Think I'm an aspie sociopath

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Hello, everyone.

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I believe I'm both an aspie and a sociopath/secondary psychopath. I'd like to ask everyone's opinion here, mostly to confirm that my personality can't possibly be explained by Aspergers' Syndrome only

Why I think I'm an aspie: poor cognitive empathy (improving). social skills deficits. have had to learn social skills slowly and consciously. learned to do eye contact. total geek. special interests. disorganised/poor executive function. shaky health. strong sense response and moderate sensory issues. sleeping problems. startle response. awkward gait and posture. strong analytic skills. constant inner monologue. gifted writer and storyteller. naturally intellectual. too attracted to logic and consistency. easily distracted. have a stim toy hidden under my pillow. appear childish for my age

Why I think I'm a sociopath: I'm completely selfish and amoral. murder doesn't feel wrong. no conscience. no remorse or guilt. other social emotions shallow to missing entirely. little to no affective empathy. look at my friends as allies/possessions/tools. I'm confident, stable, with secure self-esteem and objective self-image (so it's not just NPD). impulsive. reckless. thrillseeker. hypersexual (hundreds of partners). lots and lots of drugs. enjoy danger and violence. varied criminal history which I'm quite proud of, thank you. murderous anger when threatened. destroy people who hurt me. otherwise I'm lots bored

Aspie traits I'm missing: I like change/spontaneity. avoid rules, routines, order and structure of all kinds. also distinctly lacking the self-esteem/anxiety/depression issues which afflict many autism spectrum people

Socio traits I'm missing: I'm not that great at manipulating people -- the spirit is willing but the social skills are weak. still I owe my present lazy middle class lifestyle to serially using people who loved me as financial resources and stepping stones. I'm a good actress and can fake emotions easily/shift my persona somewhat. I can certainly lie without guilt --- but my active inner monologue makes hiding my core thought process hard to sustain. I can be charismatic especially for first impressions but I definitely do not blend in. I'm terrible in highly organised/respectable social settings

Also I'm not "invulnerable". I read confident/upbeat but tense not calm. I'm brave but most def not fearless, cheerful but not immune to depression --- but then I think those are really psychopath rather than sociopath things as I believe my antisocial traits activated from severe hostile environment and child abuse in middle childhood. I do go cold fearless in physical emergencies and my reaction time is decisively better than neurotypicals (think I have at least some true psychopathic traits)

Both "sides" of me agree on being hyper-rational, freethinking, and ignoring social convention
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Okay, so what I'm asking: fellow people on the autism spectrum... am I correct there's no way these traits could be purely a variant or product of autism/asperger's alone? I can't get no respect from most primary psychopaths who can smell my aspieness at a glance (haven't encountered any secondaries yet) but I'm pretty sure I could kill someone for thrill/curiosity and not feel worse than moderate anxiety about getting caught. (not that it's worth risking my lifestyle over it) That's sociopathy, right?

*Right?* I just want to be absolutely sure in my own mind.

Hey OdysseusNemo welcome.

I wonder.

I can identify (more or less) with a lot of what you said here except for the risky behavior (sex, drugs, violence) part and I certainly do have affective empathy(which is a pain in the ass because I can feel others emotions but have no idea what to do with them).
I don't think it is that unusual for an Aspie to consider people allies or tools (although I would argue with the possession part) and murder can easily become special interest and met with only logic and excitement approach instead of remorse. I am guilty of those too (but I probably couldn't actually kill anyone because I am afraid of punishment and I bet my affective empathy would get in the way if I tried)...

Anyway - being psychopath doesn't make one violent and risky. Quite the opposite.
I actually respect psychopaths because they are very logical in their approaches - they don't act emotionally. When they commit a crime it is well calculated. And actually not all psychopaths are evil. They can make awesome workers and family members and be very successful without any track of law breaking. They can live they whole life without breaking the law or intentionally hurting anyone because logical approach and lack of empathy doesn't mean you have to be violent. They know well enough you often get better results by using positive manipulation and hurting people might backfire.

But you being a sociopath sounds more than possible. You have a history of violence, lying and risky behavior and you are proud of it. You seem to met the diagnosis criteria of antisocial personality disorder. I would even said it is more apparent than your aspiness. Were you diagnosed?

