aspd-culture

[aspd-culture]

Unstable self esteem is common in all cluster b disorders, yeah! So with ASPD I find it to be very up and down. I’ll feel cool but not like the best person in the world or like anything grandiose, and very swiftly something will mess that up. For example, if I’m playing a game and doing well, my I’ll feel better than I really have a right to and in that moment, a lot of my value in my mind will be based on that. Then, the second I make a mistake I deem unacceptable, that crashes down and I get annoyed at myself and think I’m irrationally conceited for thinking something good about myself at all. Basically a “and why did you think you were special again?” situation.

However, I get over the down quickly as well and return to a neutral self esteem. It’s not the peaks and crashes of NPD, just very unstable and changes based on trivial things. It doesn’t cause me significant distress either - some, but not a lot.

The things that heavily increase my self-esteem are based heavily on symptom-related things: ability to lie, manipulate, hide things, break things, damage people and property, steal, outsmart people, charm people, etc. without issue or getting caught. The better I am at those things, the better I believe I am and vice versa. That will cause lasting damage and sometimes an identity crisis, and moderate distress.

In general, even over normal things, I am fairly insecure - especially in relationships (platonic and otherwise) as I feel I need to prove I’m too valuable to hurt or leave, but never can prove to myself that’s the case. Despite often breaking my back for Exceptions, I still always believe they’ll find better easily, and that maybe they deserve better anyway. It doesn’t keep me up at night, but it’s there and I exhibit some serious jealous behavior because of it.

A major difference I’ve noticed in hearing the experience of pwNPD is that no outside person is able to increase my self esteem. You can tell me a million times in a million ways I’m good/great but it won’t mean anything for my self esteem, and I’ll probably think you’re lying. Fvck, you can tell me constantly that I’m better than everyone else in the world, still no effect. There’s no such thing as a “supply” for me, and when pwoASPD say they need to learn not to base their worth on other people, I’m heavily confused by that concept entirely.

I also don’t find my experience with a neutral self esteem to line up at all with any descriptors prosocials use for theirs: high, low, or “healthy”. I don’t really think about it much if at all, except when it’s actively being pushed up or down. It seems to matter much less to me than it does to pwoASPD.

Mind you this is all anecdotal experience, but my professionals tell me it’s consistent with ASPD and other pwASPD have confirmed similar responses so it’s not only my experience.

Plain text below the cut:

Unstable self esteem is common in all cluster b disorders, yeah! So with ASPD I find it to be very up and down. I’ll feel cool but not like the best person in the world or like anything grandiose, and very swiftly something will mess that up. For example, if I’m playing a game and doing well, my I’ll feel better than I really have a right to and in that moment, a lot of my value in my mind will be based on that. Then, the second I make a mistake I deem unacceptable, that crashes down and I get annoyed at myself and think I’m irrationally conceited for thinking something good about myself at all. Basically a “and why did you think you were special again?” situation.

However, I get over the down quickly as well and return to a neutral self esteem. It’s not the peaks and crashes of NPD, just very unstable and changes based on trivial things. It doesn’t cause me significant distress either - some, but not a lot.

The things that heavily increase my self-esteem are based heavily on symptom-related things: ability to lie, manipulate, hide things, break things, damage people and property, steal, outsmart people, charm people, etc. without issue or getting caught. The better I am at those things, the better I believe I am and vice versa. That will cause lasting damage and sometimes an identity crisis, and moderate distress.

In general, even over normal things, I am fairly insecure - especially in relationships (platonic and otherwise) as I feel I need to prove I’m too valuable to hurt or leave, but never can prove to myself that’s the case. Despite often breaking my back for Exceptions, I still always believe they’ll find better easily, and that maybe they deserve better anyway. It doesn’t keep me up at night, but it’s there and I exhibit some serious jealous behavior because of it.

A major difference I’ve noticed in hearing the experience of pwNPD is that no outside person is able to increase my self esteem. You can tell me a million times in a million ways I’m good/great but it won’t mean anything for my self esteem, and I’ll probably think you’re lying. Fvck, you can tell me constantly that I’m better than everyone else in the world, still no effect. There’s no such thing as a “supply” for me, and when pwoASPD say they need to learn not to base their worth on other people, I’m heavily confused by that concept entirely.

I also don’t find my experience with a neutral self esteem to line up at all with any descriptors prosocials use for theirs: high, low, or “healthy”. I don’t really think about it much if at all, except when it’s actively being pushed up or down. It seems to matter much less to me than it does to pwoASPD.

Mind you this is all anecdotal experience, but my professionals tell me it’s consistent with ASPD and other pwASPD have confirmed similar responses so it’s not only my experience.

Welcome back. You’re very informative.

I’m very confused about how numerous people, from you, to other antisocial people speaking from their experiences (some of which I learned are actually friends) to prosocial researchers of ASPD say that antisocial people see relationships as transactional. It’s not weird that you guys see it that way, it’s more like “and prosocials… don’t???” Because I’m certain I’m prosocial. I’m neurodivergent, sure, but no signs of ASPD. So, how do most prosocial people typically view relationships if they’re not transactional?

So I find prosocials and pwASPD both tend to think “but doesn’t everybody” when we hear this - it’s a super undescriptive term - but we’re thinking different things define something as transactional. We also see the reason for that transaction to be different.

From a prosocial generally, they’ll mean “I only want to be around people that ‘don’t drain my energy’, that don’t just take take take, that we mutually enjoy the friendship/relationship and want to be around each other”. That’s kinda their definition of getting something out of it, and they want everyone to get something out of it. If they’re draining you, they want you to be free of it so you can be happy, and the transactions involved can be purely emotional/vibes. The reason they feel this way is a desire for positive and enjoyable social connection; the consequence for an uneven/bad/missing transaction is discomfort and wasting their time in negative experiences and generally feeling bad in association with that person.

PwASPD see those transactions very very literally. There’s no vibes nor emotions in the transactions, those are either a reaction to the transaction or a bonus. We mean that we are getting something tangible or practical out of it. Rides, help with things we can’t or don’t want to do alone, sex, maybe even the social relief from the annoyance of “why don’t you ever talk to anyone?” coming from all sides. We also don’t always care if it’s even on the other person’s end. If they’re ok driving me everywhere/if they do it and don’t say or show they’re uncomfortable, then I will assume they are fine with that piece of the transaction. If I’m taking more than I’m giving and they seem chill with that then I’ll accept it. However, I won’t give them *nothing* and that’s because of our reason for transactions - it’s dangerous otherwise. First off, I have shit I need I can’t get myself as much as it sucks, so I need to be around people. But if we need something from them, what we learned in our childhoods is that we don’t get that for free. There’s always something over your head. A lot of pwASPD had friends or caregivers that would hold favors or even *basic, legally-mandated caregiving* over our heads as though we didn’t deserve it. Often our value was determined as a child by what we provided, and since children can’t provide much, we were worthless and not deserving of good treatment.

