Can you be a Soziopath or generally bad and totally not knw?

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As you may know I recently started a thread about people believing that I'm a deceiver and lier, while I believe I'm NOT
well guess what. Either I'm being paranoid, or maybe I ACTUALLY AM a horrible person. a deceiver, a lier. a manipulator.
there have been hints all over the place (or I'm paranoid)
an old friend was telling me today," you know, some mentally ill patients, who know lots about mentall illness, tent to manipulate their pdocs, and this gives them a feeling of power and makes them feel good (playing around with the docs), and when they are done with the doc and can't manipulate the doc any longer, they change their doc."
Ok I don't know why he was telling this to ME, but people normally don't just say random stuff, and I change docs a lot, and tend to get p**sed by docs who disagree with me. eh?!
my mother also tend to tell me similar stuff every once in a while.: "you know, dr. m knows what your real problem is, which is not at all bipolar or anything, he is just playing your funny med go around game with you until you get it yourself....."
Is it technically possible to have this kind of motivations and totally, TOTALLY not know it? I believe I'm an honest, good person.
And this is not the only crazy thing I believe that may or may not make any sense.
I soemtimes believe I was raped by a family member > not true
I sometimes believe I might be actually in a coma > not true
I sometimes believe I'm a brain in vat > probably not true
I sometimes believe I might have dissociative identity disorder > probably not true
so either i'm surrounded by people who are trying to make me paranoid, or I'm crazy.
They give me the feeling that beneath the personality I know, there is some other personality that I'm completely unaware of and it's doing stuff!! !! !!

I'm not formally qualified to answer your post, but merely dwelling on this subject matter, in and of itself, is not a mental illness. At least, I hope not; anyone who watches old B-movies might think of things like that.

I'm not trying to figure out whether i'm crazy or not, I'm trying to figure out whether I'm secretly a manipulative person or not. That's not exactly the same thing. That would probably rather be some sort of personality disorder rather than classic craziness. (ok that's classic craziness. but not bat s**t craziness)

Why do the doctors mind, whether you have an active fantasy life, which you are capable of differentiating from reality.

I am usually very good at distinguishing reality from fantasy, if you ignore the fact that I believe I could make a living from making house music with ableton live. The thing is that there are some very strong hints for this particular "fact".
two people are telling me rather directly that I'm manipulating doctors. butI can't believe that I'm doing that. But when I analyze my behavior towards docs it pretty much looks like I'm doing it. What makes it funny is that I can't see whether the docs are realizing it or not. but they seem very compliant. they prescribe me often what I suggest. They often agree with the diagnosis I have in my mind. They often believe that I'm smart and have a good idea about my symptoms and situation although I don't. It's all totally fishy. It doesn't make sense. at all.
I always thought being a bad person is doing bad things like stealing and violence. I feel this is much worse. I feel horrible.

I am of the understanding that doctors are actually supposed to listen, to what works for you.

Your friends' opinions are just opinions.

And, there are lots of creative venues, where people would enjoy talking about your stories. Some are more strict. Others are more improvisational.

None of the things you have described seem manipulative. Other people might suspect they are, but that doesn't mean they are. For example, in the case of changing doctors, even though your friend might think you became bored of toying with them, you said you became p*ssed off with them which is why you changed. Simple answer is your friend is wrong.
It sounds more like people just don't understand you or the reasons why you behave as you do and are just voicing their own theories.

If you are worried about been a sociopath, then you are not a sociopath.

you people make a lot of sense. I'm a gullible person. have always been. You are probably right.
But I'm still not convinced 100%. One question remains. do all manipulative people, like those with personality disorders or whatever, KNOW they are manipulative? do they do it on purpose? does this crap take place in their consciousness? or subconsciousness? I mean, it's a valid question. I'm one of those people without common sense who sometimes questions the most obvious facts like why weather 2x2 actually equals 4 and has to calculate it to see whether that's true.

Everybody manipulates others to a certain extent, in the sense that they will act a certain way to illicit a certain response. It's a learned behaviour, for example, a baby will learn that if it cries it will receive food and it carries on through life, for example, if you want to ask somebody to do a favour for you, you might be nice to them first. For most people the manipulative tactics are fairly minor and they may not always realise they are doing it.
In the case of PD's etc, the manipulation tactics can be much more elaborate, sometimes they are not fully aware they are doing it other times they do it all with careful planning and intentions.
So to answer you questions;
Do they KNOW they are manipulative? Sometimes
Do they do it on purpose? Sometimes
Does this crap take place in their consciousness? or subconsciousness? It can be either
It depends on the individual act of manipulation and the individual conducting the manipulation.

I'm pretty sure you would know if you were a really manipulative person. You certainly are not stupid, and the fact that you are worried about it indicates to me that you most likely are not.

Everyone does manipulate to a certain degree. An extremely manipulative person may not be fully aware that he or she is manipulative, or may not think that what he or she is doing is wrong. However, I find it doubtful that such a person would even worry about being that way to begin with. And if that person did decide to examine his or her thoughts, that person would probably decide that the manipulation was justified.

I'm not a psychologist so this is only my unqualified opinion.

