Are there any aspies here afraid of becoming Hitler?

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Not in an anti-semetic way, though. Just to be clear up front.
Trigger warning - I'm being honest here in an attempt to find understanding.

In the course of 3 years I was tenuously diagnosed with OCD, Schizophrenia and unofficially with OCPD and Asperger's and after that I've spent another three years doing my own research into it.

I've found that there are common patterns and behavioural threads that link all of these together - OCD and Aspergers, OCD and Schizophrenia, etc... And I've also been looking into Joseph's Campbell work on Mythology and Jungian archetype theory, and I'm really starting to believe that there's enough evidence out there to validate these theories.

If you combine OCD and disgust sensitivity with the detachment and isolation of Asperger's plus the delusional function and grandiosity you can get in Schizophrenia, you really can arrive at a Sauron type evil overlord.

You have a land or physical space that concerns you which is "overcome by infection", incompetence, really, anything wrong; you're already isolated and submerged in darkness from the type of childhood aspie persons can have - you don't have a lot of faith in the understanding or competence or intentions of others, plus your sensory perception impairments are working overtime to distort the world and all the people in it; plus some lifestyle associated trauma (international or personal war) to deal with...

I really don't think it's preposterous or far-reaching to see the link between asperger's and Hitler. It's not a huge gap between tactile defensiveness and a gas chamber. I spray the bathroom in a smug of insecticide just to keep any potential mosquitos or moths from brushing me with my clothes off, And it was natural and it was only after a long while when I though "wait, I can't breathe in this," did I get the gas chamber connotation.

I live with my mother and others, who I've started calling "agents of chaos" over the pass year, which started as a joke but a certain vehemence has sunk in. They're very disorganized, clothes and food magazines everywhere... My mother asked me to help her clean once because she thinks having OCD means I want to be Cinderella, and I told her that when I cleaned I'd do it with kerosene and fire. It wasn't even premeditated, it just came out as the truth.

And since that, almost a year ago, I still look forward to the day when I finally clean the house properly with fire. I have bonfire fantasies.

I just recently found this series on Youtube: Personality and it's Transformations by Jordan Peterson (2017 - ep 18 ), that has me even more concerned now, because it's right in my face, this potential for evil. Except it doesn't feel like evil. I know morally that mass genocide is wrong, no questions or deliberation, but I was 13 when I first read about Hitler for school and I devoured that textbook because it read like a good revenge story about a hero trying to save his country from chaos by taking efficient action.

It's not a race-based admiration, I'm black, and I've never met or known a Jew. I'm not anti-semetic, barely religious, and I'm not pro-hate of anybody.

But I think it's very easy for me and aspies in general to not consider hate in these areas. We don't attach very well, I find. Family members have died where my primary/only concern is how best to avoid the funeral.

I've been in hospital wards (I studied medicine - yes, despite the OCD - idiot move on my part, I think I gave myself PTSD - reaction formation???) where I started looking forward to the clean beds. A person died and 15 minutes later the bed would be made with clean white sheets and there'd be a little thrill of joy/relief at how the sick person was removed.

A couple of my psychiatrists and lecturers assumed that I was afraid about children, anxious, and I couldn't find the words to explain that it was primarily disgust and a secondary anxiety caused by coming into contact with a disgusting thing. I compared them to baby mice at the time. "You know they're not harmful or dangerous, but..." Exposure didn't help, it was only adding more and more evidence for me to put into my folder of "Reasons why this is disgusting."

Babies and toddlers with cancer, being poked and prodded, I'd watch on with confusion sometimes wondering why euthanasia never became a thing. Because the parents preferred alive but suffering children who spend weeks to months confined to hospital living, some already in hospice care just waiting to die on their own. I understand the nazi drive to euthanize out of compassion. Not the groups they selected, but the overall concept of mercy killing people. I know the ethics is wrong, but it makes sense to me.

When they started me on medication I brought it up that I would prefer euthanasia to be done on myself - that if they really cared about my quality of life they would end it rather that have me there languishing on the wayside as a psych patient. It wasn't emotional. It just seemed logical and right, the way you would throw out a computer if parts of the motherboard didn't work. I couldn't see why it was humane to euthanise an animal for broken bones but not a human being with a "broken mind" that would be more or less permanent. I get the difference but it seems false.

Still, I had an excellent bedside manner. Lots of people say that Hitler could never have been an aspie because he could read people, but it's just practice. Aspie people can be observant, and I'm proof that we can imitate and compensate as need be. We might not wax poetic spontaneously, but we get the concept of rhetoric. I'm as good with literature as I am with math, if I apply myself.

I nearly applied to study political science. On the application, I said I wanted to get involved in politics to clean up the country from the fat cats and fat rats (I meant corrupt politicians ). In a casual conversation, I started monologuing about how we needed to have a coup, one thorough violent cleansing that would solve everything. I only hear the fascism in retrospect.

