Edge of Reason

[Any pronouns] | 🜬 | 18+ | ASPD & SZPD; NPD traits | Writing random thoughts, opinions, and reposting things I like. Open to meaningful communications.

[inmyselfdelusion]

I never chose this mind, this way of being, but if I could strip it all away, would there be anything left of me?

[inmyselfdelusion]

There’s a common misunderstanding around schizoid personality disorder (SzPD), one that turns a real psychological condition into something to admire. People talk about it as if it only means being emotionally untouchable or completely self-sufficient, like someone who has moved past the chaos of human connection and found inner peace. It sounds appealing, even powerful.

But that picture is far from reality.

SzPD isn’t just about being private or enjoying time alone. It’s a long-term pattern of emotional disconnection that affects how a person relates to others, and often, how they relate to themselves. This detachment isn’t a choice or a strategy to avoid pain. For many, emotional closeness simply doesn’t register as something natural or necessary. It’s not a wall someone puts up, it’s more like a missing part of the wiring.

Traits like introversion or independence can exist without causing harm. They become disorders when they start limiting someone’s ability to function, grow, or connect. SzPD often does exactly that. The distance from others, the limited emotional expression, the lack of desire for relationships.. these are not temporary or protective. They are part of the baseline experience.

People with SzPD often understand emotions in an intellectual way. You can read the room, recognize what others feel, and maybe even describe your own emotions when necessary. But there’s often a sense of separation from the experience itself. Social situations aren’t upsetting or overstimulating, they just feel pointless. You go through the motions because life requires it, not because it brings anything meaningful.

This kind of detachment comes at a cost. It can flatten everything. Motivation drops, curiosity fades, and most things feel dull or distant. It’s not always easy to explain why, but many of the things that seem to give others a sense of purpose don’t feel real or reachable. Connections are rare, and even when they exist, they often lack depth. Over time, it can feel like you’re drifting, not completely isolated, but not rooted anywhere either.

Some people look at this and say it’s an advantage. They admire what they see as emotional discipline or clarity. But not needing people doesn’t mean you’ve gained something, it might just mean you’ve lost access to something important without realizing it.

For me, living with SzPD doesn’t feel like rising above the world. It feels like watching it go by without ever really stepping into it. I can function, I can think clearly, I can handle responsibility if I want to. But there’s a flatness to the experience. The absence of connection doesn’t hurt in an obvious way. It just leaves everything feeling distant and incomplete.

[ssuervk]

引血成河，积血成海

[autopsyfreak]

ASPD + Love

{my experience}

disclaimer: this is talking solely from my experiences and is not going to be applicable to absolutely every single person with this disorder. it’s also important to remember that this is a complex disorder and just because you may relate to this post in some way, does not necessarily mean that you have ASPD.

Connections With Others

my ASPD impacts my ability to connect with others A LOT and in many different ways. a few of these ways include:

• my lack of the ability to relate to, sympathise, empathise or generally care about others.

• my bluntness, saying things without caring how it affects others, putting myself and others in dangerous situations.

• having muffled emotions that result in me having to mask by exaggerating my emotions, almost like a performance, this can result in me reacting in a way that is unintentionally socially ‘incorrect’.

• struggles with seeing others as having any sort of emotional value to me.

• a general unwillingness to be around other people.

to name some examples.

How Does This Impact Your Ability To Love?

in many ways i struggle to care for and form bonds with other people, this therefore results in me displaying a significantly less common want, need or overall ability to form any romantic bonds, as such i do also identify as aromantic which i interestingly have found to be fairly common amongst those with ASPD.

i have a hard time caring for people platonically, let alone romantically so it’s quite rare for me to willingly commit to a romantic relationship of any kind.

How Love Feels To Me

i recently saw someone else with ASPD say that love for them is something that they’re capable of but isn’t necessarily something they feel and is more of a cognitive thing for them. that’s pretty much how i would describe my experience with it as well and is the closest wording i’ve discovered to how i actually experience love.

final note: a lot of people with ASPD are capable of love and not everyone with ASPD will experience it in this way. this is just an informative post shedding some insight as to how i personally experience love as somebody with this disorder and how my mental illness has impacted it.

[inmyselfdelusion]

Imagine the time I was six. I spent half an hour constructing my perfect fortress out of wooden blocks, carefully placing each piece. Every detail mattered, this wasn’t just playing, this was creating something. I looked at it, proud, knowing it was my work, my effort.