This is part of the reason (TW non-descriptive CSA mention, skip to the next paragraph if you want) that people thought ASPD was directly correlated with CSA for a long time - many cases of long term CSA come from either “I’ll give you x/do x for you if you help me with this” or worse, doing something first then saying “but I gave you X!/did X for you! I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d act like this”, often call us selfish if we tried to say no and maybe get aggressive or forceful after, and that is an easy lead-in to our view of interactions.

So a lot of us see it that if we want to be safe/know we can continue to get what we need, we HAVE to be giving them something. If you claim you like being around me “just to be around me” or worse that you’re willing to do something for me “just because I want to”, that’s not safe. You want something from me and I’ll give it to you - just tell me what it is. If you’re not telling me, that means it’s not good or you’re just gonna decide later that I’m selfish. You might hurt me to get what you want and justify it with this. Take something from my side so we’re even, because even means safe. Even means I get access to what I need and you get access to what you need - so now we’re both using this relationship/friendship/etc for something and you wouldn’t wanna mess that up by putting me in danger any more than I’d want to mess it up by putting you in danger.

Of course, not every prosocial sees it the first way and not every pwASPD had those experiences and/or sees it that way. But that’s what I’ve found to be common. If you see “they make me happy” as what your or their end of the transaction is, it’s definitely a prosocial response, maybe with the exception of thinking of it as “getting their brain to dopamine/oxytocin” vs caring how they’re actually feeling. If not, if you need it to be practical, that’s definitely transactional.

It’s important to note this is personal relationships with no practical consequences to ending the relationship - most people see relationships (platonic) with coworkers or managers as transactional and that’s a way I usually explain it to prosocials (“do you deal with your boss bc you like them or bc they sign your check - and would your boss keep you hired if you didn’t do your job because you make them happy just by being there?”). But with a romantic or sexual partner, a friend, etc. this is not a typical view of relationships.

That said - you can *absolutely* not have ASPD and have transactional view of relationships. It’s not a 1:1 thing there; not everyone with ASPD has it and not every prosocial doesn’t. It’s just a really common piece of the puzzle that is this personality disorder.

Edit: ack I’m so sorry I forgot to add the csa tw tags they’re there now.

Plain text below the cut:

So I find prosocials and pwASPD both tend to think “but doesn’t everybody” when we hear this - it’s a super undescriptive term - but we’re thinking different things define something as transactional. We also see the reason for that transaction to be different.

From a prosocial generally, they’ll mean “I only want to be around people that ‘don’t drain my energy’, that don’t just take take take, that we mutually enjoy the friendship/relationship and want to be around each other”. That’s kinda their definition of getting something out of it, and they want everyone to get something out of it. If they’re draining you, they want you to be free of it so you can be happy, and the transactions involved can be purely emotional/vibes. The reason they feel this way is a desire for positive and enjoyable social connection; the consequence for an uneven/bad/missing transaction is discomfort and wasting their time in negative experiences and generally feeling bad in association with that person.

PwASPD see those transactions very very literally. There’s no vibes nor emotions in the transactions, those are either a reaction to the transaction or a bonus. We mean that we are getting something tangible or practical out of it. Rides, help with things we can’t or don’t want to do alone, sex, maybe even the social relief from the annoyance of “why don’t you ever talk to anyone?” coming from all sides. We also don’t always care if it’s even on the other person’s end. If they’re ok driving me everywhere/if they do it and don’t say or show they’re uncomfortable, then I will assume they are fine with that piece of the transaction. If I’m taking more than I’m giving and they seem chill with that then I’ll accept it. However, I won’t give them *nothing* and that’s because of our reason for transactions - it’s dangerous otherwise. First off, I have shit I need I can’t get myself as much as it sucks, so I need to be around people. But if we need something from them, what we learned in our childhoods is that we don’t get that for free. There’s always something over your head. A lot of pwASPD had friends or caregivers that would hold favors or even *basic, legally-mandated caregiving* over our heads as though we didn’t deserve it. Often our value was determined as a child by what we provided, and since children can’t provide much, we were worthless and not deserving of good treatment.

This is part of the reason (TW non-descriptive CSA mention, skip to the next paragraph if you want) that people thought ASPD was directly correlated with CSA for a long time - many cases of long term CSA come from either “I’ll give you x/do x for you if you help me with this” or worse, doing something first then saying “but I gave you X!/did X for you! I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d act like this”, often call us selfish if we tried to say no and maybe get aggressive or forceful after, and that is an easy lead-in to our view of interactions.

So a lot of us see it that if we want to be safe/know we can continue to get what we need, we HAVE to be giving them something. If you claim you like being around me “just to be around me” or worse that you’re willing to do something for me “just because I want to”, that’s not safe. You want something from me and I’ll give it to you - just tell me what it is. If you’re not telling me, that means it’s not good or you’re just gonna decide later that I’m selfish. You might hurt me to get what you want and justify it with this. Take something from my side so we’re even, because even means safe. Even means I get access to what I need and you get access to what you need - so now we’re both using this relationship/friendship/etc for something and you wouldn’t wanna mess that up by putting me in danger any more than I’d want to mess it up by putting you in danger.

Of course, not every prosocial sees it the first way and not every pwASPD had those experiences and/or sees it that way. But that’s what I’ve found to be common. If you see “they make me happy” as what your or their end of the transaction is, it’s definitely a prosocial response, maybe with the exception of thinking of it as “getting their brain to dopamine/oxytocin” vs caring how they’re actually feeling. If not, if you need it to be practical, that’s definitely transactional.

It’s important to note this is personal relationships with no practical consequences to ending the relationship - most people see relationships (platonic) with coworkers or managers as transactional and that’s a way I usually explain it to prosocials (“do you deal with your boss bc you like them or bc they sign your check - and would your boss keep you hired if you didn’t do your job because you make them happy just by being there?”). But with a romantic or sexual partner, a friend, etc. this is not a typical view of relationships.

That said - you can *absolutely* not have ASPD and have transactional view of relationships. It’s not a 1:1 thing there; not everyone with ASPD has it and not every prosocial doesn’t. It’s just a really common piece of the puzzle that is this personality disorder.

Edit: ack I’m so sorry I forgot to add the csa tw tags they’re there now.

#tw mentions of sex #tw csa mention #tw csa #aspd-culture-is

[aspd-culture]

Definitely seeing a lot of antisocial traits in this with few prosocial ones (the self esteem thing you mention is actually a common piece of ASPD) but you know yourself far better than I do (not at all). It would likely help you to get other pwASPD to weigh in on their definition of transactional as well.

Plain text below the cut:

Definitely seeing a lot of antisocial traits in this with few prosocial ones (the self esteem thing you mention is actually a common piece of ASPD) but you know yourself far better than I do (not at all). It would likely help you to get other pwASPD to weigh in on their definition of transactional as well.

