What do you think should be studied more about pwASPD if anything?
Mental Time Travel! If anything needs to be studied, pleeeeeasssse study mental time travel!
I never had an issue with understanding the emotions or perspectives of others. I never had an issue with understanding morality. Never was where an - after any therapeutic measurement or look at an emotion wheel shard - any sort of "oops okay now I understand why it was shit to do this. Does not happen again, sorry uwu"-type of moment.
But (!), when I first time learned that something called "mental time travel" exists, it was like glass shattering. This is something people do? Automatically? Just like that? Damn, you are telling me when my mother was worried about my lack of concern for school, jobs, or a future, it was not to ridicule me? She just felt a pressing concern about it before the moment even arrived? Whaaaat???
When teachers or therapists asked me about the future, it was not just to make me gaze into an empty bottle? I was expected to have a feeling for a purely potential moment which has no reality yet? You mean, people do have an emotional experience about the here and now depending on future perspectives??? Hooooowwww???
When I heard about it, I was stunt for a moment, the next reaction of mine was "I-I cannot do that!", literally. I felt paralyzed. Yet it explained so much! So much more than any emotional sensitivity training or any attempt to make me consider the perspective of others. And it explains sooooo much. Why anxiety hits only the moment I am in trouble, why I do not feel fear about past troubles, why I have little to no coherent long-term plans but only step by step stairs upwards if anything. Why I fail to appreciate the emotions of others if not consciously thought about it! Why I need to constantly meet my friends again before the fire burns out!
I was lucky to discuss this issue with a few pwASPD, including some awesome Users I met on Tumblr since I started my blog. And those where I have genuine reason to believe they are suffering from ASPD - like me, with a childhood onset nonetheless - had the same reaction! Even better, like me, when confronting their peers, none of them was surprised by the ability to do "mental time traveling". It was like given to them! As if it is anormal thing to do! Only those with (childhood onset) ASPD could not do that! We could not even imagine it!
Maybe a little stretch, but I have the suspicion that the idea of free-will, is not just a theological made-up because blaming and demonizing people is "cool" and "trendy" within the current political climate, but actually an everyday experience for most people! Like, they never needed to explain what free-will is, and no philosopher never needed to ground that axiom, not because of religious or cultural indoctrination, but because most people are confronted with different possible outcomes and a future emotional state in everyday life situations. However, when you cannot do mental time travel, or it is severely impeded, you may also experience your actions as immediate reactions, not as a careful evaluation, let alone "free-will".
I, and at least some people with childhood onset ASPD - I seriously do not know if it is for all forms of ASPD - do not do that. We do not experience an emotional state for a potential future state or a past state. It is only the presence and the immediate events we can comprehend and react to. This could also explain a lot of impulsivity issues we have, if not all of the factor 2 traits while also explaining factor 1 traits in the psychopathy construct. If you are stuck with your emotions in the presence, how are you supposed to care for a future, past, or different emotional state altogether?
This is so much more promising than trying to teach us empathy or emotions. When we investigate empathy or emotions in terms of ASPD, we are actually barking up the wrong tree. This might be a bit disappointing for all those who hoped that pwASPD are some cold hearted fearless edgy mfers who can be "trained" to "act" empathic, but reality is often disappointing. We are not "born soldiers" or people with the guts to make "harsh decisions". We are unreliable cnts who do as we please with little consideration for consequences, and now I finally understood why. Almost as if a person whom you can teach morality and emotions and then begins to act more empathic and emotional, has no genuine lack of empathy, impulsivity, or severe mental disorder at all, but is simply "just a person who didn't know better", right?
Again, understanding emotions, morality, perspectives, was never an issue for me. But applying an emotion to another moment of time or experiencing an emotion for a future or past event now in order to navigate a decision, that was something I could not even think of!
This could also be so much more helpful to adress issues pwASPD are actually suffering, which in turn increases the likelyhood for us to look for therapy, because if I ever meet a therapist who wants to teach me the emotion wheel shard, I may commit assault! But strategies, such as working in small steps each with a unique gratification, this is what helped me to stay at work. Preparing myself upfront for future incoming thoughts and feelings I do not anticipant yet, saved me some trouble. These are strategies I found for myself to navigate around the issues of having little to no mental time travel. Now imagine if professionals begin to study ASPD and psychopathy through the lense of an inability to mental time travel, rather than focusing on empathy and emotional deficits?
