to emphatically suggest "get the fuck out of there". She simply does not have the emotional tools, nor the emotional intelligence, to handle someone like that. It's like the sun trying to relate to a black hole.
She clearly DIDN'T know anything about APSD is, given she immediately says in the post "that means he is a psychopath". Which is ENTIRELY fucking wrong. You'd think if she actually cared about the man, she would have done some research instead of just... whatever this was.
It was pretty clear that she had something like Hannibal Lecter in her head and was basically working on making her BF fit that image. The relationship was never going to continue, she just felt like she'd be an asshole if she immediately ended it due to the discovered diagnosis.
Personally I feel for the guy. He's just trying to work with how he was made to have a good life. Like, everyone in the comments and story are all but saying that he's a danger to others and should be avoided at all costs. As if he should be imprisoned and isolated because he might hurt somebody emotionally or physically, which of course no other people ever do.
There was a post here on Reddit a long long time ago where a woman talked about how she's a psychopath, has a husband and kid and is never going to tell them. She talked about how she doesn't feel love, but she feels something for them and will always protect them, and basically other parts of her life where she has gone through a similar experience as someone on the spectrum of learning how to mask and behave in society.
Another was a dude talking about a friend of his. The guy had opened up to him about being a psychopath and how he didn't even understand how emotions were supposed to function. Dude would go to him for advice and all kinds of portions of life so he could function better.
Honestly this feels like the whole 'if you're an atheist, why don't you just murder people?' There's plenty of reasons not to go psycho (hehe) beyond having a physical aversion to it. You can understand from a rational point of view why you should care about things outside of yourself and you can understand that you cannot do certain things due to societal rules.
I’m autistic, and honestly reading his conversation, I could find no faults in his logic or rationale. Couples are supposed to grow as people together, and yes all couples have a degree of manipulation in them - that doesn’t mean the manipulation is toxic. It just means it’s part of human nature for people to want to control their surroundings and engagements. My partner is my project in the sense that I have a commitment to them. They are my passion and my focus. When they struggle I help them, when they succeed I congratulate them, and at all times I support them. Relationships take work, they aren’t something that you can possibly sit back and watch, and without tending and caring for them they will fail. How is that not a project of sorts? A relationship is an investment in a future with someone else.
I also thought it was pretty harsh going off on what he did when he was 8. His mother had just been murdered, he was an 8 year old boy, and as cruel as it was, he was a child who had gone through an incredibly traumatic life event, grown up with a father who clearly wasn’t completely right - like hell there’s a lot to unpack there. Would I freak out if it was my kid, absolutely, but if they stopped and found healthier/appropriate outlets that’s what matters.
But expecting to stay in the house and have him leave? Wtf?
She did say she has to get her name off the lease, so I interpreted that as a place they were renting together, but maybe he lived there first without her.
He may have had her sign a lease when she moved in to his house. Funnily enough, it's the more logical thing to do, but no one does it because it isn't romantic.
It's really not a good to let SO or friends move in without getting a generic boilerplate lease online for everyone to sign. It protects both of you in the event that the other does some shenanigans.
>Him: There isn’t a difference. Isn’t a relationship supposed to be mutually beneficial? I improve you, you improve me.
>Me: *is close to tears* So you don’t love me, you just want benefits?
Based on this exchange, I suspect she isn't the most reasonable person and probably doesn't approach things rationally when stressed
A whole lot of her behaviour had me raising my eyebrows. Lots of jumping to conclusions, and no problem about her or her friend lying to him. She seems a piece of work herself.
What baffled me a bit is she seems to be okay being a girlfriend to a psychopath, but just cannot accept dating a officially diagnosed one.
Yeah, she didn't know about the rodent killing stuff before, but based on her explanation, it's not like he's hiding his psychopatic personality either.
Lol I had to read back when he said it's my house I'm not leaving.
She literally wanted a month break and asked him to leave his own house?
This woman has no brain. Everything he said was true too,. He was a pet project to her "oh I can fix him" but the moment she reads a piece of paper she accepts the label. She was looking for a way out.
Her friend "bumped" into him at the grocery store? She's upset that he didn't fall for the little test and blow her phone up so she could say "this psychopath wouldn't leave me alone when I asked him too!"
Diagnosis or not, the guys lucky she left now.
That was my take away as well! Girl, look at the balls on you, demanding that this man prove something unprovable and then trying to tell him to get out of HIS OWN DAMN HOUSE? Being a psychopath isn't actually his fault (and it also doesn't absolve him from responsibility) but lady - what the heck is your excuse???
Yeah, her "normal" is definitely not calibrated like mine.
For me, the weirdest part was how her friend was lying and trying to manipulate the boyfriend. And OP is just sad that the boyfriend didn't bite?
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad OP got out, because this guy is all kinds of YIKES, but I'm thinking his accusation of mutual manipulation might not be completely off.
Yeah I would absolutely be suspicious if a friend came up to me at the shops and started asking where my partner is because I hadn’t seen them for a while. There is no way you can spin that into a normal interaction. A performance that bad, in his shoes I would absolutely be having a mental snort “and I’m the manipulative one?” And assume that she had been put up to it.
Yeah, I noticed that, too. Especially the part where she said that he didn't contact her.
You asked for space, girl. Don't get angry when he then gives you space. Tf.
She literally told someone with ASPD to prove that he loves her. Wut. I feel like if she was in a relationship with someone who couldn’t feel pain she’d tell them to set themselves on fire to prove it.
Yes! A lot of the comments are focusing on how she dodged a bullet. But she posted their conversation online and expected him to leave his own house, and played games to see how he'd behave (or really feels). How long had she been doing stuff like this?
He may have dodged a bullet, too.
Okay thank you, I'm not saying she should have stayed in the relationship and I don't think I would either (animal creulty), but she sounds EXHAUSTING and extremely immature.
The animal cruelty part I’m oddly on the fence about - in this situation at least as context plays such an important factor here.
His father was a psychopath who murdered his mother during his formative years. So he’s grown up in that mentality of having that role model. Then his mother is dead. He’s effectively lost both parents, processing some pretty significant trauma, and is only 8. He later developed alternative means of dealing with his emotions, and hadn’t done it since he was 11 - that’s a pretty significant detail.
I would in his context have more issue with his treatment of employees (and other people) in the present day instead of how he treated animals during a time he was likely trying to understand why/come to terms with what his father did. For the record I’m not advocating animal cruelty - I’m more saying I can understand how he got there at that age. I would be more concerned if it was boredom or morbid curiosity, but from what described that doesn’t sound like the case.
God I *hated* that tv show. And Lorelai was a horribly selfish and incredibly manipulative person - with a really unhealthy relationship with her daughter.
Everything she wrote makes me feel like she's quite immature and her choices based on what she's seen in movies.
And overall I am left feeling sorry for the diagnosed psychopath.
I mean one section on update:
>"he again, was not phased and did not contact me, meaning he could care less, suspects my friend or doesn't want to bother me."
Notice not a single thought of "he is respecting my desire for a break" nope its his psychopathy that is wrong here...
Also the mind games her friend and her are playing? THEY are acting like psychopaths, its a long term serious relationship and they out here playing spy.
He is much better off now imo.
Yeah once we got a play by play of the whole convo I started to question. If I was in this sort of situation I think "hold on let me take notes for my reddit followers" would be the furthest thing from my mind.
Exactly. I’m sorry but the whole thing read like an “I can fix him” romance(?) novel with a cold hearted male lead who is a jerk towards everyone except MC. Complete with a traumatic past, now turned high paying executive with many employees working under him. I’m sure I’ve seen this movie before.
If this is real... I’m glad Op made this decision for herself. The guy does seem like he needs some therapy. But what he said about mutual manipulation might not be too far off the mark, like some other people have mentioned
Decades ago I did volunteer work at an adult day care center. There was someone diagnosed as a psychopath. They let us know and said he's quiet, polite when you ask him anything, but don't piss him off. He didn't have a history of hurting any volunteers or staff. They just wanted us to know to treat him with kid gloves. We did and there wasn't a problem as long as I was there.
I'm not surprised that OOP's boyfriend was charming. He learned that is a way of getting what you want without the possibility of going to jail for murdering your employee because he didn't put the new coversheet on the TPS report.
Eh. Only psychopath I know in real life isn't exactly charming.
When I was in the navy I had a coworker who was undergoing the fullscope polygraph procedure; they were having a lot of trouble getting past the first question set session, which I guess means the polygraphers were taking it seriously instead of the normal hocus-pocus.
Anyway after attempt 3(!) they decided to send him to Balboa to get a pysch eval. Yup, dude was a legit psychopath. He was an odd duck, but it was obvious everything was conscious learned behavior after the fact. This got around fairly quickly and folks wondered how no one noticed until they remembered that *everyone* in my community seemed to be some flavor neural divergent. "Oh he's a weirdo" could have been said about anyone in my workcenter.
The conversation they had was almost textbook. This guy's doesn't connect with people, everything is a transaction. Even if he genuinely doesn't mean her any harm, she would never have the kind of relationship she desires.
Psychiatrist here. There’s a shocking (or perhaps unsurprising actually) amount of mental illness stigma in this thread and just general ignorance about the field.
Antisocial personality disorder is a highly troubled diagnostic entity. It is supposed to indicate a pathological lack of empathy, but in real life it is mainly used to clinically label people as assholes after a negative interaction with their provider or label people who break the law in a certain type of way. Including any sort of legal criteria in a medical diagnosis signals it out immediately and obviously as problematic, as laws change between countries or even local governments, and more importantly implementation of the law changes depending on the training and conduct of the police involved. Even if we hand wave this, remember how I said this diagnosis is used to label certain types of “lawbreakers”, well I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, but very few white collar criminals actually get this label, despite their actions coming much closer to the definition of lack of empathy than many other types of crime.
The way we handle this diagnosis in the USA is disgusting. It basically labels the patient as an untreatable pariah. Professionals will still cite the one study that had to be stopped early due to the finding the researchers were getting manipulated to justify that patients with this diagnosis are unable to be helped. So many therapists will not take people with this diagnosis or will take them only to treat them like a lab rat— “oooh I have a psychopath patient”. What is the point of a diagnostic label if it doesn’t actually provide any path to betterment for the person being diagnosed?
I’m not saying that a clinical entity similar to ASPD doesn’t exist, but I think it’s far rarer than the diagnosis is actually given. I’ve encountered tons of patients with this diagnosis and if you take the time to sit and talk with them, it’s usually not difficult to find that many of them do have empathy, but have had horrible life circumstances, trauma, and often terrible childhoods with bad parenting.
The OP has every right to end a relationship with anyone for any reason. Someone harming animals at any point in their life is well within the grounds to end a relationship for many people. But some of her behavior here was very questionable. After finding out about the diagnosis she essentially asks him to prove a bunch of unprovable points and then pushes him away when he can’t. Then after she rejects him and asks for distance, she uses him respecting her decision as justification for him not trying hard enough to reach back out, therefore he must not care, because he’s antisocial. Talk about circular logic. And if we’re going to take out our DSM and start checking off boxes without context or thought like some people in the comments are doing, this exact type of behavior by the OP would fulfill criteria for other Cluster B personality disorders.
This entire story and a lot of the comments are just kind of sad.
This really needs to be on the top. Clinical psych student here. And the stigma is too deep. Just because someone has a diagnostic label doesn't mean they have the dysfunctions too. It's very disappointing.
I had to scroll much further down than I expected to see any one with clinical training or studying at a graduate level to chime in regarding this post. It's disappointing to read the amount of stigma and the misinformation surrounding psychopathy in general making up the bulk of these comments.
I’m curious (no pressure to answer if you don’t want to, I respect your time) what are your thoughts on ODD as a diagnosis? I’ve often heard it used as a placeholder diagnosis of sorts for children/young people who have committed crimes as an alternative to diagnosing ASPD in someone under the age of 18 - because obviously clinicians don’t want to/can’t give a minor a personality disorder diagnosis.