Welcome back. You’re very informative.

I’m very confused about how numerous people, from you, to other antisocial people speaking from their experiences (some of which I learned are actually friends) to prosocial researchers of ASPD say that antisocial people see relationships as transactional. It’s not weird that you guys see it that way, it’s more like “and prosocials… don’t???” Because I’m certain I’m prosocial. I’m neurodivergent, sure, but no signs of ASPD. So, how do most prosocial people typically view relationships if they’re not transactional?

So I find prosocials and pwASPD both tend to think “but doesn’t everybody” when we hear this - it’s a super undescriptive term - but we’re thinking different things define something as transactional. We also see the reason for that transaction to be different.

From a prosocial generally, they’ll mean “I only want to be around people that ‘don’t drain my energy’, that don’t just take take take, that we mutually enjoy the friendship/relationship and want to be around each other”. That’s kinda their definition of getting something out of it, and they want everyone to get something out of it. If they’re draining you, they want you to be free of it so you can be happy, and the transactions involved can be purely emotional/vibes. The reason they feel this way is a desire for positive and enjoyable social connection; the consequence for an uneven/bad/missing transaction is discomfort and wasting their time in negative experiences and generally feeling bad in association with that person.

PwASPD see those transactions very very literally. There’s no vibes nor emotions in the transactions, those are either a reaction to the transaction or a bonus. We mean that we are getting something tangible or practical out of it. Rides, help with things we can’t or don’t want to do alone, sex, maybe even the social relief from the annoyance of “why don’t you ever talk to anyone?” coming from all sides. We also don’t always care if it’s even on the other person’s end. If they’re ok driving me everywhere/if they do it and don’t say or show they’re uncomfortable, then I will assume they are fine with that piece of the transaction. If I’m taking more than I’m giving and they seem chill with that then I’ll accept it. However, I won’t give them *nothing* and that’s because of our reason for transactions - it’s dangerous otherwise. First off, I have shit I need I can’t get myself as much as it sucks, so I need to be around people. But if we need something from them, what we learned in our childhoods is that we don’t get that for free. There’s always something over your head. A lot of pwASPD had friends or caregivers that would hold favors or even *basic, legally-mandated caregiving* over our heads as though we didn’t deserve it. Often our value was determined as a child by what we provided, and since children can’t provide much, we were worthless and not deserving of good treatment.

This is part of the reason (TW non-descriptive CSA mention, skip to the next paragraph if you want) that people thought ASPD was directly correlated with CSA for a long time - many cases of long term CSA come from either “I’ll give you x/do x for you if you help me with this” or worse, doing something first then saying “but I gave you X!/did X for you! I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d act like this”, often call us selfish if we tried to say no and maybe get aggressive or forceful after, and that is an easy lead-in to our view of interactions.

So a lot of us see it that if we want to be safe/know we can continue to get what we need, we HAVE to be giving them something. If you claim you like being around me “just to be around me” or worse that you’re willing to do something for me “just because I want to”, that’s not safe. You want something from me and I’ll give it to you - just tell me what it is. If you’re not telling me, that means it’s not good or you’re just gonna decide later that I’m selfish. You might hurt me to get what you want and justify it with this. Take something from my side so we’re even, because even means safe. Even means I get access to what I need and you get access to what you need - so now we’re both using this relationship/friendship/etc for something and you wouldn’t wanna mess that up by putting me in danger any more than I’d want to mess it up by putting you in danger.

Of course, not every prosocial sees it the first way and not every pwASPD had those experiences and/or sees it that way. But that’s what I’ve found to be common. If you see “they make me happy” as what your or their end of the transaction is, it’s definitely a prosocial response, maybe with the exception of thinking of it as “getting their brain to dopamine/oxytocin” vs caring how they’re actually feeling. If not, if you need it to be practical, that’s definitely transactional.

It’s important to note this is personal relationships with no practical consequences to ending the relationship - most people see relationships (platonic) with coworkers or managers as transactional and that’s a way I usually explain it to prosocials (“do you deal with your boss bc you like them or bc they sign your check - and would your boss keep you hired if you didn’t do your job because you make them happy just by being there?”). But with a romantic or sexual partner, a friend, etc. this is not a typical view of relationships.

That said - you can *absolutely* not have ASPD and have transactional view of relationships. It’s not a 1:1 thing there; not everyone with ASPD has it and not every prosocial doesn’t. It’s just a really common piece of the puzzle that is this personality disorder.

Edit: ack I’m so sorry I forgot to add the csa tw tags they’re there now.

Plain text below the cut:

So I find prosocials and pwASPD both tend to think “but doesn’t everybody” when we hear this - it’s a super undescriptive term - but we’re thinking different things define something as transactional. We also see the reason for that transaction to be different.

From a prosocial generally, they’ll mean “I only want to be around people that ‘don’t drain my energy’, that don’t just take take take, that we mutually enjoy the friendship/relationship and want to be around each other”. That’s kinda their definition of getting something out of it, and they want everyone to get something out of it. If they’re draining you, they want you to be free of it so you can be happy, and the transactions involved can be purely emotional/vibes. The reason they feel this way is a desire for positive and enjoyable social connection; the consequence for an uneven/bad/missing transaction is discomfort and wasting their time in negative experiences and generally feeling bad in association with that person.

PwASPD see those transactions very very literally. There’s no vibes nor emotions in the transactions, those are either a reaction to the transaction or a bonus. We mean that we are getting something tangible or practical out of it. Rides, help with things we can’t or don’t want to do alone, sex, maybe even the social relief from the annoyance of “why don’t you ever talk to anyone?” coming from all sides. We also don’t always care if it’s even on the other person’s end. If they’re ok driving me everywhere/if they do it and don’t say or show they’re uncomfortable, then I will assume they are fine with that piece of the transaction. If I’m taking more than I’m giving and they seem chill with that then I’ll accept it. However, I won’t give them *nothing* and that’s because of our reason for transactions - it’s dangerous otherwise. First off, I have shit I need I can’t get myself as much as it sucks, so I need to be around people. But if we need something from them, what we learned in our childhoods is that we don’t get that for free. There’s always something over your head. A lot of pwASPD had friends or caregivers that would hold favors or even *basic, legally-mandated caregiving* over our heads as though we didn’t deserve it. Often our value was determined as a child by what we provided, and since children can’t provide much, we were worthless and not deserving of good treatment.

This is part of the reason (TW non-descriptive CSA mention, skip to the next paragraph if you want) that people thought ASPD was directly correlated with CSA for a long time - many cases of long term CSA come from either “I’ll give you x/do x for you if you help me with this” or worse, doing something first then saying “but I gave you X!/did X for you! I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d act like this”, often call us selfish if we tried to say no and maybe get aggressive or forceful after, and that is an easy lead-in to our view of interactions.