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Kiriae-

Thanx so much for your reply no haven't been diagnosed -- but Ive attended my local autism group and I'm most def making aspie style social "mistakes" -- I'm 99% sure Im on the spectrum and don't feel I need further validation. For sociopathy diagnosis as ASPD would not be in my self interest. A lot of people think it's okay to hate and exclude sociopaths simply for existing and personally I think that is just wrong.

And yeah most antisocial spectrum people aren't criminal and I doubt most hurt others more than neurotypicals (empathy motivates as much out-group hostility as in-group altruism anyway and it's not like most NTs are very "ethical" either). We're risk-takers in the sense that low fear/inhibitions/no conscience means you pretty much have only cognitive restraints between you and your motives --- but that says nothing about what you actually want or how much planning and common sense you use in obtaining your goals. Also psychopaths tend to have pretty insensitive hardware and there's diminishing returns for new thrills before they become boring (I get that trait it kinda sucks). I have a high need for new stimulation but I am good at minimizing risks. Never caught an STI and my drug experiences have had mainly positive long term effects

FTR I don't do any crime which isn't victimless these days except steal one expensive cosmetic product. Just not worth it now that I have more to lose. Pretty much guarantee I'll never kill anyone -- the only real motive is curiosity and seeing if i could but like I said not worth the risk and otherwise I'm no more aggressive in practice than most people. But if someone is dumb enough to break the social contract first and give me an excuse I will totally enjoy trashing them. Last guy who tried to cheat me got his car torn apart (took the rearview mirror as a trophy and made it into a candle holder). Last guy who grabbed my arm coming out of a bar in broad daylight got thrown up against a wall in front of twenty people (they cheered). Moral of the story is don't f**k with people you don't know cause 1% of everyone will attack you right back and like Wednesday Addams said we look just like everyone else. And that of course includes aspies

BTW you clearly have a conscience if your worried (assuming of course these are your real thoughts which i never assume of anyone). Antisocial spectrum people mostly don't really think in terms like good and evil and don't need or want validation that we're moral or good for society. Still ultimately I think all neurotypes are just names we give to clusters of human variation on a broad seamless continuum so lots of people are socio/psycho in some ways but not in others. For me what I love about being antisocial is the sense of complete freedom and not feeling divided about what I want in life. I totally think people can desensitise conscience shame and guilt like anything else so if you want to own socio tendencies I say go for it. We're in this life so briefly so I think everyone should empower themselves and make the best they can out of whatever kind of brain random chance gave them. Way curious to hear about any interesting traits you have

You sound like a fascinating person. That being said, I have trouble empathizing with the plight of the sociopath/psychopath, simply because my Aspie-ness tends to make me gullible and naive with a high sense of morality, and I've had socio people manipulate (or completely talk their way out of being guilty) with me before. So, as much as I admire inclusiveness and think of it as a higher way of being, I am definitely not inclusive (but that's for my own protection.) In fact, I tend to avoid most people altogether. My imagination is exquisitely enjoyable to me, so not being around many people is no problem. I do admire the ability of the sociopath to manipulate people skillfully, without getting caught, but I could never do it. I have tried, and I can't follow through or do so correctly. I even bought the book "48 Laws of Power" to see if I could use the information to get ahead in life. I understand the concepts perfectly but simply cannot put them into action.

It would be great if I could just do what I want and not care about others pain but that's one thing I can't do. I am able to ignore my own shame but I can't ignore my own guilt. Well, sometimes I did rationalize what I did and it worked (for example when I stole some pocket money from parents as a kid because I wanted to go to swimming pool and I forgot to ask them before they left home - but they would give the money if I asked so it wasn't a big deal) and I even feel myself in the way you describe your aggression - because that's exactly how I feel about fights with my bullies during middle and high school. At first I was all against violence and wouldn't hurt them despite them hurting me all the time and I felt very guilty when one day I snapped and broke a school window, directing my aggression towards it instead of the bully but an incident happened - a bully sneaked behind me trying to throw me from stairs and I sensed him coming so I put my fist behind me and the impact of his jump made him hit his face with my fist. LOL He escaped afterwards, crying like a baby and others laughed at him and he never messed with me again. That's how I figured the bullies need me to speak their "language" and I dealt with other 2 bullies the same way - by hitting them in the faces without any warning. I'm quite proud of what I did back then.