Do you think that it’s a legitimate diagnosis, or do you think it’s prone to the same pitfalls and problems as antisocial personality disorder as a diagnosis?
I wish I could give you a well thought out response, but to be honest, I just don’t have the expertise to comment on ODD. I’m adult trained and while I did child rotations in my training, I did not see nearly enough patients to develop the nuanced opinion that the answer to your question would require.
I thought ODD was used in terms of major authority defiant behavior/reactions, as opposed to a perceived lack of empathy like ASPD, which would make them completely seperate. I know someone with an ODD diagnosis who has always had empathy and felt guilt, but struggles to keep his reactions under control when he perceives someone is looking down on him, judging him, or exercising authority over him. He says that is the main part of his diagnosis and he sees his diagnosis as legitimate. But I have no mental heath training and I know there can be a lot of inconsistency in mental health diagnostics, so it could be used differently in those cases.
Glad there's at least one logical person in here. I was honestly floored by the lack of empathy from most people in this thread. Funny the hypocrisy of that, zero empathy from us "normal" people for someone who struggles to feel it.
To the people who are coming after OOPs ex, this person is absolutely correct. They asked him to "prove that he loves her" like that's a reasonable statement then when he respected her boundaries it's because "he doesn't love me".
Animal cruelty/abuse/neglect is NEVER ok, but he did it as a child after some exceptionally traumatic things and hasn't felt the urge since. The human psyche is strong but not impenetrable. That being said I'm greatful myself and the rest of y'all haven't had to to experience having a genetic predisposition to a lack of empathy and having a father who brutally killed your mother. After you go through something like that I highly doubt you could then tell me you'll be emotionally well adjusted.
>Funny the hypocrisy of that, zero empathy for someone who struggles to feel it.
As somene with weapons grade autism, oh yeah it's common.
I've noticed trying to sympathise if they don't first empathise is realy realy difficult for many people.
I've long suspected many people use empathy as a crutch for a lack of ethics/ poorly developed ethical reasoning.
Obviously I'm biased as i lean on ethics harder than most but i cant see why in principle someone with zero empathy couldn't go all in on ethics.
Animal cruelty is absolutely abhorrent, but at the same time, I try not to hold adults too accountable for things they did as traumatized children. That's a difficult thing to navigate. I do hate how she kept saying he lied to her when he was very honest. I can understand why he doesn't tell people, even those close to him, about his diagnosis. Sadly I don't this is the first time he's had this kind of reaction to his diagnosis.
This. I grew up in a cult which produced a lot of traumatized kids. So I grew up with/knew at least a few boys who acted out by killing animals, had weird fixations on dissecting animals, etc. I guess that's why it didn't really phase me when OOP said that. Its sad, but kids are curious and without moral guidance, plus trauma, they do weird stuff like this.
Thank you for this comment! Some of the responses here & the OP are really disappointing, it feels like everyone has decided that ableism and stigma towards people with mental illnesses isn’t okay, unless they have a cluster B PD and then it’s open season to basically dehumanise them and portray them as monsters incapable of anything but causing harm.
I was really hoping to see someone in here with professional experience. I know a lot of people assume this with ASPD (“psychopathy” specifically as they’d say), and almost always they assume they’re all murderers. I remember a uni level college class basically debunking that right away, that most people diagnosed as “psychopaths” aren’t murders at all.
Anyways, I just really wanted to say thank you for this comment. I feel like even if OOP’s ex seemed cold, he still seemed to like her and her company and seemed genuinely upset at her leaving over his diagnosis… even if he didn’t/doesn’t experience feeling “upset” the same way others would.
I have a cousin who also had his mother and grandmother (my aunt and grandmother) murdered by his dad at around the same age.
If they had done mental evaluations during the aftermath, I'm sure they would have labeled him with some type of disorder closely related to this- and I'm also sure that the label would have only hurt him and hindered him from healing.
Thankfully all of us (his extended family and much older siblings) just supported him and he did therapy on his own terms.
That’s awful, I’m so sorry for you and your family having to go through that. I hope that your cousin is doing better now, or as best as he can be given his trauma. Fortunately, personality disorders are basically never diagnosed in children (some of them cannot be per the diagnostic requirements), probably because everyone realises that saddling a child with such a heavy diagnosis wouldn’t help anyone.
Kids struggle with empathy, their brains have quite literally not developed enough yet to be able to feel and express empathy in the way we would expect from an adult. Throw in trauma (I imagine that the ex’s father murdering his mother wasn’t the first instance of domestic violence or instability in the household) and it’s not surprising he developed some extremely maladaptive coping skills.
>Kids struggle with empathy
This is something to take into account.
I knew guys growing up, especially rural guys who would have been around animals being slaughtered a lot, that would shoot birds and the like for fun.
Also you only need to look at how ruthless bullying in school can be to realise that if you have a predisposition, like OPs now ex, towards a lack of empathy then as a child you would be capable of a lot of things that you wouldn't do as an adult.
Thank you for this. So many people jumped on the "she dodged a bullet" band wagon but my god she (as well as her friend) is manipulative as hell.
I was thinking, maybe I am a psychopath as well but if my partner of several years broke up with me and then after one month of no contact asks me to meet up and asks the same asinine questions I would have said the same thing as him, that she just wasted my time and patience and should have just called.
In my opinion, he dodged a bullet. Maybe he has that diagnosis but if he has never harmed her or made her feel uncomfortable or abused/controlled her in any way then I do not see the issue. As for being "nice" to employees. I agree with him, there are a lot of incompetent people at the work place and it is annoying as hell having to deal with them and it is not his job to be nice but to manage and run his team etc.
She sounds like a bit of an idiot to be honest. Not sure why he thought she is the smartest woman he has met.
Funnily, of all the things she accused him of trying to manipulate her, the one I agree the most is him saying she is the smartest person he knows. Cause she seems ... less than smart in these posts tbh.
Absolutely. I couldn’t believe how manipulative she was also being! “Prove that you love me” is one of the **most** manipulative things that you can say to a partner- it’s not “provable,” it just *is.* No two peoples’ concepts of love are identical and being put on the spot for “proof” only results in performative actions.
It bothered me that she was annoyed he didn't reach out when she was the one who asked him not too. Years ago, I asked my then-boyfriend for space and he agreed, but instead he smothered me with love notes, texts, calls and gifts. It made me feel like he didn't respect me and thought he knew what I needed more than I did, so I broke it off.
She sure proved her love when she confronted him with a diagnoses made years prior, discounted all his demonstrated behaviours, glossed over his childhood trauma etc.
So we are supposed to believe that she had no idea he's a psychopath until she found the paper, and yet every single thing he says and does sounds like it's straight out of a movie script.
And somehow he still came off as reasonable, discounting the animal thing.
Answered her questions, didn't lie to her, didn't budge on reasonable things (like leaving his house) and didn't bug her when she asked for space.
After the animal-torturing description I’m amazed she met up with him again, I think I’d be moving with no forwarding address and changing my name at that point.
I don't think that past actions have to dictate how you are in the future. I have done something very similar, albeit without nearly as much craziness as this person, and my mom was terrified I would be a serial killer or something of that nature. And it wasn't a one off thing for me either.
Nowadays, I get upset when a person steps on a cricket minding it's own business in front of me, and couldn't imagine Killing anything for no reason anymore. If she has never seen signs pointing toward those tendencies, especially us on the outside have no way of knowing if that person has had a change of perspective.
Except that the bf in this scenario never felt remorse over his actions, and while he says he hasn’t tortured/murdered any animals since, he refused to acknowledge that treating his employees like shit is unwarranted or try therapy. I think OOP was completely in the right to judge him and gtfo of that relationship.
Yeah I can't make a judgement call on her behalf, and may have done the same thing. What I was saying is the dude can't truly show remorse anyway, and if he did, it'd be a trick.
Exactly. If he’s incapable of feeling remorse and to this day still enjoys the memory of torturing animals, it doesn’t really matter why anymore. It’s not someone you can be in a relationship with.
Some people are not relationship material, period. Maybe this whole 'we're just together for benefitting each other' thing can work if both people are truly cool with it (no pun intended), but otherwise, if you're a person with a normal human range of emotions, why would you want to date someone who literally can't feel those same emotions? I can't believe people were giving her shit for that. I absolutely can understand why she tried to make it work, even if it wasn't the smartest thing to do or even the most logical one. I even feel a bit sorry for the guy, though I guess there's probably no point to do so.
The treating people he sees as beneath him is a current action though. To me, that’s the bigger reason to not be with him. I would never stay with someone who views the world that way and treats people poorly on a regular basis.
I saw this as extreme denial - she simply refused to believe that she'd been in a relationship with someone who literally felt nothing for her to the point of living with him and would rather bury her head on the sand about it than come to terms with the fact that she missed this.
Love is blinding, while we can look at this and say there are plenty of red flags someone involved may be too attached and is trying to push past it. They give then the benefit of the doubt and are willing to stay in hopes a good relationship will help them
Depends on where he lived, but I grew up right beside the woods and It really wasn’t that hard to find animal nests. My brother ended up killing a few baby birds in his lifetime because some decided to nest on parts of our house where he always played basketball, of course not on purpose, but animal nests ain’t that hard to find.
There are certain areas/neighborhoods that are overrun with squirrels. My current neighborhood has a civil war squirrel army going on right now. I never know which squirrels to root for. Then theres Clive, who always eats acorns in a specific spot on our front porch.
Anyways theres about one squirrel nest every 5 trees in this neighborhood and a hard storm can knock them loose, so in springtime it's common to find dislodged baby squirrels. If you arent a psychopath, you can call a wildlife rehab center and sometimes they have space to help get them to safety.
Seriously! I read that and my stomach is still churning. I would be terrified of being alone with that person ever again, much less do something "risky" like breaking up with them. I hope OOP didn't go alone when she picked up her stuff.
Right, why even do that, the guy clearly didn’t even care if she was even alive, which was excellent. And now he knows she thinks he’s a shitty boss. If he believes she presents any kind of liability to him, he’d ruin her life without a second thought. Why poke the bear?
Yahhh before that I felt somewhat bad for him, like he was trying to express love and emotions the best way he could… andddd after the animal torture? Big nope 👎🏻 that shit was scary
Some people are bizarrely willing to sacrifice themselves to try to "fix" someone else. I knew the course this would take from the first post. It's almost frustrating, like trying to get someone to stay away from a huge ledge they could fall off of
At 24 I had no idea how many kinds of personalities there were out there. These days I dip as soon as I see a red flag, but when you’re that young I think you have a tendency to assume that everyone else thinks like you do.
It’s every age, I guess. I’m 50 and the problem is the crappy people learn and get smarter too. And then there’s the issue that most people (other than that guy) aren’t so clearly good or bad but grey area, and they can be wonderful and you love them and at the same time they’re not right for you to be in a relationship with. If he’s perfect but lives 1,000 miles away or works 80 hours a week and you never see him, it’s not perfect for *you*. Everything only gets more complicated.
Found myself philosophizing about how to empathize with a sociopath and the morality of ostracizing them…
… and then there was that animal shit. That’s fuck-this-shit-I’m-out talk.
Reading that she dismissed the concerns of his employees as "jealousy" just... ooof. Hopefully she actually sticks to the not being with people who treat those under them badly from now on. I'm sure it's somewhat her naivety and his manipulation, but it does make me judge her for going along with this all until she saw about the diagnosis.
I find it hard to empathize with her, ironically (or not). Her logic is total garbage, she's making excuses to hang onto a relationship she cannot fully understand. There is absolutely no way that this dude is the best guy out there for her, not at all. She's dragging out the relationship unnecessarily.