So a lot of us see it that if we want to be safe/know we can continue to get what we need, we HAVE to be giving them something. If you claim you like being around me “just to be around me” or worse that you’re willing to do something for me “just because I want to”, that’s not safe. You want something from me and I’ll give it to you - just tell me what it is. If you’re not telling me, that means it’s not good or you’re just gonna decide later that I’m selfish. You might hurt me to get what you want and justify it with this. Take something from my side so we’re even, because even means safe. Even means I get access to what I need and you get access to what you need - so now we’re both using this relationship/friendship/etc for something and you wouldn’t wanna mess that up by putting me in danger any more than I’d want to mess it up by putting you in danger.

Of course, not every prosocial sees it the first way and not every pwASPD had those experiences and/or sees it that way. But that’s what I’ve found to be common. If you see “they make me happy” as what your or their end of the transaction is, it’s definitely a prosocial response, maybe with the exception of thinking of it as “getting their brain to dopamine/oxytocin” vs caring how they’re actually feeling. If not, if you need it to be practical, that’s definitely transactional.

It’s important to note this is personal relationships with no practical consequences to ending the relationship - most people see relationships (platonic) with coworkers or managers as transactional and that’s a way I usually explain it to prosocials (“do you deal with your boss bc you like them or bc they sign your check - and would your boss keep you hired if you didn’t do your job because you make them happy just by being there?”). But with a romantic or sexual partner, a friend, etc. this is not a typical view of relationships.

That said - you can *absolutely* not have ASPD and have transactional view of relationships. It’s not a 1:1 thing there; not everyone with ASPD has it and not every prosocial doesn’t. It’s just a really common piece of the puzzle that is this personality disorder.

Edit: ack I’m so sorry I forgot to add the csa tw tags they’re there now.

#tw mentions of sex #aspd-culture-is

[aspd-culture]

Intervention anon again, would you mind if I DM’d you about it? Not asking for diagnosis, just would appreciate some perspective from a pwASPD.

I’m completely comfortable with DMs, but I do preface that with the warning that I am terrible at responding in a timely manner.

#aspd-culture-is

[aspd-culture]

ASPD culture is being wary of other pwASPD because you know they might be more likely to do to you what you do to other people

(Is this internalized ableism? 💀 I’m like this with prosocials too because I project my intentions and things I’m capable of onto them but I know other ASPD can have a greater chance of actually doing so)

I wouldn’t call it internalized ableism if maybe a bit close to it? But it’s understandable and a symptom of the disorder to distrust people and feel nervous about getting hurt so it’s somewhat of a gray area, especially considering you also do that with prosocial people. If you’re not actively pushing that pwASPD are bad, dangerous people, but just avoiding them in your personal life (including online) for the sake of your mental health, then that’s okay in my eyes - even for non-disordered people. It’s okay in my opinion to say something isn’t inherently harmful but you need to avoid it for your health and comfort.

The point where it becomes problematic ableism imo is when you start pushing that concept to anyone else, mistreating other pwASPD for having it, and/or mistreating yourself because you have it. Beyond that, I think what you’re doing has reasonable rationale considering how the symptoms of ASPD fuel the fear and distrust of other people.

Cis men aren’t inherently harmful, but I’m wary of them and limit my interaction with new men because of my past experience and statistics leading me to conclude that I’m more at risk with them than trans people, nonbinary people, cis women, etc. No one in the PTSD community calls this unreasonable, and I’d put the mindset you describe in a similar box although not exactly the same.

I wouldn’t worry about the things you do privately to keep yourself safe as long as they aren’t hurting anyone. It’s one of those symptoms that I think it’s more unhealthy to try and force yourself to unlearn because you’re just going to feel anxious and distressed and might end up being more ableist directly to pwASPD if you force it. Unlearning symptoms of a disorder that cannot be cured is about making them less harmful to yourself and others, so doing that for a symptom that’s causing isn’t beneficial and is just taking away time you could be using to unlearn any harmful symptoms you might struggle with - plus getting in the way of you just surviving with a PD which is hard enough. If you feel you can try to unlearn it at some point without it damaging your mental health, then yeah it’d be worth doing.

This is all just my opinion, but personally it doesn’t bother me if someone isn’t comfortable around me based on my PD as long as they don’t spread that idea or make it my problem.

Plain text below the cut:

I wouldn’t call it internalized ableism if maybe a bit close to it? But it’s understandable and a symptom of the disorder to distrust people and feel nervous about getting hurt so it’s somewhat of a gray area, especially considering you also do that with prosocial people. If you’re not actively pushing that pwASPD are bad, dangerous people, but just avoiding them in your personal life (including online) for the sake of your mental health, then that’s okay in my eyes - even for non-disordered people. It’s okay in my opinion to say something isn’t inherently harmful but you need to avoid it for your health and comfort.

The point where it becomes problematic ableism imo is when you start pushing that concept to anyone else, mistreating other pwASPD for having it, and/or mistreating yourself because you have it. Beyond that, I think what you’re doing has reasonable rationale considering how the symptoms of ASPD fuel the fear and distrust of other people.

Cis men aren’t inherently harmful, but I’m wary of them and limit my interaction with new men because of my past experience and statistics leading me to conclude that I’m more at risk with them than trans people, nonbinary people, cis women, etc. No one in the PTSD community calls this unreasonable, and I’d put the mindset you describe in a similar box although not exactly the same.

I wouldn’t worry about the things you do privately to keep yourself safe as long as they aren’t hurting anyone. It’s one of those symptoms that I think it’s more unhealthy to try and force yourself to unlearn because you’re just going to feel anxious and distressed and might end up being more ableist directly to pwASPD if you force it. Unlearning symptoms of a disorder that cannot be cured is about making them less harmful to yourself and others, so doing that for a symptom that’s causing isn’t beneficial and is just taking away time you could be using to unlearn any harmful symptoms you might struggle with - plus getting in the way of you just surviving with a PD which is hard enough. If you feel you can try to unlearn it at some point without it damaging your mental health, then yeah it’d be worth doing.

This is all just my opinion, but personally it doesn’t bother me if someone isn’t comfortable around me based on my PD as long as they don’t spread that idea or make it my problem.

#aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #tw internalized ableism #kind of? #anons welcome

[aspd-culture]

Why are people calling you sensitive for a PTSD trigger??? It’s 2024 why do people still think pwASPD are invincible to everything ??

Dead*ss. It makes people feel better about themselves so if that’s what they need so be it. As long they leave it alone now it’s whatever though. I know dealing with PTSD triggers is normal for pwASPD so if they don’t that’s okay. Running a blog for ASPD doesn’t make me immune to symptoms, surprisingly.

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Dead*ss. It makes people feel better about themselves so if that’s what they need so be it. As long they leave it alone now it’s whatever though. I know dealing with PTSD triggers is normal for pwASPD so if they don’t that’s okay. Running a blog for ASPD doesn’t make me immune to symptoms, surprisingly.