I'm trying to figure myself out. As much as I'm probably sounding like a crazy person, I need to move on from this pit of self-reflection where I'm afraid to do anything. I've never actually hurt anyone. I pretend to be agreeable and have become more or less a smiling resentful pushover. I've been trying to fix myself according to Jungian theory and integrate my shadow, but my Shadow is turning out to be Hitler. Do you still integrate your Shadow if it's Hitler?

Do other aspie's have this shadow part of themselves - this point where they give in, stop smiling, stop pretending to be attached and involved and start "restoring proper order" on the chaos? Do we all have this drive to exert the will of our true selves on others? To correct them instead? People call non-aspie persons "neuro-typicals" but in my head, it's just this group of "the illogicals and the incompetents" and I have this recurrent fantasy of all of us fixing the world. Something like Magneto and his league of evil mutants who start ranting about supremacies every 5 minutes.

I'm already starting to pretend less, and people I work with are starting to comment on how I seem to space off and have sinister thoughts. My little brother specifically said "Hey, you're human interaction skills are getting really bad," and he's the opposite type of person who notices those things.

I don't want to decompensate (again) and end up being a Hitler. But it feels as simple as threading a needle. It's like I'm having a call to adventure, but as a young up and coming Sauron instead. After the revelation of medicine, where one day I looked at children and honestly wondered if I'd actually perform CPR if I had to or if I'd just let them die rather than touch them, (because I argued with myself that skin-to-skin contact for me was probably worse than dying would be for them, and when was I going to stop being a masochist with a Jesus complex?), I don't trust myself to do anything and I'm in this stagnant rut, because if you can't muster up enough empathy for medicine what else is there?

I thought about the army or police, but five seconds after it descended into "fixing the army and then using it to fix the country", and I know that chances are I'd just be another unremarkable drone, because I can't see myself faking that promotable personality for very long, but still...

People always put a lot of blame on the sociopaths. All of them are serial killers and psychos, while we're this bunch of lovable but misunderstood people who do well in math, but I think that we're more likely to start in on organised, "clean," evil. I'm actually at a point where I'm angered by Big Bang Theory and all theses shows that perpetuate this comedic Aspie. I like comics and super-heroes, but I can relate to Captain America and the dictator ubermenche with the same level of ease and admiration.

Anyone here can relate? Does this sound in any way familiar - this "Dark Jesus" Complex? I don't know how to some it up other than as a desire to fix and help through establishing total order and eradicating all agents of disorder.

Does anyone have any psychoanalytical information of the dark side of the aspie? Is anyone researching this? Should I look further into this even, or should I go no further down this path?

Last edited by A.H.R.A.H. on 21 Jul 2017, 2:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't feel too many people on the Autistic Spectrum fear becoming Hitler.

Like all adolescents and young adults, people on the Spectrum question morals and their efficacy---but they usually come to the conclusion that we need morals in order to survive as a species. They just don't often go too far into the "far" side to the point where logic goes out the window.

If somebody wants to start blaming "Jews" for all the world's woes, and to want to exterminate people who aren't "Aryan" (Note: Hitler had few actual physical signs that he was of his "master race." Conceivably, he would have see a person resembling himself as somebody worthy of being put in the concentration camps), then that somebody has something else wrong with them other than being on the Spectrum.

I think some people should get their heads out of their butts, get off the computer, and go out for an ice cream or something. People have a tendency to rely too much on research studies and such when seeking to make sense of the world. The way to make sense of the world is to be out there in the world, even out there amongst those who might not share your intellectual interests.

I think inquiry is good, though. Nothing wrong exploring things. I don't tend to explore things in a psychoanalytical sense; I'm more "historical." But....I do feel Freud had some good ideas, especially, about catharsis in the therapy couch.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 21 Jul 2017, 2:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I sense a lot of humor, self-awareness and truth behind your post.
One thing I think people fail to mention when they bring up any mental illness or neurodiversity is that 'not being normal' does not automatically correlate to one feeling violent; Feeling violent does not mean you necessarily lose all empathy and self control and act on it.
You are a thinking human with a strong will. All of the things you spoke of do not worry me. If you have a history of torturing animals and want to kill people then I will really worry. No I do not fear becoming Hitler because I am gentle and highly empathic, incredibly sensitive, states that are more socially acceptable in females I guess.

Not sure if you are a sit-in-the-house type or get out and move around a lot type, but if you are the former, sounds like you'd make an excellent novelist or playwright. Maybe channel some of that Dark Lord creativity ideas into stories, you could really let loose there without hurting people.

The only reason why I would fear "becoming Hitler" is because my OCD causes me to be afraid of becoming a psychopath. I cried the other day when I killed an ant, so hopefully that doesn't happen any time soon.

I'll go out for an ice cream- I never want to hurt anybody.

I don't think you are going to either

Last edited by StampySquiddyFan on 21 Jul 2017, 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If you ended up being medicated to the point where you were losing teeth and wasted 5+ years of your life on a course of study, all because the last time you went out into the world, the world said, "Wait, you're not right. Lemme fix you," you'd know that ice cream and a stroll doesn't always work.