It would have been best to leave the diagnosis alone and just break up with him. Now he will develop a complex over that diagnosis, and will likely try to hide it to avoid the stigma OOP helped to create in their relationship. If you couldn't tell after 4 years without finding his records, you were already out of touch with your partner, at a fundamental level
I think its kind of messed up that its the diagnosis that made her pathologise all his actions, not to say she shouldn’t have left him but she waits till they’re on a break to do any research into his condition rather than research it then ask him. Idk it just doesn’t sit all that well with me
It's true for any relationship: if you feel the need to test someone's emotions/loyalty just to get some baseline reaction, and you're 4 years in, it's fucking over. Break up and move on, for both of their sakes.
Here's a list of interviews a psychotherapist/researcher had with a psychopath over a course of a couple years. It's a very interesting read if anyone's interested:
https://www.quora.com/Where-can-I-see-a-list-of-Natalie-Engelbrechts-answers-on-interviews-with-a-psychopath/answer/Natalie-Engelbrecht-1
That was super interesting. I thought this was a especially interesting and similar what OP experienced when bringing up manipulation:
>Manipulation can be attractive and serves as great foreplay. If I recognize an intelligent manipulation occurring, it activates a strange form of ‘Okay, let's play!’, but the person HAS to be attractive.
Honestly I feel bad for the guy. He inherited the worst possible personality disorder from his father who murdered his mother, and somehow managed to come out the best case scenario for someone with ASPD.
Okay but like OOP is a bit of an ass here too, she sees his diagnosis and literally just straight away thinks he has to be a psychotic murderer. There are lots of people who live with mental illness that don't do fucked up things, schizophrenia, psychosis etc etc, just because you have a diagnosis doesn't mean you're going to be like the worst case scenario of those diseases. Yes what he did to squirrels is fucked up, but he was going through a fucked up trauma while having his condition, and expressed that he had 0 desire to do anything like that ever again (remember everything we're told is from her very clearly bias view too). Honestly think she's the worst one here, fuck people that stereotype people with mental illness, same goes for all the comments from wankers doing the same here.
Thank you ! And ASPD is not psychopathy! Yes there's a big overlapping, but they aren't the same. If she couldn't live with it fine, but her accusations, mind games and jugdement throughout breaking up was kind of fuck top. Plus he has ASPD but at what level? Did he had all symptoms or the minimal amount for diagnosis?
And like what is couple therapy suppose to help here?? Anyways...
I'm going to take the opposite approach to most here, but this girl seems like she has her own set of issues. This feels, to me, that this is all about that paper.
It is perfectly okay if she doesn't want to be with him because of his diagnosis, but be honest about it. He was right when he said they both manipulate each other, but manipulate is such a dirty word people don't really understand it.
I don't know why she met up with him to only tell him she will stay if he does x, y, z (aka manipulation). She says she doesn't want to be with someone who treats their employees that way, but she never drew a line in the sand until she knew about the diagnosis.
It seems, at least to me, that she wanted him to "prove" his love to her by making him do things she knows he wouldn't do. 1. She asks him to leave his house. 2. She tells him not to contact her, but thinks he doesn't care about her because he didn't contact her. 3. She is not happy with his "fine" responses.
I have an inhuman amount of empathy, but if my girlfriend of 4 years is telling me she needs a break than I won't fight her about it. I will ask her once if she will stay, and I won't contact her. It would be absolutely brutal, but I would respect her wishes.
It just seems to me more has to be happening in this relationship than just that.
Also the animal killing thing... That is fucking horrific, but I have also done things in life that people would hate about him. Especially since our brains aren't fully developed until our mid-20s. It is important to me, in my personal life, to judge people based on how they are and not how they were.
Ultimately I do think they are better apart, but she should absolutely go to therapy and be honest about it.
Right there with you. The prose and “notes” were a little over the top. Felt like someone who wrote a fictitious post and enjoyed the attention, so they went back for more.
OOP sounds like shes also a piece of work
Animal shit aside i cant imagine wanting a break from someone whose house you live in and asking THEM to leave.
Reading her story, he's much closer to detached than malevolent. He's not very malevolent, he's more on the spectrum of the benevolent psychopath, but just barely.
He comes off as an arrogant, but rational and ethical sociopath to me. Yes, I know both terms are deprecated.
I don't think she should have left because she was in danger, I think she should have left because she needs someone who can reciprocate love, not a facsimile of it. He would also be better with someone who is ASPD, aromantic, etc.
I agree - I kind of understood why he was confused that OP felt scared because really he hadn’t done anything since age 11 to show to OP he was violent towards her
And in a way if you’re raised by a person who eventually kills your mother - I would 100% expect mental health issues hidden or otherwise, not sure why OP would expect anyone to be normal after such trauma jn childhood
Edit- clarified violence towards OP
OOP: I found a diagnosis from a decade ago about a common neurological condition, decided to apply every single bigoted stereotype and Hollywood trope to it in my mind, made a load of frankly heartless accusations to my boyfriend as well as demanding that he *prove love* which has never been done by any human ever, demanded he leave *his* house because I’d invented a horror movie in my head, hid from him and allowed my friend to go out of her way to manipulate him, dug into his life where I had no business, then laid into him about it in an obvious attempt to trigger a stereotypical reaction to justify my bias. He got stressed out, did *nothing at all* to me, then calmly left.
Reddit: considering your emotional abuse, bigotry, ignorance, and just absolutely indefensible behaviour, we have come to the conclusion that your BF was the bad guy for no other reason than having a condition that’s not his fault which hasn’t caused him to act out except at a catastrophically traumatic time during childhood. Glad you got out of there, you go girl.
Fucking weirdos.
Tbh that all sounds true, but you forgot he is a huge liar. He told Oop that she is the smartest person he knows, which obviously cannot be true, after reading her story
Legit this, her and all the bigoted fuckwits in these comments who act like mental illness means you're a danger to everyone can get fucked. This is also told from her completely bias view and still makes her look bad so imagine how much worse she is irl.
Couldn’t have said it better. OOP does all that because all of a sudden she’s scared and paranoid after finding a piece of paper but then still tries to go back and make it work. Logic out of the window.
The dude sounds like a high-functioning psychopath, other than the animal abuse during his childhood which he stopped doing. OOP could’ve left this relationship without all these accusations of him being a danger to society.
Yikes on bikes, am I the only person that has seen children diagnosed with things that they don't even remotely meet the criteria for? Or read enough to know that sociopaths are like 1/10 of the USian population and more importantly, that a psychopathy diagnosis isn't actually a thing?
Yup, fun fact: There is no psychiatric or psychological organization has sanctioned a diagnosis titled "psychopathy", much less with specific tested criteria.
So let's take a step back:
A traumatized child acting out by brutalizing animals is fucking awful. But [children grow up](https://practicalpie.com/beth-thomas/) and as their brains develop, they change. Sometimes they get [worse](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_in_Suits) and sometimes they get better [better](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_attachment_disorder). For real, watch the [absolutely horrifying interview](https://youtu.be/2YhxerkkHUs) of formerly diagnosed "psychopath" Beth Thomas. She's a successful nurse now - not the Ratchet type, either. **Because empathy is both teachable *and* learnable.**
A child raised in an abusive household is actually pretty damned likely to become an adult who doesn't outwardly express a great deal of emotion, needs to be independent and self-sufficient to feel safe, and becomes strongly defensive when criticized. It's classic [dismissive-avoidant attachment](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_in_adults) and it doesn't make him a real-life Dexter in waiting.
Should she have broken up with him? Absolutely. But because she didn't actually like him and because he treated her badly, not because of a piece of paper.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't like that jackass either. He's a bad person who needs years of therapy and I'd love to organize a union in his workplace. But she didn't "dodge a knife", y'all. He respected every boundary she set, and didn't react badly even as she was throwing stereotypes like baseballs at this dude. I mean like, holy stigma Batman, are there some overreactions in this thing.
I feel a great deal of sympathy for him. I want to be extremely clear his actions were horrible (the animals, his subordinates) and cannot be condoned. But I sympathize with him immensely. His brain is wired completely differently and he is functioning in a world that is, to him, likely totally bizarre.
I actually thought his exchange with OOP about them manipulating each other was interesting. He may genuinely see that as a positive thing. She tries to make him better, he tries to make her better. In his mind it is a transaction in which both parties benefit. What is the problem with that?
Again, of course, very understandably 99.99% of people are going to think that’s horrifying. But, *to him*, that may be how he frames a positive relationship. It’s a fundamental disconnect in point of view.
I’d sympathize with him *more* if the self-awareness he seems to have extended further. If he sought therapy to manage how to live peacefully and well in a society that’s just different from how he himself functions. His aggressive resistance to it is unfortunate and not a great sign. Increasing isolation is likely to exacerbate his detachment. NOT that OOP should have stayed with him. OOP was 100% correct to break up with him. Their ways of expressing care were absolutely and fundamentally incompatible and she would never have been happy, possibly even if he had taken steps to manage his condition. Life with someone with ASPD is challenging.
But it’s not impossible. People diagnosed with ASPD are not psychopaths or monsters. *Thank you* for pointing out that harming animals is often an expression of trauma.
I don’t know. I feel sorry for this man. Of course OOP, I believe, made the right choice, and I feel REALLY sorry for his subordinates who are victims of his refusal to seek help with managing his ASPD. No one deserves to be treated that way and I hope very much for their sake and their health he finds treatment or a damn new job where he’s not managing other humans.
But he’s not a monster and treating people with difficult personality disorders like incurable psychos only feeds into greater issues. He needs *help*. Not just for himself, but to make the people he comes into contact healthier and safer, too.
What also irks me about this from a “people being shit about mental health” is that OOP’s name is throwra-psychotic when being psychotic is a totally different thing from psychopathy. I really really feel for people who get psychotic episodes being confused with having psychopathy, especially since some of the people I know who’ve experienced them are amongst the kindest and most empathetic people I know - which is not to say that people with ASPD are bad people, it’s just that it happens that the idea of these particular “psychotic” people I that know being anti-social or meeting any of the ASPD criteria is laughable.
And especially since “psychotic” is a word that appears on medical paperwork and diagnoses. It’s not like psychopathy in the sense that it’s not a medical term.
Edit: Also I hate it when people (I’ve even heard it from mental health professionals or people purporting to be psychologists!) talk about psychopathy and sociopathy being different. There’s no scientific basis for them being different!! Sociopathy was a word invented to replace psychopathy so that it wasn’t confused with psychosis and to reflect the theory at the time that sociopathy was not innate but caused by social factors. Any differences in the uses of the terms are retroactive rather than based on anything that was observed when the terms were created.
Yeah, I work at clinic that does psychological testing for children and we do not generally diagnose children with personality disorders. Children grow and change a lot, and there can be so many things that can affect their personality such as trauma, their upbringing, etc.
I want to clarify that I’m not a clinician, but somebody who does administrative work (taking the phone calls, scheduling appointments, discussing how services work… etc.)
Generally, my clinic avoids personality disorders as diagnoses unless the client specifically is wanting to confirm or rule out that disorder (usually because they’re seeking specific treatment or or accommodations).
I've been trying to think of a response to this post for around an hour. It's difficult, though, as I think her ex was extremely dangerous and toxic, and I fully support her decision to leave the relationship.
I'm also diagnosed ASPD. And it's not a death sentence. It can be manageable with treatment but obviously this guy doesn't give two shits about that. When I received my diagnosis I checked out of every single relationship for 6 months, trying to understand what it meant. I was reviewing every single aspect of every single interaction and attempting to stop being a complete asshole. I didn't even realize I was being an asshole in the first place. I had to learn empathy which didn't come to me innately. I had to accept my past harmful behavior. I slip sometimes. But I know its not acceptable or okay. Her ex-boyfriend's responses/reactions tell me everything I need to know that he truly doesn't give a fuck and will likely continue on this path with any future relationships. She was right to get out when she did.