#if not we’ll block and move on though #aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome

[aspd-culture]

PwASPD can be sensitive. That happens. But it’s not sensitive to have a PTSD trigger with something that was done to you excessively throughout your life. Let’s get out of the idea that pwASPD won’t react to triggering things, because ASPD is a trauma disorder.

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PwASPD can be sensitive. That happens. But it’s not sensitive to have a PTSD trigger with something that was done to you excessively throughout your life. Let’s get out of the idea that pwASPD won’t react to triggering things, because ASPD is a trauma disorder.

Aspd culture is listening to someone vent for the 100th time and telling them to kill themselves already cause they’re annoying as FUCK

Massive TW for sui talk here obviously

God this was tough to have pop up as a notification. Whilst I understand the frustration leading there, I can’t condone that kind of thing. I’ve spent way too much time su1c1d4l myself to encourage that. Even with ASPD, we need to be careful of what we’re saying to other people. If this was about thinking it, absolutely I could understand, but doing it? No that’s not ASPD-culture at least not in my eyes. Please don’t tell anyone to hurt themselves. Even if it’s just for the reason of legal liability, don’t do it.

#tw sui #tw sui mention #tw sui talk #tw sui ideation

[aspd-culture]

This whole response of theirs is valid and makes a lot of sense. I can see how my wording came off this way so I wanted to share this point onto here.

Original post has been given an addition in light of the realization this person has given me.

Aspd culture is listening to someone vent for the 100th time and telling them to kill themselves already cause they’re annoying as FUCK

Massive TW for sui talk here obviously

God this was tough to have pop up as a notification. Whilst I understand the frustration leading there, I can’t condone that kind of thing. I’ve spent way too much time su1c1d4l myself to encourage that. Even with ASPD, we need to be careful of what we’re saying to other people. If this was about thinking it, absolutely I could understand, but doing it? No that’s not ASPD-culture at least not in my eyes. Please don’t tell anyone to hurt themselves. Even if it’s just for the reason of legal liability, don’t do it.

[aspd-culture]

One time a "friend" tried to make me feel guilty about following you because me + them have a specific opposing opinion to one of yours. After I said I didn't really care enough because you're literally still a helpful resource and were never disrespectful, they threatened to break off from me.

Which is all really funny given the blog. I just blocked them.

Thanks for the resources and guidance, you're great.

Thank you for understanding that we can have disagreements in opinion without changing the fact that there’s education here. I’m not going to agree with everything all 1000+ people following us think, and that’s ok! You don’t have to agree with me on everything.

If you find my blog helpful, I’m glad! If there are some things that don’t click with you, that’s valid and I hope you can still get some mileage out of the things that I say that you do agree with or that are based purely on the science.

That said, I also encourage people to use the block button liberally, to curate their experience and control their engagements online. So if I’m upsetting anyone when I roll across your dash, please by all means block me. If you want to see my posts only on will and not on your dash, feel free to unfollow me. I won’t take it personally, because it’s not a personal issue. Everyone deserves to have control over the content they consume.

I appreciate every one of you AND I agree with your right to choose the spaces you engage with.

What bothers me is when people refuse others that choice. If you choose to engage in this space, I think your friend should have respected that. Wild to know I’m worth breaking off a friendship in their eyes over though.

All /gen

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Thank you for understanding that we can have disagreements in opinion without changing the fact that there’s education here. I’m not going to agree with everything all 1000+ people following us think, and that’s ok! You don’t have to agree with me on everything.

If you find my blog helpful, I’m glad! If there are some things that don’t click with you, that’s valid and I hope you can still get some mileage out of the things that I say that you do agree with or that are based purely on the science.

That said, I also encourage people to use the block button liberally, to curate their experience and control their engagements online. So if I’m upsetting anyone when I roll across your dash, please by all means block me. If you want to see my posts only on will and not on your dash, feel free to unfollow me. I won’t take it personally, because it’s not a personal issue. Everyone deserves to have control over the content they consume.

I appreciate every one of you AND I agree with your right to choose the spaces you engage with.

What bothers me is when people refuse others that choice. If you choose to engage in this space, I think your friend should have respected that. Wild to know I’m worth breaking off a friendship in their eyes over though.

All /gen

#aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome

[aspd-culture]

Aspd? Culture is. My symptoms. Where did they go today. I swear I put them right there. Are they possessed? Haunted?

aspd-culture-is

What a mood. While a PD does have to have persistent and consistent symptoms, there are definitely short bursts of time where they hide on you. I think it’s an “it never makes the same sound at the mechanic” situation, because mine go missing at appointments to do with my ASPD, and whenever I’m trying to unmask. Where did they go? I don’t know. I checked under the bed, but they are not there. But don’t worry, if you ask my partner I promise he’ll be able to locate my ASPD symptoms for you lol the people in my life do not have the issue locating them that I do.

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What a mood. While a PD does have to have persistent and consistent symptoms, there are definitely short bursts of time where they hide on you. I think it’s an “it never makes the same sound at the mechanic” situation, because mine go missing at appointments to do with my ASPD, and whenever I’m trying to unmask. Where did they go? I don’t know. I checked under the bed, but they are not there. But don’t worry, if you ask my partner I promise he’ll be able to locate my ASPD symptoms for you lol the people in my life do not have the issue locating them that I do.

#aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome

[aspd-culture]

We talk about a lot here, including a lot of callous, harsh, and violent thoughts/urges. As I mention in my pinned post and in the tags on the original post, I really try not to shove anything into the “things I can’t be okay with” box because yeah, we do need a place to go to be able to talk about things like this.

But no, on a blog I run I cannot be okay with encouraging su1ci1d3. If that’s a dealbreaker for you, I get it. I really do./gen But it’s triggering as all hell to me. I made clear in the post that this is a personal issue but it’s also a blog I run alone so there isn’t anyone else for me to ask to handle posts like that. If it’s an issue for me to disagree with that, I guess that’s fair. So I’ll just say it here - ASPD culture or not, I will need to delete asks relating to the action (not the thought of! The thought is something I completely can understand and it’s something my brain does too sometimes) of encouraging su1c1d3.

I’d like to think I post enough of the symptoms you speak of in your reply so as not to try and cover up or romanticize ASPD without speaking honestly on all of it. This just isn’t one I can support. And like I said, pwASPD are often the target of this too. I don’t think I’m the only one here who would find it too triggering to be throwing around as “culture”.

Edit: check reblogs, but to sum up the commenter made a very good point in their reblog that helped me understand what they were saying. An addition has been made to the original post in light of that.

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We talk about a lot here, including a lot of callous, harsh, and violent thoughts/urges. As I mention in my pinned post and in the tags on the original post, I really try not to shove anything into the “things I can’t be okay with” box because yeah, we do need a place to go to be able to talk about things like this.