I'm not talking about Jews and concentration camps here. I'm talking about the core pathological drive that a real life historical person had that is starting to feel more and more like a predetermined path to me. At one point there was an entire nation of people who agreed with Hitler and gave their lives in service of his goals.

The well-intentioned extremist, the knight templar, it's more or less the same character that reoccurs multiple times in history. I don't think it's some once in a lifetime work of alchemy that creates these people, and based on my own experience and reading, I believe an aspie has all the ingredients at hand to fit this mold perfectly. With the right combination of nurture to fit our messed up nature, it feels like a powder keg.

See, it makes complete sense that Hitler rallied behind the blond, blue-eyed image. In various psychological theories, darkness represents the unknown. Darkness represents threat and chaos and contamination. You wear white to show cleanliness and sterility. I slept on white sheets with the light on for years when I lost my grip. When I couldn't eat as a child I had to get a white ceramic plate. It's not a selfish desire to save himself and protect himself, it's just "right". A hero who fights the dark (shadows, chaos, contamination) associates himself with the light. It's why we worshiped the sun, why lab coats are white and long, and why Gandalf got powered up after his resurrection.

All our myths, the entire human narrative is written in history. I'm not saying psychoanalysis is the answer to every question but I think it's crucial for people like us to understand ourselves. No one else is bending over backward to understand us.

I doubt that you are in imminent danger of becoming the Fuhrer of a major industrialized nation with a war machine that could make a serious bid to enslave the world- if that's what you are worried about.

You are no where near as dangerous a person as you seem to think that you are.

You sound like you've been through a lot, sir. And I'm glad you're at least making inquiries, rather than just giving up. I didn't mean to minimize what you went though.

No: I don't believe Hitler was on some "predetermined path." Hitler wanted to be an artist. He wasn't a bad artist--but not good enough to be admitted into a prestigious art school. He felt his prospects were shot because of the rejection. He started to withdraw, and to live in rooming houses, where he was exposed to anti-Semitic thought.

He was a disenfranchised individual, just like many Muslim extremists are disenfranchised individuals these days (or think they are). He chose this path for himself, because he was pissed off. He needed a scapegoat. He found one--Eureka! The Jews!

Then, he was a soldier in World War I, never advancing beyond Corporal. He was not well-liked by his fellow men. He wasn't respected.

He wanted respect. He was angry about the Versailles treaty and the war reparations which Germany had to pay (note: he was Austrian, not German). So he decided to join the incipient Nazi party. He wanted respect--and he got it there.

The rest is history.

Lol, I know that I'm not dangerous. Fundamental christian mother, years of catholic school, middle child, nerd, working in a library... I've never even been in a fight... (Well, once, but I lost completely without throwing a punch).

If I was tall and jacked and had the coordination for physical violence, I'd be legitimately concerned. This is more like a curious thought I'm fleshing out.

Hey, I gave up for five years. I'm just starting to pull myself back together. Everyone is giving me flack for this time of stagnancy, but... I was shook. At one point during a CT I actually started hoping that they'd actually find a tumour or something. People thought I was depressed, I just wanted to know. A tumour can be biopsied and fixed or it can just kill you, but it'll be resolved one way or another.

But as for my Hitler references: I got thrown out of med school (more or less), my prospects at being a badass surgeon where rejected, I withdrew, I've lived in some shady places and shady people's couches. I'm not American, so any label from a psych clinic I get stuck on me makes me essentially disenfranchised, I'm not well liked by anyone who knows me for any extended period of time, I'm not respected - the best compliment I ever had was from a professor who said, "You're smart and likable, but you're going to kill people," and in a personal role, I've sort of become the taken for granted "pet" people have.

I'm so angry sometimes...

This entire thread is a hatters-and-hares Mad Tea Party conversation.

Hitler didn't do things alone; he used his social skills to get people to support and follow him. I doubt most Aspies are capable of that level of social skill.

The past is the past. The present is the present.

What do you plan on doing, in a practical sense, now that you are "putting yourself together?"

I promise: I won't judge you. You're not an ass.

The OP is not the first person to come up with the idea that Hitler had Aspie traits or might have been an Aspie.

Wikipedia - Psychopathography of Adolf Hitler

Wrong Planet - Did Hitler Have Asperger's Syndrome?

Even if he had Asperger's Syndrome, it does not mean that people with Asperger's are potential Hitlers. That's screwy logic.

Al Capone had syphilis; does that mean that everybody with syphilis could be a potential Capone?

That "Hitler was aspie meme" is kinda old here on WP.

Even in the unlikely event that he was aspie his aspieness was the least of his issues. His sociopathy was higher on the pecking order of his relevant traits. And sociopathy and aspergers are kinda contradictory conditions. Sociopaths are skilled at manipulation while aspies are socially inept.