A comorbid Aspie

Post Reply New Topic

I haven't introduced myself on the introduction page, but here goes: I am Raf, a short for a name most of you can find often in the Book of Tobias in the Deuterocanonical Bible books of the Catholic Church.

Don't do that, I'll do it for you. It's Raphael, a name that means "God has healed" in the ancient Hebrew.

I have somewhat of a comorbid brain. Some of you might read this with discomfort, others with hope. Here goes.

I am an aspie, diagnosed, signed, therapized and debated on. But some of the many psychologists I've frequented noted something: my diminished remorse and my somewhat shallow emotions. Also, my attitude of "f**k them, they're just little s**ts who make my life a living hell" that has perpetually affected my daily life makes them come to somewhat of a conclusion: I'm somewhat of a sociopath as well.

I've never felt genuine empathy for anyone other than my family and people who have a PDD. When I love, it's a selfish, burning need rather than a light-hearted feeling.

I feel as if this might scare a few of you, but I thought I'd come here, since autistic people have been the only ones other than my family to welcome me, in a way.

(Surprisingly though, I do feel a little empathy for animals, and when other people harm them, I feel somewhat of a cold desire to make them pay. Not an emotional shot of anger, a cold, deep feeling)

Hello!

The autism spectrum, aside from being such a massive spectrum of differences, is frequently comorbid with other mental differences. For example, in my own case, it would be dysthymia, anxiety, nonverbal learning disorder and ADHD. Differences in empathy from the average person may fall under the umbrella of things the spectrum 'normally' may affect. This is just my own understanding; take it with a grain of salt.

I think its great that you can feel affection for your family and aren't a sociopath in the truest sense of the term. They're the people that matter the most anyhow. Add a small circle of close friends that you never need to second guess and really, you're set for life. I think autism affects the emotions of every individual greatly; we experience and reveal our emotions to others in a different way. I personally don't feel I like empathy but I often lack the ability to empathize with others; that is, get into their head and understand why they feel as they are. We're all in the same boat one way or another.

Its simply important to have rational reasons why to not hurt (or at least cause substantial harm) to others. Similarly, as long as we can assess what substantial harm is and avoid inflicting it to others, who really cares if you have empathy for anyone else? It doesn't matter. It could be for purely 'selfish' reasons, such as to avoid them harming you back, such as for their companionship, such as simply to avoid breaking the law and the penalties that entails. I'm sure I'm just droning on and you already know all this.

Love, lust, vengeance, empathy - none of this is simple. They're multifaceted, interconnected in complex lattices of reciprocation. I'm sure you'll find many people on the forums who feel similar in this regard

I see how Antisocial Personality Disorder and Asperger's Disorder can be co-morbid. Both have to do with limited empathy.

To be honest, I am a lot like you emotionally. I don't like people, only a few, but the people I like, I get obsessed with.

Actually, that's the definition of a psychopath and, as AS is a psychological pathology, makes perfect sense, although I doubt many of us would care to be characterized by the term because the social stigma it carries leads people to believe it means 'dangerously insane.'

A sociopath manipulates others socially for their own ends. They make good con artists, because they read others well (which Aspies do not) and use that to take advantage of them.

The attitude that the world is made up mostly of morons, who deserve only contempt is fairly common among Aspergians (though not universal), and is, IMO, accurate.
At the end of the day, I think it's better for one's mental health than constantly feeling bad because you can't live up to the world's standards. FTW.




Well, Empathy is more of a social skill that an emotional state. It's the ability to intuit the emotional states of others by reading nonverbal cues (body language) and then being able to respond appropriately.

I can rarely guess what others are thinking or feeling unless they tell me and even once I know, I never know exactly what I'm expected to do about it. So I usually do nothing. But that does not necessarily mean I don't sympathize. I just don't want to hear a long, sad story.

All I can do is offer the poor soul a hot beverage.

Hi Raf,
Welcome to the forum. What's great about this forum is that there are so many unique individuals here. Don't fit into box A? Let's try a bit of box B,C,D.....Z etc. And still they don't completely understand. And apparently aspies are the ones without empathy?

I decided today that my diagnosis of bipolar just confirms my being brilliant. Brilliant brain.

You could also just be schizoid as a comorbidity.
It's more than just wanting to be alone, many also have a certain narcisstic attitute that goes along with shallow emotions.
The main difference to soziopaths is, that schizoids don't care about hurting otheres, they are simply not really interested in anyone else. This goes very often along with a "superior" attitude.