I've gone to different doctors for medical issues when they didn't know enough to diagnose me properly. It wasn't a matter of me being manipulative to get a diagnosis. It was me knowing that their diagnoses were illogical and total b.s. I'm about as intelligent as the average doctor, so I don't buy into their superiority complexes. I do my own research and make up my mind based on the evidence.

It is possible that you don't want to believe the truth, and become angry when you are confronted with it, then decide to switch doctors. It's also possible that the doctors are wrong, and that you realize it, and that's what makes you angry.

The only way I can see to really tell is to examine and analyze your thoughts and emotions in a rational manner.

If you were manipulating and toying with people, you´d know!
If you were a sociopath, you wouldn´t care, because you´d feel entiteled.
You wouldn´t worry.

For your mother: its an opinion of hers, she is probably a bit against drugs, and might have trouble with accepting any more severe diagnosis. She is your mother, after all, so she feels at least partly responsible for any psychiatric problem her son has. For this old friend of yours: yes, this is a hint. More a suggestion, I guess, than an opinion. With both, you have to keep in mind that they dont know the doctors you have seen, maybe they dont have any experience with shrinks, and think they are much less bad than most of them actually are, or if they have some experience, but might have been lucky and found a good one pretty quickly, so they underestimate how long it often takes to find the right one. You are also the one who is taking the medicines and knows best what kind of effects they have. So you have no choice here, but to trust mostly your own judgement.

You write: "Either I'm being paranoid, or maybe I ACTUALLY AM a horrible person. a deceiver, a lier. a manipulator. there have been hints all over the place (or I'm paranoid)". This "either -or" alternative is pretty extreme, so I would say that you are indeed a little paranoid.

You ask: "Is it technically possible to have this kind of motivations and totally, TOTALLY not know it? I believe I'm an honest, good person." Many people think they have just good motivations e.g. when telling someone the truth (or when not telling someone the truth), but actually they might be - and often are - at the same time a bit righteous and also want to feel superior to others, or they want to hurt the other, as a kind of little revenge after the other hurt you a little with something else etc. In fact there is some ambivalence in many of our deeds. I often have the impression that people here on wrongplanet have a too simplistic view on their motivations, because they dont get their own emotions very well when reacting to something, and maybe your friend with his quite wordy and impersonal explanation just gave you too gross an example to get this idea through. I would ask him directly.

As for the dissociative identity disorder, and also a bit the feeling that beneath the personality you know, there might be some other personality that you are not aware of: many aspies have problems with finding their identity. That is because their identity is formed differently and later than that of an NT person. For the same reason, self- and external perception also fall more apart in people on the spectrum. That is something intriguing for aspies, in particular when they get suddenly more aware of it. Actually this phenomenon is nothing to seriously worry about. As many aspies do have the same or similar concerns, you should find some threads here.

This is for example what a French autism expert says with regard to body identity. Anne-Marie Vaillant (Aulnay): "We tried to treat the very peculiar anxieties autistic children have which are anxieties of corporal-psychic construction. The image of the body is not constructed in the same way, and this leads to anxieties that normal children had, too, but passed quickly."

As for your other fantasies: Did you have a very vivid imagination as a child or adolescent? What kind of dreams did you have as a child (at night when sleeping), what dreams do you have now?

My guess is it's option #1.

Oh, and with your list of false beliefs, the 'raped by a family member' jumped out at me. Are you sure this didn't happen? Because sexual abuse is very common and abuse victims are often made to think it didn't happen when it did.

No it didn't happen. seriously.


I have a vivid imagination. Have always had. and recently I'm having extremely vivid dreams at night. I suppose it's from the 600mg seroquel xr I'm taking, which doesn't make any sense at all as that stuff is supposed to knock you out cold and it's doing the exact opposite to me. But it also makes me smart. also emotionally. I still don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing but i'll give it some more time.

I think I know what the problem is now. I have lived with my mother exclusively for a long time as a child. And my mother thinks in a not so healthy way and I have picked up her way of thinking.
-> the most complicated, elaborate and maybe unlikely explanation for a phenomena is always the best explanation. <-
like the simple explanations is something for the simple folks with low IQ's or something and we are better than them and we are supposed to come up with "better" reasons and explanations for stuff.
WHY WOULD SOMEONE THINK LIKE THAT? this is sick. And I also think like that.
no wonder they diagnosed me with schizophrenia.
I asked my mother yesterday about the very subject of this thread. her answer: "it's good to realize that one has a good and as well as an evil side...." you see? elaborate philosophical answer. Note that I asked her whether I manipulate doctors, not about people in general and their good or evil side.

I believe it is a good strategy for an aspie, in particular with a vivid imagination and a certain anxiety level, to take most statements of others at their face value, and avoid the extreme interpretations for the rest. To achieve this better it is indeed a good idea to avoid people who go for complicated explanations or who liketo overdramatize things. One aspie friend of mine is a very strong opponent against too complicated explanations, and it is great to be with him. His very down-to-earth way of dealing with everything, and his insisting on it, has very good effects also on difficult people. I think he used this approach successfully as part of his self-medication programme.

Have googled "seroquel, side effect, dreams" and got quite a lot of results. Looks as if your experience is extremely common. Typic that they say nothing about it in the official list of side effects.