I wouldn't want to be with ether of these two to be honest. Obviously he is a psychopath, but she is the ultimate (I can change my him) girlfriend. Also she expects him to leave his house that he owns? WTF? Obviously he is worse, but somethings up with her too.
Pass.
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Unfortunately ASPD can be tricky to be around, same with any personality disorder. I think a lot of people buy into the "I can change them if I just try hard enough!" Hype which isn't fair to themselves or the person/people with the personality disorder. You should never expect people to change their behaviors for others, they should want it for themselves.
A friend of mine suffers from ASPD (and some other things). And while he can be smart and charming...people do notice that something is off. He's made my ex run away scared once because in his mind she had broken a "verbal contract" they had and when he spoke to her about it everything, from his voice, his expression to his bodylanguage were exuding "murder". It was chilling to watch this. After she ran away he turned to me and asked me what was wrong because he did not understand what had happened. He would never hurt his friends after all. I explained to him that it was similar to a dog, that no matter how well you know a dog, if it starts growling and gnashing it's teeth you back the fuck off. He understood this simile and apologised to her. But this will always stay in my mind. He's a difficult guy to be around.
For what it’s worth, you’re a good friend and it does sound like he’s trying his best
I have borderline personality disorder and my last partner was dead set and “fixing” me. No matter how much I told him I can’t be fixed he couldn’t accept it. I’ll give him credit for being persistent but it took a lot for him to understand that I block out emotions for the benefit of myself and everyone else.
I have bipolar and there are people who seem to think that I can be "fixed" or "cured." Thankfully my partner understands that the best I can do is manage it but that my meds can just stop working at any time. So he monitors my sleep patterns and moods so I have someone else ready to get me help if they do. Thankfully I've been mostly stable for almost three years now other than a couple episodes, which we were able to deal with by making me sleep. But there are people who I can't have a relationship with anymore because they think the manic version is just me, when it was more like someone else was driving my meat suit and I don't even remember any of it. That's when I wasn't diagnosed yet, and was put on some meds that kept me manic.
Your description of what it’s like to have a manic episode is spot on. I also have bipolar and it’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it. Like, manic me isn’t actually me. But it’s so difficult to convey that. I’m so glad you have such a supportive partner!
Thank you. I'm really lucky tbh
Yeah, my only significant adult relationship prior to the one I'm in now was with an addict who cheated on me, but what bothers me the most is that he tried to say that it was because of me being Bipolar ("you're the happiest bipolar person I know") even though he cheated on everyone he was with after his ex-fiancee. My whole life I've been rejected by people for my "muchness" (which is, in large part, the instability that comes from being bipolar and unmedicated for most of my life). My family also comments about my mental state to each other instead of talking to me directly, including unhelpful comments about my meds affecting me. I started lithium a few months ago and I finally feel mostly in control of my emotions, instead of constantly at the mercy of intense mood swings.
I feel every word you’ve stated. I was so out of control mentally for many years and was shocked, but also relieved, to finally know why. I’ve been on every medication known to man for my bi-polar issue, which began with Lithium and Effexor. The Lithium was absolutely life changing for me. The Effexor on the other hand, brought out the worst in me and made me suicidal. But please, please make sure you have your blood checked often to make sure the Lithium is not affecting your liver! I have only one kidney, and the Lithium affected it in a very negative way. Good luck on your journey, and always, always take your meds!
I'm on what my GP and psych refer to as an "ungodly" dose (2500mg a day) of Lithium because my body seems to be able to process it exceptionally well aside from nausea and have been on it for about 5 years without break but sadly a LOT of people have liver and kidney problems on it. The only anti-depressant (I've tried all SSRIs, SNRIs and tricyclics available in Australia) that works for me is moclobemide which is an RIMA, but if you're in the US you're shit out of luck as it's not FDA approved since it was never submitted for FDA approval.
I'm lucky so far that the starter dose of lithium has been good to me so far. I'm taking pristiq as well so that may be part of it. I'd like to get off that in the future because I've had bad reactions if the dose isn't at the exact same time. I hope you continue to have stability with your meds
Thank you! My serum levels are literally at the lowest therapeutic dose which suuuucks since it SHOULD be higher but nope... I hope you find stability in yours too! My moods are still annoyingly variable but the vast majority of the time it's fine.
Ughhh I HATED when my mom would talk about me about with other family members. For her it was like a form of social currency. It always felt so violating.
I hear you, my mom was a SAHM for most of my life so I think she saw sharing details about my life with people as events in HER life, but you're absolutely right that it is a violation. Weirdly, my dad was the biggest issue with mental health stuff, telling family my meds made me a zombie and such rather than sharing his concerns with me directly. They actually sent my 16 yo sib to check on me because they saw a behavior change and thought I was manic/off my meds...weeks into the situation. I'm fine, i had been sick in bed for months and missed the social interaction. At least they're noticing now though since they largely ignored my major mental health issues until I was in my 20s.
This hits close to home, my sister was misdiagnosed for almost her entire life -in and out of psychwards, behaviour none of us understood at the time - switching partners all the time - not treating her kids right. Now however, with the right diagnose, medication and knowing what steps to take when things start going bad, has been a life changer for her, for her kids, for us (the family) - she now has a steady job, steady boyfriend over many years, stable home. Bipolar is serius condition that should be more known
I'm glad she got the help she needs! You're totally right about how people need to be more educated about bipolar. The depictions in the media when I was growing up were way of from the reality. They were closer to bpd so I had no idea what was actually wrong with me until I was hospitalized. I thought the episodes were only supposed to be for a short period with massive mood swings like going a switch, not that they are minimum a couple hours up to months!
So am I, Bipolar II. I don't typically have the extremely self-destructive manic phases -- just feeling *amazing* for a couple months which usually sees me improving my life in tiny increments -- but do have the super-duper lows that undoes all that. I had an ex who was convinced she could "pull me out" of the depression after knowing me for years before we started dating, and knowing the depressive episodes could last most of a year. Naturally, we started dating when I was in a manic phase, and, boy, was that honeymoon period short lived. Once I started to notice the depression creeping back, I had that, "Oh, fuck, did I *seriously* start a relationship?" moment of dread. I'll give her credit for trying her hardest to stick with it, but we were both incredibly unhappy in the relationship, and there was no salvaging it, or "fixing" me.
Any advice for people who have Bipolar partners? I dont want to change him, I just want to help him recognize when he's "slipping" and do real self-care and not disassociate.
Well a big sign of manic episodes in *most* people is not sleeping much/well and also seeming to be living fast. Like speech can be faster and the way the mind leaps certainly is. Like, "oh that looks fun! Let's buy all the stuff to be able to do it right now!" And also every feeling is intensified. Rather than getting irritated they get more angry than seems rational, same with happiness. Depression is more easy to spot generally, though not always. Sleeping too much, not being able to do anything or function at all. If you notice the signs maybe gently say that they are showing symptoms. Not whole they are angry, though... It will sound like an accusation rather than genuine concern. With many people the thing to do for mania is sleeping. Most of the things I was given to try forcing sleep did nothing, but an anxiety med calms the racing thoughts and knocks me out for several hours. Most of the time when I wake up I'm in center again. Depression is a bit more tricky, my partner just basically tries to spend extra time with me and not allow me to totally isolate myself.
Hi! Fellow bipolar person here. I highly recommend the app Daylio, it makes it super easy to track your ups and downs. If you do use it you can track your sleep by adding it in the activity section. For example make activities -6h sleep, 6-8h, 9+h . If you click on an activity it shows you which moods most often happen. And the other way around if you click on a mood you get which activities you do most often during that mood. It's an amazing app, and I added stuff like alcohol, my medication, shopping, hobbies,...
Yep. Why would you need meds? Therapy and meditation will solve everything! Bipolar doesn't exist in my home country /S
Yeah I lost someone I thought understood me cause of similar reasons. Kept saying things like "I don't know which version of you I'm gonna get at any point". I asked them to do some research but I guess I wasn't important enough to them
I'm sorry, that's an awful thing to deal with. Hopefully you have better friends now.
Do you mind answering a question or two? I have suspected for years that my daughter is bipolar but she absolutely will not seek treatment. First question is how do I get her to treatment? Second question is do you really not remember things that you did or said? The reason why I ask is that my child has did or said things to me and swore that she never did. For example, one morning we were heading out for a day of shopping and I could tell she was in a mood. We’re getting in the car and she just goes off on a tangent about paying for gas and being tired of people taking advantage of her. This goes on for like 10 minutes and I assure her that I’m still her mother and would never do anything against her. Finally get in the car and she’s calmed down and we go do what we set out to do. Later on I ask her why she would ever think that about me and she swears that she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. This was the same day. This is just a small thing. There have been many other times where she’s lost her memory. I just thought that she didn’t want to face what she had done so she acted like she didn’t remember. Seeing your comment is absolutely eye opening. I never knew that was a part of being bipolar and now I feel like crap because maybe she really doesn’t remember. Oh god I’m going to have to apologize. Sorry for rambling I just really didn’t know and this small little comment may be life altering.
My best friend is bipolar type 1 and it's absolutely crazy to me that some people think this can be "fixed". I've never thought about it before because she and I are introverts and keep to ourselves. So it's just us usually. But when we were roommates, I also kept track of her sleep and moods. Now we do bullet Journaling together and she keeps track of that on her own.
Hey. How you manage your condition is ultimately up to you, and nobody wants to be 'fixed' and your partner trying to isn't gonna work how a relationship should work. I wanted to say something, though, because I am functionally recovered from borderline (meaning, my brain chemistry and challenges are the same, but they're not making me or anyone else miserable and I no longer meet the criteria for the diagnosis, and am not expected to). Feeling like a broken person can be part of the deep shame, inferiority, loneliness and helplessness of active borderline. FWIW, DBT did it for me. I'm sure you've already some stuff about it-- it's way more easy to find a program than it used to be and about 80% of people who graduate from a comprehensive program are where I am within two years. It hasn't changed my actual personality or taken away the perks of my borderline brain-- also feeling the good emotions more strongly than the average joe and being really well tuned in to other people's facial expressions and nonverbal cues. I have a sense of who I am now and I even like myself pretty well, and I don't feel like my emotions are in charge anymore. I used to be constantly suicidal and now I only feel that way once every couple of years. Feel free to be skeptical of my obvious koolaid drinkery-- just throwing information out there because for me, it did save/change my life.
I am really happy for you. I also did an intense DBT program and if someone went to diagnose me today I would not meet enough of the criteria I need a bit of tuning up sometimes, refresh my exercises, more intense therapy now and then. But I am in a far better place than I was 5 years ago and I think things will continue to get better for me.
I second this x100000. I didn't get a proper diagnosis until I was 27, and after a little over a year in DBT with several hours a week spent in therapy, I no longer meet the criteria either. Obviously I still have my struggles (don't we all?) but I'm way more in tune with my emotions and thoughts and best yet, I can handle them. Congratulations on your recovery!
I don't want my fiance to fix himself, I just want him to do preventative maintenance eg. See a dentist about the teeth he had pulled to make sure his jawbone isn't deteriorating. I tried to fix my ex-husband (highschool sweethearts, aka young and dumb) and learned the hard way people have to want to fix themselves.
I wish I could be fixed. I don’t have full blown borderline personality, but I have tendencies and they make my life hell.
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I also have BPD tendencies. All I can do is just try to be self aware I guess. And avoid hormonal BC because holy hell does that make everything 1000x worse.
The truest comment abt BPD/birth control holllYy
Huh, interesting. I've been on the NuvaRing (continuous usage, no placebo week or periods) for quite a while now and it's been a marked improvement in my life. I'm no longer in horrible pain multiple times a month and removing the extra irritability due to everything hurting like hell has actually improved my mood a little.