But no, on a blog I run I cannot be okay with encouraging su1ci1d3. If that’s a dealbreaker for you, I get it. I really do./gen But it’s triggering as all hell to me. I made clear in the post that this is a personal issue but it’s also a blog I run alone so there isn’t anyone else for me to ask to handle posts like that. If it’s an issue for me to disagree with that, I guess that’s fair. So I’ll just say it here - ASPD culture or not, I will need to delete asks relating to the action (not the thought of! The thought is something I completely can understand and it’s something my brain does too sometimes) of encouraging su1c1d3.

I’d like to think I post enough of the symptoms you speak of in your reply so as not to try and cover up or romanticize ASPD without speaking honestly on all of it. This just isn’t one I can support. And like I said, pwASPD are often the target of this too. I don’t think I’m the only one here who would find it too triggering to be throwing around as “culture”.

Edit: check reblogs, but to sum up the commenter made a very good point in their reblog that helped me understand what they were saying. An addition has been made to the original post in light of that.

Aspd culture is listening to someone vent for the 100th time and telling them to kill themselves already cause they’re annoying as FUCK

Massive TW for sui talk here obviously

God this was tough to have pop up as a notification. Whilst I understand the frustration leading there, I can’t condone that kind of thing. I’ve spent way too much time su1c1d4l myself to encourage that. Even with ASPD, we need to be careful of what we’re saying to other people. If this was about thinking it, absolutely I could understand, but doing it? No that’s not ASPD-culture at least not in my eyes. Please don’t tell anyone to hurt themselves. Even if it’s just for the reason of legal liability, don’t do it.

#tw sui mention #tw sui #tw sui ideation

[aspd-culture]

is it bad to relate to the stereotypes?i feel bad for it.

Oh definitely not, don’t worry. Stereotypes do exist for a reason, and it’s because at some point some people fit them. It’s never a bad thing to relate to a stereotype, it’s just bad when people force that on other people.

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Oh definitely not, don’t worry. Stereotypes do exist for a reason, and it’s because at some point some people fit them. It’s never a bad thing to relate to a stereotype, it’s just bad when people force that on other people.

#aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome

[aspd-culture]

can people with aspd want to be in a romantic relationship? /sincere question

Absolutely. There’s various reasons depending on how far along social development was when the child was entered into survival mode causing typical neurological development to halt, and just based on the person.

For some, it’s as simple as wanting to find love for the same reason a prosocial person does. For others it’s the practicality of having a built-in person to perform transactions with (I’ll do this for you if you do this for me), or to split responsibilities with, or easy access to a sexual partner and not minding the romantic attachment being there, or the idea of always having someone who is considered safe nearby and at access. For some it’s honestly just to get people off our backs on why we’re always alone (“I just don’t like anyone as much as my partner”/“I don’t really need anyone else, I married my best friend”) because fvck prosocial people CANNOT for their life get off of us about that lol they are desperately afraid for our wellbeing if they do not see us interact with at least 3 non-family members a week (yes, I’ve really done the math and that number usually stops the questions entirely with everyone I’ve met).

There’s a million reasons anyone wants romantic relationships, even just for that natural pull to be close to someone that way, that people with ASPD might feel. Some pwASPD ignore those reasons/urges to keep themselves safe though, and not everyone with ASPD has interest in that to begin with.

As with nondisordered people, there are pwASPD all over the spectrum of alloplatonic to aplatonic, alloromantic to aromantic, etc. (I believe “allo” is the correct prefix opposite the prefix “a” but correct me if I’m wrong) too, even outside of neurological development.

I completely understand the confusion though, because society sure likes painting us as heartless. We aren’t, at least not inherently so, we’re just more protective of that heart because we learned we’ve gotta be.

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Absolutely. There’s various reasons depending on how far along social development was when the child was entered into survival mode causing typical neurological development to halt, and just based on the person.

For some, it’s as simple as wanting to find love for the same reason a prosocial person does. For others it’s the practicality of having a built-in person to perform transactions with (I’ll do this for you if you do this for me), or to split responsibilities with, or easy access to a sexual partner and not minding the romantic attachment being there, or the idea of always having someone who is considered safe nearby and at access. For some it’s honestly just to get people off our backs on why we’re always alone (“I just don’t like anyone as much as my partner”/“I don’t really need anyone else, I married my best friend”) because fvck prosocial people CANNOT for their life get off of us about that lol they are desperately afraid for our wellbeing if they do not see us interact with at least 3 non-family members a week (yes, I’ve really done the math and that number usually stops the questions entirely with everyone I’ve met).

There’s a million reasons anyone wants romantic relationships, even just for that natural pull to be close to someone that way, that people with ASPD might feel. Some pwASPD ignore those reasons/urges to keep themselves safe though, and not everyone with ASPD has interest in that to begin with.

As with nondisordered people, there are pwASPD all over the spectrum of alloplatonic to aplatonic, alloromantic to aromantic, etc. (I believe “allo” is the correct prefix opposite the prefix “a” but correct me if I’m wrong) too, even outside of neurological development.

I completely understand the confusion though, because society sure likes painting us as heartless. We aren’t, at least not inherently so, we’re just more protective of that heart because we learned we’ve gotta be.

#tw mention of sex #aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome

[aspd-culture]

Aspd culture is realizing 'huh. I only have one person in my life other than myself who id feel sad about dying or genuinely feel emotional empathy for when theyre hurt. Strange' and then going on to say you dont have aspd because youre not commiting crimes 24/7 and telling people they should die when they piss you off.

aspd-culture-is

#I think we all go through that duality at some point in our journey to dx whether it’s professional or self dx #aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome

[aspd-culture]

Idk if I have aspd anymore (as in I don't know if I ever had it) but either way just wanted to say that I will beat up anyone who says the word "psychopath" or "sociopath" again <3

I really appreciate this./gen People just don’t get it a lot of the time and tell me to shut up about it (even a small portion of the community of pwASPD tbh) so it means a lot when people get it or just choose not to use them whether they get it or not.

Cough cough for legal reasons I don’t condone violence cough cough

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I really appreciate this./gen People just don’t get it a lot of the time and tell me to shut up about it (even a small portion of the community of pwASPD tbh) so it means a lot when people get it or just choose not to use them whether they get it or not.

Cough cough for legal reasons I don’t condone violence cough cough

#cough cough for legal reasons I don’t condone violence #aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome

[aspd-culture]

Aspd? Culture is honestly just giving up on trying to figure this out because it really doesn't matter what's causing my symptoms if it's just another stupid social box that will get me labeled a million things.

aspd-culture-is

Honestly so valid. If you end up wanting answers on what it is, I hope you get them, but if not I totally support that too. Either way is valid especially when dealing with a diagnosis this stigmatized. At the end of the day, whether you have ASPD or not, if ASPD coping mechanisms help you then that’s awesome and you should use them. The same goes for any disorder.