Then, some little shit walks by. I watch as his eyes narrow, and for a moment, he considers the easiest way to destroy what I’d just built. With one careless motion, he topples everything, scattering the blocks like they were nothing.

I don’t cry. I don’t scream for help. Instead, I get up, walk over, and grab him by the shoulder. A hard shove, and then I make sure he knows exactly what he’s done. He’s on the ground before he can even process it, his face swelling where I hit it. I don’t care about the blood or the broken tooth. All I care about is the fact that he destroyed something I created for no reason other than his amusement.

The teacher drags me away, gasping: "Look what you did! It’s just blocks, he’s a person!".

But it wasn’t just blocks. It was my time, my effort, and he threw it all away like it meant nothing. And he’s a person? Fine. So am I. And in that moment, his face wasn’t worth respecting.

Looking back at it as an adult, sure, maybe it was an overreaction. Maybe I was too harsh. But that moment wasn’t about rationality. It was about the principle of it. Yeah, I could’ve handled it differently. But I was a kid. That’s what kids do.. act on impulse.

No one cared about the fact that someone else’s selfish act destroyed what I valued. My retaliation was branded as aggression, while his provocation was dismissed as childish mischief. No one asked why I struck back. No one acknowledged that he’d destroyed something I built simply because he wanted to. I was the one who got punished.

At that time, the teacher’s failure was a clear lesson in injustice, that authority will side with the visible victim over the invisible violation, and proof that fairness is conditional, since his pain was 'real', while mine was 'just toys'.

[inmyselfdelusion]

I don't get emotionally attached to people. I don't ever need that. I recently told someone this, and instead of taking it at face value, they asked if I still felt something for them. As if they were the exception, as if a relationship without emotional involvement is impossible. They seem to think their so-called "special" love can fix me, as if I'm broken. It's laughable. I'm not in need of fixing, and I don't crave any dependency or emotional attachment. If you think you’re special enough to change that, you're wasting your time.

[icemftmm]

[thesharkcave]

Antisocial Personality Disorder is a Spectrum

The question that people most commonly ask, while they're trying to figure out if they may have ASPD, or if the diagnosis they received is an accurate one, is: "Can I even have ASPD if I don't do *specific symptom*?"

Even people who have been diagnosed, or medically recognized, for years, still continue asking themselves, if ASPD is the correct diagnosis, based on how they perceive other people's presentation of the condition compared to their own.

Its a worry, that makes sense, since people with ASPD do often have experienced being invalidated in their childhoods, being told they're just choosing to misbehave and also continue being confronted with stereotypes as the "only valid & talked about presentation".

People who question whether they may have this disorder and whether it may be worth it to bring this concern up with a psychologist, often feel intimidated by the public's insistence on ASPD being solely defined by violence and law breaking.

Similarly, people who are diagnosed with ASPD, often feel as if they are not violent enough, or do not break laws often enough, in order to really have this diagnosis.

Other common worries/questions often circle around the lack of empathy, the lack of guilt/remorse, overall emotional intensity, impulsive behavior, having relationships, being manipulative, etc.

There's simply a sort of pattern, where people are concerned whether they have enough of the common experiences, or whether they have experiences, that automatically mean they do not have ASPD.

In the end, the answer to those questions, is relatively easy! ASPD exists on a spectrum, just as any other disorder/condition does.

You need to meet 3 out of the 7 criteria points (in the DSM-5) in order to be diagnosed with ASPD. Those criteria points are only met if your experiences are: not "normal" for your cultural/regional background, cause you impairment in your daily life, have been there for a certain duration of time and are not better explained by other conditions/episodes/etc.

In the case of ASPD, that means that you can meet criteria if you, as an example, check off the symptoms for impulsivity, irresponsibility and aggression OR check off the symptoms for the disregard for others, lack of remorse and law breaking OR...you get the picture. Theres a really big amount of combinations for the symptoms alone and an even bigger amount when it comes to how severely you experience each symptom.

Lets look at this with the example of lacking remorse! You can theoretically have ASPD without ever meeting this criteria point, if you meet enough of the others AKA you can have ASPD and still feel a shitload of guilt for the things you do. You can also partially meet it, by lets say, not feeling remorse for people unless they're really close to you, or only for specific actions/situations. You can have problems with feeling remorse emotionally, or you can have problems with understanding the concept cognitively, or both.