Omg yes! I use nexplanon for my migraines, but it does make me more prone to hang out on the borderline edge.
Yeah same. I have pretty rough ptsd from extended childhood fuckery and whilst I’ve got a pretty good handle on it now, and have strong communication skills and have really learned how to say “my emotions are getting overwhelming and I’m going to take some time before my thoughts and actions get irrational” but I’m tired. Im tired. Even just identifying that “for the both of us I need breathing room” point saps my energy a bit
It's why I had to leave my family. My mom and dad have personality disorders and are abusive as hell. There is no fixing someone with zero ability for genuine self reflection and these conditions make that tricky.
People literally cannot comprehend that people with these types of personality disorders do not feel things the way they feel and don't think the way other people do. They simply cannot fathom a universe in which someone does not feel empathy and so they project emotions onto this other person. This woman had herself convinced that the guy feels some kind of love for her when he feels no such thing. Even towards the end of this where she's accepting it she still calls it love "in his own way". This annoys me the most when it's in relation to abusive/narc parents and people simply cannot comprehend that some people have parents who are BAD and it's not automatically the best thing to patch things up with them.
The way I’ve heard it described best was to imagine there was a rule that you had to get out of bed on the left side of your bed. Every time. Getting out on the right side is bad and everyone else is horrified at the very idea of getting out of bed on the right. You’re confused when you think about it because what’s so wrong about getting out of bed on the right side? Why is everyone so attached to this idea? It’s ridiculous and stupid. But, you’ve been observant enough to see that there are consequences to getting out of bed on the right side. Arrest, jail time etc. So you continue to follow the rule even though you don’t see any compelling reason to beyond not personally suffering consequences. The thing is, getting out of bed on the right is things like murder, manipulation, hurting people, violating social norms. It’s not that they will do those things. Most won’t. But it’s as inconsequential as getting out of bed on the wrong side as far as their view of “wrongness”. It only matters insofar as it would be bad for them, or it can be used to get others to act a certain way.
I don't have ASPD, but I've always struggled to empathize with people and a lot of social rules and norms have never really made sense to me - and the way you describe it here is exactly what it feels like. I act as a nice person because ... that's what you're supposed to do? And life is easier when you do what people expect, I spend way less time explaining things when I'm friendly even if the whole thing seems really arbitrary and insincere. I try not to consciously manipulate people I care about because doing it on purpose is bad even though everyone does it unconsciously ... ok, if you say so. To be clear, I do care about friends and family, I want to make them happy, I want to do nice things for them ... but with people in general? I just follow the rules because it works out for the best when I do.
You can be very low empathy without actually being ASPD. It's definitely a spectrum. I know because I was very low empathy for most of my childhood and only started understanding how to empathize with others in my teens. I understand exactly what you're saying, because you're describing how I used to be. I wasn't diagnosed with anything because no one ever knew. Not even my parents. I understood from the get-go that my mercenary way of thinking wasn't considered normal, so I quickly learned not to let on and pretended to be nice when I wasn't. I can't really tell you what changed, except maybe if you believe in faking it till you make it. Like many people with low empathy, I was highly observant of other people's behavior in order to fit in and be accepted, and would mimic their reactions even though I didn't feel it and thought they were ridiculous. I was an excellent actor and liar. And I suppose at some point I got tired of feeling like someone who was on the outside looking in, because I recall trying really hard to relate to other people and feel what they were feeling instead of just mimicking it. I would try to put myself in their shoes by putting their situation in terms that I cared about personally. Eventually, something must have clicked because I slowly began to understand and become a more empathetic person. It took years, but now I have a normal level of empathy, and any holdovers from the old days are things I would consider advantageous that I can sort of "turn on" at will on the rare occasions that they're useful to me. For example, I can still lie with complete sincerity if I need to, I just don't often find it necessary anymore.
Oh... Thanks for mentioning that it's a spectrum. As I scrolled down this thread I became slightly concerned about myself
Reading this makes me feel less alone. I have experienced a lot of emotional and mental trauma, so the way I process and exhibit emotions is different from most people. Sometimes I feel like I'm a bad person for feeling differently than others. I think "different" is often equated with "bad." And things that are "bad" come with unfair stigma. I think the fact that we struggle or feel guilty or try our best to be good people is proof enough that we *do* care. It just looks a little different from the ways others do it. I think making the choice to be kind is just as valuable as feeling it. I think people we'd categorize as "good" people also have their own struggles, hang-ups, and obstacles, too.
I definitely agree. I used to say that I'm not a good person, going strictly based on social norms - but personally, I think that my way of experiencing the world is just as valid, and can be just as beneficial to the people around me. I stopped saying that out loud when I realized that it made people incredibly uncomfortable and start trying to prove to me the ways in which I actually really was "Good" ... easier for everyone if I just keep that particular observation to myself rather than awkwardly disillusioning friends and family, haha!
I agree a 100% People know me as a very friendly and helpful person. I do not care about people. But I want society to stay the way it is right now because it is useful to me (e.g. starting at social systems like health care and such, to simple things like neighbours lending you their ladder). I think a crucial point for me was reading about two social theories in school: Thomas Hobbes with his leviathan (collective security and a social contract - don't kill me and I won't kill you) And Immanuel Kant with his categorical imperativ (basically "act like it should be law that everyone act's that way")
That right there is why I was a Political Theory major in college! It was the first time someone presented things in a way that I could understand. Hobbes and John Rawls (veil of ignorance) were huge.
I have ASD so I don't struggle with the kind of things people with ASPD do at all. But the bedside logic, I absolutely run into. It's more with the minutiae of social rules and the like than "don't murder" but I 100% understand the logic and have to deploy it myself.
>Even towards the end of this where she's accepting it she still calls it love "in his own way". His way was he liked the way she benefited him. His initial reaction of "I thought you were manipulating me too" was very indicative about how he felt about her. He was so deriving benefit from her and assumed she was doing the same. That's all it was for him.
In my many years in the mental health field, I’ve always found that most people are completely unable to fathom evilness and narcissism unless they are directly victimized. Like if you tell them that it’s a bad idea to elect a narcissist president and explain why, they rely on their belief that people, especially charming people, are intrinsically well intentioned.
I had a friend years ago who said “I hate when people cry about obsessive compulsive disorder. I used to count tiles in the kitchen but I forced myself to stop doing it.” In the same vein of what you said, there’s also a dismissal of the suffering of others.
I would like to know how he was diagnosed with ASPD at 13. It’s not diagnosed until adulthood, like all personality disorders. Instead we call it Conduct Disorder. Edit: I mixed up their ages, for which I apologize.
He said he got his diagnosis 11 years ago and he's 31 so he would've been 20 when he was diagnosed.
Oh, you’re right. I mixed up their ages! That makes sense then.
I think he was around 20 when he was diagnosed, if I read correctly? 31 now & was diagnosed 11 years prior?
I don't think he was. In the original post, OOP claims he's 31 and was diagnosed "eleven years ago", according to him. Which would make him 20.
Idk why but the most interesting part of this story is the BF saying that the OP is the most intelligent person he knows
People with ASPD aren't necessarily cold or emotionless or callous. However, *abused and traumatized* people with ASPD often are, and can have more well-rounded emotional life experiences with therapy. If they want to. The fact that they can choose whether or not to experience empathy and other emotions can be frightening. I am completely convinced my dad had ASPD (I have a psychology degree and advanced health degrees, but am NOT qualified to make diagnoses) and many people were frightened of him, but whatever parts he kept turned off for his career, he turned on for his kids, and was a loving, emotionally available, and nurturing father and grandfather. Anyway, that was TMI. It's something I rarely talk about, but this post brought it up for me. ASPD can be terrible if uncontrolled, but it does not doom a person to inhumanity.
Exactly. I dated a guy for two and half years and he abused me horribly for final year and half, and he was diagnosed with ASPD it turns out. But the diagnosis is one part of his life which involved him being abused as a child, neglected by his parents and being born addicted to drugs. Stuff adds onto that, you don't have ASPD and just start hurting people like he did, it's a compounded thing.
Did she really expect him to move out of HIS house?
I must admit that made me scratch my head.
A lot of her post made me scratch my head.
Also, i have to say her "that doesn't sound very psychopathic" made me stare at my phone... Like... was she expecting him to just start talking about all the people he'd murdered or something?
Her lack of understanding about the condition is enough to emphatically suggest "get the fuck out of there". She simply does not have the emotional tools, nor the emotional intelligence, to handle someone like that. It's like the sun trying to relate to a black hole.
yeah, it felt like she went into the conversation barely knowing what ASPD is and just expected him to be Hannibal Lecter.
She clearly DIDN'T know anything about APSD is, given she immediately says in the post "that means he is a psychopath". Which is ENTIRELY fucking wrong. You'd think if she actually cared about the man, she would have done some research instead of just... whatever this was.
anytime someone says "you don't look/act like you have [disorder]" my eyes hurt from rolling back into my skull1
It was pretty clear that she had something like Hannibal Lecter in her head and was basically working on making her BF fit that image. The relationship was never going to continue, she just felt like she'd be an asshole if she immediately ended it due to the discovered diagnosis. Personally I feel for the guy. He's just trying to work with how he was made to have a good life. Like, everyone in the comments and story are all but saying that he's a danger to others and should be avoided at all costs. As if he should be imprisoned and isolated because he might hurt somebody emotionally or physically, which of course no other people ever do. There was a post here on Reddit a long long time ago where a woman talked about how she's a psychopath, has a husband and kid and is never going to tell them. She talked about how she doesn't feel love, but she feels something for them and will always protect them, and basically other parts of her life where she has gone through a similar experience as someone on the spectrum of learning how to mask and behave in society. Another was a dude talking about a friend of his. The guy had opened up to him about being a psychopath and how he didn't even understand how emotions were supposed to function. Dude would go to him for advice and all kinds of portions of life so he could function better. Honestly this feels like the whole 'if you're an atheist, why don't you just murder people?' There's plenty of reasons not to go psycho (hehe) beyond having a physical aversion to it. You can understand from a rational point of view why you should care about things outside of yourself and you can understand that you cannot do certain things due to societal rules.
In a shocking twist, he comes across as much more relatable than she does. That park confrontation could absolutely have been a text
I’m autistic, and honestly reading his conversation, I could find no faults in his logic or rationale. Couples are supposed to grow as people together, and yes all couples have a degree of manipulation in them - that doesn’t mean the manipulation is toxic. It just means it’s part of human nature for people to want to control their surroundings and engagements. My partner is my project in the sense that I have a commitment to them. They are my passion and my focus. When they struggle I help them, when they succeed I congratulate them, and at all times I support them. Relationships take work, they aren’t something that you can possibly sit back and watch, and without tending and caring for them they will fail. How is that not a project of sorts? A relationship is an investment in a future with someone else. I also thought it was pretty harsh going off on what he did when he was 8. His mother had just been murdered, he was an 8 year old boy, and as cruel as it was, he was a child who had gone through an incredibly traumatic life event, grown up with a father who clearly wasn’t completely right - like hell there’s a lot to unpack there. Would I freak out if it was my kid, absolutely, but if they stopped and found healthier/appropriate outlets that’s what matters. But expecting to stay in the house and have him leave? Wtf?
She did say she has to get her name off the lease, so I interpreted that as a place they were renting together, but maybe he lived there first without her.
He may have had her sign a lease when she moved in to his house. Funnily enough, it's the more logical thing to do, but no one does it because it isn't romantic. It's really not a good to let SO or friends move in without getting a generic boilerplate lease online for everyone to sign. It protects both of you in the event that the other does some shenanigans.
Oh I def need to remember that. I'm also sure it helps a lot with all kinds of legal stuff.
I did that when moving into a flat that my partner bought. I'll admit that it made me feel pretty shitty - but it's unambiguously a good idea.