The fun part was one of those incidents happened right in front of a teacher. I was worried I might get punished because hitting was against the rules but the teacher pretended he doesn't see. It was pretty weird but I sort of get why he decided to "close his eyes": my bullies bullied him too, he was a new, inexperienced teacher and his lessons were a mess because almost no one listened to him and my bullies were laughing, calling him names and threatening him when he tired to calm them down.

And about my traits - I am quite worried about my love for plane crashes. Every time there is a plane crash I will get excited and read all I can about it and I even hope there will be another one. I even imagine myself causing a plane crash for the excitement. I can sort of understand what the psychopath pilot that caused a plane crash could be thinking http://www.lovefraud.com/2015/04/02/was ... sychopath/ and it sounds pretty logical. Although I would never be able to do anything like that. Hearing about plane crashes is one thing but causing one is totally different. Conscience wouldn't let me plan it out. I can imagine various situations and I can even kill groups of people and watch groups of people being killed in my dreams (although even then I might suddenly decide on reversing time or reviving them or simply kill their oppressor out of guilt/compassion) but I couldn't do anything that bad in reality. I would rather die than kill someone else. Well, unless the someone was trying to kill other people. I can somehow picture myself killing a terrorist if he took a group of people hostage and I was one of them although I probably wouldn't go that far if there was only my life at risk. There is also a chance I would kill someone badly injured if he asked to be killed and there was huge chance help wouldn't come anytime soon. But it would actually be compassion - I consider short pain of death better than slowly dieing while waiting for help that might never come and living with some body parts missing for the rest of life if help comes.

Kiriae-

Totes applaud you knocking those fuckwads down a peg. I absolutely agree nothing works against deliberate violence except fighting back with your own power

Please let me assure you with 100% confidence you're totally not sociopathic. No one anywhere on the antisocial spectrum would ever show worry, concern, guilt, careful agonising over ethical details like you do right here. Polite society tells this lie that "normal" people never want to hurt anyone and if you do you must have some scary evil personality disorder. This is not a reasonable view of human nature and causes lots of pointless guilt and self-hatred just like repressive denial of human sexuality does. In reality almost everyone has aggressive impulses I think Steven Pinker goes around saying 80% of us want to murder someone sometime during a typical day. If you sometimes want to hurt people who upset you but that impulse mostly *loses* to *moral emotions* except in extreme/threatening circumstances then you're completely normal. Actually you sound more ethically scrupulous than most speaking as someone neutral on the subject. Aspies are usually

On the same principle there's nothing particularly psychopathic about being fascinated with death and disaster. Humans find violence exciting which is why people like heroic epics/action films/disaster movies/horror flicks/crime dramas/video games. Were all descended from thousands of generations of people who hunted to survive and fought other humans to keep enough territory to stay alive. Anything that wants to live interrupts everything else to pay attention to danger cues and backgrounds social emotions to put survival first. Again its totally normal to find violent images fascinating and not think about morality at the same time. Everyone who likes entertainment which involves violence does it which is basically everyone. With you it just happens to be plane crashes

You're fine. You're a moral, caring human being who is capable of self-defense when you have to.

you're not even diagnosed with autism, so how are you both?

In my opinion (I'm no expert, but have experience with sociopaths). You are a sociopath. Not psychopath (they have no regard for others or their own long term wellbeing). Sociopaths often have trouble with social interactions, as they can only mimic empathic body language after some practice (it sounds as if you have achieved this a little).

It's not so bad. You have the power to control your urges, and have stated that you intend to control yourself a little more these days.
Good one for standing up for yourself, I hate it when others invade anothers personal space.

My advice is to tell others, people that you value highly. And in that way hopefully they can help you keep your manipulations in check. Then you won't go through periods of having to refresh your friendships, due to all the lies and manipulations being exposed.
Another way to look at it, would be if you keep someone in your life for a long period of time then they would also value you as highly and wish to help you as much as you help them.
Everyone is vulnerable at some point, and although you might not like the fact that another protected you. In a way they could be see as simply your army, and they are protecting their general.

Hope that all makes sense.

Here's how I'ma do this I'ma strikeout the ones that aren't real Traits.