If you deal with episodic apathy due to other conditions, you may also experience a lack of remorse without that ever being caused by ASPD, but it may cause you to meet other criteria points to a higher/more frequent degree during those episodes. You may, as an example, break laws more frequently or have a higher amount of impulsive behaviors during which you disregard other people. Which could be symptoms you already experienced before, but now that you don't feel sorry for it, it happens more often until the apathy episode ends. In these cases ASPD symptoms and symptoms from other conditions influence each other and cause a complex individual presentation.

This is true for every single symptom, for every single person. A lack of one specific symptom doesn't immediately disqualify you from having ASPD. Thats just not how the criteria works.

Additionally theres a lot of experiences that, while associated with ASPD & used to support the diagnosis, are not in the criteria list themselves. So they aren't technically necessary, even if they are observed in a lot of cases (this includes the lack of empathy and muted emotions).

Now, while all of that is true, theres also a point to be made, that ASPD, in criterion A is characteterized as a pattern of "disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occuring since age 15". This pattern is then "indicated by three or more of the following" seven criteria points. Your symptoms, therefore, do need to form said pattern and be present relatively often and in a way, that indicates, that this is your day to day reactions and not something that just happens once in a while.

Another thing, thats maybe important to think about, is that the DSM-5 only mentions a few possible ways symptoms can present. It cannot and will not cover the whole range of possibilities.

Which means, that you may meet the criteria points without even realizing it, because you simply present in a way that deviates a lot from the common stereotypes.

Did you know that you can meet the criteria point for aggression, if you're only verbally aggressive? Or if your immediate reaction is aggression, but you let it out on yourself or in ways that just are not visible for other people? A lot of people think its only physical fights, or obvious lashing out, that get you to meet this criteria point, but theres a lot more to it and this is true for all the symptoms!

Impulsivity/failure to plan ahead, can absolutely look like the more stereotyped reckless spending, reckless driving and dyeing your hair a bunch of colors, but it can also be stuff like: saying things before you stop to think about them, booking a ticket to another country for in an hour without considering whether you can get there in time or how you'll fly back, leaving the house in a rush because you see your friends are in town and forgetting your keys and phone inside and having to call a locksmith from your neighbours house at 3am, frequently staying up at night because you wanna just play one more game or read one more book and failing to consider that you have work in the morning, calling in sick because you dont wanna get up and it sounds like a good idea but its actually the thing that gets you fired etc.

A lot of this can also tie into irresponsibility, which is more than just not showing up to work, or not paying your debts back. Irresponsibility can range from not caring for your children properly, to consuming unsafe things, to not caring properly for yourself while you're ill, to putting off repairs on the house because you can't be bothered to do it until its too late.

So yes, you can have ASPD as long as you meet 3 criteria points and criterion B-D. Yes, even if:

• you feel guilt/remorse

• you develop deep bonds to others

• you love cute things and "childish" stuff

• you have hobbies you're passionate about

• you feel empathy

• you've not broken the law (tho you need to make sure you still meet "conduct disorder prior to age 15" requirements in other ways here!!)

• you're not impulsive at all

• you can hold down a job

• you have children you love

• you care about animals

• etc.

As long as you meet criteria, despite things like that, you have ASPD and no uneducated "but ASPDers never care and never feel and never do x" opinions can change that.

Do keep in mind, that personality disorders usually affect all three: thoughts, emotions and behaviors! If your actions are cruel, but you experience no lack of prosocial emotions or thought patterns, your experience will likely not be grouped under ASPD. If it was, every bully or asshole in this world would be diagnosed with ASPD, but they usually are motivated by prosocial thoughts and emotions as well (just to the detriment of a few specific groups of people).

In my opinion, theres a clear difference between someone with ASPD, that has an overall disregard for people and a bigot, who has a specific disregard for a specific group of people due to a misguided belief, that he is actually helping "his group" by opressing that "other group" => prosocial motivations can be harmful, but harmful prosocial motivations are not antisocial.

That being said, as an antisocial person, it can be hard to differentiate between a disregard for specific groups and an overall disregard, especially if people treat it as the same and use the same terms for it, so its not surprising to me, that many people can't tell the difference.

Long story short:

• ASPD exists on a spectrum because every person has an individual presentation

• As long as you meet 3 criteria points and criterion B-D, you have ASPD, even if you dont conform to stereotypes, or if you do something that people think is an immediate disqualifier

• The DSM-5 only lists examples and not every possible presentation and it acknowledges this itself

• ASPD symptoms are not equal to bigotry, because bigotry is not antisocial. Its harmful prosociality, which makes it that much more attractive to people, because they aren't against society, they are for a BETTER society for THEIR people and thats much harder to argue against. Which may seem irrelevant to the topic, but trust me its especially important right now, because I for one would love it, if people could stop calling people "sociopaths" or "psychopaths" when they're actually bigots, thank you very much.

first posted on my instagram (same @)

[icemftmm]

[xenophasic-xenopunk]

G̯̯̩̙͆ͣ͟o͙͙̙̘̙ͤͫ͞d̶̵̯̯̼̘ͨ̓ k̼̼̞̦̞̼̔n̫̫̘̗͕̲̲̎ͥo͙͙̙̘̙ͤͫ͞w̡̻̻̣͚̒̀ͅs̨̞̞̰͎͎̪̩͕̈́̀ͯ̍ͧͅ I̡̨͙͙̪̹̾͟ d̶̵̯̯̼̘ͨ̓o͙͙̙̘̙ͤͫ͞n̫̫̘̗͕̲̲̎ͥ't͖͖̠̬͛ w̡̻̻̣͚̒̀ͅa͔͔̜̗̦ͩ̅̎n̫̫̘̗͕̲̲̎ͥt͖͖̠̬͛ t͖͖̠̬͛o͙͙̙̘̙ͤͫ͞ b͔͔̳͈̊̆ͥ͂͜͝ḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧ a͔͔̜̗̦ͩ̅̎n̫̫̘̗͕̲̲̎ͥ a͔͔̜̗̦ͩ̅̎n̫̫̘̗͕̲̲̎ͥg̬̬̱ͩ͋͟͟ḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧl͖͖̰̝ͭ̀͘.

[inmyselfdelusion]

I don’t get why I should care about someone's feelings when mine are rarely considered.

[inmyselfdelusion]

Relationships are exhausting. The effort, the expectations, the unspoken rules I never fully understand or care to follow. It’s either too much or never enough. People say they want honesty, but they flinch when I give it to them. They say they value independence, but resent it when I don’t need them.

[inmyselfdelusion]

I just realized I’ve never actually experienced peer pressure. Like, people really do things just because others expect them to? They change their opinions, follow trends, or do shit they don’t even want to do just to fit in? That’s so weird to me. If I don’t want to do something, I just... don’t. The idea of someone guilting or pressuring me into something is almost funny.

[aspdculture-is]

ASPD culture is the irony of struggling to look invested while others try to act detached for attention.

ASPD Culture is

[inmyselfdelusion]

Sometimes I think I’d be a great actor because I’m already used to pretending and adapting to whatever people expect. But at the same time, having to do it constantly, on command, and according to someone else’s script? Sounds draining. And what if I don’t even get the roles I want? That's even worse. Pretending is easy when it benefits me, but following orders just for the sake of it? No, thanks.

[silna-pdf]

Experimenting with color and editing kinda using G-Birkin

The wounds inflicted by the mutation looks like it’s tearing and tugging the flesh, stretching to accommodate the growths spawned by mutating and enlarging cells, looks like taffy being pulled and spun tbh. Not to mention the extra appendages forming from inside, protruding then bursting through the skin of his stomach. For this I made the lesion on his chest larger so you can see the hands that are ready to be born from his insides. It hardens on the outside too, right? Like forming its own exoskeleton? Weird. Kinda sexy.

[thesharkcave]

ASPD: The Desire for and Run from Intimacy

This post will only contain my personal opinion and experience. It may not be applicable to all other people with ASPD and may likewise be relatable to people who do not have it.

I am only going to be talking about emotional intimacy, but this post is definitely also applicable to the other type of intimacy!

I'll make myself pretty vulnerable in this post, by discussing my personal experience, so you better not make me regret that!

Abbreviations:

ASPD = Antisocial Personality Disorder

ASPD is a disability caused by prolonged childhood trauma (with many possible variations), that develops in order to protect the brain from said trauma, or rather to help the brain deal with it in some way!

While the consequences of this in the context of intimacy, look different for every person with ASPD, many do report: a difficulty with developing bonds, having problems trusting people & giving away control, losing feelings for people quickly and abruptly/getting "bored" of people, responding extremely to arguments, having problems dealing with peoples emotions/ problems with being close to people etc.

This may be due to a variety of factors, but does often tie back to having no or few positive experiences with intimacy, having not learned how to exist in relationships properly/a lack of being socialized, not having the necessary prosocial emotions and mechanisms to deal with it and other similar things.

While this causes some people with ASPD to develop a brain, that does not have a need for emotional intimacy at all, others develop a brain, that craves the emotional intimacy it has been denied, but which will also fight said intimacy at every turn.

Thats as much generalized info as I can give you, as the exact representation of this is highly individual, but I will offer my personal experience on the following slides!

What you need to know is that I was accidentally neglected for huge parts of my childhood and teens and did not get my emotional and social needs met most of the time, while also knowing that my parents were theoretically capable of that, as they were giving everything I lacked to my sibling.

This caused me to grow up with a burning desire for intimacy, while being disappointed by people time and time again, failing to actually develop the things needed to experience this intimacy and partially growing to resent it and viewing it as "weak" and "bad".

Ever since then I have been stuck in what I like to call the "ASPD stages of running". Theres different points in getting close to people (in any nature of a relationship), that'll send me running and feeling like I am "weak" for wanting it, or as if being close to people is the worst thing that could happen.

The stages (simply put) are:

1. Desiring/Daydreaming about my dream relationship

2. Looking at peoples relationships/Looking at people with the intent of getting closer to them

3. Talking to people (online or irl)

4. Getting closer / being friends with people

5. Being friends with people for longer

Optionally:

6. Getting so close that a romantic relationship may happen

7. The moment of getting in the relationship / the days after

8. Being in the relationship for a bit

At any of those stages, I'll very likely have one or multiple moments where my ASPD will try to get the better of me and will try to convince me to just run away, drop contact and never talk about it again. Even just admitting to this and talking about it is hard as fuck, because it is so deeply ingrained in my brain to see emotional intimacy as a weak and dangerous thing.

What this will look like exactly really depends on the person and situation, but things that have happened in the past were:

• blocking the person and everyone I am friends with and pretending I am no longer alive

• my brain fixating on their faults in order to give me a good reason to hate them so I don't get closer to them and can hold them at arms length

• responding less often/more dryly or ignoring messages entirely

• not replicating the energy of the conversation/relationship

• staging an incident so I ruin the relationship

• running at the first signs of a disagreement

• avoiding people when they are emotional

• feeling uncomfortable around people as a whole => isolating

• beating myself up about letting it happen again

• impulsively bumping the relationship to another stage, just to immediately regret it (in a "fuck that has consequences" way)

• shutting off all my emotions, dissociate or otherwise make sure to stop the feelings (or just lose them automatically)

To put it in a shorter and more simple way, I'll usually either get the fuck outta there, or make sure to change the relationship/my personal position in the relationship to a more comfortable and less vulnerable and intimate level. This may also just look like me shutting off, becoming distant, or seeming mad, when all I am is overwhelmed by the intimacy and grossed out that I actually need and desire that.

As you can possibly imagine, that is not the most useful thing, as it causes issues in relationships, cuts friendships short and makes dealing with people a lot harder!

The most frustrating thing about this for me though is, that even if the most perfect friend or partner came along and even if the relationship would work at first, I am very very likely to crash it against the wall, simply because my brain cannot handle having the things, that it needs and desires.

It desires a hug and runs from the one who offers it.

It needs help and bites the hand that does.

It needs love and gets grossed out by whoever offers it.

It wants attention and can't handle it when it gets it.

It wants gifts, but doesnt know what to do when it gets them.

Whatever it wants, it can't have, so it keeps wanting, keeps yearning, keeps desiring and has to watch itself be unable to accept any of it.

And if that sounds painful, thats because it is.

Its a vicious kind of pain when you have to watch yourself ruin yet another thing, because your brain can't handle it, while you scream at it in frustration to get its act together, because it also is everything you desperately need.

ASPD sucks when it comes to intimacy and it especially sucks when it comes to talking about it, or being honest about these problems. It developed to protect me from being too "weak" to deal with the trauma and now its practically preventing me from showing any "weakness" or seeking out what previously hurt me. Which wouldn't be this bad, if I didn't still have this kid in me that just wants to be loved and daydreams about all the things, the ASPD hates.

When your shell disagrees with your core and you're not strong enough yet to break your shell, what does that really leave you with, other than curling up into a spiky ball and letting the shell do its job? I know I still need the protection, but I wish it wasn't actively preventing me from learning to live without it.

First posted on my instagram (same @)