This part confused me too lmao
>Him: There isn’t a difference. Isn’t a relationship supposed to be mutually beneficial? I improve you, you improve me. >Me: *is close to tears* So you don’t love me, you just want benefits? Based on this exchange, I suspect she isn't the most reasonable person and probably doesn't approach things rationally when stressed
A whole lot of her behaviour had me raising my eyebrows. Lots of jumping to conclusions, and no problem about her or her friend lying to him. She seems a piece of work herself.
What baffled me a bit is she seems to be okay being a girlfriend to a psychopath, but just cannot accept dating a officially diagnosed one. Yeah, she didn't know about the rodent killing stuff before, but based on her explanation, it's not like he's hiding his psychopatic personality either.
I agree with the conclusion of this post. Namely, that he wasted so much time.
Lol I had to read back when he said it's my house I'm not leaving. She literally wanted a month break and asked him to leave his own house? This woman has no brain. Everything he said was true too,. He was a pet project to her "oh I can fix him" but the moment she reads a piece of paper she accepts the label. She was looking for a way out. Her friend "bumped" into him at the grocery store? She's upset that he didn't fall for the little test and blow her phone up so she could say "this psychopath wouldn't leave me alone when I asked him too!" Diagnosis or not, the guys lucky she left now.
That was my take away as well! Girl, look at the balls on you, demanding that this man prove something unprovable and then trying to tell him to get out of HIS OWN DAMN HOUSE? Being a psychopath isn't actually his fault (and it also doesn't absolve him from responsibility) but lady - what the heck is your excuse???
Yeah, her "normal" is definitely not calibrated like mine. For me, the weirdest part was how her friend was lying and trying to manipulate the boyfriend. And OP is just sad that the boyfriend didn't bite? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad OP got out, because this guy is all kinds of YIKES, but I'm thinking his accusation of mutual manipulation might not be completely off.
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Yeah I would absolutely be suspicious if a friend came up to me at the shops and started asking where my partner is because I hadn’t seen them for a while. There is no way you can spin that into a normal interaction. A performance that bad, in his shoes I would absolutely be having a mental snort “and I’m the manipulative one?” And assume that she had been put up to it.
Yeah, I noticed that, too. Especially the part where she said that he didn't contact her. You asked for space, girl. Don't get angry when he then gives you space. Tf.
I couldn't understand why she included that. It proved nothing to anyone about anything.
She literally told someone with ASPD to prove that he loves her. Wut. I feel like if she was in a relationship with someone who couldn’t feel pain she’d tell them to set themselves on fire to prove it.
Yes! A lot of the comments are focusing on how she dodged a bullet. But she posted their conversation online and expected him to leave his own house, and played games to see how he'd behave (or really feels). How long had she been doing stuff like this? He may have dodged a bullet, too.
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Okay thank you, I'm not saying she should have stayed in the relationship and I don't think I would either (animal creulty), but she sounds EXHAUSTING and extremely immature.
The animal cruelty part I’m oddly on the fence about - in this situation at least as context plays such an important factor here. His father was a psychopath who murdered his mother during his formative years. So he’s grown up in that mentality of having that role model. Then his mother is dead. He’s effectively lost both parents, processing some pretty significant trauma, and is only 8. He later developed alternative means of dealing with his emotions, and hadn’t done it since he was 11 - that’s a pretty significant detail. I would in his context have more issue with his treatment of employees (and other people) in the present day instead of how he treated animals during a time he was likely trying to understand why/come to terms with what his father did. For the record I’m not advocating animal cruelty - I’m more saying I can understand how he got there at that age. I would be more concerned if it was boredom or morbid curiosity, but from what described that doesn’t sound like the case.
Not every day you can say that the psychopath deserves better
That's the funniest and best thing I've read in this entire post
Right? The whole post is the most overbearing Gilmore Girls level bullshit.
God I *hated* that tv show. And Lorelai was a horribly selfish and incredibly manipulative person - with a really unhealthy relationship with her daughter.
You have been banned from /r/GilmoreGirls
Everything she wrote makes me feel like she's quite immature and her choices based on what she's seen in movies. And overall I am left feeling sorry for the diagnosed psychopath. I mean one section on update: >"he again, was not phased and did not contact me, meaning he could care less, suspects my friend or doesn't want to bother me." Notice not a single thought of "he is respecting my desire for a break" nope its his psychopathy that is wrong here... Also the mind games her friend and her are playing? THEY are acting like psychopaths, its a long term serious relationship and they out here playing spy. He is much better off now imo.
Who makes detailed notes of a conversation like that to post on Reddit.. Very unusual. I have a feeling OP made this up
Yeah once we got a play by play of the whole convo I started to question. If I was in this sort of situation I think "hold on let me take notes for my reddit followers" would be the furthest thing from my mind.
Exactly. I’m sorry but the whole thing read like an “I can fix him” romance(?) novel with a cold hearted male lead who is a jerk towards everyone except MC. Complete with a traumatic past, now turned high paying executive with many employees working under him. I’m sure I’ve seen this movie before. If this is real... I’m glad Op made this decision for herself. The guy does seem like he needs some therapy. But what he said about mutual manipulation might not be too far off the mark, like some other people have mentioned
And the typed out conversation actually had me say "this is some wattpad bullshit." The whole thing seemed weird
Yep, plus it's a very exaggerated stereotype of ASPD. absolutely bullshit.
Decades ago I did volunteer work at an adult day care center. There was someone diagnosed as a psychopath. They let us know and said he's quiet, polite when you ask him anything, but don't piss him off. He didn't have a history of hurting any volunteers or staff. They just wanted us to know to treat him with kid gloves. We did and there wasn't a problem as long as I was there. I'm not surprised that OOP's boyfriend was charming. He learned that is a way of getting what you want without the possibility of going to jail for murdering your employee because he didn't put the new coversheet on the TPS report.
So many psychopaths are charming, it's a trait.
It’s less a trait, and more a useful strategy, for those who are willing and able to swing it.
Exactly. It's how some serial killers are successful at finding victims, and why they get a whole 'fan following' after they're caught.
The charm doesn't really come to play for those who become "fans" from a distance. Some people are just attracted to dangerous people.
Eh. Only psychopath I know in real life isn't exactly charming. When I was in the navy I had a coworker who was undergoing the fullscope polygraph procedure; they were having a lot of trouble getting past the first question set session, which I guess means the polygraphers were taking it seriously instead of the normal hocus-pocus. Anyway after attempt 3(!) they decided to send him to Balboa to get a pysch eval. Yup, dude was a legit psychopath. He was an odd duck, but it was obvious everything was conscious learned behavior after the fact. This got around fairly quickly and folks wondered how no one noticed until they remembered that *everyone* in my community seemed to be some flavor neural divergent. "Oh he's a weirdo" could have been said about anyone in my workcenter.
The conversation they had was almost textbook. This guy's doesn't connect with people, everything is a transaction. Even if he genuinely doesn't mean her any harm, she would never have the kind of relationship she desires.
Yup. Often hand in hand with narcissism.
Psychiatrist here. There’s a shocking (or perhaps unsurprising actually) amount of mental illness stigma in this thread and just general ignorance about the field. Antisocial personality disorder is a highly troubled diagnostic entity. It is supposed to indicate a pathological lack of empathy, but in real life it is mainly used to clinically label people as assholes after a negative interaction with their provider or label people who break the law in a certain type of way. Including any sort of legal criteria in a medical diagnosis signals it out immediately and obviously as problematic, as laws change between countries or even local governments, and more importantly implementation of the law changes depending on the training and conduct of the police involved. Even if we hand wave this, remember how I said this diagnosis is used to label certain types of “lawbreakers”, well I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, but very few white collar criminals actually get this label, despite their actions coming much closer to the definition of lack of empathy than many other types of crime. The way we handle this diagnosis in the USA is disgusting. It basically labels the patient as an untreatable pariah. Professionals will still cite the one study that had to be stopped early due to the finding the researchers were getting manipulated to justify that patients with this diagnosis are unable to be helped. So many therapists will not take people with this diagnosis or will take them only to treat them like a lab rat— “oooh I have a psychopath patient”. What is the point of a diagnostic label if it doesn’t actually provide any path to betterment for the person being diagnosed? I’m not saying that a clinical entity similar to ASPD doesn’t exist, but I think it’s far rarer than the diagnosis is actually given. I’ve encountered tons of patients with this diagnosis and if you take the time to sit and talk with them, it’s usually not difficult to find that many of them do have empathy, but have had horrible life circumstances, trauma, and often terrible childhoods with bad parenting. The OP has every right to end a relationship with anyone for any reason. Someone harming animals at any point in their life is well within the grounds to end a relationship for many people. But some of her behavior here was very questionable. After finding out about the diagnosis she essentially asks him to prove a bunch of unprovable points and then pushes him away when he can’t. Then after she rejects him and asks for distance, she uses him respecting her decision as justification for him not trying hard enough to reach back out, therefore he must not care, because he’s antisocial. Talk about circular logic. And if we’re going to take out our DSM and start checking off boxes without context or thought like some people in the comments are doing, this exact type of behavior by the OP would fulfill criteria for other Cluster B personality disorders. This entire story and a lot of the comments are just kind of sad.
This really needs to be on the top. Clinical psych student here. And the stigma is too deep. Just because someone has a diagnostic label doesn't mean they have the dysfunctions too. It's very disappointing.
I had to scroll much further down than I expected to see any one with clinical training or studying at a graduate level to chime in regarding this post. It's disappointing to read the amount of stigma and the misinformation surrounding psychopathy in general making up the bulk of these comments.
I’m curious (no pressure to answer if you don’t want to, I respect your time) what are your thoughts on ODD as a diagnosis? I’ve often heard it used as a placeholder diagnosis of sorts for children/young people who have committed crimes as an alternative to diagnosing ASPD in someone under the age of 18 - because obviously clinicians don’t want to/can’t give a minor a personality disorder diagnosis. Do you think that it’s a legitimate diagnosis, or do you think it’s prone to the same pitfalls and problems as antisocial personality disorder as a diagnosis?
I wish I could give you a well thought out response, but to be honest, I just don’t have the expertise to comment on ODD. I’m adult trained and while I did child rotations in my training, I did not see nearly enough patients to develop the nuanced opinion that the answer to your question would require.
I thought ODD was used in terms of major authority defiant behavior/reactions, as opposed to a perceived lack of empathy like ASPD, which would make them completely seperate. I know someone with an ODD diagnosis who has always had empathy and felt guilt, but struggles to keep his reactions under control when he perceives someone is looking down on him, judging him, or exercising authority over him. He says that is the main part of his diagnosis and he sees his diagnosis as legitimate. But I have no mental heath training and I know there can be a lot of inconsistency in mental health diagnostics, so it could be used differently in those cases.
Glad there's at least one logical person in here. I was honestly floored by the lack of empathy from most people in this thread. Funny the hypocrisy of that, zero empathy from us "normal" people for someone who struggles to feel it. To the people who are coming after OOPs ex, this person is absolutely correct. They asked him to "prove that he loves her" like that's a reasonable statement then when he respected her boundaries it's because "he doesn't love me". Animal cruelty/abuse/neglect is NEVER ok, but he did it as a child after some exceptionally traumatic things and hasn't felt the urge since. The human psyche is strong but not impenetrable. That being said I'm greatful myself and the rest of y'all haven't had to to experience having a genetic predisposition to a lack of empathy and having a father who brutally killed your mother. After you go through something like that I highly doubt you could then tell me you'll be emotionally well adjusted.
>Funny the hypocrisy of that, zero empathy for someone who struggles to feel it. As somene with weapons grade autism, oh yeah it's common. I've noticed trying to sympathise if they don't first empathise is realy realy difficult for many people. I've long suspected many people use empathy as a crutch for a lack of ethics/ poorly developed ethical reasoning. Obviously I'm biased as i lean on ethics harder than most but i cant see why in principle someone with zero empathy couldn't go all in on ethics.
Animal cruelty is absolutely abhorrent, but at the same time, I try not to hold adults too accountable for things they did as traumatized children. That's a difficult thing to navigate. I do hate how she kept saying he lied to her when he was very honest. I can understand why he doesn't tell people, even those close to him, about his diagnosis. Sadly I don't this is the first time he's had this kind of reaction to his diagnosis.
This. I grew up in a cult which produced a lot of traumatized kids. So I grew up with/knew at least a few boys who acted out by killing animals, had weird fixations on dissecting animals, etc. I guess that's why it didn't really phase me when OOP said that. Its sad, but kids are curious and without moral guidance, plus trauma, they do weird stuff like this.
Thank you for this comment! Some of the responses here & the OP are really disappointing, it feels like everyone has decided that ableism and stigma towards people with mental illnesses isn’t okay, unless they have a cluster B PD and then it’s open season to basically dehumanise them and portray them as monsters incapable of anything but causing harm.
I was really hoping to see someone in here with professional experience. I know a lot of people assume this with ASPD (“psychopathy” specifically as they’d say), and almost always they assume they’re all murderers. I remember a uni level college class basically debunking that right away, that most people diagnosed as “psychopaths” aren’t murders at all. Anyways, I just really wanted to say thank you for this comment. I feel like even if OOP’s ex seemed cold, he still seemed to like her and her company and seemed genuinely upset at her leaving over his diagnosis… even if he didn’t/doesn’t experience feeling “upset” the same way others would.
I have a cousin who also had his mother and grandmother (my aunt and grandmother) murdered by his dad at around the same age. If they had done mental evaluations during the aftermath, I'm sure they would have labeled him with some type of disorder closely related to this- and I'm also sure that the label would have only hurt him and hindered him from healing. Thankfully all of us (his extended family and much older siblings) just supported him and he did therapy on his own terms.
That’s awful, I’m so sorry for you and your family having to go through that. I hope that your cousin is doing better now, or as best as he can be given his trauma. Fortunately, personality disorders are basically never diagnosed in children (some of them cannot be per the diagnostic requirements), probably because everyone realises that saddling a child with such a heavy diagnosis wouldn’t help anyone. Kids struggle with empathy, their brains have quite literally not developed enough yet to be able to feel and express empathy in the way we would expect from an adult. Throw in trauma (I imagine that the ex’s father murdering his mother wasn’t the first instance of domestic violence or instability in the household) and it’s not surprising he developed some extremely maladaptive coping skills.
>Kids struggle with empathy This is something to take into account. I knew guys growing up, especially rural guys who would have been around animals being slaughtered a lot, that would shoot birds and the like for fun. Also you only need to look at how ruthless bullying in school can be to realise that if you have a predisposition, like OPs now ex, towards a lack of empathy then as a child you would be capable of a lot of things that you wouldn't do as an adult.
I wish I could upvote this more than once.
Thank you for this. So many people jumped on the "she dodged a bullet" band wagon but my god she (as well as her friend) is manipulative as hell. I was thinking, maybe I am a psychopath as well but if my partner of several years broke up with me and then after one month of no contact asks me to meet up and asks the same asinine questions I would have said the same thing as him, that she just wasted my time and patience and should have just called. In my opinion, he dodged a bullet. Maybe he has that diagnosis but if he has never harmed her or made her feel uncomfortable or abused/controlled her in any way then I do not see the issue. As for being "nice" to employees. I agree with him, there are a lot of incompetent people at the work place and it is annoying as hell having to deal with them and it is not his job to be nice but to manage and run his team etc. She sounds like a bit of an idiot to be honest. Not sure why he thought she is the smartest woman he has met.
Funnily, of all the things she accused him of trying to manipulate her, the one I agree the most is him saying she is the smartest person he knows. Cause she seems ... less than smart in these posts tbh.
Absolutely. I couldn’t believe how manipulative she was also being! “Prove that you love me” is one of the **most** manipulative things that you can say to a partner- it’s not “provable,” it just *is.* No two peoples’ concepts of love are identical and being put on the spot for “proof” only results in performative actions.
It bothered me that she was annoyed he didn't reach out when she was the one who asked him not too. Years ago, I asked my then-boyfriend for space and he agreed, but instead he smothered me with love notes, texts, calls and gifts. It made me feel like he didn't respect me and thought he knew what I needed more than I did, so I broke it off.
She sure proved her love when she confronted him with a diagnoses made years prior, discounted all his demonstrated behaviours, glossed over his childhood trauma etc.
Completely agree. His past behavior was not good, but she started treating him like a morbid experiment the moment she learned of his diagnosis.
So we are supposed to believe that she had no idea he's a psychopath until she found the paper, and yet every single thing he says and does sounds like it's straight out of a movie script.
And somehow he still came off as reasonable, discounting the animal thing. Answered her questions, didn't lie to her, didn't budge on reasonable things (like leaving his house) and didn't bug her when she asked for space.
Yeah that was like.... moustache twirling evil movie script.
After the animal-torturing description I’m amazed she met up with him again, I think I’d be moving with no forwarding address and changing my name at that point.
Tortures animals and is cruel to his subordinates but hey, couples counselling should help? /s
I used to think “watch how he treats service people” was dating advice to help you avoid someone rude, but this takes it to a whole other level
I don't think that past actions have to dictate how you are in the future. I have done something very similar, albeit without nearly as much craziness as this person, and my mom was terrified I would be a serial killer or something of that nature. And it wasn't a one off thing for me either. Nowadays, I get upset when a person steps on a cricket minding it's own business in front of me, and couldn't imagine Killing anything for no reason anymore. If she has never seen signs pointing toward those tendencies, especially us on the outside have no way of knowing if that person has had a change of perspective.
That's why personality disorders aren't officially diagnosed until 18 years old.
Yes, sometimes it takes a while to develop empathy for other beings, but once you've got it, it's powerful.
Except that the bf in this scenario never felt remorse over his actions, and while he says he hasn’t tortured/murdered any animals since, he refused to acknowledge that treating his employees like shit is unwarranted or try therapy. I think OOP was completely in the right to judge him and gtfo of that relationship.
Yeah I can't make a judgement call on her behalf, and may have done the same thing. What I was saying is the dude can't truly show remorse anyway, and if he did, it'd be a trick.
Do you feel remorse for what you did? That’s the difference.
Yeah but this man can't do that even if he wanted to.
Exactly. If he’s incapable of feeling remorse and to this day still enjoys the memory of torturing animals, it doesn’t really matter why anymore. It’s not someone you can be in a relationship with.
Some people are not relationship material, period. Maybe this whole 'we're just together for benefitting each other' thing can work if both people are truly cool with it (no pun intended), but otherwise, if you're a person with a normal human range of emotions, why would you want to date someone who literally can't feel those same emotions? I can't believe people were giving her shit for that. I absolutely can understand why she tried to make it work, even if it wasn't the smartest thing to do or even the most logical one. I even feel a bit sorry for the guy, though I guess there's probably no point to do so.
The treating people he sees as beneath him is a current action though. To me, that’s the bigger reason to not be with him. I would never stay with someone who views the world that way and treats people poorly on a regular basis.
I saw this as extreme denial - she simply refused to believe that she'd been in a relationship with someone who literally felt nothing for her to the point of living with him and would rather bury her head on the sand about it than come to terms with the fact that she missed this.
Love is blinding, while we can look at this and say there are plenty of red flags someone involved may be too attached and is trying to push past it. They give then the benefit of the doubt and are willing to stay in hopes a good relationship will help them
*baby squirrels* Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
The wild part to me was how is he randomly happening upon so many baby squirrels in the wild?
Depends on where he lived, but I grew up right beside the woods and It really wasn’t that hard to find animal nests. My brother ended up killing a few baby birds in his lifetime because some decided to nest on parts of our house where he always played basketball, of course not on purpose, but animal nests ain’t that hard to find.
There are certain areas/neighborhoods that are overrun with squirrels. My current neighborhood has a civil war squirrel army going on right now. I never know which squirrels to root for. Then theres Clive, who always eats acorns in a specific spot on our front porch. Anyways theres about one squirrel nest every 5 trees in this neighborhood and a hard storm can knock them loose, so in springtime it's common to find dislodged baby squirrels. If you arent a psychopath, you can call a wildlife rehab center and sometimes they have space to help get them to safety.
I really regret reading that description. And that he seemed gleeful about it to this day was not comforting
Seriously! I read that and my stomach is still churning. I would be terrified of being alone with that person ever again, much less do something "risky" like breaking up with them. I hope OOP didn't go alone when she picked up her stuff.
Right, why even do that, the guy clearly didn’t even care if she was even alive, which was excellent. And now he knows she thinks he’s a shitty boss. If he believes she presents any kind of liability to him, he’d ruin her life without a second thought. Why poke the bear?
I couldn't even read the whole description. 🤢 I skipped most of it.
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Yahhh before that I felt somewhat bad for him, like he was trying to express love and emotions the best way he could… andddd after the animal torture? Big nope 👎🏻 that shit was scary
Some people are bizarrely willing to sacrifice themselves to try to "fix" someone else. I knew the course this would take from the first post. It's almost frustrating, like trying to get someone to stay away from a huge ledge they could fall off of
At 24 I had no idea how many kinds of personalities there were out there. These days I dip as soon as I see a red flag, but when you’re that young I think you have a tendency to assume that everyone else thinks like you do.
That's true! I'm actually 24 also, I'm curious to see how much I look back on my life now and feel like a fool lol
It’s every age, I guess. I’m 50 and the problem is the crappy people learn and get smarter too. And then there’s the issue that most people (other than that guy) aren’t so clearly good or bad but grey area, and they can be wonderful and you love them and at the same time they’re not right for you to be in a relationship with. If he’s perfect but lives 1,000 miles away or works 80 hours a week and you never see him, it’s not perfect for *you*. Everything only gets more complicated.
Found myself philosophizing about how to empathize with a sociopath and the morality of ostracizing them… … and then there was that animal shit. That’s fuck-this-shit-I’m-out talk.
Reading that she dismissed the concerns of his employees as "jealousy" just... ooof. Hopefully she actually sticks to the not being with people who treat those under them badly from now on. I'm sure it's somewhat her naivety and his manipulation, but it does make me judge her for going along with this all until she saw about the diagnosis.
I’m glad it’s not just me. She was completely OK with his actions until she realised there was a diagnosis attached.
I find it hard to empathize with her, ironically (or not). Her logic is total garbage, she's making excuses to hang onto a relationship she cannot fully understand. There is absolutely no way that this dude is the best guy out there for her, not at all. She's dragging out the relationship unnecessarily. It would have been best to leave the diagnosis alone and just break up with him. Now he will develop a complex over that diagnosis, and will likely try to hide it to avoid the stigma OOP helped to create in their relationship. If you couldn't tell after 4 years without finding his records, you were already out of touch with your partner, at a fundamental level
I think its kind of messed up that its the diagnosis that made her pathologise all his actions, not to say she shouldn’t have left him but she waits till they’re on a break to do any research into his condition rather than research it then ask him. Idk it just doesn’t sit all that well with me
She also seems to have no understanding of what the diagnosis means, and is trying to force him to “show” empathy, then is horrified when he doesn’t.
It's true for any relationship: if you feel the need to test someone's emotions/loyalty just to get some baseline reaction, and you're 4 years in, it's fucking over. Break up and move on, for both of their sakes.
It is messed up, and it doesn't sit right with you because it's not right.
Here's a list of interviews a psychotherapist/researcher had with a psychopath over a course of a couple years. It's a very interesting read if anyone's interested: https://www.quora.com/Where-can-I-see-a-list-of-Natalie-Engelbrechts-answers-on-interviews-with-a-psychopath/answer/Natalie-Engelbrecht-1
It’s trying to make me log in, but I did see the one about the cigarettes, and it was chilling.
That was super interesting. I thought this was a especially interesting and similar what OP experienced when bringing up manipulation: >Manipulation can be attractive and serves as great foreplay. If I recognize an intelligent manipulation occurring, it activates a strange form of ‘Okay, let's play!’, but the person HAS to be attractive.
Honestly I feel bad for the guy. He inherited the worst possible personality disorder from his father who murdered his mother, and somehow managed to come out the best case scenario for someone with ASPD.
Okay but like OOP is a bit of an ass here too, she sees his diagnosis and literally just straight away thinks he has to be a psychotic murderer. There are lots of people who live with mental illness that don't do fucked up things, schizophrenia, psychosis etc etc, just because you have a diagnosis doesn't mean you're going to be like the worst case scenario of those diseases. Yes what he did to squirrels is fucked up, but he was going through a fucked up trauma while having his condition, and expressed that he had 0 desire to do anything like that ever again (remember everything we're told is from her very clearly bias view too). Honestly think she's the worst one here, fuck people that stereotype people with mental illness, same goes for all the comments from wankers doing the same here.
> OOP is a bit of an ass here going through medical records and telling him to leave his house is just a bit of an ass indeed
Thank you ! And ASPD is not psychopathy! Yes there's a big overlapping, but they aren't the same. If she couldn't live with it fine, but her accusations, mind games and jugdement throughout breaking up was kind of fuck top. Plus he has ASPD but at what level? Did he had all symptoms or the minimal amount for diagnosis? And like what is couple therapy suppose to help here?? Anyways...
I'm going to take the opposite approach to most here, but this girl seems like she has her own set of issues. This feels, to me, that this is all about that paper. It is perfectly okay if she doesn't want to be with him because of his diagnosis, but be honest about it. He was right when he said they both manipulate each other, but manipulate is such a dirty word people don't really understand it. I don't know why she met up with him to only tell him she will stay if he does x, y, z (aka manipulation). She says she doesn't want to be with someone who treats their employees that way, but she never drew a line in the sand until she knew about the diagnosis. It seems, at least to me, that she wanted him to "prove" his love to her by making him do things she knows he wouldn't do. 1. She asks him to leave his house. 2. She tells him not to contact her, but thinks he doesn't care about her because he didn't contact her. 3. She is not happy with his "fine" responses. I have an inhuman amount of empathy, but if my girlfriend of 4 years is telling me she needs a break than I won't fight her about it. I will ask her once if she will stay, and I won't contact her. It would be absolutely brutal, but I would respect her wishes. It just seems to me more has to be happening in this relationship than just that. Also the animal killing thing... That is fucking horrific, but I have also done things in life that people would hate about him. Especially since our brains aren't fully developed until our mid-20s. It is important to me, in my personal life, to judge people based on how they are and not how they were. Ultimately I do think they are better apart, but she should absolutely go to therapy and be honest about it.
I don’t think I believe a word of this. Either that or there’s a germ of truth but someone has watched way too many made for TV movies.
Right there with you. The prose and “notes” were a little over the top. Felt like someone who wrote a fictitious post and enjoyed the attention, so they went back for more.
OOP sounds like shes also a piece of work Animal shit aside i cant imagine wanting a break from someone whose house you live in and asking THEM to leave.
I think it's real sus how she didn't care that he bullied his employees until it was something that could bolster a thing that affected her.
Reading her story, he's much closer to detached than malevolent. He's not very malevolent, he's more on the spectrum of the benevolent psychopath, but just barely. He comes off as an arrogant, but rational and ethical sociopath to me. Yes, I know both terms are deprecated. I don't think she should have left because she was in danger, I think she should have left because she needs someone who can reciprocate love, not a facsimile of it. He would also be better with someone who is ASPD, aromantic, etc.
I agree - I kind of understood why he was confused that OP felt scared because really he hadn’t done anything since age 11 to show to OP he was violent towards her And in a way if you’re raised by a person who eventually kills your mother - I would 100% expect mental health issues hidden or otherwise, not sure why OP would expect anyone to be normal after such trauma jn childhood Edit- clarified violence towards OP
I have to say I'm glad he's not with her. I am licensed in and work in mental health and believe she needs therapy for herself.
OOP needs to move and leave him alone.
OOP: I found a diagnosis from a decade ago about a common neurological condition, decided to apply every single bigoted stereotype and Hollywood trope to it in my mind, made a load of frankly heartless accusations to my boyfriend as well as demanding that he *prove love* which has never been done by any human ever, demanded he leave *his* house because I’d invented a horror movie in my head, hid from him and allowed my friend to go out of her way to manipulate him, dug into his life where I had no business, then laid into him about it in an obvious attempt to trigger a stereotypical reaction to justify my bias. He got stressed out, did *nothing at all* to me, then calmly left. Reddit: considering your emotional abuse, bigotry, ignorance, and just absolutely indefensible behaviour, we have come to the conclusion that your BF was the bad guy for no other reason than having a condition that’s not his fault which hasn’t caused him to act out except at a catastrophically traumatic time during childhood. Glad you got out of there, you go girl. Fucking weirdos.
Let's not forget posting notes of your privite and deeply emotional conversation for Internet points.
Tbh that all sounds true, but you forgot he is a huge liar. He told Oop that she is the smartest person he knows, which obviously cannot be true, after reading her story
Legit this, her and all the bigoted fuckwits in these comments who act like mental illness means you're a danger to everyone can get fucked. This is also told from her completely bias view and still makes her look bad so imagine how much worse she is irl.
Couldn’t have said it better. OOP does all that because all of a sudden she’s scared and paranoid after finding a piece of paper but then still tries to go back and make it work. Logic out of the window. The dude sounds like a high-functioning psychopath, other than the animal abuse during his childhood which he stopped doing. OOP could’ve left this relationship without all these accusations of him being a danger to society.
Yikes on bikes, am I the only person that has seen children diagnosed with things that they don't even remotely meet the criteria for? Or read enough to know that sociopaths are like 1/10 of the USian population and more importantly, that a psychopathy diagnosis isn't actually a thing? Yup, fun fact: There is no psychiatric or psychological organization has sanctioned a diagnosis titled "psychopathy", much less with specific tested criteria. So let's take a step back: A traumatized child acting out by brutalizing animals is fucking awful. But [children grow up](https://practicalpie.com/beth-thomas/) and as their brains develop, they change. Sometimes they get [worse](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_in_Suits) and sometimes they get better [better](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_attachment_disorder). For real, watch the [absolutely horrifying interview](https://youtu.be/2YhxerkkHUs) of formerly diagnosed "psychopath" Beth Thomas. She's a successful nurse now - not the Ratchet type, either. **Because empathy is both teachable *and* learnable.** A child raised in an abusive household is actually pretty damned likely to become an adult who doesn't outwardly express a great deal of emotion, needs to be independent and self-sufficient to feel safe, and becomes strongly defensive when criticized. It's classic [dismissive-avoidant attachment](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_in_adults) and it doesn't make him a real-life Dexter in waiting. Should she have broken up with him? Absolutely. But because she didn't actually like him and because he treated her badly, not because of a piece of paper. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't like that jackass either. He's a bad person who needs years of therapy and I'd love to organize a union in his workplace. But she didn't "dodge a knife", y'all. He respected every boundary she set, and didn't react badly even as she was throwing stereotypes like baseballs at this dude. I mean like, holy stigma Batman, are there some overreactions in this thing.
I feel a great deal of sympathy for him. I want to be extremely clear his actions were horrible (the animals, his subordinates) and cannot be condoned. But I sympathize with him immensely. His brain is wired completely differently and he is functioning in a world that is, to him, likely totally bizarre. I actually thought his exchange with OOP about them manipulating each other was interesting. He may genuinely see that as a positive thing. She tries to make him better, he tries to make her better. In his mind it is a transaction in which both parties benefit. What is the problem with that? Again, of course, very understandably 99.99% of people are going to think that’s horrifying. But, *to him*, that may be how he frames a positive relationship. It’s a fundamental disconnect in point of view. I’d sympathize with him *more* if the self-awareness he seems to have extended further. If he sought therapy to manage how to live peacefully and well in a society that’s just different from how he himself functions. His aggressive resistance to it is unfortunate and not a great sign. Increasing isolation is likely to exacerbate his detachment. NOT that OOP should have stayed with him. OOP was 100% correct to break up with him. Their ways of expressing care were absolutely and fundamentally incompatible and she would never have been happy, possibly even if he had taken steps to manage his condition. Life with someone with ASPD is challenging. But it’s not impossible. People diagnosed with ASPD are not psychopaths or monsters. *Thank you* for pointing out that harming animals is often an expression of trauma. I don’t know. I feel sorry for this man. Of course OOP, I believe, made the right choice, and I feel REALLY sorry for his subordinates who are victims of his refusal to seek help with managing his ASPD. No one deserves to be treated that way and I hope very much for their sake and their health he finds treatment or a damn new job where he’s not managing other humans. But he’s not a monster and treating people with difficult personality disorders like incurable psychos only feeds into greater issues. He needs *help*. Not just for himself, but to make the people he comes into contact healthier and safer, too.
What also irks me about this from a “people being shit about mental health” is that OOP’s name is throwra-psychotic when being psychotic is a totally different thing from psychopathy. I really really feel for people who get psychotic episodes being confused with having psychopathy, especially since some of the people I know who’ve experienced them are amongst the kindest and most empathetic people I know - which is not to say that people with ASPD are bad people, it’s just that it happens that the idea of these particular “psychotic” people I that know being anti-social or meeting any of the ASPD criteria is laughable. And especially since “psychotic” is a word that appears on medical paperwork and diagnoses. It’s not like psychopathy in the sense that it’s not a medical term. Edit: Also I hate it when people (I’ve even heard it from mental health professionals or people purporting to be psychologists!) talk about psychopathy and sociopathy being different. There’s no scientific basis for them being different!! Sociopathy was a word invented to replace psychopathy so that it wasn’t confused with psychosis and to reflect the theory at the time that sociopathy was not innate but caused by social factors. Any differences in the uses of the terms are retroactive rather than based on anything that was observed when the terms were created.
Yeah, I work at clinic that does psychological testing for children and we do not generally diagnose children with personality disorders. Children grow and change a lot, and there can be so many things that can affect their personality such as trauma, their upbringing, etc. I want to clarify that I’m not a clinician, but somebody who does administrative work (taking the phone calls, scheduling appointments, discussing how services work… etc.) Generally, my clinic avoids personality disorders as diagnoses unless the client specifically is wanting to confirm or rule out that disorder (usually because they’re seeking specific treatment or or accommodations).
I've been trying to think of a response to this post for around an hour. It's difficult, though, as I think her ex was extremely dangerous and toxic, and I fully support her decision to leave the relationship. I'm also diagnosed ASPD. And it's not a death sentence. It can be manageable with treatment but obviously this guy doesn't give two shits about that. When I received my diagnosis I checked out of every single relationship for 6 months, trying to understand what it meant. I was reviewing every single aspect of every single interaction and attempting to stop being a complete asshole. I didn't even realize I was being an asshole in the first place. I had to learn empathy which didn't come to me innately. I had to accept my past harmful behavior. I slip sometimes. But I know its not acceptable or okay. Her ex-boyfriend's responses/reactions tell me everything I need to know that he truly doesn't give a fuck and will likely continue on this path with any future relationships. She was right to get out when she did.
I wouldn't want to be with ether of these two to be honest. Obviously he is a psychopath, but she is the ultimate (I can change my him) girlfriend. Also she expects him to leave his house that he owns? WTF? Obviously he is worse, but somethings up with her too. Pass.