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Honestly so valid. If you end up wanting answers on what it is, I hope you get them, but if not I totally support that too. Either way is valid especially when dealing with a diagnosis this stigmatized. At the end of the day, whether you have ASPD or not, if ASPD coping mechanisms help you then that’s awesome and you should use them. The same goes for any disorder.

#aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #actually aspd #aspd culture #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome

[aspd-culture]

@littlemeowmeowmaeve

If I had to nearly cry about this sweet addition, so do you all./posi

Thank you for this. It means a lot to me. And you’re absolutely right about kids. I worked in a preschool, and they really do choose kindness literally every time until they are taught otherwise. Even to people who are mean to them!! You have to TEACH children not to be kind and try and apologize to other kids when they choose to be mean to them because they can’t fathom that. They can’t imagine being mean for no reason so they think they did something wrong. It’s goddamn heartbreaking and challenged every belief I held about people being inherently horrible to the point where I can’t believe that anymore. Inherently selfish? Of course. But people don’t hurt people just because, since at one point we were all the little kids with no trauma, no matter how young it started you at some point had a brain untouched by any suffering, and that is what a human untouched by suffering is like.

Anyway I’m not crying you are.

Hi, a bit of a weird question, but I noticed that a lot of people I follow, who have aspd have a strong connection (not really sure how to explain it) to wolfs/dogs and canines in general, and I just wanted to ask whether this is a general thing or is it just my circle lol

Yeah I mean that tracks. My abuser was super into wolves, so I don’t relate to those *anymore*, but I previously identified as a wolf and therian and still follow dog therian tags as a shape-shifting alter including dogs.

I think it’s sort of like how autistic people sometimes like cats: cats behave in a way that makes a lot of sense to autistic people and they can relate to.

The same kinda goes with dogs/wolves and pwASPD. Some breeds of dogs and all wolves are seen as aggressive, dangerous, uncontrollable, and are avoided and some people even think should not be bred or be put down - all for things that have nothing to do with the animal themselves and in fact are about how they were treated. If you mistreat a dog through its formative years, you’ll get a very *defensive* (not aggressive idc what people say) dog. They’ll be quick to attack and maybe not warn first the way other dogs will because they learned that’s what keeps them safe - me fuckin too dude - and they risk getting literally put down in a legal and community supported way for that behavior they never asked to be taught.

And this is just a personal thing, but I kind of romanticize the idea of being a dog - because there’s a large community of people who understand that it’s not the dog’s fault and will fight for them to be accepted and understood; who’ll meet that dog where they’re at and work with them with complete understanding and forgiveness for anything the dog does wrong. People who will *get bitten* and apologize for scaring the dog. And what really makes me envy dogs is that dogs are able to turn it around no matter how old they are - even senior dogs who were extremely reactive can usually be turned around and act like a normal dog or even be particularly caring and docile because dogs can be taught at any age that they are safe now and they don’t need to behave that way anymore. I wish my brain was capable of learning that and undoing all the neurological damage people did to me, and I wish people would look at me and see and understand the stress and anxiety in my eyes when I act out because I felt unsafe.

So uh yeah, anyways, I’d say it’s not uncommon.

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Yeah I mean that tracks. My abuser was super into wolves, so I don’t relate to those *anymore*, but I previously identified as a wolf and therian and still follow dog therian tags as a shape-shifting alter including dogs.

I think it’s sort of like how autistic people sometimes like cats: cats behave in a way that makes a lot of sense to autistic people and they can relate to.

The same kinda goes with dogs/wolves and pwASPD. Some breeds of dogs and all wolves are seen as aggressive, dangerous, uncontrollable, and are avoided and some people even think should not be bred or be put down - all for things that have nothing to do with the animal themselves and in fact are about how they were treated. If you mistreat a dog through its formative years, you’ll get a very *defensive* (not aggressive idc what people say) dog. They’ll be quick to attack and maybe not warn first the way other dogs will because they learned that’s what keeps them safe - me fuckin too dude - and they risk getting literally put down in a legal and community supported way for that behavior they never asked to be taught.

And this is just a personal thing, but I kind of romanticize the idea of being a dog - because there’s a large community of people who understand that it’s not the dog’s fault and will fight for them to be accepted and understood; who’ll meet that dog where they’re at and work with them with complete understanding and forgiveness for anything the dog does wrong. People who will *get bitten* and apologize for scaring the dog. And what really makes me envy dogs is that dogs are able to turn it around no matter how old they are - even senior dogs who were extremely reactive can usually be turned around and act like a normal dog or even be particularly caring and docile because dogs can be taught at any age that they are safe now and they don’t need to behave that way anymore. I wish my brain was capable of learning that and undoing all the neurological damage people did to me, and I wish people would look at me and see and understand the stress and anxiety in my eyes when I act out because I felt unsafe.

So uh yeah, anyways, I’d say it’s not uncommon.

#aspd-culture-is

[aspd-culture]

Welcome back. You’re very informative.

I’m very confused about how numerous people, from you, to other antisocial people speaking from their experiences (some of which I learned are actually friends) to prosocial researchers of ASPD say that antisocial people see relationships as transactional. It’s not weird that you guys see it that way, it’s more like “and prosocials… don’t???” Because I’m certain I’m prosocial. I’m neurodivergent, sure, but no signs of ASPD. So, how do most prosocial people typically view relationships if they’re not transactional?

So I find prosocials and pwASPD both tend to think “but doesn’t everybody” when we hear this - it’s a super undescriptive term - but we’re thinking different things define something as transactional. We also see the reason for that transaction to be different.

From a prosocial generally, they’ll mean “I only want to be around people that ‘don’t drain my energy’, that don’t just take take take, that we mutually enjoy the friendship/relationship and want to be around each other”. That’s kinda their definition of getting something out of it, and they want everyone to get something out of it. If they’re draining you, they want you to be free of it so you can be happy, and the transactions involved can be purely emotional/vibes. The reason they feel this way is a desire for positive and enjoyable social connection; the consequence for an uneven/bad/missing transaction is discomfort and wasting their time in negative experiences and generally feeling bad in association with that person.

PwASPD see those transactions very very literally. There’s no vibes nor emotions in the transactions, those are either a reaction to the transaction or a bonus. We mean that we are getting something tangible or practical out of it. Rides, help with things we can’t or don’t want to do alone, sex, maybe even the social relief from the annoyance of “why don’t you ever talk to anyone?” coming from all sides. We also don’t always care if it’s even on the other person’s end. If they’re ok driving me everywhere/if they do it and don’t say or show they’re uncomfortable, then I will assume they are fine with that piece of the transaction. If I’m taking more than I’m giving and they seem chill with that then I’ll accept it. However, I won’t give them *nothing* and that’s because of our reason for transactions - it’s dangerous otherwise. First off, I have shit I need I can’t get myself as much as it sucks, so I need to be around people. But if we need something from them, what we learned in our childhoods is that we don’t get that for free. There’s always something over your head. A lot of pwASPD had friends or caregivers that would hold favors or even *basic, legally-mandated caregiving* over our heads as though we didn’t deserve it. Often our value was determined as a child by what we provided, and since children can’t provide much, we were worthless and not deserving of good treatment.

This is part of the reason (TW non-descriptive CSA mention, skip to the next paragraph if you want) that people thought ASPD was directly correlated with CSA for a long time - many cases of long term CSA come from either “I’ll give you x/do x for you if you help me with this” or worse, doing something first then saying “but I gave you X!/did X for you! I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d act like this”, often call us selfish if we tried to say no and maybe get aggressive or forceful after, and that is an easy lead-in to our view of interactions.

So a lot of us see it that if we want to be safe/know we can continue to get what we need, we HAVE to be giving them something. If you claim you like being around me “just to be around me” or worse that you’re willing to do something for me “just because I want to”, that’s not safe. You want something from me and I’ll give it to you - just tell me what it is. If you’re not telling me, that means it’s not good or you’re just gonna decide later that I’m selfish. You might hurt me to get what you want and justify it with this. Take something from my side so we’re even, because even means safe. Even means I get access to what I need and you get access to what you need - so now we’re both using this relationship/friendship/etc for something and you wouldn’t wanna mess that up by putting me in danger any more than I’d want to mess it up by putting you in danger.

Of course, not every prosocial sees it the first way and not every pwASPD had those experiences and/or sees it that way. But that’s what I’ve found to be common. If you see “they make me happy” as what your or their end of the transaction is, it’s definitely a prosocial response, maybe with the exception of thinking of it as “getting their brain to dopamine/oxytocin” vs caring how they’re actually feeling. If not, if you need it to be practical, that’s definitely transactional.

It’s important to note this is personal relationships with no practical consequences to ending the relationship - most people see relationships (platonic) with coworkers or managers as transactional and that’s a way I usually explain it to prosocials (“do you deal with your boss bc you like them or bc they sign your check - and would your boss keep you hired if you didn’t do your job because you make them happy just by being there?”). But with a romantic or sexual partner, a friend, etc. this is not a typical view of relationships.

That said - you can *absolutely* not have ASPD and have transactional view of relationships. It’s not a 1:1 thing there; not everyone with ASPD has it and not every prosocial doesn’t. It’s just a really common piece of the puzzle that is this personality disorder.

Edit: ack I’m so sorry I forgot to add the csa tw tags they’re there now.

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So I find prosocials and pwASPD both tend to think “but doesn’t everybody” when we hear this - it’s a super undescriptive term - but we’re thinking different things define something as transactional. We also see the reason for that transaction to be different.

From a prosocial generally, they’ll mean “I only want to be around people that ‘don’t drain my energy’, that don’t just take take take, that we mutually enjoy the friendship/relationship and want to be around each other”. That’s kinda their definition of getting something out of it, and they want everyone to get something out of it. If they’re draining you, they want you to be free of it so you can be happy, and the transactions involved can be purely emotional/vibes. The reason they feel this way is a desire for positive and enjoyable social connection; the consequence for an uneven/bad/missing transaction is discomfort and wasting their time in negative experiences and generally feeling bad in association with that person.

PwASPD see those transactions very very literally. There’s no vibes nor emotions in the transactions, those are either a reaction to the transaction or a bonus. We mean that we are getting something tangible or practical out of it. Rides, help with things we can’t or don’t want to do alone, sex, maybe even the social relief from the annoyance of “why don’t you ever talk to anyone?” coming from all sides. We also don’t always care if it’s even on the other person’s end. If they’re ok driving me everywhere/if they do it and don’t say or show they’re uncomfortable, then I will assume they are fine with that piece of the transaction. If I’m taking more than I’m giving and they seem chill with that then I’ll accept it. However, I won’t give them *nothing* and that’s because of our reason for transactions - it’s dangerous otherwise. First off, I have shit I need I can’t get myself as much as it sucks, so I need to be around people. But if we need something from them, what we learned in our childhoods is that we don’t get that for free. There’s always something over your head. A lot of pwASPD had friends or caregivers that would hold favors or even *basic, legally-mandated caregiving* over our heads as though we didn’t deserve it. Often our value was determined as a child by what we provided, and since children can’t provide much, we were worthless and not deserving of good treatment.

This is part of the reason (TW non-descriptive CSA mention, skip to the next paragraph if you want) that people thought ASPD was directly correlated with CSA for a long time - many cases of long term CSA come from either “I’ll give you x/do x for you if you help me with this” or worse, doing something first then saying “but I gave you X!/did X for you! I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d act like this”, often call us selfish if we tried to say no and maybe get aggressive or forceful after, and that is an easy lead-in to our view of interactions.

So a lot of us see it that if we want to be safe/know we can continue to get what we need, we HAVE to be giving them something. If you claim you like being around me “just to be around me” or worse that you’re willing to do something for me “just because I want to”, that’s not safe. You want something from me and I’ll give it to you - just tell me what it is. If you’re not telling me, that means it’s not good or you’re just gonna decide later that I’m selfish. You might hurt me to get what you want and justify it with this. Take something from my side so we’re even, because even means safe. Even means I get access to what I need and you get access to what you need - so now we’re both using this relationship/friendship/etc for something and you wouldn’t wanna mess that up by putting me in danger any more than I’d want to mess it up by putting you in danger.

Of course, not every prosocial sees it the first way and not every pwASPD had those experiences and/or sees it that way. But that’s what I’ve found to be common. If you see “they make me happy” as what your or their end of the transaction is, it’s definitely a prosocial response, maybe with the exception of thinking of it as “getting their brain to dopamine/oxytocin” vs caring how they’re actually feeling. If not, if you need it to be practical, that’s definitely transactional.

It’s important to note this is personal relationships with no practical consequences to ending the relationship - most people see relationships (platonic) with coworkers or managers as transactional and that’s a way I usually explain it to prosocials (“do you deal with your boss bc you like them or bc they sign your check - and would your boss keep you hired if you didn’t do your job because you make them happy just by being there?”). But with a romantic or sexual partner, a friend, etc. this is not a typical view of relationships.

That said - you can *absolutely* not have ASPD and have transactional view of relationships. It’s not a 1:1 thing there; not everyone with ASPD has it and not every prosocial doesn’t. It’s just a really common piece of the puzzle that is this personality disorder.

Edit: ack I’m so sorry I forgot to add the csa tw tags they’re there now.

#tw mentions of sex #tw csa #tw csa mention #tw abuse mention #tw sa #tw sa mention #tw child abuse mention #tw child abuse #aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome